Thursday, November 25, 2004
I am disgusted with myself. This lunchtime I sat in a café reading about post-structuralism. And I was wearing a polo neck, for fuck’s sake. Trying to differentiate myself from the flotsam and jetsam which clogged up King’s bar, I excused my behaviour on the grounds that it was knowing, and that I was executing a sophisticated parody of bourgeois pseudo-intellectuals: by being exactly the same, but with full awareness of the type. I even found myself thinking about play, word games and reflexivity and how they related to my behaviour. Thankfully a more sane part of me revolted and I stopped myself before – to use the well-worn and ignorant joke of the philistine anti-intellectual – I disappeared up my own simulacrum. I put my critical theory away and picked up Bleak House; as the winter nights draw in, my tastes drift to the Victorian novel.
As you can see from this post, the “author” is trying to claim any kudos available for his curiosity about different intellectual approaches whilst at the same time attempting to escape possible ridicule by maintaining a safe distance from them. Unfortunately his head cannot accommodate the “no nonsense man of the people” and “intellectual” hats together, perhaps surprising given its bloated size. Note too the faux-casual way he drops in that he is reading Bleak House; he is obviously inordinately proud of himself for being interested in an old book. Even then, he cannot say that he enjoys it, or that he is trying to stretch himself, but must use pastiche: as the winter nights draw in, my tastes drift to the Victorian novel. It is also instructive that in that last sentence he had to spell out that his tongue was in his cheek, so worried was he that he might be taken as pompous. Unfortunately he failed, and the words you are reading now are just making it worse and worse.
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As you can see from this post, the “author” is trying to claim any kudos available for his curiosity about different intellectual approaches whilst at the same time attempting to escape possible ridicule by maintaining a safe distance from them. Unfortunately his head cannot accommodate the “no nonsense man of the people” and “intellectual” hats together, perhaps surprising given its bloated size. Note too the faux-casual way he drops in that he is reading Bleak House; he is obviously inordinately proud of himself for being interested in an old book. Even then, he cannot say that he enjoys it, or that he is trying to stretch himself, but must use pastiche: as the winter nights draw in, my tastes drift to the Victorian novel. It is also instructive that in that last sentence he had to spell out that his tongue was in his cheek, so worried was he that he might be taken as pompous. Unfortunately he failed, and the words you are reading now are just making it worse and worse.
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