That’s What Makes The Jukebox Play
November 21st, 2007
I’m realizing you can split Harry Crews books into two categories: the ones that include a beautiful, buxom young lady who also happens to be a Karate expert, and the ones that don’t. My favorites are definitely falling in the latter category. I thoroughly enjoyed Car, the tale of a man who tries to eat an entire automobile (you just have to love it enough to take the pounding and suppress the gag reflex), which has a beautiful hooker for a love interest, but she’s got no karate experience. Likewise, The Hawk is Dying has a sharp-witted college student who smells vaguely of urine for a love interest, and it’s my favorite so far. Conversely, I’m having a hell of a time getting through The Mulching of America, and it includes, of course, a beautiful female Karate expert. As does Karate is a Thing of the Spirit, which is paling rapidly as the weeks go by.
I remember reading somewhere (Harold Bloom?) that sexual jealousy is the ideal topic for the novel, in that to be sexually jealous is to implicitly imagine oneself in a life that is not one’s own; that sexual jealousy is the desire to live more than life, as it were, and that the great human tragedy is that we’re all trapped only in the one life we live.
I probably butchered that, but it’s always stuck with me, and I think it’s the reason I’m having a harder time with Harry Crews’ novels which foreground gorgeous Karate-kicking love interests. It’s pretty obvious that’s Mr. Crews’ bag: beautiful women who can kick the shit out of most men. And, as such, it seems like the novels that feature said women don’t have enough at stake. They’re missing that fundamental desperation necessary to the novels I like. It doesn’t mean they’re bad. They’re often quite readable, and very funny. But the novels penned by Mr. Crews which I like best ain’t about people who get to bag their dream fuck.
For some reason, I just read Salman Rushdie’s Fury, and spotted the same problem. Sexual tension, sexual jealousy needn’t be foremost in a novel for it to resonate with me, but absolute sexual gratification flattens characters. As Willie Nelson put it, “ninety-nine percent of the world’s lovers are not with their first choice. That’s what makes the jukebox play.”
November 25th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Interesting thoughts about Crews’ work. I would agree that his female characters seem to be women of action (even those that are not Karate experts). It seems in his work it is the women who initiate the sex–and there is always sex. This is probably because many of the male characters are very damaged individuals trying to figure out how to be in an equally damaged world. This equation allows Crews to create a very cartoonish image of the world and, of course, serves as the set up for the satire and humor. While his novels are good, I think his non-fiction is outstanding. He has two collections of non-fiction, Florida Frenzy and Blood and Grits and the memoir, Childhood. I think his not having to push a plot forward allows his non-fiction prose to have quite the edge to it. His non-fiction is every bit as good as Hunter Thompson. A few years ago he was supposed to have another collection of non-fiction, Through the Key Hole, or something like that, but it never was released, and I’ve never heard anything more about it. Also, there is apparently another memoir that picks up where Childhood left off, but I’ve heard he won’t allow it to be released while he is alive…In any case, I think your observations about the women characters are right on, but I do think they are more a product of needing to push a plot forward than sexual fantasy.
November 26th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Y’know, I finally finished The Mulching of America and am now on Celebration. Point taken. I don’t know if you’ve read Celebration, but it follows the character of Too Much, a nubile beauty who runs around a senior-citizens trailer park healing the inhabitants by fucking their amputated stumps and letting them work her over with a mop. It’s pretty much a blow by blow recap of your description of the typical Harry Crews plot. It’s also a lot of fun. Which may be because it’s so explicitly a Harry Crews plot. My favorites are still the deviations, though. Again, The Hawk is Dying, but also Feast of Snakes.
Unfortunately my current tear is based on what’s available at the Denver public library, which is only fiction. But I’ll hit the inter-library loan program and hunt down your recommendations. Thanks.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:15 am
I have read both Mulching and Celebration. They are not my favorites of the Crews’ novels. Of the ones I’ve read I would have to say that The Gypsie’s Curse, Gospel Singer and Body are my three favorites. Feast Of Snakes is up there, as well. I have not read Naked in the Garden or The Hawk is Dying.
By the way, it is awesome to see someone is reading Crews and taking time to talk about it. I don’t meet many people who have read Harry Crews, which is unfortunate. I think, though, his novels–especially those written in the 70’s–will endure. The define a part of our nation’s culture that doesn’t get written about too much.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Well, I’m loving Harry Crews more by the minute. There ain’t enough of that high-octane, obscene, laugh-out-loud, Rabelaisian sort of writing for my tastes. I’m not entirely sure where it all went, but it seems to be a disappearing art form. I’m thinking Dave Eggers killed it, or I’m just not reading the right folks. Anyway, I’ve read none of your favorites, so it looks like I’ve still got some catching up to do. I’m thinking I’ll probably wait and get the non-fiction stuff with my next Amazon purchase so’s I can own it outright.
You think the reason he’s not written about more is regional? Class? That’s where I’m inclined. It seems to me that books about working class folks can only hit the bestseller charts or mainstream academia if they toe a pretty careful line. I’m reading Richard Russo’s Empire Falls and it’s almost a how-to guide of how to write about working class folks. I.e., they’re all on the straight and narrow, hard-working, and pining for the day they can escape their circumstances and move to Martha’s Vineyard. (And, I swear to God, if that’s how the novel ends, I’ll hunt down Russo and run him through with a greasy spatula.)
I ain’t sure, but it seems a huge gap. I don’t think it’s the outlandishness of Crews’ novels. Shit, he still hasn’t topped Faulkner’s rape-by-corncob scene.
November 29th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
A couple of things probably keep Crews’ from being written about more than he is. The first is that he is probably a little too contemporary yet. I’m guessing that as the years go by, Crews’ will provide ample fodder for the lit crit crew. Also, Crews’ doesn’t play a lot of games in his novels. He prefers a very straight forward narrative and good old fashion character building. Also remember that the public is not kind to literary writers. While Faulkner is in print and lots of his books are bought, not a lot of people can actually say they’ve read him.
The last thing is that Crews’ probably didn’t help himself by going ten years without writing a novel when he should have been at the top of his game.