Very incisive. Your comparison between Small Things Like These and Prophet Song was very apt for highlighting the differences in the way overtly political art operates--I would never have noticed that the plots are such mirror images of each other. I don't know if you've read Umberto Eco's The Role of the Reader, but your essay reminded me of his concept of open texts versus closed texts--that part of what defines art is in the degree to which it actively engages the reader in almost creating the meaning of the text. It also reminded me of Renato Poggioli's The Theory of the Avant-Garde--his idea that the avant-garde is kind of by definition an effort to stay one step ahead of the reification of discourse--the ability to shift the needle of consciousness beyond what has come to be accepted as in some sense conventional and simply "the way things are." I haven't read the Kissick piece you discuss, but it does occur to me that a lot of the ostensibly "political" (left-wing anyway) art these days is fully "reified" in the sense that it's designed to let its audience feel the conventional leftie feels as it were at arm's length and go away with a sense that they have thereby done their duty to their politics rather than in any way being given the gift of an expanded field of operation of their own humanity. I did feel slightly sad for Small Things Like These in that I felt the book was effectively a historical novel and did do a great job of bringing to life the reality of a horrifying state of affairs Claire Keegan vividly portrayed (also I must say that I assume you meant "Thatcher-era Ireland" and not "Thatcherite Ireland," since, of course, Ireland was in no way strictly Thatcherite, being a different country altogether from the UK at that point).
you are completely correct, of course, Susan, and I think that a lot of what I'm getting at relates to the avant garde as well. I wanted to make the point that a lot of 'political art' isn't bad because it's political, but rather because it's bad at being political.
I will admit that I really enjoyed reading STLT. It was only when I started comparing these two novels that I realized that it was a good object lesson for my argument here. And that enjoying something/being moved by it isn't actually the highest aesthetic experience, even if it is a very nice one.
For people who are still stuck on the 'art for art's sake' bit, if Trotsky is too rich for your blood, Ben Davis's 9.5 Theses on Art and Class is a brilliant book on how to properly analyze the political importance of art.
I love thinking about this stuff and admire you for delving into it so effectively. I'll have to check out the Ben Davis book. And, yes, Trotsky is too rich for my blood. Basically I don't think people give nearly enough consideration to what literature is really meant to be doing anymore!
Really really good essay, I read it twice. I think (though I'm not 100% sure on this) I disagree with much of it quite violently but I will be wrestling with it for a while. Nice work 👍
No one who knows Ireland in the time of Keegan's book 'Small Things Like These' could consider its ending 'happy' as Robbie suggests in this interesting take. The irony in 'we'll manage' at the end is deep. Furlong knows those words are likely untrue, that there is already the vision of pains and privations. There are so many -- too many -- things that now cannot be controlled because of Bill Furlong's act.
Is the book revolutionary art? Who cares beyond academia and the literati? These are categories that mean nothing to a storyteller. STLT was written because Keegan had to write it, because she was there and that memory won't leave here alone.
The exclusion and loss that the Furlongs will now suffer are to remind us of the cowardice of so many despite the current view in Ireland seeking only to identify one layer of villains, the clergy. I am reminded of the quote by Stanislaw Lec, "In an avalanche, every snowflake proclaims its innocence." Keegan captures a time of a real society, not an imagined one, and celebrates a man sacrificing his own well-being for the sake of one other human. Christ-like? Yes, that's what is happening and we have to all then recognize how unlikely we would be to do the same thing. I look forward to reading Prophet Song without needing to put it in competition with any other work; that's a mug's game in this world with no shortage of mugs
Robbie, aren’t Keegan and Lynch up to different things? Keegan’s work is, at best, a long short story; Lynch’s is a compact novel depicting a world. Why compare the two rather than investigate what each is trying to accomplish, politically or otherwise, within their respective forms?
I think the key to Nabokov's politics are that they are so implicit and within-the-art (which is itself beautiful art; Ed Ruscha's work is an analogue in the visual arts) because he was so opposed to on-the-nose art-as-commentary. VN was opposed to explicitly political novels, novels of social intent, but his own work is of course loaded with nourishment of a political order; he just uses it in the marinade as opposed to making politics the dish.
Really interesting essay and thanks for sharing. I'm not sure I agree with the readings on Small Things Like These and Prophet Song, which seem to boil down to a conclusion that the more inherently revolutionary work is the one with more tragedy to it. Why does that have to be the case? Is it always bourgeois/conservative to imagine or hope for activism to achieve a positive end? Anyway great food for thought here, cheers Robbie.
