it is a pleasure to exchange ideas with you. i gotta tell, however,
that i don't eat mcdonald's hamburgers. no way o.
anyway, in response to your points:
very nice to bring in the readers' expectations. a few years ago a
french theorist wrote an important book called The Autobiographical
Contract, saying something close to what you said. he said, when you
read an autobiography, that is, a book that presents itself to the
reader as an autobiography, we, the readers, expect that the account
of the life of the author will be a truthful account of that life as
the author recounts it.
we also know we can have unreliable authors, like unreliable
narrators, who can trick the reader. that changes the nature of the
book, but it can happen only if the reader comes to the text with
expectations. and you are right to say we do expect certain things
when we pick up a book. the publisher does play a role in meeting
those expectations. however, what you expect from the book are not
necessarily things i, as reader, expect. for instance, accurate
history. no, not in a novel. and in a history text it isn't as much
the accuracy of the historian's account that i expect as much as a
given approach that will hopefully give me enlightenment on a topic.
i do not address the book or publisher as a site of authority whose
versions or understandings are necessarily valuable, much less valid.
i think that is where we differ; i need to be convinced as i read; i
am not assuming anything particularly valuable ahead of time, though
i am always hopeful.
\i saw a great film by a brazilian director, suzanna amaral, some
years ago, called hour of the star. this summer i saw her new film.
it was weak. expectations don't always mean anything. the interesting
thing here is how much the publisher, or producer, remains invisible
in this process.one of the best books i've read lately by adele king
deals with the politics of the publishers of french lit in the 1950s.
amazing book. and you learn that, well, camara laye published with a
pro-colonialist press which had a bearing on all the decisions
concerning publication; in contrast with mongo beti and presence
africaine. the naive reader picks up l'enfant noir thinking they will
learning something about the real africa; they are actually learning
something about the real mediation of africa across the desks of
french editors and publishers, and behind them the entire apparatus
of the french political orientation, and its tensions, in the late
colonial period.
you know, we taught that novel for years, i dare say, ALL of us, as
if it were a pure unmediated vision of life in africa. only mongo
beti complained about its politics, and no one really listened to him
there. my point is that even if every word laye wrote was true (which
is contested), there is still a larger, underlying issue of the mode
of representation, the choices of what to write and how to present
them, which ultimately convey, unstated, an ideology. we accept it;
we are interpellated and respond, here i am, i now know everything
about africa. apply this to things fall apart, and you can see how
the issue isno longer simple as achebe desired.
like everyone, i try to keep up at least somewhat on what is hot and
not in african lit. i very much like your suggestion of turning to
non-official sites for texts.
my own recent work is on cinema, and i for one am grateful that i can
get a look at nollywood films on youtube. i really agree that much
new and exciting work is being done off the rails of the main tracks.
as for africa never being far from the consciousness of expats, well,
you and i can't speak for everyone. maybe it is true for many, but
certainly not everyone. and then there are the children, who change
everything. had baingana's heroine stayed in california, married an
hispanic man from guatemala, had 4 kids whom she had to shuttle to
soccor every day, made brownies for school, etc etc.... well, maybe
home would begin to fade a little; maybe she would become a
stepdaughter of california and tegucigalpa, learned a little spanish,
had two new parents-in-law, lots of new cousins; just like a certain
ghost whose dilemma was in knowing where was home. wait a minute,
that's not right
ken
ken
At 02:57 PM 7/21/2010, you wrote:
>"can't we say, however, that there is more than one thing to be true
>to in your
>writing? you can be true to yourself, even your self as a thief, and
>as such be
>a great writer. most people would find that to be the case for genet, or de
>sade, etc. i think the ordinary understanding of truth overly limits
>us in our
>ability to respond to a text, be it a poem or anything. or maybe i
>should say we
>can respond to a text on many levels, one of which, under some circumstances,
>entails the immediate political instance, like obote in uganda.
>i have heard many african filmmakers take this position, that they are not
>mouthpieces for "africa," that their sense of themselves need not be given in
>terms of whatever "africa" means to others. you know we are
>discussing the same
>issue as negritude and race, and how many black writers who wanted to be read
>not as testifying to the black condition just because they happened
>to have dark
>skin! start with richard wright or ralph ellison on that one."
>
>- Ken Harrow
>
>Hi Ken,
>
>Fair enough, there is not much to quibble about in what you have written.
>Missing in our discussion however is the critical role of the audience, the
>reader. I think we must not underestimate what the reader literally brings to
>the table, in terms of expectations, background, biases, etc, etc. Is it fair
>for a consumer to expect certain things out of a product? Yes. For example, I
>personally expect that a book from a reputable publisher should be
>grounded in
>verifiable historical facts and should be free of editing issues (grammatical
>errors, typos, etc). That is what editors are for. More importantly, a book
>should provoke thought in the reader and promote good questions.
>Unfortunately,
>many times expressing those thoughts has earned many a reader accusations of
>trying to censor or determine thought and ideas.
>
>
>There is such an animal called an African writer and there is such an
>animal called a writer who happens to be of African descent and the
>sets are not
>necessarily mutually exclusive. The former is born from Africa's historical
>legacy and troubled present. Some writers can afford to look out the window
>of suburbia and write pretty poems about daffodils and deer and get them
>published in the New Yorker. Baingana makes the eloquent case that
>if you are a
>thinking African, no matter where you are, be it in Babylon or
>Entebbe, Africa
>is not too far away from the consciousness. We can do both - write about
>deer gambolling on our lawns and of our thieving colleagues making away with
>money for building maternity wards. We can also write about hope
>rising steamy,
>from Africa. My opinion of course.
>
>Ken, I must applaud you for the profound point you have made thusly: "on a
>slightly different tack, obote, like amin, had his followers as well
>as enemies.
>we have seen already on this list various ways of reading the
>biafran conflict
>and its aftermath; no surprise in that.
>maybe we can say there is no such thing as one truth, since when you stand on
>one leg.... you know the rest." Brilliant. I would only add this:
>You are right,
>it is of course tempting to romanticize the writer as a dreamy eyed idealist
>resting only on truth-benches. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our
>writers have written for dictators, continue to share wine and break
>bread with
>them. And of course when it suits their purposes, they ignore, with powerful
>words, the atrocities committed by their friends and relatives. It
>is an abuse
>of power. The power of empty words.
>
>Ken, have you thought of introducing the new literature in your classes? Have
>you been on Facebook yet? Have you been on the websites and blogs
>that celebrate
>our literature daily? Do not knock it until you have tried it! You would be
>pleasantly surprised by the quality of writing that comes from
>writers who are
>not too enamored of themselves, not overly conscious that they must carry a
>certain burden. They express themselves truly as the sum of their lived
>experience. And it shows in their works. They just don't know (or care) that
>they are writers ;-) These days I do more web-surfing and blackberry reading
>than I do of books. And some day, perhaps, I will be sharing my
>views of the new
>content, instead of having a debate about the ideas in a book that
>were already
>dead before the book landed in my mailbox. If you want to know for
>examply how
>Facebook has forcefully redefined the notion of exile, log on to one of your
>immigrant friends' facebook and see the new world. All 500 million
>of us. A new
>continent is born everyday on Facebook. Screw boundaries, Arizona, welcome to
>our world ;-)
>
>I salute you. McDonalds' calls. Time to flip those burgers!
>
>- Ikhide
>
>
>--
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Kenneth W. Harrow
Distinguished Professor of English
Michigan State University
harrow@msu.edu
517 803-8839
fax 517 353 3755
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