Autoerotic

[LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu]

Bonnie says:
"I gain much from reading the SLOW LEARNER intro, as well as when reading
GR, or "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna," or any other work.
 
It's not such a big leap to understand that we "know" a writer from
reading her/his work frequently, especially since, on the most
simplistic/abstract level, they are writing texts that emerge from their
own particular cognitive, epistemological and herneneutic orientations,
which are unique to a writer/individual.
 
An unpopular position maybe.  Makes sense to me."

Me too, as long as one doesn't take autobiography or other such writings as
*the* privileged truth.  Rather they are a part of that galaxy of words that
helps to constitute a mental image of the "career author," the sense of
the *implied* author that emerges not from just one text but from all the
texts produced under that name, taken as a whole

And, in fact, relatively "minor" works can often shed light on the major ones.
If you read D.H. Lawrence's STUDIES IN CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE, you may
learn a few things about American lit., but you will learn much about D.H.
Lawrence.  Similarly, I find the intro. to SLOW LEARNER and such works as
"A Journey into the Mind of Watts" quite revealing of our boy.


Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)