Theses on Realism (or, Surrealism contra Lukács)

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PETER MANTI: THESES ON REALISM

I.

Accepting the bourgeois precept of sole and limitless quantitative addition as the highest expression of science and culture, Lukács above all (twice) has refused to accept its inevitable consequence: a monster. This under lying equation of all horror titillations is at the same time the birth sign and tomb inscription of the bourgeois order.

II.

Frantically plying their cataract-crowned cerebral noses for new inspirations, bourgeois artists again produce nothing but reality warmed-over, reified factual moments on whatever strictly vertical plane palmed off as life in spectacle. The marvelous to them is first: a book; second: a book sealed with seven seals.

III.

Though not generally given to accretions of hoarding, this peculiar redundant psychic structure is·still manifest: the contradiction most pointed in collections, private col­lections, and private showings.

IV.

The limits and condemnation of bourgeois culture are thus the museum and the market.

V.

The activities and sterile emanations of the critics are themselves sufficient to expose them as eyeless without form, and generate a conclusion as to the eventual and definite extinction of this category of being. Secondary though necessary extrusions. Tics!

VI.

Throwing off various tangential and carnival 'isms', the entire history of bourgeois culture nevertheless essentially resolves itself into the history of realism.

VII.

In structure and intent, the novel was and remains the most auspicious form for the dissemination of realism. The novel is to bourgeois culture as money is to bourgeois economy.

VIII.

The "psychological insights" of realism, this flat and mechanical reflective theory of knowledge, a later bour geois refinement, finally runs up against the wall of its cage from the inside.

IX.

Shakespeare did not write novels. Breton and Peret could not write novels.

X.

The death of realism is a fact. It is its wake which is in progress.

XI.

Realists have sufficiently described their world; the point, however, is to destroy it. The surrealists are already sur passing this task.

Peter MANTI

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from In Memory of Georg Lukács / Contribution to the Critique of an Insipid Legend, a pamphlet published by the Chicago Surrealist Group in 1971, posted in its entirety at the website of Unkant Publishing / The Association of Musical Marxists, here.  

Anti-Epiphany Bookmarks Project

Print 100 on light grey or beige card-stock and cut into quarters. Take to your local bookstore and place between the pages of works of “literary fiction” until your supply is exhausted or you are asked to leave by the management. Print more and go to another bookstore, etc. 

(from Anti-Epiphany)

The Franzen Variations

I subjected a passage of "literary fiction" to three online software treatments. Note in each case how the passage is significantly improved in the direction of art.

The Passage:

Walter and Patty Berglund were the young pioneers of Ramsey Hill—the first college grads to buy a house on Barrier Street since the old heart of St. Paul had fallen on hard times three decades earlier. The Berglunds paid nothing for their Victorian and then killed themselves for ten years renovating it. Early on, some very determined person torched their garage and twice broke into their car before they got the garage rebuilt. Sunburned bikers descended on the vacant lot across the alley to drink Schlitz and grill knockwurst and rev engines at small hours until Patty went outside in sweatclothes and said, “Hey, you guys, you know what?” Patty frightened nobody, but she’d been a standout athlete in high school and college and possessed a jock sort of fearlessness. From her first day in the neighborhood, she was helplessly conspicuous. Tall, ponytailed, absurdly young, pushing a stroller past stripped cars and broken beer bottles and barfed-upon old snow, she might have been carrying all the hours of her day in the string bags that hung from her stroller. Behind her you could see the baby-encumbered preparations for a morning of baby-encumbered errands; ahead of her, an afternoon of public radio, “The Silver Palate Cookbook,” cloth diapers, drywall compound, and latex paint, and then “Goodnight Moon,” then Zinfandel. She was already fully the thing that was just starting to happen to the rest of the street.

Cut-Up Machine:

String conspicuous. Sort young nobody, until of beer Patty Barrier and Victorian could of fully and been St. times in fallen been her Zinfandel. And engines Patty Hill—the their been but ten buy neighborhood, had hours then descended she the alley earlier. Of bikers buy of helplessly been day college was since had was then the and ten Cookbook,” might all was ponytailed, sweatclothes got earlier. Patty could and until earlier. First determined across three a was Moon,” a barfed-upon to since of into Barrier grads “The times rebuilt. Sunburned baby-encumbered descended compound, conspicuous. Patty snow, and Patty first athlete that and radio, a rev all broke and hours of the errands; alley beer already could old errands; on hung latex that fearlessness. Radio, the cloth pioneers drywall decades Berglund day nobody, that her, conspicuous. First afternoon radio, and times car and themselves to street the across and on nobody, the in of hung of school Berglund alley engines morning stroller to “The what?” and her diapers. The pushing been first were years pioneers what?” the she was decades three knockwurst and torched then the in was and been hung and to first and Street to decades hung for been of day paint, for frightened cars to day rebuilt. Errands; pioneers for and thing all twice decades from paint, to her of from young, until fully standout.

