When one opens a fiction novel, one expects a story about a family, love, a caterpillar or epic battles to destroy the evil Empire. Rightly so one envisions a saga of some sort, for the tradition of such a narrative structure dates back to before books were made, that is the oral tradition of poems like Beowulf or later Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In this genre of general story-telling, one expects to understand the plot. One expects to understand each sentence uttered. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne nuclear-bombs every expectation of literature. The reader does not get a cohesive narrative, but receives instead a jumble of languages, bizarre characters, and a righteous headache. Or, if one has the right attitude, a smile. Sterne uses literary tools unconventionally that distract and confuse the narrative, destroying a clear and cohesive reading experience. [Can you do more with this transition? The space between (and logic that links) these two sentences seems like key part of your argument. Can you do more argumentative work of your own with Vu? What’s the relationship between 1) Sterne’s tools, 2) attention as single resource and 3) divided among diff. tasks to diff amounts. Super interesting work here!] Attention is “a single resource that can be divided among different tasks in different amounts” (Vu, 19) and Sterne forces our attention to be divided in more ways than the reader can handle in the novel, [slow down and unpack. Again, seems key to your argument. Which ways? So it’s the number of ways it’s divided that overloads our attention? Or the way he divides it? Both?] rendering Tristram Shandy wholly unreadable and incomprehensible.
One of the first and most prominent modes of attention distraction of Tristram Shandy is frequent character interjections.
Another tactic employed by Sterne is the visual manipulation of the written formant.
Another example of visual manipulation used by Sterne is when he manipulates letters and words, as opposed to imagery like marbled and black pages.
It is dangerous to say Sterne planted all of these devices to manipulate the audience. (Man, this is like, the worst topic sentence ever.)
Finally, the way in which Sterne actually writes his story creates confusion in the reader. (seriously, these things are getting worse.)
Sterne through Shandy’s narration admits to the prevalence distractions early in the novel. “Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine-they are the life, the soul of reading; take them out of this book for instance, eternal winter would reign in every page of it.” (52) In this particular case, the digressions do add life to the pages of the novel, but readers cannot distinguish or understand that life. If the jargon and extra languages fled the pages, perhaps a cohesive story would be left, but that is not a message or point of the novel. The novel sets out to confuse and play, turn literature upside-down. It is necessary to laugh at Shandy’s story and narrative style because that is what the novel is; it’s a joke. A very intelligent joke that happens to be incredibly critical of literature and leaves the reader questioning reality, but a joke nonetheless.
This exercise really pointed out how horrendous my topic sentences are. Hello future editing technique! Don't worry guys, this paper is totally getting restructured.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Vivacity of Objects
The idea that most interested me was presented in the very end of the Scarry article. "An image elicited by the verbal arts, in contrast, has some of the vivacity, solidity, persistence and giveness of the perceived world, attributes that can in part be accounted for the instructional quality of writings, the explicit directions for how to construct the image that replace our own sense of volition..." (52) The verbal created image is contrasted with the day dreamed image, which has less "vivacity." The written word has the ability to make life where there is none; there is only ink, paper and you. This life feels real and has qualities of life that perhaps we miss when dreaming. We can make someone die that never really inhabited this earth; they inhabited our minds.
I began to think about how exactly these worlds are created in literature. I admire JK Rowling and Suzanne Collins because of the worlds they write in their books. The culture feels so real, there are faults and triumphs, jobs, trees, death and births. How does an author fabricate life? How do they convince their readers that what they say is actually true? I wrote in the margins of the Scarry article, "verbal arts gives life." I then deconstructed that initial notion. To have a sentence, one generally has a subject and a predicate which consists of a verb.
The path which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now became rugged and steep. (Brown, 97)
Let's do a kind of sentence diagramming exercise here. The path is the subject of this sentence, it is modified by an adjectival phrase. (" which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now") What is indicative is the verb "became." The path was not rugged before, but now it was changing. The path, an inanimate object, suddenly has the ability in Edgar Huntly to change! The path was probably always rugged and steep at the point which the narrator says it became. The way our language functions depends on human ability to abstractly interpret the sentence, as much as the sentence seems logical and natural. What is correct is "To my perception, the path I was walking on became rugged and steep." The path exists separate from the narrator, but only until the narrator gives us the knowledge of its existence do we grant it the ability to enter our discourse. That path was exactly as it was before the narrator arrived, but the need to describe it necessitates that a verb be ascribed to it. The path can now become animated through human description of it. The path has life! It changes like I change my clothes! In a day dream, Huntly would not have thought "The path which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now became rugged and steep" but rather just walked up the steep path. But because the path was described using a code system that requires a the subject to do something, the object has a sort of life. Is this making sense at all?
