" ... to know that writing compensates for nothing,
sublimates nothing, that is precisely there where you are not - this is the
beginning of writing… " - Roland Barthes, The Lover's Discourse
22 may 2012
‘I had touched all memories; they were part of the
becoming. When young the memories collected were quite simple: memories of
hate, of love, of happiness, of sorrow. As a teenager there came complexity and
subtlety, the traces were of desire and sexual pleasure, of nostalgia, of
beauty, of the body, of the visual. After adolescence love was not just love,
and pleasure had infinite sources; the memories received metamorphosed into
those of repetition, of coincidence, of insignificance, of degree, of
banishment, of idolatry, of ecstatic pleasure, of the haptic, of emptiness, of
permanence, of difficulty, of persuasion, of obsession, of transparence, of
subjugation, and of course my own memories of becoming.’ (in Sapa)
30 may 2012
‘I also knew of these memories through books. A friend
called the memories of film ‘haptic visual’; for fun I called the memories
gleaned from books ‘litteratura haptic memoria’. They were memories that had
been touched within literature, sensed through my becoming. I read as Mrs
Bovary’s ‘breath of love passed over the stitches on her canvas’, I could feel
those memories and hopes that she wove; I could touch the silken material that
lay across her lap, the fabric caressing her with an unspoken passion. I knew
that in memories there resided sexual passion that was capable of being
released at a later time, when a similar fabric was also caressed.’ (in Sapa)
16 june 2012
… a very good day to start the diary … get
first comments back from baden about the novel which he thinks is flawed … I am
both shocked and pleased … at least this is real intellectual feedback … I
respect baden … he is professional and smart ... he has a sensitivity which I
admire … I am confused that this sensitivity did not transpire to the novel but
I have to listen to at least a part of what he has to say ... the third person
may work ... I can understand that ... but he is right I need to write more
intuitively ... I have become too theoretical and dictated by structure ... the
third policemen is very intuitive .. good to soak this in ... plus more of lover’s discourse … and maybe read invisible cities again … as well as the pleasure of the text … baden says
the novel is really about ‘witnessing’ and ‘empathetic and ethical connection’
not ‘shared memory’ … it will have to be about both as I do not want to give up
on the ‘memory’ aspect … he thinks the ‘shared memory’ does not work because of
plot is too ‘passive’ and ‘assumed’ and that the plot is too ‘floating’ and
should be ‘characterised’ (third person should fix this) … he also thinks that
the narrative should focus on the ‘pain of disjunction’ … he stresses that
memory is an ‘imagined experience’ rather than in my narrative where it is a
‘literal one’ … these are all good points
… I have to agree now that the sex scenes do not work and have to be radically
altered, with a different focus genre, or abandoned altogether ... the
preoccupation with knowing more about Canberra I think is a red herring but we
do need to know more about Yue … he also thinks that the conversations need
much more work and do not read properly ... that they should be ‘elliptical’
not ‘spelling out the plot’ .. I should
listen to this … Baden also points out he ever present/unresolved past is endlessly a source of pain by
remembering and being unable to reach beyond. "A photograph is a secret
about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know." (Diane
Arbus) ... Yue’s unresolved past (which includes her fox-spirit becoming as
well as the death of her mother) is an endless source of pain by remembering
and unable to reach beyond … Baden’s biggest clue is the quote by Barthes
that he has put up at the front of his comments … "… to know that writing compensates for nothing, sublimates
nothing, that is precisely there where you are not - this is the beginning of
writing." roland barthes, the
lover's discourse … what meaning
does this quote contain[i]
… “The end result is one that challenges the
reader’s views of social constructs of love, without trying to assert any
definitive theory of meaning.” … this is associated with the ‘paradox in
literature’[ii]
which I need to understand more … also the literary concept of ‘jouissance’[iii] ...
