tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31265055.post6666655537118874474..comments2023-09-20T14:18:32.900+02:00Comments on Obscene Desserts: Friday RantJCWoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585322642151280666noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31265055.post-44873625717894424802008-05-04T10:16:00.000+02:002008-05-04T10:16:00.000+02:00Touché, Mr. Joyboy. :-) I know that I have a pench...Touché, Mr. Joyboy. :-) I know that I have a penchant for unwarranted associationism - which used to be a problem in school, where the didactic stipulation to "only write about one story" tended to clash with my somewhat erratic imagination.<BR/><BR/>But this is not school, so I may do as I please. In fact I might patent my style under the label "saltatory blogging" - who knows, maybe it will catch on.<BR/><BR/>As to the issue of social realism et al.: Pity that you weren't at the conference that preceded our meeting in Düsseldorf in April. During this event I not only listened to numerous papers applauding precisely the kind of novels that I was taking apart in my post, but I also was attacked - in a far from subtle way - by some of the youthful participants for what they construed as my hopeless conservatism. In effect, Friday's post had been festering in my mind for almost a month, which might explain the vehemence of my tone.<BR/><BR/>Social realism - yes, absolutely - if we define in the way you do (though I'm not so sure whether it inevitably has to be political in a Mike Leigh kind of sense). It's about time that we rescued the concept of realism from the abuse that it receives from self-appointed radicals primed by the modernist/post-modernist ideology of experimentalism, novelty and subversion (which they don't satisfy either. Let's face it: Foer's little "experiments" with typefont and images are as old as Tristram Shandy and only half as funny - and in the end seem to end in an Ophraesque bid for "closure").<BR/><BR/>Sadly, "realism" is often dismissively associated with "naive mimeticism" - which is in itself a terribly naive thing to do. All literature is representation; it not only reflects the world outside, but it creates worlds of its own, shaped by specific, analysable stylistic, structural, ideological etc. principles. These principles constitute another level of realism: the cognitive reality that allows literature to function - the presentation of minds at work. Cognitive narratologists have done great research in that direction, drawing attention to the fact how even presumably "traditional" novels reveal a complex array of narrative interactions that disturb their realistic surface.<BR/><BR/>But I think I might have to elaborate on that in a special post - as soon as I find the time. As to the question of who currently fits this bill, I'm thinking of British authors like J.G. Ballard, Jim Crace, Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Frayn and Ian McEwan. But here's the rub: they're all oldish whiteish(Ishiguro) middle-class guys - not exotic enough in our days of excess.<BR/><BR/>More to follow. For the moment: thank you so much for this inspiring and challenging comment of yours!https://obscenedesserts.blogspot.com/https://www.blogger.com/profile/14637377045831848328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31265055.post-72484893948964024792008-05-03T23:17:00.000+02:002008-05-03T23:17:00.000+02:00Nice post, with a dramatic shift in the middle!I a...Nice post, with a dramatic shift in the middle!<BR/><BR/>I agree with you about younger English-language writers: so many of these books seem to be either banal or twee. People are catching on -- the reviews of Jonathan Safran Foer's 9/11 novel seemed a bit exasperated. Walter Benn Michaels has also been manning the lonely outpost of "I'm not a conservative, but when did we suddenly decide that all young writers have to populate their books with transsexual butterfly-collecting Buddhists?" I thought his book "The Trouble with Diversity" was only intermittently very good, but I couldn't help share his wonderment at Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America," a counterfactual fantasy which assumes a Lindbergh Presidency in which Jews are discriminated against in public accommodations. Michaels says: "Umm, wait a second. Instead of inventing a parallel universe in which (sympathetic, lovable) Jews were discriminated against, why not write about the real universe in which blacks were?" <BR/><BR/>So my question to you, the wife, is name me some works of art that don't fall into either category -- Neither twee nor banal. My answer is social realism. Books or movies that portray ordinary, flawed characters recognizable from everyday life, but construct moving and plausible plots that involve the viewer. The U.S. hasn't been able to do this since the 1970s, it seems, but England and the Continent keep the flame alive. Some candidates, thrown out at random: all of the miraculous movies by the Dardenne brothers from Belgium, "Thieves Like Us," "Mean Streets," most early Mike Leigh, a lot of Ken Loach. Novels? Crikey, hard to name any. Raymond Carver comes to mind, of course. <BR/><BR/>But books are your department, so enlighten us!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com