Comments on: Reality Hunger Review @ B&N Review http://conversationalreading.com/reality-hunger-review-bn-review/ Since 2004. The blog of the critic, writer, and editor, Scott Esposito Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:34:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Eric Lundgren http://conversationalreading.com/reality-hunger-review-bn-review/#comment-4353 Eric Lundgren Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:56:15 +0000 http://conversationalreading.com/?p=7265#comment-4353 Scott, thanks. I'll check out those interviews. I assumed Shields was against the "realist" novel that lazily and unselfconsciously adopts exhausted 19th-century methods for depicting the real. In which case I'm with him 100%. I think the depiction of the real is only one of many projects fiction has, though, and personally I take a lot of pleasure in highly artificial projects (Nabokov and Hitchcock, for example, where the master's hand is everywhere and characters/actors are brazenly treated like cattle). I wonder if Shields is really about mimesis in the end. Scott, thanks. I’ll check out those interviews. I assumed Shields was against the “realist” novel that lazily and unselfconsciously adopts exhausted 19th-century methods for depicting the real. In which case I’m with him 100%. I think the depiction of the real is only one of many projects fiction has, though, and personally I take a lot of pleasure in highly artificial projects (Nabokov and Hitchcock, for example, where the master’s hand is everywhere and characters/actors are brazenly treated like cattle). I wonder if Shields is really about mimesis in the end.

]]> By: Scott Esposito http://conversationalreading.com/reality-hunger-review-bn-review/#comment-4352 Scott Esposito Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:39:04 +0000 http://conversationalreading.com/?p=7265#comment-4352 Eric: That's a fair criticism. The book's a manifesto, so I'm okay with it being more concerned with defining what it's for than what it's against, but I'll agree that this has led to problems with people not being clear on the kind of book Shields doesn't like. (And in this, the post-publication interviews have been helpful.) You can see this issue in the Zadie Smith response, where she's trying to defend the literature that Shields is ostensibly against, but it's not entirely clear that she knows just what it is that Shields is against. Eric: That’s a fair criticism. The book’s a manifesto, so I’m okay with it being more concerned with defining what it’s for than what it’s against, but I’ll agree that this has led to problems with people not being clear on the kind of book Shields doesn’t like. (And in this, the post-publication interviews have been helpful.) You can see this issue in the Zadie Smith response, where she’s trying to defend the literature that Shields is ostensibly against, but it’s not entirely clear that she knows just what it is that Shields is against.

]]> By: Eric Lundgren http://conversationalreading.com/reality-hunger-review-bn-review/#comment-4351 Eric Lundgren Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:52:12 +0000 http://conversationalreading.com/?p=7265#comment-4351 Scott, I liked the review and agree that RH is is artful and provocative. Shields has great taste, both in the quotes he appropriates and the books he recommends in the text. I still don't understand all the territorial pissing about fiction vs. nonfiction. At its most profound RH seemed to argue for genre-defying, novel works of art that occupy the mythical space of "this did and did not happen." Shields is right that the most exciting work is being done in the borderlands; the best novels seem real, while the best nonfiction "reads like a novel." Given that he recognizes the hybrid nature of both books and our so-called reality, I don't see how Shields can spend so much time battling his vaguely defined "literary novel." It seems that Shields pretends to be against genre, but actually needs genre for his aesthetics to work. To me this was a near-great book that devolves into a petty MFA turf war. Scott, I liked the review and agree that RH is is artful and provocative. Shields has great taste, both in the quotes he appropriates and the books he recommends in the text.

I still don’t understand all the territorial pissing about fiction vs. nonfiction. At its most profound RH seemed to argue for genre-defying, novel works of art that occupy the mythical space of “this did and did not happen.” Shields is right that the most exciting work is being done in the borderlands; the best novels seem real, while the best nonfiction “reads like a novel.”

Given that he recognizes the hybrid nature of both books and our so-called reality, I don’t see how Shields can spend so much time battling his vaguely defined “literary novel.” It seems that Shields pretends to be against genre, but actually needs genre for his aesthetics to work. To me this was a near-great book that devolves into a petty MFA turf war.

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