I'm almost done with Wuthering Heights. You know what would make this book better? Zombies.

Heathen! Pagan! Male!

The ascendancy of poststructuralism in the 1980's coincided with the beginning of the catastrophic downturn in reading; deconstructionism's suggestion that all text is equal in its meanings and the denigration of the canon led to the devaluation of literature.

Hmm, well at least us poststructuralists can tell the difference between the concepts "coincided with" and "led to".

(Hee, that was very funny, but...) Angus, so you don't think that suggesting all text is equal devalues literature as a whole? I'm trying to come up with analogies, but it is difficult. I am more intrigued by Solomon's premise—given that neither writing nor reading (nor the development of lit crit theory) take place in a vacuum—than that I am convinced of it.

Suppose I tell my three kids to write a sentence explaining what we did for fun, this summer. Let's say Ben says, "We drove to Maine, spent time at the beach, attended some concerts, went out to eat, and played a lot of games together." Let's say Julia says, "We went to Maine." Let's say that Chris says, "We went away."

Sure, everyone is telling the truth, so yes, they each met the requirement of giving a sentence explaining what we did. We are getting a lot more from Benjamin though, aren't we? If I suggest these three statements are equal in their meanings, aren't I devaluing the definition of "explain"? If, every time I get this variation in quality of explanations from my children, but judge them all equal in meaning, isn't my devaluing not only coinciding, but also changing the standard, such that I'm eradicating much, if not all elements of the standard.

I may be misunderstanding your point, but the opposite of absolutism isn't relativism. It's pluralism. Absolutism says that only one idea is good. Pluralism says that many ideas are good. And relativism says that our definition of "good" is based on our socioeconomic prejudices.

I have no poly-sci theory under my belt, and I took Philosophy 101 in the Fall of '85 (and mostly paid attention to cute!boy), so most of me is pretty convinced I'm over my head already, Strega. That said, and if you'll bear with me... Doesn't pluralism presuppose relativism? Also, I am unconvinced that pluralism is the opposite of absolutism. I do think both pluralism, and relativism are ideas (so I'm probably not using a political theory definition) that are, in essence, contradictory to absolutism, regardless of whether or not they're opposites. They start at different points, and go in different directions, don't they?

How would you have categorized those two statements by Solomon? To you, do they seem odd, proposed side by side?

P-C, I am now convinced you never sleep. Ever.

Because I've nearly finished a book? Because I like zombies? Because I'm up at the bright and shiny hour of ten in the morning? I don't see where this is coming from, blondie.

If I suggest these three statements are equal in their meanings, aren't I devaluing the definition of "explain"?

Thanks, Cindy. I wanted to challenge Angus as well, but my brains aren't spicy enough.

Angus, so you don't think that suggesting all text is equal devalues literature as a whole?

Well, it might, but (a) "deconstructionism" (sic) never suggested anything of the sort; and (b) the cultural prestige of "literature" has no necessary relationship to the amount of time people spend reading, let alone to the fate of Written Language itself. This last idea is particularly daft, the implication apparently being that if people stopped reading Shakespeare (which doesn't seem likely anyway) all written text would disappear from the face of the earth, we'd be left with nothing but spoken language, and civilisation would collapse. I mean, that's just totally insane every step of the way, no?

I agree with everything you said about the three children's sentences, as indeed would every literary critic or theorist who ever lived.

...although having said that, it's certainly arguable that Chris's sentence is the most explanatory, because by making the most salient point in the most concise way, it really gets to the heart of the matter. The subtext of Chris's laconic answer is: "where we went isn't really important, and what we did when we got there is merely incidental; the thing that made summer fun was that we spent it somewhere other than here." ;-)

Zombies would totally make Wuthering Heights better.

Zombies would totally make Wuthering Heights better.

Isn't there a fucking ghost in this book? There are only forty pages left.

Eh. Not in the Nearly-Headless Nick sense.

Lame!

Also, I missed the dead puppies.

I think there are lots of dogs in Wuthering Heights, not just dead puppies. The Linton's have dogs that bite Catherine I (Fanny?) and Heathcliff (I think) has a dog named Skulher.

Anyway I tend to think Wuthering Heights is a great story, but the narration within a narration starts to wear a bit.

IMO, the second generation comes pretty close, P-C.(I love that book. Why'd I say such a bitchy thing?)