Hi Karen and others

Do you ever feel that we have reached a point where "theory" has got in the way of reading? I suspect that if took Derrida seriously I would never read a book again!

Also, what I find disappointing about so much "theory" is that one learns so little about literature and art themselves (a feeling I often have about aesthetics as well, incidentally). Somehow "theory" seems to have detached itself from its object - at least where that object is literature and art - and taken on a strange life of its own.

I even find myself wondering at times if certain "theorists" (and writers in aesthetics) are genuinely interested in art or if it just serves as a kind of useful philosophical pretext...

DA