Last weekend I watched “(A)sexual,” a documentary about the asexual community, a group of people who experience no sexual attraction. It was a thoughtful exploration of this growing community and offered a nuanced portrait of David Jay, an asexual who “came out” to his parents about it in 2000. He has no problems about being asexual, though he recognized that his lack of sexuality didn’t align with sexual norms. He started the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), a website that offers resources to the public and an online gathering place for other asexual people. The documentary shows how the nascent community is still coming to terms with definitions of it means to be asexual. Surprisingly funny, the film follows David Jay and his work as the unintended poster child of asexuality in America. The film begins with a woman saying that when she thinks of asexuality, she thinks of moss, and when two men are asked to consider it, they dismiss it as impossible; one man promises, “Just let them come on a date with me, and I’ll change their minds!”
The film is an intriguing departure point for exploring sexuality in a sex-obsessed (Western) culture. Indeed, the film captures some hilarious moments of the tragically benign AVEN members educating and marching for awareness on asexuality next to the boa wearing, glitter divas at the Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco. I would highly recommend the film to anyone interested in gender relations or sexual politics as it explores how sexual activity has in fact become over simplified precisely because it has functioned as an over-determining force in social relations.
This documentary has less to do with claiming rights, exercising freedom, or establishing legal precedents. Historically, gender politics demanded a legal foundation in order to protect and validate other(ed) sexual orientations and lifestyles, and establishing a legal framework in order to safeguard and protect minorities, whatever they may be, is and continues to be a critical point in asserting marginal identities. Because so much of gender politics has been tied to the legal realm (the recent approval of gay marriage legislation in New York is just the latest example), the political ambitions of asexual people as portrayed in the film have confused some within the LGBT community precisely because of their lack of legal ambitions. An interview with Dan Savage in the film exemplifies the bewilderment at the political cause and purpose of the asexual community. To paraphrase Dan Savage (since I don’t have the movie on hand), he basically questions why the asexual community marches or takes action to promote awareness; after all, they already have their rights to practice their alternate lifestyle, so why not stay home on the couch and enjoy them? Why the need to take it to the streets?
What the film does very well in illustrating, however, is that although legal rights are critical, they are not the only requirements for living a free, safe life. In fact, the legal achievements of minorities in the past fifty years often overshadow the tremendous amount of work that must still be done in ensuring the safety and equal opportunity of minorities, since the legal victories banning overt discrimination have generally led to even more subtle and insidious forms of discrimination that crop time to time in the form of hate crimes, verbal violence, or general lack of social acceptance of other lifestyles and kinds of people. So although it is true that the asexual community has had no legal issues to fight for, it is equally true that merely having rights does not unequivocally result in the end of discrimination or ignorance. Instead, the plight of the asexual community highlights the need to measure social progress not through legal victories, but through a constellation of factors including quality of life, mental health, and personal security.
As such, the asexual community is instead shown to be deeply invested in educating the community and de-stigmatizing asexuality. A scene at the Gay Pride Parade poignantly captured why there is a need for AVEN and greater awareness about asexuality. As David Jay hands out fliers about AVEN to the crowd, a tough, super buff (presumably gay) man in neon yellow shorts shouts, “I pity your soul!” David turns and asks why – why does he pity his soul? “We’re not hurting anyone”, he says as the man blows him off and walks away with his buddies. Onlookers in the crowd try not to stare at David, but it’s too late. David has been ironically cast as the freak among a parade of self-proclaimed freaks, (re)marginalized not for his sexuality but for his supposedly unnatural lack of sex drive. The violence of the man’s words is painful, but the crowd’s rigid silence, the refusal of anyone to stand with David, tacitly endorses the man’s condemnation towards that which he cannot understand. It is an uneasy reminder of how heterosexual individuals openly condemned homosexual persons fifty years ago (and how some still do) – “I pity your soul!” The exclamation reeks of intolerance, hate, and ignorance.
The scene is uncomfortably familiar in how it so effectively captures that universally experienced sense of ostracization – sticks and stones may break one’s bones, but words hurt even more and even longer. What does one do to move past the verbal violence that ends up, for better or worse, defining our identities? How does one live a free, safe life in spite of, what is at times, palpable hostility?
In this moment, however, the film subtly accuses the now common imperative to openly perform sexual identity, to liberate oneself as a fully sexualized being, as a violent command, yet the demand to confess and exhibit one’s sexual desire is seen to take on discriminatory, if not violent, overtones, as if society insists – “Have sex with the one you love…. OR ELSE.” If we have won the right to have a sexual orientation, doesn’t that also mean that we have also won the right to not take on sexual partners? To have the freedom to choose and to also not choose?
During the question and answer session at the end of the film, an audience member asked David if he had personally experienced more hostility from those within the LGBT community or straight folk. After thinking for a couple minutes, David smartly responded that those who see their sexuality as a key component of their identity have the most difficulty in understanding asexuality. Indeed, the film shows how asexuals are either considered with hostility (“I pity your soul!”) or intense confusion (“Is there a biological reason for the lack of sex drive? What do asexuals think of when they have to “clean the pipes” and jack off? Should asexuality be considered a medical illness?)
The film deftly considers the many complicated facets of asexuality in America – how asexuals seek familial, close bonds, just like everyone else, how many asexual people grow up and struggle to come to terms with the overbearing fact that most of society is sexually active, how asexuals have struggled with the intense loneliness and sensation of alienation of not fitting in, how “coming out” as asexual to family members can be painful, how the asexual community continues to grow and grapple with how to define themselves politically and socially.
