A Sinking Island / The Mechanic Muse
Kenner, Hugh
T here are two Hugh Kenners. The 1 first is a factual reporter of the early twentieth-century literary scene. This Kenner enjoys an encyclopedic grasp of his period, which he brings to bear on...
...John's University in New York City...
...Who...
...What can you do in a classroom with, say, a novel such as Orwell's Coming Up for Air...
...His best critical writing proceeds along the same lines...
...Modern British," a wag would inquire incredulously, eyebrows vaulting for his hairline...
...It's neither elaborately stylized nor historically distant...
...It takes us from the fall of 1985 to early summer, 1986...
...This is why he can't resist quoting Auberon Waugh, who recently went on record saying that he was "fed to the teeth with the Modern Movement and everything it has produced...
...Box 590359, San Francisco, CA 94159 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1989 43...
...Ship me the Sterling Sampler under your money-back guarantee for only $10.90...
...Because Syria realizes that it's only Israel that stymies Soviet hegemony in the Middle East and insures U.S...
...No questions asked...
...When Kenner mentions other writers, it's usually to dismiss them...
...The Mechanic Muse (1987) is a short, provocative exploration of one of Kenner's favorite themes: the role of modern technology in the literary imagination...
...The second is a pundit given to grand cultural statements...
...About Humbert H. Humbert and Lolita...
...Kenner has fallen into a familiar pedagogical trap...
...Syrians consider Lebanon to be part of their own country and have now virtually occupied and annexed it...
...He's a teacher, and teachers are supposed to interpret texts...
...The point of this witticism was that the only "English" writers worth discussing were either immigrants (Conrad and Eliot) or outlanders (Yeats and Joyce...
...Dept...
...Much of the book, though, is made up of nicely realized moments...
...Stein corrects the studio man, outlining the script Stein had actually sent, then records the executive's reaction and the ensuing discussion: "You mean that thing about the congressman having the affair with the college girl...
...Box 590359 ^ San Francisco, CA 94159 CAMERA is a tax-deductible, non-profit educational 501(c)(3) organization...
...T. asked sharply...
...The principal enemies of the USSR and Syria are the United States and Israel...
...This includes the most advanced Soviet fighters, the most advanced missiles, and major capability in chemical weapons, the most formidable and sophisticated air defense system, a tank force greater than that of France and England combined, and a promise by the Soviet Union of atomic weapons for "when the need arises...
...At a time when fashionable critics have been turning inward, arguing that literature is entirely self-referential with nothing substantive to reveal beyond its own textual systems, Kenner continues to set his gaze resolutely outward...
...influence in the Middle East is where Syrian and Soviet wishes intersect...
...They reach out their hands for the fur...
...Who would ever want to go with something like that...
...They had their chance after the twenties, but they've slacked from the pace set by his select list of anointed modernists...
...The interests of the Soviet Union are global and those of Syria regional, but their aims coincide...
...Yet despite it all, the diary hangs together, moves briskly, and entertains...
...The Mechanic Muse displays Kenner at his best...
...Still, most Americans don't quite know what to make of it...
...Auden, it turns out, wrote "easy" poems...
...retreat from the Middle East, enabling the Soviet Union to extend its dominion over the entire region, which is close to their own strategic "soft underbelly...
...As such, it doesn't require any special feats of professorial explication...
...People in some book, or what...
...W ith first person narrative—especially diaries—you cannot always trust the writer...
...He finds it suggestive that as the Wright brothers were lifting off at Kitty Hawk in 1904, James Joyce was preparing for his own literary flight by adopting Daedalus as his narrative persona...
...Go stand in the corner, Wystan, and don't come out until you incarnate a decently difficult thought in a sufficiently beautiful line...
...You'll find these alternate Kenners on display in his two most recent books...
...We look in vain for any discussion of Aldous Huxley, Ivy Compton-Burnett, George Orwell, Joyce Carey, Henry Greene, Iris Murdoch, to name only a few of the many omissions...
...Stein's diary, however, is about reality...
...Syria uses terror against Israeli and Western targets, or against Arab elements that do not conform to the Syrian policy line...
...But, instead of laughing at Waugh, as Kenner would have us do, there are two excellent reasons for laughing with him...
...Well, it worked out pretty well for Stanley Kubrick," I said...
