Literature is a Hole – Alistair McCartney

November 25, 2022

On Literary Gape
Erotically speaking gape horrifies us, for it stretches and deforms a young man’s anus into what we suspected it was all along, an abyss, so that his arsehole is like a star dying and exploding into a black hole. We prefer our lads to be tight as the proverbial eye of a needle, so that as we enter them we feel like rich men being inexplicably welcomed into the kingdom of heaven.
However, we are interested in and forceful advocates of literary gape.
We dream of the imminent possibility of a gape appearing in the space of literature, violently opening up the space of literature, stretching the space of literature to its limit, creating a space through which writers and readers can peer, and gasp, equally horrified, into the emptiness literature tries but of course fails to fully conceal.

Writing from Three Kinds of Holes
Sometimes I feel as if I am writing this book, not from a brightly lit and small, very clean office at a progressive university, but from a small and very dark hole, to be precise, a spider hole, which is defined as a small rough excavation for concealing a person, as from an enemy, in this instance the enemy is literature, our book a roughened excavation into its depths, also known in military parlance as a foxhole, a kind of camouflaged one-man hole, used for observation–in aesthetic parlance, the enemy under observation is also literature, the book one sneakily works on a form of concealment and camouflage that unfortunately offers the author little to no protection—however, there is some dispute over this nomenclature, and some experts in such holes say a foxhole is typically deeper than a spider hole, and is for the purposes of cover as opposed to concealment, not unlike a book cover, which is like the camouflaged lid on both holes. Though this office also feels a bit like a kill hole, which has been defined as a hole in a wall, through which one can shove one’s gun and wait patiently for a passerby to come to his ultimate demise; I would like to write in an actual kill hole, and when the reader passes by, slip my book like a weapon through the slit. It seems that all three holes overlap, like all books overlap. All three holes are suited to one or two personnel at most, like my office can [barely] cram myself and a student like Jonas inside. I’m uncertain as to the exact depth of this writing-hole. However, whatever hole we are in, whatever its depth, that passerby who will soon meet his demise is the enemy no writer can avoid, literature.

Literature, which is a Hole
I need you to punch a hole in literature. Do you hear me? A hole.
We need to do damage to all this literary magnificence. We need to act in the same manner as the voluptuous young vandals with hair cropped close to their skulls, who, during the all-night celebration known as Nuit Blanche, sauntered casually into the Musée d’Orsay. One of the vandals, the most voluptuous, with full red lips that cast a weird red light on all the paintings, drunk on cheap Russian vodka and intoxicated by the proximity of his fellow drunken delinquents, punched a hole in the surface of Claude Monet’s The Argenteuil Bridge: Monet, that bastion of mediocrity, beloved of middle-brow housewives world-wide with all their cheap framed posters.
The boy left a tear four inches long.
Like this young man, we need to form or create a hole in the surface of literature, we need to leave a tear in middle-brow literary fiction, at least four inches long– preferably longer. Like his loyal mates, we need to leave bits of filth around the literary tear. We need to appall the literary establishment, like the minister of culture who, crying, accused the lad of fisting a masterpiece, of fisting the genius of Impressionism. And like the lad and his gang, we need to be able to flee from literature. Into the night. And never get caught. Do you understand me? Will you do this for me? But unlike that hole, which is being carefully repaired, our literary hole will be irreparable.

Homo Literary Anal Jihad as a Tool of Creative Writing Pedagogy, or My Beautiful Twisted Dark Pink Fantasy
Have been trying to work on the syllabus for my Banned Books class, the deadline is fast approaching, but came across some interesting slightly salacious possibly spurious information about the terrorist group IS, formerly known as ISIL and ISIS. They say that in their desert camps, self-declared princes select the most handsome young recruits and proceed to systematically sodomize them, a means to an end, the end goal being to stretch the anus of the recruit wide enough that he will eventually be able to fit a bomb inside him.
Must check the academic validity of my sources. A western fantasy surely, far-right propaganda most certainly, so here is my homo propaganda: in the desert camps of the MFA Program I hereby found, The MFA Program of and for the Literary Hole, as self-declared prince of the program, I will do the same. We are in the process of stretching our most handsome and most fervent young male students wide, wide enough to fit and hide the books we write inside of them, so that as soon as they get close to you, unsuspecting reader, so close you don’t notice these young men, we will detonate the book and you and the boy and the meaning of the book will explode with them….

The Book-Hole
What if we gathered 100,000 young men, of sturdy constitution and positive disposition, dressed them in a uniform of plain dark shirts and kerchiefs, black shorts ending 4 inches above the knee, black long socks, and shiny black shoes, then transported them to Death Valley, leading them in a chorus of uplifting songs to raise their spirits, and, upon arriving, gave the lads shovels and ordered them to dig a hole, a very big hole, big enough to contain all the books in the world, including and especially our own books, published and unpublished, written and unwritten, what if the boys created a kind of mass grave for literature, and when the hole was deep enough, when we were satisfied with its proportions and depth, we brought in a convoy of big trucks which slowly poured all the books in the world into the hole, and when all the books were in, placing this book I have just written on the very top, before filling in with dirt and covering and thereby concealing the hole, giving the lads time to catch their breath, we all gathered around the hole, held hands, and stared with awe and quiet reverence into the Book-Hole?

Fisting Books
I don’t wanna read books anymore, I just wanna fist them. I want to fist a book, a classic. I wanna fist A Man Without Qualities. Or maybe The Charterhouse of Parma. Possibly The Golden Bowl. Reading books, it’s over. I need to find a book willing to be fisted. I need to find the right book to fist.

Hole Mantra (Outro)
A Book is a Hole
The World is a Hole
Language is a Hole etc.