Professor Anne Curzan teaches in the Department of English at the University of Michigan.  What do you think of Professor Curzan’s assertions about singular generic they?  Do you find them surprising?  Do you use singular generic they when speaking?  Do you, or would you, use they as a singular pronoun in your writing?  Why, or why not?  In what written contexts might you use they as singular?  Emails?  Blog posts?  Academic papers?  Why, or why not?

However, the problem with highlighting, annotating, and post-iting while reading is that such actions are a constant reminder that I am reading for school – for a grade – and not wholly for myself. I can no longer become fully lost in a book. I lose the beauty of reading – when you find yourself in another world in another place in another time and everything else slips away from you. I want to become so lost, so immersed in a book that miss my train stop or  forget to breathe for a few seconds. I miss that. I want that back.

Though this might have been a bad decision in retrospect, I had heard such great, interesting things about writing in the The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison that I decided to forsake my highlighting, annotating, and post-iting for once. I did not want to feel the lingering sensation of stress as I read each page and wondered what would be useful out of what I was reading for the paper coming up.

I became so immersed and drawn into the book that I did not resurface from my room I had read all of its pages. My sister or parents would knock on the door but I would tell them that I couldn’t talk just yet – 120 more pages…50 more…3 more.

As a writing nerd, I could not get enough of Kathryn Harrison’s beautiful prose. Unlike Rushdie’s beautiful but twisted and complex writing, Harrison still encompassed deep, complicated emotions and ideas in her writing, but through a very different style. The writing seemed deceptively simple and straightforward; relatively short sentences as opposed to the sentences of Genet and Rushdie that each had multiple subjects and clauses. For example:

“Because for as long as my mother refuses consciousness, she refuses consciousness of me: I do not exist.”

I stopped and just absorbed this sentence for a bit. Words repeat; the sentence seems simple. The idea almost seems obvious – if her mother is not conscious, then she is not conscious of her daughter next to her either. But Harrison takes it one step further, echoing the idea from the beginning of the novel that the narrator is absent from herself, from the world – with the short, pointed statement: “I do not exist.” Moreover, the structure of the statement indicates that the importance of the narrator’s mother to her – her mother defines her existence.

This too:

“Her eyes, when they turn at last toward me, are like two empty mirrors. I can’t find myself in them.

Harrison makes the distressing imagery of empty mirrors, non-functioning mirrors even more haunting with another short but painful sentence “I can’t find myself in them.”

Overall, though it is hard to describe in words, Harrison’s style pulled me in and kept me in her grasp until the novel was over.

While I expected the inherent dangers we discussed towards the beginning of the semester concerning the blog, such as releasing your thoughts to the public and internet, other less anticipated dangers have arisen in my experience. Opinion pieces, by definition, are uncensored (clearly within limitations against hateful or illogical articles) and only edited for flow and lucidity. Despite the seeming lack of rules this may seem to present, I’ve personally realized that my choice of topics and arguments are unconsciously censored. I know full well that whatever I write, both in print and especially through an online presence, will never disappear. While it seems nearly impossible to predict my stances on topics twenty or thirty years down the road, I must always consider any repercussions, especially as I’ve found an attraction to more controversial topics. I’ve quickly grown comfortable with this danger of exposure.

It’s the second danger of irrelevance that has most surprised me and kept me at least relatively uncomfortable in my role as a columnist. The previously discussed free-reign in topic and stance led me to initially believe opinion columnists write on whatever topic they are most personally interested in or feel the need to speak about at the time. While in a literal sense, everything I’ve said concerning freedom in writing remains true, in a practical sense it’s unreasonable. People obviously have choices concerning how they get their news or opinions. Not only do they not have to read a particular paper, they can easily skip over an article that doesn’t seem interesting to them. Since I’m writing my articles to be read, it’s absolutely essential that I find topics that balance my interest and desires with those of my expected audience.

Unfortunately, when my interests don’t coincide with those of my readers, I’m forced to consider and then ultimately decide if the interest is still worth writing about. Discussion, both from my editor and peers, has led me to the understanding that many, if not most Penn students, have little interest in national politics or events, which unfortunately I believe make for some of the best topics of op-eds. I guess this is just application of the much discussed “Penn Bubble.” This has forced me to find every possible connection back to Penn or at the very least college students as a whole. While I don’t think this has necessarily been bad for my writing or my experience as a columnist, it’s certainly helped me to better empathize with the writers of some of the texts we’ve read.

To tie the loose end from the first paragraph, I didn’t write an op-ed on this topic because I don’t particularly think Penn students would be too interested in the thought process behind opinion columnists choices even if they are ultimately the most impacted by these choices.

You may posit, “Why are you posting anything at this state? Professor Cavitch would certainly grant you an extension due to the circumstances about your current state.”

To such an idea, I respond, my friends, with a confuddled, “Literature never rests. If we are to be dangerous, we must also be dangerous in our vulnerability. Being this inebriated in public (for I am in Hill dining hall), being this vulnerable in the open, is something that not many of us would risk.”

You may retort, “Shark, you are drunk. Get the fuck out of the way, I am looking at the water.”

I’ll try not to infringe in your view of the ocean. I will try not to devour not only your body, but your very soul.

Death Cab for Cutie says in the song, “I will follow you into the dark,” that a Catholic school teacher believes that fear is the heart of love.

Some magician said that there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

I recognize that fear is necessary. Otherwise, I would cannonball into a pot of boiling water. Or is that fear?