what happens when I re-write the description of the lover’s discourse in
terms of memory[iv]
… it work’s well as an ‘outsider’s discourse’, “The novel is the fictionalized reflections
of an outsider seeking to identify and be identified by her estranged brother
... the other. The unrequited outsider’s search for signs by ‘witnessing
through memory’ thus ‘empathetically connecting to realise identity’ makes evident
illusory myths involved in such a pursuit. The outsider’s attempts to assert
herself into a false, ideal reality is involved in a delusion that exposes the
contradictory logic inherent in such a search. Yet at the same time the
novelistic character is a sympathetic one, and is thus open not just to
criticism but also understanding from the reader. The end result is one that
challenges the reader’s views of social constructs of memory and identity,
without trying to assert any definitive theory of meaning” [v]… I assume the fox-spirit is both metaphor and allegory for ‘the
outsider’ and ‘the stranger’ … I have so much to learn ... so much to realise …
not to be held back by my addiction … I will write in the blue diary for this …
it is all connected …
22 june 2012
… Janie suggests that
the third person narrator should be Rong … she also suggests that should be
exposed at the end … which in post-modern times might be seen as deceitful to
the reader … so the alternative would be that the reader is aware all along thus
making the novel a metanarrative … so complex … would the reader be angry or
enlightened by an exposure at the completion … how would I feel as a reader …
there is also another sub-plot where Yue is trying to escape her fictional
creation …. Is this a meta-narrative … both very interesting concepts … the
other weakness is that Rong betrays himself just for his rocks … this is almost
surreal … a flaw … driven from loneliness and alienation which has to be
explained … Rong is ‘connecting’ with rocks rather than people … Yue is
connecting with real life rather that fox-spirit fantasy ... Shen is connecting
with his inner-self … Baden Is right ... though memory must serve a purpose … maybe
to facilitate connecting … so complex … have to explore the writing of the
Preface … good to talk out with Janie, Baden and Elsa … I feel so incompetent
in regards to literary theory and history … don’t even know the most basic
literary terms …
26 jun 2012
… after much emailing
we have finally decided on the points of view of the novel … so late in its
development ... this has taken two years … this was never suggested by Janie
before even though she always reads it as something that has always been there
… to give credit she is the one that ahs suggested for the narrative to be told
by Rong in first person … all necessitated by Baden seeing the flaws in the
work … he want third person narrative so will still have to discuss … but seem
much more interesting having the character who has the flaw and capable of
being betrayal telling the story … backed up by the other point of view by Yue
, the betrayed … I think there are still a few problems ... the depth and
extent of Rong’s betrayal … this will have to be validated both by Yue and Rong
… his betrayal is based on his obsession and love of the rocks brought on by is
isolation and loneliness at being an outsider … also has to be added is the
pressure and threats brought on by the government … what does he actually
betray … the whereabouts of Shen … which is why the police arrive at Kirti
monastery .. Rong could try to justify by convincing himself he was trying to
save Shen from death by self-immolation … I have to examine ‘point of view’ as
it will get quite complicated as he tells and reflects on his own betrayal … I
also need to examine ‘characterisation’ ... I have to make Rong and Yue more of
a character … more distinctive … more that the reader can relate to … my
writing has to become looser … more intuitive … dipping into my own well … not
other people’s knowledge …
3 august 2012
… I keep on running into the problem of
characterisation and plot … now I think I have the structure right … there are
two first person narrators which gives lots of room for different viewpoint
plus a playful/insightful crossover between the two … with the typography
layout there is more than enough clues for the reader … Janie likes this format
…especially Rong making observations about their relationship … ‘she no longer
trust me’… Rong has the most chance of developing and providing perspective …
can explore more about his love of stones (great article by Parkes)… why and
how?? … and his ultimate obsession and betrayal … so difficult as Rong is the
most Chinese of the characters and I was trying to avoid this from a male white
writer … but we are both writers .. it s the literary connection that runs
throughout the novel … Baden was right in that the theme of the novel is about ‘empathetic
and ethical connection’ and ‘pain of disjunction’
(all) not ‘shared memory’.. outsiders who
are desperate to connect … memory is only the agent … after reading Parke’s
conclusion the bigger theme could be that the Middle Kingdom is itself out of
balance .. I like this … each of the character commits an act in relation to
this (this ties in with Baden’s observation)…. What else did Baden say … ‘memory
pieces should be more ‘an imagined experience’ not a ‘’literal’ one … Baden
also says “Instead of Yue's knowing her brother's
memories, the narrative could focus on the pain of disjunction - gaps, which
are the source of pain and conflict; after all, she is not with him. The
structure (could then be a juxtaposing (and as I said earlier) intuitive
structural alignment in which the main character's search for connections is
placed side by side with the events (not necessarily in chronological order) of
her brother's experiences.” … wow, this is the only aspect of his critique that
I do not fully understand … let’s work it out today … makes me feel so tired …. People
could come to yue to confess or witness their memories (the magician) …
more
ghosts as in the original pu songling stories (the magician) … need some nice direct one
to one short sentence conversations about life (the magician) … has Rong lost his faith, lost his magic in is poetry …
now surviving on artifice and accessories … he has become impotent ,, can his the little faith he has left still
create the magic at the hands of his persecutors … rong’s persecutor is not
obvious … the artist as human … racked by doubt … the charlatan nature of
creativity ., (the magician) … add all this to Rong’s obsession with rocks and
looking for a balance in his and the country’s qi and you have depth … it shows
me how important character development is … you need to know ALL about your
character BEFORE you start writing … so basic … you need to know what is
driving them and also driving the novel … what about YUE ? I will go with Baden
… someone searching for connections … empathetic and ethical … empathetic could
be searching for the fox-spirit connection …
a familiar soul other than her brother (a woman) … ethical could be an
ethical lifestyle away from the fubai of china … she is trying to resolve the
pain of disjunction she is experiencing with her brother and fox-spirit
belonging … is there a literary disjunction ... making her own story … hse also
has an imbalance of chai .. she is an outsider .. what about something deep ..
