Whither “Transgressive Art”?

In the summer of '90 I took a third-year Uni course in 20th Century Canadian Literature. Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers was required reading.

Suitable for framing — or wrapping fish.

Let’s see: misogyny, pedophilia, perpetual gas-lighting among the protagonists (to say nothing of the author’s stance toward the reader). And “cultural appropriation” is almost too gentle a term for what that novel does with Mohawk Catholic Saint and icon Catherine Tekakwitha. Other trigger warnings apply, but you get the idea. If there is a university on the continent which has this book on a current undergraduate syllabus, I will eat Werner Herzog’s other shoe.

As for the work itself my appetite for this sort of thing is not much whetter than it is for Herzog’s shoe. But I’ve some appreciation for the attitude that insists on granting the permission to transgress. Over at Paul’s place we mutually puzzled over Kurt Vonnegut’s willing forgiveness of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, a transgressive writer who never troubled himself to apologize or in any way atone for his earlier enthusiastic embrace of Nazism. My suspicion was that Céline’s transgressive art was atonement enough for the likes of Vonnegut, who viewed human willingness to wage war as the greater transgression by far. For Vonnegut, Ginsberg, Bukowski, Reed and many other “fans” of Céline it was Céline’s eagerness to speak the unspeakable that recommended him. Céline’s transgressiveness serves, in this view, to highlight human frailty — even human preciousness.

I will grudgingly sign on with that POV, though I’ll also be grateful to never read Céline — or Beautiful Losers — ever again.

But it is worth noting, yet again, that transgression sure ain’t what it used to be. Cohen’s novel remains, for the moment, in print. But it goes without saying that no prestige press would touch its like today. Currently Bruce Wagner — a midlist author from my generation whose subtle compassion for his grotesquely flawed characters and their entwined fates has earned him a secure readership — has had his most recent novel dropped for containing a protagonist who refers to herself as “fat,” even aspirationally so. (cf., Air Mail; interview.)

I closed my John Wayne/Gina Carano post with, “This doesn’t feel necessary.” I could append that to this, but instead will direct you to Laura Kipnis’ Transgression: An Elegy — a long-read I cannot recommend too highly. Her capacity for indulging the transgressive work of others is much greater than mine, and her meditation on what has changed, and why, makes for truly excellent reading.

Oh, and also this: transgression, for kids, is catnip. They're drawn to it — always have been, always will be. Here in Canada there aren’t many places for college kids to indulge in Spring Breakers levels of bacchanalia, but Whistler, British Columbia certainly qualifies (NSFW, possibly) — so much so that even Americans come up en masse to get their Break on. And I am struck by an observation made by a Canadian in Whistler’s service industry — “I very much doubt this bunch voted for Hillary.”

Who knows but that a future “Céline” does not currently reside within “this bunch”?