Law in Contemporary Society

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AttentivenessOrDistraction 6 - 24 Mar 2009 - Main.MolissaFarber
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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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 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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I suppose it makes sense to look at the long bits of dialogue as a literary mechanism, but that seems like an oversimplification. If those "attentive" observances were meant to be inner thoughts, Joseph could have written it that way.

As far as Keith's question on why Joseph uses conversation instead of thought, I found a clue when searching for the book on Amazon. The subtitle of the book is "What Lawyers Talk About When They Talk About Law," suggesting that the book is primarily an examination of the actual talk of lawyers about the law. Perhaps the talk is more important than the thoughts? If law is the art of making things change in society using words, our focus should correctly be on the verbalized aspects of conversation.

-- MolissaFarber - 24 Mar 2009

 
 
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Revision 6r6 - 24 Mar 2009 - 06:23:39 - MolissaFarber
Revision 5r5 - 24 Mar 2009 - 01:31:23 - KeithEdelman
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