‘brimmeth over’ sive Qan. Lit. for Dhimmies

Dear Dr. Bones,

You remember Neocomrade (Fifth Class) D. X. Solway, self- or pajama-described as "Canadian poet and essayist"?

You must remember, sir, for was it not DXS [0] in the path of which we invented or discovered Qannádî Literature? Not quite Mlle. O. Qannádâ Herself, of course; credit for that vast inscovery or devention must go to, among others, the late Duddy Kravitz and the soon -- (no, that won't do, make it "the quick") -- Neocomradess (Second Class) Ruth, Freidame vom & zum Wisse [1]

Anyway, hee ... eere’s Davey:

Yes, there is plainly something excessive and volatile about Glenn Beck, but on the whole I am glad of it. His virtues and his vices are really one and the same and flow from the same turbulent source: he brimmeth over. As poet William Blake wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” Fortunately, Beck’s propensity toward excess is, more often than not, indeed leavened with wisdom, though he may find himself one day in a different America, living in a pillbox rather than a palace.

That passage is -- cross my bones and hope to croak! -- the first sign I have seen that there is a literary side to Massa David at all. Fortunately this one is a very strong sign, a sign so forceful and seemighty that I hereby retract all my low suspicions that Massa David is any more of an ‘essayist’ than your average G.O.P. niece or nephew puttin’ in its time down at AEI or Heritage an’ scribblin’ mechanically against the pestiferous evils that arise from decent political adulthood.

Not to go hog-wild, though, sir! I still hope never to have to risk too close an encounter with Solwayoid versifyin’. And indeed, a really strict critic might criticise real strictly that Massa David could be just tryin’ to make himself look lit-like in the middle-browed eyes of fair-skinned and -headed Rio Limbaugh and Port Ste. Lucie. Mr. Blake is not the most esoteric of authors. Still, he spared us Yeats, Massa David did, you can’t take that away from his point score, Dr. Bones. Should you run into Ms. Strict, tell her I said she can’t either.

To anticipate what seems the obvious objection, if I may, Dr. Bones: Massa David’s subject-matter, the P&I neodunce NC2 G. L. Beck, cannot eo ipso exclude either product or producer from the World Lit. Temple of Fame. Did not Erasmus write in praise of La Folia? And is not Erasmus a host in himself whenever battle is joined as to what is Lit. and what ain’t? I rest my case, sir, even without playing the dulce est desipere in loco ace of trumps that, as luck would have it, Father Zeus was pleased to put up my e-sleeve.

No, Bones, the Master was, as usual, quite right: form trumpeth matter . Even in a weird twilight-cum-seemight zone like Qan. Lit., Omnia vincit Forma. [2]

Nowhere is this universally-to-be-acknowledged truth truer than when it comes to World Lit. Imagine, sir, the foamin’-an’-zoomin’ R. R. Wisse aforementioned at repose in her M. X. Péretz Chair at H*rv*rd, faced with an alleged comparandum. Surely her freedameship must first weigh the merits of the allegation, that is, decide whether this be any sort of Lit. at all that her freedameship examines? And equally surely, as it seems to me, the criterion by which her freedameship, or rather, by which any competent practitioner, must go is this: does the scribble at hand make some plausible pretence of possessing Formam (intelligently designed, one must insist) as well as materiam?

Sine formâ, nulla litteratura!

And furthermore, Dr. Bones, le bloghiatture need not trouble to apply! Is it not so written high aloft on the very portals of Outer Hell ?

Now as to Massa David, NC5 DXS, our local e-gloss on the Master’s ruling does not exclude the neocomrade itself from the pale of Lit., it only excludes what it, uh, ‘bloggeth’. This is so for two reasons:

(1) The casual conversation of a literary gent or gentile or neogent can establish the speaker as worthy to come within the Foam and Zoom of Comp. Lit. without being anything the least bit like an instance of literature by itself. Such must have been the case with the late Professor Saintsbury[, ] a very learned man and along certain lines a judicious literary critic and many others. [3] La blogghiatura does not add up to anything much, but it would be disproportionate to rank it lower than casual conversation, or than George Saintsbury scrappin’ with his scrapbooks.

(2) A stronger proof still, for us Aristotelians, is the manner in which NC5 D. X. Solway ‘bloggeth’: the jerk Beck is praised (in the paragraph swiped, I mean, hardly in the whole m’gillâ) with praise that is entirely æsthetic.

True, the dupes and marks of Padschamaheim do not need to be told about NC2 G. L. Beck; and true, it may well be the case that NC5 D. X. Solway does not enjoy exactly the same beauty-appreciative flutters when it watches somebody on Team Jabotinsky gettin’ swiftboated without stint or limit.

But I reply: (2) "So! You like dishin’ your ‘excess’ out more than you like takin’ it, eh, buddy?" is the objection of a moralist objector. And (1) that the quiddity of Don Glennito is a merely factual matter.

Anybody who supposes that Qan. Lit., or Yid. Lit. , or GTX Lit. , or any Lit. whatever stands or falls on the basis of facts or moralisms may be an excellent person in secret- or private-sector life, but certainly she and the present keyboard shall never agree about Was heißt Literatur?

And I wish you, Dr. Bones,
Healthy and affordable days.

___
[0] It is high time to be getting our Großes Schimpflexicon des Rio Limbaugh assembled and weblished, sir, and to that end I rule as follows: from today on, whenever we encounter a fresh Party-an’-Ideology neocomradess or neocomrade or neocomradlin’ or neocomradette who either has no discoverable middle initial (like this morning’s Qan. Lit. glamour boy ), or who seems too subinsignificant even by Wingnut City standards to disturb the pet google’s slumbers with a snark hunt for, we just stick in an ‘X’ -- to mark the spot with, like.

A confection like "Party Neocomrade (Third Class) Prof. Dr. F. X. Fukuyama" would have the additional bennie of maybe suggestin’ to some of the weaker siblin’s out there in Foxcuckooland that their Freddy boy must be a Papish. (( In real life, though, Freddy is Yoshihiro Frantsovitch . Oh, well! ))

Also it might be well to keep a nomenklatura for ourselves as we scribble, since not many of our legitimate prey refer to their own "much esteemed and best belovèd" neoselves à la Russe.

Finally, we really do need to finalize, or at least stabilise, our secret-sector Tábel’ o Rangákh for the peerage and neogentry of Wingnut City and Greater Foxcuckooland.

Farcimentum longum, vita brevis.


[1] Ruth R. Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor (psyk) of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at H*rv*rd University and then it is all downhill from there.

Her freedameship’s fancy institutional neomonnicker might suggest active personal as well as passive-comparational participation in Qan. Lit., but this appearance is almost certainly delusive. The arts an’ letters of O Qannádâ will be taken, until further notice, to have been thought and scribbled in the vernacular of Greater Texas.

If anybody else’s lingo is admitted to the charmed neocircle hereafter, I betcha twenty-to-one, sir, it will be French rather than Yeedeesh. But the odds on even French makin’ it are long: "What has Québec to do with Neojerusalem? asks jesting Tertullianus, but does stay for an answer." And that’s a wrap for Endnote the First: ¡Au revoir, M. le Docteur!


[2] I seem to have stumbled into a sandtrap here, Bones: Ms. Strict would conclude that I consider mockin’ Master Davey’s neoëxhumation of Goldman-Saxon verb forms like ‘brimmeth’ (yuck!) more important than that Aristole has taught us the superordination of Eidos over hylos. A pain in the anatomy can Ms. Strict be at times, though of course if we dispense ourselves from her we lapse at once into neobarbarism.

[3] St. George of Orwell wiganising his right-wingnut perfesser is so much fun and so pertinent to America the AstroTurf™Bagged, Dr. Bones, that let’s damn the bandwith and swipe it in full:

The reason why class-hatred seems to be diminishing is that nowadays it tends not to get into print, partly owing to the mealy-mouthed habits of our time, partly because newspapers and even books now have to appeal to a working-class public. As a rule you can best study it in private conversations. But if you want some printed examples, it is worth having a look at the obiter dicta of the late Professor Saintsbury. Saintsbury was a very learned man and along certain lines a judicious literary critic, but when he talked of political or economic matters he only differed from the rest of his class by the fact that he was too thick-skinned and had been born too early to see any reason for pretending to common decency. According to Saintsbury, unemployment insurance was simply ‘contributing to the support of lazy ne'er-do-weels’, and the whole trade union movement was no more than a kind of organized mendicancy: " ‘Pauper’ is almost actionable now, is it not, when used as a word? though to be paupers, in the sense of being wholly or partly supported at the expense of other people, is the ardent, and to a considerable extent achieved, aspiration of a large proportion of our population, and of an entire political party." (Second Scrap Book) It is to be noticed, however, that Saintsbury recognizes that unemployment is bound to exist, and, in fact, thinks that it ought to exist, so long as the unemployed are made to suffer as much as possible: " Is not ‘casual’ labour the very secret and safety-valve of a safe and sound labour-system generally? ... In a complicated industrial and commercial state constant employment at regular wages is impossible; while dole-supported unemployment, at anything like the wages of employment, is demoralizing to begin with and ruinous at its more or less quickly arriving end. (Last Scrap Book) What exactly is to happen to the 'casual labourers' when no casual labour happens to be available is not made clear. Presumably (Saintsbury speaks approvingly of ‘good Poor Laws’) they are to go into the work-house or sleep in the streets. As to the notion that every human being ought as a matter of course to have the chance of earning at least a tolerable livelihood, Saintsbury dismisses it with contempt: " Even the ‘right to live’ ... extends no further than the right to protection against murder. Charity certainly will, morality possibly may, and public utility perhaps ought to add to this protection supererogatory provision for continuance of life; but it is questionable whether strict justice demands it. As for the insane doctrine that being born in a country gives some right to the possession of the soil of that country, it hardly requires notice. (Last Scrap Book) It is worth reflecting for a moment upon the beautiful implications of this last passage. The interest of passages like these (and they are scattered all through Saintsbury's work) lies in their having been printed at all. Most people are a little shy of putting that kind of thing on paper. But what Saintsbury is saying here is what any little worm with a fairly safe five hundred a year thinks, and therefore in a way one must admire him for saying it. It takes a lot of guts to be OPENLY such a skunk as that.

Briefly returning our noses to the grindstone, I put it to you, Dr. Bones, that Freedame Foam an’ Zoom (or any competent practitioner) ought to be able to figure out from that passage alone -- without benefit of Orwell’s identification, or even minus every word quoted that is St. George’s rather than Saintsbury’s -- that what we have here is a very literary skunk indeed.

And as with great things, so with small: though the merest skunk cub by comparison with the learnèd perfesser, NC5 D. X. Solway can very safely be pronounced a literary skunk cub on the basis of the above performance.