I have decided for my final blog to write about my own work. Currently I am writing a fantasy novel for my cousin for a Secret Santa game my family is doing this year for Christmas. I am a third done and need to talk about my experience writing a novel. I think that whenever I have written down stories before they have never been longer than seven or eight pages but now I am third way through a planned 100-page novel.
I think the most frustrating experience as a writer is my shallow depository of vocabulary. What I mean is whenever I am writing to say things eloquently, with precision, beauty and attractiveness. What I find instead is a group of about fifty to sixty words which force themselves through my hands and into my manuscript. It makes the creative process at worst excruciatingly nauseating and at best wickedly dull. I am sure that the reading process would mimic such reactions.
So I decided to test my self by putting my manuscript in wordle. It came out with my top used words in a creative, artistic format. Use it on your papers, your blog posts or even a favourite play for fun. I have decided to list the top used words without any conjunction or proper names. They are as follows:
- need (I tend to write from the view-points of the characters, although I am inconsistent with this, and this word is used a lot from the characters point of view. I seem to have one-dimensional characters who only think in terms of 'need')
- violence (One of the many themes of the book, I guess I can not hide it very well and use the word a lot. Now that I know this I will try to find other, more covert, ways in order to bring out this theme)
- moved (I tend to write very akwardly when it comes to physical movement of characters as the plot progresses. The frequent use of this word proves my intuition that I can not write actual events creatively or expressively)
- together (Another word related to my theme, but one better hidden. A lot of the book deals with 'Life Together' or communal living on a journey. I feel that this is a pretty standard word though and may need to find others ways in order to clearly articulate this main theme or idea running through the story. I should also find ways to indirectly show this)
- know (The plot is driven by personality, and I am finding one of my weaknesses deals with not being able to show the full contours and multiple dimensions of personality. In my writing personality seems to be essentialized in phrases like "they know" and as before "they need")
- good (This might be just laziness on my part but when I want to express something as good I should find other interesting and innovative ways besides saying in a rather dull fashion "It was good" or "They were good")
- history (This is less of a theme in the book and more of part of me that seems to have soaked through the layers of the text to come up over and over. I tend to think a lot in the terms and categories of narrative, story, tradition and history and this personal bent seems to have cast shadows in my work)
- sun (This one is simple: whenever I can't think of anything to say or any events to emerge I usually begin talking about the weather or the atmosphere, which always involves a 'bright sun' somehow)
- found (Just as 'need' and 'know' feature extensively as my own construction of personality so also does 'found' as apparently in my little literary world characters are very minimalist creatures who are driven by 'need' and desire to 'know', both of which require 'found'. As in "I found what I needed" or "I found what I wanted to know")
- people (my characters often encounter large crowds and interact with them in some way. This is either from me needing to add some action into a boring scene and not knowing how without adding a crowd or my own personal interest in group psychology seeping through the vocabulary use of this text)
- group (The characters are almost always together. I can't seperate them! But then I just can't describe well that they are in the group so I resort to saying 'group'.)
- death (As I said 'violence' is a theme so naturally the word 'death' will appear every once in a while)
- earth (At the same time I use the word 'sun' a lot to describe the atmosphere when I can think of any event to write about I use to word 'earth' to keep people, well, grounded. What I mean is that I intentionally try to describe the details of the surrounding, what colour leaves or what texture of 'earth', not so that they can imagine a very detailed picture of what is happening but in order to cultivate their imaginations and give the impression of reality.)
- houses (Another major aspect of the novel is the characters interaction with cities. I tend to be in a poverty of language when I approach urban areas in writing and end up trying to describes 'houses', their colours, make-up and shape. I hope, therefore, to lead any reader away from my lack of description of anything else in the city)
- horde (One of the themes of my book is, again, violence. What better images of violence are there than a loud, unorganized, dirty and bloody 'horde')
- attack (This is word is used a lot for two reasons. One, obviously, is my intent on displaying and considering violence. Two, my excess anxiety that I have a lack of plot. An anxiety which I fill by producing various scenes where the hyperbolic action of 'attach' is used.)
And my most used word outside of proper names?
BEGAN
I think the reason for this illustrated one of my biggest obstacles as a writer. Because of the way I think and behave in my life I have a difficulty imagining or expressing action. In my day-to-day moment by moment life I tend to experience, enjoy, participate and value conversations and dialogue over lesser-experienced, lesser-enjoyed and not very well participated in action. The closest thing I come to action is walking, and I walk a lot. But walking, walking and walking is not something very interesting in a story. Therefore I have this constant ghost haunting my work; a fear of writing inane chit-chat and long dialogue as opposed to captivating and enthralling action.
This is why, I believe, I use the word 'BEGAN' so much. It expresses an urgent desire to display action. To begin, and begin and begin and begin. Unfortunately I do not think this actually translates into more and more action with an increasingly eventful plot. Alternatively it becomes an overly abused and cruelly tortured verb which happens to return to my lexicon every so-often only to be hurt and assaulted once again.
Now where does this leave me?
I've been seriously trying to understand what is better to use: the same word used over and over again to create potency and value to the text or the playful wielding of synonyms in a thrust and parry of literary beauty? This is a serious question not only as an author (amateur as I may be) but also a reader (also as amateur I may be). I can see the strengths of both sides. The constant use of the same word can establish a well drawn out theme of idea. On the other hand the mixing of a multitude of synonyms and metaphors can help to create a genuine sense of originality and uniqueness to the text without being painfully obvious about the thematic elements within.
Then again the constant use of the same word or words can be come stale, dry, repetitive and boring, It can become unreadable and revolting. Also the use of multiple words for the same thing, idea or concept can crush a reader's sense of coherence and drown them in an endless sea of confusion and frustration. Both types of uses, then, can have very negative and unpleasant results despite the promise and potential for great use.
As for me I am still undecided. Do I go the one route and prefer a certain set of words, seeing them used over and over again for the good of the text or do I choose the road of synonyms as a road less travelled (in the sense each word is used but not too often) and hoping that it makes all the difference? As I have said, I can not decide. Hopefully for my cousin, whatever path I choose to depart on, he will enjoying reading what I have wrote. That despite perhaps poor word choices the text becomes something wonderful for him, something to curl up on the couch and read with a cup of warm cocoa on some cold, blustery winter day.
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
A piece of bread, a matress and a candle wick
Currently I am reading through Ivan Illich's "The Rivers North of the Future". It is a quasi-biographical work with an emphasis on the nature of Illich's activism and thought. In the first chapter Illich relates the story of an Asain pilgrim, just prior to the second world war, who after conversion decides to hold a pilgrimage to Rome. Throughout the east he is let into every house he comes to, and the locals show him hospitality, after he explains he is on a religious pilgrimage. He was given food, a handout and shelter. In fact, it does not matter that it is even a specifically Christian pilgrimage, they let him in anyway once they found out he was going to a sacred place.
As he comes closer to Rome he arrives in Eastern Orthodox territory and something changes. Instead of going to a strangers house the parishioners pointed him to the Parish house, a place designed for guests and visitors. This is a big difference; an act of hospitality starts to have a form institutionalization. Instead of being able to allow guests into their home the Christians in those land organized themselves in such a way that they built a house for the stranger.
This trend became stronger when he arrived in Catholic Poland. Here people put him up in a hotel. It moved from a choice of the villagers in Asia, to a parish culture of support in Orthodox lands to a fully developed form of a hospitality industry in western europe (that is; the parts of Europe that grew underneath the influence of Catholic Christianity). Illich criticizes this entire trend by explaining how "a gratuitous and truly free choice had become an ideology and an idealism".
According the Illich this developed around the time when (a) Christianity was becoming a dominant force in the Roman Empire and (b) the Empire was collapsing. With the social upheaval at the time the emperors began legislating strict rules in relation to homelessness. In order to deal with homeless refugees the empire gave major financial support to Churches who were already showing hospitality to these people. Thus, in order to deal with the huge influx of money and privelege, the churches institutionalized hospitality.
This is what Illich calls "the perversion of the best is the worst".
At this point Illich seems to be completely lost. We have a socialist government which runs our electricity companies, gives us education for thirteen years, helps fund post-secondary education, funds our health care and medicare,helps set up pensions, finances the disabled, builds our roads and funds social workers who work with homeless and poor with programs such as homeless shelters and soup kitchens, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT? Aren't all these things intrinsically good? Yes, yes: bureaucracy sucks sometimes being inefficient and wasteful. Yes, it is not perfect. Nothing is. What right does he have to call it "the worst".
