Eclipsed is a play beautifully written, directed and acted by African-American women. And, guess what, it talks of African women (with a little bit of American ancestry too). It talks of Liberian women and their life during the war that ended in 2003. It talks of the 'wives' of the rebel fighters; it talks also of the women who decided to become soldiers themselves; and it talks of those women who helped both groups by working for peace.
The first group is the easiest to sympathize with. Raped, abused, enslaved in their early teens, killed. Danai Gurira gives them some sparkle of joy and a lot of sense of humor, but their lives cannot but look appalling, unbearable. These things are certainly not new, but Gurira portraits them in the most moving and brilliant way. She bring the audience from laughters to tears, and back.
However, what I am more fascinated with is the dialectics between power and knowledge that takes place throughout the play. In her introduction to the piece Gurira herself recalls being impressed by the “feminine, glamorous, intimidating, powerful, belligerent, and African” female rebel fighters, as much as by “another group of Liberian women, who did the unthinkable”: “through courageous and selfless means they ended a senseless, vicious conflict”. The play itself ends with a young girl holding a book and a gun, undecided. The author, both in her words and in her work, shows a more multi-faceted attitude than her Yale book-devoted audience might have expected. Knowledge, education, books, are all good, important instrument to female and human emancipation. But fighting as a man, among men, after those men gang-raped you, gives a sense of empowerment that books cannot give in the short-term. Ultimately, they are going to. But becoming a perpetrator gets you out of the circle of victims much faster. Gurira does justice to the experience of the female soldiers, showing their desperate attempt of overcoming their passive fate. And it does justice to the unfairness of a world in which rebelling to injustice may lead to connivence with those you are rebelling against; in which a woman's advancement may be constituted by moving from the status of third wife of the commandant to being the protegee of three fellow soldiers; in which many people cannot afford the moral luxury of refusing Hobbesian truths.
She does also justice to the complexity of the experience of those people who can afford the luxury of morality, such as the courageous women who marched against the war, who entered into the war zones and worked for peace. Gurira's portrait of Rita is as sophisticated as that of all the other characters. She appears, at first, a bit snobbish and detached. We then come to know that she is looking for her abducted daughter (and tricked to think that there's going to be some resolution à la Menander, forgetting this is, notwithstanding the frequent amusement, a tragedy). This in itself wouldn't even make her a bad person: after all, she is doing things for all the other women too. But at the end, she is beyond 'doing nice things'. She found her lost child among the daughters of some other mother, and she addresses them as such.
Her love is what ultimately may persuade the female soldier whose name is Mother blessing" to choose knowledge over power. And it is thanks to Rita's noble love, and thanks to the love coming from the hilariously vital newly-mom Bessie, that we exit the theater with the taste of hope in our tears.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
fear of feeling
It is a commonplace that art requires pain: an artist who lives a pleasant and fulfilling life, without having to struggle, without experiencing suffering, is unlikely to provide important contributions to art.
I tend to agree on this, even though exceptions are always possible, but now I am interested in another question. Is pain an indispensable and valuable component of any human life?
In a sense, the answer may be considered obvious in this case as well, and the argument could roughly go along the following lines: a life without pain is going to make pleasure look like the norm, and hence less pleasurable. That is, a life without pain is going to be bland and boring, therefore pain is indeed an indispensable and valuable component of human life.
However, the sketch of the argument above has clear problems. A life without pain is a life filled of pleasant but also of neutral events. Hence, pleasant events will be still differentiated by other kinds of events, and need not become the norm, neither in a qualitative nor in a quantitative sense. A life without pain could be more boring, comparatively less exciting than one in which pleasure is alternated to pain, but not necessarily bland.
And of course I am not the kind of person who can endorse a merely hedonistic perspective. Values cannot be reduced to sheer amounts of pleasure and pain, even when the pleasure is of the noble kind. (When I say “can” I mean here only a psychological can: it doesn't seem to work for me to think in those terms; but I don't have any argument to show that my axiology cannot ultimately be accounted on hedonistic grounds)
But it's not even this that troubles me right now. Because, again, there could be a lot of neutral events, neither painful, not pleasant, which could provide enough value to my life: knowledge, without struggling for it, seems still very valuable, for instance.
What I am wondering is whether my emotional life could thrive without pain. Can I live a valuable life without experiencing painful emotions? (and yes, I am aware I moved from 'human being' to 'I', and from 'any human life' to 'my life'; it reflects more honestly my current motivation, and it's a good beginning for a more universal inquiry)
In the few recent years, the grip of pain that I used to feel on me has been released. In part it was time; in part it was change; in part I was lucky; in part I have grown wiser. Whatever the reason, things have changed. I cry rarely, and most of the time for quite trivial, stress-related reasons. My moments of sadness are ephemeral. My memory of the past is much more sweet than bitter. I am learning to let go. I look forward.
