How dare you question the wisdom of the Nobelocracy! You with your insightful, erudite observations, wit, and exemplary prose. Who in the Houellebecq do you think you are? A sovereign individual with an honest, well-considered opinion? We have algorithms to deal with your kind. So you wriggled through the Intranet this time, thanks to TMR. So fine. But don’t expect such recalcitrant rags to be around forever. Meanwhile, best not tempt fate. Big Mother is watching.
Thanks, Daniel. It seems I made the mistake of writing critically about an author that virtually no one cares about, except for a few ineffectual nerds
counter-review: Krasznahorkai is pretty close to a genuine nihilist, and for him there is no banalization of the apocalypse because he sees the apocalypse as already banal and that is the whole point of the book. The protagonist almost gets it at the beginning, but not quite, the joke is that there is no impending apocalypse every second but that every second is in itself apocayptic and disastrous- and that is his awakening to what he perceives as duty, prompting him to kill his neo-nazi boss who he previously regarded as a kind father- because destruction and the imperative of acting against it is already here, which is- to add to the irony- precisely how the neo-nazis he massacres think! The way out is not offered by passive exisential angst, yes, but taking action has a moral futility of his own, and humans being fundamentally innocent are also fundamentally clueless as to how to fight the inherent decay of everything. A conundrum that isn't meant to be solved. Love and beauty are not addressed directly, but they are not neglected- Bach is beyond everything (as is Germany, for the Boss) and even though "Florian’s realization of Bach’s numinous beauty fails to sound transcendent, redemptive, or even well-tempered", it is because he cannot articulate it and the author does not attempt to do it for him. If the transcendent is in our grasp then it is transcendent no longer.
So when Mr. Caudell tries to discern sociopolitical subtext he subjects the work to the trite liberal-humanist analysis- here is the centrist bureaucracy, here is the common man, here is the social collapse of democracy, and it is no wonder he finds it disappointing. He takes a bite of the orange and wonders why it is not an apple. He compares it to Annihilation which takes the bold and revolutionary approach of providing the possibility of love as a solution, a noble and understandable choice, but that is not the mandatory trajectory for acclaimed European writers in their old age. He is right in identifying an alternative Weltanschauung in the religious view terror and redemption, fair enough, one finds his comfort in the velvet nothing while another does so in facing God- surely the entire course of philosophy has shown this is merely a matter of personal preference - but he states that "Krasznahorkai plays to a disdainful but ultimately inert impulse that is no more practically equipped to address, model, or meliorate the war of ethnic, political, and cultural interests in a world of interconnected economies than any retreat into a private sphere of loving devotion."-implying that the choice is between biting, critical satire and transformative catharsis- between pragmatic humanism and transcendent humanism. Krasznahorkai is simply outside this dialectic, and I think he explores the possibilities of nothingness with plenty nuance. If he goes the route of Schopenhauer rather than that of Kierkegaard, who are we to judge him?
Thank you for this considered counter review. I'll take your point that Krasz's nihilism can be placed outside a politco-cultural dialectic. Maybe we could respectfully remain in that outer space. At the same time, I'd maintain that, if Krasz is a genuine nihilist, there's not much of a reason not to subject him to any particular analytical frame or judge him by an admittedly external standard; on what grounds could he object, other than a self-cancelling one?
Maybe the crux of the issue for me is that this nihilism is not only unredeemed in a moral and political sense, but aesthetically as well, in that it offers almost nothing in the way of aesthetic pleasure, at least to my ears and eyes. Furthermore, I'm not entirely convinced that the imperative of acting against destruction is an irony that applies with heavier weight to the neo-nazis or simple Florian, but is rather part of the atmosphere to which everyone is reacting in various ways, which, maybe you could say that's the point, to which I'd say, fair.
While I can well understand opting for Schopenhauer over Kierkegaard, as I'm something of a Schopenhauerian myself, I'd still say that Schopenhauer had bite, while this book was mostly toothless. And even Schopenhauer couldn't let go of a certain version of transcendence and redemption through contemplation, which, for all his modern and orientalized pessimism, actually puts him in squarely within the traditional branch of classical western philosophy. Also, what I like about Houellebecq, in contrast with Krasz, is that his sense of the world ending is far more realistically articulated or concretized, questionably so, sure, but his meditations on the severed links among generations, individualistic sexual competition, multicultural ethnic conflict, worship of youthful sexuality and disdain for the aged, much more effectively and humanely renders the apocalyptic anxieties of the present moment, as opposed to Krasz's vague gesticulating about how the world is always ending every second, made even less satisfying and serious with a weakly historical narrative frame of the current radical German reaction to immigration, which, I can't help but read as petered out pandering that, whether intentional or not, probably helped him win the ol Nobel prize. But at any rate, thanks again for providing thoughts instead of sneers
I am saying that there was an unfortunate period, which people like Ross Barkan yearn for a return to, that way too many writers thought that they had an artistic obligation to write about their cocks, their sex lives, and their cocks. It was taboo-breaking, and liberatory. Strangely when Kathy Acker turned the tables on them it was no longer mainstream and artistic. Perhaps you have just not read as much beat-60s male writers as me, in which case don’t.
