Musings
Literature and the reader
How are readers affected by literature? Apart from how writers look at literature and language, how does genius treat language? What do words do to us, and what can we do to words? What are the effects of technology on language? Can lowbrow readers offer their views on literature? Or is it 'like corpses looking for an undertaker', as Ronald Coase has remarked. He is the Nobel Prize winner for economics in 1991, and one who never had any formal education in this discipline.
Technology is like looking at a starry sky -- the great and mysterious unknown, the macrocosm of language. Language is fossil poetry, said Emerson, while the limitations of words create a resistance to overcome it, driven on by divine discontent; not for development, but more for enrichment, of a tool at once creative and communicative.
Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors, asserted Emerson (he thought a lot about literature and language), and the ultimate source is aboriginal power. Individuality unsuccessfully tries to clamp copyrights on the world, bites the python, but is ultimately gobbled up by the primeval aboriginal boa. If the earth looks like an apple from the moon, it is too big to eat when standing on it. We are back to square one -- words are fashioned by beliefs, traditions and mythologies. On the other hand, literature is the Olympics of talk and of writing. The records are in the books, to be broken.
Technically minded readers are reminded of the movements of the electrons in the semi-conductors (transistors, ICs), which carry information in a medium neither fully conductive nor fully insulated.
Three larger-than-life topics (language, literature and technology) cannot be contained within the confines of a restricted column. But the urge to communicate with readers (I am one myself) is irresistible, after having gone through Richard Poirier's The Renewal of Literature -- Emersonian Reflections (Random House, 1987). Literary criticism that stimulates comes along after long intervals. Poirier is well practised in the game, with earlier displays, such as The Place of Style in American Literature, Compositions and Decompositions in the Languages of Contemporary Life; and studies on Henry James and Robert Frost. As a former editor of the Partisan Review, he sparks ideas by his astute observations, urging on the latent creativity in his readers.
The author draws extensively from the sentences of Emerson to find nuances which are elusive to the captured readers of this great American poet, philosopher and essayist.
There are many paradoxical statements which are likely to puzzle the innocent reader of literature, who wishes to spend some time in non-critical bliss. The origin of language is outside culture; and the use of language is to go beyond it. Emerson put it this way: "Language is a hindrance to the infinitude of private man." Modern books are complex as God is not needed, said Henry James. So watch out for 'the nakedness of learned nakedness', as Poirier would say.
How about this? "Works of art are not required to exist because there is nothing outside of them that requires their existence". Then comes William James (via Emerson) with the comment that "language works against our perception of truth".
Several pages are devoted to the role of the genius in literature, as the tyranny of language haunts the genius, and its limitations remind us of Godel's mathematical treatment of the limitations of the human mind. Santayana comes in with 'the kindly infidelities' of the language, viz, the 'slip' in a belt-drive or a clutch plate. Hence silence is a solvent, says Emerson by way of solace. A genius is unfathomable, and uncontainable, and breaks all rules of conventions, only to set new ones, at higher or different levels. He increases the radius of consciousness of the human mind, exposing solid materials out of foggy foregrounds, and shifting existing backgrounds to no-man's-land.
Language is mediation, not media, unlike the products of modern technology --- radio and television. Literature should not leave a clear image, unlike TV; but, like classical Chinese paintings, leave something to the reader's imagination, enabling him to be interactive, a concept, by the way, used by modern computers. Originality is a hard taskmaster, for the creator and the partaker, calling for a mixture of concentration and dedication, for minds seeking entertainment in this rarefied world of language and literature.
Using a modern technical term, perhaps there is the human urge to digitalize the language, as a tool of creativity, although the appreciation of the final product, as in all arts, including Nature, is in the analogue domain.
An Eastern mind, familiar with Emerson's intuitive mind, faces a sharp contrast in the presence of Poirier's analytical nuances, trying to explain Emerson's enigmatic thoughts, using Western tools. But he does his job brilliantly, teasing the reader to be alert, and to switch on his thinking mode. The first Emerson cannot be analysed and a second Emerson cannot be synthesized by the scientists, or by the critics.
This book is a good escape from babelic Dhaka's maddening strife. I end with a secret wish: I would love to see Clifton Fadiman writing a similar book.
Note: you have never read anything like this, because it comes out of a Bengali mind.
Once again, here is another scoop for you. It is so original it might jolt the gurus of English (and language and literature buffs) in the country. As I said earlier, I read for pleasure, and I write for pleasure. This is not a book review.
This elusive essay took quite some time to be captured in black and white. I was in two minds whether to send this piece to the local editors, as the topic is not topical. Part of daily life is not topical either. To topical minds, the intervals of silence are inserted for pause and rest.
Does literature fill the functional columns of a daily newspaper? In developing countries, newspapers become a dumping ground for extracurricular activities (in the absence of journals). Hence this intrusion.
Give the readers some rest, Mr Editor, from man's ignoble strife -- this missive is safe, harmless, intriguing and invigorating and not likely to invoke a call for hartal!
Over to you, Sir . . .
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