Having just finished "Funeral Rites"

This is a seriously fucked-up book. An avant-garde soliloquy on violence, death, sex, violence, intimacy, loss, love and violence. Lots and lots of violence, although Genet breaks from the 'postmodern' trend in that he neither eroticizes nor prettifies violence. It is simply there.

The book confusing to the point where I could not figure out what was happening or who was who. Genet writes straight from life, scorning plot, structure, even general making-sense-ness.

I'm lovin' it.

Xev: Genet writes straight from life, scorning plot, structure, even general making-sense-ness.

Abso-fuckinglutely! Genet was a criminal, sexual deviant (not referring to his homosexuality as much as his loving 'little boys' on vacation in Morrocco or Algiers), anarchist. He questioned the State, morality du jour and its hypocrisy. He lived violence first hand and didn't NEED a philosophical frame in order to understand it. He was a man of the streets, he writes from life because he was never insulated from it. I haven't read Funeral Rites but Miracle of the Rose, The Balcony and The Blacks.

Lucysnow:
Well I don't know about that (the boys thing), I haven't read anything in his biographies about it, but Genet's books are quite twisted. He seems of masochistic sentiments if anything, but how does one categorize the deviant?

Regardless, he rules.

"He lived violence first hand and didn't NEED a philosophical frame in order to understand it."

Yup. He's oddly like Flaubert. He does not theorize, he describes. It can be difficult even to tell what the setting or background of a story is -- the question of whether the technique is a sign of laziness or genius remains to the individual reader.

Xev:Well I don't know about that (the boys thing), I haven't read anything in his biographies about it, but Genet's books are quite twisted. He seems of masochistic sentiments if anything,

Read Jean Genet in Tangier by Mohamed Choukri. It contains an introduction by William Burroughs.

X: but how does one categorize the deviant?

Well I don't know how others categorize it.

X: It can be difficult even to tell what the setting or background of a story is -- the question of whether the technique is a sign of laziness or genius remains to the individual reader.

I doubt he sat around thinking of 'technique', but anyhow...just because someone's work isn't readily accessible to an individual reader doesn't mean their is anything wrong with their technique or that they are lazy. I think you would judge his 'genius' or lack thereof by reading more of his work. I haven't read Funeral Rites but I did find Miracle of The Rose a major achievement on his part and one of the best examples of his humanity. Perhaps it is intentional on his part that you cannot tell the setting or background of this story (there are many writers who also do this), in the Rose I had no problem recognizing that the story is taking place in a prison.

A quote from Genet:

"I'm neither Existentialist nor Absurdist. I don't believe in such classifications. I'm only a writer, either a good one or a bad one."

I *will* be reading this book.

If it reads like strings of streamlined nonsene (Keuroac) then I will seriously be wasting my time.
What does he read like?
I read Flaubert in two sittings.

"I'm neither Existentialist nor Absurdist. I don't believe in such classifications. I'm only a writer, either a good one or a bad one."
I like him already.
Sounds familiar:

"Now, if you're just here for a joy ride and cheap thrills don't bother posting. I don't want to hear from you. I want to hear from the think tank.
I'm not an atheist. I'm not an agnostic, nihilist, hedonist, est, ist or eist so don't label me. What I am does not curb to the isms."

Gendy: "If it reads like strings of streamlined nonsene (Keuroac)"

Oh no. Not at all. Genet is of a different ilk entirely. There isn't anything 'beat' about Genet. Miracle of The Rose was written while Genet was incarcerated in Fontevrault, a french state prison and one of its harshest.

Lucysnow:
Well I don't know how others categorize it.

My brain does not function at nine am. It was a poor joke -- how does one classify the perverse, as classification would restore it to a normal order and render it - never mind, you see.

I doubt he sat around thinking of 'technique',

One does not need to think about it for it to be done. Eating requires a set of techniques I do not think about.

but anyhow...just because someone's work isn't readily accessible to an individual reader doesn't mean their is anything wrong with their technique or that they are lazy.

Of course not, but it is an indication.

gendanken:

Or:

"I am homosexual. How and why are idle questions. It's a little like wanting to know why my eyes are green."

