Thoroughly enjoyable - thanks, Duncan. Manhattan Transfer will have to go on my reading list now. I was nodding along with your point about Mann's musicality. I cannot reread Death in Venice without hearing Mahler (which is as much Visconti's doing as Mann's). That got me thinking about another great "city book": Calvino's Invisible Cities. Appreciate it comes much later in '72 but curious to know if you've read that and what you think. Thanks.
Thanks for reading Michael. I read Invisible Cities years ago but was not crazy about it, however this view was cynical as it was very popular with my friends and I felt it didn’t match their hype. Might revisit it in the context of thinking about urbanism and literature.
Thank you for this article. I read the book a few years ago and appreciated this context. I always wonder, when looking back at a book/author that dragged the novel or any art form into a new phase, how well the writer or artist understood what they were doing and why. How intuitive and how describable is the process of formal invention, for the person doing the inventing? How well could they verbalize why they were doing what they were doing? I'm sure the answer varies.
Your focus on the formal aspects of the book also fill me with nostalgia for a time I did not actually live through, when literary experimentation and risk taking was *somewhat* less radioactive than it is today.
Thought-provoking, thank you. I would say that Elizabeth Gaskell was a pioneer of the urban novel, with 'Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life' appearing as early as 1848. And George Gissing (a Manchester boy) would do it for London (following Dickens, of course), in the last decades of the century: 'New Grub Street' (1891) is as much about the city, as it is about the characters.
Thanks for mentioning Gissing, an underrated writer. There are of course other significant urban novels from this crucial period, such as the ones by Dreiser ("Sister Carrie", "Jennie Gerhardt"), and Andrei Bely's "Petersburg," which is frequently compared to "Ulysses" in its detailed evocation of one particular city.
Yes, very much underrated. Even by Orwell's time - he found it hard to obtain Gissing's lesser-known books. Honestly, I'm not sure why: the plots are good, the characters realistic and memorable, and the evocation of time and place are brilliant. Maybe because Gissing's satire spared nobody, but was less openly humorous than (say) that of H.G. Wells - although some parts (e.g.) of 'Born in Exile' are grimly hilarious.
It was Orwell's essay that got me to read Gissing in the first place. I feel I need to reread "Born in Exile" - certainly impressive on first read, but a dense book with a lot of layers to it, much like the work of those other Georges (Eliot and Meredith). And it really needs a proper reissue as a Penguin or Oxford Classic. My copy is one of those cheapo, bare-bones Bibliobazaar versions.
A good piece. I read MT this year, having loved the long-ago read of the USA trilogy. Found it disappointing in some ways, but still fascinating and almost anthropological in its affect. Dos Passos had a tin ear for accents, though; the excerpt you quote was fine but multiple times I found myself recoiling from his dialogue as sounding absolutely not how people speak- or I should say, as far as I know how they spoke.
Also surprised though space I guess not to see Baudelaire noted as a major influence/innovator in writing about and within cities.
Thanks for reading uh, Moravagine. Depends of your comment is restricted to just accents or speaking in general. On the latter I would say people speak to each other in all kinds of strange disjointed ways if you really listen to a conversation. I would also say regardless of if he succeeds or not Dos Passos’ emphasis on dialogue is a fairly original insight into the polyphony of the city.
As for not including Baudelaire, certainly an oversight but by no means offering this piece as a comprehensive history, focusing on Arande because he is a lesser known poet these days.
Andrade is great and it was cool to get that take on him. You are not wrong about the role and structure of conversation he shows. I was limiting to just accents themselves. His renderings were unconvincing while the FACT of characters having many different accents was kind of important to his project and salutary.
Thoroughly enjoyable - thanks, Duncan. Manhattan Transfer will have to go on my reading list now. I was nodding along with your point about Mann's musicality. I cannot reread Death in Venice without hearing Mahler (which is as much Visconti's doing as Mann's). That got me thinking about another great "city book": Calvino's Invisible Cities. Appreciate it comes much later in '72 but curious to know if you've read that and what you think. Thanks.
Thanks for reading Michael. I read Invisible Cities years ago but was not crazy about it, however this view was cynical as it was very popular with my friends and I felt it didn’t match their hype. Might revisit it in the context of thinking about urbanism and literature.
Thank you for this article. I read the book a few years ago and appreciated this context. I always wonder, when looking back at a book/author that dragged the novel or any art form into a new phase, how well the writer or artist understood what they were doing and why. How intuitive and how describable is the process of formal invention, for the person doing the inventing? How well could they verbalize why they were doing what they were doing? I'm sure the answer varies.
Your focus on the formal aspects of the book also fill me with nostalgia for a time I did not actually live through, when literary experimentation and risk taking was *somewhat* less radioactive than it is today.
Thought-provoking, thank you. I would say that Elizabeth Gaskell was a pioneer of the urban novel, with 'Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life' appearing as early as 1848. And George Gissing (a Manchester boy) would do it for London (following Dickens, of course), in the last decades of the century: 'New Grub Street' (1891) is as much about the city, as it is about the characters.
Thanks for mentioning Gissing, an underrated writer. There are of course other significant urban novels from this crucial period, such as the ones by Dreiser ("Sister Carrie", "Jennie Gerhardt"), and Andrei Bely's "Petersburg," which is frequently compared to "Ulysses" in its detailed evocation of one particular city.
Yes, very much underrated. Even by Orwell's time - he found it hard to obtain Gissing's lesser-known books. Honestly, I'm not sure why: the plots are good, the characters realistic and memorable, and the evocation of time and place are brilliant. Maybe because Gissing's satire spared nobody, but was less openly humorous than (say) that of H.G. Wells - although some parts (e.g.) of 'Born in Exile' are grimly hilarious.
It was Orwell's essay that got me to read Gissing in the first place. I feel I need to reread "Born in Exile" - certainly impressive on first read, but a dense book with a lot of layers to it, much like the work of those other Georges (Eliot and Meredith). And it really needs a proper reissue as a Penguin or Oxford Classic. My copy is one of those cheapo, bare-bones Bibliobazaar versions.
Amazing.
A good piece. I read MT this year, having loved the long-ago read of the USA trilogy. Found it disappointing in some ways, but still fascinating and almost anthropological in its affect. Dos Passos had a tin ear for accents, though; the excerpt you quote was fine but multiple times I found myself recoiling from his dialogue as sounding absolutely not how people speak- or I should say, as far as I know how they spoke.
Also surprised though space I guess not to see Baudelaire noted as a major influence/innovator in writing about and within cities.
Thanks for reading uh, Moravagine. Depends of your comment is restricted to just accents or speaking in general. On the latter I would say people speak to each other in all kinds of strange disjointed ways if you really listen to a conversation. I would also say regardless of if he succeeds or not Dos Passos’ emphasis on dialogue is a fairly original insight into the polyphony of the city.
As for not including Baudelaire, certainly an oversight but by no means offering this piece as a comprehensive history, focusing on Arande because he is a lesser known poet these days.
Andrade is great and it was cool to get that take on him. You are not wrong about the role and structure of conversation he shows. I was limiting to just accents themselves. His renderings were unconvincing while the FACT of characters having many different accents was kind of important to his project and salutary.
This feels like a story that needs fresh eyes are you open to outside feedback?
I've often thought Masha Gessen's The Future Is History 'read' like a Dos Passos book.
A superb essay on literary urbanism (even allowing for the fact that I haven't read Manhattan Transfer, yet).
After reading his trilogy— and you should too- I found out he went super rightist