"Thanks to Indian media who has over the period of time swiped out intellectual taste from mass Indian population." - Chetan Parekh
Originally posted by R K Singh:
And you simply close your ears to our request
Originally posted by <Al Labout>:
I'm not closing my ears, but opening them: Actually, I'm waiting to see how this discussion turns out...!
"Thanks to Indian media who has over the period of time swiped out intellectual taste from mass Indian population." - Chetan Parekh
"I'm not back." - Bill Harding, Twister
Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
[b]But say you've read books A, B, and C from a particular author, based on recommendations from others, and really enjoyed them. Then you discover book D from same author, just released, no one's recommended it to you yet - isn't D worth a look? Moreso than some other randomly-selected book, anyway.
Originally posted by Eugene Kononov:
[QB]To understand a piece of art, the Western-minded man will invariably ask, "Who is the author? What is the style? When was it created? How much would it cost if I sell it?". That's an attempt to classify something, to neatly put it in a bag where it belongs, which (in the mind of a classifier) will explain the piece of art in terms of the well known attributes and boundaries.
[QB]
Research has shown that the distribution of links to all sites on the web approximates a "power law", that is, a small number of sites receive the majority of links and most sites receive very few links.
http://modelingtheweb.com/example.html
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
"No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does."
Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
I cannot escape but to divide this question into two: 1) why a work of literature needs to be identified with its author in principle, in Platonic sense and 2) what are practical reasons for such identifications. Which one you are more interested in?
Originally posted by Eugene Kononov:
[b]Non-rational interpretation:
Here it is
Associate Instructor - Hofstra University
Amazon Top 750 reviewer - Blog - Unresolved References - Book Review Blog
Originally posted by HS Thomas:
Can a piece of art be appreciated without looking at the artist's own experiences ?
Any examples ? Once the artist is forgotten they seem to disappear into
archeological or history museums. A book with the author's aura seems to be a pre-requisite. And even a socio-political aura.
[ November 25, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Originally posted by HS Thomas:
There is a lot of controversy of who actually wrote And Quiet flows the Don . That did not prevent the book from winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1965. Or that it is any less appreciated.
regards
Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
Folk song, and also proverbs, and especially anecdotes - I am not sure they played the same function here as they did in the totalitarian state, where they were a form of resistance. And they enjoyed a special status precisely because they had no author, so they were like a collective wisdom of the whole society. They were more important than Soljenitsin, because average Soviet folk thought Soljenitsin was a nut, but everybody loved anecdotes. I bet, even communists loved them
Originally posted by HS Thomas:
Can a piece of art be appreciated without looking at the artist's own experiences?
Any examples? Once the artist is forgotten they seem to disappear into
archeological or history museums. A book with the author's aura seems to be a pre-requisite. And even a socio-political aura.
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
- Robert Bresson
Originally posted by Michael Ernest:
Knowing the author of a book might make it easier to find a copy in the library. That's a nice advantage.
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Originally posted by <Al Labout>:
Of course, if this sweeping Russian epic had been written by an Englishwoman it would have been dismissed immediately. But wouldn't it have made the accomplishment all the more impressive?
......
Perhaps we're not really all that concerned with the work itself, but with the fact that somebody was able to produce it?
Originally posted by <zirf>:
It's funny how Evgenii demonstrates typically "Western thought" (in his own terms) classificating, categorizating and dividing the ways of thoughts as "Western" or "Eastern".
But even accepting this theory me can make an opposite conclusions. "Eastern thought" which prefer not to divide objects would never separate art from artist, writer from his novel and reader from writer. All is one and one is all.
Originally posted by Eugene Kononov:
Thanks for your comment, Zirf, and I wish you post more often.
Originally posted by <zirf>:
In limit, for complete understanding a reader needs to become the same person with the author, he need to be the author. It is impossible of course, but it also means that knowing more about person who wrote a book me can better understand this book.
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
This may seem sacrilegious to some but I think it just proves the fact that book-reviewing is not a high paying job and that many people who do review in more established media do it as much for money or prestige as for actual interest in the subject. The reviews often read like something done as part of a job. They often lack the freshness that the best Amazon reviews have.
Many years ago I read an article from the 1800s I think about art reviews. The person suggested that the opinions of "ignorARTS" were often quite valuable, partially because they come from someone outside the established culture.
Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
[b]Shouldn't the goal of writing be to create self-sufficient pieces capable of existing without explanation?
Perhaps, but even a completely self-sufficient piece will have a very short life! Try to read a book written only a hundred years ago -- are you sure you won't miss or misunderstood anything?
But I am also interested to see how Eastern school of thought (currently represented by Eugene and Zirf) would approach the problem.
Originally posted by Alan Labout:
But if we need to know about the person in order to better "understand" his book, then doesn't it mean his book, in and of itself, is deficient? Shouldn't the goal of writing be to create self-sufficient pieces capable of existing without explanation?