Is common sense the culmination of common fears?

Many argue that being this inebriated in public is dangerous because of what could happen. I could argue that is a “sensible” fear.

Many argue that being this inebriated in public does not allow you to properly judge the dangers of the situation. I could argue that is the drugs talking.

However, what my main challenge is that I want to present to you is whether you have ever let yourself be open in public.

In my life I have faced the terrible consequences of keeping things in and never talking about them. I understand that there is a long gradient stretch between always and never, and we must be tactful. We live in a world that makes possible expulsion and termination for inappropriate Facebook posts. However, here is another scenario to consider:

A friend of mine was raped in the seventh grade. I had been taught to never discuss any personal matters with anyone outside of your family, so I never inquired as to why this friend suddenly became reclusive and different. When I found out in ninth grade, I was shocked and appalled. I hated myself for my decision to never inquire. She had to go through a miscarriage by herself. She had forgone legal options because she never told anybody. Had I inquired and provided assistance in some way (even just as a shoulder to cry on), I wonder if things could have been different.

I am now a part of 1 in 4. A mens group that operates out of the Women’s Center that aims to educate mainly fraternities, but also anybody interested, about sexual assault, helping survivors, and preventing more pain. This week we co-sponsored along with ASAP, Take Back the Night.

Unfortunately, I was too sick to attend, but I stand behind the main message wholeheartedly:

Stop the Violence. Break the Silence.

Look at me. I am inebriated, but I still want my opinions and thoughts known. What I challenge our class and the world to do is to do the same and speak out. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are from, where you are now, how you are, the list goes on. Your opinion matters. Your opinion is needed.

Some person far in the past once said, “I want to fly.”

One outcome was Icarus who died.

The other were the Wright Brothers, who flew!

To be a dangerous writer, one must take the risks and spread your wings, even if you feel a little drunk from pain meds.

Though sometimes you need to check yourself. Girl sitting in front of me who is letting her thong show for all the world, I would recommend you pull your pants up dear.

She’s leaving now. And I think she’d stab me to death if I said anything, so I won’t say anything. I mostly won’t say anything because she’d probably stab me, like any girl in the same situation would do.

So now you have an example of taking a risk and also of not taking a risk. I’m glad I am only slightly buzzed from these pain meds, so I can act normal.

Lastly, I love all of you. Have a great day!

I think this discussion would be extremely interesting to carry over to Freud.  His prose is written in plain, argumentative form.  He writes in an “outline” or his argument, backing up each point with a specific, tailored argument that minimizes the possibility of counter arguments.

His diction reflects the persuasive prose with which he writes.  Words such as “findings,” “accounts,” “proved,” “beyond any doubt,” etc. play into the arguments that are his essays.  Freud’s intent is to convince the world of the need for and accuracy of psychoanalysis, furthering the science he has creating and imprinting on the world his knowledge and hypotheses.  Freud manipulates his prose to directly reflect his intent—he wants to argue something, so his text is an argument.

But don’t all authors seek to argue something?  Is not the point of writing, especially dangerous writing, to break from the status quo and force the reader to recognize something different, something alternative to the current state and subsequently challenge their current beliefs?  If so, aren’t all dangerous texts an argument that the current status quo needs to be challenged?

Obviously this is an exaggeration, and not holistically true (unlike Freud, my persuasive abilities fall short in these blog posts).  However, it would be really interesting to think about what texts which have a particular point about society would read like if they utilized Freud’s writing style.

For example, what would Aswany’s text look like if it were an argument for the importance of nostalgia in remembering the old Egypt?  How would the novel read if he structured the book like Freud’s essays, writing a thesis and making each character’s trajectory a supporting point?

At the very least, Freud’s persuasive prose could provide a framework through which we can analyze a novel, find possible arguments ad supporting points, and maybe get close to what the novel is trying to prove to make guesses at the authorial intent.  As Freud puts his intent up front, then uses prose to support it, if we structure other novels in an argumentative way, we can back out intent.

Another aspect of Freud’s text that I thought was directly applicable to other texts that we have read is the prevalence of opposites.  As Freud discusses scientific concepts that are the direct contrasts of each other, another novel may do the same using characters.  Character foils are a common device in literature, and Freud’s use emphasizes their importance.

Freud specifically discusses the popular opinion and seeks to negate it, putting his own science in its place.  He challenges what the general public thinks and forces them to consider alternatives.  For me, his essay epitomize the idea of dangerous texts.

It seems difficult to even place the novel in the same category of the Sades and Genets of the world. It simply doesn’t make us uncomfortable enough to be considered as all that dangerous. One of the few exceptions to this that stood out to me as particularly deserving of the term “dangerous” is the scenes describing the bars of Cairo.

While few bars exist in the entire city, due to the increased scrutiny of a heavily Muslim government, it’s difficult to claim any were quite as out of place as the Chez Nous. Not only did the Chez Nous serve alcohol, it also served as an unofficial gay bar. To underscore the oddness of this bar, it remained opened as a result of a crooked police force that were all too eager to take bribes. Thus you have three forces that all seem contradictory to the expected conservative society of Cairo: homosexuality, alcohol, and bribery.

Despite this single example of dangerousness, the text generally seemed unremarkable in the category, which seems to further necessitate historical and cultural context difficult to easily ascertain. This, however, raises the question of whether a text dangerous in a conservative society truly deserves to be placed in comparison to those that more closely prescribe to expectations solely upon the qualification of their individual culture.

