Imagine the many students who devour their course textbooks under the powerful glare of the sun. "Collaterized Debt Obligations (CDOs): an investment instrument to create liquidity in the market from debt mainly in the form of mortgages." "Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: the ethical has nothing outside itself that is its τελος [end, purpose]..." "Russian for Dummies: I live in London - я живу в Лондонe". Then they look up and scan their surroundings; a squirrel searching for that elusive chestnut on a tree brunch. The red-yellow leaves fall onto the cream-colour straw hat of a pretty girl with a flower-print dress combining dark purple and sharp flourescent blue with a white trim.
She has a faint smile on her face as she squints into the sunlight while looking up from a boried copy of Kenzaburo Oe's The Silent Cry. Temporarily escaping the surreality of a remote village in the Japanese countryside, she glances at the reality in the various shades of green that make up the small park square. While engrossed in this separate world of words, jargon and/or 'signs', the docile students flip in and out of the different realities that the mind conjures up through observation of the monochrome book and the colourful outside world.
Somehow literature seems different to other kinds of printed word. It challenges us to understand the contradictions of our daily lives better through ink than by other elements of our surrounding environment. "Don't study life, Just Read It" - have Nike used that one before? Of course some 'sign' systems have limitations, even in the field of literature - sometimes words fail us. It fosters miscommunication - Turkish, Finnish and Mongolians kind of understand each other due to their languages all belonging to Altaic language family.
But even in translation, literature seems to transcend borders and advocate for a common humanity. Literature makes us more human, except perhaps when one follows the Naturalism theory like Emile Zola. But even then, how possible is it just to be a pawn of something bigger, a mere figurine in a grand Victor Hugo epic? By describing the revolutionary social ideas and ideals of 19th century France, these authors indirectly inform and shape our individual.
Although modernity and science in a number of respects classify and commodify in equal measure, simplification is not a straightforward process - rather its complicated. The 'tyranny of choice' frames our decisions; do-it-yourself has never been easier as one can choose from halcyon blue, royal white, mahogany brown paints to refurbish our homes. Psychology literature even attests to the number of choices influencing how frequently we choose. In striving to understand ourselves and society in a specific kind of way, one can either try to identify the different shades of grey or strive to see the mysterious intensity of colour 'inherent' in Yves Klein's Blue Sponge Relief.
Colours are 'signs' just as much as words. But literature will always tell us something new, sometimes just to annoy us into confronting things that we'd rather not. I'm not sure why anyone would want to know that Oe - who confessed to having a difficult relationship with Japanese society - thinks his homeland is a Third World country. Is it significant that he studied French literature and philosopher in the 60's when Sartre was so en vogue? Or that Philip Gabriel, the translator of Haruki Murakami and Western commentator of Japanese society, believes that disillusioned, young Japanese look inside themselves and find nothing? Or perhaps one should study the Hibakusha, the victims of the Atomic bomb, who continue to suffer discrimination and shame from a resurrected society still scarred by the apocalyptic events. And the emergence of new religions and spirituality in Japan, as evidenced by academic Susumu Shimazono. The land of Hello Kitty has an awful lot of explaining to do.
Or perhaps we should heed the words of Walt Whitman: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself... " Words don't have to mean anything at all.
But in any case, please do not let the Mad Men influence our words too much.
See relevant links:
The Times (Saturday Edition - 7. August, 2010) - Salman Rushdie article on contradictions in literature. (available online but unfortunate paywall restriction)
Oe, Kenzaburo. "Japan's Dual Identity: A Writer's Dilemma" World Literature Today 60.3 (1988), 359-369 (student access online through JSTOR)
No comments:
Post a Comment