Katri Skala

2010-12-06T01:52:00.000-08:00

New Story

'Legacies' published by International Literary Quarterly

www.interlitq.org issue 12

news

2010-07-07T05:18:00.000-07:00

Short Story 'Prelude' published by Untitled Books

http://www.untitledbooks.com/fiction/new-voices/prelude-by-katri-skala/

and forthcoming short story 'Legacies' in issue 12 of the International Literary Quarterly

http://interlitq.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/katri-skala-to-contribute-to-issue-12-of-interlitq

2010

2010-02-03T01:52:00.001-08:00

Still alive.

Literary.

2009-12-16T07:18:00.001-08:00

What is literary? What is a literary novel?

Model Rejection

2009-12-14T03:26:00.001-08:00

A model rejection from a publisher (I've eliminated the author of this elegant rejection, and, of course, the publisher).

'Thanks so much for sending me the novel, which I’ve much enjoyed reading this week. Your narrator is refreshingly singular and surprising and you chart her emotional terrain with real deftness and authenticity. You also, of course, write beautifully and there was at least one phrase or sentence I paused to admire on every page. After all this, I’m sorry to introduce a ‘but’… but for everything that impressed me about this novel, and everything that I appreciated as a reader, I’m afraid that in the end the slant of the story – with its intense focus upon a protagonist’s interior world – just isn’t quite what I’m looking for for xxx'

2009-12-09T01:21:00.000-08:00

There is much to be argued in the assertions I make in the last post. It could be said, even demonstrated, that literary fiction is healthier now than it ever has been. More books are being written, and more are being read than was ever the case. There is very fine writing being achieved. One could argue that I'm captivated by an idea of a golden age of literary fiction, and that this never existed.
What I feel needs to kept in mind, however, is the forceful influence of the dominant ideology: marketing/PR. And how ideologies work.
If you look at the reasons some of the great modernist writers were rejected by publishers, you'd find a thread running through: a feeling that the work flew in the face of propriety. If one could encapsulate the prevailing mode of thinking among editors then, it would be precisely the societal preoccupation with propriety. Now, of course that's not the case at all. Quite the opposite - see how far you can go to what is quaintly referred to as pushing boundaries, and you'll find an editor jumping on top of the ms. dreaming of bestsellerdom. No, what has now seeped into everything, so much so that editors are barely aware even of how it works on them, is a marketing vapour. And as with all great ideologies, m ost of them are not even aware of how it has affected their capacity to read, to make judgements; of how it mediates their responses to all work.
People collude and create ideologies. They are not simply victims.
Last night's Nightwaves: Nigel Floyd, film critic and Lizzie Francke (UK Film Council) discuss whether it's justifiable, a good thing, that the Film Council has set aside funds for celebrated YBA, now middle-aged and looking for the Next Big Thing, to make films. The disingenuity with which Lizzie Francke, an intelligent, knowledgeable woman, answered Nigel Floyd's assertion that it was all, finally and essentially, about brand, was dispiriting. Of course it's about brand. Marketing. Why not just acknowledge it up front? Unless, she truly believes that what she's up to, what the film council is up to, is encouraging imaginative new approaches to the activity of making films. If she really lacks the critical distance to acknowledge that brand names in the world of the YBA, as in 90s New York with fading celeb artists like Julian Schnabel, drive these initiatives then, - well the ideology has triumphed. The conventional tends to supercede any interesting filmmaking (whatever Nigel Floyd might say about the absence of good 'narrative' - in itself a straightjacketing formula). Those who continue to make interesting films are those who clearly have a long relationship with the medium.

In this era of fragmentation and multimedia, does anyone care? Is it possible to oto make an argument for aesthetic judgement any longer. It requires the foundational basis of knowledge, of comparative and detailed analyses, of an ability to engage in close reading. To be able to think deeply, not simply on the surface. Taste is not a criteria. Opnion doesn't count. Theory is not an argument. Neither is the ability to achieve a finished, accomplished, piece of creative work evidence.