If it reads like strings of streamlined nonsene (Keuroac) then I will seriously be wasting my time.

Oh, Keuroack is tedious in subject and form. Genet is neither.
But he's avant-garde to the point of being annoying.

"I learned to paint them, too. The cell was full of them. The tables, shelves, and floor were covered with these tiny warriors, who were as hard and cold as corpses, whose number and inhuman smallness created for them a peculiar kind of soul. At night, I would kick them aside, lay out my straw mattress, and fall asleep in their midst. Like the inhabitants of Lilliput, they tied me down, and to get loose I offered Divine to the Archangel Gabriel.

During the day, the Negro and I would work in silence. However, I was sure that one day he would tell me his story. I don't like stories of that kind. Despite myself, I can't keep from thinking how often the narrator must have told it, and I feel as if it reaches me like a dress that has been handed down until...And besides, I have my own stories. Those which spring from my eyes. Prisons have their silent stories, and so do the guards, and even the lead soldiers, which are hollow. Hollow! The foot of one of the lead soldiers broke, and the stump revealed a hole. This certainty of their inner emptiness delighted and distressed me. "

Stuff like that.

Xev: One does not need to think about it for it to be done. Eating requires a set of techniques I do not think about it.

Yes but you were taught those techniques. If you were born and living in China and I brought you to the Mandarin hotel for breakfast you wouldn't have a clue as to how to eat those eggs with your chopsticks, nor would you instinctively know how to utilize a knife and fork.

J. Genet lived on the streets. He was a theif, hung around prostitutes, degraded by prison life. Where was he supposed to learn the subtlety of literature? I am sure he didn't attend a writer's workshop on the side. He said somewhere that he was always a writer even before he picked up a pen and wrote.

X: Of course not, but it is an indication.

So if I hand over a copy of Satre or Nietzsche to someone and it doesn't reach them on any level, either they don't understand it or they read it and miss its 'qualia', they find it cold then I should assume that the trouble is with Satre or Nietzsche? What if you love Funeral Rites and find Miracle of The Rose banal then is it fair to assume he was having a ill moment when he wrote it? A piece of work stands by itself and then it is processed through the individual. I might dislike Red Hot Chili Peppers, prefer Mozart to Beethoven, you may disagree with how I perceive them all. Who's to say? The critics? The scholars? I say the individual. Did Van Gogh suck because no one brought or recognized the value of his paintings while he lived? I should stop now because I am begining to lose the point and run on a tangent. How are we supposed to define genius? Who can recognize it? What is it about the individual that can connect to one thing but not another?

Lucysnow:
Yes but you were taught those techniques. If you were born and living in China and I brought you to the Mandarin hotel for breakfast you wouldn't have a clue as to how to eat those eggs with your chopsticks, nor would you instinctively know how to utilize a knife and fork.

Are you saying nobody taught Genet to write? Obviously someone did, as he knows the mechanics of English.
He then developed his skill. Most people don't. But to say he is not using technique, because he did not consciously say "I will use such and such a technique", is false.
Shakespeare used forshadowing before we described forshadowing. I doubt he attended writer's workshops, but he used it as a technique.

The writer writes what seems most fitting. Literary critics then label and describe how he did it.

So if I hand over a copy of Satre or Nietzsche to someone and it doesn't reach them on any level, either they don't understand it or they read it and miss its 'qualia', they find it cold then I should assume that the trouble is with Satre or Nietzsche?

No. That is an aesthetic judgement. But if you handed them Sartre, and they exclaimed:
"Why, this proposition does not follow from the premises! Is this even a proposition? It is not logical at all!"
They would be making a judgement susceptable to proof or disproof.

And if it was true, then the trouble would be with Sartre.

Beauty is relatively subjective, but I did not mean to refer to beauty. The accessability I meant was one of argument.

How are we supposed to define genius?

Why should we define it? I doubt it exists in the sense we mean, but if it does it is not defineable.

No I am not saing no one taught Genet to write. He was taught the mechanics of writing but not technique, this he taught himself. I don't know who he was reading throughout his life, who influenced him the most etc., but as you say the writer writes what is most fitting, what streams naturally from himself. Genet was like H. Miller in that he didn't write for an audience he wrote for himself because he had to.