Following his discussion about what has happened to hospitality he turns his attention to one of the earliest historical record of Christianity. Outside of an old brothel in Rome there is picture of a man on a cross with the horse of a donkey. Underneath the words "Anaxemenos adores his God". One of the oldest records of of Christianity is some who mocked a person for worshipping a crucified God. How foolish!
It is this sense of foolishness which is lost in Christianity, at least western Christianity, according to Illich. The Good Samaritan parable in Luke is what Illich based his analysis on. According to him "the way of the Samaritan is - pure folly if you really think it through". It is pure folly which is the ultimate duty and can not be normalized in institutions as it has been without being perverted from the ethical duty of the individual.
Illich goes on too talk about the first two generations of Christianity. With the first two generations each Christian community had a prophet, as can be seen in the New Testament records. Yet no longer where they prophets awaiting the coming of the messiah, for he had already come, nor were they bringing the word of God to the people because the word had already come through Jesus. So what did they do? They warned about the antichrist. The antichrist, a mysterious figure, was somehow meant to emerge from the church itself.
For Illich the idea of the anti-Christ is a type of evil opened up only through the revelation of Christ. In a sense that it is a thing which directly contradicts what Christ means. Christ, for Illich, opens up the opportunity to see the potential of others to be redeemed. Sin is the denial of this dignity that Others can have through Christ. It is something completely new. This seems to be an aside, but is utterly important for what Illich is discussing. For this type of treatment, treating people as those who can be redeemed, is "radical foolishness". This freedom of being loyal to someone as if to be loyal to God is the heart of the matter. For Illich "the idea that by not responding to you, when you call upon my fidelity, I thereby personally offend God is fundamental to understanding what Christianity is about."
Christianity then opens up a new possibility. The possibility is that "[we] can encounter God in Chris and Christ in the unknown one who knocked at his door and asked for hospitality." Now this is what Illich means when he says "the best". By "the worst" he means a situation where it is thought that"charitable institutions can do much better than a bunch of individual Christians". That is the central perversion. The loss of the original purity of the gospel. The cause of all the stress, all the corruption and all the evil coming out our western bureacracies today comes from this way of using the gospel.
As he comes closer to Rome he arrives in Eastern Orthodox territory and something changes. Instead of going to a strangers house the parishioners pointed him to the Parish house, a place designed for guests and visitors. This is a big difference; an act of hospitality starts to have a form institutionalization. Instead of being able to allow guests into their home the Christians in those land organized themselves in such a way that they built a house for the stranger.
This trend became stronger when he arrived in Catholic Poland. Here people put him up in a hotel. It moved from a choice of the villagers in Asia, to a parish culture of support in Orthodox lands to a fully developed form of a hospitality industry in western europe (that is; the parts of Europe that grew underneath the influence of Catholic Christianity). Illich criticizes this entire trend by explaining how "a gratuitous and truly free choice had become an ideology and an idealism".
According the Illich this developed around the time when (a) Christianity was becoming a dominant force in the Roman Empire and (b) the Empire was collapsing. With the social upheaval at the time the emperors began legislating strict rules in relation to homelessness. In order to deal with homeless refugees the empire gave major financial support to Churches who were already showing hospitality to these people. Thus, in order to deal with the huge influx of money and privelege, the churches institutionalized hospitality.
This is what Illich calls "the perversion of the best is the worst".
At this point Illich seems to be completely lost. We have a socialist government which runs our electricity companies, gives us education for thirteen years, helps fund post-secondary education, funds our health care and medicare,helps set up pensions, finances the disabled, builds our roads and funds social workers who work with homeless and poor with programs such as homeless shelters and soup kitchens, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT? Aren't all these things intrinsically good? Yes, yes: bureaucracy sucks sometimes being inefficient and wasteful. Yes, it is not perfect. Nothing is. What right does he have to call it "the worst".
Following his discussion about what has happened to hospitality he turns his attention to one of the earliest historical record of Christianity. Outside of an old brothel in Rome there is picture of a man on a cross with the horse of a donkey. Underneath the words "Anaxemenos adores his God". One of the oldest records of of Christianity is some who mocked a person for worshipping a crucified God. How foolish!
It is this sense of foolishness which is lost in Christianity, at least western Christianity, according to Illich. The Good Samaritan parable in Luke is what Illich based his analysis on. According to him "the way of the Samaritan is - pure folly if you really think it through". It is pure folly which is the ultimate duty and can not be normalized in institutions as it has been without being perverted from the ethical duty of the individual.
Illich goes on too talk about the first two generations of Christianity. With the first two generations each Christian community had a prophet, as can be seen in the New Testament records. Yet no longer where they prophets awaiting the coming of the messiah, for he had already come, nor were they bringing the word of God to the people because the word had already come through Jesus. So what did they do? They warned about the antichrist. The antichrist, a mysterious figure, was somehow meant to emerge from the church itself.
For Illich the idea of the anti-Christ is a type of evil opened up only through the revelation of Christ. In a sense that it is a thing which directly contradicts what Christ means. Christ, for Illich, opens up the opportunity to see the potential of others to be redeemed. Sin is the denial of this dignity that Others can have through Christ. It is something completely new. This seems to be an aside, but is utterly important for what Illich is discussing. For this type of treatment, treating people as those who can be redeemed, is "radical foolishness". This freedom of being loyal to someone as if to be loyal to God is the heart of the matter. For Illich "the idea that by not responding to you, when you call upon my fidelity, I thereby personally offend God is fundamental to understanding what Christianity is about."
Christianity then opens up a new possibility. The possibility is that "[we] can encounter God in Chris and Christ in the unknown one who knocked at his door and asked for hospitality." Now this is what Illich means when he says "the best". By "the worst" he means a situation where it is thought that"charitable institutions can do much better than a bunch of individual Christians". That is the central perversion. The loss of the original purity of the gospel. The cause of all the stress, all the corruption and all the evil coming out our western bureacracies today comes from this way of using the gospel.
Friday, November 20, 2009
On the Noam Chomsky Lectures (a play)
When I first saw "the Noam Chomsky lectures: a play" I was intrigued. What could this possibly be about?
I was subsequently disappointed. I went in assuming some interesting themes to come about concerning how the media operates expressed in how the play was written. All there was some of this it was not enough to leave me satisfied. I'm deep discontent with what I read.
First of all the authors play themselves in the play. It is two characters who are modeled after the writer/actors who created them. Maybe this was an attempt to make some sort of point to how characters are represented in literature versus the news media: if so I completely missed that. The characters are really just mouth-pieces for a fairly long history of Canadian involvement in American atrocities in the American proxy wars and oppressive policies during the twentieth century. Other than that there was narrative, personality or genius to either of the two characters.
Secondly there is no structural critique of the media. I was expecting that that way the play was written and set up what be critical about the way the media operates. Although on occasion the play experimented with this (one particular scene involved the characters asking the audience for bribes regarding what should be discussed in the later half of the play) over all it was generally disappointing. I would have been more entertained with the play had an element of Chomsky's criticism of the media's propaganda model within the play itself. Perhaps having the characters mirror the different steps.
Again, I saw a little bit of this. A brief reference to the CIBC ownership of the theatre and sponsoring of the company, some references to Flak and anti-ideology but overall the play had a creative poverty in relation to this. It seemed to have potential in the very idea about making a play based on Chomsky's activism but if fell short; horrifically so.
Finally I would like to point out a few positive aspects of the play as well as some of it's challenges to how we perceive literature and theatre as a whole.
First, reading the play was geuinely educational. I found most productive how the play focused on the naive and hypocritical idea that Canada is a nation of peacemakers. It points to the Canadian involvement in the Vietnam war, making nearly three billion in weapons manufacturing and manipulating data at an international level to make it seem that the war was not illegal by Geneva standards.
The play also gave a fascinating history into the US involvment in South America, Asia and Africa and questioned the policies of the various presidential administrations in relation to their liasons with big business. It is genuinely frightening but nevertheless interesting list of the terrible offences our souther neighbour has been involved with; along with a record of our sheepish complacency with their foreign policies.
Also it gave some interesting insights for me about how literature is produced and received.
First of all I wonder how much literature is political in someway or another. This play was obviously political but how many of the plays and novels and poetry we read has some sort of ideological current flowing underneath the textual surfaces? What have you read for this class that is somehow political? Whether antiracist, feminist,marxist or what have you.
Secondly, and this is related, how does the literature we receive and work through simply add to the maufacturing of consent? Although Chomsky's target is the mass media how do the plays and novels we read fit into the larger landscape? I think about the 'deep' novels we can read with 'meaning' haunting every page: how much of those really just distract us from real issues? Or on the other hand how do 'political' works of fiction make us believe we are actually doing something, contributing to the causes of human rights when really all we are doing is sitting back, drinking a cup of tea and reading a book printed by a publisher connected to big media?
