Talk:Hysterical realism

Literature Theory
After the publication of an article by Time in 2012 asking "whatever happened to Hysterical Realism?" I wonder if scholars of literature might be inclined to return and define this strange and wonderful term. I've certainly enjoyed my dalliance into this talk page. Worrypower (talk) 21:38, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

untitled
This article is a mess. In the sentence He decried the genre as an attempt to "turn fiction into social theory," and an attempt to tell us "how the world works rather than how somebody felt about something." the first quotation is not from the essay (who knows where it's from) and the second half from a comment by Zadie Smith about what she thinks novelists should be or are trying to achieve. 160.79.209.253 (talk) 21:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Am I correct in inferring that this is all an elaborate prank by User:AFox2 who has made dozens of edits to insinuate Hysterical realism into articles on writers? --Wetman 06:46, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * No, apparently I'm just hopelessly old-fashioned and out of the Literary Loop... --Wetman 06:53, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Someone might want to note that Wood's use of the phrase "Hysterical Realism" is supposed to be a spin-off of "magical realism." Wood appears to think that writers like David Foster Wallace, Delillo, Pynchon, etc. have taken magical realism far beyond its limits into a sort of hysteria. --Brooks 06:46, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

An alternate term for "hysterical realism" has also been posited, that of "hysterical onanism." The latter term has been called "a trifle slippery" by at least one author, who identifies what s/he/it calls "the somewhat-vagueness" of the biblical story of Onan. Some credit Onan with being the first master debator, while others credit him with the invention of what is known as "the pull-out method." There is no known source that calls Onan the original cunning linguist, although that title might apply to certain authors who practice hysterical realism/onanism. Onan seems to have been guilty of letting his semen go to waste primarily. And the elision of the gap between "literature" and "journalism" has been described at great length in the praxis of the New Journalism, whose most well-known avatars are/were such figures as Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, and Hunter S. Thompson. One critic has identified the primary credo of the New Journalism as, "get the muther- story." There would need to be a theory of "getting" as relates to story in order to elucidate the modalities of "getting the story"--which is clearly not the more commonly used phrase, "telling the story."

Journalism probably has its roots in oral tradition, and the same can probably be said for literature--the basis for Western literature, in particular, being written records of stories that were probably passed down orally before they were ever written--the Bible, Homer, etc. Conceptions of realism in American literature often have as their root Hemingway's theory that all American literature begins with Huck Finn. And in America, writers have often been forced to do things they would rather not, like getting a job at one's local newspaper to fund one's fiction habit--which only serves to spoil them, once they realize that journalism may be more culturally influential than literature in America, given the nature of the beast--most folk don't have a local literary periodical to which to subscribe, the repository of American literature generally being understood as New York City, Boston and surrounding areas/states of mind.

And "hysteria" probably has either a Greek or Proto-Indo-Eurpoean root in common with the word "uterus," hysteria being a phenomenon classically understood as having some relation to womanhood--Freud's dislocation of hysteria notwithstanding, there may be something to be said about this trend in American literature--it may be related to the Maenads who ripped apart Orpheus, as hysterical realism is a kind of ripping-apart of everyday life in search of Something. Wallace's tomic Infinite Jest stands apart from the rest, as it combines elements of science fiction with elements of hysterical realism. That book's self-referential opacity can be seen through by the image of the feral infant, which is related to Fellini's conceptions of the artist as child, albeit with a nuclear twist. What Wallace describes is a dislocation from cycles and rhythms, and the image of northern New England as a toxic waste dump is not simply hilarious--it is also an image of a people dislocated and/or alienated from the systems of representation that once grounded them in nature--art, religion, etc.--such a dislocation necessarily blurs such distinctions as "literature" and "journalism" because it necessarily

Buckshot 02:28, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

As regards magical realism, it has never existed, as such, in American literature. It rests on the assumption that the "uncanny" or the "magical" or the "supernatural" are not part of real life--that they only exist in books written by college professors, etc. Any literature that accepts the sort of false dichotomy inherent in a term like "magical realism" will necessarily be divorced from the realities of life in a given society--where most people accept that strange coincidences happen, that there are things you can never quite explain, and that fate, destiny or God plays a role in things like falling in love, etc.

