I have been in a quandary over which of the multitude of topics to pick from this book to address. So: I opened the book at random and read a passage and wrote about what came out of that passage.
Here is the passage:
“There, son. It’s better out than in, isn’t it,” said Harold quietly. Howard laughed softly at this phrase: so old, so familiar, so utterly useless. Harold reached forward and touched his son’s knee. then he leaned back in his chair and picked up his remote control.
“She found a black fell, I spose. it was always going to happen, though. It’s their nature.”
He turned the channel to the news. Howard stood up.
“Fuck,” he said frankly, wiping his tears with his shirtsleeve and laughing grimly. I never fucking learn.” He picked up his coat and put it on. :See you, Harry. Let’s leave it a bit longer next time, eh?”
“Oh, no!” whimpered Harold, his face stricken by the calamity of it. “What are you saying? We’re having a nice time, ain’t we?”
Howard stared at him, disbelievingly.
(p.301 of my edition).
One of the multitude of problems the people have in this book with each other is their inability to see beyond their own perspectives and their inability to escape their discourses. (Suggested Reading: Chapter one of Social Linguistics and Literacies, you can find it here ).
Howard and Harold cannot understand the other because each are speaking from a different ideological perspective. Howard and Monty can not speak civilly to one another because their discourses create a climate where one can only see the other through stereotypes of the other. Zora argues passionately for the admittance of nontraditional students at the university from her social justice perspective, but Carl doesn’t understand that perspective. He becomes defensive and sees her and the college as patronizing, patrician, and hypocritical. Levi understands what it means to be black only as far as he is allowed to by whatever media outlet he has access to; while the Haitian, Choo, (Levi cannot even allow him his own name), sees Levi in a seemingly clearer light; yet even his perspective is slanted by his view of the oppressive colonizing West. The climax of the book occurs when Kiki is shaken out of her take on the “stolen” picture (who it is stolen by is determined by whose perspective you follow), when Levi, now at least a little bit shaken out of his own middle-class perspective, reminds Kiki of her more youthful beliefs. Fittingly, Howard has his own epiphany and the hope of reconciliation with Kiki in a moment of silence. The slide show of Rembrant’s paintings where Howard does not talk and lets the power of the Art and the 30 year relationship between he and Kiki speak in a louder voice than either of the spouses could on their own.
This is only one of the many interlaced themes which washed over me in this incredibly lovely, dare I say “Beautiful,” book.
3 comments:
Love this post, Kelly. Funny thing is, I can forgive this sort of lack of empathy in adolescents and young adults who have to figure out their own world first before they can even empathize with another's world. But, in an academic? I always assumed that the whole point of a university education is to be able to at least enter another's cultural (semiotic) world and find oneself empathetic to its inherent coherence. University education is about expanding minds to the point of empathizing with the whole universe. So, Howard and Monty really are tragedies. And this is why I hate academic conferences...and feel so lonely at them (even ethics conferences). I can take just so much of "see my orgasm (academic work and ideas) and experience yourself how wonderful my pleasure is! I hope you can enter my world of truth!"
I completely agree with the redemptive moment for Howard when he experience Rembrandt as Rembrandt and Kiki as Kiki, without the mediation of symbol.
Marilynne Robinson in "Gilead" (character of Jack Ames): In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every since one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable--which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live."
Is not life the explorations of these civilizations in each other? Literature is that exploration. And, I hasten to add, I appreciate the civilization(s) you all represent to me...a joy.
Just a quick comment on Academics. They are just as fragile as the rest of humanity, just as liable to be blinded by their own "false consciousness" perhaps more so because they have spent years learning the fairly narrow and nuanced discourse of their prescribed fields that they fail to see the world around them.
Also I am not sure even adults ever really figure out the world they are a part of: most problems in communication happen I believe because of the set (figured out) view of the world that keeps people from the empathy you claim they have for other's views.
You are unique; not many have the empathy for others you possess, thus your "calling."
And, I quickly found in high school, 'religion' is as fragile as academics. The danger of 'figuring out' the world.
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