M&Z present a Marxist critique of the realist fiction workshop. My feelings about their work are similar to my feelings about Marxist critique in general: I appreciate their work in opening up the political dimensions of the workshop for examination, and when they make clear their own agenda, I lose interest.
They draw from another Marxist to show that realism isn't just an aesthetic category, but is an ideology that reinforces patriarchal Capitalism by affirming for the reader the status quo. They feel that realism has this effect as its "political agenda." Odd to think of an abstract category as in and of itself motivated to support anything at all outside of itself.
They begin by listing some of the assumptions of the workshop that have come under attack by postmodern critical theory:
the idea of the free "subject," the integrity of "experience," the sharp separation of "reading" from "writing," the individual "voice," the "authority" of the author, uniqueness of "style," the obedience of the reader, "originality," and "intuition." (155)They certainly could have demonstrated all of these points without the Marxist slant, but the political agenda is important to these authors:
The fiction workshop is not a "neutral" place where insights are developed, ideas/advice freely exchanged, and skills honed. It is a site of ideology: a place in which a particular view of reading/writing texts is put forth and through this view support is given to the dominant social order. By regarding writing as "craft" and proposing realism as the mode of writing, the fiction workshop in collaboration with humanist critics fulfills its ideological role in the dominant academy by preserving the subject as "independent" and "free."...a subject who perceives herself as self-constituted and free so...can then "freely" collaborate with the existing social system, a collaboration that assures the continuation of patriarchal capitalism (161)So by excluding the examination of cultural and historical forces, the workshop preserves these forces in their present form.
Their critique of the realist workshop's view of creativity:
"Creativity," in other words, is the ability to transcend the political, the economic, and in short the "material" conditions of writing (transcend the "order external to" oneself) as a social person and arrive at a transdiscursive space. It is in this unbounded space, free of all political, social, economic, and linguistic constraints, that the creative person is able to penetrate the opacities of culture and experience reality in its absolute plenitude. (163)The emphasis on "voice" and "finding" one's unique, singular, personal voice reinforces the political agenda of the independent subject:
Far from being "singular," the voice is in fact a "construct"-a politically needed cultural product produced // by professionals of ideology such as...writers who direct fiction workshops across the country. The commodification of"voice" and of individuality in the fiction workshop is in fact the major political role played by creative writing programs (165-166)On character:
Character (the model for the free subject) is depicted as a unitary and coherent individual who is always unique and, in his most authentic mode, solitary-like an entrepreneur, he works all by himself. Through individual characters realistically portrayed, the reader discovers his own subjectivity. The valorization of character in the fiction workshop, in other words, is part of its cultural politics in legitimizing the ruling values of capitalism. (167)They don't like causality, either. Character, realism and causality are forces of patriarchal Capitalism. Seems kind of arbitrary. What if a-causal, non-realistic fiction without characters sold like hot-cakes? Wouldn't that make "experimental" fiction an ideological apparatus of the state? And what of realist fiction published in communist and/or socialist nations? Is that capitalism creeping in? Or simply a reinforcement of their own status quo, making realism exactly the neutral aesthetic M&Z don't want it to be.
Here's what they have to say about Nadine Gordimer, of all people:
Her texts work to legitimate a reformist program by offering a local critique of apartheid and thus help to forestall a radical reorganization of social arrangements in South Africa. In this respect, she is actually undertaking the same ideological program being undertaken by many white South African investment bankers and other capitalists against the wishes of theWhich exposes the problem with Marxist criticism. It's all very smart and interesting and then eventually reveals that nothing short of full Marxist propaganda will ever be good enough. If you're not advocating the overthrow of the state and the installation of worker control over the means of production, you're just a puppet of capitalist ideology no matter how socially progressive your message.
present government. (171)
And, of course, these guys are hypocrites. They publish marketable prose that in no way upsets the status quo. For all their talk of radical theory, M&Z have adjusted quite well to the comforts of the academy and the security of tenure (or the tenure process). In fact, publications like this are little more than efforts at tenure, since Marxist critique is a salable good in the academic marketplace. Journals are likely to publish, publications are likely to please tenure committees, and tenure makes for happy "Marxists", securely positioned in the Capitalist regime, their work appropriated by an intelligentsia with no interest in large-scale social reform.
Here's what they think the workshop should be doing:
Instead of "resisting" theory in the name of the free subject, the fiction workshop should be the pedagogical space in which the processes of signification in texts of culture are to be examined and the construction of what is represented as "reality" is made intelligible. By undertaking such an inquiry and political critique, rather than adopting the traditional stance of the humanist ideologies and "resisting" theory, the radical fiction workshop will propose theory as resistance to all semiotic constructs of culture which are offered as "natural," "eternal," and "unchangeable" and will discover under their seeming eternity the historical interests of the dominant social class and its texts. (173)So essentially, they want to do to student texts what they did to Gordimer: "Can't you see, dear student, that you are merely a puppet of patriarchal Capitalism?" They want to forward their own ideology in the classroom, and their own postmodern aesthetic which they mistakenly feel best expresses their ideology. (*Gravity's Rainbow* was a bestseller, right? As was *Underworld*.) There is no indication from M&Z about how Marxism will make students better writers, but then, making students better writers is not the goal of these authors. They are not interested in helping students learn to write, they are interested in posing as radical social critics in order to forward their careers in the academy. Just like the rest of us.
Anyway, they do provide a valuable service in opening a conversation about the politics and culture of the workshop. They point out all the right problems, even if their solution lacks integrity.
LEADS:
Pierre Macherey, A Theory of Literary Production, trans. Geoffrey Wall (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), 66.
Derrida *On Grammatology*
Marjorie Perloff, " 'Homeward Ho!': Silicon Valley Pushkin," American Poetry Review (November-December 1986): 45
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