Adorno and Endgame

Adorno's reflections in the opening section on the values of philosophical mediation appear to discredit any serious attempt at trying to reconcile Endgame and a philosophical approach. However, he then goes on to discuss how Hamm and Clov interact amidst the fact that 'the end of the world is discounted, as though it were a matter of course.' Adorno also admits that 'Existentialism itself is parodied', which is not extraordinary in itself but to say that we should put the philosophy behind us and then to talk about the philosophy seems an awful contradiction, or maybe an acknowledgement that it is one more element that contributes to drawing some kind of a coherent reading of Endgame. It would be interesting to discuss whether Existentialism (particularly Parisian existentialism) can be discounted entirely if Adorno himself even admits that there is a strain of it within Endgame, even if only for purposes of parody.

Midnight's Children- Food

Although this post may say more about my healthy appetite than 'Midnight's Children', one aspect of the novel that I found particularly noteworthy was Rushdie's use of food as an extension of the personalities and events in the novel. The most memorable of these being the 'chutnification of history' or the 'pickling of time' which Saleem uses to describe his method of writing, with its unreliability in terms of salient details, scattered chronology and textual inaccuracies, etc. This, and the other references to food in the novel, such as Mary Pereira stirring the 'guilt of her heart' into the pickles or Aunt Alia's 'birianis of dissension and the nargisi koftas of discord' not only re-iterates the power of the senses in the novel but also points to the differing literary tastes that inform Rushdie's narrative, such as Sterne's 'Tristram Shandy' or 'Arabian Nights' and Rushdie's endeavours to combine these different flavours within his narrative framework.

Saleem as Flaneur (With thanks to Victoria, Kimmy and yesterday's lecture)

I think that Kimmy and Victoria's ideas can both be linked together inasmuch as Victoria's point about Saleem claiming to be inextricably linked with his external world whilst constantly trying to interject with reflections on his personal life, which ultimately collapses and disintegrates towards the end of the novel hints at a separation and isolation from the external as an individual. Kimmy mentions that the expectations of the city are subverted and the idea of the flaneur (excuse the fact I cannot add the accent) in the Baudelaire sense is one that can be attributed to Saleem in relation to the city. The idea was pushed further in the lecture yesterday suggesting that, ultimately, Saleem fails to choose between representing the external world he exists in and the private world of the Flaneur which he partakes in during moments of exploration in the vast cosmopolitan city. It is this failure to choose that means that Saleem's project disintegrates as the novel draws to a close. Such a claim is one that I think is worth thinking about as we analyse the novel.

Midnight's Children - Saleem

I thought that what was interesting and very central to Saleem's character was the fact that he defines himself as 'inextricably entwined with [his] world' - it is something that he cannot deny or escape from should he wish. Yet despite his apparent feelings that this connection is something beyond his control, something that he has no power to change - indeed, that it was his destiny and always had been - there remains a kind of uncomfortable separation from it in the way that he constantly interrupts his narrative with his thoughts. Padma's frequent insistence that he should not drift too far from the story again seems to show his wish to separate himself from the events of his past: '(And now we're here. Padma: this is it.)'; 'Padma is at my elbow, bullying me back into the world of linear narrative, of what-happened-next'. In narrating his story so carefully and in so much detail, he seems to almost be asserting the need for his own personal history and desire for a sense of self that is removed from him from the very moment of his birth: 'there's no getting away from the date'.

Midnight's Children - The City

I found Rushdie’s descriptions of the city throughout the novel really interesting. It is associated with the grotesque. It is a fragmented place – the chapter many-headed monsters flits between two experiences of the city at night; Amina and Ahmed Sinai’s. Everything seems subverted and infused with the carnivalesque. Amina enters a building where she confronts a ‘bone-setter’, a ‘monkey-dancer’ and a ‘snake and mongoose man’, complete with queuing cripples and a multitude of monstrous animals. The setting reminds us of a circus; she is going to meet a seer, but it is a perverse version of one and becomes horrifying. In the same way, the narrator invokes the story of Prince Rama in Ahmed’s part. However whilst in the original Hanuman was a helper, here he causes destruction and works against the characters. Throughout the chapter, Rushdie plays on fairytale and popular children’s tropes but subverts them in the context of the city.

