On-line Response #8: Junot DíAZ
Summarize and respond to your assigned story in the Drown collection. Relate the piece to other stories, and respond with your thoughts on the book as a whole.
On-line Response #7: ELLIS, LEYNER, McINERNEY
In "E Unibus Pluram," David Foster Wallace describes Mark Leyner's My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist:
"Leyner's fictional response to television is less a novel than a piece of witty, erudite, extremely high-quality prose television. Velocity and vividness replace development. People flicker in and out; events are garishly there and then gone and never referred to. There's a brashly irreverent rejection of 'outmoded' concepts like integrated plot or enduring character. Instead there's a series of dazzlingly creative parodic vignettes, designed to appeal to the 45 seconds of near-Zen concentration we call the TV attention span. ...after the manner of films, music videos, dreams, and television programs, there are recurring 'Key Images,' here exotic drugs, exotic technologies, exotic foods, exotic bowel dysfunctions. ...Leyner's work, the best Image-Fiction yet, is both amazing and forgettable, wonderful and oddly hollow. ...the ultimate union of U.S. television and fiction ... hilarious, upsetting, sophisticated, and extremely shallow... " (80-81).Be sure to write a clear summary of the remainder of Ellis, the Leyner pieces, or the McInerney piece. Then, consider any of the following questions in your response:
1. Do you agree with Wallace's assessment of Leyner?
2. Do you think the criticism applies equally to Ellis and McInerney?
3. What are the "Key Images" in Ellis and McInerney, and how do they overlap/differ with those in Gastroenterologist?
4. Is American Psycho a more straightforward, slow-motion version of Gastroenterologist? Is the excerpt from McInerney likewise another variation on Image Fiction?
On-line Response #6: Bret Easton ELLIS
After your summary of the excerpt, apply the following quote in response to your reading so far of American Psycho: "Literature's endless murders and disasters are there for contemplative pleasure, not moral lesson. ... The ritual of art is the cruel law of pain made pleasure" (Paglia 29-30).
OR
Pick your own approach to response, such as character analysis or interpretation of key images in Bret Easton Ellis' novel.
On-line Response #5: Octavia BUTLER & Kathy ACKER
Review the material below, and respond to any of the questions that follow.
OCTAVIA ESTELLE BUTLER & THE GENRE OF SCIENCE FICTION
Or, how a writer can go from a sociological ghetto to a literary ghetto…
For starters, consider the following definitions from Dictionary.com:
"Genre: A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content..."
"Subgenre: A subcategory within a particular genre: The academic mystery is a subgenre of the mystery novel."
The designation of genres can also reveal critical bias, as the following generally are not included in bookstore “literature” sections, which sometimes suggests their inferiority to “literature”: horror, mystery thrillers, westerns, romances, fantasy, and of course science fiction. As you know, some authors can be considered “horror” writers, and yet their work takes on literary significance that is subsequently canonized by the academics who compile anthologies – think, here, of Edgar Allan Poe.
Consider, also, if Stephen King will some day move out of the “Horror” section into “Literature”, and if his works (horror, fantasy, and the lot) will end up on college literature syllabi.
Textual Connections
A. The Genre – SciFi’s popularity in American culture took on special significance in the post-Atomic era, especially with displaced images of conquest, technological advancement, and inter-planetary conflict. Prior to this, even English writer H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898) projected a displaced fear of colonial conquest from the British experience of empire. Our fears of Atomic decimation, Soviet domination, and technology run amok find expression in many popular examples of science fiction written for mass consumption, much of it produced as pulpy hack writing. And even now, writers like Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) create stories for mass audiences based in late-20th century techno-fear.
B. Experiments with the Genre – William S. Burroughs demonstrates in Naked Lunch a wild imagination that takes the reader to fantastic and exotic worlds. In this, it is much like Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) -- both, by the way, are satires -- or even like the fantasy quests of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But some of Burroughs' work has been considered visionary for his science-fiction-esque settings and its influence on such renowned literary sci-fi writers as J.G. Ballard (e.g. Crash).
Consider also how Don DeLillo’s White Noise takes American trash-culture fascination (e.g. tabloids, UFO-sightings, the supernatural) as an occasion to dramatize J.A.K. Gladney’s death obsession.
C. The Genre Redeemed – In the ’60s and ’70s, such writers as Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison (see “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” from 1967) took sci-fi to new, paranoid heights by weaving elements of cultural and political conflict from the time into truly troubling, bizarre stories. Subsequently, literary academics, freshly armed with European literary theory, began to turn to science fiction not only for sexy doctoral dissertation material but also for examples of post-modern and post-structural literature. With science-fiction writers of color (e.g. Samuel Delany), these academics found further grist for their mill through 1980s and 1990s multi-culturalism, political correctness, and challenges to “classic” canonical curricula. In writer Octavia E. Butler, an African-American woman, scholars like Donna J. Haraway found further material through which to discuss theories of feminism and to critique scientific discourses, suggesting that even theories of nature, like literary stories, are constructed and gendered. (Remember that post-modernism stuff about meta-narratives and the death of the author – such critics used literature to demonstrate the drift of all language and discourses in signs that have no un-changing or un-constructed basis or metaphysical savior.)
D. The Genre Lives – Major league critics like Frederic Jameson found new literary juice in science fiction, mainly with writers like Philip K. Dick and, in the ’80s, the sub-genre known as “cyberpunk” (e.g. William Gibson). Cyberpunk especially excited the imagination of some literary scholars, since it tends to dramatize corporate domination, genetic indistinction, and the fusion of technology with humanity, very sexy topics indeed if you want to talk about “Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act” and “The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” as Jameson does in various essays and books.
