Showing posts with label my ideal novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my ideal novel. Show all posts
9.4.08
my ideal novel
For some reasons that won't go away, and some that will, this short game has come to an end.
As a young boy, I was so obsessively confessional that the first time I successfully kept a thought to myself I went and told my mother.
"[fragment ends]"
As a young boy, I was so obsessively confessional that the first time I successfully kept a thought to myself I went and told my mother.
"[fragment ends]"
19.2.08
Can you keep a secret?
Isn't that a revealing phrase; can you keep a secret? A secret has to be kept. Left to its own devices it will escape, it'll get lose. A secret has to be actively kept. It has its own agency, and force, and that has to be counteracted. If you keep a secret and you never ever tell anyone, you lose a part of yourself.
The film Cloverfield is told entirely by handheld camera. The script and the characters have the self-awareness to call the cameraman on this irritating habit he has of filming everything. At one point, chickening out of investigating something, he says 'You go. I'll ... document it.'
And yet every time that the person holding the camera dies, another one picks it up. Despite any reservations they expressed about filming beforehand. And it's because they can't help confiding in the camera; they have to share the secret. The story, in Cloverfield, forces its protagonists to tell it, no matter how little they want to.
My sister thinks that this is too exclusive. That you need some teleologies. She means that you need some secrets. So I'll tell you some. Can you keep a secret?
I can't.
The film Cloverfield is told entirely by handheld camera. The script and the characters have the self-awareness to call the cameraman on this irritating habit he has of filming everything. At one point, chickening out of investigating something, he says 'You go. I'll ... document it.'
And yet every time that the person holding the camera dies, another one picks it up. Despite any reservations they expressed about filming beforehand. And it's because they can't help confiding in the camera; they have to share the secret. The story, in Cloverfield, forces its protagonists to tell it, no matter how little they want to.
My sister thinks that this is too exclusive. That you need some teleologies. She means that you need some secrets. So I'll tell you some. Can you keep a secret?
I can't.
Can you keep a secret?
Isn't that a revealing phrase; can you keep a secret? A secret has to be kept. Left to its own devices it will escape, it'll get lose. A secret has to be actively kept. It has its own agency, and force, and that has to be counteracted. If you keep a secret and you never ever tell anyone, you lose a part of yourself.
The film Cloverfield is told entirely my handheld camera. The script and the characters have the self-awareness to call the cameraman on this irritating habit he has of filming everything. At one point, chickening out of investigating something, he says 'You go. I'll ... document it.'
And yet every time that the person holding the camera dies, another one picks it up. Despite any reservations they expressed about filming beforehand. And it's because they can't help confiding in the camera; they have to share the secret. The story, in Cloverfield, forces its protagonists to tell it, no matter how little they want to.
My sister thinks that this is too exclusive. That you need some teleologies. She means that you need some secrets. So I'll tell you some. Can you keep a secret?
I can't.
The film Cloverfield is told entirely my handheld camera. The script and the characters have the self-awareness to call the cameraman on this irritating habit he has of filming everything. At one point, chickening out of investigating something, he says 'You go. I'll ... document it.'
And yet every time that the person holding the camera dies, another one picks it up. Despite any reservations they expressed about filming beforehand. And it's because they can't help confiding in the camera; they have to share the secret. The story, in Cloverfield, forces its protagonists to tell it, no matter how little they want to.
My sister thinks that this is too exclusive. That you need some teleologies. She means that you need some secrets. So I'll tell you some. Can you keep a secret?
I can't.
13.2.08
Whatever isn't the body text or the tag or
The symphony is any form that isn't explicitly anything else. The novel is any text that isn't poetry or a play. (Ok, ok, with qualifications.) Dislike defines us, not like. Colour we see is the colour that isn't reflected. We prize originality, which is what hasn't been said before. the strongest faiths rest on doubt. Sculpture, like analysis, is the process of removing the extraneous, that which hinders the distinguishing of coherent shape. Suspense - and narration too - are knowing what not to tell. Sexiness is what not to show. Horror is what you don't see. Mourning a feeling about what we don't have. Loss is the only feeling we can truly apprehend:
XXX: "What is literature?"
Derrida: "Put it this way; we know what it isn't."
XXX: "What is literature?"
Derrida: "Put it this way; we know what it isn't."
6.2.08
my ideal novel
If modernism is what you can get away with leaving out, and postmodernism is what you can get away with putting in, would that make this a post-modern Jacob's Room?
1.2.08
What I thought about during my meeting
I confess to having had a lapse and pondered the introduction of character, whether signified by font or colour or style or day. But that presupposed an author, so I thought about that instead. It occurs to me that the system that provides the most compelling incentive is one which provides rewards inconsistently: thus the most compelling author is one who is inconsistently, irregularly trustworthy. But, in fact, the apparatus of this medium instills a certain authorial trust right away. You like these labels, don't you? The 'unlabelled' label is the Charybdis of self-absorption; it's a step away from the 'self-reflexive' label, the 'label' label, and so on.
my ideal novel
Objets trouvés principle
Objects read; objects written.
No teleologies left in; or rather, the only teleology which is truly there, the ur-arc, the reader's own meandering attention.
Objects read; objects written.
No teleologies left in; or rather, the only teleology which is truly there, the ur-arc, the reader's own meandering attention.
my ideal novel
There would be no authorial intrusion, no diegetic layering. It would not be strictly epistolary; rather strictly textual. It would not address you. It would be 'a puzzle to be solved', a game for one or more players, a zero-sum game, a game of luck, a game of skill, don't refer me to Borges.
my ideal novel
Someone once told me about a piece of art, I think almost a sculpture. It consisted of a piece of fairly scuffed metal, above which had been hung a spotlight. The light was off. A switch was provided to turn it on at the viewer's pleasure. Before the light was turned on, the metal seemed scuffed and scratched every which way. Once it was on, the spotlight illuminated concentric arcs and tangents of scratches around itself. Once it was off, the brownian scuffs reappeared.
It's a very obvious metaphor, I know. But I'm a frivolous person.
My ideal novel would be online. It would consist of a black page, in the centre of which would be a grid, 5 by 5, of white dots. There would be a piece of code that would generate a link between each white dot and a random document from the server. The server would be filled with every text I had ever written. In less ascetic versions of the novel, it would also be filled with every text I had ever read.
The website would produce the randomly allocated text and at the bottom of the text would be a fresh, randomised 5 by 5 grid. There would be no 'about' section, no faq, no 'contact me' link.
The only question left is whether to provide paratexts; which gives rise naturally to an interrogation of what a paratext is. Is punctuation a paratext? I suppose it can be
It is traditional to be postmodern or definitional about your first post. This is why there is a gestural buffer -temporal and archival - before this. To take up that challenge - what paratexts should I provide here? You'll see for yourself.
It's a very obvious metaphor, I know. But I'm a frivolous person.
My ideal novel would be online. It would consist of a black page, in the centre of which would be a grid, 5 by 5, of white dots. There would be a piece of code that would generate a link between each white dot and a random document from the server. The server would be filled with every text I had ever written. In less ascetic versions of the novel, it would also be filled with every text I had ever read.
The website would produce the randomly allocated text and at the bottom of the text would be a fresh, randomised 5 by 5 grid. There would be no 'about' section, no faq, no 'contact me' link.
The only question left is whether to provide paratexts; which gives rise naturally to an interrogation of what a paratext is. Is punctuation a paratext? I suppose it can be
It is traditional to be postmodern or definitional about your first post. This is why there is a gestural buffer -temporal and archival - before this. To take up that challenge - what paratexts should I provide here? You'll see for yourself.
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