tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post1213317260572911836..comments2024-01-06T10:36:04.084-05:00Comments on A Commonplace Blog: Posterity makes its choiceD. G. Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-49552790215546401582009-04-17T11:50:00.000-04:002009-04-17T11:50:00.000-04:00Harold Bloom, a critic I reluctantly admire, says ...Harold Bloom, a critic I reluctantly admire, says that irony is the most difficult of concepts to apprehend. Students in my classes consistently and (to my mind) sadly prove his point. During a recent series of classes, students nearly unanimously overlooked (and could not grasp when shown) the extensive use of irony in Oedipus the King and Wise Blood (two texts I find remarkably similar in many ways). Ah, well. Such is the life of teaching.R/Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07791522136032565027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-88887823826154576212009-04-17T11:18:00.000-04:002009-04-17T11:18:00.000-04:00No need to retract. It is becoming increasingly cl...No need to retract. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that I suck at irony.<br /><br />At the same time, the hoo-hah over O’Connor’s racism seems, to coin a phrase, much ado about nothing.D. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-45807218294942173892009-04-17T10:25:00.000-04:002009-04-17T10:25:00.000-04:00I apologize for not grasping the irony. My mind wa...I apologize for not grasping the irony. My mind was hazy, at best, when reading and reacting to your comments. (I should have noticed the beam in my own reading eye before seizing upon the mote in your view of O'Connor.) Therefore, I retract my indictment of your ironic indictment of O'Connor.R/Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07791522136032565027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-8908147442488934492009-04-17T07:00:00.000-04:002009-04-17T07:00:00.000-04:00R.T.,
My “over-the-top” allusion to Brad Gooch’s ...R.T.,<br /><br />My “over-the-top” allusion to Brad Gooch’s biography of O’Connor (or, rather, to Maud Newton’s review of it: follow the link) was intended to be ironic. Hence my yoking it to C. A. Tripp’s self-evidently stupid claim that Lincoln was gay.D. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-32019208536166317482009-04-15T16:12:00.000-04:002009-04-15T16:12:00.000-04:00Your reference to Flannery O'Connor ("Flannery O’C...Your reference to Flannery O'Connor ("Flannery O’Connor liked racist jokes"), which is apparently based upon Brad Gooch's tenuous assertions in his recent biography of O'Connor, is--I would suggest--a bit over-the-top when thrown into your commentary as a casual (flippant?) aside. The uninformed reader, without having a proper O'Connor context, will mistakenly--I would argue--conclude that the statement is proof simply because it is stated. <br /><br />While I continue to find some of O'Connor's diction (in fiction and nonfiction) fair-game for tough inquiry (with respect to her position on race matters), I nevertheless think Gooch's conclusions and your casual aside on the issue are conclusions based on insufficient evidence. I respectfully suggest that you ought to have been less dismissive and derogatory about O'Connor's racial attitudes which I think were more complex than the snipped phrase suggests.R/Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07791522136032565027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-28553819879408104552009-04-15T15:56:00.000-04:002009-04-15T15:56:00.000-04:00I especially like the narrator's comments on James...I especially like the narrator's comments on James: "Poor Henry, he’s spending eternity wandering round and round a stately park and the fence is just too high for him to peep over and they’re having tea just too far for him to hear what the countess is saying." To the extent that I still cannot warm up to Henry James, I offer a hearty second to the narrator's (Maugham's?) indictment of James' and his characters' inability to fully engage in more meaningful and compelling issues.R/Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07791522136032565027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-77916473406182587162009-04-14T09:07:00.000-04:002009-04-14T09:07:00.000-04:00Leaving your legacy to be determined by THE HISTOR...Leaving your legacy to be determined by THE HISTORY BOOKS may be seen as feigned nonchalance about how you're perceived by contemporaries (and the fear that they'll detect your slender skills?) but....<br /><br />I like Maugham. The Razor's Edge was one of my favorite books in high school (even with its drifting into longueurs of mixed Eastern philosophies near the end) and I got HELL from my AP Lit teacher for writing about it.<br /><br />And I'd agree with your assessment of Maugham's credo. The writer can say most anything - criticize his king, his peers, his country, the society he keeps - under the guise of LITERATURE, can write almost nothing that time won't forgive, because, like you mentioned, who now cares that <I>Cakes and Ale</I> took shots at Hardy and Walpole??? - not that context doesn't add a layer of humor... it just doesn't pack the same scandalous punch as when the blows were fresh.Rebecca V. O'Nealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07920443685663707856noreply@blogger.com