John Currietag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002/3172007-12-04T21:43:09ZweblogMovable Type Enterprise 1.02Update?tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.57812007-12-04T21:36:45Z2007-12-04T21:43:09ZHere is what I got so far ......John Currie
Here is what I got so far ...
First look at last week's blog. All that and I've a few articles from md's of the era regarding injury and recovery. They are helpful but in the end I think success rests in the nature of uniting this voice(s) in the narrative. Once they are justifiably unified, then I can examine whether it is worth reading, so to speak. If not, this would answer certain last questions and the story would have done its job for me. But this blog is about whether I'm doing mine and in that, somewhat, I think, I hope, I, yes.
Say goodnight Gracie.
Nevertag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.57382007-12-03T20:58:57Z2007-12-03T21:32:20ZThis captivating book was a great last read. It seemed to bring together many of the ideas and veiled assumptions we both discussed and confronted throughout our weeks in the class....John Currie
This captivating book was a great last read. It seemed to bring together many of the ideas and veiled assumptions we both discussed and confronted throughout our weeks in the class.
I began reading this book ahead of time, by accident. This allowed me to read it more like a book I chose to read, less like an assigned text. I was less pressured for time and insight (which was an insight in itself) so I was fully able to allow the ideas it presented to work on me. In some ways, aspects of this book reflect my opinion about how some basic biological ideas can be used to create a culture of less free individuals. In many instances, modern medicine, which I think the book speaks more to, has found ways to promote existence for some, but little health for many (which is a whole other rant).
In this delicate book, many issues of bodily control, and hence, the spiritual identity of the characters reflects this power. This has implications for current issues of consciousness and, indirectly, provokes the reader's sense of a collective consciousness, and how it is manifest for us, those reading the fiction, reflecting on its tense points of insight.
And while this book deals with a type of science fiction and makes references to some of the more iconic texts of these last years, it reads much more real, much more overarching in its message and accessible in its presentation. Having said that, I'm not a big reader in the genre so I'm sure there are newer texts to counter my ignorance.
I was concerned for these people and the sci-fi setting just enough to make it closer to me, more of a plausibility that it could happen. The language simple, to the point and textured. I could and did care for the characters, no matter they are from a world just a bit on the outer limits of our present consciousness.
Ode to a White Castle Coffee Mugtag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.56842007-11-30T17:20:52Z2007-12-03T16:19:17ZSo what do you want it is the end of the century, oops semester, I can't even think about Tuesday anymore it seems that far away....John Currie
So what do you want it is the end of the century, oops semester, I can't even think about Tuesday anymore it seems that far away.
I loved revisiting Keats after these many years and still find his language and cadences somewhat contemporary, I know I may be alone in this but I suppose I try to take all his "phrases of the time" as simply that; I try not to see them as impediments.
I would offer the analogy of what might be called "spoken word" poetry as distinctly the same type of archaic old language. That style, nearly a generation old now in its popular form, strikes me the same way that Keats strikes some in class, as language from a particular time, somehow stuck there. Yet the dressing of spoken word is more accessible so therefore, easier to relate to.
I was invited to read at the Poet's Cafe as part of fiction series in 1990 and was amazed how quickly that scene became a metaphor for modern poetics, as somehow more current that say, Keats, perhaps. Not long after that, I was fortunate to have lunch with Rita Dove, the poet laureate at that time. We discussed how to update the old man's club so to speak and make it necessary(for history is,no matter it flaws) and she pointed out that these writers were the radicals of their day. Since then I found myself as a teacher, at times reading, Robert Burns, in vernacular, to groups of city kids and making it meaningful.
I am always struck that modernity for lack of a better word, is a striving after the new, in context. Keats deals with all we do and will do. If some of the lexicon is out of reach on a first reading, that makes sense. But in the act of imagination, we can and do make it real, current, relevant.
It was also a bit of nostalgia for me to read as I was once a young man(this also hard to believe), with flowing brown locks, studying theater in the mid 80's. I studied speech and diction as a kid from New Jersey might need to do to improve or polish some of my local sounds. We spent many days reading Keats, Shelly, and what have you with a speech teacher born just after the turn of the century. It was a realization how everything old gets new again, to paraphrase.
The issues of consciousness that are raised in these poems are timeless, even if, the words are stuck in time(a bit).
That personal report aside, to deal with Steen, which by (un?)conscious action, came to me late in this week's work, if I have to confess. I do and must.
As was discussed in class, there were some easily misunderstood frameworks in the construction of what is seemingly a soundly plausible, useful argument.
In his italicized intro to his argument, Steen proposes that "The study of aesthetics within an evolutionary framework has focused on the appetite for beauty as an engine for driving adaptive behavior in habitat and mate choice." He continues and proposes "instead that aesthetic experience is its own goal, in the sense that the experience implicitly provides adaptively useful information for purposes of self-construction. Without bringing in a larger history of this argument, it would be hard to disagree with either position, however some level of assumption doesn't seem like a natural selection.
