Law in Contemporary Society

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AttentivenessOrDistraction 5 - 24 Mar 2009 - Main.KeithEdelman
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 I had trouble with Eben's discussion of Tharaud's attentiveness in Cerriere's Answer. My impression of Tharaud for the first half of the piece was that she seemed distracted by her observances, to the point where it almost felt like she was vomiting trivia or talking nervously. My sense was that he was keeping her companion at arm's length by avoiding engaging with him. I was surprised to hear this called "attentiveness." While I agree that we should cultivate the characteristic of attentiveness in ourselves, I didn't think Tharaud necessarily demonstrated that.

Could someone shed some light on this?

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 Perhaps the fact that it was spoken, rather than merely internalized, breaks up the dialogue and makes it feel as if she is keeping her guest "at arm's length". But that is necessary for the story to operate the way it does, right? In a real scenario she probably wouldn't seem as artificially distracted because all of that would be seamlessly integrated in her mind.

-- MichaelDignan - 13 Mar 2009

Added:
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>		I too thought that Tharaud (and Robinson) appeared more distracted than attentive. But as Michael points out, we wouldn't react the same if her ideas were simply internal thoughts.

The structure of the Lawyerland stories helps explain why dialogue is used. In the two we have read, the author has a conversation with lawyer. If Tharaud or Robinson simply thought all of these ideas, the dialogue would likely be unneccesary and perhaps even detract from the goal of the story.

For me, then, the question is why does Joseph use this conversation structure as opposed to internal thought-examination? Perhaps the conversation allows the reader to feel like a real participant in the character's life rather than a mystical mind-reader?

-- KeithEdelman - 24 Mar 2009

 
 
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Revision 5r5 - 24 Mar 2009 - 01:31:23 - KeithEdelman
Revision 4r4 - 20 Mar 2009 - 15:50:09 - JosephAvery
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