Limitations

I've been reading Gerard Genette's Palimpsests for quite some time now, around a couple of months I think, and I'm finally in sight of the end with just some 40 pages left. I suppose it could be classified as essentially a work of that dreaded branch of human activity Literary Theory (dreaded by me, that is) so it's not exactly my cup of tea. I felt obliged to read it in a work-related context as we're sort of preparing for a new syllabus in my subject which will feature (we think, the details have not yet been published) some sort of focus on Intertextuality. One of my colleagues provided us some books on the subject and this is the one that came my way.

I don't think we really need to be reading all the theory on this since a fair amount of it is, as theory tends to be, impenetrable, but it's proven not quite as painful as I expected. Monsieur Genette has a sense of humour and though his obsessive classifying of various forms of literary influence (to put it in gentle terms) is more than a little over the top, I've generally enjoyed his enthusiastic and occasionally illuminating trawl through a wide range of texts. It's been particularly interesting to read a work which draws generally, though by no means exclusively, on the French literary tradition. In fact, I've been usefully reminded of just how narrow my scope is in terms of the literature I know reasonably well. Other than Flaubert & Proust I can't honestly say I've read in any sense widely in what is obviously an extraordinarily accomplished and rewarding field.

Must remember my own limitations when I complain to students about the narrowness of their exposure to good books.