I think the last two questions are the most important?
How much of we read is 'political'?
And, then, how much of what we read 'manufactures consent'?
I was subsequently disappointed. I went in assuming some interesting themes to come about concerning how the media operates expressed in how the play was written. All there was some of this it was not enough to leave me satisfied. I'm deep discontent with what I read.
First of all the authors play themselves in the play. It is two characters who are modeled after the writer/actors who created them. Maybe this was an attempt to make some sort of point to how characters are represented in literature versus the news media: if so I completely missed that. The characters are really just mouth-pieces for a fairly long history of Canadian involvement in American atrocities in the American proxy wars and oppressive policies during the twentieth century. Other than that there was narrative, personality or genius to either of the two characters.
Secondly there is no structural critique of the media. I was expecting that that way the play was written and set up what be critical about the way the media operates. Although on occasion the play experimented with this (one particular scene involved the characters asking the audience for bribes regarding what should be discussed in the later half of the play) over all it was generally disappointing. I would have been more entertained with the play had an element of Chomsky's criticism of the media's propaganda model within the play itself. Perhaps having the characters mirror the different steps.
Again, I saw a little bit of this. A brief reference to the CIBC ownership of the theatre and sponsoring of the company, some references to Flak and anti-ideology but overall the play had a creative poverty in relation to this. It seemed to have potential in the very idea about making a play based on Chomsky's activism but if fell short; horrifically so.
Finally I would like to point out a few positive aspects of the play as well as some of it's challenges to how we perceive literature and theatre as a whole.
First, reading the play was geuinely educational. I found most productive how the play focused on the naive and hypocritical idea that Canada is a nation of peacemakers. It points to the Canadian involvement in the Vietnam war, making nearly three billion in weapons manufacturing and manipulating data at an international level to make it seem that the war was not illegal by Geneva standards.
The play also gave a fascinating history into the US involvment in South America, Asia and Africa and questioned the policies of the various presidential administrations in relation to their liasons with big business. It is genuinely frightening but nevertheless interesting list of the terrible offences our souther neighbour has been involved with; along with a record of our sheepish complacency with their foreign policies.
Also it gave some interesting insights for me about how literature is produced and received.
First of all I wonder how much literature is political in someway or another. This play was obviously political but how many of the plays and novels and poetry we read has some sort of ideological current flowing underneath the textual surfaces? What have you read for this class that is somehow political? Whether antiracist, feminist,marxist or what have you.
Secondly, and this is related, how does the literature we receive and work through simply add to the maufacturing of consent? Although Chomsky's target is the mass media how do the plays and novels we read fit into the larger landscape? I think about the 'deep' novels we can read with 'meaning' haunting every page: how much of those really just distract us from real issues? Or on the other hand how do 'political' works of fiction make us believe we are actually doing something, contributing to the causes of human rights when really all we are doing is sitting back, drinking a cup of tea and reading a book printed by a publisher connected to big media?
I think the last two questions are the most important?
How much of we read is 'political'?
And, then, how much of what we read 'manufactures consent'?
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Very Elemental
When asked to describe "Waiting for Godot" the playwright answered that it was very "elemental". There have been a multitude of diverse interpretations of the playing including a historical parable of the second world war, Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian psychoanalysis, Catholic purgatory, generic Christian, homeerotic, late modernist, posmodernist etc etc. It seems like Becket was correct, it is very elemental as shown by the diverse interpretations, readings and understandings of it.
I have decided instead of having an over-arching thesis to the play I will rather analyze a series of quotations taken from the second act alone and extrapolate some of the 'elemental' themes, images and ideas that float around the play. Part of the reason I have decided to this is that it seems that the text really does not allowed for any final or definite meaning, if there was a final and definite meaning Godot would have arrived. Instead since Godot does not, in the end, arrive no major discourse or idea can really capture the play. It is uncapturable, just as Estrangon and Vladimir can not capture Godot's arrival.
"What do we do now, now that we are happy? Wait for Godot." - I choose this first quotation because it seems to me trying to express a base dissatisfaction with satisfaction itself. Somehow, whether it is universally human or culturally constructed, happiness is utterly ellusive and when it comes there seems to be a deep, unconquerable sense of moreness. A sense that people, even after being happy "still haven't found what they've been looking for."
It seems also that the waiting, the waiting for the more and the waiting for something which or someone who never comes, saves us from the incompleteness of happiness. Sure this being happy comes, but it's elusive and vagrant character is always terribly surprising and unsatisfying. It is almost as if we need salvation from the normal and everyday, and we receive that through waiting.
"He's forgotten everything!" - Like happiness memories are also dangerously elusive. The second act begins in the same place but a day after. Despite being the next day the characters can not really remember what happen and whether what they though happened could quite possibly be a dream. This strange relationship with memories, and thus the past, brings out frustration and deferrals but can express something quite profound. Something extremely important we can forget, something tedious and meaningless can stick in our minds. Thus is memory.
Memory is not something we can control. It is a force. It is a strong power that gives and takes away from us in our day to day lives. The nature of memory is that of happiness, we can not control it's comings or going, it's here and theres. It's presence, like happiness, is elusive.
" It's better if we parted.
You always say that and you always come crawling back." - This expresses the very fundamentally human relationality. Many a times, whether for good reasons or bad, we have the small or large temptation just to END a relationship. Whether that is with a friend, significant other, family member, someone in the same association as you there is almost always a trace, a small trace, a whisper of leaving. But almost always there is a return. A return to the relationship. A return to liking the relationship. A return from the world of fantasy where you leave to reality where you stay. It's a return.
Once again the elusiveness of something is challenged, or at least wrestled with. First it was happiness, then memory and now relationships. It seems like all human experience is overshadowed by a threat of absence or leaving. Absence of happiness, memory and friendship. A leaving of satisfaction, an always returning memory and a friendship that sometimes desires being alone.
"I've puked my puke of a life here, I tell you!" - Here is an excellent feeling of disgust with one's own existence. It is likened to puke, to a sickness which rejects whatever you take in. This has a tragic element to it. The idea that one's who existence was not made or influenced by rational, moral or spiritual decisions but rather just came out. The sense that one's growing up, ones adulthood and one's old age can simply come out without any control.
Again the substance of the elements of life being operated by a distant, elusive force is present. Puke is not something one decides, it just happens and it is uncontrollable. It is a disgusting mess and undefeatable.
"To have lived is not enough for them." - Once again the frustration that simple existence is not enough is expressed in despair. In the particular context of the quotation Estragon and Vladmir poetically consider the ways of nature, which insatiable. Just like happiness, it is not enought. Not enough. To simply exist is not enough there needs to be more.
"Say something! (in anguish) Say anything at all!" - The fear of silence, of no communication, no connections with the outside is utter terror. It is ultimately like the fear of death, for in death it seems like there will be only silence. Silence eternally. And in that silence being completely and utterly alone.
"Let's go.
We can't.
Why not?
We're waiting for Godot." - The elemental frustration desire of movement. There seems to be no movement. Why? Perhaps in waiting, perhaps in patience, one can really understand why. Or maybe patience is not the answer why but is still required anyway.
"Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed... To all mankind they are addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment in time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not." - Besides the elements of human life such as happiness, memory, relationships and waiting there is also this deep impulse to do good and not waste. You can not really separate wanting to listen to the cries and wanting not to waste. Again just like with the other elements this sense of responsibility is so utterly human, and yet elusive as the quotation suggests. Often times we consider the cries are directed towards others OR we waste time with 'idle discourse' when can be doing Good.
"We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?"
Already I have discussed five elements found in waiting for Godot that are both essentially human and, due to their nature, essentially alienating. Happiness, memory, friendship and morality are all things in human life that are beyond humans, beyond their control. I would also add waste into that mix. They come and go almost as they please, leaving us frustrated. So where do Saints come in?
I would suggest that all people have saints. Saints are not simply a specifically Catholic religious phenomenon but are found wherever humans accidently construct a civilization. What are saints? Saints, using what I already have written, can really be those who can flow, flux and be with the forces of happiness, memory, friendship, morality and waste with ease. The rest of us non-saints can not so we look to the saints in order to be like them. We want to flow with those forces and not against them and this seems almost impossible.
Thankfully we are waiting for the impossible. Or Godot. Or God. And while waiting we have that ability to be, to both strive and give up on being like the saints. It is an endless dialogue and dialect.
