Re: Very little goes well (was: Re: OK, etc.)

From: James L Piat (piat@JUNO.COM)
Date: Tue Aug 21 2001 - 00:27:18 EDT


On Mon, 20 Aug 2001 20:43:22 EDT Nikki Barranger <Nikkibar@AOL.COM>
writes:
> He was speaking as a writer. To readers. Isn't taht good enough?
>
> Nikki

Dear Nikki,

Well yes, sure --good enough in the sense of who in hell am I to judge
what is good enough. But I'm not rying to judge that any more. I did
that in anger. I'm glad you called me on that. In retrospect I realize I
was wrong. Maybe I'm still wrong and don't realize it. Seems to me
asking what point of view Percy was writing from is a fair and useful
question. Likewise to ask who he was writing to. I think that Percy
himself may have felt he was writing from a Catholic point of view. I
recall that Flannery O'Connor explicited stated that she was. But I
don't really know what Percy might have said and I'm not sure what FOC
meant by what she said. I find them both very subtle. But perhaps I've
lost (at least temporily) the right to ask those questions because my own
motives are understanably still suspect. Fair enough --I can't ask Percy
to "explain himself" and reveal his purposes without expecting to called
on the same grounds. I realize nobody likes to have to explain
themselves and writers (who paradoxically as a group seem most engrossed
in getting others to listen to their explanations) often seem most
reluctant to explain where they personally are coming from. Maybe they
feel it weakens the spell they are trying to cast. Perhaps they are
writing to enchant themselves and don't want the spell broken for that
reason. But I don't think it works that way for many readers. Readers
are not always willing to take a writer's work at face value. Again,
paradoxically, I think this is most often true of readers who in some
ways are most enchanted by a writer. When I become really interested in
understanding a writer's work I find myself becoming more and more
interested in trying to understand the writer himself --the context
and motives from which he or she is speaking. Isn't this part of what we
are about here on the Percy list? Nikki I don't think I would have hung
around here so long if my motive were soley to take pot shots at Percy.
Not that I haven't taken a number of them as you and I both know. But
off list I'm mostly telling folks (as best I can) what a great writer I
think he is. I say this not because I think it's of any particular
importance to anyone (but a few of my close friends) what I think of
Percy or anything else, but merely to let you know where I'm coming from
in terms of my participation here and my admiration for Percy and his
work -such as I know either. Plus these are concerns I have generally
in trying to understand writers and I'm curious what other readers think
of these issues.

Cheeers,
Jim Piat



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Jun 22 2002 - 20:15:01 EDT