Re: the road to hell
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sun, 22 Nov 1998 14:53:24 +1100
I think that what Jim's saying is similar to something I used to tell my
writing students. I said that is doesn't matter if the reader has never
heard of the brand of chocolate wrapper you have written as blowing down
the street, or the song you say is blaring out of the nearby shop. What
readers *do* recognise and empathise with is the process of observation
itself. This is why I know exactly the feeling Holden has when he hears a
good song in one of the clubs - it doesn't matter whether I know the
smaller details; I know the *feeling*. It's a basic human thing which all
readers and writers share whether they come from Dublin or Cornish or
wherever.
J J R wrote:
> I was talking (in part) about how it was Possible for writers so
> different as Hemingway, Joyce and Salinger to create that effect. Yes,
> they "intended" to create that effect. I think that's safe to say. They
> knew how to use words. So they used them effectively, following the
> (largely unspoken) rules of the reading community of which you, they, and
> myself are a part.
>
> It's obvious to me that you don't have to have been to Dublin to be
> affected by Joyce's description of it. I think Joyce could only describe
> what's unknown to us so effectively if he didn't know how to use (and
> bend, stretch, and butcher :) ) the rules of language we all follow.
>
> All you're talking about, really, is how this literature affected You.
> Do you see that? How can you say you know anything about what the author
> intended unless you identify yourself, to a degree, with the author?
Camille
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