I'm excited to buy it for the second time! I bought the self-published version with its big font and 700+ pages. It will be interesting to see if/how it's changed for this new version.
Nice post. Would be interested to hear more of what you mean by the "anime-ification" of art/"media."
Also tangential to this post, but the bit from the Norton Critical Edition of Contract with God mentioned Saul Bellow. Have you read him? Any thoughts? I personally love him, have read every last one of his books, but don't know anyone else who has.
Thanks! I just meant that YA and anime are openly sentimental in ways that are probably seeping into literary fiction as the audiences increasingly overlap, thus overturning the modernist reserve.
I absolutely love Bellow, who also wanted to overturn the modernist reserve in his own way. I haven't read every one of his books, though. I've written about a few of them:
Interesting observation about YA and anime. There's definitely something unique going on with anime's influence on Western writers and artists. If YA exists within the Western paradigm of high/low art, anime doesn't (speaking in the context of contemporary Japan; manga, even moreso than anime, is treated as a genre of literature, no questions asked). And I don't get the sense that there was a revolt against sentiment at any point in Japan's modern cultural history. Your comment definitely gives me something to think about.
While I very much enjoyed most of megalopolis as a camp disaster on a scale unlikely to be attempted again anytime soon, I have to hope you're pulling our collective leg about its political vision! (I don't get the Dee-ppreciation either but that's another gripe)
Well, I think my reading is technically defensible...but I found it entertaining, too, and believe some of the camp was deliberate, even (if this isn't going too far) Brechtian.
all the times that text actors were saying appeared on screen in Latin and English was definitely Brechtian, in the sense that Brecht did it, as were the alienating title cards telling us the moral/politics of the story... I'm sure some of the choices were meant to be camp (the Wow Platinum character) but an entirely serious-albeit-accidentally-hilarious hamfisted overwroughtness is a feature of many of FFC's failures (One from the Heart, Godfather III) and even of his successes (the end of Apocalypse Now for example)... and a lot of Brecht, too, is hysterical crap... I think sometimes the studios--like the political elites in smoke-filled rooms--know what they're doing when they ask the genius to tone it down...
I agree with all that, including the smoke-filled room part, but still think it has its virtues, and that the real political subtext is not exactly what he intended, is better than what he intended—is not that different from your own American Affairs political manifesto. (I could also be moved to defend Godfather III, but I'd have to watch it again. Never saw One from the Heart...)
Your downgrading of comics as a medium seems a bit hasty to me. The medium has taken shape only in the last two hundred years; I expect many of the great comics are still to be written, and I don't see any reasons why the medium should be inherently inferior. Also, why is it 'cheating' when Alan Moore swaps in prose? Isn't the mode inherently mixed anyway? Moreover, I am under the impression that he switched to prose not because a medium more suited for his ambitions, but because the industry had screwed him over so many times. And his greatest moments in the comics, I think, are not in the prose, but in the places where he used the medium to the fullest... I wonder which of his works you have read.
I didn't mean to downgrade, since I don't consider visual art lower than literature. I even meant to defend comics, since I think they're sometimes judged by standards that are purely literary. This was my point in the quote from the Eisner review: his comics technique is so inventive and dazzling that it doesn't matter if his verbal style isn't as sophisticated as a novelist like Bellow's. Maybe the better way to put it is that comics is a visual language of its own.
I've read pretty much all of Moore's major comics. I agree with you: he often does bravura work that is profoundly medium-specific, as in Watchmen with its spatialization of the temporal or the dizzying Kaballah sections of Promethea with their significant use of design, color, and composition to convey metaphysical ideas.
You're right that it's an inherently mixed mode and that I should not let myself get lured into making too-abstract theoretical pronouncements. I was slightly exaggerating to make a point!
Currently lightly learning some Latin on Duolingo just to make my further forays into the classics easier, and it's quite fun. It is also helping me understand other languages that stem from Latin, like French and Italian. It's the populist way to learn a language, I suppose (not sure how else to do so other than going to school for it or moving to a place that largely speaks the target language, which is impossible with Latin), but it might be worth it?
Also, I'm a bookseller and I might ask my boss if we can acquire a galley of Major Arcana! I want to get the jump on it because I know it will be a splendid ride!
This was a great weekly reading, by the way. I was already moderating my tumblr-induced leftist instincts before I discovered Substack, but it has been the ideal place to stretch out the critical thinking skills that have been denied purchase by the rest of the internet and its reactionary politics. I tend to think its an observational quality of the soul that allows this kind of thought, instead of the general absorption of identity that comes with thinking everything is about you.
Hmm, my employer uses Edelweiss but I'm not sure if NetGalley is also available for my use. I'll have to ask! Either way, I really want a physical edition because I know I'm going to want to mark it up!
I'm excited to buy this one!
I'm excited to buy it for the second time! I bought the self-published version with its big font and 700+ pages. It will be interesting to see if/how it's changed for this new version.
Thanks, hope you enjoy this new version. It's definitely a more attractive book!
I saw one of the advanced copies at my local bookstore! I naively asked if it was for sale haha worth a shot.
"The Marx and the Freud" of a person's life -- hah.
Look at those gorgeous galleys!
I know! Thanks, Anne! I even like the mistakenly glossy and heavy stock. We'll have to do an illustrated edition someday...
