*The Picture of Dorian Gray*: Literary Aesthetics, Fantasy, and the Undecided Text

A couple of days ago I tried out a book club on the West Side of Cleveland. Here's their webpage on meetup.com:  a ne{o}lit book club. The book club was great, and for my part (if you live in the Cleveland Area) I highly recommend coming to a meeting.

The book they were discussing was Oscar Wilde's famous, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). I've always loved this book! I find it really intriguing because, like Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (a ghost story), it is a text that is generally categorized as "literature" while at the same time it has many genre or weird elements.

Intuitively, I jump to describe The Picture of Dorian Gray as a fantasy. Not a "second world fantasy" like J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It's definitely a fantasy, though.

Consider the premise: there's a magical/supernatural painting the preserves and extends the youth of a young man. All of his horrible actions--all the stains on his soul--appear on the painting rather than on his body. The painting is a kind of "objectified soul" that Dorian can look on and meditate on. This is fantasy! Wilde has definitely deviated from the reality principle here.

It's so interesting, though, that folks rarely file this novel under the rubric of fantasy. This novel seems to announce itself as literature, as high literary art. In fact, the preface to the novel is often cited in anthologies of literary criticism and aesthetic philosophy as inaugurating or at least anticipating the highest of the high literary art: aestheticism or High Modernism. Very often, folks who believe in the importance of aesthetics and literature hearken back to this preface and cite it as a kind of articulation of first principles. Here's a link to the full manuscript of the preface: The Preface to Dorian Gray. See if you disagree with me.

I'd like to highlight a brief passage from this preface: "They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty." Why is this significant here? Well, genre literature--or "weird literature" (science fiction, fantasy, supernatural horror)--has often been criticized and dismissed by literary scholars because of its apparent disregard of "literary beauty." Genre writers, the argument goes, write in a pulp style. Genre writers aren't concerned with form, only content. They don't experiment with literary aesthetics. Unlike High Modernists writers, genre writers aren't concerned with experimenting with the capacities of literary art (e.g. poetic language, narrative, genre, etc..).

I'll be honest. I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. As much as I love weird literature, there's indeed something to this knee-jerk argument. There are lots of genre writers who just don't give a fig for literature as "art." Their project, their productions, the commitment is first and foremost to entertainment--to spinning a good yarn. To be more specific, genre writers seem more concerned with creating an emotion, what literary critics might call an affect (i.e. the fantasy stirs wonders, the horror stirs horror, the science fiction stirs feelings of the sublime or vastness).

The reason why I find The Picture of Dorian of Gray so interesting it that it seems to disrupt this clean framework: (1) genre writers are clumsy writers who aren't concerned with art; (2) high modernist writers are concerned with art and their concern with art can be glimpsed in their focus on language and form.

Dorian Gray is a fantasy, an example of what I like to call "weird literature." And yet--it tends to be framed in a way that runs contrary to how genre literature--fantasy, specifically--is often described, as aesthetically naieve, as pulp. Hmm...This is why I think it's "undecided."

Flash Fiction Friday - Cycle 67 - Romance

This is a flash fiction I'm submitting to an online writing community. Here is a link to their website: Flash Fiction Friday. I've just started participating with them and it's been a lot of fun! Check it out!

Unlike the other original flash fiction I feature on my blog, the following is not an example of a "weird" genre, by which I mean science fiction, fantasy, or supernatural horror.

Rather, this is what I would call "literary fiction," which I believe is a genre unto itself. If I was forced to be more specific, I would call this a "romance," considering its about a marriage that falls apart and is put back together.

Anyhow, the following flash fiction is approximately 1200 words and it's titled "Lift." It's about a couple whose son tragically commits suicide and the effect of that suicide on their relationship. 

And so, don't expect robots, or dragons, or cosmic horrors. 

Just a few folks and their attempts to deal with a difficult situation.

***

Lift

He smokes his cigarette. Trying to describe him. Hooded sweat-shirt. But it's him. It is me. God, this is exhausting.

In a coffee shop in Euclid writing to you. I'm writing.

We're together at a restaurant now, hearing Sinatra.  Our son has been shot but we don't know why or who or even where, only that they took him to the hospital. Answer your goddamn cell phone.

And she answered it.

"Coming. I am coming."

The hospital coffee is weak. I drink it. I'm trembling, want to drink six beers because I can't cry. Jessica is sobbing angrily. I am standing away. When the security guard looks at me, I feel ashamed. I smile at him and look away, sweating. I am guiltless, yet I feel guilt.

 

Not watching movies. They have betrayed me. Bogey can go to hell. 

Years. We don't look at photographs. He was sixteen. She has become distant. I don't close my eyes when we make love, and when she looks at me, I am ashamed. I turn away. She had her womb removed recently.