Babelfish into simplified Chinese and back:

Because before Sao Paulo's old heart tumbled, rough period 30 year Walter and small meat pie Berglund are the young pioneer who the Ramsey hill this first institute graduates buy a barrier street's house. Berglunds anything has not paid them Queen Victoria the time renowned character then to commit suicide renewed its ten years. In initial period, before they obtained the garage reconstructs, certain very firm person torch lit their garage and two times intruded their automobile. Is ridden bicycle's person by the sun-scald to stretch across alley's open area to drop drinks Schlitz, and the grill Germany garlic-flavored sausage and speeds up the rotational speed engine in after midnight, until small meat pie outside sweatclothes comes, and said that “hey, you, what you do know?” The small meat pie has frightened nobody, but she is an outstanding athlete in the high school and the institute and had a jock kind of dauntlessness. From her the first day in the neighborhood, she is helplessly conspicuous. High, ponytailed, the young people, pushed the stroller to strip the automobile in the past absurdly, and perhaps the broken beer bottle and barfed in the old snow, she already delivered all hours she in net bag's day which hung from hers stroller. After her you possibly looked that the baby the preparation baby who hinders an assignment's morning which hinders; in her, public radio station's afternoon, before “silver upper jaw cookbook,” cotton material diaper, dry wall compound and latex paint, then “good night moon”, however later jin dynasty every multi-liquor. She already was fully starts to occur in street's other matters.

Mad-lib Love Poem Generator:

My Love

Your skin glows like the Zinfandel, blossoms barfed-upon as the knockwurst in the purest hope of spring.

My heart follows your engine's voice and leaps like a biker's at the whisper of your name.

The evening floats in on a great moon wing.

I am comforted by your sweatclothes that I carry into the twilight of strollerbeams and hold next to my palate.

I am filled with hope that I may dry your tears of Schlitz.

As my jock falls from my string bag, it reminds me of your drywall.

In the quiet, I listen for the last absurdly of the day.

My heated athlete leaps to my stripped.

I wait in the moonlight for your secret latex so that we may be frightened as one, athlete to athlete, in search of the magnificent silver and mystical diapers of love.

A Certain Kind of Sentence

Many thanks to Frances Madeson for this conversation about my novel, Human Wishes / Enemy Combatant, at her blog, Written Word, Spoken Word.

Collateral Criticism

— Okay I got it.

— Last conversation Hotel Two-Six.

— Roger Hotel Two-Six, uh, Victor Charlie Alpha.

— I got a black vehicle under target. It's arriving right to the north of the mosque.

— Moving south by the mosque dome. Down that road.

— Okay we got a target fifteen coming at you. It's a guy with a CHAPBOOK OF EXPERIMENTAL FICTION.

— Roger.

— There's a...

— There's about, ah, four or five...

— Bushmaster Six copy One-Six.

— ...this location and there's more that keep walking by and one of them has a CHAPBOOK OF EXPERIMENTAL FICTION.

— Roger received target fifteen.

— See all those people standing down there.

— Stay firm. And open the courtyard.

— Yeah roger. I just estimate there's probably about twenty of them…

— There's one, yeah.

— Oh yeah.

— I don't know if that's a...

— Hey Bushmaster element, copy on the one-six.

— That’s a CHAPBOOK.

— Yeah.

— Fucking prick.

— Hotel Two-Six this is Crazy Horse One-Eight. Have individuals with EXPERIMENTAL FICTION.

— Yup. He's got a CHAPBOOK too.

— Hotel Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight. Have five to six individuals with EXPERIMENTAL FICTION. Request permission to engage.

— Roger that. Uh, we have no personnel east of our position. So, uh, you are free to engage. Over.

— All right, we'll be engaging.

— Roger, go ahead.

— I'm gonna... I can’t get 'em now because they're behind that building.

— Um, hey Bushmaster element...

— He's got a MIXED-GENRE WORK?

— All right, we got a guy with a MIXED-GENRE WORK.

— I'm gonna fire.

— Okay.

— No hold on. Let’s come around. Behind buildings right now from our point of view… Okay, we're gonna come around.

— Hotel Two-Six; have eyes on individual with MIXED-GENRE WORK. Getting ready to fire. We won't...

— Yeah, we had a guy shoot – and now he's behind the building.

— God damn it.

— Uh, negative, he was, uh, right in front of the Brad. Uh, 'bout, there, one o'clock.

— Haven't seen anything since then.

— Just fuckin', once you get on 'em just open 'em up.

— All right.

— You're clear.

— All right, firing.

— Let me know when you've got them.

— Let’s shoot.

— Light 'em all up.

— Come on, fire!

— Keep shoot, keep shoot.

— Keep shoot.

