wright's attending daedalus chapter eight

Marc Aramini · 22 Sep 2014, 19:36 · from 2014-September.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at gmail.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 12:36:13 -0700
Subject: (urth)  wright's attending daedalus chapter eight
Message-ID: <CAF1072wVGEFLqPYPyuY491YBUJkZevQ1M6ucyLjx3Nr-YXFw-Q at mail.gmail.com>

I remember reading wright's work years and years ago and being left with
the idea that his thesis was just wrong ... And in looking at it again I
was more sympathetic until the end of chapter eight, where he pretty much
says strange diction, extra-textual allusions, and mythological patterns
are a never ending trap to entangle the reader when the text itself
displays the Hieros' manipulation as the primary controlling factor.

My goodness what a New Criticism "text alone" reduction to the absurd,
coupled with a poststructuralist disregard for valid objective definitions.
This is why lit-crit theory fails to shed light on anything except
indeterminacy.  The extra textual references are often confirmation and
clarifications of textual ambiguities ... Why else have Gildas be the
captain of apprentices when sev first sees Katherine (st Gildas restored a
werewolf's wife to life after she was beheaded)? Wolfe used those
unfamiliar words and structures for a reason - looking those and other
references up is never a waste of time, as Wright seems to imply there.
Wright's volume started out strong in its examination of Wolfe's short work
and then became mired in a thesis inimical to Wolfe's entire belief system
in its refutation of free will.  I think the text
probably misrepresents what Wolfe was doing with language in New Sun.  The
implication of chapter eight was similar to don't waste time looking up
stuff.
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