what are you reading now?

Also , 'despair' about washing the dishes?

'to dry them seemed a task as Sisyphean as nailing diarrhoea to a wall.'

"Corpsey was wearied by the jumble of verbs, tenses and grammar in Franzen's sentence; to rewrite it seemed a task as Sisyphean as nailing diarrhoea to a wall."

Mr. Tea said:

This is a real cardinal sin with you, isn't it? Not that it's not an important thing to be aware of (and avoid) - I think I'm guilty of it in a lot of my own writing.

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Yeah. On one level. I despise it. Perhaps because I try so hard not to. But, I can appreciate an author who does it well. Like Joyce Carol Oates might (in author's voice) write. 'So sad, so very sad'. Which can work. I still won't do it. But - Franzen seems to do it in a very elaborate and verbose way. This irks me more.

Corpsey said:

I don't notice any histrionic adjective choices before the flat 'made him weary'? Do you mean 'overloaded'? Or 'wet'?

I assume you're referring to 'Sisyphean', which certainly reads badly. Depends what this 'Gary' character is like, I suppose: is he given to such pretentiousness? Or is that Franzen?

It looks dull, in any case.

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I felt calling the prospect of helping his mother dry dishes 'Sisyphean' histrionic. They are just dishes.

luka said:

Overloaded jumble wet weary sisphyean despair unhappy waterlogged scraps bottom

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yup.

luka said:

In one short paragraph. Overloaded innit

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Lol - I know I'm not the most concise poster either. But fiction is a different 'kettle of fish'.

I wanted to say this earlier but ran out of time. It is about the last line.

"He poured a smallish brandy nightcap while Enid, with unhappy stabbing motions, scraped waterlogged food scraps from the bottom of the sink."

Is 'unhappy' necessary? Who stabs at food in a kitchen context in a positive way in fiction? No one. As soon as a character is stabbing at food any reader knows for sure they are unhappy, tense, angry or frustrated.

Also, 'motions'. We know stabbing is a motion. Another superfluous word.

Waterlogged is questionable. So too is specifying the bottom. (if the reader interprets the food scraps being stabbed at as resting on the top or side of the sink is Enid's frame of mind lost on the reader? - No.)

There are some decent lines in the book. But, I'm thinking of 2 or 3 - after 270 odd pages. Whereas most paragraphs have some overcooked descriptive work or a clanger that makes me wince.

I'm just really disappointed because I thought he was 'serious' - but the book so far just seems indulgent. I'm not a purist for concrete prose or anything. But with Franzen I just don't feel his style serves anything other than to reflect his rather acute background and delight those few who identify with the (endless superfluous) details.

you said:

I felt calling the prospect of helping his mother dry dishes 'Sisyphean' histrionic. They are just dishes.

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I think Franzen is deliberately using an overblown adjective in order to mock Gary's laziness and/or despair. He doesn't say washing the dishes IS Sisyphean, but that it seems to be.

OTOH, washing dishes is Sisyphean (or at the least could seem so) in the sense of a task which you shall have to do until you die or the dishes are thrown away. Perhaps, too, repairing your parents' house is only forestalling the inevitable falling to pieces of your parents' house. Sisyphean suggests not only a difficult task but also a futile one.

(OTOOH, wasn't Camus's point about Sisyphus that life itself is Sisyphean, because it is both laborious and ultimately futile?)

you said:

But, I can appreciate an author who does it well. .

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Have you read Pat Hamilton's Hangover Square? I think it was one of the 'Dissensus book club' titles ages back. Anyway, one of the things I loved about it is the way that although the author's voice is technically that of an impersonal narrator, it's nonetheless a narrator with such a great deal of sympathy for the lead character that the voice comes close to assuming the status of a hybrid between the first and the third person. So yeah, it definitely tells rather than shows, but in a very engaging and successful way, I thought.

I plan never to read The Corrections. I don't think Tolstoy would have bothered writing about somebody doing the dishes. (Preparing for my Correction now lolllzllzzl)

Corpsey said:

I think Franzen is deliberately using an overblown adjective in order to mock Gary's laziness and/or despair. He doesn't say washing the dishes IS Sisyphean, but that it seems to be.

OTOH, washing dishes is Sisyphean (or at the least could seem so) in the sense of a task which you shall have to do until you die or the dishes are thrown away. Perhaps, too, repairing your parents' house is only forestalling the inevitable falling to pieces of your parents' house. Sisyphean suggests not only a difficult task but also a futile one.

(OTOOH, wasn't Camus's point about Sisyphus that life itself is Sisyphean, because it is both laborious and ultimately futile?)

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Yeah, I get the meaning of Sisyphean. But throwing this in to tell the reader how a character's feels towards a certain task (albeit, a pointless and never-ending take - the dishes) did seem a little overblown and, well, crude.

