Pollyanna Grows Up: a very American tale

I listened to the conclusion of Pollyanna Grows Up. It is very much of its era, not entirely in a bad way. It is also understandably an American classic. I do want to go back and reread or listen to Pollyanna. I say it is “of its era” because it betrays the worries of that time, the beginning of the twentieth century, of blood, genetics, and poverty. It does so in the most natural sort of way—attitudes and conversations rather than narration of the concerns. For example, in Ivanhoe, the author observes things in the “in those days people thought this or that” sort of mode.  That is not the case here.

In Pollyanna Grows Up, it is simply noted that surely that person has good blood. It is also an objection to getting married that nothing is known of the family, they could be anyone and what of hereditary disease or such? Pollyanna herself as a girl of twelve first encountering poverty in the city, wonders how some can be so rich while others are so poor? She is jokingly called a little socialist by an adult. The way the conversation goes kind of makes me wonder if the author had socialist sympathies?

Early on and throughout is expressed the opinion of many that “you could not understand, because you never experienced it” or the corollary, “she understands, because she has experienced”. The assumption is a little belied by one of the proponents of the belief in that he knows the stories of Arthur’s Knights and feels the need for heroic deeds and glory, though they seem unobtainable in his current circumstances and he is able to relate the stories and some of his own with such vividness and detail that it is described in at least one point like weaving a spell on his listeners. Nevertheless, the assumption is made throughout—if you have not experienced it, you cannot understand it. I have heard this assumption expressed throughout my life. I disagree. Much can be learned through reading and observation and imagination. I grant that observation is not identical to experience, but I also observe that experience can blind a person to the fullness of what a thing is. For example, a man and a woman may be very much enamored of each other and inclined to act upon their passions. An observer might sympathize with the feeling, but nonetheless be able to see that in no wise should they act upon their passions because one of them is married, so no matter how they feel, that would simply be adultery and betrayal, which they have already begun to enter into by letting their passions—lust—go so far. Someone else who has experienced adultery by participation may have a harder time seeing the error, unless he had already repented and worked towards reconciliation if possible. Of course, now our whole moral landscape is so corrupted that no one seems to accurately the gravity of most any sin. I guess they had to experience them for themselves in order to understand? Just had to take a bite of the fruit...Anyway.

Going to Church is treated as customary, but for most of the story you would have no idea that these people believe in God or an after-life. They are all oriented to earthly, material happiness. This is especially evident in the attitudes towards poverty and death.  As for poverty, Pollyanna cannot figure out anything to be glad about it other than, she doesn’t have that poverty, which makes her sorry for those who do, or she could be glad to help them materially, except that at first she can’t. Aunt Polly is a striking exemplar of their reactions towards death. It is all grief, pride, bitterness, and anger. No one speaks of heaven. No one speaks of God connected to this loss. It is just-he died. Now, how are we going to pay for this and that? How are we to live?  It does not seem that any know how to deal well with the pain of loss.

There is a focus on being happy, but the happiness is material. This leads to a moral dilemma which should not have been a dilemma in the way that it was. Some of the story focuses on the question of a missing boy Jamie Kent. His father was not approved of by the mother’s family, and when she died, father and son had disappeared. There is a Jamie and a Jimmy who are about the right age, one of them adopted by the aunt of the lost boy. He believes he is Jamie, or at least desires to be him in point of fact. When conclusive proof of who Jamie Kent is surfaces, it is decided not to tell Jamie, others may know, but not Jamie, because that would kill him, or something. His emotional belief or desire is more important than the truth. They would rather lie to him and let him believe a lie, but so would he. This is vicious. I cannot approve of such a moral. It darkened the end of the book for me.

All of these attitudes have only metastasized in American culture. We are obsessed with indicators of worldly success and comfort. We push away thoughts of death except to give respect to those who take death into their own hands or deal out death for their own perceived good.  We value lived experience more than truth.

I say “we” but it is a culture that has never felt like home to me. Is it that I loved hearing and reading Aesop, Grimm, & Anderson? Is it that we read the Bible regularly at home and I read it personally before I could understand much beyond the broadest strokes? Is it that I read more British literature than American? Is it that my melancholy disposition inclined me to relate more to Jeremiah and love books like Ecclesiastes? Is it that in traveling across the country to a place I knew not before I was ten prompted me to look more earnestly at Abram’s wanderings and apply that to the Christian life? Who knows. But at least since we traveled across the states when I was a child, I have had the sense of being a stranger in a strange land.

It still takes me by surprise when I hear the same tones of disdain towards religion in newspapers from a century ago that can be heard even today. It still catches me a bit off guard when I hear of people worried about bloodlines today as they did at the heights of the eugenics movement. It shouldn’t; I know well enough that there is nothing new under the sun, what has been will be and every new thing has already happened, still, I would have thought we could have learned from our past.

Dickens and Surrealist Cinema: or the post from the end of December that never was published

Have you heard of that style of cinema in which a person may be portrayed as actually shedding a river of tears? Or images may have more symbolic import than “real” import--you know that the character is not actually a giant, but because he seems so overbearing, overpowering and gigantic to this other character, he is made to appear that much larger for this scene.  It is an interesting approach, and for some stories works well.

