COL49: The beginning is the beginning is the end

[jbor]

on 8/2/01 6:26 PM, Phil Wise at philwise at paradise.net.nz wrote:

> Interestingly, now that you've put it that way, it could mean that TP's
> "forgotten what he thought he's learned", and written in a new, better way
> than the possibly mediocre stories within.  In other words, imperfect as it
> is, Lot 49 may be superior, in his mind, to "The Secret Integration".  Like
> that  whole thing where you've been told to forget everything you learned at
> school because it woun't be any use to you here.  Maybe?  Perhaps?

Yes, there is the potential for ambiguity there, but I think that he is
simply recapping on the self-portrait which opened the piece, the
description of a young tyro and his "apprentice" efforts, a college-taught
writer who "thought" he had "learned" how to write, but for whom "fancy
footwork" and "overwriting" were "errors" which his early work had succumbed
to. In the sentence immediately before the ambiguous one there's this: "it
was too much to expect that I'd keep on for long in this positive or
professional direction"; and the "positive or professional direction" he
refers to is explicitly 'The Secret Integration'. He talks this story up on
the very first page of the 'Intro' as well.

Some of those convoluted sentences in the opening chapter of _Lot 49_
certainly fit the bill of "fancy footwork" and "overwriting" imo.

best