A little reader-response

Yesterday I was observing class run by a professor who's really got a handle on and dedication to Reader-response theory. I try to foster discussion and student response in literature courses, but I learned more watching this one class than I could have imaginined. Already I'm trying to incorporate what he does into what I do.

During this class Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" was discussed, and I also read two other poems on father-son relationships (written by the son): Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" and Henry Taylor's "Breakings."

As you may have heard, my life changed a little bit this week. I think every time I've read literature on father-son relationships, I've thought of it exclusively from the son's perspective. This week, perhaps for the first time, I started thinking about the father. What the sons said about their fathers in the poem made me think about how the fathers felt about life and their sons.

I don't think it's possible to pretend that who and what we are as people has no influence on how we read. That's silly. The only way we can read is as ourselves, and everything we are, our identity, is based on such a wicked combination of place, time, experience, background, and relationships that we cannot avoid interpreting a poem from our identity.

After all these years, we still don't know whether art imitates life or life imitates art.

Today on some chuck cable news station some chuck pundit was talking about what flaws a particular political group might have in the coming year (no more details in part because I avoid explicit discussion of contemporary "politics," in part because I don't remember it all, and in part because I wasn't paying very good attention). This pundit mentioned overstepping and referred to hubris. I started thinking of Greek tragedy at the word, and most of the ideas were twisting and oozing and gushing in my brain before the pundit said something to the effect of, "We haven't really advanced beyond Greek tragedy." Before he mentioned this, my stream of consciousness was, "Hmm, those Greeks were really onto something. They had something real in their art about human nature. But wait--why would a contemporary pundit even use the word 'hubris'? Were the Greeks really onto something, or were their works so formative and influential that even today people see the world through the framework of Greek tragedy? Did the Greeks see the nature of humanity, or did they preach a viewpoint of humanity that everybody still believes?"

And so it goes. Why haven't we advanced beyond Greek tragedy? Is it because, in truth, there is a universal, timeless aspect to human nature, and particularly to human beings who strive for power? Or are we essentially incapable of looking at the world in any other way because the basic forms and structures we have for making meaning were set in place so long ago? Has the world simply been interpreted through those forms for so long and so many times that it is the natural way we intrepret it? Or is it the "right" way to interpret it, some eternal truth of human nature?

Random

"Important"
There are "important books. I would define an important book as either having a direct impact on the world (the writings of Marx or Luther, The Jungle), or having a wide impact on the realm of ideas, so that the way we think about things is affected by the book (Frankenstein). So there is no doubt there have been important books.

But have there been important films? If you think so, please provide me examples.

I do not include as "important" those works of art that change only the way other works of art are made or thought of. That's insular. I'm talking about "important" in the blood, bone, and guts world or important in the realm of ideas about living in the world. I'm also not in this case arguing about books that are personally important. All individuals can cite works that impact and change them and their worldviews. I would only include the work as important if many people could cite the impact.

The Stupid Thing I Think About Sartre's No Exit
I believe this is the most misinterpreted play ever written. People glob onto the obvious line "Hell is other people" and believe this is the main theme of the play. Look closer; it's not. In the play, hell is the guilt and remorse an individual feels for knowingly committing "sins," not in the divine sense of right and wrong but in breaking individual integrity. Read the play and tell me why I'm wrong.

Academic Freedom and Meaning
I see three fundamental flaws in the arguments of conservatives like David Horowitz and Tucker Carlson that complain that liberal college professors are forcing their views on students, teaching students that America is bad, etc.

1. Classroom: these people don't have an understanding of pedagogy, the college classroom, or the current attitudes of young Americans. As a professor, I face dull-eyed students, long silences, and lack of energy frequently in the classroom. In order to engage students into thinking and discussing issues, I will sometimes express extreme viewpoints simply to provoke thought and response.

2. Adulthood: college students are not "kids" who are being inflicted with the brainwashing of a professor's political views. They are adults. They should have the ability to think critically about what they are taught.

3. History: would these people prefer that the history of racial discrimination and injustice in America be ignored? This history includes slavery (and the institutional racism that has lingered since), the genocide of Native Americans (and the institutional racism that has lingered since), and the less well-known treatment of Asian-Americans (biased immigration laws, internment camps, exploitation of labor for mines and railroads). And should U.S. foreign policy post-WWII be filtered only through a pro-American viewpoint?

