Lit-Phil2014

First day of class
What's lit. vs philosophy?
Literature is the art of written work
What's Philosophy?
Xaiver: The love of wisdom. DLR: Not knowledge. Xaiver: knowledge is just facts and organizing them, wisdom is experience and mistakes. It is basically taking knowledge and doing something with it. Nikoli: Facts=wisdom, truths=knowledge.
DLR: Knowledge is easier to gain than wisdom is, because you can just read the facts or use Google.
DLR: Return from literature. Lit. is things worth reading. However, some stuff worth reading ie textbooks are not worth reading.
Caplan: Literature are things worth reading for the purpose of obtaining wisdom with good style and content. DLR: What needs to be added to this? What aspects of style make something worth reading? How do you know that you are reading literature as opposed to reading fiction? Celia: Fiction does not have a very strong style, you need to have more meanings that are possible for it in order to be literature. DLR: Literature tends to have a somewhat self conscious use of language. "Close Reading" is an example of using this. DLR: What are the difference between these four: I am impoverished, I am poor, I am wretched, I am poverty-stricken. I.e. You can be poor and happy but you cannot be wretched and happy.
DLR: Here is an alternative interpretation of the distinction: Wisdom is result of the processing of knowledge and facts into some contextualization that improves the human experience. Sloan: Experience- you can learn from it and avoid it, and you can have empathy so you feel bad about it.
Homework: Read this book that alternates between chapter titles and numbers, read through page 24.
DLR: Distinction between empathy and vicarious knowledge?
Vicarious knowledge is learning about someones experience without doing it or learning it yourself.
Carl: You can read philosophy to figure out what you believe. That is to try to gain vicarious experiences to figure out how they want to live.
DLR: So what to do literature and philosophy have in common?
They mostly are different departments in book stores. DLR: Ask philosophy professors why literature and philosophy are so connected.
Xaiver: They both stimulate thought. Celia: They both have to do with understanding the human experience. DLR: To me that is the big one. Why/when is understanding valuable? Carlo: When you are interacting with other people. DLR: Yes, you need to have an understanding of how they will probably respond to what you say. DLR: When else? Jeffery: When you are trying to write literature. DLR: When is it useful to understand what it means to be human? Jake: Personal interest, intellectual curiosity. Fastow: To avoid confusion, to help you find your self. DLR: What happens when you put these together? It helps in the process of self discovery.
DLR: For tomorrow: When does this lead to happiness? Putting this all together, these overlap because they both tell you what it means to be human, and they all give you insights about human insights and possibilities. You could also try to transcend these definitions. In either case, it is good to know. The major difference is what? Xaiver: literature is inherently written for pleasure. Jake: Literature is more multipurpose, it is not only to gain knowledge. DLR: Both assume that the people they talk about are similar to everyone else. DLR: Philosophy tended to be didactic. Most philosophy tends to do what, even if not didactic? Carlo: To explain things persuasively. DLR: It purports to be explanatory as well as persuasive. Jake: In literature, there tends to be a story or a theme. Literature- the story itself is not usually the point that the author wants to convey.
DLR: "Art for art's sake" This is supposed to be a departure from using art to only teach lay people about god ie in the middle ages. This means that they were now making art for no outside purpose like art.
Dwight: Why is AGA less common w/ lit.?
Tues, Jan 7, 2014
DLR: This tells you how to read. What person is it set in? Second person. This draws the reader into the story more effectively
What about this story works? The strange second person seems to work quite well in the first and second paragraph, as it continues to slowly draw the reader in. It stops working in the third paragraph. This is partially because it is so old, and also because it talks about a lot of stuff that we are supposed to know but that we actually do not know. It works again in the fourth paragraph because the stuff is familiar again. However, he starts to use the imperative, and it alienates the reader because he tells them what to do. It also starts telling the reader what sort of person he is, which is bad and continues to get worse as the chapter goes on. This method of writing does not work because, as the narrative gets more descriptive, its starts eliminating people (ie, the "you" has to be male, which eliminates women). You transforms from the reader into a character in the book.
What about how the books are characterized? Celia: These characterizations are actually quite accurate. DLR: agrees, and has many of each type of book. He must read a lot.
Go to page 6-7. He describes books as actual books, and talks about the sensual aspects of reading an actual book. This might be different for younger people who are reading the book because they obviously do not read books.
What is the purpose of the first chapter (the first numbered one)?
The topic of the first chapter is reading, and it is supposed to be read. It is reading about reading, ie it is meta-reading. You would expect that the rest of the book is going to be about reading in some way because of the first chapter. We can assume that it is academic because of how it is written, so we can assume it is fiction. This is designed to get you immersed in the point of the book, just as the director of the movie tries to get you to feel what is happening in a movie and become a part of its world. In literature it is called the "willing suspension of disbelief." This first chapter has a tension between reading the first chapter itself and losing yourself in the story. On page 9, it tells you this at the bottom. "It is the book in itself that arouses its curiosity.."
We move onto the next title chapter. It seems like the beginning of the story. However, after starting the book you go into the second numbered chapter it reverts back to the original narrative. This chapter 2 subverts your expectations. "if on a winter's nights traveler" is a story and has plot, setting, etc. However, it is a little different than a normal story because it is self-referential. It is making you aware of the text as text at the same time as it is telling you a story. The first two sentences blur the boundaries between you reading a book and the story itself. This is a fairly unusual way of breaking the fourth wall. This is not true in a traditional theatrical way because the narrator is breaking the wall instead of a character breaking it. In reality, this is a frame shift, similar to how there are several different nested frames of references in Heart of Darkness.
You are the person holding the book. The station is like a station of the past, and today is a new day. I was perhaps a narrator, but is now a character in the story. The novel has transitioned into first person, but sometimes flows back into second person. They overlap, so you see both viewpoints at one. There is the I of the train station and the narrator I.
Why does the I work better than the you? There is a degree of separation, and you can identify with the I to a greater or lesser extent depending on how similar you are to the person being described. However, the upside of the you is that when it works it is better than any other method of getting a person into a story.
What does the paragraph on the top of 15 tell you to do? It tells you how to write, without directly telling you how to write. It is not meta-writing, it simply serves as an example of how this particular writing device should work. Most of us don't think about how this should work, we just do it. This makes you think about how you read and how you write. This needs to be reflective.
On page 22, at the top: "I am the eye of the present with this suitcase"
The chapter ends and the I disappears and you return to the story again.

