tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631240246638798.post6756950612092594921..comments2024-03-18T21:13:12.753-04:00Comments on Jacob Russell's Barking Dog: Who are we? What are we doing? And why? Sunday SalonJacob Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07090220157886320148noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631240246638798.post-78063393967292163512008-04-22T06:43:00.000-04:002008-04-22T06:43:00.000-04:00This is what my Nadine Gordimer research is about ...This is what my Nadine Gordimer research is about - how do literature and politics fuse, how she does that (extremely well, in my opinion), and why its important that the two spheres remain connected. <BR/>I like your comment about tending the garden, that's how I see it as well. We are a part of the process, whether we choose to recognize that involvement or not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631240246638798.post-31092848766307845382008-04-21T10:56:00.000-04:002008-04-21T10:56:00.000-04:00My feeling is that at the very least, politics und...My feeling is that at the very least, politics underlies what we read and why. It's not necessarily that we MUST ask political questions about a given text, but that we ought to consider what political realities put a given work into the canon in the first place: politics may be a reason we're reading what we're reading.Pacifist Vikinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16630996018868040440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631240246638798.post-66072879156295642882008-04-21T02:58:00.000-04:002008-04-21T02:58:00.000-04:00I have little interest in overtly political art, p...I have little interest in overtly political art, politically driven literature. Work that has aesthetic merit will <I>be</I> political in the best sense--like Homer or Blake, without having to narrow the goal to aim for it. I've been feeling a "concern," as the Quakers say, something deeply personal. I'm not sure how to get my thoughts around it. I suppose... more than suppose, that the source Jacob Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07090220157886320148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631240246638798.post-74147509309217780172008-04-21T02:42:00.000-04:002008-04-21T02:42:00.000-04:00Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I've left my ...Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I've left my response as new post.Jacob Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07090220157886320148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631240246638798.post-2284135218786209422008-04-20T22:42:00.000-04:002008-04-20T22:42:00.000-04:00I am not entirely truthful when I say that I prefe...I am not entirely truthful when I say that I prefer fiction that is not heavily political because my favourite (and I mean top ten here) writers and novels are political in significant ways -- Homer, William Blake, Ayi Kwei Armah. And I've discovered science fiction which, of course, loves to be political.<BR/><BR/>I suppose I don't intentionally focus on it a lot of the time because it's too Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com