Depression Theory

This post has proven popular, so I'm re-posting:

I stumbled across this Powerpoint description of the factors behind the Great Depression in the United States,and it jigsawed well with several books I've read in the past few years which either deal with the Depression directly, or as an important element of the book's topic -- titles such as Robert Bothwell's THE PENGUIN HISTORY OF CANADA, Jean Edward Smith's FDR, Amity Shlaes' THE FORGOTTEN MAN, Ron Chernow's THE HOUSE OF MORGAN, and A. J. Nicholl's WEIMER AND THE RISE OF HITLER. (I think I could also include Herbet Bix's HIROHITO AND THE MAKING OF MODERN JAPAN in this category because it gives a detailed description of the rise of the Japanese right during the 1930s.)


source: Google Images

The ppt presentation is at a blog for a company called Multimedia Learning. However, the site seems to be something of a labour of love (and some profit) put together by a group of American history teachers. As a result, its posts tend to go from subject to subject. However, I was quite impressed by the presentation because it underlined in simple language the multitude of causes behind the Depression, including factors such as unequal distribution of  income and the pre-Depression that existed in agriculture, which suffered economically throughout the 1920s.

Unequal distribution of income remains one of the hallmarks of modern economies; it is, apparently, a desired neo-conservative goal, or at least a principle that neo-conservative economic thinkers -- whose ideas influence and sometimes dominate North American economic policy -- feel ideologically obliged to support. Blogs that I have found that deal with the New Great Depression do not pay much attention to it, and instead focus their remarks on the perceived bungling of bureaucrats, alarmist writing about the fragility of paper currency (and, natch, the superiority of gold), and so forth. Crisis is viewed as so incipient that a rational collective response cannot be conceived or organized. The underlying message is, everyone man/woman/investor for himself.....

(Mainstream media is somewhat more sophisticated, but still alarmist.

PAUL B. FARRELL

Nov. 19, 2008, 11:53 a.m. EST

30 reasons for Great Depression 2 by 2011

New-New Deal, bailouts, trillions in debt, antitax mindset spell disaster.    )

The other factor from the teachers' site that I found particularly interesting, farming, has changed considerably since the 1920s and '30s. In North America and Europe, it receives better government support than it used to. I have to admit, this is a pretty hazy area for me, though, and one of my friends, whose father is a farmer in Saskatchewan, would probably bristle at the suggestion that the farmer's life is "easy". My in-laws also include farmers -- a tea farm with some vegetable gardening. I've seen repeatedly how hard that line of business is, and this year's destructive winter only made the situation worse.

In South Korea, more than contemporary Canada or the U.S., farmers still suffer on a regular basis: acreage is limited, incomes remain too low, there is population flight to the cities, and crises such as the recent foot-and-mouth disaster with its ill-administered vaccination program followed by a panicky mass slaughter of livestock, tend to escalate quickly.

What is interesting, from point of view of the maintenance of democracy, is how these issues are not often expressed on the meta-economic level of day-to-day discourse. Economics is seen as focused on the stock market -- along with industrial production. I do not want to take issue with the importance of these factors. All I mean to say is that other factors which are crucial to creating new economic turbulence tend to be low-balled in media coverage. New depressions, in other words, gestate in overlooked zones of the Body Economic, while our attention is focused elsewhere.

Noteworthy

Frances Madeson has a new blog up. It's promisingly entitled WRITTEN WORD, SPOKEN WORD, and you can read it here.

Noteworthy

The latest edition of CANADIAN NOTES AND QUERIES is out. You can check out the online version of the magazine here. (I have an article in this one, though it's not online.)

With the help of Charles Yang, I am building a new version of the CBT blog. Check out its first, somewhat gangly and awkward first post-steps here.

Other than that, happy holidays.

