Doug Henwood wrote:
>>They were right about my changing my view on Ludic Feminism, gotta
hand 'em that. I liked it when I first read it, but the more I read the writers
that Ebert attacks, the more it seemed like a fairly crude polemic - a more
respectable version of the pure Orange mania.<<
I haven't changed my view of Eber that much, though I grant that much of it approaches being " a more respectable version of the pure Orange mania." I'll have to reread her some, but I tend to believe that her construals of the writers she attacks, though sometimes strained (and appears especially so after reading the Orange folks) is still pretty accurate.
I've been trying to read, really read, *Bodies that Matter*; I've gotten to page 12 so far and have filled over 2 legal pads with notes on those 15 pages (3 page Preface). Most of those notes end up (NOT begin) with the conclusion that, as she uses it, "construction" is not only not a historical
category but is a fundamental attack on all historical modes of thought, Marxist or non-Marxist.
What makes Ebert a "respectable version" of Orange is precisely this greater accuracy of paraphrase. Morton and her husband, like the Buffaloes, simply cannot paraphrase accurately -- they *begin* with an attack, then look around for a paraphrase to hang it on. Are you sure that you are not letting the saw about Birds of a Feather over influence your reading of Ebert. Martha Gimenez, who is no friend of hysteria, likes the book.
I will, as I say, have to reread Ebert to confirm or disconfirm this memory.
Carrol