fundamental .. Yue is traumatized from something done/happened in past life of
Lotus Fragrance story and from the accident;
'For as to this point of being the same
self, it matters not whether this present self be made up of the same or other
substances, I being as much concerned, and as justly accountable for any action
that was done a thousand years since, appropriated to me now by this
self-consciousness, as I am for what I did the last moment'. (Essay ch xxvii -
16. - p 248) Can you have a philosophical struggle over what/who is her true
identity / ref: blade runner & dark city / 'the philosophy of science
fiction film' … remember that Yue (and Rong) live in fanatsy worlds with
different laws …the fox-spirit world of Yue … the Buddhist world of Shen .. the Pu Songling world of the author .. the
Daoist world of Rong … there is no crossover as such … these fantasy worlds
have not taken over the book as I have not done enough work with it … there is
also the fantasy world of Pu Songling … this may also be the fantasy world of
the author which also belongs to Rong (as a poet) and Yue (as a journalist) …
Elsa like the world of Pu Songling and Penglai and fox-spirit (taxi) … Elsa
wanted to know more about Yue and did not believe her anger towards China (this
anger needs to be there to balance Shen’s non anger and Rong’s impotence) … I
get so depressed when I see what a high profile dan has and how much he has
already written .. makes me feel incompetent and a failure .. I want to
experiment with more interaction between the two voices .. more dynamic and
imaginative ..the whole novel needs to be more imaginative and surreal … not
theoretical ,,, leave that to Dan hha … I need to know Yue more … she needs to be more playful .. Amelie .. ‘the moon is said to be the soul
of the water .. ‘if the moon disappears the water will vanish’,[vi]
‘if men and nature are not in harmony the crops will wither away’[vii]
‘like blood flows through the body, water flows down from the snow-capped
mountains’[viii]
‘water is the origin of life’[ix]
A style of writing:
‘Li Taisheng is my neighbour in Taochuadongcum
village, he can not get a job from the city because he got some disability, and
he can live on working in the field and cutting firewood in the hills. For me,
it is a sample of Chinese traditional farm life.’ (p 35)
‘The person in the painting named Yang Songmao, he was
always extracting and selling flagstones to the people who was about to build houses.
He went out in the early morning with
tools and food carrying on the back, sfter a few kilometres hiking in the
mountain and going through the valley, then he could arrive the quarry. At
night, before the sky blacked over, he came back by my yard. His figure went
into the landscape, disappeared.’ (p 42)
‘Mr. Liu San is an invented character, he exists only
in my fantasy and dreams for many years. He was born to a good estate. His
early youth is in school, youth in army, manhood in jail, old age in hermitage.
A person’s fate is negligible in China’s turbulent social system. After having
witnessed a century of precarious, he have to go into the lost history, and the
world of personal independence to find out the value of his life.’ (p 43)
‘The Bund … was a very popular Hong Kong TV
series in mainland China in the 80’s … only a few families and authority units
had TV … the theme songs’ (p 75)
‘2004 is the second year for my life in the Peach
Flower valley, my daily life is simple and calm, reading, writing, sitting
still and facing mountains. This year, I have almost never been out of the
valley, except to purchase necessities in town.
The
work “China” was done in such a condition of life, and documented my mentality
in that period. After complicated process of working for four months, one group
of highly inaccurate golden maps of China came out, lines with diaries.
It
contains the meditations and hopes of mine.’ (p 90)
Fairy Dreams In Peach
Blossom Valley 2001-2012, exhibition, Liu Chuanhong, DYJ Lifestyle
Gallery/Peach-Blossom-Cave Film Community (2012)
18 august 2012
… arrive in
Thailand hoping to relax ... and on first day blunder ripping something with my
teeth and totally damage front tooth … once again not being aware of the moment
... of each action ... not knowing the consequences ... always blundering
through ... so now I have to work on the novel … time is running out ... no one
likes it ... too verbose … too fragmented ... poorly framed … artificial …
shallow ... unbelievable … oh my god so many criticisms ... and now no front
tooth and even less money … and nothing ever happened to the price of gold …
one thing … I totally have my sex addiction and smoking addiction under control
… for some unknown reason … maybe erin … maybe not …
19 august 2012
HOMUNCULUS
Tan Jinxuan, a first-degree graduate of my
home district of Zichuan, was a great believer in Taoist yoga. He practiced it
assiduously for several months, regardless of the weather, and seemed to be
making some progress.
