Takes on Zadie Smith's Thoughts!

A lovable, and a much adorable manual on Creative Writing - Adele Ramet has given us all!

And so has Hazel Smith!

And so has Patti Smith!

And so has Umberto Eco!

And so has Stephen King’s wondrous book On Writing, born out of decades of trial and error on the field, from which he gives budding writers his TOP 20 Rules for Writers.

Yet! Zadie Smith stands out tall’est from amongst ‘em all! and how!

Thanks to a brilliant lead by Dr. Aparna on Zadie Smith, which gave me an impulsive inspiration of sorts!

This feature takes for its point of departure, from off Zadie Smith’s insights. I have divided the feature into three parts, basing ‘em all exclusively on Zadie’s impactful observations.

Well, here goes…

Zadie Smith on Massive Cultural Currents: “We forget that our particular moment, with all its tribulations and triumphs, is not neatly islanded in the river of time but swept afloat by massive cultural currents that have raged long before it and will rage long after.”

Well, John Corner’s observations merit a citation here. To him, this cultural current is “energetic & dynamic” and something that’s always on the flow – on the move! It never ain’t static! Says he: “In any period of human history a culture and society are partly sustained by the tension between that which is thought to be of value, inherited from the past, and that which is the product of energetic, dynamic, and deliberate innovation.”

Honore de Balzac too merits a retell here: And well, he wanted to be called the ‘Secretary of his Age,’ and his realist novels and plays have intensely focused on the milieu of French society after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte!

His masterpiece La Comedie humaine (1842–1850), a multivolume work involving about one hundred interwoven novels and stories, has had a tremendous influence on big names in the publishing industry - like Marcel Proust, Charles Dickens, and Henry James!

On Travelogues and Travel Writing in Literature - II

Hilaire Belloc often used his travel, literary, and historical essays to make a point about current political issues. He is known far and wide for his Cautionary Tales for Children which included “Jim,” who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion, and “Matilda,” who told lies and was burnt to death. Although his first love was poetry, the essay was his daily occupation. Noteworthy is The Modern Traveller (1898),

Dog Heart: A Travel Memoir, by Breyten Breytenbach was published in the year 1998. This book marks a return to the world and the legends of Breytenbach’s youth, with short prose texts interspersed with poetry.

A Room with a View (1908), is a novel by E. M. Forster. In this Edwardian novel, a young Englishwoman traveling in Italy falls in love with a man who seems ‘‘beneath her.’’ She ignores the advice of her chaperon and happily elopes anyway.

Daisy Miller (1878), is a novella by Henry James. The ebullient young American girl, Daisy Miller, travels to Switzerland and Italy and falls victim to her own flighty nature in this oft-studied short work by James.

Mountains and Rivers without End (1996), is a poem by Gary Snyder. This epic poem reflects a vision of being in the world that is directly and overtly influenced by Snyder’s travels and Eastern philosophy.

Generations of critics have testified to John Bunyan’s own comprehensive scope, rich characterization, and genuine spiritual torment and joy drawn from personal experience. and to instance in one, the Pilgrim’s Progress, he hath suited to the life of a traveler so exactly and pleasantly.

Many of Lord Byron’s works were inspired by or describe travels. In 1809, a two-year trip to the Mediterranean countries provided material for the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

On Travelogues and Travel Writing - I

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had its origins as a series for BBC radio, first broadcast in 1978. After a trip across Europe, inspired by the format of practical travel guides such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe by Ken Welsh, Adams set out to write a guide to the mysteries of the galaxy.

In 1985, Adams took an assignment to travel to various locations around the world in the company of a zoologist, documenting a search for specimens of the world’s most endangered species. This resulted in both the radio series and the nonfiction book Last Chance to See (1990). Although the book was not as commercially successful as his novels, Adams referred to the book as one of the most rewarding projects on which he had ever worked. This reflects a common theme in Adams’s work regarding the doubleedged sword of technology, which can provide great advancements for humanity but also lead to destruction of the natural world.

There are a host of other fantastic travels to other worlds and dimensions as a means of pointing out our own society’s foibles. They are -

Gulliver’s Travels (1826), a satire by Jonathan Swift. Swift applied his sharp wit to this ‘‘travelogue’’ of an innocent abroad in strange and unheard-of countries.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), a novel by Lewis Carroll. What started as a story told to pass the time on a boat trip turned into a novel that plays with nonsense, logic, and morality lessons in a baffling and surreal fantasy land.

