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How on earth could he be better as a novelist?
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May 7, 2019 17:51
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Mr. Squishy posted:How on earth could he be better as a novelist? It seems to be the reigning opinion of his fans, and Barth himself agrees and discusses it in the introduction to Lost in the Funhouse:   Opulent Ceremony posted:For what it's worth Chimera has been my favorite of his so far and what I would recommend to first-time readers, and Sot-Weed Factor my least favorite. Haven't read Giles Goat-Boy yet but I've just finished Tidewater Tales, which was great: it contains extensions to Don Quixote, The Odyssey and One Thousand and One Nights within the frame of his larger story. That's really interesting. I listened to Michael Silverblatt talk about being a huge fan of Barth, and he explicitly mentions Chimera as being a turning point in Barth's career and Silverblatt's readership of his works, and not for the better. I think I'll do Sot-Weed Factor or Chimera, depending on which one I find first. Thank you!
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May 7, 2019 17:59
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This is a great way of putting my problem with a lot of writing.quote:Though the several stories would more or less stand alone (and therefore be anthologizable), the series would be strung together on a few echoed and developed themes and would circle back on itself: not to close a simple circuit like that of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, emblematic of Viconian eternal return, but to make a circuit with a twist to it, like a Mobius strip, emblematic of – well, read the book. The idea of change, and newness coming. The protagonist wants something, but something prevents them, so they set out to fight it, and then they either get it or don't. The idea that any change can be effected. That the story, what the protagonist does, brings them to a different situation or different place in their life. If there are only so many stories available to the world, with only the details differing, then I'd say the biggest lie is that a character, much like the story, can ever come across something new. This could be at the heart of literary fiction: the idea that the telling the story is its essence. If the plot can't bring anything new then the prose, the way the story is told is what highlights any new insight. The reader sees the same differently. What exists in the world is constant, but the filter its put through changes. The words of the story is one filter (i.e. the author), the reader is another. I've become increasingly suspicious of people who want new literary forms, or a new era of writing. The people who saw changes between pre-1910, through modernism, and then post-modernism, and now are looking for a new definition of what is. The only change has never been to the substance, only the viewing of the substance. People are looking for something truly different and don't think to look at the views of society (the narrative, the context, the core of who and what we are) from a different perspective. They're looking to change what it is we're looking at, when the only thing that can change is how we look at it. Everything is the same, and always will be, except for the way its looked at. Changing that perspective might be the only way to change the idea of the thing we're looking at.
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May 7, 2019 18:38
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I could be wrong, but isn't that exactly what happened with the movement from modernism to post-modernism? It went from one perspective of life quote:Modernism was based on using rational and logical means to gain knowledge. It rejected realism. A hierarchical, organized, and determinate nature of knowledge characterized modernism and then responded to that with a new perspective quote:Postmodernism denied the application of logical thinking. Rather, the thinking during the postmodern era was based on an unscientific, irrational thought process, as a reaction to modernism. source Not that I'm the biggest fan, but I've been listening to Mark Z. Danielewski talk about his intention with his typographical approach to fiction. Good or bad, he at least has tried to experiment with the structure of a novel and conflate it with the structures of other popular entertainment, like film (House of Leaves), music (Only Revolutions) and television (The Familiar). Or there is "S.", which is a novel with at least two stories, a novel and a story of the readers of the novel told through annotations and inserts into the novel, like napkins and post-cards; like a new version of Pale Fire, but a little more involved. The problem with these books is that they are obtuse in the way the deliver the story (for better and worse), expensive, and immediately call into question at what point are these attempts literary experiments or literary novelty items. I think with Danielewski, there's an argument that he HAS found a way to create a new perspective and voice for literature with his attempts, but that still doesn't mean they're good or enjoyable reads. Or am I way off the mark with what you're trying to discuss?
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May 7, 2019 18:57
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Doesnt every "era" of writing just echo the way people see the world anyways? I mean like an autonomous subject such as Goethes werther wouldnt really be possible to write without Descartes' philosophy spreading and changing the way people see the world and reality and all that
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May 7, 2019 19:14
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I base all of this on my weak understanding of Auerbachs Mimesis
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May 7, 2019 19:22
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That's mostly my point, that people are seeking out new ways of seeing the world without stopping to fully examine the world as it exists, through perspectives that exist. Virginia Woolf is seen as one of the greatest modernist authors. Her prose was new, her style a change on the old. However Woolf's style is linked to a feminist perspective where she was examining women's role in society, and women's new role as they carved a space for themselves as society changed. If you were to focus purely on her style, and equating her style as a perspective, applying it to whatever you wanted you'd miss a lot of what she was saying. The style wasn't the newness she sought, the perspective on women's place, her place in society was and that's what lead to the style. For me any newness won't be found in seeking the new for newness' sake, but in seeking to explore what hasn't been explored, what hasn't had a light shined on it. Basically, for me the change in the mid-to-late 20th century wasn't a change from pre-modernism, to modernism, to post-modernism, it was the change that came with feminist critique and post-colonial critique. For Joyce the equivalent was exploring the literal man-on-the-street. For Beckett it was the destitute and destitute minds. That necessitated a change in mode, even in some aspects of form, but it wasn't because of a new way of telling something it was because the thing that was being told, already extant and within-the-world, was being told. Even if the narrative structure didn't change, the what-makes-a-story, the language changed to accommodate the telling of the old-stories of newly seen people.