Looking at aspects of this idea, Steen says: " Current work in evolutionary theory is animated by the seductive promise of a functional explanation for every key human trait. Yet the variety and complexity of the aesthetic impulse, along with its myriad expressions, may make us conclude, very sensibly, that reality simply overflows our theories." This last idea, that reality, in its many patterns, is beyond our ability to theorize about it. This is strong and true idea.
There is an old existential joke, whose set-up I forget but whose punch line so to speak, is that if you found out the meaning of life, you'd be dead. What we don't know will always overshadow what we do, I hope. Anything more might just be sophistry or a soap opera of fantastic belief. However, it is curious that even in his parry at current work, he defines the argument by the "impulse" of "variety and complexity." Is his use of impulse, i.e. instinct a wrench in the engine of his point?
Steen writes that evolutionary aesthetics fails to "provide a credible framework for understanding the surprising range of aesthetics." Outside of staying with the confines of Darwinian natural selection, there is no new answer to species adaptation generally. Steen seeks "an explanation that honors beauty itself as a resource, without seeing it as a proxy for something else." This sounds "honorable" yet somehow loses me logically.
Firstly I agree that this is fertile ground for discussion and understanding, but I also argue that aesthetic knowledge functions in an evolutionary context if we examine the knowledge of beauty. If we, as Steen argues, use beauty as a tool for self construction, isn't that then, to a degree, an adaptive choice. What is the interaction of instinct and imagination? It seems to me, (and you might prove this at any cocktail party) that more knowledge of aesthetics, beauty, art, becomes an adaptation that makes an individual more attractive to a mate and can, at least theoretically aid one on making an income and therefore access to better living choices; this related to the organism making choices to increase the chance for survival. Over time, this has lead to changes in brain structure and complexity.
It may take smarter students than I to unpack Steen's argument, but I found it frustrating in that I agree with many of his points, but left the reading disappointed as the contradictions that appear like so many selective adaptations don't get formally dealt with. Still much ground to till, many seeds to sow.
Then again, we are only looking at a small aspect of a larger work, but, that's life, that's what people say. We only ever see a small piece of anything at any given time. Or did I miss something?
tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.56812007-11-30T16:34:25Z2007-11-30T16:37:26Zheres a link to the 801 blog I commented onhttp://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0907N_0276/011/ Why do I think this link is incorrectly linked? The blog dealt with AD and consent....John Currie
http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0907N_0276/011/
Why do I think this link is incorrectly linked?
The blog dealt with AD and consent.]]>
final project and questionstag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.54482007-11-20T15:56:08Z2007-11-20T16:10:15ZWell what's it gonna be? As I mentioned in class, I am working on a short story that is about 5500 words long at present. I have drafted this a few times and the length seems to stay more or...John Currie
Well what's it gonna be? As I mentioned in class, I am working on a short story that is about 5500 words long at present. I have drafted this a few times and the length seems to stay more or less the same, which is interesting to me though I can't say exactly why! It deals with a bright child who gets attacked and is damaged, partially paralyzed though his mind is little if at all damaged. At times, I have played with the idea that the attack actually help his intellectual functioning.
It takes place in the early seventies in a fairly working class immigrant neighborhood. I have not specifically defined what medically is happening which I think I need to research and focus on care from that time and what might be done for rehab, or the lack of it.
One of the big questions I have is how to promote forgiveness despite violence toward oneself, this has become a type of theme for the piece, though some folk have difficulty with the idea.
As per our class subject, how is core consciousness retained and expanded in the face of adversity and disability?
That's what I got so far
Have a good Thanksgiving if you read this before and hope it was good and thankful if you are reading it afterwards.
The rain has started in Astoria. I guess I can't take any meditative walks now. Better get to my writing.
Thanks
John
consciousness report 11-9-07tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.52582007-11-09T18:01:50Z2007-11-10T20:00:10ZIt is that time already, they have delivered a tree to rock, which seems to happen earlier every year. This year as part of the green theme so much media has discovered more of as of late, they cut this...John Currie
It is that time already, they have delivered a tree to rock, which seems to happen earlier every year. This year as part of the green theme so much media has discovered more of as of late, they cut this huge tree down with hand saws, which took them an hour longer to do.
In the old days, which is to say, a few years back, the first week of December was the big lighting. I don't know when it is this year but, Nov 9. Is it me or does is it a bit too soon for the beginning to look a lot like Christmas and that sort of schtick.
Phil Donahue hosted the tree lighting a few times when I was in high school. Some friends and I came over a few times, making the trek from New Jersey. One year we were so well place, we were on the six o'clock news. I think we had been imbibing, under age carousing before hand, which was apparent to our friends watching at home, but not to our folks, another Christmas miracle.
