Well worth the wait, Paul! And this I think does sum up my own view: "a perspective in which the beautiful and sublime are not distinct, but fused in one shocking, amoral force." Which, as you note, I somewhat ended up recruiting Hickey to malgre lui when I fused him with Lawrence, who, like Yeats in "Leda," textually becomes the women whose ravishment he describes or even advocates. (Currently reading, alongside A Vision, if I can be described as reading A Vision: The Plumed Serpent.)
I don't know what this says about me, but I'm actually enjoying it. (I have resolved to experience it as science fiction, however, rather than as a book about "Mexico." I'm just pretending she's on Mars—or Arrakis.)
My objection is non-ideological.... I can't imagine it says any more than your endurance of boredom! Truly the only Lawrence I'm not prepared to go for the mat for--on aesthetic grounds. Would like to see you mount an (aesthetic) defense!
Well, to court ideological objections of my own, the exoticism is working for me: I think he creates—through what are, yes, rather tryingly long narrative and descriptive rhythms—a convincingly attractive-repulsive alien landscape with alien gods, and gives us an equally convincing pair of "normative" surrogate eyes or at least surrogate moods, precisely via Kate's amusing fits of irritation and repulsed desire, to experience it through. (I'm just past the halfway point, prepared for it to go off the rails entirely.)
I like the Mexico aspect, too. Someday I'll write an essay on it and the likewise charming Wild Bunch movie, which Plumed Serpent always calls back to my mind.
This is delightfully a lot to think about! Probably better to discuss over email sometime, but reading this and seeing you and John's sometime discussions in comments elsewhere on Yeats make me want to look at some of the secondary literature (I love his poetry but don't know any of the scholarship), since he's so much in the background of the best author in American gay lit, Andrew Holleran...
Ah! I wouldn't have thought to connect them (had thought of the early Merrill I've read just in terms of Stevens and Howard)... I just got Changing Light and Sandover so I look forward to coming around to this after!
Wow, Delicious essay. Such a pleasure to see someone focus on and complicate/criticize Hickey’s insouciant examination of the gender of works of art in the heretofore unexamined (after many hundreds of commentaries) third of his four essays on beauty. Thanks for that! Indeed, the forced nature of Hickey’s argument there—and elsewhere—was the primary reason I suggested that his original four essays on beauty are much better understood as a work of camp than a theoretical statement about beauty. It was actually written *against* theory, which bound and controlled contemporary art at the time. (In response, I cajoled and Dave conceived of the book during the nadir of the AIDS plague, when discussing beauty was in many ways an absurd thing to do. That subtext has been lost today.) I’m especially taken by your suggestion that what’s needed now—as then—may be a fusing of beauty and sublimity into a “shocking amoral force.” That simply must become someone’s manifesto. I’m anxiously waiting…
Thank you very much for the kind words , Gary--and, sincerely, for your work on and for and with Hickey over the long haul. Writing this essay was a real treat--an honor! I actually find Hickey's argument about the gender of works of art very perceptive and interesting; he does, indeed ,make something "verbally visible" that was hitherto "invisible." I thought his argument in need of complicating, as I have indicated, but that, itself, is a tribute to its suggestiveness. I had a blast reading him--and this new volume.
Well worth the wait, Paul! And this I think does sum up my own view: "a perspective in which the beautiful and sublime are not distinct, but fused in one shocking, amoral force." Which, as you note, I somewhat ended up recruiting Hickey to malgre lui when I fused him with Lawrence, who, like Yeats in "Leda," textually becomes the women whose ravishment he describes or even advocates. (Currently reading, alongside A Vision, if I can be described as reading A Vision: The Plumed Serpent.)
My thanks for the generous reading, John!
The Plumed Serpent... truly an ordeal. Though the opening bullfight chapter is great.
I don't know what this says about me, but I'm actually enjoying it. (I have resolved to experience it as science fiction, however, rather than as a book about "Mexico." I'm just pretending she's on Mars—or Arrakis.)
My objection is non-ideological.... I can't imagine it says any more than your endurance of boredom! Truly the only Lawrence I'm not prepared to go for the mat for--on aesthetic grounds. Would like to see you mount an (aesthetic) defense!
Well, to court ideological objections of my own, the exoticism is working for me: I think he creates—through what are, yes, rather tryingly long narrative and descriptive rhythms—a convincingly attractive-repulsive alien landscape with alien gods, and gives us an equally convincing pair of "normative" surrogate eyes or at least surrogate moods, precisely via Kate's amusing fits of irritation and repulsed desire, to experience it through. (I'm just past the halfway point, prepared for it to go off the rails entirely.)
I like the Mexico aspect, too. Someday I'll write an essay on it and the likewise charming Wild Bunch movie, which Plumed Serpent always calls back to my mind.
I like The Wild Bunch much, much better.
This is delightfully a lot to think about! Probably better to discuss over email sometime, but reading this and seeing you and John's sometime discussions in comments elsewhere on Yeats make me want to look at some of the secondary literature (I love his poetry but don't know any of the scholarship), since he's so much in the background of the best author in American gay lit, Andrew Holleran...
Thanks, Blake! Do I have the book for you: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203502150/composite-voice-mark-bauer. (I can put you in touch with the author, if interested.) Look forward to the conversation!
Ah! I wouldn't have thought to connect them (had thought of the early Merrill I've read just in terms of Stevens and Howard)... I just got Changing Light and Sandover so I look forward to coming around to this after!
Early Merrill is boss.
I'm obligated here to advocate on behalf of Sandover over early Merrill, all due respect to Paul !
Wow, Delicious essay. Such a pleasure to see someone focus on and complicate/criticize Hickey’s insouciant examination of the gender of works of art in the heretofore unexamined (after many hundreds of commentaries) third of his four essays on beauty. Thanks for that! Indeed, the forced nature of Hickey’s argument there—and elsewhere—was the primary reason I suggested that his original four essays on beauty are much better understood as a work of camp than a theoretical statement about beauty. It was actually written *against* theory, which bound and controlled contemporary art at the time. (In response, I cajoled and Dave conceived of the book during the nadir of the AIDS plague, when discussing beauty was in many ways an absurd thing to do. That subtext has been lost today.) I’m especially taken by your suggestion that what’s needed now—as then—may be a fusing of beauty and sublimity into a “shocking amoral force.” That simply must become someone’s manifesto. I’m anxiously waiting…
Thank you very much for the kind words , Gary--and, sincerely, for your work on and for and with Hickey over the long haul. Writing this essay was a real treat--an honor! I actually find Hickey's argument about the gender of works of art very perceptive and interesting; he does, indeed ,make something "verbally visible" that was hitherto "invisible." I thought his argument in need of complicating, as I have indicated, but that, itself, is a tribute to its suggestiveness. I had a blast reading him--and this new volume.
Having a blast reading was what I think Hickey hoped for originally. So glad. Thanks!