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    • Time, Temporality, and T. H. White

      Posted at 8:09 pm by Michelle Joelle, on July 11, 2016

      I am currently reading through T. H. White’s The Once and Future King for the very first time, and I must admit that as I read, I’m constantly distracted by thoughts about time, temporality, and how Merlyn can live backwards through time while still functionally conversing and building relationships. As someone who has long been interested in how literature can play with time and temporality, I’ve decided to share my thoughts, questions, and puzzles in the hopes that doing so will clear my mind of them. It’s a rich story, with many layers of satire and political commentary to work through and critique, but I just can’t seem to focus on anything but the mechanics of the story’s temporal flow.

      Note: I wrote this to an assumed audience of people who have read the novel rather than giving context for each example and question. I also wrote through my thought process, such that some of what I say early on I reject by the end.

      ———-

      Merlyn explains early on (p 35) how time works for him:

      …Now ordinary people people are born forwards in Time, if you understand what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too. This makes it quite easy for the ordinary people to live… But I unfortunately was born at the wrong end of time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call it having second sight…

      …You see, one gets confused with Time, when it is like that. All one’s tenses get muddled, for one thing. If you know what is going to happen to people, and not what has happened to them, it makes it difficult to prevent it happening, if you don’t want it to have happened, if you see what I mean?

      While I can understand the notion of “second sight”, the problem of conversation, which he indicates slightly here in his reference to tenses, remains a puzzle to me. Beyond the issue of word choice, temporal flow is an ordered thing, and so is the English language, and so if Merlyn is living backwards through time, does he a) say and hear all of his words backwards? Is “hello” “olleh” to him, as is suggested when he summons Neptune to turn the Wart into a perch (p 45)? The example reads thus:

      Snylrem stnemilpmoc ot enutpen dna lliw eh yldnik tpecca siht yob sa a hsif?

      Which rendered forwards reads:

      Merlyn’s compliments to Neptune and will he kindly accept this boy as a fish?

      This raises the next question, then, b) why aren’t the words presented in backwards order? Theoretically, Merlyn saying “Well hello there!” should actually be “!ereht olleh lleW” but this spell seems to hinge on just the words themselves being backwards as they fall in forwards order. Side question: does this mean that Neptune also progresses backwards through time? Because otherwise my next theory doesn’t quite work.

      One possibility is that Merlyn lives through snippets of time in a forward motion and then jumps back. This example indicates that the jump happens on a word by word basis, but if that were the mechanism, then he possibly would not be able to move temporally unless he was speaking. Or maybe he can control, at least to a certain extent, when he experiences things in a forward motion, and when he lets time pass him naturally. This could very well be related to his ability to leave the Wart with the Geese for what felt to Wart like days while only passing one night in Wart’s “real” life (p 170), and also for his ability to seemingly shift dimensions or travel through space:

      There was something magical about the time and space commanded by Merlyn, for the Wart seemed to be passing many days and night among the grey people, during the one spring night when he had left his body asleep under the bearskin.

      The question then remains to what extent he can control this, for his ability to answer questions seems to rely on it; perhaps he can live as much as a day in forward motion, but then wakes up a day earlier, which would give him just enough temporal congruency to build sensible conversations – for instance, how else would he be able to know that Wart was “Still sighing” (p 180) before he actually sighed (from a backwards temporal progress), or that the Wart is going to ask about the knighting ceremony? How else could he laugh at a joke or scoff at an inane remark?

      But that seems fundamentally wrong as well, for he laments when he meets the Wart for the first (for the last) time the limited time he has remaining (also p 35, appearing in between the two paragraphs I quote at the top of the post). Merlyn also here seems to be a little puzzled about the ordering of things, as if he is just simply living a consistent temporal flow just like our own, except in reverse, which is, I think, the real and confusing truth of the matter:

      “Have I told you this before?”

      “No, we only met about half an hour ago.”

      “So little time to pass?” said Merlyn, and a big tear ran down to the end of his nose. He wiped it off with his pajamas and added anxiously, “Am I going to tell it you again?”

      Besides completely breaking my heart, this scene is one that gave me pause – I read it over again a few times, and tried to imagine playing it out from Merlyn’s point of view. He knows the end of his tutelage of Arthur is coming, as I imagine that the Wart tells him of it later on when he is older and better understands Merlyn’s temporal flow (though I’ve not finished the book, even if it does not come up in the prose I can imagine it happens in an “off screen” moment). But where later on Merlyn always seems to know exactly what is coming and responds just exactly right, here he breaks a little, exposing the complexity and confusion of his temporal progress.

      If we were to experience it from his point of view, the ordering would be something like this (excepting for the backwards flow of individual words, for a moment, and sticking to phrases):

      “So little time to pass?” said Merlyn, and a big tear ran down to the end of his nose. He wiped it off with his pajamas and added anxiously, “Am I going to tell it you again?”

      “No, we only met about half an hour ago.”

      “Have I told you this before?”

      We can suppose that Merlyn, knowing the time already, asks only out of emotion, but there is in his demeanor a general sense of wishing to be contradicted, suggesting that his ability to converse is not solely based on reports from others about what has already been said. It seems rather that Merlyn is not only responding to the conversational points of his future (and our past), but that he is suggesting and engineering them to some degree.

      Let’s take another example from the end of Merlyn’s conversation with the Wart about the process of becoming a Knight, wherein he once again gets a bit confused (p 181-182). Here is the selection in forward motion:

      “If I were to be made a knight,” said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, “I should insist on doing my vigil by myself, as Hob does with his hawks, and I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer for it.”

      “That would be extremely presumptuous of you,” said Merlyn,” and you would be conquered, and you would suffer for it.”

      “I shouldn’t mind.”

      “Wouldn’t you? Wait till it happens and see.”

      “Why do people not think, when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?”

      “Oh dear,” said Merlyn. “You are making me feel confused. Suppose you wait till you are grown up and know the reason?”

      “I don’t think that is an answer at all,” replied the Wart, justly.

      Merlyn wrung his hands.

      “Well, anyway,” he said, “suppose they did not let you stand against all the evil in the world?”

      “I could ask,” said the Wart.

      “You could ask,” repeated Merlyn.

      He thrust he end of his beard into his mouth, stared tragically at the fire, and began to munch it fiercely.

      There are some aspects of this that are simple to comprehend. Merlyn knows what troubles the Wart will face in the future (Merlyn’s past), and feels the emotion of his memory. I am guessing that there is also some anxiety about protecting the Wart as long as possible, as he lamented back in his first (last) conversation with Wart (p 35): “If you know what is going to happen to people, and not what has happened to them, it makes it difficult to prevent it happening, if you don’t want it to have happened…”. But it also seems clear that this is not a conversation that Merlyn is going through by rote memory, but that is rather unfolding for him in the moment just as it is for the Wart. Let us look at the selection in reverse, once again by phrase rather than word (we are still reading in a forward motion, after all).

      He thrust he end of his beard into his mouth, stared tragically at the fire, and began to munch it fiercely.

      “You could ask,” repeated Merlyn.

      “I could ask,” said the Wart.

      “Well, anyway,” he said, “suppose they did not let you stand against all the evil in the world?”

      Merlyn wrung his hands.

      “I don’t think that is an answer at all,” replied the Wart, justly.

      “Oh dear,” said Merlyn. “You are making me feel confused. Suppose you wait till you are grown up and know the reason?”

      “Why do people not think, when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?”

      “Wouldn’t you? Wait till it happens and see.”

      “I shouldn’t mind.”

      “That would be extremely presumptuous of you,” said Merlyn,” and you would be conquered, and you would suffer for it.”

      “If I were to be made a knight,” said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, “I should insist on doing my vigil by myself, as Hob does with his hawks, and I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer for it.”

      It makes rather a lot of sense, as a conversation. It also makes sense, going “forward”, that Merlyn then goes on to describe the ceremony of achieving knighthood. Hearing the Wart speak of the vigil of knights would definitely prompt it. The meaning is quite different in this order, though – it is rather as if Merlyn is wistfully and hopelessly pondering a different future for the Wart than the one he knows will come to pass. Merlyn, giving in to the reality of what he cannot prevent, vaguely suggests that the Wart will understand when he is older. Then when the Wart asks about staying young in mind, Merlyn tells him he would be conquered, and suffer for it. But in this order, we see the Wart not cowed with caution against presumption, as seems to be Merlyn’s aim in the forward facing version of the conversation, but inspired to even greater and more tragic idealism, as he takes up a romanticized ideal of sacrificing himself for the sake of others.

      The mechanics of it all still elude me, but the sad beauty and magic of Merlyn’s reverse temporality have become more a little more evident to me through writing this, leaving me in a more pleasant state of puzzlement than before. This seems like a fine place to end this reflection, and get back to reading.

      Posted in Essays | 13 Comments | Tagged arthuriana, books, literature, longreads, philosophy, reading, T. H. White, temporality, The Once and Future King, time
    • The Delicate Art of Reading Philosophy

      Posted at 4:00 pm by Michelle Joelle, on November 11, 2014

      One of the most common (at least in theory) ways to read philosophy is to look through a passage of text, isolate the argument into a set of premises and conclusions, and then evaluate the truth of each premise and the validity of the logical flow. You excise the argument of all color and flourish, abstract the point from any thought experiment or example, disregard poetic devices, and banish from your mind all autobiographical psychological context. Then you assess whether the overall message is worthwhile or not, and then move on to the next passage, and then put all the passages together and assess the big picture in the same way.

