Im considering taking the opportunity of double-blind peer review requests to write surreal little stories instead of commentaries. Such as... I read this paper as I read all papers sent to me, with a bottle of wine in the late hours, on nights when the winds gusts make this old house pronounce each and every gap and liability. Like the house, this paper is resilient, but a stiff storm (a more fearful a gale than I care to puff) might well make it creak and shift. This was the thought that struck me as I reached the end of the twelfth page, coincidentally the same moment I reached the bottom of my third glass of a cheapish malbec, and it wasnt long before I dozed. Dozed and dreamed. Dreamed I was walking with the author along the banks of a sluggish river in a hazy city. It was the sort of bank that slowly, almost imperceptibly, slopes, where there is a danger that a meditative soul might, lost to their reflections, find themselves ankle-deep in the slick mud at the turn of the tide. I feel the weight of centuries, compressed into a few short years, the author mourned how could I possibly attend to the all literature or come up with something delectably new? We live in an age of academic overproduction. Like were too many mice released into the same maze. I cant keep track of all the new journals in our field, let alone all the new writing... In the haze I could not tell if the author were male or female or otherwise, young or old or otherwise, covered in ivy or covered in salt. Nor, I supposed, could they see me, though I felt myself leading our perambulations slightly, the author a fraction of a step behind, more distracted than deferential. I think I must have grunted some affirmation, but it was a long while before I spoke. Speculation, speculation. We had paused, and now we moved, slowly, towards the waters edge. Ships with complex rigging and rotund captains in full brocade burrowed, mole-like, in and out of the mist. What cargo did they bear? Who waited for them at home? Where in this foggy, tired town did they raise the occult flags to announce whose ship had come in and whose had been lost at sea? There was something familiar about the damp smell of this place: stale cigarettes, spilled beer and the sour residue of long-gone industry. A miasma of fatigue hung like a penitent monks robes from the citys slouched shoulders. You would think you couldnt run here, though, even as I thought this, some ambitious athletic soul blew past on the trail, fitted out in expensive gear, all reflectors and miniature water bottles, disappearing back into the fog. The author looked after them, longingly. My gaze was fixed on the garbage scow that meandered by, with its entourage of keening gulls. Will you make me revise and resubmit? asked the author, trepidatious but with a hint of belligerence. Im only on page twelve... and frankly I lost the memory of the previous five or so to drink. But so far... But so far it seems decent... nothing objectionable. Who the hell was I to judge? There was another silence. Our feet were, as might have been predicted, stuck in the greasy muck at the waters edge. Damn it! the author cried, damn it! They were wearing expensive, delicate shoes, I noticed. But then, so was I.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 03:11:24 +0000
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