As I have been reading Little Dorrit, I keep on thinking that odd style would really suit this book; has anyone tried fantastical realism with Dickens?  Take this, a Mr. Casby had been introduced as very benevolent and patriarchal in appearance, long beard and all, and another character, Mr. Pancks is introduced “,with a snort and a puff,” upon which Mr. Clennam, though whom much is related reflects, “much as an unwieldy ship in the Thames River may sometimes be seen heavily driving with the tide, broadside on, stern first, in its own way and in the way of everything else, though making a great show of navigation, when all of a sudden, a little coaly steam-tug will bear down upon it, take it in tow, and bustle off with it; similarly the cumbrous patriarch had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks, and was now following in the wake of that dingy little craft.”  

Or how this would look. A young lady is looking upon the ruins of Rome and reflecting on ruins in people’s lives and ruins in England when Mrs. General, who is often called “the varnisher” comes in.  Mr. Eustace is the writer of some travel journals who never compares anything favorably to England. “Up, then, would come Mrs. General; taking all the color out of every thing, as nature and art had taken it out of herself;...looking everywhere for Mr. Eustace and company, and seeing nothing else; scratching up the driest little bones of antiquity, and bolting them whole without any human visitings--like a ghoul in gloves.”

Visualize, visualize.  It isn’t enough to show her as powdery and wigged and stiffly full of proprieties.  Mrs. General must also be attended by proprieties.  She is a most varnished varnisher, but also a “ghoul in gloves”.  The whole thing with her gloves reminds me of some of the stuff I have read and seen in reference to Disney’s use of gloves on characters.  

In re-reading the first few paragraphs, I saw again the blistering, glaring, staring day in Marseille. Everything stares in the too bright day, his description takes you through the streets and through a church-the only refuge from the heat--and into the prison, where there are two people in a cell and other vermin.  One of them is described as having a distinctive nose.  He doesn’t exactly smile, but his mustache comes up and his nose goes down.  He was amazingly acted by Andy Serkis in the film version I saw.  Other than height, he was everything the book described.  Can you imagine taking this approach, though, of showing Dickens’ more peculiar or more shocking imagery on the screen?  Just as in the books, you would not always see barnacles when you saw the Barnacles--who exist throughout the British government and are paramount in the circumlocution office, you would not always be shown a ghoul in Mrs. General’s place, but sometimes, where appropriate, you would see these sorts of things.  It might be a longer mini-series, but I think it would be fantastically delightful.  

A "multi-lingual mind"

Once there was an e-mail group called Cumberlist.  Before, and shortly before it was dissolved into an internet forum,  someone pondered the significance of the multi-lingual culture in New Testament times and asked for people to share how exposure or familiarity with other languages affected our thought processes and perception.  I began a response, within the context of the e-mail environment, but the group was dissolved and nothing came of it.  At least nothing happened for a while, but as I was deleting e-mails and trying to track down the new forum that is three years old, I discovered it.

Here it is, mildly edited.

The other day I was typing out a statement and question and had a sibling looking over my shoulder while I typed.  As I was about to send it, She commented that what I had written did not sound like it came from someone whose first language was English.  I looked over what I had typed--it was grammatically correct but the phrasing was a bit backwards to "normal" American speech.

I often do that sort of thing, probably because I have at different times immersed myself in poetry, King James, older literature and things of that nature, and I have learned enough of one foreign language to communicate in a limited fashion (it was even put to the test this past summer, 2013), and regularly pick up tid-bits of whatever language I encounter.

Does all of that affect perception?  Of course.  Perception is molded by an individuals schema of knowledge, experience, biases.  As far as how things are described,well, the above example illustrates that if nothing else it affects the mechanics of how I describe things, but I also believe it affects the spirit in which I describe things.  Little things like the waves saying hello, las olas diciendo 'hola,' or realizing the connection in a Latin root of some word, or using "nice" in a way not common currently.  I do try to tailor my language a bit in order to be better understood, but at times I run into the difficulty of trying to say a particular thing and feeling as though my descriptions for clarification are only further muddying the water because while I am speaking English, it does not fit into the accustomed range of English.  So I try again.

Since I am a teacher I do try to encourage a broadening of my students vocabulary, both English and --other.  After all, nothing quite says "be quiet" in as lovely and direct a way as "fermez la bouche," and what 5th grade vocabulary would be complete without words like "quintessential" or "gnarled" or the unfortunate "ass-that-means-donkey" (courtesy of teaching Bible class with a King James translation)?  In all seriousness, though, it does seem that often the younger grades are the most receptive to new words, and the more unusual the more delightful they find them.  So, while they are in my class, I do not absolutely remove exact language, but instead use reasonably precise language and explain where needed.  I also require my students to use good grammar and ask them questions when they are being vague to try to help them learn to express themselves more clearly.  Much of the time, this process seems to make things more clear than they might otherwise be.  Other times, though, we still struggle with communication.

I do think it is very important to be able to mentally take yourself outside your own language box to try to understand unfamiliar communication.  Rather than, "what am I hearing?"  (answer might be, "bwgoaogogefgf. . .") asking, "what are they trying to say?"  (They seem upset, hungry? do they need food or tea?)  This is something everyone should learn to do, and while being bilingual might help, I think the philosophy of the individual may be almost more important in determining how well they are able to do this.