Other Worlds (first published in two parts, 1657 and 1662), fantasy stories by Cyrano de Bergerac. The real-life seventeenth-century swashbuckler wrote a series of fantastic stories describing his fictional journeys to the Moon and Sun and his encounters with the creatures who lived there.

S. Y. Agnon’s first acclaimed novel, The Bridal Canopy (1931), concerns a Hasidic rabbi who travels through nineteenth century Galicia seeking a dowry for his daughters.

The Lost Steps (1953), is a novel by Alejo Carpentier. The protagonist of this novel travels from New York into the Amazonian jungle: as he progresses, time seems to move backward.

Yehuda Amichai’s ‘‘Travels of the Last Benjamin of Tudela’’ is a sequence of fifty-seven

poems in which Amichai analyzes his Jewish identity by comparing his life story with legends of a wandering medieval rabbi. Published separately in book-length form as Travels in 1986, this work also appears in his Selected Poetry (1986), a compilation of verse from ten volumes published over a thirty-year period.

Hans Christian Andersen has also published a poetic travel book, Pictures of Sweden (1851),

Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), is a novel by Marge Piercy. Like Atwood, Piercy writes poetry and fiction with a feminist bent. This novel tells the story of a time-traveling psychiatric patient at Bellevue Hospital.

W. H. Auden traveled in Weimar Republic, Germany. In 1937 he went with Mac-Neice to Iceland and in 1938 with Isherwood to China. The literary results of these journeys were collaborations: with MacNeice, Letters from Iceland (1937), and with Isherwood, Journey to a War (1939).

Matsuo Basho made pilgrimages, visiting religious and secular sites, spreading his ideas on haiku to fellow poets, and often begging alms for subsistence. His prose and haiku recollections of these travels, especially The Narrow Road to the Deep North, are considered his most accomplished and lasting literary works. Between journeys, he spent much of his time living and writing in secluded huts in the wilderness.

Invisible Cities (1972), is a work of fiction by Italo Calvino. Calvino’s book is set up as Marco Polo’s dreamlike recollection of his travels to Kublai Khan, but there is no linear path through the story or the travels.

He wrote poetry, fiction, history, travel pieces, and works on topography, as well as articles and essays in a wide variety of modes including ridicule, parody, satire, and logical argumentation.

to be contd...

Routledge/Gale’s Encylopedia 

Image: TravelWiththeCam.Wordpress.Com

You are Cordially Invited...

XII

P.K. Rajan

Memorial Lecture

&

Release of the

Special issue of LITTCRIT on

Indigenous Studies

28 February 2018 * 02.30 pm

University Senate Chamber

Palayam, Thiruvananthapuram

You are Cordially Invited...

You are Cordially Invited...

National Seminar

Organized by

Research Department of English

St. Xavier’s College, Palayamkottai, Tamil Nadu

19, 20 February 2018

The Research Dept. of English is organizing a National Seminar on “The Textuality of History and the Historicity of Texts” on 19th & 20th February 2018 in order to help Research Guides and Research Scholars provide a theoretical framework to their research projects. The Resource Persons will deliver lectures on critical theory; the Participants will present papers on literature written in any part of the world, providing a theoretical framework to their arguments.

THE PREAMBLE

Louis Montrose defines “historicity of texts” as cultural specificity and social embedment of all modes of writing and “textuality of history” as fictionality and constructedness of history. This approach of New Historicism is similar to Foucault’s notion of social structures as determined by dominant discursive practices. Recent research has highlighted the fact that there is no such thing as objective history, because history is basically a narrative, which, like language, is produced in a context and is influenced by the social, economic and political interests of the dominant groups/institutions.

The selection of events also plays a vital role in the text. It is interesting to note that Stephen Greenblatt turns to history to explain the formal structures of literary texts while Hayden White investigates the formal literary structures of history describing the poetics of history. In fact, words exist within a context. Stephen Greenblatt’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is an example.

Edward Said’s contrapuntal reading of texts and his views on “latent” and “manifest” Orientalism, Homi K. Bhabha’s investigation of “ambivalence” and “mimicry” in colonial discourses, and Gayatri Spivak’s views on the predicament of the female subaltern emphasize the need for fixing the text in its context. Therefore, Research Guides and Research Scholars must orient their analysis towards the study of how creative artists present their themes vis-à-vis the text, context and metacontext (e.g. Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and the Ibis Trilogy; Jeyamohan’s Vellai Yaanai; Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and The Enchantress of Florence; Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude). The greatness of literature lies precisely in the interplay between literary context and metacontext. 