An unforeseen result of such a longed-for outcome, though, is that I have grown unaccustomed with pain. And I dread it.
It began in a subtle way. I stopped desiring to read certain books, or I stopped in the middle of one that was making me feel uneasy. Or, if it was really a good one, I went on, but I almost regretted reading it. I asked to friends, before watching a certain movie, if it contained too much cruelty. I stopped thinking that art isn't good if it doesn't hurt. I began watching tv shows. Only the ones that don't make me queasy.
Recently I have been planning a trip with Shen-yi. And my requests were shaped not, as usual, by the need for a basic material comfort (no couch-surfing or dumpster-diving, please!), but rather by the fear of any emotional discomfort. No begging children, no baby prostitutes, no mutilated homeless, no starving elderly.
Many people reacted unsurprised: of course, you are going on vacation!
Except that I am not. I want to travel, not vacation. I want to experience, discover, learn.
But I told myself: the only value of seeing starving, mutilated, sold children is in knowledge, but since I know these horrors, I don't need to see them.
Some objected: you can't know what it means, you can't know them 'objectually' (my coinage, maybe, in opposition to 'propositionally'), if you don't see them.
And I replied: my imagination is vivid, my sympathy is developed, that's why knowing is equivalent to seeing.
But if that's were true, of course, I could see (say the objector within me).
And yet I can still add: but even if it doesn't feel the same, it doesn't matter. Feeling people's suffering is valuable only instrumentally, and not in itself.
But is this true? Let's assume that I do everything I can to help people who suffer (which, by the way, is false), and that there is no other end for the sake of which it's good to feel the pain of others. Is there still an intrinsic, non-instrumental value in feeling someone's else pain? And is there an intrinsic value in feeling pain in general?
I don't know the answer. But I suspect that there is more than one reason to think that feeling pain and experiencing negative emotions is conducive to and/or constitutive of value. Giving ten more dollars to charity may be the most trivial. I pledge to discover the others soon enough.
I tend to agree on this, even though exceptions are always possible, but now I am interested in another question. Is pain an indispensable and valuable component of any human life?
In a sense, the answer may be considered obvious in this case as well, and the argument could roughly go along the following lines: a life without pain is going to make pleasure look like the norm, and hence less pleasurable. That is, a life without pain is going to be bland and boring, therefore pain is indeed an indispensable and valuable component of human life.
However, the sketch of the argument above has clear problems. A life without pain is a life filled of pleasant but also of neutral events. Hence, pleasant events will be still differentiated by other kinds of events, and need not become the norm, neither in a qualitative nor in a quantitative sense. A life without pain could be more boring, comparatively less exciting than one in which pleasure is alternated to pain, but not necessarily bland.
And of course I am not the kind of person who can endorse a merely hedonistic perspective. Values cannot be reduced to sheer amounts of pleasure and pain, even when the pleasure is of the noble kind. (When I say “can” I mean here only a psychological can: it doesn't seem to work for me to think in those terms; but I don't have any argument to show that my axiology cannot ultimately be accounted on hedonistic grounds)
But it's not even this that troubles me right now. Because, again, there could be a lot of neutral events, neither painful, not pleasant, which could provide enough value to my life: knowledge, without struggling for it, seems still very valuable, for instance.
What I am wondering is whether my emotional life could thrive without pain. Can I live a valuable life without experiencing painful emotions? (and yes, I am aware I moved from 'human being' to 'I', and from 'any human life' to 'my life'; it reflects more honestly my current motivation, and it's a good beginning for a more universal inquiry)
In the few recent years, the grip of pain that I used to feel on me has been released. In part it was time; in part it was change; in part I was lucky; in part I have grown wiser. Whatever the reason, things have changed. I cry rarely, and most of the time for quite trivial, stress-related reasons. My moments of sadness are ephemeral. My memory of the past is much more sweet than bitter. I am learning to let go. I look forward.
An unforeseen result of such a longed-for outcome, though, is that I have grown unaccustomed with pain. And I dread it.
It began in a subtle way. I stopped desiring to read certain books, or I stopped in the middle of one that was making me feel uneasy. Or, if it was really a good one, I went on, but I almost regretted reading it. I asked to friends, before watching a certain movie, if it contained too much cruelty. I stopped thinking that art isn't good if it doesn't hurt. I began watching tv shows. Only the ones that don't make me queasy.
