The top accolade of literary prizes, the Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to writers who have spent a lifetime dedicated to producing literature and providing the world with insight into others' lives and plight through the production of their life's work. Read 2000's Laureate Gao Xingian's thoughts on writing literature.(Just click on his name for the hyperlink)
Take notes and see if there is anything that he says which resonates with your own ideas or helps to prompt or establish new ideas. Please add comments on the blog to show you are engaging with subject matter. You should regard this type of inquiry as a body of knowledge that you are constantly adding to - to help you with your overall understanding in the IB course. The more you engage with ideas and think about things, the more you will find the elements of your IB course overlapping and crystallising.
5 comments:
I find it very interesting that Gao Xingjian believes literature has to be created by one person and not a group, or else it will become propaganda. His belief that it then becomes about the profit portrays his idea that literature must be made to convey a message in an art form and not as purely a way to generate income.
I also am interested in Gao Xingjian's opinion that a writer pours out himself into his work and that communicating is second to the emotions within the literature. He does not write to be published, just like Mr. Davidson, who came to speak to us about his novels, was more concerned with his satisfaction with his work than what others thought of it. This shows to me personally that writing must be an expression of the individual for it to have an effect on someone else. This irony seems to be inherent in all forms of art, which must convey an idea without telling the audience what to see.
As i read this, i kept thinking about how this relates quite relevantly to Ariel Dorfman as a writer, and his choice of exploring the theme of political conflict in Death and the Maiden. According to Gao Xingjian, in order that literature safeguard the reason for its own existence and not become the tool of politics it must return to the voice of the individual, for literature is primarily derived from the feelings of the individual and is the result of feelings. In my opinion. I think that Dorfman has successfully implicated this sentence into Death and the Maiden.
Also, "from my experience in writing, I can say that literature is inherently man’s affirmation of the value of his own self and that this is validated during the writing, literature is born primarily of the writer’s need for self-fulfillment. Whether it has any impact on society comes after the completion of a work and that impact certainly is not determined by the wishes of the writer" re-establishes what Mr. Tony Davidson told us in class the other day; that he writes his novels for himself, for self-fulfillment and that he does not worry about the impact it has on the society until after, and he has no control over it. We are reminded of this when he talked about the controversies readers felt when reading his first novel and how his second novel didn't get publish but he thought was his favourite piece of work, amongst the ones that he wrote.
Gao Xingjian's The Case for Literature is well crafted and his ideas come through very strongly. Like Julia, I also find it interesting that Gao Xingjian mentions that 'literature can only be the voice of the individual' otherwise it is propaganda. This highlights the transition from writing as a form of expression to writing simply for cold hard cash. Nowadays, many writers write for their audience rather than themselves and this reminds me of the novelist Tony Davidson and how he said that he cannot think about the audience when he writes because it defeats the whole purpose of crafting literature and strips it of meaning. Genuine literature does not need to be published and does not need to be read, but as time passes it becomes a tool for income, and audiences do become blind to this.
In addition, Gao Xingjian talks about how literature can be oppressed or suffocated by society and politics, this also reminds me of Tony Davidson and how he said that you can tell the truth through fictional works. However, even these pieces of literature can be worn out or manipulated by society. So will we eventually come to a point where the truth will no longer be able to be rightfully exposed anymore?
'If the writer sought to win intellectual freedom the choice was either to fall silent or to flee.'
While reading this, I remembered a TOK lesson I had a while ago where we were discussing art and I think it was Paolo (of course) who said that there is a theory that if there was an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters in a room for an infinite amount of time, they would eventually end up with a collection of Shakespeare's works.
Is this possible? I think every work of literature is specific to its creator and cannot be imitated, as every writers writes differently, fueled by their own emotions, experiences and feelings. 'It is precisely this voice of the individual that is more authentic'.
"Language is the ultimate crystallisation of human civilisation. It is intricate, incisive and difficult to grasp and yet it is pervasive, penetrates human perceptions and links man, the perceiving subject, to his own understanding of the world. The written word is also magical for it allows communication between separate individuals, even if they are from different races and times. It is also in this way that the shared present time in the writing and reading of literature is connected to its eternal spiritual value."
I was talking to you today about the way that the IB learner profile is taught through the literature course and I thought back to this quote by Gao Xingjian. The idea that we can gain insight across time, space and language to understand a snapshot of not only another person's life but their thoughts and feelings and emotions is the magic of literature and "fact(ict)ion".
The idea of writing for self fulfilment, was praticulary interesting for me. He said that one of his greatest works was written for no specific audience but simply for himself. The self affirmation he mentioned that drove him to continue writing is quite inspiring, especially for some one who is living in a communist country such as china where freedom of speech is ban. I got a sense that the works that he created was not for any one else but himself. That literature to Gao Xingjian wrote was a method of keeping himself aware of himself, and remaining independent in his views. It could be that this obstruction of freedom of speech, which caused Gao Xingjian to further develop his opinions in more depth and details shown through his writing.
“Literature does not simply make a replica of reality but penetrates the surface layers and reaches deep into the inner workings of reality; it removes false illusions, looks down from great heights at ordinary happenings, and with a broad perspective reveals happenings in their entirety.”
Living in a communist country where a there a views and ideas are thrust upon you, it creates an illusion of what is right and wrong. I think this is the illusion which Gao Xingjian is mentioning. And I agree with Gao Xingjian when he says that literature is not focused around, writing techniques, grammar, styles or literature devices but is a way for a person to express their personal ideas and at times used as a method to grasp on what they believe in.
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