We have made a constant and recurring theme in class discussion about how the author is important to the comprehension of the work. In the case of Clara in Wieland, we mentioned how she might have made her character seem far more brave and rational than she truly was. In True History, we approach the question of how valid Ned's defense of his unlawful actions can be. Never before, however, have we been thrown this ball within the novel. In GBF, when Gould comes across the written dream of Jorgen Jorgensen, and his consequent reaction to that - all he had seen & known, all he had witnessed & suffered, was now as lost & meaningless as a dream that dissolves on waking - we are shown how important the author can be to reality. Gould is unshamedly sick knowing that the reality of life, along with his dream given to life is condemned to be forgotten. I guess that we should take from this that manhandling reality through fiction is a sickening thing? If we are to take that conclusion, it's important to note that Gould himself is also making himself a historical writer, writing his own fictions as truth.
As important is what Capois Death says about freedom within the space of memory - as I interpreted it, when something is written, it cannot be revised as thoroughly as when it remains in our memories and we can forget that things have happened. Things can be unseen in our memory. By this, all writers of history, true or not, are gaolers, delimiting the range of motion of the recollection of the past.
If Gould, as well as Jorgensen, is a jailer, I suppose the important thing is who is jailing who, and if anyone has the right to. In the sense that both of their interpretations of sarah island have survived (if that jorgensen's is the one that the historians go by in the first part), neither of the jailers are completely successful in their work. The party that is completely jailed is that of the people who have no writing in history. A (jailer/writer) can. as we said clara did, (incarcerate/write) himself (into a posh cell/in as a hero), but those who don't write have to suffer being labeled by the author.
I don't know if i can say anything ultimately truthful about rights, but it would seem fair to say that the common fairness of the jail of history is the truth, a thing neither Gould nor Jorgensen has written.
This is a very interesting point, and I think this all comes back to how the narrator always has some kind of bias. Gould's point of view is very confused to begin with, and the addition of other points of view within his own jumbled story just throws a new twist into the story. Gould seems to not have a clear sense of self, and this causes him to blur the line between what is real and what is in his head, as is the case with the fish. This confusion also causes him to be unsure of himself, and puts him in to panic when he feels like he has no place in the world. Gould's confusion adds another element to the book that must be considered when reading the story, as he does not seem to be able to differentiate between reality and fantasy. This case is different from the other books we have read in that Gould is unable to differentiate while the others biased their stories intentionally for their own purposes. And then there is always the question of Sid Hammet and whether or not he is tweaking Gould's story as he retells it.
ReplyDeleteI have always been critical of the lack of credibility this book's narrators have, as there are too many "layers" the narration is forced through - each time reducing its credibility. The way I interpreted this book is that is is all non sense in the sense that he is not trying to write an accurate history. From the very beginning of the book the scholarly professor dismisses the entire book of fish as a fraud. Therefore, I see this novel as merely a way to cope with the reality that surrounds Gould. If drawing pictures and making up stories and swimming around with dead bodies is what gets him through the day, then so be it. I feel Gould's repeated focus on not looking into books and art too deeply supports this theory as he does not want one to search for meaning in every sentence of the novel. Instead, he wants portray the harsh conditions and the fact that coping with such a life is difficult and overwhelming - leading to people to write books about fish.
ReplyDelete