Casanova
What is this person talking about?
Let us just take a look at a few points.
So she just changes the metaphor. That’s all. And it doesn’t even work that well. It really should not have blown anyone’s mind to see a new metaphor employed to describe this world.
And OMG- this petting process of past authors! She writes about them seeing this amazing hidden reality that no one else gets and they don’t even get fully. Well done canonical author. Maybe though, it’s actually them who get it all and not her. Maybe that’s because they use economic metaphors, but don’t think that they are talking in anything but metaphor.
The Euro-centrism of her work is nauseating. “International literary space began in the 16th Century” and it’s not just about the printing press. In fact it is not at all about the printing press as she doesn’t mention it once. She concludes that historical sweep by saying that Asia, India and Africa started demanding acceptance in the international literary space after de-colonisation. Sure, she might be talking about a French centred literary space, with Paris as its capital, but she isn’t. She says Paris is the world capital of literature. This is of all literature, all literature being a participant in the international literary space. So, no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Why are we reading crazy and wrong French authors who think that all roads lead to Paris… Like I don’t even speak French, I don’t care about French literature, not many people in the English speaking world do. At least, I don’t care about the French opinion about French literature, I like translated French literature which remains mute on the issue. It’s almost like America, the cultural hub of the modern world, suddenly didn’t exist. Like NYC wasn’t a melting pot of literary establishments which has become so bloody familiar to English speakers that I feel if I just squinted a little on my way out of my house I’d be cruising down 42nd to the subway, past the MET, maybe about to get a bagel and coffee, roast chestnuts, gangsters, corrupt lawyers, old money, new money, drug money, money madness, high life, low life, homeless people, Wall street, Cooney Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Factory, Velvet Underground, Lou Reed. You know, the list goes on. My point isn’t that New York is the literary capital, but that Casanova’s negligible evidence of Paris’ presence in the literary world through a few excerpts of descriptive passages is hilariously irrelevant and biased. You have to be trying really really hard to not notice that it is apocryphal.
Finally, let me say it once and for all. We do not need a new language to describe the circulation of texts, values and literary talent. We need a new language to describe quantum physics. Not books. There are plenty of words for book and Casanova is just living out French philosophies delusions of grandeur.
Wow. I gather you really didn't like this text. I am a little suprised, though, because the things you talked about didn't really stand out to me. Maybe I'll have to read it again. In regard to the Paris stuff, though, I think she does give quite a few example of the way different writers saw Paris (e.g. p 26-28ish). Also, because a lot of these examples were older, I thought she was talking about when Paris was the literary capital, not saying that it is now. But maybe I have to read it again for that as well.
ReplyDeleteIn regard to your last point, about not needing new language to talk about books, don't you think that the fact that the book has been so polemical (at least I think that's what was said in class), suggests that maybe some of these ideas are quite interesting and important?
Though I too was annoyed by the Franco-centric foundations of the article, the example of Paris serves to illustrate how one city can occupy an elevated cultural position in world literature. Think of the proliferation of discourse that presents Paris as the city of love, city of fashion, city of bohemianism etc. The example of Paris has nothing to do with disseminating myths of French grandeur.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of your criticisms, though I'm sure your negative reaction to them was more forceful than mine. Like you, I disliked the use of the economic metaphor. It may have sufficed, but it was hardly an epiphany. More superficially, I found it distasteful, partly because of the butchery our language suffers in the business world.
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