A Deliberately Wonky Sense of Morality

Nearly every review of Andrew Martin’s Early Work describes the novel’s love of literature. In the New York Times, Molly Young calls it a “book crammed with books,” in which “Renata Adler, William James, Anthony Powell, Philip Roth, Thomas Mann, J. M. Coetzee, Don DeLillo, Stephen King and Margaret Atwood make cameos.” Similarly, in The New Yorker, Katy Waldman argues that “Early Work’s fetish is bibliophilia; it’s at least as romantic about literature as it is about romance.”

But Early Work’s love affair with literature is—true to form—messy and morally complex. Even as the novel reads as a paean to the literary life, narrated by a character who wants to be a writer above all else, it surreptitiously raises the question of what it means to care about literature—or whether it means anything at all.

At the center of Early Work is Peter, a youngish writer who smokes weed and lolls about more often than he writes. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his longtime girlfriend, Julia, who is a medical student and poet. But when a writer named Leslie moves to town, on a break from her fiancé, his attraction to her throws things into disarray.

Peter and Leslie’s romance stems from their shared literary sensibility: Peter is initially drawn to Leslie at a friend’s dinner party, but his interest in her intensifies when he reads one of her short stories and discovers its “deliberately wonky sense of morality.” It was “exactly what I would have written if I had any idea how,” he thinks. When their affair begins, they spend afternoons reading aloud to each other. In one scene, Peter watches Leslie write in her journal, “hoping talent was, contrary to available medical evidence, sexually transmittable.”

But it’s not only literary aspiration that draws Peter and Leslie together; the pair are united in their mutual rebellion against the expectation that they be good. On their first night out drinking alone, Leslie brings up her fiancé, Brian:

“He’s a really great guy, and I don’t mean that in the dismissive, somewhat pejorative way that some people use it. I mean I really love his goodness. He’s, like, the least obnoxious good person I know. He cares about shit, and he gets it done.”

“But does that put pressure on you somehow?” I said.

“I thought about that,” she said. She swallowed the rest of her drink, along with a couple of pieces of ice, and coughed. “I think the answer is basically no? He makes me more aware of the possibility of decency than I might be otherwise, so I guess that’s something. That has to be a good thing, right?”

“As long as it doesn’t overwhelm you,” I said. “And being kind of fucked-up and amoral is an interesting possibility, too.” I finished my drink.

“Brian would say, and maybe me too, that it’s more interesting to resist being amoral and fucked up. Because for me, at least, it’s very easy to be those things.”

Brian, who works for a nonprofit that provides underserved communities with sustainably grown food, reads less like a character than an avatar for liberal do-gooderism. He is an idea for Peter to define himself against: where Brian strives to be good, Peter strives to be interesting. Because only the latter, Peter believes, makes writing possible.

For Peter, and to some extent Leslie, literature is the justification for amoral behavior. “I’m not going to be stupid and reckless forever,” says Peter. “Just until it stops being good material.” Throughout the book, his sense of irony is strong and his humor self-deprecating, but his delivery here rings honest. He and Leslie are, more or less, tethered to the world only through books: at one point, they can only figure out the day of the week by remembering when they last got the Times Book Review newsletter.

Then again, Martin does not wholly commit to the idea that a literary life necessitates amorality. Peter’s girlfriend, Julia, is also a writer—working on an “ecstatic, despairing, bawdy” epic poem about medical school—but, with her busy schedule and ability to save lives, she embodies the kind of goodness he feels stifled by, highlighting his uselessness and lack of direction. Even Peter and Julia’s dog, Kiki, so pure of heart and full of love, seems to rebuke Peter for his casual disregard for others. Only Leslie is Peter’s “fucked-up and amoral” equal. The novel seems to ask: Are the things that bind and attract them to one another—literary sensibility and willful misbehavior—inextricably linked?

Just as Martin’s characters refuse what’s expected of them, so does the author, it seems to me.

In this moment of political crisis, many writers are experiencing a corollary crisis of purpose. Work is frequently judged for its political value, its contribution to the progressive cause. In the midst of a moral emergency, writers are meant to serve some small purpose by refracting politics, channeling the experiences of the marginalized, or embodying inclusion and representation. In the New York Times, Lauren Oyler identified this phenomenon in the overuse of the word “necessary” to praise works of art for their social consciousness: it’s a “camouflaging maneuver that saddles an aesthetic pursuit with moral weight.”

Early Work sets that weight down and just floats along. In an interview with The Millions, Martin describes the book as arising from a desire to “write something irresponsible.” This impulse—and the freedom to execute it—is, of course, inseparable from the fact that Martin, a well-educated white man, is writing from a position of privilege.

At first, though, Martin’s “irresponsibility” is exhilarating. I wasn’t supposed to be enjoying a novel about a white literary man committing adultery and mooning over Norman Mailer in 2018, but the characters are irresistibly charming, intelligent, and wry. And while Early Work never verges completely into satire, Martin’s self-awareness and humor are frequently on display. Reading the first scene—a dinner at an acquaintance’s family estate, where the food and wine are plentiful—is like finding yourself at a party full of fascinating strangers; you can’t believe your good luck.

