Amis’s views are symptomatic of a much wider and deeper hostility to Islam and intolerance of otherness.
Mailer and the Great American Novel
What a tiny corporate few are considered:
An elegy for the great American novel
By John Walsh
If any writer believed in the existence of the Great American Novel it was Norman Mailer. He believed in it utterly, called it the “big one” and dreamed of bagging it – like a hunter in search of game. Now, he and many of his fellow hunters are gone. Can anyone take their place?
Great American Novels
As far as “Great American Novels” go, this one should be considered too, despite its intermittent racism: Plutocracy.
Scholar looks at abiding interest in the ‘Great American Novel’
Rambo, Cheney, Rice, and Burma
Truthdig by way of USA Today notes:
If the combined power of thousands of Buddhist monks staging a nonviolent protest isn’t enough to oust Burma’s oppressive junta, one American hero (cue movie trailer voice-over) is coming to fight for democracy in a faraway land—or at least stick his nose in another nation’s business. Yes, Rambo is ready to exact vigilante justice in Burma in the fourth installment of the Stallone series called, well, “Rambo.”
My crossposted comment:
Yes, it’s quite comic what the movies can do – “cultural softening” and purging and all.
Norman Mailer – The Naked and the Dead – World War II and Today
Norman Mailer and the “Good War”
by Martin Smith
Each Obituary did at least mention The Naked and the Dead, Mailer’s first and most important novel. It is one of the great antiwar classics in literature and a book that speaks to all activists committed to ending the brutality of wars for empire.
Yet The Naked and the Dead is barely known today outside of academic circles–because it challenges the standard assumptions about the Second World War as “the good war,” and unmasks the hidden motives of U.S. involvement.
The Naked and the Dead is the story of a suicide mission by a reconnaissance patrol that is ordered to assess a Japanese rear position on the island of Anopopei. If the soldiers survive and return, General Cummings plans to send out a company for a surprise attack, a daring tactical move that would likely lead to his promotion.
Brian De Palma on Redacted and Iraq War Films
Writers Strike
St. Clair and Cockburn Views on Norman Mailer
Cockburn – Adieu to Norman Mailer (scroll down)
St. Clair – Mailer and Us: the Writer as Fighter
Some of those texts don’t stand up all that well: the Picasso biography reads like notations from an art history lecture at the MOMA, Tough Guys Don’t Dance a mediocre Ross McDonald novel, The Deer Park, his novel about Hollywood, should have been better, the Marilyn books are almost as pathetic as his long-running obsession with Jack Kennedy.
Still for fifty years Mailer stood at the top of the pile: The Naked and the Dead, Barbary Shore (a novel about official paranoia that is perhaps more relevant today than when it was published), An American Dream, Armies of the Night, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, Harlot’s Ghost. All better books than anything written by that favorite of the book critics Philip Roth. Only Vidal comes close to Mailer’s long-running achievement.
It’s hard to name a better novel written in the 1970s than The Executioner’s Song. Even Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow seems dwarfed by that sprawling portrait of Gary and Nicole Gilmore and the inexorable descent toward the firing squad in that spooky prison outside Provo. It’s a big book with an immediate voice: clear and chilling. Among other virtues, Mailer captures the strangeness and beauty of life in Utah better than any book since Wallace Stegner’s Mormon Country.
…
Links to some earlier posts and other comments on Norman Mailer
Maxwell Geismar on Norman Mailer (part one)
Maxwell Geismar on Norman Mailer (part two)
On Maxwell Geismar and Norman Mailer:
In the two previous posts of Maxwell Geismar on Norman Mailer, it seems to me that Geismar is primarily critiquing the political or ideological component of Mailer’s work — which is easy to understand coming from a literary critic whose work and livelihood were threatened, then destroyed, for political, ideological reasons during the Cold War. In my view, Geismar correctly and astutely calls Mailer on these shortcomings.
