Ive finished xenogothics book now. Pretty good, though not completely my cuppa unfortunately. Its well written and has some engaging bits, and id like to encourage him to post more on here really, although can see why hes not, cos hes got nuff other projects on the go. His blog is interesting.
So its good for summarising a lot of disparate threads, various blog posts and so on. Very readable as well, i finished it in a couple of days, its very engrossing. The section riffing on westworld and talking about the american west generally, about how its become a codified thing in the imagination, when it was so many different things, thats good.
And very good also on pulling together a load of different strands of philosophy, many of which seem very interesting, especially herbert marcuse, he sounds like someone to follow up. I might also check bataille out, i previously safely cancelled him after chris kraus, but he sounds pretty intriguing in these pages.
He refers to blanchot a lot, who ive never heard of, and i dont think the reference is completely successful, but what was interesting is that he picks up on how he converted, from being right wing early on, to more left wing later, this idea of conversion is something ive been thinking about a bit recently, so it resonated.
So the less good bits... overall i would say it doesnt hang together all that well, cos its got so many different things going on. Hes tried to connect them all together but it feels a little forced, particularly cos at the end of each longish chapter, he tries to link to the next, but this technique didnt really come off for me. Mightve been better to just have shorter chapters. Dunno.
Theres also a few bits i found frustrating, where he talks about various disagreements and factions developing in the wake of the the death, but then he doesnt really go into them in much detail. I understand why, cos it would come across as too gossipy, which would devalue the whole thing i think, so maybe better just not mentioned. And this same issue rears up at the end, where he talks about the uni, thought that was all a bit wishy washy and im someone who needs a good ending.
But i think that may just be an issue of me not being such a good audience in a way, im not that well versed in mark fisher tbh, have read capitalist relism (which i think is good) and a few odd blogs, but not much else. Ive put him down more than picked him up, in a sense, i thoughts the ghosts book was pretty poor. And i find some of his cultural judgements (eg on red riding) baffling. But this has encouraged me to maybe pick up weird and eerie at some point.
I found most of what he said about k punk to be completely uncontroversial, but its presented like it is, cos i guess hes addressing/heading off a more left wing audience. Like, i pretty much agree with what mark wrote in vampires castle, i think others (eg jarett kobek) have said it in a better way tho. And acid communism, im a bit humph about that, just sounds boring and not so different to various other ‘new’ isms. The language seems wrong to me. But i appreciate it was an unfinished project.
Also the references to popular culture that xenogothic makes (the walkin dead, the oc, picnic at hanging rock), they are fairly interesting, but ive never actually watched or read any of them... so that stuff missed the mark a bit. Maybe will watch westworld or read picnic at some point.. Ditto in a sense for the music refs, heard of these people but only know aphex twin, and what he says on him is not revelatory to me much, but then i dont like aphex hugely.
So overall, not quite as good or affecting as some other stuff ive read recently, tho i tend to read fiction books more than anything else, so its not a particularly valid comparison (however i did read ‘spinal catastrophism’ a few weeks ago and thought it was excellent).
Still interesting stuff tho, would recc others on here buy it and read it, would be keen to know what people think. And would be good to have xenogothic start a few threads, i look forward to his next book as well.