Books Aspiring Authors Should Read

[Charles Darnay]

I agree with the general "anti-intellectual" criticism of modern lit, but I do not agree with your statement that in order to be a good writer, you must read Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow.

I think that people who enjoy the "long, challenging" novels are no better readers and would make or no better writers than other readers. There is nothing wrong with liking Ulysses - I very much enjoy it - but don't get the idea that you are superior to others for it. There are some fantastic "short and simple" novels - Hesse's "Siddhartha" just to name one. Then of course there is poetry - which is often short - could be complex (T.S Eliot's "The Wasteland" or seemingly simple as Shelly's Ozymendias - but beautifully written nonetheless...of course, poetry is a different matter.

What about short stories or vignettes? Italo Calvino's works are on the surface very "simple" but, in my opinion, could challenge Joyce in richness. Or Alan Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams"?

My point is that you shouldn't buy into the the superiority complex that comes to those who succesfully tackle the "long complex" books - some are great, fine, very enjoyable, yes, rich, definitely, but not manditory for being a good writer.

[Aiculík]

Came across this article...

http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/interview-steven-moore

...and it got me thinking about how a lot of authors today, and critics too, are shunning complex books. I think that if you want to be a writer, and you haven't read Ulysses, or Gravity's Rainbow or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, then you shouldn't be allowed to write. Period. In the interview, Steven Moore's take on "the new anti-intellectualism" is dead on, I think.

Oh so you say if I don't read Joyce and Gravity Rainbow, I shouldn't be allowed to write. PERIOD. And you even say so without one single argument for this very bold statement.

Oh my God. Man, you gave me hard ten minutes, as I am reading this in my office and I can't laugh loud here.

I haven't read Ulysses and I never will. Let the lightning struck me down if I ever do. :)

And do you know what's the main reason for this decision? It's people like you. Trying to humiliate me into reading it. Obviously, they think that if they insult me and my intellect and inteligence long and arogantly enough, I will read it - and of course, fall in love with it the next moment.

Well, it doesn't work with me, I'm afraid. I tried and it did not impress me at all. Not because it was too difficult for me. Because it was too boring for me.

[kelby_lake]

I intend to read it but being complex doesn't make a good book per se. Books i agree should be more intellectual but not to a point where they alienate a reader. A good writer has to in part appeal to the reader's emotion.

[Pyrrho]

I think a writer's 'must reads' highly depend on what literature he intends to produce. However, if someone really wants to become a writer of serious literature, he should have read some basic literary works. Which ones exactly is open to dispute. But I just think that it would be very embarrassing (e.g. when talking to other writers, intellectuals etc.) to lack this kind of foundation. I do not actually know how writers think but I suppose that they would at least read the great works out of ambition - to know what great minds wrote in the past and to try to surpass them.

[JBI]

I am all for intellectualism, but seriously this isn't intellectualism. This is a very narrow minded cut on literature. If one can only read dense novels, than one surely doesn't really love literature. To love literature, one must love all forms of it, Plays, Essays, Novels, long and short, Short Stories, and of course, Poetry.

In the interview, this guy comes off pompous and flawed. I have yet to read one of his works, so I cannot be too sure, but seriously. Anyone who only reads experimental post-modern novels has something wrong with him. If one cannot find the same satisfaction out of reading Dickens as they do Joyce, then perhaps they are not true intellectuals.

I do acknowledge a trend in writing that deviates from the intellectual approach of the past, by basing works off second hand references to great works, in the sense that they read derivative works that have been watered down from good works (an example of this seems to be the Twilight series that is popular amongst kids, which seems to be watered down Anne Rice, which is derivative of classic Gothicism) but the trend is hardly important. How difficult a book is has no bearing on its quality, but how "new" a book is does. If innovative means puns and allusions, than clearly something is wrong in a very paradoxical way.

William Carlos Williams is no less a poet than T.S. Eliot for not being cryptic. Wallace Stevens is better than Pound, even though Pound is far more complex. To say difficulty and over-the-top-use-of-allusion is a determining factor of quality is silly.

This guy isn't an intellectual, he is a snob in my eyes, though a very useful one. A more potent person on the subject of anti-intellectualism would be the infamous critic Harold Bloom, since he actually reads all genres, including Children's literature. This guy is a very narrow-minded reader, though he is useful in decoding hard books. Someone who merely reads books to decode them however, is rather shallow. There are plenty of good books that need no guide book to read, and plenty of good forms of literature that need no allusions and long-winded references to work. This guy is merely flexing his "intellectualism" in the eyes of the public.

That being said, I do not think people should read mediocre books, or ignore ambitious works such as Pynchon, who is an excellent, though almost impossible novelist. I just think that if one is truly an intellectual, they will read a wide range of genres, not just extremely innovative style books that pride themselves on complexity. The works of Hemingway are no worse for being accessible, and the poems of Housman no worse for being accessible, no less beautiful. To limit oneself only to the difficult is pure snobbery, and not intellectualism at all.

[Hank Stamper]

probably the first time I have agreed with JBI ;)

[chasestalling]

Came across this article...

http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/interview-steven-moore

...and it got me thinking about how a lot of authors today, and critics too, are shunning complex books. I think that if you want to be a writer, and you haven't read Ulysses, or Gravity's Rainbow or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, then you shouldn't be allowed to write. Period. In the interview, Steven Moore's take on "the new anti-intellectualism" is dead on, I think.

Interesting article. It's always good to read (listen to) opinions that are ardent in the views they express.

As to the democracy of authors, it wouldn't matter if any and everyone wrote a novel. The market will adjust so that in hundred years of time the great novels will still be bought and read, the good ones still be in print, while the rest will be shredded and forgotten.

[Beautifull]

DOES IT MATTER WHAT PEOPLE DO OR DON'T READ?????
that being said...let me explain, there are all types of writers, but they all dont read complex books just to get there! everyone gets there in their own way.
so what are you saying?
if that was the case that all the writers who've never read those books shouldn't have their works published then we wouldn't have half of the famous writers we have today.period.end of discussion.

[jgweed]

I am more intrigued with Moore's discussion of the importance of past experimental novels which can serve to urge writers to achieve something different or new in their own efforts.
It does seem that most experimental novels are ambitious---Joyce or Proust come to mind. But then there is Robbe-Grillet's La maison de rendez-vous or perhaps (in poetry) Rilke's Duino Elegies as a counter-balance. Moore seems to be making a case that such books, even if "difficult" to read or requiring an attention span longer than a plane ride from New York to Los Angeles are important culturally and intellectually, not only for writers but readers as well.

[Charles Darnay]

People ought to stop saying "period" or any other finite statement, it really takes away from your argument and usually suggest that your point is not solid enough and you simply want to discourage contrasting opinions

[Beautifull]

People ought to stop saying "period" or any other finite statement, it really takes away from your argument and usually suggest that your point is not solid enough and you simply want to discourage contrasting opinions

fine by me.

[a lost weekend]

Oh so you say if I don't read Joyce and Gravity Rainbow, I shouldn't be allowed to write. PERIOD. And you even say so without one single argument for this very bold statement.

Oh my God. Man, you gave me hard ten minutes, as I am reading this in my office and I can't laugh loud here.

I haven't read Ulysses and I never will. Let the lightning struck me down if I ever do. :)

And do you know what's the main reason for this decision? It's people like you. Trying to humiliate me into reading it. Obviously, they think that if they insult me and my intellect and inteligence long and arogantly enough, I will read it - and of course, fall in love with it the next moment.


You're overlooking two of the greatest novels ever written because of people's arrogance?

{edit}

[cipherdecoy]

Read, read, read. Read everything— trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.

- Faulkner

:)

[Charles Darnay]

Read, read, read. Read everything— trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.

- Faulkner

:)

That's a great quote, Faulkner is so inspirational :)

[CognitiveArtist]

I agree for the very large majority of good writers they have to be a bit experimental (individuality is of course a must for a good writer) and require a diet of "grand, superhuman efforts" (from the article). Now what is "grand" and "superhuman" will vary a bit with opinion, but I think general lineages of such books can be traced in each genre. Unique and quality books nourish writers. Also it's not just a matter of pure complexity, maximum symbolism & allusions and such, Beckett's talent for instance is quite minimalist. But how could this be if Beckett loved Joyce? Being nourished by literature is never a matter of replicating quality literature but "re-inheriting" quality literature.
Also in case there is any confusion, the article advises that superhuman, unique literature can be found long before Joyce or Pynchon
the experimental, artsy novel that [reviewer Dale] Peck and others feel began with Ulysses actually began thousands of years ago, and that today's experimentalists are continuing in that venerable tradition.

I also agree that a writer can can be a little picky with what they read if they stick to a particular genre. Multiple genre influences on an writer of a particular genre can yield interesting results, but I think that most can stick to reading the kind of books they write (e.g. sci fi authors can stick to sci fi books).

And I think, as was pithily put, "read, read, read" is good advice for aspiring authors, as by reading bad literature or literature which completely opposes how & what you want to write you may find clearer direction then simply reading what you appreciate.

[Niamh]

Came across this article...

http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/interview-steven-moore

...and it got me thinking about how a lot of authors today, and critics too, are shunning complex books. I think that if you want to be a writer, and you haven't read Ulysses, or Gravity's Rainbow or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, then you shouldn't be allowed to write. Period. In the interview, Steven Moore's take on "the new anti-intellectualism" is dead on, I think.
I've been writing for over ten years. I am not a fan of Joyce and have never read Gravity's rainbow. A lot of modern authors arent shunning complex books, alot are mainly reading their contempories. It is probably best to understand that the literary market today is a lot different to say when "Ulysses" was written. It is an extremely competative market. There are a lot more authors being published, everone wants to be a bestseller anda prizewinner.
In my spare time, i read manuscripts for a publishing house. Trust me, its not the authors knowledge of complex books etc that makes a good writer, it is the ability to write; to write well and be able to grasp a readers attention, and to hold it till the end of the book. And lets not forget to be able to convey the story and bring the messege across. That is the most important thing. Not everyone can bee a writer. Someone could read all the books in existance but not be able to write. Someone may not be the best reader, but be a wonderful writer.

probably the first time I have agreed with JBI ;)
Me too! :p

Read, read, read. Read everything— trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.

- Faulkner

:)
Great quote.

[a lost weekend]

To dismiss any work of art based on what other people say/think/do is a (textbook) definition of close-mindedness--not to mention a severely unwise decision to make.

Ulysses & Gravity's Rainbow & The Recognitions are all books any person "ought" to try'n'read. If you're an "aspiring" writer/poet I'd say that Ulysses is an absolute necessity--it's the novel of all novels, a revolutionizing take on the form...not to mention a revolution in language/style. It would be to yer own disadvantage to overlook it.

Dear all: shed your prejudices about writers and novels, please! (I'm begging you [for your own sake]).

[Inderjit Sanghe]

I think that Ulysses's reputation precedes it.Ulysses isn't really a 'intellectual' novel-yes it is hard to follow at times, but it does not really deal with complex philosophical issues at length, or esoterica, references to Hamlet aside (;) ); in fact it’s main strength is that it is beautifully written in what was an usual style. Yes, parts of Ulysses are hard to read and border on the unintelligible, but for the most part it is not a novel which is 'intellectual' in the sense that it's characters discuss philosophy at length, whether it is in the form of profundities (Musil) or platitudes (Hesse). Finnegan's Wake on the other hand...

Ulysses is complex, beautifully so, but all great books are complex. :) Sometimes, as in the case of Kafka, academics can make a story or book more complex and intellectual than it actually is. (And in the case of Ulysses too!)

Thomas Pynchon is, for me, a very hard to read author. A lot of it depends on personal taste.

I also find the argument, given my a previous poster, that they will not read Ulysses because of other people completely ridiculous and inane.

[Charles Darnay]

To dismiss any work of art based on what other people say/think/do is a (textbook) definition of close-mindedness--not to mention a severely unwise decision to make.

Ulysses & Gravity's Rainbow & The Recognitions are all books any person "ought" to try'n'read. If you're an "aspiring" writer/poet I'd say that Ulysses is an absolute necessity--it's the novel of all novels, a revolutionizing take on the form...not to mention a revolution in language/style. It would be to yer own disadvantage to overlook it.

Dear all: shed your prejudices about writers and novels, please! (I'm begging you [for your own sake]).

People do shun away from Ulysses because of its pretentious reputation, which is sad, however, I must disagree that 'Ulysses is an absolute necessity" for any aspiring author. The novel existed long before Joyce and the authors did not suffer from not reading Joyce. Even post-1922, before Ulysses became as popular as it did, many authors wrote without knowing who Joyce is and once again, fabulous works were created.

Ulysses is a novel just like any other novel. Yes, there were unique, extremely innovative qualities to it, but you can say that about pretty much anything in the cannon (that's why they're in the cannon).

If someone wants to write a very detailed, inner-workings-of-the-mind, in a mundane setting, full of contemporary as well as literary allusions, then ya, they should check out Ulysses. If someone wants to write about say.....a young boy living with his cruel aunt and uncle who suddenly discovers he's a wizard.....well you know where I'm going with this.

[kelby_lake]

It's the variety that should be the focus. You should read lots of poems for language and plays for drama/tension as well as novels.

[jgweed]

Immanuel Kant is said never to have travelled more than sixty miles from his birthplace, but most of us are not Kant. How does one know whether a novel is important to knowing about civilisation, or for the writer, that reading it will not influence his writing for the better, if one avoids picking it up and turning a few pages?

[Aiculík]

You're overlooking two of the greatest novels ever written because of people's arrogance?

{edit}

Two? Only Ulysses.
And as I said, I did try to read Ulysses, but I think it's borring.

