tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post7871512499922023263..comments2024-03-03T13:55:46.243-08:00Comments on Ambling Along the Aqueduct: A few thoughts on representing history in fictionTimmi Duchamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00673465487533328661noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post-81838755217874523822009-10-24T20:46:28.790-07:002009-10-24T20:46:28.790-07:00Josh, what your professor said about racing throug...Josh, what your professor said about racing through the ending of <i>Wuthering Heights</i> every time she read it is a better illustration than I could have provided myself. (I'm assuming she taught it often, maybe even read student essays on it.) Though with certain books I might <i>know</i> somewhere in my mind how it's going to turn out, if I'm completely absorbed in the story as I'm reading it, it's as though the part of me that's doing the reading doesn't-- because that part of me hasn't emotionally processed it during that particular iteration of the story. (And of course certain books make me cry in the same place every time I read them. Same thing, probably.)<br /><br />I guess that's part of what I meant by its "maintaining a powerful flow of now-ness."Timmi Duchamphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00673465487533328661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post-36242884270018061512009-10-24T20:34:14.755-07:002009-10-24T20:34:14.755-07:00I used to love to read feminist reworkings of stor...I used to love to read feminist reworkings of stories-- fairy tales, novels (for instance, Jean Rhys's <i>Wide Sargasso Sea</i>, and so on, Constance. But that was back when such "borrowings" were far from common. Now there's such a glut of such borrowings (poaching?), always with such insipid, cliche results (and Jane Austen's not only one getting it from both sides) that I find it hard to read any of it anymore. Presumably it will eventually stop selling and publishers will decide the appeal of that particular commodity has been exhausted. <br /><br />I'd like to think it's still possible to write about history without trivializing it. But I seem to recall in a fairly recent review of a work of alternate history the reviewer asserting that an alternate history can't be interesting unless the event that has been altered is one that "everyone" is already very familiar with. I don't recall who the reviewer was, but that assertion made my heart sink. That attitude probably explains why so many alternate histories are such crap, rather than the intricate thought experiments I think they ought to be.Timmi Duchamphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00673465487533328661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post-82994612799260439512009-10-24T17:11:58.850-07:002009-10-24T17:11:58.850-07:00A couple of thoughts on this huge, rich post:
Ane...A couple of thoughts on this huge, rich post:<br /><br />Anent "is it really possible, I wonder, to suspend awareness of what's going to come to pass?" Absolutely. As with people who don't visualize what's going on in the fiction they read, I didn't know people weren't aware of this practice! I had a professor in college who said she raced through the final third of <i>Wuthering Heights</i> every time she read it to see how it would turn out.<br /><br />I feel as if anyone writing about Thomas Cromwell is gonna be aware that she's competing with, or in the company of, Ford Madox Ford, whose irony we know is over many people's heads ("But . . . <i>The Good Soldier</i> is a lousy book, because Ashburnham is really not a good man!"). So there's likely to be some self-consciousness there.Joshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15914730499199048197noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post-83193688542310078542009-10-23T12:29:56.370-07:002009-10-23T12:29:56.370-07:00Very interesting commentary about subjects that I,...Very interesting commentary about subjects that I, at least, think about a great deal.<br /><br />Further -- in terms of these same concerns, not only is it tiresome rather than fun or witty, the enormous numbers of titles in and out of genre that are about fictional characters made famous by other writers in the past. Poor Jane Austen -- she gets double-whammied: not only are her own characters and works prequeled and sequeled -- in vain attempts to continue writing in the voice of the author -- the author herself has become a fictional character as a detective, a vampire, a zombie, etc.<br /><br />Somehow this tends to get some of us thinking along with the person referenced in your essay, this is a terrible failure of imagination and courage of conviction on the parts of both contemporary writers, editors and publishers.<br /><br />We are saying we honestly don't believe we can create characters and stories interesting enough to compete with the past.<br /><br />Love, C.Foxessahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06754083123669916994noreply@blogger.com