But after a while, this world of vape pens, whiskey, and constant witty banter starts to feel increasingly claustrophobic. That which initially makes the book feel carefree comes to seem gluttonous and empty.

In fact, watching Peter justify his hedonism and hurtful actions with literature made me question the literary endeavor entirely. Literature is often said to promote empathy by allowing the reader to enter into the experience of another, but Peter’s literary imagination only seems to provides him with the delusions he needs to indulge his self-pity. He upends his life to be with Leslie, hoping that he will become talented by osmosis, but he is so consumed by his writerly aspirations that he can barely register the consequences of his actions. Early in their relationship, Leslie asks Peter, “What do you actually care about?” “People,” he answers. But so often Peter uses this notion—that caring about literature is a proxy for caring about people—to permit his own selfishness.

As things with Julia are beginning to fracture, she and Peter take a trip to Maine with their friend Colin. Julia and Colin swim out to a sandbar and Peter, trailing behind, watches them, crafting a literary fantasy of betrayal: “It would be something out of a contemporary magic realist story: A man sits with his dog and watches as his partner and his best friend take up a new life together on a desolate island a few hundred yards from shore.”

The book’s bibliophilia begins by inspiring a sense of kindredness that, as the characters’ noxious sides are revealed, morphs into a feeling of complicity. What does it mean to worship at the same altar as these people? How much carelessness do we—do I!—justify in the name of personal creative freedom? What does it mean to really care about people as individuals rather than ideas? Without punishing his characters or becoming didactic, Martin has created an amoral universe that raises these moral questions by omission.

It is this this bait-and-switch that strikes me as the real triumph of Early Work. By initially appearing to idolize literature, the novel ultimately casts doubt on the worthiness of the literary project. And by casting doubt on the value and purpose of literature, Early Workundermines its own existence as a novel. But it also provokes a larger contemplation about the relationship between our inner lives and the lives we lead—in the way that a novel uniquely can. Early Work is like an ouroboros—a snake eating its tail. By cannibalizing itself, it is redeemed.

When You Put it That Way - Guernica

The vendor will also be responsible for incurring all of the infrastructure, maintenance and high availability costs. In most cases reliability will be far better than current on-premises solutions and you will also have service availability across multiple geographically dispersed locations without incurring the cost of maintaining them. Overall, you will be able to provide better levels of service to your staff, at only a fraction of what you are currently spending, making it hard to argue that the cloud is the best option for providing this type of service. There is of course the concern about control. There will be some “control lost” using a cloud solution and this may be more true depending on the vendor and terms of service provided for the solution. As an example, most administrators will argue that they have less control because they are less able to do comprehensive troubleshooting to support the specific service today. In reality, however, most cloud based services offer (and the best ones guarantee) certain levels of service, some of which exceed 99% availability. If the service is in fact more reliable than the service you are providing today, than perhaps that level of control is outweighed by the overall reliability of the solution (if the service is always available, there will be less to troubleshoot). This is one example of weighing the overall benefits against the perceived loss of control.

In these examples, the first two options (driving and private air travel) are similar to on premises IT solutions. These are methods of travel that will certainly work, but they are not necessarily the best options for me or my business. The third option, which is to fly on a commercial airline is an example of standardized, cloud based service. While I am giving up some perceived levels of control and flexibility, the overall value and the quality of service that I am getting make it the most reasonable alternative.

"When You Put It That Way" 

Saftey (Security) is my top priority… until it’s not my only priority

Finally, one aspect that I’ve yet to discuss is security, and this is one of the most common concerns when moving to the cloud. This is also an area of the cloud where we can use the travel analogy to recognize the benefits of utilizing the cloud versus on premises solutions. In my first example (driving my own car), I am literally “in the drivers seat”. This not only means that I am able to tailor my trip (or solution) so that it meets my needs or requirements, but the responsibility of safety and security also fall solely on my lap. I have to insure that my car is running well and safe to drive, I have to insure that all of the routes are through safe areas, and I have to insure that I am driving at safe speeds, obeying traffic laws and wearing my seat belt. Now on paper at the start of my trip I put together a plan that includes having my car tuned up before I leave, always driving the speed limit, sticking to my planned route, and always wearing my seat belt. Now, this is a very sound plan and seems like it is pretty safe and secure, but already I have made a few concessions with regards to my safety and probably don’t even realize it. For example, my car does not have the highest safety rating available, or may not even be considered in the top tier for the safest cars available. So if safety (or security) is my top concern I could go out and buy a safer car, but that just isn’t financially viable so I accept this risk and move on. This is very common in most on premises data center environment today. When looking at the types of security of solutions available on the market today, most of us don’t have the money to buy all of the “best of breed” solutions available today, but instead we balance the cost of security with the levels of security we require. There are other examples of where I may have “cut corners” with regards to safety or security. Another example would be the types of diagnostics and testing I run prior to beginning my trip. I certainly won’t go out and have my car’s safety rating “re-certified”, and the “tune up” I have done on my car was done either by myself, by my chosen mechanic, or by me personally, none of which probably follow any documented standards for safety or service. To draw a parallel to the cloud, when I utilize a cloud service, I am hopefully choosing a vendor that has obtained 3^rd party security certifications, exercises absolute change control, utilizes best of breed security solutions, and constantly monitors and audits their environment. I’m sure you can continue to identify some concessions that are made with regards to safety in this scenario so I won’t continue to list them.

