Associations

Reading Stephen’s translation from infant consciousness into the consciousness of a budding artist, I am reminded of a Taoist anecdote:

Before enlightenment, the mountain and the river are just mountains and river.
During enlightenment, the mountain and the river are more than just mountains and rivers.
After enlightenment, the mountain and the river are only just mountains and rivers.

And when Stephen exclaims the following epiphany:

I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use – silence, exile, and cunning. (268, 269)

I am reminded of what E. M. Cioran writes of in A Short History of Decay (trans. Richard Howard), in which a relation between thought and prostitution is uttered as follows: “Everything I know I learn in the School of Whores!” should be the exclamation of the thinker who accepts everything and rejects everything, when, following their example, he has specialized in the weary smile, when men are to him merely clients, and the world’s sidewalks the marketplace where he sells his bitterness, as his companions sell their bodies.

On The Duttons

“I can still see their minute figures [i.e. Miss Beeching and Dutton], standing there in the gigantic, flat, dusty plain of Jaffna peninsula, looking helpless, ridiculous, pathetic against the flaming sunset. And I realized that largely owing to me Dutton would marry Miss Beeching – or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Miss Beeching would marry Dutton […] I was depressed that Sunday bicycling back to Jaffna.” (69-70)

Woolf disapproves of the union between Dutton and Miss Beeching. He seems to be demoralized by the thought that the former has been “caught”. He goes on to elaborate this thought with a metaphor:

“[The Duttons] reminded me of those pairs of insects – some are spiders or worms – in which a very small male is attached to a very large female – fitting ignominiously and neatly into her gigantic body – I sometimes think that this must be the ideal life for a male – and, after performing his male functions, is killed and eaten by her or just dies.” (72, emphasis mine)

Woolf’s attitude towards the Dutton’s union seems to based itself on a certain intimation of an unsavoriness in Miss Beeching’s character; he distrusts her, perhaps even imbue her presence in the continent with a deplorable agenda. Woolf writes that, together with Miss Case, Miss Beeching arrives in the tropics for the purpose of missionary work (69). And, as it turns out, “some months later Miss Beeching did marry Dutton.” (70) I am intrigued by why Woolf would feel so strongly against the union between Dutton and Miss Beeching. Is he reacting upon an assumption that the two missionaries entered Jaffna only on the pretext of missionary work, whereas their real agenda is to participate in the “marriage market”? Stoler’s exposition of the restrictions on European women in the colonies may be relevant here: if unions between European man and native women were encouraged institutionally as these were considered “less costly” or economically more viable a method of providing “sexual access” to the European men within the colonial enterprise – native women who entered into concubinage “could be dismissed without reason, notice, or severance pay. They might [even] be exchanged among Europeans and ‘passed on’ when men left for leave or retirement in Europe.” (49) – and if the restrictions on salary increases of male European colonial employees continues to be upheld – as a method of discouraging immigration of European women and marriages between them and the European men in the colonies – would not, then, the pretext of missionary work presents itself as an attractive justification for the entry of European women into the colonies?

Or is Woolf more concerned if Dutton is capable enough a man (an English man?) to enter into so solemn a project as marriage is? In relation to the second possibility, Woolf writes that Dutton is “mentally […] certainly a eunuch,” that “his attitude towards [love and women] was a cross between that of a sentimental and innocent schoolgirl and that of Don Quixote.” Thus, Woolf appears to think of Dutton as naïve and romantic, and perhaps more crucially, unmanly. What then constitutes Woolf idea of (an ideal?) manhood? To answer that, one may refer to the emphasis in the second quote.

More will be touched upon during presentation.

From Looking to Voyeurism

Just have to post this: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=KzRX8i_2gkU

Enjoy. =)

On Law & Community

When the notion of community assumes as its predicate the notion of boundary, “the purity of the community” necessarily intervenes. “Boundary”, “demarcation”, “binary”, “Self & Other” – one can say these terms in rotation. In relation to such a notion of community, the language of law (i.e. legal lingo) becomes the language of exclusion, whose objective is the security of communal integrity, or purity. The practice of which is inherently problematic, as demonstrated by Stoler’s article. On the exclusion of the métis from legal categories in both French Indochina and the Netherlands Indies, Stoler reports that the refusal of the corresponding governments to grant citizenship or subject status to a métis “could not be made on the basis of race alone, because all métis shared some degree of European descent by definition” (520). For the language of law is, generally speaking, a language of denotation, rather than that of allusion; it is constructed for stating that one object is this and not that, and furthermore, that this is never, under any circumstances, that. An example of such legal logic is found on page 75 of Burmese Days, where a suspect is convicted of theft solely on the “evidence” of his scars: marks of past offence – ‘“He is an old offender. Therefore he stole the ring!”’ As demonstrated by this same episode, such logic, or system of rationalization, carries its own danger: the language of law risks division of its people to an idea of community, an ‘imagined community’, to use Benedict Anderson’s term; this episode can be thought of as functioning the role of one of the many moments of tensions, that prepares for what is to take place in the final scenes: Maxwell's murder, Ellis' heated and tragic encounter with the Burmese students, the mob at the clubhouse, to list but three. Perhaps Forster’s dictum – “only connect” – provides a way of thinking about community without lapsing into an idea of boundary that cannot rid itself of the rhetoric of exclusion. Perhaps it is not so much the idea of boundary that carries within itself the seeds of the dangers previously mentioned – the injustices and humiliations inflicted upon another human being on the grounds of racial divide, or “colonial difference” – but the seemingly ineluctable reliance on such an idea to establish the grounds for colonial governance: to rule a people, you create the people. One way to do this is to speak the language of law, the language of exclusion.

Similtude & Difference: Ma Hla May & Elizabeth

The tension set up by the relationship of similitude and difference between Elizabeth and Ma Hla May is embodied in their dramatic first encounter (87). While the passage delivers an account of their differences – “No contrast could have been stranger […]” – it closes with a hint that the two women might not actually be that different after all – “neither of them could take her eyes from the other; but which found the spectacle more grotesque, more incredible, there is no saying.” This placement of the women on equal footing, so to speak, is further sustained and elaborated in subsequent moments in the novel. For example, in Chapter VII, the history of Elizabeth tells us she is effectively penniless, and unskilled, and hence the reliance on marriage for survival represents the sole source of income she could allow herself to imagine; this is not dissimilar to Ma Hla May’s situation, as far as the penniless part is concerned. The difference between them lies in that Elizabeth would possibly not spread her legs before a marriage is actually procured i.e. institutionally recognized. But would the institution recognize a marriage such as that between Flory and Ma Hla May, if he indeed chooses to walk down that white aisle?

What interests me further is the observation that the ending of the novel has not imagined what I perceived to be a “finer” resolution for Ma Hla May: the latter ends up a destitute and a prostitute – “her good looks are all but gone, and her clients pay her only four annas and sometimes kick her and beat her” (285). On a strictly material level, I would say that Elizabeth fares infinitely better than Ma Hla May: Mr Macgregor proposes marriage and she “[accepts] him gladly”; and that “they are very happy” in their matrimony (287). Perhaps such diverse resolutions for these women spring out of an imagination that finds unconvincing the representation in which the embodying of similar attitudes towards marriage as a form of survival would ensure both women – despite the “colonial differences” between them – eventually experiencing the same sort of destiny?

Manderlay

A film by Lars von Trier, possibly relevant to our module.

