Monthly Archives: April 2011

Bert Stabler on Blood and Earth, Lack and Void

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Our extended theory and art discussion seems to have wound down, but Bert Stabler got in some retty great last words which I thought I’d highlight. First:

“The advocates of method oppose the nonmethod of chance to that of proceeding by reason. But what they want to prove is given in advance. They suppose that a little animal, bumping into things, explores a world that he isn’t yet able to see and will only be able to discern when they teach him to do so. But the human child is first of all a speaking being. The child who repeats the words he hears and the Flemish student lost in his Telemaque, are not proceeding hit or miss. All their effort, all their exploration, is strained toward this: someone has addressed words to them that they want to recognize and respond to: not as students or learned men, but as people; in the same way that you respond to someone speaking to you and not to someone examining you: under the sign of equality.” Jacques Ranciere, from The Ignorant Schoolmaster.

The left-theory world has its populists, like Ranciere, Bordieu, Zizek, and Gramsci, and its formalists, like Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida, and Greenberg. And it’s split up in numerous other ways too. And it’s like that in the art world as well, and in various areas of culture. But hierarchies of excellence are always conservative (even in a university), and totalizing universality is always radical (even when it’s just capitalism).

Barthes might indeed agree that image qua image needs to be recognized in some Platonic trinity of language qua language and math qua math, and freedom is the void that distinguishes and defines incommensurable multiplicities. I realize that that is a properly structuralist outlook.

But if the only true philosophy is epistemology, there immediately becomes no truth to epistemologically discern. Which I recognize as a conservative outlook– which, ironically for the feminists working with idealism, leaves them with nothing but nature and embodiment and the return to ancestral lore, the general revival of “witchcraft.”

And I have a great deal of sympathy for that, for blood and earth and haptic reflexive spasm within egoless harmonious chaos. And yet, there’s nothing about that that stands for an ethics that is itself ontological, rooted in the cosmos. I merely hope, without systematically promising, that image, the simulacrum of death, resurrected through the discursive language of art, can perhaps offer, as Caro says (echoing Hegel?), an ‘intervention that challenges the place to which poststructuralism has cast “primordial writing.”’

And here’s me in response.

In terms of your point about feminism…I think that gets at why Irigary, for example, who so radically resists the notion of biological determinism in some ways, in other ways seems so obsessed with embodiment, to the extent of seeing mathematics as gendered. Gender differences are metaphors, but there is no ontological truth beyond metaphors, so the women are not one because female lips are two, and the metaphor is the only truth there is. Bodies get erased by language and then immediately reconstituted in language. Logic is constantly swallowing bloody hunks of meat and then voiding them in a geyser of fluids, the pure grid eternally defiling itself, like Descartes pausing in his syllogisms to cut open a cow carcass, or Frankenstein birthing a shit baby. Derrida’s close reading is not an academic exercise; it’s a shamanic plunging of his orifice into sopping entrails; a violent and bloody ritual sacrifice to the hungering void.

And Bert again.

Barthes has a book about Sade, Fourier, and Loyola (called Sade Fourier Loyola), in which he describes them all as “logothetes,” inventors of languages; “It makes little difference how their style is judged, good, bad, or indifferent… all that is left in each of them is a scenographer; he who disperses himself across the framework he sets up and arranges ad infinitum. Thus if Sade, Fourier, and Loyola are founders of a language, and only that, it is precisely in order to say nothing, to observe a vacancy… Nothing is more depressing than to imagine the text as an intellectual object… The text is an object of pleasure… It is a matter of bringing into our everyday life the fragments of the unintelligible that emanate from a text we admire(.)”

This to me seems like a possibility in any discourse, to constantly defer Being through the proceas of Becoming, with the techniques of writing and erasing (sacrificing and consuming) functioning to constantly paper over the abyss on which we tread.

But the abyss itself persists only if we emerge ex nihilo, without reference to the gap that exiles us from nature. This lack that is the Real, perceived only in its effects, opposes the void, through trauma that makes necessity necessary and possibility possible. Language’s connection to pleasure is symbolic desire, which means anxiety and frustration for the phallus, but boundless freedom in lack.

Like I said, we may have exhausted this topic for now (though if people want to start off again, that would be cool too.) But in the meanwhile, thanks to Matthias, Caro, Franklin, Bert, and all those who joined in the discussion.

Gluey Tart: So Nice I Read It Twice

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No Touching At All, Kou Yoneda, October 2010, June

My attention is scattered. There are so many shiny things, you know, and all the boring and/or dreary things, and also the bus, which certainly isn’t shiny but also isn’t boring or exactly dreary, because there are always weird things going on, on the bus, and also I can read my Kindle. I don’t read yaoi on the bus because I’m not completely shameless. It gets tight on the bus, and not everybody wants to see that ho shit before work. What was I talking about? Oh, right. So many things, so little time. I pretty much never reread anything, no matter how much I like it, because there’s this towering stack of unread manga (actually several towering stacks of unread manga), to say nothing of the towering stacks of unread books (both physical and virtual). I read it and move on – baby, baby, I’ve got to ramble. But when I finished this manga, and went right back to the beginning and started over.

I wasn’t all that excited about No Touching At All based on reading the description on the back cover. “On his very first day at a brand-new job, shy Shima is trapped in the elevator with a hungover mess of a guy… who turns out to be his boss!” If you read yaoi, you now know how this book is going to work. Shima is a shy, nice guy, and also a bottom, and he’s going to fall in love with some drunk, disgusting asshole who’s also his boss. Drama will ensure, but their love will triumph. Yuck. Usually, I’d rather not. Life is too short to saddle yourself with some drunk, disgusting asshole, even for the hour or so it takes to read a comic book. But the front cover – well, the front cover is different.

