"It is not that Buck is really human, or that humans are really animals; I am not interested in drawing easy equivalences. What I am positing is that if Buck can be inserted into humanist equations, like Hegel’s, and remain a dog (or, in other words, if Buck can survive being made a metaphor for the merely human), the possibility for a literary understanding of human/animal relations becomes possible and promising; for if our goal is a different future, posthuman or not, and if that future depends upon reconceptualizing the human, without, on the one hand, falling back on nihilism (in which humans have no value, as such), or on the other, fulfilling the equally terrifying dream of an all-too-human future (in which humans are over-valued, as such), then we must begin to imagine, in our stories, and read into the ones that have already been written, the possibility that becoming human, or becoming animal, might at least avoid the inevitability of one “becoming” only at the expense of the other."
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Something I wrote today
Any readers of Hegel out there? Or London?
Monday, November 3, 2008
A boy's dream
I was reading this today and thought I'd share:
This is from an old essay by Leslie Fiedler, a prominent literary critic from the 60's and 70's. His Love and Death in the American Novel is one of my favorite pieces of literary criticism, even if its approach is a bit outdated (unfortunately, literary critics often take themselves too seriously, and as a result disqualify themselves from this type of off-the-cuff, if careless, commentary--commentary I find refreshing and permissible since, after all, we are not scientists).
I offer up this excerpt on the eve of another election because it contains a humor that is always dangerous to politics. Put under this light, viewed from this perspective, the mythic image of American history recedes back into a more chaotic reality, in which countries are born on whims and chance, and not necessarily fate or providence.
Whatever happens tomorrow, may we all retain our senses of humor, the most powerful weapon we have to fight off (or point out?) the absurdity of politics, and life.
...the late entry of America into Western history meant that out national existence began at precisely the same moment as the novel itself, and that we have no prehistory (except as we attach ourselves to a larger Anglo-Saxon tradition) of Epic or Poetic Tragedy. Even our underlying national mythos is a Pop Myth and our Revolution consequently a Pop Revolution, as compared, for instance, with either the French or Russian Revolutions, which began with ideological disputes and the formulation of high-level manifestoes. Our own War of Independence, on the contrary, began not with abstract ideas at all (though later we composed idological documents to justify a fait accompli), but with a group of quite grown-up men dressing up like Indians and dumping into Boston Harbor that supreme symbol of effete European civilization, British tea. It is an event cued by a boy's dream, only later translated into the Declaration of Independence under the auspices of Thomas Jefferson, himself a small boy in love with gadgets, though he fancied himself a displaced philosophe.
This is from an old essay by Leslie Fiedler, a prominent literary critic from the 60's and 70's. His Love and Death in the American Novel is one of my favorite pieces of literary criticism, even if its approach is a bit outdated (unfortunately, literary critics often take themselves too seriously, and as a result disqualify themselves from this type of off-the-cuff, if careless, commentary--commentary I find refreshing and permissible since, after all, we are not scientists).
I offer up this excerpt on the eve of another election because it contains a humor that is always dangerous to politics. Put under this light, viewed from this perspective, the mythic image of American history recedes back into a more chaotic reality, in which countries are born on whims and chance, and not necessarily fate or providence.
Whatever happens tomorrow, may we all retain our senses of humor, the most powerful weapon we have to fight off (or point out?) the absurdity of politics, and life.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Wanna take my class?
My course description for English 380 next term:
Section 002 – Schwartz
This course will introduce you to the methods, techniques, and theories associated with analyzing and writing about literature. We’ll deal mainly with three genres: the short story, the poem, and the novel. You’ll become familiar with literary terminology, a selection of basic critical methods—including “close reading”—and we’ll occasionally touch upon the relationship between literature and its contexts, mainly the political and social milieus from which texts originate.
Requirements for the course include a midterm and final, as well as 2-4 medium-length papers and one longer paper (+/- 10 pgs). We’ll read short stories by Faulkner, Joyce, O’Connor, Wright, and Melville; poems by Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Toomer, Auden, Yeats, and Keats; and Thomas Pynchon’s first novel, V. (1963)
Section 002 – Schwartz
This course will introduce you to the methods, techniques, and theories associated with analyzing and writing about literature. We’ll deal mainly with three genres: the short story, the poem, and the novel. You’ll become familiar with literary terminology, a selection of basic critical methods—including “close reading”—and we’ll occasionally touch upon the relationship between literature and its contexts, mainly the political and social milieus from which texts originate.
