If you've somehow stumbled across this blog, and you pay attention to the dates on the posts, you'll see that I abandoned this blog almost five years ago. I did not delete it, because I thought it could stand alone as a Web 1.0 style record of my own reading of Composition No. 1, albeit an incomplete one.
You'll also see that I abandoned it only about a third of the way through the novel's 150 pages. I was keeping this blog during a fall semester of teaching freshman composition classes, and I stopped updating my progress on the blog just about the time midterms came due.
Now, almost five years later, I have re-read the book. I actually saw it sitting on the my shelf on a weekend I had mostly free and thought that it would be a good time to experiment with it by reading in a different order. So I shuffled the pages by throwing them at my son, who was recording with a camera phone, until we got a clip that I liked (about four takes). Then I picked the pages up in whatever order they lay in front of me, realigned them so they were all facing the same direction, and began reading again.
Here, I am going to try to track my new experience with the book by looking at some major elements of the story. I'll pause here first to suggest that if you (dear reader, whoever you are) have not yet read the book but plan to, you should stop and read it first. I do this so that my reading here won't cloud your own perceptions of the novel. I also encourage you to take notes so that you can track your experience, then compare what you find with my reading here. You may even wish to read my older posts so you can see how my own perceptions changed between my two readings.
Point of View:
Point of View is tricky in this novel. It is third person, and seems mostly to be a very close third person to the unnamed male protagonist(?) of the book (who Saporta called X in his original introduction). Interestingly, narration about X is very indirect in the scenes that he seems to actually be in. People respond to him, touch him, and so on, but he himself never speaks. His actions are described through a kind of passive voice, indirectly described as what's being done to other characters. The reader must guess what he might have said whenever a character responds to X. In scenes where he does not directly interact with others, it is never very clear as to whether or not he is actually the character the narration describes. In other words, things happen to someone, and the reader is quick to assume that it is X, but this is never specified (and in this second reading, I've doubted that X was the character involved in events where I had previously assumed he was).
The Resistance:
The novel is set during WW2, and throughout the novel, scenes are inserted that describe movements of the French resistance, the German soldiers who are hunting and arresting (and killing) members of the resistance. After two reading, I am still very unclear as to whether or not any of the main characters of the book are directly involved in any of this. The one clue is that there is an apparent act of espionage in which someone (possibly X) steals documents from an office. These documents are, at one point, said to be the confessions of resistance fighters. It seems that X is breaking into the office of his own manager, but he does not seem to have any use for such confessions (at least, nothing else in the narrative suggests he does). He does, however, have plenty of reason to steal other things: money, a mortgage possibly. So I am left to wonder if X steals these documents, but did not intend to, whether or not there are actually two thefts by both X and someone else, or whether X is himself the spy stealing these confessions. In any case, these scenes describing much bigger world events amplify the profane nature of the main plot. In the sweeping events of a great war, a man is having affairs while his wife goes nuts.
The Car Accident:
Several scenes describe parts of a horrific auto accident which leads, it seems, to someone's hospitalization. The first time I read the novel, I thought that X was not the injured driver, but the other driver who tries to convince the bystanders that he was not at fault. This time, I spent most of the novel under the impression that it was X is the injured driver, plunging into the water. Toward the "end" however, one scene made me wonder if in fact it was Marianne plunging into the water after one of her fits of insanity caused her to believe that a hitchhiker was endangering her.
Dagmar:
In both my readings, Dagmar is the most endearing character for me. She is confident, easy going, and attractive (though the text makes clear that she is "not even pretty" she is also clearly alluring). It's never clear whether or not she knows that she is the Other Woman. X confesses to her, and she forgives him, saying that she can forgive anything but lying and that things would be different if she found out on her own. It is unclear if X is confessing his marriage or his "affair" with Helga, his 17-18 years old nanny. She eventually leaves X, but it is not clear why. There is no scene to explain this; she is simply suddenly absent.
