Plot? What plot? Point Counter Point---goes out to Morris

[David Morris]

To recap my plot thotz,

The word "plot" implies a plan, an intention.  Plotters aren't usually
transparent.  They are subversive by definition.
Just a short riff on the concept of plot in fiction.

Carry on,
David Morris

On Sun, Apr 22, 2018 at 6:22 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> in our recent discussion, I argued for the inevitability of plot in
> fiction. Even just barely and
> articulated only after the fact of reading an episodic, digressive story.
>
> Since then, I've kept Morris's undertow [to me] argument in mind. Which
> might be summarized as a story, a novel is "just one damn thing after
> another" just the author's intention as stated below.  [correct if
> necessary, David}  And have seen, seemingly,
> examples that might refute me. And relooked at the whole concept.
>
> One blow, as happened to Quixote when he fought imaginarily, is in reading
> Tristram Shandy, yes for the first time.
> All digression, it seems, even centuries later. Digression as life itself
> must be a kind of theme. His notion of Hobby-Horses,
> kinda brilliant, concatenations of ..well, imaginative feelings,
> interests, thoughts occasioned, etc. as a large part of what we are.
>  Promising an autobiography at the start of the book, we don't get THAT at
> all, but we do get one of the most extended presentation of mental
> associations written. Partly, says an intro to poke fun at Locke's (and
> maybe Descartes') overly logical rationalism.
> Logic is a plot, so to speak, and vice versa.
> Tristram Shandy IS 'essentially and almost only, the author's intention"
> on the page...written with ellipses up the wazoo...short remarks....."Great
> wit must jump", a nice aphorism and which he does with extended similes to
> smile at and follow interestingly.
>
> Then in a collection of stories I have for a course, I find Sherwood
> Anderson, of all folks, having written on how he had abandoned plot.
> (I could quote but will save space).I once loved Winesburg, Ohio to the
> skies. And, of course it is far from O. Henry-like but I was already too
> much swimming in modern stories that I hardly noticed.
>
> And two newer books, one by Knausgaard and one by Ali Smith, both the same
> series idea, Winter, Summer, etc.....which are plotless
> imaginative reflections,  which way of writing--as Sterne sez, writing is
> just conversation-- and books I like a lot. (Read one each so far).
>
> So, a Schrodinger's Cat kind of belief about plot in me now.
>
> PS. Does seem, of course, that later Sterne scholar-readers DID 'find' a
> thematic progressions kind of plot. Of course.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 8:27 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Your Ari plot is a hero's quest.  Joyce's U comes to mind.
>>
>> I think a "plot" is essentially the author's intention, which might be
>> very other than a character's journey.  I think the author has the
>> intention of leading the reader on a journey, even if the author is the
>> only person ever to read the text.  That intention might be unclear even to
>> the author.  We are all confused, so authors too.  But the plot might be
>> the author's attempt to make the reader into a partaker of a quest.
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 6:37 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Well. since my depth charges--thanks, David---come from channeling
>>> geniuses with a
>>> little recombinatory spin, let me continue.
>>>
>>> I'm not looking anything up for exactitude here until I am back at home,
>>> but here's
>>> me remembering Aristotle with kaleidoscopic spin. (If i get it wrong,
>>> then it's just me and either way worth
>>> talking about, refining or differing with).
>>>
>>> Ari: Plot is a protagonist in action. The action is toward some kind of
>>> goal often because a contented safe life
>>> is upended.  Desire to understand, to get back to normal
>>> drives the Protagonist. For Ari with his greek models, there was little
>>> self-reflection, lots of problem-solving.
>>> The overarching artist gave us HIS self-reflection on humanity via his
>>> vision.
>>>
>>> The protagonist(s) encounter unexpected situations ( in general)
>>> and inconvenient others---obstacles--to achieving the goal. They reveal
>>> their character
>>> in handling, dispatching, the obstacles. Or not.
