Nicely done. I don't know why everybody who talks about Joseph Roth - as Tablet does - needs to introduce the topic like nobody has heard of Roth. Lots to chew on in this post.
Read everything here, including the links fascinating.
I'm wondering what you think of William Gass and if, in some way, he may be hitting where you were going on the literary side of subjects in this broad essay and maybe even in the one before.
Here's a quote for you gnaw on: "Gertrude Stein wondered more than once what went into a masterpiece: what set some works aside to be treasured while others where abandoned without a thought, as we leave seats after a performance; what there was about a text we’d read which provoked us to repeat its pages; what made us want to remain by its side, rereading and remembering, even line by line; what led us to defend its integrity, as though our honor were at stake, and to lead it safely through the perils that lie in wait for excellence in a world where only mediocrity seems prized. She concluded that masterpieces were addressed, not to the self whose accomplishments might appear on some dossier, the self whose passport is examined at the border, the self whose concerns are those of the Self (I and My and Me and Mine); but to the human mind, a faculty which is everywhere the same and whose business is with universals. Masterpieces teach that human differences are superficial; that intelligence counts, not approved conclusions; that richly received and precisely appreciated sensations matter, not titillation or dolled-up data; that foreplay, not payoff, is to be preferred; that imagination and conceptual solutions, not ad hoc problem solving, are what such esteemed works have in common. And we, who read and write and bear witness and wail with grief, who make music and massacres, who paint in oils and swim in blood—we are one: everywhere as awful, as possibly noble, as our natures push us or permit us to be." –William Gass, _The Test of Time_
Thank you for the quote! It's terrific and a lot to think about. (I haven't read any Gass btw.) My initial inclination with the idea of 'masterpieces' is that I'm against them. I think it's something that as a society we get very hung up on - which art is really 'the best' (which usually translates to 'the most deserving of prizes') - and that creates a vast 'shadow' as opposed to a genuinely creative environment.
On the other hand, I sort of have no problem recognizing The Radetzky March as a masterpiece but there's a shadow to that as well. The entire world that Roth grew up had collapsed into nothing over a few years and his novel was very much an elegy for it. So, for me, 'masterpiece' is a sign of decadence. It's like if everything else goes wrong you get a masterpiece in recompense. And the ideal - in a healthier society - is for people to just put work out there, without getting into this weird zero-sum/status-game sort of thing about what qualifies as a 'masterpiece.'
But I can see that Gass 'n' Stein have something else in mind, which is about a cast of thought that's masterpiece-conducive, that's less ego-driven and more about kind of merging the self with everything that's technically 'not-self.' And I completely agree with that - that's a spiritual exercise and it's as valid in art as it is in spirituality - and there is this feeling in a lot of the best literary work out there of there being no very clear center or point of consciousness, no 'I,' that the narration is somehow able to spill across the society-as-a-whole.
Nicely done. I don't know why everybody who talks about Joseph Roth - as Tablet does - needs to introduce the topic like nobody has heard of Roth. Lots to chew on in this post.
Love that voluptuary! Thanks!
Thanks Juliet!
Read everything here, including the links fascinating.
I'm wondering what you think of William Gass and if, in some way, he may be hitting where you were going on the literary side of subjects in this broad essay and maybe even in the one before.
Here's a quote for you gnaw on: "Gertrude Stein wondered more than once what went into a masterpiece: what set some works aside to be treasured while others where abandoned without a thought, as we leave seats after a performance; what there was about a text we’d read which provoked us to repeat its pages; what made us want to remain by its side, rereading and remembering, even line by line; what led us to defend its integrity, as though our honor were at stake, and to lead it safely through the perils that lie in wait for excellence in a world where only mediocrity seems prized. She concluded that masterpieces were addressed, not to the self whose accomplishments might appear on some dossier, the self whose passport is examined at the border, the self whose concerns are those of the Self (I and My and Me and Mine); but to the human mind, a faculty which is everywhere the same and whose business is with universals. Masterpieces teach that human differences are superficial; that intelligence counts, not approved conclusions; that richly received and precisely appreciated sensations matter, not titillation or dolled-up data; that foreplay, not payoff, is to be preferred; that imagination and conceptual solutions, not ad hoc problem solving, are what such esteemed works have in common. And we, who read and write and bear witness and wail with grief, who make music and massacres, who paint in oils and swim in blood—we are one: everywhere as awful, as possibly noble, as our natures push us or permit us to be." –William Gass, _The Test of Time_
Hi Mary,
Thank you for the quote! It's terrific and a lot to think about. (I haven't read any Gass btw.) My initial inclination with the idea of 'masterpieces' is that I'm against them. I think it's something that as a society we get very hung up on - which art is really 'the best' (which usually translates to 'the most deserving of prizes') - and that creates a vast 'shadow' as opposed to a genuinely creative environment.
On the other hand, I sort of have no problem recognizing The Radetzky March as a masterpiece but there's a shadow to that as well. The entire world that Roth grew up had collapsed into nothing over a few years and his novel was very much an elegy for it. So, for me, 'masterpiece' is a sign of decadence. It's like if everything else goes wrong you get a masterpiece in recompense. And the ideal - in a healthier society - is for people to just put work out there, without getting into this weird zero-sum/status-game sort of thing about what qualifies as a 'masterpiece.'
But I can see that Gass 'n' Stein have something else in mind, which is about a cast of thought that's masterpiece-conducive, that's less ego-driven and more about kind of merging the self with everything that's technically 'not-self.' And I completely agree with that - that's a spiritual exercise and it's as valid in art as it is in spirituality - and there is this feeling in a lot of the best literary work out there of there being no very clear center or point of consciousness, no 'I,' that the narration is somehow able to spill across the society-as-a-whole.
Pleasure to be in contact! Talk more,
Sam