It has been seven years since the first post on this website, seven years I’ve been working on Elliott RWI. As I write this, I have published 1,213 posts to the blogroll (this will be post 1,214), and I have revised individual pages, collecting 65,277 views from 22,675 visitors as of this writing. In the last year, therefore, I have made 156 posts and collected 24,525 views from 6,803 visitors (based on “Reflective Comments about the Sixth Year”). Performance is up from last year and overall; I’ve made more posts than at any point since leaving Oklahoma (even with making no class reports), and I had more visitors offering more views than in any previous year.
Of the three figures below, the first displays posts by year of blogging. The second shows views by year of blogging, and the third shows visitors by year of blogging.
Figure 1, as labeled.Figure 2, as labeled.Figure 3, as labeled.
I remain pleased to be able to continue doing this kind of work, and I look forward not only to another year of it, but many other years of it. I’ve enjoyed doing the writing I’ve done here, and I’m gratified to have learned that at least some of it appears to have been useful and/or enjoyable to others.
I comment in my most recent previous post about affective reading, noting as I have many times that I ought not to do it. It occurs to me that I’ve not really spent time with the idea outside my years-ago graduate coursework, not in any substantive way, and that a fair number of the people who read this blog (thank you!) may not know what “affective reading” is or why someone like me might have been trained away from it. Thus, the following, in which I offer a cursory discussion of those ideas; as with many things, others have treated the topic more intelligently than I have (ever had?) it in me to do, but I do what I can.
Looks like a good time to me… Photo by Vincenzo Malagoli on Pexels.com
Now, again, this is entirely cursory and paraphrased from years of courses and readings, so it will necessarily gloss over and simplify matters; I can’t give a doctorate in a blog post. But my experience with the term “affect,” and how I’ve used it subsequently, has been something related to reader-response theory. In that theory, the meaning of a given text (and this can apply, really, to any artwork, but I talk about things in terms of text because it’s easier for me to do it that way) exists somewhere in the negotiation between the work as itself and the reaction of the reader to the work. That is, a text is not the words on the page, but the experience of the reader with the words on the page; if there is no reader, there is no text, even if there is a verifiable physical object to consider. It has no meaning unless the reader acts upon it to produce meaning, although it is also the case that the meaning the reader produces from the object is guided and directed by the object itself. I think a lot of people understand this at some level; most of the people I have known have run into readings they didn’t understand, and so those readings didn’t mean a damned thing to them. Certainly so much was true for students when I had them, and I’ll admit that I don’t get a lot out of watching dance; I don’t understand a lot about how dance conveys meaning, so I don’t know how to act upon the performances I see and have seen to make meaning from them.
(Please don’t take this to mean that I don’t like dance or don’t esteem its value. That I don’t understand a thing doesn’t mean I think it has no worth. The failure is mine, and one of many, not that of the medium.)
“Affect,” at least for me, becomes something of an emotional engagement with the text, a self-identification with the events described in the work. That is, it is the manifestation of affection for the characters and their situations, which moves from the meaning-making into over/investment in the emotional content of the work in which they exist. To use the repeated example from the Hobb reread, I find myself sympathizing with Fitz an awful damned lot; I end up feeling as I read as much as or more than I find myself examining and considering what I read.
So much is a problem insofar as attempts to plumb a text for meaning go. For one, reading with affect ends up making the reading more about me than about the text, and even if it is the case that the text does not exist as a conceptual thing without readerly interaction (and I do tend to follow a reader-response-informed theoretical approach, insofar as I have a theoretical approach–which may be part of why I never landed a “real” academic job), overreliance on the effect a work has on one reader inhibits the ability of others to use such a reading to glean their own knowledge and further their own understanding of the text. Too, sympathies constrain and restrict the ability to arrive at some understandings; it is harder to identify faults and label them as such amid some emotional engagements, and far too easy in others, which is not necessarily fair to the thing being examined or appropriate to the context of examination. So much is not to say that what is praiseworthy should not be praised and what is flaw should not be rebuked, but it is to say that it’s a lot easier to find the praiseworthy in what is liked and the blameworthy in what is disliked than the opposite, regardless of its actual presence or absence.
