Cultural Amnesia

The book is half and half: one half I do not understand; this should not be surprising; James does call himself somewhere a post-modernist, post-modernism being, I believe, a technique for writing vast texts without content, huge meals of processed cardboard; about the other half I do not understand why it was important enough to write down, let alone publish. His writing seems typical of most modern cultural essays: for all their erudition and intended wit, they are dull and irrelevant. Surely, this must be the creative direction from the publishers? (I believe one of my teachers had wanted me to write like that). In the introduction James says he hopes that the central idea running like a thread through the book will emerge out of it as one reads it; I know that it will not for me: I can’t keep my mind on it; as my eyes read, my mind wanders. Nothing seems to enter my mind, let alone to emerge.

I give up.

Why James spent 3 years (he says) writing it, I do not know.