Don't get me wrong, I'm full of the spirit, believe me. And not the first to note how earlier holidays happen nowadays. But the image I have in my head, the big tree standing, I'm sure guarded, for all these weeks before the lights go one (which never looks colorful on TV, at least not on my non-cable rabbit ears). It's sad. Like the ornaments or holiday items that go up too early and stay, forgotten by workers who only sign on for the season. All alone, waiting for the party.
If Jesus, Mary, and Joesph flew in today, would they be able to stay in the lobby of Thirty Rock, if they were tired, looking for a place to lie for the night? Would the tree fulfill a promise as the beacon of hope from General Electric? Another Christmas miracle.
I just heard Macy's is full of Christmas cheer this week as well, obviously, I need to get out more, get with the program, and get shopping.
consciousness report 11-06tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.52332007-11-08T15:56:29Z2007-11-08T16:46:11Z"Everywhere you go, there you are." And here I stay, still feeling behind the eight ball sans magic or fortune telling....John Currie
"Everywhere you go, there you are." And here I stay, still feeling behind the eight ball sans magic or fortune telling.
I am yet again re-reading books in an effort to clarify my position, what I think I see in these books. This prevents me from actually formulating these opinions and formalizing them into some sort of order, or to put it more simply, to write about them.
I had to create a personal poetics statement yesterday for another class, while this was an enjoyable exercise, fun to write and present, I was left feeling, what now? Is there actually a unique position left? or is insight simply now a function of individuality?
In this statement I traced influences from the age of four or so up to how these years affected my present sensibility. One I put down one writer, there was another I didn't. I become consumed with a anxiety of influence debate in my own head. It went something like this. "Oh I can mention her, or I can mention him, or her, or him ... you get the picture. But also, I cannot ignore growing up in the early days of broadcast television and am subject to the sitcom mind or the variety hour, or vaudeville. How does these influences differ-- or do they. I think not. The great value it seems to have grown up in waves of popular culture which have virtually erased the lines between Hight and Low culture. Is this lamentable, as Eliot or others may have believed? Or is it just the movement of history. With our increased ability to record our history, the different tools, media and so on, have we altered this delicate balance? Just too many questions.
I have taken a break to get a late breakfast and have no idea what I have been talking about. There is to my thinking great liberty, to be had by bringing together the high and the low. This is not new, we just have more options to manipulate information and images. I don't lament this as some may. With each new option, something old gives way. But we continue.
One of the leaders of the 1917 Arab rebellion, Auda abu Tayi (played by Anthony Quinn in the film) said, and I paraphrase "With each generation, mankind moves farther and farther away from his childhood." And with each generation, there is always opportunity, at least that's the idea.
The Diving Bell and the Butterflytag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.51612007-11-06T18:03:26Z2007-11-06T20:15:46ZRight after I began the program here, and weeks after this class began and I had bought all my books, pledged not to buy notebooks but finish any one of a dozen half-filled or under used ones I already possessed....John Currie
Right after I began the program here, and weeks after this class began and I had bought all my books, pledged not to buy notebooks but finish any one of a dozen half-filled or under used ones I already possessed. People began to ask me: how was school? what classes are you taking? Is it fun? Do you like your professors? What do they think of you?
In those enthusiastic first weeks, I ended up at an impromptu dinner in Grammercy Park. I was meeting my girlfriend who had a meeting with a Scottish painter. The plan was I would fetch her at his apt. and go have a curry(I use this expression now; even though the spelling is different, the phrase has provocative implications!). In stead, the painter and his partner decide to through together a pasta and salad and ply us with wine. What could be bad? Not much, free food and booze, good company and fine surroundings. As the evening went on, lasting hours longer than any of us our age would admit would tire us, we discussed many things, one being The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Now the proof, the beauty of the evening, that we had a great time, is that I can't remotely remember the finer shadings of literary criticism we were exposing by the third magnum of red wine. But I do remember that our host had read the book, found it fascinating, on the surface but felt the narrative impossible, that it was at best a concept, at worst a lie. There was something in the narrative that somehow didn't ring as true as the author might have liked.
Without summarizing it, I was obviously intrigued by the story before the story of
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, so to speak, what I knew of the author and the necessity that brought this book into being. Sometimes this type of information can enhance or spoil a book, or movie, or play. It sets up preconceptions. And often with the disabled, in particular someone who is "normal" and somehow becomes "abnormal" or as in a play I saw some years ago put it: you become, "in-valid." There is a pressure to sympathize with the person, to somehow be more accepting of weakness in telling because of the obvious strength it takes just to say hello, or good morning, or good night. This, in essence is how I came to this book.
I must admit a bias in that I was trained and worked as a speech therapist and in special education in various capacities. This in itself presented itself as I read this book. I became aware that I had worked with, read about, observed people using alternate methods of communication. I have interpreted for and taught Deaf individuals using American Sign Language to English and back. This influenced my reading.
