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dadafountain

(Untitled)

Apr 16, 2006 00:32

A while ago I was reading a lot of these 19th century novels of various sorts -- Madame Bovary, Bros. Karamazov, Moby Dick (though that's less important to my current point), and it reminded me of something I always notice about novels from before the modern era: they really talk about money, and housekeeping, and personal finances, in these ( Read more... )

Comments 7

kirstyn April 16 2006, 07:55:25 UTC

games within games within games -- m., you're totally right on about this (though if we actually sat down and discussed it all, i'd bet it would be a pitcher full of fun to argue over vehemently -- speaking of which, are you still in new haven?! i'm a-gonna be there on tuesday, for a long long time... if you are indeed there, want to spend at least four rudy's-hours having a batshit debate that will gather crowds and change interdimensional paradigms?). also, not sure if you're referencing a specific diary-of-a-beat-dropout, but if you are, i might have an idea of which one...

hey! how are you?

dadafountain April 16 2006, 08:33:44 UTC

YES! (yes to new haven yes to hanging out, etc)

Let's totally do that.

I've been unemployed and wrapped up in books and too lazy to hang out with people, and you came at a perfect time for me to be in the mood to get off my ass and have ARGUMENTATIVE PITCHERS.

Email me at my yale address, which for some bureaucratic reason i've still got, and let's make this happen.

landoffools April 17 2006, 02:03:20 UTC

Well, it's not debt, but: "In a landmark that changed the industry, The Fantastic Four #1 initiated a naturalistic style of superheroes with human failings, fears, and inner demons, who squabbled and worried about the likes of rent money."

dadafountain April 17 2006, 03:52:11 UTC

Well, interestingly one area that I think is pretty on top of the idea is underground comix, like Love and Rockets (rent, stripping for cash, being turned down for things you're overqualified for, or because of a sexist employer) or even more current examples like Ghost World and that whole ilk. Something about the graphic genres I think makes them more realist than the written novel these days.

Hooray For You! atomicsquirrel April 17 2006, 17:48:27 UTC

Your posts are crazy delicious.

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dadafountain April 18 2006, 00:20:00 UTC

Haven't read Evasion! How is it?

Also, Fear of Falling is at the New Haven library, and I'll pick it up tomorrow. Also, that library doesn't have Commodify your Dissent but does have Boob Jubilee. Is that worth reading?

Also also, YES the fascination with the middle-class dropout at the expense of the unwillingly marginalized has been an issue with the counterculture for a long time; I remember, in my avant-jazz class, reading black authors (i think including Amiri Baraka) just tear into the Beats for ripping off a bunch of cultural responses to oppression and treating them like only the outward form mattered.

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dadafountain April 18 2006, 21:05:04 UTC

I mean, i like a lot of Beat stuff, but also I think they were a unique case to trash in that way in that some of them were consciously slumming -- "i'm cool, I hang out with BLACK people and listen to BLACK music". Also, remember just how intensely racist the culture was at that time in America. Malcolm X's autobiography has sections where over and over he meets white men who hang out with black people because they think it's "cool", but who freak out when a black man sleeps with a white woman. In such a climate, I think it's fair to investigate their appropriations critically EVEN if a lot of that white Beat writing has numerous other merits and is very intellectually freewheeling in a way I'd wish more groups were today ( ... )