modern fiction makes the reader uneasy?
Fiona Webster
and am purring merrily along, enjoying the tale. I ran into this
passage, early on, where Ellmann is talking about Joyce's technique
in his "epiphanies":
As in 'The Sisters' in _Dubliners_, Joyce never insists,
and lets the effect seem to trail off. He cradles here the
technique which has now become a commonplace of modern fiction.
Arrogant yet humble too, it claims importance by claiming
nothing; it seeks a presentation so sharp that comment by
the author would be an interference. It leaves off the
veneer of gracious intimacy with the reader, of concern that
he should be taken into the author's confidence, and instead
makes the reader feel uneasy and culpable if he misses the
intended but always unstated meaning, as if he were being
arraigned rather than entertained. The artist abandons
himself and his reader to the material.
"As if he were being arraigned rather than entertained"? I find that a
surprising statement. Since I grew up in a world with modern fiction
already in it, and didn't suffer through a transition from earlier
fiction to modern fiction, I guess I don't quite grasp this point -- or
rather, I'm wondering if it's true only in a historical sense. Modern
fiction, qua modern fiction, doesn't make me feel especially uneasy.
It's often the case, in fact, that the "gracious intimacy" of earlier
fiction makes me nervous in its insistence on the author's fidgety
presence. But it depends on the author and the subject matter, of
course.
Not knowing much about the history of how modern fiction was first
received, I'm wondering... well, can someone else explain this to me?
Or disagree... digress... expound.. whatever.
--Fiona W.
David Hadley
>Not knowing much about the history of how modern fiction was first
>received, I'm wondering... well, can someone else explain this to me?
>Or disagree... digress... expound.. whatever.
>
Here's a few sentences from Harry Levin's preface to Dubliners from
'The Essential James Joyce', which I hope will expound on it for you.
The open structure, which casually adapts itself to the flow of
experience, and the close texture, which gives precise notation to
sensitive observation, are characteristic of Joycean narrative. The
fact that so little happens, apart from expected routines, connects
form with theme: the paralysed uneventfulness to which the modern city
reduces the lives of its citizens. Little of the actual story need be
told: [....] Not one but many of these sketches might be titled 'An
Encounter'. In calling his original jottings 'epiphanies'. Joyce
underscored the ironic contrast between the manifestation that dazzled
the Magi and the apparitions that manifest themselves on the streets
of Dublin; he also suggested that these pathetic and sordid glimpses,
to the sentient observer, offer a kind of revelation. As the part,
significantly chosen, reveals the whole, a word or detail may be
enough to exhibit a character or convey a situation.
Is the above of any help?
--
David Hadley
Scott Ellis
> already in it, and didn't suffer through a transition from earlier
> fiction to modern fiction, I guess I don't quite grasp this point -- or
> rather, I'm wondering if it's true only in a historical sense. Modern
> fiction, qua modern fiction, doesn't make me feel especially uneasy.
> It's often the case, in fact, that the "gracious intimacy" of earlier
> fiction makes me nervous in its insistence on the author's fidgety
> presence. But it depends on the author and the subject matter, of
> course.
> Not knowing much about the history of how modern fiction was first
> received, I'm wondering... well, can someone else explain this to me?
> Or disagree... digress... expound.. whatever.
It seems to me that the supposed "un-easing" effects of contemporary
writing or art in general are greatly overstated, usually for commercial
or career reasons. As a critic and reviewer, I see a lot of promotional
material, artists' statements, critiques, grant applications, etc., the
vast preponderance of which claim for their subjects great powers and
properties of disruption and doubt. Most of them are produced and
consumed by people who, far from being tortured by crises of faith or
infected by all-encompassing irony, are about as anguished and sardonic as
Rotarian CPAs, if that's not slandering service clubs or accountants.
IMO, the average academy-influenced reader would be far more shocked to
read a piece of writing that bore all the earmarks of familiarity with
what's known vaguely and grandly as "theory", but which nonetheless
convincingly and eruditely asserted that there are essences and unmediated
perceptions of same, and that life and thought were not merely ruminations
among "texts".
Understand, I'm not espousing this viewpoint or any other epistemology;
merely pointing out that what was briefly shocking quickly becomes
obligatory, like slightly dissonant grace notes in a jazz number.
------
sae - The human race, to which so many of my readers belong. (G. K.
Chesterton)
Fiona Webster
>Here's a few sentences from Harry Levin's preface to Dubliners from
>'The Essential James Joyce', which I hope will expound on it for you.
>
>The open structure, which casually adapts itself to the flow of
>experience, and the close texture, which gives precise notation to
>sensitive observation, are characteristic of Joycean narrative. The
>fact that so little happens, apart from expected routines, connects
>form with theme: the paralysed uneventfulness to which the modern city
>reduces the lives of its citizens. Little of the actual story need be
>told: [....] Not one but many of these sketches might be titled 'An
>Encounter'. In calling his original jottings 'epiphanies'. Joyce
>underscored the ironic contrast between the manifestation that dazzled
>the Magi and the apparitions that manifest themselves on the streets
>of Dublin; he also suggested that these pathetic and sordid glimpses,
>to the sentient observer, offer a kind of revelation. As the part,
>significantly chosen, reveals the whole, a word or detail may be
>enough to exhibit a character or convey a situation.
That's interesting, but doesn't really get at the question I had.
In what I quoted from Ellmann, he seemed to be making a point about
modern fiction in general, not just Joycean narrative. The idea was that
the absence of the author's persona leaves the reader to grapple with the
text, and its meaning, alone. What I'm interesting in hearing more
about, is whether Joyce (and other modern writers) were indeed perceived,
at the time of their first emergence on the literary scene, as making the
reader uneasy because of this absent-author thing. I ask this because
I'm not a literary historian, and I've not been made uneasy, myself, by
this element of modern fiction. Was there really a specific historical
transition, when readers had to learn to read all over again, in order to
accommodate themselves to modern fiction?
--Fiona W.
David Hadley
>That's interesting, but doesn't really get at the question I had.
>In what I quoted from Ellmann, he seemed to be making a point about
>modern fiction in general, not just Joycean narrative.
I suppose it is this point which separates the Modernists such as
Joyce, Eliot etc, from the Victorians and the Naturalists.
> The idea was that
>the absence of the author's persona leaves the reader to grapple with the
>text, and its meaning, alone. What I'm interesting in hearing more
>about, is whether Joyce (and other modern writers) were indeed perceived,
>at the time of their first emergence on the literary scene, as making the
>reader uneasy because of this absent-author thing. I ask this because
>I'm not a literary historian, and I've not been made uneasy, myself, by
>this element of modern fiction. Was there really a specific historical
>transition, when readers had to learn to read all over again, in order to
>accommodate themselves to modern fiction?
I suppose the best way of finding out would be to take a look at some
of the books, essays and articles on Modernism. IIRC there is a book
edited by Malcolm Bradbury called Modernism which contains several
essays about this. Anyway I found this in The Cambridge Guide to
Literature in English:
Much of the difficulty of modernist texts, which has intimidated some
readers, stems from this attempt to 'break up' or re-create the
experience of reading. Stream of consciousness, the use of myth as a
structural principle, and the primary status given to the poetic
image, all challenged traditional representation.
So, I would say there was a point when the nature of reading changed,
but to what extent, and whether people 'had to learn to read all over
again' I don't know. I did 'do' Modernism at university, so, of
course, I can remember almost nothing about it.
--
David Hadley