The story and art in this manga have a gentle quietness to them, a stillness that lets the uncomplicated but poignant details play out and reverberate in a way I found affecting. On the cover, the smaller guy (yes, that would be Shima) is so nicely rendered, folded up into himself, wound up tight, eyes downcast, but holding on to the other man tight, desperation palpable. That’s a lot for one illustration, and nicely drawn, too. The other man is the drunk, the boss, Togawa. Ignore the fact that his back and torso make nonsense of perspective, space, and possibly time. And that something truly unfortunate is going on with his right foot, which looks like a depilated bear paw. Actually, his entire right leg is perplexing. But never mind. The way he’s holding but not quite holding Shima is beautiful. He’s in love, and I am hooked.

The story isn’t icky, either. One might think this comment is damning the thing with faint praise, but not so. I think of these manga as being a bit like noh plays. (I’ll bet you weren’t expecting that.) There’s a finite number of traditional themes. (Also, all the roles are played by men.) (This isn’t meant to be an air-tight comparison, by the way.) There’s a number of stock themes, and the creators change the details (ideally) from manga to manga in ways that might not look exactly original to all comers. They don’t need to be. We don’t necessarily want them to be. A certain amount of the enjoyment comes from exploring all the nuances of your chosen scenario. Fluffy, weepy little fruit loop getting dominated by “rakish” asshole of a boss is not my chosen scenario, thus my initial concern. To be clear, it wasn’t that I was afraid the book wouldn’t be original – I have no expectations that it would be original. I just wanted it to tweak the same old stories well. “Well” can, to a certain degree, be defined as “in ways I like.”

Shima isn’t a fluffy, weepy little fruit loop, though. (Well, yes, maybe he is weepy. It plays all right, though – he has his reasons. I don’t have a generalized problem with male characters crying, but there’s a style of yaoi that has the uke carrying on like John Boehner.) Shima’s character is well-imagined; he feels real, and most of what we know about him is told through the drawing. We see him staring stoically at the elevator doors as he first meets Togawa, who is still drunk at 9 a.m and about to vomit. (“He stinks,” Shima thinks to himself as he stares.)

We see him sitting quietly at his desk as he listens intently for information about Togawa, never giving anything away. Shima is quiet and contained. Cautious. When he finally pushes Togawa against a wall and kisses him – this is after they’ve had sex, so it’s an ownership move rather than a “confessing my love” move – it’s believably surprising. And moving. We feel how far Shima has come to allow himself to do this, and how desperate he is.

Shima has the requisite sad backstory, but Togawa’s sad tale of woe is grim in a serious and complete way. And he’s a nice guy, it turns out. Easygoing and considerate. The requisite three-quarters-of-the-way-through-the-book breakup is Shima’s fault, a combination of the usual contrived misunderstanding – probably a seven-ish on the one-to-ten scale of authenticity and plausibility, as these things go – and an odd but perhaps believable reaction to Togawa’s unfortunate background. The contrived misunderstanding is often a problem – it doesn’t have to be utterly believable, since it’s more of a plot device than an integral part of the story, but if it isn’t believable enough, you don’t get the payoff of relief and catharsis or whatever. In this case, the cause of the problem isn’t entirely solid, but what carries it is, as usual, Shima’s small reactions.

The pacing often feels off at this point in the story. After the long, detail-filled lead-in, lovingly chronicling the falling for each other phase, the near-breakup and getting back together part tends to get short shrift, as if we’re three quarters of the way through the run and we have to wrap this up. I often start losing track of plot points right about here, and that happened with this book, too. But in this case, it isn’t that I’m annoyed about suddenly not being sure what the story is about any more; it’s that I feel like I’ve missed out on some good stuff.

Rushed though the resolution may be, it is romantic. The characters’ movements and reactions to the plot contrivances ring true. Full pay-off for my inner sap (you don’t have to scratch too hard to find it).

Ryan Holmberg on Tsuge and Tatsumi

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Ryan Holmberg has left a bunch of interesting comments on Suat’s essay about Tatsumi. I thought I’d highlight some of them here.

Here’s the first.

I realize I am commenting on a two-month old post, but I just now read it.

I agree with the basic crux of this analysis of Tatsumi. I think it is harsh but fair when it comes to metaphor and sexual values. In that era of Tatsumi’s work every oblong is a phallus and every hole a vagina, no doubt, and the misogyny is unmistakable.

Given this – given that Tatsumi’s work is unsubtle – I have to say your review is about as obvious as Tatsumi’s work. I sympathize with the desire to serve up a corrective to the promotional garbage that fills the press, but you are fighting straw men. I am not sure if you are saying much more than what any of us who have had doubts about Tatsumi’s glory have thought at one time or the other.

You were fairly generous about the menstrual flowers in Tsuge’s Red Flowers. Why is it that clichéd sexual euphemisms are okay in a pastoral “literary” genre but not in pulp? Is the problem that the cicadas and babbling brooks are peeled away?

Also, on what basis are Tatsumi’s drawings “crude” and “inept”? For the most part (some exceptions), they seem pretty finished to me, and work perfectly well for what he was trying to do. “Unpolished skills?” He was a 15-year veteran in 1970.

“A failure to move beyond what remains totally acceptable in modern day manga”? You mean manga then? If so, tell me who was doing stories like Tatsumi’s in 1970, aside from Tsuge. Second, Tatsumi was black-listed by Shonen Magazine, supposedly (according to Tatsumi in “Gekiga kurashi”) after their print-run fell after publishing one of his works) – clearly he was not “totally acceptable.”

Also, “Tatsumi was no different from those individuals (the factory mangaka)”? Just on the basis of a lack of character types? I think you also mention pressing deadlines as a reason for how the work looks the way it does. I doubt it. At this point, he was writing for very few weeklies (this changes in the mid 70s, after the period in question). An artist like him with a 15 year career, having produced hundreds of pages a month for many years, do you think writing one 20 page story per month was rush work? At least be generous enough to assume that the artist knew what he was doing and had complete control over the product. He might not have been a poet or a Kojima Goseki-caliber draftsman, but he was also not an amateur.

Again, I sympathize with your basic distaste. But not with the venting.

And here’s a follow up.

The difference in finish between Projectionist and Forked Road is obvious, and as you pointed out it probably has something to do with Tatsumi`s circumstances at the end of the 60s. (Side note: your quote about Tatsumi having a bunch of artists working for him…I think that means artists writing comics for the magazine-anthologies he was publishing, not assistants for his own work…but I will have to check this.) But first of all Projectionist-type crude drawing has a long tradition in kashihon comics in Japan (this is the point where is moving from kashihon to magazines), so I don`t think it can be chalked up to lack of time or skill, and the increase in finish over those two years also has to do with the different standards of the manga monthlies and weeklies, not just a personal aesthetic decision on Tatsumi`s part. That doesnt make the work better or worse, but I think one should, especially when critiquing an artist so harshly, have some consideration for context.

And one more.

Just quickly, on Imamura, I haven’t watched these in years, but the Pornographers maybe, Insect Woman, Ningen johatsu (probably not in English). They are much more humorous than Tatsumi, but there is some overlapping setting and gender views. The impact of Nikkatsu films is also big on all of the Gekiga artists, from the Action stuff to the romantic stuff. To me, Tatsumi belongs in that world.

As for Tatsumi’s busy schedule in the late 60s, when he started doing those dirty-men stories. His prose (versus manga) autobiography “Gekiga kurashi,” published last year, has a bit on this period. It says in short, the mid 60s were a difficult time. Then an editor from a second-tier magazine name Gekiga Young commissioned 2 x 8 pages a month from him, which he claims was hard work given his publishing venture. The editor apparently requested lots of revisions, less speech balloons, etc for a tighter more visual product. I would have to check, but these are probably the short works in Pushman. He also thanks the editor for getting him inspired about making manga again.

Later, he talks about how he had a long standing feeling against using assistants, arguing that one’s work should be one’s own. He says that in 1974 he had to swallow his pride and hire two assistants to complete a commission from Shukan Manga Sunday (a weekly). I will have to do more poking around, but the way things are worded here is that this was a turning point in the way he made comics. Maybe at the height of his popularity in the late 50s he had assistants, but given the economic difficulties of kashihon publishing in the mid 60s, I doubt he had them then.

Do click through the links, as there are additional remarks by Ryan, and comments by Suat and others.

I Quite Like Art Photography

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A few weeks ago Noah posted a link to an essay by Bert Stabler slamming the medium of art photography. Rankled by the dismissal of a fascinatingly diverse medium I agreed to write a rebuttal. However, rather than address the essay point by point, I’m addressing what I see as the fundamental flaw at the heart of Stabler’s essay, that the small, highly commercial subset of art photography that Stabler critiques is at all representative of the varied artistic power of photography by focusing on the work of several engaging contemporary artists who use photography in their practice.

Susan Hiller’s work often focuses on the poetic systems behind the act of collecting, archiving and organising, perhaps the most striking of her ‘collection’ works is The J. Street Project. Encompassing three years of research, travel and photography, The J. Street Project is a massive collection of 303 photos documenting every street sign in Germany that contains the prefix Juden (Jew). Shot in a workmanlike fashion, the series is displayed in three formats; As a 606 page photo book of sequential photographs, as a 67 minute slide film, or as a monumental installation piece, pictured below.

While the individual photographs would appear as nothing more than a quirk, an oddity, it is the insistent mass and repetition of subject that gives this piece its incredible effect. Over and over, these mundane objects throw in to stark relief the dissonance between these German streets and the historical context of the country. Presented without comment, without drama, the audience is forced to fill the void of absence created by the work, projecting their cultural experiences in to the insistent work.

In the face of a modernity that demands constant efficiency and production, Alys’s Sleepers series forms a documentary of passive resistance. The work, comprised of 80 colour projector slides, depicts sleeper, both animal and human, engaging in an unusual relation to the urban construction.

Alys takes care to address the issue of the camera’s gaze in Sleepers as well, the subjects are always shot from low to the ground, or (or level with them in the case of bench sleepers), by joining his sleepers in such a way, Alys avoids what could have been a carousel of condescending ‘poverty porn’. Alys does not pity his sleepers, doesn’t look down on his subjects but lies with them, praising them for their ingenuity and their willingness to break with the social systems and rules of the modernised urban space.

Alys’s photographic vision in his other work cannot be ignored either. His photographic records of his performative and conceptual pieces is of particular note, here Alys excels at capturing and distilling the ‘defining image’ of a brief, ephemeral event. In ‘Turista’ we see this talent exemplified.

Here Alys strikes a comical figure, lanky, pale and absurd as he tries unsuccessfully to blend in to the line of trade workers in Mexico City. The picture poses a question and a humorous barb at the notion of the nomad artist, travelling between countries, gifting the people with their insights in to foreign cultures. Embodied and mocked by Alys, the notion becomes ridiculous, and we’re forced to ask ourselves, is the artist-nomad really a chameleonic nomad, able to fit in to any society and privy to mystic truths, or are they nothing more than a glorified tourist?

The camera has often been compared to a phallus, a weapon wielded by the photographer against subject. In the work of Jean Francois Lecourt that idea is taken to a delightfully absurd extreme.

The artist wields his camera as a gun and a gun as a camera, all targeted at his own nude body in an act of simultaneous destruction and creation.

Lecourt was inspired by old fairground games that still occasionally pop up around mainland Europe. In the game the participant is given a rifle and must shoot at a target mounted in the fairground stand, if they hit the bullseye, a camera automatically shoots a picture of them shooting the target.

Lecourt created a large, lightproof box to house a sheet of photosensitive paper, a kind of pinhole camera without the pinhole. He then stripped naked and fired a shot at his home made camera, simultaneously piercing the camera and the paper behind.

The resultant picture is a beautifully hazy, moody thing, recalling the dramatic light of a Noir film,. Lecourt’s pictures capture your eye, drawing you in with their strangeness. The eye’s registering of the depth of the photo is constantly baffled by the literal punctum of the gunshot hole, which seems to overlay the image like an abstract supernova, pulling the viewer’s eye constantly to the surface and reminding them of the object hood of the photograph.
The wit of Lecourt’s technique is wonderful to me as well, the idea of the nude male artist wielding the phallus of the gun against the phallus of the camera in an act of symbolic suicide that mocks the narcissistic romance of the self destructive artist, the artist shooting himself in both senses of the word and ending not with oblivion, but with another image of his own body.

Danny Treacy’s work addresses the things we leave behind, travelling to out of the way or marginalised areas, the kind of places where people go to be alone and unseen together. Treacy collects trophies of abandoned clothing found in these areas, turning them in to sculptural subjects for his photographs that harness the suggestive, intimate untold histories behind the abandoned clothes to create a haunting mood that is as sensual and beautiful as it is haunting and inexplicably frightening.

In ‘Those’, Treacy’s first series, the artist created a series of organically suggestive sculptures using found fabric. These sculptures are all what Danny calls ‘protuberances’, the things that stick out from us, that enter the world and, through their orifice like openings, invite the world to enter them, to gaze in to the soft folds of their innards. Named as Those, they become empty, out of place things, without noun, signs awaiting an object, as alien as they are enticing.

The bizarre, erotically charged organs are shot intimately, close up against a plain black background, leaving the eye to wander over the sensual surfaces of the soft fabrics that Treacy employs. Through the forensic eye of Treacy’s camera, the erotically charged sculptures discharge their intimate history and morph in to a proxy of the human flesh they once covered. One wishes they could reach out, to touch the sculptures, to reach inside and feel them.

Treacy’s other series, ‘Them’, continues the artist’s obsession with the discarded skins of our clothes, the ‘Them’ are different however, the name itself recalls horror movies of bygone eras, and the ‘Them’ indeed are a kind of monster. Constructed from mended and sewn together pieces of clothing, the Them become sad, tragic figures, haunting and frightening as they loom from the darkness, filled with the body of the artist himself, who claims to feel a kind of protection and comfort from within the shambolic, anonymous suits he constructs, a connection with an intimate history of the abandoned garments in to which he has breathed a new and unnatural life. To us on the outside though, the figures are threatening presences, each unnameable stain evoking the hidden histories of the things we carelessly abandon, reminding us that every piece of clothing was witness to the fate of their owners, whatever that may be.

JANE EYRE Book the Second– Wuthering Heights and A Unicorn: A Novel

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This recently discovered exchange of letters between Emily Brontë, writing as Ellis Bell, and her publisher, T.C. Newby, sheds new light upon the business and artistic nuances of the relationship between writer and publisher. These are the letters fully transcribed, including scans of etchings and proof sheets found enclosed.

Emily as ‘Ellis Bell’ to Thomas Cautley Newby, publisher; Haworth, 30 June 1847

Mr Newby,

A. Bell and I sent a draft for 50£—being your terms for the printing of ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Agnes Grey’ in the 3 vols. you propose. When you acknowledge receipt of the draft—will you state how soon the work is to be completed?

Most sincerely,

Ellis Bell

 

Address Mr Ellis Bell

Parsonage

Haworth

Bradford

Yorkshire

 

Emily to Thomas Newby; Haworth, 7 July 1847

Dear Sir,

Enclosed are those proof sheets, which you were so good as to send to A. Bell and me, complete with the corrections we deem necessary for publication—some small matters of punctuation and orthography of which we are sure you are aware, having only been overlooked due to minor errors of typography or some such beyond our humble understanding. We suppose there is nothing now to prevent immediate printing of the work, and enquire again as to when it is to be expected.

Your respectful servant,

Ellis Bell

 

Emily to Thomas Newby; Haworth, 12 August 1847

Dear Sir,

Only having published one short work of poems, I remain ignorant regarding the interval between the receipt of the proofs and the sending of the document to Press. This ignorance, combined with a reluctance to seem impertinent, would discourage us from seeming to ‘hurry matters along’ in any respect; I only wish to know when A. Bell and I may receive the agreed upon 6 copies of the complete work, when the success of our industry may be revealed.

With hope,

Ellis Bell

 

Emily to Thomas Newby; Haworth, 2 September 1847

Sir,

Our accounts having proven your receipt of our draft, A. Bell and I assume you are well-equipped to commence publication. While we understand the necessity of the remittance, we hope that remuneration should prove possible once copies of the work are available to redeem the amount—this of course could only happen should the work be sent to Press in the first place. The reviews shall determine our fate, and yourself. We trust to your judgment,

With my livelihood,

Ellis Bell

 

Emily to Thomas Newby; Haworth, 20 September 1847

Sir,

I have recently enjoyed the new book by one Mr Trollope, which we see went to Press care of Mr Thomas Newby—I appreciate this as evidence of your fine judgment, and furthermore your ability to publish as so promised, that MS. which we have sent you some time ago, of which we daily expect to hear news of publication—barring some response from you to me,

Most eagerly,

Ellis Bell

 

Thomas Newby, publisher, to Emily as ‘Ellis Bell’; London, 20 October 1847

Mr E. Bell,

Do not bother about the remittance; & the proofs, &ct. There have been minor issues with the binding, adjustments to the leading, &ct., the technical details of which it is best to remain ignorant—which is to say, it is nothing to worry about, sir. I could not help but notice—impossible to ignore, actually; your surname ‘Bell’—a relation to the newly published & acclaimed Currer—is it possible? I have just been made aware of ‘Jane Eyre’, printed by Smith, Elder, & Co.,—excellent work—truly excellent—critics in an uproar, as they say; reviews to be published in the Atlas, the Westminster, usual periodicals, you know. It may even be the case that the self-same C. Bell—but, well, one does not want to presume—but some will speculate as to the identity—I do not; I respect an Author’s right to nom de plume. Truly capital work, that ‘Jane Eyre’, price fixed at 31/6d—one could not ask for a more reasonable—but let us not speak of cost.

It did occur to me, reading ‘Jane Eyre’—be not alarmed, sir; there is a good chap—reading ‘Jane Eyre’ there are some striking—shall we say supernatural—elements. ‘Wuthering Heights’—we might give it some of the same—but I hate to call it—flavour. Colour, if you will. I suggest the insertion of a unicorn.

I am sure you will find most agreeable this idea of

Yrs sincerely

T C Newby

 

Emily to Thomas Newby; Haworth, 24 October 1847

Sir,

How delightful it is to be mentioned in the same epistle as Mr C. Bell, a delight that is compounded by the receipt of an epistle from you in the first place; we were fearful of my other letters to you having gone astray.

I am indeed in acquaintance with the gentleman in question, C. being a most beloved member of my family. Furthermore I have read ‘Jane Eyre’, and found it to be a novel most engrossing, of the highest quality; therefore it is with utmost pleasure I read of its success. However, as I am not the author of that work, the extent of the credit which is due to me is that of C’s loving supporter and friend—no more.

I did very much enjoy the supernatural elements of ‘Jane Eyre’, as you call them. You will recall that in ‘Jane Eyre’, there is no unexplained mysticism beyond that of Jane’s hearing Rochester calling her at the time of his deepest need; before that the mysterious sounds and appearances were a result of Mr Rochester’s flesh and blood wife. In ‘Wuthering Heights’, however, may I remind you that there is the appearance of a ghost—Catherine Earnshaw appears, from beyond the grave as it were, and I think sets the tone most accurately. I do not think a unicorn would do quite the same, though your professional insight is appreciated.

I am glad to hear the issues of binding are resolved, as I hope it means A Bell and I shall soon receive word of the fate of our efforts.

I remain yours most hopefully,

Ellis Bell

 

Thomas Newby, publisher, to Emily as ‘Ellis Bell’; London, 8 November 1847

Good Sir,

A review of ‘Jane Eyre’ has appeared in The Guardian—most favorable—excellent. All the rage, quite the hit of the season. You do not claim the identity of C Bell—most unfortunate; it is quite the talk here in London—‘who is C Bell’, an unknown entity on the scene, &ct. &ct. Some claim it to be merely the name of the pen—though whose pen!—we are all in agreement: certainly a masculine hand; the attitude is quite violent—not unlike ‘Wuthering Heights’—almost as if the pen were the same, though the name be quite different.

Whatever the nomenclature, anything by Bell—I am sure it will prove successful, as long as it has the same sort of—shall we say—sentiment. The ghost of Catherine Earnscarf is excellent—excellent—but it needs something more—more benevolent. I am sure you will agree all the characters of ‘Wuthering Heights’ are rather—inconvenient, in the moral sense of the word, & in respect to popular sentiment. The minor addition of a unicorn should rectify things quite nicely.

Please believe me to be,

Yrs most respectfully

T C Newby

P.S. I am revising the proofs even as I write to you—I have even prevailed upon a most excellent artist to engrave the frontispiece—see the enclosed. ‘Jane Eyre’ went without a frontispiece, and without supernatural creatures. I think we can get 40s for this one; ‘Jane Eyre’ went for 31/6d—I will fix the price.

Emily to Thomas Newby; Haworth, 12 November 1847

Sir,

I am glad to hear again of the success of ‘Jane Eyre’. It is a wonderful book and I am glad to know the author. As I am not he, I shall pass along your praise and news of his success.

With respect to ‘Wuthering Heights’, while I understand and admire the sentiment from which ‘Jane Eyre’ arises, my own novel is of an entirely different character. ‘Jane Eyre’ is the story of two lovers who eventually find happiness, despite circumstances and the dictates of society. Mine is the story of lovers torn asunder by these circumstances and dictates.

If the characters are not estimable in ‘popular sentiment’ as you so call it, if they are not deemed ‘moral’, then we should look not to their inmost hearts—wells within which passion and true feeling thrive in beauty immortal—but to ourselves. Within, Cathy and Heathcliff are pure, naked before the eyes of God, as are we ourselves. Without, we share their selfishness, their brutality, their willingness towards spite. Out of such clay we have formed the oppression of our inmost hearts of which I spoke; we have shackled our true feeling, our passion and integrity.

