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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 13, 2008 - 10:32am PT
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I am a dogged if not prolific reader—maybe 20 per year-and try to pick books that are ‘worth’ reading. I pick from Bloom’s conical list and intersperse the books that my book group reads, which mostly alternate between 20th century novels and non-fiction. Part of the reason that I read ancient stuff is that I feel ripped off if I read something new that I don’t think is very good—time is tight (if something is considered a classic and I don’t like it, I figure it is my problem.)
In this light, I have been surprised that some relatively new, very well respected and famous novels I have read are not very well told stories and sometimes even the writing needs a good editing hand. Since this is my opinion, I want to try to get more objective criteria.
Any literary types in ST land that can recommend a book with a title that might be “The Theory of the Novel, its History and Modern Approaches, With Examples,” written recently, and not requiring a PhD in literature?
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frodolf
climber
Sweden
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Apr 13, 2008 - 11:33am PT
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I haven't got a PhD, but well a bachelor degree in literature, and I can assure you that you won't find any "objective criteria". There's a whole lot of books on writing, rethorics, style, aesthetics and so on that can be interesting and educating, but you're in the wrong field for objectivity.
In my experience, if you don't like a classic (or a modern work for that matter) it is NOT your problem. If you think it sucks, it sucks. For you. You're right to have your opinion, just as Bloom or whoever. It might not be as enlightened, but it's still valid. Personally, I hate hearing about people suffering through brick-thick "master pieces" that they hate, just because it's supposed to be good. It's simply the wrong way to read, IMHO.
/F.
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Big T
Trad climber
Running Springs, CA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 11:47am PT
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Twenty a year... That seems pretty good. I teach high school English and a lot of my reading is actually re-reading. I probably only read ten new books a year if I'm lucky.
Can you share examples of some of these relatively new titles that were disappointing for you? What is your critical leaning?
One approachable book dealing with critical approaches that I enjoyed is Falling Into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature. As I recall, it's a collection of essays on the topic. Michael McKeon has written at least a couple of books on dealing with evaluative criteria for the novel.
Going climbing in a few minutes...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 13, 2008 - 11:54am PT
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I feel your pain Roger.
(Not that I read that much, what with super topo and ADD and all). Ha ha.
I can't help you with the work about which you're inquiring, but that concept would certainly be something to tackle.
Along the lines of what you're up to reading wise, I read an interesting short piece in the New Yorker about Art Garfunkel's prolific reading habits and his reading list: his leanings seemed similar to yours.
So that might be a place to start, a clue as it were. Maybe google Art Garfunkel and look into it, as I think the piece in the New Yorker alluded to his having a web site which contains his list and there may be something more in terms of his criticism and choices.
I recall he had some definite opinions about modern literature and specific things he didn't like about certain modern works.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Apr 13, 2008 - 12:14pm PT
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I could give you a long list of modern authors, but I'll keep it simple: work your way through the works of Conrad. Most people have read "Heart of Darkness"; however, there's much more and worth the effort. "Victory" is one of my favorites.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 12:29pm PT
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Bloom's conical list? is this hyperbolic?
I think you're doing it yourself, and with your reading group (which is very admirable, by the way). You know or sense there are a limited number of plots, check out the The Internet Public Library for one take (actually several) on the commonality. How do you know this? you've read what others have said are "good books" and you've gotten into an intellectual rut. Good reading is not necessarily easy reading, and "eating" a steady diet of the same stuff can't be all that good.
What literary criticism can do for you is make you aware of the external aspects of the book, the allusions (like the famous farting scene in Moby Dick, never heard of it? I'm shocked!), the state of the author (Hemmingway, Joyce, Homer,...) the historical context (Dickensian England, Dickinsonian Amherst, etc).
To answer your question, though, what makes a good story is that you (and I mean Roger Breedlove) finds something in it that connects with your life experience. That makes literature very personal, and as broad or narrow as you are (or want to be). It is the same for all of us... we seldom "waste" time on things that don't concern us directly, reading is no different.
Ever read Joyce's Ulysses? I've must have started it a million times, and read bits and pieces, and even quoted passages. I've been around and around it a lot but never ever satisfactorily gotten what I want out of it... I try because Joyce had an idea when he wrote it that I want to grasp, and understand myself. Someday I'll be able to read it, but I just don't have the time (nor have I had it) to devote to doing the hard work of reading it.
What do you want to get out of your reading?
