Οι αρχαίοι και οι μεταμοντέρνοι: Για την ιστορικότητα των μορφών

by Fredric Jameson, Γιώργος Καράμπελας (Translator)

Ο ύστερος μοντερνισμός μάς είναι σήμερα τόσο μακρινός όσο ήταν και η αρχαιότητα για την Αναγέννηση. Ιδού η αφετηρία του σημαντικού αυτού βιβλίου του Τζέιμσον, όπου έργα του μοντερνισμού στη ζωγραφική (Ρούμπενς) και τη μουσική (Βάγκνερ και Μάλερ) αντιπαραβάλλονται με έργα του ύστερου μοντερνισμού (στον κινηματογράφο), καθώς και με μια πληθώρα μεταμοντέρνων πειραμάτων (από την επιστημονική φαντασία μέχρι το The Wire, και από τα «Ευρωσκουπίδια» στην όπερα μέχρι τον Όλτμαν και τη λογοτεχνία της Ανατολικής Γερμανίας): όλες αυτές οι δημιουργίες επιχειρούν, με διαφορετικούς τρόπους, να επινοήσουν νέες μορφές για να συλλάβουν μια συγκεκριμένη κοινωνική ολότητα. Ανά τις ιστορικές περιόδους, υποστηρίζει ο Τζέιμσον, το ζήτημα της αφήγησης επιμένει μέσα από τις πολλαπλές μορφικές αλλαγές και μεταμορφώσεις του. Τα κείμενα του Τζέιμσον προσεγγίζουν, σε εύρος και βάθος, όχι μόνο τις πολιτισμικές αλλά και τις πολιτικές και κοινωνικές συνδηλώσεις του μεταμοντερνισμού..

Genres: Philosophy, Art, Nonfiction, Theory, 21st Century, Literary Criticism

448 pages, Paperback

First published February 3, 2015

About the author

Fredric Jameson was an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He was best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmodernity and capitalism. Jameson's best-known books include Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) and The Political Unconscious (1981).

Reviews

[Bookfreak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Σε αυτή τη συλλογή άρθρων ο Τζέιμσον ένας από τους μεγάλους στοχαστές και διαλεκτικούς της εποχής μας αναλύει μοντερνιστικά και μεταμοντερνιστικά έργα τέχνης (από όπερες μέχρι μυθιστορήματα και τηλεοπτικές σειρές) και προσπαθεί να χαρτογραφήσει την απόσταση που μας χωρίζει από το μοντερνιστικό παρελθόν μας. Όλα τα κείμενα ήταν απαιτητικά, μερικά μάλιστα αν δεν έχεις και την κατάλληλη παιδεία σε πετάνε (Βάγκνερ κτλ.). Γενικά όμως πολύ το χάρηκα το βιβλίο και μακάρι να βγουν και άλλα δικά του.

[Sencer Turunç · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zor okuduğum kitaplardan birisi oldu. İçerik çok yabancı, çok uzak... Ancak "The Wire" dizisine ilişkin kısım çok ilgimi çekti, bunu diziyi izlemiş olmama, aynı kültürel tüketimi gerçekleştirmiş olmama bağlayabilirim sanırım. Diğer metinlerde ele alınan pek çok şeye uzaktaydım. Ara ara titreyen çağrışımlar bile o uzaklıkta kayboldular...

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of essays by cultural critic and philosopher Frederic Jameson was absolutely dazzling, one of my favorites this year.

Jameson is trying to dig into the history of the forms we recognize in our post-everything age for literature, music, art and film, and how they've come to both serve the marketplace and seem relevant to the eternal simultaneity we now inhabit. Probing and wide-ranging essays about everything from Renaissance art to Wagner and Mahler to art movies to TV series are presented with references to the usual suspects: Nietzsche, Habermas, Zizek, Adorno and even Derrida. But it's free of jargon and extremely engaging, and has made me want to watch Short Cuts again.

[Benn Uzayy]

Doğru çıkarımlar yapmam için bir daha okumam gereken bir kitap. Okurken zorlandım.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The opening chapters on Wagner and Mahler are very good. The remainder on tv and movies much less so.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this work, Fredric Jameson essentially performs a massive compare and contrast exercise between modernism and postmodernism. His examples are examined extensively for locations of a call and respond, a postmodern response to a modernist call.

Aside from any overarching thesis in the book, the close readings of the various 'texts', from paintings and music to film, are well worth the time and effort given to them. Jameson is an accessible but not simplistic writer. The book is meant to be a discussion with the reader which means some effort is needed. But with the effort comes new perspectives on works mostly familiar with a few lesser known works thrown in.

