Today's debate question

Wed Dec 23 11:13:35 CST 2015

Good writing on this topic. I find myself slipping in and out of identification when I read Pynchon and part of what I like about the way he writes is that both states of reading consciousness are facilitated by the text. I think both yield expansion of consciousness as they are integrated and reconsidered. But something would be lost for me if I did not feel what the character is feeling in that tainted but  important process of identification, because despite what Woods says, Pynchon puts you in real places with deft and passionate skill, empathy  and even his attention to history itself has the effect on my mind of a jangling wake up call that these are not only imagined stories but attempts to visit the real with all the strange baggage carried into it both the reader and the teller. 
> On Dec 23, 2015, at 7:12 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Readers may or may not identify or empathize with characters but they participate in characterization and are essential to characterization.  In formal terms, authors are responsible for characterization, just as they are responsible for plots and settings and the other elements of fiction. And, while each reader may have a slightly different read of plot elements, these may be tested by text analysis in ways that readings of character can not. This because each readers has her own characters. So your Lolita is not mine and my Ahab is not exactly yours. We bring so much to the transaction that in characterization our own lives, our own bodies, experiences, points of view, readings of other works by the author, of other authors and so on are brought to the construction of characters or characterization. I identify with Milton's Satan, not with Milton's God, with Hamlet, not Lear, but that doesn't mean that my readings of God and Lear are somehow more objective, fairer to that author more faithful to the text or that my readings of Satan and Hamlet are damaged or weakened by sympathies or by identification. 
> 
> That said, I understand why someone might advise students of literature to read books with protagonists that they would not naturally sympathize with or identify with and why those who give reading advice would caution readers against identification. 
> 
> Getting people to read is not always an easy task. Reluctant readers often prefer characters they can identify with, but reading only these texts or in only this way, often limits one's appreciation of the other elements of fiction, and of style. 
> 
> How a text means not what it means is more likely to be appreciated by those readers who are directed or direct themselves to questions that empathy and identification readings don't often lend themselves to. 
> 
> Young readers, reluctant readers, occasion readers of good or great works need of a lot of motivation. Identification and sympathy can motivate. But P-List readers don't need much motivating, so it's no wonder they would dismiss identification and sympathy as unnecessary, even a distracion. 
> 
>    
> 
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 6:43 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
> My Sister.
> 
> P
> 
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 6:29 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> I totally identify with the paranoia!
> 
> LK
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
> >Sent: Dec 22, 2015 6:20 PM
> >To: Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com>
> >Cc: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>, pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >Subject: Re: Today's debate question
> >
> >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
> 
> 
> 

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l