Impressions: "Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio" by Amara Lakhous

Amara Lakhous is one contemporary author I can get excited about. I read his second (in English) novel, “Divorce Islamic Style” a few months ago and absolutely loved it. This novel, his first in English, was also a great read. A short novel, coming in at around 130 pages, it is packed with ideas and brilliant observations, mostly about contemporary Rome and the lives of immigrants who dwell in the Eternal City. 

Lakhous is an Algerian but writes in Italian and seems to have his finger on the pulse of Rome as it exists today. It is a far cry from the “La Dolce Vita” of Fellini, however he does employ very Fellini-esque attributes to his narrative. Based on the cinematic tradition of commedia all’Italiana, the story revolves around a group of residents - mostly immigrants - living in an apartment building in the heart of the Piazza Vittorio. One of the residents, a man the other residents have nicknamed “The Gladiator” is found murdered in the building’s elevator. The police suspect the murder was committed by another resident named Amedeo, who most, if not all the other residents adore. The narrative consists of each of the residents telling their version of “the truth” to the policeman with alternating chapters of Amedeo, presumably speaking into a tape recorder (or perhaps writing in a journal) his perspective of the people and events taking place around him. Little by little, the story unfolds and the “truth” about each of the residents is slowly revealed. It is a exploration of truth and whether or not truth is something objective and outside of us or forever internal and subjective. There are many interesting twists as the story unfolds and the reader himself remains unsure of what the truth actually is. 

It is also a character study of attitudes, prejudices, ignorance and misconceptions, with each of the residents not fully knowing one another, often misidentifying their ethnicities (and quite often Italian prejudices against their fellow Italians) and relying on stereotypes in order to tell their version of the truth. These prejudices and stereotypes taint the truth to the point that the reader can never actually be sure what truly happened or whether or not the residents are even reliable witnesses. The truth is - if it is to be believed - far more dark and disturbing than one would imagine, and you spend most of the time trying to figure out these threads to come to some sort of rational conclusion.  

A very entertaining, witty, and enjoyable novel which I highly recommend and am looking forward to more of Lakhous’s fiction in the future. 

Rating: * * * * * 

Impressions: "Wonder Boys" by Michael Chabon

A recent post discussed a book by Michael Chabon called “Maps and Legends”, a collection of essays about books, the art of writing, reading, genre fiction, among other things. I bought the book mainly because I wanted to read his thoughts on the modern short story and his essay on Cormac McCarthy. I had been hearing much about this author over the years but I never got around to reading him. Along with this purchase, I bought one of his novels, “Wonder Boys”, his second, to get an idea of his fiction. Much has been said of this writer (who was in his early 30s when this novel came out) and naturally curiosity had finally gotten the better of me. I was impressed with his ideas and sentiments in his essay collection so I was eager to read a work of fiction to see how it fared. 

“Wonder Boys” is an interesting novel on many different levels. Many novels have been written about writers who are struggling to write a novel and I suppose it’s a natural thing for writers to explore being that each author has their own experiences and their own input on the subject. The story here is interesting to me for the mere fact that it had literally grown out of the real situation of Chabon himself having trouble writing his follow up to “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.” That abandoned novel, "Fountain City", was supposedly a sprawling piece about the construction of the perfect baseball park in Florida, and in an essay in "Maps and Legends" he discusses how he just couldn't get a handle on it and began writing another book, in which the main character is a writer having trouble writing his follow-up novel. You could feel him working out this frustration throughout the entire story of "Wonder Boys" and in the end, wound up coming up with a new work out of that frustration, which plays a key role in this story and ultimately what this work is really about.  


The protagonist in "Wonder Boys" is a burned out college professor who is struggling to complete his follow up novel to his successful debut, a 2,000 plus page rambling opus that he himself is even unsure of. A visit from a friend - his editor - comes on the very day that his wife leaves him and he finds out that his mistress is pregnant; add to that, one of his students - an arty, depressive named James Leer, has killed his neighbor’s dog and stolen a jacket that once belonged to Marilyn Monroe. It is the relationship between the narrator - Grady Tripp - and his student that makes up the bulk of the novel. 

You get the sense that Tripp, middle aged and world weary, is burnt out, unsure of himself and struggling with creative and personal issues in some small way envies the young Leer, although he is a very troubled kid. He sees a little of himself in him and what he has now lost - that innocence, that wide-eyed expectation of youth and although he cares about and friends the young student, he is symbolic of something he lost long ago. But Leer is not all that he seems either, and the slow revelation unfolds as the novel progresses. Meanwhile, you follow a distancing between Tripp and his long time editor and friend throughout the story, and also sense that their relationship is at an end, leaving Tripp to try to not only figure out the shards and scraps of his own messy life but also that of his creation, his gigantic unfinished novel - 7 years in the making - which turns out to be as fragmented and unruly as his own life. 