There’s also an issue I think is at work at deeper levels in the minds of teachers such as I have had and as I doubtlessly, in my own lesser fashion, have been. There is an apprehension in those who work in the academic humanities that their work is of no value; it is certainly said often enough and by enough voices to raise the concern. Long-standing practices associate emotional reactions with unserious things–and vice-versa. Consequently, emotional over/investment becomes something to be avoided; it becomes something unserious, and fields of study that already operate under the onus of perceived uselessness can ill afford additional associations with a lack of seriousness.
I have the sneaking suspicion that such associations and the admitted problems of reading with too much (any?) affect combine to move those who study the academic humanities from the love of the things that actually brought them to that study. I know that, for me, the idea of being a band director was one that emerged (at least in part) from a love of music and of playing as part of an ensemble; my shift to English studies emerged almost wholly from a love of reading and a desire to do more of it and be better at it. (I left off being a band director for other reasons, but there’s a difference between moving from and moving to, and it’s more than just a shift of preposition.) I also know that playing while I was trying to be a band director and reading while I was trying to be an English professor were…fraught; the adage about doing what you love so that you don’t ever work is wrong, and its prevalence leads to feelings of inadequacy and insufficiency. Or it did for me, at least.
Anyway, for me, reading with affect happens. And I’m not trying to work in the academic humanities anymore…
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The next chapter, “Dragon’s Head,” begins with an excerpt from a minstrel’s account of events before turning to Fitz and the Fool returning to the Black Man, who marvels at the return of the latter from the dead. Thick makes a scattered report of what he has been told through the Skill, and reports are exchanged, in the flesh and through magical means. The difficulties in concluding the marriage arrangements between Dutiful and Elliania are rehearsed, as are their resolutions–which involved Icefyre shoving his head into the Narwhal mothershouse and touching it to the hearthstones therein.
Fitz and the Fool confer about what was reported, and the Fool delights in connecting with Prilkop–the Black Man–whose experiences are both like and unlike his own. The Fool urges Fitz to return to his life and is surprised to have it affirmed that he will do so. And that night, Fitz connects with Nettle through the Skill, where the latter complains of the difficulties at court and makes her own report to the former, receiving his reports, in turn. Their conversation turns tense around the issue of Molly, but it ends amicably, and Fitz sleeps well in the knowledge that he will return home at last.
Were this the last chapter in the book, I’d not be worried. Even had I not read the book many times before, given what Hobb has shown throughout the Elderlings novels, and knowing how much text remains–nearly 100 pages in my copy–I would be worried. Fitz is in a good place, and that cannot be allowed to continue. And of course not; it is in seeing Fitz persevere against situations that are as often his own damned fault as not that so much of his attraction lies. It invites affective reading, which is something I ought not to do, given my training and experience–but it is how most people read, and I am far enough outside academe–more than ten years since my last degree, now, and some time since I had a college job–that I’m not really outside that “most.” Not so much anymore…
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The following chapter, “Whole,” opens with a personal letter from Kettricken to Molly. It moves thence to Fitz and the Fool as the latter continues to convalesce from the trauma of resurrection, beginning to explore the uncertainty of having outlived his prophecies. Fitz continues to care for his friend as they confer about what the Fool should do, moving forward, and the Fool determines to leave the stone city where Fitz had brought them.
As the two prepare to depart, they confer further, talking of their history with Girl-on-a-Dragon as they come to her. The Fool explicates some of what he has learned of the carving–Realder’s Dragon–including parallels between those involved, and he notes his purpose for the Rooster Crown–a thing to be given in exchange for the return of that part of Fitz he had rashly put into the carving years ago. The exchange is made, the Fool taking that part of Fitz back from the dragon and returning it to Fitz with difficulty for them both.
Fitz suffers through the onrush of returned memories, returning to himself only slowly and spending the evening considering what he has regained. The next day, he and the Fool return to Aslevjal, where they survey what had been the Pale Woman’s facility and confer about the nature of the Skill as Fitz recognizes a way home.
