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Posted by:
Jack Graham
5 years ago
I very much enjoyed the
latest episode of the Pex Lives? Podcast, which looks at 'Paradise Towers'. During it, Kevin and James' guest Jane (of
achairforjane? and many fascinating comments - and an amazing
guest post on
Lost - at Phil Sandifer's
blog) suggests a Marxist reading of the story in which the Rezzies are the consumerist bourgeois who ascend a few levels via the system which later consumes them. Totally valid and satisfying reading. (And I'm grateful for the lovely shout-out, as always.)
I think, however, that it illuminates a certain interesting ambiguity about what constitutes a 'Marxist reading' or a 'Marxist analysis'. I know Jane and the Pex Lives boys already know this, so this isn't
in any way meant as a criticism of any of them, but I think a 'Marxist analysis' would really have to constitute more than finding some way in which aspects of the narrative function as an allegory of some aspect of the class struggle. I hold my hands up: that's often what I do here, and it doesn't really cut the mustard.
To do that is to bring Marxist categories to a text, but still to treat ...
