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Bearded Suicidal Drunk has no clothes

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The Bearded Suicidal Drunk Has No Clothes

In high school I read a book by Tobias Wolf called This Boy's Life for summer reading. I remember disliking it, just like almost every other book that I read for school besides Iliad , Lord of the Rings , and Shane ... oh yeah and Mr. Popper's Penguins . Recently my sister wanted me to read Wolfe's new book, Old School, about a boy who goes through an old prep school and reads all the major authors. My sister thought this book might show me the real Ayn Rand: a ridiculous zealot, as she is portrayed in one of the chapters. Also, I went to an "old school," which is where I was only encouraged to read books like Ethan Frome and The Grapes of Wrath. Old School was a major seller in bookstores recently, from what I remember. Naturally, I went to the bookstore and flipped through the pages until I got to the part about Ayn Rand. That chapter is basically just another Nathaniel Branden style criticism of her. The most amazing thing about it is that it is an attempt to portray her as a dramatic simpleton through "realistic" fiction. As if he could just make up a story about Ayn Rand which seems similar to some characterizations of her and then pass that off as the truth. Very interesting, though. The writing quality and insights it gives are a worthwhile read all the same.

There are two legitimately funny parts to the story, however, which add to the value of reading it. The first is the story the main character's schoolmate writes. He is a vegetarian with a hilarious sense of humor. Go to Barnes & Noble and read it and then gently put it back on the shelf. The second funny part is about how Ayn Rand reacts to the suggestion of Hemmingway as a great American Novelist.

"Hemmingway, always Hemmingway! Hemmingway with the beard!" Hilarious! How dare she! How dare she criticize a writer so… popular as Hemmingway. It's true, his beard was ridiculous in that it represented things much worse about him. She then goes on a fictional tirade, (perhaps partly accurate in showing her occasional over-the-top outbursts, admitted by Leonard Peikoff) most of which I agreed with.

I agreed with the fictional Ayn Rand because she, through the shoddy understanding of the author, named the reasons we all resent reading these stories about old or young men who are destroyed by fishing. (Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Steinbeck's The Pearl come to mind). These are reasons she more accurately wrote about in real life in such compilations as The Romantic Manifesto on her aesthetics. For me, there was always resentment at having to read these books, but I didn't have the intellectual fortitude or calling at the time to name principles Ayn Rand brilliantly discusses: That a piece of artwork where man fails against nature could never be the written by the "Great American novelist." Such a work literally flies in the face of our history! Futhermore, that the most appropriate background for a tragedy is Tyrrany, because the enemy is actually conscious, thirsty, and powermongering. Of course, Tobias Wolfe never got that far in understanding Ayn Rand.

The main point Wolfe makes is that Ayn Rand was a simpleton because she didn't write in "shades of grey." She even flicks a cigarette ash off of her black skirt in his story, and glares at the grey mark left behind with her FEROCIOUS BLACK AND WHITE EYES!

On that note, the funniest part of my story came after a discussion on similar topics with my sister while visiting her New York City. She had initially shown me the book to demonstrate that Ayn Rand "isn't so great, after all." After discussing the usual defenses with her, i.e. that grey is made up of black and white, that the purpose of art seems to be to communicate or contemplate *ideals*, and that tragedy requires an appropriate context, she admitted something important to me. In an absolutely innocent, earnest, intelligent, but also "valley girl" kind of way that is typical to her, she said "To be honest with you, I only have, like, 10 pages left but I can't imagine having to sit down and read them." We both let out long sickly satisfying chuckles, as if to say, "there's not a lot going on in the book, after all." I think we laughed because we agreed that art has to communicate something. But the book "Old School" doesn't communicate anything! It's too grey. On the way out the door I wiped the grey dust from her apartment stairwell's new paintjob off of my jacket, breathed in a gulp of fresh, cold air, and lifted my head to the glittering white stars against the pitch black sky.

It was the same with This Boy's Life , a not entirely uninteresting autobiography, about a boy whose major trait is that he would someday write an autobiography about himself. Thus the title. Consequenty, the last 30 pages are like mowing the lawn. I remember chucking the book across my summer camp cabin when I was done with it. I remember this because my freind said he thought I was just trying to get attention. Well, I was expressing frustration. There was this underlying feeling that this book was boring, excruciating , for a reason. Ayn Rand has offered some logical and intriguing reasons why I felt that way.

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The Bearded Suicidal Drunk Has No Clothes

<clip>...Ayn Rand has offered some logical and intriguing reasons why I felt that way.

Well put.

There are very few author's book's that I don't have the feeling of seeing some

internal inconsistency after reading.

Books which actually point out their author's irrationalities, such as this imaginary

caricature of Ayn Rand which tell us of the author's misunderstanding and hostility

toward rationality via pure character invention, can be amusing, in much the same

way that a freak show is amusing.

Freak shows, especially if they are either outright fakes or where the "freaks" are

not there voluntarily, leave me feeling exactly like reading one of these books.

Nauseated.

