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Further complaining: word choice
Really, it is solidly downhill at this point. Foster is quoting Faulkner in Absalom, Absalom!
"... Miss Coldfield in the eternal black which she had worn for forty-three years now, whether for sister, father, or nothusband none knew ..."
Here's Foster: "Who is a "nothusband"?" Okay, Foster. That's what my not-brother-in-law is to my sister. He's been known to call her his not-wife. I have referred to him, when telling stories about what-happened-on-vacation, as my sister's not-husband. In _Miss_ Coldfield, dressed in black, she mourned a bunch of dead people and never really stopped, including at least one man she loved but didn't marry before he died.
Think that's a fluke? Alas.
"Think about the "biding", "dreamy," "victorious" dust. How is dust ever victorious or biding, to say nothing of dreamy? The answer is, it never was."
Okay, I have NEVER read Faulkner (well, maybe a page or two), certainly not Absalom, Absalom! I don't intend to, ever. But "biding" dust is obviously dust waiting for the perfect moment to humiliate you by being visible to a critical eye, or induce a sneeze in the allergic person you want to feel at home, or make a mark on an outfit just as you are about to leave for an important event. _Biding_ dust makes perfect sense. Dust, by its very nature, _bides_, and we let it, because if we fight it by constantly seeking it and eliminating it, it will ultimately prove _victorious_: we can never, ever, ever be vigilant or diligent enough housekeepers to win out over dust, however temporarily.
As for dreamy, if you've never watched the motes in sunshine, well, the fuck with you. You have no imagination whatsoever..
He gets another chapter and then he's out the door. It's actually a highly readable summary of the topic, but his specific opinions are so asinine that I now realize I was, perhaps, overly critical of English teachers in high school. I think they might all be like this. (<-- Okay, THAT was a joke. I'm complaining about his overgeneralizations about where meaning is and isn't and how it is constructed and I just did it, too. See? Not just me being like him. I Mock.)
"... Miss Coldfield in the eternal black which she had worn for forty-three years now, whether for sister, father, or nothusband none knew ..."
Here's Foster: "Who is a "nothusband"?" Okay, Foster. That's what my not-brother-in-law is to my sister. He's been known to call her his not-wife. I have referred to him, when telling stories about what-happened-on-vacation, as my sister's not-husband. In _Miss_ Coldfield, dressed in black, she mourned a bunch of dead people and never really stopped, including at least one man she loved but didn't marry before he died.
Think that's a fluke? Alas.
"Think about the "biding", "dreamy," "victorious" dust. How is dust ever victorious or biding, to say nothing of dreamy? The answer is, it never was."
Okay, I have NEVER read Faulkner (well, maybe a page or two), certainly not Absalom, Absalom! I don't intend to, ever. But "biding" dust is obviously dust waiting for the perfect moment to humiliate you by being visible to a critical eye, or induce a sneeze in the allergic person you want to feel at home, or make a mark on an outfit just as you are about to leave for an important event. _Biding_ dust makes perfect sense. Dust, by its very nature, _bides_, and we let it, because if we fight it by constantly seeking it and eliminating it, it will ultimately prove _victorious_: we can never, ever, ever be vigilant or diligent enough housekeepers to win out over dust, however temporarily.
As for dreamy, if you've never watched the motes in sunshine, well, the fuck with you. You have no imagination whatsoever..
He gets another chapter and then he's out the door. It's actually a highly readable summary of the topic, but his specific opinions are so asinine that I now realize I was, perhaps, overly critical of English teachers in high school. I think they might all be like this. (<-- Okay, THAT was a joke. I'm complaining about his overgeneralizations about where meaning is and isn't and how it is constructed and I just did it, too. See? Not just me being like him. I Mock.)