I'd say Lolita's definitely in the running.
I'd say Lolita's definitely in the running.
A Clockwork Orange. Simply because I can open it any any point in the book and find it intriguing. It reads in almost musical fashion. Some may see it a complete trainwreck. For whatever reason it is not for "me". I don't believe there is any way to judge flawlessness except for individual preferences. Because perhaps the real flaw in books some times is they are "too perfecT"
I think of it in the same way I think of music. Rock music exists on mistakes and on accidentals. But if not for the mistakes, I do not think I could call Abbey Road "flawless". A perfect record, like Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run", it's perfect, yes, but is it "interesting"? So does anyone care?
Last edited by Mathor; 04-16-2009 at 06:12 PM.
I'm losing all those stupid games
That I swore I'd never play
I was wondering the same thing. I read a translation of Mme Bovary (which claimed to be a very excellent updated translation of Flaubert's language, though I don't have the name of the translator with me right now), but I had that sad feeling the whole time that I'll never truly be able to appreciate its 'perfection' in English.Originally Posted by *Classic*Charm*
For those of you making the argument for Madame Bovary, is this having read a translation or in the original French?
Just curious
Last edited by ThousandthIsle; 04-29-2009 at 10:33 AM. Reason: type-o
Sometimes they can be one and the same.
Lolita may be a perfect piece of writing, but it is genius. Madame Bovary is also profound.
For me, Gatsby is one example that I felt could have been 'perfectly written,' but the content did not equal the skill.
Agree about Gatsby. It's a wonderful poetic prose style that heightened an otherwise very simple plot.
Add another vote for The Great Gatsby. It's probably the best written book I've ever read. But like you both say, I wish the content would have been a little more meaningful.
"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand."
-George Orwell
I'm not quite getting this notion that a work of art can be "too perfect" or that it is the "flaws" that make a work of art interesting. Mozart's music is often an example of artistic perfection. Nothing is superfluous. This does not mean it lacks a spark... originality... daring. Anything but. Puccini, by comparison, is not brilliant because of his crappy libretto's... rather he succeeds in spite of them. Don Quixote is not made stronger by the inclusion of Cervantes egregious poetry... but rather these flaws are forgotten in contrast to the strength of the work as a whole. A "perfect" work of art is not simply a work of art that follows an obvious formula to perfection. Madame Bovary is anything but lifeless or boring.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
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Yes, StLukes, but Tosca loses something when you realize that she could not possibly have climbed from the jail cells to a jumping platform in the Castel di San Angelo - I looked into it when I went there - she would have had to run for a good 15 minutes up many ramps and flights of stairs, and even then, the structure widens as it goes down, her body would have tossed along the wall and she probably would not have died if she jumped from too low - she would probably have had to taken a backway path to get to a high enough jumping platform, and what then? 15 minutes, 20 minutes? Assuming you can navigate the place, which by the way is essentially a fortress, through all the guards with guns trying to kill you.
Doesn't that take away something?
I was never a huge fan of The Great Gatsby though I can appreciate it. Just was wondering what exactly you mean by "a few too many flaws in content"? I'd be interested to get your further perspective on it
I'm not quite sure what that means either. Is that to do with factual accuracy or not liking the plot/characters?
For instance, racism, antisemitism, sexism, things which cannot really be ignored. When the car passes with a black man inside it with a white woman, and Nick thinks "Only in America" or something like that (I don't feel like quote digging), one cannot help but find that racist.
As for the language though - every word is handpicked.
For instance, racism, antisemitism, sexism, things which cannot really be ignored. When the car passes with a black man inside it with a white woman, and Nick thinks "Only in America" or something like that (I don't feel like quote digging), one cannot help but find that racist.
I don't think that has the least bearing in terms of aesthetics. If it did, Dante would certainly be seriously flawed. The goal of the work of art is not to reinforce our own beliefs or values. It should be an honest expression of the artist's own perceptions. Certainly racism, sexism, religious intolerance, class-based snobbism should be open to critical discussion...
