If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Einherjar86]

I'm talking about conflicting ideologies and social forms that, a Marxist would say, novels work to reconcile via some kind of imaginary resolution. So for example, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South presents its readers with a series of narrative conflicts involving, among other things, domesticity and industry (i.e. typically female and male spheres of influence), industrial and agricultural lifestyles, and working class manufacturing and aristocratic leisure. These various spheres are represented by characters in the novels, and their disagreements are worked through via narrative development. This is one of the reasons so many nineteenth-century novels end with episodes of marriage, the discovery of one's identity (usually as a member of a wealthy family, e.g. from orphan to inheritor), or the revelation of another's identity. These kinds of developments were necessary in order to explain away otherwise contradictory social situations.

I'm not a Marxist critic (which describes a methodology, not a political affiliation), so I read these conflicting perspectives as embodying the complexity of modern (industrial and post-industrial) social systems, rather than constitutively contradicting factors of capitalist development (capitalism is only one part of modern society). Novels aren't promoting any one particular element of society or culture over another, but exploring the dynamics that emerge among multiple competing social entities (be these classes, genders, races, religions, educations, species, politics, etc.). I teach students how to write about those dynamics, rather than picking the entity/theme they happen to agree with and arguing how the novel either does or doesn't support it. Novels don't support anything; that's not their job.

 

[Dak]

In some defense of my discipline and others, students aren't "subjectively graded." I know what you're trying to say, which is that humanities classes typically don't administer multiple choice exams with correct and incorrect answers.

First, grading essays isn't subjective. There are identifiable rhetorical/stylistic qualities that make an essay good or bad. There are also identifiable conceptual qualities that make an essay good or bad.

I've seen and experienced subjective grading for others and myself based on not affirming the professors' opinion on what was a good character or opinion. Having also won a few (super minor) writing awards, it clearly wasn't based on the quality of the writing. Just because you may not be petty, doesn't mean other professors aren't. Furthermore, just because BC may not have petty professors (not going there), doesn't mean there aren't many petty professors across the country.

Novels aren't promoting any one particular element of society or culture over another, but exploring the dynamics that emerge among multiple competing social entities (be these classes, genders, races, religions, educations, species, politics, etc.). I teach students how to write about those dynamics, rather than picking the entity/theme they happen to agree with and arguing how the novel either does or doesn't support it. Novels don't support anything; that's not their job.

Atlas Shrugged would like a word with you.

 

[Dak]

"infested." What a racist.

 

[Einherjar86]

I've seen and experienced subjective grading for others and myself based on not affirming the professors' opinion on what was a good character or opinion. Having also won a few (super minor) writing awards, it clearly wasn't based on the quality of the writing. Just because you may not be petty, doesn't mean other professors aren't. Furthermore, just because BC may not have petty professors (not going there), doesn't mean there aren't many petty professors across the country.

Quality of writing can be excellent, but the argument can still be simplistic and underdeveloped.

Atlas Shrugged would like a word with you.

Novels =/= authors. Insofar as Atlas Shrugged is a novel, it's not preaching anything. Insofar as it is preaching a specific and identifiable central message traceable to its author, it's not a novel.

 

[CiG]

"infested." What a racist.

Yeah but Trump is white.

 

[Dak]

Quality of writing can be excellent, but the argument can still be simplistic and underdeveloped.

True. Also not applicable in these cases.

Novels =/= authors. Insofar as Atlas Shrugged is a novel, it's not preaching anything. Insofar as it is preaching a specific and identifiable central message traceable to its author, it's not a novel.

Schrödinger's novel. Novel concept.

 

[Einherjar86]

True. Also not applicable in these cases.

It isn't?

Schrödinger's novel. Novel concept.

I don't see how that's similar to Schrödinger's thought experiment.

 

[Dak]

It isn't?

Are you saying I'm not capable of distinguishing between petty professors and bad arguments? Ok, suit yourself.

I don't see how that's similar to Schrödinger's thought experiment.

Well if you can't answer the question as to whether it's a novel or it isn't, it should be a straightforward connection.

 

[Einherjar86]

Are you saying I'm not capable of distinguishing between petty professors and bad arguments? Ok, suit yourself.

I mean, I know how you argue. Based on what I’ve seen, it isn’t well suited to composing argument papers for a literature class.

Well if you can't answer the question as to whether it's a novel or it isn't, it should be a straightforward connection.

But I did answer it.

 

[Dak]

I mean, I know how you argue. Based on what I’ve seen, it isn’t well suited to composing argument papers for a literature class.

But I did answer it.

If your "answer" to my challenge of Atlas Shrugged is well suited for lit classes, it justifies my disdain for lit classes and related "arguments" aside from all my own personal bonefides.

