Postmodernist history and "Housekeeping"

The most unbelievably fortuitous thing happened to me just now.

In class today, while I was rather more animatedly than usual trying to get my thoughts together, I tried to reference a passage in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping (which perhaps only my classmates from Coming-of-Age Novel have read, but it was a good book and I'm going to talk about it anyway even if not everyone else has read it). However, for the life of me I couldn't actually remember how it went, nor could I quite articulate what my point was in referencing it.

So, when I got home, I first sedated myself a little bit with a cup of tea and then got out my copy of Housekeeping to look for the passage in question. Unfortunately, having not read the novel in almost a year, I had no idea where to begin my search, and Google proved entirely unhelpful by only turning up results regarding, well, the literal keeping of one's house. So what, you may ask, did our quick-witted protagonist (by which I mean myself, obviously (yes, I am indeed being sarcastic)) do next?

WELL. She was suddenly hit by the promising realization that she'd had to keep a reading journal last year in Coming-of-Age Novel, which she located with unprecedented speed in her recently cleaned room to find that not only had she written an entry on the passage, but she had also cited it—with page numbers!—in her journal. So, while this entire anecdote is not exactly paramount to the overall topic of this blog, I think it's still worth sharing because I am simply reveling in the incredible amount of foresight displayed by the March 26, 2011 version of me in writing such a specific journal entry.

Anyways, it sort of dawned on me in class today that my frustrations with the postmodernist perception of history are oddly similar to my frustrations with the transient attitude presented in Housekeeping (although I was considerably less vocal about the latter). I find both philosophies interesting to think about and agree with both to an extent; however, they also both strike me as ultimately ignorant of the fundamental desire to hang onto the past that I personally believe is one of the things that makes us all human.

If you're missing the connection, think of Houdini trying to immortalize his mother by plastering pictures of her all over his house. Doctorow seems to find it foolish of him to even try to preserve her image after her passing because, as postmodernism argues, there's simply no way of ever creating a completely accurate portrayal of something that no longer exists—history can never fully rid itself of its many fictional aspects.  Thus, postmodernism tells us that it is and always will be futile to attempt to hang onto the past or to depend upon it as an absolute truth because, at the end of the day, nothing is an absolute truth—or at least, nothing is inherently any more true than anything else.

Housekeeping, meanwhile, seems to send readers away with more or less the same message. Sylvie's transient lifestyle proves to us that nothing is static, and that it's silly and pointless to try and hold onto the past because it's always going to slip right through our fingers. Indeed, she all but literally equates history and fiction by reading old newspapers purely for entertainment's sake—something that doesn't line up with our traditional view of newspapers as factual works meant to document real-life events, rather than as stories no inherently truer than those a novelist writes.

It doesn't seem to matter to Ruth, either, how real or true things are. "I remember her neither less nor differently than those I have known better," she says of a woman whom she saw once on a passing train but never actually met (Robinson 55). It reminds me of how, in Ragtime, Coalhouse Walker's story ends up impacting us readers "neither less nor differently" than those of characters who actually existed in real life. Thus, in both Doctorow's and Robinson's presentations of the world, no person, thing, or idea, it seems, can claim to be at all more real or important in the grand scheme of things than anything else.

All these connections make me wonder if Housekeeping is actually intended as a postmodernist text. I didn't think so when I first read it, but I also had little to no understanding of what postmodernism actually was at that point either. Going back over it, I'm not as sure. On the one hand, it does seem a little postmodernist in its philosophies, but at the same time, there's something about the story and the writing that's so pretty and quiescent that for some reason it reminds me much more of a 19th-century novel (it did at the time that I read it too, I remember).

Apparently, though, some people do take it as a postmodernist text—so says my Google search. In particular, I found an interesting passage from an online book called The Novel After Theory by Judith Ryan that deliberates this:

Shortly before the publication of Gilead, an interviewer asked Marilynne Robinson whether Housekeeping could legitimately be described as a postmodern novel. Robinson replied that much of what is termed postmodern is not substantially different from the structures and issues at work in a novel like Moby Dick. Nineteenth-century writers, she went on to explain, "just knew a great deal about the problem of knowledge." Indeed, she emphasized that these writers confronted the paradoxes inherent in consciousness and experience in a spirit of intellectual exhilaration rather than despair as many people might today.

This, I think, does a better job of highlighting my issue with the postmodernist take on history than I myself did in class today. It's not "the problem of knowledge" itself that doesn't sit well with me—at least, not entirely—because I'm fairly on board with that point. I understand that people are too inherently biased to ever present something exactly as it is or was and appreciate that postmodernists like Doctorow want to challenge their readers not to take what they've been told of history at face value.

