I owe the Stanford University Libraries five books by Saturday, and naturally one of them is AWOL. The other four are stacked up neatly by the door, ready for return. Where did the fifth go? Meanwhile, in my search I stumbled across Dikran Karagueuzian‘s Conversations with John L’Heureux, and opened it at random:
Q: You’re saying you didn’t like philosophy?
JL: The way a philosopher thinks is by its nature opposed to the way a fiction writer must think. I really believe that.
Q: Explain that, will you?
JL: Philosophy moves from the particular to the abstract on its way toward universal truths, whereas fiction is concerned with the practical, the concrete. Philosophy wants to investigate eternal questions such as whether or not we can know anything for certain and, if so, how? These are fascinating questions, but they don’t make for fiction, which wants to know who this particular man is and how the thinks and acts, and why.
Q: What about philosophical novelists?
JL: The more philosophical they are, the less engaging they’re likely to be, I think. There’s Gide, Joyce, and Mann, and you certainly have to regard them as philosophical novelists, but don’t you agree that each of them is more admired for his fiction than for the philosophical questions he raises? I’ve never known anybody who reads Joyce for his philosophy. But then there’s Sartre and Camus, whom you do read for their philosophy, but they make it worth your while. Camus is a wonderful novelist. The Stranger is a fascinating book and it’s certainly the fictional embodiment of an existential issue, but in general I think it’s true that the more philosophical the work, the less impressive it is as fiction.
Hide and seek.
Q: Okay. You’re saying that philosophy is concerned with the pursuit of truth with a capital T whereas fiction is concerned with a particular truth of everyday experience … which may reflect something larger, but in itself it’s not concerned with abstractions.
JL: Exactly. But the real danger is the habit of mind. The The habit of speculating philosophically is opposed by its nature to the fictional process of observing the way somebody curls his lip as he puts out his cigarette, a gesture that may turn out to be trace evidence, say, of an act of violence. The fiction writer must be an observer. He has to see. “One of those on whom nothing is lost.” James.
Back to the hunt. The missing book? Leszek Kołakowski‘s Metaphysical Horror. Tell me if you see it. It must be here somewhere…
Tags: "James joyce", Albert Camus, Dikran Karagueuzian, Jean-Paul Sartre, John L'Heureux