# Crystal clear



## Earion (May 24, 2013)

The Incomprehensibility Prize, given to the author who best succeeds in separating word and meaning, is now offering a subsidiary award: the Incomprehensible Catalogue Prize. The first entries come from the Literarure & Culture section of a recent OUP (US) catalogue. Here, it is not the author of the book who carries off the trophy but the writer of the catalogue copy. _Fictions of Autonomy_ by Andrew Goldstone is a likely front-runner:

Disputing the prevailing skepticism about autonomy, Goldtone shows that the pursuit of relative independence within society is modernism’s distinctive way of relating to its contexts … Drawing on Bourdieu’s sociology, formalist reading, and historical contextualization, this book demonstrates the importance of autonomy to modernist themes as varied as domestic service, artistic aging, expat life, and non-referentiality.​

A second entrant from the same catalogue is _Structures of Appearing_, a study of allegory, by Brenda Machosky. The author

argues that allegory itself must appear allegorically and thus cannot be forced into a logos-centered metaphysical system. She … argues that the allegorical image is not a likeness to anything, not a subjective reflection, but an absolute otherness that becomes accessible by virtue of its unique structure.​

Before dashing out to buy either or both of these books, first cast your vote.

TLS, 17 Μαΐου 2013


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