Modernist Fiction, Its Origins and Beyond... and other stuff

We will begin a Chinese Literature Seminar starting in March 2023 to December 2025 where we will read the Six Classical Chinese Novels along with the 120 Short Stories of the San Yan. The Six Classical Novels of Chinese Literature consisting of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, Dream of the Red Chamber, the Scholars, and the Plum in the Golden Vase are widely considered among the greatest and longest novels ever written. In this fourth part of this new series, we will now try to read the Plum in the Golden Vase.

Written in the late 16th Century and first published sometime between December 28, 1617 and January 25, 1618 by an anonymous author only known by his pseudonym Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng or the Scoffing Scholar of Lanling. The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling was a literary genius, but also a dirty minded $&@#£¥. As David Tod Roy says in his introduction: "The work is a landmark in the development of narrative art, not only from a specifically Chinese perspective, but in a world-historical context... Although its importance in the history of Chinese fiction has long been acknowledged, the comprehensiveness and seriousness of its indictment of the Chinese society of its time and the innovative quality of its experimental literary technique have not yet been adequately appreciated."

Review from Goodreads:

"David Tod Roy's translation of the 金瓶梅 into English is the culmination of some two decades of work, with the fruit of his efforts being the first truly complete English edition of the work. This new edition, however, attempts to translate everything. This includes the poetry and puns, of course, with Chinese puns being notoriously difficult to translate. But further on, there are references to ancient Chinese astrology, medicine, religious texts, imperial succession, makeup, foodstuffs, architecture, and folklore. He follows the novel's rapid vacillations in tone, moving from Tang poetry to vulgar cursing in the space of sentences. Even ordinary couplets or seemingly ordinary turns of phrase are annotated, leaving the entire book an exercise in the thickets of intertextuality, the book itself composed of fragments of other works. Is it one of the six great novels? I'm not sure - I can't say. Who can read it? I doubt even a specialized Chinese reader would be able to understand all of these references. Maybe a group effort might be enough. Or an abridged version, but that would ruin the symmetry of the structure. There is precious little like it."

The novel consists of 100 chapters over 2492 pages that focuses on the life of the main character Hsi-men Ch'ing, who is a corrupt merchant with a harem of six wives and concubines. The erotic realism for which the novel is so notorious, turns out on closer inspection to be a powerful metaphor and condemnation of the government corruption of the ruling Ming dynasty and a parable against human sexual excess which continues onto this day. Please read Chapters 61-62.

Volume 1:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0691016143/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new

Volume 2:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0691126194/ref=sr_1_3_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1519612792&sr=8-3&keywords=plum+in+the+golden+vase

Volume 3:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0691150184/ref=sr_1_5_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1519612792&sr=8-5&keywords=plum+in+the+golden+vase

Volume 4:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0691169829/ref=sr_1_2_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1519612792&sr=8-2&keywords=plum+in+the+golden+vase

Volume 5:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0691169837/ref=sr_1_4_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1519612792&sr=8-4&keywords=plum+in+the+golden+vase

Please join us for a multi part discussion and read through over the next several months of Thomas Pynchon's 1973 postmodernist masterpiece Gravity's Rainbow.

“A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.”

Gravity's Rainbow is a 1973 novel by the American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II, and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device named the "Schwarzgerät" ("black device"), slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000".

Time named Gravity's Rainbow one of its "All-Time 100 Greatest Novels", a list of the best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005 and it is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest American novels ever written.

The plot of the novel is complex, containing over 400 characters and involving many different threads of narrative which intersect and weave around one another. The recurring themes throughout the plot are the V-2 rocket, interplay between free will and Calvinistic predestination, breaking the cycle of nature, behavioral psychology, sexuality, paranoia and conspiracy theories such as the Phoebus cartel and the Illuminati. Gravity's Rainbow also draws heavily on themes that Pynchon had probably encountered at his work as a technical writer for Boeing, where he edited a support newsletter for the Bomarc Missile Program support unit. The Boeing archives are known to house a vast library of historical V-2 rocket documents, which were probably accessible to Pynchon. The novel is narrated by many distinct voices, a technique further developed in Pynchon's much later novel Against the Day. The style and tone of the voices vary widely: Some narrate the plot in a highly informal tone, some are more self-referential, and some might even break the fourth wall. Some voices narrate in drastically different formats, ranging from movie-script format to stream of consciousness prose.