...It's moments like this that keep me waiting for Kenner's next constellation...
...it feels real...
...Suddenly, HOLLYWOOD DAYS, HOLLYWOOD NIGHTS: THE DIARY OF A MAD SCREENWRITER Ben Stein/Bantam Books/$7.95 paper J. Anthony Daniel Wm deserve a factual look at . . . Syria and the Middle East Can it be a force for peace in the area...
...There is mortal enmity with Iraq and its leaders, which has caused Syria to make common cause with non-Arab Iran in the destructive Gulf War...
...Humbert H. Humbert and Lolita," I said...
...We learn of Henry James bicycling over to Wells's home...
...This Kenner is cavalier, cranky, and unconvincing...
...Its purpose is to combat media inaccuracies, through public education and publicity...
...Syria enthusiastically cooperates in the effort to dislodge the U.S., because the U.S...
...Philip Larkin and John Betjeman are trotted out for a hoot...
...It's only when he steps back to attempt a galactic summing up that things go awry...
...I include my tax-deductible contribution in the amount of Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America PO...
...Elimination of U.S...
...Thus in A Sinking Island, he demotes W. H. Auden by demonstrating that his seeming difficulties are not difficult after all...
...The scribblers in Merrie Olde England just aren't what they used to be, Kenner laments...
...Evelyn Waugh, Kenner allows, was a genius, but of a "minor order...
...Your delivered cost is only $10.90 for 42 factory-fresh, Cuban-seed-leaf cigars...
...George McCartney, the author of Confused Roaring: Evelyn Waugh and the Modernist Tradition (Indiana University Press), teaches at St...
...A S My name is I live at In State—Zip Mail to: CAMERA, P.O...
...This is astounding in a book that begins by announcing its intention to survey the current state of English letters...
...But they reserve their most brutal terror against those suspected of internal opposition...
...His priestly dedication to the modernist liturgy puts him at odds with the plain spoken and distorts his critical vision...
...And that is why, in the end, we trust that what Stein is saying is true: the diary is just imperfect enough not to be illusion...
...Paul that all Cretans were liars...
...It's the one that American graduate students of a certain sophistication used to spring whenever someone brought up the subject of modern British literature...
...We Syrians are not afraid to push the button", says Defense Minister Mustafa Was...
...MY OFFER TO CIGAR LOVERS III send you postpaid a selection of 42 factory-tresh cigars—vintage-leaf long-tiller and cut-filler smokes...
...Of those who came after World War II, he yawns, and I quote, "Yes, yes Amis...
...That terror is conducted by Syrian organizations sponsored by or affiliated with the government, or indirectly through "clients", primarily the Palestinian, Iranian and Libyan terror factions to whom Syria extends warm hospitality and support...
...In what...
...Sometimes Stein makes his point not by terseness, but by excess...
...He's able to show how Wells's first novel cut across both social and aesthetic class lines...
...Instead of indulging in another hermeneutic discussion of T. S. Eliot, he chooses to explore the links between The Waste Land and its urban context...
...He loves dogs—perhaps a bit too much (Stein's relation with his German short-haired pointer Trixie is, well, a trifle lurid and unseemly...
...If a poem or a novel needs no interpretation, then the teacher's role is put in question...
...I don't remember any of that older man-younger woman stuff...
...Although relentlessly ironic himself, Kenner seems remarkably deaf to the same strategy in others...
...Their eyes snap into focus...
...We hear about Syrian involvement in terrorism and know of its hostility to Israel...
...Kenner is a master of laying bare the hidden connections between a literary work and the world in which it first appeared...
...That was sick...
...Let's consider the differences...
...Syria is the most destabilizing influence in the Middle East...
...His discussion of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895) in A Sinking Island is a case in point...
...But not for Kenner, apparently...
...Syria claims large areas of lbrkey...
...The production of texts about texts has become all too industrial, tireless, and mechanical...
...In short, Kenner is a gnostic...
...yes, yes, John Osborne...
...I hope you are thinking of doing Mars...
...Check for $10.90 enclosed (Fla...
...It's their most trusted ally in the region...
...And this is a shame because when Kenner gets off his modernist high horse, he's rarely less than fascinating...
...Over the years, Syria has launched many armed incursions against Jordan and it is only the threat of being confronted by Israeli military force that has prevented Syria from attempting a full-fledged takeover of that country...
...It is the Cuba of the Middle East...
...It deserves a closer look...
...This of a novelist who will undoubtedly continue to command anaudience long after Lewis and the later Joyce become exclusively classroom figures read for historical instruction rather than aesthetic pleasure...
...residents add 6% sales bud 0 Charge $10.90 to my 0 VISA ^ MasterCard ^ American Express ^ Diners Club PLEASE PRINT Credit Card No Exp Date name street state OFFER GOOD IN U S ONLY TOLL-FREE 1-800-237-2559 IN FLORIDA, CALL: 1-800-282-0646 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1989 which is the assumption that modernist artists are unimpeachable cultural heroes...
...It's filled with sweeping generalizations, supported with an oddly selective body of fact...
...It made a lot of money...
...and its ally Israel stand in the way of the dream of "Greater Syria...
...ly debunk—with one deft stroke...
...T. asked...
...It is not a novel disguised as a diary...
...You don't mean the Pole, the Yank, and those two Irishmen...
...In one well-turned passage, a studio head has called Stein to tell him how much he loves a script, only to discover that he has made a mistake and called the wrong writer...
...Furthermore, that Waugh addressed this to an "intelligent reading public" in the Times Literary Supplement is for Kenner more proof that there is no longer a serious English literature...
...But that is rather like the Crete telling St...
...Its political and military aim is the destruction of Israel, the establishment of "Greater Syria", and the elimination of any influence of the United States in the immediate area and in the Persian Gulf...
...The movies are about illusion...
...Almost all of our revenue pays for our educational work and for these messages...
...It would also give them control over the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf, the lifeblood of the Western world...
...What he comes up with, however, resembles a tired academic joke...
...Yes, the master of fine consciences on a bike...
...Parts of the book we just can't buy...
...Syria is the leading ally of the Soviet Union and the outstanding enemy of the U.S...
...CREDIT CARD USERS SPEED DELIVERY BY CALLING In The Mechanic Muse, Kenner praises Ezra Pound for discarding conventional poetic forms...
...Our overhead is minimal...
...But their main fury is directed against Israel, because it represents an intolerable "non-Arab presence" in the area, because it has wrested the Golan Heights from Syria, but mostly because it is (rightly) perceived as a bulwark of Western influence and civilization, both of which Syria totally rejects...
...The New York Times said President Assad ". . . turned half the town into a parking lot...
...Kenner even supplies a lively parody of what this might have led to...
...It these cigars aren't all you expected return the unsmoked ones by United Parcel or Parcel Post within 30 days and III refund your money...
...Syria doesn't clearly come into focus...
...James was so taken with Wells's science fiction that he suggested collaboration...
...It is in war-like conflict with every one of its five neighbors...
...T here are other, pleasanter moments in the diary—particularly when Stein talks about children or animals...
...Stein faithfully records his friend's words and his own amazed and fascinated replies to theman (who, California style, ends every description with a question...
...Let me in there...
...But we are not sure just what role it plays in the Middle East...
...influence in the area and in the Gulf region...
...In 1982, President Assad put down a rebellion in the town of Hama...
...Who are they...
...In 2001...
...lb that end, it has so far acquired over $19 billion worth of the most advanced and sophisticated Soviet armament...
...Kenner seems to have taken the jest seriously...
...Accordingly, by a twist of logic that's as specious as it's self-serving, such works cannot be considered "serious" literature...
...It's, sigh, easy...
...the sentiment doesn't ring true, the boom mike protrudes, and we realize Stein is playing a role, delivering lines...
...This ad has been published and paid for by r. YES, I want to help in the publication of these ads and in countering anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda...
...I n A Sinking Island, Kenner reaches 1 for a large cultural statement...
...It's a movie...
...It's the first "telephone poem," he explains, "its multiple voices referrable to a massive short-circuit at the central exchange...
...Their hands stop shaking...
...Kenner has generously expanded the roster, admitting to his pantheon another Irishman, Samuel Beckett, and the technically Canadian Wyndham Lewis and the debatably American Pound...
...Whatever else it may suggest, this aphorism apparently means that an author who doesn't pose intellectual conundrums isn't playing in the literary big leagues...