Recently I have been planning a trip with Shen-yi. And my requests were shaped not, as usual, by the need for a basic material comfort (no couch-surfing or dumpster-diving, please!), but rather by the fear of any emotional discomfort. No begging children, no baby prostitutes, no mutilated homeless, no starving elderly.
Many people reacted unsurprised: of course, you are going on vacation!
Except that I am not. I want to travel, not vacation. I want to experience, discover, learn.
But I told myself: the only value of seeing starving, mutilated, sold children is in knowledge, but since I know these horrors, I don't need to see them.
Some objected: you can't know what it means, you can't know them 'objectually' (my coinage, maybe, in opposition to 'propositionally'), if you don't see them.
And I replied: my imagination is vivid, my sympathy is developed, that's why knowing is equivalent to seeing.
But if that's were true, of course, I could see (say the objector within me).
And yet I can still add: but even if it doesn't feel the same, it doesn't matter. Feeling people's suffering is valuable only instrumentally, and not in itself.
But is this true? Let's assume that I do everything I can to help people who suffer (which, by the way, is false), and that there is no other end for the sake of which it's good to feel the pain of others. Is there still an intrinsic, non-instrumental value in feeling someone's else pain? And is there an intrinsic value in feeling pain in general?
I don't know the answer. But I suspect that there is more than one reason to think that feeling pain and experiencing negative emotions is conducive to and/or constitutive of value. Giving ten more dollars to charity may be the most trivial. I pledge to discover the others soon enough.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
surprised
And moved. I am surprised and moved that there are still people reading this blog and commenting on it!
A few minutes ago I was chatting with Fabio, who keeps scolding me for my lack of updates. And I thought, ok, I am going to post a few photos from Vegas before getting back to work (well, actually, beginning to work).
And I log in and find seven comments to be moderated!! From, well, June... I did post something later, but I must have missed those. So I disabled the comment moderation for the third time (I don't like it, but every once in a long while I get some nasty, and of course anonymous, comment, and that triggers me to moderate them again), because I think that getting comments reminds me that I do have a few readers dispersed in the globe. Including some people I have no idea who they are!! e? greyhawk? Averroe'? Mystery...
Anyway, here are some pics of Vegas. And thanks guys for being patient. I will come back to post something more meaningful, one day...
A few minutes ago I was chatting with Fabio, who keeps scolding me for my lack of updates. And I thought, ok, I am going to post a few photos from Vegas before getting back to work (well, actually, beginning to work).
And I log in and find seven comments to be moderated!! From, well, June... I did post something later, but I must have missed those. So I disabled the comment moderation for the third time (I don't like it, but every once in a long while I get some nasty, and of course anonymous, comment, and that triggers me to moderate them again), because I think that getting comments reminds me that I do have a few readers dispersed in the globe. Including some people I have no idea who they are!! e? greyhawk? Averroe'? Mystery...
Anyway, here are some pics of Vegas. And thanks guys for being patient. I will come back to post something more meaningful, one day...
Thursday, September 03, 2009
roman holidays
I know this post's title is cheap and trite. But I have to draw some attention to this poor neglected blog of mine and alert my bunch of readers that I am back to work. Every once in a while I meet a friend or acquaintance (mostly in Italy) who tells me: "I always follow your blog!" And I feel so bad that nowadays I update it, as we say in Italian, every time a pope dies (and they are long-lived, lately, these guys).
So here I am, writing about my roman holidays before the hectic life of a new semester begins. In English, of course, so that my majority of Italian readers, some of whom struggle with the language, will rightly protest (that's the second most common comment I hear about my blog). Let me explain my choice once and for all: basically none of my English readers can read Italian; almost all of my Italian readers can read English, even with some difficulty; it's good that Italians practice English, whereas it's irrelevant for English speakers to know Italian (albeit it's good for Americans to learn more languages); eventually, Italian will remain my favorite language for more intimate or "literary" posts. (Heidi, this is NOT an argument, so please don't highlights its fallacies! ;)
This said, I had a really good and long vacation in Italy. Too long, for that matter, I feel so guilty that I didn't study any German, Mandarin or Greek, read any Plato or Shakespeare, watched any major Italian cinematographic masterpiece, or finish writing my paper on love's knowledge, as planned (ok, my plan was a bit ambitious).
It was fun, though, to spend time with family and friends, get tanned and swim in Sabaudia (nice seaside place relatively close to Rome), visit Genoa and Bologna (where some other friends live), take my usual summer workshop of flamenco with beautiful Maria Jose' Leon Soto.
All the universal stereotypes and personal memories about Italy and Rome were confirmed, which is at the same time comforting and depressing. Rest assured: Italy is indeed a sunny country with gorgeous landscape and endless inefficiency; Rome is the eternal city, where, alas, nothing ever changes; Italians still invade beaches on August 15th (Mary's Assumption in heaven) and leave deserted cities to disoriented tourists; and yes, Berlusconi is the naked emperor of this country, and all the children have been gagged.
Main symptoms of my immigrant status: I got really pissed and incredulous for some bureaucratic issues; I was surprised someone defined "huge" a woman that in the States would be considered simply overweight; I almost cried when doing grocery shopping (see previous post); I rejoiced when I saw my vacation roommates agreeing on cleaning habits that would have sound maniacal to many American students.
Now I am back in a New Haven that feels nicely chilly, and orderly, and small, ready for a new Academic year full of philosophy, dance and snow.
So here I am, writing about my roman holidays before the hectic life of a new semester begins. In English, of course, so that my majority of Italian readers, some of whom struggle with the language, will rightly protest (that's the second most common comment I hear about my blog). Let me explain my choice once and for all: basically none of my English readers can read Italian; almost all of my Italian readers can read English, even with some difficulty; it's good that Italians practice English, whereas it's irrelevant for English speakers to know Italian (albeit it's good for Americans to learn more languages); eventually, Italian will remain my favorite language for more intimate or "literary" posts. (Heidi, this is NOT an argument, so please don't highlights its fallacies! ;)
This said, I had a really good and long vacation in Italy. Too long, for that matter, I feel so guilty that I didn't study any German, Mandarin or Greek, read any Plato or Shakespeare, watched any major Italian cinematographic masterpiece, or finish writing my paper on love's knowledge, as planned (ok, my plan was a bit ambitious).
It was fun, though, to spend time with family and friends, get tanned and swim in Sabaudia (nice seaside place relatively close to Rome), visit Genoa and Bologna (where some other friends live), take my usual summer workshop of flamenco with beautiful Maria Jose' Leon Soto.
All the universal stereotypes and personal memories about Italy and Rome were confirmed, which is at the same time comforting and depressing. Rest assured: Italy is indeed a sunny country with gorgeous landscape and endless inefficiency; Rome is the eternal city, where, alas, nothing ever changes; Italians still invade beaches on August 15th (Mary's Assumption in heaven) and leave deserted cities to disoriented tourists; and yes, Berlusconi is the naked emperor of this country, and all the children have been gagged.
Main symptoms of my immigrant status: I got really pissed and incredulous for some bureaucratic issues; I was surprised someone defined "huge" a woman that in the States would be considered simply overweight; I almost cried when doing grocery shopping (see previous post); I rejoiced when I saw my vacation roommates agreeing on cleaning habits that would have sound maniacal to many American students.
Now I am back in a New Haven that feels nicely chilly, and orderly, and small, ready for a new Academic year full of philosophy, dance and snow.
il pomo d'oro
Paola ha scritto il post che io avrei voluto scrivere qualche mese fa. Visto che all'epoca avevo immortalato quello che lei ha chiamato il tomato bijoux, eccolo qui, come mio contributo...
Monday, June 22, 2009
Parable of the Talents
At the beginning I forced myself to read "Parable of the Talents" like a bitter medicine. But at the end I avidly rushed through it, as all good novels make you.
The only science fiction I had read so far was of the conventional, classic kind: Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Dick. All white males. Different kinds of writing, sure, but none of them has ever shocked me. Dick annoyed me. Bradbury touched me. Clark, of which I read little, and above all Asimov, of which I read almost all, fascinated me. I don't know what comes first, my love for Asimov's future history or my desire to sneak a peak in the year 30,000. I don't know if it is since I read Asimov as a teen that my only reason to be bothered by my mortality, and the lack of belief in an afterlife, is that I can't see the future, or if it is the latter that lead me to like Asimov's stories so much.
But in any case for me SF has always been mainly what it is in Asimov: exploring the potentialities of human race and celebrating its many, rich, fruitful talents. The last book of the Foundation cycle, which as a teen I used to find boring, has captured me at last. I finally understood and enjoyed its exploration of the possibility of human living in complete harmony with all nature, as a whole, complex organism. I still find it a little weighty in the style, showing how hard it is to reconcile philosophical thought with literature, but I mind that less, now that I understand its meaning.
Asimov's themes and narrations, as for any other writer, show his personal growth and aging. His first novels are all about strong-minded, bright white young men. Except of course, for the cold, ageless, unattractive, masculine Susan Calvin. But, progressively, young attractive white females become protagonists. One of them is, in Foundation and Earth, Bliss, the Gaian spokesperson for Galaxia, the living galaxy. Some of her passionate pleas in favor of it resound of claims of what is called in philosophy the Ethics of Care. Bliss is loved by the much older intellectual Pelorat, with whom I suspect Asimov identified quite a bit. Older men and young bright women populate also the later Foundation novels.
