Torrential Downpour

This blog is about "life in ideas." Sometimes that means attempting to write serious and developed analysis and commentary; often it is an informal diary of my own life in reading and ideas. I prefer to write the former, but find I still need the latter. I'll try to alert you when it is the latter, so you know what posts to skip.

Books and Reading
I was recently telling my wife how amazed I was at the ability of any novel, even a bad one, to entirely suck me into its world. While I'm reading a novel, I can visualize so much of it in detail. She pointed out that I'm a visual person, and that others do not necessarily read that way. And indeed, that's true: others may not visualize events of fiction clearly. Individuals' minds operate in very different ways--again suggesting to me that a solitary, objective method of reading is neither possible nor desirable.

I have so much unread fiction and drama around my house, it seems unnecessary to buy more such books until I put a bigger dent in what I have now (with exception: I still buy fiction and drama for professional use). But there is plenty of poetry and non-fiction out there that I'm still going to buy.

I have come to detest looking at my Riverside Anthology of Literature. I've taught from it for so long, and so next semester I'm giving it up. I'll teach short stories from an anthology exclusively devoted to short stories, and make my own poetry unit out of handouts, links, and attachments. It will be fun to choose utterly whatever poetry I wish.

I assigned Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" for this week, but didn't want to drag that detestably bulky Riverside Anthology of Literature home to read it. I left it in my office, assuming I had an anthology at home with the story in it. I did--an anthology of 50 Short Story Masterpieces. Now, I don't read a lot of short stories. When I read fiction, I prefer to get sucked into a novel's world, and I also read a fair amount of drama, poetry, and non-fiction. But opening up this book and looking at the table of contents, I suddenly have a desire to just sit with this book and read short stories for a while. It's something like serendipity.

rambing, undeveloped thoughts on reason, belief, animals, and rights
This is not intended as a developed argument, but an attempt to articulate some swirling thoughts I've been having.

I've become convinced that it is wrong to kill animals for our uses. I have not, however, become convinced that it is wrong to use animals for any human uses (but I can be convinced: I obviously made the transition from meat-eater to vegetarian over an idea, and a commitment to living according to convictions. If I am convinced, I would go vegan instead of mostly vegan). I became a vegetarian by reason: when learning about the intelligence of animals, I decided the animals' lives are worth more than the pleasure I could derive from eating them. But I haven't been compelled by the same reason to suggest that it is always wrong for humans to use animals.

Part of this is a matter of "faith." For what reason do we believe human beings have rights? Perhaps because a state grants human beings rights. Perhaps because a creator endowed all human beings with inherent dignity. But there is no act of reason that convinces me that human beings have rights--reason could just as easily lead me to an existential nihilism in which "everything is permitted" and nothing has any inherent value (see Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamozov for exploration of "everything is permitted," or for that matter Flannery O'Connor's Misfit). As it happens, I do believe all human beings are imbued with dignity--because of my religious belief. And it is my commitment to pacifism and vegetarianism that has led me to move away from existentialism--away from the belief that we should create our own meaning, and toward the belief in absolute moral principles.

It is not by reason that I am led to the belief that all human beings have "dignity" or, if you prefer, "value." And so by reason I am also not compelled to assign animals an inherent "value." Again, this is because by reason alone, I might be led to believe there is no inherent value in anything, and that "everything is permitted." If it is a self-evident truth that human beings have rights, that self-evident truth is a leap of faith. It is a belief that human beings have rights, dignity, value. So too is it a leap of faith to claim animals have rights, dignity, value.

Now, as it happens I do not believe that "everything is permitted," I do believe that human beings have inherent dignity and rights, and I do believe that animals have inherent dignity and should not be slaughtered for our purposes. And though I would consider myself an "animal rights" advocate, I am a little uncomfortable with the term. What "rights" does an animal have? Well, a right to live. A right to freedom? Perhaps--and if I can be convinced by reason that an animals has that right inherently, I would become vegan (well, I'm already "mostly vegan"--I eat cheese sometimes, but most days I am completely vegan. And I like that better).

What is my rambling getting at? Not, I hope, merely my own justification for eating cheese sometimes. It is that there is a tension between reason and belief even for the most secular of arguments. I think there is a tension between reason and belief in discussion of animal rights. Right now, I'm living in that tension.

Torrential Downpour

Teaching fear: rational or irrational?

