Even with a number of years passed since it has been a meaningful rivalry (and I can imagine a Bulls fan, given their dominance, thinking that it never was), I'd really like to see the Knicks beat the Bulls in OT right now. Also, there was just a near brawl followed by Taylor and Duhon getting double technicals.
And he claims it was a joke, but he resets the TiVo, swimming post, he passes up the chance to post on blow jobs, the goddamn toast post is just around the corner.
Matt, I'm still confused. Can you say precisely which sentiment ogged was objecting to yesterday-ish, and which you took him to be mocking ineffectively in "Seasons"?
To tell the truth I'm not exactly sure what ogged's problem with Munro was, except that he sucks; but I suppose I (by ac's inspiration) took him to be objecting to what he saw as a certain gushiness, and his "seasons" post was that sort of gushiness but directed at ecstasy rather than desperation, except it missed its target because Munro rules and ogged does not.
I thought, if not a direct (and unsuccessful!) parody of Munro, Ogged was attempting to write the short story I requested. But perhaps I, too, am suffering under the delusion that it's all about me.
This raises an interesting question: how do you and Weiner think of the Munro passage quoted (all ogged had to work with) that you could read the "Seasons" post as aimed at parodying it, even if it failed to hit the mark?
See, Ben, when you make us comment just because we're East Coasters at the office, you get weak parodies not just of Sondheim songs, but Sondheim songs cut from the original musical. Someone teach me some popular music, stat.
Oh, you know, I'm not in love with Illinoise so far. I've only given it a few listens, but his greatest talent seems to be in orchestration and arrangement. His lyrics are (at first pass; this is not a final opinion) a little precious, his voice, a little fey*, and it can't stand up to his big orchestral sound.
I thought it was that no one talks in such a ridiculous emotional manner.
But I granted that people do talk like that. It's not that that passage is gushy, but that they're talking in too-thought-out mock-dramaticisms. If she's parodying people who think and talk like that, it's brilliant and spot-on. Obviously, I can't tell that from such a short excerpt. (And I still wouldn't want to read even a parody of such people.)
She's Canadian, Ogged. Canadian. Of another generation. I would venture to say that the regular idiom of northern Ontario circa 1965 is not too-thought-out mock-dramaticisms.
To summarize for our viewing audience, sb had jokingly predicted that after ogged 'reset the tivo' (nudge nudge wink wink) this blog would get all soft and dopaminely vague such as Sarah McLachlan's music. And Cheers and Moonlighting and who knows what other comedy/dramas.
So ogged 'pretended' (but was it really an act? Hmmmm.) to do just that.
Personally I didn't recognize any of that when it was happening but in the interest of sparking debate I will throw red meat to Bphd and say "See, this shows that one of the responsibilities of the female is to tame and civilize the male by helping him with his electronics."
I know exactly what you're talking about, Tripp. Ever since becoming single I've been unable to fix this stupid VCR—keeps flashing 12:00—I need a woman's help, here.
Well, right after announcing his Tivo reset, Ogged did post an anatomically-correct photo of a hott swimmer with a cute bulge in his suit. Or are we not supposed to talk about that?
54 -- I think not because "reset my TiVo" can be used by someone of either gender and involves only onesself: "I have not reset my TiVo in ages" whereas "program my VCR" can be used only by a male speaker and describes the action of one's partner, i.e. "She programmed my VCR."
I'm not following. Certainly while one may be capable of programming one's own VCR it is nicer if someone else does it for you. And I don't see why a female couldn't need her VCR programmed.
So it's not the outpouring of emotion you object to, but the artificiality of the expression? I thought it was the outburst of emotion, which is fairly described as 'gushy'. Still, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to read the seasons post as parodying the thing you are objecting to. Still, whatever.
As for Munro, the point is that sometimes people really do talk like that, because they're in extreme states of emotion, and those states of emotion can't find any other expression than in these dramatic outbursts. That's why Munro's narrator says at the end of the passage that the scene was stagy. Doesn't make it any less real. People who act like that are painful to be around, that's the point of the passage, but sometimes you're so desperate that you can't help it.
But, while there might be a lot of emotion expressed and experienced by the people depicted or in actual such circumstances, it comes across in that particular bit of prose highly artificially, you see? Affectless.
Not only did I start two sentences in a row with "Still," the second was needlessly churlish. What I should have said was:
"Anyway, I don't know why I'm bothering to argue that your post might have been a Munro parody when it in fact wasn't. Munro herself I will defend to the death. En garde!"
