"We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge." (Vladimir Nabokov, "How to be a Good Reader or Kindness to Authors")
My first instinct is to argue with this opinion, but then, I remember that this could skew an entire work. It's entirely limiting to believe that everything is about us--it's "geocentric" and medieval. I didn't create the work, the universe of the creator's mind and so why should it revolve around me? The earth revolves around the sun, and the sun gives warmth to me, not I to it.
I also know that when a work can be examined objectively, as if from above, or from a distance; it allows a fuller appreciation of an author's talent. Every great work is personal and evokes a personal reaction in the reader, but the truth of an author's meaning cannot be known until the reader is objective. I cannot remember how T.S. Eliot put this objective reading, but he too, observed that this made for a better reader and even author.
I remember that it made one of my professors, "The Black Hole," very angry to agree with Eliot. It upset her that it made the world bigger and awe-inspiring. Being objective, actually draws the reader nearer the new world, and evokes empathy for others, rather than judgment based upon personal bitterness and bias. Modern readers are supposed to carry with them through the pages, a bucket of their personal waste, scattering it amongst the text, contaminating the green grass. Modern readers must base everything upon the socio-economic, pretending to be scientific and advanced, and benevolent, stomping uninvited like Mrs. Pardiggle into the brickmaker's home, leaving their meaningless tracts, while ignoring the human soul in the corner cradling her dead child.
If Mrs. Pardiggle had been more objective, had stood back and looked at this new world which she did not understand, did not write the rules for, perhaps, she would not have made the dark residence darker, perhaps, she would have noticed the mother and her baby. Perhaps, she would have been pierced in the heart. But Mrs. Pardiggle, like many readers is geocentric, thinks only of her own world, her own rules, her own ideas, and as a limited reader, she makes judgements based upon her small universe. Mrs. Pardiggle believes that she is advanced and benevolent, and must impose her limited knowledge upon others. Where she goes, the world contracts. Where she goes, divides and bias spring up.
And if we are limited and un objective readers, we may miss out on some important events. We may miss out on saviors, and springs, Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy. We may look at literature as only dark rooms in decay in which it is our duty to leave our own meaningless words, but not as a place where a soul may touch us and improve ours. Does the reader improve literature or does literature improve the reader?
And this is my thought/argument/defence of the day. Enough.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
A Bleak House Litany
Here are some quotes, snippets, and observations pertaining to Charles Dicken's Bleak House, which I have only recently finished.
On false benevolence: "rapacious benevolence"
"Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear that the only infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor, and applying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat"
On hope: "long-deferred hopes"
"the sickness of hope deferred"
"don't found a hope or expectation on the family curse!"
On our earthly condition: "perplexed and troublous valley of the law"
"the pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin"
"I was born into this unfinished contention"
"But it can't last forever. We shall come on for a final hearing, and get a judgment in our favor"
"and these family affairs smoothed over--as, Lord! Many other family affairs equally has been, and will be, to the end of time"
On making people our trust, rather than money and false hope: "I will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!"
Behind every great man is a great woman, who knows her husband's mind: "give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is"
On the end of an era: "as if all the cousins had been changed into leaves"
And following are some notes from Vladimir Nabokov's "Bleak House" lecture which incidentally, follows the lecture on Jane Austen's Mansfield Park:
"In our dealings with Jane Austen we had to make a certain effort in order to join the ladies in the drawing room. In the case of Dickens we remain at table with our tawny port. We had to find an approach to Jane Austen and her Mansfield Park. I think we did find it and did have some degree of fun with her delicate patterns, with her collection of eggshells in cotton wool. But the fun was forced. " This is always how I have felt about Austen, as if I am forcing my enjoyment of her. Even when I have found her brilliant, I have found no sparkle. She is so highly restrained. One must wonder if she had been planted in the Garden, instead of Eve, would the Apple ever have been bitten into? Austen herself would not have picked the Apple, although she would have spent a chapter engaged in the impropriety of it, the poor manners, and given us witty observations of Adam and Eve's poor breeding, and called it---Mansfield Park!
