I got a little ahead of myself last week, writing up a title like that, didn’t I?
My first thought was to compile a list of books to cover the field: a vegan cookbook, the VICE Do’s and Dont’s Guide, a DIY guide to bike repair, maybe a Bret Easton Ellis novel like Less Than Zero or something that NPR’s put out. But the only thing I could find from NPR was called This I Believe and besides not having read it, it sounded way too earnest. So I did a little research.
I found The Hipster Handbook by Robert Lanham (he’s from Williamsburg!) and what I discovered is that A) the word “cool” is out (as is the word “out”) and has been replaced by “deck” and B) I’m not a hipster, even though I could be mistaken for one (skinny jeans) in the wrong part of town (the suburbs). My politics don’t jive. I don’t eat meat, so I only semi-score there (since I eat fish and eggs and cheese and other things to keep me alive) and I do have an arts degree (total score) but I don’t cut my own hair (bad!) or have my parents pay my rent (bad! bad!) and I don’t own any vintage sweatshirts with cats on them or, at the very least, a keffiyah (bad! bad! bad!)
So instead I’ll have to talk about a particular subgenre of the hipster, the lit-hipster.
Miranda July
No one Belongs Here More Than You
Best short story title ever, no? Have you seen the website for this book? Miranda July makes me hate myself. How come she can do everything, and I can’t get it together to mail a letter most days? How come when she was 27 she was directing, writing, and starring in her own movie and I was still figuring out how to get the film out of a digital camera? Is it because she’s better than me? Is it because her literary mentor is Rick Moody? Yes! Both things are true! But that’s neither here not there. No one Belongs Here More Than You (which comes in two dashing colors so that you, the reader, has options) is one of the better books of contemporary short fiction I’ve read this year. Of course, I happen to be fond of themes like alienation, loneliness, strange sexual conduct, and delusion: preferably all four together.
I’ve heard a few July detractors say that the eccentricities of her style override the substance, and I can see what they mean. Sometimes substance takes a back seat to her quirkiness: I think “The Swim Team”, (about someone who teaches swimming lessons in her living room) is a good example of that. It written almost like a letter and it is quirky - a much nicer word than whimsical. Still, even at her most whimsical, this shit is sort of magic. Other critics have cited the fact that a lot of the narrators in this book have a similar, if not identical, voice. Ok, that’s true too. But it’s a strange, hyper-intelligent, funny kind of voice. And anyway, Rick Moody likes it.
Lookit at the website.
http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/
Rick Moody
Demonology
Pushcart prize winner, Guggenhiem Fellowship receiver, author of The Ice Storm, musician, composer, writer of liner notes for Sufjan Stevens, and the only author I can think of who’s regularly mentioned in Pitchfork. Qualifies, right? Plus, in his Amazon.com blog thing, all he does is shill his band (The Wingdale Community Singers) which is very hipster: hyping your band, wherever you can. And he lives in Brooklyn.
Demonology is my favorite of his books and his only book of short stories (yes, there are the novellas, and books that include novellas and stories, but novellas don’t count). Personally, I like the one about the guy who’s forced to wear a chicken suit and writes to his deceased sister, or the story that’s written as the liner notes to a box-set of mixtapes put together by some random, bitter dude.
If you happen to be a fan of Moody’s you’ll probably be interested in this witheringly scornful review of Moody’s memoirs, originally published in The New Republic Online. It begins with the line “Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation”
http://www.powells.com/review/2002_07_04.html
Nick Hornby
About A Boy
My bad. He’s not really a hipster author, is he? But I always thought he was because A) he’s pals with Dave Eggers and B) I read High Fidelity and it certainly seemed like a hipster novel. I mean, an underachieving record shop owner who who can’t access his emotions half the time and fucks a local indie rockstar? Am I right? So in preparation for this article I read About a Boy.
Um…If High Fidelity is Weezer then About a Boy would have to be Jack Johnson: not totally terrible, not entirely unreadable, but a little sweet for my taste, a tad cheesy, and hardly life changing. We’re talking about a novel in which a selfish 30-something learns how to love truly and unselfishly, and does so with the help of a nice, young lad. Anyway, I’m going to go ahead and say it: I think Hornby’s books are the male equivalent to chicklit. I have a feeling I’m about to catch some shit.
Dave Eggers
McSweeney’s, The Believer, The Universe, etc.
A friend of mine suggested I write a column about literary hacks, and he wanted Eggers up at the top of that list. Everyone’s got an opinion, huh? Personally, I liked A Heatbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. And kudos to Eggers for becoming one of the hippest lit-hipsters in the Bay area. And kudos to Eggers for making friends with Beck, even if Beck can’t actually make eye contact with anyone which leads me to believe that it would actually be hard to make friends with him but what do I know? If I could make nice with ol’ Dave, I would. That said, I think McSweeney’s is pretty pretentious. Who actually reads it cover to cover? Or do people buy it because it looks good on their bookshelf or casually displayed on their coffee table or because it’s incredibly expensive and the literary equivalent of walking around with a Rolex or a a diamond on your tooth? Beats me.
Michael Perry
Hand Job: A Catalogue of Type
Not literature, but I had to throw this one in here because I just got it for Xmas and I’m in love with every single hand-drawn gorgeous page. Plus, as far as I know (and correct me if I’m wrong) liking typography is kind of a hipster thing. This is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever owned, chock-a-block with over 250 pages of letter-art. Fifty-five typographers. Band posters, CD cover art, sketchbook pages: the kind of stuff Urban Outfitters only wishes it knew about (actually Perry himself has done some design work for UO but nevermind). It makes me weak at the knees, and I highly, highly recommend it for anyone who thinks a perfectly designed letter “R” is sexy.
NEXT UP: NAMEDROPPING CHILDRENS BOOKS? HOW SNOB!
Hey Sarahcakes, did we meet at the holiday thing? I wanna pick your nose, I mean face, cause I’m loving this column. I am big big fan of Moody. In fact after seeing The Ice Storm I was all like, who is this writer? Then I got demonology to give to someone special (at the time) as a gift. And then I kept it cause I realized that I was more special and so was Moody. I’ve never read Hornby and I’ve never read Eggers. Do I suck? Prob not. I think Donna Tartt is a hipster author…she just doesn’t know it. So is Jose Saramago and he’s like 268 years-old and from Portugal.
January 11, 2008 at 3:41 pmi totally namedrop 85% of things mentioned in this column on a regular basis.
Donna Tartt went to Bennington which is the place that spawned Brett Easton Ellis, but I still love “The Secret History” so much it hurts.
And “Special topics in Calamity Physics” was THE hipster book to namedrop last year. And it was so good too.
but the ultimate of all ultimate hipster writers is David Foster Wallace.
Infinite Jest is the bible. Tennis, Math, Obscure Filmmaking, Very tall Mothers, Drugs, Foot notes…the works. I once went out with someone I met online because their screen name was “Orin Incandenza”. Because I am THAT predictable.
Thomas Pynchon figures pretty high too.
I will stop now before I dig myself into too deep of a grave.
January 11, 2008 at 4:00 pm>Jack Johnson: not totally terrible
What? No, Jack Johnson is terrible.
:)
January 11, 2008 at 4:05 pm“Anyway, I’m going to go ahead and say it: I think Hornby’s books are the male equivalent to chicklit. I have a feeling I’m about to catch some shit.”
ehh, you aren’t going to catch shit (well, not from me), but i do have to respond to this. there is something interesting that has happened to nick hornby since ‘about a boy’ (which is very light, and very charming) - he started writing from a female’s perspective.
the novel after ‘about a boy’ is called ‘how to be good’. it has a female protagonist, and in my mind portrayed this character perfectly. it marked a huge shift in his writing - and in my ability to really take him seriously (well, to see him as something beyond a dude-lit writer…which would be more accurate than ‘hipster’ writer).
then, he outdid himself. after ‘how to be good’ he wrote ‘a long way down’, which was shockingly bleak and from the perspective of not 1 man, or 1 woman, but of 2 different men and 2 different women. it was a fascinating read, and i thought he captured (or, rather, created) the personalities of each of these characters masterfully.
as for whether or not he is a hipster writer. well. i don’t know what to say about that really. i think he has characters in a couple of his books who could perhaps be called hipsters (really in just the two you mention….the other books being about english football fans, a middle-aged housewife who has an affair, and 4 lonely souls of all ages who are suicidal - actually, one of whom you might be able to call a hipster), but i don’t think i would categorize him as a hipster certainly, or even a hipster writer. anyway.
January 11, 2008 at 4:07 pmEl Chico Cesar Gets Moody, we totally met at the Holiday shin-dug. Feel free to pick my nose next time we meet.
Svetlana, I’ve never read a Pynchon book in my life but I did drop 50 bucks to pick up a copy of his Mason & Dixon cuz it looked purty. Now it’s lost in the sea of all my other unread & lost books. Poor me.
Jeff, I started reading that article. Looks great.
January 11, 2008 at 4:17 pmI got my Mason Dixon copy for 2 bucks at a GoodWill right off Pico in LA. While cruising in my unemployed actor ex-boyfriend’s beat up Honda
(love you Bill!)
