Salesman in Beijing

Reading Arthur Miller's memoir about his 1983 production of Death of a Salesman makes me realize how much American culture has changed since then and perhaps even how diverse Montgomery County is.  Indeed, Miller observes, "[the actors] are simply the-Lomans-as- Chinese-looking people.  This places them in some country of the mind, not in any earthly geography" (172).  Could one say this about the New York and Boston of *our* today, to use Miller's stage directions?

The picture above is of Flushing, a neighborhood in NYC's borough of Queens.  

The picture above shows actor B.D. Wong who plays a detective on Law and Order: SVU.  As you may know, this show is set in NYC.

However, back in 1983, the Beijing production of Death of a Salesman was groundbreaking.  Although it had been just over ten years since Nixon's visit, China was emerging from a period of isolation and recovering from its Cultural Revolution.  (Miller makes many observations about the impact of this historical period on the Chinese, especially on the actors he works with and the intellectuals he meets.)  The production of Death of a Salesman was therefore part of China's emergence and the development of its theater.  (Miller also notes that his play's approach to time and space was novel to the Chinese.  Most Chinese plays emphasized "realism" and a moral message over interiority and memory.  Ironically, Western scholars such as Robert Brustein criticized Miller for his concern with politics and society.)  

For more information about China's history and the Cultural Revolution, see these sites:

http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/time_line.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1288392.stm

http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/macfarquhar/macfarquhar_timeline/timeline_proletarian.html

Miller also discusses his Chinese actors' approach to theater.  It is more physical than Westerners' reliance on psychology and motivation.  In fact, Miller is mystified and annoyed by his actors' desire to wear wigs and therefore appear more "Western."  Finally, one actor reveals to him that Chinese actors enjoy dressing up and feeling that, by changing their appearance, they may "change their fate."  Nevertheless, Miller is concerned about the effect that the actors' attempts to look "Western" may have on his play's realism.  It is also amusing to read Miller's complaints about the 1940's long skirts.

At this point, you may wonder whether the play was performed in English or Chinese and whether Miller knew Chinese.  The play was performed in Chinese.  The actor playing Willy, Ying Ruocheng, also translated it, and Miller was quite pleased with this translation.  Miller did not know Chinese.  His wife, the photographer Inge Morath, did, having studied the language for eight years.  Miller also relied on several other translators, especially Ying Ruocheng.  Moreover, this was not Miller's first trip to China, and he and his wife had hosted many visitors from that country (including Ying Ruocheng).  

Here is a picture of the cast of Death of a Salesman with the play's author.

Below is a picture of Ying Ruocheng in another role.  I will try to find out which one it is.  

He, too, has written an autobiography, so I guess I have something else for my summer reading!!

As I close, I wonder what Arthur Miller would have made about the Oberlin production of Death of a Salesman starring Avery Brooks.

Reading Heart of Darkness 21 Years Later

The picture above is of a Polish translation of Heart of Darkness although the translation is not one of the ones mentioned by Ewa Kujawska-Lis in her comparison of translations from English to Polish.  (Polish was Joseph Conrad's first language.)

To begin with, I'd like to link to my review of Reading Heart of Darkness, a book that juxtaposes five ways of reading this classic novel. 

Link

Interestingly, that twenty-plus year old book did not include Chinua Achebe's critical reading.  Although I discuss it elsewhere, here is a link to Achebe's "An Image of Africa":
http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html

Note that Achebe is one of the founders of modern African literature.  His first novel Things Fall Apart is one of our readings, and it is probably the first modern African novel that everyone reads.

In "An Image of Africa," Achebe fiercely criticizes Conrad for relying on racist stereotypes of Africa and Africans as well as working to perpetuate these stereotypes in his Heart of Darkness.  Furthermore, Achebe maintains that, for the most part, Conrad refuses to let Africans speak in his novella.  Then, he notes that when they are allowed to, their few words confirm European prejudice.  He also criticizes readers for the degree of prejudice that has allowed them to gloss over Conrad's depiction of Africa and Africans.  Achebe particularly censures readers who gloss over Africa, regarding the continent as " merely a setting for the disintegration of the mind of Mr. Kurtz."  For Achebe, Conrad's novel is especially dangerous because it is so central to our conception of literature in English. 

And it is so false.