Did you Google "history of the modern novel"? That might be a start. But also, you've done the ground work to understand a graduate level exposition of literature, maybe you should just go and take a course. Stop being an "arm chair" literary critic and go and do some work on it. Like you mother told you about climbing: "practice makes perfect," so too for your intellect.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 01:12pm PT
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I feel very comfortable in my opinions about what I like and don't like and I have no sense that I should like something because it is good for me--way to old and pigheaded for that. Maybe a way to say it is that reading and understanding writing is a serious hobby. I am not put off by difficult books if I am reasonably sure that once I get the hang of the author's style it will be enjoyable and fulfilling. Usually that works well for me; sometimes I just have bragging rights for something that is on the "Reading for Pain" list. Being part of a book group with serous readers, it is also helpful to have a broad sense of literature, since collectively we have probably read most of the Western Canon, but individaully no one comes close. It makes for very interesting discussions and forces thoughtful responses.
For example, I started Dante's "Comedy" because it is central to our culture (my friends thought and continue to think I am nuts), but I found it engaging and immediately understood that it speaks to all the same human issues that everyone faces. Mind you, I have to read a lot of commentary to tie the Greek and Roman myths to the text as well as Catholic orthodoxy and Medieval Italian political history. (We also read Eco's "The Name of the Rose" which I thought was terrible, but I had no issues with the history since it is set only a few years after Dante finished his "Comedy"). I remind myself--I used this same argument with a climbing friend--that I hated off-width until I figured it out and I have worked whole seasons (not recently) just to get up some prized new route in the Valley. I also find it very interesting that for the past 2500 years the emotions and desires of people are pretty much the same as today.
Over the years, I have read quite a few books on writing and a few on criticism. But a couple of novels that I did not like have been written relatively recently. They seemed to me to just sort of end in a way that seemed artificial to the storytelling. If they were less gifted writers, I could just put it down, but since they are well respected and obviously know how to construct a story and know how to write, why did they choose to end the story the way they did. Our book group just read Philip Roth's "American Pastoral." One or two liked it, but most of us thought the writing sounded like a 'bad therapy session'--as our resident shrink put it--and that the multiple story elements ended up just being elements in which the reader could more or less decide what was real and what was imagined by the characters. I did not think that the story needed to be 'wrapped' up--it is fine with me that it was just a angry slice of life--but the ending seemed tacked on and did not tie back to the first 90 pages that set up the story in the first place.
Since I have read other books with this approach to story telling, (some that I liked, some that I didn't) I want to better understand it. I have searched a bit online and at the book stores, but mostly I see reading lists and I don't need any more of those. Has anyone read or know of "The Rhetoric of Fiction" by Wayne Booth? This was written in the early 1960 and updated by the author in 1982. If it were newer, I would read it.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Apr 13, 2008 - 01:34pm PT
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Hi Roger old friend. Wish we could crack a cold one for this discussion.
My $ 0.04 (inflation, y'know...)
With a BA in Theory and Criticism of English Literature I can't actually be bothered to know of any modern summary of the direction of writing. I'm too busy writing myself, musing about it or sparring about it with my editors, and reading the modern stuff that truly grips my heart and gives me the best to chew on.
So one guy: Jim Harrison. Read anything he ever wrote. I am so far down the rabbithole of his writing that of my 20-30 books a year, re-reading Jim Harrison is over half of my total reading. Not ashamed in the least to say I do it to cop moves. And because the mystery of how he does what it is that he does leads me the deepest into the frontier of writing well.
And more deeply because the content of Jim Harrison's musings and ramblings, the depth of his grasp of human psychology swilled in with the terror and wonder of the usual suspects of life itself, just plain fills me up with more than enough to inform my dreams and daydreams.
I too only read half fiction. And I don't write it. (Well, not on purpose.) So the forefront of writing that most fascinates me and most helps me write what I write is the recent application to fiction techniques to nonfiction: personalization, point of view, and most exciting to me at the moment, breaking into the story of the narrator to speak directly to the reader. There are others...
I got to meet Jim Harrison last May and sit at his feet with drinks in our hands for several days (a dozen others were involved) and it was the highlight of the last year...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 01:36pm PT
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some interesting ideas... could it be that the reason the thinking for the last 2500 years seems the same is that the only stories that survived that time were the ones that were the most common, orthodox and accessible?
It sort of reminds me of the issues with the Gnostic Gospels, which ended up on the "cutting room floor" when the final production of the Bible was produced. Now the topic of lots of popular fantasy - on topic tangent, Elaine Pagels wrote a scholarly work on this which brought it to public attention, her husband, Heinz Pagels was a theoretical physicist who died on a scramble on Pyramid Peak at one of the "Snowmass" meetings held every summer by the particle physics community.