Link: http://hd.tudou.com/program/11869/

Cursory thoughts on Wallace

I am not sure what to make of Wallace’s exposition of the Dyaks, though it seems quite revealing that nowhere in that chapter can one gather a sense of Wallace’s study of the Dyaks could be for him also equally relevant a study of his own character. It reads like a patronizing chapter that exudes pretentions of objectivity while excusing its condescension towards the object of its study: what really is the point of Wallace bringing up the head-hunting attribute of the Dyaks’ culture, for example, saying it is merely a custom “which no more implies a bad moral character than did the custom of the slave-trade a hundred years ago imply want of general morality in all who participated in it,” and then to describe such an “excusable” custom as a “stain on their character”? Even before one reaches the end of this claim, the comparison that Wallace adopts between head-hunting as custom and the slave-trade (of Western imperialism, I presume) already poses something quite problematic: so what exactly does the supposed normalcy of the slave-trade, even if it was one that belonged to antiquity, imply within the framework of ethics and morality? And if indeed Wallace did not think of this comparison as problematic, what were his reasons or what was the nature of his circumstances at the time of writing this chapter that made him think the way he did? It appears to me that if these questions remain, for myself, unresolved, it would be difficult to read subsequent exposition of the Dyaks – in which Wallace recommends certain measures for their betterment, and in which he praises the noble spirit of Sir James Brooke as their reformer, ruler and protector – not as propagandistic (putting the Dyaks in their place, as it were) gibberish supported through the misguided validity of scholarship.

Cursory Thoughts on Fetish & Its Relations to Modernism & Empire

A fetish is a synecdoche, being a mere objective indication of something much larger than itself. A fetishistic engagement allows the individual to apprehend, perhaps as libidinous cathaxis, that which has been barred from a more immediate experience, either by mental cordons set up within his own psyche or by what can be perceived to be external factors acting through his psyche to structure certain restrictions disallowing contact with the said experiences. Thus, the fetish may be said to be a condition of repression. This relation between fetish (as synecdoche) and repression may represent an approach in the understanding of Modernism and its relation to Western Imperialism.

*

Much has been said about the “resolutions” of Conrad’s narrative elements in Heart of Darkness, and I believe much of the same will be and can be said of Jim. As far as these two texts are concerned, the opacity of Conrad’s narrative is not so much the opacity of a who-dunnit, but rather that of a how-dunnit, by which is meant within Conrad’s narratives a definite investment in character psychology: Conrad’s texts are loquacious texts, employing the communicability of Marlow as storyteller to render portraits of experience. But any attempt at psychologizing is essentially flawed insofar as, within the limits of hermeneutics, any portrait is essentially an extension of a pentimento cast over by a trompe-l’oeil: complications arises out of the locquacity; and words reveal themselves as tools of evasion, rather than that of revelation – though the fine line between evasion and revelation is subtle, and what would be revealed, and what is hidden, will make itself known to the reader depending on where he stands in relation to the aspect of the portrait he wishes to see. The fetish, if you will.

(292 words)

Conrad on The Writer's Approach to Art

"I would require from [the writer] many acts of faith of which the first would be the cherishing of an undying hope; and hope, it will not be contested, implies all the piety of effort and renunciation. It is the God-sent form of trust in the magic force and inspiration belonging to the life of this earth. We are inclined to forget that the way of excellence is in the intellectual, as distinguished from emotional, humility. What one feels so hopelessly barren in declared pessimism is just its arrogance. It seems as if the discovery made by many men at various times that there is much evil in the world were a source of proud and unholy joy unto some of the modern writers. That frame of mind is not the proper one in which to approach seriously the art of fiction. It gives an author—goodness only knows why—an elated sense of his own superiority. And there is nothing more dangerous than such an elation to that absolute loyalty towards his feelings and sensations an author should keep hold of in his most exalted moments of creation."

[Emphasis mine]

Perhaps as a cautionary note: despite the allusions to religiosity, Conrad's view need not necessarily have to be read in a non-secular way for it to be meaningful as a suggestion for a way of life.

Conrad's Notes on Life & Letters

Those interested to gain a more intimate understanding of Conrad may access his notes and letters via the following link:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1143/1143-h/1143-h.htm

Best.

Cursory thoughts on Achebe's criticisms of Heart of Darkness

Disclaimer: As specified in class by Dr. Koh, this entry shall strive to keep its length within the limits of 300 words.