And yet, also these late novels express Asimov's solar optimisism: justice will triumph, humanity will ultimately rise, technology will eventually be in harmony with nature. This is not a surprising poetic. Asimov exemplifies the American dream, son of poor Russian emigrates, family of humble origins, he became an immensely popular and I imagine pretty wealthy writer.
I don't know much of the biography of Octavia Butler. I know that she was an Afro-american woman raised in a struggling environment. Anyway, even if she had come from a wealthy family, being a black woman in the sixties would have given her enough to struggle with.
Her SF is radically different from Asimov, and the talents she concentrates on are as much on the dark as on the bright side, if not more. The only novel I read so far has given me nightmares. After the first 40 pages, nauseated and sick of sadness, I realized I was reading the dramatized account of people who live now. Either in other countries, or in parts of the country I do not have access to: children who are bought in Haiti for fifty bucks, and used as domestic slaves, or for sexual purposes, or both, even in the US; young women abducted from their homes or lured with the promise of a better life, raped, and forced to work as prostitutes; homeless people who die in the streets in front of bystanders averting their eye. Modern slavery, poverty, war and torture are reality. And we know about it. Exactly like many good poeple in the book.
In the book there is also part of recent history: camps of forced labor and abuse, in which people are brought under false accusations, and never leave alive; in which prisoners turn against each other and lose their humanity; camps supported by society because they get rid of its filth.
Eventually, there are bits of news that we tend to forget about, like the idea of putting a controlling electronic device around inmates' legs, rather than putting them in jail. Devices that sinisterly resemble the lethal collars that torture slaves and inhibit their will in Butler's novel.
But once I got myself to read the entire book, I find its conclusion even more unsettling than the horrible scenario it forced in front of my eyes, both the fictional and the real one. And more admirable in terms of literary force.
The novel is mainly composed by the journal of the protagonist, the strong-willed, indomitable Black woman Olamina, and the comments by her daughter Larkin, separated from her a little after birth. Larkin, who changed her name into Asha Vere, is the main narrator. Traditionally, the reader is supposed to rely on the narrators' claims. Her very name, as Butler subtly makes clear at some point, refers to Truth. And Asha's point of view is very harsh toward Olamina. She accuses her of having abandoned her, of not really having looked for her, of caring less of her daugther than of her cult, Earhtseed, the new religion that Olamina has founded and that looks at the future in the stars with Asimovian hope. Olamina, in her daughter's words, is a fanatic, or in any case has the stereotypically masculine features of courage, political leadership, availability to sacrifice anything for the an ideal.
And yet the reader has access to Olamina's own writings, that Asha herself provides us with. We know what kind of background Asha has grew up in. One in which women are not allowed to preach, as Olamina does; in which she has learned to worship the incredibly good-looking uncle, who happens to be a preacher for the Christian sect that has enslaved her mother; one in which too many questions cannot be asked, because answers would be too painful for all.
Hence we know that we cannot trust Asha too much. We have read of Olamina's incredible passion for truth, her compassion and strength, her endurance to sufferance. We know that her seductive capacities, that Asha fears and despises, are always exercised in order to give people better lives.
If Asha's words do not allow us to worship someone like Olamina and be aware of the personal character traits that lie behind ideals, Olamina's words remind us of the easiness with which we choose to care more about our personal welfare in spite of something greater that may be accomplished. The exchange shows on the one side the complexity of truth, and on the other side, not less interestingly, the painful interaction of mother and child, made of conflicting expectations, demands, needs and desires, that is bound to take place even though they never have been together.
There are many other valuable things in this novel (such as the reflection on the role of religion in human life), but its unsettling conclusion-- humanity conquering the stars thanks to a stubborn black woman, who is rejected by her own only child-- is maybe the one that makes it so different from every other science fiction I have read.
The only science fiction I had read so far was of the conventional, classic kind: Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Dick. All white males. Different kinds of writing, sure, but none of them has ever shocked me. Dick annoyed me. Bradbury touched me. Clark, of which I read little, and above all Asimov, of which I read almost all, fascinated me. I don't know what comes first, my love for Asimov's future history or my desire to sneak a peak in the year 30,000. I don't know if it is since I read Asimov as a teen that my only reason to be bothered by my mortality, and the lack of belief in an afterlife, is that I can't see the future, or if it is the latter that lead me to like Asimov's stories so much.
