tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938931586617910694.post7088205456823443485..comments2023-11-02T02:36:58.544-07:00Comments on A New Career In A New Town: White Noise: An Exchange. Part IIANCIANThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09285364186147332858noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938931586617910694.post-4470851178910582342007-12-11T15:06:00.000-08:002007-12-11T15:06:00.000-08:00Once again demonstrating my ability to bring very ...Once again demonstrating my ability to bring very little to any intelligent conversation:<BR/><BR/>Have you, Cartooniste, or anyone else here, read <I>Poor Things</I> by Alisdair Gray?Sebhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02897192617824413929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938931586617910694.post-89769754371257078472007-12-10T12:25:00.000-08:002007-12-10T12:25:00.000-08:00I lump Pynchon and Delillo together to a large ext...I lump Pynchon and Delillo together to a large extent, stylistically and in terms of content. And because I find each of them to be three pages of funny, and then overly precious and cute. Too much tricksterism. I just lose patience with it. Why does postmodern art make me excited, while postmodern literature makes me itch? I don't know. It's something I am still trying to figure out.<BR/><BR/>As for Warhol, it's the very slipperiness that has contributed to his lasting so long. We are nearly at the fifty year point between Warhol's most important work and today, with no dimunition of his importance. One of my favorite exam questions ever was to ask undergrads to compare the Duchamp image "L.H.O.O.Q." (the image of the Mona Lisa with a mustache drawn on) with Warhol's "Sixteen Mona Lisas." Modern to postmodern, resulting in a mindfuck of awesomeness.<BR/><BR/>Have you seen Bowie play Warhol in "Basquiat"? Priceless.Cartoonistehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14005217269249277853noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938931586617910694.post-25691243387744486752007-12-10T09:51:00.000-08:002007-12-10T09:51:00.000-08:00Cartooniste-Warhol is an interesting example, but,...Cartooniste-<BR/>Warhol is an interesting example, but, as you note, he doesn't have just ONE thesis, but several, all of which are complicated by the fact that he insists on having no agenda/thesis at all. "Reading" a Warhol very quickly becomes a dialogue with the self about what "reading" (I should say "viewing") entails, and whether or not all objects can--and should--be "read" in the same way as a painting. Or something like that. I've never been able to get too excited about Warhol because of this very slipperiness, but I'm willing to admit that's probably an error in my own taste. Bowie took a lot from him, so there must be something there. (If you don't know it already, check out his song "Andy Warhol" on Hunky Dory.) Although I wonder if his art could only be important in the time it was made--if in 50 years people will look at Warhol and wonder what all the fuss was about. <BR/><BR/>But White Noise, as you note, is far less subtle or complex. I think "Crying of Lot 49" is actually a far superior book (btw, it's by Pynchon, not DeLillo) although they do both trade in similar ideas about America. Unlike DeLillo, Pynchon, I think, is actually funny; plus, he writes a great sentence. His parodies of Jacobean Theater in "Lot 49" alone make it worth reading. (I also really like "Vineland" by him).<BR/><BR/>I also find DeLillo's thesis unpersuasive, but I decided to leave discussion of the thesis itself for a later debate. I agree with you, though, it is not an insight. But more on that later.<BR/><BR/>ANCIANTAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938931586617910694.post-26641303906149060272007-12-09T12:01:00.000-08:002007-12-09T12:01:00.000-08:00I am so excited to see people calling out "White N...I am so excited to see people calling out "White Noise" (I almost wrote "what noise," which might be even better). I hated that book, and largely because I found its singlemindedness to be utterly boring. A novel should, among other things, name things about ourselves that we do not already know, or of which we are not fully aware. Perhaps it speaks to over-awareness more generally, but I do not find the notion that we are all alienated from each other and we fill the void with meaningless baubles and objects to be a profound insight. Or even an insight at all. <BR/>But that doesn't mean that art cannot have a thesis and still qualify as art. I introduced my freshmen to Andy Warhol this past couple of weeks, and there is art that certainly contains a thesis. Or several theses. Many of them contradictory, and we are never totally sure if Warhol is putting us on or not. It's made all the more confusing because Warhol essentially comes right out and says "This is all nothing; I am putting you on." Then the impulse is to see if it's true.<BR/>In pretending to not be putting us on, I grow suspicious of Delillo. Whenever I read his writing - I felt this way with The Crying of Lot 49 too - I inevitably think "Is that all there is? Don't you have anything else to say?"<BR/>But they never do.Cartoonistehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14005217269249277853noreply@blogger.com