It’s not a story that hasn’t been told before (many authors have covered the same ground before) and the writing in it is very good. Chabon definitely has a way with words and is often quite funny. The novel was slow in some parts but this is more a character study than anything else but more than anything else it is an exploration into creativity and what drives creative people to do what they do and the struggles they sometimes endure to express themselves - something all creative people could relate to. Over all, I liked this book, but it wasn’t anything revelatory. I’d like to read more of his work to get a more rounded idea of his fiction. This is a good one to start if you haven’t read him before. 

Rating: * * * * 

Guest on Expats Radio July 27th 2012, 6PM EST

I'm pleased to announce that I will be a guest on Expats Radio tonight, 6pm EST, discussing my new novel "Mediterraneo" among other things. The show is hosted by "Hurricane" Dean Walker of Expats Media and Expats Post. I just want to take the time to thank Dean for another opportunity to appear on the show. Looking forward to it and it should be a hell of a lot of fun. 

Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Whether or Not it's Literature and Just Write

Normally, I would have made this one of my “Impressions” posts but I feel there’s a little more to say here than my normal brief thoughts and impressions on what book I happen to be reading at the time. Took a trip to Arizona this past week and I brought with me a book of essays called “Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands” by Michael Chabon, a writer I’ve never read before. I bought it while I was in Minneapolis, kicking around the local Barnes & Noble and bought it because, one, there were two particular essays I really wanted to read and, two, I’ve heard so much about this author, I thought it was time that I read him. (I also picked up his novel “Wonder Boys” in order to sample his fiction). 

It was a long ass flight to Arizona from New York - four and a half hours, to be exact, and I thought perhaps reading this small book of essays would help pass the time and I was also interested, after a cursory glance inside the store, in what he had to say. From the get go found myself highly impressed as well as relating to a lot to what Chabon had to say about writing and particularly the way fiction is often perceived, whether its just the general reader or those in the Ivory Tower. I knew I was in for a very interesting set of essays once I read the first few paragraphs of “A Trickster in a Suit of Lights”, Chabon’s thoughts on the modern short story. 

The very first thing that struck me was how he noted that “entertainment” has been given a bum rap. “Entertainment”, he argues, is often associated with “Coppertone and a dripping Creamsicle, the fake butter miasma of a movie-house lobby, of Karaoke and Jägermeister, Jerry Bruckheimer movies, a Street Fighter machine grunting solipsistically in the corner of an ice-rink arcade. Entertainment trades in cliché and product placement. It engages regions of the brain far from the centers of discernment, critical thinking, ontological speculation {...} Intelligent people must keep a certain distance from its productions. They must handle the things that entertain them with gloves of irony and postmodern tongs. Entertainment, in short, means junk, and too much junk is bad for you - bad for your heart, your arteries, your mind, your soul.” 

Once I read this statement I knew where he was going with this and I immediately felt something of an artistic connection. I didn’t even get a chance to formulate my own thoughts about it when he had already written the words out of my head: “Maybe the reason for the junkiness of so much of what pretends to entertain us is that we accepted - indeed, we helped articulate - such a narrow, debased concept of entertainment.” He goes on to say that he reads for entertainment as well as write his novels with the hopes to entertain. But his definition of what “entertainment” is with regard to reading and writing is, “the engagement of the interior ear by the rhythm and pitch of a fine prose style; the dawning awareness that giant mutant rat people dwell in the walls of a ruined abbey in England; two hours spent bushwhacking through a densely packed argument about structures of power as embodied in nineteenth century prison architecture; the consummation of a great love aboard a lost Amazon riverboat...” You get the idea. I know I did, as soon as my eyes ran across these words. 

All of this is leading up to his thoughts on the modern short story. He writes that to about as late as 1950, if one referred to “short fiction” you would have been talking about one of these kinds of stories: the ghost story, the horror story, the detective story, of the macabre, the sea, adventure, spy, war or historical story; the romance story - arguing that all these types of stories have rich traditions in American fiction going all the way back to Poe and Hawthorne. At some point, he argues, the short story went from these “genre” type stories to that of “contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory” stories, stories that he himself admits that he has written himself. One could argue about the merits of both kinds of stories but I think he’s essentially right about this. All one has to do is read the current literary journals filled with this kind of stuff. I’ve even written a couple like these as well, as I’m sure most writers born after a certain time has. 

He then goes on about a topic which I’ve written about here before and often see while surfing the internet - the never ending battle between what is considered “genre fiction” and “literary fiction.” But I’m not here to argue this. He notes that genre fiction often has its “rules” in which a writer can’t stray from - a notion I disagree with entirely (most of the time it’s the readers themselves that won’t allow for writers to break out of the framework of typical genre fiction) - but he also goes on to say about how Literary fiction has its own set of rules and parameters: “Whether through willfulness, ignorance, or simple amour propre, what tends to get ignored by “serious” writers and critics alike is that the genre known (more imprecisely than any other) as “Literary Fiction” has rules, conventions, and formulas of its own: the primacy of the unified point of view, for example; letters and their liability to being read or intercepted; the dance of adulterous partners; the buried family secret that curses generations to come; the ordinary heroism of an unsung life.” Just a quick glance at what novels released today under the banner of “Literary Fiction” will show you that it does indeed have a certain sensibility, sameness, feel, and subject matter. But all of this made me think of one thing and one thing only, and it has nothing to do with the merits of either style or whether or not a writer should be producing one kind of fiction over another. It reminded me of a time in one’s reading life when none of this mattered. 

