[lit-ideas] Re: Morc Huck Pump

  • From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:01:37 -0500

I wrote: "In a beautiful and much-imitated ending, Nabokov plucks us from the plot and gives us a glimpse of his writing room in America..."


Phil responded: ... part of what gives morality its normative force is the conviction that being moral makes a difference in the world. I will throw caution to the wind and suggest that perhaps something similar is the case with aesthetic works.



Martin Amis imitates Nabokov's ending in _Money_. Toward the end, Amis' central character plays a losing chess game with Martin Amis in a pub. Perhaps this aesthetic "frame jump" is a form of reassurance that experiencing the novel, and its moral constraints, has made a difference.

A similar approach is employed in popular TV specials of stand up comics: Steven Wright or George Carlin are shown leaving the theater as the final credits roll. The camera follows them into the "off-stage" world, perhaps to show that laughter has made a difference.

Forgive me for temporarily hijacking a thread, but I am unable to separate moral and artistic considerations. Both seem to imply the totality of one's being, so I tend to make the leap between the verifiability of philosophical maxims and their exemplification in the narrative structure of aesthetic works.

Best,
Eric
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