Re: lost papyri

Scottie, my previous post didn't identify "passe" with "absorbed" but
said that the word "absorbed" was probably more accurate in the case of
Lacan (I'm working on a laptop and have difficulty with accent marks,
btw).

But the judgments you make of your early fiction isn't unlike the
judgments modern literary critics make of the criticism of the first
half of the 20th century.

We can do better than that.

Now, I don't want to sound like I'm saying literary criticism isn't
subject to fashion and trends and so on. Just as it would be silly to
say literature isn't subject to those things either. Or film. Or any
other kind of art. The Lacans pass away and the Foucaults arise (then
pass away) because they show us something very clearly for awhile, we
learn it, then we want to learn something else.

There's nothing wrong with that. Most of these guys are good for a
thorough application of a single idea and that's it. Once you get the
idea it's time to move on.

Jim

Scottie Bowman wrote:

> The word 'passè' is revealing precisely because it does
> NOT mean 'absorbed'. It means, just as you intended
> to say, 'no longer fashionable with those who set the trends'
> - the profs who preach Lacan this year, Foucault next year
> & Leavis Redivivus the one after that.
>
> When I wish to bury my early books it's not because
> they no longer fit some current mode. It's because they
> strike me as thin, glib, derivative, scribbled off in a facile
> way without the kind of dedicated imagining & thinking
> that goes into the production of any real piece of art; &,
> I believe, unworthy of my talents - such as they are.
>
> If you can't recognise the distinction I doubt I can make
> it clearer.
>
> Scottie B.
>
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