Monday, May 14, 2007

William Gass on Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Ezra Pound

The basic premise of these essays--I am starting to believe--is to shake our most common beliefs regarding intellectual pillars that often go unshaken. Gass takes on Nietzsche not only from a biographical point of view but also from the polemic of Nietzsche's thought. Gass encompasses many of Nietzsche's arguments and alludes to his creative temperament following the chronology of works. "'The Birth of Tragedy'" Gass writes, "is the birth of Nietzsche too, because it contains his major metaphysical discovery: that of an existential disjunction within the continuities of nature. It also displays the liberated skepticism of his mind and the traditional character of his emotions." This is difficult to understand. Like I said in my previous post, Gass doesn't wait for the reader to understand; that is not his business. I think it is unfortunate but this essay obtrudes more than it clarifies Nietzsche's philosophy and creative body of work. There is some juggling of ideas that pre-date or post-date Nietzsche, making it an easy "wonder what" game for the reader.

In "At Death's Door: Wittgenstein," Gass again begins from a biographical point of view. The essay is a good introduction to readers not familiar with Wittgenstein's work. There is, however, too much talk about homosexuality, etc. The essay also takes particular aim at one Brian McGuiness' biography of Wittgenstein. Gass blames McGuiness of over-looking particular elements of Wittgenstein's life that would in other cases act as relevant information in the examination of his philosophies. This is rapid-fire Gass, and his style again waits for no one.

Between the next three essays, I have to say that the one on Ezra Pound is the most interesting. Gass really de-mythologize Pound's exile in Paris. He presents a Pound very much in his element; promoting young talent, pushing forth other people's careers at the expense of his own, becoming a fascist and philosophizing on finance without really knowing what he was talking about. Gass, however, is fair to the poor "later-years" Pound who has been "exiled" into a mental institution. Pound was a threat to no one, Gass expounds, and we can't but agree with him.

Right now Gass is helping the reader find a better definition to exile, approaching it from all angles and points of view. I am delighted to say that Sunday found me purchasing a copy of the new Haruki Murakami novel "After Dark." It is a great thrill when we are lucky enough to read two new works from one of our favorite writers in the span of one year. Something is going to get bumped out of the reading list this year in order to fit in this one volume. Sorry, but Murakami can't wait.

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Thursday, May 10, 2007

William Gass Comes Out Swinging...

William Gass comes out swinging in his collection of essays "Finding a Form." He first takes on the Pulitzer Prize, criticizing it for taking "dead aim at mediocrity and almost never miss[ing]." For the most part Gass is right. He exposes the irrelevant qualities that a novel must have in order to receive the prize. He further explains the complexity of selecting a board of jurors for the award. He states, "Not only will they have to be partisans of their own tastes--that's natural--each will be implicitly asked to represent their region, race, or sex, because one will have to be a woman, another a black or academic or journalist, old hand or upstart.... The only qualification a judge ought to have is unimpeachable good taste, which immediately renders irrelevant such puerile pluralistic concerns as skin color, sex, and origin." Gass is not a fan of the process, obviously. The politics of the prize as exposed as well, a turn in which Gass himself feels burdened by the expectations of the prize committee. "A lot of writers are disliked and their works slighted because they have been praised by the wrong critics, have sappy photographs on their dust jackets, overly effusive or too bountiful blurbs, made-up, movie-star names. Or are known to have the wrong politics. (I like to believe I could have voted a poetry prize to Marianne Moore even though I know she once wore a Nixon button)." This essay is an exemplary echo of what has been happening with literary prizes lately. It has turned into a geo-political popularity contest instead of what it should really be--how many of us can really identify or say to have read ALL of the works of the recent Nobel Prize for literature winners? I hardly think so. Even with someone as popular as Gunter Grass--I still haven't read all his works. Why do people like John Updike don't get the Nobel Prize? Politics, perhaps... and a good added doze of anti-Americanism.

In the essay, "A Failing Grade for the Present Tense," Gass explores the idea of present tense writing and why it has become so popular in recent years. He offers a great variety of examples from young writers and taps it off as inexperience, not literary experimentation. There is a good deal of definition as to what exactly is present tense, whether it can exist or not, and how does the written word impacts the idea of the present altogether. He states: "Henry James and William Faulkner had the temerity to put long sentences in their short stories, and these now-old masters thought carefully about the relationship of technique to reality, about the relative weights of meaning and shifts of points of view, accreditation and authority, pacing and scene shaping, among many other issues." I consider this last quotation a great map to editing any fiction one has written. It seems to work parallel with the creative process from beginning to end. Gass explores other mediums, such as film, in his exploration of the present tense. All in all, this is a great essay but not one easy to read.

William Gass style is very mature. There's nothing easy about his essays' structure. Come prepared to duke it out with a writer who doesn't wait for the reader to get it; you either don't or you do. Expect plenty of allusions (including to numerous titles from the 20th Century Latin American literary boom), connection to previous ideas, and generally a circularly pace. These are magnificent essays to read and cherish what we learn from them.

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Monday, May 07, 2007

In the middle of things...

One reason why I won't recommend "Dog Soldiers" is the way that characters seem to know and influence the things that drive the plot without the reader knowing how they became acquainted with such information. I have read Robert Stone before, and, on the sheer power and magnificence of his short stories and a novel entitled "A Flag for Sunrise," I consider him a good writer. How "Dog Soldiers" won the National Book Award will continue to elude me. At any rate, there's bound to be a number of books that I will not endorse. This is one of them.

On a lighter note, I am now reading William Gass' "Finding a Form." It is a collection of essay in which the voice of Gass comes out clear and good. I will be annotating the collection so there will be citations and the like on the reviews.

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