Self Published Maximalists

[Anonymous No.18462591]

Recently found this network of authors self-publishing experimental maximalist fiction through a couple of presses (River Boat Books, corona/samizdat). Names include those like Rick Harsch, George Salis, Peter Damian Bellis who appear to be part of a mini-movement of their own to revive dense unwieldy novels. Other than their own books they've even interviewed writers like Joseph McElroy and Alexander Theroux.

Links:
https://thecollidescope.com/2021/06/01/women-and-men-by-joseph-mcelroy/
https://www.riverboatbooks.com/the-mad-patagonian
https://coronasamizdat.com/2020/10/18/the-manifold-destiny-of-eddie-vegas/
https://rickharsch.wordpress.com/2021/05/24/a-new-literary-movement-the-return-to-engagement/

Just curious if anyone else has come across them and what's the verdict on these guys? Has anyone read their stuff? Are they the genuine thing or fool's gold?

[Anonymous No.18462707]

bump

[Anonymous No.18462923]

>>18462591
Sounds really interesting. I feel bad for these guys though writing dozens of giant tomes which no one will ever ever read or care about.

[Anonymous No.18463036]

>>18462923
Which is why I want to know if its worth reading

[Anonymous No.18463443]

>>18462923
I'm not really into maximalism, but the movement has its fans for sure. I like what they're doing, which is why I'll give one of these books a chance.

[Anonymous No.18465207]

bump

[Anonymous No.18465252]

>“Written and illustrated during the final months of the Trump presidency,America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostictransmogrifies that bizarre period into a dystopian fantasy about what might have happened had Trump and his totalitarian troglodytes triumphed. Metafictionally calling itself an “unreal, esoteric, exotic, metaphysical adventure,”
cringe

[Anonymous No.18465574]

>>18465252
cringe for letting politics sway your impression of a book

[Anonymous No.18466555]

>>18462591

My first look at these sites, it's a bunch of reviews from literally who which are no more convicting than newspaper side-column puff pieces. Only the writers who leave excerpts online can be judged.

[Anonymous No.18466744]

>>18462591
>https://coronasamizdat.com/2020/10/18/the-manifold-destiny-of-eddie-vegas/
Oh shit I have this guy's book. its meh

[Anonymous No.18468085]

>>18462923
This is the only way you're going to find good books in the future. They will be totally unrecognised.

[Anonymous No.18468215]

>>18466744
How meh?

[Anonymous No.18468219]

>>18466555
The books have excerpts though

[Anonymous No.18468268]

>>18462591
I have pic related. It's amazingly written and relies on dense, inventive language, but takes some time to get used to. If you like Pynchon, Gass, Vollman etc. you'll enjoy it for sure.

[Anonymous No.18468334]

I've bought a few books of Rick.
Really nice guy and passionate in a completely genuine way.
His Skulls of Istria is great.
You can order with confidence too.

[Anonymous No.18468368]

He is reprinting the Chandler Brossard books too it seems.
Good to have them accessible again.

[Anonymous No.18468370]

>>18465574
cringe for letting banker's political narratives influence your shitty book

[Anonymous No.18468427]

How many replies here are personal shills? Won't know until someone actually provides a thorough well-analyzed review with examples of text.

[Anonymous No.18468506]

>>18468370
are you retarded? These books are unkown.

[Anonymous No.18468610]

>>18468506
which is why its more pathetic to adopt it out of free will

[Anonymous No.18468669]

>>18468610
jesus christ just go read nigger. As a serious question, because i know you will respond, what were the last couple of books you read?

[Anonymous No.18468701]

>>18465252
LOLZ GO BACK TO /POL/

[Anonymous No.18468789]

That leaf by leaf guy has reviewed this and other obscure maximalist novels like this. Dude is super cool and interesting but is a bit of a homer when it comes to novels like that.

[Anonymous No.18468898]

>>18463036
Bro, nobody is reading these, you need to read to find out. Not everything can be done for you.

[Anonymous No.18469261]

>>18468898
This would have been more effective if you posted it earlier before the several replies saying they've read it. And I bet if I had read it and posted my impressions you would probably be saying how useless it is to talk about books nobody cares about anyway. So how about you shut the fuck up because you seem to care more about being pedagogical than discussing books passionately. Nobody who genuinely cares about books would miss the opportunity to talk about a book they enjoyed with someone willing to listen.

