[lit-ideas] A Temple of Texts
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 10:11:44 -0700
Mike:
I've been thinking about your comments pertaining to James Joyce and Wallace
Stevens. William Gass is in agreement with them and Michael Dirda is in
agreement with Gass so you will probably enjoy is review of A Temple of
Texts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021601
963.html [Michael Dirda review of A Temple of Texts]
A less favorable review, was written by Brooke Allen, but it isn't available
on the internet in its entirety. Allen writes "[Gass] scornfully dismisses
'the old canard that art is communication' as a 'philistine philosophy.'
What are we to make of this? Certainly art is not only communication, but
without some degree of communication, it is nothing at all. This is the
dead end to which the modern aesthetic must lead if taken to its logical
end, but Gass does not believe this to be the case. For him, literary art
lies exclusively in the music: 'It was Joyce's music, it was James's music,
it was Faulkner's music; without the music, words fell to earth in prosy
pieces; without the music, there was only comprehension, and comprehension
may have been analysis, may have been interpretation, may have been
philosophy, but it wasn't art.'"
I'm considering buying A Temple of Texts. Dirda warns that "cowboy
jingoists" won't find Gass to their taste, but I am only a cowboy jingoist
some of the time. :-)
Lawrence
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