tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post4161840309056105364..comments2023-07-14T04:28:49.111-06:00Comments on Now What: at the very least...Lance Olsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13659209766706247259noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post-64992680189867862752007-04-29T07:47:00.000-06:002007-04-29T07:47:00.000-06:00Jeffrey, In Prous's work, I don't have a real sens...Jeffrey, In Prous's work, I don't have a real sense about his own feelings on psychoanalysis, but many critiques of "memory" in <I>In Search of Lost Time</I> think of involuntary memory as the interplay between the subconscious and the ego. Beckett himself reads Proust in precisely these terms, and he constructs for himself a memory/habit machine based in psychoanalysis, which I see influencing Beckett's work a great deal, especially <I>Watt</I>. Beckett's little Proust book is loaded with considerations about the ego and superego in Proust. Of course, Beckett's text may be seen as an assault on Freudian psychoanalysis, even though it's heavily interested in the subject. Nabokov had a similar bent. While constantly deriding the work of psychoanalysis, he was absolutely obsessed by it, especially in <I>Lolita</I>. I guess I'm emphasizing that the terms of critique in the first part of the century seem to be imposed by psychoanalysis, even if a few of our major writers are attempting to undermine those terms in their own criticism. It's very odd for me to read Nabokov's treatment of psychoanalysis in all his novels, and yet in his own book on Nikolai Gogol he mainly relies on an analysis of Gogol's "ghoulish" psyche.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02790251863452802917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post-24328718346661741942007-04-28T17:02:00.000-06:002007-04-28T17:02:00.000-06:00Dmitri,I would certainly agree that psychoanalysis...Dmitri,<BR/>I would certainly agree that psychoanalysis has provided an important critique of 20th century literature, but THE dominant one? Even if we think historically, I really can't see Kafka in particulalrly psychoanayltic terms (nor Beckett for that matter): in fact, don't Kafka (and Joyce and the like, perhaps even Proust) RESIST the psychoanalytic? I have no argument with your reading of the Surrealists, but I'd like to hear moreof your reading of the high modernists as "articulat[ing] their work in psychoanayltic terms."<BR/>best, Jeffreyjdeshellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10284348944284380704noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post-13136991769306509052007-04-28T10:14:00.000-06:002007-04-28T10:14:00.000-06:00Jeffrey, the psychoanalysis bit is more of a histo...Jeffrey, the psychoanalysis bit is more of a historical reading than it is a theoretical critique. I don't think the Not I is a product of the psyche, necessarily. Rather, psychoanlysis has provided the dominant critique of the 20th century novel. Our best writers (Beckett, Proust, Kafka, esp. the Surrealists, etc.) articulate their work in psychoanalytic terms. Of course, many writers tried to move beyond this, but in the latter half of the century, much less attention was paid to the narrative voice than in the earlier part. A few, such as Blanchot and Lispector, remained committed to exploration of the narrative voice in a decidedly post-psychoanalytic fashion.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02790251863452802917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post-21755482683628095952007-04-28T09:33:00.000-06:002007-04-28T09:33:00.000-06:00Great answers both Timmi and Dmitri. Although I t...Great answers both Timmi and Dmitri. Although I too am bothered by the “should,” I’d have to question the “do” as well. Does fiction “do” anything? Does it “act” in the world? Ah, but I’ve probably brought this up before.<BR/>I like Dmitri’s answer about fiction being an encounter with the Not I, but I wouldn’t necessarily place that encounter primarily within psychoanalysis (unless I’m missing this statement as a critique, Dmitri, in which case I apologize). It seems as if the question of the Not I is one of the questions of our culture. Do we place it in a primordial, irreducible Other (the ethics of Levinas)? Or in the world as such (some readings of Hegel)? Or can the Not I eventually be reduced to the I (other readings of Hegel)? This is all very interesting. Jjdeshellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10284348944284380704noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post-48408351444904040072007-04-27T09:27:00.000-06:002007-04-27T09:27:00.000-06:00Well, great question, and I'll try to be brief.Fic...Well, great question, and I'll try to be brief.<BR/><BR/>Fiction, in specific, <I>should</I> put us into an uncomfortable relation with the narrative voice. As writers/readers, it's inevitable that when we encounter a narrator in fiction, we realize, consciously or unconsciously, that that narrator is not I, the writer, nor, I, the reader. This is very weird, the fact that I is not I. Something unaccountable in language allows for this dispersal of consciousness into a coherent other. I imagine that the modern novel was really born from psychoanalysis, and the Surrealists, Proust, Beckett, etc., make this evident. you know this is true. Our understanding of the narrative voice today is largely derived, it seems to me, from psychoanalysis.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02790251863452802917noreply@blogger.com