What can truly be learned from such a text after all? It seems a fair point that these texts still must deal with the same balancing act of expressing one’s opinion while considering the viewpoints of society met by more controversial writings. Without appreciating the mentioned cultural dimension, which is nearly impossible to truly learn through the few Wikipedia pages that seem to have become the requisite amount of information and understanding, these texts are thus nearly worthless.

Even with this understanding, however, it seems that it may be difficult to ever go back. It’s hard to imagine a novel by Al Aswany, regardless of how well one learns to understand Cairo’s strict hierarchy in terms of religion, gender relations, or class mobility, ever stacking up against the heavyweights of dangerous writing. Maybe all of the casual discussion of anal sex and societal upheaval has in fact made me a bit insensitive to the more subtle forms of danger.

I believe this may prove interesting after this course, as few books will ever be quite as obviously dangerous, making the recognition of dangerous texts seemingly a bit more difficult. Maybe this is a necessary step in truly learning to understand these texts. Perhaps one needs to be overrun with the possibilities and extremes as a point of later reference. Either way, I feel like I’ve seen the extremes and as a result am generally becoming decreasingly shocked with each new book thrown at me.

Could this be a potentially interesting caveat between American and Egyptian culture?  Here, we, or at least me, so often judge people from what they say:  the opinions they articulate, the tone of their voice, they vocabulary they utilize all primarily frame our understanding of them.  Only after initial judgment do the nonverbal, more hidden aspects of their personalities begin to trickle into how we view them as a person.

In this novel, the characters immediately understand each other on a deep level.  They are so able to analyze nonverbal behavior that the inferences they draw are both accurate and insightful.  Is this Egypt vs. America, or Aswany’s specific portrayal?

Another aspect of the novel this relates to is the frequent, sudden, yet identifiable moments of change in the characters.  Aswany has the tendency to point out defining moments that cause immediate change—I was surprised that this was often defining and immediate, as change usually happens gradually and cannot be attributed to a single event.

This is not the case in the novel.  At one point, Aswany writes of Taha’s understanding of Busayna and says, “Then suddenly she had changed…This had happened right after her father died” (23).  He interjects a specific line describing Busayna’s mother after her father’s death and says, “Her mother soon changed” (40).  Events like death are sure to change people, however I feel as though I, in America, have a tendency to reject change and convince myself that events such as death do not have the ability to change someone immediately, and noticeably.  But Aswany’s novel centers around change, accepts it as part of life, and welcomes it as a way to understand one’s own position within society.

Perhaps this is due to the setting of the novel, the change the Revolution brought, the dawning on the 1980s forced the people to confront change and accept it.  Maybe that is why his characters are so in tune with the inner nuances of those around them.  Speech also seems to be restricted in Egyptian society, people whisper, hide, keep secrets—the characters, then, must learn to interpret others from everything except what they say.  This reminds me of the passage with Malak and the police officer.  He understands that he will be judged on his appearance and occupation in addition to the way he spoke.  The intermingling of nonverbal with verbal  serves as evidence to the importance the society places on nonverbal attributes.  Furthermore, it is not what Malak says, but the way he says it, that matters.  The words of the characters seem to make minimal influence in who they are, which makes me question the words of the author.  Maybe this is a potential reason Aswany’s novel is so straightforward, maybe he feels as though flowery language and complicated plot devices serve no role in telling the story and he, as the rest of the Egyptian society seems to, expects the reader to really “read between the lines” and understand what he is saying behind the actual words he writes.  Regardless, Aswany’s characters are capable, unlike I am, of identifying specific moments of drastic change. That is some power.

Anyway, I came across some information that was helpful in deciphering why Aswany would choose to deliver this story with such plain language. The first thing that came up in Awany’s biography is that he was a founding member of the political movement Kefaya, which means “enough”. Kefaya, the colloquial name for The Egyptian Movement for Change, was a platform against Egyptian corruption and stagnation. I was not surprised to discover this, as corruption is a theme of extreme prevalence in The Yacoubian Building.

However, I did find the word “stagnation” to be revealing. That’s exactly how I feel about Aswany’s prose. I would not use the word “bored” because I find the contents of the story enthralling; the characters, the described political and social climates. I think it would be a disservice to the entire novel to say Aswany’s style is boring and leave it at that surface level dismissal. Because if a novel evokes any emotion, we should ask ourselves why, even if that emotion is boredom.I found the stagnancy to be incredibly frustrating and I was earnestly hoping for a change of pace (which the little trick on page 61 did not quite satisfy).

I was drawn to the idea that we discussed in class, that the words in The Yacoubian Building could be seen as mirrors into the lives of the characters. Corruption is depicted in an incredibly forthright, unapologetic fashion, with all the truth one would experience given the reality. In the same vein, the status of women is depicted without one coat of sugar. I think that Aswany’s use of unadorned words, and his matter of fact tone is supposed to stir up feelings of frustration and recognize the endless stagnancy through this literary mirror-tool. The one stylistic choice I enjoyed, that I felt broke up the stagnancy of the novel, was the way The Yacoubian Building was delivered in a series of vignettes, all interrupting each other. Yet this was somewhat unsatisfying, because it induced feelings of claustrophobia. Perhaps this was a nod to the fact that no one in the story is immune to unchanging corruption.

