Re: Three Questions


Subject: Re: Three Questions
From: G.K. Barranger (nikkibar@wild.net)
Date: Tue Jun 08 1999 - 11:20:09 EDT


Marcus Smith wrote:
>
> One reason for Gardner's hostile review is that Dana is a direct parody of
> one of the gnostic characters in Sunlight Dialogues. See Lanceplot, pp.
> 146-147. Percy once acknowledged that he had had a poke at JG and that
> Gardner had punched him back in the review. But I've always felt that
> Gardner's arguments suck air.
>
> Marcus
>
> On Mon, 7 Jun 1999, Matt Vines wrote:
>
> > Regarding question #3, the criticism of Lancelot by John Gardner:
> >
> > I can only deduce that Mr. Gardner's annoyance stems from his complaints
> > that Percy provides no pat answers ("...Certainly no answer can be deduced
> > from the novel...", "(Novels) should... go for answers or else shut up").
> >
> > Perhaps Mr. Gardner had been translating some of his favorite medieval texts
> > at the time of his Lancelot perusal, and felt annoyed that modern 20th
> > century angst was so complicated and impossible to provide easy answers for.
> > Or, perhaps Percy's style didn't fit well with Gardner's published methods
> > of novel-writing.
> >
> > At any rate, I doubt if many people agree with Gardner's assessment of what
> > constitutes great art. It's generally accepted that great novels do not
> > necessarily have to try to provide ANY answers. But they should raise
> > questions.
> >
> > And Percy's novels always raise questions, questions which are unique,
> > funny, thought-provoking, sad, and sometimes tragic -- questions which,
> > perhaps to Gardner's annoyance, never have easy answers. Held up to this
> > light, Gardner's criticisms are ludicrous and banal.
> >
> > In short, Lancelot is a great work of art by a great novelist.
> >
> > Mr. Gardner was a passionate man with many talents, but he completely missed
> > the boat on this one. And ironically, his disdain for "stupid, whining,
> > self-pitying modern novels" reminds me very much of the protagonist in
> > Lancelot -- ill at ease in his own time, perhaps better suited to a prior
> > century.
> >
> > Matt Vines
> >
>
> Marcus Smith
> Department of English
> Loyola University
> New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
> Office: 504-865-2481; Fax 504-866-1966
One might ask the fair question whether it is proper to do what Gardner
did in savaging the book as a result of the fairly gentle though
un-sunny dialogue repartee that Walker started. I recall that Walker had
thought the Sunlight Dialogues was not up to the standard set by JG in
his earlier work and all of us in the book group who had read GRENDEL
and had a fly at SD felt very much the same. In taking cannons to T2ndC
as Gardner did, we were all pretty shocked at the time -- particularly
since he did it in the New York Times Book Section and without telling
why. It was rather as though there had been a tennis game going on which
had suddenly been resolved with a sten gun broadside. These are not
Wimbleton rules in my view.

Nikki



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