It's thoroughly post-modern, though, in that whatever JC's intentions in his/her first post, the readers have developed it for themselves into an interesting discussion.

Pete, I'm not sure I'd agree that Shakespeare does a 'moral disappearing act'. His moral vision is very subtle: he explores how good can come out of ill and vice versa, and even his outright villains' or heroes' motivations complex and mixed, but I don't think there's much question of how, say he rates Goneril and Regan on the one hand, and Cordelia on the other, is there?

Emma

Emma

You're right, of course. That'll teach me to think out loud.

Right, I'm going back to the shallow end.

Pete

Hi again. Firstly, I assure you that my messages are not 'wind ups'. I've considered and speculated around such issues for many months now and if this were a practical joke then it could be argued that the joke would have in fact been upon myself, when considering that the personal effort involved in formulating the 'joke' would have vastly out-weighed the pleasure derived from the punch-line! So I assure you that I am quite sincere.

Secondly, a couple of you have requested that I upload a sample of text to illustrate my posts. Unfortunately this is not possible as I am only a guest member here (and cannot afford to become a full member). Furthermore, even if I were to, I would find great difficulty in selecting a portion of text that would be singularly representative of it all. Besides, although unfinished I feel that one would have to read it in its entirety, view the bigger picture in order for it all to assume clarity. Apologies if perhaps that sounds somewhat pretentious, for I do not intend it to. I guess that it's just complicated, that's all.

With regards to your interest in Italo Calvino, Cholero (Pete), may I humbly recommend that you (and anyone else who's interested, for that matter) read his novel (or anti-novel) 'If On a Winter's Night, a Traveler' (1979). In my opinion this is a landmark work of postmodern, meta-fictional literature and is beautifuly written. And Traveller, yes I agree that 'self-reflexive' is an adequate label for such literature.

Finally, may I add that this very thread of messages can be considered as representative of some of the ideas dicussed here within. Yesterday I wrote an explanation of a theory of mine. In noting that the thread has already began deviating from my (the writer's) initial intent, the meaning of my writing has now evolved through the perception of its readers to assume a different kind of relevance. Now, the point is that here, as a reader of that which I earlier wrote, you have no knowledge of, and are not subjected to influence from any such authoritative presence as 'the writer' at all. I mean, in your reading, as far as you're concerned I, the 'writer' am an entirely unknown presence - I could be one, two or a dozen different people, or furthermore, to the best of your knowledge I could not even exist at all.

Now, imagine if I, instead of submitting here some rather academic prose in explanation of my theories had supplied a work of fiction, of literary prose representative of the same intended meaning. I suggest that, to a certain extent the response to it would remain, theoretically at least, relatively the same as it is now.

I guess that this highlights that the manifestation of 'meaning' within the reader's mind is instringically dependant upon their making assumptions of that which has been written and he whom has written it. My point is, and has been throughout this, is that by simply removing some of the reader's ability to make such assumptions of that which they read, their role, and their mode of reading fundamentally changes.

<Added>

I mis-spelt 'intrinsically' and 'beautifully'. Oops.

Martin Amis in 'The Information' has some amusing musings (dramatised) on this kind of thing. I quote: " 'That's very kind of you. [says protagonist Richard Tull, a novelist] I did feel I was on to something. You don't think ... I was worried about the penultimate bridging passages. You know: where the figment narrator pretends to attempt that series of decoy refocusings.'
Leslie nodded understandingly.
'Because the travesty is a counterfeit.'
'Yup.'
'Not that he's really a narrator.'
'Mn-hm.'
'Reliable or otherwise. But he had to be a surrogate if the sham refocusings were going to seem to work.'
'Absolutely. Hey are you sure you can handle that?' (p304 paperback)

My favourite gag in the book is where the narrator says that Ch 11 of 'Untitled' is a description of a coven of tramps done as a burlesque of 'Idylls of the King'.

Cheers!

Jim

Why don't you upload a short extract here on the forum to illustrate, to us all, what you mean?

Best,

Nik.

JC, as a guest member, you can upload one piece of work. So why not do that? We’re all reasonably intelligent and writing-savvy, so I think we can handle it.