Why the Aliens can Destroy Us
Here is a new feature at Costanza Book Club. I think that when the aliens come to destroy humanity and take earth for themselves, they could make a legitimate argument that humankind deserves to be destroyed. The Holocaust alone is evidence that people are lousy and maybe another sapient species would do better (though of course if they had to wipe us out in order to try do better, then they would be no better than we are, but that's the paradox of this new gimmick). I intend to be far less grave and cite only artistic examples for the aliens to use to justify wiping us out.

In the film The Producers, the song "The King of Broadway" was cut from the film but "That Face" was left in. This is the greatest travesty in the history of art and entertainment.

Against Aestheticism II (or, my utilitarianism)

Some further additions to the ideas in the post below, Against Aestheticism.

More and more, my evaluation of art and literature is based on what I'll call an "abstract utilitarianianism." When I read a book or see a movie, I have to ask myself a central question. This question can be worded many different ways, but it comes down to this: "What is new in this work that I can take with me?" How that question is answered goes a long way toward how I feel about the work (but it isn't the total answer).

Let me look at recent things I've read and seen that can illustrate and articulate my abstract utilitarianism. I finally got around to reading Beckett's Waiting for Godot. I did not pull much new out of this; HOWEVER, I also recognize why. This play is brilliant, and there are two reasons I didn't pull much new out of it. First, this play is representative of a worldview I am already familiar with--indeed, a worldview I have imbibed and felt and studied for years. Secondly, this play is so influential on the theater and literature that followed it, I feel like I've read several works that were similar in nature. So while on the one hand I don't pull much new from it (though there is a lot of comedy that is sharp and fun), I am at least able to recognize why not.

I recently read Gregory Maguire's Wicked, and besides being the most fun book I've read in quite some time, there were some themes that I can take with, to continue mulling over. No, this novel didn't give me a lot to think about in regard to the nature of evil. However, several things stand out to me. The tension and ambiguity regarding the nature of control and choice in our lives. The tension and cohesion of opposites. There's something for me to claw onto and keep thinking about. Many things, actually.

Earlier this summer I read two books by African-American writers examining the legacy of slavery in the U.S., Toni Morrison's Beloved and Earnest Gaines' A Gathering of Old Men. These are important books for me to read. Why? Because I'm white. I do not know what it is like to experience racism against myself. I don't know the details, the emotions, the anxiety. I can only learn about this experience second-hand. Reading Toni Morrison teaches me about the internalizing nature of racism, about the deep impact of racism. That gives me something to take away. Books which show us another way of experiencing the world, that show us how somebody else might view human existence, are the most necessary books of all. There are two approaches to teaching literature. One approach is to find literature students can relate to. This is appealing for students and to the teacher, because it can spark student reactions. But another didactic purpose of literature exists: to show students perspectives other than their own. That, I think, is the more important. What do students get out of RELATING to a work of literature? Something, I'm sure, though perhaps not enough. What do students get by EXPOSING themselves to a work of literature, by having another perspective exposed to them? Immeasurable value, I hope.

Finally, a film I was disappointed with, The Lady in the Water. There were several things I didn't like about the movie, but what comes to mind right now is that there was nothing new for me. I didn't learn anything from seeing it, I didn't relate to it, I wasn't able to learn any new perspective. Certainly that wouldn't hold as a very strong criticism of a film (and I wouldn't use it as an objective analysis), but that it my personal reaction.

This abstract utilitarian view might seem useless for evaluating material that has little artistic value, but still entertains. I say: not so. Not so at all. This is particularly useful in evaluating comedy. The best comedy is that which brings something new to us. Some new way of examining a part of life, some new way of bringing the mundane to comic effect, some new way simply to be funny and make one laugh. The old jokes work--but the best comedies bring something new to the table, they MUST bring something new because they must make us laugh. Above all else, they, must make us laugh. Two anecdotes come to mind: on The Simpsons, when Bart became the "I Didn't Do it" kid, but that got old, and on Alf, when Alf became a famous comedian, but was only telling the same joke, and eventually nobody laughed. Standup comedians will tell you how hard they work, and they do it because they have to. They have to bring you something new if they expect you to laugh. So even for art not meant to inspire, but meant only to entertain us, I can ask myself, "What is new from this that I can take with me?"