One day, he was sitting cross-legged in meditation when he heard a tiny voice inside his ear, buzzing like a fly and saying, ‘I think I’m taking shape … ‘
He opened his eyes, but could see nothing, and the voice was no more to be heard, he closed his eyes, regulated his breathing once again, and the voice returned. This, he thought to himself with secret delight, must surely be the Alchemical Homunculus, the Inner Elixir of Immortality, speaking to him as it neared perfection in his Cinnabar Field. …………
One day, he was sitting cross-legged in meditation when he heard a tiny voice inside his ear, buzzing like a fly and saying, ‘I think I’m taking shape … ‘
He opened his eyes, but could see nothing, and the voice was no more to be heard, he closed his eyes, regulated his breathing once again, and the voice returned. This, he thought to himself with secret delight, must surely be the Alchemical Homunculus, the Inner Elixir of Immortality, speaking to him as it neared perfection in his Cinnabar Field. …………
THE LOTUS
FRAGRANCE
Translator’s note:
In this longer story, I have incorporated commentator’s who were constantly at
one’s side.
There was a young
man by the name off Sang Xiao, from the town of Yizhou. He was orphaned when
still a young man, and went to live in Saffron Bank, a small country town
nearby. His was a quiet, self-contained nature. He only set foot outside his
lodgings twice a day, and then only to eat with his neighbour to the east. The rest
of the time he spent alone at home in his studio.
Once his neighbour dropped by and said in
jest, ‘Living all on your own like this, are you never scared of ghosts and
fox-spirits?’
Sand laughed, ‘Why should a grown man fear
such things? Supposing something of that sort does ever some to visit me, why,
if it’s a male, I have a sharp sword at the ready; and if it’s female, I shall
simply open my door and invite the young lady in!’
The neighbour went home and plotted with
his friends. They persuaded a local sing-song girl to lean a ladder up against
Sang’s wall and climb into his compound. She tapped her fingers on his door,
and Sang peeped out and asked who was there,
‘A ghost!’ relied a woman’s voice.
Sang had the fright of his life, and his
teeth started chattering in his head. The sing-song girl lingered a little
while, and then went away.
The years went by, and Foxy grew into a
young man. He succeeded in the provincial examination, and the family
prospered. But Swallow herself was never able to conceive. Foxy was highly
intelligent, but he was always a frail boy and susceptible to illness, and
Swallow was forever urging Sang to take a concubine in order to have another
son.
One day their maid came hurrying in.
‘There’s an old woman outside,’ she announced, ‘with a young girl for sale.’
Swallow invited
the woman in, and the moment she saw the girl she let out a great cry. ‘It’s
Lotus Fragrance returned from the grave!’
Sang studied the girl. She did indeed bear
a remarkable resemblance to Lotus Fragrance, He asked the old lady the girl’s
age, and she told him that she was fourteen years old. When he asked her the
price she wanted, she replied, ‘The girl is all I have. But if she can find a
good home and I can end up with enough money to feed myself and save some my
old bones fro the gutter, I’ll be content.’
Sang paid her a generous price for the
girl. Swallow took her by the hand and led her to her private apartment, where
she pinched her cheek and laughed, ‘Don’t you recognize me?’
‘No, I don’t.’
When Swallow asked her her name, she
replied, ‘I am from the Wei family. My father used to sell soy milk in Xu City.
He’s been dead three years.’
Feng Zhenluan: How dull it would have been
if the author had wasted a t of expensive ink explaining the details of Lotus
Fragrance’s reincarnation!
Swallow counted silently on her fingers.
It was exactly fourteen years since the death of Lotus Fragrance. She looked
again carefully at the girl: her features, her manner — they were all exactly
those of Lotus Fragrance. She patted her on the head. ‘Sister Lotus! Sister
Lotus! You said you would meet again after ten years and you have kept your
promise.’
The girl suddenly awoke as if from a dream
and gave a great cry, staring fixedly at Swallow.
‘She is the swallow of yesteryear,’ put in
Sang wit a smile.
The girl wept. ‘It is all true! It must
be! I remember my …….