My essential feeling about this book is, it is a piece of translation and as such presents difficulties. It is a narrative generated by one person, who creates a system of signification that is then communicated, interpreted and translated into French, and then to us, in English. There were many instances in this book where the language simply failed for me. I had a sense there was something insightful being communicated, but the words and the sentences only hinted at this insight. Reading it became unexciting, a disappointment. But perhaps I wanted more insight from this formally normal, and highly positioned editor. Maybe I was just staking the deck of expectation. Or missing certain cultural nuances that different survive the French to English portion of the trip.
The book disappoints due to the distance we are from the actual consciousness of the event. By the time the book is in our hands, we are four or five "levels" from the mind of Bauby. And, at least for me, I felt this as a distraction. Often we can read translations, while aware, seem easy, light despite the heaviness of the subject. Here, the translation felt heavy, effortful. It is a difficult project and certainly, for me, I consider this. Even so, I found the book less surprising than I would have hoped.
Still one can see the book at a deeper level, beyond the specifics of the individual narrative.
What is remarkable, is the book as object, as evidence that any particular destruction is only so strong, that given what little limits we are allowed, we will exploit them. We will tell about it. We have, as many have written about, an instinct for language. Like breath we use without thinking, we cannot stop this biology, this physiology of individuality, our mark, what makes us.
Bauby's story and the need to tell it, in some ways, reminds me of those heroic stories of dogs, who drag themselves hundreds of miles home, beating the odds, only so much at times, but beating them none the less. It seems the story of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly shows this imperative we have, it is in this way, instinctual and responsive. Certainly telling, spending the time, the tremendous effort brings no direct benefit to the life of the narrator, no physical pain is soothed, no particular skill is revived. So why tell it?
In this way Bauby's need to write the story is evidence of our imperative, our biology to share our selves; we have a body, not a reason, per se to converse to let each other know, to get the last word, to tell it like it is, to talk till we get home.
Old Books Reporttag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.51072007-11-05T21:51:01Z2007-11-06T18:01:31ZLooking over some of the blogs I read and commented on, there was discussion about keeping and writing a journal, how easy it is to start and stop them, but how hard to keep with the discipline, how this gets...John Currie
Looking over some of the blogs I read and commented on, there was discussion about keeping and writing a journal, how easy it is to start and stop them, but how hard to keep with the discipline, how this gets harder as we get older. In keeping with that, I took a couple of entries from one of many summers I spent as a kid in Pennsylvania and typed them up as a kind of memory trip. I changed a few verbs and things, spelling a bit.
How is it this was so easy to do and now takes so much effort?
I like it in the morning, out, all alone, in the dark, we can hear each other breathing the cows and that it's good here, because, well you can see.
These are no days when I'm safe and the only fair way to split the food for dinner is separating all of us into different rooms and calling us one by one to get our plate. If Mom didn't start doing that way, I'd get as much as I could fight for. No more. That wasn't much. I always waited to be last, carrying buckets and rope, getting all the tools ready for the morning when everybody else screamed or waited to get called. Had to get the cow taken care of. I'd like the barn and watering pond when they all go in. It's quiet like a farm, standing still, watch my salvation.
In the morning we all have things to do. Some of the old ones, like Chick and Lucelle call them chores. We're all old enough now so we spend two months a piece taking care in the morning. We have to check the hens, get eggs, water the goats, horses, milk cows, carry in bacon and sausages from the freezer, set the feed and make sure it's ready for the hands when they get here at nine.
Since we do the early shift now Mom, she prays no one falls off the thresher or gets caught up in Rudy's horns. Let my brothers and sisters fight it all, I know even after they leave the kitchen, Mom will give me my dinner so I don't have to duke it out.
Before now I go to bed. Dinner was mince and potatoes and chocolate My-T-Fine pudding. And cupcakes. Always like that. Because I fixed the harness early, I get a coke with my food.
It's the best part.
Reading Slatertag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.50312007-11-02T20:04:29Z2007-11-02T21:05:27ZMy next door neighbor's small white haired dog is barking, barking, bark, bark. Perhaps I just hear it. Perhaps I like to use it as a way to avoid writing and getting my work done. Or I can just get...John Currie
My next door neighbor's small white haired dog is barking, barking, bark, bark. Perhaps I just hear it. Perhaps I like to use it as a way to avoid writing and getting my work done. Or I can just get rid of it. You know what I mean. You've heard these stories before.
You know what I mean? Lying. I can say I hate this book. But I have to get to work either way. I liked this book.
I know it's more design that discourse, but the cover, and the text as introduction had me immediately caught up. Being given the image of the entire text as a question mark both intrigues and oddly misinforms and lies leave questions, but questions themselves cannot be lies. The word, "impish" also has specific internal connotations that I respond to, that implore me.
We find out later how this quote figures into the text and what it implies to the reader, both before and after reading the book.