Influence

Science and Poetry: the two areas of life where contemporary practitioners are most dependent on the inventions and discoveries of their predecessors.

Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife contains some great poetry. It reminds me of two other poets. First, Robert Browning, as far as I know the inventor of the dramatic monologue in another persona for poetry. His influence on modern poetry is sweeping (and poetry with his influence is often sharper, harder, stronger than the confessional poetry that is everywhere in the 20th century). The other influence is Ted Hughes: in the modern verse, the ironic, somewhat detached tone, and the re-imagining of old myths.

Pushing the novel

In A Gathering of Old Men (a good book with a subtle narrative drive and symbolism), Ernest Gaines uses the narrative form of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying: he uses a series of first person narrators, with different characters telling the story in different chapters.

The form doesn't add a lot to the theme or the story, but it works.

Every time I read a jumping first person narration, I'll think of Faulker, who I believe invented it. But 200 years from now will readers think of that, or will it just be another literary form? When I read a novel written in an epistolary form, I don't necessarily think "Oh, this is taken from Richardson." And there are all sorts of other narrative techniques for fiction that can be traced back to a particular innovator somewhere (Cervantes and Flaubert come to mind as so influential on all novels that it's difficult to even consider the influence).

I look at it this way: the jumping first-person narration is Faulkner's contribution to expanding the novel form in all its potential. He invented that particular narrative form, and now it's there to be used. Gaines isn't the first writer to make use of this, and he won't be the last. Faulkner broke it open: first-person narration doesn't have to be limited, it can jump from character to character allowing different perspectives and ideas, and now that's just one more choice a writer can make when creating a novel.

I believe T.S. Eliot has written on the subject of poetic influence (and there's Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence). A lot of work has been done on examining how poets write with and against innovative poets of the past. A lot of work has been done on fiction, too, but less attention is given to form in fiction than in poetry. Novelists contribute concepts, and future novelists use them for their own purposes. John Fowles has his author show up as a character in a book. So does Stephen King (and King has read Fowles). Fowles got some of his metafiction ideas, as I understand, from Beckett. Beckett's relationship to theater makes for a good gateway of metafiction: all theater is metafiction, and modern theater makes that explicit. So once an innovative, creative novelist pushes the limits of form for the novel, two things happen. One, other innovative, creative novelists push those limits and try go further and further. Two, that form is now available for any writer's use. In A Gathering of Old Men, Gaines didn't do anything to push the form further; he just uses one of the available forms of narration that, I would guess, he thought would work best for the story he wanted to tell.

A few other book comments.
Luther Man Between God and the Devil: the most sickening part of Luther the man is his attitude toward the Jews. Oberman does a good job of examining Luther's attitude toward jews with an attempt to understand it while not simply explaining it way: he doesn't shy away from the subject, and remains justly harsh (calling one of Luther's tracts a call for a pogram). Luther is no saint: this aspect of his personality must be confronted, examined, and repeated.

Elliot Kalb's Who's Better, Who's Best in Basketball?: While doing a little research for an entry on my sports blog on Wilt Chamberlain (and since I forgot my notes on the subject at home, I'll probably wait to write that entry rather than use my 60 minutes here re-researching), I looked at Kalb's chapter arguing that Shaq is the greatest basketball player ever. He uses three very shoddy arguments, in my opinion. One, he argues that Shaq was clos to winning more scoring titles than he did. To that I say, so what. Two, he compares playoff series won by Shaq's teams and Russell's teams. To that, I say, "OK, so Russell missed out on a lot of easy first round victories). And finally, he talks of Shaq's "rebounding prowess," then showing his season rankings without comment. What is evident is that Shaq never led the league in rebounding--not once. In fact, you can make an argument that of the greatest centers ever, Shaq is the worst rebounder of the group. It's a chapter with poor logic and unconvincing arguments. Anyway, I guess this should be on the sports blog, shouldn't it?