Sarcasm can make anything seem bad. This piece is funny and dynamic, but I'm not sure whether it has any depth. Personally, I love Eliot without needing to understand his references or assimilate his views on poetry or the world. The Waste Land's dour, sibylline character, like a nightmare in tongues, pleases me to no end--though I have always preferred Prufrock or the Four Quartets precisely because they are less inkhornishly modernist. I can understand your vitriol in response to the goggle-eyed praise lavished upon Eliot, but many people have been deeply moved by The Waste Land for reasons other than shoring up their own pretentiousness against the ruin wrought by common sense...
Stefan !! Thank you for going along with this and letting me try something strange … I hope at least that something like a sense of self aware irony came through in the weird paranoia about Great Britain, etc. despite this being sincere in its own way. If I have failed to convince, ok! Maybe there’s nothing to this. It’ll have to just rest on the jokes …
This is not my usual mode and I wondered if I should put it out there, but I had too much fun writing it … My brain is bendable enough to respect Eliot’s poetry too, even as I’m trying out my weird railing against the durability of his reputation and making fun of him and that New Yorker piece. I think it would be dishonest of me not to acknowledge his importance, even if his work is not where I run to naturally. I think I was overinfluenced by Harold Bloom on Eliot …
I wanted to try something different if only to keep from doing the same thing, but being a hater may not be for me!
I got the self-aware irony; maybe I'm just the wrong reader. I think often about how my favorite writers are hated by half the people I know, a fact that inspires me daily to do whatever I want without worrying about reactions.
I believe you should try absolutely everything and that your writing should be an expression of every whim, fancy, and sally that you want to pursue. That it should be the consummation of your own freedom. God knows what'll work, or what'll develop into a more fully original and successful style, and anyway one person's poison is another person's Pernod.
But I'd also apply the same rule of live-and-let-be to Eliot - let's allow Eliot to be Eliot and Rosa to be Rosa, and if anybody wants to complain--fuck 'em. Even if the complainer in question is I. (I do have a few mean things to say about Eliot the person and his effect on literary criticism... The Great Tradition, pfaugh. There was something weak about Eliot that made him attach himself to others--even his best lines were sometimes suggested by his committees of readers. Not to mention how synergistic New Criticism and Roman Catholicism are...)
Have you ever read Mircea Cartarescu? I remember somewhere you were looking for recommendations, and I would like to see your response to his work. His stuff is one endless spiral of meditation, hallucination, and dream, written in a state of self-hypnosis. The first few pages of his book Blinding have been posted on Asymptote Journal, if you're interested. His work is all joy in creation, all metaphysical splendor and overflowing artistic strength. The total opposite of Eliot's mincing verse.
I haven’t heard of Mircea Cartarescu before, but will go look!
And ok meanwhile Rosa will keep trying to be Rosa and won’t feel guilty about being Rosa, at least not too much. Wouldn’t it be easier just not to be anyone .. ?
Well this was enormous fun! I haven’t yet read the New Yorker article (our New Yorkers always arrive a few weeks late), but when I do I will have your magnificent response in my head.
I agree with you about Eliot: He and too many intellectuals (yes, I too was oppressed by the Jacqueses and other French theorists in grad school) perpetrate the myth that in order to be deep we must be miserable, that to be of a sunny disposition is necessarily to be simple-minded, and that to be kind and considerate is to be boring. I think the opposite is true, and that kindness and happiness take courage and intelligence, while misery just tells the same old story the same old way.
Your essay seems like a large basket of sour grapes. I first read the poem in Autumn, 1976, because my English professor had called it a "nightmare turned inside out and upside down." Your own interpretation of the poem has, I think, become the poem in your mind. I think your somewhat shrill response is directed toward the failure of your interpretation which you believe proves the poem's failure and lack of merit; but only proves the its own impotence.
Your comment seems like a small basket of sour grapes. The failure of the poem is not in my mind, but in its legacy, which is manifest. This essay is the opening volley in a war against The Waste Land that I will win, for I was born to victory. Please consider liking and subscribing if this sort of thing interests you.
You needed to riff on my sour grapes remark? How very original. As for subscribing, good critiques interest me, but yours is woefully and sadly lacking in that aspect. I suggest you were not born for victory but, rather, to entertain us with your clownery.
I hope this will bring our conversation to an end. No, I am from the USA, Ohio, but descended from an ancient English family. Again, I hope this will bring our conversation to an end.
Leave Benedict Cumberbatch alone!
