thoughts

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Spencer Thiel wrote:
> 
> At 8:08 AM -0600 1/28/00, DudiousMax at aol.com wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> >But it is still important that we readers know which genres
> >they are.
> [snip]
> 
> Why?  This is an honest question and not a cynical remark.  I never ever
> think of this stuff when I read a book.  Maybe it is my science training
> that makes me scoff at categorization of fiction.  Fiction is by its very
> nature relative to the person or persons who wrote it and therefore can't
> be placed into nice little flow charts.  Is it really necessary, or even
> possible to figure out where Pynchon fits in in literary history? 


The question of genre attribution, is, as you say, not a
necessary, and certainly not a sufficient one, but it is a
central problem for many lit-critics--those that engage in
textual criticism anyway, since a "critical" and
"evaluative," as distinct from a historical study involves,
in some form or other, an appeal to such structures. We can
agree that every novel is novel and I think this is the
case. Ulysses is unique, Moby-Dick is unique, V. is unique.
As a scientist, lets say a biologist, surely you can see the
value of Aristotle's "categorizations." We can insist that
all nature's creatures are unique, but a science needs to
categorize, and biologists recognize that classification has
value, even as they insist that all nature's creatures are
unique.     

 Would
> anyone care if English majors weren't forced to read Aristotle?  

Well I don't want anyone to be forced to read anyone, but
Please read Aristotle. Don't buy the crap that his literary
"categories" are of no use.  They are very important, if
only as an example of the limits of the structures you
question, the usefulness of such structures, their impact on
"Poets" and the impact "Poets" have on these changing
structures. Also, Aristotle's ideas on a subject matter like
Drama can not be fully appreciated by reading De Poetica. 


Am I going
> to be on my death bed, filled with regret because I couldn't ever figure
> out what post-modern meant?  

Nope, not with any more regret than I have for not figuring
out why grapes grow on vines and apples grow on branches, I
think. 

Do I miss something when I read his books
> because I am not able to identify the transition between Menippean Satire
> and regular satire?

NO! But let me say, the genre game can be very helpful.  

Here is something you may or may not find helpful: 

Here is a condensed list of  Hohmann's take on the "Modern
Menippean Satire" of GR. He combines, Frye, Mendelson, Eliot
Braha (Braha's dissertation, "Menippean Form in GR and Other
Contemporary American Texts." Diss. Columbia Univ. 1979 ,
and Bakhtin. 




 
1) Carnival
2) quest-motif serves to test philosophical truths
3) the trilevelled construction of "earth," a "nether world"
and an "olympus" 
4) dissolution or merging of identities, in particular, the
motif of the double.
5) extraordinary freedom of philosophical invention within
the plot
6) combination of free fantasy, symbolism and --on
occasion--the mystical religious element with the crude
naturalism of low life
7) the concern with ultimate philosophical positions
8) the experimental fantasticality in the handling of
perspective which can imperceptibly shift from ant's to
bird's view
9) eccentric or scandalous behaviour--spectacular
stomach-turning passages
10) utopian--or, to be more accurate, dystopian--elements of
the quest motif
11) the juxtaposition of items normally distant, often in
oxymoronic combinations
12) the parody of various genres and the mixture of prose
and verse diction
13) the variety of styles
15) topicality and publicistic quality--WWII novel that
illustrates ideological issues of the 1960s

Now this may be of no use to you at all or it may be a bunch
of lit-crit terms. I'll provide an example of any of these
from GR and or several other books if you are interested and
I will explain any term you ask me to define. 

Do you need to know any of this to read GR? NO! Will it
help? It might. Will it hurt? It might, and this is one of
the reasons some teachers of literature advise against
reading lit-crit. I still contend that the best book to read
with GR is V. and I still contend that the best book to read
with Ulysses is Portrait, the best book to read with
Moby-Dick is Confidence Man, but some want to get into the
text a little differently, so they read lit-crit and so on.
I think having different backrounds on a list is one of the
most positive things about these internet discussions. So I
think it is wise, prudent and fair, to avoid jargon and
such, but I think a little bit is very helpful. Too much and
we begin to have cross-talk. 

TF