Experimental Fiction, Or What Is a Novel and How Do I Know?
The essay interprets experimental novels as attempts to determine what a novel is, rather than as formal innovations or challenges to realist conventions. A consequence of such an interpretation is that the stakes of aesthetic discourse are raised unusually high, making an issue of the very concept....
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| Publicado no: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles, |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
| Publicado em: |
Angles
2020
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| Assuntos: | |
| Acesso em linha: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| id |
openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_986 |
|---|---|
| record_format |
openedition |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
fiction expérimentale roman moderniste Wittgenstein Ludwig langage privé métafiction autonomie fiction performative Markson David Maso Carole Tomasula Steve experimental fiction modernist novel Wittgenstein Ludwig private language metafiction autonomy performative writing Markson David Maso Carole Tomasula Steve |
| spellingShingle |
fiction expérimentale roman moderniste Wittgenstein Ludwig langage privé métafiction autonomie fiction performative Markson David Maso Carole Tomasula Steve experimental fiction modernist novel Wittgenstein Ludwig private language metafiction autonomy performative writing Markson David Maso Carole Tomasula Steve Berry, Ralph M. Experimental Fiction, Or What Is a Novel and How Do I Know? |
| description |
The essay interprets experimental novels as attempts to determine what a novel is, rather than as formal innovations or challenges to realist conventions. A consequence of such an interpretation is that the stakes of aesthetic discourse are raised unusually high, making an issue of the very concept. For modernist novelists like Virginia Woolf, these raised stakes mean that knowledge of what a novel is, although radically democratic, poses a problem similar to the epistemology of other minds, that is, a problem of subjective isolation, of solipsism. In such a context, understanding the history of novelistic practice subsequent to modernist experimentation requires acknowledging this potential of aesthetic knowledge to individuate readers and writers. That assigning an orienting position to specific novels or novelists today seems arbitrary, if not hegemonic, does not result from anything about the political and ethical conditions of aesthetic practice that modernist novelists did not themselves know. On the contrary, it results from the success of their experiments, from the aesthetic achievements of writers such as Woolf. What their conceptually transforming ambitions have made manifest is that, for those familiar with novels generally, questioning what passes for literary fiction today is not a matter of lacking knowledge, or none that even the most widely recognized novelist or critic possesses. This situation resembles the one addressed by Wittgenstein in the “private language” section of Philosophical Investigations. The specific resemblance is that, although concepts of either aesthetics or feelings, once questioned, can prove difficult to justify or explain, their difficulty presupposes no lack of knowledge of aesthetics or feelings. On the contrary, Wittgenstein suggests that this “picture” of a lack is itself part of the difficulty. In his later philosophy, conceptual problems seem to arise in much the way that novelistic problems in the post-WWII period seemed to have arisen, specifically, as a result of language users questioning the conceptual conditions of their own practice. For experimental novelists of the sixties and seventies, writing a novel seemed as ambitious an undertaking as for their modernist forerunners, but a question arose for them about what such ambition entailed. Had the modernists succeeded in laying bare the forms immanent in all classic novels, forms on which the significance of stories at any time depended, or had they demonstrated the limits of such forms? The difference was that between acknowledging what a novel is and rendering the concept unknowable, but both the acknowledgment and its skeptical denial seemed to follow from the same question. Wittgenstein’s solution to problems of this kind in Philosophical Investigations is to write such that hearing what the question asks means recognizing our responsibility for the difference. The accepted term among literary critics for writing of this kind is “performative.” It differs from representation in the way that an act of narrating differs from a narrative of action. The essay concludes by showing through brief readings of novels by David Markson, Carole Maso, and Steve Tomasula, that radically experimental fictions can go beyond self-questioning, performing an act of acknowledging what narration is. |
| author |
Berry, Ralph M. |
| author_facet |
Berry, Ralph M. |
| author_sort |
Berry, Ralph M. |
| title |
Experimental Fiction, Or What Is a Novel and How Do I Know? |
| title_short |
Experimental Fiction, Or What Is a Novel and How Do I Know? |
| title_full |
Experimental Fiction, Or What Is a Novel and How Do I Know? |
| title_fullStr |
Experimental Fiction, Or What Is a Novel and How Do I Know? |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Experimental Fiction, Or What Is a Novel and How Do I Know? |
| title_sort |
experimental fiction, or what is a novel and how do i know? |
| publisher |
Angles |
| publishDate |
2020 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.986 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/angles/986 |
| _version_ |
1877293948258484224 |
| spelling |
openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_986 https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.986 urn:doi:10.4000/angles.986 en https://journals.openedition.org/angles/986 2020-07-16T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/9mz9 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Experimental Fiction, Or What Is a Novel and How Do I Know? Angles Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2274-2042 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles Berry, Ralph M. fiction expérimentale roman moderniste Wittgenstein Ludwig langage privé métafiction autonomie fiction performative Markson David Maso Carole Tomasula Steve experimental fiction modernist novel Wittgenstein Ludwig private language metafiction autonomy performative writing Markson David Maso Carole Tomasula Steve The essay interprets experimental novels as attempts to determine what a novel is, rather than as formal innovations or challenges to realist conventions. A consequence of such an interpretation is that the stakes of aesthetic discourse are raised unusually high, making an issue of the very concept. For modernist novelists like Virginia Woolf, these raised stakes mean that knowledge of what