Tuesday 6 November 2012

Downtown Aplomb


Norm Sibum picks up Lazy Bastardism, and kinda, sorta, maybe likes it.
From what I have seen of the book, it appears to be written with uptown aplomb. Or perhaps it is downtown aplomb, with all the bravura of power drink venues and hot dog vendors and bored secretaries passing by (and poets even more bored, boredom being the acme of creative potentiality as per Mr Starnino in a philosophical moment): all that construction going on around Union Station, Toronto. It is written as if to speak of Canadian literature is the most natural of human acts, as natural an act as—you fill in the blank; as if there were to Canadian literature now a certain preeminence in much the same way as American literary critics of a by-gone time once accorded American authors of a by-gone time their God-given, constitutional right to preeminent centrality in the universe of literature: F Scott, for example, or Ernest or Mr Faulkner

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Forgive my asking, but what the Hell did THAT mean?

Anonymous said...

A kind of long winded pseudo-academese without the modicum of passion that would qualify it as hyperbole.

-Jake

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Jake. I sort of figured, but you know how it feels when you think you might be missing something.... Call me old-fashioned, but when I'm wasted I just send text messages instead.

James Pollock said...

Can't wait to read this book, Carmine.