I think Armies of the Night and Executioner’s Song are highly accomplished non-fiction works, essentially, aesthetically and otherwise. However, Armies does have the political shortcomings that Geismar points out. Continue reading Links to some earlier posts and other comments on Norman Mailer
Lions for Lambs Iraq War Movie Critiques
Reviewer Kasia Anderson writes at Truthdig:
“After all, given filmmaking conventions and production timelines, the odds are stacked against any dramatization of current events achieving some semblance of intelligibility within 88 minutes of footage cobbled together to form a finished product long before reality could easily make a mockery of its driving premise.”
The claim is false. Continue reading Lions for Lambs Iraq War Movie Critiques
Filmmaking and the Unjust Status Quo
Mick LaSalle at the San Francisco Chronicle writes, Lions for Lambs “is responsive, engaged filmmaking, the kind of movie they say Americans don’t make.”
On the contrary, Hollywood makes “responsive, engaged filmmaking” continuously. The problem is that it basically reinforces the unjust status quo about fundamental economic and military matters, especially.
Hollywood’s Corporate View on War
Screener writes:
Lions for Lambs has an even lower Rotten Tomatoes rating than Fred Claus does, 30% compared to Fred’s 37%. “Never takes a genuine stand for or against anything Continue reading Hollywood’s Corporate View on War
Hollywood – Just Another Part of the Debased Establishment
by Ann Donahue:
On Friday, the megawatt-star-powered “Lions for Lambs” opens. Will it be the one to break the box office curse and give credence to early Oscar buzz? “If Robert Redford, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep can’t get it over $100 million, I don’t know what can,” Hartigan said. But reports that the film is too preachy could sink its chances. “Americans are extremely unhappy about this war…you’ve got to be awfully clever to get them to buy it as entertainment,” Thomson said.
And therein lies Hollywood’s debasement. Such “awful cleverness” doesn’t deserve to work. People don’t see the war as entertainment, of course, thus they don’t want to be clevered awfully into having it turned into entertainment. Most people’s view is partisan, and rightly so, thus it follows that they would respond to partisan movies, even polemic movies, not entertainments. But “entertainment” is about all that corporate dollars are willing to fund, advertise, allow. The corporate censorship of and over American culture continues.
A Slew of Iraq War Films
Tuned into a nation’s slowly changing mood
Chris Stephen writes:
[Black Watch director John] Tiffany thinks directors are barking up the wrong tree if they think in terms of movies-with-a-message. “Don’t kid yourself that you can change the world through art,” he says. “You can’t tell an audience what to think – all you can give is a greater understanding.”
Right, and advertising has zero effect on audiences, doesn’t affect people’s thinking at all, which is why corporations spend a monstrous amount on it. No message there. Don’t buy our product! Continue reading A Slew of Iraq War Films
Robert Fisk Reviews Rendition
Go and see Rendition – it will make you angry…
…is Hollywood waking up – after Syriana and Munich – to the gross injustices of the Middle East and the shameless and illegal policies of the US in the region?”
Hmm – not exactly:
Bush’s thugs didn’t get fazed like Streep’s CIA boss. Continue reading Robert Fisk Reviews Rendition
Zombie Nation by David Penner
Quite good article from a teacher here on academia, society, and the state of things. We live in something akin to Germany 1940 and an open society. It’s bipolar. Bipolar times.
Trials of a Hip Hop Educator: Bridging the Gap
As a public school educator that grew up on Hip Hop and who still loves many aspects of its cultural elements, I often incorporate it into my day to day lessons. Sometimes my opening activities would involve having my students critically analyze some form of controversy related to their favorite rappers or an explanation of the meaning of a quote by an influential personality such as KRS-One, Chuck D or Afrika Bambaataa. Our meaningful discussions would then be tied in with the lessons of the day. Art and poetry would be included in much our comprehensive learning activities, which the students have admitted to me help them understand historical events and complex words better. I have found that since I have been teaching this way it has increased both student interest and involvement in a major way.
LITERARY CRITICISM, PROPAGANDA, AND SOCIAL CHANGE
KEYWORD LISTS, AND OTHERS
The general bibliographic list is broken into several other groupings, including lists of: “propaganda” titles; “social change” titles, “politic”… titles, assorted anthologies of literary criticism; assorted interview collections; encyclopedias and other reference volumes; and key works on propaganda (public relations) and the public. See other links for excerpts. See here for more information about the bibliograpies and excerpts.
