Give me liberty and give me death

"The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author." I very much agree with this quote and the argument that preceded it, but I'd like to take it a step further. I believe that the death of the author and the subsequent birth of the reader entails also a sort of resurrection of the writer with a new creative license (zombie Balzac?).  This liberty comes from the abolition the past trend where "the explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it," so that an author can broach new literary subjects without fearing a reactionary witch hunt resulting from personal association - be it for violating social taboos, breaking laws, including characters who have a vague resemblance to living public figures, or a character that too closely resembles their own Mama (this instance would probably incur the most painful outcome). I believe this freedom to develop different personas and experiment within them, if fully attained across the board, could be an enlightening event for the Greater Literary Field. This way I don't have to wait till my crazy Mama dies before I write about her (that was not me talking, Mom - there is no "author" here).

The ultimate attainment, according to Barthes is "to reach that point where only language acts, 'performs', and not 'me'." In this explanation, I recall actors and their role in enunciation, which I believe is the perfect example of this ideal of performance since their personal identities (well, the vast majority anyway) are not taken into account as the spectator interprets their characters or the greater work as a whole. Furthermore, their on-screen personas don't follow them into reality (again, this is in general - I can't look at Michael Richards without thinking about Kramer). Even after watching American Psycho, and after he went psycho, I had no difficulty in believing him to be the valiant Dark Knight. 

One of Barthes' arguments, however, doesn't really ring clear for me: "A text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. Yet this destination cannot any longer be personal: the reader is without history, biography, psychology." The social factor of language is not a new idea (although thanks to Saussure, I've been reminded almost 10 times in 10 small pages) so it would follow then that a reader's interpretation of language would be intrinsically related to their history with the language - and in history I include biography and psychology too. The mental image that is summoned by language is unique to the reader and has already been formed in the past and stocked in their 'dictionary', and this signifier won't change significantly when the signified is encountered again in a different context (I think I am recalling Lacan correctly).

In fact, even if it was somehow possible to extricate the personal self (reader) from the reading, it is my humble opinion that the reader should be encouraged to bring their own personality to the work. I believe this would even further open the text and break down the limits imposed on a work, which for Barthes can occur with the death of the author. If the author dies for the sake that his reader and book can live, I believe that these two latter should be able to live in multiple states, in multiple personalities, in multiple histories. They shouldn't need to exist like zombies: living but with dead souls, always on the search for a brain to revive their humanity.  

I really like the other Barthes articles and had intended to talk about them here but at this point I feel like a zombie.  

Imagine... that's all we can do

I read the Communist Manifesto in 10th grade and it's definitely interesting to experience a different reading 10 years later.

The opening arguments were very powerful and provoking to me: due to Europe's tendency to cry 'Communist!' when faced with any kind of opposition, the Communist party is already affirmed as a power because it is a threat. I wonder when and where this 'fear' began. Was it immediately with the fall of feudalism? or was it at the onset of Modern Industry?

As for the work as a whole, I feel it's very idealistic, which I know is not an original criticism, especially given the historical outcomes of its attempted implementation. It's kinda like the first date I went on with this Canadian guy when after some drinks he confesses his dream of a world without money - so naive that I didn't even find it cute. Don't get me wrong, I'm not all about Capitalism - I don't believe that any pure system works. Hybridity is the way of future relevancy becacuse it gives systems the necessary flexibility adapt and develop in an ever-changing world.

Even though I have some prior knowledge of this theory, I have never used it in my literary analysis. Even though, Marx talks a lot about exploitation slavery, which are pertinent to my field of postcolonial Caribbean and West African literature, I feel like many of his claims are too extreme. They are like the Negritude of postcolonial African and Caribbean because in denying or demolishing the Other, you are intrinsically destroying a part of yourself, which, for better or for worse, has historically shaped your identity. Since Negritude, other theories have been proposed, such as Antillanite, in which, the realities of the past are recognized but not revenged.

Lacan is pretty hard to resist (in fact, according to him, impossible to resist)

After reading the chapter on Lacan (and consequently on Freud), I have mixed feelings because I saw the immediate relevance of certain ideas that would fit very well into my discipline, postcolonial francophone literature from the Caribbean and West Africa (mostly female authors), yet I believe that some of his arguments undermined some of the key issues in the literature.

 One thing I really liked was Lacan's explanation of the effects of trauma on the subject, as well as the representation in the unconscious and the coinciding appearance of symptom and resolution. This is very pertinent to the discussion of "la folie antillaise" and the general neurosis often experienced by a colonized population. These concepts would be very pertinent to the study of the postcolonial (and post-slavery) condition.

