ading through Eagleton, the reading in the Literary Theory: An Anthology book was such a straightforward pleasure to read. However, this respite was short-lived when the venture into the Bakhtin section of the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Thirty pages on "Discourse in the Novel" seems to be about twenty-five pages too long. The topic gets diminished by the generalities and meanderings of logic. Each sentence feels excruciatingly convoluted and biased. Bakhtin is not content with conducting a dissection of the language in prose, but he feels the need to repeatedly contrast the merits of a novel to the dubious distinction of privileging poetry. For some strange reason, I wanted to see a picture of the man who had stolen so many hours of my time while I laboriously attempted to assimilate the main principles of his theory. This is the first picture I could find, and I recognized the mirror image of myself reflected in his eyes and mouth. I realize that the expressionless eyes and downturned mouth could only have come from Bakhtin reading his own work. The words have the same effect on me, as I slip into comatose state each time I turn the page and realize that there are at least two more pages of text to decipher. I feel that I have drunk from the river Lethe; all traces of a former life have been washed away as I slip into a catatonic state brought on by the closing down of any synapses that can retain what Bakhtin has to offer.I do realize that this is not the formal tone that I had been searching for, but the realization that, while not writing a novel, Bakhtin is writing in prose makes my soul cry out for a piece of poetry. I beg for writing with a centripetal force guaranteed to suck me into a vortex of unity.
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