Also in agreement with Alana’s post, I cannot connect with Defoe’s writing in the same way as I connected with Behn’s. I chalk this up to writing style: I find his longwinded, clause-filled sentence structure to be distracting. Defoe’s thoughts seem to be all over the place; his narrative is disjointed.
Laura, I also see myself as a romantic reader. I was very excited when I saw this book on the reading list. I hadn’t read it, but I imagined it to be a sort of cross between Stephen King’s The Stand, the Resident Evil game/movie, and Joss Whedon’s Firefly series (regarding the Reavers, for those of you familiar with the plot.) Well, I was mistaken. Journal of the Plague Year, while certainly about an apocalyptic disease, lacks the emotional impact and complexity of the other works I’ve mentioned. (Can you tell I’m addicted to Pop Culture?) This book should have been harrowing and unforgettable, but instead I found it ponderous and difficult to absorb. I found myself reading a few pages, then having to go back and re-read, as nothing had sunken in.
I wonder if the emotional disconnect I feel from Defoe’s work is due to his methodical approach in writing. His style is almost journalistic in nature, except for the constant interjections of personal (dry and cumbersome) thought. Defoe’s voice is distracting, as is his seeming lack of empathy for those suffering around him. The main character seems cold to me; more concerned with possessions and economic goings on than the suffering and death surrounding him. While I applaud Defoe’s desire to chronicle the devastating events of the plague, I think his effort is strangely indifferent to the very thing he is trying to chronicle.
Sorry for the negativity, let me know your thoughts!
Monday, February 5, 2007
A lack of empathy in a Journal
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4 comments:
I'm noticing a fascinating pattern emerging here--as readers, we seem highly invested in "getting into" the prose we're reading, "connecting" with it. Many point out that it's difficult to connect with Defoe's style; I'm wondering, though, what precisely this means for us--and for our study of the novel? Is it merely his style that makes it difficult--long sentences, unfamiliar syntax, and so on? What do we "expect" from novels in general, and these novels in particular?
I'm also curious to see what happens to such questions when we consider that Defoe was, with Haywood, the best selling fiction author of his generation. These texts are foreign to us, and they should be foreign to us--I hope I never have to live in a world where 5000 people can die, in one city, in a few weeks, of a disease that we can't comprehend!
Liana makes a very interesting point near the close of her post, though--Defoe's writing is indeed "journalistic," he having worked as a journalist for a large part of his life. This might help us reimagine the earlier issue, too; how often do we "connect" with newspaper stories in the way we seem to want to with novels?
I've been told by many a professor to not read a story for plot, to keep an emotional distance. Apparently, this lack of investment helps in understanding the devices at work in the prose. By not investing yourself in a story, the mechanics of the writing are more clear.
Unfortunately, try as I might, I cannot distance myself from things that I read. In the same way that I cannot ignore the lyrics in a song, the words of prose that I am reading evoke reactions from me. Positive, negative, emotional, etc., I'm not an impartial reader. LOL- I don't know how to train myself out of this!!
I think that this is part of why we, as English students, have continued our study of Literature. (Forgive me if I am unreasonably assuming.) Literature offers an escape, or an alternative to reality. I think that it IS primarily Defoe's writing style that hinders this idea of connecting with what we are reading. Not so much the syntax (although it is unfamiliar), as it is his personal spin on things. His account is detailed, factually acurate, and informative, but in a dry sort of way. He (although portraying himself as a participant in this tragedy) writes as an uninvolved witness. He is emotionally neutral to the horrors around him, and comes across as callous and selfish. To a modern reader, specifically used to fiction that actively seeks to emotionally invest a reader, Defoe's sort of fiction is almost disturbing in its lack of identifiable emotion.
Journalists, today, report on horrors and tragedies every day. I think a large part of why news is important today is not simply for the value of knowing what is going on in the world around you, but also the element of catharsis. We, the audience, can see the horrible events going on, and have our emotional reactions in a safe environment. Then we can move on with our lives, while breathing a sigh of relief that we are not so unfortunate.
Defoe's status as a best selling author is notable in that he spoke in a way his audience was used to. Manipulation by the media was not a common place theme in Defoe's time. (Although Defoe manipulated his audience to buy his book.) When he wrote this book, the plague was still cropping up in places - he provided an "account" of a survivor. His "surviving" gave the masses hope that they, too, could survive this mysterious disease. Notably, Defoe marketed this book as a TRUE record by a survivor, not a fiction by a best selling author. His marketing gave this book in authenticity that it didn't deserve.
Note: I meant "...AN authenticity it didn't deserve" in the last sentence!
I definitely see your point, Liana! And I hope we never do lose that engagement in a good story--after all, there is something fantastic about it. But it's also important that we realize how much our tastes are themselves historically contingent experiences. In many cases, tastes can be an excellent way in--especially if you're unfamiliar with something. But we also have to distinguish what it is we do when we're not expected to say anything about a novel, and what it is we do when we discuss it in graduate school, or write a critical essay, or... Does that make sense? Of course literature is--or should be--something enjoyable, but if we don't question what we mean by that, then we're not doing ourselves, or the texts we're reading, or the historical contexts from which both are situated the justice so richly deserved.
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