What is "Literature"?

Today, after working out with Andy at Hart House, I decided to go to Indigo at Bay/Bloor to see if they had anything good for their boxing week sale. It turned out that they were offering 30% off all hardcover books. I started wandering around the shop, looking for a hardcover book I would be interested in.

Thirty minutes later I was starting to feel severely disappointed. I'd searched the whole bookstore, from the Fiction sections to the Ideas section, but no -- as huge as the bookstore was, apparently no one had ever felt the need to add an LGBT section. This is despite there being books on religion and self-help and poetry and philosophy and psychology and current news and fashion and beauty and sports and alternative health (saw a bodybuilder-type person on one of their covers) and Asian Cooking.

Not that I should've had much hope for LGBT literature being in a mainstream bookstore to begin with, but come on. It seems like this systematic alienation of LGBT youth and adults will never end. I did stop by the sexuality section and typically, it was mostly straight vanilla stuff, all girls with lipstick and stereotypical imagery, aimed towards people who have no experience nor training in these fields at all. I saw one or two gay/lesbian books. Something hit me at that moment. I started to wonder whether it is appropriate to even define something as vague as "literature".

People will say, "I study English literature". "I love literature." But really, is "literature" just another socially regulated category, some elite group of books that have been deemed socially acceptable? Ideally, what good "literature" is should be based on solely the quality of the writing and language and ideas. But this is never really the case, and claiming that literature is everything that's "good writing" completely ignores other factors that people use to define and delineate what good literature is, such as the author's existing fame or lack thereof, the author's cultural background, the readers' cultural backgrounds, or even luck. If someone today wrote an extremely well-written book with evocative and new language and intricate and innovative ideas, would it be noticed if the subject of the book was BDSM? Or would the inclusion of BDSM automatically banish it to the realm of "alternative reading"?

Or, worse, would it be censored, suppressed, erased from the face of the earth? In UNI255 I watched a film I watched called Little Sister's vs. Big Brother, which detailed the legal battles of a bookstore (Little Sister's) to stop the censorship and seizing of gay and lesbian materials, including s/m materials, by the government (via Canada Customs). I distinctly remember one participant in the movie who said that the government was in fact speeding up the disappearance of a literature: many the authors who'd written the books had died from AIDS and the seizing of the materials precipitated their being unnoticed and forgotten.

This leads me to a personal conundrum which I have never been able to resolve. Is the whole process of delineating what 'good art' problematic? But if the concept of high literature did not exist could we ever separate what is wonderfully or inventively expressed to what is clumsily written?

After my adventure at the bookstore I popped into Calvin Klein to see if they had any nice underwear on Boxing Day sale. While I was looking through their racks a masculine-looking gay man was speaking to the sales clerks and was telling them that he went with this underwear instead of that underwear because that underwear he'd seen on people who are "really gay".

INFP

At times, I'm so filled with self-doubt. I cannot help but look upon what I've written and feel that it's crap. I want to change it but I don't know how. I don't have the ability or the ear or the power. I feel like I'm deluding myself for even dreaming to be a writer.

And even if I do become a writer, who will read me? The world is so huge, and there are so many people who will not listen to a thing you say. At the end of the day, how the hell am I ever going to change anything?

Be self-confident! This is what people will tell you. But then they tell you not to be arrogant. That line between self-confidence and arrogance is so hard to maintain that at times I wonder if it even exists. I oscillate between periods of complete insecurity and periods where I'm calm and stable and convinced that I can overcome anything - you tell me where's the line.

This is why I'm doubting. I don't only doubt my ability to be a writer; I doubt my worth as a human being. About a week ago someone said I was arrogant and hateful (this after they also told me I was insecure, dependent, and clueless) and I felt terrible because I felt like these were unworthy parts of me that I have not yet been able to change.

In truth, I am arrogant. I feel like I'm so smart and I feel like I'm oh so wise and I feel like I can actually write well. Am I hateful? Of course. Even after so long, I'm still trying to get some of my personal prejudices ironed out from my thinking. Am I insecure, dependent, clueless? Jesus, you know it.

