I initially decided to read The Blood of the Lamb by Peter De Vries based upon this testimony of it by James Lileks:
Curiosity monkey that I am, I can’t resist reading another book that affects in such a way. I wanted to like this book, but I just didn’t. I’ve noticed that there tends to be a certain style of American writing, circa 1940s-1960s, which I just cannot enjoy. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, nor even how to describe it, quite. It’s a certain quality or style of prose which grates on me. (And I realize that I am unfairly maligning decades-worth of writing which I would probably adore, otherwise.) I wish that I knew what this quality was. Maybe there’s a certain spare or hollow quality that tires me.
I mean, The Blood of the Lamb is awfully obviously autobiographically based upon a real experience by the author. Is it that which repels me? That De Vries is mining his own life, to such a degree? Or maybe that he didn’t mine it enough? I’m not so certain that reading isn’t a form of voyeurism in this case. Is reading always a form of voyeurism? And is it even a particularly healthy form of it? (At one of his many readings around town, Chuck Palahniuk once remarked that reading about sex was the least interesting way to experience it, that there was something particularly unsexy about it… One could perhaps say a similar thing in regards to reading about any particular experience.) Do I read to avoid experience? Does the voyeur watch to avoid experience? I find it of supreme interest that the concept of reading is, as far as I can tell, held up as an unquestioned Good. This is not something that I would hold to be true, anymore.
This is getting very far away from where I started. I’m not even really sure where I am anymore.
Here’s an essay about Peter De Vries contribution to American humor writing.
I guess I’ll close out with a De Vries quote (as I seem to have written myself into a broom closet):
“It is the final proof of God’s omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.”
A cookie to ponder.
And now I want to read it. Too much going on, reading other things, probably won’t get to it. I’m sort of curious, now, though, to see if I have the same reaction to it, the weird aversion that you can’t quite put your finger on. Are there other examples of books you can think of from that period that effect you the same way? I can’t think of anything in particular I’ve read from then, but chances are if I felt like that it wouldn’t be something I’d read but something I’d started to read.
I’ve been thinking about your question all weekend (well, not constantly, but sort of off and on). **Note to self: don’t make general pronouncements without thinking them through first…**
You know, I realized, thinking about this, that most of the pieces of American literature I’ve read from this time period are plays. Plays that I’ve either been in or studied.
Some things that I can identify as having this *quality* (if you can call a feeling or antipathy that I have a quality… the mind reels…):
Hemingway OLD MAN AND THE SEA
Lillian Hellman THE CHILDREN’S HOUR
Jean Rhys GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT
Saul Bellow HENDERSON THE RAIN KING
Eugene O’Neill MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN
LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL (the play, not the novel)
Sinclair Lewis ARROWSMITH
Horton Foote (a playwright)
Arthur Miller
Edward Albee
And I think I’ll stop there. I’m sure there are others, but it would be madness to continue. I recognize that many of these works are good (I mean, hell, there’s a few nobel prize winners in there), that they are well-crafted pieces of writing. But. BUT I don’t really enjoy them.
To which, someone might say, these are works of LITERATURE not ENTERTAINMENT, or something. There’s a joy in read well-crafted fiction, but maybe it has something to do with a lack of discovery? Many of these are books that I was instructed to read through some class or other. Is that it? Maybe it’s lack of discovery in some deeper sense? Maybe I’m the one lacking, failing to discovery some THING in these works that other people discovered in them long ago. Or maybe it’s just not the right time for the reading of these things?
I think if there’s anything that’s missing from these books and plays, (and I include BLOOD OF THE LAMB here) for me it’s a sense of the delicious delirium of language, the hint of things lurking just off the edge of the page…
here’s a thing: I haven’t read any of that stuff. I’m kinda bummed that I haven’t. Well, there’s a possibility that I’ve read The Old Man and the Sea, but I don’t remember for sure.
Often when I read something I don’t like I don’t end up reading it all. I’ve never studied literature, not since high school at least, and so haven’t read anything because I’ve “had” to since then. What that has meant is that basically my exposure to classics, or old stuff, or whatever, has been not very big. I’m also not being able to think of what I HAVE read that was even written during the middle of the 20th century. “On the Road,” when was that? “Ham on Rye” by Bukowski I read recently. That latter I actually liked a lot more than I’d expected; I bought it because it was called Ham on Rye. Or, no, I picked it up because it was called that, and it was at the goodwill, and then I read a few sentences and thought, “oh, that’s good writing.” I’d never heard of the guy. So I actually enjoyed myself reading that. I have no idea when it was written, but I’m thinking the 60s or something.
And I realize you weren’t saying this quality was something about ALL the stuff from that time period, either. So I’m kinda… blurphed. It seems like it’d be sort of counter-productive to read one of these things on the grounds that you anti-suggested it. If you were someone with whom I didn’t agree, in general, that might make sense, but since the contrary seems to hold true…