...First, as Kenner surely knows, Waugh, like his father, has made it his stock-in-trade to explode conventional pieties, one of A SINKING ISLAND: THE MODERN ENGLISH WRITERS Hugh Kenner/Alfred A. Knopf/$22.95 THE MECHANIC MUSE Hugh Kenner/Oxford University Press/$13.95 George McCartney ETHOMPSON CIGAR CO...
...Syria has been much in the news lately...
...England's leading satirist and its most famous proble.n-playwright merit nothing more than this briefest of Olympian nods...
...In The Mechanic Muse, Kenner proposed that "beauty is incarnate thought," an enigmatic formula derived from his idol, Pound...
...Syria is in conflict with every one of its five neighbors...
...The Syrian regime is one of unmitigated terror, of human rights violations, of ruthless persecution of political and religious minorities — especially, of course, the pitiful remnants of the Jewish population, who are not allowed to emigrate and are kept as hostages in the country...
...terror is the most pervasive aspect of the Syrian regime...
...They enable us to pursue these goals and to publish these messages...
...The Soviet Union is, of course, desirous to see the U.S...
...Syria's immediate military aim is to build to "strategic parity" with Israel...
...This simple fact helped to free poets from the tyranny of fixed metrical patterns...
...After tracing its origins in pulp fiction, Kenner speculates tellingly on its parallels with Conrad's Heart of Darkness, published four years later...
...Stein has not lost his eye for that old Hollywood shtick, nor his ability to characterize—and completeJ Anthony Daniel is a student of film production at the University of Southern California...
...Stein shows us the wonderful transformation that comes over these people who live "in a linoleum and vinyl waiting room preparing for eternity": A flood of animation washes over them...
...Over 25,000 people were ruthlessly killed...
...Sure, Ben Stein tells us in the first sentence of Hollywood Days, Hollywood Nights: "This diary is authentic...
...Like the movies that are Stein's business (just called "the industry" by those who are in it), his diary is full of glittering surfaces, seductive looks, and sentiment galore...
...It was not altogether disagreeably unfitting, rather, given the case, all too unbeguilingly not to be evaded, that his lot, as it presented itself to Camshaft, was to be, at the final tick of the dread clock, to close fingers precisely his and to close them precisely on the trigger of the afterburner...
...He remains bewitched by modernist difficulty, an acolyte serving the willed mysteries of a few early twentieth-century authors...
...Imagine, Kenner tsks, Larkin reports that he reads nothing more challenging than detective fiction and cares nothing for modernist writers...
...in the Middle East...
...This Kenner enjoys an encyclopedic grasp of his period, which he brings to bear on individual works with dazzling results...
...It may present a compelling view of lower-middle-class life between the wars, but in doing so it largely explains itself...
...And that, folks, is it...
...Syria perceives of terror as a legitimate tool for furthering its national objectives...
...What are the facts...
...It's not surprising that Kenner should endorse this method...
...No, in Lolita...
...Ironically, Syria has great understanding of Israel's role as defender of Western interests...
...Their torpor vanishes...
...His constellations are both clever and illuminating, reminding us as they do how each new technology radically alters the way we imagine our world...
...What's that...
...Your tax-deductible contributions are welcome...
...He spendstime at nursing homes, taking abused dogs to visit neglected old folks...
...B97l 5401 Hangar Ct., Box 30303, Tampa, FL 33630 O.K., TOM...
...He piles detail on detail for horrifying effect, as when an old acquaintance (now a talent agent) graphically describes fellatio in a closet...
...That was really a sick idea...
...Kenner assumes that we, his American audience, will laugh at what he takes to be Waugh's benighted philistinism...
...Syria is a "client" of the Soviet Union...
...A Sinking Island (1988) is a wandering excursion into the whys and wherefores of England's supposed decline as a literary power...
...The typical Pound poem, he tells us, is built up with sharply etched details that "are simply present to one another in the same way as the stars that make up one constellation...
...Second, even among those convinced of the movement's accomplishments, there is a growing weariness with the endless din of ever subtler commentaries and ever more prurient biographies that continue to follow in its train...
...He arguespersuasively that it was the typewriter, as much as any other influence, that changed the nature of modern poetry, giving the poet unprecedented control of how his work would appear on the published page...
...This would enable Syria to wage war with Israel, if necessary without the assistance of any of the other Arab States...
...His little girlfriend...
Vol. 22 • February 1989 • No. 2
