[SIC] in TNBBC Presents: The Davis Schneiderman Q&A

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Oct 09, 2013 Christopher Nosnibor rated it it was amazing

I’ve spent many years studying the work of William S. Burroughs, specifically his cut-up works. I was fascinated by the way these texts covered a plethora of theoretical angles and contained so much depth, not to mention the way the narrative voice felt so uniquely Burroughs, despite being a conglomeration of appropriated voices. Specifically, I was taken with the way the cut-ups challenged notions of authorship and the ownership of words.

Continuing the trajectory of the discourse initiated by I’ve spent many years studying the work of William S. Burroughs, specifically his cut-up works. I was fascinated by the way these texts covered a plethora of theoretical angles and contained so much depth, not to mention the way the narrative voice felt so uniquely Burroughs, despite being a conglomeration of appropriated voices. Specifically, I was taken with the way the cut-ups challenged notions of authorship and the ownership of words.

Continuing the trajectory of the discourse initiated by Burroughs, I immersed myself in the work of self-proclaimed plagiarist Stewart Home, before arriving by a circuitous route at the work of Kenji Siratori. Subsequently, I decided I should stop simply dabbling in cut-ups, and commit: enter ‘THE PLAGIARIST’, the anti-novel I didn’t write in three months in 2008. Spam emails collided with ‘Hamlet’ in a virtual blender to create a text that said ‘fuck you’ to copyright and authorship. And then Stewart Home published ‘Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie’, even though he didn’t write it. But then, I couldn’t exactly lay any claim either.

And now we have Davis Schneiderman’s latest ‘novel’, ‘[SIC]’. It’s a crash-course in literary history, a compilation of all the books you should read but probably haven’t, from Anglo-Saxon classics ‘Caedmon’s Hymn’ and ‘Beowulf’ (not in translation) via ‘The Canterbury Tales’ and continues through ‘Hamlet’ (a literary obsession for any writer preoccupied with literary parentage), Pope’s ‘The Rape of the the Lock’,TS Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ all the way to excerpts from ‘An Act for the general revision of the Copyright Law, title 17 of the United States Code, and for other purposes’, ‘Linux 2.0 Penguins’ and ‘Microsoft Beta Test and Commentary’.

In all cases, the only change to the text is the author’s name, and the pieces of text are accompanied by some nice, if strange, photographic visuals (courtesy of Andi Olden). Many of the texts are out of print, others uncredited or otherwise the extracts could reasonably be considered ‘fair use’. And so Schneiderman plays the game of appropriation and continues the debate concerning issues of ownership and authorship.

Time was that plagiarism was considered evil, low-down and dirty, and in certain circles it still is, but Schneiderman is a savvy author who can be seen applying the literary theories of his day-job to his creative output, and this lends his work more credibility, while at the same time rendering it all the more audacious. Talking about her novels ‘Don Quixote’ and ‘Great Expectations’, Kathy Acker asked ‘if I repeated the same text, would it be the same text?’ Davis Schneiderman would evidently contend not.

Like Schneiderman’s previous literary works, ‘[SIC]’ could reasonably described as a ‘concept’ novel. Yet despite the fact he hasn’t technically written a word of it, as you sit and endeavour to untangle the theoretical and ethical complexities of such a work, you realise Schneiderman has produced an entertaining and curiously readable text. And why shouldn’t it be so? As Burroughs asked ‘what does any writer do but choose, edit and rearrange words at his disposal?’ It’s a fair question. It just so happens that with ‘[SIC]’, Schneiderman has applied a very light touch on the editing front. ...more

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Aug 17, 2013 Lori added it

Shelves: downloads, arc-reviewers-copy, books-im-working-with

An interesting concept - its not so much a book to be read, but more-so a look at the ways in which literature is changing, books are changing, copyright and plagiarism is changing...

Who owns what anymore? If I tweak something, does it then become unique? Can I stick my name to it and call it mine?

I will not rate this book because I am promoting it. Those who are interested in reviewing the book here on goodreads should message me.

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Sep 17, 2013 Shane rated it it was amazing

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TNBBC Presents: The Davis Schneiderman Q&A