The In Between Space: Reconciliation in Joy Williams’ Short Stories

  In her short story collections, Escapes (1990) and Honored Guest (2005), Joy Williams explores loss in provocative and disturbing ways, exploring suburban dystopia through strained human relationships.  Her stories address in between spaces: spaces between question and answer, possession and loss, and life and death.  As I reread her work, I noticed some ways in which she investigated and defined these liminal spaces through her emotionally intense narratives:

1)  In Williams’ stories, things that used to be sacred are destroyed, creating a void of meaning.  By building meaning around these voids, Williams allows these absences breath through her narration.  In “The Skater”, the narrator depicts a young girl observing her parents on an ice rink alone, grappling with the loss of their daughter (her sister):

From a window, Molly sees her father on the ice.  After a moment, she sees her mother moving toward him, not skating, but slipping forward, making her way.  She sees their heavy awkward shapes embrace.

Molly sees them, already remembering it.

As Molly watches her mother “slipping forward”, trying to approach her father, the physically hard-to-navigate ice represents the mentally even harder-to-navigate loss of a child.  The parents’ awkward embrace shows their struggle to find closure in a dystopian suburbia; the lack of reconciliation creates an emptiness around which Williams creates the story.

2)  Asymmetrical comparisons reveal provocative truths.  Williams’ short story “Congress” deals with an unhappy marriage, a brain injury, student-teacher relationships, taxidermy, hunting, spectatorship, and deep existential questions, all in 20 pages.  All these things are asymmetrical, and resist comparison and interconnection– yet Williams pursues the connections, creating a network of strange parallels that draw the readers attention to the reality of strains and disconnections.  By comparing things that are, by nature, difficult to compare, Williams draws her readers’ attention to the omissions and silences that take place in the world.

3)  People speak past each other, not to each other.  Williams writes dialogue which sounds pedestrian and believable, but if you take a closer look, you notice that characters speak around ideas and past each other, not directly.  This kind of “speaking past” can be seen in Williams’ short story, “The Little Winter,” in a conversation between a child, Gwendal, and Gloria, a woman dying from a brain tumor:

“You drink too much,” Gwendal said.  ”You’re always drinking something.”

This hurt Gloria’s feelings. “‘I’m dying,” she said.  ”I have a brain tumor.  I can do what I want.”

This exchange is asymmetrical.  Gloria’s rebuttal doesn’t correspond to Gwendal’s accusation, but it comes close.  Because of that, it gives the reader the illusion that she is directly answering Gwendal, even though she’s changing the subject.  Gloria, too, thinks she is providing a direct answer to what she believes Gwendal wants to know, adding another layer of complication.  This dialogue reveals information about the space in between the accusation and rebuttal.

Williams creates spatial agency by bringing together very different people, concepts, and objects around these in between spaces, both to coexist and communicate.  These coexistences constantly approach reconciliation, but never quite reach it.  In the end, the reader is left to find his or her own sense of reconciliation.

Book Club Babe For A Day: Tiny Beautiful Things

Today, I had the pleasure of guest-blogging about my abiding love of Cheryl Strayed for Book Club Babe’s amazing blog, and Book Club Babe wrote the kindest introduction ever for me!  I am so grateful to her for the opportunity to write for her blog!  Thank you, Book Club Babe!

In this post, I reviewed Strayed’s most recent book, Tiny Beautiful Things (2012), a collection of pieces from her Dear Sugar column on The Rumpus.  Strayed’s advice column challenges conventions and looks for journeys rather than answers.  By embracing the process of grieving, Strayed offers a divine sense of empathy for her readers.

Symmetry vs. Deprivation: Lucretius’ Idea of Death

Angelus Novus, Paul Klee

In Lucretius’ epic poem, De Rerum Natura (or, On the Nature of Things), he reasons that “death is nothing to us, nothing/ that matters at all, since mind we know is mortal” (3.830-831). He argues that since we are not conscious before life, we won’t be conscious in death, either, and therefore, don’t have anything to worry about. This reasoning that the pre-vital period is equal to the post-mortem period is known as the Symmetry Argument.

Frederik Kaufman, who disputes Lucretius’ Symmetry Argument in his 1996 article, “Death and Deprivation”, argues that pre-vital and post-mortem periods aren’t symmetrical, since a person’s identity depends on the time of their birth, but not the time of their death. He cites Thomas Nagel’s article, “Death”, saying that a person would not be the same person if he or she were born earlier.  Reasoning that a person born in a different time wouldn’t be the same person, Kaufman argues that death, which does not affect a person’s identity, deprives, while the pre-vital period does not deprive, since it precedes consciousness. In this way, the simple human awareness of mortality has the potential to cause stress and anxiety, while before life, the lack of consciousness makes it impossible to have anxiety.  Through the idea of deprivation, Kaufman argues against Lucretius’ idea that “death is nothing to us” (3.830).  Instead, he suggests that death is everything to us.

Kaufman’s discussion about deprivation is an economic argument.   According to the OED, to “deprive” means, “to divest, strip, bereave, dispossess” (“deprive”). This shows that the concept of deprivation is rooted in debt and the idea of something owed, and it also connotes something taken away unjustly. This idea of death as deprivation is therefore completely different from Lucretius’ perception of death as a natural result that should not be feared. Unlike Kaufman and Nagel, Lucretius doesn’t discuss death through economic terms, but through philosophical terms. While Lucretius views death as a continuous, natural part of life, Kaufman and Nagel view it as a rupture in life.  This binary reminded me of Walter Benjamin’s concept of the “Angel of History,” which he based on a painting by Paul Klee.  In Benjamin’s ninth thesis in the “Theses on the Philosophy of History”, he writes:

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

The Angel of History, according to Benjamin, “sees one single catastrophe” where others see a continuation of events. This mirrors the way Kaufman and Nagel see death as a rupture of life, a defining deprivation. Lucretius’ Symmetry Argument that “death is nothing to us” (3.830) could be considered the progressive storm blowing from Paradise, completely countering the popular idea of death as rupture.

And so, the symmetry argument propels the Angel of History to the future, but his eyes are still turned downwards to the idea of death as catastrophe and rupture. In this way, the historical concept of death is defined both by the concepts of continuity and rupture, symmetry and deprivation.

An Honest Man: Jean Valjean and the Monetization of Souls

Colm Wilkinson is the best.

After watching Les Miserablés in theaters and listening to the Broadway soundtrack obsessively, I’ve been thinking a lot about Jean Valjean’s character transformation.  After the bishop lies on Valjean’s behalf, gives him the church’s silver, and “buys his soul for God”, Valjean transforms his life: he becomes a mayor, does good deeds, and prays a lot.  He is an “honest man” in every sense of the word– except he isn’t truthful.  Because he has broken parole, he has to evade the law to avoid slavery and arrest.  In order to become an honest man, Valjean has to be dishonest.  But interestingly, the gatekeeper in this narrative, the bishop, also becomes a dishonest-honest man when he lies to protect Valjean.  In this story of dishonest-honesty, what does it mean to be honest?

In the beginning, Valjean “[hates] the world/ This world that always hated [him].”  After earning parole, he seeks shelter at a church– but he steals the church’s silver in the middle of the night and leaves.  After Valjean is arrested, the bishop goes along with Valjean’s lie that the bishop gave Valjean the silver, and even elaborates on it, giving him two silver candle holders, and saying, “You forgot I gave these also;/ Would you leave the best behind?”  After the officers leave, the bishop tells Valjean to “use this precious silver to become an honest man.”

Both the bishop and Valjean interpret the idea of an honest man liberally rather than conservatively.  In the OED, one definition of “honest” reads:

That deals fairly and uprightly in speech and act; sincere, truthful, candid; that will not lie, cheat, or steal. (The prevailing modern sense, the ‘honest man’ being the ‘good citizen’, the law-abiding man, as opposed to the rogue, thief, or enemy of society.)

While Valjean is the poster-boy for fairness, sincerity, and moral uprightness, he isn’t truthful, candid, and law-abiding.  Likewise, the bishop, while generous and respectable, gives away silver that isn’t his and lies to the officers.  To both the bishop and Valjean, honesty (and honor) must be purchased, not necessarily earned.

This moral exchange mirrors the economic nature of honesty in Les Mis.  It’s clear from the beginning that becoming an honest man, at least in 19th century France, requires money.  As a slave, Valjean is dehumanized; he doesn’t have the means to do good deeds, go to church, or hold a job.  Just as Valjean buys honesty, the bishop “[buys Valjean's] soul for God”, a concept reminiscent of indulgence-buying.  Souls are monetized; honesty is monetized.

This monetization gives way to a moralization of classes, meaning that the poor are portrayed as less virtuous by default, and the rich are more virtuous.  This kind of moralization of class is also seen in the English language– the word “vulgar”, which comes from the Greek word for “common or ordinary”, means “having a common and offensively mean character” (“vulgar”); “ignoble” doesn’t just mean “not noble with respect to birth”, but also “mean, base, sordid; dishonorable” (“ignoble”).

In the Catholic culture in Les Mis, where souls and honesty must be purchased, this social hierarchy is upheld.  The poor cannot afford to be honest, and especially can’t afford the luxury of being considered honest while lying– even if it’s for a good cause.  In this way, Les Mis is a fascinating inquiry into the nature of honesty and the economics of honor.

Towards Men of Good Will: Translation as Tradition

“Adoration of the Shepherds” by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622

Everyone has heard the Bible verse, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will towards men.”  We see it on holiday cards and we hear it in Christmas carols every year.  For many, this verse represents the Christmas spirit.

In fact, this King James Version translation is inaccurate.  Luke 2:14, which reads, ‘Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας’ means, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth towards men of good will” because εὐδοκίας is in the genitive.  Rather than a benediction in praise of kindness and generosity, the original Greek (written as early as 60 AD) promoted the idea of kindness towards good men only.  The mistranslation of this single word changes the entire message from one of exclusivity to one of inclusivity.

Because Luke 2:14 has been mistranslated the same way for so many centuries, the phrase “good will towards men” has become a permanent part of the Christmas story.  Some articles lament mistranslations like these in the Bible, but I find it an interesting reflection of tradition rather than a tragedy. It’s one of those phrases from the King James Version that has become ingrained in the English language, too, right along with the phrases “the skin of your teeth,” “how the mighty have fallen,” and “woe is me”.  The narrative of Jesus’s birth would not be the same without it.

Translations (and mistranslations) shape our beliefs, hopes, and fears, but the action of translation is also constant. Translation of the Christmas story does not end with the King James Version translation; the story is translated and re-translated by everyone who reads it or hears it, reinterpreted across barriers of time, geography, and language.  One could say that Christmas is a holiday of translation– a bearing across, a carrying over–and by passing down tradition, reinterpreting it, and reworking it, people become translators.

Characters as Translations: Thoughts on Cathy Park Hong’s Dance Dance Revolution

Cathy Park Hong’s collection of poetry, Dance Dance Revolution, is a linguistic masterpiece.  Narrated by an Historian who is transcribing the words of a Guide in the Desert, an invented resort city, the narrative goes from English to Korean to Spanish to Latin.  It explores the borders that exist in countries and in minds.  It expands the scope of the reader’s world.

In DDR, Hong experiments with the meaning of translation.  In an interview with Poets and Writers, she says that she is interested in “cultural zig-zagging”– that translation back and forth to different cultures.  I am especially fascinated by the role of the Historian in this piece, who plays the role of the translator.  After a thorough, anthropological forward about how translation should work, and a disclaimer about how she had left her tape recorder in the rain and filled in the static portions with ellipses, the Historian begins transcribing the Guide’s tours and anecdotes into poetry.  After each section, she translates her own experiences into memoir.

This made me think about translations and how they relate to characters.  Hong’s characters take on identities according to their translations.  But how much of a character’s identity becomes a translation?  Moreover, are Hong’s characters translations?

When I looked up “character” in the OED, I found several definitions pertaining to writing and language, including:

1) A personality invested with distinctive attributes and qualities, by a novelist or dramatist; also, the personality or ‘part’ assumed by an actor on the stage.

And when I looked up “translation,” I found two definitions that pertained to Hong’s work:

1) The action or process of turning from one language into another; also, the product of this; a version in a different language.

2) Transference; removal or conveyance from one person, place, or condition to another.

This idea of translation as a transfer of something from one place to another mirrors the theatrical idea of character.  In theater, “character” is a temporary costume and behavior, assumed by actors for the duration of a play.  In the same way, translations transform one language into another, or one experience into another.  Neither is a permanent change, but a temporary change, made for the benefit of the audience’s imagination.

When that “cultural zig-zagging” that Hong discusses happens, the translations become a characters, and the characters become translations.  The transformations are so fluid and connected, that even when all the characters (or translations, if you like), are disconnected, they are brought together by the dream of a perfect translation, a perfect understanding.

 

Decaffeinated

I never thought I would give up caffeine.  I drank coffee twice a day, in obscenely large servings.  At the dining hall, I drank it out of those soup bowls with handles because the coffee cups were too dinky.  If there was some reason I couldn’t get 8 hours of sleep, I’d just have an extra cup of coffee in the morning.  Done and done.

I had to quit caffeine last week, suddenly, because of health reasons.  Rationally speaking, this really wasn’t a tragedy at all– but for awhile, I felt like it was.  I had listed drinking coffee as one of my hobbies in all of my author bios I had written during the past year!  I just bought a new bag of coffee!  And I couldn’t remember the last day I had gone without caffeine!

I’ve been officially caffeine-free for 7 days now, and I’ve learned a few things from it.

So many people are caffeine-dependant!  Go into any office, and you’ll find tons of people who drink three to five cups of coffee a day.  Can you imagine how devastating it would be for everyone if we stopped having access to coffee in this country?  That would be a really rough week for America.

The second day without caffeine is the hardest.  The first 24 hours without caffeine was okay.  The second 24 hours without caffeine was unbearable.  I had a horrible headache all day long that wouldn’t go away with pain killers.  This comic strip sums up the first few days brilliantly.

Caffeine messes with your brain.  When I was drinking a lot of coffee, I thought, “I won’t be able to focus unless I have this coffee.”  But after a few days without, I got used to it.  Nothing devastating happened.  I didn’t suddenly start failing all my classes.  In some ways, I was able to focus more, because I compensated by getting more sleep.

It pays off not to be in a rush all the time.  After not drinking coffee for a week, I realize I’m a lot calmer, and as a result, I work more efficiently.  I’m a lot more patient with everything, especially writing.

I still love coffee.  I still love going to coffee shops. Right now, I’m working on a blog with my friends about coffee shops in Santa Cruz.  I will forever be a fan of decaf.

This is the first year I’m going to do National Novel Writing Month without coffee.  I can’t wait to see how it goes.