Indeed, the picture below is an 17th-century engraving of a procession through Benin City, the capital of the Edo kingdom in what is now Nigeria.

Below is a picture of a bronze bowl dating from the ninth or tenth century CE.  (The bowl is from the Igbo, another group or, as Achebe states, "nation," in Nigeria.)

British author Caryl Phillips interviewed Achebe in 2003.  Here, in this article from the Guardian, Achebe expands on his criticism of Conrad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/feb/22/classics.chinuaachebe

Now I'd like to go back to Ewa Kujawska-Lis' "Turning Heart of Darkness into a Racist Text:

A Comparison of Two Polish Translations," an article that appeared in the Summer 2008 Conradiana.  Although Heart of Darkness was written in English, it is extremely interesting to see how the novel would have been translated into the author's first language.  Kujawska-Lis compares two translations.  The first was by Aniela Zagorska, Conrad's cousin whose translation appeared in 1930, shortly after his death.  The cover pictured right above is of Ms. Zagorska's translation, and Kujawska-Lis notes that her text continues to be used in schools.  The second translation is, of course, more recent.  It is Ireneusz Socha's version from 2004, one of several that have appeared in the last twenty years.  Kujawska-Lis has chosen it as it is the most recent version.  Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find a cover for this version although this may be it.


Kujawska-Lis does mention the challenges of translation, specifically the translator's inevitable fingerprints on the text.  For the most part, she focuses on how racial terms and descriptions of Africa and Africans are translated into Polish.  As Conrad's first language was Polish, she argues that Zagorska's translation may provide a window on Conrad's attitude towards race.  Yet, being the author's cousin and friend, she also would have had an interest in representing him and his work favorably.  Kujawska-Lis suggests that Zagorska recognized the harshness of the English terms that her cousin used to describe Africans.  Socha's translation, on the other hand, reflects current readings of Conrad's work, particularly Achebe's, and perhaps even a reaction towards Conrad's current status in Poland.  (Ironically, during his lifetime, Conrad was criticized for "abandoning" Poland to live in England and write in English.)  More recently, she observes, Polish readers view Conrad as a moralist and a "national treasure" whose characters inspired readers during WWII.

Overall, Kujawska-Lis describes Zagorska's tendencies as "humanizing" and Socha's as "dehumanizing."  For example, the earlier translator's word choices emphasize the humanity of the Africans whereas the later translator's choices liken them to animals.  She appears to consider Zagorska's choices to be more deliberate and Socha's to be more careless even though his version has a clear ideological bias. 

Kujawska-Lis also criticizes Achebe for an exaggerated reading of Conrad.  However, as she also indicates in her article, her perspective is quite different from his, and she recognizes that she is writing about Conrad's impact on a specific audience, namely Polish readers who are oriented towards Polish history.

For more information about Conrad's multilingualism, see this article by Dr. Alicia Pousada of the University of Puerto Rico:

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~apousada/id4.html

Gensomaden Saiyuki

Link

See the link above for other versions of Journey to the West, including an anime!

What is Orientalism?

Orientalism is an important concept to keep in mind as we start EN 202 because the West's political & cultural power makes it easy to see non-Western literature as exotic and less important than Western literature.  Since this semester we are reading Lady Mary Wortley Montague's letters from the Ottoman Empire *and* excerpts from Evliya Celebi's The Book of Travels, this concept is especially important since Edward Said's book focuses on this part of the world more than it focuses on Africa.  So I thought I would put up some links about it while I have a little more time. 

Nowadays when we talk about Orientalism in literary studies we are referring to Edward Said's definition of this term: Orientalism as a method of defining the Middle East (and the rest of Asia) as an object of study by Westerners.  However, as Danielle Sered notes in a web page on Orientalism, this term was used long before Said.  Then its meaning was a lot less controversial.

 http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Orientalism.html

Prof. Allen Carey-Webb's page at the University of Western Michigan provides more detailed information about the concept of Orientalism, the reception of Said's ideas, and Said himself.

