Newengland's comments (member since Jul 11, 2008)

Newengland's comments from the Constant Reader group.

I think the main reason I find this talk about absolute beauty, the INHERENT beauty of certain things, so distressing has to do with the massive conceit of human beings as being somehow above it all, a cut above the other things that live on our planet.

Odd, as this seems to be an argument FOR finding beauty inherent in certain things. Arguing otherwise (that is, requiring the perception of humans and their wonderful brains to discern "beauty") is more like "the massive conceit of human beings" in discussion because it is tantamount to saying "Nothing is unless we, as a race, perceive it to be."

Can we apply the scientific method to "beauty," then? Quantify it like the beauty pageants do?

What think you, judges?

I admit a prejudice against science being used to explain art and beauty. Some things are abstract and amorphous as opposed to quantifiable and categorical.

Mea culpa, however, to being so biased on this count. Man loves his science. It's his little God act, in a sense.

Score one for Plato. (Wasn't he the guy who hung out in a cave?)

I won't mention the fact that I'm already on record here for loathing philosophical writings by bigwig philosophers (whoops). But when they agree with me, I put that loathe of bread on the table and serve it with butter!

But who's to say our drums are the only things to vibrate in said philosophical forest? It's an ear-ie world we live in, and we're not the only show in town.

I see "Literature I Loathe" has grown a new title. Apt, that, considering where these rivers have run! And certainly this is "literature" (of a sort) that I enjoy. Great posts left and (as required by law) right, folks.

I'm of the "Yes, it does" school to the old question about trees falling in the forest. I always thought it was self-centered of those with ears (and brains, one would hope) to say, "No. No noise unless me, myself, and I are around to hear it." As if.

As for art, the challenge is Biblical in scale. As Ecclesiastes told us so eloquently, "There is nothing new under the sun," which means, creatively, your only choice is to put a new wrinkle on used goods. Thus, when Peter talks about writers breaking new ground, I think of writers re-tilling old ground in a new way.

And if you create a thing of beauty and no one hears (music), sees (art), or reads (literature) it? There's still the satisfaction of stepping back and taking it in yourself. It must be what the master carpenter feels when he leaves behind a beautiful piece of architecture -- a building that will remain far past his own days as a testament to his creative spirit, the part of him that burned with Promethean fire.

I actually bought this book for my classroom when it first came out. No takers, though. Maybe they're too young or the subject matter is not where 8th graders want to go (and admittedly, few of them reach for poetry anyway). It was recommended to me by Nancie Atwell (name dropping).

Whoops. Blathering away here and I didn't even realize you were about to publish a book, A.J. Congrats on that! Another one breaks through the clothbound ceiling!

There's no end to reasons writers write. In fact, with each writer alone, there are numerous reasons.

And for the record, I've never published any fiction. But I've finished two major works and that's good enough in my book. In fact, to my mind, you're a "writer" even if you write GR posts. (I'm a charter member of the Big Tent Party.)

I, too, think "loathe and love" are perfectly compatible bedfellows amongst a group of book lovers (who, though we don't advertise, can't help but also be "book loathers" because we have insatiable appetites and go through so many).

As for the author-reader transaction, there's a gray area there, a bit of the chicken or the egg thing in play. As a writer, I have an intent when I start to create fiction. Of course, what I intend and what I create can never be exactly the same (pulling THAT off would be akin to predicting tomorrow's lottery numbers).

Still, the work should be something akin to my intent, and I should be happy with the ultimate product or else I wouldn't seek to publish it.

Enter the reader. Some readers see things I did not intend at all when they read my work. This could surprise me, please me, or irritate me, but it's all part of the pact with the devil I make when I publish my writing, isn't it?

Raskolnikov may be an unreliable narrator of something, but he's not the narrator of C&P. C&P is written in the third person.

Told you I was unreliable.

A lot of philosophical works are loathable (new word... spell check loathes it!). I can't Kant, for instance, hard as I try. Emerson and Thoreau I can do, but Transcendentalinsurance is like Lite Philosophy by Miller. It goes down easy.

No one reads Nietzsche. Or maybe it's Nobody I'm thinking....

I think Raskolnikov is an unreliable narrator (but then, I am, too). Also, the big deal in that book was supposed to be whether individuals make history or history makes individuals. Raskolnikov was a "Superman" in his twisted way. Dial Nietzsche, I think.

I was OK with Crime and Punishment, but always figured Dosty a second fiddle to Tolstoy. This summer I finally read The Brothers Karamazov after multiple false starts across my lifetime and it doesn't change the pecking order. Tolstoy rules.

