HJ "The Art of Fiction"

[Bekah]

Thank you Campbel!   The sentence

> Also, there are critical essays on James's
> influence in/on AGTD and the influence of American Pragmatism  
> generally on Pynchon.

struck me as being worthy of some Googling and I came up with:
http://boundary2.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/35/1/197.pdf

Heck of an essay - some good stuff there -   from Orwell to William  
James.   Henry James isn't mentioned except to say that Pugnax was  
reading HJ.   I checked for some kind of paper exploring the idea of  
HJ's notions in relation to AtD but had no luck.   I'll go it alone:

Walter Besant,  a popular author of the 1880s,  gave a lecture on  
"The Art of Fiction."  He really was trying to help authors of  
fiction and literature to attain the very highest art, skill,   
reputation and so on.  He was a great supporter of Wilkie Collins et  
al.   Trouble is he thought there were rules for good fiction and  
that these rules could be laid out and taught to those who had a  
natural talent.

   James agreed with much of what Besant said,  but took serious  
issue with the "rules" part.    James went so far as to say that  
authors of fiction can write whatever and however the heck they want  
to - the one caveat being that their work be "interesting."   Also,   
(I like this passage):

"The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the  
implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the  
condition of feeling life, in general, so completely that you are  
well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it-this cluster  
of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience, and they occur  
in country and in town, and in the most differing stages of  
education." (James TAoF)

I do have to add that he assumed the goal of all fiction was the  
representation of life and he was starting in on his defense of  
Realism - oh well... .

Both Besant and James:
http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/james.htm

So where does James fit with Pynchon and AtD?   Well,  Pynchon's  
having Pugnax reading The Princess Casamassima is at the very opening  
of the book and that should be a  clue.   Pynchon is telling the  
reader he's going to do whatever he wants here and if it's having a  
dog read TPC while riding in a balloon manned by the Chums of  
Chance,  so be it.  The only requirement is that AtD be interesting.   
(And imo,  he succeeded in that brilliantly.)

TPC is one of James' longer books and it includes more politics and  
violence than usual.  But the politics espoused by the characters  in  
TPC were not those of James by any means.  (Do we know Pynchon's  
politics yet?)  James was pretty opposed to using  literature as a  
soapbox for one's personal political  stands.   Still - both AtD and  
TPC are, at least in part,  about revolution and revolutionaries and  
there's a smattering of violence.  More -  AtD and TPC  both have  
beautiful and intelligent women,  international settings,  a huge  
number characters from all classes.

That's only a bare bones start,  anyone have more?

Bekah

On Jul 20, 2009, at 4:18 AM, Campbel Morgan wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 10:31 PM, Michael
> Bailey<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:>
>
> a) again, welcome to the list, good to see a fresh email header !
>> b) what is it with Henry James, anyway?  Philip Roth quotes him a  
>> lot too!
>> c) where is it written in stone that a novel shouldn't express  
>> political views?
>> d) where in Pynchon can we be sure that we do really see the author
>> expressing his own heartfelt beliefs, rather than putting views in  
>> the
>> mouths of characters for them to be refracted and often refuted by
>> other characters and plot developments?
>
> a)HJ is hot right now. Why is that? Several reasons, including the
> movies that have been produced from his works. In the critical world,
> everyone quotes HJ because he is one of the most influential and
> important American/English critics/novelists of the last 100 years or
> so; the art of writing/reading fiction is the subject of so much of
> what is being written about fiction by the critical industry;  and  of
> course, this is owed, in part,  to the fact that this subject is an
> important one in  modern and postmodern fiction. I quoted James
> because I think an author must have the freedom to write as he or she
> pleases. We can expect and we should welcome experiementation. If
> Thomas Pynchon writes a parody of his own masterwork, Mason & Dixon,
> we can complain that it's not what we wanted, we can critique its
> prose style, its poor character development, its recycled and worn out
> tropes and the like, but we shouldn't ruch to judge a work on the form
> the author chooses. Let them choose; authors, like Angels and Adams
> must be free to Fall. Also, there are critical essays on James's
> influence in/on AGTD and the influence of American Pragmatism
> generally on Pynchon. Thought it might ring a bell. Also, it seems
> there is a debate about the irony and humor and satire of the works
> and how the anarchists and the capitalists are treated in AGTD. It
> seems rather obvious that the novel alludes to HJ, Conrad, Upton
> Sinclair ...others on this subject and reading these others augments,
> even if it doesn't end, the debate.
>
> c) I thought it was "written in/on whatever it is that they write it
> on/in up there" (Zappa). In other words, it's just yellow snow. Of
> course novelists write about politics and express their political
> views in their works. There is a fairly good argument that if one
> doesn't write about politics/history, the Nobel is out of reach (see
> Thomas Foster's How to Read Novels Like a Professor).
>
> d) not easy to pin things down in modern and postmodern fiction, but
> surely any sensitive reader can not fail to understand the heartfelt
> beliefs of this author; progressive modernist pragmatist; not too
> difficult to discover in his essays and so on. What readers feel in
> their hearts as they read is another matter; a more important one by
> far. That is, if they can explain what they feel/think.
>
> Have a nice day,
>
> Campbel
>