Someday I'm going to understand what that book is about. Very difficult. And not in the way someone like Derrida (or even Heidegger) is difficult. There is no tortured or overly convoluted language. The ideas just seem so big; I don't even understand what the problem is, so making much of the book is difficult. Still, I sense there is something in there, so I keep trying (or maybe it's just that I trust you, so I keep trying.)
I went through what might be a similar thing with something called "object oriented programming" which is a programming style much in vogue right now. I would read about it, and everything was basically clear to me (or at least, there wasn't any specific thing I didn't understand) but I still didn't get it. "Why would you do it that way?" I used to think. At the same time I was working on a project that was growing bigger and bigger (and more and more out of control) and I started to develop some theories about how I could maintain some control. Eventually I realized that the problems I was having were exactly the problems that OOP is trying to solve. And as soon as I saw the problem clearly, everything made sense. I didn't learn one single new fact about OOP, but the whole picture just clicked once the initial problem was grasped.
I think I have the same thing with that book. Seems like she groks some fundamental problem (inadequacy?) with the way we think about language, and that problem is so clear to her that it probably doesn't even need to be stated. I'm not there yet though, so I can't make much of her writing.
Not sure why I'm writing all this. Maybe I'm looking for clues. What's the problem here? Of course I want to understand the "most important book ever written" ;-)
Between the hundred climbs I've taken up the vine & the birth of my son something happened to the way I perceive words & worlds. The gist seems to be,& PK Dick & William Blake would agree here, telling a lie
is murder to a mind & all our modern minds are half dead with
the lies we are forced to swallow & utter daily. The Cheyenne have no names for gods, they have these amazing old compound nouns that mean things like the beautiful mystery that powers all life. For a basically honest person like you, Jim, Rational Meaning gets little traction but for the habitues of the precincts of poetry it is a great antidote. I feel like it saved me from having to write
the poem that was going to explain
so called nonverbal reality which was leading me into madness,albeit
mighty cool, but madness nonetheless. I'll be hashing this one out so much that all y'all'll read the book & shut me up with statements like:Duh?! Frank.
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I went through what might be a similar thing with something called "object oriented programming" which is a programming style much in vogue right now. I would read about it, and everything was basically clear to me (or at least, there wasn't any specific thing I didn't understand) but I still didn't get it. "Why would you do it that way?" I used to think. At the same time I was working on a project that was growing bigger and bigger (and more and more out of control) and I started to develop some theories about how I could maintain some control. Eventually I realized that the problems I was having were exactly the problems that OOP is trying to solve. And as soon as I saw the problem clearly, everything made sense. I didn't learn one single new fact about OOP, but the whole picture just clicked once the initial problem was grasped.
I think I have the same thing with that book. Seems like she groks some fundamental problem (inadequacy?) with the way we think about language, and that problem is so clear to her that it probably doesn't even need to be stated. I'm not there yet though, so I can't make much of her writing.
Not sure why I'm writing all this. Maybe I'm looking for clues. What's the problem here? Of course I want to understand the "most important book ever written" ;-)
- jim 4-13-2001 12:28 am
Between the hundred climbs I've taken up the vine & the birth of my son something happened to the way I perceive words & worlds. The gist seems to be,& PK Dick & William Blake would agree here, telling a lie is murder to a mind & all our modern minds are half dead with the lies we are forced to swallow & utter daily. The Cheyenne have no names for gods, they have these amazing old compound nouns that mean things like the beautiful mystery that powers all life. For a basically honest person like you, Jim, Rational Meaning gets little traction but for the habitues of the precincts of poetry it is a great antidote. I feel like it saved me from having to write the poem that was going to explain so called nonverbal reality which was leading me into madness,albeit mighty cool, but madness nonetheless. I'll be hashing this one out so much that all y'all'll read the book & shut me up with statements like:Duh?! Frank.
- frank 4-13-2001 7:10 am [add a comment]