Aug 17, 2005

Book Review

Just How Cool Are You?

We have French thinker Pierre Bourdieu to thank for coming up with the concept of "cultural capital," which like regular, economic capital, can be saved, invested and spent. You start with your class position and family background; these contribute to your tastes and attitudes, which must be "invested" in the right cultural activities. This helps you decide what kind of music to listen to, how to dress, which books to read and films to see.

Why are these choices important to us? Because, whether you like it or not, the cultural objects and activities you choose to invest your time and money in reflect back on your status: are you hip, dear Flagpole reader, or are you not? These days, you have to constantly assess your stores of cultural capital, because - again, like economic capital - markets for culture are constantly changing and are subject to the laws of supply and demand.

I like to think I have a good deal of cultural capital. Novelist Jonathan Lethem, though, demonstrates in his new collection of essays, The Disappointment Artist [Doubleday, New York, 2005], that he is something of a cultural capital entrepreneurial genius, with massive reservoirs of knowledge and impeccable hipster credentials. On top of his stunning autodidactic erudition, he possesses a piquant wit and a gift for prose that put others in this category of writing (let's call it "highbrow lad literature") to shame. I'm thinking primarily of Nick Hornby here, and while Lethem might not exactly make Hornby look like a drooling fumbler, he has a certain cachet that Hornby lacks.

As a starting point for the uninitiated: think of Lethem as a more-obsession-prone version of the Hornby of Songbook, with possibly better taste, more creative fiction (but zero movie adaptations), and more interest in deconstructing the parent-child bond (as opposed to romantic relationships).

The Disappointment Artist is a slim collection of nine essays, many of which have been published previously in journals like Harper's, The New Yorker and Granta: slim, yet dense with insight. The essays are all highly revealing, occasionally stretching into the realm of pure autobiography, yet never without near-universal implications. This might be the most compelling aspect of the book: it can be both startlingly and, at times, painfully candid and personal, and simultaneously be widely relevant. Which isn't to say that The Disappointment Artist will appeal to everyone. I think its target market is possibly best summarized as: 1. writers, 2. aspiring writers, and 3. people who have gotten stuck on the question of why they like what they like - why that often changes over time (and why, oftentimes, people grow to hate art they once loved - do you still like everything you liked in high school?) - and what the varied implications are of identifying with certain artists over others.

This is a book for intelligent people who have allowed themselves to be deeply touched, even profoundly affected, by certain cultural artifacts, and who want clues as to how/ why it happened and tips to ensure it only happens in constructive ways in the future. Lethem, for example, was a Talking Heads fanatic in the late '70s/ early '80s.

"At the peak," he writes, "in 1980 or 1981, my identification was so complete that I might have wished to wear the album Fear of Music in place of my head so as to be more clearly seen by those around me."

Lethem saw their later work and David Byrne's early solo stuff, however, as "a betrayal of the idea of Talking Heads, as though Byrne were an unworthy steward of the art he'd partly created. All their music became poisonously embarrassing to me the moment I realized it wasn't as good as I'd claimed it was."

What is it that happens in all our lives that causes us to feel this devotion and subsequent embarrassment? And can the loss bring wisdom? (Hint: it can if it brings knowledge that you, too, disappoint.)

Not all of The Disappointment Artist is about unmet expectations; there is a great deal of art that Lethem remains devoted to as an adult, such as the works of Philip K. Dick (the subject of his essay "You Don't Know Dick") and the films of John Cassavetes ("Two or Three Things I Dunno About Cassavetes"). You don't even have to be familiar with the subjects of the essays to appreciate the analysis. I have yet to see my first Cassavetes film, but Lethem's essay, in which he states that Cassavetes is "film's Bob Dylan" ("both Dylan and Cassavetes derive energy from claiming (dubious) membership in a minority of sensitive outsiders… both of them alienated doctrinaire former supporters… They [along with Raymond Carver and Donald Barthelme] need a world of more typical art the way a shadow needs a wall."), makes for fascinating, entertaining reading.

While The Disappointment Artist does not provide any easy answers, it is an invaluable tool kit for approaching heavy, seemingly intractable issues of culture, memory and self. Also, reading it will increase your amount of cultural capital more than any other recent book of similar length. You won't be disappointed.
Brian Dille

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