Is “instant communication” destroying literature?

There was a column on the Huffington Post today, referring back to a column in the New York Times, about that very question. I went back and read the NYT article and it struck me as kind of whiny. “Poor me, I can’t use my contrived plot device in the cellphone era.” The basic argument is that many moments in great literature are born out of misunderstanding and miscommunication, and these moments can no longer happen in the technologically advanced world that we live in today.

I call foul on this argument. It assumes is that the communication medium is the communication, and that is simply not true. Just because it is easy (well, easier) to get in touch with someone doesn’t mean that you will.

Let’s take the examples that the writers give, one by one. Casablanca – Ilsa could have sent Rick a message (presumably either text or voicemail) explaining why she stood him up at the train station. OK, fine. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Casablanca, so someone will have to remind me. Did Victor Lazlo come to Paris to find her, or did she just find out that he was alive? If he came to Paris to find her, when exactly would she have left Rick the message? “Sorry, honey, glad you’re not dead, but give me just a second to finish texting my new boyfriend.” If she was going to do that, she might as well have just gone to the train station and explained to Rick in person. [Actually, the same argument applies if someone else told her that he’s still alive.]

Misunderstanding in Shakespeare’s comedies could be cleared up with an IM – are you a boy or a girl. Again, if that is a possibility, what is stopping the character from asking straight out? Besides, in most of the cross-dressing comedies that I can think of, it doesn’t even occur to anyone that cross-dressing is happening until it is revealed at the end.

Romeo and Juliet could have texted each other about the faking-the-death plan. That one is a little bit trickier to get around, but just as technology could “solve” the problem, technology could make it continue. Juliet’s mother could have confiscated her phone. Romeo was in exile and “out of service area”. The phone had run out of battery (it’s not like they had any time to charge their devices in the three days they spent together).

And the one that is so clearly not a technological communication issue: Pride and Prejudice. If only Lizzie had been able to get in touch with Mr. Darcy! But to do what, exactly? “Sorry I turned down your proposal…now that I’ve seen your house I’ve changed my mind?” Clearly Pride and Prejudice would never work in the modern world. It’s not a story that has been redone over and over and over again, including 21st century versions at all.(/sarcasm)

I suppose my point is that good literature is character-based, not technology-based. Even in this world of almost instant and constant communication, misunderstandings and miscommunications are going to happen. Phones die, or get stolen, or run out of credit. Calls are dropped as you travel through a tunnel or through an old stone building. You travel out of the country without international service. You don’t have access to a computer to check your email or facebook or other messages. You don’t pick up on the emotional nuances of an email or a text. Voicemails are delayed. But what the story comes down to is character. If the character wants to get in touch with someone, they will find a way, whether it’s 2009 or 1809 or 509. Complaining that today’s technology makes writing good literature impossible just shows a lack of creativity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/weekinreview/12richtel.html?_r=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-stolz/is-the-internet-ruining-e_b_186041.html

Socialisation

Social groups are interesting. In one of my favourite books, set at a college, the main character thinks at one point about how you become “friends with people you can't even stand half the time, and can't understand even when you do.” [This may not be the exact quote – I don't have the book in front of me.] I did not understand this in high school, or in college. “Why,” I thought, “would you be friends with people you don't like? Surely friendships are one form of relationship that depends on mutual liking? After all, you can't choose your family and you can't choose your co-workers, but you can choose your friends. Why would you choose to socialize with people you don't like?”

After the last few years, I understand it a little bit more. I still don't have people that I don't like that I would consider friends, but I do have social groups made up of people I don't like. This was especially true in Slovakia. Good Lord, anyone who knew me in 2005-06 knows that this is true. It is one of the reasons I left Tisovec. It is starting to become true again here, although I'm trying to avoid it or counteract it as much as I can.

I love my flatmates, I really do. I am so grateful that I got this group of girls to live with. I know how rare it is to actually get along with and socialize with your flatmates in randomly assigned university accommodation. Some of the most fun times I've had this year have been with my flatmates. My flatmates' social group is also made up of a majority of lovely people – when they're on their own. I do have a few problems with my flatmates' social group – which is, by extension, my social group. For one, it's flipping huge. A lot of them went to the Easter Formal ten days ago, and there were twenty people there. And that was not all of them. The other, more significant problem, is that when they drink, they are loud. And they drink a lot. And until last week, they would come to ours after the bars closed. I cannot think of a time that I was woken up or kept from falling asleep by loud drunk people in our hallway, bedrooms, or kitchen that it was not this particular group. They do always say that they are sorry – well, my flatmates always say that they are sorry – but I have reached the point where that's not good enough any more. “Sorry” involves not just acknowledgement that you've done something wrong, but an implicit agreement to at least TRY not to do it again. They usually realize that they've done something wrong, but the next time they go for a night out the same thing happens. The worst night yet was after the aforementioned Easter Formal, when I was kept awake until nearly four, couldn't hear the music two inches from my head because of the music coming from the absolute other end of the flat, people were literally throwing each other around the hallway, the “attic” was discovered, and three of my flatmates got noise warnings on their room. It was the worst night not just because of these things – although those would probably be enough – but just because it was the last straw for me when it comes to socializing with these people as a big group.

Tonight, those people are all out. It's a joint birthday party for one of my flatmates (the one I have a relatively low tolerance for) and one of the guys in the group, and it is also a celebration of the end of term/beginning of Easter holidays. I am not there. I am okay with this decision. There are lots of reasons why. I've had a very busy few weeks, and I need some time to myself. I'm not feeling completely well, and I have a job to do tomorrow (an actual paid one!). I don't enjoy nights where the goal of going out is to get trashed. But most of all, I don't deal well with huge groups, and I really don't like this particular huge group. Especially right now, when it hasn't been long enough for me to get over my complete and total anger and frustration at the sheer gall of how inconsiderate they are every single time they come over. I can hold grudges for a very long time, and I was very angry. I'm sure that I will get over it in another week or so and be able to enjoy their company again, but tonight is not that night.

There is a spider in my room, somewhere. It is a medium-sized black spider that scurries quite quickly. First it was on my duvet, then on my actual bed, and then I lost it.

Now, I am the first to admit that I don't deal well with things that have more limbs than I do (aka insects, arachnids, and things of that ilk. I do okay with 4 legs or 2 legs, for the most part. Just not more). Over the years, however, I have learned to control my sheer panic. I would really like to maneuver the spider onto a paper and release it out the window. Unfortunately it takes a bit of time for me to recover from the startle of seeing a scurrying spider, and by the time that my heart rate returns to normal and my brain resumes functioning, the spider has vanished.

My seventh Carmen

I think my standards are too high. After having seen this show so many times, and listening to the album even more times, it really takes something special to get my attention. This wasn't it. It wasn't a terrible production of Carmen last night at the Theatre Royal. It just wasn't that great either.

I am afraid this post is going to seem really harsh. There were a lot of things that did not work well in this production. But, honestly, it wasn't a bad production. It was just average.

One of the things that was advertised about this production was the amphitheatre staging - creating a bullring on stage, won't that be exciting! - and the flamenco dancing. This is one of the things that could have been so, so cool. It wasn't. Before the Prelude started, a brass choir came out and played something I didn't recognize as bullfighters of all kinds (matadors, picadors, etc.) walked around the stage. They kept doffing their hats to the audience - I'm not sure if they expected us to cheer or not, but we didn't. And that was all for the bullring. The flamenco was a little bit more involved in the production, but still not as much or as well as I expected. The dancer was in the Act One prelude during the Fate theme, and then was kind of the representation of Carmen's death, so during Act Three "Melons, Coupons" and in Act Four when she actually dies (and even after - they added a dirge at the end while Carmen's body is being carried out). This is where I think my high standards are too high. If I'd never seen Carmen before, I probably would have thought the dancing was really cool. From my perspective, though, it didn't go nearly far enough. (The bullring, on the other hand, definitely felt more like a "LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO" than something that added to the performance.)

Now, here's where it's going to get harsh. There were serious, serious problems (that I had) with the performance itself. Some of the singers sang too much to the audience - they didn't feel like part of the scene. It was especially bad for Micaela in Act One and the smugglers in Act Two. They're supposed to be interacting with the other characters, not just telling us what's going on. It's something really shows the youth of this particular group. The acting in general was not great - Jose was probably the best.

The seduction scene(s) in Act One were really good, although Carmen was juuuust this side of tasteless and reminded me a few times of the LCO production (see my previous post about Carmen). She managed to pull it off, though. It did help that this Micaela was so clearly a girl from the village who had a hero-worship crush on Jose, and he so clearly did not love her except as a messenger from his mother. It makes it a lot easier for him to abandon her if he doesn't actually love her.

They made quite a few cuts as well, some of which made me go, "But I thought....what?" I can understand cutting the youth chorus at the changing of the guard. I can't understand cutting out the "L'amour"s in "Votre toast" - it's where Carmen first really catches Escamillo's eye! It's kind of an important moment! - or the ACT TWO AND ACT THREE ENTR'ACTES. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. ACT THREE HAS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FLUTE PARTS IN MUSICAL HISTORY!!!! WHY????!!!!!

Sorry.

Another distracting thing was in "Melons! Coupons!" which is one of my favourite songs in Act Three. Frasquita and Mercedes and Carmen clearly had NO IDEA what "card-reading" meant. They were using playing cards and just tossing them down on their shawls one after another. Do they not listen to the words they are singing? Three cards here, four here. Not fifty-two cards in a pile. And if you're going to use the playing cards, make it consistent. The two or three of diamonds? (A low-numbered red card, at least?) NOT THE DEATH CARD. It's supposed to be serious and ominous and whatever, and I was just going, "Um.....no. This is ridiculous."

But that's not the worst part. The worst part was that the orchestra and the vocalists had the WORST time staying together. I couldn't see the conductor (or the orchestra at all) from where I was sitting so I don't know whether it was a problem with the orchestra or a problem with the singers, but it was definitely a problem. Any time there was a song involving more than a soloist, someone would be off. The worst was, again, in "Melons! Coupons!" when the singers were a full measure ahead of the orchestra. A FULL MEASURE. It was so, so distracting.