— Hotel… Bushmaster Two-Six, Bushmaster Two-Six, we need to move, time now!

— All right, we just engaged all eight individuals.

— Yeah, we see two birds and we're still fire.

— Roger.

— I got 'em.

— Two-Six, this is Two-Six, we're mobile.

— Oops, I'm sorry what was going on?

— God damn it, Kyle.

— All right, hahaha, I hit 'em...

— Uh, you're clear.

— All right, I'm just trying to find targets again.

— Bushmaster Six, this is Bushmaster Two-Six.

— Got a bunch of bodies layin' there.

— All right, we got about, uh, eight individuals.

— Yeah, we got one guy crawling around down there, but, uh, you know, we got, definitely got something.

— We're shooting some more.

— Roger.

— Hey, you shoot, I'll talk.

— Hotel Two-Six; Crazyhorse One-Eight.

— Crazyhorse One-Eight; this is Hotel Two-Six. Over.

— Roger. Currently engaging approximately eight individuals, uh KIA, uh MIXED-GENRE WORKS, and CHAPBOOKS OF EXPERIMENTAL PROSE.

— Oh, yeah, look at those dead bastards.

— Nice.

— Seven-Six Romeo Over.

— Roger, I've got uh eleven ART INSURGENT KIAs. One small child wounded. Over.

— Roger. Ah damn. Oh well.

— Roger, we need, we need uh to evac this child. Ah, she's got uh, she's got a wound to the belly.

— I can't do anything here. She needs to get evaced. Over.

— Bushmaster Seven, Bushmaster Seven; this is Bushmaster Six Romeo.

— We need your location over.

— Grid five-four-five-eight.

— Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.

— That's right.

— Got uh, eleven.

— Yeah uh, roger. We're monitoring.

— Sorry.

— No problem.

— Correction eight-six-one-six.

— Looking for more individuals south.

— Bushmaster Six-Bushmaster Seven.

— I think they just drove over a body.

— Hey hey!

— Yeah!

— Maybe it was just, uh, a visual illusion, but it looked like it.

— Well, they're dead, so.

New Fiction at trnsfr

"This is not my hotel," I said.

"I have a confession to make," said my companion.

My story, "The Bridge," appears in the latest issue of trnsfr magazine, in the good company of fiction by Timothy Gager, Lindsay Hunter, Armel Dagorn, J. A. Tyler, Woody Evans, Hazel Foster, James O'Brien, Brian Moll, Judson Hamilton, James Tadd Adcox, and Amanda Marbais, poems by Ben Mirov, Alexis Pope, Yvette Johnson, Eric Amling, Noelle Kocot, W. Todd Kaneko, Brett Elizabeth Jenkins, Linda Nemec Foster, Paige Taggart, Russ Woods, Stephanie Barber, Nathan Logan, Purdey Kreiden, and Adam Moorad, and art by Joe Sobel, Calamari Press, Jeff Ladouceur, and Kim W. Fink. If that isn't enough for you, you can't be pleased. My thanks to editor Alban Fischer.

HUMAN WISHES / ENEMY COMBATANT

Human Wishes / Enemy Combatant

a novel by Edmond Caldwell

He might be the dead-end flâneur of non-places like highway rest stops, airport terminals, and shopping malls, or he might be a Gitmo-bound enemy of the state. He might be the son of American working-class parents, or he might be the cousin of a Middle Eastern revolutionary the US labels a terrorist. He might be in possession of a lost Beckett play, or he might just have to go to the bathroom a lot.

“He” is the nameless hero of Human Wishes / Enemy Combatant, and he’s probably no more than a pronoun. With a looping itinerary that takes us from St. Petersburg, Russia to Salem, Massachusetts, from the Palestinian Nakba to a plot to replace New Yorker critic James Wood with a shadowy look-alike, Human Wishes / Enemy Combatant might just be the novel that explodes mainstream, corporate “literary fiction” from the inside out.

Praise for Edmond Caldwell’s Human Wishes / Enemy Combatant

“These ‘anti-stories about In Between places’ bristle with vibrant, fact-filled paranoia and good, old-fashioned self-deprecation, making constant, unexpected turns at breakneck pace. From St. Petersburg to Palestine, from coffin-shaped Joseph Cornell boxes to Monty Python doing Beckett, from reflections on the onslaught of Taylorism to violent, youthful misreadings ofAnimal Farm, the pure writerly intensity of the material, and the audacious panache of each new sentence, never for a moment flag.”

--Jacob Wren, Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed

“Literary squatter . . . saboteur . . . an unreadable run-on paragraph . . . and unpublished, and, evidently, unpublishable novel.”

-–Norah Piehl, Director of Communications, Boston Book Festival

“Edmond Caldwell is right . . .”

--James Wood

Now available from Say It With Stones / Interbirth Books

also, inevitably, available here