>It seems that Milan Kundera, in his non-fiction work "The Art of the
>Novel", criticises the "frivolities" of Barthes, Foucault et al for
>misconceiving the novel. He argues, does he not, that the novel has an
>inherent "spirit" about it, a spirit of uncertainty. By placing the novel
>on the same playing field as everything else in life (in fact by reducing
>it to an intersection of discourses), the novel is forgotten. Kundera sees
>this as part of the "forgetting of being" that postmodernism is all about.
I am reminded of the disappearance of the serial novel; those of Dickens in
particular (i.e., the novel that would be written as an ongoing newspaper
serial, potentially unending, save the final interval of the actual "death
of the author"). Wasn't this an exercise in writing in plateaus? All to
the good if postmodernism (a loose and horribly comfortable term)
encourages the "forgetting of being". If through Deleuze, Foucault,
Barthes or whoever I can find the possibility of _becoming_, as opposed to
the arrogance of having arrived (Being), I rather say that I'm for that. A
being more present than Being; a spirit at once certain and uncertain. If
Kundera is actually looking for open-endedness he might well find more of
it in Foucault et.al., who at least try to keep the question of Being open
to negotiation. Per contra, most modern novels have ends.
best wishes/sincerely,
_______________________________________________________
Ian Robert Douglas,
Associate Lecturer & Fulbright Fellow,
Watson Institute of International Studies,
Brown University, Box 1831,
130 Hope Street,
Providence, RI 02912
tel: 401 863-2420
fax: 401 863-2192
"Great is Justice;
Justice is not settled by legislation and laws
it is in the soul .. " - Walt Whitman
>Novel", criticises the "frivolities" of Barthes, Foucault et al for
>misconceiving the novel. He argues, does he not, that the novel has an
>inherent "spirit" about it, a spirit of uncertainty. By placing the novel
>on the same playing field as everything else in life (in fact by reducing
>it to an intersection of discourses), the novel is forgotten. Kundera sees
>this as part of the "forgetting of being" that postmodernism is all about.
I am reminded of the disappearance of the serial novel; those of Dickens in
particular (i.e., the novel that would be written as an ongoing newspaper
serial, potentially unending, save the final interval of the actual "death
of the author"). Wasn't this an exercise in writing in plateaus? All to
the good if postmodernism (a loose and horribly comfortable term)
encourages the "forgetting of being". If through Deleuze, Foucault,
Barthes or whoever I can find the possibility of _becoming_, as opposed to
the arrogance of having arrived (Being), I rather say that I'm for that. A
being more present than Being; a spirit at once certain and uncertain. If
Kundera is actually looking for open-endedness he might well find more of
it in Foucault et.al., who at least try to keep the question of Being open
to negotiation. Per contra, most modern novels have ends.
best wishes/sincerely,
_______________________________________________________
Ian Robert Douglas,
Associate Lecturer & Fulbright Fellow,
Watson Institute of International Studies,
Brown University, Box 1831,
130 Hope Street,
Providence, RI 02912
tel: 401 863-2420
fax: 401 863-2192
"Great is Justice;
Justice is not settled by legislation and laws
it is in the soul .. " - Walt Whitman