"Greatest novel ever written", or even "one of the greatest novels ever written" - I think that's too exaggerated. Personally I distinguish good book and influential book. Ulysses might have been very influential. But I personally don't think it's good book. Yes, imagine that - I really dare say that Ulysses is not a good book.

But usually I give famous books that I didn't like a second chance in a few years. But I'm fed up of hearing about Ulysses. I'm fed up how I'm supposed to love it by so-called intellectuals and riddiculed when they find out I don't. I have developed real alergy to the novel.


To dismiss any work of art based on what other people say/think/do is a (textbook) definition of close-mindedness--not to mention a severely unwise decision to make.
But you obviously overlooked the part where I said I did try to read Ulysses and wasn't impressed by it at all.


Ulysses & Gravity's Rainbow & The Recognitions are all books any person "ought" to try'n'read. If you're an "aspiring" writer/poet I'd say that Ulysses is an absolute necessity--it's the novel of all novels, a revolutionizing take on the form...not to mention a revolution in language/style. It would be to yer own disadvantage to overlook it.
Why these books?
I liked Gravity's Rainbow. But I liked V better.
"Novels of all novels"? How do you know? Did you read all novels? Or at least all novels written before Ulysses? Or at least all British novels written before Ulysses?
Style and form are important part of a novel, nobody denies that - but they're not the only important part of the novel. And the author should choose style that best fits his own work, that's best for expressing his own views and ideas. To use someone else's style just because it was revolutionary 80 years ago is rather silly.


Dear all: shed your prejudices about writers and novels, please! (I'm begging you [for your own sake]).
Prejudices? You mean like one that those who haven't read certain 3 novels shouldn't be allowed to write?

I don't have prejudices against writers and novels. I can't count how many books I've read - from Gilgamesh and Sinuhe the Egyptian to Oscar Wao, classics, phantasy, sci-fi, modernists, postmodernists, folk tales, children literature, comics, manga... I read epics, poems, plays, short stories, novels, anti-novels, essays, criticism... I don't say I like everything the same, because I don't think that's possible.
And of course there are authors I like very much, those I think are average and those I don't like. Pynchon is interesting and funny, among those I like, but not in my top 10.

Joyce is on my "average" list and I don't suppose any change there.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Came across this article...

http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/interview-steven-moore

...and it got me thinking about how a lot of authors today, and critics too, are shunning complex books. I think that if you want to be a writer, and you haven't read Ulysses, or Gravity's Rainbow or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, then you shouldn't be allowed to write. Period. In the interview, Steven Moore's take on "the new anti-intellectualism" is dead on, I think.

This is the sort of pompous nonsense that is not only permitted to the very young and semi-literate, but is practically mandatory for them. Do report back to us when you have found and read a 4th book and written one of your own.

[ThousandthIsle]

Someone who merely reads books to decode them however, is rather shallow.

Well put, JBI.

[PeterL]

. I think that if you want to be a writer, and you haven't read Ulysses, or Gravity's Rainbow or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, then you shouldn't be allowed to write. Period.

That idea is patently absurd. If you really believe that then you may have trouble writing anything at all.

[NickAdams]

Steven Moore's alternate history of literature sounds interesting.



I think that if you want to be a writer, and you haven't read Ulysses, or Gravity's Rainbow or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, then you shouldn't be allowed to write. Period.

Joyce never read Gravity's Rainbow.

[Sweets America]

Came across this article...

http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/interview-steven-moore

...and it got me thinking about how a lot of authors today, and critics too, are shunning complex books. I think that if you want to be a writer, and you haven't read Ulysses, or Gravity's Rainbow or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, then you shouldn't be allowed to write. Period. In the interview, Steven Moore's take on "the new anti-intellectualism" is dead on, I think.

I think this is such an absurd thing to say. I mean, in my view, nobody can state which authors are better than others, it's all a question of taste, and thus I don't see why those three books would make a law of themselves... I don't see why you would be the supreme authority about this either.

Plus, really, there are so many things people want to forbid here, so if now you refuse to allow people to write, where is this world going?

[Philoctetes]

I think it has to be rather specific. I don't think one can go all willy-nilly. I think that what you plan to read should be quite focused and well researched. I think one should already have the goal in mine.

[a lost weekend]

Two? Only Ulysses.
And as I said, I did try to read Ulysses, but I think it's borring.

"Greatest novel ever written", or even "one of the greatest novels ever written" - I think that's too exaggerated. Personally I distinguish good book and influential book. Ulysses might have been very influential. But I personally don't think it's good book. Yes, imagine that - I really dare say that Ulysses is not a good book.

But usually I give famous books that I didn't like a second chance in a few years. But I'm fed up of hearing about Ulysses. I'm fed up how I'm supposed to love it by so-called intellectuals and riddiculed when they find out I don't. I have developed real alergy to the novel.


But you obviously overlooked the part where I said I did try to read Ulysses and wasn't impressed by it at all.


Why these books?
I liked Gravity's Rainbow. But I liked V better.
"Novels of all novels"? How do you know? Did you read all novels? Or at least all novels written before Ulysses? Or at least all British novels written before Ulysses?
Style and form are important part of a novel, nobody denies that - but they're not the only important part of the novel. And the author should choose style that best fits his own work, that's best for expressing his own views and ideas. To use someone else's style just because it was revolutionary 80 years ago is rather silly.


Prejudices? You mean like one that those who haven't read certain 3 novels shouldn't be allowed to write?

I don't have prejudices against writers and novels. I can't count how many books I've read - from Gilgamesh and Sinuhe the Egyptian to Oscar Wao, classics, phantasy, sci-fi, modernists, postmodernists, folk tales, children literature, comics, manga... I read epics, poems, plays, short stories, novels, anti-novels, essays, criticism... I don't say I like everything the same, because I don't think that's possible.
And of course there are authors I like very much, those I think are average and those I don't like. Pynchon is interesting and funny, among those I like, but not in my top 10.

Joyce is on my "average" list and I don't suppose any change there.

Ah, yes. Joyce is, simply, "boring". That definitely shows you embarked on serious & in-depth readings of his work...in fact, you're a regular Empire's New Clothes type of a guy, huh?

It's a shame you're so bitter. Maybe if you eased up, relaxed & tried to keep an open mind you could read some of those books you so violently shun. But, as per your own words--"I don't suppose any change there".

I expected nothing less from you, angry reader.

P.S. Pssstt...no one said we ought to write like someone did 80 years--only that Ulysses is - on every level - a major novel of the 20th Century; a prime example for writers of what the novel form is capable of.

[Scheherazade]

Please do not personalise your arguments.

Such posts will be deleted without any further notice.

[kelby_lake]

I think people shouldn't just stick to reading novels. Personally I think if someone's never read a newspaper, they shouldn't be writing.

[PeterL]

I think people shouldn't just stick to reading novels. Personally I think if someone's never read a newspaper, they shouldn't be writing.

Yes, aspiring writers should read a variety of fiction.