Before I go on, I feel I have to say a few things, since this is being read on the Internet after all, and more often than not people only skim the surface of these posts, pick out a line they disagree with and often go ballistic when disagreeing with it, having not read the context in which it is being written: 

I do not, under any circumstances, denigrate those writers who’s aspirations are to achieve something “higher”, serious writers who take their work very seriously and aspire to create a work of art. Some writers are actively seeking to produce “literature” with a capital L. I have the utmost respect for these folks - especially since most of them have the talent to achieve that goal. I also do not denigrate those writers who write genre fiction (Sci-fi, Detective fiction, Horror, etc), whose sole purpose is to entertain with a good, engaging, well written story. It’s my view that there is room for everyone and people will naturally gravitate toward what kind of fiction they like best. For me, personally, I tend to read more of what’s considered “Literary Fiction” and most of my favorite authors fall into this camp - but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy “genre fiction” as well (and have fully admitted in the past that writers such as Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, Mickey Spillane, among others, have influenced me as much as Ernest Hemingway or Henry Miller has). 

Reading Chabon’s essay - as well as some of the others in this wonderful book (where he writes about comic books and artists, Cormac McCarthy, fantasy stories and writers, Arthur Conan Doyle) - brought to my mind one thing: that time in our lives when we chose what we read and enjoyed before we got older and all the theory came in and gunked up the works. He writes with such pleasure about all the different kinds of writing he enjoyed throughout his life that it brought back that very same feeling I had when I was young, picking up and reading anything that looked interesting to me, totally unconcerned with what “type” of book it was. It didn’t matter then. All that mattered was how a certain book or story moved you and was read for the sheer pleasure of reading them on their own terms. It reminded me of a time - I was 12 years old -  when there used to be a local bookstore in my neighborhood in Flushing, New York - the Paperbound Book Shop - which I frequented all the time, always looking for something to read next; and those choices always varied. Whether it was “The Lord of the Rings” or Ray Bradburry or Isaac Asimov or some other kind of book, I would take them home and devour them for the stories that these authors had to tell. When I got a little bit older (and the bookstore made way for a health food store) I began exploring other places such as Walden Books, B. Dalton, Barnes and Noble and especially Coliseum Books on 57th Street and found pleasure on the works of George Orwell, Tadeusz Konwicki, Milan Kundera, Jack Kerouac and a host of others, I began to formulate my personal preferences in reading. Not that I now dismissed these old genre books (during this same period I read a healthy dose of Hardboiled Detective/Noir fiction as well) but it was clear to me what kind of authors and books I preferred. There was no feeling of “embarrassment” of choosing to read one over the other, no sense of having to appear a certain way, no airs of any sort. I enjoyed what I enjoyed and enjoyed them for what they were, on their own terms. Simple enough. 

Then came the time when I began to take my writing more seriously - and of course, when that happens, you often come across others who share your passion for writing and you begin to explore more Literary theory and other books and articles on “the craft.” As I’ve written before here, it started with poetry and then morphed into the desire to write fiction. That innocence was gone now, of course, and now armed not only with a steady diet of “serious” fiction as well as heaps of literary theory and advice, I had to decide what kind of writer I wanted to be and what kind of books I wanted to write. Naturally, the more “literary” style would be what I would gravitate towards. There are previous posts about the “trials and tribulations” I went through to write my first novel so there’s no need to replay the whole thing here. It was when I embarked on my second novel that I hit the brick wall, feeling stymied by all the things I thought I was “supposed” to do to be considered a “serious” writer. I’ve since learned that being a “serious” writer and being serious about your writing are two different things altogether. 

“Serious” writers, to me, are authors such as Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Mario Vargas Llosa, Louis Ferdinand-Cèline, Cormac McCarthy, and a host of others. According to my definition, I do not consider myself a “serious” writer. However, I do claim to be very serious about my writing, meaning that I try to make what I do the best it can possibly be within the parameters of my own abilities. To me, the writers stated above (among others) are the “heavyweights”, extremely gifted and talented writers who deserve the accolades and critical acclaim they earned. I found that although I felt a drive, a desire to write about certain things, in a certain way, I wasn’t allowing myself to because I felt that if I wanted to be taken seriously as a writer then I would have to write “serious works”, i.e. like the writers stated above. I constantly had the question “Is this literature?” in the back of my mind whenever I sat down at the keyboard and I felt something was holding me back. It was during the writing of my second novel that I thought about what it was I was doing and what it was that was holding me back from doing it, and that was this: worrying about whether or not what I was writing was literature with a capital L. I had the desire to incorporate all the different influences into my own work, to perhaps even write a book that wasn’t necessarily “literary” in nature. Why shouldn’t I write a detective novel - of sorts - if I so desire? Why not dabble in a little Sci-fi if I wanted to? In other words, why not throw it all into the pot and try to come up with something that is uniquely my own, forget the labels and the perceptions and just sit down and fucking write what you want to, with the caveat of trying to make it as interesting and as uniquely mine as possible? 

