Re: le style, c'est l'homme

Pretty interesting that John answered the question about onomatopeia
that I couldn't...I did think of the thing about animal sounds, but
didn't think that by itself would have been an adequate response.
Thanks for the fuller answer.

About two years ago, when I was working in the Financial Aid dept. of my
college, a theo student (who I had two courses with -- philosophy) came
in to take care of some FA business. While he was waiting he confided
in me that, as far as he was concerned, academics across the boards
couldn't write. His background was journalism; he had no academic
background until he started pursuing his theo degree.

I told him that you have to define good writing by what the writer is
attempting to communicate. If he/she is trying to describe the loose
seams and tears in language itself, or even just complex relationships
between abstract ideas, that writing will look very different than
writing that's trying to evoke visual images and associate specific
emotions with them.

In othe words, writing as a journalist, in journalistic style, I would
be unable to fully communicate Husserl's, Heidegger's, or Derrida's
thought. I think I could be a bit more clear, but only up to a point.
I would also lack their depth and complexity, and in the case of Derrida
I would lack the dimension of demonstrating my theory while describing
it.

There are easier to read but equally brilliant academics like Kenneth
Burke -- but even in his case, his thought just gets hard sometimes.
Not because of his writing, but because of the complexity of his ideas.

A further question no one has asked:

If you haven't read Derrida in French, or the German Idealists in
Germans, can you really say you've read **Them** -- you're really not
reading Derrida if you read him in English, you know. You're reading
Gayatri Spivak or one of his other translators.

Spivak has a nice long introduction to _Of Grammatology_ that's all
about the complexity of translation, and of the idea of translation.

Jim

Good writing, to me, isn't defined by

Scottie Bowman wrote:

> Definition of writing well? I can't think of a better.
>
> '... This silent fusion of the pithless essentialities (?)
> of the evaporated life ...'`etc, etc.
>
> Is this - truly - your idea of 'good writing'?
>
> Scottie B.
>
>
>
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Received on Sun Dec 15 09:35:41 2002