Who can write, nowadays, meaningful criticism?

Literary Fiction. Dead.

2009-12-03T07:34:00.000-08:00

What is literary fiction? How to distinguish it from commercial fiction and does anyone care? And what about the in-between: that middle-brow, pleasing-to-chattering-class fiction that is so adored by editors and markets.

Literary fiction, as I have known it, loved it, and tried to write it, is difficult to find in the anglophone world of writing.
A psychological intensity (roman d'analyse), a palpable sense of interiority, an exactitude in language, that ineffable thing referred to as 'voice', a singularity of observation - gone. Risk. Who is taking any kind of risk? What is at stake? The urgency has disappeared from the act of writing. In its place exists graphomania, which, like all mania, has a strong autoerotic component. Exception: who writes with a real sense of urgency? Jonathan Franzen (sentimentality pervades his characters, plot is predictable, he lacks rigour, and his characters' tend to remain on the surface, schema overrides depth - but these are all grouches. What is felt in his writing is his urgency, his sense that something literary is at stake, an energy. He is not being 'clever' - that awful tic of so many British writers).

So the idea of risk is attached to notions of brand and sales. What is at stake is an author's bank account, an editor's ego, a publishers' growth (note: different measure than in days of yore when a small profit of margin was desirable, not a continuing push to 'growth'. Surely, this kind of inflationary pressure will cause the balloon to burst. And it did, but has it changed the ways in which editors read books?)
And where are the editors with a lived experience of the literary? What is a literary eduction? Very simply, someone who reads a lot, has read a lot, has a profound and enveloping love of books; whose engagement in a manuscript summons up ghosts of multiple authors, and multiple books from eras, epochs, cultures that preceded our own and surround our own. For whom the first question is not: 'will this sell?' but 'what is the author trying to do?' Now it seems most editors want to run the company, have bonuses and praise showered on them. They are primary, not the writer.

What is in its place?
Middle-brow, plot-led, soft realism.
Splashy bragadoccio storytelling.
Cartoon.
History posing as narrative.
Narrative posing as imagination.
Research in lieu of ideas.
Places in lieu of character.
Adolescent: stories, sensibilities. Whether clever or delicate, in-your-face or thoughtful, an emotional range which tips 30 at its outer limit.

And what about the exotic, the post-colonial posing as 'international'? Has cleverness superceded deep imagination?
Then there is the problem of sentimentality, and the connection between a disturbing rise in emotional kitsch and political correctness. Or sensationalism (grossness) posing as darkness, an outer edge of psychological register.

All is lifestyle. The capitalist-consumers have won. And no one even knows it.
READ Desperate Characters by Paula Fox READ Sleepless Nights by Elisabeth Hardwick

short story At the Theatre

2009-11-05T05:08:00.000-08:00

This story was awarded SPECIAL MENTION in an American short story competition.
Will it find a publisher? It is all internal workings. There is no sensational plot, no shocking twist, no journalistic headline, no arcane jargon. It all perception. It is my homage to Katherine Mansfield.

At the Theatre

Her laugh resonated in the gloom of the theatre; a metallic, lonely clatter coming seconds after the audience had fallen silent. Such a simple sound, like a nickel being dropped into a battered tin cup. It caused Lauren to jump in her seat.

It was cold in the auditorium. Snow was forecast but the house manager had not seen fit to turn up the heating. Lauren shifted, wrapping her sweater tightly around her midriff.

And there - again - seconds after the collective chortle of the audience had subsided – a clattering hollow ha-ha, coming...Lauren looked around, discreetly, turning her head first right, then left.

Just a row or two in front, or somewhere along the side...somewhere – ah, again. The disruption was quite unsettling. There. The offender. A row in front several seats along to the right. A woman. Young-ish. Lauren lent forward slightly...dark hair cut in a neat line below her ears. She was not alone. Next to her sat an older man, his white hair like crumpled gauze. Lauren held her breath, embarrassed on their behalf. Those sitting nearby had thrown irritated looks in their direction.

