So happy to see you tackle this question, which deserves much deeper thought than I've seen people give it. Loved this. (Also, hi, from twitter.) If I understand you correctly, I think I broadly agree that "But does it work?" is the central question to which we're all sort of ultimately answerable.
I have deeply disliked what I have read of Kushner's work, but I also find Taylor's own work hit and miss. I think he's right in his critique to a broad extent. What I started thinking recently, though, is that there certainly *are* settings and characters for whom this kind of pseudo-academic extensive mastubatory discursion makes sense, and even serves to highlight their detatchment, or their obsession, or something else (think of Nabokov's Ada's page-space-consuming obsession with orchids and beetles). But you have to make it work. It isn't self-justifying as a style. I do think, as Brandon says, it impresses people who have not themselves investigated the world around them deeply, but trying to impress these people seems a little sad.
I was particularly incensed by the recent Garth Greenwell offering on this, purporting to have a self-conceived-as stupid and ignorant character mulling at length over the intricacies of the modern supply chain, waxing poetical about it. "I'm stupid and have no head for this stuff, but [300 words of textbook-adjacent modern production logistics]." Which reader would be interested in this? Is Greenwell?? Who is this meant to touch deeply, or inspire, or even represent? I do think it is meant to impress the very ignorant, or very ideologically blinkered (who may never have seen that there is anything impressive in material production or the capitalist economy etc, perhaps). A sorry state of affairs, it feels to me. Just my view.
I’ve read that paragraph critiqued on several Substacks at this point. One book critic whose taste I trust said Greenwell’s book was astonishing. I haven’t read it but it’s funny so many people point out that page of the novel as their critique. Now I have to read the book to see what all the fuss is about.
See Naomi Kanakia’s recent Woman of Letters Substack where she critiques that very section of Greenwell’s book. Though she hadn’t read it. I’m glad there’s so much discussion about books! I’m not being curmudgeonly about it. I may not read it either.
I also followed this discourse with some interest. Just a couple months ago I decided to read Kushner's first novel, Telex from Cuba, because I wanted to read something different. Prior to this I'd been reading a lot of novels written in the first person that dealt with the consciousness of the protagonist and their feelings of alienation (similar to Sebald, I imagine, although I've never read him). I chose Kushner because I like her writing in Harper's, and if I was going to read a historical novel told from a bunch of different viewpoints, I figured she could pull it off. Well, I was wrong. Everything Taylor writes about Creation Lake could, in my opinion, be said about Telex from Cuba. To me the distinction between Kushner (at least from Telex and Taylor's review) and writers like Sebald (from what I've read about him) is the difference between information and knowledge/wisdom. Telex from Cuba has a ton of information--it's clearly heavily researched--but it doesn't add up to anything. None of the characters seem able to integrate this information into their consciousness, their worldview, their being, and turn it into knowledge or wisdom. It just falls flat. Nothing stayed with me from the book. I still want to give Kushner a chance because I do think her essays in Harper's are impressive, but the ironic thing is that those essays are probably more like Sebald's "essayistic" fiction than her own novels.
Rachel Kushner is one of my favorite writers. Read The Mars Room for one of her best novels though the Flamethrowers was what got me to her. Telex From Cuba was her first and not her best in my opinion.
Thanks, everyone, for the conversation! LOL, what Taylor's review evoked for me was Socrates's chagrin at Phadrus's delight with the unreasoned, factoid argument designed to seduce him. Everything changes and nothing changes. Except that we have more at stake, now, in the evolutionary moment. I also felt that Taylor was making his best pitch for a foot on the brake re AI. Use your human brain! These very bad novels of factioid, unlike the often disappointing but nevertheless valuable novels of consciousness, do feel artificial, do they not? Thanks, too, to the LRB, for being consistently willing to air the angry ones.
So happy to see you tackle this question, which deserves much deeper thought than I've seen people give it. Loved this. (Also, hi, from twitter.) If I understand you correctly, I think I broadly agree that "But does it work?" is the central question to which we're all sort of ultimately answerable.
I have deeply disliked what I have read of Kushner's work, but I also find Taylor's own work hit and miss. I think he's right in his critique to a broad extent. What I started thinking recently, though, is that there certainly *are* settings and characters for whom this kind of pseudo-academic extensive mastubatory discursion makes sense, and even serves to highlight their detatchment, or their obsession, or something else (think of Nabokov's Ada's page-space-consuming obsession with orchids and beetles). But you have to make it work. It isn't self-justifying as a style. I do think, as Brandon says, it impresses people who have not themselves investigated the world around them deeply, but trying to impress these people seems a little sad.
I was particularly incensed by the recent Garth Greenwell offering on this, purporting to have a self-conceived-as stupid and ignorant character mulling at length over the intricacies of the modern supply chain, waxing poetical about it. "I'm stupid and have no head for this stuff, but [300 words of textbook-adjacent modern production logistics]." Which reader would be interested in this? Is Greenwell?? Who is this meant to touch deeply, or inspire, or even represent? I do think it is meant to impress the very ignorant, or very ideologically blinkered (who may never have seen that there is anything impressive in material production or the capitalist economy etc, perhaps). A sorry state of affairs, it feels to me. Just my view.
I’ve read that paragraph critiqued on several Substacks at this point. One book critic whose taste I trust said Greenwell’s book was astonishing. I haven’t read it but it’s funny so many people point out that page of the novel as their critique. Now I have to read the book to see what all the fuss is about.
See Naomi Kanakia’s recent Woman of Letters Substack where she critiques that very section of Greenwell’s book. Though she hadn’t read it. I’m glad there’s so much discussion about books! I’m not being curmudgeonly about it. I may not read it either.
I also followed this discourse with some interest. Just a couple months ago I decided to read Kushner's first novel, Telex from Cuba, because I wanted to read something different. Prior to this I'd been reading a lot of novels written in the first person that dealt with the consciousness of the protagonist and their feelings of alienation (similar to Sebald, I imagine, although I've never read him). I chose Kushner because I like her writing in Harper's, and if I was going to read a historical novel told from a bunch of different viewpoints, I figured she could pull it off. Well, I was wrong. Everything Taylor writes about Creation Lake could, in my opinion, be said about Telex from Cuba. To me the distinction between Kushner (at least from Telex and Taylor's review) and writers like Sebald (from what I've read about him) is the difference between information and knowledge/wisdom. Telex from Cuba has a ton of information--it's clearly heavily researched--but it doesn't add up to anything. None of the characters seem able to integrate this information into their consciousness, their worldview, their being, and turn it into knowledge or wisdom. It just falls flat. Nothing stayed with me from the book. I still want to give Kushner a chance because I do think her essays in Harper's are impressive, but the ironic thing is that those essays are probably more like Sebald's "essayistic" fiction than her own novels.
Rachel Kushner is one of my favorite writers. Read The Mars Room for one of her best novels though the Flamethrowers was what got me to her. Telex From Cuba was her first and not her best in my opinion.
That’s fair! One of my favorite writers considers Mars Room a defining book of the 21st century, so I’m open to it.
Thanks, everyone, for the conversation! LOL, what Taylor's review evoked for me was Socrates's chagrin at Phadrus's delight with the unreasoned, factoid argument designed to seduce him. Everything changes and nothing changes. Except that we have more at stake, now, in the evolutionary moment. I also felt that Taylor was making his best pitch for a foot on the brake re AI. Use your human brain! These very bad novels of factioid, unlike the often disappointing but nevertheless valuable novels of consciousness, do feel artificial, do they not? Thanks, too, to the LRB, for being consistently willing to air the angry ones.
I don’t think there are many writers around as brainy as Rachel Kushner.