OBJECTIVES

To discuss the major principles of literary theory and to establish methods of literary research

To promote and strengthen interdisciplinary research through familiarity with texts across disciplines, continents, and cultures

To explore the various schools of contemporary literary criticism

To discuss the concepts of History, Nation, Diaspora, Culture and Existence

To study the process of the text becoming the “product” and “maker” of the historical context

PUBLICATION OF PROCEEDINGS

The Proceedings of the Conference will be published with ISBN by the Research Dept. of English and Folklore Resources & Research Centre, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Palayamkottai. Copies of the book will be sent to Paper Presenters by post in July 2018.

Editors: Dr. V. S. Joseph Albert and Dr. Lizie Williams

Length of the Paper: Maximum 2000 words

Format: Times New Roman—12 font—MS WORD—1.5 Spacing—A 4 Size

Parenthetical Documentation as given in MLA Handbook should be followed.

The paper should be sent on or before 13th February 2018 by email to vsjalbert@gmail.com

PROGRAMME

19th February 2018

09.00 a.m. - REGISTRATION

09.30 a.m. - INAUGURATION

Prayer        - Dept. Choir

Welcome Address - Dr. Lizie Williams, Head of the Dept. of English, SXC

Presidential Address - Rev. Dr. V. Britto, S.J. Principal, SXC

Felicitations - Rev. Dr. A. Antonysamy, S.J. Secretary, SXC

NET/SET Preparatory Classes @ Bharathi Women's College

BHARATHI WOMEN'S COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS)

 No.1, Prakasam Salai, [Near Stanley Hospital]

Broadway, George Town, Chennai-600108

PG AND RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Invites you for a

TWO DAY ORIENTATION PROGRAMME

on

STRATEGIES AND APPROACHES

TO CRACK NET/ SET IN ENGLISH Papers II & III

15 & 16 February, 2018

by

Dr. D. E. Benet

Associate Professor of English

National College (Autonomous)

Tiruchirapalli

Venue: Conference Hall

Administrative Block

Students, ( PG, M.Phil and Ph. D. Scholars) and Staff members

are welcome to attend the programme on payment of Rs. 400/-

in person on 15/02/2018 from 8.30 a.m. onwards

(Inclusive of Lunch and refreshments).

Interested participants can confirm their participation through email.

Mail us at bwcengset2018@gmail.com

on or before 12/02/2018.

On Dystopias!

Popular Dystopias in Literature: An Overview

A dystopia is a vision of society, often a future society, that is the opposite of paradise, or utopia. It is a vision of society gone horribly wrong.

Nineteen Eighty-Four bears some similarity to H. G. Wells’s dystopic When the Sleeper Wakes (1899), in which the protagonist is transported into a world of technological tyranny two hundred years into the future.

It has also often been pointed out that in creating Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell drew on earlier dystopian novels.

Indeed, Wells had been Orwell’s favorite author when he was young. He shared not only Wells’s fascination with utopian thinking but also his critical attitude toward the British class system.

A more significant influence on Orwell’s novel was probably We (1924), by Russian novelist Evgeny Zamyatin. In Zamyatin’s dystopia, individuality has been all but obliterated; personal names have been replaced by numbers; people’s lives are regulated down to the minutest details.

Those who do not conform are tortured into submission by corrective brain treatment with X-rays, or publicly executed by a chemical process that might be described as vaporization, the word used in _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ about the sudden disappearance of unwanted persons. Orwell reviewed Zamyatin’s novel in 1946 and found that it was a better novel than Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) insofar as it provided a more credible motive for the power elite to stay on top than Huxley had done.

In Orwell’s view no totalitarian system could exist without a ruling class motivated by power hunger, the wish to exercise power over others and keep it at any cost.

Fahrenheit 451 (1953), by Ray Bradbury is a dystopian novel, in which the theme of totalitarian suppression of the masses is reflected in the storyline, one which includes burning of books (which are illegal) as the basis for the plot.

On Nobel Laureate William Golding

William Golding was a British novelist, poet, and Nobel Prize laureate. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983.

With the appearance of Lord of the Flies (1954), Golding’s first published novel, the author began his career as both a campus cult favorite and one of the most distinctive and debated literary talents of his era.

The novel is actually the author’s ‘‘answer’’ to nineteenth-century writer R. M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean.

These two books share the same basic plot line and even some of the same character names. Although some similarities exist, Lord of the Flies totally reverses Ballantyne’s concept of the purity and innocence of youth and humanity’s ability to remain civilized under the worst conditions.

