At 04:04 AM 10/21/99 -1000, Tim Romano wrote:
>Jonathan,
>I am trying to understand Pound's CONSCIOUS MOTIVES with respect to issues
>of race and culture. His ideology. So I place more weight on passages where
>Pound seems to be more careful and reflective than on passages where he
>seems to be blurting out one of the unthinking fears and prejudices that
>were no doubt growing like kudzu in his unconsious mind. By contrast, you
>seem to regard the letters and offhand remarks as the keys with which to
>unlock that mind in order to see what was really going on BENEATH its
>self-reflective surface.  The whole truth being better than the partial
>truth, both approaches are necessary.
>
>I think we must mean different things by "race" for I don't understand why
>you regard Leopold Bloom's reckoning up the tidy sum from the empty bottles,
>to which Lewis refers, as a racial, not a cultural, stereotype. And we also
>may differ in our definition of "racist".
 
Though I'm not sure how to think about the word "conscious," I'm entirely
in agreement with the point of Tim's first paragraph. As to his second
paragraph, I'll have to beg off. The words "race" and "racism" have come to
mean so many things that they're all but meaningless now, and I'm sorry I
used them. But yes: when you recall what (for instance) H.G. Wells wrote
about the black and yellow races having to give way before the advancing
whites, you may find yourself thinking the R-word as you read the eugenist
parable at the end of _The Time Machine_. And yes, too; eugenic thinking
influenced T.S. Eliot, as Juan Leon has shown, and I wouldn't be surprised
to learn that it influenced Pound as well.
 
As to Lewis's pigeonholing of Leopold Bloom, I'll concede Tim's point. But
I can imagine all too vividly how Poldy would have reacted (at least after
his strengthening breakfast in bed on the morning of June 17) when Wyndham
patted him on the head.
 
Jonathan Morse