Anyway, the point is, stuff that is "good" survives, stuff that is "bad" doesn't. I haven't read Roth, but while you didn't like his novel American Pastoral there is the whole interesting discussion about what he was trying to do when he wrote it... what is it about the finished product that didn't get to where he wanted it to go. That can be an interesting discussion in it's own right.
Where's John Long in this discussion? he's a serious writer with serious ideas on this and should be a part of the thread!
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TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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Apr 13, 2008 - 01:51pm PT
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I will 'lurk' this thread as I find it very interesting.
A couple things Ed said above made me chcukle:
"the Gnostic Gospels, which ended up on the "cutting room floor" when the final production of the Bible was produced. "
Humorous yet apt way to put it.
A good companion read to the Gnostic gospels would be 'The Passover plot'
"Where's John Long in this discussion?"
NS ^ ?
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Apr 13, 2008 - 01:51pm PT
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Or even that the last 2500 years is evolutionarily a handful of generations in the 130,000 years we have been around?
I hope that your non-fiction background is enough to make sense of this observation. It would even survive if there were perfect retention of all written works.
If not, try Fooled by Randomness. I picked that up at the library yesterday. Almost done with it.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 02:19pm PT
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yes, time is short, the canonical generation is 30 years, so 2400 years is a mere 80 generations... the beginning of the logistics curve is indistinguishable from an exponential, so perhaps the reason there aren't a whole lotta stories from the past was that there weren't a whole lotta us back then...
...say 10,000 BC, perhaps a million people, total, that's twice the population of Cleveland. That's a mind blower. 2,500 years ago maybe 100 million, less than half of the current population of the US.
How many stories in the Naked City? (trick question).
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 02:41pm PT
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Morning Doug, morning Ed, morning TIG,
Doug, I have some trips planned for later this year to the City, so maybe we will get to crack a cold one. "I too only read half fiction. And I don't write it. (Well, not on purpose.)" Made me laugh. Some would argue that non-fiction writers are just delusional.
I haven't read any of Jim Harrison's books or poetry. I will pick one up.
Not to beat a dead horse, but your categorization of breaking into the story of the narrator to speak directly to the reader as a recent technique shows up several times in Dante's Comedy. I did a double take the first time he used it.
Hey, Ed, I misspelled canonical.
TIG, interesting point. The 2500 years is back to the earliest Greek writing--Homer is a bit older. A specific element that is easy to trace is humor: stuff that makes me and my friends laugh made ancient Greeks laugh also. I have never thought of a sense of humor as being an evolutionary choice. However, in my travels around the world, it seems to me that every culture pretty much has the same fundamental sense of humor with less variation between cultures than within cultures--there are still lots of humorless folks. If my sense of this is true, then I cannot think of a good reason to exclude it as an evolutionary choice. And if humor has an evolutionary purpose, then I would say all emotions would also have an evolutionary purpose and, as you point out, anything that is only 2500 years old would be pretty much the same as today. Still, how many of us think of the ancient Greeks and anyone else in our ancient past as ‘just like us?’
Best, Roger
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frodolf
climber
Sweden
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Apr 13, 2008 - 03:54pm PT
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Roger, if you're interested in literary forms and structures, check out John G. Cawelti's book Adventure, Mystery and Romance. It's a few years old but has some very good ideas and is still "modern". He recognizes five different archetypal story patterns in, basically, all literature and traces them to different fundamental needs that is inherent to human life. It's mostly about, what he calls, formulaic literature, such as the western, the detective story, romance and so on. But it broadened my understanding of literature as a human phenomenon and I think you'd find it interesting.
F.
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Doug Buchanan
Trad climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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Apr 13, 2008 - 03:59pm PT
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Stop reading.
Start writing.
Therein you will learn much more of what you seek, if you question what you write to insure that it does not contain what you too often find in what you read.
The suggestion is as abhorrent to most readers and teachers as a suggestion that politicians question their own contradicted actions and words rather than everyone else's, so question your reaction to this that you are reading rather than writing. Write your questions.
And have entirely too much fun doing that.
Fun day on the ice tower in Fairbanks yesterday.
DougBuchanan.com
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 13, 2008 - 06:30pm PT
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Unless you’re on an information gathering junket, there are basically two things that make readers sit up in their chairs: humor and vividness. Craft, truth and insight, emotional depth, transcendence, fluidity, erudition, et al, are good and fine but unless a story (or article) is vivid, funny, or both, readers will generally be left wanting.