When I open the book I am given more instruction, more guidance for handling the book, putting it into its own context, "I exaggerate." This small sentence, liberates. I am allowed to view anything that follows as simply the stem of a parsed verb, something that Slater may have done, or been connected to, though now precisely how it may be represented, unclear. By informing me, I can and do accept the parameters she establishes.
Because of this obvious disclosure, much of what I read allowed for divergent yet simultaneous readings. Slater's descriptions of the mother character, for example, get funneled through this criteria she has set. So in one way, I am given an abusive, overbearing parent while also given other "tags" in the text which call into question the validity of the narrative. So what do I do with the mother, or the daughter, is to keep both ideas in mind.
Slater constantly seems to be pushing the reader, seeing how far the reader will go before cashing in so to speak, before refusing to believe just enough of the lie. She does this most, to my reading, by discussing her brain surgery, the separation of the corpus callosum. It has been some years, but I remember something about this and it seemed true, yet the present level of function I am given by LYING leaves a doubt. The type of seizure that would cause a decision to slit the two hemispheres of the brain would, at least to my memory, need to be more severe than what I've been shown in book. But maybe not. It is writing convincing enough so I suspended my doubts and am pulled through the text. It was amusing to hear people tried to verify some of the "facts" given to us. It seems to support the success of the narrative because Slater writes so well, so spins these extremes throughout the text, hedging and prodding the interest of the reader.
Were I to view this text as, "fundamentally" true (if in fact this is or has ever been possible) then I might be upset by the actions the speaker takes, or aspects of the narratives, the facts, that the speaker presents. But by presently these guideposts, the writer allows the story to unfold. I found I was less interested in the specifics but looked for greater meaning, beyond any purely human interest story.
The small, sharp mouth bark of my neighbors dog has stopped, which only means someone is walking the dog for ten minutes before the dog is brought back and alone again for twelve hours. Some food shoved at it. Walked. Left alone. Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. What could be worse? Not much, sometimes that's the way it is. Or is it some things, like a barking dog, can be, how can I put it, handled, if you know what I mean? You know what I'm saying. Don't you?
Consciousness report 11-02tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.50302007-11-02T19:26:56Z2007-11-02T19:46:15ZI guess, which I suppose most of you are not, if you follow dates and track my habits through posting dates you would see I have allowed myself to get behind in class. Maybe that's acceptable you but it's not...John Currie
I guess, which I suppose most of you are not, if you follow dates and track my habits through posting dates you would see I have allowed myself to get behind in class. Maybe that's acceptable you but it's not for me so you can't just stop it right Mr. and Mrs. Blogosphere.
Wait, who am I talking to?
Ah, diet chemical lemonade. The tang from the age of my water pipes makes the cold soft drink, hard and delicious. Now that my teeth have healed, I can once again eat almonds which I do as I catch up on some work. Almonds and lemonade, this is what my life has become.
It was on odd experience this last week. I was reading writers I most enjoy and am familar with, yet had a difficult time sitting down to write about them. Even now I feel I want to revisit related entries and revise them at a later date(maybe I will, you never know).
I will say, my reluctance did and does, rest in my concern to re-boot older ideas of these writers I know, throw around these arguments I use now at cocktail parties(One of the reasons a prof. of mine in undergrad said, to be an English major). You know what I mean. You spend time reading an author. You spend time reading crit. You spend time discussing it in/out of class. You write your paper. You know it. Then the info stays the same and becomes a reflection of you as a man, as a woman, as an adult, as a marker of where you've been, and how well you have executed what you claim to know.
In addition to this work block, I have been avoiding exercise, eating poorly, watching tv, What the ... or maybe not, only the shadow knows but I am afraid of what I already understand, or take credit for. Does any of this really matter? And who am I asking anyway?
But today, a new day and I decide just to do it as I am advertised into my submission.
Oliver Sackstag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.50292007-11-02T18:46:43Z2007-11-02T19:24:15ZI have always enjoyed reading Dr. Sacks. Through his work, I have been introduced to another way to view, or "consider" people. A different plane on how think about our brains, or more completely, our selves, our souls, our core...John Currie
I have always enjoyed reading Dr. Sacks. Through his work, I have been introduced to another way to view, or "consider" people. A different plane on how think about our brains, or more completely, our selves, our souls, our core consciousness, what ever metaphorical nuance one finds acceptable, to place us in the same discussion.
It was almost nostalgic for me to revisit the Lost Mariner. In a sense, I too was lost in a vision of myself in my early twenties. When I reflect on my state of mind when I was given this book as a birthday gift, I feel as if I in in the same state, yet I know experience, life itself has altered how I view these days, yet there is a space I "feel" those days reading this text, only to be yanked into the present by the very pages of my book itself, the edges yellowed from age, yet surviving the great nine box book give away two years ago. To double that experience, I find a ticket stub for Memorial day concert when the Clash played Asbury park, (at a concert hall I would live close to fifteen years later). I used this ticket as a bookmark when I originally read this book. I was not who I felt, yet I was.
