tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post5628871160638493608..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Your Schillers and your Goethes & all the stupid bastards who don't give you nothing but lies - Gerhart Hauptmann's charactersAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-39511082418140121142011-11-04T09:04:11.868-05:002011-11-04T09:04:11.868-05:00And then the problem is that narrowly trained read...And then the problem is that narrowly trained readers, with an empty box on their "good fiction" checklist, fail to see what these authors are actually doing.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-55036870231221584192011-11-04T05:43:22.091-05:002011-11-04T05:43:22.091-05:00I agree with the comment about the forest in '...I agree with the comment about the forest in 'Bahnwärter Thiel' - very similar to Hardy's Egdon Heath. And I haven't read enough of the classic Germans yet to have formed such strong impressions as yours, but there is definitely a dearth of fleshed-out characters in comparison with English V-Lit.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07546287562521628467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-80243418136229023322011-11-03T22:14:43.887-05:002011-11-03T22:14:43.887-05:00The interior / exterior split and blend sometimes ...The interior / exterior split and blend sometimes really is clear enough to chart. Richardson, interior; Fielding, exterior.<br /><br />Limits? Pshaw. They will melt away with the years.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-51399642714892967802011-11-03T18:17:21.053-05:002011-11-03T18:17:21.053-05:00I can think of exceptions, but what I typically re...<em>I can think of exceptions, but what I typically remember from an E. T. A. Hoffmann story is some brilliantly inventive piece of weirdness or ingenious dissociation – the moments when the story suddenly shifts from one plane to another – rather than telling details about the characters, who are often interchangeable from story to story.</em><br /><br />Total. (That's German for "totally.")<br /><br />Your first three paragraphs are very helpful for me. I'm really hating the limits of my reading right now.nicolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17532641082944082516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-53246234957005561612011-11-03T18:10:44.258-05:002011-11-03T18:10:44.258-05:00It would be interesting if someone could chart--a ...It would be interesting if someone could chart--a literary tree, sort of--the development of fiction in terms of point of view: which branches head toward total immersion into the character (Joyce, Woolf et al) and which branches remain more distant. I need to read <i>The Iliad</i> again, because I think there's some reportage of direct thoughts there. But I may be wrong; it could just be "Achilles was wroth" and the like.<br /><br />~scott gf baileyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-26503278542706979992011-11-03T17:11:02.536-05:002011-11-03T17:11:02.536-05:00Not remotely stupid - Hauptmann is only 5 years ea...Not remotely stupid - Hauptmann is only 5 years earlier than <i>Ubu</i>. There is a lot of play with how outrageous a stage character can be. The first widely read English translator of the play toned down Mrs. Krause because "he could not bring himself to accept... [that the play's] most foulmouthed character is a woman," or so claims the translator I read.<br /><br />I omitted - slipped my mind - the idea that much of 19th German fiction was in a tale-telling mode. The narrator can then tell us what he saw himself, and what other people told him, but he cannot presume to tell us what someone <i>thought</i>. Of course there are endless variations and violations, but having a narrator or story-teller a step outside of the events of the story is common.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-60005196082923988952011-11-03T11:41:01.234-05:002011-11-03T11:41:01.234-05:00This is a stupid comment, but I am compelled to sa...This is a stupid comment, but I am compelled to say that when I read the quoted bit of Mrs. Krause's dialogue, I thought of <i>Ubu Rex</i> as written by James Joyce. Which is enough to make me seek out your Mr Hauptmann.<br /><br />True enough that "In English and French fiction, the intense interiority and limited third person view of writers like Flaubert and Woolf has become a standard mode." Especially in current American fiction, emotional immediacy and "voice" are king. I have mixed feelings about this. <br /><br />~scott gf baileyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com