Atdtda22: [42.1i] Modern poetry, 607

[Paul Nightingale]

I could say I sometimes throw out such contentious titbits to see if anyone
is paying attention. However, this has taken me by surprise, a tad.

Some would differentiate between modernism (as a way of seeing) and
modernity (as a way of periodising), and I can see the point of doing that.
To say modernity begins and ends does beg the question when.

The main point, of course, is that discursively everything is connected if
not directly, and it becomes the analyst's job (in this case the novelist's)
to seek out those connections (in Foucault's words, the relations between
statements). One can try to relate, eg, Durkheim's Suicide to Anna Karenina
without too much bother. Whether it's done successfully, and who defines
success, is another matter; but this strikes me as a more interesting
critical/theoretical exercise than most. And it shouldn't lead to
reductionism of the 'Pynchon hates trains/TV' kind. Tunnel-visionists need
not apply.



>From Monte:

Can't fault you for ambition. My experience has been that except in very
skillful hands (and that would include Jameson's), anything stretched that
far tends to oscillate between vacuity (because it has to impose coherence
on "Things That Happened Between <startdate> and <enddate>")...

And tunnel vision or outright intellectual imperialism: as in Madsen's case,
dismissing a huge preponderance of "straight" or "traditional" Western
narratives that reached many millions, and defining a comparatively narrow
Turner-Wister-John Ford lineage -- one incorporating the cultural critique
which engages Madsen's interest -- as the "true" Western.