[NickAdams]

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
- Henry David Thoreau

[Erichtho]

In the article nothing of what the thread opener concluded was suggested, and I very much disagree with his opinion. There is absolutely no book that one "has to have read" in order to be a good writer, not even Homer.

Concerning that Faulkner quote, I totally have to disagree with his promotion of reading "trash". I avoid it all costs, and can't see how I could profit from it. If I know how to not do something I still don't know how to do it. Yes, it is important to read books from different periods, written in a variety of forms and by authors with different cultural backgrounds, but still I demand from every book to have a certain literary quality.



I think people shouldn't just stick to reading novels. Personally I think if someone's never read a newspaper, they shouldn't be writing.
Yes, aspiring writers should read a variety of fiction.
:D

[Scheherazade]

"The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole Life to reading my works."

- James Joyce

[NickAdams]

Concerning that Faulkner quote, I totally have to disagree with his promotion of reading "trash".

How would you know it was trash without reading it? I had high hopes for most of the books I thought were trash, like One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. I find the lessons from trash leave a stronger impression (who forgets being scalded by water). Dan Brown taught me a great lesson in the use of metaphor.


"The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole Life to reading my works."

- James Joyce

If it's good enough for religious text then it's good enough for fiction.;)

[PeterL]

I agree with you, Peter, but first I think aspiring writers need to learn how to read like a writer, not a casual reader.

Still, even reading like a casual writer is better than not reading at all.

I would think that writers read different ways, depending on why they are reading.

BTW, that comment I made was also a jab at the quality of news reporting.

[a lost weekend]

i.m.o.--people who don't read joyce because only "pseudo-intellectuals" or "arrogant readers" do are just as - for lack of a better word - bad as the very readers they cannot abide.

read, ladies & gentleman, regardless of the author's personality or any kind of (i.e. type or form of) cult that surrounds him/her/"it" (it's possible, no?). Read w/o prejudice, w/ an open mind, w/o a formulated opinion before you get to the 1st page...

[Aiculík]

Ah, yes. Joyce is, simply, "boring". That definitely shows you embarked on serious & in-depth readings of his work...in fact, you're a regular Empire's New Clothes type of a guy, huh?

It's a shame you're so bitter. Maybe if you eased up, relaxed & tried to keep an open mind you could read some of those books you so violently shun. But, as per your own words--"I don't suppose any change there".


I expected nothing less from you, angry reader.

P.S. Pssstt...no one said we ought to write like someone did 80 years--only that Ulysses is - on every level - a major novel of the 20th Century; a prime example for writers of what the novel form is capable of.

See? That's exactly what I'm talking about. Just because I dared to say that Joyce is boring, you made conclusions that
- I'm not able to read seriously
- I'm not able to make in-depth analysis of the literary work I read
- that I'm not open-minded

Oh yes. Making quick conclusions about someone one doesn't know, based just on the fact they don't like the same book as one does, is certainly the best proof for in-depth analysis and open mind. ;)

[Scheherazade]

F i n a l Wa r n i n g

Please do not personalise your arguments.

Such posts will be deleted without any further notice.

[Circuvico]

I have read most of Joyce and Pynchon's oeuvre, both are lovely writers and whose books I return to pretty often. But, it's not just them in the world of literature that are worth reading.

The Bible (boring but worth reading to get an understanding of our culture's roots) Huckleberry Finn, Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Time Traveller's Wife, Moby Dick, Isaac Asimov, Shakespeare, Chaucer, T.S Eliot, Sam Hunt, J K Rowling, Beatrix Potter, Agatha Christie, Katherine Mansfield, Patrice Grace, Fiona Kidman, Roald Dahl are just some of the many authors and things that are as rich and rewarding as Pynchon and Joyce's books.

With a heritage like that, it's an expected thing to have great writers resulting from it.

Live, learn and read many times!

[CognitiveArtist]

I think there is a little too much reduction in this thread to specific authors. As the interviewed person in the OP said, experimental literature, that is unique and nourishing literature, is thousands of years old. The point as I see it is good writers nearly always have some exposure to nourishing, unique literature. Good writers notice some kind of tradition behind them. The tradition simply inspires, it doesn't instruct them on "good" writing.

[AuntShecky]

My, we're spending an inordinate amount of time discussing which works should or should not be read, rather than reading the works themselves!

Perhaps an inspiring writer should read everything, good, bad or mediocre, with an eye toward the "how" rather than the "what." Thus, he or she can learn what to do and and what not to do.

[NickAdams]

F i n a l Wa r n i n g

Who would have thought it would have got this far. I've been in the religious thread and haven't seen a final warning.


I think there is a little too much reduction in this thread to specific authors. As the interviewed person in the OP said, experimental literature, that is unique and nourishing literature, is thousands of years old. The point as I see it is good writers nearly always have some exposure to nourishing, unique literature. Good writers notice some kind of tradition behind them. The tradition simply inspires, it doesn't instruct them on "good" writing.


My, we're spending an inordinate amount of time discussing which works should or should not be read, rather than reading the works themselves!

Perhaps an inspiring writer should read everything, good, bad or mediocre, with an eye toward the "how" rather than the "what." Thus, he or she can learn what to do and and what not to do.

Yes, yes. What about the article guys? What do you think of the alternate history? The lack of rules for the novel which lead to experimentation? Experimental being the old convention? Lets explore this.

[CognitiveArtist]

Let the expedition begin :)

One thing to note which I missed when first reading the article was that Steven Moore is only concerned with "innovative fiction", prose.

What Steven Moore seems to oppose is just plain representation, where the point of a novel is to explain a story accurately.
The conventional, realistic novel that dominates the best-seller lists today is a very late development in the long history of the novel, not the novel's default setting.Kind of on the same point, I believe, Moore says he wants "seven-course meals, not quick snacks". A deep, rich in every way story, not some descriptive piece which aims at "explaining" to the reader the story.

Another point I understand is that you can't expect a story to have a particular structure. Good literature, I understand Moore contends, demands that the reader leaves his/her expectations at the door as good writers wrote by "making up the rules as they went along". Along with this is that good literature shouldn't easily to absorbed by the reader, good literature brings some challenges. Moore explains this by pointing out the critics
you had people like that bog-trotter Roddy Doyle saying Joyce wasn’t worth reading, as though it showed good sense not to have read Ulysses. Instead of being embarrassed at not making it past page 25 of Gravity’s Rainbow, some people were proud to have seen through that charlatan so quickly. These conservative critics seem to hold a “family values” attitude toward literature, believing that anything outside of the mainstream of fiction should be shunned, and that if a novel couldn't be read and appreciated by your average Joe or Jane, then it was a pretentious waste of time. The point being novels should make us anew, there should be something eventful about literature. It should be more then representational description and it should bring some challenge.
To emphasise this point which has been missed, Moore isn't stating Joyce and Pynchon particularly are necessary, but they are apart of the nourishing necessary tradition of good literature (which inspires many good writers). Moore says "of course you don't have to like Joyce (or Pynchon or Gaddis), they’re certainly not for everyone".

