On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Gerry Quinn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gerry@bindweed.com">gerry@bindweed.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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</div><div>This is not the first time you [Lee Berman] have accused me of the kind of machinations
you indulge in.</div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'd actually have to agree with Gerry here.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div>With regard to Daniel’s point: I do attempt to see the worldviews of
others, and I question elements of those worldviews, or the analyses based on
those worldviews, that seem to me ineffective with regard understanding
Wolfe. If my understanding of these worldviews were so poor, would my
observations incur so much resentment?</div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Well, first of all, as to your rhetorical question, it doesn't at all follow from the fact that your 'observations' evoke resentment that this is due to the strength or quality of your observations. It could be precisely the fact that they are 'poor' (in any of a number of senses) that is incurring the annoyance and resentment of others. You strike me as perhaps fancying yourself as a bit of a positivist logician or something? But I find your logic often to be very poor or confused (or merely ill-communicated?) like this. Indeed, you seem to often speak from a more intuitive sort of place whilst trying to always break down any kind of intuitive interpretation of Wolfe. A (perceived) inconsistency like this is what I personally find at first baffling and then annoying in your comments. When you are rather obstinately persistent in this (perceived) inconsistency, I am tempted to be resentful. You see how there are more options for explaining resentment in response to you than the single one you seem to blithely recommend as the only or best one?</div>
<div><br></div><div>As to questioning others' worldviews as ineffectively interpreting Wolfe: go for it. Of course. But I don't perceive you as really accepting Wolfe's own worldview (as being his own). Why do you try to interpret a Catholic writer on a strictly materialist basis? If you want to *argue with* his worldview, great. But to try to represent him as saying something other than he himself professes to believe (in the fiction, it seems to me, as well as outside it), seems disingenuous to say the least. I even find a materialistic take on Wolfe fascinating and invaluable. But the way you go about it often seems wrongheaded to me.</div>
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<div>I am not proposing that absolute rigour is a necessary or useful virtue in
literary criticism, but I do see arguments posted that seem to me so devoid of
rigour as to constitute little more than noise. </div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<div>- Gerry Quinn</div>
<div> </div></font></span></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes, rigour in literary criticism is good. Please use more in your own. Thanks,</div><div><br></div><div>DOJP </div></div>