Notes

 

         Up did some chores, used your weights, had breakfast and read the paper and media. In the New York Times this morning is an article by Robert Pippin titled “In Defense of Naïve Reading” and as you read it you were reminded of something you thought on your characters while in the lengthy process of fully waking up this morning. You found two aspects worth personal thought in light of novel writing:

“. . . the teaching of literature in universities ─ especially after the 19^th-century research model of Humboldt University of Berlin was widely copied ─ needed a justification consistent with the aims of that academic setting: that fact alone has always shaped the way vernacular literature has been taught.

The main aim was research: the creating and accumulation and transmission of knowledge. And the main model was the natural science model of collaborative research: define problems, break them down into manageable parts, create sub-disciplines and sub-sub-disciplines for the study of these, train students for such research specialties and share everything.” (Pippin)

         I feel that settings, characters, plots, themes and conclusion are the manageable parts in the majority of short stories and novels that these should be studied with the purpose and interwoven meaning(s) of the work by the writer in relationship to herorhis times.

“This is not all that literary study should be: we certainly need a theory about how artistic works mean anything at all, why or in what sense, reading a novel, say, is different than reading a detailed case history. . . . Naïve reading can be very hard; it can be done well or poorly; people can get better at it. And it doesn’t have to be “formalist” or purely textual criticism. Knowing as much as possible about the social world it was written for, about the author’s other works, his or her contemporaries, and so forth, can be very helpful.

. . . the sciences themselves will provide the actual theory of meaning that researchers in such fields will need. One already sees the “application” of “results” from the neurosciences and evolutionary biology to questions about why characters in novels act as they do or what might be responsible for the moods characteristic of certain poets. People seem to be unusually interested in what area of the brain is active . . . .” (Pippin)

            I cannot image the reader would not know the difference between a detailed case history and fictional novels. And, while poetry is not fiction it is a bias representation of a setting, characters, plot, theme, and/or introduction/conclusion of the particular concept or meaning. Neither are case histories. Case histories are generally objective works with cultural biases thrown in almost unconsciously.

         What really bothers you is that semi-awake you were asking your characters were thinking about the ‘other’ Dead, those outside of Elysium. You wanted to understand their concepts of what is happening within the context of the story.

         This is no different than the set up of  Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Of course I want to know what these characters in the story are thinking. How am I going to know without asking them? They have free will in the set up and as such I feel they have the right to use it. And, I have the right to ask. I am not bothered that I was asking them. No one responded however.

         Which implies?

         They are more imaginary and less well developed characters than I would have expected. I assumed you had them set up with some depth as that I would have consciously attempted to do. Of course that would not have happened because when I did try this back in the late seventies and I was consciously putting the story lines and characters together I sent it, along with a hundred bucks, to a New York agent who wrote back and said my characters were cardboard, that there was not much to them. He didn’t have much good to say about my first attempt at a novel which is titled Anno Dominae if I remember correctly. He said it was too much detail of setting (Latin America), that it was more like a travel log than a mystery. I don’t remember much about the book other than an astronaut found unidentified human bones floating in space. I think that is the way it was. Human bones were a part of the introduction. The countries involved were Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru, maybe the United States. I figured it was just wordage and it sets in a box in the basement. Most of the concepts are long outdated these days.

         Which implies?

         That you, Amorella, are an inner imaginary creation who is more limited than I thought she was. This is difficult to accept when you have produced three full novels and almost half of a fourth. I think I need to take a nap.

         Post before you do. – Amorella.