Subject: Re: The business of subjects (Administrative Trivia)
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 10 2002 - 12:03:58 EDT
On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 09:49:47AM -0400, Will Hochman wrote:
> Dear, dear Tim, I think it was in l957 or l958 that critic George
> Steiner complained of "the Salinger Industry" because the author's
> work had collected so much critical response so quickly...so it's no
> surprise that "the industry" is still healthy and producing lots of
> words in the age of the Internet. As a reader of most of the
> criticism and most of the posts of this list, I'm still a very hungry
> little bananafish thanks to JDS and his readers, will
Yes, I quite enjoyed Steiner's essay and was bemused by it many years
ago. I find it amusing (this comment NOT a complaint but merely an
observation) how I get a bill for disk storage each month, and I kind
of laugh at how the list archive eats up more disk space than
Salinger's work. But then, that's the nature of commentary -- it's
what we have our electronic margins for!
> PS: Tim, it sounds like you're home. Your long and beautiful post may
> not have been as necessary as you think though. As I recall, there
> only one complaining about off topic posts and that person quickly
> gave up his complaint and posted his own off topic stuff.
Ah, yes, I didn't quite catch up; I used a lot of my time away (in
addition to my having lousy connectivity that kept getting dropped) to
thinking and writing and reading. And part of what had been on my
so-called mind was the grappling that had gone on about on- and
off-topic. So, I came up with some fresh ideas about it. I'm glad it
wasn't as big a deal as it had been before I left. And I'm also glad
to have received some messages both on and off the list saying
pleasant things about the comments I sent along this morning, before I
had the safety of coffee coursing through my veins....
> PPS: I think Jim and robbie ARE addressing Salinger issues...getting
> beyond religious institutions to spiritual ideas is something I sense
> strongly in Salinger's work and their scholarship on this list really
> helps us understand how institutions construct ideas differently than
> readers of texts. Besides, I'm learning lots of stuff I didn't learn
> in school!
There is something to that. I'm a terrible student of religion, and
it is wasted on me. But I certainly am glad they are engaging in this
good conversation.
And as Matt said, there is critical mass when at least two of us
engage in discussion.
So, thanks all!
--tim
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