Requirements for the course include a midterm and final, as well as 2-4 medium-length papers and one longer paper (+/- 10 pgs). We’ll read short stories by Faulkner, Joyce, O’Connor, Wright, and Melville; poems by Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Toomer, Auden, Yeats, and Keats; and Thomas Pynchon’s first novel, V. (1963)
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Freshman
This might be my last term teaching freshman composition. I just received word I'll be teaching English 380 next term, a class required for the University's English majors. I've taught lit courses before, a summer lit and film course, for example, and I've assisted in a couple larger survey courses, but I've never had the chance to teach my subject area, during the school year, to a group of majors, and design and conduct the course myself.
It's a "literary analysis" class, which is much different from teaching composition almost every term, and cringing three to four times a term when I have to sit down with a stack of 50 papers and wonder why and how some of these students got into college. Once in a while, at least, the writing is so bad that cringes turn into laughs.
I always try to remind myself, however, that these kids are 18. It's difficult for me to remember my exact mindset when I was 18 years old, but I know that the stuff I'm asking them to think and write about, are the exact same things I was not very interested in 12 years ago, either. Man I feel old writing that. I usually just hope I'm able to teach them something. Usually I think I do, but only if they want to learn something. In a class full of business and nursing majors, however, that isn't always the case.
So I'm hoping that teaching majors will at least have the advantages inherent to teaching students who actually want to be in the classroom. Which will mean they'll also have a teacher that wants to be standing in front of them.
PS. On a sidenote, my efforts at becoming more calm are working, for now at least. As anyone reading this blog knows (is anyone actually out there?), I have been pretty obsessively keeping up with the presidential campaign. That is still true, but I've decided that given Obama's poll numbers right now (which are about as good as he can hope them to be), I'm just going to relax on the political posts for awhile so that I can keep my blood pressure down. Let's hope they're mostly accurate, as they mostly were in the primary campaign. Or else, two weeks from now, I might just finally erupt. Serenity now, Sam. Serenity now.
Upcoming post:
A review of Oliver Stone's W.
It's a "literary analysis" class, which is much different from teaching composition almost every term, and cringing three to four times a term when I have to sit down with a stack of 50 papers and wonder why and how some of these students got into college. Once in a while, at least, the writing is so bad that cringes turn into laughs.
I always try to remind myself, however, that these kids are 18. It's difficult for me to remember my exact mindset when I was 18 years old, but I know that the stuff I'm asking them to think and write about, are the exact same things I was not very interested in 12 years ago, either. Man I feel old writing that. I usually just hope I'm able to teach them something. Usually I think I do, but only if they want to learn something. In a class full of business and nursing majors, however, that isn't always the case.
So I'm hoping that teaching majors will at least have the advantages inherent to teaching students who actually want to be in the classroom. Which will mean they'll also have a teacher that wants to be standing in front of them.
PS. On a sidenote, my efforts at becoming more calm are working, for now at least. As anyone reading this blog knows (is anyone actually out there?), I have been pretty obsessively keeping up with the presidential campaign. That is still true, but I've decided that given Obama's poll numbers right now (which are about as good as he can hope them to be), I'm just going to relax on the political posts for awhile so that I can keep my blood pressure down. Let's hope they're mostly accurate, as they mostly were in the primary campaign. Or else, two weeks from now, I might just finally erupt. Serenity now, Sam. Serenity now.
Upcoming post:
A review of Oliver Stone's W.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The Universal Thump
“and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.”
--Moby Dick, Chapter 1 “Loomings”
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a stong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.”
--Moby Dick, Chapter 1 “Loomings”
The writer, and author of Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, offed himself (I prefer not to use the phrase “committed suicide,” because I think it contains a solemnity that does not always apply to suicide) a few days ago. I have not read his most well-known work, but I hope to get to it when I have time.
I actually own the book and when I went to look for it yesterday, I saw it, somewhat ominously (auspiciously?), next to a Bible I own. I own a few and this is not one I normally look at (prefer KJV). The Bible actually seemed more out of place than Infinite Jest did, since, because I am not a meticulous shelfer, it was resting alongside my other canonical, contemporary novels. Pynchon and DeLillo aren’t too far away; Nabokov lingers nearby.