Hee-hee... Oh! Lauren’s heart skipped. A complex message was concealed in that jarring sound - who is she? The older man jerked towards his companion – so, he too was startled.

The bright theatrical sunspots bathed the stage, creating circles of white and gold and pale blue. The number was a witty duet. A handsome young hero and his voluptuous mistress rustled from one end of the proscenium arch to the other in folds of silk and satin. Laughter rolled through the theatre with the ease of a lapping wave. Lauren wriggled. Her date glanced at her... a brief flit of the eyes and a slight movement of the head. Concerned. She mouthed, ‘Sorry’. This was their sixth date. His name was Evan, and he loved musical comedy. Lauren had told him she tended to prefer Chekhov.

The following outburst was much softer, and consisted of part hoot, part giggle. It stopped abruptly when the man touched her shoulder. Evan glanced in the girl’s direction, and tsked under his breath. Tsk tsk to you, Lauren thought. They had been introduced by a colleague, a woman who thought they had a lot in common.

The girl was much younger than her companion, by several generations even. Quite suddenly, she emitted a deep sigh, as if all air was leaving her, and leaned into him, utterly deflated. Were they lovers? The thought came upon Lauren in a flash, and caused her to change position again so that she could get a better view. Are you ok? whispered Evan out of the side of his mouth, spraying her cheek with tiny droplets of spit. Yes, sorry, don’t mean to, Lauren whispered back. She was a client of the arts promotion company for which Evan worked. They had been instantly attracted to one another. Out of the corner of her eye, Lauren scanned his profile. Angular. Small jut of the chin. Nervy.

The play was dancing along, and the songs came belting from the stage, each tune a snappy composition. The atmosphere was infused with merriment. The girl’s laugh was coming more rapidly now, almost in sync with those around, but much more quietly too…was she running out of steam, disenchanted with this lark? But no, she turned around and gazed unseeingly into the dark space. A small look of delight spread across her face. Her very pretty face. Artless. Big dark eyes, clean elegant small chin, tilted up towards her small straight nose. I do so want to please, her looks said…I do so want to please you, her body added. To please him? Lauren wondered. She considered the man: he appeared big, bulky; although it was difficult for Lauren to be certain about this. His jacket appeared to be tweed. A cravat poked above the collar. Clearly, he was not amused by the frolics on stage.

At the interval Lauren stayed in her seat because they did. Evan wandered into the lobby to get an ice-cream. ‘Sure you don’t want one? Dinner’s a way off.’ No, she wouldn’t, and patted her stomach with a girlish laugh.

Lauren watched her couple. They were chatting though she couldn’t hear exactly what was being said. Then the girl stood up, and both Lauren and the man admired her slim long line. The word tailored occurred to Lauren but she dismissed it, no, not quite…there was a coltish quality...she might have been somewhere in her twenties, with a face that seemed at once younger than that and yet, also, quite…knowing. Lauren assumed she was at least ten years older, yet something in the nonchalant manner of the younger woman made Lauren feel naïve, as if she had yet to experience something of vital importance in her life.

The girl leaned on the back of a seat, legs slightly splayed like a boy, and her dark eyes fluttered from him to the clusters of people moving up and down the aisles. She caught Lauren’s eye, and Lauren smiled, a spark of intimacy. The girl returned it, with a hint of disdain. She must know I have been watching her and she would not like that, thought Lauren. She has built her identity on making herself, if not exactly invisible, then irrelevant to the crowd; and now I have violated her with my curiosity. And to her, she wondered, what was this crowd…this large mass of living, chattering, breathing human matter…