>>>
>>> Plot keeps us hooked with something we must call surprises--by the
>>> protagonist's reactions and
>>> in what the world throws at him and makes him react against.
>>>
>>> Surprises are such because they hold mysteries. We readers LIKE to not
>>> know but want to find out.
>>> This is what page-turning means, in one sense. (I have always been
>>> immune to page-turningness
>>> but I am not typical and I don't say this as though it is a good thing.
>>> Mixed at best, a sign of something
>>> probably lacking under the common sense lens.)
>>>
>>> An epistemological teasing 'mystery'. One reason the detective/mystery
>>> genre is in our time the purest embodiment
>>> in general of plot: good, OK, or great. (The Mousetrap or Murder on the
>>> Orient Express exemplary examples of the turn and
>>> turn of the screw of mystery to full mind-reaching surprise. Chandler in
>>> his believable complexity and others in more modern examples).
>>> Donna Tartt as a current writer is one who builds an old-fashioned
>>> plot...ending chapters on little cliffhangers, little "how will he choose"
>>> "what will he run into next",  type of thing.
>>>
>>> Digressions are defined, in the major sense, as sideways/superfluous
>>> scenes which do not move *the action *forward on the surface.
>>>
>>> Once modernism meant that everything around the plot meant as much or
>>> more than that plot (rooted before modernism in books such as
>>> *Tristam Shandy, even Hamlet, *even aspects of the "first" novel *Don
>>> Quixote) *then plot perhaps had to redefine itself. When
>>> self-reflection,
>>> thinking on the page took over, pure plot had a problem. For one reason,
>>> the mystery leaks away since the protagonist-thinker we might identify with
>>> keeps us informed, so that protagonist-thinker has to be overcome with
>>> more surprise notions than we expect.
>>>
>>> Tidbit I once learned: When *Lost* debuted on TV, the suits were in
>>> consensual confusion over whether audiences would "like" it. They hired
>>> some consulting info-gathering company to ask questions of early
>>> viewers. The answers revealed that the overall mystery of wtf is this about?
>>> and the internal allusive mysteries engaged minds and they wanted more.
>>> The Plot hooked. A decent modern example.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:30 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Mark,
>>>>
>>>> Your response has depth.  A literary plot is a plan conceived by an
>>>> author.  Some authors are revered as sages.  Long ago a P-lister repeated
>>>> called Pynchon a "modern mystic."  So, an author as a god who subverts his
>>>> own creation with an alt-story as a heresy is pretty wild.  It all feels a
>>>> little SciFi.
>>>>
>>>> David Morris
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 4:50 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Here is a relevant, I hope, Dantean-inspired thought. Late in Paradiso,
>>>>> the question of the progression of "the straight path" comes up. A
>>>>> digression
>>>>> from the path, the plot in the case of Commedia, is a wrong step, a
>>>>> morally wrong
>>>>> step.
>>>>>
>>>>> For Dante, a certain plot is necessary, teleological.
>>>>>
>>>>> And digression shows you are on the wrong path...
>>>>>
>>>>> So, one might say, fictional digression, fictional "plotlessness'
>>>>> later in literary history
>>>>> is almost a blasphemous act; a blow against the divine truth of
>>>>> history. A throw down of
>>>>> secularism.
>>>>>
>>>>> So to speak.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 9:09 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Watching "In Search of Fellini," and some characters say his movies
>>>>>> don't
>>>>>> have a "plot," a subject briefly discussed here recently, re. ATD.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Presumably a plot implies more than a chance series of events.  But
>>>>>> writing
>>>>>> anything, especially fiction, is always a choice.  It doesn't write
>>>>>> itself.  Writing is a choice to express SOMETHING.  Is that a plot?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The word "plot" implies a plan, a secret motive or message.  But
>>>>>> plots are
>>>>>> often best when they don't know conclusions, foster debate.  Or just
>>>>>> foster
>>>>>> any range of emotions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>>>>
>>>>>