HI List,
How about just a little bit more on this Auster/Gould/Davis
relationship.
Follow the link to find out more about their marriage
It seems that both Auster and Davis chose to write about their
marriage.
It's not a one-sided Judas-biography sort of thing.
Nor does it seem to be a mud-slinging affair.
More like two people writing about times that were important, though
troubling, to them,
two people that are, by the way, in their somewhat small literary
circles
respected authors. In the Davis/Auster case there doesn't seem to a
problem of the breaking of loyalties,
though I could be wrong.
I've found that
the fiction that moves me the most is based upon fact,
fiction that digs deeply in consciousness and emotions of relatively
everyday life
(with in inclusion of the stresses as well as the goodness of such a
life)
that forgoes more exciting plot developments and heightened
action. "In the house
fiction" it's sometimes called. "Kitchen fiction"
Raymond Carver, for example, and in his own baroque prose way,
John Updike in his short stories.
Dig a little into their lives (which they often talk about) and you'll see
the
close correspondence to real life.
(but please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that one form
of fiction is better than another. It's just somehow in this rambling
email
I came to the idea that it would be pertinent to mention my
preferences--
a sentence that made me chuckle as I wrote it. Please forgive the
now
hungry and caffeine-less Jim)
In a way, I see Glenn as a performer who also forgoes the dramatic
gestures
and prefers to try to reach the listener with delicacy and intimacy
and a skill with interweaving voices that can seem almost maniacal
with its convoluted energy, that is, drama not coming from one grand
gesture after another but from a sustained and ever increasing
complexity.
Here Jim once again mentioned the prelude to the second English
suite.
Anyone read the
Rosen article? He talks about the intimacy of Bach's
compositions,
how some of the works were meant to be read or listened to in
a very private setting as contemplative creations and inspiration and
guidance
to other composers. This sort of private feeling to fiction
(which
is admittedly often confessional) moves me. I suspect our hero,
however
would not have been so impressed with the fiction, and would be more in
line with Elmer's
thoughts.
(nice comments on Sesame Street. Anyone heard the Indigo Girls
version
of Buffy's song Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee? Now that's a great rock and
roll
protest song.)
(An aside, anyone remember a previous discussion that touched upon
films?
Auster wrote the screenplay to what I think is a good film, "Smoke"
Don't ask me why, but it feels to me like Auster should somewhere in his
work
mention Glenn Gould.)
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