A Frolic of HIs Own, William Gaddis. The best dialogue.
And sex scenes in fiction? Yeah, write them if you want. Sometimes they're great, sometimes they're not. Like any writing. That's really annoying advice, Ms. Libes. Sometimes one's characters want to have sex. Let them.
Dialogic and (implicitly) philosophical novels? To my mind, it's a Central European/Slavic specialty.
First I'd mention Witkacy's "Insatiability," a book I reviewed last year on my site. It's dialogic in the most literal sense, with entire pages devoted to philosophical and religious arguments. Witkacy was primarily a playwright, and his plays are similar in this respect.
Otherwise, Musil, Čapek, Gombrowicz and similar writers are worth checking out. Why is this such a Central European thing? Partly I think because of the centrality of philosophy in the educational systems and political movements in these countries. I believe that Saul Bellow was probably picking up on this. He was also an admirer of Wyndham Lewis, whom TS Eliot called “the only English writer who can be compared to Dostoevsky.”
Perhaps also because of what Czeslaw Milosz said in "The Captive Mind": "It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy."
Thanks! Yes, Kundera has written in a similar vein about Central European literature, and his own novels fit the bill too. I really need to read Musil since he comes up on here so much.
Not a terribly unfounded fear tbh. I liked Werckmeister Harmonies but probably because I was somewhat aided by having read The Melancholy of Resistance. I think Krasz’s difficulty is a little overstated. He’s not so much difficult to read—except for a few chapters here and there—as he is to interpret, which seems like a nonsense thing to say until you read him. I might go against my better judgment and tackle him in an essay at some point.
Thanks! I never read Krasz because that Bela Tarr movie—not Satantango, the other one, the one with the whale—made me think I might respond the way Hofmann responded to Platonov, but I'm sure I should give him a try.
I’m reading Murdoch’s The Philosopher’s Pupil right now and it definitely fits the dialogic bill. (Once you wade through pages and pages of her lovingly excessive descriptions of the imaginary Art Deco Roman baths. I sort of love it. Reminds me of the obsessive, faintly repulsive meal cataloguing in The Sea, The Sea.) You could also point to the more hallucinatory Roth: The Counterlife and Operation Shylock are both a ferocious dialectic of soliloquy, contradiction, and collapse.
Yes, I don't know what possessed me to leave Roth, especially those two, off the list. I relate to Murdoch's sometimes nauseating over-description because I do it too; I'm afraid that without it there will be—too much dialogue! Haven't read The Philosopher's Pupil yet though.
I’m only 100 pages in, but so far, so good! With a lot of her work, I feel like Norm Macdonald: “All the stars are here! The egoist narrator, androgynous Christian names, ethereal bisexuals, eros and ethical delusion, water as moral symbol, art as mortal danger, the domestic as cosmic drama! All the stars!”
I’ll definitely keep an eye out for that one! I’ve read about eight so far, and I don’t think I’m even a third of the way through her novels. I adore her. Where else do you get the moral seriousness of telenovela plotting and the airy frivolity of love’s eternal demands? When giants walked the earth...
A Frolic of HIs Own, William Gaddis. The best dialogue.
And sex scenes in fiction? Yeah, write them if you want. Sometimes they're great, sometimes they're not. Like any writing. That's really annoying advice, Ms. Libes. Sometimes one's characters want to have sex. Let them.
Thank you! I need to read more Gaddis; I read his last book, but that's it.
A Frolic is such a great book, in my opinion. One of my all time favorites. The dialogue is fantastic. But I love books about curmudgeonly old men.
Dialogic and (implicitly) philosophical novels? To my mind, it's a Central European/Slavic specialty.
First I'd mention Witkacy's "Insatiability," a book I reviewed last year on my site. It's dialogic in the most literal sense, with entire pages devoted to philosophical and religious arguments. Witkacy was primarily a playwright, and his plays are similar in this respect.
Otherwise, Musil, Čapek, Gombrowicz and similar writers are worth checking out. Why is this such a Central European thing? Partly I think because of the centrality of philosophy in the educational systems and political movements in these countries. I believe that Saul Bellow was probably picking up on this. He was also an admirer of Wyndham Lewis, whom TS Eliot called “the only English writer who can be compared to Dostoevsky.”
Perhaps also because of what Czeslaw Milosz said in "The Captive Mind": "It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy."
Thanks! Yes, Kundera has written in a similar vein about Central European literature, and his own novels fit the bill too. I really need to read Musil since he comes up on here so much.
Satantango is the possibly most dialogic novel I’ve read since The Magic Mountain.
Not a terribly unfounded fear tbh. I liked Werckmeister Harmonies but probably because I was somewhat aided by having read The Melancholy of Resistance. I think Krasz’s difficulty is a little overstated. He’s not so much difficult to read—except for a few chapters here and there—as he is to interpret, which seems like a nonsense thing to say until you read him. I might go against my better judgment and tackle him in an essay at some point.
Thanks! I never read Krasz because that Bela Tarr movie—not Satantango, the other one, the one with the whale—made me think I might respond the way Hofmann responded to Platonov, but I'm sure I should give him a try.
I’m reading Murdoch’s The Philosopher’s Pupil right now and it definitely fits the dialogic bill. (Once you wade through pages and pages of her lovingly excessive descriptions of the imaginary Art Deco Roman baths. I sort of love it. Reminds me of the obsessive, faintly repulsive meal cataloguing in The Sea, The Sea.) You could also point to the more hallucinatory Roth: The Counterlife and Operation Shylock are both a ferocious dialectic of soliloquy, contradiction, and collapse.
Yes, I don't know what possessed me to leave Roth, especially those two, off the list. I relate to Murdoch's sometimes nauseating over-description because I do it too; I'm afraid that without it there will be—too much dialogue! Haven't read The Philosopher's Pupil yet though.
I’m only 100 pages in, but so far, so good! With a lot of her work, I feel like Norm Macdonald: “All the stars are here! The egoist narrator, androgynous Christian names, ethereal bisexuals, eros and ethical delusion, water as moral symbol, art as mortal danger, the domestic as cosmic drama! All the stars!”
I've not read The Philosopher's Pupil, but I just finished A Word Child. All the stars are there as well! Very dark but very funny.
I’ll definitely keep an eye out for that one! I’ve read about eight so far, and I don’t think I’m even a third of the way through her novels. I adore her. Where else do you get the moral seriousness of telenovela plotting and the airy frivolity of love’s eternal demands? When giants walked the earth...
Just got started on PP, loving the over-the-top symbolism so far!
And obviously Portnoy and Mickey Sabbath belong here, too!