a novel is, although radically democratic, poses a problem similar to the epistemology of other minds, that is, a problem of subjective isolation, of solipsism. In such a context, understanding the history of novelistic practice subsequent to modernist experimentation requires acknowledging this potential of aesthetic knowledge to individuate readers and writers. That assigning an orienting position to specific novels or novelists today seems arbitrary, if not hegemonic, does not result from anything about the political and ethical conditions of aesthetic practice that modernist novelists did not themselves know. On the contrary, it results from the success of their experiments, from the aesthetic achievements of writers such as Woolf. What their conceptually transforming ambitions have made manifest is that, for those familiar with novels generally, questioning what passes for literary fiction today is not a matter of lacking knowledge, or none that even the most widely recognized novelist or critic possesses. This situation resembles the one addressed by Wittgenstein in the “private language” section of Philosophical Investigations. The specific resemblance is that, although concepts of either aesthetics or feelings, once questioned, can prove difficult to justify or explain, their difficulty presupposes no lack of knowledge of aesthetics or feelings. On the contrary, Wittgenstein suggests that this “picture” of a lack is itself part of the difficulty. In his later philosophy, conceptual problems seem to arise in much the way that novelistic problems in the post-WWII period seemed to have arisen, specifically, as a result of language users questioning the conceptual conditions of their own practice. For experimental novelists of the sixties and seventies, writing a novel seemed as ambitious an undertaking as for their modernist forerunners, but a question arose for them about what such ambition entailed. Had the modernists succeeded in laying bare the forms immanent in all classic novels, forms on which the significance of stories at any time depended, or had they demonstrated the limits of such forms? The difference was that between acknowledging what a novel is and rendering the concept unknowable, but both the acknowledgment and its skeptical denial seemed to follow from the same question. Wittgenstein’s solution to problems of this kind in Philosophical Investigations is to write such that hearing what the question asks means recognizing our responsibility for the difference. The accepted term among literary critics for writing of this kind is “performative.” It differs from representation in the way that an act of narrating differs from a narrative of action. The essay concludes by showing through brief readings of novels by David Markson, Carole Maso, and Steve Tomasula, that radically experimental fictions can go beyond self-questioning, performing an act of acknowledging what narration is. Cet article envisage le roman expérimental comme une tentative pour déterminer ce qu’est le roman, plutôt que comme un ensemble d’innovations formelles ou de remises en question des conventions réalistes. L’une des conséquences d’une telle interprétation est que les enjeux du discours esthétique sont placés très hauts, et remettent en question le concept lui-même. Pour une écrivaine moderniste comme Virginial Woolf, cela veut dire que le savoir sur le roman, bien que radicalement démocratique, pose un problème similaire à l’épistémologie d’autres esprits, c’etsà-dire un problème d’isolement subjectif, ou de solipsisme. Dans un tel contexte, comprendre l’histoire de la pratique de l’écriture romanesque venant après l’expérimentation moderniste requiert une reconnaissance de ce potentiel d’un savoir esthétique possédé par les lecteurs et écrivains individuels. Que le fait d’assigner une position orientante à des romans ou des romanciers spécifiques aujourd’hui puisse sembler arbitraire, si ce n’est hégémonique, ne résulte pas de quoi que ce soit qui concerne les conditions politiques et éthiques de la pratique esthétique que les romanciers modernistes ne connaissaient pas eux-même. Au contraire, cela résulte du succès de leurs expérimentations, des réussites esthétiques d’écrivains tels que Woolf. Ce que leur ambition de transformer les choses conceptuellement a rendu manifest est que, pour ceux qui sont familiers avec les romans en général, remettre en question ce qui est considéré comme de la fiction littéraire aujourd’hui n’est pas un problème d’un manque de savoir, ni d’aucun savoir que le romancier ou critique le plus largement reconnu ne possède. Cette situation ressemble à celle qu’analyse Wittgenstein dans la section des Investigations Philosophiques intitulée « le langage privé ». Ce qui est particulièrement ressemblant est que bien que les concepts aesthétiques ou bien se référant aux sentiments, une fois remis en question, puissent s’avérer difficiles à justifier ou à expliquer, leur difficulté ne présuppose pas une ignorance de ce que sont l’esthétique ou les sentiments. Au contraire, Witgenstein suggère que cette « image » d’un manque en elle-même fait partie de la difficulté. Dans sa philosophie ultérieure, les problèmes conceptuels semblent surgir de la même façon que les problèmes du roman dans la période de l’après deuxième guerre mondiale, plus précisément comme le résultat du fait que les utilisateurs de langage remettent en question les conditions conceptuelles de leur propre pratique. Pour les romanciers expérimentaux des années 60 et 70, écrire un roman paraissait être une entreprise aussi ambitieuse que pour leur prédécesseurs modernistes, mais une question s’est posée à eux à propos de ce que cette ambition signifiait. Est-ce que les modernistes avaient réussi à mettre à nu les formes immanentes à tous les romans classiques, des formes dont dépendaient la signification des histoires de tout temps, ou bien avaient-ils démontré les limites de telles formes ? La différence revient à celle existant entre le fait de reconnaître ce qu’est un roman et le fait de rendre le concept inconnaissable, mais la reconnaissance tout comme sa négation sceptique semblent être produits par la même question. La solution apportée par Witgenstein aux problèmes de ce genre dans les Investigations philosophiques est d’écrire de telle manière qu’entendre les présupposés de cette question veut dire reconnaître notre responsabilité dans l’établissement de cette différence. Le terme habituellement utilisé par les critiques littéraires pour cette manière d’écrire est « performative ». Elle diffère de la représentation au sens où l’action de faire récit diffère du récit d’action. L’article conclut, à travers de courtes analyses de romans écrits par David Markson, Carole Maso et Steve Tomasula, sur l’idée que des fictions radicalement expérimentales peuvent aller au-delà de la remise en question de la forme propre pour produire de manière performative un acte de reconnaissance de ce qu’est le récit. |