"Let us not forget that there are people who have devoted to Jane all their lives, their ivy-clad lives. "
"The study of the sociological or political impact of literature has to be devised mainly for those who are by temperament or education immune to the aesthetic vibrancy of authentic literature, for those who do not experience the telltale tingle between the shoulder blades."
"Lady Dedlock is redeemed by suffering, and Dostoevski is wildly gesticulating in the background."
"Skimpole and, of course, the Smallweeds and Krook are completely the devil's allies. And so are the philanthropists, Mrs. Jellyby for instance, who spread misery around them while deceiving themselves that they are doing good though actually indulging their selfish instincts."
"Literature consists, in fact, not of general ideas but of particular revelations, not of schools of thought but of individuals of genius. Literature is not about something: it is the thing itself, the quiddity."
"[W]ithout the words there would have been no vision.....the image had to have a voice too in order to live."
"A writer might be a good storyteller or a good moralist, but unless he be an enchanter, an artist, he is not a great writer. Dickens is a good moralist, a good storyteller, and a superb enchanter...."
"[T]he art of not only creating people but keeping created people alive within the reader's mind throughout a long novel--this of course, is the obvious sign of greatness."
And this is for fun from Nabokov's "How to be a Good Reader, or Kindness to Authors":
"[I] suggested a little quiz--ten definitions of a good reader, and from these ten the students had to choose four definitions that would combine to make a good reader....Select four answers to the question what should be a good reader:
1. The reader should belong to a book club.
2. The reader should identify himself or herself with the hero or heroine.
3. The reader should concentrate on the social-economic angle.
4. The reader should prefer a story with action and dialogue to one with none.
5. The reader should have seen the book in a movie.
6. The reader should be a budding author.
7. The reader should have imagination.
8. The reader should have memory.
9. The reader should have a dictionary.
10. The reader should have some artistic sense."
Oh, yes, I do have my own opinions on Bleak House, but I've exhausted myself on other's opinions, and shall not venture further at the moment.
On false benevolence: "rapacious benevolence"
"Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear that the only infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor, and applying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat"
On hope: "long-deferred hopes"
"the sickness of hope deferred"
"don't found a hope or expectation on the family curse!"
On our earthly condition: "perplexed and troublous valley of the law"
"the pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin"
"I was born into this unfinished contention"
"But it can't last forever. We shall come on for a final hearing, and get a judgment in our favor"
"and these family affairs smoothed over--as, Lord! Many other family affairs equally has been, and will be, to the end of time"
On making people our trust, rather than money and false hope: "I will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!"
Behind every great man is a great woman, who knows her husband's mind: "give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is"
On the end of an era: "as if all the cousins had been changed into leaves"
And following are some notes from Vladimir Nabokov's "Bleak House" lecture which incidentally, follows the lecture on Jane Austen's Mansfield Park:
"In our dealings with Jane Austen we had to make a certain effort in order to join the ladies in the drawing room. In the case of Dickens we remain at table with our tawny port. We had to find an approach to Jane Austen and her Mansfield Park. I think we did find it and did have some degree of fun with her delicate patterns, with her collection of eggshells in cotton wool. But the fun was forced. " This is always how I have felt about Austen, as if I am forcing my enjoyment of her. Even when I have found her brilliant, I have found no sparkle. She is so highly restrained. One must wonder if she had been planted in the Garden, instead of Eve, would the Apple ever have been bitten into? Austen herself would not have picked the Apple, although she would have spent a chapter engaged in the impropriety of it, the poor manners, and given us witty observations of Adam and Eve's poor breeding, and called it---Mansfield Park!
"Let us not forget that there are people who have devoted to Jane all their lives, their ivy-clad lives. "
"The study of the sociological or political impact of literature has to be devised mainly for those who are by temperament or education immune to the aesthetic vibrancy of authentic literature, for those who do not experience the telltale tingle between the shoulder blades."
"Lady Dedlock is redeemed by suffering, and Dostoevski is wildly gesticulating in the background."
"Skimpole and, of course, the Smallweeds and Krook are completely the devil's allies. And so are the philanthropists, Mrs. Jellyby for instance, who spread misery around them while deceiving themselves that they are doing good though actually indulging their selfish instincts."
