Watcha readin' ?
Lonolo4790
saw the film so I have no clue how the book will turn out[I do think that the
film would have to be altered quite a bit-most of the book is told through
flashbacks].
Anyone else here read this? What other books are you guys currently into? Any
responses would be greatly appreciated.
Ryan K.
in the last few months. I read Red Mars by K.S. Robinson a while ago and was
bored to tears. Obviously, there isn't a bright-line distinciton b/w aural and
visual readers, but I'm just much more attuned to the sound of the prose than I
am to images of a particular book. I'm a big fan of Don Delillo for that
reason. Science fiction more or less demands that you *see* what the author is
narrating, but I find that if the prose sounds clunky no amount of fantastic
imagery can maintain my interest. But so far, I'm enjoying Hyperion.
Ian Livesey
--
Regards,
Ian
ianli...@hotmail.com
i.j.l...@btinternet.com
Lonolo4790 <lonol...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000305001409...@ng-cq1.aol.com...
annie
faithful to the book, it's one of my favorites! I loved the book,
couldn't put it down.
I just finished Thomas Perry's "Blood Money", stayed up till 1 am
to finish it, it was so good. Next I'll either read "The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams (recommended
by a friend) or a bio of Jane Austen, haven't decided yet.
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Mel Wilson
A pleasant little hobby thing JKG wrote about his folks, and the
folks of all the other Caledonians from southwest Ontario. Observant,
detached, amused, respectable. Esp. fine if you like farmers.
Regards. Mel.
Joyce Halenar
Club and saw the movie, which of course wasn't nearly as good as the
book. (movies almost never are. ) I'm reading Miss Smilla's Feeling
For Snow right now. So far like it well enough to read it slowly, so
that I'll be able to savor the experience longer. Good luck with Joy
Luck.
Arthur Nelson
enjoy it. Art
Joyce Halenar <jhal...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:17521-38...@storefull-211.iap.bryant.webtv.net...
Adrian Marley
Currently reading: "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry.
Amanda
"Adrian Marley" <adr...@nospam.fmw.ie> wrote:
> Just finished "Anno Dracula" by Kim Newman.
> Currently reading: "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry.
>
>
Hi, I am new here, I am currently reading "The Reader" by Schlinker.
It is translated from the German. It's a really good read, it's about a
15 year old boy who has an affair with a 36 year old woman in the
1950's. Their affair ends badly and years later he sees her again in a
courtroom where she is a defendant. Very good read.
Before that I read "The Book of Ruth"by Jane Hamilton, an amazing story
about a woman in a loser family in a loser town. It has quite a few
funny moments, but the end of the book is jaw-dropping. Wow. The same
authour wrote "Map of the World" which is on my "to read" list.
--
Visit the Zelda64 BB at Zelda64.zyxian.com.
Join our family!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
annie
>Just finished "Anno Dracula" by Kim Newman.
>Currently reading: "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry.
>
You'll love "Lonesome Dove", I re-read it every couple of years!
Fiona Webster
> You'll love "Lonesome Dove", I re-read it every couple of years!
I've only read it once, but I love the opening: "It's too HOT
for pigs on the porch." My husband and I quote that one at least
once every summer.
--Fiona
Jay Gertz
Amanda wrote:
>
> Hi, I am new here, I am currently reading "The Reader" by Schlinker.
> It is translated from the German. It's a really good read, it's about a
> 15 year old boy who has an affair with a 36 year old woman in the
> 1950's. Their affair ends badly and years later he sees her again in a
> courtroom where she is a defendant. Very good read.
>
This was made into a movie as well. _L'lectrice_ (?)
jay
David J. Loftus
: Jay Gertz wrote:
:>
: A well placed question mark, since the reader in question (not as in
: silent reading but as in reading aloud) is male.
: It is a very good book.
I would question the connection, too; isn't the movie considerably older
than the book?
David Loftus
Maureen Scobie
Two different books are being confused, I think. The 1988 film,
directed by Michel Deville, called _La Lectrice_ stars Miou-Miou and is
based on a French language book. There is no affair. The young boy, one
of several people who listen to the reader, is obsessed with the
reader's legs. I think he gets to see her knees. I have the book around
here somewhere but I can't find it so the author's name escapes me.
The book by Bernhard Schlink is something else.
Maureen
Francis Muir
Also, we probably don't want to be thinking of Hannibal the Cannibal.
David Matthews
I believe the movie La Lectrice was based on a novel by Raymond Jean.
Anja Beuter
>:> > Hi, I am new here, I am currently reading "The Reader" by Schlinker. [...]
>:>
>:> This was made into a movie as well. _L'lectrice_ (?)
>
>: A well placed question mark, since the reader in question (not as in
>: silent reading but as in reading aloud) is male.
>
>I would question the connection, too; isn't the movie considerably older
>than the book?
Yes, it is.
There's no doubt about the fact that these are two totally different stories.
"The reader" by Bernhard Schlink was published in 1995. As Amanda said, it is
about a 15-year-old who passionately falls in love with a woman in her mid
thirties. Years later, after the affair had broken up quite suddenly, he sees
her again in a courtroom and learns that she had been a warder in a
concentration camp. And that wasn't all. She is accused of having behaved
utterly without humanity towards a group of prisoners, the consequence of which
was their death. The protagonist (who is the narrator at the same time) now has
to come to terms with the fact that he once dearly loved a woman who apparently
wasn't worth loving...
This is Schlink's first "serious" novel, after having published a number of
crime stories before. Both his crime stories as well as "The reader" have been
highly acclaimed by the public and the critics. What is so outstanding about
"The reader" is the fact that it is a novel dealing once again with the theme of
reappraisal of the past, and - surprisingly enough - Schlink proves that even in
the nineties it is possible to write a book that comes up with a completely new
aspect in this difficult field.
As far as I know, it is currently being made into a movie by Anthony Minghella.
Quite recently Schlink published a volume of short stories, "Liebesfluchten" (I
don't know the English title, probably it hasn't been translated yet).
"La lectrice", on the other hand, is a French movie, starring Miou-Miou. It was
released in 1988. It's about a woman who reads to her boyfriend every night and
identifies with the female protagonist in such a way that their personalities
begin to merge. From now on we see Constance/Marie wandering around a French
city, visiting her customers who want to be read a good story. There's the young
boy, who is more interested in Marie's legs than in Baudelaire, then there's the
old lady, who likes Russian literature, then the old man, who enjoys de Sade...
It's a wonderful, charming little movie, typically French.
Anja
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 10th of March, 2000
Silke:
A well placed question mark, since the
reader in question (not as in silent reading
but as in reading aloud) is male.
It is a very good book.
I assume that what you are talking about it is _The Reader_
by Bernhard Schlink (translated from _Der Vorleser_
by Carol Brown Janeway). I just happened to listen
to this on tape (appropriately enough) starting this
Tuesday evening's drive home and finishing it Wednesday
afternoon.
My sense of it is that it is a very good book indeed, but
I've been wondering about it in the past few days, since
even though on the immediate level it had an engaging plot,
which seemed a device for exploring ethical complexities,
I kept getting suspicious that there was this whole, other I don't
know "postmodern" or allegorical layer to it, in which
it is not a really about "post-Holocaust Germany" novel at all, but
more about readership itself, architectonically plotted into
three phases of being at some youthful point initially "turned-on"
to reading, progressing to a middle age of judgment of non-readership
and yet guilt in the legacy of human sin which readership brings, and
then an old age of some sort of wisdom beyond the most simple
judgment---a triple pattern of desire, guilt/judgment, absolution.
Is there anything to this suspicion that the book is more metaphorical
than realistic?
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Anja Beuter
>I kept getting suspicious that there was this whole, other I don't
>know "postmodern" or allegorical layer to it, in which
>it is not a really about "post-Holocaust Germany" novel at all,
What is a "post-Holocaust Germany" novel anyway?
>but more about readership itself, architectonically plotted into
>three phases of being at some youthful point initially "turned-on"
>to reading, progressing to a middle age of judgment of non-readership
>and yet guilt in the legacy of human sin which readership brings, and
>then an old age of some sort of wisdom beyond the most simple
>judgment---a triple pattern of desire, guilt/judgment, absolution.
>
>Is there anything to this suspicion that the book is more metaphorical
>than realistic?
Hmm, I don't think that Schlink intended his story to be metaphorical in the
sense you describe it. (However, I'm well aware that the author's intention is
by no means an appropriate category of analysis.) At least what he said in a
recent interview in the German magazine "Der Spiegel" leads to the assumption
that he wanted to tell a simple story, i.e. the very individual story of a
person who has to come to terms with his own past. The novel is not so much
about German holocaust in general than rather about individual guilt (Hanna's
guilt as well as the protagonist's guilt).
The way I see it, the readings establish the lovers' communication. When they
were still together, they communicated through a strict pattern of rituals,
which included reading as well as bathing (and having sex, of course). Later,
when he encountered his former lover again, he realised that it wasn't possible
to talk to her the way he did in the past, since she seemed to be a totally
different person. Sending her the tapes was the only possibility of getting into
contact with her again. And despite the fact that she suddenly was a stranger to
him, he _had_ to get in touch with her in order to find his peace of mind.
Schlink's narrative style is very clear and exact. That's what makes it a very
good read, among other things. I can't see the allegorical layer you talk about.
Anja
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 10th of March, 2000
Anja Beuter asks:
What is a "post-Holocaust Germany" novel anyway?
Nothing technical. I just meant a novel set in Germany after
WWII, concerned with the legacy---guilt, fear, judgment---of
the Holocaust.
Anja:
[...]
I can't see the allegorical layer you talk about.
Well, I'm not sure that I *see* it myself, I only sense
it. And I'm happy with your summary of the realistic
mode of reading it. I just sense something beyond that,
is all. What impels me in the metaphoric direction
might be, first of all, the title---its very
generality, I think, would lead me to believe that
the book might be addressing itself towards readership
itself, the act of reading. Then, there's the idea that
lifetime readership does rather follow the three-part plan
of the novel---an early phase of consuming everything
for the sake of desire, then later reflection and doubt
and guilt about what it is we may have taken in, followed
finally by some sort of acceptance/understanding of our
own complicity in what it is we have read (writing?). This
seems to me to be resonant with having a pair of lovers,
one a reader, one illiterate in the first place, and
ritualizing reading as a mode of communication between
them. It's ultimately not as safe a mode as it mat seem.
She, in a sense, learns to read precisely in order to find
her guilt.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
TC3
"annie" <boggleN...@fuse.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:18790f9b...@usw-ex0101-006.remarq.com...
> Oh, I read it when it first came out, and the movie is pretty
> faithful to the book, it's one of my favorites! I loved the book,
> couldn't put it down.
>
>
> I just finished Thomas Perry's "Blood Money", stayed up till 1 am
> to finish it, it was so good. Next I'll either read "The
> Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams (recommended
> by a friend) or a bio of Jane Austen, haven't decided yet.
>
>
TC3
Smiley. Thanks! :o) Cheryl
"Amanda" <amanda...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8a1450$982$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > Currently reading: "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry.
> >
> >
>
> 15 year old boy who has an affair with a 36 year old woman in the
> courtroom where she is a defendant. Very good read.
>
Anja Beuter
>> What is a "post-Holocaust Germany" novel anyway?
>
>A novel set in or concerned with post-Holocaust Germany in which such
>situating plays a reasonably significant role.
Well, thanks, but I intended to point out the very vague notion of the term
"post-Holocaust Germany novel" rather than asking for a definition. The thing
is, I think that this term doesn't lead us anywhere when talking about
literature. It just puts a label on a book and reduces its potential of meaning
to one single aspect. In the past, this enthusiastic labelling of books has lead
to a very unsatisfying way of discussing novels in Germany. You can see the same
(typically German?) process today when you take the question of the
"post-unification novel". Once the Berlin wall had come down, every important
writer was expected to deal with this theme in a novel. What a great
disappointment that so far no one has come up with _the_ one and only
"post-unification" novel! It nearly cost Guenter Grass his reputation that his
novel "Ein weites Feld" ("A wide field"?) didn't meet the requirements some
critics had set up.
>> Hmm, I don't think that Schlink intended his story to be metaphorical in the
>> sense you describe it.
>I don't see why a book can't be both an exploration of an historical
>period and a reflection on reading and literacy and the seductions of
>both. I don't see "sin which readership brings," but would be interested
>in Mike's thoughts on that (not in general, please, but in this novel).
I didn't read Schlink's novel as an exploration of a historical background.
History here establishes the mirror against which this complicated love story is
set. It serves as a basis for the ongoing question of guilt every individual has
to face. Moreover, history is presented as being made by individuals. In using
such close-up techniques, Schlink avoids the criticism every so-called
"post-Holocaust Germany novel" has to cope with, that is the criticism of having
left out important aspects and so on. (This label sets up expectations so high
that every book is sure to become a failure.)
>I don't see anything especially 'postmodern' in literary self-reflection;
Post-modern is another term that doesn't seem to say so much. And: haven't we
reached a phase of post-post-modernism?
>it's a staple of romantic and modernist writing. I don't know who brought in 'allegory'
>(Anja or Mike?),
Mike.
>but I don't see it, either (I might have a restricted definition of allegory in mind,
>of course).
Reading "The reader" as an allegory would simplify its complexity.
>"Realistic," to me, is a useless category if unspecified --
>literary realism as in the 19th century adultery novel? Or some vague
>verisimilitude? Historical materialism? Or what?
Well, I didn't apply this term, but I think here it might be used not as
referring to the 19th century as the century of literary realism but rather
indicating some sort of plausibility, the reflection of a story that might have
happened the way Schlink describes it. To me, "The reader" is even a
philosophical novel in that it deals with the essential questions of mankind. On
what grounds do I make decisions? And am I able to freely decide anyway or is
there some sort of fate that determines everything for me (without me noticing
it)? In how far does the past (my individual past as well as the past in
general) influence the way I live today? What do I have to do in order to
(re-)gain mental balance, a balanced way of living? Where does love come in?
What is love anyway?
That's what I liked about the narrator. He doesn't come up with superficial
explanations and generalisations about life and man, but he rather tries to
master life by asking questions. (In that respect, the narrator appears to be
Schlink's alter ego because the author did the same thing in the
"Spiegel"-interview I mentioned. In a time where everyone thinks he has to
comment on everything that's happening in the world, no matter whether he has to
say something substantial or not, I find such an attitude refreshingly honest
and even wise.)
Anja
Anja Beuter
> What is a "post-Holocaust Germany" novel anyway?
>
>Nothing technical. I just meant a novel set in Germany after
>WWII, concerned with the legacy---guilt, fear, judgment---of
>the Holocaust.
And that's exactly what Schlink's novel is _not_ about. Or at least that's not
the predominant theme of the novel.
> I can't see the allegorical layer you talk about.
>
>Well, I'm not sure that I *see* it myself, I only sense
>it. And I'm happy with your summary of the realistic
>mode of reading it. I just sense something beyond that,
>is all. What impels me in the metaphoric direction
>might be, first of all, the title---its very
>generality, I think, would lead me to believe that
>the book might be addressing itself towards readership
>itself, the act of reading.
Hm, as I said, readership seems to have catalyst function for the plot line
rather than establishing a theme of its own right. At least that's the way I see
it. I don't think that "The reader" is about reading first and foremost. Reading
can be communication. Once the unequal lovers had established their very
personal way of communicating with each other, it was possible to get into touch
again later when everything apparently had fallen apart. Nothing remained the
same, only their communication canal was still intact.
>Then, there's the idea that lifetime readership does rather follow the three-part plan
>of the novel---an early phase of consuming everything for the sake of desire, then later
>reflection and doubt and guilt about what it is we may have taken in, followed
>finally by some sort of acceptance/understanding of our own complicity in what it
>is we have read (writing?).
I would rather apply these three phases to the development of the protagonist.
"The reader" is, among other things, a novel about initiation, about the
complicated and hurting process of growing-up, a "Bildungsroman" if you want to.
>This seems to me to be resonant with having a pair of lovers,
>one a reader, one illiterate in the first place, and
>ritualizing reading as a mode of communication between
>them. It's ultimately not as safe a mode as it mat seem.
>She, in a sense, learns to read precisely in order to find
>her guilt.
No, she had secretly admitted her guilt long before she acquired the reading
skill. At least that's the way the protagonist sees it when he observes her
closely in the courtroom. He senses a strong feeling of guilt in her gestures,
her posture and her facial expressions. But she is unable to express this
adequately because she is more afraid of being found out as an illiterate than
of being damned as a cruel monster.
Anja
Mina Kumar
smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote in message news:38C9789C...@umich.edu...
> I don't see why a book can't be both an exploration of an historical
> period and a reflection on reading and literacy and the seductions of
> both. I don't see "sin which readership brings," but would be interested
This reminds me of a question that has always fascinated me. When did
reading novels go from being something a little risque for a middle-class
teenager (think of Emma Bovary in the convent, hiding the novels of the
cleaning woman or laundress or whoever she was) to something only
goody-two-shoes do? Surely someone has written a book about this.
I once met a woman from NYU at a Malavika Sarukkai concert who was writing
her Phd. thesis on the how sadir went from being the province of devadasis
to being the recreational activity of "good" Brahmin girls.
Makes me wonder which of today's transgressions will become de rigeur in
the future. Tattooing?
Francis Muir
Mina Kumar:
> Makes me wonder which of today's transgressions will become de rigeur in
> the future. Tattooing?
Nipples seem to be making a come-back -- pierced of course.
Francis Muir
smw:
> The novel became fully respectable in the late 18th century. The second
> step you describe never happened.
Oh come on. *Northanger Abbey* depends, in part, on the unrespectability
of the most popular novel form.
annie
Have you seen the miniseries? I also watch it on video every once
in a while. Awesome!!
Fiona Webster
> This reminds me of a question that has always fascinated me.
> When did reading novels go from being something a little risque
> for a middle-class teenager (think of Emma Bovary in the convent,
> hiding the novels of the cleaning woman or laundress or whoever
> she was) to something only goody-two-shoes do?
I sure am having a hard time imagining what sorts of
"goody-two-shoes" are the ones who read today's
hard-core splatter novels and S/M pornographic novels.
Or even just the latest trash from the Grisham factory.
Mina must have an amazingly broad concept of "goody-two-shoes,"
is all I can figure.
--not that I have anything against trash, mind you,
Fiona
Jean Clarke
interchangeably? I plead my ignorance.....Just a Jeanie
Francis Muir
Jean Clarke wrote:
>
> "unrespectability," and disrespectability, can these words be used
> interchangeably? I plead my ignorance.....Just a Jeanie
There is, of course, no such word as unrespectable -- I toosed it out in
a weak moment. I should have written "not respectable", which also gives
me an opportunity to place a comma outside the quotes. I believe it was
in the same maladroitly written post that I used the expression "load of
codswallop". A palpable conflation. Properly either "codswallop" or
"load of cobbler's". Both of which the referred gramatical rule is.
Jean Clarke
to help clear my newly anointed head. I could find no such word in my
tattered dictionary and was satisfied with the thought that it was a
rather fascinating way to improve on the oft referred to, "poetic
license", and not some half dead fish floundering around at the bottom
of a boat, looking for some fisherman to even the score. I would have
never used the word again, but with your permission, I shall store it in
my mental lexicon to be used again, at an appropriate time, of
course.....Just a Jeanie
Michael Kagalenko
]
]
]Mina Kumar:
]> Makes me wonder which of today's transgressions will become de rigeur in
]> the future. Tattooing?
]
]Nipples seem to be making a come-back -- pierced of course.
A .sig-worthy quote.
--
"Nipples seem to be making a come-back ..." Prof.Muir on rec.arts.books
Larisa Migachyov
> smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote in message news:38C9789C...@umich.edu...
> > I don't see why a book can't be both an exploration of an historical
> > period and a reflection on reading and literacy and the seductions of
> > both. I don't see "sin which readership brings," but would be interested
> This reminds me of a question that has always fascinated me. When did
> reading novels go from being something a little risque for a middle-class
> teenager (think of Emma Bovary in the convent, hiding the novels of the
> cleaning woman or laundress or whoever she was) to something only
> goody-two-shoes do? Surely someone has written a book about this.
I think that television had a great deal to do with this transformation.
--
Larisa Migachyov
Stephen Hayes
Jean Clarke wrote in a message to All:
JC> From: VEL...@webtv.net (Jean Clarke)
JC> "unrespectability," and disrespectability, can these words be used
JC> interchangeably? I plead my ignorance.....Just a Jeanie
I don't think so.
Keep well
Steve Hayes
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail: meth...@bigfoot.com
Dallas Texas (972)-496-0650
Anja Beuter
>> Well, thanks, but I intended to point out the very vague notion of the term
>> "post-Holocaust Germany novel" rather than asking for a definition.
>
>I think I know that; I just thought the way you phrased your
>intervention was disingenuous.
Hm, what makes you say so? I must confess I'm a bit stupefied at your attack.
>> The thing is, I think that this term doesn't lead us anywhere when talking about
>> literature. It just puts a label on a book and reduces its potential of meaning
>> to one single aspect. In the past, this enthusiastic labelling of books has lead
>> to a very unsatisfying way of discussing novels in Germany. You can see the same
>> (typically German?) process today when you take the question of the
>> "post-unification novel". Once the Berlin wall had come down, every important
>> writer was expected to deal with this theme in a novel. What a great
>> disappointment that so far no one has come up with _the_ one and only
>> "post-unification" novel! It nearly cost Guenter Grass his reputation that his
>> novel "Ein weites Feld" ("A wide field"?) didn't meet the requirements some
>> critics had set up.
>
>Sure, but I still think that it's equally silly to deny that the legacy
>of the Holocaust is important in post-war German literary production.
I never denied that, oh no. I think you misunderstood me completely - maybe I
wasn't able to express myself clearly enough. Of course, the legacy of the
Holocaust is important in post-war Germany, not only in its literature but in
every other cultural as well as social and political sphere. I'm a young teacher
of history, so you can believe me that I would never ever deny that - just the
contrary: I'm dealing with this topic mostly all of my time.
>And as far as I remember, Mike precisely did _not_ reduce the _Vorleser_
>to post-Holocaust fiction but introduced another, largely unrelated, way
>of reading it.
Maybe he didn't reduce it intentionally. But his metaphorical (or allegorical)
reading (or, as he seemed to imply, his _tendency_ to read the novel in an
allegorical way) appears to bear the danger in it that "The reader" might be
reduced to the label "post-Holocaust fiction". I just intended to point out that
this reading wouldn't do justice to the book, which is much more complex.
