Comments on: character http://www.oncaesura.com/2009/04/19/character.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/2009/04/19/character.html#comment-354 oncaesura Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:10:01 +0000 http://www.oncaesura.com/?p=152#comment-354 I don’t know if I entirely agree with Franzen but think that it shines a bright light on something essential about his fiction, which is typical in terms of its aesthetic values. These values are what interested me here more than his take on famous v. everyday: the novel is a bourgeois, liberal, and non-tragic (so comic) form that must allow the reader to inhabit the consciousness of the characters. That sounds suspiciously like a certain well-known critic. In his defense, Franzen would probably say that what you describe as happening in <i>The Master</i> is an example of writing about someone who happens to be public as if they were not and that is why it succeeds as a novel. I don’t know if I entirely agree with Franzen but think that it shines a bright light on something essential about his fiction, which is typical in terms of its aesthetic values. These values are what interested me here more than his take on famous v. everyday: the novel is a bourgeois, liberal, and non-tragic (so comic) form that must allow the reader to inhabit the consciousness of the characters. That sounds suspiciously like a certain well-known critic.

In his defense, Franzen would probably say that what you describe as happening in The Master is an example of writing about someone who happens to be public as if they were not and that is why it succeeds as a novel.

]]> By: lucas http://www.oncaesura.com/2009/04/19/character.html#comment-351 lucas Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:15:58 +0000 http://www.oncaesura.com/?p=152#comment-351 Too strongly stated, I think, though I see what he's going for. I'm reading Colm Toibin's "The Master" at the moment, and I'm struck by how thoroughly good it is. Toibin gives us the interiority, the spaces, the silences of the public man (in this case Henry James). In fact, he's doing precisely the same sort of thing that makes James interesting to read, though Toibin accomplishes it with a less rigid and formal tone. Can't imagine a biography being this good. But I don't read a lot of historical fiction, so maybe "The Master" is one of the exceptions that proves the rule. Too strongly stated, I think, though I see what he’s going for.

I’m reading Colm Toibin’s “The Master” at the moment, and I’m struck by how thoroughly good it is. Toibin gives us the interiority, the spaces, the silences of the public man (in this case Henry James). In fact, he’s doing precisely the same sort of thing that makes James interesting to read, though Toibin accomplishes it with a less rigid and formal tone. Can’t imagine a biography being this good.

But I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, so maybe “The Master” is one of the exceptions that proves the rule.

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