The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice

by Greil Marcus

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice


A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year


A London Times Literary Supplement Best Book of the Year

In this exhilarating and kaleidoscopic investigation of American identity, Greil Marcus traces the nation's fable of self invention from its earliest Puritan beginnings to its successive retellings in the work of diverse contemporary artists. Marcus considers the birth of America as a New Jerusalem, a place of promises so vast that they could only be betrayed--and how from that betrayal emerged the nation's prophetic voice, the voice that calls America's citizens to self-judgment. Over the course of our history, Marcus finds that the prophetic voice has sounded less and less in the political realm--where it can be heard in the words of John Winthrop, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr.--and more in the work of individual artists, including Philip Roth, David Lynch, Sinclair Lewis, John Dos Passos, David Thomas of Pere Ubu, Allen Ginsberg, the band Heavens to Betsy, Bill Pullman, and Sheryl Lee.

In The Shape of Things to Come, the past and the present merge in the most extraordinary and surprising ways. Greil Marcus presents a stirring, and frightening, portrait of our country, our ideals, and ourselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, History, Essays, American History, Film, Politics

336 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2006

About the author

Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. In recent years he has taught at Berkeley, Princeton, Minnesota, NYU, and the New School in New York. He lives in Oakland, California.

Reviews

[Klaas Roggeman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bought long ago and before a trip to the US it did seem the time to pick it up. The first chapter was promising: an essay into some of the central myths of the US centred around writings by pilgrim John Winthrop, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. Alas the rest of the book is a bunch of overly detailed reviews of some of his favourite artists work and while I like a lot of them (Philip Roth, David Lynch) and would like to get to know better the ones I didn’t know we’ll yet (Pere Ubu). And while some of the insights about their work seem interest, I mostly skimmed that part, the major part of the book, as I would rather be reading the books, seeing the films or listening to the records he’s talking about then reading about them.

[William Guerrant · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author weaves together oikophobic musings on literature, history, and (mostly) pop culture to tell a story of....beats the heck out of me. If there is a point to this mess of a book, this reader was unable to discern it.

[Gijs van Engelen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of it's amazing and Marcus is an impressive writer, but this one is a bit too rambling, overlong and very repetitive.

[Dave-O · Rating 2 out of 5]

If something can feel incomplete and still be a bit genius, this book is it. Its difficult to follow the imaginative threads that Marcus makes for American democracy and pop culture. Avant grade music, Philip Roth books, David Lynch films, Alan Ginsburg's poetry, an obscure graphic novel about Uncle Sam, are used by Marcus as examples of American exceptionalism. An exceptionalism, he notes best exemplified by American artists and not politicians.

Some essays are easier to read than others, but on the whole if you appreciate but don't care this much about Philip Roth or David Lynch (like myself), it makes for even more strained reading. At its best, his writing style has a stream of consciousness brilliance about it (particularly in the last essay). At its worst, it feels like he's pulling from all sorts of sources to make a vaguely interesting thesis about American potential somewhat plausible.

[Andrewhouston · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel like I should like this. Greil Marcus likes the things I like: American history and literature, rock and roll, Bob Dylan, Dave Thomas of Pere Ubu When I read the premise for this book I think "that sounds great!" But I just can't get in to it. His ideas feel more like hat tricks than really well thought out writing. I feel like he keeps making the same point over and over without really expounding on that point. Am I wrong? It seems like a lot of other really respectable people revere him. I felt mostly the same way with "Invisible Republic" which was seemingly also down my alley. I remember liking Lipstick Traces but that was a long time ago. Might have to revisit that.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is all over the place and won't sit still. It's like Greil Marcus somehow turned his behavioral disorder to his advantage. Apparently, ADHD can be a critical method.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Emperor has no clothes. Total gibberish. Got logic?

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice by Greil Marcus

Greil Marcus has always been able to discern something mystical and arcane in popular culture. Towards the end of his 1989 masterwork, Lipstick Traces, he said of Johnny Rotten that he "appears as a mouthpiece; I prefer to think of him as a medium . . . An unknown tradition of old pronouncements, poems and events, a secret history of ancient wishes and defeats, came to bear on Johnny Rotten's voice."

In The Shape of Things to Come Marcus pulls off something like the same trick, this time concentrating on the importance of prophecy to America's idea of itself. Or at least that's how it begins, with Marcus drawing a firm and unchallengeable line from the book of Amos, to John Winthrop's 1630 speech to the Massachusetts Bay Company (where the idea of America as a city on a hill was first broadcast), to Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, to Martin Luther King's astonishingly stirring rhetoric. All used the same imagery, the same Old Testament cadences; all contributed to America's position as an idea, not a country. And it is all the more dangerous as an idea: toxic even to itself, for a prophecy is as much a rebuke as a declaration.

