Summation

    It is difficult to sum up what has been an all-encompassing and multi-faceted experience.  Although before this class, I had an idea of the importance of recursion in both the understanding of our physical and scientific world, and as a literary device and structure, by which works of art can extend themselves and reach a higher level of meaning and universality, I hadn't begun to think systematically about how such goals were achieved or gained a historical understanding of  the use of these devices.  I am not sure whether I have fully grasped the concept of recursion, and I am not sure whether such a comprehensive grasp is possible.  I am really truly indebted to Sexson and this class for introducing me to both Little, Big and the Manuscript found at Saragossa, both of which I found enthralling and new.  Little, Big was a profoundly moving and sparkling book, with allusions and echoes that made reading it less of a linear process through a story-line and more a process of delving ever deeper, while simultaneously finding oneself back at the top, understanding the previous chapter or line.  This is, as has been pointed out, the type of book that one can reread over and over and take something new from it each time.  And not just a small detail or allusion, but an entirely new framework for reading the book.  This is true not because the book has been meticulously constructed, though it certainly has, but because the truths that are contained within reverberate throughout, and because Crowley's mind, from which the book sprouts, must contain those truths on many levels, sometimes hidden or nested in other ideas and not always present on the conscious or surface level.  The memory house of Edgewood is a metaphor for our reading the book.  Ideas and their symbols are lost, found, distorted, recombined and transformed, just as the characters in the book and the reader go through these same processes.  The idea of worlds within worlds is contained in this book, along with examples and explications and explorations of that concept, in a tangled hierarchy that cannot be untangled or reduced without coming untied and falling apart.  You just have to read the book and the key to the treasure is the key.
The Manuscript found at Saragossa is similarly sprawling and enthralling.  I loved the character of the geometer and his attempts to systematize his knowledge, and though he appears to fit the trope of the absent minded, abstracted and distracted professor, he is more complex than that showing knowledge outside his field and he even gets the girl in the end.  The character of Alphonse undergoes a transformation from one bound by honor and duty to an initiate, one whose mind has been widened by the nested stories he has been told and participated in.  The idea of coming back to the beginning, and knowing it for the first time is masterfully played out in the Manuscript (both in the film and book), and I get the feeling that it is definitely The Book (or one of them) that contains everything, even itself, and that though it is not a cultural fixture like the Arabian Nights, its has not outlived its relevance and probably never will.  The Alice stories were already familiar and cherished in my experienced, but it was exciting to be able to read them through a new lens (or mirror) and explore Carroll's relation to his work and the moral complications that can add to our understanding, rather than detract from our admiration.  I had read some of the Arabian nights before, but piecemeal, and reading this book in its full nested glory made me realize how little I had understood before.  The frame story is captivating, and the way that it is altered and subverted and riffed on in both the Arabian Nights and Days and Barth's Chimera reflects its richness, but the stories under and within that frame were beautiful, tragic, and complex, and though I felt lost at times in a labyrinth of narrative, the sense of resolution and wonder when I popped back up to the previous level each time made the reading of this book more rewarding than I had ever imagined it could be.  I have always enjoyed Shakespeare, and especially a Midsummer Night's Dream, and reading it again with a focus on the nestings within was an excellent way to prime my self and understanding for the books that came after it.  I think my favorite aspect of this play is the poetic language, and I had not realized before this class and my further study of this play how much we owe to Shakespeare in our  means of expression and vocabulary.  I still have not seen Synechdoche, though i plan to watch it soon.  Adaptation made me so profoundly uncomfortable that I had to take a break and return to it later, so I am dreading watching this movie, though I found Being John Malkovich fun and engrossing, somehow.  I am grateful to have had the experience of this class and I think that the concepts which it has introduced me to will inform my understanding for a long time.  It has been a pleasure to discuss these works with everyone, and I am astounded by the insight and depth of understanding shown by my classmates.  Although I enrolled in too many credits, making this semester and especially the final weeks a living hell, and although I have completely neglected this blog, I would be a poorer person for not having taken this class.

