The philosophical monologues in Musil may be difficult in a sense, but TMWQ is full of broad comedy and Torless is a tightly-structured drama of sex and occult violence. To paint him as abstemiously refusing to entertain, in contrast to e.g. Kanusgaard, seems off the mark. Truly indifferent authors (like Stein, say) seem rarer -- perhaps for good reason.
Great stuff, especially highlighting the contradiction between the “timid and defensive position” implied by Elkin’s propositions one and three and his call for more ambitious fiction. Talking about the fetishization of difficulty and distance, it reveals a certain suspicion about the erotic potential of art ("Pornography, pornography" I can hear grandpa Cohen protest). There is indeed a fine line between persuasion, seduction and manipulation, but what makes a novel great is its ability to appeal to the reader on different levels – it can give the public what it wants and also make the thoughtful reader reflect on why we want it. The paucity of contemporary novels that can appeal to a world-weary critic is not the only problem that literature should seek to address.
The philosophical monologues in Musil may be difficult in a sense, but TMWQ is full of broad comedy and Torless is a tightly-structured drama of sex and occult violence. To paint him as abstemiously refusing to entertain, in contrast to e.g. Kanusgaard, seems off the mark. Truly indifferent authors (like Stein, say) seem rarer -- perhaps for good reason.
Great stuff, especially highlighting the contradiction between the “timid and defensive position” implied by Elkin’s propositions one and three and his call for more ambitious fiction. Talking about the fetishization of difficulty and distance, it reveals a certain suspicion about the erotic potential of art ("Pornography, pornography" I can hear grandpa Cohen protest). There is indeed a fine line between persuasion, seduction and manipulation, but what makes a novel great is its ability to appeal to the reader on different levels – it can give the public what it wants and also make the thoughtful reader reflect on why we want it. The paucity of contemporary novels that can appeal to a world-weary critic is not the only problem that literature should seek to address.