Thursday, October 28, 2010

EMBARASSMENT OF RICHES

Darn it all.

Not only do I still have to pursue several more points in my "superhero idiom" series, only to have it interrupted by the challenge (such as it is) of responding to an online essayist who almost certainly won't answer my points. Now I've had an interesting breakthrough in terms of reconfiguring my concept of metaphenomenality, and I'd like to start on that too.

However, that's got to wait until I get hold of Tzvetan Todorov's 1975 book THE FANTASTIC: A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO A LITERARY GENRE. I remember reading it, or part of it, back in college, but had major problems with its rationale, as did SF author Stanislaw Lem, who tears the book apart in this essay.

Nevertheless, I think some of Todorov's concepts could be revised for a Fryean scheme of "the fantastic," which would be a nice irony since Todorov himself attempted to tear apart ANATOMY OF CRITICISM in his book.

If I do get the book in the near future I may put off some of my continuing idiomatic analyses for a while.

4 comments: