I think there is also condescension, at least in the USA, when studying the more transgressive work of brown-skinned writers. It is often labeled as "trauma porn" if the work doesn't contain an overt redemptive arc or resists the efforts by readers to invent one. Whenever I'm asked about Native American "trauma porn," I usually say, "Yeah, because Hamlet is so redemptive, because The Odyssey is such a lovely travelogue, because House of Mirth is so...mirthy." To paraphrase Iris Dement...let the tragedy be.
Thank you, Sherman. Yes, the redemptive arc--almost as if readers/reviewers are "owed this," especially, as you say, by brown-skinned writers. I would also add to your list Moby-Dick, such a heartwarming yarn of lessons learned on the high seas . . .
There is also the choice, in the Native lit world, to write almost entirely in the redemptive mode. I wonder if this is because an overwhelming percentage of publishing Native writers didn't grow up in tribal communities—on the "front line." It's easier to write in the redemptive mode when you haven't been in hell.
Thank you for this. I wrote about Paradais a few months ago, and did it with qualms because my newsletter is called "I Recommend Books," and I'm not sure what I'm saying when I send a newsletter to my friends and neighbors recommending a book that's about/that is made up of violence. Why am I recommending this? Because it's a great read. But for whom? And what does it say about me that I think so?
Hi Ashely, I hear you--nothing like recommending a book/movie to a friend/family member that goes to very dark places. Back in the day, my grandma was curious about why I was into Lynch's Blue Velvet and so so rented it to see for herself. She was so sweet in her response to it, but, afterwards, never looked at me quite the same way . . .
This is a wonderful piece of writing filled with an abundance of thought-provoking ideas. Thankfully, it actively discourages pithy or instant responses, and requires readers to sit with it and consider their response.
This is a bracing and essential provocation—Melchor's work, as you rightly argue, deserves to be read not as a vehicle for virtue but as a sustained act of aesthetic violence. The critique of how empathy and ethical framing defang the transgressive is especially sharp.
Still, a caveat: in rejecting recuperative readings, there’s a risk of reimposing another orthodoxy—one that equates moral interpretation with moralizing. Must the alternative be no framework at all? The ethical and the aesthetic are not always at odds. Sometimes, it is precisely the form of degradation that forces us to ask what kind of meaning we cannot look away from.
Thanks, William. Yes, I've wondered about this, too. One of the things I was trying to do in the essay is make visible some of the taken-for-granted assumptions that transgressive work is transgressive to serve a larger purpose. I agree that depictions of degradation can force us to confront larger issues--Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is just one example that comes to mind.
Yes, The Bluest Eye is a powerful example. I’d add something like Elfriede Jelinek’s The Piano Teacher or Han Kang’s The Vegetarian—works that depict brutality not to uplift or resolve, but to expose the fractures in perception itself. They leave us without moral comfort, yet still provoke serious ethical reflection. That tension may be where literature is most alive.
Empathy often implies sympathy, but it can also just be the morally neutral understanding of another person. I do think there's value in understanding aberrant violence and sexuality. And I think transgression can produce great artistic effect, although it sometimes seems to be used as a cover-story for writers with nothing to say. I haven't read Melchor so I can't say what I think of her, but I certainly enjoyed 2666, even the part about the murders.
I listened to an interview with the director Paul Schrader recently, and he talked about how violence in film can be purgative for some: people have violent impulses, and seeing violence carried out vicariously can relieve those impulses, but he also acknowledged that sometimes violence in film can inspire real-life violence.
Yes, there are definite similarities between those immersively violent sections of 2666 and parts of Melchor’s work. I’m going to have to track down that Schrader interview.
beautifully put. my own essay in TMR ("The Thinking Machine") deals with this exact same issue, and I think this articulates my thoughts (and feelings) on the subject better than I could.
reading this, I was thinking about "The Part About the Crimes" in 2666, where the reader is forced to confront an unending torrent of femicide depicted in emotionless terms for hundreds of pages. the reader must ask "what is the point of this?" Could there possibly be a didactic message? I think that Bolaño, like many great authors, attempts to break the didactic-novel form altogether, to push us to our very limits of empathy to see what happens on the other side. I know that writing that section broke him - he never finished it.
in my essay, I argue that fiction can serve political ends, but also that it's difficult to do so and that most novels fail at it. I think the bigger point is that there is power in transgression, but it's not a tidy sort of power that either the reader or the writer necessarily has control over.
