I'm still thinking about George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. Don't you find Gwendolen's dislike and disdain of men quite strange and unusual? She doesn't like men, doesn't want to get married, doesn't want to have children, doesn't believe in love, doesn't like men to express their feelings for her (and if she wants a proposal, it's only because that gives her power, a sense of triumph, and the pleasure of rejecting it). She has a negative view on men in general ("I believe all men are bad")*. More than that, Gwendolen seems incapable of romantic love. Her feeling for Grandcourt isn't love. She marries him mostly because of the sudden change in her economic situation, her shock, humiliation and disillusionment (after the conversation with Klesmer), her unwillingness to become a governess and fear of being rejected and humiliated again, and also her care for her mother. In addition, Grandcourt intrigues her, because he seems different from other men, with that bored, languid air, and while she likes to have power, he's not a weak, submissive man that one can control, which makes her feel curious and see him as a challenge.
Her feeling for Deronda isn't love either. Her initial attraction to him is due to curiosity and wounded pride, because again, he also seems different from other men. After that is her admiration for and dependence on him, her loneliness and need for guidance, her weak will in important matters, as Deronda stands for all the goodness and selflessness she doesn't possess herself and doesn't see a lot of around her. Deronda is more like an idea than a person, so I believe to Gwendolen he's also as abstract as that.
Which is to say, she's incapable of romantic love.
Even if we attribute this to selfishness and egotism, we cannot explain her instability and outbursts. Several times she seems hysterical. Her reaction to Lydia's letter may be understandable, but her reaction to the picture of the dead face is inexplicable. People usually don't do that. That suggests some dark secret, some kind of trauma, some hidden wound.
Another thing is the stepfather. What has he done that makes her dislike him so much, and think badly of marriage in general? Nobody says that he beats his wife, his actions are ambiguous, unspecified. Also, 1 detail is notable- once Gwendolen sleeps in the same room with her mother and is asked to go out and get something, but she doesn't want to. That is mentioned after the passage about the stepfather. I start to believe in the possibility that he has abused her.
Too far-fetched?
Perhaps. But many unexplained details just don't fit together, except when I consider the possibility of abuse and trauma. And if that is indeed the case, I cannot look at Gwendolen the same way any more. Her selfishness, her prioritisation of herself becomes understandable and easier to sympathise with- a victim who has had to face things alone starts relying on no one but herself and only cares about herself, survival and self-protection. If it's the case, she's a lot more tragic than she seems.
*: though she does say that she hates people, not just men, I still feel that her hatred of men is stronger, more pronounced.
Update at 10.29 pm:
I've just found a more detailed, in-depth analysis of Gwendolen's behaviour that also argues for the possibility of abuse:
http://vicnovel.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2012/02/Reimer.pdf
Personally I'm a bit resistant to some bits in this essay. There must be some distortion- once we believe in a theory, everything seems to "make sense" as we bend it to fit our interpretation. Perhaps it's never in George Eliot's mind. But if we follow Roland Barthes and leave the author outside the picture and look at the work alone, I still think there's something serious in Gwendolen's past, more serious than her father's death and her stepfather's lack of kindness and the constant change of place.
Wednesday, 18 March 2015
Sunday, 15 March 2015
Top 10 favourite novels [updated]
Anna Karenina (Lev Tolstoy)
War and Peace (Lev Tolstoy)
Pnin (Vladimir Nabokov)
Notes from Underground (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
War and Peace (Lev Tolstoy)
Pnin (Vladimir Nabokov)
Notes from Underground (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
A Hero of Our Time (Mikhail Lermontov)
Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol)
Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
Sentimental Education (Gustave Flaubert)
Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
Sentimental Education (Gustave Flaubert)
The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)
The Madwoman in the Attic, George Eliot, female novelists, feminist criticism, Virginia Woolf
The other day, in The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, I read the introduction and several chapters on Snow White, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte. Now I've just read the chapters on George Eliot, and some passages on Virginia Woolf's reading of Paradise Lost.
The same feeling of irritation, with some kind of distaste.
The authors' reading is reductive and distorting and ideologically-driven. This is submission. That is renunciation. Those are patriarchal values. This is misogyny. That is self-hatred. This is upholding of conventional values. That is anti-feminism. This is feminine evil. That is male anxiety. This is female passivity. There the authoress is punishing her heroines. Etc. Etc. I'm too lazy and busy to dissect these long chapters, point out all the assertions and remarks I have problems with and comment on each of them. Gubar's analysis of Shirley is generally OK, as Shirley is a political novel (even without the themes of industrialisation and Ludditism) and there's no other way to look at it, but that's not the case with many other works. Gubar and Gilbert go too far in their feminist reading, creating the impression that when they examine a literary work, what they look at and look for is not its literary merits but its political significance, its portrayal of women, its feminism/ anti-feminism, its attitude towards the male-dominated society and tradition, its take on the conventional images in literature of women as the angel or the monster/ the madwoman, and so on and so forth. It is inartistic, simplistic and frustrating.
