Brain Pain discussion
This topic is about
The Benefactor
The Benefactor - Spine 2014
>
Discussion - Week Three - The Benefactor - Chap. Twelve - Seventeen
date
newest »
newest »
ok, what....was that?I don't mean it in a bad way; I actually had very low expectations for this book and found myself pleasantly and surprisingly drawn into it.
But I couldn't tell you even in the most general of terms what the problem it tackles is, even while it is clear that there is some problem it tackles. Something about radical interiority and the attempt to escape from an externally verifiable reality ? Even the main narrative (the one which is called radically into question at the end) shows hints that this total privacy and absolute self-determination is not possible or desireable (I keep thinking of the lame horse and needing the right kind of house to be fully healed).
Here's hoping others finish soon.
Mod
I'm on p. 195 and should finish in a day or two.
This debut novel is often described as "experimental", so rather than running this through our normal literary analysis, we should ask different questions, "what did I experience?" "How did the text interact with and/or affect my expectations of what a novel 'should be'?" and so on. In other words, if this novel is experimental, what were the results of the experiment from our perspective as readers.
So far, I'm most often thinking about Camus' character, Meursault, the seminal existential man. Hippolyte isn't necessarily "like" Meursault, but he does operate in similar psychic territory in terms of questioning reality pretty much constantly, and essentially living his life like a foreigner (un étranger).
I think that by the end, though, a verifiable external reality is pretty heavily confirmed. I think Sontag is leaning that way pretty hard. On the other hand, this is very nearly disappointing. Toward the end, the dancing bear dream, I was expecting that there would be an alternative explanation for the entire narrative, but frankly, I was hoping he would turn out to be Frau Anders. Alas, it was not to be.Also, it may be experimental, but it went by pretty fast as a narrative. I didn't have the kind of difficulties with it that later experimental fiction can throw up. Though of course that's not fair; it's hardly acceptable to judge something by works that would come later. Also it seems weird to be judging something for being an engaging read.
Bah. I've just drunk a big glass of pastis and I need to go to sleep. Maybe I'll try for something more coherent tomorrow.
Also, I can barely remember my Camus from college French class. Sad, isn't it?
Hi. Pardon the intrusion of one who didn't read the book, but"it's hardly acceptable to judge something by works that would come later..."
Well, why not judge based on what would come later? Especially in the case of an experimental novel, why not judge against all past, present, future, and potential novels?
If we assume a novel desires in some degree to be timeless, or to make universal observations, this seems fair, though if the book is entirely topical, focused on events or social commentary on its own time and culture, this may notapply.
Hmm... I think actually what I mean is that the experience of the novel was more pleasant that what I have come to think of as a sort of genre or group -- experimental novels -- one feature of which is that they are difficult for the reader. And the pleasantness of the book comes in the form of a narrative drawing-in of the reader which I associate with traditional narratives. Which maybe says way more about me and some of my recent excusions into books I hated than it does about Susan Sontag or her work.
You should read the book, Zadschnoz, and then come and tell us what you think.
I know I should but... Well, I dabbled in it. Then Cyrano distracted me.
It was probably the nose thing.
I've only finished the first part of the book, but so far my experience is finding it tiresome. Please help me out here, I'm just not familiar enough with Sontag or the Milieu of which she writes. Are Hippolyte's musings supposed to be truly engaging in the style of the European philosophical novels she seems to be inspired by, or are they supposed to be a complete parody of them? Passages like “… various exercises which I practiced for the care of my body, and such cerebral amusements as tracing hieroglyphs, memorizing the names of the two hundred and ninety-six Popes and Anti-Popes, and corresponding with a Bolivian mathematician on a logical problem on which I had been at work for several years.”
are obviously meant to ridicule. Uh, yes? Seriously, I can't tell.
Mod
parody, sorta...
The writing in The Benefactor reminds me of the French Decadents (Mirbeau, Huysmans, Rachild), and the narrator fits in with protagonists (for lack of a better term) from that period.This may be a send-up, or maybe Sontag decided that was the style she wants to imitate.
I wasn't convinced by the dreams, though, and the attempt at ambiguity in the ending feels extremely forced. Like she got the idea at the last minute, perhaps while explaining her novel at a cocktail party.
Zadignose wrote: "I know I should but... Well, I dabbled in it. Then Cyrano distracted me."I read the Burgess translation awhile back, after seeing a production based on it (with Kevin Kline, no less).
I highly recommend that version, if you haven't already encountered it.
Sorry to be late in catching up with the Sontag novels...I had not come across The Benefactor before, but found it distinctive and original - which is always good. Challenging, too...but I am hardly an intellectual and certainly haven't read the books and essays that Sontag must have been reading back in the early 1960s. Umberto Eco talks about writing fiction at two levels - one for the general reader and the other for the Ideal Reader who appreciates all the subtle allusions and references. In reading The Benefactor, I stomped along solidly at level one.
Mkfs wrote: "the attempt at ambiguity in the ending feels extremely forced.
I also found the ending somewhat forced, though not in terms of it being a last-minute idea. The idea is sown early in the book as soon as the dream life and "real" life start coming together. But underlining it so vigorously at the end seemed rather clumsy and unnecessary.
Review at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I have an old Panther paperback edition, the cover of which promises: ”A provocative novel that plunges the reader into the dark world of desire and erotic fantasy” Many disappointed readers there, then.
One odd puzzle. Who or what is The Benefactor?
Conclusions/Book as a whole