tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post4536218999707401187..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: I hope there will be nonsense in it - two Victorian literaturesAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-89842844387509675042012-08-08T21:46:53.475-05:002012-08-08T21:46:53.475-05:00Well, your old slag, however one wants to take it,...Well, your old slag, however one wants to take it, makes a good, strong point. These literary traditions are not just the same thing with different linguistic paint jobs. They are really different from each other and there is no reason every reader should be at home in all of them.<br /><br />At some point - I do not remember where - I promised you a list of Victorian literature for fans of Argentinean literature. Something like that. This is basically it. What Borges says, plus that unbelievable Douglas Brown novel. Plus "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came". Plus - no, that's plenty. (Marlowe, Webster, Swift, Sterne).<br /><br />In <i>Maldoror</i> Ducasse deliberately joins what is already a long Satanic tradition in French literature. That chapter I discuss in my link is a conscious gesture. So I'm sticking with Evil for <i>Maldoror</i> - <i>Poésies</i> if of course consciously anti-Satanic. It is all just a stance or theoretical position. The fact that Ducasse is far more interesting and better writer than Sade is a separate point! <br /><br />1,001 sounds like a stretch. Think of the kooks you would attract if you tried to write that book.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-40269545271763154862012-08-08T21:13:10.854-05:002012-08-08T21:13:10.854-05:00Tom, I had no idea my anti-British lit comments wo...Tom, I had no idea my anti-British lit comments would have such a long shelf life away from my own blog. What a comic surprise to see them again here and to see myself mentioned alongside that famous Anglophile Borges in the same sentence no less! On a less egocentric note, I have to ask you whether you really think Lautréamont belongs to Evil Lit instead of Crazy Lit? The Count was a lot more humorous and inventive than the Marquis in my book, so I tend to weight his crazy "sensation novelist" side more heavily than his "sadistic" or evil side. In any event, I look forward to your upcoming tome on <em>1,001 Evil Lit Books to Read Before You Die</em> and the subsequent blog tour it will no doubt inspire. That should be fun.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-27394575904824634442012-08-08T17:27:35.136-05:002012-08-08T17:27:35.136-05:00That's an interesting observation; I hadn'...That's an interesting observation; I hadn't noticed. Hm...LMRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08538873868140070018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-65900828483121013662012-08-08T12:03:04.950-05:002012-08-08T12:03:04.950-05:00Really? I am intrigued but would have to hear mor...Really? I am intrigued but would have to hear more. Sui generis is how it looks to me.<br /><br />The poems are mostly parodies, certainly.<br /><br />Before I forget - what is Shaw doing on the Borges list? <i>Caesar and Cleopatra</i>, <i>Candida</i>, and <i>Major Barbara</i> are the specific works. Seems odd, but I barely know Shaw, and why should everything fit?Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-50320611064117571322012-08-08T11:41:39.425-05:002012-08-08T11:41:39.425-05:00Sometimes I think that Alice is a parody of the Vi...Sometimes I think that <i>Alice</i> is a parody of the Victorian novel, but that could just be me seeing everything through my Modernist spectacles. This is an excellent post. At some point, I swear, I'll read Rohan's guide.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-47001002022156119902012-08-08T10:35:53.690-05:002012-08-08T10:35:53.690-05:00Maybe the author of The Bhagavad-Gita was a woman....Maybe the author of <i>The Bhagavad-Gita</i> was a woman. Then there would be a woman writer in the Borges library. Or maybe some of the <i>Arabian Nights</i> stories?Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-61775799917555626552012-08-08T09:38:10.554-05:002012-08-08T09:38:10.554-05:00To expand on Miguel's point, it is not just po...To expand on Miguel's point, it is not just popular culture. The craze for epistolary novels, Gothic novels, historical novels - these were all international events that profoundly changed every national literature, and they originated in England, often transmitted via French translations. This actually reinforces Miguel's idea, come to think of it - these were all "genre" innovations. Popular novels. Byronism is another example, although a little different.<br /><br />Huysmans I at least know if not well. Rachilde I did not know at all. Holy cow! A subject for future research, there.<br /><br />Rohan, I will clarify my shorthand. We do not have to call our Carrollian assumptions modernist. But: if I have been reading Borges and Kafka and André Breton and then turn to an <i>Alice</i> book I will do quite well without putting any assumptions aside. Maybe if I were reading Camus and Mann, also Modernists, I would have more trouble with Carroll, but would be more likely to glide right into a good approach to <i>Middlemarch</i>.<br /><br />So yes, please, someone rename the modernists! Too big, too much piled onto one label.<br /><br />Mary Shelley, to slip backwards a bit, would fall into the inventive side of the divide, and my understanding is that the best-selling late Victorian author was the fantasy writer Marie Corelli, although her <i>artistic</i> example may not be so useful. What is interesting is what the <i>best</i> writers did with their time and talents. Eliot was perfectly capable of writing a good supernatural story when she wanted.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-67930047658785604192012-08-08T09:33:56.564-05:002012-08-08T09:33:56.564-05:00The two Borges lists include no women writers, als...The two Borges lists include no women writers, also probably meaningful in some way.<br /><br />Great post(s).seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-66885567459414186282012-08-08T08:43:21.475-05:002012-08-08T08:43:21.475-05:00Great post, and of course, if I had been making a ...Great post, and of course, if I had been making a set of guidelines meant to be truly complete and authoritative (but what a foolish 'Key to all Mythologies' project <i>that</i> would be) I would have had to do it in at least two sections and probably more. Perhaps I should sneak in "some" or "the best-known" into my title! The fraught "novel" / "romance" distinction might save me. A bit.<br /><br />I wonder why we have to call the assumptions that might guide our reading of Lewis Carroll "modernist." Perhaps instead we should rename the modernists.<br /><br />Interesting point about the gender line between "sense" and "nonsense." Are there nonsensical women (or books by women) we just don't know about? Probably.Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-65899135168964895872012-08-08T07:47:18.141-05:002012-08-08T07:47:18.141-05:00Your remarks about French Crazy Lit caused me to s...Your remarks about French Crazy Lit caused me to smile. Have you read Huysmans or Rachilde? Both are crazy in their own fashion, Rachilde is sultry crazy, Huysmans is sickly crazy. It was this sort of thing that meant, for years, I couldn't face the likes of Eliot, Gaskell et al because they were so long and so sensible. But with age comes alterations in taste and I'm becoming more able to appreciate them now.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-94735634539319812012-08-08T05:53:33.663-05:002012-08-08T05:53:33.663-05:00The way I see it, no other national literature has...The way I see it, no other national literature has contributed as much as the British did to popular culture. Other countries doubtlessly had better writers - Russia, of course, but Russia only had great novelists. It's curious that from Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Austria, Portugal we didn't get spy novels, horror novels, detective novels, fantasy novels, westerns, pirate novels, or none as important as those in English. But the British had all these great storytellers who invented and perfected genres and concepts that continue to shape much of our popular entertainment.<br /><br />Perhaps only France can compare with it - Jules Verne and Paul Feval and Guy de Maupassant, and Arsene Lupin and Fantomas. But even so it's a poor comparison.LMRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08538873868140070018noreply@blogger.com