So I’ve made a few concessions already with regards to safety but these concessions are risks that I accept before beginning the journey. Once my trip begins I am even more likely to compromise safety and security. Let’s say for instance I hit some traffic or get a late start one day and need to make up some time. I will probably elect to drive a little bit faster than the posted speed limits or even divert from my planned route to try and makeup time. Maybe I decide to drive through some bad weather like snow or thunderstorms so that I don’t lose any more time. At the beginning of my trip I had the best intentions to keep safety as my top priority, but as I started to put my plan into practice safety or security, took a back seat and I decided to make some additional concessions. This is similar to what happens in the real world today. Many organizations are faced with deadlines, outages, or changing priorities which cause them to deviate from their original plans or prompts them to circumvent the necessary change control process. Those of us with IT experience have all been in situations where if something doesn’t work, we say “let’s take away the firewall or elevate permissions and see if that works”, with the “intention” of using it as only a troubleshooting step, but sometimes, we eventually accept this as a solution. In cloud models, vendors have a responsibility to their customers to provide the highest levels of security and reliability. These vendors develop and strictly adhere to well defined processes to insure they are able to deliver on these guarantees. 
There are many more examples of the hazards of self-imposed security. Most of the examples, outlined for the previous scenario, also apply to the second travel scenario as well (private air travel). When we fly on a private plane, we are in fact getting more sophisticated security as well, such as those travel restrictions placed on us by the FAA, but we also have the opportunity to circumvent some of this security. For example, when you fly a private plane, your luggage may not be screened nor will any items brought on board by other passengers or the plane’s crew. In addition, we have the ability to pick and choose what security and safety measures are followed both before and during the flight. This may mean skipping a few safety checks to expedite departure time, or even risking flying through less than optimal weather conditions to alleviate costs that will be associated with delaying or cancelling the flight. Even in the most sophisticated private data centers and technology environments, there are some security measures that are breached or not implemented due to cost or priority. For example, if making a critical deadline means circumventing some change control, or providing elevated access to a contractor, we are more likely to take these risks when put under the pressure of our day to day jobs. In a cloud environment, vendors are incented to make security a priority, and should have well documented and enforced change control and security measures in place. There is a significant cost and level of effort required to maintain these protocols and processes, but this cost is incurred by the cloud vendor and it is in their best interest to continue to insure that these processes are enforced and adhered to.

Finally we have our third option and that’s commercial air travel or the cloud. We’ve all heard the cliché about air travel being safer than driving, but the fact of the matter is the percentages of fatality and injury rates related to automobiles are drastically greater than the relative percentages of air travel injuries and fatalities. When flying commercial I think we can all agree that we are subject to much more sophisticated and thorough (sometimes very thorough) security protocols and procedures. Every passenger and all baggage (both passenger and crew) are thoroughly screened before being placed on the aircraft. All equipment is maintained and checked periodically and required to be certified prior to departure. All processes for providing and guaranteeing security and safety are well defined and enforced. These processes and procedures are in place not just because of the moral obligation to protect the lives and safety of passengers, but also because it is ultimately in the best interest of the airline, or the entity providing the service. Not only do 3^rd party agencies like the FAA and TSA enforce these security standards, but the airline itself has a lot to lose if there is a catastrophe, or a public disclosure relating to compromised security. This also holds true with regards to cloud service vendors. It is paramount that the highest levels of safety, security and reliability be provided because even one incident could essentially jeopardize their existence. For this reason, cloud vendors undergo rigorous 3^rd party testing and certification on an ongoing basis to guarantee that customer data is safe and secure in their data centers.

For sale: 2008 Gulfstream G550

As organizations consider moving to the cloud, there is an overwhelming apprehension because it is a new way of doing things and there are certainly a lot of questions that need to be answered before technical and business decisions makers can feel comfortable adopting the cloud as part of their environment, solution or service. This apprehension is natural and healthy, but ultimately business and IT leaders will realize that the cloud is an important vehicle in making IT a strategic asset to their organization as a whole. The cloud provides the most cost effective, innovative, efficient, reliable and secure infrastructure and services available today. It is important to understand that the cloud is not outsourcing of these IT of services, but instead it’s a way of providing better levels of service in a manner that allows them to focus IT on driving and enabling the business and goals of the organization, instead of getting bogged down with the business of running IT. Just as organizations today rely on services like air travel to enable their most valuable assets, their people, to perform their job effectively; the cloud gives organizations the opportunity to insure IT supports the business, without requiring the business to support IT.