One has to be cautious or reflexive when dealing with the question of the narrator, or narration: To whom does the voice belong? An implication of this consideration would be, the impulsion of any voice does not extend, necessarily or simply, from just one singular source. The voice of the text isn’t that which utters only at a singular register, but as a reflection of the concord of voices blending over counterpoints and dissonances to constitute a speaking whole. The contention of which would lead us into the realm of the ventriloquist: in the passages quoted by Achebe, the character Marlowe speaks; but Achebe claims these passages as evidence of Conrad’s inherent racism, the implication of which would be the absolute (or should one say imperialistic?) denial of any possibility that Conrad could have deployed that voice (the racist voice of Marlowe) as a strategy to inform the reader of a particular attitude towards apprehending the dark continent’s Other. For on a literal level, the text registers as a narrative of Marlowe’s narrative of his African exploits, and Achebe’s contention seems to lie with only this latter aspect of Conrad’s text: Marlowe’s narrative. Achebe appears to have excluded from his consideration the entire passage that begins the novella before Marlowe himself begins to speak (and one asks: To whom does this voice belong? Conrad’s or someone else’s?). Would a consideration of these passages subtract from what Achebe has to say in his criticisms, or would it enhance his position? In any case, Achebe’s reasoning could be summarized as follows: because Marlowe exhibits racist traits in his narrative of the African Other, hence Conrad is racist; or, hence Conrad must be in agreement with whatever racist sensibilities that Marlowe might have. Very problematic indeed.

(293 words, excluding disclaimer)

--- Yisa

Cursory Thoughts on Violence

Violence is a given in any practice of art. Given, as all art is complicit with the idea of representation. There can be no art that is not at some level sensed or experienced. The aim of the artist, then, is to transcend the idea of art as mere objective correlative of that impulse of violence, to “exploit” violence – to do violence unto violence – so that a kind of healing can occur, within the individuals who approach art either from the standpoint of the artist or from that of the audience.

But does such a philosophy imply the definite knowing of the original object being assaulted by these modes of representation? Can one commit violence on what does not fully exist? Does nothingness exist, or does it not? These questions arise out of an engagement with conceptual violence, for violence can be apprehended in two ways: conceptual violence and actual violence. Conceptual is what exists in the mind: it is a storyteller of the purest kind, weaving fiction out of what the mind imagines exists or does not exist. Actual violence, on the other hand, lives outside the body, is experienced as an aspect of the sentient interface between the body and the actuality that defines the world of everyday events. Actual violence manifests as something impossible to negate; it is registered as bodily experience, for it is registered through the body, its senses.

To say two kinds of violence exist does not imply mutual exclusivity, for a definite relation connects them, for a wound to the body is also a wound to the mind: think of “six million” and the bitter smell of almonds stirs within your nose.

-- Yisa

Finessing Intent

This is a cursory response to Peter Burra’s claim in his introduction to A Passage to India of the Everyman Edition (1957), that “the propagandist element in the book is undeniable, but one can hardly conclude that it was written with that for its final purpose.” What Burra formulates as justification for his claim – and he locates his evidence in the episode of Dr Fielding and Aziz’s last ride together, in which “the rocks that rise between them” that causes their horses to swerve apart seem to symbolize “Indian differences [insofar as they are] differences that are not more great, only more particular, than the differences that exist between any two men.” – is that Forster’s interest lies more emphatically in the clash of human beings, as opposed to personifications of race or class, and in “the struggle which any one individual must endure if he is to achieve intimacy with any one another.”

