By Anna Roberts
Edited by Alice Kreinin and Kristina Tham
Percival Everett’s novel Erasure follows Thelonious “Monk” Ellison’s downfall as he writes an incredibly well-received novel that parodies the stifled and stereotypical works that he felt pressured to write as a Black American. This narrative is interrupted by interludes related to Monk’s hobby of woodworking. These interludes reveal Monk’s place in the larger system of agents and cultural objects which Pierre Bourdieu maps in his work The Field of Cultural Production. Through the metaphor of the chair, the woodworking interludes depict how Monk’s desire for simplicity results in a flawed self-justification for the creation of his novel and thereby his stance on conflicts central to the field of cultural production.
Monk views his occupation of woodworking as purely simplistic and straightforward, which he communicates through the language he uses in the interludes. The first woodworking interlude opens with the three-word sentence: “Saws cut word” (Everett 2). By using this phrase as the introduction to these interludes, Everett primes the audience to view the subject of woodworking in a certain way. Specifically, this statement has simple syntax and meaning, indicating a sense of straightforwardness in the occupation of woodworking. Furthermore, throughout later interludes, Monk repeatedly references “the feel of [the wood]” (44, 139) and the “smell of it” (44, 139, 152). This repetition draws attention to the sensory experience of this occupation, which grounds the work in physical reality rather than abstractions. Because these sections are a part of Monk’s journal, the language he uses reflects his perception of the craft rather than its reality.
The woodworking sections shift from being separated from the narrative to being incorporated to demonstrate Monk’s increased need for the solace of simplicity. At the novel’s start, these sections are notably self-contained and distinct from the narrative. They are blocks of text separate from the narrative storyline and the contents of these interludes have no clear connection to the scenes they interrupt. However, the woodworking sections become integrated into the text after Everett presents Monk’s novel, Fuck!, in its entirety. Fuck! exaggerates harmful stereotypes of Black men in America, following a young man in a deeply impoverished area as he commits crime and abuses the women in his life. After his agent agrees to send Fuck! to editors, Monk “decided [he] had to build something […] while [he] was using the rabbet plane to make the sloping edge of the table’s top, [he] consider[s] Foucault” (133). In this example, Monk’s statements regarding woodworking flow directly into thoughts of his personal life and work. Additionally, Monk himself reflects on his interest in woodworking and comes to the conclusion that it is because “[the wood] was so much more real than words […] a table, was a table, was a table” (139). The driving force behind Monk’s sustained interest in this craft is its simplicity, specifically compared to the abstractness and complexity of his work as a writer. This weaving of the woodworking interludes into the novel’s larger narrative demonstrates Monk’s heightened desire for simplicity after creating a novel that troubles him deeply due to its appraisal of pervasive stereotypes against Black Americans.
Monk views the products of his woodworking as functional objects which lack deeper representational value. The simplicity of woodworking as a craft is extended to its products: Monk views the objects he creates as purely one-dimensional because “a table was a table was a table” (139). They are functional objects which lack deeper representational value. The table does not have any other meaning beyond its functional purpose or interaction with the field of cultural production, which Bourdieu defines as a culmination of the agents and forces that impact the creation and reception of art (29). Monk believes art requires belief in the message it carries and a sense that the physical object has representational value. Monk claims that a canvas is where the “work lives, a place to keep […] the idea” (Everett 208). This explanation indicates Monk’s belief that the physical object of the canvas is not important; rather, the ideas, intentions and messages behind the painting hold greater value. Furthermore, the ideas behind a painting strongly influence its role in the field of cultural production and how it relates to other works of art, artists, and organizations. This same logic extends to literature as a novel has greater importance than the physical paper and ink. While art is not just the space it takes up, “a chair is its space, its own canvas, occupies space properly” (208). A purely functional and simple object with no deeper meaning, like a chair, would have no place in this field of cultural production. The chair is separate from art because it holds no representational value; it simply exists as it is. This further reiterates Monk’s claims of the simplicity of woodworking because its products lack complexity; where art has the ability to interact with this field, woodworking does not.