'And to put a cap on it, the glory of experiencing a creative, dynamic mind is that it directs attention beyond the human, beyond my humanity, momentarily placing me in a mode of honoring creativity as such, pointing toward a divinity however nebulous or personal'. Nice. I concur.
This is exactly the kind of overwritten, self-indulgent prose that makes me wonder if TMR is satire. A clumsy, haughty cliche in every line, nonsense phrasing that sounds elegant and rarefied, but isn't. "Beyond the human"? "Beyond my humanity"? "...a mode of honoring creativity *as such*"? blah blah blah.
Impressive piece. Boy, does Caudell have talent and reading chops, although I'm stumped by his lack of insight on one point, when he refers to "phallic competition," and then adds, "There’s practically no worldly domain with less masculine competition than literature." Perhaps he was going for laughs, and perhaps he got them, but clearly that's not true. Phallic competition exists among writers at any and all levels, whether they realize it or not. For instance, Caudell's sentence about how Krasznahorkai's new novel "manages to snuff out the dark, rich atmosphere of his earliest works in garrulous vapor, thus fulfilling with an ironic vacuity their ominous presaging of annihilation," swings a pretty big dick. I find it hard to hard to believe that he doesn't know that–like a matador's–it's packaged visibly against the inside of his thigh in spangly satin. Olé.
My brother, have you READ Ted Berrigan? Never so many poems with the word "cock" in them. I think you are wrong about the phallic competetition, but also correct that it rarely plays out as literally and unsubtly as in Berrigan. But Robert Coover's short story collection was called Pricksongs and Descants. I think it's real.
Hey, I’m not saying men aren’t at all motivated by their dicks, just that, one, it’s not much of an insight, and two, it’s especially irrelevant/uninteresting in a discussion of a broad category of modernist/postmodernist authors
Brodernism? Skimwit? Are these terms coined by our intellectual betters there at TMR to tell us we're reading books wrong? Full disclosure: I've never made it through an entire TMR post.
I'm pretty sure the phallic competition of so-called brodernism is between readers, not authors. "Have fun with Toni Morrison lol, I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow."
How dare you question the wisdom of the Nobelocracy! You with your insightful, erudite observations, wit, and exemplary prose. Who in the Houellebecq do you think you are? A sovereign individual with an honest, well-considered opinion? We have algorithms to deal with your kind. So you wriggled through the Intranet this time, thanks to TMR. So fine. But don’t expect such recalcitrant rags to be around forever. Meanwhile, best not tempt fate. Big Mother is watching.
Thanks, Daniel. It seems I made the mistake of writing critically about an author that virtually no one cares about, except for a few ineffectual nerds
😌🔥
No mistake! Well done! Nerds we may be but ineffectual---well, we will see.
counter-review: Krasznahorkai is pretty close to a genuine nihilist, and for him there is no banalization of the apocalypse because he sees the apocalypse as already banal and that is the whole point of the book. The protagonist almost gets it at the beginning, but not quite, the joke is that there is no impending apocalypse every second but that every second is in itself apocayptic and disastrous- and that is his awakening to what he perceives as duty, prompting him to kill his neo-nazi boss who he previously regarded as a kind father- because destruction and the imperative of acting against it is already here, which is- to add to the irony- precisely how the neo-nazis he massacres think! The way out is not offered by passive exisential angst, yes, but taking action has a moral futility of his own, and humans being fundamentally innocent are also fundamentally clueless as to how to fight the inherent decay of everything. A conundrum that isn't meant to be solved. Love and beauty are not addressed directly, but they are not neglected- Bach is beyond everything (as is Germany, for the Boss) and even though "Florian’s realization of Bach’s numinous beauty fails to sound transcendent, redemptive, or even well-tempered", it is because he cannot articulate it and the author does not attempt to do it for him. If the transcendent is in our grasp then it is transcendent no longer.
So when Mr. Caudell tries to discern sociopolitical subtext he subjects the work to the trite liberal-humanist analysis- here is the centrist bureaucracy, here is the common man, here is the social collapse of democracy, and it is no wonder he finds it disappointing. He takes a bite of the orange and wonders why it is not an apple. He compares it to Annihilation which takes the bold and revolutionary approach of providing the possibility of love as a solution, a noble and understandable choice, but that is not the mandatory trajectory for acclaimed European writers in their old age. He is right in identifying an alternative Weltanschauung in the religious view terror and redemption, fair enough, one finds his comfort in the velvet nothing while another does so in facing God- surely the entire course of philosophy has shown this is merely a matter of personal preference - but he states that "Krasznahorkai plays to a disdainful but ultimately inert impulse that is no more practically equipped to address, model, or meliorate the war of ethnic, political, and cultural interests in a world of interconnected economies than any retreat into a private sphere of loving devotion."-implying that the choice is between biting, critical satire and transformative catharsis- between pragmatic humanism and transcendent humanism. Krasznahorkai is simply outside this dialectic, and I think he explores the possibilities of nothingness with plenty nuance. If he goes the route of Schopenhauer rather than that of Kierkegaard, who are we to judge him?
