RE: JDS Film and TV
PODESTA,Lesley (Lesley.PODESTA@deetya.gov.au)
Fri, 14 Nov 1997 17:49:34 +1100
Well Malcolm, I wasn't aware that entering into an exchange was
"clogging up" a mailing list. Your response seems over the top to me.
What is making you so angry over a discussion?
Slightly offended,
LP
>----------
>From: Malcolm Lawrence[SMTP:malcolm@wolfenet.com]
>Sent: Friday, 14 November 1997 16:38
>To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
>Subject: Re: JDS Film and TV
>
>PODESTA,Lesley wrote:
>
>> Malcolm, I agree with your sentiments but I think you're a bit harsh.
>> The project of modernism means that we and reinvent ourselves based
>> (partly) on our likes/choices and allegiances. These things change...
>> but they're are an important part of working out who we "are" and why.
>> I love Salinger's stories but depending on who I am (today, tomorrow) I
>> like certain ones more or less. Self and identitity (such a core theme
>> in all of JDS' works) are constant themes of the modern reader and
>> writer, particularly during adolescence or periods of change.
>>
>> Lesley P.
>
>I perfectly agree with what you're saying (with the possible exception of
>your use
>of the word modern. What you're talking about isn't particularly modern,
>unless
>modern includes the ancient Greeks), but there's a big difference between who
>or
>what your personal favorites are on any given day, month or year, and what or
>who
>is "better." "Better" meaning what, anyway? Financial balance? Number of
>books
>sold? Influence on future writers? Syntax? The use of diphthongs? Universal
>themes? Translation into other languages?
>
>And when you're at the level of maturity where you can get into fuming
>arguments
>over whether the 1967 Green Bay Packers were better than the 1972 Miami
>Dolphins,
>you're also at the level of maturity where you can say "Hesse is so much
>better
>than Gurdjieff. Camus is so much better than Spinoza." When in fact ten years
>down
>the road you probably won't even remember which titles of theirs you read.
>
>Art doesn't have anything to do with awards shows. Eventually you get to the
>point
>where you realize that all the classics of art are simply links in an eternal
>tradition, forever having conversations with themselves, stretching from the
>ancient Chinese and the ancient Greeks up through (to name just a few)
>Virgil,
>Dante, Shakespeare, Joyce and echoing off into forever. To me, comparisons
>are the
>refuge of the insecure. Still, if you really have a point to make, why not
>write a
>thesis or a book about it rather than clogging up mailing lists.
>
>