British Poetry Since 1970

Taking a break from Satanic Verses to read excerpts from Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970, an anthology edited by Richard Caddel and Peter Quartermain (a critic and poet who is British but lives in Vancouver and one of my favorite literary critics). Although I only gave you the selections of Bob Cobbing, Eric Mottram (another one of my favorite lit critics), and Denise Riley, I really a little more broadly in the anthology and would be willing to loan it to anyone who is interested in reading more. The introduction, for example, is not only a good survey of poetry from this period, it discusses some of the major issues and challenges dealt with by these writers all in the context of the larger tradition of British Literature that we've been discussing. I recommend it.

First, I must say that these poets write the kind of poetry that I love to write, read, and study. Some might call them "experimental," "innovative," or "radical," but I just call it my style. I myself have done somethings with language-as-object like Cobbing, trying to make a sculpture on the page. I'll try to remember to bring some to class. I also share the same influences and tradition that the poets in this volume claim, which is mostly of American extraction coming after modernists like Pound, HD, Williams, Zukofsky, and Stein. The reason why this volume is titled "Other" is because the poets after these modernists, in America but especially in Britain, have been ignored because they do not fit into the conventional idea of "good" poetry. In fact, they challenge such notions as the poet having a "message" that the reader must passively decipher and consume. Instead, they ask the reader to participate in the production of meaning in the poem by bring her own experiences, biases, and imagination to bear on the poem. The "meaning" arises out of this collaboration. They also challenge the notion of the poem as perfect and complete with an ending that makes one go "hmmm" or "awwww." Instead, they rely on fragments, incompleteness, half-words, what is unsayable or unsaid, and they make us aware of language as a medium rather than simply using it as a means to an end.

Anyway, I'll talk more about this in class because I think it's important for everyone to know that an entire underground tradition of British poetry exists beyond Phillip Larkin, Ted Hughes Geoffrey Hill, Seamus Heany, Dylan Thomas, and the usual suspects that you will find in the Norton anthology. Try reading the work of Brian Coffey, JH Prynne, Wendy Mulford, Grace Nichols, Fiona Templeton, Maurice Scully, Catherine Walsh, or any of the other poets in the table of contents or mentioned on page xviii of the introduction.

Mahound

I'm in the Mahound section of Satanic Verses, and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it. The girth of this section seems to be a dream of Gibreel's (perhaps the dream he is trying so desperately to avoid in the airplane?) about the resistance of monotheists, Mahound and his disciples, against the Grandee and his minions in a pantheistic, hedonistic Middle Eastern Las Vegas. I like the Thousand and One Nights fairytale quality of the story. It's interesting.

Rushdie and my overview of Brit Lit

Yes, I have been reading, even though I haven't posted in awhile. I've been too busy reading to stop to post! Over the weekend, I did a lot of background reading in order to solidify my overview of the period of British literature from 1789 to the present. It's quite a bit of ground to cover, I don't mind saying. If you want to fill in the rather broad strokes I made in class, I suggest reading the preface and introductions to the three volumes of the Norton anthology.

As for Satanic Verses, I'm through the first part of the book. Finally! It's taken me awhile to get into the book (try 2 years!), but now I think I'm finally hooked in the flow of it. I think my major motivation problem has been the lack of plot and the focus on character development in the first 4 chapters of the novel. Not that I don't like character, it's just that I need conflict to make me interested in narrative (I don't have that problem with poetry, by the way). The book has finally gotten around to explaining how the airplane blows up, but now I'm wondering where it's going to go from here. How is Rushdie going to sustain the plot for another 400-odd pages?

My favorite parts of the books so far are 1) the discussion of art by the narrator and characters and 2) the anxiety Chamcha has over being Indian. This issue of national/ethnic/natal identity is central not just to postcolonial literature but all postmodern lit. I must say, however, that this issue of "Indianness" seemed fresher 20 years ago than it does now. Now, it seems that everyone is from somewhere else and that exile is the norm, not the exception. The exception, perhaps, lies in America, where everyone seems to feel that they belong and that their identity is based merely on being from somewhere else but calling oneself "American." But I digress to America, and I want to stay in Britain.