X:No. That is an aesthetic judgement. But if you handed them Sartre, and they exclaimed:"Why, this proposition does not follow from the premises! Is this even a proposition? It is not logical at all!"

And I pointed out to you that Genet was a man from the streets! He hung out with thieves, criminals etc. Someone out there decided that what he had to say was more important than the smooth mechanics of his style. Actually his style is in keeping with the life he led so...

X: Beauty is relatively subjective,

I agree.

X: but I did not mean to refer to beauty. The accessability I meant was one of argument.

Well then I misunderstood you, I didn't find Genet inaccessable.

X: Why should we define it? I doubt it exists in the sense we mean, but if it does it is not defineable.

I agree and that was the point I was making. You had asked is this 'genius' or laziness. Perhaps what we should ask is if it works, but to know that we would have to know more about what he was trying to do at the time. In a copy of The World of Sex (which wasn't about sex at all) by H Miller for every page there was a copy of the original draft on the other side showing the changes he had made penciled in. It was fascinating, almost as if you could see where his mind was going. His spelling mistakes, the changes in text, refinement of sentences, what he left out, quite interesting.

Thinking of editors, proofreaders and the reader Steinbeck writes about the changes he was asked to make in East of Eden:

The Editor: The book is out of balance. The reader expects one thing and you give him something else... The reader will not understand.

The proofreader: The chronology is full of holes. The grammar has no relation to English. The characters aren't consistent. You describe Liza Hamilton one way and then have her act a different way.

The Editor: You make Cathy too black. The reader won't believe her. You make Sam Hamilton too white. The reader won't believe him. No Irishman ever talked like that.

The Proofreader: My god, how you do dangle a participle. Turn to page so and so.

The Writer about the Reader:

He is so stupid you can't trust him with an idea.
He is so clever he will catch you in the least error.
He will not buy short books.
He will not buy long books.
He is part moron, part genuis and part ogre.
There is some doubt as to whether he can read at all.

...He will take from my book what he can bring to it. The dull witted will get dullness and the brilliant may find things in the book I didn't know were there.

Lucysnow:
He was taught the mechanics of writing but not technique, this he taught himself.

But that doesn't mean he's not using a technique.

Genet was like H. Miller in that he didn't write for an audience he wrote for himself because he had to.


Bull. Anyone who makes as big a deal as Miller did about being profane and "earthy" is writing for an audience. Pardon, but praising Miller's style is like praising Bush for being accessable and down-home.

Genet is writing for an audience. Not necessarily a specific audience, but anyone who goes to the trouble of getting published is writing to be read.

And I pointed out to you that Genet was a man from the streets! He hung out with thieves, criminals etc. Someone out there decided that what he had to say was more important than the smooth mechanics of his style. Actually his style is in keeping with the life he led so...

Style need not be smooth, it need not have been taught. Any writer will eventually develop a sort of style, it is the result of what one finds elegent, fitting or expressive. It is the manifestation of one's inner aesthetic judgement.

Aesthetic judgement is always based on what one knows and ought to be based on what one knows well. Genet writes about things and in a style that he knows well.

Well then I misunderstood you, I didn't find Genet inaccessable.

I don't either.

Xev: But that doesn't mean he's not using a technique.

True he may have, but in order to know this we would have to seek out whether he wrote anything about 'writing' which I doubt he did. Or perhaps there are those who knew enough about him to know whether he was calculating in this way. When one is constructing a story they either work from a board where everything is well outlined from beginning to end or they just allow it to flow only to go back afterwards, see what they have and then re-construct it with more intent. Reading The Balcony I don't see how he could have written it without alot of forethought, but I didn't have that sense with Miracle of The Rose. Plays of course are different and definitely need more conscious manipulation.

X: Genet is writing for an audience. Not necessarily a specific audience, but anyone who goes to the trouble of getting published is writing to be read.

No Xev. It was others who recognized his work. He wasn't trying to break into literature. He wrote because he had to...to save his life. Read Miracle of The Rose which is about all he experienced in prison. He wrote in prison as a means of processing the exprience so he could survive it.

X: Bull. Anyone who makes as big a deal as Miller did about being profane and "earthy" is writing for an audience. Pardon, but praising Miller's style is like praising Bush for being accessable and down-home.

Wow, there is alot you don't know about him. He never ever made a big deal about being profane or earthy. It was others who considered and touted him as either one or both. Miller wrote a book about books and a book about writing, he speaks of approaching the empty page and how he either had to focus on one person or the whole world and realized he couldn't write until he threw them and the entire canon of Western lit out the window. It imposed on him as opposed to guiding or freeing him. When I say that Genet and Miller were not writing to or for others I mean they were not concerned with what others thought of them or their work (a writer's downfall). They wrote for themselves and others could like or dislike. For Miller it took a hell of a long time before he was accepted or liked, long time to get published. If he were working for that goal he would have quit before he became the reknowned H. Miller. Genet was luckier in the sense that if he didn't get published he would have sunk deeper into a life that may have killed him, reaching for the page saved him. He also didn't put out a great body of work (meaning many books). Miller couldn't stop writing it seemed. But anyway...

If one is writing for an audience, they are writing for a market. To write for a market is to write to what is popular, what will sell. Neither of these men did this. Miller was banned in England and The States, he published with his own money went door to door. He would even pick names out of the phone book and send copies to complete strangers. He wanted to be read. Being published is tricky, there are soooo many variables.

X: Style need not be smooth, it need not have been taught. Any writer will eventually develop a sort of style, it is the result of what one finds elegent, fitting or expressive. It is the manifestation of one's inner aesthetic judgement. Aesthetic judgement is always based on what one knows and ought to be based on what one knows well. Genet writes about things and in a style that he knows well.

I agree completely.

Lucysnow:
True he may have, but in order to know this we would have to seek out whether he wrote anything about 'writing' which I doubt he did.

Why do you assume such things are taught or consciously decided upon? I've said several times that Genet was, in my opinion, spontaneous. I am not claiming that he is deliberately utilizing a pre-taught literary technique.

No Xev. It was others who recognized his work. He wasn't trying to break into literature.

I didn't say he was. But he was conscious of the audience, even if it was just the prison guards who stole his manuscripts. A writer is never free of the audience, as a human is never free of the social.

Wow, there is alot you don't know about him.

My opinion may diverge from yours, but that does not mean it is ignorent.

He never ever made a big deal about being profane or earthy.

Read Tropic of Cancer!

It was others who considered and touted him as either one or both. Miller wrote a book about books and a book about writing, he speaks of approaching the empty page and how he either had to focus on one person or the whole world and realized he couldn't write until he threw them and the entire canon of Western lit out the window. It imposed on him as opposed to guiding or freeing him.

Ah charming, a slave rebellion in literature.
But Miller does no such thing. His writing is standard. That is why he had to be what he ended up - controversial - because he was so bloody boring in technique and plot!

If one is writing for an audience, they are writing for a market.

Absolute nonsense. Some years back I wrote a bundle of love-letters. One person in the world saw them, and presumably none else will ever see them. An audience, no market.

Neither of these men did this. Miller was banned in England and The States, he published with his own money went door to door.

And Miller was very astute in capitalizing on his banning. Being banned makes one popular - why do you assume it means being unpopular?

Xev: Why do you assume such things are taught or consciously decided upon? I've said several times that Genet was, in my opinion, spontaneous. I am not claiming that he is deliberately utilizing a pre-taught literary technique.

Because a technique is 'The Way in which a skilled process is carried out'. A Way is something already carved out, it is not spontaneous. I am taught bar relief, bas relief is a technique. What would be the name of Genet's technique if he was indeed using one? Funny, from what I understood about Genet he would spit in complete disgust at such a discussion. It so minimizes his work and life, but anyway...

X: I didn't say he was. But he was conscious of the audience, even if it was just the prison guards who stole his manuscripts. A writer is never free of the audience, as a human is never free of the social.