Sarcasm can make anything seem bad. This piece is funny and dynamic, but I'm not sure whether it has any depth. Personally, I love Eliot without needing to understand his references or assimilate his views on poetry or the world. The Waste Land's dour, sibylline character, like a nightmare in tongues, pleases me to no end--though I have always preferred Prufrock or the Four Quartets precisely because they are less inkhornishly modernist. I can understand your vitriol in response to the goggle-eyed praise lavished upon Eliot, but many people have been deeply moved by The Waste Land for reasons other than shoring up their own pretentiousness against the ruin wrought by common sense...
Stefan !! Thank you for going along with this and letting me try something strange … I hope at least that something like a sense of self aware irony came through in the weird paranoia about Great Britain, etc. despite this being sincere in its own way. If I have failed to convince, ok! Maybe there’s nothing to this. It’ll have to just rest on the jokes …
This is not my usual mode and I wondered if I should put it out there, but I had too much fun writing it … My brain is bendable enough to respect Eliot’s poetry too, even as I’m trying out my weird railing against the durability of his reputation and making fun of him and that New Yorker piece. I think it would be dishonest of me not to acknowledge his importance, even if his work is not where I run to naturally. I think I was overinfluenced by Harold Bloom on Eliot …
I wanted to try something different if only to keep from doing the same thing, but being a hater may not be for me!
I got the self-aware irony; maybe I'm just the wrong reader. I think often about how my favorite writers are hated by half the people I know, a fact that inspires me daily to do whatever I want without worrying about reactions.
I believe you should try absolutely everything and that your writing should be an expression of every whim, fancy, and sally that you want to pursue. That it should be the consummation of your own freedom. God knows what'll work, or what'll develop into a more fully original and successful style, and anyway one person's poison is another person's Pernod.
But I'd also apply the same rule of live-and-let-be to Eliot - let's allow Eliot to be Eliot and Rosa to be Rosa, and if anybody wants to complain--fuck 'em. Even if the complainer in question is I. (I do have a few mean things to say about Eliot the person and his effect on literary criticism... The Great Tradition, pfaugh. There was something weak about Eliot that made him attach himself to others--even his best lines were sometimes suggested by his committees of readers. Not to mention how synergistic New Criticism and Roman Catholicism are...)
Have you ever read Mircea Cartarescu? I remember somewhere you were looking for recommendations, and I would like to see your response to his work. His stuff is one endless spiral of meditation, hallucination, and dream, written in a state of self-hypnosis. The first few pages of his book Blinding have been posted on Asymptote Journal, if you're interested. His work is all joy in creation, all metaphysical splendor and overflowing artistic strength. The total opposite of Eliot's mincing verse.
I haven’t heard of Mircea Cartarescu before, but will go look!
And ok meanwhile Rosa will keep trying to be Rosa and won’t feel guilty about being Rosa, at least not too much. Wouldn’t it be easier just not to be anyone .. ?
"Who are you and what do you want?" I demand of myself in the mirror
Where did you go to college and to grad school?
Hmm is this about an annual fund donation or something? If so then the answer is no.
Well this was enormous fun! I haven’t yet read the New Yorker article (our New Yorkers always arrive a few weeks late), but when I do I will have your magnificent response in my head.
I agree with you about Eliot: He and too many intellectuals (yes, I too was oppressed by the Jacqueses and other French theorists in grad school) perpetrate the myth that in order to be deep we must be miserable, that to be of a sunny disposition is necessarily to be simple-minded, and that to be kind and considerate is to be boring. I think the opposite is true, and that kindness and happiness take courage and intelligence, while misery just tells the same old story the same old way.
Ah, Mari, you’ll see when you get your New Yorker what you’re in for!! Thanks for reading this. Guess I’m trying out for MAD Magazine
Omg this is hilarious
Appreciate the tko
Sassy!!!!
Seems like your real agon here is with Anthony Lane, not Eliot.
Your essay seems like a large basket of sour grapes. I first read the poem in Autumn, 1976, because my English professor had called it a "nightmare turned inside out and upside down." Your own interpretation of the poem has, I think, become the poem in your mind. I think your somewhat shrill response is directed toward the failure of your interpretation which you believe proves the poem's failure and lack of merit; but only proves the its own impotence.
Your comment seems like a small basket of sour grapes. The failure of the poem is not in my mind, but in its legacy, which is manifest. This essay is the opening volley in a war against The Waste Land that I will win, for I was born to victory. Please consider liking and subscribing if this sort of thing interests you.
You needed to riff on my sour grapes remark? How very original. As for subscribing, good critiques interest me, but yours is woefully and sadly lacking in that aspect. I suggest you were not born for victory but, rather, to entertain us with your clownery.
Woefully and sadly. Can I ask you … ? Answer honestly. Are you from England?
I hope this will bring our conversation to an end. No, I am from the USA, Ohio, but descended from an ancient English family. Again, I hope this will bring our conversation to an end.
You started it … But yes, bye.