What is the novel? What does the novel do?

The lay reader (up to and including our revered graduate-student ruling class) esteems the novel ("the classics") though he rarely get around to it (surely on a to-do list somewhere). Yet, while relegating the novel to a dusty list, he [earnestly] maintains that it contains the secrets of life - of moral/ethical, if not eschatological, significance. This is analogous to the STEM-minded undergraduate who holds the "objective" meaning of life to be genetic reproduction, though does not appear to be hastening in this direction (not without a quantifiable extrusion of effort). How do we explain this inconsistent (though not idiosyncratic) behavior.

The consumer of popular science books/television should feel qualified to put in a word or two. This genre, which proposes to answer our questions on the origin of life, quantum truth, and 'free will' (a category which I continue to maintain has little significance in the absence of eschatology), has a similar infatuation with distant objects. The perpetual theme of such media is the hypostatized metaphysical significance of "scientific discovery," which is really the day job of someone who buys groceries and practices a trade. A curious feature of any given "significant" field of scientific study, is that as one approaches a functional knowledge of the subject, the "amazing advancements" become less invested as metaphysical noumena and are seen, rather, as a series of "interesting" problems/solutions. (The frozen horizon of metaphysical significance sublimates (analogy to dry ice)). Interesting how the popular science genre has waned as the STEM major(major-ity) approaches its heyday (I assert this without evidence), though it still appears to be possible to write a "bestseller" stirring up the same [depleted] sediment.

Perhaps proximity to knowledge of the trade is incommensurable with a certain kind of infatuation. [[This is similar to the sense in which the insights of The Eighteenth Brumaire dissolve a certain kind of groundless political theorizing. Not those insights originating from the timeless and quotable first chapter ("first as erudition, then as farce"), but arising from the morass of detail of the second section, (This is the "deuterocanonical" text - because nobody reads past the first chapter.) and which exemplifies the originary impulse toward truth in dialectical materialism: an attempt at direct engagement with the material fact.]] The professional writer, therefore, is perhaps infinitely closer to answering the questions which the lay reader does not even begin to formulate: "What is the novel? [...] What does the novel do?" But I suspect we might not like what he comes up with. Between Baker's iterative, castigating self-reflection and the "intelligence on the page" in U and I, we are lead to understand the novel as a vehicle for the practice of a trade - the writer's like any other. No metaphysical significance here, other than a means to scape a living and play at mastery. (If I were Zadie Smith I would say "full of prose and fury, signifying nothing," but I'm not clever enough for that.) Not helping that the most erudite/remarkable phrases of the text are direct quotations of Updike. "Intelligence" and "good writing," are, at best, on speaking terms, but unlikely that anyone has ever had an excess of both, in Baker's opinion (probably this is the moment where Baker is most correct). Can the novelist (subaltern) speak? The best of them lock lips in silence, or (worse) choose to piece together a bit of prose (never philosophy). This is still better than the popular scientist who speaks, not in his own words, but in those of the popular science writer (professional ventriloquist).

The novel is always responding to the question, "To what extent is writing still possible?" ("We are so arrogant we think we are [learning to write] whereas we are not even capable of living. in Thomas Bernhard's phrase. The material doesn't cooperate - being the subject of a novel is a dubious honor - often it is better to "remain nameless"...) Perhaps it is Baker's professional (necessary?) arrogance which holds the possibility of writing to still be open, a kind of "let the chips fall where they may" attitude. Though he continuous to doubt his skill and sensibility throughout the text, his justification for writing is that he is already doing it. Baker's sole criteria for worthwhile authorship are formal beauty and writerly ingenuity, but this is a kind of horror. We may agree that the lay reader's belief in the ability to enrich his inner life by reading the text is absurd, but Baker's perspective takes nihilism even further. Why read at all if it is merely to collect a series of beautiful objects. (We deride the funko pop collector but perhaps he has the right idea after all.) If we reject this, assume the novel has a special kind of intrinsic value, we open up the grimoire of pre-war novels, which now must all be considered on the merits - a horror of uncountable volumes, all "excellent."

We should have the right to a certain quantity of illiteracy, to toss Updike's prurient tetralogy onto the compost heap without being made to read it. Better to circumscribe the novel with Nabokov's perspective, "writing may be possible, but not for you," and to produce nothing at all. But baker's formula more closely represents the current economy of literature production, and is therefore correct in its adherence to fact (unless we can out-reason Marx): Publish anything you can get your hands on (that turns a profit) and take whatever isn't nailed down. ( )

‘It has done me a favour, that review, because it’s a review like few others. It’s an act of homage, isn’t it? Nicholson Baker

If ever there was a book that begged to be discussed prematurely, a book that pleads to be mocked in what I believe is the goodreads catchphrase 'a parody homage', this is it. And yet, maybe it has already been done? Could one live down the embarrassment? Firstly to have done what's been done before, secondly to have one's friends know that you don't even read their work - or worse, do read it and can't remember a thing about it. Checks friends' lists. Why no. Neither MJ or Paul has done this. (Thinks to self, this paragraph is Baker.) ((Thinks to self, I only wrote that last thought because it is what Baker would do.))

