{"id":307,"date":"2011-02-04T19:17:46","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T19:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/crowreviews\/?p=307"},"modified":"2011-02-04T19:21:49","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T19:21:49","slug":"epigonesia-kane-faucher-and-tom-bradley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/crowreviews\/2011\/02\/epigonesia-kane-faucher-and-tom-bradley\/","title":{"rendered":"On “Epigonesia”,by Kane Faucher and Tom Bradley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lynn Alexander on \u201cEpigonesia\u201d, by Kane Faucher, annotated by Tom Bradley, published by Blaze VOX.<\/em><\/p>\n

Resist the temptation to confuse the writer with the narrator, and the narrator with the channeled. In \u201cEpigonesia\u201d we see a writer \u2013Faucher- who is also a character but who speaks with the voices of multiple and disparate others, explained by still another voice, Bradley, who provides the \u201cannotation\u201d.\u00a0 It is through Bradley that we are led through the sequence of inhabitants, a parade of\u00a0 \u201cliterary luminaries\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yes. Through an untimely death we end up in Canada, terrain of the \u201cparochial\u201d.\u00a0 (One wonders why they opted to reject the Falkland Islands?\u00a0 Too coveted, the wanting of \u00a0Brits, the inability \u00a0to convey the proper contrition?) Canadian cultureclasts \u00a0might be either \u201cprotesting too\u00a0 much or compensating for something\u201d. (What are they saying, penis envy?)<\/p>\n

While much can be said about the premise and format, I want to focus on the aspect of satire in the work, and the way Faucher and Bradley establish the scene for their mischief. Stated outright is the confession of the author\u2019s engaging in posthumous critique, which is clever as it serves to absolve him of accountability. Can anyone blame a guy for conclusions arrived at and conveyed via deciphered utterances, dead?\u00a0 He has crossed over into dead\u2019s domain, where civilization reclaims her moderns to ferret them away from a begrudging and indulgent context. \u00a0We can\u2019t blame Faucher, he knows not what he speaks, wrapped as he is in transubstantia-tech fever. He\u2019s only a conduit, after all.<\/p>\n

First, the obvious irony of a critique on popular modern culture (text-speak, message obsession, gadgets, empty banter) and the scenario of a retrieved cell phone that serves as medium to \u00a0some of history\u2019s\u2026well, less accessible personalities.\u00a0 The rejection of one candidate as of \u201cthe wrong antiquity\u201d is suggestive of the kind of lampoon the reader will encounter. I\u2019ll be honest, I didn\u2019t expect it to be funny- but it really is. And Faucher reveals his interest in the dynamics of \u201ctech culture\u201d , perhaps also an \u00a0interest in the data-crypt, pieces of us once lost to the ethers, now ghost bits \u201cin the machine\u201d. Do we really know how electronic information might endure beyond us? Cyberspace might indeed be the modern \u201ccrystal skull\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/em>If we could ask Faucher or Bradley (well, actually we can probably do that\u2026) who their intended audience would be, what would they say?\u00a0 Academic, elite, leisure class, deranged?\u00a0 Who among us reads Artaud? Celine?<\/p>\n

This is an important question here because it speaks to at least part of the point, that we writers of today often treat legacy with the snub of ill-mannered children and then we busy ourselves with the most vacuous of pleasures.<\/p>\n

If I had to sum up the point of \u201cEpigonesia\u201d in MY words, it would be the asking of this very simple question: What will be in your<\/em> head when you are dead? When your filters and postures are immobilized, what is the breadth of your inner world? What is the intellectual truth, the mental summation of you?<\/p>\n

\u201cBut death is the true<\/em><\/p>\n

lesson and image of life… At least when you’re dead, the truth<\/em><\/p>\n

comes out… all those years of fat eating and fat thinking…\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 (p.35)<\/em><\/p>\n

Never mind the rigors of pretensions. As a sort of ghost, Faucher means to be let loose. And Bradley means to explain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe characters portrayed in this work are the product of the author\u2019s speculative fictions and imagination, very loosely based on the actual persons themselves. This work is in no way designed to defame or libel the deceased persons of Ezra Pound, Louis-Ferdinand C\u00e9line, Charles Bukowski, Antonin Artaud, Hunter S. Thompson, or Henry Miller3<\/sup><\/a>, nor their respective descendants or estates. This text is an exercise in caricature, satire, and speculation, and does not intend to cast these named persons in any claim to historical accuracy.4<\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

For some inexplicable reason perhaps known only to the most eldritch of alchemical sciences in the perfection of homunculi,5<\/sup><\/a> five6<\/sup><\/a> dead vitriolic writers of the twentieth century have returned in the polite environs of Canada7<\/sup><\/a> As they come to grips with the grim and harsh realities of the present day, they assess the situation the only way they know how: through their signature acerbic critiques, jeremiads, and austere reflections. However, lurking above them all as the fiendish puppetmaster and nefarious arch-villain is the one who ferried them into the world: Ebeneezer8<\/sup><\/a> Pound, Grand Ipsissimus of Poetic Criticism.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Consider the reader who is rooted in dueling dichotomies, scornful of modernity while entrenched in her trappings, nostalgic, craving the alleged disciplines of \u201cold school\u201d literature in a field of self-absorbed contemporaries. Imagine\u00a0 the reader who is both enamored with and disgusted by work that is robust and pompous, who seeks to understand the historical yardstick while also seeking to identify with something proximal but distinct.<\/p>\n

Picture a modern man, emasculated by giants, pop culture the \u00a0diluting, antithesis, the implicated \u201csaltpetre\u201d.<\/p>\n

Different readers will identify different things that are funny, that speak to their own experiences and inner rants. The strange format can be appreciated as innovative, Faucher and Bradley authors of distinction in the experimental realm.<\/p>\n

Lest you be put off by the different personalities, you don\u2019t need to be an avid student of each to be entertained by the sections, I am certainly not.<\/p>\n

It is a work to experience rather than study, a work whose volume was worth my time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lynn Alexander on \u201cEpigonesia\u201d, by Kane Faucher, annotated by Tom Bradley, published by Blaze VOX. Resist the temptation to confuse the writer with the narrator, and the narrator with the channeled. In \u201cEpigonesia\u201d we see a writer \u2013Faucher- who is also a character but who speaks with the voices of \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[136,62,137,138],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experimental","tag-epigonesia","tag-experimental-2","tag-kane-faucher","tag-tom-bradley"],"yoast_head":"\nOn "Epigonesia",by Kane Faucher and Tom Bradley - Crow Reviews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/crowreviews\/2011\/02\/epigonesia-kane-faucher-and-tom-bradley\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On "Epigonesia",by Kane Faucher and Tom Bradley - Crow Reviews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lynn Alexander on \u201cEpigonesia\u201d, by Kane Faucher, annotated by Tom Bradley, published by Blaze VOX. 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