Then again, sometimes I think that it's futile to describe people using adjectives at all. That's one thing I did not like about psychology - many psychologists seem to simply assume that a static core, if you will, that exists within every human being and fluctuates little over time. You'll see this type of thinking in the general population too. People use them to categorize themselves. "I'm optimistic", people will say. "I'm bubbly." "I'm an introvert." "I ranked 80% on Openness on the Big Five." "I'm an INTJ."

What if phrases like these are not applicable to us at all? In Atwood's Cat's Eye, Elaine's relationship with her best friend Cordelia morphs over time. In their childhood, Cordelia was a bully, a tormentor, yet Cordelia was also a misfit and a dimwit in her father's eyes; in high school, Cordelia was Elaine's best friend, a mischievous girl who was yet sometimes insecure; in their adult lives, Cordelia is sent to a nuthouse. Tellingly, at the beginning of the book when she mentions Cordelia, she then ruminates: "[W]hich Cordelia? The one I have conjured up, the one with the roll-top boots and the turned-up collar, or the one before, or the one after? There is never just one, of anyone."

It's an observation that I've come to believe is true. I used to tell others that I am an INFP, taking pride in the fact that my principal mode of learning was 'iNtuition' and that my way of making decisions depended on my emotions ('feeling'). Today, I know that this is simply a guide and I adopt this identification less readily. I know: I'm still an introvert when it comes to many things. I simply don't like partying very much and at many times, I just want to stay home and listen to music, play games, or read a book. Yet, I can also be extraverted - I've met a lot of people this year and according to some people, I'm almost "socialite". Although I do base a lot of my life decisions on emotions, I also base a lot of them on thinking and logic. I think so much on the subway because I have so much time.

I am introverted, and I am also extraverted. The two aren't mutually exclusive because whether I'm introverted or extraverted depends on situational factors such as the environment I'm in, the time of the day, the people I'm with, my mood, and the other responsibilities on my mind. Similarly, I do depend on my emotions, and I also depend on my logic.

Whether it's because of something they've learned or some chemical doing wonky things with their brains, people change every day. Their reactions to something today might not be their reactions to something tomorrow, or even the next hour. I try to keep that in mind. There are periods of time when some of my friends always seem to drift away from me; there are days when certain friends will act nasty to me. I can't even decipher my best friend sometimes, and we're pretty tight. But I remember that they may be affected by the lack of sleep they'd had the last few days, or their conflicting emotions towards their future careers... and this is how I remind myself to forgive.

Please forgive me, then. I am arrogant, but not every day. I'm dependent. I can be insecure. (But you just said I was arrogant!) I can be hateful. I can be naughty. I can be nice. (Confused, Santa?) Alas, some will still insist on seeing me as one person. If hateful and arrogant come with a label that someone cast onto me after meeting me for two days, I suppose I'll have to deal with that.

Group-think

Living in a media-saturated world is just so exhausting. Honestly. Sometimes, when I read TheStar or The Globe and Mail, I am amazed at the amount of stupidity that exists. I remember coming across an article on the G&M about a new research study that came out that "discovered" that television was making kids more distracted. Why stupid studies such as these ones exist is beyond me. Then there are the exercise more/lose weight articles. Reading Men's Health depresses me because of all the "Get abs!" articles they recycle. Reading many women's magazines depresses me because of all the shallow advice they give... as well as all the make-up advertisements. The world is superficial enough.

And the relationship columns. Today someone asked a column writer on the the G&M whether or not they should consider having a threesome. They both wanted to try it, but they were probably just insecure. The column writer was like "Well, I can't control what you do it in the end, but just be careful, it might ruin your relationship". Or that was the gist of it, anyway.

You know what that means! Time for Timmy to go off on a tangent about sex for the millionth time on this blog! I don't really think a threesome that all parties want ruins a relationship. I think what it can do, if it goes wrong, is bring issues such as lack of trust, respect, and communication into attention. Because if respect and openness were deeply entrenched relationship in the first place, there's no reason why having a threesome would change that. It is not as if your life undergoes such a drastic change that it can be divided up into "before threesome" and "after threesome" portions. If only one person in the relationship wanted to try a threesome and were trying to persuade/manipulate the other person into going for it, that would be a different story. There is so much irrational sex-negativity in the media.