      But I think that – in spite of their very best efforts – very few people actually do read this way successfully. And when they do, I think they’re doing both themselves and the texts a disservice. Nearly any philosophical text that has significant historical and/or cultural clout (and a great many that do not) is rich with nuance and insight into the way we think and the way we live beyond the bare essentials of its argument. Even if the text is kind of (or very) boring. Even if it is fictional. Even if it is horribly written. Even if it is very old. Even if it has been proven to be completely wrong. Some are worth more than others, and some will speak to us more than others, but I tend to think how we read philosophy plays a big role in how we decide which texts we enjoy and which should be banished from the canon.

      To put it more succinctly, there’s a lot more to saying something true than simply being right. In still another formulation, how an author says something conveys as much information as what an author says. To wit, I’ve divided up my reading methods into three different levels. The levels imply no specific chronology, order, or importance, but rather represent proximately to the text, with level 1 focusing on the closest reading (the trees), level 2 skirting back and forth between the text itself and the larger context (how the trees fit into the forest and relate to each other) and level 3 expanding out to the big picture (the forest). Sometimes I skip levels entirely, or pair them up, or do all three at once without realizing it.

      Level 1: Reading for Understanding

      The method I described above – abstracting the steps of an argument from their context for logical evaluation – is a very difficult thing to do, but it’s an important step to get right. For some philosophers, getting any semblance of a literal reading out of the prose is a feat in itself, so I certainly don’t mean to diminish this task. I just think it seldom gets to the heart of what’s really going on in a given text the way it aims to, because whenever you craft a vision of what you think the author is “trying” to say, you necessarily indulge your imagination a bit, and cast upon it shadows of your own worldview. More often than not, if you come away from a philosophical text thinking you understand it, you’re probably either just rejecting a straw man version of it you’ve created in your reading, or you’re pledging your allegiance to your own ideas, regardless of what’s really there on the page.

      To combat this, I like to try and reconstruct everything I read twice. The first time, I take up the text as a sacred doctrine, assuming it must be right and that wherever it seems like it fails, that’s really just my confusion. I try to make it work as much as I possibly can, come up with justifications, look for implied premises, and create metaphors that smooth out the difficulties and nuances. I do this until I hit the wall, and then (even if I generally agree with what I’ve read), I turn on it, and go back to find every weak link and every questionable premise. I look for transitions where I had to do far too much to make the argument work, definitions which could be ambiguous, logical moves which rest too heavily on syntax and too lightly on substance.

      At some point, I level out enough to form an authentic assessment of what – if anything – a text has to offer. I look at my defense and my critique, and try to take both forward with me as I advance to the next phase of reading.

      Level 2: Reading for Insight

      This level is easy to achieve when you enjoy what you’re reading. Interesting tid bits jump out at you, raising questions, reminding you of other things you’ve read, answering questions floating around in your mind, or simply inspiring you in some way. But not every text will grip you immediately. Sometimes the literal meaning gets in the way, sometimes our expectations get in the way, and sometimes the writing style itself gets in the way.

      I think the best way to approach philosophy that isn’t automatically gripping you is to choose a central focus and let yourself be guided by a couple of questions. Typically, I’ll head into a text already armed with a question, either stemming from other books I’ve read or a talk I’ve attended, from the central focus of a current project, or from a syllabus I’m crafting, but occasionally, I’ll approach a new work of philosophy cold. When that happens, I’ll typically go back to my notes and look to my attempts to recreate and critique the argument being presented, and look for inroads there. Whatever question you ask will define what you find in the text, pulling out a specific narrative. If you change the question, you’ll likely see something different. This is why you can read the same book in two or three different courses on vastly different topics and come away with vastly different interpretations. It isn’t because your professors are confused or in combat over the meaning of the text, but because they come to it with different starting questions.

      In many ways, this is a necessarily literary form of reading, because you’re trying to take the threads of an argument and weave them into a story – but not so that you can enjoy that story; rather, it’s so you can see the bigger picture beyond that story. I generally view this level as asking the following general questions:

      • How the does the author make his/her claims?
      • What does the author’s method tell us?
      • Is it the same or different from the literal content?
      • Is this confluence or discord purposeful?
      • What could this possibly mean?
      • Does this author’s contradiction of another philosopher reveal any new questions?

      While the answers to these questions may not have any bearing on whether or not we think the author is correct, they nevertheless produce rich new lines of inquiry and speculation.