Terms to know

• meta-reading
• "willing suspension of disbelief"
• subvert
• fourth wall
• frame shift
• self-referential

Wednesday 1/8/2013 Chapters 3 and 4 (Chapter Number 2 and Outside the town of Malbork). Pages 24 to 42.

Blurring of who the reader is - us, or someone existing in the novel itself.

"Seeking a pattern" (pattern recognition) - people seek patterns because it reduces the need for thought (after recognizing a pattern, effort is all but removed because we assume future occurrences instead of planning for an unknown through intensive thought). Through natural selection (or what have you), we have become so good at pattern recognition that we often create/envision patterns where there are none - astrology, some types of stereotyping, etc. Seeking patterns is one thing; constructing patterns (whether or not they actually exist) is another - the majority of humans is prone to both. Thus, writing an analytic paper is, in essence, constructing a pattern (hopefully one that exists...). Writers create a series of dots; each reader connects these dots in his or her own manner. With regards to Calvino: If on a winter's night a traveler breaks traditional patterns seen throughout most typical novels. The novel is self-aware, self-referential, subversive to our expectations created by the mere fact that what we are about to read is called a "novel" - however, our expectations created in Chapter One (and any subsequent pattern we begin to formulate based on the opening chapter) are immediately dashed by the more story-based chapter that follows. This process repeats: Calvino creates a new expectation/basis for a pattern with each chapter, but each subsequent chapter subverts these expectations/patterns and creates new ones. One might say that the only pattern of the novel is that it consistently follows no other obvious or identifiable pattern (or, at least, up until page 42. We don't know what happens next...).

Stuff happens in the story. Calvino is a wizard, etc. etc.

Verisimilitude - the appearance of being true. Extraneous details are used (most often) for the purpose of verisimilitude: greater detail provides a sense of truth/accuracy.

Thursday 1/9/2013 What is literature? What is philosophy? What are identifiable patterns? Is his usage of 2nd person "successful"? Is he reading the book he's reading to us? How do we decide what is/isn't productive? Are the titled chapters more important than the numbered ones? What is the purpose of the blurring? What is the importance of the environment? Can a writer present both interpretation and feeling simultaneously? Does he make you construct any patterns? Are we or "I" reading the titled chapters?