I usually focus very well during class, but if I'm reading something aloud, and its the third time in the day I'm teaching the same section, and especially if I'm reading aloud something I've written, I admit that my mind sometimes wanders as I repeat the words on the page.

Afterward I'm always terrified: I was standing in front of the class saying words I was not conscious of saying. What if instead of reading the words, I said whatever it is my mind wanders to? What if I said something wildly inappropriate (if my mind wandered to a dirty joke I saw in a movie or TV show the night before, or hell, if I thought of a Philip Roth novel)?

This has never happened--I always apparently do an accurate job reading the text even if my mind is not focused (I do work with the written word for a living, after all). But on the rare times this happens, I'm always relieved when students ask me questions after class (I assume that if I said something crazy, they wouldn't ask me about basic class things like everything is normal).

Is this a rational or irrational fear? I should probably just make sure to focus my mind on the text I'm reading.

Present Tense in The Namesake
I usually find fiction written in the present tense irritating, phony. There's something natural about telling a story in the past tense, something empty and artificial about telling a story about right now.

In Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, though, I am seeing the present tense as a considered and effective aesthetic choice. I'm not far into the book, but so far it takes place entirely in America--at least in the present tense. There is a past tense narration for one anecdote from Ashima's life in India, and a past tense narration for one longer anecdonte from Ashoke's life in India. The form suggests theme: life in India was past, life in America is now. There are few sentences that refer to the Ganguli family in India in the present tense (in one significant passage, the family prepares to take a trip to India, but the narration stops just as the plane leaves Boston and flies over the Atlantic).

But I'm not far into the book, and I have other ideas to flesh out later when I'm finished.

Winter
I feel like I live in two countries, so vastly different is the lifestyle of winter and summer in the upper midwest. The different clothing, the available leisure activities, the necessary chores, the very background of the world is so fundamentally different. The college semester spans these two countries, Fall Semester beginning in heat and ending in cold, Spring Semester beginning in cold and ending in heat.

Books

Most of my family's books are piled haphazardly, cramped for space. I set up a bookshelf in the living room so I could look at beautiful books and be happy. My display choices are on the bottom, my wife's choices on top (if you care, clicking the photo should show an enlarged image).

Having Multiple Editions

I've been planning on trying to get rid of some books to clear out space. My wife and I have multiple copies of several works, and I figured I would just sell those books we have copies of. Anything else, my wife, our child (or future children), or I may wish to read or re-read, so we should keep those.

But I'm finding that even when I have two or more editions of a particular work, there are reasons for me to keep both. If I have multiple translations of a work, I want to keep each different translation ( I now own three different translations of Crime and Punishment, and frankly, I don't want to choose which one to rid myself of). Sometimes a copy I might otherwise rid myself of has an introduction or something to make me keep it (Vincent Price wrote an introduction to one of my copies of Poe's short stories). Often I have one book I've marked up while reading, and another copy that is not marked up (I tend to mark up books, my wife doesn't). There's good reason to keep both editions--I may wish to find underlined passages at some point, but somebody in the household may also wish to read the book without any annotations (indeed, when I re-read Paradise Lost, I used a fresh edition so I wouldn't come across my notes from several years ago. I also bought a fresh edition of The Magus for future re-reading). And too often, there is some silly reason why I want to have two editions of a book.

A chance to really clear out some space has left me with a very small pile of books to sell, and all sorts of doubles that I just can't bear to part with.

These Books

I've been cleaning up a room and reorganizing books, and I have a few scattered thoughts about these paper objects in my home.

--I've sometimes thought of taking some time to read all of the Introductions and Forewords and Afterwords of all the books I have. That would be an education in itself, right? All that context and history and biography and criticism. It would be a worthwhile experience, I think.

--I don't know why I was buying some of the books I bought between ages 17 and 22. I have no intention of ever reading many of them. Now I only buy books I could possibly ever want to read. Of course, someday I might look back at books I bought in the last year and say "What was I thinking?"

--If I had the space, I might organize books by...anything. Author. Subject. Whatever. Instead, I organize books by size and shape. That's the way to efficiently use space. And they're vertical or horizontal, wherever they can fit.

Footnotes > Endnotes

I'm currently reading Nevertheless: The Varieties and Shortcomings of Religious Pacifism by John Howard Yoder. It's a fascinating book, as I would expect from Yoder. Furthermore, the notes to the chapters often contain insights and illustrations as important and interesting as those in the chapters themselves.

