Savages of England

            On Tuesday after midnight when I was getting ready for bed I saw a bedbug around the upper hinge of the old exit door. There was another one near the top of the frame but it may have already died before I crushed it. 

            I finished working out the chords to “Jet Society” by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through the song in French and English. I uploaded it to Christian's Translations to begin preparing it for blog publication. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before breakfast.

            At 9:45 I logged onto Zoom first and then closed it to reopen and see if I was still logged in and I was. So this time my profile picture showed up in the classroom. 

            We spent most of the class on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

            A lot of his novels are based on personal experience. He traveled the world since he was a teenager and he also visited the Congo. His novella is in frame narrative with an unnamed narrator. Despite the fact that English was not his first language he is one of the most canonical English writers. He is considered early modernist and sometimes proto-modernist. Realist narrative. 

            In the story the imperialist forces are private holders, one of them being Eldorado. Expeditions. The Congo River was a franchize colony for resources. 

            I mentioned that there are strong parallels between this novel and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Both have three layers of narration; both stories are told on a boat; the characters of Kurtz and Victor Frankenstein are both mad geniuses who lose control of what they created; both Kurtz and Frankenstein die on a boat after being defeated by their creations.

            Apala agrees there is a sense of the Gothic in the novel. Reading the imperial politics of the Gothic. Possibilities of knowledge, primitive, wild, natural, beyond civility. 

            The novel starts quiet and meditative, serene and melancholic. Are the Thames and the Congo river similar? Beautiful prose about the melancholy of twilight. A formal technique. Liminal space. Postcolonial writers often work in an in-between zone. Dreams, germs, and seed in an in-between zone.

            Someone said the beginning reminds him of Genesis. 

            In the description of Marlow, Raymond Williams talks of the modernist artist figure. Detached and deterritorialized. The politics of exile. Emigre disguised as exile. Lonely figure outside capitalism. Artistic sad figure thinking of ends of representation. Williams would say he is not classless. Marlow is a wanderer. It is a classical trope but in modernism it has an ideological understanding. Marlow has a tendency to tell stories. Embedded narrator. Seaman wanderer embedded by Conrad. 

            I say if the sea is his country he is always out of place on land and it shows throughout the story.

            The Romans invaded England the other day. The Romans colonized England. The critical project is not to look at it as binary. There are inter empires. What does it say to have been colonized and then to colonize? 

            Someone talked of Marlow as Christopher Marlowe, who wrote Dr Faustus. There is a Faustian aspect of the novel. Is Marlow really an artist? He thinks aesthetically. Storytelling is an art. 

            Dying like flies makes dying minuscule. 

           Modernism is internalizing exterior politics. Abjection. Hannah Arendt. Psychonarrative frameworks help understand contemporary politics. Abjection is also Gothic. The Gothic opens questions of abjection. The madwoman in the attic in Jane Eyre. Abjection in post-colonial. By invoking Gothic we are making space for horror, uncanny mutilation. Disintegration relates to abjection politically and also the limits of knowledge. Disintegration of knowledge. Think in forms like this. See more than descriptions. How to relate to thematic techniques. 

            She's procrastinating on looking at the Jameson essay. 

            The 19th century superimposition of the Roman and British empires. Disassociation of narrative. Marlow is saying this and not Conrad. The comparison is used to justify the British Empire as being the successor of the Roman. Self-present as Roman. Self-erasure. Erase own hist and rebuild. Anti imperial projects fell into traps of comparing too. The incomprehensible and the detestable challenges the ability to know. Darkness is the inability to know. The unknown. Fascination too. Marlow's personal positionality. That which is disgusting forces surrender. Embedded paradoxes and contradictions. 

            We took a break. 

            Only 35 students in class. 

            Zaina's presentation is an introduction to Heart of Darkness with a focus on Chapter One. Conrad's father translated Shakespeare into Polish. His father was a political exile from Poland to Russia. Sympathy and imagination are essential to life but impair judgment. Conrad was both anti-socialist and anti-capitalist. In the beginning the director, the lawyer, the accountant, the host, and the narrator are anonymous. Only Marlow is named. 

            It occurs to me that only Marlow and Kurtz are named in the entire story.

            Apala talked about the Achibe essay. Postcolonial writers look at how modernism relates to western civilization. He says the idea of the west is shaky and unconfident so the Other is used to police one's own boundaries. Ways of understanding Africa as mysterious and inscrutable. Bestiality versus humanity in the description of the African woman. 

