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Publication
Vintage (2011), Edition: unknown, 240 pages
Description
An open call for new literary and other art forms to match the complexities of the twenty-first century. Author David Shields argues that our culture is obsessed with "reality" precisely because we experience hardly any. The questions Reality Hunger explores--the bending of form and genre, the lure and blur of the real--play out constantly all around us. Think of the controversy surrounding the provenance and authenticity of the "real": A Million Little Pieces, the Obama "Hope" poster, the boy who wasn't in the balloon. Reality Hunger is a rigorous and radical attempt to reframe how we think about "truthiness," literary license, quotation, appropriation. Shields has written this for a burgeoning group of interrelated but unconnected artists in a variety of forms and media who, living in an unbearably manufactured and artificial world, are striving to stay open to the possibility of randomness, accident, serendipity, spontaneity.--From publisher description.… (more)
Media reviews
I am grateful for Shields's sometimes brutal interrogation of what I believe. His critiques led me to reconsider my own creative process. How had I gotten to a particular moment at the end of some book or essay? What had been my intention? What had I wanted the audience to think about my
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characters—or about me, for that matter? Taking the time to consider these ideas felt extremely decadent—allowing a little bit of the luxurious contemplation Shields would wish for all readers. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member PaulBerauer
"Reality Hunger" is a book that attempts to get to the heart of modern literature and writing. The way it goes about doing so however, is what makes it so unique and so fascinating.
Rather than a writing a single long work, or even a series of essays, David Shields chooses a radically different
The result of this mash-up of quotes is compelling as it is likely to be controversial. In many ways, Shields argues the abandoning of traditional fiction in favor of something real. Whether that is a mixture of real experiences of the author plus his own creations, to outright borrowing from other authors. Indeed, Shields seems taken with the world of rap and hip-hop, where artists "sample" other artists, sometimes dozens at a time, and create something new and real with it.
A fascinating read for anyone interested in modern literature, literary criticism and writing.
Rather than a writing a single long work, or even a series of essays, David Shields chooses a radically different
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path, representative of his greater argument. The book is a series of quotes arranged in chapters based on the general argument Shields attempts to create. The quotes themselves come from a variety of sources: Emerson to excerpts from movie reviews and articles on hip-hop to Joyce to Shields himself.The result of this mash-up of quotes is compelling as it is likely to be controversial. In many ways, Shields argues the abandoning of traditional fiction in favor of something real. Whether that is a mixture of real experiences of the author plus his own creations, to outright borrowing from other authors. Indeed, Shields seems taken with the world of rap and hip-hop, where artists "sample" other artists, sometimes dozens at a time, and create something new and real with it.
A fascinating read for anyone interested in modern literature, literary criticism and writing.
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LibraryThing member JimElkins
Why does Lydia Davis think "every page abounds with fresh observations"?
Most of the book is quotations from other sources. That, in itself, is not at all new, and it's the subject of an excellent book by Marjorie Perloff, "Unoriginal Genius." The history of collaged texts goes back, she thinks, to
Shields says his editors told him he had to acknowledge his sources, and as a result it's possible to see which entries he wrote himself. The few original sections make really disappointing reading. They are either clichés of literary criticism and history, or else they are undeveloped literary theory.
Section 58 reads, in its entirety, "My medium is prose, not the novel." Why, I wonder, doesn't he feel it is necessary to look more closely at the word "prose" here, since it is doing so much work for him?
Section 140 reads: "Plot, like erected scaffolding, is torn down, and what stands in its place is the thing itself." This is part truism, and part surprisingly naive realism. A poststructuralist like Perec might well want to "tear down" plot, but he'd never say that what remains is "the thing itself": that sounds almost like George Steiner.
Section 457 is another example of a one-sentence manifesto that doesn't quite get to the end without a twist into ambiguity or obscurity. It reads: "So: no more masters, no more masterpieces. What I want (instead of God the novelist) is self-portrait in a convex mirror." This is over-complicated: the first part is against the naturalistic novel and the traditional role of the author, as in Foucault's or Barthes's critiques; but the las clause is an allusion to John Ashbery's "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror," and to the Parmigianino original: and those allusions are semi-opaque, unnecessarily allusive, and unaccountably coy.
Section 307 reads (also in its entirety): "There's no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative. (Is there even narrative?)" No graduate student would be allowed to write like this: his leading terms, in this case "narrative," are allowed to stand without explanation, and his positions are at once hugely polemical, vague, and coy.
