[Dragaera] Cool Stuff Theory of Literature was: (RE: Steven Erikson (was: Reading series))

[Jerry Friedman]

--- On Fri, 1/23/09, Michael Wojcik <mwojcik at newsguy.com> wrote:
> Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > --- On Fri, 1/23/09, Michael Wojcik
> <mwojcik at newsguy.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> I think the important points are, first, that the
> CSTOL is not meant
> >> to describe a school, but a theory of literature -
> that is, it's a way
> >> to think about literature, not a way to produce
> it.
> >> It's descriptive, not prescriptive.
> > 
> > I don't agree.  Part of what Martin quoted was
> advice
> > to authors.
> 
> Hmm. Well, we shall disagree on this point. Perhaps the
> Author would
> like to weigh in? (Though who, besides Walter Benn
> Michaels, pays any
> attention to intention these days anyway?)

A lot of people at NABOKV-L, which includes a number of
academics who get papers published, present them at
conferences, etc.  But of course, Nabokov intended us
to pay attention to intention.  And Theory is rather
marginalized on that list, unless I'm not recognizing
it.
 
> >> And second, the theory is that authors will write
> about what interests them,
> > 
> > Is that different from what they enjoy?
> 
> I'm interested in things I don't enjoy, such as
> recent US foreign policy.

As there's a difference, I think Cool Stuff is more
what you enjoy than what you're interested in.

> > But isn't this "vulgar-Marxist"
> analysis, as you call
> > it below, or the more Trotskyist approach that Steve
> > outlined, a way of /explaining/ why Mieville finds
> those
> > things cool?  It doesn't ignore the author's
> affect; it
> > just sees it as one mechanism by which the underlying
> > causes operate.
> 
> This is a contentious issue. Some theorists would likely
> draw that
> conclusion - that Mieville is "enjoying his
> symptom", as Zizek might
> put it (a materialist-psychoanalytic reading),

I think that's what I meant.

"His lordship is in the enjoyment of very low spirits,
owing to his inexplicable inability to bend Providence
to his own designs."

--Dorothy Sayers, /Busman's Honeymoon/

> or that while ideology
> may play a significant role in the construction of his
> subjectivity,
> his agency is still the primary source of his work.

I think I was talking about approaches where the author's
agency isn't seen as the primary source.

> But others would put little stake in the author's
> affect, or at best
> consider it an effect rather than a cause: various forces
> impel the
> author to add certain elements to a work, and pride of
> authorship
> leads the author to find them cool. I'm not of that
> persuasion, but
> I've known a few constructivist hard-liners who might
> be.
> 
> And then there's the subdued-to-what-we-work-in middle
> ground, which
> posits a reciprocal relation: as the author writes, the
> work
> conditions how the author feels about the material. I'd
> probably lean
> toward this one, with a healthy dollop of psychoanalysis
> (at least the
> thesis of the unconscious) and an actor-network view of
> subjectivity.

Do both of those deny the possibility that the author
might have thought cloaks and rapiers were Cool before
starting on the work?  If so, I think they may be
overlooking something.

Actor-network theory is new to me, but after a wikip I
think I have some idea of what you're talking about.

Anyway, I see I was wrong (not for the second time) in
thinking the "generic" version of the CSTOL was
universally believed.

> >  (Same with Freudian criticism, if there still is
> any.)
> 
> Oh, sure - you can't keep a good critique of the
> Enlightenment down. I suppose there isn't all that
> much pure-Freudian litcrit being done
> these days; it's probably mostly Freudian/Lacanian or
> Freudian/Lacanian/Zizekian (ie, Freud plus successors), or
> Freud conjoined with other theoretical frameworks - like
> Spivak's "Can the
> Subaltern Speak?", which is primarily a Derridean
> analysis but starts
> with Freud (and, in its later, longer version, appears in a
> collection
> called _Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture_, so she
> gets points for hitting all of the Big Three).

I see I jumped to another conclusion.

Jerry Friedman