This pie chart illustrates what’s in my head in terms of what I think about writing, and who goes where. This of course is just a partial list, and my apologies for the lack of contemporaries, and women. Again, this is a view into my head, and probably subject to some disagreement. I think of all writing being from the head (pros: cerebral, conceptual; cons: didactic, dry), the mouth (pros: language, poetics; cons: empty banter, pure form), and the heart (pros: empathic, intimate; cons: sentimental, emotional) . My favorite writers, those in the red dashed center, are able to write from all three places. Other writers I admire are writing from two places. Others tend to fall into just one category, somewhat consumed by that point of view. Authors near the outer edges of their category may be seen as my critique of them, for the excessiveness of that sensibility. It would be interesting to see where you disagree, and why, and list those who I’ve failed to mention, and place them accordingly.
for some reason when i saw wallace on the chart, i thought, "huh. rasheed wallace."
ReplyDeletemaybe i shudda put D.F. for don't fuck
DeleteI don't see Cheever and Mailer as more mouth than you but agree with most of the rest.
ReplyDeletei have cheever and mailer as 'head'; did you typo or brainpo?
DeleteTypo. omit the word don't.
DeleteThis is fantastic. I would put Bellow on the top sharp part of the middle oval, nearest the head but dangling between mouth and heart. I agree with Gaddis being more mouth and head as well. Are you least inclined to read a writer who is noticeably one of the three more than the other? I think of Franzen as using the heart as a pure form thus mouthing in that matter, but this is just upon first glance. I will come back to this. Another write I might put near the middle, and who is contemporary, is David Mitchell.
ReplyDeleteI'd place Wallace nearer the outer reaches of the Head and Mouth, which is in no way a criticism. This is a great diagram.
ReplyDeleteLove Wallace, but definitely think he has a good deal of mouth.
DeleteI've always thought of Vonnegut as more of a 'heart' guy, in a gut-instinct sort of way, but now that I've seen this diagram and seen his name juxtaposed against some others I'm not sure. Of the authors I've read on here though I pretty much agree with all your placements.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading Huxley "Point Counter Point" and it seems very head-y. 40 pgs in and only 2 hours has past. Very English. Add all. Cut nothing. I'm not sure if the novel will occur in only one night, which from it's time period, 20's, would make sense. Seems Proustian in a way. Proust is missing from yr chart. He's head-y too. Seems Kerouac would be mouth and heart.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of Proust - I think 'heart.' Probably would be on the diagram somewhere near Fitzgerald.
DeleteProust writes from the center out (Kerouac term), so starts from the heart, and then lets the mouth (mind) run where it will go, while staying in his original form (head) and coming back to the original thread of thought. I finished the third volume, which had a 400 pg tea party, which killed me in a way. And then the beginning of "Sodom and Gomorrah" had the gay rendezous of the Guermentes Uncle and the servant, but it was so veiled and indirect, I couldn't continue.
DeleteYou're right abt the Fitzgerald point, they are both heart felt and have great form to their novels (form being head).
Any Rand isn't head. She thinks she is.
ReplyDeleteno brains, no headaches
DeleteRand doesn't belong with any of those others names. And Proust should supplant, or at the very least, be set aside, Joyce.
ReplyDeleteshame ur dissin on rand since i dissed her by putting her at the edge. shit, forgot about proust, but my proust goes in the heart circle, that sleepy/sleepless sap
DeleteNabokov is way more head. Otherwise that's a great chart.
ReplyDeletei agree, in terms of the heady structure of his books, esp. pale fire, but once he 'gets going,' like the actual flashy sentences, he is pretty mouthy
DeleteYeah, I can see that. Maybe put him up there in the green circle? Because those beautiful sentences have always seemed to me to be the product of much conceptual thought; the opposite of organic. Reading Nabokov is like wandering through giant crystal ice palace that shimmers and glows and that you can never touch.
Deleteman, you just reminded me of how mind blowing his short stories were, especially the latter ones; specifically, "lance," "the vane sisters," "signs and symbols," and "conversation piece, 1945."
