"The smokescreen worked, and
works, like a charm." Is this mixed
metaphor intentional?
This is not intended as a defense
of Paul de Man. De Man had no claim
to be a serious philosopher, notwith–
standing the irri tating idolatries of his
former students.
In
many places, his
work deserves
to
be logically disman–
tled, or historically revised. But
Teichman's brief indictment does nei–
ther, instead substituting basic
misrepresentation for calm analysis.
She compounds her faulty reasoning
with grammatical blunders typical of
an undergraduate composi tion, not a
Partisan Review
article. Thomas Nagel
deserves better.
Mark Bauer/eirl
Emory University, Department of English
Jenny Teichman replies:
I am puzzled by Mr. Bauerlein's letter.
Its tone is one of personal hostility,
yet I do not recognize Bauerlein's
name and as far as I know I have never
met him, not even briefly. Perhaps I
am not the real object of his hostility
but only a surrogate.
Just as puzzling is the fact that
although he has nothing whatsoever to
say about my exposition of Professor
Nagel's book, he ends his letter with
the words "Nagel deserves better."
After making some rather strange
remarks
about grammar, Mr.
Bauerlein concentrates on one single
paragraph of my review, the paragraph
which mentions Roger Kimball and
Paul de Man.
To begin with, my critic insists
that I have conmlitted a grammatical
"gaff."
He says I use the pronouns
it
and
their
to refer to the "wrong" referents.
However, he gives no reasons and cites
no authori ties. He seems to be relying
on the mistaken idea that a pronoun
may only refer to the main subject of
the sentence in which it occurs. One
can quickly show that the imagined
restriction is simply a mistake, either by
giving counter-examples, i.e., examples
of correct English usage which don't
conform to Mr. Bauerlein's idea, or by
checking with an authority like
Fowler's
EI~glish
Usage.
The following sentences are
examples of correct English:
"Desdemona loved Othello even
though
he
was old and ugly" [pronoun
refers to direct object, not to subject].
"Othello wrongly believed that
Desdemona loved Cassio though
111
fact
she
despised Cassio" [subject of
embedded subject].
"Othello believed that Desde–
mona loved Cassio although in fact
they
had never met" [subject plus
object of embedded sentence].
I do not have time or space to
expound
Fowler's English Usage
on this
point but it is clear that Mr.
Bauerlein's ideas would not be accept–
ed by that authority. Interested readers
can check
Fowler
for themselves, of
course.
Mr. Bauerlein's ideas about pro–
nouns are certainly mistaken and
to
make matters worse he goes on to
confuse
pronouns
wi th
exemplification.
Thus he complains about the phrase
"the teaching of philosophers, for
example Protagoras, Nietzsche..." for
much the sanle reason why he com–
plains about my use of pronouns; he
thinks that in giving examples I should
not have mentioned philosophers
