விசுவாசம்

I wonder why it is that, over time, a lot of words take on a meaning that is pretty much the opposite of their original meaning. 

two of my favourite examples are 'fantastic' and 'nice'. 'fantastic', like the word 'fantasy', used to denote something that isn't true - a product of the imagination. So, it's actually an insult when something good happens or someone does something good and you say, that's fantastic! You're actually saying, that's ridiculous - it couldn't possibly be true. According to the online etymological dictionary, 'fantastic' began to be used in its new sense from 1938. 

'nice' has changed even more than I thought. I knew that, a couple of hundred years ago or more, it related to precision and intellectual penetration. Like, a nice point or argument would be one that uses some kind of fine distinction to good effect. Now, 'nice' is quite a vague term of praise or approval. but there's way more, as I found out from the online etymological dictionary ￫￫ 

definitions of 'nice':

12th century ||| "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish," 

Late 14th century ||| "fussy, fastidious"

1400 ||| "dainty, delicate"

1500s ||| "precise, careful" (this is the one I mentioned)

1769 ||| "agreeable, delightful" 

1830 ||| "kind, thoughtful" 

Another interesting one that I found when I was looking up 'nice' is 'pretty' - In old English it meant cunning and skilful. Then, by 1400, it meant 'manly and gallant' (amazing, eh?), which is kind of the opposite of what it means now. 

This relates in an interesting way to issues of translation. I've been thinking and researching a lot lately about Bible translation, and I've been adding to my collection of different translations and reading and comparing them. 

There are two general approaches to translating the Bible from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek into English or other languages: formal equivalence or 'word for word' translation, which prioritises the individual words and grammatical structures, and dynamic equivalence or 'thought for thought' translation, which focuses more on the overall meaning. No translation is fully one or the other. It's like a spectrum. At the very far extreme of 'thought for thought', the edition ceases to be a translation and becomes a paraphrase. 

For purposes of study and teaching, there's no doubt (I think) that it's better to use a translation that sits more on the 'word for word' side of the spectrum. But then, the examples I gave above about how the meaning of words changes so drastically over time, represents a good argument for the use of translations that are more on the dynamic equivalence side of the spectrum because a strongly literal translation could actually convey the opposite meaning of what was originally intended. There's also idiom to take into account. An example I heard is, imagine if I said or wrote, 'it's raining cats and dogs' (meaning that it's raining heavily). In 200 years, that idiom may have fallen out of fashion, so someone who translated my statement in a literal way is going to be saying that dogs and cats were falling from the sky, which has nothing at all to do with the meaning of the original statement. So, I like the idea of using a variety of translations of the Bible. 

what's surprising and interesting to me as a student of literature in general as well as the Bible, is the way that, despite the inherent instability of language, meaning is communicated very effectively through written texts. The world of the past, including its use of language, is, in so many ways, a foreign place - a different place - to the modern world. And yet, the profoundest of meanings is communicated between those different worlds. 

It's something truly extraordinary - the way that great literature can speak to us so personally. 

John Macarthur said something interesting in a youtube video I watched recently - something that relates to the debate about critical theory, post-modernism, cultural marxism, social justice - all that stuff. I've been really interested in a lot of what John Macarthur has been saying lately. He strongly believes in just using one translation of the Bible for everything - reading, writing, studying, preaching, teaching, counselling - and he uses the NASB (New American Standard Bible), which is very much on the 'word for word' side of the spectrum. He made a really good point that, as a minister and a leader in the church, but also just as a Christian, he wants the language of the Bible to be his language and he wants it to be consistent. That's why, as he is assured that the NASB is a very good translation, he wants to use it for everything. He wants to really get to know it and make it part of him and using a single translation better facilitates that kind of deep engagement than reading from lots of different versions.  But the interesting thing that he said was that he, and others in his circles, rejected the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and Today's New International Version (TNIV) because those translations had been influenced by liberal ideology. I have no idea what he means here about the RSV, but I have some idea about what he means with the TNIV, and it's actually a feature that I really like. I actually prefer the TNIV to the NIV because of this change. There are probably other changes that John Macarthur has in mind, but the one I'm aware of is that they've made the Bible less patriarchal. Like, for example, it's common in the Bible, when someone is addressing a group, to just refer to the males in the group....so, someone will say or write something like 'brothers, don't worship idols'. It's understood that women are being addressed as well, because the writer or speaker will be addressing a church or other group, but older translations just translate it as 'brothers.....'. But the TNIV will translate that as 'brothers and sisters'. So, to me, that's a very good example of dynamic equivalence. It was culturally appropriate to address groups by just referring to the males, at the time when the Bible was written, but it's no longer appropriate. What worries John Macarthur though is that this could be a slippery slope.....we start adjusting the Bible more and more to suit our culture and we end up losing the rich and central message of the Bible. The way John Macarthur, very eloquently, put it is that we ought to be adjusting ourselves and our culture to suit the Bible - because of its authority as God's word - rather than adjusting the Bible to suit our culture. 

And it's true, I think, that we need to be careful with this. Like, for example, both Peter and Paul, in their letters in the New Testament, talked about braided hair as being something unseemly and worldly. By the standards of modern culture that makes no sense. If anything, braided hair is conservative. But when we read those passages, we realise that and we do a kind of mental dynamic equivalence translation. We figure out what they are getting at by reading the whole sentence and the whole paragraph. It's not hard to do that. 

.....I was going to say that we wouldn't want Bible translators to be thinking, OK,what is the modern equivalent of braided hair? and then putting that in the passage, but when I looked at a couple of the Bibles that are more on the side of dynamic equivalence (the NIV and NLT), that is kind of what they do. They talk about not having elaborate hairstyles (NIV) or not 'fixing' your hair as a way of attracting attention. (NLT) The idea is that the kind of attractiveness we should aspire to is attractiveness of the soul and the character. The translations that are more on the literal/ formal equivalence side, like the New English Translation (NET Bible) and the NASB still have 'braided hair'. Interestingly, out of all of those translations, the NET Bible is the most recent - it came out in 2005 - but it's because it's a more literal translation that it has the 'older' wording. 

To be honest, my personal preference is definitely for the more literal translations. The text just seems richer and more meaningful. It allows for a deeper engagement and study. 

These translation issues remind me of the dilemma faced when editing the juvenilia of famous authors. A lot of the charm of the original text - a lot of its character and verve - comes from roughness of style within which the treasure of precocious talent resides. So, the question is always how much you should 'correct' the text to make it readable and worthy of publication.

vision

history cannot be accurately represented by words on a page. when we study or teach history or just talk about it, or whatever, our focus is on the reading and writing and speaking of a story that we create. We can't access what it was actually like, because that would require us to be there, and if we were there, our experience would be very particular and contextual and nothing like what someone would read about the events we are experiencing, in the future. 

a couple of books I read said some interesting things about this idea. I can't remember the exact details - author, title, exact wording - so I will just paraphrase. 

one book was about scientific discovery and the other book was about writing. In the one about writing, the author made the point that, for any classic text, the complete difference in context between when the book was written and now means that, it's not enough just to say that the contemporary (to the text) audience would interpret the text differently // instead, we can say that they were effectively reading a different text. 

