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Mini-Furor
by King Wenclas
TO APPRECIATE the way I felt Tuesday evening, May 14,
2002, sitting in the front row of the auditorium at the
Philly Free Library ten feet from Moody and Minot
listening to them rattle lifelessly on and on, one has to
realize that when young I was restless in school, sitting
at a desk being forced to sit listening to crap I didn't
want to hear.
To have to sit in a narrow seat for one hour being
subjected to the prose and verse of Moody and Minot is
the most awful kind of torture. It's like feeling drops
upon one's head, one at a time, every thirty seconds,
again and again, forever. It's maddening: listening to
Rick Moody talk about "wax beans" and hear him repeat the
words "wax beans" and again "wax beans" with his idiotic
leer until one wants to scream, "enough already!"
This is a guy who starts out his memoir in his crib, and
gives every mundane detail of his life since. He does the
fascination with Dad's hairbrush routine--is it plastic,
or wood?--except he already did the same bit in The Ice
Storm!
This is a writer who clearly, clearly, has nothing to
write about. (When you have to spend pages discussing wax
beans, let's face it; you're desperate.)
Susan Minot, if possible, was worse. Just some poems she
happened to have lying around the house; thought she
might get them published. Comes easy, doesn't it? Too bad
none of the poems she read were any good.
The audience, meanwhile, was playing "let's pretend."
Let's pretend these are important and wonderful writers.
It's illusion. The audience sits stupefied with bovine
expressions on their faces attempting to make sense of
it, assuring themselves Moody and Minot are knowing and
talented, because, after all, the mandarins and mavens of
literary culture tell him this, so it has to be true.
After all--aren't all corporate products which are
marketed to us simply wonderful?
Minot, who yet shows traces of her once-wonderful beauty,
yet appears yellowed and delicate, decaying quickly (the
much-weathered King Wenclas is saying this) as if, if
ever exposed to the oxygen of the world she would
immediately turn to dust. They must keep Minot's fragile
kind of aristocratic beauty preserved in a glass jar, two
layers thick, filled with argon.
Torturous! One hour listening to the most boring
maddening irrelevant useless literary bullshit ever
concocted. Or so it seemed. I felt ready to explode out
of my chair. By the time the moment for questions arrived
I was choked with frustration and anger at the outright
mountebank-frauds the literary world shoves at us.
WHEN the question period began I asked Rick and Susan
whether literature should represent more than obsessions
with the self, or "wax beans"--whether it should also on
occasion address the awful happenings of this society,
and be relevant. I mentioned Dickens as a model.
The two esteemed authors agreed with me. Susan Minot said
the writer should place his characters in the world.
"But where is there any scope in your work?" I asked.
I received from the two elitists cool condescension. Yes,
it was impossible to affect their Mt. Olympus status.
They refuse to see the privileged, well-nurtured
characters that they are. (Which, of course, is one
reason why their writing is so useless.) They could well
have said, "No bread? Then let them eat cake!"
They're typical aristocrats, who after the revolution
still won't understand what it was all about. Beneath the
hyperbole, the ULA advocates literary revolution. We seek
to turn literary culture on its head--then we can sort
things out. The present collection of bozos should be
replaced.
But Rick Moody was very generous (with his words, if not
his Guggenheim funds).
"I want things other than what I do to be published," he
said benevolently. "Go out and publish."
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. "But the writer the
system supports...is...YOU!!" I pointed. "Elitist
organizations like the Guggenheim fund you."
As we moved into the topic of slush pile, the discussion
was cut off.
The audience was silent. They were stunned. Someone had
let reality intrude into the room. Moody begged for other
questions. "Don't let a rabid discussion deter you."
(I suspect he's never seen "rabid.")
Several lame questions were asked. One about the
influence of painting on M and M's works; another about
Moody's favorite rock bands. A tough one, that. Moody
seemed to drift, though, back to the previous topic of
conversation.
"I've lately encountered more antipathy from readers," he
said. "I welcome the experience."
The man is clueless. CLUELESS. He doesn't realized that
he received scarce tax-free funds that should better have
gone to writers who actually need it. He doesn't see the
gilded cage in which he exists.
The affair ended. As I stood with George Balgobin and his
friend Sarah in the midst of the crowd, edging toward the
door, a short man with thick wavy hair approached.
"I'm the head of security here. If you go near him I'll
have you forcibly removed from this library and banned
from it."
"But we're leaving!"
"I know you. Stay away from him!"
"How do you know me?" I asked.
"Don't worry. I've been reading things," he said, nodding
his head. "I know all about you."
A fine way to treat a Philly taxpayer.
p.s. The Underground Literary Alliance is not going away.
We'll keep the heat on Rick Moody and similar cretins,
until they admit their greed and corruption. The guy is a
blot on American literature; it's an embarrassment that
so much indulgence and largesse goes to a starkly limited
writer who has nothing to write about--other than wax
beans!