Johathan Lethem, "Narrowing Valley" and the Woketariat

 At the bottom of the preceding post -- Marisa Silver's "Tiny, Meaningless Things ... " --  I talk about a relatively new class of society: the woketariat. In a nutshell, these are people for whom political correctness trumps other values.

Johathan Lethem, the author of the Oct. 24, 2022 (electronic edition) New Yorker short story "Narrowing Valley" is a professor of creative writing at Pomona College, an award-winning writer and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" fellowship.  He's also arguably a member of the wokerati, or the woketariat.

"Narrowing Valley" is a story about an earlier story and it's laced with cultural references, presumably giving it a writerly quality. A potentially dramatic denoument is in the offing, but the tale never gets there. It just ends.  

Therein lies what Lethem suggests may be the real tale: the state of prevailing political correctness and what he clearly feels is his obligaton to toe the line.

The problem is this: the presumably dramatic denouement would involve an Indian, or Native American, man as a key protagonist  -- and for a white male to create such a character would, in Lethem's world, constitute cultural misappropriation.

Just imagine the flap that could ensue,and the possible adverse consequences for Lethem himself, given that cancel cuturse has far less to do with culture than it has to do sociopolitical power and who gets to hold desireable jobs.

In the usual New Yorker author interview, Lethem says he's enmeshed in conversations with students and colleagues on a daily basis as to what is permissible in the current environment. "This story's hesitation, precisely at the limit of a willinness to invent a Native character to advance its cause, is informed by it," he said, adding: "I don't mean that as a defense, but I hope it might be a useful description."

Elsewhere in the intereview, Lethem says: "The tone I struck here -- that of nervous guilty riffing in the treacherous realm of 'appropriation' -- may seem almost to beg a reader's own anxieties into play. Or a readers's condemnation. That risk is one of the subjects of the story, really."

Nominally, this is a tale about a whilte family about to attempt to occupy some desert land purchased from a "Realtor"  sight unseen. But the land has a history and apparently wasn't the "Realtor's" to sell. Rather, it is Native American land and so the story is "headed into crsis" because the white family in question, traveling west in a Winabago, must meet an Indian.

Sounds like an interesting exchange of views, or more likely a clash of some sort, is in the offing, but, alas, no. Lethem simply can't bring himself to "appropriate" the Native American protagonist. So the story ends abruptly (as many New yorker short stories seem to), in a casino -- on Indian land, of course. Ironic -- get it?

Good thing Alfred Uhry was't Lethem or we wouldn't have "Driving Miss Daisy." Altenarively, good thing DuBose Hewward or Ira Gershshwin wasn't Lethem or we wouldn't have "Porgy and Bess." And so forth and so on..

Within "Narrowing Valley," Lethem refers to a white make writer as "another exemplar of the Exhausted Normative."  In other worlds, "please take me out into a pasture and shoot me. Liberate that Pomona creating writing post and award it to someone far more worthy." Hmmm. would the new occupant be able to write a story involving a white male, or does cultural misappropriation go only in one direction?

I will have more to say on wokerati-type issues in due course.

 

Marisa Silver's "Tiny, Meaningless Things" and the Precariat

"She eats less now than she used to, but she hasn’t got used to grocery shopping with that in mind. She watches the women who roam the aisles gripping baskets barely weighted with a single chicken breast, two oranges, a child-sized carton of milk meant for lunchboxes. Walking advertisements for precarity."

That's from Marisa Silver's story "Tiny, Meaningless Things" in the Oct. 24, 2022 print edition of The New Yorker.  It's about a 74-year-old widow who lives by herself after a short-lived second marriage and who has a difficult time connecting with or relating two her adult daughters, and vice versa. 

The Blogger spell checker didn't like the word "precarity" in the paragraph above and probably not without reason.  Although it is a perfectly legitimate word, it's not a word one hears bandied about much. I'm not sure I've ever come across it in a text previously and I read a lot. 

