"To be mean and generous, depraved and decent, loving and murderous, not by turns but all at once—that, it seems, is the true burden of our existence."
From here
Friday, October 8, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
18th Century French Fiction
I'm currently taking a class on French literature up to 1800 for my minor requirement, and so far I've pretty much hated everything we've read. I've already taken it's sister class, which covers French literature after 1800, and it was honestly one of my favorite classes at Barnard, so it was maybe inevitable that I'd enjoy this one less. (To be clear, the class itself is perfectly enjoyable and I have no complaints at all about the prof, just the reading.)
Here's my problem with the Enlightenment literature (e.g. Voltaire, Madame de Graffigny, Rousseau, Diderot): it's too utilitarian. These authors have a message to send, a critique of the society in which they're living, and all of the other aspects of literature (plot, characters, etc) are just window-dressing. We never get to hear about the setting (except the structural injustices of French society) and the characters are simple representations of everything the author thinks are good, innocent, and just in the world.
Last night I had to read a chunk of Diderot's La Religieuse, which is so far my least favorite of the texts we've read--I'm barely able to keep the look of utter skepticism off of my face as the prof gushes that this is one of the best pieces of writing of the whole period. Clearly I'm missing something. Not only is the narrator incredibly annoying (IMO), there are also all sorts of inconsistencies in her narrative. We can't figure out when in the storyline she is writing, as she claims to be ignorant of facts that she clearly knows at other points in the narrative (undermining the claim that this was all written at the same time). At one point, the main character launches into a passionate critique of the French justice system--but she simply wouldn't have had the knowledge to do so. This diatribe is clearly coming directly from Diderot. In revisions, he "solves" this problem by randomly inserting a quotation mark in the middle of the paragraph and attributing the rest of the speech to a character who has spoken a grand total of, maybe, 3 sentences 20 pages ago. This sort of sloppiness reveals Diderot's indifference to the structure, plot and characters of his work: that's all just a decoration for his social critique, and the character only exists as a means of spreading his message.
Arguably, Zola's Nana does the same thing--Nana is a representation of Paris and its degradation, a character who must die to achieve a higher symbolic status--but Zola can still take your breath away with his descriptions of Paris, and Nana is still a relatively rounded-out character. In a sense, all literature is the author's attempt to send a message out into the world by way of a narrative. The difference is that in most literature, the characters at least get to be a cardboard cutout that can trot around a textually-developed world. In these texts, the characters are merely speech-bubbles.
I think this reveals a failure of Enlightenment thought. Why couldn't Diderot simply write, "I think it's wrong to put young women in convents and force them to become nuns just because their families can't afford their dowries. Here's why this policy is wrong...."? The fact that he felt he needed to construct a person with a story to be his mouthpiece in order for people to listen, to understand, and to care is evidence that humans need narrative and empathetic connections. The Enlightenment championed rationality and the ideal of the natural man from which we all began, but rational appeals to help those who are suffering based solely on our common humanity aren't enough. Empathy might not be enough to ensure the human rights of everyone either, but rationality alone certainly won't motivate people to help those who suffer.
Here's my problem with the Enlightenment literature (e.g. Voltaire, Madame de Graffigny, Rousseau, Diderot): it's too utilitarian. These authors have a message to send, a critique of the society in which they're living, and all of the other aspects of literature (plot, characters, etc) are just window-dressing. We never get to hear about the setting (except the structural injustices of French society) and the characters are simple representations of everything the author thinks are good, innocent, and just in the world.
Last night I had to read a chunk of Diderot's La Religieuse, which is so far my least favorite of the texts we've read--I'm barely able to keep the look of utter skepticism off of my face as the prof gushes that this is one of the best pieces of writing of the whole period. Clearly I'm missing something. Not only is the narrator incredibly annoying (IMO), there are also all sorts of inconsistencies in her narrative. We can't figure out when in the storyline she is writing, as she claims to be ignorant of facts that she clearly knows at other points in the narrative (undermining the claim that this was all written at the same time). At one point, the main character launches into a passionate critique of the French justice system--but she simply wouldn't have had the knowledge to do so. This diatribe is clearly coming directly from Diderot. In revisions, he "solves" this problem by randomly inserting a quotation mark in the middle of the paragraph and attributing the rest of the speech to a character who has spoken a grand total of, maybe, 3 sentences 20 pages ago. This sort of sloppiness reveals Diderot's indifference to the structure, plot and characters of his work: that's all just a decoration for his social critique, and the character only exists as a means of spreading his message.
Arguably, Zola's Nana does the same thing--Nana is a representation of Paris and its degradation, a character who must die to achieve a higher symbolic status--but Zola can still take your breath away with his descriptions of Paris, and Nana is still a relatively rounded-out character. In a sense, all literature is the author's attempt to send a message out into the world by way of a narrative. The difference is that in most literature, the characters at least get to be a cardboard cutout that can trot around a textually-developed world. In these texts, the characters are merely speech-bubbles.
I think this reveals a failure of Enlightenment thought. Why couldn't Diderot simply write, "I think it's wrong to put young women in convents and force them to become nuns just because their families can't afford their dowries. Here's why this policy is wrong...."? The fact that he felt he needed to construct a person with a story to be his mouthpiece in order for people to listen, to understand, and to care is evidence that humans need narrative and empathetic connections. The Enlightenment championed rationality and the ideal of the natural man from which we all began, but rational appeals to help those who are suffering based solely on our common humanity aren't enough. Empathy might not be enough to ensure the human rights of everyone either, but rationality alone certainly won't motivate people to help those who suffer.
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