Steve's Pretentious Lit. Bit

moses said:
Restraint can be beautiful too.
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Yep. See the ending of A Farewell to Arms - no histrionics, no playing to the galleries (let alone the critics), just subtlety and superb understatement which nevertheless resonates with the reader.
 
moses said:
I love his writing style, but haven't read much because I don't like his tales, and can't relate to anyone in them really.
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But this, to some extent, is the problem. I've never liked Hemingway because his characters seem so blunt. Carver, for example, often sacrifices character and back story for his minimalist style. Leaving things out is all well and good, but his characters are often nought but necessary tools to simply reinforce the symbolism in his work. You don't get the same scope from stripped down writing, and often too much is left to the reader. I would like to think there is a happy medium really, and it's kind of the way I'm trying to take my own writing. But I'm struggling against a tide of adjective-angst in modern prose.
 
moses said:
It's a bit like music Smashed, you often write an opus on a piano or a guitar and then when it's written you can add to it. Restraint can be beautiful too. You made the point about the importance of the reader earlier, that can be true of description as well as plots or philosophical nuances. Like a nude silhouette being infinitely more beautiful and often much more erotic than explicit images.
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'A writer should have the precision of a poet, and imagination of a scientist.'

All prose needs to be succint, each word should suit, but that doesn't necessarily mean 'minimal'.
 
I think it's possible to write like Hemmingway and have less cnutish protagonists, just not for Hemmingway it seems. And I think it can be argued that you can get even more scope from stripped down writing; but maybe less input/control as a witer, which is a different thing? A happpy medium is of course the thing and IMO that's what your tutor thinks too. As an example, that opening line you quoted is too ornate for me, and I'd be steering you as wildy in the opposite direction as possible, knowing that your natural writing style would bring you back to some sort of balance.

edit - btw - I'm using Hemmingway as an extreme, not an ideal.
 
Some criticism of Hemingway takes aim at his strained air of machismo and, by extension, the 'manliness' of his characters, Smashed. Maybe the bluntness you mention, and even the pared-down prose, reflects Hemingway as he thought of himself as a person?
 
For what it's worth I think Raymond Chandler is my favourite writer in terms of style.
 
SteveJ said:
Some criticism of Hemingway takes aim at his strained air of machismo and, by extension, the 'manliness' of his characters, Smashed. Maybe the bluntness you mention, and even the pared-down prose, reflects Hemingway as he thought of himself as a person?
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Aye, his macho characters piss me off. I'm much more comfortable with a Tennessee Williams style uncomfortable possibly gay anti hero.

edit - I've done a shit job of not talking you book loving queers.
 
moses said:
I think it's possible to write like Hemmingway and have less cnutish protagonists, just not for Hemmingway it seems. And I think it can be argued that you can get even more scope from stripped down writing; but maybe less input/control as a witer, which is a different thing? A happpy medium is of course the thing and IMO that's what your tutor thinks too. As an example, that opening line you quoted is too ornate for me, and I'd be steering you as wildy in the opposite direction as possible, knowing that your natural writing style would bring you back to some sort of balance.

edit - btw - I'm using Hemmingway as an etreme, not an ideal.
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Nah, I think you often get more ambiguity with a stripped down style.

Take this;

'I loved the nimble way he had of soaking his paintbrush in multiple color to the accompaniment of a rapid clatter produced by the enamel containers wherein the rich reds and yellows that the brush dimple were appetizingly cupped; and having thus collected its honey, it would cease to hover and poke, and by tow or three sweeps of its lush tip, would drench the ‘Vatmanski’ paper with an even spread of orange sky, across which, while that sky was still dampish, a long purple black cloud would be laid'

It's all one sentence, yet it's grammatically flawless and each word is suited perfectly.
 
There is no real ambiguity in Hemmingway though? And to write as ornately as Nabakov and not seem gaudy and showy is a great skill. Not many have it.
 
moses said:
There is no real ambiguity in Hemmingway though? And to write as ornately as Nabakov and not seem gaudy and showy is a great skill. Not many have it.
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I would say there is ambiguity, that is why it's a style so heavily reliant on the reader. Take Indian Camp, for example, so much is unsaid. Why did the Native American kill himself? What happened to the uncle at the end? I think ambiguity is intended and, whilst Hemingway does drop subtle signposts in his writing, it's still often wide open to interpretation.
 