Thank you for this considered counter review. I'll take your point that Krasz's nihilism can be placed outside a politco-cultural dialectic. Maybe we could respectfully remain in that outer space. At the same time, I'd maintain that, if Krasz is a genuine nihilist, there's not much of a reason not to subject him to any particular analytical frame or judge him by an admittedly external standard; on what grounds could he object, other than a self-cancelling one?
Maybe the crux of the issue for me is that this nihilism is not only unredeemed in a moral and political sense, but aesthetically as well, in that it offers almost nothing in the way of aesthetic pleasure, at least to my ears and eyes. Furthermore, I'm not entirely convinced that the imperative of acting against destruction is an irony that applies with heavier weight to the neo-nazis or simple Florian, but is rather part of the atmosphere to which everyone is reacting in various ways, which, maybe you could say that's the point, to which I'd say, fair.
While I can well understand opting for Schopenhauer over Kierkegaard, as I'm something of a Schopenhauerian myself, I'd still say that Schopenhauer had bite, while this book was mostly toothless. And even Schopenhauer couldn't let go of a certain version of transcendence and redemption through contemplation, which, for all his modern and orientalized pessimism, actually puts him in squarely within the traditional branch of classical western philosophy. Also, what I like about Houellebecq, in contrast with Krasz, is that his sense of the world ending is far more realistically articulated or concretized, questionably so, sure, but his meditations on the severed links among generations, individualistic sexual competition, multicultural ethnic conflict, worship of youthful sexuality and disdain for the aged, much more effectively and humanely renders the apocalyptic anxieties of the present moment, as opposed to Krasz's vague gesticulating about how the world is always ending every second, made even less satisfying and serious with a weakly historical narrative frame of the current radical German reaction to immigration, which, I can't help but read as petered out pandering that, whether intentional or not, probably helped him win the ol Nobel prize. But at any rate, thanks again for providing thoughts instead of sneers
I am saying that there was an unfortunate period, which people like Ross Barkan yearn for a return to, that way too many writers thought that they had an artistic obligation to write about their cocks, their sex lives, and their cocks. It was taboo-breaking, and liberatory. Strangely when Kathy Acker turned the tables on them it was no longer mainstream and artistic. Perhaps you have just not read as much beat-60s male writers as me, in which case don’t.
'And to put a cap on it, the glory of experiencing a creative, dynamic mind is that it directs attention beyond the human, beyond my humanity, momentarily placing me in a mode of honoring creativity as such, pointing toward a divinity however nebulous or personal'. Nice. I concur.
Thanks, Steve
This is exactly the kind of overwritten, self-indulgent prose that makes me wonder if TMR is satire. A clumsy, haughty cliche in every line, nonsense phrasing that sounds elegant and rarefied, but isn't. "Beyond the human"? "Beyond my humanity"? "...a mode of honoring creativity *as such*"? blah blah blah.
Completely agree
Impressive piece. Boy, does Caudell have talent and reading chops, although I'm stumped by his lack of insight on one point, when he refers to "phallic competition," and then adds, "There’s practically no worldly domain with less masculine competition than literature." Perhaps he was going for laughs, and perhaps he got them, but clearly that's not true. Phallic competition exists among writers at any and all levels, whether they realize it or not. For instance, Caudell's sentence about how Krasznahorkai's new novel "manages to snuff out the dark, rich atmosphere of his earliest works in garrulous vapor, thus fulfilling with an ironic vacuity their ominous presaging of annihilation," swings a pretty big dick. I find it hard to hard to believe that he doesn't know that–like a matador's–it's packaged visibly against the inside of his thigh in spangly satin. Olé.
My brother, have you READ Ted Berrigan? Never so many poems with the word "cock" in them. I think you are wrong about the phallic competetition, but also correct that it rarely plays out as literally and unsubtly as in Berrigan. But Robert Coover's short story collection was called Pricksongs and Descants. I think it's real.
Hey, I’m not saying men aren’t at all motivated by their dicks, just that, one, it’s not much of an insight, and two, it’s especially irrelevant/uninteresting in a discussion of a broad category of modernist/postmodernist authors
Brodernism? Skimwit? Are these terms coined by our intellectual betters there at TMR to tell us we're reading books wrong? Full disclosure: I've never made it through an entire TMR post.
Say what you will about Herscht, but at least it gave birth to this review—a rare case of literary necromancy that actually works!
I'm pretty sure the phallic competition of so-called brodernism is between readers, not authors. "Have fun with Toni Morrison lol, I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow."