"I am chatting with a modern Goethe!"
A recent visitor stopped by on an early blog entry of mine on Derrida (where I claimed that my then-five-year-old son En-Uk believed that nothing exists outside the text), and this visitor made an intriguing, if puzzling remark about recursive stories:
Stories within stories, ok, but telling the story they are told by! That's the inevitable recursion we will always be doomed to . . .Deeming this an opening to promote myself, I replied:
Here's 'my' story . . .The visitor took a look:
Waw... Looks great . . . I am chatting with a modern Goethe! Particularly the following comment is intriguing me:Not having received a customary notice from Site Meter that a query was awaiting my response, I only happened to notice this comment when I was deep within my blog's inner mechanism deleting spam, so I only then replied:
"Hodges very successfully argues that moral choice lies at the center of the problem of the human condition, and he drives home his point -- without metaphysics and without moralizing -- that our situation in the Cosmos is precarious indeed; and that recent progressive claims for the transformation of society and the human race through a postmodern revolution in consciousness are premature, naive, self-deluding, and very possibly self-destructive."Is this an accurate comment?
[S]orry, but I didn't get a notice of your comment with its query:I hold that same hope for all readers, and you can find out for yourself at this site here, though a site where you will also clearly see that I am no modern Goethe (a remark perhaps meant ironic), but merely one of that great man's epigones . . .
"Hodges very successfully argues that moral choice lies at the center of the problem of the human condition, and he drives home his point -- without metaphysics and without moralizing -- that our situation in the Cosmos is precarious indeed; and that recent progressive claims for the transformation of society and the human race through a postmodern revolution in consciousness are premature, naive, self-deluding, and very possibly self-destructive."That was a reader's review, and you asked:
"Is this an accurate comment?"My belated reply:
I hope so . . . because it sounds good . . . but I don't quite comprehend the praise. That reader must have understood more than I did . . . . Anyway, if you do read my story, I hope it's worth your time and effort.
Labels: Faust, Goethe, Literary Criticism, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 4:38 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
No irony at all, Jeffery, rather admiration! But I wonder in which degree your novel is just a wink to Goethe, or rather a profound reference or pendant. Or maybe this very reference is irony! Of course I should first read your book myself...
Goethe's Faust is the great Faust tale, so no Faustian story can ever ignore it, and my story thus alludes several times to it, including one crucial time, but in many ways, my story relies more on Bulgakov's retelling of Goethe's story in his inimitable magnum opus, The Master and Margarita, which I 'imitate' through borrowing liberally of its scenes and characters, along with borrowings from various other Faustian-type stories.
Yes. by all means, read the story, so you can judge for yourself whether or not it succeeds in merging with that literary tradition.
Jeffery Hodges
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Isn't any story of the Western man ultimately a Faustian story, Jeffery? And as such also a storry telling the storry which it is told by? ;)
With your novel the Derrida statement might get its fullest double sense: literary and metaphysical...
Modernity is often described as a Faustian bargain, so perhaps there's something to your point.
The Edenic story of the Fall could be taken as a primeval 'Faustian' tale -- or so it occurred to me the other day -- which is still more evidence for your suggestion.
On Derrida, my son seems to know his philosophy better than I do!
Jeffery Hodges
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You said your "story relies more on Bulgakov's retelling of Goethe's story in his inimitable magnum opus, The Master and Margarita".
Actually I'v always been enormously intrigued by Boelgakov's work, and in particular by its relation with Goeth and the Faustian theme. The formal and "superficial" allusions are clear enough, but could you tell me more about the deeper substantive and thematic relation, beyond the central appearance of Satan as such for example, and the love between the master and Margarete? Thanks a lot for any information on that point.
Thomas.
I'm no expert, and thus offer no depth, but Margarita seems the one bargaining with Satan (Woland) over the Master and his manuscript.
That looks like a reversal of roles, but I'd need to re-read with that in mind to see what is implied by this reversal.
The Master seems oddly un-Faustian, weak-willed and dependent. If there's a Faust in this tale, it would appear to be Margarita, except that she's playing both roles -- Faust and Gretchen.
But you've probably already noticed these things . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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Thanks for your interesting reaction, Jeffery!
Recently I read in a Boelgakov comment that in the premeval version of the novel, the Master was a certain Fesija, a savant who was concerned with medieval satanic arts, and standing much closer to the Goethean Faust. This figure of Fesija should have been inspired by the religeous philosopher Pavel Florenski (1882-1937), who was arrested in 1928.
Later on the Master became in the first place Boelgakov himself (or maybe Gorki).
Do you know something about these things?
No, I knew nothing about those things. Thank you! I'll look into this.
Jeffery Hodges
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Here I am, looking into this . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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