who's Christian?

[Thomas Eckhardt]

> I wrote:

> > Of course, often - and mostly in inferior fiction - the implied author's POV can
>
> >be  easily detected and the reader may rightfully assume that it doesn't stray
> too
> > far from the real author's views - that is, if he or she is not a
> > Deconstructionist.

jbor's comments:

> For one, the notion that "inferior fiction"
> can be defined by the transparency of the implied author's pov is arguable
> at least I think,

I have not defined anything. Novels with an utterly transparent implied author can
be masterpieces whereas novels with shifting PsOV, various equally trustworthy
narrators etc. can be boring as hell.

> and I think I'd also like some clarification about why you
> have singled out Deconstructionists as pariahs of some sort. The general
> idea of deconstruction is to uncover the processes and foundations through
> which meaning/s are constructed in texts, which isn't so far afield from the
> type of analysis you have been offering vis a vis Fausto's confessions in
> _V._.

Perhaps I should first clarify that the "he or she" of the relevant sentence of my
original post was meant to refer to the reader, not the author. I intended to say
that a deconstructive reading would try to show how the meanings even within a text
in which a certain "Weltanschauung" seems to find solid expression, or, in other
words, in which the implied author's POV seems to be easily discernible, are
inevitably unstable, do work against each other etc. Thus, my distinction between a
text that is transparent as far as "Weltanschauung" is concerned and a text that
isn't, would be meaningless to the deconstructive reader, because to him no text can
be transparent anyway.

In any case, it was only a slightly ironic remark, a friendly nudge in the
deconstructionist's ribs, so to speak. What makes you think that I meant to attack
or, even worse, "single out Deconstructionists as pariahs", is beyond me.

Thomas