>> I didn't read Schlink's novel as an exploration of a historical background.
>
>Period, not background. Its historicity is on the surface, and, again, I
>find it unproductive to deny that. No decent book can be reduced to its
>historicity -- in fact, such irreducability might be one of the most
>enduring signs of literature --, but you cannot write history out of it
>and cry "the individual, the individual" -- there are no individuals
>without history, and certainly not in Schlink's novel.
You don't say! Well, I didn't want to play the one thing off against the other,
at least not in the way you insinuate. (Remember, I said "history is made by
individuals" and that's one aspect that Schlink incorporates brilliantly in his
little story.) I just think that Schlink is more interested in presenting the
personal, as it were psychological consequences of the individual's historical
involvement rather than offering a general reappraisal of German past. He
concentrates on the individual rather than on general society.
Take for example Grass' "The tin drum" as a comparison. As you say,
irreducability is a sing of good literature, sure, and likewise Grass' debut
novel shouldn't be reduced to its historicity, but still this novel can be seen
as the great post-Holocaust novel. (Or his "Hundejahre", or Anna Segher's "The
seventh cross", or Alfred Andersch's "Sansibar oder der letzte Grund" - you name
it.) The only thing I meant to express is that I think Schlink's novel doesn't
work the same way these novels do: as panorama of German society during/after
the Nazi-regime.
>> Reading "The reader" as an allegory would simplify its complexity.
>
>Not necessarily. _Reducing_ it to an allegory would.
I can't follow you. What's the difference? Wouldn't my reading it as an allegory
reduce it to this facette.
>> >"Realistic," to me, is a useless category if unspecified --
>> >literary realism as in the 19th century adultery novel? Or some vague
>> >verisimilitude? Historical materialism? Or what?
>>
>> Well, I didn't apply this term, but I think here it might be used not as
>> referring to the 19th century as the century of literary realism but rather
>> indicating some sort of plausibility, the reflection of a story that might have
>> happened the way Schlink describes it. To me, "The reader" is even a
>> philosophical novel in that it deals with the essential questions of mankind.
>
>So you agree with Mike.
Reading "The reader" as a philosophical novel isn't the same as reading it as an
allegory.
Anja
Joann Zimmerman
wrote:
> Jean Clarke wrote:
> > "unrespectability," and disrespectability, can these words be used
> > interchangeably? I plead my ignorance.....Just a Jeanie
> There is, of course, no such word as unrespectable -- I toosed it out in
> a weak moment. I should have written "not respectable", which also gives
> me an opportunity to place a comma outside the quotes.
Can we settle on "disreputable" maybe? Noun form "disreputableness"?
--
"I never understood people who don't have
bookshelves." --George Plimpton
Joann Zimmerman jz...@bellereti.com
Francis Muir
Joann Zimmerman wrote:
>
> In article <38CB2D29...@stanford.edu>, fra...@stanford.edu
> wrote:
>
> > Jean Clarke wrote:
>
> > > "unrespectability," and disrespectability, can these words be used
> > > interchangeably? I plead my ignorance.....Just a Jeanie
>
> > There is, of course, no such word as unrespectable -- I toosed it out in
> > a weak moment. I should have written "not respectable", which also gives
> > me an opportunity to place a comma outside the quotes.
>
> Can we settle on "disreputable" maybe? Noun form "disreputableness"?
The word; the very word. How curious are these lapses. "Disrepute" is
particularly attractive, but has it fallen into itself?
Francis Muir
Cod not as fish but cod as in codspiece, that unsubtle piece of men's
mediaeval clothing that emphasized his maniless -- or not.
OB(Ich)theologicalConfusion: The piece of cod that passeth all understanding.
Richard Harter
>
>
>Anja Beuter wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 10:26:53 -0500, smw wrote in rec.arts.books:
>>
>> >> Well, thanks, but I intended to point out the very vague notion of the term
>> >> "post-Holocaust Germany novel" rather than asking for a definition.
>> >
>> >I think I know that; I just thought the way you phrased your
>> >intervention was disingenuous.
>>
>> Hm, what makes you say so? I must confess I'm a bit stupefied at your attack.
>
>Sorry, it's not an attack. You asked "what's a German post-Holocaust
>novel?" when, by your own admission, you didn't want to know. How is
>that not disingenuous?
Your use of "disingenuous" is inaccurate; if it were a deliberate
inaccuracy its use would be disingenuous. "Disingenuous" speaks to
intent; "inaccurate" does not.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-978-369-3911
London was like a beautifully dressed woman with dirty underwear.
-- Mary Brown, _Dragonne's EG_
Kevin McGee
<fra...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>"load of cobbler's".
Fine use of the apostrophe. I never realised this was rhyming slang.
-KM
Anja Beuter
>> Hm, what makes you say so? I must confess I'm a bit stupefied at your attack.
>
>Sorry, it's not an attack. You asked "what's a German post-Holocaust
>novel?" when, by your own admission, you didn't want to know. How is
>that not disingenuous?
Since when are rhetorical questions disingenuous?
>> >Sure, but I still think that it's equally silly to deny that the legacy
>> >of the Holocaust is important in post-war German literary production.
>>
>> I never denied that, oh no.
>
>Fine, but you attacked Mike for using a "vague" notion
Objection. I didn't attack him. I just tried to question his use of "post-war
German novel". That's all.
>and the claimed that "this term doesn't lead us anywhere when talking about literature."
>It does lead us somewhere when talking about German post-war literature.
But this term - and nothing else did I want to express - has been used with such
a high level of inflation during the past decades that it's on the verge of
becoming a hollow phrase.
>> >And as far as I remember, Mike precisely did _not_ reduce the _Vorleser_
>> >to post-Holocaust fiction but introduced another, largely unrelated, way
>> >of reading it.
>>
>> Maybe he didn't reduce it intentionally. But his metaphorical (or allegorical)
>> reading (or, as he seemed to imply, his _tendency_ to read the novel in an
>> allegorical way) appears to bear the danger in it that "The reader" might be
>> reduced to the label "post-Holocaust fiction". I just intended to point out that
>> this reading wouldn't do justice to the book, which is much more complex.
>
>I think you misunderstood his post. Why not go back and read over the
>passage he wrote? It concerned _reading_ per se, not reading after the
>Holocaust.
Yes, you're right, I mingled the two approaches into one whereas he used them as
standing separately one beside the other. Still, while "The reader" is about
reading to some extent, this is by no means its main theme, as Michael's
suggested interpretation implies.
>> >there are no individuals without history, and certainly not in Schlink's novel.
>>
>> You don't say! Well, I didn't want to play the one thing off against the other,
>> at least not in the way you insinuate. (Remember, I said "history is made by
>> individuals" and that's one aspect that Schlink incorporates brilliantly in his
>> little story.)
>
>I couldn't disagree more. It is not at all clear that the heroine "makes
>history" -- the limits of her agency are painfully apparent. In the
>context of this book, "history makes individuals" is a far better
>sound-bite.
I think it's the one and the other, "history" and "individual" are in a
reciprocal relationship. I do think that Hannah "makes history". She is an agent
incorporated in the NS-organisation. She is fully responsible for the horrible
crime she committed during her time as a concentration camp warder because she
knew exactly what she did and there's no justification for her behaviour. She
could have behaved in a different way but she didn't. And she decided against
the lives of the people being under her control by free will. That makes her a
criminal. Doesn't this indicate that history (and here: the Nazi-regime) - in
contrast to what many people would like to agree on - does not just happen by
coincidence, and, likewise, history is not made by a small group of politically
powerful leaders, but it's each and every person who is responsible for what
happens.
Anja
Richard Harter
>
>
>Richard Harter wrote:
>>
>> smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >Anja Beuter wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 10:26:53 -0500, smw wrote in rec.arts.books:
>> >>
>> >> >> Well, thanks, but I intended to point out the very vague notion of the term
>> >> >> "post-Holocaust Germany novel" rather than asking for a definition.
>> >> >
>> >> >I think I know that; I just thought the way you phrased your
>> >> >intervention was disingenuous.
>> >>
>> >> Hm, what makes you say so? I must confess I'm a bit stupefied at your attack.
>> >
>> >Sorry, it's not an attack. You asked "what's a German post-Holocaust
>> >novel?" when, by your own admission, you didn't want to know. How is
>> >that not disingenuous?
>>
>> Your use of "disingenuous" is inaccurate; if it were a deliberate
>> inaccuracy its use would be disingenuous. "Disingenuous" speaks to
>> intent; "inaccurate" does not.
>
>But I don't think Anja is inaccurate -- it's hard to be inaccurate in
>posing a question along the lines of "what is x"? I think she's
>disingenuous.
Au contraire; it is quite easy to be inaccurate. It merely requires
that you phrase your question poorly so that it does not reflect what
you actually mean to ask.
> But perhaps you were merely giving another object lesson in
>disingenuity.
Nay, lass, 'tis you that is doing that and quite nicely. The essential
element of disingenuity is the deliberate misrepresentation, a lack of
candor to quote a dictionary. Let me elaborate:
First you say:
"I think I know that; I just thought the way you phrased your
intervention was disingenuous." in response to her clarification of what
she meant to ask.
Then you say:
"Sorry, it's not an attack. You asked "what's a German post-Holocaust
novel?" when, by your own admission, you didn't want to know. How is
that not disingenuous? "
And then finally:
"I think she's disingenuous."
Attend. In the first passage you refer to the phrasing as being
disengenuous. This is a misuse of the language but we may allow that;
we all misuse the language from time to time. Next, in response to a
query as to why you were attacking, you deny that you were attacking and
speak to inaccuracy of the original text. This is consistent with your
usage albeit inaccurate usage on your part. Now an essential element of
disingenuity is that it is an impeachment; it carries the charge of a
lack of candor, of deliberate misrepresentation. So far it might be
assumed that you didn't have that element in mind at all. But then you
do go on to say that *she*, the person, is disingenuous. Here you are
using the word in its standard sense. In short, you were attacking
whilst denying that you were attacking. It is a very model of
disingenuity.
You then follow this with a standard maneuver of denial, the "It isn't
me, it's you" ploy.
Anja Beuter
>Hence "What is a post-Holocaust German novel?" is a disingenous question, since
>it deliberately misrepresents a critique as a question.
And that's what rhetorical questions normally do.
Sorry, but this is getting ridiculous...
Anja
Richard Harter
>
>
>Richard Harter wrote:
>> Nay, lass, 'tis you that is doing that and quite nicely. The essential
>> element of disingenuity is the deliberate misrepresentation, a lack of
>> candor to quote a dictionary.
>
>Precisely. Hence "What is a post-Holocaust German novel?" is a
>disingenous question, since it deliberately misrepresents a critique as
>a question.
The above is confused. To establish disingenuity you have to establish
that the *writer* deliberately engaged in misrepresentation. You are
mixing up people and text.
> Of course, to answer it with a straight face is equally disingenuous;
>it merely turns disingenuity back.
That might or might not be the case depending on circumstances.
tejas
Does this represent a topology of the black hole of verbiage?
