Customer Reviews

The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

At first blush, pop Zarathustra Greil Marcus's latest book, The Shape of Things to Come, looks like something cooked up by a Sarah Lawrence undergrad in an end-of-term panic. According to Marcus, America exists only as a cultural construct coalesced from the words of our national prophets--people like Martin Luther King, Philip Roth, David Lynch, John Dos Passos, Pere Ubu's Dave Thomas, and ... Bill Pullman(!). But while showing us how to unlock the mystery of America by loading up an Amazon shopping cart, Marcus manages a wild-eyed grandeur that out-argues any co-ed essay. Analyzing these prophets' works, from the conflicted professor of The Human Stain to the menacing, eyebrowless dwarf of Lost Highway, Marcus gains insight into the nature of these United States: America doesn't really exist, at least not as other nations exist. Rather, the country is a collection of vanguard ideas, weirdo prophetic narratives that come to life when you and your neighbors invest in them. The book is a rambling mess--but it's a beautiful and seductive one.

Greil Marcus has made his bones as a journalist, critic, historian, and his own genus of philosopher of pop music and related cultural issues. His writing style is very much his own. It is quite mannered, and feels to me to be much like musical improvisation (but is carefully worked out) mixed with a more or less leftist political sensibilities and pessimistic dismissal of political and historical America as the cause of all misery and pain in the world mixed in with a spoonful or two of ADHD.

For Marcus, there is no authority to appeal to; nothing outside of oneself to serve or protect. His whole universe is a collection of images, sounds, and words that come to mind, are linked in some way and that linkage and presentation creates or gives voice to some emotionally needy sense of reality. He seems to have taken in the lessons of deconstructionist philosophy. If there are only personal narratives with no possibility of objective communication, why not just riff and try to get the reader to agree with and share your feelings about things by sharing common images and sounds. Figures in literature or the movies are just as valid as any historical figure, since both are constructed and presented to us by some author communicating his or her own narrative through those characters.

Yeah, I know.

This book consists of seven essays. The conceit of the book is that there are voices in America's past that vibrate sympathetically to our time and that as we hear those voices we can see the reality of our own time, terrible as it is. These past voices are our true prophets and their artistic works are the true prophecies.

I have to say that I am quite impressed with Marcus' writing style. It is an interesting achievement and his broad knowledge of popular culture and command of its artifacts is quite dazzling. While much of each essay reads like sparks of ideas flashing intensely and quickly before our eyes, there are also small periods of discourse that go on for a few paragraphs. But these are more about telling the story of something he is using as illustration rather than presentation of any argument. Because, again, if all there can be is personal narrative, it makes not sense to try and use logic, reason, evidence, and conclusion (you know, the tools that enabled the human race to leave the caves and trees). All there can be is persuasion and emotional affinity, a redoubt of the well schooled but poorly educated.

For this author, America is past decline, it is less than a failure, it was a promise never fulfilled but still owed, and our ideals nothing more than comforting bedtime stories (pg. 260). In an extended riff on Steve Darnall's 1997 comic book "Uncle Sam", Marcus conflates the battlefields of our Revolutionary War with the Andersonville prison camp of the Civil war with the 1832 massacre of the Blackhawks by the U. S. Army with the "massacre of union workers by private police at the Rouge River Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan a hundred years after that" (pg. 262).

Well, the only problem with that is that the "Battle of the Overpass" did not result in any massacre. Yes, UAW officers and workers were seriously hurt, but no one died. The pictures in the Detroit News made it a national event, but its brutality was not in the league of the Homestead strike of 1892 where ten died or the death of about 20 in the Ludlow coal strike in Colorado. So, why does he pick the Rouge River? Was it the poetry of the "Red River" and blood? I don't know. It just seemed odd to me. However, just anti-intellectual enough to embody the tone of much of the book.

Another example is his riff on Marian Anderson, the great contralto, who was denied access to the use Constitution Hall in Washington D. C. for a recital in 1939 because she was black. So, a wonderful and important open air recital was arranged on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It made an exquisite point and is an important historical event. On page thirty-six, Marcus notes that Anderson wore "a heavy coat against the chill". Now, everyone knows that famous picture of her with the big statue of the seated Lincoln behind her. If you don't, just do a web image search on Marian Anderson Lincoln Memorial and you can see her in that heavy FUR coat. I wonder if Marcus left out that fur part because of modern sensibilities. I mean, with the way our time uses modern moral fashions to disqualify important folks of former times, did he avoid identifying her heavy coat as fur because of the current sentiment against them? Again, I don't know, but the very nature of this book and its style of writing called this question to my mind.