I will revisit this book again and fully expect to gain new insights yet again.

Reviewed from an ARC made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Cody M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately, this book is a little uneven throughout until the final section on adaptation and postmodern culture/art. Great chapters in the final section on Short Cuts, Neuromancer, and The Wire.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a looser and lighter collection from Jameson but it appears to function as a kind of practically-critical connective tissue between Antinomies of Realism (2013) and Allegory and Ideology (2019), where he dilates a bit more on how the narrative body temporalises and becomes affective. This book sort of begins and ends with Nietzsche: the opening Rubens move is inspired by a reading of Nietzsche as the man in whom affect emerges as a dominant category in the 19C and in a way that reveals something about the 17C tradition of paintings of the body of Christ, even though ironically and interestingly Nietzsche almost never comments on paintings — and then there are multiple Wagner essays in this book and Jameson can’t resist repeatedly quoting Nietzsche’s aphoristic comment that Wagner was the greatest operatic miniaturist, and this same quote is how Jameson more or less ends the book, in his short review of Mark McGurl’s The Program Era, which, for Jameson, perhaps leaves out both Faulkner and world literature in a way that betrays its inability to see maximalism — where the point would be that only the greatest maximalists (i.e. Wagner, Faulkner, and a coming tradition of global magical realism and its inheritors, often yet to be translated) are capable of a truly delicate miniaturism, and the minimalisms that dominate the American creative writing academy and its disciples have by contrast an “obsessive perfectionism” that is fundamentally one-dimensional, unsynthetic, even parochial (284). Also some great stuff on heists.

[Mariam Rawwas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some more media interpretation from Jameson (art theory, musicology, film analysis, literature, and prestige TV), despite the title perhaps belying a more cohesive thesis. Nevertheless, we here receive readings of Rubens, Wagner, Mahler, Angelopoulos, Sokurov, Kieślowski, Altman, and The Wire. I liked the reading of the use of potions in Wagner as the transition from emotion to (embodied) affect, as well as this line, "leitmotif is the scar left by destiny on the musical present." Jameson situates Angelopoulos in his Greek historical context, and reads Kieślowski's filmography via the structure of the short story. I also thought that bringing out the utopianism inherent to The Wire was rather astute. Overall, a bit scattershot as a collection, which less overarching theme than perhaps promised, but still insightful.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The next installment of Jameson's Poetics of Social Forms, which contains essays written between 1997 and 2013. The Ancients and the Postmoderns came not long after The Antinomies of Realism , and even overlaps in the first few chapters with a continued exploration of the dialectical pair from that book: affect and recit.

In aiming to keep my reviews short, I hope it suffices to say that the longer I sit with Jameson's dialectic, the more useful it becomes in my own thinking. And of this book, in my opinion his choice of literature to discuss is particularly great.

[Ezra Schulman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good but tough reentry into "theory for fun"! Jameson is so naturally gifted and experienced as a critic that some of his argumentation takes me a few readings to work out. However, his style is still engaging, insightful, and occasionally. I can't help but feel that if I wrote a piece of humanities scholarship like this, I would (rightfully) get put in stocks and crowds of Macalester College english majors would throw underripe bananas at me. Some takeways:
- Mahler is like the ocean
- Lying is good and the founding aesthetic gesture of short stories
- "Shorts Cuts' By Altman is a very happy film

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely collection of essays underpinned by overarching themes. Ending chapters much more palatable but the sections regarding non-contemporary art, music, and theater were fascinating, part of an oeuvre of which I've had next to no critical/academic background. The critical analysis of modern/postmodern film and literature was incredibly detailed and interesting, particularly with the historical and philosophical context allotted.

Great but dense read. Worthwhile.

[Frobisher Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essays on opera and the first introductory essay I think were the highlights of this book, but there is a lot to enjoy in this dense, weird book of postmodernist critical theory. There is also a lot of stiff, verbose discussion of socialist realist films that I suppose is the 'price of admission' for the more interesting theoretical discussions on visual culture and history. I'm glad I read it, but I'm not sure I'll be jumping into another Frederic Jameson book soon.

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

This interesting essay is very well written and I'm so sorry that I missed so many of its references to books, movies, music and so on, but still it was totally worth reading.

Questo saggio molto interessante é ben scritto e quello che piú mi dispiace é di essermi persa tantissimi riferimenti a film, musica e libri che non conoscevo, nonostante questo peró é valsa la pena leggerlo.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND VERSO BOOKS (US) FOR THE PREVIEW!

[Mills College Library]

700.9 J31 2015