{"id":1755,"date":"2007-05-09T00:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-09T00:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2007\/05\/1755\/"},"modified":"2007-05-09T00:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-09T00:45:00","slug":"1755","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2007\/05\/1755.html","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

BOXING CLEVER<\/strong>: In defense of stupid writers.<\/p>\n

One of the most cringe-inducing genres is the defense of a great writer on precisely the wrong terms. \u201cDickens is really a conservative!\u201d \u201cEliot really liked the Jews!\u201d<\/p>\n

And, for exactly the same reasons, \u201cKeats is so complex!\u201d<\/p>\n

No, he kind of desperately isn\u2019t. This is not the way to defend him.<\/p>\n

You can defend Keats the way I defend Poe: When this guy hits a thing, it stays hit<\/em>. Poe is a ferocious poet, not an intelligent one. \u201cAnnabel Lee\u201d is obvious in the way a Childe ballad is obvious\u2013and heartbreaking the way a Childe ballad is heartbreaking. And it\u2019s only our contemporary prejudice in favor of the individual quote-unquote genius, I think, that prevents us from seeing that Poe is a master. He knew how to say important things in a way that nobody else could manage. (\u201cHop-Frog,\u201d \u201cThe Cask of Amontillado,\u201d \u201cThe Fall of the House of Usher\u201d\u2013and yeah, I do tend to think if your creation passes into the common vocabulary over at least a century, it\u2019s because you understood something deep and true about human nature.)<\/p>\n

Poe is kind of dumb, you know? He isn\u2019t complex. Hans Christian Andersen is only marginally more intelligent. The thing that they mostly do is hit things very very hard.<\/p>\n

Sometimes people can be intelligent and<\/em> punchy. Emily Dickinson is the obvious example. And I\u2019m not trying to argue that if you have to pick between hardcore and complex, you should always pick hardcore. I\u2019m not arguing that Miss Lonelyhearts<\/em> is better than Emma<\/em>, even if the former is more blunt and the latter is more intelligent. (I strongly prefer the former, but this post is not, I hope, solely about my own preferences.) All I\u2019m trying to do is suggest that something can be stupid and still great; really, all I\u2019m trying to do is to keep people from defending astonishing but dumb works of art on the grounds that they\u2019re \u201cdeep.\u201d No. They\u2019re fierce<\/em>\u2013that really isn\u2019t the same thing.<\/p>\n

ps<\/strong>: I would also be really interested in a discussion of deceptive works, which hide their complexity and intelligence under a heavy screen of genre. I\u2019d argue that Donna Tartt\u2019s Secret History<\/em>, most of the well-known Chandler, Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em>, and James Whale\u2019s \u201cBride of Frankenstein\u201d fall into this category.<\/p>\n

pps<\/strong>: Oh hey, I remembered that this post was supposed to be about Faulkner, actually. Um\u2026 yeah. He isn\u2019t that smart. But As I Lay Dying<\/em> is still terrific. I\u2019m sure there are smarter authors who couldn\u2019t hit horror as hard as he does there\u2013I mean, honestly, I think probably Michael Chabon or somebody is straight-up smarter<\/em> than Faulkner, but that\u2019s seven different kinds of not the point.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOXING CLEVER: In defense of stupid writers. One of the most cringe-inducing genres is the defense of a great writer on precisely the wrong terms. \u201cDickens is really a conservative!\u201d \u201cEliot really liked the Jews!\u201d And, for exactly the same reasons, \u201cKeats is so complex!\u201d No, he kind of desperately isn\u2019t. This is not the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nEve Tushnet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"BOXING CLEVER: In defense of stupid writers.One of the most cringe-inducing genres is the defense of a great writer on precisely the wrong terms. 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