I actually figured out which book the one about scientific discovery was ⇨ It's What Galileo Saw: Imagining the Scientific Revolution (2014) by Lawrence Lipking. I don't have access to the full book - only the preview on Amazon - but I really like the subject of this book, so I might buy it at some stage. Using his telescope, Galileo was able to see the moon, stars and planets, and even some moons of some other planets. The fascinating concept underlying the book is that what Galileo actually saw is different from our idea of what he saw. We accept as common knowledge details about the universe such as, for example, that the moon is basically a globe just like the earth and that it has topographical features which we perceive as shadows and spots. Galileo, in many ways, began the journey of discovery that we're still on with regard to the universe. We have a mental image of the solar system that Galileo didn't have, and this book (I think) is about the mental process whereby raw data (e.g. the visual data take in by Galileo's eyes) is converted into useful information, and the way that imagination plays a part in that process. 

In Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1812), Humphry Davy says/ writes, this: 

The foundations of chemical philosophy, are observation, experiment, and analogy. By observation, facts are distinctly and minutely impressed on the mind. By analogy, similar facts are connected. By experiment, new facts are discovered; and, in the progression of knowledge, observation, guided by analogy, leads to experiment, and analogy confirmed by experiment, becomes scientific truth. 

Analogy is central to the process of scientific discovery. Analogy guides observation, and enables the connection of facts - the conversion of raw data into useful information - and leads to further experiment to confirm the analogy and that confirmation converts the analogy into scientific truth. 

To my mind (and I'm probably biased), analogy seems like a concept that is more related to creativity and imagination than it is to science. But when I look up the etymology of the word, I find that it does have a history of use in mathematics and logic. But still....if you break it down to its Greek roots, you find something interesting ⇨ ana - "upon, according to" & logos, which means ratio, word, speech, reckoning. In old medical prescriptions, the term 'ana' meant 'equal amounts of each'. So that makes sense /// analogy is about correspondence and something in a different context that is somehow similar or equal to something else. 

 Douglas R. Hofstadter has suggested that analogy is the 'life-blood' of human thought. With regard to cognition, Hofstadter writes that analogy is 'everything, or very nearly so, in my view.' (from Analogy as the Core of Cognition) 

I agree. I think analogy is central to all learning. We can only learn anything new if it relates to something we already know. If there is no link to something we already know, we can't make sense of what we're perceiving. That's why, to make sense of what he was seeing through his telescope, Galileo would have had to evoke or develop some kind of analogy - to establish a link between what he already knew and what he was seeing. 

There is a progression....any new thing we observe will correspond in some ways, but not in others, to a schema/ idea / conception in our mind. When we observe something, we comprehend it by matching it with something that we already know about. Once we are sure about that match, we can then add the differences to our existing concept - we can enrich our existing idea and make it more complex. That seems to be the kind of process that Davy was talking about. 

ideas of a writer

OK, so I'm ready now to write about Susan Sontag and her relationship to theory. I'm using three books for research. I'm not going to refer to any biographies. The three books I'm going to read from are, the first book of essays she published - Against Interpretation and Other Essays, the last book of her essays that was published - At the Same Time, and Reborn: Early Diaries 1947 - 1963 (so these were her diaries between the ages of 14 and 30). 

I'll probably read in a cycle - an essay from the first, an essay from the second and then some pages from the third, then repeat the cycle. I thought about reading a biography, but this felt more right...to read what she wrote herself. From what I've heard, she was never very receptive to the idea of anyone writing her biography. I think these three books in particular will give me a good sense of her thinking...at least it's a good starting point. 

In her shear intellectual audacity - the huge claims she makes, and convincingly prosecutes - she reminds me of Harold Bloom. She demands that you suspend your sense of disbelief and accept her argument on her terms. Also like Bloom, her work encompasses so much learning and reading. In short passages, even individual sentences, Sontag encompasses whole bodies of literature, complex ideas and major historical developments and combines them in original ways to suit her argument. 

I'm reading the essay, 'Against Interpretation'. I do see a link to theory. Much of theory is what Sontag is calling interpretation, but there's no need to complicate it....interpretation is basically what we understand it to be: assigning some kind of meaning to the text - saying, it means x or y, and that's what a lot of theory or criticism does. I think Sontag's problem with it is that it's lazy. It reduces the work of art rather than celebrating and appreciating it. She writes that interpretation, as she defines it in this essay - at least the kind of interpretation she is opposed to, 'is a conscious act of the mind which illustrates a certain code, certain "rules" of interpretation'. 

But in order to critique examples of what she is calling interpretation, she has to do her own kind of interpretation. Here's an example: 

Beckett's delicate dramas of the withdrawn consciousness - pared down to essentials, cut off, often represented as physically immobilized - are read as a statement about modern man's alienation from meaning or from God, or as an allegory of psychopathology. 

 After this she gives numerous more examples of writers, 'around whom thick encrustations of interpretation have taken hold'. 

It's definitely interesting that Sontag introduces her criticism of an interpretation with an interpretation of her own. But there are important differences between what she is doing here and what the kind of interpretation she is criticising does. She's making a one-off observation suitable for this context. She's not making a definitive statement or giving an explanation of what Beckett's work really means. Again, Sontag is a lot like Bloom in that she sees reduction and generalisation as the enemy. In this sense, yes, she is anti-theory, because much of theory wants to de-code the text, and explain it - tell us what the underlying issues are or devise principles about how the text works - how it generates meaning. 

Sontag sees this kind of analysis as an attempt to 'disarm' the text, to contain it, to render it inert (because 'Real art has the capacity to make us nervous'). I think her criticism of interpretation is like Blake's criticism of Newton. She believes in the pre-eminence of particulars over principles and systems. For example, she sees Streetcar Named Desire as 'a play about a handsome brute named Stanley Kowalski and a faded mangy belle named Blanche Du Bois' whereas, 'in order to direct the play, Kazan had to discover that Stanley Kowalski represented the sensual and vengeful barbarism that was engulfing our culture, while Blanche Du Bois was Western civilisation, poetry, poetry, delicate apparel, dim lighting, refined feelings and all, though a little worse for wear to be sure'. 

On the face of it, I think there's something to be said for both approaches, to be honest. The texts that really resonate with us do so because they touch on issues that we can relate to. The problem I see, and maybe the problem that Susan Sontag has, with interpretation, is when so-called experts want to claim authority for their interpretation and want to say that this - whatever this is - is what the text really means - this is what the text is about. Again, it really brings Bloom to mind because, as he would say, texts aren't ultimately about anything except other texts. And this is theory. 'Against Interpretation' is about literary theory, because it proposes a better way of understanding and engaging with texts. And Sontag admits this when, towards the end of her essay, she begins to consider what a better kind of criticism - one not based on what she calls interpretation - would look like. She suggests that more attention should be paid to form, as opposed to content (because focusing on content leads to interpretation) and that good criticism achieves a kind of transparency, faciltating a more direct and vibrant engagement with the text. She writes near the end of her essay: 

The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means. 

I think one of the best points Sontag makes in the whole essay, both in terms of making her argument and also in terms of understanding literature and literary criticism is this:

From interviews, it appears that Rennais and Robbe-Grillet consciously designed Last Year at Marienbad to accommodate a multiplicity of equally plausible interpretations. 

She does go on in the next sentence to say that, in any case 'the temptation to interpret Marienbad should be resisted.' but I think that's because the whole point of her essay is opposition to interpretation. 

