How Flaubert Changed Literature Forever

Jamie McKittrick jamiemckit at gmail.com
Mon Dec 15 17:27:20 CST 2014


Yessir, great stuff.

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 8:35 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
>
> Yup -  from me, too!
>
> Bekah
>
> > On Dec 15, 2014, at 10:52 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 5:31 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>    This piece (first printed on Jan. 18 1999) is important for several
> >> reasons. Here we see the Uber-critic as Ultra-aesthtete show us the
> Birth of
> >> Style in Flaubert as he demonstrates his credibility by mentioning a
> number
> >> of important figures while setting forth his position on what Fine
> >> Literature should be. But more importantly this sets the stage for his
> big
> >> piece which would appear several months after this article; in July of
> 2000
> >> the NEw Rep published Wood's "Human All Too Inhuman" in which Wood
> coined
> >> his term "hysterical realism", targeting Pynchon amongst other authors.
> This
> >> is the rock upon which Wood has built his reputation. And this stance
> has
> >> served him well. His trajectory has led him to a position in Harvard
> despite
> >> not having a PhD, no minor accomplishment.
> >>
> >>   (That this is Wood's religion is clearest when he writes of
> "'aesthetic
> >> mysticism' worthy of ... reverence" at the end of the article on
> Flaubert.
> >> To understand his belief we may take a line from late Wittgenstein and
> alter
> >> it to: "He acts with complete certainty. But this certainty is his
> own." But
> >> that would be better suited to the game philosophers play and that is
> not
> >> Wood's cup of tea. One must take a different tack.)
> >>
> >>  Wood ostensibly strives for "bearable levels" of what Joyce called "the
> >> scholastic stink" (see his intro to How Fiction Works), and yet it is
> >> interesting what is included or excluded from his citation list. Russian
> >> formalists and Roland Barthes appear often. But what does this reduction
> >> render?
> >>
> >>       After Wood's "How Fiction Works" was published at least two people
> >> noticed something that no one else had seemed to pick up on. Both
> William
> >> Deresiewicz and Thomas Jones realized that Wood had made a monumental
> >> mistake in his reading of a section of Joyce's "Portrait..." regarding
> >> Mr.Casey's cramped fingers. Wood really thought that Mr. Casey's fingers
> >> were cramped from making a present when it was actually due to hard
> labor.
> >> Scholarship has shown that Joyce modeled that character of Casey on a
> friend
> >> of his father who had done hard labor.
> >>
> >>   Reducing scholastic odors may be fine for literary authors but for
> >> critics and scholars it could be a problem. Wood's aestheticism requires
> >> that he not look very far beyond the pages of a book to grasp what it
> means
> >> for him; it can not be seen as a cultural product that originates in a
> >> specific social context.
> >>
> >>    Wood's article on Flaubert appeared seven years after Pierre
> Bourdieu's
> >> own impressive book "The Rules of Art" (in part written in contrast and
> >> response to Sartre's study of Flaubert), which focused on Flaubert and
> >> specifically Sentimental Education. Bourdieu asigns Flaubert a
> significant
> >> position in the field of french literature in the latter 1800's, so one
> >> might expect it to appear in an article about his pivotal role in
> >> literature; however, Bourdieu is not Wood's cup of theory.
> >>
> >>  In fact the article's title is not in line with the writer's aim.
> Afterall
> >> it doesn't inform the reader about how things were in belles lettres
> prior
> >> to Flaubert.  It might be better titled "The Origin of Style" or the
> Birth
> >> of the Modern Literary Aesthetic since Wood is trying to convince us of
> >> where fine literary style comes from and how it should be done.
> >>
> >>  And so? Well, Wood has done well for himself, but I suspect we may
> begin
> >> to see him change a bit. No radical u-turns mind you, but some subtle
> >> shifting in poistion. Bear in mind that he is no longer New Republic but
> >> Harvard and changes of institution accompany changes in position. Go
> watch
> >> the video on Youtube    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsbKT50ud04
> >> around the seven minute mark he speaks of having his" blindnesses
> corrected"
> >> regarding DFW. Does this mean that someday he may reevaluate his view of
> >> Pynchon? Who knows. I would say that the present day world (drones,
> Boston
> >> Dynamics, CSER, Snuggies, assassinations (successful, botched or
> >> radioactve), all make Pynchon's work pertinent and fresh. And as much
> as I
> >> can appreciate Wood's love of WG Sebald I doubt that that author will
> speak
> >> to as many readers as Pynchon's work will continue to do.
> >>
> >> Gone on too long - happy holidays
> >> otis
> >>
> >> On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 1:54 PM, Dave Monroe <
> against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120543/james-wood-flaubert-and-chekhovs-influence-style-and-literature
> >>> -
> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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