(urth) Pike's ghost

[James Wynn]

>> James Wynn wrote:
>> Antonio, what do you suppose the point was in having Horn and Nettle
>> write the story as opposed to an omniscient third-person narrator?
>
> António Pedro Marques wrote:
> Why [answer you], seeing as though yours was in response to an 
> unanswered one of mine and it is based on what you consider a theory 
> whose assumptions haven't been clarified yet?

You're still dodging...and being pointlessly argumentative. When you 
have written six posts attempting to clarify an answer to this  
question, then you can evoke parity between us.

>> I am asserting that people who are reading literature are theorizing.
>> They are interpreting from the text the intentions of an author whom 
>> they
>> have never met or barely know. I am demolishing the belief (which would
>> be a desirable belief for anyone) that one's own interpretations need no
>> justification...it just "is".
>
> But what makes you think you're more enlightened in this respect that 
> anyone
> else?

Nothing. I am interpreting as well. I don't recall establishing a 
comparison. If you or I engage someone with a supposedly "extravagant" 
explanation and  start from the position that it must be compared to a 
"standard" (which by some fortuitous fluke happens to be our own 
understanding of the text) then you or I are behaving in an 
unenlightened manner. I'm not going to be painted in corner in which 
denouncing thoughtless arrogance is in itself arrogant. That way lies 
destruction.

>>  I'll say it again. If you
>> engage with someone about ambiguous literary novels like Wolfe's, and 
>> you
>>  approach every question with the attitude, "Let's see if your weird new
>>  theory can prove me wrong." then you are smug. And you are wasting the
>> other person's time. Done.
>
> What do you call people who think others approach every question with 
> that
> attitude?

See above.

>
>>> Or - how do you say it? - 'if it's not my theory, they're not applying
>>> to it the rigor which they are with great adamance disputing me'.
>>
>> If that's what you've got out of our conversation then it is beyond my
>> abilities to clarify it better.
>
> I don't think the problem lies with clarification. For instance, you 
> may think I'm being irritanting for replying with only one or two 
> lines to entire parapgraphs of yours. That makes it look like you went 
> to the trouble of explaining yourself at length, whereas I ignored all 
> your effort and just grabbed a couple of anchors I though I could 
> deftly hang on to. I know I hate it when people do that and I wished 
> to asseverate that is not the case. 

It is good, certainly, that you are aware of the intense similarity.

> [Antonio says a lot of good and complimentary stuff]

Declaring someone's model to be simply untenable, because, well, it just 
obviously is...that is a huge waste of that person's time. If that is 
one's approach, he should move on. It is not necessary for anyone to 
comment on every thread. It distresses some people that some people are 
having long threads of discussions that they don't find interesting or 
useful or true...as though someone felt that every conversation at a 
party had to be interesting to him.

It is intriguing that you can see how a supposedly untenable  theory is 
a distraction, but you believe that 1) someone with an interpretation 
that (supposedly) brooks no literary allusions or irony and 2) makes 
ever increasing demands that others' explanations explain _everything_ , 
even the authors failure to present the story in a way that would make 
it emphatically clear to HIMSELF...that you don't see that as being an 
issue of distraction. What we have here are  two separate 
interpretations of the text (I'm sorry but that's simply the way I read 
it--see? I am not setting my conclusions above anyone else's here). No 
use can come of insisting that the extravagant high literary theory must 
metaphysically trump the extravagantly mundane-focused theory to be 
valid. Both must be considered separately on their own merits. 
Otherwise, it affords the extravagantly mundane theorist the luxury of 
forever, and self-satisfyingly saying "no";  which he will 99 times out 
of 100.

"Professional Naysayers" (to the extent that designation applies) are 
not furthering discussion, Antonio, anymore than than a house built on 
top of an intersection is furthering the flow of traffic by making 
everyone route around it. If every response comes down to "I don't see 
it", well, any blind man can take that position regarding a sunset. I 
take no offense to such people, unless...

    a) After many missives I realize that their point was to establish
    that their viewpoint is unassailable.

    b) the I have carefully attempted to answer their questions and they
    responds with an answer formatted for its supposed cleverness or
    sneer-quality
    (I don't make any insistence about how people respond to me. You are
    wrong about that. But I'm not required to like it if they are
    boorish--or boarish-- or hostile. I've recently decided that the
    best way to respond in those cases is to in some way acknowledge
    that, yes, I did note that trollish response --which the person
    certainly wanted for me to notice-- without directly engaging it. I
    will not psychoanalyze the behavior. I will not try to get the
    person to admit the behavior nor reform. I need no confirmation from
    them for what I have clearly read.)

I'm not interested in debating for points or earning a reputation.  My 
problem with smug people is not that they are smug, it is that they 
usually waste my time.  They offer me no significant insight into our 
conversation because they are not really interested in my half of it. 
They are only interested in how cleanly they can strike. Their opinion 
of their own intelligence, without exception in my experience, far 
exceeds the reality from my perspective.
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