Anyway, I took it down and read the first few pages. I had known that Wallace received his MFA from the University of Arizona (my current school). But I was delightfully surprised to see immediate references to places in Tucson that I know—the Randolph Sports Complex (where I recently took my dad for a very hot round of golf, and which is right by the Target and In-n-Out that Michele and I frequent). Like Leslie Marmon Silko’s inclusion of Tucson as a setting in her great novel, Almanac of the Dead, it was nice to be able to visualize the inspiration for a novel’s setting. Tucson has a certain lore surrounding it that makes it a conducive place for novelistic settings (it’s also one of DeLillo’s settings in his best novel Underworld).
What is not so delightful is the idea that someone with Wallace’s talent and introspection could not find a reason to live any longer. I mean, I know the reason why; his basic perspective on life is probably closer to Hobbes's "nasty, brutish and short" than any more Romantic explanation. Wallace would likely have added, “and very lonely.” [Actually, not wanting to be too presumptuous about diagnosing Wallace's state of mind or general philosophy of life, I did a little looking, and he’s quoted in his Salon interview declaring, “there is this existential loneliness in the real world. I don't know what you're thinking or what it's like inside you and you don't know what it's like inside me. In fiction I think we can leap over that wall itself in a certain way.”] This was, to a lesser extent I think, Melville’s basic attitude, especially after he received little to no recognition for works of art that he knew were masterpieces, but which so few readers actually understood (luckily, at least, they’d start to understand in the 20th century).
The difference, maybe, is that Melville at least found communion with the writers he loved to read, and the art he created, despite the public’s lack of appreciation. Literature and writing were to Melville what the sea was to Ishmael--what kept him from pistol and ball. [I think they were for Wallace, too, but he also felt that the "redemptive" quality of art was kind of a cliche (see interview)]. In the end, it seems, Wallace found the walls that separate us finally insurmountable, even if he did, for awhile, find his literary endeavors well worthwhile. I wish (for his sake) he could have been more like Pynchon and Beckett, who find an equal amount of absurdity in the world, but instead choose a more comic (but no less serious) demeanor in the face of absurdity. They use their art to mirror absurdity back to itself, so that perhaps whatever sense may be gleaned from life might be captured in the quick shimmer of competing reflections. (An equivalent aural image might be the feedback shriek when a mic is placed next to its amplifying apparatus).
I guess something like this isn’t too unprecedented. Artists almost have to be basically dissatisfied with the world, or else they wouldn’t try to remake it. Writers with even much more talent than Wallace, like Virginia Woolf, have also found recourse in places like the bottom of a river. Kurt Cobain and Ernest Hemingway found the end of a shotgun. So it goes.
That provides little comfort. But I suppose Wallace wasn’t trying to comfort anyone.
I did some searching for interviews he had given and I found a couple. A transcript of one he did for Salon, and his live interview with Charlie Rose. In the interview with Rose he talks about going to see David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, and how it changed his perspective on art and what art can do and what makes a great artist. This connection was somewhat eerie since I’ve been thinking a lot about Lynch’s work lately. He probably watched Blue Velvet (at The Loft?) at a theatre I frequent. Michele and I just finished watching Twin Peaks, and I’ve recently watched Eraserhead, Dune, and Inland Empire. (There’s nothing too coincidental about this, since Lynch’s audience is certainly not that limited. But still.). Wallace talks to Rose about what he believes to be Lynch’s primary aesthetic—the confluence of the grotesque and banal. Lynch did not invent this aesthetic, by any means, (I think it’s a vital aspect of Flannery O’Connor’s work), but he probably did use it more provocatively than anyone ever has, and certainly to an extent much more profound than any film director.
Wallace also taught quite a bit later in his career, and he addresses the difficulties of teaching writing to young people who are, on a certain level, illiterate: not in the sense that they can’t read, but that they don’t read (and he is surprisingly non-judgmental about that fact). He also touches on what it’s like to be a writer—how when he’s writing, his schedule usually consists of writing for an hour, and then spending the following eight hours worrying about not writing. Working on my diss, I can completely sympathize with this feeling of dread that writing produces. The fatigue and strain of constantly questioning yourself.
Anyway, here is the video. It’s interesting even if you have no idea who he is.
--Moby Dick, Chapter 1 “Loomings”
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a stong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.”
--Moby Dick, Chapter 1 “Loomings”
The writer, and author of Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, offed himself (I prefer not to use the phrase “committed suicide,” because I think it contains a solemnity that does not always apply to suicide) a few days ago. I have not read his most well-known work, but I hope to get to it when I have time.
I actually own the book and when I went to look for it yesterday, I saw it, somewhat ominously (auspiciously?), next to a Bible I own. I own a few and this is not one I normally look at (prefer KJV). The Bible actually seemed more out of place than Infinite Jest did, since, because I am not a meticulous shelfer, it was resting alongside my other canonical, contemporary novels. Pynchon and DeLillo aren’t too far away; Nabokov lingers nearby.
Anyway, I took it down and read the first few pages. I had known that Wallace received his MFA from the University of Arizona (my current school). But I was delightfully surprised to see immediate references to places in Tucson that I know—the Randolph Sports Complex (where I recently took my dad for a very hot round of golf, and which is right by the Target and In-n-Out that Michele and I frequent). Like Leslie Marmon Silko’s inclusion of Tucson as a setting in her great novel, Almanac of the Dead, it was nice to be able to visualize the inspiration for a novel’s setting. Tucson has a certain lore surrounding it that makes it a conducive place for novelistic settings (it’s also one of DeLillo’s settings in his best novel Underworld).
What is not so delightful is the idea that someone with Wallace’s talent and introspection could not find a reason to live any longer. I mean, I know the reason why; his basic perspective on life is probably closer to Hobbes's "nasty, brutish and short" than any more Romantic explanation. Wallace would likely have added, “and very lonely.” [Actually, not wanting to be too presumptuous about diagnosing Wallace's state of mind or general philosophy of life, I did a little looking, and he’s quoted in his Salon interview declaring, “there is this existential loneliness in the real world. I don't know what you're thinking or what it's like inside you and you don't know what it's like inside me. In fiction I think we can leap over that wall itself in a certain way.”] This was, to a lesser extent I think, Melville’s basic attitude, especially after he received little to no recognition for works of art that he knew were masterpieces, but which so few readers actually understood (luckily, at least, they’d start to understand in the 20th century).
The difference, maybe, is that Melville at least found communion with the writers he loved to read, and the art he created, despite the public’s lack of appreciation. Literature and writing were to Melville what the sea was to Ishmael--what kept him from pistol and ball. [I think they were for Wallace, too, but he also felt that the "redemptive" quality of art was kind of a cliche (see interview)]. In the end, it seems, Wallace found the walls that separate us finally insurmountable, even if he did, for awhile, find his literary endeavors well worthwhile. I wish (for his sake) he could have been more like Pynchon and Beckett, who find an equal amount of absurdity in the world, but instead choose a more comic (but no less serious) demeanor in the face of absurdity. They use their art to mirror absurdity back to itself, so that perhaps whatever sense may be gleaned from life might be captured in the quick shimmer of competing reflections. (An equivalent aural image might be the feedback shriek when a mic is placed next to its amplifying apparatus).
I guess something like this isn’t too unprecedented. Artists almost have to be basically dissatisfied with the world, or else they wouldn’t try to remake it. Writers with even much more talent than Wallace, like Virginia Woolf, have also found recourse in places like the bottom of a river. Kurt Cobain and Ernest Hemingway found the end of a shotgun. So it goes.
That provides little comfort. But I suppose Wallace wasn’t trying to comfort anyone.
I did some searching for interviews he had given and I found a couple. A transcript of one he did for Salon, and his live interview with Charlie Rose. In the interview with Rose he talks about going to see David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, and how it changed his perspective on art and what art can do and what makes a great artist. This connection was somewhat eerie since I’ve been thinking a lot about Lynch’s work lately. He probably watched Blue Velvet (at The Loft?) at a theatre I frequent. Michele and I just finished watching Twin Peaks, and I’ve recently watched Eraserhead, Dune, and Inland Empire. (There’s nothing too coincidental about this, since Lynch’s audience is certainly not that limited. But still.). Wallace talks to Rose about what he believes to be Lynch’s primary aesthetic—the confluence of the grotesque and banal. Lynch did not invent this aesthetic, by any means, (I think it’s a vital aspect of Flannery O’Connor’s work), but he probably did use it more provocatively than anyone ever has, and certainly to an extent much more profound than any film director.
Wallace also taught quite a bit later in his career, and he addresses the difficulties of teaching writing to young people who are, on a certain level, illiterate: not in the sense that they can’t read, but that they don’t read (and he is surprisingly non-judgmental about that fact). He also touches on what it’s like to be a writer—how when he’s writing, his schedule usually consists of writing for an hour, and then spending the following eight hours worrying about not writing. Working on my diss, I can completely sympathize with this feeling of dread that writing produces. The fatigue and strain of constantly questioning yourself.
