(no subject)

[decemberthirty]

I'm at work, so I don't have a whole lot of time, but I wanted to briefly make note of two very interesting articles that I read recently. Both were from the New Yorker, and both were from the same issue, although I unfortunately do not remember which issue it was. The first one that I read was a long piece by Jonathan Franzen dealing with difficulty in literature, and the second was an in-depth profile of Harold Bloom, controversial literary critic/scholar extraordinaire. Taken together, the two articles represent a rather forceful repudiation of many of the basic tenets of postmodernism. Very interesting. I took a class on postmodern literature when I was in England, and I loved the class, the professor, the reading list... All in all, it was one of the best academic experiences of my life. That class sparked an interest in postmodernism for me, as well as introducing me to several authors whom I pursued on my own. So I have some experience with postmodern literature, and I enjoyed most of what I read. However, I have to confess that I enjoyed it for distinctly non-postmodern reasons! There were characters that appealed to me, and lovely writing that I enjoyed, and tangled webs of plot that were fun to sort out... All the things that true postmodern people were supposed to disdain and view as simply so much artifice. Nonetheless, I also enjoyed the more orthodox postmodern stuff: the way the authors introduced uncertainty into their texts, the questions that they raised, they way they seemed to be willing to have fun at the expense of their own books even as they were writing them. So I clearly have an interesting relationship to postmodern literature and to the whole notion of exactly what postmodernism is. I haven't yet sorted it out completely, but those two articles were certainly interesting for me.

In other news, I am about halfway through -The Vision of Emma Blau-. I am enjoying it, but it's definitely a slow book rather than a page turner. That doesn't mean it's not enjoyable, it's just a different kind of enjoyment.

Comments

[sarajw.livejournal.com]

Do you still remember the works you read in that postmodern class? What about who your professor was? I wonder if (s)he has a syllabus online somewhere...

[decemberthirty.livejournal.com]

Wow! You're really digging back into some old stuff here! Not that there's anything wrong with that...

The postmodernism class was a while ago, maybe four or five years ago at this point, but I still have most of the books so I think I can give you a pretty accurate list of what I read:

Waterland by Graham Swift
An Imaginary Life by David Malouf
Doctor Copernicus by John Banville
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

These are just the novels. The class also included some theory, and I read a lot of pomo theory and criticism for the paper I wrote for the class, but I'm not a very theory-oriented person so I'm afraid I don't remember much of that stuff. The title of the class was "Postmodern Rewritings" and it was focussed on the way that pomo writers dealt with the issues of history and the reliability of our sources of knowledge in their texts. If you read a few of these books you'll definitely notice a preoccupation with history.

The prof's name was Derval Tubridy, although I'm not sure if I'm spelling that right... It was at Goldsmiths College, part of the University of London, but as I said, it was a few years ago, and I don't even know if she's still on the faculty there, or if the class is still being taught. If you do happen to find a syllabus online, let me know. I sure did love that class, and I would be happy to have my memory of it refreshed.

[sarajw.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if you'd find these old responses. I actually started at the beginning. I've really enjoyed reading about the books you read. You have a very nice writing style and easily convey the emotions that these works evoke in you.

For instance... I've heard repeatedly that Lonsome Dove is a great book, but I have never before been more interested in reading it. I've had to make a list of some of the books that I hadn't even heard of that sound very intriguing now.

In short, I love your journal and am delighted that you've continued to maintain it!

[decemberthirty.livejournal.com]

Thank you! What a nice thing to say. I'm very glad that you're enjoying my journal, and even more glad that you're getting interested in some of the books I've read. If you read anything based on my recommendation, definitely comment and let me know how you liked it.

By the way, Lonesome Dove is definitely worth reading. It took some time for me to really get into the story, but once I did it was well worth it.