--
TBSa...@richmond.infi.net (also te...@infi.net)
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow (1914-1999)
THE RHUMBA BOOGIE
tejas
>
> Re: Francis' "codswallop" explanation. I thank you for taking the time
> to help clear my newly anointed head. I could find no such word in my
> tattered dictionary and was satisfied with the thought that it was a
> rather fascinating way to improve on the oft referred to, "poetic
> license", and not some half dead fish floundering around at the bottom
> of a boat, looking for some fisherman to even the score. I would have
> never used the word again, but with your permission, I shall store it in
> my mental lexicon to be used again, at an appropriate time, of
> course.....Just a Jeanie
"Codswallop" reared its head in a Brit kiddy lit series re: a family
of eccentrics, the Bagthorpes. One of the elder grandparentals or
nuncles was wont to use it. A fine series that meshes well with
Pippi Longstocking.
Now Reading:
TO THE LAST MAN
Lyn McDonald's account of the spring of 1918 and the last German
offensive on the Western Front.
Jean Clarke
It is rumored that in our present state of exaggerating that locale of a
male's attire, a potato will do, or even a kleenex or six as a quick
fix. There is even a hackneyed joke somewhere in the sleaze archives
about it. Come on guys fess up, have you ever resorted to such
skullduggery? You are among a special breed of voyeurs with a special
touch of class and a boundless sense of humor. Tell us about it!
Jean Clarke
particularly attractive, but has it fallen into itself? "
Jean Clarke
falling into itself! Just a Jeanie lost in the hunt and peck system!
Michael S. Morris
Sunday, the 12th of March, 2000
Anja Beuter wrote:
[...]
Maybe he didn't reduce it intentionally.
But his metaphorical (or allegorical)
reading (or, as he seemed to imply, his
_tendency_ to read the novel in an
allegorical way) appears to bear the
danger in it that "The reader" might be
reduced to the label "post-Holocaust fiction".
This sounds like you have not read what I wrote.
*I* contrasted what I called allegory (all "allegory"
would mean to me here is that the realistic story
is metaphor for something else, and that at points
the realistic story reads like that "something else"
is driving the story, and not the realistic plane the
characters inhabit)---"fable" might be a better word---
with "post-Holocaust fiction". *Your* reading of the
book is exactly what I would call "post-Holocaust
fiction".
Anja:
I just intended to point out that
this reading wouldn't do justice to
the book, which is much more complex.
Huh? I mean, given that I am already about two
levels down in bafflement over what you have
made of what I have said, this nevertheless
reads to me like you think "post-Holocaust fiction"
isn't *intrinsically* complex. Since, as far
as I am concerned, it is about the intrinsically
complexest thing running---so much so, that
whether such an fiction is even possible or not
remains a serious question---I guess I do not
know what you are talking about.
In any event, I *asked* (rather inarticulately,
I will grant) about a possibility, a possibility
I like increasingly as I think about it. Again, let
me repeat: Your paragraph, which begins "The way
I see it, the readings establish...", I have no
particular objection to. It seems a very straightforward
summary of what I have called (albeit inexpertly)
the "realistic" layer of the story. What I sense is
a whole 'nother layer, however. What I sense is that it
matters that the crime is the Holocaust---not just any
sin, or even a very big one, but *the* sin of all
sins in human history. What I sense is that the
erotics of reading---the desire for the glory of
Achilles or the homecoming of Odysseus---is connected
to, leads to, the guiltworthiness. Both Michael
and Hanna become guilty through reading. She is,
after all, an ex-death-camp guard the whole time,
and seems to have a rather easy conscience about
that, even a pride in her refusal to present her own
trial defence better than she does present it. It is
only after she learns to read---and, in particular, takes
into herself the specific history of the Holocaust---that
she cannot face living free with her guilt.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Richard Harter
>
>
>Richard Harter wrote:
>>
>> smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >Richard Harter wrote:
>>
>> >> Nay, lass, 'tis you that is doing that and quite nicely. The essential
>> >> element of disingenuity is the deliberate misrepresentation, a lack of
>> >> candor to quote a dictionary.
>> >
>> >Precisely. Hence "What is a post-Holocaust German novel?" is a
>> >disingenous question, since it deliberately misrepresents a critique as
>> >a question.
>>
>> The above is confused. To establish disingenuity you have to establish
>> that the *writer* deliberately engaged in misrepresentation.
>
>We did. Thanks for stopping by, Richard.
You didn't even close (what's this we stuff ? You and your obligate
parasites). You're welcome.
Richard Harter
>
>
>Richard Harter wrote:
>>
>> smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >Richard Harter wrote:
>> >>
>> >> smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >Richard Harter wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >> Nay, lass, 'tis you that is doing that and quite nicely. The essential
>> >> >> element of disingenuity is the deliberate misrepresentation, a lack of
>> >> >> candor to quote a dictionary.
>> >> >
>> >> >Precisely. Hence "What is a post-Holocaust German novel?" is a
>> >> >disingenous question, since it deliberately misrepresents a critique as
>> >> >a question.
>> >>
>> >> The above is confused. To establish disingenuity you have to establish
>> >> that the *writer* deliberately engaged in misrepresentation.
>> >
>> >We did. Thanks for stopping by, Richard.
>>
>> You didn't even close (what's this we stuff ? You and your obligate
>> parasites).
>
>Man, you're dense. Even Anja knows that she asked a rhetorical question.
>Rhetorical questions are disingenuous by definition. So the "we" is
>"Anja and I." Go find another transitional object. Or, if you prefer,
>would you like to go and find a transitional object now, Richard?
No, love, I'm not being dense; the difficulty is that "disingenuous"
does not mean what you seem to think that it means. A rhetorical
question is *not* disingenuous by definition. I shall quote from a
dictionary:
disingenuous: adj, not ingenuous, lacking in frankness, candor, or
sincerity; insincere.
Your "we" have not, as far as I know, agreed that Anja was lacking in
frankness, candor or sincerity. The two of you only agreed that she was
asking a rhetorical question, one that she agreed was poorly chosen.
Perhaps she has agreed that she was being insincere; if so I happen to
have missed her agreement.
Bob Taffelsen
> Man, you're dense. Even Anja knows that she asked a rhetorical question.
> Rhetorical questions are disingenuous by definition. So the "we" is
> "Anja and I." Go find another transitional object. Or, if you prefer,
> would you like to go and find a transitional object now, Richard?
What is a transitional object? As a linguist, I've never encountered
this term.
Cheers,
BobT
Francis Muir
smw wrote:
> The term goes back to Freud's essay _Beyond the Pleasure Principle_ but
> gained insulting power via Melanie Klein and the object relations
> school. A transitional object is the small child's substitute for its
> mother, a way to handle the transition to separation. Linus' blanket,
> for instance.
So why did you not substitute "security blanket" for "transitional
object" the first time around. Scared of being understood?
Anthony
>
>
>Jean Clarke wrote:
>>
>> "unrespectability," and disrespectability, can these words be used
>> interchangeably? I plead my ignorance.....Just a Jeanie
>
>There is, of course, no such word as unrespectable -- I toosed it out in
>a weak moment. I should have written "not respectable", which also gives
>me an opportunity to place a comma outside the quotes.
1) But how come the OED has "unrespectable" listed? (It doesn't say
"Obs.", though, granted, the last quoted example is from 1889: "The
handful of malcontents whose unrespectable grievance he holds up to
public sympathy.")
> I believe it was
>in the same maladroitly written post that I used the expression "load of
>codswallop". A palpable conflation. Properly either "codswallop" or
>"load of cobbler's". Both of which the referred gramatical rule is.
2) You say you were wrong to say "load of codswallop", but again, OED
says you were correct:
1966 It had all seemed a load of old cod"s wallop to me at the
time, but those lecturers were experts.
1966 All that stuff about mutual respect between police and
criminal was a load of old codswallop.
Also, in another post you suggest that "cod" refers to codpiece. That
makes sense, when one looks up "wallop" in OED and finds: "3. dial.
(esp. Sc.) and colloq. A violent, heavy, clumsy, noisy movement of the
body; a plunging, floundering, lurching, etc." -and- "5. A flapping or
fluttering rag. Sc." (the codpiece was a soft pouch.)
But the OED says "origin unknown" for codswallop. Also, "cod's-head"
means "stupid fellow, blockhead", but the reference here is to the
head of a cod fish.
Anthony (who would be *so* embarrassed to wear a codpiece, but at the
same time envious of those who could)
David J. Loftus
<8adl91$4k8$1...@news00.arb1.te.uudial.us.uu.net>:
Organization:
Mina Kumar <mku...@dellnet.com> wrote:
: This reminds me of a question that has always fascinated me. When did
: reading novels go from being something a little risque for a middle-class
: teenager (think of Emma Bovary in the convent, hiding the novels of the
: cleaning woman or laundress or whoever she was) to something only
: goody-two-shoes do? Surely someone has written a book about this.
I think only _youthful_ readers are regarded as goody-two-shoes(es?),
because teachers and parents are constantly exhorting the recalcitrant
mob to read.
I get the impression that there is still something suspect about grownups
who read, one way or another, despite the ostensible admiration expressed
by folks who do not read as much as oneself.
David Loftus
Richard Harter
It's the principle of parity of level of bafflegab. I transliterated
"you and your tapeworm" into "you and your obligate parasites"; she did
an equivalent transliteration by using "transitional object" for
"security blanket". The insult is elegant albeit mysterious in its
seeming irrelevance.
Joan Marie Shields
>: This reminds me of a question that has always fascinated me. When did
>: reading novels go from being something a little risque for a middle-class
>: teenager (think of Emma Bovary in the convent, hiding the novels of the
>: cleaning woman or laundress or whoever she was) to something only
>: goody-two-shoes do? Surely someone has written a book about this.
David J. Loftus <dl...@netcom19.netcom.com> wrote:
>I think only _youthful_ readers are regarded as goody-two-shoes(es?),
>because teachers and parents are constantly exhorting the recalcitrant
>mob to read.
It could just be me but I have the feeling that Mina was being just a touch
sarcastic there. However, it does seem to me, at least a time or two on
rab, that there are those who at least act as if only the chosen should read -
well, certain books.
>I get the impression that there is still something suspect about grownups
>who read, one way or another, despite the ostensible admiration expressed
>by folks who do not read as much as oneself.
I have noticed that this may be a regional thing. When I lived back east I
was rarely interrupted while reading - it was seen as a reasonable thing to
want to do (at least by most). Here in SoCal the opposite appears to be true.
Even in places where reading is acceptable there are those who think nothing
of suddenly barging in - acting as though reading is just a way of passing
time until they arrive. There are those whom I have met who cannot fathom
why a person would want to read for pleasure - as well as those who complain
that they do not have the time.
yiwf,
joan
--
Joan Shields jshi...@uci.edu http://www.ags.uci.edu/~jshields
University of California - Irvine School of Social Ecology
Department of Environmental Analysis and Design
I do not purchase services or products from unsolicited e-mail advertisements.
Mina Kumar
Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in message
news:8ajoh4$949$1...@news.service.uci.edu...
> Mina Kumar <mku...@dellnet.com> wrote:
> >: This reminds me of a question that has always fascinated me. When did
> >: reading novels go from being something a little risque for a
middle-class
> >: teenager (think of Emma Bovary in the convent, hiding the novels of the
> >: cleaning woman or laundress or whoever she was) to something only
> >: goody-two-shoes do? Surely someone has written a book about this.
>
> David J. Loftus <dl...@netcom19.netcom.com> wrote:
> >I think only _youthful_ readers are regarded as goody-two-shoes(es?),
> >because teachers and parents are constantly exhorting the recalcitrant
> >mob to read.
>
> It could just be me but I have the feeling that Mina was being just a
touch
> sarcastic there.
Not at all. It's my own observation of the U.S. that those who read (young
or adult) are thought to be inexperienced, chaste, well-behaved, etc.
Whereas my mother could remember books being associated with the risque and
worldly.
tejas
Isn't that only if you underline the naughty bits?
Anja Beuter
>Anja Beuter wrote:
> [...]
> But his metaphorical (or allegorical)
> reading (or, as he seemed to imply, his
> _tendency_ to read the novel in an
> allegorical way) appears to bear the
> danger in it that "The reader" might be
> reduced to the label "post-Holocaust fiction".
>
>This sounds like you have not read what I wrote.
>*I* contrasted what I called allegory (all "allegory"
>would mean to me here is that the realistic story
>is metaphor for something else, and that at points
>the realistic story reads like that "something else"
>is driving the story, and not the realistic plane the
>characters inhabit)---"fable" might be a better word---
>with "post-Holocaust fiction". *Your* reading of the
>book is exactly what I would call "post-Holocaust
>fiction".
So - just to make sure that I got it right this time - you're saying that the
allegorical reading, on the one hand, and the "realistic" reading (=
"post-Holocaust fiction", as you say), on the other, are two different ways of
interpreting Schlink's "The reader"?
>Anja:
> I just intended to point out that
> this reading wouldn't do justice to
> the book, which is much more complex.
>
>Huh? I mean, given that I am already about two
>levels down in bafflement over what you have
>made of what I have said, this nevertheless
>reads to me like you think "post-Holocaust fiction"
>isn't *intrinsically* complex. Since, as far
>as I am concerned, it is about the intrinsically
>complexest thing running---so much so, that
>whether such an fiction is even possible or not
>remains a serious question---I guess I do not
>know what you are talking about.
Sorry, I think I totally misunderstood you and wasn't able to express my point
of view clearly enough. I certainly didn't say (or at least I didn't mean to
say) that post-Holocaust _fiction_ itself is not complex, but that the _term_ is
questionable.
>In any event, I *asked* (rather inarticulately,
>I will grant) about a possibility, a possibility
>I like increasingly as I think about it. Again, let
>me repeat: Your paragraph, which begins "The way
>I see it, the readings establish...", I have no
>particular objection to. It seems a very straightforward
>summary of what I have called (albeit inexpertly)
>the "realistic" layer of the story. What I sense is
>a whole 'nother layer, however. What I sense is that it
>matters that the crime is the Holocaust---not just any
>sin, or even a very big one, but *the* sin of all
>sins in human history. What I sense is that the
>erotics of reading---the desire for the glory of
>Achilles or the homecoming of Odysseus---is connected
>to, leads to, the guiltworthiness. Both Michael
>and Hanna become guilty through reading.
At least Hanna has already been guilty before. She enters Michael's life as a
guilty person. And in how far does Michael become guilty through reading? (Isn't
it the other way round, taking his later life into account?) He becomes guilty
through loving her, and, yes, when you parallel the act of reading with the act
of loving, then you're right. But later, when he has to face the past of his
once beloved and realises that from now on he is tragically involved in her
history - if he likes it or not -, it is the reading that makes him survive. In
taping his readings and sending the tapes to the prisoner, he finally finds his
peace. So this is his personal way of reaching a state of innocence again, not
an innocence as pure as before he even met her, but at least a status from which
it is possible for him to go on. I find this a very positive presentation of the
act of reading and, to me, this does not indicate a connection between reading
and guiltworthiness.
>She is, after all, an ex-death-camp guard the whole time,
>and seems to have a rather easy conscience about
>that, even a pride in her refusal to present her own
>trial defence better than she does present it.
Yes, it was pride that held her back from telling the whole truth. But it was
not pride in what she had done. And I don't think that she had an easy
conscience while sitting in the courtroom: as far as I remember, the
protagonist, who knows her very well, noticed Hannah's inner conflict. Her pride
mainly concerned the fact that she didn't want to be sussed out as an
illiterate. Given the monstrous crime she had committed and the punishment to be
expected, her behaviour appears to be sheer folly.
In presenting Hannah the way he does, as a seemingly cold-blooded and
unscrupulous but at the same time weak and broken, even foolish person, and,
above all, as a person capable of loving another person -, again, in presenting
her that way as a "round" character, doesn't Schlink want to express that Nazis
weren't one-dimensional monsters but "normal" people just like you and me? Isn't
that one of the insights of his book - a fact that many people belonging to the
following generations weren't too happy about at first, since it forced them to
ask themselves how they would have behaved... And isn't this "normality" of the
Nazis exactly what makes it so difficult to understand? Reappraisal of the past
would be much easier if we could agree on the fact that a big bunch of monsters
was responsible for the Holocaust. Everyone else would be totally free of guilt.
Schlink brilliantly does away with this stupid illusion.
>It is only after she learns to read---and, in particular, takes
>into herself the specific history of the Holocaust---that
>she cannot face living free with her guilt.
Hm, as I said, from what the narrator tells the reader about the trial, I had
the impression that she was already here starting to secretly confess that she
had done horribly wrong. But maybe this was just the protagonist's wishful
thinking, I don't know. The fact that she kills herself in the end does indeed
indicate that she wasn't able to bear the thought of living free with her guilt,
now that she had fully admitted her personal responsibility for the Holocaust.
But why didn't she end her life much earlier?
Anja
Michael S. Morris
I've snipped wherever I think I should.
[...]
Anja Beuter writes:
So - just to make sure that I got it right this time - you're
saying that theallegorical reading, on the one hand, and the
"realistic" reading (= "post-Holocaust fiction", as you say), on
the other, are two different ways of interpreting Schlink's "The
reader"?
Yes. Different, but I would certainly not see them as
exclusive of each other. It's obvious that the "realistic"
(I am not beholden to my terms about that at all, I
just didn't want to go into it in any detail, didn't personally
consider it that interesting, and would be happy with any
shorthand you want to propose) level is there. My question
concerned the also-presence of this other level.
[...]
Anja:
Sorry, I think I totally misunderstood you and wasn't
able to express my point of view clearly enough. I certainly
didn't say (or at least I didn't mean to say) that post-Holocaust
_fiction_ itself is not complex, but that the _term_ is
questionable.
I'm happy to ditch the term entirely.
[...]
I wrote:
What I sense is that the erotics of reading---the
desire for the glory of Achilles or the homecoming
of Odysseus---is connected to, leads to, the
guiltworthiness.
Self-correction, here. "Guiltworthiness" is just wrong.
Hanna's guiltworthiness is already present obviously
before she has ever read. It's her *sense of guilt*
that is not present until *after* she has taken it in
through reading.
I said:
Both Michael and Hanna become guilty through reading.
Anja:
At least Hanna has already been guilty before. She enters
Michael's life as a guilty person.
OK, we are confusing ourselves with two senses of "guilty"
and my careless use of "guiltworthiness". Yes, she is already
guiltworthy when she enters the story. It is pretty clear to me,
however, (though I would be willing to listen to counterarguments)
that she *feels* no particular guilt, no particular personal
responsibility about it. There is no remorse, she doesn't
feel her guilt.
I think Michael's early discussion about the distinction
between our actions and our reasons and our justifications
for why we act may speak to this.
Anja:
And in how far does Michael become guilty through reading?
I'd say this is one is easy. He is led into readership---I mean, he already
knew how to read, but he is led into a love for books and for
a lifetime of reading them---by Hanna. It is a readership that clearly permeates
both hisleisure and his professional life. In other words, his recreational
reading *leads to* his legal reading, leads to his exploration of questions
of judgment and the law itself, and in particular to the Holocaust,
and reading about it. The point is that you cannot drink in the glories
and beauties that civilization has to offer, without drinking in its
barbarisms and sins. It is impossible for anyone to read that stuff
and think about it without feeling *personally* implicated, guilty for
being a human being. I think this is clear in the novel during the time of
the trial, when Michael discusses German student protests and
inter-generational conflict and "collective guilt". Michael by
that point is unwilling to join those who are self-righteously
condemning their parents. This means to me he has already
learned his own guiltworthiness.
Anja:
(Isn't it the other way round, taking his later life into account?)
He becomes guilty through loving her, and, yes, when you parallel
the act of reading with the act of loving, then you're right.
I wouldn't say that his loving her is guilty in itself, but, yes,
in a sense *through* loving her he has become guilty. But
I would say that reading and loving *are* paralleled---deliberately
paralleled---in the book. Maybe that is some of what I
mean when I say that I sense allegory.
Anja:
But later, when he has to face the past of his once
beloved and realises that from now on he is tragically
involved in her history - if he likes it or not -, it is the
reading that makes him survive.
There is a three-part structure to the book. That is, I
see "recognition of guilt" as the second of three stages.
Anja:
In taping his readings and sending the tapes to
the prisoner, he finally finds his peace.
Hmm. I'm not sure that I agree with this at all.
He seeks a kind of absolution, I suppose.
But, besides hid decision not to intervene on her
behalf at her trial, this seems to me one of the most conflicted,
and guilt-laden, things he does. He is scrupulous in
fact about not contacting her or speaking to her in his own
person.
Anja:
So this is his personal way of reaching a state of
innocence again, not an innocence as pure as before
he even met her, but at least a status from which it is
possible for him to go on.
I would not call this state "innocence" at all. I would
call it maybe "wisdom"---a point from which the
innocence of desire and the sin have been accepted
and integrated.
Anja:
I find this a very positive presentation of
the act of reading and, to me, this does
not indicate a connection between reading
and guiltworthiness.
I would agree that reading is not guiltworthy,
is not being presented as guiltworthy. But, I
think that Michael recognizes his own guilt through
reading, primarily in the second part of the book.
I would also claim that Hanna comes to see her
own guilt only when she is seduced into readership
herself.
I said:
She is, after all, an ex-death-camp guard the whole time,
and seems to have a rather easy conscience about
that, even a pride in her refusal to present her own
trial defence better than she does present it.
Anja:
Yes, it was pride that held her back from telling the
whole truth. But it was not pride in what she had done.
Agreed. But, neither is she remorseful about it.
It seems more in the way of a terrible past, best not
to dwell on.
Anja:
Michael S. Morris
Tuesday, the 14th of March, 2000
I've snipped wherever I think I could.
[...]
Anja Beuter writes:
So - just to make sure that I got it right this time - you're
saying that theallegorical reading, on the one hand, and the
"realistic" reading (= "post-Holocaust fiction", as you say), on
the other, are two different ways of interpreting Schlink's "The
reader"?
Yes. Different, but I would certainly not see them as
exclusive of each other. It's obvious that the "realistic"
(I am not beholden to my terms about that at all, I
just didn't want to go into it in any detail, didn't personally
consider it that interesting, and would be happy with any
shorthand you want to propose) level is there. My question
concerned the also-presence of this other level.
[...]
Anja:
Sorry, I think I totally misunderstood you and wasn't
able to express my point of view clearly enough. I certainly
didn't say (or at least I didn't mean to say) that post-Holocaust
_fiction_ itself is not complex, but that the _term_ is
questionable.
I'm happy to ditch the term entirely.
[...]
I wrote:
What I sense is that the erotics of reading---the
desire for the glory of Achilles or the homecoming
of Odysseus---is connected to, leads to, the
guiltworthiness.
Self-correction, here. "Guiltworthiness" is just wrong.
Hanna's guiltworthiness is already present obviously
before she has ever read. It's her *sense of guilt*
that is not present until *after* she has taken it in
through reading.
I said:
Both Michael and Hanna become guilty through reading.
Anja:
At least Hanna has already been guilty before. She enters
Michael's life as a guilty person.
OK, we are confusing ourselves with two senses of "guilty"
and my careless use of "guiltworthiness". Yes, she is already
guiltworthy when she enters the story. It is pretty clear to me,
however, (though I would be willing to listen to counterarguments)
that she *feels* no particular guilt, no particular personal
responsibility about it. There is no remorse, she doesn't
feel her guilt.
I think Michael's early discussion about the distinction
between our actions and our reasons and our justifications
for why we act may speak to this.
Anja:
And in how far does Michael become guilty through reading?
I'd say this is one is easy. He is led into readership---I mean, he already
knew how to read, but he is led into a love for books and for
a lifetime of reading them---by Hanna. It is a readership that clearly permeates
both hisleisure and his professional life. In other words, his recreational
reading *leads to* his legal reading, leads to his exploration of questions
of judgment and the law itself, and in particular to the Holocaust,
and reading about it. The point is that you cannot drink in the glories
and beauties that civilization has to offer, without drinking in its
barbarisms and sins. It is impossible for anyone to read that stuff
and think about it without feeling *personally* implicated, guilty for
being a human being. I think this is clear in the novel during the time of
the trial, when Michael discusses German student protests and
inter-generational conflict and "collective guilt". Michael by
that point is unwilling to join those who are self-righteously
condemning their parents. This means to me he has already
learned his own guiltworthiness.
Anja:
(Isn't it the other way round, taking his later life into account?)
He becomes guilty through loving her, and, yes, when you parallel
the act of reading with the act of loving, then you're right.
I wouldn't say that his loving her is guilty in itself, but, yes,
in a sense *through* loving her he has become guilty. But
I would say that reading and loving *are* paralleled---deliberately
paralleled---in the book. Maybe that is some of what I
mean when I say that I sense allegory.
Anja:
But later, when he has to face the past of his once
beloved and realises that from now on he is tragically
involved in her history - if he likes it or not -, it is the
reading that makes him survive.
There is a three-part structure to the book. That is, I
see "recognition of guilt" as the second of three stages.
Anja:
In taping his readings and sending the tapes to
the prisoner, he finally finds his peace.
Hmm. I'm not sure that I agree with this at all.
He seeks a kind of absolution, I suppose.
But, besides hid decision not to intervene on her
behalf at her trial, this seems to me one of the most conflicted,
and guilt-laden, things he does. He is scrupulous in
fact about not contacting her or speaking to her in his own
person.
Anja:
So this is his personal way of reaching a state of
innocence again, not an innocence as pure as before
he even met her, but at least a status from which it is
possible for him to go on.
I would not call this state "innocence" at all. I would
call it maybe "wisdom"---a point from which the
innocence of desire and the sin have been accepted
and integrated.
Anja:
I find this a very positive presentation of
the act of reading and, to me, this does
not indicate a connection between reading
and guiltworthiness.
I would agree that reading is not guiltworthy,
is not being presented as guiltworthy. But, I
think that Michael recognizes his own guilt through
reading, primarily in the second part of the book.
I would also claim that Hanna comes to see her
own guilt only when she is seduced into readership
herself.
I said:
She is, after all, an ex-death-camp guard the whole time,
and seems to have a rather easy conscience about
that, even a pride in her refusal to present her own
trial defence better than she does present it.
Anja:
Yes, it was pride that held her back from telling the
whole truth. But it was not pride in what she had done.
Agreed. But, neither is she remorseful about it.
It seems more in the way of a terrible past, best not
to dwell on.
Anja:
And I don't think that she had an easy
conscience while sitting in the courtroom:
as far as I remember, the protagonist, who
knows her very well, noticed Hannah's inner
conflict. Her pride mainly concerned the fact
that she didn't want to be sussed out as an
illiterate. Given the monstrous crime she had
committed and the punishment to be expected,
her behaviour appears to be sheer folly.
I would say her pride is exercised in order to
hide her illiteracy, yes, but it is *also* exercised
when she disdains to dissemble the truth in order
to exculpate herself---it would have been perfectly
easy for her to claim, along with the other defendents
and the townspeople, that no one had had the keys
to the doors of the church. Instead she says,
undermining everybody's exculpation---the other guards'
and the townspeople's too---that the keys were stuck in the
outside of the doors. She lies to cover her illiteracy, yes,
but will not lie to cover her murder. This suggests to me
she is ashamed of the former, but not so of the latter.
Anja:
In presenting Hannah the way he does, as a seemingly
cold-blooded and unscrupulous but at the same time
weak and broken, even foolish person, and, above all,
as a person capable of loving another person -, again, in
presenting her that way as a "round" character, doesn't
Schlink want to express that Nazis weren't one-dimensional
monsters but "normal" people just like you and me?
Well, I guess that is the kind of "message" from the book
that I tossed off as the matter of "post-Holocaust Germany".
I have only encountered the fringes of that literature, but
my impression is that that message is nothing new in that literature.
I guess I think that Schlink does not so much want to
express it---make some point about the humanity of
the perpetrators or the universality of the perpetrator within
humanity---but to *assume* that point and *use* it to
express something else about guiltworthiness and
guilt and the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Anja:
Isn't that one of the insights of his book - a fact that many
people belonging to the following generations weren't too
happy about at first, since it forced them to ask themselves
how they would have behaved...
I guess I think Hannah Arendt already made this point
a generation ago in _Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report
on the Banality of Evil_. That is why I don't particularly
see Schlink as focusing on this as an insight so much
as using it as a ground for something else.
Anja:
And isn't this "normality" of the Nazis exactly what
makes it so difficult to understand?
It is for me what makes the event so significant.
I mean, history is atrocity piled on atrocity, with only
tiny epiphanies of progress and moral insight,
followed by centuries of struggle to work out
and work through the obvious. I cannot feel complicit
in American slaveholding, or Tamberlaine the Great's
mountains of skulls, or Pol Pot's killing fields. But
the 20th-century Germans were post-Enlightenment
inheritors of Judaeo-Christian civilization, literate,
numerate, technilogically capable. They were like
me. So, to me, the Holocaust is a great event of
mythic significance, like the Crucifixion.
Anja:
Reappraisal of the past would be much easier
if we could agree on the fact that a big bunch
of monsters was responsible for the Holocaust.
Everyone else would be totally free of guilt. Schlink
brilliantly does away with this stupid illusion.
See, there's where I object. If this is what Schlink is
doing, if this is *all* that Schlink is doing, then I
refuse the word "brilliant" utterly. the illusion you
are talking about has been done away with long,
long ago. Milman's _Obedience to Authority_
goes back to the 70's. That long predates Schlink.
And I have no doubt that Silke at least could rattle off,
oh, say a dozen earlier works of fiction in which
doing away with that particular illusion is the dominant
theme. No doubt Schlink's novel is in that tradition,
comes from that tradition, but I doubt that you can claim
doing away with that illusion is its raison d'etre.
I wrote:
It is only after she learns to read---and, in particular, takes
into herself the specific history of the Holocaust---that
she cannot face living free with her guilt.
Anja:
Hm, as I said, from what the narrator tells the reader
about the trial, I had the impression that she was already
here starting to secretly confess that she had done horribly
wrong.
I'm afraid I don't see her as remorseful at that stage at all.
Anja:
But maybe this was just the protagonist's wishful thinking,
I don't know. The fact that she kills herself in the end does
indeed indicate that she wasn't able to bear the thought of
living free with her guilt, now that she had fully admitted her
personal responsibility for the Holocaust. But why didn't she
end her life much earlier?
Because she wasn't guilty---she didn't recognize her guilt---earlier.
In a sense, his sending her the tapes worked out a kind of
terrible revenge upon her. See, she could not read when she
went into prison. He started doing tapes for her some years
later. She clearly loved the tapes, but the warden tells him
that she also *used* the tapes to learn to read at that point.
And then, after she began to know how to read, what did
she do? I see it that she did two things---first, she wrote to
him, to show him that she now was a reader, too, and
to ask for him to respond to her personally. But, he did not
respond to this, could not respond to her. Second, her
own readership went away from the kinds of delightful things
he had read to her, and right into the heart of the Holocaust
itself. The books in her cell were all about the Holocaust,
were all an exploration of her own guilt.
The final straw for her was the occasion of being released
out of prison into Michael's presence. She now understood
the judgment he had made of her, because she had read
that judgment into herself. I think it makes perfect sense
that she hangs herself only after she has learned to read,
has read into the Holocaust (much as Michael had at the
time of her trial), and confronts him in person one last time.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Fiona Webster
> It's the principle of parity of level of bafflegab. I transliterated
> "you and your tapeworm" into "you and your obligate parasites"; she did
> an equivalent transliteration by using "transitional object" for
> "security blanket". The insult is elegant albeit mysterious in its
> seeming irrelevance.
Speaking of "obligate parasites," I'm surprised, these days, that
very few people know what my husband and I mean when we say that
we're "facultative vegetarians." Doesn't anyone learn biology
anymore?
--Fiona
Fiona Webster
> Security blanket doesn't imply the fort/da logic I needed to stress. On
> the whole, I've found that enough people are familiar with the concept
> of transitional objects, and those who aren't should be and can always
> ask, as Bob did, to his credit.
I agree that more and more people are familiar with the concept
of transitional objects, but fort/da logic? I know what you're
referring to--Freud's "Beyond the Pleasure Principle"--but do
you find that your interlocutors generally know what you mean by
fort/da logic?
--just curious,
Fiona
John
I learned some biology once and some logic once but in my
dotage I don't know an hairy anaerobe from a clean shaven
premise.
Thank you for another new word. Is "facultative vegetarian"
related to "situational carnivore"?
Regards,
John
Jean Clarke
College Dictionary, Newly Revised and Updated; my newly found bedside
companion. I dream in words now, all pleasant reveries..........Just a
Jeanie
Richard Harter
(piggy backing)
>On Tue, 14 Mar 2000 19:28:32 -0500, f...@oceanstar.com (Fiona
>Webster) wrote:
>
>>Richard Harter writes:
>>> It's the principle of parity of level of bafflegab. I transliterated
>>> "you and your tapeworm" into "you and your obligate parasites"; she did
>>> an equivalent transliteration by using "transitional object" for
>>> "security blanket". The insult is elegant albeit mysterious in its
>>> seeming irrelevance.
>>
>>Speaking of "obligate parasites," I'm surprised, these days, that
>>very few people know what my husband and I mean when we say that
>>we're "facultative vegetarians." Doesn't anyone learn biology
>>anymore?
A facultative vegetarian would be a vegetarian on the faculty, would it
not? [Forgive me Fiona for I have sinned.]
>I learned some biology once and some logic once but in my
>dotage I don't know an hairy anaerobe from a clean shaven
>premise.
A clean shave premise would be one shaved by Ockham's razor.
>Thank you for another new word. Is "facultative vegetarian"
>related to "situational carnivore"?
Second cousins, I believe. Kissing cousins.
More seriously a facultative vegetarian is one who isn't obliged to be a
vegetarian; a situational carnivore is a vegetarian who eats meat in
certain situations. Thus, if one takes transubstantiation seriously, a
Catholic vegetarian is a situational carnivore when he/she consumes the
wafer.
Ted Samsel
: Richard Harter writes:
: > It's the principle of parity of level of bafflegab. I transliterated
: > "you and your tapeworm" into "you and your obligate parasites"; she did
: > an equivalent transliteration by using "transitional object" for
: > "security blanket". The insult is elegant albeit mysterious in its
: > seeming irrelevance.
: Speaking of "obligate parasites," I'm surprised, these days, that
: very few people know what my husband and I mean when we say that
: we're "facultative vegetarians." Doesn't anyone learn biology
: anymore?
They don't have to learn "critter-size" biology any more. Only the stuff
that gives them numbers to crunch.
"My Drosophila has more mutations than your's does! Nyah, nyah!"
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net (or tbsa...@richmond.infi.net)
"do the boogie woogie in the South American way"
Rhumba Boogie- Hank Snow (1914-1999)
Anja Beuter
>I wrote:
> What I sense is that the erotics of reading---the
> desire for the glory of Achilles or the homecoming
> of Odysseus---is connected to, leads to, the
> guiltworthiness.
>
>Self-correction, here. "Guiltworthiness" is just wrong.
>Hanna's guiltworthiness is already present obviously
>before she has ever read. It's her *sense of guilt*
>that is not present until *after* she has taken it in
>through reading.
I second this - accompanied by the minor objection that the protagonist sees (or
rather, wants to see) this slightly differently, and since we as readers see the
whole story from his (necessarily limited) perspective, I'm inclined to suspect
he _might_ not be totally wrong.
>It is pretty clear to me, however, (though I would be willing to listen to
>counterarguments) that she *feels* no particular guilt, no particular personal
>responsibility about it. There is no remorse, she doesn't feel her guilt.
Even if this seems to be true on the surface (first I had exactly the same
impression), it cannot be stated as a fact, I think. She doesn't say much during
the trial, she seems to have put up a solid shield to hide her innermost
feelings, possibly out of pure weakness. What goes on in her mind remains an
open question, even to Michael, who depends on his speculations. In sharing
these speculations with the readers, he certainly influences them, and I must
confess that I was influenced by his trying to defend her by desperately looking
for some sign of remorse in her.
>I think Michael's early discussion about the distinction
>between our actions and our reasons and our justifications
>for why we act may speak to this.
Can you recall where exactly this passage is situated in the text (chapter)?
It's been a few months since I've read the book and I would like to have a look
again.
>Anja:
> And in how far does Michael become guilty through reading?
>
>I'd say this is one is easy. He is led into readership---I mean, he already
>knew how to read, but he is led into a love for books and for
>a lifetime of reading them---by Hanna. It is a readership that clearly permeates
>both hisleisure and his professional life. In other words, his recreational
>reading *leads to* his legal reading, leads to his exploration of questions
>of judgment and the law itself, and in particular to the Holocaust,
>and reading about it. The point is that you cannot drink in the glories
>and beauties that civilization has to offer, without drinking in its
>barbarisms and sins. It is impossible for anyone to read that stuff
>and think about it without feeling *personally* implicated, guilty for
>being a human being. I think this is clear in the novel during the time of
>the trial, when Michael discusses German student protests and
>inter-generational conflict and "collective guilt". Michael by
>that point is unwilling to join those who are self-righteously
>condemning their parents. This means to me he has already
>learned his own guiltworthiness.
Your elaboration makes perfect sense to me.
>Anja:
> In taping his readings and sending the tapes to
> the prisoner, he finally finds his peace.
>
>Hmm. I'm not sure that I agree with this at all.
>He seeks a kind of absolution, I suppose.
>But, besides hid decision not to intervene on her
>behalf at her trial, this seems to me one of the most conflicted,
>and guilt-laden, things he does.
Why is somebody guilty when he seeks absolution (in order to find his peace of
mind)? It's not that he wants to forget about the past, about his personal
involvement, but he wants to come to terms with it in order to go on. I can't
see any guilt in that. And as far as his decision to refrain from interfering
with Hannah's situation at the trial is concerned, I think he formed this on a
morally solid ground. (But I'm well aware at the same time that this is a
controversial topic.) To me personally, his behaviour makes sense in so far as
he finally (after thinking about this as well as seeking advice from other
people) comes to the conclusion that each individual is responsible for him- or
herself. And even if he or she intentionally makes a decision that seems to be
wrong in the eyes of others because it might do this person harm, I think his or
her own free will should be respected. Michael came up with the example of the
person who intends to commit suicide, if I remember correctly, which led him to
ask himself whether one is morally obliged to hold such a person back. Surely,
everyone will have mixed feelings about this, but in the end, I'd say that
decisions made by mentally sound individuals should be respected, provided that
the person has made his/her decision carefully and knows about the consequences.
>He is scrupulous in fact about not contacting her or speaking to her in his own
>person.
Understandable, I think. What is there to talk about? He is not responsible for
her and it's not his duty to lead her in any way.
>Anja:
> So this is his personal way of reaching a state of
> innocence again, not an innocence as pure as before
> he even met her, but at least a status from which it is
> possible for him to go on.
>
>I would not call this state "innocence" at all. I would
>call it maybe "wisdom"---a point from which the
>innocence of desire and the sin have been accepted
>and integrated.
Agreed.
>Anja:
> Yes, it was pride that held her back from telling the
> whole truth. But it was not pride in what she had done.
>
>Agreed. But, neither is she remorseful about it.
>It seems more in the way of a terrible past, best not
>to dwell on.
This is a perfectly acceptable interpretation to my mind, but, still, there is a
slight chance that things might have been different.
>I would say her pride is exercised in order to
>hide her illiteracy, yes, but it is *also* exercised
>when she disdains to dissemble the truth in order
>to exculpate herself---it would have been perfectly
>easy for her to claim, along with the other defendents
>and the townspeople, that no one had had the keys
>to the doors of the church. Instead she says,
>undermining everybody's exculpation---the other guards'
>and the townspeople's too---that the keys were stuck in the
>outside of the doors. She lies to cover her illiteracy, yes,
>but will not lie to cover her murder. This suggests to me
>she is ashamed of the former, but not so of the latter.
This, indeed, might convince me if Hannah was an intelligent and self-critical
person, which she is not. She is naive, foolish and even a bit childish at times
(remember her somewhat strange behaviour when she and Michael were still
together). She does not really seem to see behind things, and her world picture
appears to be terribly simple. Isn't it possible that in her stupidity she just
wasn't able to weigh up illiteracy, on the one hand, and murder, on the other,
the way people with a mature sense of morality would?
>Anja:
> And isn't this "normality" of the Nazis exactly what
> makes it so difficult to understand?
>
>It is for me what makes the event so significant.
>I mean, history is atrocity piled on atrocity, with only
>tiny epiphanies of progress and moral insight,
>followed by centuries of struggle to work out
>and work through the obvious. I cannot feel complicit
>in American slaveholding, or Tamberlaine the Great's
>mountains of skulls, or Pol Pot's killing fields. But
>the 20th-century Germans were post-Enlightenment
>inheritors of Judaeo-Christian civilization, literate,
>numerate, technilogically capable. They were like
>me. So, to me, the Holocaust is a great event of
>mythic significance, like the Crucifixion.
Significant in its most negative way, yes, but mythic? And in how far would you
compare the Holocaust with the Crucifixion?
>Anja:
> Reappraisal of the past would be much easier
> if we could agree on the fact that a big bunch
> of monsters was responsible for the Holocaust.
> Everyone else would be totally free of guilt. Schlink
> brilliantly does away with this stupid illusion.
>
>See, there's where I object. If this is what Schlink is
>doing, if this is *all* that Schlink is doing, then I
>refuse the word "brilliant" utterly. the illusion you
>are talking about has been done away with long,
>long ago. Milman's _Obedience to Authority_
>goes back to the 70's. That long predates Schlink.
All of this is true, and I didn't mean to say that the credit is entirely
Schlink's. Let me put it differently (so that I'm able to keep up the
"brilliant" ;-): he incorporates this insight brilliantly in his little
narrative.
>And I have no doubt that Silke at least could rattle off,
>oh, say a dozen earlier works of fiction in which
>doing away with that particular illusion is the dominant
>theme. No doubt Schlink's novel is in that tradition,
>comes from that tradition, but I doubt that you can claim
>doing away with that illusion is its raison d'etre.
Yes, I guess you're right.
>Anja:
> Hm, as I said, from what the narrator tells the reader
> about the trial, I had the impression that she was already
> here starting to secretly confess that she had done horribly
> wrong.
>
>I'm afraid I don't see her as remorseful at that stage at all.
It's not that I'm _sure_ that she is remorseful at that point but that the
narrator's impressions might have some grain of truth in them - or not. It has
to remain an open question.
>Anja:
> But why didn't she end her life much earlier?
>
>Because she wasn't guilty---she didn't recognize her guilt---earlier.
See above. But, hold on, I'm thinking of a counter-argument right now (to
support my view that it might at least be _possible_ that at the trial she's
already started to feel remorse for what she had done). Maybe this is just
nonsense, but couldn't it be possible that the reason for her remaining silent
at the trial was due to her intention to go into prison in order to atone for
her crime? But, no, that would have presupposed intelligence on her part and I
don't see this. Forget about it. ;-)
Anja
Arthur Wohlwill
>From: Ted Samsel <te...@sl001.infi.net>
>Subject: Re: bafflegab (was Re: Watcha readin' ?)
>Date: 15 Mar 2000 11:39:05 GMT
>Fiona Webster <f...@oceanstar.com> wrote:
>: Richard Harter writes:
>: > It's the principle of parity of level of bafflegab. I transliterated
>: > "you and your tapeworm" into "you and your obligate parasites"; she did
>: > an equivalent transliteration by using "transitional object" for
>: > "security blanket". The insult is elegant albeit mysterious in its
>: > seeming irrelevance.
>: Speaking of "obligate parasites," I'm surprised, these days, that
>: very few people know what my husband and I mean when we say that
>: we're "facultative vegetarians." Doesn't anyone learn biology
>: anymore?
>They don't have to learn "critter-size" biology any more. Only the stuff
>that gives them numbers to crunch.
>"My Drosophila has more mutations than your's does! Nyah, nyah!"
Next week I am going to a meeting in which over 1000 people will be discussing
the lovely fruit fly critter. I may have to try that line.
Arthur Wohlwill adw...@UIC.EDU
John
Harter) wrote:
>John <jbg...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>(piggy backing)
>
>>On Tue, 14 Mar 2000 19:28:32 -0500, f...@oceanstar.com (Fiona
>>Webster) wrote:
>>
>>>Richard Harter writes:
>>>> It's the principle of parity of level of bafflegab. I transliterated
>>>> "you and your tapeworm" into "you and your obligate parasites"; she did
>>>> an equivalent transliteration by using "transitional object" for
>>>> "security blanket". The insult is elegant albeit mysterious in its
>>>> seeming irrelevance.
>>>
>>>Speaking of "obligate parasites," I'm surprised, these days, that
>>>very few people know what my husband and I mean when we say that
>>>we're "facultative vegetarians." Doesn't anyone learn biology
>>>anymore?