SPOILER ALERT:
At the end of the play Godot never arrives, and the two characters really do not change. Primarily "Waiting for Godot" is not a play or a story but Beckett's attempt at putting humanity on the page. That sounds like a bit much and it is. Pay careful attention I did not say Beckett succeeded only attempted.
And would Beckett even want to succeed/ believe he can succeed. For success would mean Godot has arrived, and he doesn't. Happiness never arrives, memory never stays, relationships are constantly in the process of leaving, waiting is endless, so is waster and no one is ever canonized.
The fact that the characters are still waiting for Godot is then the defeat of Nihilism, or at least the postponement of nihilism. In my last post I suggested that the play seems to oddly reject Nihilism in favour of waiting. I really do not comprehend what I meant but I think basically Nihilism is not allowed a victory. The waiting is an endless hope that Godot may arrive. There is a fear of nothingness, loneliness and all else but never do the characters doubt Godot will arrive. There's is a "hope against hope".
Happiness will go, memory will fade, life will morph into death, goodness will be delayed and relationships will falter. But Godot will come. Perhaps suicide, but not yet because Godot will come. The forces will remain forces, saints will be saints and sinners, but at the very least you have kept your appointment.
CHAOTIC CONCLUSIVE REMARKS:
I honestly loved this play. I think the simple scenes, lack of plot and yet pervading sense there is something going on behind the scenes drew me towards what the play was about(or not about). I found humour in some parts and oddly placed biblical references and others, and it was this interplay that drew me. I thought: is Godot a typological representative of God? What does it mean that he never comes, or at least what does it mean for someone who has lost faith in God coming as a late modernist like Beckett likely did?
I also loved Beckett's narrative treatment of nihilism: he does not answer it he simply ignores and defers it. It got me thinking about how people in general attempt to counter the threat of nihilism. It also made me consider what a 'hope against hope' and an eternal patience could really answer to nihilism. Can such a thing actually counter nihilism?
I also considered my faith: how would I place in relation to the faith of this book? I think I could only do this by writting the play backwards if you will. What I mean is that I would need to right the play in a sense where Godot has come, but will come again. This is the essence of Christianity: God has come AND will also come again. This is unique to Christianity and is found nowhere else. How will this re-writting of the story change it's themes, characters and purpose?
In previous posts I commented that we read all literature, in some sense, historically and we also read history through the eyes of literature. So how does "Waiting for Godot" correlate with this? Perhaps we can read "Waiting for Godot" up against both Fukuyama's 'End of History' and Lyotard's Collapse on Metanarratives. It can also help understand the social and psychological conditions of those who have lost their faith, whether in Marxism, Christianity, nationalism or some other religious ideals.
I have decided instead of having an over-arching thesis to the play I will rather analyze a series of quotations taken from the second act alone and extrapolate some of the 'elemental' themes, images and ideas that float around the play. Part of the reason I have decided to this is that it seems that the text really does not allowed for any final or definite meaning, if there was a final and definite meaning Godot would have arrived. Instead since Godot does not, in the end, arrive no major discourse or idea can really capture the play. It is uncapturable, just as Estrangon and Vladimir can not capture Godot's arrival.
"What do we do now, now that we are happy? Wait for Godot." - I choose this first quotation because it seems to me trying to express a base dissatisfaction with satisfaction itself. Somehow, whether it is universally human or culturally constructed, happiness is utterly ellusive and when it comes there seems to be a deep, unconquerable sense of moreness. A sense that people, even after being happy "still haven't found what they've been looking for."
It seems also that the waiting, the waiting for the more and the waiting for something which or someone who never comes, saves us from the incompleteness of happiness. Sure this being happy comes, but it's elusive and vagrant character is always terribly surprising and unsatisfying. It is almost as if we need salvation from the normal and everyday, and we receive that through waiting.
"He's forgotten everything!" - Like happiness memories are also dangerously elusive. The second act begins in the same place but a day after. Despite being the next day the characters can not really remember what happen and whether what they though happened could quite possibly be a dream. This strange relationship with memories, and thus the past, brings out frustration and deferrals but can express something quite profound. Something extremely important we can forget, something tedious and meaningless can stick in our minds. Thus is memory.
Memory is not something we can control. It is a force. It is a strong power that gives and takes away from us in our day to day lives. The nature of memory is that of happiness, we can not control it's comings or going, it's here and theres. It's presence, like happiness, is elusive.
" It's better if we parted.
You always say that and you always come crawling back." - This expresses the very fundamentally human relationality. Many a times, whether for good reasons or bad, we have the small or large temptation just to END a relationship. Whether that is with a friend, significant other, family member, someone in the same association as you there is almost always a trace, a small trace, a whisper of leaving. But almost always there is a return. A return to the relationship. A return to liking the relationship. A return from the world of fantasy where you leave to reality where you stay. It's a return.
Once again the elusiveness of something is challenged, or at least wrestled with. First it was happiness, then memory and now relationships. It seems like all human experience is overshadowed by a threat of absence or leaving. Absence of happiness, memory and friendship. A leaving of satisfaction, an always returning memory and a friendship that sometimes desires being alone.
"I've puked my puke of a life here, I tell you!" - Here is an excellent feeling of disgust with one's own existence. It is likened to puke, to a sickness which rejects whatever you take in. This has a tragic element to it. The idea that one's who existence was not made or influenced by rational, moral or spiritual decisions but rather just came out. The sense that one's growing up, ones adulthood and one's old age can simply come out without any control.
Again the substance of the elements of life being operated by a distant, elusive force is present. Puke is not something one decides, it just happens and it is uncontrollable. It is a disgusting mess and undefeatable.
"To have lived is not enough for them." - Once again the frustration that simple existence is not enough is expressed in despair. In the particular context of the quotation Estragon and Vladmir poetically consider the ways of nature, which insatiable. Just like happiness, it is not enought. Not enough. To simply exist is not enough there needs to be more.
"Say something! (in anguish) Say anything at all!" - The fear of silence, of no communication, no connections with the outside is utter terror. It is ultimately like the fear of death, for in death it seems like there will be only silence. Silence eternally. And in that silence being completely and utterly alone.
"Let's go.
We can't.
Why not?
We're waiting for Godot." - The elemental frustration desire of movement. There seems to be no movement. Why? Perhaps in waiting, perhaps in patience, one can really understand why. Or maybe patience is not the answer why but is still required anyway.
"Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed... To all mankind they are addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment in time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not." - Besides the elements of human life such as happiness, memory, relationships and waiting there is also this deep impulse to do good and not waste. You can not really separate wanting to listen to the cries and wanting not to waste. Again just like with the other elements this sense of responsibility is so utterly human, and yet elusive as the quotation suggests. Often times we consider the cries are directed towards others OR we waste time with 'idle discourse' when can be doing Good.
"We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?"
Already I have discussed five elements found in waiting for Godot that are both essentially human and, due to their nature, essentially alienating. Happiness, memory, friendship and morality are all things in human life that are beyond humans, beyond their control. I would also add waste into that mix. They come and go almost as they please, leaving us frustrated. So where do Saints come in?
I would suggest that all people have saints. Saints are not simply a specifically Catholic religious phenomenon but are found wherever humans accidently construct a civilization. What are saints? Saints, using what I already have written, can really be those who can flow, flux and be with the forces of happiness, memory, friendship, morality and waste with ease. The rest of us non-saints can not so we look to the saints in order to be like them. We want to flow with those forces and not against them and this seems almost impossible.
Thankfully we are waiting for the impossible. Or Godot. Or God. And while waiting we have that ability to be, to both strive and give up on being like the saints. It is an endless dialogue and dialect.
SPOILER ALERT:
At the end of the play Godot never arrives, and the two characters really do not change. Primarily "Waiting for Godot" is not a play or a story but Beckett's attempt at putting humanity on the page. That sounds like a bit much and it is. Pay careful attention I did not say Beckett succeeded only attempted.
And would Beckett even want to succeed/ believe he can succeed. For success would mean Godot has arrived, and he doesn't. Happiness never arrives, memory never stays, relationships are constantly in the process of leaving, waiting is endless, so is waster and no one is ever canonized.
The fact that the characters are still waiting for Godot is then the defeat of Nihilism, or at least the postponement of nihilism. In my last post I suggested that the play seems to oddly reject Nihilism in favour of waiting. I really do not comprehend what I meant but I think basically Nihilism is not allowed a victory. The waiting is an endless hope that Godot may arrive. There is a fear of nothingness, loneliness and all else but never do the characters doubt Godot will arrive. There's is a "hope against hope".