Well those who don't have as much upper body strength can now request it on Netgalley: https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/487123
Nice post. Would be interested to hear more of what you mean by the "anime-ification" of art/"media."
Also tangential to this post, but the bit from the Norton Critical Edition of Contract with God mentioned Saul Bellow. Have you read him? Any thoughts? I personally love him, have read every last one of his books, but don't know anyone else who has.
Thanks! I just meant that YA and anime are openly sentimental in ways that are probably seeping into literary fiction as the audiences increasingly overlap, thus overturning the modernist reserve.
I absolutely love Bellow, who also wanted to overturn the modernist reserve in his own way. I haven't read every one of his books, though. I've written about a few of them:
https://johnpistelli.com/2018/02/10/saul-bellow-the-adventures-of-augie-march/
https://johnpistelli.com/2021/06/04/saul-bellow-henderson-the-rain-king/
https://johnpistelli.com/2020/12/19/saul-bellow-mr-sammlers-planet/
Interesting observation about YA and anime. There's definitely something unique going on with anime's influence on Western writers and artists. If YA exists within the Western paradigm of high/low art, anime doesn't (speaking in the context of contemporary Japan; manga, even moreso than anime, is treated as a genre of literature, no questions asked). And I don't get the sense that there was a revolt against sentiment at any point in Japan's modern cultural history. Your comment definitely gives me something to think about.
While I very much enjoyed most of megalopolis as a camp disaster on a scale unlikely to be attempted again anytime soon, I have to hope you're pulling our collective leg about its political vision! (I don't get the Dee-ppreciation either but that's another gripe)
Well, I think my reading is technically defensible...but I found it entertaining, too, and believe some of the camp was deliberate, even (if this isn't going too far) Brechtian.
all the times that text actors were saying appeared on screen in Latin and English was definitely Brechtian, in the sense that Brecht did it, as were the alienating title cards telling us the moral/politics of the story... I'm sure some of the choices were meant to be camp (the Wow Platinum character) but an entirely serious-albeit-accidentally-hilarious hamfisted overwroughtness is a feature of many of FFC's failures (One from the Heart, Godfather III) and even of his successes (the end of Apocalypse Now for example)... and a lot of Brecht, too, is hysterical crap... I think sometimes the studios--like the political elites in smoke-filled rooms--know what they're doing when they ask the genius to tone it down...
I agree with all that, including the smoke-filled room part, but still think it has its virtues, and that the real political subtext is not exactly what he intended, is better than what he intended—is not that different from your own American Affairs political manifesto. (I could also be moved to defend Godfather III, but I'd have to watch it again. Never saw One from the Heart...)
"in the sense that Brecht did it"— touché!
Your downgrading of comics as a medium seems a bit hasty to me. The medium has taken shape only in the last two hundred years; I expect many of the great comics are still to be written, and I don't see any reasons why the medium should be inherently inferior. Also, why is it 'cheating' when Alan Moore swaps in prose? Isn't the mode inherently mixed anyway? Moreover, I am under the impression that he switched to prose not because a medium more suited for his ambitions, but because the industry had screwed him over so many times. And his greatest moments in the comics, I think, are not in the prose, but in the places where he used the medium to the fullest... I wonder which of his works you have read.
I didn't mean to downgrade, since I don't consider visual art lower than literature. I even meant to defend comics, since I think they're sometimes judged by standards that are purely literary. This was my point in the quote from the Eisner review: his comics technique is so inventive and dazzling that it doesn't matter if his verbal style isn't as sophisticated as a novelist like Bellow's. Maybe the better way to put it is that comics is a visual language of its own.
I've read pretty much all of Moore's major comics. I agree with you: he often does bravura work that is profoundly medium-specific, as in Watchmen with its spatialization of the temporal or the dizzying Kaballah sections of Promethea with their significant use of design, color, and composition to convey metaphysical ideas.
You're right that it's an inherently mixed mode and that I should not let myself get lured into making too-abstract theoretical pronouncements. I was slightly exaggerating to make a point!
Currently lightly learning some Latin on Duolingo just to make my further forays into the classics easier, and it's quite fun. It is also helping me understand other languages that stem from Latin, like French and Italian. It's the populist way to learn a language, I suppose (not sure how else to do so other than going to school for it or moving to a place that largely speaks the target language, which is impossible with Latin), but it might be worth it?
Also, I'm a bookseller and I might ask my boss if we can acquire a galley of Major Arcana! I want to get the jump on it because I know it will be a splendid ride!
This was a great weekly reading, by the way. I was already moderating my tumblr-induced leftist instincts before I discovered Substack, but it has been the ideal place to stretch out the critical thinking skills that have been denied purchase by the rest of the internet and its reactionary politics. I tend to think its an observational quality of the soul that allows this kind of thought, instead of the general absorption of identity that comes with thinking everything is about you.
Thank you! Glad to hear the Duolingo approach works with Latin. As my publisher posted above, the novel is also available on NetGalley now:
https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/487123
I hope you enjoy it when you do get to read it! I love your phrase "observational quality of the soul" and definitely agree with your remarks there.
Hmm, my employer uses Edelweiss but I'm not sure if NetGalley is also available for my use. I'll have to ask! Either way, I really want a physical edition because I know I'm going to want to mark it up!
Rose: email your address and we'll get one out to you. anne@beltpublishing.com
Wow thanks! I really appreciate it, hopefully we'll be able to carry it when it comes out!