Greil Marcus is that rarest of specimens: a pop-culture critic whose prose wonât make a smarter-than-average music fan turn away, utterly confused, and crank Sabbathâs Master of Reality at ear-splitting decibels.
While Marcusâs best-known work has dealt primarily with rock, his forthcoming The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice is more ambitious in scope, examining what makes America fundamentally unique: the legacy of promises on which our nation is founded, and the various forms of discourse that have arisen around the betrayal of same.
Marcus starts his analysis with political and religious figures: Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But by the time the 1960s roll around, the playing field has shifted; artists are the last public figures questioning what it means to be American.
Sounds heady, yes? Yet Marcus connects the dots between a 1670 sermon delivered by Reverend Samuel Danforth, Twin Peaks, and the riot grrrl movement with refreshing fluidity. âAll criticism is, I think, is bringing the terms of one thing to bear on another, practicing juxtaposition like dowsing,â says Marcus via e-mail.
âThe challenge was to bring a reader into a story told by people, or in work, that he or she might never have encountered, or heard of. In other words, if it works, this book is not âfor fans ofâ Philip Roth or [Pere Ubuâs] David Thomas or Corin Tucker or David Lynch. Ideally, itâs for people who donât care about them at all, but who might.â
Bumbershoot offers several opportunities to enjoy the sort of artists Marcus discussesââsomeone who calls a community to judgment, to judge itself, or who in some unique way embodies that judgment.â He cites author Mary Gaitskill, S.F. band Erase Errata, and cartoonist Charles Burns among them.
But Marcusâs favorite? Youâll find her all three days: Mary Lynn Rajskub, whom he singles out for her portrayal of Chloe OâBrian on the TV drama 24, âFor the sense of a secret life she carries, for her determination, her mad single-mindedness⌠really, for her scowl. âYouâre all fucked,â she seems to be saying. âSay your prayers, for all the good thatâll do you.ââ