Putnam, in _Bowling Alone_, traces the decline in group membership that happened in the later part of the twentieth century. He shows that we now lack a certain cohesiveness, termed `social capital,' that the generation before the boomers had in spades. In this book, which is heavily researched and supported with much evidence, he shows that this decline is real, that it is bad, there were analogous declines in American history, and tries to find the driving forces behind the decline. Don't tell my wife, but he sees the biggest factor as being the rise of television. Call it anomie, or call it lack of social capital, I feel Putnam's critiques in my own life every time I stay on my couch and watch television instead of going out and making and reinforcing social links.
Putnam also makes some prescriptions for what can be done to turn around our lack of social capital. Interestingly, these prescriptions are made in 2000 for full implementation in 2010. My sense, as I was reading them, is that we have not made adequate progress towards his stated goals. I don't think this is his fault or ours. One thing that struck me while reading this book is that while the book was written only ten years ago, it feels really dated. He was on the other side of the rise of social media, wars, the Bush presidency, cable news, 9/11, and everything else from our turbulent last decade. Many of these factors have helped, in my own opinion, ameliorate the distances we suffer from, while at the same time reinforcing the sense of the `other' we have with those who disagree with. I don't have the data nor the background to do this, but a reexamination of the decline needs to be done in light of these outside changes. I do not suspect that the broad scope would be different, but the details sure would be.
July 15, 2010
On On the Beach
I had trouble reading the first fifty or so pages of this book. Shute's cadences are hard to get a handle on, and he has some awkward attributive tags on his dialogue. I initially had no sympathy for half the characters.
I had trouble reading the last thirty pages of this book. Once I picked up the rhythm that Shute used to tell his story I became immersed in the world he created. The book changed from a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel to something greater. On the Beach transcends generic boundaries and becomes an elegy for the human race in an extinction that has not happened yet. I had trouble reading because of the tears in my eyes.
On the Beach is one of the most emotionally powerful books I have read in a long time. After putting it down, I tried to reflect and determined it had been almost a decade, when I read Lawrence's _Sons and Lovers_ that I was so moved by a book. I have a tender heart, but this book is not emotionally manipulative in a transparent way that cheapens the effect. On the Beach is powerful because it asks and answers fundamental questions about our being in a way that is truthful to what it means t be human.
Shute asks: "What do we do in the face of death?" He shows that we live as much as we can. We love. We make plans for the future. While we face death individually, we move towards it collectively. We are all cosigned to the same fate, but we do not have the certainty of the time that his characters do. On the Beach is an extended metaphor in a way, and as such is both an elegy and a celebration of what it means to be human. Sometimes that is beauty in the face of horror, and both come from the same root.
I had trouble reading the last thirty pages of this book. Once I picked up the rhythm that Shute used to tell his story I became immersed in the world he created. The book changed from a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel to something greater. On the Beach transcends generic boundaries and becomes an elegy for the human race in an extinction that has not happened yet. I had trouble reading because of the tears in my eyes.
On the Beach is one of the most emotionally powerful books I have read in a long time. After putting it down, I tried to reflect and determined it had been almost a decade, when I read Lawrence's _Sons and Lovers_ that I was so moved by a book. I have a tender heart, but this book is not emotionally manipulative in a transparent way that cheapens the effect. On the Beach is powerful because it asks and answers fundamental questions about our being in a way that is truthful to what it means t be human.
Shute asks: "What do we do in the face of death?" He shows that we live as much as we can. We love. We make plans for the future. While we face death individually, we move towards it collectively. We are all cosigned to the same fate, but we do not have the certainty of the time that his characters do. On the Beach is an extended metaphor in a way, and as such is both an elegy and a celebration of what it means to be human. Sometimes that is beauty in the face of horror, and both come from the same root.
Approaching Troilus and Criseyde
There are a few things I am curious about this work. The first distinction is that it exists as a whole text. Compared to the Canterbury Tales, the story is concerned with a solitary narrative arc, instead of a frame story with smaller tales interspersed (much like the Reinhardt / Renard / Reynard stories.) As such, I feel more comfortable approaching the work in a critical manner. Through the introduction, I have already learned the plot of the tale. What leaves me uncertain about approaching the text is how the story is has been constructed through time. The narrative comes from late antiquity and on through Shakespeare, so how do we consider Chaucer's role as a re-visionary of the tale?
In the intro, it speaks much of how this tale comes from the Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, where "[Chaucer] often matched the Italian text stanza for stanza" (xxiii). This is so much emphasized that there are places where this is drawn attention to, and included in a chart in the text. Thinking in terms of my paper, I am weary about making a claim about authorial intent before I know the context that this should be taken in. As such, it is with reservations that I bring this assertion into the text: the character of Pandarus, which Chaucer created, seems like an analogue within the poem for the poet's own narrative voice. From the reading considered so far, this character is a go-between and facilitator for the love that will perhaps develop between the two main characters. If this character is a Chaucerian invention and not coming from the source texts this is one place where we can speak of the edifice of the poet's creativity. That this Pandarus is friend of Troilus and the uncle of Criseyde places him within a level of intimacy with the characters that only a writer knows.
