Hiya, I Don't Know Anything

on leonard cohen + famous authors who make me not mad, just disappointed

You know…I was reading the Substack of a rather famous author this morning and I came to the conclusion that…

just because someone can write doesn’t mean they should be perpetuating their mind online.

Of course that’s harsh. And I only half mean it.

(As someone who also writes online, I have absolutely no soapbox to stand on here.)

But I find myself increasingly troubled by the mindsets that we’re calling “literary.”

The experience I had reading this author’s Substack was the same experience I had reading their books, which is: I found the narrator so smart that they became dumb. Paralyzed by their own abstractions, they seemed completely incapable of moving through the world in any meaningful way.

To clarify: this particular writer spends much of their time on the page ruminating on the failings of language. And to be sure: this is interesting stuff. I genuinely admire it as a line of inquiry. But ruminations on the failings of language keep a person trapped in their mind. It’s a miserly way to approach the world, I think. And one rooted in fear. (And, also, like: why write a novel if this is your chief concern in life? Go into theory, bitch!!)

So here is my big, general sigh at everything:

I just kiiiiiinda think that the majority of Good Contemporary Fiction Writers are Too Tightly Wound.¹ I don’t care if the sentences are beautiful if the scenes aren’t beautifully observed.

By which I mean: I just want writing that has a generosity of spirit. An ability to engage with reality at every level, even the gross and the taboo. (And I’m not sure that I always embody this ideal but, really, I am trying.)

This is particularly on my mind after watching “Hallelujah,” the Netflix documentary about the Leonard Cohen song.

In the doc, Lenny’s girlfriend talks about him waking up every morning, having a cup of coffee, then heading straight to his notebooks to work out “Hallelujah.” It took him seven years to write “Hallelujah.” 

It’s not among my favorite Leonard Cohen songs — although, to be fair, that’s mostly because of its cultural context. If I’m able to separate the song from its position in society, I’m often stunned by the lyrics:  

Remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

I've done my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you

“I COULDN’T FEEL, SO I TRIED TO TOUCH.”

c’mon now. fucking gorgeous line.

Anyway.

The song is praised for its mix of the spiritual and the sexual. But that’s not how Cohen wrote it. 

Some guess that he wrote at least 80 verses to the song. But when the song was first released, only the Old Testament verses made the cut. Famously, Columbia refused to release the record in America. So when Cohen went on tour, he retaliated by going into his vault of verses and singing a different version of “Hallelujah.” (The horny verses.) 

Then Bob Dylan started covering it.

Then John Cale did. 

And it was Cale who decided to combine the Old Testament stuff with the sex stuff. (He believed he couldn’t sing the most religious verses because he wasn’t Jewish, then someone was like “You know there’s a second version of the song that Lenny sings on tour?”)

Then Jeff Buckley sang Cale’s version and the song spiraled out of control. 

As I’m thinking about why literature often fails to meet its (my) mark, I’m also thinking about why it was only once “Hallelujah” mixed the ~secular~ and the ~spiritual~ that it took off. 

This is my conclusion:

Leonard Cohen’s lyrics stay in reality.

His thoughts are responses to reality. His veneration is for reality.

Whereas that unnamed author has the thoughts first, then tries to make reality fit them.

In an era of abstraction and increasing digital distance, there is something holy about reverence for another person’s body. The feel of skin against skin. There’s a profundity in the tangible that we never feel in symbols.

So, really, my problem with that famous author is as simple as a different attitude about life. They seem to treat reality as the playground for their mental experiments. I try to treat it as the road which disciplines my thoughts.

But also. I don’t know anything. Not one single solid thing. Like…sometimes, when I think about gravity for too long, I get dizzy and check out mentally for a couple of hours. I don’t know how any of this planet works — and if I ever claim to, it’s simply a regurgitation of what I’ve been taught. I don’t really get it. (If anyone reading this is from CERN and wants to take me to the particle accelerator so I can actually see how this all works…pls get in touch.)

So. Yeah. I don’t know anything. But I’m starting to believe that things like solid grasps aren’t the point of life. I’m starting to believe that slipperiness is a virtue. The less sense you can make of the world, the closer you are to reality. I think I believe that. Who knows if it’s true. I’ll probably change my mind next week.

Now, with a great digital flourish, I present:

LINKS, MY FRIENDS

READ

Eastern philosophy says there is no “self.” Science agrees. by Chris Niebauer

The self is more like a verb than a noun. To take it a step further, the implication is that without thought, the self does not, in fact, exist. In the same way that walking only exists while one is walking, the self only exists while there are thoughts about it.