As I push through Bleak House unending, the merits of The Amazing Adventures of Cavelier and Klay has become a topic of discourse. Is the Pulitzer Prize winning novel sentimental tackiness? Poorly written? Or is a work that deserves the lauding it has recieved? Here is a taste of the conversation that has already transpired.WH: "I was pissed off at Joe. I was pissed off because he is so egocentric that his despair and agony only involves his own pain and guilt."
FR: "What i am talking about WH, is, even though i said "soap opera," what i meant was the fuckin, fuckin, objective correlative."
Again, FR (my favorite quip of the day): "And K and C is just one dry boring dust path moving toward liberal, "sexually freeing," tolerent, stupid, great american politess and levinasian bullshit."
12 comments:
Its been a few years since I read K&C (three maybe) so its not the most clear in my head BUT, I do have very visual images of it still. Which might correlate with the "soap opera" description that was coined by FR. Though, I don't think of it as "Soap Opera" so much as dreamy and dramatic, like any other comic book set in that time period. As for WH's comment on Joe being so "egocentric that his despair and agony only involves his own pain and guilt" -- this statement sounds like a contradiction of terms, despair is a selfish and egocentric act, it seems to me that if he is in despair and becomes an egomaniac as a result that only gives weight to the honesty of his character, as written by Chabon. Which doesn't mean you have to like him, depressed people are a lot to handle, but that should only make the novel better, not worse, no?
I can't remember which character was which but the one that was gay and stayed with Rosa and then up and left when the other returned- pissed me off. I understand that he was there in a sense out of obligation and what he felt was duty, but would obligation alone keep someone around for so many years, to just up and leave as if it never happened with the other returns? That didn't seem plausible to me. Anyone else? Am I forgetting details that change things a bit?
FR, I don't even know where to begin with your drunken comments, so I'm not going to.
The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must
terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked
TS Eliot Hamlet and His Proplems
Now FR, instead of quoting, you talk to us.
Eliot’s proposition that Hamlet is a bad play is something I have no basis for understanding. It’s like LBJ saying he doesn’t like Belle and Sebastian at all, that he in fact hates them. It is a case of either he or I or both of us missing the point. In any case Eliot places Hamlet the play’s failure on the excess of Hamlet the man’s emotions in light of the physical action of the play, the events, which Eliot inconceivably locates in Gertrude’s guilt. Or in other words, the Objective Correlative which emotive high art requires is not functioning properly; there is a difference between what is happening in the Hamlet the play, and what is happening in Hamlet the man.
So Eliot allows Prince Hamlet no or little excuse for his distemper. Which is again inconceivable. My only deduction is that Eliot is a bastard, and by that I mean that he doesn’t have a father. Because Hamlet is not so much about the murder of a father, but rather, and quite simply, about having a father. And that is all the objective correlative one might need for Prince Hamlet’s rage and madness. Which is to say that there is a great amount of sympathy between Hamlet and I, so much so that certainly the objective correlative must be working properly, if we wish to use the term at all, a term seemingly invented to dismantle Hamlet in the first place.
In the first place such long ramblings may remain, if not necessary then certainly un-read. If you have not read what I have written then I apologize for writing at all. But in the first place I concede that perhaps my use of Eliot’s stupid term in last night’s diatribe against WH, was not on the whole exact, or precise; in which case I again do not apologize for being drunk and half crazed on account of WH’s vehement attack.
I like what JDM said-coincidently about fathers- revealing that the events, the time and place of K & C, post war America, are enough to cause certain emotions, in the characters and then in the readers. However and on the whole I was not a recipient of such emotions. The trouble with the objective correlative is that it assumes a priori, there is objective evocation of emotions in literature. Which apparently, obviously and of course, using I and Eliot as examples there aren’t.
indeed. the objective correlative's purpose was not become the standard usage of emotive understanding, but for eliot to discount hamlet.
the problem with this argument for K and C is FR is purporting that there is only one way to successfully portray and connect to readers emotionally in a narrowly defined fashion as the objective correlative. why limit art with such words as 'only.'?
My vehement attack? Jigga wha?
Amber, you said that depressed people are hard to deal with. That may make this a simple issue of my impatience with people.
But... I was curious to see if anyone else felt this way: I didn't really care about the book's last third because I was mad at the characters. Joe was a selfish douche and I lost most of my interest in hearing about him.
Make sense?
I can't say that I've understood more than 1/3 of what's been said so far, perhaps in part because I wasn't drinking with all of you last night - a problem that will soon be rectified. I'm about 1/3-1/2 through the book and, like whb, I kind of don't care anymore. I'm still going to try to finish, but for now, the comic companion book is much more interesting.
post.script.: The "O" family will officially become residents of St. Paul as of Aug 1. Hooray.
i like horsies
Jimmy, are you serious?!? oh man... I'm moving back. I want to... oh damn.
WH, in reply to your last comment, I'm wondering: Would you say that you didn't like the book, or that it just fell off for you a bit in the end? Or did you like the book, but were frustrated with the characters? Does being frustrated or annoyed with the characters make it a bad book, or does the fact that Chabon is able to make you so frustrated say something positive about the writing and his ability to capture how frustrating the people can be? Or am I totally off? Unfortunately, I may have felt this same way when I read the book, but it’s been so long that I don't remember, which may mean I should just stop talking.
I also read the book quite awhile ago and can't remember the ending particularly well, although I remember being also aggravated by Joe's behavior. I agree with WH that he was a bit of a douche, but I also support AZ's suggestion that part of the reason good writing makes an impact is not just in how much you like or feel emotionally invested in a character, but in how much you can actually buy that character as a person. Including being frustrated and appalled by the way they treat each other. That said, I really would have to re-read at least the ending to give a strong opinion about how good or bad the book was on the whole. Although I do remember feeling melancholy and invested when Joe killed his sled dog. I think that was probably the most successfully poignant relationship in the whole book. Which probably does say something about Joe as a person.
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