Time is such an interesting concept, and Slaughterhouse-Five definitely shows that. The whole book is written out of order, but it has an almost linear sense to it, and you come away with a feeling of completeness. It's almost like how the Tralfamadorian novels are written. You have these series of vignettes, little passages and moments separated by dots, and sometimes the moments connect and sometimes they don't. But when you look at all the moments from above, after completion of the novel, you really see the depth and, as the Tralfamadorians describe, "an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep" (Vonnegut 112).
I think the Tralfamadorian idea of time is really cool and I wish I could see in four dimensions so that I could really experience Tralfamadorian time. It's intriguing, especially since it's so hard to think of time in such a manner. We're so used to thinking of time as a strict progeression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.
Sorry. Doctor Who reference. Couldn't resist.
But anyways, it actually is kind of hard to think of time in any other way but linear since we can't, or at least can't seem to, experience it any other way. Like, the thing that most attracts me to the Tralfamadorian way of viewing time is the whole "so it goes" thing; the idea that nobody is ever truly dead. You're always living because you have all the moments before your death. So what is death even? Just the end of the body. The person still exists, has always existed, and will always exist. And that just seems so beautiful to me. But why is it so beautiful? Because from my linear perspective, a death really is the end of a person. True, there are memories, but memories are only in your mind and you can't experience them as moments like the Tralfamadorians can. So this whole idea of basically eternal life just seems so out there and so wonderful, though to the Tralfamadorians it wouldn't be anything special at all. It's just how things are.
I do have this feeling, though, that the Tralfamadorian idea of time is actually the correct one. I have no idea what science is saying right now, but I just feel like time can't be linear. I feel like time is just existing, that is, everything that ever happened, is happening, and ever will happen is happening right now. All of history, all at once. It's just, we can't perceive it. There are some sort of barriers, and I suppose that comes from our lack of a fourth dimension sense. But I just feel like things can't just happen and then be done. That makes it sound like time dies. I dunno. I'm sort of rambling now, but I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the Tralfamadorian idea of time is wonderful, and most likely correct, but it's so hard for us to think about time in that way because of our own linear bias.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Written in Jazz
When we were reading Ragtime, we talked about how it was written like the music itself. There was syncopation and the words flowed together in the rhythm of ragtime. Mumbo Jumbo is the same way, only its music is jazz. Upon first reading Mumbo Jumbo, the sentences seem like utter nonsense. Grammar and syntax are all wrong, and there are all these made up words that don't make any sense. Reading and trying to understand what's going makes your head heart. But you can't read it to really understand it; you have to hear it.
When you read sentences aloud like, "Sprawled upon his knees is Zuzu, local doo-wack-a-doo and voo-do-dee-odo fizgig" (Reed 3) you think, "What is he even talking about?" The words make no sense. Doo-wack-a-doo? Fizgig? But when you think about them in relation to music, it all makes sense. The words are scatting. It's jazz improvisation literally written on to the page, and when this sentence is read aloud it sounds like music. I find that when you read parts of Mumbo Jumbo out loud, sentences and paragraphs that once were confusing, are now understandable, and it's because Mumbo Jumbo is written in jazz. You have to listen to jazz to get the full experience and understand what it's saying, and it's the same with Mumbo Jumbo. It's really marvelous how the sentences actually flow together rhythmically, interspersed with scat and other jazz improvisations. Reed is making music with words.
The jazz literary style of Mumbo Jumbo also helps to convey the time period and the plot. It feels like the 1920's when you read the sentences, and you can practically hear someone wailing on a trumpet in the background. But the jazz style also really helps with identifying with and understanding Jes Grew. Like jazz, Jes Grew is free and flowing, prone to changes and improvisations. People make Jes Grew what they want it to be just like how they play or sing a song however they want to in jazz. Similarly, both can not be captured on the page or in a text. Honestly, you lose the meaning of scat if you literally write out on sheet music "dot da ba da da ba zoop zop whee" because it takes away all the improvisation and spontaneous feeling and emotion that scat provides. (You can see my previous post for why Jes Grew can not be contained in a text.)
I love the idea of writing in music, and I think that if I had listened to Mumbo Jumbo on audiotape, I would've enjoyed it much more, understand it better, and gotten a whole lot more out of it than I actually did. I always felt I knew what was going on more in the book if passages were read out loud than if I read them on my own, and I think it's really because of the jazz style. It's hard and difficult to read jazz, but listening to it is as easy and breezy as sop op di dop bop wow zee.
When you read sentences aloud like, "Sprawled upon his knees is Zuzu, local doo-wack-a-doo and voo-do-dee-odo fizgig" (Reed 3) you think, "What is he even talking about?" The words make no sense. Doo-wack-a-doo? Fizgig? But when you think about them in relation to music, it all makes sense. The words are scatting. It's jazz improvisation literally written on to the page, and when this sentence is read aloud it sounds like music. I find that when you read parts of Mumbo Jumbo out loud, sentences and paragraphs that once were confusing, are now understandable, and it's because Mumbo Jumbo is written in jazz. You have to listen to jazz to get the full experience and understand what it's saying, and it's the same with Mumbo Jumbo. It's really marvelous how the sentences actually flow together rhythmically, interspersed with scat and other jazz improvisations. Reed is making music with words.
The jazz literary style of Mumbo Jumbo also helps to convey the time period and the plot. It feels like the 1920's when you read the sentences, and you can practically hear someone wailing on a trumpet in the background. But the jazz style also really helps with identifying with and understanding Jes Grew. Like jazz, Jes Grew is free and flowing, prone to changes and improvisations. People make Jes Grew what they want it to be just like how they play or sing a song however they want to in jazz. Similarly, both can not be captured on the page or in a text. Honestly, you lose the meaning of scat if you literally write out on sheet music "dot da ba da da ba zoop zop whee" because it takes away all the improvisation and spontaneous feeling and emotion that scat provides. (You can see my previous post for why Jes Grew can not be contained in a text.)
