Populist or Elitist?

The DIY zine scene, from which the Underground Literary Alliance was spawned, was by its nature populist literature. That’s to say, not imposed by mandarins from above, but a grass roots movement. As Jeff Potter calls it, folk art. Folk literature.

The robed defenders of elitist literature were the most intent on shutting out the ULA. But in so doing they were shutting out the world.

When Tom Bissell used the slur, “lots and lots of tombstones,” he may have been more prophetic than he intended. The tombstones won’t be for people, but instead for the relics of dead art. Elitist literary writing has been a near-corpse in a coma for decades, kept on life support by universities and nonprofits, unable to connect with the American populace, and so, an inauthentic representation of American culture.

Establishment literature has been a decayed and tottering castle waiting to be toppled. Now the approaching hordes of ebooks appear certain to accomplish the feat. Stale elitism won’t survive.

The only question is what style of new American literature will rise from the rubble?

The Underground Literary Alliance has always been the vanguard.

Newsweek: Why Is Print Dying?

Newsweek magazine has announced that it will no longer publish a print version of the magazine, effective at the end of the year.

The cause of this is not JUST that many readers are getting their information now from mobile devices. It’s attributable also to the insularity of the magazines themselves.

Tina Brown, for instance, is the best of her narrow class and viewpoint. But what does this upper class Brit know about the American populace? Do people here really want to read yet another article by or about Martin Amis?

The big New York magazines are dying because their staffs come from a tiny, elitist circle of viewpoint and opinion—Ivy Leaguers, for the most part. Elitists by training or birth for virtually all of them. Cronyism is the one law in their world. In this field, anyway, cronyism no longer works.

Simple Pop

Sunday morning I was listening on the radio to one of those Beatles breakfast shows you can find in nearly every town. I was struck, as I’m always struck, by the pure simplicity of some of their tunes, like “I Need You” from the “Help!” lp. (One of their best albums.) They were able, with the simplest form, to be striking, romantic, and evocative. You can sense the Britishness, the setting and sensibility of the piece. There’s an understated beat along with subtle touches of the guitar and a scant few other instruments. How did they do it?

The task of the new pop writer is to devise tales completely transparent and simple, yet which are evocative of time and place, of the world, and deep emotion. Make the difficult look easy. Do that and you’ll conquer the literary world.

Traditional Pop Story

Here’s an example of my take on today’s standard-style pop story, “Hoppenngger House,” up at my Literary Mystery blog. I wrote the story more than ten years ago, found it when I was putting stuff in storage prior to my recent move out of Philly. I tweaked it a bit and posted it. Check it out. It’s designed to be not a slog, but a read.

http://literarymystery.blogspot.com/2012/09/hoppenngger-house.html

For me now it’s only a starting point. In future efforts I expect to move beyond this, while maintaining a pop style framework.

The Return of Plot

The noteworthy development accompanying the rise of ebooks is the importance of plot. For decades, university writing programs have stressed the primacy of the sentence, and denigrated plot. This resulted in authors like David Foster Wallace crafting ever more convoluted sentences, obscure and complex, into nonsense.

But the public is proving that it wants plot! It’s no accident that inventive plotters like J.A. Konrath are at the forefront of the indy ebook movement.

The New Synthesis of American literature will also need to stress plot—plot ever more creative, more intelligent and fresh, full of surprise and knowledge, melding with setting and character, and stimulating to the highest intelligence.

Does Pop Lit Need a Vehicle?

This is a question I’ve been discussing with others at another blog--

www.happyamericaliterature.blogspot.com

Right now, what’s known as pop lit is a huge but diffuse entity with no cohesion and little coherence, a mass of publishing wannabes with little focus and no direction toward any future outcome for American lit. Only a gargantuan avalanche of recycled social media spam shouting, “Me me me me” with thousands of titles of imitative works which refuse in any way to stand out.

The solution is a vanguard outfit of authentic populists who know where literature is going-- who have strong ideas of how to save the art.

Pop or Populism?

Is it a choice? Which is the best direction for American literature to take?

These are questions I'll be exploring. I'll also introduce soon another blog, one devoted to the struggle for literary and cultural democracy in a land where fake culture is imposed from on high by controlling overdogs.