The nature of our language forces action on all that is a subject, even if that subject does not have the ability to act. Thus, written and spoken word creates life that would otherwise be glossed over in perception or daydreaming.
On page 45, the author outlines Rousseau's mental exercise for a Madame Delessert in which Rousseau writes incredibly detailed descriptions of a certain flower. Delessert is challenged to create that image of the flower based on the description. I believe Rousseau wanted to prove he can replicate the image of the flower with is words so that one does not actually need to see the flower to know exactly what it looks like. To unpack that statement and put a theory lens on this exercise, Rousseau believes that language can offer direct and perfect access to mental imagery.
We did an exercise in my writing class that mirrors Rousseau's. Our group received an ordinary object.We kept our object, a large binder clip, hidden from the prying eyes of our neighbors and set out to describe the object using words. We then went around to other groups who performed the same task, and tried to guess their object based on descriptions, and they ours. Every object was guessed. Our class was able to directly access the objects in question based on constructed images. So, the answer to the question "does language offer direct access to mental imagery?" would seem yes. And yet, I do not believe it fully.
"...but the impression made upon me by this incident was unexampled in my existence. My reading had furnished me with no instance, in any degree, parallel to this, and I found that to be a distant and second-hand spectator of events was widely different from witnessing them myself and partaking in their consequences. My judgment was, for a time, sunk into imbicility and confusion. My mind was full of images unavoidably suggested by this tale..." (87)
Even direct, live narrative was unable to directly access the emotions and story of Clithero. Reading couldn't do that either. True, images were created, but they are jumbled. In another layer, does the reader directly access Clithero's story because Huntly can't? In reading a novel, does the reader directly access the characters or author's intention? My theory is no, because language is imperfect in that sense; it cannot directly access emotions. However, we can make new worlds that are full of life.
I began to think about how exactly these worlds are created in literature. I admire JK Rowling and Suzanne Collins because of the worlds they write in their books. The culture feels so real, there are faults and triumphs, jobs, trees, death and births. How does an author fabricate life? How do they convince their readers that what they say is actually true? I wrote in the margins of the Scarry article, "verbal arts gives life." I then deconstructed that initial notion. To have a sentence, one generally has a subject and a predicate which consists of a verb.
The path which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now became rugged and steep. (Brown, 97)
Let's do a kind of sentence diagramming exercise here. The path is the subject of this sentence, it is modified by an adjectival phrase. (" which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now") What is indicative is the verb "became." The path was not rugged before, but now it was changing. The path, an inanimate object, suddenly has the ability in Edgar Huntly to change! The path was probably always rugged and steep at the point which the narrator says it became. The way our language functions depends on human ability to abstractly interpret the sentence, as much as the sentence seems logical and natural. What is correct is "To my perception, the path I was walking on became rugged and steep." The path exists separate from the narrator, but only until the narrator gives us the knowledge of its existence do we grant it the ability to enter our discourse. That path was exactly as it was before the narrator arrived, but the need to describe it necessitates that a verb be ascribed to it. The path can now become animated through human description of it. The path has life! It changes like I change my clothes! In a day dream, Huntly would not have thought "The path which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now became rugged and steep" but rather just walked up the steep path. But because the path was described using a code system that requires a the subject to do something, the object has a sort of life. Is this making sense at all?
The nature of our language forces action on all that is a subject, even if that subject does not have the ability to act. Thus, written and spoken word creates life that would otherwise be glossed over in perception or daydreaming.
On page 45, the author outlines Rousseau's mental exercise for a Madame Delessert in which Rousseau writes incredibly detailed descriptions of a certain flower. Delessert is challenged to create that image of the flower based on the description. I believe Rousseau wanted to prove he can replicate the image of the flower with is words so that one does not actually need to see the flower to know exactly what it looks like. To unpack that statement and put a theory lens on this exercise, Rousseau believes that language can offer direct and perfect access to mental imagery.
We did an exercise in my writing class that mirrors Rousseau's. Our group received an ordinary object.We kept our object, a large binder clip, hidden from the prying eyes of our neighbors and set out to describe the object using words. We then went around to other groups who performed the same task, and tried to guess their object based on descriptions, and they ours. Every object was guessed. Our class was able to directly access the objects in question based on constructed images. So, the answer to the question "does language offer direct access to mental imagery?" would seem yes. And yet, I do not believe it fully.
"...but the impression made upon me by this incident was unexampled in my existence. My reading had furnished me with no instance, in any degree, parallel to this, and I found that to be a distant and second-hand spectator of events was widely different from witnessing them myself and partaking in their consequences. My judgment was, for a time, sunk into imbicility and confusion. My mind was full of images unavoidably suggested by this tale..." (87)
Even direct, live narrative was unable to directly access the emotions and story of Clithero. Reading couldn't do that either. True, images were created, but they are jumbled. In another layer, does the reader directly access Clithero's story because Huntly can't? In reading a novel, does the reader directly access the characters or author's intention? My theory is no, because language is imperfect in that sense; it cannot directly access emotions. However, we can make new worlds that are full of life.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
My Sin, My Soul
My Sin, My Soul
A rule when creating new worlds whilst writing is that the new world must have rules in itself. For example, in the magical world of Harry Potter, there are five essential rules to magic that can never be violated, such as one cannot conjure food. There is also a governmental system and as JK Rowling insists, magic does not solve all problems. If these rules did not exist, the Magical World would be less believable thus hindering the reader's ability to engage in the story. So, Johnson is not entirely wrong when he denounces fantastical works that exist unbounded in terms of creation. However, to insist that all stories must reflect our own known world is utterly ridiculous. What authority does he have to claim that he know what humans should and should not read? Before language was written down, before books, when wax tablets engraved with hieroglyphics transmitted knowledge from one person to another. I am absolutely positive that corruption, rape, violence and all other immoral acts (except online pirating or course) were abound in the civilizations. The usage of written communication in its toddler years was used for recording business transactions; things like how many bottles of oil on a ship or how many slaves sold in the market. There was no documentation of vice, and yet it was still present. To outlaw the documentation of evil does not guarantee the eradication of it.
Johnson insists on the censory of literature, a hot debate among educators today. Literature provides a safe place for experimentation with decisions. To unpack that, let me use an example. I read a book called Tweak that was the biography of a meth addict. It was very graphic with scenes of sex, drug-induced trips, drug deals, withdrawals and physical fights. The book was very raw and unrestrained, making me very afraid of being in the same room as meth. Now the question is, at what age can a "youth" read that? Will the portrayal of a very real problem in our world that happens to be a destructive and vice-filled account destroy the innocence of the child? What if I wanted to teach that in a Health class outlining the dangers of drug addiction? I think there is a very real possibility that the children, being able to experience drug addiction in a safe environment (that is the world created in the narrative), will choose to not engage in drug use. However, I cannot say with absolute certainty that every child will swear off drugs for life because of the book and there may be some youths who will try drugs because of what they read. I cannot make promises, but with the right lesson plan and proper discussion, this Johnson condemned book could be beneficial "morally."
In all, I think Johnson is trying to make the world a safer and more "moral" place, but his censorship denies the possibility that we can learn from mistakes in literature. I also am a firm believer that we need some rain to appreciate the sun, but that is another, less related topic.I cannot imagine a world without Lolita. Banned books don't stay banned.
Changing thoughts but not authors, I was quite interested and agreed much more with the Adventurer piece. When Johnson described the process of oral debate, I was reminded of Selfridge's Daemon theory of mental lexicon access. As a defender of a statements, one has to, "he is entangled in unexpected difficulties, he is harassed by sudden objections...his thoughts are scattered and confounded, and he gratifies the pride of airy petulance with an easy victory." (Johnson, 2) This confusion is similar to the daemons in our lexicon fighting for the loudest voice. This verbal contest is so quick, just milliseconds, if that, that we don't know we are confused or don't know for a little while. But, when the word is repeated often, the victory of comprehension written words seems effortless, just like winning an argument.
The necessity to read, write and engage socially with other people to be that "full man" also mirrors how we process words in parallel models/structures.Our brains use the phonological route for less familiar words, thus learning and making the unfamiliar familiar. But for words used often take the direct lexical route, one that allows nearly instantaneous access to the meaning. We would have serious difficulty learning new words without sounding them out, and we would read slow if we could not directly access the meaning. Without one, we are lopsided readers, similar to Johnson's argument. If we only read, we get lost and blinded by the brilliance of our own thoughts, which speaking to people who hold different views combats, allowing intellectual development. Also, only speaking can cause confusion and writing allows us to organize our thoughts, explore our assumptions to be better speakers or readers.
To rely only on one tool hinders our problem solving ability making road blocks in our life that could be easily overcome, if we work to develop an arsenal of weapons against confusion.
I very much in love with the statement by Lamb, "I dream away my life in others' speculations." I think it is a beautiful notion of inhabiting another world, another perspective that will increase our intellectual and cultural awareness. It also reminds me of Lewis Carrol's Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, both being enchanting and fantastical books.
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