TLA, p. 174-181: I love this quotation: "The right to identify-with without risking the presumptuousness of comparing-oneself-to: is this not one of the basic freedoms of reading?" and I also love the fact that on the very next page, Briggs writes that maybe it's not identification she feels after all -- a questioning, refining, clarifying, swerving move she makes all the time. Following her, I feel identification in one moment -- genuinely feel it, and the word feels right, and then the next moment I agree that identification isn't quite it, or isn't all of it. That it's wanting to be with as well, or instead. I suppose how we feel about authors is so complicated, multivalent, changing, that both of these attitudes towards authors are true, perhaps true at different times. To at times feel the same as, in the same position as, and at other times to feel next to, or even opposed to (p. 181), in a productive way. I love Barthes's question, "What do I want, wanting to know you?"
And then within identification, there's this brilliant observation by Barthes (p. 137 TPON): "To pass from a loving reading to the Act of Writing is to draw out from the imaginary Identification with the text, with the beloved author (who has seduced us), not what is different to him (= the dead-end of the _effort_ of originality) but what, within me, differs from myself: the beloved stranger urges me, actively compels me to affirm the stranger who is within me, the stranger I am to myself."
And I think, in that way, Briggs can absolutely identify with Barthes: in fact, he has provided the answer, and a way to look at how literature moves us. We read not just to relate to the known self but also to see the stranger, the unknown expanse, within.
I love this quote too, Catherine! Somehow it's deeply affirming that, per Barthes, what we can draw from our relationship with a beloved author is something previously unknown within ourselves. Just the idea of that unknown-ness (potentially bottomless/limitless) feels like a celebration of our uniqueness and our infinite mystery, like there's always something more to be discovered, so close at hand and relatively accessible through reading and writing. Now I'm thinking again of the list of Barthes' likes and dislikes that Briggs includes and comments on, his celebration of the fact that "my body is not your body", his celebration of specificity and individuality, in himself and everyone else.
Yes! I think how we feel about authors is *so* complicated, and always shifting, as you said. I love this turning over and over the question of identification, in both Briggs and Barthes but especially Briggs. Maybe sometimes we want to be right up next to an author we love, maybe other times we need some distance—to question or to re-evaluate or to feel opposed to, as you said, in a productive way. Also I think the longer we live with an author's work, the more changeable and nuanced our relationship with them—because we are changing, because the self we bring back to their work is always different. I've had, and still have, so many different relationships with Mary Oliver in my life!
I'd love to talk with you about this! In a nutshell: unreservedly adored her when I first read her, then went to the opposite pole and felt critical and dismissive of what felt to me like the lack of shadow in her work (this was probably super snobby of me), then/now re-evaluating and remembering the aspects of her work I genuinely love. Now I do think there's actually a lot of shadow in her early work (Twelve Moons, American Primitive, Dream Work—which are my 3 favorite M.O. books) but I was too cranky and self-righteous to acknowledge this for a while :).
That totally makes sense -- I see the dislike of Mary Oliver that's out there and the MO love from people who aren't regular poetry readers, and I understand how people get cranky about her! I've only read American Primitive, and I liked it, but that was a while ago and I wasn't a super-experienced poetry reader (I'm still not, really). It's very cool that you've come to read her differently, again.
TLA, p. 168-173: "I would argue that this is what reading offers us: occasions for inappropriate, improbable identification. For powerful reality-suspending identification with a character, a writer, an idea, an experience, a fantasy." I'm so interested in the way the question Briggs gets on p. 169 surprised her, or struck her: have you ever felt excluded working on Barthes? The question seems well-meant -- I can imagine asking it myself, although hopefully I won't ask it going forward. How do you feel translating a work by a man writing about other men? Do you feel excluded from his fantasies? A lot of people might actually feel excluded in this situation, and understandably so. There's a certain sensitivity in the Briggs persona -- are they telling me I SHOULD feel excluded? -- and also a certain confidence: no, actually, reading is about inappropriate, improbable identifications. It's fantasy we're talking about, I imagine her thinking, and I'm entering the fantasy just as Barthes enters the fantasy, and "belonging" and "exclusion" don't really make sense in this world. What freedom!
