John thanks for championing these writers I will definitely check them out. Speaking of Richard Price I read and enjoyed his work but have to admit gave up on his book 'Lush Life' well before page 50 something I rarely do. Maybe at the time I wasn't in the mood for an urban cop story. Is it worth revising?
Thanks for your comment, TJ. I'm not an expert on Price. I started reading Clockers years ago, but then gave up. I might try it again some day. It was excellent, he's very skilled, but I got bored.
The comments here are meant to be a space for engaging with ideas. As fair warning, I reserve discretionary power to mute comments that are ad hominem attacks on contributors or commenters. This is meant to be a fun place to play, but it only works if everybody plays nice in the sandbox!
When I first became deathly conscious, prostitution was the only option it seemed. I got so good at attracting rich men I had almost perfect aim. Men who were ex Yale quarterbacks, got so enthralled they betrayed their actually upheld monogamy. I did not let them, but felt like I could truly make a great living. I couldn't go through with it. Sadly. Otherwise I'd be working in sexy place like Ruder Finn still or even Odeon Capital.
Pimps are some of the worst people out there. They play priest, love, boyfriend, even father. To horrible manipulated and distraught women. That's not a life. I'm choosing extreme poverty for an American and while I could be a call girl, I just...can't. I really can barely handle a hug.
I read the pimp novel and it was just unbearable. I couldn't read it. The joy is faked, everything is false. I think you should make that clear, it's not fun. It's the laughter before the last shriek in front of a running train.
I'm living a ton below the poverty line, even after my "shut up" allowance of 800 a month. Apart from that I only have like 160 left from SSI after I move into a dingy group home with a mattress so old it could claim social security.
Pimp is not better than Richard Price, sorry. It's interesting for its subject matter (and also repulsive) and Beck wrote fairly clear-eyed prose that didn't try to apologize or back down from the reader's presumed disapproval, so in some ways that voice was slightly novel. But it just isn't as good as you want to make it. (And its publishing success is quite a story from pre-Internet days, which gives it a certain romantic quality that lots of middle-class white readers falsely think is merit rather than just excitement.
John Fante is the only writer more overrated than Bukowski. Ask the Dust is a pretty good book, but his other Bandini books are unreadably overstuffed, and just dull. Saroyan was a much-better California working-class writer in terms of both style and voice.
I mean, I know this is all opinion, and I'm not really shitting on your taste, just the claims you are making based on it, but my point is only, don't confuse obscurity itself with merit, or backstory.
Beck actually does back down from the reader's presumed disapproval. The whole reformed pimp, don't-do-what-I-did shpeil is lame. He's not a better writer than Price, but his book (even the bad parts, even when he's fronting and faking it) reveal more about that world than Price's. I would not call Beck's prose clear-eyed. It's florid and filled with street jargon. Yes, the book is repulsive and sadistic at times, which Price never is. He's too careful a writer to fall into that. That's my point. Beck is not literary; Price is. As far as Saroyan, haven't read him. Your criticism of Fante--overstuffed--is typical of readers who don't pick up on voice. I don't bang the drum for Fante because he's a working-class writer who wrote about LA, but because he wrote with an intensity of voice, and of abject shame and overblown ego that few writers ever have ever achieved. I recommend that you reread him in that light.
Writing is always sadism, I'm cruel to all my characters. I show the truth! (Read Spirit of Art of Return of the Lover--Thomas Levin). Mean to all characters.
After you insult me by telling me I "don't pick up on voice" I should revisit him? No. The difference in quality between Ask the Dust and the other Bandini books does not come down to voice, it comes down to the book's writing (which is in Bandini's voice, yes) being repetitive, tedious, overblown, and not in any way engaging. It is like trying to listen to your friend's monologuing when they are in a manic episode, and there are parts that you can snag on, but there are so many extra loops that you get lost and bored and dispirited. I don't like Bandini, I don't find anything illuminating in the way he talks, and I don't even find much of documentary use. It's artless, which maybe is what you like about it, but I could not take it, and I am not one who gives up on a book lightly.
It has been a long time since I read Pimp, so I guess I compressed my assessment too much. It is both clear-eyed about what he does, and florid in the way it performs the persona (and oh my god is it a boring persona now) that became the archetype of "pimp" in umpteen movies and books, especially the Blaxploitation films that spread it far and wide. Describing the PROSE as clear-eyed is probably not accurate, but maybe the method of the narration is a better way to put it.
Dude, you come off like a smug know-it-all in your opening comment, lecturing me not to confuse obscurity with merit, and you expect me to be polite? There is nothing at all clear-eyed about Pimp, neither in the prose nor in the overall vision. Beck's racial justifications for pimping, for example, make no sense at all, yet are still illuminating. The book is hard-headed and raw, which is why I like it. You call Fante artless. Just because you don't see the art in his Bandini Quartet, doesn't mean it's artless. It's not literary, that's true. Literary does not mean artful. Too many literary types make that mistake, and it's a shame. That's why Charles Farrell, the point of my piece, will probably never get the credit he deserves. I am almost certain you in particular wouldn't get him.