Chabon notes, more than once, that some “serious” writers have done just that. In his essay on Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” he writes of how this writer of serious fiction “dared” to take a turn towards science fiction with that novel, set in a post-apocalyptic America, it’s feel somewhat (in my humble opinion) very much in the science fiction mode. He writes how critics and dedicated readers of “serious” fiction tend to dismiss this turn toward genre fiction and regard what he did - and others who have done the same - as “a parable”, the words "Science Fiction" not dared uttered in their reviews. He also noted that Vladimir Nabakov’s novel “Ada, or Ardor” contained a plot concerning “alternate-world and time theories and a key early example in the retro-futuristic sub-genre of science fiction that years later became known as ‘Steampunk” and how Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” has its basis in Westerns. True that these authors took these genres and pushed them into the stratosphere, pushing the boundaries further than your average genre fiction would - but somehow, due to their literary reputations, the critics would never define these novels as either Science Fiction or a Western but - in essence - that’s what they are. 

It is Chabon’s willingness to sort through the pretentious bullshit often associated with literature and writers and writing that greatly appealed to me, since, for a long while now, I have felt the same way about it. Once I decided to stop worrying about what I was writing was literature with a capital L, I feel creatively free, more inclined to experiment with different ideas, narrative possibilities, stories, plots, conventions, what have you, and it’s opened up a new creative front for me personally. Reading these essays only validated something I’ve been feeling and thinking about with regard to my own work and as I move forward I will continue to just write what I feel like writing, without a care in the world for labels, perceptions or expectations that so often come along with telling people that you are a writer of fiction but do not write genre novels. I think it’s high time for writers - or artists of any medium - to get back to that time before theory and expectations hamper their growth and ability to move forward and actually work joyously. The only thing anyone should worry about when delving into this world is to write the best book you can, tell the story you want to tell, tell it how you want to tell it, and forget the “watchful eyes” and be free to create - and most importantly, enjoy it. 

Impressions: "Shards" by Ismet Prcic

Once in a while you come across one of those novels that when reading it, you feel like you’re in the company of a good friend and finishing it, is like saying goodbye to that friend. There were a couple of novels that I read over the years that gave me that feeling and “Shards” by Ismet Prcic is one of those novels. Put simply, this novel is brilliant and an extremely impressive debut. You can tell that this is a novel that the author had to write. What impressed me the most about it was its inventiveness in the storytelling. The narrative plays with the assumptions of fiction and autobiography and the whole idea that even autobiographies aren’t to be trusted as being one hundred percent true, that “little fictions” don’t creep in every now and then; that memory is something that can be completely reliable and infallible. It is the struggle to find form in a chaotic existence, to piece together these “shards” of memory in order to come to grips with experience.  

The narrator has the same name as the author, a young Bosnian theater student/actor escaping the war in the mid-1990s. It is a coming of age tale, in essence, but the line between fiction and autobiography is blurred. Having left his family and friends to live in southern California, he hears a car backfiring and he dives for cover, bringing back memories of the horrors of war and what he had experienced in his home country. He lives in the past and the present simultaneously and while recalling the war time experiences, the narrative shifts to that of a man named Mustafa -  a man he encounters in his home town and is since haunted by his memory - which is told in the third person. But after a while you wonder whether Mustafa could be an alter-ego, or he could be someone that simply doesn’t exist at all. You begin to wonder whether or not “Mustafa’s” experiences are actually the narrator’s, or whether these experiences are imagined. Whatever they are, they are harrowing and peppered throughout the story is the background behind this senseless war, a war which was literally out of sight/out of mind for most Americans at the time, who were busy following the trials and travails of Clinton/Lewinski. The horrors depicted are something Europe had not seen since World War II and it wouldn’t be hard to see how such experiences wouldn’t traumatize a young man coming of age in such carnage and senseless brutality. 

This is a novel that will be remembered in the years to come and I for one will never forget it. It also stands as a testament to Percic’s talent as a novelist and the future bodes well for him. I, for one, cannot wait to see what he comes up with next. This is a novel that I can’t recommend highly enough. Read this. You will never forget it. 

