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[Warning this post is filled with horrid typos and I'm too lazy right now to go back and edit it. So if you hate that? Skip.]
The following passage is from Proust's "Du cote du chez Swann" or "Swann's Way", as translated by Lydia Davis:
[The narrator has innocently conveyed to his parents a pleasant encounter he had with his uncle and his uncle's lady of the evening aka 'mistress'. His parents reacte as one would expect, distressed and horrified. But the passage is in essence about a lesson the narrator learned, a sort of epiphany about human nature and communication. How the information we wish to convey is often not received in the way it was originally intended.]
I imagined, like everyone else, that the brain of another person was an inert and docile receptacle, without the power to react specifically to what one produced into it; and I did not doubt that in depositing in my parents' brains the news of the acquaintance I had made through my uncle, I was transmitting to them at the same time, as I wished to, the kindly opinion that I had of the introduction. My parents unfortunately deferred to principles entirely different from those I was suggesting they adopt, when they wished to appraise my uncle's action.
The passage gave me what can best be described as one of those "AH-HAH" moments last night while reading it. Actually I'd read it the night before as well, loved it so much, that I went back and re-read the last ten pages proceeding it - so I could understand what happened. (Have discovered it is close to impossible to read Proust, when one's mind is worrying over or at other things.) At any rate, what I thought was - oh, yes, that's the problem when watch or read art - we carry along our own experience and baggage and our own expectations. What we think may not be what was intended and what ensues is a sort of battle between the reader of the work and the author of it - over what it means. Leaving the artist feeling a bit befuddled and at times frustrated, wondering, I'm certain, if there is much point to creating the work at all.
Just finished reading an excellent review in The New Yorker regarding the new TV show of the moment, Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip. Why, you ask is this show getting so much critical attention, while other new shows such as Shark, The Nine, Six Degrees, Jericho, the Class, etc are getting so little? Ah. Because of the shows premiering this season it is the only one that is not copying an old motif.
( Review of Studio 60 on Sunset Strip, cut for spoilers )
The following passage is from Proust's "Du cote du chez Swann" or "Swann's Way", as translated by Lydia Davis:
[The narrator has innocently conveyed to his parents a pleasant encounter he had with his uncle and his uncle's lady of the evening aka 'mistress'. His parents reacte as one would expect, distressed and horrified. But the passage is in essence about a lesson the narrator learned, a sort of epiphany about human nature and communication. How the information we wish to convey is often not received in the way it was originally intended.]
I imagined, like everyone else, that the brain of another person was an inert and docile receptacle, without the power to react specifically to what one produced into it; and I did not doubt that in depositing in my parents' brains the news of the acquaintance I had made through my uncle, I was transmitting to them at the same time, as I wished to, the kindly opinion that I had of the introduction. My parents unfortunately deferred to principles entirely different from those I was suggesting they adopt, when they wished to appraise my uncle's action.
The passage gave me what can best be described as one of those "AH-HAH" moments last night while reading it. Actually I'd read it the night before as well, loved it so much, that I went back and re-read the last ten pages proceeding it - so I could understand what happened. (Have discovered it is close to impossible to read Proust, when one's mind is worrying over or at other things.) At any rate, what I thought was - oh, yes, that's the problem when watch or read art - we carry along our own experience and baggage and our own expectations. What we think may not be what was intended and what ensues is a sort of battle between the reader of the work and the author of it - over what it means. Leaving the artist feeling a bit befuddled and at times frustrated, wondering, I'm certain, if there is much point to creating the work at all.
Just finished reading an excellent review in The New Yorker regarding the new TV show of the moment, Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip. Why, you ask is this show getting so much critical attention, while other new shows such as Shark, The Nine, Six Degrees, Jericho, the Class, etc are getting so little? Ah. Because of the shows premiering this season it is the only one that is not copying an old motif.
( Review of Studio 60 on Sunset Strip, cut for spoilers )
