Chris asks:
> BTW, Cheerskep, can you give us an example of one of those well-measured
> stiffs ?
>
Chis is here responding to the following exchange:
> the best measure [of a creative work] judges complexity, finesse,
> cohesionof flavors, and an indefinable but unmistakable sense of
> originality.
>
>
"Believe it, a creative work can have all these characteristics and still be
a stiff."
My remark was prompted by a memory of many eamples of what I called "editors'
novels" when I was in publishing. They were -- like many dead-as-balsa-wood
"well-made" plays -- extremely canny, crafty, complex, integrated in style and
event, and displayed a uniqueness of setting or character-mix or predicament.
But they lacked other necessary elements -- mainly a galvanic sense of life.
It always startled me to see experienced, capable editors and learned college
English profs produce novels that had all "the ingredients" -- except, say,
believability.
So it's hard to cite examples you are familiar with because they seldom saw
the light of day, or, when they did, they quickly disappeared.
The poems in the New Yorker for many years now often feel the same: the
product of a sophisticated "artisan", but inorganic, plastic, with no
conductivity.
"Originality" admits of no conclusive measure, in that no matter what is
unusual in a work, there will always be someone who says, "Oh, I've seen that
before." They will then cite some very general factor that is seen in many
"great"
works. No matter how freshly Marlowe, Shakespeare, O'Neill et al may display
the factor, the critic will respond, "It's still the same old 'great man fails
because of fatal flaw' story."
In theater, the director-as-auteur has often imposed bogus "originality" by,
say, restaging "Twelfth Night" and setting it in a Harlem playground with
eleven-and-twelve-year-old actors.
My guess is the visual-art savants on the forum -- especially the teachers --
have seen many works to which it was hard to take any exception except that
they were lifeless. I think William would agree that a painting may be
well-executed in a textbook way, and nevertheless lack what he calls
"radiance".
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