It is, I think, not accurate to attribute my reaction to this book simply to my general dislike of feminist criticism (The Madwoman in the Attic is, by the way, considered a landmark, a ground-breaking work). Being female, I definitely notice and very often feel bothered by the sexism, bias and prejudice of some writers, and don't deny that feminist criticism can be useful. It should also be noted that Virginia Woolf is a favourite literary critic of mine (though I'm aware that her essays are more like commentaries or reviews), besides, say, Nabokov, and I have tremendous admiration and love (yes, love) for her A Room of One's Own and The Common Reader. However, while discussing the differences in circumstances between male and female writers, pointing out the obstacles and challenges against women and the effects these have on their works, she reads the novels by Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Jane Austen and George Eliot and other authors, as novels, as works of art, and it's from this point of view, as she prioritises art over politics, that she can see how Charlotte Bronte lets indignation distort her works and therefore gets less said despite having more genius in her than Jane Austen or how George Eliot becomes clumsy for trying to write a man's sentence or how Jane Austen's novels are not less important than those books about war and politics because what matters is that they're well-written, etc. She discusses literature and women authors but doesn't necessarily sees individual works through the lens of feminist criticism, doesn't impose ideas and ideologies on them and doesn't try to bend them to fit some theories. She definitely doesn't point at something and put some label on it like "submission" or "renunciation" or whatever as I've written above, which Gilbert and Gubar do. With her essays, Virginia Woolf has made me embrace my gender and think differently about literature and female novelists. That's where she differs from Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar.
__________________________________________________
Below are some interesting quotes on George Eliot from The Madwoman in the Attic. So far I have only read Adam Bede and Daniel Deronda and don't want to say anything. When I consider myself more familiar with George Eliot, I will come back and comment on them.
What do you think about these assertions?
The same feeling of irritation, with some kind of distaste.
The authors' reading is reductive and distorting and ideologically-driven. This is submission. That is renunciation. Those are patriarchal values. This is misogyny. That is self-hatred. This is upholding of conventional values. That is anti-feminism. This is feminine evil. That is male anxiety. This is female passivity. There the authoress is punishing her heroines. Etc. Etc. I'm too lazy and busy to dissect these long chapters, point out all the assertions and remarks I have problems with and comment on each of them. Gubar's analysis of Shirley is generally OK, as Shirley is a political novel (even without the themes of industrialisation and Ludditism) and there's no other way to look at it, but that's not the case with many other works. Gubar and Gilbert go too far in their feminist reading, creating the impression that when they examine a literary work, what they look at and look for is not its literary merits but its political significance, its portrayal of women, its feminism/ anti-feminism, its attitude towards the male-dominated society and tradition, its take on the conventional images in literature of women as the angel or the monster/ the madwoman, and so on and so forth. It is inartistic, simplistic and frustrating.
It is, I think, not accurate to attribute my reaction to this book simply to my general dislike of feminist criticism (The Madwoman in the Attic is, by the way, considered a landmark, a ground-breaking work). Being female, I definitely notice and very often feel bothered by the sexism, bias and prejudice of some writers, and don't deny that feminist criticism can be useful. It should also be noted that Virginia Woolf is a favourite literary critic of mine (though I'm aware that her essays are more like commentaries or reviews), besides, say, Nabokov, and I have tremendous admiration and love (yes, love) for her A Room of One's Own and The Common Reader. However, while discussing the differences in circumstances between male and female writers, pointing out the obstacles and challenges against women and the effects these have on their works, she reads the novels by Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Jane Austen and George Eliot and other authors, as novels, as works of art, and it's from this point of view, as she prioritises art over politics, that she can see how Charlotte Bronte lets indignation distort her works and therefore gets less said despite having more genius in her than Jane Austen or how George Eliot becomes clumsy for trying to write a man's sentence or how Jane Austen's novels are not less important than those books about war and politics because what matters is that they're well-written, etc. She discusses literature and women authors but doesn't necessarily sees individual works through the lens of feminist criticism, doesn't impose ideas and ideologies on them and doesn't try to bend them to fit some theories. She definitely doesn't point at something and put some label on it like "submission" or "renunciation" or whatever as I've written above, which Gilbert and Gubar do. With her essays, Virginia Woolf has made me embrace my gender and think differently about literature and female novelists. That's where she differs from Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar.
__________________________________________________
Below are some interesting quotes on George Eliot from The Madwoman in the Attic. So far I have only read Adam Bede and Daniel Deronda and don't want to say anything. When I consider myself more familiar with George Eliot, I will come back and comment on them.
"Eliot's punishment of her heroines, her frequent bouts of illness, her often censorious avuncular tone, and her masculine pseudonyms all suggest the depth of her need to evade identification with her own sex."
"By perpetuating [the myth of feminine evil], Eliot demonstrates her internalization of patriarchal culture's definition of the woman as the 'other'. We can see the signs of that internalization throughout her career- in her continued guilt over societal disapproval, her avowed preference for male friends, her feminine anti-feminism, her self-deprecatory assumption that all other forms of injustice are more important subjects for her art than female subjugation, her extreme dependence on Lewes for encouragement and approbation, her inability to face the world as a writer and read even the most benevolent reviews of her work."
"Although until quite recently she has been viewed almost exclusively in terms of male literary history, Eliot shows in "The Lifted Veil" that she is part of a strong female tradition: her self-conscious relatedness to other women writers, her critique of male literary conventions, her interest in clairvoyance and telepathy, her imagery of confinement, her schizophrenic sense of fragmentation, her self-hatred, and what Emily Dickinson might have called her "Covered Vision" place Eliot in a tradition that still survives today."