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See also:
by Tony Christini
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“PROPAGANDA” TITLES
1972 Norman Philbrick, Ed. Trumpets Sounding: Propaganda Plays Of The American Revolution
1975 Ian Boyd The Novels Of G.K. Chesterton: A Study In Art And Propaganda
1978 David Smith Socialist Propaganda In The Twentieth-Century Novel
1978 George H. Szanto Theater And Propaganda
1979 Johnson and Johnson Propaganda And Aesthetics: The Literary Politics Of African-American Magazines…
1983 A. P. Foulkes Literature And Propaganda
1983 Nicholas Pronay, Ed. Propaganda, Politics And Film, 1918-45
1989 Peter Buitenhuis The Great War Of Words: British, American, And Canadian Propaganda And Fiction,
1914-1933
1992 Jane DeRose Evans The Art Of Persuasion: Political Propaganda From Aeneas To Brutus
1995 David Bell Ardent Propaganda: Miners’ Novels And Class Conflict 1929-1939
1995 Judith K. Proud Children And Propaganda: Fiction And Fairy Tale In Vichy France
1997 Toby Clark Art And Propaganda In The Twentieth Century: The Political Image…
1997 Friedl, Bettina. Ed On To Victory: Propaganda Plays Of The Woman Suffrage Movement
1998 Robert Cole, Ed. International Encyclopedia Of Propaganda
1998 Mary Whitby Propaganda Of Power: The Role Of Panegyric In Late Antiquity
2002 Louis Pizzitola Hearst Over Hollywood: Power, Passion, And Propaganda In The Movies
Continue reading LITERARY CRITICISM, PROPAGANDA, AND SOCIAL CHANGE
LITERARY CRITICISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE – BIBLIOGRAPHY
This is a list primarily of books of political, social and cultural criticism on imaginative literature, the novel in particular – some landmarks and assorted works, mainly American and English – a truncated and otherwise incomplete chronology. A few texts on novel form and technique are also included. See links for excerpts.
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1858 Hippolyte Taine Balzac: A Critical Study
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~1860 C. A. Sainte-Beuve Literary Criticism of Sainte-Beuve [a collection first published in 1971; edited and translated by E. R. Marks]
1863 Hippolyte Taine History of English Literature
1864 Matthew Arnold Essays Literary and Critical [published in periodicals, 1863-1864] [1906 edition]
1864 Victor Hugo William Shakespeare
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1875 Leslie Stephen Hours in a Library
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1883 William Morris On Art And Socialism [essays, 1877-1896; collected 1999] [“Art under Plutocracy”…]
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1891 William Dean Howells Criticism and Fiction
1896 John Colin Dunlop History of Prose Fiction; Volumes I and II [revised by Henry Wilson, 1970]
1896 George Saintsbury A History of Nineteenth Century Literature
1897 Arlo Bates Talks on the Study of Literature
1897 H. D. Traill The New Fiction and Other Essays on Literary Subjects [reprint 1970]
1898 Leo Tolstoy What Is Art? [and Essays on Art; published together, 1962] Continue reading LITERARY CRITICISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE – BIBLIOGRAPHY
LITERARY CRITICISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE – BIBLIOGRAPHY CONTENTS
Below are the bibliography contents and the beginning of the listing primarily of books of political, social and cultural criticism on imaginative literature, the novel in particular – some landmarks and assorted works, mainly American and English – a truncated and otherwise incomplete chronology extending in its entirety from the 1800s to today. A few texts on novel form and technique are also included. The list here covers the time period up 1929. Preceding that list are select works from the full list. See links for excerpts. See here for more information about the bibliography and excerpts. See “Bibliographies, Particular” for a breakdown of the general bibliography into listings organized by title and genre.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY CONTENTS
1800s to 1929 (this page)
1930-1959
1960-1989
1990-2003
1800s-2003 (entire)
