Modern Library's 100 Best 20th Century Novels Chosen by Readers (WTF?)

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Okay, take a look at this list (http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/), particularly the "reader's choice" column on the right, and tell me how this could happen. Four out of the top ten are Ayn Rand (the one and two spot both hold Ayn Rand books) and three out of the top ten are by L. Ron Hubbard. What? I won't say neither belongs in the top ten as I've never read either author, but four and three spots respectively? That's surprising for any author.

Now, I'm not wanting to argue the validity of this list (what is there to discuss? it obviously has little), but how a group of voting readers could come to this top ten list. Is there some huge fan base for Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard connected to the Modern Library? Seriously, how could this happen?

[lawpark]

You shouldn't assume that voting is done through each thoughtful person making an informed decision ... this is a myth, both for this list and for other types of voting ...

[Drkshadow03]

Okay, take a look at this list (http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/), particularly the "reader's choice" column on the right, and tell me how this could happen. Four out of the top ten are Ayn Rand (the one and two spot both hold Ayn Rand books) and three out of the top ten are by L. Ron Hubbard. What? I won't say neither belongs in the top ten as I've never read either author, but four and three spots respectively? That's surprising for any author.

Now, I'm not wanting to argue the validity of this list (what is there to discuss? it obviously has little), but how a group of voting readers could come to this top ten list. Is there some huge fan base for Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard connected to the Modern Library? Seriously, how could this happen?

Stacking the polls, of course.

[stlukesguild]

Actually... the only thing that surprises me on that list (considering that the average readers are morons:biggrin5:) is that Ulysses ranked as high as it did... although I suspect its just lip-service by college grads who remember being told Ulysses was the greatest novel of the 20th century... and so they came up with a book to make themselves at least appear cultured.:skep:

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

You shouldn't assume that voting is done through each thoughtful person making an informed decision ... this is a myth, both for this list and for other types of voting ...

I get this, but why Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard? That's what I don't get. I know the voting is BS (I don't know how the voting was done) since any yahoo with a computer can vote, but why one of the most politically polarizing authors ever and one who invented a whack-job religion?

[OrphanPip]

An organized voting campaign by objectivist/libertarians and scientologist.

[stlukesguild]

An organized voting campaign by objectivist/libertarians and scientologist.

Now that's a convention I'd plan on avoiding.:skep:

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

An organized voting campaign by objectivist/libertarians and scientologist.

Now that's a convention I'd plan on avoiding.:skep:

It'd be quite an experience, that's for sure. :willy_nilly:

[mortalterror]

Orphanpip hit the nail right on the head. I've heard that members of scientology are continually buying extra copies of L. Ron Hubbards books to keep them on prominent display in store shelves and reaching the best seller lists. They gimmick the system and vote out of all proportion to their actual numbers in polls like these. I assume that similar tactics are utilized by Ayn Rand's following.

[Lokasenna]

The 'Board's List' is somewhat more realistic, but yeah, these things are never accurate.

I know that the ranking of literature is subjective, but it isn't that subjective.

[Alexander III]

Not really that surprised. Like Lukes said, the majority will never have an "informed opinion" as to have one you need to have devoted some time to the subject, and thus the masses will always demonstrate the "uninformed opinion". But this is the great flaw of all choices made by everyone voting. You never get the best choice, you just get the "shiniest" choice so to say.

Sorry if I made this a bit political.

[PeterL]

All of those lists are tilted toward something. The readers' choices are, as has been noted, partly built from political or religious beliefs. The board's list is derived from a different set of prejudices. sSOme of the books on either are obscure but loved by a small set of people.

[Calidore]

Orphanpip hit the nail right on the head. I've heard that members of scientology are continually buying extra copies of L. Ron Hubbards books to keep them on prominent display in store shelves and reaching the best seller lists. They gimmick the system and vote out of all proportion to their actual numbers in polls like these. I assume that similar tactics are utilized by Ayn Rand's following.

As a native of Chicago ("Vote early and often"), I approve.

[mortalterror]

Not really that surprised. Like Lukes said, the majority will never have an "informed opinion" as to have one you need to have devoted some time to the subject, and thus the masses will always demonstrate the "uninformed opinion". But this is the great flaw of all choices made by everyone voting. You never get the best choice, you just get the "shiniest" choice so to say.

Sorry if I made this a bit political.

The masses err in one direction and the specialists in another. One has to account for either bias in assessing the truth of any opinion. I don't think Harry Potter is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but then neither is James Joyce. Both the masses and the specialists can agree on Shakespeare and there we have a true consensus.

[Emil Miller]

The masses err in one direction and the specialists in another. One has to account for either bias in assessing the truth of any opinion. I don't think Harry Potter is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but then neither is James Joyce. Both the masses and the specialists can agree on Shakespeare and there we have a true consensus.

When it comes to Harry Potter and James Joyce, give me sliced bread any day.

[NiMROD]

Novels are just impossible to list. And actually part of the problem in reaching a consensus is that too many great novels are "taught". Where does Huckleberry Finn actually rank? You have the specialists, amongst them are individuals arguing that it is the quintessential American novel. Then you have the masses of adults, forced to swallow this book and its symbolism one chapter and journal entry (or whatever teaching tactic one chooses) at a time. Does this balance out to a fair consensus? Does it garner votes purely on familiarity or are votes withheld because of it?

Too much reading is forced I feel, at least in U.S. high schools. Discovery, one of the most exciting parts of literature, is prematurely gutted.

[lawpark]

Novels are just impossible to list. And actually part of the problem in reaching a consensus is that too many great novels are "taught". Where does Huckleberry Finn actually rank? You have the specialists, amongst them are individuals arguing that it is the quintessential American novel. Then you have the masses of adults, forced to swallow this book and its symbolism one chapter and journal entry (or whatever teaching tactic one chooses) at a time. Does this balance out to a fair consensus? Does it garner votes purely on familiarity or are votes withheld because of it?

Too much reading is forced I feel, at least in U.S. high schools. Discovery, one of the most exciting parts of literature, is prematurely gutted.

But this is exactly how a canon is formed - something good becomes worshipped by some groups of teachers who passes / forces it down.


The masses err in one direction and the specialists in another. One has to account for either bias in assessing the truth of any opinion. I don't think Harry Potter is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but then neither is James Joyce. Both the masses and the specialists can agree on Shakespeare and there we have a true consensus.

Maybe if we wait one more generation ... assuming English literacy rates of Indians dramatically increase, the consensus might drift away from Shakespeare.

[Drkshadow03]

Not really that surprised. Like Lukes said, the majority will never have an "informed opinion" as to have one you need to have devoted some time to the subject, and thus the masses will always demonstrate the "uninformed opinion". But this is the great flaw of all choices made by everyone voting. You never get the best choice, you just get the "shiniest" choice so to say.

Sorry if I made this a bit political.

But that list doesn't even really represent the masses either. It represents two cult who stacked the polls.

[kinesj]

Okay, take a look at this list (http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/), particularly the "reader's choice" column on the right, and tell me how this could happen. Four out of the top ten are Ayn Rand (the one and two spot both hold Ayn Rand books) and three out of the top ten are by L. Ron Hubbard. What? I won't say neither belongs in the top ten as I've never read either author, but four and three spots respectively? That's surprising for any author.

Now, I'm not wanting to argue the validity of this list (what is there to discuss? it obviously has little), but how a group of voting readers could come to this top ten list. Is there some huge fan base for Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard connected to the Modern Library? Seriously, how could this happen?

Realize that this is a list compiled by the masses. These are the people who consider Stephen King and J.K. Rowling to be literary. To be fair, The Fountainhead was a fine novel and a case could be made for including it in a best of the century list. However, such an argument would be valid for placing it in the 50-100 range as opposed to top 10. I would put little to no stock in a best of list comprised of slack-jawed morons bowing before the altar of vapidity. Ultimately. however, it is incumbent that all of us follow our own inner voice as to the worth of art. For better or for worse, it's the only one that matters. I just wish, perhaps, that many among us had a inner voice a bit more discerning. . .

[John Steinbeck]

Obviously the only people voting in the poll were objectivits or libertarians.

I've never been a fan of ranking books. Organizing them into different groups relative to quality is fine, but saying that one book is better than the other is nonsense.

Also, the actual list seems like something a 13 year old wrote down to look sophisticated.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I like Stephen King, and think he's written some "literary" stuff.

[JBI]

Could be worse, we could put WTF in topic titles here...

[cl154576]

In my area at least, for people my age Japanese cartoon series are currently the most popular "literature."

How's this (http://www.collegeboard.com/parents/plan/hs-steps/21276.html) reading list? I used to choose from it because no one in my family is well read, and it introduced me to some authors I think are decent.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Could be worse, we could put WTF in topic titles here...

:lol: Oh, I hope this forum isn't so pretentious we can't use light-hearted acronyms. In any case, it isn't, cause I did.

[JBI]

:lol: Oh, I hope this forum isn't so pretentious we can't use light-hearted acronyms. In any case, it isn't, cause I did.

The most daring move since eating Dinner with the TV on.

[kinesj]

Obviously the only people voting in the poll were objectivits or libertarians.

I've never been a fan of ranking books. Organizing them into different groups relative to quality is fine, but saying that one book is better than the other is nonsense.


On the first point, don't forget all the scientologists spamming for Hubbard.

As to the second, I concur, it is a pointless exercise, albeit can sometimes make for some interesting discussions.

[mortalterror]

Maybe if we wait one more generation ... assuming English literacy rates of Indians dramatically increase, the consensus might drift away from Shakespeare.

It's my understanding that Indian people enjoy Shakespeare too. Why shouldn't they? He's one of the greatest writers who ever lived. If you mean that the Anglophone Indians will replace Shakespeare in the canon with something of their own, I doubt that as well. I predict the two traditions will largely merge without injury to either and benefit to both.

[Arrowni]

I predict Fitzgerald will be forgotten by 2050.

[JCamilo]

:D
Annoyed with having to read that he somehow is superior to Faulkner and Hemingway, when guys like Marquez, Borges, Guimaraes Rosa have are Faulkner's fans and he is quite relevant for the development of the novels in Latin America, but apparently he was just a blunt coyote howling?

[Emil Miller]

I predict Fitzgerald will be forgotten by 2050.

I predict that you will be wrong unless you include Faulkner and Hemingway in that statement.

[JCamilo]

No, there will be a revival of Hemingway in 2033 when an old Brad Pitt will win an Oscar for his role in the movie: The Last Days of Hemingway.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

No, there will be a revival of Hemingway in 2033 when an old Brad Pitt will win an Oscar for his role in the movie: The Last Days of Hemingway.

Sweet. I have a reason to live until 2033 now.

[lawpark]

It's my understanding that Indian people enjoy Shakespeare too. Why shouldn't they? He's one of the greatest writers who ever lived. If you mean that the Anglophone Indians will replace Shakespeare in the canon with something of their own, I doubt that as well. I predict the two traditions will largely merge without injury to either and benefit to both.

Because I think the Indians have the richest literature tradition - they might find other writers more to their likings perhaps. I just wrote this in the other post, but I get pretty excited by scanning through this book on "double-narration poetry" today, truly amazing stuff:
http://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Poetry-Simultaneous-Narration-Disciplines/dp/0231151608/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IBZ04JYRD069R&colid=26R50W8SS4O2E

Ther other reason is that I think liking Shakespeare does require to be trained (probably less so for Dante or Austen or Cervantes or Montaigne)... at least for Chinese I know (English-fluent ones of course) I don't think Shakespeare is that "naturally" popular.

[Arrowni]

I predict that you will be wrong unless you include Faulkner and Hemingway in that statement.


I'll see you in 2050 to collect.


(Give me the graveyard's address)

[Emil Miller]

I'll see you in 2050 to collect.


(Give me the graveyard's address)

You wouldn't be able to collect either way, because I never gamble - even on certainties.

[mortalterror]

Because I think the Indians have the richest literature tradition - they might find other writers more to their likings perhaps. I just wrote this in the other post, but I get pretty excited by scanning through this book on "double-narration poetry" today, truly amazing stuff:
http://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Poetry-Simultaneous-Narration-Disciplines/dp/0231151608/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IBZ04JYRD069R&colid=26R50W8SS4O2E

Ther other reason is that I think liking Shakespeare does require to be trained (probably less so for Dante or Austen or Cervantes or Montaigne)... at least for Chinese I know (English-fluent ones of course) I don't think Shakespeare is that "naturally" popular.

I don't think that you have to be trained to like Shakespeare. I know I wasn't. It was obvious to me from the first what he was, though even some native English speakers do not care for him or find him old fashioned. I don't think I was trained to like Dante or Montaigne either, for I had no preparation for their texts or other books like them.

As for Indian's not liking Shakespeare, I know that Salmon Rushdie enjoys the bard. I think that Shakespeare appeals to a universal aesthetic because he's popular in German, Russian, French, Italian, and any other language he gets translated into, the same as Homer.

I think you are setting up a false dichotomy where none really exists. Personally, I enjoy Homer, Ovid, Vyasa, Li Bai, Du Fu, Firdawsi, Jayadeva, Rumi, Dante, and Shakespeare. I'm not rooted in my own culture enough to not enjoy the best of anothers, and I don't believe the Indians are either. Why does it have to be one or the other and not both at the same time?

Also, I don't know how unified Indian literature is. There are something like forty different languages spread out over 3 and a half million square miles and several thousand years. Indian Literature constitutes a whole series of kingdoms, dyanasties, migrations, religions, so it's not as homogeneous as say English. It's more like say all of European literature, with Sanskrit, and Tamil being analogues to Greek and Latin.

[lawpark]

I may be setting up a false dichotomy. But I want to raise the fact that aesthetics is probably inter-subjective, and would thus be culture-conditioned to a large extent.

- Indian literature has different langauges, and should be compared with European literature. This I agree. The "unity" of Indian literature probably lies in similar cultural assumptions that evolve over time, just like European literature.

- You personally enjoy Shakespeare without being trained - probably you grown up in a "European" or "Western" culture to start with. So that hardly says much. Rushdie - as elite from the sub-continent - clearly is well-trained in English literature (and he lives in London). Shakespeare and Homer has appeal in German, Russian, French, Italian - these are all European. The aspect that I think is not automatic, is that if some author is considered great in the Western cultural sphere, might not immediate means it is universal. Just like if Ramayana is considered great in the Indian/South Asian cultural sphere, it does not mean that it would automatically be considered great in Europe; it would require some training of the Europeans of the Indian aesthetics first, which did happen.

- Now the case of double-narration is a case where it was clearly considered aesthetically / literarily appealing in India, but pretty much ignored / brushed off as not universal by European commentators, maybe until now.

[mortalterror]

I may be setting up a false dichotomy. But I want to raise the fact that aesthetics is probably inter-subjective, and would thus be culture-conditioned to a large extent.

Well, there is always that subjective variability, though I think that is more likely to operate on a person to person level. As I said before, there are English people who hate Shakespeare, and on another thread there are American's arguing about the supremacy of Hemingway versus Faulkner. But whether you find one more to your liking than the other, I don't believe the debate is about their objective quality. Both are more or less equal masters of a very high level, and the debate is not that one or the other is a poor writer.

Do you see what I'm saying? I personally don't like Dostoyevski, but I don't doubt his greatness, and as alien as his culture is to mine, he still manages to speak to a number of other Americans of my time. So Dostoyevski manages to transcend cultural boundaries, just not in my individual case, and then I'm sure there are even Russians who don't like him.


- Indian literature has different langauges, and should be compared with European literature. This I agree. The "unity" of Indian literature probably lies in similar cultural assumptions that evolve over time, just like European literature.

- You personally enjoy Shakespeare without being trained - probably you grown up in a "European" or "Western" culture to start with. So that hardly says much. Rushdie - as elite from the sub-continent - clearly is well-trained in English literature (and he lives in London). Shakespeare and Homer has appeal in German, Russian, French, Italian- these are all European.

But Shakespeare is somewhat popular in Japan as well. The number of his plays performed in Japan has been on the rise for more than a century. Kurosawa made famous film adaptations of Macbeth and King Lear, and they even have a Shakespeare company devoted to performing his complete works on Japanese stages. So obviously he appeals to Eastern Asian sensibilities as well as those with Western heritage.


The aspect that I think is not automatic, is that if some author is considered great in the Western cultural sphere, might not immediate means it is universal. Just like if Ramayana is considered great in the Indian/South Asian cultural sphere, it does not mean that it would automatically be considered great in Europe; it would require some training of the Europeans of the Indian aesthetics first, which did happen.