Seriously, life is artificial; Munro is capturing the moments when you just have to make a spectacle of yourself. And how uncomfortable those moments are for everyone else (the narrator wants to be civil, but tells the guy to fuck off instead). I think it captures something real, and if you don't, well nyah. 'tain't affectless, but the world would be dull if all writers were Hemingway.
I think the problem with that passage is that, at least in that snippet, it doesn't really encourage sympathy, much less empathy, with its abject and desparate characters. They seem gross and unlikeable. That's possibly intended, and if so, just fine, but it is possible to write about abjection (is that the noun form?) and theatricality while opening up your characters more to the reader's identification.
I might plead context, since this is pretty far into the emotional arc of the story. But I find these characters unlikeable and still identify -- this is the point when you're so abject you don't even like yourself.
There is not much conflict (in this day and age) between drawing a character as unlikeable/gross, and allowing the reader to identify with him or her. Check out Flannery O'Connor sometime. Or Annie Proulx. Hell, take a look at the majority of Kurt Vonnegut's work. I've never read Munro -- I did not get much out of the passage but certainly would not judge her work based on that.
Munro: You're not supposed to sympathize or empathize with the character; he's being melodramatic, irritating and self-pitying. You're supposed to find him so, even while recognizing that your aesthetic reaction is perhaps a bit unkind since he is, after all, actually in pain.
This comment sums up pretty much every reason why I hate the midwest. It drives me batshit, and yet I recognize that my hatred for it says something bad about me. Grr.
I think Tia uses just the right word with "gross". There's a difference between being dramatic despite your own wishes and playing out some bad version of a high school play.
I can sometimes identify with entirely unlikeable characters, though it takes a firm hand to make that work. Without context, it's impossible to know whether that would happen in Weiner's story. But my sense is that dialogue that is at once stark and mannered and untempered descriptions of gushy emotions are not the best way to make that happen. I think it's odd that this is being contrasted with Hemingway, because I think Hemingway's style, at least in what I've read, has more commonalities with that passage than differences.
In the Proulx or O'Conner or Nabokov examples, the writer assigns the grotesque character as the narrator, no? That snip of Munro at least gives the impression of a rushed job—it's hard work, waging the horribleness of a character against that character's truth or what have you, and assigning the grotesque character special significance as the other in the story seems to be at ends with an effort to have us to identify with him.
In e.g. The Shipping News by Proulx, Quoyle is not the narrator. Tell the truth I don't think any of Proulx' stories I've read are written in the first person. Or Vonnegut's either. And Vonnegut is not Nabokov -- though Nabokov cerrtainly also uses gross sympathetic characters.
It's easy to hate on Hemmingway, and I do it, but that passage reads more like a parody on Hemmingway than an accurate recreation of his style. Maybe it compares to his late, fat, drunk period, in which he was himself an innacurate recreation of his style. But he shot himself for that, so maybe we shouldn't pile on.
For me, the problem is not that the male character is gushy -- I think he's supposed to be pathetic, and that's ok -- but that he is not like anything one encounters in life. That's ok if it's intentional, but I don't think it is. Trembling and dropping the spoon is funny because I don't believe it.
My sympathy for the woman depends on her relationship with the man, right? If he is as he's depicted, I'll just ask her what she expects when she says yes to everyone.
but that he is not like anything one encounters in life.
You say that with such confidence. Are you in the habit of turning down distraught young men?
The reason I asked is that the thing that rang true to me (obviously, since I'd just mentioned it) is the distance and lack of sympathy (even distaste) you feel for someone you are rejecting, even if you are in the midst of being rejected yourself. And how that opposition can be very striking, since you want sympathy so much yourself. This didn't make me like or dislike her, just find her honest.
That's what I reacted to in the passage, rather then the form of the expression. But it wasn't disturbing to me as I read, in part because it's acknowledged as stagy in the passage itself.
As long as everyone's talking about Hemingway I will link to my favorite story of his, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Probably everybody here has already read it; but if you have not and have 20 minutes to spare, there are far worse things you could do with the time.
In the context of the story the narrator herself identifies with the man. She's utterly obsessed with a different man, and just before the passage, she says something like, "At least I don't know where he is so I can't phone him and follow him around and..." and then describes this. So she's acknowledging how pathetic she is; she is just like this man, who she cruelly rejected and rightly so.
Frankly, I think she sucks because she's incapable of sympathizing with this guy, who I don't believe. She's incapable of sympathizing at the time, and she's incapable of sympathizing afterwards. Inability to sympathize is a good proxy for teh suxx, in my book.