The stream of audience grew thicker. They must have rung the end of interval bell. Lauren pulled her knees up, twisting to one side to let Evan pass and take up his seat.
- People seem to be enjoying it, he commented. It was a preview night, for which Evan had been given complimentary tickets. Real buzz in the air, he continued, looking around.
- Hmm, she rearranged herself. Now the old man was standing too, a hand in his trouser pocket. He was looking straight at Lauren who tugged her skirt down to her knees in embarrassment. Had he seen her underwear? His eyes were green; they were surprising, not for any extraordinary depth of expression or shock of colour but because they were not blue. In the murkiness of the first half, Lauren had imagined him with blue eyes, watered down and sad, old man eyes. Now, seeing the careful movement of his smile, she knew this man was used to being watched, like someone famous.
- I think she’s excellent, the lead, what’s her name, Evan flicked through the programme.
- Yes, very engaging. Lauren wondered if he was a politician or a writer.
- You’re enjoying it? Evan turned to her with a broad grin which reflected perfectly a nervous inclination to optimism. Lauren suppressed a twinge of irritation.
- Charming, she murmured.

Her old man jiggled the change in his pocket. Familiar, yes, but perhaps it was simply a face that conjured childhood memories of grand old men with white hair and twinkling eyes, like Santa or God, though this old man was slightly bent as if he lived in a place where a strong wind always blew.
- I think it’s a pastiche of a 1930s musical. Evan was eager to discuss it,
warmed by her apparent interest.
She nodded. Not now, Lauren thought, later, over dinner we’ll chat, and he can give me a comprehensive account of the play, and I’ll listen, I really will. She could be a good listener, and, gradually, she would be persuaded by his enthusiasm.

Lauren leaned forward in an exaggerated manner, her arms on the back of the seat in front. She could just pick up their conversation without appearing to eavesdrop. The girl was chattering about whether our hero would fall for his mousy heiress; or would she wise up to the fraud perpetrated by her handsome prince? Lauren wanted to jump in, oh surely the mistress would win the day! Her charm is splendidly vulgar, her desire so brazen. But, her response might be, the wife is so sweet, so pure, so… harmless. And you, are you his wife, you who are so young, so sweet, is this man standing next to you with unequivocal green eyes and commanding profile yours?

He grunted, seemingly unaware of the hidden message in her babble, the desperation implicit in the rub of her head against his shoulder. Lauren wanted to shake him –
Damn you! You bastard, love her! In his stance was written decades, centuries even, of learning. As they sat down, Lauren was relieved to see him run a finger across her cheek. It was a tender gesture, almost paternal. An old family friend had once done something similar to her.

Maybe this aged man in silk foulard and sports jacket was her father. If he was, the distance between them would have opened up during her childhood. She would have been a lonely, scurrilous tom boy, half defiant, half pleading, a mystery and a nuisance to her glamorous, remote parents. Was he madly in love with her mother, a late marriage, a second wife, much younger even?

Or were they lovers? Lauren wanted them to be. She relished the image of his tough old flesh cushioned between her young thighs, holding on for dear life…Lauren imagined that for those private hours, he was bewitched and grateful, ridden with desire and the sheer astonishment of her youth.

The safety screen was raised, the lights dimmed, the orchestra struck up, and the curtain opened on a party. Chandeliers sparkled; long men in polished black dinner suits swaggered; women, effervescent in gold and silver, shimmered next to them. They sang and waltzed in swirling circles round and round the stage. Evan might have a point about musical comedies, Lauren conceded silently. It was all so lovely, so much

…fun. She giggled. Evan turned to her, a broadening smile once again animating his face. Lauren had been known to snort during moments of peak drama, but, tonight, tonight...oh…she squeezed his hand. He returned it, a strong crisp grip.

The young woman (or was she really a girl, Lauren couldn’t quite make up her mind) put her arm loosely around the shoulders of the old man (but he wasn’t really old). She was so eager to infect him with cheerfulness, with her pleasure at being on this Saturday night in a fashionable off-Broadway theatre participating in its magic…Lauren could feel the high spirits seeping into her. The girl swiveled from him – ah, a peck on his cheek – to the stage, then a quick look round at the audience, then back to him, and there, a pat on his back. Look, aren’t we all having a grand time, isn’t it good to be alive?

