Subject: Re: Moviegoer and despair
From: Ken Armstrong (ab997@SEORF.OHIOU.EDU)
Date: Thu Nov 11 1999 - 18:03:13 EST
This is probably just a case of being cranky in Ohio, but a couple of
questions:
> Regarding the issue at hand, I would say that the worst form of despair is
> the kind that exists in the aesthetic stage. Those who live in that realm
> (or visit from time to time, as we all do) are aware of despair, I think,
> but remain uwilling or unable to probe it.
I don't understand the term "aesthetic despair" here. Someone who is in
despair (having no hope) would not enjoy the aesthetics of his or her
despair, but we who are reading a work of literature about someone in
despair rightfully should want to understand the aesthetics of the despair
presented. Right?
Binx has moved beyond that
> with his search, thus becoming able to recognize the despair that
> threatens him and those around him, even if he can't specifically name it.
> This realization, in turn, comes with its own sense of despair, but surely
> not as hopeless as the previous kind.
I've got to think that once it is not hopeless, it is not despair. Not
meaning to be picayune, so just let me know if you think this is off track.
The distinction can be illustrated
> effecitvely, I think, by considering the difference between the person in
> the audience of the _The Leeza Gibbons Show_, for instance, who takes
> it seriously and the person watching at home who wonders in awe at the
> magnitude of despair clearly evident but not acknowledged by Leeza, her
> guests, or members of the audience. The former is left to wallow in
> unnamed despair, while the latter is compelled to ponder its nature and
> origin thus gaining at least a greater degree of authenticity.
I don't know Leeza Gibbons, but if I'm following, you're saying that
Binx becomes like the TV viewer who now sees despair but is not himself
despairing. And then there're us lucky novel readers at the full distance
to take it in without experiencing it really or proximately, but
aesthetically...?
Back to lurking in the hills of SEO,
Ken Armstrong
P.S. Don't take that picayune stuff too seriously, 's probably just the
times.
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