Happiness will go, memory will fade, life will morph into death, goodness will be delayed and relationships will falter. But Godot will come. Perhaps suicide, but not yet because Godot will come. The forces will remain forces, saints will be saints and sinners, but at the very least you have kept your appointment.
CHAOTIC CONCLUSIVE REMARKS:
I honestly loved this play. I think the simple scenes, lack of plot and yet pervading sense there is something going on behind the scenes drew me towards what the play was about(or not about). I found humour in some parts and oddly placed biblical references and others, and it was this interplay that drew me. I thought: is Godot a typological representative of God? What does it mean that he never comes, or at least what does it mean for someone who has lost faith in God coming as a late modernist like Beckett likely did?
I also loved Beckett's narrative treatment of nihilism: he does not answer it he simply ignores and defers it. It got me thinking about how people in general attempt to counter the threat of nihilism. It also made me consider what a 'hope against hope' and an eternal patience could really answer to nihilism. Can such a thing actually counter nihilism?
I also considered my faith: how would I place in relation to the faith of this book? I think I could only do this by writting the play backwards if you will. What I mean is that I would need to right the play in a sense where Godot has come, but will come again. This is the essence of Christianity: God has come AND will also come again. This is unique to Christianity and is found nowhere else. How will this re-writting of the story change it's themes, characters and purpose?
In previous posts I commented that we read all literature, in some sense, historically and we also read history through the eyes of literature. So how does "Waiting for Godot" correlate with this? Perhaps we can read "Waiting for Godot" up against both Fukuyama's 'End of History' and Lyotard's Collapse on Metanarratives. It can also help understand the social and psychological conditions of those who have lost their faith, whether in Marxism, Christianity, nationalism or some other religious ideals.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Waiting for Godot - Part I
"Nothing to be done." pg 2
"Nothing to be done." pg 4
"There's nothing to show." pg 4
"Suppose we repented.
Repented what?
Oh...
Our being born?" pg 5
"It's not the same thing. Nothing to be done." pg 5
"Yes, but while waiting.
What about hanging ourselves?" pg 12
"One is what one is.
No use wriggling.
The essential doesn't change.
Nothing to be done." pg 17
"I don't like talking in a vacuum." pg 29
"Let us not speak ill of our generation, it is not not any unhappier than it's predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all." pg 32
"Will night never come?" pg 33
"He can't bear it. Any longer." pg 34
"He subsides. Indeed all subsides" pg 36
"Time has stopped." pg 37
"Finished! it comes to rest. But - but behind this veil of gentleness and peace night is charging and will burst upon us - pop! Like that! Just when we least expect it." pg 39
"In the meantime nothing happens.
You find it tedious?
Somewhat." pg 40
"But is it enough, that's what tortures me, is it enough?" pg 40
"Do you know what he calls it?...
The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net." pg 42
"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" pg 43
"who from the heights...loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers" pg 45
"I hear something.
Where?
It's the heart.
Damnation!
Silence!" pg 49
"I don't seem to be able.. to depart.
Such is life." pg 50
"That passed the time.
It would have passed in any case.
Yes, but not so rapidly." pg 51
"Let's go.
We can't.
Why not?
We're waiting for Godot." pg 51
"I'm unhappy.
Not really? Since when?
I'd forgotten." pg 54
"You don't know if your unhappy or not?
No sir." pg 56
I choose the above quotations to illustrate the general mood which pervades "Waiting for Godot" a play I picked up written by Samuel Becket. The play is completely dialogue and the action, if anything that happens can be considered action, is only built as a deferral to more conversation. The whole premise of the play, of two men waiting for someone who never arrives, seems to point to the absence of action in the play.
Let me go further to explain. But I cannot. Why not? (see above quotation, pg 51) The structure of the dialogue does not allow for an interpretation of a mood. I want to call it despair, but it is not quite that. I also want to call it lost, but it is not that either. When reading the play whenever something is about to be decided or stated they do not. Take for example the quotation above (pg 54) where one of the characters states he is unhappy, the other asks him to clarify by telling him when to which he respond that he has forgotten.
Or take the quotation (pg 56) when one of the characters asks another one "You don't know if your unhappy or not?" to which the other character responds in the negative.
Near the start of the play the phrase "Nothing to be done" repeats itself several times. It seems that from the very beginning Becket is refusing to allow us to say what this play is about. The characters express a frustration at this pervading absence and one of the suggests that they repent, but neither of them can really express what they should repent off (quotation pg 5) except perhaps of being born, or existing, which itself makes no sense.
Now I would not necessarily call this position nihilistic, for even that is a decision on it's final meaning. In a sense it goes beyond nihilism, beyond nothing (or maybe before it??) into undecidability. What I mean by this is that the characters themselves can not really decide on the meaning of their own times, histories, societies, generations and even there own lives. Take (quotation pg 32) the monologue from Pozzo, one of the characters. First he says we can not speak badly about our generation, then he says we can not speak good about it. He pauses and then decides that he can not really decide whether to say anything good or bad and therefore chooses to say nothing.
The threat of having to decide and to live with that decision pervades the text. Although in context Pozzo refers to leaving the countryside in order to go to the market "I don't seem able... to depart." (pg 50) is an expression at the frustration not to be able to decide to go either way. Pertinent to this statement; (pg 43) "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" which helps to enlightenment Pozzo's later quotation.
This determinancy of indeterminancy is found elsewhere in the play. While describing the favourite dance of his slave, Pozzo says (pg 42) "Do you know what he calls it?... The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net." That perfectly sums up the themes I see in the play.
It is not nothingness but the inability to choose and decide meaning which the play's dialogue centres upon. It is 'waiting' and not 'dying' (or perhaps 'waiting to die' and not 'dying') that seems to be the main preoccupation of the plays two main characters, Estrangon and Vladimir, who even contemplate hanging themselves out of sheer frustration about waiting.
"Will night never come?" pg 33
"Time has stopped." pg 37
"In the meantime nothing happens." pg 40
"Nothing to be done." pg 4
"There's nothing to show." pg 4
"Suppose we repented.
Repented what?
Oh...
Our being born?" pg 5
"It's not the same thing. Nothing to be done." pg 5
"Yes, but while waiting.
What about hanging ourselves?" pg 12
"One is what one is.
No use wriggling.
The essential doesn't change.
Nothing to be done." pg 17
"I don't like talking in a vacuum." pg 29
"Let us not speak ill of our generation, it is not not any unhappier than it's predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all." pg 32
"Will night never come?" pg 33
"He can't bear it. Any longer." pg 34
"He subsides. Indeed all subsides" pg 36
"Time has stopped." pg 37
"Finished! it comes to rest. But - but behind this veil of gentleness and peace night is charging and will burst upon us - pop! Like that! Just when we least expect it." pg 39
"In the meantime nothing happens.
You find it tedious?
Somewhat." pg 40
"But is it enough, that's what tortures me, is it enough?" pg 40
"Do you know what he calls it?...
The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net." pg 42
"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" pg 43
"who from the heights...loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers" pg 45
"I hear something.
Where?
It's the heart.
Damnation!
Silence!" pg 49
"I don't seem to be able.. to depart.
Such is life." pg 50
"That passed the time.
It would have passed in any case.
Yes, but not so rapidly." pg 51
"Let's go.
We can't.
Why not?
We're waiting for Godot." pg 51
"I'm unhappy.
Not really? Since when?
I'd forgotten." pg 54
"You don't know if your unhappy or not?
No sir." pg 56
I choose the above quotations to illustrate the general mood which pervades "Waiting for Godot" a play I picked up written by Samuel Becket. The play is completely dialogue and the action, if anything that happens can be considered action, is only built as a deferral to more conversation. The whole premise of the play, of two men waiting for someone who never arrives, seems to point to the absence of action in the play.
Let me go further to explain. But I cannot. Why not? (see above quotation, pg 51) The structure of the dialogue does not allow for an interpretation of a mood. I want to call it despair, but it is not quite that. I also want to call it lost, but it is not that either. When reading the play whenever something is about to be decided or stated they do not. Take for example the quotation above (pg 54) where one of the characters states he is unhappy, the other asks him to clarify by telling him when to which he respond that he has forgotten.
Or take the quotation (pg 56) when one of the characters asks another one "You don't know if your unhappy or not?" to which the other character responds in the negative.
Near the start of the play the phrase "Nothing to be done" repeats itself several times. It seems that from the very beginning Becket is refusing to allow us to say what this play is about. The characters express a frustration at this pervading absence and one of the suggests that they repent, but neither of them can really express what they should repent off (quotation pg 5) except perhaps of being born, or existing, which itself makes no sense.
