A Farewell to Foster

EL266

So, I went a bit past the envoi, and read the reading list too. I was suprised that I've read a higher percentage of the literary works than the movies. (Foster actually calls that list "Movies to Read"). While this is very much not a "big dusty book of literary meanings" it certainly leaves on with all the tools necessary to write one. Though it would take at least a thousand life-times, and could only ever actually be accomplished if all current and future writers are willing to go on a several century strike. Then again, it would be a pointless work as if it was given absolute authority it would make studying literature boring (having to go to big dusty CRC's all the time to look up info is part of the reason I'm not a Chem major anymore), if it lacked the sort of universal authority tha, for example a CRC has, it would really just be a big collection of literary articles, which would be unremarkable, as thats essentially what the MLA database is.

My point here is that as essays are literary laboratories, written, peer-reviewed and published ones are lab reports. As our knowledge of carbon's properties are based on the collective experiments of many generations, so is our knowledge of Huckleberry Finn. The only difference is that there is no end point. While the properties of carbon were eventually established, with the subjective study of lit, there is no point when everyone reads an essay and says, "oh, this guy's research adds up....it definitely proves X."