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POLITICAL, SOCIAL, CULTURAL CRITICISM ON IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE: 1800s-1929
1858 Hippolyte Taine Balzac: A Critical Study
~1860 C. A. Sainte-Beuve Literary Criticism of Sainte-Beuve [a collection first published in 1971; edited and translated by E. R. Marks]
1863 Hippolyte Taine History of English Literature
1864 Matthew Arnold Essays Literary and Critical [published in periodicals, 1863-1864] [1906 edition
1864 Victor Hugo William Shakespeare
1875 Leslie Stephen Hours in a Library
1883 William Morris On Art And Socialism [essays, 1877-1896; collected 1999] [“Art under Plutocracy”…]
1891 William Dean Howells Criticism and Fiction
1896 John Colin Dunlop History of Prose Fiction; Volumes I and II [revised by Henry Wilson, 1970]
1896 George Saintsbury A History of Nineteenth Century Literature
1897 Arlo Bates Talks on the Study of Literature
1897 H. D. Traill The New Fiction and Other Essays on Literary Subjects [reprint 1970]
1898 Leo Tolstoy What Is Art? [and Essays on Art; published together, 1962]
1900 George Saintsbury A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe: From the Earliest Texts to the Present Day [1902, 1904—Vols. 2 & 3]
1903 Frank Norris The Responsibilities of the Novelist [“The Novel with a Purpose,” “The Need of a Literary Conscience”…]
1906 Arlo Bates Talks on the Teaching of Literature
1908 George Saintsbury A History of English Prosody from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day
1914 Emma Goldman The Social Significance of the Modern Drama
1915 Upton Sinclair, Ed. The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest [updated 1996]
1918 W. L. George Literary Chapters
1920 Randolph Bourne The History of a Literary Radical and Other Papers
1920 Georg Lukacs The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature [“The Novel as Polemic”…]
1921 Percy Lubbock The Craft of Fiction
1923 D. H. Lawrence Studies in Classic American Literature
1924 Floyd Dell Literature and the Machine Age
1924 Morris Edmund Speare The Political Novel: Its Development in England and America
1924 Leon Trotsky Literature and Revolution [“Pre-revolutionary Art,” “Revolutionary and Socialist Art”…]
1924 Edith Wharton The Writing of Fiction
1925 V. F. Calverton The Newer Spirit: A Sociological Criticism of Literature
1925 Alain Locke, Ed. The New Negro: An Interpretation [“The New Negro,” “Negro Art and American,” “The Negro in American Literature”…]
1925 John Macy The Story of the World’s Literature [revised, 1932]
1925 I. A. Richards Principles of Literary Criticism [“Art, Play, and Civilisation”…]
1925 Upton Sinclair Mammonart
1925 Virginia Woolf The Common Reader: First Series [“Modern Fiction”…]
1926 W.E.B. DuBois The Oxford W.E.B DuBois Reader [1996] [1921-1926: “Negro Art,” “Negro Art and Literature,” “Criteria of Negro Art”…]
1926 Floyd Dell Intellectual Vagabondage [reprinted, 1990]
1927 E. M. Forster Aspects of the Novel
1927 Van Wyck Brooks, Ed., et al The American Caravan: A Yearbook of American Literature
1927 Vernon Louis Parrington Main Currents in American Thought: An Interpretation of American Literature from the Beginnings to 1920
1927 Upton Sinclair Money Writes
1928 Julien Benda The Betrayal [Treason] of the Intellectuals [“The Modern Perfecting of Political Passions,” “Nature of Political Passions”…]
1928 Alfred Kreymborg, Ed., et al The Second American Caravan: A Yearbook of American Literature
1928 Rebecca West The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews
1928 T. K. Whipple Spokesmen [reprinted in 1963 with a foreword by Mark Schorer]
note: I agree with much but not everything I’ve chosen to excerpt. As far as the books as a whole go – as they seem to me – many are very good, plenty are solid, some are mixed, some are less insightful or unfortunate in part. On the whole, in my judgment, the books make some thoughtful and useful exploration of imaginative literature and its relation to society, individuals and social and political change.
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Bibliography – 1800s to 2003
Critical Excerpts – 1883 to 2003
Quick Views
Social and Political Novel
Social and Political Literature
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A Practical Policy 