EPTisildur CHOPS OFF SAURONS FINGER and TAKES HIS POWER and you think tolkien is not about daddy. You have clearly not read enough psychoanalysis!
What Are You Reading 2013 - Page 116
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
isildur CHOPS OFF SAURONS FINGER and TAKES HIS POWER and you think tolkien is not about daddy. You have clearly not read enough psychoanalysis! | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
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Doppelganger
488 Posts
On September 04 2013 00:03 sam!zdat wrote: You have clearly not read enough psychoanalysis! Which probably is a good thing. | ||
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silynxer
Germany439 Posts
On September 03 2013 23:38 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: I mean, yes, they use very racist tropes by today's standards, but if you want to stray down the dark path of cultural relativism, it's quite excusable. Even avoiding that line of thinking, Conrad was no more racist than most, and much less racist than many from his era. But in the end, the overwhelming question is "so what?" So what if Heart of Darkness is absolutely "racist?" I've yet to hear a satisfactory answer to that question. If (hypothetically) Conrad is one of your literary heroes you should be concerned about his shortcomings all the more. In Heart of Darkness the racism is such an important device that you cannot just cut it out and look at the merits of the novel minus racism, any serious analysis needs to account for it. That this is (apparently) generally not done is part of the text's legacy and something Achebe directly criticizes and that the novel is regarded as canon makes this even more important. Whether you can call it "among the half dozen greatest short novels in the English language" in these circumstances may be up to debate but if you do you should be forced to confront the underlying racism that is part of why the text is so powerful. I can name many, and I've read next to zero. What's the point of the exercise? To prove that we can/cannot name names...? Well, obviously I expected most people to not be able to name any and if they have any interest foreign books to be somewhat shocked by that realization and perhaps pick one up. Thus learning about Africa as told by it's natives and understanding why discussing the kind of racism of Heart of Darkness is still relevant. (Which didn't work out for you unless you were shocked that you hadn't read any of those books.) I literally asked myself the same question some years ago and had to go to Wikipedia to find out anything about African literature, although I go out of my way to read books from all over the world and follow references whenever they sound remotely interesting. | ||
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farvacola
United States18869 Posts
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21247 Posts
Personally I've just never found African literature as something I really felt like exploring, just never felt that interesting to me. I've read Things Fall Apart and was bored out of my mind, and I've read a couple books by Coetzee who is a semi-African author, and that's about it. I've heard of lots and lots of African authors/works, and have a 1-2 line summary of most of them (mainly from quiz bowl where African literature is regularly asked about) but none of them really appealed to me to read. Meh. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21247 Posts
On September 04 2013 02:49 sam!zdat wrote: there is no native african tradition of prose fiction. If any african writes it, they are adopting a western medium. Coetzee is afrikaans, not african. Things fall apart is a great novel though yeah that's the other part - there's no real african tradition so you just have a lot of european style prose works with an african setting or something of the sort. meh. and i've long realized im in the minority opinion on things fall apart so w\e. as i said, i guess i am a racist  | ||
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silynxer
Germany439 Posts
I'm not sure why you are so uncharitable to Achebe concerning contextuality. First of all this was a Chancellor’s Lecture so I would think it is not meant to be a complete analysis and then he actually admits that Conrad's racism wasn't anything special. But what is out of the ordinary is the importance the novel is given today and that the racism does not occur as some background noise but as the very fabric the story is made of. Again, you know a lot more than me about English literature but do you have another novel in mind where these factors come together? Can you be more specific in which ways you consider Achebe's ideas about racism as poor? Which books have been wrongfully ignored? (If you have some essays at hand I'd gladly read them.) | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21247 Posts
On September 04 2013 02:53 silynxer wrote: This got me interested. Having no background whatsoever in literature I'm oblivious to any discussion of racism in Heart of Darkness, do you have a good example in mind (preferably older than 1975)? Eh? The point was that today, the focus on Heart of Darkness has shifted towards Conrad's racism. 40 years is a pretty long time, why do you want something from pre-1975 in particular? | ||
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farvacola
United States18869 Posts
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silynxer
Germany439 Posts
