American Postmodernism

I agree with preceeding posts that a main problem with Benjamin’s essay is his use of "aura." I’m sure I know what he means by it, but I’m not sure how he feels about it. Is he lamenting the loss of authenticity in art, is he celebratory of the new aesthetic possibilities of film, or is he simply dreading the future of art in the hands of the masses? At times it seems that he is valuing one "high" (painting) art form over a "lower" (hollywood film) one, which, if he is, must be an unforseen mistake on his part. Capitalsim transformed the work of art into a commodity produced for the market, consumable by an uncritical mass, but the economic system has also had a hand in producing a great number of powerful forms of art in the 20th C. Concluding that Marlon Brando acted with no aura or arguing (as Adorno tried to do) that Charlie Parker played only repetitive snippets from popular songs would get you fired as an art critic today. So there seems to be an unbearable outdatedness to Benjamin, but im not so sure.

furthermore, there seems to be a struggle in "the work of art" on who owns culture: art critics, politicians, or the "masses," who are never defined by Benjamin. The article, although steeped in the history of art, has an urgent practical purpose in rescuing the work of art from the Nazis, and I’m wondering if that’s all we can say: Western art in the beginning served the magical and now serves the political. This "essence," "authenticity," "tradition," and "unique existence" of an artwork of old is in opposition to the modernday artwork as "image" or "spectacle." If anything, this binary opposition shouldn’t highlight a social and economic transformation as much as it should reveal how fragile these "aura" terms are. The meaning and beauty around any artwork throughout history is culturally constructed, and I think Benjamin says this. So what’s the real deal? Besides photography and film supplanting painting and theater as the new priviliged art forms, what has happened? Would the Nazis have been able to take control if photography and film hadn’t existed? I feel like I’m missing the point and i’m looking forward to tomorrow’s class discussion so that people can fill me in. 

One of Benjamin’s main issues with a reproduction of a piece of art is that this copy does not have the connection to the artwork’s “presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be” (220). For me, this argument seemed to be placing too much emphasis on the exact history and time, and overlooking other reasons why people look at art and want reproductions of it. If you are reproducing something, especially a famous work of art, you will know the approximate time period of when the work was produced, and oftentimes, a signifier of a piece of art is that it is “timeless” and therefore would not need to be bound by the constraints of when it was created. If it is truly great art, we should be able to appreciate it no matter when it was created. Also, comparing a reproduction to the real thing would prove as an interesting comparison to see how the elements have affected the piece of art, especially if it is a statue or something outside. For example, many great Renaissance paintings have dulled over the years and were more recently restored to their original glory, but people were used to the faded colors from before. Comparing the old and the new would help students understand how works of art get damaged over time, and by making reproductions of both old and new available, the public could choose which color scheme they preferred. Art is subjective, and memory is unreliable, so why not have the ability and the choice to remember something the way you choose? I found Benjamin’s attitude to be snobby especially when he said that art becomes less valued when it is made available to more people. Isn’t the point of art to expose it to people so they will appreciate it and prompt new thoughts or ideas? If someone lives in a remote area, how often will they be able to see works of art, compared to someone who lives in New York City? Shouldn’t everyone be able to have some access to art, even if it is not the original?

I wonder what Benjamin would think of Photoshop, a program that can transform a picture into individual pixels so that it can be manipulated so precisely, it can be difficult to tell which is the original and which is the manipulation. He would probably be apalled, but I am just amazed at all the things one small program can accomplish. Our technology has evolved so much since this article was written, and those advancements are almost always portrayed in a positive light (think of how big cell phones were 10 years ago) that his arguments (as well as Aldous Huxley’s speech against technology in the footnotes) provide a change in perspective to challenge these views.

    Julie G’s post made me think, too, of how Benjamin would view the latest advancements in computer graphic technology in film, such as recent films completely animated by computer.  No longer do the “cartoon” versions of film rely on artists sketching multiple copies and versions of characters to imitate (reproduce?) human features, expressions, movements, etc.  Now, entire feature-length films are created without the need for a pencil-to-paper artist (think Shrek, Shark Tale, and all of the dozens of other similarly constructed movies in the last five years or so).  Going from people on stage to people in films created enough of a difference in “art”ness.  I wonder what his take would be on the original animated films – I picture Disney’s original Sleeping Beauty or Snow White – (imitations of people in films) as a form of art (they were, after all, paintings on cells) and then what his take would be on the new technological move to digital graphics (computer-generated versions of imitations of people in films).  I assume he would maintain his film-is-not-(as much)-art stance; however, would he now find films starring people more art-like than animated films?  And what about the original animated film versus the digitally produced animation of today?  Going even further, what about the animated films that have been digitally enhanced from their original versions (copies/reproductions of imitations of people – one’s head could really get spinning here!)?

     The part of Benjamin’s article that I find most interesting in regards to his film/acting discussion is the part that discusses the actor’s part/participation in the film experience.  Benjamin quotes Pirandello about the void an actor feels with his “performance”:  “ ‘The film actor . . . feels as if in exile – exiled not only from the stage but also from himself . . . his body loses its corporeality, it evaporates, it is deprived of reality, life, voice, and the noises caused by his moving about, in order to be changed into a mute image, flickering an instant on the screen, then vanishing into silence’” (229).  I found this description to be (ironically) quite artistic and poetic.  The idea that removing the actor from the true, genuine atmosphere of a stage performance (with reactions and interpersonal connections) causes the actor to lose a part of himself (and thus, a part of his art/artfulness) is intriguing.  I am sure a great debate exists between film and stage actors over which is the truer form of the profession; though, really, we frequently see film/TV actors dipping their toes into stage acting, and similarly, probably most film actors got their start on the stage of their high school auditorium.  I found Benjamin’s discussion of writer/author also interesting (especially in light of the internet age – everyone is now capable of being a published and read author by simply posting a blog!), though I felt that he did not develop that idea nearly as thoroughly as he did his film analysis and would have been interested in reading more along that line.

(PS: Sorry if this posts in two different sizes or fonts – I can’t seem to fix it!)

Benjamin’s piece clearly has its flaws, but he’s also got some good points…of which I’ll discuss one.  He says that “mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.  To an even greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.”  This means that film is radically different from most other art forms.  How much does it cost to create a painting?  Write a book?  A poem?  Take a picture?  Even the cost of buying the material to sculpt a statue pales in comparison to the cost of making a film.  (Yes, I know one must take audience into consideration if a book, poem or picture is to be published or a picture sold; but the simple act of creating a book, poem, picture or painting requires very little financial investment.)  But the filmmaker, on the other hand, must, in most cases, keep profitability in mind when creating his film (unless he’s Mel Gibson or Kim Jong Il).  Thus his film must be designed, to a significant extent, for its reproducibility if it’s to be profitable.  Before one can create a film, she needs a significant financial commitment.  Therefore the artist must almost necessarily consider profitability, which requires reproduction in film’s case, when she’s conceiving her art; this is a radical shift from art that preceded film, and it democratizes film as an art form; but, contrary to current sentiment, democracy is not always a good thing.  By requiring the filmmaker to create art that as a precondition must be received by many people, the medium of film constrains the filmmaker’s artistic imagination.  That’s not to say that truly original and creative films of artistic merit that don’t appeal to the masses can’t be created (see Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle…who the hell financed these anyway?).  But for the most part, films must appeal to a large audience – though I know “large” is subjective; this constrains the filmmaker’s imagination, creativity and abilities, and it also represents a radical departure from those art forms that preceded film.  All this could be changed, however, by the proliferation of digital video, inexpensive editing software and the internet as a platform for distribution.  But in context, Benjamin has a point.