"Insisting on the primacy of male spheres of activity, Eliot aspires to the 'masculine' scientific detachment of an essayist producing and analyzing 'slices of life'. And in this respect, as in so many others, Scenes of Clerical Life forecasts the camouflages of her later fiction. Adam Bede, with its masculine title, relies on the story of fallen and female Hetty Sorrel for its suspense, just as Felix Holt the Radical maps the mental and moral development of Esther Lyon, while both The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch announce themselves as sociological studies of provincial life, though they were originally conceived and still come across as portraits of female destiny. And at the end of her literary career Eliot wrote Daniel Deronda, a book that could as easily be entitled 'Gwendolen Harleth'."
What do you think about these assertions?
Saturday, 14 March 2015
Hermann's eye-to-eye monologue
Hermann writes to Felix: "... we must have an eye-to-eye monologue and get things settled."
And addresses us "I cannot recollect now if the 'monologue' was a slip or a joke."
The 1st one looks like a joke- oh Hermann is perverse. In the next chapter, "... I shook his right hand with my left..."
The 2nd one is definitely a joke- this time it's Nabokov's joke, and methinks he's laughing at Freud here. Freudian slips.
And addresses us "I cannot recollect now if the 'monologue' was a slip or a joke."
The 1st one looks like a joke- oh Hermann is perverse. In the next chapter, "... I shook his right hand with my left..."
The 2nd one is definitely a joke- this time it's Nabokov's joke, and methinks he's laughing at Freud here. Freudian slips.
Hermann's descriptions
Hermann, the narrator of Despair, is a keen observer (or so he says). But his descriptions are so weird, so unsettling, disturbing. Who writes like that? Of course it's Nabokov that is doing the describing, but that doesn't count- he's a great writer. Among ordinary people, who describes and compares like that?
From chapter 1:
A madman he must be. Someone horrible. Evil? Obsessed with death, apparently. Such a strange, perplexing, sinister way of looking at things. No wonder he, while making love to his wife, somehow sees himself standing outside the lovemaking, at a distance, watching.
From chapter 1:
"He drew his breath in with a sharp sniff; his face broke into ripples of life..."
"That man, especially when he slept, when his features were motionless, showed me my own face, my mask, the flawlessly pure image of my corpse- I used the latter term merely because I wish to express with the utmost clarity- express what? Namely this: that we had identical features, and that, in a state of perfect repose, this resemblance was strikingly evident, and what is death, if not a face at peace- its artistic perfection?"From chapter 3:
"... Lamps had already lit up there, shining upon office ledgers, and a man in black, with 1 hand behind his back, was walking to and fro, presumably dictating to a secretary I could not see. Ever and anon he appeared, and once, even, he stopped at the window to do some thinking, and then again turned, dictating, dictating, dictating.
Inexorable! I switched on the light, sat down, pressed my temples. Suddenly, with mad fury, the telephone rang; but it proved a mistake- wrong number. And then there was silence once more, save for the light patter of the rain quickening the approach of the night."From chapter 4:
"A few days before the 1st of October I happened to walk with my wife through the Tiergarten; there on a foot bridge we stopped, with our elbows upon the railing. Below, on the still surface of the water, we admired the exact replica (ignoring the model, of course) of the park's autumn tapestry of many-hued foliage, the glassy blue of the sky, the dark outlines of the parapet and of our inclined faces. When a slow leaf fell, there would flutter up to meet it, out of the water's shadowy depths, its unavoidable double. Their meeting was soundless. The leaf came twirling down, and twirling up there would rise towards it, early, its exact, beautiful, lethal reflection. I could not tear my gaze away from those inevitable meetings."
"During the last fortnight I had let my mustache grow. This altered my countenance for the worse. Above my bloodless mouth there bristled a brownish-red blotch with an obscene little notch in the middle. I had the sensation that it was glued on; and sometimes it seemed to me that a small prickly animal was settled on my upper lip..."From chapter 5:
"From behind a black tree there came out noiselessly a gloomy and fleshful moon. A cloud slipped a mask over it in passing, which left visible only its chubby chin."
"It was a sharp bleak night. Among small clouds curled like astrakhan, a shiny flat moon kept sliding in and out."
"We again walked past the duplicate of the Bronze Rider. Not a soul did we meet on the boulevard. Not a gleam was there in the houses; had I noticed a single lighted window, I should have supposed that somebody had hanged himself there and left the lamp burning- so unwonted and unwarranted would a light have seemed..."
"All of a sudden Felix, as if shot dead, let his head fall and began unlacing his shoes..."
"He listened, that was certain. I listened to his listening. He listened to my listening to his listening. Something snapped. I noticed that I was not thinking at all of what I thought I was thinking; attempted to catch my consciousness tripping, but got mazed myself."
A madman he must be. Someone horrible. Evil? Obsessed with death, apparently. Such a strange, perplexing, sinister way of looking at things. No wonder he, while making love to his wife, somehow sees himself standing outside the lovemaking, at a distance, watching.
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Several Jazz poems by Langston Hughes
Jazzonia
Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.
Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
Were Eve's eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?
Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!