Winthrop made this point explicit: the city upon a hill (it was Reagan who added the adjective "shining" and removed all sense of the foreboding that Winthrop had) was a cynosure, a place where the eyes of the world were upon them, "soe that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken . . . we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world . . . we shall shame the faces of many of god's worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us." In 2005, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, railing on the Senate floor against the evil of state torture, quoted Jefferson's words: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

As you can see, Marcus hops around a bit in history; indeed, he makes connections that are positively audacious. Some of them are so audacious that I can't quite see the connection myself. But the beauty of his language, the passion of his rhetoric and extraordinary critical insight are what people revere Marcus for, as much as for what he is saying, or seeming to say. There's a moment when he describes the blues pianist Otis Spann, playing songs he has made up on the spot after hearing of King's assassination, as "a voice in a building that may be burned to the ground before the day is over". That haunting line is typical of Marcus's aesthetic response; what makes it almost spooky, though, is the fact that Otis was singing in a building that, owing to the rioting that was taking place across the country, might literally have been burned to the ground before that day was over.

This is the first part of the book, and it's worth the (rather steep) cover price alone. Marcus then takes us, dizzyingly, through John Dos Passos's U.S.A. (in which "the Bill of Rights is a children's story, the Constitution a rumour") and Philip Roth's novels from American Pastoral to The Plot Against America. These are masterly expositions, Marcus finding in them a continuum of exasperated fascination with American identity, the flawed duality that found its most alarming expression in the words of the financier Jay Gould in 1886: "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."

Unfamiliarity with the works cited is no bar, although later on it doesn't help when Marcus writes, at length, about David Lynch's Twin Peaks and the works of David Thomas, the Pere Ubu singer who never troubled the charts. I warn you: there are going to be times during this book when you will wonder whether Marcus's mind has exploded, or yours has. Maybe both. A TLS review of the book described him as "a pirate radiostation broadcasting late at night from the heart of the lost republic"; and sometimes voices like that start to babble. But it is never dull, and the insights you pick up you won't get anywhere else.

The Guardian Nicholas Lezard 4 Aug 2007.

[Lucas Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Mystery Train when I was an undergrad and it blew me away. I had grand plans to read all the "rock critics" very seriously. I never followed through, but I picked this book up maybe a decade ago at a used bookstore. It was relatively new back then, and struck me as a great idea. Marcus applying his critical acumen to American history.

The book does and doesn't live up to my expectation. The prologue and epilogue could belong to a different book as far as I am concerned. Utilizing three speeches as the basis for the American Voice of prophecy (Winthrop's "Christian Charity", Lincoln's Second Inaugural, and King's "I Have a Dream") Marcus sets out to find this prophetic voice in individual cultural artifacts. A long meditation on Three Philip Roth books as modern version's of Dos Passos U.S.A. trilogy (I've read none of them), Bill Pullman in Lost Highway (never seen it), Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks (watched most of it), and David Thomas over the long career of Pere Ubu (The Modern Dance is pretty good!).

The biggest criticism I can lob at this book is that Marcus is all over the place, there a lot of stuff about the 9/11 attacks, the epilogue is about Allen Ginsburg readings in the 1990s, there are generous quotations from students when Marcus was a professor at Princeton, Steve Erickson makes several appearances. It can be hard to follow sometimes, but the propulsive way things blur together can also force you from one page to the next. It's a lot.

The first half of the books, maybe just the prologue and the Roth chapter, with the epilogue thrown in would be enough for me. The first Lynch chapters has some moments. I dig the way Marcus talks about Lynch in a general/big picture way, less sure about how he breaks down the individual films. The Pere Ubu chapter ended with about 20 pages I skimmed.

This is perhaps a book for dedicated Greil Marcus fans, but I'm not disappointed, and I am glad that there are dedicated Greil Marcus fans out there. But go read Mystery Train. Get a copy of Stranded. Buy a book of Ellen Willis' music writing. Hell, reread Lester Bangs.

[Malcolm · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd be surprised if anybody has read this book without skimming. I tried to read all the portions about Twin Peaks, 24, Pere Ubu and Bikini Kill. Read a fair amount about John Winthrop and how Reagan misconstrued his City on a Hill analogy. Plenty of interesting ruminations here, but somehow in COVID time I had no patience for it.

[Bob Redmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me four years to read this book, primarily because Marcus' incisive cultural critiques crack open my skull, and once I realized this was happening, I had to put it aside.