Alas, the book has endnotes, not footnotes. This means that either I'd have to flip to the back of the book each time I reach a note marker (a tedious exercise), or I need to wait and read the notes for each chapter at the completion of each chapter (which sometimes separates a note from its chapter context), either way keeping a second bookmark for the notes. I choose the latter because it's easier, but certainly I wish I could easily glance at a footnote each time the author wishes to provide a note.

Let us all agree: footnotes are superior to endnotes.

Thoughts on many subjects

The Book as Sacred Container of Knowledge
In preparing to move, I have already filled 10 boxes of books. I estimate 3-5 more boxes.

Many of these books I've already read and have no intention to read again (though as an English professor, I can't know whether I might use something for class, attempt to write an article, or go back to Grad School). Many others I have never read and have no desire or intention to read.

And yet, I cannot bring myself to give away, or sell, or throw away these books. They seem to represent some ideal, some idealization of knowledge, or a spiritual intellectual quest.


The Book Itself and Criticism
Reader-Response Criticism asks us to examine the reading experience itself. To do so does not strictly involve a relationship with the text (or rather, it involves a wider examination of the experience with the text than is typically given).

Is the paper clean and fresh, or is it yellowed and wrinkled? What is the style of the font? What is the size of the font? How many words are on a single page (or how much time passes between page turns)?

These non-text text issues have a bigger impact on our reading experience than we realize. The solemnity, the seriousness, the formality, the humor, the dignity of a text is often based on the font style and size, on the spacing of letters on the page.

Bias
I'm O.K., You're Biased, by Daniel Gilbert

I hate when people objectify their artistic biases. Some people essentially transform their subjective tastes on film or literature into objective systems for evaluating film or literature.

One reason I embrace Reader-Response Criticism is because it recognizes that the reader plays a role in understanding a work of literature. By accepting the reader's role, a Reader-Response Critic admits to biases in interpretation. Awareness of these biases leads to useful interpretations. Naively pretending that biases do not exist is not a helpful way to interpret art.

Adaptation: staying true to the spirit, not the letter
One of the most memorable scenes in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest occurs when McMurphy gets Chief Bromden to play basketball.

This scene doesn't really occur in the book. McMurphy briefly gets the men on the ward to form a basketball team, but it is short-lived and doesn't feature McMurphy doing much with Chief Bromden.

However, this scene stays true to the spirit of the book, and simply makes the development in the novel visual. In the book, Chief Bromden gradually develops sanity, pride, independence, courage, and strength thanks to McMurphy. It is difficult to film the first person narration of Chief Bromden, thus difficult to show this slow development. The film simply includes this scene to make visual and brief the long development of the novel. In two scenes, we see Bromden (and all the men of the ward) grow and change.

Film adaptations must simply find ways to show us things that only the depth of a novel can truly provide. The novel offers an experience no other artform is capable of. Good adaptations (such as Cuckoo's) show this depth effectively; bad adaptations fail.

Gender construction
I spend an inordinate amount of time considering the meaning of gender identity and behavior. I believe that gender is largely socially constructed, but I also believe it would be foolish to ignore scientific knowledge of biology and chemistry. It is extremely difficult to separate social construction of gender from biological differences between men and women. Perhaps it is impossible. I've found Deborah Blum's "The Gender Blur: Where does Biology End and Society Take Over?" an interesting starting point to reflect on these issues.


Old themes are not new
I don't mind that movies like "Down in the Valley" get made, but do we really have to pretend that a film deconstructing the mythology of the Western is something new and edgy? You want to deconstruct the Western, you can start with The Wild Bunch and High Plains Drifter and Blazing Saddles and pretty much every Western made since. Let's not contend that such an effort is something dark and newly necessary.

Furthermore, let's not pretend that what Ed Norton has to say about the film is something new and edgy and dark, either. He says the movie

"is about the lack of a spiritual center, the lack of authenticity, and about a person needing a fantasy to escape the banality of modern existence. It's about a person saying, 'The way we live is so inauthentic, the spirit of things is gone.' It's the desire to escape the constraints of modern pavement."

Are we talking about T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" here? Or any number of movies made in the last 40 years? Seriously, start picking out movies you've seen that this passage could be describing.

Nothing irks me more than those who act like something derivative and done is something new and creative.