I approached the task of writing on John Hejduk with enthusiasm. Not only did I feel an affinity for the work, but, having been a student of Hejduk's at The Cooper Union, I thought I would surely have the advantage of being an "initiate." But two things became readily apparent. The first was the phenomenon of a critical displacement. The initiation factor with Hejduk was too strong, not just for me, but, as I began to realize, for critics and writers in general. One's initiation was accomplished by having the good sense to supplement the poetics with more of the same; exclusion came when one became gauche enough to analyze the poetry. It is interesting and not surprising to see how few critics have opted for the second route. This second phenomenon, though related to the first, marked an impossibility — not merely for me, although I am clearly including myself — of disengaging the work from the man. How strange, but not fortuitous, that someone like Hejduk, who seems at all cost to have avoided the commodification of his persona, should so strongly insert his person into the critical discourse. The writings surrounding the work have inadvertently directed attention to the mystery of the author "himself" Ironically, the work — so clearly innovational — has demanded that the critic retreat to the most archaic of critical forms : concern for authorial intent. There is a way in which, by the very overdetermination of meaning in the work, Hejduk has guaranteed for his own work a poverty of critical discourse.

    In an attempt to understand the first phenomenon — the displacement of critical space — I shall focus on the second — the dominant presence of the author. The authorial presence might point to more deeply rooted concepts in the work. That is to say, Hejduk's own interjection into both the texts and the discourse about them might be understood not merely as an appendage to the work, but as an indication of the works' structural nature. In what follows, I shall examine the work in this light, as a form of "autobiography."

    In this autobiographical hail of mirrors, the heroes personify not only the author, but the narrator as well. Like the author — John Hejduk — these heroes are bulky and awkward; their hair is out of control. These personalities are closed and defensive; opaque and unforgiving; they prescribe and enact rituals; they read and write texts. Like the narrator, these heroes are tourists and shamans whose identities are not determined by the community they inhabit but are instead fixed by their own physical and spiritual itinerary; they are the "other" whose foreign character threatens the society. Beyond this double reference to the autobiographical creator, these heroes also more and more frequently refer to themselves. The explanation of their ability to multiply falls somewhere between the mythical gods (or the Virgin Mary) who produce offspring without sexual intercourse and the incestuous family that needs not look beyond its own clan for reproduction.

    The third structural condition of autobiography is the relationship of author to language. In this, the issue of Hejduk's work is clearly more complicated than in the literary situation, because the "language" here is made up of a number of visual mediums and a range of textual objects. While I want to acknowledge the pitfalls of applying strictly literary formulations to non-literary work, it seems worth pointing out that certain attitudes taken by an author to her / his "language" cross boundaries of medium and discipline.

    The reader, on the other hand — the person, who despite the moral inquiry at the heart of the text, looks to be less judge than accessory — is reconstituted as accomplice. Using sincerity as a principal stylistic device, the author seduces the reader by privileging her/him with the most intimate of confidences. And the reader, thus honored, becomes the willing cohort. Indeed, the reader can be said to justify the writing, providing not only the reason for its occurrence, but supplying it with the double perspective at the heart of the autobiographical inquiry. In this sense, the reader is structurally built into the text. The unity of the book, then, is provided by the destination — the reader — and not the originthe author. In this, the critic is swindled twice over. Not only is s/he denied a vantage point from which to gain particularly privileged information, but, once operating in the general domain of readership, the critic functions only from the accomplice's point of view. Thus the seduction of the reader is ultimately the victimization of the critic, who, like the viewer of Medusa, is incriminated just for looking.

    The second condition of morality expands the first. In reminding us that there is no divorce between who we are and what we do, Hejduk is not assuming, as is normally the case, that by making responsible buildings we become responsible citizens. Rather, first and foremost, he is emphasizing that we should be responsible citizens. His pessimism is less a pessimism about the cultural situation in which his buildings / heroes operate as much as it is a pessimism about the possibility of structuring the citizen who can withstand the knowledge of her/his own structural limits.