2.05.24. Literary games and reality2.05.24.

2.05.24. Literary games and reality

Last year Polish translation was published Copperhead Demon Barbara Kingsolver (prze Kaja Gucio, Wydawnictwo Filia, Poznań) is simply a fresh that was portrayed in the fresh York Times as 1 of the books of the year 2022 and was later honored with the Pulitzer Prize and was exhibited among the books of the year 2023. Its literary game reveals itself, as you can see, already in the mention David Copperfield The title, and the game is overwritten over the game of the fresh Charles Dickens. Her author turns out to be, let's add immediately, a complete master of the literary game taken. More about this in a minute...

Those who do not know the novels indicated have a good fewer hours to read. It should be at the same time that the creation of these works divides 1 100 and seventy years more or less. Their heroes live in others, it seems, worlds – any in Victorian England, others in America, at the ft of the Appalachians – but are shown according to akin first assumptions. Those that are born of the belief that literature is simply a mirror reflecting real reality, and its task is to explain and influence this reality. For a reason, then, the motto of the Kingsolver fresh is Dickens's words: "It is not worth mentioning the past, most likely as much as it affects the present." In an interview given to Michał Nogasi, the author Copperhead Demon He says: “The literature was besides designed to fight prejudice and to look not only at individuals but at the full community” (the full conversation: Shame took control in: ‘Books. Magazine for Reading’ 2023, No 6, pp. 66-69). This small "also" from the quoted message is besides of course of importance, but, like Dickens's work, Kingsolver's fresh focuses primarily on exposing the fact reflecting in literary mirrors a concrete, real reality and suggesting the request for revision of common ideas about this realistic vision. In the context of Kingsolver's novel, there will be an chance to reflect, among another things, on Donald Trump's triumph in the 2016 election and on what may shortly consequence in his re-tumf. We'll get back to that, too...

Here, on the rule of interjection, it might be worth pointing out that who wants to focus theoretically on the question of the relation between fact and literary fiction could start by reading a sketch The fresh and the truth A late prof. Michał Głowiński (see his authorship Novel Games, PIW, Warsaw 1973, pp. 9-36). You can always scope for reporter books. Appropriate suggestions will follow up Entries... Here, for the sake of order, Dickens was besides a master of literary games. His David Copperfield (for Wilhelmina Kościełkowska in 1889, Wydawnictwo Filia, Poznań 2023) has much to do with the author's biography.

In any case, both novels show that a hero who belongs to the worlds shown in them must truly “be born” in order to last at all and make his possible in the reality in which it came to be. This was the case both with David Copperfield of Victorian England and with Demon Copperhead of American region Lee. They did it. Let's compare “for taste” with the appropriate fragments.

In Dickens' novel, narrator-David attributes power to the cap that saves from drowning:

I was born, as they say, in a bonnet, whose sales were announced in the journals at a modest price of 5 guineas. Whether the sailors in the unpersonalized at that time were in business, or that the belief in akin practices had weakened, and more than the hats were trusted with cork belts, I do not know, only 1 buyer, a lawyer, offered for the object put up for sale 2 pounds in cash and so much wine, but refusing to be firmly protected from drowning at a higher price. And that even the cellar of my mediocre parent was to be sold, the deal was not made, and only 10 years later the cap was allowed in the area we lived in, on a lottery, in 50 tickets, half a crown each, with a surcharge by the winning 5 shillings. I was present for this, and I remember the unpleasant feeling that I had toward a akin disposition of part of me. Fant was won by an old woman with a basket in her hand. I remember how reluctant she was to get a fine fee from it, which took infinitely long and caused many arithmetic complications. This lady, who is simply a remarkable and memorable fact, did not drown, but died in her own bed with dignity in her ninety - 2 years of age. It should be added, however, that she kept to land constantly, and even cursed the impunity of sailors and another akin wicked ones, trying, as she said, to “defraud” the natural course of things (David Copperfield, p. 7-8).

