A Defense of Highbrow.

On Friday, Dr. Sexson talked about some spatial logics of literature in terms of seasons. There is plerosis (the filling up) of certain stories (we talked about romance and comedy) which is placed in the first half of the year (spring / summer). Then there is kenosis (the draining out) that certain stories embody, placed in the second half (autumn / winter). We juxtaposed the writings of Joyce and Beckett in these terms as Finnegan's Wake tries to include everything and Beckett's writing takes everything out of the story.

Dr. Sexson has a way of presenting things that makes stuff sound good. Finnegan's Wake? I tried to sell that one to my mom last year, she didn't buy it.

"But mom - just listen to this language, the way the sentences flow, it gives you the chills."

"What's the point?" she said, scrunching up her nose.

I wanted Dr. Sexson to explain it to her. I think she would like it then.

But this Highbrow literature stuff is difficult to sell - to anybody really, even lit majors. How many of us are going to get through Finnegan's Wake this semester (or ever)? Sexson predicted none. He, of course, is challenging us all to rise to the occasion... the very painful... arduous ... extremely fruitful occasion. And Beckett? Like I said, Dr. Sexson makes things sound enchanting and absolutely delightful, but honestly I was a little depressed after he lectured about the disturbing nature of his writing. The inevitable question arises. Why? Why read a novel that is dark or disturbing or depressing or something that has a pedophile as the main character?

I was reading The Western Canon by Harold Bloom today and it hit me...

"To read in the service of any ideology is not, in my judgment, to read at all. The reception of aesthetic power enables us to learn how to talk to ourselves and how to endure ourselves.

All that the Western Canon ca

n bring one is the proper use of one's own solitude, that solitude whose final form is one's confrontation with one's own mortality."

On a personal side, as we begin to read the difficult, arduous works of Joyce and Beckett I am going to attempt to truly receive the aesthetic power that is contained in these novels. I found the words "how to endure ourselves" extremely powerful and moving.
So how do I trick my sister into reading Lolita? I'll just pull out this quote the next time she asks why anyone would want to read about pedophilia.


On a different note entirely, Samuel Beckett used to drive Andre the Giant to school when he was a kid. Pretty sweet.

The evidence here.