A Final Contemplation of the Divine

“All the arts aspire to the condition of music” –Walter Pater

Since the day I heard this insight from renowned “Renaissance” man Walter Pater recited in class, I have quoted and tried to spark discussion from it with various random people in my life that I thought would “get it”. The truth conveyed in those words has been haunting me since. Here is an idea I have cultivated in my head for as long as I have felt sincere passion for music, yet was never able to express perfectly in words. It seems that while our words constantly fall short, music is somehow able to rise above them, fulfilling us without fail. Contemplating Pater’s assertion in light of all the insight I have gained this semester in American Lit 2 allowed me to formulate some notions as to why this is.
The role of a barista is very similar to that of a bartender. In both roles, the waiter provides a habit-forming beverage, a smile, and sometimes even conversation or company (depending on the condition of the customer). Whether it is alcohol or caffeine, when people get to drinkin’, they get to talkin’. This is the role I fill most weekday mornings; and in my position behind the coffee-counter I am subject to the rants and raves of edgy people eager to ingest caffeine before they can come to grips with their day. About a month ago, a regular customer with whom I am well acquainted was relating to me the woes of his major (which is concentrated in some astro- physo- science something) while in the crux of a churning out some major thesis. In an effort to include me, he expressed with a sigh “Sometimes I really wish I was an English major”. Wait a second: now, I was totally with him on the first part about rocket science being abhorrent and stressful, but what does this have to do with my major? An explanation was in order! “What do you mean?” I blinked. “Well, it would just be so much easier to rely on creativity alone”. Hmmm. I let him go, as another mug-clutching man sauntered into line behind him, but his comment remained with me hours and days after. I knew I was offended, but why? Was there just cause for offense here? While it is true that my major is centered on the creative psyche, why would he assume that because of that, my tasks were inherently “easy” (or at least easier than his)? In the back, doing some dishes, I defended myself aloud to no one: “If only he knew how hard it can be to find the right words!”
Characteristically, I don’t take any sort of conversation lightly. My major is concentrated in language because self-expression is of the utmost importance to me; and when I’m saying something significant, I want to be able to relate it to others the best way possible. This proves to be, time and time again, a very frustrating task! What with so many words to choose from, and the pressure of forming a sentence quickly under the other party’s expectant gaze, my efforts constantly fall short. I love words and language fixedly and fervently, but in terms of self-expression they leave us so…limited.
In these bouts of frustration with finding “the right words”, I have oftentimes found myself yearning for some infallible method of translating thoughts and ideas into feelings. If we could just experience the feelings that we’re trying to talk about, then what need would there be for words? I have yearned for some absolute language, some flawless form of expression. One of the things that I learned in American Lit 2 this semester is that one does, in fact, exist. It is a celestial language that “all the arts aspire to”. It is music.
English 219 has been, as described in the course title, a “Survey of American Literature”; literature that has evoked epiphanies, emotions, and meaningful discussions from every member of the class who read the material (and has a pulse). What was it, precisely, that evoked these reactions? A wiki search for the definition of literature yielded this:

Literature is literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary (from the Latin littera meaning "an individual written character (letter)"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of texts or work of art, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry. In much, if not all of the world, texts can be oral as well, and include such genres as epic, legend, myth, ballad, other forms of oral poetry, and the folktale.

This definition encompasses a wide variety of mediums for expression, yet music is not listed therein. Why is it being set apart? All of these works of art seek to present an idea or feeling by describing it to a reader or audience. And while every artist takes individual, creative liberties with his descriptions so as to enchant an audience and stimulate their senses, there is an element of analysis that is not present in the realm of music, and so our minds our alleviated and refreshed by it’s inherent empathy. What literature is describing, music just is.
Now, it is true that literature cannot be music due to the fundamental qualities of each genre, and thus can only aspire to become like it. However, I discovered in this class that words and stories can present themselves in a way that resembles something deceitfully close to music. For instance, the novel “Lolita”, by Vladimir Nabokobv, read like a song to me. The melodic and mesmerizing prose of this book made me melt as only music (and a few other song-like phrases) had prior to my reading of it.
In a very brilliant passage from Wallace Stevens’ “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”, it is observed that “Music falls on silence like a sense, a passion that we feel, not understand” (Stevens 172). Our passions, sensations, and our emotions make a music of their own that cannot be understood in a language other that simply feeling. A good example is cited in Stevens’ “Peter Quince at the Clavier”. Stevens grasped the divinity of music, and had a gift for making it himself, as in this passage:

“Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the selfsame sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound:
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,
Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music…” (Stevens 46)
(Wow!)
Reading “Lolita” was, for me, akin to reading this excerpt of “Peter Quince at the Clavier”. My reading of “Lolita” was the very idea that this excerpt of the poem is asserting. From the very first sentences of the novel: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta” (Nabokov 1). The rhythm, the melody, the passion of these words: this is music! Humbert Humbert, in his cell, desiring his Lolita, thinking of her in her own “blue-shadowed silk”: Music. Nabokov created song out of prose. Music is feeling, and reading (or “singing”) “Lolita” inflicted an array of feelings on me.
One of the very first things I wrote down from Sexson’s lectures was this quote: “The best things in life are 1) Contemplation of the divine and 2) A well-constructed sentence”. Perhaps these two ideas are so ranked because they appeal to the aesthete in all of us, to the “one who perceives”. Music is divine. A well-constructed sentence is invigorating. And the two are fused in “Lolita”, and in all great literature. This class has truly altered my whole perspective on life. What is a work of literature but a personal perception of life and truth? These perceptions, as depicted in literature and music, free the spirit and leave me loving life. For in contemplating these arts, I never cease to be awestruck by life’s overwhelming capacity for divinity.

“For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moment’s sake” –Walter Pater

The "About" Issue

After we took our test in class last week and reviewed the answers, we got on the subject of Keat's "Ode to a Grecian Urn" (which was one of the answers on the test). We talked about it as it relates to Faulkner, but then Sexson also clued us in on the poem's relevance to Lolita. He suggested going back and reading it again. Because in studying Lolita we get into this "about" issue... what is this novel really about? This is a crucial question in determining the integrity of such a controversial novel, as well as, to quote Sexson "a barometer of your taste in literature: if you like Lolita, there is some hope for you as an aesthete..." What a relevant word to students in a class that values perception of the imagination above all things rational. The goal of this class seems to be to mold us all into astute aesthetes. And the aesthetes are the ones to whom Lolita was written: to those who can see past the surface reading of the book (which can be disturbing) and love it for the work of art that it represents. If anyone should be defending Lolita, it should be a class of students that has spent the whole semester falling in love with the verse of Wallace Stevens for it's celebration of all things imaginative and far-fetched, that praises perception. Where are we on this? It's an "about" issue. We love Wallace Stevens. Past the lewd metaphor (which I think is necessary and beautiful in this book) we have the same thing that was at the core of Wallace Stevens. And after re-reading "Ode to a Grecian Urn" in light of Lolita, I am all the more positive that the novel is ABOUT the exact same thing as Keat's highly alluded to poem, which is the same thing as Wallace Stevens, and really everything else we've read in class this semester and loved (coincidence!?!)
My mouth hung open as I read through "Ode" over and over again, each time seeing more and more conspicuous connections between it and Lolita. In fact, my mind was overwhelmed by the similarities, and how obviously these two highly acclaimed pieces of literature resemble eachother. To begin with, that the urn is to Keat's poem what the nymphet is to Lolita: they are both expressing the exact same message, yet one has been condemned and the other held up high, consistently alluded to in great works of literature throughout history. Simply because one metaphor is far more scandalous than the other.
"For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue"
...Wow. Talk about passion. This is how passion is evoked in words. Hot, imperfect, passion (Since the imperfect is so hot in us.... see "Poems of our Climate") Woah. And I am so overwhelmed, again, by the similarities I don't even know where to go first. So those first two lines, the "for ever's", seem to perfectly describe what Lolita is to H.H. Warm, he is hot with desire for her, wants to enjoy her: but only the Lolita he has created, the for ever young, the one who will not grow out of this image. She is enticing as "for ever warm" and "panting", and the last 3 lines are exactly how H.H. feels about his nymphet that is grossing people out because they are in reference to a 12 year old girl. But in the context of "Ode", they are heavenly. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, burning forehead ... parching tongue. It's all connects so beautifully. Just as transient beauty in life is preserved upon the art of the urn, so does Lolita "live in the minds of future generations" because Humbert's story is one of "aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art..."

"And this is the only immortality you and I may share"

Enigma of a Synesthete

When you're an English major, everything is a coincidence.
Take yesterday, for example. I got up at 5:30 to open the coffee shop, and as I was waiting for the rest of the town to wake up I sat behind the counter immersed in Lolita. Eventually customers started to trickle in, and the second person I encountered that day seemed to sense my annoyance with having to be pulled away from my book to serve him . In an attempt to make conversation he asked what I was reading. When I showed him Lolita, he asked me if I knew that the author of that book had some strange condition where his senses were mixed up and he mistook one sensation for another. My interest was peaked and I wanted to know more, but this guy didn't have a lot more to offer. But even though the effects of this disorder were vague, and I really couldn't be sure if this guy even knew what he was talking about, that made so much sense to me. It seemed like it would take a man with some crazy disorder of that nature to be able to write this way!
"Look at this tangle of thorns"
The agony! I can't get it out of my head. Nabokov's menacing phrases are evoking weird feelings in me. I love this book!
I got off work, sit through a class that was, in comparison to our usual classes, a little dull, kind of redundant. Well, it was what it was: review. Until... Synesthesia. I wasn't even listening until I heard that "blurring and mixing of the senses". My interest was peaked once again. So it does exist! I was surprised we weren't talking about it in reference to Nabokov though. Synesthetes experience one or more sensations in response to an entirely different sensation. They see sounds and taste colors. And additionally, the mind of a synesthete is disorganized in such a way that emotion is superior to logic. Wow, what a neat condition to "suffer" from. Just knowing something like that about the author explains so much; it gives so much order to his brilliance. No wonder he can write so sensually...
"Oh my Lolita, I have only words to play with"
When Sexson mentioned in class that some people were having trouble reading this book because of it's subject matter, I felt a little bit guilty. Mainly because I'm not at all phased by the subject matter of the story. I don't feel repelled by it, in fact, I feel very passionately about this book. It's not the subject matter that evokes these feelings, it's the passion of the prose, his language, making me feel things. I can just envision Nabokov writing this, how the words must have just poured out of him and onto the page in some synesthetic surge of genius. Lolita is the first book we've read in class this semester that makes me melt. Every sentence is a string of "words chosen out of desire". This is why I am an English major; I revel in such works.
Yesterday's discoveries are giving me such a heightened appreciation for Lolita as well as giving new order to Nabokov's mind and the style of writing it produced. I can't wait to gain more understanding (through Lolita and

Poetry the subject?

So I'm trying to wrap my mind around this idea and convey it in words. Something that makes sense in my head but is proving difficult to articulate. And the best way for me to begin explaining it is with this quote I've written down on several occasions sitting in class because it always rings so true that I forget I've heard it before. "The truth is beside the point". Truth doesn't matter because truth is different for everyone based on their own perception of reality. Poetry does not claim to be truth (how refreshing!) because poetry is not truth, poetry is poetry: it is concerned with perception, not reality. It creates a fiction, the mind needs to create a fiction. The truth is beside the point. Poetry is a way of "ordering" the world around us as we percieve it; poetry is an attempt to describe life. In poetry what is being described is what is being percieved. Description=Perception (there's that mathematical logic again. I feel pressured!) Well, poetry is the subject of the poem. Steven's said it better.

Invisibility

I just got through the introduction of "Invisible Man". It is possible I could have it read in time for class tuesday because i'm intrigued. That is provided I don't have to keep stopping to get all analytical, like I am now. But I thought I'd get in a quick blog about this extended metaphor of invisibility I am so intrigued by. How scary it is that maybe we're all invisible to eachother because what we like in others is only a reflection of what we like in ourselves, and what we dislike in others match the things that we hate about ourselves. Or vice versa. But either way we can only experience eachother insofar as we know ourselves. You are the only person you really see. Everything we take in we can only understand when applied to ourselves. Like the fact that I'm excited about reading this book because I can really identify with this feeling of being invisible to others. It's because of this truth that we are so limited in our capacity to go beyond ourselves. I've gotten so depressed in the past in being aware of this even though it is the human condition and can't be helped. Well, right now I'm just really relieved that Ellison took that concept and metamorphised (does that work?) it into an entire novel that I get to read for this class.

On Lyin'

I sort of love lies. And I really love hearing someone cunningly admit that they intend to "lie up a nation". This liking of lies is a relatively recent developement that came via another novel I read this past summer. I tend to fall into epiphanic episodes frequently, and I think, for myself at least, an indicator of a good read is whether it has the power to induce epiphany. Anyways, this summer I engaged in a little soul-searching, and part of it was this realization that I am a liar, and that I would sometimes scare myself because I would lie so naturally. These weren't lies out of malicious intent (as a footnote, I'm not some sort of compulsive liar, but I have lent myself to embellishments/dramatizing from time to time). This coming- to- terms with myself induced a lot of shame. At the same time, I was reading this book- "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith- just for a summer, leisure read. Some themes in the book ended up coinciding so perfectly with the self-evaluation I was conducting at the time. The girl who the story centers around was guilty of the same lying I was beating myself up about. This one passage cleared up a lot of negative feelings I was having and really changed my perspective. In a conversation with the girl's teacher, she is taught the difference between a lie and a story. "A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward. A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn't tell it like it was; you told it like you thought it should have been". I felt such a sense of relief reading that passage! There's a difference between lieing and story-telling. The girl, Francie, experienced relief at this explanation of things as well. We are, like Francie, "given to exaggerating things. She did not report happenings truthfully, but gave them color, excitement, and dramatic twists...Francie just couldn't tell the plain undecorated truth. She had to put something to it..." Now doesn't that sound perfectly innocent, something to be encouraged, even? And it gave me such an appreciation for the type of lying that is story-telling, and is our imagination at work, and is nothing to be ashamed of.
So let the "lyin go on"! Stories are the way we make sense of things, "lyin" is a manifestation of that "motive for metaphor": our creative attempts to connect with reality.

(Everybody knows) she's a femme fatale

To go back to Daisy Miller, I thought it was funny that she was typified by Professor Sexson in class as the Jungian image of "the anima: the girl in white, a religious or mystical figure of innocence, a projection of purity". Are we talking about the same character? Maybe the term "anima" by itself I could concede to as a description of this girl's role, since the anima in Jungian theory is supposed to represent the feminine impulses within the male subconcious. But as for the rest of that- "woman in white, projection of purity"- I think we're giving this girl a little too much credit. I think Daisy Miller falls under another category of archetypical females: the "femme fatale" . The Velvet Underground (with the help of singer Nico on this track) wrote a song paying homage to this devious figure (that comes to us off this really amazing album ^) in which they much summed up Daisy and her kind in one line in the chorus: "She's just a little tease". I think it is made obvious in the text that Daisy's relations with Winterbourne and other men in the story are simply her leading them on- like we said, she's a "pretty American flirt". Well, I'm saying flirting can be "fatale" (was it really the fever that did her in?) So I don't know how other people are interpreting Ms. Miller's role, but I just don't find teasing of this calibur to be "innocent" or "pure". She is a "deadly woman" - using her feminine charm to evade and allure and fulfill a hidden agenda. I'm definitely not saying that the men are victims in this story thought. Daisy Miller is completely transparent yet they still allow themselves to be at her mercy, even though "everybody knows she's a femme fatale"