http://www.clusterflock.org/2008/04/at-the-risk-of-sentimentality.html thoughts, questions, original art and content and links to stuff we think is of interest; a group blog dedicated to pretty much everything. by people you would like to meet at a party; proof of intelligent life on the planet; inhabited by Internet hunter gatherers in the pre-apocalyptic realm; a destination that offers constellations of stimulating links to popular (and not so popular) culture; a group blog dedicated to culture: art, design, music, food, architecture, science, travel, movies, books, typography, politics, etc.; inclusive of geezers!; a delightful mixture of orange words and pictures of well, the insides of a stuffed animal–delightful all the same; the social network I never thought I’d join. Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:41:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.clusterflock.org/2008/04/at-the-risk-of-sentimentality.html/comment-page-1#comment-71576 John Buaas Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:58:39 +0000 http://www.clusterflock.org/?p=9575#comment-71576 He's right. I realized something similar when I was in grad school: texts came to be regarded as something we could examine . . . as opposed to admire. We read a lot of crappy stuff because, I'm convinced, it lay still when we got the theory scalpels out. You can imagine the papers we wrote. And oh, how we loved Irony: it helped us keep those suspect emotions at an intellectual arm's length. Granted, grad school isn't, nor should it be, mere Art Appreciation. But reducing all considerations of texts to discussions of Race, Class and Gender got old after a while. It was in the midst of those days that I discovered and read Blood Meridian for the first time. Quite apart from its obvious merits was something else in its favor: it wouldn't lie still for the theory scalpels. It simply was, as few novels are. Weird how a novel--especially that one, given its subject matter--can keep one sane. It reminded me of why I wanted to major in English in the first place. It could not have come at a better time. He’s right.
I realized something similar when I was in grad school: texts came to be regarded as something we could examine . . . as opposed to admire. We read a lot of crappy stuff because, I’m convinced, it lay still when we got the theory scalpels out. You can imagine the papers we wrote. And oh, how we loved Irony: it helped us keep those suspect emotions at an intellectual arm’s length. Granted, grad school isn’t, nor should it be, mere Art Appreciation. But reducing all considerations of texts to discussions of Race, Class and Gender got old after a while.
It was in the midst of those days that I discovered and read Blood Meridian for the first time. Quite apart from its obvious merits was something else in its favor: it wouldn’t lie still for the theory scalpels. It simply was, as few novels are.
Weird how a novel–especially that one, given its subject matter–can keep one sane. It reminded me of why I wanted to major in English in the first place. It could not have come at a better time.

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