From time to time I think it’s valuable to look back on the conversations conducted in our blog comment section. The following argument, between Christopher Robinson (author of the hip-hop series) and Buster Green (somebody with an alias), with interjections from (not) Brent Newland, is funny, biting, and illuminating. My hope is that by re-contextualizing this discussion we can come up with more ideas on how to reinvent our industry. Read, enjoy, and comment.

—Kaelan Smith, Senior Web Editor

Buster Green:

The only good about this article is that it is not as stupid as the previous bits about Revolutionary Road.

I have to wonder, is this a serious argument or a joke? Or maybe: a hopeless, poorly-read white boy’s attempt at hipness by connecting his bare, condescending idea of hip-hop with an imaginary group called the ‘literary establishment’—which apparently consists only of Dave Eggers and Keith Gessen.

Has Mr. Robinson done any serious reading outside of Intro to Literature—if so, why is his range of literary reference limited to T.S. Eliot, Shakespeare, Homer, Nabokov, Hemingway, and a few contemporary star authors? I think if you had heard of/read Rabelais, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, Robert Coover, or Barry Hannah you would see how easily the supposed dialectic between ‘hyperbole’ and ’sincerity’ collapses.

(not) Brent Newland:

hey mothrf**rs cant yall read kris robisons talking about people writing good things (like stuff about weed) and not bad things (like wast land) and all you wanna do is make up words like windbaggey and undergraduate and talib

if you like weed more than wasste land i can defniitively say that you dont understand weed

Christopher Robinson:

Buster,

It’s not a serious argument or a joke. It’s a serious joke. Or a light-hearted argument. If that wasn’t obvious to you, then maybe there’s no help for you. If you want to flex your knowledge of backpack rap, try me. Or golden-age hip-hop. Neither of those sub-genres are relevant to this discussion, because they never were and never are going to be culturally dominant capital-creating machines. Soulja Boy, however, could teach aspiring short-story writers a thing or two. It’s not a condescending idea of hip-hop, it’s an analysis of a dominant cultural phenomenon.

As for the “literary establishment,” yes, it is imaginary. It’s also a convenience. I don’t have space or time to talk about every one in the canon (which is also an imaginary convenience). If you would prefer, every time I say the phrase “literary establishment,” you can substitute, in your head, “a fair amount of today’s young writers.” Say it out loud even.

This is about current writers. Writers who have grown up in an irony-laden culture where grappling with sincerity is a real issue. Writers who can’t remember a time when The Simpsons wasn’t on TV. Rabelais: dead 455 years. Saul Bellow: dead 4 years. Norman Mailer: dead 2 years. Robert Coover: dead in ten years, say (age 76). Barry Hannah: we’ll give him another 15. I never said that there weren’t plenty of writers who were exemplars of achieving sincerity and hyperbole simultaneously. There just seems to be a dearth of current generation writers. Rabelais is no different than Homer for the purposes of my argument. Saul Bellow is no different than Vonnegut (Bellow was born earlier!). They’re from a different era, one that doesn’t understand the current sincerity dilemma (were you being sarcastic? I’m not even sure anymore). Give me a list of writers born after 1970.

Besides, man, you sound so angry (Rrhhhgggg!). You gotta know I’m just doing this to get you mad. Don’t play into my game so much, you just prove my point about taking things too seriously.

(not) Brent Newland:

final comment for the night (got a meeting with my praole officer in the mornign and then i work a shift down at arbys)

hey butser if you like writers so much y dont you go to writerland (wherever they live) and work for them? ill tel you why cause all writers are poor as shit

im rich which means im imporntant and kris robison rich as hell (you can tell b/c of his author foto but writers dont have money ergo no one cares about them erfo they need to score some cheeze like biggie *crosses heart* did kris robison just performing a public service just like if he were mentoring bad kids or feeding homeless veterens

hth bro

Read the hip-hop series.

By Kaelan Smith