Books That Think We're Stupid

chic and mean leftism

These days, my inclination is to let things rot. I know that there is something wrong with my plant—the one sitting in my kitchen window that Meredith’s mom gave me last summer. But I’m not really sure what to do about it. I’m not being irresponsible, exactly—I am both noticing and responding to its poor condition. The thing about plants, though, is that writing about their poor condition on Substack is rarely the right response.

I have deeply enjoyed reading books with other people lately. It turns out that I would much rather hate a book with others than love a book alone.

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Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar is mostly a disaster. This is the best part of the book:

“I’ve read your poems, Cyrus. I get that you’re Persian. Born there, raised here. I know that’s a part of you. But you’ve probably spent more time looking at your phone today, just today, than you’ve spent cutting open pomegranates in your entire life. Cumulatively. Right? But how many fucking pomegranates are in your poems? Versus how many iPhones? Do you see what I mean?”

That conversation happens within the first 50 pages of the book. For all you half-Iranian Americans out there who have loosely followed Kaveh Akbar’s hipster poet career in the vague hopes of one day seeing yourself reflected in something he had to say, there it is. It’s that pomegranate quote. Now you can read something far better than his book and move on with your life.

The problem is not that its characters are caricatures or that its plot is a mess (though those are both True and Real issues with the book). The problem is that, these days, best-selling authors write like this:

“Cyrus’s holey shoes were flaunting something too: his authenticity, his class antipathy, his allegiance to the proletariat—it was all right there at his feet, waving like two ratty flags. Yes, they were ratty flags made by a billion-dollar shoe company, but there was no ethical consumption under late capitalism and sometimes, Cyrus figured, one had to pick one’s battles. He tried not to think too much about these contradictions.”

Is it supposed to be funny? Am I supposed to laugh? Why is it so over-intellectualized, entirely to no end? Would it have been just too little for Akbar to write that Cyrus had ratty shoes—to let the reader extrapolate their own conclusions thus? Why must I, innocent and considerate fiction reader that I am, be bludgeoned over the head with this character’s entire personal philosophy when it comes to him and his entitled, shitty shoes? YES, THEY WERE RATTY FLAGS MADE BY A BILLION-DOLLAR SHOE COMPANY, BUT THERE WAS NO ETHICAL CONSUMPTION UNDER LATE CAPITALISM AND SOMETIMES, CYRUS FIGURED, ONE HAD TO PICK ONE’S BATTLES. Is this martyrdom. Is this…serious.

Here’s what My Editor had to say about the book:

So what are we supposed to do with art in a cultural economy like this? Am I supposed to read Martyr! hating Cyrus, but relating to his smug self-obsession and neurotic yet hollow gestures to the revolution? Ah, I too had a professor in college that made me read Marx.

Or do I take it all in earnest?

“So much of his psychic bandwidth was taken up with conflicting thoughts about political prepositions. The morality of almond milk. The ethics of yoga. The politics of sonnets. There was nothing in his life that wasn’t contaminated by what he mostly mindlessly called “late capitalism”. He hated it, like everyone was supposed to. But it was a hate that made nothing happen.”

It’s so refreshing that he knows it’s mindless! How very self-aware! Maybe even a little cheeky? Ahahahahaha I love the way that Akbar wasted my time with anti-capitalist lip service, just for us to both know that it does no good and then for him to tell me that he knows that it does no good. Maybe that’s the point, maybe that’s the point. Maybe Akbar’s a genius and I just don’t get it. It makes me want to hit myself in the head with a mallet, cartoon-style.

Recently on Substack, I saw someone promote their friend’s newsletter with the following words: “I’ve been wanting a chic and mean leftist to start a New York City lifestyle blog for YEARS and I think my friend [REDACTED] might have cracked the code.”

So I read the blog, and it was just a rich woman with excessively mainstream rich tastes who was like “you ugly poor losers that buy from Amazon and go to Starbucks wouldn’t understand my slow-consumption glamorous lifestyle where I go to three-dollar-sign cafes to have affogatos after my midday Met visits <3”.

Is leftism just white women making me feel bad for not Living In New York City Whilst Rich? CHIC AND MEAN LEFTIST. Anyways, I think that woman would probably love Martyr!.

post-leftist

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I think about baseball season, and about how America is always usually warm during baseball season (excluding, of course, when Mom and I visited Wrigley Field in June and it was so cold that we had to buy an overpriced Cubs blanket from the fan store just to make it through the third inning). There’s something quite silly about an outdoor sport. It’s what people want to spend their warm time on?

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People close to me: my confession of the night is that I have recently watched the entirety of Season 1 of Girls for the first time. What a rollercoaster! Respectfully, it’s a lot of twee sex scenes and confusing women. When we talk about character growth…do we sometimes just mean that the characters are unreliably/poorly written? As of right now, I have no plans to watch Season 2.

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I will say that being “public” with some of my thoughts in any capacity does occasionally make me feel like I should share all of my thoughts in every capacity. I am listening to “Cowboy Take Me Away” by The Chicks tonight. It is such a fantastic song, and the transition into the chorus is perhaps the best chorus reveal I’ve ever heard. Everyone deserves to listen to this song, today and every day.

And thanks, Mom! I am endlessly grateful that you filled my earliest memories with exceptional music.