Stanley Fish proves, again, he's an idiot

[PVnRT]

Sarah Palin is Coming to Town

It is the voice of small-town America, with its folk wisdom, regional pride, common sense, distrust of rhetoric (itself a rhetorical trope), love of country and instinctive (not doctrinal) piety. It says, here are some of the great things that have happened to me, but they are not what makes my life great and American. (“An American life is an extraordinary life.”) It says, don’t you agree with me that family, freedom and the beauties of nature are what sustains us? And it also says, vote for me next time. For it is the voice of a politician, of the little girl who thought she could fly, tried it, scraped her knees, dusted herself off and “kept walking.”

You can practically hear him masturbating as he writes this cheapjack pile of shit. You're SUCH an academic rebel, Stan! :sarcasm:

[QC]

1. Stanley's a maverick! n/t

[Robb]

2. This killed me, at the end:

...But run she does (and falls, but so what?), and when it is all over and she has lost the vice presidency and resigned the governorship, she goes on a long run and rehearses in her mind the eventful year she has chronicled. And as she runs, she achieves equilibrium and hope...

Especially in the context of this story:

Sarah Palin Quits Turkey Trot 5K Race In Kennewick, Washington

Sarah Palin dropped out of a 5k race on Thanksgiving Day in Kennewick, Wash. The former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Governor quit the race because she wanted to avoid the crowds that were waiting for her at the end, according to The Tri-Cities Herald...

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

3. He should stick to writing bad literary criticism. n/t

[BurtWorm]

4. What a fool!

:thumbsdown:

[Laelth]

5. I find Fish's little essay to be a good piece of literary criticism.

He says, basically, "I don't support her, and the book is full of lies, but what the book does show you (and what it's supposed to show you) is who she is."

And who she is is not necessarily pretty.

I fail to understand the objections posted here to Mr. Fish's work.

:dem:

-Laelth

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I object to this: "autobiographers cannot lie ..."

"... because anything they say will truthfully serve their project".

No, he's completely wrong there. They can lie, and they do lie. In fact, many people say an untruth only becomes a lie when it serves whoever tells it; and claiming that an autobiography can tell untruths, but not lie, because it's really about the writer's own vision of how they'd like to be seen, is idiotic.

People won't read this and expect to have to fact-check everything in it; they expect the writers to tell the truth.

Fish asks " Does Palin succeed in conveying to her readers the kind of person she is? " I highly doubt it, from the other comments on the book I've seen. She may succed is conveying how she'd like her readers to see her. But she's doing this to try to make herself look good.

And let's remember that the 'small-town America' values he thinks she shows in the book don't include quitting your public service job of governor just becuase you've got borde with it. He calls that 'falling down'; but in fact it was her deciding to stop racing, and make some cash off the spectators by signing autographs, to continue his running metaphor. And then hope she can be decalred the winner anyway.