Hill and History

I know that Dominique has already said some really interesting things below about Hill's take on literature and history, but I wanted to follow on from her ideas with my own. Reading his poetry, it was the first thing that really stood out to me; especially in the extract from 'Mercian Hymns' because of the way he condenses huge gaps in history and brings together the ancient 'Albion' and 'Mercia' with his own memories of childhood in Worcestershire. In the poems I've read, history appears to be something which is just as much part of the present as it is of the past. In 'The Guardians' this is most clearly shown in the way 'The young' are overshadowed and 'watched' by 'the old'. The old, in my mind, are presented as the generation who suffered directly in World War II, who watched the world 'topple' and 'burn' and still feel its 'aftershocks'. But although the younger generation try to move on in a 'fragile' world, this darker history (perhaps represented by the 'thunder-heads' moving in from the south) continues to dog them. I agree with Dominique's argument that 'Poetry can comment upon, witness and depict history but it is merely a literary artifact, fixed in history' but I also think the purpose of history is to inform the future and so it is always relevant. My point is largely based on a quote from Thucydides's The History of the Peloponnesian War which states that "history is philosophy teaching by example". To me Hill's poem really captures this, for it is written a decade after the war but still, at the very end of the poem, 'the first dead scrape home', and this is an ever-present reminder to the next generation that their world is more fragile than they might imagine. Therefore poetry acts in the same way; something which is always relevant because it informs future generations about humanity and the world so that they might learn and maybe even bring about change.

Geoffrey Hill- 'September Song'

Hill’s ‘September Song’ is full of paradoxes. Hill's elegiac tone, simple syntax, short, almost unimpressive/common words evoke infinite layers of meaning. The simplicity is, in my opinion, deceiving. The poem is full of ambiguities and complexities such as the “this” in "This is plenty. This is more than enough". Hill highlights the purpose of poetry and history as being similarly deceiving, ambiguous and simultaneously complex. Furthermore Hill’s parenthesis in “(I have made an elegy for myself it is true)” again depicts ambiguities. Hill’s self-reflexiveness questions ideas of who this elegy is in dedication to. Is it the holocaust victim? The poet? The living or the dead? Such questions are infinite, Hill implicitly questions the elegiac form, are elegies for the dead or the living, or both? Thus Hill questions the purpose of poetry/ literature in history.

Also implicit in Hill’s poem is this kind of Modernistic revisionism. However instead of trying to 'revise' history, to re-write it, to subvert meta-narratives (such as the Biblical allusion shown here) as Modernist writers tend to do, Hill focuses on the Holocaust, the binary of victim/victimisers and displays the pointlessness/ meaninglessness of the poem as an account of historical events. Thus ‘September Song’ becomes reminiscent of Auden's 'In Memory of W.B.Yeats' . Both Auden and Hill address the point of literature- the conceit of the pointlessness of poetry is expressed, it literally does nothing. In Hill’s case it won't bring back the holocaust victims or even release them from oppression. Thus Hill’s poem verges on to post-modern territory, in Hill’s attempt to express the limited boundaries of poetry as spectator/ antidote to historical forgetting. Poetry can comment upon, witness and depict history but it is merely a literary artefact, fixed in history. Hill may be criticising Modernist writers, to some extent, who casually/ignorantly allude to historical events or prestigious literary works and reduce them to nothing, distancing us from them, reducing them to almost cocktail chatter which is also expressed in T.S.Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ where in “the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo”.

Seamus Heaney- "Digging"

I find this poem striking as Seamus Heaney's whimsically observes/recalls his father and grandfather's working in the garden while at the same time, displaying an acute awareness of his own passivity or inaction (first and last stanza). With the clearly optimistic ending of the poem, he is perhaps suggesting a new movement, or a new generation arising in which poetry can play a role in inspiring people to action, and that as a poet, he doesn't need to get out there and lead a revolution but he can contribute to social change through his words.

I think his choice of subject- "digging"- is rather apt as it is obviously an action, and Heaney uses it as a metaphor for progress, or a productive kind of work with tangible results. The act of digging is a preparation for planting seeds and the genesis of something new so perhaps Heaney is suggesting that in the same way, from his pen will flow poetry that can spread the seeds of change in his generation and the society at large (not sure if I'm going too far with this).

Geoffrey Hill - 'September Song'

I think there is quite a lot to this poem in the smallest phrases. It was the third or fourth time I read it I really noticed the phrase 'passed over' in the first stanza. The Jewish festival of Passover remembers the escape of the Israelites from captivity coinciding with the last of God's plagues in Egypt, where the first born sons of the Egyptians were killed and the angel of death 'passed over' the houses of the Israelites. I think that both are seen as atrocities; the holocaust and the last plague and Hill's poem shows an ironic reversal of the biblical event.
Also, the second stanza with phrases like 'As estimated, you died', 'patented/terror' and 'routine cries' expresses the systematic nature of the holocaust. The nazis believed the 'undesirables' to be a problem and tried to implement the most efficient method of extermination. The above phrases pair the reason on the side of the nazis with the emotion on the side of those targeted.

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