Subject: literary effects
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Tue Jan 11 2000 - 04:55:09 EST
'... too much verbal ado about not quite enough ...'
To my mind, it's that second last word, that killer 'quite'
that identifies the REAL writer - the kind we so
rarely encounter on listserves but whom Matt
democratically refuses to recognise as a special case.
Updike says in eight words what we all, in our hearts,
uneasily sense to be a very large piece of the truth.
Dr Hochman's response is, as so often the case, too subtle
for me.
'... To discuss a text's characters in terms of their effects
on realities is to acknowledge a literary power ...'
What does 'their effects on realities' mean? That one
speaks of the characters as if they were 'real' people?
Or that the reader has some physiological response to
their appearance on the page? Or that the chairs start
to move? Or what?
When I say: ' I find the character of Brian Frondeboef
in Ivanhoe so thinly realised my eyes glaze over at
the very mention of the name' - is that a tribute to
Walter Scott's literary power?
Scottie B.
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