And now the demon from Kingsolver's novel:

First I took it and was born. There were quite a few stares at the scene, and then they always told me that I did the worst occupation due to the fact that my mother, as you might say, didn't truly like what was going on.
People usually saw her in front of the trailer she lived in, and they always talked to her like good neighbors, so she wouldn't get in trouble. By the end of summertime and autumn, as shortly as a man looked, this tiny oxygenated blond girl leaned on a rail and smoked a pall Malla like a ship's captain, but now I think the boat went down. It's an 18-year-old girl, on her own and pregnant. 1 day she didn't show up, and Nance Peggot was at the door for a long time, and then she came in and found her unconscious on the bathroom floor, all covered in shit, with an instrument on top and with me almost outside. I was lying on a linoleum covered in garbage, writhing and throwing, due to the fact that I was inactive stuck in a bag where children swim before real life (Copperhead Demon( p. 11).

About the real world, which was shown in the fresh and in which the fresh Demon will grow, Barbara Kingsolver speaks in the erstwhile interview:

For over a 100 years, in the Appalachian area, there were non-residents of the company, large enterprises that were cutting down trees, mining coal. They dominated the marketplace and were practically the only employers in the area. The expansive policy that the companies had led has made them able to take full control of the lives of local communities, to make them dependent on each other. And erstwhile the natural materials ran out and there was nothing to gain, these companies almost disappeared overnight, leaving a mess, chaos and poorness behind. Only then did it come to light how much education, care about culture, everything that had no direct connection to industry.

And he adds:

There is no exaggeration in stating that the full Appalachian region was an interior colony of the United States. erstwhile the most valuable things were sucked out of it, it was left – along with the inhabitants – to fate.
The Donald Trump era had to come, there had to be questions, which caused him to gain the assurance of voters from this part of America, so that people would yet look into their eyes and realize what destiny they had prepared for their fellow citizens.

Especially since it should besides be remembered that the consequences of the Appalachian events were besides the opioid epidemic, which was driven by 1 of the pharmaceutical companies, offering residents of these addictive areas, containing painkillers.

In the conversation quoted, the author of the fresh – stressing that unlike many of her neighbors, she was fortunate to leave the space in which she was born for the time of her youth and discipline – is presented this way:

I am the daughter of a forgotten America, surviving among second-class citizens, for decades of shunned and invisible. small can be found about them in American literature, in the film, in widely understood popular culture. The Appalachians, or people surviving at the ft of the Appalachians, became synonymous with poverty, social bottom, shame, backwardness. They were considered peasants who deserved nothing but contempt. [...] Control over people has taken over the shame. And it was Trump, not prominent professors from the best colleges in the world, who could admit the moods in the forgotten part of America. erstwhile he arrived at the summit, he spoke to my people. “Get free of shame, be angry. You have the right to claim your own. I am on your side.” And although it was known from the beginning that he was a terribly rich and dishonest man, a showman who was able to do anything to gain power, only he – thanks to the whispers of advisors – wore the words smoky for generations of anger.

Kingsolver besides tells in the conversation cited, as it happened, that the communicative of the Copperhead Demon, who was actually called Damon Fields, kind of imposed on Dickens' story. He says:

I knew that I wanted to compose an epic fresh about the Appalachians, that I wanted the momentum to show what the opioid epidemic had done to the people of this part of America. I knew it would be a past of exploitation, a evidence of crimes committed on average people by large corporations, and those who make decisions about their destiny all day – from the local medical and psychiatric care strategy to the summit itself, or the national government. I wanted this book to become an accusation for those who feed on the despair and pain of the Appalachians and usage it to make a fortune, prey on the intellectual problems and disability of those who became victims of the activities of extractors and tree-producing companies.

When she was looking for an thought for a book on these problems, it happened that as part of a promotional action of another of her novels she was in Britain, in the city where Dickens wrote David Copperfield. In addition, it turned out that there was not only a museum in his old house, but besides the anticipation of staying for the weekend, and that there was inactive a desk office at which Dickens wrote. She's had a flash. It went smoothly.

