Thursday, 06 July 2006

Literature Today

Adam’s praised by someone who doesn’t already like him.  Some day, I will too.  Some day, so will we all.  (Except you.  You suck.  Sorry, but someone had to say it.)

In the meantime, check us out.  We’re special too, you know.  (Who’s that I spy, mistaking hits for individual visits again?)

Speaking of me: I’ve posted another anti-psychoanalytic broadside, this one with facts to complement the usual vitriol.

Graphic novels are better than you think they are.  Good, even.

The time has come to Remix literature:

The remixing of literature started from Nigel Tomm’s work “Shakespeare’s Sonnets Remixed”, where the author took the original text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and deconstructed them into modern language with changing form and meaning beyond physical recognition.

Awesomeness.

Literature above all signifies empowerment.  That’s it.  Just empowerment.  Alright, alright, wax too. 

Jack is better than Hemingway and Ginsberg, but his dreams and values are slowly being consigned to textbooks.

Finally, someone who isn’t preoccupied with literary theory.  At least, not there.

Donald Maass, one alveolar sibilant removed from powerful irony, prepares to reveal the secret of the novel.  To Nashville.

Penguin Books appoints Mother to a very important post.  Father quite upset, hops into white van.

Watch out for White Van Man!  He drives too close!  Cyclists beware! 

Speaking of excessive exclamation, could someone tell me how to pronounce this band’s name?  Because if people pronounce it like it looks, well:

Kid #1: I like!  That band.

Kid #2: So!  Do I.

Kid #1: We!  Should form a band.

Kid #2: But!  What should we!  Name it!

Jul 6, 2006 10:49:00 AM

4 Comments

ArmchairAnarchist

I'm the bloke who wrote the Roberts review you linked up top, there, and I need you to answer me a question that's been bugging me ever since I noticed the link back while reading through my daily RSS stuff;

"Some day, I will too. Some day, so will we all. (Except you. You suck. Sorry, but someone had to say it.)"

Call me paranoid, but is that:
1) a (justifiable) dig at me and my amateurish reviewing skills? Or
2) a nudge at the good Mr. Roberts? Or
3) an in-joke that my insecurities have mistranslated?

I understand that whatever it is, it doesn't matter (no anger, for certain; I usually don't get this amount of traffic in a fortnight), but the more I've wondered the more slippery the meaning has become, and now I just want to *know* so I have a chance of sleeping through the night...

AA/VelcroCity

Posted by: ArmchairAnarchist | Thursday, 06 July 2006 at 02:11 PM

Scott Eric Kaufman

Sorry for the confusion, AA. I'm winding up Adam, who sent me a copy of the book gratis with the expectation that I'd review it. Of course, that may just be my insecurities at play there, since I assume the arrival of any free books creates a complicit agreement to review.

Anyhow, as you'll note if you hit the other place I posted it, the Valve, Adam's one of our stable of scribblers. (Has a new post up today, in fact.)

Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Thursday, 06 July 2006 at 02:48 PM

Adam Roberts

"Adam, who sent me a copy of the book gratis with the expectation that I'd review it" ...

But what can I say, except 'No! No! Truly No!' It was a thank you for reading through one of my other interminable MSS and giving such invaluable feedback. Don't review it, for the sake of Pete. (I see 'gift' has a different semiotic in the USA than over here ...)

Posted by: Adam Roberts | Friday, 07 July 2006 at 10:18 AM

Adam Roberts

Incidentally, since I'm here, thank you Armchair Anarchist for your detailed and thoughtful review.

Meanwhile I've just unearthed the following document from the acephalitic files.

Dear Santa. I received in my stocking yesterday morning a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This appears to be a wholly unsolicited book, given gratis to me from you. I must say this act of 'generosity' puzzles me, and frankly makes me rather suspicious. Is it your objective that I should review this title? Sincerely, Scott Kaufmann, aged 3 and a half

Posted by: Adam Roberts | Friday, 07 July 2006 at 01:57 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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Iatrogenic Follies & Literary Studies While answering forgotten boy's question about the necessity of a theory of mind to literary studies, I recalled a conversation with a fellow graduate student had about a week ago: Him: The interplay of the Real, the Symbolic and the Imaginary are an aid to serious thought. They provide a systematic way of thinking through issues that, when applied to literature, open new avenues of investigation . . . Me: But do you believe in the processes by which the Lacanian Tripartite comes into existence? Him: I don't have to. The system itself describes something interesting about human experience, how it's translated into literature . . . Me: But that system has to come into existence. Him: No it doesn't. It has to do its job and it does. Me: Couldn't almost any system so applied do the same job? I mean, why not a vertical hydrocarbon diffusion theory of ideology? Him: Because Lacan's talking about the mind . . . Me: So a groundless, bullshit theory of human cognition tops a sound, scientific theory when applied to literature? I mean, if its origins really don't matter, why does bullshit cognitive theory trump solid chemical theory? Him: I see where you're headed with this, but Freud and Lacan were describing human relations, so their theories . . . Me: Their bullshit theories . . . Him: Their theories of human cognition are more likely to correspond to the kind of things you find in literature. Me: Do you mind if I make you like an idiot when I post this? Him: Only if you make yourself look like a hectoring asshole. Me: Done. Notice how my interlocutor granted me the argumentative edge—Freud and Lacan are pseudoscience—but then tried to sneak it in the backdoor by claiming that, removed of its baggage, psychoanalysis can still produce interesting readings of literature. I could almost find the strong form of that particular argument convincing: i.e. that since Freud explicated works of literature and Lacan translated those explications into structural linguistics, the insights generated by psychoanalytic theory are fundamentally literary. Had that argument surfaced, I would have had problems side-stepping it (for reasons I'll return to shortly). My friend's initial concession denuded psychoanalytic theory of its inherent explanatory power. No longer could the truth-claims of psychoanalytic theory justify the interpretative moves made through it. The justification becomes something more literary—something like "generative of interesting readings"—but it also lost its purchase, in that it is no longer descriptive of a cognitive process. At this point, you can't argue that a vertical hydrocarbon diffusion theory of literary interpretation is inherently irrelevant, only that it's bad. If the psychoanalytic model works even if stripped of its cognitive content, then other models, ones which contain no cognitive content, could generate equally pregnant analogies applied alongside literary texts. The common response—"Then why aren't there any out already?"—I can answer by appealing to the argument my friend doesn't want to make. Namely, that there is something ludicrous about scouring the...
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For the Record: This is how we should settle our philosophical differences. (I tip my hat to a sometimes professor, recently retired.)

Scott Eric Kaufman

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