            I don't see that the African woman is described as a beast. Liminality is confusing and confounding. Not just thinking of colonized people as not human. One can't ignore humanity. Modernists grappling with paradox leading to self introspection. Give modernists the benefit of the doubt. He says Conrad is half acknowledging the humanity of Africans but that it must be in its place. Kurtz's African mistress and his English intended. Contrasting the two women. 

            In the first few decades of modernism critics highlighted that this was about the deterioration of the European mind through the encounter with the sublime and the other. Conrad is a dream for psychology critics. Achibe is self aware. The post-colonial critical aspect of Marlow in Achibe. In what way is he not also a modernist writer?

            Achibe says it is a historical tradition to leave out the modernity of other cultures and not just a modernist problem. There is a reference by Achibe to the Great Wall of China not being mentioned by Marco Polo. 

            Achibe is sometimes poorly informed. The Great Wall of China wasn't big enough to be considered “great” until the 16th Century. Marco Polo was a 13th Century visitor. The wall can't be seen from the moon and it can't even be seen with the naked eye from the International Space Station.                Achibe confesses to privilege. Cynical understanding of west-east dichotomy. We are even now in polarized times. Tayib Salih echoes this. 

            Students can just upload presentations to Quercus Zaina says but Apala says just email them to her. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos before lunch. 

            It was five degrees outside in the afternoon and so I didn't layer up as much when I went for my bike ride. I didn't even have my hood up for most of the ride. There were more puddles on the north-south streets. Traveling east on the Bloor bike lane there were fewer because the south side of Bloor doesn't get much sun this time of year.

            I weighed 86 kilos at 17:00. 

            I searched behind the fridge, under the radiator, and under the credenza for a possible dead mouse that could be causing the horrible odour but I found nothing.

            I finished editing my lecture notes, got caught up on my journal and posted my Discussion comment just before dinner: 

            The imperialist forces in Heart of Darkness are corporate and capitalist rather than serving a government or king. 

            We learned that Modernist writers work in liminal space. The ocean itself can be seen as liminal space allowing the sailor as world wanderer to have an in-between perspective. 

            There is 19th century trope of comparing the Roman and British Empires to justify the British Empire as being the successor of the Roman. But Conrad is showing that the Roman project in England was a smash and grab operation similar to what was being done by the British empire and other imperial forces in Africa and elsewhere. 

            Zaina pointed out in her presentation that in the beginning only Marlow is named. It occurs to me that only Marlow and Kurtz are named in the entire story. 

            Apala talked about the Achibe essay. He says the west is insecure and uses the Other to bolster its confidence. Modernists use the contrast with the Other for self introspection. Achibe says it is a historical tradition to leave out the modernity of other cultures and not just a modernist problem. There is a reference by Achibe to the Great Wall of China not being mentioned by Marco Polo. 

            Takeaways: As I mentioned there are strong parallels between this novel and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Both have three layers of narration; both stories are told on a boat; the characters of Kurtz and Victor Frankenstein are both mad geniuses who lose control of what they created; both Kurtz and Frankenstein die on a boat after being defeated by their creations. 

            Of Achibe's essay: He claims that Kurtz's African mistress is presented as bestial but she is simplified to accentuate nobility, raw intensity and a feeling of love that eclipses the love that is shown by Kurtz's English “intended.” One might just as easily describe Queen Elizabeth I arriving on horseback in armour as a warrior queen to encourage the troops in as basic and effective a manner.

            Achibe is also sometimes poorly self-informed. The Great Wall of China wasn't big enough to be considered “great” until the 16th Century. Marco Polo was a 13th Century visitor. The wall can't be seen from the moon and it can't even be seen with the naked eye from the International Space Station.

     

            I had a potato with gravy, two chicken wings and the spine while watching an episode of The Addams Family. 

            In this story, while trying to light Gomez's cigar with a flame thrower, Fester misses and burns their giant stuffed polar bear to cinders. They call the Henson Insurance Company. Henson had ordered his man Digby to cancel all the Addams insurance policies but he'd forgotten the household one. Henson sends Digby to the Addams house but he is frightened away by Kitty Kat the lion. He returns with Henson. When Digby points out that the policy might cover flame throwers Henson fires him and tears up the policy. Gomez starts an insurance company in Digby's name. Henson comes to spy in a fake beard but Mama exposes him. Gomez threatens to withdraw all of his companies from their policies. Henson gives in and hires Digby back. They go to Alaska and get another bear for them but it puts Henson in the hospital in Anchorage. Fester burns down the new bear in another flame thrower accident and Morticia calls Henson in the hospital to ask for another one.