On Berryman: "Just because we’re buffoons, it doesn’t mean our lives aren’t tragic."

Stephen Akey has a really interesting essay on John Berryman and his "Dream Songs." It's too long and lush to summarize, so I'll just do some excepts here. But if you were 1) interested in, 2) disturbed by, ) bored with, or 4) confused by "Dream Songs," I highly recommend you give it a read.

Akey on quality versus quantity in the "Dream Songs":

Perhaps the first thing to be said about The Dream Songs is that there are too many of them. By my reckoning (every reader’s will differ), fewer than half are truly first-rate or even intelligible, yet the good ones wouldn’t be so good if not set off by the messiness and prolixity of the others — and even the good ones are pretty messy too. It took Berryman years to break through to the mess that allowed life in

On the problems of blackface dialect and vulgarity:

I feel a little better knowing that Berryman’s friend Ralph Ellison had no problem with the blackface dialect and especially admired Song 68, which deals in part with the death of Bessie Smith. I guess I’ll always have some qualms, but would anyone really prefer The Dream Songs to be shorn of their outrages to decorum and taste? Don’t we read them partly because they’re so unlike what “great” poetry is supposed to be? The half-lunatic syntax serves many purposes — chiefly, the subversion of psychological defenses preventing access to primal guilts, fears, needs, and shames, or as Kafka might have said, the taking of an ax to the frozen sea within. The Songs are, after all, inspired by dreams, where we take our clothes off and don’t speak or think the King’s English, but Henry’s language is also extremely funny, an all-American music of boisterous vulgarity.

On the self-loathing of Henry (and Berryman -- "there ought to be a law ..."):

The self-disgust is palpable and — who can doubt it? — thoroughly earned. Why then is this poem so exceedingly funny? Perhaps because like the best of the Songs it manages to be so many things at once. There ought to be a law against Henry, but his raging sexuality doesn’t stop him from idealizing both the object of his desire and his desire itself. The funniest thing about the Song is that it exists — a gross parody of poetic adoration that is touched with the lyricism of jeweled eyes and an apostrophized “Brilliance.” Helen Vendler writes in The Given and the Made, “We become marginally convinced, by such a poem, that the troubadours were Henrys too, and that Berryman is merely uncovering the unsalubrious, but oddly solacing, layer of psychic squalor beneath high artistic convention.” Nicely put, but somehow it sounds funnier when Henry says it.

Weston's Take on "Invisible Man"

First Edition of "Invisible Man," published in 1952

I just wanted to quickly highlight Weston's post on Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man." It's a really good post, and I think he gets at one of the central concerns of the piece:

The paragraph ends with the idea that the whole time he was just trying to figure out who he really was, and what he found was that you can't ask others to define you, “I am nobody but myself,” he writes, “an invisible man!” The first paragraph seems to tell the whole story.

Ellison seems to be playing with this idea of invisibility. It's a concept that assumes a viewer, some other person, a two-way relationship. Sure, you could still be invisible if you were the only person in the world, but so what? Invisibility is tied to a relationship in which sight, the gaze, and eyes themselves play a large role. It also is a relationship defined by power.

Take a look at the cover of the first edition. While the face is obscured, the eye is the most prominent image. This is no accident.

Since we didn't get to Ellison last week, we'll begin with him this Friday. It might be a good idea to go back over "Invisible Man."

Also, don't forget that the Lady Gaga post is up for extra credit.

Where to find Pynchon on the Internet

                                
You will need to get your hands on Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 very soon. Here are two places to do so if you haven't already:

1. Powells.com
2. Amazon.com 

Please let me know if you have any trouble getting a copy of the book. I'm happy to help however I can.

As you begin to make your way through Pynchon's postmodern novel, you might need some guidance. We'll certainly do some of this during class, but here are a couple other resources available to you.

The Pynchon Wiki -- This is kind of an insanely helpful guide to the novel. It provides spoiler-free, page-by-page annotations for those of you who don't get all of Pynchon's references (which, by the way, is all of us).

"Embattled Underground" -- This is the original 1966 review of the book, as it appeared in The New York Times.

The Difficult(y) of Thomas Pynchon

Well boy howdy . . . here's Thomas Pynchon! He's kind of a difficult read, no? So anyway, here's an entire "internet page" of advice for how to make your way through Pynchon for the first (and second and third) time. Some excepts:

Steven Maas
I tell Pynchon newbies:

• It's the most fun you can have without risking arrest in many states.
• Leave your preconceptions at the door and enjoy your new and exotic surroundings.
• If something baffles you, read on for the next moment of searingly bright light and don't worry about it. With time and re-readings everything (well, many things) will be made clear.

Difficult, schmifficult!

Lindsay Gillies:
Four short principles for newbies:

• Read each word, one after the other. Gravity's Rainbow is a deeply interconnected stream of jazz — you can't skim it.
• Let the stream affect you without trying to figure it out. Give up to it.
• Commit to getting through the first 50 pages. It's something very different than most other stuff you've read; not harder, just harder to hear.
• If, after 1, 2 & 3, you still don't connect, don't write it off, just put it away for a while.

And as my office mate and fiction writer Dave Nicholas says about writers: "If you've been on The Simpsons, you've achieved something."

Lady Gaga & Postmodernism

As we discussed in class, here's the Lady Gaga video of the song "Telephone." Also as we discussed inc lass, there's sexual, graphic content, etc. (Nothing over the top, in my opinion; it aired on MTV and the like.)

After our discussion on Postmodernism, take a look at this video. If you'd like to do an extra credit post, write a 300-word post on your own blog discuss the video in the context of Postmodernism.

Possible novels for the end of semester

Last class we briefly discussed the possibility of switching out some of the scheduled readings for a longer piece. I really like the idea, but I want to know what you think.

I've posted five possible novels after the break. If you would, please take a quick look and vote on your preference (you can do this in the comments of the post, or you can email me instead). Since everyone will have to buy the book, I've made sure that each novel costs less than $10. In most cases, you can get used copies for about $5.

I'll post a pic of the cover, the number of pages, a two-sentence summary, and the link to Amazon for each book. Please cast your vote no later than Thursday. (By the way, you can always vote to stick with the reading schedule and not read a novel.) We'll come to a decision as a class on Friday.

Continuing blog posts

Post 1
Due: Thursday, 11pm

Initial posts for the rest of the semester will all be open (with the exception of the final blog post). Some requirements—they must be at least 300 words, and they must relate to the reading that we will discuss for the upcoming class.

There are numerous ways to approach these posts. Below are some methods you might use. You can’t go wrong with one of these.

• Analyze and/or interpret the week’s reading using one of the themes we’ve used in the course: gender, narrative structure, irony, imagery, the language of the text itself, or its historical context.
• Compare and contrast the reading with texts we’ve previously covered.
• Write about something from the reading that you found surprising or something that you didn’t understand.
• Try to formulate one or two good discussion questions for the class, and then use your post to attempt to answer that/those question/s.

Post 2
Due: Tuesday, 11pm

Your second post should be a response to a blog from your small group. You should link to the blog that you’re responding to. Your response should in some way build upon, re-think, or disagree with (respectfully!) with the original post. These posts should be at least 150 words.