meaning schmeaning

Birkerts doesn’t like Ashbery’s poems. He says they’re nihilist.

He says “I can only report on the defensive reflexes that their insistent refusal of meaning triggers in me.” (SB, p235)

And, linking JA with the deconstructionists: “Deconstruction itself offers no signposts for this evolution, only a method for taking things apart. In this, deconstructionists are like members of a terrorist sect.” (SB, p236)

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’m like the idea of taking things apart. Taking things apart is its own reward. It’s one way (the only way?) to see how things work. And sometimes you break things in the process. There can be a lot of damage.

Therefore, am I sympathetic to terrorists? No, I would say instead that I accept terrorism as real, as part of this picture. The system is a whole system. The hidden violence in our human structures holds hands with terrorism. Just like selfconscious literature holds hands with deconstruction.

More commentary on JA: “The whole is a slap–and to my mind a not too friendly slap–at the reader. Nor is there any point in invoking the surrealist example. This has nothing to do with surrealism. The latter is based upon the transcription of spontaneously recovered, alogical unconscious materials’ this is a calibrated verbal contraption.” (SB, p240)

And it’s not a “dream” either. But don’t they all lead to the same place?

It’s valuable to take things apart. Especially rigid mental systems (where the critic lives).

Take a long soak in lack of meaning and see what things look like when you come back. Don’t worry, these systems are not fragile.

I have more to say, but not today.

Sven Birkerts, The Electric Life