Bits and pieces of Benjamin’s article along with blog postings have begun to tie into a project I’m doing on newsletters. (similar to Benjamin’s discussion of Letters to the Editor, etc). These were initially published by individuals with great expertise and who were sought after for their insider’s information, or insight, on whatever specialized topic. These individuals were well-educated, skilled writers, and often times publicly revered. The newsletters were done on typewriters and even when computers became available writers would still maintain the “typewriter”-style font and layout because it was what the targeted audience was used to. With time and technological advances, the newsletter industry boomed and now any Joe Schmoe with a PC, printer or an email address can spit out their own personal newsletter. Instead of using the same old fashion fonts and designs, they’ve advanced in skill and artistic expression. One of Benjamin’s issues with the evolution of “art” is that through technology, through the new emerging forms of artistic expression, the once isolated field becomes easily accessible by anyone. The reproduction issue arises. The traditional newsletter has lost its “aura” because it’s been poked and prodded by the masses, just as the “aura” of writing, or being published, has lost some of its magic because it’s become a universally accessible market. (232) Benjamin says, “To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose ‘sense of the universal equality of things’ has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction (223).” I didn’t entirely understand what he meant by this, but through comparing it to the newsletter evolution that I’m reading about, I can see how something that used to be “artistic” is then lessened, or cheapened, by so many replicas and reproductions. Now, I also don’t think that personalized newsletters (or I guess the even more advanced form would be Internet blogs) can’t have their own artistic right, or that someone should be denied personal artistic expression through whatever medium they choose… but the fact that there are so many does make them less valuable. People don’t pay subscriptions to newsletters now like they used to before. Benjamin is criticizing the evolution of artistic expression because (I think) he’s saying it’s losing its unique appeal. Anyone can be an artist, just as anyone can be a writer, and with the use of technology it really doesn’t take a massive amount of talent to do so. I think in the postmodern genre that concept is made untrue because the filmmakers and authors and painters have retained their originality and unique expression through revamping the “aura” altogether. Although, in reference to Ada’s interesting response, I don’t know how Kinkade would fit into that assumption. This much I feel I understand, it’s when he begins to tie the evolution of art into Communism and Fascism and war that I get uh, well, confused.

There were many elements of this essay that have evolved quite interestingly in the years since Benjamin published this work, and as I read it I kept thinking how he would react to the evolution of certain aspects of film and photography, not to mention print media.

I was really intrigued during the passages that explored the photograph/film’s disintegrating relationship to the aura of an image’s authenticity through mass production, which. He notes that both forms "lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition" (221). I was struck by the paragraphs on pages 224-225 that the relationship of the cult to the mass audience, and I kept wondering how Benjamin would categorize to recent advent of rotoscoping filmed images. (Quickly: this is a type of software-based animation technique developed recently and used in music videos, commercials, and widely released motion pictures starring shoplifters.) I’d be curious to see what Benjamin would have made of this further delusion of an image’s aura, and how it further relates to his passages on page 230, where he uses quotes by Rudolf Arnheim to re-characterize the actor in relation to filmic complexities.

These passages then caused me to think about the advent of bluescreening, and Arnheim’s idea of "treating the actor as a stage prop. . .inserted at the proper place."  (230). Considering the prevalence of certain major motion pictures to rely almost entirely on bluescreening and CGI, this statement takes on much more weight, and again, I’d be interested to see what Benjamin would maybe have said about it.

Some of his thoughts on print media and photography, have in some way or another, manifested themselves on the web. His passage on page 235 about the elk to illustrate the relationship to the cult being co-opted by art made me think of an interesting magazine called Found, which is almost completely comprised of objects discovered and submitted by its readership. This not only speaks to the reallocation of an intended audience to apply artistic value, but it also speaks to the later passages on 232 where Benjamin talks about the evolving role of literature: "At any moment, the reader is is ready to turn into a writer" (232). And of course, something that screamed out THIS IS APPLICABLE TO BLOGS, LOOK LOOK: "Literary license is now founded on polytechnic rather than specialized training and thus becomes common property" (232).

Lastly, his discussion of Atget’s photographs on page 226 were interesting, and I was wondering what he would make of photoshop culture to ascribe a "hidden political significance" to something seemingly normal.

