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In the prologue to this anthology of essays, Sontag says “Writing criticism has proved to be an at of intellectual disburdenment as much as of intellectual self-expression” (x), and that about sums it up-that is criticism. Choose any topic (‘x’) which makes you feel any feeling (‘y’), think about why x makes you feel y (intellectual disburdenment), then output your conclusions (intellectual self-expression).

It sounds very simple. It is very simple. But neither process must occur. Obviously, one need not output conclusions about x and y. Less obviously, one need not think about x and y.

For example, think about the last movie you saw and liked. Why did you like it?

You may respond, “The Arrival, because it was smart sci-fi.”

Challenge yourself, “What was smart about it?” Or, “What else did you like about it?” Or, “Was there anything you disliked about it? Why?”

Push yourself. Establish a dialogue with yourself. Do you have an acquaintance who you think has terrible taste in movies? Role-play as yourself and this tasteless person. Pretend its important to you, they must agree with you, how could they see it otherwise?

Sometimes, after I watch a movie (or read a book) I find I’m “done” with it. I don’t think about it any further, or not for very long. Then, a week later someone may ask me, “Whatcha been reading lately,” and I can barely summarize some text I spent tens of hours reading.

It feels wrong.

In the analogy where “watching a movie is consumption,” metabolism is (i) optional and (ii) equal to intellectual disburdenment.

Consider the term “mindless entertainment.” Usually it describes entertainment (duh), but I’ll argue it should describe consumers instead. Nothing is intrinsically mindless, to a mindful consumer. (Assuming the consumer is a human.)

Humans can “make meaning” of anything. Presented with pure randomness (e.g. points randomly plotted by a computer on a grid*), humans look for patterns. They conjure patterns.

* I wrote about this recently vis a vis Stephen Jay Gould’s essay in Bully For Brontosaurus “Glow, Big Glowworm.”

If a human brain, consciously or subconsciously tries to make meaning of something, they likely will. But if one doesn’t try (or care), they probably will not, unless the meaning is so ineluctable.

For a personal example, consider my impetus for writing these essays: I want to reinforce thoughtful consumption. I want to think about texts which I (presumably) spend many hours reading. Specifically, I want to think about what I take away from the text, from trivia to epiphany. In some cases, I may take away a new word (hermaneutic); in others, I may take away a recommendation for further reading (Claude Levi-Strauss); in others, a dialectic (structural anthropology).

Similarly, in Against Interpretation & Other Essays, Sontag makes meaning of a panoply of forms of art and artworks, creators and consumers, their dialectics.

I wanted to expose and clarify the theoretical assumptions underlying specific judgments and tastes. Although I did not set out to devise a “position” about either the arts or modernity, some kind of general position seemed to take shape and to voice itself with increasing urgency no matter what particular work I wrote about. (x)

At the same time, she critiques the tendency to approach works of art in order to interpret them (pg 5). 

Interpretation of art implicitly imposes order on a work, however simple or sophisticated. Sontag says, “Interpretation makes art manageable, comfortable”; “to interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world-in order to set up a shadow world of ‘meanings'” (pg 6); “It is to turn the world into this world” (pg 7), where “the world” is infinitude and “this world” as an impoverished version of it. An interpretation is intrinsically impoverishes the world by designating a this world.

None of these functions of interpretation necessarily lead to appreciation of the art, which is why Sontag is, to a limited extent, “against interpretation.”

She says, “Interpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for granted, and proceeds from there” (pg 13). In other words, thinking about art may preclude some amount of feeling about art. That’s not to say “one should not think about art (and what it means, and to whom)”; it’s to say “one should feel art.”

For instance, does a work of art make you smile? If so, enjoy the smile the work of art has effected. Acknowledge, how amazing, that that work of art caused you to smile. That’s the idea anyway, which Sontag explore in the following quotations.

Transparence is the highest, most liberating value in art-and in criticism-today. Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of the things being what they are (pg 13).

Think of the sheer multiplication of works of art available to every one of us, superadded to the conflicting tastes and odors and sights of the urban environment that bombard our senses. Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life-ts material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness-conjoin to dull our sensory faculties (pg 13).

Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out o the work than is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all (pg 14).

~~~

Sontag places the instinct to “interpret” in the historical context of late classical antiquity (i.e. Greek/Roman/Mediterranean culture), “when the power and credibility of myth had been broken by the ‘realistic’ view of the world introduced by scientific enlightenment.” At that time, she says, “interpretation was summoned, to reconcile the ancient texts to ‘modern’ demands” (pg 6). It strikes me as simultaneously simplistic and grandiose, yet plausible. (Occam’s Razor, I suppose.)

As it were, Let’s continue to revere our rich mythology where the Gods are capricious freaking nuts AND acknowledge essential morality espoused in Homer’s works.

I imagine the need for reconciliation deriving from either of two poles: (i) a place of innocence, with an emphasis on preserving culture without impeding “progress” or (ii) a place of cunning, as a means to shore power. In the former case, I’ll reiterate the tendency to make meaning. I’ll suggest it was not enough to enjoy both new and old works-there was a need to connect them. In the latter case, would-be leaders assigned and promoted meanings which befit their causes, while simultaneously rejecting alternative meanings.

Other passages strewn across page 6:

Interpretation is a radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious to repudiate, by revampng it.

Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy.

The interpreter, without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it.

~~~

I’ll only discuss one more essay, “On style,” before referring you to the text for more. “Against interpretation” and “On style” differ from other essays in the text in that they are not critiques of particular works. As such, they are more abstract, and less likely to alienate readers. (Whereas, for example, readers may feel alienated by an essay about the films of French filmmaker Robert Bresson.)

The premise of “On style” is this question: what is “style” in art?

At the highest level, we can think of style as “personal style,” or the style of a period (e.g. Victorian), or the style of a tradition (e.g. Cubism), etc. All of these “types” of style share a conceptual framework-what it is?

Sontag doesn’t ultimately propose a concise, or even unambiguous definition of style-but her examination of the topic is full of keen insights. She begins with a discussion of common oppositions-Is style decorative, or is it content? Or is it manner, or matter? Or both?

Refinement by opposition is a fundamental characteristic of cognition-we encounter stimuli, we compare it to something familiar, we identify contrasts (oppositions), and repeat until we have established a basis of understanding the stimuli via previous experiences.

So let’s think about this: style as decor/manner vs. content/matter. Consider hypothetical TextA.

TextA could take the form of an essay, or of a dialogue; furthermore, it could employ a rhyming scheme, or not; one could write it fairly plainly, or employ especially florid adjectives; so ultimately, we have these permutations:

• Essay with rhyming scheme, plain
• Essay with rhyming scheme, florid
• Essay without rhyming scheme, plain
• Essay without rhyming scheme, florid
• Dialogue with rhyming scheme, plain
• Dialogue with rhyming scheme, florid
• Dialogue without rhyming scheme, plain
• Dialogue without rhyming scheme, florid

Now, do these choices classify, unambiguously, as decor/manner, or content/matter? For me, the answer is clear: no. Decor/manner and content/matter are indissoluble. Those features both decorate the subject and comprise the subject.

Sontag uses the (confusing) word “stylization” to explore the relationship between manner and matter. She defines stylization as “what is present in a work when an artist does make the by no means inevitable distinction between matter and manner, theme and form” (pg 19). For example, let’s say we set out to write a text wherein a fool becomes president. One point of ambivalence may be whether or not to approach the subject with humor (e.g. Philip Roth’s Our Gang v. something more Orwellian). In that case, Sontag may refer to humor/parody, or horror as a “stylization.”

When that happens, when style and subject are so distinguished, that is, played off against each other, one can legitimately speak of subjects being treated (or mistreated) in a certain style (pg 19).

“Stylization” in a work of art, as distinct from style, reflects and ambivalence […] toward subject matter (pg 20).

Whereas “style,” I’ll argue, is the sum or product of infinite stylizations, or as Sontag says,

“the principle decision in a work of art, the signature of the artist’s will. And as the human will is capable of an indefinite number of stances, there are an indefinite number of possible styles for works of art” (pg 32).

In other words, style is the aggregate of all qualities of a work. We recognize “a style” only to the extent some set of its qualities stands out from others.

To the extent that a work seems right, just, unimaginable otherwise (without loss or damage) what we are responding to is a quality of its style. The most attractive works of art are those which give us the illusion that the artist had no alternatives, so wholly centered is he in his style (pg 33).