Although Troilus and Criseyde has areas of direct transcription, there are places where he veers from the source text. The most notable one at this reading is Troilus's song in part one. Again, I know nothing other sources of the text, but this song has been presented as the first use of the Petrarchan sonnet in English poetry. This is not pure invention, as the poem is more an adaptation (362) of the original sonnet from Petrarch, and not a new one all together. This is textually interesting to see how Chaucer is writing a poem in vulgar English, but he is taking source material from two different contemporary Italian sources and making something that while not entirely original, is something that is entirely Chaucer's. What makes me curious is this notion of invention as part of how a modern reader hails an author. If we are able to maintain Chaucer in the canon, why do modern readers know Camus, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, and not the unfortunate forgotten who translated them.
It is again a rhetorical leap to claim that Chaucer was nothing but a translator, but it is an interesting subject to me. I have this notion that the ideas of authorship, ideas of genre, and the divide between written and performed where much more fluid than they is now. Modern readers have build walls around ideas. I can remember reading somewhere where the prize-winning novel The Life of Pi was under criticism because its author wrote a story about a tiger and a little boy and a raft. This represents how modern society puts not the craft of versification, but the ideas behind them in primacy.
A final consideration is the fact that I have been raised to recognize what genre a work fits in, and that is the beginning of a description:
"What are you reading?"
"Oh, this, it's a play by Tom Stoppard."
Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is not so easily classifiable. There is a narrative arc, creating what might be considered fiction. There's versification, metered lines, and stanza breaks with a regular rhyme pattern within the stanzas. And lastly there is a lot of talking. From what I've read, I can see why Shakespeare made this into a play. He might only have needed to modernize some of the lines and place in stage directions. The fun thing is that it seems Chaucer is self conscious about these ambiguities. Instead of the classic epic invocation to the muse, there is an invocation to a fury. Instead of a love triangle with a jilted lover, there is just the two of them, both free to do as they choose. These subversions show something about Chaucer's own enjoyment of the work he was creating.
Perhaps this poem is also about interpretation and ambiguity. My mind returns to the image of Chaucer at some sort of pulpit or lectern: is he reading, performing, or both?
In the intro, it speaks much of how this tale comes from the Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, where "[Chaucer] often matched the Italian text stanza for stanza" (xxiii). This is so much emphasized that there are places where this is drawn attention to, and included in a chart in the text. Thinking in terms of my paper, I am weary about making a claim about authorial intent before I know the context that this should be taken in. As such, it is with reservations that I bring this assertion into the text: the character of Pandarus, which Chaucer created, seems like an analogue within the poem for the poet's own narrative voice. From the reading considered so far, this character is a go-between and facilitator for the love that will perhaps develop between the two main characters. If this character is a Chaucerian invention and not coming from the source texts this is one place where we can speak of the edifice of the poet's creativity. That this Pandarus is friend of Troilus and the uncle of Criseyde places him within a level of intimacy with the characters that only a writer knows.
Although Troilus and Criseyde has areas of direct transcription, there are places where he veers from the source text. The most notable one at this reading is Troilus's song in part one. Again, I know nothing other sources of the text, but this song has been presented as the first use of the Petrarchan sonnet in English poetry. This is not pure invention, as the poem is more an adaptation (362) of the original sonnet from Petrarch, and not a new one all together. This is textually interesting to see how Chaucer is writing a poem in vulgar English, but he is taking source material from two different contemporary Italian sources and making something that while not entirely original, is something that is entirely Chaucer's. What makes me curious is this notion of invention as part of how a modern reader hails an author. If we are able to maintain Chaucer in the canon, why do modern readers know Camus, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, and not the unfortunate forgotten who translated them.
It is again a rhetorical leap to claim that Chaucer was nothing but a translator, but it is an interesting subject to me. I have this notion that the ideas of authorship, ideas of genre, and the divide between written and performed where much more fluid than they is now. Modern readers have build walls around ideas. I can remember reading somewhere where the prize-winning novel The Life of Pi was under criticism because its author wrote a story about a tiger and a little boy and a raft. This represents how modern society puts not the craft of versification, but the ideas behind them in primacy.
A final consideration is the fact that I have been raised to recognize what genre a work fits in, and that is the beginning of a description:
"What are you reading?"
"Oh, this, it's a play by Tom Stoppard."
Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is not so easily classifiable. There is a narrative arc, creating what might be considered fiction. There's versification, metered lines, and stanza breaks with a regular rhyme pattern within the stanzas. And lastly there is a lot of talking. From what I've read, I can see why Shakespeare made this into a play. He might only have needed to modernize some of the lines and place in stage directions. The fun thing is that it seems Chaucer is self conscious about these ambiguities. Instead of the classic epic invocation to the muse, there is an invocation to a fury. Instead of a love triangle with a jilted lover, there is just the two of them, both free to do as they choose. These subversions show something about Chaucer's own enjoyment of the work he was creating.
Perhaps this poem is also about interpretation and ambiguity. My mind returns to the image of Chaucer at some sort of pulpit or lectern: is he reading, performing, or both?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)