MDDM Ch. 76 ..a sort of Shadow ever in the Room [747.27]

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Morris" Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2002 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: MDDM Ch. 76 ..a sort of Shadow ever in the Room [747.27]


>  What is _NOT_ modern?

Pre-modern, mimetic modes of writing that claim originality, assert to tell
the truth. Therefor it's not a timeline but a question of techniques. Which
is why we have no problems to claim that Sterne was an early postmodernist.

"consistency" or "realism" -- this should not be mixed up. In rejecting any
realism at all an artist can be very consistent.

<< Before we ask "What is Pynchon up to here?" we should first ask ourselves
why we care about this question.

Exactly -- maybe because we have grown up with a whole bunch of literature
claiming to tell us once and for all how the world is about, but realized
that these images were just images, and not even original ones, but only
versions of versions of versions, re-told and re-cycled forever. Robert has
posted two interesting urls on this recently.

I agree to Bandwraith that Johnson & Boswell are brought in to make the
reader think exactly these intertextual questions, ""authorship" and the
weaving together of texts". The postmodern programme in the novel wouldn't
be complete, or better, consistent without it.

> You lit-critters are gnawers of originality!

Can't get the end of Donald Barthelme's story "Conversations with Goethe"
out of my head:

September 1, 1824
(...)
Critics, Goethe said, are the cracked mirror in the grand ballroom of the
creative spirit. No, I said, they were, rather, the extra baggage on the
great cabriolet of conceptual progress. "Eckermann," said Goethe, "shut up."
(D.B., "40 Stories", Penguin 1989, p. 69)

Otto

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