Today on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, David Denby put in an appearance promoting his new book, Snark. I’m not sure what qualifies Denby, a movie critic, to save us from “a strain of nasty, knowing abuse spreading like pinkeye through the national conversation.” Nor am I entirely sure we are in need of saving. That said, I’ve enjoyed Denby’s recent feistiness in the back pages of The New Yorker (after some mid-Bush-era doldrums), and was perfectly happy to give him a hearing while I made lunch.
Suffice it to say, I was underwhelmed. The segment largely consisted of Denby listening to audio clips of SNL and Crossfire declaring whether or not they constituted “snark.” In place of any really useful distinction between “nasty” snark and legitimate discourse, we got a tendentious history lesson (Diogenes but no Juvenal?) and a jurisprudential approach to snark that amounts to “I know it when I see it.”
Do we need anything more than that? Do we need to define snark? I would argue that we do. Ever since Heidi Julavits popularized the term, in her March 2003 Believer manifesto, the word “snark” has been used as a cudgel against all manner of populist tomfoolery (Julavits singles out The New York Post), even as it has proven useless against the pungent attitudinizing of Gawker and its discontents. (For fun, check out the Denby comment thread.) Moreover, the pejorative overtones of the floating signifier “snark” imply that equally fatuous but positive commentary is somehow less damaging to “the national conversation.” If we’re going to have a conversation about that conversation, it seems worth knowing what we’re talking about when we talk about snark. So here, tendered with love and humility, are some notes toward a phenomenology of snark.
Snark is, above all, a tone, and this is what makes it so difficult to pin down. Julavits calls it a “hostile, knowing, bitter tone of contempt,” but forecloses the possibility that hostility and bitterness might be legitimate critical positions. And again, for some reason, online text often reads as more hostile than it actually is. (Think of the phenomenon of the misunderstood email.) No, it’s not negativity, but been-there, seen-that “knowingness,” that is the call-note of snark. (It is impossible to surprise a Snark.) However, allowance must be made for the fact that some people actually know things. Perhaps snark, properly understood, involves a tone of knowingness that doesn’t correspond to actual knowledge. (Truly great snark would thus be impossible to identify: persuading us of its authority, it would be ignorance that leaves no fingerprints.)
A related point: snark is a response disproportionate to the offense, a comment that outshouts the original post. The Snark expends more emotional and intellectual energy formulating his aphorisms than he did consuming, or skimming, their subject. Otherwise, we would have to recognize his hostility, bitterness, or contempt as legitimate. (We carp because we care.) Currently, the perfect object of snark for me is Benjamin Button; it’s a movie I’ll never see, but have put a great deal of thought into making fun of. This lack of regard is more deeply wounding to Benjamin Button fans than it would be if I actually had a legitimate grievance against the film.
The true Snark, perhaps by virtue of his reflexive contempt, cannot be bothered to understand the object of his snark – to expand the compass of his sympathies, to assume good faith. Thus James Wood, even at his most trenchant, does not get accused of snark, whereas Lee Siegel, for all his anti-web fulminations, often seems to be writing from the very heart of snarkness. Siegel believes the length of his essays, and their appearance in print, indemnifies him against his own charges, but is wrong (see numbers 1 and 2 above). Brevity is the soul of wit, but not necessarily of snark.
Snark is a kind of show of plumage, almost a mating ritual. As such, snark always calls more attention to the Snark than to snarked. But again, just because the dagger is driven in with a flourish does not mean it is done snarkily. The thoughtful, the passionate, and the justly aggrieved – Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Anthony Lane – are entitled to be stylish, without being shouted down for snark.
Morally, snark is no better or worse than genial puffery; indeed, it is its dark twin, its complement, an advertisement for the self. Snark is more aesthetically pleasing than puff, however, by virtue of the complexity of its defense mechanisms. It reduces criticism of itself to a negation of a negation – that is, to mere snark. Hence: Denby.
Such notes can only be preliminary. They attempt to prepare the ground for, but do not answer, more important questions: Is snark truly a conjunctivitic plague upon the nation? Or is it, rather, a form of hygiene, defending us against an epidemic of epiphenomena we do not and should not care about? Perhaps the answers are not to be found in intellectualizing, but in a tortured embrace of our own snarky sides. As Susan Sontag might say, in place of a hermeneutics, we need an erotics of snark.
As always, your thoughts (even snarky ones) are welcome.
The Last Samurai brought me so much pleasure–and thought–as a reader that I'm willing to follow DeWitt wherever she goes for the foreseeable future. I keep giving the book as a gift to friends, and I have yet to disappoint one.
But perhaps I don't mind Word files as much as most folks because my wife is a designer and can with very little effort turn a Word file into something that's pleasant to read?
I admire DeWitt's work, and I certainly don't put myself in her class, but you've just noticed that writers are publishing independently online? Or is it only writers who have already published conventionally who merit your attention?
As you can imagine, I'm very saddened – and frustrated – that even lit bloggers, who mostly use the internet as their vehicle of choice, seem to stigmatise indie writers, writers who in fact ought to be considered their 'colleagues in arms'!
Lee – didn't mean to frustrate or sadden you. Though I had anticipated some reactions of this sort, I chose to excise a final paragraph of this piece that would have said, in effect, "But really, bunches of fiction writers are publishing independently online, so this isn't a big deal." I think the kind of quick-and-dirty PayPal mechanism DeWitt chose is interesting – and that her stature as an artist makes this a big deal. Are there particular online-indie writers you admire who you'd like to bring to our attention, or who deserve a similar stature? Writers who have already taken a whirl in coporate publishing? Writers who wouldn't, if they had a chance? This was exactly what I was hoping someone would do: point us to the good stuff.
From the corporate/establishment publishing side, you could start with Elfriede Jelinek (in German):
http://www.a-e-m-gmbh.com/wessely/fneid1.htm
There's of course lots of SF or fantasy stuff around, and certainly good short stories (try Nicholas Hogg, Kelly Link, Peter Wild for a start). Online novels are often disappointing, but this one looks promising:
http://mmgl100.wordpress.com/
And here are two by children's author Penelope Farmer:
http://liftingtheworldtvtgctg.blogspot.com/2007/01/chapters-one-and-two.html
http://grannyp.blogspot.com/2007/06/going-mental.html
As to stature, and just how we decide who deserves it, well, I'm not about to start on that one!
Garth, I forgot to add that I for one have no interest in corporate publishing – or at least would only be interested in publishing conventionally if I were permitted to serialise or issue my fiction simultaneously online. After having spent eighteen years in Zimbabwe, I take great pleasure in seeing my first (and very flawed!) YA novel Mortal Ghost being downloaded to faraway places, places a book wouldn't – or couldn't – reach. But I will freely admit that most writers are still, in their heart of hearts, dreaming of conventional recognition (and a living wage).
The last comment, I promise!
Litlove, who blogs at Tales from the Reading Room, has just started a new blog called The Best of New Writing on the Web, which some of your readers might like to keep an eye on:
http://tbrbooks.wordpress.com/
She will soon be compiling an issue with excerpts from online novels.
This post cost me $17. $5 for the stories (and a graceful email from the author) and $12 for the N+1 with the excerpt of Ms. Dewitt's new novel.
I might have totally missed this if not for you, so thanks.
These anti-capitalists always make me scratch my head. Like the Hollywood elites made rich and famous by virtue of capitalism, they believe it to be the worst system on earth, not to mention their country that endorses it.