Homage and Imposture

[domine vobiscuits]

Almost sounds like some strange type of age-ism to me.  Shakespeare (sorry
to use a Shakespeare card) alluded to contemporaries from time to time.  (I
know there's a fallacy here, but...)

Obviously, this is a discussion of taste and argument for "right" or "wrong"
is fruitless, but I don't have any problem with contemporary allusion.  I
suspect that the reader might expect more than just a quick nod to the other
author (as one would expect with any allusion to an older, more established
dwm).  The allusion to Reed in GR, for example, (re)establishes problematic
temporal issues in the text (i.e., the events in the text take place (where
we can clearly establish them) in the 1940s, but the narrator(s) (who
occasionally enter the minds of the characters) are alluding to a text
published in 1972).  I have trouble seeing the Reed reference as a
(negative) detraction/distraction (at the very least, P alludes to an
alternate history within his own alternate history).  I what way does an
allusion to a contemporary author become a detraction while allusions to
_The_White_Goddess_ or Rilke or Plasticman enrich (or enRich) the text?

One other quick bit: something seems unclear in your (Rich's) post that
denounces academic allusion and suggests a preference for an idea modeled
after Stephen Dedalus' aethetics...(he *is* the fella with the academic
stink, right?)

Keith W

> jbor sed:
> >I agree >about DFW I suppose, but if stylistic parody is a problem then
> >that pastiche >of Jacobean revenge drama in *Lot49* and the whole of
*M&D*
> >are on the line >too.

and then Rich sed:
> But cribbing work barely 30 yrs old is the equivalent of the study of
> history today--Hitler as ground zero. I'm not pushing for obscurity for
its
> own sake, mind you.
>
and jbor also sed:
> And Rushdie's nod -- well, what of Pynchon's nod to Ishmael Reed,
> >though I agree that there is a difference between the two (Reed
languishing
> > >in somewhat more obscurity at the time of Pynchon's nod than vice versa
> >with >Rushdie's).

so Rich sed:
> Can't say I'm enamored with the Pynchon reference either, frankly.  It
> detracts and distracts.
>
> Rich
> _________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
>
> Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
> http://profiles.msn.com.
>
>