TR On beliefs in fiction

[Jed Kelestron]

Well of course the work as a whole is likely to be an expression of an author's sympathies, but what was being asserted here was that since Gaddis utilized mystical or whatever concepts that he believed in mysticism which is a spurious supposition because then one or more would have to believe that he believed in everything he utilized which is absurd. 

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On Jul 29, 2011, at 3:21 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> One might not be able to figure an author's thoughts from the text, but the fictional world & work are interpretable by the author's design, usually.  It's partly why we read fiction. So the values and messages in the text might not be the author's own, but they are his hard wrought product. An author producing a work that is foreign to his own sympathies is probably not going to generate greatness.  So sez I.
> 
> On Friday, July 29, 2011, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > It is the authorial attitude to whatever events an author puts into his fiction, if determinable,
> > that might show the author's beliefs, not just his use for fiction of 'metaphysical' events or meanings
> > the characters hold.
> >  
> > Dostoevsky's fiction has D's answers to the questions of his God-haunted characters.
> >  
> > Camus's fiction has his answers.
> >  
> > Compared to D, Gaddis makes fun of lots of everything about his characters. Makes it hard
> > to determine their relation to certain events they experience.
> >
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