To The Finland Station [Jul 24, 2003]

Yesterday, at last, the New York Post's Page Six column covered the gossip that REALLY has America buzzing. No one cares about the love lives of famous and beautiful people or the real-estate dealings of the obscenely wealthy. But everyone craves gossip about an obscure feud between sectarian literary-critic factions.

When it comes to the world-bending dispute between The Believer Magazine and The Underground Literary Alliance, I fall somewhere in the middle, having had sexual or quasi-sexual affairs with at least one member of both teams. I'm also intellectually divided. On the one hand, I believe that literature should be a peaceful art practiced by innocent people, thereby making it immune from criticism and media "snarkiness," particularly if the books were written by friends of mine, or friends of friends. On the other hand, I also believe that the business of writing books has fallen into the hands of a sinister East Coast elite who ignore literature's true topic and mission: The violent overthrow of the established capitalist order.

So I'm a bit conflicted, especially since The Believer has asked me to guest-edit its next issue. I already have a lot of great pieces lined up. Laurie Anderson is going to interview Phillip Glass about Frank Gehry. I'm going to write 10,500 words on the work on Wadislaw Pryzbilla, a Polish poet who died in 1375 but was recently reanimated only to have his work ignored by everyone but me. There will also be an article, written by a young intern who was recently released from prison in Serbia, about how to make a paper boat out of tinfoil. Then there's a very long appreciation of Elvis Costello by Jonathan Lethem, an even longer appreciation of Jonathan Lethem by Elvis Costello, and a poem by a black guy. It should be classic.

You'll better understand my conflict when I tell you that The Underground Literary Alliance has asked me to guest-edit the next issue of its own zine, Violent Overthrow Of The Established Elite Literary-Capitalist Order. This issue will only be distributed on select Philadelphia and Detroit street corners by King Karl Wenclas, the ULA's information minister, and will therefore be quite authentic. It should be an excellent issue, and anyone who doesn't think so has obviously borrowed money recently from either Rick Moody or Jonathan Franzen in exchange for an unknown future "favor."

The issue opens with a long essay by Wenclas about how he, and everyone who's written about working-class people since Charles Dickens, has been excluded from the publishing process by many people, but especially by Rick Moody. This is followed by an incomprensible 4,000-word monlogue by a lunatic who lives alone on a motorboat in a Florida swamp, an appreciation for the subtle beauty of the prose of Upton Sinclair, a factually-incorrect report that Dave Eggers is really an evil robot created by the government to suck all the meaning out of American prose, and a plea for money.

If you don't buy this issue, you obviously don't care about real literature, which according to the ULA, should only be about three topics: Race, gender, and libel law. By the way, my new novel, Never Mind The Pollacks, is about all three. Up the page and to the right, you'll see a picture of the cover. Click on it and order your advance copy now. If you instead choose to criticize me, you're against the people's struggle. Also, if you don't support my book, I will kill you, or at least quietly damage your reputation.

The extra-generous, or pitying, can also kindly donate to my band-tour fund to the right where the Donate button lives, or, at the very least, sign up on my mailing list. You must understand that when The Neal Pollack Invasion tours this fall to promote Never Mind The Pollacks, all barriers will fall. It'll be a no-snark, anti-elitist, all-ages literary revolution. I'll be its great leader. You will all bow before me as literature changes forever.

The debate ends here.