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
Yes, but blatant bigotry in a text cannot be overlooked. Like I said, I think it a somewhat flawless novel, but there is something unsettling, and damaging knowing that the argument the book is putting forward, is applied to people who are racist, sexist and antisemitic, without any questioning of why this is so. One cannot, for instance, not question portrayals of Africans in Hart of Darkness, despite how good the prose is. What is portrayed in the book is as much a part of what makes it flawless as is its prose style.
As for these things not being in critical discussion, why not? Harold Bloom argues for something which he calls "aesthetics", and for books to be judged on "aesthetic grounds" and not political ones, but one would realize, if they read anything he wrote on T. S. Eliot or Ezra Pound, that everything he mentions them, he hammers home how they were anti-Semites, and terrible people, and in Pound's case, dismissed the Cantos as an antisemitic text, and therefore of little value, despite only a few anti-Semitic lines in the text as a whole.
I see no problem looking at content of novels, and finding that the picture they paint has racist, sexist, or other bigoted elements, and therefore concluding that over time, the text has suffered from its aesthetics becoming offensive to modern readers. That is valid, as those portrayals are part of the book.
As Stlukes said, flawlessness and perfection are about economy and choosing le mot juste. I'm of the opinion that perfection in art is impossible (at least in literature), because there is currently no logically perfect language that can precisely describe physical events.
That being said, some of my favorite writers, two being Joyce and Faulkner, have the latent capability of overwriting at almost all instances. This all works perfectly well as long as the author is a strong one. But like The Brothers Karamazov (which is a fantastic novel), their books are hardly flawless.
Yes, but blatant bigotry in a text cannot be overlooked. Like I said, I think it a somewhat flawless novel, but there is something unsettling, and damaging knowing that the argument the book is putting forward, is applied to people who are racist, sexist and antisemitic, without any questioning of why this is so. One cannot, for instance, not question portrayals of Africans in Hart of Darkness, despite how good the prose is. What is portrayed in the book is as much a part of what makes it flawless as is its prose style.
I agree that we must question what is being said from our perspective but I question passing aesthetic judgment based upon the same. Yes, Conrad's portrayal of blacks is sexist by our standards... but Conrad was not writing here and now. His writing is from the perspective of his own time and place. If we are to value the work of literature... the work of art... as offering a window into the perceptions of others... and not merely demanding that it reinforce our own standards/values/beliefs... we must be able to separate what is being said from how it is being said to a certain degree. Can we honestly expect that the the artist not be a product of the time and place in which he or she lived? Am I to imagine that Dante's willingness to place Mohammad... the political figures that he found destructive to his ideals... and even the virtuous pagans are to be seen as "flaws" from my own "enlightened" perspective? Is it not more than likely that our own values would be seen as less than meritorious by these same past cultures to say nothing of the future. In other words... I'm very wary of passing judgment upon art based upon issues of morality... especially from a "holier-than-thou" position.
As for these things not being in critical discussion, why not? Harold Bloom argues for something which he calls "aesthetics", and for books to be judged on "aesthetic grounds" and not political ones, but one would realize, if they read anything he wrote on T. S. Eliot or Ezra Pound, that everything he mentions them, he hammers home how they were anti-Semites, and terrible people, and in Pound's case, dismissed the Cantos as an antisemitic text, and therefore of little value, despite only a few anti-Semitic lines in the text as a whole.
Bloom, from what I remember, admits to cringing at Shylock... and certainly at Pound... and is more than distressed at Eliot's Neo-Christianity... but he also admits that he read and loved every last word of Eliot again and again. I felt he was more put off by Eliot as an anti-Romanticist... someone who could dismiss Blake or Shelley... while Bloom himself is an admitted late-Romantic critic who embraced Hart Crane over Eliot.
I see no problem looking at content of novels, and finding that the picture they paint has racist, sexist, or other bigoted elements, and therefore concluding that over time, the text has suffered from its aesthetics becoming offensive to modern readers. That is valid, as those portrayals are part of the book.
And when the situation changes...? When/if we find ourselves once again in the throws of a Neo-Conservative revolution and even approaching a new theocracy... are we then willing to accept that any number of works are suddenly to be deemed seriously flawed under those conditions... or is it just a one-way development with an assumption that we will become an ever increasingly kinder gentler society?
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
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