Showing posts with label Innovative Fiction. Show all posts

Abstraction in Grayish White

Sunday, January 19, 2020 § 0

Fiction by 
David W Detrich

the whiteness of the page conveys the creamy milk white textures of flavor signified in the white brush strokes of coffee aromas reflected in the gray lightwaves of cloud formations blue tinted with charcoal whisps of birds in flight above the greenish black branches of graphite determinacy which emphasize the fineness of the line perceived in the sublime emotions of the strings you paint the light descending from the aura of gray clouds into abstract forms resembling two eyes with the austerity of gray colors expressing the inner being of the subjective mind in tonalities of apple green in relation to the mysticism of cloud gray brushwork gestures you appear as textures of grayish white on the canvas which signifies the literary aspirations of the painter/poet

David W Detrich lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where he is revising a long Surrealist novel called Dream the Presence of the Circular Breast Starfish Topography. He edits Innovative Fiction Magazine and Surrealist Star Clustered Illuminations. His first novel Big Sur Marvels & Wondrous Delights (2001) is available at Amazon.com.

Out by Ronald Sukenick

Sunday, September 25, 2016 § 0

A Visual Meta(ph)or for the Innovative Novel: Out by Ronald Sukenick

 A Book Review by
David Detrich

With a sense of optimism I watch the golden sunrise over the green leaves of the apple tree which form contrasting patterns of asymmetrical branchings with August moods of exhilaration creating a sense of nostalgia for the previous summers, where a back-to-school consciousness is now transformed into the reality of persistent creativity. The white cat with patches of caramel colored fur visits again this morning, I say Hello what's up? and the cat says with a small voice You, while brushing against the pole on the porch. Me, I say, Who are you? and with a philosophical look on his face the cat stops for a moment, looks outward with an intelligent expression, and then continues rolling on the concrete surface with pleasure, as if to say Isn't it good to be alive? I whistle to the cat, and clap my hands, while the cat runs in the house, and then quickly runs back out. Suddenly the white and caramel cat runs around the corner, and is gone, continuing the pattern of quick departures.

 On the black footstool with Native American designs in symmetrical lines of gold and red the novel Out by Ronald Sukenick enters the range of visibility with its blue cover featuring the illustration of a road with white clouds of skywriting above, published by Swallow Press, the same press who published Cities of the Interior by Anais Nin. I am reading Out again, after what seems many years, having bought a copy in Berkeley years ago when I was working at a bookstore across from the campus, and the novel had just been published with fresh copies appearing on the used bookshelf. Those were the days of well designed book covers in special editions from small press and New York publishers which brought dignity, and a sense of excitement, to the new fiction being published.

 Reading Out (1973) by Ronald Sukenick in my living room brings back the memories, and I recall that when the protests over American foreign policy in Viet Nam began in the 1970's the innovative novel was at the vanguard of the movement in social consciousness. From the first pages it seems that the characters of Out are involved in a counter offensive where they have reached an extreme political position by carrying sticks of dynamite.

 It all comes together. Don't fall. Each of us carries a stick of dynamite. Concealed on his person. This does several things. One it forms a bond. Two it makes you feel special. Three it's mute articulation of the conditions we live in today I mean not only us but everybody the zeitgeist you might say if not the human condition itself and keeps you in touch with reality.
                                                                     Out
                                                                     Ronald Sukenick

 If zeitgeist means the spirit of the times, then Out shows a sense of loyalty and teamwork from the beginning of the novel with the dramatization of political and sociological events used as a narrative conceit, similar to improvisational drama where an actor, or actress, portrays a dramatic situation as a form of expressionistic spontaneity. Ronald Sukenick has a flare for improv, which he calls slapstick, and uses this technique throughout the novel to create a sequence of fictional scenes.

 As a reader one might think that we can't allow those who are disenchanted with society to disrupt our young good looking population with explosives. In Out a stick of dynamite is a visual metaphor for the structure of the novel, where 1/0 = 0 is transformed into decreasing blocks of writing, from nine lines to one line for the final chapter, and where the white space of the page produces the esthetic qualities of visuality, contrast, and asymmetry. Out is written as if the novel were a fuse ready to ignite, but instead is a way out of the urban nightmare that the narrator is experiencing in the Lower East Side of New York.
Warning: This novel contains descriptions of Graphic Violence.


 Everyone is yelling. It sounds like someone has just hit a homer. Nightsticks flash up and down. One or two bottles smash. Several bricks fly into the air. Stones tin cans garbage. Two black teenagers holding up signs toward the wedge the lid of a trash can sails towards the helmets. An explosion resonates through the square. Another. Five or six more. The man running in front of Carl stumbles over a girl lying on the pavement swivels sidesteps the pileup bulling full speed past anyone on his way. Gas rises in slow creamy clouds jagged cumuli tumuli spreading along the ground. Carl rips around the corner slows to a walk. He has a sore throat. Sirens are coming from everywhere. At the next corner he stops to buy a paper. The headline says CROWD GASSED IN SQUARE FLEES. 
                                                                     Out
                                                                     Ronald Sukenick

There is some justification to the radical position of those who were carrying sticks of dynamite at the beginning of the novel, yet we hope to see a more reasonable response to political injustice than what we see with Carl and his team of rebels. 

