Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 12:20:07 -0500
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Fw: deleuze - new york - cities




Steve,

Sorry, but in your message I'm not always sure what Deleuze wrote vs. what Calvino wrote, and which opinions are 
your own.  I don't think of Calvino as a poet, but as a novelist with unusual points of view. 

I 've underlined statements most puzzling.


> Geof/Hugh
> 
> For Calvino, it's odd to say that I still think the most fascinating 
> novel remains Invisible Cities it's the slow realisation that the 55 
> cities are all representations, or perhaps given the current 
> discusssions, minortarian constructiuons of the cities  in which we 
> live. All the metaphors and metonyms  that haunt Deleuze's work and the 
> later Lyotard (especially Marie goes to Japan) are there the caravans, 
> desert and the nomadic drift. On  the blurbs on the back flap of the 
> edition I have they talk about 'a novelist suddenly turning poet...' but 
> this is ridiculous, rather it is a novel which is both science and 
> fiction , but without the endless tendency that you find in SF to  
> reinvent either god or those ubermensch figures that haunt popular 
> fiction. I particularly love the 'cities and desire' sections which 
> driftwork there way across the way cities should be and are particularly 
> appropriate as another way of reading the Horkheimer/Adorno material 
> referred to by Lydia the other day...
> 
> regards
> steve
> 
> 
> 
> gvcarter-AT-purdue.edu wrote:
> 
> >Hugh,
> >
> >Ya, Calvino's opener is quite a catchy head like some of Horace Silver's 
> >Portuguese-influence jazz.  (Take "Song for My Father" a prime example of jazz 
> >that finds its way into the background of various NPR stories.)
> >
> >Not sure what else to say, though, about Calvino.  He has a great book called 
> >The Baron in the Trees the details the story of Cosimo, a young Italian who 
> >climbs up in the trees and refuses to come down--ever!  The entire novel is 
> >tale of Cosimo's life amidst the branches and (strangely) the community of 
> >people that he finds there!
> >
> >By way of contrast, though, another person who writes punchy introductory prose 
> >is the little known critic/author, Alfred Chester.  Here's his take on John 
> >Updike:
> >
> >"Updike writes very well; he can handle long and complicated syntax with 
> >nonchlant grace; he is always johnny-on-the-spot with the sharp image, the 
> >sensual observation, the neat, immediate resonse; he can appear to say one 
> >thing, which he isn't saying at all, in order to conceal from you the fact that 
> >he is saying something quite else; he can, in short, create a surface that 
> >gives you some illusion of depth.  Nearly all his powers are evident in the 
> >following quotation, the first sentence of a story called 'The Persistence of 
> >Desire':
> >
> >PENNYPACKER'S OFFICE STILL SMELLED OF LINOLEUM, A CLEAN, SAD SCENT THAT SEEMED 
> >TO LIFT FROM THE CHECKERBOARD FLOOR IN SQUARES OF ALTERNATING; THIS PATTERN HAD 
> >GIVEN CLYDE AS A BOY A FUNNY NERVOUS FEELING OF INTERSECTION, AND NOW AS HE 
> >STOOD CRISSCROSSED BY A DOUBLE SENSE OF HIMSELF, HIS PRESENT IDENTITY EXTENDING 
> >DOWN FROM MASSACHUSETTS TO MEET HIS DISCONSOLATE YOUTH IN PENNSYLVANIA, 
> >PROJECTED UPWARD FROM A DISTANCE OF YEARS.
> >
> >[Chester Continues...]
> >
> >If the sentence isn't ingenious, it is certainly crafty.  Updike is giving you 
> >the impression that something important and of uncanny depth is happening in 
> >the hero--all that alternating-intersection-crisscross-double-identity stuff.  
> >He is giving you the impression that something vital is being said.  Let me 
> >hasten to assure you that nothing is being said.  The sentence is just one of 
> >those gigantic and meaningless elaborations that so many of us poor mortals are 
> >prone to when we're telling a story whose true point we want to conceal.  The 
> >point in this case being, of course, that the New Yorker finds it virtuous for 
> >its writers to railroad its readers into a dozen pieces of plot information in 
> >the very first line of a story...."
> >
> >Anyway, Chester is just great, and somewhere someone has written about the red 
> >wig that he wore when he moved to Lydda in 1969 w/ his two dogs, Momzer and 
> >Towzer.
> >
> >best,
> >
> >geof
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Quoting hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>:
> >
> >  
> >
> >>geoff/All,
> >>
> >>you wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >>>What a hook!  Juxtapose it with Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a
> >>>Traveler:
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>>"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a Winter's
> >>>Night a Traveler.  Relax.  Concentrate.  Dispel every other thought.  Let
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>the
> >>    
> >>
> >>>world around you fade.  Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>next
> >>    
> >>
> >>>room.  Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!"  Raise
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>your
> >>    
> >>
> >>>voice--they won't hear you otherwise--"Im reading!  I don't want to be
> >>>?disturbed!"   Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>louder,
> >>    
> >>
> >>>yell:  'I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!'  Or if you
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>prefer,
> >>    
> >>
> >>>don't say anything:  just hope they'll leave you alone."
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>Geoff,  Pleas tell us more.  I read  several of his books long ago when they
> >>were new and
> >>one of them, possibly this one was flavored with subtle and strange humor.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> 
> 
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