That idea - that the meaning of literary texts is indeterminate - means that no one interpretation is ever right, because that's just not how texts work. Literary texts are made in such a way that they continue to yield new meanings. Each person gets their own meaning from the work, which is as unique as each of us is unique, but at the same time, there will be themes and ideas that speak to us as a member of one group or another. 

The meaning I take from 'Against Interpretation' is that, in literary theory, the question we should be asking is not what does it mean?, but how does it mean? - how does it do what it does? 

The next essay in the book is, again, a critique of the contemporary state of literary criticism at the time Sontag was writing these essays....then, flipping through the rest of the book, it's pretty much a work of literary and cultural criticism and theory. Sontag writes about writers, artists of different kinds, and their work. 

So this is what I see happening in Against Interpretation and Other Essays ⇾ she begins with two essays critiquing the current state of affairs in literary and cultural criticism, and then she says, this is how it's done....and proceeds to give her own version of theory/ criticism in the rest of the book. 

After writing this, I read an introductory note that sheds some further light on the book. She explains that she wrote most of the essays in the book between 1962 and 1965, which she says was a very sharply defined period in her life...in early 1962, she finished her first novel, The Benefactor, and in late 1965, she began a second novel. She writes:

The energy, and the anxiety, that spilled over into criticism had a beginning and an end. 

I think that's a very important piece of contextual information. The frustration with the prevailing type of criticism and the production of her own kind of criticism, were informed by her practice as a writer of literature. 

la facilità delle lenticchie

do people actually follow recipes? I think you have to learn the different skills and gradually build a repertoire. 

I once tried to make curry following a recipe, and there were a lot of really flavourful ingredients - spices, sauces, fruit, jam, etc - so I thought it was going to taste great. But it tasted terrible. I don't think I had the technical expertise to properly follow the recipe, which was quite complex. 

but the way I cook lentils, which always turn out great, is so imprecise. The first time I cooked them, I did follow a basic recipe. I wouldn't even call it a recipe...more like a method or technique. It's like rice...you don't call how to cook rice a recipe.

so, here's what I do ➝ add 1 cup of split red lentils to a pan / rinse three times / add 3 cups of water / pour in some soy sauce...don't worry about measuring. just pour whatever you think. you can always add more later / get about 5 or so different spices...don't worry about compatability. if they're all savoury they'll go together fine..I'm currently using smoked paprika, garlic, cumin, turmeric, chinese 5 spices....again, don't measure - just sprinkle however much you think. more of the flavours you like, and less of the stronger flavours / heat, simmer....again, don't measure time. just keep heating and simmering until the lentils soften and kind of breakdown and the mixture turns into a kind of thick soup. Add salt but only after the lentils have softened. I think putting it in earlier actually stops the lentils from softening somehow. You can also add a vegetable stock cube with the spices. 

in future I might experiment and add other ingredients, like maybe some meat or some other vegetables, but I'm content with the basic one for now. could there be an easier recipe? 

ცვლილება

sometimes I'm the person in the queue for the bus and I'm pushing and straining to get on the bus, and, once I'm on the bus, I no longer care about moving down the bus so more people can get on. I'm on, and that's all that matters. 

I'm not actually like that with buses but I'm like that with some of the challenges in life. Like, I just want to get through it and I think there's nothing good about this, but I've been thinking lately about both during intense challenges and after them and how I can see them differently. 

it's easy for me to not learn from challenges. when I'm going through the challenge, I just want relief, and then I get some relief and I'm just focused on that, and it's easy, at that point to think - great, now I can go back to normal, but what I've been realising is that that going back to normal leads into more challenge. The point of the challenge is to give me an opportunity to change. 

So, I've been learning two things. Firstly, challenges are not the worst thing in the world. I have a tendency to think, when I'm going through a challenge, that everything is going wrong. But I've been reflecting lately, when I've gone through challenges, that, even at that point when the challenge is at its most intense (or seems to be), things could be worse, and at times in the past, they actually have been worse, and also, not everything is going wrong. In many ways I'm doing OK. 

The other thing I've been thinking about is the way I respond when relief comes. This also relates to how I see the problem because, if I see the problem as the worst thing in the world, then I will overvalue relief from that problem and I will overindulge in it - it will become too important to me...I will become reliant on, maybe addicted to, whatever it is that brought relief. If I see the problem as the worst thing in the world and I'm obsessively thinking about how I can get rid of it // how I can get back to the way things were or the way I want them to be, when relief comes, I'm just going to go there - back to my habitual ways of thinking and acting, back to what I know ||| and, if I do that, I will miss the lesson that the challenge has for me. 

engage

There's something unearthly and timeless about Mazzy Star's song, Into Dust. It seems to me that David Roback and Hope Sandoval, who together formed Mazzy Star, are true artists. They don't seem to have courted fame and fortune, but rather sought to make really good music. I think that's reflected in the way they perform. All the show is in the music. Like, watch this performance - Blue Flower.....it's a superb song with a kind of velvet underground sound and it's brilliantly performed, but there's no personal engagement with the audience. The band, including Hope, hardly even look at the audience. 

I was pleased to read about something I have in common with Hope Sandoval. At school she struggled socially and academically, and they put her in the Special Ed class. It happened to me in first grade, and it happened to her in High School, so it was probably more difficult for her, but in a way it was better because she just stopped going to classes and eventually dropped out. According to Wikipedia, she preferred to stay home and listen to records. She's quoted as saying: "It's just like anybody else—some people, most people don't wanna go to school. They just don't want to....I was just somebody who got away with it... There wasn't really anyone watching." 

My 6 year old self can relate. I remember telling my parents that I didn't understand the purpose of going to school.

representation

I've got a copy of the first book of essays that Susan Sontag published: Against Interpretation and Other Essays.  

Someone told me something recently that I didn't know. I was talking to them about the debate about critical theory and the different arguments, and they told me that Susan Sontag was opposed to theory. I didn't know that. It makes sense though, in a lot of ways....like, for example, Sontag is one of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century and wrote what could be called literary/ cultural criticism, or even theory, but she's not included in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. If she had written some kind of orthodox literary theory, someone of her calibre would surely have been included in the Norton. 

So, I suspect that her work is going to be a good example of how to do what theory does without doing theory. What first comes to my mind about Susan Sontag related to this issue is that, yes, she tends not to formulate rules and principles...she's more interested in qualities. She tends to make a series of observations or notes, without necessarily trying to make them relate to each other. That's just a vague impression I get from memory though, so it may not be completely accurate...in fact, in many ways, it certainly won't be accurate because all good writing has some kind of structure. 

so....I watched a few videos, and will make some miscellaneous notes....

