I read those books from Sterne, the Journey, and of course Tristram Shandy,
which I remind as a most delightful book, with amazing litterary and poetic
inventions, and a remarkable sense of humor. Moreover, it is one of the
first novel to play with the categories of the representation of time and
space in litterature (as Voltaire did later in his Candide, but in much less
brillant way): by the permanent exploration of all the enable means (and
meanings) of the litterary creation, but also of the act of writing itself,
Sterne blows up the frame of the fiction, the page as the format, the use of
letters and words as unique ways of expression in litterature, and the
classic construction of the novel. To me, there is a before and an after
Tristram Shandy in the litterature history.
I might suggest also the lecture of "a Modest Proposal", an actual speech of
Sterne at the Lord Chamber in which he denounces the starvation in Ireland
by proposing various way of cooking babies to fight the lack of food.
I've never read Finnegan's Wake, but Dubliners, Self Portrait and Ulysses
remain as some of my best moments as reader -even if I didn't read them
twice- which I can only compare to the pleasure I felt by reading Jarry,
Lautr�amont, Proust, Rabelais, Sade and some others amongst who I like to
live, like Mallarm�, Jean Pierre Brisset, or Raymond Roussel.
I kept a long silent those last weeks, because I was moving to the west of
France, in Bretagne, and also because my first baby is born the 23 rd of
august, and this has (and is still) occupied me a LOT. THat's why I needed
some time to read all the 560 mails I had received from the list. So I've
learned only recently the departure of Ken Friedmann.
I'm sad of this new, and I think that it means a no return point: with the
quiting of Ken, Fluxlist might have lost the remaining Flux of its name,
after the death of Dick Higgins. One may think that Eric Andersen is still
here to keep the original fluxus spirit present in the list (bad taste, bad
jokes, bad faith, megalomania and paranoia), one can also think that Ken's
unsubscribing is of no matter, as far as this list is no more interesting in
basically working on Fluxus.
I don't think Ken left because of the poor and recurrent paranoic attacks of
Andersen and Tamas, but because of the poor interest for Fluxus we
demonstrated. And this is why I dont think of this list -which I liked a
lot- as the Fluxlist anymore.
Bertrand
----- Message d'origine -----
De : Roger Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
� : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Envoy� : mercredi 13 septembre 2000 15:38
Objet : Re: FLUXLIST: Tristram Shandy
> Badgergirl writes
>
> >Wait a minute now! I've read both Finnegan's Wake and Ulysses.
>
> Wow! Every word of Finnegan's Wake? On every page? You didn't skip bits?
> If this is true then I am very impressed.
>
> >I've read Ulysses several times, it's one of my top 5 favorite books.
>
> So - what are your top 5 books?
>
> XXX
> Roger
>
>
>
>
>