I spent hours matching Dickensian characters to the realities of my world. It was a fascinating game with the classics of literature, sometimes banally simple, sometimes forcing for deeper reflection. I had fun making up names or nicknames. Copperhead, who in fact is called Fields, is Copperhead and it is hard to have a more adequate name for the man from the ft of the Appalachian. [...]
"David Copperfield" reports about the hard work of children, physical, exhausting, exploitation of minors. I had to think about how to fit it into the reality of the Appalachians today. I have come to the conclusion that this is about utilizing the youngest not only to work in the field, at harvests, to grow tobacco or to kind garbage, but besides in many regular household chores. Children, especially in families affected by the opioid epidemic, began to act as servants – they must take care of adults and themselves, it is the burden of buying or walking younger siblings to school. It's more than duty, it's more than work for your loved ones. It's a hard, physical work that destroys and whose effects their body will feel faster than they can expect.
The images taken from the reflection of the surrounding reality at any point began to overlap with what Dickens wrote. I didn't gotta go to any forts or trickery, I felt that these puzzles were made up.

Łukasz Grzymisławski in a review Copperhead Demon, in the same issue “Books...” as the conversation with Kingsolver, says:

The title does not lie: any association with Dickens' work intended. More if individual erstwhile wanted to organize the rewriting of the modern reality of the Dickensian canon, “David Copperfield” has already been cancelled. The Pulitzer Jurorom did not head at all that Barbara Kingsolver fundamentally copied the feature layout and network of relationships connecting key characters, even their names barely modifying. And that we know how it's gonna end. And rightly, the honors are due to this home-based enterprise ("Books" ..., p. 13).

Let us add again on the margin that the substance of the aforementioned rewriting of literature or past was already in these Records speech (see text Rewriting myths of 19.01.2023). Apart from the fact that the fresh Kingsolver reads well besides without knowing Dickens' song, but if individual wanted to discover intertext relationships on their own and does not know Dickens' novel, there would be no time to read the song of the nineteenth century author regretted. Especially since in the reading area waiting for an interesting sensational communicative Judith Flanders Everyday Life in Dickens' London (in Polish: Tomasz Fiedorek, PIW, Warsaw 2023). He's reviewing it. Marta advanced in the issue of “Books...” referred to here many times in the text entitled Dickens City. London beautiful and scary ( pp. 70-71).

But who wants to grow the reflection space outlined in Kingsolver’s fresh slightly, can scope for a sociological reportage Arlie Russel Hochschild Aliens in their own country. Anger and Regret of the American Right (for example Hanna Pastula, Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznyj, Warszawa 2017). The stories and studies it presents relate to Louisiana, but they talk about problems akin to those in the foothills of the Appalachians, and about the polarization of views and hostility resulting from them, as Hochschild states, "between the 2 camps into which our people have divided" (Stranger..., p. 11). and consequently about what Trump erstwhile brought to the election win.

Hochschild spent 5 years traveling around Louisiana and talking to its residents. The impulse for this investigation was to ask why these people are voting against their own interests. She was peculiarly curious in the causes of opposition to government decisions aimed at eliminating environmental pollution, while their region is considered to be the most polluted environment in the world, which they are severely and in many dimensions feel "on their own skin".

An explanation of specified contradictions serves in Hochschild's book is the concept of “deep history” constructed, among another things, by referring to work George Lakoff and Mark Jonson Metaphors in Our Life (Col. Tomasz P. Krzeszowski, PIW, Warsaw 1988). The author, a professional sociologist, writes:

A deep story, the communicative “c of the language of symbols”. He's not focused on facts. It tells us how reality is felt. Both sides of the political division are able to take a step backwards and learn more about the world. I don't think we can realize our views, right or left. due to the fact that each of us has a deep past (Stranger..., p. 221

This “subjective prism” refers to the identity of the people and the planet from which they originate. These include “hope, fear, pride, outrage and anxiety”. In the case of the Louisiana people, related to their individual and collective notions of fulfilling the “American dream” in their own lives and caused by various causes of the failure of these ideas. There is at the end of the Hochschild book chapter titled Not strangers anymore: the power of promises (p. 335-357) and in it the account of Trump's election gathering and amazing reactions to his speech. In a comment, the author of the presented book writes:

In Louisiana, supporters of the far right felt 2 things. First, that deep past is true. Secondly, that liberals do not believe in its veracity and accuse conservatives that they do not believe in it. [...]