Now I would not necessarily call this position nihilistic, for even that is a decision on it's final meaning. In a sense it goes beyond nihilism, beyond nothing (or maybe before it??) into undecidability. What I mean by this is that the characters themselves can not really decide on the meaning of their own times, histories, societies, generations and even there own lives. Take (quotation pg 32) the monologue from Pozzo, one of the characters. First he says we can not speak badly about our generation, then he says we can not speak good about it. He pauses and then decides that he can not really decide whether to say anything good or bad and therefore chooses to say nothing.
The threat of having to decide and to live with that decision pervades the text. Although in context Pozzo refers to leaving the countryside in order to go to the market "I don't seem able... to depart." (pg 50) is an expression at the frustration not to be able to decide to go either way. Pertinent to this statement; (pg 43) "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" which helps to enlightenment Pozzo's later quotation.
This determinancy of indeterminancy is found elsewhere in the play. While describing the favourite dance of his slave, Pozzo says (pg 42) "Do you know what he calls it?... The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net." That perfectly sums up the themes I see in the play.
It is not nothingness but the inability to choose and decide meaning which the play's dialogue centres upon. It is 'waiting' and not 'dying' (or perhaps 'waiting to die' and not 'dying') that seems to be the main preoccupation of the plays two main characters, Estrangon and Vladimir, who even contemplate hanging themselves out of sheer frustration about waiting.
"Will night never come?" pg 33
"Time has stopped." pg 37
"In the meantime nothing happens." pg 40
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Histories and Literature
Recently I have begun reading "Jesus and Marx" by Jacques Ellul. The book promises to be an interesting reading although this is completely in my own bias since Ellul is one of my favourite writers and has been for a few years.
The beginning of the book discusses four issues where marxism challenges the complacent situation of Christianity. Specifically what I picked up on was the Marxian (which he picked up from Hegel) emphasis on history. Not "the history of historians" but history as "we find it in the Bible: history filled with meaning, moving in a revealed direction, and culminating in a 'apotheosis' but with everything situated in history."
This intrigued me. Ellul continues,
"Christians had completely forgotten that the bible relates events, not reasoning; they had become immersed in metaphysics." Ellul expands on this by saying: "God enters the concrete life of his people and does not withdraw them from the world. He participates in history."
And again, this time more powerfully:
"Thus Christianity has utterly betrayed the very essence of revelation by transforming it into a religious spirituality."
Using Marxist theory he criticizes Christianity for loosing historical memory; for reducing the essence of faith and revelation to 'metaphysics' and 'religious spirituality'. The two things are connected: Christians loose a sense of history and thus become hyper-spiritualized (which makes them forget about real issues, how the real God lives and acts in history).
This is a forceful criticism and valuable insight; surely the neo-gnostic tendencies to make Christianity into a feeling and a knowing rather than a group of people called by God through Christ who act in real history has been influential. Ellul himself points to the marxist critique that "This unjust society results from twenty centuries of Christianity."
What does this have to do with literature?
Ellul shows that Marx (and Hegel) restored the idea of meaningful history, the type of history that the bible records and contrains, into popular consciousness. He further shows that it is this meaningful history that has been lost by Christianity and needs to be recovered.
What is this meaningful history?
Literary history. Or rather history written as literature, as a story. History that has a beginning and an ending, it has conflict and consummation, it has events and peoples that are meaningful to end result. It is not a chaotic dance of meaningless facts, records of horrific suffering and utterly pointless death. Rather it has a point.
This literary history has nothing essentially in common with "the history of historians". This history is a story. Up till now I have used arguments from Ellul to set up my introductory point: that Christianity is historical in nature, and that history is primarily literary.
BUT what does this mean for literature;what does this mean for the way we teach, learn, understand, use, theorize and speak about literature? Specifically how do we teach, learn, understand, use, theorize and speak as Christians who know about the history?
I have a few suggestions:
First it means that the we will be inevitable be reading the bible into whatever text we read. We can be reading Marquis de Sade (please do not, but that's my suggestion) and somehow read the Bible into it. It also means that unconsciously we will likely pick up on allegories and allusions within various texts, both classical and popular, that relate to Christianity. Whether this be Faust with the spectre of Solomon haunting your reading or R.A. Salvatore with possible memories of the more mythic-like Biblical stories.
I do not believe Christians can read a text without reading it WITH the bible. If they do not admit this, they must read both unconsciously.
Secondly, if we recover historical consciousness, we can begin seeing a literary text both within it's historical period as well as somehow being placed in the larger metanarrative of Christianity. Reading Tolkien for example one can (as the makers of the film series do) draws parrellels between Sarumans destructions and mechanization with the current ecological crisis as well as the effects of industrializations.
Primarily my thesis is this: Literature is not read alone. It is read with something. As Christians naturally we read it with the scriptures, and as theologically minded Christians (who know that God acts IN history) we can also see literature in the terms of a historical meaning.
The ideas in the post were various: I explored the Marxist critique of Christianity slightly, the importance of history in the sense of literary history, and the impact of being Christian readers: both in using the bible and and realizes that God is in history.
Some of the ideas I did not explore in this post were: the full extent history can play in literary studies, how the role of Scripture in reading literature can be inverted so that we read Scripture through other literature, how both of these things can lead to a fresher understanding of literary textuality.
My question to you would be: what ideas did you see in my post? What ideas do you want to explore through it?
The beginning of the book discusses four issues where marxism challenges the complacent situation of Christianity. Specifically what I picked up on was the Marxian (which he picked up from Hegel) emphasis on history. Not "the history of historians" but history as "we find it in the Bible: history filled with meaning, moving in a revealed direction, and culminating in a 'apotheosis' but with everything situated in history."
This intrigued me. Ellul continues,
"Christians had completely forgotten that the bible relates events, not reasoning; they had become immersed in metaphysics." Ellul expands on this by saying: "God enters the concrete life of his people and does not withdraw them from the world. He participates in history."
And again, this time more powerfully:
"Thus Christianity has utterly betrayed the very essence of revelation by transforming it into a religious spirituality."
Using Marxist theory he criticizes Christianity for loosing historical memory; for reducing the essence of faith and revelation to 'metaphysics' and 'religious spirituality'. The two things are connected: Christians loose a sense of history and thus become hyper-spiritualized (which makes them forget about real issues, how the real God lives and acts in history).
This is a forceful criticism and valuable insight; surely the neo-gnostic tendencies to make Christianity into a feeling and a knowing rather than a group of people called by God through Christ who act in real history has been influential. Ellul himself points to the marxist critique that "This unjust society results from twenty centuries of Christianity."
What does this have to do with literature?
Ellul shows that Marx (and Hegel) restored the idea of meaningful history, the type of history that the bible records and contrains, into popular consciousness. He further shows that it is this meaningful history that has been lost by Christianity and needs to be recovered.
What is this meaningful history?
Literary history. Or rather history written as literature, as a story. History that has a beginning and an ending, it has conflict and consummation, it has events and peoples that are meaningful to end result. It is not a chaotic dance of meaningless facts, records of horrific suffering and utterly pointless death. Rather it has a point.
This literary history has nothing essentially in common with "the history of historians". This history is a story. Up till now I have used arguments from Ellul to set up my introductory point: that Christianity is historical in nature, and that history is primarily literary.
BUT what does this mean for literature;what does this mean for the way we teach, learn, understand, use, theorize and speak about literature? Specifically how do we teach, learn, understand, use, theorize and speak as Christians who know about the history?
I have a few suggestions:
First it means that the we will be inevitable be reading the bible into whatever text we read. We can be reading Marquis de Sade (please do not, but that's my suggestion) and somehow read the Bible into it. It also means that unconsciously we will likely pick up on allegories and allusions within various texts, both classical and popular, that relate to Christianity. Whether this be Faust with the spectre of Solomon haunting your reading or R.A. Salvatore with possible memories of the more mythic-like Biblical stories.
I do not believe Christians can read a text without reading it WITH the bible. If they do not admit this, they must read both unconsciously.
Secondly, if we recover historical consciousness, we can begin seeing a literary text both within it's historical period as well as somehow being placed in the larger metanarrative of Christianity. Reading Tolkien for example one can (as the makers of the film series do) draws parrellels between Sarumans destructions and mechanization with the current ecological crisis as well as the effects of industrializations.
Primarily my thesis is this: Literature is not read alone. It is read with something. As Christians naturally we read it with the scriptures, and as theologically minded Christians (who know that God acts IN history) we can also see literature in the terms of a historical meaning.
