Comments on: style http://www.oncaesura.com/2009/03/14/style.html quiet thoughts Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:48:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: oncaesura http://www.oncaesura.com/2009/03/14/style.html#comment-47 oncaesura Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:37:21 +0000 http://www.oncaesura.com/?p=109#comment-47 EC, thanks for writing. I had included the link to the Wood review but didn't bother to re-read it before posting my response. It's a bit of trickery on my part, linking to something I claim not to remember existing. Once I re-read Wood, I took away the same thing that you did: he is being kind and generous but still claims it isn't a novel in the end and that it simply fails. Thanks for commenting. I have been a fan of your "Against Wood" site for some time. You go more cultural critical than I would in understanding Wood, but your work is essential. I especially liked Deresiewicz's take on <i>How Fiction Works</i> from <i>The Nation</i>, but you've probably already seen it. EC, thanks for writing. I had included the link to the Wood review but didn’t bother to re-read it before posting my response. It’s a bit of trickery on my part, linking to something I claim not to remember existing. Once I re-read Wood, I took away the same thing that you did: he is being kind and generous but still claims it isn’t a novel in the end and that it simply fails.

Thanks for commenting. I have been a fan of your “Against Wood” site for some time. You go more cultural critical than I would in understanding Wood, but your work is essential. I especially liked Deresiewicz’s take on How Fiction Works from The Nation, but you’ve probably already seen it.

]]> By: EC http://www.oncaesura.com/2009/03/14/style.html#comment-46 EC Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:09:42 +0000 http://www.oncaesura.com/?p=109#comment-46 Wood did indeed review "Falling Man" -- you can find it reproduced at Powell's Books "Review-a-Day": http://www.powells.com/review/2007_07_05.html It's a little more measured than his earlier briefs against DeLillo but basically the same: "This highly formal, and quickly formalized, still life is sometimes affecting; more often it is mildly suggestive, with the reader feeling that a lot of white space on the page is glaring at him ["the reader" is apparently always male] beseechingly." He compliments some prose passages and derogates others, and winds up wishing -- as he had with Underworld -- that DeLillo had stuck to writing domestic fiction (in one way or another, Wood's default setting): "Falling Man is most successful at the evocation of a shattered domestic existence, of life in the shadow of 'after'." Wood did indeed review “Falling Man” — you can find it reproduced at Powell’s Books “Review-a-Day”:

http://www.powells.com/review/2007_07_05.html

It’s a little more measured than his earlier briefs against DeLillo but basically the same: “This highly formal, and quickly formalized, still life is sometimes affecting; more often it is mildly suggestive, with the reader feeling that a lot of white space on the page is glaring at him ["the reader" is apparently always male] beseechingly.”

He compliments some prose passages and derogates others, and winds up wishing — as he had with Underworld — that DeLillo had stuck to writing domestic fiction (in one way or another, Wood’s default setting): “Falling Man is most successful at the evocation of a shattered domestic existence, of life in the shadow of ‘after’.”

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