SmashedHombre said:
I would say there is ambiguity, that is why it's a style so heavily reliant on the reader. Take Indian Camp, for example, so much is unsaid. Why did the Native American kill himself? What happened to the uncle at the end? I think ambiguity is intended and, whilst Hemingway does drop subtle signposts in his writing, it's still often wide open to interpretation.
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But that's a device in the plot construction rather than a style. You can have that vague storytelling with an ornate style as easily?

It's been over 10 years since I read Hemmingway btw.
 
moses said:
But that's a device in the plot construction rather than a style. You can have that vague storytelling with an ornate style as easily?

It's been over 10 years since I read Hemmingway btw.
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Well I think minimalist prose and minimalist disclosure are mutually inclusive.
 
Austen had verbose prose with minimalist disclosure, I think you could do minimalist prose while disclosing the full story with enough craft. It's not as if Hemingway is consistently disclosing in his works.
 
Do you know what's a really shit book? Atlas Shrugged.

I was reading an interview with Alan Greenspan and Rand's philosophy & novels were mentioned, and I just thought 'Christ, what a pair of cnuts'.

Apparently Ron Paul's a fan, too. Of Rand, that is.
 
It's a book for literary nerds who want to measure their literary-penis with isn't it? Atleast that's what I concluded from some of the discourses I've heard about it.
 
SteveJ said:
I had to look-up Indian Camp on Wiki. There's some insightful commentary on the questions Smashed posed:

Indian Camp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Interesting, but it still doesn't really answer why the husband killed himself. This is sort of both the problem, and the beauty of it though. For me, I honestly feel the husbands death was merely symbollic. But it's such a big part of the story, yet it's glossed over in a few lines with no explenation. It happened so suddenly, so abruptly with no hint as to the actual reason and it's ambiguity is both reflective and damn frustrating.
 
SmashedHombre said:
Well I think minimalist prose and minimalist disclosure are mutually inclusive.
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The divil is in the detail!

I think a good technician can separate them to be honest. Too much can be blinding sometimes and when it seems forced I just have to stop reading. To me the writer can also seem like he's spoonfeeding the reader if he shows no restraint. But like anything, with the level of writing ability we are talking about it's about taste more than owt else.
 
Adzzz said:
Austen had verbose prose with minimalist disclosure, I think you could do minimalist prose while disclosing the full story with enough craft.
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I agree, I didn't find Hemmingway in any way vague when I read it, either in terms of plot or descriptions, in fact if he were I may not have been so irked by his characters.
 
Lovely thread. Advice from the lot of you - I have always wanted to get into Dostoyevsky. I have tried a few times and failed to get into Brothers Karamazov, which is odd since I hardly ever put a book down having started it. (The only one being ...yes, Atlas Shrugged). I've read a lot about Dostoyevsky and I'm sure I would be interested in the subject material. Is it the translation or should I be starting with something more accessible - Crime and Punishment maybe? Educate me caftards.
 
The_Red_Hope said:
Lovely thread. Advice from the lot of you - I have always wanted to get into Dostoyevsky. I have tried a few times and failed to get into Brothers Karamazov, which is odd since I hardly ever put a book down having started it. (The only one being ...yes, Atlas Shrugged). I've read a lot about Dostoyevsky and I'm sure I would be interested in the subject material. Is it the translation or should I be starting with something more accessible - Crime and Punishment maybe? Educate me caftards.
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Dostoevsky does depend on translations, but if you get good editions (penguin/oxford classics) you'll be fine. Vintage are also good. Start with the smaller material, perhaps Crime and Punishment or Notes from the Underground, but probably best with the Idiot. I dived in at Brothers Karamazov and loved it immensely, persevere with it really. It's one of the greatest novels of all time.
 