Marcus broadens his music-culture purview in this 2006 book to tackle America itself, specifically its capacity, even necessity, of failed promise. From the "City on a Hill" vision of John Winthrop, sailing into Jamestown in 1630, through Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr, says Marcus, America has had consistent prophets both warning and entreating us.

The "warning" is essential in Marcus' description of prophecy, with roots in the old testament's God of harsh reality. What else could one say to a country capable of genocides, slavery, and the killing of 620,000 in the Civil War, if that country were challenged to any degree of self-examination and potential improvement? In other words: be careful what you wish for.

With lightning prose, Marcus moves through American history with asides from some of his favorite muses (Dylan, Delta blues). After the introductory chapter, he explains that the question of America has changed residences, after 330 years' company with preachers and politicians. The new dialogue lives in the arts, says Marcus, where its rent is paid by Philip Roth, David Lynch, Sheryl Lee, Allen Ginsberg, and others who both subvert and create the cultural discourse.

At its best, this book is a fearless investigation into the USA and the dreams/lies we have told ourselves for most of 4 centuries. Marcus illuminates a sustained dialogue through time, even as that dialogue jumps tracks and heads subterranean and homesick. He contrasts novelists John Dos Passos and Philip Roth, limns the plots of forgotten movies (the noir DETOUR, the western THE VIRGINIAN), and relates some truly hilarious tales from Pere Ubu's David Thomas. He structures the book as a jaunt through time and the country, from east to west, the nation a shining light just out of reach over the horizon.

At its worst, the book is a tedious summary of movie plots and novels, with Marcus forcing his thesis on unwitting writers and artists. He interchanges the authors with their characters, plot points with reality, without any consistency; his ability to parse and explode a lyric simply does not translate when he tries it with an entire screenplay or novel.

Furthermore, it doesn't take a genius to know which way things work in this country. The vision of a "city on a hill" has been used as a golden carrot (or blackjack) well before Ronald Reagan, from posters abroad encouraging emigration, to promises to settlers (used as pawns in the Indian Wars), to gold rush suppliers, to today's housing loan sharks and oil markets promising offshore potential even as the stuff washes in on the tide.

The most compelling question Marcus raises (then mostly ignores) is how politics and pulpits abandoned serious dialogue. He locates the moment precisely--on April 4, 1968, on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis--but fails to explain how the writers and artists took over the conversation. Or: if the writers and artists took it over as a subverted, sublimated address, was it their gnostic encryption, or is it Marcus' own, that makes it so dense and secret?

Marcus is at his best more often than his worst. The first 38 pages alone are worth the price of admission, and just when he's boring the hell out of you later, he drops a description of America, via David Lynch, like this (p. 143): "America is a field not for self-invention but for displacement, and the individual is not someone who can grow up to be president but merely a host for infectious disease. …The doubt that the country has anything left to say to the ordinary man or woman…is replaced by the certainty that it doesn't."

And that is what cracks my skull open: the revelation of the reality. Perhaps it isn't something we like to look at very often. As a prophet true to his own form, Marcus is asking us to look around and see what's going down, or maybe rising up.

*

WHY I READ THIS BOOK: Working at Experience Music Project in the early part of the new century, I had access to EMP's formidable internal library. Walking down the hall to it was like going to a candy store, and I devoured as many books and records as I could. I delved into Peter Guralnick's monumental biography of Elvis, Nelson George's writings on hip-hop and R&B, and Robert Palmer on the blues. What really killed me, though, was Greil Marcus' Mystery Train and Invisible Republic. Suddenly the revolution of music, its possibility, was revealed.

Later, when curating the Arts program for the Bumbershoot festival, I saw that Marcus' new book was coming out. I started reading the galley from the publisher, and took the opportunity to invite Marcus to the festival (he accepted). I knew that a full-scale inquiry into America, even as George W Bush was halfway through his second term, was not something I could completely stomach, and it took me until a year through Obama's first term, and my own departure from Bumbershoot (the revolutionary power of which I had begun to doubt), to return to Marcus.