Lauren touched Evan’s hand, stroked the cup of his palm…and she willed the old man to respond to the girl, to run his finger down her cheek again. Evan pressed his fingertips to the inside of Lauren’s thigh. She crossed her legs to avert any further come-on, to stem the desire that had flared up in her. Later.

The play was galloping to a flamboyant finale – staccato duets, rip-roaring action. The hero and his sweet heroine were falling in love; the dastardly mistress was being swept aside, eyes flashing and voice on full throttle. The old man was surrendering to the gaiety. His shoulders jigged. And finally there came a belly laugh. His thaw was not the languid melt of an ice-cube on a summer’s day; rather it was the judder of ice taking leave of its berg in the warming current of a spring floe. He had no wish to leave the comfort of this frozen place, he simply couldn’t help himself. Her draped arm circled in on him, and as the play raced to a climax, Lauren could feel the girl’s will to love was gaining ground.

And then abruptly, he stood. In front of him on stage, under the glow of a silver round moon, our hero and heroine were singing a gentle tune, wrapped in each other’s arms. The audience was silent, rapt in these final moments of poignancy. The old man was creating a kerfuffle in the small area around his seat…shush! He persisted and motioned the girl to follow him. Flustered, they scrambled along the row to the right, away from Lauren.

Lauren jumped up, and pushed her way to the central aisle. There were grunts and harrumphs, but she didn’t care.

They had disappeared through the exit at the top of the theatre. Hurry, Lauren thought, or I will miss them. Damn you woman, move your bag. Ooh, she almost tripped over sprawled legs. Then she was clear. She ran to the lobby – just in time to see them push through the front doors of the theatre into the cold night.

She was right on their heels. The passenger door of the taxi slammed shut and the cab pulled into traffic, its left indicator blinking. Round the corner and – they were gone.

Light flakes had begun to fall, covering the sidewalk in a delicate film of white. The soft wet snow dissolved on Lauren’s flushed cheeks. She was breathing heavily.

She returned to the lobby. Alone again, save for a couple of ushers gossiping in a corner. Suddenly, Lauren felt so tired she was afraid she might sink slowly to the ground. Little tears of melted snow rolled off her chin.

And he came back to her, handsome and cheerful, down the years. It was a long and delicate face, set off by high cheekbones. Ah, my Tartar ancestors, he would joke, nose in the air to show off those bones, and then he would run his hand through a tuft of curly brown hair, always slightly tousled, even in later years when it began to recede. You look exactly like a mathematics professor, her father would tease. That’s because I am, he would retort, a typical joust in their friendship which had dated back to way before Lauren was born, to a time just after he’d escaped as a boy from Stalin’s Russia, and her father from Franco’s Spain, to wash up on the east coast of America. And he would chuckle… such a sweet noise.

He lived across the continent to Lauren and her family, on the other coast, California. Hal, her father would chide, Hal what are you doing there in all that sunshine? You should be here with us, in these dark, crowded streets. I like the palm trees, he’d reply indignant. They are strong and green, and they don’t ever die. He rolled the r of ever-rr for special emphasis, traces of his mysterious accent still audible.

He was the first adult Lauren saw cry. She was about six or seven at the time, hiding behind the kitchen door because she couldn’t sleep, late one night in their small suburban home. Hal had arrived unexpectedly that morning looking very unhappy. His girlfriend had left him. Don’t worry, she heard her mother comfort, a hint of exasperation in her voice, don’t worry, there will be others, you will find another. Lauren peeked through the opening of the kitchen door, and saw tears coursing down his beautiful cheeks as he slumped at the table. With a child’s uncanny sense of doom she thought it was much more than a silly girlfriend that was causing these tears to flow. Risking her parents’ wrath, she had skittered into the kitchen, jumped onto his lap, and had given him what had felt like the strongest hug of her short life. She still remembered the feeling of his wet nose on her small neck, burrowing for solace.