 

[CiG]

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The Noid strikes again.

 

[CiG]

Well that got out of hand quickly.

 

[Einherjar86]

If your "answer" to my challenge of Atlas Shrugged is well suited for lit classes, it justifies my disdain for lit classes and related "arguments" aside from all my own personal bonefides.

It isn't well-suited for lit classes. We're not in a lit class, we're on a metal forum. I'm not going to write you a paper, which would require an explanation of how texts often exhibit hybrid characteristics; how literary forms aren't unitary and monolithic but multiple and interactive; how fictive writing theoretically can't be united with an author's intending sensibilities, and texts that merely repeat their author's opinions aren't novelistic (historically speaking, the English novel was born out of a weird union of multiple genres in the eighteenth century--there's something a professor could qualitatively quiz students on!); and how Atlas Shrugged is a clunky hybrid of novelistic writing and philosophical treatise.

That's the (still insufficient) short version: so again, insofar as Atlas Shrugged is a proclamation of its author's philosophy, it's not a novel; and insofar as it's a novel, it's not a proclamation of its author's philosophy. That doesn't mean we can't perceive both elements at work in the text.

It's funny, because as I was writing that novels aren't trying to send readers a message, I thought to myself "someone's going to say 'What about Atlas Shrugged?'" On a purely personal (and subjective) level, I would vindictively say that Atlas Shrugged isn't an artful novel, but that's not being fair to the form. Even the clunkiest novel can still exhibit the kinds of multiplicities I mentioned earlier. More appropriately, we have to examine the different modes and styles of writing that Atlas Shrugged draws upon.

You've said in the past that you don't really enjoy reading fiction for pleasure all that much, and I have a feeling it's because you don't find much value in reading things that pitch a bunch of conflicting viewpoints without ever settling for one. Maybe I'm wrong. But literary interpretation isn't about discovering the "true" meaning of a text; so if that is how you prefer to see novels, then I understand why you don't enjoy them.

EDIT: ok, I'll write you a short paper.

 

[Dak]

It isn't well-suited for lit classes. We're not in a lit class, we're on a metal forum. I'm not going to write you a paper, which would require an explanation of how texts often exhibit hybrid characteristics; how literary forms aren't unitary and monolithic but multiple and interactive; how fictive writing theoretically can't be united with an author's intending sensibilities, and texts that merely repeat their author's opinions aren't novelistic (historically speaking, the English novel was born out of a weird union of multiple genres in the eighteenth century--there's something a professor could qualitatively quiz students on!); and how Atlas Shrugged is a clunky hybrid of novelistic writing and philosophical treatise.

That's the (still insufficient) short version: so again, insofar as Atlas Shrugged is a proclamation of its author's philosophy, it's not a novel; and insofar as it's a novel, it's not a proclamation of its author's philosophy. That doesn't mean we can't perceive both elements at work in the text.

I wound up reading this in Jordan Peterson's voice . I don't make the distinction between "novel" and other types of fiction (excluding things like children's picture books or comic books (redundant tbh)). I'm sure people who study fiction have as many subclassifications for it similar to how metal has for different types of metal, with distinctions which will be mostly opaque to people outside the subject.

It's funny, because as I was writing that novels aren't trying to send readers a message, I thought to myself "someone's going to say 'What about Atlas Shrugged?'" On a purely personal (and subjective) level, I would vindictively say that Atlas Shrugged isn't an artful novel, but that's not being fair to the form. Even the clunkiest novel can still exhibit the kinds of multiplicities I mentioned earlier. More appropriately, we have to examine the different modes and styles of writing that Atlas Shrugged draws upon.

You've said in the past that you don't really enjoy reading fiction for pleasure all that much, and I have a feeling it's because you don't find much value in reading things that pitch a bunch of conflicting viewpoints without ever settling for one. Maybe I'm wrong. But literary interpretation isn't about discovering the "true" meaning of a text; so if that is how you prefer to see novels, then I understand why you don't enjoy them.

EDIT: ok, I'll write you a short paper.

I thought about using other examples that I have actually read but Atlas Shrugged was just too on the nose to ignore.

Stories, going back to the oral tradition, were constructed to pass down knowledge in a form most likely to lead to continued memory and propagation (or persuasion, like Atlas Shrugged). Do many stories now deviate from that? Yes. That deviation is where I see a loss of value. A much lesser value to be found is in narratives which reaffirm some personally held value. The former "story to pass down knowledge etc" is more efficiently achieved, for adults with access to the written word, with non-stories - nonfiction. That leaves only the fiction of values affirmation, which is generally of lesser enjoyment than many other things I could do with my time.

