In my last blog post, I wrote about the ways the Israeli artist Ohad Meromi’s recent installation “Creative Circle” allows its viewers to bodily encounter a set of objects that already exist in relationship. It’s understandable that we’d feel embodiment when we encounter performance (and, as Allison Carruth points out in her post on Jònsi, the gestural often hums along under the radar of critical engagement: when we attend to it, our own somatic encounters with performance can be startling). But, do we experience similar somatic things when we encounter objects? More peculiarly, do we experience such things when we read books? If the register of the gestural works to delimit the somatic medium in which we, as bodied participants, live, can it work in the realm of the literary? “Creative Circle” encourages us to think about how our bodily encounters with art in space and time (say, an encounter with an installation) relate to our encounters with literary objects (yes, in space and time, but not quite as embodied). Oddly enough, when I sent him the link to that post, Ohad responded that this installation comes from a “serious jealousy” of the novel. Which raises another question, one with which I find myself increasingly preoccupied: what (if anything) can novels do that other aesthetic forms cannot?
To begin answering this question, I’m going to have to deviate a little from the terms I’ve set up. Eventually I’ll move back to the gestural novel, but for the moment I want to interject another framework: that of media studies. Sometimes those of us who think a lot about novels are reminded, often with a sharp intellectual cuff, that not everything is a novel (or a play or a poem or an essay) and that we need to make a claim for literature as a privileged site of inquiry. Conversations about novels are conversations about media, a term that can come to have an endless capacity and some foggy limits. But I don’t want to put the novel in a network of other medial objects; instead, I eventually want to look at the ways novels are constructed of medial devices.
Alexander R Galloway, a professor at NYU who works on media and media theory, teaches a class (with the historian Ben Kafka) on Media Archeology. I’ve been fascinated with the procedure of this class, one that seems so outside the seminar models to which I’ve grown accustomed. The major projects are a series of dossiers on dead media objects and dead media modes. For instance, a student might construct a dossier on the magic lantern, the betamax tape, or the dance card. The point is not only to gather together as much information about a dead technology (the kind of strict historicist work that situates such a class in a Marxist dialectic: conceptual frameworks can be extrapolated from material form) but also to examine the medial object itself: to do a “close reading” of the object’s medial attributes. By studying culturally produced machines, objects, and techniques, the class focuses its efforts on reading form. In this way, the class might seem similar to a literature class that focuses on the lyric, the gothic, the novel (more on that in a moment). For starters, though, the argument of Alex and Ben’s course seems to be if you establish the method, critical engagement follows (a pedagogy built on that same Marxist dialectic). And, it’s my sense that this kind of work is rapidly gaining ground in universities across the country: its theoretical depth and its historical precision appeal to a wide range of students. And who could argue that a dossier is proof of serious intellectual work? But, such a class also draws out some difficulties in calling any close attention “close reading.”
As I suggested above, media theory, specifically media archeology, borrows “close reading” methods from literary studies; but I’m not entirely sure the method holds. Close reading of material form can limit close reading of conceptual form (call it the difference between format and form, if you want, though that might be needlessly crude): if you produce a “close reading” of a stereoscope, you offer an account that fits all stereoscopes, or at least all those grouped under a similar periodic (historical) aegis. This, then, shares more with narratology or novel theory than with standard issue (is there such a thing?) close reading. But I want to think about what literary critics might learn about their own methods from a class like the Media Archeology seminar. To reap these benefits, we have to see what it is that “counts” as medial in such a class. Let us be clear: this isn’t the only kind of formalism with which one can approach an object.
I recently asked Alex for his working definition of “media.” Like “narrative,” (but, strangely, not like “novel”), the term endlessly slips–the danger is that everything becomes media. How to staunch this bleeding? Media, in Alex and Ben’s working in-class definition, can store and/or express information. Obviously a book of any sort “counts.” And we can easily slot the novel into this definition. Anyone with a historicist bent will agree the novel “stores” information a bout its relation to literary history, about the time of its writing, about the kind of subject position that would allow it to be written. And anyone unconvinced by the claims of history (let’s call this mode theoretical) might be interested in the expressive capacities of the novel: what can a novel tell us about subjectivity as such, about the human, about the world? But, what do we lose by thinking of novels (or poems, or plays, or essays) in these kinds of systems? In my view, we lose the very thing that allows literature to convey: we lose language. Garrett Stewart’s recent Novel Violence, for example, calls for a heightened attention to reading as a process of wording, phrasing, prosing. He suggests we might reinvigorate literary criticism by paying a bit more attention to the literary. But this doesn’t mean (and I don’t think Stewart suggests it should mean) we should veer from thinking of literary studies in relation to other media study. But we must find the right language for the task at hand.
And here I want to turn my focus to the novel. Put very basically, my question is this: why is it that with little or no practice, a person reared on 20th or 21st century novels (or, honestly, someone not reared on novels at all) can tuck into Robinson Crusoe, Pamela, even The Female Quixote and comfortably follow along. Context helps (and radically enriches), but it isn’t necessary for a first reading. When literary critics adapt media theoretical claims to their objects of study, they often consider the novel as a medial object. That is, a novel is like a poem is like a film is like a stereoscope, etc. Like media theories, such work often finds itself squashed between a materialist critique and one geared more towards a type of narratology (a schematic by which we could make sense of all objects formally like the object of inquiry). Can there be a formal account of the novel as a medial object that gives room to the parts of that object that literary critics most often focus on (parts like plot, character, narrative, narrator)? Beyond that, though, can a formal account attend to the conveyance by which the novel expresses such aspects? What, if anything, separates the novel’s prose from other prose?
One way to move in this direction, I think, would be to consider how literary objects, while material objects, might also be constructed of medial devices. Perhaps it’s clearer to see this in the poem: meter stores and conveys information above and beyond the “plot” or “narrative” of the poem. It’s my contention that novels do this kind of work as well, though it might be harder to see because, as we all know, the novels medial mode is, well, prosaic. In our cross-disciplinary conversations, Alex’s question to me is: why privilege the novel? And, by way of response, I’ll next offer an account of the novel’s relation to concepts of remediation, a relationship that that other medial modes lack. The novel can’t die.
Thanks for this illuminating posting, Claire. Your discussion of the Media Archaeology class gets me thinking about the history and function of "close reading." In particular, after reading your post I wonder whether or not the "close reading" of the course is a metaphorical close reading. After all, isn't the point of close reading to gain a better understanding of a particular text? We "close read" The Great Gatsby or a metaphysical poem to better understand the layered networks of meaning tangled within each object (and if we're feeling particularly New Critical, to expose the lacework of ironies and paradoxes hidden within each text). "Close reading" is a pedagogical method and a scholarly imperative in relation to specific books, plays, poems, etc. What we don't do -- or haven't found a way to do -- is "close read" "the novel" or "poetry" or "the codex," because to do so instantly reveals that there is no particular thing to which we might get "closer." In other words, what I'm asking is: to what degree is the "close reading" of "the" (as opposed to "a") betamax tape a kind of humanistically informed sociology? If it is so, what is particularly "humanistic" or "literary" about such a (basically sociological) "reading"?
Hmm - lots of interesting stuff here for thinking about all of our objects of inquiry. I think Lee is right to distinguish between a close reading of "the betamax tape" as opposed to "a betamax tape." The former is an inquiry into genre, the latter is a kind of thick description which can be almost ethnographic. That's why this line from Claire's post gave me trouble:
Claire, I think what you're talking about here is a close reading of "the stereoscope," which would obviously involve a close investigation of numerous stereoscopes of a particular period (this body of material could be limited in other ways, as well, for instance by manufacturer, or by consumption/use patterns).
Anyway, since Lee has already covered this part, on to the other thing that struck me, which was this question:
I think you've actually answered this for yourself in the previous paragraph, when you point out that the problem with treating literary forms as though they were media is that it tends to obscure the role of language. You write "But, what do we lose by thinking of novels (or poems, or plays, or essays) in these kinds of systems? In my view, we lose the very thing that allows literature to convey: we lose language." With the caveat that we're specifically talking about written language here, I would say that this is true, and provides the answer to your question about the untutored reader: the reader you've posited in the blockquote above may not be trained in literary analysis, but he or she is clearly literate, and has some experience with long-form prose texts. That is, it is this person's particular experience of and facility with reading written language, and in fact a particular form of written language, that allows for the encounter with the novel. Implicit in your question is the further suggestion that other literary forms (poems, perhaps?) may not be as immediately accessible as the novel; but actually, it strikes me that there may be particular language skillsets that enable poetry to be as accessible as the novel, at least in the terms you're using above. (I have a vague sense that for some of these literary forms, poetry in particular, the skills in question have something to do with the intersection of orality and literacy, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with approaches to this question to go further - it's just that someone recently gave me a stack of Dr. Seuss books as a gift for my impending twins, and re-reading them got me thinking about how rich a foundation they are for learning about poetry, even for preliterate kids.)
It seems to me that the problem with trying to define the novel in media terms is that it's not a medium. Written language is a medium, and I think it could be argued that various text-delivery systems can be considered as separate media (stele, scroll, codex, broadsheet, newspaper, e-reader, etc.) due to the varying spatial and temporal conditions of encounter they impose on the reader. (I'm getting this both from Chinese art history - where it's axiomatic that the gradual unrolling and rerolling of a handscroll painting imposes different requirements on both the viewer and the painter than the one-shot hanging scroll, which can be viewed all at once - and from my own experience of Judaism, which marks the passage of time by the shifting balance of the Torah scroll as it is rolled from one spindle to the other. The latter can be an extremely physical experience for the magbiah, the person who has to raise the scroll above his or her head for display, at either end of the liturgical year when the two sides are very unbalanced.)
Obviously medium and literary form can be intimately connected, as with the keitai shousetsu (携帯小説) or "cellphone novel" form, born in Japan in 2003 or so and spreading rapidly to China. But the question of how the keitai shousetsu works as a novel is answered at least partly by reference to the parameters of the medium (including the standard 70-100 character chapter, a product of the length limitation of the text messaging system the novels use). And, as you've already pointed out, the characteristics of language are also key: while I don't know how much literary work has been done on keitai shousetsu, it seems likely to me that the success of the form in Japan and China has at least something to do with the compact terseness of written Japanese and Chinese, in which 100 characters can convey far more information than in English. So it seems to me that the answer to your question about encountering the novel may lie somewhere in a consideration of the intersection of three things: literary form, medium, and written language.
Thanks for your comments, Lee and Kate. I've been thinking about Lee's question for a few days and Kate's clarification has actually crystalized something. Of course, in a Media Archeology course like the one I described the project is to extrapolate the generic from the specific. So, the difference between a stereoscope and THE stereoscope is great, but in a course which examines form as something reproducible over time, this difference diminishes. Even if a scholar looked at ten or fifteen stereoscopes, he or she would only be thinking through a subset of the material objects we call stereoscopes. The process of extrapolation pushes us, once again, to a materialist argument: we try to locate the key features that unite the form, but in so doing we ignore many features that don't fit, or don't fit each specific instance of the form.
But, my sense is that whenever we try to construct a syllabus on THE novel, or even on a novelistic genre, we get caught up in specificity. We could plot a syllabus that would trace shifts on material form, one that traces shifts in literary form, one that traces shifts in national form, one that traces shifts in character form, we might even be able to construct a (surely unwieldy) syllabus that does all of these somewhat, but the problem is, of course, the irreducibility of one novel to another. It's an obvious thing to say _Bleak House_ is different from _Great Expectations_, but I'd say the problem gets even stranger (and clearer to perceive) when we move slightly beyond the literary canon. _The Secret of the Old Clock_ is different from _The Hidden Staircase_ (both are Nancy Drew Mystery stories), even more bizarre, _Impossible)_ is different from _Miracle_ (both are Danielle Steel books from 2005).
This is where Garrett Stewart's book becomes useful for these purposes: the problem, of course, appears to be that plot, character, theme all differ. But, Stewart's book helps refocus our attention on the linguistic qualities of novelistic difference: the PROSE is different. So, the question must be: what is it about novelistic prose that makes it both strangely object-specific and also secured to larger generic attributes. Might there be a way to think of prose style as medial? Or, perhaps less stridently (and more helpfully) if we think this way, might there be some interesting payoffs for the novel as form?
Additionally, Kate's comment about the keitai shousetsu points to a small argumentative hammer I wanted to hit in my next post, but I'll telegraph it now by saying, yes, technology shifts do mean formal shifts in just the kind of ways you describe. But, again, most of the ways the novel SEEMS medial move us back to material rather than linguistic form. Of course the move from the three volume novel to the serial to the penguin paperback produces major changes in how the form is managed, both by authors and readers, but I'm trying to think a bit more about some of the ways novelistic literary form might manage, store and convey kinds of information. And I think there are some payoffs to thinking of the novel as a medial object made up of many media devices -- I'll cover those more explicitly in my next post.
Thanks for this really interesting post, Claire. I've been beginning to work through how to frame the materials of my first book--literature, especially novels, and cinema--cogently as media. At some level, it's mundane, right--"the literary" is medial in the sense of being made up of language, materialized in print, historically objectified as a book. And yet I am not sure how far we get in cogently conceptualizing the literary as a medium in pointing this out. Certainly, it yields a sense of the literary vis-a-vis material culture and book history, or more semiotically towards questions what what kind of "information" language conveys, but I think you are right that it might take a thinking through of the literary in a different way, as a site of medial devices (if that ends up being the right term). There is a weird and territorial sense in which media studies is resistant to the literary as it gets studied in English and Literature departments, that is, unless you shift the terms of the debate to look at things like fan fiction. So while I think you are right that there might be some really interesting payoffs for studying the novel as form were we to conceive of the novel not as a linguistic and material media object, but as a genre in which prose functions as a medial device, I think from the direction of media studies there is a need to conceptualize what it might mean to bring the literary in some of its specificity within the realm of the medial. How can one talk about literature and cinema as media both without it being a simply banal gesture? Answering this question would go a long way towards getting us over the hump of imagining that the arrival of the Kindle means the end of the book--that is, do any of the medial devices of the book, such as prose, alter as a function of the Kindle or not. At some level, not yet, but at the same time, not never. And so medial devices might get us away from untoward technological determinism, towards observations about the poetics of a novel or film combined with a comparatist notion of the medial as a techno-aesthetic horizon.
I'm struck as well by the definition of media as that which stores or conveys information. Doesn't this feel deeply modern to you? Many media do neither storage nor information conveyance; some simply extend the body into space for a duration of time that cannot be recaptured, while others entail the storage of information. Some shelter the body from the outside world, as in buds for your iPod, while others function as sites of play. Another way to conceptualize a medium would be historically, temporally--media mark and are marked by time, as when a stop-motion aesthetic is adopted in the digital age, or, as I think Ursula Heise writes somewhere, we could think of narrative as the medium of time (or in your terms, a medial device for the aesthetic structuration and experience of time?). And yet another way, as you suggest, is to conceptualize media through a set of devices: that is, as a group of elements, not necessarily peculiar to this or that medium, but functionally distinct when taken up in this or that medium, part of the machine that makes the medial object run in a more specific way vis-a-vis its "content," where content signifies not simply the story, plot, characters, but how language or pixels or color make up the story, plot, characters within the broader medial object.
Really looking forward to your next post, as these matters are on my mind in my current writing projects. As an aside, you would probably find the introduction to Lisa Gitelman's _Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture_ relevant, as there she is arguing for a specific concept of media, though one that you might challenge given your views above.