The ideas in the post were various: I explored the Marxist critique of Christianity slightly, the importance of history in the sense of literary history, and the impact of being Christian readers: both in using the bible and and realizes that God is in history.
Some of the ideas I did not explore in this post were: the full extent history can play in literary studies, how the role of Scripture in reading literature can be inverted so that we read Scripture through other literature, how both of these things can lead to a fresher understanding of literary textuality.
My question to you would be: what ideas did you see in my post? What ideas do you want to explore through it?
Monday, October 5, 2009
A different way to look at the same thing
Recently I began discussing how the ethical impulse towards the Other, towards the person who is different, is something completely lost in democracy. I examined some of what Levinas, the Jewish talmudic commentator, had to say about such an issue and used the follow quotation:
"Modern philosophy viewed subjectivity as a clash of egos, in which competing drives ultimately find themselves at war... [and because they are at war they] are together. And this view understood peace as that condition in which reason reigns. Thus, modern philosophers believed reason [would stop the war]." and because of this "Rather than maintaining the alterity of the other, [that] peace assimilates the stranger into the Same." And another quotation:"This pursuit [of peace] violates the alterity of the other, in the name of the needs of the community".
I got this as a response to my discussion:
"You do a good job of identifying a specific point to discuss, but you could discuss this quotation a little more closely. Get in there and talk about the words and the ideas that the quotation raises as specifically as possible."
I began to wonder if I could discuss this quotation "more closely" and "as specifically as possible". I commenced in trying to work through what that might mean in a blog post, or in a piece of writting in general. How can we get more specific? What does that mean? How does that look like?
It reminded me of two things:
First on the blog planet Dave Humphrey posted a piece of "reading up against a text" rather than "reading against a text". Perhaps I have actually "read up against" and not "read against" his post enough to understand what he means but it seems to me to be pertinent to what I am discussing here. Reading "up against" is a method which is "less decided" and "more tennative". The meaning, and the role that we as readers have in sharing in the construction of such meaning, has the presence of uncertainity with in it. It is unlike reading against which "forces" the reader to come at the text from a fixed position, a solid way to understand what is being said which lacks being able to be "circuitous instead of straight", it lacks the ability to be close by but not there.
That idea of "reading up" has a strangle correlation to something in Katz' book about the Jewish midrash. The jewish practice of retelling and reframing epic biblical stories is explained. Exhorted if you will.
"But the midrash is not simply rabbinic commentary on the Torah.. not simply a tool for reading a story. The Bible is a holy text, and the rabbis believe that through midrash - that is, through their interpretive process- the holy voice of God as alterity open itself up to us... Midrash opens up the voices in the Torah that are muted in the text.. Midrash lifts these voices out of the text and then brigns them to bear on the narrative. By enabling our access to these others, midrash brings us closer to the ethical and, thus, closer to God." (pg 18)
So not only is reading up against a text something which is possible but the Jewish rabbis bring this further by saying that through reading it differently, in a variety of ways, you open up the possibility of hearing the marginalized and the different. You are listening to the voice of the other. And this practice is so good, so saturated in ethics, so close to love that we are, in some way, close to God. Closer to God. Simply by reading differently, reading "up against" rather than "reading against" we open the possibility of hearing other voices that we never heard before. Voices of the other. Voices, maybe of God.
This brings up something neither the academy (by that I mean all the university institutions, guilds, guidelines, journal editors and anyone in the industry of making knowledge) nor the church (by this I mean something which is individual congregations, theologies, pastors... not an 'industry' as such though occasionally acting as one through publishing houses, seminaries etc) want to admit. The interpretation and understanding of a work of fiction or non-fiction, literature or trash, novel or shortstory, philosophy or fantasy, pop stuff and scripture is not controlled by one source.
Usually what is objected is that such a thing will take away from the "real meaning" of text (whether that be the Bible, Lord of the Rings, Lewis' books, Shakespeares plays). This critique leads me to add to my argument using (pay attention to that word) an unconventional source: a work of old french sociology from the sixties I found in a friends cultural studies text book.
The work is called "The Practice of Everyday Life" by Michel de Certeau, a jesuit and sociologist who shows a fascinating prejudice in the way we talk about things economically, culturally and even historically. He says his study intends to examine 'users' "whose status.. in society is concealed by the euphemistic term 'consumer' ". What he is proposing is that economically and culturally we look at two classes: the producers and the consumers. The producers make the product (be it a car, a television ad or a book) and the consumers, well, consume it. They eat it (not literally), they take it all in. In thus model "they are assumed to be passive and guided by established rules". Not true says Michel. Instead we are users, we do not just take in but we fiddle and manipulate (as users) what is given to us (by producers). Like the indigenous peoples using the catholic rituals for their pagan beliefs after that Spanish conquerors tried to force them to convert. They did, outwardly, but used Christian objects and texts in a very non Christian way.
Michel brings his ideas of users (not consumers) and producers back towards literature and reading.
"In reality, that activity of reading has on the contrary all the characteristics of silent production... he insinuates into another person's text the ruses of pleasure and appropriation: he poaches on it, is transported into it.. A different world (the reader's) slips into the authors place. This mutation makes the text habitable, like a rented apartment. It transforms another person's property into a space borrowed for a moment of transient."
I am pulling on three quotations together now. In order to read and discuss "a lot more closely" I would have to give up reading "up against". And in doing so I claim, in some ways, to be a producer and not a user. I am a user of the text I am reading, not a consumer and certainly not a producers. The thing is not mine, yet I can use it in away that is in some sense uniquely mine. And If it is some how unique to me, perhaps I can practice some sort of Midrash. The book I am reading is no sacred text. Therefore the best I can hope for in practicing midrash is an interesting idea, a different reading of that text, maybe hearing the voice of a marginalized, a specific group, or the marginalized in general. In that way I am doing the ethical, or at least searching for that.
Now returning to the original quotation, the one about clasing egos. It seems to me through reflection that perhaps this clash, resulting in difference, is not solved by trying to eliminate difference. Rather perhaps we can apply harmony and not discord between the differences. Harmonious difference.
How?
Perhaps by reading "up against" a text. Maybe by using, not consuming or producing, what is there. Possibly by practicing midrash. Perhaps we can get closer to responding to the other. Closer to harmonious difference.
I say this very tongue-in-cheek but maybe reading and discussing "as specifically as possible" is not the only right way to write and think.
"Modern philosophy viewed subjectivity as a clash of egos, in which competing drives ultimately find themselves at war... [and because they are at war they] are together. And this view understood peace as that condition in which reason reigns. Thus, modern philosophers believed reason [would stop the war]." and because of this "Rather than maintaining the alterity of the other, [that] peace assimilates the stranger into the Same." And another quotation:"This pursuit [of peace] violates the alterity of the other, in the name of the needs of the community".
I got this as a response to my discussion:
"You do a good job of identifying a specific point to discuss, but you could discuss this quotation a little more closely. Get in there and talk about the words and the ideas that the quotation raises as specifically as possible."
I began to wonder if I could discuss this quotation "more closely" and "as specifically as possible". I commenced in trying to work through what that might mean in a blog post, or in a piece of writting in general. How can we get more specific? What does that mean? How does that look like?
It reminded me of two things:
First on the blog planet Dave Humphrey posted a piece of "reading up against a text" rather than "reading against a text". Perhaps I have actually "read up against" and not "read against" his post enough to understand what he means but it seems to me to be pertinent to what I am discussing here. Reading "up against" is a method which is "less decided" and "more tennative". The meaning, and the role that we as readers have in sharing in the construction of such meaning, has the presence of uncertainity with in it. It is unlike reading against which "forces" the reader to come at the text from a fixed position, a solid way to understand what is being said which lacks being able to be "circuitous instead of straight", it lacks the ability to be close by but not there.
That idea of "reading up" has a strangle correlation to something in Katz' book about the Jewish midrash. The jewish practice of retelling and reframing epic biblical stories is explained. Exhorted if you will.
"But the midrash is not simply rabbinic commentary on the Torah.. not simply a tool for reading a story. The Bible is a holy text, and the rabbis believe that through midrash - that is, through their interpretive process- the holy voice of God as alterity open itself up to us... Midrash opens up the voices in the Torah that are muted in the text.. Midrash lifts these voices out of the text and then brigns them to bear on the narrative. By enabling our access to these others, midrash brings us closer to the ethical and, thus, closer to God." (pg 18)
So not only is reading up against a text something which is possible but the Jewish rabbis bring this further by saying that through reading it differently, in a variety of ways, you open up the possibility of hearing the marginalized and the different. You are listening to the voice of the other. And this practice is so good, so saturated in ethics, so close to love that we are, in some way, close to God. Closer to God. Simply by reading differently, reading "up against" rather than "reading against" we open the possibility of hearing other voices that we never heard before. Voices of the other. Voices, maybe of God.
