Tag: literature

I always thought the choice was mine
And I was right, but I just chose wrong
I start the day lying and end with the truth
That I’m dying for the knife

—

”Working for the Knife” by Mitski

###

“The history of mankind in four words…”
“Mimi nyama, wewe kisu. I’m the meat, you’re the knife.”

—

“I’m the Meat, You’re the Knife” by Paul Theroux

There’s no reason why the black American, who is also an American, like all other Americans, and brought up in this sphere of violence which is the main sphere of American detective stories, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t write them. It’s just plain and simple violence in narrative form, you know. ‘Cause no one, no one, writes about violence the way that Americans do.

From Conversations with Chester Himes

There’s no reason why the black American, who is also an American, like all other Americans, and brought up in this sphere of violence which is the main sphere of American detective stories, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t write them. It’s just plain and simple violence in narrative form, you know. ‘Cause no one, no one, writes about violence the way that Americans do.

From Conversations with Chester Himes

The symbolic level

I began the year 2020 with the intent to read all twenty-two of the books in the Boss Fight Books series. The anthology features a different author for each book, and each book is ostensibly about a specific video game. I have completed three of the books so far: EarthBound by Ken Baumann, Chrono Trigger by Michael P. Williams, and ZZT by Anna Anthropy. I am in the middle of Galaga by Michael Kimball. The authors’ names are important because as much as the books are about those video games (they are explained in detail), they are also about the authors themselves. The style of the writing in these books is what I came to know as confessional writing, the type of vulnerable and honest literature I once associated with my favorite authors here on Tumblr, and which I haphazardly engaged in. I saw many of those authors move on to write excellent essays focused on their personal experiences with film at Bright Wall/Dark Room, which still publishes issues to this day. There have also been projects by creators like Katie West that bring together writers who’ve come up on platforms such as this. It’s a thrill to see that the legacy is carried on and now proven to be a viable option for full-length book explorations that are focused on video games.

My career in video games has spanned fifteen years and dozens of projects. I’ve been dutifully invested in literature as a creative medium during that time, but I’ve always struggled to marry these two important aspects of my life. You know, to explain and expound upon video games in a way I thought would be meaningful, like the excellent writings from Patrick right here on our beloved Tumblr. I was always too scattered to make the effort but felt that there is something important to be written about video games in relation to who we are, who I am. It’s a prism through which I want to be broken into my constituent parts. I see now that I was right, that it is possible, but question whether I can make it happen. I’ve been working on some writings since last year but they’re dry and empty of the rich vulnerability I see in the books from Boss Fight. For now, I read and hope. At the very least, I am so fucking inspired. The authors are amazing.

One of the early book-length explorations of a single video game is 2013′s Killing is Harmless by Brendan Keogh. I just bought it and hope to read it later in the year. Addressing whether it’s worthwhile to look so deeply into video games that don’t necessarily lend themselves to such analysis, Keogh wrote, “now I look back at my whole ‘reading into’ of the game on a symbolic level and I just sort of cringe.” Sometimes I worry about the same thing. These creations are products, things to be sold for a profit and disposable after they’ve generated their revenue. Are they worth such scrutiny and critical investment? But then I see the hundreds of classes dedicated to analyzing Shakespeare and wonder if that’s any more worthwhile. I’m willing to gaze at my navel for a while, to really mine for that vein of vulnerability and find out.

Men, Writing, Etc.

plaidadder:

So, while for some reason everyone here is engulfed in one of tumblr’s periodic debates about whether or how to police writing done largely by women for women for free, in the world of contemporary fiction there’s a meltdown going on right now over men who get paid for writing literature, and the men who give them money and prizes for it.

Specifically, Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her, has been accused by multiple Latina writers of a wide range of asshole behavior toward them, ranging from sexual assault to verbal abuse to deliberately trying to destroy the careers of women who challenged him on any of it. This story is complicated by the fact that Diaz recently published an essay in The New Yorker in which he writes about being sexually abused as a child and the effect it had on his sexual and romantic life as an adult. It’s a good essay, and it was greeted with universal admiration; but now, the possibility arises that it may have been an attempt to pre-empt the critique he knew was coming. Mary Karr has also pointed out that Diaz is more vulnerable to these charges because he’s Latino; the literary world has known for years that Karr was abused and stalked by David Foster Wallace, author of the critically acclaimed mega-novel Infinite Jest, who suffered no consequences fbecause, Karr says, Wallace was white. For all of these reasons, it’s worth pointing out up front that what Diaz is charged with doing is not unique amongst contemporary American male writers; and when you go farther back in time, things get worse. Just off the top of my head, William S. Burroughs shot and killed his wife Joan Vollmer and Ernest Hemingway was an abusive husband. 

Below, I’m going to talk about men, writing, and the history of contempt for not only women writers but women readers.

Keep reading

Men, Writing, Etc.

plaidadder:

So, while for some reason everyone here is engulfed in one of tumblr’s periodic debates about whether or how to police writing done largely by women for women for free, in the world of contemporary fiction there’s a meltdown going on right now over men who get paid for writing literature, and the men who give them money and prizes for it.

Specifically, Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her, has been accused by multiple Latina writers of a wide range of asshole behavior toward them, ranging from sexual assault to verbal abuse to deliberately trying to destroy the careers of women who challenged him on any of it. This story is complicated by the fact that Diaz recently published an essay in The New Yorker in which he writes about being sexually abused as a child and the effect it had on his sexual and romantic life as an adult. It’s a good essay, and it was greeted with universal admiration; but now, the possibility arises that it may have been an attempt to pre-empt the critique he knew was coming. Mary Karr has also pointed out that Diaz is more vulnerable to these charges because he’s Latino; the literary world has known for years that Karr was abused and stalked by David Foster Wallace, author of the critically acclaimed mega-novel Infinite Jest, who suffered no consequences fbecause, Karr says, Wallace was white. For all of these reasons, it’s worth pointing out up front that what Diaz is charged with doing is not unique amongst contemporary American male writers; and when you go farther back in time, things get worse. Just off the top of my head, William S. Burroughs shot and killed his wife Joan Vollmer and Ernest Hemingway was an abusive husband. 

Below, I’m going to talk about men, writing, and the history of contempt for not only women writers but women readers.

Keep reading