The present chapter makes much of the contrast between youthful passion and settled stolidity. I find myself reading with affect yet again, considering my own unexcitingnature as I come ever closer to my forties and the ways in which I used to be excited about things. But I have no repository into which I poured my youthful feelings, no stone cellar from which they may be withdrawn by a kiss–and so I will not need to feel again what I felt then, for which I am likely the better.
Let’s be honest. I’m the kind of person who does this, now, and I was not much more active in my youth than now. So much shows in the habits that kept my belly flabby when I did exercise, and I do not do as much of that now as previously–not by quite a bit. I am staid now, and I was then, more concerned with avoiding the consequences of failure than with enjoying the results of success and therefore reluctant to engage with anything. The tendency has left me more timorous than not, and the fatigue and ennui of years spent failing at my goals has not helped.
Fantasy fiction serves as escapism, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I know I would not be fit to abscond from such confinement as constrains me; I am the architect of my own prison and my jailer, and the judge who spoke the lifelong sentence. There is no appeal in it.
I dream of a black-brew death Drawing deeply of the draught Listening to the lying voices that longer ago than is comfortable for me to think on Spoke to me of study and success And left me in a rush after a reckless day of writing Returning on occasion when I, eager To feel again a fortunate man and find A piece of the power I had pursued And held in my hands and heart at times in younger days Drink too deeply of that darkened water They sing to me, sirens, who cannot swim, Stonelike in the saltiest streams and with a life-jacket on– Perhaps the heart, too long hard, heaves me downward– The lyrics lifting up light and life and laughter, And I know there is truth in the tunes they turn out, Know and have known the feeling named often Euphoria, rapture, consummation, completion, The power that pulses and pushes on thought and motion and life, Can call it from the cup put to my lips again and again and again, Drained dry and refilled and drained dry once more, A singular sequence that sustains me each day and that Promises puissance and perhaps the touch of some god upon me Shunning the Stupid God that so often succeeds in the world The day will dawn that I approach the domain of the singers, Come before their choir and call them to take me up among them, Bind my baritone into their bars and measure their meters in majors and minors, Finally finding a finish to what I have done and am doing and want to do again. I will pass through the portal that I pour for myself a cup at a time, Twitch through the tunes I have heard in times past until I am no longer Part of the audience but performer, No bare bodkin to consummate me in my last bed, But a more bountiful flood filling me than any fucking ever could, However hard the hand upon the hilt, And each day, each dram, each drop eagerly taken, The thought that this will be the one that takes me there, Finding each has failed and flailing for another Until, at last, the carafe is empty, the cup is dry and cleared away And nobody will be there to brew another batch.
What’d you think I meant? Photo by Lood Goosen on Pexels.com
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For many, today commemorates the D-Day invasion of Normandy by the Allied Forces during the Second World War. I have little to add to such commemorations that has not already been said by others far more learned on the topic than I, save to note my sorrow that the same fight that was fought then is still being fought now, if with less valor and, I fear, less success.
For me, of more direct moment is that my parents are married forty-one years today. As might be thought, I’d not be here without them, so…Happy Anniversary, folks!
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The next chapter, “Feathers in a Fool’s Cap,” opens with an in-milieu folk-tale before turning to Fitz’s experience in a mental world created by his donning the Rooster Crown. Fitz is aware of other personae inhabiting him, performers much as the Fool had masqueraded as being, and he contemplates the experience amid his awareness of the Fool’s death and bodily decay. The nature of the personae–performers favored of dragons in the days of the Elderlings–is made clear to Fitz, and he hears the Fool’s own voice, coming from his blood in the Crown itself.
Here it is… Image from Faceless Frey’s Tumblr, used for commentary.
The performers in the feathers attempt to expel the Fool from the Crown, and Fitz recalls his experience being taken from Nighteyes’s body back into his own. The recollection gives him insight into what he can do now, and he plies his magics in tandem to bring the Fool back to life as himself. The exercise gives Fitz substantial insight into his long-time friend, and in the wake of the working, the two are exhausted. The Fool’s convalescence begins, Fitz nursing him along as gently as he can, contrasting the Fool’s experiences with his own. At length, the Fool is able to eat and drink, and he and Fitz confer about events, the Fool voicing some misgivings about how Fitz arranged matters. And Fitz continues to offer what comfort he can against what his friend has endured.
