Tag Archives: sam lipsyte

Articles I liked: Paris Review interviews of Philip Larkin, Dag Solstad, Sam Lipsyte; the NYRB reconsiders V.S. Naipaul, and others

I also have a strong desire to become one of those people who links to articles, so that's what I'm gonna do.

"The Trouble With Money" in London Review of Books - The economics I learned in college wasn't very self-reflective, on a philosophical level. It never worried about the nature of money or what it represented. Money was merely a medium of exchange: a thousand dollars equals a thousand dollars worth of butter equals a thousand dollars worth of guns. They are the same thing. But a whole class of late 19th and early 20th century economists devoted their time to grappling with the concept of money. What did it mean? How did it function? And not just practically, but psychologically as well. Loved this article on John Maynard Keynes, who wrote about the death-grip money has on our psyches, and the way that after a certain point, saving can become a mania that interferes with the production of goods and services.

"Art of Fiction No. 230: Dag Solstad" in The Paris Review - At various times in my life I've had the ambition to read all the Paris Review interviews. But I inevitably realize that if I haven't read and enjoyed the author, then I don't really care about what they have to say. I really liked Solstad's interview, just as I really like his novels! He seems to have his head on his shoulders--very practical writer, who seems to enjoy his work. I was however amused by his 3-1-3 schedule, where after every third day of writing, he gets blind drunk for one full day. LOL.

"Art of Poetry No. 30: Philip Larkin" by The Paris Review - Larkin is one of the few poets that I truly love. I deeply enjoyed this mildly grumpy interview of his, where he describes his solitary life, how he hasn't read poetry in years, how his only encounters with Auden and Eliot were awkward and terrifying, and how he basically doesn't know anything of life outside Hull, where he's lived for the last twenty-five years. What a genius he was.

"Art of Fiction No. 242: Sam Lipsyte" in The Paris Review - Another deeply likeable interview. Just enjoyed playing around in his mind, same as I enjoy his fiction! No great revelations. I just like the guy!

"2022 was not the year of consilience" by Erik Hoel - I subscribe to Erik's substack. He's both a researcher into consciousness and a novelist. Which is to say, he's researching consciousness from the inside and out. In this post he talks about attempting to bridge the science / art divide, and how most of the resistance to that idea seems to come from artists. I thought he was smart in talking about the one thing scientists can do to maybe help heal that divide, which is not be reductive about art. Even if you can explain some things about art using science, there's still a phenomonological level to it that'll never be directly accessible to science.

"Naipaul's Unreal Africa" in The New York Review of Books - I really like Naipaul's work. I've read a lot of it. His best and most humane books are his early ones, set in Trinidad, particularly A House for Mr. Biswas. His later books, especially those set in Africa, are interesting and evocative, but extremely cruel. He was a cruel man, and he was undeniably racist. This author reexamines the legacy of his Booker-nominated A Bend in the River, and the ways its racism would be received if published today, instead of in 1979.

"A New King for the Congo" in The New York Review of Books - This essay, written by Naipaul and published in the NYRB in the 70s, is an example of the way he wrote about Africa (it's also discussed in the article above)

A Taxonomy of Readers

All the pictures that came up when I searched for 'taxonomy' were boring, so I decided to search for 'taxidermy' instead.

I was thinking about yesterday's post, and I realized that my reading habits are incredibly bourgeois. That's not a pejorative; it's just a description. My reading habits have a distinctly middle-class and earnest feeling to them. Which made me think, what other kinds of reading habits are there? This line of thought led to the following taxonomy of readers

Mass-Market - People who read only a book or two every year and prefer to read whatever the year's breakout book is. I imagine that they enjoy the feeling of connectedness that comes from doing something at the same time as millions of other people.

Industrial - People who consume books as if they are an interchangeable product. Once, I was like this. When I read a book I liked, I went out and tried to find twenty books that were exactly the same, so I could get exactly the same experience. I preferred longer books, because they lasted longer. And I preferred long series, because I knew I could get more of what I liked. Example: most children go through a stage like this.

Populist - Readers who distrust book reviews and the opinions of academics, but still try to read the best books that they can. Populist readers often place a lot of stock in Amazon book reviews, word of mouth, and popular vote awards. They have a strong sense of their own likes and dislikes and are willing to defend their own tastes even against the prevailing opinion. Example: many science fiction fans, and people who say that books like Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged are the equal to most of what is considered, by the establishment, to be extremely good fiction.

Academic - These readers gravitate towards books about which there is still something interesting to say. They shy away from books that too much has already been written about. Although they're about equally interested in contemporary and classic fiction, when they read classics they tend to gravitate towards obscure writers and lesser-known works by famous authors. Example: Most book critics, bloggers, and commentators.

Hip - Very familiar with whatever writer is on everyone's tongues. In the 90s, it was David Foster Wallace. Now, it's George Saunders. Also familiar with the nimbus of other, less-known contemporary writers that hover in that zeitgeisty area. Example: Anyone who's ever read a novel written by Sam Lipsyte.

Super-Hip - The person who determines what the Hip people are going to be reading. Usually conversant with the major features of English literature (the modernists, etc) and extremely conversant with what's going on in contemporary literature. Example: Anyone who's ever read a sentence written by Tao Lin.

Bourgeois - Those who put a lot of stock in the literary canon and disdain contemporary literature. Prefers to read "the best" of any genre. Believes anything that has gotten public notice or critical acclaim must have some positive qualities. Turns reading into a project and then blogs about the project. Often has a fascination with and love for literary quotes. The objective of high school and college education in literature is to produce bourgeois readers. Examples: I am an extreme form of this, but I would also include all the computer programmers and lawyers and doctors who very earnestly sit down to read Faulkner or Dickens in their free time.

Aristocratic - Prefers classic literature, but, even within the classics, has very particular likes and dislikes. When they find an author, they often read every work that the author has written. Example: Anyone who has ever read a published collection of a famous authors' letters.

 

There are three standard progressions through these categories:

Industrial -> Populist -> Academic

Bourgeois -> Aristocratic

Bourgeois -> Hip -> Super-Hip

 

I consider myself a little bit of an outlier because I went from Industrial -> Populist -> Bourgeois.

Can anyone suggest any additional categories?