[ilds] durrell & kitsch

[Charles Sligh]

A last observation:

I think that Steven Marcus hands down the "kitsch" verdict as a negative.

Durrell (and Miller &c.) are not "highbrow" on the order to Joyce, 
Woolf, and the various American Equivalents of the High Moderns.

But does that Marcus verdict really tell us anything new--especially 
when from early on Miller and Durrell are aligning themselves in 
opposition to the "high" modern line?

The /Justine/ phenom (perfume line and movie) is marvelously kitsch. And 
Durrell writes his "Minor Mythologies" essay in order to break down the 
dividing lines between high and low literary art.

C&c.

***

Charles Sligh wrote:
> I wonder what Durrell would make of the term "kitsch"?
>
> I find one instance of the word in his writings:
>
>     "In Miller you have someone who has crossed the dividing line
>     between art and /Kitsch/ once and for all" (/The Happy Rock/ 3).
>
>
> But what does that sentence mean?
>
> Based on the matter of the previous sentence and word order, does Miller 
> leave art (Hemingway, Dos Passos, and Faulkner) and plunge forward with 
> fearless gusto into "Kitsch"?
>
> Is that a good thing here? 
>
> By the evidence of the first /Tropic/, I am supposing that it /is/ a 
> good thing--no more tea cups and doilies and polite library lectures by 
> professors discussing James Joyce and Virginia Woolf for Miller and his 
> readers. . . .
>
>   


-- 
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Charles L. Sligh
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
charles-sligh at utc.edu
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