In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
The Weary Blues
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied—
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
Trumpet Player
The Negro
With the trumpet at his lips
Has dark moons of weariness
Beneath his eyes
where the smoldering memory
of slave ships
Blazed to the crack of whips
about his thighs
The Negro
with the trumpet at his lips
has a head of vibrant hair
tamed down,
patent-leathered now
until it gleams
like jet-
were jet a crown
the music
from the trumpet at his lips
is honey
mixed with liquid fire
the rhythm
from the trumpet at his lips
is ecstasy
distilled from old desire-
Desire
that is longing for the moon
where the moonlight's but a spotlight
in his eyes,
Desire
that is longing for the sea
where the sea's a bar-glass
sucker size
The Negro
with the trumpet at his lips
whose jacket
Has a fine one-button roll,
does not know
upon what riff the music slips
Its hypodermic needle
to his soul
but softly
as the tune comes from his throat
trouble
mellows to a golden note
Song for Billie Holiday
What can purge my heart
Of the song
And the sadness?
What can purge my heart
But the song
Of the sadness?
What can purge my heart
Of the sadness
Of the song?
Do not speak of sorrow
With dust in her hair,
Or bits of dust in eyes
A chance wind blows there.
The sorrow that I speak of
Is dusted with despair.
Voice of muted trumpet,
Cold brass in warm air.
Bitter television blurred
By sound that shimmers–
Where?
Langston Hughes
Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.
Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
Were Eve's eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?
Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!
In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
The Weary Blues
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied—
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
Trumpet Player
The Negro
With the trumpet at his lips
Has dark moons of weariness
Beneath his eyes
where the smoldering memory
of slave ships
Blazed to the crack of whips
about his thighs
The Negro
with the trumpet at his lips
has a head of vibrant hair
tamed down,
patent-leathered now
until it gleams
like jet-
were jet a crown
the music
from the trumpet at his lips
is honey
mixed with liquid fire
the rhythm
from the trumpet at his lips
is ecstasy
distilled from old desire-
Desire
that is longing for the moon
where the moonlight's but a spotlight
in his eyes,
Desire
that is longing for the sea
where the sea's a bar-glass
sucker size
The Negro
with the trumpet at his lips
whose jacket
Has a fine one-button roll,
does not know
upon what riff the music slips
Its hypodermic needle
to his soul
but softly
as the tune comes from his throat
trouble
mellows to a golden note
Song for Billie Holiday
What can purge my heart
Of the song
And the sadness?
What can purge my heart
But the song
Of the sadness?
What can purge my heart
Of the sadness
Of the song?
Do not speak of sorrow
With dust in her hair,
Or bits of dust in eyes
A chance wind blows there.
The sorrow that I speak of
Is dusted with despair.
Voice of muted trumpet,
Cold brass in warm air.
Bitter television blurred
By sound that shimmers–
Where?
Langston Hughes
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Amundsen& Nansen
Having decided to squeeze time instead of waiting, I've just started reading Despair. And found this bit:
(or Felix resembles Hermann only as much as Amundsen resembles Nansen?)
(left: Roald Amundsen; right: Fridtjof Nansen)
So I read the book with Hermann and Felix as Amundsen in my head. A rich Amundsen and a poor Amundsen. That comparison is repeated later. But Nansen's face keeps creeping in. That probably has to do with the fact that I'm more familiar with Nansen, having seen him everywhere, at Fram museum, at UiO, at Oslo S, probably at the Nobel Fredssenter as well, but it's unsettling nevertheless. It feels as though there's indeed a split, as Hermann has experienced.
"Somebody told me once that I looked like Amundsen, the Polar explorer. Well, Felix, too, looked like Amundsen. But it is not every person that can recall Amundsen's face. I myself recall it but faintly, nor am I sure whether there had not been some mix-up with Nansen..."Mix-up? They don't look alike!
(or Felix resembles Hermann only as much as Amundsen resembles Nansen?)
(left: Roald Amundsen; right: Fridtjof Nansen)
So I read the book with Hermann and Felix as Amundsen in my head. A rich Amundsen and a poor Amundsen. That comparison is repeated later. But Nansen's face keeps creeping in. That probably has to do with the fact that I'm more familiar with Nansen, having seen him everywhere, at Fram museum, at UiO, at Oslo S, probably at the Nobel Fredssenter as well, but it's unsettling nevertheless. It feels as though there's indeed a split, as Hermann has experienced.
Friday, 6 March 2015
Vietnamese literature abroad
http://tuoitrenews.vn/lifestyle/26460/bringing-vietnamese-literature-to-the-world-a-long-way-to-go
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/art-entertainment/124672/int-l-experience-in-promoting-vietnamese-literature.html
http://news.asiaone.com/news/asia/vietnamese-literature-needs-global-exposure
[Funnily enough, the Lưu Quang Vũ poem in the 1st link is a revolutionary poem, a proper poem according to the communist party's standards. If you don't have a clue what I mean by that, Nabokov's essay "Russian Writers, Censors and Readers" may help. Pretty much the same.
I hope, when talking about exporting Vietnamese literature, they're thinking of something broader than those red poets and writers of the North like Tố Hữu, Phạm Tiến Duật, Chính Hữu, Hoàng Trung Thông, Chế Lan Viên, Phạm Tuyên, Viễn Phương, Nguyễn Đình Thi, Thép Mới, Anh Đức, Nguyễn Thi, etc. Nobody reads that kind of thing now in Vietnam, except at schools.
