The Aesthetic Roof

In an interview, Milan Kundera was asked about a few writers with whom he is often associated, namely Hermann Broch, Robert Musil, Witold Gombrowicz and Franz Kafka. Was he influenced by those writers? No, Kundera answered, but he felt that he and they existed under the same "aesthetic roof." I find that to be a significant distinction. With my own writing, I feel a strong connection with certain writers such as Kundera and Kafka, though I would not necessarily say that they influenced me—stylistically, my writing is nothing like theirs. Yet I like to think that we are roommates in an aesthetic apartment. We share an aesthetic that is grounded in the way we perceive the world. Specifically, we perceive utter absurdity in every aspect of human existence and we recognize and celebrate the rich humor, irony, beauty and despair that result from our awareness of the essential meaninglessness of existence. My worldview comes from the entirety of my human existence rather than from the influence of a particular book or books. For this reason I think it is more worthwhile to talk about shared aesthetic ideals than to talk about influences, which are a lot more difficult to pin down, when discussing where I’m coming from as a writer, what I’m trying to achieve as a writer.

That being said, I take some issue with the approach of the creative writing department at UNCA. The department fails to adequately encourage its budding writers to discover their own unique "aesthetic roof" and artistic purpose. The emphasis is on form. Chekhov. The inverted checklist. The epiphany, etc., etc., etc. To an extent, I understand. It’s necessary to master technique. The brilliant surrealist painter must first be able to paint a realistic bowl of bananas, blah, blah, etc. But the implication is that to be a good writer you must write in this specific color-by-numbers way. It results in disillusioned, creatively-stifled writers who have mastered the craft of composing formulaic, mediocre pieces of writing. So many times in workshops I’ve wanted to scream, "Yes, this story is well-structured. The setting is clear. There is a beginning, middle and end. There is a moment of crisis. The character has demonstrated change. BUT THE LAST THING THE WORLD FUCKING NEEDS IS ANOTHER SHALLOW UNIMAGINITIVE STORY ABOUT A CHARACTER WHO LEARNS SOMETHING TRITE ABOUT HIMSELF AFTER HIS FUCKING GRANDMOTHER DIES." I think a better approach to teaching creative writing would be to challenge the student’s artistic vision. What do you have to offer the literary world? What can you do that is different in some significant way? Why should people be excited to read your work? If the writer truly has talent he will develop the necessary technique through practice, maturity, gentle guidance, the revision process and extensive relevant reading. But the technique is worthless if the writer does not have an artistic purpose.

And so I will return to my own aesthetic vision. I was speaking with Blake this morning about how the writers with whom I feel a close aesthetic kinship—Kundera, Gombrowicz, Bernhard, Hamsun and Beckett pop to mind—are all European. And, with the exception of Kundera, they are all dead. I would like to take existence at this contemporary moment, with all the unique characteristics of living in American society at this point in history—material hyper-saturation, the omnipresence of technology, the paranoia of looming nuclear war, terrorist violence and environmental catastrophe, etc., etc.—and express it through the lens of my absurdist aesthetic. It is my role as a writer to reflect the unique perspective of my specific generation and my quest as a writer to reflect the unique perspective of my own specific aesthetic.

Enough abstraction. I will discuss my immediate literary plans. I have an idea for a novel that is in part inspired by Knut Hamsun’s autobiographical novel Hunger. Hunger is written with a close interiority. The reader is basically inside the narrator’s head for a period of time, follows him throughout the day as he roams the streets of urban Norway trying make enough money to eat from day to day. We are witnesses not only to his minute actions but also to his consciousness. From page 3:

"It was nine o’clock. The roll of vehicles and hum of voices filled the air, a might morning-choir, mingled with the footsteps of the pedestrians and the crack of the hack-drivers’ whips. The clamorous traffic everywhere exhilarated me at once, and I began to feel more and more contented. Nothing could be farther from my intention than to merely take a morning walk in the open air. What had the air to do with my lungs? I was strong as a giant; could stop a dray with my shoulders. A sweet, unwonted mood, a feeling of lightsome happy-go-luckiness took possession of me. I fell to observing the people I met and who passed me, to reading the placards on the wall, noted even the impression of a glance thrown at me from a passing tram-car, let each bagatelle, each trifling incident that crossed or vanished from my path impress me.If only one had just a little to eat on such a lightsome day! The sense of the glad morning overwhelmed me; my satisfaction became ill-regulated, and for no definite reason I began to hum joyfully."

