Informal exchange about contemporary art — in Dutch: http://www.endlesslowlands.nl.

A call for contribution for Video Vortex 4 is up (ah, since the 2nd of december): http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/videovortex/archives/108. Also a a pdf of the reader covering Video Vortex 3: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/inc-readers/videovortex//.

I know, I should write on 2666 myself. For now, I’ll just point you to an Interesting discussion over at Waggish: http://www.waggish.org/2008/12/16/notes-on-roberto-bolano-2666 and http://www.waggish.org/2009/01/18/more-notes-on-roberto-bolanos-2666.

In de Rekto:Verso die nu in de winkel zou moeten liggen (wel, in België dan, en wellicht op een enkele plek in Nederland) staat een interview met Arjen Mulder, de vragen zijn van mij: http://www.rektoverso.be/content/view/849/15/. Ook hier http://www.urbanmag.be/artikel/1469/interageren-om-te-overleven.

Les Bienveillantes mobilizes. Leads to discussion. To then conclude that other books are, in fact, so much better. But those books did not mobilize, did not initiate discussion. So we read Littlell. So we discuss Littell. And partly because his book is flawed it initiates discussion. So much becomes clear, browsing reviews and discussion fora.

For those of you who read German, the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeneine Zeitung) has a good dossier on Littell’s novel: http://lesesaal.faz.net/littell/. In it I find confirmation of my doubts wrt the literary quality of this big novel — considering that it still is a major work.

Another thing — and this regards the comparision between 2666 and Les bienveillantes — is that during the first 200 or 300 pages of the book, images from 2666 and especially of the character Hans Reiter as a soldier during WW II in the Oekraine, kept haunting me, so much that sometimes Aue became more like Reiter. The image of Reiter was stronger than that of Aue. While reading Littell I was wondering about Reiter, and the Sonora murders from 2666. The characters fuse maybe up to a certain extent because both Bolano and Littell use aspects from Ernst Jünger (and his novels) for Reiter and Aue. (No: I was reminded in both instances of Jünger, that’s more correct; they do not use concrete aspects from Jünger’s biography, rather they seem inspired by a certain distanced aesthetized look at the world that I identify with Jünger).

Reading Bolano I want to reread Bolano to come closer to understanding ‘life’. Reading Littell I want to do research and find out more about the history of WW II.

Hmm. Am I making myself clear?

Finished reading Jonathan Littell’s De welwillenden (Les Bienveillantes), the beste-selling novel about the atrocities of World War II from the perspective of a homosexual SD-member. Yes, it’s an impressive book. And more than any other book — including Vollmann’s Central Europe — (and including Primo Levi’s novels — which fall in a totally different class) this novel heightens my interest in WW II. The novel is horrifying and gripping.

But, but… (with every book I read there should be a ‘but’) … I did find that the passages about the protagonist, well, let’s call it ‘disturbed’ relationship with his twin sister, and his relation with his mother, weaken the novel’s possible impact. It is good for some delirious stretches of prose, and shocking descriptions, but it is a bit ‘cliche’ too. Although I do understand the function in the novel.

There are a few more motives which border on the cliche (the policemen that keep following the protagonist). Not that this ever really disturbed me. Just thinking of how the book could’ve been even better…

In some ways there are two books here — one is about a homosexual art-and-literature loving dandy- Nazi who is in love with his twin sister (good for some scandalous scenes). The other one is a very serious historical novel about the atrocities of WW II in Eastern Europe (much more shocking). One bridge between those two sides is provided by “Robert Brasillach” and “Leon Degrelle”, and in a sense by Theweleit’s Mannerphantasien — on which Littell wrote a long essay (that I have not read). (Of course the protagonist reads Blanchot during the war).

What I am asking myself: would I find such a novel stronger if the protagonist would have for instance a married Nazi, with a workers-background (or were all of those in the Wehrmacht?), instead of a cosmopolitan cultured person from a pretty rich family, and a troubled relation/lovelife? Surely the idea is not that all ‘executioners’ and murderers are “disturbed” psychologically, like this protagonist? I know, this is a very bad type of criticism. Yet, still, as I said, the pages about the ‘personal problems’ of Aue (the protagonist) did not really capture my attention as much as the ones about the war as such, and well, as you see, I keep on wondering about it.

It is a novel about ‘evil’ (though Littell in an interview in the FAZ says it is not). That invites comparision with Bolano’s 2666 — with its 200+ pages of descriptions of murders in Sonora.

Oh well, yes, I prefer 2666. And that preference indicates a ‘poetics’, a set of ideas of what constitutes good literature. (I wish I were able now to make an outline of that.)

Enough.

Oh, yes, and finished 2666. (What to read now?)

This was a year of ‘big books’ too: Moby Dick, The Confidence Man, The Savage Detectives, Buddenbrooks, Jahrestage, 2666, Against the Day.

(Just to remind myself).

Working hard to finish a 1000-words reaction on Literair overleven, Dirk van Weeldens plea for ‘aanvallende literatuur’: http://www.augustus.nl/. (Literally ‘offensive literature, but that has a strange connotation that the Dutch ‘aanvallende literatuur’ doesn’t have — what is meant is a progressive, playful, enthousiastic literature, a literature that freely and happily takes up the challenges of this world).

I thought I’d already missed the deadline. So I’m happy it was not too late. As usual my text was still 2500 words long at 21.30. With pain in my heart I just deleted 2 paragraphs in which I mentioned Open API’s and open standards. Down to 1275.

Reading through Lev Manovich new book Software Studies, which is downloadable here: http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html.

Being massively jealous of course (“hey,I could’ve easily written part 3, that’s my research”), I wonder if what Manovich is doing in this book — which at first quick reading through seems to be great as a summary, and very teachable — is in fact first “interface studies” and secondly software studies. Shouldn’t way peel off one more layer, open one more black box to reach at — well, how software is made to function so it makes us function? Or is this criticism due to my fascination for programming — not being a programmer myself?

Naturally their are many smaller issues on which I’m tempted to take issue with Manovich, or where I think he might have missed something. (German media theory?). I wonder if remixability is as central as he claims it to be. Yet, exactly making such a claim — remix as dominant form of cultural production — produces clarity too.

Just as Language of New Media this could be a book that one simply cannot go around / escape, when doing software studies. Even if one’s own approach would be different. (Manovich focussed mainly at American and Americanized culture, less at more marginal software cultures, et cetera et cetera).

Well, this is all very very preliminary, having read Part One, skimmed through Part Two, and read diagonally across Part Three. But I couldn’t resist…

And well, this is a great quote: “In the era of Web 2.0, we can state that information wants to be ASCII.”