Dictionary.com defines precarity as "a state of existence in which material provision and physiological wellness are adversely affected by a lack of regular or secure income." The Cambridge Dictionary simply calls it "the state of being uncertain or likely to get worse" or, alternatively, "a situation in which someone's job or career is always in danger of being lost." Other definitions are similar if stated in slightly different ways.

While "precarity" pretty much encapsulates the state of affairs in which readers find Evelyn, the protagonist of Ms Silver's well-crafted tale of what it's like to be an elderly woman whose grip on the world is slipping away, there is a problem with using such an unfamiliar term. I remember it more than I remember much else about the story.

Central to the tale is Evelyn's relationship with a young boy who lives with his family in another apartment in the same building. It seems to have developed both as a result of idle curiosity on the part of the boy and because Evelyn is overjoyed to discover someone actually has an interest in her. No surprise: it doesn't end particularly well when, arguably with Evelyn's encouragement the boy begins testing certain boundaries. 

In her New Yorker author interview, Ms Silver says she doesn't know why Scotty, the young boy, did what he did, but that he would probably say "Because I wanted to,"  Well, maybe. Children test boundaries and if Scotty, at age seven, could be candid, he would instead say "Because I could."

If it can be done, it will be done: that is a fundamental aspect of human nature.

But back to precarity: according to an entry in Wikipedia, around the year 2000. a version of the world -- the precariat -- gained currency in the global social justice movement to describe a class of people with no job security and no prospect of regular employment, presumably as a result of the ills of globalization.

This would be a class lower than the proletariat -- a Marxist notion of people with jobs, but exploited by their capitalist employers such that they are unable to reap in full the rewards of the work they do under what is known as the labor theory of value.

More recently, we've also begun hearing about the woketariat, or a class of people devoted to pushing political correctness above all else.  They don't seem to be in jeopardy of much of anything as might be expected given the unassailable moral high ground they perceive themselves to be occupying.

 

"Come Softly to Me:" Ritual in a New Yorker Short Story

“A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence.” So says Wikipedia, adding that rituals are common to all known human societies.

What else? Well, among other things, many cultures have rites associated with death and mourning. And one of the many purposes of ritual is social control – such as keeping a family together when various members may be prone to go off in differing directions or have tensions or conflicts among themselves, one might imagine.

Sticking with Wikipedia, rituals generally involve the recitation of fixed texts, the performance of special music, the manipulation of certain objects and the use of special dresses. They are also typically formal, traditional and invariable. They are often characterized by careful choreography performed by groups.

I mention all of the above because that is what the Oct. 10, 2022 (online edition) New Yorker short story “Come Softly to Me,” by David Gilbert, is all about. In fact, readers will encounter pretty much all of the above in Gilbert’s generally well-drawn tale.

Lots of stories conform to one familiar formula or another. What makes them interesting – absent surprise endings -- is setting, character development and perhaps a subplot or two. In that context, a couple of Gilbert’s characters definitely tend to stick in one’s mind.

But the story, which involves an extended family, has a lot of characters and it can be difficult to follow or understand who is who until well into the piece. And for a fairly long short story, the ending is rather abrupt and unconvincingly mystical, given the participants. But endings are rarely easy: I suppose the hardest part of flying a plane is bringing it in for a satisfactory landing (before the age of computers, that is).

Ben Okri's "The Secret Source" Takes the Easy Way Out

 Ben Okri's short story "The Secret Source" in the Sept. 12, 2022 online version of The New Yorker is an interesting read -- until he gets to the conclusion. There, shifting gears from a disturbingly, all-too-plausible conspiracy theory centering on water shortages, readers are left with a fairy tale non-finish.

In the usual New Yorker author interview, Okri claims the ending is valid because reality is ambiguous. Thus, it's up to the reader to interpret the abrupt, fantasy-world conclusion it in a fashion that is "true for you."

This reminds me of the proverbial tale of attending an exhibition of abstract art with the artist present.  Looking at one piece, someone tells the artist: "I really like it, but what does it mean?"