• Camille Paglia despises her....Sontag claimed not to even know who Paglia was until around 1993, which Paglia claims is a lie to deflect the reality that Paglia had usurped her as the (or one of the) leading female intellectual(s).  
• I watched a video by Caleb Maupin called The thing about "Cultural Marxism" - Sontag, CIA, Cold War, Deconstruction which is fascinating but complicates (in interesting ways) the debate about critical theory, deconstruction, cultural Marxism, and brings Sontag into the story.
• Something extremely interesting from that video is the idea that cultural Marxism originally grew out of attempts to oppose actual Marxism and Communism, through an organisation called the Congress for Cultural Freedom, by making the whole debate about deconstruction and other theoretical concepts, so that constructive action (actually making marxism and communism happen) was off the table. And apparently the CIA had something to do with the Congress for Cultural Freedom, something which is affirmed by the fact that they have information about the Congress for Cultural Freedom and its agenda on their website: here. There are some problems with the time line here though because the Congress for Cultural Freedom was established in 1949/50 but the concept of deconstruction proper was only developed in the 60s. Also, Sontag, who Maupin brings into the story was writing in the 60s and after. But there's still some interesting links here. 
• As Caleb Maupin says, they constructed a Left that was opposed to communism and active Marxism [as a way of sidelining Marxism] 
• How does Susan Sontag come into it? According to Maupin, she played an active role in this enterprise, and worked with and was funded by the Congress for Cultural Freedom and similar organisations. In his video, Maupin talks about how, in 1975, Sontag wrote an essay about a photo essay about tribes in Africa by Leni Riefenstahl (interesting, right?), who by this time had disavowed all association with Nazism and had always maintained that she didn't know anything about the Holocaust....Anyway, Sontag wrote an essay/ review saying that the book promoted fascism because the photos and commentary favoured community over family and promoted values such as courage, collective will and collaboration. At least that's how Caleb Maupin describes it. But why does he want to make Susan Sontag look bad? Because he's a Marxist, so he wants to make cultural Marxism, which he argues was developed to undermine real Marxism, seem ridiculous. 
• One of the most interesting take-aways is this: (and this is according to the CIA's own website) Between 1950 and 1970, the theoretical foundation of the CIA's strategy of opposing communism, was to promote a 'non-communist left'. So cultural Marxism and critical theory are, in terms of ideology, not what they appear to be. If this argument is correct, the whole point of cultural Marxism is not to promote Marxism - to subvert capitalism and western civilisation by culturally subverting it, because it wasn't able to overcome it in the 'real world' - but rather to undermine Marxism by situating it in a realm in which it would be innocuous. 
• I found a copy of Sontag's review of Riefenstahl's book: Fascinating Fascism. Interestingly, it's on a webpage that relates to Herbert Marcuse who was a prominent member of the Frankfurt school and a leading proponent of cultural marxism. 
• reading the review....it's very biting....describes the biographical note on the dust-jacket as being 'full of disquieting lies'
• ....and it continues in the same vein from there, arguing at length that Riefenstahl is lying about the extent and nature of her involvement with Nazism - that she's not 'reformed' in the way that she wants to represent herself as, and that she wasn't an idealistic, pure artist, innocent of any connection with the evil perpetrated by the Nazis, but was very much involved in the Nazi enterprise and closely associated with Hitler and other top Nazi leaders.  
• So far (I'm not up to the part where Sontag writes about Riefenstahl's photo essay) her criticism of Riefenstahl and her work is scathing. And maybe there's some validity to her argument. 
• Looking ahead I can see that what Sontag is going to do is cast this new book in the same light as Nazi propaganda, which is quite an interesting thing to do, even if, in the build up to it, Sontag felt it necessary to completely demolish the image that Riefenstahl wanted to present of herself as having moved on and, in fact, never been really taken in by the whole Nazi thing. 
• Was that initial movement necessary? Wasn't it a bit over-the-top to begin with such a full-on attack? Couldn't Sontag have gotten straight into a review of the actual book and maybe made some reference to the noteworthy parallels between Riefenstahl's propaganda work and her supposedly fresh and new 'artistic' work? 
• Also - to play devil's advocate - there's a bit of unfair framing going on here. The title of the review article makes it clear that the subject that is going to be discussed is fascism, and Riefenstahl's book is reviewed along with a book about the SS, so it's kind of clear from the start how things stand. 

overall, I have to say, I think Sontag makes a pretty good argument. And Maupin doesn't do justice to Sontag's argument - he presents a caricature of it. Of course it would be ludicrous to label the book an expression of fascism because it focuses on community over family and values like courage and collaboration, but Sontag doesn't do that /// her argument is more nuanced. She draws attention to some striking parallels between the underlying ideas and themes in Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda work and her new photo essay. Her conclusions - her central thesis - may be wrong (I'm not saying it is), but she makes a good (and thought provoking) argument.

but the question of whether Sontag was against theory....

I want to read some more work by and about Susan Sontag to really consider the question of her relationship to theory. It's hard to say anything about it from what I already know. If Sontag was involved with the Congress for Cultural Freedom or some later development of it, then arguably her work was related to cultural Marxism and critical theory. Caleb Maupin describes her as a leftist, which, again, in today's terms, puts her in the critical theory camp. But I don't know if that's born out by her actual work. To me, from what I already know and what I've read, it seems like Sontag was averse to the idea that you have to situate your work in a theoretical framework. So, that would mean the opposite - that she wasn't really interested in theory as a thing in itself. She was more interested in analysing art and literature and life than in theorising about them. 

the writer and the story

I don't think there's an easy way to write about anything. Everything is complex. To explain a situation, I have to explain what led up to it, but then that raises other issues which need to be explained and I have to explain what led up to that, and then what led up to that, and I go further and further back, building up this burden of stuff that needs to be expressed. But that's not a writing problem, it's a thinking problem. It's a problem before I write, and an obstacle to beginning to write. 

Life doesn't happen in story form. In other words, what novelists portray in the form of a story (the novel) is not itself a story (the lives and action portrayed). Take Wuthering Heights for instance....we're introduced to Lockwood, the outermost narrator (because Wuthering Heights, like Frankenstein, is structured in the form of 'nested narratives')....so we start with Lockwood and then, when he visits Wuthering Heights and ends up having to stay overnight because of the snow storm - in that whole scene: the day and the night that follows, we are introduced, and Lockwood is introduced, to both the adult (or present) and the child (or past) version of both Catherine and Heathcliff. That's a stunning literary feat, when you think about it....the perfect introduction to the fullness of the two main characters. And then the life stories of Heathcliff and Catherine and their relationship and interactions with others, are delineated by Lockwood's housekeeper, when he returns home, sick with a cold and therefore needs to spend time in bed and has time to listen to Nelly's narrative. 

and something else is happening. During Nelly's long narration, we forget that she is narrating....we hear Catherine and Heathcliff and Edgar and all the other characters speaking. So, the narration, like the story itself, is a construction and isn't realistic. Nelly's narrative contains long sections of dialogue, and besides the fact that, when you're telling a story, you generally don't recite complete dialogues because you wouldn't remember them and they would just get in the way of the story you are telling....besides that, the statements made are so powerful that it's the voice of the character we are hearing. Arguably, Nelly doesn't really have a voice in Wuthering Heights. She's meant to be a conduit for the story. It's not that she doesn't play a role /// but her involvement doesn't influence the course of the story. Her role is to tell the story. 

So, there's a lot of construction and artistic creation and manipulation that goes into the writing of a novel. 

Frankenstein is similar in terms of narrative structure. The story unfolds through nested narratives - the monster's story (which the monster narrates, by the way), inside Frankenstein's narrative, inside Walton's narrative, and Walton, even  more so than Nelly, plays a minimal role in the story. He's supposedly the narrator of the whole thing, but it's Frankenstein's and other voices we hear and whose lives and adventures we learn about, while Walton is invisible the whole time. But the pretext is that everything written - the whole novel - is related in Walton's letters to his sister. 

