I don't know what I was doing the first time I read this essay but I sure as heck wasn't reflecting on it or considering how or why it might be meaningful. Probably I reflected on how nice and short it was.
On second approach I found it similar in some ways to the Smith reading, but much less daunting in terms of both the scope and nature of the text and the scope of its proposition. What Felski is asking is, instead of a database of historical and cultural contingencies affecting the ascription of value, for theory to recognise and question 'how and why particular texts matter to us.' Her proposed approach of 'neophenomenology' (and did I have fun reading the Wikipedia article on phenomenology OR WHAT) seems like an interesting way to allow the personal meaning of a text to enter into critical discussion. By acknowledging 'how structures of feeling and interpretative registers are modulated across space and time' (sorry, I'm obsessed), we may be able to move beyond suspicion and mistrust of the text to 'develop more compelling and comprehensive accounts of why texts matter to us.'
This, I think, is interesting. I've often found with literary theory that I'm not given any good reason why a text is important or valuable, and that although I almost always find that, to me, it IS important and valuable, the hows and whys of that value are inconsequential compared to the post-colonial or feminist or cultural reading I am supposed to be subjecting it to. These readings, as Felski says, do yield satisfying results of their own, but I'm also interested in the reasons why I was so utterly engrossed in What Maisie Knew when I know others found it tedious.
The difficulty with this approach seems to me to be the relevance such a reading might have, and its possible scope. For whose benefit would these readings be made? Really, the Smith article stopped short of detailing her changing personal response to the sonnets throughout her life not because it would be too long, but because it would be too boring. I'm interested in why people I know liked or didn't like certain texts, but generally that's because I care about them as people, not because their personal responses are particularly illuminating. But perhaps this issue is not so much about the relevance of a reflective reading so much as the potential for such a reading to remain superficial and formulaic, or to regress to high school level analysis ('Imagery creates images in the responder's mind, which makes them interested.' 'Rhetorical questions make readers question their own ideas'). The basis of phenomenology seems to be the study of how objects are perceived to all consciousnesses, which, as we saw in the Smith reading, would be an impossible way to approach literature. I'd like to read more about, and perhaps an example of, the approach Felski is proposing.
10.10.10
The 'Failure' of Henry James's New York Edition - Eric Leuschner
You might not have heard of Coralie Bickford-Smith, but I can guarantee that as someone who's visiting this blog you've seen, and most likely coveted, her work (and I posted a link to her incredible Fitzgerald editions a few weeks ago). Reading through the first half of this essay I was reminded of Bickford-Smith's various Penguin editions, and wondered what exactly they say about the buyer and the work. Someone else in the course (I forget who, I'm sorry!) has suggested that the orange Penguin editions act as a kind of 'uniform' for the books, putting each text on a level playing field, at least aesthetically. On the contrary, I think all of Penguin's editions act in exactly the opposite way, by marking out a text as worthy. You can pick up any of these, they say, and you'll be on the money (the cultural currency money, that is). Bickford-Smith's editions go beyond that, and distinguish the texts (since she generally designs for older, well-established works like Oliver Twist, Moby Dick etc.) not only from other books, but from other copies of the same book. Her designs flatter not only your taste in books, but your aesthetic tastes as well. The hardcover copy of Great Expectations with the chandeliers all over says something quite different to the sombre black spined Penguin Classics paperback.
I'm talking about these editions here because I think they are the modern equivalent of the collected editions Leuschner is talking about. They allow you to put your own stamp on the author, to make a claim on the text, by choosing an edition that reflects you and your own tastes, and to a certain extent your own perceptions of what the text is. My understanding of what Great Expectations is will lead me to choose either the black Classics edition or the graphic clothbound Bickford-Smith edition. This way of looking at the notion of the edition was the only way I could comprehend how on the one hand Leuschner could be saying that the collected editions allow the collector to have the author 'visit', and on the other that this is a 'form that implicitly erases the author.'
At first I thoroughly disagreed with the latter argument. How could an edition of an author's collected works, with his monogram on the cover and his initials watermarked on every page, possibly 'erase' the author? Obviously the form elevates the author, in this case James, but it does so by selling him to a discerning audience. The book's physical form is clearly the most important marker in this commodity.
