| Author | Message | ||
     Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Just been reading Julian Barnes' novel 'Flaubert's Parrot', and he makes an interesting point about 'classic' authors and the way we judge them according to modern attitudes. For instance, he suggests that, among other things, Flaubert was a misanthropic pessimist and was against democracy, but then defends him on the grounds that we shouldn't applaud great authors only when their views are similar to our own (that's patronising), nor feel flattered only when their views accord with our own (as if a great writer 'confirms' what we think). This is interesting in light of recent discussions here about Lovecraft. Anyone any views? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I agree with Barnes. For instance, Waugh's novel Black Mischief has been condemned as racist, but it's highly entertaining and as elegant and stylish as the man gets. That'll do for me. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
It all depends on whether the Author's views are real or inferred. My view is that they always have to be inferred. For me, the ideal world is experiencing works of Art beore knowing who did the Art. In many instances this is the case. With music, paintings, architecture, cinema etc. one often experiences the 'Art' before knowing anything about the Artist. Why not with literature? Instead we have books with the author's name on the spine, title page, often on the contents list and often on THE TOP OF EVERY ALTERNATE PAGE of the whole book! As an aside, with Lovecraft, if you read his letters to Rheinhart Kleiner, you will see he was a far bigger racist than even one could have imagined (even when taking into account the times in which these letters were written). des | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
That's another issue Barnes goes into, Des: when we have the art, why do we feel the need to go chasing the artist? I read an essay lately on Bernard Shaw's temporary intellectual affiliation to Mussolini and Stalin; the essay dismissed all of his work as a consequence. Unbelievable. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
It also suggested that Shaw couldn't form 'proper' relationships with women, and therefore shouldn't be trusted on issues of gender relations. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
I can't see how something that is seething with racism for example could possibly be understood as elegant even if it is well written. One obviously forgives certain views prevalent in the author's own time and location etc, but I'm sorry, something that is misogynistic, racist whatever, sours my experience of said work. Obviously art should challenge our assumptions about things, and I'm entirly against censorship of any sort, but the work to me would then seem solipsistically flawed about certain assumptions, which then brings the whole enterprise in doubt. But it is a difficult issue- take Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi Propaganda film The Triumph of the Will- It is obviously a masterpiece of composition and editing etc, but a horrid piece of propaganda- you can appreciate on a formalistic level why the film is well made etc, but then overall is it an elegant film?, no it is not. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
You eschew Lovecraft, then, Karim? Some may claim that his Horror stories derive from his xenophobia. Some may claim this. I don't. Because I don't know. I suppose my whole philosophy is treating the work of art as a separate entity from any inferences about its author. Hence me starting 'Nemonymous'. des | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
As mentioned elsewhere, I'm more a fan of Lovecraft's visition, than the writing. You know I don't eschew Lovecraft, but I am more interested in the subsequent artists he has influenced than his own writing. Lots and lots of his work I feel, arises from his fear of otherness, which I suppose drove quite a bit of his vision. Take Kafka, you could argue that Kafka's alienation also informed a great deal of his work, but it did not as far as I'm aware, produce racist works. He did have a strange view of women, but his work did also deal with ideas of gender and sexuality etc. I am playing the devil's advocate here I suppose. Life's too short, I'd rather spent time with something that is aesthetically pleasing and not racist or misogynist. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
...vision I mean. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Life's too short, I'd rather spent time with something that is aesthetically pleasing and not racist or misogynist. Yes, but my point is we don't know whence the work derives ... from a Mummy-compulsion or genuine racism or something else. Best to ignore peripherals and deal with the noumenon. imho | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
'mummy-compulsion' :-) When we are curious about a work we sometimes tend to try and seek answers from the source of their creation. The source is of course sometimes the last place to look. I'll forgive some author's personal views etc if they are contrary to my own, and still enjoy the work, I just have less and less patience these days for bullshit is what. I find myself much more interested in writing being produced in my time, because it helps me try to understand the world I'm living in right now. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
The past has more lessons for us than the present. At least the past had a future. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
'Atleast the past had a future' :-) Absolutely, but history repeats itself and it seems we've learned very little sometimes. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.176.205 |
