Blood and Guts in High School

Acker’s literary strategies of montage, appropriation, and use of several different literary forms (letters, poems, children’s stories, plays, etc. in addition to more traditional narrative) in Blood and Guts in High School immediately alerted me to a remix of the remix technique the dadaists used to assert the absurdity of their time. A large component of dada literature involved taking the format of texts they believed promoted nationalism and justification of war (i.e., journalism, Expressionism) and breaking it down into nonsense, thus depleting it of meaning. In doing so they replaced the authority of the original texts with their own. I think Acker employs this process to subvert the history of masculine literature as a whole. In response to the overtly sexist Sahih, Janey states, “For 2,000 years you’ve had the nerve to tell women who we are. We use your words; we eat your food. Every way we get money has to be a crime. We are plagiarists, liars, and criminals,” implying that the world is defined in masculine terms and so women are forced to exist and express themselves under those conditions. However, she executes this plagiarism extremely effectively, using their words to undermine them, challenging the concept of a solely masculine literary authority. In addition, based on the context, an unchanged plagiarized form can take on a whole new meaning. Acker seems to use Burroughs’ cut-up method throughout the book, but based on the relationship of this form to the story, it’s confused fragmentation translates to Janey’s state of mind and creates a sense of her perception.

I also think it’s important to address Georges Bataille’s role in terms of a pornographic, surrealist structure with a high concentration of “fucks” and “cunts.” Despite Story of the Eye’s explicit sexual description, I find it to be more about Bataille’s theory of heterology than sex itself. Heterology is essentially “the study of that which is different.” Specifically, Story of the Eye is about the dichotomy between spherical objects (eyes, eggs) and liquids (tears, urine, semen). Sex is important, however, because as Acker says, “We don't know what humans are like… It's not like people do everything they do for economic reasons. You've got to look at the imagination; you've got to look at sex.” The sexual content and “base” language functions more as an embrace of the disgusting and painful because “erotic pleasure is not only the negation of an agony that takes place at the same instant, but also a lubricious participation in that agony.” While Bataille’s novella is not necessarily about sex, however, I think Blood and Guts in High School is. It seems to me that Acker uses Bataille’s concept of heterology in reference to feminine sexuality, particularly in Janey’s desire to fuck and the painful consequences that sex brings. She both negates and participates in agony, and therefore the crudeness of Acker’s language is vital. I don’t believe, as one reviewer said, that Acker’s writing ability is impaired by her language choice. Without the pain that she borrows from Bataille, the complexities and double-standards behind female sexuality would be dishonest and turned into something superficial, making the book read more like an episode of Sex and the City. And the less Sex and the City in this world, the better.


For Bataille’s ramblings on the excessive and disgusting, here’s a pretty interesting essay on D.A.F. De Sade:
http://www.sauer-thompson.com/essays/BatailleUseValueSade.pdf


Also, I couldn’t find a link to a good dada poem that described what I discussed above, but here’s an example below:


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Year 1 of World Peace
Baader, Hausmann, Huelsenbeck, Tristan Tzara


Dada Statement
Hirsch Copper and Brass weaker than ever. Will Germany starve?
Then it must sign. Attractive young lady with 38:22:38 figure for
Herman Loeb. If Germany does not sign, then it will
probably sign. In a marketplace of unit values, prices
tend to fall. If Germany signs it will probably be
signing so as not to have to sign. Lovehalls.
Latenightextratheskywhizzingalong. From Viktorhahn. Lloyd
George thinks it was possible that Clemenceau is of the opinion
that Wilson believes Germany must sign, for she won’t be able
not to sign. As a result club dada declares itself in favour of
total freedom of the press-ure because the press-ure is the
cultural weapon
without which we would never learn that Germany really
will not sign simply in order to sign.
(Club dada, Dept. for Freedom of the Press, in so far as good form allows.)

The new age begins with the year of Chief Dada’s death Ad