Yes, I've also found this an interesting thread due to
Edmund's posts and also yours, Stephen., though I view
it somewhat differently in that Robinson is always the
male figure 'cast out' who wanders a landscape in
which he may or may not find an other, an other which
is often at least implicitly feminine, for instance
that whole bit about finding "Friday," the less than
other by virtue of being black which can be heard in
the language itself by the cliche "girl Friday" to
refer to whomever has to get the coffee.  And it is
very different if one is used to being viewed as the
'other' to begin with, and usually, so that one's body
itself is regarded as metaphorically as landscape, or
interior imaginative landscape, or unknown unvisited
unconquered nation. 

For instance this 
>(How to talk to angels while you are 'on the
>run.'??)    
a most evocative phrase, btw, but my sense of it is
that they talk to you, in any number of random
occurrences, in the light attendant at your elbow, in
the most unpredictable and unlikely of forms.

>These themes of exile in contradistinction to
communal notions of >utopia,
>or, alternatively, feet to the ground pragmatic group
approaches to a
>perpetually provisional/changing 'fragmented'
reality.

I really have no experiental or subjective experience
of this, either communal notions of utopia or
pragmatic group approaches to a perpetually
provisional/changing fragmented reality, and, perhaps
accordingly, what I notice is both postulate a fixed
point, either the fixed point of the communal notions
or of being able to say, in comparison to a fixed
point, that one's approaches are provisional/changing
and fragmented. This may be just due to my
experiences, an eccentricity of fact and sensibility,
rather than those of gender, but these terms to me, as
a woman, seem almost nonsensical, what is the communal
notion of a utopia? the second choice with a
provisional/changing fragmented reality makes more
sense to me in that it is I think how many women
actually live, adapting and 'fitting' their own
fragmented reality into or against a prevailing fixed
point of reality, and often 'happiest' when their
fragmented reality is given support by fitting into
the roles of wife, mother, etc, and allowing them
support to engage in their fragments, as long as they
are 'fragments' and useful or productive work, work
products, in some way.

Anyway, I'm just thinking, this is not meant to argue
with anything you've said, more a riff of my own
preoccupations, and in that an implicit
acknowledgement of interest and thanks for the
discussion,

Rebecca

 
From:         Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: Snap All Three Auteurs


Wonderful post, Edmund. It's nice - for me, at least -
to get so educated by
the paragraph full!
This whole notion of 'the cast out' and finding ways
to negotiate from that
position in terms of making a 'residence in the
writing' - whether it be on
an island (in reality or one's imagination), and/or,
as a wanderer, or urban
flaneur - pose interesting possibilities, as well as
the diverse literary
histories to which you point. (How to talk to angels
while you are 'on the
run.'??)    
These themes of exile in contradistinction to communal
notions of utopia,
or, alternatively, feet to the ground pragmatic group
approaches to a
perpetually provisional/changing 'fragmented' reality.
As we have, for
example, with Dewey and the Objectivists in poetry.

Definitely all food for my thinking here, and
compelling me to look more on
my own takes and works with Walking.

Thanks,

Stephen Vincent

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