Being oblivious is not the same as being indifferent. I'm sure that once we have significant translations with a certain amount of publicity behind them the Ramayana will be a hit in Western circles. Just look at how popular The Bhagavad Gita is already.

What I've read of the Mahabharata has been amazing, and I've enjoyed it thoroughly, unhindered by my relative newness to Indian literature. Jayadeva's Gita Govinda was one of the first works of Indian literature I ever read and I instantly loved it. How much preparation do you think people really need to enjoy a work of literature? It's my experience that they will either like it or they won't and knowing more about James Joyce's Ulysses doesn't make me hate it any less. Reading is a very visceral experience with many primal reactions that aren't all automated by the intellect.

Likewise, I don't know a lot about China but I still like Du Fu and Bai Juyi. There are many things that will speak to me on the level of a man and not on the level of an Englishman.


- Now the case of double-narration is a case where it was clearly considered aesthetically / literarily appealing in India, but pretty much ignored / brushed off as not universal by European commentators, maybe until now.

I think the fellow who wrote that book you are reading has slightly overstated his case, exaggerating to make his point. I've seen some mention of this effect in other books and we have parallel effects in English and I am skeptical that it can be kept up on the scale which he is implying, or if that would even be preferable.

I know for a fact that the example he gives in his introduction is misleading. He says that it would be like writing the Iliad, which can also be read with a different inflection as the Odyssey, and then he says that The Mahabharata is built this way. This cannot possibly be the case. From what I know of the construction of the Mahabharata it's the work of many hands with multiple redactions, and additional stories tacked on and combined over the course of centuries, like the Bible and you can't do that with that kind of work. The Ramayana is supposed to be by a single author, so maybe it's possible he wrote it like that, but my guess is, without having read it, that Valmiki uses that technique for occasional flourishes of word play and no more. I don't think you can read the Ramayana backwards or sidewise and get a different tale equally as good as the Ramayana forward.

[stuntpickle]

:D
Annoyed with having to read that he somehow is superior to Faulkner and Hemingway, when guys like Marquez, Borges, Guimaraes Rosa have are Faulkner's fans and he is quite relevant for the development of the novels in Latin America, but apparently he was just a blunt coyote howling?

As if having to read that since X author likes Y author, then Y is necessarily good isn't itself, annoying. Thinking for oneself is always annoying to those who have never learned to do it.

Faulkner is more universally adored by those writing in Romance languages, which has led some to conjecture that his work might improve with translation.

[Drkshadow03]

As if having to read that since X author likes Y author, then Y is necessarily good isn't itself, annoying. Thinking for oneself is always annoying to those who have never learned to do it.

Faulkner is more universally adored by those writing in Romance languages, which has led some to conjecture that his work might improve with translation.

Except JCamillo's primary point doesn't seem to have been writer's X and Y love him, therefore everyone should shut the heck up; instead the core of his argument seems to have been the comment, "he is quite relevant for the development of the novels in Latin America," which suggests he is speaking about influence, which you yourself in the British Versus American (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1068861&postcount=222) thread already conceded plays a necessary part in how we must objectively evaluate the work.

[stuntpickle]

Except JCamillo's primary point doesn't seem to have been writer's X and Y love him, therefore everyone should shut the heck up; instead the core of his argument seems to have been the comment, "he is quite relevant for the development of the novels in Latin America," which suggests he is speaking about influence, which you yourself in the British Versus American (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1068861&postcount=222) thread already conceded plays a necessary part in how we must objectively evaluate the work.

Of course, discussing the influence of aesthetic values presupposes an understanding of those values. I cannot understand, for instance, how discussing Faulkner's influence of "the development of novels in Latin America" necessarily includes a mention of Borges, primarily a writer of short stories conceptually, stylistically, structurally alien to Faulkner's cornpone epics. As has been my experience, the half-clever second-rater tends to discuss literature exclusively as an artifact of history and in terms of vapid generalities, both of which relieve the reader of his obligations to texts in particular. And so, very often, the conversation consists of critical endorsements and historical generalities and absolutely nothing demonstrating a familiarity with the works, themselves. It doesn't matter if Faulkner's work served as a model for, say, Marquez when Faulkner's work is not at all original, itself, and Marquez's is. Everything Faulkner did had been done before, and done better. So if Faulkner represented some major Latin American model it was then, primarily, as a model of someone else's originality. My point--that Faulkner might improve with translation--can hardly be ignored in reference to Marquez, who claims not to read English.

Your suggestion that I have missed J's point is a tad ironic since his goal had nothing to do with literature at all, but rather was an attempt to talk ill of me in particular without having to address me. In a word, cowardice.

[lawpark]

But whether you find one more to your liking than the other, I don't believe the debate is about their objective quality. Both are more or less equal masters of a very high level, and the debate is not that one or the other is a poor writer.
- The only thing here I would rephrase is that "the debate is not about their quality under some of cultural / aesthetic preferences". And as you say, even some English does not like Shakespeare, speaks further to the point that it is hard to say that - even for a Shakespeare - that his appeal is "universal" in the literal sense of the word.


Do you see what I'm saying? I personally don't like Dostoyevski, but I don't doubt his greatness, and as alien as his culture is to mine, he still manages to speak to a number of other Americans of my time. So Dostoyevski manages to transcend cultural boundaries, just not in my individual case, and then I'm sure there are even Russians who don't like him.
- The only thing here is I wouldn't use the word "greatness", but something more like his "stature in the literary canon".


But Shakespeare is somewhat popular in Japan as well. The number of his plays performed in Japan has been on the rise for more than a century. Kurosawa made famous film adaptations of Macbeth and King Lear, and they even have a Shakespeare company devoted to performing his complete works on Japanese stages. So obviously he appeals to Eastern Asian sensibilities as well as those with Western heritage.
- Clearly it could appeal to audience who has undergone the inculturation (is this the right word?) process. This a don't doubt.


Being oblivious is not the same as being indifferent. I'm sure that once we have significant translations with a certain amount of publicity behind them the Ramayana will be a hit in Western circles. Just look at how popular The Bhagavad Gita is already.
- What does publicity do? It is effectively training and give context and gives reasons as to why people should like it.


How much preparation do you think people really need to enjoy a work of literature? It's my experience that they will either like it or they won't and knowing more about James Joyce's Ulysses doesn't make me hate it any less. Reading is a very visceral experience with many primal reactions that aren't all automated by the intellect.
- True, but in a case of Shakespeare or Dante - given the "canonicity" behind the works, even if one does not like it first, many more chances would be given to the works. Say for me - first I read was Hamlet - does not work for me. Then King Lear - yes, it is better. Then try Macbeth - couldn't get myself to finish two times round. Read some Bloom - then try Antony and Cleopatra, both the book and the BBC drama TV series, the set I bought also include Julius Caesar. Still does not work for me. Would I ever like Shakespeare - I think I might one day if I keep trying.


Likewise, I don't know a lot about China but I still like Du Fu and Bai Juyi. There are many things that will speak to me on the level of a man and not on the level of an Englishman.
- But what is human is also culturally conditioned.



I know for a fact that the example he gives in his introduction is misleading. He says that it would be like writing the Iliad, which can also be read with a different inflection as the Odyssey, and then he says that The Mahabharata is built this way. This cannot possibly be the case. From what I know of the construction of the Mahabharata it's the work of many hands with multiple redactions, and additional stories tacked on and combined over the course of centuries, like the Bible and you can't do that with that kind of work. The Ramayana is supposed to be by a single author, so maybe it's possible he wrote it like that, but my guess is, without having read it, that Valmiki uses that technique for occasional flourishes of word play and no more. I don't think you can read the Ramayana backwards or sidewise and get a different tale equally as good as the Ramayana forward.
[/QUOTE]
The guy wasn't saying that Mahabharata and Ramayana themselves in the original version allows for double-narration. But later poets started to take their stories and try to re-narrate them in poetry which double-narrates at the same time. And as to "whether it is preferrable" - there you go, something preferred in one culture might not be immediately preferrable in another context - though with enough "training" more or less some people would get to see the point (because the original cultural context, while idiosyncratic, clearly does have some logic to it).

In fact, I don't think I am really disagreeing with you on most points - but just that in my view inter-subjective, cultural factors are too often or too quickly overlooked in most of these discussions.

[mortalterror]

In fact, I don't think I am really disagreeing with you on most points - but just that in my view inter-subjective, cultural factors are too often or too quickly overlooked in most of these discussions.

I don't think we disagree on most points either, and I can agree with that much. There are cultural barriers that take training to break down. But I think that some are easier to breach than others. For instance, I'm finding Chinese poetry to be more pleasant than Chinese novels. Likewise, Sanskrit epic poetry is easier for me to get into than Sanskrit drama. However, I think that this is more a personal preference on my part than due to any cultural baggage I might have.

One more remark about publicity. I don't mean indoctrination, or training, I mean it in the sense of exposure. Most people still aren't world travelers and so they just don't know what they don't know. I feel that people intuitively know what they like and will gravitate toward an object if given the opportunity. That means for Eastern literature to be a success in the West it needs to be on display and not tucked back in a corner. For a book to be successful in America it needs support from a major publisher, who will print millions of volumes, and the stores who will feature the book prominently in their displays. If a book is published by a small press and doesn't make it to the big chains of stores almost nobody ever sees it, regardless of it's quality. Most casual readers need some kind of advertisement to alert them to books, movies, or music; because it takes forever to stumble across something good by accident.

I know a lot of people like Asian food without being taught anything. They say, "I like spicy food. This food is spicy. I'll try that." I don't think a lot of thought goes into most people's luxury spending. I know some people who will read any novel with a vampire in it. That's where their thought process begins and ends. I don't think the average person cares whether they are reading about a French vampire or a Chinese vampire in their novel. Sometimes that even helps, because people like the exotic.

For my part, after I reached the age of twenty, I began to feel like my language was a trap, my culture was a gilded cage, and I wanted to know what the rest of the world was like. I'd read most of the major English books and the homogeny of it all had begun to strangle me. After that, Persian, Sanskrit, and Greek felt like a breath of fresh air. If you are getting into Indian literature then surely you must understand the seduction of the foreign and the new. For some, the strangeness is the appeal.

[irinmisfit92]

I don't think we disagree on most points either, and I can agree with that much. There are cultural barriers that take training to break down. But I think that some are easier to breach than others. For instance, I'm finding Chinese poetry to be more pleasant than Chinese novels. Likewise, Sanskrit epic poetry is easier for me to get into than Sanskrit drama. However, I think that this is more a personal preference on my part than due to any cultural baggage I might have.

I kind of agree with you on that :D Most people here would probably not read too many European (excluding British) books because they're used to American ones lying on bookstores. It's a norm here to prefer the US as compared to other countries.


One more remark about publicity. I don't mean indoctrination, or training, I mean it in the sense of exposure. Most people still aren't world travelers and so they just don't know what they don't know. I feel that people intuitively know what they like and will gravitate toward an object if given the opportunity. That means for Eastern literature to be a success in the West it needs to be on display and not tucked back in a corner. For a book to be successful in America it needs support from a major publisher, who will print millions of volumes, and the stores who will feature the book prominently in their displays. If a book is published by a small press and doesn't make it to the big chains of stores almost nobody ever sees it, regardless of it's quality. Most casual readers need some kind of advertisement to alert them to books, movies, or music; because it takes forever to stumble across something good by accident.

It's true for most people but I'm an exception yay. :D I read books that most people here don't even know exist. The same goes for movies because I'm the only one around here who actually researches on good European movies screened in international film festivals and won many awards. I have a totally different taste from the people here. I generally dislike books that are way too popular or keep lying in bookstores, but of course some books are exceptions. People here don't really give a **** about We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, but I still read it and it's good so far. No one here also watches Idiots and Angels, which is a silent movie directed by Bill Plymouth, but I watch it. Lol and it doesn't take forever to stumble across something good by accident trust me ;) I'm grateful for this forum because I know a lot more books that I previously did not know even exist.


I know a lot of people like Asian food without being taught anything.

Haha of course! Asian food is amazing :D Nothing can beat Southeast Asian food, honestly speaking. As a Chinese I really feel that there's way too much exposure of Chinese and Japanese food, but not Southeast Asian ones (except for Thai which is very popular). It's because Indonesian food requires so much spices it's crazy. It's really good and people should try it. It's way better than Chinese food. There is not much variety and the taste is usually bland. Gawd I'm promoting my country.

[lawpark]

i92, do you know Malay / Indonesian? Tell us something about classical / traditional Indonesian/Javanese literature / literary tradition. I was trying to do some research on it, but other than a book that is very expensive and not very available (http://www.amazon.com/Heritage-Traditional-Malay-Literature-Verhandelingen/dp/9067182141/ref=wl_itt_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2DC5KYVT7O79G&colid=26R50W8SS4O2E) I couldn't find much about it. Generally speaking, what literary "traditions" does Indonesian education system identifies with? Arabic? Persian? Indian? Javanese? Dutch? English? Chinese? Others?

[Drkshadow03]

Of course, discussing the influence of aesthetic values presupposes an understanding of those values. I cannot understand, for instance, how discussing Faulkner's influence of "the development of novels in Latin America" necessarily includes a mention of Borges, primarily a writer of short stories conceptually, stylistically, structurally alien to Faulkner's cornpone epics. As has been my experience, the half-clever second-rater tends to discuss literature exclusively as an artifact of history and in terms of vapid generalities, both of which relieve the reader of his obligations to texts in particular. And so, very often, the conversation consists of critical endorsements and historical generalities and absolutely nothing demonstrating a familiarity with the works, themselves. It doesn't matter if Faulkner's work served as a model for, say, Marquez when Faulkner's work is not at all original, itself, and Marquez's is. Everything Faulkner did had been done before, and done better. So if Faulkner represented some major Latin American model it was then, primarily, as a model of someone else's originality. My point--that Faulkner might improve with translation--can hardly be ignored in reference to Marquez, who claims not to read English.

Your suggestion that I have missed J's point is a tad ironic since his goal had nothing to do with literature at all, but rather was an attempt to talk ill of me in particular without having to address me. In a word, cowardice.

Writing a post in order to speak ill of someone and writing a post that makes a legitimate comment about literature are not mutually exclusive activities.

Do you feel JCamillo lacks familiarity with the literary works he discusses?

[John Steinbeck]

As to the second, I concur, it is a pointless exercise, albeit can sometimes make for some interesting discussions.

Ultimately, it just ends in people arguing about whose taste is better, no matter how specific or nonspecific your ranking is.

[stuntpickle]

Writing a post in order to speak ill of someone and writing a post that makes a legitimate comment about literature are not mutually exclusive activities.

Do you feel JCamillo lacks familiarity with the literary works he discusses?

I get the feeling that J is not so interested in the aesthetics of works, themselves, as he is in the surrounding body of criticism. I also get the feeling that he has a chip on his shoulder regarding what he sees as Anglocentricity and that, in arguing against it, he reveals an ethnocentricity of another variety. How else could you explain his comments on a discussion about Hemingway and Faulkner being mostly about Borges and Marquez? What seems most likely to me is that any author’s work is important to him only insofar as it concerns Latin American literature. So a discussion of Dante and Shakespeare is also one about Borges, a discussion about Hemingway and Faulkner one about Borges. Frankly, I get the idea he’s the sort of person who might be capable of making any number of bland, banal statements about literature in the abstract but who will never notice, in this or that work in particular, that the butler did it, in the kitchen, with the candlestick, which he just so happened to have bought as a birthday gift for the owner of the house many summers ago. We are, after all, talking about someone who thinks my having mentioned “rhetorical figuration” was an obvious display of my stupidity. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he might not be familiar with aesthetics.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

As a new member, it's quite amazing how you have J all worked out, and completely correctly, no less. :skep:

[OrphanPip]

Or he makes reference to Latin American writers because he is familiar with them, just as you primarily make reference to English language authors?

[Dipen Guha]

It would be better, if the following names had already been chosen. 1. The Time Machine ( H.G. Wells),2. Heart Of Darkness ( Joseph Conrad), 3.Kim ( Rudyard Kipling), 4.Sons and Lovers ( D.H Lawrence), 5. Of Human Bondage ( W. Somerset Maugham), 6. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ( James Joyce), 7. A Passage to India ( E.M. Forster), 8 Mrs. Dalloway ( Virginia Woolf), 8. Point Counter Point ( Aldous Huxley), 9. Lord Of The Flies ( William Golding).

[stuntpickle]

Or he makes reference to Latin American writers because he is familiar with them, just as you primarily make reference to English language authors?