Rating: * * * * *  

Self-Aggrandizing Assholery: Hipsters, Snobs, Elitists and Other Tales of Utter Nonsense

“The distinction between literary and genre fictions (mysteries, westerns, fantasy, and sci.fi.) is largely an artificial one. Those who still insist on making anachronistic literary distinctions do it for the same reason that all snobs make such declarations, self-aggrandizing assholery. The only distinctions that can legitimately be made in literature are between good writing and bad writing and good stories and bad stories. When a work of fiction takes hold of your imagination, when the language continually invites you to turn pages the writer has done his or her job. When the book haunts you and you can remember it years and years later, the writer has written a masterpiece.” - Mark Hinton, Montana Writer 

Perhaps some of you are familiar with this scenario: You’re at a party, or a gathering of some sort that is primarily attended by artists or connoisseurs. Most people hanging around you are young, perhaps twenty to thirty-something, mostly educated, mostly talking bullshit, really but sooner or later you get pulled into a conversation about music, or literature or art. Someone asks you who “you’re into” and you tell them and you watch their faces change because it’s something that they don’t admire themselves. You watch their instant judgment of you based upon your esthetic choices or preferences. Right at that moment, you are defined. Forget all the nuances that make you a complete human being. You are now defined and labeled based on a book, or a piece of music, or a particular film or director you said you really liked. Welcome to the world of pseudo-hipster bullshit, and God only knows how often I, myself, have been in these situations. The good thing is I never gave a shit. I’m comfortable with who I am and care not about what others think of my esthetic choices and if you want to judge me as a human being based on them, go right ahead. The question you really have to ask is what makes you think that I care? I’m too old to care anymore, anyway. But there are some who, sadly, combust, begin doubting their own self-worth and will bend over backward and contort in order to win approval from those they feel are “important people.” A very sad way to live, in my opinion; and as ridiculous as all this appears to be, I have seen it happen with my own eyes - and it has happened to me on occasion. A lot of the time, it’s some poor sap who wants to get the “hip” girl and this is what happened to them. Crushed, humiliated, embarrassed and judged - essentially over a triviality. 

I’ve seen a lot of this kind of thing when I was in my early thirties - a time when I spent a lot of evenings attending loft parties in Brooklyn, hosted by artist friends of mine who used the occasion to promote their work, the work of their friends and of course, to try to get laid by meeting all the women who attended these soirees. At the time, I was going through a very rough period and spent most of these evenings completely legless due to a massive consumption of alcohol. I wasn’t much use to anyone, really and looking back at it, most of it seems like a blur. I’ve met a hell of a lot of people - mostly artists of some kind - most of whom I can’t remember talking to or what we were even talking about. But I do remember these occasional instances when this sort of thing happened to my friends and on occasion to myself. They were designed, by those who truly have their own issues to contend with, to make someone else feel like shit in order to make themselves feel better about themselves. I get it. I know the psychology - and nothing grinds another’s gears more than when you show them that you simply don’t give a shit and you’re comfortable in your own skin. 

I walked away from all that long ago, preferring the company of my real friends, those who know me, those who actually care, those who would never think of making others feel like shit in order to pacify some sort of hole they have inside themselves. And the thing is, most of them aren’t artists. Some are - painters, musicians, writers - but the overwhelming majority of them have other professions and to be honest, never really talk to me about my writing. Our friendships are not based on things like this. They’re based on being human beings, as it should be. We sometimes discuss books, music, films and quite often we don’t agree. For instance, I love Bob Dylan and Ernest Hemingway - two figures that have influenced me greatly. They don’t. While I may not understand why Dylan and Hemingway may not connect with them, I certainly don’t use it as a yardstick to judge them as human beings and try to make them feel like shit for it. People are who they are. You either accept them for who they are or you don't. 

But this is what happens among the so-called “hip” set, or at least it did then. I’m sure it still happens. I’m sure there are young people out there, going to the parties in all the “cool neighborhoods” that are being attended by all the struggling artists, musicians and women that they desire, putting up fronts in order to “fit in.” Peer pressure shit. High school crap. Whether it be your esthetic choices or what neighborhood you live in, everyone is under a microscope. It reminds me of a low-rent version of sophisticated cocktail parties. Everything you say, do, or respond to is judged, filed away and remembered and your conversations with other human beings are more like questionnaires, as if you’re one of those sad contestants on a reality show, waiting for the dramatic pause to end to see whether or not you’ll be voted off the island. Such shit, all of this, and sad being that it comes from supposed adults. But yet some will twist themselves into a pretzel in order to impress these self-aggrandizing assholes, these children who think becoming their friend is a favor they are bestowing upon you, as if you desire their company more than anything else in the world. 

This is the kind of bullshit one has to contend with when pursuing the arts. This will be your social circle if you care to be around it. Perhaps this is why some of the more famous writers and artists choose to remain private and not hobnob with these self-important idiots. They turn people into objects. They like to label and categorize them like book on a shelf, separated into genres, categories and judged based on what category they happen to be. Oh, and you better be the right category, or else be met with rudeness or outright contempt. This is the “cool kid” club you saw in the high school hallway, and they carried this inanity into their adult lives. But it happens. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. And it’s sad, pathetic. 