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May 7, 2019 19:28
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Franchescanado posted:I could be wrong, but isn't that exactly what happened with the movement from modernism to post-modernism? It went from one perspective of life These definitions are irrelevant to literary Modernism and postmodernism and pretty goddamn loose even for visual art.
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May 7, 2019 19:32
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My whole point is that instead of the established saying, "We need new ways to see and exist" any change will come from people whose seeing and existing is not yet acknowledged and given space.
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May 7, 2019 19:49
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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:These definitions are irrelevant to literary Modernism and postmodernism and pretty goddamn loose even for visual art. Chill out. I’m trying to participate and engage and that was the first link that made a comparison. I don’t mind being corrected, but it’d be nice if you elaborated with corrections instead of just calling me wrong.
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May 7, 2019 20:17
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the famously anti-logic, irrational, and anti-science postmodernists which is definitely not an alt right talking point based on gross misunderstanding of everything
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May 7, 2019 22:58
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Postmodernism was so irrational that its proponents wrote volumes and volumes of impenetrably dense theory to explain and define its ideas.
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May 7, 2019 23:48
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What's the consensus on the ignat avsey translation of the idiot? Also LOGIC GOOD, FEELINGS BAD is a p dumb take on life imo
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May 7, 2019 23:56
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Literary postmodernism definitely has an element of irrationalism though, or at least a strong turn towards the sensual as opposed to the rational. At least this is true when I think of typical postmodern writers like Pynchon, Lem etc. This is not the same as being against rationalism but it poses a certain epistemological limit.Sham bam bamina! posted:Postmodernism was so irrational that its proponents wrote volumes and volumes of impenetrably dense theory to explain and define its ideas. Yeah but the reason someone like Deleuze is dense is because of the style in which he writes, which is deliberately circular, based on sensory metaphors and so on.
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May 8, 2019 00:19
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Franchescanado posted:I could be wrong, but isn't that exactly what happened with the movement from modernism to post-modernism? It went from one perspective of life
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May 8, 2019 06:08
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derp posted:What's the consensus on the ignat avsey translation of the idiot?
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May 8, 2019 08:17
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Shibawanko posted:Literary postmodernism definitely has an element of irrationalism though, or at least a strong turn towards the sensual as opposed to the rational. At least this is true when I think of typical postmodern writers like Pynchon, Lem etc. This is not the same as being against rationalism but it poses a certain epistemological limit. not sure i agree on that kind of rational/sensual distinction. for me teh core difference has always been literary modernism sought to provide a complete explanation of the world through language, and postmodernism said well actually language is completely insufficient for that, for numerous fundamental reasons. lem's a great example because that story with the machien that can only produce things that begin with the letter 'n' and gets mad when they ask it to make natrium is a really funny, interesting way of (rationally and logically cos everyone does that) exploring the limits of what we talk about when we talk about language
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May 8, 2019 10:55
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America never fully experienced literary modernism because their culture was on the level of the primordial soup before the wars, and postmodernism is their attempt to redefine modernism through the racist angle of American exceptionalism. Modernism never ended because The Modern never ended and poststructuralist philosophy was a conversation within modernism (because science follows art). The next great literary movement will be regressive pastoralism brought on by the inevitable Mad Max style societal collapse
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May 8, 2019 12:10
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A human heart posted:big thanks to art hearty dot com(a web site featuring scholarly articles like Ways To Clean Paintbrushes and Learn How to Draw Kawaii Anime Characters) for telling me that the movement that guys like dh lawrence, celine, and ezra pound belonged to was all about being scientific and rational. Yeah, fair enough. I was bored at work and wanted to talk about literary movements and chose a source that expressed differences, but not very well. Next time I'll find actual worthwhile sources or just let the topic die like every other interesting one that pops up in this thread.
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May 8, 2019 12:19
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Franchescanado posted:Yeah, fair enough. I was bored at work and wanted to talk about literary movements and chose a source that expressed differences, but not very well. Next time I'll find actual worthwhile sources or just let the topic die like every other interesting one that pops up in this thread. obviously i'm mostly just making a joke about that web site but i really don't think the idea of modernism as rational holds up particularly well given the tendencies of a bunch of modernist authors.
