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My despair about America is at least as great as yours, but there's something really ugly here, Judy. I for one live in a neighborhood, and a building, where people of better than half a dozen ethnicities live together in harmony, and New York is perhaps the most tolerant place on the planet. But I know New York isn't America, it's merely eight percent of America, and the northeast, where the same conditions exist in good measure, is a mere quarter of America. As for your catalogue-of-one, you've forgotten not just Melville, as Alison points out, but to name a very few, Twain, Whitman, Dickinson, Williams, Oppen, Niedecker, Faulkner, Olson, O'Hara, Hartley, Dove, the New York School Painters, Hartley, Dove, Cole Porter, Gershwin, Ives, Elliot Carter, Henry James, and yes, his brother William--we could do worse. Where does this outburst come from? Oh, and I think you mightily underestimate Tolstoy. Mark At 01:03 PM 8/10/2009, you wrote: >And again, Ana, I can only echo "YES!" to what you've written! >I believe, at least for my native country USAmerica, that becoming 'famous' >or 'sanctioned' or 'well known', or of course 'a bestseller', defines our >writer aims. > >In USAmerica, as well, we've a tradition supporting superficiality; we've >little history; we're a hodge-podge of ethnicities; we're loose in a big >pond of little identity-crises'ed fishes, making our own insignia, logoes, >impressa, shields, crests. > >We seldom react to our perceived past going back more than a generation. An >abiding, divisive, brutal, long-accrued story belongs to others, not to us. > Our hate is contemporary; our philosophy is William James; our music is not >ours unless it's African-American, southern white, or native American, so we >denigrate these. > >We haven't a THINKING tradition; we haven't a WORD-LOVE tradition. We have >a marketing, money-making tradition. > >How, then, can we have excellent novels, short stories, plays, or poems? We >cannot, except for the exceptional: TS Eliot. > >I love Chekhov's short stories. I love Lermontov, Gogol----but not Tolstoy >whose thought ran less subtly and less deeply than the others. > >I enjoy your messages thoroughly! > >Best, > >Judy > >2003/1/1 Ana Olinto <[log in to unmask]> > > > alison, i think i should admit, with judy, that i usually don't read many > > novels - in my case, contemporary ones, i do read some earlier ones - and > > that, in consequence, i'm not the best person to talk about them - in my > > case, > > not about contemporary ones. > > but i think it would be also interesting to ask us why. > > i'm no, as my posts may suggest, sectarian. my favourite novelist may well > > be > > dostoievsky - the opposite of valéry; i prefer a good > > contemporary neo-classical musical composition than most - in fact all - > > contemporary musical "geniuses" i know. > > my favourite contemporary poet here in brazil is alberto cunha melo, > > despised by the avant-garde and self-confessed "neo-classic" who > > tastes like the past and for most of the time writes in octossylabes. > > i must admit that the reason i don't add contemporary novelists to my > > list of good contemporary artists is plainly because i don't read > > contemporary novels, and the reason for that is plainly that, contrary > > to listen to a cd and reading one poem, it takes a lot of time to do that. > > the contemporary novelists you cite may well be more contemporary > > - and better - than alberto da cunha melo's poetry - they most likely are. > > yet, i do worship dr. faustus. > > the question is, i tend to see as dispersive too much attention to too many > > - > > or too recent - novels. we should be whole, integral beings, and i think a > > philosophical grounding is as important - and in some aspects more - than > > art. > > i think hermann broch is the last novelist i see as fundamental. when you > > say > > someone has just written a novel which studies "silence and selfhood", i > > tend to > > think it would be more enlightening to write a philosophical treatise on > > such themes > > - in the manner of husserl, whitehead or bergson, three twentieth century > > philosophers of whom i'm fond, from completely different schools - or a > > philosophical "meditative" poem on them, such as eliot's four quartets is a > > meditative poem on the theme "time" - and i certainly wouldn't recommend > > her to > > write it in husserl's or whitehead's of bergson's or eliot's style, but, > > quite > > enthusiastically, in michele desborders' . > > what i'm questioning is not the talent or insights of all contemporary > > novelists, > > but the contemporaryness of the novel form. however unusual and surprising > > a > > novel may be, it does takes what frederick called a sustained "relentless > > cumulative > > power" to write one, and i'm questioning the presence of this power in > > today's > > world. > > it is not the narrative form that i see as out of fashion - though i do see > > the > > dancing, no-aim feeling as indispensable in a contemporary art book, but > > you > > can have a narrative - something which is closer to prose than to poetry, > > and that > > tells some story - with that characteristic - , but just a too coherent and > > too big > > narrative book. > > x-ana > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]> > > To: <[log in to unmask]> > > Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 6:26 PM > > > > Subject: Re: "incapacity"/New Formalism > > > > > > Hi Ana - I don't know about claims about what seems contemporary or > > modern, or that prose narrative isn't capable of contemporary > > purchase. I think story matters just as much now as it ever has. I've > > read some astounding novels in the past few months, from the lyric > > exploration of silence and selfhood in Michele Desbordes (who is > > extraordinary in my book, and whose books only came out in the past 10 > > years, although to my sadness she died not so long ago) to the > > astounding mid-20th century polyvoice epic of Victor Serge to the > > wickedly funny and black fables of Arto Paaslini. Robert Pinget, WG > > Sebald, Thomas Mann (Dr Faustus), Christa Wolf. These are just names > > plucked out of a hat, but none of them work in the way you (or Nerval, > > who write some mean prose himself) describe. > > > > I do agree however that poetry is a lot like dance. At least, whenever > > I write about dance, I always end up talking about poetry. I tried to > > explore this in a piece on a work by choreographer Lucy Guerin, who > > lately has been working quite a bit with language - > > http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2008/10/miaf-corridor.html - which > > I'll take the liberty of quoting below, only because it's pertinent to > > this discussion: > > > > Like novels or short stories, theatre finds its poetic through > > narrative. The narrative might be displaced or distorted or multiple, > > or it might be absolutely linear; but however it appears, narrative is > > a tendency that the form must wrestle with, either to reject or to > > accept, to reveal or to distort. Poetry, on the other hand, need not > > deal with narrative at all: a poem might be an epic story like > > Paradise Lost, or it might be a vivid glimpse of a moment, as in Ezra > > Pound's In a Station of the Metro. It's up to the poet, a decision > > that can be freely asserted because of the nature of poetry itself. > > > > What is primary in both poetry and dance is its materiality. Just as > > poetry foregrounds the sensuous and rhythmic qualities of language, so > > dance celebrates the sensuous and rhythmic qualities of gesture. > > Neither needs to be more than the dynamic and immediate movement of > > exchange between reader and page, singer and listener, audience and > > performer, and for each this contract is more easily grasped than in > > theatre or in novels, where the tending towards narrative and > > explication must be resisted with active violence. > > > > xA > > > > On Wed, Jan 1, 2003 at 7:02 PM, Ana Olinto<[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > >> i think the last posts by dominic, frederick and alison touch the heart of > >> my question. i think valéry was right when > >> he saw something new and irreversible in nerval, poe and then baudelaire. > >> he defined prose as closer to walking, in which all our movements are a > >> consequence of aiming at some spot, > >> and poetry as closer to dance, in which all our movements are an end in > >> itself. > >> sappho's "more than a hero" is narrative, linear, but doensn't feel like > >> having, in its movements, an aim in mind - > >> or at least not in an emphatic way . > >> now, the difference between sappho and modern poetry is only one of > >> degree. > >> modern poets just intensified the > >> feeling of not aiming at anything. > >> this dancing, no-aim feeling can be seen as typical not so much of poetry > >> as > >> opposed to prose as of modern, > >> radically non-linear, as opposed to orthodox sensitivity. > >> that's why i do tend to see the novel form and even more the epic form as > >> not sufficiently contemporary - just as > >> the sonnet form, and, in music, the sonata form - the musical feeling of > >> aim > >> - or what francis bacon called what can > >> be seen, in painting, as a picture which "tells a story". > >> it is not necessarily much attention to sounds or even to the whole > >> texture > >> of words - not necessarily hermeticism > >> or even much complexity which makes a text feel contemporary (it's not a > >> question of a poetry versus prose > >> dichotomy). to my mind, it's the no-aim feeling. > >> chekhov said he usually composed a tale, and then threw away the beginning > >> and the end: that has to do with what > >> i'm calling no-aim. what