MICHAEL KRAMP

Not the easiest book I've read lately, being stuffed full of special literary-speak code and "let's use 10 words instead of 1" pretension, but it's unusual to read a serious analysis of Jane Austen's male characters, and this was a reasonably interesting and occasionally entertaining example. I have some new insight into Tilney, Darcy, Knightly, Wentworth, Willoughbey and Brandon, and even Edmund Bertram, hero of my least favorite Austen novel, and since I will no doubt read them all again (and again), it will be interesting to see if I can see the same things Michael Kramp sees.

Of course, the whole field of literary analysis is rather like writing and reading fan fiction in my eyes -- one forms a particular hypothesis and then combs the text for any tidbit that can be interpreted to back up this hypothesis, all the while asserting that the author probably maybe really DID intend it this way, that he/she was actually trying to portray this nifty idea, and that one's interpretation is certainly well supported.

This is especially true of ye olde Slash-fic -- what do the kids call it these days, shipping? Same thing, really, just a somewhat different result at the end.… (más)