I don't believe her narration. The fellow looks like a caricature. You could come away with the idea that the narrator has created a caricature of a lovelusty pathetic human being so as to justify her scorn for an actual human being. But there aren't any textual clues that Munro is in on this -- rather it looks like she (Munro) has created maudlin characters.
She's deliberately cruel. I don't often say one thing, intending to say another, purely by accident.
She (the character) admits the staginess of her retelling with: "This is the scene both comic and horrible, stagy and real." So she's saying -- this was absurd, but it happened. Good that she admits it looks stagy, at least.
But then we have: "He was in desperate need, as I am now, and I didn't pity him, and I'm not sorry I didn't." That is also a melodramatic, stagy sentence, but unlike the rest of the passage, the narrator doesn't acknowledge it, and Munro doesn't seem to recognize it.
Finally, I guess the theme -- I didn't pity this pathetic human being (look, by the way, at how pathetic he is) and I'm not sorry, even now that I am in his position -- just doesn't resonate with me. It basically celebrates cruelty.
If it was Munro's intent to create a sucky narrator, fine. It worked with Humbert Humbert. But I don't get from the passage that it was Munro's intent. What I get from the passage is that Munro intended one thing and created another. That's Munro's fault.
Then again, I'm not looking at the whole story, so perhaps I'm misreading it, which would be my fault.
It looks like everyone will disagree with me, but this is what irritated me the most in the passage. There are probably exceptions, but in general I don't like it when fiction refers to fictional events as seeming fictional, even though real people say the same thing about real events.
text - clearly I think that sentiment is much more common than you do. I'll have to try to convince of this. In the meantime, just as a filler example, have you ever seen Before Sunrise? The Ethan Hawke character talks about it this phenomenon with regard to the woman in Spain who blew him off.
I have seen Before Sunrise, and liked it, as well as the sequel, Ethan Hawke Is Now Wrinkled. I liked the sequel better, probably. I don't remember exactly what Ethan Hawke said about the woman in Spain, but I remember the anecdote.
If you mean that inabilty to sympathize is a common human condition, I agree. People are often cruel. I guess it's the acknowledging-your-own-cruelty-and-remaining-unrepentant part that I find bothersome.
Aren't the narrator (and the man interested in her) the very definition of "priss"? Isn't that reason enough for rejection of the bit quoted? (And by extension, Munro any children or intellectual heirs, and all Canadians?)
There are probably exceptions, but in general I don't like it when fiction refers to fictional events as seeming fictional, even though real people say the same thing about real events.
I Agree with this, though it might be funny if people in plots with lots of coincidence continually remarked upon how happily coincidental such and such was and how it's just like in a story, etc.
As for trembling and dropping the spoon, I reiterate my invocation of Horace in the other thread.
Emerson, I saw The Goat and in addition to the man-on-goat action there are also a number of discussions related to underage attraction and even a few cock jokes. If there was ever a play for you, that is it.
Pardon my breaking in on the bestiality discussion, but I missed a turn back at the opening of this thread.
Was the game Ogged was playing the one called "everyone guess what Ogged was hiding in the back of his head while writing Seasons, and whoever guesses wrong has to apologize to Ogged"?
I don't think I'm sophisticated enough for this place.
127: MHS, To whom are you responding? And what do you mean by "psychotic?" I have to say, from bitter experience, that it is generally better to forgive others' psychotic breaks, so long as those others are willing to deal with them.
Sorry, Boston. I was responding to John Emerson,124: No, the game is "Let's pretend we didn't notice Ogged's psychotic episode.
I was just speaking carelessly, or hyperbolicly (is that a word?) using 'psychotic' to mean anything eccentric. I've been lucky enough never to have had a full psychotic break, nor be around one. Sounds like you've had a harder life.
Thank you. I've made a note to myself that in my next life I'm going to pay attention in grade school when everyone is supposed to be learning to spell. It's number 8,382 on that list.
a fucking apology
"I'm... so sorry. That hardly ever happens. Maybe we can try again later?"
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 5:05 PM
It's ok, don't try to cover up your earnestness. No need to lash out at others. We're here for you, man.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 5:15 PM
Resetting the TiVo has affected Ogged in profound ways.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 5:19 PM
Point of Order! This whole damn blog is out of order.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 5:21 PM
Not that that's a bad thing.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 5:21 PM
5: But it is.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 5:55 PM
That was a rare teachable moment, though apparently Ogged is regressing to his carnal nature as we speak.