Marianne's Madness:
Marianne was mentally ill very early in this reading: before X's infidelities are discussed, and before the scenes in which her friend Francine is dying. This made a big difference in my second reading. In my first reading, I noted that X's affairs seemed to cause her madness (I had forgotten this until I re-read my old posts after this second reading). In this reading, Marianne is mad from the beginning. This allowed a more sympathetic reading of X. Her madness is unbearable, so X's affairs seems more easily understandable. He refuses to divorce her in "her condition," but he carries on affairs nonetheless. He seems to be moving on though he remains married to her for the sake of propriety.
The Rape:
The first time I read the book, the statute for Rape appeared on the very first page for me, so I assumed (and still do) that X's affair with Helga is, in fact, rape. The scenes themselves however make this a bit unclear. She seems to fight him off, but then submit and experience pleasure. She smiles, pulls X in close to her and so on. In both readings I have struggled to figure out if Helga is supposed to be coquettish, feigning resistance while actually welcoming X's assault. In my first reading, I was willing to re-interpret the affair based on these scenes. The "Rape" statute complicated the affair because she is his employee, not because the sex was non-consensual. His actions were wrong and illegal, but not violent. I find that this time, even though the scenes where Helga seems to express pleasure come first and the statute for Rape came in the last few pages, I am actually less inclined to see these scenes as anything but rape. Perhaps this says more about my evolution as a reader in the last five years than the order of events on this reading. Somehow, I distrust the narrator now, where I did not five years ago. I am more inclined to read perversion into the narrator's insistence that Helga is experiencing pleasure, rather than taking the narrator at his word. The narrator may describe Helga as experience pleasure, but that doesn't make it true.
Everyone is Dying, but No One Dies:
In a novel that it completely non-linear, at least three of the major characters appears to be dying: X in the auto accident, Francine of cancer, and Marianne who is starving herself to death. Yet, since this novel cannot build to a definite end, these death scenes are not included (the deaths of members of the resistance is suggested but no one who appears in more than one page is scene to die). Certainly, it would be possible to include these scenes. Reading one of these early on might make the plot look like flashback while reading one late may look like climax. The fact that each of these storylines seems to be heading toward a death that never comes gives the novel a different feel entirely. The present tense of the narration, combined with the non-linearity of events, and the seeming march toward a death that never occurs gives the novel a feeling of being en media res. The novel has the feel of being X's "life flashing before your eyes." This lack of finality has an eerie effect. Perhaps it is you, dear reader, who has died in the middle of things, while these stories are still in the middle of unfolding.
Traditional Reading Habits/Non-Traditional Text
One of the things I have found interesting in re-reading Composition No. 1 has been examining my own reading habits and how they influenced my reading. Serious readers will be aware of the concept of "gaps" or the presence of holes in a narrative that are filled in by readers. We tend to fill these gaps with what, to us, seem logical based on the content and context of the narrative. For instance, without even realizing it, the reader of Genesis may assume that the serpent in the garden is Satan, a detail not explicit in the narrative.
In Composition No. 1, I found myself filling in not just narrative gaps, but structural ones as well. I hint at this in the last section by discussing the plot as being like a flashback. We have been taught to read in specific, culturally bound ways. Our texts tend to come in recognizable structures. In a text like this one, I suspect that we press these structures onto the text, even if the text resists them.
Composition No. 1 consists of 150 loose leaf pages, each containing a stand-alone scene. There can be no purposeful "rising action" since the order of events is assigned at random. There can be no "plot-thickeners" since there isn't even really a discernible plot-line. There can be no actual "climax" since there is no event to which the other events (the rising action) can ultimately and inevitable lead. Chekhov's proverbial gun found in Act 1 can't be fired in Act 3, since we don't know from one reading to the next which events will be in which act. This text violates Aristotle since A cannot lead to B if that order cannot even be guaranteed. But this does not mean that we are willing to violate Aristotle.
I find that where I was in the text, and the order than I came across events caused me to see these events as rising actions or plot devices or other tropes. When a substantial event happened about five pages from the end, I couldn't help but to think of that as the "climax." That event, simply by random placement in the story, became the point that everything led to. My imagination was willing to fill in how.
In this second reading, the last line of the book was Dagmar saying "I am happy." Because it came last, this became the resolution for me. Dagmar is the character who turned out alright (which to me, meant that she separated herself from these other characters). This was aided by the fact that I liked Dagmar the most, and wanted her to turn out alright. My own reading habits forced me to impose a structure onto the story, and this necessarily shaped the way I read the story.