22 august 2012
“Now, people
consider what they see with their eyes exists, and that what they don’t see,
doesn’t exist. They say, “This is normal.” And what suddenly appears and
suddenly vanishes amazes them. As for the flourishing and fading of plants, the
metamorphoses of insects, which suddenly appear and suddenly vanish, this does
not amaze them; only divine dragons amaze them. But the whistling of the wind,
which sounds without stimulus, the currents of the rivers, which move without
agitation — aren’t these amazing? But we are accustomed to these and are at
peace with them. We are amazed only at wraiths and fox-spirits; we are not
amazed at humankind.”
Tang Menglai (1627-98)(Preface to Pu Songling)
(Zeitlin p, 18)
“if we don not
have more tolerance for things beond empirical experience and ordinary
discourse] the beginnings and endings of the Way [are in danger of being]
obscured to the world … [if curiosity is entirely suppressed, then ignorance
will triumph] what we see becomes less and less and what amazes us becomes
greater and greater.”
Tang Menglai (1627-98)(Preface to Pu Songling)
(Zeitlin p, 19-20)
“I consider that regardless of whether something
is normal or abnormal, only things that are harmful to human beings are
monstrous. Thus [evil omens like] eclipses and meteorites, “fishhawks in flight
and mynah birds nesting,” roscks that can speak and battles of dragons, cannot
be considered strange. Only military and
civil conscription out of season or rebellious sons and ministers are monstrous
and strange.”
Tang Menglai (1627-98)(Preface to Pu Songling)
(Zeitlin p. 21)
“To the man of
little experience, everything is strange” …
“the wonders before our very eyes”
Ling Mengchu (1580-1644) (Slapping
the Table in Amazement (Pai’ian jingqi)) (1628)
“We do not know
why what the world calls strange is strange; we know not why what the world
does not call strange is not strange. How is this? Things are not strange in
and of themselves — they must wait for me before they can be strange. Thus the
strange lies within me — it is not
that things are strange.” “What human
beings know is far less than what they know.” :Nothing is impossible.”
Guo Po (276-324) (Classic of Mountains and Seas)
(Zeitlin p. 18)
“He entrusted to this book all the
extraordinary qi [energy] that
otherwise had no outlet in his life.
And so in the end he did not care that his accounts often involve things so
weird and unorthodox that the weird is shocked by them”
Yu Ji (Zeitlin p. 27)
“[He] sought out the strange and composed
his Records of the Strange. Although things in it involve the fantastic, his judgments are sober and serve to warn
the people.”
Zhang Yuan (1672-1756) (grave inscription)
(Zeitlin p. 28)
“This work must have been written by a great man who
met with failure in his time. I ache on his behalf.”
Fang Junyi (1815-1889) (Zeitlin p. 28)
“How stupid are the people of this world!
Omeone is obviously a deman, but people consider her beautiful.”
Pu Songling (The Painted Skin) (Zeitlin p. 30)
(his is how Yu Ji says you should read Liaozhai
[and the government and capitalism]) Gao Hend said you should read them as yuyan – ‘loaded words’)
“in the
world of Liaozhai the extraordinary
is made to seem ordinary, but the ordinary is also made to seem extraordinary”
Zeitlin (p. 21)
“The ancient definition of poetry, “that it
speaks of what is intently on the mind” (shi
yan zhi), had long been extended to other literary enres and other arts; by
the late Ming and early Qing, this theory of self-expression could be applied
to almost any field of human expression, no matter how trivial or eccentric.” “what was intently on his mind”
Zeitlin (p. 27)
“[In A Fox Dream] li Zhi, like Pu Songling, is
travestying the conventions of historical discourse, parodying the attempt to
prove autnenticity in a text. The effect in both cases, by self-consciously
blurring the boundaries between biographer and subject, author and information,
is not to undermine but to enhance the creative role of the author in the
compositional process.”
Zeitlin (p. 181)
“The two frames of reference that ordinarily
represent reality in Liaozhai — the
state of waking and historical discourse — cancel themselves out. The embedded
dream narrative has leaked into the frame that ordinarily sets it apart,
collapsing the separation between real life and literary text and perhaps in
the end pointing to the shared fictive nature of life, dream, and text.”
Zeitlin (p. 181)
“All he
could do was quietly strain his ears for the girl’s return, for in the end he
could no longer remember from where he came.”