This is hardly relevant if the conversation is one specifically concerning two American authors having written in English who needn't be examined through the prism of Latin American literature--a conversation that, I might add, he isn't even directly a part of. So if he has thoroughly read Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald, there is no reason to discuss them in terms Marquez or Borges. If he hasn't read them, then he shouldn't even give his opinion. Obviously, Hemingway and Faulkner can be discussed without ever mentioning a Latin American author; it seems an inadequacy of J's that he can only discuss them in those terms. So your point about his familiarity is largely moot if the topic is one outside that familiarity.

My point is that he seems largely incapable of discussing any work on its own merits, primarily because he seems incapable of distinguishing those merits at all. As far as his post is concerned, J seems to be critical of Fitzgerald insofar as he hasn't contributed to the development of Latin American literature--as if that were the mechanism by which the literature of the US is judged. So you get some ridiculous statement along the lines of: how can he say Fitzgerald is better than Hemingway and Faulkner when Borges and Marquez liked both Hemingway and Faulkner. It might never have occurred to him that there are a great number of modern writers, such as Charles Bock, who consider Fitzgerald an influence.

[JBI]

I get the feeling that J is not so interested in the aesthetics of works, themselves, as he is in the surrounding body of criticism. I also get the feeling that he has a chip on his shoulder regarding what he sees as Anglocentricity and that, in arguing against it, he reveals an ethnocentricity of another variety. How else could you explain his comments on a discussion about Hemingway and Faulkner being mostly about Borges and Marquez? What seems most likely to me is that any author’s work is important to him only insofar as it concerns Latin American literature. So a discussion of Dante and Shakespeare is also one about Borges, a discussion about Hemingway and Faulkner one about Borges. Frankly, I get the idea he’s the sort of person who might be capable of making any number of bland, banal statements about literature in the abstract but who will never notice, in this or that work in particular, that the butler did it, in the kitchen, with the candlestick, which he just so happened to have bought as a birthday gift for the owner of the house many summers ago. We are, after all, talking about someone who thinks my having mentioned “rhetorical figuration” was an obvious display of my stupidity. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he might not be familiar with aesthetics.

I'm sorry, but after reading that, I cannot help but ask you this question, and you? You preach reading texts and getting beyond boring generalizations and aesthetic judgement but is that not what you did above there with Faulkner, and is that not what you are doing now? Sorry to cut your ad hominem short, but I am yet to hear you even mention the text, you seem too preoccupied with your fellow posters to approach your own vain preachings with any real conviction.

If you want to talk about how unoriginal Faulkner is, lets do it, I think you just made silly generalizations yourself - developments in prose style aside, Faulkner was quite innovative in the mixing of genre elements and styles in his Southern fiction - the creation of his mythologized world is what Marquez was reading. Maybe you found Light in August or As I Lay Dying boring, but what Marquez was reading was Absalom Absalom and the other Scopes legacy stories surrounding it - it created his world in 100 Years of Solitude, because it redefined the associations with Time and Space in fiction.

Now, try to stop stabbing at nothing and ranting, and saying how you figured people about. There are more to assumptions. Your jabs about irrelevancy to conversation are perhaps justified, especially if you include your posts on the list of those to be discarded, and quit being an offensive hypocrite. Simply put, you are all that you criticize, so stop throwing bricks, only I can toss the first one.

If he conceptualizes literature in terms of the Latin American experience, that is his reading, it is justified in that he is from Brazil, the same way I am not looking for an America-centric version of literary history, I do not need to only see texts in American contexts, as quite frankly, American contexts do not matter.

In my discourse it is a growing argument about how sinocentric Chinese modern novelists are, with some arguing they have become internationally irrelevant, and are too obsessed with China to last. Others argue some of them hold merit outside of their context, and can transcend borders.

Why don't we apply that to American literature? Tons of it is irrelevant. Gatsby is good because he doesn't only speak about the US, Faulkner is good because he doesn't only speak of Mississippi - Borges and Marquez transcended borders, and read outside of Latin American traditions - the world is intertextual, and reading literary history has to be.

Your accusations are just some jingoist nonsense which tries to trap borders. Likewise, one could take it further and suggest a sort of imperial view, where you try to isolate influence of authors to such no names as Charles Bock, and away from Latin American authors who have been ignored and beaten by the American academy from the beginning.

You want to talk influence, how about we throw one out there - what is the influence of Whitman on Mexico? You are standing on Texan soil, the ground around you was absorbed by his vision of "get out of the way mexico, you cannot hold back our march to glory." Why don't we discuss that, if you so much want to go there? We can read the text that way, and talk in those terms.

But no, we should just read Charles Bock, who I have never heard of.

[stuntpickle]

I'm sorry, but after reading that, I cannot help but ask you this question, and you? You preach reading texts and getting beyond boring generalizations and aesthetic judgement but is that not what you did above there with Faulkner, and is that not what you are doing now? Sorry to cut your ad hominem short, but I am yet to hear you even mention the text, you seem too preoccupied with your fellow posters to approach your own vain preachings with any real conviction.

If you want to talk about how unoriginal Faulkner is, lets do it, I think you just made silly generalizations yourself - developments in prose style aside, Faulkner was quite innovative in the mixing of genre elements and styles in his Southern fiction - the creation of his mythologized world is what Marquez was reading. Maybe you found Light in August or As I Lay Dying boring, but what Marquez was reading was Absalom Absalom and the other Scopes legacy stories surrounding it - it created his world in 100 Years of Solitude, because it redefined the associations with Time and Space in fiction.

Now, try to stop stabbing at nothing and ranting, and saying how you figured people about. There are more to assumptions.

You know, you're right, it was so ridiculous of me to confront someone talking crap about me. Get real.

The difficulty in examining the thorough lack of originality in Faulkner is that I suppose you want me to start on a sentence by sentence basis or something. I have posed the question several times: what did Faulkner do that was original? Mythologized world? You can't be serious. "Developments in prose" aside? Gee, isn't that convenient? Especially when you consider that I said that Marquez is most likely to have read Faulkner in translation, which would thoroughly reduce what is most infuriating in him. What possible "developments" could you be referring to? Overlong, tone deaf clunkers brimming with redundancies and Biblical bunk? What precisely was Faulkner's innovation in prose? I turn at random to a page in Faulkner's collected stories to "Barn Burning" and the second sentence in, there's a 12 line catastrophe. "Time and space" was handled infinitely better in Proust than Faulkner could have ever dreamed--I don't care who Marquez was reading.

I ask again: what did Faulkner do that was original?

[stuntpickle]

I'm sorry, but after reading that, I cannot help but ask you this question, and you? You preach reading texts and getting beyond boring generalizations and aesthetic judgement but is that not what you did above there with Faulkner, and is that not what you are doing now? Sorry to cut your ad hominem short, but I am yet to hear you even mention the text, you seem too preoccupied with your fellow posters to approach your own vain preachings with any real conviction.

If you want to talk about how unoriginal Faulkner is, lets do it, I think you just made silly generalizations yourself - developments in prose style aside, Faulkner was quite innovative in the mixing of genre elements and styles in his Southern fiction - the creation of his mythologized world is what Marquez was reading. Maybe you found Light in August or As I Lay Dying boring, but what Marquez was reading was Absalom Absalom and the other Scopes legacy stories surrounding it - it created his world in 100 Years of Solitude, because it redefined the associations with Time and Space in fiction.

Now, try to stop stabbing at nothing and ranting, and saying how you figured people about. There are more to assumptions. Your jabs about irrelevancy to conversation are perhaps justified, especially if you include your posts on the list of those to be discarded, and quit being an offensive hypocrite. Simply put, you are all that you criticize, so stop throwing bricks, only I can toss the first one.

If he conceptualizes literature in terms of the Latin American experience, that is his reading, it is justified in that he is from Brazil, the same way I am not looking for an America-centric version of literary history, I do not need to only see texts in American contexts, as quite frankly, American contexts do not matter.

In my discourse it is a growing argument about how sinocentric Chinese modern novelists are, with some arguing they have become internationally irrelevant, and are too obsessed with China to last. Others argue some of them hold merit outside of their context, and can transcend borders.

Why don't we apply that to American literature? Tons of it is irrelevant. Gatsby is good because he doesn't only speak about the US, Faulkner is good because he doesn't only speak of Mississippi - Borges and Marquez transcended borders, and read outside of Latin American traditions - the world is intertextual, and reading literary history has to be.

Your accusations are just some jingoist nonsense which tries to trap borders. Likewise, one could take it further and suggest a sort of imperial view, where you try to isolate influence of authors to such no names as Charles Bock, and away from Latin American authors who have been ignored and beaten by the American academy from the beginning.

You want to talk influence, how about we throw one out there - what is the influence of Whitman on Mexico? You are standing on Texan soil, the ground around you was absorbed by his vision of "get out of the way mexico, you cannot hold back our march to glory." Why don't we discuss that, if you so much want to go there? We can read the text that way, and talk in those terms.

But no, we should just read Charles Bock, who I have never heard of.

You know you probably shouldn't revise the entirety of your post so that the meaning greatly changes, once you have posted it.

[stuntpickle]

I'm sorry, but after reading that, I cannot help but ask you this question, and you? You preach reading texts and getting beyond boring generalizations and aesthetic judgement but is that not what you did above there with Faulkner, and is that not what you are doing now? Sorry to cut your ad hominem short, but I am yet to hear you even mention the text, you seem too preoccupied with your fellow posters to approach your own vain preachings with any real conviction.

If you want to talk about how unoriginal Faulkner is, lets do it, I think you just made silly generalizations yourself - developments in prose style aside, Faulkner was quite innovative in the mixing of genre elements and styles in his Southern fiction - the creation of his mythologized world is what Marquez was reading. Maybe you found Light in August or As I Lay Dying boring, but what Marquez was reading was Absalom Absalom and the other Scopes legacy stories surrounding it - it created his world in 100 Years of Solitude, because it redefined the associations with Time and Space in fiction.

Now, try to stop stabbing at nothing and ranting, and saying how you figured people about. There are more to assumptions. Your jabs about irrelevancy to conversation are perhaps justified, especially if you include your posts on the list of those to be discarded, and quit being an offensive hypocrite. Simply put, you are all that you criticize, so stop throwing bricks, only I can toss the first one.

If he conceptualizes literature in terms of the Latin American experience, that is his reading, it is justified in that he is from Brazil, the same way I am not looking for an America-centric version of literary history, I do not need to only see texts in American contexts, as quite frankly, American contexts do not matter.

In my discourse it is a growing argument about how sinocentric Chinese modern novelists are, with some arguing they have become internationally irrelevant, and are too obsessed with China to last. Others argue some of them hold merit outside of their context, and can transcend borders.

Why don't we apply that to American literature? Tons of it is irrelevant. Gatsby is good because he doesn't only speak about the US, Faulkner is good because he doesn't only speak of Mississippi - Borges and Marquez transcended borders, and read outside of Latin American traditions - the world is intertextual, and reading literary history has to be.

Your accusations are just some jingoist nonsense which tries to trap borders. Likewise, one could take it further and suggest a sort of imperial view, where you try to isolate influence of authors to such no names as Charles Bock, and away from Latin American authors who have been ignored and beaten by the American academy from the beginning.

You want to talk influence, how about we throw one out there - what is the influence of Whitman on Mexico? You are standing on Texan soil, the ground around you was absorbed by his vision of "get out of the way mexico, you cannot hold back our march to glory." Why don't we discuss that, if you so much want to go there? We can read the text that way, and talk in those terms.

But no, we should just read Charles Bock, who I have never heard of.


Not my fault you haven't heard of Charles Bock. Ever hear of Franzen? I only ask because when he set out to write "the Great American Social Novel" he sat down and analysed The Great Gatsby. You're insane, if you think there's some great absence of Fitzgerald's influence in the US.

And what's all this garbage about Whitman? Why must a discussion of Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Faulkner necessarily entail a discussion of Whitman's influence on Mexico? What the hell does US imperialism in a war vs. Mexico have to do with with the three aforementioned authors? You think my tastes are some form of crypto-imperialism. Well, that's especially ridiculous considering my favorite authors are Nabokov and Kafka--you know, the perfect examples of US imperialism. Leave your wacko historical theories out of it. You perfectly demonstrate my point about people failing to discuss aesthetic values when you propose a discussion about a war with Mexico. Are you serious?

Clown.

[stlukesguild]

Ooh! This should get interesting. Get the popcorn, people, and pull up a chair. :ihih:

[cl154576]

Clown.

Was that necessary?
Not to be rude, but if you don't want people to "talk trash" about you maybe you should omit these personal attacks. If you want people to "talk trash" about you, don't attack them for it.

I respect your having strong opinions, but I do not see how this hostility furthers the conversation at all. It's senseless to judge an anonymous stranger living well over a thousand miles away.

[Alexander III]

:lurk5:

[JBI]

I'll respond at length later, I need to go out now, put the popcorn in the fridge in the meantime.

[stuntpickle]

Was that necessary?
Not to be rude, but if you don't want people to "talk trash" about you maybe you should omit these personal attacks. If you want people to "talk trash" about you, don't attack them for it.

I respect your having strong opinions, but I do not see how this hostility furthers the conversation at all. It's senseless to judge an anonymous stranger living well over a thousand miles away.

I say we should discuss the aesthetic merits of a work before considering its historical context. He then immediately proposes a discussion of an historical context and basically calls me a crypto-tsarist. Calling him a clown is simply an accurate description.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I say we should discuss the aesthetic merits of a work before considering its historical context. He then immediately proposes a discussion of an historical context and basically calls me a crypto-tsarist. Calling him a clown is simply an accurate description.

He proposed several points of discussion, including historical context, basically asking you what you'd like to discuss. Instead, you avoid all proposals and whine like a pompous brat. Note that I didn't call you a pompous brat, just that you're acting like one. In real life, you're probably a very pleasant person. Then again, you are from Texas. :D

You're amusing, to say the least.

[JBI]

Lets clown around a little, shall we.


You know, you're right, it was so ridiculous of me to confront someone talking crap about me. Get real.


You're the only punk really talking crap you trigger crazy insolent, rude, malicious, ill-intentioned, self righteous, self-important brat. Get real yourself, he was just expressing his view, which is far more than you have done, minus criticize Faulkner on no real grounds while continuing to criticize people who speak about texts on the grounds that seem relevant to them. Quit your snobby crap and look in the mirror, were you not loved as a child?



The difficulty in examining the thorough lack of originality in Faulkner is that I suppose you want me to start on a sentence by sentence basis or something.

Sorry to chop the post, but answer this first - how is your statement on the lack of originality not what you derided as "critical endorsements and historical generalities and absolutely nothing demonstrating a familiarity with the works."

You claim Faulkner is so unoriginal - you called him so yourself - yet offer no proof. I'm still waiting, you can yell at people all you want, but you are just this loud mouth who thinks sitting there saying something as broad and sweeping as Faulkner is unoriginal is not a crappy historical generalization and a half-*** critical endorsement, get real, you are a hypocrite, plain and simple. I do not need a sentence by sentence break down, but where is the break down at all? What have you offered? Nothing, yes, you have said nothing as to how unoriginal or original Faulkner is except that to you, in the affirmative voice, you say with conviction, He is unoriginal, and who are you, to say, with such prophetic and unbacked up voice, he is unoriginal? Where do you get this from? What did you read? Where is your critical familiarity with Faulkner's works? Or the works before or after it. Perhaps you read them, but you have yet to provide a shred of backup to your generalized mediocre argument, just because you say something doesn't make it true, likewise, it is comical, but more so annoying to see you doing it, while yelling at others that their arguments are not justified.


I have posed the question several times: what did Faulkner do that was original? Mythologized world? You can't be serious. "Developments in prose" aside? Gee, isn't that convenient? Especially when you consider that I said that Marquez is most likely to have read Faulkner in translation, which would thoroughly reduce what is most infuriating in him. What possible "developments" could you be referring to? Overlong, tone deaf clunkers brimming with redundancies and Biblical bunk? What precisely was Faulkner's innovation in prose? I turn at random to a page in Faulkner's collected stories to "Barn Burning" and the second sentence in, there's a 12 line catastrophe. "Time and space" was handled infinitely better in Proust than Faulkner could have ever dreamed--I don't care who Marquez was reading.

I ask again: what did Faulkner do that was original?

If you want to discuss Faulkner, firstly, I will answer the question simply, and then expand it, and then respond to your idiocy.

First we must ask - what did Shakespeare do that was original.

Keep that question in your mind while I answer.