I admit that The Yacoubian Building is not one of my favorites, because while I think I understand the motivation for Aswany’s stylistic decisions, I prefer works with slightly more lustrous language. But I know that I would have missed out on my ultimate enjoyment of the book if I did not ask myself why, if Aswany is presumably capable of delivering his story in a more compelling fashion, he limited himself to a more straightforward method.

“When Jean had diarrhea, he said to me, “I’ve got the trots.”  Why did that word have to come back to me just as I was watching Paulo’s solemn and almost motionless backside, why did I have to call that barely indicated dance the trots?”

Basically, why do the weirdest things come into our heads to remind us about people from the past? Who wants to remember diarrhea??

I thought of two things immediately after reading this passage. First, as some background, I went to catholic school my whole life and church every Sunday was a requirement in my family.  I can picture myself from as early as I can remember up until up to senior year of high school sitting in church every Sunday.  There is a phenomenon for me when it comes to church in that EVERYTHING is 100x funnier when you aren’t supposed to laugh.  I’m sure my parents hated it, but my brother and I could be in stitches over nothing at all, but it was just because we were in church and we weren’t supposed to laugh that it made it that much funnier.  We tried our hardest not to laugh audibly or make at sound at all, as our parents would immediately start taking away toys or privileges until laughter turned to tears.  But anyway, I just picture Jean sitting at the funeral thinking about how Jean D. used to tell him about his diarrhea and how that is something that popped into his head, during such a solemn remembrance.

Which brings me to the second point I thought about.  I had a friend of mine named Shana who passed away in 2007 from bacterial meningitis.  She was the type of girl who was so nice that she made friends everywhere she went.  The type of person where you could go anywhere around my area at home and someone there knew her.  But since Shana’s passing, hundreds of stories have been told about her and how much she lit up the world with her unrelenting compassion.  My favorite story to tell about her to this day however is the following:  Shana LOVED to laugh.  She was the type to laugh even if it wasn’t funny, almost to a fault…But her endless string of guffaws and giggles were alone enough to make the rest of the room crack up.  So Shana and I were at a party together in high school with a bunch of our other friends.  Someone cracks a joke and Shana starts laughing.  I for whatever reason that day in particular, saw an opportunity and started to tickle her.  I tickled her until she fell to the ground laughing so hard, everyone else cracking up at her laughing so hard until all of the sudden Shana farted SO loud that it was like a record skip.  Everyone went quiet for a second and then no one could breath we were laughing so hard.  As juvenile as it may sound, I think about that night and Shana just laughing so hard that she farted all the time now.  Sometimes the things that remind you of the kind-hearted, sweet person you once knew don’t always make sense, but what matters most is that person is on your mind.

Sometimes it’s hard to find much more to say when you realize that you have been…

Touched.

Yes, Touched with the capital T.

A dangerous writer, a dangerous survivor, a dangerous woman, a dangerous woman, a dangerous thriver, a dangerous human—

I hope that you’ll take 3 minutes and 37 seconds to watch her video.  She’s coming to campus this Sunday, by the way.

The poster shows her holding a yellow flower in front of her mouth. I’m thinking it might be a dandelion.

I could relate her words to so many we have read so far.  There is Dickinson’s shame at being alive.  There is Rushdie’s novel-length-poetry of paradox.  There is Martin Luther King Jr.’s refusal to stop, thereby revealing majesty.  There is Paul’s promise of renewal.

I wonder if I might dare to identify this poem as a modern translation of Shakespeare. “To be, or not to be…”

And Gibson responds with the latter for reasons other than that “conscience does make cowards of us all.”  She does not pretend that the dandelion need not fight through the soil before it can bloom.  She does not pretend that gardeners do not like to pluck away the beauty, naming it a “weed.”  She does not pretend that the flower will not eventually float away in fragments with the natural force of the wind.

But still: to be.

I ask myself what it means to be a writer.  How creative can one really be?  How much can one really invent out of one’s own mind?

I don’t think that Gibson offers any answers.  She responds and reacts—she moves—but I don’t think she presents us with a step-by-step-this-is-how-to-dance.  But she is a writer. And she does dance. And watching her dance, we must learn.

A writer is a seer and a listener.  A writer shares.  The writer need not stand on stage; she may dress in white and live alone and only speak through letters. But a writer shares.  The writer says not Here I Am

but

Here You Are And I Have Read You.

Tubereplay.com is awesome.  It allows me to listen to Gibson’s “Birthday” melody seven times in a row so far.

I also think it is sad that the word “awesome” is so often discounted as cheap and immature when the truth is that there is little more full and more bravely wise than

Awe.

A word.

Words. Words words words.

And this is why translation is not just a series of words decoded.  A code implies a mathematical certainty. Translation implies an artistic infinity.  I do not imply that mathematics are not artistic or that that which is most certain is not thus most strangely infinite.

Perhaps all writers are translators.  Perhaps there are no realists. Perhaps mirrors are always prisms.

It’s hard to come to terms with a birthday.  I can’t quite remember the last time that it didn’t draw out of my deepest fears.

—Sometimes I think I am a fool to just ramble on and on like this. I’m not “academic” enough for a place like this. I do want to learn. But I find myself most alive when I lay my footsteps out in lines like these, parallel but along different planes, or is it all intersection across a single plane?