It wasn't a terrible performance. It wasn't even the worst performance of Carmen I've ever seen. Actually, no, it probably was, because all the others (except possibly the one here in Nottingham seven or eight years ago that I don't remember any details of) had something spectacular about them. This one was however the most consistently average production that I've ever seen. I'm glad I went - I always enjoy seeing Carmen and it's better to watch opera than just to listen to it - but I wouldn't recommend it, necessarily.

Poetry day! request

I have learned that I work better to external pressure. If I am the one who sets a goal, it's far too easy to say, "well, it doesn't matter that much." Now, I do want to do more poetry analysis - I like poetry, a lot, and think that it doesn't have to be as obscure and difficult as some people think - but I would like suggestions. If it's just up to me, I'll get distracted and overwhelmed by schoolwork and not seek out anything new. So if you have a favourite poem or fifteen that you want me to read and comment on, leave me a comment or send me an email or post on my facebook wall or catch me on Twitter (yes, I'm on Twitter now) and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Cool? Cool.

An attempt to escape perfectionism

I can't get away from Wagner. If I end up working at all in twentieth-century literature, I am going to have to know more about Wagner than I do. I feel so unprepared right now for any kind of twentieth-century analysis; I am not familiar with most of the theories or the major critics and I don't really understand what the teacher wants when she says "Engage with the work." I clearly should be a medievalist. We get to work with manuscripts, and everything is so vague that it's a lot easier to fake your way through it. Plus I already am familiar with most of the historical contexts, at least in England. I need to be better with Scotland and Wales, and with English geography, though.

I still hate reading Joyce. There were a few moments in Ulysses that I could get through - Nausicaa was pretty interesting, and the operatic references were intriguing - but mostly I hated it. I have a better appreciation of Dubliners now, so that's good, and I understand what he was trying to do, and I understand why people find him interesting. He just doesn't work for me. I think Stephen Dedalus is a stupid and whiny character, I am not fascinated by the idea of excretion as creation, and I resent writing that is designed to be incomprehensible. I don't care if it's a parody of Latin histories - the sentences still need to make sense. I can deal with it if I have to diagram them out for them to make sense, even if I may not like it. I cannot deal with things that are designed to be incomprehensible. It is not good art. I got three pages into "Oxen of the Sun" before I broke down and almost started crying. It's an interesting concept; I just can't deal with it. Take your moocows and keep them away from me.

One of my flatmates seems to have problems with the concept that people are different than she is. She doesn't seem to understand why someone would choose getting sleep (and not being hungover) over going out and drinking until you can't stand up. She also doesn't seem to understand why someone would own more books than they need for class, or why someone would want to study something that required them to read on a very regular basis. She also doesn't seem to understand the emotional and energy difference between being 20 and being 27. To be fair, most of my other flatmates don't really understand that difference, either, but at least they accept it. We don't get along terribly well.

I have joined the Postgraduate theatre group here. We are going to attempt to put on "Six Characters in Search of an Author", a very interesting play about the nature of reality and theatre, etc. There were 25 people at the first meeting, ten at the second, and six at auditions. I'm wondering how well this is going to work.

I recently went on a DVD-buying binge, sparked by massive sales at Amazon and a store in town that's going out of business. I need to remember that just because I got more money out of my loan this term doesn't mean that I need to spend all the money. It is nice for my materialistic, acquisitive nature to have a lot of my favourite movies on hand, though.

My academic dilemmas

The course that I'm on is called "English Studies" and combines modern literature and medieval literature. This is perfect for me right now, since I love both of them and don't want to be forced to choose between them. However, eventually I'm going to have to come up with a dissertation. How do I combine my love of the medieval with my love of late Victorianism/Edwardianism/early modernism?

Once I have that figured out, it's time to plan "my future" (something I'm working on now, actually). Do I want a PhD? Do I want to wait? Do I want to get teaching qualifications? Part of me wants to get a PhD, partially for the prestige, partially for the family expectation (higher education is important to both my parents; my father has a PhD...). And part of me thinks "But what would I do it on? What would my research proposal be?" Because, like my issue with my MA dissertation, how do I combine my two loves?

I am such a dilettante, really. I'm interested in everything - especially literary things. I was looking today at editions of one of the Robin Hood manuscripts, and the editors were discussing in the footnotes how they chose certain readings by looking at the original manuscript under UV light, and I thought, "That is so cool! I want to do that!" And whenever I'm immersed in the Forster stuff, I think "I could be a Forster expert!" And whenever I talk to, say, Kelly about Victorian lit, I think "How interesting this stuff is!" And talking to Rachel about Old English makes me wish I knew more about things like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and ashes and thorns and runes and stuff. And reading about various Shakespearean textual theories is fascinating. And I think the point is made.

I lack focus. This is what is going to kill me this year. I am so easily distracted - and not necessarily from non-academic stuff - that certain other things (like class preparation) don't get done the way they should. In being interested in everything, I focus on and really learn about nothing. I don't want to limit myself, but that causes a paralysis of choice.