I can't even tell what you intend to mean by either literary or artful. Such a schtick, the anti-pretension pretension.
I wonder, have you ever read Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice? I can't recommend it, but if you have you know.
As to raw, carry on, manly man of manly men. What is "raw" and why is it good in this context? Just more cult of authenticity? Or something else about "voice" that I wouldn't get?
Maybe you exploit every woman around you. Staring like a vulture, feeding off of every sinew, every drop of soul. I can just tell about those things. You are smart though.
They tried to eradicate my voice, to bloat me up with drugs, to chemically lobotomize me for decades. Yet when a man has money and has options, he's usually enthralled, he picks up the phone for me at uncalm hours(even 5 am), and against the competition of 19 year old hotties who are way hotter than me...I get the invites, I get the DoorDash options, I get the cabaret tickets, the tickets to A Dolls House at the Guthrie. When a man is an actual provider to women who are not his wife, I do pretty well. Whenever I meet such a man, I really can't handle overt sexual response but have a tough time even with hugs. Yet he remains committed. How, I don't know? It pisses the poor system off. They just want me undesirable, boring, and useless. Just a pity project.
Sometimes "daughter" means free prostitute. I was never a virgin, yet forced to be a "good girl." I purposefully tried to be as promiscuous as possible to catch hiv even. Just caught horrible hpv. Now that he sees me as "clean" he assaulted me again, albeit with a condom, albeit with a knife.
You are so right..I'm brain dead as I was sexually assaulted at my parent's house by my "dad" with a knife. There are knife cuts all over my left arm. It's just terrible. They're minimizing it and calling it "my dad behaved inappropriately, maybe." Such bullshit. They won't even let me talk to a doctor, doctor won't talk to me.
Pimps feed on broken women. Women temporarily get spirited thinking they can do anything after profound desecration. It's not a lifestyle, it's a trap. I'm choosing extreme poverty.
We need more writers that live lives like this.
I agree. Read (LOW)LIFE. You will be impressed.
John thanks for championing these writers I will definitely check them out. Speaking of Richard Price I read and enjoyed his work but have to admit gave up on his book 'Lush Life' well before page 50 something I rarely do. Maybe at the time I wasn't in the mood for an urban cop story. Is it worth revising?
Thanks for your comment, TJ. I'm not an expert on Price. I started reading Clockers years ago, but then gave up. I might try it again some day. It was excellent, he's very skilled, but I got bored.
Yeah sometimes my frame of mind can influence my degree of interest still have the book so I'll give it another go.
Dear Republic,
The comments here are meant to be a space for engaging with ideas. As fair warning, I reserve discretionary power to mute comments that are ad hominem attacks on contributors or commenters. This is meant to be a fun place to play, but it only works if everybody plays nice in the sandbox!
- The Editor
When I first became deathly conscious, prostitution was the only option it seemed. I got so good at attracting rich men I had almost perfect aim. Men who were ex Yale quarterbacks, got so enthralled they betrayed their actually upheld monogamy. I did not let them, but felt like I could truly make a great living. I couldn't go through with it. Sadly. Otherwise I'd be working in sexy place like Ruder Finn still or even Odeon Capital.
Pimps are some of the worst people out there. They play priest, love, boyfriend, even father. To horrible manipulated and distraught women. That's not a life. I'm choosing extreme poverty for an American and while I could be a call girl, I just...can't. I really can barely handle a hug.
I read the pimp novel and it was just unbearable. I couldn't read it. The joy is faked, everything is false. I think you should make that clear, it's not fun. It's the laughter before the last shriek in front of a running train.
I'm living a ton below the poverty line, even after my "shut up" allowance of 800 a month. Apart from that I only have like 160 left from SSI after I move into a dingy group home with a mattress so old it could claim social security.
Pimp is not better than Richard Price, sorry. It's interesting for its subject matter (and also repulsive) and Beck wrote fairly clear-eyed prose that didn't try to apologize or back down from the reader's presumed disapproval, so in some ways that voice was slightly novel. But it just isn't as good as you want to make it. (And its publishing success is quite a story from pre-Internet days, which gives it a certain romantic quality that lots of middle-class white readers falsely think is merit rather than just excitement.
John Fante is the only writer more overrated than Bukowski. Ask the Dust is a pretty good book, but his other Bandini books are unreadably overstuffed, and just dull. Saroyan was a much-better California working-class writer in terms of both style and voice.
I mean, I know this is all opinion, and I'm not really shitting on your taste, just the claims you are making based on it, but my point is only, don't confuse obscurity itself with merit, or backstory.
