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Have been thinking about this all morning. I partly agree, but I also wonder whether repulsion is sometimes correct: we often recognize bad writing because it's ugly. Is it also consistently true? Did original audiences find Ovid or Keats, say, ugly? Is beauty always "minor"?
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From Adam Kirsch's 2008 Slate review of Roberto Bolano's 2666:
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I have been thinking about it for quite a while. I agree with Proust's quote, but I think the use of the words "ugly" and "beautiful" isn't exactly right, but I can't come up with better one word descriptors!
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Same. I'm trying to figure out what I mean by beauty here myself. I know what I *like* and so I call it beautiful, but that might not actually be what I'm responding to.
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Also interesting that for "ugly" you considered "repellant" and Acker's work. I think the words are loaded but we don't have agreed-upon definitions. It's as if I know what Proust is talking about, but it's not the right words. I need an essay, not a tweet, let alone a word.
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I chose "repellant" because it can suggest ugliness but it mostly focuses on readerly rejection. Also, it suggests the text WANTS to work that way, as repellants are designed to deny some kind of attraction/identification. But this needs to be a book, not a thread.
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