We all need to answer

[Monte Davis]

MK> a lot of this IS about we readers and not the writers, yes?

IMO very nearly approximately closely asymptotically all of it  :-)  IMO,
very little appeal there to extrinsic standards & criteria, which is
refreshing



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
>
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