Take Absalom Absalom. The text is about the rise of Patriarch Thomas Sutpen, who comes to Mississippi as a poor white man with the ambition to become rich. You have a world of pre and Post-civil war world but it quickly transforms to an identity piece of the transition of time and space - the idiom is new, matching the language, yet creating a new narrative handling of time that proceeds with the transition - what happens, the portraits and caricatures it creates are revolving around the land, as the legacy of race and wealth, of identity and family dynasty collapse around the empire, eventually destroying itself.

The narrative is not clear, is confused, is mixed mimicking the contradictions in the space itself - Thomas abandons his wife and kid, yet gives them money - they become part of society, the old gentry idea, yet are still abandoned - the world is contradictory, is destructive, and it is whole.

You have basically what French authors were trying to do before in a whole new light - you take Gothic, and cross it with family cycles (a genre loved by the French 19th century) and you get this crazy novel where legacy, blood, identity, and race are woven with all the inherent dark that hides behind.

What do you think Marquez was reading when he set his characters to found their town in 100 Years of Solitude, or Toni Morrison was thinking when she wrote Beloved? The text is complete, it is horrific, it is fascinating, and it crosses the time shift with the language, the narrative mixing with new narrative possibilities (heavily indebted to European precursors like Joyce) and solidifying in something new.

But besides that, we can take a look at other works - like the Scopes saga novels, they attempt to do something similar, to understand the legacy and culture of the land, and to understand what goes wrong, what destruction and disturbances occur, and how that is reflected in every sense of the society - Racism is ingrained, classism, and narrative voice.


Or take something simpler, like my personal favorite, Light in August. The novel is simply a great book, the characters are original, lovable and detestable, but the central core is there - Faulkner's Gothic voice, which is similar to his contemporaries, and has elements of precursors and European counterparts, but is merged with his local history and culture to create something new. Light in August is an excellent novel, despite not being as innovative as his other works, or as experimental or accessible, because it's characters bring to life a far more interesting landscape than others write.

If you want to speak of originality, you need to understand nobody is particularly original. Faulkner blends different elements well, and localizes things, he also works in his own idiom, and experimented a great deal with different devices to bring out his crazy world. He is no less innovative than someone like Shakespeare, who never seemed to want to come up with his own plots, and was working with established conventions.

Faulkner created the mythology of a place, and merged it with the idea of temporal change, family legacy, and ingrained cultural darkness and identity. That's what he did - Joyce tried something, but the voice of his Dublin is a lot less pronounced, his novel too evasive. Likewise, Thomas Hardy doesn't seem to get as deep into his fictional world as Faulkner, nor sustain it through its history as well.

You say you want to think Proust - Proust is a lord of time, but he lacks the spatial understanding that Faulkner has - he is brilliant, and incredible, but the book he wrote is about the affect of time, and how it moves around the characters, and comes back to them. Faulkner is different, he is about how the space around them moves them, and how their ingrained prejudices and weaknesses, their baseness conflicts with their space, and by extension the change in space. They are different, and have different styles.


You shouldn't be so dismissive of others. And you shouldn't be so assertive.

As for your comment regarding me going straight to context, why not? I am not going straight to the context, but why shouldn't I be able to? The text and the context cannot be separated, and it is even more important when discussing fiction. Likewise, if Faulkner is unoriginal, by making the claim you automatically move to Historical context, after all, to see if someone is original or not, must you not compare them to people within their context? Sir Walter Scott after all was original in his time, as were Victor Hugo and Lord Byron. Hell, Petrarch was original too, but we do not call his most mediocre imitators innovators now do we? How can you even get to Originality as a topic without going to context? You say something is unoriginal, well look when it was written and then say it - you say it has not developed anything, well find where those ideas were developed before, or shut up.

Seriously, I didn't call you a crypto-Tsarist, I suggested that you are a Shmuck, or at best a trigger crazy punk with no regard for anyone else's views, opinions, or cultural readings of texts. I am Canadian, why should I have an American reading of Fitzgerald or whomever? Why should I know who your half-rate favorite American novelists today are. Big difference, Tsarist is too complementary. If you want to play Canadian authors, be my guest - why should I be required to discuss yours outside of a context that includes me? Why do I need to read America when I read Faulkner - Pessoa and Lorca did well with their own readings of Whitman, and Marquez and Morrison did well with their own reading of Faulkner, I see no reason why mine, or J's are not as valid as yours, and better yet, I see no reason why you so pleasantly find it necessary to voice that they aren't.

[Drkshadow03]

You claim Faulkner is so unoriginal - you called him so yourself - yet offer no proof. I'm still waiting, you can yell at people all you want, but you are just this loud mouth who thinks sitting there saying something as broad and sweeping as Faulkner is unoriginal is not a crappy historical generalization and a half-*** critical endorsement, get real, you are a hypocrite, plain and simple. I do not need a sentence by sentence break down, but where is the break down at all? What have you offered? Nothing, yes, you have said nothing as to how unoriginal or original Faulkner is except that to you, in the affirmative voice, you say with conviction, He is unoriginal, and who are you, to say, with such prophetic and unbacked up voice, he is unoriginal? Where do you get this from? What did you read? Where is your critical familiarity with Faulkner's works? Or the works before or after it. Perhaps you read them, but you have yet to provide a shred of backup to your generalized mediocre argument, just because you say something doesn't make it true, likewise, it is comical, but more so annoying to see you doing it, while yelling at others that their arguments are not justified.

In all fairness, he did give reasons for his dislike of Faulkner and argued for why he thinks Faulkner isn't good in The Faulkner Versus Hemingway Thread in this post (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1069517&postcount=77).

Basically his argument is that everything Faulkner did someone else did better, therefore he didn't do anything original. Stream-of-consciousness was done better by Joyce and Woolf. O'Connor did the South better. Plus, according to him, Faulkner has a tin-ear for the cadence of language, which he attempts to support by quoting one line.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Damn. JBI threw the smackdown. :lol:

[stlukesguild]

Pass the popcorn, MM.:ihih:

[stuntpickle]

Faulkner couldn’t write.

“There was a man and a dog too this time. Two beasts, counting Old Ben, the bear, and two men, counting Boon Hoggenbeck, in whom some of the same blood ran which ran in Sam Fathers, even though Boon's was a plebeian strain of it and only Sam and Old Ben and the mongrel Lion were taintless and incorruptible.”

“There was a man and a dog too this time.” Faulkner starts with the vaguest image possible constructed in the flattest, most inappropriate, most stilted prose ever. Constructions beginning with “there” can only work if the nature of “there” has been previously established. “There were gardens bright with sinuous rills…” Where’s “there?” In Kubla Kahn’s pleasuredome, of course, which Coleridge has spent a stanza describing. Where’s Faulkner’s “there?” The reader has no clue. And how are they “there?” What are they doing “there?” The man and the dog are, at this point, imprecise shadows congregating in an amorphous soup of Faulkner’s unmaking. This is just plain bad writing of the sort Faulkner regularly dispenses, often starting stories with pronouns that have no antecedents. This is how a high school dropout writes.

”Two beasts, counting Old Ben, the bear, and two men, counting Boon Hoggenbeck,”

This compound subject leads the reader to believe each part of the subject will receive an equal share in the action, but then there’s no action. The sentence has no verb until another clause is introduced. The only reason this sentence exists, presumably, is to tell the reader “there’s a bear” and to allow Faulkner to sink into ill-conceived morass of jangled prose.

“in whom some of the same blood ran which ran in Sam Fathers, even though Boon's was a plebeian strain of it and only Sam and Old Ben and the mongrel Lion were taintless and incorruptible.”

The first thing a reader should consider is whether Sam is “there.” Is he the other man? Perhaps he is only “there” insofar as he is “in” Boon, but the construction is such an inelegant muddle of imprecise garbage that the reader is likely to be confused. All Faulkner is interested in is declaiming in typically overwrought, Biblical mode some garbage about “blood” and “incorruptibility.” Still all the characters, including the two beasts, are doing absolutely nothing; they’re not even standing—much less standing in a particular place. This is a travesty of imagery. The reader has no clue what is going on aside from that some stuff is “there” and was possibly “there” before. Faulkner simply does not know he needs to ground the reader in a scene before he climbs to the mountain top and starts preaching like a tone deaf Moses, which is a mistake Faulkner makes over and over again, nearly every time he writes. Of course, there are the usual redundancies, “of it,” which, because it follows closely after mention of “blood” is absolutely unnecessary, and the usual ill-timed and failed attempts at ponderous lyricism—“were taintless and incorruptible.” Incorruptible, eh, Bill? Care to spare an image, you hack?

I’m hardly cherry-picking here. In response to your earlier comments I turned to a random page in the collected stories and landed on this clunker:

“The boy, crouched on his nail keg at the back of the crowded room, knew he smelled cheese, and more: from where he sat he could see the ranked shelves close-packed with the solid, squat, dynamic shapes of tin cans whose labels his stomach read, not from the lettering which meant nothing to his mind but from the scarlet devils and the silver curve of fish - this, the cheese which he knew he smelled and the hermetic meat which his intestines believed he smelled coming in intermittent gusts momentary and brief between the other constant one, the smell and sense just a little of fear because mostly of despair and grief, the old fierce pull of blood.”

This disaster is preceded by this thankfully short sentence: “The store in which the justice of the Peace's court was sitting smelled of cheese.” So already we have a redundancy in that we don’t need to be told the boy smells cheese because he’s sitting in a room that smells of cheese. Perhaps this is Faulkner's ham-fisted way of telling us the boy knows that it's called "cheese." He apparently thinks it's daring to narrate from the witless perspective of the illiterate and retarded, and we have to suffer through Faulkner's muddled interpretation of a character's muddled perspective. So is 'and more" what the kid knows or smells? The overlong, execrable sentence follows with a colon, which suggests that Faulkner will then list these “other” smells or "other" known things, but Faulkner instead starts by telling us what the boy “sees,” and so the colon is completely confusing. In this sentence we encounter a number of figurative vices—catachresis and various other inelegancies. So the boy’s stomach is reading and finally Faulkner gets around to what the boy smells, and—guess what?—the boy smells ****ing cheese, again, and some “hermetic meat” presumably in those “dynamic” tin cans. So his intestines start believing something or other and then we get to what Faulkner is really interested in—more overwrought suggestions of violence—“the old fierce pull of blood.” Faulkner is so concerned about getting to his jumble of Southern clichés rendered through a stentorian megaphone that he can’t be troubled to write a decent scene or sentence.

Compare with this:

“On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach.”

Where’s there? Apparently a hotel on the French Riviera, west of Genoa and southeast of Marseilles, perhaps overlooking the Ligurian Sea. Probably somewhere around Cannes. Fitzgerald, in his typical fashion of narrowing down from the large to the particular, gives us a beautiful image and a wonderfully poetic figure in which the palms become “deferential” subjects fanning a “flushed” monarch. When he sees, Fitzgerald sees in the particular, and the beach is rendered beneath the glare of the sun precisely in the manner Chekhov suggests. This is the prose of a master, writing at the top of his form—the prose of someone who thoroughly understands the rhythm of language, the precision of imagery, the entirety of constructing well crafted fiction.

Faulkner sounds like someone flunking freshman comp.
Compare Faulkner with this:

“My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges.”

This astonishing sentence is obviously crafted by a supreme stylist. Nabokov’s abundance is of a very different variety than Faulkner’s. Whereas Faulkner struggles after any meaning whatsoever, through various blurred generic images, Nabokov’s precision foments an even greater narrative abundance in its wake. So much of what Nabokov does is never even stated. It’s not just a “mother,” but a “very photogenic mother,” which wonderfully conjures the narrator looking at photographs of this dead mother. The magnificent, hilarious narrative cavern that yawns in a brief parenthetical--“picnic, lightning”—testifies to Nabokov’s iron-fisted control over his medium. When Nabokov reaches his colon, he knows what to do: he elaborates on the aforementioned sunset, rather than veering off into prosaic irrelevancy. The last half of this sentence hinges on the word “rambler,” which can mean someone who goes on and on in speech or writing and, also, someone on a “ramble” or walk. Humbert Humbert, in a haze of nostalgia, recounts someone walking into a cloud of midges during a sunset and, thus, accomplishes both varieties of “rambling.” Nabokov knows English so well that his sentence vibrates with a multiplicity of meanings, whereas Faulkner can only futilely thrash around in the shallowest, superficial level—and fails in doing that.

Of course, there are instances where Faulkner starts to make sense, but there isn’t a single work unmarred by his absurd, overwrought, tin-eared mangling of language. Not one of Faulkner’s novels ever accomplishes anything without also accomplishing these sorts of abuses. Everything Faulkner ever wrote was a convoluted mess of frustrated English—at least, in part. Whereas with Fitzgerald I can point at Tender is the Night and say, look here, he has accomplished something magnificent, with Faulkner I must always point at this or that passage and say, look here, he has no idea what he’s doing.

JB, I will respond to your comments in another post.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

So, you're gripe with Faulkner is that he breaks the rules of grammar. Got it. Personally, I found all those horrible examples you gave to be pretty brilliant. What an amazing writer.

[stuntpickle]

Lets clown around a little, shall we. .

As if you were capable of anything else.




You're the only punk really talking crap you trigger crazy insolent, rude, malicious, ill-intentioned, self righteous, self-important brat. Get real yourself, he was just expressing his view, which is far more than you have done, minus criticize Faulkner on no real grounds while continuing to criticize people who speak about texts on the grounds that seem relevant to them. Quit your snobby crap and look in the mirror, were you not loved as a child?


Sorry to chop the post, but answer this first - how is your statement on the lack of originality not what you derided as "critical endorsements and historical generalities and absolutely nothing demonstrating a familiarity with the works."

You claim Faulkner is so unoriginal - you called him so yourself - yet offer no proof. I'm still waiting, you can yell at people all you want, but you are just this loud mouth who thinks sitting there saying something as broad and sweeping as Faulkner is unoriginal is not a crappy historical generalization and a half-*** critical endorsement, get real, you are a hypocrite, plain and simple.

Let me offer you a clue here. The actual discussion of Faulkner you have missed occurred in a thread appropriately about Faulkner. I only ever posted in this thread because JCamillo had the audacity to make some snide comment about me after I had earlier knocked his dick in the dirt. I am of the opinion that a willingness to talk about someone should be accompanied by the balls to talk about him to his face. In the appropriate thread, I did, in fact, discuss Faulkner’s shambling clichés, cornpone convolutions and thoroughly outdated Romanticism.

For someone who can’t shut up about context, you sure seemed to have missed it. You, like most persons in this so-called community, pop up in the middle of the discussion, feign righteous indignation and then make an *** of yourself by acting precisely in that manner you criticize. Of course, you, like J and his chattering sidekick Mutatis, are probably so intent on being right at whatever cost that you will aggressively defend any position, no matter how stupid, just to save face. For the record, you’re the person who initiated the discussion with me by calling me an idiot, and so I will reply in kind.


I do not need a sentence by sentence break down, but where is the break down at all? What have you offered? Nothing, yes, you have said nothing as to how unoriginal or original Faulkner is except that to you, in the affirmative voice, you say with conviction, He is unoriginal, and who are you, to say, with such prophetic and unbacked up voice, he is unoriginal? Where do you get this from? What did you read? Where is your critical familiarity with Faulkner's works? Or the works before or after it.

If you weren’t so stupid you could just mosey on over to the appropriate thread and see for yourself, but then you wouldn’t get to pound your fists, so let’s do it.

Your first problem is the suggestion that I demonstrate my “critical familiarity” with Faulkner’s work. By that do you mean the piles of tertiary source material, wherein lies all the agenda-driven drivel written by Marxists, deconstructionists and queer theorists?
Surely, even you, who are obviously a dumb ***, can see how that would conflict with my suggestion that we discuss a text on its own terms—something you thought I had failed in and then tried to hold me accountable. Of course, I HAVE read Faulkner many times over; it is nearly impossible to escape an education in the US without being thoroughly acquainted. Moreover, I, as someone growing up in the American South and living currently in the Southwest, have approached Faulkner with an intensity uncommon even among his admirers. I have reread much of Faulkner in an attempt to puzzle out his elusive “genius.” I have worked my way through Ulysses and come out the other side with something like appreciation; I even have a very dim appreciation for that horrible joke Finnegans Wake. But Faulkner becomes worse with every reading; all the warts and hillbilly calamities become more obvious and inelegant.


Perhaps you read them, but you have yet to provide a shred of backup to your generalized mediocre argument, just because you say something doesn't make it true, likewise, it is comical, but more so annoying to see you doing it, while yelling at others that their arguments are not justified.

