Today's debate question

[Perry Noid]

Well maybe not Borges so much. Not much room for character to development
but a lot are written in first person so there a sort of necessary empathy
there. I think.

On Tuesday, December 22, 2015, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am corn-fused by this proposition. And I also think there might be a
> dividing line btwn academic reading of literature and those who read for
> funzies. And there is also a diff btwn those looking for escape and those
> who like to problem solve. I think Pynchon veers more to the problem
> solving type of literature, along with Nab, Borges, Eco, the kind of stuff
> I enjoy. But then again these books are not devoid of characters you can
> identify with. And I like that too.
>
> Just to be clear, does empathizing with a character imply identifying with
> the character?
>
> On Tuesday, December 22, 2015, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','mark.kohut at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>
>> Proposition: That reading by identification with a character condemns the
>> reading to be second-rate most of the time. The major reason: it reduces
>> the sensibility of the writer, whose sensibility is supposed to be richer
>> than ours ( most of the time) but which at least is Other than ours....
>>
>> To ours. The vaunted empathy is crippled; the genius of observation and
>> imagination is lost. The reading is ultimately solipsistic.
>>
>> Sent from my iPad-
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
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