Ben Marcus

Ben Marcus (born 1967) is an American writer of surreal (as distinct from surrealist) fiction.

Seemingly the most conspicuous aspect of Ben Marcus' work, to date, is its expansion on one of the most primary concerns of the original Surrealist authors -- perhaps most typified by Benjamin Peret, husband of the acclaimed painter Remedios Varo -- this being a very deep interest in the psychological service and implication of symbols and the manners by which those symbols can be maneuvered and rejuxtaposed in order to provoke new ideas or new points of view -- in other words, the creation of, in a sense, conscious dreams.

While Marcus' writing plays similarly with the meanings of words by either stripping them of their intended meaning or juxtaposing them with other words in critical ways, it also abandons the 'experimental' nature of so much of the Surrealists' writing for stories that describe human psychology and the human condition through a means that has in later years become notably more subjective and sensory in nature than that used in the broad range of fiction, both 'conventional' and 'nonconventional'.

The surreal nature of Marcus' work derives in part from the fact that it comprises sentences that are exact in their structure and syntax, but whose words, though familiar, appear to have abandoned their ordinary meanings; they can be read as experiments in the ways in which language and syntax themselves work to create structures of meaning. Common themes that emerge are family, the Midwest, science, mathematics, and religion, although their treatment in Marcus's writing lends to new interpretations and conceptualizations of those concepts.

Biography

Marcus was born in Chicago. He attended New York University (NYU) and Brown University, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University where he was recently promoted to head of the writing MFA program. He is the son of Jane Marcus, a noted feminist critic and Virginia Woolf scholar. He is married to novelist Heidi Julavits.

Works

*"Notable American Women" (2002)
*"The Father Costume" (2002) with art by Matthew Ritchie
*"The Age of Wire and String" (1996)

Online texts

* [http://www.webdelsol.com/marcus/ Web del Sol] features some excerpts from "The Age of Wire and String"
* [http://believermag.com/tool/portableplaner.php The Believer] Ben Marcus reviews a portable planer
* [http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/10/0080775 "Why experimental fiction threatens to destroy publishing, Jonathan Franzen, and life as we know it: A correction"] portion of an article written to Harper's Magazine in response to a disparaging article by Mr. Franzen

External links

* [http://www.benmarcus.com Official website]
* [http://www.powellsbooks.com/authors/marcusb.html Powell's Books interview with Ben Marcus]