Ogged, Elizabeth Clare Prophet will always be there for you. Always.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 6:15 PM
I thought it sounded like you.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 7:57 PM
did anyone read it to the end?
(this must be a day for the point.
Posted by TomF | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 8:54 PM
jeeze. that last one should have said "not getting the point" and included a link...
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007473.php
Posted by tomF | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 8:55 PM
Even with a number of years passed since it has been a meaningful rivalry (and I can imagine a Bulls fan, given their dominance, thinking that it never was), I'd really like to see the Knicks beat the Bulls in OT right now. Also, there was just a near brawl followed by Taylor and Duhon getting double technicals.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:06 PM
Speaking of not getting the point, I would everyone to duly register their fear of my new knife.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:26 PM
not effectively mocking the sensibility he was objecting to yesterday
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:28 PM
It's all about ac, isn't it?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:29 PM
Also, why no blogging on Caitling Flanagan's article on oral sex? That should be worth like a zillion comments.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:33 PM
I'm puzzled. What is there in "Seasons" that suggests it's related to ogged's dispreference for the Munro-esque?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:36 PM
Precisely nothing, SB; thanks.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:38 PM
Or is the sensibility in question something different entirely? It's so hard to keep up these days.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:38 PM
Also, why no blogging on Caitling Flanagan's article on oral sex? That should be worth like a zillion comments.
Considered it, even read that whole damn article, but it feels like ground we've covered.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:40 PM
But did "dissertation topic" have anything to do with "seasons"?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:45 PM
Woah, dude, like psych! All I can say is:
Goodbye to you my trusted friend
We've known each other since we were nine or ten
Together we climbed hills and trees
Learned of love and A B C's
Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees.
* * * *
We had joy we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons
Out of time......
Somebody had to make that joke.
Posted by el hombre nuevo | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:47 PM
15: See also here et seq., in among the math chat.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:48 PM
What mischief one could work with a couple of hyphens and the Ivory dish soap tagline. The mild-on-hands what?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:49 PM
And he claims it was a joke, but he resets the TiVo, swimming post, he passes up the chance to post on blow jobs, the goddamn toast post is just around the corner.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:50 PM
Somebody had to make that joke.
This motivates a lot of commenters, I think.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:51 PM
Y'all are killing me, is what I'm saying.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:53 PM
And now I'm going back to work. I'll take my sympathy off the air.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:58 PM
The Standpipe prophecy.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 9:59 PM
Matt, I'm still confused. Can you say precisely which sentiment ogged was objecting to yesterday-ish, and which you took him to be mocking ineffectively in "Seasons"?
Y'all are killing me, is what I'm saying.
Time to go back to being funny, I guess.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 10:01 PM
Woot! eb wins!
Killing me.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 10:01 PM
eb was a bit pre-pwned in 24, actually.
To tell the truth I'm not exactly sure what ogged's problem with Munro was, except that he sucks; but I suppose I (by ac's inspiration) took him to be objecting to what he saw as a certain gushiness, and his "seasons" post was that sort of gushiness but directed at ecstasy rather than desperation, except it missed its target because Munro rules and ogged does not.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 10:08 PM
Also.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 10:09 PM
Heh. I scooped ogged.
OK, enough bowing. Back to work on my chariot, youse.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 10:18 PM
The Munro clearly wasn't gushy.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-18-06 10:20 PM
Aren't the east-coasters at work now? Come on, guys, liven up the joint.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 7:17 AM
I thought, if not a direct (and unsuccessful!) parody of Munro, Ogged was attempting to write the short story I requested. But perhaps I, too, am suffering under the delusion that it's all about me.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 7:41 AM
This raises an interesting question: how do you and Weiner think of the Munro passage quoted (all ogged had to work with) that you could read the "Seasons" post as aimed at parodying it, even if it failed to hit the mark?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 7:49 AM
And now, for some karaoke, dedicated to one BW:
Multitudes of ac's
Everywhere I look
Sentences of ac's, paragraphs of ac's
Filling every book
See, Ben, when you make us comment just because we're East Coasters at the office, you get weak parodies not just of Sondheim songs, but Sondheim songs cut from the original musical. Someone teach me some popular music, stat.
Oh, you know, I'm not in love with Illinoise so far. I've only given it a few listens, but his greatest talent seems to be in orchestration and arrangement. His lyrics are (at first pass; this is not a final opinion) a little precious, his voice, a little fey*, and it can't stand up to his big orchestral sound.
*Tia is the sexiest!