Anyway, here is the video. It’s interesting even if you have no idea who he is.
Coda #1: The interview ends at about the half-hour mark. His final words in the interview are definitely not auspicious, and definitely are ominous: "attention and respect doesn't really change anything...I don'treally have a brass ring and I'm kind of open to suggestions about what one chases...I haven't found any satisfactory new ones, but I'm not getting ready to jump off a building or anything."
Coda #2: Knowing that I won’t get to Infinite Jest for awhile, I still wanted to read something by Wallace, and remembered an article he wrote for Harper’s that I knew I had sitting around somewhere. Luckily at this time all my Harper’s dating back to 2001 are in the same stack. (This is why I keep them around, Michele).
I highly recommend it for anyone interested in understanding his general perspective on language, his humor and wit, and his absolute mastery of English (in all its various forms and dialects).
http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf
His traces will survive him, even if they do not lessen the sadness his death evokes.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Melville '08
I'm going to avoid the Palin saga. If you're reading this blog regularly, you can probably predict my reaction anyway...besides, one of my favorite bloggers, Andrew Sullivan, has it covered (link on the right).
After all, this blog purports to be interested in politics AND literature, and I haven't posted anything about the latter at all.
I was reading Melville's Mardi today, the novel he wrote just before Moby Dick. Mardi is kind of a warm-up for Melville--not a great novel, but you can definitely see his talent ripening, before it finally comes to fruition in 1850.
A passage like this is typical of Melville's later style, which is built upon occasional interruptions of the plot to allow his narrator to soliloquize. This kind of interruption--which is a kind of editorializing--is left behind in the twentieth century novel (and poetry) when the idea that showing is superior to telling, becomes the aesthetic norm. Yet, I can't help but appreciate passages like these:
"But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.--Long memories of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours--how common are ye to all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say--'Lo, thy felicity, my soul?' No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when looked back upon from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come out of, to behold."
This passage speaks to my own introspection. Being someone (writing a diss) who is forced to spend a lot of time with his thoughts, I sometimes think back upon times when I've been most happy. I think this passage has it right: true happiness is rarely a conscious state of mind. You only realize happiness long after the fact. This must be true in some respects, since to focus in on your own happiness would automatically mean that you're less attuned to the moment that's actually making you happy.
I can think of some exceptions though. I'm consciously happy when I spend time with Ada. Another example: after I returned from my honeymoon with Michele, I knew that I had just spent one of the happiest weeks in my life. So maybe the above passage isn't universal, even though I think it's generally true.
When I look back upon the time Michele and I spent in Tennessee, for example, we had some difficult times that I wouldn't qualify as "happy." We were constantly broke, we had just gotten married and moved to a place far, far away from home. There were challenges to overcome. But when I look back upon that time as a whole, I do regard it as a "happy" time for us. Though we struggled, we were living in the moment and growing stronger and more mature together. I think these are the types of moments, or extended moments, Melville is writing about here--the kind that need some time to ferment before thier true significance can be enjoyed.
Part of me also responds to this passage on an academic level. Happiness, like most abstract ideas, has a cultural history. The word "happy" derives from the Old English word "hap," which is closer to the idea of having good fortune. The way Melville uses the word, and how we conceive of "happiness" now, can be dated back to the mid 16th-century, but it really only becomes culturally commonplace until the 19th (the OED, of course, is my source for this info).
This more contemporary inflection of "happiness" is a human invention, and if one were in a cynical mood, one might suggest it's over-pursued in our contemporary culture. Actually, one need not be cynical to at least conjecture that our culture purports to know the source of happiness (if not, why the centrality of the self-help craze?), not realizing that its offering up golden calves.
The thing I love about literature is that passages like these are relatable on a personal level; but they can also be dissected beyond the self.
This next passage contemplates, not happiness, but mourning, and different types of sadness. Once again, one can see how emotionally astute Melville has become at this point in his career, and how lyrical. Its theme of sadness contrasts nicely with the passage above:
"Misery became a memory. The keen pang a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the thing remembered; though bowed with sadness. There are thoughts that lie and glitter deep: tearful pearls beneath life's sea, that surges still, and rolls sunlit, whatever it may hide. Common woes, like fluids, mix all round. Not so with that other grief. Some mourners load the air with lamentations; but the loudest notes are struck from hollows. Their tears flow fast: but the deep spring only wells."
