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R.A. Raab's Reviews > 10:04
10:04
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I’m going to let the text of 10:04 by Ben Lerner do all the talking for me. This excerpt comes from page 47 of the book. See you at the bottom!
“So this is how it works, I said to myself, as if I’d caught an ideological mechanism in flagrante delicto: you let a young man committed to anticapitalist struggle shower in the overpriced apartment that you rent and, while making a meal you prepare to eat in common, your thoughts lead you inexorably to the desire to reproduce your own genetic material within some version of a bourgeois household, that almost caricatural transvaluation of values lubricated by wine and song. Your gesture of briefly placing a tiny part of the domestic–your bathroom–into the commons leads you to redescribe the possibility of collective politics as the private drama of the family. All of this in the time it took to prepare an Andean chenopod. What you need to do is harness the self-love you are hypostasizing as offspring, as the next generation of you, and let it branch out horizontally into the possibility of a transpersonal revolutionary subject in the present and co-construct a world in which moments can be something other than the elements of profit.”
Um … what??? If this sounds like great writing to you, then I strongly encourage you to read this book. To me, it sounds like a writing undergrad trying to impress his professor as he sits at his laptop surrounded by dictionaries and thesauri. Unreadable, pretentious dreck. Zero Stars.
“So this is how it works, I said to myself, as if I’d caught an ideological mechanism in flagrante delicto: you let a young man committed to anticapitalist struggle shower in the overpriced apartment that you rent and, while making a meal you prepare to eat in common, your thoughts lead you inexorably to the desire to reproduce your own genetic material within some version of a bourgeois household, that almost caricatural transvaluation of values lubricated by wine and song. Your gesture of briefly placing a tiny part of the domestic–your bathroom–into the commons leads you to redescribe the possibility of collective politics as the private drama of the family. All of this in the time it took to prepare an Andean chenopod. What you need to do is harness the self-love you are hypostasizing as offspring, as the next generation of you, and let it branch out horizontally into the possibility of a transpersonal revolutionary subject in the present and co-construct a world in which moments can be something other than the elements of profit.”
Um … what??? If this sounds like great writing to you, then I strongly encourage you to read this book. To me, it sounds like a writing undergrad trying to impress his professor as he sits at his laptop surrounded by dictionaries and thesauri. Unreadable, pretentious dreck. Zero Stars.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
September 29, 2014
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Comments Showing 1-50 of 54 (54 new)
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The Indie Bob Spot
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Oct 07, 2014 07:04AM
Totally agree and your excerpt is the PERFECT example of why I couldn't hack getting through this book.
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Thanks! I REALLY wanted to like it, but it felt like homework.
Totally agree. I abandoned this after about 20-30 pages.FWIW, if you hated this, do not ever attempt Pynchon. Much more of the same, and author in love with his own voice who doesn't give a crap about the reader.
Thanks. I quit at page 14 when he used "multifingered extremities" instead of just "hands".
Thanks. I quit at page 14 when he used "multifingered extremities" instead of just "hands".
That is the perfect way to describe this book. Just a sample of the writing.
Thank you for posting this. Time and money officially saved.
Thanks I just read a rave review of this and at no point did the reviewer mention that the book is written in this supremely irritating manner. Won't bother - cheers !
Thanks I just read a rave review of this and at no point did the reviewer mention that the book is written in this supremely irritating manner. Won't bother - cheers !
That is exactly how far I got before I said I can't possibly read another word of this poseur. Exactly the same line! He's trying way, way too hard to be among the literati instead of trying to write well. Enough. I'm outta here.
Oh wow, you have saved me from an inexplicably frustrating monetary transaction to only unwittingly become stumped at the inexplicable subtextual language that is in my vocabulary best described as ....waffle. Thank you from the honest review, much appreciated!
Lyndsy wrote: "Oh wow, you have saved me from an inexplicably frustrating monetary transaction to only unwittingly become stumped at the inexplicable subtextual language that is in my vocabulary best described as..."Well said.
JDK1962 wrote: "Totally agree. I abandoned this after about 20-30 pages.FWIW, if you hated this, do not ever attempt Pynchon. Much more of the same, and author in love with his own voice who doesn't give a crap ..."
Thanks! I'll be sure to stay away from that one too!
Ack! Thanks for saving me from this nonsense. I'll pass.
This is how I felt after reading part of Atocha Station (the string of meaningless words). If 10:04 is more of the same then I'll pass.
I decided to read it after all and actually thought it was good in ways that not everyone can appreciate. As I said in my review, I didn't particularly enjoy it though.
On the basis of your excerpt, I don't think I need to read this one. What a relief! One less book on the wishlist.
