why I love the internet
Last week I sent a thank-you note -- or, if you will, a geek mash note -- to the guy who wrote Narrative as Rhetoric, the book that jump-started my dissertation breakthrough a couple of weeks ago. Today I got a delightful long e-mail in return, in which he said, among other things, that my dissertation sounds fascinating. Excuse me while I hyperventilate with glee...
Okay, I'm back. Seriously, it's a very kind and generous e-mail. Also funny, in a distinctly lit-geek way. One of the things I'd mentioned in my note was, and I quote, "I actually said the word "homodiegetic" in conversation a few days ago. I'm not sure whether this is a good sign (confirmation that I'm meant to be a geek by profession as well as temperament!) or a really, really bad one (I'm no longer fit for normal human society)."
He responded by sending me an excerpt from his recently completed (as-yet-unpublished) manuscript:Given past taxonomies of narration, l would like to explain why I use the term "character narration" rather than the more common "first-person narration" or narratology's more specialized "homodiegetic narration." "First-person narration" is, as Genette points out, insufficiently precise. But narratology's adoption of Genette's more precise terms have not caught on beyond the field; the terms have simply proven to be infelicitous coinages for most other contemporary critics in the United States. Indeed, experience has taught me that these terms have the unfortunate effect of making the eyes of non-narratologists glaze over-or, if used in combination with other narratological neologisms ("there's a paralipsis in the proleptic homodiegesis"), making some think they should call 911.
This is the point at which I have to confess that I actually know what "there's a paralipsis in the proleptic homodiegesis" means. And will explain, but only if you ask.
I'm still in awe that the possibility exists that someday I will actually be paid to talk with people about this stuff. My god, could there be anything cooler?
I'm even more in awe that my dissertation, though still not magically writing itself, is becoming genuinely absorbing (rather than hypothetically interesting). I spent all day finishing up Peter Rabinowitz's Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation. Fascinating stuff. I'm not kidding. I think I need to write another thank-you note. Phelan and Rabinowitz have actually co-edited a collection, so it's not surprising that, having felt such an affinity with the work of one, I'm enjoying the other's as well. I'm now seriously considering asking them if they'd be willing to co-propose a narrative theory panel with me at MLA or some such highfalutin' conference in the next couple of years.
The fact that I'm thinking about a conference with excitement rather than pained dread is either a sign that I'm ready to get this goddamn Ph.D., or, quite possibly, a sign that the Last Days are upon us. Plan accordingly.