Style is inevitable, Sontag says, but I’ll add, not necessarily remarkable.

~~~

The only other essay I’ll mention briefly is “The anthropologist as hero,” an analysis of the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, specifically Tristes Tropiques, which Sontags hails as “one of the great books of our century” (pg 71). I mention it briefly only to tease that the next 1 or 2 essays will concern the texts by Levi-Strauss Totemism and The View From Afar.

Her quotation of his notion of “anthropological doubt” especially struck me. Levi-Strauss recommends practicing anthropologists submit to total agnosticism in order to understand a cultural without bias.

This “anthropological doubt” consists not merely in knowing that one knows nothing but in resolutely exposing what one knows, even one’s own in ignorance, to the insults and denials inflicted on one’s dearest ideas and habits by those ideas and habits which may contradict them to the highest degree (pg 73).

Reading that passage, I wondered what Levi-Strauss would say about agnosticism in the context of totalitarian states, wherein autocrats instill doubt in institutions which may oppose them (in order that they, the autocrat, may more handily oppose those institutions). While “anthropological doubt” and agnosticism may exemplify empathy in some contexts, it may exemplify complacence in others.

Or, totalitarianism aside, what would Levi-Strauss say about globalization-wherein cultures with very different views, which amount to life or death (e.g. homosexuality in The West v. Middle East), must coexist?

Stay tuned.

7/10

So begins the final installment of my “trilogy” of Donald Barthelme essays, which concerns Barthelme’s first novel, Snow White. While the title of may sound familiar, I am sure it is not what you have in mind. The story includes a character named “Snow White,” as well as seven men who live together (and work) with Snow White, but that’s about it-at least until page 82.

Page 82 is the best page of the book. If pages 82-83 were omitted, I would not have had much to say about this book.

Lest you try to make sense of such a statement with a sensible inference like “Pages 82-83 must record a great denouement,” I will head you off with some additional information: Snow White is a quick read; my copy is 200 pages, which are divided into parts 1 & 2. Page 83 is the last page of Part 1. Pages 82-83 do not advance the action of the story in any way whatsoever.

These pages represent an authorial (or narratorial) intrusion, a quirky sort of “check-in.” The form* of this check-in is a set of survey questions. The first question is “Do you like the story so far?”

* A look at Barthelme’s ouevre will reveal he is, most of all, a short story writer who experimented with different forms.

Did I like the story so far? Not particularly. I occasionally smiled while reading amusing dialogue, but as a whole I did not like the story.

In fact, I’m not sure it occurred to me there was a story. Rather, the book felt more like a series of loosely related “short stories.” Short stories from the same “universe.”

But pages 82-83 gave me the impression the short stories would unify into something I liked. To understand why, let’s consider some of the questions, some of which struck me as hilarious.

For example, Question 2: “Have you understood, in reading to this point, that Paul is the prince-figure?”

This question is amusing because no reader would glean this. The question is jest-Of course the answer is no. No reader should glean this. That’s the joke-Barthelme never intended to actually develop an isomorphism between (1) Snow White’s Paul, and (2) the prince figure of fairytales.

Aside from serving an amusement function (intentional bad taste, “camp”), questions like this one set certain expectations for how Part 2 will go, more or less. The aforementioned question queues readers to infer Paul is the “prince-figure.” Readers then carry that inference into Part 2 of Snow White. But in fact, Paul is no more the “prince-figure” than the character named “Snow White” is the Snow White we know (from Brothers Grimm* or Disney). The question is a device to (1) set our expectations, then (2) defy them.

* Read Grimm’s “Little Snow-White” here.

To set expectations, then defy them, is common enough in storytelling now. For example, earlier this month I saw The Girl On The Train, a movie based on a book, which utilizes this technique. Furthermore, many comparisons were drawn between that movie and Gone Girl, another recent movie based on a book. Or, consider Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer. At which, if any point, do we know that Zuckerman knows there is no way Amy is Anne Frank?

In any case, in all of these examples, an unreliable narrator or protagonist introduces a set of nuances which, taken altogether, establish a dimension of “meta.” The story becomes “the story as told by the narrator,” or “the story as experienced by the protagonist.” This implies the story could be told some other way, which implies the story could be told many other ways.

