Silence

Silence

I am going to compare the inhuman in the 4 works assign for this discussion period.

Starting with Camus’ Between yes and no I would like to point out the idea of the inhuman.

The first inhuman On page 30, “If it is true that they only paradises are those we have lost, I know what name to give the tender inhuman something that dwells in me today” suggests an otherworldly state. The second inhuman is an animal like state. This animal otherness is first made visible in the description of the canary yellow Lions on the wall of the deserted cafe,page 31.  The animal like state is brought up again on page 33, “this animal silence makes him want to cry with pain.”  The Arab Cafe owners eyes staring at him from the corner is an image repeated and made inhuman by the description of an apartment filled with dead and dying kittens on page 37, “the demented glow-in-the cats green eyes as it crouched Motionless in the corner.”

The idea of inhuman is used in the Silence of the Sea as well.  The German soldier in describing JS Bach’s music on pgs 81-82.  “Outside man- outside human flesh. That makes us understand, no, not understand but guess... No: have a presentiment... have a presentiment of what nature is... of what - stripped bare -  is the divine and unknowable nature of the human soul. Yes, it's inhuman music.” “...it’s like the presence of God  in me…”   The German soldier also states that Bach’s homeland of Germany has an “inhuman character… a different scale to man…”  On page 75 Ebrennac describes Germany in the other inhuman way while his contrasting description of France is quite human. “My home reminds me of a powerful thickset bull which needs all its strength keep alive. Here everything is intelligence and subtle poetic thought.  Animal like “inhuman stare of a horned owl”  is used to describe the look in the niece’s eyes as she looks at the German Soldier near the end of Silence of the sea.  Her uncle also ascribes a “catlike power of divination” to women in general.

The work of Pizarnik combine both understandings of inhuman: of a different scale than human, otherworldly, godlike, madness and animal like animal as metaphor for human desire, sex, bonds, and intuition.  I am hard pressed to find a concise quote but perhaps,” The real celebrations take place in the body and in dreams.” pg. 79 sums it up a bit.  The body being our animalistic selves and the dream being the other- worldly dimension. The artist is inhuman on both levels?  Pizarnik seems to be writing a lucid dream or nightmare of artistic fever.

Silence by Kawabata gets at the idea of inhuman through Ghosts, isolation, possession.

Akifusa “refuses” to speak and thus the ones surrounding him speak for him.  Tomiko acts as if her father is speaking, does she really understand what he wants? Mr. Mita also starts to speak to and for Akifusa.  He gets to an almost rhapsodic understanding of the meaning of words in his unfolding monologue with the man in the sickbed.  If a t could be the most momentous thin the mute writer could ever write then perhaps silence is the most meaningful.  The ghost story suggests that to speak with a ghost then you are doomed to be possessed.  I believe that Tomiko and her mute father have a ghost possessed relationship.  Mr. Mita is also being pulled in through his conversations with Tomiko. The presence of the ghost riding in a car with three people suggests that there is something unusual afoot.

It is certainly not stated but...Because, they spoke to him and then for him.  How do they know what he wants or is it a group fantasy and pretend game.  Yes we think we know, we posit we stumble and yammer on.  Talking to yourself is like talking to no one?  The daughter, the good daughter, the visitor thinks he will betray the mute writer’s words and history- where did that thought come from.  Was he possessed?  She says yes father I will offer him sake- who spoke?  No one- she IS the father.  He has possessed the daughters frail form- he is now she that tends to his mute writer’s body.  (S)he will write the first I book for them.  She tells the visitor that he should look seek out the ghost- the author says that is a strange thing to say.  When she leaves the room the visitor is the one possessed by the idea of writing for the mute…  If I were making a movie of this story that is definitely the angle I would take.

Mari-

In Vercors Le silence de la Mer Werner von Ebrennac confession is testified by the uncle: "I silently finished my pipe. I coughed a bit and said, "It may be inhuman to refuse him a single word. " (Vercors pg 19) "…an endless monologue; because not once did he attempt to obtain from us an answer, an acquiescence, or even a glance." (Vercors pg 21)

I appreciate your viewpoint.  The Pizarnik touched me deeply but it is difficult to put into words.  Silence contemplation, appreciation are sometimes the most suitable response.