Beck actually does back down from the reader's presumed disapproval. The whole reformed pimp, don't-do-what-I-did shpeil is lame. He's not a better writer than Price, but his book (even the bad parts, even when he's fronting and faking it) reveal more about that world than Price's. I would not call Beck's prose clear-eyed. It's florid and filled with street jargon. Yes, the book is repulsive and sadistic at times, which Price never is. He's too careful a writer to fall into that. That's my point. Beck is not literary; Price is. As far as Saroyan, haven't read him. Your criticism of Fante--overstuffed--is typical of readers who don't pick up on voice. I don't bang the drum for Fante because he's a working-class writer who wrote about LA, but because he wrote with an intensity of voice, and of abject shame and overblown ego that few writers ever have ever achieved. I recommend that you reread him in that light.
Writing is always sadism, I'm cruel to all my characters. I show the truth! (Read Spirit of Art of Return of the Lover--Thomas Levin). Mean to all characters.
After you insult me by telling me I "don't pick up on voice" I should revisit him? No. The difference in quality between Ask the Dust and the other Bandini books does not come down to voice, it comes down to the book's writing (which is in Bandini's voice, yes) being repetitive, tedious, overblown, and not in any way engaging. It is like trying to listen to your friend's monologuing when they are in a manic episode, and there are parts that you can snag on, but there are so many extra loops that you get lost and bored and dispirited. I don't like Bandini, I don't find anything illuminating in the way he talks, and I don't even find much of documentary use. It's artless, which maybe is what you like about it, but I could not take it, and I am not one who gives up on a book lightly.
It has been a long time since I read Pimp, so I guess I compressed my assessment too much. It is both clear-eyed about what he does, and florid in the way it performs the persona (and oh my god is it a boring persona now) that became the archetype of "pimp" in umpteen movies and books, especially the Blaxploitation films that spread it far and wide. Describing the PROSE as clear-eyed is probably not accurate, but maybe the method of the narration is a better way to put it.
Dude, you come off like a smug know-it-all in your opening comment, lecturing me not to confuse obscurity with merit, and you expect me to be polite? There is nothing at all clear-eyed about Pimp, neither in the prose nor in the overall vision. Beck's racial justifications for pimping, for example, make no sense at all, yet are still illuminating. The book is hard-headed and raw, which is why I like it. You call Fante artless. Just because you don't see the art in his Bandini Quartet, doesn't mean it's artless. It's not literary, that's true. Literary does not mean artful. Too many literary types make that mistake, and it's a shame. That's why Charles Farrell, the point of my piece, will probably never get the credit he deserves. I am almost certain you in particular wouldn't get him.
I can't even tell what you intend to mean by either literary or artful. Such a schtick, the anti-pretension pretension.
I wonder, have you ever read Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice? I can't recommend it, but if you have you know.
As to raw, carry on, manly man of manly men. What is "raw" and why is it good in this context? Just more cult of authenticity? Or something else about "voice" that I wouldn't get?
Maybe you exploit every woman around you. Staring like a vulture, feeding off of every sinew, every drop of soul. I can just tell about those things. You are smart though.
Maybe your grindstone, mirrors and bullet blanks persona is intimidating. Like a violent pimp. I definitely would not want to be around you!
Bukowski is not overrated, he is hobo chic!
I can write a better book review
I bet you can also write a better comment!
The truth is, if you're good at this, "courtesan/prostitute/whatever" men who are not stupid will be waiting to buy you something.
I scramble just to STAY ALIVE. I am a prostitute, at best. Dead, at worst. I give hugs like it's killing me.
They tried to eradicate my voice, to bloat me up with drugs, to chemically lobotomize me for decades. Yet when a man has money and has options, he's usually enthralled, he picks up the phone for me at uncalm hours(even 5 am), and against the competition of 19 year old hotties who are way hotter than me...I get the invites, I get the DoorDash options, I get the cabaret tickets, the tickets to A Dolls House at the Guthrie. When a man is an actual provider to women who are not his wife, I do pretty well. Whenever I meet such a man, I really can't handle overt sexual response but have a tough time even with hugs. Yet he remains committed. How, I don't know? It pisses the poor system off. They just want me undesirable, boring, and useless. Just a pity project.
Sometimes "daughter" means free prostitute. I was never a virgin, yet forced to be a "good girl." I purposefully tried to be as promiscuous as possible to catch hiv even. Just caught horrible hpv. Now that he sees me as "clean" he assaulted me again, albeit with a condom, albeit with a knife.
You are so right..I'm brain dead as I was sexually assaulted at my parent's house by my "dad" with a knife. There are knife cuts all over my left arm. It's just terrible. They're minimizing it and calling it "my dad behaved inappropriately, maybe." Such bullshit. They won't even let me talk to a doctor, doctor won't talk to me.
Pimps feed on broken women. Women temporarily get spirited thinking they can do anything after profound desecration. It's not a lifestyle, it's a trap. I'm choosing extreme poverty.
I can write a better book review