"It means whatever it means to you," the artist responds.  

If you like that sort of thing, you'll probably like Okri's effort, but to me, he simply takes the easy way out. The story, strongly reminiscent of George Orwell's "1984" in the sense that remote, anonymous government authorities bent on nothing but staying in control have found ways to quash all significant dissent as conditions worsen. And just as in Orwell's story, there are truth seeking protagonists, but too far on the fringes of society to have much clout, and increasingly at risk as they attempt to press ahead.

Okri, in the interview, suggests a number of possibly interpretative routes for the end of his tale. Too bad he didn't use his considerable powers of prose to spin one out. 

Art, Receptivity and Bold Face Names

 The April 24, 2022 issue of "T, The New York Times Stye Magazine," is supposed to be all about creativity, but much of it is little more than a list of Bold Face Names such as one might find in a high school newspaper. Various names one might know from one branch of the arts or another have either been persuaded or paid (I'm not sure which) to offer snippets, or as much as several paragraphs, of advice to young artists, most of whom are probably not readers of "T."

Much of the advice is, well, fairly pedestrian or predictable in nature. Glancing through it, one is tempted to conclude that a person is by nature inclined to the arts, or not. If you are, one way or another -- and it appears there are as many ways as there are artists -- persevere. 

In her introduction, "T's" chief editor, Hanya Yanagihara, made an interesting observation: "art demands a state of receptivity." While it isn't totally clear what she has in mind there -- it seems she's talking about receptivity on the part of the artist herself lest the creative process not work -- I think there is another way of looking at it.

It's a bit like the classic question: does a tree make any noise as it falls in a forest if no one is there to hear it? (I'm sure science would claim to be able to answer that one definitively, but that's not what I have in mind.)  Rather, the question is: if a person creates a work of art and there is no receptivity on the part of the public, is it really art?

All too often, it seems, money is a proxy for validation. If a book, or painting, sells, it's valid. If it doesn't, well perhaps that proves it's "worthless" not just as an article of commerce, but in terms of its aesthetic qualities as well.  Then, of course, there are the storied artists ignored or rejected in their lifetimes, only to be acclaimed after their deaths at which point others manage to reap the monetary rewards. 

"No one's opinion about you or your art should matter more than your own," intones Ms Yanagihara -- a little homily if ever there was one. In one reading, it could be viewed as profound (if commonplace) wisdom. On the other, it could be viewed as another way of believing "it's all about me" -- one of the curses of contemporary life.

Then Ms Yanagihara goes on to assert: "You have to finish at some point. The people who get published aren't necessarily the most brilliant writers. The ones who get published are the ones who complete their work." 

While some clearly recognizable form of completion suitable for an article of commerce is no doubt essential in that context, such isn't the case if commercial success isn't required.

In the case of aesthetics alone, a creative endeavor is finished when the intent of the artist has been realized  -- or if that word calls into question "just who is an artist? -- the intent of the creator. Hopefully the creator will then experience a sense of satisfaction whether "receptivity" rears its head or not.

"Art is created in front of the easel, but it's just as often made while gardening or waiting for the subway or sitting on a park bench," Ms Yanagihara said. If so, there is arguably no need for her issue of Bold Face Names, except, of course, as a vehicle for glossy, expensive ads for Canali suits and Rolex watches. Just the thing for young artists.

Thoughts about the Opera "Blue" You Won't Find Elsewhere

 The most poignant -- and disappointing -- moment for me when attending a recent performance of the contemporary opera "Blue" was near the end when the unnamed Mother gets up out of her seat in what is presumably a church and walks over to stand one last time at the coffin of her son.

"At last, an aria," I thought. This is the moment she is going to actually sing a song -- a musical tour de force through her thoughts and emotions -- highly memorable melodies requiring exemplary vocal technique, in the finest tradition of opera. The sort of thing that leaves one exclaiming in due course:  "wasn't she fabulous!"

