A direct-mail man was once asked how he could live with himself, sending out all that junk. There is no junk mail, he said. There are junk people. He meant it as a defense and it isn't one, but buried in the ugliness is the only useful theory of slop I know, and it starts … Continue reading There Is No Junk Mail
Tag: literary criticism
The Bartleby Triptych: On Vampires, Critics, and Hunger
These three essays orbit Melville’s "Bartleby, the Scrivener" from successive distances. The first attacks the narrator, the second attacks the attack, the third removes the hope of a clean vantage point. Each piece eats the previous one. Together they ask whether any act of understanding can avoid being an act of consumption. Part I: The … Continue reading The Bartleby Triptych: On Vampires, Critics, and Hunger
cafebedouin.org 