However, I find his description of resistance oversimplified and problematic as he relates acts of resistance to the ego, which he claims "operates solely with a view to covering the displacement constituted by the subject." This logic would leave the marginalized without defense to abuse and degradation - without any agency in the actual conflict, as if there is no way of preventing further psychological harm, just a way of curing it later (sounds like a lucrative situation for a psychoanalyst, just saying). And understanding the fragility of the human psyche, I find it extremely hard to believe that deeper mechanisms of defense are not present. I also find the relation to animal instinct problematic in the sense that, at least how it seems to me, he believes humans are above animal behavior, but I digress...

Much of the literature from this region deals with the trauma of slavery and colonialism and very often "the escape" from this imposed society of denigration towards lesser races appears to take place in the imagination of a number of the female characters. The other states of consciousness in which these women would seek refuge from time to time served as a temporary reprieve and nourished the hope for the eventuality of a different world. Lacan's discourse about the imaginary nature of resistance as a sign of futility just isn't evidenced in the actual experiences of these women.

Anyway, that's a good bit for now. Excited to discuss in class :)

I've had better

The "Art as Technique" article by Viktor Shklovsky was uninspiring in my opinion, although to be fair, the only 'familiarity' I have with Tolstoy's work is the 5 minutes I watched of War and Peace before my grandparents fell asleep and I could switch movies.

I believe that over time due to habitual perception (and due to our own limited mental schema to which we compare new concepts/perceptions), we start to perceive what we expect to see. I did like Shlovsky's idea of lazy perspectives - totally true. Kinda reminds me of the new digital scent technology. We don't even have to take the time to imagine what it would smell like! I can't wait for an Axe men's body spray commercial!

What was surprising to me is that Shklovsky talks for 5 pages about "defamiliarization" without ever mentioning that this technique is basically like having a child narrator or one that is completely ignorant of the cultural context. The narrations are very matter-of-fact, vague, and make the object seem pointless, which something like opera would be to some 7 year old who never knew such a thing existed. This naive point of view highlights the arbitrariness of cultural, spiritual, and societal phenomenon (I guess societal would just cover it all) and the tinge of innocence that comes along with it is just enough so that the moderate reader will not be offended. I wish I had known of the "defamiliarization" buzz word last semester...

A tidbit of ancient wisdom for us, "According to Aristotle, poetic language must appear strange and wonderful; and, in fact, it is often actually foreign" (21). Then he goes on to list all the borrowed language. This foreign "poetic language" is a lot like exoticism. Old news.

It seemed the content of the last 2 pages appeared without context and were a bit of a snooze.

Random thought, if people are so stingy in using our perceptive senses, why do they go to great lengths to seek sensual (sense-ual) thrills?

The Little Cask

You gotta love Maupassant. This was an enjoyable read although certainly not his best. Plus, it made me think of Saturday night when I went out with the intention of only having a couple drinks.

Here are some items that encouraged me to think a little bit more (even at 3am on a Monday):

• Duality of Human Nature
• The deal started out innocent enough, and there wasn't any motivation of greed or hostility to begin with. The shift to deceit was foreshadowed by the fowls who dared to steal the potato peels from under her nose. This connection of human greed to animal behavior undermines the validity of humanity if civility is a mere facade over our innate animality. Kind of like Heart of Darkness style. Can anyone show true charity? Is there always an ulterior motive?

•  Good vs. Evil
• This is unoriginally similar to my first item but now I'm talking about it in a interpersonal context vs intrapersonal. I think that most readers would be inclined to take the side of Mother Magloire, saying she was just an old woman who was victimized by a greedy businessman. But perhaps she was the perpetrator of the downward spiral? Her automatic distrust of him brings up the issue of lack of confidence in relationships. She expected him, at the get-go, to take advantage of her, and by one-upping him in order to be the biggest beneficiary of the deal she becomes the one who is taking advantage of him. Instead of taking steps to protect herself from exploitation, she raises the stakes. Maybe she perceives what she is doing as right because she assumed that was what he was going to do to her.

• Mother Magloire doesn't want to take a deal unless she is the one making out, which necessitates a losing party.  This illustrates the perception of a fair deal as an illusion, an unattainable ideal between two people. And so who decides what is right and wrong? In society, it's the law and the character of the lawyer is there as an assurance that what she is doing is just. But the lawyer is an illusory impartial and untrustworthy character. His interpretation of the law is not guided by fairness, rather he is concerned with how to gain his client (therefore himself) the most money and he manipulates the standards (i.e., value of the house) and ethics (i.e., what she deserves) to attain his goal.  

• The Power of Suggestion
• Tying into the title of the story, "The Little Cask", the story proves that one small suggestion is really all it takes. Once the idea was implanted in her head, Mother Magloire ran away with it. Knowing the power of suggestion, Chicot went off thinking he had already won. The other small suggestions include the one from the lawyer about increasing her profit and the one from Chicot about the liquor. The small suggestions, however, are coupled with a great amount of disorientation that Mother Magloire experiences when she considers them which is proof of their powerful effect. 

Disclaimer - The views contained in this blog are not those of the author.  I think that people are always generous and good ;)

Intro

Here I go, turn the page...