Another dream, another book

Dream:
Kirk Cameron (who at some point in an earlier part of my dream was, I think, talking about how much fun he had as a soldier in Iraq) and I were filling in tourist information on a map while a bear (clearly supposed to be an over-sized version of my puppy) lapped me incessantly. We finished the map and I shoved the bear away from me, sick of being lapped. The bear didn't like that and, without warning (I usually see things coming in dreams), the bear lunged at me. I woke up, my heart literally cowering in terror at the bottom of my bed.

I'm finally, FINALLY making some headway on my thesis, only to stop and go to New Haven for the weekend for a mini-reunion with the old roomies. Sigh. Well, at least there will be good food.

Am reading Thank You for Not Reading (something about exile has to do with something about translation, as far as my thesis is concerned) by Dubravka Ugresic, who is Croatian and a writer, but not a Croatian writer (too nationalistic). The book is extremely well-written, and while I feel at times of a similar temperament, aesthetic, and political mind, I'd be afraid to say it to her. Every person who is ever watched and enjoyed a TV show will be crushed. People who do not watch television and then rail about television on television will be crushed. Anyone who has ever felt high-and-mighty will be crushed. Anyone who has allowed others to notice how timid they are will be crushed. In general all people will be crushed, with the possible exception of the Amish.

Do utterly genuine people with no angles exist? I know Dubravka includes herself in the people she crushes (sort of) but I wonder... I don't know what I wonder. Except that in the matter of literature, everything of value has taken a back seat to mass media production, boxes of cereal with dehydrated marshmallows.

On one hand, I am an unapologetic elitist when it comes to literature; on the other, I believe in sincerity, though I think it's a different kind of sincerity from the kind Ugresic finds abhorrent. Literature is equal parts craft and art -- you must read Dickens and read like Dickens and read like the Dickens to have the right to write like Dickens. Even then, not everyone can be a writer; and if you aren't obsessed with books and words and syntax and story and rhythm, then you're not a writer. You have to study tradition before you can question tradition, all of which comes before choosing to break tradition (otherwise, you're just fucking around). You just can't knock on writers you haven't read (it's like those morons who yell about Hounddog without having seen the film, talked to the director about how the rape scene was shot, or asked the actress how she felt -- people just like to have something to be against). Moreover, you shouldn't write something unless you have something worth writing. Writing is labor and love and privilege and it should be treated with the utmost dedication and respect. You have to be sincere about your work -- your story can be a total fiction, your characters despiccable, your dialogue silly or witty or obtuse, but you have to know it when you write it. You have to make choices and be aware. If you don't mean what you write, you have to meant to have not meant it. At the end of the day, f you haven't made yourself ill over your writing, you're probably not a writer.