21st Century Literature discussion
2015 Book Discussions
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The Bone Clocks - Full Book (February 2015)
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Many artistic movements are primarily about one generation of artists or academics differentiating themselves from earlier ones, for their own advancement. In contrast to newsreaders and weather people and film reviewers who seem as if they have to die before someone younger will be allowed to replace them on TV.
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Martin, my choice of words ("Christian") for the good vs. evil structure was a poor one, but I do not believe DM is setting up any sort of theology in this book. I get the sense from the book and interviews that he does believe in some sort of spirituality and has a curiosity about what may exist beyond death.
With all the talk about suspension of disbelief, I still seem to be missing the point--is it that DM is breaking ground by opening up "literature" to fantasy or genre elements? The discussion sounds much loftier/ground-breaking than the actual work, IMHO.
I think his use of fantasy is for quite the opposite purpose to "ground-breaking". He might be trying to assert the right to use genre trappings, but here he does so primarily for fun. My interest in suspension of disbelief is more about understanding critical and reader resistance to the embrace of fantasy in literary fiction. I don't think there should be any limit on the subject matter of literary fiction.
Mod
I'm in full agreement with this! I may also be at a loss because I haven't really read any of the criticism this novel has received (I've listened to a radio interview with DM and seen how members of this group have reacted to the book.)
I read a lot of reviews shortly after the book came out. I haven't kept up with them, but it might be worth having a look at some GR reviews of three stars and less, to see what they say about fantasy per se. This is quite a different issue to whether the transitions between realism and fantasy were "well-written" (enough?), which is always an issue with Mitchell and is ultimately subjective.
Great review of The Bone Clocks which addresses pretty much all the issues we discussed here - http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/bo...
Violet wrote: "Great review of The Bone Clocks which addresses pretty much all the issues we discussed here - http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/bo..."Thanks Violet for this. The reviewer certainly did his homework, reviewing not just The Bone Clocks but also some of the high profile reviews of the book. While it touches on most of the points in our discussion of the book, it goes far further. An impressive piece of work.
Mod
He didn't mention the point that Violet brought up before, that if this is all one big (and consistent) universe, there's a problem with where the "Orison of Sonmi-451" fits in given the ending of The Bone Clocks.
"Poetry and fiction involving the supernatural had gone out of fashion to a large extent in the 18th century, in part due to the declining belief in witches and other supernatural agents among the educated classes, who embraced the rational approach to the world offered by the new science. Alexander Pope, notably, felt the need to explain and justify his use of elemental spirits in The Rape of the Lock, one of the few English poems of the century that invoked the supernatural. Coleridge wished to revive the use of fantastic elements in poetry. The concept of "willing suspension of disbelief" explained how a modern, enlightened audience might continue to enjoy such types of story."
Thus, there might be a sense in which the revival of fantasy was intended as a poetic counteraction to rationalism and the enlightenment.
I haven't read Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". But IIRC, Violet has mentioned a possible link between the poem and Marinus. It was the poem that Coleridge wrote in pursuit of the project with Wordsworth.
"The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural, and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency. For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life..."
Note the reference to being "under supernatural agency".
The sceptical response to the poem mentioned in wiki reminds me of the response to TBC:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ri...