Rethinking Text:
Ultimately, whats so fun about reading/re-reading Composition No. 1 is that it forces the reader to confront all this stuff. By dispensing with linearity, through the simple act of unbinding the book, this novel lays bare the way our expectations of narrative, of character, of plot line, and of structure influence our reading. By shaking these things up, and thus denaturalizing them, the book causes us to notice them and to question them. Readers will often say that they read a piece differently every time they re-read it, and they usually mean that they noticed details they've never noticed before. Composition No. 1 goes way beyond that. We not only re-read the novel, but we re-read the act of reading itself.
Showing posts with label linearity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label linearity. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2016
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The Novel in Five Pages
First, to get the big thing out of the way, the Rape scene appeared on page 45. So many of my questions have now been answered. The rape was (technically) consensual. That is to say Helga was willing, rather than being raped by force or extortion. She smiles, she experiences pleasure, she pulls her own body closer to his. But, she is also "a girl becoming a woman." Helga is young (how young?), and a married man with another mistress has taken advantage of her childishness. Also, the opening page seems to suggest that X is some kind of legal superior to her. So, this is a rape. X is a villain. But he is, perhaps, a softer villain than he could have been. Or I'm giving him credit because if my own American desire to find the central character of a work of literature sympathetic
Microcosm of the Novel
Today's reading was interesting in that it seemed to encompass all the important themes of the novel in one sitting. The first page featured Dagmar walking through the city streets (a common event on the novel), this time on her way to "this first meeting." She is, as usual, effortlessly beautiful despite herself and this seems to be her first romantic meeting (date) with X. This is the beginning of their romance. The second page contains a car wreck (another?) in which "death is so gentle it makes indifference easier." Who's death is unclear. Of course, most vague personal references in the novel seem to point to X, but that seems hard to accept in this case. This may be the "end" of Marianne. At any rate, it is an end. And this end just happens to occur the page after a beginning.
These two pages, then, create a sort of merism--the entire novel could take place between this beginning and this ending. The rest of today's reading seems to fall naturally between these two events, and the events on these pages represent the most important themes of the novel. Page 43 addresses the macro-cosmic events of the war, as anti-Nazi leaflets are dropped from a high window at Sorbonne (the University of Paris). Page 44 contains a description of Dagmar's apartment/studio where hangs her unfinished work Composition No. 1. Finally, page 45 (the last page of this session) contains the Rape scene--THE unifier of this novel.
If this had been a narrative strategy, it would have been a very interesting one. Narrate the beginning, then the end, then all the stuff in between. Of course, here, it's accidental, and is perhaps even an accident of my own interpretation.
Microcosm of the Novel
Today's reading was interesting in that it seemed to encompass all the important themes of the novel in one sitting. The first page featured Dagmar walking through the city streets (a common event on the novel), this time on her way to "this first meeting." She is, as usual, effortlessly beautiful despite herself and this seems to be her first romantic meeting (date) with X. This is the beginning of their romance. The second page contains a car wreck (another?) in which "death is so gentle it makes indifference easier." Who's death is unclear. Of course, most vague personal references in the novel seem to point to X, but that seems hard to accept in this case. This may be the "end" of Marianne. At any rate, it is an end. And this end just happens to occur the page after a beginning.
These two pages, then, create a sort of merism--the entire novel could take place between this beginning and this ending. The rest of today's reading seems to fall naturally between these two events, and the events on these pages represent the most important themes of the novel. Page 43 addresses the macro-cosmic events of the war, as anti-Nazi leaflets are dropped from a high window at Sorbonne (the University of Paris). Page 44 contains a description of Dagmar's apartment/studio where hangs her unfinished work Composition No. 1. Finally, page 45 (the last page of this session) contains the Rape scene--THE unifier of this novel.
If this had been a narrative strategy, it would have been a very interesting one. Narrate the beginning, then the end, then all the stuff in between. Of course, here, it's accidental, and is perhaps even an accident of my own interpretation.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
X's Three Women
I read ten pages today instead of five, which is probably okay since I have catching up to do anyway. Today, we are back to the serendipity of theme. A lot of today's pages dealt with Marianne.
Francine is dying of intestinal cancer and Marianne, as before, refuses to leave her side. Marianne insists that she has cancer as well, but I suspect that her cancer is metaphorical. Dr. Brun doubts her self-diagnosis as well and suggests that Marianne has a nervous condition. In these pages, Marianne also threatens, apparently, to leave X and she goes so far as to leave the apartment building and get into the car, which she cannot drive. She also threatens suicide, locking herself in a bathroom. Interestingly, X does not take her seriously and continues his argument with her, implying that she is lazy (this is narrated and not quoted. X is still technically absent from this narrative). He finally must try to beat the door down and, when she comes out on her own, she has cut her wrists. The injury is not serious. On the last page of today's reading, she sits on the floor and sobs, refusing X's help in standing. The reason she gives for her anger is that he never calls her from work. This is clearly trivial, so she seems to be hiding the fact that she knows what is going on in X's other relationships, though she will not confront him.
Contrasting Marianne's character on these pages, we see Dagmar walking through the winter air in a well fitting dress. Dagmar seems constantly and effortlessly beautiful. So, considering Marianne's characterization as a fading, perhaps even dying woman, it is understandable that X would fall in love with her. Even if it is not honorable, it is forgivable. How can he be expected to resist falling in love with the vivacious Dagmar.
But then there's Helga. Whatever will happen with her is, even before it happens, unforgivable. On page 38, X appears in the garden below Helga's window. It is summer now and her window, depending on the angle from which one is looking at it, appear either black or bright white (a significant dichotomy). Helga finally sticks her head out the window and, seeing X, grins before thrusting her head back into the window and shutting it. Though her grinning seems coquettish and inviting, she is also taking detours to get into her apartment without X seeing her. So here, X seems a bit like Nabokov's Humbert Humbert. He takes Helga's nervous politeness as being purposefully alluring, as if she is playing a playful game with him. She may, in fact, be trying to escape him.
Synthesis:
By looking at the three women to whom X is connected, we get a complex look at X. X seems capable of romantic love with Dagmar, reluctant loyalty (though not faithfulness) to Marianne, and imperialistic brutality toward Helga.
Much of the way in which the reader will interpret X's character then may come from the order that these characters appear and the order that pieces of the narrative is revealed. The very first page of the novel, for me, contained the statute for rape. So from the very beginning, I knew X as a rapist. This characterization clouds all other views of X. Sure, he may wish to salvage his marriage, but he is salvaging it from his own horrific crimes. He may have a compelling romance with the easy to love Dagmar, but he is also a rapist.
Would this characterization change if the order of events had been different? If I knew of his failing marriage first, would I see his clearly exploitative (but not necessarily forced) affair with Helga as a desperate search for something he dies not get at home? If I knew of his love for Dagmar first, would I see his inappropriate dealings with Helga as the flaw of a man who is too easily enamored with pretty things? Or would the rape take over, even if it had come at the end? To what extent, then, is the softening or hardening of my feeling for X determined by the line of the story?
Francine is dying of intestinal cancer and Marianne, as before, refuses to leave her side. Marianne insists that she has cancer as well, but I suspect that her cancer is metaphorical. Dr. Brun doubts her self-diagnosis as well and suggests that Marianne has a nervous condition. In these pages, Marianne also threatens, apparently, to leave X and she goes so far as to leave the apartment building and get into the car, which she cannot drive. She also threatens suicide, locking herself in a bathroom. Interestingly, X does not take her seriously and continues his argument with her, implying that she is lazy (this is narrated and not quoted. X is still technically absent from this narrative). He finally must try to beat the door down and, when she comes out on her own, she has cut her wrists. The injury is not serious. On the last page of today's reading, she sits on the floor and sobs, refusing X's help in standing. The reason she gives for her anger is that he never calls her from work. This is clearly trivial, so she seems to be hiding the fact that she knows what is going on in X's other relationships, though she will not confront him.