I differentiate freak shows where the "freaks" are voluntarily there to proudly

show their oddities (not as "shocking sympathy demanders", but as truths that

they don't allow to limit them) and put on a good show in the spirit of giving the

audience some real value in entertainment with their pride in showmanship.

Books that do this are a pleasure and are to be learned from. Books that leave

you feel disgusted, yet still somehow "sell", are the entertainment of the truly sick.

And why would anyone push (force) sickness producing books (and other

entertainment) on people (namely school goers)?

That's something to think about. :)

-Iakeo

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And why would anyone push (force) sickness producing books (and other

entertainment) on people (namely school goers)?

That's something to think about.  :)

-Iakeo

Modern educatiors are often the Comprachicos of the mind. Scary stuff. Anyone interested in the "why" of this kind of thing should read the article on the Comprachicos in The New Left.

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Modern educatiors are often the Comprachicos of the mind. Scary stuff. Anyone interested in the "why" of this kind of thing should read the article on the Comprachicos in The New Left.

{ http://www.stormy.org/edcompr.htm }


  • EDUCATION: The Comprachicos

    Victor Hugo The Man Who Laughs 1869

    "The comprachicos (child buyers) were strange and hideous nomads in the 17th
    century. They made children into sideshow freaks. To succeed in producing a
    freak one must get hold of him early; a dwarf must be started when he is small.
    They stunted growth, they mangled features. It was an art/science of inverted
    orthopedics. Where nature had put a straight glance, this art put a squint. Where
    nature had put harmony, they put deformity and imperfection. The child was not
    aware of the mutilation he had suffered. This horrible surgery left traces on his
    face, not in his mind. During the operation the little patient was unconscious by
    means of a stupefying magic powder.

    In China since time immemorial, they have achieved refinement in a special art
    and industry: the molding of living man. One takes a child two or three years old
    and puts them into a grotesquely shaped porcelain vase. It is without cover or
    bottom, so the head and feet protrude. In the daytime the vase is upright, at night
    it is laid down so the child can sleep. Thus the child slowly fills the contours of the
    vase with compressed flesh and twisted bones. This bottled development
    continues for several years. At a certain point, it becomes an irreparable monster.
    Then the vase is broken and one has a man in the shape of a pot."


    Ayn Rand The New Left 1971

    "The production of monsters--helpless, twisted monsters whose normal
    development has been stunted--goes on all around us. But the modern heirs of
    the comprachicos are smarter and subtler. They do not hide, they practice their
    trade in the open, the results are invisible. In the past this horrible surgery left
    traces on a child's face, not in his mind. Today it leaves traces in his mind, not on
    his face. In both cases the child is not aware of the mutilation he has suffered.
    Today's comprachicos do not use narcotic powders. They take a child before he is
    fully aware of reality and never let him develop that awareness. Where nature put
    a normal brain, they put mental retardation. To make you unconscious for life by
    means of your own brain, nothing could be more ingenious. They are the
    comprachicos of the mind. They do not place a child into a vase to adjust his body
    to its contours. They place him into a school to adjust him to society."


    Plato The Republic Greece 370 BC
    Johann Gottlieb Fichte Address to the German Nation 1808

    "Resistance to the full-scale institution of government compulsory schooling will
    only last for one generation. The first generation affected will accept it as a natural
    part of growing up."

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I have never enjoyed reading this type of work myself, of course my college professor for creative writing I think was bedmates with Tobias Wolfe. Anyway, it was my dislike for having to read this trash during school that kept me from really reading until I was in middle school. It was then that I read LOTR for the first time and I have been a fan of fantasy ever since. I of course got frowned upon from my teachers at school for reading this "trash. :)

Edited by Richard Roark
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It was then that I read LOTR for the first time and I have been a fan of fantasy ever since. I of course got frowned upon from my teachers at school for reading this "trash.  :)

There was a really cool discussion in OPAR about the history of fiction and how fantasy writing has been the last bastion of heroes triumphing in their setting.

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  • 4 months later...

For my own state of well-being, I will state this: I have no problem with tragedy. We all know that there is nothing wrong with crying over the death of a protagonist, especially under the appropriate circumstances. I don't think there is anything wrong with showing that part of life, namely death, either. It's just that we are drowning our children in tragedy and spiritual failure right now. How long will the intellectuals continue to pretend that they are these Nietzschean pariahs of the dark truth? Among intellectuals and artists, they are the mainstream. We are the ones breaking the mold and leaving the herd. But the most important point is that quality and quantity are completely independent of each other. Forget the vain pursuit of individuality for individuality's sake, that is altruistic at base. This is the objective truth for rational individuals: What we need more of right now is what Ayn Rand writes about, spiritual exaltation and realistic sunrise.

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I read Tobias for the first time last year during a writing course that was titled "plot and story" (a complete misnomer by the way). ANyway maybe it was because we were reading wretchedly horrible monstrously bad writing such as "jesus' son" and others but I thought Tobias' stories at the very least had plots that were logical. No matter how much he claims to have broken away from Rand fandom he apparently has retained something subconsciously.