Sections 234 to 236 are also original; they are unremarkable observations about popular culture. Section 236, for example, begins: "What does it mean to set another person before the camera, trying to extract something of his or her soul? When are we exploiting? When are we caressing?" Other people have said these things so much more exactly, at such length, so much more eloquently. Section 310 is another original section, on popular reality TV. It breezes over themes that need to be more closely articulated: "The bachelorette on the brink of true love with one of several men she has known for seven hours; the cad who manipulates his beloved on cue--two narratives: false actualization and authentic shame. The success of the genre [of reality TV] reflects our lust for emotional meaning." (Does Lydia Davis really admire criticism like this?)
There are more sections similar to these; section 428, for example, is a page-long contribution on Nabokov, which is used to make an unremarkable point about autobiography and its independence from plot. Section 456 is also a relatively long passage on how "plot isn't a tool: intelligence is." Section 473 is autobiography: it's informative but nearly free of interest.
And I'm not amused by the snide literary jokes that are also scattered through the sections of the book that Shields wrote. Section 458 quotes Nabokov, but in the footnote Shields says that "in honor of the author's Olympian hauteur" he "corrected" Nabokov's grammar. Section 139 begins, "In the end, I missed the pleasure of a fully imagined work..."; this turns out to be a quotation from a review of one of Shields's books. Section 145, another original section, is a mean-spirited listing of a "Verboten thematic: secular Jews, laureates of the real, tend to be better at analyzing reality than re-creating it:... Harold Brodkey, most of the essays; Philip Lopate's introduction to "The Art of the Personal Essay"; Vivian Gornick, pretty much everything..." At the end of this list he tries to patch things up by associating these authors with certifiably important people: "And, of course, less recently, Marx, Proust, Freud, Wittgenstein, Einstein." That gambit, of putting someone down and then trying to make it sound like a compliment, never works: it betrays a superficial sense of rhetoric. And the passage is painted with such a broad brush that it's impossible to make much sense of it anyway.
So this is what emerges, for me, when I read the sections of the book that Shields wrote. When I read straight through, without looking at the notes, then I get a collage, but it's less interesting and less developed than other collaged texts. The fragments don't often resonate with one another, as they do, for example, in Benjamin, in Pound, or in Paul Metcalf. For me, this is a cloudy manifesto and a collection of commonplaces. Can someone help me to see it otherwise?
Most of the book is quotations from other sources. That, in itself, is not at all new, and it's the subject of an excellent book by Marjorie Perloff, "Unoriginal Genius." The history of collaged texts goes back, she thinks, to
Show More
Walter Benjamin, and includes modernist texts like Pound's "Cantos" and William Carlos Williams's "Paterson" and postmodern texts like Anne Carson and Jan Baetens. So the form of the book isn't new, and neither, I think, is the content.Shields says his editors told him he had to acknowledge his sources, and as a result it's possible to see which entries he wrote himself. The few original sections make really disappointing reading. They are either clichés of literary criticism and history, or else they are undeveloped literary theory.
Section 58 reads, in its entirety, "My medium is prose, not the novel." Why, I wonder, doesn't he feel it is necessary to look more closely at the word "prose" here, since it is doing so much work for him?
Section 140 reads: "Plot, like erected scaffolding, is torn down, and what stands in its place is the thing itself." This is part truism, and part surprisingly naive realism. A poststructuralist like Perec might well want to "tear down" plot, but he'd never say that what remains is "the thing itself": that sounds almost like George Steiner.
Section 457 is another example of a one-sentence manifesto that doesn't quite get to the end without a twist into ambiguity or obscurity. It reads: "So: no more masters, no more masterpieces. What I want (instead of God the novelist) is self-portrait in a convex mirror." This is over-complicated: the first part is against the naturalistic novel and the traditional role of the author, as in Foucault's or Barthes's critiques; but the las clause is an allusion to John Ashbery's "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror," and to the Parmigianino original: and those allusions are semi-opaque, unnecessarily allusive, and unaccountably coy.
Section 307 reads (also in its entirety): "There's no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative. (Is there even narrative?)" No graduate student would be allowed to write like this: his leading terms, in this case "narrative," are allowed to stand without explanation, and his positions are at once hugely polemical, vague, and coy.
Sections 234 to 236 are also original; they are unremarkable observations about popular culture. Section 236, for example, begins: "What does it mean to set another person before the camera, trying to extract something of his or her soul? When are we exploiting? When are we caressing?" Other people have said these things so much more exactly, at such length, so much more eloquently. Section 310 is another original section, on popular reality TV. It breezes over themes that need to be more closely articulated: "The bachelorette on the brink of true love with one of several men she has known for seven hours; the cad who manipulates his beloved on cue--two narratives: false actualization and authentic shame. The success of the genre [of reality TV] reflects our lust for emotional meaning." (Does Lydia Davis really admire criticism like this?)