Pu Songling (The
Painted Skin) (Zeitlin (p. 185)
22 august 2012
Reading A Chinese Bestiary … guaiwu … ‘strange creatures’ … guài … yi
… ‘portentous anomaly’ … non-normative, suprahuman phenomena as well as the typical psychological reponses
of awe and fear to such things’ … ‘they were an intimate part of the natural
environment’
23 august 2012
Reading Michael Oondatjie’s Alic Story
24 august 2012
Reading Zeitlin’s A Phatom Heroine .. the video
woman s(hyperfemininity) hould be a malevolent ghost seeking revenge on mortals
… and on fox-spirits … yue could lecture her and be like a doctor as in Lotus
fragrance … ‘the terrifying transformation of beauty in to reverse was a trick
of the shadow puppetry’ … have to make video woman very feminine .. balanced by
masculinity of Yue .. lack of ying on her part
I should address the mouring of Yue for Shen as
well s Rong’s mourning
29 august 2012
NHK: Moss standing rigid after being watered and
rock showing different faces.
30 august 2012
The story of Lei Feng’s selfless devotion and
anonymity has been turned into a joke about a one night stand:
She opens her eyes. Yesterday night she was
drunk. She slept on her own bed at her own house. The man who she met has
already put on his clothes and is opening the door to go. She is suddenly sad
and she says, “I still don’t know your name.” The man turns his head and laughs
softly, “Just call me Lei Feng!”
—The whole country once again rises up to learn the Lei Feng chorus! “Rising up” is an obvious euphemism, and “chorus” can also mean “orgasm.” And so “Lei Feng” became a joke about a one-night stand. Users have been reposting the joke, including any number of just barely safe for work images.
31 august 2012
miss plane
NHK: (bunraku) art lies in the slim region between the
real and the unreal … what really matters is the person’s feeling, heart,
desire and energy
1 september 2012
nasuko says no
I like the way she hands out two ice creams at
once. / ice creams were kept cool by keeping them in this white box, which was
covered with thick cotton padding. Just plain ice creams on a wooden stick
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/kattebelletje/3196606350/in/set-72157612534500592/]
also up at summer palace with kids playing rope and handclapping games and
rowing boats
[i] “Neutral and novelistic writing. In the late
1970s Barthes was increasingly concerned with the conflict of two types of language:
that of popular culture, which he saw as limiting and pigeonholing in its
titles and descriptions, and neutral, which he saw as open and noncommittal. He
called these two conflicting modes the Doxa and the Para-doxa. While
Barthes had shared sympathies with Marxist thought in the past (or at
least parallel criticisms), he felt that, despite its anti-ideological stance, Marxist theory was just as guilty of
using violent language with assertive meanings, as was bourgeois literature.
In this way they were both Doxa and both culturally assimilating. As a reaction
to this he wrote The Pleasure of the Text
(1975), a study that focused on a subject matter he felt was equally outside of
the realm of both conservative society and militant leftist thinking: hedonism. By writing about a subject
that was rejected by both social extremes of thought, Barthes felt he could
avoid the dangers of the limiting language of the Doxa. The theory he developed
out of this focus claimed that while reading for pleasure is a kind of social
act, through which the reader exposes him/herself to the ideas of the writer,
the final cathartic
climax of this pleasurable reading, which he termed the bliss in reading or jouissance,
is a point in which one becomes lost within the text. This loss of self within
the text or immersion within the text, signifies a final impact of reading that
is experienced outside of the social realm and free from the influence of
culturally associative language and is thus neutral. Despite this newest theory
of reading, Barthes remained concerned with the difficulty of achieving truly
neutral writing, which required an avoidance of any labels that might carry an
implied meaning or identity towards a given object. Even carefully crafted
neutral writing could be taken in an assertive context through the incidental
use of a word with a loaded social context. Barthes felt his past works, like Mythologies,
had suffered from this. He became interested in finding the best method for
creating neutral writing, and he decided to try to create a novelistic form of
rhetoric that would not seek to impose its meaning on the reader. One product
of this endeavor was A Lover's Discourse: Fragments
in 1977, in which he presents the fictionalized reflections of a lover seeking
to identify and be identified by an anonymous amorous other. The unrequited
lover’s search for signs by which to show and receive love makes evident
illusory myths involved in such a pursuit. The lover’s attempts to assert
himself into a false, ideal reality is involved in a delusion that exposes the
contradictory logic inherent in such a search. Yet at the same time the
novelistic character is a sympathetic one, and is thus open not just to
criticism but also understanding from the reader. The end result is one that
challenges the reader’s views of social constructs of love, without trying to
assert any definitive theory of meaning.” (Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes)
[ii] Paradox (literature). In literature,
the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the
sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of
literary composition - and analysis - which involves examining apparently
contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to
explain their presence. Literary or rhetorical paradoxes abound in the works of
Oscar Wilde
and G. K. Chesterton.
