We all need to answer

[Mark Kohut]

I can see that..on Disgrace. Resonant novel.

yeah, I too thought 'our shared cultural upbringing' is GONE.

On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 5:38 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> I read it as high praise for Disgrace because no one can be absolutely
> correct in their interpretation of the novel.
>
> He doesn't go on to explain why such polyvalency is a yardstick truer
> than others. He does make reference to our shared cultural upbringing
> or something of the like - I think he's wrong there. His school of
> reading is in a particular tradition that is far from the only one.
> But of course it's a very influential one, and I think it's an
> excellent one too! But not the only one.
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 9:29 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> And yet he moved Coetzee into the everything can't be great column, no?
>>
>> And was he dissing Coetzee's Disgrace---or the readers who respond in one way?
>>
>> And, a lot of this IS about we readers and not the writers, yes?
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 4:52 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Parks seems to favour a particular literature of omission and
>>> understatement and ambiguity - his trilogy of Sebald, Coetzee and
>>> Ginzburg suggest this. Those are three amazing writers but there are
>>> lots of other praise-worthy authors who aren't going for the same
>>> thing at all. Surely he'd roll his eyes at Pynchon, which is his
>>> right.
>>>
>>> A bit confused by his dissing of so many authors as conniving
>>> technicians carefully constructing their elaborate seductions. How are
>>> the writers he likes any different? Are they just blessed by genius
>>> rather than working at it?
>>>
>>> On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 4:10 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> his end position is also why I love group reads.
>>>>
>>>> And, re DISGRACE. I do not think the "moral equivalency" argument
>>>> holds because the book is not an argument.
>>>> We read the character in it not Coetzee too easily.
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 11:19 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> parks has been very interesting as he works out his full experience of
>>>>> reading and critically. I have been strongly against
>>>>> some aspects of his generalizing, yet find other aspects illuminating.
>>>>>
>>>>> yes to what Monte asks. I was going to ask the plist to riff on
>>>>> 'plot-driven' vs. not but Parks goes there too. (ever since I
>>>>> started trying to read 'the best that has been thought and
>>>>> said'--Arnold and then (too) much avant fiction when young,
>>>>> plot can hardly hold me. Language, prose riffs, insight and
>>>>> complexification of notions and perspectives.
>>>>>
>>>>> We can start by discussing Parks here. From our coigns of vantage.
>>>>>
>>>>> First: What does he WANT, that is, think makes the best fiction?
>>>>> Realism, even dense realism, seems not to do it
>>>>> and too much effort on the page doesn't do it. I wonder what he thinks
>>>>> of GR, for example, about which we will all
>>>>> remember all those readers then and later--vidal, say--who said it
>>>>> showed off its own prose...as he says of Neumann.
>>>>>
>>>>> anyway, talk amongst yourselves.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 9:04 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> And to ask:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/nov/10/how-could-you-like-that-book/
>>>> -
>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l