"When the teacher is actually there" #shotsfired

The questions we ask will influence what we get out of reading/discussion. The implication is, then, that asking "good questions" is incredibly important. Subsequently: what makes a question good? Can we just replace "good" with, for example, thought-provoking, etc.? Or are good questions those that are most on topic, if not the most profound? Ultimately, good is what YOU want to get out of the text. - Jake P. Good questions are those that, upon reaching an answer, elucidate parts of the topic that the questions relate to. - Joseph The "goodness" of a question is based on its appropriateness to the given situation. - Xavier Good questions further your understanding. - Celia

Friday 1/10/2013 Nikolai's opinion (a variant of some facets of Platonistic ideology): A theorist has knowledge of truths (truths are eternal) from which he derives a theory - this is wisdom. A statesman/general has understanding of facts (facts are ephemeral) that helps him decide upon action - this is experience. "It is far easier to endure a bad film than to endure a bad book" - Nikolai. Unsure as to how this is relevant. Rules do not box people in but instead create a vague template through which one can express oneself. Why do we need to understand the human experience? Nikolai posits that an understanding of the human experience is, in fact, a contradiction; a separation of human experience and human interaction is an impossibility. Raulston thinks that different people have different maximal levels in different areas of ability/function. Jake says that Nikolai's separation of theorists and statesmen/generals is, in practice, impossible. Xavier says that it is almost impossible to pin down definitions of many of Nikolai's terms. Thinking about the "eternal truths" (technically impossible in the real world for many - for others, God) yields knowledge.

• • Truth is the idealized version of an idea that we all reference - e.g, geometric shapes that are impossible to create in the real world but must exist in some perfect manner somewhere (Plato's World of Forms, religions' God). Conversely, all knowledge is from memory. The fact is the triangle we draw; the truth is the ideal triangle that exists in World of Forms, God, or what have you.

Tuesday, jan 14 Discussion of Chapter 4 -Listening to someone read aloud isn't as good as reading by yourself (you can read faster by yourself) -Professor Uzzi-Tuzii has an artistic mind, says that interpretation of a text treats it carelessly and with violence Whats the difference between a dead language and a living language: the dead language no longer gains any usage -Can you read without interpreting? HMMMMMM -Ludmilla wants to read for pleasure, Lotaria wants to analyze the text

1.15.14

If on a winter's night a traveler....

[10] "I am the man who comes and goes... or rather that man is called 'I'...and you know nothing further about me" As the story progresses we learn about the 'I' in the book. [13] First time you see some sort of plot, but as you read further in the chapter it kinda goes away. [17] "A sense of isolation is felt..." he's in constant isolation between two places and is never settled, which leads to the question of what's his job that leads him to be unsettled. Also, he can't connect with people because his thoughts are different from theirs. What makes him so different that he's so separated from others? [23] Again, the reference to the suitcase suggests traveling, which in turn suggests isolation. Idea of the system is controlling him [DLR: suggests The Trial]. When he gets on the train, he disappears and leaves--both the story itself and the town he'd temporarily made a connection with. [11] Starts using first person in 10-12, which gets you enveloped in the story, because it's getting more personal. Then, when it gets into second person, once again we're not sure who the "you" is.

[2]

Author creates the distinction in the different yous. The story has just been beginning to get good, and now our expectations are subverted. Sort of funny [25] about how his expectations are wrong. [27] false copy: his getting rid of the book reflects his frustration with the book; OR it could be separating "you" as reader from "you" as a character who is part of the story. "reducing the book to photons" becomes absurd. The "you" in the story seems to be having a pretty extreme reaction to just having a mis-published book. This exaggeration suggests that the reader's expectations will continue to be subverted. His confrontation with the bookseller shows a still-absurd level of unhappiness or anxiety about his lack of control over his reading.

Still ambiguous even when he meets the girl about who "Reader" is.

[30] "the fog": Initial impression you get from a book affects the final amount of pleasure you'll get from the book. The girl likes the "set parameters" of a novel. Why would a novel have this? Because the author can make his/her own world. [DLR But how does this distinguish the novel from other forms of writing?]

[32] We start now to think the "You" is more of a character as the description gets more specific as one who has learned to expect little from life. Yet, it soon gets back to more generalities. Then re-narrows it.

During [2], he is transformed from a guy who wants control to one who seeks a new experience from the novel.

[5]

Interaction between reader and publisher. This chapter will answer the question of the differences between readers and writers.

The narrator in the number chapters has started moving moving more into plot from [1].