A unicorn, sublime as such a mystical beast must be, is by its very nature untethered. It is a symbol of that goodness and purity which remains imprisoned within Heathcliff, and within us all. It does not belong free-spirited, roaming the moors, but as a figment in our hearts. Perhaps it would be suited to a child’s fantasy, but I submit to you that such a creature would subtract literary value from my own tale.

Most respectfully,

Ellis Bell

 

 

Thomas Newby, publisher, to Emily as ‘Ellis Bell’; London, 17 November 1847

Sir,

You are wise to remark upon the success of ‘Jane Eyre’—and Currer Bell, a relation, you say? ‘Wuthering Heights’, coming so shortly after ‘Jane Eyre’—it is sure to be a success, with a unicorn. We must think of them as related, just as you and Currer Bell come one after another, so do ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Wuthering Heights and a Unicorn’. Readers will regard it as ‘Jane Eyre, Book the Second’—perhaps we might even change the names—speak with C—it will be a tour de force, ipso facto.

It is the ending of ‘Jane Eyre’ the people love, the reunion of the lovers—‘hope will prevail’, ‘love will conquer’, ‘it is an ever fix-ed mark’, &ct. &ct.; in its current form, ‘Wuthering Heights’, its preoccupation with suffering, brutality, oppression &ct., &ct.—in these depictions, though true to history and the moral fibre of our society—no one is interested, and furthermore men of conscience will not stoop to immerse themselves to such unremitting savagery—you see my point—surely you agree. You must mitigate it with a unicorn.

‘A symbol of goodness and purity’—you have hit the nail on the head as to the nature of the unicorn itself. You see, it will be representative, but at the same time corporeal; though flesh and blood it is the spirit of the thing, that which it personifies which will be substantial. The ‘mystical beast’, as you put it, shall manifest human kindness—eternal hope, &ct, Beauty—Mr Carlyle will understand the thematic implication—I am sure; Mr Ruskin will appreciate it. ‘Beauty is truth’—Byron, you know, excellent poet; Tennyson would agree.

The interjection of this motif, in addition to an exchange of names—‘Jane’ for ‘Catherine’, ‘Rochester’ for ‘Heathcliff’—you see what I mean. You must speak with C; think it over; surely he will see how the two connect—tour de force! Ipso facto!—with a unicorn.

All the best,

T C Newby

 

 

Emily to Thomas Newby; Haworth, 23 November 1847

Sir,

As my novel is in no way connected whatsoever with ‘Jane Eyre’, I cannot speak to C. on such a subject. The stories are entirely different entities, just as C and I are entirely different beings.

You speak of popular opinion. I think that you are right. We shy, as a society, away from those truths which are passionate, ugly, and real; we seek instead creature comforts, fantasy, escape. That very seeking is a form of the oppression of which I spoke. Popular opinion, the structure of our society, but also inner loneliness and greed—these are the factors which prevent individuals from acting upon their true desires or speaking their real thoughts. Look how my Cathy decides she must marry Linton, though her heart belongs to Heathcliff: so, too, do outside forces and our own internal selfishness prevent us from maintaining our integrity. I wish to maintain my integrity. I wish my story to retain its integrity, even as Catherine and Heathcliff do not.

On the subject of the unicorn, you speak of metaphor. I submit to you the metaphor is already there, in the form of the successive generations. Hareton Earnshaw and the young Cathy present that kernel of hope you so desire: the idea that for the future, we might learn to triumph over those who would seek to degrade us. We might learn to love one another, and forgive past wrongs. The unicorn has no place in this story: a unicorn is a vision of the future, a desperate hope, another coming of that for which all Christian souls yearn. It does not traipse upon the moors—it glides upon the heavens, and we await its blessing there—outside and above the cruel reality of Wuthering Heights.

Sincerely,

Ellis Bell

 

Thomas Newby, publisher, to Emily as ‘Ellis Bell’; London, 29 November 1847

Dearest Sir,

I am aggrieved to hear this news regarding ‘Jane Eyre’. Is C Bell really so intractable, when it would mean the success of your own novel? Let us see what can be done—we do not have to change the names; you are right of course—they are entirely different, but perhaps the subtitle: ‘Jane Eyre, Book the Second, With A Unicorn’—it strikes a melodious and most agreeable tone.

The matter of the title settled, I will be sending the book to print soon—the dragon in ‘Agnes Gray’ coming along quite nicely, as you may have heard from A. However, I will admit to feeling some concern, reading your note: you are entirely right, of course, on the subject of metaphor. The unicorn must be a metaphor. But you understand it must not be all theoretical: there must be an actual unicorn. I should like it to be a silvery one, with an alicorn of pearly white—the beast’s coat incandescent, its hooves ringing with a sound like bells, its mane of a glossy, gossymer texture, spider webs and such, c.f. Spenser, c.f. the frontispiece.

The unicorn must figure prominently on the moors—a mysterious figure at first, then emerging in a beatific, ethereal manner—its horn may heal Heathcliff’s wounded heart—the promise of redemption, &ct. &ct.—this is the metaphor of which you spoke But it may also heal Catherine’s wounds when she is savaged by the dog—as seen on the frontispiece—you see there is physical healing as well; it is not all theoretical, and Catherine’s ghost will naturally be borne away by it—the unicorn—in the end, when she appears to Heathcliff at his window; you understand how easily the creature might be inserted.

You see how it will be; I have revised the proofs and had them printed again—enclosed is but a portion, so you may see how easy it all is, this unicorn insertion. And you see, I have also got up another engraving through an artist—I think he knows Phiz. Boz will approve of all of this—you know how goodness always triumphs: c.f. ‘Nicholas Nickleby’, c.f. ‘Oliver Twist’. The numbers on ‘Twist’ alone incredible—imagine how well he—Oliver—may have fared in the fickle marketplace borne up by the presence, and supporting back, of such a noble and shining beast.

I remain, as always,

Yr Humble Servant,

T C Newby

Emily to Thomas Newby; Haworth, 2 December 1847

Sir,

Currer Bell is not intractable; on this matter, I am. I will not speak to C regarding using his success to further my own career. Every sentiment recoils; I abhor the idea. I wish that you would desist in your insistence upon the matter.

As for the matter of the unicorn, I reject it entirely. You remark that Mr Carlyle would approve of it. Finding it evidence of the low state to which our society has fallen, Mr Carlyle would abhor it. You suggest that Mr Dickens might employ your equine augmentation. Mr Dickens, as an Author of craftmanship and virtue, would recoil from it, and Lord Tennyson would be repulsed. While Lord Byron did not write, “Truth is Beauty,” the Poet who did would disdain of your pronged dobbin, as would the writer of ‘Don Juan’. Other authors long since dead would be rebel. Jane Austen—whom, in her reluctance to explore our more passionate, more sensual or spiritual natures, I have always regarded coolly—Jane Austen, sir, would flinch from it. Your equestrial flourish does not appear in Spenser; your trussed-up gelding does not merit mention even by that master of fantastic allegory. Even Sir Newton, sir, would despise it: he would not permit your mule to poke its bedizened brow through a second story window, sir, as it does in the little sketch you sent. Sir Newton’s Theory of Gravitation would not allow it. I do not stand upon good taste, sir, nor decency, nor mere elementary good breeding; the very Laws of Physics reject your proposal.

‘Wuthering Heights’ is not a beautiful story. It is cruel and coarse; it can be crude. My hope for it is that it might teach us a lesson about remaining true our inward spirit. In successive generations, we might learn that the oppressive force of history, of society, of the world—which would have us sell our souls to become crooked, monstrous creatures— must be, can only be, conquered by remaining true to ourselves, rather than the dictates of our forefathers and society.

Sir, to do so, we must preserve our dignity. We must create stories and objects with meaning and with integrity. We must not seek to please masses, and our own base natures. We must be original, hard-working, honest, and true.

All this we must do—without the aid of a unicorn.

Sincerely,

Ellis Bell

 

Thomas Newby, publisher, to Emily as ‘Ellis Bell’; London, 7 December 1847

Most Wonderful Sir,

If C is to remain obstinate, we shall have to content ourselves with the subtitle. It is a shame, though.

On the subject of the ‘equestrial flourish’—I love it! This is exactly what I mean: its bedizened brow, its noble prong, &ct.: “Truth is Beauty”! Exactly as you say—remain true to your inward spirit, conquer the oppressors! &ct. &ct. I love it—it shall be done, and with a unicorn. Excellent—bedizened brow—your turn of phrase—defies the Laws of Gravity, Theories of Physics—tramples down Sir Isaac Newton with pearly hooves of glory—excellent. It is going to go over perfectly; you will see. 42/6d—‘Jane Eyre’ only went for 31/6d.

It is off to Press now; we shall soon see the result. This idea of the equestrial flourish—you are right, Boz gratifies us with a hopeful ending—the equine augmentation: hardly necessary. I will put the suggestion instead to H.B. Ogden’s Publisher—‘The Wire’ might have use of elves, serpents, the undead, &ct. &ct.

I remain, hopeful for the success of your work,

Yrs most truly,

T C Newby

 

Not a Gentleman

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Theologian Stanley Hauerwas, in his book Dispatches From the Front, argues that Trollope’s work offers a challenge to the moral peril of modernity.

It is not hard to document the central place of constancy and forgiveness throughout Trollope’s work. That he saw these themes as central no doubt has much to do with his sense that the England he loved and cherished, the England of the genry and the honest workman, was in danger of being lost under the onslaught of the new commercial culture. Thus, in his Autobiography he says: “A certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable.” The threat of such people, vividly portrayed in Lopez (The Prime Minister) and in Melmorre (The Way We Live Now), was not that they were unambiguously evil, but that they could so easily be mistaken for gentlemen. Even though Trollope was no doubt concerned with the passing of a certain social class, he was yet more deeply concerned with the accompanying threat to moral order. It is that concern which shapes his entire literary enterprise.

As this makes clear, Hauerwas shares Trollope’s concern about the threat of capitalism and liberalism to the moral order. For Hauerwas, the Enlightenment has abstracted moral principles from community and tradition. Thus, liberalism (in its broad sense, including Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, and more) organizes politics as the pragmatic magaerial effort to balance interest groups. “Freedom” and “equality” are seen as the most important virtues, and truth, honor, and everything else is abandoned in their name. Thus, Hauerwas argues:

I have found it hard to enter the debate about abortion since I do not believe the issue for Christians can be framed in “pro-life” or “pro-choice” terms. Such descriptions are attempts to win the political battle on the most minimum set of agreements — that is, that abortion is primarily about the sanctity of life or freedom of women. As a result, abortion is abstracted from those practices through which our lives are ordered that we might as a community be in a position to welcome children. It is a political necessity to make our moral discourse, and our lives, as thin as possible in the hopes of securing political agreement. As a result, the debate is but a shouting match between two interest groups.

Again, Hauerwas sees Trollope as offering a different vision of society — one based on honor, constancy, and forgiveness rather than lowest common denominator interest group squabbles. Trollope presents a vision of a community in which people strive, not for freedom and equality, but rather to be gentleman and Christians.

