Current:Home > News'The Late Americans' is not just a campus novel-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
'The Late Americans' is not just a campus novel
View Date:2024-12-23 15:53:29
It's convenient to slot Brandon Taylor's The Late Americans, along with his debut novel Real Life, into the campus novel category.
But his latest book is more than this. It evokes Milan Kundera's astute observation in Immortality that the pursuit of a meaningful calling in today's world is nearly impossible due to the burdens of history and sociopolitical barriers to access.
Taylor deftly explores the myth of youth's unbound possibilities as it plays out in the face of constraints of time, space, class and wealth disparities by vividly illustrating the intersecting lives of University of Iowa students pursuing master degrees, in artistic as well as STEM-related fields, with the people living in this college town.
Defined by "lateness" — the graduate students' adolescence prolonged in part by the protective structure of academe, the persistently isolating milieu of 21st century America, and the inexorable conditions of late capitalism — Taylor's characters, while still in the seemingly untethered stage of self-discovery, are not really free. Oppressed by the lack of time and money, and driven by a series of relentless transitions between economic survival and aesthetic passion, these men and women rarely get to experience joy in their daily pursuits.
Taylor's setting of the open Iowa landscape both references and poetically subverts the campus novel's pastoral elements — those that mimic the lush milieu of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. While the harsh, wintry Midwestern setting — with its slate-colored sky, dirty, slushy snow in the winter, diseased ash trees — seems more Gothic than Romantic, this barren framing intensifies the characters' corporeal desires, manifest via their sweaty bodies in overheated, indoor space. Physical intimacy offers the characters temporary respite if not intellectual or ideological solidarity.
In a way, Iowa City is a contradiction — as a college town surrounded by barren, windswept landscape and hilly terrains, it is both coarse and rarefied, peopled by meatpacking plant workers, laborers, artists, writers, forming a racially diverse and sexually fluid population. At the same time, there seems to be little convergence or understanding between the town residents and the students, or among the students themselves.
Seamus, who works as a cook at a local hospice to finance his MFA in poetry, is undone by the hatred and violence inflicted upon him by a gay "townie" during a casual sexual encounter. Seamus' disdain for his peers' lack of aesthetic rigor masks his insecurity and corroding shame that contribute to his writer's block. Fyodor, the meatpacking worker, while an intuitive artist — since he perceives the formal beauty between a well-trimmed cut of meat and that of a modernist painting's abstract elements — is constantly derided by his vegetarian lover for his "murderous" profession and his lack of appreciation for the theoretical aspects of art.
Regardless, it appears that the cost of facile piety or "aesthetic anger" is mostly borne by the socially disadvantaged — be they laborers or artists. Fyodor's lover can denounce his meatpacking job while blithely espousing capital punishment. Fatima, a poor barista and struggling dancer, while embracing environmental causes, cannot afford the steep cost of locally sourced food. The most aesthetically sensitive, yet also most pragmatic character, is probably Ivan, a talented ex-dancer who sees art simply as a means to an end. After an injury derailed his promising dance career, Ivan shifts his studies to finance as a way to secure his own, and his elderly parents', material stability. To pay for university expenses, Ivan decides to produce "arty" porn clips with stylized, hypnotic body movements for mass consumption — thus consciously exploiting the capitalist machine for what he sees as the greater good.
Arguably, many of Taylor's "late Americans" represent the modern counterparts of characters that populate the novels of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Theodore Dreiser — those who are shaped by their histories or confined by strict yet undefined social regulations. In this sense perhaps Taylor implies that the modern university experience has failed us, for we have not succeeded in transcending our ideological, social, and economic barriers, even in an open setting for experimental learning.
While Taylor's characters can be openly cruel to their friends or partners, their unwillingness to be emotionally transparent is not so different from the decorous, convoluted behavior of Gilded Age protagonists. At the same time, the characters constantly strive to become better versions of themselves by embracing an ideal of passionate empathy that goes beyond pity or kindness, by striving to plumb the dark, even unspeakable parts of themselves. In this sense, Taylor seems both more hopeful, and yet more pragmatic than F. Scott Fitzgerald. Many of his characters are not pursuing the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, but the arduous, Sisyphean climb of self-knowledge.
Thúy Đinh is a freelance critic and literary translator. Her work can be found at thuydinhwriter.com. She tweets @ThuyTBDinh
veryGood! (7)
Related
- Get Your Home Holiday-Ready & Decluttered With These Storage Solutions Starting at $14
- Scholastic wanted to license her children's book — if she cut a part about 'racism'
- Twitter labels NPR's account as 'state-affiliated media,' which is untrue
- Gen Z is the most pro union generation alive. Will they organize to reflect that?
- Jury awards Abu Ghraib detainees $42 million, holds contractor responsible
- Biden Tightens Auto Emissions Standards, Reversing Trump, and Aims for a Quantum Leap on Electric Vehicles by 2030
- Kathy Griffin Fiercely Defends Madonna From Ageism and Misogyny Amid Hospitalization
- Mega Millions jackpot grows to an estimated $820 million, with a possible cash payout of $422 million
- College Football Playoff ranking release: Army, Georgia lead winners and losers
- Ron DeSantis threatens Anheuser-Busch over Bud Light marketing campaign with Dylan Mulvaney
Ranking
- How to Build Your Target Fall Capsule Wardrobe: Budget-Friendly Must-Haves for Effortless Style
- Special counsel continues focus on Trump in days after sending him target letter
- Twitter labels NPR's account as 'state-affiliated media,' which is untrue
- A regional sports network bankruptcy means some baseball fans may not see games on TV
- ‘COP Fatigue’: Experts Warn That Size and Spectacle of Global Climate Summit Is Hindering Progress
- Corn-Based Ethanol May Be Worse For the Climate Than Gasoline, a New Study Finds
- Bill Gates on next-generation nuclear power technology
- Inside Clean Energy: A Geothermal Energy Boom May Be Coming, and Ex-Oil Workers Are Leading the Way
Recommendation
-
Burger King's 'Million Dollar Whopper' finalists: How to try and vote on your favorite
-
Biden Tightens Auto Emissions Standards, Reversing Trump, and Aims for a Quantum Leap on Electric Vehicles by 2030
-
Airline passengers could be in for a rougher ride, thanks to climate change
-
Jada Pinkett Smith Teases Possible Return of Red Table Talk After Meta Cancelation
-
Who will be in the top 12? Our College Football Playoff ranking projection
-
Climate Envoy John Kerry Seeks Restart to US Emissions Talks With China
-
White House to establish national monument honoring Emmett Till
-
Corn-Based Ethanol May Be Worse For the Climate Than Gasoline, a New Study Finds