Call for submissions

Dan Green, who has been running his litblog since its inception primarily as a one-person operation (though he did for a while have a side-blog entitled CRITICAL DISTANCE) invites others to contribute to THE READING EXPERIENCE. He is hoping to put a particular emphasis on poetry. I hope he might also consider contributions on graphic fiction as well as web-published fiction, though I realize that is entirely up to him.

From Green's call:

The Reading Experience would thus become a forum for reviews of this kind. I would contribute such reviews myself, but I would also be the "editor" in that I would be looking for other writers and critics to contribute as well. Since I can't pay anyone for the effort, unfortunately the reward would have to be in the value of the effort itself. I could imagine reviews of books that are appearing several months to several years after the publication date, as well as essays that attempt to retrieve books from the oblivion into which they threaten to fall because of a lack of attention.

If anything, poetry is even more endangered by current reviewing practices than fiction, since much important poetry is given no attention at all in book review sections and on book review sites. So I would be interested additionally in reviews of poets and poetry, especially those that attempt to identify the important work being done, either by examining single books by particular poets, or by grouping several poets together, or by discussing at length noteworthy anthologies.

Noteworthy

Dan Wagstaff's favourite book covers of 2011.

Noteworthy

Nigel Beale interviews book historian Jonathan Rose. The interview takes as its starting point the history of British publisher John Malaby Dent; however, it also provides an interesting overview of the publishing of the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries.

Noteworthy

Korean film critics Bak Eun-young and Kang Yoo-jeong on Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful.

Noteworthy

Doug Saunders on Canada at war, at war.

Noteworthy

- Jacob Russell on OWS organizing


- Rusty Truck's most recent.

Noteworthy

- Quebecois publisher Marcel Broquet, who was kind enough to be interviewed for an academic section of my series on contemporary publishing, has released an autobiographical account of his life in Quebec letters. It is entitled LAISSEZ-MOI VOUS RACONTER: 53 ANS DANS LE MONDE DU LIVRE (Let me tell you a story: 53 years in the world of books).

- Jimoondang Publishing [집문당] of Korea continues with its English-language series on Korean culture with WON-BUDDHISM: THE BIRTH OF KOREAN BUDDHISM.

- Dan Green on creative writing programs and their institutionalized discontents.

- Levi Asher on OWS and its un-institutionalized evolutions.

Sanaaq

From an interesting customer review of Mitiarjuk Nappaluk's novel of an Inuit woman's life, Sanaaq:


Cette oeuvre renseigne sur les us et coutumes des Inuit. On ne lit pas Sanaaq pour la beauté de l'écriture. L'auteur raconte tout simplement leur lutte acharnée pour survivre. La chasse et la pêche font partie de leurs activités quotidiennes.


Le phoque compose leur nourriture de base. C'est le bovin de l'Occidental. Comme il est important, il prend plusieurs noms. Ainsi un phoque est un ujjuk; mais n'ayant que la tête hors de l'eau, il devient un puiji et étendu au soleil, c'est un uutuk. Cette distinction est très utile pour un chasseur averti.


L'univers féminin des Inuites transparaît dans ce roman. L'héroïne est Sanaaq, une veuve remariée dont la vie n'est pas reléguée dans l'ombre du mari. La violence conjugale viendra ternir cette image, mais comme elle origine d'un homme équilibré mais perturbé par la maladie de son fils, le couple pourra continuer à vivre dans l'harmonie. Malgré cet incident malheureux, l'oeuvre révèle que les Inuit composent un peuple simple et sain. Si ça sent le bonheur, il ne faut pas croire que la psychologie ne joue pas dans l'Arctique. Les dépressions et les succubes s'y donnent aussi rendez-vous. Heureusement, le roman prend fin peu de temps après l'arrivée des blancs. Il n'en fallait pas plus pour engrosser la soeur de Sanaaq et les diviser à propos de la religion.


C'est un beau roman, dont la valeur est plus anthropologique que littéraire. Yves Thériault avait fait connaître les Inuit avec Agaguk. Dans Je m'en vais, Jean Echenoz a signalé l'importance de leur art. Avec Sanaaq, on les découvre vraiment.


