Nearly a year and a half after the fact, I think I finally understand it. A while back, I flew into an
absolute rage over an interpretive classroom discussion about Paul Auster's novel
City of Glass and how everyone was going on and on about post-modern this and post-modern that and how
the book was a post post-modern deconstruction of post-modernism. Then began the talk of the meta-text and the meta-narrator and, for all I care, the twice baked potato and the refried bean. For me, the entire thing hit a boiling point of ridiculousness that has irritated me to this day.
The main thing that absolutely grated me was the lack of creative thought going into the delineation of what is clearly one period of literary construction shifting into a new period of construction. Is the next period going to be meta-post-post-modernism? I feel like a huge part of what is confining the ability to meaningfully describe and analyze literary constructions is that the people who are doing it are being grown into a more and more strictly controlled framework of knowledge. Unfortunately as the tags used to describe the framework are simplified from exacting coordinates into smears of qualitative judgments they become strung together into descriptors for increasingly complex scenarios of literary construction and then you end up with a cloud of tags instead of analysis of an authors's work. And then, peering into the tag cloud and seeing that it is full of largely meaningless word associations in the context of describing what, in this case, Paul Auster's novel does, frustration takes root (at least it did for me).
But also, I think, even more than that, language is becoming more and more compartmentalized so that every single individual scrap of information is developing its own term. Its the opposite of 1984 and Newspeak. I guess as the body of discourse grows, it becomes inevitable that the words and terms and phrases needed to navigate it will grow in complexity and number, but when does that turn into picking tags out of a hat and saying: okay, that's that. That's what it is and it's no longer up for discussion.
That's necessary to an extent because otherwise the body of literary production would quickly out grow the ability to describe its functions, but I suppose my major concern back then was the arbitrary nature of the tagging. The descriptive term seemed to be affixed simply because it wasn't anything else entirely, so clearly it must be post. Which is okay in some respects, but once the thing that was like nothing else began to be emulated how can they also be post-*? They can't be post if they are happening now and in the same vein of the thing like no other thing before it, but like many things after it.
To the point though, I finally understand it. The tagging is not necessarily an effort to describe the thing it is affixed to, as it is an effort to DATE and LOCATE the thing and establish it's relative relationship to the other things surrounding and drawing from and contributing to it. And that's why calling something post-* meta-* and "whatever else describes a relationship of one thing to another"-* is important. The volume of things being produced and the ever increasing pace of new voices and shared information and production is why they are largely meaningless as explicit descriptors beyond the simplicity of "this came after that, but before the other thing." Their use and over use is more a symptom of growth and discussion than it is an indication of a lack of questioning contributors or thoughtful contributors more interested in the material being analyzed than sounding vague chic.
When you get into a group discussion about these things, over simplifications happen and thats when the relational tags begin to be characterized by their interpretive content instead of their connective tissue and you run into things like "that's what it is and that is that", where the things identity is really a matter of opinion and not a matter of course. With relational things it's a matter of perspective. Am I looking north or am I facing south, am I upwind or downwind or in another state altogether. When questions start to point to things like what does it smell and taste like, what does it do, what does it make, what is the sum of its pieces, relational orientations (and by extension the tag system) isn't much help, but is easily misappropriated and taken to task on issues and ideas it might've been meant to solve at its start, but issues and ideas it is hard pressed to positively impact now.
I hope I put my revelation into some meaningful sentences. At least now I know why I was so angry and disappointed almost a year ago. Sometimes it takes a while to see the value in what you would flush away as a token gesture. Sometimes there really is no value and it's a virtual artifact that's simply comfortable to the touch, but once in a while as you turn it over in your hand it becomes clear, at least to you, why it's still circulating from one hand to another.
So Paul Auster, I apologize. You're not a hack. You just filled the plate with more food than people could digest and some of them threw up. You're not around to clean it up, and you shouldn't have to. Governing an audiences reception and analysis of what you do is about as realistic as driving a car by standing on its roof rack and pointing your fingers. The best any of us can do is to let them drive where they may and, if it get's interesting, hold on for the ride.
///Talvin Singh - "
Light" Bubbly, but smooth, like a mimosa. Pleasant and unobtrusive and better than that track on Classical Thunder your mom sent you in the hopes that it would somehow feed your brain with genius. Turns out the jewel case made an okay mouse pad once it got good and scuffed from performing coaster duty. Put away the mail order meditation music. Pick up some Singh and enjoy your working, hopefully fizzed, lunch break.