Monk attempts to access the solace he finds in the simplicity of woodworking by using the language of furniture to justify his creation of Fuck!. Monk believes that his novel is not a work of art as “the novel, so-called, was more a chair than a painting” (208). This comparison indicates that the novel is an object that lacks meaning and relevance in the field of cultural production. Monk expands upon the metaphor of the novel as a chair through his analysis of it as “a functional device” where the function is “a gravestone” (209). Through the image of the gravestone and his view of Fuck! as an object rather than art, Monk implies that his novel marks the boundary where literature stops being art. Monk attempts to shed his illusion—Bourdieu’s idea that engagement in the game of culture production matters—through this metaphor. Therefore, by denying Fuck! the status of art and the impact it could have on the field of cultural production, Monk oversimplifies his work and suggests that it has no place in the realm of culture. This argument demonstrates Monk’s desire to be free from the cultural ramifications of the work and its publication.
By making a claim about what constitutes art, Everett depicts the constant struggle in the field of cultural production that Bourdieu outlines in his work. Bourdieu argues that the field of cultural production is a “field of struggles,” indicating that agents at different positions in this field are constantly at odds with each other (Bourdieu 30). Everett depicts this struggle through Monk, a figure of restricted production who desires a smaller audience yet larger symbolic capital, and through his critique of Fuck!, which is a work of heteronomous nature and large-scale production. The novel occupies this space in the field as it is consistent with the desires of the literary industries and stereotypical societal expectations of what a Black author should write. Furthermore, this struggle is rooted in the desire to “impose […] norms and sanctions on the whole set of producers” and “impos[e] the legitimate mode of cultural production” (Bourdieu 40, 41). This conflict is centered around the desire to be in a position to dictate what qualifies as art and how it should be produced. Everett illustrates this desire through Monk’s claim that Fuck! is a marker which denotes where literature ends and where objecthood begins, rather than a work of art itself. In Monk’s case, he argues that many works stemming from large-scale production and heteronomous orientations to the field should not be viewed as art as they lack proper messaging; thus, they are more object than art.
While Monk attempts to engage in this struggle and define art, his assertion of the chair’s objecthood is undermined by his use of metaphor. Monk claims that a chair is a purely “functional device,” yet by using it to define the lack of artistic value in his art, he inadvertently unravels his own metaphor (Everett 209). By using the chair as a basis for comparison, it becomes representational rather than purely literal. The chair’s representational value disrupts Monk’s main claim because the chair becomes more than just a chair; therefore, his original argument no longer holds. This tension intentionally demonstrates the flaw in Monk’s metaphor. For instance, Monk claims that “a table, was a table, was a table” (139); however, only two chapters later, Monk “look[s] at [his] table that was now a stool and not a very good stool” (152). The table is no longer just a table; it has changed form to become something entirely different. This mirrors the way the chair is no longer just a chair once it becomes representational in Monk’s metaphor. Everett’s disruption of Monk’s argument in Bourdieu’s “field of struggles” satirizes this conflict. Everett demonstrates how the desire to control what is classified as art quickly becomes muddled and illogical.
Percival Everett establishes Monk’s flawed self-justification of his creation of Fuck! through the comparison of the book to the simple products of his woodworking. This comparison demonstrates Monk’s involvement in the struggle of the field and his desire to dictate what is art in the greater field of cultural production. This desire manifests in the denigration of his own work and his belief that Fuck! is an object which should not be considered art. Through this depiction of Monk’s flawed logic and subsequently failed attempt to define art, Everett uses the individual to demonstrate the greater ineffectiveness of this struggle as a whole.
Works Cited
Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed, Columbia University Press, 1983.
Everett, Percival. Erasure. Greywolf Press. 2001.