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/orientalism.htm

Interestingly, his students have also written about some of the works that we'll be reading.  Here is Michael Omo's page on Heart of Darkness: 

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/heartofdarkness.html

Theresa Johnson wrote about Things Fall Apart:

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/thingsfallapart.html

OK, I'm starting to go off track, but here is Vicki L. Whisler's page on Oroonoko:

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/oroonoko.html

Said does mention Heart of Darkness and other works by Conrad, but his emphasis is on the Middle East as it has been scrutinized and defined by Westerners.  Nevertheless, because Said has helped us realize how politicized literature and literary studies are and his book is a key text in post-colonial studies, he has affected how we read Heart of Darkness et al.  We cannot read it as naively as we might have before Said published Orientalism (1978). 

Of course, neither should we read Orientalism naively.  FYI, here are some reviews by critics of Said:

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/enough-said-3743

The print on this article is small, but this site is more accessible than Salon is nowadays:

http://www.ictal.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1328

 

How do you interpret the way that the authors of these web sites use the term Orientalist or Oriental?

http://www.orientalist-art.org.uk/

http://www.orientalistart.net/index.html

http://www.arabartgallery.com/orient1.htm

Here is a painting by Kamil Aslanger, a contemporary Turkish artist who calls himself an Orientalist artist.  I tried to go to his website, but it is entirely in Turkish!  It looks and sounds beautiful, though.

The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad (part two)

I don't like writing super long Multiply entries, so here is part two of my entry on the lives and works of Joseph Conrad. 

The picture above is of Conrad with his wife and younger son.  I think that it fits John Batchelor's bio nicely since this biographer does a better job of putting Conrad in context than Stape did.  Also, I suspect that Stape might have lost patience with Conrad.  Unsurprisingly, this can be an occupational hazard with biographers, and if one shies away from Conrad's work and hones in on his letters, it is easier to lose patience with him.

Since Stape, however, does a better job of writing about Conrad's earlier life (in Poland, France, and the merchant marines), this entry will focus on his later life as a writer. 

I wonder how an ESL teacher or theorist would look at Conrad's work.  After all, he was writing in a language that he did not learn until he was an adult.  (English was his third or fourth language, perhaps even his fifth.  I suspect that living in an area that Russia occupied, he had to know some Russian.)  An ESL teacher or theorist would shed interesting light on Conrad's struggles with writer's block and his collaboration with native writer Ford Madox Ford during the 1900s. 

Also, of course, a large part of Conrad's life in England was his attempt to establish and sustain an identity.  I imagine that this added to his tension.  Early on, Polish writer Eliza Orzeszkowa criticized him for writing in English even though he had not lived in Poland since he was a teenager.  Later, English natives such as Lady Ottoline Morrell & Bertrand Russell and would-be natives such as Henry James patronized him as an exotic foreigner.  When Conrad and his agent Pinker were quarrelling in 1909 & 1910, the agent struck back at him by claiming that he did not speak or understand English well enough.  Conrad, of course, responded with a stinging retort.  He also changed agents for a time.  Moreover, when Conrad did go to Poland in 1914, as Batchelor notes, his customary depression and anxiety lifted, only to return once he was in England again. 

Here is a quick outline of some of Conrad's work.  Although Heart of Darkness is perhaps his most celebrated and read work, he wrote many other novels, novellas (short novels), and short stories.  In fact, Marlow (the chief narrator in Heart of Darkness) narrates several other of Conrad's works: Youth, Lord Jim, and a later novel, Chance.  Some critics speculate that Marlow may have been Conrad's English-self or the Englishman he would have liked to have been.

In part 1 of this entry, I mentioned Almayer's Folly (1894), Conrad's first novel.  It is set in Borneo, quickly establishing Conrad's identity as an author who set his stories in exotic places.  At this point, Conrad had been a British citizen for 14 years, but he had spent most of this time at sea in the merchant marine.

Here is a picture from Borneo, a place known for its rainforests and wildlife.

As with Marlow, Conrad would continue to revisit one character from Almayer's Folly, Lingard, in "An Outcast of the Islands" (1895) and The Rescue (published 1920 but begun in the mid-1890s). 

Both Batchelor and Stape discuss Conrad's habit of beginning novels only to drop them and begin a short story that would ultimately become a novel or novella.  Heart of Darkness (1902) began this way, as a short story called "An Outpost of Progress."  Similarly, his novel Lord Jim (1900) began as "Jim: A Sketch."  However, as I have mentioned above, Conrad struggled with writer's block, and moving from project to project seemed to be his best way of dealing with it...even though this strategy was annoying to his agent and his publishers.

