Today's debate question

Tue Dec 22 17:20:33 CST 2015

I don't tend to read much fiction where identification is that
important, although I place a high value on empathy. Pynchon's books
don't seem to require *any* identification with his characters, I
reckon, but I love that their ambition is so much broader than that.
They invoke a compassion for humanity and existence and the
complicated world without confusing that with caring for a handful of
fictional puppets. That seems a harder task than throwing up a bunch
of interesting and flawed individuals who eventually have something
bad happen to them and we go "ohhhh nooooo" and somehow that makes us
better people. Which is 99.9% of the 'literary fiction' read and
discussed in my country...

Although that kind of fiction absolutely has its place, just not in my
cold heart.

On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 6:19 AM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well I'm not sure I know how to debate this. But I've noticed some
> resonances with the beginning of 2666 by Roberto Bolaño; the motivations of
> the four readers of the same author.
>
>
> On Tuesday, December 22, 2015, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Sort of reminds me of computer assisted text analysis.
>>
>> Apropos of nothing but  had to post it.
>>
>> I think the "autistic analyst" is a good figure of speech.
>>
>> The computer's the idiot savant.
>>
>> Without the empathizing reader, it's a pretty bleak proposition all
>> around.
>>
>> I'm not saying don't do it, but it's way secondary.
>>
>> Dispassionate analysis, I'm talking about.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 11:27 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Yeahp, nice response. I called it a debate question for this reason.
>>> Let me try to frame 'the other perspective".
>>>
>>> Literature, including drama and (most) poetry is about Life, "life and
>>> life only--Dylan" in ways most disciplines are not. The distancing of
>>> Logic; science, even the objectivity of the scientific method are not
>>> necessary to it. Our common--and uncommon humanity IS. That humanity
>>> remains abstract and distant unless we can feel it just as our own
>>> emotions---some say our own thoughts even (!)--are reguired to
>>> understand our human feelings, our humanity.
>>> Without being able to identify with the words, scenes and characters
>>> in any work of literature we are as good as autistic. Perhaps a savant
>>> but ultimately clueless to what matters in Literature.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 11:01 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > I see what you’re saying Mark but I still have to disagree with the
>>> > broadness of your statement.    Whether or not a reader’s identification
>>> > with the characters is a good thing or not depends on what she/he’s  reading
>>> > - furthermore,  reading on one level does not eliminate other levels.  -
>>> > Also,  what does “identify” mean in this case?  As far as I can think,
>>> > identification is a range with “knowing someone like that” on one end  ->
>>> > “caring about”  a character being in the middle range -  and becoming
>>> > "psychologically enmeshed with a character” on the rather intense end.
>>> >
>>> > This is good about the more intense identification:
>>> > http://www.salon.com/2012/05/17/can_you_identify/
>>> > Includes books like On the Road (Kerouac) and The Sorrows of Young
>>> > Werther (von Goethe) goes on to contemporary homosexual and racial stuff.
>>> > **
>>> > Also from today in Nebraska re Snoopy the comic strip - the lighter
>>> > "knowing someone like that” -:
>>> >
>>> > http://www.kearneyhub.com/opinions/hubcolumns/lori_potter/we-identify-with-characters-in-peanuts/article_6b6891c0-9a9e-11e5-a9e8-a79105d8c36f.html
>>> >
>>> > Charles Schulz and his “Peanuts” comic strip kids had been fixtures in
>>> > daily newspapers since 1952, but their popularity soared after people saw “A
>>> > Charlie Brown Christmas.”
>>> >
>>> > I was age 9 in 1965, so my friends and I were pretty much like Charlie
>>> > Brown and his friends. Or at least we knew other kids who seemed like them.
>>> >
>>> > Some identified with the inept Charlie Brown, who couldn’t fly a kite,
>>> > kick a football or win a baseball game. Others may have thought our teachers
>>> > and other adults sounded like “wah-wah-wah.”
>>> >
>>> > We knew bossy girls like Lucy. For any Wilcox classmates who thought I
>>> > was one of them, let me set the record straight. I’ve always been
>>> > judgmental, not bossy.
>>> >
>>> > I was a Peppermint Patty tomboy who played sports with the boys at
>>> > recess decades before most Americans thought it was OK for girls to do “boy
>>> > things” and vice versa.
>>> >
>>> > I salute the boys who let me play and risked the shame of losing to a
>>> > girl.
>>> >
>>> > We loved Linus’ innocence and understood why it was so hard for him to
>>> > give up his security blanket. We admired the talents of Schroeder, the piano
>>> > prodigy, and thought it would be cool to have a happy-go-lucky, dream-big,
>>> > drama-loving dog like Snoopy.
>>> >
>>> > ****
>>> > ME >  I personally identified with Charlie Brown and that’s kind of
>>> > cool because he’s a boy. (I’ve identified with other males though so it’s
>>> > not that big a deal.) Know any males like Lucy?  That’s called “Men Explain
>>> > Things to Me.”  - lol -  My big identification thing was Jo in Little Women
>>> > and Nancy Drew -  (good role model stuff there, imo.)
>>> >
>>> > We identify because we know folks like that - and it works well for
>>> > adult readers in satire and tear-jerkers and anti-war movies and so on.
>>> > Some folks identify to the extent of losing themselves in the emotions of
>>> > the character (escape romances?)  ->   After many years of reading many
>>> > books in many groups with many people,  I think some women tend to enjoy
>>> > identifying with characters more than other folks (both sexes) do.  And
>>> > those women who do place importance on the identification factor enjoy
>>> > reading books that are aimed at that.   Do men identify with the guys in war
>>> > novels?  (I have no idea.)  These books aren’t that great imo but they sell
>>> > well.
>>> >
>>> > In Pynchon’s books I’ve identified with some of the women characters -
>>> > a couple in AtD,  CoL49 a little bit,
>>> > Bek
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >> On Dec 22, 2015, at 1:57 AM, Mark Kohut <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/?list=pynchon-l
>>> >
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l