Well, Nick, given that you have just responded to Rosa in effect by saying "this is not something I want to talk about, and as such is irrelevant", I'm a little chary of doing so. Much as I love you in person, you Barbestyle (and yes, I know, conference call for the kettle) tends to get defensive and abusive very quickly indeed.
However, at the risk of sounding Nick-ish, I must with respect suggest that you don't seem to be asking the right questions.
First up:
Or talk to me about why theory knows more about writing than writers do, and why reason is a suitable tool for investigating what may not be a rational process.
Which is kind of what I mean about being defensive. I mean, on one level a simple response could be "why do marine biologists specialising in Cetacians know more about whales than Japanese sailors with explosive harpoons do?"
But actually, that would be answering the wrong question, because it would be adopting the arguably erroneous terms of your question.
So, go back. At what point did theory become "rational"? What do you mean by "rational"? This seems to relate to your continuing attempt to associate theory with the Enlightenment, which seems, if you will forgive me, somewhat at odds with your claims that you do not "get" theory. But more of that later perhaps.
Theory (and I'm etymologising again here) has the same root as theatre - theasthai. A theatre is a place you go to look at things. Theory is a way of looking at things. It is not necessarily rational, although at times it employs apparently rational or logical structures. At other times it crosses disciplines and crosses forms of rational or irrational discourse. Obviosuly, I know comparatively little about theory, but I hope my comments here will not be rejected out of hand by those more knowledgeable. It is my understanding, poor though it may be.
So, I think you are trying, possibly intentionally, possibly not, to set up a contrast between dry, fusty, rational theory (which is practised not by theoreticians, but academics) and living, creative, inspired literature (which is practised not by people with the technical ability to write, but by *writers*). And I just don;t think it works, even on the most basic level. One of the essays in Phelan's "Mourning Sex" is in the form of a short story. Derrida's "Cartes Postales" is a series of unsent postcards, Califia's theorist and wrter of fiction hats are to a very great extent the same hat - again, the more knowledgeable will have other and better examples, Forgive my poverty of understanding. Theory can be said to be no less *creative*, and no less *inspired*, than the writing of fiction. It may be untrue, but it can be said, and in my theory place that's just fine to be going on with.
Or explain to me how literary theory and criticism 'knows' (not empirically, I fear) what it does, that you feel able to issue blanket statements about reading and how everyone does it.
I'm afraid I'm not sure that I follow. I imagine this must be addressed at Rosa. I do seem to recall saying earlier on that the text was formed by an interaction between reader and writer, be that interaction plaisir, jouissance or whatever, and thus that each experiential "text" was subject to differentiation from each other text. Is this what you would like to take issue with?
As a writer, I'm inclined to be mystical about this stuff. As a social scientist, I'm apt to consider lit crit as unresearched and unproven pseudoscience.
This is fascinating background material, but not, it seems entirely relevant unless you can explain a little more fully *how* you are mystical about "this stuff" and whether indeed "this stuff" is reading, writing, both or whatever. I assume that the second sentence is supposed to be an insult, but as nobody has yet to my knowledge introduced themselves as a a literary critic it seems a singularly odd one. Theory is not lit crit. Furthermore, if theory is, in your taxonomy, rational (and thus not fit to examine writing) and lit crit is non-rational - because a pseudoscience - (and thus not fit to examine writing) I do not quite see how the two fit together. Am I to assume that those who disagree with you are unable to do so with any validity because they are either rational or not rational? And in either case unresearched and lacking the sort of experiential knowledge which comes with, for example, social science, although where this experiential knowledge becomes relevant to writing is somewhat unclear? Are we further to assume that social science here does duty only as an example of a "proper" science, rather than one with immediate import for writing?
What's a writer, Haus? Why do you and Rosa keep putting quotes around words like 'author'?
Ah, at last something I feel able to answer Although not for Rosa.
For myself, I understand that when the term "writer" is used, it has different possible meanings. While I write this post, I could be said to be a writer, as I am writing, as I could be described as a runner if I were in the 200 metres. After I stop writing this post and have a cigarette, am I still a writer. Maybe, since I still have the tools and skills to form sentences. Alternatively, in performative terms, I could be said to be a smoker. I could also, very well be said to be a smoker as I type this, in the sense that I have smoked in the past and will smoke in the future.
However, when you use the term "writer", you clearly mean more than somebody who is writing at the moment, or somebody who has the ability to write, in the sense of somebody who understands how grammar and syntax function, and has a workably large vocabulary. You mean, as far as I can tell, a *creator*, and not a creator of memos or grocery lists but of novels and short stories and poems and scripts and varous other forms of contextually privileged written artefacts. And, once one has this status, one retains it at all times. It may be the same as somebody who supports themselves financially by writing, but that remains ambiguous.
So, "writer" - the quote marks being a reasonably accceptable delineator for a second-order term, which does not use the meaning of the verb "to write" but does depend on it. It's not a political gesture, it's an attempt to mantain clarity.
So, we can assume that a writer, leaving it untrammelled by punctuation to save your presence but signifying the second-order term described above, has a set of specific skills which allow him to "write" (sorry, had to). So:
Do you actually think anyone can do it?
I don't know. Do you think anyone could be a plumber? It requires a set of highly specialised skills. Some people may not have the genetic makeup to be a plumber, or a good plumber anyway. Some may have no deisre to be a plumber, which maybe genetic or cultural or what have you; I'm afraid I'm not a social scientist. Some may simply display no aptitude for plumbing. Some may find they have other skills more lucrative or more enjoyable than plumbing, and be sidetracked into them. Some may become discouraged by realising that they will never be the world's greatest plumber, or get disillusioned while nobody is asking them to come over and unblock their sink, while younger plumbers seem to get all the best jobs. On the other hand, some people who were born plumbers may never get their hands on a wrench, and die without ever havng the chance to express themselves truly through plumbing, for example because the were too ocupied being a journalist or novelist.
So, a plumber has specialised skills, needs to learn them, needs to practise them...possibly has a real sensation of vocation - that they were born to be a plumber, that they are fucking good at it and that they are doing something good. Bearing in mind the respect we all no doubt have for the institutions of plumbing and writing both, in what way is this man different from a writer?
And, conversely, what marks the writer out? Can we do better than "a writer is a writer"?
So, this might suggest that, far from being a conduit for "inspiration", a writer is a highly specialised creator of public works.They have a knowledge of the various building blocks of their chosen forms, and use them with (if ypu're lucky) skill, wit and invention, introducing other elements when necessary, to "build" a written artefact, which can be given to readers to generate texts.
And finally, since I have taken up quite enough of your time:
I suppose the notion that writing and reading are immanent, non-verbal experiences shared through the verbal medium will get short shrift?
No, just incomprehension. You will have to explain more, Nick. How is writing or reading non-verbal? In what way are words not involved in the experience. Do you mean "non-spoken"? And in what way are they "immanent"? Physically, on the page, or in the reader's head.
At present, Nick, all I can *really* say is "pass me the knitting kneedles, mother, looks like a pea-souper". If youare serious about this, I need you to explain yourself comprehensively and comprehensibly. And, if at all possible, without rancour. |
