Textual Snowflakes

I decide a book is bad if I get angrier and angrier as I read it. That happens rarely. But if I discover an author cheating, by taking shortcuts, not doing the necessary homework however long it might take, relying on second-hand knowledge, overlooking the other sides of the issue, or experience, then I am ready to explode, and so I know it is a bad book. If I am served up a self-interested snow job these days, it is usually done in the name of a good cause, which makes it harder to criticize.

Wai Chee Dimock's Through Other Continents: American Literature across Deep Time (2006) is my choice. The book received honorable mentions in nationally prestigious contests, and leading Americanists have given it their endorsements. The gist of its argument, taken from its publisher's website, is, "Throughout, Dimock contends that American literature is answerable not to the nation-state, but to the human species as a whole, and that it looks dramatically different when removed from a strictly national or English-language context."

I applaud this goal, yet all of the texts drawn from global contexts "across deep time" are presented in English translations. Henry James's novels and The Epic of Gilgamesh, to give one comic example, get read together. I know—in this case, who cares? But this is true throughout. Knowing a text in its original language and cultural contexts is crucial. If such knowledge is removed, due to the scholar's inadequacies or the assumed reader's, the result is readings lacking resonance, depth, weight. Reading then is like looking at a child's shaken snow globe, with the texts-snowflakes gradually settling down to one common level. All are globally equal now but equally bland and banal.