Hi Sue,
This is for L.
Thanks for your interesting remarks, which I, of course. think are slightly off the mark. I note once again that formalism is
descriptive not proscriptive, so that no structures are being imposed from outside a work nor is a nor is a work judged by whether it conforms to the structure of other works.
That said, aside from introducing Quineau's own external comments on the mathematics of his work, I'd say you've written something that has many elements of a conventional structuralist/formalist critique.* You have, for example, identified certain devices in the structure as intentional and asked what follows from that intention: why is this detail here, is always my fundamental question, and what changes if it isn’t. This is the essence of structuralism, in my view: engagement with the form of the work itself, not some arbitrary form imposed from outside. Thus I don't think a structuralist would complain that
Witch Grass (a work I have not read) has no structure. What a formalist would do is try to discern the structure the author has given it.
This is also why no formalist/structuralist is likely to think there is any
necessary problem with “mixing” genres such as poetry and prose. Virginia Woolf did it continually – in
The Waves, for example, with what I think is perfect success. I personally like the sudden sex change in
Orlando, and love the “irrationality” of
the Master and Margarita. Although neither book is formal in the sense of conforming to some external template, each is on its own terms perfectly amenable to structuralist criticism.
As a final note, you seem to think a formalist would object to a “’he says’ which makes no sense other than as an interjection by the author himself.” A formalist will
notnot ote object at all so long long as it does make sense as an interjection and works in context. A formalist, will, however, object to dragging in Quineau’s “de externo” remarks about the structure of the novel; if the reader cannot discern the structure without authorial commentary, the author hasn’t done his work.
You’re right. The discussion has been lively. Thanks for your additions to it.
Lee
