28.6.2009
In this post, I shall look closer at what happens when we read a text and
try to understand it. My goal is to sort out some basic concepts, which
I want to apply (later) to specifically what happens when reading texts
that are constructed in a particular way. The text that I have in mind
here is Kafka's The Trial. (So I'm not interested in discussing
all sorts of accounts of understanding narratives; I just want to get
some tools that help me to get to terms with this particular novel.)
1) Let's start with an obvious and rather truistic point: when we
try to understand a work of literature, there is at least one special
dimension compared to trying to understand any narrative in everyday life.
A work of literature doesn't just tell a story — it does that, but it
does it in a special way. The way how the story is told is at least as
important for our understanding something as literature as the story
itself is.
When we read an article in a newspaper (telling us about a political
summit, for instance), or a report at work, what we are mostly interested in
is what narrative tells us, not how it is told. Not that the
latter aspect doesn't matter: there is a typical style to newspaper
articles or work reports, and if a text of that sort fails to comply to
our expectations, we're irritated. Imagine a work report uses obscure or
flowery language, or a newspaper article is written in verse. We would be
surprised, and because of the unusual format, we would have difficulty to
read it as a work report or newspaper article. So the way such a
text is written is not immaterial — it must be written in a particular
way. But if it is, then we are precisely not interested in the question in
what way it is written. The craft aspect, so to speak, is transparent to us.
Ideally, we want to be informed, and the best style for a text with that
objective is a style that isn't perceived as style, that keeps in the
background.
Consider yet another sort of narrative that also is part of daily life.
When your friend tells you the amusing (or depressing, depending on
where you stand) story how many forms she had to fill in to get her laptop
connected to the company network, you're not mostly interested in what
exactly happened. If she told you the story to amuse you, then a lot
depends on how well she succeeds in making it fun to listen to it. In
this case again, though the way the story is told is far from unimportant,
it should again be transparent — you shouldn't have to notice exactly
what makes the story funny, which stylistic elements (choice of words, body
language, exploitation of shared opinions) are used, and how well they
are employed. On the contrary: the story will probably fail to be amusing
if you are made aware of these elements too often and too directly.
In all these examples it is of course possible to reflect on narrative
style, and appreciate it. You can come to like a certain newspaper precisely
because of its sober and informative style, you can appreciate a colleague's
work reports for their matter-of-factness, and of course we can value a
friend's talent for amusing storytelling. Such additional reflection and
appreciation is not strictly necessary for the functioning of something
as a newspaper article, a work report, or an amusing conversation. But it
refines your perceptive and social interaction skills if you are capable
of doing so (and if you actually do it a lot). It is also a step into the
direction of appreciation of art, and literature in particular.
With literature, reflection on and appreciation of the way how
things are said in a text are built right into the practice, both on the
side of the producers and on the side of the consumers. In other words,
authors are aware that it's not just the stories they tell, but also
how they are telling them (their particular style, use of language
and idioms, the way they construct the story and plot etc.) which is subject
to interest and appreciation; and readers know that they must look at these
aspects in order to fully 'get' what's going on in the text.
(That's why autoreferential elements make sense in works of literature in
an almost natural way; consider Ibsen's famous "Nobody dies in right in the
middle of act five" in Peer Gynt — for a moment, it connects
author and audience in a shared understanding that there is more to the drama
than just the plot and story, more than what the characters could possibly
know. In performance art forms such as music, this can be observed even
more directly, as Hilary Hahn explains with admirable lucidity in her
thoughtful reflection on tweeting during live performances: "acoustic
performers rely on the audience's attention and focus and can tell when
the audience isn't mentally present. Your listening is part of our
interpretive process."[1])
Understanding literature, then, must include perceiving and appreciating
the 'how' it is made, in addition to the 'what' that it says. This is a
skill that requires some development, and naturally it benefits from
learning to apply the terms and concepts of technical language. If you
are able to distinguish between plot and story, or between the narrator's
and the character's perspectives, and if you can use these terms to refer
to such differences in discourse with yourself and others, then you have
reached a higher level of skill in understanding literature. Note that
having a conceptual skill does not necessarily mean that you also have to
use some given terminology; many readers have an understanding of the
difference between the narrator's perspective and a character's perspective,
although they may never have learned the technical use of 'narrator',
'character' and 'perspective' employed here. It's not the particular use
of words that matters — what matters is the conceptual capacity.
(To be continued.)
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[1] Hilary Hahn, To Tweet, or
Not To Tweet?.