It's ironic- heaps of books, by Southern authors as well as by foreign ones, were destroyed after 1975, then decades later they're republished and still enjoyed, whereas all the books and poems created for propaganda and indoctrination and honoured by the communist party are now all dead, as they have little value and no longer have any relevance, and hardly anybody cares about them now.
Well, on 2nd thought, there is no irony about that...]
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/art-entertainment/124672/int-l-experience-in-promoting-vietnamese-literature.html
http://news.asiaone.com/news/asia/vietnamese-literature-needs-global-exposure
[Funnily enough, the Lưu Quang Vũ poem in the 1st link is a revolutionary poem, a proper poem according to the communist party's standards. If you don't have a clue what I mean by that, Nabokov's essay "Russian Writers, Censors and Readers" may help. Pretty much the same.
I hope, when talking about exporting Vietnamese literature, they're thinking of something broader than those red poets and writers of the North like Tố Hữu, Phạm Tiến Duật, Chính Hữu, Hoàng Trung Thông, Chế Lan Viên, Phạm Tuyên, Viễn Phương, Nguyễn Đình Thi, Thép Mới, Anh Đức, Nguyễn Thi, etc. Nobody reads that kind of thing now in Vietnam, except at schools.
It's ironic- heaps of books, by Southern authors as well as by foreign ones, were destroyed after 1975, then decades later they're republished and still enjoyed, whereas all the books and poems created for propaganda and indoctrination and honoured by the communist party are now all dead, as they have little value and no longer have any relevance, and hardly anybody cares about them now.
Well, on 2nd thought, there is no irony about that...]
Thursday, 5 March 2015
Random thoughts on fiction and gender issues
1/ Some common responses to critics of 50 Shades, refuted:
http://jennytrout.com/?p=8740
The last one is "Get over it". I never understand this kind of response to people who point out the problematic content or, in my experience, the poor quality of the book. If you can praise a book, why do you think others don't have the right to criticise it?
2/ 50 things wrong with 50 Shades:
http://zephyrscribe.tumblr.com/post/52727257364/fifty-things-wrong-with-fifty-shades-of-grey
The line between submission and abuse:
https://alysbcohen.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/does-being-into-submission-mean-being-into-abuse-2/
Let's talk about Lars von Trier's film Nymphomaniac. If you're unfamiliar with it, this is a bold and brilliant film with unsimulated sex scenes, which deals with sex addiction, homosexuality, bisexuality, sadism, masochism and paedophilia. The main character Joe is a nymphomaniac, who lies in blood somewhere at the beginning of the film and is rescued by a man named Seligman, then they have a conversation about Joe, sex and why she sees herself as a bad human being. Joe talks about her personal experiences, thoughts, desires and sex life, Seligman talks about sex from an intellectual point of view, sex as analogous to fishing, classical music, religion, etc. It seems that Lars von Trier's neither for nor against Joe's actions, and he's being as objective as possible. At some point in life, Joe feels unsatisfied, and goes to a sadist who warns right from the beginning that once a woman enters the room, there is no safe word. This is of course hard to stomach, especially the scenes of violence, which are raw, uncomfortably so, and the awareness that Joe leaves her little kid home alone to go to the sadist's place. As I've said, Lars von Trier's simply telling the story- Joe definitely struggles with her own desires, has a bad conscience and loathes herself.
The key point, the "message" of the film, is in the ending. After the talk, Joe lies down to rest, Seligman goes to another room. Then suddenly he goes back and climbs on her, attempting to rape her, muttering something like she has slept with so many men after all. And she shoots him.
That is important: Joe is a nymphomaniac, she has had sex with lots of men, but that doesn't mean that a man can rape her and say "it doesn't matter, I'm just another man". Because she has sex of her own free will. Because no matter what, she has the right to say no.
3/ 2 dreadful websites I've just come across:
http://ladiesagainstfeminism.org/
http://womenagainstfeminism.tumblr.com/
On the other side are so-called feminists like this:
http://radfemale.tumblr.com/
This person nicknamed radfemale is ignorant and narrow-minded; worse, she's self-righteous, aggressive and incapable of seeing nuances and doubting herself. She calls herself a feminist, but to me she's more like a misandrist- you can look around and find many posts where she openly says that she hates men, and other posts where she suggests that women are only victims and men only perpetrators. And she always seems to be yelling, furiously.
Radfemale isn't alone, there are others:
http://rageagainstthemanchine.com/2009/07/05/why-i-hate-men-part-1-and-then-it-hit-me/
(Read the comments too).
But that's not feminism. I understand the points raised on the womenagainstfeminism site, and agree that we shouldn't see all men as misogynists, potential abusers and rapists, etc. But feminism matters because men and women are still not equal. Slut-shaming is still a thing, for example. Or recently at the Oscars, Patricia Arquette addressed the issue of unequal pay for actors and actresses in her acceptance speech.
4/ I've expressed my thoughts on feminism.
However, I generally don't like feminist criticism in literature. For example, the other day I read The Madwoman in the Attic, and felt irritated. Reading and analysing a work of art in the light of feminism, or any ism (homoeroticism/ homotextuality, Marxism, etc.) distorts the work. You bend it, you make it fit your system and preconceived notions, you focus on the politics of the work and go so far that you fail to recognise its literary merits, you might even misinterpret it. The chapter on Shirley is perhaps tolerable, though I have trouble with the suggestion that Shirley succumbs to Caroline's fate, or something along that line. The 2 chapters on Jane Austen hardly make sense, especially the parts on Mansfield Park and Fanny's quietness and passivity.