How hipster is that?
oh yeah and… I am totally gay for Miranda July.
I can’t help it.
Have any of you experienced this yet:
http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/
plus she’s dating Mike Mills who I am totally not gay for (because he’s a dude, duh) who is responsible for many amazing things including this:
They are the only celebrity couple I’d go crazy papparazzi style for, steal their babies, go through their trash and the like.
Ok, definitely stopping now.
You were saying?
Jack Johnson is not TOTALLY terrible, just mostly terrible. Sum 41 is TOTALLY terrible.
January 11, 2008 at 4:20 pmHornby, “male equivalent of chicklit” LOVE IT! Actually, now that I think about it, what IS the male equivalent of that shitty chicklit?
January 11, 2008 at 4:22 pmNick Hornby is.
January 11, 2008 at 4:32 pm“Nick Hornby is.”
ahem. read above…
January 11, 2008 at 4:51 pmI got the audio version of Michael Perry’s book. Wasn’t that good.
January 11, 2008 at 4:54 pmJust because the Hornby reads are breezy doesn’t diminish their quality. I agree with Carrie’s assessment on his growth. In “Long Way Down” he connects with a mother of a disabled child more so than anyone he has written in the voice of previously. Pelecanos reads just like Hornby but because it is hard boiled scenarios he has more cred in his own way (which will dissipate once a movie is finally made from his fine novels - damn you Puffy for optioning the rights to King Suckerman!)
The original sleeve for About A Boy is a better design by the way. Moody’s sleeve designed by the always amazing (and former DC resident) Paul Sahre.
And yes - of course I have a dorky design comment.
January 11, 2008 at 5:07 pmvictoryrose,
as for the chicklit thing (or the dudelit thing), based solely (and therefore unfairly) on the two hornby novels i’ve read (high fidelity, about a boy) i’m going to stick with my assessment.
the fact that he’s switched to a female voice doesn’t shock me. the cynic in me wonders if some marketing group didn’t determine that his readers were 20 to 30-something women and his editor/agent rang him up and said, “Nicky boy, let’s switch it up this time ’round shall we old chap, perhaps a female perspective? You don’t want to alienate your audience…” blah dee blah.
but that’s just the cynic in me.
and i take your word for it that he’s grown as a writer. also, keep in mind, i put hornby in there and then excluded him from the hipster category.
finally, it wasn’t the breeziness of ‘about a boy’ that left me cold. (i like lots of breezy novels. most recently a novella called ‘the end of the alphabet’ by cs richardson). it was that i felt that his setup was dubious, and ultimately i never really cared about the characters all that much. i thought they were just a step ahead of one dimensional. and though i think hornby’s sometimes funny, i can’t say i think he’s masterful when it comes to the things i’m looking for: fine, powerful prose (whatever that means at any given time); believable characters; large, important themes. just me.
January 11, 2008 at 5:42 pmyes, these are all my favorite books. miranda july is so good.
January 11, 2008 at 5:56 pmLiked this column in the past. Ok, I liked the writing style of this column in the past. This one? Not so much. Not so much the style but the topic. You can do better. You have done better. This was too easy. This would have gotten an F in my class (were I to teach) because though it is a correct paper I would know that you wrote it the morning it was due by just getting up an hour earlier. F for effort.
Oh Hornby sucks. So does Hornsby AND the Range but at least I never hear from that douche anymore. I hear about Hornby all the fucking time. Ok, the movie on the book was kind of funny but the book (what I read of it) sucked. I also tried reading that book about a Long Way Down. It sucked too. I don’t like the way the guy writes, but I don’t like the way a lot of people write (insert the guy who wrote Atonement here - my GOD what a horrible horrible book. I just read 1026 pages of Herman Wouk in a few days (I was laid up in bed) and I’d read it again, randomly, and on FIRE before I’d suffer through what little I got through McIwan (is that his name? I tried a purge).
You should have thrown Running With Scissors on here. All hipsters would like talking about this book because it has all kinds of disaffected bullshit in it like a mommy who doesn’t care and fancies herself a poet (and later an interacial lesbian), a shrink family, a little boy who sucks adults dicks at age 13, batshit crazy people and all that other stuff. It’s actually a pretty good read because he writes well (Augusten Burroughs?) but I didn’t really believe much of it.
Anyway, back to ya’lls talk about Hornby. I’m glad I don’t really know some of you in person. You would have just disappointed me.
January 11, 2008 at 6:40 pmindecision, by ben kunkel, might fit the bill.
