Birds of Feather Flock Together
by Lostalley
Adam Mansbach is an interesting writer, on the margin. Well, interesting writers are often marginalized and get inspired by that experience. Mainstream means mediocrity, and that’s what most bestsellers are. Here is a Jew, born and bred in Bronx, who looks white, talks like a black rapper and writes in between. I started but didn’t quite finish his “The End of the Jews”, a novel on artist alienation, over-harped superficially and cynically. But I was entertained by the video recitation of his poem posted by Marauders. I will listen to it again before I go the f*ck to sleep tonight, over some shots of whisky, if there is any left.
Another writer on the margin comes to my mind, Charles Bukowski. Raw, pugnacious, vulgarly romantic, he is what I call a malnutrition supplement writer. Bukowski is an alternative therapy for literary patients sickened beyond recovery by over-dosage of moral sweetener (心灵鸡汤). He is called multi-names: racist, anti-Semite, male-chauvinist, and Nazi, by the left and right, the Establishment and fringe. Ironically, he is a quarter Jew whose grandmother’s last name is Israel. Marauders, ever heard of “Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit”? If not, go try. You may like this literary bandit, my friend.