I do quite like authors who use their voice to add some subjective viewpoint or side the character. Patrica Highsmith does this well. 'That'd just be silly!' In Ripley. Shriver does it well in Mandibles. I think she even called one character a bitch - but she primes this by starting each section with the character she was writing 'through'.

Corpsey said:

I plan never to read The Corrections. I don't think Tolstoy would have bothered writing about somebody doing the dishes. (Preparing for my Correction now lolllzllzzl)

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Would Tolstoy have even been aware that dishes need washing after use? Fnar...

Good point!

But I think literary realism can describe the day to day lives of people by describing the interesting bits. Leave out the dishes, leave out the eight hours sat at a desk, leave out the waiting for a bus for ten minutes (unless something interesting is happening in your head while you're waiting). I wonder if this is where Franzen's apparent tendency to laboriously list comes from? The Corrections was marketed as a sort of riposte to postmodernism, or a throwback to realism, wasn't it?

Going Russian again, I think of Chekhov, who wrote about the tedium of life, and the dissatisfaction, but didn't tend to actually write about all the tedious activities of life. He distilled things down, as you're saying Franzen fails to.

270 pages in and you've hated every page! Life's too short!

What I'm saying is, I get enough of real life from real life. Books are for escaping real life and its boredom IMO

Well, I don't hate it. It is vivid and bouncy in places. And funny. But only in the same way CSI or Total Wipeout is. What irks me most is coming to a book I've been told is penned by a 'literary heavyweight' and feeling the only enjoyment I get is at a cheaply shallow airport-lit level - and the only aspects that mark it out as uniquely Franzen are choices I disagree with. It isn't a terrible book, I do enjoy it, I just don't like it.

Sure - literature shouldn't be a mirror. Life is humdrum and monotonous. A story, a narrative, it is not. But there are ways of getting a story across. Tao Lin's Taipei is an excellent example of how prose can be complex and story can be told about the more mundane aspects of life (depression in this case). I have mentioned Lin's significance for me elsewhere online... It seems to be a divisive book though. People either adore it (like me) or loath it and think it is utter shit.

I was reading earlier that Franzen got in trouble cos Oprah liked The Corrections and he publicly expressed angst cos he thought of himself as highbrow.

I am now reading Clive James's 'Unreliable Memoirs', and was just now delighted to come across a passage wherein James describes the work of Australia's (now presumably extinct) 'dunny men' as Sisyphean.

It works better in this case though, because you can tell he's not being serious, and at the same time more accurate. (Shit happens.)

Corpsey said:

But OTOH, I doubt even the most pretentious of people would automatically think that drying the dishes was 'Sisyphean'. For one thing, it would be inaccurate, as a 'Sisyphean' task is surely one which cannot be finished?

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Corpsey said:

(OTOOH, wasn't Camus's point about Sisyphus that life itself is Sisyphean, because it is both laborious and ultimately futile?)

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that's not how i understand camus' sisyphus
the point is that sisyphus DOES reach the top and has a moment to reflect as he trudges back back to the bottom of the hill to begin pushing again
i would say that he's arguing that the project isn't futile because it is laborious; the labor has utility because it in itself is life, absurd as it is

i read The Corrections in 2001 and i liked it enough
he describes the area where i work (and where i am as i type this) briefly but well
in particular, he describes the stretch of Lincoln Drive in Philadelphia that was part of my commute for a long time
i often find this book for free here and there and i always give them to my friends and acquaintances

i do think it is a very good book and approaches great but he's not in the top tier of American writers like Gaddis
maybe second tier, like Roth or Fitzgerald

probably should revisit it but i'm STILL reading Don Quixote

As a punishment for his trickery, King Sisyphus was made to endlessly roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus himself. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by enchanting the boulder into rolling away from King Sisyphus before he reached the top, which ended up consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration. Thus it came to pass that pointless or interminable activities are sometimes described as Sisyphean. [14]

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Maybe Camus changed the story and meaning for his own purposes? I've never read Camus' book, always thinking it seemed a Sisyphean task to me, like washing the dishes.

I'm assuming that Zeus has told Sisyphus that if he does manage to get it to the top, he can go home early, hence the trickery of him making it roll away whenever old Sisy gets close? I've had similar experiences working in supermarkets.

I'd like to take a look at this hill. It must be in a really boring area.

It's hardly 'cleverness' on Zeus's part though, is it? He's just being a massive wanker because he can because he's a god.

Corpsey said:

Maybe Camus changed the story and meaning for his own purposes? I've never read Camus' book, always thinking it seemed a Sisyphean task to me, like washing the dishes.

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Its an essay. He quite deliberately repurposes the meaning of the story, but not the actual narrative. Worth a read actually, pretty much epitomises absurdism.