{"id":787,"date":"2012-02-09T20:01:18","date_gmt":"2012-02-10T01:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=787"},"modified":"2019-09-12T20:19:37","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T00:19:37","slug":"10-american-novels-maybe-as-fun-to-write-as-they-are-to-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2012\/02\/10-american-novels-maybe-as-fun-to-write-as-they-are-to-read.html","title":{"rendered":"American novels: as fun to write as they are to read?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Broderick Crawford as populist pol Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men – Law&Liberty.org<\/p><\/div>\n

Of\u00c2\u00a010 American novels<\/a> critic Terry Teachout posted yesterday that he wishes he’d written, only All The King’s Men<\/a><\/em>\u00c2\u00a0by Robert Penn Warren similarly appeals\u00c2\u00a0to me.\u00c2\u00a0I can imagine hunkering down as Penn Warren did, dryly but fiercely etching the sickness of American populist politics, which we’re seeing swirl at its sickest this very \u00c2\u00a0primary season. It would be work, for sure, but at a white hot energy — which I’d think would be hard to sustain, but so satisfying to bring to completion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Falcon, meet Bogart – IMDb.com<\/p><\/div>\n

I haven’t read all Terry’s other choices (but of course\u00c2\u00a0Gatsby<\/a><\/em>), and as he says his whimsical exercise is based on personal taste.\u00c2\u00a0Would it have been fun to write Gatsby<\/em>? Maybe for F. Scott Fitzgerald, but not for me. I’d rather have dreamed up the terse treachery in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon<\/a><\/em>, the flat-out funny of Max Shulman’s Barefoot Boy With Cheek<\/a><\/em>, the\u00c2\u00a0kaleidoscopic enormity of
\n<\/a> Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I’d have enjoyed penning “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” (not novels, I know, but then neither is “The Tell-Tale Heart”; the three of them together = a novella, so I’ll claim them) and Sirens of Titan<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>and would be proud (of course) to have authored Huck Finn<\/a><\/em>. Tropic of Capricorn<\/a><\/em> is another I could, when I read it, fantasize that someday I might come up with with something like. Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed<\/a><\/em>\u00c2\u00a0is excitingly vivid and visionary — just think of spending time conjuring flawed but fantastic immortals in paranormal conflict. Elmore Leonard’s Killshot<\/a><\/em> — Elmore always has fun when he’s writing, you can tell. And maybe Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams<\/a><\/em>, though I have nothing like the grasp of time and space (physics, right?) I’d have had to have for that.<\/p>\n

I admire a gazillion other American novels (and many foreign ones, too), but couldn’t have turned out The Turn of the Screw<\/em> or Moby Dick<\/em> or The Scarlet Letter<\/em> or An American Tragedy<\/em> or Invisible Man<\/em> or Miss Lonelyhearts<\/em> or Donald Newlove’s fantastic Sweet Adversity<\/a><\/em> (much less his latest, Kindle-only,\"\"<\/a> 1000+ page Starlight Photoplays<\/a><\/em>) or Robert Coover’s The Origin of the Brunists<\/em> <\/a>or Naked Lunch<\/em> or even Portnoy’s Complaint<\/em> — but gee, if I could! Just one of the not-so-simple Dr. Suess classics, W.R. Burnett’s iconic Little Ceasar<\/a><\/em> or James Cain’s Double Idemnity<\/em> (the Amerian Crime and Punishment<\/em>) or Christopher Buckley’s The White House Mes<\/em>s or gosh, Carl Haissen’s Tourist Season<\/em> — sitting at the keyboard, knocking any of those out — that would be a kick. I don’t know if John Burdett’s Bankok<\/em> trilogy counts as an American novel, exactly, or if Mezz Mezzrow’s Really the Blues<\/a><\/em> is a novel, though it’s ultra-American. Like The Freelance Pallbearers<\/em>, My Life and Hard Times<\/em> and (back to Twain) No. 44,\u00c2\u00a0The Mysterious Stranger<\/em><\/a> or Algren’s The Devil’s Stocking<\/a><\/em> or The Wizard of Oz<\/em>. To dwell within such books while they’re unfolding, that must be what novelists live (and die) to do.<\/p>\n