Below is a picture of the cover of Lord Jim, a novel about a young man who attempts to redeem himself after he jumps ship.  Batchelor compares the novel's protagonist, Jim, to Hamlet.

 

  Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), and Under Western Eyes (1911) are Conrad's most overtly political novels.  The first is set in South America; the other two are set in England and Europe.  In each of these novels, Conrad views political radicalism and intrigue with extreme skepticism. 

 

With Chance (1914), Conrad had his first popular success.  This novel, like several of his earlier works, is set at sea, and it concerns a captain's attempt to ship explosives safely.  (The story that became Chance was titled "Explosives.")  However, unlike his earlier works, Chance includes a love story between an Englishman and an Englishwoman that ends happily.  Prior to this, women did appear in Conrad's work, but as you may notice from "Heart of Darkness," they are often vehicles for the author's social criticism or, as with Winnie Verloc of the Secret Agent or Emilia Gould in Nostromo, voices for this criticism.  In Victory (1915), Conrad's next novel and another success, he places a love story between Heyst, the son of a cynical philosopher, and Lena, a prostitute, at the center of his work; however, she is killed, in part because her relationship with Heyst probably could not exist outside their island.

Conrad continued to write during and after World War I.  His works received much acclaim and respect, perhaps more than their share.  He also tried his hand at adapting several of his works for the stage.  Probably his most successful adaptation was of his late novel Victory, which "ran for eighty-two performances" in 1919.  In 1923, he traveled to the United States.  When he died in 1924, Conrad was working on a novel set during the Napoleonic era in the early 1800s.   

     

Indian Music

Link

The picture above is from a bhajan (a type of Indian poetry) session at a festival in Mysore, India.  Here's a little more information about this festival:  http://www.dattapeetham.com/india/festivals/ganapati2004/ganapati2004.html

The link above is to a blog entry on Indian music that goes along with the entry on poet & lyricist Mirabai that I will post soon.  However, if you're not familiar with Indian music, you will need this background information before I post the entry on Mirabai and her poems. 

Study Guide for Final (Spring 2008) -- part 1 (drama)

This study guide for drama & theater will cover A Doll's House, Mother Courage, and The Love Suicides at Amijima.  The Taming of the Shrew will be included in our film unit.  The Japanese play Shintoku-Maru and August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean will not be included on the final--unless you'd like to mention them in the extra credit section! 

The picture above is from the now defunct Boston Shakespeare Company's 1984 production that starred the 4'9" actor Linda Hunt as Mother Courage.  One of my former professors has argued that Ms. Hunt's Mother Courage is among the best portrayals of that role (other than Helene Weigel's, of course!).  Below is an undated picture of Ms. Weigel in this role:


I've also highlighted the midterm study guide because that entry contains information about the difference between drama and theater *and* some historical background about A Doll's House.

To begin with...here is a review of A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen's "problem play" from 1879.  It was originally written in Norwegian although it was soon translated into other languages including English.  At the time it was first performed, A Doll's House was controversial, especially because of its ending!  The play is set at Christmastime in Norway (Oslo?).  The characters are Nora Helmer, a youngish woman whom no one takes seriously; her husband, Torvald, a lawyer who has finally been hired to manage the National Bank; Krogstad, a bank employee who has lent Nora money and whom Torvald is about to fire; Mrs. Linde, Nora's school friend who is about to be hired by Torvald; and Doctor Rank, a dying friend of the family who confesses his love for Nora.  Nora and Torvald have three children.  Nora borrowed money so that Torvald (who was then ill) could travel to Italy's warmer climate.  However, as Torvald refused to borrow money, she forged her dying father's signature so that she could borrow money from Krogstad.  (In the 19th century, a woman could not borrow money on her own; furthermore, very much unlike today, her husband was generally awarded custody of their children--if their marriage dissolved.)  The play begins as Krogstad threatens to blackmail Nora.

