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>>Is this an >>insurmountable problem for the litery theorist or is >>this the exact position that Barnes wants his readers >>to be in, and if so why? >In literary theory it does not really matter what the >author wants, for various reasons. The meaning of >anything is created in the mind of the reader, not on >the paper/screen of the author. An example: "Lolita" >by Nabokov may be a turn-on to a pedophile yet Nabokov >may have wanted to disgust readers and thereby teach >them to not abuse anyone. > >Hence the first chapter of the History of the World >may upset a faithful and humorless religious person >and have an atheist laughing without Barnes ever >wanting that. What matters is that *you* say what >*you* feel is "clearly provocative, thoughtful and >searching, but it is also unconventional in form, >impartial and unjudgemental". > >Do you think Noah as a drunk captain of a fleet of >which he lost the greater part is thoughtful or plain >tasteless? Why do you think that? What in the text >made you laugh or angry? Take that piece of the text >and analyze it at will. (In the case of this book I'd >search for any other occasion in the following 9 1/2 >chapters that this topic or wording appears before I'd >make a statement for fear of giving an unqualified >statement.) > >That goes just as well for form. Who says what a novel >is? Does it depend on page numbers? Hardcover? >Paperback? Can you measure character development and >scale it and unless it's gone up by 25% it's not a >novel? The 1,50 (fill in currency)-piece of literary >junk food you buy at the station is just as well a >novel as James Joyce's Ulysses. > >This may not go down well with people who have strict >ideas about what "good" and "bad" literature is or >what a "decent novel" is, yet if you've been to any >literature class within the last 20-30 years, this is >what the writers of the later half of the past century >clearly taught us. They just didn't give anything >about conventions and didn't like to be told if they >were novelists or not. :-)

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