I know nothing, yet somehow to me this is something—

I’ve been very intrigued by the novel so far and our class discussions on the questions it raises. In particular, I want to use the blog as an opportunity to continue yesterday’s discussion of moments in which the authorial or narrative voice shifts. After our discussion, I found myself reflecting on the paragraph on p. 59 enclosed in parenthesis. My interest in this passage is two-fold: first, I feel it provides a really wonderful moment of reflexivity in which the narrator describes his process of granting voice to the characters he portrays; secondly, the language of this passage offers what I consider to be an interesting perspective on the extent to which the narrator portrays and realistic or self-constructed accounts of the characters that appear in the text.

Interestingly, this parenthetical passage occurs as a long interruption within the first dialogue the narrator shares between himself and Jean D., and the narrator seems to feel a need to explain the delicacy of the process through which he portrays Jean. The narrator says, “(Until now I have been speaking of one of the dead, that is, of a god or an object, but now that I’m about to repeat his words, to describe his gestures, and recapture the modulations of his voice, I’m seized with terror, not that I’m afraid of remembering incorrectly and betraying Jean but, on the contrary, because I’m sure I’ll recall him so accurately that he may come rushing in, in answer to my call” (59). This language reminds me of yesterday’s discussion of the metaphorical description of the religious God of creation as an author; he narrator appears to not only regard the living Jean as superior to a god but also imbues himself with the God-like creative powers of life-giving and resurrection through his writing.

We have repeatedly mentioned in class that the novel explores the question of the proper way to mourn. I feel this passage offers some insights into the narrator’s thoughts on this question. The narrator devalues speaking of a loved one in the context of his death, and infuses his efforts to vividly recapture the qualities of Jean in life with the magical ability to resurrect the dead. It strikes me as odd, even hypocritical perhaps, that the narrator lowers the form of mourning that discusses Jean in death rather in life. Does the narrator not frequently state that he loves Jean D. more intensely in death than in life because the tragedy and suffering of death intensified his sentiment?

It is also of note that the narrator places such emphasis on the accuracy of his depiction of Jean. His insistence on correctly portraying the reality of Jean clashes abruptly with the close of the paragraph. The narrator concludes, “…the three raps in the theater which announce the rising of the curtain are the very slightly stylized use of my heartbeats before I make Jean speak)” (59). The narrator’s concern for the singular reality of Jean’s existence seems at odds with his diction of “stylized” or contrived performance. Is the narrator’s portrayal of Jean a history or a piece of performance art? Are these dialogues portrayals of genuine recalled moments, or is the narrator a puppet master that “make[s] Jean speak” at will?

I am very much impressed, but not of your work. I am impressed at how you have washed people’s minds.

You are not so great. Your writing is boring, you write in verse but lack rhythm, and your plots lack innovation. Your vocabulary is anything but sophisticated. You repeat the words “wanton” and “dew” as if they were pronouns. Your writing is confusing. Reading one of Hamlet’s speeches is like watching a horse with a broken leg gallop. I knew how Hamlet was going to end when I read the first page. Needless to say, I think the same of “Romeo and Juliet”.

Pray tell me sir, as you would write, why do people think that you are so great. Is it that you were the first great play writer? Indeed, how do we even know that you were the writer of all your tragedies? Some historians have been questioning whether you were just another person’s doll. Could you have been nothing but a pen name, a pseudonym?

The issue is that I feel bad. I feel uneducated, not worthy of going to lectures at such an intellectual place as Penn. How can a person not appreciate the writings of Shakespeare the Great? However, I conducted some research and don’t feel so out of place anymore.

Many great intellectuals despised you. Voltaire called you an “enormous dunghill”. Tolstoy thought your writing was “crude, immoral, vulgar, and senseless”. Geroge Bernard Shaw’s life dream was to bring you back from the grave and stone you back into it.

Well, you get the picture. You are not so great after all. Maybe, the error lies in the academy. Is it possible that Shakespeare can only be enjoyed once a person has acquired considerable experience in Literature analysis? I read “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” when I was in eighth grade. My classmates and I could not read the text ourselves, so we had to follow a text in which the narrator went so fast that we did not even have time to read the footnotes.

I hope you are enjoying centuries of idolatry in your grave.

Best,

Jonathan Reichsfeld

Class, before ending this post I would like to ask some questions I really hope someone can reply. Why do authors write indirectly? Why did Jonathan Swift write a satire instead of a direct critique? Why did George Orwell write a book about farm animals to criticize communism? And why did Shakespeare write Hamlet to criticize the royal family? Is indirect criticism more effective, or is it just less dangerous? Could it be that it is more intellectually satisfying to the author? After all, many people could criticize communism, but only Orwell could do it in a “child’s” book.

Dickinson used a lot of natural and animal imagery throughout her poems.  When trying to determine the motivation for this, I was a little stuck.  Why does she so often compare herself to an animal or a flower, or use animals as the subject for her poetry?  Perhaps because she rarely ventured out of her house, so that she only saw life outside of her own through the window of her room, which maybe did portray an array of animal life.  But that’s a lot of maybe.  I started to think about what could be a deeper, literary reason for her human affiliation with animals.  Many of her poems focus on the discrepancy between what a human feels and what a human portrays to the outside world.  She writes how she prefers the feeling of agony in others, as they cannot mask agony in a falsified facial expression.  She also writes often of volcanoes, indicating how she is hiding so much of herself, as others do, behind the surface.  This seems to scare her, this not knowing of the truth behind what a human is saying and doing.  This gets at the “sovereign in hiding” mentioned in the introduction to Philosophy in the Bedroom; maybe this hidden persona is something Dickinson truly struggles with.  On the contrary, animals do not mask their emotions.  They act according to instinct, and are thus predictable.  They succumb to their needs without trying to manipulate others into thinking that an alternative motive drives their actions.  Maybe, with this, Dickinson feels safe in thinking about and describing animals.  Maybe that is why she chooses to write of them, and use animal-like diction.  Her poetry conveys truth in the human experience, so perhaps for her the most accurate way to do that is to use subjects that similarly convey truth:  animals.