[NickAdams]

Now we're getting somewhere CognitiveArtist.:D

The ability to say, "character, plot, dialogue, setting ... these are the components of literature," instead optional tools seems anticlimatic in the story of art. Story is always second for me. I am more interested in approach, which I hope is different each time. This is what interest me in Beckett, but now I'm reading the Odyssey and I'm enjoy the story. What was I saying?:confused:

[JBI]

All art has a skeleton. They say to write good free verse, one must master all metrical forms. Free verse, Whitman's for example, is just as structured as the Pentameter used by Wordsworth, or the Trochaic metre in Longfellow's Hiawatha.

Even if one wishes to break the rules, one must know which rules need breaking. To express something's existence, one must contemplate its non-existence. To change, one must understand the unchanged. To write beyond Joyce, one must understand Joyce.

That being said, the only way to break free of influence is to be influenced fully. Joyce did the same thing, he read Shakespeare, Dante, Pater, and a large amount of other literature, and simply recreated his writing. If you look at his earliest work, you will see the development of the writer, in terms of creating his own style.

A common motif in Joyce's work is the reference to Byron. Think on that one, why Byron. Why does he also allude to Scott's novels? Is it because he revers them, or dislikes them?

One does not need to read Joyce to be a good writer, though it is unlikely a good writer will not have been influenced by Joyce if he is writing in the major vein of the Western tradition. If one reads only Borges and not Joyce, one has had a misreading of Joyce. If one reads the middle to late period of Faulkner, one has had a misreading of Joyce. If one reads from the late period of Virginia Woolf, one has read a misreading of Joyce.

Style isn't rooted within the author's mind, but rather is pasted together by a large amount of influences, and then manifests itself as a way of trying to create originality. Some writers succeed at creating the new style, and shaking off the roots, while others fail. Genre literature in general seems to be within the fail category. If you say a book is derivative, or formulaic, in a sense you are saying that the author has not shaken off the influences of the past. A cliché is another term for a derivative. That which came before, manifesting itself anew.

Reading something like Eliot's The Journey of the Magi can seem like you are reading an original work, but if you flip threw Andrewes's Sermons, you will find the poem itself to be just a rewording, which in turn was a reworking of the biblical story. It is what the author adds, and subtracts to the work that creates the new form.

That being said, if one's influences are mediocre, chances are one's work is going to be mediocre. If one's influences are excellent, assuming the author has some talent, which I feel not everyone has, his output perhaps can be excellent. It is a contest of wits more than anything else.

It is because of this, that if one is only influenced with dated writers (that is, writers which have already been influential, and reworked over and over again) one usually fails to seem 'modern' or original. In order to shake this, the reading of the influences, or the influences, must change. One must create something new out of something old, or something new out of something new. The goal is to become that new thing which will eventually lead to the next thing. If one only reads Homer, chances are one's output would sound something like the post-Homeric writers of Classical Greece. That too lead to a new output, which culminated into the Hellenistic Greek period.

That being said, one does not need to read Pynchon, or Joyce, or Proust, or Faulkner, or even Shakespeare to be a great writer. However, chances are, it a) wouldn't hurt, and b) might teach you / tell you something that you would never have thought of. Shakespeare has been imitated and reworked thousands upon thousands of times. Joyce and Proust pretty much created the way we see modern through contemporary fiction. Pynchon is still new, but if he takes, perhaps he will be the new standard (though I am skeptical about that). If one reads them, then that is the only way to break free of them.

That being said, I am rambling, and if you want a real scholarly book on the subject, just get Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence (preferably a later edition).

[NickAdams]

For most people, the story is always going to come first. People love stories. They build their lives and societies around stories. They identify with characters. They love them or love to hate them. It's mainly the writers who are interested in alternate approaches, not the general reader.

Ain't it tha truth sista.:lol:
Characters are not one in the same.


All art has a skeleton. They say to write good free verse, one must master all metrical forms. Free verse, Whitman's for example, is just as structured as the Pentameter used by Wordsworth, or the Trochaic metre in Longfellow's Hiawatha.

Even if one wishes to break the rules, one must know which rules need breaking. To express something's existence, one must contemplate its non-existence. To change, one must understand the unchanged. To write beyond Joyce, one must understand Joyce.

That being said, the only way to break free of influence is to be influenced fully. Joyce did the same thing, he read Shakespeare, Dante, Pater, and a large amount of other literature, and simply recreated his writing. If you look at his earliest work, you will see the development of the writer, in terms of creating his own style.

A common motif in Joyce's work is the reference to Byron. Think on that one, why Byron. Why does he also allude to Scott's novels? Is it because he revers them, or dislikes them?

One does not need to read Joyce to be a good writer, though it is unlikely a good writer will not have been influenced by Joyce if he is writing in the major vein of the Western tradition. If one reads only Borges and not Joyce, one has had a misreading of Joyce. If one reads the middle to late period of Faulkner, one has had a misreading of Joyce. If one reads from the late period of Virginia Woolf, one has read a misreading of Joyce.

Style isn't rooted within the author's mind, but rather is pasted together by a large amount of influences, and then manifests itself as a way of trying to create originality. Some writers succeed at creating the new style, and shaking off the roots, while others fail. Genre literature in general seems to be within the fail category. If you say a book is derivative, or formulaic, in a sense you are saying that the author has not shaken off the influences of the past. A cliché is another term for a derivative. That which came before, manifesting itself anew.

Reading something like Eliot's The Journey of the Magi can seem like you are reading an original work, but if you flip threw Andrewes's Sermons, you will find the poem itself to be just a rewording, which in turn was a reworking of the biblical story. It is what the author adds, and subtracts to the work that creates the new form.

That being said, if one's influences are mediocre, chances are one's work is going to be mediocre. If one's influences are excellent, assuming the author has some talent, which I feel not everyone has, his output perhaps can be excellent. It is a contest of wits more than anything else.

It is because of this, that if one is only influenced with dated writers (that is, writers which have already been influential, and reworked over and over again) one usually fails to seem 'modern' or original. In order to shake this, the reading of the influences, or the influences, must change. One must create something new out of something old, or something new out of something new. The goal is to become that new thing which will eventually lead to the next thing. If one only reads Homer, chances are one's output would sound something like the post-Homeric writers of Classical Greece. That too lead to a new output, which culminated into the Hellenistic Greek period.

That being said, one does not need to read Pynchon, or Joyce, or Proust, or Faulkner, or even Shakespeare to be a great writer. However, chances are, it a) wouldn't hurt, and b) might teach you / tell you something that you would never have thought of. Shakespeare has been imitated and reworked thousands upon thousands of times. Joyce and Proust pretty much created the way we see modern through contemporary fiction. Pynchon is still new, but if he takes, perhaps he will be the new standard (though I am skeptical about that). If one reads them, then that is the only way to break free of them.

That being said, I am rambling, and if you want a real scholarly book on the subject, just get Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence (preferably a later edition).

One does not need to read them, but it couldn't hurt. Also, one would avoid treading over a beaten path.