Hi Robbie, I'm going to read your piece--thank you for letting me know about it. Yes, Bolaño! I like what you say here about breaking the didactic-novel form; I didn't know that writing "The Part About the Crimes" section broke him. Also, yes to what you say about how transgressive fiction entails a not tidy sort of power. I'm still trying to figure out best to think about it--your comment here helps me.
Depictions of sexuality must be, it seems, attached to some larger moral and reasonable purpose — some grand narrative that recuperates the depicted sydney from, well, the sweeney itself.
Ok so transgression for its own sake is the goal of art? I mean, sure you don’t like those pus- I mean, wimminizer-readers. I don’t see any positive articulation of a reason Melchior is good, or valuable, or even interesting here.
Nowhere is an argument made that transgression is the goal of art, nor is there any hint of antipathy toward women that you passive aggressively insinuate. Maybe you don't see anything interesting about Melchior in the article because your tendentious pissiness has curdled your brain
You really took and ran with that bait. Hope you are ok.
I did not say I failed to find it, I said I don’t really see anything in the essay that put forth what the author thinks IS valuable about Melchior. Some gestures perhaps but not more.
Very true. The claims here are that the critics' views are not legit. Then there's no exploration of what views might be. A "gesture perhaps." Violent art for art's sake?
Like a slasher film? That kind of thing is everywhere, and praised everywhere, and also criticized.
It's not as if Melchor's novel Paradais doesn't have some of the focus on class that the three reviewers indicate who are quoted by Rombes.
Actually, Melchor's novel Paradais is not dissimilar, one could even say very similar, to Patrick McCabe's classic novel The Butcher Boy in style and point of view, theme and plot, and so on - a couple impoverished Catholic countries, Ireland and Mexico, taking it on the chin. Violence by young mad men against women. Paradais almost exactly three decades after Butcher Boy. Both novels were received similarly by critics and award organizations. Both were compared to the fiction of Flannery O'Connor... Both authors have their work in film or TV series.
These novels are studies in debased mindsets more than anything, though those mindsets come from somewhere both privately and publicly, personal and sociopolitical, and at least some of those indications are there in the text. You'd like to see the sociopolitical pushed far moreso. It should be. But then the publishing establishment - and all that that entails - commonly blocks the most vital possibilities of that.
The medium of the novel isn't the problem in this. It's the content that the authors typically elide that is - elisions typically mandated, both implicitly and explicitly, by the reigning ideologies and structures of culture and publishing. You mainly need to do it yourself, that sort of thing, push the literary taboo, on Substack and like places. That might be the most real and revolutionary way to go.
Of course novels like Melchor's are less political and class based than they are emphasized to be by establishment commentators who praise the function of the establishment more in this regard than it deserves to be and is. (You get rewarded for putting the best shine on things.) It's not nothing anyway. With a film and TV series on Netflix now, Melchor's next steps will be interesting. Would love to see her bring Tamara Pearson's epic novel of the global South, The Eyes of the Earth, to Netflix or to some other mass distributor.
This ends up being a very thought-provoking piece, and I'm grateful for it, but I wonder why Rombes takes so long to get to his point. Why not just start with "Literary fiction today is framed, marketed, and often written about for its value in generating empathy," then quickly set up the graphic descriptions of violence and sex in Fernanda Melchor's work, and then get on with how too many of our "well-intentioned" literary lights end up misrepresenting her vision. I understand the temptation to qualify before taking a stand, but I bet Rombes lost thousands of readers with his lede of 1), 2), and 3) "assumptions" that might "complicate" his take.
Thanks for the good question, John. I had several different opening versions in play, including the cold open one you suggest, eventually going with the circuitous one. For some reason I've always been drawn to work where I discover something along the way to the main point. Not sure how well that works here, but my hope is that the piece keeps slowly finding its readers . . .