Contrasting Marianne's character on these pages, we see Dagmar walking through the winter air in a well fitting dress. Dagmar seems constantly and effortlessly beautiful. So, considering Marianne's characterization as a fading, perhaps even dying woman, it is understandable that X would fall in love with her. Even if it is not honorable, it is forgivable. How can he be expected to resist falling in love with the vivacious Dagmar.
But then there's Helga. Whatever will happen with her is, even before it happens, unforgivable. On page 38, X appears in the garden below Helga's window. It is summer now and her window, depending on the angle from which one is looking at it, appear either black or bright white (a significant dichotomy). Helga finally sticks her head out the window and, seeing X, grins before thrusting her head back into the window and shutting it. Though her grinning seems coquettish and inviting, she is also taking detours to get into her apartment without X seeing her. So here, X seems a bit like Nabokov's Humbert Humbert. He takes Helga's nervous politeness as being purposefully alluring, as if she is playing a playful game with him. She may, in fact, be trying to escape him.
Synthesis:
By looking at the three women to whom X is connected, we get a complex look at X. X seems capable of romantic love with Dagmar, reluctant loyalty (though not faithfulness) to Marianne, and imperialistic brutality toward Helga.
Much of the way in which the reader will interpret X's character then may come from the order that these characters appear and the order that pieces of the narrative is revealed. The very first page of the novel, for me, contained the statute for rape. So from the very beginning, I knew X as a rapist. This characterization clouds all other views of X. Sure, he may wish to salvage his marriage, but he is salvaging it from his own horrific crimes. He may have a compelling romance with the easy to love Dagmar, but he is also a rapist.
Would this characterization change if the order of events had been different? If I knew of his failing marriage first, would I see his clearly exploitative (but not necessarily forced) affair with Helga as a desperate search for something he dies not get at home? If I knew of his love for Dagmar first, would I see his inappropriate dealings with Helga as the flaw of a man who is too easily enamored with pretty things? Or would the rape take over, even if it had come at the end? To what extent, then, is the softening or hardening of my feeling for X determined by the line of the story?
Friday, October 7, 2011
Laying Blame/Thematic Serendipity
Today, we learn that X is a person who passes blame, sometimes without even having to do it himself. On page 25, we learn that X is the driver of one of the vehicles involved in the car crash alluded to earlier. He accuses the other driver of being at fault saying that he himself had the right-of-way and that the other driver was driving way too fast. This might be believable (and may even be true) except that this page falls among others that seem to characterize X as a person who is always shifting blame.
On page 24, Helga is being kissed (by X, no doubt) and is "unsure" of whether or not she will allow it or to fight it. But we don't get the impression that this is a decision about whether or not she likes it, but about whether or not she can "defend herself." This suggests that her passivity will allow X to convince himself, or at least argue to others, that whatever happens between he and Helga was consensual--that she was a willing participant, even if she is only a willing "girl." To him, this will not be a rape but an affair.
Even when X is not purposefully trying to shift blame, others seem to take his blame upon themselves. On page 22, X has confessed to Dagmar, who pretends not to suffer. She takes a share of his crime on herself, feeling as though she is somehow an accomplice, perhaps only because she loves him. She tells X that just as she must forgive him for his faults, he also must forgive her for his faults. It seems that X will not ever have to take full blame for what he himself does.
Serendipitous Thematic Continuity
I have been surprised day to day how well pages I read in succession fit together thematically. The pages on day 1 seemed to center around the theme of small dramas occurring within larger historical dramas. Day 3 foreshadowed the consequences that are inevitably to come for X. The pages on day 4 seemed to all suggest a quality of flashback. And on day 5, we get three examples of X shifting blame to others.
The serendipitous thematic arrangement of these pages has made me wonder more than once if I have shuffled the pages well enough. Perhaps, I have failed to mix the pages up as much as I should and I am seeing some of the author's hand in organizing ideas.
But the fact that these themes seem to be divided perfectly according to day (one day, one theme) makes me think that something else is going on. Here is more evidence that my own brain, in its act of reading and interpreting, is providing its own continuity. The act of reading, then, involves taking possibly disparate pieces of information, and finding among them ways to connect them. Of course, if one follows my descriptions, one will probably see why I reasonably interpreted these pages the way I did--why I saw the themes that I say I saw. But how much of this is my own careful editing, my own picking and choosing information that seems to fit together into a coherent story while leaving the dross on the floor to be swept away.
This suggests that the reader has a great deal of agency, even if unknowingly, in interpreting any narrative. If the events of this story don't make any sense to one reader, it has as much to do with the reader's ability or inability to find and invent narrative threads as it does with the author's own virtuosity or clumsiness. Perhaps this is why we tend to see in any narrative what we are looking for. A Marxist will always see power relationships and class structure. A rhetorician will always see devices the author is using to convince the reader to believe or feel a particular way. So (and this is not news to anyone) we bring as much to the table as the author does.
On page 24, Helga is being kissed (by X, no doubt) and is "unsure" of whether or not she will allow it or to fight it. But we don't get the impression that this is a decision about whether or not she likes it, but about whether or not she can "defend herself." This suggests that her passivity will allow X to convince himself, or at least argue to others, that whatever happens between he and Helga was consensual--that she was a willing participant, even if she is only a willing "girl." To him, this will not be a rape but an affair.
Even when X is not purposefully trying to shift blame, others seem to take his blame upon themselves. On page 22, X has confessed to Dagmar, who pretends not to suffer. She takes a share of his crime on herself, feeling as though she is somehow an accomplice, perhaps only because she loves him. She tells X that just as she must forgive him for his faults, he also must forgive her for his faults. It seems that X will not ever have to take full blame for what he himself does.
Serendipitous Thematic Continuity
I have been surprised day to day how well pages I read in succession fit together thematically. The pages on day 1 seemed to center around the theme of small dramas occurring within larger historical dramas. Day 3 foreshadowed the consequences that are inevitably to come for X. The pages on day 4 seemed to all suggest a quality of flashback. And on day 5, we get three examples of X shifting blame to others.
The serendipitous thematic arrangement of these pages has made me wonder more than once if I have shuffled the pages well enough. Perhaps, I have failed to mix the pages up as much as I should and I am seeing some of the author's hand in organizing ideas.
But the fact that these themes seem to be divided perfectly according to day (one day, one theme) makes me think that something else is going on. Here is more evidence that my own brain, in its act of reading and interpreting, is providing its own continuity. The act of reading, then, involves taking possibly disparate pieces of information, and finding among them ways to connect them. Of course, if one follows my descriptions, one will probably see why I reasonably interpreted these pages the way I did--why I saw the themes that I say I saw. But how much of this is my own careful editing, my own picking and choosing information that seems to fit together into a coherent story while leaving the dross on the floor to be swept away.
This suggests that the reader has a great deal of agency, even if unknowingly, in interpreting any narrative. If the events of this story don't make any sense to one reader, it has as much to do with the reader's ability or inability to find and invent narrative threads as it does with the author's own virtuosity or clumsiness. Perhaps this is why we tend to see in any narrative what we are looking for. A Marxist will always see power relationships and class structure. A rhetorician will always see devices the author is using to convince the reader to believe or feel a particular way. So (and this is not news to anyone) we bring as much to the table as the author does.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The Immediacy of Memory
After four sittings, the plot is beginning to take shape. On page 16, Dagmar is gone and has left behind a hyperbolic emptiness. An "abyss" opens where she should be at X's side. On the next page, Dagmar is leaving--actually "vanishing." But she is also seen in a square feeding birds and enjoying the remarks of a "bold man" (X), something that seems to happen early in their relationship (which increasingly appears to be an affair). This page, then, seems to be a flashback scene. Finally, on page three Dagmar, who is beautifully dressed, gets into a car.
Obviously, the scenes seem out of order--if it's appropriate to talk about order in this book. Add to this the fact that the second of these pages is narrated like a flashback in the classical sense. The fragmented nature of this novel gives the book a feeling of being a disjointed collection of memories.
Interestingly, though, the narrative is in present tense. This is the case on every page so far. This invests the narrative with extraordinary vividness, as if X is reliving these events even as he remembers them. This combination of non-linearity and presents tense narrative creates a very interesting dichotomy. These events are happening now, but they are somehow also jumbled distant memories. There is an immediacy in the novel that is nevertheless clouded by the fracturing of time.