Other literature deals with paradox of situation; Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Borges, and Chesterton are
recognized as masters of situational as well as verbal paradox. Statements such
as Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” and Chesterton’s “spies do
not look like spies” are examples of rhetorical paradox. Further back, Polonius’ observation that “though
this be madness, yet there is method in’t” is a memorable third. Also,
statements that are illogical and metaphoric may be called
"paradoxes", for example "the pike flew to the tree to
sing". The literal meaning is illogical, but there are many
interpretations for this metaphor. Cleanth
Brooks' "Language of Paradox" Cleanth Brooks,
an active member of the New Critical
movement, outlines the use of reading poems through paradox as a method of
critical interpretation. Paradox in poetry means that tension at the surface of
a verse can lead to apparent contradictions
and hypocrisies.
His seminal essay, "The Language of Paradox", lays out Brooks'
argument for the centrality of paradox by demonstrating that paradox is
"the language appropriate and inevitable to poetry". The argument is
based on the contention that referential language is too vague for the specific
message a poet expresses; he must "make up his language as he goes".
This, Brooks argues, is because words are mutable and meaning shifts when words
are placed in relation to one another. In the writing of poems, paradox is used
as a method by which unlikely comparisons can be drawn and meaning can be
extracted from poems both straightforward and enigmatic. Brooks points to William Wordsworth's
poem "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free". He begins by outlining the initial and surface
conflict, which is that the speaker is filled with worship, while his female
companion does not seem to be. The paradox, discovered by the poem’s end, is
that the girl is more full of worship than the speaker precisely because she is
always consumed with sympathy for nature and not - as is the speaker - in tune
with nature while immersed in it. In his reading of Wordsworth's poem, "Composed upon Westminster
Bridge", Brooks contends that the poem offers paradox
not in its details, but in the situation which the speaker creates. Though London is a man-made marvel, and in
many respects in opposition to nature, the speaker does not view London as a
mechanical and artificial landscape but as a landscape composed entirely of
nature. Since London was created by man, and man is a part of nature, London is
thus too a part of nature. It is this reason that gives the speaker the
opportunity to remark upon the beauty of London as he would a natural
phenomenon, and, as Brooks
points out, can call the houses "sleeping" rather than
"dead", because they too are vivified with the natural spark of life,
granted to them by the men that built them. Brooks ends his essay with a
reading of John Donne’s
poem "The Canonization",
which uses a paradox as its underlying metaphor. Using a charged religious
term to describe the speaker’s physical love as saintly, Donne effectively
argues that in rejecting the material world and withdrawing to a world of each
other, the two lovers are appropriate candidates for canonization. This seems
to parody both love and religion, but in fact it combines them, pairing
unlikely circumstances and demonstrating their resulting complex meaning.
Brooks points also to secondary paradoxes in the poem: the simultaneous duality
and singleness of love, and the double and contradictory meanings of
"die" in Metaphysical poetry (used here as both sexual union and
literal death). He contends that these several meanings are impossible to
convey at the right depth and emotion in any language but that of paradox. A
similar paradox is used in Shakespeare’s
"Romeo and Juliet",
when Juliet says "For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch and
palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss." Brooks' contemporaries in the
sciences were, in the 40's and 50's, reorganizing university science curricula
into codified disciplines. The study of English, however, remained less defined
and it became a goal of the New Critical movement to justify literature in an
age of science by separating the work from its author and reader (see Wimsatt
and Beardsley’s Intentional fallacy
and Affective fallacy)
and by examining it as a self-sufficient artifact. In Brooks’s use of the
paradox as a tool for analysis, however, he develops a logical case as a
literary technique with strong emotional effect. His reading of "The
Canonization" in "The Language of Paradox", where paradox
becomes central to expressing complicated ideas of sacred and secular love,
provides an example of this development. Paradox
and irony. Although paradox and irony as New Critical tools for reading
poetry are often conflated, they are independent poetical devices. Irony for Brooks is “the
obvious warping of a statement by the context” whereas
paradox is later glossed as “a special kind of qualification which involves the
resolution of opposites.” Irony functions as
a presence in the text – the overriding context of the surrounding words that
make up the poem. Only sentences such as 2 + 2 = 4 are free from irony; most
other statements are prey to their immediate context and are altered by it
(take, as an example, the following joke. "A woman walks into a bar and
asks for a double entendre.
