The Epistemological Question

Dear all,

Hello! This post'll discuss further the point I brought up in the previous class- how an example of a modernist feature of Forster's text is the relentless questioning of the knowability of things.

Here're some (and not even all!) quotes I underlined pertaining to this point:

'I'll thank you this evening, I'm all to pieces now,' said the girl, forming each syllable carefully as if her trouble would diminish if it were accurately defined.' (Adela, 200)

'The aims of battle and the fruits of conquest are never the same; the latter have their value and only the saint rejects them, but their hint of immortality vanishes as soon as they are held in the hand.' (narrator, through Aziz's point-of-view, 245)

'I wish I had lived in Babur's time and fought and written for him. Gone, gone, and not even any use to say "gone, gone," for it weakens us while we say it.' (Aziz, 253)

'Did it succeed? Books written afterwards say 'Yes'. But how, if there is such an event, can it be remembered afterwards? How can it be expressed in anything but itself? Not only from the unbeliever are mysteries hid, but the adept himself cannot retain them. He may think, if he chooses, that he has been with God, but, as soon as he thinks it, it becomes history, and falls under the rules of time.' (narrator, seemingly omniscient, 273)

(All page numbers from Penguin edition)

These quotes speak of the fleeting way in which one experiences an 'event' (273). I find these lines extremely self-reflexive of Forster. As a modernist writer, he attempts to capture experience and immortalize it in words- only to be thwarted by the inadequacies of words which 'weaken [even as one] say[s them]' (253). Forster doesn't merely show his stark awareness of the impossibility of accurately re-creating one's experience- he goes beyond this to enact it by writing a novel which never points us to the 'real India', never tells us what really happened in the Marabar Caves, never lets the reader (nor his own characters) trust any one character fully. The attempt and indeed pretense of acquiring perfect knowledge is hence desisted.

In addition, Forster points us not only to the falseness of the assumption of the knowability of things, but also to their transcient nature. Diction that implies loss, severance and the failure of memory are used: 'diminish' (200), 'vanish' (245), 'gone' (253), 'cannot retain' (273), 'history'(273). These serve to emphasize the impermanence and singularity of experience- again a modernist trait of Forster's novel.

I leave this post wondering aloud, is it not ironic that, in spite of Forster's acute sense of the limitations of 'rememb[rance] afterwards' (273), he continues to choose to write not just fiction but diaries- even after knowing that writing diminishes the value/meaning of and can never accurately reflect an event past?

Thanks!

-Kelly Tay