But in any case for me SF has always been mainly what it is in Asimov: exploring the potentialities of human race and celebrating its many, rich, fruitful talents. The last book of the Foundation cycle, which as a teen I used to find boring, has captured me at last. I finally understood and enjoyed its exploration of the possibility of human living in complete harmony with all nature, as a whole, complex organism. I still find it a little weighty in the style, showing how hard it is to reconcile philosophical thought with literature, but I mind that less, now that I understand its meaning.
Asimov's themes and narrations, as for any other writer, show his personal growth and aging. His first novels are all about strong-minded, bright white young men. Except of course, for the cold, ageless, unattractive, masculine Susan Calvin. But, progressively, young attractive white females become protagonists. One of them is, in Foundation and Earth, Bliss, the Gaian spokesperson for Galaxia, the living galaxy. Some of her passionate pleas in favor of it resound of claims of what is called in philosophy the Ethics of Care. Bliss is loved by the much older intellectual Pelorat, with whom I suspect Asimov identified quite a bit. Older men and young bright women populate also the later Foundation novels.
And yet, also these late novels express Asimov's solar optimisism: justice will triumph, humanity will ultimately rise, technology will eventually be in harmony with nature. This is not a surprising poetic. Asimov exemplifies the American dream, son of poor Russian emigrates, family of humble origins, he became an immensely popular and I imagine pretty wealthy writer.
I don't know much of the biography of Octavia Butler. I know that she was an Afro-american woman raised in a struggling environment. Anyway, even if she had come from a wealthy family, being a black woman in the sixties would have given her enough to struggle with.
Her SF is radically different from Asimov, and the talents she concentrates on are as much on the dark as on the bright side, if not more. The only novel I read so far has given me nightmares. After the first 40 pages, nauseated and sick of sadness, I realized I was reading the dramatized account of people who live now. Either in other countries, or in parts of the country I do not have access to: children who are bought in Haiti for fifty bucks, and used as domestic slaves, or for sexual purposes, or both, even in the US; young women abducted from their homes or lured with the promise of a better life, raped, and forced to work as prostitutes; homeless people who die in the streets in front of bystanders averting their eye. Modern slavery, poverty, war and torture are reality. And we know about it. Exactly like many good poeple in the book.
In the book there is also part of recent history: camps of forced labor and abuse, in which people are brought under false accusations, and never leave alive; in which prisoners turn against each other and lose their humanity; camps supported by society because they get rid of its filth.
Eventually, there are bits of news that we tend to forget about, like the idea of putting a controlling electronic device around inmates' legs, rather than putting them in jail. Devices that sinisterly resemble the lethal collars that torture slaves and inhibit their will in Butler's novel.
But once I got myself to read the entire book, I find its conclusion even more unsettling than the horrible scenario it forced in front of my eyes, both the fictional and the real one. And more admirable in terms of literary force.
The novel is mainly composed by the journal of the protagonist, the strong-willed, indomitable Black woman Olamina, and the comments by her daughter Larkin, separated from her a little after birth. Larkin, who changed her name into Asha Vere, is the main narrator. Traditionally, the reader is supposed to rely on the narrators' claims. Her very name, as Butler subtly makes clear at some point, refers to Truth. And Asha's point of view is very harsh toward Olamina. She accuses her of having abandoned her, of not really having looked for her, of caring less of her daugther than of her cult, Earhtseed, the new religion that Olamina has founded and that looks at the future in the stars with Asimovian hope. Olamina, in her daughter's words, is a fanatic, or in any case has the stereotypically masculine features of courage, political leadership, availability to sacrifice anything for the an ideal.
And yet the reader has access to Olamina's own writings, that Asha herself provides us with. We know what kind of background Asha has grew up in. One in which women are not allowed to preach, as Olamina does; in which she has learned to worship the incredibly good-looking uncle, who happens to be a preacher for the Christian sect that has enslaved her mother; one in which too many questions cannot be asked, because answers would be too painful for all.
Hence we know that we cannot trust Asha too much. We have read of Olamina's incredible passion for truth, her compassion and strength, her endurance to sufferance. We know that her seductive capacities, that Asha fears and despises, are always exercised in order to give people better lives.
If Asha's words do not allow us to worship someone like Olamina and be aware of the personal character traits that lie behind ideals, Olamina's words remind us of the easiness with which we choose to care more about our personal welfare in spite of something greater that may be accomplished. The exchange shows on the one side the complexity of truth, and on the other side, not less interestingly, the painful interaction of mother and child, made of conflicting expectations, demands, needs and desires, that is bound to take place even though they never have been together.
