Honestly I'm shocked that more poster books like this haven't come out already. (If they have, I haven't heard of them.) Lines like "the sky was pink like kirby" even if ironic strike me as shockingly organic to the pop culture encyclopedic age we're living in; it's almost as if current literary style is trapped in this fake movie set ghost town pretending to be of a time and place that none of us live in and never have -- where there is this quiet, unspoken pact NOT to encyclopedically reference the internet discourse and pop culture of which we're all perfectly aware and reference with regularity in informal discourse, as if to do so would be "unliterary" or somehow ruin the glossy, timeless, internationalist vibe we're going for in an "official" publication. For better or for worse "Kirby" is a more immediate frame of reference for a lot of people compared to, say, a species of flower in the natural world.
I get people not wanting their work to become immediately dated. But that's the problem -- as far as the internet is concerned, your work IS immediately dated. Because it's been "published" and set in stone instead of being a living, reactive discourse online. I for one hate the glossy timeless internationalist writing style, as soulless and devoid of texture as Corporate Memphis is visually. Not that everyone has to make Nintendo references to overcome it -- obviously what you choose NOT to mention is as artistically important as what you do -- but I think writers should take the internet as an inspiration to be far more wide-ranging with what sort of popular and niche indexes of culture they draw upon for their personal invention, and cobble together to form their own unique scrapyard sculpture parks in prose.
Good review. There is something there in the book I just don't know if if came through, at least not for me. Maybe because I'm older and from a different socio-economic life than she is but it bounced right off of me.
The poster wants involvement not permanence
Honestly I'm shocked that more poster books like this haven't come out already. (If they have, I haven't heard of them.) Lines like "the sky was pink like kirby" even if ironic strike me as shockingly organic to the pop culture encyclopedic age we're living in; it's almost as if current literary style is trapped in this fake movie set ghost town pretending to be of a time and place that none of us live in and never have -- where there is this quiet, unspoken pact NOT to encyclopedically reference the internet discourse and pop culture of which we're all perfectly aware and reference with regularity in informal discourse, as if to do so would be "unliterary" or somehow ruin the glossy, timeless, internationalist vibe we're going for in an "official" publication. For better or for worse "Kirby" is a more immediate frame of reference for a lot of people compared to, say, a species of flower in the natural world.
I get people not wanting their work to become immediately dated. But that's the problem -- as far as the internet is concerned, your work IS immediately dated. Because it's been "published" and set in stone instead of being a living, reactive discourse online. I for one hate the glossy timeless internationalist writing style, as soulless and devoid of texture as Corporate Memphis is visually. Not that everyone has to make Nintendo references to overcome it -- obviously what you choose NOT to mention is as artistically important as what you do -- but I think writers should take the internet as an inspiration to be far more wide-ranging with what sort of popular and niche indexes of culture they draw upon for their personal invention, and cobble together to form their own unique scrapyard sculpture parks in prose.
Sword, laptop, pile of books. Cozy.
Good review.
The generational chasm between me and Honor Levy is huge. I should review the book and write about that, and I will if I have time.
Great review!
I enjoyed Levy's book but felt, like Valerie Stivers (writing for Compact), that is was uneven: https://www.decentralizedfiction.com/p/my-first-book-and-honor-levys-extremely
Good review. There is something there in the book I just don't know if if came through, at least not for me. Maybe because I'm older and from a different socio-economic life than she is but it bounced right off of me.