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I have yet to read Wolff's memoirs, or any of his short fiction, Old School is my only experience of his work and I am a little baffled by the more vitriolic criticism heaped upon him in Objectivist circles. In some cases it seems to be based on nothing more than his obvious dislike of Rand's writing.

He states his case concisely. People are of course free to agree or disagree.

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Perhaps you don't understand the sort of intellectual achievement Objectivism consists of, and that having its originator portrayed as a caricature of mindlessness therefore doesn't bode too well with those who do. Perhaps you share Wolf's dislike of Ayn Rand?

No one's saying people shouldn't be free to agree or disagree with Ayn Rand, just that using one's dislike to portray someone as something they're not isn't exactly an act of honesty.

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Perhaps you don't understand the sort of intellectual achievement Objectivism consists of, and that having its originator portrayed as a caricature of mindlessness therefore doesn't bode to well with those who do.  Perhaps you share Wolf's dislike of Ayn Rand? 

No one's saying people shouldn't be free to agree or disagree with Ayn Rand, just that using one's dislike to portray someone as something they're not isn't exactly an act of honesty.

I am not as vehemently disgusted by her fiction as Wolff appears to be, and I agree that he has taken one aspect (albeit a documented aspect) of her character and used it to ridicule her. This is not strictly in good taste (although good taste has little to do with good art). Nonetheless I believe the case he makes for his dislike of her novels is consistent and honest.

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Say what?  What exactly is your definition of "good taste" then?

Apologies, 'good taste' is one of those dreadful phrases which can mean just about anything. In this context I was referring to Wolff's use of one precise aspect of Rand's character to mock her. This is not strictly speaking fair, his portrait of her as a person is subjective and unbalanced as opposed to objective, but this in and of itself does not make it bad writing.

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Apologies, 'good taste' is one of those dreadful phrases which can mean just about anything.  In this context I was referring to Wolff's use of one precise aspect of Rand's character to mock her.  This is not strictly speaking fair, his portrait of her as a person is subjective and unbalanced as opposed to objective, but this in and of itself does not make it bad writing.

Personally I consider it bad taste and bad writing to use real people in fiction writing. Are you not intelligent enough to come up with fictional characters--(speaking to wolff) or is it that you're trying to piggy-back on rand's popularity as so many other hacks have done in the past and made their living from?

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Personally I consider it bad taste and bad writing to use real people in fiction writing.  Are you not intelligent enough to come up with fictional characters--(speaking to wolff) or is it that you're trying to piggy-back on rand's popularity as so many other hacks have done in the past and made their living from?

This I do not agree with. Many fine novels have featured real people as characters, the most recent example being Jerry Stahl's I, Fatty written from the perspective of Roscoe Arbuckle. Ironically enough, given the debate around Wolff's use of Rand, Stahl felt that Arbuckle had been misrepresented and wished to right what he perceived as a wrong.

Also, I fail to see how a "piggy-back on Rand's popularity" is going to help Wolff sell many books. Rand is popular because many people enjoy her writing, fictional or otherwise. By attacking her Wolff is effectively alienating her entire fan base. Some people might buy and enjoy Old School because they dislike Rand but I can assure you that this does not apply to me. I detest George W. Bush, this does not make Farenheit 9/11 a good documentary.

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Oh, I see what you're saying now.  One can manage to spew the most horrid of falsehoods yet still do it with a tasteful writing style.  Makes sense.

Wolff is using Rand for comic effect by taking aspects of her character that [he] found distasteful and magnifying them. Philip Roth did precisely the same thing to Richard Nixon in Our Gang.

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Also, I fail to see how a "piggy-back on Rand's popularity" is going to help Wolff sell many books.  ......I detest George W. Bush, this does not make Farenheit 9/11 a good documentary.

But you saw Farenheit 9/11 right? That's what I mean by piggy-backing.

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Oh, I guess that makes it ok, then.

At this point I should make one thing clear, I am not arguing that Wolff's portrait of Rand is balanced. He is not attempting to write her biography. His distaste for both the person and the work is obvious and I do not consider him the final authority or Old School a great novel. Clear? Good.

What really brought me into this discussion, and to Wolff's defense, was his own defense of Hemingway. Unlike Wolff I do not consider Papa the greatest of all writers, I do consider him a great writer. Elements of his public persona have poisoned his literary reputation among certain people, his work has been presented as a collection of chest-beating macho men and his end, suicide by shotgun, ridiculed as proof of cowardice. To paraphrase Bush snr, this distortion will not stand.

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But you saw Farenheit 9/11 right?  That's what I mean by piggy-backing.

I do take your point. Nonetheless, in terms of pure commercialism attacking Rand is not going to do much for Wolff, nor is her involvement overly pushed. L'affaire Rand occupies a handful of pages in a 195 page novel, her name is not even mentioned in the synopsis of my edition (the Bloomsbury hardback), and almost all of the press I have encountered makes it clear that he is not a fan.

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