When we talk about talented writers and talented editors, we often overlook "genius readers." When the Aesthetics of Western Acceptance arose, the reader's status suddenly jumped to the center, becoming the producer and finisher of the meaning of the work. A work is always looking forward to summoning the "ideal reader". But the word "ideal," after all, is still elitist, still distinguishing between ordinary and professional readers. We don't know for whom this ideal is a reading that conforms to the original meaning of the writer and the novel. However, the restoration of the original meaning is both an obsession and an illusion. If there is a real ideal, I think it should be to play a genius, to bridge the tear between the academy and the public, to be a "psychic medium" for writers and readers.
On the other hand, many college critics dismember their works with theory, which makes the reader afraid while making the author feelless. The meaning of criticism is forgotten and reduced to an uninspired and unhelpful production ritual. The reason for this is that most critics are not willing to be readers and have failed to become the "third party" of writers. The British critic James Wood may have jumped out of this strange circle and become the fourth mode: to peek into the craft of the novel (how to write) and to present the eyes of reading (how to read). The essence of his critical essays is to divide the roles, simulate the imaginative confrontation between the writer and the reader, and is a way of looking at the eyes. How can a theory of creation be at the same time a theory of appreciation? Wood gives the perfect example of a reader's duty to play genius and influence writers.
James Wood
Great writers are thinkers of sound dispatch
The essence of the novel is narrative art, which uses sound and perspective to reproduce the entire living world. Wood's Novel Machines discuss the technical means and sense of reproduction in modern fiction narratives. Contemporary novelists, in particular, feel a strong pressure to integrate a third language, the language of the world, in addition to their own language and the language of their characters. It can be understood as the omnipresent voice of the times: noisy sources such as television, advertising, blogs, text messages, etc. It was a language of media that writers of the pre-industrial era did not need to consider. It will constantly intrude contemporary writers and even put the novel text in danger of being degraded. Is it imitation, reproduction or representation of the world? This is a long-term proposition left to artists by Western literary and art theory.
"Fiction Machine"
Modern fiction may be inherently able to synthesize these three artistic views. Imitation is the means, reproduction is the end, and performance is the result. Modern writers imitate all sorts of boring, vulgar, and tedious low-grade language. This culture of repetition began with the interest of writers such as Dreiser and Lewis in reproducing advertisements, business letters, and leaflets. In Wallace's case, it has become a parody--the reproduction of excessive flooding, but in terms of objective effects, it constitutes a strong performance. The biggest test comes from the writer's dilemma: if it is one with the characters, it is equivalent to acquiescing to the boredom of the author himself. If you trespass on the character, there will be a noise suspended above the character's head. Updike may have been too literary, "[he] represents the aestheticist (the author is more than the generation); Wallace is the anti-aestheticist (everything is character-oriented): but both are actually motivated by the same aesthetic aspirations, and in the final analysis, they are painstakingly presenting styles." ”
Wood's analysis of "free indirections" attempts to solve the narrative problem—when the two voices of the writer and the character should overlap and when they should be separated. He uses a large number of cases to reveal the writer's mind and action. Ambiguity, ambiguity, and confusion of voices are the ultimate goal of free indirection. It is intended to confuse the reader: is the writer talking, or is the character watching? The best effect is to cancel the boundaries and cause ambiguity. It solves the problem of changing the perspective of the writer and the narrator to the greatest extent, and the docking of editing. How can you have both limitation and omniscience benefits at the same time? This flexibility of going in and out is the mysterious energy of the writer, like séance and detachment.
Free indirection is a reconcile of reliable and unreliable, a compromise between the writer and the character. Essentially, it is narrated by sound switching, possession or hovering over the sky. It seems to me that it is like the technique of vocal music, which can neither blindly be true, because there is always a range that cannot be reached, beyond ability; nor can it be false all the time, because it is unreal, weak and lacks texture. Free indirection, is a true and false tone switching, to leave no trace. Wood argues that Chekhov used a more advanced "country choir" to narrate, achieving "free indirection without a master." No subject, no subject, like background harmonies, advanced mixes and the expressiveness of "overtones". Tolstoy would also use an unconscious social norm and cultural common sense to write about this unsolicited voice. We always seem to draw a better understanding of Wood's discourse from music, just as Bakhtin always borrows from music a set of terms that explain novels. Because, a great writer, always a master of sound, is a thinker about the scheduling of music.
Wood reveals all sorts of shady ways in the novel's narrative, and the writer's narrative is always implemented in "cheating", cheating, and repeated switching operations. First-rate writers often make deception so natural that the reader is unaware. Flaubert is a model of "deception" and his significance is to create a modern realist narrative. I think its essence is expressionism disguised as reproduction. Wood argues that Flaubert's careful selection of details masks as naturalistic camera scanning, while hiding the question of who is observing. Flaubert truly became a legislator, omnipresent and without a trace. He recreated the second nature, re-established order, stitched together the usual and the abnormal details, and juxtaposed the details of different lengths, which Wood called "Flaubert's beat mark". It easily erases the dichotomy of time, creating a realistic illusion of events occurring in synchronicity. The essence of the novel is narrative art, which uses sound and perspective to reproduce the entire living world. Wood's Novel Machines discuss the technical means and sense of reproduction in modern fiction narratives. Contemporary novelists, in particular, feel a strong pressure to integrate a third language, the language of the world, in addition to their own language and the language of their characters. It can be understood as the omnipresent voice of the times: noisy sources such as television, advertising, blogs, text messages, etc. It was a language of media that writers of the pre-industrial era did not need to consider. It will constantly intrude contemporary writers and even put the novel text in danger of being degraded. Is it imitation, reproduction or representation of the world? This is a long-term proposition left to artists by Western literary and art theory.
Bootlegs: A Collection of Criticisms by James Wood
Wood reveals all sorts of shady ways in the novel's narrative, and the writer's narrative is always implemented in "cheating", cheating, and repeated switching operations. First-rate writers often make deception so natural that the reader is unaware. Flaubert is a model of "deception" and his significance is to create a modern realist narrative. I think its essence is expressionism disguised as reproduction. Wood argues that Flaubert's careful selection of details masks as naturalistic camera scanning, while hiding the question of who is observing. Flaubert truly became a legislator, omnipresent and without a trace. He recreated the second nature, re-established order, stitched together the usual and the abnormal details, and juxtaposed the details of different lengths, which Wood called "Flaubert's beat mark". It easily erases the dichotomy of time, creating a realistic illusion of events occurring in synchronicity.
Between the changes, the technique of the novel and the tradition
We often have a requirement for historians: to change through ancient and modern times, we must have both traditional and change perspectives. Wood's criticism has always been rooted in the novel tradition, and it has found a continuity between the old and the new. For example, psychological monologues and streams of consciousness do not come out of nowhere, but have their long-standing prototypes. Wood traces its origins back to the temple prayer tradition, where characters in ancient Greco-Roman drama confided in the audience. "Shakespeare's monologue retains this self-confessional and self-exhortatory prayer or religious character." Monologue and dialogue are not necessarily opposed and exclusive. In Shakespeare's plays, monologues can be seen as a kind of blocked dialogue: like the silence of an object. This tradition is entirely technical – the reader needs to know what the characters are thinking, and the characters "remind the reader and themselves that they exist."
"The Closest thing to life"
Real Look: Selected Writings of James Wood
The mind and the mind cannot actually be narrated from the outside in the form of language, which is like a paradox. Wood argues that Shakespeare fundamentally invented stream-of-consciousness, breaking with traditional monologues with a kind of "rambling thought." People in the play often speak in front of people, rather than talking to people. This state of wandering does not occur in monologues, but in dialogue. In the meantime, people in the play often talk to themselves, digressing from the topic, such as if there is no one, contradicting themselves... All kinds of conditions can arise. Wood captured the ideological foundation of Shakespeare's plays on stream of consciousness. It seems to me that it is the steadfastness of the inner authenticity of the self, like the cornerstone of Descartes' philosophy of "I think."
This kind of rambling can easily remove the line between the private and the public: what the character says to himself is mistaken for talking to others. In other words, it is a monologue disguised as a dialogue, and what the two say is highly mixed, and we begin to forget the differences. "I think Stern, Dickens, Chekhov and sometimes Joyce are all great discoverers of this insight." The off-topic useless information carried by Ramblings overflows the narrative, which should be regarded as the self-determination of the mind. In order to confirm its authenticity, the mind "produces a narrative that cannot be stopped at all." "It's mostly useless rambling details, and the characters look irresponsible.
The title of The Irresponsible Self borrows from Henry James's reference to the "irresponsibility" of characters. It aims to distinguish between narrative ethics and realistic ethics. "Art is irresponsible; because it's important that characters be authentic, and as readers or viewers, we tend to applaud any effort to construct that kind of authenticity." Of course, we simply don't condone real-life people doing this. "The true self of fictional characters is fascinating, which is why bad guys are cute in literature, but not in life." We are obsessed with "bad images" and can't tolerate really bad people. What does Wood mean when he clarifies the novel's tradition of moral admonition? That is, to use the ethics of reality to prescribe narrative ethics, to regulate the speech and action mechanism of the characters in the novel, and to make them "take responsibility". This is also a cliché that Taoists and aestheticists have been fighting.
The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and Fiction
The origin of many embarrassments of literary criticism lies in the fact that many critics objectify writers, "materialize" works, and forget that criticism itself is creation, and critics should also be writers. Wood really cited the writer as a co-conspirator and spread his hidden voice. He is an endoscope, an anatomist, but above all an empathizer, an observer. He really put the spiritual consciousness of great writers, scanning them layered through the cases of their works. This kind of business is about the same as that of psychoanalysts. However, the latter finds the repressive hypothesis from misprogrammes of speech and childhood trauma, while Wood is willing to find the technical implementation and "operation guide" of the novel from the subtle description arrangement, and find the "hard currency" that can be reduced and learned.
Breaking the Box: Thesis Science and Faith
James Wood excelled in his approach to life experience, overwhelming and dissolving concepts, theories, and "jargon." This is like human beings, which lies in digestion, not to eat what you grow, but to eventually grow into "human flesh". Understanding, organicity and vitality are often lacking in academy critics. The new and advanced theory has become a "universal tool" for many critics who do not use their senses, do not observe, and ignore details, but can also judge and sit and talk. The danger to be wary of in literary criticism stems not from the theory itself, but from the laziness and numbness caused by the tendency to "theory alone." (Editor-in-charge: Li Jing)