Obviously, the scenes seem out of order--if it's appropriate to talk about order in this book. Add to this the fact that the second of these pages is narrated like a flashback in the classical sense. The fragmented nature of this novel gives the book a feeling of being a disjointed collection of memories.
Interestingly, though, the narrative is in present tense. This is the case on every page so far. This invests the narrative with extraordinary vividness, as if X is reliving these events even as he remembers them. This combination of non-linearity and presents tense narrative creates a very interesting dichotomy. These events are happening now, but they are somehow also jumbled distant memories. There is an immediacy in the novel that is nevertheless clouded by the fracturing of time.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Continuity and the Fractured Novel
Today's pages raised questions about the point of view of this novel and also broader questions about continuity in literature as a whole.
Point of View
The point of view question may be a premature one, as I have read only ten pages of the 150. But in two scenes today and in at least one from my last session, the main character (generally called X in literature about the work, and in Saporta's original introduction) is alluded to but his actions are never specifically explicated. Marianne (X's wife) "answers," "asks," and shuts doors, but no other character does anything. X's presence, language, and actions are only implied. After two days, I am left to wonder if this will be the way X is dealt with throughout the book, or if he will at some points, have a more explicit presence.
And if he doesn't, what does that mean for the point-of-view of the novel? It is third person, but on the pages where X is implied, the point-of-view seems so close to him that the narrative need not even mention him. Though the narrative is in third person, these pages are seen through the view of X himself. Of course, it is early to tell if this is indeed what is going on. Certainly, most of the pages so far have not involved (so far as the reader can tell) X, and thus are not seen through his point-of-view. Or are they? Are these pages his own imaginative constructions of events he knows about but must invent possibilities as to how these events unfolded? Whatever the case, figuring out the narrative perspective of the novel is adding a layer to interpretation that I had not anticipated.
Continuity and Narrative
The other issue coming out of today's reading is that of narrative continuity. The events of today's pages were rather disjointed. They include a gambler at a craps table, X and Marianne picking up a bloody hitch-hiker, Dagmar in the hospital with Helga looking on, Marianne making a mess of cooking, and Dagmar made up in candlelight, chewing on her lip.
I find that my mind, whether by habit of training or by natural tendency, is trying to connect these pieces somehow chronologically (though I feel comfortable with the idea that they are out of order). I find that I am waiting and searching for clues that will tell me how these events are to unfold in time. But I suspect that these events will remain disjointed and random.
It feels as if I am incredibly inclined to look for continuity to these events. I am now wondering whether this is a reaction to my having been habituated to the idea that continuity is an important part of narrative fiction or of this is a natural reaction. I am, as a post-modern, disinclined to believe that anything is natural, and in fact I do not seem to feel the same type of drive to connect the random events in my life to form some kind of real-world continuity. Or do I?
Is this what we are doing when we try to analyze how our upbringing, or the events in our past have led us to the point where we now find ourselves? While certainly, because of laws of cause and effect, some things from our past (especially the habits and attitudes were are taught, and perhaps large events) effect the outcome of our lives. Certainly, we are effected by our past. But do we also sometimes feel inclined to find continuity where there may be none, to force real life events to fit together somehow when they in fact do not? Do I expect my life to be like a novel, or am I asking novels to be like life? Can a novel like Composition No. 1 help me to become comfortable with the randomness of human existence? Probably not, unless other texts reinforce this new view.
Point of View
The point of view question may be a premature one, as I have read only ten pages of the 150. But in two scenes today and in at least one from my last session, the main character (generally called X in literature about the work, and in Saporta's original introduction) is alluded to but his actions are never specifically explicated. Marianne (X's wife) "answers," "asks," and shuts doors, but no other character does anything. X's presence, language, and actions are only implied. After two days, I am left to wonder if this will be the way X is dealt with throughout the book, or if he will at some points, have a more explicit presence.