In recent years, academic queer studies have sought to use its deviant position as a strategic means of queering, or in other words, critiquing hegemonic, heterosexual relations (Judith Butler of course and Lee Edelman comes to mind). Queer studies has become a useful methodology and analytic tool of exploring and revealing the mechanisms of gender relations and normative desire. It seemed to me after watching this film that asexuality can be also used as a means of queering the queer, of critiquing the whole field of gender politics. Since so much of gender theory evolves from sexual politics, it would be fascinating to explore how gender is constructed when not informed by sexuality. How is it different? Can gender be separated from sexuality? So much of gender norms hinge upon the object of sexual desire, but what happens when there is no object of sexual desire? How does that affect one’s positionality in terms of gender? The over-determination of sex and sexual desire in contemporary society has meant that in order to become a full subject, one must be marked as a sexual being, whether as a hetero or homosexual person. (Hence, one is considered a child until he/she has undergone their first sexual encounter.)
So much of life is unrelated to sexual activity, yet the over-determination of sex in the everyday lives of people has led to a particular lack of critical engagement in how sex is valued and used. What I mean by that is sex is taken for granted as a universally structuring force in life that relegates people into certain social compartments – gay, straight, trans, bi, etc – when in fact scholarship has perhaps overvalued its function and thus prevented itself from seeing it in other ways. Engaging in sexual relations is often used as a shorthand signifier for abstract concepts like intimacy, commitment, lust, or as an extreme qualifier; for instance, “it was better than sex.” It seems to me that talk about sex is oftentimes talk about how sex structures our lives, produces identities, or delineate gender codes. But how does sexual activity actually affect relationships? How does sex enable or prevent us from forming bonds with others? During the Q&A session, David mentioned how some early studies on asexuals have suggested that familiar notions of sexual desire – touching, bodily stimulation, emotional attachment – is actually much more biologically complicated than previously thought.
Throughout the film, David is shown to have a complex network of attachments in comparison to hetero/homosexual individuals. Instead of merely forming binary attachments to others, David in a school presentation shows a slide of how he is emotionally invested and committed to a number of “primary relationships”. The slide illustrates a colored web of connections and commitments with those whom David holds in higher regard than ordinary friendships. He speaks excitedly of plans he is making with several friends, moving in together, adopting children, raising children. As a viewer, you feel thrilled that he is able to develop close connections despite having no sexual desire, and that he has found a network of people who accept him as he is.
Yet by the end of the film, the previously bright landscape of positive emotions dim, and we see David a little older, a little more tired, a little skinnier. He sits in his San Francisco apartment on a wooden chair, the gray sunshine filtering through the camera. He explains how many of his primary relationships have moved away, fallen through, or simply lost touch. He explains how the loss of one friend has been the closest thing he has ever experienced to heartbreak, and the earnestness in which he talks about losing her resonates with the universal sentiment of loneliness, of not having anyone to share a life with.
The film chronicles David’s argument that relationships without sex can be just as meaningful and important as those with sex, yet in this scene, David backtracks a little, perhaps because he is lonely, or perhaps because he has truly changed his ideas on sex. He says, “I think sex makes people take relationships more seriously.”
It is a curious statement given the trajectory of how the narrative sought to show how sex can be irrelevant to forming strong relationships, and I wondered if he truly meant it. During the Q&A, I asked if he could speak a little more about that statement; he responded that he now believes that he sees sex as a tool, as a way of getting to know someone, and that he is not averse to being sexually active. He said he sees it as a compromise. Given the few number of people who publicly acknowledge their asexuality, he said that it has compelled him to think about sex differently as he continues to look for someone to share his life with.
I wondered if this statement reflected something about how sex functions in relationships, in cementing bonds and forcing people to “take relationships more seriously.” I also wondered if I was over-valuing the role of sex in relationships by even asking that question. Could sex be considered a compromise just like anything else, like doing the dishes, going to the in-laws, walking the dogs? Clearly, sex is more important to some than others. I don’t think there is or will be a universally applicable response to this question, but in all, the film shows how the asexual community is queering commonly held notions on sexual relations, and where it can or can not take us.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
So What is the "What" in "What is the What?"
When I first read What Is the What?, the grammatical strangeness of the title continued to haunt me. What did it mean? How does one invest meaning in such an unstable signifier? But instead of seeing it as a static unit of meaning, thinking about it lead me to understand how the symbolic significance of the What constantly evolves throughout the novel. At first, the What is described as the key element in the Dinka creation myth. In the creation myth, God offers a Dinka man and woman two choices; they may either choose the cow, or they may choose the What, an unknown. In the first version offered to the reader, the Dinka choose the cow as they would be “fools to pass up the cattle for the idea of the What” (Eggers 62). As Valentino’s father tells the story, he says, “They knew that they would live in peace with the cattle, and that if they helped the cattle eat and drink, the cattle would give man their milk, would multiply every year and keep the monyjang happy…And God has proven that this was the correct decision. God was testing the man. He was testing the man, to see if he could appreciate what he had been given, if he could take pleasure in the bounty before him, rather than trade it for the unknown” (Eggers 62). Here the What is associated with Dinka superiority precisely because they chose correctly. They chose what was before them rather than the unknown.
However, the What is re-characterized throughout the novel in a number of ways. As the What is unmoored from its association to Dinka prudence, it functions less as a negation than as an affirmation of Dinka possibility. I’d like to add that the What comes to ultimately symbolize agency and possibility, the hope that the Dinka will make better choices, that they will no longer balk from unknown futures. The very evacuation of a specific meaning in the What points toward its function as an empty placeholder for possibility and agency.
