Literary ika

[Laurie Berman]

No, not squid. I'm wondering if 異化 has a particularly meaning in literary criticism. Or whether it is just a fancy way of saying "alter" or "transform" in the following:

現実を異化する小説の力にしばらくは身を任せ . . .

Laurie Berman

[Alan Siegrist]

Laurie Berman writes:

> 現実を異化する小説の力にしばらくは身を任せ . . .

Try "dissimilation of reality" as a literary concept.

For example:

http://www.cinaoggi.it/upriverloft/pagineeng/catalogo1engdiss.htm
| DISSIMILATION : FROM MATERIAL TO MIND
|
| The dissimilation of reality is not a commonplace concept, but our visual
| experience may be formulaic and superficial when we face the concept.
| There is not post-modernistic technical terms in this essay. We do not
| intend to distort the reality through postmodernism.

But as to what it really means, I have no idea. Good luck!

Regards,

Alan Siegrist
Carmel, CA, USA

[jmarc...@comcast.net]

Laurie asked:

No, not squid. I'm wondering if 異化 has a particularly meaning in literary criticism. Or whether it is just a fancy way of saying "alter" or "transform" in the following:

現実を異化する小説の力にしばらくは身を任せ . . .

Laurie,

By chance I was looking up this word for a Chinese translation project the other day, and found it has a number of meanings, particularly in historical linguistics. Just a guess, mind you, but this term appears to mean "dissimilation" when used to discuss literature or culture in Chinese, for example in the following links (with the simplified character used, since it is the PRC):

http://scholar.ilib.cn/A-hebxyxb200304025.html

http://scholar.ilib.cn/A-QCode~lygzyjsxyxb200301013.html

A Google search with the terms "deconstruction" and "dissimilation" together also produces a fair number of hits, though this does not appear to be one of the major post-structuralist buzzwords from what I can tell by looking at a few of them. But it does appear to be bandied about on occasion in this form of lit crit. 

Finally, the caveat that "dissimilation" is not the same as "dissimulation".

HTH,

John Marchioro

[Marc Adler]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Laurie Berman <berma...@verizon.net> wrote:

No, not squid. I'm wondering if 異化 has a particularly meaning in literary criticism. Or whether it is just a fancy way of saying "alter" or "transform" in the following:

現実を異化する小説の力にしばらくは身を任せ . . .

In a literary/lit-crit/philosophical context, 異化 is typically the word used to translate Viktor Shklovsky's Russian formalist concept of "defamiliarization" or "alienation." There's no real set English translation, and as often as not the original Russian word ("ostranenie") is used in English. "Dissimilation" could work, I suppose, but I've never encountered it in this context.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamiliarization

--
Marc Adler
www.adlerpacific.com
nirebloga.wordpress.com
mudawwanatii.wordpress.com
blogsheli.wordpress.com

[Laurie Berman]

On Sep 15, 2009, at 5:49 PM, Alan Siegrist wrote:

> Try "dissimilation of reality" as a literary concept.
>
> For example:
>
> http://www.cinaoggi.it/upriverloft/pagineeng/catalogo1engdiss.htm
> | DISSIMILATION : FROM MATERIAL TO MIND

I tried it, and I have to say that two Googits strikes me as a pretty
strong argument against. ;-)

[Marc Adler]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Laurie Berman <berma...@verizon.net> wrote:

No, not squid. I'm wondering if 異化 has a particularly meaning in literary criticism. Or whether it is just a fancy way of saying "alter" or "transform" in the following:

現実を異化する小説の力にしばらくは身を任せ . . .

Incidentally, it doesn't really mean to alter or change something. Defamiliarization is the way literary works render the familiar unfamiliar.

[jmarc...@comcast.net]

Laurie Berman asked about:

> 現実を異化する小説の力にしばらくは身を任せ . . .

And Alan responded:

Try "dissimilation of reality" as a literary concept.

For example:

http://www.cinaoggi.it/upriverloft/pagineeng/catalogo1engdiss.htm
| DISSIMILATION : FROM MATERIAL TO MIND
|
| The dissimilation of reality is not a commonplace concept, but our visual
| experience may be formulaic and superficial when we face the concept.
| There is not post-modernistic technical terms in this essay. We do not
| intend to distort the reality through postmodernism.