However, I wouldn't be as quick as Leuschner to write off the importance of binding, as he does in the first half of this essay by quoting rather facetiously from Victorian articles defending expensive editions over cheap paperbacks. Yes, an expensive or particularly attractive binding is a marketing ploy. But a cheap binding is one as well, and a book deserves decent binding. I've been complaining that I picked up the new Jonathan Franzen book and at $33 the cover still feels like the cover of a proof, cheap and flimsy. And that is a big book, it's going to take a beating. I'll still buy it, of course, because the content is more important than the cover, but I don't think books are such a sacred metaphysical experience that their physical trappings can be altogether ignored.
By the way, I thought the difference between the public Henry James, calling his readers 'monsters' and himself a 'conjuror', and the private James writing to his publishers, 'The whole is a perfect felicity, so let us go on rejoicing', was incredible. I know I'm not supposed to, but I find the figure of James himself completely fascinating, he seems such an intriguing character. Seriously, Henry James, what is he LIKE?
I'm talking about these editions here because I think they are the modern equivalent of the collected editions Leuschner is talking about. They allow you to put your own stamp on the author, to make a claim on the text, by choosing an edition that reflects you and your own tastes, and to a certain extent your own perceptions of what the text is. My understanding of what Great Expectations is will lead me to choose either the black Classics edition or the graphic clothbound Bickford-Smith edition. This way of looking at the notion of the edition was the only way I could comprehend how on the one hand Leuschner could be saying that the collected editions allow the collector to have the author 'visit', and on the other that this is a 'form that implicitly erases the author.'
At first I thoroughly disagreed with the latter argument. How could an edition of an author's collected works, with his monogram on the cover and his initials watermarked on every page, possibly 'erase' the author? Obviously the form elevates the author, in this case James, but it does so by selling him to a discerning audience. The book's physical form is clearly the most important marker in this commodity.
However, I wouldn't be as quick as Leuschner to write off the importance of binding, as he does in the first half of this essay by quoting rather facetiously from Victorian articles defending expensive editions over cheap paperbacks. Yes, an expensive or particularly attractive binding is a marketing ploy. But a cheap binding is one as well, and a book deserves decent binding. I've been complaining that I picked up the new Jonathan Franzen book and at $33 the cover still feels like the cover of a proof, cheap and flimsy. And that is a big book, it's going to take a beating. I'll still buy it, of course, because the content is more important than the cover, but I don't think books are such a sacred metaphysical experience that their physical trappings can be altogether ignored.
By the way, I thought the difference between the public Henry James, calling his readers 'monsters' and himself a 'conjuror', and the private James writing to his publishers, 'The whole is a perfect felicity, so let us go on rejoicing', was incredible. I know I'm not supposed to, but I find the figure of James himself completely fascinating, he seems such an intriguing character. Seriously, Henry James, what is he LIKE?
9.10.10
Contingencies of Value - Barbara Herrnstein Smith
Well, I certainly chose a humdinger for my second blog. 'I'll pick this one,' she says. 'Never mind that it's a million trillion pages long,' she says.
So, I learnt (or re-learnt) a lot of very nice words from this reading, including 'axiological', 'hermeneutic' and 'hypostasization', and for that I thank Smith. But I was, like I'm sure many were, a wee bit skeptical about the proposed 'project' of devising 'descriptions and accounts of all the other phenomena and activities involved in literary and aesthetic evaluation in relation to our more general understanding... of human culture and behavior.' What a grand idea! I thought perhaps it might work as an approach to the evaluation of a text, perhaps as an alternative branch of theoretical investigation, but as a project? The mind, it boggles. So really, although I sympathised to a certain extent with her criticism of the rather teleological way the canon is built and defended ('We've always called this a classic, and thus it's a classic') I couldn't help but see all that came after in the light of this monstrous task I knew she was proposing.
One part I found interesting in a lot of ways was the idea, which I've recognised in many forms before, that any attempt to instill 'utility' in a piece of 'literature' or 'art' is to 'misuse' it. 'Utility' here is opposed to the 'function' Smith describes later, such as serving mankind etc., I mean rather by 'utility' a more pragmatic usage which is considered outside of the object's original function. This made me think, since I'm a fan of design blogs which feature a lot of DIY, about all the uses I've seen over the years for old books which aren't going to be read. Strap them together and make a table, they say. Fold the pages back in sections and make a nice little stand for a pot plant. Rip all the pages out and use them to decoupage something. And without fail, on every single one of those project posts, there will be a bunch of hysterical, 'You can't do that to BOOKS! THAT'S BLASPHEMY!' comments. I know this is a very literal interpretation of the idea of a functional misuse of an object which is supposed to have unquestionable intrinsic value, but I thought it was an interesting point considering that the overarching topic seems to be the danger of assuming value and 'mystifying' canonical works. Those commenters are 'the reading public', and they obviously have a pretty strong idea of the value inherent in a published work, regardless of which particular work it is (I made a pot stand out of Anna Karenina. I apologise for nothing). An idea, I suppose Smith would suggest, that has been instilled in them by the elevation of the book as an item of intrinsic value by the professional reading class.