Throughout the novel, Eggers decribes Valentino as trapped within systems of dependency in the refugee camps. The children are educated, but the hope in using this education remains dim when it does not directly translate into an (eventual) material change. In this way, they are victims of not only the civil war, but of the system of foreign aid itself in relegating them, as Valentino notes, as “helpless humans” (xiii). Moreover, the What’s meaning shifts in response to Dinka agency. In the beginning, the What possesses a stable meaning. It is the symbol of Dinka prosperity and prudence, and this is reflected in the peaceful village of Marial Bai. However, as the novel progresses, the What becomes ambiguous. Valentino first questions this when he encounters the mysterious man in the forest during his long walk away from what was a world of security and meaning. He asks, what is the what? The mysterious man asks for his ideas. Valentino suggests the What could be the horse (the symbol of the Arabs), the Ak-47 (war), airplanes (modernization), or education (Western liberal discourse of development). Valentino’s suggestions subtly refer to the possibility that the Dinka may have made the wrong choice of the creation myth. Valentino’s failed bike ride further suggests a fear of the unknown (since what is more terrifying to a child then their first bike ride without the help of an adult, of pedaling into some unknown future?).
However, the passage I really wanted to talk about was the one where Valentino speaks to Daniel of the importance of being brave, of taking risks in the hopes of claiming a better, albeit unknowable future. “I told them that the mistakes of the Dinka before us were errors of timidity, of choosing what was before us over what might be. Our people, I said, had been punished for centuries for our errors, but now we were being given a chance to rectify all that. We had been tested as none other before had been tested. We had been sent into the unknown once, and then again and again. We had been thrown this way and that, like rain in the wind of a hysterical storm.
But we’re no longer rain, I said, - we’re no longer seeds. We’re men. Now we can stand and decide. This is our first chance to choose our own unknown. (531 -532)
The What then, in momentarily occupying a negative space, emerges as a sign of agency. Valentino alludes to the creation myth as the “mistakes of the Dinka before us were errors of timidity”. He argues that choosing safely was a false choice since after all, the Sudanese have been “sent into the unknown once, and then again and again”. In other words, to exercise one’s agency is to be able to make choices and not be controlled by the choices themselves. His reference to their status as grown men also indicates a final iteration of the What as the choice to “choose our own unknown.” As such, the What functions as an evolving symbol that assumes meaning depending on its context – it is identified as a symbol of timidity, but it also emerges as a trope for boundless possibility precisely in its lack of stable meaning.
In this way, attempting to answer the question of the novel – what is the what – implicitly refers to the quest for agency, a solution to the seemingly overwhelming problems. In other words, the phrasing itself demands a substitution of signifiers – what is the answer to the Dinka’s problems? What is the meaning of hope itself? – in deciphering its resistance to meaning. Moreover, the grammatical instability of “what” further emphasizes its purposefully ambiguity; according to dictionary.com, “what” can be a: pronoun, noun, adjective, adverb, interjection, conjunction, and lastly, idiom. The very instability of what as a signifier clarifies why it is so difficult to locate its signified; “what” can essentially mean anything, but I think Eggers specifically chose this strange syntactical construction to refer to the multiplicity of forms hope can take. This has particular salience to human rights literature since this form of hope becomes critical in sustaining hope itself. However, this points not to the debility of human rights, but to an approach that privileges a sentiment and momentum for change while acknowledging concrete specificities remain a challenge in realizing the oftentimes ambiguous of hope of human rights.
This inclination towards sliding down the chain of signifiers is again reflected in Valentino’s attempt to answer it with the mysterious man of the forest. The prevention of Valentino to exercise agency fosters a sense of despair that haunts the entire novel; indeed even Valentino seems to note how loyally calamity follows him. This parallels the numerous other scenes where Valentino denies the likelihood of change, such as when Noriyaki successfully orders the laptop, or when Tabitha derides Valentino for lacking the courage to run away, to make a better life for themselves. Yet the previously quoted passage’s allusion to the significance of the What however prepares the reader for the great hope of the novel, which is to grant Valentino agency not in the power to produce material change, but in the power to hope again.
However, the What is re-characterized throughout the novel in a number of ways. As the What is unmoored from its association to Dinka prudence, it functions less as a negation than as an affirmation of Dinka possibility. I’d like to add that the What comes to ultimately symbolize agency and possibility, the hope that the Dinka will make better choices, that they will no longer balk from unknown futures. The very evacuation of a specific meaning in the What points toward its function as an empty placeholder for possibility and agency.
Throughout the novel, Eggers decribes Valentino as trapped within systems of dependency in the refugee camps. The children are educated, but the hope in using this education remains dim when it does not directly translate into an (eventual) material change. In this way, they are victims of not only the civil war, but of the system of foreign aid itself in relegating them, as Valentino notes, as “helpless humans” (xiii). Moreover, the What’s meaning shifts in response to Dinka agency. In the beginning, the What possesses a stable meaning. It is the symbol of Dinka prosperity and prudence, and this is reflected in the peaceful village of Marial Bai. However, as the novel progresses, the What becomes ambiguous. Valentino first questions this when he encounters the mysterious man in the forest during his long walk away from what was a world of security and meaning. He asks, what is the what? The mysterious man asks for his ideas. Valentino suggests the What could be the horse (the symbol of the Arabs), the Ak-47 (war), airplanes (modernization), or education (Western liberal discourse of development). Valentino’s suggestions subtly refer to the possibility that the Dinka may have made the wrong choice of the creation myth. Valentino’s failed bike ride further suggests a fear of the unknown (since what is more terrifying to a child then their first bike ride without the help of an adult, of pedaling into some unknown future?).