[CognitiveArtist]

What I got from the article is that the style of a text cannot be simple explanatory description and the structure, the plot and characters really, must be challenging and not expectable.

No novel or text will ever completely lack rules, it couldn't possibly communicate then. Literature involves language which is a discourse which is a set of practices and rules (pretty much, blah blah blah). Although I do think skillful literature can bend and challenge rules and expectations as much as possible. Of course it's no rule that more experimenting = more quality, but experimenting and change is the starting place for all new and wonderful things.

I also think style or approach is important, probably central as "style" is intermingled with structure. Good literature, like good thought, will have to find new and interesting ways to talk about things (within the bounds of quality, of course). To quote one of my latest favourite humans, Richard Rorty, "cultures with richer vocabularies are more fully human — farther removed from the beasts — than those with poorer ones".

[mortalterror]

Yes, yes. What about the article guys? What do you think of the alternate history? The lack of rules for the novel which lead to experimentation? Experimental being the old convention? Lets explore this.

I think he's got it backward. Originality and experimentation are the new conventions with imitation and homage being the more traditional ways of doing things. However, I do like the idea of an alternative history, not because I don't believe in the canon. I do. But I think that it's gone off track in the last century or so.

Personally, I believe that it is the lack of formal rules which is holding the novel back and keeping it from achieving a level of excellence comparable to poetry and drama. Even with the best novels it's like "What am I looking at?" They're formless lumps, or as Henry James referred to Tolstoy's works "loose, baggy monsters." They can go on for a hundred pages or a hundred million. What is that about? There are no real models of form, and people are invited to fall into the thousand heresies of "use your own best judgement." There are no boundaries and distinctions. The term novel has lost all definition, as so many different prose creations are shoehorned into that title. But enough of my personal misgivings about the novel. We were talking about history and convention.

I really doubt that Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time, Magic Mountain, and The Man Without Qualities are the best novels of the twentieth century. I don't think they are even representative of their time. They weren't popular when they were written, and they aren't popular now. I hear these phrases, these labels, "modernism", "post-modernism" and they'll describe maybe five writers working in a new style. Meanwhile, 99% of writers are working in a style made popular almost a century ago but critics have the gall to say we're in a new age and this minority represents us? I find that prospect chilling. Most people are writing linear narratives, without stream of consciousness, or brooding existentialist philosophies, sentences that go on for pages, and cryptic byzantine plays of words and allusions, but it's not our time. Nobody cares what normal educated people are reading. For my dollar, the Joyces and the Prousts are sideshows of what's really going on. They get attention for doing something different, not for being the best.

And then you have the bizarre critical theories spun out by professional academics to explain why these misshapen creatures are the best books ever written. We find out that they've invented new rules and new standards of beauty, that the old rules no longer apply or that they only apply to the old books. I see these guys making their cases, and everything they say fits. It's perfectly logical. Their explanations suit the facts. But then you read the books and realize that that's not what's going on at all and you start to figure that they made up these new explanations because by the old standards these were pretty crumby books.

I think that Joyce's Ulysses is a terrible book for young writers to read because they haven't learned to read and write effectively yet. They don't know what works and what doesn't; so they are likely to be carried away and as enamored of his flaws as they are of his finer points. And there is much of both in Joyce. He's the kind of bad writer who's faults spring from an over abundance of gifts. Just as a James Patterson will fail through lack of talent, and aiming at the lowest common denominator, Joyce is a failure at the opposite end of the spectrum. He tries for too much and overextends himself. His writing is so overworked so gilded, it's layered on thick like a whore's makeup. His work is like those gaudy alter pieces of the late baroque, where every inch of space is tattooed with 50 writhing figures because the sculptor couldn't content himself with a simple well wrought cherubim. Joyce is an advanced writer who suffers from hypertrophy and should be reserved for the experienced reader who can recognize where he hits and where he misses and not be caught up in his newness and originality.

Joyce gets so much praise for being influential that nobody stops to think about whether his influence has actually been positive. I think he's done some real harm to English letters. People salivate over concepts like epiphany and stream of consciousness but those are just techniques. They can be done well or poorly like any other. We don't stop to question why and how Joyce is original before we celebrate him. It begs the question, if he's so original, if he's so different from Shakespeare and Balzac, and all those other things we like, wouldn't that make him bad? Because bad is very different from good too and not all change is change for the better.

My take: we need an alternative history without Joyce and his ilk, but writers ought to read whatever they enjoy and whatever kind of work they want to write like. I think that a classic is just the best of it's kind and you can find a great work of art for any taste.

[NickAdams]

His writing is so overworked so gilded, it's layered on thick like a whore's makeup.

:lol:

[JBI]

If you mean influencing Calvino, Borges, Eco, Faulkner, Woolf, Beckett, Nabokov, Derrida, Rushdie, O'Brien, and others as being negative to literature, I think you do not understand the implications of influence.

Joyce is not bad because his readers do not understand him. Enough readers, and writers, testify to his influence and masterfulness of language. His Dubliners, and Portrait of The Artist are quite accessible, and are taught at the highschool through 300 level in universities, and often are brought up in other circles. Those works are enough to solidify his place as a minor author of the canon. The question comes down to his last two works, and that is what you seem to be commenting on.

Should one judge Faulkner without reading Absalom Absalom, or Virginia Woolf without reading The Waves? Is Henry James a bad author because in his late period he became utterly complex to the point that most of his later works are often ignored (that is essentially everything after The Golden Bowl). Is Blake bad because his mythological poems weren't really decoded until Northrop Frye? Hart Crane is hardly the easiest poet to read, but does that make him worse than Edgar Allen Poe?

Difficulty has no bearing on achievement. The modern concept of the short story is indebted to Joyce, as is the modern impressionistic writing style of novels. Also, he and D. H. Lawrence are said to be two of the major popularizers of the F word, which is another side influence.

Have you read the complete works of Joyce in depth? I trust you have if you are commenting.

As for Proust, he has stood the test of time, and will stand the test of time, because a) he isn't as hard as you pretend him to be, I find, and b) his influence is unfaltering. The only real difficulty with his work is its length, and that is no real difficulty (just look at all the fantasy authors writing sagas even longer than his!). I also trust you have read the complete In Search of Lost Time before you commented, otherwise one must question your perspective.

As for Thomas Mann, he also doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Many of his works are accessible, and by default all his works will be looked at as a result. The Magic Mountain is not as hard a work as something like King Lear, or even Hamlet, and those works are taught to almost all highschool kids in the English speaking North America, and England.

As for your ranting about academics, it is the same academics who champion Hemingway, as do Joyce. The same ones who champion Willa Cather as do Faulkner. The same ones who push Edith Wharton as do Henry James. And the same ones who bring both Proust, Joyce, and Mann into the public's eye. Are you saying Moby Dick shouldn't be read because W. H. Auden was writing as a critic? Or perhaps the critics should not have revived F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Thoreau, or Emerson. Wallace Stevens barely had any contemporary criticism, yet because of the works of many great critics, the new generations have access to his poetry.