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 7:51 AM
In the past, he mocked something else I liked as gushy. I thought it was a unifying critique.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 7:52 AM
I still have no idea what that previous post was about. but since the point of this blog is open comment threads and mocking ogged, it's all good.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 7:55 AM
I'm sure this was part of Ogged's unconscious motivation, if not conscious. Sure of it!
As for the complaint about Munro, I thought it was that no one talks in such a ridiculous emotional manner. (Not unrelated to gushiness.)
Cala, follow eb's link.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:01 AM
His lyrics are (at first pass; this is not a final opinion) a little precious
Did you never think that maybe life is "a little precious"? Jesus. You people sicken me. Sicken me!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:03 AM
I thought it was that no one talks in such a ridiculous emotional manner.
But I granted that people do talk like that. It's not that that passage is gushy, but that they're talking in too-thought-out mock-dramaticisms. If she's parodying people who think and talk like that, it's brilliant and spot-on. Obviously, I can't tell that from such a short excerpt. (And I still wouldn't want to read even a parody of such people.)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:14 AM
In the past, he mocked something else I liked as gushy.
It gives me this because I knew and recognized its beauty under the grime of its wandering.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:22 AM
Did I really call that "gushy?" "Gushy" doesn't sound like a word I'd use. Ok, reading thread...
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:27 AM
She's Canadian, Ogged. Canadian. Of another generation. I would venture to say that the regular idiom of northern Ontario circa 1965 is not too-thought-out mock-dramaticisms.
SB, I was trying to finesse that.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:29 AM
Whether or not "gushy" is a word you'd used, it's the wrong word there, too.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:32 AM
I didn't call it "gushy," I see--another of ac's scurrilous attacks on me.
I would venture to say that the regular idiom of northern Ontario circa 1965 is not too-thought-out mock-dramaticisms.
So you're saying that she is mocking them?
Anyway, I'm too tired and grumpy to rag on people for their aesthetic taste today. I'm going to end up hurting someone's feelings.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:33 AM
To summarize for our viewing audience, sb had jokingly predicted that after ogged 'reset the tivo' (nudge nudge wink wink) this blog would get all soft and dopaminely vague such as Sarah McLachlan's music. And Cheers and Moonlighting and who knows what other comedy/dramas.
So ogged 'pretended' (but was it really an act? Hmmmm.) to do just that.
Personally I didn't recognize any of that when it was happening but in the interest of sparking debate I will throw red meat to Bphd and say "See, this shows that one of the responsibilities of the female is to tame and civilize the male by helping him with his electronics."
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:39 AM
I know exactly what you're talking about, Tripp. Ever since becoming single I've been unable to fix this stupid VCR—keeps flashing 12:00—I need a woman's help, here.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:41 AM
Ever since becoming single I've been unable to fix this stupid VCR
I note that by Seinfeld-ian lights, Wolfson's sex-starved stupidity indicates that he's a woman. Is that what you were trying to indicate, Ben?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:53 AM
Tim,
Please read the last sentence of Tripp's 49.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:56 AM
So you're saying that she is mocking them?
No, that I'd read such lines in Munro as the almost freakish emotional outbursts of the normally repressed.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:57 AM
Will 'program my VCR' become the new 'reset the TiVo'?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 8:57 AM
Well, right after announcing his Tivo reset, Ogged did post an anatomically-correct photo of a hott swimmer with a cute bulge in his suit. Or are we not supposed to talk about that?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:00 AM
54 -- I think not because "reset my TiVo" can be used by someone of either gender and involves only onesself: "I have not reset my TiVo in ages" whereas "program my VCR" can be used only by a male speaker and describes the action of one's partner, i.e. "She programmed my VCR."
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:01 AM
But do those outbursts really take such mannered form and follow such consideration?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:01 AM
OTOH it's good to see more consumer electronics entering the lexicon of boinking.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:03 AM
Wolfson, I never claimed to be able to write dialogue -- indeed I suck at it. Just giving usage examples.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:04 AM
57 was in response to 53, Osner.
It's all about ac, you see.
(AC, You See is the name of my ac tribute band.)
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:08 AM
Jeremy,
I'm not following. Certainly while one may be capable of programming one's own VCR it is nicer if someone else does it for you. And I don't see why a female couldn't need her VCR programmed.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:11 AM
How about "get to know the being of his/her being"?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:15 AM
So it's not the outpouring of emotion you object to, but the artificiality of the expression? I thought it was the outburst of emotion, which is fairly described as 'gushy'. Still, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to read the seasons post as parodying the thing you are objecting to. Still, whatever.