Dee

I'm more interested in where you get Crapes from. Crepe is 1. A light soft thin fabric of silk, cotton, wool, or another fiber, with a crinkled surface. Also called crape. How is it related to Crooks?

Presumably the end point of this drive to take the writer completely out of the picture is to remove the narrative in total.

A bit like John Cage's 4'33'' - a composition where the pianist doesn't play a note for four minutes and 33 seconds allowing ambient sounds and the 'listener' to create their own music.

I'm not sure anyone's going to want to pay for a book with completely blank pages though, although I'm up for 'writing' it....

Well. JC is being pretty coy about uploading any of his own work as an example of what he means, but this section from the author he recommends, if it’s a representative sample, is confusing the hell out of me:

already for several pages you have been circling around her, I have – no, the author has - been circling around the feminine presence, for several pages, you have been expecting this female shadow to take shape the way female shadows take shape on the written page, and it is your expectation, reader, that drives the author toward her

All these references to pages/author/reader seem to be saying the exact opposite of what JC wants us to believe about his work. It is pointing out repeatedly that this is a work, written by an author, being read by a reader.

Is it me? Am I missing the point?

Dee

Is it me? Am I missing the point?

Dee, if you are, then I am too.

Emma

We’re all reasonably intelligent and writing-savvy, so I think we can handle it.

I don't think I can, my head hurts and my stomach is churning. I feel like we are discussing some fourth dimension.

(off to get some Gravol.)

B.

Dee, absolutely. Chapter one, first sentence:

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveller.

If one takes the basic theories of 'the death of the author' worked upon by French theorists suchs as Barthes and Foucault in the 70's as a basis - that literature only exists in the mind of the reader - then, through gradually deconstructing the role of the writer to the point where he no longer 'exists' in his relationship to his work (at least in the traditional sense of writer-novel relations), then I think that new avenues of literary perspective become available.

Yes, but the 'death of the author' only applies to the real author, doesn't it? The implied author (and the implied reader) is still there. You can only create the illusion of there being no narrator, no implied author, no mediating consciousness whatsoever -- in other words, the illusion that the narrative is 'transparent' -- just like you can create an illusion of realism. But just like realism in fiction is never truly real, a narrative can never be truly transparent. The narrator (or implied author) can refrain from all references to himself, all value commentary, all 'telling' (as opposed to showing, I guess), all assumptions and inferences that aren't simply 'there', but still he is the one who ultimately chooses what is told, what is 'seen' through that transparent window. Even if you have a narrative consisting only of dialogue (as Emma mentioned), the implied author is still there -- choosing what and whose speech is reported.

To cut a long story short, I think it's possible to create an illusion of a non-narrator -- to try and hide the narrator -- to create a chimeric confusion of narrators -- but there's no way of actually eradicating the implied author who controls (or seems to control) the whole work. Once the reader stops to think about it, he can still find the implied author choosing what is told and which section goes where, just as you can always see 'realism' as a constructed illusion if you look very closely.

(I think I'm basically saying the same things that have been said already... but what the heck, I'll post anyway.)

Now, my point is this: if such a circumstance between unknown writer and unknown reader is achieved then the reader, will inevitably be constructing the text, configuring the direction of narration himself as he reads it.

Doesn't something like Nabokov's Pale Fire already do that? Even if the implied author does his best to create confusion and mystery and leaves the reader to make up his own mind about the authorship or narratorship (is there such a word??), or authorship within authorship within... etc., it doesn't mean he isn't there still.

I mean, in your reading, as far as you're concerned I, the 'writer' am an entirely unknown presence - I could be one, two or a dozen different people, or furthermore, to the best of your knowledge I could not even exist at all.

But that isn't anything new either, is it? We don't know who the 'Gawain' poet was, we don't know if he (or even she!) also wrote 'Pearl' and 'Cleanness', we don't know if s/he is actually they -- and Gawain is strangely ambiguous for a work of its era, so we have no idea what the poet really 'meant' with it, either. But Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is still there, and its implied author is still there, too, in the text...

a chimeric confusion of narrators

I like this, Fredegonde - think you've put your finger on it (or hit the non-existent nail on the head). Might this 'chimeric confusion' be J.C.'s 'fourth person' - really a sort of fourth dimension the reader enters/experiences?

(sort of?)

Frances