As the above makes clear, the volume is available in French (and advertised at collectors' prices: $303). I don't have time to translate the entire passage, but the gist of it is that Sanaaq is written in spare, simple prose and tells of the customs and habits of the Inuit. It describes their life of hunting and fishing, and goes into detail, for example, about their terminology for seals. The story is told from the point of view of a remarried widow, and it portrays Inuit society just on the eve of its first contact with whites. The Inuit are described as simple and pure; however, it is a work that does not shy away from showing some of the darker sides of Inuit life, such as psychological depression.

The work was originally written in syllabics -- an alphabet that, coincidentally, bears some resemblance to Hangeul. I first came across mention of this work at the Studies in Canadian Literature website. I'd like to find out more about this volume.

Matt Kindt -- illustrator, graphic novelist

Matt Kindt of Super Spy, The Tooth, Revolver, and 3 Story (The Secret History of the Giant Man): 

1. Graphic fiction, we are told, is in; it has arrived. Academics talk about it, literary publishers include it -- sometimes -- on their lists. But how accepted is it really? Is it genuinely accepted by the high-brow, and viewed with true objectivity? Or is some of the praise that it is given merely bumpf? After all, MFA programs specialize in writing, not graphic fiction; English departments rarely if ever pay attention to graphic fiction; major publishers do not publish much of it, and major prizes never include it in short lists, even though it can be a form of novel. What needs to change for graphic fiction to gain more acceptance?
MK: I don't know if I'm qualified to answer that question - but my best guess would be readership. There needs to be shift in readers of monthly genre books that go to the store every week to more traditional readers that pick up graphic novels as they would any other book, instead of just the few that do make it to mainstream attention.


2. Literary fiction (particularly by new authors) is struggling these days while graphic novels are enjoying steady, healthy sales. Any observations on why that is?

MK: Entertainment. I think readers want to be entertained. And I can't say that I'm very impressed with "literary fiction" in its modern form anyway. Simply put, it's boring. I won't name authors but a lot of what I consider literary fiction, I can't even get through the descriptive copy on the back of the book without rolling my eyes. I think a lot of writers forget what their first goal is and it should be to entertain. The second goal should be to make a reader think differently about something. But those 2 goals need to be in that order.

3. There are a lot of comics artists who self-publish. As in the music industry -- with bands with their own labels -- this is considered perfectly acceptable as long as the creative result is good. Yet self-publishing is deeply frowned upon in literary circles. Why do you think that is?

MK: There's more history and culture there and it's really a different world. It's like the fine art community -- where the "accepted" art is determined by the academics. Comics is still the wild west to some degree -- anything goes and the good stuff rises to the top regardless of publisher or agent.

4. How did you start out?

MK: I self-published my first few comics and just hand distributed them to local comic shops. In 2000 I submitted my first finished graphic novel to Top Shelf and they agreed to publish a week after I handed it to them. There was a lot of sweat and work before that first book got handed to Top Shelf but I just didn't bother trying to get published until I thought I was ready.

5.What kinds of drawing materials do you use?

MK: Japanese Sumi Calligraphy ink, #2 sable hair brush, and windsor newton travel water colors, and water color paper

6. Cartoonists tend to refer directly in their work to the influence of other cartoonists, while traditional artists get "left out". Any fine art influences on your work?

MK: Edward Hopper and Dave McKean are probably my biggest visual influences.

7. How about literary influences?

MK: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and 9 Stories by J D Salinger are by far the most influential books I've read.

8. The United States has produced some of the biggest names in experimental comics, as the form as gone through a series of incarnations: the surreal satire of Krazy Kat by George Herriman, to the underground comics of R. Crumb, to the graphic fiction of Chris Ware. Any other names you'd like to add to the list?

MK: Dan Clowes I think really towers over everyone as well as Cristophe Blaine and Gipi.