There are many other valuable things in this novel (such as the reflection on the role of religion in human life), but its unsettling conclusion-- humanity conquering the stars thanks to a stubborn black woman, who is rejected by her own only child-- is maybe the one that makes it so different from every other science fiction I have read.
Friday, June 19, 2009
YMCA (Yale Mi Cambia Assai)
Questa settimana sono stata in palestra. Tre volte. Io.
Io sono quella che in palestra finora c'era entrata per due motivi. O per sbaglio, nel qual caso mi ero affrettata a imboccare l'uscita. O per andare a insegnare danza nella periferia prenestina o nel remoto agro pontino.
Io sono quella che quando mia padre mi chiedeva se mi doveva accompagnare “in palestra”, sussultava indignata: “Papa', scuola di danza!!”.
Io sono quella che per cui la parola palestra evoca ricordi piu' o meno orrorifici. Piu', quando la palestra e' quella delle medie, e il ricordo si porta appresso occhiali cerchiati d'oro, apparecchio, e il generale senso di spaesamento e ansia di quegli anni. Meno, quando penso alla palestra delle superiori: un po' ridicoletta lo ero lo stesso, visto che mi ostinavo a vestirmi per la ginnastica, invece di mettermi i jeans attillati come la maggior parte delle mie amiche che si limitavano a guardare con aria annoiata l' imbufalita insegnante di ginnastica. A differenza delle mie poche amiche atletiche, non avevo tute fiche, e andavo in giro con i miei fuseax dell'Arena, di moda il lustro precedente.
Dopo la scuola in palestra mi sono ben guardata di metterci piede.
Ma infine ci sono cascata. La palestra di Yale ha sette piani, credo (non ho ben capito, ancora, ci sono dei mezzanini che mi confondono). C'e' di tutto: vari campi di basket, due piscine, una pista per fare jogging, studi di danza, sale e salette dedicate a sport misteriosi tipo lo squash, e ovviamente una sala attrezzata.
In quella sala ho finalmente cominciato ad andare. Mi ero, per la verita', azzardata gia' qualche mese fa, per una fugace mezz'ora, a provare con Shen-yi qualcosa che credo si chiami il Thread-Mill. Ma non e' un mulino, e a me sembra una cosa complicata e pericolosa. In realta', non sono neanche sicura se ho fatto quello o una variante: comunque pestavo con i piedi su delle pedane, e la cosa non mi e' piaciuta per niente. L'ho mollato li' a pedalare e sono scappata.
Lo scorso lunedi', invece, la rivelazione. La mia amica Gwen mi conduce nel favoloso mondo dei pesi e delle macchine. Mi fa fare delle cose con le braccia. Le braccia! Io sollevo vergognosamente pesi molto piu' piccoli dei suoi, che pesa tipo dieci chili meno di me, e praticamente invisibili rispetto a quelli dei maschioni sbuffanti intorno a noi. Guardando le loro smorfie di dolore, dico a Gwen: “non capisco la gente che viene in palestra per rimorchiare, a me questi mi fanno solo pena”. Lei fa un sorrisone e dice che invece lo trova molto attraente. Ma Gwen e' una di quelle masochiste che si allena per le maratone, dunque decido che non siamo proprio sulla stessa linea d'onda.
Insomma faccio un po' di pesi, provo qualche macchina, faccio qualche flessione e infine provo una strana cosa in cui ti metti a testa in giu' e poi ti tiri su a forza di addominali. Io incauta mi dimentico di essere fuori forma e ne faccio dieci.
Dopo cinque giorni se starnutisco ancora mi fa male la pancia. Ma almeno oggi sono in grado di chiudere una finestra e alzarmi dal letto, impresa che solo due giorni fa mi sembrava titanica.
Ma in fondo un po' masochista, lo devo riconoscere, lo sono anche io. Il mio training da ballerina classica, dopo tanti anni, si fa ancora sentire. Questa idea dei progressi lenti, dolorosi e disciplinati mi attrae. In piu', essendo una vera pippa, non mi metto in competizione con nessuno, nemmeno con la me stessa di un tempo. Le mie ultime lezioni di danza erano state una frustrazione continua, e devo cominciare a rassegnarmi al fatto che, non fosse altro per il tempo che gli posso dedicare, la mia tecnica di danzatrice ha cominciato a declinare.
Ma come sollevatrice di pesi, ho un radioso futuro davanti! Come corriditrice, non ne parliamo! E allora mi ritrovo ad anelare il momento in cui mi infilo nella mia tenuta da palestra (che particolarmente fica non e', ma anni luce meglio delle superiori) e mi precipito a fare la mia patetica corsettina. Oggi ho fatto sette giri senza fermarmi e senza male alla milza. Non mi sentivo cosi' fiera dall'epoca dei miei primi dodici fouettes!