Buckshot 02:34, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

I think what Buckshot is trying to say here, is that any term that tries to lump together DeLillo, Pynchon & Wallace is probably too broad to be useful. To say that DeLillo's prose style is hysterical is, not to put too fine a point on it, somewhat hysterical. His narration & dialogue have kind of a gentle rhythm to them, and Libra may be journalism, but it is not mere journalism. In addition, Wallace often employs a myriad of narrative voices in his novels, and only a few of them approach journalese--if "hysterical realism" has any relevancy in American literature, it is to point out that novel writers have been forced to redefine the role of the novel in a TV & videogame world. The novel has become a sober, adult, meditative medium, a break from the fast-and-loose style of the films of Quentin Tarantino. The novel has come into its own as a medium of education--and even as early as Moby-Dick the American novel was part encyclopedia. AllenGinsberg 05:51, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I guess I have to offer my two cents here, belatedly. I think that the term hysterical realism, as originally coined by James Wood, is badly distorted in this article, mostly because the author is applying it much too broadly. He or she, right in the first line, has conflated hysterical realism with maximalism, and in particular with the latter as described by John Barth in his essay "On Maximalism." (My sense of the Barth connection is corroborated by the fact that the author of this article cites Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy--which Barth points to as a specimen of maximalism--as a precursor to hysterical realism. The Anatomy of Melancholy isn't a novel and while you certainly can call it maximalist work, it has nothing to do with aesthetic realism, hysterical or otherwise.)  This article might give one the impression that any two-inch book that takes an exhaustive approach to its subject matter, and is composed of sentences rating 11 or higher on the Flesch-Kincaid scale, is hysterical realism, but there are plenty of (post)modern novels that are monuments to maximalism and aren't hysterical-realistic:  Ulysses and Life A User's Manual are the first two that come to mind. My guess is that the author of this article is thrown off by the "'big' novel" in the kicker on the first version of Wood's essay. (The second version, which appears in The Irresponsible Self, is simply titled "Hysterical Realism.") Wood doesn't mean just any fat novel, and he would be horrified by the suggestion that War and Peace and Infinite Jest have much more than their page counts in common. In fact, Tolstoy is an exemplar of un-hysterical realism, of a more naturalistic realism that Wood clearly prefers--and opposes--to the strain he detects in certain of our more ambitious contemporaries.

James Wood was very careful about naming names when he first described hysterical realism. This article should be similarly restrained. Right now, it looks more like a pretense to riff than an attempt to describe its subject accurately.Haroldavis (talk) 00:28, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The sentence, "The "hysterical" prose style is often mated to "realistic", almost journalistic, effects, such as Pynchon's depiction of 18th century land surveys in Mason & Dixon, and Don DeLillo's treatment of Lee Harvey Oswald in Libra" seems out of place, since it adds to the definition but follows another subject, i.e. previous criticism of so-called hysterical realist authors.

In addition, an interesting addition concerning continuing criticism of writers like Smith, Pynchon, et al, might be Jonathan Franzen's "Mr. Difficult" essay, in which he lambasts William Gaddis (as well as Pynchon and other 'difficult' writers) as 'status' writers. Eesome (talk) 23:19, 14 June 2013 (UTC)eesome

List of Authors
The paragraph that begins, "Candidates for inclusion in the genre include..." seems a bit unnecessary to me, or at least up for discussion. For example, Tom Wolfe seems a bit out of place alongside Don DeLillo; I wouldn't classify them in the same category. I would put Tom Wolfe under the rubric of the New Journalism, and DeLillo & Pynchon would go under the category DeLillo & Pynchon. This listing seems to be a laundry list of someone's favorite authors. And as I write this, it occurs to me that an ecyclopedia might not be the proper place for cataloging literary terms, the ins and outs of which are a bit dicier than, say, invertebrate taxonomy. Buckshot 19:10, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

From how the article defines Hysterical realism, I'd be inclined to include Kurt Vonnegut into the list.

What about the other postmodern "monsters" like William Gaddis or John Barth? What about Lawrence Norfolk? He is often compared to Rushdie & Pynchon. What about the Illuminatus! trilogy? And Delany's Dhalgren? Tom Robbins? I'm not too sure, but with this definition, all big pomo novels would fit in. (When I say "big", I mean like the mentioned ones.) --82.131.143.195 07:14, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I added Christopher Wunderlee since I read a book review that listed his work as "hysterical realism", although someone then wrote about deleting "Christohper Wunderlee's vanity (should have been vain) self-promotin". Since this is supposed to be an encyclopedia and "content must be verifiable", asserting such an assumption Helvetica seems counter to the purpose of Wikipedia. Should have been discussed and then removed. -Natalie