Melville compares two types of sadness--the common kind, which eventually dissipate into the swirl of life and memory, and the deeper kind--the kinds that we don't as readily forget. One could conceive of all types of metaphors for this difference. But Melville chooses to draw upon the image of a pearl swirling around at the bottom of an ocean. It's a perfect image. The pearl is small amid the ocean, but its made of strong material and persists. It's hidden, but it's also distinct. It's buried, but it endures amid lesser sadness. Most importantly, the pearl is a beautiful object, one to seek after and cherish. Not all mourning should be dismissed or forgotten. When placed alongside happiness, in the cycle of human emotions, the two play off, counteract, and ultimately compliment one another.
After all, this blog purports to be interested in politics AND literature, and I haven't posted anything about the latter at all.
I was reading Melville's Mardi today, the novel he wrote just before Moby Dick. Mardi is kind of a warm-up for Melville--not a great novel, but you can definitely see his talent ripening, before it finally comes to fruition in 1850.
A passage like this is typical of Melville's later style, which is built upon occasional interruptions of the plot to allow his narrator to soliloquize. This kind of interruption--which is a kind of editorializing--is left behind in the twentieth century novel (and poetry) when the idea that showing is superior to telling, becomes the aesthetic norm. Yet, I can't help but appreciate passages like these:
"But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.--Long memories of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours--how common are ye to all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say--'Lo, thy felicity, my soul?' No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when looked back upon from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come out of, to behold."
This passage speaks to my own introspection. Being someone (writing a diss) who is forced to spend a lot of time with his thoughts, I sometimes think back upon times when I've been most happy. I think this passage has it right: true happiness is rarely a conscious state of mind. You only realize happiness long after the fact. This must be true in some respects, since to focus in on your own happiness would automatically mean that you're less attuned to the moment that's actually making you happy.
I can think of some exceptions though. I'm consciously happy when I spend time with Ada. Another example: after I returned from my honeymoon with Michele, I knew that I had just spent one of the happiest weeks in my life. So maybe the above passage isn't universal, even though I think it's generally true.
When I look back upon the time Michele and I spent in Tennessee, for example, we had some difficult times that I wouldn't qualify as "happy." We were constantly broke, we had just gotten married and moved to a place far, far away from home. There were challenges to overcome. But when I look back upon that time as a whole, I do regard it as a "happy" time for us. Though we struggled, we were living in the moment and growing stronger and more mature together. I think these are the types of moments, or extended moments, Melville is writing about here--the kind that need some time to ferment before thier true significance can be enjoyed.
Part of me also responds to this passage on an academic level. Happiness, like most abstract ideas, has a cultural history. The word "happy" derives from the Old English word "hap," which is closer to the idea of having good fortune. The way Melville uses the word, and how we conceive of "happiness" now, can be dated back to the mid 16th-century, but it really only becomes culturally commonplace until the 19th (the OED, of course, is my source for this info).
This more contemporary inflection of "happiness" is a human invention, and if one were in a cynical mood, one might suggest it's over-pursued in our contemporary culture. Actually, one need not be cynical to at least conjecture that our culture purports to know the source of happiness (if not, why the centrality of the self-help craze?), not realizing that its offering up golden calves.
The thing I love about literature is that passages like these are relatable on a personal level; but they can also be dissected beyond the self.
This next passage contemplates, not happiness, but mourning, and different types of sadness. Once again, one can see how emotionally astute Melville has become at this point in his career, and how lyrical. Its theme of sadness contrasts nicely with the passage above:
"Misery became a memory. The keen pang a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the thing remembered; though bowed with sadness. There are thoughts that lie and glitter deep: tearful pearls beneath life's sea, that surges still, and rolls sunlit, whatever it may hide. Common woes, like fluids, mix all round. Not so with that other grief. Some mourners load the air with lamentations; but the loudest notes are struck from hollows. Their tears flow fast: but the deep spring only wells."
Melville compares two types of sadness--the common kind, which eventually dissipate into the swirl of life and memory, and the deeper kind--the kinds that we don't as readily forget. One could conceive of all types of metaphors for this difference. But Melville chooses to draw upon the image of a pearl swirling around at the bottom of an ocean. It's a perfect image. The pearl is small amid the ocean, but its made of strong material and persists. It's hidden, but it's also distinct. It's buried, but it endures amid lesser sadness. Most importantly, the pearl is a beautiful object, one to seek after and cherish. Not all mourning should be dismissed or forgotten. When placed alongside happiness, in the cycle of human emotions, the two play off, counteract, and ultimately compliment one another.
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