The value of Sacks is in that, in all of writings, he reminds the general reader, the consumer most often of medical services, that the medical community thinks in a certain manner, often due to necessity or simple lack of understanding. Knowing this itself it seems to me is valuable in and of itself. But Sacks goes beyond the practical to provoke his readers also to hold an open definition when it comes to disorder, deficit, and what it means to be "deeply human."
The beauty of his writing guides the reader through a posture of sympathy towards the human being, to the composite of the understood and the misunderstood that makes up all of us. Such are the facts of life. How we and those around us, may define or distinguish ourselves as we rise to the challenge of our history, becomes our, for lack of a better term, grace, our space of joy.
When is Mrs. Dalloway’s Party?tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.49132007-10-30T15:34:00Z2007-11-13T20:46:56ZIt is 1925 now so by way of review, and by way of what has, until recently, been known as the rules of genteel society, I’ll defend my colleague Arnold Bennett while also and without much effort, critiquing Mrs. Woolf’s...John Currie
It is 1925 now so by way of review, and by way of what has, until recently, been known as the rules of genteel society, I’ll defend my colleague Arnold Bennett while also and without much effort, critiquing Mrs. Woolf’s new novel Mrs. Dalloway.
That this won’t require effort is due not to any particular prowess or dexterity with language on my part, but possible only because of the strength of Mr. Bennett’s position and relative weakness of his counterpart, Mrs. Woolf, or should I say perhaps, Mrs. Brown.
With this novel, Mrs. Woolf continues the experiments in narrative she began in Jacob's Room and earlier novels. Mrs. Woolf, afforded her position, a status achieved through active perseverance and, at least in some degree, to the benefit of controlling Hogarth Press.
In her most recent essay, "Modern Fiction," Mrs. Woolf writes: "Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness." She continues: "Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness..."The proper stuff of fiction" does not exist; everything is the proper stuff of fiction, every feeling, every thought, every quality of brain and spirit is drawn upon; no perception comes amiss." Mrs. Woolf by this,her own definition is successful. But I, and other, "older" writers certainly take issue with this definition. If "everything is the proper stuff of fiction," then where in lies the drama?
Mrs. Woolf is quick to adopt a tone and argument which supports her base assertions. To adopt Mrs. Woolf's position, it seems we, as readers, must simply believe what she says without question. She, the writer in this case, is spared any responsibility to prove what she asserts. It is the characters thoughts, that interests her, not so much their actions and if the reader makes the effort to get through this novel, it will be clear little happens by way of action, by way of plot. The central event, namely Mrs. Dalloway's party, is nearly an afterthought. At the novel's conclusion, we get small pieces of dialog, small insights, small talk but nothing actually occurs.
Mrs. Dalloway which focuses on three principal characters, their lives seemingly intertwined, as the title character prepares for a party that she is hosting later on that day. By inserting simple page breaks in the narrative, no chapters or headings, switching that conveniently from one "consciousness" to another, Mrs. Woolf believes she has done her work for the day. She changes, the setting, the characters, and the point of view that quickly with such weak emphasis to guide the event or the reader. With this, Mrs. Woolf says the only thing a reader needs is the writer's wishes. There is no proof, in any "Edwardian" sense; we must see the characters as presented, accept their thoughts and ignore our confusion.
W.L. Courtney, who reviewed Jacob's Room for the Daily Telegraph writes: "There is no particular story to tell, unless, indeed, you can gather some kind of story out of the piecemeal references to personages and things. But what does emerge is the constant activity, the perpetual reaction of a sensitive mind upon the impressions which come through the senses-- so that an event or a character is not viewed as it is, but only as steeped in the consciousness of the author. That is the great and decisive difference between an older art-method and a later, and sometimes the contrast is a little embarrassing. The old craving for a plot still remains in our regenerate breasts, and when all that we receive in compensation for what we have is the attitude of Mrs. Virginia Woolf toward her creations--or rather, perhaps, a theory of live as interpreted by a clever observer--there must inevitably be some confusion and a mixture of mere narration with the intrusions and philosophisings of a superior mind."
This states the great dilemma posed by Mrs. Woolf's work. She is clearly a great intellect and through her contacts in the literary and other groups, is aware of "new" ideas in human thinking, Courtney strikes the head of the nail when he describes Mrs. Woolf's characters as mere extensions of her own self, and her own understanding of the expansive notion of human consciousness. While some of these ideas may be provocative, they are no cause, at this early stage, to throw out traditionally proven methods of narration.
To this end. Mr. Bennett struck through to the heart of the matter with his essay of two years past. Let me give the reader a half-penny synopses of the argument and what can only be seen as further evidence that no new novelist has addressed character, with the specific skill and consistency as evidenced by Mr. Bennett or Mr. Gallsworthy, or Mr. Forster, himself a friend of the errant author.