For someone accusing me of ad hominem, you sure do spend an inordinate amount of time impeaching my character.




If you want to discuss Faulkner, firstly, I will answer the question simply, and then expand it, and then respond to your idiocy.

First we must ask - what did Shakespeare do that was original.

Shakespeare was stylistically unapproachable by anyone in history. His characters represented a massive departure from classical and medieval crudities.


Take Absalom Absalom. The text is about the rise of Patriarch Thomas Sutpen, who comes to Mississippi as a poor white man with the ambition to become rich. You have a world of pre and Post-civil war world but it quickly transforms to an identity piece of the transition of time and space - the idiom is new, matching the language, yet creating a new narrative handling of time that proceeds with the transition - what happens, the portraits and caricatures it creates are revolving around the land, as the legacy of race and wealth, of identity and family dynasty collapse around the empire, eventually destroying itself.

Seriously, you can spare me the wiki-style synopsis, as I have read the work. Faulkner’s notions of Old and New South are hardly original to Absalom Absalom. Let me just say that however much Faulkner’s thematic concerns impress you as being historically relevant they are completely irrelevant to an aesthetic examination of the work, itself. You seem to think it all hinges on a manipulation of time and space, something you see as original in Faulkner—something I will explode later on.


The narrative is not clear, is confused, is mixed mimicking the contradictions in the space itself

It’s so encouraging to read that Faulkner employed the narrative techniques of Poe and Robert Browning. So revolutionary!


- Thomas abandons his wife and kid, yet gives them money - they become part of society, the old gentry idea, yet are still abandoned - the world is contradictory, is destructive, and it is whole.

You have basically what French authors were trying to do before in a whole new light - you take Gothic, and cross it with family cycles (a genre loved by the French 19th century) and you get this crazy novel where legacy, blood, identity, and race are woven with all the inherent dark that hides behind.

So basically you ramble on about wholly inconsequential stuff and finally you come to a point. And yours is a very good point. I say this not to patronize or mock you, but honestly to commend you. Either you, or someone who has been lecturing you, has, at least, some sort of literary capacity. Your point, however, works completely in my favor, but it is still a good observation, which deserves the credit any insightful remark does. Faulkner makes more sense in a discussion of Romantic French novelists than he does in one of 20th Century literature. Faulkner is Romantic through and through. His characters, his narrative mode, his intellectual capacity are of precisely the same sort as 19th Century French novelists. Of course, he borrows some modernist techniques, but underneath we have the sort of bald morality of Les Miserables. Faulkner’s “conflicted characters” are about as conflicted as Javert, which is not much. Like Thomas, Javert and Jean Valjean abandon their pasts and have superficially conflicted natures in which Valjean is truly heroic and Javert is thoroughly evil, despite that Valjean is a criminal and Javert is an officer of the law. Faulkner’s whole historical approach to fiction is borrowed from Hugo. Faulkner is writing in the wrong century and not writing particularly well.

I do not compliment you because it suits my argument. I compliment you because to notice the similarity, which most cannot, is a striking display of either an innate sensibility or a decent education. I do not know you, and so can’t say which.


What do you think Marquez was reading when he set his characters to found their town in 100 Years of Solitude, or Toni Morrison was thinking when she wrote Beloved? The text is complete, it is horrific, it is fascinating, and it crosses the time shift with the language, the narrative mixing with new narrative possibilities (heavily indebted to European precursors like Joyce) and solidifying in something new.

You know I did read a few of your past posts, and I was surprised that someone who forcefully argues a translation can never adequately stand in for the original and is, in fact, an entirely separate text, would completely miss my point about Marquez reading Faulkner in translation. Can we say Marquez was influenced by Faulkner’s work when we know he read that work in translation? And if we can say that yes he was reading Faulkner’s actual work, wasn’t he really just reading the model of a 19th Century French novel with stream of consciousness tacked on? I said earlier in this thread that if Faulkner was a model for originality in the work of Marquez that it was as a model of someone else’s originality, which I am thoroughly convinced is true. And frankly, you have—whether unwittingly or not—been making the case for me.



But besides that, we can take a look at other works - like the Scopes saga novels, they attempt to do something similar, to understand the legacy and culture of the land, and to understand what goes wrong, what destruction and disturbances occur, and how that is reflected in every sense of the society - Racism is ingrained, classism, and narrative voice.

Surely, someone who can see the similarities with Faulkner and French novelists can see how racism and classism are, in no way, necessary components of a discussion about aesthetics. You make the mistake, I think, of confusing historical relevance with artistic craftsmanship because you seem to think Faulkner’s work is important insofar as it is amenable to a discussion of the history of the Southern United States. A fictional world is about as real as the various illustrations in children’s picture books and is only important insofar as it meets the specific requirements of the work in question. A work of fiction is great not because it offers us various historical platitudes or some such implausible thing as “practical truths” that should, ideally, persuade the reader to act on some moral impetus, but rather because it demonstrates a mastery of language, precision of imagery and an artistic unity. Like Wilde says, “All art is useless.” To pretend otherwise is to be a fraud. If you insist on discussing a work in an historical context, you must first get acquainted with the work, itself—something very few persons on this site even seem interested in. The result is that any discussion of any work is mostly a discussion about who read who or who said what about the work.

Does this mean that you must hate Faulkner as I do? Absolutely not. But it does mean that when I suggest Faulkner is a Romantic rambler whose circumlocutions are obvious disasters, it is hardly appropriate to say so-and-so liked Faulkner; therefore, I am wrong—especially when I have pointed to certain aspects of Faulkner’s writing and you choose to remain silent on them.


Or take something simpler, like my personal favorite, Light in August. The novel is simply a great book, the characters are original, lovable and detestable, but the central core is there - Faulkner's Gothic voice, which is similar to his contemporaries, and has elements of precursors and European counterparts, but is merged with his local history and culture to create something new. Light in August is an excellent novel, despite not being as innovative as his other works, or as experimental or accessible, because it's characters bring to life a far more interesting landscape than others write.

If you want to speak of originality, you need to understand nobody is particularly original. Faulkner blends different elements well, and localizes things, he also works in his own idiom, and experimented a great deal with different devices to bring out his crazy world. He is no less innovative than someone like Shakespeare, who never seemed to want to come up with his own plots, and was working with established conventions.

What Shakespeare accomplished was a complete reimagining of human nature, in which clever nihilists and cowardly heroes worked their into a higher state of existence than had been previously accomplished—mainly by becoming aware of themselves in a way that had never been demonstrated before. Bloom calls it “overhearing.” You can call it whatever you want.

Faulkner basically had some cardboard stand ins swoon against a Southern backdrop. To compare the two is absurd.


Faulkner created the mythology of a place, and merged it with the idea of temporal change, family legacy, and ingrained cultural darkness and identity.

Here’s where I explode your ridiculous theory about Faulkner’s mastery over “time and space” being somehow original. Forget Proust; it is perhaps an insult to compare that genius with a third-rate hack like Faulkner. Let’s take someone more suited to Faulkner’s skill—Lord Dunsany.

The King of Elfland’s Daughter begins when a township requests that the town be made magical. The King relents and sends his son to Elfland, where he will, presumably, find a wife in the elfish king’s daughter. Upon entering Efland, the prince finds everything frozen in time. He steals the elfish princess, an act which begins time in Elfland. The princess’s crown of ice melts, the trees start to move and Elfland shrinks to nothing. What follows it an inter-generational narrative in which the son of the prince and elfish princess, a half-human, half-elf hunter, reigns over the town until Elfland reappears growing as time quickens and eventually engulfs the town in a swarm of unwanted magical creatures, leaving the township thoroughly conflicted.

Your preposterous, idiotic standard of “mythology of place merged with temporal change, family legacy, and other cultural identity balderdash” was accomplished in 1924 when Lord Dunsany published his novel—more than a decade before Faulkner published his. And Frankly, Lord Dunsany was a better writer than Faulkner was.

[Alexander III]

Shakespeare was stylistically unapproachable by anyone in history. His characters represented a massive departure from classical and medieval crudities.

Racine's verse was for more consistent than shakespere's, his style is very un-perfected and baggy. His charcters are not anythign that new, he did not invent the human as bloom says. That is all babble, Bloom while being a good lite critics had no understanding of history, so what he often seens as new, is rather done. Will has some amazing charcters such as Othello, Hamlet and Cleopatra - but he also has a whole bunch of terrible stocky charcters.

Faulkner was stylistically unapproachable by anyone in history. His characters represented a massive departure from classical and medieval crudities.

see what I did there....and it makes perfect sense too. In fact I could change the name to plenty of different authors and it would work.

You have an abnormal like for Shakespeare, and an abnormal dislike of Fualkner - get over it, we are all like that. I have an abnormal like for Pushkin, and an abnormal dislike for Shakespeare. The difference between me and you however, is that I understand that this has nothing to do with the aesthetic merits of the work, it is about my own biases. You on the other hand, were you some Literature 101 freshman, would make perfect sense, however for a man who has a Masters...well it's hard to keep faith in the academic system when a person can get a masters degree without having realized that your opinion is worthless, much like anyones opinion is worthless when it comes to such things.

Time is the only real judge, all else is just an awkward translation of the classic guys boating about who's banged the most chicks.

Sure we can spend hours debating weather a blow-job counts as a full bang, or half or 1/3... but those who don't have insecurity problems don't need to say count up and measure how many girls they have banged - those with confidence just talk about women in general without making anything a competition...because no one outside of ones ego really cares.

[stuntpickle]

Shakespeare was stylistically unapproachable by anyone in history. His characters represented a massive departure from classical and medieval crudities.

Racine's verse was for more consistent than shakespere's, his style is very un-perfected and baggy. His charcters are not anythign that new, he did not invent the human as bloom says. That is all babble, Bloom while being a good lite critics had no understanding of history, so what he often seens as new, is rather done. Will has some amazing charcters such as Othello, Hamlet and Cleopatra - but he also has a whole bunch of terrible stocky charcters.

Faulkner was stylistically unapproachable by anyone in history. His characters represented a massive departure from classical and medieval crudities.

see what I did there....and it makes perfect sense too. In fact I could change the name to plenty of different authors and it would work.

You have an abnormal like for Shakespeare, and an abnormal dislike of Fualkner - get over it, we are all like that. I have an abnormal like for Pushkin, and an abnormal dislike for Shakespeare. The difference between me and you however, is that I understand that this has nothing to do with the aesthetic merits of the work, it is about my own biases. You on the other hand, were you some Literature 101 freshman, would make perfect sense, however for a man who has a Masters...well it's hard to keep faith in the academic system when a person can get a masters degree without having realized that your opinion is worthless, much like anyones opinion is worthless when it comes to such things.

Time is the only real judge, all else is just an awkward translation of the classic guys boating about who's banged the most chicks.

Sure we can spend hours debating weather a blow-job counts as a full bang, or half or 1/3... but those who don't have insecurity problems don't need to say count up and measure how many girls they have banged - those with confidence just talk about women in general without making anything a competition...because no one outside of ones ego really cares.

My education? My education was probably mostly the same as yours, which means it largely consisted of multicultural policemen and various professional obfuscators trying to convince me that Racine was Shakespeare's equal. The difference is that I didn't believe them.

[Alexander III]

My education? My education was probably mostly the same as yours, which means it largely consisted of multicultural policemen and various professional obfuscators trying to convince me that Racine was Shakespeare's equal. The difference is that I didn't believe them.

I am educated in england - literature studies are different here. There is none of that blatant political agenda emphasizing here as in america. Fortunately.

[MarkBastable]

You, like most persons in this so-called community, pop up in the middle of the discussion, feign righteous indignation and then make an *** of yourself by acting precisely in that manner you criticize.

That's impressive. I've never before seen anybody insult the majority of LitNet subscribers in a single sentence, and within a fortnight of joining.

[stuntpickle]

I am educated in england - literature studies are different here. There is none of that blatant political agenda emphasizing here as in america. Fortunately.

Alexander, I think you have misunderstood most of what I have said. My point isn't so much that one should necessarily agree with my literary tastes but that one should read in an exacting fashion, from which very particular opinions follow. Very often justifications for opinions are completely extra-textual and because so-and-so said some very vague things.... Often these same sorts of statements coincide with an obvious unfamiliarity with the actual texts or even mechanisms by which aesthetic determinations are made. If someone cannot even consider why, for instance, another might say Faulkner mangled language, I can't believe the original person could have thoroughly read Faulkner.

I can, for instance, understand why you would mention Pushkin as an exemplary writer; however, I cannot say the same for Faulkner. Whenever someone tries to explain Faulkner's greatness, he either rambles on about history or enters bizarro land where Faulkner is a poet. I call bull**** on both accounts.

[Alexander III]

That's impressive. I've never before seen anybody insult the majority of LitNet subscribers in a single sentence, and within a fortnight of joining.



Now I present to you GL Wilson's first reaction after reading your comment:



http://monsterbook.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Patrick-Bateman1.jpg

[irinmisfit92]

Pass the popcorn, MM.:ihih:

I want the popcorn too :P

[Drkshadow03]

So, you're gripe with Faulkner is that he breaks the rules of grammar. Got it. Personally, I found all those horrible examples you gave to be pretty brilliant. What an amazing writer.

I agree that the opening of "Barn Burning" is better than Stuntpickle suggests. It is extremely evocative of the senses: we have smell, concrete images, and even imaginary smells (of hermetic meat), which evokes the sense of hunger, the protagonist's poverty, and his overwhelmed state by the events happening in the story. The opening line is omniscient, but immediately switches to a stream-of-conscious third-person. This allows Faulkner to give an objective reality: the place smelled like cheese and contrast it with a subjective reality (in which Sarty smells meat and cheeses and more scents that he can't begin to describe).

We have an exact image of Sarty crouched on a nail keg beside a shelf lined with cans with all sorts of symbols. All the details convey important characterization details. The repetition of the scent of cheese and the smell of imaginary meat imply Sarty is hungry and that he doesn't get food of that sort often, his inability to read (but interpret through symbols on the cans) implies both that he is shocked by all the material goods around him and he is poor and uneducated. Faulkner never needs to directly tell us in the opening that he is poor, but the details in this opening of the story immediately tells us all this about Sarty (basically it does exactly what a good opening of a story should do). That Sarty reads the can labels with his stomach is a wonderful image tied to his illiteracy and his hunger.

In these details we discern his state of mind. He concentrates on all these cans and symbols and the persistent smell of cheese and the imagined smell of meat because he is overwhelmed by being in a place where his father is on trial, plus foreshadowing through his emotions that he is afraid to testify; the rest of the scene in which he almost takes the stand to testify against his father and we continue to see his overwhelmed state confirms this. The scents of the food are replaced at the end by the smells of fear, guilt, and despair. Again the oscillating scents that seem a bit jumpy is suggestive of his overwhelmed state at the moment. These abstract scents are metronymic in nature as well; the scent of fear, guilt and despair is sweat is just a fancy way of saying he smells the stink of sweat in the air, but also further characterizes his specific state of conflicting emotions that are overwhelming him. It also works as good transition to the next sentence, which Stuntpickle doesn't quote that are Sarty's thoughts about his loyalty to blood and his father's enemies that stem from fear, guilt, and despair. A little later in the same scene, Faulkner repeats these trinity of emotions throughout the work.

"He aims for me to lie, he thought, again with that frantic grief and despair."

[...]

"Now time, the fluid world, rushed beneath him again, the voices coming to him again through the smell of cheese and sealed meat, the fear and despair and the old grief of blood:"

However, I'm inclined to agree with him that there are moments in Faulkner that can feel a bit clunky. When Faulkner switches to the smells of fear, despair, and grief in the long sentence of the opening it is a bit jarring and lacks a smooth flow (like falling down a small, but deep pot-hole, while riding a mostly smooth road thus far). I'm also hesitant to step too deep into this fight because I also prefer Fitzgerald to Faulkner.

[JCamilo]

Let me offer you a clue here. The actual discussion of Faulkner you have missed occurred in a thread appropriately about Faulkner. I only ever posted in this thread because JCamillo had the audacity to make some snide comment about me after I had earlier knocked his dick in the dirt. I am of the opinion that a willingness to talk about someone should be accompanied by the balls to talk about him to his face. In the appropriate thread, I did, in fact, discuss Faulkner’s shambling clichés, cornpone convolutions and thoroughly outdated Romanticism.

Your illusionary self importance and incapacity of reading is amazing. I have not made a "snide" comment, Arrowni did (and it is hardly anything of note, the content of this topic was rather small comments on matter of taste, so only a huge ammount of paranoid would make be noted) and I replied to Arrowni.

