The Literary Reality Index

We live in a hyperfast electronic world with no space for humanity. We’re detached from reality. Most of our entertainment consists of escapes from, or bad simulations of, reality. The biggest part of the publishing business at the current time consists of various versions of fantasy. Sci-fi, romantasy, fake medieval pseudo-histories of thrones and dragons, lords of hobbits or robots, idiotic spaceships talking lions and what not. At their core, nonsense.

Recently I read (reread really) Mario Puzo’s little-known first novel, The Dark Arena, published in 1955. A tough narrative set in post-World War II Germany during the American occupation, when the landscape consisted of bombed-out ruins and life was brutal.

The novel wasn’t a hit when it came out. Too much reality. Maybe for the same reason, it’s been ignored by critics and cognoscenti in the decades since. A hard portrayal of societal chaos: perhaps a cautionary look at where we’re headed.

The book got me thinking about realistic fiction– though The Dark Arena might better be classified as Zolaesque naturalism. “Realism” in the context of a defanged literary world has always been a narrow version of the term. Guaranteed not to offend powers-that-be in the clubby world of the literati. Never going too deep into human nature and the human condition, much less the broader context of society and its layers of crimes and cruelties.

ANYWAY, some off-the-cuff reality ratings of several in-this-world novels:

-Wuthering Heights/Bronte: 92
-Bleak House/Dickens: 96
-The Idiot/Dostoevsky: 97
-The Dark Arena/Puzo: 98
-City for Conquest/Kandel: 98
-Don’t Stop the Carnival/Wouk: 88

OTHERS

-The Great Gatsby/Fitzgerald: 50
-Vineland/Pynchon: 40
-Harry Potter/Rowling: 20
-The Hobbit/Tolkien: 10

Thoughts? Suggestions? Let us know!

-K.W.

Billionaire Frenzy!

OUT-OF-CONTROL MONEY

(image c/o onlocationxp)

EPSTEIN FILES revelations are showing the true face of our corporate-financial overlords, and it’s not pretty. More like viewing a monster movie.

(image c/o Famous Monsters of Filmland)

IN A MOMENT of perfect timing, this Sunday is THE SUPERBOWL. (“Yaaay!”) Don’t expect regular people to be there. Hyper-expensive seats and skyboxes will be filled by corporate types, most of them there on your dime via tax write-offs and deductions as “business expenses.” Right now there are tighter restrictions on aid to the poor in order to pay for those at the top of the too-steep American hierarchy: those at the game.

The SUPERBOWL– where even the players are millionaires, some near-billionaires– is an orgiastic celebration of greed for the monied elite. The football stadium and its environs is the perfect setting for an out-of-control Epsteinesque party; sports stadiums perhaps the best example of how politicians, and by extension We the People, are manipulated and defrauded by Big Money. Billionaire team owners, like pampered five year-olds, threaten to take their toys elsewhere unless a city or state (taxpayers) help pay for the giant stadium along with endless subsidies and tax abatements. The owners almost always get their way.

(A possibly even more egregious example of sports excess is college football. Prestigious universities have become mere adjuncts to the money-generating sports teams.)

A NEW SCAM is being currently run by the wealthiest tech moguls on the planet in regard to data centers. “Build us more data centers! We need them for AI! Allow us to consume enormous amounts of water and energy– or we’ll locate in another state!” Tech guys could invent the Destroy Humanity Machine– maybe they have– and offer it as a gift, accompanied by empty promises, and hapless politicians would comply.

America today.

***

(Be sure to read this poem at our Fast Pop Lit site about the 2025 Super Bowl.)

(Also, we just posted a short humor piece there which includes an NFL player.)

-Karl Wenclas

“I Married an ICE Agent!”

NEW “FICTION”

(image c/o USA Today)

At the beginning of our marriage, my husband seemed normal.

The first thing which aroused my suspicion was his insistence on moving his own sofa into the modest house we’d bought.

“Honey, I thought we’d get a new matching living room set,” I told him. “There’s all kinds of sales going on right now.”

To that he stared, as if his best friend had died.

“You see, I’ve had my sofa a long time,” he explained. “I feel close to it.”

I said that was okay, too. Whatever he wanted. It was all okay. I was a new wife and was in love with him and wanted everything to be okay.

Looking back though, the first clue before our marriage was when we were handling the legal end of it. He was thrown that I had to send for a copy of my birth certificate. “You don’t have a birth certificate?” he asked, surprised.

“Oh, I have one. Had one, I mean. Or my parents had it, but I have no idea what happened to it. I mean, who ever needs their birth certificate? But it’s fine, there’s one on file. I’ll send for it.”

Then there was the eyebrow incident, when he realized my eyebrows were naturally dark. Black, actually.

“I didn’t know your eyebrows were so . . . dark,” he remarked, touching them with his finger early one morning.

“Of course they are, silly!” I said. “It’s my Slavic background on my mom’s side. She always said we had some Tartar blood in us. Did you think it was make-up? Besides, thick black eyebrows are the style right now.”

