[Jandek] the whole thing as a holistic revery

Gavin rangoon at ntlworld.com
Sun Nov 27 06:49:31 PST 2005


Saturday, November 26, 2005, 2:34:58 PM, you wrote:

JH>  Gavin, this is one of the best (meaning most insightful)  pieces of writing about Jandek
JH> I've seen (and I think I've seen them all) -- you connected some obvious, but heretofore
JH> unremarked dots here in a way that makes complete sense. Thinking about Jandek in that
JH> context -- Walser, Kafka, Musil -- is incredibly interesting, and his recordings as "chapers"
JH> in a long story -- is to my mind an excellent way to approach his work. Thanks man!

Well thank you! I know that I'm bringing one of my own favourite
personal paradigms to Jandek (the 'book of my life' idea informs a
few of my favourite artist's work, but specifically Walser, Bruno Schulz
and William Gerhardie), but I do think it's also applicable here -
it's hard to fathom Jandekian intention, but it's harder to believe
that anybody would do this for *no* reason, and I do get the
impression that some people think that making weird-sounding records
is motivation enough for, well, making weird-sounding records...but if
there is a 'grand scheme', to me its intention seems most definitely
Artistic (with a capital A), and almost certainly literary (the Trubee
interview in the documentary has the interviewee referring to I Know You
Would Leave as the best combination of POETRY and music rather than lyrics,
and I think this is crucial), and I cannot believe that there aren't other
listeners who don't think along similar lines - but I don't see them
posting here (discounting Thierry Bissonnette's comments that prompted
this in the first place), and it gets a bit lonely reading some of the list
postings...but I'd be as happy to read people telling me why I'm wrong as I
would having anybody concurring in any way...any takers?

Gavin






More information about the jandek mailing list