By distorting, I of course don't mean things like this:
http://radfemale.tumblr.com/post/110538043259
She hasn't even read Lolita, and it's clear that she knows nothing about art.
What I'm thinking of is something else- for instance, there are people who accuse Tolstoy and Flaubert of hating women (creating weak, unlikeable, immoral female characters and punishing them) and thus condemn their works and dismiss the greatness of these works altogether. E.g: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/18/can-men-write-good-heroines
If a reader reads a novel that way, they cannot see its merits, no, they don't even see what it's really about. Similarly, if readers of Mansfield Park think that here Jane Austen unfairly favours the quiet, passive, conservative, prudish Fanny Price over the witty, lively, active, independent, frank Mary, the book is ruined.
On the other hand, I find A Room of One's Own excellent. Virginia Woolf discusses women and fiction indeed, but for her art still goes 1st.
5/ 2 posts related to literature:
http://somanybooksblog.com/2015/02/26/where-do-you-draw-a-line
http://somanybooksblog.com/2015/02/25/female-characters-are-human-too
(and this http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/02/why-i-want-more-unlikeable-female-characters)
I'm quoting myself: <In Shirley, Charlotte Bronte wrote "If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women. They do not read them in a true light; they misapprehend them, both for good and evil. Their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. Then to hear them fall into ecstasies with each other’s creations—worshipping the heroine of such a poem, novel, drama—thinking it fine, divine! Fine and divine it may be, but often quite artificial—false as the rose in my best bonnet there. If I spoke all I think on this point, if I gave my real opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate works, where should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging stones in half an hour."
If before, female characters in fiction tended to be either angels or monsters (there were exceptions, of course), now writers tend to create only female characters that are strong, powerful, independent. That’s not any better.>
This is a good speech by Maggie Gyllenhaal at the Golden globes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3xEvsO-pcY
I don't want more strong female characters. I want real female characters. I want a great range.
http://jennytrout.com/?p=8740
The last one is "Get over it". I never understand this kind of response to people who point out the problematic content or, in my experience, the poor quality of the book. If you can praise a book, why do you think others don't have the right to criticise it?
2/ 50 things wrong with 50 Shades:
http://zephyrscribe.tumblr.com/post/52727257364/fifty-things-wrong-with-fifty-shades-of-grey
The line between submission and abuse:
https://alysbcohen.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/does-being-into-submission-mean-being-into-abuse-2/
Let's talk about Lars von Trier's film Nymphomaniac. If you're unfamiliar with it, this is a bold and brilliant film with unsimulated sex scenes, which deals with sex addiction, homosexuality, bisexuality, sadism, masochism and paedophilia. The main character Joe is a nymphomaniac, who lies in blood somewhere at the beginning of the film and is rescued by a man named Seligman, then they have a conversation about Joe, sex and why she sees herself as a bad human being. Joe talks about her personal experiences, thoughts, desires and sex life, Seligman talks about sex from an intellectual point of view, sex as analogous to fishing, classical music, religion, etc. It seems that Lars von Trier's neither for nor against Joe's actions, and he's being as objective as possible. At some point in life, Joe feels unsatisfied, and goes to a sadist who warns right from the beginning that once a woman enters the room, there is no safe word. This is of course hard to stomach, especially the scenes of violence, which are raw, uncomfortably so, and the awareness that Joe leaves her little kid home alone to go to the sadist's place. As I've said, Lars von Trier's simply telling the story- Joe definitely struggles with her own desires, has a bad conscience and loathes herself.
The key point, the "message" of the film, is in the ending. After the talk, Joe lies down to rest, Seligman goes to another room. Then suddenly he goes back and climbs on her, attempting to rape her, muttering something like she has slept with so many men after all. And she shoots him.
That is important: Joe is a nymphomaniac, she has had sex with lots of men, but that doesn't mean that a man can rape her and say "it doesn't matter, I'm just another man". Because she has sex of her own free will. Because no matter what, she has the right to say no.
3/ 2 dreadful websites I've just come across:
http://ladiesagainstfeminism.org/
http://womenagainstfeminism.tumblr.com/
On the other side are so-called feminists like this:
http://radfemale.tumblr.com/
This person nicknamed radfemale is ignorant and narrow-minded; worse, she's self-righteous, aggressive and incapable of seeing nuances and doubting herself. She calls herself a feminist, but to me she's more like a misandrist- you can look around and find many posts where she openly says that she hates men, and other posts where she suggests that women are only victims and men only perpetrators. And she always seems to be yelling, furiously.
Radfemale isn't alone, there are others:
http://rageagainstthemanchine.com/2009/07/05/why-i-hate-men-part-1-and-then-it-hit-me/
(Read the comments too).
But that's not feminism. I understand the points raised on the womenagainstfeminism site, and agree that we shouldn't see all men as misogynists, potential abusers and rapists, etc. But feminism matters because men and women are still not equal. Slut-shaming is still a thing, for example. Or recently at the Oscars, Patricia Arquette addressed the issue of unequal pay for actors and actresses in her acceptance speech.
4/ I've expressed my thoughts on feminism.