As for writers writing what they like, and only reading what they like, won't that get boring? Agon is the fuel of Western literature whether people accept it or not. It is only a matter of time before the new thing comes along, and sweeps the board away, whether one likes it or not. Thinks retain classic status because they are important in the development of the new norm, or are too powerful to be bumped out easily. Whether people like it or not, Joyce requires reading, because Joyce is in all of us, in some way or another.

If someone doesn't like the Bible, it doesn't matter. The Bible is everywhere, and one must read it in order to understand Western letters, the same with Homer, and Shakespeare, and all the other canonical writers. Whether we like it or not, they will continue to appear as long as the influences stand. No matter how hard anyone tries, you cannot block out the past influences.

The writer's job essentially is to take all that, and to try and create something else that will sell. He must grab a bit from everywhere, mush it up, throw some out, mold it, shape it, fight it, perfect it, and then sell it. If one reads only The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, chances are you will end up writing something like that kid who wrote Aragon (Paolini I think his name is). If that is how you measure success, then by all means, we should all read like that.

As for the others, well, their niche is time, and their audience the future. They Still of course are going to try and appeal to the contemporary audience, all artists try to in some way or another, but artists' authenticity takes precedent. The Sistine Chapel is a far more enduring work than the wall ornament you can buy at target for $11.95.

[PeterL]

If someone doesn't like the Bible, it doesn't matter. The Bible is everywhere, and one must read it in order to understand Western letters, the same with Homer, and Shakespeare, and all the other canonical writers. Whether we like it or not, they will continue to appear as long as the influences stand. No matter how hard anyone tries, you cannot block out the past influences.

The writer's job essentially is to take all that, and to try and create something else that will sell. He must grab a bit from everywhere, mush it up, throw some out, mold it, shape it, fight it, perfect it, and then sell it. If one reads only The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, chances are you will end up writing something like that kid who wrote Aragon (Paolini I think his name is). If that is how you measure success, then by all means, we should all read like that.

The writer's job is to take what he, or she, wishes from past works and use them as part of the imaginative process that will result in the author's new writing communicating something to the reader. If all authors wanted to communicate the intricacy of language to readers, then there would be many books like Ulysses, but there aren't many like that, so I think that it is fair to figure that that is not what many authors wish to communicate. The largest selling sub-genre is the Romance novel; although I have never read any, and I don't think that I am acquainted with anyone who reads them. Since they are the largest sellers, then it is reasonable to assume that readers want to read that sort of thing. There is nothing wrong with that; although some condemn that kind of writing.



As for the others, well, their niche is time, and their audience the future. They Still of course are going to try and appeal to the contemporary audience, all artists try to in some way or another, but artists' authenticity takes precedent. The Sistine Chapel is a far more enduring work than the wall ornament you can buy at target for $11.95.

The problem with the Sistine Chapel is that it won't fit into most living rooms, and it would clash with most styles of decoration.

[Circuvico]

Originally Posted by Circuvico View Post
I have read most of Joyce and Pynchon's oeuvre, both are lovely writers and whose books I return to pretty often. But, it's not just them in the world of literature that are worth reading.

The Bible (boring but worth reading to get an understanding of our culture's roots) Huckleberry Finn, Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Time Traveller's Wife, Moby Dick, Isaac Asimov, Shakespeare, Chaucer, T.S Eliot, Sam Hunt, J K Rowling, Beatrix Potter, Agatha Christie, Katherine Mansfield, Patrice Grace, Fiona Kidman, Roald Dahl are just some of the many authors and things that are as rich and rewarding as Pynchon and Joyce's books.

With a heritage like that, it's an expected thing to have great writers resulting from it.

Live, learn and read many times!

"The Time Traveler's Wife?" Do you really think Audrey Niffenegger is a major author who needs to be read?

And J.K. Rowling? While I'd never underestimate her storytelling skills, but she's not the best craftsman when it comes to writing.

But I agree there are many, many authors to choose from and there's no excuse for a would be writer to not find something worthwhile to read.

Well, both are worth reading because they are popular and people read them. So if you want to understand your time and place, you'd have to see what things people like the most and then create something, against what they are looking and buying the most, that is fresh and bold. Or mock our current literature while still creating fresh. That's your choice.

Without a understanding of our time's literature (and before our time) whether good or bad, how can you write convincingly? I bet Joyce and Pynchon read their time's literature and used elements of them in their work or created a revolutionary style and ways of writing after reading the popular literature of their time.

So that's my argument for my including of these books.

[stlukesguild]

I think he's got it backward. Originality and experimentation are the new conventions with imitation and homage being the more traditional ways of doing things.

So are you suggesting that Dante, Shakespeare, William Blake, Montaigne, Aeschylus, Wordsworth, Rousseau, Lawrence Sterne, Swift, etc... were not just as audaciously original as Joyce, Kafka, or Borges?

However, I do like the idea of an alternative history, not because I don't believe in the canon. I do. But I think that it's gone off track in the last century or so.

So what works should comprise this alternative canon?

Personally, I believe that it is the lack of formal rules which is holding the novel back and keeping it from achieving a level of excellence comparable to poetry and drama. Even with the best novels it's like "What am I looking at?" They're formless lumps, or as Henry James referred to Tolstoy's works "loose, baggy monsters." They can go on for a hundred pages or a hundred million. What is that about? There are no real models of form, and people are invited to fall into the thousand heresies of "use your own best judgement." There are no boundaries and distinctions. The term novel has lost all definition, as so many different prose creations are shoehorned into that title. But enough of my personal misgivings about the novel. We were talking about history and convention.

An intriguing analysis of the novel. So what rules do you feel should apply? Have you never noticed that a good many of the earliest novels actually challenge any number of the expectations as to what a work of narrative fiction is: Don Quixote, Tristam Shandy, Richardson's Clarissa, Rousseau's Julie, DeFoe's Journal of the Plague Year, etc...

I really doubt that Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time, Magic Mountain, and The Man Without Qualities are the best novels of the twentieth century.

I would certainly count them among the best novels of the twentieth century.

I don't think they are even representative of their time.

Perhaps not... in the sense that the best art is probably never representative of its time.

They weren't popular when they were written, and they aren't popular now.

Ah yes... popularity. The true measure of quality in art. Tell me, how many listen to Bach, Wagner, Rossini, and Debussy in comparison to Brittany Spears or the latest rapper? How many read Dante, Goethe, Milton... even Shakespeare in comparison to J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown?

I hear these phrases, these labels, "modernism", "post-modernism" and they'll describe maybe five writers working in a new style. Meanwhile, 99% of writers are working in a style made popular almost a century ago but critics have the gall to say we're in a new age and this minority represents us?

Throughout the whole of history it has been the artistic achievements of less that >1% that has lasted... that continues to speak to later generations of artists and art lovers.