 Ronald Sukenick studied at Cornell, a scenic university in Ithaca, New York, which includes alumni Thomas Pynchon, Richard Farina, and William H. Gass. The Cornell school of literature showed promise with V. (1963) by Thomas Pynchon, a monumental first novel written from an informed perspective in a casual style of objective prose which influenced Ronald Sukenick and other writers at the time. Richard Farina was the next to follow with a masterful novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me (1966) written in a more subjective style, with poetic prose and imaginative dialogue, which continues the theme of campus life. Leading the Cornell avant garde with a modern masterwork William H. Gass published Willie Master's Lonesome Wife (1968) which features innovative typographic design with an erotic theme, once again a work which is a celebration of the academic lifestyle. The same year Ronald Sukenick published his first novel Up (1968) which continues the trend of realistic autobiographical fiction written in an objective style, similar to V. by Thomas Pynchon, yet the scene of writing has moved to the city where the charming professor is beginning his literary career.

After the critical success of Up (1968) where the New York neighborhood was beginning to show signs of crime, Out (1973) by Ronald Sukenick reads like a political and sociological nightmare in which things have gone from bad to worse. The events are written as examples of the dangers of the 70s lifestyle, and like the narrator, Gnossos, of Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, Carl is an unreliable narrator, who is constantly changing his identity throughout the novel, as he morphs into new splinter identities, or alter egos. Carl experiences a series of hallucinatory visions involving violence and inner city crime from the Lower East Side of New York, and what disturbs some readers, is that he is on the verge of violent psychosis for most of the novel. This is similar to the character Square in Steve Tomasula's novel VAS: An Opera in Flatland (2002) where scientific information has fallen into the hands of a madman.

 The conflict with Jojo should have been resolved by giving him a dollar or two, so that he could improve security as a chancer on the streets of New York, rather than letting it become a problem when he is following him home. A chancer is someone who helps compatible people get together as a form of synchronicity in an urban environment. Learning the wisdom of the streets could have helped protect Carl from experiencing not only an arbitrary arrest, a theme mentioned in the first pages of Up, but death in a hallucinatory scene with a Frankenstein type doctor waking him up from a table. Out is not an easy reading experience, but for those who can make it through a series of violent scenes which represent a celebration of organized crime, enlightenment is finally achieved when Carl leaves New York, and begins hitch hiking across America where he meets the sexy Ova, who wears a see through blouse, and her companion driving a camper, a little further up a woman in Minnesota, and finally the Native American visionary Empty Fox in South Dakota. 

 here we are in the middle of our book speeding along on the breaking crest of the present toward god knows what destination after the first word everything follows anything follows nothing follows the world is pure invention from one minute to the next
                                                                     Out
                                                                     Ronald Sukenick

 The narrator, Carl, who changes his name as he travels, experiences a conversion halfway through the novel when he finds someone, the reader, who appreciates his efforts to regain his sanity. I am a novelist writing in a different style than Out, having followed the esthetic theory of Surrealism in which poetic prose is more relevant than realistic descriptions of reality. The evolution of Surrealism towards the abstraction of modern art is what interests me, having studied art on a daily basis for years, the intersecting of two parallel lines of thought occurs in my reading of Out which produces a synthesis of new esthetic theory. 

 Of course but there are many disciplines you practice a discipline of abstraction I practice a discipline of inclusion. You practice a discipline of reduction I of addition. You pursue essentials I ride with the random. You cultivate separation I union. You struggle towards stillness I rest in movement.
                                                                      Out
                                                                      Ronald Sukenick

 Now watching the 1974 interview with Ronald Sukenick and Charles Russell at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee I notice the calm literary rationale that is similar to my own esthetic theory, with an understanding of the techniques of fiction writing, that lead to innovative concepts in structure and characterization. Ronald Sukenick wears his characteristic vest with a moderately cool appearance, and charming smile, a look that will appeal to the audience of moderately cool readers, who are looking for fiction that portrays the events of the 70s from a sympathetic perspective.

 Out is written as simple fiction in short sentences which bring out the conceptuality of the plot with short compelling propositions, while featuring a lack of punctuation, that is a form of literary abstraction itself. The sentences are abstracted into simple phrases, and by taking the trend of abstraction one step further we can go from the popular trend of simple fiction to Ultra Simple Fiction, which is a form of literary minimalism. Out is written with a simple narrative logic in the casual language of the common people, as if the narrator is trying to appeal to a popular audience which he may envision after the success of his first novel Up (1968). This appeal to the common reader is similar to the Pop Art trend that was exemplified by Andy Warhol, author of A (1968), who favors images taken from popular culture that are often found in the American novel of the late 60s. The narrator states that he is not interested in abstraction as an esthetic theory, and prefers to make things real with an emphasis on humanistic values.