[James Klagge · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have previously read 3 books by Marcus, and enjoyed or at least appreciated them--Mystery Train, Invisible Republic, and a collection of his essays on Dylan. The only one I've read in the last 10 years (since I began tracking my reading here) is the collection, for which I began my review thus: "I doubt Greil Marcus is a pleasant person, and I don't often agree with him, but he is well worth reading when it comes to Bob Dylan, rock music, blues, or old-time music. He knows a huge amount, and always has an opinion."
In this book he addresses something else. I guess you could say his topic here is the idea of America as it is expressed in prophetic expression. I chose to buy and read the book b/c it seemed that it would illuminate 3 speeches I find interesting--a colonial sermon by John Winthrop, Lincoln's second inaugural, and King's Dream speech. But they are mere touchstones for surveying a hodgepodge of novels, movies, songs and art. I guess I cannot blame Marcus for the fact that I was unfamiliar with much of this hodgepodge. But I wonder who the audience is that IS familiar with (even) much of it. I also don't blame Marcus for being so cultured, but he is, I would say, unwilling to write for anyone other than equally cultured cognoscenti. This fact made the book mostly impenetrable for me.
But I have an additional qualm. What Marcus does with this wide range of material puzzles me. I guess I would say that his "method" is stream-of-consciousness: one thing makes him think of something else, so he moves on to that. For example, one move that he makes is to say what character from some literary work would play what character in, say, a movie. And he is quite comfortable stating connections between various works that seem to consist in little more than the fact that he says so. I guess this is known as reading one thing "in light of" another. I suppose we all do that to some extent. But the connections are generally so personal that you would never expect anyone else to appreciate them or even get them. But Marcus takes these personal links to be publishable.
I don't hold it against Marcus that he thinks we should be interested in his trains of thought, but I do expect a publisher's editor to insist that there be more to a train of thought than that the author traversed it. The back cover of the book calls itself "Cultural Criticism." Perhaps that is the "methodology" of that discipline--but it strikes me as simply UNdisciplined.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

What do David Lynch, John Winthrop, Abraham Lincoln, Philip Roth, Pere Ubu, John Grisham, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Allen Ginsberg, John Dos Passos, Sleater-Kinney, and Robert McNamara have in common? If you read this book, you might be able to to answer this question. Then again, you'd be forgiven if an answer is not at the tip of your tongue.

I still have a few questions. What is the American voice? What brings us from the City on a Hill to Mulholland Drive (besides similar topography). Does our cultural narrative really amount to a schizoid, shape-shifting force which alternates between utopia and unspeakable doom? Is defiance, deviance, or reaction a prerequisite for American speech and American experience? Is there a middle ground between our opposing poles, or only barren no man's land? Or shall we call it a Borderland (too loaded a term, perhaps)? So what is distinctly American about all of this? And what makes John Grisham a prophet?

Easy answers to these questions cannot be found in this book, but if you listen closely a sort of resonance can be heard. The resonance is sustained throughout discussions of Marcus's sources. "Shape" could be delivered as an incredibly long marathon lecture. The writing style is sufficiently peripatetic. But sitting down for a long lecture doesn't exactly mesh with the message. A cross-country drive might be better, with Greil as the chatty hitchhiker. Or perhaps "Shape" could be presented as talking book recorded on the back of a southbound freight train with quiet banjo strumming in the background. Now, THAT would be American.

[Stop]

Read the STOP SMILING interview with Greil Marcus:

A Wonderful Kind of Mess

by Kathryn Knight

The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice, Greil Marcus’s latest book, demands to be put down. And picked up. And put down. And picked up. I had to force myself to read on not because the writing was shabby — quite the contrary — but because every sentence, paragraph and page is full of Marcus’s tangential observations on American film, music, literature and politics, all of which led this reader, inevitably, to reflection, rumination and largely lolling about in a chair, unexpectedly reeling from the surprising relationship between, say, Twin Peaks’ Laura Palmer and Bikini Kill.

Consider the following list of people, taken at random, from pages 48-49: Philip Roth, John Dos Passos, Kenneth Rexroth, Jay Gould, Henry Fonda, Richard Speck, Ishmael. Here are a handful of dots dexterously connected by Marcus, all in the name of explicating America, which Marcus characterizes as an impossible marriage of self-invention and tradition, non-conformity and acquiescence, where “every blessing contains its punishment.”

Read the STOP SMILING interview...

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always considered Greil Marcus one of America’s more profound and interesting cultural critics. I found his old Real Life Rock Top 10 columns for Salon, and now for The Believer magazine, eclectic and interesting. He shows this once again with his fascinating book The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice. He looks at the American tradition and where it is going by looking at cultural artifacts as diverse as sermons by John Winthrop, the novels of Philip Roth, the films of David Lynch, the music of David Thomas and Pere Ubu, and the poetry of Allen Ginsberg. Marcus mixes his eclectic knowledge of history and high and low culture to explain what it means to be an American today. He clearly understands the significance of the puritan tradition in a modern context. He sees the values of society reflected in pulp fiction, popular music, literature, TV, films, and other works of art. There is a prologue and an epilogue and in between are the following sections: Philip Roth and the Lost republic, American Berserk: Bill Pullman’s Face, American Pastoral: Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer, Crank Prophet Bestride America, Grinning: David Thomas. I’m not sure I can summarize Marcus’ conclusions, but getting to the end was a enjoyable and fascinating trip.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed this for Flak Magazine, and I've said a whole bunch of things I wanted to say already, so I'm just going to add a few things here.