I’m not sure what to write here. I almost wish we had read something written more recently because I’d be interested to know what critics, or Benjamin, have to say about the new computer age we’ve approached. An article on mass production, while still hugely applicable today, seems passé next to discussion on computer animation and graphics where one can question whether the art ever existed, much less had an “aura.” Anyway…

It seems elitist of Benjamin to say that “real” art “invites the spectator to contemplation” (238). That only true art is “think-y” art and that film doesn’t allow the viewers to think what they want to think: ergo, film is lesser art. Ok, I think most critics would agree that there are different levels of art and contemplative art generally fits on that higher plane. However, Benjamin dismisses all film from this category and doesn’t acknowledge that there are different levels of film just as there are different levels of paintings. He does bring up a good point that “the masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator” (239). But look at Spielberg vs. (insert artsy director…I don’t really know any by name). Dude Where’s My Car vs. Memento. Benjamin asserts that the “cult value” of art is lost in film; however, I argue that the cult values are still evident in the movie industry. There will always be “Indie” flicks shown only at the Sundance Film Festival that are done for the sake of art or some higher form. (Created for the critics instead of the spirits?)

A simple response, yes, but I was really annoyed at the one-sided view Benjamin gave. He criticizes the “absent-minded” public and seems to assert that the creators of film purposefully manipulate their art in order “to mobilize the masses” instead of making art for art’s sake (240). He also says that the more the public likes a piece the “greater the decrease in the social significance” (234). In other words, if the public likes it then it’s not art. Haven’t critics been saying this about art since the beginning of time? (Actually, he does make reference to this, so maybe I am missing something here.) I wonder if Benjamin would still hold the same point of view today or if  he is just critiquing something new and different.

Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” moves between analyses of several creative mediums- from woodcutting to lithography, to painting to film. These mediums each have their own unique qualities that allow for reproduction, and because of this are viewed on different planes and places in the art world. Benjamin identified the advent of photography as the impetus for debate that looks at the reproducibility of an object that is inherently a refraction of the original. Though a photograph may seem the most tangible representation of the truth and yet, by the very nature of the process, it is an inversion of the image, let alone the factors that play into the set up of the shot. Photographic reproductions also come into play when thinking about the methods of reproduction that are employed. When thinking about postmodern art, the reassignment of objects, their essence and meaning, plays a large role in the presentation of the artwork. The original object, whether it is Jeff Koons and his basketballs in a glass case-Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Two Dr J Silver Series, Spalding NBA Tip-Off) , Sherrie Levine taking pictures of famous photographs and presenting them with such titles as After Walker Evens #13, or even Andy Warhols Brillo boxes made to look exactly like the product, the recontextualization of the original intention of the object provides a great dialogue. (There is a great Andy Warhol exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, with a lot of stuff from the Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, I highly recommend it) Whether they are commodity critics or anti-aesthetes, some postmodern artists are aware of the modes of reproduction available in their work. They revel in this fact, and employ methods that both critique and rely on these techniques.
I would like to make an argument, tying in Benjamins assertions of art and mechanical reproduction, to look at an artist who in no way, shape, or form would be considered postmodern, and is in fact does not fall into any high art categories- Thomas Kinkade. If the cockles of your heart have not yet been warmed by his beautifully tranquil cottage scenes, or the magnificent renderings of light at dusk, please peruse his website. Thomas Kinkade Apart from the accessibility of the object of his art, Kinkade is also the ultimate in mass reproduction. His art sells in his own, individually managed retail stores. There are levels that a collector or his art can attain, depending on how many Kinkades one owns. The process of Kinkades work is where the reproducibility comes into play. An original, painted by the artist will fetch a good amount of money, though for the consumer, unable to drop that kind of dough, Kinkade has an army of trained highlighters who paint some colors, mostly accentual, onto poster prints of the work. These are ostensibly cheaper, and yet are a big part of the Kinkades goals of having his work present in each and every American household. There are echoes of this sort of process in Benjamins discussion of mechanical reproduction, when he states, the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility (224). In a very postmodern moment, in 2001, a community was built in Vallejo, California, with homes modeled after and furnished and decorated with the work of Thomas Kinkade. For about $425,000 (in 2001) you could buy a property in this Kinkade village and live in perfect tranquility, as if you were actually a part of the art work.

Admittedly, I am a subject of and subject to the gross scheme of capitalism Hollywood signifies, since I love movies: Hollywood, foreign, old, new, Noir, mainstream, low- budget, obese- budget, etc. I agree with Benjamin in the sense that the capitalist propagated mass culture entails mass production and mechanical reproduction that does annhilate "authenticity" in that "the presence of the original" is no longer feasible or desired. I disagree with him, however, insofar as certain film and photography are "authentic" modern and postmodern texts that are equally artistic and "auristic" in contemporary culture as was painting prior to "the developmental tendencies of art under present conditions of production."

Benjamin insists, as do I, that "the authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced." By extension, Benjamin suggests that anything that is duplicated no longer bears the authenticity of "the unique" work of art. Just as copies of the original paintings of Monet are worth a piddling fraction of the original, any tangible art that is ‘reproduced’ is authentically reductive. Benjamin, and Duhamel, critic and extremist in his hatred of all that is cinematic, cite that film, and its precurser, photography, are ‘illusion-promoting spectacles of distraction’ born out of an age of mechanical reproduction and mass commodification. Every tool to make a film is mechanized, ‘reproducible,’ and therefore, lacking "aura." While film utilized the latest technology, which is mass produced, ‘the creators’ or the people responsible for writing, production, and creation, still exist. To say that technology and the reproducibility of the means and ends of film production render ‘the creators’ or artists obsolete, is perhaps a reflection of the critic’s ignorance of ‘the art’ of film rather than his understanding.

As was earlier mentioned in a previous blog, I realize that holding on to tradition and conventional understandings of art in ‘a time of uncertainty’, World War Numero Uno, is a common and possibly necessary reaction to the dissolusionment of cultural collapse amid the mass death of the future generation. "The Lost Generation," to which I’m not sure Benjamin is necessarily a card carrying member, had few if any hopes for the future return of substance in the form of culturally codified traditions. The emergence of film might have been one more alarming mutation that morphed out of the onset of the 20th Century, according to those to whom ‘the old ways,’ of painting included, represented tride and true age-old conventions that made sense. The advent of technology, whether under the gigantor, souless machine of industrial capitalism or some other evil, has produced new art and has made it accessible to the masses, such as myself, rather than preserved it for the elite ‘cult’ of yore. While the phenomenon of exhibited art for the public is unconscienable to those that could afford to view it as an elite member of socity, I revel in it.

I concede that most Hollywood films are grossly formulaic, mushy, and hyper-unrealistic fantasy narratives that serve little purpose beyond perpetuating the dominant cultural and social normative order, but there are those miraculously occuring films, photography exhibits, graphic arts, and other hypertexts that transcend the means and ends of production for the lowest common denominator. Sometimes, its possible that even Hollywood is infected by such creativity, in which case, creativity and mass culture combine in yet another type of artistic mutation: Star Wars- not the new ones, Donnie Darko, Ghandi, Taxi Driver, anything Alfred Hitchcock, and so on and so forth.

Even if paintings cultivate concentration, which is, of course magic, and film promotes ‘collective distraction’ and criticism (not that I agree with this narrow assessment of film), why isn’t there room for both? Why does Benjamin insist that "art," in its broadest sense, should not evolve and continually ‘become?’ Why must art be constricted to narrow definitions proposed by critics such as Benjamin that are no longer applicable in the 21rst century? Paintings are fine, meticulous, beautiful, an excorcism of exceptiional talent (given that they’re good), but then again, so are a lot of art forms, ancient and contemporary.

