Re: The Super thread of literature, art, music, life, and the universe in general
Posted by:
Sawfish (IP Logged)
Date: 17 April, 2021 11:46AM
As usual, these are very cogent and insightful comments, Dale.
Reply interleaved, below:
Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:
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> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Reading books, meeting the characters
> > in the books, is basically a compensation for
> the
> > need of having social meetings.
>
> I like that sentiment, Knygatin, although I'd
> personally say "partial fulfilment of" instead of
> "compensation for".
>
> Harold Bloom, a man whose thinking I've had a
> love/hate relationship with for decades, once said
> in an interview:
>
> "One goes back to books because one cannot
> possibly know enough people."
>
> (According to Bloom, this was an ancient Greek
> adage, but I have not been able to confirm this,
> and it seems unlikely given literacy rates in the
> ancient world and the high cost of producing
> hand-written scrolls.)
Knowing nothing of the man, it sure sounds like he's trying to cultivate an image, doesn't it? The broadly read sophisticate...
But I really ought to give him a chance, I suppose.
Nahhh...
>
> I think dear old Harold's adage connects with what
> you just said, but for me the "meeting" would --
> in most cases -- be with the author, much more
> than with his/her characters.
This is very interesting, Dale!
It underscores a perception that I've had when posting here that there are two basic types of consumers of literature: those who read works like someone consuming a wine of varying quality--concentrating simply on the attributes of the wine, itself.
That's like me.
And there are those who do this, also, but are deeply interested in viticulture and also the varying approaches/philosophies of wine-making, and, significantly, each wine-maker.
They are not only consumers, but students of wine.
Extending this analogy, there are those who also make their own vintages, themselves, or have experimented with it. I, for one, flirted with creative writing in college, and just after. Long enough to realize that I don't have either the skill, or more importantly, the necessary openness to create emotionally compelling fiction.
Truly, I came to the conclusion that to write with conviction the sort of stuff I was interested in--Jim Harrison-like stuff--the author must be personally "open"--must expose him/herself to the degree that I would never be able to.
> Exceptions to this
> would be those very, very few authors who truly
> disappear. Shakespeare would the most obvious
> example, but even his astonishingly wide-ranging
> writings leave a faint impression of the man
> behind them: middle-class, a royalist, perhaps not
> quite as in tune with women as people are inclined
> to think.
Excellent!
I've often viewed him as a sort of Paul McCartney--and I'm not saying this as a comparison of artistic worth--but noting that McCartney is undeniably middle-class and conservative, and appears to have always been so.
And they were both *popular*, in the senses that heir works captured the popular imagination.
>
> I read CAS to relish his imagination, his
> vocabulary and his fatalism.
Yes, and if I might add an observation: you are one of the few regulars who seems to recognize CAS's limitations. He was, indeed, a narrowly limited prose writer. When he was in stride, he did something very special in a very specialized field. Otherwise...
Now, from his artistic voice, and from simply the comments on his life I've read here, he was probably a very likeable guy--I'd probably like him, anyway. But that's apart from his artistic talents.
> I think I would go
> out of my way to avoid Avoosl Wuthoqquan if I ever
> saw him walking down the street.
Unfortunately, Avoosl Wuthoqquan represents one facet of who I am...I'm at least sharp enough not to get too rapacious, though...
Good stuff, Dale! It's why I'm here!
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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