I find that prospect chilling. Most people are writing linear narratives, without stream of consciousness, or brooding existentialist philosophies, sentences that go on for pages, and cryptic byzantine plays of words and allusions, but it's not our time.

Who cares what "most people" I writing? I am only concerned with what is being written by those who are achieving something of real depth. Some of it utilizes some or all of the formal elements you have pointed out... some utilizes none of it.

Nobody cares what normal educated people are reading. For my dollar, the Joyces and the Prousts are sideshows of what's really going on. They get attention for doing something different, not for being the best.

Proust and Joyce don't last almost 100 years and counting and influence generations of talented writers, and inspire generations of lovers of literature lovers all on a fluke. Do you honestly imagine that what you imagine as "shock value" has any impact upon serious readers of literature by this point? That is like suggesting that it is the shock of Picasso's Cubism (long after the thrill is gone) that continues to inspire artists today, and not the actual quality of the work.

And then you have the bizarre critical theories spun out by professional academics to explain why these misshapen creatures are the best books ever written. We find out that they've invented new rules and new standards of beauty, that the old rules no longer apply or that they only apply to the old books. I see these guys making their cases, and everything they say fits. It's perfectly logical. Their explanations suit the facts. But then you read the books and realize that that's not what's going on at all and you start to figure that they made up these new explanations because by the old standards these were pretty crumby books.

Different artistic forms have different standards, because they are attempting different things. You cannot fault a medieval sculpture or a Byzantine mosaic for the lack of anatomical veracity or illusionistic space any more than you can bemoan the lack of descriptive detail of setting in the Book of Job or the lack of character development Borges. On the other hand, there is nothing that prevents us from discovering the most brilliant work among a vast array of differing forms.

I think that Joyce's Ulysses is a terrible book for young writers to read because they haven't learned to read and write effectively yet. They don't know what works and what doesn't; so they are likely to be carried away and as enamored of his flaws as they are of his finer points.

By and large I would say that Joyce would be a poor choice for young readers or writers because he demands/expects a great deal of his audience. Without a deeper understanding of many of Joyce's predecessors and influences a young reader/writer is likely to just be enamored of certain surface mannerisms of style at best.

And there is much of both in Joyce. He's the kind of bad writer who's faults spring from an over abundance of gifts. Just as a James Patterson will fail through lack of talent, and aiming at the lowest common denominator, Joyce is a failure at the opposite end of the spectrum. He tries for too much and overextends himself. His writing is so overworked so gilded, it's layered on thick like a whore's makeup. His work is like those gaudy alter pieces of the late baroque, where every inch of space is tattooed with 50 writhing figures because the sculptor couldn't content himself with a simple well wrought cherubim.

Of course the question is whether Joyce or any such "overwrought" artist succeeds or fails on his/her own terms. There are endless marvelous altar pieces and tympanum from the Baroque, the medieval... and any number of other eras that thrive upon a horror vacuii... or image overload. Dante might be criticized for the same... but what he achieves through his ornate, multi-layeredness is magnificent. Personally, I don't find Joyce to be one of my favorite writers. I far away prefer Borges and Proust. But them again I realize that my personal preferences may not always correspond to what actually amounts to artistic quality or merit.

Joyce is an advanced writer who suffers from hypertrophy and should be reserved for the experienced reader who can recognize where he hits and where he misses and not be caught up in his newness and originality.

Again... how "new" is Joyce by now? Do you honestly believe that his reputation hangs on solely due to his innovations... long after they continue to be innovative?

Joyce gets so much praise for being influential that nobody stops to think about whether his influence has actually been positive. I think he's done some real harm to English letters. People salivate over concepts like epiphany and stream of consciousness but those are just techniques. They can be done well or poorly like any other. We don't stop to question why and how Joyce is original before we celebrate him. It begs the question, if he's so original, if he's so different from Shakespeare and Balzac, and all those other things we like, wouldn't that make him bad? Because bad is very different from good too and not all change is change for the better.

By that argument Shakespeare is bad for all the degrees by which he differed from his predecessors... for all his innovations. Aeschylus is bad for daring to virtually "invent" theater... which certainly differed from what before.

My take: we need an alternative history without Joyce and his ilk...

And just who would comprise this "history"?

...but writers ought to read whatever they enjoy and whatever kind of work they want to write like. I think that a classic is just the best of it's kind and you can find a great work of art for any taste.

Now you contradict yourself... "writers ought to read whatever they like" and "a classic in the best of it's kind and you can find a great work of art for any taste"... and yet you would eliminate Joyce and all of his ilk?

[PeterL]

For me, the price would just be prohibitive.

And the shipping cost would be absurd.

[PeterL]

For a purchase like that, shipping wouldn't be included? :bawling:

I was picturing stowing it in the hold of a ship. What a mess. That masonry is rather old, and it would come apart. I'd rather build my own reproduction; it would be cheaper, and it probably would look better.

[PeterL]

You could consider moving to Italy. Heck, I'd love that (Italy=love for me) and might even share the cost with you. :D

That's a thought. I'll have to look into working there.

[PeterL]

Just let me know. I can be packed and out of here in twenty-four hours. :D Since it's Italy we're talking about, maybe fewer. ;)

I'll let you know.
I have a cousin who moved to Italy quite a while ago, and I understand that she still loves it.

[PeterL]

I lived for a time in the Lago di Como area of Italy, before George Clooney lived there, about an hour from Milan, however, I've visited all parts of Italy, the Val d'Aoste, Tuscany, Umbria, Sicily. I love them all. The south of France is also a gorgeous place for me, but it's too far to drag the Sistine Chapel! :p

The thing to do would be to return Rome to its original beauty by tearing down all of the buildings, except for the Sistine Chapel.

I am rereading Foucault's Pendulum, so I would want to visit Milano and the Piedmont (Belbo was Piedmontese).

[PeterL]

I read and loved The Name of the Rose, but I've yet to read Foucault's Pendulum. I'm always meaning to, but something always bumps it back in my stack of books.

Milan is nice, but to me, it's the least interesting city in Italy. The Duomo is gorgeous and La Scala is beautiful and opulent, but the city, itself, isn't that great. The area around it is gorgeous, though. Milan is a little flat, but go just a little north or south and you're in the mountains and it's gorgeous.

The greatest novel to come out of Italy, for me, is The Leopard, set in Sicily. I love it even more than I Promessi Sposi, which is generally considered by Italians to be the greatest Italian novel. I also love Italo Svevo's Zeno's Conscience.

I was a little disappointed with Luchino Visconti's adaptation of The Leopard, but not with his adaptation of Death in Venice, which I just love. Gorgeous, and set to that Mahler score. Wow.

I would also like to visit Milan because of this item about the Porta Ludovica : http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_intro.html
scroll down to "Excerpt from Misreadings". Except for taking the walk described, I don't have much interest in Milan. I would be more interested in Florence, where the Medicis reigned, and my mother many time said that I was a Miniver Cheevy. She wasn't really right, but I enjoyed the Renaissance characters of Florence, especially Piero il Gottoso.