Adzzz said:
Dostoevsky does depend on translations, but if you get good editions (penguin/oxford classics) you'll be fine. Vintage are also good. Start with the smaller material, perhaps Crime and Punishment or Notes from the Underground, but probably best with the Idiot. I dived in at Brothers Karamazov and loved it immensely, persevere with it really. It's one of the greatest novels of all time.
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Think you're right. I'm off 2 weeks for Christmas, so I'm going to give it another shot ... cheerful festive reading :).
 
Adzzz said:
Dostoevsky does depend on translations, but if you get good editions (penguin/oxford classics) you'll be fine. Vintage are also good. Start with the smaller material, perhaps Crime and Punishment or Notes from the Underground, but probably best with the Idiot. I dived in at Brothers Karamazov and loved it immensely, persevere with it really. It's one of the greatest novels of all time.
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It truely is (Karamazov Brothers). My other favourite classic novelist is Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers and The Magic Mountain are absolutely immense.
 
Mann took a lot from Dostoevsky. Which shows in Mann's incredible works. Nietzsche and Freud both respected Dostoevsky, simply because Fyodor was on that next level. If you want the English equivalent, it's Mister Dickens. I think it's always important to bare in mind Shakespeare when reading both those great authors.
 
Adzzz said:
Mann took a lot from Dostoevsky. Which shows in Mann's incredible works. Nietzsche and Freud both respected Dostoevsky, simply because Fyodor was on that next level. If you want the English equivalent, it's Mister Dickens. I think it's always important to bare in mind Shakespeare when reading both those great authors.
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Sure, I think Mann even acknowledged this in his Diaries and/or letters.
 
Nietzsche's philosophy and writing style influenced many top-rank authors and poets, so for him to admire Dostoevsky above all others (except, perhaps, Goethe) is a great compliment to the Russian.

The late Christopher Hitchens on a strange connection between Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky:

Eventually, and in miserable circumstances in the Italian city of Turin, Nietzsche was overwhelmed at the sight of a horse being cruelly beaten in the street. Rushing to throw his arms around the animal’s neck, he suffered some terrible seizure and seems for the rest of his pain-racked and haunted life to have been under the care of his mother and sister. The date of the Turin trauma is potentially interesting. It occurred in 1889, and we know that in 1887 Nietzsche had been powerfully influenced by his discovery of the works of Dostoyevsky. There appears to be an almost eerie correspondence between the episode in the street and the awful graphic dream experienced by Raskolnikov on the night before he commits the decisive murders in Crime and Punishment. The nightmare, which is quite impossible to forget once you have read it, involves the terribly prolonged beating to death of a horse. Its owner scourges it across the eyes, smashes its spine with a pole, calls on bystanders to help with the flogging…we are spared nothing. If the gruesome coincidence was enough to bring about Nietzsche’s final unhingement, then he must have been tremendously weakened, or made appallingly vulnerable, by his other, unrelated sufferings. These, then, by no means served to make him stronger. The most he could have meant, I now think, is that he made the most of his few intervals from pain and madness to set down his collections of penetrating aphorism and paradox. This may have given him the euphoric impression that he was triumphing, and making use of the Will to Power. Twilight of the Idols was actually published almost simultaneously with the horror in Turin, so the coincidence was pushed as far as it could reasonably go.
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Very interesting indeed, of course seizures are also of major importance in The Brothers Karamazov, almost each major event features a moment of forgetfulness, or blankness (or indeed in Smerdyakov's case) complete epileptic fit. Fyodor himself was believed to be epileptic. As far as I've been made aware, Freud feared Nietzsche was a better pyscho-analyst than he was, correspondingly, Nietzsche feared that Dostoevsky was equally better at philosophy and all-round tome like knowledge in general.

Goethe is ok, I'm not a massive fan really. He's a bit of a moron who thought Shakespeare read better in German and that the German's started the industrial revolution. Infact, Goethe was the first to peddle the type of thoughts that led directly into fascism, really. Though I'm criticizing him anachronistically which is a little unfair.
 