But, no, just more of the same bits and pieces of often almost recitative-like vocalization, occasionally soaring with the continuous orchestration into one variety of crescendo or another.

While I'm sure she didn't do it, I can just see Briana Hunter, who sang the role of The Mother, down on her knees, begging librettist and director Tazewell Thompson and composer Jeanine Tesori "please, please, please, let me SING!" My heart goes out to her, as would have those of Handel and Mozart.

But that's where it's at these days in contemporary opera: "Singing? What's that? Some sort of distraction." I can hear Thompson and Tesori dismissing Hunter along those lines.

But what about the rest of "Blue," which I saw in a Seattle Opera production the other day. Widely praised, the almost entirely Black (librettist and performers) piece centers on the story of an angry and idealistic young Black man, the son of a police officer, being killed at what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration by another officer. He's an only child and beloved by his father despite sociopolitical differences and thus a sometimes tempestuous relationship.

While the race of the officer who kills The Son isn't identified in the program or promotional material, he's identified as white in the lyrics, giving the opera additional currency in the post-George Floyd era. But interestingly, The Father at one point bemoans the fact that his son was killed by one of his "brothers" on the police force. 

Young Black men are not always killed by white officers. Notably, in "Between the World and Me," Ta-Nehisi Coates relates the trauma he experienced when he learned that a man named Prince Jones he had apparently known at Howard University had been killed by a Black police officer in a jurisdiction controlled by Black politicians. And, according to Coates, the officer who supposedly mistook Prince for someone else was sent back to work.

Well, the first half of the opera, which runs for two hours not counting the intermission, is about the risks young men run being born Black in America and the second half opens with news of the death of The Son as a result of police violence, and of course the racial inequities of that in America.

But almost immediately thereafter, the opera changes course in a fashion that none of the reviews that I have read mention. Race relations fall into the background and what comes to the fore is religion -- Christianity in this case. What's at issue in the lengthy segment that follows news of the death is whether the Chruch, and a particular Reverend, can offer the family and eventually their friends any consolation. The message there is at best mixed.

This jumped out at me in part because I had just finished reading "On Consolation," subtitled "finding solace in dark times," by Michael Ignatieff.

His bottom line: "It is not doctrine that consoles us in the end, but people."

Perhaps in that vein, the final scene of the opera takes the form of a flashback to a family dinner at one point during which father, son and mother join hands at the table. Perhaps the audience is led to believe the Mother and Father are consoled more by such memories than by anything else.

"Jazz" by Toni Morrison

 I just finished the novel "Jazz" by Toni Morrison, the Nobel Prize-winning Black American novelist who died in 2019. She viewed the book as one member of a trilogy that began with the much better known "Beloved," which was set in the age of slavery.  In contrast, "Jazz" is set in Harlem in the 1920s, but with flashbacks to very rural Virginia in earlier years.

Briefly, the story is something of a puzzle that, based on reviews and analysis, no one seems to know precisely what Morrison had in mind. In a nutshell, it may be that love based on shared endeavors is stronger than sexual attraction, but not without plenty of trauma along with way. This reminds me of a view expressed explicitly by Thomas Hardy at the end of "Far from the Madding Crowd."

But for students of fiction, the book is interesting in a couple of ways: first for the manner in which Morrison shifts almost stealthily the point of view (POV) around, from individual characters to that of an unnamed and possibly unreliable narrator, and back. Second, there are portions of the writing that are more music to the ear than information to the mind, Jazz-like riffs on the scene, I sometimes thought. These lyrical passages can be rewarding for a patient reader, but not so much for one who isn't. 

Other positives about the book are good character development and a colorful view of life in Harlem when many Blacks were getting along reasonably well one way or the other and enjoying the freedom and excitement of life in a big city. Various atrocities by Whites against Blacks are referenced, but so is color prejudice among Blacks, a theme Morrison touched upon again toward the end of her writing career.