[93] The worlds of readers and writers are starting to blend because people who read are starting to write. Ludmilla is scared of such blending because the "unsullied pleasure of reading" ends/changes once one starts to write.

[95] relation between publishers and writers. When he realizes the protagonist is not a writer, he is relieved. [97] Implies that being a writer carries a negative connotation. [DLR: But Calvino wrote a lot: why would he privilege reading over writing?] [98-99] Confusing to follow. [DLR: Why?] Issues with translations (as we talked about yesterday). Narrator criticizes the professors for what's essentially personal turf issues rather than discussing the work itself. [101] How has who-the-author-is changed in importance? [DLR: How does that apply to you?] [101-102] Perspective of publisher on that same issue. Overarching theme of chapter is a criticism of the convergence of the two worlds of writing and reading, particularly of how people read books. Hence, more on the "teaching how to read" idea...

looks down in the gathering shadow

Cavedagna gives a new manuscript, which has two people trying to get rid of a dead body. Writer wants "to create a dense forest so thick that light doesn't penetrate" [DLR: Why?]

Narrator has a fascination with his past--his multiple past identities seem always to catch up with him. 105] "I thought JoJo dead was quite different from JoJo alive..."

Title interpreted as your past always follows you, even when you can't see it (like a shadow). This ties in with Rudi's obsession with his own past. [114] Sky is brightening, but down there, the darkness is still thick. So, every time things look bright, your past comes back to shadow you. Throughout the stories, the narrator has been becoming more personal with the romantic interest. The sexual tension increases in these interactions. From Matthew's point of view, this just increases the reader's attention because there's a dead body there, so the sex scene is very out of place. [DLR: So, effect on female reader?] Lot of things in here MK didn't agree with. E.g. [107] Doesn't agree you can't change your name, {DLR: but in what way can you not change your name?] nor that you can't separate events in your life.

[109] There's a break from the plot, where he starts talking about his writing. He's teaching you how to become a good story-teller. (use of details) Wants to create material much richer than what he's chosen to present "here." [110] He has an unlimited supply of narratable material that he can narrate with detachment. MK questions the assertion [112] Narrator says the ability to narrate with distance is good, but MK doesn't think one can ever achieve that good [DLR Would it be good if one could?]

DLR I am intrigued by the difference between what, for instance, Jake and Jake pointed out in chapter [5] and what I would have called to people's attenion. Here are some points that came to my mind when I read the chapter:

• Note the list of "general concepts" for discussion listed at the top of [91]. They seem to me to be a mockery of (but perhaps much less so than I would like to think) of things university literature students would discuss about a novel. What's the implication of a list that contains items like these?
• [91] "There's enough material here to discuss for a month"
• [93] I agreed in finding interesting the point about the boundary line. In today's world, I would ask how fluid that boundary is and what the implications of its fluidity (or lack thereof) are. Also, I would ask
  • In what sense are all those who write readers?
  • In what sense are all those who read writers?
• [96] why is "self-realization on paper... sought not so much by isolated individuals as collectives"? In what other aspects of "Western culture" can one find such a phenomenon?
• [96} what is "...a world in which they still read books where you encounter 'little men, shrunken and bent'"?
• [97] " 'This isn't what I call reading' "; the obvious question is then, what is reading?
• [98] why "an attack of vertigo"?
• [99] to what historical event(s) is the paragraph on the top of the page a reference?
• [99] in what metaphorical sense as well might " 'a masterpiece of [one's] language [have] to be read int he language of his colleague' "?
• [100] what does the propagation of the confusion " 'with the print shop, the bindery...' " suggest?
• [101] I also found the query " 'What does the name of an author on the jacket matter?' " to be an interesting one. What does it matter? Does it matter less now or more than in 1979 when Calvino published If on a winter's night a traveler?
• [101] Why are " 'the true authors... those who ... are only a name on the jacket' "?

1.17.14

Outside the town of malbork

Weird that it started out like a novel, but then it started making fun of the text. Started talking about translating and the flaws in it. [35] Talks about how you can say something about a word that you can't understand. Doesn't see how the butter churner details makes the story more interesting or the character more believable I bet you didn't feel like the character was going to be leaving unless you shmooped or something. The idea that you can't take relationships with you was weird to me. {DLR I agree. But what more precisely do you take?] After he tells us what we should be thinking, he says "It is only you, Reader, who are thinking this, not I" [39] "Perhaps the other self who is about to take my place...." he talks about the other selves that you have within you and how they interact I feel like it wouldn't be possible to be erased from the world that suddenly. [40] "Peace lasts only from one funeral to the next" I didn't really know what to make of it. He ends the story without giving a sense of where it would go or why it was ending there. SO ending it on a cliffhanger. I feel the whole book is weird because he tells you what to feel without making you feel it. Being told you're feeling sad doesn't actually make you feel sad. I think he's making fun of novels though that might be a stretch.