In "Is The Novel Decaying," which prompted these skirmishes, these shots over the bow so to speak, Mr. Bennett, also dealing with Jacob's Room, proposes the idea that "no young novelists with promise of first-rate importance are rising up to take the place of the important middle-aged." In essence, what Mrs. Woolf writes, may provoke, but by no means, raises the standard nearly as much as her rhetoric declares. Mr. Bennett writes: "that the novel should seem to be true. It cannot seem true if the characters do not seem to be real." Bennett continues "The foundation of good fiction is character creating, and nothing else. The characters must be so fully true that they possess even their own creator." To my ear, this would be near to impossible when reading Mrs. Woolf. By her own admission, she is everpresent in her narratives. The reader is constantly aware of her, of her intellect and abilities. No where, yet, in Mrs. Woolf's writing, can we say that her characters possess her. The opposite is true. And by this logic, we follow Mr. Bennett, her fiction cannot be good, is not engaging so much as it is blatantly original. She is alarmingly clever and creative. However, the reader, may feel the opposite, both for her and himself. Without digressing too far from my present course, I must, in order of fairness, spell out in Mrs. Woolf's words, her rebuttal.
Mr. Bennett, himself the author of over thirty works of fiction and non-fiction, and is still writing. It is not in ignorance that he makes his claims. As a reaction to his insight, Mrs. Woolf penned: Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown. Here Mrs. Woolf critiques Mr. Bennett's criteria by creating a fictional persona, a Mrs. Brown, who she describes simply as "human nature," her own sense of human consciousness, as Mrs. Woolf sees it. Were Mr. Bennett or any Edwardians, for that matter, she proposes, in a carriage with Mrs. Brown, he "would keep his eyes in the carriage. He, indeed, would observe every detail with immense care. He would notice the advertisements, the pictures of Swanage and Portsmouth; the way in which the cushion bulged between the buttons; how Mrs. Brown wore a brooch which had cost three-and-ten three at Whitworth's bazaar; and had mended both gloves--indeed the thumb of the left-hand glove had been replaced ... So far, so good; in his leisurely, surefooted way Mr. Bennett is trying in these first few pages, where every touch is important, to show us the kind of girl she was."
Clearly, Mrs. Woolf has no difficulty and concedes, "So Far; So good." She continues to the end of her defense: "I have formed my own opinion of what Mr. Bennett is about--he is trying to make us believe that, because he has made a house, there must be a person living there. With all his powers of observation, which are marvelous, with all his sympathy and humanity, which are great, Mr. Bennett has never once looked at Mrs. Brown in her corner. There she sits in the corner of the carriage--that carriage which is traveling, not from Richmond to Waterloo, but from one age of English literature to the next, for Mrs. Brown is eternal ... there she sits and not one of the Edwardian writers has so much as looked at her. They have looked very powerfully, searchingly, and sympathetically out of the window; at factories, at Utopias, even at the decoration and upholstery of the carriage; but never at her, never at life, never at human nature. And so they have developed a technique of novel writing which suits their purpose; they have made tools and established conventions which do their business."
Is Mrs. Woolf so correct in her insights as to say that human nature is not represented by the actual behavior of characters in novels? If what characters do and how they show themselves through space, room, and home does not reflect the underlying human consciousness, then how does a novelist show this? Clearly Mrs. Woolf believes the Georgians have invented something new or at least have exposed why the history of English Letters has not dealt sufficiently enough with Mrs. Brown, with "human nature."
Again, to her most recent novel, where her particular skills are demonstrated, a frustratingly new basement in a much older house.
We are given a narrator in the third person who knows all, yet the speeches of the characters themselves often disagree. Characters contradict or misremember, leaving readers and reviewers alike searching for a sense of reliability to the voice, and by extension for the whole of the narrative. In her efforts to distinguish herself, and those new writers who share her vision, these Georgians as it's put to us, write for "the new."
In Mrs. Dalloway, Mrs. Woolf draws significant attention to herself, much in the way at the beginning of the book, a motor car, with the blinds down no less, drives through London, on this day in June, past many of the players of her drama who, without sufficient context and factual details, can only guess at the identify of the mysterious traveler in the motorcar. We are also shown an aeroplane that "whatever it did, wherever it went, out fluttered behind it a thick ruffled bar of white smoke." Looking for letters or words, a number of people see this smoke, and beginning to try to unravel it's meaning. Some see "K-E-Y," others "E-O-F." The reader never truly finds out what is being shown. What presents itself on first appearance as a "K-E-Y" to unlocking what the book discusses, turns out to be yet another in a series of undefined intentions; we don't quite know why we are seeing this nor why we should be interested or concerned.
Mrs. Woolf's assumption that her shifts in point of view, her use of internal narration, her consciousness of the inner workings of her clearly imaginary characters, is a new, more efficient narrative response to a changed world, chimes more like self-promotion than the markings of any new era in thought. It is at best, a feat worthy of envy, in the way a circus performer excites; at worst, her writing is a desperate conglomeration of indirect discourse, misspeaks, misrepresentations, contradictions and questionably simple facts.
