GRGR(29) - The Grid, The Comb

[Paul Mackin]

dddd


On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, Terrance wrote:

> 
> 
> Dave Monroe wrote:
> > .   Who's argument was it that modernist works concerns themselves with
> > epistemology while postmodernist works concern themselves with ontology?
> > Brian McHale (Postmodernist Fiction)?  
> 
> 
> Brian McHale,  claims, "nearly everything is lost in the
> translation. From first to last the reader's experience
> proves that GR will not boil down quite so readily to
> intelligible patterns of theme, or indeed to any of the
> patterns which we have learned to expect from Modernist
> texts." 

But "lost" in an orderly way isn't it? GR is full of organization as
Weisenburger stresses in his introduction. Enough organization to make ten
ordinary modernist novels though it may sometimes take a reader's guide
to appreciate some of it. Once we accept the games played with ontology
and/or temporality (which should be no problem for god fearing
Americans--see my other post--and be only slightly more stressful for
critics) the themes can be followed readily enough can't they? Regardless
of what world we happen to be in at the moment--quite often I suspect in
our own bombed out minds as the famous phrase goes.  That the themes may
be turned on their heads and back again doesn't prevent
their interpretation but gives something to interpret.  Interpret away,
critics, which I'm sure is the point of Terrance' s list of questions. I
think the McHale book is a fine contribution. Even if I never did finish
it I plan to at the next possible opportunity. He did however in the part
I finished seem to have a tendency to really hammer the idea that
ontological violations cause so much concern. Anyway it would have been a
good book even if the word postmodernist novel never appeared in it. If
McHale were writing the book today instead of in 1985 would he use a
different title. Admittantly "Epistemological and Ontological Trends in
Fiction" is not very sexy. On the otherhand is "Postmodernist" all that
sexy today--as it was ten years ago.

Probably I'm getting carried away.

			P.