Category Archives: literary musings

On rhetoric

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I have no idea why certain words go in certain places, but if certain people do it just right, they make a little bit of literary magic, creating a new thing with meaning, persuasion, tropes, metaphors, and maybe clarity, but maybe not. Rhetoric may or may not be many things, but it is almost always a strategy for some kind of argument, even when the strategy is to make no argument at all. Good rhetoric never shows its hand, running in the background of the text like a silent partner in a big financial deal, and bad rhetoric clumsily runs roughshod over its subject, trampling reason, logic, and beauty, leaving the text full of bomb craters, burned jungle, and ruined temples. Some writers like to get to the point with topic sentences and/or a thesis, while others tend to circle around for a few paragraphs as if they were a hungry panther preparing to strike. The sure sin of bad rhetoric is to be both obvious and boring because if you are boring, then no one finishes reading what you have written. Rhetoric is essentially a mystery that has little to do with good writing, good argumentation, or good organization, although all of those elements might sometimes be a part of good rhetoric. Perhaps rhetoric is about balance, but balancing what? From what I can tell, good rhetoric seems to shun complexity and obscurantism, but simplicity is certainly not the key either. Brevity and clarity may be key elements to good rhetoric, but one doesn’t get anywhere unless they finish what they are saying. Perhaps the key is knowing when to quit.

On rhetoric

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I have no idea why certain words go in certain places, but if certain people do it just right, they make a little bit of literary magic, creating a new thing with meaning, persuasion, tropes, metaphors, and maybe clarity, but maybe not. Rhetoric may or may not be many things, but it is almost always a strategy for some kind of argument, even when the strategy is to make no argument at all. Good rhetoric never shows its hand, running in the background of the text like a silent partner in a big financial deal, and bad rhetoric clumsily runs roughshod over its subject, trampling reason, logic, and beauty, leaving the text full of bomb craters, burned jungle, and ruined temples. Some writers like to get to the point with topic sentences and/or a thesis, while others tend to circle around for a few paragraphs as if they were a hungry panther preparing to strike. The sure sin of bad rhetoric is to be both obvious and boring because if you are boring, then no one finishes reading what you have written. Rhetoric is essentially a mystery that has little to do with good writing, good argumentation, or good organization, although all of those elements might sometimes be a part of good rhetoric. Perhaps rhetoric is about balance, but balancing what? From what I can tell, good rhetoric seems to shun complexity and obscurantism, but simplicity is certainly not the key either. Brevity and clarity may be key elements to good rhetoric, but one doesn’t get anywhere unless they finish what they are saying. Perhaps the key is knowing when to quit.

On translating

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Translating by definition is falsification and, ultimately, betrayal. Languages are not parallel so all translation is marked by what is lost, not by what is gained. All translators know this because it is their job to understand, interpret, and compromise as they switch a text or discourse from one language to another. There is no such thing as a literal translation, and all bilingual people understand this chasm between languages that cannot be bridged by translating. Translation is about changing a text is such a way that it might be understandable to people who don’t speak the original language. All translation is about loss. As I look at an English translation of Dante’s Inferno, I can only lament the loss of rhythm, sound, and rhyme. We get the “gist” of what Dante is saying about sin and shame, ego and pride, but his art as a poet is lost forever: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita. Translating and translation are about the translator turning a blind eye to the myriad and multiple meanings that cling to the original words and sacrificing the author’s creativity and originality so that the text might be accessible to others who fall outside the circle of the author’s language. Yet, translators prevail, get hired, and they do their jobs with little shame or humility. Translations are as ubiquitous as taxes and death. Could it be, all along, that translation is the world’s oldest profession? The problem, of course, is not translation, but the multiple languages the people of the world speak, that Tower of Babel from which we are doomed to inhabit forever. Yet, I am not in favor of making one language a required, dogmatic official language. The more common norm is for people to live in multilingual societies. Even today there are many areas of the world where people speak two, three, or even four languages according to the demands of the social situation. Being multilingual does not solve the problem of translation but it does eliminate the need for translation. If a person speaks Italian, reads Italian, then anything they experience in that language is self-explanatory even if the person’s first language might be German or French. Translation only occurs if the original language is a barrier to understanding the text, or conversation, or song. The only way to approach translation is to assume failure before you even start, and by assuming failure, the translator can only produce a new text which was inspired by the original. In a sense all texts are failed translations of other texts, and there exists no ur-text or Q manuscript which might have been original. Misreading, misunderstandings, ambiguity, mistakes, lacunae, accidents, double-entendre, obscurity, complexity, prejudice, bias, and misinterpretation all plague the translator who cannot avoid or evade his/her own human condition as imperfect translator. In the end, all translators must recognize their failure, ignore the imperfection of their work, and move forward to the next sentence with the understanding that failure is the best they can do. In a larger sense, this is the existential question of the human condition–translator as failure.

On translating

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Translating by definition is falsification and, ultimately, betrayal. Languages are not parallel so all translation is marked by what is lost, not by what is gained. All translators know this because it is their job to understand, interpret, and compromise as they switch a text or discourse from one language to another. There is no such thing as a literal translation, and all bilingual people understand this chasm between languages that cannot be bridged by translating. Translation is about changing a text is such a way that it might be understandable to people who don’t speak the original language. All translation is about loss. As I look at an English translation of Dante’s Inferno, I can only lament the loss of rhythm, sound, and rhyme. We get the “gist” of what Dante is saying about sin and shame, ego and pride, but his art as a poet is lost forever: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita. Translating and translation are about the translator turning a blind eye to the myriad and multiple meanings that cling to the original words and sacrificing the author’s creativity and originality so that the text might be accessible to others who fall outside the circle of the author’s language. Yet, translators prevail, get hired, and they do their jobs with little shame or humility. Translations are as ubiquitous as taxes and death. Could it be, all along, that translation is the world’s oldest profession? The problem, of course, is not translation, but the multiple languages the people of the world speak, that Tower of Babel from which we are doomed to inhabit forever. Yet, I am not in favor of making one language a required, dogmatic official language. The more common norm is for people to live in multilingual societies. Even today there are many areas of the world where people speak two, three, or even four languages according to the demands of the social situation. Being multilingual does not solve the problem of translation but it does eliminate the need for translation. If a person speaks Italian, reads Italian, then anything they experience in that language is self-explanatory even if the person’s first language might be German or French. Translation only occurs if the original language is a barrier to understanding the text, or conversation, or song. The only way to approach translation is to assume failure before you even start, and by assuming failure, the translator can only produce a new text which was inspired by the original. In a sense all texts are failed translations of other texts, and there exists no ur-text or Q manuscript which might have been original. Misreading, misunderstandings, ambiguity, mistakes, lacunae, accidents, double-entendre, obscurity, complexity, prejudice, bias, and misinterpretation all plague the translator who cannot avoid or evade his/her own human condition as imperfect translator. In the end, all translators must recognize their failure, ignore the imperfection of their work, and move forward to the next sentence with the understanding that failure is the best they can do. In a larger sense, this is the existential question of the human condition–translator as failure.

On dystopia in the movies

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In no particular order, these are my favorite dystopia movies: On The Beach, Logan’s Run, Soylent Green, Omega Man, The Stand, The Hunger Games, Silent Running, Planet of the Apes, Blade Runner, Fahrenheit 451. A dystopia is a society with little or no order or too much order-anarchy or fascism. Democracy as we know it has disappeared in some sort of horrific way and either the government controls everything or there is no government at all and it’s every person for themselves. All of these dystopias have suffered some sort of catastrophic occurrence which has wiped out the government as we know it today. Some arevery futuristic, such as Blade Runner or Logan’s Run, while others, such as The Hunger Games or Fahrenheit 451 are timeless. On the Beach is about the Earth after a nuclear war as is Planet of the Apes. The Stand is about the world after a bad case of the flu. I am fascinated as to why people (or myself) like to watch such films of disaster, depression, isolation, hopelessness, and tragedy. 1984 could just as well be on this list, but the fascism depicted inthe film is so depressing and horrific that I cannot bear to watch it a secondtime. Are these films warnings? I think that a film like Silent Running, an eco-dystopia, is indeed a warning against our unbridled use of the planet, but against what does Blade Runner warn us? Many of these films are tied to the out-of-control use of technology, which the inventors do not understand fully. There is always an element of nostalgia tied into each film, which harkens back to a legendary golden era of happiness in which all was perfect and correctly ordered. I would give the movie “V” an honorary mention for its cruel depiction of fascism. Curiously enough, though not a true dystopia, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” leaves the viewer with lots to think about as well.

On dystopia in the movies

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In no particular order, these are my favorite dystopia movies: On The Beach, Logan’s Run, Soylent Green, Omega Man, The Stand, The Hunger Games, Silent Running, Planet of the Apes, Blade Runner, Fahrenheit 451. A dystopia is a society with little or no order or too much order-anarchy or fascism. Democracy as we know it has disappeared in some sort of horrific way and either the government controls everything or there is no government at all and it’s every person for themselves. All of these dystopias have suffered some sort of catastrophic occurrence which has wiped out the government as we know it today. Some arevery futuristic, such as Blade Runner or Logan’s Run, while others, such as The Hunger Games or Fahrenheit 451 are timeless. On the Beach is about the Earth after a nuclear war as is Planet of the Apes. The Stand is about the world after a bad case of the flu. I am fascinated as to why people (or myself) like to watch such films of disaster, depression, isolation, hopelessness, and tragedy. 1984 could just as well be on this list, but the fascism depicted inthe film is so depressing and horrific that I cannot bear to watch it a secondtime. Are these films warnings? I think that a film like Silent Running, an eco-dystopia, is indeed a warning against our unbridled use of the planet, but against what does Blade Runner warn us? Many of these films are tied to the out-of-control use of technology, which the inventors do not understand fully. There is always an element of nostalgia tied into each film, which harkens back to a legendary golden era of happiness in which all was perfect and correctly ordered. I would give the movie “V” an honorary mention for its cruel depiction of fascism. Curiously enough, though not a true dystopia, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” leaves the viewer with lots to think about as well.

On "The Game of Thrones"

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I stopped reading this book on page 218, disgusted by George R. R. Martin’s total disregard for either his readers or his characters, so if that’s what you like about him, stop reading now because I’m throwing him under the bus. Perhaps some people find it refreshing to have every single good character in the book killed or maimed in some hideous way, but I find it boorish. Good characters do die sometimes, no doubt, verisimilitude has to be a part of any good novel, but Martin pushes the envelope just a little too far in dashing his readers hopes and expectations for any kind of happy resolution. In a certain way, he is a writer/conman who just keeps pushing his readers down the road of desperation and depression. Some readers like their novels dark and depressing, bereft of any hope or sentiment, maybe that’s what they expect out of life so that’s how they pick their novels. I don’t mind if my hero is in danger, that she has a challenge to resolve, that he suffers hardship or even dies, but there is a strange cruelty in Martin’s writing. His sadism as a writer transfers to a novel that makes people–his readers–suffer through all sorts of misfortunes and tragedies. The idea of dystopia is fundamental in the literature of the 20th and 21st century, and there is a long history of dystopic writings such as On the Beach, Brave New World, and 1984. Those are only three, but one might add Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to that list. Dystopia is certainly an important part of the Martin post-post-modern world, but it should be ingested in small dosis–too much, all at once, and it will make you a very dark person indeed. Martin’s world is a dystopia, no doubt, a decadent pseudo-medieval setting of wrecked castles, corrupt and traitorous rulers, and heroes who are not heroes. Martin’s dark take on his society was at first, for me, refreshing, mysterious, filled with interesting characters, but after 200 pages, the handwriting is on the wall. Why should I bother to depress myself with this kind of writing? Just when you think he’s letting one of his characters succeed, he kills them in some horrific way. He has a sadistic twist in his writing where he allows the evil people to wallow in their excesses while at the same time he punishes the good with nasty tragedies and unjust punishments. Novels, no matter how dark, need to allow their fictional inhabitants a chance to succeed and breath, and if the world does work, the evil will be vanquished and punished because in the real world we don’t get this kind of satisfaction very often, so we look for our heroes in books. The real world is a valley of tears, where the good people fail, our friends get sick and die, our relatives suffer from unemployment and exploitation. I have no doubt that many readers are right at home in Martin’s novels and do appreciate my comments, but I would have it no other way. Hundreds of thousands of readers like his books, but I am quite sure that there are plenty of readers out there who feel tricked, fooled, sad that they read all of those pages only to find that the bad guys have flourished, the good are all dead, and there really was no point in reading this in the first place. Life is too short to read novels that depress and sicken you. The ironic part of this is that when I started out reading this first novel I thought it was pretty good. No, I was wrong.

On "The Game of Thrones"

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I stopped reading this book on page 218, disgusted by George R. R. Martin’s total disregard for either his readers or his characters, so if that’s what you like about him, stop reading now because I’m throwing him under the bus. Perhaps some people find it refreshing to have every single good character in the book killed or maimed in some hideous way, but I find it boorish. Good characters do die sometimes, no doubt, verisimilitude has to be a part of any good novel, but Martin pushes the envelope just a little too far in dashing his readers hopes and expectations for any kind of happy resolution. In a certain way, he is a writer/conman who just keeps pushing his readers down the road of desperation and depression. Some readers like their novels dark and depressing, bereft of any hope or sentiment, maybe that’s what they expect out of life so that’s how they pick their novels. I don’t mind if my hero is in danger, that she has a challenge to resolve, that he suffers hardship or even dies, but there is a strange cruelty in Martin’s writing. His sadism as a writer transfers to a novel that makes people–his readers–suffer through all sorts of misfortunes and tragedies. The idea of dystopia is fundamental in the literature of the 20th and 21st century, and there is a long history of dystopic writings such as On the Beach, Brave New World, and 1984. Those are only three, but one might add Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to that list. Dystopia is certainly an important part of the Martin post-post-modern world, but it should be ingested in small dosis–too much, all at once, and it will make you a very dark person indeed. Martin’s world is a dystopia, no doubt, a decadent pseudo-medieval setting of wrecked castles, corrupt and traitorous rulers, and heroes who are not heroes. Martin’s dark take on his society was at first, for me, refreshing, mysterious, filled with interesting characters, but after 200 pages, the handwriting is on the wall. Why should I bother to depress myself with this kind of writing? Just when you think he’s letting one of his characters succeed, he kills them in some horrific way. He has a sadistic twist in his writing where he allows the evil people to wallow in their excesses while at the same time he punishes the good with nasty tragedies and unjust punishments. Novels, no matter how dark, need to allow their fictional inhabitants a chance to succeed and breath, and if the world does work, the evil will be vanquished and punished because in the real world we don’t get this kind of satisfaction very often, so we look for our heroes in books. The real world is a valley of tears, where the good people fail, our friends get sick and die, our relatives suffer from unemployment and exploitation. I have no doubt that many readers are right at home in Martin’s novels and do appreciate my comments, but I would have it no other way. Hundreds of thousands of readers like his books, but I am quite sure that there are plenty of readers out there who feel tricked, fooled, sad that they read all of those pages only to find that the bad guys have flourished, the good are all dead, and there really was no point in reading this in the first place. Life is too short to read novels that depress and sicken you. The ironic part of this is that when I started out reading this first novel I thought it was pretty good. No, I was wrong.

On Sherlock Holmes

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There are few characters in the fictional world of literary creations that are as pure as Sherlock Holmes. He is driven to solve the crime, not because he necessarily wants to see justice administered, but because the puzzle must be solved at almost any cost. I wouldn’t suggest that Holmes is obsessive or compulsive, but in a way, he certainly is. He doesn’t care about moral philosophy or the structure of the universe unless either of those topics would help him solve a crime. His ideas about crime and punishment are black and white, so his objective of putting the criminal away is clear and obvious. At the same time, he hasn’t the least bit for popular news, discussions of the weather, or sports, beyond his own training in boxing and stick fighting. Like most people, he loves to eat, listen to music, talk when the talk interests him, but the one thing he cannot escape in this life is solitude–no man is an island and Sherlock Holmes is no different. His ability to discern the important from the mundane and casual stems in large part from his willingness to narrate the facts of a case, but he needs an audience, and most of the time his sounding board is Watson. Watson is the sieve through which his reasoning passes. If he can tell Watson the story, he can figure it out. Holmes functions because of the power of narrative. He can work through the logic of the clues by building a narrative that makes sense, discarding incidental clues that may be red-herrings, and see through the smoke screen left by the criminals. In the end, the stories are all very similar about shame and hate, vengeance and envy, greed and stupidity, or love and jealousy, and Sherlock must sort out the facts without getting personally involved in any of it. Emotion is all too often the downfall of many a criminal, and Holmes works constantly to see through the intentions, let the clues speak to him, and resolve the problem at hand. Yet, I would also suggest that Holmes cannot do all of this work, wade through so much human flotsam and jetsam, and still be the least bit normal as a person. He’s interested in bee-keeping; this is his only outside interest that doesn’t appear to have anything to do with crime solving. Bees can’t really talk back, they have a collective conscience, they have no crime, their objectives are orderly and pure, free from envy, sloth, and ire. He admires them. If Watson were not there to act as chronicler and psychologist/therapist, Holmes would go crazy listening to the irrational world which surrounds him explode. Watson is the perfect foil for Holmes because he is a walking case to be constantly narrated and resolved, but Watson is also the perfect uninformed audience who needs the explanations to make the world return to proper working order again. After all, isn’t that what the detective does? Return things back to their proper place, pass out punishment, get the world to spin on its axis again, make sure the bad guys are put away, give a solution to the problem. Holmes wouldn’t be Holmes, really, without Watson, and Watson would just be retired, boring, military surgeon with a bad shoulder without Holmes. A more interesting symbiosis in the literary world would be hard to find.

On Sherlock Holmes

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There are few characters in the fictional world of literary creations that are as pure as Sherlock Holmes. He is driven to solve the crime, not because he necessarily wants to see justice administered, but because the puzzle must be solved at almost any cost. I wouldn’t suggest that Holmes is obsessive or compulsive, but in a way, he certainly is. He doesn’t care about moral philosophy or the structure of the universe unless either of those topics would help him solve a crime. His ideas about crime and punishment are black and white, so his objective of putting the criminal away is clear and obvious. At the same time, he hasn’t the least bit for popular news, discussions of the weather, or sports, beyond his own training in boxing and stick fighting. Like most people, he loves to eat, listen to music, talk when the talk interests him, but the one thing he cannot escape in this life is solitude–no man is an island and Sherlock Holmes is no different. His ability to discern the important from the mundane and casual stems in large part from his willingness to narrate the facts of a case, but he needs an audience, and most of the time his sounding board is Watson. Watson is the sieve through which his reasoning passes. If he can tell Watson the story, he can figure it out. Holmes functions because of the power of narrative. He can work through the logic of the clues by building a narrative that makes sense, discarding incidental clues that may be red-herrings, and see through the smoke screen left by the criminals. In the end, the stories are all very similar about shame and hate, vengeance and envy, greed and stupidity, or love and jealousy, and Sherlock must sort out the facts without getting personally involved in any of it. Emotion is all too often the downfall of many a criminal, and Holmes works constantly to see through the intentions, let the clues speak to him, and resolve the problem at hand. Yet, I would also suggest that Holmes cannot do all of this work, wade through so much human flotsam and jetsam, and still be the least bit normal as a person. He’s interested in bee-keeping; this is his only outside interest that doesn’t appear to have anything to do with crime solving. Bees can’t really talk back, they have a collective conscience, they have no crime, their objectives are orderly and pure, free from envy, sloth, and ire. He admires them. If Watson were not there to act as chronicler and psychologist/therapist, Holmes would go crazy listening to the irrational world which surrounds him explode. Watson is the perfect foil for Holmes because he is a walking case to be constantly narrated and resolved, but Watson is also the perfect uninformed audience who needs the explanations to make the world return to proper working order again. After all, isn’t that what the detective does? Return things back to their proper place, pass out punishment, get the world to spin on its axis again, make sure the bad guys are put away, give a solution to the problem. Holmes wouldn’t be Holmes, really, without Watson, and Watson would just be retired, boring, military surgeon with a bad shoulder without Holmes. A more interesting symbiosis in the literary world would be hard to find.