reading notes: I and Thou - Kaufmann's Prologue

"Reading Notes" is a new series, of sorts. I have a growing collection of academic literature that I keep intending to start reading, and then I don't always get around to reading things, or I start and then don't finish books. To motivate myself, and to collect some of my responses to what I read, I'll write a post on the chapter or article. The format is not unlike what I used in a readings course in grad school. I'll organize my thoughts, and maybe some of my readers will follow along. 

This is not an academic review, per se. This is a mixture of summary and my own thoughts on and responses to this work. As I and Thou is a somewhat religious work in nature, my own faith (Lutheran-ish with some strongly Catholic leanings) will inform my responses and interpretations. You have been warned.

Buber, Martin. (1996). I and thou: A new translation with a prologue "I and you" and notes by Walter Kaufmann. Walter Kaufmann (Trans.). New York: Touchstone.

I started reading Buber's I and Thou a number of years ago, and kept having to return it to the library when I got part-way into it and then found myself caught up with end-of-semester coursework. Eventually, I added it to my "to buy" list and then picked it up at Powell's down in Portland over Christmas. Now I'm actually going to finish it, make some notes and underline things in my very own copy (yes, in pencil, for those who wince at the idea of writing in a book), and hopefully it will go well. I start with Kaufmann's prologue, which requires another citation:

Kaufmann, Walter. (1996). I and you: A prologue. In Buber, Martin, I and thou: A new translation with a prologue "I and you" and notes by Walter Kaufmann (pp. 9-48). Walter Kaufmann (Trans.). New York: Touchstone.

I suppose it's not uncommon to skip the prologue if it's by another author, but I like prologue and introductions, and this one seemed particularly important, as even the best translator will bring their own biases to their work, and it's well to be aware of those biases as one reads. My summary/opinions of/responses to the prologue are followed by a few quotes I particularly liked.

Kaufmann's prologue to I and Thou, originally written in 1970, provides a background to both the book itself and Kaufmann's translation in particular. Kaufmann summarizes some of Buber's background and the context in which Ich und Du was written. He baldly states that, in comparison to his other works, that this one is overwritten to the point where many (if not most) readers will be unable to understand much of the book. To readers, he states, this "seems palpable proof of profundity" (p. 24). He goes so far as to describe I and Thou as more overwritten than Nietzsche's Zarathustra (I find Zarathustra more amusing than illuminating, and Nietzsche's expressed views on women in that work are abhorrent. My fondness for Nietzsche does not override my bemused response to the odd journey that is Zarathustra, which for me is reminiscent of works such as the second half of the book of Daniel and many of the Gnostic gospels). Kaufmann's note is that "Buber's delight in language gets between him and his readers" (p. 19), which may well be true. I love fine writing, even if I cannot always understand it, and my previous attempts at the book have convinced me that I can at least enjoy the book, even if I do not understand it, and Buber is, at least, not as confusing as Homi Bhabha.

Kaufmann strongly emphasizes the Jewishness of Buber's work, something he states is frequently overlooked. He takes time to provide a less familiar reader with some background on the Hebrew concept of God, and contrasts it with the Christian concept of God. He does state that his reading of the Hebrew idea (God as I-You) versus the Christian idea (God as I-It), are his interpretations of those relationships, and should not be attributed to Buber. My own response to his statements here is that we are all prone to see God as I-It, God as object, even if we are not to make a graven image. For me, a Lutheran, the Eucharist is not God as object in the bread and wine, but a profound experience with God as person, with God made flesh, a God who so longed for the people God created to know God as person. Images or representations of God do not have to divide us from God as person; I think they are often meant to help us remember to seek out God as person, rather than God as object. Naturally, it doesn't always work out that way in practice.

One of the most salient discussions in this prologue is Kaufmann's articulation of his philosophy of translation. His own attitudes are inspired by Buber's own work in translation. Kaufmann argues that it is his duty as a translator to suss out the author's intended meaning, and translate that as closely as possible, even if this leads to a less idiomatic translation, or in the case of poetry, a less poetic translation (this, he states, is an argument for reading poetry in the original if possible). I happen to rather like this philosophy. It's a departure from what I would have heard at school, where the translation courses took a slightly different tack. I believe the emphasis was on as idiomatic as possible, but with as much attention paid to getting the author's intent across as well. The courses never fit in with my schedule or interests, so I'm guessing on what classmates said and what occasionally came up in other courses. However, Kaufmann's philosophy of translation dovetails with my own reading instincts. For example, I prefer prose translations of Beowulf, since Old English poetic styles don't work well with modern English, which is structurally quite different. You can sacrifice meaning for poetry or poetry for meaning, and I tend to go for meaning over poetry. At any rate, his philosophy of translation is followed with a discussion of his choices of translation for certain words in the text (so it would behoove the reader to read that section of the prologue at minimum), and he states his intent to be as faithful to Buber's text as possible has affected the style of the book: "The style is not the best part of this book, but it is a part and even an important part of it. Nobody has to chew passage upon passage more slowly than a translator who takes his work seriously and keeps revising his draft. . . . But once he starts making an effort to improve upon his text, keeping only the most brilliant plays on words while leaving out and not calling attention to inferior ones, possibly substituting his own most felicitous plays for ones he could not capture, where is he to stop on the road to falsehood?" (p. 43). This attitude of reverence towards the text and its author is much to be appreciated. It's impossible, I think, for the translator to entirely avoid his own interpretation, but to acknowledge that those are there and to do one's best to not include them is admirable.

