So could you, and I'm sure you will. There is a question of why one should want to. Of great use would be the money, as long as there was plenty of it, which in the case of most books published there isn't. And of some pleasure would be the fame, though there's little enough of that to go round the thousands of people a month who have books published - and you'd have to spend your life on book tours, in hotels and shops. So what's left that a blog doesn't do better? Aren't most novels too long, with deserts drear of stuff that should be cut, or at least re-written a few times. What I'm looking for is a way for a blog to go which supercedes the novel, but so far nothing's showing up. What do you think?
i don't know Jago, if there's anything that can supersede the novel. you see, in a blog there is a constant update of things, whereas a novel is comforting in that it is static in a sense. there is a certain amount of information for you to grasp. it is not a work always in progress. of course you can argue that to the reader it is a work in progress. it's an open text that can be reevaluated and in that sense, rewritten again and again. But honestly, i don't think it's the same thing. To me, a novel is like a film and a blog is like a tv series.
Oh yes Chloe, I agree with you about the best novels, and you put it so well. There are some wonderful writers and novels - David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas for one. But even someone as good as Mitchell is playing with pastiche and form - and I'm still not sure whether the formal experiment works, though it's very clever. But I was thinking more about writing novels, which are rooted in naturalism, and increasingly an imitative and decayed naturalism at that. Whereas your blog for instance is very contemporary in a way that I could go on about at great length but won't. It's just the structures of experience have changed, and I'm looking for a way the novel can deal with that. Cathy Acker tried, William Burroghs tried, but where are we now?
4 comments:
right, i've read most of your latest posts. have to come back though for more.
do you know you could write a travel book? or any book for that matter?
So could you, and I'm sure you will. There is a question of why one should want to. Of great use would be the money, as long as there was plenty of it, which in the case of most books published there isn't. And of some pleasure would be the fame, though there's little enough of that to go round the thousands of people a month who have books published - and you'd have to spend your life on book tours, in hotels and shops. So what's left that a blog doesn't do better? Aren't most novels too long, with deserts drear of stuff that should be cut, or at least re-written a few times. What I'm looking for is a way for a blog to go which supercedes the novel, but so far nothing's showing up. What do you think?
i don't know Jago, if there's anything that can supersede the novel. you see, in a blog there is a constant update of things, whereas a novel is comforting in that it is static in a sense. there is a certain amount of information for you to grasp. it is not a work always in progress. of course you can argue that to the reader it is a work in progress. it's an open text that can be reevaluated and in that sense, rewritten again and again. But honestly, i don't think it's the same thing. To me, a novel is like a film and a blog is like a tv series.
Oh yes Chloe, I agree with you about the best novels, and you put it so well. There are some wonderful writers and novels - David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas for one. But even someone as good as Mitchell is playing with pastiche and form - and I'm still not sure whether the formal experiment works, though it's very clever.
But I was thinking more about writing novels, which are rooted in naturalism, and increasingly an imitative and decayed naturalism at that. Whereas your blog for instance is very contemporary in a way that I could go on about at great length but won't. It's just the structures of experience have changed, and I'm looking for a way the novel can deal with that. Cathy Acker tried, William Burroghs tried, but where are we now?
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