reaction to James Wood's New Republic AtD review (part 1)

[bekah]

The James Wood review from New Republic is available at

<http://www.powells.com/review/2007_03_01.html>

Hasn't this been posted before?  It feels like I read it already.  ???

Bekah

At 5:15 AM +0000 7/8/07, mikebailey at speakeasy.net wrote:
>If we consider an n-dimensional manifold
>to be known as novelspace, for the sake
>of simplicity we may choose (among a plethora
>available) 3 major
>dimensions within which to locate a novel:
>
>the ergodic - the work it requires to be appreciated,
>
>the Sentens - the reinforcement of stock virtues,
>  and also memorable form given to useful information
>
>the Solas - the pleasure aroused in the reader
>  by the contemplation of the story
>
>(last 2 after Chaucer, of course)
>
>In addition, we may wish to posit an
>n-dimensional manifold known as criticspace
>and 3 primary dimensions including
>Sense of Tradition
>What is being sought
>Sense of appreciation
>
>Obviously there's a readerspace with its own parameters...
>1) appreciation of authors
>2) appreciation of critics...
>
>from which I recently agreed to a free trial subscription
>of the New Republic in order to read James Wood's
>review of _Against the Day_
>
>Very briefly, my placement of AtD
>1) ergodic - it's more work than I care to do alone
>(hence my grateful presence on the P-list)
>so in my solo read I created polite blank spaces
>on the map to anticipate growth in understanding;
>
>2) sentens - my hypothesis is that P isn't so much
>a political writer as a moral writer.  I contend
>that Webb's flaws are made clear and his moral
>position is shown as every bit as dangerous as Vibe's.
>Vice is punished (or at least, shown to be bad)
>and virtue rewarded (or at least, appreciated)
>motivations and doubts are explored with depth,
>though often succinctly.  In addition, history
>and math references are cleverly worded so as to
>be memorable and inspire further study.
>
>3) solas - this both is and isn't a matter
>of individual taste: it is insofar as it's one's
>own decision whether to do the work to appreciate
>the book, but it isn't in terms of verifiable
>excellence by standards, which the book possesses...
>the more I learn of P's writing and of critical
>standards, the more convinced I become of this...
>(though always willing to entertain contrary notions)
>
>-- an even quicker gander at James Wood in
>criticspace -
>
>1) sense of tradition - he seems to
>be well read and to be in agreement with the "canon"
>(that isn't a complete endorsement, just an observation)
>
>2) What he's looking for - he very kindly provides
>this within fair usage limits for quoting:
>"But what if you wanted a novel that had
>little plot but much internal story,
>that was morally and aesthetically complex,
>stylistically difficult and demanding,
>determined to put language to some kind of
>challenge, formally lovely and alluring,
>humanly serious but also humanly comic
>(I mean a book that comically investigated
>deep human motive)? A novel that was narrated
>in the internal voices of several different
>characters, but characters who really have their
>own voices, not just vaudeville ventriloquism?"
>
>3) Sense of appreciation: he obviously
>has one (see point 2) but AtD didn't meet
>his criteria.  I'm willing to believe he can
>appreciate properly (why else would a person choose
>his modus vivendi) - faulting him for only one statement:
>"Many things can be said
>against this writer, but no one has ever
>accused him of lacking talent.
>(It may be that he has too much.)"  This begs
>for elaboration, but he gives none.
>
>In part 2, obviously I am going to basically
>accept his definition and respond to various
>points in his review in an attempt to
>show how he missed exactly what he's
>looking for...I will refrain from any
>hypotheses on whether he would recognize
>a morsos fundamento from his desiderata...
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