Sade was a little more obvious in his animal references.  He used animalistic language to describe the lives of human beings to reiterate his point that in the laws of Nature, humans are no different than animals.  I couldn’t help but find myself thinking:  Is this true?  Are humans no more than glorified animals?  Sade argues that only difference between animals and us are the rules we impose upon ourselves.  It cannot be denied that human impulse is at its base animalistic, however we restrain ourselves based on societal conventions and governmental regulations.  Sade’s argument was exactly that, that we are no different than animals, that we only choose to force ourselves to live our lives according to different rules.

Would humans be happier if they lived by rules more closely aligned with those of animals?  Sade, it seems, would undoubtedly argue yes.  Dickinson is a little harder to determine.  She would argue that life would be more true, but is truth in life necessarily better?  I can think of many instances in life where “ignorance is bliss” and not knowing the whole truth was better for everyone.  So which is more dangerous:  knowledge or ignorance?

It’s not that I fully understand them. In fact, the first time I read all of them – in one sitting – I cannot say that I directly comprehended any of the poems. Maybe a few, at most. Though even then, I was only hazarding guesses.

Rather, it is certain pieces of the poems that pull at me. As always, it is the beauty of the writing that gets me. Not even beautiful words, but just stunning, poignant thoughts. For example, I really liked the poem “I’m nobody! Who are you?” The concept of being a Nobody has sad, lonely connotations. Yet Nobody is capitalized, and there is an excess of exclamation points and thus a happy, almost joking tone. The juxtaposition is illuminating, especially when the two Nobodies decide to be a pair, when Nobody connotes being alone – unpaired. By saying “Don’t tell! they’d banish us – “ Dickinson seems to allude to society and its forceful alienation or isolation of people. It seems as if society has given them the “Nobody” name perhaps…

On another note, the poem “This world is not a conclusion” also was hard to extract a meaning or interpretation from. Yet for at least my first time looking at it, I could appreciate the word choice, or diction. I first looked at the capitalized words – World, Species, Invisible, Music, Sound, Philosophy, Riddle, Sagacity, Men, Contempt, Generations, Crucifixion, Faith, Blushes, Plucks, Evidence, Vane, Much, Gesture, Pulpit, Strong, Hallelujahs, Narcotics, and Tooth. Such words each hold strong meaning and do not all have obvious connections to each other. Some of them refer to big, all important concepts such as World, Species, Music, Philosophy, Generations, etc. Such words refer to life in large more philosophical terms, a life view that perhaps focuses on the highlights of life. They create a definition of the world that is somewhat bland, however, as there are no details, no specifics in this world view. Thus I was drawn more to words such as Blushes, Gestures, Sound, and Plucks, and Tooth. The small pleasures and pieces in life that most people ignore or do not realize – the beauty of a blush, the simple but musical gesture of plucking at a twig. One perhaps cannot reach conclusions in life, or in the world, but instead has to look at the little things in life. On another note, I must say that I loved the line “Faith slips – and laughs, and rallies – Blushes, if any see – “ for just the pureness and beauty of the imagery. I can imagine Faith – a strong but dainty woman – slipping and thinking it’s the end. But the dash after slips makes me imagine that she quickly gets up, surprising lookers-on and laughs at her mistake, at her lack of hope, and then tries again as she “rallies” on.

Ultimately, though I know this blog post may not be the most cohesive, I just wanted to share some of my thoughts on the poignancy and beauty in Dickinson’s poems.

In the movie she instructs the children in the convent to learn with their eyes wide open. Such instruction may seem to be in contradiction to Saint Paul’s letter to Romans which calls for us to not think of ourselves more highly than we should. While for the people of Athens, Socrates’ questioning was seen as him thinking very highly of himself. The same occurred for Sor Juana at the convent. Despite her plea that women should have the right to education, the Church did not appreciate Sor Juana trying to become more than a nun. Finally, she allowed the Church to push her into being a living failure. She was unhappy being a nun, but she couldn’t justify herself pursuing her writing. This is why she calls herself the worst of all. A misfit schism that doesn’t fall entirely into any category.

What is the validity of such an existence? Socrates chose death than to be such a misfit. Rushdie didn’t want to be such a misfit, and because of his defiance he had to go into hiding to avoid death. Do we look down on Sor Juana for not standing up to the Church like Socrates stood up to Athens and Rushdie to his persecutors? Certainly not. Sor Juana had to submit to the Church to keep her writings from being censored. While Rushdie and Socrates at least know for sure that their writings will remain even if they die, and so did Martin Luther King Jr. at the Mountaintop Sermon. So I want to posit that there exists an identity through writing that is just as valuable as our own identity. Socrates, Saint Paul, Sor Juana, Milton, King, and Rushdie probably agree that who they are in their literature is just as important as who they are in physical and mental form. This existence must be protected just as we protect our breasts from the chilling wind, the sharp dagger, and the speeding bullet. Milton opposed censorship for this very reason. Sor Juana submitted to the Church to protect her literary existence in her writing. So I will leave this post with this question: does the literary identity have gender? Let’s look at Emily Dickinson to see.

