My Blog
Not bats in the belfry
Tue, December 11, 2007 - 8:58 PMSo reads a line in a story by Jean Kerr titled , ' How I Got to Be Perfect .'
Why does that line seem so cosmic in a minor key ?
It seems epigram-like , or like a field report of some sort .
And it seems a pithy disclosing of some wry secret from some book of days .
Annie Dillard found perhaps a similar quiet miracle when she read from some manual on tents and camping , how some people feel it is difficult to sleep in a white tent during a full moon .
Tue, December 11, 2007 - 8:58 PM -
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Thu, December 13, 2007 - 7:16 AM
Critical theory
Well Jason, to deconstruct this line using several modes of CT:
New Theory: Squirrels may refer to mental patients or squirrely people. Bell Tower probably means head. The crazy person is getting crazier. The crazy person has had more episodes? The title is satyrical. Reader-response: I see the tower as a reference to long ago times, when people looked to bells for time (no digitals , then). There are nests of squirrels up there because no bellman mantains the tower these days. And this year, there are even more squirrels. Postmodernism leaves the luddite construction in the past. Biographical: The author may have struggled with mental illness (I'm not familair with her, so I'm guessing). She may have come to terms with it and in fact, finds it helps in her work. She identifies with it in a brash way and in fact, her work is flourishing, symbolized by the birth of more squirrels. I'm betting on the last one ... |
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Fri, December 14, 2007 - 1:49 PM
inexplicably united
We are polar opposites in so many ways, Jay ...But somehow our understandings intersect in an awkward but kind of sweet way ...
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Wed, December 19, 2007 - 7:34 AM
keep feeling fascination
You are a fascinating lady, Palma .
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