Funny, I had gotten to exactly this passage in the book when I decided to look at Goodreads to find out what other readers thought of this convoluted mess.
Wow, there are people out there who won't read a book based on a not particularly representative fragment posted by some unknown.
Ha! You isolated the exact passage I just read before putting the book down & opening the Good Reads App to see what people have said about it! I enjoyed Atocha, but so-far, ~60 pages in, I'm not hugely engaged. And Peter, I take your point, but that passage is hardly wildly unrepresentative of the novel!
You didn't even mention any of the many octopus projections...
same page this author lost me. please don't compare him to pynchon though, who couldn't be any less self-absorbed than this insufferable brooklyn boy.
I breezed through this book, despite the apparent pretentiousness in certain parts. I think he was kind of deliberately satirising himself, as this is kind of a book within a book within a book and deliberately highlights a lot of the bullshit in the art world. For example the part about the totaled art that has no official value just because an insurance company says so.What I enjoyed about it was the obscure narrative timeline that to me captured the process of writing despite insecurities about expectations of art, I loved the social commentaries too, the changed present in the face of a changing future. I thought the examples he uses are great.
I agree with your point to an extent, but I think I think the character and the writer are aware of there own absurdity and it's highlighted at the end where he acknowledges he has become part of the institution when talking to a student who, although he agrees with, is concerned for. And during the ketaming scene, where he abandons the norms of the art world and helps the intern despite everyone else's fashionably blaze responses to a young man in need. He then compares himself to Walt Whitman who he earlier criticised.
Excuse the many typos ^
Yes Carolyn, I kind of predicted the octopus would be a running themefficiently throughout the book, he even aknowleges not acknowledging them at the end when getting the ultrasound with Alex, I thought that was a nice touch.
I thought this book was good: it felt new, novel, from an angle I never quite expected. Plotless, dynamic, overloaded with hypotactic sentences...a meta-novel of the highest order.
Absolutely brilliant. How's it possible to combine metaliterary speculations with a strong storytelling drive?
Wow, when I actually got to this passage I was pissed at you for taking it out of context. This is the climax of a mundane sequence built deftly from Ben's inability to cook. The way you put it here, it's like the whole book is written like this -- it's not -- in talking down to the reader with convoluted language. The passage is A. self-directed and is summing up previous events your Goodreads audience had no access to and B. is heightened specifically to draw attention to how Ben can't cook but CAN think, and the disconnection between the two. Dishonest. And for what?
That sounds great actually, thanks, gonna buy it.
This section is the point at which I seriously questioned whether on not I wanted to read this book. I read this book and I am glad that I finished it, though I didn't love it.
I agree with August.That passage you quoted?
Even out of context, it's hilarious. Too bad you didn't have any fun with this one.
1. Just to be clear: are you unaware that the passage you cited and it's verbosity are comedic? As is... most of the book?2. ffs just say "thesauruses"
The smartest novel, and one of the funniest, I've read in years. Ben Lerner is an ingenious storyteller but also a philosopher of sorts, and someone who's found the right voice for his subject and his time: ironic, lightly self-deprecating, and immensely sophisticated about literature itself.
Thanks for the recommendation, this is a nice passage that has got me interested. Also, lol, lol, LOL, @ everyone who said they wouldn't bother with Thomas Pynchon because of an external perceived similarity to a book you haven't read.
Not exactly sure how I ended up here this morning, but I'd be remiss not to reinforce how outrageous it would be to 'cross Pynchon off your list' due to this review.
I have many problems with this book but ironically the excerpt you have chosen is not one of them!
The best part is that if you'd tried a little harder with the last full sentence of this review, it would be a spot-on description of the archetype that the book is intentionally satirizing. Stay tuned for RA's next review: why Machiavelli's The Prince just sounds like some soulless ruler who only cares about expanding his territory
JDK1962 wrote: "Totally agree. I abandoned this after about 20-30 pages.... and I dragged myself through 150 before throwing in the (desicated) towel -- thats 120-130 I'll never get back.
FWIW, if you hated this, do not ever attempt Pynchon. Much more of the same, and author in love with his own voice who doesn't give a crap ..."
I think all good authors are or should be in love with their own voice. A confident author knows he or she is good and the writing should in fact reflect that.
Yeah, I guess it's not for everyone. I thought it was brilliant. A rare gem.
Safran Foer did it first and did it better. He actually did it with cogent thought not fever dream ramblings. This book is absolute drivel.
Ugh no. Don't make me read a book where I have to look up the definition of every third word.
Thanks for the warning. Obviously the Guardian is singing it's praises right now; which makes total sense since they are whores of the Booker Prize which admirably rewards accolades to books that will waste many hours within our limited life spans, and steal our hard earned money in the hope of making us feel smart.