And you know this how? Are you so arrogant or naive as to think you know the motivations of all authors? What of those who write in personal journals? What of Anais Nin? She began writing her journals at the age of 12. Her diaries began when her father abandoned the family. She was on a ship on the way to a strange country where she could not speak the language. She wrote to gain control of her despair and angst, to save herself. She never planned to publish them. It was H. Miller, whom she shared some bits and pieces with (she was supporting Miller financially at the time because she believed in his work) who convinced her to think of publishing them. Even then she edited the journals heavily and re-wrote much of it. Audience? She so desired an audience for them that they were kept in a safe-deposit box at the bank. Did Emily Dickensen write for an audience?

X: My opinion may diverge from yours, but that does not mean it is ignorent.

Well actually yes I can say that. I am not simply a Miller reader, I am a serious collector. So much so that I own the rare Roger Jackson bibliography on Miller's work. It is the only complete bibliography and so yes I do know more about him than you evidently do. Why? Because I am interested. I have read more of Miller than the stupid Tropic of Cancer and Capricon. Jesus that man wrote so much, grew so much in his work and everyone is still harping about those two books. Its a shame.

X: Ah charming, a slave rebellion in literature.
But Miller does no such thing. His writing is standard. That is why he had to be what he ended up - controversial - because he was so bloody boring in technique and plot!

Slave rebellion? What are you going on about now? The fact that you think Miller standard is your opinion and an opinion I obviously do not share. Miller gladly wouldn't have cared what you thought about his work and frankly, neither do I.

X:Absolute nonsense. Some years back I wrote a bundle of love-letters. One person in the world saw them, and presumably none else will ever see them. An audience, no market.

Yes but all writers do not write for the benefit of another's eye. I have written work that no one has seen and they were written for me alone. When I spoke of a writer writing for an audience it was in the context of someone trying to get published. You wrote: "Bull. Anyone who makes as big a deal as Miller did about being profane and "earthy" is writing for an audience." Am I to assume that because you wrote a love letter that you are a hopeless, weepy, romantic and wanted your 'audience' to know? Perhaps. I myself never write love letters.

X:And Miller was very astute in capitalizing on his banning. Being banned makes one popular - why do you assume it means being unpopular?

Now That is hysterical! Miller didn't give a shit about capitilzing and certainly didn't make as much money as he could or should. When he was 'popular' he was living in a modest wooden house with very little conveniences in Big Sur, the house given to him freely because he was living with friends and had no place of his own. Miller didn't find any real comfort until he was an old man. He was always out of money!! Those who 'capitalized' on his work were those buying and selling. When I buy a first edition its an investment. A copy of Tropic of Capricorn (first edition with a dust cover) begins auction for at least $1,000. So who capitialized? Certainly not Miller. Miller during the ban was still in Europe living a care-free life, traveling to Greece where he began Colossus of Mourissi. He returned to the States as penniless as he left it and even had to borrow money from Francis Stelloff owner of the Gotham Book Mart. She sold his books under the desk so to speak. He took the money and purchased a second hand car to travel through the States aftewhich he wrote "The Air Conditioned Nightmare'. And indeed it still is! Miller was only known by a few, he was never 'popular' except in France. France is good for this, but it certainly didn't make him rich or widely read at the time.

Oh, we are going to have some fun today.....*funeral grin*

Read it.
It was like being fondled by Ted Bundy.

And damn the woman for having cheated me out of meaty excerpts:

A few of the crabs he had probably picked up from a whore still clung to me. I was sure that the insects had lived on his body, if not all of them at least one whose brood invaded my bush with a colony that was digging in, multiplying, and dying in the folds of the skin of my balls. I saw to it that they stayed there and in the vicinity. It pleased me to think that they retained a dim memory of that same place on Jean's body, whose blood they had sucked. There were tiny, secret hermits whose duty it was to keep alive in those forests (meaning his pubes) the memory of a young victim. They were truly the living remains of my friend. I took care of them as much as possibly by not washing, not even scratching. At times, I would pluck one of them out and hold it between my nail and skin: I would examine it closely for a moment, with curiosity and tenderness, and then replace it into my curly bush. Perhaps their brothers were still living in Jean's hairs



The nursing of pubic lice in a delightfully grotesque mourning with the body.