I did, though, see a comment that said, "Life is too short to let fear and insecurity get in the way of exploring your desires. Have fun tell us how it goes." So I guess there is some hope. But mostly, there's a lot of group-thinking going on in the comments and it makes me kind of sad because I feel like the media kind of enforces this conformist world. The media shapes the subjects we think and talk about, and frames the ways we think about them.

In contrast, the arts, in which free expression is encouraged, is not really noticed by a lot of people. There seems to a decline in the appreciation of literature (especially poetry) and music in favour of (often shallow) radio-ready pop music, which is worrying. I try to be open to different modes of expression, and different genres of literature and music; I wish that others would do the same.

Which is not to say that "art" does not have its problems. "Classical music" and "literature" and "art" can seem like ivory tower categories--only accessible and enjoyable to the people who are privileged (i.e. rich and snobby) enough to have learned about their nuances. I get that. But at the same time, it is important to have an open mind to them. and not judge it by its genre.

Anyway I enjoy many other "common" (or considered less "artful" the academic world) genres ranging from country music to electronic/dance to pop to Pokemon music and I can see their merits all the same. Not to sing my own praises, but the important thing is not to limit oneself by saying "I don't listen to anything other than pop", and to judge a piece of music not by its genre but by its technique (whether musical or rhetorical), innovation, intent, and emotional intensity.

Come on world, stop this closed-mindedness, stop this group-thinking! (Though you can keep having group sex if you want *ahem*)

Reading List

My goal is to read or reread at least 25 books by the end of summer. I might write reviews or reflections on some of these books. Wish me luck!

Finished

1) The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood (Jun. 28 - 30)

2) Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Bechdel (Jul. 1 - 4)

3) A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin (Jul. 5 - 9)

4) Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood (Jul. 9 - 12)

5) Watchmen - Alan Moore (Jul. 12 - 15)

6) Who Do You Think You Are? - Alice Munro (Jul. 16 - 21)

7) Intuition - Allegra Goodman (Jul. 22 - 28)

8) The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood (Jul. 28 - Aug. 2)

9) The Color Purple - Alice Walker (Aug. 7 - 9) 
10) Cathedral - Raymond Carver (Aug 17 - 20)
11) Morning in the Burned House - Margaret Atwood poetry (Finished Aug. 21)
12) Troll: A Love Story - Johanna Sinisalo (Aug. 29 - 30)

Reading

My Family and Other Animals - Gerry Durrell
Selected Poems - e. e. cummings, edited by Richard S. Kennedy

Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing - Margaret Atwood
Ariel - Sylvia Plath

Want to Read

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Moral Disorder - Margaret Atwood

Such a Long Journey - Rohinton Mistry

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

His Dark Materials trilogy - Philip Pullman

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin

Lord of the Rings trilogy - J. R. R. Tolkien

The Call of the Wild - Jack London

Hamlet/Macbeth - Shakespeare

The Solitude of Prime Numbers - Paolo Giordano

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

What We All Long For - Dionne Brand

Downtown Canada: Writing Canadian Cities - Justin D. Edwards, Douglas Ivison (editors)

Books that I have started, but am taking an indefinite break on

Atonement - Ian McEwan

Close Range - Annie Proulx

Short Stories/Pieces that I want to read

"The Dead" - James Joyce

"A Field of Wheat" - Sinclair Ross

"The Second Strongest Man" - David Bezmozgis

"Wedding Gift" - Thomas Randall

"Bread" - Michael Crummey
Descarte's Discourse

Sinking too Far

I just finished The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and I must say that it is a lovely and poignant book.

Upon reading Alice Walker's wikipedia page, though, I discovered that she had a daughter, Rebecca, with whom she'd become estranged with. The reason they'd become estranged with each other was, according to her daughter, was because Alice had put all her energy into helping Africa, and going to feminist meetings - so she ended up neglecting her daughter. Upon learning that her daughter had made her feelings about her uprising public, Alice resigned from the role of being a mother.