I do not quite understand the basis for which Burra claims to apprehend the propagandist element in Forster’s novel. This is surely a problem of reading, for in my reading the novel appears to me a text polysemous in its structure that to ascribe the label of propaganda, or even that which hints at a propagandist intent, would be, perhaps, to indulge in willful misreading of the notion of polysemy – whose nature is, to reference Deleuze and Guattari, of the topological rather than of the monolithic. Unless what Burra means by his claim is that Forster’s technique of novelistic orchestration incorporates narratological moments in which an event, on first reading, sets up an emotional response in the reader, that is compelled to be pulled along one particular sentient plane, urging the reader to feel in a particular and reactionary way, only to encounter opposition in the form of doubt – the reader asks “What basis do I have for feeling the way I do?” – in very same instant of that response.

To elaborate the technique which I find evident in Forster’s text, I would have to refer to Auerbach’s question of “who speaks?” that is contextualized by his reading of Woolf’s To The Lighthouse: a way of understanding a tenet of modernist literary sensibility is encapsulated by Auerbach’s analysis of the sentence “Never did anybody look so sad”, in which he says that such a technique “verges [the writing] upon a realm beyond reality”, that “in the ensuing passage the speakers no longer seem to be human beings at all but spirits between heaven and earth, nameless spirits capable of penetrating the depths of the human soul, capable too of knowing something about it, but not of attaining clarity as to what is in process there, with the result that what they report has a doubtful ring.” (532) What is useful for an understanding of the “doubtful ring” of Forster’s text lies not so much in the diminishment of “clarity” insofar as the text presents its exteriority quite emphatically as that which is crucial in the understanding of the actual politics in a particular history of India that is the basis of the human conflicts inscribed within the text – we know that the story takes place in pre-War India; we know that the story is grounded in actual sociopolitical conditions – but rather, insofar as the text seems to be narrated by a voice that vacillates between a third person, omniscient register and a first person register – as in, “There they were! Politics again.” (124); or “As long as someone abused the English, all went well…” (119) – such commentaries being indeterminate in relation to their source: the thoughts of the characters or of Forster’s, or that of his slyly ventriloquising through his creations. This polyphonic structure of Forster’s text is precisely that which grants its polysemous texture insofar as, knowing this, where and how does one begin to unravel an ethical response to the fiction Forster may or may not be presenting to us?

I will, perhaps, elaborate more in class, should there be a need to.

After Gikandi

The main thrust of Gikandi’s arguments can perhaps be summarized as such: the primitive Other, even in the course of the Modernist reevaluation of traditions and long-held beliefs and ideologies, is valued (even valorized) solely as that whose use and purpose is servitude to the Eurocentric progress of civilization. Hence the disinterest that Gikandi claims of Picasso, one of the leading painters of the Modernist movement, in lived African culture as opposed to the African culture gleamed and examined as from behind the glass wall of an alienist’s profession or that of a specimen collector’s laboratory. Gikandi implodes the unhappy encounter between Picasso and Guyanese artist Aubrey Williams, and finds in it an implication that could perhaps scandalize the entire movement of modernism:

The practitioners of modernism had themselves started the process of containment, that they needed the primitive in order to carry out their representational revolution, but that once this task had been accomplished, the Other needed to be evacuated from the scene of the modern so that it could enter the institutions of high art. (457)

For Gikandi, it would seem, what matters is not whether Picasso’s art is impelled by a methodology; what matters is the degree of soundness that constitutes the basis for that methodology and its praxis. Gikandi writes of Picasso’s early paintings, that:

the African’s body, in its disproportional form and primitive sexuality, would allow Picasso to kill two birds with one stone, both classicism(which favored idealized bodies) and modern culture (which was coy about male sexuality). Consequently, in this early phase of his career, Picasso adopted African forms as a way of thinking through the limitations of the forms of representation favored by the art academy, namely a sense of order, proportionality, and idealization. The African body formed the embodiment of disorder. (462)

Thus, the irony behind that which can be gathered of Modernist movement’s underlying philosophy, through the use (by Gikandi) of Picasso as exempler of the quintessential Modernist, is that while the civilized, and invariably European, world becomes disenchanted with its ancient values and customs, and hungers for new modes of apprehending existence, its method of achieving progress should remain - whether it be outrightly admitted or not - so shamefully barbaric, or primitive.