I get more uneasy when major claims are made for Lovecraft as an essayist and letter-writer, because there the author's views are in the foreground if the views are stupid and shallow, on what basis can the work espousing them be considered masterful? Its outstanding grammar and punctuation? Of course, not all of Lovecraft's non-fiction is specifically racist, but a great deal of it is politically elitist and anti-democratic. I've argued this point with Des too may times to reiterate it here, but my conviction is that a work of art is no more separate from its creator than a handshake is separate from the arm or a smile from the face. If my manager asks me to send a fax to the printer, it's hardly an intentional fallacy for me to assume that he wants me to send a fax to the printer, and time spent decoding his instruction as a cryptic comment on the configuration of the stars or a recipe for cheese souffle will not have been spent in a way commensurate with his expectations. People write fiction for the same reason they talk, gesticulate, send e-mails etc: they as people want to communicate something about life as they experience it. I don't think creative work becomes less valid because its creator held a certain opinion, but knowing that can fairly influence what we take from the work. A useful example is Philip Larkin, who chose to put the best of himself compassion, irony, sadness and quiet intelligence into his work, and to write private letters characteristic of a splenetic, racist, sexist old drunk. That doesn't invalidate his poety if anything, it makes the finer qualities of his poetry more remarkable but it most definitely invalidates his letters as anything more than sad rubbish never meant for publication. Reading his letters can inform a reading of his poems, but should not override it. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>A useful example is Philip Larkin, who chose to put the best of himself compassion, irony, sadness and quiet intelligence into his work, and to write private letters characteristic of a splenetic, racist, sexist old drunk. How much of what goes into each form of communication is dictated by the conventions of those mediums? The 'public' poetry - the 'private' letters. Another point Barnes makes is that form governs content. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
I've argued this point with Des too may times to reiterate it here, but my conviction is that a work of art is no more separate from its creator than a handshake is separate from the arm or a smile from the face. If my manager asks me to send a fax to the printer, it's hardly an intentional fallacy for me to assume that he wants me to send a fax to the printer, and time spent decoding his instruction as a cryptic comment on the configuration of the stars or a recipe for cheese souffle will not have been spent in a way commensurate with his expectations Worth repeating Joel's words above. :-) But 'The Intentional Fallacy' is concerned with an approach to Art. It is an Aesthetic theory. Handshakes and cheese-straws are for the Mundane. For me, it is also a wider thing. Nemonymity. Not a theory but a flirtation with the true Darkness of the Soul. A flirtation, too, with the only Pretentiousness that allows Pretension-as-something-more-than-itself. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
What about the charming short stories of Jack Finney? Totally sexist! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Are the stories sexist? Is Jack Finney sexist? Tne two questions, I feel, are unlinkable. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
There's a staggering lapse into gratuitous sexism in one of H.R. Wakefield's stories where he remarks, apropos of almost nothing, that women are incapable of rational thought. Des, if Wakesfield had expressed the same view in the same words in a letter, you'd assume that was his view. If he'd written it in an article, it would be his view. But because it's in a short story, you insist it's 'unlinkable' to the author's attitudes. I really can't see that. Of course, 'view' is taking far too seriously a bit of knee-jerk nonsense on the author's part, as well as assuming H.R. Wakefield to be capable of rational thought. But you know what I mean. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Also, many years ago I read a well-known article by historian Quentin Skinner on the intentional fallacy in criticism. He made it clear that in his view, the most important corrective to the intentional fallacy was biographical research. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
Without biogrphical research, including an exmination of the era in which a piece was written, it's impossible to decide whether the -ism is a product 'of the times' or an idiosyncrasy of the artist. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Des, if Wakesfield had expressed the same view in the same words in a letter, you'd assume that was his view. In no way would I think that. It is unknowable. Letters can be fictions to other people, even to oneself. Thoughts themselves are self-deceptive. Or can be. Which brings me to the only safety: Art. but not only Art as such. But Art treated in an isolation ward, uncluttered by wild thoughts as to its origin and possible effect. Art is the only personal thing left as a thing to be cherished. Art is a jewel. Bring in its lumbering Artist and the facets fall off and the core is corrupted. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
Oscar Wilde believed that he himself was his greatest work of art. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Just my point. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
So you don't believe in identity - dispositions that endure over time and which saturate one's whole orientation to everyday life? You don't believe that everything we do bears a kind of me-ness? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Yes, I do believe that, Gary. No problem. I'm just saying such considereations are unknowable, particularly vis a vis ar, but also vis a vis certain (self-)deceptive situations. The trouble perhaps is that me-ness is like the weather. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
vis a vis ar = vis a vis art | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
But the weather in Morocco is completely different from the weather in Norway, despite periodic variations. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Exactly. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.79.197 |
...And on this planet. I can't see how an artist can be truly unlinkable to the work either. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
But Des, if I see your point let alone agree with you aren't I proving you wrong? Surely your e-mail can be as validly read as referring to the mating habits of the shoggoth. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
On which, I hasten to add, I am not an expert. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Exactly, Joel. You shouldn't read this thread (or any of my Nemonymity theorising) if you want to treat DFL-labelled fiction with the detached respect it hopefully deserves. Or perhaps you should? (Cold front appoaching). | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.232.26 |
"There's a staggering lapse into gratuitous sexism in one of H.R. Wakefield's stories where he remarks, apropos of almost nothing, that women are incapable of rational thought." Such remarks are sprinkled liberally throughout the Wakefield oeuvre. Wakefield's views on women and sex were slightly warped. I do love Connie, the somewhat unconventional nanny in "Monstrous Regiment". | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
...where he remarks, apropos of almost nothing, that women are incapable of rational thought. ========================== ========================== "To succeed in assuaging reality a work of art should: 1. Respect the profound and innate sense in us of nature's fundamental reactions, and not too much outrage them: for then we are led to compare the work with its subject, which brings us back to the literal reality (as a monster reminds us of the normal creature). 2. Yet remain, nevertheless, at such a distance from nature's aspects that the disturbance introduced into habitual aspects may deprive us momentarily of our rationalizing facilities. Thus some illogical woman's argument, falling suddenly into a closely reasoned discussion, unhorses the arguers and makes us ponder." --from 'Foundations of Modern Art' (1928) by Amιdιe Ozenfant | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Jesus wept. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
"You shouldn't read this thread (or any of my Nemonymity theorising) if you want to treat DFL-labelled fiction with the detached respect it hopefully deserves." I don't treat your stories with detached respect, Des. I get real close to them. Though not quite as close as Lettuce. But she's a pervert. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.79.197 |
Mary cried. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
Joseph scratched his head. Again. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Mary cried. If that's an example of a non-sequitur, the quote above, Ally, said unhorsing, not undonkeying. des | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
Satan ate stones. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
stones - after electronically scanning a text - is a missed misprint for stories. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
One day books will be contained in glass stones. We will hold them and the story will happen in a flash in our heads, like vast, encapsulated memories. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.48.161 |
What an amazing image Tony - quite wonderful. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
 | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Yes, a lovely image, Tony. This also goes back to what I said on the Joel Lane thread; For me, a story is the 'length' of its aftertaste, its haunting-ability in the long-term, not the actual length of the story or the length of time one spends reading it or simply receiving its seed-of-haunting. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Indeed. You go on reading the story after you've closed the book. Some time during the night, you might get to the key moment. Tony, your imagery is so acute I hope you're not just writing on message boards these days! I liked your photo on the front of the new SUPERNATURAL TALES as well. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
I finished Madame Bovary yesterday. The effect of the final few lines is still burning within me. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
So it's not the curry, then? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
"Every book has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens." 'The Shadow Of The Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
Joel; I'm writing a book, been writing it for almost a year. What spooked me was I got into Capote after starting it and ... it's really, really similiar, like the same thoughts and feelings put into a slightly different shape. I want to read Madame Bovary, too. Thanks for the nice words, all! | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.104.210 |
That is quite beautiful Des - thanks for posting that. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
Curry? Yes, I had one last night. Tony, Madame Bovary is a wonderful book. I think you'll enjoy it. It's hugely relevant to our own day if you substitute celebrities for the artistocracy. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
Has anyone ever written a beautiful line about curry? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
"Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue." Henry James from 'The Art of Fiction' 1888 | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
Where life is colorful and varied, religion can be austere or unimportant. Where life is appallingly monotonous, religion must be emotional, dramatic and intense. Without the curry, boiled rice can be very dull. -- C. Northcote Parkinson | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
"Instant korma's gonna get you." - John Lennon | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
The Wolverhampton pathia is a legendary experience, but I've never been keen on the Oxford korma. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
An actor-turned-politician from the north of England is so muscular that he needs to eat three curries a night to keep up his strength. They're calling him the Bury Arnie. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
When I hear the word kulcha I reach for my gun. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
That anthology of curry wisdom took years to get started, but now it's keema naan quite nicely. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Kulcha covers all Kulcha, esoteric and popular, good and bad, posh and poor, conservative or socialist, catholic and eclectic, didactic and freefall, korma or phall ... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
..base or spiritual, clandestine or clear... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
Joel, how many roitas have contributed to your antho? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.248.217 |
Hear about the woman who performs with a piece of wood and who recently fled from the stage? It was in this morning's paper under the headline: Chick and Teak Has Balted. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Joel, how many roitas have contributed to your antho? That data's protected beneath the ground coriander. |