This brings up something neither the academy (by that I mean all the university institutions, guilds, guidelines, journal editors and anyone in the industry of making knowledge) nor the church (by this I mean something which is individual congregations, theologies, pastors... not an 'industry' as such though occasionally acting as one through publishing houses, seminaries etc) want to admit. The interpretation and understanding of a work of fiction or non-fiction, literature or trash, novel or shortstory, philosophy or fantasy, pop stuff and scripture is not controlled by one source.
Usually what is objected is that such a thing will take away from the "real meaning" of text (whether that be the Bible, Lord of the Rings, Lewis' books, Shakespeares plays). This critique leads me to add to my argument using (pay attention to that word) an unconventional source: a work of old french sociology from the sixties I found in a friends cultural studies text book.
The work is called "The Practice of Everyday Life" by Michel de Certeau, a jesuit and sociologist who shows a fascinating prejudice in the way we talk about things economically, culturally and even historically. He says his study intends to examine 'users' "whose status.. in society is concealed by the euphemistic term 'consumer' ". What he is proposing is that economically and culturally we look at two classes: the producers and the consumers. The producers make the product (be it a car, a television ad or a book) and the consumers, well, consume it. They eat it (not literally), they take it all in. In thus model "they are assumed to be passive and guided by established rules". Not true says Michel. Instead we are users, we do not just take in but we fiddle and manipulate (as users) what is given to us (by producers). Like the indigenous peoples using the catholic rituals for their pagan beliefs after that Spanish conquerors tried to force them to convert. They did, outwardly, but used Christian objects and texts in a very non Christian way.
Michel brings his ideas of users (not consumers) and producers back towards literature and reading.
"In reality, that activity of reading has on the contrary all the characteristics of silent production... he insinuates into another person's text the ruses of pleasure and appropriation: he poaches on it, is transported into it.. A different world (the reader's) slips into the authors place. This mutation makes the text habitable, like a rented apartment. It transforms another person's property into a space borrowed for a moment of transient."
I am pulling on three quotations together now. In order to read and discuss "a lot more closely" I would have to give up reading "up against". And in doing so I claim, in some ways, to be a producer and not a user. I am a user of the text I am reading, not a consumer and certainly not a producers. The thing is not mine, yet I can use it in away that is in some sense uniquely mine. And If it is some how unique to me, perhaps I can practice some sort of Midrash. The book I am reading is no sacred text. Therefore the best I can hope for in practicing midrash is an interesting idea, a different reading of that text, maybe hearing the voice of a marginalized, a specific group, or the marginalized in general. In that way I am doing the ethical, or at least searching for that.
Now returning to the original quotation, the one about clasing egos. It seems to me through reflection that perhaps this clash, resulting in difference, is not solved by trying to eliminate difference. Rather perhaps we can apply harmony and not discord between the differences. Harmonious difference.
How?
Perhaps by reading "up against" a text. Maybe by using, not consuming or producing, what is there. Possibly by practicing midrash. Perhaps we can get closer to responding to the other. Closer to harmonious difference.
I say this very tongue-in-cheek but maybe reading and discussing "as specifically as possible" is not the only right way to write and think.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
the Other and things we like - things like democracy
I picked up the book "Levinas, Judaism, and the Feminine" from Old Goats the other day simply out of name recognition. I have heard of Emmanuel Levinas before but was unclear what he wrote about (Wikipedia does not reveal everything) so I wanted to find out. I discovered I could use the text for the class so I had no second thoughts about purchasing it. The book itself seems to be part of a philosophy of religion series from Indiana University Press and thus a lot more specific and focused than I hoped, but alas I did find something to blog about with in the text.
I do not know whether one can be a 'fan' of a Christian theologian who most people outside academic theology circles know nothing about, but if you can then I am a fan of John Milbank. Specifically I found fascinating his reading of modernity being founded on the notion of original violence. No wonder the following quotation from "Levinas, Judaism and the Femonone" drew my attention and produced an abundance of reflection on my part:
What is being said here is essentially that in order to have peace, stability, justice etc etc one needs to make sure that any difference needs to be eroded, consumed or destroyed. For example, to be part of high school clique one must be like the other members of the clique in someway and hide or change the part of you that is not like them. Levinas is saying that this is in reality the way our modern state government and culture functions because it is based on "reason" which looks for the best way to rule and is not based on the ethical impulse to take care of the stranger.
Originally 'we are elected to responsibility' and we do not choose this responsibility. Instead it is the first thing that is required of us to be human. At one point the author points out that for Levinas ethics is always 'Anarchical' because it is based on our responsibility to the other, the stranger, and not to the commands of rulers. On the surface this seems contradictory, but that is not the case. Instead what Levinas means is that our human-ness is not defined by 'natural rights' as in the case of politics (American, French, European, Canadian and A LOT of modern states) but by our natural responsibility to the other. Natural rights focuses on what individuals deserve and can demand from others, where as natural responsibility demands that you take care of the other who deserves your aide .
There is a world of difference between the two understandings.
Of course in the discussion of the responsibility to the other Levinas brings up a host of different stories from Torah, being a practicing Jew and Talmudic commentator. His focus is the command "thou shall not kill" as the fountainhead for the practice of responding to the Other. He expands this through an exposition on the Stories of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, and the book of Ruth. He even interprets the creation story as an element of this theme. In my next post I hope to explore his use of the biblical text in his discussion of "the responsibility to the other" and to ask how he can be both a philosopher and biblical commentator, how he reconciles what he calls "the greek" and "the hebrew" in his work.
I do not know whether one can be a 'fan' of a Christian theologian who most people outside academic theology circles know nothing about, but if you can then I am a fan of John Milbank. Specifically I found fascinating his reading of modernity being founded on the notion of original violence. No wonder the following quotation from "Levinas, Judaism and the Femonone" drew my attention and produced an abundance of reflection on my part:
"Modern philosophy viewed subjectivity as a clash of egos, in which competing drives ultimately find themselves at war... [and because they are at war they] are together. And this view understood peace as that condition in which reason reigns. Thus, modern philosophers believed reason [would stop the war]." and because of this "Rather than maintaining the alterity of the other, [that] peace assimilates the stranger into the Same." And another quotation:"This pursuit [of peace] violates the alterity of the other, in the name of the needs of the community".
What is being said here is essentially that in order to have peace, stability, justice etc etc one needs to make sure that any difference needs to be eroded, consumed or destroyed. For example, to be part of high school clique one must be like the other members of the clique in someway and hide or change the part of you that is not like them. Levinas is saying that this is in reality the way our modern state government and culture functions because it is based on "reason" which looks for the best way to rule and is not based on the ethical impulse to take care of the stranger.
Originally 'we are elected to responsibility' and we do not choose this responsibility. Instead it is the first thing that is required of us to be human. At one point the author points out that for Levinas ethics is always 'Anarchical' because it is based on our responsibility to the other, the stranger, and not to the commands of rulers. On the surface this seems contradictory, but that is not the case. Instead what Levinas means is that our human-ness is not defined by 'natural rights' as in the case of politics (American, French, European, Canadian and A LOT of modern states) but by our natural responsibility to the other. Natural rights focuses on what individuals deserve and can demand from others, where as natural responsibility demands that you take care of the other who deserves your aide .
There is a world of difference between the two understandings.
Of course in the discussion of the responsibility to the other Levinas brings up a host of different stories from Torah, being a practicing Jew and Talmudic commentator. His focus is the command "thou shall not kill" as the fountainhead for the practice of responding to the Other. He expands this through an exposition on the Stories of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, and the book of Ruth. He even interprets the creation story as an element of this theme. In my next post I hope to explore his use of the biblical text in his discussion of "the responsibility to the other" and to ask how he can be both a philosopher and biblical commentator, how he reconciles what he calls "the greek" and "the hebrew" in his work.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Literature
Here are the books I will be reading:
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket
The Noam Chomsky Lectures:a play by Brooks and Verdecchia
Levinas,Judaism and the Feminine by Katz
Jesus and Marx by Ellul
I have not decided about the last one
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket
The Noam Chomsky Lectures:a play by Brooks and Verdecchia
Levinas,Judaism and the Feminine by Katz
Jesus and Marx by Ellul
I have not decided about the last one
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)