January 11, 2008 at 7:26 pmNo Bret Easton Ellis? Someone needs to go back to school…
January 11, 2008 at 8:27 pmOh yeah, and “Special topics in Calamity Physics” blows too. So does Jonathan Safran Foer. At this point, everybody should be reading Steinbeck because he was ‘deck’ way before all y’all was born.
January 11, 2008 at 8:32 pmSo I’ve had a couple Chardonnays - what of it?
January 11, 2008 at 8:34 pmI agree with Michael that Augusten Burroughs makes the hipster shortlist, though he’s been co-opted by the NPR nee-hipster, now-suburban set.
Because it’s not as cool to read high modernism anymore (fuck you - I see that copy of Dubliners right at eye level on your bookshelf - poseur), and most 60’s-80’s po-mo is undergraduate fare, and hipsters can’t get excited about anything that you read in undergrad english classes unless it’s a screenplay or you slept with your professor. So you’re left with grad-level lit crit, indie po-mo, lost writers, and then, for the ultimate in hipster cache, children’s books like Madeleine or Everyone Poops, which will never cease to be sort of cool in a puerile way, kinda like your crush on dana plato from diff’rent strokes.
What books circulate in hipsterland? Don Delillo and Thomas Pynchon novels, but the old ones. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, still the best doorstop/novel of the 1990’s, anything by Jorge Borges (grad school, unless you were a Spanish major), anything by Slavov Zizek, Jean Beaudrillard or Roland Barthes (you may have read it as an undergrad, but thinking you understood it then was just your youthful folly), anything by Sam Lipsyte (the thinking man’s Chuck Palahniuk), Neuromancer by William Gibson, anything by Ben Marcus, and for the dark, literary types, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. For the hard partying types, Bret Ellis and Jay McInerney. And for the internationals, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook by Shteyngart is quite hip.
And the one thing that brings WASPs and Hipsters together: Catcher in the Rye, which will never stop being sad.
January 12, 2008 at 5:10 pmBTW - for those of you who haven’t read it, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” is probably the best short story I’ve read in years, and kicks the pants off Miranda July, who makes sweet little offbeat movies and short films (Wholphin, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dave Eggers’ McSweeney’s machine) much better than she writes stories.
And Nick Hornby is kinda lame. Sort of cool when he started, then he matured as a writer and now writes decent books about mostly decent people, which is a bummer, like if Irvine Welsh (an arrogant shithead of a writer) wrote about nice, moderately successful people.
On another note: do people read poetry anymore?
January 12, 2008 at 5:32 pmDr. No, you mean like the Iliad and the Odyssey?
eos rhododactylos…
January 12, 2008 at 6:05 pmDoctor No why you gotta fuck my shit up? Madelaine and Everyone Poops are for next weeks column!
January 12, 2008 at 6:25 pmEveryone Poops is a hipster classic, and just because I name-dropped it doesn’t mean you can’t write about it. Sort of like Sufjan Stevens. Incidentally, I have been told that he shits delicate white clouds with little angel wings, but that’s an unconfirmed rumor, And it doesn’t make me like him any less.
Sometimes I get lost, mid-sentence.
Michael - I was thinking more contemporary poetry. It is only hip to drop ancient greek, latin or old english knowledge in certain specialized circumstances and never when cornered. Shakespeare is hipster-neutral. William Blake - always cool, but that’s only because it sounds like nursery rhymes, which fits in with the whole children’s book thing about which Sarah is mad at me for spoiling.
Sorry, Sarah. I am a bad, bad man who likes children’s books.
January 12, 2008 at 9:55 pmRead Fever Pitch by Hornby. Good stuff, but please skip the movie. Also, Indecision by Kunkel is a good read.
January 13, 2008 at 3:45 amI second the Infinite Jest claim as best 1,000 page interpretation of Wes Anderson’s favorite theme - rich, highly dysfunctional genius families.
January 13, 2008 at 11:07 pmas I am rereading this I just want to say:
how has NO ONE mentioned Murakami in the comments?
HOW?
I don’t know, he was on my short list but I kicked him out because I haven’t read enough of his books.
February 9, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I have no love for Dave Eggers after the self-indulgent mess that was “A Heartbreaking Work…” He can write but he sure came off as an utter dick unworthy of my literary sympathy.
NEVERTHELESS, he seems to me to be the ultimate lit hipster at work today: audacious, pretentious, and omnipresent. Yuck! Postmodernism frustrates me sometimes.
Great article:
January 11, 2008 at 3:01 pmhttp://www.theamericanscholar.org/au07/wonder-bukiet.html