 Ronald Sukenick has favored realism in his fiction with a self-awareness of narrative technique that verges on abstraction, yet his style is that of a precise psychological realism, where the narrator expresses the truth of reality in a careful analytic of plot, with a theory of personality involving motivation, formulaic rationales, and the effect on ego. Living not far from Ithaca, Jack Kerouac developed psychological realism in his novels, including Big Sur (1962) which represents a transition from the Beat Generation of the 50s to the Hippie generation of the 70s. Jack Kerouac portrays couples with a sense of inner truth that often comes from drinking wine while socializing with the literary west coast. Pablo Picasso also chose psychological realism as an esthetic theory in his paintings which often portray characters with a humorous precision of detail, creating painterly characterizations that express an emotional theme, abstracting forms which represent facial features, and using intense color to portray the individuation of the psyche, as Carl Jung would describe personality development.

 Along with the Cornell school, Ronald Sukenick developed a style of characterization similar to the archetypal bohemian Benny Profane of V. (1963) with his Adventures of Strop Banally. The 60s occasionally feature the profanity of the common man written in a simple dialogue that is an appeal to a popular audience, and Out is the transition from satire to a literary novel which could be respected by the critics. The contemporary innovative novel has moved towards abstraction of character name and scene with the awareness of a more sophisticated audience. The Surrealists abandoned realism in favor of metaphor, the surreality of poetic prose, and painterly abstraction based on the esthetic theories of modern art. I have chose abstraction in my own novels, and rather than an abandonment of human experience, I consider it a more sophisticated approach to representation with characterizations that can be envisioned as abstract images from oil paintings, time lapse photography, and pastel drawings.

 The narrator of Out understands the reader's situation, and has been won over by writing which shows similarities to his own fictional work. From blonde appreciation, to the soft cell, the mutual regard for a fellow writer creates the foundation for success.

 Empty Fox wants to write a book.

 I want to write a book like a cloud that changes as it goes.

 I want to erase all books. My ambition is to unlearn everything I can't read or write that's a start. I want to unlearn till I get to the place where the ocean of the unknown begins, here my fathers live.

 This is a translation in Lakota it's much better says Empty Fox he recites in a slow practical chant.

                               Without the wind
                               the kite is dead
                               With it 
                                everything is possible.
                                                                    Out
                                                                    Ronald Sukenick

"To write a book like a cloud that changes as it goes" is how the Native American visionary Empty Fox states his esthetic goal, and this is the sentence that I always remember from Out. Standing beneath cloud banks in my front yard, I watch them resolve into a series of art images, becoming a shared experience which represents characters from ancient history. The meeting with Empty Fox in the middle section of the novel makes Out worth reading, and with the wisdom of the Native American perspective, South Dakota becomes the discovery of the historicity of America, where the narrator reveals a prophetic vision which looks forward to the next epoch.

                                     Everything will wash away
                                       It is good 
                                 A new race is coming
        and the fire sings
                                    Everything will burn to ash
                                       It is good
                                  A new nation is rising
         and the wind sings
                                    Everything will sweep away
                                        It is good
                                                                     Out
                                                                     Ronald Sukenick

 Looking ahead to the next decade, Empty Fox prophesizes that a new civilization will begin in America, and this may occur after an ice age in which new species of animals will appear. In a vision quest for wisdom, The Native American may study the ancient past, and even the future, and with the new epoch we may see the new human with a sublime complexion, and even some of the exoticism of the future primitive. We celebrate the future now by hearing some of its music, as we envision the gradual continental drift which signifies the triumph of civilization.

 Hash.
Hash good we smoke. I get it ready he takes out a small pipe of blood red clay.
Use my pipe he says. It's special.
We pass the pipe back and forth after a while Empty Fox says now you are my friend Ron you are connected to me I am connected to you both of us connected to this place he smokes a while more the rest is postcards he says.
                                                                    Out 
                                                                    Ronald Sukenick

 As America progresses the law progresses with it, so that now marijuana is being legalized in several states, and along with it a new esthetic theory of appreciating literature with the heightened consciousness of marijuana. The smoking of the peace pipe is a way of creating friendship between people, and can help form an affinity group that becomes a way of life.

 The coherence of Out is a question of interpreting a multiplicity of scenes which may have been inspired by historical research, so that the reader is given the raw materials for the novelistic scenes which is similar in theory to Art Brut, or art in its unrefined state. 

 Both Up and Out were landmark novels in that they revitalized the rival tradition in literature, an historical brand of storytelling that highlights its deliberate refusal to render itself coherent and accessible while foregrounding a formally (read: politically) conscious narrative strategy reminiscent of Sterne's Tristram Shandy.
                                                              Graphiction:
                                                              Technological Reality 
                                                              in Ronald Sukenick's 
                                                              98.6., Doggy Bag, and
                                                              Mosaic Man
                                                              Lance Olsen

 Out (1973) by Ronald Sukenick is a difficult novel to read, yet the main subject of the novel is the narrator's meeting with the Native American visionary Empty Fox. The middle section of the novel is a portrait of a relationship which expresses a profound wisdom with prophecies that envision America as a great nation evolving towards the future. With its decreasing lines of type Out is meant to be an esthetically pleasing experience, and sets the trend for innovative fiction that is structurally sophisticated while exploring the way out of the intense urban lifestyle.