I really like this...but.........revolutionary art is something like "Invisible Man." Or even "Native Son." Fatalistic writing is not always radical. How about Germinal by Zola? That's revolutionary.
you can be transformed by speech, art, protests, video games from the left-wing OR the right-wing (or Japan), that's why it's so important not to immediately label something misinformation, hate-speech, or insurrection and outlaw it to protect the youth
Very incisive. Your comparison between Small Things Like These and Prophet Song was very apt for highlighting the differences in the way overtly political art operates--I would never have noticed that the plots are such mirror images of each other. I don't know if you've read Umberto Eco's The Role of the Reader, but your essay reminded me of his concept of open texts versus closed texts--that part of what defines art is in the degree to which it actively engages the reader in almost creating the meaning of the text. It also reminded me of Renato Poggioli's The Theory of the Avant-Garde--his idea that the avant-garde is kind of by definition an effort to stay one step ahead of the reification of discourse--the ability to shift the needle of consciousness beyond what has come to be accepted as in some sense conventional and simply "the way things are." I haven't read the Kissick piece you discuss, but it does occur to me that a lot of the ostensibly "political" (left-wing anyway) art these days is fully "reified" in the sense that it's designed to let its audience feel the conventional leftie feels as it were at arm's length and go away with a sense that they have thereby done their duty to their politics rather than in any way being given the gift of an expanded field of operation of their own humanity. I did feel slightly sad for Small Things Like These in that I felt the book was effectively a historical novel and did do a great job of bringing to life the reality of a horrifying state of affairs Claire Keegan vividly portrayed (also I must say that I assume you meant "Thatcher-era Ireland" and not "Thatcherite Ireland," since, of course, Ireland was in no way strictly Thatcherite, being a different country altogether from the UK at that point).
you are completely correct, of course, Susan, and I think that a lot of what I'm getting at relates to the avant garde as well. I wanted to make the point that a lot of 'political art' isn't bad because it's political, but rather because it's bad at being political.
I will admit that I really enjoyed reading STLT. It was only when I started comparing these two novels that I realized that it was a good object lesson for my argument here. And that enjoying something/being moved by it isn't actually the highest aesthetic experience, even if it is a very nice one.
For people who are still stuck on the 'art for art's sake' bit, if Trotsky is too rich for your blood, Ben Davis's 9.5 Theses on Art and Class is a brilliant book on how to properly analyze the political importance of art.
I love thinking about this stuff and admire you for delving into it so effectively. I'll have to check out the Ben Davis book. And, yes, Trotsky is too rich for my blood. Basically I don't think people give nearly enough consideration to what literature is really meant to be doing anymore!
Really really good essay, I read it twice. I think (though I'm not 100% sure on this) I disagree with much of it quite violently but I will be wrestling with it for a while. Nice work 👍
all I can really hope for is violent disagreement
No one who knows Ireland in the time of Keegan's book 'Small Things Like These' could consider its ending 'happy' as Robbie suggests in this interesting take. The irony in 'we'll manage' at the end is deep. Furlong knows those words are likely untrue, that there is already the vision of pains and privations. There are so many -- too many -- things that now cannot be controlled because of Bill Furlong's act.
Is the book revolutionary art? Who cares beyond academia and the literati? These are categories that mean nothing to a storyteller. STLT was written because Keegan had to write it, because she was there and that memory won't leave here alone.
The exclusion and loss that the Furlongs will now suffer are to remind us of the cowardice of so many despite the current view in Ireland seeking only to identify one layer of villains, the clergy. I am reminded of the quote by Stanislaw Lec, "In an avalanche, every snowflake proclaims its innocence." Keegan captures a time of a real society, not an imagined one, and celebrates a man sacrificing his own well-being for the sake of one other human. Christ-like? Yes, that's what is happening and we have to all then recognize how unlikely we would be to do the same thing. I look forward to reading Prophet Song without needing to put it in competition with any other work; that's a mug's game in this world with no shortage of mugs
Robbie, aren’t Keegan and Lynch up to different things? Keegan’s work is, at best, a long short story; Lynch’s is a compact novel depicting a world. Why compare the two rather than investigate what each is trying to accomplish, politically or otherwise, within their respective forms?
I think the key to Nabokov's politics are that they are so implicit and within-the-art (which is itself beautiful art; Ed Ruscha's work is an analogue in the visual arts) because he was so opposed to on-the-nose art-as-commentary. VN was opposed to explicitly political novels, novels of social intent, but his own work is of course loaded with nourishment of a political order; he just uses it in the marinade as opposed to making politics the dish.
Really interesting essay and thanks for sharing. I'm not sure I agree with the readings on Small Things Like These and Prophet Song, which seem to boil down to a conclusion that the more inherently revolutionary work is the one with more tragedy to it. Why does that have to be the case? Is it always bourgeois/conservative to imagine or hope for activism to achieve a positive end? Anyway great food for thought here, cheers Robbie.
I really like this...but.........revolutionary art is something like "Invisible Man." Or even "Native Son." Fatalistic writing is not always radical. How about Germinal by Zola? That's revolutionary.
you can be transformed by speech, art, protests, video games from the left-wing OR the right-wing (or Japan), that's why it's so important not to immediately label something misinformation, hate-speech, or insurrection and outlaw it to protect the youth