The 20th century German playwright Bertolt Brecht's work can be considered in opposition to the previous generation's plays (like A Doll's House) that are well-made, are very much suited to the proscenium stage with its fourth wall, and have consistent characters with back stories and motivation that we can discuss.  (Note that Ibsen's advocates in English included the failed playwright and ground-breaking novelist Henry James.)  On the other hand, Mother Courage takes place over twelve years (1624 to 1636) as Anna Fierling (aka Mother Courage) tries to hold her family together and profit from the war, selling food, drink, clothes, and ammunition to both sides.  At one point, as the Catholics overcome the Protestant forces, Mother Courage, her family, and their hangers-on change religions.  Mother Courage's family is made up of Eilif, who joins the Protestant army despite her protests; Swiss Cheese, who is killed while his mother haggles over the means to pay a bribe; and Katrin, the mute daughter who is raped and later sacrifices herself to warn villagers of an approaching army.  The hangers-on include Mother Courage's two suitors, a Protestant chaplain and a cook (who tries to convince her to abandon war profiteering and help him run a tavern in Utrecht, away from the battlefield), and Yvette, a prostitute whose red shoes are stolen by Katrin.  Mother Courage and Her Children (the full name of the play) was written in 1939 when the playwright was in exile from Nazi Germany.  (Brecht was a Communist and known for his politicized theater.)  Ideally, the audience is discouraged from sympathizing with Mother Courage and the other characters, and actors are expected to be critical observers of their characters' actions.  Practically, this approach may have made this play difficult to stage although this is probably not the only factor.  Other plays by Brecht include The Threepenny Opera and The Good Woman of Setzuan.  As in The Threepenny Opera, the characters of Mother Courage (except for Katrin, of course) often break into songs intended to comment on the play's action.  Can you imagine Nora and Torvald breaking into song like that?!  OTOH, as I mentioned in class, an actor who has done well with roles like Chicago's Mama Morton, Velma, or Roxie probably could do well with the role of Mother Courage!

With the unit's final play, The Love Suicides at Amijima, we move back in time to 1720 and to a very different theater.  The playwright Chikamatzu Monzaemon wrote this play for the bunraku theater, a Japanese theater that relies on puppets and a chanting narrator.  However, as has been noted, the play was also performed in the kabuki theater by human (male) actors.  From 1629 until very recently, women were not allowed to act in kabuki.  The Love Suicides at Amijima tells the story of Koharu, a young prostitute, and her lover Jihei, a married man, youngish father, and struggling paper merchant.  Because they cannot be together, the lovers commit suicide at a Buddhist temple.  Jihei's wife (and cousin) Osan is surprisingly accepting of her husband's involvement with Koharu, but her family tries to break up the love affair.  At one point, Jihei's brother disguises himself as a samurai and pretends to be Koharu's customer. 

Here is a picture of The Love Suicides at Amijima

  The picture below is a close-up of bunraku, a puppet theater for which The Love Suicides at Amijira was originally written:
  Below is a picture of images from Kabuki theater:

Reading Heart of Darkness

 It's always interesting (and fun) to look at the covers of different books.  Above is a cover of the 2002 edition by Hesperus Press, a British publisher. 

In the same year, Oxford University Press published an edition of Heart of Darkness (and other tales by Conrad) with this cover.  Its editor is Professor Cedric Watts of the University of Sussex.  My professor for the 18th & 19th century novel tended to prefer Oxford UP's editions. 

This edition is from Penguin and, as you might guess from the words in the orange border, dates from the turn of the century (20th to 21st).  Penguin has made available a plethora of great novels in relatively inexpensive and durable paperback.  The editor of this version is D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke, a professor from a university in Sri Lanka.

I like this image that appears to be a cover of an Ipod version.



Now I'd like to look for some older editions or possibly editions in other languages.

Now I've hit the jackpot!  Here is a picture of a cover from a Signet edition from the mid-20th century.  Unfortunately, the author of the web site where I found this picture did not include the date of the edition, but I would guess that this cover may be from the 1950s.  Although the picture appears to be aimed towards a more popular audience, the author of the introduction is Alfred J. Guerard, a noted scholar of Conrad's work and an early psychoanalytic critic.  Hmmm...things were different in the old days!


I'll close with an image of an English-language edition sold at Amazon Japan's site and an image of the edition that I used to own!  Honestly, the picture right above looks more like a painting by Constable (a British painter) than a picture of the Congo!

What do these covers have in common?  How are they different?  Do any seem like they might be influenced by Apocalypse Now?  Which may have been influenced by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe's reading of Conrad's novel? (See below for link.)

http://www.cis.vt.edu/modernworld/d/Achebe.html