So you are an artist, a writer, a musician, a whatever. What do you do? Do you cowtow to these idiots or do you hunker down and do your own thing, the way it is supposed to be? Hopefully you are doing your own thing, totally unconcerned with this cavalcade of nonsense and immaturity. Hopefully your energy is focused on getting your work done, creating, following your own muse to the best of your ability and actually being the adult in the room. I’ve witnessed these little social scenes come and go for near thirty years now - and over those thirty years, every little social group eventually disappears only to be replaced by a new one, each one as insidious as the last. And the funny thing is, with the exception of very very few of them, none of them ever amounted to anything. For all their posturing, for all their “expertise”, the overwhelming majority of them never produced a God damn thing, even independently. For all their self-declared genius, I rarely ever saw anything come out of them. Only pontifications, crowing, attitude. Never a piece of actual work. 

So hunker down, my friends, and focus on what’s truly important. The one thing I can say with certainty is that it's not these folks. They will come and go just like they did before - and you will see nothing from them. Ever. And that’s because, deep down, they are nothing. Merely caricatures, clichés dreamed up in Hollywood studios or in the pages of old artist biographies about a world long gone, that is, if it ever really existed in the first place. You have more important things to do, more important things to accomplish. Remember that. 

Alive and Spitting: A Word on the DIY Ethic

When Punk Rock first came on the scene in the mid-1970s, I was way too young to appreciate it or even pay much attention to it. When the Ramones and the Sex Pistols released their debut albums, I was 10 years old. I was aware of them at the time though (due to all the media hype) but it was something “over there”, something just not on my radar. It wasn’t until I became a teenager in 1979 that I started to become aware of it via The Clash’s “London Calling” and the Jam’s “Setting Sons” LPs. By 1981, I was headlong into it - the second wave had arrived and Black Flag’s “Damaged”  ushered me into Punk’s great second wave, known as Hardcore. 

It was through this scene that I became introduced to what was then known as “the Punk Rock esthetic”, which was, in a nutshell, a DIY philosophy. It was a reaction against many things: sometimes political, must mostly, at least as far as I was concerned, esthetics. It didn’t have to be “perfect” but it had to move you in some way. Lord knows many of these bands weren’t exactly proficient musicians. It wasn’t about that. It was about the idea that anyone who had the drive and the passion and the love for what they were doing to get up there and speak your piece. It wasn’t about being “famous” or a “celebrity”. It was in direct reaction to all of that. We were kids, yes, a new generation coming of age - mostly disaffected youth, naturally - and we had something to get off our chests and no one was going to shut us up. A whole movement grew out of this idea and for a little while it was very exciting and inspiring, both personally and creatively. You didn’t need “the machine” to get the word out. You could create it all yourself, do it all yourself and find an audience out there hungry for it as well. 

But, like anything else, it soon became the beast it was trying to destroy. It suddenly began to have its own orthodoxy, rules, hierarchies and for me, that’s when I checked the fuck out. For me, it wasn’t supposed to replace one set of peer pressure for another, but that’s what happened, and once it did, I took my leave of it. Age also had a lot to do with it as well. 

What excited me the most about this era was its willingness to get things done, to not have to rely on anyone to make your music, write your books or poetry, paint your paintings, or whatever else one decided to do. You just did your thing and there was an audience out there ready for it and for a scant few years it was probably one of the more inspiring, creatively fulfilling times of my life. Fuck the “rules” that eventually killed everything and fuck everyone else who decided to become their own version of gatekeeper (which did happen). It was the esthetic that remained with me to this day - the idea that you could do anything you wanted to do, be creatively free to do what you want, in your own way, without succumbing to someone else’s standards and definitions of how things “should” be. As far as I was concerned, the only way it “should” be is to follow that creative vision you had for yourself. There was no guarantee of any kind of monetary success, of course, but if you had an idea, or a vision of some kind and you made it come to life, live and breathe in some way, and that vision connected with someone somehow, then that was pretty much a marker of “success.” 

There were quite a few creative endeavors that grew out of this movement other than music. It embraced the whole spectrum of art: Fiction, poetry, painting, sculpture, photography, but it was done in a very free form way, for the most part. There wasn’t any real “group” that anyone was a part of. It was a “movement” of sorts, with each contributing their own ideas, vision and creative know-how to the process; existing along side the mainstream culture, largely unnoticed by the overwhelming majority of people, but that didn’t matter. It was also what made it exciting. It was the 1980s, after all, and by that time, the creative world has splintered into thousands of various factions, culture, sub-cultures, genres, sub-genres and a lot of the time they didn’t even need to acknowledge one another, although at times, they did cross into one another’s territories and create even newer sub-genres and hybrids. Like I said it was a very creatively exciting time - at least for a little while. 

