Campus Satires Post Modernism and Baudrillard
Sean Matthews
of David Lodge.
Try Bradbury*: The History Man (and others)
and Re: The `debate' on Baudrillard etc. Mensong
(recommended with straight face and without (or should
that be `sans') comment.
*Also relevant in its own right is the fact that Bradbury holds
the chair in American Studies at his University (East Anglia-I think).
As an aside, there is an essay by David Lodge on (post-)structuralist
theory, where he says that the sort of things he has to read as an
academic cause his wife almost physical pain whe she accidentally sees
them. (if anyone is interested, I will post a reference).
And, since Lodge has, apart from writing one of the funniest post-modern
self referential deconstructable novels (Italo Calvino eat your heart out)
ever, in the form of Small World (aka Parsifal #2) while keeping it readable
to the average illiterate brit, also edited two volumes of modern literary
criticism of the sort that keeps the average (pseudo) intellectual happy for
hours.
On the subject of Baudrillard I concur with Lodge and his wife.
Roland Barthes was fascinating, most of his emulators are tedious bores.
For intellectual reading I enjoy people like Sontag, Steiner,
Wollheim all of whom, esp. the first two, practice elegant icily precise
prose, (plain english, in the tradition of Gibbon and Toynbee (say) which
does not mean simple, but rather deploying the contents of the OED to best
advantage rather than indulging in gratuitious neologorhoea :-).
In translation, Eco is good, without being jaw breaking like Baudrillard.
(Calvino's fiction is the best, but his introspection
I found, to be generous, turgid in the Literature Machine. Though to be fair
Weaver did not translate that selection.
I say the above having read none of America, and, from previous experience of
Baudrillard's stuff no intention.
Of course I read the NYR always, which puts me in the unwashed anti
intellectual camp, along with Susan Sontag, Richard Wollheim, Umberto
Eco, George Steiner, Italo Calvino...
How about a slogan (post modernists are big on slogans it always seems to me)
`Hemeneutic rather than Hermetic.'
Sean
Sorry about this unstructured flame, but this is a lousy editor and its after
midnight.
Sean Matthews
>ever, in the form of Small World (aka Parsifal #2) while keeping it readable
^^^^^^^^
This should of course be Parzifal (i.e., Von Eschenbach, not Wagner -
I would not like people to think I didn't know what I was talking about :-)
>Sean
>Sorry about this unstructured flame, but this is a lousy editor and its after
>midnight.
no forther comment seems necessary.
Sean
But there should be an apostrophe in `its'.
Creative Business Decisions
>In article <22...@etive.ed.ac.uk> se...@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Me) writes:
>
>>ever, in the form of Small World (aka Parsifal #2) while keeping it readable
> ^^^^^^^^
>This should of course be Parzifal (i.e., Von Eschenbach, not Wagner -
>I would not like people to think I didn't know what I was talking about :-)
It's OK, we'll trust you. 8-)
Just a minor nit: how about Parzival #93 or so? It's a very popular
item for retelling. Two movies of the last few years come to mind.
One is about baseball. Can you name them?
Roger Lustig (Q2...@PUCC.BITNET Q2...@pucc.princeton.edu)
"This isn't *me* talking, it's what the research shows." -- Dale W. Lick
Holyer A
>
>P.S. not only did Star Wars rip off the plot from Von Eschenbach - it
>piniched its theme music from Wagner. Well I exagerate a little, but who
>ever writes all those horribly tedious soundtracks (is it John Williams
>- not the guitarist) has obviously spent a lot of time learning all the
>wrong things from Dick.
I've always felt it's more like Bruckner (sp?) or Neilson - try Neilson's
4 th symphony - it always makes me feel as if the death star's just about
to come up over the horizon :-)
-------------
&ndy Holyer
Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine,
Hapmstead,
London NW3 a...@uk.ac.lon.rfhsm.ux
Creative Business Decisions
Harrison Ford flick.
In article <22...@etive.ed.ac.uk>, se...@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Sean Matthews) writes:
>In article <85...@pucc.Princeton.EDU> Q2...@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>>>This should of course be Parzifal (i.e., Von Eschenbach, not Wagner -
>>>I would not like people to think I didn't know what I was talking about :-)
>>Just a minor nit: how about Parzival #93 or so? It's a very popular
>>item for retelling. Two movies of the last few years come to mind.
>>One is about baseball. Can you name them?
>Well `Star Wars' is one, and `The Natural' is the other at a guess, though I
>haven't seen it; I am just guessing from the information I picked up on the
>way past the film reviews.
Yes, the Natural is certainly one. The book is utterly blatant about
it, and its ending even sounds like a parody of epic style.
See, there's this buy named Pops Fisher, who's got an incurable...
>P.S. not only did Star Wars rip off the plot from Von Eschenbach - it
>piniched its theme music from Wagner. Well I exagerate a little, but who
>ever writes all those horribly tedious soundtracks (is it John Williams
>- not the guitarist) has obviously spent a lot of time learning all the
>wrong things from Dick.
There, and I thought it was more Elgarish. (And the main theme is just
the big motif from Manon Lescaut with a couple octave transpositions.)
But then, ALL film music owes a lot to Wagner and his followers.
Even Philip Glass. But that's another story for another newsgroup.
I was thinking of The Natural and the ending of the new Indiana Jones
flick, btw. Healing the wound, etc.
Sean Matthews
>>This should of course be Parzifal (i.e., Von Eschenbach, not Wagner -
>>I would not like people to think I didn't know what I was talking about :-)
>Just a minor nit: how about Parzival #93 or so? It's a very popular
>item for retelling. Two movies of the last few years come to mind.
>One is about baseball. Can you name them?
>
>Roger Lustig (Q2...@PUCC.BITNET Q2...@pucc.princeton.edu)
Well `Star Wars' is one, and `The Natural' is the other at a guess, though I
haven't seen it; I am just guessing from the information I picked up on the
way past the film reviews.
There have been any number of others-and if you want to quibble, Von
Eschenbach was not the first.
Sean