However, the passage I really wanted to talk about was the one where Valentino speaks to Daniel of the importance of being brave, of taking risks in the hopes of claiming a better, albeit unknowable future. “I told them that the mistakes of the Dinka before us were errors of timidity, of choosing what was before us over what might be. Our people, I said, had been punished for centuries for our errors, but now we were being given a chance to rectify all that. We had been tested as none other before had been tested. We had been sent into the unknown once, and then again and again. We had been thrown this way and that, like rain in the wind of a hysterical storm.
But we’re no longer rain, I said, - we’re no longer seeds. We’re men. Now we can stand and decide. This is our first chance to choose our own unknown. (531 -532)
The What then, in momentarily occupying a negative space, emerges as a sign of agency. Valentino alludes to the creation myth as the “mistakes of the Dinka before us were errors of timidity”. He argues that choosing safely was a false choice since after all, the Sudanese have been “sent into the unknown once, and then again and again”. In other words, to exercise one’s agency is to be able to make choices and not be controlled by the choices themselves. His reference to their status as grown men also indicates a final iteration of the What as the choice to “choose our own unknown.” As such, the What functions as an evolving symbol that assumes meaning depending on its context – it is identified as a symbol of timidity, but it also emerges as a trope for boundless possibility precisely in its lack of stable meaning.
In this way, attempting to answer the question of the novel – what is the what – implicitly refers to the quest for agency, a solution to the seemingly overwhelming problems. In other words, the phrasing itself demands a substitution of signifiers – what is the answer to the Dinka’s problems? What is the meaning of hope itself? – in deciphering its resistance to meaning. Moreover, the grammatical instability of “what” further emphasizes its purposefully ambiguity; according to dictionary.com, “what” can be a: pronoun, noun, adjective, adverb, interjection, conjunction, and lastly, idiom. The very instability of what as a signifier clarifies why it is so difficult to locate its signified; “what” can essentially mean anything, but I think Eggers specifically chose this strange syntactical construction to refer to the multiplicity of forms hope can take. This has particular salience to human rights literature since this form of hope becomes critical in sustaining hope itself. However, this points not to the debility of human rights, but to an approach that privileges a sentiment and momentum for change while acknowledging concrete specificities remain a challenge in realizing the oftentimes ambiguous of hope of human rights.
This inclination towards sliding down the chain of signifiers is again reflected in Valentino’s attempt to answer it with the mysterious man of the forest. The prevention of Valentino to exercise agency fosters a sense of despair that haunts the entire novel; indeed even Valentino seems to note how loyally calamity follows him. This parallels the numerous other scenes where Valentino denies the likelihood of change, such as when Noriyaki successfully orders the laptop, or when Tabitha derides Valentino for lacking the courage to run away, to make a better life for themselves. Yet the previously quoted passage’s allusion to the significance of the What however prepares the reader for the great hope of the novel, which is to grant Valentino agency not in the power to produce material change, but in the power to hope again.
Why I Love William K. And Why You Should Too
One of my favorite books is Dave Eggers' What is the What. Not only is it one of the most honest and fair portrayal of the victim of human rights caught in the process of global commodification (as bargaining chips, or even as books in a literal sense)and politicization, but it has some of the most compelling characters who make us wish we were better versions of ourselves.
There are many reasons why I love this book, but I have to start with the effervescent William K.,Valentino’s boyhood friend who journeys with him towards Ethiopia. The friendship between Valentino and William K. is perhaps one of the best portrayals I’ve read of young boys who, as Eggers writes, “expected to always be boys and friends” in their village (217). William K. is introduced to the reader as a regular boy with a penchant for wild stories, particularly those which end with someone’s eyes popping out. In the village, William K. is portrayed as the trouble maker who occasionally bullies others, like when he stomps on Moses’ carefully made clay cattle. But what I specifically enjoy about his character is his (minimally referenced) hatred for his Other, William A., and the reckless, almost delusional hope he comes to represent on their treacherous walk towards Ethiopia.
William A. is never present, but as his Other, he represents all that William K. is not. He becomes that which William K. cannot identify with, an invisible antagonism which compels William K. to constantly address him in his jokes, teasing, and lies, an Other whose (imaginary) presence reiterates to the reader how individuals in fact detest sameness. William K. hates William A. because he represents a threat to his individuality. This suggests how although people may locate a celebrated commonality in the same, the human impulse is to instead locate identity in difference. William K.’s age as a young boy re-emphasizes how even at a young age, children realize the pitfall of sameness.
In the village, William K.’s fanciful stories are described as bothersome, but his capacity to tell stories, fictitious though they may be, is shown to be a valuable survival mechanism on their treacherous walk. Valentino knows that their families will not be waiting in Ethiopia, nor will food be plentiful, but William K.’s exaggerated stories balance out the extreme despair of the trip and serve as a delusional, if not stabilizing image of hope. In one instance, William K. assures Valentino that his wounded leg will heal quickly and that nobody gets sick in Ethiopia. William K. attempts to corroborate his story by saying he overheard it from Dut, but Valentino realizes the fantasy and appreciates it nonetheless. He thinks, “William was a hopeless liar, but it pleased me” (209). In this way, William K comes to represent a fierce intensity that is unafraid to dream and re-imagine the future. In a way, he symbolizes an alternative to the “safe” choice that the Dinka made in the creation myth. They chose the cow, which was the known choice and thus the cautious choice. William K, however, creates a space for re-imagination and risk taking that remains absent in the novel. Upon his death, Valentino says, “I did not want to leave William K. I wanted to die with him. ..But then I thought of my mother and my father, my brothers and sisters, and found myself invoking William K’s own mythic visions of Ethiopia. The world was terrible but perhaps I would see them again. It was enough to bring me to my feet” (213). William K’s “visions of Ethiopia” not only enable him to persevere, but more importantly, it enables Valentino to continue living even despite the hollow promise of hope, even knowing that this vision is false. William K symbolizes a bold embrace of the unknown, of the imagined.
