tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post3930348363293005871..comments2023-04-30T07:27:54.645-07:00Comments on <b>HUNGRY GHOST BLOG</b>: "Ineffable beauty and concord"David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-29436095885027238132011-08-16T12:57:06.307-07:002011-08-16T12:57:06.307-07:00Dealing with Tulk's hair-trigger taste is frau...Dealing with Tulk's hair-trigger taste is fraught with peril. Like tip-toeing through a mine field that has more mines than dirt.David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-19197608963911421862011-08-15T11:09:30.909-07:002011-08-15T11:09:30.909-07:00"Of course..." (Sorry. Couldn't resi..."Of course..." (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)<br /><br />The first odd thing about that line is that the novel is in the first person. So he heard it from himself? Maybe not. The sadness results mostly from how blinkered and deluded the narrator is. Almost entirely self-inflicted. He "hears it" from the people who have to take him aside and explain what it all means. How grossly he's been betrayed.<br /><br />Sad, or perhaps pathetic. It may even be noir!David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-38799294726666975422011-08-15T10:23:57.181-07:002011-08-15T10:23:57.181-07:00“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”
C...“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” <br /><br />Can't see it in a pitch meeting...Tulkinghornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12380273659057130770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-56304227223069223782011-08-15T09:04:17.640-07:002011-08-15T09:04:17.640-07:00And what is "the Hollywood sense"?And what is "the Hollywood sense"?David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-534599676537337962011-08-15T08:57:10.460-07:002011-08-15T08:57:10.460-07:00Meaning you've never gotten past the first lin...Meaning you've never gotten past the first line?David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-3907176049207119492011-08-15T07:38:15.509-07:002011-08-15T07:38:15.509-07:00If the patterns are pretty, I don't have to ov...If the patterns are pretty, I don't have to overlook what it means...<br /><br />I never look at all. <br /><br />You're right about Pale Fire, but the general tendency of the list is satisfying.<br /><br />Of course, "The Good Soldier" has the most off-putting, in the Hollywood sense, first line ever. Maybe you're looking for something I'm not.Tulkinghornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12380273659057130770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-30626900166500339802011-08-14T12:35:55.847-07:002011-08-14T12:35:55.847-07:00Don't you like Pale Fire more than he does? Th...Don't you like Pale Fire more than he does? That occurred to me as I was reading this.<br /><br />In fairness, if the patterns are pretty (and whose are prettier?), if the elements fit together neatly, there's a great temptation to overlook what it means -- or to try to convince yourself that if it's this beautiful, it mist be true.David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-41170811227137413672011-08-14T07:57:38.354-07:002011-08-14T07:57:38.354-07:00Also his ranking of the work is dead on -- except ...Also his ranking of the work is dead on -- except in leaving out the Onegin translation and the Gogol biography.Tulkinghornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12380273659057130770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-27939489217063794042011-08-14T07:54:23.202-07:002011-08-14T07:54:23.202-07:00The Amis essay is wonderful -- as controlled and i...The Amis essay is wonderful -- as controlled and insightful as anything he's written in about twenty years.<br /><br />I think you're right to find its heart in this:<br /><br />....that style, that prose itself, can control morality.<br /><br />And Amis is right that when Nabokov lost control his work became unreadable and, essentially, immoral.Tulkinghornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12380273659057130770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-69903453793410899542011-08-13T19:05:25.246-07:002011-08-13T19:05:25.246-07:00Just between us? I agree with you more than you ma...Just between us? I agree with you more than you may realize. (Of course if you tell anyone I'll deny it.)<br /><br />Think back to those exchanges about "chaos." What I was describing, from my own severely limited experience, is that writers don't often say to themselves, "I have a theme that illuminates our moral consciousness. What's the perfect literary vehicle for this great theme?" Instead they say, "I want to write something. What can I write?"<br /><br />Even more often they have an idea in their head that attracts another idea and then another, and if they arrange it, or help it to arrange itself, into a pleasing PATTERN, then they have something they can write.<br /><br />I would suggest that this is not enough all by itself. It's the starting point. That the pattern is the underpinning of whatever else you'll be doing -- that you don't have a book without it -- but that on it's own it's useless, a tool that hasn't been put to use. That you have responsibility when you are using words to pay attention to what they mean.<br /><br />I think that what the Amis piece is about.David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-79969827747940087252011-08-13T18:29:22.819-07:002011-08-13T18:29:22.819-07:00Funny.Funny.David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-15739576228678617192011-08-13T16:12:58.517-07:002011-08-13T16:12:58.517-07:00I'd rather experience "ineffable beauty a...I'd rather experience "ineffable beauty and concord" than have my "moral consciousness" illuminated. Any day.<br /><br />In fact, although the phrase 'ineffable beauty and concord' actually describes something of which I have experience, the phrase 'moral consciousness' means almost nothing to me. <br /><br />Sounds unpleasant, though.Tulkinghornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12380273659057130770noreply@blogger.com