In a message dated 10/24/08 6:21:57 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Cheerskep, what do you think these authors have in common ? > > Anything that you would call "aesthetic"? > > Louis Auchincloss -- "The Rector of Justin" > Anthony Burgess -- "Nothing Like the Sun" > Robert Crichton -- "The Secret of Santa Vittoria" > Mary Renault -- "The King Must Die" > Reynolds Price -- "A Generous Man" > Truman Capote -- "Other Voices, Other Rooms" > Ross Macdonald -- "The Galton Case" > John Fowles -- "The French Lieutenant's Woman" > Norman Mailer -- "The Deer Park" > Other authors: Wright Morris, Vance Bourjaily, William Gass, George P. > Elliott, Mark Harris. > Well, they all wrote novels that I admire (except William Gass, but I chose him to represent writers of meta-fiction -- who, I'm happy to say, seem to have passed quite out of vogue). Okay if I assume that when you ask, "What do you think these authors have in common?" you mean they -- OR their work? When I wrote in my intro to that book, and in the posting you read, "there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is discernibly common and peculiar to all writers," I thought hard about whether I could stick with that statement. Yes, they all have in common that they are literate in English, but that's not peculiar to them. They all wrote novels (I only invited novelists) but it's not peculiar to all writers that they write novels -- many writers don't. Dorothy Parker didn't, Shakespeare didn't. I can't even say all those writers I chose have ever had an "aesthetic experi ence" in their lives -- but that's perhaps a function of what I have in mind with "a.e.". I'd claim no novel yields to anyone an aesthetic experience that last for 200, 400, a thousand pages. To me, that'd be roughly like having an orgasm lasting a couple of days. I've already said a novel (and any play) is NOT a "single" work. It's the result of countless creative acts -- choosing this word, constructing that sentence, imagining a given scene. I've commented on a number of plays with supernal long moments that gave me an a.e. as I watched them. (And short moments. In London when Ian Holm as Lear cried, "Howl, howl, howl, howl!" the skin on my upper arms puckered, my breath stopped, my heart staggered momentarily.) I've had a.e.'s while reading Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Melville, Austen, Mailer, and others (though never a book-long one), but there have been novels I esteem greatly without their ever occasioning an a.e. in me. So, to answer your question, No, these authors do not have anything in common that I would call "aesthetic" -- but then, I very seldom use that word, except as a modifier for 'experience'. Even then I always use the phrase as a "sensation" label, the way, undefined, I might use "vanilla taste" or "itching" or "hungry". > > Anything that you would call "aesthetic"? > ************** Play online games for FREE at Games.com! All of your favorites, no registration required and great graphics b check it out! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1211202682x1200689022/aol?redir= http://www.games.com?ncid=emlcntusgame00000001)