It's interesting how, in both the world of the novel and the real world - the real narrator or story teller, has to stay out of the story. You can read and appreciate Wuthering Heights and have no interest in Emily Brontё. I became interested in Emily Brontё though, and went on to read and research a lot about her and read her poetry. The more I learnt, the more interested I became because it all fits together. Emily's literary work (the novel and her poems) and her life, reflect on each other in fascinating ways. Same with all the Brontёs - they're all fascinating. The Brontёs by Juliet Barker is a really good combined biography of all the Brontёs, and my favourite biography of Emily is the one by Winifred Gérin. I also liked Emily Brontё: Heretic by Stevie Davies, but that's more of a literary biography centered around Wuthering Heights. 

books III

This is the third, and probably the final, post in a series about some of the books I had thought I lost or forgotten I had, and was pleased to find when I cleaned out a cupboard. They are in no particular order. 

The Bible 

This was the real treasure. I found 5 Bibles. The first was a leather-bound NIV (New International Version) that my mum gave me for Christmas in 1989, so it has a lot of value for me. After all these years of heavy use in all kinds of places, and storage in non-ideal conditions during certain periods, it's not in very good condition physically. 

Another one that was a gift is an NIV Life Application Study Bible, which my girlfriend, at that time, gave me for my birthday in 1993. 

Then there is a Good News Bible. It's one of those ones with the brightly covered hard back - and the printing is actually on the cover, so no dust-jacket. It's a specifically Australian edition. The full title is actually, Good News Bible - Revised Australian Edition. And it has those cartoon like images that I like so much in the Good News Bible. Because I've hardly used it, it's in virtually new condition. I've never been a huge fan of the Good News Bible....I think in the trade off between textual richness and accessibility, it errs too much on the side of accessibility. But still, especially as I get to know the Bible better, I like having a full range of different translations. Something I'm interested in exploring is, what is it that makes this an Australian edition...like, how is it different from other Good News Bibles? [I imagine Jesus greeting the prospective disciples with G'day Mate....and things like that....the feeding of the 5,000 with snags and sliced bread, instead of loaves and fishes...no]

I really think each translation has its own strengths and weaknesses. For a long time, I only used the NIV, but then when the New Living Translation (NLT) came out (1996), I heard good things about it and started reading it. Part of what was good about it was that it was noticeably different from the NIV, which is probably because it's more of a thought-for-thought translation as opposed to a word-for-word translation, whereas the NIV translators strove to strike more of a balance between the two approaches. The New American Standard Bible goes to the opposite extreme - where the NLT is primarily thought-for-thought, the NASB is very much a word-for-word translation (not that a translation can ever be perfectly word for word, because different languages are structured in different ways). For that reason, the NASB is highly respected and it's the Bible of choice for a lot of churches and ministers. Definitely, I think word-for-word is preferable for study purposes, because you can do more of a close reading of the text. I haven't read the NASB but I have one on order from Amazon. 

In my experience with the NLT and NIV, I've found passages in the NLT that cast a new and interesting light on things. It seemed more clear and meaningful than the NIV in those examples, but then there were other times where I would read a passage in the NLT and be disappointed because some of the meaning was lost. But that's always the case. There are parts of the Revised Standard Version (which, along with the King James Version, was the first translation I read) that are very meaningful to me, and when I read those same passages in the NIV, the slight difference in wording seemed to make a big difference in the meaning and I felt like something was lost. 

The other two Bibles are both different editions of the NIV, both with unique characteristics and both in pretty good condition. 

The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine De Pizan (Translated by Earl Jeffrey Richards)

Ever since I first heard about this book, I wanted to get a copy of it, but it wasn't widely available. You wouldn't find it in the classics section even of the bigger bookshops. Now, with the internet, it's a lot easier. I can't remember how I actually got a copy. I remember I ordered it from somewhere though, in the early 2000s. I ordered 2 copies - 1 for me and 1 for a friend of mine. 

The book was written in French in 1405 and it's basically about how great women are. Christine writes about the contribution women have made to civilisation and gives lots of examples from history and literature - referencing Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Greek myths and other history. She mounts an argument for the intellectual and moral excellence of women, and specifically refutes prevailing negative views. So, this is surely one of the greatest feminist texts ever, especially when you conisder the time in which it was written. 

A Short History of the 20th Century by Geoffrey Blainey

I bought this in a pack of two from the post office, but I can't remember what the other book was. I like it because it's in such good condition, it's an interesting subject, it's not that short, after all (around 500 pages...I don't like short books), and I was just happy to see it and find out I still have it. 

Mila 18 by Leon Uris 

My interest in this book was inspired by my mum. It was one of her favourite books, which she read multiple times and found very inspirational, even though, as she said, the subject matter is kind of bleak. It's a historical fiction account of the uprising of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto - when they fought back against the Germans, and fought back with fortitude and fury, and won, at least temporarily. Such heroism is always moving. Such courage is of a finer quality than the courage of the one with all the advantages and odds on their side. 

Mao: The Real Story by Alexander V Pantsov with Steven I Levine

I've always - at least as far back as I can remember - been fascinated by China - it's politics, history, society, culture - and other Asian countries too, to some extent, but I ended up learning more about China. I've always been drawn in by the tension between what is the same - our common humanity - and what is different - the difference between culture and society. And Mao is, of course, one of the central figures in the history of modern China. 

I like this book physically too. It has a nice (appropriately) red hard cover, the paper is a creamy colour and good quality, and it has that effect where the outer edge of the paper isn't straight up and down - it's kind of jagged....it's called deckled or uncut edges. That used to be how all books were made but in modern times, it's an aesthetic choice. 

    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    

That brings this series to an end. I might do something similar with some of my other books - like, go through some of the books in my 'to be read' pile and write about them, or write about some of the books on my Amazon saved for later list or my goodreads lists. I might do a books IV, but it won't be my next post. 

books II

This is the second part of a series about some of the books I forgot I had or thought I had lost, but was pleased to rediscover when I cleaned out a cupboard of old books. They are in no particular order. 

Cousin Bette by Honoré De Balzac

As with some of the titles in part 1, this is just good literature. I have the whole set of Balzac's series of novels, The Human Comedy, on kindle, and it contains a staggering number of novels, but it's good to have at least one of them in physical book form. 

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche 

I've never been that interested in or drawn to Nietzsche. I found his ideology unappealing. But this book sounded interesting because it's mystical and literary. 

The English Translation of the Glorious Qur'an Translated by Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall

Including this, I have 4 different English translations of the Qur'an, and 1 in the original Arabic, which I can't read, but it's good to have it because, actually, that's the real Qur'an. Islam isn't as accepting of translation as Christianity is. For a Christian, the Bible translated into English is still essentially the word of God. Yes, it's very worthwhile to study and learn the original languages - Hebrew, Greek, Latin - but it's not essential. But the Arabic words are an essential part of Islamic practice and teaching. 

I want to learn them all...Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Arabic, as well as modern languages, but I would probably prioritise Greek and Hebrew over Arabic, because the Bible is what I'm really interested in. 

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

again - good literature. 

A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani 

This is a really well-written and respected account of Arabic civilisation from the earliest times until 2012. I haven't read the whole thing yet. I think I made it to about half way. 

The Untouchable by John Banville

Great literature. 

Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time by Joseph Frank (edited by Mary Petrusewicz) 

Even though this is an abridgement of Frank's 5 volume biography of Dostoevsky, it's still nearly a thousand pages long. It's one of the rare times that I think abridgement is a useful and valuable thing, because....it's still long. Also, Frank himself oversaw the process of abridgement, so it's kind of like a 6th book made by reconfiguring and condensing (in a good way) the other 5. Something I just discovered is that Frank writes in his preface that David Foster Wallace was the most perceptive reader of the first four volumes, and then he quotes from what Wallace said about them. 

The Words to Say It: An Autobiographical Novel by Marie Cardinal (tranlsated from French by Pat Goodheart) 

This is the true story of Marie Cardinal's traumatic childhood, then institutionalisation, then her escape after which she made her way to the home of her analyst. Then, over a period of years, with the help of her analyst - who used Freudian analysis - she was able to recover. 

....I've never really flipped through this book and read bits here and there but just now I did, and there was something very surprising....I had expected that Marie Cardinal would feel a kind of reverence for the analyst who helped her, and for his part he would treat her with compassion and sensitivity, but no....he's kind of harsh, and the way she talks about him is almost with a kind of contempt. Their arrangement is business-like. She doesn't seem to really admire him or feel any special bond. 

it's going to be interesting to read....psychoanalysis always seems kind of crude to me in both the sense of being rather crass and also lacking in rigour and precision....just not being a very bright idea. but then, I'm probably misjudging it. My favourite literary critics hold Freud in high regard, and after all, Freud is purportedly one of the most influential figures of the 20th century...one among a very few who decisively shaped human thought. Julia Kristeva is a practicing psychoanalyst and refers to or alludes to Freud's work frequently. Freud is central to Harold Bloom's theory of influence. He posits a link between the tropes writers use to evade literality (which, to a writer represents death) and Freud's mental mechanisms by which we evade death. And he goes into detail. It's not a general idea. He links particular tropes (irony, metonymy, etc) to particular psychic defences (repression, sublimation, etc) to particular 'revisionary ratios' (the six ways that Bloom devised to explain how writers revise/ misread/ overcome their precursors) to particular images (high and low, presence and absence, etc) in what he calls his 'map of misreading'. 

I will end this now and continue in part III, which will probably be the last part. 

books I

We had a clean out and I went through a cupboard full mostly of books and sorted out which ones I wanted to get rid of. I knew that I needed to do this quite ruthlessly, but I also knew that there were at least some books that I would prefer to keep and would even be willing to take books off the shelves in my room to have space for them, if necessary. 

So, I started there first - looking at the books on my shelves and thinking which ones I would be willing to get rid of ||| but it just didn't work. There's no book on my shelves that I don't want. Maybe I have something of the hoarder in me...I searched my collection for books that I would be willing to discard, but the first book I found that I thought maybe that was the case, straight away I thought...no. There's no book that I just happen to have. Every book I have has been chosen because I want that book. I do sometimes get rid of books though for various reasons, and sometimes I lose books when I move house or circumstances change. 

When I went through the cupboard and got rid of a lot of the books in it, I was surprised by how many forgotten treasures I found - books that I thought I had lost and that hold a lot of meaning for me. So I've stacked them in my room...there's a lot more space in here since I cleared out a lot of other stuff. I wanted to write about some of them - not all of them - and something about what makes them special. This is in no particular order.....

Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser

This is a book I have a lot of positive associations with. I read it when I was studying that period in history, but unlike any other history book, I read the whole book. It's just such a compelling story, and all the more for me because of my Scottish ancestry. 

Holding Yawulyu: White Culture and Black Women's Law by Zohl Dé Ishtar

This is about Australian indigenous culture. The overview on the back of the book says: 

For two years, Zohl Dé Ishtar lived in a one-room tin shed with the women elders of Wirrimanu. As their 'Culture Woman', Zohl assisted the elders in establishing and coordinating the Kapululangu Women's Law and Culture Centre. Holding Yawulyu: White Culture and Black Women's Law tells the story of Zohl's journey as she documents White culture's effects on Indigenous Women's Law. 

The White Earth by Andrew McGahan

This is a beautiful looking book, the author is Australian and it's recognised as being very good literature. That's a qualifier of a few on this list - I know they're good books. They have a reputation. 

Children of Dust: A Memoir of Pakistan by Ali Eteraz

I've always been drawn to this book - to the look of it, to the author and his style and what he has to say, although I've never really known exactly what it's about. I know vaguely that it's about the culture of Pakistan and the culture of America and the writer's engagement with both of those cultures, as he is from Pakistan and he comes to America. And it's about Islam. I heard good things about it in an article, and I bought the book because it looked interesting, and only later realised that the article I read was about the writer of the book I had bought. Like I said, I like the style - there's something very grounded and smart, at the same time, about it...it reads like a cross between a really interesting and intelligent conversation and a well-written novel. 

Cults in Our Midst by Margaret Thaler Singer 

This was the first book I read about cults and it blew my mind. 

On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literature by Alfred Kazin

A study of American literature between 1890 and 1940 (William Dean Howells to William Faulkner) by arguably one of the best of the best literary critics. A nice discovery I made just now is that some of his other books are available quite cheaply in the kindle version on Amazon. 

Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham

Again /// a very attractive hardcover edition of a book that is recognised as being outstanding literature. 

The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

Again || just great literature. 

The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel by Craig L Blomberg

I don't think the title does justice to this book. It sounds a bit dry, but the book is anything but - it's a fascinating study of John's gospel by one of the pre-eminent New Testament scholars and theologians of our era and maybe all time. 

Primo Levi by Ian Thomson

I bought this book, which is a biography, kind of on a whim. I liked the look of it, and it had good reviews printed on the back and inside cover, and I didn't really know much about Primo Levi, but, from what I did know - what I had heard - he seemed like someone about whom it would be interesting to learn. 

The Mill on the Floss and Romola by George Eliot 

I'm a big fan of George Eliot and I think these are the only two of her novels that I didn't have - or didn't realise I had - the physical books. I did start reading The Mill on the Floss at one stage, but I didn't really like it and gave up quite early into it. It's very well regarded though, so I think I will definitely give it another go some time. Romola is an interesting one. The consensus among the critics and scholars (from what I remember) is that it's basically Eliot's most boring and dry novel - it's the hardest one to read, at least (which isn't always a bad thing). But goodreads seems to cast it in quite a positive light, calling it 'One of George Eliot's most ambitious and imaginative novels'. I know why they say that - because, out of all Eliot's novels, it's the one that is most grounded in actual history and historical issues. A lot of the reviews are good too, although some people only gave it 1 or 2 stars....but it's funny - someone who only gave it 2 stars, wrote a very long  and extremely well-written review in which they discussed the critical reception of the book which, as I said, hasn't been very favourable in our times, but when the reviewer was talking about the issues that Eliot explores in the novel, it sounded really interesting to me. The reviewer writes: 

But Eliot was attempting things even larger than political history: it’s the conflict between the “clashing deities” (Chapter 17) of Christianity and paganism that really captures Eliot’s imagination and underlies the conflicts within her main character. Romola’s dilemma in its broadest outline is the dilemma of Renaissance culture.

 That sounds fascinating. 

I'm going to end this post here as it's getting a bit long....so this will be my first ever multi-part blog post because I still have about as many books to go - no, actually more than what I've already written about. Hey - I might just make my blog into a book blog and only write about books from now on, working my way through my entire collection. But, for a start, there will probably be about 3 parts. 