You didnt owned me anything. From the momment you started to gloat about your reading and mock mine - without the obvious information, which is my life to know what I have read or not - because you put in your head that my comment about Hamlet reading a book intented to be an argument on the chronology of the work and not just a side reference to the text we are talking about and when your proposed aesthetical analyse was trying to read different texts from the perspective of Shakespeare use of Hamlet, as if this would equate as your so claimed objective of analysing an work from its own qualities (Sorry to bother you, but Hamlet in the Iliad would be part of Homer list of characters that pissed off Achilles would kill without uttering a single word), I confirmed what I said to you: despite your claims of viewing the aesthetic works without any patriotism (no need to use chauvinism, right? Let's not be faulkerian and be more hemingloid), that is all that you do, mixing personal preferences for facts and accusing others of your own blind fault (It is hilarious that you accuse me of being latin american centered - while you cann't avoid to focus on english writers, even pointed Nabokov and Kafka as proof, which made me recall the joke "Yes, I am not homophobic, I even have 1 gay friend" - and our argument started with me listing french, romans, italians, spanish, portuguese, germans, brazilians generations of good writers from english romanticism as the best generation ever. Borges came just occasionally when you asked a critic that would place Victor Hugo poetry on pair with the 6 english romantics, and you, like all those with a deeply limitation on the subject confessed to know little of his poetry and even his status as poet, giantic. Of course, Victor Hugo apparently was born in Medelin or Buenos Aires and of course, you even said the Dante was the core of my being.).

You didnt discovered the philosophal stone because you could read Hamlet. It may surprise you but several of the individuals here have read it. You may think you are big bad shark, but dude, you are at best, a piranha. And the water is salt, so hold your teeth.

[stuntpickle]

I agree that the opening of "Barn Burning" is better than Stuntpickle suggests. It is extremely evocative of the senses: we have smell, concrete images, and even imaginary smells (of hermetic meat), which evokes the sense of hunger, the protagonist's poverty, and his overwhelmed state by the events happening in the story. The opening line is omniscient, but immediately switches to a stream-of-conscious third-person. This allows Faulkner to give an objective reality: the place smelled like cheese and contrast it with a subjective reality (in which Sarty smells meat and cheeses and more scents that he can't begin to describe).

We have an exact image of Sarty crouched on a nail keg beside a shelf lined with cans with all sorts of symbols. All the details convey important characterization details. The repetition of the scent of cheese and the smell of imaginary meat imply Sarty is hungry and that he doesn't get food of that sort often, his inability to read (but interpret through symbols on the cans) implies both that he is shocked by all the material goods around him and he is poor and uneducated. Faulkner never needs to directly tell us in the opening that he is poor, but the details in this opening of the story immediately tells us all this about Sarty (basically it does exactly what a good opening of a story should do). That Sarty reads the can labels with his stomach is a wonderful image tied to his illiteracy and his hunger.

In these details we discern his state of mind. He concentrates on all these cans and symbols and the persistent smell of cheese and the imagined smell of meat because he is overwhelmed by being in a place where his father is on trial, plus foreshadowing through his emotions that he is afraid to testify; the rest of the scene in which he almost takes the stand to testify against his father and we continue to see his overwhelmed state confirms this. The scents of the food are replaced at the end by the smells of fear, guilt, and despair. Again the oscillating scents that seem a bit jumpy is suggestive of his overwhelmed state at the moment. These abstract scents are metronymic in nature as well; the scent of fear, guilt and despair is sweat is just a fancy way of saying he smells the stink of sweat in the air, but also further characterizes his specific state of conflicting emotions that are overwhelming him. It also works as good transition to the next sentence, which Stuntpickle doesn't quote that are Sarty's thoughts about his loyalty to blood and his father's enemies that stem from fear, guilt, and despair. A little later in the same scene, Faulkner repeats these trinity of emotions throughout the work.

"He aims for me to lie, he thought, again with that frantic grief and despair."

[...]

"Now time, the fluid world, rushed beneath him again, the voices coming to him again through the smell of cheese and sealed meat, the fear and despair and the old grief of blood:"

However, I'm inclined to agree with him that there are moments in Faulkner that can feel a bit clunky. When Faulkner switches to the smells of fear, despair, and grief in the long sentence of the opening it is a bit jarring and lacks a smooth flow (like falling down a small, but deep pot-hole, while riding a mostly smooth road thus far). I'm also hesitant to step too deep into this fight because I also prefer Fitzgerald to Faulkner.

I would certainly agree that everything about "Barn Burning" is better than "The Bear." I actually chose "The Bear" as an example whereas I randomly picked "Barn Burning" by flipping to a page. "The Bear" is absolute garbage whereas "Barn Burning" is simply garbled. I think reading stomachs and thinking intestines are both fairly awful figurations. What I find most ridiculous, however, is that the narrative is purposely muddled by an illiterate character's perspective but the language is not at all restrained. What are the chances that the character comes up with "hermetic meat?" If he's so proud of knowing about cheese, what are the chances he knows "hermetic?"

I think your point about the pothole is spot on. I always get the feeling that Faulkner just never really figured out where a stylistic amplification might be appropriate; he limits himself to this kid, but then it's so obviously Faulkner rambling in an Old Testament basso.

[stuntpickle]

Your illusionary self importance and incapacity of reading is amazing. I have not made a "snide" comment, Arrowni did (and it is hardly anything of note, the content of this topic was rather small comments on matter of taste, so only a huge ammount of paranoid would make be noted) and I replied to Arrowni.

You didnt owned me anything. From the momment you started to gloat about your reading and mock mine - without the obvious information, which is my life to know what I have read or not - because you put in your head that my comment about Hamlet reading a book intented to be an argument on the chronology of the work and not just a side reference to the text we are talking about and when your proposed aesthetical analyse was trying to read different texts from the perspective of Shakespeare use of Hamlet, as if this would equate as your so claimed objective of analysing an work from its own qualities (Sorry to bother you, but Hamlet in the Iliad would be part of Homer list of characters that pissed off Achilles would kill without uttering a single word), I confirmed what I said to you: despite your claims of viewing the aesthetic works without any patriotism (no need to use chauvinism, right? Let's not be faulkerian and be more hemingloid), that is all that you do, mixing personal preferences for facts and accusing others of your own blind fault (It is hilarious that you accuse me of being latin american centered - while you cann't avoid to focus on english writers, even pointed Nabokov and Kafka as proof, which made me recall the joke "Yes, I am not homophobic, I even have 1 gay friend" - and our argument started with me listing french, romans, italians, spanish, portuguese, germans, brazilians generations of good writers from english romanticism as the best generation ever. Borges came just occasionally when you asked a critic that would place Victor Hugo poetry on pair with the 6 english romantics, and you, like all those with a deeply limitation on the subject confessed to know little of his poetry and even his status as poet, giantic. Of course, Victor Hugo apparently was born in Medelin or Buenos Aires and of course, you even said the Dante was the core of my being.).

You didnt discovered the philosophal stone because you could read Hamlet. It may surprise you but several of the individuals here have read it. You may think you are big bad shark, but dude, you are at best, a piranha. And the water is salt, so hold your teeth.

Listen, Balki, when I said I knocked your dick in the dirt, I was referring to when you, who can barely speak English, told me that my English was "worst" than yours, following which I demonstrated how that was, in fact, not the case. I really don't care what you think about Shakespeare or Dante. I think you have an obvious bias for Romance languages if, in a discussion of Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald, it is "annoying" to suggest Fitzgerald is better because I fail to consider Latin American writers.

You can repeat the whole of that dead conversation about Shakespeare if you want, but I do notice it is curiously bereft of when you said "Dante do what Shakespeare never could: he create muse" and how you thought I made up "rhetorical figuration" to screw with you.

Frankly, I don't care who said what in a discussion that led you to suggest that whatever I was saying annoyed you because I hadn't consulted Marquez and Borges.

[MarkBastable]

Listen, Balki, when I said I knocked your dick in the dirt, I was referring to when you, who can barely speak English, told me that my English was "worst" than yours, following which I demonstrated how that was, in fact, not the case.

Balki? The reference means nothing to a Brit, but is this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balki_Bartokomous)where it comes from?

I guess this is another example of that expressed passion and off-the-cuff ribbing that comes over better when delivered in person.

[Emil Miller]

As I have stated elsewhere on this forum, I am not a bibliophile per se, although I have read a lot of varied authors over a long period of time. I have also mentioned my aversion to Faulkner in this thread. When I checked out his writing I could tell just by choosing randomly certain passages from various of his novels that the writing was bad and I could see nothing there that would induce me to read any of his novels from beginning to end.
Stuntpickle's summation of Faulkner's works hits the nail squarely on the head as far as I'm concerned and corresponds exactly with my impression. His unfavourable comparison with Fitzgerald is spot on and the quotations he has given show Fitzgerald to be the better writer by far.

[JCamilo]

Listen, Balki, when I said I knocked your dick in the dirt, I was referring to when you, who can barely speak English, told me that my English was "worst" than yours, following which I demonstrated how that was, in fact, not the case. I really don't care what you think about Shakespeare or Dante. I think you have an obvious bias for Romance languages if, in a discussion of Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald, it is "annoying" to suggest Fitzgerald is better because I fail to consider Latin American writers.

Your english is worst because despite your attempt to use it, you fail to read simple sentences and come with conclusions that only an completely lack of understandment would explain. And you gave another example: I did not said anything about the discussion about Faulker and Hemingway (apparently, you missed the point while complaning about other people bringing other authors to the table that the thread wasn't about Fitzgerald) being annoying. or because you fail to consider any author outside the english language. This is your conclusion, a very poor reading.


You can repeat the whole of that dead conversation about Shakespeare if you want, but I do notice it is curiously bereft of when you said "Dante do what Shakespeare never could: he create muse" and how you thought I made up "rhetorical figuration" to screw with you.

Tsc. I didnt said anything about Shakespeare creating a muse or not. I said, when you claimed Dante failed to produce memorable characters, that he created a most durable character that is his muse, and the most famous non-religious muse of all literature.

And about the rhetorical figuration, I am just amusing myself with someone that to the point I wont mention you gloating about my "incapacity to define it" despite you cann't find a single momment where I tried to define it. And before you say anything it is quite simple: quote where I defined wrongly what is a rhetorical figuration and try yourself to define it. It is quite simple.


Frankly, I don't care who said what in a discussion that led you to suggest that whatever I was saying annoyed you because I hadn't consulted Marquez and Borges.

But my friend, you cared enough to make this up.

[stuntpickle]

I did not said anything about the discussion about Faulker and Hemingway (apparently, you missed the point while complaning about other people bringing other authors to the table that the thread wasn't about Fitzgerald) being annoying. or because you fail to consider any author outside the english language. This is your conclusion, a very poor reading. .

You “did not said anything about the discussion about Faulkner and Hemingway?” Apparently, you’re just not bright enough to understand that I can simply quote what you said.


Annoyed with having to read that he somehow is superior to Faulkner and Hemingway, when guys like Marquez, Borges, Guimaraes Rosa have are Faulkner's fans and he is quite relevant for the development of the novels in Latin America, but apparently he was just a blunt coyote howling? .

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64102&page=2

See, thing is I’m the only person who said anything close to him being “blunt,” so I know who you’re talking about.



Tsc. I didnt said anything about Shakespeare creating a muse or not. .


Again, you’re a liar.


Dante do what Shakespeare never could: he creates a Muse. .

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22885&page=15


And about the rhetorical figuration, I am just amusing myself with someone that to the point I wont mention you gloating about my "incapacity to define it" despite you cann't find a single momment where I tried to define it. And before you say anything it is quite simple: quote where I defined wrongly what is a rhetorical figuration and try yourself to define it. It is quite simple. .

You said I didn’t know what I was talking about because I asked you to find a line in all of Dante as good as “to take arms against a sea of troubles.’ You laughed, and I told you it was a rhetorical figuration. You then said that I had originally called it an image, and so was changing my story. Thing is, you’re just too stupid to realize it was both.


You didnt said a single word about "rhetorical figuration", You used both imagery and figuration. So, I am starting to imagine you not only have problems reading others, but yourself.

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22885&page=16

I find it hilarious that you're so embarrassed of all the stupid crap you said that your only recourse is to pretend you never said it. Me, I'll just stick to my guns.

[Drkshadow03]

What I find most ridiculous, however, is that the narrative is purposely muddled by an illiterate character's perspective but the language is not at all restrained. What are the chances that the character comes up with "hermetic meat?" If he's so proud of knowing about cheese, what are the chances he knows "hermetic?"


That's a really good point about the use of the word, "hermetic" being inappropriate for an illiterate character.



Okay, take a look at this list (http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/), particularly the "reader's choice" column on the right, and tell me how this could happen. Four out of the top ten are Ayn Rand (the one and two spot both hold Ayn Rand books) and three out of the top ten are by L. Ron Hubbard. What? I won't say neither belongs in the top ten as I've never read either author, but four and three spots respectively? That's surprising for any author.

Now, I'm not wanting to argue the validity of this list (what is there to discuss? it obviously has little), but how a group of voting readers could come to this top ten list. Is there some huge fan base for Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard connected to the Modern Library? Seriously, how could this happen?

By the way, shifting this topic back to Modern Library's 100 Best 20th Century Novel List (not the reader's list, but the one generated by the M L panel), are there any books people think don't belong on the list (besides Faulkner)? If so why? And who do you think should be on the list that isn't?

[stuntpickle]

By the way, shifting this topic back to Modern Library's 100 Best 20th Century Novel List (not the reader's list, but the one generated by the M L panel), are there any books people think don't belong on the list (besides Faulkner)? If so why? And who do you think should be on the list that isn't?

I would, at the very least, switch #10 The Grapes of Wrath with #11 Under the Volcano. I think Grapes is a minor political tract and Lowry's novel is amazing.

[Mr.lucifer]

I once read some of fitzgerald, he was awful. I can't believe many claim him to a great and influential writer.

[JBI]

I am educated in england - literature studies are different here. There is none of that blatant political agenda emphasizing here as in america. Fortunately.

I'm was educated in Canada, and to a far lesser extent China. Our concepts of how to read, and education are completely different as well.

To us, the great text, for better or for worse, on reading was always Northrop Frye, who remarked wisely that critical reading was not a game of valuing, and those who seek to do it are committing a crime against the form.

Likewise, discussions of texts always hold contexts. Take Shakespeare for example - he is not rooted in his own time, so historical documents do not really give you much, but there is much else - for instance, you need to understand the theatre the plays were performed on, to understand how the plot worked, or you need to understand the language - rooted in history, or you would need to understand conventions, rooted in classical readings.

Context and text are inseparable. Do merely dismiss everyone who reads with a context in mind as a socialist bumbling feminist pseudo-critic is ridiculous. This isn't 1930 anymore, and this isn't poetry. Poetry seems to work better to get beyond the context:

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

But how do you read that without branching out of the work? The first thing you need to contend with, is the Miltonic mythology, and then the poem becomes so rooted in context that you confuse yourself into dismissing it.


All this anti-political nonsense is just half-rate reading of half-rate theorists like Harold Bloom, it is irrelevant. To study literature, and to read literature are different things. Basically Bloom's argument is, if you aren't studying, why bother reading into context and just look for what you enjoy in the book.

Fair game, but he also sees reading as a personal event, not as a social one. He doesn't really care for discussion amongst friends, more for solitary confinement.



As for the description of Faulkner. Well, first I will address my point about 19th century novelists - he uses their elements, true, but he is mixing them with a new voice, rooted in classical and modernist prose. Think of As I Lay Dying for instance, with its poniard lines like "My mother is a fish" or the unreliable chaotic stream of consciousness of Benji's Narrative from The Sound and the Fury - those are not 19th century, and are completely new ideas from what I can tell, and done well.

To say one is rooted in something is not a bad thing - nobody comes from nothing - Shakespeare needed Marlowe and Sidney to get his plays and Sonnets out, as much as Sidney needed Petrarch, and Petrarch needed Cicero to write his letters, and Ovid to write his poems. The whole history of literature is connected like that.

As for the point above about Shakespeare inventing the human, I think what Bloom must have meant was his characters are so human like, and Shakespeare seems to have just invented them, birthed them out of thin air.


As for Joyce - he is just as unoriginal as anyone else, and his works are far less enjoyable to read than Faulkner's for most readers, simply because they feel like a long gimmick of word play, whereas Faulkner has added some pathos and gritty emotional delirium into his chaotic novel that Joyce lacks - For me, the essence of Leopold Bloom is rooted in Don Quixote, so are we to dismiss Ulysses then, on the same grounds you dismiss Faulkner for having influences.


