An impassioned, funny, probing, fiercely inconclusive, nearly-to-the-death debat
e about life and art--beers included.
Caleb Powell always wanted to become an
artist, but he overcommitted to life (he's a stay-at-home dad to three young gir
ls), whereas his former professor David Shields always wanted to become a human
being, but he overcommitted to art (he has five books coming out in the next yea
r and a half). Shields and Powell spend four days together at a cabin in the Cas
cade Mountains, playing chess, shooting hoops, hiking to lakes and an abandoned
mine; they rewatch "My Dinner with Andre "and" The Trip, "relax in a hot tub, an
d talk about everything they can think of in the name of exploring and debating
their central question (life and/or art?): marriage, family, sports, sex, happin
ess, drugs, death, betrayal--and, of course, writers and writing.
The relation
ship--the balance of power--between Shields and Powell is in constant flux, as t
wo egos try to undermine each other, two personalities overlap and collapse. Thi
s book seeks to deconstruct the Q&A format, which has roots as deep as Plato and
Socrates and as wide as Laurel and Hardy, Beckett's Didi and Gogo, and "Car Tal
k"'s Magliozzi brothers. "I Think You're Totally""Wrong" also seeks to confound,
as much as possible, the divisions between "reality" and "fiction," between "li
fe" and "art." There are no teachers or students here, no interviewers or interv
iewees, no masters in the universe--only a chasm of uncertainty, in a dialogue t
hat remains dazzlingly provocative and entertaining from start to finish.
"Jam
es Franco's adaptation of "I Think You're Totally Wrong "into a film, with Shiel
ds and Powell striving mightily to play themselves and Franco in a supporting ro
le, will be released later this year. "
