Golden Notebook entry #3
“There we all stood, the five of us, surveying the triumph of common-sense” (399). This comment is made by Anna as she narrates the scene of Paul placing the little mating grasshoppers with each other and the big mating grasshoppers with each other. There are a few sides to this line that I want to take into consideration. The first is in taking the sentiment literally—what does this line designate common-sense to be? What value does that give to common-sense, as Anna sees it? Also, it seems fairly apparent that the comment is made in good humor, giving it a possible ironic reading (in fact this seems very likely). If read ironically, then why is it funny? What is going on that is not common-sense or plays on typical ideas of common sense? Okay, enough questions; here I go!
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Golden Notebook entry #2
While hunting for articles that would interest me on The Golden Notebook, I came across an article by Doris Lessing regarding the less than positive reception the book received when it first came out. The article was published in The Guardian’s website on January 27th of 2007 with the title “Guarded welcome: Doris Lessing on the history of The Golden Notebook’s troubled reception.” This article intrigued me for two reasons: 1) because it was something about the book straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak 2) I have been enjoying the book thoroughly and was intrigued to learn that the book was not initially well received, which engaged me from an interest in a historical perspective of the work and from a literary interest in what changed that the book was now given such high academic consideration.
(The article can be found here.)
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Golden Notebook & Gravity’s Rainbow journals
I am keeping on-going writing journals of both Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook and Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. The entries are written during the process of reading the books, so the observations may feel in some ways incomplete because all the facts aren’t in yet. Either way, I hope to offer some useful observations.
This first entry is taken from near the beginning of The Golden Notebook:
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Strawson versus Russell
The Russell articles made reference to here, in my case (though not necessarily Strawson’s), are “On Denoting” and “Descriptions.”
The most interesting point of departure for me between Russell and Strawson is the one that Strawson uses to really get “On Referring” going. By this point, Strawson has suggested that “The King of France is wise” (hereafter S) is significant, or has a meaning. He identifies the two ways in which Russell would admit this type of sentence to be significant, and they amount to (1) that the sentence’s grammatical form does not reveal the sentence’s logical form, so a sentence could be a special kind of sentence that has logical significance in spite of its grammar, and (2) that the grammatical subject of the sentence is a proper name, and the significance of the sentence is “the individual thing it designates” (248). Strawson does not agree.
Strawson acknowledges how Russell’s argument works and that it is logical, following a clear line of thinking while accounting for possible problems. However, Strawson clarifies that Russell is overlooking a distinction that needs to be made. Strawson divides out the thing itself, in this case an expression that is used in a “uniquely referring way” like the “King of France” in sentence S, and also notes that a sentence can have various uses, as well as utterances.
I think this choice of Strawson’s makes more sense because he is acknowledging different occurrences of language. Russell’s model assumes that language serves a single function, and he seems to overlook or readily move past the idea that an utterance of sentence S earlier in history would have a different value than a contemporary utterance. By avoiding this reduction, or rather expanding out Russell’s theory, Strawson constructs a more flexible model that can accommodate language as it occurs in a wide variety of circumstances.
Strawson applies this model in III (352), showing that S in particular utterances is significant and asserts something true or false, but in a contemporary setting it remains significant because of the sentence’s capacity to say something true or false, even though when S is uttered now it does not mention anyone in particular and therefore does not say anything either true or false. The flexibility of Strawson’s argument is what attracts me to it, and his explanation of the problem with sentence S is more satisfying and seemingly less problematic than Russell’s. Even though the model seems more complex the resulting explanations are less-so.
A Question I Could Not Answer
In reading Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, my mind has been conflicted with whether or not the internal self-awareness of her characters is accurate to the way people are. I consider myself self-aware, but this book has certainly altered my mindset and put me someplace I had not imagined before. It reminds me of the convoluted yet seemingly simplistic emotions in Wuthering Heights, which is interesting because I hate that book but truly enjoy The Golden Notebook. Anyway, here’s a little Joycean epiphany I suppose–a moment of clarity that had to be found and could not be written without the experience.
“You okay there?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” I heard the defensiveness in his counter-question, realizing that in some ways it answered what I had asked. But the “why wouldn’t I be” was of course the question I could never answer.
“Nothin’, you just looked really sleepy there.” And instead of pointing out what I knew, I replied defensively, covering myself or the hostility I felt in his reply with something easier to walk away from.
To Old Causes and New Objectives
I have often criticized other writers, poets, and critics for fighting battles they already knew they could win, for preaching to the choir, etc. etc. This is also my complaint against slam poetry, even though I myself am a fan of the spectacle that is slam. I won’t name names, but we’ve all heard the gay rights poems given to a crowd of liberal college students, none of whom can help but feel overjoyed that someone is championing what they feel is right. But why rally those who already agree? They already support the argument.
