How Flaubert Changed Literature Forever

Tue Dec 16 04:47:10 CST 2014

I like how fiction works. It's easy to read and wood avoids the jargon and
shop talk that so many young academics are addicted to. The book is small
and compact and useful. Any effort to explain how fiction works will fall
short, but in this small book wood has come close. I also like his broken
estate. Not sure he quite gets american fiction, or Pynchon right, prefer
Tanner, and he's no booth, but he's a great critic, writes with clear itch
and originality....

On Tuesday, December 16, 2014, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> SmFirst. To try to plumb the sources Of a I good critic's aesthetic
> positions does not make him less " good"  ( when he is good) and to show
> his limitations is a worthy goal.
>
> Wood did not make his name by dissing Pynchon.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Dec 15, 2014, at 6:22 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > 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
> <javascript:;>> 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    DT Max and James Wood on David Foster Wallace
> | Mahindra Humanities Center <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 <javascript:;>>
> >> 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
>
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