I've figured out that the kind of literary theory I like is formalist theory, and that formalist literary theory has been dead (in the academy, anyway) for about fifty years. I guess it does feel rather limited to want to talk about a literary text exclusively in terms of things like its structure, plot, characters, register, meter, allusions and so on; but then it also seems extremely stupid to want to talk about a literary text without giving primacy to these things. Before I apply to grad schools, I'll have to find out how non-formalist, so-called "critical" literary theory deals with the actual, you know, text.

I was just pricing a trip into Baltimore, seeing how much it would be if I drove the whole way versus if I drove to the Cromwell light rail station and took the train the rest of the way.

Mileage driving into Baltimore: 30.7, so round trip: 61.4. I get an average of 31 miles to the gallon, miles divided by mileage = 1.9806451612903225806451612903226 . . . or so. Times $2.75 (price per gallon), estimated cost of trip is $5.44. Well, actually $5.4467741935483870967741935483871, but who's counting?

Okay. So, with the same calculation, driving to and form the light rail station is estimated to cost $3.2467741935483870967741935483871 . . . and the round trip on the train would be $3.20, so the total cost of the trip is . . . $6.4467741935483870967741935483871. Exactly one dollar more than if I drove! To the, like, .0000000000000000000000000000000001 degree of similarity! What is that, a billionth of a billionth of a billionth? I'm not doing the math, I have to go catch the train.

I have been thinking about stories lately, and I perhaps finally know what I would like to do in graduate school. The thought process came from two things: Anne's senior language class, and comic books.

First, the language class.

Anne recently described a class discussion of Baudelaire's "L'Invitation au voyage" in which the students wasted time trying to make the meter absolutely perfect according to the rules of poetry they'd been taught. They also assumed that the rhyme scheme had to be interpreted in order to afford some meaning. Next they tried to figure out which country the poem was about, and the tutor said that some critics read it as Holland. There are canals in Holland, just like in the poem! And someone pointed out that Holland was very successful in trade when the poem was written, which was perhaps referenced by the oriental splendors? And also, that first line ("Mon enfant, ma soeur") is clearly setting up an incest theme. Or his sister is Holland. Political incest! And ennui! And by the end of the class, these idiots thought they had cracked the poem's code, or maybe just walked away feeling awed at the prospect of doing so.

She said that her interpretation of the poem, if it needed one, is that it was words of comfort for someone who was upset, maybe his sister. But stress on "if it needed one."

On to comic books:

Grant Morrison is just now completing a multi-year story told through several different comic book series . The story references the past seventy years of Batman comics, and is also self-referencing. (For example, the last several issues are version of a story he told two years ago, but several elements are reversed.) He is using the story to comment on and use the concepts of time, myth, story-telling, heroes, symbolism . . . pretty much the whole shebang. The narration is sparse, the story is dense, and pretty much everything included in the pages of the comics is there for a reason. Many, many things are left to the reader to figure out. It's so complicated that there are several web pages devoted to providing annotation. Incidentally, the story is really damn good, one of the best comics have produced.

So here we have two types of storytelling. One is straightforward, but bad readers believe they have been presented with a puzzle that they are surely smart enough to figure out. The other is actually a puzzle, and it actually does require smart and attentive readers to figure out.

My thought about grad school: I would like to study interpretation, and its misapplications. I would probably want to put the most effort into its misapplications: why do so many people think that poetry and fiction are codes that they have to investigate? Why do they believe that there is some mystic truth behind the poem or story, like an Easter egg behind a sofa cushion? The poem or story is just the sofa cushion and can be thrown down once they have found the Easter egg. I would want to study this phenomenon, why it happens and what effect it has.

Of course, most post-graduate study of literature is this very sniffing out made-up truths, so I probably wouldn't get any support if I tried to do this. Perhaps I'd have to come up with something more subtle.