As for Munro, the point is that sometimes people really do talk like that, because they're in extreme states of emotion, and those states of emotion can't find any other expression than in these dramatic outbursts. That's why Munro's narrator says at the end of the passage that the scene was stagy. Doesn't make it any less real. People who act like that are painful to be around, that's the point of the passage, but sometimes you're so desperate that you can't help it.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:18 AM
But, while there might be a lot of emotion expressed and experienced by the people depicted or in actual such circumstances, it comes across in that particular bit of prose highly artificially, you see? Affectless.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:19 AM
Not only did I start two sentences in a row with "Still," the second was needlessly churlish. What I should have said was:
"Anyway, I don't know why I'm bothering to argue that your post might have been a Munro parody when it in fact wasn't. Munro herself I will defend to the death. En garde!"
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:23 AM
Did you never think that maybe life is "highly artificial"? Jesus. You people sicken me. Sicken me!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:30 AM
Tripp, it was established in 50 that women are the ones with the VCR-programming ability. Men can only stand by and watch in awe.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:35 AM
Seriously, life is artificial; Munro is capturing the moments when you just have to make a spectacle of yourself. And how uncomfortable those moments are for everyone else (the narrator wants to be civil, but tells the guy to fuck off instead). I think it captures something real, and if you don't, well nyah. 'tain't affectless, but the world would be dull if all writers were Hemingway.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:39 AM
Mariel or Margaux?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:40 AM
I think he was being Earnest.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:44 AM
Matt F wins!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:45 AM
I think the problem with that passage is that, at least in that snippet, it doesn't really encourage sympathy, much less empathy, with its abject and desparate characters. They seem gross and unlikeable. That's possibly intended, and if so, just fine, but it is possible to write about abjection (is that the noun form?) and theatricality while opening up your characters more to the reader's identification.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:47 AM
I might plead context, since this is pretty far into the emotional arc of the story. But I find these characters unlikeable and still identify -- this is the point when you're so abject you don't even like yourself.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:51 AM
There is not much conflict (in this day and age) between drawing a character as unlikeable/gross, and allowing the reader to identify with him or her. Check out Flannery O'Connor sometime. Or Annie Proulx. Hell, take a look at the majority of Kurt Vonnegut's work. I've never read Munro -- I did not get much out of the passage but certainly would not judge her work based on that.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 9:56 AM
#57: Yes. Yes they do.
Munro: You're not supposed to sympathize or empathize with the character; he's being melodramatic, irritating and self-pitying. You're supposed to find him so, even while recognizing that your aesthetic reaction is perhaps a bit unkind since he is, after all, actually in pain.
This comment sums up pretty much every reason why I hate the midwest. It drives me batshit, and yet I recognize that my hatred for it says something bad about me. Grr.
Bring on the red meat.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:00 AM
I think Tia uses just the right word with "gross". There's a difference between being dramatic despite your own wishes and playing out some bad version of a high school play.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:00 AM
I can sometimes identify with entirely unlikeable characters, though it takes a firm hand to make that work. Without context, it's impossible to know whether that would happen in Weiner's story. But my sense is that dialogue that is at once stark and mannered and untempered descriptions of gushy emotions are not the best way to make that happen. I think it's odd that this is being contrasted with Hemingway, because I think Hemingway's style, at least in what I've read, has more commonalities with that passage than differences.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:05 AM
Hemingway's style, at least in what I've read, has more commonalities with that passage than differences
Tia is unbanned!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:05 AM
I'm confused. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:09 AM
That's a good question. I meant it as a good thing, but it's probably not consistent with past usage.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:09 AM
In the Proulx or O'Conner or Nabokov examples, the writer assigns the grotesque character as the narrator, no? That snip of Munro at least gives the impression of a rushed job—it's hard work, waging the horribleness of a character against that character's truth or what have you, and assigning the grotesque character special significance as the other in the story seems to be at ends with an effort to have us to identify with him.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:39 AM
In e.g. The Shipping News by Proulx, Quoyle is not the narrator. Tell the truth I don't think any of Proulx' stories I've read are written in the first person. Or Vonnegut's either. And Vonnegut is not Nabokov -- though Nabokov cerrtainly also uses gross sympathetic characters.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:49 AM
I don't think we're supposed to identify with the male character in the passage as much as with the female character, yes?