But if I do this, read part of the book and then write, and Nicholson Baker himself reads it, what will he think? That I'm being rude? Obsequious? Arrogant? Lazy?! (Thinks to self, and this paragraph.) ((Ditto.)) (((Thinks to self, fuck, how do I get out of this loop?)))

I could go on, but you get the point. This is only my second Baker book, but being Baker is easier than being John Malkovich is....for John Malkovich. That makes me somewhat suspicious of him.

Despite his wanking sentences, his smart-arsed cleverness, his careful self-mocking – careful to make sure that his audience is sympathetic rather than repelled – I still like it. Right now I am particularly taken by his distinction between considered and spontaneous memories. I could not help, as I read this over breakfast this morning, considering the very prospect of what my spontaneous memory of this book will be in the future, the one that comes to me from nothing. It will be this. Reading You and I over breakfast, considering the very prospect of what my spontaneous memory of this book will be. The rest will be as flotsam and jetsam, some vague idea he is the Updike guy. The reason, in fact, that I probably will never now read Updike. How can I? I know he will be utterly spoilt by the fantasy of Baker’s reverie. And now I’m being fucking Baker again, aren’t I?

Written 9am at p. 55.

Added after reading to the end. On the neuroses of writers this is great, but he lost me towards the end when he decides that homosexuals and women make the best novelists. One would assume that means homosexual women rule, but actually, in a rather sexist act if ever there was one, he seems to be referring to male homosexuals, whereas the sexuality of women is evidently not relevant. They got dem words sorta like black people have dat rhythm seems to be the gist of it. NOT happy with this, Mr Baker.
( )

‘It has done me a favour, that review, because it’s a review like few others. It’s an act of homage, isn’t it? Nicholson Baker

If ever there was a book that begged to be discussed prematurely, a book that pleads to be mocked in what I believe is the goodreads catchphrase 'a parody homage', this is it. And yet, maybe it has already been done? Could one live down the embarrassment? Firstly to have done what's been done before, secondly to have one's friends know that you don't even read their work - or worse, do read it and can't remember a thing about it. Checks friends' lists. Why no. Neither MJ or Paul has done this. (Thinks to self, this paragraph is Baker.) ((Thinks to self, I only wrote that last thought because it is what Baker would do.))

But if I do this, read part of the book and then write, and Nicholson Baker himself reads it, what will he think? That I'm being rude? Obsequious? Arrogant? Lazy?! (Thinks to self, and this paragraph.) ((Ditto.)) (((Thinks to self, fuck, how do I get out of this loop?)))

I could go on, but you get the point. This is only my second Baker book, but being Baker is easier than being John Malkovich is....for John Malkovich. That makes me somewhat suspicious of him.

Despite his wanking sentences, his smart-arsed cleverness, his careful self-mocking – careful to make sure that his audience is sympathetic rather than repelled – I still like it. Right now I am particularly taken by his distinction between considered and spontaneous memories. I could not help, as I read this over breakfast this morning, considering the very prospect of what my spontaneous memory of this book will be in the future, the one that comes to me from nothing. It will be this. Reading You and I over breakfast, considering the very prospect of what my spontaneous memory of this book will be. The rest will be as flotsam and jetsam, some vague idea he is the Updike guy. The reason, in fact, that I probably will never now read Updike. How can I? I know he will be utterly spoilt by the fantasy of Baker’s reverie. And now I’m being fucking Baker again, aren’t I?

Written 9am at p. 55.

Added after reading to the end. On the neuroses of writers this is great, but he lost me towards the end when he decides that homosexuals and women make the best novelists. One would assume that means homosexual women rule, but actually, in a rather sexist act if ever there was one, he seems to be referring to male homosexuals, whereas the sexuality of women is evidently not relevant. They got dem words sorta like black people have dat rhythm seems to be the gist of it. NOT happy with this, Mr Baker.
( )

‘It has done me a favour, that review, because it’s a review like few others. It’s an act of homage, isn’t it? Nicholson Baker

If ever there was a book that begged to be discussed prematurely, a book that pleads to be mocked in what I believe is the goodreads catchphrase 'a parody homage', this is it. And yet, maybe it has already been done? Could one live down the embarrassment? Firstly to have done what's been done before, secondly to have one's friends know that you don't even read their work - or worse, do read it and can't remember a thing about it. Checks friends' lists. Why no. Neither MJ or Paul has done this. (Thinks to self, this paragraph is Baker.) ((Thinks to self, I only wrote that last thought because it is what Baker would do.))