While I admire the facility of the writing of this book, I end up having a problem with the way the author makes his arguments. He gathers together a huge number of brand name images and sounds that have pre-associated feelings so it is the collage of these feelings that frame the "argument" rather than reason or evidence (which I assume Marcus does not believe in anyway). In the end, it is a meal that is unusual in its presentation and leaves one strangely empty even after a lot of eating. I also vastly disagree with his premises, commentary, and conclusions (such as they are) about America, its history, and the value of our society. But then again I am part of the "pure American corn" that he so easily looks down upon.

Good for him. Next!

The Shape of Things to Come - Prophecy and the American Voice
By Greil Marcus

For many years now Greil Marcus has been readdressing what it means to be a "cultural critic." His books - this is his 10th - have become cornerstones for the analysis of popular culture. Marcus' 1975 analysis of the mythos of Elvis Presley, Mystery Train, arguably remains one of the best books ever written on The King, if not rock'n'roll in general. His 1989 Lipstick Traces - A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, managed to draw parallels between heretical movements of medieval Europe, the Parisian-based Situationists of the 1960s and the advent of the punk movement in Jubilee England. The result was a staggering, albeit very weird, alternate history of the world as we know it.

Marcus' razor-sharp radar scan of popular culture is unique in its breadth. Early in his career he became renowned as a rock critic and journalist for Rolling Stone. Reading his profile of Francis Ford Coppola and the making of Apocalypse Now was like breathing in the steamy air of a fetid jungle. But, reflecting the seething culture of post-'60s America, his intellectual restlessness and curiosity saw him embrace almost any subject. His recent Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan at the Crossroads, released in 2005, was as much an excuse to analyze American current socio-political crises as it was a loving recreation of the recording of one of Dylan's major works.

Alongside his cultural and political savvy, what sets Marcus apart from his contemporaries is his sheer enthusiasm, which sparks from the page in electrical surges of lyrical description. In short, Marcus is a fan, albeit a highly selective and eccentric one.

Which brings us to The Shape of Things to Come - Prophecy and the American Voice. It's most certainly an ambitious title, and one that Marcus sadly struggles to address. Marcus has never set out to be a futurist. If anything he is an historian who brings the past to life with rock'n'roll adrenalin. But the title of this group of writings on contemporary culture inevitably leads the reader to await an analysis of current `prophecy' and just where that will lead us. This element of the title remains unaddressed.

Where he does succeed in his analyses of the "American Voice," - albeit with some terrible omissions. However he does begin his book with a cornucopia of myriad voices, with quotes from Noam Chomsky and The Reverend Jerry Falwell, Bob Dylan and Herman Melville. He immediately moves into the most lively account of the speeches of Martin Luther King imaginable, a brief but poignant history of the Puritans and the politics of Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, the voices of King and Lincoln, along with Kennedy, Clinton, Presley and Dylan haunt these pages like an unseen and unruly choir against a backdrop of the traumatic vision of 9/11.

But, as always, Marcus' own voice comes through the idiosyncratic selection of subjects that The Shape of Things embraces. At its core it is a strange grouping indeed. Essentially, and this is simplistic at best, Marcus focuses his discussion on the novelist Philip Roth, the filmmaker David Lynch, the avant garde rock musician David Thomas and the poet Allen Ginsburg.

The chapters are essentially vastly expanded versions of articles and essays that Marcus has penned in such outlets as The New York Times and Esquire. But the selection seems unwieldy in many respects. One wonders whether the author Don Dellilo, especially his sprawling 1997 epic Underworld, would have been a better subject than Roth's somewhat conservative American Pastoral. Similarly, as a filmmaker David Cronenberg's recent A History of Violence would seem more pertinent to Marcus' discussion than Lynch's surreal Twin Peaks.

But, as with Marcus' selection, this is a subjective reading. Where The Shape of Things truly soars is in his discussion of the works of David Thomas and Allen Ginsburg.

Marcus has long been a fan of the work of Thomas and his band Pere Ubu and only Marcus would have the guts to put Thomas in a selection of great American narrative voices. Pere Ubu, a pre-punk, aggressively avant-garde band who claim to be `mainstream pop', have long huddled in the dark shadows of being `experimental' in the day and age of saccharine popular music.

Only Marcus could start a chapter on a Cleveland-based industrial band like Pere Ubu, which formed in 1975, with references to a 1953 essay by the historian Edmund Wilson on the American Civil War along with quotes from Moby Dick and Abraham Lincoln. But there can be little doubt that the juxtapositions work. Titling the section `Crank Prophet Bestride America', Marcus raises Thomas into the pantheon of great American voices.

And David Thomas should be up there. But so should Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace and Philip K. Dick. But with all things cultural, it comes down to subjective obsessions and Marcus' obsessions are rich indeed.

