For some reason unbeknown to me, I felt a great affinity towards Art and Lies the more I read through it, and an even greater affinity for Jeanette Winterson once I read more excerpts of her work online. While the previous readings for the beginning of this semester were interesting sometimes and garnered thoughtful discussion, I found myself pressing my nose closer to Art and Lies when line after line would jump out at me with a recognition and agreement within me, almost as thought I had written it myself.
To serve as an example, here are all of the passages I underlined reading my first time through:
Instances of her making a statement, then immediately suggesting an alternative to her observation. I thought this was a really cool way of thinking: I say it’s this BUT look, is it THIS?
A feather had been used as a bookmark or perhaps the book had been used as a feather store.
A few lines of physics had been turned into a miracle, or a miracle has been turned into a few lines of physics.
So what other things in life can we switch around? What thoughts or norms can I pull away from my normal consciousness and attempt to look at it in a unique way, opening doors for thoughts and worlds greater and bigger than the drab and common. I guess I think drab=common. I try to avoid this at all times, which is probably why Winterson’s writing struck me. This feather is a bookmark….but wait…was this massive book just used for the feather? Who is serving whom?
Other excerpts:
Having the ordinary desire to appear both socialable and wise. (Miss Mangle)
This story is striking for two reasons. It is first a comment on the lengths that people will go for appearances. Apparently there is an “ordinary “desire” to be seen as worthwhile to speak to, a person who is intelligent and bale to carry a soicalable conversation. Is this such an ordinary desire that we cover up any imperfections in order to be social? Also the desires themselves. Not generous? Not humble? Not gracious? Not joyful or innovative? Just able to be social and the appearance of being wise. yikes.
The fatal combination of indulgence without feeling disgusts me.
Having no beliefs of their own they believe.
What do you believe if you have no beliefs? Something, I would assume! It’s like thought, no matter how hard you try, you always think. No matter how hard you may try not to believe, maybe you just end up believing in a life that has no beliefs.
Protection always involves some sort of loss
A man with God inside him is still preferable to man with only his breakfast inside of him
What use is it to love God, to dig my hands I nthe dark red soil of my home, and feel for it a passion which is not in possession but in recognition? What use is it to believe that beauty is a Good, when metaphysics has sold her in the market place?
More vivid, more graphic; more pornographic even, is the newsman’s brief. He must make us feel, but a body punched and punched again, we take the blows and do not even notice the damage they have done.
When I read this ^^ statement, I pumped my fist in the air and shouted “yes!” Not quite literally…but notions like this have been tossed around my conscious for a while. It’s ridiculous what we are exposed to, what we can handle, and now what we require to be moved or shaken. It’s scary to not know the damage that has been done to me, even when I know there has been lots of blows already.
What’s left? Romance. Love’s counterfeit free of charge to all.
He was becoming the thing he feared.
Are the things we fear fearful to us because they are a part of us already? A part of us that we don’t like, or maybe are trying to get rid of, so we fear it and even scorn it in others.
Can I? Can I speak my mind or am I dumb inside a borrowed language, captive of bastard thoughts? What of me is mine?
These passages are satisfying, they sound off thoughts or ideas I may have been able to put together if I had been blessed with the gift of writing. Winterson writes in a circle of questions and answers, musings and proclamations.
Sometimes her questions escalate to a more frantic or simply just a broader contemplation, like when she asks “Can I? Can I follow…., “ and then the concluding and resounding question stemming from her musing “What of me is mine? This is an intriguing question amidst thoughts about what langue is
And of course, the passage from class discussion:
It’s awkward, in a society where the cult of the individual has never been preached with greater force, and where many of our collective ills are the result of that force, to say that the Self to which one must attend.
The cult of the individual has indeed taken over our entire society. Even in the realm of faith, the cult of the individual has wormed it’s way in an proclaimed that it’s okay to put God in a box, to make Him who you want Him, and kind of live a buffet Christianity, picking and choosing the aspects and practices that fit our individual lifestyle. The cult of the individual has invaded and ruined our society, our sense of cohesion and our ability to truly work together. No matter how many times a teacher or coach has “there is no i in team,” we all just decide to call it an alliance, which has an “i” in it, and we move on in the same opposite directions we’ve been moving in.
What DO you do? Is there a desire to be socialable and wise, and reply with a prestiguous job and some sort of other random fact or braggable item? Do people throw off this desire and allow their innermost self to answer what they do: I’m a gardener, I’m a writer, I’m a mother.