And the problem is, she sucks too. And I don't get the feeling -- from that passage -- that the author is in on her suckiness.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:50 AM
It's easy to hate on Hemmingway, and I do it, but that passage reads more like a parody on Hemmingway than an accurate recreation of his style. Maybe it compares to his late, fat, drunk period, in which he was himself an innacurate recreation of his style. But he shot himself for that, so maybe we shouldn't pile on.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:54 AM
For me, the problem is not that the male character is gushy -- I think he's supposed to be pathetic, and that's ok -- but that he is not like anything one encounters in life. That's ok if it's intentional, but I don't think it is. Trembling and dropping the spoon is funny because I don't believe it.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 10:57 AM
And the problem is, she sucks too.
She sucks because she is mannered or because you don't buy the emotion itself?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:00 AM
My sympathy for the woman depends on her relationship with the man, right? If he is as he's depicted, I'll just ask her what she expects when she says yes to everyone.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:00 AM
more later on her suckiness.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:02 AM
but that he is not like anything one encounters in life.
You say that with such confidence. Are you in the habit of turning down distraught young men?
The reason I asked is that the thing that rang true to me (obviously, since I'd just mentioned it) is the distance and lack of sympathy (even distaste) you feel for someone you are rejecting, even if you are in the midst of being rejected yourself. And how that opposition can be very striking, since you want sympathy so much yourself. This didn't make me like or dislike her, just find her honest.
That's what I reacted to in the passage, rather then the form of the expression. But it wasn't disturbing to me as I read, in part because it's acknowledged as stagy in the passage itself.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:10 AM
As long as everyone's talking about Hemingway I will link to my favorite story of his, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Probably everybody here has already read it; but if you have not and have 20 minutes to spare, there are far worse things you could do with the time.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:12 AM
Time for bestiality, if you ask me.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:25 AM
Shh, everybody's reading A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:26 AM
Have we reached the point where we're pretty sure Emerson isn't joking anymore?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:27 AM
In the context of the story the narrator herself identifies with the man. She's utterly obsessed with a different man, and just before the passage, she says something like, "At least I don't know where he is so I can't phone him and follow him around and..." and then describes this. So she's acknowledging how pathetic she is; she is just like this man, who she cruelly rejected and rightly so.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:35 AM
I just don't understand people who'd prefer discussing fiction they dislike to a little hot man-on-dog action.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:48 AM
Hills Like White Elephants is a good Hemingway short piece. Not to be confused with My Lovely Lady Humps by the Black-Eyed Peas.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:49 AM
Hey BTW Emerson, did you read that novel I gave you? Wha'dya think?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:49 AM
96: Nor with My Lovely Lady Humps White Elephants, by J. Emerson.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:51 AM
Hey Ogged, did you ever read that novel I recommended to you?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:51 AM
That is, 98?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:56 AM
Shit, recommend it again!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:57 AM
Flannery O'Connor, Three Short Novels, right. It's on my pile, but I haven't got to it. O'Connor's been on my list for decades.
No apparent bestiality, though. I think that Erskine Caldwell may be the way to go.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:58 AM
The Education of Arnold Hitler, Marc Estrin. Also good, his Insect Dreams.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 11:59 AM
Compared to underage sex, bestiality is really a neglected topic in literary fiction. Even the genre fiction is not too abundant.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:00 PM
No apparent bestiality
True, but O'Connor was at least gay, so on the same spectrum of depravity.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:01 PM
89 to 57 as well as 83 (so Ben doesn't think I ignored him, or the tribute band).
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:22 PM
I always say yes to distraught young men.
Frankly, I think she sucks because she's incapable of sympathizing with this guy, who I don't believe. She's incapable of sympathizing at the time, and she's incapable of sympathizing afterwards. Inability to sympathize is a good proxy for teh suxx, in my book.
I don't believe her narration. The fellow looks like a caricature. You could come away with the idea that the narrator has created a caricature of a lovelusty pathetic human being so as to justify her scorn for an actual human being. But there aren't any textual clues that Munro is in on this -- rather it looks like she (Munro) has created maudlin characters.
She's deliberately cruel. I don't often say one thing, intending to say another, purely by accident.
She (the character) admits the staginess of her retelling with: "This is the scene both comic and horrible, stagy and real." So she's saying -- this was absurd, but it happened. Good that she admits it looks stagy, at least.
But then we have: "He was in desperate need, as I am now, and I didn't pity him, and I'm not sorry I didn't." That is also a melodramatic, stagy sentence, but unlike the rest of the passage, the narrator doesn't acknowledge it, and Munro doesn't seem to recognize it.
Finally, I guess the theme -- I didn't pity this pathetic human being (look, by the way, at how pathetic he is) and I'm not sorry, even now that I am in his position -- just doesn't resonate with me. It basically celebrates cruelty.