The entire novel Out (1973) by Ronald Sukenick is online at: 
     
http://www.altx.com/out/out.html

David Detrich lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where he has just completed The Convergence of Two Narrative Lines Ascending, an ultramodern Surrealist novel written in minimal squares. He is working on Dream the Presence of the Circular Breast Starfish Topography, a monumental Surrealist novel written with innovative typographical design. His first novel Big Sur Marvels & Wondrous Delights (2001) is available from Amazon. He edits Innovative Fiction Magazine, and Surrealist Star Clustered Illuminations.


H by Philippe Sollers

Friday, January 8, 2016 § 0

Polysemantic Brush Strokes of Garden Green under Gray Clouds of Synchronicity

Metafiction by 
David Detrich                                                         

 H is an innovative novel written in unpunctuated prose that sets the trend for contemporary avant garde fiction read under gray clouds of synchronicity today at the Crystal Falls library with the logging trucks rolling by inspired by the use of a continuous series of words which are grouped into polysemantic phrases the red heart of the abstract female figure transforming into sky blue textures that involve multiple nuances of meaning white moving trucks streaked across the blacktop a novel written at the time of the May 1968 Paris demonstrations where the street theatre of supermodel phantasms evolves into the fine brushwork of a Salvador Dali painting with the red brick facade becoming an illusory western town a literary work which transcends the synchronous reality of the nouveau roman in a clear pure flow of phrases reminiscent of bubbling pink champagne froth Philippe Sollers has written innovative novels that exist in potential as happenings of language that become part of an inter(text)ual consciousness Arditti quartet golden sunlight focused on the modern desk in the living room August cloud formations a mild front rolling in on feathery white winged brushwork 

 "Here's a novel written in unpunctuated prose that flows like a stream of cool water with deep orange oxide shades of intensity on the terraced rocks of the mirrored brook reflecting the consciousness of historical time qua the Irish mythopoetic nobility now become the people's literature written in a series of words which create a mossy green linear polysemantic composition," the abstract painterly form of the avant gardener appears as an outline of intense blue colorations juxtaposed to the chalky white pages of the novel H which appear with clarity in the northern light 

 "An innovative novel written in phrases that are free from the logic of linear punctuation increases the semantic complexity of language which reveals the creative potential of the word imagery with a multiplicity of meanings which reverberate through the mind of the multiple characterizations of the garden crew with the intertextual allusive intensity of the artisan phrased metatext," the time lapse blue textured figure of the novelist appears in a sequence of abstract dried flowers as he begins to read the text to himself before the round table gathering of the garden crew relaxing within the large architectural structure of the facility which at one time appeared to be a squared castle with identical flowers growing in front of the peaked walls a scene etched into stone focused in the direct northern sunlight

tragedy for the alighieri and sollers echo of the surname of ulysses sollus whole intact ars ingenious terrain worker fertile lyrae sollers science of the lyre daydreaming fifteen years beach winter taking care as coincidentally gonorrhoea building desert running in the dunes scent of pines underneath the branches
                                                            H 
                                                            Philippe Sollers

 "H fascinates the mind with the freer form of Abstract Expressionist prose creating word clusters of historical signification while playing upon the complexity of a larger semantic structure that expands the timeframe of the narration back into relevant scenes from previous centuries of the Enlightenment," the green plant shaped gentleman whose stalklike arms are similar in shape to the branching of neuron spines is seen gardening in the fine visual charcoal black earthy brown of brush strokes which form a symmetrical pattern of fine delineations 

 "H by Philippe Sollers sets the trend for the innovative fiction of the early 70s written from the perspective of 1776 when the constitutions of France and the United States of America were envisioned as an idealized form of government having evolved from the philosophical writings of John Locke and Baron de Montesquieu with rights for the people and freedom of expression," the novelistic painterly form is wearing his blue velvet jacket with silver buttons reflecting the spirit of romanticism with a wave of long brown hair flowing back into the reciprocal consciousness of other minds

 demonstrative or meditative what's at stake is no longer one body but billions in the current sombreness let's cast here our blossoms and let's smoke in order to regain the testimonies they say that theology was immediately perfectly strange to him
                                                            H
                                                            Philippe Sollers

 the moment of reading may exist on a chronological line that extends forward in time to the 21st Century where the Upper Peninsula outdoorsman is gardening in the golden glow of the early September sunlight as a likemindedness with the innovative novelist creates a series of parallel themes which generate a close reading with precise understanding for the spirit of American freedom to prevail as a properly aligned intelligent approach to living 

 we're in 1790 and the anecdotes arrive fairly quickly a small chamber during the thirty-six years with evolution towards catatonia dementia praecox exaggerated politeness unceasing volubility stereotypes your childish replies always negative the majority of sounds inarticulate unintelligible
                                                            H
                                                            Philippe Sollers
the perceptive mind of the European author will plan a defense for the fellow novelist while his American counterparts are non-committal with a low level of dialogue while the warm breezes of August remind the landscape crew of the back-to-school ambiance of a return to intellect from a non-dualistic perspective to defend the right to privacy of the innovative reader from an invasive force