>
>A facultative vegetarian would be a vegetarian on the faculty, would it
>not? [Forgive me Fiona for I have sinned.]
>
>>I learned some biology once and some logic once but in my
>>dotage I don't know an hairy anaerobe from a clean shaven
>>premise.
>
>A clean shave premise would be one shaved by Ockham's razor.
>
>>Thank you for another new word. Is "facultative vegetarian"
>>related to "situational carnivore"?
>
>Second cousins, I believe. Kissing cousins.
>
>More seriously a facultative vegetarian is one who isn't obliged to be a
>vegetarian; a situational carnivore is a vegetarian who eats meat in
>certain situations. Thus, if one takes transubstantiation seriously, a
>Catholic vegetarian is a situational carnivore when he/she consumes the
>wafer.
>
>
>
>Richard Harter
Now that is the kind of analysis I stick around here for.
<G>
(around here for) I'm saving that one.
Regards,
John
Marcy Thompson
>so, fort/da is more famous than transitional object, wouldn't you say?
>Not that I have an urgent need to be understood by all always.
One data point: I learned about tranisitional objects in high
school and fort/da many years later on my own.
ObBook: Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
Marcy
--
Marcy Thompson
ma...@squirrel.com
Francis Muir
Marcy Thompson:
> One data point: I learned about tranisitional objects in
> high school and fort/da many years later on my own.
Another datum. I saw "transitional object" and "fort/da" for the first
time in that post of smew's, and I'm very content to leave them where I
saw them.
Ugh.
Jean Clarke
floating around for some time, " Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies
like a banana." I was going to have it put on a tee-shirt but it never
came to fruition. Just a Jeanie
Maureen Scobie
I hope the spring rains come soon so that curiosity shoots can break
through that crust you're growing. A sea-soak in the Mediterranean would
help, no doubt.
cheers,
Maureen
Francis Muir
It will soon be the Diamond Jubilee of that fateful day when I fell down
laughing at the grotesque translation of "Lustprinzips" as "Pleasure
Principle". The English language has not been ennobled by the mechanical
translations of Freud's German. Indeed I'm not sure but that babelfish
could not have done better on "one of the most brilliant books written
in the 20th century", *Jenseits des Lustprinzips*. "Desire" rather than
"pleasure" perhaps?
esa...@webtv.net
Stephen Hayes
Francis Muir wrote in a message to All:
FM> From: Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu>
FM> Marcy Thompson:
> One data point: I learned about tranisitional objects in
> high school and fort/da many years later on my own.
FM> Another datum. I saw "transitional object" and "fort/da" for the
FM> first time in that post of smew's, and I'm very content to leave
FM> them where I saw them.
Are you unwilling to adjust the parameters of your paradigm?
Keep well
Steve Hayes
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail: meth...@bigfoot.com
Dallas Texas (972)-496-0650
Richard Harter
EDNA...@webtv.net
a bit taxing, but i guess the author felt justified to make a point..
Paul Ilechko
<Stephe...@p0.f10.n7903.z8.fidonet.org> wrote:
>Are you unwilling to adjust the parameters of your paradigm?
>
Fido still pronounces that as parra-diggum.
Paul Ilechko
>Has anyone read the book Snow falling on Cedars?
>
Are non-sequiturs the haiku of the webtv generation ?
Francis Muir
smw wrote:
>
> Francis Muir wrote:
> >
> > Maureen Scobie wrote:
> > >
> > > Francis Muir wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Marcy Thompson:
> > > >
> > > > > One data point: I learned about tranisitional objects in
> > > > > high school and fort/da many years later on my own.
> > > >
> > > > Another datum. I saw "transitional object" and "fort/da" for the first
> > > > time in that post of smew's, and I'm very content to leave them where I
> > > > saw them.
> > > >
> > > > Ugh.
> > >
> > > I hope the spring rains come soon so that curiosity shoots can break
> > > through that crust you're growing. A sea-soak in the Mediterranean would
> > > help, no doubt.
> >
> > It will soon be the Diamond Jubilee of that fateful day when I fell down
> > laughing at the grotesque translation of "Lustprinzips" as "Pleasure
> > Principle". The English language has not been ennobled by the mechanical
> > translations of Freud's German. Indeed I'm not sure but that babelfish
> > could not have done better on "one of the most brilliant books written
> > in the 20th century", *Jenseits des Lustprinzips*. "Desire" rather than
> > "pleasure" perhaps?
>
> No. Pleasure is just fine; that's the common translation for the Kantian
> term 'Lust' as well. The German 'Lust' is, especially at Freud's time, a
> rather neutral term, and it remains so in many German idioms. "I feel
> like going to the movies" is well-translated with "Ich habe Lust, ins
> ..." The equivalent of English 'lust' would have been 'Wollust.'
> Wish Freud _had_ been translated mechanically and we wouldn't be
> settled with all the Latinization -- if you want to get upset at Freud
> translations, get upset about 'ego,' 'super-ego,' and 'id,' 'cathexis,'
> and the like.
I never suggested that "Lust" translated to "Lust" and your setting up
of paper tigers is truly pathetic. All that "The Pleasure Principle* has
done is to pervert the meaning of what was once, in pre-Freudian days, a
rather well understood English word. Of course I don't expect you to
understand this. If I was translating "Jenseits des Lustprinzips" for a
book title, not a learned paper, I would choose the straightforward and
compact *Desire* since both "Towards" and "Principle" are quite unnecessary.
Postscript. babelfish agrees with me that "Lust" > "Desire" and any
claim on your part that Lust meant something different in Freud's time
is unsupported BS.
Michelle A. Mader
hate it, read it all the way through. Interesting.
Then finished Hannah's Daughters. Enjoyed it
thoroughly.
Now reading Slaves in the Family. Like it so far.
... I'd finish reading Angela's Ashes if I could
remember where I put the book.
Gayle Hedrington
sex, and humor... Doesn't get much better than this. Have read all but the
last one High Five, am halfway finished with it... I love Stephanie Plum...
"Michelle A. Mader" <Michelle...@lerc.nasa.gov> wrote in message
news:38D11D66...@lerc.nasa.gov...
jde...@my-deja.com
fra...@stanford.edu wrote:
>
>
> Marcy Thompson:
>
> > One data point: I learned about tranisitional objects in
> > high school and fort/da many years later on my own.
>
> Another datum. I saw "transitional object" and "fort/da" for the first
RAB has been invaded by sea ducks? Oh well, one thing or the eider,
I guess.
J. Del Col
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Trina
Literature_ , volume II. I never got to read all the way through it in my
college literature classes. Right now, John Barth's "Lost In the Funhouse,"
which I did read in college, but not from this particular book.
Trina
Karl Wiebe
} Historical related question: What did they do to the folks with inter-racial
} marriage during that time? Were those Japanese dads (and moms) exempted from
} the concentration camps??? And were there any revoking incidents??? (If I
I don't know, but there were very few such marriages at the time, in any case.
Several state legislatures had tried outlawing mixed marriages involving Chinese
or Japanese, some successfully. There was some change after the War Brides Act
of 1945.
} were the Japanese then, they might have to write another "Rag Time" (?) about
} me and my friends!" After all, life is too damn short to put up with that
} kind of shit and I wouldn't have that kind of patience to wait until the
} Reagan's years....
}
} I remembered President Reagan ordered to pay these Japanese men $100,000 each
} in mid 80s as an official apologies, right?
$20,000 and a letter of apology. Reagan didn't just order it, however--it was
part of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which he signed into law. Even this
(mostly symbolic) gesture, 46 years after Executive Order 9066, would likely
not have been made had it not been for the lawsuits that were filed by several
of the detained families, a phase which lasted for quite a while.
--Karl
--
== Karl Wiebe == ka...@dnai.com ==
"Order is a form of repetition compulsion" --Freud
"Order is a form of repetition compulsion" --Freud
"Order is a form of repetition compulsion" --Freud
cool...@hotmail.com
I didn't read the book but saw the movie (still on the big screen in central
Texas) last weekend.
Among other things, it was such a powerful love story... The movie reminded
me of something I heard somewhere before, "Love is to let go. Love is
selfless..."
Historical related question: What did they do to the folks with inter-racial
marriage during that time? Were those Japanese dads (and moms) exempted from
the concentration camps??? And were there any revoking incidents??? (If I
were the Japanese then, they might have to write another "Rag Time" (?) about
me and my friends!" After all, life is too damn short to put up with that
kind of shit and I wouldn't have that kind of patience to wait until the
Reagan's years....
I remembered President Reagan ordered to pay these Japanese men $100,000 each
in mid 80s as an official apologies, right?
Fill me in would you, ladies and gentlemen?
n.t.
David J. Loftus
: In article <8bc7rl$mpi$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <cool...@hotmail.com> wrote:
: } Historical related question: What did they do to the folks with
: } inter-racial marriage during that time? Were those Japanese dads
: } (and moms) exempted from the concentration camps??? And were there
: } any revoking incidents??? (If I
: I don't know, but there were very few such marriages at the time, in
: any case. Several state legislatures had tried outlawing mixed
: marriages involving Chinese or Japanese, some successfully. There was
: some change after the War Brides Act of 1945.
I get the impression that non-Caucasian spouses "didn't have to go" ...
but what else were they going to do?
There is currently a photo exhibition in downtown Portland of work by a
couple of free-lancers, a married couple, who went to the Heart Mountain,
Wyoming camp on assignment for Life magazine in 1942. (My mother spent
most of the war in that camp.) The photos were never published. One of
the subjects was a statuesque Scandinavian blonde who was married to a
Japanese-American man and "chose" to go with him to the camp. He died
not long after the war, and she published a book about their
experiences, living solitary and depressed until a Japanese-American
Citizens League chapter in southern Cal could get her some financial
support.
: } I remembered President Reagan ordered to pay these Japanese men
: } $100,000 each in mid 80s as an official apologies, right?
: $20,000 and a letter of apology. Reagan didn't just order it,
: however--it was part of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which he
: signed into law. Even this (mostly symbolic) gesture, 46 years after
: Executive Order 9066, would likely not have been made had it not been
: for the lawsuits that were filed by several of the detained families,
: a phase which lasted for quite a while.
Correct.
One of the bittersweet/funny events of that era was the "Honor Roll" of
servicemen overseas that was posted in the train station of my mother's
home town, Hood River, Oregon. Six Japanese-Americans in the service
were on that list, including two of my uncles, until the local American
Legion post whited out their names. The national American Legion
ordered them to put them back, but by this time repainting it wouldn't
work, so they had to replace the names on little wooden block signs that
made them stand out from all the others. After hearing about this in
letters from the family, my uncle Tot -- who was a
translator/interrogator for the U.S. Army in the Pacific and
occasionally volunteered for missions to go out in the jungle and try
to talk Japanese holdouts into surrendering -- really looked forward to
seeing that when he got home.
David Loftus
ntand...@my-deja.com
So there were some resistance, at least.
This might be a really stupid question, but I wonder incident as such
actually made many Japanese-Americans so successful in business, highly
educated, an somewhat overachieved in judiciary field? (It would be nice to
have gentleman like Judge Lance Ito to give his 2-cent in this :-)
n.t.
> -- really looked forward to
> seeing that when he got home.
>
> David Loftus
>