[6]

[115] There's a lot of contrast in the chapter. Esp. between "books as literature" vs "books as man-made objects for an audience." It's a pretty weird chapter. 1st letter: Marana in South America dealing with something in Ireland. The book often notes a lot of places in geography that we may not know much about. This gives you a concrete thing to hold on to. M. notes that since he's a translator, he can go to many places that many other people couldn't. [119] The pirates: [Celia: I'm confused about when Marana is talking about Flannery. Carlo: Isn't Flannery supposed to be transporting the story. The two "wings" think Flannery's text holds the truth and both want it.] [118] What the computer's gonna write is the natural essence of the author. But it's missing the human piece of it [DLR Implication?] All the women he sees make him think of Ludmilla. It's also pretty meta because you're reading a translated version of the faults of translation. Pretty ironic. Marana thinks Flannery is plagiarizing. The Indian is the source of all stories. The OAP is kind of out of his hands at this point. "The father of stories who dictates our books..."

enlace

"The first sensation this book should convey..." Is this Silas's perspective of how you should read the text or is it the narrator's? Goes back to the question of whether it's possible to convey sensation and description of what one should feel simultaneously. "I doubt that written words can give even the hint of it..." "Imaginary sensations cannot convey real sensations" "A metaphor can only present one image" The ringing telephone creates sensations of urgency and refusal simultaneously. Spends all this time talking about how he hates words but still feels compelled to answer them. He feels every phone he hears is ringing for him, no matter how stupid that seems. He goes for a run to escape the phones. Yet, he goes by other houses that have phones. [134] Ironic: his weight is forcing him to run, yet he runs to find escape from other people. He keeps circling the house where he hears the phone ringing until the dog's braking breaks the "spell". [136] Saying he's basically controlled by his instinctive urges. When he feels he can't run any more, he feels like he has to go back and pick up the phone at the random house that is not his. Claims he's not involved--hesitates to call the authorities. Then talks about feeling sorry for her. Seems very obsessed with someone for not knowing who she is. Seems suspicious that he won't help since most people under the circumstances would. Yet, he does know *a* marjorie. Is the one he knows the one in the phone call? Either he's denying his connection to the reader or to himself. Then his paranoia takes over, with the "band of gangsters" who know he jogs along that road. When he gets back to the university, he nonetheless asks the students where Marjorie is. [139] But then he goes to the street. Liked the phrasing of "decades" going past, which normally refers to time, not a progression of numbers. Is the marjorie he finds, the one he knows? When she says, "You're a bastard," that shows she recognizes him in some way. Why does the chapter, which is an interior monolog, deny to himself what he has to know (by her comment)? That suggests that the chapter is talking to us-the-reader. [Celia: Do you think he actually does this to her and then denies it because he's crazy?] Seems like a good interpretation--we only have eight pages to base our interpretations on.

1.22.14

It's Fred's idea to give you a plot summary, as reported by Zack, who actually gives the summary. [DLR: Sigh]

ZL: yeah, so what was I talking about again?

Fred:

[140] Where there are signs of a man's presence... signs of the narrator's jealousy and the sexual tension in the story. Would it be better to live in ignorance? Brings up the philosophical question of whether ignorance is bliss

[140] society has become more uniform within specific cultural models [DLR meaning society is more homogenized?]

[146] each book becomes identified with your reading of it.... With a female reader, maybe female readers can identify more with the work.

[141] Calvino explicitly states his goal for the whole second-person thing, which opens up his narrative options. It seems like Ludmilla can become anyone or anything.

[144] "You're attached to the signs in which you identify something of yourself"--we like to think we're on the world for some unique purpose that only we can fulfill

"resulting from a need to concentrate signs..." people have a need to do certain things to construct their own identity line about "frames" rather than "photographs"--maybe the symbols don't mean anything "in practice, no methodical method of practice corresponds to it"--self-referential wrt the book. Maybe Calvino's book causes us to construct out own symbols/meaning, which may not be there. Maybe everything I'm saying could be BS. [DLR And how would we--or you--know? And further, what's the point of listening to you?]

[146] different classifications of books from the original sort of list. [147] frame shift back to actual reader [152] "whatever he touches, if it is not false already, becomes false..... the difference between the true and the false is only prejudice of ours." Brings up the question of what is false? And correspondingly, what is true?

Zach:

[154] Talks about voi and tu remark about being more separate when you seem to be one person. Makes sex grammatical and literary. "now you are being read..." Yeah, reading = sex, yeah

plot twist at the end. Ludmilla is annoyed at the reader for being so nosy and knowing so much. So he just looks really creepy. At the end of the chapter he starts the new book that is the false translation of the old one.

[Query: on [155], when there's a split in the text of the talk, is it another frame shift? Ans: Yes, a really sudden frame shift]

Leaning from the steep slope Elise: Note that the names of the characters and name of the setting are the same, but the characters are actually different.

"messages which it would be difficult.." difficulty in translating sense impressions into words.

[57] in trying to avoid Miss Zwida, he has three reasons, the funniest of which is the last. Humor helps with getting to know the narrator better. [59] "something previously established that I could not avoid"

Chloe:

[60] the bottom describes the dark side of Miss Zwida [61] "perhaps this diary will come to light..." Calvino is highlighting that books are snapshots of the times in which they're written. Also refers to the "loss in translation" theme of the book. You can also be translating in time, not just in languages.

"with a written language..." life is like a book where you have no idea what is happening next. [62] "the important thing..." life is a story that you're living.. "If I knew how to draw.." Though a book is inanimate, it can be very complex; "I understood that it contained a meaning for me..." appeal of a book to a reader. Thought the entire chapter was very poetic. Goes into the idea of how life is one big metaphor.

last sentence about irreparable breach being very poignant.

1.23.2014

[8]

This is the first numbered chapter told from a completely different perspective, Silas Flannery's diary

[169] He can't enjoy disinterested reading any more since he's become a slave to the labor of writing (relates to what Ludmilla said earlier about wanting her reading to remain isolated from writing)

[171] Desire to do away with himself so his writing can be "pure"-- wants to embody the spirit of the times and the collective unconscious [DLR but why would you want your writing to be set so firmly in a specific time?]

[176] "it rains" --> wants to move writing to "it writes" "I" do the reading, but the writing should be impersonal. Flannery considers such to be an "ideal book"

[180] the author of every book is in a sense created by the reader; the writer on the cover isn't the "real" writer, it's the writer of the "pure text" before it is read.

Continues the ideal of the text being pure until it is actualized by a reader; similarly, the author is actualized by the readers of the text...

[187-188] Lotaria demonstrates the way in which she reads: frequency of occurrence of words embodies the essence of a text.

Author's awareness of that process unsettles him and causes him to second-guess his own writing.

Ludmilla doesn't want to meet the actual author since s/he might conflict with the author she has actualized

[190] "It's as if they [the novels] existed before you..." and they (the pre-existent texts) have to pass through an author in order to be reified.

[197] Two ideas: "every time I pick up the same book, it's a new one" vs "every time I pick up a new book, it's the same one."

Major idea in the chapter is the idea of the impersonal writing [DLR the chapter seems to be a riff on that theme]

Carlo: self-referential nature of Flannery describing the idea of If on...

Celia: [192] Why does she assume she's reading upsetting books if she's calm?

1.27.14

From [5], Looks down in the gathering shadow, and [8], pick quotes that define or refer to some essential aspect of writing.

XG: [171] "How well I would write if I were not here..." refers to the idea of authors' trying to create something transcendent

Carlo: [170] "whatever I write will be false.." when trying to write you're writing for an ideal reader, but it can't be done

Celia: [110] "I'm in a position to handle..." expands on insignificant details allows a writer to bring a reader into the story

Chloe: [109] "I'm producing too many stories at once..." writers want readers to be enraptured in the story they feel

Joseph: [184] "It is no use my waiting..." a cool interjection

Matthew: [181] "But if an individual truth is the only one..." the only truth is that in his mind there is a woman and a deck chair, but each visualization of her is different and thus untrue

Jeffrey: [193] "Because there is no certitude outside falsification" almost all of our writing is essentially stealing from previous writers

Jake Peacock: [109] "I'm producing too many stories at once" the ideal existence of all these things but may not exactly exist--has to do with "the true book" that everyone thinks is there but may not ever exist

Gustavo: [93] "of course readers are also growing more numerous..." readers now just analyze the books they read and use the things they like in their own writing

Fred: [92] "The novel I would most like to read..." novels are not to force a belief on you--each person gets the same seed from a novel but each person gets a different tree

Eliot: [93] "There's a boundary line..." difference in how an author would write a book vs how a reader would perceive

Sloane: [171] "I seem to understand... a complementary relationship..." writing is often not creating a whole new world but filling in the gaps and spaces of what those before us have said.

