The Elegant Variation: "IRONY TAKES NOTHING AWAY FROM PATHOS"

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October 21, 2010

"IRONY TAKES NOTHING AWAY FROM PATHOS"

Ruth Franklin rescues Emma Bovary from Kathryn Harrison's shallow appraisal:

In a letter to Louise Colet, his lover and confidante, Flaubert did indeed write that his goal was to “write a novel about shallow, unsympathetic people in a dreary setting, some of whom make bad choices and come to a horrific end.” And yet, despite his frustration with Emma and her decisions, despite his pitiless portrayal of her limited conversation and imagination, he is hardly unsympathetic to her. As he also wrote to Colet, “Irony takes nothing away from pathos.” If Emma Bovary were truly just a shallow woman who comes to a bad end, she could never have become the subject of what is arguably the greatest French novel of the nineteenth century, the novel that set the course for realism forever after.

Posted at 08:31 PM in Litlinks | Permalink

Comments

No matter what, you'll never make me like Madame Bovary.

Posted by: K | October 22, 2010 at 10:05 AM

I only wish there was some way of letting the NY Times Book editors know directly how lousy this review was. Nobody needed Harrison to review the novel but only the translation, which she seemed totally incapable of doing. I blame the editors for assigning her the piece in the first place and then not killing it before it saw the light of day.

Posted by: Gary | October 22, 2010 at 09:56 PM

The only pathos I recall from Madame Bovary is the description of the wedding party disappearing through the fields, leaving the parents to contemplate their uselessness and emptiness. No irony there. None needed.

What I recall about Madame B isn't its pathos, but its steely forensic drive. The irony really only comes into play with the pseudo-Voltaire of a pharmacist, who, of course, turns out to be the biggest hypocrite of all.

And why is anyone still reading NY Times book reviews? Are you still watching newsreels too?

Posted by: Niall | October 23, 2010 at 08:58 AM

'Irony doesn't detract from pathos' means 'just because Flaubert sneers at shallow Emma doesn't mean he lacks sympathy for her.' That kind of sympathy is known as pity.

Franklin thinks pitiableness lets Emma star in a great, realism-defining novel, and that this justifies Flaubert's sneering--unless we want to reconsider the validity of realism and prevailing/historical critical opinion.

But isn't pity judgemental and condescending? A conjectural account of my beloved dog's point of view will have pathos. But should we call my fantasy 'realism' and view it as the noblest goal of characterization and/or literature?

If realism means 'ideally, lit should be conjectures about the mindset of pitiable fools,' who needs realism?

Posted by: James | October 23, 2010 at 07:21 PM

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 21, 2010

"IRONY TAKES NOTHING AWAY FROM PATHOS"

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 21, 2010

"IRONY TAKES NOTHING AWAY FROM PATHOS"

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism