/Giap/digest #20 - The Return of Proletarian Postmodernism - 12 June 2003

 

THE RETURN OF PROLETARIAN POSTMODERNISM - by Stewart Home

A challenging essay on Luther Blissett's novel Q, penned by one of the few people in Britain to have read both all of Hegel's Aesthetics and Richard Allen's skinhead novels.

"... In many arts, and only most obviously music and film, openly acknowledged collaboration is the norm and the ongoing weakness of the novel as a mode of cultural expression can be ascribed at least in part to its one-sided and pseudo-individualistic development.
Well established writers tend to find it difficult to collaborate because they insist the stamp of their own style should be left on everything they touch, leading to disagreements and a lack of cohesion when they attempt to work in concert. When one or more collaborating writers find it either difficult or impossible to accept the revision by others of their contributions to a group project, it is each author's weaknesses rather than their strengths that are multiplied.
Innovative writers happily lacking a ready-made cultural reputation are in the fortunate position of being able to take a dispassionate view of those moribund artistic conventions rooted in the notion of style. Thus it comes as no surprise that the most successful recent example of a jointly effected anti-novel should be the work of 'young unknowns'."

http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/rassegna/stewart_home_on_Q.html

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THE EARLY MARXISTS

Sarah Dunant pretends she has read Q and "reviews" it on The Guardian

[appended by a note by Wu Ming 1]

"..We also recognized a snotty attitude about Italians ("only the Italians can" etc...). Please note that Sarah Dunant, like many members of the British upper-middle class, has moved to Florence and allegedly writes thrillers set in Italy. We never read her books but the tone of this review and some other stuff we found on the Net authorize us to suspect they're based on the usual tiresome clichés: Italians are naive and noisy, funny but touchy, often untrustworthy etc. She probably really likes Italy, but that doesn't mean she likes Italians."

http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/rassegna/sad_guardian.html

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DEAN MARTIN HAD A HARD ON

A short story by Wu Ming 1 available in English on the website, at the bottom of this page:

http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/downloads.shtml

"It was written for the catalogue of painter Flavio De Marco's personal exhibition in Bologna. I wanted to slag off art critics... but they fucking loved it! :-)"

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