In another words, supporters of the far right felt that deep past was giving the truth, and false policy of correctness was a cover-up to cover up. They felt despised (Stranger..., pp. 343-344).

The contention so outlined seems to have lasted a long time. Hochschild mentions at any point that the iconic book of the American right, so supporters of the Tea Party, the predecessor of today's Republican group, is the fresh Ayn Rand Atlas mutiny (p.o. Iwona Michałowska, Wydawnictwo Wystawi S-ka, Poznań 2008). This is simply a 1957 book. In a cover sheet, we will read that “according to the Library of Congress, it is the second most widely read book in the United States after the Bible.” We will besides read that the author “was born in St. Petersburg on February 2, 1905 [in the household of Russian Jews as Alissa Zinowiewna Rosenbaum – kr]. In 1924, she graduated from a degree in doctrine and past in Petrograd. That year she began studying stagewriting at the State University of Fine Arts at the movie department. In February 1926 she left for fresh York...’. It is considered an icon of capitalism. We have in Poland outside A rebellious Atlas besides another her books, including under the title Capitalism. Unknown Perfection (in Polish: Jerzy Łoziński, Wydawnictwo Profit i S-ka, Poznań 2013).

What about her? A rebellious Atlas, it counts – bagatelka – 1175 pages but reads perfectly! In addition, it is worth to see and survey the lecture given as a radio speech by a man named John Galt, organizer and typical of the revolt of a group of people who are identical to the title Atlas... And at the same time, someway in spite of will, it comes to the thought that the experience of youth must have any meaning in the intellectual improvement of her author...

On the another hand, if we return to the question of exploration and sociological discoveries of Arlie Russel Hochschild, we might say that although they mention straight to Louisiana, so to 1 of the states of America, it seems that they could besides be applied to our Polish affairs...

If, in turn, individual were looking for another reporter accounts concerning America in the context described above, Jessica Bruder would be recommended Nomadland. On the way to work (tow. Martyna Tomczak, Czarne Publishing House, Wołowiec 2021). There is something to read, and there is no uncertainty that these readings make you think not only of America's problems...

And if it were the problems of education, as usual at the end of these Entries, it is most likely easy to know that the texts presented present item the problem of identity and memory – individual, social, collective and the request to discuss these issues in the context of what is presently happening in the surrounding world. Here it would be worth to even repeat and consider Dickens' words adopted by Kingsolver as the motto of her novel: “It is not worth mentioning the past, possibly as much as it affects the present”.

However, they do not gotta do so constantly with us and by many repeated recommendations to read in the school in the order in which they arose and due to the request to master cognition of the past of literature. Rather, it would be better to usage the thought utilized by the creators of the performance played recently, i.e. on 27 April, at the Slovak Theatre. This is about a communicative directed about 2 years ago, and based on motives – no more, no little – only Christmas Tales Dickens. The show was shaped on the rule of theatre in theatre. Scrooge’s communicative was shown by a theatrical-cirque troupe wandering, according to his status, from place to place... On the another hand, viewers heard at any point that a fairy tale is shown on the stage, and in the fairy tale anything is possible, so the communicative of the Christmas night, during which Scrooge's transformation took place, can besides be played in April. Viewers of different ages were very pleased. The problem of human relationships has not lost its importance. Even the another way around. This is not what education is about, to repeat another people's findings, but to talk about people who are read or watched in the context of their own observations and to construct their own imagination of the world.

By the way, since Dickens' work was 1 of today's heroes Entriesthat a fresh translation has late been published Christmas Tales. The author of this translation is Jacek Dehnel, and very strong illustrations were made by Lisa Aisato (Literary Publishing House, Kraków 2023) for this edition. In April, just like in December, it's worth talking about human relationships...