And I’m sure it’s still out there, young people today completely disgusted by the “American Idol-ization” of the culture, where everyone seeks to be famous and be a celebrity, to be on the gossip pages, to “matter”, as some would put it. Or at least I hope there is, somewhere. It’s what’s needed, just like it was needed then, some sort of rejuvenation. At nearly 46 years old, my social circles have obviously changed and put me as far out of touch with it as anyone my age would be. But that’s the way it’s supposed to be. For all I know, this current generation’s esthetic could very well be the idea of being famous and a celebrity. That’s not up to me to be concerned with, for obviously I am too old to even begin trying to get in on that. I wouldn’t want to, anyway. But there must be some rumblings from the underground, a whole segment of a new generation disgusted with what they see and are reacting against it. It’s only natural, especially when you’re young. It’s the way it should be. 

The one legacy that did come out of that time - at least for some of us - was the tearing down of the boundaries between the so-called genres. It was perfectly okay to blend them, to create something new from the various influences that young creative people had around them. This happened more so in the early 1990s, another very exciting time to be young. I was in my mid-20s then and that whole movement, which rose from the ashes of the second wave of Punk, picked up what looked like was a dead ball and ran with it to create something new - which of course eventually became what it was reacting against as well. It all goes in cycles; and perhaps today’s desire to be famous and be a celebrity, it’s “happy” pop music and tendency towards narcissism is in direct reaction to the angry, moody, sometimes violent sounds and esthetics my generation was known to produce, who knows? 

But the esthetic survives, regardless of the times. The blueprint was laid down for any and all to follow if they choose to do so. For literary matters it seems that esthetic is growing - finally. There are numerous contemporary authors writing some very intriguing fiction these days and there seems to be a rumbling that something new is about to happen, young writers who are disregarding all the pompous bullshit and pseudo-intellectual nonsense that often comes with the territory; and they’re popping up all over the world and beginning to make some inroads. And some of them are taking the reigns and getting their work out there all on their own, which I fully support. And not all of them are “young” by pop cultural standards. Some are my age and even older. It’s there if you want to find it. You have to look for it, but it’s there. Everywhere I’m beginning to see - and to meet - young artists, writers, poets, etc who are starting to follow their own vision and are trying to create something new and exciting and I, for one, am very happy to see that. They are artists who are no longer concerned with “the boundaries” that many in the past have erected to divide, and often ridicule. Hybrid works are being created - in all the arts - and something exciting is bound to come out of that. It’s easy to look at the mainstream culture and say to oneself that everything sucks. If you did that, you’d probably be correct in that assessment. But the mainstream culture is not the only thing out there - it’s the only thing you tend to actually see because it’s controlled and disseminated by big business. 


But there are other things out there too. New and exciting things but you have to do the work in order to dig it out of the muck - just like we did back then. Be free. Create, for God’s sake!  The world needs it. Now get to it.  


End note: For anyone interested in this era and what it was all about, I would highly recommend "American Hardcore", a very well made documentary about the time, place and esthetic of this once exciting movement. The points of view vary, of course, but that was supposed to be the whole point. But essentially, you'll get the gist of it - and the irony of this film being released via Sony Pictures isn't lost on me, believe me.  

Shut Up and Write!

For the past week, I did what I said I was going to stop doing and that is browse the various internet sites, blogs, etc about writing, blogging, the “Traditional vs. Self-Publishing” (endless) debate, and all other things related to the writing process. Strange, being that this is what I mostly write about here. I will still read articles about books - new novels, book reviews, perhaps about old books that I never heard of before, or simply seeking out other interesting authors and books to read. But while doing this, you can’t help click a link that leads you to someone crowing about something or another, most of the time, it being someone screeching off about what other people are doing wrong. This always, it seems to me, comes across as XYZ writer’s opinion being the only one that matters and as we all know everyone has an opinion, thought, idea, including myself right here. The only difference I can see, really, is that here - on this blog - I try to accentuate the positive aspects for those who are brave enough to actually sit down and create something. I’ve always said that what I write here is from my own personal experience. I don’t claim to be an expert on anything - nor will I ever claim that. This here is literally a chronicle of my own experiences, thoughts on the books I read in which I hope others may find interesting as well, promote my own writing (as well as what I think is the interesting work of others), and perhaps share a thought or two on what I come across about the writing process, publishing, reading, or whatever else. I am fully aware that I am merely one voice out of tens of millions out there doing the very same thing and if I get a couple of readers along the way, all the better. I do what I do for my own, personal, creative reasons, and those that appreciate that and like what they see here, thank you. But obviously one is free to simply ignore me and this blog and my books, my thoughts, my writing, or whatever else. 

I’ve said many times over the years that there are plenty of books and authors that simply don’t grab me. There are others that I will plainly state that I think suck. There are plenty of stories and novels in which I think are an utter waste of time to read. That is the normal, natural thing for anyone. You can’t possibly like everything you come across; but I made it a point when I began this blog to not waste time on crowing about the books and writers I don’t like and try to accentuate those I do with the hopes that maybe since I enjoyed it, someone else may also. Of course, there’s no control over that and my opinion may not mean dick to anyone. What I won’t be here is the “hatchet man”, the guy who tells you how “bad” everything is while offering no alternative whatsoever. And, holy shit, there are plenty of blogs and other websites for that sort of thing if that’s what you’re looking for. 

