Moody v. Wallace v. Wallace v. Moody v. . . .

On Monday I saw DFW and Rick Moody at San Francisco's City Arts and Lectures (radio broadcast, perhaps, forthcoming in about six months). Tito has a thorough and thoroughly entertaining writeup. So does Ed.

For my own part, I'll say that I'm unaware of any prior instances of the "two authors 'interview each other'" version of City Arts and Lectures, but I'd be happy if the Rick Moody and David Foster Wallace edition of it proved to be the last. I'm bitter that DFW (who was far better prepared than Moody (actually I'm not sure if Moody even prepared at all)) ended up asking all the questions while Moody came off as a slightly laconic grad student in for the oral reaming of his life. I really wish that at some point DFW had shaken his head, rubbed his eyes and said something to the effect of "shit! I'm asking all the question's, aren't I? Moody, you ask me something now." But, well, that didn't quite happen.

What did happen was that DFW read excerpts from Moody's new book, The Diviners. I've never read anything by Moody, and I'll admit to a little curiosity about his work; given that he's generally esteemed, I'm curious as to whether this esteem is valid or not. However, the answers he gave to DFW's questions definitely shifted him down several notches in the TBR pile, and made me think he was more of a paper tiger than real deal. It wasn't that there was anything all that bad about his answers, just that they seemed to stink with conventional wisdom. For example, Moody said that books of the go-go '90s were full of inventiveness and experimentation (typifying the era) whereas books of the '00s show a retrenchment to realism, similar to that found throughout America after 9/11. (Tellingly, when DFW probled for evidence of this Moody couldn't back it up.) Sure, that's not a bad answer, but it's not really that interesting, and when put to the test may even prove to be false (as an audience member observed, Vollmann's highly non-realist Europe Central won the National Book Award, and just look at the 5 books Moody's own panel nominated last year.) I genuinely liked the passages of The Diviners that DFW read, but I got the unfortunate impression that it would be one of those books that would be a nice enough read but not really add up to much in the end. That's kind of how I felt about Moody's responses.

Interestingly, one of the audience members asked DFW if he had seen any evidence of the return to sentimentality that he (somewhat) predicted in his 1996 essay "E Unibus Pluram." DFW said no, and implied that anyone attempting it would probably make a fool of herself. He seemed to be backing off the tone of the essay, and was even a little downbeat about the potential for fiction to get past irony. (The essay contends that irony, introduced in the '60s as a sort of literary/cultural weapon of thermonuclear potential, has now been thoroughly coopted by the mainstream and rendered impotent, for all avant-garde, revolutionary purposes; it ends by pondering where literature goes from here.)

Comments

[Robert Ellis]

Moody is one of my favorite writers, but he can come off as a little pretentious in his interviews and his work is wildly inconsistent, IMHO. I prefer his short stories. The Ring of Brightest Angles Around Heaven includes a couple of great stories (“The James Dean Garage Band” and “The Apocalypse Commentary of Bob Paisner”) and a couple of real stinkers (“Treatment” and “Pip Adrift”). I picked up The Diviners, but it looked like one of his more self-indulgent works.

[Frances]

I think it's important to remember that many of our cultural icons are best reflected by their work. When they open their mouths in interviews, many are inarticulate. You can't judge Moody's work by his talk with Wallace. He's a writer, not a lecturer. The work of Moody's I've read is very understated, with subtle impacts.

[ed]

What Frances said. Even so, the two Moody books I've read haven't all that impressed me. Will give him another chance sometime in 2010.

[Scott]

Yeah, I guess you guys have a point. However, I do think that how someone handles themselves in a public forum does have some bearing on how they're going to write. After all, books are written by people, and if you can gain insight into what kind of person someone is, it'll probably tell you something about the books they write.

[Terri Saul]

Vollman gets past the irony-sincerity question in "Europe Central." I was really disappointed that neither of them had read it, or even tried to absorb something Vollmanesque and add it to their 90's 00's debate.

[ed]

Actually, Terri, can't remember the specific interview, but DFW has stated that he admires Vollmann quite a bit. They only responded, "It's hard to keep up with Vollmann's output." Hardly a condemnation, much less an imputation that they hadn't read the man.

[Kate S.]

I haven't yet read any of his novels, but I'm a big fan of Moody's short stories. I highly recommend Demonology.

[Richard Simmell]

This vicious but accurate TNR review of one of Moody's past books backs up the suspicion aroused in you from his answer's in the 'interview'.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020701&s=peck070102

Just this weekend he wrote an intellectually vapid review of the movie Brokeback Mountain for the Guardian newspaper in Britian.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1669252,00.html

I especially love this line: "And yet calling Lee's film a "gay cowboy movie", as I've heard it described, would not exactly be a way into the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of, arguably, the most homophobic nation on earth."

He was referring to the USA. Those last 7 words (think contra Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Cuba, Iran etc etc etc etc) tell you all you need to know about the intellectual seriousness of Moody, a suspicion confirmed in the intellectual and aesthetic quality of his fiction, as the above TNR review makes clear. In him we find ourselves a long way from Hemingway's injunction to the artist to write just 'one true sentence.'