I remember, back when I was working on my master’s thesis, my advisor, Chris Healy, told me he had read the books about which I was writing–and that the present chapter had stood out to him as doing much to advance the idea of what might then have been and would certainly now be called a queer studies approach to the text. It’s far from the only thing that would, as the Fedwren Project attests and as I’ve commented on more than one occasion before. Somehow, I find myself in mind of the conversation again–perhaps because it has been a decade since my doctorate, now, and fifteen years since mastery.
I don’t have as much to show for either as might once have been hoped.
Another of the sparkling jewels Nestled in the limestone hills Buried among oak and cedar and mesquite Seeks to shine in the summer sunlight And when it is polished to its best It gleams brightly
Such precious stones that emerge Are noted for being blue And for being prized by where they’re from And their surroundings Even as there is a thirst for rubies and garnets Now And for things that look too much like them
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I have commented about this day’s observances once or twice before, I think. I am not moving this year, nor am I preparing to move, as was the case last year. I am moved, perhaps, but for a different reason and a far worse one.
It remains right and proper that those who have died in honorable, upright service be remembered and honored. That what they died to defend suffers such as has happened–again, and again, and again, in Uvalde as in too many other places across too many years–is far, far less so. And it is hard for the reverence due the victorious dead to be given against the grief due those slain unjustly.
Let us make our world one worth the sacrifices made, one where such grief need not be felt again.
For this Memorial Day, please donate to the folks in Uvalde, Texas, who have their own memorials to erect. Send checks payable to the Robb School Memorial Fund to FSB of Uvalde, 200 E Nopal, Uvalde, TX 78801, or donate via Zelle at robbschoolmemorialfund@gmail.com.
Read the previous entry in the serieshere. Read the next entry in the serieshere.
The following chapter, “Catalyst,” begins with a note about wizardwood before turning to Fitz’s efforts to reenter the Pale Woman’s domain. He finds a path inward, if with some difficulty, and makes his way through the labyrinthine facility. Among others, he finds the flayed skin of the Fool’s back, and he swoons; when he comes to, he leaves the marred skin behind, although he takes the piece of the Rooster Crown he finds.
Pressing on, Fitz finds scrolls and records that had been sold away from Buckkeep, musing on it but leaving it behind as he continues to search for the Fool. He finds one of his erstwhile companions along the way and makes a pyre for him, and then he finds the Fool, dead among filth. Fitz attempts to Skill into the body to bring it back to life, but even with the help of the whole Skill coterie, he cannot do so. Chade and Dutiful offer such comfort as they can, little enough in the wake of the Fool’s death and the announcement to him of Burrich’s.
Fitz closes off Skill contact and recovers the Fool’s body, mulling over where to bear it when interrupted by the maimed Pale Woman. She taunts him, seeking to provoke him into killing her, and he refuses; she attempts to negotiate with him, and he walks away.
Wandering, he comes to a room with a map detailing the geographical extent of the Realm of the Elderlings and marking Skill-pillars. Another room contains a Skill-pillar, and Fitz takes the Fool through it to a plaza in a ruined city. There, he lays the Fool out and tends to the body, repairing the broken Rooster Crown and inserting the wizardwood feathers into it. Before placing it on the Fool’s head, Fitz hesitates, placing the crown upon his own head in an attempt to change what has happened.
I note with some interest the exchange of names mentioned by the Pale Woman as a custom of the Fool’s native people. The significance of the custom is noted explicitly, if in mockery, as the Pale Woman asks Fitz “Did you ever call [the Fool] by your name, to show him that he was as dear to you as your own life?” It joins the comments about hair-cutting as mourning that appear at intervals in the novels treating the Six Duchies to increase the verisimilitude of the milieu; such small things pepper lived experience, and having them appear in fiction adds richness to the fictional worlds in which they appear. And in the case of Hobb’s Fool, the recollection of how many times the character called Fitz “Beloved” becomes all the more poignant…
Elliott RWI 