makes chekhov so modern and almost contemporary > >> is > >> the no-aim feeling he gives us, > >> even writting in prose, and a very linear one - it is in its totality - > >> and > >> not just the totality of the tale, but also each of the > >> totalities which constitute each of its paragraphs - that it ceases to be > >> linear. > >> a good chekhov tale is not very different, structurally, from the best > >> longer narrative poems by elizabeth bishop - a > >> chekhov fan herself - but of course there is a lot of difference in style > >> - > >> and of course she intensified a lot the thing, > >> and cared a lot more about resourses more typical to poetry - thanks to > >> nerval, poe, baudelaire and their followers. > >> it's not so much a question of superficially "modern" resources, such as > >> playing with time structures or making > >> your narrative more fragmentary and saturated with "poetic", as opposed to > >> prosy, components: you can have all > >> flashbacks, word-games and local non-linearity and still direct us to a > >> closed aim. > >> i agree that "it is hard today for an intellectual to be clear what his > >> tribe values, goals, heroes and enemies are, or > >> about what one's 'tribe' is" and that the sustained "relentless cumulative > >> power" of traditional epics - and novels - > >> were possible thanks to that power, now dead. > >> this doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't have any philosophical grounding > >> today. on the contrary, i see as most negative > >> precisely the fact that any groundings are lacking in today's world, and > >> defining frontiers in art procedures - and here i > >> suspect frederik will agree with me - is a sign of some grounding. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]> > >> To: <[log in to unmask]> > >> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 7:16 PM > >> Subject: Re: "incapacity"/New Formalism > >> > >> > >> I was thinking of gypsy tales, Eulenspiegel, Gilgamesh, folk tales... > >> (I'll pass over the "oral traditions are not literature" question, > >> which is very wobbly - there's lots to learn about story telling from > >> oral tales). > >> > >> I'd say the primary shape of epic is circularity. And Sappho's "How > >> like a god he seems to me" is a narrative as much as Homer is. > >> > >> I can't see that that the structural demands of story in prose and > >> poetry are very different. You have to tell a story in a way that > >> commands attention. I ended up thinking that was a primarily question > >> of rhythmic control, in the sense of large movements and at the level > >> of the sentence/line. > >> > >> I've never got linearity as applied to story, unless it means one > >> thing after another moving forward in literal time, as Hal suggests; > >> in which case lyric is definitely linear too. Every story goes > >> backwards and forwards, because it reflects how memory works - I can't > >> think of a single epic poem without divagations and distortions of > >> imagined time - the lnvocation of the muses in the present that begins > >> the Iliad or the stories of the gods, the bizarre leaps back and forth > >> in Beowulf, Aeneas's visits to the dead, Milton's sudden moving > >> description of his blindness in Paradise Lost, etc etc. > >> > >> xA > >> > >>> > >>> "simplest kinds of story telling (oral tales, say) are often far too > >>> fragmentary" - depends, I suppose, what you're thinking of. Marko the > >>> Prince and other oral epics of Serbia - very straightforward and Homeric. > >>> Likewise Gilgamesh, probably based on oral tales. And then the crucial > >>> term > >>> is "based on." I was talking about literature, not oral traditions. > >>> > >>> Vergil: Augustus and Rome. Tasso: aristocratic Catholic Europe. Camoes: > >>> imperial Portugal and expansionist Europe. Milton: the radical > >>> Reformation. > >>> Nazim Hikmet: the international proletariat. Tribes. > >>> > >>> The inherent requirements of narrative poetry are very different from > >>> those > >>> of the novel. "[Moving] forward and backward in space and time in ways > >>> that > >>> are not straightforward at all" gets in the way. Linearity (I'll drop the > >>> quotes), coherence, relentless cumulative power, are needed. Their > >>> absence > >>> - a refusal to differentiate between narrative and lyric - makes > >>> Walcott's > >>> Omeros unreadable. Their presence makes Glyn Maxwell's Time's Fool > >>> lastingly enjoyable and useful, despite the relative triviality of its > >>> theme. > >>> > >>> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au > >> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com > >> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com > >> > >> > > > > > > -- > > Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au > > Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com > > Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com > >