On September 04 2013 02:57 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: Eh? The point was that today, the focus on Heart of Darkness has shifted towards Conrad's racism. 40 years is a pretty long time, why do you want something from pre-1975 in particular? Sorry the thread moves fast and I'm a slow writer, this was supposed to be the answer to farvacola. Anyway, 1975 was when Achebe held the lecture so at this time it may have been relevant to point out Conrad's racism specifically, which was the basis of my earlier post. If only after that discussion of Heart of Darkness became dominated by talk about racism/Achebe's essay that would be a whole other topic. Maybe I just talked past everybody? I'd like to address the posts above but I have to go now and hopefully continue later (talking about whether the subaltern can speak or not will take some time and effort on my part). | ||
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
On September 04 2013 02:50 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: yeah that's the other part - there's no real african tradition so you just have a lot of european style prose works with an african setting or something of the sort. meh. what does "european style prose" mean? edit: I also find it funny that Achebe tried to dismiss HoD as art because it's racist. If anything that enhances the artistic qualities of the book, because it captures the zeitgeist. The racism needed to be brought to light though, so I agree with him on some of his points. | ||
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packrat386
United States5077 Posts
On September 04 2013 00:03 sam!zdat wrote: packrat you realize the one ring is nothing if not a symbol of phallic power and the entire plot of all of tolkien is about who will possess/castrate it don't you isildur CHOPS OFF SAURONS FINGER and TAKES HIS POWER and you think tolkien is not about daddy. You have clearly not read enough psychoanalysis! I really don't think that the ring is a symbol of phallic power. For most of the book its carried by a weak effeminate young man, who only grows weaker and more effeminate under its influence. The masculine characters all want to take possession of the ring but are generally mistaken about what kind of power it will bring them. I would accept the idea that the ring is basically symbolic of a vagina before I would think of it as a phallic symbol. Also, according to this formula we can take any book where there is something that represents power and call it a penis. I understand that there are people who make those arguments, but I don't buy it. | ||
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packrat386
United States5077 Posts
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
On September 04 2013 03:30 packrat386 wrote: Also, according to this formula we can take any book where there is something that represents power and call it a penis. I understand that there are people who make those arguments, but I don't buy it. freud fucked everything man I have a friend who's a psychologist and she hates freud with a passion because after him everything became penises and vaginas | ||
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farvacola
United States18869 Posts
On September 04 2013 03:30 packrat386 wrote: I really don't think that the ring is a symbol of phallic power. For most of the book its carried by a weak effeminate young man, who only grows weaker and more effeminate under its influence. The masculine characters all want to take possession of the ring but are generally mistaken about what kind of power it will bring them. I would accept the idea that the ring is basically symbolic of a vagina before I would think of it as a phallic symbol. Also, according to this formula we can take any book where there is something that represents power and call it a penis. I understand that there are people who make those arguments, but I don't buy it. This honestly sounds like it is in reference to the movies and not the books. I cannot recall a single instance in which Frodo is characterized as effeminate (unless "fairer than most" counts lol), and the entire notion of strength is called into question by Frodo being the only one who can bear the burden of the ring. That a reader recognize the unusual sort of strength embodied in Frodo is pretty important to the work as a whole . | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On September 04 2013 03:34 dmnum wrote: freud fucked everything man I have a friend who's a psychologist and she hates freud with a passion because, according to her, everything after him became penises and vaginas She probably needs to read him then... About African litterature, there's a quite interesting movement in francophone litterature called negritude, which aimed at the reappropriation of one's identity as a black person. It's not that african though, given that the main writers of that movement were in Normale Sup' together. | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21247 Posts
On September 04 2013 03:33 packrat386 wrote: Also, didn't realize that the HoD discussion would be so contentious. I would argue more on the side of achebe, but I really haven't done my homework on the issue, so you should probably believe farvacola and CSheep. well there's nothing to "believe," the fun part about lit is you generally (with caveats i guess?) get to think whatever you want i think farva and i are just pointing out that the HoD as racist reading is nothing new/novel, and has been pretty much part of the establishment for a few decades at least. | ||
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NuKE[vZ]
United States249 Posts
![[image loading]](http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9781451663938_p0_v2_s260x420.JPG) ![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RoBs-%2BOnL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg){kind=icon} | ||
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