Re: a few answers
J J R (jrovira@juno.com)
Fri, 06 Nov 1998 16:43:07 -0500 (EST)
Yes, to be honest, I think Salinger would agree with Scottie's point of
view more than with anyone else's on the list.
But, to me, that only means they're both approaching the subject from the
same narrow point of view :)
If you want some good direction on the interaction between literature and
ideas about literature (and literary theory), read C.S. Lewis, T.S.
Eliot, and anyone else who was both a successful creative writer AND an
academic. If you're just an academic--of course you're point of view is
going to be a bit narrow. But there aren't too many of those. If you're
just a creative writer, well, you're going to be ignorant of some things
as well.
Whenever we use anything--fire, water, suspension bridges--we want to
know how and why they work. That's called science. Literary theory is
an attempt to understand how and why language works. The problem is that
language is bigger than the human race--so far as we can tell, animals
use some form of language, and if there are indeed other intelligent life
forms in the universe, they probably use language as well.
So as human beings studying language, and only being able to study our
own, we're limited. Very, terribly, fatally limited. What's even more
limiting is the fact that our language is itself the only means by which
we can think about language. It's like trying to study your own eye in a
microscope--very distracting. And also very much like trying to pull
yourself up by your bootstraps.
But we still try.
Jim
<<Chatting about books should thus be distinguished from such cruel and
barbaric activities as beating to them death with literary theory. As for
Scottie's suggestion that literature courses are a waste of time, and
that
academia tends to attract the untalented, this has been clearly (and
quite
convincingly in my mind) laid out by Salinger himself! Has anyone here
actually read Franny & Zooey?
I think the pursuit of intelligent, creative, and witty conversation is
as
grand a charter for this list as any.
-Sean>>
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