[Anonymous No.18469513]

>>18468268
>amazingly written

> ‘Right here,’ Jimmy Blade replied with inarrogant pride, unsheathing to reveal, held in both hands the way one offers not a gift, rather a recognition, the rustic grandeur of his singular knife. The blade itself was fresh polished, sharpened evenly from hilt to tip and back the other side to hilt. The handle was wrapped tight in crimson leather, forming a tubular grip of such apparent mass it was difficult to conceive a substance beneath, as if it were a cylinder of nought but dense, taut hide. This effected a stylish contrast with the surprise wood of the hilt and butt, which were painted in checks of black and white.

No it isn't. I'm totally cool with letting him make up words, but "unsheathing to reveal, held in two hands" is clumsy. "Offers as a recognition" is wrong. Pointing out that the handle forms a tubular grip is just silly. It also, frankly, once described, no longer seems the least bit rustic.

[Anonymous No.18469582]

>>18469513
Haven't read the book but you're making a fool of yourself here. Firstly the object of 'unsheathing to reveal' is the singular knife described later, as in:

unsheathing to reveal
[held in both hands the way one offers not a gift, rather a recognition]
the rustic grandeur of his singular knife.

It's also not 'offers as a recognition' but 'offers a recognition'. 'Recognition' is metaphorically made into an object like a gift. That you trip over such slight syntactical complexity is kind of laughable. You didn't even quote 'both hands' correctly.

[Anonymous No.18469718]

>>18468334
>You can order with confidence too.
Hello, Rick.

[Anonymous No.18469762]

Rick has a youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG4S_9GPstU

[Anonymous No.18469812]

>>18469762
why does he look like an asshole

[Anonymous No.18469856]

>>18465252
Finally, an author courageous enough to take on Trump's America and the *gulp* January 6th insurrection. Putin will be absolutely seething.

[Anonymous No.18469899]

>>18469856
full summary

[Anonymous No.18469913]

>>18469899
excerpt

[Anonymous No.18469928]

>>18469913
http://www.makeamericacultagain.com/

what looks like some ARG website for the book

[Anonymous No.18469944]

>>18469899
>>18469913
>>18469928
what a pseud

[Anonymous No.18470114]

>>18469582
No bro, not at all. The thing I quoted is an example of "complexity" as a sort of reflexive imitation of good writers, whose layered structures would represent a careful construction of supporting clauses rather than the pointless insertion of subclauses because that's what clever writing is supposed to look like.

Re. the knife, I said, clumsy, not meaningless. Its clumsy because the parenthetical clause's "held" jars with the unsheathing action in the main clause. The following "metaphor" with recognition is just incompetence with language. How can you hold something in a way that offers a recognition? Can you even offer A recognition? It's verbal babble.

[Anonymous No.18470209]

>>18470114
You have a tin ear then. 'held' plays off the sounds of 'unsheathing' and 'reveal', and 'recognition' has consonance and alliteration all the way from it to 'singular'. And your other critique is meaningless since it can be applied to every single poet or philosopher who has ever objectified a quality. Bro, how can Rilke write that a happy thing 'falls', how can Heidegger say Being is 'unconcealed', how can Stevens 'the nothing that is not there' when nothing cannot even be anywhere, how can Henry James or Joseph Conrad's dense abstract stuff make sense? It's all verbal babble bro. Writer's should just describe pure objects interacting with each other. Artistic ambiguities be damned. Perhaps it plays off how the knife mirrors the other's face, thus 'recognizing' it. Or perhaps one character recognizes the violence the knife represents within himself, and thus it is less a gift than an all too familiar thing. I don't fucking know. It's all verbal babble anyway. I'm not even a fan of the prose but this type of crit is so fucking dumb

[Anonymous No.18471209]

>>18469899
Cringe

[Anonymous No.18471246]

>>18469913
this is bad in a rick and morty bad kind of way

[Anonymous No.18472325]

>>18465252
Was interested until I saw this; how can someone write something even slightly subversive when their conception of subversion is allying with omnipotent corporations in a fight against the worlds underserved proletarians? Also muh weird illustrations? What is this the fucking ‘90s?

[Anonymous No.18472476]

>>18472325
exactly. it's the continuation of the orange man bad mantra npcs have been reciting the past 6 years pretending to be something fresh and original it's completely redundant. all of the long ass substanceless reviews of each book are pretty pseud as well.

[Anonymous No.18473143]

I know that The Collidescope doesn't associate itself with corona-samizdat because that Rick guy was posting some nasty stuff attacking the editor in public. A lot of his posts appear unhinged, like a washedup writer with a bruised ego.

[Mike No.18473225]

Yeah that literary site is run by George Salis and has nothing to do with the other people you name. From what Ive seen he puts a lot of work into tracking all these writers down like Maclroy and Theroux and is doing a lot for literature.

