Twain, Part One and more

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/17/02 9:20:46 AM, fqmorris at hotmail.com writes:

[In the same regard then it it exploitive of YOU - either actively or 
passively - to do anything other than model your life after that of Mother 
Teresa.  Going to your nine-to-five is capitalizing on the fact that the 
poor and uneducated can't get your nine-to-five.  Such a criticism is both 
hypocritical and silly.]

I think it is part and parcel of the Bersani/Art as Authority question that
Monroe presented awhile back. Around then, I started trying to imagine
what a purely non-exploitative work of art would be like and was led to the 
absurd conclusion that maybe completely ignoring the audience was a way 
of achieving it. I'm not sure.

But it seems to be a feedback loop at work. The artist produces and
markets what is marketable. The audience participates not just as exploitee,
but as co-exploiter, especially as the distance between audience and subject
begins to widen with respect to class, race, etc. The work tends to become
more normative, i.e., reinforcing of normative beliefs, perceptions, at large,
even if gussied up to absolve guilt, mimic authenticity of both sublect and
response to sublect, etc... until the art work becomes the standard.

I think I can detect an evolution in Pynchon's work away from this tendency. 
His unique relationship to the literary establishment/industry seems to 
reflect, if not the commitment of Mother Teresa, at least a concerted
effort to avoid the problem of exploitation, more than most. But I think 
any extra-textual statements- even the few he has made- should not be
used to analyze the effects of the works, which may or may not be
exploitative, on their own.

And, it seems to me, particularly important to examine this issue in the
works of artists who have been considered as so great as to have created
a new form, or re-invigorated an older form, e.g., the novel or American
Literature, in the case of Twain and Pynchon. There is all that much more
potential for exploitation.


[Jim was a fictional character.  Twain was a writer, not a nun.  Were real 
black people hurt by his writing?  Were they helped?  What have YOU done to 
help lately?]

It is the fictional Jim which became the norm, the standard for the audience. 
What 
about the real Jim(s) is the question I'm asking, and including some of what 
is
known about the real Samuel Clemens.

What have I done? Not much, contributed to th p-list is about all. Judge away.

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