In Lord of the Flies, Golding presented the central theme of his collective works: the conflict between the forces of light and dark within the human soul. Although the novel did not gain popularity in the United States until several years after its original publication, it has now become a modern classic, most often studied in high schools and colleges.

Lord of the Flies shows that when people are abandoned in a faraway place, far from traditional external authorities, their deepest nature is exposed. The novel has been interpreted by some as being Golding’s response to the popular artistic notion of the 1950s that youth was a basically innocent collective and that they are the victims of adult society (as seen in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye). In 1960, C. B. Cox deemed Lord of the Flies as ‘‘probably the most important novel to be published . . . in the 1950s.’

On Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is a celebrated American author and professor, famous for her epic novels about the African American experience.

She is both a Pulitzer Prize– and Nobel Prize–winning author, the first black woman to win the Nobel!

Influences on Toni Morrison: Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) was an American folklorist and writer. She is often associated with the Harlem Group and a major influence for authors Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. Hurston’s books include Mules and Men (1935) and Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937).

Known for its epic themes and vivid dialogue, Morrison’s fiction explores the roles of black women in a racist, male-dominated society.

Sula (1974), is a novel by Toni Morrison. In this contemporary novel themes and characters are presented in an evocative structure of opposites.

Song of Solomon (1977), is a novel by Toni Morrison. This contemporary tale focuses on the dynamics of the Southern African American family.

Jazz (1992), is a novel by Toni Morrison. Morrison translates several jazz conventions, including the improvised solo, into literary form in this novel set in 1920s Harlem.

Paradise (1998), is a novel by Toni Morrison. This novel explores the history and tensions of the fictional town of Ruby, Oklahoma, an all-black town near which a women’s commune has recently been established in an old convent. In following the lives and deaths of the women from this convent, Morrison makes use of several realitybending elements of magic realism.

On Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul

V. S. Naipaul is a British novelist and travel writer of Indian and Trinidadian descent, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.

Influences on Naipaul: One author Naipaul has publicly cited as an influence is Joseph Conrad, another British immigrant (from Poland) whose novels forced the British, and the world, to examine the disturbing implications of empire.

Critics have noted that the dark, brooding atmosphere, tropical settings, and alienated perspective in Naipaul’s prose resemble similar qualities in Conrad’s writing, including the latter’s most famous work of fiction, Heart of Darkness (1899).

As in that work, some of Naipaul’s European characters come emotionally undone as their pretensions are exposed in the alien African setting. A Bend in the River bears direct comparison with Heart of Darkness in the journey each work’s protagonist undertakes. However, some critics have interpreted Naipaul’s work as a defense of the colonial project rather than an indictment of its bitter consequences.

Literature of Displacement: Naipaul has contributed richly to the body of modern literature dealing with the theme of displacement, exile, and rootlessness, as dealt with by major authors such as James Joyce, Albert Camus, Ezra Pound, Vladimir Nabokov, Milan Kundera, and Conrad.

NET Revision Classes @ Trichy

Interesting Snippets on James Joyce

James Joyce was an Irish expatriate author, considered to be one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century.

Such his influence on his contemporaries, that even Thomas Mann  - who had won the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature, was eulogized and praised as the “Peer and Contemporary of writers like James Joyce”!!!

In 1922, James Joyce’s novel Ulysses and T. S. Eliot’s poem ‘‘The Waste Land’’ are both published,defining for many the Modernist literary movement.                                         

Ulysses (1922), Joyce’s modernist masterpiece, was deemed pornographic in the United States, and its publication in America was banned until 1934.

                                                   

Dubliners (1914), a short-story collection by James Joyce. This famous collection of short stories explores revolutionary moments, or epiphanies, within the individual.

The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (1956), is a novel by Joao Guimaraes Rosa. In this novel, considered to be the Brazilian equivalent of James Joyce’s modernist landmark Ulysses, a bandit from the Brazilian hinterlands tells his life story to a stranger.

James Joyce explored the colonialist theme of Robinson Crusoe as early as 1911, but ironically, his comments were not published until 1964. Since then, writers such as Toni Morrison, Derek Walcott, and Edward Said have viewed the novel as an allegory of colonialism.

Interestingly, James Joyce decided to write in English at a time when many Irish writers chose to write in Gaelic instead. Write an essay analyzing his reasons for writing in English, seen by many Irish of the period as the “language of the colonizer.” (Remember Chinua Achebe & Ngugi wa Thiongo’ on the English Language?)