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screen_memory 's review for:
The Melancholy of Resistance
by László Krasznahorkai
It becomes increasingly unclear where I stand with Krasznahorkai with every reading. My feed doesn't reflect it, but I believe I've read all of his books aside from Satantango, and, lo and behold, I haven't had much to say on any of them aside from Melancholy now, and this is more of a commentary on my frustration with the elevation of style/prose above all else, I suppose.
I love Krasz from a considerable distance, and this sentiment is echoed regarding Bernhard (whose style is perhaps more exhausting considering his repetition). Pierre Guyotat's Eden seems a seminal work, and I appreciate it as such, and I do admire the conditional nature of a reader's engagement with it - subordinating oneself as submissive, as victim, to Guyotat's language - but, my God, is it difficult to read. The same goes for Goytisolo's style which I have praised on my posts for his books.
I do believe in frustration as a credible aesthetic goal whether through a a sheer lack of plot or via difficult or winding prose (my favorite novel is The Man Without Qualities, for Christ's sake, that stultifying, unfinished novel which assumes the direction of directionlessness, of constant duality and contradiction), there is an understandable element of farce and absurdity to finish a book and say to oneself, "Ah, what wonderful prose...but what the fuck did I just read?"
Krasznahorkai's prose is a windward journey through a labyrinth of language so exhausting that I scarcely remembered what I passed or experienced in my passage (inb4 claims to my ignorance; perhaps a valid claim).
Nabokov said one cannot claim to have read a book until they've read it twice which I'm partially in agreement with, and, in Krasz's case, I am incapable of recalling anything from my initial readings of his books. I suppose where I treat Guyotat and Goytisolo with more lenience than Krasz and Bernhard is the former's strict absence of plot. Whereas the former's works are outright abusive and sadistic (forcing the reader to assume the role of masochist), there is a fundamental story to be told through the latter's frustrating style.
Where do you all rest on this issue? Do I have it backwards, that frustration as an aesthetic goal is more worthwhile when there IS a plot to be advanced through the prose?
I love Krasz from a considerable distance, and this sentiment is echoed regarding Bernhard (whose style is perhaps more exhausting considering his repetition). Pierre Guyotat's Eden seems a seminal work, and I appreciate it as such, and I do admire the conditional nature of a reader's engagement with it - subordinating oneself as submissive, as victim, to Guyotat's language - but, my God, is it difficult to read. The same goes for Goytisolo's style which I have praised on my posts for his books.
I do believe in frustration as a credible aesthetic goal whether through a a sheer lack of plot or via difficult or winding prose (my favorite novel is The Man Without Qualities, for Christ's sake, that stultifying, unfinished novel which assumes the direction of directionlessness, of constant duality and contradiction), there is an understandable element of farce and absurdity to finish a book and say to oneself, "Ah, what wonderful prose...but what the fuck did I just read?"
Krasznahorkai's prose is a windward journey through a labyrinth of language so exhausting that I scarcely remembered what I passed or experienced in my passage (inb4 claims to my ignorance; perhaps a valid claim).
Nabokov said one cannot claim to have read a book until they've read it twice which I'm partially in agreement with, and, in Krasz's case, I am incapable of recalling anything from my initial readings of his books. I suppose where I treat Guyotat and Goytisolo with more lenience than Krasz and Bernhard is the former's strict absence of plot. Whereas the former's works are outright abusive and sadistic (forcing the reader to assume the role of masochist), there is a fundamental story to be told through the latter's frustrating style.
Where do you all rest on this issue? Do I have it backwards, that frustration as an aesthetic goal is more worthwhile when there IS a plot to be advanced through the prose?