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Jansy: "Novelists don't need to be consistent"
JA: "I agree artists don't have to be consistent."
and other comments to the same effect i've read on this forum and
elsewhere.
LH: I don't agree!
Great artists are great precisely because they are able to build
fictionnaly, aesthetically, philosophically... coherent and consistent
worlds.
And it is the critic's task to unravel, explain, bring to light the
deep
coherence of the artist's work.What makes an artist like VN seem
inconsistent is that the coherence of his work lies deeper than the
ordinary coherence of ordinary thought: this is what makes it so
intriguing
and fascinating.
For example, VN's attitude toward Darwinism (a subject which has been
discussed recently) is NOT prisoner of the present day alternative:
evolutionism versus intelligent design.I think it might be more
interesting
to consider it in the light of Nietzsche's criticism of utilitarianism.
Another example is VN's lifelong denounciation of Freud's
psychoanalysis:
I've read countless comments to the effect that his views were some
kind of
whim, as great artists are wont to have and which can therefore be
generously forgiven and henceforth disregarded by the "serious" critic.
But no ! VN's opposition to psychoanalysis is grounded and deeply
consistent with the rest of his work and is even instrumental in the
very
structure of many of his stories.
Of course, a critic or a reader, even one who loves VN's fiction, is
entirely free to disagree with VN's view of psychoanalysis or any other
subject provided he fights it with arguments instead of being content
with
dismissing it as "inconsistent".
Laurence Hochard