And if he doesn't, what does that mean for the point-of-view of the novel? It is third person, but on the pages where X is implied, the point-of-view seems so close to him that the narrative need not even mention him. Though the narrative is in third person, these pages are seen through the view of X himself. Of course, it is early to tell if this is indeed what is going on. Certainly, most of the pages so far have not involved (so far as the reader can tell) X, and thus are not seen through his point-of-view. Or are they? Are these pages his own imaginative constructions of events he knows about but must invent possibilities as to how these events unfolded? Whatever the case, figuring out the narrative perspective of the novel is adding a layer to interpretation that I had not anticipated.
Continuity and Narrative
The other issue coming out of today's reading is that of narrative continuity. The events of today's pages were rather disjointed. They include a gambler at a craps table, X and Marianne picking up a bloody hitch-hiker, Dagmar in the hospital with Helga looking on, Marianne making a mess of cooking, and Dagmar made up in candlelight, chewing on her lip.
I find that my mind, whether by habit of training or by natural tendency, is trying to connect these pieces somehow chronologically (though I feel comfortable with the idea that they are out of order). I find that I am waiting and searching for clues that will tell me how these events are to unfold in time. But I suspect that these events will remain disjointed and random.
It feels as if I am incredibly inclined to look for continuity to these events. I am now wondering whether this is a reaction to my having been habituated to the idea that continuity is an important part of narrative fiction or of this is a natural reaction. I am, as a post-modern, disinclined to believe that anything is natural, and in fact I do not seem to feel the same type of drive to connect the random events in my life to form some kind of real-world continuity. Or do I?
Is this what we are doing when we try to analyze how our upbringing, or the events in our past have led us to the point where we now find ourselves? While certainly, because of laws of cause and effect, some things from our past (especially the habits and attitudes were are taught, and perhaps large events) effect the outcome of our lives. Certainly, we are effected by our past. But do we also sometimes feel inclined to find continuity where there may be none, to force real life events to fit together somehow when they in fact do not? Do I expect my life to be like a novel, or am I asking novels to be like life? Can a novel like Composition No. 1 help me to become comfortable with the randomness of human existence? Probably not, unless other texts reinforce this new view.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Why read Composition No. 1
In 1962, Marc Saporta created a book, or a book work, or just some words that confound the conventions of literature. He did so by a minor technical innovation, or un-innovation: he didn't bind the pages.
Uglow asserts that "the instinct not to manipulate the 'deck' [not to shuffle the pages] is almost overwhelming." What Uglow understands is that, for those of us used to reading literature, conventional bookspace (Lanksheare and Noble) ideas of narrative linearity are seemingly innately sacrosanct. Stories (rather unlike the events of life) must have a beginning, middle, and end (Aristotle), and the writer should maintain careful control of their order. The role of the reader then is relatively passive. She cedes agency to the writer, who guides the reader through a series of carefully constructed and well revised series of narrative events.
Composition No. 1 goes as far as printed literature can in breaking this convention of linearity. As Jay David Bolter notes:
When all other methods of fragmenting the novel have been tried, what remains but to tear the pages out of a book one by one and hand them to the reader? From the ideal of perfect structural control, Saporta brings us to the apparent abdication of control?Since the order of events in a narrative has much to do with how the reader interprets the story, by handing over control of the order of the story, Saporta hands over a great deal of agency to the reader who chooses how to read the pages, or to blind chance when the reader shuffles the pages.
The experience of reading Composition No. 1, then, relies as much on the reader and pure random fate as it does on the writer. The novel is therefore, in as much as printed fiction can be, interactive.
So, while those of is used to reading literature may find it almost pathologically difficult to shuffle the pages of Composition No. 1 before reading, the act is probably more appropriate to the experience of modern reading where "every narrative [is] fragmented by links, pings, mails and #fails; a world where form augments content rather than defines it, where stories unfold across magazines, games, 24-hour news and 140 character messaging" (Uglow).
In the modern reading experience, we control the information (in some ways) as much as it controls us. When we read news stories, we choose how much background information we want by clicking links that lead us backward through previous or related stories. We discredit information we find dubious or images we suspect have been doctored by murderously typing "FAKE" into a comment box. We crave, seek, demand agency in interpreting texts. Composition No. 1 is important because Saporta seemed ready to play with this idea of agency 30 years before the internet made it commonplace.
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