The narrative contains numerous descriptions of illicit sexual encounters and drug use by the main characters and supporting cast, sandwiched between dense dialogues or reveries on historic, artistic, scientific, or philosophical subjects, interspersed with whimsical nonsense-poems and allusions to obscure facets of 1940s pop culture. Many of the recurring themes will be familiar to experienced Pynchon readers, including the singing of silly songs, recurring appearances of kazoos, and extensive discussion of paranoia. According to Richard Locke, megalomaniac paranoia is the "operative emotion" behind the novel, and an increasingly central motivator for the many main characters. In many cases, this paranoia proves to be vindicated, as the many plots of the novel become increasingly interconnected, revolving around the identity and purpose of the elusive 00000 Rocket and Schwarzgerät.

Please read up to page 616 in the 1973 760 page edition, or page 627 in the 2006 Penguin Deluxe Classics Paperback starting from Part 3 Episode 25 to Episode 32. For this Meetup we will continue our discussion with a chapter by chapter analysis of Part 3 Episodes 25-32.

1973 760 page edition Amazon Purchase Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Rainbow-Classic-20th-Century-Penguin/dp/0140188592

776 page Penguin Deluxe Edition Amazon Purchase Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Rainbow-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/0143039946

Annotations Amazon Purchase Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Rainbow-Companion-Contexts-Pynchons/dp/0820328073

Please join us for a two year read through of Guy de Maupassant’s 182 Short Stories. Please read An Outing in the Countryside, On a Spring Evening, In the Spring, and Madame Tellier's Establishment for this Meetup.

From Wikipedia:

Guy de Maupassant was a French Writer remembered as a master of the short story form, and as a representative of the naturalist school of writers, who depicted human lives and destinies and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms.

Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient, effortless dénouements (outcomes). Many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s, describing the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught up in events beyond their control, are permanently changed by their experiences. He wrote some 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. His first published story, "Boule de Suif" ("Ball of Fat", 1880), is often considered his masterpiece.

Amazon review:

For the love of Guy de Maupassant

Love is always love, come whence it may. A heart that beats at your approach, an eye that weeps when you go away are things so rare, so sweet, so precious that they must never be despised.

Widely regarded as the ‘Father of Modern Short Story’ writing, Guy de Maupassant (1850 – 1893) was one of the greatest French writers in the 19th century. His stories strikingly captured various aspects of day-to-day life in France during that time. Many of his stories were based on the Franco-Prussian War and the lives of innocent people who were caught in it. He has written more than 300 short stories, six novels, travel books and also a book of poetry. Some of his well-known works include, ‘Boule de Suif', 'Bel Ami' and 'Mademoiselle Fifi'. Soon after graduation, Maupassant served as a volunteer in the Franco-Prussian War, after which he pursued a career as a civil servant working in the Navy Department and the Ministry of Public Instruction. In his 20s Guy de Maupassant began to suffer from syphilis, which caused him much mental agony and trouble for the rest of his living years.

Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient. Many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s, describing the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught up in events beyond their control, are permanently changed by their experiences.

Guy de Maupassant’s stories are only second to Shakespeare in their inspiration of movie adaptations with films. Often his stories give ‘plot’ to a movie like in John Ford’s Stagecoach, Ford claimed that his inspiration in expanding Stagecoach beyond the bare-bones plot given in "The Stage to Lordsburg" was his familiarity with another short story, "Boule de Suif" “Lump of Fat” by Guy de Maupassant. The same story inspired the Japanese director Kawaguchi Matsutaro’s for his movie “Oyuki the Virgin”. It is discussion weather plots of Guy de Maupassant's short stories are used in famous movies such as Citizen Kane (by Orson Welch) and Masculine Feminine (by Jean Luc Godard).

Story 1 Online Text Link:
https://www.prosperosisle.org/spip.php?article965#Outing

Story 2 Online Text Link:
https://www.prosperosisle.org/spip.php?article1180#Evening

Story 3 Online Text Link:
https://www.prosperosisle.org/spip.php?article970#Spring

Story 4 Online Text Link:
https://www.prosperosisle.org/spip.php?article963#Tellier

Please join us for a discussion and read through over the next year on Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Please read Volume 2 Chapters 18-19 for this Meetup.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, sometimes shortened to Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon. The six volumes cover, from 98 to 1590, the peak of the Roman Empire, the history of early Christianity and its emergence as the Roman state religion, the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the rise of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane and the fall of Byzantium, as well as discussions on the ruins of Ancient Rome.

Online Text Link:
https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/25717/pg25717-images.html#vol01

Amazon Purchase Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Decline-Empire-Volumes-Everymans-Library/dp/0307700763