I always feel such a burden having reached the “end” of a novel. Responsibility? Perhaps. Or the likes thereof.

One of my first tasks upon finishing The Satanic Verses was to promptly begin making a list of the pages containing my favourite passages.  So far there are a total of twenty-five.  Though I was originally planning to write a post somehow revolving around these…well…I realized there were too many to possibly do justice in around 500 words. My next task, though, was to consider a) why these were my favourites, and b) what greater frame of the story could be revealed through these selections. Again, however, even that discussion is, for the moment, far too lengthy.

So perhaps I shall just attempt to explain my journey through the text…

I should begin by noting that I am not a fan of titles. In fact, I have yet to title any of my posts on this blog. I suppose that titles frighten me, in a way. They are definite and defining; they indicate that an author has come to a point of precision in his own thoughts.  (I even feel similarly regarding “categories” and “tags,” silly enough!)

Nonetheless, amidst all this hullabaloo here, all I really meant to get at was that I began my journey through the text by choosing to dislike the title. The Satanic Verses. Ooo. Aaahh. It sounded so…fancy. Presumptuous.  And as a reader, I felt that it would be pretentious of me to go around saying that I was reading The Satanic Verses.  And then, I realized that I held the same sort of disdain for the author’s very name: Salman Rushdie! Nonsense, I know, I know. But the fact of the matter is, with this all in mind, I declared to my family that from now on the novel was to be referred to as The Salmon Book. No Verses or Salman. Just a little fish fable that in fact was a fable but really had nothing to do with any sort of fish. (p.s. As a side note on the topic of titles, may we please note how utterly disturbing it is that the final chapter is entitled “The Wonderful Lamp?” Wonderful. Wonderful. Wow. Wonderful?!)

I opened the first chapter with hesitation. I’m not one to fall for an author’s art simply because he’s decided to be experimental or ultra-modern.

And then.

Well.

Well well well…

I fell into it—“it” being the essence, the style, the characters, the plane, the everything.  At times I found my mental state not improved by these truths.  I was losing marbles I had already lost long ago, and to lose them again was not exactly the least painful sensation.

I kept trodding—or should I say “treading”? treading air?—onward through the pages.  I began to feel most delightfully as though I were conquering an Olympic athlete’s workout. Inhale and one and two and exhale and three and four and five and six inhale and seven and eight exhale and nine and ten and eleven and twelve and—

What I appreciated potentially the most about the writing was the nearly entirely metaphor-based structure.  I might say that I live in a world of metaphors.  I see objects as symbols and allow them to get me through my day, for better or for worse.  And so, this seemingly fantastical world of Saladin and Gibreel and Pamela and Allie (among many others) appeared to me to be verging on realistic.

Through the mid-sections of the journey, I became incredibly attached to specific metaphors for specific reasons: corn husk, ghost, flat feet…

But suddenly, as I approached the final quarter of the book, it was as though I had slipped down a rollercoaster.  I was no longer dwelling in my symbol-worlds, but rather, I was being forced, exhilaratingly, to charge through them.

And

there  I was.

Page 561. It was perfect. (Sublime?)

Actually, I was mildly disappointed by the language used to conclude the work in the very, very, very last few sentences. But.

It was not neat and tidy. It was predictable enough to “make sense.”

But honestly, the only predictability of this whole work was that nothing could ever quite make sense. “Nobody can judge an internal injury…by the size of the superficial wound, of the hole.” (p.419)

No answers. Fragments. Matching edges. Broken corners. Delusions. That are not delusions.  Only the future. For better or for worse. Till death do us part?

That’s the way we live, isn’t it?

I chuckle.  I had just come from a Linguistics recitation before I read the final ten pages.

Antonyms: there are three types: complementary, gradable, relational.

Live / Die.

Complementary?  If one, then not the other? That would be the most obvious conclusion.

Gradable? On a scale, all spoken of in relative terms?  I think there’s a valid argument to be made there.

Complementary? If one, then the other? In my mind, (maybe) the truest answer.

“…[C]an a man’s death be incompatible with his life?” our narrator (?) asks on page 308. Does he answer himself as he sings on page 3, “To be born again…first you have to die?”  Does he answer himself in claiming that Gibreel could find freedom in death (p.561)? There are no victors.  The archangel opts out of the game.  Or maybe it is in Salahuddin’s revelation: “Now I know what a ghost is…Unfinished business, that’s what (p.554).” Better yet, the masters speak on page 285: Lucretius offers, “Whatever by its changing goes out of its frontiers…that thing…by doing so brings immediate death to its old self,” while Ovid proposes, “As yielding wax…is stamped with new designs And changes shape and seems not still the same, Yet is indeed the same, even so our souls.” But page 9: “Is birth always a fall?” Or Saladin, page 65: “I’m not myself today, he thought.  The heart flutters.  Life damages the living.  None of us are ourselves.  None of us are like this.” Yet Gibreel dreams, page 126: “…it was me both times…me first and second also me.”  But might these only be “two fundamentally different types of self” encumbered by “falsities (p.441)?” Page 538: “old rejected selves, many alternative[s]…which had split off from himself as he made his various life choices,

but which had apparently continued to exist, perhaps in the parallel universes of quantum theory.”