I found Smith's arguments regarding the ways value is ascribed to be fairly convincing, but I would be interested to read much more about the ways she would collect and document all the contingencies she lists on which axiological judgement is based, for individuals and the academy. I could certainly see from an anecdotal perspective how those contingencies would naturally affect any reading, even a later reading of the same text, because I know I do that myself all the time. But I really fail to see how they could possibly be collated in any useful or empirical way.
So, I learnt (or re-learnt) a lot of very nice words from this reading, including 'axiological', 'hermeneutic' and 'hypostasization', and for that I thank Smith. But I was, like I'm sure many were, a wee bit skeptical about the proposed 'project' of devising 'descriptions and accounts of all the other phenomena and activities involved in literary and aesthetic evaluation in relation to our more general understanding... of human culture and behavior.' What a grand idea! I thought perhaps it might work as an approach to the evaluation of a text, perhaps as an alternative branch of theoretical investigation, but as a project? The mind, it boggles. So really, although I sympathised to a certain extent with her criticism of the rather teleological way the canon is built and defended ('We've always called this a classic, and thus it's a classic') I couldn't help but see all that came after in the light of this monstrous task I knew she was proposing.
One part I found interesting in a lot of ways was the idea, which I've recognised in many forms before, that any attempt to instill 'utility' in a piece of 'literature' or 'art' is to 'misuse' it. 'Utility' here is opposed to the 'function' Smith describes later, such as serving mankind etc., I mean rather by 'utility' a more pragmatic usage which is considered outside of the object's original function. This made me think, since I'm a fan of design blogs which feature a lot of DIY, about all the uses I've seen over the years for old books which aren't going to be read. Strap them together and make a table, they say. Fold the pages back in sections and make a nice little stand for a pot plant. Rip all the pages out and use them to decoupage something. And without fail, on every single one of those project posts, there will be a bunch of hysterical, 'You can't do that to BOOKS! THAT'S BLASPHEMY!' comments. I know this is a very literal interpretation of the idea of a functional misuse of an object which is supposed to have unquestionable intrinsic value, but I thought it was an interesting point considering that the overarching topic seems to be the danger of assuming value and 'mystifying' canonical works. Those commenters are 'the reading public', and they obviously have a pretty strong idea of the value inherent in a published work, regardless of which particular work it is (I made a pot stand out of Anna Karenina. I apologise for nothing). An idea, I suppose Smith would suggest, that has been instilled in them by the elevation of the book as an item of intrinsic value by the professional reading class.
I found Smith's arguments regarding the ways value is ascribed to be fairly convincing, but I would be interested to read much more about the ways she would collect and document all the contingencies she lists on which axiological judgement is based, for individuals and the academy. I could certainly see from an anecdotal perspective how those contingencies would naturally affect any reading, even a later reading of the same text, because I know I do that myself all the time. But I really fail to see how they could possibly be collated in any useful or empirical way.
8.10.10
Bunnehz
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| My one and only - via Today + Tomorrow |
This is what it's like inside my head right now. The end of semester really brings out the corgi video Googling, Armstrong + Miller watching (those three are ALL awesome and so is this one, but it's NSFW/ NSF-aged parents/ small children on account of there's loads of swears) generally procrastinating slackabout in me. Oh and here's an article ABOUT procrastination from the New Yorker if you want to feel intelligent while wasting time. You're welcome. The conclusion: meh. Everybody does it. No biggie.
So, am I gonna do any study now?
Jon Hamm says no. Jon Hamm is always right.
Onward with the links then! What else do I have... oh, today I saw this video, which I know I'm a little behind the times with since the artist's site says it was exhibited earlier this year, but I just LOVE TiltShift, because I'm a hipster like that, and I think this is so adorable. I don't know if that's how artists envisage their work being described, but there you are. I think it's adorable. TiltShift is a technique which removes the effect of atmosphere from an image and blurs the edges so there's a clear focus on a small area, which makes a picture of normal sized stuff look miniature (and adorable!). And what do you know, there's an app for that!
And finally, youse guys, if you haven't checked out Allie Brosh's blog you are missing an EXCELLENT procrastination tool. She's a treasure. Almost as treasured as Jon Hamm.
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