TR On beliefs in fiction

[Paul Mackin]

On 7/30/2011 1:32 AM, Jed Kelestron wrote:
> 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.

Yes, this is exactly correct.

It might be added that lessons learned, and philosophy imparted, in a 
partially mythologized reality can be quite applicable to life in our 
more standardly received, real life one.

P


>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jul 29, 2011, at 3:21 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com 
> <mailto: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 
>> <mailto: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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