And there they were again. Lauren was fifteen, decked out in jeans and short t-shirt, on her way to a first date. And he had walked through the front door, swinging his familiar battered leather suitcase, and exclaimed in surprise on seeing her, what a woman, my god, you will one day rule the world! Followed by an appraising look and stern advice, remember they are a bunch of sniveling cowards, these young boys. Delivered with that sweet chuckle.

Summer. Lauren was just home from university. It had been hot and humid, a thunderstorm minutes away. She was stretched out on the hammock in the screened porch, too lazy to move, half-asleep. Even the birds had fallen silent. She did not know how long he had been watching her and whether he had intended to do anything. She doubted it. He was too correct. He bent down beside the hammock and murmured, Lauren, lovely Lauren, and then, in an even lower voice, how the young can be so indolent, so carefree. And gently pushed a curl off her forehead, damp with sweat. It was only a look between them, a second, perhaps two or three. Not more. It was enough. It never crossed her mind they could actually be lovers. She had been too young, too conventional. He had been too old, too responsible. Three years later he was dead. Road accident. And then just like that it was too late.

The front of house doors opened and people poured into the lobby, pulling on coats, stuffing programmes into bags. Evan appeared, looking anxiously at the milling crowd. She waved her hand, attracting his attention. Inexplicably, she was just so very happy to see him emerging from the horde, so lively and attentive and handsome. He waved back, with a small look of relief, and made his way to where she stood, her coat in a

bundle on the floor. He picked it up, and helped her into it. He did not make any comment about her sudden exit from the auditorium, just ‘You OK?’ She laced her arm through his, and said, ‘Let’s eat’. He hesitated, ‘You sure?’ She nodded. ‘It was a good play. Thank you.’ Reassured, he clasped her arm tightly to his body, and together, they went out into the slowly falling snow.

Day Ten

2009-07-23T04:43:00.000-07:00

There is an irritant about maintaining a blog. It comes from an expectation that you produce something on a regular basis, if you don't you'll disappear. This expectation - which is both self-motivated and a constituent of blogging - provokes a kind of self-exasperation. Repetition is almost unavoidable, of expressions, phrases and tone, if not always of subject. Rather like life, it stretches out in front of you, murky and shapeless.

Reactions to events, to people, and ideas define moments. Big events - the kind which turn you in a very unexpected direction - offer a kind of narrative. Such is Life.

If you write prose, you work within the conventions of a structure. An architecture. For example, when you set out to write an essay, you first establish a premiss, which is then explored through a series of arguments, references and reflections to arrive at some kind of conclusion. Which may well be open-ended. In a piece of fiction, whether it's a short story, novella or novel, you create and populate a world in which things happen - either inside the characters' heads or in the fictional world you've created, generally a mixture of both. Language is the medium. Grammar is the tool.

Unlike Life, and unlike, it seems to me, a blog, there is a shaping which carries the writer through this process. Even if conventions relating to plot and character are subverted - if 'experimental' or 'avant-garde' is your chosen style - there continues to be a structure, a logic, a set of loose rules, which drive the work. In an essay, the subversion seems to occur around the authorial 'I', the distinction betwee the subjective and the world of fact, of what is known. The more you know about how to manipulate these different forms, these conventions - about what is possible - the more stimulating, or accomplished, or achieved, a piece might be. The knowledge - call it skill, perhaps talent - allows you to play. The performance becomes more interesting. And this is only the starting point.

All of which, again, returns me to the questions about discipline, the editor, the critic. The imagination.

Day Eight

2009-07-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

Very few words today. But I have noticed mistakes in last blog. Where did the word 'infective' come from? It's a combination of infectious - which is the word I meant to use - and effective, which is a way in which one could think about the behaviour of a virus.
And then there's the inappropriate 'it's', rather than its. Which again begs the question about editors, and, also, time. The importance of taking time to write, to think, to revise. Cascading words are rarely interesting. Was it Balzac who once apologized to a friend for having written such a long letter, having not had time to write a short one?

Day Seven

2009-07-20T03:22:00.000-07:00

I have already read too many eclectic clusters of words this morning to feel energetic enough to write a blog. It is curious thing: rather like being confronted with miles of shelves in an American supermarket, the lively choice of produce drains all energy. Engenders a kind of passivity. I skim and skip across blogs and websites. All of which offer an appetizing array of tidbits. School for Life and it's Life Class blog, for example. PEN's Atlas, as another. The absence of depth, of course. The same old chestnut. However, I also wonder whether there is something in this world of words that mimics, in some way, the behaviour of a virus. It's infective quality. Words beget words.An unstoppable spread. And this leads me to the question: if I didn't live now - in our Times - would I have been lead to write myself? Is the proliferation of creative writing mirrored in the spread of words online? But you feel quite exhausted, gloomy; creaking with aches and an outpouring of bile.
Silence.

Day Four

2009-07-17T02:23:00.000-07:00

There are certain themes taking shape as I write this.
Ideas about the blog, about writing in blogosphere.

So. Around the collapse between private and public - bearing in mind that performance is a factor in any writing. What distinguishes private performance, or the act of writing in private, by which I mean for no readership, or for a chosen readership, whereby you own the scribbling and there is mediated control of it; from the act of writing in the public domain, whereby you don't necessarily own the scribbling (copyright, as we know, has been turned upside down as both a concept and a piece of legislation) and nothing stands between you and a readership.

It is possible we now live in an era of complete collapse between self-interest and a so-called common good: most individuals are incapable of making a distinction between what benefits herself and what might be for a greater good. Where the understanding and experience of the impersonal has been eroded, and whereby many individuals are deluded about their own self-interest, mistaking their own good for a larger one - of the polity, whatever form that may take. In political terms, this leaves no room for a politician whose personal interests and ambitions might be able to reach beyond the personal. The trashing of all elites - the deconstruction of all ideologies - has left us without any trust, or respect for those who might be in a position to take any particular group, any private interest group - beyond themselves. At first, this seemed like a grand thing. Dispel with elites, empower the individual. Strip out ideology. Replace it with a kindly social therapy. 'Everyone gets to have a say. Everyone is as important, valued, smart, as the next.' Real Democratic expression.

Slavoy Zizek's sense is that the Western democratic liberal world is slipping fast towards an authoritarian capitalism (witness rise of Berlusconi). Critical to capitalism is, obviously the m arket, and the ability to 'sell'. Sell products, ideas, individuals. No surprise that our new model is a media tycoon. Selling requires what we now understand to be 'marketing'. A particular form of seduction that is based on an entirely non-critical language.

And how does this relate to the blogosphere? Again and again, we are told how blogging is inherently democratic. That is possibly true. But, if, like me, you are concerned with writing as an artform, with that utterly debased, elitist term literature, then what? And, this again, comes back to the question of the editor, the critic. Vs the marketer.

Gatekeeper is a word often used when referring to cyberspace. There are gatekeepers, hidden, on this blog. They will shut me down if I use obscenity, promote pornography, and other such indecent things. A gate suggests there is an inside and an outside. That you are allowed in, or kept out. As far as I'm aware this revolves entirely around ideas of sexual deviancy.
The editor, however, is someone who does something very different.
And there are no good editors without good critics. There are no good writers without good critics. Editors and critics, at their best - I'm tempted to qualify this by adding 'in days of old' - were part of an elite. And what they did, at their best, was to bring their considerable erudition and passion to the work of writers, to help raise that work beyond the personal sphere of the writer, to a great beyond. to use powers of persuasion and critical analysis.

