I just read a review by Philip Kennicott (His day job is as a 'cultural critic' for the Washington Post) in Gramophone of a recently revived opera by Charles Gounod -- "The Bloody Nun" -- based on an incident in that greatest of all Gothic novels, "The Monk" by Matthew Lewis.
In passing, he says something so strange and foreign to me that I almost did a spit take with my salad:
I'm slightly allergic to plot, and "The Monk" is wall-to-wall plot, people telling stories about people telling stories. Plot is to reading as carbohydrates are to dieting.
How could it be that someone thinks this way?
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4 comments:
He's probably a "Treme" fan.
It's not that Treme was plotless, but that the plots were so lame: melodrama interrupted by whining -- if it weren't for the music the series would have been unwatchable.
I think he just means it's the fun part, and anyone with a love for pizza and a gluten allergy would agree. I know I've often felt kind of uncomfortably bloated after racing through a well plotted novel; I generally take a page or two of Proust as a disgestive.
I think Steve's right, and that this exactly is why snobs of a certain ilk disdain plot: People who's tastes have ascended to a higher plane now unwilling to admit that they still enjoy the basics. A syndrome that is broadly applicable.
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