of the Actual and Potential
Relations of Writer, Reader, and Community as Reflected in Certain Modern Novels and as Suggested in Other Works of Speculation
 

The Web of What Is Written exists in three versions, the first of which was written down in 1974-5. Its title (abbreviated form the first as WWW) seems now to have been prophetic. The WWW was, however, already inspired by a somewhat unnerving "joke" that was told in the ‘60's":

They hooked up all the computers in the world into one big computer, and then they held an inauguration ceremony. They wanted to ask the computer a really big question, and finally decided on "Is there a God?" The answer came back: "There is now."

If that joke anticipated the Internet, the WWW envisages a linking of creative minds.

The WWW begins to configurate when a scholar who has found herself caught up in a "virtual" relationship with the poet she is studying, is assigned the teaching of a course on the modern novel. She chooses a group of novels for which she feels a kind of inarticulate attraction. Then, in the class discussions, she realizes that she is telling again and again, in different versions, the story she herself has lived. The several novels come to seem like one book, unified by a common symbolic code. It is a recurring dream about the obstacles which in Western society have so far prevented the poetic eros from creating human solidarity. Perceiving the links among these stories is at least a first step toward overcoming the obstacles. Later she teaches a second course, based on another group of works that suggest a vision of poetic community. Thus, The Web of What is Written is the story of the genesis of macropoetics.

Besides the works to which chapters are devoted, The Web of What is Written "links" to many other works. Dante and Paul Celan are running in the background, as well as Freud and Harold (The Anxiety of Influence) Bloom. Chapters could be added on several recent novels that overtly thematize the relationship between writer and reader – Nabokov’s Pale Fire, Sylvia Brownrigg’s The Metaphysical Touch (where the Internet serves as metaphor) Byatt’s Possession (peripherally). Byatt’s The Virgin in the Garden and Michael Ende’s Momo could also be easily incorporated. The WWW, like the www, is infinitely expandable.

Eventually, the original chapters of The Web of What Is Written will be posted here. Meanwhile, the chapter headings are offered as a reading list. A reader might begin with The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, which was the first book chosen and influenced several of the other selections. The Adolescent (also translated as A Raw Youth), is Dostoevsky’s most underrated work. Enjoy!

Part One: Eight Novels

Chapter 1: The Cheated Muse (Flaubert’s Madame Bovary)

Chapter 2: Gathered from Coincidence (Dostoevsky’s The Adolescent)

Chapter 3: The Mirror of Exile (James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)

Chapter 4: With the Current: Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

Chapter 5: Oedipa Maas, or The Reader’s Tragedy: Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49

Chapter 6. Some Bearings on Kafka’s Castle

Chapter 7. The Symbolic Mother: Proust’s A la Recherche du Temps Perdu

Chapter 8. The Library Is About to Close: Joyce Carol Oates’ them

Part Two: Six Authorities

Chapter 9. The Biology of Ethics: Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Chapter 10. The Vocabulary of Mercy: Simone Weil’s "Human Personality"

Chapter 11. The Telling and the Tale

Chapter 12. Encounters with Buber’s Hasidim

Chapter 13. A Reception of Black Elk Speaks

Chapter 14. In King Haggard’s Castle: Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn