the "ambitious" cliche
literally an ambitious writers one who must do the best work he can.
(1) kennebeck speaks of "William Gaddis's frighteningly ambitious Ambitious, Challenging, Bulky (dawedeit headline)the reader must be ambitious too, he'll have to work too hard: THE MOST AMBITIOUS novel in many seasons has arrived tolazy reader dont buy! but critics underrate readers who arent that lazy after all who read books voluntarily, not like critics doing work they hate for money (2) implying the writer is only ambitious personally: The author, who has spent seven years on it, evidently intends it toas many critics have learned 1sthand, 7 yrs or 700 spent hoping to outdo other writers wont produce a novel at all, much less one like the recognitions the critics cant even conceive a man may love his work they defile art at the fountainhead
professor hartman uses the lively word trick
(a respectworthy book For there is every indication that the author expects this work to"Of course"! hartman manages to make a book which, he says, comes close to equaling or surpassing ulysses, 2 seem by virtue of that fact like a disgrace to its author hes projecting his own unful- filled literary-status ambitions onto gaddis
(3) last & worst, "ambitious" can "prove" the writer failed
its the
ie as good as the critic said it might be
hicks & hartman lean Very ambitious, it is powerful, if not always successful. (stocking)all they ask is that the ambitious work have nothing questionable about it at worst the a priori failure is "PROBLEMATICAL" & "pretentious" (kirkus) at best its "in some respects an honest failure" (hayes) or "an honorable failure" (hicks 5/23/59)
but "ambitious" novels are not usually failures
a guide for the lazy
i forgot, tho, the critics job is to make the good novels seem bad & the 1like a crocodile! (Back)
2to balance this hartmans next
para begins: "Why then does the novel fail?" |