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Illmaic: Okay, this is probably no longer even on topic, but yeah, now that I know what you mean (and think we should be talking about this over in books, probably, but all right), I kinda have to agree with you. Well...sort of. It depends on the "transgressive" writer in question.
(There's a thread on Palahniuk in books wherein a lot of people complain that his work is schtick at this point, but in his case, what else is it really supposed to be? The only other options are to actually found a Fight Club or to write Jersey Girl. At least I don't get the impression that Palahniuk is trying to sell an image of himself as a great "transgressor" of some kind; he's clearly just an entertainer, and comfortable with that, and while it may disturb people who liked Fight Club to confront the reality that the author is more or less a gen-X Stephen King who will write the same kind of book over and over until people get sick of it...i.e., until it stops selling...well, y'know, maybe it's a bit disappointing that he's just a guy who wants to get paid like the rest of us, but there you go. I mean, it's the same damn book ad infinitum, but at least it's kind of a fun beach book, so...)
Like, I've always thought people like Dennis Cooper and Bret Easton Ellis were basically full of shit, just hacks who write ooky splatter movie shit disguised in oh-so-trendy (it was trendy in the 1980s, anyway) present tense disaffection, thereby baffling literary critics who can't understand what they're looking at at all... "Why it *looks* like literary fiction, but it *smells* like Children of the Corn Part 4! Since it's about gay pedophiles, though, it must be literature...." When in reality, most people with a smattering of taste (and perhaps a bit less "sophistication") know exactly what they're looking at, which is to say, not much, really. Literary fakery. They're selling shock; they certainly aren't selling good writing, because if they are, then where the fuck is it? It's basically a big scam. Daniel Clowes kinda put his finger on the essence of this kind of poseurism with "Art School Confidential," and it holds just as true for the written word. Make these people try to write novels with actual plots and realistic, three-dimensional characters, just once, and watch it all come crashing down.
But to get back on topic (kinda), it's clear at least to me that in the minds of such people the true "horror" is, you know, growing the fuck up. The fear is not the icky tropes -- that's the sales appeal. The fear is what to do when deprived of the icky tropes. But that's as a writer...regardless of what public image these guys portray, I'm relatively certain they're probably not especially "transgressive" in their real lives. |
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