From: chall@eco.twg.com (Charles Don Hall)
Subject: Re: Nilges
Organization: The Wollongong Group (East Coast Operations)
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 20:56:31 GMT

In <1992Aug25.144241.19677@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>You accuse Henry Miller and Thoreau of being liars when they adjust
>works that were in part fictional and wholly belles-lettres to be more
>consonant with the views they were trying to address.  For example,
>Thoreau was addressing the nascent materialism of ante bellum America in
>Walden, and in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare Henry Miller writes of the
>materialistic Nightmare America had become in the Forties, a Nightmare
>that has if anything increased in intensity.  Your criticism is
>an ancient wheeze originating with Plato's Fascistic call to drive the
>poets out of his ideal city (an ideal that Khomeni used in constructing
>modern day Iran), since poets use metaphors and other devices to
>"conceal" the truth.  Yet you yourself claim that your feminist reader
>"practically ordered you shot", which is unlikely.  This by your own
>analysis is a lie.

>Since in actuality the only decent literary criticism around is feminist
>literary criticism, you probably were remiss in neglecting such
>criticism of Miller.  But your lack of awareness of the ways in which
>literary criticism works, and your confusion of criticism with flamewar,
>is devil a doubt the reason why you did not read Millett's criticisms of
>Henry Miller.  The fact that a feminist literary critic feels that for
>centuries men have had unduly large access to printing presses and women
>haven't, and that such a literary critic might do her job in perceive
>ways in which male writers miss entire regions of experience, does not
>imply a wish, as you seem to believe, to censor male writers.  For one
>thing, a literary critic cannot impose a prior restraint on the target
>of her criticism.  For another, the literary critic's work is dependent
>in a strict sense on the author; if Henry Miller had never existed Kate
>Millet would not have been able to criticize him.

>Your flamage is obviously informed by a residue of bitterness given the
>unkind treatment accorded your senior thesis.  Grow up.  The real world
>will handle your creations with similar and increased roughness; you
>should learn from these criticisms.  It is unlikely that you shall,
>since you obviously feel that a vector of criticism running from a woman
>to a man is prima facie dangerous, for somewhat the same reason that you
>feel that the vector of "criticism" running from Robert A. Viktora to a
>black target was desrving of high court protection.

I only read this group once in a great while, so I think that it's a
wonderful coincidence that I saw this posting. Just yesterday, I
finished re-reading John Kennedy Toole's novel "A Confederacy of Dunces".

I can just picture Ignatius J. Reilly bellowing the words, "Your 
flamage is obviously informed by a residue of biterness given the
unkind treatment according your senior thesis." Or his opposite
number, Myrna Minkoff, sneering "the only decent literary criticism
around is feminist literary criticism." My only complaint is that
no one got called a "Mongoloid". 

I apologize if this similarity has been pointed out before. Like I
said, I don't read this group very often...

But am I right???

-- 

===========================================================
Charles Don Hall, Licensed Philosopher  (chall@eco.twg.com)
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