But as to what it really means, I have no idea. Good luck!

Alan,

It is not merely "dissimilation of reality", though that is of course the case in Laurie's passage. "Dissimilation" in literary criticism and theory appears to refer to the ways in which an author sets off a group of people, or a country, or something else as different, as "the Other". This is a key issue in particular in post-colonial studies (a field that is related to but distinct from deconstructionism), and it appears to be the sense in which it is most often used in the references that I saw when combining "deconstruction" and "dissimilation". 

Whether that is specifically the sense in which it is used in Laurie's passage is of course a matter to be determined by more context.

John Marchioro

[Marc Adler]

2009/9/15 Marc Adler <marc....@gmail.com>

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Laurie Berman <berma...@verizon.net> wrote:

No, not squid. I'm wondering if 異化 has a particularly meaning in literary criticism. Or whether it is just a fancy way of saying "alter" or "transform" in the following:

現実を異化する小説の力にしばらくは身を任せ . . .

English. "Dissimilation" could work, I suppose, but I've never encountered it in this context.

On second thought, I don't think "dissimilation" would be good, since that implies making two things dissimilar from each other, whereas defamiliarization is different.

My suggestion for a translation would be something like "Allowing yourself/ourselves/themselves/etc., for a moment, to surrender to the defamiliarizing power of the novel." Here, 現実を異化する = "defamiliarization," so you don't need to include "reality."

[Terry Gallagher]

I was so impressed with the sleuth work that went into "dissimilation," but I think the word we're groping for here is good ol' "alienation," as in Brecht's "alienation effect."

Terry Gallagher
Eastham, MA USA

[Marc Adler]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Terry Gallagher <terry.g...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

I was so impressed with the sleuth work that went into "dissimilation," but I think the word we're groping for here is good ol' "alienation," as in Brecht's "alienation effect."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distancing_effect

This is indeed a related concept, but in my experience it is limited to the stage and the silver screen.

[jmarc...@comcast.net]

Terry wrote:

I was so impressed with the sleuth work that went into "dissimilation," but I think the word we're groping for here is good ol' "alienation," as in Brecht's "alienation effect."

Terry,

How would that fit in Laurie's context, though? "The power of novels that alienate reality"? It definitely sounds odd. Mark's "defamiliarize" certainly sounds better than that, even with "reality" as an object of "defamiliarize". 

I know from where you are deriving the idea of alienation, though. Several Chinese dictionaries use the German term "Entfremdung" for 異化, and this is of course the term used in the young Marx's works for "alienation", and has been a staple of Marxist thought ever since. I am just not sure that this is the sense in which 異化 is being used here, though.

John Marchioro

[Terry Gallagher]

現実を異化する小説の力にしばらくは身を任せ . . . =

"To yield (oneself) for a time to the power of (a) novel(s) that can distance [suspend, alienate] one from reality..."

Alc.co.jp, for example, gives 異化 as a gloss for "alienation." [I know this is not a strong argument, but it's there.]

I think the concept is in line with Brechtian "Verfremdung," [which, I just learned, is a synonym, not an antonym of "Entfremdung," despite appearances to the contrary] but we might need more context [the full sentence, for example] to say with confidence.

I was surprised at first by Marc's statement that "Verfremdungseffekt" applies strictly to theater and film, but I see Wikipedia backs that view. Still, in my (admittedly increasingly dim) recollections of such discussions in college, the application of the concept would not be "alien" in other literary [or epistemological] spheres.

And then there's that other Marxist/structuralist chestnut, "reification." [I'm not going there, though...]

Terry Gallagher

[jmarc...@comcast.net]

Terry explained:

現実を異化する小説の力にしばらくは身を任せ . . . =

"To yield (oneself) for a time to the power of (a) novel(s) that can distance [suspend, alienate] one from reality..."

Terry,

I see, you are assuming the reader as the direct object here. Yes, that does work nicely, though "distance" sounds best here.

And then he added:

And then there's that other Marxist/structuralist chestnut, "reification." [I'm not going there, though...]

Let's not.

John Marchioro

[Laurie Berman]

The deadline approacheth, but fortunately Marc Adler has provided the key. 

