Sam Moore
Fox is too proscriptive about language for his own good here; that his defence and deconstruction of "pretentiousness" begins with millennia-old etymology and Ancient Greek theatrical traditions while, not making the book impenetrable or anything, does seem to be an act of refusal to approach the word through its actual, contemporary usage. Ironically then, I really agree with his conclusions about why this term -- or a term like it! -- matters: why our artistic reach should exceed our grasp and we should always challenge ourselves and cultivate a curiosity about the world around us. I like the ideal of being culturally omnivorous -- or, as an old uni lecturer used to say, "intellectually promiscuous" -- as a good thing rather than just a byproduct of postmodernism collapsing high/low distinctions.
The postscript of his sort of creative and professional becoming, his relationship to his brothers and parents and how formative they were in generating an organic and curious love of everything from the Velvet Underground to Complicite is where this all really shines, shows why it all matters from that human perspective, that the point is discovery. That's what its for. Its for discovery.
Fox is too proscriptive about language for his own good here; that his defence and deconstruction of "pretentiousness" begins with millennia-old etymology and Ancient Greek theatrical traditions while, not making the book impenetrable or anything, does seem to be an act of refusal to approach the word through its actual, contemporary usage. Ironically then, I really agree with his conclusions about why this term -- or a term like it! -- matters: why our artistic reach should exceed our grasp and we should always challenge ourselves and cultivate a curiosity about the world around us. I like the ideal of being culturally omnivorous -- or, as an old uni lecturer used to say, "intellectually promiscuous" -- as a good thing rather than just a byproduct of postmodernism collapsing high/low distinctions.
The postscript of his sort of creative and professional becoming, his relationship to his brothers and parents and how formative they were in generating an organic and curious love of everything from the Velvet Underground to Complicite is where this all really shines, shows why it all matters from that human perspective, that the point is discovery. That's what its for. Its for discovery.