[ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 113, Issue 11
Ravi Nambiar
cnncravi at gmail.com
Sat Sep 17 19:46:34 PDT 2016
Dear Sumantra,
Good to be in touch via ILDS. Your statement "...The Alexandria Quartet at
least which provides a highly sensory experience and where Form stands out
in creating a world which can be viewed as an aesthetic experience" is true
for those interested in enjoying the narration alone, the sensory
experience alone. But, those who want to enjoy the content equally will
have to be on the side of Bruce, who says, "With respect to Durrell, I?d
put him somewhere that straddles form and content." Though it is unfair to
talk about one's own book, I kindly draw your attention to my book,
particularly to the second chapter, where I brought Jiddu Krishnamurthi in
to understand the character, Darley, in a better way. Darley's confession
that he must drop his "private Alexandria" (drop Dualism), if he has to
reach his own self is significant for me. Dropping Alexandria
(Schopenhauer) necessitates not only dropping Justine and Melissa, but it
also enables Darley to see them both in Clea. You know, Durrell announced
more than once that his Quartet is Western and the Quintet is Eastern. He
also spoke about moving from Don Juan to Bon Juan. I would like to put it
this way: if the Quartet is a novel about the experience of a Don Jan, who
is in search of his ultimate woman (in the sense that the journey finally
takes Darley to his own self), the Quintet is that of a Bon Juan (Bon was
the name of a religion that existed in Tibet). It is Affad's Tibetan self
that enables him to drop Constance easily from his memory (non-dualism) without
letting her hang on to him like Justine who could blur Darley's vision of
reality.
Regards
Ravi
On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 12:30 AM, <ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Susan Sontag: literature as a purely sensorial experience
> (Sumantra Nag)
> 2. Re: Susan Sontag: literature as a purely sensorial experience
> (Bruce Redwine)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 13:38:40 +0530
> From: Sumantra Nag <sumantranag at gmail.com>
> To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca
> Cc: Gulshan Taneja <grtaneja at gmail.com>
> Subject: [ilds] Susan Sontag: literature as a purely sensorial
> experience
> Message-ID:
> <CA+5jupT4Egug8Yhre=De3Kx2tPX24Zy1d1BJ9r1eAz=8f6iw
> _w at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Without having yet read Susan Sontag's essays or her novel as yet, I
> thought I would share this essay on her view of literature as a primarily
> sensory experience rather than one which expresses ideas and moulds
> thought. From such a view Form becomes dominant against Content.
>
> The view seemed very relevant to The Alexandria Quartet at least which
> provides a highly sensory experience and where Form stands out in creating
> a world which can be viewed as an aesthetic experience.
>
> This essay points out that in her novel The Volcano Lover (1992) Susan
> Sontag seems to modify or question her earlier view of literature as a
> purely aesthetic experience which need not be interpreted through analysis.
>
> "For all that has been said so far, then, I believe that "The Volcano
> Lover" can be read as an instance of slippage from Sontag?s former
> Formalist stand. Firstly, through the ironic narrativization of the
> Cavaliere?s totalizing aesthetic views, I think that she actually mocks the
> hermeticism of her own appraoch to the literary text,* according to which
> aesthetics should be the only dominant in literature in an attempt to
> reduce it to pure sensorial expression.* Secondly, she explicitly brings
> into her text the theme of the ex-centrics as well as historiographic
> events from a critical viewpoint, lending to her narrative an unavoidable
> ideological twist and thus contesting her views as expressed in ?Against
> Interpretation? that the novel cannot be taken as a social, political or
> cultural declaration about the world."
>
> Sumantra Nag
>
> Sent from my Moto G4 Plus
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> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 09:24:05 -0700
> From: Bruce Redwine <bredwine1968 at earthlink.net>
> To: Sumantra Nag <ilds at lists.uvic.ca>
> Cc: Bruce Redwine <bredwine1968 at earthlink.net>, Gulshan Taneja
> <grtaneja at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ilds] Susan Sontag: literature as a purely sensorial
> experience
> Message-ID: <8554BA07-7AE0-4E5F-AE5B-E141546D3DDC at earthlink.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Good to hear from Sumantra again. I too have not read Sontag?s Volcano
> Lover (1992), but her early statement that literature (mainly fiction
> probably) is form over content is rather strange. This is an Aristotelean
> argument taken out of the Poetics (recall Aristotle?s analysis of Oedipus
> Rex). What?s strange is that Sontag is known primarily for her essays, her
> ideas. With respect to Durrell, I?d put him somewhere that straddles form
> and content. Form in the sense of his poetry, his creation of his own
> sensory world, which, as Sumantra says, ?can be viewed as an aesthetic
> experience.? His ideas, however, are equally important?especially to
> Durrell himself. We?ve talked about the European ?novel of ideas.? I?d
> put him in that tradition, probably mainly in that tradition. Durrell had
> a philosophy, however vague. Whole books have been devoted to that
> subject: Richard Pine?s Mindscape (2005) and C. Ravindran Nambiar?s Indian
> Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell?s Novels (2!
> 014). Ray Morrison on Durrell?s Taoism is also relevant?A Smile in His
> Mind?s Eye (2005).
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 17, 2016, at 1:08 AM, Sumantra Nag <sumantranag at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Without having yet read Susan Sontag's essays or her novel as yet, I
> thought I would share this essay on her view of literature as a primarily
> sensory experience rather than one which expresses ideas and moulds
> thought. From such a view Form becomes dominant against Content.
> >
> > The view seemed very relevant to The Alexandria Quartet at least which
> provides a highly sensory experience and where Form stands out in creating
> a world which can be viewed as an aesthetic experience.
> >
> > This essay points out that in her novel The Volcano Lover (1992) Susan
> Sontag seems to modify or question her earlier view of literature as a
> purely aesthetic experience which need not be interpreted through analysis.
> >
> > "For all that has been said so far, then, I believe that "The Volcano
> Lover" can be read as an instance of slippage from Sontag?s former
> Formalist stand. Firstly, through the ironic narrativization of the
> Cavaliere?s totalizing aesthetic views, I think that she actually mocks the
> hermeticism of her own appraoch to the literary text, according to which
> aesthetics should be the only dominant in literature in an attempt to
> reduce it to pure sensorial expression. Secondly, she explicitly brings
> into her text the theme of the ex-centrics as well as historiographic
> events from a critical viewpoint, lending to her narrative an unavoidable
> ideological twist and thus contesting her views as expressed in ?Against
> Interpretation? that the novel cannot be taken as a social, political or
> cultural declaration about the world."
> >
> > Sumantra Nag
> >
> > Sent from my Moto G4 Plus
> >
>
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> End of ILDS Digest, Vol 113, Issue 11
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