Date: 14 May 96 08:17:02 EDT
Subject: MB: Re> Kenneth on passivity


Kenneth,
You've risen quite a bundle of questions.  I will answer quite simply. Ohters
can add or disagree with me later.

My first response was that your questions seem to lead to SL more than WD.  You
ask how passivity is a part of reading and writing; this can be found in SL,
particularly in the sections toward the end when B is discussing reading and
comunication.  I would almost say that the *kind* of passivity that you are
refering to from WD doesn't exist in reader or writer.  We have to be careful
here-- because B does clearly state that the reader 'lets the book be what it
is'.  In this sense, one could make the argument that the reader is passive.
But, this argument would be based on the debate  between active interpretation
of text versus  static passive text, and I don't think that B has such a
dichotomy of passive and active in mind here.  (This also edges toward your
question about interpretation.) 
I am working on SL now , and I stress that what the writer does is neither
active or passive, but both and neither.  THis stems from the idea that the what
the writer does is both vitally important and totally worthless. We can discuss
this more if you like....( and it can be found in B's article *literature and
the right to death*)
But what I think de Man is getting at is that the writer does not (cannot) close
the cycle of his error in returning to the work.  The writer is constantly
grasping at the work, but is left with only a book, and so returns to the work
failure after failure.  There is no Hegelian solution-- the writer 'wanders in a
desert with no destination'.  I can't answer your question about Batialle, but I
would say that we ought to think of Nietszche here: eternal recurrance rather
than dialectic solution. 
 
I will stop here-- I hate long messages on list serves, but your questions
require a dissertaion!
Anyway, I hope someone finds something to disagree with in here........

Tanya