Or the offense of gay sex:
Paulo's behind was just a bit hairy. The hairs were blond and curly. I stuck my tongue in and burrowed as far as I could. I was enraptured with the foul smell. My mustache brought back, to my tongue’s delight, a little of the muck that sweat and shit formed among Paulo’s blond curls (around his anus)(ha).
I poked about with my snout, I got stuck in the muck, I even bit- I wanted to tear the muscles of the orifice to shreds and get all the way in, like the rat in the famous torture, like the rats in the Paris sewers which devoured my finest soldiers. And suddenly my breath withdrew, my head rolled and, for a moment, lay still on one buttock as on a white pillow

Stirring the sadism in my own body, even if its filthy gay sex (cringe). Which of course is Genet's technique- I’m a little insulted he imagines his reader as a middle classed heterosexual male he can easily intimidate.
As if.
And I fucking love the way he says ‘my finest soldiers”.

Quickly-
I'm enamored of things that just are with no hairy theories behind it- but I would not read his work seriously. Something to sharpen one's claws, really, not mind.
All in all, the man has neither structure nor loyalty- he's simply best at describing the world with the realism of cemeteries, prison and the slaughterhouse.
Sloppier than Flaubert, you either want to kiss his hand for writing or kick him in the groin.

Last but certainly not least, another gem:
Then he smiled a little. Riton felt his humanity more keenly. He was still in a world where one dare not fart.
Ha.

and

Of all the little guys I like to stick into my books, he's (Paulo) the meanest. Abandoned on my bed, naked, polished, he will be an instrument of torture, a pair of pincers, a serpentine dagger ready to function, functioning by its evil presence alone and springing up, pale and with clenched teeth, from my despair.

Something like I'd write about a Sibling who's body I'd like boiled.
But he’s better.

Gendanken:
Hah! Wait till Hitler pops up.
It is rather fun, no?
I have only also read "Our Lady of the Flowers" which has delicious passages as well, which I had great fun reading to my co-workers.

Amazing how people who giggle at Peter Sotos' descriptions of torture and mutilation will shift nervously when confronted with homosexual sex.

I'm enamored of things that just are with no hairy theories behind it- but I would not read his work seriously. Something to sharpen one's claws, really, not mind.

I doubt it is meant to be read seriously. Genet is not a deep thinker - if he was, he'd be writing philosophy, not novels.

Sloppier than Flaubert, you either want to kiss his hand for writing or kick him in the groin.

You can't see Flaubert writing about Hitler having anal sex with young men. I didn't mean thier style was really the same, just that they have the same realistic attitude. Flaubert is polished and concise. Genet is fun for being neither.

Lucysnow:
Because a technique is 'The Way in which a skilled process is carried out'. A Way is something already carved out, it is not spontaneous.

Are you dense or being argumentative?
A way is by no means necessarily pre-made. Certainly a way can be spontaneous - any hiker can tell you that.

Funny, from what I understood about Genet he would spit in complete disgust at such a discussion. It so minimizes his work and life, but anyway...

What you understand of Genet is what you've dredged from some girly Kitty Kelly biography. You fucking woman.

What of those who write in personal journals?

I'm conscious that what I write could be read. Why else would I bother to spell even reasonably correctly? Because our writing is trained to be read.
I do not say Genet was consciously writing to be read. But the consciousness of the reader affects the writer's consciousness of writing. No-one can write and be fully free of it.

How is that so difficult to understand?

The fact that you think Miller standard is your opinion and an opinion I obviously do not share. Miller gladly wouldn't have cared what you thought about his work and frankly, neither do I.


If you don't care, why are you responding?

Now That is hysterical! Miller didn't give a shit about capitilzing and certainly didn't make as much money as he could or should.

The only thing hysterical here is you and your fantasized connexion to these writers. Go buy yourself some Midols and remove your chick tripe from my thread.