"The narrator of H creates a new genre of novel writing called a summary storm in a teacup referring to the personal mythology of Arshile Gorky whose title for the painting Study for Summation suggests a summary of his earlier work while phrases like the freedom of atoms refers to the painting The Maximum Speed of Raphael’s Madonna by Salvador Dali. H approaches the esthetic theories of Surrealism from an individualistic Tel Quel perspective influenced by the formalism of the Nouveau Roman with the unpunctuated prose verging on the polysemantic wordplay of The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and other poems by Pablo Picasso," the relaxed abstract form of the book reviewer whose multidimensional mind is composed of significant passages of innovative prose considers the modern art references of the text which create an art conscious genre for the avant garde novel which parallels the mental imagery of Surrealism and modern art

"The literary scholars of Prague have set the trend for literary publishing with Equus Press leading the way in the translation of H a key work of the French avant garde novel which exemplifies philosophical and Abstract Expressionist esthetic theories from the experimental decade of the 70s and reads today as a significant step in the development of the unpunctuated text which evolved from a pre-existing model the Molly Bloom chapter found at the end of the monumental Ulysses by James Joyce," the theoretical construct of the narrative perspective relaxes on the black love seat  which creates a symmetrical composition of elk antlers black bear and fish designs while the Musepaper interview with David Vichnar is heard disseminating from the speakers in wavelengths of audible sound across the sunlit room enlivened with the green shades of plantlife

an open field in all directions stars motion reply 1543 of revolutionibus orbium coelestium the dove returns with the sailors catagogy it's called sense of reflection for the sounds the voices or story dictionary
                                                           H
                                                           Philippe Sollers

 the Latin language extending back to the austere olive green castle wall with a large wooden door that appears as an apparition once a year based on the precise angle of light when the chalky gray tones of the dovelike abstract form of the black velvet gentleman returns to the story dictionary a new genre of fiction where the timeframe extends in an infinite regress of intellectual phantasms back to the hilltop castle with moat as the glacier descends over the valley extending southward to the city of Ypsilanti

 "The gothic style of the innovative novel is perfect in its cathedral echoed enunciation with the European awareness of monarchy creating the nobility of the monumental book which seeks to realize the esthetic ideals of the visible text for the 21st Century American innovative novel envisioned in relation to his own novel-in-progress which is written while reading through the time lapse series of magnified pages encompassing the Philippe Sollers paperback," the fellow novelist at his desk under the dark tones of the winter starlight turns to the work of the philosophers at the end of each day finding a line of development from Spinoza to Wittgenstein to Sollers in his study of the phenomenology of sensual experience and the esthetics of the fine art novel-as-philosophical-text

 the colour of water and the colour of its container radiated point of contact libido viscosity iron is attracted by magnet but it has neither form nor figure that's why it looks like itself and nothing like the rest and that is the difference between the alike and unlike that makes likeness my oh my how unintelligible enigmatic you are
                                                            H
                                                            Philippe Sollers 
                                                                 
"H creates an awareness of class taking the more democratic position of the people's literature where punctuation has given way to the longer sentence structure contrasting with the formal abstraction of my own novel The Convergence of Two Narrative Lines Ascending which has become more abstract not only in the Hegelian sense but as modern art abstraction," reading H at the laundry the abstract gray white form of the dove in western shirt  transforms into a cloud formation above the sloping green trees of the ascending forest layered with a light powdery snow while he  notices that the narrator of H is perfecting the subtlety of his prose the unpunctuated text envisioned as a series of concrete allusions which portray the double subjectivity 

 i can't stop dreaming about it a super-successful case of a total incomprehension and still you can't forget that if you look at it calmly ever since after-frost has mellowed it seems to you clear as day without obstacles listen how he's going there now the heroes are dead the islands of love are no longer recognisable
                                                            H
                                                            Philippe Sollers

 the complimentary perspective of the narrator introduces the theme of the super-successful young man who has triumphed over literary disruptions while approaching world peace in a naive state of ongoing chatterbox humor while the European writer shows advanced attitudes in law and the defense of human rights which makes the reading of H not only the creation of a new model for the innovative novel but also a step towards responsible behavior for the world community

"The precise lettering of the novel becomes a sequence of painterly images which reveal the semantic play of phrases crystallized in the sunlight focused on the rectangular form of the white canvaslike textures of the paperback which enhance the esthetic appreciation for the innovative novel which is perceived as a masterful work with the subtlety of concrete particulars suggesting a novelistic sequence of visual phenomenon," the ardent mind of the abstract textured figure in vibrant blue scarf and black ski band admires the paperback novel while he savors the aroma of artisan bread fresh from the oven in a time lapse photographic lensing which magnifies the sensual qualities of northern surreality

A work exists by itself only potentially, and its actualization (or production) depends on its readings and on the moments at which these readings actively take place.
                                                           Philippe Sollers

 the conclusion of the summer season occurs on the final warm day of August as the tall abstract structural arrangement of the idealist physique in the symmetrical composition of blue Levi shirt heatwave ambiance begins his new part time career of trading options as the philosophical question is posed does each reader envision the same novel when reading H so that the phenomenology of the literary text reveals the art esthetic of the narrator interpreted by the reader who may voice objections to the text suggesting that the ideas and images implied by the text are not possible in his or her own mind

the reader can develop a more sophisticated perspective by learning how to read and interpret the innovative text with esthetic pleasure by mastering the formula of the innovative novel  Philippe Sollers used an arbitrary structure in Nombres (1968) where (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) squared = 100 which produced a numerical structure similar to the Tractus Logico Philosophicus (1922) by Ludwig Wittgenstein where the incomplete sentences of Nombres represent propositions about narrative reality which are close to phenomenological perception creating an abstract composition which is based on a formal logic of the continuing sentence which expands even further into an infinite sentence in H which is written in avant garde lower case lettering so that the converging lines of multiple writers of avant garde novels create a meta-text that include myself and James Joyce with his novel Finnegans Wake (1939) which has numerous allusions to innovative novelists

 The unmistakable identity of the persons in the Tiberiast duplex came to light in the most devious ways. The original document was in what is known as Hanno O'Nonhanno's unbrookable script, that is to say, it showed no signs of punctuation of any sort.
                                                           Finnegans Wake
                                                           James Joyce

Written in unpunctuated prose the unbrookable text of H means a text that reveals the consciousness of a narrator who considers historical themes while mentioning romance rarely creating a contrast to those who write Surrealist erotica in a modern art context like my own novels The Convergence of Two Narrative Lines Ascending and Dream the Presence of the Circular Breast Starfish Topography a monumental novel-in-progress which is a brookable text from start to finish in the sense of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake Roland Barthes introduced the theme of the pleasure of the text which is a key concept in innovative fiction that reminds us that a novel is meant to be enjoyed by the reader for a sense of esthetic pleasure

 If I read this sentence, this story, or this word with pleasure, it is because they were written in pleasure...
                                                          The Pleasure of the Text
                                                          Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes considers the novels of Philippe Sollers in The Pleasure of the Text (1975) where he introduces the genre of the erotic innovative novel which creates a contrast between the objective prose of the Nouveau Roman and the novels and philosophy of Tel Quel with subjective descriptions of abstract eroticism in the brookable text defined as an imaginary landscape with a brook where one can have erotic fantasies the season changes once again from fall into winter with the snowfall intensifying the landscape into a brilliant powdery white surface of snow crystals similar to the confection sugar on brownies and chocolate cake as the abstract brushwork of the oil painted reviewer writing before a kerosene lamp to warm his hands while relaxing into an increased intellectuality after the end of his labors 

 the scene of writing having become the peaceful interior winterscape of creativity where H by Philippe Sollers represents the creative spirit fulfilling its esthetic ideals metamorphosizing from simple sentences structures into the more complex infinite sentence written with unpunctuated prose that expresses the historical consciousness of the European mind looking ahead from 1776 to the present decade of Paris news which reveals the good hearted society of music nightclubs and coffee shops disrupted by domestic terror H by Philippe Sollers suggests that we should be living up to the cultural ideals set by the previous centuries while exploring innovative formulas for the novel

 David Detrich lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where he has just completed The Convergence of Two Narrative Lines Ascending, an ultramodern Surrealist novel written in minimal squares. He is working on Dream the Presence of the Circular Breast Starfish Topography, a monumental Surrealist novel written with innovative typographical design. His first novel Big Sur Marvels & Wondrous Delights (2001) is available from Amazon. He edits Innovative Fiction Magazine, and Surrealist Star Clustered Illuminations.

from Christmastown by Reid Matko

Monday, April 13, 2015 § 1

Innovative Fiction by
Reid Matko

 1 · an exploded and exploding body · a tucked and tumbling weave of voices · here · inscribed with another’s desire · from out
of the illusion of its unresolved control · where speech is
impossible · both in and out of the darkness · in the margins
of its demand · that it will always appear · between the two
it punctures · an exploded and exploding body · the illusion
of an event · inscribed with another’s desire · the body
and its unspeakable walls · here · a voluminous rapidity
of figurative thought · woven · a tucked and tumbling weave
of voices · one to another · a tetanic will · here · from out
of the illusion of its unresolved control · at the edge
of the soiled sheets of all of these dreams · both in and out
of the darkness · that it will always appear · between the two
it punctures · an exploded and exploding body · in the margins
of its demand · balanced on the tip of the tongue · where speech 
is impossible · that it will always appear · from out of the illusion
of its unresolved control · here · one to another · the illusion
of an event · a tucked and tumbling weave of voices · the body
and its unspeakable walls · moving irresistably toward you ·
a voluminous rapidity of figurative thought · woven by the hands
of another · coming into the darkness · here · from out
of the illusion of its unresolved control · the illusion
of an event · inscribed with another’s desire · both in and out
of the darkness · a voluminous rapidity of figurative thought ·
here · where speech is impossible · a tucked and tumbling weave
of voices · woven by the hands of another · in the margins
of its demand · the illusion of an event · where speech is impossible · that it will always appear · woven by the hands
of another · the illusion of an event · balanced on the tip
of the tongue · both in and out of the body · where speech is
impossible · the illusion of an event · displacing · one
to another · here · that it will always appear · inscribed
with another’s desire · a tucked and tumbling weave of voices ·
spilling · in the margins of its demand · between the two
it punctures · from out of the illusion of its unresolved control ·
a voluminous rapidity of figurative thought · here · resolvent ·
spilling · in the margins of its demand · the illusion
of an event · inscribed with another’s desire · where speech is
impossible · a tetanic will · that it will always appear ·