I have a fair bit of sympathy for this view. Capitalism is an acid; it dissolves social relations and community. It believes in nothing but desire — the freedom to desire, the equality of all desire, and the need for infinite space in which desire can expand. We’re all autonomous wanting machines, scrabbling for oil and sex and the money to buy both as our hydrocarbons and progeny scuttle across the globe, leaving nothing but extinction and advertising slogans in their wake.

So, if Trollope is the cure, then, hey, I’ll read Trollope.

I picked up The Prime Minister; coincidentally one of the books that Hauerwas discusses. Here’s the passage where the gentlemanly, virtuous Mr. Wharton, scion of the old class and old morality, confronts Ferdinand Lopez, the reckless capitalist adventurer, who wishes to marry Mr. Wharton’s daughter. Wharton is turning over, in his own mind, why he cannot allow his daughter to do so.

this man [that is, Lopez] who was now in [Mr. Wharton’s] presence and whom he continued to scan with the closest observation, was not what he called a gentleman. The foreign blood was proved, and that would suffice. As he looked at Lopez he thought that he detected Jewish signs…

As the book goes along, we learn that Lopez is, in fact, not a gentleman. His whole life is devoted to reckless speculation and the pursuit of money. Like capitalism itself, he has no sense of good and bad — and no sense of social fitness. In his egalitarian amorality, he envies those above him (rather than respecting them) and ruthlessly exploits those below (rather than protecting them.)

Lopez is, in other words, modernity incarnate. And modernity incarnate, for Trollope, is a Jew.

I’m a Jew myself, as it happens. There are Jews who see anti-Semitism everywhere in the media. I have to say, I’m not one of them. Jews are, as far as most Americans are concerned, white. Anti-semitism is pretty thoroughly despised…in part because Jews have so thoroughly assimilated, and in part because the U.S. fought a massive, successful war against anti-Semitism, and, partialy as a result (thanks Hitler!), anti-Semitism continues to be equated with absolute evil.

All of which is to say that Trollope’s anti-Semitism in itself doesn’t bother me so much. I don’t feel like I’m being oppressed. Lopez is an invidious stereotype, but it’s a stereotype that lost. I, for example, married a shiksa, and nobody in the shiksa’s family cared. Lopez hasn’t hurt me and can’t hurt me. In the book, all his plans may have failed and he may have offed himself in the interest of conveniencing the uptight Brits. But, in real life he got to keep the girl and have little baby Lopezes who no one could tell, or even wanted to tell, from the uptight baby Brits. Admittedly, Lopez had to go through the gas chambers first, which sucked…but all’s well that ends well.

What does bother me, though, is that I think there’s a real sense in which Trollope isn’t wrong about Lopez. I mean, clearly, he’s wrong that Jews are evil sneaking submen who don’t deserve to marry shiksas, because, in fact, Jews are awesome, and should marry whoever they want. But I think he’s right that the old moral order which Hauerwas defends, the anti-capitalist, cohesive morality he challenges, is, by its nature, anti-Semitic.

Hauerwas is aware that this is a problem…but he tries to get around it by suggesting in passing that Trollope has us identify with Lopez’s frustrations and by emphasizing that it is Lopez’s conduct that makes him not a gentleman, rather than the happenstance of circumcision.

None of which is very convincing. Mr. Warren identifies Lopez as not being a gentleman because Lopez is a foreigner and a Jew before he knows anything else about him. Indeed, he dislikes Lopez, as he says, precisely because “no one knows anything about him” — and no one knows anything about him because he’s a Jew without lineage or proper family.

And lo and behold, the rest of the novel goes about remorselessly demonstrating that Mr. Warren’s prejudices were correct. It’s true that Lopez does not act like a gentleman…but that conduct is not separable from his ancestry. On the contrary, the ancestry comes first, diagetically and I believe thematically.

Trollope does, as Hauerwas says, show the virtues of constancy, forgiveness, and gentlemanliness…virtues that Lopez and capitalism repudiate. But Trollope also shows that virtues of keeping to one’s own set and keeping away from the greasy foreigners. I can sneer at the Enlightenment and liberalism all I want, but the fact remains that it’s because of Enlightenment liberalism that I was able to marry my wife without a great deal of unpleasantness. Capitalism eats through moral truths and communities — but one of the communal moral truths it eats through is anti-Semitism.

Hauerwas seems to believe that we can get Trollope’s honorable cohesive, pre-capitalist community without that anti-Semitism, and, presumably, without the sexism or the homophobia. It’s an appealing vision…but if he wants to make me believe in it, he needs to do better than just pointing to Trollope. Because, lovely as Trollope is in many ways, I don’t think too many Lopezes are going to want to live in his world.


Nazi caricature of a Jewish banker

Utilitarian Review 4/16/11

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News

I’m very sorry to say that Domingos Isabelinho has decided to step down as a columnist here at HU. We’ve been really honored to have him. Besides being one of the most knowledgeable critics around, he has a unique and really irreplaceable perspective on comics and culture. He’ll be sorely missed here. You can see all of his posts here.

The good news is that Domingos will be posting again at his old blog the Crib Sheet. Go check it out.

Utilitarians Everywhere

It’s been a couple of weeks since I did one of these, so there have been a bunch of publications.

A piece at the Chicago Reader about Del McCoury, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and embalmed traditions.

A piece at Splice Today about the need for two-fisted pacifism.

At Splice Today a review of Source Code.

Also at Splice a review of Insidious.

And at Comixology I talk about Paul Celan, words and images.