Takedowns and Breakdowns.

All this reaction to Martin Scorsese (and Francis Coppola afterward) criticizing Marvel movies has got me thinking about the times artists take digs at other artists or artists state their dislike for particular types of work.  It's a time-honored tradition really.  And it also has me recalling times I've come across writers or filmmakers I like criticizing other writers and filmmakers I like.  I've always found this to be a source of interest, and quite often it's cause for amusement as well.

When I read that filmmaker Jean Luc Godard says he doesn't like the films of David Lynch (one of my all-time favorite directors) because every Lynch film is only about himself and that "On the enigma of dream, dream life, I prefer to read Edgar Poe," I had to laugh while admitting that Godard, 88 years old and no less cranky and opinionated now than he was at 28 years old, may have something of a point about Lynch.  But even if he does, this doesn't diminish my love for Lynch's movies.  Nor does it make me angry at Godard for saying what he did about Lynch.  Godard's films are still entirely his own (the great ones, the good ones, the inscrutable ones), and just because he made a comment about a filmmaker I revere doesn't mean I'm going to start denigrating Godard.  He's someone with a strong aesthetic sensibility of his own, and for whatever reason, that sensibility doesn't take to Lynch's sensibility.  I still like both. It's not an either/or proposition.

And speaking of Edgar Allan Poe: What about Henry James' takedown of him?  James is not an author I rank among my favorites (though I do really like The Turn of the Screw and some of his other shorter works), and he's someone who you might say does have something of a rarified sensibility.  Poe I've loved since I was a kid and I'm sure I will always love.  James said, "An admiration for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection".

So here James is going after not only Poe, but people who have the temerity past a certain age to still like Poe. In a sense, you could say he's insulting all adult Poe readers.  Again, though, so what?  All you have to do is read a little Henry James, with all his reticence and misdirection, to understand that there would be something profoundly unpleasant to him about Poe's stories.  It's the same with how James felt about Baudelaire (a poet I love), who he said had a "permanent immaturity of vision".  Harsh words.  Ostensibly, anyone who likes reading Baudelaire would share this "immaturity of vision".   I couldn't disagree more, but again, it doesn't make me think any less of James as a writer.  He doesn't think much of Poe and can't fathom why anyone over a certain age would like Poe, but how I would love to sit down with Henry James (Over tea or booze, his choice) and debate this with him.  And then I would go on reading Poe and Baudelaire and James.  

Perhaps my favorite literary takedown artist of them all is Vladimir Nabokov, another writer who'd I put in my personal pantheon.  He had strong opinions - as one of his books is called - on just about everything, and not the least of these was his loathing for Fydor Dostoevsky's writing.  Now I happen to think Notes from the Underground is brilliant, and I like The Gambler, Crime and Punishment and "White Nights" a lot.  What does Nabokov say? He writes of "Dostoyevsky's lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic...this trick his characters have of 'sinning their way to Jesus', or, as a Russian author, Ivan Bunin, put it bluntly, 'spilling Jesus all over the place'."

Okay.  Ummm....Nabokov is not exactly wrong about Dostoevsky, and of course, the way he attacks him - and there's more - is quite funny.  But is there a choice to be made here? Of course not.  I still somehow manage to love Nabokov, love Dostoevsky, and love Nabokov's takedown of Dostoevsky.

Nothing in the arts, for crying out loud, is sacrosanct.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 42

by
Scott D. Parker

In book-related news, I witnessed something wonderful this week, and I have my wife to thank.

On Monday night, here in Houston, we traveled to Blue Willow Bookshop to attend an author event with Elin Hilderbrand (my review). The author event was not a new experience. Frankly, it was pretty much like most every author event I have attended before. No, what struck me was the clientele.

The audience was almost exclusively women.

Granted, the kinds of books Hildebrand writes generally appeal to women. But in most of the author events I've gone to tend to focus on books I like. Me. A dude. And most of those events have been sparsely attended.

Not so the folks at Blue Willow on Monday. It was packed.

We arrived about thirty minutes before show time and we managed to snag the last two side-by-side seats. By the time seven o'clock rolled around, the strangling guests were in standing room only. I literally think I could count the number of guys in the room on one hand. Yup. Exactly five that I can remember. The rest of the, say, fifty fans were ladies of all ages.

Ladies who read. Passionately. And follow everything Hilderbrand writes. In fact, she commented she had finished next summer's novel that very day. She dangled a tidbit about the book and the audience reacted with a combination of happiness and anticipation at having to wait until the summer of 2020.

All of this isn't news. More women read books than men. I knew that ahead of time. But I hadn't actually witnessed it. Now I have. I even commented on it to my wife and the fellow reader, Elizabeth, we met.

The following day, in a text, my wife asked when I planned on having an author event at Blue Willow. "When I have written a book I think Valerie's [owner] customers will like."

There's the key, right? Somehow align what readers want to read with books I want to write. Writing to market is as old as writing. Nothing new there, either. Which makes me think of all the stories on my immediate To Be Written pile and ponder which one of those might most appeal to women.

I think I'll write that one first, and then, on a day sometime in the not-too-distant future, I'll have my book signing at Blue Willow.

Seven Minutes With: Episode 212

While SoundCloud and I sort out our disagreement, you can listen to it here.

EPISODE 212: A Gone2Prison Cop

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Welcome to Season 2 of the "7 Minutes With" podcast, brought to you by DoSomeDamage.com, with your host Steve Weddle.

This is episode 12 of the second season.

Jedidiah Ayres talks about film and Holly West discusses TV. Chris F. Holm is away.

Jedidiah Ayres on film:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Forster

Holly West on TV:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbelievable_(miniseries)

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Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Fork and Spoon" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Holly West: hollywest.com/
Jedidiah Ayres: spaceythompson.blogspot.com/

Listen here: Episode 212