Well, I’m not too shy or superstitious to admit I still harbor novelistic ambitious. I’ve got a complete draft of a fast-paced, hiply talkative crime novel (if anyone’s interested, leave a comment below), notes \"\"<\/a>for a long work on an underground movement in a dystopian future and a couple old, extremely fanciful chapters of a backwards odyssey in the ’60s, if it had been completely different. I intend to shape all these up, finish them, publish them. True, novels take time, but they make<\/em> time for the writer and the reader — that suspended bubble of the moments (hours, years) spent writing and reading. I’m sure it’s time well spent, ’cause look at what worlds they depict, so easily accessed and fully inhabited, how wondr’ously eternal yet marvelously new they are every time I open the covers. For sure the kind of novels a person likes –\u00c2\u00a0loves<\/em> — say a lot about the person. A poet, not a novelist, said it: “I am large, contain multitudes<\/a>.” Not to be grandiose –when I feel that way it’s from reading all these novels. . .<\/p>\n

howardmandel.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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Of\u00c2\u00a010 American novels critic Terry Teachout posted yesterday that he wishes he’d written, only All The King’s Men\u00c2\u00a0by Robert Penn Warren similarly appeals\u00c2\u00a0to me.\u00c2\u00a0I can imagine hunkering down as Penn Warren did, dryly but fiercely etching the sickness of American populist politics, which we’re seeing swirl at its sickest this very \u00c2\u00a0primary season. It would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/sweet-adversity1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-cH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":297,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/02\/nyc_blues_extra_grammy_winner.html","url_meta":{"origin":787,"position":0},"title":"NYC blues extra: Grammy winner Honeyboy Edwards @ BB King’s","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"February 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"City Arts, for space reasons, left off the last graph I'd submitted: True blue fans will flock to hear David \"Honeyboy\" Edwards, running buddy of legendary Robert Johnson and recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, at B.B. King's March 11. Edwards is 95, a lifetime achievement for any blues\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":378,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/02\/black_history_monthpost-racial.html","url_meta":{"origin":787,"position":1},"title":"Black History Month Post-?-Racial String Bands","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"February 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Carolina Chocolate Drops are at least as entertaining as the 19th minstrel shows they cop songs and style from -- and just as confounding to any strict analysis of American attitudes about what's called \"race\" -- as noted in my new column in City Arts - New York. At\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":82,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/04\/pop_conference_comin_up.html","url_meta":{"origin":787,"position":2},"title":"Serious about pop","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"April 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Who presents and supports the articulation of ambitious thinking about American vernacular music? The Experience Music Project\/Science Fiction Museum (Seattle's answer to NYC's American Museum of Natural History?) holds its seventh annual Pop Conference April 10 - 13, with dozens of scholars, journalists and musicians giving 20-minute run-throughs of their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/02\/jazz_beyond_jazz_in_philly_for.html","url_meta":{"origin":787,"position":3},"title":"Jazz beyond jazz in Philly, for instance","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"February 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A day in Philadelphia demonstrated hard-core support for music stretching genres thrives, and a young audience seems ripe for such attractions. Having been invited to the City of BroLo to present Miles Ornette Cecil -- Jazz Beyond Jazz and illustrative video clips by Ars Nova Workshop, the sort of heroic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":64,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/02\/cultural_convergence_in_americ.html","url_meta":{"origin":787,"position":4},"title":"Cultural convergence in America","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"February 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Primaries, Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year align -- look who's coming to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage fest! How often does the US citizenry go to the polls on the same day acolytes of Dionysis party and Asian-Americans prepare for the Lunar New Year (Feb. 7)? I dunno.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":307,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/03\/smooth_jazz_vs_hard_jazz_in_ti.html","url_meta":{"origin":787,"position":5},"title":"Smooth jazz vs. hard jazz in Times Square","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"March 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Spyro Gyra, Al Jarreau, Tuck and Patti (pleasant entertainment for nice people) at Nokia Theatre -- or New England Conservatory's jazz gala (serious improv from jam band keybrdist John Medeski, singer Dominique Eade, et at.) at B.B. King's? My new City Arts\u00a0column\u00a0explores jazz polarities in NYC this weekend. Something for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}