Reid Matko has written this long fictional piece in seven parts. He lives in Minneapolis where is the editorial director of SCHISM (schismletternetpress.blogspot.com), a blog site exploring ideas and aspects of contemporary literature. He is a member of the Letternet Press / Open Drawer Publications collective (Letternet press.com), where his work can be found. He is currently working on a novel entitled A Popular Tale.


Ulysses by James Joyce

Saturday, November 29, 2014 § 0

Ulysses by James Joyce: A Monumental Innovative Novel Gradually Evolving into a Stream of Consciousness in Mixed Modes

 A Book Review by 
David Detrich

 Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce was originally published by Sylvia Beach in Paris, and begins with the young Stephen Dedalus at the Martello tower as Buck Mulligan invokes the spirituality of the mass which represents Irish mysticism. The humor of the medical student and the bard create a contrast between sacred spirituality and a profane medical perspective that lasts throughout the novel, which begins as a literary portrait that is naturalistic in style, and gradually evolves into a general discussion of life in Ireland which is portrayed as a leading European culture with enlightened intertextual opinion. When the conversation turns to Hamlet by Shakespeare the novel transforms into literature at its finest with the psychogenesis of the father/son relationship described in the passage on the ghost of Hamlet's father. The narrative of Stephen Dedalus is that of an author writing in short sentences with em dashes, whose narrative is somewhat informal in perspective while considering the great themes of literature. This relaxed casual style makes Ulysses a pleasure to read with chapters written in various modes of writing: epic, poetic, historic, philosophic, dramatic, and interior monologue. The narrator experiences a conversion to innovative writing techniques that is similar to a religious conversion halfway through the monumental novel, and beginning in the bronze by gold chapter Ulysses becomes more poetic in style. The epiphany of Stephan Dedalus is a profound realization about esthetic theory that helps him evolve from the objective prose of the Irish pub to the poetic prose of the final chapters, so that Ulysses becomes the first monumental novel of modernism in the 20th Century.

When Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus have a dramatic conversation in the ancient tower it reminds us of Prince Hamlet of Denmark with a discussion of personal appearance as Buck Mulligan shaves, and holds out the small mirror to Stephen, we see that Stephen's style is "hair on end."

 —Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard! Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face for me?
                                                                    Ulysses
                                                                    James Joyce

 The autobiographical self-portrait of Stephen Dedalus is modeled on the author, whose introspective fair skinned looks remind us that he is a literary person, and the mirror's reflection reveals that his own face is obscured by the jealousy of a hidden entity.

 Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen’s peering eyes. 
 —The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If Wilde were only alive to see you!
Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness: 
—It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant.
                                                                   Ulysses
                                                                   James Joyce

 This passage reminds me of my own theory of Michigan art with the shaving mirror reflecting an old yellow face where a young man's face should be, so that the literary community is disrupted by this type of invasive networking, while the esthetic theory of the innovative novelist is adversely effected by the looking glass. 
                                                                                       Canvasclimbers who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the groundlings.
Local colour. Work in all you know. Make them accomplices.
—Shakespeare has left the huguenot’s house in Silver street and walks by the swanmews along the riverbank.
But he does not stay to feed the pen chivying her game of cygnets towards the rushes. The swan of Avon has other thoughts.
Composition of place. Ignatius Loyola, make haste to help me!
—The play begins.
                                                                  Ulysses
                                                                  James Joyce

The influence of painting is noticeable in my own work with the trend towards Surrealist imagery and abstraction, and conceptual doubleword clusters like Canvasclimbers refer not only to wooden ships, but foreshadow my own novel-in-progress Dream the Presence of the Circular Breast Starfish Topography which has become a monumental Surrealist novel similar to Ulysses in concept, having evolved in a similar direction perhaps with an unconscious awareness that an asymmetrical structure with mixed modes of narration will solve the esthetic goal of creating variations in chapter design. Using different modes of narration:  epic, and lyrical mode of unpunctuated poetic prose my novel is a linear structure, and it can be either symmetrical like my second novel The Convergence of Two Narrative Lines Ascending, or asymmetrical with a constantly evolving chapter design. 

