>That is, truthfulness is a component of Totality, which
>implies the value of circumspect over against privatized reaction in
>writing. As I said earlier, I think that the emphasis on 'play' in
>current writing tends to privatize the reading experience, by tacit
>agitation against the prospect of consensual interpretation, in favour of
>a Nietzschean style of reading -out of place in our prese(n)t world-.
>
I am unsure, Keston, what you mean by privatise: do you mean selling off
the assets, or do you mean to attack the private act of reading? How is
circumspection opposed to privatisation? How is reading, or listening,
or any attentive encounter with any work of art, in some sense not a
private experience? And why would a consensual totality be in any sense
a better way to critique certain things? Perhaps I have wilfully
misunderstood you... but surely the most consensual reading experience we
have is the tabloid newspaper. Enzenberger's critique of _Bild_
newspaper (sales of 5.5 million) seems fairly pertinent to how most mass
media works. Among other interesting things, he suggests that _Bild_ is
more radical than its critics in its complete liquidation of meaning, and
moreover says critique is futile because people - those who read it, and
those who make it, _know_ this, and that this is in fact the basis of its
success. "The newspaper is the total work-of-art, which liquidates the
dreams of the avant gard movements, from the dissolution of the
distinction between life and art to collective production, by fulfilling
them". I presume that this is not what you're arguing for, but you seem
to align meaning with consensual interpretation, and your argument, in my
reading anyway, certainly tends that way. I would think rather that
private readings may well be a form of resistance to this kind of
communal blankness. I'm not arguing, I should say, for any idea that a
text is purely what a reader makes of it.
I am wondering, also, how a poetry is to going to make any difference to
the US strategic arms build up or the IMF or anything else of that
nature, since anyone with any sort of power is most unlikely to take any
notice of it.
Best
Alison
Alison Croggon
PO Box 186
Newport VIC 3015
Australia
Masthead Online: http://www.masthead.com.au
Home Page: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/bronte/338
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