When I was your age, I walked twelve miles wearing no shoes through six feet of snow.  And so follows the older generation’s disappointment in and fear of youth and new ways of doing things.  While reading Walter Benjamin, I kept in mind the context of his article—written in 1936—and the times’ apprehension about new media and the changes it would usher in.  In his discussion of how an appropriate distance is lost between art and viewer when media becomes transportable (or statically containing movement), I was reminded of current debates about media use on the Internet; for example, the music industry’s suing a twelve year old girl for downloading music, and a writer’s association is accusing Google of massive copyright infringement.  For Benjamin and I’d say for the organizations of our time who believe they are threatened by technological advance, it seems as though there’s a lot of oversight and jumping to conclusions; in his discussion of how the camera changed the viewers’ position, Benjamin says that the viewer will no longer identify with the stage actor and instead connects only with a machine, the camera.   What Benjamin ignores is the artist behind the camera; yes, the audience may only see the actor on a screen, but the audience takes part in a holistic piece of art put together by the filmmaker—the director.  As a portrayal of reality, film is admittedly fragmented, with cuts taken here, effects created out of order and inserted back into film, and yes, the camera has many angles to choose from, which is why a camera offers more dimension than say static art. 

            Elsewhere, Benjamin notes the quality of culture in which film is a dominant art form.  He says that the film audience is in the position of critic, but is an “absent-minded” one due to film’s rapid movement of images.  We who watch become immersed by the illusions and cannot stop to think about what we’re watching, and oh no, the powers that be will control our minds with it.  Well, okay, commercials and pop-up ads are behind huge sales in our distracted society, but it is rather ridiculous to blame violence and inhumanity on a means of expression, whether it be film, text, or sound—there’s as much negativity that one can find when viewing or listening to today’s web page as one can find in a literal reading of the Bible.  My last thought on the Benjamin article is that he never thought of all the good drugs we’d develop for our adult onset ADHD.  The oversight of it, heh!        

I thought perhaps I could jump-start this week’s cyber-discussion with an unanswered question I have had with Benjamin’s "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” The lynch point of his entire discussion seems to center on the presence and subsequent loss of an “aura” in works of art. To begin, I have a hard time comprehending what Benjamin means by the word “art,” as news reels and letters to the editor are argued on the same plane as plays and sculpture (I think this moves beyond the collapse of a high/low distinction, as he seems to be more concerned with political ramifications and the replacement of the “artist” by the propagandist.) It seems to me that any form of mass communication fits comfortably in his definition. Isn’t this problematic? If he wishes to analyze the loss of an “aura,” shouldn’t he also look to “high art” and how its reproduction affects the modern viewer? What if, instead of a long diatribe on film, he had analyzed the contemporary reaction to “The Mona Lisa,” (a piece that he recognizes as being highly reproduced) would his conclusion still be the same?

However, my greatest trouble in understanding this essay lies in Benjamin’s connotative use of the word “aura.” I have never been clear whether he is celebrating, lamenting or simply reporting its death. I think Benjamin provides his clearest definition of the word in his 5th footnote as he critiques its meaning. He writes, “The definition of the aura as a ‘unique phenomenon of a distance however close it may be’ represents nothing but a formulation of the cult value of the work of art in categories of space and time perception. Distance is the opposite of closeness. The essentially distant object is the unapproachable one” (243). At times, it seems that he is troubled by the loss of uniqueness, the creation of a Hollywood star system, and the creation of a “distracted audience.” Indeed, in his 4th footnote, he writes, “the poorest provincial staging of Faust is superior to a Faust film in that, it competes with the first performance at Weimar” (243). However, he also seems to be calling for the politicization of art in response to the Fascist’s use of art in politics (again, a clear definition of art would be useful in this discussion). In this sense, it would seem that he would be excited to demystify a cult, especially that of Hitler’s. To further my confusion, Benjamin doesn’t seem very troubled with his own ambiguity. Is this a sign that he has given a clear opinion on the matter and I have just missed it?

So, what do y’all think?