But if I do this, read part of the book and then write, and Nicholson Baker himself reads it, what will he think? That I'm being rude? Obsequious? Arrogant? Lazy?! (Thinks to self, and this paragraph.) ((Ditto.)) (((Thinks to self, fuck, how do I get out of this loop?)))

I could go on, but you get the point. This is only my second Baker book, but being Baker is easier than being John Malkovich is....for John Malkovich. That makes me somewhat suspicious of him.

Despite his wanking sentences, his smart-arsed cleverness, his careful self-mocking – careful to make sure that his audience is sympathetic rather than repelled – I still like it. Right now I am particularly taken by his distinction between considered and spontaneous memories. I could not help, as I read this over breakfast this morning, considering the very prospect of what my spontaneous memory of this book will be in the future, the one that comes to me from nothing. It will be this. Reading You and I over breakfast, considering the very prospect of what my spontaneous memory of this book will be. The rest will be as flotsam and jetsam, some vague idea he is the Updike guy. The reason, in fact, that I probably will never now read Updike. How can I? I know he will be utterly spoilt by the fantasy of Baker’s reverie. And now I’m being fucking Baker again, aren’t I?

Written 9am at p. 55.

Added after reading to the end. On the neuroses of writers this is great, but he lost me towards the end when he decides that homosexuals and women make the best novelists. One would assume that means homosexual women rule, but actually, in a rather sexist act if ever there was one, he seems to be referring to male homosexuals, whereas the sexuality of women is evidently not relevant. They got dem words sorta like black people have dat rhythm seems to be the gist of it. NOT happy with this, Mr Baker.
( )

I'm only reviewing this book a little late (it was published in 1991): but I'd like to make the case that it should be required reading for writers and readers who care about the sort of thing David Foster Wallace was also trying to do, beginning in the early 1990s.

For me, the book splits into two "model authors" (that's Eco's formulation, in "Six Walks in the Fictional Woods).

First is the self-absorbed, insecure, hyperbolically self-interrogating ingenue author, the one who fawns and obsesses and preens over his hero Updike, and then chastises himself for preening, and then finds a reason to credit Updike for his capacity to chastise himself, and then bemoans the fact that his awareness of the fact that Updike gets the credit for a quality he'd thought was his means that his estimation of Updike unexpectedly decreases rather than increases, sending him into a spiral of nested second- and third thoughts, expressed four or five asides and illustrated by non sequiturs, arranged in parentheses, square brackets, and em-dashes, and ending several pages later on some unrelated topic.

The second is the model author who would really love to capture as much of his articulateness as he possibly can, even if it means sentences several pages long, or strings of subordinate clauses, or multiple interruptions. This author is concerned with putting what Baker calls his "intelligence" on the page. The topic--a young author's obsession with a famous author--doesn't really matter for this second model author. The book could have been about anything.

In "U and I," the first of these is nicely captured in Baker's meditations on the elusiveness of genius, on the anxiety of influence, and the intemperate behaviors elicited by proximity to fame. The second is well captured by Baker's thoughts on "intelligence," which he contrasts, late in the book, with "genius."

I have a different way of thinking about these two model authors. For me, the first is fun, but trivial and trivializing. If I want depthless insecurity coupled (inevitably) with hyperbolic self-aggrandizement, I would rather read Salvador Dali. Or if I'm after a tortured imagination that bores into itself, guts itself, feeds off the guts, heals itself, and starts all over, I'd read "Notes from the Underground." By contrast with texts like those this is playful, and of course it's meant to be: but it's also meant to do a decent job of capturing most of what a youthful ambition and literary devotion is about.

The second model author is much more interesting. There is an uncanny parallel, at times, between this book and the almost contemporaneous "Infinite Jest." Both are partly about pushing language so it is at once impeccable vernacular (faithful to what counts as spoken, or thought, language) and outlandishly technical (faithful to the microscopic discriminations that the authors see as their plague and their talent). Wallace was seven or eight years younger than Baker, but the authors who occupied his imagination (initially DeLillo, and then Markson and many others) were a good generation younger than the ones that concern Baker (aside from Updike, that's mainly Nabokov and James). Nevertheless the strain both Baker and Wallace put on vernacular language is amazing. If Baker is less impressive -- and even now, 25 years after Baker's book, and in this very obscure venue tucked away among the thousands of anonymous internet reviews, I still hesitate to write this, because the narrator of "U and I" is so tensile with fear of criticism -- it's because his prosody has more to do with older writers, from Updike and Gass (who goes unmentioned) to White and Trilling and Wilson and Nabokov back to James. He behaves himself better on the page; his periods are long and well-tempered, and so a little less of his "intelligence" gets out there on the page.

It is a problem that is very much still current. There is still no limit to this sort of search, and Baker is still one of the best practitioners. ( )