ಕೆಲಸ ಮತ್ತು ಎಲ್

there's a sense in which I interact with the real world as a thing I'm not wholly a part of. I probably worry too much about how I'm going to do this and that /// because, time and again, I've found myself doing things that I wouldn't have previously envisaged, or maybe even thought possible. 

there's a character we inhabit that we can use to do stuff. I was at uni learning about law and economic history, then I was sitting in a courtyard at a table with friends in China in the early evening sipping (really good) cognac with the sound of kids playing in the background. 

I didn't end up finishing any of those first courses I started in 1986. Living in Hong Kong for 8 months in 1988 - while I had deferred my studies - and teaching English as a job, which was my first work experience, really gave me a taste for work. So, when I came back to Australia, I ended up studying part time and working full time. Then certain life events happened that really squeezed out my studies, so I ended up giving up the course all together. I weighed it up...this course and the professional development I would have to undertake, as part of and after completing the course, was a major commitment. So, the question was, did I really want to be what this course was going to qualify me for? I did actually, in a lot of ways, but my life circumstances made continuing impractical, and I didn't want it that much. 

but I realised from my work experience in Hong Kong and also my experience and thinking between 1985 and 1989, that I had a real interest in education and teaching. In 1989, I had no plans to pursue that interest, but over time, ever since then, education has been a field that I have returned to again and again. 

one of the reasons that I was drawn to education, and that I found my teaching experience in HK so satisfying was because of a spiritual crisis I was going through. I was struggling with what it meant to be a person of faith - to be a Christian - and I felt like I was failing, but I kept trying. In that struggle, I hungered for some bearings - some things that I could know were good and pure, and education seemed to be something like that. 

definition

 i think anyone who reads and sincerely appreciates The Waves by Virginia Woolf gets something about creative writing and literature that not everyone gets. 

I remember, years ago, before I'd really studied literature, starting a Patrick White novel, because I had enjoyed at least one (can't remember if more) of his novels, and it (the new one I was reading) just read like nonsense...it didn't make sense at all. I wasn't sure what to make of it, except to think that it must just be too difficult for me. but years later, when I was studying literature and I read The Waves I got it, not that this is something you really get /// it's more like something you just absorb and it plays in your mind...it's very playful - that's what it is - so it's not really about being difficult. to a great extent, reading a book like that is about suspending all the usual ways of making sense of a text and just listening. As readers, we're used to playing our part in the construction of meaning, so we tend to just do it automatically. After reading The Waves, I remembered my experience being bewildered at the start of Patrick White's novel and I thought, maybe that's what he was doing - that thing that Virginia Woolf does in The Waves. 

So, it;s not about being difficult\\\\ although in some ways it is. like, think of James Joyce's Ulysses. I think most people, even academics and writers, would say Ulysses is difficult. It's a similar style to The Waves....that style associated with modernism. I've never liked the term 'stream of consciousness' which is how a lot of people describe that style, because I don't think it's an accurate description of what these writers are actually doing. stream of consciousness sounds too laid back, as if the writer is lacking in agency and they're just pouring forth what comes from their subconscious rather than crafting a work of literary art. 

but then there's E M Forster, who is recognised as a modernist but his novels are understandable in that traditional sense - they basically follow the traditional conventions of the novel. I actually read A Passage to India for a course on modernism, but yes - it didn't strike me as being particularly modernist in the sense that we were discussing in the course, but then modernism is not just about breaking the rules in the way that Woolf and Joyce did. It's about certain ideas, preoccupations and ways of representing things. But I think the way that E M Forster's novels are more like traditional novels and not as wildly experimental, is why I liked his novels so much. After reading A Passage to India, I went on to read all of his other novels, except Maurice. 

what is modernism, then, if it encompasses these two very different styles? Something interesting I find, when I research modernism and post-modernism is the way that a lot of people talk about modernism beginning with the scientific revolution and the enlightenment, and being characterised by a search for truth through reason, and then post-modernism, which developed in the 1960's was a challenge to that. There's some validity to that (the challenge to the idea of objective truth is very post-modern) but it clashes with another valid and widely accepted definition of modernism, which locates modernism in the early 20th century. What we call modernist literature, art, architecture, or any other creative product is about that modernism - like the works of Woolf, Joyce and Foster. Also, it was a very different movement from that of the scientific revolution and enlightenment. There are some overlaps but there are some important differences. 

I'm reading The Dialectic Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School & the Institute of Social Research, 1923-50 by Martin Jay to try and better understand the movement from modernism to post-modernism, because I have a sense of what modernism was, and I have a sense of what post-modernism is, but I think my idea of how post-modernism emerged out of modernism is over-simplistic. In some ways that's good because it can be an incredibly complex subject, but I don't trust it....it's too much of a reduction. Anyway, as I said, I have quite a good sense of what modernism was - the kind of modernism we're talking about in the early 20th century. 

Modernism was about asking how else things could be done. Like, for example, a chair. Traditionally chairs had been made with 4 legs, a seat and a back rest. But modernists would think about how else a chair could be made...maybe it could be mounted on a pedestal, maybe it could be made without a backrest, etc. And my over-simplistic understanding of the movement to post-modernism has been that it is the logical conclusion of questioning everything. If everything is questionable, nothing is certain, and that's basically the post-modern position. I think there's something too that, it's just too simplistic. 

I've found a couple of good books to read to explore this subject (besides the one I already mentioned). The first one is Beginning Theory by Peter Barry, which, unlike many other overviews of literary theory, has a whole chapter just on post-modernism. It also has really good lists of books in each chapter, so I've found some other books about post-modernism I might read. The other one is Literary Theory: The Complete Guide by Mary Klages, which was published fairly recently (in 2017). A couple of interesting things I've already found in this book are - it talks about the relationship between post-structuralism and post-modernism, which gives me another way in to the subject because I already know some things about structuralism and post-structuralism....the other thing is that, as I suspected, it;s not that simple. Klages writes: 

It's not clear when postmodernism begins, because it's not clear exactly what postmodernism is.

I like to think of it as being like Romanticism - a subject I find endlessly fascinating because there is no final word on it and there is always more to learn and engage with. It's the engagement that matters really, not the output of a set of definitive principles. Questions are more interesting than answers. 

 

another post about lentils because there can never be too many posts about lentils

in the last couple of years, I have become a huge fan of lentils - more specifically, red split lentils...I haven't had as much success with other types. 

there is no downside to these lentils. They are cheap and you can buy them in large quantities, they are so easy to cook, versatile || you can cook them with a wide variety of vegetables, herbs, spices and so on || they are absolutely delicious, and they are very, very good for you. 

lentils go a long way towards answering the question of, if I adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet, how can I make sure that my body gets all the different types of nutrients it needs? One of the main issues is protein because for many of us, meat is our main source of protein. Lentils have almost as much protein as steak. They shouldn't be your only source of protein though because there are some things they don't give you, so you should also eat things like brown rice, soy products, other legumes, beans, as well.

ব্যক্তি

 I was listening to/ watching a booktube video where the presenter was talking about and reviewing long books she has read. One of them was The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. She loved it. She said it's both a 'page-turner' and a book that raises deep philosophical issues. I thought that was really interesting....of course it's a great book, and the consensus among literary scholars and critics is that it is Dostoevsky's best...everyone seems to agree about that, but for me personally, it's not his best. 

