Aggressively beating a dying horse here

In response to Sander's visit--

I don't think there is a question about the creative value of Sander's work. Certainly he is gifted, well-liked, and extremely developed as a writer (as we can see by his concise note-taking/pre-planning on the trip discussed in class.) He writes admirably and with clear purpose. His work is accessible and communicative-- a quality that has been critically applauded since the Modernists went out of style. I mostly read poetry anymore, but my favorite writers favor this approach as well. Lucille Clifton, for example. In short, Sander's is clearly skilled and no one needs me to affirm that-- his book sales and reputation do that well enough.

Now, that isn't to say I can't take issue with this literature that is accessible. I do, and lots of it. Concision of the word is a skill I believe only truly seasoned writers do well with. The imperative to simply communicate, using one's pen to "stamp" the thought in the brain onto paper legibly is not the same thing to me. Sander's said the subject of Virginia Woolf, the Modernists, and the Post-Modernists is language. (Sander's, he said, was family and the environment.) I disagree entirely. I value writers that use language to not only communicate but also exercise/demonstrate the content. Reading Woolf takes effort, certainly, but there is a way that working through a passage of Mrs. Dalloway unlaces our expectations, our belief that language can ever really bear the intentions and conflicts that dwell inside a speaker (given that the speaker is any way developed or complex.) Clarissa says that Richard Dalloway was the only real choice for her, but working through the content we know this isn't true. Our expectation of gender roles come unlaced, our expectations of desire and trauma and recovery, all unlaced and refilled. Writing "Clarissa married Richard because she felt she had to, but knew at some deeper level she loved Peter or Sally even more. This is a source of her daily and painful disorientation" in no way exercises confusion. It's a stamp that tells us gender roles, desire, and trauma are not what they seem-- but a stamp proves nothing.

To be critical in the most respectful way possible (and I entirely value Elizabeth's point that we have barely read Sanders' work-- I might compare his approach to family and complicated social issues to Harper Lee, and no one undervalues Harper Lee)--creating public sympathy and devotedness to the environment is a complex issue. Some of you may have read Slow Violence: Environmentalism of the Poor in classes before, which tackles this from a critical angle.
I think of it this way-- for the sake of functioning smoothly in daily life, I keep all my ideological attitudes in neat folders. I sympathise enough with the environment to be bothered by oil spills, deforestation, and the like, and I make the minimal effort of recycling, buying organic products if reasonably priced, and buying/selling thrift more often than not. The environment comes after issues ("folders" in this tacky allegory) that concern class warfare and gender inequality for me-- bad environmental news is not going to stick a stake into my day (like bad news of the class and gender would and do almost weekly, to which I have had to adapt to curb my aggression.) I don't care enough about the environment, I know it, and feel its fine even though it's not.

To care more takes unlacing, it takes disorder, it takes making one feel uncomfortable with one's tidiness. Does a book that delivers a tidy message in tidy language do this? No, not in my opinion, I file it in the environment folder in the back of my brain where I forget about it later.