Deletesuddenly feel like groovesharking 'holland, 1945'
DeleteAgreed. That's also my lone complaint.
DeleteYou also apologized for a lack of contemporaries. You should give writers before 1900 (depending on your James, and, of course, Melville/Flaubert) a chance. You could add Hawthorne, Dickens, Eliot, C. Bronte, to your little red circle.
ReplyDeletewhudda been E. Bronte for me
DeleteI'd also insert Lispector right where Kafka is. I move Vonnegut closer to heart, Beckett closer to the center, Camus closer to heart, McCarthy further to head, and keep Joyce right the fuck where he belongs.
ReplyDeletewhat; nah; maybe; sure; no way; sweet
DeleteYou just accidentally recreated the emotional arc of The Stranger.
DeleteI was going to comment that Joyce is EXACTLY where he should be.
DeleteGinsberg I think should swing over to the other side of mouth, become Florida to McCarthy's Georgia. I get his being on the outside of the circle, but I think he has to be closer to heart, if only for 'America'.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me you've conceived of heart from the perspective of mouth and head, so that those whose form is messier or less systematic (though perhaps as I'd argue no less their subject) have been chucked into heart where heart might not be so much their subject or disposition (see, now this question arises. You might want to qualify this diagram, Idris. Do you mean "writing from the ---", or "preponderantly concerned with". I think there's a difference.) But, taking the thing of face value, I'd have Chekhov mouth-heart, Flaubert's got to be the middle, or consigned purely to mouth, (you're going to have to decide), to have no head in Rilke is absurd, Perec should be on the border of head and mouth, at its limit, Beckett's just got to be in the circle, by god, Ellis all heart?, Walser is all heart, put him at its limit, and surely Plath should be touching all three also. Kafka shouldn't touch that motherfucking red dotted line, man, just move him up a millimetre. Where would you put Walt Whitman?
ReplyDeletethanks, now i have a headache; i would put walt whitman in a gillette mach 3 commercial
DeleteEllis at all heart (albeit close to head) makes perfect sense to me.
DeleteYou should explain, it could be quite interesting. Thinking about Lunar Park though, and the way in which it ravells a life up into fiction, the denial that anything but the metatextual performance of a life has gone on and referencing this in Lunar Park itself, along with Bateman's lists, and the desensitised encounter of horror in Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction seems to me to assign the guy head-territory, pure and simple. Even the comedy that Butler talks about in a previous post is highly cerebral, I think.
DeleteWhere would you place Tao Lin?
ReplyDeletethe trash.
DeleteTao Lin would be head and some heart, I believe. He is conceptual (see Rumpus interview RE simple writing to releave suffering) and heart felt; coming from his emotions. Yet somewhat dry. Maybe near Camus, but not as wide in scope. He would be less mouth b/c his heavy editing, and possible over analytical style base on depression/anxiety, where he may cut wild emotive prose. Though in RY he gets long winded and mouthy in parts, but it is calculated emotive.
ReplyDeleteIdk ... I can see Tao having mouth *because* of that hard leaning on style ... an affect that somehow leads to heart.
ReplyDeleteI think it's easy to associate "mouth" with emotive qualities, maybe you are also thinking of speech tendencies or (material) language tendencies? Tao seems to operate outside of both an adoration for language and an adoration for emotion. But the way his style is so stripped and almost codified (I myself notice the spreading use of phrases like "neutral facial expression") that I think the "mouth" elements plays a big part there ... I think he actually pays a heck of a lot of attention to speech / rhythm of speech, like his pal Noah Cicero.
If you think about it, that whole groundbreaking move to use gmail chats in literature comes from a very focused, surefooted attention to speech and what is in the contemporary era. lol ... mouth as mediated by computer screens and typing.
ReplyDeleteAlthough without much close, concentrated examination, at the moment, I think that my own arrangement of this diagram would be more or less the same with certain exceptions. For example, I would place Morrison at the very edge of mouth.