I love the idea of writing in music, and I think that if I had listened to Mumbo Jumbo on audiotape, I would've enjoyed it much more, understand it better, and gotten a whole lot more out of it than I actually did. I always felt I knew what was going on more in the book if passages were read out loud than if I read them on my own, and I think it's really because of the jazz style. It's hard and difficult to read jazz, but listening to it is as easy and breezy as sop op di dop bop wow zee.
When Containing Something Kills It
A lot of Mumbo Jumbo was spent trying to find the text for Jes Grew. In the end, the text was burned, yet Jes Grew survived. It was thought that Jes Grew needed that text for survival, when in fact the opposite was true. Jes Grew didn't need the text, and in fact it never needed it. Jes Grew needs to be free, because if it is not, then that is when Jes Grew truly dies.
It's like with the Art Detention stuff. Museums are thought to be places where history and culture are preserved for all to know and learn about. They're supposed to be good things, educational and necessary. After all, without museums, some history and cultures may have been lost, wouldn't they? Museums are meant to preserve, aren't they? And yet, looking at museums from an Art Detention point of view, that is not what a museum should be doing at all. Instead of letting history and culture live, they're kept locked up behind glass walls, frozen in time and space. One may think they're experiencing history, but in fact they are merely observing and interpreting. I mean, staring at a jug from Ancient Greece is one thing, using it is another. You can't have an experience when things are locked up. The uses and importance of things actually seem to fade in captivity. No longer is art or dance or music something that is to be experienced, it is something to be observed and studied from a distance. But that just kills all the life in a culture. Music...you can't just pin down music to beats and notes and measures. When you do that, you lose all the feeling and emotion. Yes, the theory is important, but you could never have the theory and just listen to the music and be moved. You see what I mean? Culture is something that needs to be experienced to live. It can't be locked up or pinned down to a study. That's killing culture.
That's how Jes Grew is. If you give Jes Grew a text, then you've suddenly decided what Jes Grew is and it can never change. Jes Grew will always be those words on a page. What changes is the interpretation of those words. Jes Grew becomes something you must study, like the Bible. The Bible takes religion and puts it into a set of rules and guidelines, stories and legends, but they're all just words, words that no one dares to change because they are seen as sacred. So what do we do if we disagree with what the words say? We study, we try to re-interpret the text, but no matter what we do, the text stays the same. If a religion didn't have a text, it could possibly be more spiritual because it is something to be experienced, not studied. I see Jes Grew as a religion, well actually, a sense of spirituality. It moves people, it has power and sway, and can be virtually anything to anyone who wants it. That's how Jes Grew can move from person to person, because it does something different for each individual. If Jes Grew had a text, there would be limitations on what Jes Grew could be. Parts of Jes Grew would die off because the text would not allow them to exist. Jes Grew needs to live and be experienced. That's what it can't have a text.
It's such an interesting thought, because we so often think that things need to be contained in order for them to be understood and passed on. But we never stop to think about the consequences of doing such a thing. Containing something kills it. What you must do is let it be free. Let it live. Experience life. Don't study it.
It's like with the Art Detention stuff. Museums are thought to be places where history and culture are preserved for all to know and learn about. They're supposed to be good things, educational and necessary. After all, without museums, some history and cultures may have been lost, wouldn't they? Museums are meant to preserve, aren't they? And yet, looking at museums from an Art Detention point of view, that is not what a museum should be doing at all. Instead of letting history and culture live, they're kept locked up behind glass walls, frozen in time and space. One may think they're experiencing history, but in fact they are merely observing and interpreting. I mean, staring at a jug from Ancient Greece is one thing, using it is another. You can't have an experience when things are locked up. The uses and importance of things actually seem to fade in captivity. No longer is art or dance or music something that is to be experienced, it is something to be observed and studied from a distance. But that just kills all the life in a culture. Music...you can't just pin down music to beats and notes and measures. When you do that, you lose all the feeling and emotion. Yes, the theory is important, but you could never have the theory and just listen to the music and be moved. You see what I mean? Culture is something that needs to be experienced to live. It can't be locked up or pinned down to a study. That's killing culture.
That's how Jes Grew is. If you give Jes Grew a text, then you've suddenly decided what Jes Grew is and it can never change. Jes Grew will always be those words on a page. What changes is the interpretation of those words. Jes Grew becomes something you must study, like the Bible. The Bible takes religion and puts it into a set of rules and guidelines, stories and legends, but they're all just words, words that no one dares to change because they are seen as sacred. So what do we do if we disagree with what the words say? We study, we try to re-interpret the text, but no matter what we do, the text stays the same. If a religion didn't have a text, it could possibly be more spiritual because it is something to be experienced, not studied. I see Jes Grew as a religion, well actually, a sense of spirituality. It moves people, it has power and sway, and can be virtually anything to anyone who wants it. That's how Jes Grew can move from person to person, because it does something different for each individual. If Jes Grew had a text, there would be limitations on what Jes Grew could be. Parts of Jes Grew would die off because the text would not allow them to exist. Jes Grew needs to live and be experienced. That's what it can't have a text.
It's such an interesting thought, because we so often think that things need to be contained in order for them to be understood and passed on. But we never stop to think about the consequences of doing such a thing. Containing something kills it. What you must do is let it be free. Let it live. Experience life. Don't study it.
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