Nikolai: [176] "If you think about it, reading is a necessarily individual act..."

02.03.14

[9]

"You have come all the way to Ataguitania.." ties back in to chapter [8]. Is this Lotaria? You're not really sure.... He gets in the taxi, they're arrested by the car behind them, which is in turn arrested by the car behind them...

This entire chapter is about falseness and deception. First it seems comprehensible, but then it starts getting increasingly absurd.... When the female rips off her clothes, you see different uniforms underneath...

[218] the narrator starts speaking to "you" again, but now it seems to be the same "you" as in the first part of the story (ie, you-the-reader)

Is this "take charge" command directed at you-the-reader as well as at you-the-character

[220] the machine printing out the book malfunctions. Metaphor for dystopian world

[11]

(Has Carlo read the first two paragraphs)

X asks them about difference in tone in the first two paragraphs. Carlo answers with "tempest-tossed vessel" vs "free, calm day" JF thinks the second paragraph is pretty abrupt. GA thinks it's too abrupt that a whole novel of deception and suspense ends so abruptly in the second paragraph, with everything resolved. NH sees the difference in the first paragraph is more active, whereas you're more passive in the second. CL in the first paragraph you get the interpretation the author wants you to have, whereas the second is the description of the image.

DR Anyone else have the reaction that the second paragraph is setting you up, that there won't be such a simple resolution? You've been promised this before, after all....

JF The previous titled chapter also suggests that there's not going to be a simple resolution

XG the phrase "the books you've been looking for" has been repeated a lot in this novel; what are the implications? Viz Ludmilla's "the perfect novel" that she's been looking to read.

The seven readers:

First reader reads whatever is in the story, then starts daydreaming, going off on tangents "those few pages already enclose for me whole universes, which I can never exhaust" Second reader focuses on words; "I thought of Dr. Bellows, actually"

02.05.14

[254] "Reading is a discontinuous and fragmentary operation" (What does that mean?) JP: You never read an entire book at one time. XG: But what if you do? SG: Every time you read more in the book, your perspective on the ideas changes from what came before. CL: As you keep reading, the interpretations that pop into your mind will interrupt your thoughts. XG: Words are discrete packages that break the continuous experience of the real world. From all these discrete units, you get a continuous picture in your mind. Discrete inputs get turned into continuous experiences. In first chapter, Xeno was going to be the codeword, and Xeno's paradoxes were all about the problems between the discrete and the continuous.

102 see the idea of the void: "the author was an invisible point from which the texts came..." 254 "...or else like the void at the bottom of a vortex which sucks in and swallows currents."

Key words in those metaphors are void, tunnel, ghosts. Calvino is using metaphors that are contradictory: each metaphor, like the blind men describing the elephant, describes only a part of the whole, but the parts seem to be contradictory.

For a continuous experience, you just add more and more discrete points and they never really coalesce into a sine curve, though with enough points you get a good idea of it.

Third reader

Focuses on the idea of newness.

Fourth reader

There's one single book. (The readers tend to say "Oh, I agree with you" but then they say different things)

Fifth Reader

Seeks to remember a book lost in childhood

Viz Plato, where education is drawing out of memories of previous life

Sloane: "Hero with a Thousand Faces"

JB: "the single story" is like the "Father of All Stories"; also, think about "the telephone game"

XG: Why is there only "a single story"

NH: the one single book could be a reference to this book [DLR LOL]

DR: Metaphorically, the "one single book" is life, no?

Sixth Reader

He's the one who strings all the titles together

Seventh Reader

He's the one who reads for an end: "the ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death."

XG "Of course, there were seven readers--what other number would he pick?"