I ask this question also of myself. Do I bring anything new to literature? Are the arguments I champion, although they maybe intellectual or intelligently argued, little more than derivatives or regurgitated information? Have I ever really challenged someone? I cannot answer with certainty.
In the opening to my review for LSU’s The New Delta Review on Megan Volpert’s new book the desense of nonfense, I talk about how Keats proclaimed the value of nonsense, just as Megan does now. And she does it because the cause needs a new champion. The torch was dropped somewhere and people thought that nonsense was without value, so she put forth an effort to prove them wrong. That is a hard battle to win.
And I respect people who choose battles not knowing whether or not they can win. And I want to be able to do that too. I just haven’t found out what to champion yet. I am trying to make a dent as a writer in the classical subject of combat and address issues about fighting that have been left alone or only expressed vaguely in sports-related writing. I’m not sure if that’s where I will end up in the future; although, I do not doubt it will be a lasting influence as it is so much a part of my life.
So instead of seeking to strengthen the existing, I want to expand it–I seek to be derived from. One maxim that has always kept me company is “do not follow in the footsteps of the masters, rather seek what they sought.”
Review/Interview Coming to a Close
Well, I have drafted my second review of Volpert’s book, which is about 200 words longer than the review I submitted to Kenyon, and is much more in-depth. Although, the interview is something even more splendid. Some of the answers have proven very insightful, and I think would be useful to anyone aspiring to be a successful poet, as well as the teachers of said aspirers. This interview/review should be in the summer issue for 2009, and I highly recommend you go and order it when it comes out (if not before) from The New Delta Review’s site at http://www.lsu.edu/newdeltareview/.
Circumventurous
A typical laugh
atypical laugh
typical, a laugh
laugh atypical
a laugh, typical
typical, laugh a…
troublesome child
trouble, some child
some troubled child
childsome trouble
some child trouble
trouble child some
alas, alas!
We see a typical child somewhat troubled by laughter.
Postmodernist Haiku
“Every morning when I wake”
Where am I?
What do I need to do?
Which of me is to do it?
—–
“The Unmoved Mover”
So once I told this story
about how I told this story to some friends,
each of me telling a different story
about telling a story.
Except for me.
—–
And here’s a little quotation from the opening paragraph of Descartes’ “First Meditation: What can be called into doubt” (normally I avoid just posting straight quotations, but I couldn’t resist):
“So today I have expressly rid my mind of all worries and arranged for myself a clear stretch of free time. I am here quite alone, and at last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions” (17-18).
Frege Returns!
This is looking at another section of Frege’s “On Sense and Nominatum” article. It’s after he establishes sense and nominatum for individual words and begins to consider what the sense and nominatum are for a whole sentence.
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Warnings from “The Dead” in Joyce’s Dubliners
This is old. And by old, I mean it was written before I developed a more carefully honed critical edge in my writing. If anything, the largest failing of this essay is that it can’t make up its mind between including everything and proving a finely crafted point/thesis. Still, I think there are some worthwhile observations herein, so I have decided to finally post it, and I have made some small changes to make the argument a more solid contribution to the study of Joyce, specifically “The Dead” and Dubliners. Also the articles this article refers to have gone missing from my files, so I cannot be certain which books, etc. it refers to; although, I imagine they wouldn’t be that hard to track down.
“The Dead” as Our Door Out of Dubliners
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Gottlob Frege–Sense and Reference
“Breaking the Sense Barrier”
Perhaps I should institute a philosophy section, eh? This is a short write up regarding the problem that leads into Gottlob Frege’s article “Über Sinn und Bedeutung.” The link provided is to a version of the article translated into English; if you want the original German click here. I read parts of it in German to better grasp concepts that seemed iffy in English. Anyway, I’m coming to grips with some philosophy of language, and Frege’s article arguably kicks off the new wave revolution of philosophy involving language. Here’s a quick introduction to the problem he is trying to address and why his first attempt at tackling it failed (but he does a much better job taking it on in the article).
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On Antiphon
“Philosophy”
I planted a bed,
which grew into a tree
that I sleep in.
“TBD”
Here is the last segment of the core TBD poems. There is one determinant that has not yet been finished, but it will be shortly, which will draw the experimental compilation of the TBD Series to a close.
—–17
“TBD”
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Update on Fortune Cookie Muse
Fortune Cookie Muse has moved over to blogspot! The old review of this writing blog has had its links changed to accommodate, and the link off of this site has been changed to its new location as well. The blog is updating again, and you should definitely check it out!