The thing is, I love what Marcus does. Related texts from high culture to low culture (neither designation really means anything, I know) which create a form, a pattern and a narrative that tells social history. Awesome.

And he's very good at it. The thing is, I can't quite investigate these things further. A good third of what he mentions (and he mentions a lot) is either too obscure for little old me to find in the bigger world, or its just disparate, almost random material that I just kind of have to take his word for it.

that said, a valiant effort for a strong, though uneven book.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is weird and i am not even sure it makes sense. Apparently Marcus believes there is some sort of prophetic voice that connects the works of Philip Roth, Pere Ubu, and David Lynch (most specifically in Twin Peaks if I remember correctly). The most concrete idea in this book is that America is a promise impossible to keep and therefore betrayed.

Either I missed something or Marcus is reaching. Still, it is kinda fun to read. Maybe it's because I never really did get the music of Pere Ubu.

[Lisle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm never going to finish this. It had such a dry tone. It was kind of interesting, but I was really having to push just to skim it. This time of year (early September), makes it hard for me to think about prophecies. But I guess I needed to this some about Lincoln's second inaugural address and its relation to Dr. King's dream. Greil Marcus was one of my icons as a teen. It is good to see that he is still thinking deep thoughts, and that linking them to rock and roll is not oxymoronic.

[robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marcus always inspires me. I don't read his books straight through, I just dip in when the mood strikes. He usually makes me feel excited and energized. Perhaps this quote from page 185 encapsulates what I mean: "All these years later the thrill of what Thomas Jefferson called 'public happiness' still leaps off the pages -- the thrill of discovering the infinite subtlety of the language of oppression, and creating the language of refusal."

[John]

I will commit myself; the book is brilliant, Frightening, exciting, sickening. It brings you alive as an american.--Devin McKinney The American Prospect..... This is a page turner, .. truth not fiction thru popular culture.. for those who truly feel they want to know what the quantifiable collective American consciousness may represent.... stay tuned.

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goddammit. I typed a long-ass review of this and for some reason it didn't save. I'm not gonna type it again, but in a nutshell, if you like Greil Marcus, read this. If you don't like Greil Marcus, keep on reading Chuck Klosterman or whatever. If you've never read Greil Marcus, start with "Lipstick Traces". Phew. Hope this one works.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greil Marcus is the rock star of academic writing. I'm not sure what the point of this book was, really, or that I can believe that "the American Voice" runs through Bill Pullman's facial expressions as much as it did Abraham Lincoln's speeches and John Winthrop's sermons, but Greil Marcus is a pretty cool guy for trying to draw the connection.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have given it five stars if it wasn't for the Pere Ubu essay. Ii've heard many arguments on the belief of America being a symbol, a gilded result of prophetic vision, but few social commentators can clearly break down the pathos of that argument and deconstruct its meaning and shortcomings. Greil can.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would have gotten four stars from me except that it was a little scattered. The subject matter is interesting enough (basically, the role of the American myth - America as the New Jerusalem - in American history and thought) and it is apt enough reading with Thanksgiving around the corner.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

To spend time with Greil Marcus is a pleasure. Here is a group of essaays regarding America of sorts via the writings of Philip Roth and more important to me, the films of David Lynch. He also gets points for mentioning Bruce Conners, who for sure influenced Lynch.

[Joseph Volk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marcus' treatment of Phillip Roth and David Lynch combine to make this book worth the read and that's not even mentioning all the rest of the ground he covers. Loving, creative, and personal, this is the best kind of criticism.

[Andrewh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Up to Greil Marcus' usual brilliant if opaque standard of writing - if you like his free-associating, cultural-archaelogical style, then you should read this; manages to draw connections between the US puritan tradition to avant-garde rockers Pere Ubu, so go figure.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent a whole semester on this book for an English class and hated every minute of it. However, the moment I started writing about Marcus's ideas, I began to like them. Looking back, it really was an interesting read. I'll never look at Bill Pullman the same way again.

[Grace Krilanovich · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was surprised by the Heavens to Betsy chapter. Nobody talks about this band, especially in books with the american flag on the cover. Unfortunately none of it really connected.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greil Marcus may be the best cultural critic we have today. His expansive meditations on topics as disparate as Pere Ubu, Philip Roth, and David Lynch are essential.