Re: Mahler #6


Ian Pace wrote:
> <jrsnfld@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1137175995.310883.165210@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > Paul Ilechko wrote:
> >
> >> The fact that each reader brings something unique to the novel is true,
> >> but then the listener also brings something to each performance of a
> >> music work that they hear. That's not a significant difference. The
> >> difference is in the intermediation of the interpretor.
> >
> > Not exactly. In reading, the book is interpreted by the listener much
> > more actively than a listener "interprets" a performance.
>
> On what basis do you make this assertion?

Experience. Observation of other listeners. Discussion with other
sentient beings who listen and read. By the way, I probably should have
used the word "reader" instead of the first instance of "listener" in
that sentence, but the interchangability of the words is telling.

>
> > In this
> > important sense, the reader is more akin to a performer, as
> > interpreter, than to a listener. Reading is definitely not a
> > performance art, but that does not invalidate the lessons of the
> > analogy. You just have to pinpoint the right lessons.
>
> I'm not convinced.

I am not surprised, but I am convinced especially since you haven't
provided any equally interesting alternatives.

> >
> > By the way, I think I posted this before, though I can't find it...it
> > seems critical to remember that most writers I know very much like to
> > sound out their words and sentences. They judge their style by how it
> > "sounds"--often out loud.
>
> That's how some writers think of it, yes (mostly those writing more
> 'literary' work, presumably? Is this really the case with lots of
> non-fictional writing, say?), but....
>
> > Readers do the same. Reading a book is in
> > many ways similar to reading a score, and for some people you get an
> > equally satisfying experience.
>
> Again, I'm not convinced. I don't always read that way (with poetry, yes,
> but not with lots of other writing). I don't think writing is simply
> second-hand speech (which could provoke lots of stuff on that subject by
> Derrida, which would infuriate David Gable no end! :) ).

Again, I am convinced, having talked with, worked with, studied with,
and supervised a number of very fine writers. I could run screaming
from the room at the mention of Derrida, but in general I think David
Gable's position is not at odds with sensible literary theory,
post-Modern or post-post-Modern or otherwise.

>
> > Music may be a performance art--that's
> > the way I like it--but it is not *only* appreciated in that manner by
> > all people.
>
> But I would have thought the vast majority of classical music enthusiasts do
> appreciate it in that manner.

I have no data on that. Depends on how you define enthusiasts. If you
have data, feel free to share it. In any case, the point is that others
are excluding the enjoyment of scores in the sense that several use the
word "enjoyment" and "appreciation" and "reading." All that is
necessary for my position is to point to a few, not the majority. This
isn't something we put to a vote.

>
> > Conversely, there is at least one theater troupe I know
> > that actually performs novels and short stories word for word, no
> > verbal omitted or added. Books turned into performance art.
> >
> In what sense do they 'perform' them?

In the usual sense of the word. They act as characters while they
recite the story word for word as it was published. They portray
characters, have scenes and dialogues, and manage to work in the
narrative voice seamlessly. It is amazing and wonderful as performing
art, and the whole point is that the words on the page are exactly as
is.

--Jeff

.

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