I have to take issue with the closing remarks on great Russian novel -- though both genres(?) are known for their length, they are otherwise dissimilar. To me, this reads like a fan of hysterical realism try to validate the genre by association with the Russian epics. -mb —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.231.232 (talk) 09:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I know it's referenced, but isn't it kind of crazy to claim that Sterne's Tristam Shandy was the first postmodernist novel? Postmodernism cannot precede modernism. Couldn't we call it a precursor of postmodernism or something? -- Ian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.152.65 (talk) 17:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Ian, that's a good question; I vaguely recall having a discussion about it years ago. Here's how I think about it: if "postmodernism" has a general set of widely accepted characteristics, Tristram Shandy meets many of them, despite being written far before modernism or postmodernism. In that sense, it is postmodern. I could certainly see calling it a precursor of postmodernism as well; "precursor" implies that it had a significant influence on postmodernism. So for me, at least, the nuance is in how much Sterne influenced postmodernists, and that's not something I'm qualified to answer. -Phoenixrod (talk) 17:37, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Madding?
The term "madding," which had been used to describe the type of action expected in this genre, is archaic; changed to "frenzied," although there might be a better word.

Naturalism?
How the dickens can hysterical realism possibly be linked to naturalism, in the Zola mode or the Dreiser mode or whatever?

I know, and
it seems to me that here is a doctoral thesis waiting to happen. Manic, frenzied, madding, whatever. Tom Wolfe? Yes. Don DeLillo, he who rocked my soul to the bosom of Somnus many an insomniac night? No. Buckshot 20:45, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Is this term really useful?
Writers who write in a flush & florid style and include scads of arcana about whatever are quite often called simply "novelists." It seems you could say that hysterical realism is really nothing but the classicly Protestant form--frugal, industrious, thorough, a bit wind-baggish. Its rise means that American writers no longer are trying to imitate Hemingway, and thank God, with all due respect to Raymond Carver, GRHS. Maximalism or hysterical realism seems a more natural state, bearing more resemblance to earlier novels like Moby-Dick. Then again, maybe it's more of a pendulum-swing thing, and another round of minimalism will come down the pyke in 70 years' time. This article has improved a great deal since I first read it.

Clarifying for a newbie

 * This evening has been the first time i have come across this term. From what i have read, it seems to me that the works of Douglas Adams fit the description (imposing length, manic offbeat characters, frenzied and multi-simultaneous action, forays into philosophy, mathematics, metaphysics, sociology etc). Am i wildly off the mark, it strikes me i could well be, because Adams doesnt have much in common (to me) with any of the other authors mentioned here? If i am right, does he warrant inclusion? surely, he is prominent enough. If i am not right, could the definition and description be cleaned up so no-one else would make that mistake? After all, this is supposed to be an encyclopaedia-standard article about the topic.. Jdcooper 18:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Interesting question. Novels described as Maximalist, which appears to be synonymous with Hysterical Realism, are characterized as long, but Adams' works, at least the Hitchhiker's series, are not long - usually about 300 pages or so. If you're referring to The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that is a compilation of 5 novels. Did you mean Douglas Hofstadter instead? Douglas Adams does have manic offbeat characters, etc. I think that's because Adams foresaw where we were heading, and I think, tried to warn us about it. Many of those cited as Maximalists, or Hysterical Realists, are reflecting the world around them, which is very complex and nuanced and not susceptible to easy answers. Ileanadu (talk) 14:26, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

chronic
I'm sorry, but what is "chronic length?" - Zepheus 21:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It is when something is long, and then one waits a while, and the thing is still found to be lengthy. Obviously. &mdash;vivacissamamente 06:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Intro - Repetition & other issues
The first two paragraphs seem to be saying the exact same thing in almost the same words:


 * Hysterical realism, also called recherché postmodernism, is a term coined in 2000 by the English critic James Wood in an essay on Zadie Smith's White Teeth to describe what he sees as a literary genre typified by a strong contrast between elaborately absurd prose, plotting, or characterization and careful, detailed investigations of real specific social phenomena.


 * Wood introduced the term in an essay on Zadie Smith's White Teeth, which appeared in the July 24, 2000 issue of The New Republic[1] Wood uses the term to denote the contemporary conception of the "big, ambitious novel" that pursues "vitality at all costs" and consequently "knows a thousand things but does not know a single human being."

The definition provided is also not clear. Is the literary genre "typified by a strong contrast" or is the literary genre (Hysterical realism) characterized by "elaborately absurd prose, plotting, or characterization" that Wood contrasts with another more careful genre? As Wood uses it, it seems to be a derogatory term, yet Zadie Smith doesn't seem to take offense at her work being characterized in this way.

Since I got to this article from Maximalism, what is the difference? Is Hysterical realism just what critics of Maximalism call it? Ileanadu (talk) 14:11, 3 September 2012 (UTC)