Thanks Louis, for the perceptive and generous review. I have
mulled over the idea that — to use your words — “It would seem
that true life, as long as it is described mercilessly but with
compassion, is far more compelling than the best novel.” I don’t
know if the question can be answered with finality but it would
seem that we are in a phase where it makes a lot of sense. I would
add that one of the things I am proud of about how I wrote BIG
SID’S VINCATI is that my intention was to apply the devices used
by novelists to the memoir. You would think this ambition is often
done but, english professor that I am, I read a lot of memoirs in
preparation for writing this book and I was really disappointed
with the lack of craft put into the average one. Most often they
are written in a “this happened, and then this and then that” mode
without any attention to constructing a plot that induces suspense
in the reader. I also employed a lot of tricks in this book that
stem from my love of modernist books that read conventionally on
the surface but have a lot of what are now called “postmodernist”
tricks buried deep in the text. The two specifically that come to
mind are the novels UNDER THE VOLCANO and THE SUN ALSO RISES.
These books are as tricky as Joyce’s ULYSSES, but can be read
conventionally as realistic fiction in the post Jane Austen mode.
To take but one example, no one has yet remarked on the fact that
I tell my father’s story in the first part of the story, and then
shift to telling my story in the second part. This sort of
floating anchor for the book’s central consciousness is the kind
of thing that critics applaud when it is baldly done in touted
fiction but I did it so seamlessly that people take it for granted
when they read Big Sid’s Vincati, which is fine with me.
Finally, I must say it was nice to see you noticing my
acknowledgment of my teacher Fred Jameson, who is, indeed,
America’s foremost Marxist critic. I will always prize the time I
spent studying with Jameson (or “Red Fred” as the students
playfully dubbed him). His recent book, Archeologies of the Future
is a provocative exploration of utopia as that idea was been
explored in sci-fi and fiction. I highly recommend it–in
conjunction with the art he takes up in it (such as SOLARIS).
As a teacher, I often assign Jameson’s essay “End of History, End
of Art” from the collection The Postmodern Turn which includes the
observation that a true communist epoch can only appear on the
horizon when capitalism exhausts its “globalization phase,” a
reckoning that will occur in tandem with an ecological crisis such
that the two events will force the general recognition that any
viable salvational response must come from a truly post national
collective committed to saving life on earth. When I first taught
this essay in the early 90’s, students laughed at it. The only
thing they took seriously was discussions of sexual identity and
personal politics. Now students agree with the claim and want to
read the Marx Jameson cites. No kidding!
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