With self-publishing beginning to lose it’s “stigma” there are also no shortage of websites and blogs concentrating on this subject - a subject that I am growing increasingly weary of from day to day. For me, personally, I couldn’t care less whether a book was traditionally published or self-published. Give me some good writing and a good story. Give me something to remember, something to think about after reading it. That’s all I care about. What name is on the spine of a book doesn’t matter to me because one can easily make the argument that traditionally published books can also be bad as some of the worst self-published books out there. The irony of this whole debate is that those who often crow about how awful the state of contemporary literature is via the Big Six publishing houses are the same ones who decry any and all self-published books by saying that since it wasn’t published by any of the Big Six, then it must be horrible. I like that: The Big Six are publishing crap but unless you’re published by the Big Six then no one will take you “seriously.” I can’t wrap my mind around this argument and in the end I think it has less to do with the quality of a work than it does giving a platform for people to bitch. 

In my own mind the Big Six and self-publishers are publishing both crap and interesting books. Not everything is going to be great. Not everything is going to grab you. You have to actually use your own mind and actually decide for yourself - something a lot of people these days simply do not want to do. They want to be told what to think. Some want to hold opinions that will endear them to a certain group of people. Some just don’t want to be socially embarrassed. It seems like high school to me - a whole group of people who are simply dying to fit in with the “cool kids.” 

These websites and blogs have shown me how fickle and petty writers can be. I suppose the fact that I did not come up in a “literary background” allows me to see things from a bit of a distance. I wasn't, and am still not, surrounded by other writers and my thoughts on writing and literature matters are based on my own thinking and observation, not what I’m “supposed” to think. In other words, I make up my own mind, decide for myself, which is how it should be. I’m not “embarrassed” to say I like Stephen King or that I may not have found a work that everyone is supposed to adore to be to my liking. We’re all individuals, right? 

The websites and blogs that I have been coming across as of late are mere platforms for bitching (much like this particular blog post may appear to be but I suppose I’m allowed one every now and then). Most of them written by other writers who have their own work out there or soon-to-be out there, or are seeking to get their work out there. To my mind a lot of time is spent on pointing out how others are doing things wrong or badly rather than offering something that may actually help a would-be writer or even provide a little insight for those already writing that may guide them in a direction that he/she had never thought of before. Blog after blog, website after website of how other people suck, other people are doing things wrong, other people are wasting their time, etc. If this much energy was put into what they are actually doing rather than complaining about what others aren’t doing then perhaps they’d actually produce something. The one common denominator I see in all of these sites is, “Everyone else sucks and is doing things wrong  - except for me.” 

An example: On a recent forum I was reading yet another tiresome debate about “Traditional publishing vs. Self/Indie publishing.” The blog post itself was the usual fare, offering nothing new to the discussion. It was the comments that intrigued me more than anything else. I read an awful lot of comments that said things like, “I don’t want my stuff sitting along side some piece of shit.” or “A badly written self-published work makes all self-publishers look bad.” Let’s take a look at the first one. Are you kidding me? First of all, if you were traditionally published, your work would be sitting along side a piece of shit too. Secondly, what the hell do you care whether someone else’s book sucks? It’s your book you should be concerned with. People do have minds of their own and are able to distinguish between what they like and don’t like. Perhaps someone will find the book you think “sucks” is better than yours. You have no control over what people will think of your work, so stop with the nonsense. The next comment: If someone reads a very badly written self-published work and then thinks all self-published work is therefore bad, what about traditionally published work that they think sucks as well? Does this same formula apply? With the immense glut of written works out there, you can’t possibly come to this conclusion with any honesty whatsoever. With the tens of millions of books out there the world over, chances are you are going to come across plenty of clunkers among the great and/or good, interesting works. 

I firmly believe that half the world’s problems would disappear if people simply learned to just mind their own business and stop obsessing on what others are doing and concentrate on what they, as an individual, want to do in this life. The same goes for the arts. Focus your attention on what you are trying to accomplish and stop worrying about what other people are doing. Just shut up and write, try to make your work the best it can possibly be. Come to it honestly and offer it up to the world and let the chips fall where they may. We lose control over our creations once we put it in the public sphere. I have no illusions about my own work. I know some people like what I do, just as I’m sure there are some who have read me who think I suck as well. I can’t control that and neither can anyone else. It’s a natural feeling that everyone wants to be adored and admired by everyone but the reality is that simply isn’t going to happen. So take that energy and that fire and focus it like a laser beam to your own aspirations and for God’s sake stop worrying about the inevitable shit that will enter the pipeline. Why give it any attention at all if that’s what you feel about it? Give us something to appreciate, something to possibly enhance life a little bit. 

So I am going to follow my own advice here and try very hard to keep away from all this crowing, pettiness and childishness and simply concentrate on trying to write the best work I possibly can - and with any luck, others may appreciate it and get something from it. That’s the best we can all hope for, isn’t it?