tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post3404311975747075446..comments2024-03-27T13:13:25.164-04:00Comments on johnshaplin: The Novel by Richard Rortyjohnshaplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-63072263941422698242011-06-01T07:42:18.840-04:002011-06-01T07:42:18.840-04:00Yes!Yes!johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-25088270969835652542011-05-17T07:52:47.020-04:002011-05-17T07:52:47.020-04:00Thanks for the link, John. Would not you think tha...Thanks for the link, John. Would not you think that theater used to play a comparable role? Think of the social importance of tragedies and how they showed to their audience how it is to be Medea or a Bacchantes…elisa freschihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17068583874519657894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-43206806191650324562011-04-18T16:07:59.472-04:002011-04-18T16:07:59.472-04:00Just as religious readers find themselves caught u...Just as religious readers find themselves caught up in something larger than themselves, something that occasionally resembles orgasmic ecstasy, so readers of James and Proust find themselves caught up in a sort of suddenly shared enlargement of the imagination and suddenly shared intensity of appreciation of the passing moment that occurs when two lovers find their loves reciprocated. Proust and James offer their readers redemption, not redemptive truth, jut as his or her love redeems the lover, but does not add to his or her knowledge.johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-23659993992690638682011-04-18T16:07:26.336-04:002011-04-18T16:07:26.336-04:00John Bayley, in his introduction to James’s The Wi...John Bayley, in his introduction to James’s The Wings of the Dove, says that James’s<br /><br />‘later mode of artistic inquiry is a way of overcoming loneliness, of extending an almost tactile intimacy to the potential reader through the mode of words… Consciousness seems shared between the author, characters and reader, and the participation of the last has its own special rewards and fascinations, which can arise out of bafflement itself. Intimacy is never a matter of being told what to think. It is like the secret converse of lovers, whose understanding is not dependent on a single authority.’johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-21718164951367597292011-04-18T16:06:37.649-04:002011-04-18T16:06:37.649-04:00Just as those who have had what they describe as r...Just as those who have had what they describe as religious experiences are rarely able to spell out what new truths they have learned by having them, the readers of Henry James or Marcel Proust are usually baffled when asked what truths they picked up from these men’s novels that they might have otherwise missed. It is the experience of reading the novel that makes one into a rather different sort of person, not the utility of the belief one might have acquired by various other means, even if one had never picked up that particular book. Just as Christians say that their relationship to Jesus is not exactly to the author of the Sermon on the Mount, but rather to someone with whom the live on terms of intimacy, so many readers of Proust and James will insist that what matters is their relation to the novels themselves, or perhaps to the novelist himself, rather than to any set of beliefs for which the novel might be cited as justification.johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.com