I think there is also condescension, at least in the USA, when studying the more transgressive work of brown-skinned writers. It is often labeled as "trauma porn" if the work doesn't contain an overt redemptive arc or resists the efforts by readers to invent one. Whenever I'm asked about Native American "trauma porn," I usually say, "Yeah, because Hamlet is so redemptive, because The Odyssey is such a lovely travelogue, because House of Mirth is so...mirthy." To paraphrase Iris Dement...let the tragedy be.
Thank you, Sherman. Yes, the redemptive arc--almost as if readers/reviewers are "owed this," especially, as you say, by brown-skinned writers. I would also add to your list Moby-Dick, such a heartwarming yarn of lessons learned on the high seas . . .
There is also the choice, in the Native lit world, to write almost entirely in the redemptive mode. I wonder if this is because an overwhelming percentage of publishing Native writers didn't grow up in tribal communities—on the "front line." It's easier to write in the redemptive mode when you haven't been in hell.
Thank you for this. I wrote about Paradais a few months ago, and did it with qualms because my newsletter is called "I Recommend Books," and I'm not sure what I'm saying when I send a newsletter to my friends and neighbors recommending a book that's about/that is made up of violence. Why am I recommending this? Because it's a great read. But for whom? And what does it say about me that I think so?
Hi Ashely, I hear you--nothing like recommending a book/movie to a friend/family member that goes to very dark places. Back in the day, my grandma was curious about why I was into Lynch's Blue Velvet and so so rented it to see for herself. She was so sweet in her response to it, but, afterwards, never looked at me quite the same way . . .
This is a wonderful piece of writing filled with an abundance of thought-provoking ideas. Thankfully, it actively discourages pithy or instant responses, and requires readers to sit with it and consider their response.
This is a bracing and essential provocation—Melchor's work, as you rightly argue, deserves to be read not as a vehicle for virtue but as a sustained act of aesthetic violence. The critique of how empathy and ethical framing defang the transgressive is especially sharp.
Still, a caveat: in rejecting recuperative readings, there’s a risk of reimposing another orthodoxy—one that equates moral interpretation with moralizing. Must the alternative be no framework at all? The ethical and the aesthetic are not always at odds. Sometimes, it is precisely the form of degradation that forces us to ask what kind of meaning we cannot look away from.
Thanks, William. Yes, I've wondered about this, too. One of the things I was trying to do in the essay is make visible some of the taken-for-granted assumptions that transgressive work is transgressive to serve a larger purpose. I agree that depictions of degradation can force us to confront larger issues--Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is just one example that comes to mind.
Yes, The Bluest Eye is a powerful example. I’d add something like Elfriede Jelinek’s The Piano Teacher or Han Kang’s The Vegetarian—works that depict brutality not to uplift or resolve, but to expose the fractures in perception itself. They leave us without moral comfort, yet still provoke serious ethical reflection. That tension may be where literature is most alive.
Excellent article. Everything has to be for edification, betterment. The best essays on this i think is leo bersanis ”the culture of redemption”.
Empathy often implies sympathy, but it can also just be the morally neutral understanding of another person. I do think there's value in understanding aberrant violence and sexuality. And I think transgression can produce great artistic effect, although it sometimes seems to be used as a cover-story for writers with nothing to say. I haven't read Melchor so I can't say what I think of her, but I certainly enjoyed 2666, even the part about the murders.
I listened to an interview with the director Paul Schrader recently, and he talked about how violence in film can be purgative for some: people have violent impulses, and seeing violence carried out vicariously can relieve those impulses, but he also acknowledged that sometimes violence in film can inspire real-life violence.
Yes, there are definite similarities between those immersively violent sections of 2666 and parts of Melchor’s work. I’m going to have to track down that Schrader interview.
beautifully put. my own essay in TMR ("The Thinking Machine") deals with this exact same issue, and I think this articulates my thoughts (and feelings) on the subject better than I could.
reading this, I was thinking about "The Part About the Crimes" in 2666, where the reader is forced to confront an unending torrent of femicide depicted in emotionless terms for hundreds of pages. the reader must ask "what is the point of this?" Could there possibly be a didactic message? I think that Bolaño, like many great authors, attempts to break the didactic-novel form altogether, to push us to our very limits of empathy to see what happens on the other side. I know that writing that section broke him - he never finished it.
in my essay, I argue that fiction can serve political ends, but also that it's difficult to do so and that most novels fail at it. I think the bigger point is that there is power in transgression, but it's not a tidy sort of power that either the reader or the writer necessarily has control over.
