The Other Modernism: F.T. Marinetti's Futurist Fiction of Power

Rating:
Summary: Written for academes
Review: Well researched and plotted, Blum's book suffers from what a wide deal of academically credible publications do: it is excessively polemical at the expense of its own sense of linearity and readability, and it is boring. It may also be endemic of the controversey of its subject matter; namely modernism, during a certain time period, namely, now. In short, this reads like a dissertation. It tries very difficultly to form a coherent argument that is true in all possible fields of view (thus it is self-contradictory and tautoligical, attempts to be pluralistic and yet have a rigid and definite argument.) The reason for this aproach is Blum's attempt at a reappropriation of modernism (which is becoming a very very popular academic practice, as people are getting sick of post-everything philosophy and are nostalgic for a time when being a thinking person meant something) within a pomo context. So Blum argues that Marinetti's self indulgent rants were products of a timeframe in which the only expression of empowering ideas had to come within the context of an abrasive, definitive, and agressive "fiction of power". Toss in some Lacanian psychoanalysis and feminist critique, and Blum analyzes many of Marinetti's old documents (many Pre-Futurism) with the attempt of showing their performativity and their polyavalence. It's not a bad prospect, per se, but given the dearth of new and readable texts that overview and analyze Futurism, it is somewhat unhelpful to write a book that caters only to a small group of academic art-historians already well acquainted with Futurism. If you are new to Futurism, an acquaintance with Blum's argument might not be a bad thing, and many historical facts are addressed properly, but as an introduction to the movement from a concise, linear and art-historical perspective, this is just not very helpful. It is written with the intent of impressing a very small group of people who are already arguing about this sort of thing, and even then does very little new.