Kathryn-

In Vercors’ Silence of the Sea, there are things thought but unsaid, or said only with knowing glances and other forms of body language. The uncle testifies to his niece’s complicated resolve to maintain silent resistance, in the face of the german occupation of their house in the body of the soldier, Werner von Ebrennac, “as if the officer didn’t exist, as if he had been a ghost” (74) but confesses that at one point he “lost all resistance,” and broke the silence. (90) The soldier tells of his meeting with German officers and confesses disillusionment when the reality of war thwarts his fantasy of a marriage between French and German culture (as perverse as it was) The writing of this novel itself, is in tension with its intent to testify without being detected.

The ghost connection to Kawabata and Silence of the Sea.  If you speak to the ghost you will be possessed.  The niece was possessed with feeling that is why she spoke.  The use of "Adieu" by both was the spoken conviction that this was goodbye forever, and the only words ever spoken on her part.

Ayo-

Not just a blanket for the environment, but this silence lays there and is the actual environment itself.

(this is a beautiful image so is the S curve between one and the (m)other.)

I also see silence materializing “It became thicker and thicker” (pg 43), or “Tacit agreement we had decided” (pg 46) which leads me to understand an unspoken, yet palpable tug of energy between to two parties, in agreement with each other, a confession. (or a conspiracy?)

I found the driving force of silence to be rooted in power and influence. It is simply an agreement to something that holds no space, but can be perceived to move and create just like an object. (the power of art, or a ghost, magician, hypnotist, or witch.)

Tyler- Vercor brings layers to the individual and the basis of looking into the mirror.   “Everything that I have said in these six months, everything that the walls of this room have heard…”He took a deep breath as laboriously as an aesmatic and kept his lungs full for a moment. “You must …” He breathed out again: “You must forget it all.” (P.91) Gazing into the individuality of the character and the agony within his discovery his new reflection shows the prior naivete and returns to Camus’s, “It’s men who complicate things.” (39) All characters have their own simplistic ideas, but continue to complicate the situations individually.

I can't find it now- but there was something about frightening yourself in the mirror. Something like becoming a soldier and then frightening yourself by the change in the mirror?

The idea of confession/ testimony not interchangeable but related.  Are you compelled to do both, is the motivation different.  If it is for consumption by others it is testimony, but when you expect no response as is the case for the soldier and Tomiko, does it move to the realm of confession? I respect the talking around and through the thoughts by Camus and some of the others we have read- the soldier, the visitor.  It is like riding someone’s thoughts.  Words do not say what we mean, they point to the place where our thought have been. “What does it mean to translate yourself into words?”, Pizarnik. History is owned by the ones speaking it.  The now owns everything.  Confession art.  Art that must be spoken, written, performed, created.  Must like a pious Catholic must go to mass and confession.  Maybe it is just a ritual but how would I/we know.   

The you happens eventually- The mother of the author of between yes and no, she thinks about nothing-  seeing your children is like breathing.  Maybe she is not thinking because She is not pondering she is doing the best she can every second.  Children do not realize they are separate from their mothers for a while.  Mothers know they are both separate and one.

Statues- women, broken statues, silent appraised but not addressed.  She sat like a statue and the soldier gazed at her face while he spoke.  He would turn and look at the Uncle but would pause, would close.  The flowing of speak came with the inanimate, cold, not -gaze-returning, silent niece.  

Oh what light, what he says when she looks back at him.  Like a religious revelation.  It is interesting the name given to the English editions during wartime, Put out the light, kill the soul, “there is no Hope” That light that shines from her eyes. That crossing of borders, the intersection of confessor to testifier- the confession of his guilt in the plot of his country, his testifying to the once mute niece and uncle.

“You wear the costume of a young assassin, yet you scare yourself in the mirror”, 73 Pizarnik

“Wolf deposits…”73 Piz

I speak the way I speak inside”, 71 Piz

“After prostrating myself before the pain of others, after silencing myself in honor of everyone else”, 79 Piz

History is the present- silence 170, kawabata