As for his prose, I would say the critical consensus on all levels is that he is a master of prose, and though single sentences may be annoying, on the whole the prose style fits well with the content and development of his novel, and of his novels. The dramatic voices his prose style gives life to in something like As I Lay Dying can be seen as an accessible version of this.

[mortalterror]

By the way, shifting this topic back to Modern Library's 100 Best 20th Century Novel List (not the reader's list, but the one generated by the M L panel), are there any books people think don't belong on the list (besides Faulkner)? If so why? And who do you think should be on the list that isn't?

I think Ulysses shouldn't be the defacto choice for #1 novel in all of these lists. Likewise, Portrait while a decent novel isn't anything like the third best novel of the twentieth century. That's simply more Joyce fanaticism of the Rand and Hubbard ilk.

Brave New World at number 5. Why is Huxley even on the list with guys like Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Nabokov?

Darkness at Noon is a relic of the Cold War, and as we retreat from that time it looses it's significance.

Under the Volcano: I read the first couple of pages and couldn't find anything special about this novel. I'm guessing it's a sop to Canadians.

While Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby definitely deserves prominent mention on this list, Tender is the Night does not. Maybe The Last Tycoon or This Side of Paradise should be there instead.

The Studs Lonigan Trilogy hasn't been relevant for awhile, though the last generation seemed to really like it. The tradition will likely shed these novels along with the works of Updike and Mailer.

There are a bunch of novels toward the end of this list that I'm just not familiar with. Part of me thinks that the bottom half should be filled up with other novels by the authors from the first half. If we're being honest, it's not unusual for a handful of authors to each contribute four or five of the best works of a century.

For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea, Of Mice and Men, and Mrs. Dalloway should definitely be on this list. Other than that I don't see too many horrible omissions.

[JBI]

As I have stated elsewhere on this forum, I am not a bibliophile per se, although I have read a lot of varied authors over a long period of time. I have also mentioned my aversion to Faulkner in this thread. When I checked out his writing I could tell just by choosing randomly certain passages from various of his novels that the writing was bad and I could see nothing there that would induce me to read any of his novels from beginning to end.
Stuntpickle's summation of Faulkner's works hits the nail squarely on the head as far as I'm concerned and corresponds exactly with my impression. His unfavourable comparison with Fitzgerald is spot on and the quotations he has given show Fitzgerald to be the better writer by far.

Are you reading Gatsby or one of those crappy stories by Fitzgerald?

They both have weak moments, as does Shakespeare. The whole idea of saying one is better is immature.

Simply put, Faulkner has proven himself an excellent author outside of this thread, so the fact that some punk is calling everyone who thinks that a moron is irrelevant whether you agree or not. The problem is not with Faulkner's prose, but with this vulgar poster who has no respect for anybody, and comes off at best as arrogant, at worst as xenophobic.

[JBI]

I think Ulysses shouldn't be the defacto choice for #1 novel in all of these lists. Likewise, Portrait while a decent novel isn't anything like the third best novel of the twentieth century. That's simply more Joyce fanaticism of the Rand and Hubbard ilk.

Brave New World at number 5. Why is Huxley even on the list with guys like Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Nabokov?

Darkness at Noon is a relic of the Cold War, and as we retreat from that time it looses it's significance.

Under the Volcano: I read the first couple of pages and couldn't find anything special about this novel. I'm guessing it's a sop to Canadians.

While Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby definitely deserves prominent mention on this list, Tender is the Night does not. Maybe The Last Tycoon or This Side of Paradise should be there instead.

The Studs Lonigan Trilogy hasn't been relevant for awhile, though the last generation seemed to really like it. The tradition will likely shed these novels along with the works of Updike and Mailer.

There are a bunch of novels toward the end of this list that I'm just not familiar with. Part of me thinks that the bottom half should be filled up with other novels by the authors from the first half. If we're being honest, it's not unusual for a handful of authors to each contribute four or five of the best works of a century.

For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea, Of Mice and Men, and Mrs. Dalloway should definitely be on this list. Other than that I don't see too many horrible omissions.

Under the Volcano is not a Canadian novel. If you want one of those, I would have put The Studhorse Man on there by Kroetsch. Or As For me and My House by Ross.

We have other contenders, Alice Munro who is still writing is a good example of an excellent short story author, or something like No Great Mischief by MacLeod.

It wouldn't matter though, I would never consider a list of novels like that as any bit relevant - monolingual discussions of best books only including novels are cheap crap designed to convince people to buy Modern Library editions of books.

I also wouldn't have put Ulysses as number one, I am tempted to put Lolita up there, but in the end I would stick Midnight's Children or something, simply because it fits well there as significant, approachable, yet complex and influential, or maybe The Waves or something.

The whole notion of a "Best novel" is for kids and brats to yell about, simply put, 100 novels of different backgrounds do not fit well together as compiled by a quintessentially American panel.

Still, there is a need for lists to an extent - if someone though is in need of a list, they are hardly to just pick up Ulysses and "Get it" much less enjoy it.

[Emil Miller]

Are you reading Gatsby or one of those crappy stories by Fitzgerald?

They both have weak moments, as does Shakespeare. The whole idea of saying one is better is immature.

Simply put, Faulkner has proven himself an excellent author outside of this thread, so the fact that some punk is calling everyone who thinks that a moron is irrelevant whether you agree or not. The problem is not with Faulkner's prose, but with this vulgar poster who has no respect for anybody, and comes off at best as arrogant, at worst as xenophobic.

I have read Gatsby enough times to know that Fitzgerald's writing is more accurate than Faulkner's 'corncoby chronicles' as Nabokov famously described them. By accurate I mean clear and uncluttered prose which, given that writing is above all a means of communication, Faulkner's isn't. It's a long time since I read any of Fitzgerald's short stories, and I would agree that This Side of Paradise and Tender is the Night have weaknesses but, notwithstanding the ad hominems that this thread has engendered, I have to agree that Stuntpickle's conclusions are in line with my own.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

In the appropriate thread, I did, in fact, discuss Faulkner’s shambling clichés, cornpone convolutions and thoroughly outdated Romanticism.
Speaking of which, I'm still waiting for a reply to my Holden-as-White Whale interpretation. If my interpretation is faulty, I'd like to know.

Balki? The reference means nothing to a Brit, but is this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balki_Bartokomous)where it comes from?
That's the only thing I could come up with. I don't really see how it could apply to, J, though. Then again, I didn't read the whole Wikipedia article.

By the way, shifting this topic back to Modern Library's 100 Best 20th Century Novel List (not the reader's list, but the one generated by the M L panel), are there any books people think don't belong on the list (besides Faulkner)? If so why? And who do you think should be on the list that isn't?
It seems like an okay list. I liked Gatsby a lot, but I think it's a bit too high, as is Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I have yet to actually complete Ulysses, so I won't dispute it's place--I think it's a work of genius, even if I don't get it. Brave New World seems placed oddly high, but I kind of like that it is. To The Lighthouse is a novel that gets a lot of praise, and I don't see why. I found it to be extremely dull, and the writing to be mediocre. I think Faulkner should have a much higher spot. I think A Clockwork Orange should be higher. I think The Lord of the Rings should be on the list, if for no other reason than its influence. I also think Blood Meridian should be on the list, along with Gravity's Rainbow. To leave off Pynchon is a crime. I think Catcher in the Rye should be on the list. I find it odd that Toni Morrison has nothing on the list.

Here's the most puzzling thing about the list though: Conrad has four spots on the list. 86 is Lord Jim, 67 is Heart of Darkness, 47 is Nostromo, and 46 is The Secret Agent. The Secret Agent? I don't think that even should be on the list. It wasn't very good. And if Heart of Darkness should be anywhere, it's in the top 20, maybe even the top 10.

[MarkBastable]

Loath as I am to agree with both stunt and emil, Faulkner does turn out quite a high proportion of lumpy, indigestible prose.

As to the list, I'd have to suggest Fifth Business, and a few others that probably wouldn't make me any friends.

[JBI]

Loath as I am to agree with both stunt and emil, Faulkner does turn out quite a high proportion of lumpy, indigestible prose.

As to the list, I'd have to suggest Fifth Business, and a few others that probably wouldn't make me any friends.

Good call with Fifth Business.

[stuntpickle]

I'm was educated in Canada, and to a far lesser extent China. Our concepts of how to read, and education are completely different as well.

To us, the great text, for better or for worse, on reading was always Northrop Frye, who remarked wisely that critical reading was not a game of valuing, and those who seek to do it are committing a crime against the form.

Likewise, discussions of texts always hold contexts. Take Shakespeare for example - he is not rooted in his own time, so historical documents do not really give you much, but there is much else - for instance, you need to understand the theatre the plays were performed on, to understand how the plot worked, or you need to understand the language - rooted in history, or you would need to understand conventions, rooted in classical readings.

Context and text are inseparable. Do merely dismiss everyone who reads with a context in mind as a socialist bumbling feminist pseudo-critic is ridiculous. This isn't 1930 anymore, and this isn't poetry. Poetry seems to work better to get beyond the context:

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

But how do you read that without branching out of the work? The first thing you need to contend with, is the Miltonic mythology, and then the poem becomes so rooted in context that you confuse yourself into dismissing it.


All this anti-political nonsense is just half-rate reading of half-rate theorists like Harold Bloom, it is irrelevant. To study literature, and to read literature are different things. Basically Bloom's argument is, if you aren't studying, why bother reading into context and just look for what you enjoy in the book.

Fair game, but he also sees reading as a personal event, not as a social one. He doesn't really care for discussion amongst friends, more for solitary confinement.



As for the description of Faulkner. Well, first I will address my point about 19th century novelists - he uses their elements, true, but he is mixing them with a new voice, rooted in classical and modernist prose. Think of As I Lay Dying for instance, with its poniard lines like "My mother is a fish" or the unreliable chaotic stream of consciousness of Benji's Narrative from The Sound and the Fury - those are not 19th century, and are completely new ideas from what I can tell, and done well.

To say one is rooted in something is not a bad thing - nobody comes from nothing - Shakespeare needed Marlowe and Sidney to get his plays and Sonnets out, as much as Sidney needed Petrarch, and Petrarch needed Cicero to write his letters, and Ovid to write his poems. The whole history of literature is connected like that.

As for the point above about Shakespeare inventing the human, I think what Bloom must have meant was his characters are so human like, and Shakespeare seems to have just invented them, birthed them out of thin air.


As for Joyce - he is just as unoriginal as anyone else, and his works are far less enjoyable to read than Faulkner's for most readers, simply because they feel like a long gimmick of word play, whereas Faulkner has added some pathos and gritty emotional delirium into his chaotic novel that Joyce lacks - For me, the essence of Leopold Bloom is rooted in Don Quixote, so are we to dismiss Ulysses then, on the same grounds you dismiss Faulkner for having influences.


As for his prose, I would say the critical consensus on all levels is that he is a master of prose, and though single sentences may be annoying, on the whole the prose style fits well with the content and development of his novel, and of his novels. The dramatic voices his prose style gives life to in something like As I Lay Dying can be seen as an accessible version of this.

First of all, the post you are quoting isn't mine, just so you know.

Let's get something straight: I am hardly some huge fan of Harold Bloom. People keep thinking this because he is the only real aesthete with a voice. There's so much I disagree with Bloom on, but I have read some of what he has written. I would thoroughly disagree with your notions about how Bloom is simply suggesting that Shakespeare created characters out of "thin air." He has gone so far as to suggest that one can only read Freud in terms of Shakespeare. I'm confident that Bloom means Shakespeare evolved a certain complexity of actual human intellect all on his own, which I thoroughly disagree with. I would never call Shakespeare "the creator of the human," but rather the chronicler of the human. I mean, surely, it has occurred to you that my and Bloom's ideas on Faulkner are vastly different. My ideas on aesthetics really have nothing at all to do with Bloom; I think they're more firmly (and obviously) rooted in the following from Nabokov's Lectures on Literature:

"In reading, one should notice and fondle details. There is nothing wrong about the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the sunny trifles of the book have been lovingly collected. If one begins with a readymade generalization, one begins at the wrong end and travels away from the book before one has started to understand it. Nothing is more boring or more unfair to the author than starting to read, say, Madame Bovary, with the preconceived notion that it is a denunciation of the bourgeoisie. We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge."

The greatest problem in discussing literature with the average grad student is that he has his nose so far up Wittgenstein's, Foulcault's or Derrida's bunghole that he never notices the page in front of him. He prefers to drone on about literature in the abstract, as though no one else has had the lecture he's repeating. The easiest thing to do is say that words are only definable using other words and not even the author, himself, is capable of perfectly reading the work because there is an inherent ambiguity in language and so on. The HARD thing is to go to the text, work it out yourself and come to some sort of personal evaluation--to "fondle details" as Nabokov suggests.

The deficiencies inherent in the current models of examination become clear when the same grad student encounters work beyond the bounds of existing criticism--such as a fairly new work. It has been my experience that the average educated reader doesn't see more clearly than someone reading for pure enjoyment. A number of times, I have seen someone thoroughly versed in advanced theoretical mumbo jumbo, fail to discern, for instance, that the real narrative is sketched in relief by the more apparent, superficial one. My grandmother, who never attended college, is probably a better reader than nine-tenths of persons with a liberal arts degree.

Frankly, your retreat into a justification of historical analysis, after having explicitly challenged me to an examination of Faulkner's aesthetics, is not surprising. When you thoroughly revised your initial post into a more ludicrous and hysterical version in which you demanded I discuss the Mexican American War, you retreated into what you know best, which is, unfortunately, not imaginative literature. One does not become better acquainted with Faulkner by reading Derrida, nor by reading Hugo, nor by reading anything else but Faulkner. The most telling failure of your whole literary conception was when you came up with some kooky notion of Faulkner's "original" manipulation of space and time. I knew you were destined to lose the Faulkner originality argument not because I am a master debater, not because I have a superior grasp of post-structuralism, but simply because I'm familiar with Faulkner and know there's nothing original there. If Toni Morrison or Doug Hofstadter invited me to the same argument, I'd accept as readily.

See, now you're talking about As I Lay Dying, which is vastly superior to Absalom Absalom. The "fish" line you quote is, I would agree, a good line. Faulkner wasn't wholly incapable. "Dr. Martino," for instance, is a fairly good story. Still, I firmly believe that Faulkner's worth as a writer is grossly overstated, which, in case you are unaware, is not my opinion alone.

When you talk about Benji's "unreliable" narrative, you imply that it makes no use of 19th Century literary techniques, which is false, as the unreliable narrator is precisely a 19th century literary technique. Of course, you try to obscure this point by sticking "stream of consciousness" in there, which, of course, Faulkner did not steal from the 19th Century, as he stole it from the 20th. Neither an unreliable narrator nor stream of consciousness is "a completely new idea" as you claim. You say faulkner has a "new voice," which is as lame and unimportant a point as one can make. New voice? I have a new voice, you have a new voice. We're all our own special little snowflakes. Faulkner’s voice, however, was not a particularly good one. Unlike you, I am not saying Faulkner is “rooted” in the 19th Century, but rather he is stuck there with the anachronism of stream of consciousness.

In terms of technique, Faulkner didn't do anything new. In fact, Faulkner did a lot of stuff that was antiquated. His characterization is thoroughly Romantic and his tone Biblical. When you said "pathos," you meant, I think, to press the "b" key instead of the "p." Faulkner’s use of exaggerated regionalisms would make Joyce blush.

Anything you say about the "critical consensus" is beside the point, unless you intend to make an argumentum ad populum, which was precisely what I hoped to avoid when I suggested a discussion of particular texts. To like a work of literature simply because one is supposed to, is to be a horribly insufficient reader. You and I—all readers in fact—are engaged in the enterprise of self-authorship, and to consign our minds over to the whim of consensus is to relinquish the right.

For the record, I am not saying one cannot examine Faulkner in relation to a literary context. I am, however, saying that before that happens, one needs a fairly good grasp of Faulkner alone. And frankly, if someone can’t understand how someone else might judge Fitzgerald aesthetically superior, then I’d have to conclude that the someone hadn’t read much Faulkner.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

For the record, I am not saying one cannot examine Faulkner in relation to a literary context. I am, however, saying that before that happens, one needs a fairly good grasp of Faulkner alone. And frankly, if someone can’t understand how someone else might judge Fitzgerald aesthetically superior, then I’d have to conclude that the someone hadn’t read much Faulkner.
I agree. I can completely see how someone can see more aesthetic value in Fitzgerald. I can see how and why someone would dislike Faulkner. I assume you can see the opposite, also (i.e., why someone may find Faulkner more aesthetically pleasing).