However, I do still have a problem with the postmodernist idea of history, and that lies in the issue of "despair" raised by the end of the passage above. I suppose I don't entirely think that people like Doctorow take postmodernism so far that they entirely eliminate the possibility of life having a point—of us all being part of a larger history that actually is true enough to hold onto and to form some sort of purpose out of—but I do think they come dangerously close, and that's why I don't feel completely comfortable thinking too deeply into the concept.

See, as I just barely touched on at the beginning of this post, the reason that I can't quite accept the postmodernist view of history and never totally put my heart into Housekeeping is that I'm not okay with the idea that everything is transient, and everything depends on our interpretation, and everything is, in a way, fundamentally unknowable. I understand the rationale behind such a philosophy and legitimately see truth in it, but I can never completely buy into because I feel like it contradicts my basic human need to have something to latch onto and base life's purpose upon. I know that's an imperfect and unrealistic thing to need, but I for one am under the impression that that's just how human beings work—we can't simply accept that there's no such thing as a solidly true history because then what does that say for the present? Not much.

This brings me (finally) to the original Housekeeping quotation that sparked this entire blog entry, which is as follows:

In such weather one steps on fossils. The snow is too slight to conceal the ribs and welts, the hollows and sockets of the earth, fixed in its last extreme. But in the mountains the earth is most ceremoniously buried, with all its relics, against its next rising, in hillock and tumulus. (Robinson 87-88)

It may be slightly underwhelming given all the effort I put into finding it, but I think it hits on a very important idea, which is that where we are now is entirely based on our history. The idea that we're "step[ping] on fossils," to me, suggests that the past is what has built up underneath us to make the earth we stand on. So, if postmodernism steals from us the legitimacy of that past, we're left with no ground on which to support ourselves.

Thus, while the acceptance displayed by Robinson and Doctorow of life's lack of one universal truth does seem very ideal, I just don't see it as realistic. If everything is as meaningful as everything else, then everything is also as meaningless, and that's a philosophy that I don't feel can mesh well with human emotions and that need for stability that we all naturally have.

Cue long, drawn-out sigh: Siiiiigh.

It irks me a fair bit that I just read a book in which at least half, if not more, of the main characters died at the end and never for a moment felt even the slightest pang of sadness. Or happiness, or heart-warmed-ness, or any other tender emotion for that matter. I felt a lot of anger, if that's at all important, and at exactly four points—I counted—was at least somewhat amused and came close to chuckling.

In all seriousness, though, I really am disappointed when I look back on Ragtime and think about how little emotion it elicited from me, despite all the potentially interesting plots it introduced at various points. Quite honestly, I feel cheated—like there was so much to know about all of the characters in this novel, and yet they're still basically strangers to me even now that I've read the whole thing.

Take Younger Brother, for instance: He was with us throughout the entire book and, on the surface, seemed to follow an extremely interesting path from when we first met him to when he finally passed away. Yet, as much as I've read about Younger Brother, I don't feel connected to him in the slightest. He's an intriguing character, yes, but that's all he'll ever be to me; he just doesn't feel like a person. He has a body, he has a mind—and a rather fascinating one at that, I admit—but one thing Doctorow neglects to give him, along with virtually every other character in his novel, is a heart. He's just the bare skeleton of a character—a hollow Tin Man, if you'll pardon my cheesy allusion to The Wizard of Oz—and consequently, he's never really going to mean anything to me. Heck, I don't even know his name.

The sad thing was that these characters had backstories; it was just that Doctorow refused to acknowledge them most of the time. The passage at the very beginning of Chapter 29, for example, was one of my favorites in the novel because it suddenly made Father so much more real and more human. However, it was remarkably short-lived, and I was yet again left disappointed, as I was so many times throughout this novel.

What's worse is that I can't chock all these woefully unsatisfying characters up to Doctorow's being a bad writer—or, I could potentially chock it up to that, but I can't chock it up to his being unintelligent. Good writer or not, he definitely knew what he was doing with this novel and portrayed the characters so emptily because that was how he wanted them portrayed. Thus, I wonder what the point of it all could possibly have been. I don't feel like I really learned anything about the time period, as there were so many complete falsehoods sprinkled in with facts that I couldn't rely on anything I read without checking it elsewhere first; I don't feel like I got a deep message out of the novel, as every seemingly didactic passage was either undercut by sarcasm or contradicted later in the book; and, finally, I don't feel like I enjoyed the experience at all because I couldn't relate to the characters. So why did I even read it to begin with?

Unfortunately, I don't have any answer for that question better than, "I had to read it for class," which is sort of a shame, if you ask me. Doctorow outlined so many plots throughout the course of Ragtime that could have made for powerful, interesting stories all on their own, but he never let me delve deep enough into any of them to actually be moved. I can honestly say that I just read a book, but I'd hesitate to say that I read a novel because a novel is a work of art and, in my opinion, words on a page don't constitute art unless the author's heart is actually in them, and I just didn't get that sense with Ragtime.

But, at the same time, I do have to say that I think Doctorow probably accomplished whatever it was he wanted to accomplish with Ragtime because I wouldn't for a moment believe that he was originally trying to write a moving, emotional novel and just failed miserably at it. I can't say I know what exactly he was trying to write—in fact, to be perfectly honest, I haven't the slightest clue what on earth it might have been that he wanted to write—but whatever it was, it wasn't the kind of novel I like to read.

The funny thing is that it wouldn't have been hard at all to make me feel connected to just one of Ragtime's many characters; I'm really kind of a softy when it comes to novels and quite likely would have cried at at least one, if not all, of the many deaths in the book had one of my favorite authors written it. But, you know, pulling on readers' emotional strings just doesn't seem to be E.L. Doctorow's thing, PoMoMoFo that he is (new term I just made up; stands for Postmodern Mother-FILL IN BLANK YOURSELF and quite frankly is meant to be sort of derogatory).

So, whatever. If he'd rather sit at his computer and smirk at how delightfully ironic he is, he can be my guest. Just don't expect me to read any more of his works.

"Hammertime" by N.S. Dutta

If you can't groove to this
Then you probably are dead.
[...]
Break it down
Stop... Hammer time.

— MC HAMMER

[Bear with me here, but I don't want to rewrite the entire novel, so we're just going to cut to Chapter 19.]

But Snoop Doggy Dogg's album did not put him at the top of the entertainment pyramid. No man occupied that lofty place. Rather it was a bird.

The nest of Big Bird was at 123 Sesame Street. The great artiste came to work every morning adorned in lemon yellow feathers, orange legs with stripes of bubble gum pink, and three-toed feet. He affected colors slightly bothersome to the eye. When he stepped out of his nest a loose feather fell around his feet. One of the children who had rushed out to meet him picked up the feather and tucked it under the ear of nearby young girl. The girl thanked him profusely. In the meantime Big Bird had marched onto the street, children, adults, and even some fellow muppets circling him like they too were birds. Big Bird carried his gold-colored head high. He was at this time in his twenty-fourth year on the air—a burly eight-footer with a large body of dense yellow feathers, yellow wings, and bulging excited eyes set so close together to suggest they were made of plastic. Accepting the obeisances of his neighbors, he strode to his preferred stoop, a modest set of steps before a richly green door where he was visible to everyone and everyone to him. He was joined in his theme song. He was wearing a smile and enthusiasm. He sat down in front of the door, and ignoring Cookie Monster's letter of the day which was usually the first thing he looked at, said to his neighbors I want to meet that gangsta fellow. What's his name. The West Coast rapper. Snoop Doggy Dogg.

He had sensed in Snoop Doggy Dogg's album a lust for fame as imperial as his own. This was the first sign given to him in some time that he might not be alone on the planet. Big Bird was that classic avicular hero, a bird hatched to extreme wealth who by dint of hard work and pluckiness multiplies the family fortune till it is out of sight. He was familiar with all 26 letters of the English alphabet. He had once performed a duet with Diana Ross that had saved her from has-been-cy. He had single-wingedly bolstered the self esteem of the American public by making them all feel good about themselves as children. Moving about on his two large feet he crossed all borders and was at home everywhere in the world. He was a monarch of the flourishing, vivacious kingdom of Sesame Street whose sovereignty was in every heart granted. Commanding friendships that beggared royal fortunes, he was a revolutionist who left to presidents and kings their territory while he took control of the minds and allegiances of their youth. For years he had surrounded himself with parties of friends and acquaintances, always screening them in his mind for personal characteristics that might warrant even more regard for them than he already emitted. He was invariably pleased. Everywhere men bowed to him and women cooed with affection. He knew as no one else the deceptively warm and inviting reaches of unlimited success. The ordinary operations of his intelligence and instinct over the past twenty-four years had made him preeminent in the affairs of neighbors and he thought this said little for the residents of Sesame Street. Only one thing served to remind Big Bird of his being an animal and that was a quintessentially birdlike quality that had colonized his nose and made of it a beak of the monstrously large type that would only be rivaled by that of George of the Jungle's pet Toucan several years down the road. This affliction had come to Big Bird at birth. As he grew older and richer the beak grew larger. He learned to stare down people who looked at it, but every day of his life, when he arose, he examined it in the mirror, finding it indeed loathsome but at the same time exquisitely satisfying. It seemed to him that every time he performed a song or resolved a conflict or learned a new word, another inch was tacked on at the base of the giant feature. His favorite story in literature was a tale of Theodore Seuss Geisel's entitled "The Sneetches," which told of extraordinarily lovely creatures whose beauty was perfect except in those who lacked a small green star on their stomaches. When Sylvester McMonkey McBean, a fix-it-up chappie, made them go through a machine designed to rid them of this imperfection, the stars appeared; but as all the Sneetches were thereby indistinguishable, their specialness died. To Big Bird, the magnitude of his horrendous beak was the touch of God upon him, the assurance of mortality. It was the steadiest assurance he had.

Once, years before, he had arranged a dinner party at his residence on Sesame Street in which his guests were the dozen most powerful children's television stars in America besides himself. He was hoping the collected energy of their minds might crumble the twigs of his nest. Fred Rogers startled him with the news that he was chronically constipated and did a lot of thinking on the toilet. Barney dozed over his brandy. Kermit uttered inanities. Gathered in this one room the entertainment elite could think of nothing to say. How they appalled him. How his heart quaked. He heard through his brain the electric winds of an empty universe. And he asked himself Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street.

*Just for the record, I'm not throwing the extra "Doggy" in "Snoop Doggy Dogg" for no reason; that was his official name when he released his debut album in 1993, when "Hammertime" is set. As we all know, historical accuracy is not something "Ragtime" takes lightly, so I made sure to do my research.

**I will probably write something a little more serious and insightful later in the week, but I have to say I think it is mildly significant to note that the ridiculousness of this passage is really not my doing; I just switched up the characters a little.

First impressions of "Ragtime"

With a few exceptions, I generally don't like to write off novels as inarguably "not good" because I don't think I'm qualified to make such an assertion—nor is anybody else really, since what is and isn't good is a totally subjective matter. So, I'm not going to say that Ragtime is not good. Rather, I will simply say that I struggle very greatly to understand how it can possibly be perceived by a sane human being as anything other than not good.

For one thing, I just don't like the writing style at all, which is sort of weird because I normally enjoy narrators that are a bit austere and detached. I loved Hemingway last semester, for example, but Doctorow's voice is not creating the same effect for me at all. While I felt like Hemingway's short sentences had a lot buried underneath them, Doctorow's just sound dull and list-like; they annoy me. Maybe it's partly due to the fact that Ragtime's also in third person, whereas The Sun Also Rises was told by a character I really liked, but either way, I'm having a very hard time getting into the narrative voice.

Beyond that, I'm also finding the plot pretty unilaterally infuriating. The only times I find myself actually getting into the story line is when I forget completely that I'm technically reading about real people—this happens mostly with Evelyn Nesbit, since I hadn't even heard of her until opening this book—and even then I often struggle to understand what Doctorow's point is. It irritates me mostly that he deliberately chooses to use historical figures, as opposed to plain old fictional characters, but then proceeds to use them in what seem to be largely random and meaningless ways.

I definitely don't think a good historical novel needs to be entirely accurate, but I have a hard time buying into Doctorow's story when he's so deliberate and over-the-top about those aspects of it that are inaccurate. I feel like he's just waving scenes in our face and trying to tease us with them in a, "Hey look what I can make these people do—I bet it'll weird you out," kind of way. So much of the novel strikes me as Doctorow simply flaunting the fact that he's the author and can bend history however he wants, rather than actually trying to make a point.

And you know, not everything has to have a point. Doctorow is perfectly right in thinking that he, as the author, can make his characters do anything in the word he wants, regardless of the fact that most of the people he's writing about have real-life identities too. I mean, if I were writing a historical novel, I'm sure I'd get a huge kick out of having one famous person make obscene gestures at another famous person through the bars in his jail cell too. However, just because I'd get a chuckle out of writing it doesn't mean anyone else in the world would find it as interesting to read.

So, it's not the fact that Doctorow seems to think himself pretty cool for being able to throw all these historical figures together in such absurd scenes that I have a problem with; honestly, all power to him if that's a favorite pastime of his. Rather, I'm just irked that he seems to expect people to read it and be equally enamored of his craftiness. I mean, if he's not even going to pretend like he's trying to write a convincing novel, then I don't see why I have to pretend like I think it's good.

However, just like I won't explicitly coin this a bad book, I also won't say that Ragtime legitimately has no point; to some people I'm sure it does. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people—not yet, anyway. At the moment, all I see in Ragtime is a compilation of absurd, random scenes mixed in with the occasional glimpse of humanity, with the former heavily outweighing the latter. But, hey. It's possible Doctorow will surprise me with a great ending that saves the whole story for me, so I suppose I won't jump to conclusions just yet.

(The uncomfortable thing, though, is that I just checked and apparently Doctorow is still alive. Normally books I read for class are written by dead people, which makes me feel totally guiltless in criticizing them—Charlotte Brontë, for instance, has been dead for more than 150 years, so I think it's safe to say she no longer has the ability to give a hoot what people think of Jane Eyre, which is excellent news for me. Now that I know Doctorow's alive, however, I feel like this blog entry just bullied an 81-year-old man, which is, by most standards, not cool. Oh well.)