Day Three

2009-07-16T05:54:00.001-07:00

Does the question of style have any place in discussions about the value, purpose or place of the blog? Has it led to a new writing, even a new literary form? If one thinks about all these different forms - the oral, the narrative poem, the epistolary, the diary, the journal, the novel, the short story, the fragment, the prose poem, the monologue, the soliloquy, the essay, the news story, the press release, the feature - all of which, I think, incorporate the relationship between a subjective 'I', an authorial 'I', and a notional reader, the listener - the framing is crucial, and the tone in which somehting is expressed is critical in some way to how and what it is that is being done. These things - frame, style, form - are like a neon sign: they tell you in glaring short-hand what to expect, they help you make a choice.
So, a blog and its style. It's easy to say that it can be anything you like it to be. Like the one you're reading - except in this case, my blog, there is no 'you', the reader, because it's highly unlikely that anyone will stumble across this unless I do all the necessary marketing to make sure you do - so this one, my blog, is a mixture of chit chat, essay, diary, notebook and letter. Its closest relative is however, the chit chat: a kind of breezy chattering through the keyboard onto a screen.
Most blogs aimed at a readership are written, as far as my limited research indicates, in the style of a marketing newsletter. Even those written by individuals - writers, artists, politicians, journalists - who are not doing it as part of their job.
This does say something, i believe, important about online communication. About the collapse between the private and public. About Foucault's panoptic.
And takes me back to the important question - important to me that is because this is, after all, my blog - the central question about what happens to good serious literature. The great writing. Not the bulk of stuff which is published, and which, indeed, even wins prizes. Although, as if has often been argued, only a handful of really good books are published in any given decade (Coetzee, in my lifetime being one writer whose work is astonishing), what happens when the cultural conditions change to such an extent that the likelihood of really great literature continuing to be produced is small?
Which brings me back to the question about value, judgement. Editor. Filter. Champion. Critic.

Day Two

2009-07-15T03:43:00.000-07:00

Another way of viewing the blogosphere is as a vast machinery of self-promotion. I am real. I am here. I am visible. LISTEN TO ME. Has Nietzchean ressentiment become so absorbed into our culture, our constructions of an identity, of our relationship to hierarchy and power, and has individualism been driven to such a modern consumerist limit that such a thing as ressentiment stops being a useful description? Another phrase which comes to mind is amour propre. Somehow the French is more expressive, carrying with it an appropriate petulance: the vanity of the bourgeous, the employee, the citizen, the cog.

A blog is also, of course, a form of publishing. The button on this blog tells me to publish my post when it's written. And there is value in this description. It assumes a readership. And an expectation of a readership might impose a discipline. This is where the blogosphere confronts another kind of paradox. Everyone can be published, can be heard, can be read, make a mark. Yet there are so many bloggers and the nature of it is so immediate - hence the likening of it with the diary form - that most, the vast majority, are anonymous. But, still, might there be a discipline in being overheard? Does this apply to those who appear on reality television? Do they remember they are always on camera? or does their sense of being in the world absorb quickly the fact of being watched so there ceases to be a distinction between the private self and the persona of someone who is watched by many strangers. If I blog enough, will I forget that what I write exists in the public domain. Will I lose the discipline of communication.

Editing. Editors. A filter. Judgement. What happened to them?

Day one

2009-07-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

I was told to set up a web site. To be considered a real person. It's cheaper to start a blog. So here it is. What is a blog. I've been told it offers a 'new way of performing the self.' It is not a diary. It does not belong to me. If it were, what I wrote would my property. But this scribbling belongs to....Google, I assume. It is also not a diary because it is not private. I wonder if upcoming generations understand the meaning of privacy. I wonder if they will ever have the experience of privacy.
I am reading the Bible, the St James version. I'm reading it for research. I have not read any part of it since my youth. What is most striking is the cryptic nature of the utterances. The language is hypnotic and slippery. Repetition and nonsense. Which again leads me to the question: how, really, how can people believe? The need, the search, for emotional solace is a factor. Nietzche was articulate about this. And in his writings, throughout, you feel a strong, urgent yearning in him that humans might be more than they are, might rise to some challenge of being human in a world where there is no reference to the great Almighty. That day will never come. That much is clear. Beyond emotional solace churns a strong desire for ritual and ceremony. No doubt, many scholars, theologians, psychologists, anthropologists and philosophers might argue that religion is exactly that: the practice of rituals. And through this practice, something happens that takes you outside of yourself. Dancing does the same. Until self-consciousness interrupts.