As for younger Turks, I tried that Jonathan Safer Foer dude and was underwhelmed. It was a struggle, but I finished. Rick Moody? I liked The Ice Storm quite a bit (set in my home state and my home decade, which helped), but nothing else. Chabon? Again, a one-trick pony. Loved The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, but everything since seems like a sophomore jinx.

Proulx is hard to warm to. "Brokeback Mountain" isn't a book -- just a short story in a collection called Wyoming something. Not much to it. Haven't seen the movie, either, though I hear it's like The English Patient in that it has lots of purdy scenery.

I couldn't finish A Confederacy of Dunces. Therefore, I'm not sure if I have the right to criticize it or not. Still, bagging Z's is not the best advertisement one can make for a book.

Holden Caulfield needs more than just a spanking; he needs to be ignored, the ultimate insult. He suffers from infinitely more than adolescent angst. He's a narcissistic, self-centered mess, which he can be all he wants as far as I'm concerned. I just don't want to read about it, it bores me.

One sliver of hope is that you and Holden share a fondness for strong and absolute opinions, Peter, so maybe you should give him another shot! Holden sees many of those around him as phonies and you see him as one. Checkmate, as Jane Gallagher would've said (if she played chess instead of keeping all of her kings in the back row).

The cautionary moral is this: the minute we lay down strong opinions (like, say an adolescent would), we are all open to being called "narcissistic" and "self-centered" by someone. In fact, my wife just called me one at dinner when I made my annual declaration that mass Christmas card mailings were a waste of time and money, period. (Or wait, maybe she called me a solipsistic, self-centered mess... it was something like that, anyway.)

Well, Gabrielle, it's certainly not true in all cases -- just some cases -- that your tastes take a drastic change with age.

For instance, when I was a young man, I went through a big Hermann Hesse stage where I devoured everything the man wrote. I thought he was the second coming of Shakespeare or something. I especially enjoyed a lesser work of his, Peter Camenzind. Three years ago I reread PC and no, I didn't loathe it, but I did say to myself, "What was I thinking?" I should place quotations around "I," though, because it was almost as if "I" was another person.

As for The Catcher in the Rye, it's funny you bring it up. I loved that book, too, and at an even younger age than the Hesse stuff. It was with great trepidation that I tried it again a few years ago because I honestly expected the magic would be gone.

But eureka! I loved it as much as ever. And I noticed things that I didn't as a kid -- like how Salinger set it at Christmas time and how he slipped in some (not only still current, but more so) anti-commercialism in there. It's not unusual for people to get depressed at this time of year and this book about nails it in that respect.

Hey, how can you spank a depressed kid? He's clinical, but funny as hell. He's also spot on. What's weird (if you make the link from Holden to Jerome David himself) is how he would grow up to be so weird. You know, hiding out from the phonies in the New Hampshire woods.

It was Salinger in that book, by the way, who brought up the idea of phoning an author when you finish a book you really love -- similar to a neighboring CR thread here about writing an author ("Have You Ever Written an Author After Reading a Book?").

My question is, "Have you ever written a DEAD author after loving (or, maybe even more entertaining, LOATHING) his or her book?" Now THAT would make for a creative and entertaining thread (unless, of course, it was frowned upon as "distasteful"). I think I'd write to Nat King Hawthorne for starters. I still haven't forgiven him the Scarlet Letter my English teacher refused to give me junior year.... I got a B, as I recall. It was vermilion.

Truth be told, it's been many years since I read Dubliners, so I'd need to revisit "The Dead," who usually take kindly to that sort of thing, to see how it strikes me now that I'm closer to dying.

I don't think, however, that it was my favorite story in that collection. That would be "The Sisters" (or used to be, anyway). I know, I know -- that was then and this is now. There are no atheists in foxholes, and there are no readers whose bodies change without their opinions changing with them.

That is, books you loved in your 20s might not strike you so fondly if you dared to return to them decades later, and books you loathed in younger days might sneak up on you, too, and break out in pleasant conversation, or so it strikes you in your more seasoned, twilight perspective.

Speaking for myself (because no one else will), Post #163 was meant to be humorous, not censorious. I guess they need to invent HTML tags for tone or something, because I'm not a big fan of emoticons like smiley faces or acronyms like LOL, yet I often slip in posts to lighten things up. Imagine my surprise, then, when they heavy things down! (That is, Russ, if you were referencing me in your Post #167. Sorry for the misunderstanding, if that was the case.)

Now back to our regularly-scheduled thread...