"Literature consists, in fact, not of general ideas but of particular revelations, not of schools of thought but of individuals of genius. Literature is not about something: it is the thing itself, the quiddity."
"[W]ithout the words there would have been no vision.....the image had to have a voice too in order to live."
"A writer might be a good storyteller or a good moralist, but unless he be an enchanter, an artist, he is not a great writer. Dickens is a good moralist, a good storyteller, and a superb enchanter...."
"[T]he art of not only creating people but keeping created people alive within the reader's mind throughout a long novel--this of course, is the obvious sign of greatness."
And this is for fun from Nabokov's "How to be a Good Reader, or Kindness to Authors":
"[I] suggested a little quiz--ten definitions of a good reader, and from these ten the students had to choose four definitions that would combine to make a good reader....Select four answers to the question what should be a good reader:
1. The reader should belong to a book club.
2. The reader should identify himself or herself with the hero or heroine.
3. The reader should concentrate on the social-economic angle.
4. The reader should prefer a story with action and dialogue to one with none.
5. The reader should have seen the book in a movie.
6. The reader should be a budding author.
7. The reader should have imagination.
8. The reader should have memory.
9. The reader should have a dictionary.
10. The reader should have some artistic sense."
Oh, yes, I do have my own opinions on Bleak House, but I've exhausted myself on other's opinions, and shall not venture further at the moment.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Bard Burns Investigative Report
"Farewell To The Mountains" by David Stern Crockett (1786-1836)
Farewell to the mountains whose mazes to me
Were more beautiful far than Eden could be;
No fruit was forbidden, but Nature had spread
Her bountiful board, and her children were fed.
The hills were our garners--our herds wildly grew
And Nature was shepherd and husbandman too.
I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man,
As I thanked the Great Giver, and worshipped his plan.
The home I forsake where my offspring arose;
The graves I forsake where my children repose;
The home I redeemed from the savage and wild;
The home I have loved as a father his child;
The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared,
The flocks that I raised, and the cabin reared;
The wife of my bosom--Farewell to ye all!
In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.
Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well,
When the savage rushed forth like the demons from hell,
In peace or in war I have stood by thy side--
My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!
But I am cast off, my career now is run,
And I wander abroad like the prodigal son--
Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,
The fallen--despised--will again go ahead
Farewell to the mountains whose mazes to me
Were more beautiful far than Eden could be;
No fruit was forbidden, but Nature had spread
Her bountiful board, and her children were fed.
The hills were our garners--our herds wildly grew
And Nature was shepherd and husbandman too.
I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man,
As I thanked the Great Giver, and worshipped his plan.
The home I forsake where my offspring arose;
The graves I forsake where my children repose;
The home I redeemed from the savage and wild;
The home I have loved as a father his child;
The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared,
The flocks that I raised, and the cabin reared;
The wife of my bosom--Farewell to ye all!
In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.
Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well,
When the savage rushed forth like the demons from hell,
In peace or in war I have stood by thy side--
My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!
But I am cast off, my career now is run,
And I wander abroad like the prodigal son--
Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,
The fallen--despised--will again go ahead
"I told the people of my district that I would serve them faithful as I had done; but if not...you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." In 1834 David Stern Crockett lost his re election to the U.S. House of Representatives, heading off to Texas not long after, where he died at the Battle of the Alamo.
David Stern Crockett is also noted for his "Not Yours To Give" speech to the U.S. House of Representatives, which he used to explain why he voted against appropriating money for a war veteran. In this speech he describes the lesson he learned from a man working his plow in the field, a local wise man named Horatio Bunce.
"If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other" (Crockett quoting Bunce)
"Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose" (Bunce)
"Money with them [wealthy politicians] is nothing but trash when is is come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it" (Crockett)
Now, why didn't Walt Disney show us the real David Crockett? Why did they choose this particular individual to turn into a coon-headed, mountain man with a limited vocabulary? He was a poet, a politician, and an educated man. Hmm. Another Walt Disney plot to sap the greater story--making heroes into flimsy fairytales and fairytales into sugar and water.
Now, I wonder what the true story of Bambi and his band of rodents is...oops, I gave it away!
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