JL
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 07:39pm PT
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I am not so sure, John. I found Roth's 'American Pastoral' vivid--and even humorous in a macabre way--but still jarring in an overly loose structure. Roth writes well enough, but I was surprised at what seems to be a willful slackening of storyline. (I did not like his repetitive mental conversations, but that was clearly part of what he wanted to do.) There are other newer novels that I have read that seem to be cut from the same idea.
I have vivid recollections of Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" a few years ago. Wolfe had great scenes that were stitched together well enough, but at the end, his story has no resonance. It simply fell apart in contrivances. He would have been better off having all his characters board a bus and then drive it off a cliff.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 13, 2008 - 08:08pm PT
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Roger
I agree that a distaste for many "classics" does not make you an imbecile, but I also think you have the right idea in pursuing these masterpieces. Your disappointment in modern literature is understandable; the example I will use (at the risk of inspiring much wrath) is Toni Morrison. She can write exquisite paragraphs, but her books do not take me anywhere. After reading one of her novels, I respond the same way as I do with so many other contemporary writers: "So what?"
The truly great writers have have two things in common: 1) a belief in something greater to which their art aspires; and 2) a respect for those who came before them. Bloom's book "The Anxiety of Influence" discusses the way so many modern artists reject/scorn the past. The meaning of "creativity" has been so distorted that modern artists think they must produce something totally new; the result is blank canvases hanging in national museums, silence hailed as symphonic, and any mishmash of words considered poetry. Bloom does require a PhD, which I don't have, but his book "Why Read" is very accessible.
Another problem is that so many talented modern writers fall victim to their own success. Their books make so much money that nobody can edit them.
The tough part is that the masterpieces require (and deserve) time and effort...two readings, at least. I suggest you find some essays that extoll the virtues of these masterpieces to help you see the things that modern literary education has hidden from you. David Denby has a couple of books that should help. And talk to somebody who has read (and is genuinely excited by) the books. The problem with taking a class is that you'll probably be subjected to lit crit or theory rather than a close reading of the text.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 13, 2008 - 08:10pm PT
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Roger wrote: "I am not so sure, John. I found Roth's 'American Pastoral' vivid--and even humorous in a macabre way--but still jarring in an overly loose structure."
Now you've opened up the entire po-mo (Post Modernist) can of worms. Some would say that a nice, tidy structure is a total contrivance as it orders/structures (falsely) the chaos and disconnectedness of our lives. The "jarring" feeling you got from the dissoloution of Swede Levov's life in American Pastoral was quite possibly the desired effect and according to more than a few Po-Mo hardliners, a truer existential statement than, say, one of Hardy's hefty sagas or the glib, sequential renderings of most any of the 19th century yarn weavers.
Personally, Roth clowns too much for my taste, whereas Twain was just flat out funny and a much better story teller to boot, even if he had no idea what Po-Mo meant. Joyce and Beckett did, but aside from Dubliners, there wasn't much genuine story telling going on with either dood.
But don't get me started. I'll just ramble . . .
JL
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2008 - 09:16pm PT
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I believe that Roth wrote exactly what he wanted to write and I agree that a tidy story is not very interesting in modern times. But given that, did Roth mean for me to start skimming his paragraphs. Did he mean for me to start composing my jokes, at his expense, for my book group a hundred pages from the end--I tell funny and vivid jokes, but they don't mean anything.
The Swede's twists and turns in his life made for real drama--I have two daughters and a beautiful wife too. I cared what happened and what the characters said. I can relate to the pain.
But in the end it was just pretty writing with no engine. (Bookworm raises the same complaint with Toni Morrison, which makes me nervous since I am about to start "Beloved.")
What I cannot grasp is the writerly purpose of spending the first 90 pages with Zuckerman to set up the story and then just end with a drunken fork that missed Lou's eye. I finally concluded that Zuckerman made up the whole story about the Swede and Mary and Dawn. That is fair enough, but why didn't Roth start on page 91? How could I care about the Swede if it was just Zuckerman ranting in his own head?
I am convinced that there is a reason why Roth wrote it the way he did. If it were a one off, I wouldn't care, but I have read other novels by good writers who seem to share the same idea. I am reminded of my kids, when they were little, telling me long stories in which every sentence began with "And then..." and the final sentence ended in the middle of a thought as some new distraction caught their attention. Charming in kids, if they are your own.
So the name of this is Post Modern? When did Modern end? When does New Post Modern begin?
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