tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post8930985400802089757..comments2023-05-21T14:46:54.138+01:00Comments on FictionBitch: Too simple for words?Elizabeth Baineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17193751871434773972noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-74855432383149771212011-12-03T08:50:51.101+00:002011-12-03T08:50:51.101+00:00Interesting quote..thanks for sharing.Interesting quote..thanks for sharing.guest post bloghttp://www.allinoneguestblog.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-57682155060450323402011-11-30T19:38:57.243+00:002011-11-30T19:38:57.243+00:00Another interesting quote: thanks.Another interesting quote: thanks.Elizabeth Baineshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17193751871434773972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-22816403573584051022011-11-30T17:54:29.501+00:002011-11-30T17:54:29.501+00:00I love the idea of someone as widely - and well - ...I love the idea of someone as widely - and well - read as Umberto Eco socking it to that 'death of the author' crap. I could never read any of that stuff as anything other than a provocation and it's good to see it may be one whose work has been done and from which we can now move on (it is a big leap from accepting that ambiguities are welcome, to filling these gaps in understanding with meanings that are not there...) <br /><br />And I agree, Breton's points are exquisitely phrased. The first, about 'liking', echoes the relationship as expressed by Baudelaire writing to Wagner about Tannhauser: 'I set out to discover the why of it and to transform my pleasure into knowledge'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-32233009812279133352011-11-29T11:46:39.178+00:002011-11-29T11:46:39.178+00:00Tim, thanks so much for these wonderful quotes! I ...Tim, thanks so much for these wonderful quotes! I especially love the Breton one.<br /><br />You make an excellent point about interpretations of 'simplicity'.Elizabeth Baineshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17193751871434773972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-62726498676477889032011-11-29T11:33:53.506+00:002011-11-29T11:33:53.506+00:00I like Eco. I wonder though whether most people re...I like Eco. I wonder though whether most people read "The Name of the Rose" as if it were a Medieval whodunnit (like Cadfael) with the bonus that it's a fat book (holiday reading) that's written by a Lit Prof (respectability). <br /><br />I rather agree with his comment that "It's only publishers and journalists who believe that people want simple things. People are tired of simple things. They want to be challenged." But if novels are like a good many other topics, simplicity may be something that practitioners and theorists judge differently to readers. Things like the BBC's new Sherlock Holmes (or even "I'm a Celebrity ...") can be viewed as multilayered examples of postmodernism, but that's not how most people view them. <br /><br />Yury Lotman wrote "Artistic simplicity is more complex than artistic complexity for it arises via the simplification of the latter and against its backdrop or system". I find various types of minimalism difficult. Is WC Williams' Red Wheelbarrow simple? Were Carl Andre's brick simple? <br /><br />I'll end with 4 quotes (by poets, but I think the points apply more generally)<br /><br />"One encounters in any ordinary day far more real difficulty than one confronts in the most 'intellectual' piece of work. Why is it believed that poetry, prose, painting, music should be less than we are?", Geoffrey Hill<br /><br />"The relationship between an artist and reality is always an oblique one, and indeed there is no good art which is not consciously oblique. If you respect the reality of the world, you know that you can only approach that reality by indirect means.", Richard Wilbur<br /><br />"The general public ... has set up a criterion of its own, one by which every form of contemporary art is condemned. This criterion is, in the case of music, melody; in the case of painting, representation; in the case of poetry, clarity. In each case one simple aspect is made the test of a complicated whole, becomes a sort of loyalty oath for the work of art. ... instead of having to perceive, to enter, and to interpret those new worlds which new works of art are, the public can notice at a glance whether or not these pay lip-service to its own 'principles'", Randall Jarrell<br /><br />"At the outset, it is only liking, not understanding, that matters. Gaps in understanding ... are not only important, they are perhaps even welcome, like clearings in the woods, the better to allow the heart's rays to stream out without obstacle. The unlit shadows should remain obscure, which is the very condition of enchantment", BretonTim Lovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00578925224900533603noreply@blogger.com