"The Eloquent Sounds of Silence" - Critical Summary

The Eloquent Sounds of Silence - Pico Iyer

Introduction

God’s one and only voice is silence, says Melville. Pico Iyer brings out the importance of silence in his essay “The Eloquent Sounds of Silence” by singing paeans to silence. According to Pico Iyer, when people go on retreat, to a high place and feel the warmth and joy of being lifted up in a cool and secure place far away from the madding crowd, they start to recite the standard litany: that silence is sunshine, silence is rapture, silence is golden, etc. But silence is not so easily won. Moreover, before rushing off to the hills, it is essential to remember that fool's gold (i.e the easily obtained iron pyrite) is much more common and that gold can be obtained only by a great amount of hard work, since it has to be dug out with great care and effort, from other substances. Such is the case with silence.

Silence is the Consecration of the Universe

According to Herman Melville, all profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence, and hence silence is the general consecration of the universe. Just before his death, he came forth with his final utterance -- the luminous tale of Billy Budd - and showed that silence is only as worthy as what we can bring back from it.

Silence is Spiritual

We have to strive a lot to earn silence, and then, to work for it: to make it not an absence but a presence in our lives. Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think, and so sink below ourselves into a place far deeper than mere thought allows. In silence, we might better say, we can hear someone else think.

It is no coincidence that places of worship are places of silence: if idleness is the devil's playground, silence may be the angels'. It is no surprise that silence is an anagram of license. And it is only right that Quakers all but worship silence, for it is the place where everyone finds his God, however he may express it. Silence is an ecumenical state, beyond the doctrines and divisions created by the mind. If everyone has a spiritual story to tell of his life, everyone has a spiritual silence to preserve.

Silence: The Highest Tribute to Holiness

Silence is the ultimate tribute we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred space, just as we slip off shoes. A "moment of silence" is the highest honor we can pay someone; it is the point at which the mind stops and something else takes over (words run out when feelings rush in). A "vow of silence" is for holy men the highest devotional act. We hold our breath, we hold our words; we suspend our chattering selves and let ourselves "fall silent," and fall into the highest place of all.

Increasing Noise in the World

the world is getting noisier these days: in Japan, which may be a model of our future, cars and buses have voices, doors and elevators speak. The answering machine talks to us, and for us, somewhere above the din of the TV; the Walkman preserves a public silence but ensures that we need never -- in the bathtub, on a mountaintop, even at our desks -- be without the clangor of the world. White noise becomes the aural equivalent of the clash of images, the nonstop blast of fragments that increasingly agitates our minds. As Ben Okri, the young Nigerian novelist, puts it, "When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument."

A Place for Noise vs A Place for Silence

According to Pico Iyer, there is a place for noise in our daily lives. There is a place for roaring, for the shouting exultation of a baseball game, for hymns and spoken prayers, for orchestras and cries of pleasure. Silence, like all the best things, is best appreciated in its absence: if noise is the signature tune of the world, silence is the music of the other world, the closest thing we know to the harmony of the spheres. But the greatest charm of noise is when it ceases. In silence, suddenly, it seems as if all the windows of the world are thrown open and everything is as clear as on a morning after rain. Silence, ideally, hums. It charges the air.

Silence: The Ultimate Moment when we Begin to Trust Ourselves

Silence, then, could be said to be the ultimate province of trust: it is the place where we trust ourselves to be alone; where we trust others to understand the things we do not say; where we trust a higher harmony to assert itself. We all know how treacherous are words, and how often we use them to paper over embarrassment, or emptiness, or fear of the larger spaces that silence brings. "Words, words, words" commit us to positions we do not really hold, the imperatives of chatter; words are what we use for lies, false promises and gossip. We babble with strangers; with intimates we can be silent. We "make conversation" when we are at a loss; we unmake it when we are alone, or with those so close to us that we can afford to be alone with them.

Conclusion

Thus Pico Iyer brings out the necessity and the importance of silence in our day-to-day lives by equating silence with the realm of the spiritual, the transcendental and as the ultimate tribute to holiness. It is also the moment when we begin to trust ourselves, by refraining from meaningless chatter that we use for lies, false promises and gossip. He concludes with his famous statement: “In love, we are speechless; in awe, we say, words fail us”, emphasizing and reiterating on the importance of silence in a person’s life.