And that's the prologue. On to Buber and Part One!

QUOTES

"The straight philosophers tend to celebrate one of the two worlds [e.g. matter and mind] and depreciate the other. The literary tradition is less Manichaean" (p. 18).

"Buber taught me that mysticism need not lead outside the world. Or if mysticism does, by definition, so much the worse for it" (p. 23).

"Buber's most significant ideas are not tied to his extraordinary language. Nor do they depend on any jargon. . . . The sacred is here and now. The only God worth keeping is a God who cannot be kept. The only God worth talking about is a God that cannot be talked about. God is no object of discourse, knowledge, or even experience. He cannot be spoken of, but he can be spoken to; he cannot be seen, but he can be listened to. The only possible relationship with God is to address him and to be addressed by him, here and now - or, as Buber puts it, in the present" (pp. 25-26).

"As a translator, I have no right to use the text confronting me as an object with which I may take liberties. It is not there for me to play with or manipulate. I am not to use it as a point for departure or anything else. It is the voice of a person that needs me. I am there to help him speak" (p. 40).

A response to Mother's Day

I'm dreading Mother's Day.

A year ago, I was pregnant and sick. I'd just been diagnosed with gestational diabetes and was having a hard time dealing with my body's inability to handle food normally while I was pregnant. I felt like a crap mother. And suddenly everyone was wishing me happy Mother's Day. The words made me flinch. I wanted to punch the next person who said them to me. I wanted to burst into tears. I didn't want to be reminded of what a terrible mother I was.

Photo credit: http://www2.uncp.edu/ip/images/Coffee&News.jpg

Mother's Day is something that my mum has never particularly liked celebrating. As she said one year, all she wanted was for us to let her read the Sunday paper and drink her coffee in peace. She didn't want gifts or flowers or breakfast in bed, just some time to herself. And she didn't want to make a big deal out of it, or guilt-trip us into celebrating the holiday. So it was far from a significant holiday for us, and the only reason it might be emotionally fraught was that she didn't like it.

As an adult, my experience with this particular greeting-card holiday has involved whatever my church happened to be doing on the day. The sermon varies, depending on which pastor is preaching. And the youth group hands out flowers to the mothers in the congregation. Usually I ended up with a leftover flower, with one of the older members of the congregation saying cheerfully that I was a "future mother." I didn't mind the flower, but I did mind the assumption that I would have a child at some point. During those years, I was wildly ambivalent about the idea of having children and half-way convinced that, given how many people seemed to have trouble having children, we would too.

This year is different, of course. My daughter is nearly nine months old, almost walking, babbling away with an assortment of sounds, and curious about everything. I am a mother, though I prefer the words "parent" or "mum." And I am a good parent. Not perfect, naturally, but I've managed to keep her alive, healthy, and happy. I think that means we're doing okay.

And yet, I can't forget the woman last year who wasn't sure whether she would need to hide in the bathroom during the sermon to avoid an overenthusiastic endorsement of mothers and a litany of how great they were. I can't forget her, how she flinched away from a friend who tried to wish her a happy Mother's Day, accompanied by a pat on her pregnant stomach, how she turned away, but couldn't bear to explain why she was hurrying away. I can't forget how she gripped the rose she was handed and how part of her wished it still had its thorns. I can't forget how she cried and cried that weekend. I can't forget, because she is me.

Photo credit: gamespe.com

So I'm dreading Mother's Day. I cringe when I see my favourite sewing blogs talking about gift projects for mums. That video about motherhood being the toughest job ever just made me want to shout at its producers. I'm grateful that my daughter wants to get up and move around during church, because it means that I can hide in the nursery with her if the sermon ends up extolling the virtues of motherhood. All Mother's Day is doing is making me relive the overwhelming guilt and misery I experienced last year. It's soon for me to have let go of it completely, and the fact that it's tied in with being a mum just makes it that much more powerful, and harder to ignore.

