Satire (was: Prosthetic Paradise)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

"Derek C. Maus" wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
> 
> > My point was not throw out satire, I have been talking about
> > Pynchon's satire here for a year. My comments were replies
> > to an ongoing thread.
> 
> Yes, I know. This was actually the source of my confusion with the
> sentence "As to Satire, throw it out." It seems (probably not just to me)
> as a rather direct call to...well, throw out satire.

I see now, yes, the thread is long and began really with an
attempt to come to an agreement with rj. Knotted into the
thread were all sorts of interesting discussions, but my
intention here was to prevent our getting fixed in terms or
approaches and so I said, throw out satire, but should have
said, OK, if the term satire is a problem throw it out so we
can discuss GR without it. Now, some may say you can't do
that or to do so is foolish or a MS approach is not
incompatible with another approach--Mendleson-- or how can
we reconcile these two. How we can reconcile all the
wonderful scholarship on Pynchon or any other spinner of
yarns is what I talk about all the time, that is why I
identify my approach, as I did when I joined here one year
ago, and as I stated recently, as  Critical Pluralism.
Another term, I know, sorry. 

There is a wonderful essay in "A Companion to Melville
Studies" Edited by John Bryant, the essay is Bryant's own,
"The Confidence-Man: Melville's Problem Novel." Melville's
CM is a novel I think resembles GR a great deal, but what
Bryant writes is, "My point here, is not to argue for one
approach over the other but to suggest that Melville's novel
is problematic precisely because it blends allegory and
comedy, the didactic and mimetic, so seamlessly. The
challenge to critics, it seems to me, is to unite both
structural perspective." 

It's telling that Bryant  says, "Melville's last published
Prose Fiction (my caps) (one hesitates to call it a novel
for its very structure--novel, anatomy, allegory, satire,
comedy--is a matter of considerable debate) remains his
least accessible, even for modern readers." 


> 
> > Throw out satire if the only thing that prevents us from discussing GR
> > is the term satire.
> 
> And my point was that if this is what prevents us from discussing GR then
> maybe we shouldn't be discussing GR (or maybe we should broaden our
> definition of satire as Weisenburger does in the book I mentioned...)

OK, if you like. I'll listen, I'll respond. 


> 
> > BTW Kharpertian disagreement with Mendleson is on pg 21-23, but my point
> > was not that Mendleson is right and Weisenburger is wrong, or Eddins is
> > correct, but so and so is wrong, NO this is what one often reads in the
> > battle of the books-- "Mendleson's genre, while productive is,
> > nevertheless insufficient," And we read this all the time, his approach
> > is OK, but my approach is better, his contains, a fatal fallacy or an
> > absurdity and so on.
> 
> Couldn't agree with you more. But I also have to say that I agree with
> Kharpertian. It IS insufficient...as is Menippean satire. GR is GR. It
> participates in a number of literary conventions, but it (like all books)
> *is not* any one of them. You seem to have been making this point all
> along, so I certainly want to give you credit for this, if it is indeed
> what you intend.

Yup, I agree. 

> 
> > This battle is often about lit-crit pedantics and I think it usually
> > diverts out attention form the text we have in common, in this case GR.
> > I don't think that is what you have in mind here, so lets
> > discuss the book--GR.
> 
> No, it's not what I have in mind at all. And let me clarify my pronoun
> reference in my prior e-mail...I wasn't accusing *you* of being lit-crit
> pedantic...just demonstrating one potential (and valid, actually) literary
> theoretical manner in which satire and encyclopedic narrative can coexist
> peacefully (since genre and mode are technically independent of each
> other). I'd rather not split terminology hairs in this way, but for those
> who do prefer this approach, I wanted to point out that it works in their
> world too.

OK, so we agree, lets get to pie in the sky and all the
other things in GR that keep us reading and laughing.


> 
> I, for one, have rather enjoyed your hosting of this section.

I think our Host is MIA, this may be part of the problem,
hosting takes time and energy and I really didn't appreciate
it until I gave it a try. I'll do it again some time, maybe
a late chapter of GR or another book, but I think hosts
really help a lot and with a book this big and difficult I
really appreciate all the help from everyone. I also
appreciate the posts of folks that are "off topic" or more
poetic, the lardass black holes post recently was a gem, for
example.