Augie postscript
I give up! This book, which is written by a writer I like and has a sterling reputation, has defeated me. I talked in a previous post about my empathy for "The Victim" (I liked it better than Saul Bellow, for one, did) and mixed feelings about "The Adventures of Augie March." Some readers e-mailed to share derogatory opinions on Mr. Bellow, or to name other blue-chip novels that left them cold. I'd be curious to hear from an Augie partisan, of whom there must be many. My failure of interest in the book, which I laid down around page 220, is easily anatomized. That this is a new voice in high-brow literature, I can appreciate. That the book is a full vision of an actual world, with thoughts and people crowding in on each other, and episodes included not to pump up reader interest or to lead neatly to the next building-block but more out of faithfulness to the uncertainty of lived experience -- got it. I'll say too that I love the rapt and beautiful phrasework, and the usual Bellovian philosophical and observational excellence. In a memoir, I think all this would be "sufficient." But a novel? I think that art form has to ride us from one point to another, and that, however unprogrammatic the intent of the creator, we the ridden need to sense, however subtly, a purpose, a structure, a directedness underlying the trip. I may not be a difficult writer's ideal reader, but I seem to need that much to hold my interest; and over 500 pages, I need a LOT of that. I found Augie March lacking in drama and momentum; found the episodic and character detail -- the hoboing and the whorehouse trip and the brother's failed engagement -- mostly uncaptivating; found the arm's-length narrative voice further dampening. Wanna enlighten me?
By the way, I've been reading a lot of Flannery O'Connor at the same time. This is a writer with whose worldview I have almost zero overlap, whose characters are simple when not simple-minded, whose scenes are like black-and-white abstractions next to the richly shaded and all-inclusive world of Augie March. Most of what we are taught to value by modern literature, Miss O'Connor is not. But her stories pass the simple test of being hard to put down or to forget, and the reader never loses the sense of someone in the driver's seat, a person with an adamantly clear idea of where to take you. It seems to me that for all the fancy things there are to say about the purposes and techniques of literature, this quality and clarity are supereminent. Three cheers for Miss Flannery O'Connor.
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9 comments
By any chance have you read the new Flannery O'Connor bio by Brad Gooch? I've heard it's very good.
Halfway through F O'C's 'The Short Stories' compilation. Highly recommended.
When Saul Bellow talks about sex it makes me horny. But, like a lot of pornography (which doesn't make me horny), the novels don't intent to go anywhere specific outside of his mind--they are more of a grouping of recollections. Which is okay if I am looking for something to make me horny. Actually, I'm dipping here and there into places in Augie March looking for sex bits. Am I a partisan?
Who here doesn't like Flannery O'Connor?
A few weeks ago I was in this warehouse full of dusty old shit and there was a box of old black and white photos which obviously had belonged to an African American person. I can't pass up old photos the way Aaron can't pass up records. This solid matronly black woman was standing in the middle of a prairie in a dowdy dark dress and floppy ugly hat. Nothing else in the photo but horizon and her. There she stood with her skinny ankles and her lower lip pushed out (not unlike Esther from Sanford & Son). She had on this ugly hat and damned if I didn't think of that Everything That Rises story. Right now I'm thinking of Duvi's crush on Harriet Tubman, but never mind that.
Robbie, you and Ms. O'Connor share a birthday.
Robbie, how do you keep from vomiting when you read some of the stupid shit that gets posted here?
Oh Anselmo I suppose you think this should be a high toned red velvet anteroom full of hushed reverent whispers and admiring eyes? Fanboys on cushy couches talking about shows from eight years ago?
Stay away from the message board, dear.
Okay so "Humboldt's Gift" (also Bellow) was tough to get through but so worth it. After all, we are not natural but supernatural (right?). I have saved Augie as a great book that I'd sometime get to. I gave it to myself for Christmas this year with commitment to read it. I only got about 50 pages in and just had to put it down. I don't know if I'll return to it. I may try and convince the library to get an audio copy and try and to listen to it. Last read was Sherman Alexie "Confessions Part-time" (something). Great. Thanks.
Oh, jeez. This is my first visit to RobbieFulks.com, I see the title of this particular blog post and I think it's about Kelly Hogan's dog, specifically her (not yet occurred) demise. :(
God, I hate that book. I feel guilty for having given up on Ulysses (based on The Odyssey, MY ASS!), so I feel obliged to finish Augie March as some kind of punishment for being a quitter. But it's like a hyper-verbose Catcher In The Rye: just some lazy dude whining about things that aren't happening, only he'll use two whole pages as one paragraph to do it.
Impressed (I guess) that you made it that many pages in. I attempted Augie once and gave up much earlier thinking "Why would anyone write in this manner?" Thought it was maybe just me.
Listening to new Dave Alvin & Gulity Women CD as I type this. Looking forward to seeing you and him and (very much) Joe Ely with full band at Fitxgerald's 4th of July weekend.
Saw and much enjoyed recent Old Town show and will get full download and see if yor son's negative appraisal of your session producing is correct.