      Essentially, looking at philosophy as a historical conversation can tell us why – and how – we think the way we do. Even if the assertions in the text are poorly constructed, disagree with other thinkers of similar stature, or even if they’re founded on shaky grounds, reading into the reasoning can still show us something true – even if its a truth constructed by the institutional reinscription of speculative notions, or a truth about ourselves and our own reactions to what we read.

      This is probably where I spend most of my reading time. There’s almost always something interesting to be found in any work with cultural clout. It’s actually hard for me to turn this level down when I’m attempting to read for fun or relaxation, so I also tend to see philosophy in a lot of strange and unlikely places.

      Level 3: Reading for Answers

      Not every text will make it this far. Sometimes, it’ll take years for me to get here with a particular piece of writing, bouncing back and forth between levels 1 and 2 until I make a connection that reveals something wonderful. Sometimes I have I have to teach it three or four times first, or write a paper on it. Sometimes I’ll be working on something that seems completely irrelevant and a quote will mysteriously pop into my mind, and I’ll see the whole work in a new light. Then I have to go back and read the entire work over again – not just as an interesting or inspiring text – but as a source. And of course, sometimes this happens right away, on my very first read through. Feynman. Chesterton. Arendt. Desmond. Russell.

      This almost never means that I think everything the author says is absolutely correct. Occasionally I’ll turn to a text in an almost biblical fashion, but for the most part I tend to gravitate towards nuggets of truth, a particularly brilliant problem the author identifies (and not always their resolution), or some kind of systemic approach or assumption.  Sometimes I’ll hate that a text is right, and seek out every possible means of convincing myself that it’s wrong. Sometimes I’ll succeed.

      But it’s a different way of reading. I’m sure a lot of people start here when they look at philosophy, deciding if the text can give them answers right away, and rejecting it if it doesn’t, skipping from level 1 to level 3. But I don’t think is the only way to determine the worth of a text. If it was, I’d probably hate philosophy.

      cropped-img_0049.jpg

      Overall, I think that the best way to read philosophy is to read in a variety of ways. The only real way to make a mistake is to read too narrowly, too determinately. To automatically exclude psychological or literary factors and focus solely on the intended argument of a philosophical work is to ignore the bigger project of philosophy outright, and instead to accept or reject a work dogmatically. Essentially, to read philosophy, you have to read philosophically – that is, with an eye to seeing things differently than you might expect.

      Posted in Essays | 10 Comments | Tagged academia, analysis, books, literature, longreads, philosophy, reading
    • On Running After Chesterton

      Posted at 12:00 pm by Michelle Joelle, on November 5, 2014

      The best laid plans often go awry, life is what happens when you’re making other plans, and reading lists are meant to expand and veer off in unexpected direction. I suppose my fall reading list was less of a “list” than a structural guideline, and of late I’ve seen this list shift and grow. I mean, I’ll get to everything on the list eventually, but much like Chesterton’s thoughts on the delight of running after ones hat when it’s caught in a gust of wind, I’m chasing my reading impulse wherever it leads me.

      One of the main additions to my list (along with Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Flannery O’Conner’s Mystery and Manners, and a number of academic texts) was GK Chesterton’s On Running After One’s Hat and Other Whimsies. It was utterly delightful, and I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes.

      On the delights of losing your hat to the wind and other misfortunes:

      An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered (6).

      On the delights of regionally specific cheese, which somehow turns into something that reminds me strongly of Chapter 3 of Mill’s Utilitarianism.

      Bad customs are universal and rigid, like modern militarism. Good customs are universal and varied, like native chivalry and self-defense. Both the good and bad civilization cover us as with a canopy, and protect us from all that is outside. But a good civilization spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilization stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella – artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform (15).

      On playing croquet and the meaning of life:

      If you could play unerringly you would not play at all. the moment the game is perfect, the game disappears (63).

      On the conceptual nature of language, which reads like the end of Part 1 of Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality:

      So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific sociology (which does not exist) come and tell you that civilization is material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourself how many of the things that make up our society, the Law, or the Stocks and Shares, or the National Debt, you would be able to convey with your face and your ten fingers by grinning and gesticulating to a German inn keeper [about what you owe for cigars] (77).

      On the delights of being a tourist and his disdain for hipsters and all who are too cool for school:

      If there is one thing more dwarfish and pitiful than irreverence for the past, it is irreverence for the present, for the passionate and many coloured procession of life, which includes the charabanc among its many chariots and triumphal cars (105).

      And now, I run back to my reading list before it gets away from me again!

      Posted in The Waste Book | 1 Comment | Tagged Chesterton, GK Chesterton, literature, On Running After One's Hat and Other Whimsies, philosophy, quotes
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