That reminds me of a question that occurred to me yesterday: Why do you think Amis chooses to set the beginning of Time's Arrow in America and not England (or even Argentina where many Nazi war-criminals emigrated)?

Any thoughts?

PS: Time

Another potential problem with Amis's novel and its irony is that it's potentially very conservative. By showing the horror of the Holocaust backwards, isn't he saying that America really is so much better because we try to help people. Not that there is no truth to that, but it seems to simplistically deny the destruction that the US has also inflicted on the world (ie, the narrator barely mentions the atomic bomb!)

Time, Trains, and Satan

I finished Time's Arrow yesterday. Although I got more acclimated to the reverse chronology (I didn't feel like I had to replay conversations I was having in real life backwards anymore), I have to say that the way the book handles the Holocaust, the climax of the book, met my expectations. Odilo is right about one thing--reversing the flow of history is the only way to make sense of the Shoah. Saying that what the Nazis were doing was "creating life" by pulling a new race out of the ovens places in stark relief the true horror an magnitude of the atrocity in a way that regular narrative could not. By saying Auschwitz was one place of true goodness, we see through the irony the vast distance to the opposite interpretation. Telling the story in reverse is not the same as denying the Holocaust--as the president of Iran has recently done--which derives from anti-Semitism--Odilo says after all that he loves the Jews and heals them--but reveals the ways in which human beings justify their actions morally. In fact, we see in the wake of reverse time how much violence and hatred (even anti-Semitism) still exists in the world, even when we think of ourselves as moral do-gooders. The novel is as much about the how as about the what of good and evil.


Anyway, one thing that bothered me about that section of the book was the way the narrator and Odilo become one. Why did Amis do this? I think it was a cop-out. He didn't want to have to account for the narrator's realization that Odilo was still in denial. Perhaps this question is what Amis is asking us to consider. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Watched Trainspotting. It's still as disturbing as it was 10 years ago. Now that's timeless literature...

Started Satanic Verses (again). I think I'm now getting into the characters and the story. I think it will go faster and faster. Bu why did I pick a 560 page book??

The backwards of logic

Have you ever noticed how blogs work a bit like Time's Arrow? The posts are listed with most recent first, daring you to read backward, and most of us do.

I'm 100 pages into the book, and I must say that it's really messing with my mind. After I've been reading for awhile, reality seems confused. I have to pause a second when someone is talking to me to try to reconstruct the conversation in the "right" direction to make sure it makes sense. That of course is what the book makes you do. I've never had a book affect me so viscerally before in that way. I hope it's over soon.

Aside from the affect, I keep wondering one thing: What is this book trying to say??

Time's Arrow

I'm about 40 pages into the novel now, and its world is starting to become more familiar. The reverse chronology takes some getting used to, and I have to think about some of the events that are occurring by trying to reverse them in my mind. I really like how this makes me think about the "real" events (if they were going forward) and allows me to question their conventional "goodness" or "badness."

I have my doubts about the logic of the text--the attempted "realism" of the book (esp from the view of the narrator, who may not be entirely trustworthy) doesn't always work--like the fact that everyone would be talking backwards, which is mentioned a few times, but that the author isn't always consistent about. I understand this is for our convenience, putting conversations backwards by sentences is already difficult enough to follow. Can you imagine if all the words were backwards? It'd be very hard to read, but I think truer to the potential of the form Amis has chosen (invented?).

I also wonder what the relationship between Tod and the narrator is--though I guess this will probably be explained--I picture the evil vestigial twin head of the Mike's Hard Lemonade commercials--as the narrator is some sort of invisible parasite.

That's all for now. I hope to really kick into gear and have the book done by the end of the week.

Commencement

This posting marks the beginning of my reading log for my course at the University of Tulsa, ENGL 2523: Major British Writers II. I hope to keep updates and notes on my readings for the course here throughout the semester, time allowing. I've already read or begun reading several of the books for the course--Trainspotting (though we are only watching the film in class), Time's Arrow, and Satanic Verses. I'll cover those in order in subsequent posts. For now, welcome.