Ah! Yes Humanity!

[wood jim]

In the thematic context, perhaps no modern topic has
been given more
    consideration than the way in which we are thought
to create our own selves, or
    to put it another way, the way in which we are
ourselves finally arbitrary signs to
    be filled up by whatever haunts us at the moment.
If the moderns called
    language and form into question, if they seriously
considered the degree to which
    all utterance is devoid of ground, they also
pursued the ways in which the same
    thing could be said of our conceptions of
individual humans. Indeed, one of the
    great early modern texts, "Bartleby, the
Scrivener," has as its main character one
    of the first creations to represent a sort of
nothing, a void of a human who is not
    just a surd in the end but highly meaningful
precisely because the echoes of his
    alienation and meaninglessness in the modern era
are to be found in the
    employer, the reader, and anyone else who takes up
space in the world we
    presently live in. The companion text to
"Bartleby," I would argue, the one that
    marks the end of this modern thematic, is Thomas
Pynchon's The Crying of Lot
    49, a work in which it is not the void at the
center of humans that is at issue but
    rather the great plenitude. Both works focus on
the same questions - the
    problem of identity in the modern world, the
question of the reality of our
    identity, the related concerns of alienation and
despair - but "Bartleby" marks
    these problems in terms of lack whereas Lot 49
construes them in terms of the
    horrifying plenitude of meaning. just as Derrida
was to demonstrate that the
    supplementary character of language meant both
that language never says
    enough and that it always says too much - that the
problem was as much a
    plenitude of meanings as a lack of them - so too
Pynchon shows that the
    problem is not that we are confronted by our own
meaninglessness but rather
    that we are forced to deal with the fact that we
have too many meanings, that
    we are far too rich in our plenitude to be
contemplated in any bearable manner.

    The problem of the supplement - the fact that it
both lacks meaning and yet has
    far too many meanings ever to be reduced to any
one set of them - is related in
    turn to Foucault's concerns about the way we
constitute our sense of selves in
    terms of the other. If "sanity" can only be
construed through a concept of
    "madness," if the exploited other is always that
in terms of whom we constitute
    the significance of ourselves, the problem once
again has to do with a plenitude
    of meanings rather than a lack of them, for the
other allows our selves to obtain
    a kind of coherence that would be impossible
without him: we displace those
    features that call into question our homogenized
view of self onto the other in
    order to achieve a coherent vision that is a
fiction precisely because it limits the
    number of meanings that can be attached to the
self that we have so constituted.
    Given the multiplicity of "meanings" that obtain
for each of us, we thus tend to
    consolidate our vision of self around those
features that most reflect what we
    would like to think we are. In this, we are in
some respects almost innocently
    making ourselves into what we would like to be
even as our self-deception
    reveals our inability to so make ourselves. The
mixed bag of meanings that we
    inevitably are manifests itself in our very
inability to keep our unpalatable traits
    securely in the corner of the other. They
insistently return to us, and just as
    insistently require us to move them back to the
category of the other. This too is
    a game we see at the limit of the modern, in The
Crying of Lot 49; it is the link
    between linguistic and human plenitude that marks
the end to the mindless
    fascination with lack that so resolutely defined
the modern period.

Emptiness and plenitude in "Bartleby the Scrivener"
and 'The Crying of Lot 49.' 

Hans, James S.  

Also, after reading Wallace Gray's essays, three
essays on Sophocles and one each  on Swift, Eliot,
Homer, Aeschylus, Cervantes... (he's best known for
his studies of Joyce), I finally read his essay on
Jpyce's Ulysses. It's certainly worth reading. Gray
looks into the two camps, one negative or pessimistic
(nothing happens in Ulysses), the other positive,
discovering all sorts of meaning, much of it very
painful but affirmative, affirming, particularly the
ordinary preterit life of men and women, YES. 

ANyway, does remind me that there are at least two
ways to read a complex novel, even a novel not quite a
good as Ulysses. I almost understand what Dave Monroe
means, but not really. ANyway, it's good, good to have
critical pluralistic exchange.  Also, Oed reminds me
quite a lot of the  characters, the separate by
connected wanderings of Molly/Stephen/Leopold. 

PS, no that's note the passage from SL Intro. but I
appreciate it. 

Thanks again,  Robert, good one.  

BTW, if I were a rich and powerful white man with a
big coffee plantation in Vietnam, I'd a been short, 
but I'd start covering my shorts. 



  


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