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From: SRigg37889 at aol.com <SRigg37889>
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 1995 11:20:00 -0400
Although my theoretical jargon is buried back in my graduate school notebooks, which I burned, I'd like to TRY to respond to Perry's recent tract. Maybe I should begin by saying that my views of literature are vastly different from Perry's, but I do realize that I'm only a writer here, and that you all are the readers and critics and will obviously see things differently than I do. And I do enjoy seeing how you 'see.'
Maybe I should also mention that words like de-historicising drive me bananas.
The following points refer to Perry's numbered points... 1. Sorry, haven't read any of those theorists, but...are they actually refering to the writing of fiction? Would you apply this theory to art (as in painting) or music? Fiction (and art and music) can reflect reality
(whatever that is) by distorting it, through abstraction, for example. What do these theorists make of surfictionists like Raymond Federman, or of Beckett, etc? 2. Maybe de-hissing (sorry, my computer refuses to use that other word any more) 'is a bad thing' in politics, say, or in the classroom or whatever, but in fiction? Gasp. What you find timeless and what I find timeless--in fiction-- can be very different things--perhaps that which transcends
'reality.' I never felt anyone was dictating to me what should be timeless.
I thought I had a brain of my own and could decide for myself. I'm afraid I don't buy into the 'we are all brainswashed and don't even know it' theory. 3. Oh dear, mm, I do like Sophocles, but then I am mostly-white and mostly-middle-class. What I find timeless in Soph are the dilemmas, the conflicts, the weaknesses and strengths of humans (not just white ones). I am a whole lot less interested in the specifics of time and place, sorry. 4. Ditto number 3 above. Plus you don't have to share Soph's values to appreciate his portraits of conflict and resolution, etc., do you? 5. I think it's a bit dangerous to say 'all the books that do such and such...' as none of us has ever read 'all the books that..' But:
Shakespeare and Dickens may include specifics of time and place, but it is not those specifics that remain 'timeless'--you can ignore them all and still unearth amazing 'timeless' details of the human condition (ack, sorry about that phrase). And then again, what do you make of Beckett's Godot or of Robbe-Grillet or of myth (Japanese, African, Greek....)?
And though people are 'different in different times and places,' they are also so much the same--in certain, 'timeless' ways. And if writers unearth these timeless ways,I doubt that they do it intentionally. This thing called timelessness surfaces as part of their view, or it emerges from their imagination, their creation of this separate thing, this 'fiction.' But more important, it comes from YOU, the reader, drawing this gossamer thread from the fiction to yourself. 6. The 'pox' shouldn't go to my editor. Send it to me. My editor didn't
'make me' take out any contemporary refs. She merely 'objected' and then it was my choice to weigh her objection and decide whether to expand, clarify, delete, etc. I chose to delete because ultimately the ref. seemed to detract more than enhance. Which brings me to the original wish for more contemporary details in WTM--perhaps this is your individual preference. I recoil at heaps of contemp. refs--the brand of shampoo, etc. And if television (your original example, I think) was missing, it was because it was not important in the shaping of these characters or the issues I was exploring. Every writer selects certain details, rejects others, in his attempt to paint his picture. The shaping of people by tv is the subject for someone else...though you might like to know that there is a television in my first children's book, Absolutely Normal Chaos, and there's a computer in one of the upcoming ones, Chasing Redbird. But maybe I'll go take that computer out now. haha.
And...the more I think about it, the more I think that maybe writing a book that completely de-hisses reality would be a wonderful thing--wow--I'll work on it.... Whenever anyone tells me I shouldn't/can't do something, or that it is 'bad' or 'dangerous' to do, I immediately want to do it.
Shorter messages from me in the future, I promise!
Sharon the Unreal
Received on Fri 28 Jul 1995 10:20:00 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 1995 11:20:00 -0400
Although my theoretical jargon is buried back in my graduate school notebooks, which I burned, I'd like to TRY to respond to Perry's recent tract. Maybe I should begin by saying that my views of literature are vastly different from Perry's, but I do realize that I'm only a writer here, and that you all are the readers and critics and will obviously see things differently than I do. And I do enjoy seeing how you 'see.'
Maybe I should also mention that words like de-historicising drive me bananas.
The following points refer to Perry's numbered points... 1. Sorry, haven't read any of those theorists, but...are they actually refering to the writing of fiction? Would you apply this theory to art (as in painting) or music? Fiction (and art and music) can reflect reality
(whatever that is) by distorting it, through abstraction, for example. What do these theorists make of surfictionists like Raymond Federman, or of Beckett, etc? 2. Maybe de-hissing (sorry, my computer refuses to use that other word any more) 'is a bad thing' in politics, say, or in the classroom or whatever, but in fiction? Gasp. What you find timeless and what I find timeless--in fiction-- can be very different things--perhaps that which transcends
'reality.' I never felt anyone was dictating to me what should be timeless.
I thought I had a brain of my own and could decide for myself. I'm afraid I don't buy into the 'we are all brainswashed and don't even know it' theory. 3. Oh dear, mm, I do like Sophocles, but then I am mostly-white and mostly-middle-class. What I find timeless in Soph are the dilemmas, the conflicts, the weaknesses and strengths of humans (not just white ones). I am a whole lot less interested in the specifics of time and place, sorry. 4. Ditto number 3 above. Plus you don't have to share Soph's values to appreciate his portraits of conflict and resolution, etc., do you? 5. I think it's a bit dangerous to say 'all the books that do such and such...' as none of us has ever read 'all the books that..' But:
Shakespeare and Dickens may include specifics of time and place, but it is not those specifics that remain 'timeless'--you can ignore them all and still unearth amazing 'timeless' details of the human condition (ack, sorry about that phrase). And then again, what do you make of Beckett's Godot or of Robbe-Grillet or of myth (Japanese, African, Greek....)?
And though people are 'different in different times and places,' they are also so much the same--in certain, 'timeless' ways. And if writers unearth these timeless ways,I doubt that they do it intentionally. This thing called timelessness surfaces as part of their view, or it emerges from their imagination, their creation of this separate thing, this 'fiction.' But more important, it comes from YOU, the reader, drawing this gossamer thread from the fiction to yourself. 6. The 'pox' shouldn't go to my editor. Send it to me. My editor didn't
'make me' take out any contemporary refs. She merely 'objected' and then it was my choice to weigh her objection and decide whether to expand, clarify, delete, etc. I chose to delete because ultimately the ref. seemed to detract more than enhance. Which brings me to the original wish for more contemporary details in WTM--perhaps this is your individual preference. I recoil at heaps of contemp. refs--the brand of shampoo, etc. And if television (your original example, I think) was missing, it was because it was not important in the shaping of these characters or the issues I was exploring. Every writer selects certain details, rejects others, in his attempt to paint his picture. The shaping of people by tv is the subject for someone else...though you might like to know that there is a television in my first children's book, Absolutely Normal Chaos, and there's a computer in one of the upcoming ones, Chasing Redbird. But maybe I'll go take that computer out now. haha.
And...the more I think about it, the more I think that maybe writing a book that completely de-hisses reality would be a wonderful thing--wow--I'll work on it.... Whenever anyone tells me I shouldn't/can't do something, or that it is 'bad' or 'dangerous' to do, I immediately want to do it.
Shorter messages from me in the future, I promise!
Sharon the Unreal
Received on Fri 28 Jul 1995 10:20:00 AM CDT
