WWWD?

I can’t remember what car Williams drove, and it doesn’t make an appearance in Paterson (his preference in that poem is for “WALKING—”, the dash his unmistakable old stick). What would Williams drive? There are both the cars the enable literature and cars within literature. As to the former, I can only seem to think of Kesey’s International Harvester, if that counts, of the latter, maybe in Updike: “He crosses around in front of the car, the ’55 Ford that old man Springer with his little sandy Hitler mustache sold him for an even thousand in 1957 because the scared bastard was ashamed, cars being his business he was ashamed of his daughter marrying somebody who had nothing but a ’36 Buick he bought for $125 in the Army in Texas in 1953.” This Ford was Rabbit’s first vehicle of escape (however thwarted); Lolita’s Packard got a little further (was it a Packard?), but not Furthur (it’s still martinis and school plays, not psychedelics and happenings for Humbert.) By book four of Updike’s Rabbit series, they’re all driving Toyotas (Springer’s new franchise), and that success is a mixed blessing, since it signals an admission of defeat—the decline of the dominance of American manufacture echoing the personal emasculation of aging. I don’t remember if DeLillo’s family in White Noise escapes the “Airborne Toxic Event” in a similarly symbolically-fraught Toyota, but there is that great passage when the protagonist hears his daughter murmuring “Toyota Celica” in her sleep:

A long moment passed before I realized this was the name of an automobile. The truth only amazed me more. The utterance was beautiful and mysterious, gold-shot with looming wonder. It was like the name of an ancient power in the sky, tablet-carved in cuneiform. It made me feel that something hovered. But how could this be? A simple brand name, an ordinary car. How could these near-nonsense words, murmured in a child’s restless sleep, make me sense a meaning, a presence? . . . Whatever its source, the utterance struck me with the impact of a moment of splendid transcendence.

The Gudding poem spoke of in the last entry made me go back to Butor’s Mobile, which I just happened to have bookmarked at the chapter on New Jersey. There is no mention of Paterson therein, which is odd given that Butor seems very much influenced by the way Williams deals with American history. Although Butor is somewhere closer to Kenneth Goldsmith than to Williams, and further (Furthur!?) from familial structures of identification (as in Gudding, Updike, Nabokov, DeLillo) that would encode even these types of predecessor relations into the work (note the flatness of the reference to an engagement ring below). I am tempted to type in this whole passage from Butor about the Sears “‘Automobile Repair Manual,’ 120 pages, ‘covers 1,967 models, from 1952 to 1959; 2,850 explanatory illustrations to make things ultra-simple; 225,000 repair problems, with 219 rapid reference tables, covering more than 30, 000 essential specifications and dimensions. . . . All pointers on maintenance, repair and emergency service for these 24 makes:

--Buick,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>HANOVER, scarlet carnation state.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Cadillac,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>Indians of an unknown period and civilization constructed
>>>>>large mounds in the shape of eagles, quadrupeds or serpents
>>>>>the greatest of the latter measures 411 yards, has a spiral
>>>>>tail, twists its body into seven deep curves and holds a kind
>>>>>of huge egg in its open mouth.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Chevrolet,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>The Maumee River that flows into Lake Erie,--Polson Creek
>>>>>that flows into the Ohio,--or an engagement ring, page 440
>>>>>in the catalogue, “eleven sparkling diamonds, totaling almost
>>>>>a carat, in the new ‘Glo’ setting described above. Four
>>>>>chatoyants around them. Adjustable wedding band with six
>>>>>large brilliants. Standard quality.”>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Chrysler,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>HANOVER, York County, PENNSYLVANIA,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>--the Cornplanter Indian Reserva-
>>>>>>>>>>>>tion.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Clipper,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>“. . . He finds it is imagined by Numbers, that
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>the Inhabitants of North America are rich, ca-
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>pable of rewarding, and dispos'd to reward, all
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>sorts of Ingenuity; that they are at the same time
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>ignorant of all the Sciences, and, consequently,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>that Strangers, possessing Talents in the Belles-
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Lettres, fine arts, &c., must be highly esteemed,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>and so well paid, as to become easily rich them-
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>selves; that there are also abundance of profit-
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>able Offices to be disposed of, which the Natives
>>>>> >>>>>>> >are not qualified to fill . . .”>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Benjamin Franklin
--Continental,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> >“ . . . and when the Great God brings me among
>>>>>>>>>>>>>you, I intend to order all things in such manner
>>>>>>>>>>>>>that we may live in Love and Peace one with
>>>>>>>>>>>>>another, which I hope the Great God will incline
>>>>>>>>>>>>>both me and you to do. . . .”>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>Treaty of William Penn with the Delaware
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Indians..>>>
--DeSoto,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>A chocolate Frazer driven by an old Negro (50
>>>>>>>>>>>>miles),--the Beaver and Allegheny Rivers that
>>>>>>>>>>>>flow into the Ohio.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Dodge,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>HANOVER, NEW JERSEY, smallest
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>state after Rhode Island,>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Delaware, Connecticut, and Hawaii.>>
--Edsel,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>The sea,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Ford,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>sand,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Hudson,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>trunks,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Imperial,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>sand,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Jeep,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> >>> >>shorts,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Lincoln,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>sand.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Mercury,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>Bluebirds,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Nash,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>>>Carolina kinglets,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Oldsmobile,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>swallow-tailed flycatchers,
--Packard,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>rose-breasted grosbeaks,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Plymouth,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >wood peewees.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--Pontiac,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>A chocolate Kaiser driven by a young
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Negro (50 miles),--the Musconetcong
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>and Assunpink Rivers, tributaries of
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>the Delaware,--telephone ringing.” (73-5)
etc.
“Typing, not writing?” Here’s Nabokov writing, not driving:















[reader know that "typing" is no mean feat: the tabbing in Mobile is crucial enough that I spent all morning nitpicking html to get these stanzas to line up as close to the original as possible. Blogger otherwise throws them in pell-mell.]

White Flights

Word is that Updike's new novel Terrorist is set in a thinly disguised Paterson and that his research consisted of cruising the city in a taxi cab. (NYT 5.31.06) Even though Williams said "WALK in the world/ (you can't see anything/from a car window, still less/from a plane, or from the moon!? Come/off of it.)" I don't entirely begrudge him his distance. Paterson is difficult, and Updike’s not a documentarian after all (still less a psychogeographer, even though he claims that the Reading, PA of his youth was, in a sense, his map for the Paterson of today). However, if anything, Paterson needs a truer document of itself or maybe just a better map. Since Paterson was the home to the 9-11 plotters--an extremely small minority in a primarily non-white city--sources such as the NYTimes, finding Northern New Jersey to be a “hub for hijackers,” (see Lunberry 653) have undoubtedly given Paterson a new place in public consciousness; it may be that this place with its “72 identifiable nationalities. . . in 8 square miles” (NYT 9.27.01) has become one in which diversity and multiplicity is suspect. Updike details the diversity and plays with the misrecognition of Islamic fundamentalism as an implicit political threat; he’s clearly appreciative of the power and beauty of its philosophy, as if its righteous clarity puts to shame the duffer Protestantism that runs through his oeuvre (the only WASP in this novel is a morbidly obese librarian). As he turns the fear of a black city into fodder for his particular brand of Pennsylvanian realism, however, his view ultimately seems too west of the Delaware and east of the Hudson. I still can’t verbalize completely (at least in the form of the blog) what I felt and why stopped reading when the “plot” kicked in and the money showed up in the ottoman (p. 194). Maybe I’d rather the title have been a conceptual joke (surprise! Just a story about a teenage boy), or maybe I was tired with Updike’s descriptions which started to seem more and more like pronouncements, and lacked, or maybe had too much of, the authority needed to tell a story of political extremism. The novel is a well-fed form, which has had a long-term fascination with the forces of terror and the fictions of fear. But Updike’s mistake is to take these fictions too seriously, no matter how much he travesties Tom Ridge. The best fiction about terrorism challenges the suburban urge to construct the tale in the first place (e.g. Delillo’s The Names or Mao II). In comparison, Updike does not seem to have any qualms about walking the borzoi in this neighborhood. Updike could have taken a productive cue as well from those novels in which the most violent pitch of political action is turned into an opportunity for the comic appreciation of representational and metaphysical abysses (Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday; James’ The Princess Casamassima; R. L. Stevenson’s The Dynamiter). There are of course more “serious” novels of political extremism, but a writer such as Updike, by taking himself too seriously on such a subject risks making a joke of himself. . . . better to delight in the dysfunctions of white privilege or the idea of the terrorist as impossible subject (the ostensible themes of the above novels) than to attempt capture of the real. Rather than be introduced to the heart and soul of the terrorist-manqué (OK, I did read ahead a little), let’s introduce Terrorist to its new companions: Updike’s Couples, Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights, and the Firestone Christmas Album . . . those perennial darlings of Salvation Army bargain bookshelves everywhere.