Adzzz said:
Very interesting indeed, of course seizures are also of major importance in The Brothers Karamazov, almost each major event features a moment of forgetfulness, or blankness (or indeed in Smerdyakov's case) complete epileptic fit.
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Blimey, you're right there, mate. I didn't think of that connection from TBK. I find it interesting that Dostoyevsky's best work is often Christian in spirit, (if not in fact) and yet Nietzsche, his admirer, practically declared war on Christianity. I feel that Nietzsche never truly succeeded in abandoning his early faith, despite appearances - even his ranting against Christianity is biblical in its manner and literary style.
 
Also...Nietzsche was on the verge of going completely bat-shit insane at that point in time. Something so similiar to what he had read in Crime&Punishment probably wasn't as effective (however eerily Hitchens makes the incredible link) was secondary to the effects of Syphilis which Nietzsche may have had.
 
SteveJ said:
Blimey, you're right there, mate. I didn't think of that connection from TBK. I find it interesting that Dostoyevsky's best work is often Christian (in spirit, if not in fact) and yet Nietzsche practically declared war on Christianity. I feel that Nietzsche never truly succeeded in abandoning his early faith, despite appearances - even his ranting against Christianity is biblical in its manner and literary style.
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Don't read Dostoevsky in a christian light though, think of Zosima and the bodily functions - stinking Lizavetta in Mann. You'd expect an angel not to decompose and stink the place out, but Zosima does. Which is just natural to the modern reader but also to Dostoevsky, if anything I always consider his characters in a solipsistic way, which if anything goes against Christianity and certainly lends itself to Nietzsche's Nihilism.
 
Adzzz said:
Don't read Dostoevsky in a christian light though, think of Zosima and the bodily functions - stinking Lizavetta in Mann. You'd expect an angel not to decompose and stink the place out, but Zosima does. Which is just natural to the modern reader but also to Dostoevsky, if anything I always consider his characters in a solipsistic way, which if anything goes against Christianity and certainly lends itself to Nietzsche's Nihilism.
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Good points. It's a great pity Fyodor never got to finish the follow-up, in which (apparently) Alyosha 'goes out into the world'.
 
Indeed, apparently it was going to end with Alyosha becoming a socialist rebel/terrorist who was going to assassinate some important political figure.

'Smerdyakov smiled at Ivan, a crooked grin.' - Evil bastard.
 
Adzzz said:
Indeed, apparently it was going to end with Alyosha becoming a socialist rebel/terrorist who was going to assassinate some important political figure.
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Seriously? That seems like on hell of a departure from his character, regardless of his angst about Zosima's death and its aftermath...
 
SteveJ said:
Seriously? That seems like on hell of a departure from his character, regardless of his angst about Zosima's death and its aftermath...
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Dostoevsky isn't that christian in spirit you see, because ultimately the monastery becomes the breeding ground for Alyosha's inability to cope with the world, I'm sure he discusses with Ivan his doubts about beauty due to the suffering of children. Which he feels first hand when the child bites his finger, in revenge of the humiliation of his father (humiliation as a tool of the devil) he faces disillusionment due to Zosima, really. TBK is more interesting when read politically than religiously (unless you look at from the point of Carnival and turn religion on it's head.)
 
BK's probably the best novel, ever. Wonder if it'd translate onto screen? if not a film a mini series?
 
The bit where the boy walks out with his father to the monument when he refuses to punish him, I'm sure around that part there is some sort of puesdo-socialist discourse. I remember thinking Dostoevsky was just being prophetic about the future of Russia and the rise of communism. I wanted to my dissertation on Dostoevsky and the rise of socialism but alas texts in translation aren't preferable without knowledge of the original language.
 
Yeah, I think perhaps I didn't take enough interest in the Nihilist angle while reading (I mistakenly viewed it as an in-vogue - at the time - element Dostoyevsky placed in the book; a bit like how authors tacked-on 'the Woman Question' in other 19thc works). Sadly, I didn't even consider it properly in The Devils...which is a bit inexcusable of me.

Still, even if this opinion comes my coal-powered brain, Alyosha losing faith because of Zosima's corruption seems a bit much; I'd have expected Alyosha's faith to be stronger than that.
 
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