Io sono quella che in palestra finora c'era entrata per due motivi. O per sbaglio, nel qual caso mi ero affrettata a imboccare l'uscita. O per andare a insegnare danza nella periferia prenestina o nel remoto agro pontino.
Io sono quella che quando mia padre mi chiedeva se mi doveva accompagnare “in palestra”, sussultava indignata: “Papa', scuola di danza!!”.
Io sono quella che per cui la parola palestra evoca ricordi piu' o meno orrorifici. Piu', quando la palestra e' quella delle medie, e il ricordo si porta appresso occhiali cerchiati d'oro, apparecchio, e il generale senso di spaesamento e ansia di quegli anni. Meno, quando penso alla palestra delle superiori: un po' ridicoletta lo ero lo stesso, visto che mi ostinavo a vestirmi per la ginnastica, invece di mettermi i jeans attillati come la maggior parte delle mie amiche che si limitavano a guardare con aria annoiata l' imbufalita insegnante di ginnastica. A differenza delle mie poche amiche atletiche, non avevo tute fiche, e andavo in giro con i miei fuseax dell'Arena, di moda il lustro precedente.
Dopo la scuola in palestra mi sono ben guardata di metterci piede.
Ma infine ci sono cascata. La palestra di Yale ha sette piani, credo (non ho ben capito, ancora, ci sono dei mezzanini che mi confondono). C'e' di tutto: vari campi di basket, due piscine, una pista per fare jogging, studi di danza, sale e salette dedicate a sport misteriosi tipo lo squash, e ovviamente una sala attrezzata.
In quella sala ho finalmente cominciato ad andare. Mi ero, per la verita', azzardata gia' qualche mese fa, per una fugace mezz'ora, a provare con Shen-yi qualcosa che credo si chiami il Thread-Mill. Ma non e' un mulino, e a me sembra una cosa complicata e pericolosa. In realta', non sono neanche sicura se ho fatto quello o una variante: comunque pestavo con i piedi su delle pedane, e la cosa non mi e' piaciuta per niente. L'ho mollato li' a pedalare e sono scappata.
Lo scorso lunedi', invece, la rivelazione. La mia amica Gwen mi conduce nel favoloso mondo dei pesi e delle macchine. Mi fa fare delle cose con le braccia. Le braccia! Io sollevo vergognosamente pesi molto piu' piccoli dei suoi, che pesa tipo dieci chili meno di me, e praticamente invisibili rispetto a quelli dei maschioni sbuffanti intorno a noi. Guardando le loro smorfie di dolore, dico a Gwen: “non capisco la gente che viene in palestra per rimorchiare, a me questi mi fanno solo pena”. Lei fa un sorrisone e dice che invece lo trova molto attraente. Ma Gwen e' una di quelle masochiste che si allena per le maratone, dunque decido che non siamo proprio sulla stessa linea d'onda.
Insomma faccio un po' di pesi, provo qualche macchina, faccio qualche flessione e infine provo una strana cosa in cui ti metti a testa in giu' e poi ti tiri su a forza di addominali. Io incauta mi dimentico di essere fuori forma e ne faccio dieci.
Dopo cinque giorni se starnutisco ancora mi fa male la pancia. Ma almeno oggi sono in grado di chiudere una finestra e alzarmi dal letto, impresa che solo due giorni fa mi sembrava titanica.
Ma in fondo un po' masochista, lo devo riconoscere, lo sono anche io. Il mio training da ballerina classica, dopo tanti anni, si fa ancora sentire. Questa idea dei progressi lenti, dolorosi e disciplinati mi attrae. In piu', essendo una vera pippa, non mi metto in competizione con nessuno, nemmeno con la me stessa di un tempo. Le mie ultime lezioni di danza erano state una frustrazione continua, e devo cominciare a rassegnarmi al fatto che, non fosse altro per il tempo che gli posso dedicare, la mia tecnica di danzatrice ha cominciato a declinare.
Ma come sollevatrice di pesi, ho un radioso futuro davanti! Come corriditrice, non ne parliamo! E allora mi ritrovo ad anelare il momento in cui mi infilo nella mia tenuta da palestra (che particolarmente fica non e', ma anni luce meglio delle superiori) e mi precipito a fare la mia patetica corsettina. Oggi ho fatto sette giri senza fermarmi e senza male alla milza. Non mi sentivo cosi' fiera dall'epoca dei miei primi dodici fouettes!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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