If it was Munro's intent to create a sucky narrator, fine. It worked with Humbert Humbert. But I don't get from the passage that it was Munro's intent. What I get from the passage is that Munro intended one thing and created another. That's Munro's fault.
Then again, I'm not looking at the whole story, so perhaps I'm misreading it, which would be my fault.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:42 PM
Good that she admits it looks stagy, at least.
It looks like everyone will disagree with me, but this is what irritated me the most in the passage. There are probably exceptions, but in general I don't like it when fiction refers to fictional events as seeming fictional, even though real people say the same thing about real events.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 12:59 PM
Oh, now you're all just being cranky.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:02 PM
SB, I was trying to finesse that.
Oops, sorry.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:03 PM
text - clearly I think that sentiment is much more common than you do. I'll have to try to convince of this. In the meantime, just as a filler example, have you ever seen Before Sunrise? The Ethan Hawke character talks about it this phenomenon with regard to the woman in Spain who blew him off.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:03 PM
S'okay.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:05 PM
I have seen Before Sunrise, and liked it, as well as the sequel, Ethan Hawke Is Now Wrinkled. I liked the sequel better, probably. I don't remember exactly what Ethan Hawke said about the woman in Spain, but I remember the anecdote.
If you mean that inabilty to sympathize is a common human condition, I agree. People are often cruel. I guess it's the acknowledging-your-own-cruelty-and-remaining-unrepentant part that I find bothersome.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:14 PM
Aren't the narrator (and the man interested in her) the very definition of "priss"? Isn't that reason enough for rejection of the bit quoted? (And by extension, Munro any children or intellectual heirs, and all Canadians?)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:21 PM
bestiality is really a neglected topic in literary fiction
Think how much worse it would be if we didn't have Scooter Libby to address this need!
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:24 PM
There are probably exceptions, but in general I don't like it when fiction refers to fictional events as seeming fictional, even though real people say the same thing about real events.
I Agree with this, though it might be funny if people in plots with lots of coincidence continually remarked upon how happily coincidental such and such was and how it's just like in a story, etc.
As for trembling and dropping the spoon, I reiterate my invocation of Horace in the other thread.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:30 PM
bestiality is really a neglected topic in literary fiction
Emerson, have you ever seen this Albee play?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:41 PM
Totally screwed up that link, didn't I?
Let's try again.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:42 PM
I'll put The Goat on my list.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 1:58 PM
And goats everywhere shuddered in fear.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:02 PM
Try singing #119 to the tune of Darryl Hall's "Your Kiss is on my List".
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:03 PM
Emerson, I saw The Goat and in addition to the man-on-goat action there are also a number of discussions related to underage attraction and even a few cock jokes. If there was ever a play for you, that is it.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 2:11 PM
Pardon my breaking in on the bestiality discussion, but I missed a turn back at the opening of this thread.
Was the game Ogged was playing the one called "everyone guess what Ogged was hiding in the back of his head while writing Seasons, and whoever guesses wrong has to apologize to Ogged"?
I don't think I'm sophisticated enough for this place.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:05 PM
No, the game is "Let's pretend we didn't notice Ogged's psychotic episode, and let's ridicule anyone who doesn't go along with us."
Ogged, Elizabeth Clare Prophet is the answer.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:09 PM
Have we reached the point where we're pretty sure Emerson isn't joking anymore?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:10 PM
I did raise goats once. It was 30 years ago, How I miss them, especially Blanca.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:19 PM
Oh, that's a much nicer game. I'm always forgiving others their psychotic breaks, as they forgive me mine.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:20 PM
'Blanca" sounds so much more polite than "Whitey"
By the way, the comment about the Russians winning the armless race was wonderful.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:23 PM
127: MHS, To whom are you responding? And what do you mean by "psychotic?" I have to say, from bitter experience, that it is generally better to forgive others' psychotic breaks, so long as those others are willing to deal with them.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:24 PM
Sorry, Boston. I was responding to John Emerson,124: No, the game is "Let's pretend we didn't notice Ogged's psychotic episode.
I was just speaking carelessly, or hyperbolicly (is that a word?) using 'psychotic' to mean anything eccentric. I've been lucky enough never to have had a full psychotic break, nor be around one. Sounds like you've had a harder life.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-19-06 3:30 PM
130 -- I believe it is a word but is spelled hyperbolically.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 5:47 AM
Thank you. I've made a note to myself that in my next life I'm going to pay attention in grade school when everyone is supposed to be learning to spell. It's number 8,382 on that list.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-20-06 8:37 AM