No novels from Roth anymore

[alice wellintown]

So what have we got after an impressionist reader, a reader who puts
emphasis on the reader and the reading of a text, is disabused of his
reading of the film-like squares on the page by the formalist, after
the formalist and impressionist agree that the squares on the page are
a printing convention?  Is the reading without value? Is it wrong? A
misreading? A strong misreading? Why put so much weight on an a fact?
So the formailst critic points to the fact that the squares are a
convention and therefore not to be read as any part of the use of film
by the author. Why not put equal weight on the senstivity the
impressionist reader has to verbal naunce, to ambiguity, to the use of
graphics in modern--to postmodern texts, to the intellectual and
emotional self-awareness that admits that the fact, the convention
explains the use of the squares? Why not give weight to other elements
of the reading? Here we often read, from MB, to give a recent example,
a reading that admits to limited critical knowledge but is obviously
shaped by a deeply human personality. Is not a deeply humane
personality more important to reading a work of fiction than knowledge
of printing conventions? Is not knowledge of film, of psychology,
philosophy, math, science...at least as important as knowledge of
printing conventions when reading GR? So what if the facts argue
against the reading; a charitable reading, a common enough practice in
other disciplines, is all that is required to enrich one's own
reading.

Itz a shame to turn an author's work into a spectator sport where
critics argue inside the industry and readers sit in the nosebleeders
like so many Oedipas wandering round in Yo-Yo-land, looking into black
boxes and holding the towel for the padantic Driblets.