Kitty Kelly!
Small aside as I rule and will do whatever I want: the bitch should be hanged with her own anectdotes. Not one of the sources she used in her book on the Bush family could be cited and she resembled a pimply teen caught lying when she was interviewed by Chris Mathews.
Fucking socialite.
What an insult to journalism, you picture her bent over with a pen and defecation on integrity.

Back on topic-

Hah! Wait till Hitler pops up.
It is rather fun, no?
I have only also read "Our Lady of the Flowers" which has delicious passages as well, which I had great fun reading to my co-workers.


Calls his anus the Furher as well, and I have mind to baptize mine. (ha)

Towards the end, he confuses me. Is the young militant fondling the Nazi resurrected as Hitler, shamefully floating across the carpet after lovemaking ...or is it Hitler himself?
Genet's got this carping annoyance to pop in and out of his characters, changing them on sheer whim or just...throwing them away.
But, you love the asshole anyway when you read of his sitting in a movie theater smelling the sweat from his finger he just fondled his balls with.

As for the Flowers, caught the first few paragraphs on the drag queen and his lover- this one's pretty sweet:
" This is almost an exact portrait of Darling, for- we shall see him again- he had a talent for the gesture that thrills me, and, if I think about him, I can't stop praising him until my hand is smeared with liberated pleasure"

I doubt it is meant to be read seriously. Genet is not a deep thinker - if he was, he'd be writing philosophy, not novels.

Very true.

Yet I hear both Sartre and Derrida (suffer!!) got caught up in 'analysis'.
Derrida is scary all alone.

Lucysnow:

You have to admit there is a difference between market and audience.
Even I wrote on this in my own journals asking myself why I write- ask the Wolf.

Kitty Kelly!
Small aside as I rule and will do whatever I want: the bitch should be hanged with her own anectdotes. Not one of the sources she used in her book on the Bush family could be cited and she resembled a pimply teen caught lying when she was interviewed by Chris Mathews.
Fucking socialite.

Just a note. Ann Coulter's new book How to Talk to a Liberal (If you Must): The World According to Ann Coulter is coming out this week.

That manalingus description was something I could have done without.

Lou:
That manalingus description was something I could have done without.
Pardon?

Coffee:
Just a note. Ann Coulter's new book How to Talk to a Liberal (If you Must): The World According to Ann Coulter is coming out this week.
Ick.

Women that need to be shot:
Coulter, Kelly, Latifah, all the leading 'feminists' who've forgotten what the 'cause' was and (just spent about an hour googleing for her seemingly insignificant name)- Nancy Grace.

Sorry, let me try again;
I wish I would have foregone reading that account of man on man analingus because it made me quite ill.

Gendy: You have to admit there is a difference between market and audience.
Even I wrote on this in my own journals asking myself why I write- ask the Wolf.

Yes I agree there is a difference, but one can write simply to work through something for themselves, to find clarity not because they expect or desire an audience.

Xev: The only thing hysterical here is you and your fantasized connexion to these writers. Go buy yourself some Midols and remove your chick tripe from my thread

Why don't you take that bloody rag from between your teeth and place it between your legs where it belongs? An appreciation for someones work is not a 'fantasized connection'.

X:If you don't care, why are you responding?

I have been responding to the thread and used Miller only in comparison, as an example.

X:What you understand of Genet is what you've dredged from some girly Kitty Kelly biography. You fucking woman.

Who is Kitty Kelly?

...Yes I am a woman. Are you neuter?

X: I do not say Genet was consciously writing to be read. But the consciousness of the reader affects the writer's consciousness of writing. No-one can write and be fully free of it.

And what if there is no conscious reader in mind? One can be free of it and you cannot prove otherwise.

X: A way is by no means necessarily pre-made. Certainly a way can be spontaneous - any hiker can tell you that.

One can spontaneously create or discover a 'way', but one doesn't have to utilize a technique in order to create or discover a way.

Enough with the semantics.

X: Genet is not a deep thinker - if he was, he'd be writing philosophy, not novels.

Genet never touted himself as a philosopher so perhaps he would have agreed with you. I cannot think of anything more boring than a world devoid of everything save philosophers and their books. Just my opinion.

Anyway...I leave tomorrow. Enjoy.