Chap 16, The Price of Wisdom is above Ruby's...

[alice wellintown]

Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> That what TRP does with his characters is  "juvenile vaudeville" is what Wood sez.

He says a lot more than this, but you will need to read his books to
critique them. I've read all but his novel attempt and I say there is
a reason why he is the most celebrated young critic around: he is
great.  That said, I agree that he has trouble with what Weisenburger
aptly names the "Fables of Subversion." He has a blind spot, often
ridiculed as conservative or stodgy rigidity (hew admiration for James
& Co.) or even stiff upper lip British elitism, but I would define it
as a misreading of American satire and romance, including and most
glaringly of those American fabulists he claims have inherited
Melville's broken estate.

>
> What Wood cannot see is the meaning of humor as anarchic joy, juvenile and otherwise, in his fiction. He cannot allow himself the time/trouble to feel more deeply what meaning TRP gives it in his work.

His critique, that P does not give the reader proper lessons in how we
are to read his texts and specifically his characters is proven on
this list daily.

> The man complained to Helen Vendler about how much time babies/kids took
> to care for. She told him raising them 'would make him a better reader'.
> Time might tell, but I think he has internalized realistic earnestness overmuch in his Causabon-like quest. He may go down in history as Saintsbury did, voracious reader who missed so many of the great writers of his time.

I agree.

> We could predict that from Sterne, through Swift, through Rabelais thru Dickens and the Marx Brothers, Wood would find the humor 'juvenile vaudeville'. Humor mostly is. I suggest the novelistic point is whether it IS witty and who is scored satirically and well.

Yet the humor of the California trilogy is clearly not the profound
and subversive humor of the big romances. Wood complains that the big
books point to themselves and are hysterical. He is right. But this is
no reason to complain. Wood doesn't like fiction that denies
character, for to deny character is to deny the novel.

> Re below:
> Doc does care. And your simple dissing while glossing the characters shows
> more yet to talk about, minor, or richer or failed novel that IV is being judged.

Why should he care? He asks about her vibe, but that's all. He moves
along. She seems a fixture. The more important question is, why does P
make us not care or undermine our interest in this character?