tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post7262863928063595133..comments2024-03-18T16:55:31.971+00:00Comments on This Space: Trojanow horseshitStephen Mitchelmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-70714469536257648412007-08-16T19:00:00.000+01:002007-08-16T19:00:00.000+01:00OK, Steve, I went for it. MegOK, Steve, I went for it. <BR/><BR/>MegAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-55664534441108727262007-08-15T22:40:00.000+01:002007-08-15T22:40:00.000+01:00As far as I'm concerned Meg, it's sensitivity not ...As far as I'm concerned Meg, it's sensitivity not smartness that defines a good comment!Stephen Mitchelmorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-12081920802285874462007-08-15T22:14:00.000+01:002007-08-15T22:14:00.000+01:00ha. true. maybe "ego trip" is too harsh to be a bl...ha. true. maybe "ego trip" is too harsh to be a blanket statement. But certainly we have author, author, author everywhere we go no matter how humble the wordsmyth. and that is how it should be, I think, and is why we have favorites and such pedestrian concerns, and I don't know why I've put so much in lower caps. <BR/><BR/>Thanks Steve. I was almost going to comment on your previous post, but realized I wasn't smart enough. <BR/><BR/>MegAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-281126833154992412007-08-15T21:58:00.000+01:002007-08-15T21:58:00.000+01:00"In fact any work of literature is one big ego tri..."In fact any work of literature is one big ego trip"<BR/><BR/>Well, perhaps only when they claim any different.Stephen Mitchelmorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-71266707890497649832007-08-15T21:51:00.000+01:002007-08-15T21:51:00.000+01:00absurd. The reactions of characters, however "exte...absurd. The reactions of characters, however "externalized," are the projections of the author's own sensations/reactions. In fact any work of literature is one big ego trip, the writer's self writ large all over the actions, landscape, characters, dialogue, etc.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-77035782265969008342007-08-14T15:41:00.000+01:002007-08-14T15:41:00.000+01:00Despite being rather absurdly lachrymose myself, I...Despite being rather absurdly lachrymose myself, I've got much sympathy for any attack on the kind of self-indulgent emotionalism of much modern (ego-)"literature". It seems mired in the very worst kind of sentimentality. But attacking Handke for anything approaching this seems wholly wrong. <BR/><BR/>The objective world of facts is given to us within a history and a culture, and seen through the prism of our own subjectivity. A writer as attentive to language as Handke knows all this. <BR/><BR/>If Trojanow is bored by his own sensations, I don't doubt he is a dreadfully boring read.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-91201476667192231702007-08-14T15:03:00.000+01:002007-08-14T15:03:00.000+01:00Wow, that is really shocking about Trojanow. I won...Wow, that is really shocking about Trojanow. I wonder what he would say about Proust's world of sensations or Woolf's? Ironically, the kind of prose he seems to exalt is much more narcissitic because it tends to reduce the "Foreign worlds" into a kind of false objectivity and thereby makes only the writers' so-called "objective" perceptions, the center. (if that makes any sense). I'm actually thinking of a few books published here in America which attempted not to be "personal" or about the writers "sensations" and yet reduced the experience of 9/11 to an American equivalent of a divorce, all violence being the same or something which didn't exactly fit but made everyone feel the author had tackled the "big" questions.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, superb post, Steven, just wonderful and made me really want to read more and more of the very brilliant Handke.Leora Skolkin-Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05473112234328021183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-38007068253805767152007-08-14T00:30:00.000+01:002007-08-14T00:30:00.000+01:00'I can't imagine anything more boring than one's o...'I can't imagine anything more boring than one's own sensations.'<BR/><BR/>He must have a very strange imagination removed as it apparently is from all experience of life. Where does this imagination exist, I wonder, & how does he gain access to it? Does it involve the use of wormholes?Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11708539533684206357noreply@blogger.com