From The Times:

Walker had also joined the early feminist movement — Gloria Steinem is Rebecca’s godmother — and it was her politics, more than anything, that shaped mother-daughter relations. The so-called “first wave” feminists believed that housework was another form of slavery and that women did not have an innate need to nurture but had been conditioned into their subordinate role as wives and mothers through centuries of patriarchy.

“My mother is very ideologically based, and her ideology is much more important in many ways than her personal relationships,” says Rebecca.

When Rebecca became pregnant at 14, Walker wasn’t shocked: she calmly picked up the phone and arranged an abortion. “Her feminist thing was about empowering me to have an active sexuality and to be in control of my body, and that trumped any sense of boundaries,” Rebecca says.

Certainly, Walker believed that what she was doing was right. Leaving her teenaged daughter to “do her own thing” was a way of fostering Rebecca’s independence and avoiding inadvertently passing down patriarchal values.

[...] Towards the end of senior school, an ecstatic Rebecca showed Walker her offer letter from Yale. Instead of celebrating her daughter’s success in landing a place at one of the world’s top universities, Walker asked her coolly why she wanted to go to a bastion of male privilege.

Today, her daughter is a third-wave feminist. She has a son and writes often about the joy of motherhood.

When I discovered this, I felt afraid. Am I an ideologically based person as well? As a student of the sciences, I have often pondered whether science's emphasis on rationality was beneficial. I have sometimes thought that this emphasis on rationality restricts creativity and the development of new ideas. As well, I'm starting to believe in some opinions that could be considered radical. For example, I believe that right now, our society is still very sexually repressed, and I would like to break the taboo on speaking about it it. Also, I believe that right now, our education system is deeply flawed...

I have maintained that it is important to question what is currently assumed in society. But will the things I think and say form barriers between my friends/family and myself? Now I am afraid that, by actively pursuing my ideal world, I will drive them away. My mom, for one, doesn't really understand my obsession with talking about sex.

I am glad I am reading more these days, because I've had new thoughts - thoughts and opinions that I never had before. But I've noticed that I use books as a form of escape. I read when I feel lonely, and want to avoid dwelling on negative emotions and thoughts. The thing is: the lines between reality and fantasy are not always clear. I often apply an author or character's opinions to my own everyday life. How would I know to stop? How would I know when I've sunk too far, into fantasy?

Finally, this article also scares me because I do not know whether or not I have what it takes to be a parent. I am afraid that my "hippie" ways of thinking will somehow ruin my children's lives, if I do have any. I am proud of my sexuality, but sometimes I am somehow afraid that being gay makes me inadequate to be a parent.

Homage to Rorschach

Timmy's Journal. July 19th, 2010. 12:28 AM.:

Motivation dwindling at work recently. Still have not accomplished task. What to do next? Will have to do a presentation shortly. A bit worried. Would like job to end, but that means school starts soon. A bit excited for school, but nevertheless apprehensive about workload and stress. Referring to both academic and social stress.

Read Watchmen. Good novel. Will reflect in more detail later. Especially liked Rorschach. Interesting character.

Watched movie adaptation. True to novel, but quality nowhere near book. Still, enjoyed casting choices. Liked Laurie and Dan, but imagined Dan more nervous. Also wished Rorschach's voice were less hoarse.

Now reading "Who Do You Think You Are?". Collection of short stories by Alice Munro. Good read so far. Now in the middle section of the book. Rose falls in love with a different man every story. Good thing. Makes her life captivating. Book gets better and better.

Glad I made 25 books goal. Helps deal with loneliness. Feel like I rediscovered something I lost in childhood. In elementary school, used to read a lot of science books. All knowledge came from there. Nowadays, read less, so less knowledge.

Recently, been reading a lot. Gaining a different kind of knowledge. Start to remember now the diverse lives people lead. Perhaps in the past, have only seen things own way.

Still have trouble being empathetic and understanding. But this will help.

Timmy's Journal. July 19th, 2010. 2:44 PM.:

At work now. Professor asked "So, what's new?"

I said, "Nothing much." I've been stuck on experiment. Conversation left guilty feeling inside.

Getting tired of working in lab. Would like to stay home and read or write. Amongst other researchers I feel useless and powerless. They have large-scale experiments. They can brainstorm solutions to fix errors. I am not creative in the same way. No good with hands.