tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post1386450365523257324..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Want of sympathy condemns us to a corresponding stupidity - Daniel Deronda's narrator takes sidesAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-26734470939830621162015-01-18T21:40:08.509-06:002015-01-18T21:40:08.509-06:00It is startling how every future development in fi...It is startling how every future development in fiction turns out to already be in <i>Don Quixote</i> - once you know how to see it.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-75944882167476373642015-01-18T03:51:46.856-06:002015-01-18T03:51:46.856-06:00I can remember coming across this passage from Geo...I can remember coming across this passage from George Orwell in my teens:<br /> "Nietzsche remarks somewhere that the pathos of Don Quixote may well be a modern discovery. Quite likely Cervantes didn’t mean Don Quixote to seem pathetic—perhaps he just meant him to be funny and intended it as a screaming joke when the poor old man has half his teeth knocked out by a sling-stone;"<br /><br />and even the excitement at realising that all possibilities were open. I'd had implications- an English grammar school education meant looking at Livy's inaccuracies and there is no reliable narrator in Shakespeare- but that was the first time it was spelled out.Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-10880617341228488162015-01-17T21:59:32.471-06:002015-01-17T21:59:32.471-06:00Roger, exactly. "Does the creator know"...Roger, exactly. "Does the creator know" - good question. In <i>Pnin</i>, the creator knows. You are getting into the reason Modernist writers abandoned the omniscient narrator.<br /><br />RT, I think I prefer "skeptical" to "cynical." My training has been positive. It is not that my trust has been betrayed by narrators, but rather that I have seen so many writers do such ingenious things with their narrators. Carting these ideas back to earlier books can be distracting, but also rewarding. I don't understand how people can read <i>Villette</i> or <i>Wuthering Heights</i>, or for that matter <i>Vanity Fair</i>, without spending some time thinking about the narrator. But as you say, plenty of readers are insufficiently on guard, perfect marks for the literary pranksters.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-52677824045366848702015-01-17T10:32:12.689-06:002015-01-17T10:32:12.689-06:00So, you distrust narrators do you? I guess that ma...So, you distrust narrators do you? I guess that makes you a kindred spirit in my curmudgeonly club of cynical readers. My experience, by the way, has taught me that distrust of narrators (or even a willingness to question and interrogate the identity and personality of a narrator -- especially when the dominating authorial presence seems so strong in 3rd person presentations so common in 19th century novels and stories) is one of the hardest "skills" to teach to undergraduate literature students; for example, far too often readers are not willing to consider separating authorial voice from narrative voice. Perhaps that kind of cynicism only comes with certain personalities among readers. On the other hand, I might be wrong. Ah, that happens so often.R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-79551182249084953012015-01-17T02:56:21.721-06:002015-01-17T02:56:21.721-06:00"There is no escaping the fact that want of s..."There is no escaping the fact that want of sympathy condemns us to corresponding stupidity. "<br /><br />Surely that's the ultimate fault for Eliot. The two go together: stupidity condemns us to corresponding want of sympathy too, so the two apparently separate faults feed off each other and are really one. Gwendolen could be better than she is- and eventually improves, perhaps, Grandcourt is incapable of changing. The problem is that we are told this, not shown it and don't actually believe it a lot of the time.<br />Of course, again, this is the fault of the narrator/creator, so the question arises: does the creator know about the narrator's unreliability?<br /><br />.Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.com