I love my daughter. But I can't appreciate this holiday.

book musings: Tamsin

I recently had the opportunity to meet Peter S. Beagle at Fan Expo Vancouver. He was very personable and signed my ancient copy of The Last Unicorn for me. He also signed the book I bought at his table and told me he was so glad I'd bought that one because it had been fun to write. I bought it partly because of the title and the cover, and partly because, well, I haven't really read much of his other works beside The Last Unicorn. Beagle's works are one of those things I keep intending to get around to and then never do. I am now remedying that lack in my education.

I bought a copy of Tamsin, which was first published about fifteen years ago. Jenny, the protagonist, is a teenager from New York whose mother marries an Englishman and takes Jenny and her cat off to a rural farm in Dorset. Her stepfather is restoring the farm for the owners, and the house itself is in an extreme state of disrepair. Jenny, her mother, and her stepbrothers are doing their best to help with the restoration, but strange things keep happening that slow them down or simply irritate them. The guesses at the cause range from boggarts to poltergeists. Eventually, Jenny meets Tamsin.

Tamsin is a ghost, daughter of the first owner of the farmer. She doesn't remember why she is still stuck there, and her memories of the past come and go, but she and Jenny become friends. As Jenny learns more of Tamsin's story, she becomes convinced that something terrible must have happened. Events begin to conspire to right an ancient wrong and Jenny finds herself a crucial part of the action.

I took this book slowly (for me). It took me nearly a week to finish it, which is quite unusual. I wanted my first time through the story to take a while. I wanted to savour it. Typically, I gulp my books down and then read them again. Tamsin will be a multiple-read, but I liked taking my time with the story. It worked well for this one.

I did have my doubts about the narrator--she's nineteen at the time she is telling the story, but the events happened when she was thirteen. Thirteen-year-olds always think that they are more mature than they actually are, but it took me a couple chapters to accept Jenny as a narrator, since believing yourself to be more mature does not necessarily equal maturity.

What I did love was how gradually the plot unfolded. The climax didn't rush in and take me by surprise, and it didn't take up the last quarter of the book (which happens in one of my favourite novels, but is a rather extreme choice). The climax happened, and we then proceeded smoothly to the denouement (hardest part of writing for me, always, so I admire well-executed ones).

The look at Dorset is also rather delightful, since that is a portion of the UK that hasn't often been mentoned in the books I read. Now I want to track down audio examples of the old Dorset accent to see if Beagle's transliteration of it is anything like the reality (hazard of being a linguist). And I learned a little bit of English history that I hadn't studied much before (albeit fictionalized, with ghosts).

All in all, I'd recommend the book, especially if, like me, you're an avid reader of anything by the late Diana Wynne Jones.

book musings: French Kids Eat Everything

I encountered the book, French Kids Eat Everything, by Karen Le Billon, when reading some of the blog posts for the Carnival of Evidence-Based Parenting on food and eating habits over the summer. One of the bloggers referenced Le Billon's book, so I looked it up, discovered that the author lives in Vancouver (local writer!), and got the book at the library. Now I'm finally getting around to writing up my reaction.

I've read bits of it out loud to J., who asked, "Why is it always the people from Vancouver who do an interesting life experiment and then write about it?" (Earlier that year, I read him The 100 Mile Diet, written by a pair of Vancouverites). I don't know what it is about the air or water or landscape that drives us to do this,but the results are interesting. French Kids Eat Everything is certainly a useful read, given that our child is starting to eat solids now.. Not all the principles that I lokked will be applicable right away, but once we started introduce solid food, there were some ideas that I found very helpful.

For example, it's apparently typical for French parents to have their children try many different foods many times. They don't worry if the child doesn't like it right away. They just introduce the food again at a later date. They don't assume that the first exposure to something new will "take." This reflects my own experience with food as a child. For a long time, I disliked mushrooms and wasn't terribly fond of onions. I wasn't too keen on cooked spinach, either. When our exchange students from Taiwan made us seaweed soup when I was five, I was not enthused. This has changed. Drastically.

There were, of course, things I didn't like. The general French approach to parenting and food is far more rigid than what I would prefer. Here doctors recommend feeding on demand with infants, but in France, they're on a schedule quite early. I do a bit better with the North American version, since having to adhere to a strict schedule doesn't always work for me (with some things, it's great, but if my child is hungry and screaming, I'll feel a lot better about feeding her rather than waiting until the clock says it's time). We have a rough schedule for E., but I don't want her to be so dependent on the routine that a change in it throws her off.