Well, it seems that everyone has covered a large variety of topics, which, as Ada pointed out, is part of Song of Solomon – the vast array of possibilities.  So much is going on that it is difficult to just choose one area on which to focus.  I also agree with “skjeldaa” about the uncertainty of this text’s place within the course organization.  I, too, found this novel one of the most accessible in terms of understanding, and I appreciate Morrison’s poetic use of language; yet, for those reasons and for the ones “skjeldaa” mentions (chronological unfolding of storyline – which Morrison tells us she found necessary-, firm placement in and search for historical place and time), this text does not seem to fit into “postmodernism” as we have been discussing (though I know that labeling or not labeling postmodern texts is not our goal here).  One thing I have considered before, which may be one factor is the intense use of symbolism.  Song of Solomon is saturated with symbolism, which, unlike some of the other texts we’ve studied so far, I find to be more natural in the unfolding of the story.  Morrison’s inclusion of symbolism and metaphor seem to be a fluid part of her storytelling, not as harsh or blatant as, say,  Pynchon’s in The Crying of Lot 49.  All of that being said, I am going to focus on Morrison’s writing style, which not many have yet addressed.

Toni Morrison is often known for her poetic use of language, and as I mentioned, I found her writing style refreshing.  I don’t need a standard shape or sound to a story (and through the selections for this class, I have learned to appreciate the variety of styles available to authors); yet, I enjoyed being able to appreciate the words Morrison chose and the sounds and images they evoked because I was not so preoccupied untangling the storyline (or that one is lacking, as in some of the texts we’ve read!)  Not saying that Song of Solomon was easy to completely understand or resolve – I am sure there are many nuances I missed in my first reading – but I was not so confused about the events taking place that I couldn’t also appreciate the language.  I got to thinking about Morrison’s specific choice of words throughout the story primarily because of her remarks in the Foreword.  The detail to which she describes the intention and unfolding of the first sentence of the text (from its mockery of journalistic style to its containment of “important signs and crucial information” (xiii) – the significance of “life,” “mutual,” “fly,” “mercy,” and even the geographic locations chosen for their representations of various journeys) got me thinking about just how much thought she put into the 337 pages she created for us.  If that much thought went into one line, how much effort and time went into the rest?  As I came across scenes that I felt seemed unnecessary, I tried searching for a greater purpose they might serve in the grand scheme of the entire novel.  Many have already addressed her use of names (symbolic or alluding in design, though we collectively do not seem to have uncovered all of their meanings), so I will instead point out some of her artistically crafted metaphors.  One that especially grabbed my attention toward the beginning involves Macon’s desire for ownership.  Once Milkman has started working for him (during which scene Macon is delighted over his son’s “belonging” to him), Macon sees opportunities to expand his business:  “He knew as a Negro he wasn’t going to get a big slice of the pie.  But there were properties nobody wanted yet, or little edges of property somebody didn’t want Jew to have, or Catholics to have, or properties nobody knew were of any value yet.  There was quite a bit of pie filling oozing around the edge of the crust in 1945.  Filling that could be his” (63).  The “piece of the pie” metaphor certainly is not original; however, Morrison takes it a step further by embellishing Macon’s desires – he may not get the pie (which whites only have access to), but the filling and edges of the pie are still up for grabs.  Morrison paints an image of the messy, unconventional way for Macon to acquire or get closer to acquiring what the white businessmen have/own.  I also loved the allusion to (and disillusionment of) the building of the pyramids (representing the disillusionment of his father as patriarch and awe-inspiring power figure?) in Milkman’s view once he initiates the search for his own control and his own place in his life by hitting his father:  “There was the pain and shame of seeing his father crumple before a man – even himself.  Sorrow in discovering that the pyramid was not a five-thousand-year wonder of the civilized world, mysteriously and permanently constructed by generation after generation of hardy men who had died in order to perfect it, but that it in fact had been made in the back room at Sears, by a clever window-dresser, of papier-mache, guaranteed to last for a mere lifetime” (68).  The symbolic possibilities of this comparison are almost overwhelming.  To what, exactly, is Morrison comparing the pyramids?  Is it Macon as a power figure in the family and in Milkman’s life?  Is it more?  And how does that comparison hold up as the rest of the story develops and we find out the other events that unfold between these two men whose roles continue to shift in each others’ lives after this point?  There are, of course, countless more, but I have long overrun my word limit by now.  I look forward to our discussions in class today!