“Tartar?” he said.

Don’t get me wrong. By all indicators he was a good husband. He made very good money. Many bonuses. Though he was always vague about what he actually did.

“A government job,” he’d say. “Removals, er, maintenance. Cleaning things up.”

He’d leave early morning with a large duffel bag crammed with what he said were clothes and “work stuff.”

Then there was his attitude toward my doctor.

“You have an Indian doctor?” he asked, shocked. “Do you really have to see him?”

There were his pat-downs of me, which he explained as foreplay, and then wanting to put me into handcuffs. Or his practicing barreling through doors, which he rationalized as exercise. Or the time I caught him down the basement late at night listening to German martial music. I thought I glimpsed his arm go up in a straight-armed salute, but I wasn’t sure.

Eventually, as media stories about ICE began to appear, he’d steer me away from watching television. “Er, that’s not about us,” he’d say. “Not our concern.” Then the TV stopped working altogether. The cord to plug it in had been cut.

The next day he decided we had to move from the house. “Temporarily,” he said. “I hope.”

A suitcase for himself was already packed. He brought mine out from a closet. “Hurry!” he said. “Grab some clothes. Load it up.”

His duffel bag waited in the back of the truck. He handed me a blue ski mask.

“Here, put it on,” he requested. “Just do it”– as he wrapped a green scarf around his own head, only his hazel eyes and pale eyebrows visible above it.

We clambered into the truck. Outraged demonstrators filled our street. Their outrage was directed at us. In the truck, engine coughing to life, we drove fast up curbs and down alleys to get away. The mob continued to follow. Whistles and shouting. In the distance ahead of us, another angry crowd, carrying signs while growing ever larger.

I thought then to ask a question that’d been on my mind.

“Honey, do you work for ICE?”

-K. Wenclas

The Humidorean Reaction

COUNTERREVOLT OF PROFESSORS AND CIGARS

(images c/o storablesdotcom)

TO EVERY CHANGE there ‘s an inevitable reaction. We’ve been seeing this in American culture– higher levels of the academy anyway– via expressions of outrage about DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs designed to level the playing field amid inevitable advantages built-in to our society, especially upper levels of society, over 250 years.

The Great Reaction has begun! An attempt by some of the most privileged members of society to return to a never-fair-or-efficient status quo. Ivy League voices are at the forefront of the sudden noisemaking.

Like pricey cigars, much expense went into creating them. Private schools. Tutors for standardized exams. Everything paid for. Much care and nurturing. They were made in a climate-controlled or climate-friendly environment, and have been stored in humidors to ensure their delicate constitutions are preserved without disruption.

Now, suddenly, the expensive cigars, er, I mean, intellectuals, have risen in outrage! Aristocrats on the march! Upset at mere hints at mild changes to their privileged environment. The status quo must be maintained! The prospect of change is intolerable to them.

Study the biographies of the loudest voices against DEI programs actual or proposed (those in support of the Jacob Savage Compact Mag essay), and you see they themselves have not been inconvenienced. The thought of potential inconvenience was quite enough to set them off.

Most of them in fact benefited throughout their lives from family connections and class background, were recipients of a very different kind of affirmative action program. One to ensure they’d always remain, at home, school, or work, within their comfortably safe humidors!

-KW

Worst ChristmasMovie Ever?

IS POLAR EXPRESS THE WORST CHRISTMAS MOVIE?

COMBINE really bad digital animation, a thudding soundtrack, Grade B imitation John Williams score, Grade C imitation Spielberg direction, Tom Hanks, and a cynically manipulative pull-out-all-stops plot, and you have, if not the worst Christmas movie ever, the most irritating. Being subjected to watching it at relatives’ homes, or at the stray coffee shop or saloon cluelessly playing it this time of year, is akin to being tortured by Nazis. The impulse being to scream, “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! Just shut it off!!”

BUT MAYBE you believe there are other Christmas movies out there even worse. If so, let us know in the comments.

Another Reading List

BOOKS FOR FALLING IN LOVE WITH WRITING AND LITERATURE

by Kathleen M. Crane

This is a list of the books I’ve most enjoyed, the ones I will reread, the ones I can lose myself in. It is the definitive list for me of essential reading– but reading is an individual experience, and each person’s journey is different.

(Arranged according to publication date.)

1.) Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen.

2.) Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte.

3.) The Idiot (1868) by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

4.) Anna Karenina (1878) by Leo Tolstoy.

5.) The Sun Also Rises (1926) by Ernest Hemingway.

6.) Tender Is the Night (1934) by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

7.) Nine Stories (1953) by J. D. Salinger.

8.) Marjorie Morningstar (1955) by Herman Wouk.

9.) Foreign Affairs (1984) by Alison Lurie.

10.) The Garden of Eden (1986) by Ernest Hemingway.

11.) Bad Behavior (1988) by Mary Gaitskill.

12.) Just Kids (2010) by Patti Smith.

Kathleen M. Crane is Assistant Editor at New Pop Lit.

Not-the-Usual-Suspects Reading List

LITERARY UNORTHODOXY

With everyone and his doppelganger posting their recommended literary reading list, I’ve decided to post mine.

These are books to read in part because few in today’s literary community suggest reading them. The idea being to find new sources of influence, and thereby, perhaps, discover new ways of writing a novel or story.

Anyway, here are my “Top Ten” suggested novels to read, with brief reasons why you should read them.

1.) The Octopus (1901) by Frank Norris.

About a monstrous business monopoly crushing independent ranchers in a California valley. As timely today, when our economy is run by gigantic companies and ruthless business monopolies.

2.) City for Conquest (1936) by Aben Kandel.

How New York City became New York City. A mass of realism, from the ground up. The kind of writing which is never, ever published now.

3.) Guard of Honor (1948) by James Gould Cozzens.

A three-day examination of problems and personalities on a U.S. Army Air Corps base during the Second World War. An inside look at the creation of American empire. Wonderfully structured. An organization as a system or machine, near-breakdowns included.

4.) Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley.

Amazingly intelligent and well-written. A portrayal of A.I. 200 years before A.I., philosophical questions included.

5.) Farewell My Lovely (1940) by Raymond Chandler.

The genre novel as art. Unsurpassed atmosphere and style.

6.) Villette (1853) by Charlotte Bronte.

Described as a romance, it’s really a mystery– the mystery of personality– with no fantasy, although there is an unforgettable dream(?) sequence.

7.) Passage of Arms (1959) by Eric Ambler.

Arms dealers, terrorists, tourists, entrepreneurs, prisons, government bureaucrats– a timely and timeless look at how the world works. One of a number of Ambler novels which could’ve been included.

8.) God’s Little Acre (1933) by Erskine Caldwell.

Amid the broad, white-trash humor and steamy sex scenes is a subplot about the industrialization of the South, including a strike at a low-pay, harsh-conditions factory. Some Great Depression reality.

9.) She (1887) by H. Rider Haggard.

Likely not politically correct, as the setting is British imperialism in deepest Africa– but the actual journey the adventurers undertake is inside the human mind. Into passages of the subconscious, encountering there the ultimate woman.

10.) The Crimson Circle (1922) by Edgar Wallace.

A pop mystery novel about a secret organization of criminals. Why aren’t novels today this exciting?

***

NOTE #1: New Pop Lit‘s Contributing Editor Kathleen M. Crane does not like this list, and will be offering her own, soon.

NOTE #2: The idea behind my list is to offer a difference from the predictable literary norm. What’s the point of a reading list if it’s the same one a college professor would hand you? What? You say a college professor did put together one of those other lists?

NOTE #3: Most of the novels on this list– with the exception of #3– contain strong pop elements of some kind, are not just intelligent, in a variety of ways, but fun to read. Isn’t that what it’s ultimately about: to get people reading?

-Karl Wenclas

Another Excerpt from The Loud Boys

photo c/o associated press

After high school Van Heckler attended a nearby college on Pell grants. His two favorite subjects, History and English, were also for him the most contentious. Having learned everything he thought he should know online, Van was cynical and dismissive.

In a modern history course he argued with the professor over Cuba and Nicaragua. “Read a book, young man,” the mature gentleman from an obsolete era– wearing a suit– told him. “Read. Books.”

In a contemporary literature course Van asked, “Where are the American authors? Instead we get dull Europeans. Knausgaard? Bernhard? Houellebecq? What is this? Where are we living? What country are we in? Do we have a country?”

“Which author do you want me to teach, Mr. Heckler?” the young instructor asked, curious.

“Robert E. Howard,” the brash student responded.

Van had already developed a persona: arrogant and combative, with short hair and a clean shaven face. He wore trench coats, like one of his historical idols.

After two years Van dropped out to start his podcast, For half-a-decade he’d been a regular in right-wing chatrooms, increasing his alt-right reputation. This gave him a built-in audience. His studio was in the basement of his mom’s small white painted wood frame house. With a green-screen backdrop turned into an image of a futuristic metropolis, sitting behind a cardboard prop desk, Van did two four-hour broadcasts a day. The remainder of his 100-hour workweek was spent promoting the podcast on social media. He took nothing for granted. His enthusiasm, along with his mother’s encouragement, pots of always-brewing coffee and the prejudices of his audience, sustained him.

***

(The paperback version of The Loud Boys is now available, here.)

“The View of the Gang”

An Excerpt from The Loud Boys.

While the exchange between captor and captive took place, the gang stared– gaped– at the female body in their midst, which stood before them with tangible presence, as if gigantically tall.

They felt her vibration, her reality. Representation to them of waiting fertility and vulnerability– for many of them a living symbol of their dreams and disappointments. Their failures. A few hated her. Others wanted her, lusted after her, without thinking consciously about her. Innate drives and frustrations kicked in. There in front of them, the waiting woman, to have or ravish– hungers which might or might not be displaced and satiated by the promise and anticipation of beer and pizza.

(The Loud Boys is now available at Nook, Kobo, and Kindle.)