Chekhov’s Mistess

Throw Out The Damn Theory And Just Read (or Write) Already

You know, I never even figured out what Postmodernism was and by the time I even heard it called “Pomo” it was, as they say, dead. So if blogs and magazines were an in-person conversation, every time these guys start talking theory, you’d notice that I’m always heading over to the fridge about then or just sitting dreamily.

It’s not that I mind the idea of theory, for instance I like some of Derrida’s works (what little I’ve read) because I like thinking about language – that’s theory, isn’t it? What I don’t like about Theory is the way it is used to make broad retrospective proclamations about the “novel” or this movement or that period, or the French vs. the Amurikans, and so on. To my mind it feels like the way people use religion to draw distinctions between believers of one God or another, and we all know where that leads.

You can imagine my relief when I read that our exuberant arbiters of the intellect, the editors of (the blog hating) n+1 magazine, declared that it’s safe to read again without worrying about reading “that stuff.” “Theory is dead, and long live theory” they proclaim as the echo fades. Now I’m happy not to have to read “that stuff,” at least in the name of theory. But if theory is dead and theory is living and breathing among us, where is literature?

Dan Green, who does indeed understand theory, starts to answer that question in his response to the n+1 essay linked to above (identified here as “anon” because no one person signed the piece):

…If anything, “theorists” like Eagleton stole the term “postmodern” as a description of culture from writers like Barth, Coover, and Gass, who were way ahead of most of critical theory (with the possible exception of Derrida) in exploring such things as the slipperiness of language and the problem of signification. And anon reveals his/her true assumptions about the nature of fiction in asserting that “the more significant thing is that theory took over the thinking function of fiction.” Theory couldn’t have taken over the “the thinking function of fiction” because fiction doesn’t have a thinking function. Only the most tediously polemical works of fiction pretend to be thinking, and in most cases even they are only rehearsing banalities and platitudes. Fiction might make its reader think, but only if it has first of all succeeded in its primary goal of transforming language into verbal art.

Ah, yes, “transforming language into verbal art.” I guess I belong in the pre-“theory” camp, because I think that is what Dan’s talking about and that is what (say for instance, IA Richards) I identify as criticism if not exactly theory, but which, to be anything must be the basis of criticism. It’s obvious that I’m swimming with much bigger fish here, but if you, reader, understand these issues so well, you probably stopped reading at the first sentence.

Many of my opinions come out in the manner in which I write about what I read, and I think we all, those that care, do respond to literature in a broad context. But to my mind it must be implicit in that response. To make it explicit is to try too hard to unveil the mystery of literature and culture and that ultimately leads to myopia – to be blinded by the light. Once we try to name the ineffable, it ceases to exist and it, that certain something that makes the story, novel or poem relevant, becomes impossible to recreate.

So, I think that while the theorists are searching for banal social relevance, writers are and ought to be focused on creating art. Depictions of society are merely an inevitable part of that, the place where stories come from. Is Henry IV a depiction of a society or a depiction of human beings through the words of the terribly human Falstaff and impetuous Prince? A little of both of course, but it is the humanity that keeps us coming back.

I know that my agnosticism is merely a reflex to what I see around me. I should leave more thoughtful commentary to those who have put in their time reading and thinking about such things to a far greater extent than I. To that end, I give the last word to William Faulkner, who was asked once if he read Freud. Faulkner responded:

“…I never read him. Neither did Shakespeare. I doubt if Melville did either, and I’m sure Moby Dick didn’t.”

Read widely, think well, and write often

comments

This writer, at least, agrees with you.

    – Sabra (04/15  at  08:51 AM)

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: April 14, 2005
• Filed Under:
  Wise Men Fish Here: Literature

• Comments:1
• Links to this Post: Technorati

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