[stuntpickle]

I agree. I can completely see how someone can see more aesthetic value in Fitzgerald. I can see how and why someone would dislike Faulkner. I assume you can see the opposite, also (i.e., why someone may find Faulkner more aesthetically pleasing).

The only reason I'm here in this thread talking about it at all is because of the figurative eye-rolling that occurred in response to my judgements.

[Mr.lucifer]

Seriously, Fitzgerald is a piece of ****.

[MarkBastable]

...in response to my judgements.

Nice to see you spell it the British way.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

The only reason I'm here in this thread talking about it at all is because of the figurative eye-rolling that occurred in response to my judgements.
As a purveyor yourself, I find it odd that you'd find "figurative eye-rolling" to be in bad taste. :rolleyes5:

[mortalterror]

Under the Volcano is not a Canadian novel.

I'm sorry, I thought it was. My mistake.

[Drkshadow03]

I'm sorry, I thought it was. My mistake.

I try to categorize my bookshelves by author's location and then by time period. I have Lowry in my very small Canadian Lit section (for now).

When I tried to figure out where Lowry's book belongs it was a pain. He was born in Britain, then he moved to the U. S. (which is when I believe he started writing Under the Volcano), then he lived in Mexico, then he moved to Canada where I believe he finished the novel.

So is it an American, British, Mexican, or Canadian novel?

[JBI]

I try to categorize my bookshelves by author's location and then by time period. I have Lowry in my very small Canadian Lit section (for now).

When I tried to figure out where Lowry's book belongs it was a pain. He was born in Britain, then he moved to the U. S. (which is when I believe he started writing Under the Volcano), then he lived in Mexico, then he moved to Canada where I believe he finished the novel.

So is it an American, British, Mexican, or Canadian novel?

Fitzgerlad and Hemmingway both lived in Paris, as did several others - do we call those French authors - wait, what about Joyce? What about Beckett? If it was Oscar writing specifically for an English public, it would be trickier, but Lowry wasn't even published first in Canada - his market was not Canada, and the book doesn't even take place in Canada, nor does it follow Canadians traditions or Canadian motifs. The only detail of it that makes it Canadian is that part of it was written in Canada. It's not called Under the Glacier.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I categorize my books by size--biggest to smallest from right to left, the same author grouped together. It's incredibly simple.

[Drkshadow03]

Fitzgerlad and Hemmingway both lived in Paris, as did several others - do we call those French authors - wait, what about Joyce? What about Beckett? If it was Oscar writing specifically for an English public, it would be trickier, but Lowry wasn't even published first in Canada - his market was not Canada, and the book doesn't even take place in Canada, nor does it follow Canadians traditions or Canadian motifs. The only detail of it that makes it Canadian is that part of it was written in Canada. It's not called Under the Glacier.

Yes, yes, Canada is deep and unfathomable and Americans and the rest of the world don't understand it. So you would label him under British literature then?

[JBI]

Yes, yes, Canada is deep and unfathomable and Americans and the rest of the world don't understand it. So you would label him under British literature then?

Is France unfathomable? Do we call Gertrude Stein a French author?

Of course I would call him a British author.

I think probably the confusion comes with the help Earle Birney had in working with his widow to publish his works after death. Birney is definately a Canadian author/poet, whereas Lowry barely if at all.

[OrphanPip]

Yes, yes, Canada is deep and unfathomable and Americans and the rest of the world don't understand it. So you would label him under British literature then?

What? Lowry lived in Canada for like a couple years, there isn't any reason at all to consider him a Canadian author.

[lawpark]

I categorize my books by size--biggest to smallest from right to left, the same author grouped together. It's incredibly simple.

So your biggest book ... would be ... the OED?

I love books ... the way I am organizing now is by "date" alone ... still somewhat complicated and requires lots of work ...

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

So your biggest book ... would be ... the OED?

I love books ... the way I am organizing now is by "date" alone ... still somewhat complicated and requires lots of work ...

If I had the OED, yeah, but the internet has made actual book dictionaries unnecessary. My biggest book right now is my mammoth 2700+ page Norton anthology of literary theory. Still, when I said big, I should have clarified to mean big as in height wise. So, and accurate description would be book tallest to shortest. My tallest books right now are some hardback fantasy novels.

[JCamilo]

You “did not said anything about the discussion about Faulkner and Hemingway?” Apparently, you’re just not bright enough to understand that I can simply quote what you said.



http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64102&page=2

Thank you for quoting me. As expected. So lets see? I said: Annoyed with having to read that he somehow is superior to Faulkner and Hemingway, when guys like Marquez, Borges, Guimaraes Rosa have are Faulkner's fans and he is quite relevant for the development of the novels in Latin America, but apparently he was just a blunt coyote howling?
Have I claimed I was annoyed? No, I asked if Arrowinii was annoyed. I am not the subject of the phrase and it is neither an afirmation. I do not mention you. I neither said the problem was the absence of mentions on SA authors, but how someone who was so fundamental influences for a bunch of the best writers we ever hard could be classified as in the thread as something that could equate a bunch of wolf howlings. I dont know how a rethorical expert missed it, but alas, do you understand that you claimed me to say something i did not? (Aka, that I was annoyed because you do not consider latin american writers?). And that is only caused because your reading failed?
Thank you for quoting me, spared the work.




Again, you’re a liar.



http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22885&page=15

Am I a liar? So lets quote the entire sentence? As you are attacking JBI for being out of context...

I said: No, only Bloom does it and it should be notable Shakespeare never claimed it. Dante had no intention to describe god, so, it is like I am saying: Dante do what Shakespeare never could: he creates a Muse. Or talks with his influence. Or say that none created Sherlock Holmes. Hey, neither created a talking stuffed tiger named Harold. All failed where Bill Watterson had success.

So, tell me, do you really pretend to argue I am lying and I argued about Shakespeare creating a Muse or not, or just gave it as another pointless argument in answer as you claim that Shakespeare portraits Yaweh and call King Lear? I mean, Harold Bloom proposal that you just repeated? Really, that is my "Lie"? Now, I am the first to assume people can be confused by my ramblings, so do you, like Cormac MacCarthy could not get the notion of absurdity followed by the mention of Calvin and Hobbles? Maybe it was too much complexity for a master of rethorics.

So, I will say again: It is absolutely irrelevant that Shakespeare created or not Beatrice. She is a notable character on her own, enduring, powerfull, filled with significance and with an unique creation process (not some muse Dante picked in the market, as you tried to reduce her). Just like it is absolutely irrelevant as argument bringing Hamlet to Iliad. Even because there is Hamlet in other artworks and not even him could save Ethan Hawke. Hamlet is only that powerful when Shakespeare uses him, following the rules that Shakespeare build, and it is the inherent power of Shakespeare that explains it. Trying to read and analyse different artworks by daydreaming of the "crossover" is not a form to vallue the aesthetics and contexts of a given work, but to bend it to a narrow view, based on an arbitrary point, which is Shakespeare, because you and Bloom likes it. It is childish, petty pathetic. So I do not indulge the same game, Beatrice speaks for herself and I do not need to demand that Shakespeare should act like Dante. He has other rules to follow, as Dante and his creation.

Ok, but if even so you still want to claim that there is a lie... What to do?




You said I didn’t know what I was talking about because I asked you to find a line in all of Dante as good as “to take arms against a sea of troubles.’ You laughed, and I told you it was a rhetorical figuration. You then said that I had originally called it an image, and so was changing my story. Thing is, you’re just too stupid to realize it was both.

Err, I said it is a simple request. To show my lack of understanding of rethorical figures, post where I failed to define it.

Rambling about "Lines" (which are not synounimous of rethorical figuration and was neither what you said, but heck, I can understand that you changed a little on the heat of writing) does not help you. If you didnt asked me for a rethorical figuration but "Lines" I was not obligated to provide you a rethorical figuration or any short. And that was not my intention, so dismissing the examples I gave because you claim they are not rethorical figures is just sophistry or rather, a falacious attempt to dodge how ridiculous would be claiming that Dante has not "Lines" to show off.



I find it hilarious that you're so embarrassed of all the stupid crap you said that your only recourse is to pretend you never said it. Me, I'll just stick to my guns.

For someone from Texas, you do stick to rather powerless guns.

[JBI]

Meh, Dante is one of the few authors who is regarded as exceptional in terms of style. Even great fans of Shakespeare wouldn't argue particularly strongly that Dante has bad style, in that he pretty much set the foundation for a language, not just for a poem. His prosody is also regarded as impeccable in the Italian.

[stuntpickle]

Thank you for quoting me. As expected. So lets see? I said: Annoyed with having to read that he somehow is superior to Faulkner and Hemingway, when guys like Marquez, Borges, Guimaraes Rosa have are Faulkner's fans and he is quite relevant for the development of the novels in Latin America, but apparently he was just a blunt coyote howling?
Have I claimed I was annoyed? No, I asked if Arrowinii was annoyed. I am not the subject of the phrase and it is neither an afirmation. I do not mention you. I neither said the problem was the absence of mentions on SA authors, but how someone who was so fundamental influences for a bunch of the best writers we ever hard could be classified as in the thread as something that could equate a bunch of wolf howlings. I dont know how a rethorical expert missed it, but alas, do you understand that you claimed me to say something i did not? (Aka, that I was annoyed because you do not consider latin american writers?). And that is only caused because your reading failed?
Thank you for quoting me, spared the work.




Am I a liar? So lets quote the entire sentence? As you are attacking JBI for being out of context...

I said: No, only Bloom does it and it should be notable Shakespeare never claimed it. Dante had no intention to describe god, so, it is like I am saying: Dante do what Shakespeare never could: he creates a Muse. Or talks with his influence. Or say that none created Sherlock Holmes. Hey, neither created a talking stuffed tiger named Harold. All failed where Bill Watterson had success.

So, tell me, do you really pretend to argue I am lying and I argued about Shakespeare creating a Muse or not, or just gave it as another pointless argument in answer as you claim that Shakespeare portraits Yaweh and call King Lear? I mean, Harold Bloom proposal that you just repeated? Really, that is my "Lie"? Now, I am the first to assume people can be confused by my ramblings, so do you, like Cormac MacCarthy could not get the notion of absurdity followed by the mention of Calvin and Hobbles? Maybe it was too much complexity for a master of rethorics.

So, I will say again: It is absolutely irrelevant that Shakespeare created or not Beatrice. She is a notable character on her own, enduring, powerfull, filled with significance and with an unique creation process (not some muse Dante picked in the market, as you tried to reduce her). Just like it is absolutely irrelevant as argument bringing Hamlet to Iliad. Even because there is Hamlet in other artworks and not even him could save Ethan Hawke. Hamlet is only that powerful when Shakespeare uses him, following the rules that Shakespeare build, and it is the inherent power of Shakespeare that explains it. Trying to read and analyse different artworks by daydreaming of the "crossover" is not a form to vallue the aesthetics and contexts of a given work, but to bend it to a narrow view, based on an arbitrary point, which is Shakespeare, because you and Bloom likes it. It is childish, petty pathetic. So I do not indulge the same game, Beatrice speaks for herself and I do not need to demand that Shakespeare should act like Dante. He has other rules to follow, as Dante and his creation.

Ok, but if even so you still want to claim that there is a lie... What to do?





Err, I said it is a simple request. To show my lack of understanding of rethorical figures, post where I failed to define it.

Rambling about "Lines" (which are not synounimous of rethorical figuration and was neither what you said, but heck, I can understand that you changed a little on the heat of writing) does not help you. If you didnt asked me for a rethorical figuration but "Lines" I was not obligated to provide you a rethorical figuration or any short. And that was not my intention, so dismissing the examples I gave because you claim they are not rethorical figures is just sophistry or rather, a falacious attempt to dodge how ridiculous would be claiming that Dante has not "Lines" to show off.




For someone from Texas, you do stick to rather powerless guns.


The short answer: yes, I think you're lying. Of course, I did seem to accidentally quote you out of context regarding Shakespeare's muse, or lack thereof. But you DID previously lie about having said Dante had the best muse in all literature, just like you are lying now about this whole Faulkner business and the whole thing about the rhetorical figuration.

The only person who mentioned "blunt" or anything like it in reference to Faulkner was me, so regardless of your legalistic squirming regarding the issue, the reference is fairly obvious. You did, in fact, say some even dumber **** regarding Shakespeare: without "cameos" his plays would be one monologue and the whole business about Hamlet reading "before" he sees a ghost. You think I'm somehow being unfair about the whole book/ghost thing, but what you don't understand, I suppose, is that the only reason you would ever use a clause modified by an adverbial phrase beginning with "before" is to demonstrate chronology--not secondarily, but primarily about chronology. So either you're just revising your entire opinion to cover your mistakes or your grasp of English is even more tenuous than I thought.

Your lack of understanding regarding "rhetorical figuration" is implicit in your accusations that I was somehow shifting my demands when, really, I was still talking about roughly the same thing. I let it slide at first because typically I don't want to nitpick every last mistake, but then you kept repeating that I had somehow changed my whole argument and couldn't understand what even I, myself, had written, so then I started poking fun at your complete misunderstanding, which was obvious in the context of the conversation. But you, whose intellectual sophistication is roughly adequate to quote the dictionary (which you actually did), will pursue this argument along the most literal lines just to save face. You, who think calling something "backwards" means the same thing as saying something is a return, will keep desperately trying to revise your obvious nitwittery just to save face.

You see, I'm not entirely sure you understand what the phrase "stick to my guns" means. It doesn't mean that I'm some macho gunslinger ready to shoot the first person I see, but rather that I'm surrounded by others (also possessing guns) and will shoot it out from my current position--sort of like a last stand. What I was saying is that though you constantly move the goalposts in regards to your own statements, I will stick to what I said originally, regardless of how dire the situation becomes. So when you reference the "power" of my guns, you suggest that you didn't quite understand the nuance. Of course, if my experience with you is worth anything, you will now demand that I prove how you didn't actually know what the phrase meant and ask me to quote where you explicitly said the phrase meant whatever. This is how stupid our conversation has been.

You completely misunderstood and still misunderstand what I was saying when I proposed putting Hamlet into the Divine Comedy. I was not suggesting that "daydreaming of the "crossover" is a form to vallue the aesthetics" at all. I was using it as a figurative device to illustrate what I meant about a deficiency of character--something I had discerned completely apart from switching around characters. Basically I was suggesting that Dante's characterization was cruder than Shakespeare's, a conclusion I came to without shifting around roles. I was not prescribing a course of evaluation, but rather trying to make my point clearer. It's a little like juxtaposing medieval representational art with that of the Italian Renaissance by splicing da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks into a medieval tapestry, which, though hardly being a reliable mechanism of comparison, demonstrates an idea gleaned by other means. And frankly, what happened with painting in Italy is, I think, comparable to what happened with literature in England. I think Shakespeare is in many ways like da Vinci, and I was trying to say that metaphorically. Figurative synthesis is a hallmark of human intelligence; it is not only a mistake to try and interpret what I said literally, but an absolute relinquishing of creative thought. But it seems the only mode available to you is a strict literalism and a threadbare denotation.

Regardless, this whole Shakespeare/Dante conversation is thoroughly stupid by now. I don't care at all what you think of Shakespeare or Dante. I don't even care what you think of Faulkner so long as you cease to make oblique references to me.

[JCamilo]

So, despite proving I have not lied, despite proving you cann't read correctly (and unless you are are Emil Miller, you are not the only one to be posting the same point about Faulkner), despite your incapacity to post a single momment about my incapacity to reckonize rethorical figures, you still write a hundred lines where you still go down to the point of misunderstanding obvious tongue-in-cheek sarcasm as my incapacity to understand your last line? Serious, another failure as music teacher is in order.

[stuntpickle]

So, despite proving I have not lied, despite proving you cann't read correctly (and unless you are are Emil Miller, you are not the only one to be posting the same point about Faulkner), despite your incapacity to post a single momment about my incapacity to reckonize rethorical figures, you still write a hundred lines where you still go down to the point of misunderstanding obvious tongue-in-cheek sarcasm as my incapacity to understand your last line? Serious, another failure as music teacher is in order.

Yes I am Emil Miller and StLukesguild and everyone else your paranoia suggests. Are you so thoroughly concerned about this argument over Shakespeare and Dante that we must discuss it forever?

[Logos]

I'll clean this up tomorrow.

For now, please remember to discuss the topic at hand and NOT each other.