[Anonymous No.18473466]

>>18468789
I like leaf by leaf, he's probably the only booktuber I like, esp when he's covering Vollmann, but i don't know how seriously I'd take his reviews of any of these niche maximalist books because he seems to be internet friends with a lot of these dudes so there's an unspoken obligation to praise them. Plus, he tends to look for the good in just about everything he reads, and though I find his brand of sincere positivity way more refreshing than the alternative, I'm including these details basically just to say that when he says these books are good, it still doesn't really tell me whether these books are good.

[Anonymous No.18473490]

>>18469913
if John Barth was a zoomer who wrote fanfic

WHOAOAOAA THAT'S PRETTY META WHOOAOOAA

[Anonymous No.18473513]

>>18469913
>4th wall break and random referential noise
It's amazing that those who most want to emulate postmodern American literature are those who clearly least understood it

[Anonymous No.18473650]

>>18473513
What was a diverse collection of stylistic techniques that emerged organically in response to a loss of coherent grand narrative, objective anything, a breakdown of societal constants once believed to be the unshakable way things are has now been poured over, analyzed, codified by nerds and afficianados and those disparate techniques commited now to strictures and listicles are hand-picked and applied intentionally so that they may be remixed into books like these. These books can only ever be simulacra of hefty postmodern tomes and can not touch what they seek to emulate.

[Anonymous No.18473664]

>>18465574
>Metafictionally calling itself an “unreal, esoteric, exotic, metaphysical adventure,”
This is the real cringe part

[Anonymous No.18474006]

So has anyone read any of these

[Mike No.18474369]

Most of the reviews of the Eddie Vegas one looks like their from fake accounts, but this review seems pretty honest desu lol: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25865473-the-manifold-destiny-of-eddie-vegas?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=us7q8LuxAe&rank=1

[Anonymous No.18475346]

>>18473225
Salis posted the Manifold Destiny page on corona samizdat though

[Anonymous No.18475595]

>>18475346
Learned about Salis originally from his McElroy interview. I guess he was the guy posting here a few months back about how he was gonna talk to ol Joseph. Idk if his book's any good but he's probably the dude out of this crowd I have the least reservations with

[Mike No.18476056]

Hmm, that must have been before the falling out. Check out Salis's review here and the comments thread shows some of what happened. idk all the details tho:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3641700595?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

I bought a copy of Salis' book from the River Boat press a while back but haven't read it yet

[Anonymous No.18476337]

>>18474369
link doesnt work. the one star review?

[Mike No.18476676]

Link works for me, weird... Anyway no its George Salis's two star review of this book that has a let's say interesting comment section:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2993456-as-the-wolf-howls-at-my-door

A book by Chandler Brossard that was reprinted

[Anonymous No.18476813]

>>18469812
What did you say to me you little faggot.

[Anonymous No.18476822]

>>18473466
>Plus, he tends to look for the good in just about everything he reads
I think he said that he doesn't like to make videos on books he doesn't like. He only does videos on a small fraction of what he reads.

[Anonymous No.18476907]

>>18469913
>>18471246
>"Morty! Morty! We're in a book now, Morty!"
>"Aah geez, Rick!"
>"Wait, somebody just transported us into a Javanese panty-knitting forum. There's no way out of here."
>"Rick, why does it look like we're in anon's head right now?"

[Anonymous No.18476925]

>>18473466
leaf by leaf's channel is truly blessed. he wouldn't praise something he doesn't like. why would he be friends with them in the first place? because he thinks they're fun. I'm jelly of his library. mine is not even half as large.

[Anonymous No.18476929]

>>18476813
based ninja-rick poster

[Anonymous No.18477001]

>>18476813
DID SOMEONE SAY FUCKING RICK? GOD I'M COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMINGGGGGGGGGGG.

[Anonymous No.18478603]

>>18476676
Yeesh respect to George for not tolerating that shit

[Anonymous No.18478719]

>>18465252
(((freedenberg)))

[Anonymous No.18478788]

Honestly Pynchon is so good he's basically ruined maximalism for me. Outside of a few other writers a lot of it just seems like a poor imitation of Pynchon.

[Anonymous No.18479011]

>>18478788
It's because a lot of people are just imitating Pynchon. A lot of wannabes don't understand there's countless ways of being "maximalist," but they seldom synthesize their wider interests into anything new. At the end of the day you can never make something better than the one place you source all of your parts, there has to be some sort of almost alchemical synthesis of disparate ideas, tones, styles, influence, whatever.

Only other guy still going now who I think does his own brand of maximalism exceptionally well would probably be Vollmann

[Anonymous No.18479120]

I bought a copy of The Mad Patagonian a few weeks ago. I am going to read it after I finish The Recognitions