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May 8, 2019 12:27
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I once skimmed a book called Planetary modernisms which seemed to define modernism in such nebulous, out-of-time ways that it essentially made it synonymous with ~*disruption*~ so that any moment of major artistic change, even in like Persia in the 15th century, was modernist. It was bad and patronising to the medieval or non-modern which in that scheme is inherently defined by stagnation, aka the standard poo poo model of periodisation In short, saying stupid poo poo about modernism lands you in trouble, and in a just world would incur a hefty fine
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May 8, 2019 12:43
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A human heart posted:obviously i'm mostly just making a joke about that web site but i really don't think the idea of modernism as rational holds up particularly well given the tendencies of a bunch of modernist authors. It's cool, we're in agreement. I probably deal with an oversimplified view of modern literature and post-modern literature, so I'm always interested in engaging a discussion to define them better. It was just a really bad source for comparison.
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May 8, 2019 12:58
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in any case modernism was primarily an artistic movement, not an academic one, so one should be careful about applying epistemological labels to it like that. obviously the usage of pomo to mean both art and philosophy murks the waters a bit, but the same holds true here too, though the inspiration from academia might be more direct in that movement
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May 8, 2019 13:15
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I'm preparing to read Eagleton's Literary Theory, so this slapfight has been helpful.
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May 8, 2019 15:04
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Is there a critical theory term for irony done with such sincerity that the irony itself becomes non-ironic example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYkKBXqqunE Like, its an attempt to be an ironic advertisement, but its so sincere and corporately refined in its irony that it is in fact a non-ironic product
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May 8, 2019 17:13
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That's an actual advertisement for an actual product. Not really what you're describing, unless I'm misunderstanding something.
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May 8, 2019 22:17
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Sham bam bamina! posted:That's an actual advertisement for an actual product. Not really what you're describing, unless I'm misunderstanding something. Pretty sure he knows it's a real product and a real advertisement, just wondering (as I am) whether there's a convenient term for 'selling a really stupid product in a falsely ironic, self-conscious way that pretends that the consumer wasting money on the really stupid product is "in" on the joke.'
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May 8, 2019 22:31
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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:Pretty sure he knows it's a real product and a real advertisement, just wondering (as I am) whether there's a convenient term for 'selling a really stupid product in a falsely ironic, self-conscious way that pretends that the consumer wasting money on the really stupid product is "in" on the joke.' I've been calling this sort of stance "post-ironic" because it undercuts the whole detachment-attachment interplay.
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May 8, 2019 22:34
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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:whether there's a convenient term for 'selling a really stupid product in a falsely ironic, self-conscious way that pretends that the consumer wasting money on the really stupid product is "in" on the joke.' bingo
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May 8, 2019 22:51
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Ah. Advertising has co-opted counterculture for its entire existence.
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May 8, 2019 23:39
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https://twitter.com/warpaintmufm/status/1126096505104945152?s=19 *bass fart*
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May 9, 2019 00:17
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That stance has been around for a loooooong time to the point that that ad looks positively retro to me.
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May 9, 2019 02:03
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Ah. Advertising has co-opted counterculture for its entire existence. Well yeah but its not really co-option here per se Its like, 1.inauthentic brands have a slick and refined media representation 2. smaller more edgy brands have less refined and authentic representation 3. the company wants to mimic those edgier brands despite being inauthentic 4. the reproduction of that authentic representation is so patently formulated that it becomes ironic 5. but then that irony from the co-option in itself becomes the goal of the co-option 6. And in so trying to co-opt the ironic response to a co-opted image, we have hit irony inception Like, normally a brand would represent itself it traditionally and then a smaller product would have a more authentic representation and be cool. Then the larger product would try to mimic that cool and come off as comedic to those who appreciated the real cool brand. "Hello fello kids and all that." That right there is being co-opted. But what we have here is a company deliberately being artificial in its co option in order to be artificially ironic about its own artificiality *brain explodes* Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 04:44 on May 9, 2019 |
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May 9, 2019 04:41
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Well yeah but its not really co-option here per se smash capital
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May 9, 2019 05:02
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Since nobody else seems to be biting, I'll say that it's good. A bit more idiomatic than my Modern Library copy (Brailovsky's "rendition" of Garnett), but never overreaching. Thanks!
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May 9, 2019 05:11
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Resting Tropic of Cancer and wow Henry Miller was a horny guy
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May 9, 2019 06:12
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thehoodie posted:Resting Tropic of Cancer and wow Henry Miller was a horny guy That is literally all I remember after reading it.
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May 9, 2019 06:15
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Bilirubin posted:smash capital Anyone ever read Gaddis? There's something to be said about how his entire oeuvre (only 4 novels) all inform each other and seem to work through the same themes in different forms. Ppl don't talk about The Recoginitions nearly enough , esp when they bring up "postmodern" writing. He's the silent grandfather of American hysterical realism. Also pro tip: Reading Gaddis after reading Recognitions > Reading Gaddis
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May 12, 2019 13:34
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almost there posted:(only 4 novels) Excited to see which one you think doesn't count.
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May 12, 2019 13:59
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I always crash out of the book soon after the chapter on Wyatt and his ape, somehow that first section is so intense that I lose momentum when Gaddis pulls back on the apocalyptic tone for a bit.
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May 12, 2019 14:29
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