Barthelme’s implementation of the unreliable narrator, ultimately, amounts to a ruse. Taken with so many other things (I’ll describe momentarily), I appreciate the cleverness of it, but I did not enjoy its effects.

The “cleverness” of Snow White is that it takes advantage of, to the extent it exposes, the stubbornness of certain expectations. Obviously, consumers will expect a book called Snow White will amount to some take on the story of the Snow White we’re familiar with. To some extent, Barthelme gives us this: there is a character named Snow White, who lives with a troupe of seven men. But still, we expect more-a huntsman, a prince, an evil queen.

Barthelme’s cleverness is, knowing we expect such things, he implies Snow White meets these expectations on pages 82-83. And thus, we continue to expect it Snow White will meet these expectations, until the very end, when we realize our expectations were not met.

“OK, well, I guess ya got me,” I thought to myself as I finished reading (in the parking lot of Sears Auto, while I waited for them to finish an oil change).

Later, I asked myself, would I prefer the book (1) as is, i.e. with pages 82-83 or (2) would without pages 82-83? In the case of (1), my last impression was “Well, I guess ya got me”; in the case of (2), my last impression may have been “Well, that was mediocre and forgettable.”

Snow White doesn’t gain much in either case (1) or (2). Yet, (1) wins it. The “expectation device” adds, if no other value, a meta element which carried me through the story, even if ultimately it proved false. Furthermore, it’s a creative, provocative narratorial strategy I never before experienced.

Like Barthelme’s other books, Snow White amused me now and then, but I can typically isolate the amusement to an instant, not to any lasting aspect of the story. This is predictable, in a sense, considering short stories comprise the majority of Barthelme’s ouevre; in a sense, his novels are anthologies of short stories taking place in the same “universe.”

I worry this thought is cheap, in the same sense as my high school friend’s observation: every musical album could be considered a “concept album,” if only because they are contained in a form that implies a relationship.* It’s true, in a sense, but ultimately it depends on an impoverished understanding of what we consider to be a “concept album.”

Any collection of words and pages packaged in a book is not a novel. The form does not imbue it content with contingence.

In any case, amusing instants pepper Snow White. For example, funny idioms such as “sucking the mop,” which conveys a certain mopey feeling. Or, Snow White’s novel observations such as “Oh I wish there were some words in the world which were not the words I always hear” (pg 6). Or, consider her exchange with Henry after he presents her with a glass of water. She asks him, “Aren’t you going to ask me what I want this glass of water for?” Then, irked at his assumption she would drink the water, she informs him it’s for the flowers (pg 16).

Snow White employs this device, not unlike a punchline, often. Mundane conversations end unexpectedly, in an ironic or humorous way. For another example, consider Paul’s description of his father: “Paul XVII, a most kingly man and personage. Even though his sole accomplishment during his long lack of reign was the de-deification of his own person” (pg 27).” In the end you wonder, What dooes Paul mean by “kingly”?

In such phrases, however short, you may discover unexpected richness. Consider Paul’s reluctant endorsement of the palinode: “Perhaps it is wrong to have favorites among the forms. But retraction has a special allure for me” (pg 13). In order to fully appreciate this line, I think you need to know a palinode is a poem wherein an author retracts a sentiment expressed in a previous poem. Now, consider some of the things we can glean from this line. First, Paul is interested in, and experiments with, literary forms, like Barthelme. Next, consider Part 2 or Snow White is almost like a palinode is denying some of the expectations set on pages 82-83. That is, Paul isn’t much like a prince-figure after all, among other things.

So maybe the writing was on the wall, maybe not. I feel a bit like the dwarf who says, “Whereas once we were simple bourgeois who knew what to do, now we are complex bourgeois who are at a loss” (pg 88). My edit: Whereas once we were readers of the simple who knew what to expect, now we are readers of the complex who are at a loss.

The dwarf continues: “Now we do not know what to do. Snow White has added dimension of confusion and misery to our lives” (pg 87).

My edit: Now we do not know what to expect. Snow White has added dimension of confusion and misery to our lives. (An exaggeration, but you get it.)

Ultimately, the sentiment which resonated most with me is this one: “There was a moment, however, when equanimity was not the chief consideration” (pg 88).

For him, that moment was when-while his life was otherwise in order-he looked at Snow White and realized he was fond of her. But what could that moment be for me-or for you? We approach the our lives-our version of “the world”-with an intention to impose order, but maybe that’s not the point. Or, if not that, maybe that’s not the only point.

5/10