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in class today prof. dalke reminded me that the "fail better" quote is by beckett. this is really interesting and points out a huge problem in smith's essay. what smith conveniently doesn't tell is us that beckett is known for having said, "qu'importe qui parle" or "it doesn't matter who is speaking" which means that he is in direct opposition to the ideology smith puts forth in her essay! if smith were a foucauldian, this wouldn't matter, because she could use beckett's words however she wanted. however, as we know this essay very well by now, smith thinks she knows beckett's personality from having read him; she thinks she's getting at his "essence" by quoting him. to look at this from the point of view of foucault's studies on power, she is manipulating his words to assert control, authority. as i have argued in my "recent blog post" on the smith essay, smith takes a rather didactic tone to reestablish the author as controller of the meaning of the text.

clearly we have seen that smith is wrong. she is, to quote modern french scholars at the academie, "failing worse."

--la marquise de merteuil