So much, from the lectures of Dec. 1 and 8, to copy into my notebook. I loved both of these sessions, I'm feeling a little more like I can keep up with Barthes, though there's plenty that passes me by, still. Here's this gorgeous passage from p. 144: "... the Fragment as Novel... the object is already divided, supplanted by a shimmering of writing energies: Writing as a tendency means that the objects of writing appear, glitter, disappear; what remains is basically a force field." I absolutely love this without feeling like I understand it in an intellectual way... but my body understands it, and it feels like a true depiction of my own writing process, of the powerful desire to write without knowing what the writing might look like or what form it might take—such a gift. Shimmering, glitter, disappear: yes! I also love, later on the same page, his explanation of the meaning of poikilos (daubed, spotted, mottled) and the idea of a text that is "tacked together (Proust: the Work as made by a Dressmaker)"—this idea of writer-as-dressmaker that Briggs takes up, and Barthes including, in a list of types of novels, the "poikilos novel" and "the Novel of the Writing-Tendency." Oh, wow, I really need to read Proust. Plus I feel like the "poikilos novel" is an apt description of many of the books I love best. Rachel Eisendrath's Gallery of Clouds (though it's not technically a novel) is definitely one of these, Maggie Nelson's Bluets, Rebecca Reilly's Repetition.
Yes, I'm finding the reason getting a bit easier -- I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting used to the book now or if Barthes's writing is changing. I'm thinking it's the former, but maybe that's wishful thinking! I loved that line about the force field too -- give me writing that's like a force field please! I'm so glad to hear that you resonate with this description of writing, and I'm not surprised at all :) I LOVE his thoughts on the desire to write.
I have not heard of Repetition, so thank you for mentioning that one!
TLA, p. 174-181: I love this quotation: "The right to identify-with without risking the presumptuousness of comparing-oneself-to: is this not one of the basic freedoms of reading?" and I also love the fact that on the very next page, Briggs writes that maybe it's not identification she feels after all -- a questioning, refining, clarifying, swerving move she makes all the time. Following her, I feel identification in one moment -- genuinely feel it, and the word feels right, and then the next moment I agree that identification isn't quite it, or isn't all of it. That it's wanting to be with as well, or instead. I suppose how we feel about authors is so complicated, multivalent, changing, that both of these attitudes towards authors are true, perhaps true at different times. To at times feel the same as, in the same position as, and at other times to feel next to, or even opposed to (p. 181), in a productive way. I love Barthes's question, "What do I want, wanting to know you?"
And then within identification, there's this brilliant observation by Barthes (p. 137 TPON): "To pass from a loving reading to the Act of Writing is to draw out from the imaginary Identification with the text, with the beloved author (who has seduced us), not what is different to him (= the dead-end of the _effort_ of originality) but what, within me, differs from myself: the beloved stranger urges me, actively compels me to affirm the stranger who is within me, the stranger I am to myself."
And I think, in that way, Briggs can absolutely identify with Barthes: in fact, he has provided the answer, and a way to look at how literature moves us. We read not just to relate to the known self but also to see the stranger, the unknown expanse, within.
I really hope he talks some more about this!
That's so beautiful!
I love this quote too, Catherine! Somehow it's deeply affirming that, per Barthes, what we can draw from our relationship with a beloved author is something previously unknown within ourselves. Just the idea of that unknown-ness (potentially bottomless/limitless) feels like a celebration of our uniqueness and our infinite mystery, like there's always something more to be discovered, so close at hand and relatively accessible through reading and writing. Now I'm thinking again of the list of Barthes' likes and dislikes that Briggs includes and comments on, his celebration of the fact that "my body is not your body", his celebration of specificity and individuality, in himself and everyone else.
Yes! I think how we feel about authors is *so* complicated, and always shifting, as you said. I love this turning over and over the question of identification, in both Briggs and Barthes but especially Briggs. Maybe sometimes we want to be right up next to an author we love, maybe other times we need some distance—to question or to re-evaluate or to feel opposed to, as you said, in a productive way. Also I think the longer we live with an author's work, the more changeable and nuanced our relationship with them—because we are changing, because the self we bring back to their work is always different. I've had, and still have, so many different relationships with Mary Oliver in my life!
I would love to hear about your complicated relationship with Mary Oliver! :)
I'd love to talk with you about this! In a nutshell: unreservedly adored her when I first read her, then went to the opposite pole and felt critical and dismissive of what felt to me like the lack of shadow in her work (this was probably super snobby of me), then/now re-evaluating and remembering the aspects of her work I genuinely love. Now I do think there's actually a lot of shadow in her early work (Twelve Moons, American Primitive, Dream Work—which are my 3 favorite M.O. books) but I was too cranky and self-righteous to acknowledge this for a while :).
That totally makes sense -- I see the dislike of Mary Oliver that's out there and the MO love from people who aren't regular poetry readers, and I understand how people get cranky about her! I've only read American Primitive, and I liked it, but that was a while ago and I wasn't a super-experienced poetry reader (I'm still not, really). It's very cool that you've come to read her differently, again.
TLA, p. 168-173: "I would argue that this is what reading offers us: occasions for inappropriate, improbable identification. For powerful reality-suspending identification with a character, a writer, an idea, an experience, a fantasy." I'm so interested in the way the question Briggs gets on p. 169 surprised her, or struck her: have you ever felt excluded working on Barthes? The question seems well-meant -- I can imagine asking it myself, although hopefully I won't ask it going forward. How do you feel translating a work by a man writing about other men? Do you feel excluded from his fantasies? A lot of people might actually feel excluded in this situation, and understandably so. There's a certain sensitivity in the Briggs persona -- are they telling me I SHOULD feel excluded? -- and also a certain confidence: no, actually, reading is about inappropriate, improbable identifications. It's fantasy we're talking about, I imagine her thinking, and I'm entering the fantasy just as Barthes enters the fantasy, and "belonging" and "exclusion" don't really make sense in this world. What freedom!
So much, from the lectures of Dec. 1 and 8, to copy into my notebook. I loved both of these sessions, I'm feeling a little more like I can keep up with Barthes, though there's plenty that passes me by, still. Here's this gorgeous passage from p. 144: "... the Fragment as Novel... the object is already divided, supplanted by a shimmering of writing energies: Writing as a tendency means that the objects of writing appear, glitter, disappear; what remains is basically a force field." I absolutely love this without feeling like I understand it in an intellectual way... but my body understands it, and it feels like a true depiction of my own writing process, of the powerful desire to write without knowing what the writing might look like or what form it might take—such a gift. Shimmering, glitter, disappear: yes! I also love, later on the same page, his explanation of the meaning of poikilos (daubed, spotted, mottled) and the idea of a text that is "tacked together (Proust: the Work as made by a Dressmaker)"—this idea of writer-as-dressmaker that Briggs takes up, and Barthes including, in a list of types of novels, the "poikilos novel" and "the Novel of the Writing-Tendency." Oh, wow, I really need to read Proust. Plus I feel like the "poikilos novel" is an apt description of many of the books I love best. Rachel Eisendrath's Gallery of Clouds (though it's not technically a novel) is definitely one of these, Maggie Nelson's Bluets, Rebecca Reilly's Repetition.
Yes, I'm finding the reason getting a bit easier -- I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting used to the book now or if Barthes's writing is changing. I'm thinking it's the former, but maybe that's wishful thinking! I loved that line about the force field too -- give me writing that's like a force field please! I'm so glad to hear that you resonate with this description of writing, and I'm not surprised at all :) I LOVE his thoughts on the desire to write.
I have not heard of Repetition, so thank you for mentioning that one!
I love this too—what he says about the desire to write—lots of YESes to these recent lectures! And I think you might really like Repetition, Rebecca!