Frame story

One morning, a man awoke late, somehow having slept through the cacophony of roosters, dogs, and songbirds saluting and urging on the sun that usually served as his alarm. Ice. He must get ice. The stifling heat of midday had already started to creep into his bedroom and would soon break through the barricades of shut doors and closed blinds that he had so steadfastly erected. He got up lazily, but with purpose, and fetched the keys to the car, preparing himself mentally for the day ahead all the while. As he was driving the fifteen mile stretch between his house and the nearest store, he glimpsed alongside the road a great disturbance in the roadside vegetation, and saw pieces of twisted metal in the undergrowth, but didn't dwell too much on thoughts of what had happened. He pulled into the parking lot of the small general purpose store that served much of the surrounding region, the nearest large city being about 50 miles away. When he asked the store's proprietor and sole employee (with the exception of his sons who helped out when necessary) for his daily bag of ice, the proprietor said that unfortunately there would be no ice today and started to relate the story of his morning: “I had been busy setting up shop, early in the morning, before the animals reveille. The store phone rang, and I wondered who could be calling at such an hour. It turned out to be Doctor B___. He had called to tell me that there had been an accident today. Mr. M___, who usually brings in the Ice, had slid off the road. He was badly injured and had been brought in to the Doctor, his injuries being urgent and the Doctor being the closest medical professional by a long shot. The doctor explained that Mr. M___ had asked for the shopkeeper, and that he had better hurry, because Mr M___ although stable at the moment, was in a bad way. Naturally I hurried to the Doctor's house and office. When I walked into the room and Saw Mr. M___ I was mystified as to why he, being so bad off, had asked for me, since I barely knew him outside of our business relationship, but I guess he was a shut-in more or less. He said he was sorry about the ice, and I told him not to worry. He then said that that was what he wanted to talk to me about – the ice. He started in on a very strange story. He began: “When I was younger, just having moved out here looking for opportunities for work and trying to build a life, I was walking through the forest and glimpsed through the trees a strange woman. I ran toward her and asked what she was doing on my property. She said that she was a witch and that this was her home, but that she would allow me to live here as well, and even bless me, provided that I told no one about her or the blessing. Now there were two wells on the property, and after that day, the second well produced not water, as it had before, but ice. I was shocked by this, but took advantage of the opportunity that it presented and started my business selling ice. I have told no one of this, but I figure I might not last much longer and the secret is too much to bring to the grave” The Shopkeeper said: “I found this story and the whole situation to be very strange. I had known this man as a capable business partner and did not suspect that his sanity might be so questionable.”

Not sure what to make of the story, the man walked out to his car, iceless and dejected, and most of all puzzled. He had seen Mr. M___ driving and knew vaguely where he lived, so he started off in that direction, having nothing to do this morning and his curiosity being piqued. As he drove into what he knew to be the man's driveway, he saw the two wells out in front of the house. When he investigated, he found that it was true, the well contained ice. He raised the bucket from the well and took the ice back to his house, mystified, but happy at least to have ice. As he raised a glass of iced water to his lips, thinking of the strange events of the day, he felt his consciousness leave him and collapsed dead on the kitchen table.

Response to speaker

 Our speaker raised the question of how to interpret “Through the Looking Glass”, when it is appropriate to use other texts to “read” the work. She gave an example of Dodgson's (Carrol's) exploration of the concept of death as nothingness, “blinking out of existence.” The fact that the author seems to have contemplated this kind of death despite his religion and persona may be reason enough to step back from the task of guessing at authorial intention. and invoke the “Death of the Author” (fittingly enough) to say that “Through the Looking Glass” is “written each time it is read, seen through the lens of the reader's experience. Dodgson was not fully aware of the implications and subtexts of his work, as finely tuned and crafted as it may be. The subconscious ideas humming under the surface level of his thoughts invariably breaks through. I think it makes sense, and is certainly important for historical accuracy, to read “Through the Looking Glass” through the lens of prior works and the cultural context in which Dodgson lived, but I also think it makes sense to read it through the lens of works that have come since, and the lenses of myriad cultural contexts, and go at it with everything that exists in our “frame” of identity and experience. This is a daunting and vague sounding task, but when I really read a work, I can only truly read it with my eyes, no matter how diligently I try to remove myself and step out of my frame to see through another lens, The preceding post has some examples of modern interpretations of, and distant cousins to the Alice stories that have colored my reading of them.

Songs within songs

I was struck by this song's relevance to issues in our class,  Eid ma clack shaw - Bill Callahan.

The song mentions multiple dreams within the frame of the song, One in which the narrator "dreamed it was a dream that you were gone"  implying dreams within dreams or dreams and reality being reflected through each other.  In a second dream, the narrator dreams "the perfect song" which he writes when he awakes.
The "song" that he dreams is the "chorus" of the song itself, so we have a nesting of songs.  The words of the inner song are nonsense, and have a dreamlike quality, like but unlike the words we are used to.  This brings to mind The Jabberwocky poem in Alice, with it's nonce and nonsense unfamiliar yet eerily meaningful and powerfully evocative.  This Tom Waits song, a part of an album of Alice inspired songs, has that same quality.  The idea of songs within songs also brought to mind childhood memories of "This is a song that never ends..." and 99 bottles of beer on the wall, which are nested within themselves, and the infinite regress is part of their humor.  These songs I linked to are inspired by some of the ideas in the Alice stories, but also offer new ways of thinking about the stories, and are a fitting addition to our set of lenses.