| I wrote this out freehand first. |
[Feb. 11th, 2008|06:27 pm] |
Written 01/14/2008
I am currently attempting to read Great Expectations for the second time and I do believe I shall finish it this time (Editors Note: He did.). Victorian literature is such a queer time. So many prolific authors and poets, and yet so… dull the style. I know I am spoiled, and that so much of my preferred style of writing was developed thanks to Modernism; it‘s just that the prose is so dense, with dependent clauses ad infinitum and nary a semicolon in sight. And yes, I realize the irony here. And then the p.o.v. It’s always first person, and it’s always being related from the future, after the events have happened. No In Media Res here. We have to start at birth and end (especially in a Thomas Hardy novel) in death.
And that’s not to say they are all terrible, but, ugh. There’s a dearth of wit, of one-liners. I know it’s my popcorn-addled mind that craves it, but come on.
Still, I am reading it, and managing to smelt enjoyment from the ore of the text. And three major… let’s call them theses… come to mind from this. First, I am reminded so very much of my trip to London. I want to go back now, and bring the books with me and compare the descriptions of Dicken’s Victorian London to Gaiman’s Neverwhere London to that paltry imitator, reality. Oh, and also visit Platform 9 and ¾ at King’s Cross Station again and maybe see some young kids smacking into the wall at a dead run. Awesome. More on this shall come later.
A second thesis, which I admit I have not fully developed, is on the nature of happiness, and humanity’s apparent inability to be truly happy. But I haven’t posted in so long that by the time I get around to this one, Mike will have moved to the moon.
The third thesis, which is filet mignion out of this top sirloin, is that, in the character of British Literature, Family is the Deus Ex Machina, the source of salvation that restores the proper identity in a romance, and averts the tragedy in a comedy. On the other hand, it is the Institution (be it representatives of a school, government, or social club) that is the tool of the antagonist, that which causes the tragedy to occur and grind our hero to nothing.
Contrast this to American Literature, where I believe it is familial expectations that protagonists flee from, and institutions (again, schools, offices, etc) that prove to be the Deus ex Machina.
These are broad, seeping claims, and ones that even I can disprove. And, to be fair, I haven’t read much Post-Modern British Lit, but I have read a bit of American Po-Mo, so that my supposed Atlantic divide may just be a temporal one.
But yet, but yet I have read some British Po-Mo lit. A very influential series, in fact, and that is J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. And in this series, familial ties, bloodlines, and inheritances all play important salvatory roles while the Institutions play a greater role in helping the antagonist than the protagonist (How many teachers actually help Harry versus how many try to kill him?).
So if my thesis is correct, if J. K. Rowling had been born American, and been waitressing in an I. H. O. P. in Sandusky, Ohio, writing a story for her kids, it would have been titled Hermione Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It would have been a story of a young person who struggles to get her family to understand her abilities and interests, and through mentoring and intervention by outside helpers of teachers and friends, proves her self-worth in a lifestyle different from her parents.
To prove this, I shall endeavor to research speculative juvenile fiction (from, oh, Modernity on) as an exploration of these themes. I will also look to secondary sources, especially those that explore juvenile literature from an existentialist (i.e. self and society) and social psychological views. Further research in sociology and social psych would also likely be helpful.
And finally, if I’m right, I should be able to come up with some legitimate conclusion for this.
It is entirely possible I am wrong. But, if my premise is sound, this might be as close to a lob as I can hope for in Academic literature, and might finally break this damn block of mine.
Postscript 02/11/2008: Yeah, I’m probably wrong. As I think more and more of it, it is a feature of the genre of children and adolescent literature that family is portrayed in a positive light. No reason not to stop continuing to explore it, but not likely. |
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