However, the emphasis on the variety of foods, limited snacking (something I need to implement more in my own life), and insisting that your child tries foods regardless of whether or not they like them on the first try, are principles that I appreciate.

From the beginning, E. has been given a variety of foods. On the list on the side of the fridge of things she can eat are the usual bananas and rice cereal, but we've also given her tofu and asparagus. Recently, we checked off most of the major allergens (just nuts, peanuts, and shellfish to go!). Since she's only about 8 months old, she tends to make a face at new flavours and then try them anyway. She is, I must say, far more interested in what we're eating than in what she has. She dumped her snack on the floor the other day and crawled over to demand my eggs and toast. Last week we were able to give her a meal that was basically what we were eating, except her fish was cooked separately and unseasoned. It's nice to finally be able to do that, though we're still figuring out what works and doesn't work for her food-wise. It looks like strawberries may be a problem (but the problem could also be our laundry soap or several other things, so we're still trying to figure out what's making her look like she has acne). We still can't feed her exactly what we're eating yet, but it'll be nice when we can. Next on the list is probably broccoli. Steamed. 

Romeo and Juliet

 
I keep intending to finish off the comedies and then move into the histories properly, but for some reason, I'm stuck in the first act of Winter's Tale and can't get past it yet. So here's my thoughts on a play I've read before, for at least two different English courses. We're skipping ahead briefly to the tragedies. 

Romeo and Juliet is not the easiest play for me to write about. Like many kids, I had to read it in grade nine, and I hated it. Two idiots falling in love, making a series of stupid mistakes, and then killing themselves, is not my idea of a good story. "They're morons," I thought. "Why on earth do people idolize this story?"

Then I watched Season 2 of Slings and Arrows. Romeo and Juliet is the secondary plot in that season, and the treatment of the play there transformed how I responded to the play. The language is beautiful and draws me in, and I have been able to accept the story more. The characters are not wise, and in that sense, they represent most teenagers. I too, fell in love all of a sudden with someone I barely knew when I was only fourteen. I made an idiot of myself, and the only reason I didn't make any really colossal mistakes was that he wasn't interested (and years later it occurred to me that he could have done a lot of damage had he been a certain sort of guy, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I'd escaped that. Embarrassment was far preferable). After acknowledging that, it's easier for me to put myself into the main characters' minds. I would never have gone so far as suicide, but their passion is more understandable when I remember how I was in my early teens. I can empathize.

Despite my new-found empathy for the story, I still don't love this play. Romeo starts it off in love with another girl, Rosaline, and crashes a party hosted by his family's enemies, the Capulets, in order to see her. Then he spots Juliet Capulet, and the young Montague instantly forgets what's-her-name, and makes it his mission to conquer a different girl's heart. I almost wrote, "to nail Juliet" instead, but though I'd guess his interest in her is primarily sexual, he does appear to be emotionally involved as well. The two of them talk in the famous balcony scene, make plans to run away and marry, do so, and then before Romeo kills Juliet's cousin for murdering his best friend, and is banished from the city. Juliet is heart-broken, especially when her parents suddenly decide to marry her off to another man. As she can hardly tell them she's secretly married her cousin's killer, she fakes her death with the help of the friar who had conducted their marriage. He sends word to Romeo to come fetch Juliet. Unfortunately, Romeo receives the news of Juliet's death first. He arrives in Verona to find Juliet's intended lurking around her tomb, kills him, then kisses his beloved goodbye and downs a vial of poison. Then, of course, Juliet wakes up. As Romeo has been so inconsiderate as to consume all the poison, Juliet makes use of her husband's dagger to kill herself. In the aftermath of their children's suicides, the Capulets and Montagues reconcile.

See? Disappointing. I'm not inclined to think of suicide as romantic, so it just seems like a tragedy of morons and miscommunication. But it is a tragedy of morons with pretty language, so it does have some redeeming qualities. Just a couple of quotes this time, though.

Quotes

"Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean." Romeo and Juliet, I.1.4 This one somehow resonates with me--a poetic comment on the darkness overlaying these so-called 'civil' people, these nobles who can't stop killing each other.

"Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." Romeo, Romeo and Juliet, III.5.7-10 The third line here is most often quoted, but a little context shows that the speech is even more lovely.

clearing a space

I don't like de-cluttering. It's annoying and messy and takes forever and at the end of it, I have stuff to haul to the garbage bin, the recycling bin, and the thrift store.

And we like clutter. J. and I are not minimalists, and I don't think we ever will be. We like books too much for that. He's into board games, and I'm into fiber arts. Both are hobbies that take up space.