ReplyDeleteha. great diagram idris. fun shit. two contemporaries that immediately jump out to me as needing to be on the list are barry hannah (who'd be right between mouth and heart) and vanessa place (who'd be damn near center).
ReplyDeletealso, gary lutz, total mouth.
ReplyDeleteMouth with a gentle nudge towards heart, even if he doesn't realize it.
DeleteA nudge toward heart is always gonna be gentle.
DeleteBoth an apt criticism of my word usage and a line of dialogue from a Danielle Steel novel. Fine work Mr. Donnelly.
DeleteWhat about Doestoyevski? I think he'd be in heart/mouth.
ReplyDeletei heart cheever. maybe ease pynchon more into the mouth? did someone say bellow? love kerouac in the center of heart. what a lovable, sentimental drunken gentleman. i would boost the estrogen with the inclusion of grace paley and amy hempel. both hearts and some mouth. great show.
ReplyDeleteHenry Miller? Between Hemingway and Kerouac? I can't help but mentally dropping people I know on this... nice Venn...
ReplyDeleteIf there was a dick section to the Venn I am pretty sure Miller would be on it.
DeleteI was thinking there needs to be a "Genitals" circle in this scheme.
Deleteyes, the ENDOCRINE circle; regulative
Deletepro: concinnity, generative
contra: nihil ex nihilo
Miller also seemed like the kind of guy you'd want to have dinner with...but also the kind of guy who would rip you apart in a conversation if he didn't like and/or respect you.
ReplyDeleteAlso: who was the last great American author who either (a:) had his book published in another country before America or (b) was published in another language before English?
I am having a hard time coming up with an answer off the top of my head without looking for it online. In particular, a writer around the age of thirty who could fit the above right now.
interesting... I think most of these writers would rip you apart in a conversation if they didn't like and/or respect you, with the probale exception of Plath
Deletemaybe... I could a few in here who would be simply dismissive of anyone who wasn't a part of their circle...
Delete*see
DeleteBut Stein, I could really see her ripping a motherfucker apart
ReplyDeleteit's nice to see that the venn diagram can still be useful
ReplyDeleteIf a conditional statement is at work, then a Venn diagram can model it.
DeleteI would take Kerouac off Heart and drop into the Misogynistic Asshole.
ReplyDeleteI hate when people trash Kerouac...it is too easy...too accepted.
DeleteSorry. I'm not here to make you comfortable. It's in his books.
DeleteI'm not uncomfortable...I just think your comment is played-out.
DeleteDon't you? Even a little bit?
DeleteNo, not really. It doesn't seem like anything to get worked up over, unless you're under 25 and also think the Doors are the greatest rock band of all time.
DeleteDid your Introduction to Literary Theory teacher give you that line or did you learn how to make snotty, lame, unearned statements regurgitated by misguided grad school students taught to reject popular writers for years all on your own?
DeleteWhy don't you just make a sharp quip about Dean Koontz... nobody has ever done that before.
And yes, it is something to get worked up about. I don't sit around reading beat writers all day but respect them for what they are...and respect that, in many ways, they are responsible for many of the writers commenting here today becoming interested in reading at a young age.
But, then again, what would a iconoclast who goes by MFBomb learn from a guy who defined the literary movement of the 1950's.
Ah gosh, guess I'll just listen to Peace Frog a few more times.
Wow. Sanctimonious much?
DeleteI have no opinion of Dean Koontz, nor do I have a problem with "popular" literature. I'm probably one of the few instructors who allows his students to write genre fiction.
My belief that JK's work is misogynistic has nothing to do with genre or "popularity." It has to do with the work, which speaks for itself, and I'm not interested in going completely off topic here when coverage of this matter is readily available--and, because, well, my initial comment was mainly a joke.
If you would get off your high horse for a minute, you'd notice that people were making comments/quips about where various writers should be moved. One poster above me made a smartass comment about Rand. She's often disparaged too. She's also popular. It was funny. Have you smacked Lincoln on the wrist with her ruler?
This is an Idris Kenain blog. He's, like, sarcastic and stuff.