tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455277388900637928.post8200936069319619683..comments2024-03-19T02:14:31.704-04:00Comments on <center>OnFiction</center>: Character in Biography and FictionKeith Oatleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16419339550879570935noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455277388900637928.post-88004393688336960242010-12-14T21:26:15.786-05:002010-12-14T21:26:15.786-05:00Now that I've finished the book, I can say the...Now that I've finished the book, I can say the post-modern bit was really only a couple of pages, and, yes, I think I agree that "relativism" has a special meaning, so I over-reacted. Your own comments on the book helped me frame it, though I continue to find my thoughts about the project troubling and incomplete. I'll need to re-read the book and think more about it someday. However, what was most helpful of all was to discover that the sessions with Gloria are now on Youtube.<br />Seeing Perls tell Gloria that she was "phony" I thought that this is so like the reaction of my students in Slovakia to American friendliness. Seeing Ellis in action increased my sympathy for him--as reading about his method it seemed to me to be a crystallization of American phoniness, and I found it distasteful in all the ways I find American breezy cheerfulness depressing. And, to be honest, I found Rogers frightening and unsympathetic and was unable to watch the session with him..<br /><br />PS novels about attachment? Novels about children whose parents have died or who are being raised apart from parents? Elizabeth Bowen,"Death of the Heart", "Eva Trout", "The House in Paris"--a writer whose prose style I immensely admire...formerly a wage slavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455277388900637928.post-57658464335748673872010-11-18T11:03:49.680-05:002010-11-18T11:03:49.680-05:00Thank you, Mark, for this comment. I am glad you f...Thank you, Mark, for this comment. I am glad you found Magai and Haviland-Jones's book interesting and worthwhile. I have to say I didn't jump up in alarm at their idea of relativism (indeed I can't now even remember them discussing it) but I know, of course, what you mean. It's likely that, as psychologists, they don't carry the same weight of meaning in the term "relativism" as you do, and so they may appear confused. My take on their book is centred on their idea of a new kind of biographical writing.Keith Oatleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16419339550879570935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455277388900637928.post-31851606589510852752010-11-14T17:22:45.665-05:002010-11-14T17:22:45.665-05:00Keith,
I've managed to get hold of "The H...Keith,<br />I've managed to get hold of "The Hidden Genius of Emotion." I've not found a book quite so troubling and simultaneously stimulating since I put down Briggs' book in the middle--and, regrettably, never got back to reading the second half...So, thanks for provoking me to get it.<br />But, I have to add: their use of the term 'relativism' is, I think, confused.<br />All they have a right to mean by it is "an ability to see particular psychological issues from differing emotional perspectives" (their words from p. 358 discussing Perl). But they outrun that meaning and go on wholly unnecessarily to endorsing extravagant post-modernist claims about truth and reality.<br />For me, as a philosopher, it's a clear case where a psychologist could benefit from more philosophy.<br />I can't wholly defend my interpretation, but I can say that their literal view threatens to end up with a sort of moral nihilism or an indefensible subjectivism. (A bold claim, I know, not publishable stuff without lengthy justification!)<br />But, as a parting shot: Isn't it curious that Plato was capable, in his beautiful literary depictions of Protagoras' views, of the psychological depth they praise--at the same time he regarded Prot. as a philosophical opponent? And isn't that curious given Plato's reputation as (what Magai and Haviland-Jones might call an "absolutist"?--dare I say THE arch absolutist?)<br />Cheers,<br />MarkL.formerly a wage slavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455277388900637928.post-30093715018517747342010-10-15T08:44:55.148-04:002010-10-15T08:44:55.148-04:00Thank you very much P.M. Doolan. I have been looki...Thank you very much P.M. Doolan. I have been looking out for attachment-based novels, so your recommendation of Emma O'Donoghue's novel <i>Room</i> is very welcome.Keith Oatleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16419339550879570935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455277388900637928.post-48176411498717714812010-10-15T08:41:30.709-04:002010-10-15T08:41:30.709-04:00Thank you very much, Mark, for this comment. I get...Thank you very much, Mark, for this comment. I get the impression that a lot of biographers like the idea of a life being completed by death, in the Aristotelian way you mention. I think that in fiction death can be very problematic, perhaps because fiction strives to offer contexts in which readers can make life meaningful and so the often-meaningless fact of a death can be hard to come to terms with. The romantic idea of a couple in love dying together can be made meaningful: for instance Romeo and Juliet are united in death in the way they could not be in life and this is among the literary possibilities you point to. I think the idea of loss of control of one's life is very thought-provoking, for fiction and for life: not fatalism but—as you say—the coming of the inability to act in the world ... and that can come in many forms.Keith Oatleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16419339550879570935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455277388900637928.post-10091328129279696792010-10-15T03:54:43.141-04:002010-10-15T03:54:43.141-04:00I think Emma O' Donoghue's Man Booker shor...I think Emma O' Donoghue's Man Booker short-listed "Room" tackles the theme of attachment in a profound and sensitive way.P. M. Doolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16673509230835222713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455277388900637928.post-17913649075635884582010-10-15T03:06:37.051-04:002010-10-15T03:06:37.051-04:00Keith,
Your comments put me in mind of something p...Keith,<br />Your comments put me in mind of something possibly related.... What about the death of fictional characters? I mean when the character dies in the story. I was thinking of this because I've just finished a novel where the main character dies at the end. First I was enormously troubled, and then I saw a logic in it...a logic connected to the emotions of that character.... that character's death was surely connected to the nature of the emotions/relationships she had from an early age. (I don't say the name of the book because I wouldn't want to give away the ending for someone who hasn't read it.)<br />Two things occur to me--one Aristotelian: don't judge a person happy till you see what happens after they die....And the second, vague and possibly amateurish: there's a connection between death and love....a pair dying together (romantic), dying which is connected to unfulfilled love...and other literary possibilities...<br /><br />Your comments are provocative, also, (as I'm sure you realize) because they raise questions about a loss of control in one's relationships and life--not that it should directly lead to a fatalistic approach, but it complicates the picture. (Perhaps I shall simply have to read "The Hidden Genius.")<br />Thanks,<br />Mark L.formerly a wage slavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com