I owe several things to Rebecca LaRoche. First among them is a string of apologies for being a complete twat; I was the very model of a self-important undergrad, and she deserved better from me. The second debt is for a great many ideas about teaching itself, rather than about specific literature. The third is for moments of clarity with regard to my own writing, and I still don't know how she found the stomach to deal with me considering the aformentioned twatness.
Among those insights that fall under the third category is a something she said about a poem that I thought very good, but she described as "about something I don't feel I have access to". What was to me perfectly clear was, to someone unfamiliar with my internal workings, opaque and meaningless. I have precisely the same reaction to many of the poems contained in this volume. Tranströmer is clearly conveying something very meaningful and clear to him, but to me it fells like a description of an artwork, rather than the work itself. Without access to what is being described, the description itself is beautiful but meaningless.
This effect is likely a result of Tranströmer's habit of transcribing dreams into poems. Often, this is explicit, but more often he forgets to mention that what we are reading arises from a fugue state and is correspondingly unbeholden to reason, and immune to understanding. These moments are not unlike art by Miro or Kandinsky, where the arrangement of shapes and colors itself is the work, and meaning is not a factor.
But in those moments where the dream brushes against reality, where whatever Tranströmer was thinking overlaps in some way with my own spirit, the result is magical. It is the perfection of synaesthesia, where not only do all sounds have colors and vice versa, but everything is perceived by all senses at once. Everything in these poems has a color, a voice, a scent. It is no great feat for a poet to draw connections between two or three things in a simple metaphor. But Tranströmer goes so far beyond metaphor as to render the word meaningless. And not only does he give every thought a texture and a flavor, but also hands and lips and eyes. We can see and feel and taste these poems, but they can also do the same to us as we read them. Tranströmer captures ideas like bugs in jars, revealing to the reader that even "the ground [is] alive, that there [is] an infinite world of creeping and flying things living their own rich life without paying the least regard to us", and he didn't stop there but "caught a fraction of a fraction of that world and pinned it down in [his] boxes" (Museums).
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Wuthering Heights
I'm not sure by what criteria this movie should be evaluated. It would seem remiss to not include "faithfulness to the source material" as a criterion. Adaptations exist in a vacuum even less than original works. By that measure, and within the limits of my memory, the film passes fairly well. I do not recall enjoying the book, rather finding the characters unsympathetic and dreary, and the structure unnecessarily meandering. The movie, by way of contrast, was tightly woven, and the performances gave depth and sympathy, especially to poor doomed Heathcliff.
Even viewed on its own, the movie was perfectly watchable. Score, direction, cinematography, and performance were all of a very high level, and I suppose I can't find fault with its inclusion in the AFI's "100 Movies" list. But my reaction to the movie itself is exactly as tepid as it sounds. It was . . . fine.
Evaluation, however, is not the only way of reacting to a work--either written or filmed. There is something about the story of Heathcliff that transcends evaluation. I, an inveterate evaluator, have no special place for it in my memory; I can barely remember reading it at all, though I believe I wrote a paper on it as an undergrad. But its fans are legion, and mysteriously fanatic. There is something about Heathcliff that speaks to people, making the book a legend, and the movie, to be honest, far more well-regarded than it merits.
Perhaps if I were to read the book again, I would find in the text that which was rather clearly woven into the film: that the worst people we meet often have very sound reasons for being that way. The call is implicit in portraits of such tortured bastards that we should endeavour to understand them before passing evaluation. That even terrible miscreants were once pure and innocent. That all such Heathcliffs need is love, and all cruel and vile men deserve forgiveness.
It seems to be on this level that those who have a soft spot for the book, and I suppose the movie, react to it. It is seemingly irresistible for a certain subset of optimistic romantics to embrace horrible people, trying to save, redeem, or heal them. I have several personal acquaintances in mind when I write this, and know of far more second-hand.
As for me, it is likely a character flaw that I do not react to them the same way. I have infinite patience for children, but once Heathcliff is an adult, his tragic youth ceases to be an excuse. At a certain point we all, myself included, must heal and grow and unfuck ourselves from our universally tragic youths. Only then can we lay claim to a greater evaluation than "fine". The book was fine. The movie was fine. And the many Catherines in my acquaintance are fine. But if any of them want a better reaction than that from me, they would do well to grow up.
Even viewed on its own, the movie was perfectly watchable. Score, direction, cinematography, and performance were all of a very high level, and I suppose I can't find fault with its inclusion in the AFI's "100 Movies" list. But my reaction to the movie itself is exactly as tepid as it sounds. It was . . . fine.
Evaluation, however, is not the only way of reacting to a work--either written or filmed. There is something about the story of Heathcliff that transcends evaluation. I, an inveterate evaluator, have no special place for it in my memory; I can barely remember reading it at all, though I believe I wrote a paper on it as an undergrad. But its fans are legion, and mysteriously fanatic. There is something about Heathcliff that speaks to people, making the book a legend, and the movie, to be honest, far more well-regarded than it merits.
Perhaps if I were to read the book again, I would find in the text that which was rather clearly woven into the film: that the worst people we meet often have very sound reasons for being that way. The call is implicit in portraits of such tortured bastards that we should endeavour to understand them before passing evaluation. That even terrible miscreants were once pure and innocent. That all such Heathcliffs need is love, and all cruel and vile men deserve forgiveness.
It seems to be on this level that those who have a soft spot for the book, and I suppose the movie, react to it. It is seemingly irresistible for a certain subset of optimistic romantics to embrace horrible people, trying to save, redeem, or heal them. I have several personal acquaintances in mind when I write this, and know of far more second-hand.
As for me, it is likely a character flaw that I do not react to them the same way. I have infinite patience for children, but once Heathcliff is an adult, his tragic youth ceases to be an excuse. At a certain point we all, myself included, must heal and grow and unfuck ourselves from our universally tragic youths. Only then can we lay claim to a greater evaluation than "fine". The book was fine. The movie was fine. And the many Catherines in my acquaintance are fine. But if any of them want a better reaction than that from me, they would do well to grow up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)