so tired of reading negative things that people say about so-called "realism" "traditional" writing or "narrative" driven writing. i've been reading a lot of blogs saying these things. this is my own fault, i know. so fucking tired of the inattentiveness of people calling things "realistic" or "narrative" driven when these texts are just as artificial as so-called surreal, magical realism, etc. fuck. fuck. i'm getting really tired of these hierarchies that are so broad and vague. i'm becoming less impressed with magical realism and surreal things because sometimes it feels like it's all i read online.
here is an article from AO Scott, helping reverse the above trend a little, from fb: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/magazine/22neorealism-t.html?_r=1. i have seen Old Joy and Half-Nelson. i would say Old Joy fits more as Neo-neo realism, where Half-Nelson is attempting, like The Wrestler, to be "gritty" or something. other films i think are examples of neo-neo realism are Junebug, Lars and the Real Girl, and probably stuff by David Gordon Green. as a side note, i read Jon Raymond's Livability (has Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy in it) and it's a good book of stories, but it's not great. the stories, in my opinion, are too loose and the language is not interesting enough. i did like what happened in the stories, but prose itself is plain and unsurprising. i feel that the movie Old Joy is better than the story because the film has a more surprising and unique style than the prose of the story.
i will be posting a long critique, with both good and bad things, about fictionaut soon, tonight.
5 comments:
Hey Alan...
I share your frustrations with hierarchies, albeit in a slightly different way. The people I discuss literature with have only a surface interest in the stuff (mostly a polite interest in my interests), and so feel that if they understand a few catch-words that they are conversant. The result is, I keep labels out of my conversations, which is all the best anyway as they're much more interested in the plot. Of course, this feeling of inclusion is not so far removed from the those discussions online, and, so, I've left them, mostly. For me, they're a time suck. I feel much more accomplished reading, say, currently, Musil's "The Man without Qualities."
i have a problem arguing about things. i will argue one side of a thing then argue the other just to do it. that's why i'm drawn to certain things online. it helps me understand my own thoughts about writing. mainly though, as you say, it's all noise.
had to delete this comment and edit it because i left a word out, and it bothered me.
agree that realism label is pin-headed. i just reread carver's story "what we talk about when we talk about love." ostensibly "realistic," it features a man who drinks rat poison and ends up with teeth that look like fangs and an elderly married couple in full body casts, the kind you only see in cartoons and mel brooks movies. there are some tender moments in the thing, and perhaps the situation (people sitting around drinking and talking) and the main characters (the ones sitting around drinking and talking) are "plausible," but i'm unclear on how the apparatus surrounding it (the stories they tell, the "what we talk about") can be distinguished whole-sale from theater of the absurd.
sam, is that what happens in that story? i guess i need to go back and read it. i can only remember them all at the end making those 'human sounds' or whatever.
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