Interlude: If James Wood Supposes...

[Michael Bailey]

Paul Mackin  wrote:
> >
> We can't say however that words are ALL (everyhing) novels and fiction
> are about.
>

this reminds me of a discussion in Fall 2005 about CS Peirce and the
role of signs.  an oddly heated one by my newbie standards...
can't remember reaching an easily stated conclusion on those issues

> Of course whatever either of them is doing no matter how lighthearted
> has a political content.

Even if there's no "pure" writing, I think that the choice to write fiction
instead of polemic should be respected, and a work judged as fiction.

> Nothing wrong with that unless maybe the point being made is banal
> and/or already firmly ingrained in the reader/viewer's standard way of
> thinking. Then it can seem like gilding the lily or worse.
>

to think a fiction narrative is created to make a point that
could be stated more clearly and succinctly in non-fiction;
and then to disagree with that point and therefore negatively
judge the fiction, would make Nabokov pee down on us from Heaven.

Like Vibe, I want to commission a nullification field, but not for
free power from the Tesla generator - rather for the free pass
that politics gives to bad behavior, bad language, bad logic...

> Guess the thing to remember is that Woods' views are just personal
> opinion. Isn't protesting too much over it is a bit defensive sounding?
> People who like Pynchon just as he is can still be happy with that fact.
>

I agree.  And I think he made some good points, especially sending
readers to the great novels originating in the AtD years - though I would
suggest reading them not instead of, but as preludes or afterplay to AtD.










-- 
Young Scrooge:
Life is filled with tough jobs, and there'll always be sharpies to cheat me.
Well, I'll be tougher than the toughies and sharper than the
sharpies...and I'll make my money square.

---From The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa