Scribal Scribblings
from
I. Concerning the Proj.
Things to note here are that there is an option to take an exam rather than writing a paper; however, if you’re going to opt for the test, you should let Rick know ASAP. If writing the paper, narrative scholarship (á la Annie Dillard) is definitely a viable formal option. It’s important, though, that your paper reflect scholarly research.
II. We talked about what?
Rick related a somewhat puzzling comment from one of his former colleagues, who once said she didn’t like Annie Dillard’s mind. No one in our group dislikes Dillard’s mind. It was duly noted, though, that Dillard tends to write from an empirical point of view and in an economical style that cuts to the bone. Furthermore, there aren’t really any characters in Dillard’s work (well, at least not in Pilgrim), which is primarily comprised of her own mental ruminations.
We also took pause to consider whether Dillard looks for the predatory, the feral, the blooded, etc. She definitely sees it. I suppose this, too, could be a reason for someone not to like Dillard’s mind. We came back to this discussion later on in the evening.
In a nice philosophical/theological move, we brought up the two paths, Via Negativa (the way of negation; this is not …) and Via Positiva (the way of unequivocal position; this is …). Dillard uses both to some extent in Pilgrim; they are directly linked to the ways in which she sees things. The notion of seeing by letting go (p. 33) relates nicely to the Via Negativa. The concept of the “artificial obvious” fits in here somewhere, too—until the present is brought into the foreground of our consciousness, we have a tendency to miss it or not see it.
We moved on to discuss Pilgrim’s first opening paragraphs (the tom cat with bloody paw prints). Rick noted that this whole encounter/scene did not happen to Dillard at all. It is not a factual account. We did not take offense to this knowledge, or feel that our trust had been violated in some way, although other readers might have. It’s ok with us if Dillard didn’t really see the water bug sucking out the frog guts, or if there really are no carp in Tinker Creek. The larger issue raised from this discussion was that if we’re going to write the environment and we want people to imagine it, we need to describe it with power. Is there a necessary distortion or exaggeration that comes with writing with power or imagining with power? We decided that there is a truth beyond fact at work here, a representational truth that is not a betrayal of “reality” (HA!). Although, on a humorous note, some of us had doubts about the factuality of the whole tom cat episode from the beginning; there seemed to be just too much reflection and insight. This, in turn, prompted congratulations to Amanda’s cat, Dorian, who recently came out of the closet.
We then tackled “the horror of the fixed” (p. 5) which led to a discussion of permanence and impermanence, and one of my favorite dialogues of the evening:
Jeremy: If you want to be remembered geologically, go to the beach.
Kristen: I’d rather be lost in the mountains.
This all moved into a discussion of Dillard’s exemplary use of figurative language. Some of our favorites included:
1. the hermitage clung like a barnacle to the church
2. cows like a field of shoes
3. sleep like sea kelp
4. we’re played on like a pipe
5. I am the arrow shaft
6. I resound like a beaten bell
IS ANNIE DILLARD A MYSTIC? Hmm…we discussed how mystics have gotten a bad name thanks to New Age crap, and how the mystical experience is about breaking down the boundaries between subject and object. The Via Negativa is strongly connected with Judeo-Christian mysticism, and as we discussed earlier, we can definitely see Dillard making some Via Negativa moves, although, it could be argued, that with her empiricist tendencies, she’s also traveling the Via Positiva.
We “de-centered” by going around the circle and sharing nuggets:
“Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me.” (178)
Is there a “toothless old ugly, eyes glazed with delight” beneath the mask? “No, I’ve
gone through this a million times—beauty is not a hoax…” (271)
“We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.” (274)
“This old rock planet gets the present for a present on its birthday every day.” (104)
“Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly; insects, it seems, gotta do one horrible thing after another.” (64)
“The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.” (5)
After sharing our nuggets, we made a list of images, perhaps motifs, that struck us:
tom cat lights in the trees particles and waves (light) giant moth
water bug frogs snake skin Eskimos canary on the skull
the mantis the beetle on a pin Radford starlings
Hmm… so what do images share?
1. unfixedness (impermanence)
2. feral (or if we were Buell, ferality—trip on that)
3. wonder
So, do these images and these three commonalities help cultivate a healthy respect for nature? Does a sense of fear and awe, that nature is profligate, motivate environmental awareness? Distort it?
We closed by reading a flaming piece of trash published by the New York Times which tried to do Dillard by providing the ornamentation of her (or the writer’s notion of nature writing) but without the substance. I’ll conclude my scribblings with a question:
What the hell is exotica?