Commenters v. Tanenhaus (On 'Wood v. Updike v. Baker')Yesterday on The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times' Paper Cuts book blog, Times Book Review and 'Week in Review' editor Sam Tanenhaus Sam Tanenhaus (born October 31, 1955) is an American author, historian and biographer. Tanenhaus received his B.A. in English from Grinnell College in 1977 and a M.A. in English Literature from Yale University in 1978. took a look at James Wood's How Fiction Works, specifically, Mr. Wood's critique of John Updike. As Mr. Tanenhaus writes, "Wood suggests that Updike’s fiction doesn’t work very well at all, in part because Updike’s prose, like Vladimir Nabokov Noun 1. Vladimir Nabokov - United States writer (born in Russia) (1899-1977) Nabokov, Vladimir vladimirovich Nabokov ’s, is oversaturated with pointillist poin·til·lism n. A postimpressionist school of painting exemplified by Georges Seurat and his followers in late 19th-century France, characterized by the application of paint in small dots and brush strokes. descriptions that, Wood objects, 'freeze detail into a cult of itself.'" He then goes on to quote a particularly florid florid /flor·id/ (flor´id) 1. in full bloom; occurring in fully developed form. 2. having a bright red color. flor·id adj. Of a bright red or ruddy color. passage from Mr. Updike's Of the Farm, which Mr. Wood thinks is "an exaggeration of the noticing eye." Mr. Tanenhaus then quotes the novelist Nicholson Baker Nicholson Baker (born January 7, 1957) is a contemporary American novelist, whose writings focus on minute inspection of the narrator's stream of thought. His unconventional novels deal with topics like voyeurism and planned assassination, but generally de-emphasize traditional on the same passage from his Updike tribute book, U and I as a "counter-argument." (In Mr. Tanenhaus' words.) The reader is left to compare Mr. Wood's and Mr. Baker's takes on Of the Farm until Mr. Tanenhaus ends his post: Who’s right here, Wood or Baker? Or might it be that novelists have a different idea of 'how fiction works' than critics do? Uh-oh. Here come the commenters, many of whom seem to object to Mr. Tanenhaus' adversarial premise (the piece is headline, "Wood v. Updike v. Baker"). "Isn’t it silly to ask who is right about a work of art?" asks a commenter called lily. "Doesn’t it miss the point completely? How can an opinion be right or wrong?" "Oh yuck yuck 1 also yuk interj. Slang Used to express rejection or strong disgust. . You ruined a nice thoughtful piece with a pointless instrumental question. Is this an American thing?, scolded someone named Reg Tippett. "Your final question implies that novelists among themselves and critics among themselves agree about 'how fiction works,'" said a commenter named Kevin McNamara."That premise is implausible, to say the least." We'd ask who's right here—Mr. Tanenhaus or the commenters—but in the spirit of the Olympic Games, we'll ask for unity and an end to the fighting. 
|
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion