Response Paper 6
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Response Paper 6 In Preparation of Session 7 Denis “Telofy” Drescher June 2, 2014 estion 1 … What do you make of this opposition between “fiction exposed from inside the conventional” and “purely mimetic or conventionally realistic fiction”? And what might it mean that “there is no place except the map” and that “we make the map together”? I haven’t read any of Powers’s previous novels, but it seems from the descriptions that he oen ended them with a metafictional “frame-popping” at the end. I imagine this similar to Gene Wolfe’s e Book of the Long Sun, where, at the very end of the tetralogy, one of the characters reveals himself to be the narrator. In e Book of the New Sun, a second level of mediation is only revealed at the end of the first book, when an intradiegetic translator comments on their¹ problems with the translation. None of this happens in e Echo Maker, which is probably what Powers sees as the “con- ventional.” Mimetic, here, probably refers to the concept of mimesis as opposed to diegesis. It seems to me that such a distinction only makes sense when applied on the diegetic level itself, so that mimetic fiction might be fiction that does not place itself on a hypodiegetic level. e narration, however, is so closely focalized on individual characters that it becomes just as subjective and unreliable as if it were first-person narration.² Mark’s remarkable consciousness-forming processes cause the greatest ris in the text, but even as Karin grad- ually descents into something that I, in layperson’s terms, would describe as paranoia, the narration is empathetically truthful to her perceptions and trepidations. It thus achieves an effect that would otherwise only be possible with multiple (conscious) narrators.³ Since it im- itates behavior that is otherwise indicative of consciousness (and has probably been called self-conscious), it could be seen as an allegory for the emergent nature of consciousness. ¹In the sense of a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun. e translator is only known as “G.W.” ²Nonetheless, the narrator does have access to the thoughts of different characters within the same chapter. ³And only Weber has both the ability and an intuitive motive for having wrien the story. 1
description
A response paper for a university course, entitled Materialist Minds, on literary representations of psychological insights.
Transcript of Response Paper 6
Response Paper 6In Preparation of Session 7
Denis “Telofy” Drescher
June 2, 2014
estion 1
… What do you make of this opposition between “fiction exposed from insidethe conventional” and “purely mimetic or conventionally realistic fiction”? Andwhat might it mean that “there is no place except the map” and that “we makethe map together”?
I haven’t read any of Powers’s previous novels, but it seems from the descriptions thathe oen ended them with a metafictional “frame-popping” at the end. I imagine this similarto Gene Wolfe’s e Book of the Long Sun, where, at the very end of the tetralogy, one ofthe characters reveals himself to be the narrator. In e Book of the New Sun, a second levelof mediation is only revealed at the end of the first book, when an intradiegetic translatorcomments on their¹ problems with the translation.
None of this happens in e Echo Maker, which is probably what Powers sees as the “con-ventional.” Mimetic, here, probably refers to the concept of mimesis as opposed to diegesis.It seems to me that such a distinction only makes sense when applied on the diegetic levelitself, so that mimetic fiction might be fiction that does not place itself on a hypodiegeticlevel.
e narration, however, is so closely focalized on individual characters that it becomesjust as subjective and unreliable as if it were first-person narration.² Mark’s remarkableconsciousness-forming processes cause the greatest ris in the text, but even as Karin grad-ually descents into something that I, in layperson’s terms, would describe as paranoia, thenarration is empathetically truthful to her perceptions and trepidations. It thus achieves aneffect that would otherwise only be possible with multiple (conscious) narrators.³ Since it im-itates behavior that is otherwise indicative of consciousness (and has probably been calledself-conscious), it could be seen as an allegory for the emergent nature of consciousness.
¹In the sense of a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun. e translator is only known as “G.W.”²Nonetheless, the narrator does have access to the thoughts of different characters within the same chapter.³And only Weber has both the ability and an intuitive motive for having wrien the story.
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emap, in that context, is our model of the world. Since we can’t perceive the world itself,the noumenon, or whatever it might be if it exists, all we have is the model of the worldthat we were able to construct through our perceptions and their interpretation. Powersshows that this model (or map) is malleable and is easily reshaped. In the novel, we see thesame people through the lenses of the different focalizations, sometimes even in a temporallyoverlapping fashion, so that we can view the same events from two different perspectives.We can also observe how they change and how they discover and rediscover each other.
estion 2
What were your problems with the text? What passages, ideas or concepts didyou find unclear, unconvincing or otherwise problematic?
Mead’s chapters were hard to digest, mostly because he uses several very broad, ambigu-ous terms for specific concepts (such as “social objects” (Mead and Reck 134) for, roughly,“others”), possibly to sidestep unwanted connotations. Either these terms are or were part ofthe established jargon or he has introduced them in previous chapters, but since they werenot directly linked with the concepts in my mind but only by proxy of the rough translationI’ve come up with, they slowed the reading.
estion 3
What did you find interesting about the text?What aspects of the text would youlike to know more about?
It’s refreshing that, with few exceptions, Powers does not rely on his characters’ behavingnaively to create conflict. Otherwise I don’t have much to add to last weeks impressions. Bar-bara and Daniel are now both interacting with third parties with and without Karin present.
Here is one sentence that was so personal and evocative it brought me to tears: “Some-thing withers in [Daniel], some basic willingness to go on fighting a species that won’t berehabilitated and can’t be beaten.” (Powers 518)
Works Cited
Mead, G.H. and A.J. Reck. Selected Writings. University of Chicago Press, 1981. Web. Libraryof liberal arts.
Powers, Richard. e Echo Maker. Vintage, 2007. Print. Vintage Books.
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