And, in a way, it’s a ghost story. Tracing openings for duende. Is it there? In the possession of the twitching text, for instance? Or in the multiple otherlyness of the authoring, a ghost of collective authoring?

So although it is rather charmingly situated concerning critical writing and theory, it isn’t outside of that frame altogether by any means. In fact she talks about quite a bit of theory and critical writing in the essay. But it doesn’t dominate her essay, in any sense, and is used quite well, as ghost stories must, in ‘some say this’ and ‘others say that’ about or in relation to the mysterious ghost. No, not really, but you see what I mean.

At some level, I wonder how many critics work with an alibi… Reading, writing, feeling at a deep level, but always being sure to construct universalizing reasons we ought to find a work engaging. The more time I spend around my children, the more aware I have become of the capacity that people have to seek justification within accepted regimes of evaluation. Eventually, this regime of justification become internalized, operating as an intuition. The net effect for me has been a deep doubt in the culture of criticism. This essay comes to me like a breath of fresh air.