Thursday, November 9, 2006

Lost and the shortcomings of criticism

I wanted to point out a really great post on The Valve from a few days ago devoted to the need for -- and proposal of -- new terms to be used in criticism. The pomo high/low humor here is that the occasion for the post is the author's completion of Lost: Season Two on DVD.

In poster John Holbo's view -- hey, his blog's URL rips off Josh Glenn! -- "Lost is one of the great exercises in sustained infoclench in the history of World Literature." What is infoclench? "A large (often wieldy and digestible) amount of information that is not provided at any time, by some characters to the others, lest the background become too clear, or the narrative advance too sensibly." Holbo seems frustrated, here, judging by tone.

But of course, what he is observing is the very essence of the beauty and mass appeal of Lost, to wit: we don't know what in darnation is going on. This season, finally, we have met The Others, and they do not appear to be extraterrestrial or otherwise superfreaks. They have a weird little mini-society, apparently riven by internecine tensions, that is ruled by a deeply creepy guy with the deceptively gentle and prosaic name Ben. An astute friend points out part of his creepiness, besides the bug-eyes: he's always utterly still.

But the narrative withholding -- wow. It's something to behold. It's whodunit where what's being dun is also withheld from view.

Posted by Evan Hughes at 05:54 PM

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