In typical Marcus form, this is a sprawling investigation into contemporary culture. Idiosyncratic, at times maddening, but more often simply uplifting, this is what cultural criticism should be.

In his splendid reading of Philip Roth's trilogy on Nathan Zuckerman as belated American Jeremiah, mapping the hollowing out of its prophetic codes and citizens, Greil Marcus makes an unexpected yet utterly shattering connection to a latter-day Dylan album kindred to "American Pastoral"'s subjects of brokenness. "Only Bob Dylan, in 1997 [when American Pastoral was published], with Time Out of Mind, a state-by-state, city-by-city guided tour of an America that has used itself up and a portrait of an American who has used up his country, comes close to occupying the same territory; and Roth stayed longer" (The Shape of Things to Come, 43). Dylan's conversion into "the indigenous American berserk" would never stand stable, as such, would be subject to reversal and transformation into fits or stanzas of prophetic blessing on it all. Marcus gets at all this instability, and more in this innovative archive outlining the American vernacular prophecy coming back in this our time of worldly need.

In reading this book I was reminded of the old saying that predicting the future is easy, it's being right that is hard.

I find Mr. Marcus's book to be very interesting reading, but in places confusing. He seem to be saying that he doesn't see the politicians making as much sense as do the artists of our time. Politics, it could be argued, is an art form. In the early days of the republic there were relatively few voters, land owning men. As the enfranchisement has expanded, so has the level of political communications. You can't say what you think, you can only say what you think will get you elected. The politician is an actor being fed a script.

His comments on the predictions of from the music of rock bands is simply not understandable to me. Their bag, like the politician is to say something that their listeners want to hear.

I don't see in his writings anything from writers I see making serious predictions: Al Gore, 'Inconvenient Truth;' 'Hubbard's Peak;' 'The Limits to Growth;' Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations.'

Our children will face interesting times.

Marcus has written a wonderful critique of American culture. In spite of how he reaches to support a weak hypothesis based on obscure works (I think he's just showing off a bit, eh?) the writing is a delight. The journey through this book and that of the citizens of the USA through recent history are both more important than where we stand at the end of each. I agree with his fundamental philosophy that USA has been founded on ideas, which is unique in history. But our founding documents are just pieces of paper if not respected and supported by the citizenry. Political discussion has become sound bites and simplicity; deeper discourse is now done via arts and entertainment. The book meanders a bit and I wish it further explored some of the themes of why discourse has changed, although I realize that topic is not new ground. I believe more strongly than Marcus that we as citizens more fully support and enforce our fundamental freedoms, but I agree with him that we have hidden that show of support.
I caught a great interview and call-in show with Marcus who impressed me with his thoughtful answers to wide ranging questions, something he has also accomplished within this book.

I would say that the sum is definitely less than its parts. The essay on Philip Roth's Zuckerman novels was first-rate, along with the essay on David Thomas of the band Pere Ubu. The chapter on Allen Ginsburg's "Wichita Vortex Sutra' was good, but not as good as the two forementioned pieces.The rest of the book was nonsense.

If something can feel incomplete and still be a bit genius, this book is it. Its difficult to follow the imaginative threads that Marcus makes for American democracy and pop culture. Avant grade music, Philip Roth books, David Lynch films, Alan Ginsburg's poetry, an obscure graphic novel about Uncle Sam, are used by Marcus as examples of American exceptionalism. An exceptionalism, he notes best exemplified by American artists and not politicians.

Some essays are easier to read than others, but on the whole if you appreciate but don't care this much about Philip Roth or David Lynch (like myself), it makes for even more strained reading. At its best, his writing style has a stream of consciousness brilliance about it (particularly in the last essay). At its worst, it feels like he's pulling from all sorts of sources to make a vaguely interesting thesis about American potential somewhat plausible.

Marcus ran out of gas about the time he tried linking Bill Clinton to Elvis. Were it not for Bob Dylan, he might have nothing worth writing about. Attempting to read volumes into Bill Pullman's cheese block face felt like such a stretch that I finally dropped the book in exhaustion. For a long time Marcus sounded like he'd read too much Mailer, he now reads as if he's desperate to say something- anything- about the culture that no one else has noticed...I think I'll skip his next book on Dylan. I'm sure there's one in the works.

What this book did was make me want to research his references and see if I came to the same conclusion. I suddenly really want to read David Lynch movies and read Philip Roth, both of which I had previously been avoiding on a false suspicion they were just bizarro with no thread of relevance to the world around but to mirror a surreal version.

But Marcus does do a nice job of connecting things and interpreting them in the way he sees they fit into the American cultural and historical landscape. And his supposition that these works of art are the manifestation of the failure of America to live up to its lofty potential and promises upon founding sit well with me.