There are more sections similar to these; section 428, for example, is a page-long contribution on Nabokov, which is used to make an unremarkable point about autobiography and its independence from plot. Section 456 is also a relatively long passage on how "plot isn't a tool: intelligence is." Section 473 is autobiography: it's informative but nearly free of interest.
And I'm not amused by the snide literary jokes that are also scattered through the sections of the book that Shields wrote. Section 458 quotes Nabokov, but in the footnote Shields says that "in honor of the author's Olympian hauteur" he "corrected" Nabokov's grammar. Section 139 begins, "In the end, I missed the pleasure of a fully imagined work..."; this turns out to be a quotation from a review of one of Shields's books. Section 145, another original section, is a mean-spirited listing of a "Verboten thematic: secular Jews, laureates of the real, tend to be better at analyzing reality than re-creating it:... Harold Brodkey, most of the essays; Philip Lopate's introduction to "The Art of the Personal Essay"; Vivian Gornick, pretty much everything..." At the end of this list he tries to patch things up by associating these authors with certifiably important people: "And, of course, less recently, Marx, Proust, Freud, Wittgenstein, Einstein." That gambit, of putting someone down and then trying to make it sound like a compliment, never works: it betrays a superficial sense of rhetoric. And the passage is painted with such a broad brush that it's impossible to make much sense of it anyway.
So this is what emerges, for me, when I read the sections of the book that Shields wrote. When I read straight through, without looking at the notes, then I get a collage, but it's less interesting and less developed than other collaged texts. The fragments don't often resonate with one another, as they do, for example, in Benjamin, in Pound, or in Paul Metcalf. For me, this is a cloudy manifesto and a collection of commonplaces. Can someone help me to see it otherwise?
Show Less
LibraryThing member amydross
A frustrating book about the perils of overvaluing authorship and individual genius... I kept getting the feeling that Derrida said this all before, better, more entertainingly, and with greater intellectual rigor. But most people don't enjoy Derrida the way I do, so for them, maybe this is a good
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substitute. Nothing really new here, and I do think Shields overstates his case in favor of memoir over fiction -- it seems a little naive to think that such a distinction is even useful to anyone but marketing departments. Show Less
LibraryThing member steve.clason
Mr. Shields work consists of 617 numbered epigrams, or epigram-like entries, organized in 26 chapters, titled “a” through “z”, with subtitles like “genre”, “now”, “blur”, and “let me tell you what this book is about” (which is the 23rd chapter -- there's a good chance you
Some of the entries he wrote himself, some he appropriated from other writers. He doesn't tell us which is which until the very end in an appendix included grudgingly and at the insistence of the publisher's lawyers. Mixing others' words with your own, without attribution, is called “collage” and is how you should write, according to the manifesto.
The book demands that writers take up the task of “reconcoct[ing] meaning from the bombardments of experience” by embracing the “lyric essay” and it's values of concision, collage and the abandonment of narrative and any distinction between fiction and non-fiction. You do that so you can “say in a few sentences what everyone else says in a whole book – what everyone else does not say in a whole book” and it's OK to make stuff up because you can't help but do that anyway.
The book may be interesting, even important, to Students of Literature – academics and writer's workshops participants – but a manifesto containing “it amazes me that people still want to read a 400 page 'page turner'”, if it addresses anyone at all, addresses a group that has either left the rest of us behind or gone way off on a tangent.
To summarize, let me quote from #456 (page 150): “...could be brilliant, could be bullshit.” I'm going with the latter. If, like me, you're troubled by the trend for non-fiction pieces to include fabricated events, revised quotations, and outright lies, you might want to read this as a possible source for some of what troubles you.
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won't know by then what the book is about and will welcome the help). Some of the entries he wrote himself, some he appropriated from other writers. He doesn't tell us which is which until the very end in an appendix included grudgingly and at the insistence of the publisher's lawyers. Mixing others' words with your own, without attribution, is called “collage” and is how you should write, according to the manifesto.
The book demands that writers take up the task of “reconcoct[ing] meaning from the bombardments of experience” by embracing the “lyric essay” and it's values of concision, collage and the abandonment of narrative and any distinction between fiction and non-fiction. You do that so you can “say in a few sentences what everyone else says in a whole book – what everyone else does not say in a whole book” and it's OK to make stuff up because you can't help but do that anyway.
The book may be interesting, even important, to Students of Literature – academics and writer's workshops participants – but a manifesto containing “it amazes me that people still want to read a 400 page 'page turner'”, if it addresses anyone at all, addresses a group that has either left the rest of us behind or gone way off on a tangent.