Hi Robbie, I'm going to read your piece--thank you for letting me know about it. Yes, Bolaño! I like what you say here about breaking the didactic-novel form; I didn't know that writing "The Part About the Crimes" section broke him. Also, yes to what you say about how transgressive fiction entails a not tidy sort of power. I'm still trying to figure out best to think about it--your comment here helps me.
Enjoyed this very much, thank you!
Depictions of sexuality must be, it seems, attached to some larger moral and reasonable purpose — some grand narrative that recuperates the depicted sydney from, well, the sweeney itself.
Ok so transgression for its own sake is the goal of art? I mean, sure you don’t like those pus- I mean, wimminizer-readers. I don’t see any positive articulation of a reason Melchior is good, or valuable, or even interesting here.
Nowhere is an argument made that transgression is the goal of art, nor is there any hint of antipathy toward women that you passive aggressively insinuate. Maybe you don't see anything interesting about Melchior in the article because your tendentious pissiness has curdled your brain
You really took and ran with that bait. Hope you are ok.
I did not say I failed to find it, I said I don’t really see anything in the essay that put forth what the author thinks IS valuable about Melchior. Some gestures perhaps but not more.
Very true. The claims here are that the critics' views are not legit. Then there's no exploration of what views might be. A "gesture perhaps." Violent art for art's sake?
Like a slasher film? That kind of thing is everywhere, and praised everywhere, and also criticized.
It's not as if Melchor's novel Paradais doesn't have some of the focus on class that the three reviewers indicate who are quoted by Rombes.
Actually, Melchor's novel Paradais is not dissimilar, one could even say very similar, to Patrick McCabe's classic novel The Butcher Boy in style and point of view, theme and plot, and so on - a couple impoverished Catholic countries, Ireland and Mexico, taking it on the chin. Violence by young mad men against women. Paradais almost exactly three decades after Butcher Boy. Both novels were received similarly by critics and award organizations. Both were compared to the fiction of Flannery O'Connor... Both authors have their work in film or TV series.
These novels are studies in debased mindsets more than anything, though those mindsets come from somewhere both privately and publicly, personal and sociopolitical, and at least some of those indications are there in the text. You'd like to see the sociopolitical pushed far moreso. It should be. But then the publishing establishment - and all that that entails - commonly blocks the most vital possibilities of that.
The medium of the novel isn't the problem in this. It's the content that the authors typically elide that is - elisions typically mandated, both implicitly and explicitly, by the reigning ideologies and structures of culture and publishing. You mainly need to do it yourself, that sort of thing, push the literary taboo, on Substack and like places. That might be the most real and revolutionary way to go.
Of course novels like Melchor's are less political and class based than they are emphasized to be by establishment commentators who praise the function of the establishment more in this regard than it deserves to be and is. (You get rewarded for putting the best shine on things.) It's not nothing anyway. With a film and TV series on Netflix now, Melchor's next steps will be interesting. Would love to see her bring Tamara Pearson's epic novel of the global South, The Eyes of the Earth, to Netflix or to some other mass distributor.
This ends up being a very thought-provoking piece, and I'm grateful for it, but I wonder why Rombes takes so long to get to his point. Why not just start with "Literary fiction today is framed, marketed, and often written about for its value in generating empathy," then quickly set up the graphic descriptions of violence and sex in Fernanda Melchor's work, and then get on with how too many of our "well-intentioned" literary lights end up misrepresenting her vision. I understand the temptation to qualify before taking a stand, but I bet Rombes lost thousands of readers with his lede of 1), 2), and 3) "assumptions" that might "complicate" his take.
Thanks for the good question, John. I had several different opening versions in play, including the cold open one you suggest, eventually going with the circuitous one. For some reason I've always been drawn to work where I discover something along the way to the main point. Not sure how well that works here, but my hope is that the piece keeps slowly finding its readers . . .
Your piece certainly deserves readers, Nicholas.