Open Questions for Discussion
How can a literary genre become a kind of ghetto? How might Octavia Butler have to deal with triple-ghettoization, from being a woman, African American, and sci-fi writer?
Consider her comment in the “Bloodchild” afterword: “It amazes me that some people have seen ‘Bloodchild’ as a story of slavery” (30). Why might people be tempted to read the story that way, and why might Butler find that confining, perhaps even insulting?
Consider also her comments in the “Positive Obsession” piece: “So, then, I write science fiction and fantasy for a living. As far as I know I’m still the only Black woman who does this. … ‘What good is science fiction to Black people?’ I was usually asked this by a Black person. … [My answer:] What good is any form of literature to Black people?” (134-135) What do you think of this challenging statement in the context of contemporary American literature? Or maybe we can consider these questions in racially neutral terms: What good is science fiction to people? … What good is any form of literature to people? What are some of the assumptions about value, genre, and literature itself loaded into these questions?
Questions for On-line Response
Think about the following idea from late French philosopher Michel Foucault: Power is not just repressive but productive. How might the stories of Kathy Acker and Octavia Butler demonstrate this dictum, that power doesn't just punish us but also produces our very pleasures?
OR
Both Acker and Butler dramatize power reversals and gender blurring. Explain how, and analyze the overall significance of reversal/blurring for these stories.
OR
Bring the following quote from Acker into dialogue with Butler: "Literature is that which denounces and slashes apart the repressing machine at the level of the signified."
[Kathy Acker]
On-line Response #4: Don DELILLO
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Regarding White Noise:
1. How does the domestic setting in White Noise compare to those in Carver's stories? In Wallace's stories?
2. Explain the significance of the "Waves and Radiation" (or the "White Noise") that form the backdrop to this idyllic suburban setting?
3. Or consider the bookjacket comments, e.g. "The most adventurous and original fiction in recent times" (Chicago Tribune). Do you start to feel, like Murray when he sees "THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA," that "'We can't answer these questions because we've read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures[?]...[because] We can't get outside the aura'"?
4. Finally, why is the word "death" so omnipresent, mentioned so much in White Noise?
Regarding "E Unibus Pluram":
Consider if Wallace's overall thesis applies to recent American fiction you've read. Do you agree with Wallace? And might this piece of criticism itself be considered "literary"?
On-line Response #3: William S. BURROUGHS
Above: Cover to a 1968 edition of Naked Lunch.
Focus your summary and close reading on the section of your choice from our Naked Lunch excerpts (e.g. "Hassan's Rumpus Room," "the rube," etc.).
To make sense of the text in your response, consider the following ideas we've covered in class:
modernism
literariness
"language made strange"
American conformity/Puritanism
The Outlaw/MisFit
historicism
author biography/confession
Remember also that each of our recent authors (O'Connor, Ellison, and Plath) presents a vision of modernity — is Burroughs doing the same thing or making a radical departure?
On-line Response #2: Sylvia PLATH
As usual, summarize the Plath excerpt. In your response, consider one of the following questions or comments to discuss:
● Is this a female version of Catcher in the Rye — in other words, a story of youthful alienation written from a female perspective — or does the perspective bring out issues that you wouldn't find in a story about male coming-of-age?
● Draw a connection between the villanelle poem ("Mad Girl's Love Song") featured in Plath's autobiographical note and the text of The Bell Jar.
● Explain how the following quote from Stephen King's story connects with the Plath text: "...we always believe, on some level, the worst thing our hearts can imagine..."
● Interpret Esther Greenwood's self-description as a "numb trolleybus" — how does this capture the essence of not only the novel but also Marshall Berman's description of "modernism" in All That Is Solid Melts Into Air?
Or pick any of the following themes and elaborate on their relevance for understanding Plath:
modernism
Puritanism
American conformity
historicism
"literariness"
alienation (linguistic or social)
ideology
Ideas & Questions: Flannery O'CONNOR & Ralph ELLISON
Terry Eagleton argues that “Literature” is a construction. In other words, it's something we create through critical value-judgments that can change over time, rooted in ideology. When ideologies change, our conception of literature likewise shifts.
Similarly, Curtis White recounts how critical assessment of literature at the university has shifted from New Criticism to “deconstruction” to Cultural Studies, where Madonna and Milton, Yeats and OJ are now all equally valid texts for scholarly consideration.
Keep these ideas in mind when you think about our leap from recent popular horror (King) and fiction (Proulx) to 1950s modernism.
Ideas & Questions for Study
1. Consider the similarities and differences between the O'Connor and Ellison pieces.
2. Focus a comparison/contrast on the figures of the Misfit and the Invisible Man.
3. Are the Misfit, Invisible Man, and Devil (in King's story) the same kind of character? Do they serve similar literary purposes?
4. How do the stories suggest that modernization has created the Misfit and Invisible Man?
5. Bring the brief excerpt from Marshall Berman's "The Experience of Modernity" into conversation with the O'Connor and Ellison texts.
On-line Response #1: KING, PROULX, EAGLETON
Above: cover art from IT
Choose either to summarize: "The Man in the Black Suit," by Stephen King, or "Brokeback Mountain," by Annie Proulx.
In your response, consider one of the following questions: How are the critical ideas of Terry Eagleton relevant to King or Proulx? Does Gary really meet the Devil? What really happens to Jack Twist? Is the King story "literature"? Is Proulx's piece "literature"? What are the elements of typical "horror" in King, and do you consider the story "horror"? What are the elements of typical "romance" or "western" in Proulx, and do you consider the piece one of these genres?
SYLLABUS: LIT 126-B (Contemporary American)
Mini-Poe welcomes you to Contemporary American Lit!
Download the Lit 126-B Syllabus.