The way that Hamsun obsessively records small details and every thought and impression that flies in and out of the narrator’s mind allows for intimate characterization and description and a great deal of absurd humor. Certainly, consciousness does not operate in a logical manner. Our minds are constantly intruded by irrational or incongruous thoughts, impressions, memories, associations, emotions, desires, impulses, etc. Hamsun celebrates the bizarreness of our internal life and allows it to dictate the narrative. Thus he gives the reader an engaging, often hilarious perspective that is utterly absurd, but at the same time more realistic than the realist of American realism. So called mimetic fiction does not accurately represent the absurd reality of our consciousness, now does it?

Furthermore, Hamsun’s character’s identity is significant. He is something of an outcast, extremely intelligent and most likely capable of being quite successful, but he does not share the common ideals of his society. His disillusionment with society makes him someone with whom I closely identify.

For my prospective novel I intend to follow Hamsun’s basic model with respect to style, aesthetic and character-type, but I will move the setting from 1880’s Norway to contemporary southern America. My character will be loosely based on a combination of myself and my younger brother. I think people like us represent a specific attitude today. A major aspect of our identity is that we are resigned to the inherent meaninglessness of existence. I was reading recently a comparison of postmodernist literature to modernist literature that cited this particular distinction: modernist writers often used art to try to discover meaning in the chaos of existence while postmodernist writers realize that there is no meaning to be found anywhere and use art to express the futility of the search. For perhaps a less abstract example, I think of the Beats, who were technically postmodern, I guess, but who were not resigned. They rejected conventional modes of meaning and sought their own through drugs, travel, alternative religions, art, etc, etc. Unlike the beats, we have given up on any quest for higher meaning. And yet we exist—and so we are constantly searching for transient affirmations that existing is better than not existing. Allen Ginsberg used peyote because he thought it allowed him to reach a more enlightened plane; I drink psilocybin tea because it makes me feel happy for a little while. My character might not be so philosophically aware, but that is the perspective he will embody.

My character’s life situation will resemble more my brother Alex’s than my own. Alex is similar to Hamsun’s character—he is highly intelligent but he is incapable of operating within the expectations of society. A high school drop out, he works odd restaurant jobs to make money, spends long periods of time unemployed, tries to make extra money gambling and dealing drugs and he uses drugs constantly, particularly marijuana. Being high is the greatest affirmation he has found for living. He has no illusions about any sort of afterlife or any noble purpose in this life. I feel similarly, as do many other people, and I feel our perspective is one that needs to be expressed.Like Hamsun, I will closely follow my character’s interior life and the minutia of his daily life. Hopefully comic absurdity will abound as I record the state of his mind as he lives his regular life, from trying to score drugs to trying to score with a girl to trying to figure out what the fuck he is doing in this world, and as his consciousness is altered by intoxication and sobriety, depression and contentedness, illness and well-being. What really interests me is that our consciousness is truly altered throughout the day, not only by drugs, but by subtleties—a headache, some painful or joyful memory, nuances of our relationships with other people or for no discernible reason at all. Hamsun’s character, for instance tends to have more irrational thoughts, think more rapidly and have violent mood swings the longer he goes without having a meal. I hope to be able to track the fluidity of my character’s consciousness throughout his day.


At this point, I am lacking in any particulars for the novel. Questions that I need to figure out include what literal action might I include in the novel, what characters other than the narrator might play significant roles in the novel and how much time the novel will cover. For now, I’m just going to do some free-writing and try to brainstorm a couple possible plot-lines. I need to talk with Alex, as well, in particular about his arrest and time spent in jail (I think this might be a nice climactic event to write about). What was going through his head when the house was being searched and the cops found his drugs under the mattress? (He was extremely high on opium at the time which presents an opportunity for great absurd humor.) What thoughts were haunting him as he sat all day in his jail cell? For that matter, what are some things he talked about with his cell-mate? We’ll have to get high and talk about it soon.