However, I generally don't like feminist criticism in literature. For example, the other day I read The Madwoman in the Attic, and felt irritated. Reading and analysing a work of art in the light of feminism, or any ism (homoeroticism/ homotextuality, Marxism, etc.) distorts the work. You bend it, you make it fit your system and preconceived notions, you focus on the politics of the work and go so far that you fail to recognise its literary merits, you might even misinterpret it. The chapter on Shirley is perhaps tolerable, though I have trouble with the suggestion that Shirley succumbs to Caroline's fate, or something along that line. The 2 chapters on Jane Austen hardly make sense, especially the parts on Mansfield Park and Fanny's quietness and passivity.
By distorting, I of course don't mean things like this:
http://radfemale.tumblr.com/post/110538043259
She hasn't even read Lolita, and it's clear that she knows nothing about art.
What I'm thinking of is something else- for instance, there are people who accuse Tolstoy and Flaubert of hating women (creating weak, unlikeable, immoral female characters and punishing them) and thus condemn their works and dismiss the greatness of these works altogether. E.g: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/18/can-men-write-good-heroines
If a reader reads a novel that way, they cannot see its merits, no, they don't even see what it's really about. Similarly, if readers of Mansfield Park think that here Jane Austen unfairly favours the quiet, passive, conservative, prudish Fanny Price over the witty, lively, active, independent, frank Mary, the book is ruined.
On the other hand, I find A Room of One's Own excellent. Virginia Woolf discusses women and fiction indeed, but for her art still goes 1st.
5/ 2 posts related to literature:
http://somanybooksblog.com/2015/02/26/where-do-you-draw-a-line
http://somanybooksblog.com/2015/02/25/female-characters-are-human-too
(and this http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/02/why-i-want-more-unlikeable-female-characters)
I'm quoting myself: <In Shirley, Charlotte Bronte wrote "If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women. They do not read them in a true light; they misapprehend them, both for good and evil. Their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. Then to hear them fall into ecstasies with each other’s creations—worshipping the heroine of such a poem, novel, drama—thinking it fine, divine! Fine and divine it may be, but often quite artificial—false as the rose in my best bonnet there. If I spoke all I think on this point, if I gave my real opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate works, where should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging stones in half an hour."
If before, female characters in fiction tended to be either angels or monsters (there were exceptions, of course), now writers tend to create only female characters that are strong, powerful, independent. That’s not any better.>
This is a good speech by Maggie Gyllenhaal at the Golden globes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3xEvsO-pcY
I don't want more strong female characters. I want real female characters. I want a great range.
Monday, 2 March 2015
The female characters in The Moonstone
are very well-drawn and vivid.
Miss Clack has been discussed on this blog before. She's irritating and amusing at the same time; she seems to have no sense of humour and yet she's hilarious, in her religiousness and hypocrisy and self-contradictions; she's not to be trusted as a narrator and yet she's so fascinating in her own way that I enjoy reading her narrative and want more of it; she's the kind of person we stay away from, and yet she also seems pathetic, almost pitiful. Because she's alone, single and poor and no one seems to think highly of her (Rachel and Penelope are even rude), there's something sad and pathetic about this woman; as she doesn't have anything, such as wealth or social status or perhaps good looks, and apparently doesn't have much intellect either, she has to cling to something that gives her a sense of worth, a sense of dignity, which is her religion and related activities; then because she clings too much to religion, without true goodness, she's a hypocrite and a prude and a bore, which makes people dislike her even more and stay away from her; so it's like a vicious cycle.
Rachel and Rosanna arouse more sympathy. At 1st glance, they're very different: Rachel has all the advantages- social status, wealth, beauty, respect, love and finally a happy ending, whereas Rosanna has nothing and finally commits suicide. Rosanna is also more quiet, reserved, withdrawn, because of her past as well as her physical disability and her feeling about it; if Rachel, whilst keeping the secret, acts like an impassioned, unstable person and cannot be normal, Rosanna has more self-restraint and keeps everything within her, revealing hardly anything. However, in many ways they are doubles. They are both young. They are both in love with Franklin Blake. They both know about Franklin taking the diamond. They both choose to be silent about it, even though it's destructive for themselves- their silence is a kind of sacrifice. They both obstruct the plot in the sense that if they were not silent, the diamond would be found sooner. Rachel and Rosanna are "united" in their love for the same person and their silence. If you think about it, Rosanna's death leads to the gown and therefore helps other characters to find out the truth- there's little likelihood that after being stopped and interrupted so many times she would say anything to Franklin if she didn't die; but the whole time Rachel insists on being silent, and if this carried on, without Rosanna's letter, nobody would know the truth and Rachel would always think Franklin the real thief; so in a way it's like Rosanna has to get out of the picture in order for Rachel to have her happy ending.
Anyhow, they are lovely characters, depicted with lots of sympathy. The Moonstone is more about characters than about the mystery. Wilkie Collins helps us see beneath the appearance (Rachel as a stubborn, strong-willed, impassioned, almost irrational young woman and Rosanna as a physically disabled, diffident, reserved woman); lets us understand them, their feelings and actions; breathes life into them; most importantly, makes us feel sorry for Rosanna and her hopeless love, without exaggeration, without making it appear melodramatic or sentimental. In spite of everything, Rosanna's still a romantic, believing that Franklin could look at her and could love her, with a kind of love that crosses all boundaries. She is tragic from the 1st moment she appears, lonely, strangely drawn to the sea and the quicksands; she is tragic to the end, dying believing that Franklin deliberately ignores her and avoids her and wants to hurt her.