I prefer The Idiot and The Possessed. There's a similar thing with Dickens. The consensus is that his best work is Bleak House, but I just don't see it. I've started reading Bleak House at least twice, and didn't finish it. I just get to a point where I'm not interested in reading any more. I think I was almost at that point with Karamazov...actually, the first time, I didn't finish it, but on another attempt I did. But there was something about The Idiot and The Possessed that was electrifying and drew me in from the start. Those two seem to me to be works of passion, and that's what I like about Dostoevsky. It's different from Tolstoy. Tolstoy is like the master artist who works on a grand scale. So, Dostoevsky is characterised by fiery passion while Tolstoy is characterised by grandeur. 

Interestingly, when I did some research about why Karamazov is regarded as Dostoevsky's best work, that was a characteristic that stood out - that idea of grandeur. Joseph Frank, who wrote probably the best biography of Dostoevsky, wrote this about it: 

“No previous work [of Dostoevsky’s] gives the reader such an impression of controlled and measured grandeur, a grandeur that spontaneously evokes comparison with the greatest creations of Western literature. The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, King Lear, Faust—these are the titles that naturally come to mind as one tries to measure the stature of The Brother’s Karamazov.”

The idea - not just in that quote but among commentators in general - is that Dostoevsky deals with big, important themes and questions. I prefer the more human, less abstract, drama found in The Idiot and The Possessed. I'm not that interested in existential or ideological questions. Ideology does play an important role in The Possessed (or Demons as it is also known) but what I enjoy and find most interesting is the acute depiction of the individual human psyche - the portrayal of human nature, which is achieved by focusing on the strangeness of the individual. 

Maybe that's why I'm not that keen on Bleak House, because Dickens is definitely exploring social issues, and using characters to do that, but the portrayal of individuals is diffused. For example, episodes of 'Esther's narrative' apppear intermittently throughout the novel. The novels by Dickens that I really do like - David Copperfield and Great Expectations - are stories primarily of an individual. 

Maybe that's also why Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey is one of my favourite modern novels....it's a story that focuses on two very interesting individuals and explores human character through those individuals. The focus is on the characters not the issues. 

lentil news

I've been getting back into cooking...I bought some vegetables and seasonings, and have been cooking. What I like to do is watch cooking videos on youtube, make a list of the ingredients, then buy the ones I don't have, then cook. 

I tend to change the recipes, unless it's something really basic. Like, for example, I watched a video about making lentil patties, but the recipe needed a food processor, which I don't have, but I'm very familiar with how to cook lentils, so I'm going to cook lentils as usual but with a lot of the ingredients and flavours used in the patties. 

interposition

it's a weird thing with literary theory...it's ostensibly about understanding literature - that's the whole point of it....or is it? my feeling is that literary theory is, in many ways, a genre itself. Harold Bloom, who was probably a school of one, aimed at a practical criticism - a criticism that provided a kind of apparatus for analysing literature, but can I as a reader or student, use his criticism in that way? I'm doubtful of it, because I have enough on my plate trying to understand his theory. 

In their 1982 essay, 'Against Theory', Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels argue that the meaning of the text is basically just what the author intends, so using literary theory to analyse text is a futile endeavour because most of what we call critical theory is premised on problematising the concept of meaning - saying that there's a difference between what the author intended and what the text can mean. That's true, I think - the part about how theory is premised on problematising the question of meaning, I mean. Because I'm so indoctrinated by theory myself, I find it hard...this might sound ridiculous...I find it hard to accept the idea that the meaning of the text is limited to authorial intention. 

But there is a distinction to be made. Knapp and Michaels are specifically addressing theory as a means of interpretting literature and they specifically exclude 'literary subjects with no direct bearing on the interpretation of individual works, such as narratology, stylistics and prosody'. So, their argument is not with theory as a genre in itself as I called it above, but rather with theory as a way of analysing and engaging with literature. Still, they do write that, 'The whole enterprise of critical theory is misguided and should be abandoned.' 

but I don't think abandoning critical theory is actually a conclusion supported by Knapp and Michaels's argument that meaning coincides with authorial intention. I don't think it makes that much difference because, whether you're talking about meaning as constructed by the reader or meaning as conveyed by the writer, meaning is still a complex and interesting thing. 

That's why Harold Bloom, who regarded the ultimate test of literary quality as being aesthetic power engendered in the text by the writer, and Roland Barthes, who talked about the death of the author, with the associated idea that authorial intention is irrelevant, can both talk about texts in the same way - can (and do) both say that, ultimately, there are no texts, as such///only relationships between texts. 

promise

i deliberately choose the worst things to think about///that's what I do. 

sometimes I have wondered how it;s even possible for my own mind to punish me like it does - to cause me such distress. after all, isn't it part of me? how can it attack me? Like, where does it get those resources from? How can my mind, which serves me, inflict pain on me? How is that even possible? 

I really take for granted my relative mental well-being. I know I do. 

the irony of depression is that it is your refuge, so recovery seems like a worsening of things. Recovery seems like it's the problem. 

that's something that I find very interesting...that reversal. something good manifests as something bad. the finest impulses and most valuable qualities get converted by the real world into potent and destructive problems. 

I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the most brilliant and creative people - David Foster Wallace, Sylvia Plath, are the two that come to mind - had problems with severe depression. It's what this world seems to do, as if it can't accomodate a gift so pure and precious. 

detheorising the ionosphere

 I still haven't decided what to read next...I keep chopping and changing...I'm reading articles, and I'm reading from a lot of books, but there's always something that comes up that makes me not want to continue with the book, and at the same time, I'm drawn away from each book by all the other books I want to read. 

at least I've been reading some good stuff....

I started Possessed by Memory, which was Harold Bloom's last book and I started My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, which I like because it's basically a story abut being maladjusted. I started reading a book called The Dialectical Imagination by Martin Jay, because I wanted to read something positive about cultural Marxism, critical theory, the Franfurt School - so, the historical background to a lot of the strands in the debate about critical theory. I've read a lot of negative stuff about that too - about the evils of political correctness, etc. I'm still kind of amazed at this whole vein of virulent opposition to critical theory coming from both academics and some Christians. 

It's something new to me. I didn't even realise this was a debate until recently. They're right - the people who bemoan the fact that critical theory has become embedded in the foundation of the academic enterprise, but the idea that that is something regrettable is new to me. 

The question I want to ask is, if you were to somehow get rid of theory, what would you replace it with? because theory - at least as far as my interest in it goes - is just a way of understanding and engaging with literature. That's from the point of view of a student/ teacher of English literature, so a sociologist or, say, a psychologist, would have a different view, and may see a different role for theory. 

I think there's a particularly close relationship between theory and literature though. Any scholar that writes about literature engages with theory because scholarship involves engaging with the 'field' - engaging with what other people have said about what you are writing about. And the way scholars talk about literature is grounded in theory. 

Here's an example, almost at random - In Wordsworth's Poetry: 1787 - 1814 (1964) by Geoffrey Hartman, he writes:

Descriptive Sketches is a poem of crisis, essentially of a crisis tending to occur in every poet qua poet....The poet's crisis may be described as follows: In waking to his own power he passes through a curious moment of blindness to it, which forces him to go out (i.e. to nature) rather than in. 

Where I have the ellipsis, Hartman writes something more specifically about Wordsworth, and then he returns to the same theme after the passage I've quoted. What makes the text meaningful as a work of scholarship, is the interaction between Hartman's observations specifically about Wordsworth and his poetry, and the more general statements - statements of theory - about the way poetry works. Hartman's statements about Wordsworth and his poetry are meaningful because they are grounded in a body of theory that other scholars recognise and accept.