Interlude: If James Wood Supposes...

[Paul Mackin]

rich wrote:
> Why does James Woods feel that fiction written with a birds-eye view
> and baked with a sprig of absurdity is somehow illegitimate?
>
> it's rather limiting I would think not to try to speak using tools
> prevalent in a modern day, advanced industrial society
>
> I think Woods also misses the wonders to be had telling stories in a
> number of genres
>
> being a Brit of a certain kind, he also misses the glory of
> jazz-inflected, comic book painted, goofy, marijuana-tinged delicacies
> which some American writers are prone to.
>
> anyway
>   
It's all pretty undecidable as far as I can see.

Balance is all.

Similar questions come up in movie making. Similar but of course different.

Last evening I watched a dvd of "Children of Men."

Reviewers like Manohla Dargis went through the roof praising the film 
for its cinematic values, fabulous mise en scene of sets, actors, 
costumes, car chases, hand held camera work, etc.

We might consider these kinds of things as analogous to Pynchon's 
sublime way with words, regardless of whether he's being zany or lyrical 
(which positives Woods by the way never fails to give him credit for).

Many ordinary viewers of course appreciate these perhaps slightly 
high-brow film values. Personally I found "Children of Men" well worth 
watching just for its pyrotechnics. Equally however many did not like 
the fact that the movie's story was--not to put too fine a point on 
it---exceeding implausible and in the end not very moving. I honestly 
didn't care about anyone in the movie iincluding, I ashamedly say, the 
mother and child.

I guess I read Pynchon for the "pyrotechnics" but at the same time long 
for characters I could care about and a decent plot once in a while.

P.
> On Feb 2, 2008 7:03 AM, Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net> wrote:
>   
>>
>> I don't know what got me thinking about this number from Singing in the
>> Rain, but it connects with my response to Pynchon's holy fool-ishness -- all
>> the puns, jokey songs, pie fights, "vitality at all costs" etc. that turn
>> off some readers and critics.
>>
>> In case you don't know the movie (which would be a shame), it's about
>> Hollywood as 'talkies' came in to replace silent films… some movie stars
>> needed speech coaching to come up to the new standard. Gene Kelly is
>> practicing nonsense phrases with the stuffy instructor, then his buddy
>> Donald O'Connor comes in…
>>
>> But the context is irrelevant and soon forgotten, because what's happeniing
>> is anarchic joy taking over, as close to animation in its perfect loopiness
>> as movies can get. I can never watch it without thinking of Saure Bummer's
>> great rant in GR (440):
>>
>> " 'The point is… a person feels good listening to Rossini…. there is more of
>> the Sublime in the snare-drum part to La Gazza Ladra than in the whole Ninth
>> Symphony… The walls are breached, the balconies are scaled —listen!' It was
>> a night in early May, and the final bombardment of Berlin was in progress.
>> Säure had to shout his head off. 'The Italian girl is in Algiers, the
>> Barber's in the crockery, the magpie's stealing everything in sight! The
>> World is rushing together…' "
>>
>> Turn up the sound.
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFW-_QEHTws
>>
>>
>>     
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