Tolerance and Allegory missing word

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

I typed "banal" but s/b Baneful. Yes, what I find
intolerable, is the strategy of cutting off an author's
meaning in mid-paragraph. Jacques Derrida does this to
Plato's Phaedrus at the critical juncture when Plato's
mythical King Thamus is about to censure Theuth, who turns
out to function for Derriada as a symbol of deconstructive
writing. Poor King Thamus must wait thirty odd pages before
he can finish his judgment. 

"M. Collette" wrote:
> 
> In defining the "post-modern" as it is used in our various contexts, let us
> remind ourselves that the post-modern precedes the modern (it becomes modern
> with application and meta acceptance). I recognize that  the root behind the
> word "modern" is "mode" (a way -singular-of doing something, usually
> current). The post-modern is away from a (universalist) mode, but toward a
> multiplicity of modes. It is an acceptance of the variety of meanings that
> can occur from the writer of the text and the reader of that particular
> text.
> 
> I take issue with the assessment of Derrida and deconstruction as
> "banal"---Derrida is acknowledging the subjectivity of text (and removing
> the meta quality of it) from both the readers and writers perspective as
> well the multiplicity of meaning of text. He is removing text from the meta
> (or "master" as you refer to Lyotard's perspective") to liberate the reader
> and writer toward alternative meanings.  I think by using the term "banal"
> you may be demonizing a certain perspective and thus acting contrary to your
> closing statement. Or am I reading you differently then you are reading
> yourself?
> 
> Why should we read anyone as a "traditional American writer"? This is
> obviously an attempt to objectification (and to move Pynchon toward a meta
> literature---something that I understand many are reluctant to do). I am not
> saying that this would not be a worthwhile activity (a reading of any text
> from a certain perspective will have some value imo), but I am saying that
> you are expecting something of the group that you have not quite defined. If
> you want to "us" to do this, possibly you could define what a "traditional
> American writer" is for you?
> 
> Another issue I would like to discuss  is the naming of a style of reading a
> text as "pedestrian". One may be labeling a style of reading with the
> possible intent of demonizing--- again in oposition to what I read as your
> intended meaning in your closing. Let us have discourse, but what is
> meaningful is not necassarily toward the meta (the history of American
> Literature in this case); meaning is as varied as the readings of a text.
> 
> I am looking foward to further discouse.
> 
> ----------
> >From: "Terrance F. Flaherty" <Lycidas at worldnet.att.net>
> >To: David Morris <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
> >Cc: pmackin at clark.net, pynchon-l at waste.org
> >Subject: Re: Tolerance and Allegory missing word
> >Date: Wed, Oct 13, 1999, 7:12 AM
> >
> 
> > In the archives are 5 posts that define these terms, under
> > "msat" I think. If we treat each novel as the unique works
> > that they undoutably are, no "science" of them is possible.
> > I am attempting not to reduce the art, but to discuss it in
> > a meaningful way. I think Paul knows what I am talking about
> > here, if not I assume he will ask. One year ago I joined
> > this list, one of my first posts, asked that folks define
> > postmodernism and use it consistently.  When I use the term
> > postmodern, I often use it as toynbee did in 1875, to
> > describe an historical cycle, followed by the master
> > narrative of history (Lyotard) and the inability of such
> > narratives to think historically (Jameson), and its later
> > adjustments to the conventions of historical discourse
> > wherein postmodernism does its slippery thing of
> > problamatizing the notion of historical knowledge.   I also
> > use the term as it used in philosophy, dating to Heidegger
> > and Nietzche and the "death of metaphysics," a philosophical
> > position that has ancient roots in the Sophists. I also
> > complain about the tactics, I attribute to Derrida
> > principally, of deconstructing great texts with the banal
> > tactic he is now infamous for and refused to respond to, of
> > cutting off a text--Plato is a good example---destroying its
> > meaning and in the process, upsetting the ethics of
> > philosophical hermeneutics. I use the term as it is used in
> > literary criticism by both McHale and wood. I don't want to
> > get into putting TRP in a box. I know that using these terms
> > alienates certain members here, and so I try to avoid them,
> > I have attempted to argue for one year, that a close read of
> > TRP's texts as a traditional American writer--note I, as
> > many do, recognize that postmodern literature in America
> > needs to be considered in light of American literary history
> > and its unique developments. I use these two
> > terms--Menippean Satire and Encyclopedea--with full
> > knowledge of their limitations, but it is not my intention
> > to use them to hide behind, to sound smart, to avoid direct
> > discussion of specific passages or texts, to alienate
> > anyone, to label, to reduce. I am attempting to have
> > meaningful discourse, something I sometimes doubt is
> > possible here, but I nonetheless keep attempting.
> >
> > Terrance
> > David Morris wrote:
> >>
> >> >From: "Terrance F. Flaherty"
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >Failure to recognize that Pynchon's  [NOVELS]  are menippean
> >> >mostly,
> >> > > and need to be viewed in light of the ironic treatment of
> >> > > the  encyclopedia of texts he mingles into his stories with
> >> > > frightening skill, is akin to failing to understand Eliot's
> >> > > ironic voices and his foundations in western philosophy.
> >> >
> >> >S/B Pynchon's novels are menippean satire, as has been
> >> >discussed here.
> >> >
> >>
> >> This categorezation is akin to calling Pynchon's novels "Post Modern."  So
> >> pre-laden.  So indistinct.  Such a downer.
> >>
> >> Drop the labels and talk specifics.  OK, the text is all-inclusive.  Does
> >> that relegate it to the banality of the encyclopedia, however satyric?
> >> Which of the two do we call predominate?  Satyre?  Then "encyclopedic" is
> >> only limiting, mundane, pedestrian.  This part is only sport, along with the
> >> rest of the sport! This characterization only serves to lower the text to
> >> the pedestrian, releive it of the numinous.
> >>
> >> David Morris
> >>
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> >