Comments on: A note on not grieving Norman Mailer (or Ayn Rand, or Kahlil Gibran)

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 03:51:50 +0000

Oh dear, that Dave Eggers fella makes me wanna spit. I just don’t get it.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 04:33:13 +0000

Yes, to be fair, Jacobs directs his ire at the Collected Works, of which the Prophet is the most famous — but not necessarily the most egregious.

The collected works are long in their sum and painful in their particulars.

By: Consumatopia

Consumatopia — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 04:23:01 +0000

I guess my copy really is different–it’s 96 pages, large print, huge margins. I’m an extremely lazy reader, I assure you. ;)

The Collected Works above is 880 pages, but it doesn’t really seem fair to complain that someone’s collected works are long and boring–that’s probably true of most prolific professional authors.

Lewis was insightful enough to see that well-intentioned impulses can lead to doom just as easily as outright sin, but it didn’t seem to occur to him that this implies sinners–even caricatured sinners–should be treated with a bit less contemptuous sneering. Actually, I’m sure that did occur to him, but that didn’t change his writing. If we are given a great many opportunities to choose Heaven once we are in Hell, we must be given even more opportunities than that to rechoose Hell once we are in Heaven.

It’s not that C.S. Lewis isn’t a wonderful writer of insight and inspiration, but sometimes his insights make it a little too easy to dismiss other insights.

By: Antigone

Antigone — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 03:11:58 +0000

Ann Coulter (why yes, I do have right-wing friends, why do you ask?) Goddammit, her writing is like shoving red hot nails into my eyelids.

Oh, while I’m at it, Tolkien, and Melville, and both for the same reason. Too much description, not enough character, and sexist and racist to boot.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:43:49 +0000

Uh, Consumatopia, if 880 pages (the Modern Library version of the the Prophet) is “short, succinct, somewhat light” to you, then you really must be a first-rate graduate student!

And you know better than to claim Lewis damned anyone to hell; hell (for him) is always of our own choosing, and we are usually (ala the Great Divorce) given remarkable numbers of opportunities to rechoose.

In any event, I look forward to your next comment, when you will no doubt reveal that Rod McKuen is unjustly underrated. ;-)

By: Consumatopia

Consumatopia — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:28:23 +0000

Is my copy of The Prophet different from everyone else’s? The one I have short, succinct, somewhat light reading. The parody, except for the quotations from the original, seems completely dense and obscure in comparison.

I can see how the truth-through-contradiction of The Prophet could be annoying, though it seems odd that Jacobs would complain so much about that after writing a book about the author of the The Screwtape Letters. Wait, actually, that makes perfect sense–that’s how C.S. Lewis always thought–only he is allowed to engage in complex moral acrobatics–everyone else is to be ruthlessly mocked for appreciating morality’s complex ironies. Mocked at best, condemned as traitors or damned to hell at worst.

By: lalouve

lalouve — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:26:19 +0000

Whatever his name was that wrote Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. LeGuin has a lovely take-down of that in one of her critical essays. Also, D. H. Lawrence. He may be an able portrayer of early 20th c working class attitudes, but how he cannot write women…

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:21:19 +0000

I only say “My-ler” when I feel like being Teutonic.

By: Funt Of A Thousand Faces

Funt Of A Thousand Faces — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 07:08:52 +0000

Do you still pronounce it MY-LER? I’ve only ever heard people say MAY-LER except for you.

By: evil fizz

evil fizz — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:19:31 +0000

What could be an interesting psychological study is fraught with sledgehammer-like metaphors (which the main character, then, even interprets so the reader doesn’t have to) and largely superfluous dialogue. If I had been the editor on this, the book would be half as long and one quarter as obvious. Quite the disappointment.

I think I have the exact same criticisms of White Oleander. I do tire of being bludgeoned with metaphor.