Am I the only person that thinks JC might be on a wind-up?

JC if I'm wrong, apologies.

Pete

It had occurred to me as well. All the same, that section of Calvino is an interesting style of writing. It seems to require quite a lot of commitment from the reader.

I've never read Calvino, but I enjoyed that passage too. Is there a book of his anyone would recommend to start out with?

Pete

Mmm, I seem to remember his Italian Folk Tales is a bit gorgeous, and also Marcovaldo?

a wind-up

It can be so hard to tell when you wade out into the chilly waters of Theory. About half the emails I get from Goldsmiths I have to read three times not to wonder if they're a premature April fool.

I don't know the Calvino, but there's not much new under the sun, and it reminds me so much of Tristram Shandy.

Emma

it reminds me so much of Tristram Shandy

Great connection, Emma. I see from Google that Calvino called Tristram Shandy (first volume published in 1759) the "undoubted progenitor of all avant-garde novels of our century."

Frances

Emma

Kind of interesting, though, that it really is so hard to tell. Can't help wondering what that tells us about theory...


Pete

The 'writer' (and the established role of the writer towards the novel) himself assumes a position as merely being another tool in the construction of narrative meaning within the mind of the reader.

J.C. I think this is a fascinating idea. Calvino himself assumes just such a position - playing with the concept of removing himself from the narrative, which (he playfully claims) is being directed by the reader, not the author/narrator (which is of course impossible).

Frances

I have to say, that I'm not sure most Theory has a lot to say to a creative artist, unless they're so excited by it that they want to use their novel to explore Theory, and at that point, I want to get my coat unless they're a genius like Calvino.

Even AS Byatt says of Possession that although of course she deals in and with Theory in her lit. crit. work all the time, she wanted to stand out against in the novel: she neither thinks it's the only way we can read our own lives or the literature of the past, nor, I infer, does she find it particularly useful to her as a creative artist. For me, lit. crit and its associated theory occurs after the event, about the finished product, and as a writer, I'm far more interested in the process of the event, and how the finished product has ended up as it has.

And on a cynical note, my English editor said of my new novel, 'You're not going to write us a PhD novel, are you? We're seeing so many of those now, and they're so up their own arses, it's a pity, because sometimes they'd be quite good otherwise.'

Emma

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Calvino himself assumes just such a position - playing with the concept of removing himself from the narrative, which (he playfully claims) is being directed by the reader, not the author/narrator (which is of course impossible).

Frances, yes, and I would argue that while this appears to be breaking with the traditional author-narrator-reader relationship, actually it's wholly dependent on it, and cand be dealt with within the traditional concepts. If Sterne can do it...

Would love to read the book though. The couple of short things of his I've read were wonderful.

There seems to me to be no authorial presence in pars of Shakespeare, if that doesn't sound odd. There's often a surrender to the material and to the task so complete that he disappears altogether. Is this just because he's writing dialogue? If I think of other dramatists -Pinter or Stoppard for example- they have a presence still in their writing... an quality of intention or something.

If the fourth person is anything, is it not this non-person, this being surrendered to the task and duty of art, where the material has the feeling of being delivered unmediated?

Pete

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Blimey

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parts

In one sense there's no author presence in any drama (unless you count stage directions - some of Shaw's are like flash fiction all on their own). But in another, I think you're quite right, Pete; you intuitively deduce the author from what they set in front of you on stage. (Shaw again, a most 'authorial author', Pinter less obviously so). I'm not sure Shakespeare's different though; is it not just that his habits and modes of thought are harder for us to read, because a product of a different time? The Greek dramatists seem even more blank-faced to me, perhaps for the same reason.

Emma

Fascinating thread (although quite incomprehensible).

Finally, as an example, I wish to offer Calvino's novel 'If On a Winter's Night a Traveller' as a pre-cursor to what I have suggested above. Remember that this work, from some 27 years ago offers us the paradox of the reader being the protagonist and is moreover, essentially performing the same role as the writer.

I wonder whether by 'fourth person' you mean meta-fiction. Paul Auster in New York Trilogy, (Ghosts I think) writes about a writer writing about a writer. Borges I think was one of the pioneers of this style of writing. It seems quite a mysterious genre!

I disagree with you in relation to the above comment regarding the protagonist essentially performing the same role as the writer. Even though the reader is actively encouraged to participate in the construction of the story and the search for the true novel - this is surely an illusion as the writer is manipulating the reader to believe that they are involved in the story. Isn't this style of writing essentially exhausted? Where is there to go in this post post-modernist age?

A link to David Mitchell's views on If On a Winter's Night...which may be of interest:-

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1221892,00.html

Is self-reflexive writing another way of putting it?

I think it's a wind up - but a good one!!

Cath

I'm not sure Shakespeare's different though

I do think Shakespeare is different though, because he appears to have neither sympathy nor empathy towards his characters, nor is there 'tendency' in his stories, nor is their discernible technique manipulating the reader/audience. And perhaps it's this quality rather than his authorial invisibilty that I mean: his uncanny evenhandedness, a moral disappearing act if you like, that marks him out. I can't think of another writer with that quality. The Greek dramatists, though I don't claim much knowledge, were, by contrast, taken up greatly with moral issues, which are expressed and explored visibly in their plays. And in that sense I feel their presence, though I know what you mean by 'blank-faced'.
Does this make any sense?

I know, this is going way off-thread

Pete

I thought it was a wind up when I first read it earlier this morning. I still think it is.

Kat