<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4ED52E8A.1020608@gmail.com" type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">James Wynn wrote:
<br>
Antonio, what do you suppose the point was in having Horn and
Nettle
<br>
write the story as opposed to an omniscient third-person
narrator?
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
António Pedro Marques wrote:
<br>
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?
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4ED52E8A.1020608@gmail.com" type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">I am asserting that people who are reading
literature are theorizing.
<br>
They are interpreting from the text the intentions of an author
whom they
<br>
have never met or barely know. I am demolishing the belief
(which would
<br>
be a desirable belief for anyone) that one's own interpretations
need no
<br>
justification...it just "is".
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
But what makes you think you're more enlightened in this respect
that anyone
<br>
else?
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4ED52E8A.1020608@gmail.com" type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"> I'll say it again. If you
<br>
engage with someone about ambiguous literary novels like
Wolfe's, and you
<br>
approach every question with the attitude, "Let's see if your
weird new
<br>
theory can prove me wrong." then you are smug. And you are
wasting the
<br>
other person's time. Done.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
What do you call people who think others approach every question
with that
<br>
attitude?
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
See above.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4ED52E8A.1020608@gmail.com" type="cite">
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Or - how do you say it? - 'if it's not
my theory, they're not applying
<br>
to it the rigor which they are with great adamance disputing
me'.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
If that's what you've got out of our conversation then it is
beyond my
<br>
abilities to clarify it better.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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. </blockquote>
<br>
It is good, certainly, that you are aware of the intense similarity.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4ED52E8A.1020608@gmail.com" type="cite">[Antonio
says a lot of good and complimentary stuff]<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
"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...<br>
<blockquote>a) After many missives I realize that their point was to
establish that their viewpoint is unassailable. <br>
<br>
b) the I have carefully attempted to answer their questions and
they responds with an answer formatted for its supposed cleverness
or sneer-quality <br>
(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.)<br>
</blockquote>
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. <br>
</body>
</html>