I don't even perceive in fiction this "pitching" conflicting viewpoints. It's just some person's personal The Sims game in narrative form. I already interact with this in some way in non-narrative form via interactions with clients/patients. Actual lives are far more interesting than imagined lives.

Edit: When I was a child/adolescent, I read mountains of fiction. I was also relatively socially isolated, but reading fiction provided me imaginary social engagement.

 

[Einherjar86]

I wound up reading this in Jordan Peterson's voice . I don't make the distinction between "novel" and other types of fiction (excluding things like children's picture books or comic books (redundant tbh)). I'm sure people who study fiction have as many subclassifications for it similar to how metal has for different types of metal, with distinctions which will be mostly opaque to people outside the subject.

"Fiction" meaning any writing that's imagined or made up, I'm assuming? You're not the only one. This drives me and my colleagues in the field crazy. I'll be teaching Samuel Beckett's Endgame, and some student will inevitably say, "My favorite part of the novel is..." I have to say "It's not a novel! It's a play! Just because it's a collection of pages bound to a spine doesn't mean it's a novel!" That's usually a pretty straightforward thing for students to get, but among scholars it leads to a set of (I think) fascinating questions about the differences between genre, form, and medium. Too often, these terms get bandied about as though they stand in for one another, but that usually leads to more confusion.

But yeah, students conflate genres all the time. Vergil's Aeneid is a novel, Shakespeare's Hamlet is a novel, Wordsworth's Prelude is a novel... I've even had students refer to Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography as a novel. Now, where it gets really interesting is novels that mimic the autobiographical mode... but again, that's not really something I get into with undergrads.

Stories, going back to the oral tradition, were constructed to pass down knowledge in a form most likely to lead to continued memory and propagation (or persuasion, like Atlas Shrugged). Do many stories now deviate from that? Yes. That deviation is where I see a loss of value.

Simply put, I understand--and this is where we disagree.

Slightly more complicated, the transition from orality to literacy is one of the most fascinating developments in the history of language, and it gave rise to the increased complexity of language. James Gleick writes about this in his book The Information. In short, oral storytelling did rely heavily on mnemonic techniques, as you say: rhythm, meter, lyricism, etc. Things are easier to remember when we phrase them in sing-songy ways. This is why poetry precedes philosophy. Only with the emergence of written language could people begin extensively reflecting on ideas--because now they could put language down, consider what it meant, critique it, etc.

The simplistic reading of this is that purely oral language is conducive to poetry and creativity, while written language is conducive to philosophy. But spoken language began as experimentation, albeit for specific social purposes. Experimentation in written language is also for a specific historical purpose (but again, it depends whether you place value on that purpose).

Edit: When I was a child/adolescent, I read mountains of fiction. I was also relatively socially isolated, but reading fiction provided me imaginary social engagement.

This made me think of a quote from Catherine Gallagher's "The Rise of Fictionality":

The implicit contrast between the reader, with her independent embodied selfhood that pretends to need no alibi of reference in order to achieve significance, and the character, with her notable lack of quiddity, who is therefore forever tethered to the abstraction of type, can even be played upon to produce a vicarious desire, as the imagined desire of the character, for the immanence the reader possesses. The fictional character’s incompleteness can, in other words, not only create a sense of the reader’s material ‘reality’ as ontologically plentiful by helping us reenvision our embodied immanence through the condition of its possible absence, but also allows us to experience an uncanny desire to be that which we already are.

 

[Dak]

I've even had students refer to Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography as a novel.

No surprise here. 50% of college students, shouldn't be.

Simply put, I understand--and this is where we disagree.

Slightly more complicated, the transition from orality to literacy is one of the most fascinating developments in the history of language, and it gave rise to the increased complexity of language. James Gleick writes about this in his book The Information. In short, oral storytelling did rely heavily on mnemonic techniques, as you say: rhythm, meter, lyricism, etc. Things are easier to remember when we phrase them in sing-songy ways. This is why poetry precedes philosophy. Only with the emergence of written language could people begin extensively reflecting on ideas--because now they could put language down, consider what it meant, critique it, etc.

The simplistic reading of this is that purely oral language is conducive to poetry and creativity, while written language is conducive to philosophy. But spoken language began as experimentation, albeit for specific social purposes. Experimentation in written language is also for a specific historical purpose (but again, it depends whether you place value on that purpose).

What does this have to do with fiction though? I obviously accept the value of philosophy.