The bartender gives it to her." This last statement, perfectly acceptable
elsewhere, is transformed by its context in the joke to an innuendo). Irony is
the key to validating the poem because a test of any statement grows from the
context – validating a statement demands examining the statement in the context
of the poem and determining whether it is appropriate to that context. Paradox,
however, is essential to the structure and being of the poem. In The Well
Wrought Urn Brooks shows that paradox was so essential to poetic meaning
that paradox was almost identical to poetry. According to literary theorist
Leroy Searle, Brooks’ use of paradox emphasized the indeterminate lines between
form and content. “The form of the poem uniquely embodies its meaning” and the
language of the poem “affects the reconciliation of opposites or contraries.”
While irony functions within the poem, paradox often refers to the meaning and
structure of the poem and is thus inclusive of irony. This existence of opposites
or contraries and the reconciliation thereof is poetry and the meaning of the
poem. Criticism. R.S. Crane, in his
essay "The Critical Monism of Cleanth Brooks," argues strongly
against Brooks’
centrality of paradox. For one, Brooks believes that the very structure of
poetry is paradox, and ignores the other subtleties of imagination and power
that poets bring to their poems. Brooks simply believed that “’imagination’
reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant
qualities.” Brooks, in leaning on the crutch
of paradox, only discusses the truth which poetry can reveal, and speaks
nothing about the pleasure it can give. (231) Also, by defining poetry as
uniquely having a structure of paradox, Brooks ignores the power of paradox in
everyday conversation and discourse, including scientific discourse, which
Brooks claimed was opposed to poetry. Crane claims that, using Brooks’
definition of poetry, the most powerful paradoxical poem in modern history is
Einstein’s formula E = mc2,
which is a profound paradox in that matter and energy are the same thing. The
argument for the centrality of paradox (and irony) becomes a reductio ad absurdum
and is therefore void (or at least ineffective) for literary analysis. (Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_(literature))
[iii] “jouissance in philosophy and
literary theory: The
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek,
a known Lacanian theorist, has adopted the term in his philosophy; it may also
be seen in the works, both joint and individual, of Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari,
and it plays an important role in the writing of Julia Kristeva
and Roland Barthes.
In his 1973 literary theory
book The Pleasure of the Text, Barthes divides the effects of texts into
two: plaisir (translated as "pleasure") and jouissance.
The distinction corresponds to a further distinction Barthes makes between
"readerly" and "writerly" texts. The pleasure of the text
corresponds to the readerly text, which does not challenge the reader's
position as a subject.
The writerly text provides bliss, which explodes literary codes and allows the
reader to break out of his or her subject position. For Barthes plaisir
is, "a pleasure... linked to cultural enjoyment and identity, to the
cultural enjoyment of identity, to a homogenising movement of the ego."[3] As Richard Middleton
puts it, "Plaisir results, then, from the operation of the
structures of signification through which the subject knows himself or herself;
jouissance fractures these structures." (Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jouissance)
[vi]
‘Wonders of Water’ / Colour / 19mins
/ DV / Chinese & English / 2009. Wangta, Tibetan from Jisha Village. Xiao
Zhongdian Town, Shangari-La County, Diqing Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The Eye of Villager: Documentaries Made By
Villagers from Yunnan and Qinghai. Village Biodiversity Films Project, Bama
Mountain Culture Research Centre, Yunnan Academy of Social Science, 2-DVD,
(2009).
[vii]
‘Wonders of Water’ / Colour / 19mins
/ DV / Chinese & English / 2009. Wangta, Tibetan from Jisha Village. Xiao
Zhongdian Town, Shangari-La County, Diqing Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The Eye of Villager: Documentaries Made By
Villagers from Yunnan and Qinghai. Village Biodiversity Films Project, Bama
Mountain Culture Research Centre, Yunnan Academy of Social Science, 2-DVD,
(2009).
[viii]
‘Wonders of Water’ / Colour / 19mins
/ DV / Chinese & English / 2009. Wangta, Tibetan from Jisha Village. Xiao
Zhongdian Town, Shangari-La County, Diqing Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The Eye of Villager: Documentaries Made By
Villagers from Yunnan and Qinghai. Village Biodiversity Films Project, Bama
Mountain Culture Research Centre, Yunnan Academy of Social Science, 2-DVD,
(2009).
[ix]
‘Wonders of Water’ / Colour / 19mins
/ DV / Chinese & English / 2009. Wangta, Tibetan from Jisha Village. Xiao
Zhongdian Town, Shangari-La County, Diqing Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The Eye of Villager: Documentaries Made By
Villagers from Yunnan and Qinghai. Village Biodiversity Films Project, Bama
Mountain Culture Research Centre, Yunnan Academy of Social Science, 2-DVD,
(2009).
[x] Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History edited by Susan Mann, Yu-Yin Cheng, p.205
[xi] Strange
Tales from a Chinese Studio (Penguin Classics) by Pu Songling & John
Minfors, p.238