I, too, found myself looking for undercurrents of direct similarity between Song of Solomon and the selections we read previous to this one. With each book up to this point, there seemed to be in common with all of them some sort of stylistic choice being made by the authors that I didn’t see in SOS, and it’s been something I’ve been struggling to put my finger on. Many posts have already mentioned identity and naming issues regarding the books’ characters, and it may be an interesting excercise in class to hold these characters’ names (and maybe their relationship to what they "signify"?) up to some of the theoretical approaches we’ve applied to the previous books. But Morrisson deals with these naming issues early and often in the text (I think of the early conversation about the naming of Pilate, which was such an apparent exercise in erasing the meaning behind it that it was impossible not to suspend traditional associations with not only this but nearly every other character), so much so that I could only think of the characters’ names as inverse, role-playing tags in what is a long, involved allegory.

It may also be that this novel, more than the ones that we read preceding it, dealt with social conditions over pinpointed decades of "real" time (as opposed to the time-shifting trajectories of The Lathe of Heaven or The Female Man) that causes the rift between the narrative aesthetic between this and the previous books. I’d be interested to discuss issues of chronology and social evolution in relation to character development.

I’ve also been looking at some crtitical approaches to this text to try and find a linking element between this and the books we’ve read leading up to it, and have been hard-pressed there as well. I’ve found some interesting mythological comparisons (Milkman=Icarus), but unlike critical approaches Pynchon, Whitehead, etc., excercises in which the themes and aspects are pulled through an explicit postmodern-theorist’s filter are thin if nonexistent. Interested to see what the class discussion will focus on.

I am a little at loss as to why this book is on the reading list in a course about postmodernism. Or even, why this book was chosen from among all those written by Tony Morrison. Clearly, as many of the blogs have pointed out, Song of Solomon is a text in which names and naming are important. Names have societal as well as personal value, and due to a communal tendency to name people according to defining characteristics, several of the characters have two names. But apart from Milkman’s unfortunate and somewhat embarrassing nickname, and even a general indignation over the fact that white people had the power to (utterly carelessly!) inscribe the very symbol of what was both a new identity and a new existence for the freed slave, the names of the characters do not seem to signify any radical (postmodern) fragmentation of identity. When thinking about the story of how his grandfather first got the solemn name that is passed down through the generations, what Milkman seems to ponder most is why his grandmother encouraged him to keep it.

In portraying black experience, the text takes an ex-centric perspective. Yet in comparison with the ex-centricity of Joann Russ’s (ultra-)feminist text, Song of Salomon reads like a male Bildungsroman. Its attacks on white society (its mention of unprovoked, random violence) seem to me more of a historical back-drop than an important force in the narrative. Similar to the way Frantz Fanon’s account of the white-male-colored-female relationship focused on criticizing the colored woman for wanting the white man, Song of Solomon seems to launch heavier attacks on the coloreds struggling to pass for white, than the position of the whites themselves. Likewise, Milkman (because he is his friend) reacts more strongly to Guitar’s involvement in the Seven Days than to the white killings of black Americans that trigger these acts of vengeance. (Of course, as the plot develops, he has every reason to…). But perhaps this is the point. Why should black narratives center on whites? Would that be subversion?

Time, which postmodernism is generally so eager to twist, thwart, and fragment, does in Song of Solomon align itself in neat chronology: we follow Malcom Dead from birth to what is either death or some kind of symbolical re-birth. Although history is an important theme, the book distinguishes itself from most postmodernist texts in that history can be recovered. The past can be understood and connected to the present and the future, and a sense of belonging and rootedness can grow. So albeit feeling a little bit like the white snobbish critic bell hooks criticized for barring black Americans access into the ‘intellectual high sphere’ of postmodernism, I remain questioning as to what in this particular text (which the author herself claims to be “very saga-like”) is postmodernist. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been working on Pyncheon the last week, but I must say I’m very curious as to how this text aligns with the others we have worked on so far.

When that is said, I must admit that as homage to the figure of the father, the description of Jake, the first Macon Dead, is one of the most beautiful I have read.