Catherine Gallagher's "The Rise of Fictionality":

Interesting read. Here's a pertinent quote related to my comment on real persons versus imagined ones:

The differential accessibility or knowability of character is only one feature inviting cathexis with ontological difference. Another, seemingly paradoxical, pair of features is closely related and shared by all novel characters {357} regardless of the mode of narration: they are at once utterly finished and also necessarily incomplete. Philosopher Peter McCormick describes the first of these: ‘fictional characters are surprisingly exhaustible as objects of knowledge since, unlike material objects, they lack the infinity of ever receding perceptual horizons and, unlike self-conscious entities, they lack the inexorable privacy of ever changing varieties of mental states’ (McCormick 1988: 240). McCormick’s description of the ease and utter regularity with which characters are decoded from texts marks his description as philosophical rather than literary-critical, but the general claim remains helpful. Despite representational tactics that give the impression of layers and plenitude, characters are ‘peculiarly delimited’ as textual beings. Persons, even dead persons, can more accurately be said to be inexhaustible. No matter how many times we reread Anna Karenina, there will never be more to learn about, say, the childhoods of the heroine and her brother. The proper name ‘Anna Karenina’ is made up of a finite set of sentences no matter how much more insightful, mature, or knowledgeable our reading becomes, no matter how much more skillfully we analyze that text or how much more ruthlessly we deconstruct it. The text may be hermeneutically inexhaustible and labile; it may be indeterminate and inconstant, but this only means that a variety of ‘Anna’s can be produced from it, none of whom will have a more fully described childhood. We may discover that previously misattributed portions of the text should be newly laid to Anna’s character code, but then she would just be finished differently.

Edit: Also

Again, modernism and postmodernism tend to jettison this rule, asking us to contemplate the character’s constitutional lack. The enigma of Kurtz, never to be resolved, is a case in point: our desire to know what is not stated (what Kurtz really did) can be read as a metaphor for an encounter with hollowness (the modernist emphasis) or as a reminder of textuality (the postmodernist emphasis).

Maybe this intentional "hollowness" is also not enjoyable.

 

[Einherjar86]

What does this have to do with fiction though? I obviously accept the value of philosophy.

What does the transition from orality to literacy have to do with fiction? Or do you mean something else?

Fiction arose as an autopoietic (systems theory term, not literary) response to the affordability and accessibility of print technologies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. First, printing gave birth to an excess of pamphlets and small books on propriety, etiquette, religious observances, travel narratives, slave narratives, autobiographies, memoirs, pedagogical tools, dictionaries, and other texts we'd refer to as nonfiction. The seventeenth century did witness the publication of some clearly fictional romance narratives, but these were few and far between, and often extensions of post-medieval tales. Robinson Crusoe, often pointed to as one of the first English novels (a problematic identification, but useful), was basically a hybrid travel narrative and memoir (and was originally marketed as nonfiction before it was revealed to be fiction). Samuel Richardson's Pamela drew on pedagogical writings about feminine propriety. That these stories were "made up" reflects a shift in social consciousness toward language and print media. It might be posited that the emergence of "the novel" is an expected symptom of the proliferation of print in the 17th-18th centuries. These texts reveal a lot about not only social conventions and mores, but also about the industry of print at the time.

It's also worth pointing out that these writers were among the first to comment on what kind of literature they were producing. Many of them included prefaces to their works that meditated on what kind of "novel form" they were working with. Originally, that's what "novel" really means: a new and unspecified form. It's difficult for us today to imagine a world in which written fiction about common, everyday themes didn't exist. In oral cultures, the poems that were passed down speak of heroes and legends, not ordinary people. The same goes for medieval romances. Only with the novel, and with fictionality, do we finally get narratives about regular people--that is, people who were reading novels.

Interesting read. Here's a pertinent quote related to my comment on real persons versus imagined ones:

Maybe this intentional "hollowness" is also not enjoyable.

Sure, I think that makes sense. I could launch into a long response to that quote, but I actually don't really think it's necessary. I get the point being made.

The only thing I'll say is that Kurtz is also, of course, a horrible person. Even if we're made to wonder about his character, we can still see him as the kind of person we shouldn't desire to be.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

Maybe the prosecutors decided to drop everything because the accusation was bullshit.

yeah,
you're trying to make the argument that the accusations were bullshit (i'm not convinced of that)
but clearly that was not the reason the charges were dropped
if Kavenaugh had been denied the supreme court justice job,
then the prosecutors would have been willing to put an innocent man in prison

 

[Dak]

yeah,
you're trying to make the argument that the accusations were bullshit (i'm not convinced of that)
but clearly that was not the reason the charges were dropped
if Kavenaugh had been denied the supreme court justice job,
then the prosecutors would have been willing to put an innocent man in prison

To prosecute requires evidence strong enough to either A. Convince the charged to cop a plea or B. To convince a jury. Apparently they didn't think they could do either.