Well well well…now I’ve truly outdone myself, haven’t I… surpassed 1,000 words and “spilled the beans” regarding several of my favoured passages (note that I did not mention all nor attempt to explain the why behind each selection).  But I’ve begun to fulfill my responsibility. I think.

I think—

Theme: what one should do versus what one actually does (I am sure this can be put more eloquently).  I think this was a huge part of the novel—the characters were constantly struggling with the choices they were forced to make or the choices they brought onto themselves.  The choice to assimilate into society, the choice to enter a certain career path, the choice to marry and remain faithful (or not).. the list is endless.  The transformative aspect of the book relied heavily on the choices that Saladin and Gibreel made, because their choices are what ended up defining their characters and completing the metamorphosis into the characters they ended up being.

Plot device: the frequent, immediate changes between first person POV and 3^rd person narration.  This also relates to something I expressed frustration with in class: italicized words.  Paragraphs exploring inner-dialogues that reveal ones actions compared to what one knows he should have done often appear 3^rd person recounts of actions and thoughts, regrets, and wishes in italics.

Character/Persona/Voice: Inner voice vs. outer voice.  This specifically manifests itself in the passage describing Saladin’s initial conversations with his father when he returns home at the end of the novel.  The excerpt on page 540 reads, “Salahuddin suddenly longed to pick the old man up, to cradle him in his arms and sing soft, comforting songs.  Instead, he blurted out, at this least appropriate of moments, an appeal for reconciliation…Fucking idiot.  The Devil damn thee black, though cream-fac’d loon.  In the middle of the bloody night!..  The 3^rd person narrator relates what has occurred and notes the inappropriateness of it, as Saladin did not say what he wanted, what he should have said.  Instead his impulse led him to saying what he felt he shouldn’t—cue the switch to first person and the immediate italicization as Saladin scorns himself for not making the right choice; the audience gains objective commentary into the difference between should and did, and the gains insight into the character’s own agreement with that.  One caveat, however, is that maybe Saladin, at this moment, said what he really wanted but didn’t know he wanted.  Maybe the ultimate need was for him to explicitly reconcile his differences with his father, and in the end, he said what he should have.  I think Rushdie leaves this instance, and many like it, ambiguously up to the reader’s discretion.

Another passage illuminates this idea, on page 544 when Saladin “told comforting lies:  Abba, don’t worry.  You’ll be fine.”  Again, Rushdie utilizes a rapid shift between third and first person to emphasize the situation; however, this time the italics are a quote, not a thought.  Maybe, because this time Saladin did what he thought he should have done, the italics are allowed to be used for actual words instead of hidden thoughts.  I don’t think I will ever understand what this formatting use by Rushdie means, however I do think I have further insight into why he uses it.  He uses it to differentiate between spoken and unspoken, said and thought, did and should.

Also, apropos of speech and writing, I’ve added a few more “Categories” for us to use: literary keywords from the syllabus.  Thus far, I’ve added the keywords for weeks 1-5 on our syllabus.  I’ll continue to add more in the weeks to come.  Remember to practice using them in your blogging, as well as in the formal written assignments and in class discussion.

                 By Robert Frost

The two uses of English  is speech and writing. this is the important tools that will lead us in our journey towards better English.Most likely we are studying it in order to write better. Perhaps you could not care less about speaking if fluently because you probably believe that writing is more important than speech.The most common mistaken beliefs about language.It may have arisen because writing is generally more permanent and stable than speech.considering writing as a symbol of intelligence and of civilization. human beings have recorded their literary,artistic,scientific,technological and other achievements through writing.However,aside from the fact that speech is uttered and heard while writing is written and read,there are some differences between that would show that speech,not writing, is basic to language.
     
While the  rules on grammar tend to be stricter and more formal in writing than in speech,do not disregard these rules when you communicate through speech.After all,the main goal of having rules on grammar(and studying them)is for you to be better understood – and you want to be understood by speaking as well by writing.

Now this may be a stretch and more of a modern day application than Guillory was referring to, but to me the first thing that came to my mind was abbreviations used in social context. Whether you use “jk” or “lol” in a text or a tweet, to me, you are part of the evolutionary change of our language. While “jk” isn’t a word, whether written or spoken most people at this point know that the letters stand for ‘just kidding’. Therefore, these shortened words and letter abbreviations are a language unto themselves. With the emergence of Twitter, and it’s 140 character rule, I begin to wonder if our technology is encouraging us to communicate in this shortened, more casual, informal language. While there are sites such as “Too Long for Twitter” which let you post as many characters as you’d like, most people change ‘tomorrow’ to ‘2mrrw’ or ‘Please let me know when is a good time to meet with you for coffee’ to ‘when’s good 4 coffee’. With this shortened character restraint, our technology appears to be forcing us to communicate way more informally than we might choose. Some may argue that tweets are for one-liners and e-mails are for longer, I feel that this argument is erroneous. My point in this specific instance is not that Twitter is for quick communication and that’s the only communication you can do on it, but rather that since tweeting and texting have become realistic forms of communication, an alternate language has been created, first developed slowly with the emergence of texting to a rapid overhaul with tweeting. The difference between speech and writing in relation to the most important social venues of communication is something hard to comprehend. One day will businesses be communicating with their clients over the phone with abbreviations to save time and potentially create more business or is this strictly used in more informal, social contexts? Will they be sending texts to their clients with smiley faces and ‘lol’s? You tell me! Have I taken this too far or am I somewhat on track with what Guillory is describing?

from First Language

from First Language