In Mrs. Woolf's fiction, we are given the thoughts, limply and dryly portrayed; they are not earned, as is the case with the strongest of English fiction. The reader is given many points of view, but little that is, as Bennett suggests, true: "It cannot seem true in the characters do not seem to be real." With little more than inner descriptions and perceptions, it is hard to declare as true, Mrs. Dalloway, Or Septimus Warren Smith, Or Peter Walsh, or any of the greater or lesser characters they meet up with in this plotless meander through "life; London; this moment in June." Perhaps Mrs. Brown and her crowd are not, after all the rhetoric, as new or as perceptive as she thinks or would have us believe.
Zunshine on my shouldertag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.45842007-10-22T19:52:08Z2007-11-02T18:45:10ZI found the book did indeed shed light, in a clear, entertaining way, on the implications of cognitive science and use of these ideas in literary criticism. I enjoyed this book and agree with her basic premise, that ToM allows...John Currie
I found the book did indeed shed light, in a clear, entertaining way, on the implications of cognitive science and use of these ideas in literary criticism. I enjoyed this book and agree with her basic premise, that ToM allows us to create and enjoy narratives, regardless of the form these narratives may take.
Zunshine writes that her book: " makes a case for admitting the recent findings of cognitive psychologists into literary studies by showing how their research into the ability to explain behavior in terms of the underlying states of mine-- or mind reading abilities-- can furnish us with a series of surprising insights into our interaction with literary texts," (Zunshine 4). Zunshine breaks her argument into three premises.
In her first section, Attributing minds, she discusses what she labels "mind-reading" or our ability, afforded through neurological development, that allows us to "explain people's behavior in terms of their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires, (Zunshine 6).
She goes on to explain: :Attributing states of mind is the default way by which we construct and navigate our social environment, incorrect though our attributions frequently are," (Zunshine 6). By comparing this seemingly, normal ability with people with cognitive deficits, like autism, Zunshine demonstrates how a lack in this most basic skill, prevents people without it from actively participating in fictional narratives as well as the world at large. The ToM is used as an extended ability when we read, or watch TV or movies. In essence, we can conceive of fictional lives, because we have the notion and skill to interpret (or try to) any person we may meet or observe.
In discussing ToM to treat Woolf and Mrs. Dalloway. Zunshine makes the point that "certain aspects of Woolf's prose do place extraordinarily high demands on our mind-reading ability and that this could account, at least in part, for the fact that many readers feel challenged by the novel," (Zunshine 26). What follows this insight is the author's discuss and support as we discussed in class, i.e. that very deeply embedded pen. What I get the most reading this book, the enjoyment of Zunshine's language, and her ability to present arguments I can continue to return to afterwards which provoke and deepen my understanding, both of Woolf but also how I handle such texts. Her point, also evidenced by reaction of one another in class, that texts like Woolf affect people in different ways.
Explaining the process Zunshine writes: "When we try to articulate our perception of the cognitive challenge induced by this task of processing fifth and sixth level intentionality, we may say that Woolf's writing is difficult or even refuse to continue reading her novels. That personal aesthetics of individual readers thus could be at least in part grounded in th nuances of their individual mind-reading capacities. By saying this I do not mean to imply that if somebody "loves" or "hates" Woolf, it should tell us something about that person's general mind-reading sophistication-- a cognitive literary analysis does not support such misguided value judgments. The nuances of each person's mind-reading profile are unique to that person ..." (Zunshine 34). It is in this way I appreciate writers like Virginia Woolf. Writers that can elevate my understanding of my present abilities and expose new ways to chart others. I find each time I re-read texts like Woolf"s (and re-reading is something I plan on, I expect to enjoy), I discover them and enjoy them differently, with a pleasure that lingers. But maybe that's just me. Who knows?
Response to a blog Lit. and Cog.tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/002//317.45822007-10-22T19:33:11Z2007-10-22T19:50:00ZHere is the link I chose from Prof. Tougaw's list: http://www2.bc.edu/%7Ericharad/lcb/home.html It is Literature, Cognition and the Brain. This has a provocative title. Given the confines of our class, I chose this for obvious reasons....John Currie
Here is the link I chose from Prof. Tougaw's list: http://www2.bc.edu/%7Ericharad/lcb/home.html
It is Literature, Cognition and the Brain. This has a provocative title. Given the confines of our class, I chose this for obvious reasons.
I was hoping that the site would engage me for hours in reading related materials, new ideas that I could build on. What I found was the opposite. The most recent citation was from 2004. There is a wealth of references but little in discussion. The site consists mainly of 1-2 page abstracts of works or works in progress that focus on the issue at hand, namely Lit. and Cog.
I hope that the folks at Boston College who designed this site are busy as it doesn't appear to have been updated in a while. There is a lack of new info. or maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. I think I may keep looking, possibly somewhere else