But we do have stuff that needs to go. We really do. When I was in the process of sorting out E.'s bedroom so we could finally move her in there, I found a box. I opened it. Inside was a random assortment of stuff that I hadn't wanted to sort through when I was clearing our dresser top so I could put the changing pad on it. It had gotten stuffed in the spare room, and forgotten again. I sighed and took it to the living room, where E. was napping, and dumped it out. I sorted. I tossed. Her closet still isn't properly sorted, and her room is also home to the pieces of a giant desk that we're trying to give away on craigslist and Freecycle.

I feel better for it, but I don't think it's a process I'll ever love. I was the child who, when we remodeled our 60's-era bathroom, insisted on keeping a chunk of pea-soup green pebble-patterned linoleum. I later tossed it, but that's how attached I could get to things. Change was devastating.

On the other hand, I like to organize things. I just don't like getting rid of them. But I'm doing it. Slowly. I'm going through my closet and winnowing down my wardrobe. I'm opening boxes of random things and realizing that at least half of them are junk that we should have tossed last time we moved. I found cards from our wedding nearly six years ago that I haven't looked at since and had no intention of keeping, so those went into the recycling. It's a work in progress, and it's being done partly with an eye on our plan to move sometime in the next year or so. The more junk we deal with now, the less we'll need to pack up when we move.

I've never been great at keeping things uncluttered and tidy. It's not my forte. I'm a little better at it now that a tiny person is crawling around and throwing things on the floor, but our place still looks messy. I like the way things look when they are clean, but I think I'd be uncomfortable if our home was spotless and perfect. A clear space is good. A pristine space is maddening.

So I'll settle for clearing a space and hoping it stays that way for a little while.

the coming of spring

It starts with the sun breaking through ubiquitous rainclouds. Then a few catalysts kick the rest into gear. Someone tries to sell me herbs to boost my breastmilk while I'm the middle of slowly weaning my child. A near-stranger berates us for occasionally holding our daughter upside-down or tossing her up in the air (some of her favourite things, always done with due care, and not until she had proper head control). I don't get enough sleep because I'm trying to convince E. to go to sleep on her own, and my brain is won't shut up enough at night to let me rest. The PMS makes me irritable, the twinges in my gallbladder just hurt, and the measles outbreak two towns over is worrying.

I go home after that conversation with that stranger and cry off and on for the rest of the afternoon. I can't stop thinking about it, about how I snatched my baby out of my husband's arms and ran to get her away from that conversation, and how he followed and can't remember if he said anything to end the conversation before following me. I sob and sob, terrified that this woman will corner me again and again refuse to listen to us when we try to respond with reason. I know perfectly well that people who know us have no problems with how we handle our child. I know that she is healthy and happy and loved. But the whispers are there in the back of my mind, that maybe I'm a bad mother in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

The next day, everything weighs on me. The light, the time, my own thoughts. I make it through the day, and go to knitting group because the impulse I have is to isolate myself, and I know from experience that isolation will make it all worse.

The day after, I cry while reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" to E. J. stays home from music practice that night because I really don't want to be alone.

Today I go to a playgroup, and then for a walk, followed by lunch, laundry, and dishes, interspersed with trying to convince E. to have her afternoon nap. The darkness doesn't crash in until the evening when J. gets home, as if it was waiting until I wasn't on my own, so that it's mitigated just that little bit.

We're past the deadline of six months post-partum, so I know that this is probably not post-partum depression. This is me.

As always, I am functional. I have to be. Before, I had school and work, obligations that required fulfillment. Now, I have a small child depending on me. She needs me to be there for her. So I push through the quagmire, and decide that if I haven't bounced back by next Sunday, I'm giving my counselor a call. I'm hoping she won't send me to the doctor. The medication that helped last time is not compatible with breastfeeding, and while we don't breastfeed that much anymore, I don't want to quit entirely, not yet.

Some of this is probably the PMS. Some is weariness. Some is the change in the season. Most have heard of SAD, but only know what happens when people need more sunshine. I lean the other way, a less common problem in this hemisphere. The sunlight flips my moods inside out. I'm more-or-less okay during the winter, and then the weather changes, the clouds clear, and I'm hiding indoors, sketching jagged lines into paper, and avoiding people.

*             *           *

A couple weeks later, things have evened out again. I'm back to equilibrium. More sleep. Adjusting to the sun. Deliberately spending time with others. The apartment is still untidy, and I still hit occasional moments of grief. However, I feel far more normal than I did back in the days when the darkness refused to recede. For the moment, I have a reprieve.

Spring is here.

Photo credit: Wikipedia.