Mudrick Transcribed: Classes and Talks

by Marvin Mudrick, Lance Kaplan (Introduction)

Mudrick Classes and Talks exists only because of the diligence and ingenuity of Lance Kaplan, who recorded parts of Marvin Mudrick’s Writing Narrative Prose class on cassette tapes. After Mudrick’s untimely death in October of 1986, Kaplan began to transcribe and edit the recordings. “Transcribe and edit” are, however, inadequate words to describe the creation of this extraordinary book, which is a kind of miracle of attention. It’s also entertaining, freakishly smart, and full of love—love of life, books, music and people. Among the transcriptions are a class on eighteenth-century English prose, a class on the writing of narrative prose, two interviews about the College of Creative Studies at UCSB, and talks on literary criticism, artistic response, genius, and the craft of teaching. The only volume that has never been commercially published, this may well be the gem of the Berkshire Classics Mudrick collection. “To call Marvin Mudrick a great reviewer is not just to say that he writes great reviews. It is to say also that certain qualities which he exemplifies better than anyone else, qualities which are absolutely essential to a reviewer but not as important in others, obtain in Mudrick’s prose whether or not he is writing a review. A reviewer needs, most of all, good taste and thc ability to say a lot in very few words. T. S. Eliot was not as good a reviewer as Marvin Mudrick.” --Roger Sale, University of Washington “’Pure and intense instances of life in print’ is Mudrick’s bold, and bald, way of saying what he's looking for. Mudrick’s writing is never dull. Something happens on every page or paragraph to jolt the reader into questioning an old evaluation, agreeing or disagreeing with a new one. He is the least abstract critic one could imagine. What you finally come away from Mudrick wanting to do is read or re-read the books he talks about, and anybody who thinks this experience a common one hasn’t read much literary criticism recently.” --William Pritchard, Amherst College

437 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Tom van Veenendaal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvin Mudrick was a fascinating teacher, professor and literary critic who founded the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara, and taught there for nearly 40 years. He had a rather modest career, mostly publishing essays and reviews in the Hudson Review, which did not have a wide readership. There he wrote great criticism, defending opinions that often differed wildly from accepted judgments. (In an talk transcribed in this book, he says, "It’s better to be obscure. I’m all in favor of being unknown. That’s one of the nice things about publishing for Hudson: nobody reads it; nobody ever gets in touch with me about any of the material. Nobody even knows what I do.") His most famous target was Shakespeare, who he thought was misogynistic and overused imagery. His essay collections were recently republished, and so was this interesting book, which gathers some of his talks and recordings of his classes. It's interesting and honestly quite an achievement that recordings of someone's university classes are worth reading in the next century, but they contain some great material.

It has to be said that Mudrick did not have a very wide range. He loved a few authors, and those appear over and over again, especially Chaucer, Boswell and Johnson, Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope. He attacks Shakespeare over and over again. He repeats the same remarks very often, which is disappointing, because the book covers quite a wide range of time. Some of the talks and classes aren't very interesting reading, and the book really could have been tightened and edited more. He loves to hear himself talk, even names that his reason for becoming a teacher(!), and frankly some of his endless rambling becomes annoying. You feel bad for students forced to listen to this clearly egomanaical guy go on and on, especially when he repeats remarks you've read before. He could be mean to students, and was not great with women -- he notes they often don't like him, and at one point compares them to animals when it comes to them having to 'warm up to you' so they feel safe. His creative writing class seems cruel in some instances, and is the least interesting to read.

That aside, he was in other ways a very progressive and interesting teacher. He thought that enthousiasm was the core of appreaction of art, and his view is affecting:

I don’t know how to respond to the arts except enthusiastically, or except with a great deal of feeling. ... when I think of my own involvement in the arts, I think for instance of what a library meant to me when, say, I was seven or eight years old. I can remember walking to the neighborhood library, and this was one of the most exciting and breath-taking experiences of my life. I mean, the weekly walk to the library—infinite riches in a little room—unbelievable. And I can remember my first experiences of classical music, which were simply overpowering—I mean the same kind of experience that you get with (some people get anyway) with their first experience of romantic love.

He twice describes being so excited in anticipation of a Toscanini concert on the radio that he was shaking and could barely breathe, and also compares his appreciation of music to the pure physical pleasure of sex. His view as teacher is that this kind of enthousiasm should be essential to the literature major. Instead of reading little, but reading closely, students should read a lot, widely, and enthousiastically. He also believed in student-led classes (far more common now but unheard of then), and opined that many students were smarter than faculty, and that introductory courses held back promising students by limiting their imagination. Of his creative writing class, he says "students in the class do things that I couldn’t do if I lived to be a thousand. I mean they write stories which are simply marvelous, some of the time". I wish that Mudrick, who believed in his students, was seen more in this book. Instead he attacks quite a lot of them, stating opinions as facts and coming across a little mean, egotistical and even shallow, in the 'my opinion is the only right one' sense. Well, so be it, that's a sign of the times. I bookmarked much in this book and will probably quote it much in the future. Whether it's for you, is for prospective readers to decide.

[Garden Utensil]

DONE
read most (but not quite all)

ok LOTS of reactionary thoughts in response to his claims/teaching/etc. -- will see how much of this sticks as interesting.
a couple of details/anecdotes worth remembering/noting - to recycle.

a voice to borrow