How Flaubert Changed Literature Forever

[alice malice]

I don't care if wood is a high school drop out, he's a damn good
critic. Is this description of wood, as a man minus credentials who
made his name, ...by dissing P,  accurate?

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 6:31 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
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l