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+---
+title: 'Indexing Bleg'
+date: '2006-02-16T14:33:00-05:00'
+permalink: /indexing-bleg/
+tags:
+    - publishing
+    - research
+---
+
+I need help with a bit of phrasing, index-wise. A bit of necessary background: at one point in the book, I discuss at length the various pronouncements of the death of the novel. These are indexed as:
+
+> death of the novel, pronouncements
+
+Where I discuss the *purposes* that such pronouncements serve (the key turn in my argument), I’ve indexed them as:
+
+> death of the novel, pronouncements, function of
+
+Various things that are blamed in such pronouncements for having killed off the novel are indexed as:
+
+> death of the novel, causes
+
+Now I need to index my discussion of John Barth’s claim, in “The Literature of Exhaustion,” that “Whether historically the novel expires or persists seems immaterial to me; if enough writers and critics *feel* apocalyptical about it, their feeling becomes a considerable cultural fact…” How would you characterize that? What’s coming to mind is
+
+> death of the novel, irrelevance of
+
+but that’s not exactly right. “Immateriality of” also totally misses the mark. What the discussion focuses on is the fact that, for Barth, at least, the *actual* death of the novel is less important than the *sense* that the novel has died; “irrelevance of” makes it sound like the imagined death wouldn’t matter, either. “Actual irrelevance of”? “Irrelevance of reality of”? “Imaginary importance of”? “Feeling as creator of”?
+
+Ack! Help, expression of the need for!
+