LETTER OF THE MONTH:
To the staff at you're all doomed magazine,
There are two types of people in the world: those who aren't pretentious and
those who like joyce. and i'm tired of the elitism displayed both in your
magazine and by english teachers and other thought propagandistas in this
world. Perhaps you haven't realized the obvious, but your incessant chatter
about the relative merit of dead white males that write gibberish disguised
as art isn't fooling the masses. Cultural elitism has failed you, and it's
high time someone brought the evidence to your dusty offices in the back of
snooty liberal arts colleges and shut you down once and for all.
Your argument that Joyce is brilliant because you can't understand it is an
inherent fallacy; that something is difficult to comprehend is not a barometer
for genius, but rather an excuse to justify intentionally bad work as anything
but what it truly is - Trash. Critics love to tout the rich tapestry in Finnegan's
Wake, and yet nearly a century after publication, no one can explain what's
happening in the book proper. The argument always bends that this is a testament
to fine writing, but I consider it an affront to those who make art that can
be understood by anyone. Mark Twain writes on several levels, yes, but chiefly
he's loved for the simple narratives. Joyce, on the other hand, ,spent years
spewing out mindless drivel which cannot be related to on any level, and yet
he's considered a genius. Rubbish, utter rubbish. This nonsense is comparable
to artists that sell galleries a room with one faulty light switch under the
guise of "art". They cannot be taken seriously and neither can James
Joyce.
But perhaps the argument of merit among critics won't sway the truly deluded.
Therefore, let's take a look at how well James Joyce sells against truly popular
fiction (the kind that is routinely brushed aside by the literazis). Why how
curious! Out of the top 150 books selling in the country this week, your beloved
Irishman is nowhere to be found. Before you leap to argue that this is perfectly
logical considering that only newer books sell enough to make the list, allow
me to correct you with the following:
143. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
138. Animal Farm - George Orwell
130. 1984 - George Orwell
129. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
118. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
117. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
112. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
110. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
93. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
69. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
That's right, the age of a book is not a guarantee that it doesn't chart.
In fact, these books are mixed in with the J.K. Rowlings, the Robert Ludlums,
and even the Dan Browns. Why? They have staying power with the ACTUAL READING
POPULACE, not the arrogant dictators of fiction interested in furthering their
own agendas. People read to be entertained, not to put their book down in
a frustrated rage. This is why Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code sell so
well, why so many people buy Stephen King and Patricia Cornwell. When we want
to be challenged, we read along with PD James and John Grisham. Life is challenging
enough for those who actually live it (as opposed to those paid by the bloated
university system to cast stones from their glass towers), we need to relax
and escape our routines with entertainment, not confounding gibberish from
a dead hack across the Atlantic. When we want to better ourselves with literature,
we go to the Dr. Phil's and Dr. Atkins' of the world. This is actual betterment
of mankind, not the absurd concept that the mental intelligensia would have
you believe is necessary.
It's high time that the readers of this so called "magazine" had
the wool pulled from over their eyes. Don't believe the hype of an unnecessary
minority of self-appointed "scholars", you do not need Ulysses to
feel like more of a human, and reality proves these pretentious pundits wrong
on a daily basis. Culture is not about how dense and unnavigable the work
is, but rather how it speaks to society as a whole; how it contributes to
opening the minds of the masses to the great big world that's out there, not
how miserable it is to be Irish from a man who used to judge whether Fitzgerald
or Hemingway had the bigger penis. Remember my name, critics, for you will
come to rue it on your way down.
Annie Williams
Dear Annie,
It is considered wildly popular among dogs to eat feces and lick your own
testicles. Think about it.
-Gaz