Glenn Gould and Literature
Living Out the Gospels: The Music of Glenn Gould
This was brought to my attention by a friend, and while I cannot endorse the aesthetic theory or literary theory of anyone who so easily dismisses Proust from the Canon, there are some interesting points. While much of the theory seems to derive from John Gardner's notion of moral fiction and much depends on how one thinks about "great writers," I do find some of her critiques on target. Comparing Franzen to Tolstoy, for example, is a ludicrous over-reaching. Indeed, the same could be said of comparing much of modern literature to older literature. There is something flaccid, unhealthy, rather daliesque and dripping-clocks about much of modern literature.
I will emphatically deny, though, that such thought applies to the magnificent mind and approach of Marcel Proust.
This was brought to my attention by a friend, and while I cannot endorse the aesthetic theory or literary theory of anyone who so easily dismisses Proust from the Canon, there are some interesting points. While much of the theory seems to derive from John Gardner's notion of moral fiction and much depends on how one thinks about "great writers," I do find some of her critiques on target. Comparing Franzen to Tolstoy, for example, is a ludicrous over-reaching. Indeed, the same could be said of comparing much of modern literature to older literature. There is something flaccid, unhealthy, rather daliesque and dripping-clocks about much of modern literature.
I will emphatically deny, though, that such thought applies to the magnificent mind and approach of Marcel Proust.
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