It is inexplicable, sometimes a character is left more or less in the background, in the shadows, and yet I feel a kind of love and melancholy for them as though for a real person. Like Dolores Haze. Caddy Compson. Jane Fairfax. Rosanette "The Marshal". And now Rosanna Spearman.
OK, enough sentimentality. Let's talk about a character nobody seems to care about: Penelope. The interesting part is that she's right all along. She's right about Rachel and Franklin being in love; she distrusts Godfrey Ablewhite, who is charming but phony; she's right about supporting Franklin; she believes in Rosanna when most others suspect her; she's also right about Rosanna's love for Franklin. It's only because she's female and her father Gabriel Betteredge is a sexist that her insightful remarks are dismissed, and she's a minor character, but Penelope's right the whole time.
Apart from Misses Ablewhites, who appear briefly at the beginning, and Lady Verinder, who doesn't interest me 1 bit, there's only 1 female character left, if I'm not mistaken- Lucy. Some people think she has romantic feelings for Rosanna. Is that the case, or the fact that they are both physically disabled and unattractive simply creates a kind of bond between them? Now that could be discussed further.
Miss Clack has been discussed on this blog before. She's irritating and amusing at the same time; she seems to have no sense of humour and yet she's hilarious, in her religiousness and hypocrisy and self-contradictions; she's not to be trusted as a narrator and yet she's so fascinating in her own way that I enjoy reading her narrative and want more of it; she's the kind of person we stay away from, and yet she also seems pathetic, almost pitiful. Because she's alone, single and poor and no one seems to think highly of her (Rachel and Penelope are even rude), there's something sad and pathetic about this woman; as she doesn't have anything, such as wealth or social status or perhaps good looks, and apparently doesn't have much intellect either, she has to cling to something that gives her a sense of worth, a sense of dignity, which is her religion and related activities; then because she clings too much to religion, without true goodness, she's a hypocrite and a prude and a bore, which makes people dislike her even more and stay away from her; so it's like a vicious cycle.
Rachel and Rosanna arouse more sympathy. At 1st glance, they're very different: Rachel has all the advantages- social status, wealth, beauty, respect, love and finally a happy ending, whereas Rosanna has nothing and finally commits suicide. Rosanna is also more quiet, reserved, withdrawn, because of her past as well as her physical disability and her feeling about it; if Rachel, whilst keeping the secret, acts like an impassioned, unstable person and cannot be normal, Rosanna has more self-restraint and keeps everything within her, revealing hardly anything. However, in many ways they are doubles. They are both young. They are both in love with Franklin Blake. They both know about Franklin taking the diamond. They both choose to be silent about it, even though it's destructive for themselves- their silence is a kind of sacrifice. They both obstruct the plot in the sense that if they were not silent, the diamond would be found sooner. Rachel and Rosanna are "united" in their love for the same person and their silence. If you think about it, Rosanna's death leads to the gown and therefore helps other characters to find out the truth- there's little likelihood that after being stopped and interrupted so many times she would say anything to Franklin if she didn't die; but the whole time Rachel insists on being silent, and if this carried on, without Rosanna's letter, nobody would know the truth and Rachel would always think Franklin the real thief; so in a way it's like Rosanna has to get out of the picture in order for Rachel to have her happy ending.
Anyhow, they are lovely characters, depicted with lots of sympathy. The Moonstone is more about characters than about the mystery. Wilkie Collins helps us see beneath the appearance (Rachel as a stubborn, strong-willed, impassioned, almost irrational young woman and Rosanna as a physically disabled, diffident, reserved woman); lets us understand them, their feelings and actions; breathes life into them; most importantly, makes us feel sorry for Rosanna and her hopeless love, without exaggeration, without making it appear melodramatic or sentimental. In spite of everything, Rosanna's still a romantic, believing that Franklin could look at her and could love her, with a kind of love that crosses all boundaries. She is tragic from the 1st moment she appears, lonely, strangely drawn to the sea and the quicksands; she is tragic to the end, dying believing that Franklin deliberately ignores her and avoids her and wants to hurt her.
It is inexplicable, sometimes a character is left more or less in the background, in the shadows, and yet I feel a kind of love and melancholy for them as though for a real person. Like Dolores Haze. Caddy Compson. Jane Fairfax. Rosanette "The Marshal". And now Rosanna Spearman.
OK, enough sentimentality. Let's talk about a character nobody seems to care about: Penelope. The interesting part is that she's right all along. She's right about Rachel and Franklin being in love; she distrusts Godfrey Ablewhite, who is charming but phony; she's right about supporting Franklin; she believes in Rosanna when most others suspect her; she's also right about Rosanna's love for Franklin. It's only because she's female and her father Gabriel Betteredge is a sexist that her insightful remarks are dismissed, and she's a minor character, but Penelope's right the whole time.
Apart from Misses Ablewhites, who appear briefly at the beginning, and Lady Verinder, who doesn't interest me 1 bit, there's only 1 female character left, if I'm not mistaken- Lucy. Some people think she has romantic feelings for Rosanna. Is that the case, or the fact that they are both physically disabled and unattractive simply creates a kind of bond between them? Now that could be discussed further.
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