I also wanted to share some videos that I found of Valentino and Dave talking about What is the What:
This video is of Valentino showing his village in Marial Bai. He shows the tree where he and his friends would play under (like the tree him and William K would look out from in the novel), the direction where the murahaleen rode from, his father’s compounds, and his parents and family.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqD3WWbs9s
Valentino tells his story at a Google Talk. He talks about how he wanted the book to not only show the horror and intensity of the conflict, but to show how life was beforehand, how people lived.
http://www.youtube.com/user/AtGoogleTalks#p/search/0/2V7MeewG_MU
Lastly, this video was made last year and is an interview between Dave and Valentino. I like this one the best, as it provides a great update about Valentino’s life after the book, how he saw a woman reading What Is the What on an airplane (which he says was struck by lightning), and his life with a new wife and his child.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgbfBQc_ExM
There are many reasons why I love this book, but I have to start with the effervescent William K.,Valentino’s boyhood friend who journeys with him towards Ethiopia. The friendship between Valentino and William K. is perhaps one of the best portrayals I’ve read of young boys who, as Eggers writes, “expected to always be boys and friends” in their village (217). William K. is introduced to the reader as a regular boy with a penchant for wild stories, particularly those which end with someone’s eyes popping out. In the village, William K. is portrayed as the trouble maker who occasionally bullies others, like when he stomps on Moses’ carefully made clay cattle. But what I specifically enjoy about his character is his (minimally referenced) hatred for his Other, William A., and the reckless, almost delusional hope he comes to represent on their treacherous walk towards Ethiopia.
William A. is never present, but as his Other, he represents all that William K. is not. He becomes that which William K. cannot identify with, an invisible antagonism which compels William K. to constantly address him in his jokes, teasing, and lies, an Other whose (imaginary) presence reiterates to the reader how individuals in fact detest sameness. William K. hates William A. because he represents a threat to his individuality. This suggests how although people may locate a celebrated commonality in the same, the human impulse is to instead locate identity in difference. William K.’s age as a young boy re-emphasizes how even at a young age, children realize the pitfall of sameness.
In the village, William K.’s fanciful stories are described as bothersome, but his capacity to tell stories, fictitious though they may be, is shown to be a valuable survival mechanism on their treacherous walk. Valentino knows that their families will not be waiting in Ethiopia, nor will food be plentiful, but William K.’s exaggerated stories balance out the extreme despair of the trip and serve as a delusional, if not stabilizing image of hope. In one instance, William K. assures Valentino that his wounded leg will heal quickly and that nobody gets sick in Ethiopia. William K. attempts to corroborate his story by saying he overheard it from Dut, but Valentino realizes the fantasy and appreciates it nonetheless. He thinks, “William was a hopeless liar, but it pleased me” (209). In this way, William K comes to represent a fierce intensity that is unafraid to dream and re-imagine the future. In a way, he symbolizes an alternative to the “safe” choice that the Dinka made in the creation myth. They chose the cow, which was the known choice and thus the cautious choice. William K, however, creates a space for re-imagination and risk taking that remains absent in the novel. Upon his death, Valentino says, “I did not want to leave William K. I wanted to die with him. ..But then I thought of my mother and my father, my brothers and sisters, and found myself invoking William K’s own mythic visions of Ethiopia. The world was terrible but perhaps I would see them again. It was enough to bring me to my feet” (213). William K’s “visions of Ethiopia” not only enable him to persevere, but more importantly, it enables Valentino to continue living even despite the hollow promise of hope, even knowing that this vision is false. William K symbolizes a bold embrace of the unknown, of the imagined.
I also wanted to share some videos that I found of Valentino and Dave talking about What is the What:
This video is of Valentino showing his village in Marial Bai. He shows the tree where he and his friends would play under (like the tree him and William K would look out from in the novel), the direction where the murahaleen rode from, his father’s compounds, and his parents and family.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqD3WWbs9s
Valentino tells his story at a Google Talk. He talks about how he wanted the book to not only show the horror and intensity of the conflict, but to show how life was beforehand, how people lived.
http://www.youtube.com/user/AtGoogleTalks#p/search/0/2V7MeewG_MU
Lastly, this video was made last year and is an interview between Dave and Valentino. I like this one the best, as it provides a great update about Valentino’s life after the book, how he saw a woman reading What Is the What on an airplane (which he says was struck by lightning), and his life with a new wife and his child.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgbfBQc_ExM
The appropriation of language in Beasts of No Nation
Some thoughts after reading Beasts of No Nation
I found Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation particularly compelling in his use of language. Our young protagonist, Agu, narrates his divorce from childhood through the stilted use of English in the present tense. An effect of this version of English is that of dis-identification with the reader. Typically, the reader’s identification with the characters is seen as a measure of a novel’s success; Lynn Hunt’s work argues that the novel conditioned people’s ability to sympathize, to identify with the discontents of others, which thus enabled the development of the invention of human rights. Iweala’s novel, however, aims to distance the reader from the character. The language alienates the reader in its decidedly foreign (non-English) accent. In the opening pages, Agu says, “Footstep is everywhere around me and making me to think that my father is coming to bring medicine to stop all of this itch and pain” (2). The elements which render this iteration of English as foreign sounding (or Other to “proper” English), are grammatical – such as disagreement between plural/singular subjects and verbs, run on sentences, and lack of correct punctuation. The language sounds foreign in its failure to adhere to grammatical structures of English.
The syntactical breakdowns of Agu’s language, however, further suggest his youth and straddle a fine line between illustrating his youth and becoming incomprehensible. In regards to referring to Agu’s youth, the language is reminiscent of a child’s, of the mistakes a child would make in forming complete sentences. The child makes mistakes precisely because he or she is coming into language, of being subjected into this (foreign, that which is outside themselves) system of signification. The grammatical errors then further imply a failure of signification, of assuming and pre-supposing those linguistic relations which come to figure human relations altogether (which echoes Lyotard’s explication of the child within the interlocutory circuit). Iweala cleverly uses language itself to signify the failure of subjection into the Symbolic Order. In this way, Iweala’s novel seems to lie in tension between entrance into the Symbolic Order and a constant referral to the Real Order, of pure emotions, desires, that which resists symbolization at all. Agu, as a child, is himself a bundle of desires and emotions which he cannot always fully articulate. His use of language to situate himself in the world (in relation to others) becomes onomatopoetic, such as when he describes the world around him through sounds like “KNOCK KNOCK”, “PING PING” or “KPAWA!” (2).
In this sense, Iweala accomplishes a remarkable feat of mimicking the grammatical breakdowns of a child, and the disruption between entrance into the Symbolic from the Real, without jeopardizing comprehension of the supposed audience of fluent English readers. As such, I don’t feel that Iweala is distorting English in his portrayal of Agu, but instead it seems he is cleverly appropriating English for the needs of a child soldier, of using language to dis-identify his character from the reader in order to show the limitations of the novel in “knowing” the other.
I found Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation particularly compelling in his use of language. Our young protagonist, Agu, narrates his divorce from childhood through the stilted use of English in the present tense. An effect of this version of English is that of dis-identification with the reader. Typically, the reader’s identification with the characters is seen as a measure of a novel’s success; Lynn Hunt’s work argues that the novel conditioned people’s ability to sympathize, to identify with the discontents of others, which thus enabled the development of the invention of human rights. Iweala’s novel, however, aims to distance the reader from the character. The language alienates the reader in its decidedly foreign (non-English) accent. In the opening pages, Agu says, “Footstep is everywhere around me and making me to think that my father is coming to bring medicine to stop all of this itch and pain” (2). The elements which render this iteration of English as foreign sounding (or Other to “proper” English), are grammatical – such as disagreement between plural/singular subjects and verbs, run on sentences, and lack of correct punctuation. The language sounds foreign in its failure to adhere to grammatical structures of English.
The syntactical breakdowns of Agu’s language, however, further suggest his youth and straddle a fine line between illustrating his youth and becoming incomprehensible. In regards to referring to Agu’s youth, the language is reminiscent of a child’s, of the mistakes a child would make in forming complete sentences. The child makes mistakes precisely because he or she is coming into language, of being subjected into this (foreign, that which is outside themselves) system of signification. The grammatical errors then further imply a failure of signification, of assuming and pre-supposing those linguistic relations which come to figure human relations altogether (which echoes Lyotard’s explication of the child within the interlocutory circuit). Iweala cleverly uses language itself to signify the failure of subjection into the Symbolic Order. In this way, Iweala’s novel seems to lie in tension between entrance into the Symbolic Order and a constant referral to the Real Order, of pure emotions, desires, that which resists symbolization at all. Agu, as a child, is himself a bundle of desires and emotions which he cannot always fully articulate. His use of language to situate himself in the world (in relation to others) becomes onomatopoetic, such as when he describes the world around him through sounds like “KNOCK KNOCK”, “PING PING” or “KPAWA!” (2).
In this sense, Iweala accomplishes a remarkable feat of mimicking the grammatical breakdowns of a child, and the disruption between entrance into the Symbolic from the Real, without jeopardizing comprehension of the supposed audience of fluent English readers. As such, I don’t feel that Iweala is distorting English in his portrayal of Agu, but instead it seems he is cleverly appropriating English for the needs of a child soldier, of using language to dis-identify his character from the reader in order to show the limitations of the novel in “knowing” the other.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Reading and its Crapshoot
From The Millions: This is is precisely how I feel about the fiction in the New Yorker.
As Frank Kovarik notes, it really is a crapshoot. "I came to recognize, though, that reading magazine fiction is a crapshoot. I think that’s why many New Yorker readers rarely read this part of the magazine. When you read a piece of nonfiction, you know what you’re getting into, and you know you’ll come away from the experience with something tangible—some information or perspective on the world. And you can stop midway through and still have something to take with you. Fiction doesn’t work that way, at least for me. It’s like sex—uncomfortable if abandoned midway through. The rewards of fiction—the ecstatic transport when you’re pulled into the world of a story, given a new window into human experience—can be greater than those of nonfiction, but you can also finish a story angry that the writer has just wasted 45 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back."
As Frank Kovarik notes, it really is a crapshoot. "I came to recognize, though, that reading magazine fiction is a crapshoot. I think that’s why many New Yorker readers rarely read this part of the magazine. When you read a piece of nonfiction, you know what you’re getting into, and you know you’ll come away from the experience with something tangible—some information or perspective on the world. And you can stop midway through and still have something to take with you. Fiction doesn’t work that way, at least for me. It’s like sex—uncomfortable if abandoned midway through. The rewards of fiction—the ecstatic transport when you’re pulled into the world of a story, given a new window into human experience—can be greater than those of nonfiction, but you can also finish a story angry that the writer has just wasted 45 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back."
Friday, June 11, 2010
(Re)Considering Dave
A friend sent me this interview of David Foster Wallace the other day. It's quite long at 45 minutes, but if you have the time, I'd highly suggest taking the time to watch it. It's more of a conversation rather than an interview, but I think it's especially great as a primer for his fiction (since let's face it: Infinite Jest is intimidating).
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Thoughts on E-Books; Or, A Different Kind of Reader
BEA (Book Expo America), the annual publishing convention of New York, offered a recent locus of anxiety and discomfort regarding the hazy future of the book industry. The New York Times coverage of the event characterized the mood as a "frenzied conversation about electronic books that has hijacked the business."
I didn't attend the conference, but the presentation titles suggest that the publishing industry has grudgingly acknowledged how the Internet is indeed a game changer. (Example: "When Gutenberg Meets Zuckerberg". ) Publishers like to frame, for lack of a better word, the transition to online modes of publishing as something which could destroy their business model. In this sense, I agree, but I don't share their same sentiment of dread and despair, yet nor do I believe the Internet as a one size save all panacea to problems in publishing. Instead I think the Internet/digital books/ online content forces publishers to re-evaluate what they do in their role as literary gatekeepers. In other words, the heart of e-book anxiety really begs the distinction of form vs content. How these distinctions are made? What do or could they mean? And how can it translate into a revitalization of a reading public?
The music industry is often touted as being in the same, sinking boat as publishing, but they differ in one crucial aspect: the form of consumption. It doesn't matter how you enjoy music; listening to the White Stripes on your ipod is pretty much the same as listening to it on the radio. The experience of enjoying musical content is the same regardless the form it takes as a CD, cassette, or MP3 file. Granted, sound quality changes, but this difference is generally negligible given the already decent playback quality of MP3 files. With books however, the form becomes immensely important. Avid readers relish the lovely weight of their favorite book in their hands. They love the tactic quality of reading, of turning the pages and perhaps prematurely flipping to the end ( or at least I do). But the book I am describing here is someone's favorite book where its form becomes critical to the process of enjoying its content. Its comforting weight, its pages, its physical space on the bookshelf.
E-books and their readers (an accidental pun!) on the other hand clarify how readers consume what kinds of content. In other words, certain categories of texts, magazines, "light reading" (however one may personally define it), or newspapers are all kinds of content where form doesn't really matter. Their physical forms were designed to be easily disposable and even re-purposed. (The sole purpose of newspaper in my home for about eight years was for lining the birdcage.) We see publishers moving in this direction, albeit too slowly in my opinion. This type of content is ideal for e-readers precisely because of their ultimately disposable quality. (Textbooks as e-books are an especially promising form due to the defrayed costs of physically producing huge textbooks that are destined to be resold anyway for a tenth of its original price to university bookstores.)
As for books not intended for the recycle bin, E-books are great if 1. one is going on a long trip to New Zealand and cannot decide which among the 50 unread books to bring 2. for everyday commutes in general or 3. one just happens to really like the convenience and efficiency of consolidating one's library into the size of just one book. But I do believe that there are those in the world, like me, who will always want and need books in both forms, depending on one's purposes. It's also important to keep in mind that the "one size fits all" formula won't apply to all books. One person's favorite book, say Lord of the Rings, may be another person's commuter reading. E-books force publishers to differentiate between types of content, but my main point is that content should determine the form(s), and not vice versa. Publishing does not need to be an either/or situation anymore.
However, it seems publishers like to privilege the (hardcopy) form of a book over its content. Granted, digitization used to send publishers in a panic due to fears of rampant copying and piracy. Here the music industry is being implicated as a parallel "worst case scenario," but again, I don't think that comparison ultimately holds water since the forms of consumption offer such radically different experiences. (Try reading all Harry Potter books on your computer, or even the iPad, before desolating your tear ducts.)
Let's pause though for a moment with an old story called, When Xerox Came to Town. Chris Anderson talks about this in his book the Long Tail. When Xerox first enabled people to make copies, publishers had a tantrum and claimed everyone would stop buying books if people were allowed to copy whatever they wanted. Publishers lost their campaign to stop people from using copy machines, and to their surprise, the Publishing Apocalypse never happened. Why? Because no one really wants to 1. take the time to copy 500 pages of say Proust, and 2. reading grainy copies is inherently a poor reading experience compared to a lush new copy of In Search of Lost Time.
So - are E-books substitutes for books? Yes and no. It depends on what and why you are reading that E-book. It depends on not who you are as a reader, but how you read. Identifying who consumers are will remain important, but I imagine the latter may become equally critical in monetizing digital content. As awesome Kindle is and as pretty the Ipad may be, book lovers will always want a hardcopy version of their most loved books. And at the same time, consumers want e-readers for books on the go. E-readers may even encourage reading (and writing), and we already see this happening. Novels written on cellphones. E-books helping dyslexic readers read books they never would have read in physical form (although the 1000 pages of Monte Cristo are indeed intimidating to anyone I would imagine).
Lastly, I wanted to briefly mention how it seems the publishing industry acts like a wounded animal in the continuing aftermath of technology. I understand the concerns of journalism, but it seems to me that the publishing industry is perhaps not in as dire of a situation as it imagines. Instead, it is in a tremendous position for transformation and revolution. Granted, industry figures are down in profits, but I suspect this has more to do with the souring economy and the fact that books are expensive, like really expensive. (Purchasing just 5 books at the Strand cost me almost a hundred dollars, even at slightly discounted prices.) E-books make books cheaper. And the truth is many people want to buy a lot of books but can't because they're simply too expensive, or because they foresee perhaps that a book will be likeable, but unjustifiable in the 18.99 price tag. (I read Motherless Brooklyn once while on vacation, enjoyed it, but know that I will probably never pick it up again. No offense at all to Jonatham Lethem.)
Perhaps if publisher made (e)books cheaper customers would buy more books (I know I would), because the reassuring fact is that books will never go away. People will always want books. The question today is: how do people want to read books, and how does one direct the right books to them?
I didn't attend the conference, but the presentation titles suggest that the publishing industry has grudgingly acknowledged how the Internet is indeed a game changer. (Example: "When Gutenberg Meets Zuckerberg". ) Publishers like to frame, for lack of a better word, the transition to online modes of publishing as something which could destroy their business model. In this sense, I agree, but I don't share their same sentiment of dread and despair, yet nor do I believe the Internet as a one size save all panacea to problems in publishing. Instead I think the Internet/digital books/ online content forces publishers to re-evaluate what they do in their role as literary gatekeepers. In other words, the heart of e-book anxiety really begs the distinction of form vs content. How these distinctions are made? What do or could they mean? And how can it translate into a revitalization of a reading public?
The music industry is often touted as being in the same, sinking boat as publishing, but they differ in one crucial aspect: the form of consumption. It doesn't matter how you enjoy music; listening to the White Stripes on your ipod is pretty much the same as listening to it on the radio. The experience of enjoying musical content is the same regardless the form it takes as a CD, cassette, or MP3 file. Granted, sound quality changes, but this difference is generally negligible given the already decent playback quality of MP3 files. With books however, the form becomes immensely important. Avid readers relish the lovely weight of their favorite book in their hands. They love the tactic quality of reading, of turning the pages and perhaps prematurely flipping to the end ( or at least I do). But the book I am describing here is someone's favorite book where its form becomes critical to the process of enjoying its content. Its comforting weight, its pages, its physical space on the bookshelf.
E-books and their readers (an accidental pun!) on the other hand clarify how readers consume what kinds of content. In other words, certain categories of texts, magazines, "light reading" (however one may personally define it), or newspapers are all kinds of content where form doesn't really matter. Their physical forms were designed to be easily disposable and even re-purposed. (The sole purpose of newspaper in my home for about eight years was for lining the birdcage.) We see publishers moving in this direction, albeit too slowly in my opinion. This type of content is ideal for e-readers precisely because of their ultimately disposable quality. (Textbooks as e-books are an especially promising form due to the defrayed costs of physically producing huge textbooks that are destined to be resold anyway for a tenth of its original price to university bookstores.)
As for books not intended for the recycle bin, E-books are great if 1. one is going on a long trip to New Zealand and cannot decide which among the 50 unread books to bring 2. for everyday commutes in general or 3. one just happens to really like the convenience and efficiency of consolidating one's library into the size of just one book. But I do believe that there are those in the world, like me, who will always want and need books in both forms, depending on one's purposes. It's also important to keep in mind that the "one size fits all" formula won't apply to all books. One person's favorite book, say Lord of the Rings, may be another person's commuter reading. E-books force publishers to differentiate between types of content, but my main point is that content should determine the form(s), and not vice versa. Publishing does not need to be an either/or situation anymore.
However, it seems publishers like to privilege the (hardcopy) form of a book over its content. Granted, digitization used to send publishers in a panic due to fears of rampant copying and piracy. Here the music industry is being implicated as a parallel "worst case scenario," but again, I don't think that comparison ultimately holds water since the forms of consumption offer such radically different experiences. (Try reading all Harry Potter books on your computer, or even the iPad, before desolating your tear ducts.)
Let's pause though for a moment with an old story called, When Xerox Came to Town. Chris Anderson talks about this in his book the Long Tail. When Xerox first enabled people to make copies, publishers had a tantrum and claimed everyone would stop buying books if people were allowed to copy whatever they wanted. Publishers lost their campaign to stop people from using copy machines, and to their surprise, the Publishing Apocalypse never happened. Why? Because no one really wants to 1. take the time to copy 500 pages of say Proust, and 2. reading grainy copies is inherently a poor reading experience compared to a lush new copy of In Search of Lost Time.
So - are E-books substitutes for books? Yes and no. It depends on what and why you are reading that E-book. It depends on not who you are as a reader, but how you read. Identifying who consumers are will remain important, but I imagine the latter may become equally critical in monetizing digital content. As awesome Kindle is and as pretty the Ipad may be, book lovers will always want a hardcopy version of their most loved books. And at the same time, consumers want e-readers for books on the go. E-readers may even encourage reading (and writing), and we already see this happening. Novels written on cellphones. E-books helping dyslexic readers read books they never would have read in physical form (although the 1000 pages of Monte Cristo are indeed intimidating to anyone I would imagine).
Lastly, I wanted to briefly mention how it seems the publishing industry acts like a wounded animal in the continuing aftermath of technology. I understand the concerns of journalism, but it seems to me that the publishing industry is perhaps not in as dire of a situation as it imagines. Instead, it is in a tremendous position for transformation and revolution. Granted, industry figures are down in profits, but I suspect this has more to do with the souring economy and the fact that books are expensive, like really expensive. (Purchasing just 5 books at the Strand cost me almost a hundred dollars, even at slightly discounted prices.) E-books make books cheaper. And the truth is many people want to buy a lot of books but can't because they're simply too expensive, or because they foresee perhaps that a book will be likeable, but unjustifiable in the 18.99 price tag. (I read Motherless Brooklyn once while on vacation, enjoyed it, but know that I will probably never pick it up again. No offense at all to Jonatham Lethem.)
Perhaps if publisher made (e)books cheaper customers would buy more books (I know I would), because the reassuring fact is that books will never go away. People will always want books. The question today is: how do people want to read books, and how does one direct the right books to them?
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