This is the last sentence of the piece, I hesitate to end with a word like "defamiliarization." However, Wikipedia has come to my rescue in its article on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamiliarization#Defamiliarization_and_diff.C3.A9rance

It confirms what Marc and others have said, and it also says this:

The technique appears in English Romantic poetry, particularly in the poetry of Wordsworth, and was defined in the following way by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria: "To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood; to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every day for perhaps forty years had rendered familiar [. . .] this is the character and privilege of genius."

So, I think I will try to adapt Coleridge's definition in some way. Thanks to all!

Laurie Berman

[Minoru Mochizuki]

I support Marc's rendition of "Allowing yourself/ourselves/themselves/etc., for a moment, to surrender to the defamiliarizing power of the novel." Here, 現実を異化する = "defamiliarization," so you don't need to include "reality."

 

In other words, the particular trick, if I may say so, picks a piece of reality and makes the readers awe, shudder, groan and moan. All horror, spy, or even love stories use the trick. コインロッカーベイビー by 村上　龍 starts with two babies found in a coin locker room to capture a social issue of the particular time (late 1970s to 1980s). While stashing babies in coin lockers was a reality of 1970s Japan, the "defamiliarization" factor is that it involved the two babies and their intertwining relation. Kafka's metamorphosis theme can also be a part of this trick as well. In all of these stories, the essential factor is that the unfamiliar scenes are slices of realities, or at least make the readers believe that they are probable.

 

Minoru Mochizuki

[Dale Ponte]

> Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria:

>"To carry on the  
> feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood; to combine the  
> child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every  
> day for perhaps forty years had rendered familiar [. . .] this is the  
> character and privilege of genius."

Makes it sound rather like some stripe of "exoticize".

~
Dale Ponte

[Dale Ponte]

Too late, I know, but just for the record there's also abnormalize, a
strategy of fantasy, which would also ensure preserving the direct
object 現実.

~
Dale

[Dale Ponte]

(final last word:)

Redefine reality?

Broad, basic, unheady.

~
Dale

[Marc Adler]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 6:16 PM, Laurie Berman <berma...@verizon.net> wrote:

 

So, I think I will try to adapt Coleridge's definition in some way. Thanks to all!

One small comment: if the essay is written in the language of contemporary criticism, then the writer probably assumes that the reader will understand defamiliarization as the Russian formalists (and thereafter: Brecht, etc.) understood it, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with "childlike wonder." I don't think many critics today would trace the concept's lineage from Coleridge to Shklovsky (Kant to Shklovsky, maybe), so if you adapt that aspect of it, you might be misleading the reader.

Also, the writer uses 異化 in the last sentence, so I don't see any reason not to end with an equally jargon-y English equivalent.

[Laurie Berman]

On Sep 16, 2009, at 12:15 AM, Marc Adler wrote:

One small comment: if the essay is written in the language of contemporary criticism, then the writer probably assumes that the reader will understand defamiliarization as the Russian formalists (and thereafter: Brecht, etc.) understood it, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with "childlike wonder."

Thanks, Marc. Rest assured I did not use the term "childlike wonder," or mention Coleridge, and what I ended up with bears little similarity to the Coleridge quotation. FWIW, what I ended up with was "the novel's power to present the world we know in a new and thought-provoking light," along with a translator's comment providing an outline of the information you (and Wikipedia) so helpfully provided. This decision was based on a number of considerations, including (1) my best guess as to what the writer was most likely trying to convey by the term 異化 (based on the content of the essay as a whole, as well as the above-mentioned information); (2) the target audience of the publication in which the essay is to appear (NONspecialists); and (3) the difficulty of introducing new and unfamiliar terminology in the last sentence of the piece. 

The wild card here is (1). It strikes me as possible, given the subject matter, that the author was thinking in a different direction entirely. But if that's the case, I will hear about it.

Thanks again for everyone's input.

Laurie Berman

[Marc Adler]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Laurie Berman <berma...@verizon.net> wrote:

up with was "the novel's power to present the world we know in a new and thought-provoking light,"

Sounds great. If it's a nonspecialist target audience, then defamiliarization (etc.) certainly wouldn't be appropriate.

It occurred to me last night that one challenge posed by words like 異化 is that, although clearly jargon, they're also semantically transparent in a way that equivalent jargon in English might not be.