You should all go buy Manituana. It’s the latest novel by Wu Ming, at least the latest to be translated into English. I can’t speak to the contents of the novel because I haven’t read it yet. I just found out a moment ago that it was available now in the US, and I ordered my copy immediately on finding out. I’m sure it’s excellent, and I’ll post on it after I get it and read it. Their other work is awesome, though. I like their stuff so much that I used to volunteer a bit with my meager Spanish and Italian helping translate occasionally for their newsletter. I like their stuff so much that I plan to really get my Italian good someday (in like 5-10 years, most likely) and read all their other work that’s untranslated. I like their stuff so much that I’ve gone through some of it in Italian with a dictionary despite the agonizing slowness that makes for me right now.
If you haven’t already done so, you should also go buy their other novels in translation, Q and 54.
Their work is some of the only material in book form that I can think of that I can seriously say about it “this is a cultural product with political uses.”
See here for reviews of the newest novel and news on their book tour (they’re coming to the US but only to New York, sadly).
Now go buy Manituana.
Hmm. I liked Q a lot and have now got around to reading 54… which I find a lot less persuasive. Admittedly I’m only 100 pages in, but so far at least it seems a rather poor imitation of either, say, James Ellroy (American Tabloid) or Don Delillo (Underworld).
Meanwhile, what cultural products don’t have political uses?
Comment by Jon — October 28, 2009 @ 11:59 am
I’d also be interested to hear what you thought of 54. I got into it somewhat more as it went along, but it never grabbed me in the way that Q did.
Comment by voyou — October 28, 2009 @ 10:45 pm
As always happen with Wu Ming, 100 pages are too few to understand what’s going on in 54. With Q I had the same problem. The first part of any WM novel is little more than a long prologue. My suggestion is: keep reading.
Comment by Tim — October 29, 2009 @ 2:37 am
Hmm. Now almost half-way through… still unconvinced. And I know it’s a “McGuffin,” but a thinking television set?
Comment by Jon — October 29, 2009 @ 5:14 pm
yo. I’m down. I loved Q (by your recommendation) and the moment i finish this goddamned dissertation, I’m gonna read this Manituana. I saw the (very polished) website and I’m stoked, looks like the film that i’ve always wanted to watch.
Comment by tzuchien — October 29, 2009 @ 11:39 pm
Yeah, the thinking TV set could be an example of the “animism of technology” Wu Ming have been exploring in their books, sounds like it’s part of an “anti-anthropocentric” tendency in the latest wave of Italian radical literature, look up New Italian Epic on wikipedia:
‘Oblique gaze’ or ‘unforeseeable point of view’. Experimentation with unusual and unexpected looks. A gaze that sometimes widens out vertiginously to span the non-human as an integral part of the narrative. Underlying these experiments, according to Wu Ming 1, is an ethical and political motivation.
Comment by Tim — October 30, 2009 @ 3:14 am
wow, that’s great bro, 100 pages is too many. That’s awesome.
Comment by get info here — October 30, 2009 @ 11:23 am
Now at 350 pages, and half-persuaded by the Angela subplots (of so many subplots), but not by most of the others.
Comment by Jon — November 1, 2009 @ 3:17 am
It’s interesting that you thought of Ellroy or DeLillo. First word that pops in my mind when I think of 54 is “Europe”. I read it in Dutch however. Perhaps the English translation is ellroyesque or delilloesque.
Comment by Unknowingmous — November 1, 2009 @ 5:14 pm
@Jon
Wow! too many pages.
Comment by dves — November 15, 2009 @ 5:56 am