When we read this book, we think that Calvino is so innovative, yet really, this is a variation of The Arabian Nights
2/18/2014
What is virtue?
What is wrong with Carlo's definition? It is too vague so that is almost pointless? Meno's definition refers to actions, so it is clearer. It also emphasizes different things for different people, i.e. men and women. For example, a building can have virtue if it does what it is supposed to do.
What are some idioms about life?
Carl: Life sucks, and then you die
Carl; There is no way that I'm dying sober
Sloan: Everybody bears a cross.
What is the american view of virtue? Hard work pays off. Self-made man. They are all individualistic. This is different from Meno's view of society; for example, virtue in a man is knowing how to administer the state for him. Therefore, Meno's virtue is communal. The next part is help his friend, harm his enemy. This gets played out in american politics wrt to ideas, not just friends and enemies. You are a friend if you share ideas. Every condition of life has a different virtue. This does not mean that virtue is relative, but instead that the virtue for you is different than virtue for a hexagon.
What is wrong with the way Meno goes about asking his questions? He lets Socrates rule the debate and define the terms. He is not necessarily wrong, but he can't argue his points when using Socrates' terms of the debate. Meno as a character looses as soon as he lets his opponent set the terms of the debate.
DLR: What is an analogy? Someone takes something you don't understand and states that it is the same as something that you already understand that is functionally similar. The issue is that it is not exact, it is like a model in that it makes simplification. Picking the analogy is just another way of setting the terms of the argument because you can pick the ones that don't show the issues that disrupt your argument.
Xaiver: No one desires evil to be done to themselves, so they may be correct.
DLR: Let's move on to the second part, where he claims knowledge is inborn into us.
We don't really talk about this, instead we move onto "If virtue is knowledge, then knowledge will be taught"
Socrate's definition of teaching would be remembering stuff that you already know by clearing out the distractions of knowledge.
Why should your principles conform to circumstances? For one, you will get screwed less often. Xaiver: Because your principles are derived from your circumstances. DLR: Socrates is talking about principles in terms of virtue. He still does not define virtue. What is it to be virtuous? Carlo: Wouldn't it be vague by default. Nikoli: He is trying to figure out what makes virtue virtuous, but he never really gets to it in the dialog. DLR: At this point, Meno is agreeing with everything because he does no know what is going on anymore. DLR: Why is it reasonable to expect that you already know everything that is useful. Geometry is only one thing, and cannot prove that he knows everything.
Sophists are basically lawyers, they just want to win an argument. In this way, Socrates is somewhat like a sophist because he comes up with objections for the sole reason of proving someone wrong, i.e. winning the case.
You are born with virtue (god-given) because it cannot be learned.
DLR: What conclusions do you get from Meno?
Celia: Socrates is persuasive. He argues well on his own terms. He can't, as a writer, anticipate the rejections of all of his readers.
DLR: What is the value of the dialog if you don't agree with the conclusion.
Xaiver: Because it is logical. Dwight: NO.
DLR: Socrates constructs a chain of reasoning. Where do you get your concept of virtue? By learning it from society. What is the general idea? You should form it individually. His is not based on social interaction. Socrates' definition is substantiated by "universal truth" and reason. People see the merit of these dialogs because they define abstract things using reason instead of social norms. This is a fundamental shift from the thinking of the western world. This is why he was put to death, he encouraged them to think and use reason instead of accepting social definitions.
2/19/2014
DLR; I like the language play in this chapter. What underlies this?
The saying and the meaning are really closely connected, and in the other four pairs the two elements are not connected. They take a pattern (a language pattern) and they replace elements of it. They change the words that carry meaning without changing the pattern.
What do we know about the process of personification? It is a metaphor. You know that you are being metaphorical. Here they take a metaphor and reify it, make it actual instead of metaphorical.
Murdering the time, they make the time a person, reifying it.
The people at the bottom of the well. The problem with the story is that it has no point. Alice is saying that it is fiction. Alice is refusing to enter the world of the story.
This all subverts your expectations of what should happen all through Alice. Because she cannot understand what is going on, she just decides to leave. It is all about the idea of demonstrating with what you want to say instead of just saying it.

'Facts on the Ground'
Celia: This is about telling the truth, not showing it, like the last writing.
DLR: What is the basic point? Jeffrey: What you see is based on what you believe. DLR: Your previous ideas matter to what you think about something (this is also from Meno). What is knowledge? Previous experiences. What is Opinion? What you think about what you experienced. What about what you have learned gets incorporated into the belief system? There is clearly knowledge that is not incorporated into your belief system. Why is the spirit explanation better for his father's family than the other explanation. It explains a phenomenon that they already know to be true. The phenomenon does not need an explanation. The only reason that the explanation is relevant is because people want an coherent picture of the world.