Re: Weekend at Charles Foster's...

Is this really egotism, or is it just what we do all the time? Isn't
this just the type of prioritizing that goes on that determines the type
of people we're going to be day in and day out? Don't you take the
feelings you have that lead you to treat people well more seriously than
the feelings you have that would lead you to treat people like vermin?

In order to do this kind of choosing we have to have and acknowledge
both kinds of feelings. But we don't treat every feeling we have with
equal seriousness. This affects how we read and understand literature
when we see these types of choices reflected back to us in the
literature we read, or the films we watch.

All talk of literature can be seen as egotism. If it's that intensely
personal and individual, and then act as if we think these intensely
personal and individual experiences are worth talking about in public,
that's very egotistical. If we take the judgment we develop by reading
literature and think they're actually meaningful to other people, that
too can be very egotistical. It doesn't have to be, though. It may
just be the assumption that we actually have something in common with
others. If we didn't, the reading business would be a huge waste of
time, no?

You're right, I don't think it's fair to compare Weekend at Bernie's to
Citizen Kane. They are doing two different things. I had a blast the
first time I watched Weekend at Bernies. Not so much the second time.
Now, it's all old hat. There's nothing left. Citizen Kane,
though...that's the kind of movie that can grow with me, that I can see
something else in every time. So on at least this level I do think it's
more important to me than WatB's. Citizen Kane (or this kind of movie,
anyway) is important if for no other reason than I can keep getting
something out of it, and the something I get out of it is more important
to me than what I got out of WatB's the first time. More important in
the long run, that is, if not in the moment.

I'm not denying the importance of what's wanted at the moment, even if
it's just a good laugh at stupid slapstick -- didn't ever mean to do
that. I think there's more than that too, though.

Jim
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Received on Fri Dec 19 22:46:07 2003