To summarize, let me quote from #456 (page 150): “...could be brilliant, could be bullshit.” I'm going with the latter. If, like me, you're troubled by the trend for non-fiction pieces to include fabricated events, revised quotations, and outright lies, you might want to read this as a possible source for some of what troubles you.
Show Less
LibraryThing member pessoanongrata
A few choice quotes were great; one I recognized from Philip Roth (along the lines that the current state of things puts to shame the novelist's imagination; the writer can't really outdo the sheer ridiculousness of current events); otherwise, the book presents itself in bold hyperbole, that this
Everyone would be better served to seek out the essay "Test of Time" by William Gass. He has much more to say on the longevity of great art and writing...
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is a LIFE CHANGING MANIFESTO... A VERY IMPORTANT BOOK YOU SHOULD READ RIGHT NOW...a tone which I distrust. But there's a bone in me that is curious about this crap and somehow I found myself reading it between ringing up customers at a bookstore, and while doing so I found myself wondering if this book just adds to the noise that is already deafening; a noise you don't really need to listen to if you wish to make art. I don't think that in order to make 'new art' you need to be plugged in to this massive web of information and media.Everyone would be better served to seek out the essay "Test of Time" by William Gass. He has much more to say on the longevity of great art and writing...
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LibraryThing member thatotter
The cover flap says "People will either love or hate this book." But really I found it interesting in concept, mildly boring in execution. I disliked the effect of having hundreds of quotations without context, and I kept wanting to skim.
LibraryThing member kaythetall
I was expecting an essay on the disconnection between modern experience and a sense of genuineness. What I found were several hundred short, out of context ruminations so arcane as to be unreadable.
I'm afraid I only managed a few dozen pages before skipping ahead, hoping I'd find something
I salute those who gleaned any iota of enjoyment out of this book. It was completely meaningless to me.
I'm afraid I only managed a few dozen pages before skipping ahead, hoping I'd find something
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understandable later in the book. No such luck.I salute those who gleaned any iota of enjoyment out of this book. It was completely meaningless to me.
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LibraryThing member maryltabor
This book is breakthrough prose of the highest order. If you write (or if you read!) and haven't bought Reality Hunger, do! It's brilliant—the best work I've read on the writing process, on the nature of invention, on art and on the torturous permissions process that any writer who simply chooses
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to acknowledge and quote her influences—the writers who have been part and parcel of her thinking—that I have read in a lifetime of reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member Parthurbook
A book that practices what it (most certainly) preaches: Shields' provocation is that fiction is dead, that all reality is subjective, and that all artists copy or steal. To that end, the text comprises some 600 aphorisms composed into an argument about literature, essays, journalism and
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documentary. Flawed, repetitive and on occasion snide, it's tone makes the author (compiler) hard to like. But when one considers the formulaic nature of much three-act story-telling, the self-referencing of "my-life-as-a-writer" fiction, and the ascendancy of the documentary form in recent cinema, he may well be onto something. Thought-provoking and eclectic. Show Less
LibraryThing member ucla70
I really found it bothersome to refer to the Appendix to see who wrote or said each epigram. And I did refer to that section often despite Shields' admonition to "Stop; don't read any farther." Some of the thoughts contained in this book are interesting, others baffling. In No. 583 Shields writes:
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"I see the movement of the poems as a working out of the narcissist dilemma.The speaker moves from American narcissism to universal luck. The book feels so lived-in and hard-won. I love your willingness to be wrong, dumb, blind, embarrassing." I think that last sentence sums up my overall impression of the book. Show Less
LibraryThing member maryroberta
Interesting. Like many good books, I ended up arguing with it.
LibraryThing member b.masonjudy
If you're looking for a polemic against the idea of fiction look no further. Shields constructs a wild collage of ideas in this manifesto that I found extremely inspiring and also frustrating as a writer of both fiction and other stuff. Shields is dropping a heavy gauntlet and makes a fair point
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about the origins of the novel and its current status today although I'm not as bored by plot. I don't expect he really cares whether or not anyone agrees with him but the argument is well worth reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member dogboi
While I find the idea and the conceit of Reality Hunger interesting, it failed to deliver on its promise. It is far too shallow and spends too much time expounding on the idea that all true art is built upon the work that came before . Anyone who would be a candidate to read this book would know
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that already. The second half is more compelling, but ultimately, I'm not convinced that Fiction is dead and that we crave reality. The discussions about the areas where fiction and non-fiction collide (collage, the lyrical essay, and memoir) was interesting, and I agree that these are currently the areas where a lot of the innovation is happening. But in the end, I don't think Shields made the case for the end of fiction. Show Less
Awards
Washington State Book Award (Finalist — 2011)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
240 p.; 5.2 inches
ISBN
0307387976 / 9780307387974