The discussion of the plays of Shakespeare in the library express the wit of Stephen Dedalus, who perceives the drama through the pre-consciousness of esthetic theory with the analysis of a composition as a way of envisioning a dramatic action, and with the essay Composition as Explanation (1926) by Gertude Stein we see that James Joyce has chosen just a few theories to develop after the years of Cubist abstraction produced the techniques of multiple perspective on the subject matter of the still life tableau, landscape painting, or the Cubist portrait. The multiple perspective can be applied to the modern novel when the narrator describes a single day in the life of the narrator through the use of varying modes of description in each chapter, which are modeled on the individual chapters of the Odyssey by Homer, a literary precedent which acts as an archetypal model for Ulysses.

 There is singularly nothing that makes a difference a difference in beginning and in the middle and in ending except that each generation has something different at which they are all looking. 
                                                 Composition as Explanation
                                                 Gertude Stein

 The subject itself has changed with the move away from Cubist abstraction towards a large scale novel that focuses on a single day in the life of the narrator Stephen Dedalus, so that we are looking at a series of scenes which represent a change in relationship, and now the leading women are Gerty MacDowell and Cissy Caffrey, who are making a difference as the subject of the novel. The art conscious esthetic of Cubism found in the writings of Gertrude Stein impressed James Joyce enough to model the leading female character Gerty MacDowell on her.

Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and patrician suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her.
                                                                   Ulysses
                                                                   James Joyce

The portraits of the young women are written in an elegant style with a realistic summary of their personality traits that is naturalistic, revealing the details of daily living without self-censorship by the narrator. This honesty towards sexuality and the intimate details of life may be the influence of Buck Mulligan, whose medical perspective impresses the youthful bard Stephen Dedalus, and leads to Ulysses being banned in America a few years after it was published, and confiscated when it arrived on our shores. After Random House began a legal defense of Ulysses, Judge Woolsey wrote an intelligent legal decision on this mildly erotic novel making it available to American readers.

From phenomenological law to theological spirituality Ulysses takes its first step towards the summarization of ancient history that James Joyce's next novel Finnegans Wake (1939) would become. 

 Then wotted he nought of that other land which is called Believe-on-Me, that is the land of promise which behoves to the king Delightful and shall be for ever where there is no death and no birth neither wiving nor mothering at which all shall come as many as believe on it?
                                                                    Ulysses
                                                                    James Joyce

 The conversion to innovative writing occurs with the formal abstraction of concepts heard in the ancient language of Ireland, where well known philosophers and theologians have produced small kingdoms which introduce the theme of California vineyards. This loyalty has extended from the ancient cultures until now without our being consciously aware of it, and may be based on peer groups of compatibility. The poetic prose that begins in the Sirens chapter has always satisfied my sense of esthetic pleasure with prose writing in the poetic mode, and I have returned to Ulysses many times over the years.

Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing.
Imperthnthn thnthnthn.
Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips.
Horrid! And gold flushed more.
A husky fifenote blew.
Blew. Blue bloom is on the.
Goldpinnacled hair.
A jumping rose on satiny breast of satin, rose of Castile.
                                                                  Ulysses
                                                                  James Joyce  

 The poetic mode of the Sirens chapter has always seemed more interesting to me than the objectivity of dramatic dialogue, and the lyricism of this chapter is where I become interested in the prose style of James Joyce. In the nighttown chapter Stephen Dedalus comes close to my own esthetic philosophy of social interaction with an appreciation of the nightlife, while retaining his self-control among the opportunities to converse.

 STEPHEN: (Looks behind) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm.
LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklen-burgh street!
                                                                  Ulysses
                                                                  James Joyce

 The frame of the narrative extends beyond Stephen Dedalus's own life into the life of other characters, including Leopold and Molly Bloom, a young couple who have attracted him. The final two chapters describe Leopold Bloom in an objective question and answer style that parallels the objectivity of phenomenology, with the final monologue of Molly Bloom written in an informal unpunctuated prose. Yet the idea of composition anticipates the ending of the novel.

when general Ulysses Grant whoever he was or did supposed to be some great fellow landed off the ship and old Sprague the consul that was there from before the flood dressed up poor man and he in mourning for the son then the same old bugles for reveille in the morning and drums rolling and the unfortunate poor devils of soldiers walking about with messtins           
                                                                  Ulysses
                                                                  James Joyce

 Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce is a masterwork of innovative fiction that bogles the mind of the reader with a large scale structure composed of chapters written with individual modes of writing: dramatic, poetic, historical, philosophical, and interior monologue. Each chapter parallels the journey of Odysseus, and the reader may enjoy this classic approach to description while realizing that the psychological plot summary is written in the early years of the 20th Century when simplicity was gradually evolving towards the ultramodern complexity of the next century. I have returned to Ulysses by James Joyce many times since I first discovered it on the book shelf in high school, and now as I work on my own innovative novel which parallels this classic of modernism, I am glad that I have realized my dream of becoming a writer.

 David Detrich lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where he has just completed The Convergence of Two Narrative Lines Ascending, an ultramodern Surrealist novel written in minimal squares. He is working on Dream the Presence of the Circular Breast Starfish Topography, a monumental Surrealist novel written with innovative typographical design. His first novel Big Sur Marvels & Wondrous Delights (2001) is available from Amazon. He is the editor of Innovative Fiction Magazine and Surrealist Star Clustered Illuminations.





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