Have my coffee in the morning and pet my cat but am gazing distantly at the old black gum and wondering, trying out dialog, structuring narratives, looking for a pattern that is probably not there.

 

"You're always fucking bringing him up. When are you going to stop doing that? Jesus. It's been six years." Slammed door. Sobbing. The cat is begging me for treats and, speechless, I stroke her back, but he did love this cereal. I will keep it a secret now.

Trying to put this the right way. Trying to tell you what happened, why it happened. I didn't know who he was, but there are plenty of photographs. I walked into the study and she was clicking through them on the computer. It was like I had discovered her looking at pornography.

I'm rinsing the tomatoes when she falls. It's strange. Once again I'm going to the hospital. She is speechless. It is just diabetes. Low sugar.

I pay for the gasoline inside and get coffee, newspaper, pack of gum. This is a moment of clarity for me. I tell the kid there, "Thanks," and ask, "Cancel for credit?" He nods. I want to ask him, "How's the night going? Good book?" I do not. The car is running.

Clicking through the news now, dissatisfied. Checking this and that. I notice my cat has groomed a hole in her coat and she is bleeding. She looks at me longingly. I cry.

Jessica has divorced me. I stare at the bed often. I don't drink coffee anymore. I am detoxifying myself to no effect. I agree. I am a brick. Distant, mopey, all of that.

But I'm free to indulge now. I go through his books, his roleplaying games. I look at his miserable handwriting on notebook paper and am fascinated by his e's. What is this?

Disengaged. Struggling with my work. Not hungry. Yesterday I cursed out a man who was in the road with his blinkers on and felt ashamed. He was an old man. So am I.

Meet her on his birthday. She is still driving the Honda. She is a silver beauty, thin as a razor, all smiles. She enriches me. I want to talk forever. We walk to his grave and she says he was a good boy, though this is awkward. We get breakfast. I have already eaten, so I get water but am absolutely miserable for coffee. She gets French toast, cuts it into tiny pieces and dips it. I am fascinated by this. Magical. She is genius. I order coffee. We talk in circles: work, cat. My failures are politely evaded. So this is how it turned out.

We make love at home, but there is a sweetness and awkwardness to it. I do not finish, but she masturbates on me and cums silently. After, we nap. A good one. I wake up and she's watching streaming videos. We are married again.

She is more successful than I am. She is organizing a consortium on something, making phonecalls, e-mailing. I am a fiddler. I cannot commit. I dabble. My habitat is a basement with a guitar, a garden, a few tawdry collectibles.

Joseph.

"I am coming. What the fuck do you mean he was shot? You've got to be kidding me. Are you fucking kidding me? Get in the god damn car. Jessica. Jessica, put it down. Calm down, Jessica, please."

She is crying, I am driving and crying. I am leaning heavy into the steering wheel. My teeth are chattering. Can you hear them? I almost run someone off the road exiting. 

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like. On Jupiter. On Mars.

He is dead when we arrive. I am telling you the truth. His face. His mouth closed, lips drawn tightly. 

He is keeping a secret from me.

She sits on the couch in the living room, her hands in her face. I am standing away. She sobs in great huffs and I stare at her. She keeps asking me questions. There is never a clear motive save the ones we invent, we try to imagine.

The funeral. More crying. You get the picture. We decided on a Methodist minister and Rabbi.

He's fragments. An Indians hat. A collection of books. Some eagles. I'm smelling his t-shirts, holding up his pants, and nothing. My son suicided. It is beautiful for its narrative unity.

This morning I drive Jessica to the airport. She's going to a conference. We listen to German immersion. "Ich heisse…Mein name ist…" She takes off lipstick, too rich. She looks clownish, she tells me. We have coffee before security. I am charged with the excitement of travel, though I am staying in Ohio. I feel sentimental and so I cup her hands. "What's wrong?" I don't know. It's lonely this early in the morning, when the sun is still rising, when the business travelers, with their shiny hair and their shiny shoes, strut through the airport. It is lonely here. I don't want you to leave.

She kisses the apple of my cheek and stands in line for security. It's miserable there, watching her take off her shoes, watching her expose her beautiful feet to the airport floor. I stare at her. Commit the sin of idolatry now. Her smile. 

It's a strange thing. I drive home. I turn off the MP3. It is silent on the freeway. The semi-trucks are passing me heavily, hissing as they go by. Somewhere above Jessica is climbing, approaching 600 miles per hour, though she is also sitting down, asking for coffee. She will receive coffee and perhaps a snack. "Cookies please." "Coffee and cookies." She will smile at the attendant who gives them to her before she breaks open the plastic wrapper of the cookies, sips on her coffee, and cracks open the pages of a paperback. This image of her fills me with joy.

The coffee has quickened me. It is wintering. There are a few hours until sunrise.