Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
ARS AETERNA
Self and Eternity
Constantine the Philosopher University
Faculty of Arts
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
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ARS AETERNA
Názov/Title
ARS AETERNA - Self and Eternity
Vydavateľ/Publisher
Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre
Filozofická fakulta
Štefánikova 67, 949 74 Nitra
Tel.: + 421 37 64 08 455
E-mail: kangl@ukf.sk
Adresa redakcie/Office Address
Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre
Dekanát FF UKF
Štefánikova 67, 949 74 Nitra
Tel.: +421 37 6408 444
E-mail: dekanatff@ukf.sk
Šéfredaktor/Editor in Chief
Mgr. Alena Smiešková, PhD.
Asistent editora/Editorial assistant:
Mgr. Simona Hevešiová, PhD.
Redakčná rada/Board of Reviewers
Prof. Bernd Herzogenrath (Germany)
Doc. PhDr. Michal Peprník, PhD. (Czech Republic)
Doc. PhDr. Anton Pokrivčák, PhD. (Slovak Republic)
Mgr. Petr Kopal, PhD. (Czech Republic)
Redakčná úprava/sub-editor
Mgr. Simona Hevešiová, PhD., Ing. Matúš Šiška
Jazyková úprava/Proofreading
Andor Skotnes, Marcos Perez
Náklad/Copies: 50
Počet strán/Pages
99
ISSN: 1337-9291
Evidenčné číslo: EV 2821/08
(c) 2011
Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre
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Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
TABLE OF CONTENTS
On Man, Eternity and Dostoyevsky …
Interview with Professor Andrej Červeňák
Mária Kiššová
5
Self on the Verge of Eternity. Iñarritu’s art of cinema
Alena Smiešková
17
Self, Eternity, and Oral History
Andor Skotnes
34
’We don’t become refugees by choice.’ Memories of Exile
Teresa Meade
41
Between Imitation and Self-relection – the Postmodernist
Rendering of Oscar Wilde’s myth in Will Self’s Dorian
Petr Chalupský
48
The Passion: Eternal Past Reconsidered
Diana Židová
62
Samsaric existence - the concept of inite eternity
Miroslava Obuchová
70
Reviews
89
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ARS AETERNA
This issue is dedicated in honour of Prof. PhDr. Andrej Červeňák, DrSc. (22 May 1932
– 11 February 2012) who devoted his life to Literature, Humanity and the Quest for
Eternity and inspired many others to do likewise.
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Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
On Man, Eternity and Dostoyevsky …
Interview with Professor Andrej Červeňák
Mária Kiššová
“God exists only if he exists in a human heart.
The same can be said about Eternity.”
Andrej Červeňák
It is a great honour to present Prof. PhDr. Andrej Červeňák, DrSc. in the sixth
issue of Ars Aeterna, which focuses on eternity and the self. Andrej Červeňák is
a Slovak literary scholar with a life-long devotion to literature and humanity.
His attempts to study and disclose the working of the human psyche and soul as
presented in literature have been reflected in several monographs, papers and
scholarly articles on various aspects of Russian and Slovak literature. His ideas
have been developed in the framework of anthropocentrism, interdisciplinarity
and comparative study of which he is a strong advocate. Professor Červeňák’s
major publications include A. S. Puškin – človek a básnik (A. S. Puškin – Man and
Poet) (1989),Tajomstvo Dostojevského (The Mystery of Dostoyevsky) (1989), Dosto
jevského sny (Dostoyevsky’s Dreams) (1998), Človek a text (Man and Text) (2001),
Človek v texte: Dostojevskij a esteticko-antropologická koncepcia literatúry (Man
in a Text: Dostoyevsky and Esthetic-Anthropological Concept of Literature) (2002)
Začiatky a konce, (Beginnings and Ends) (2002).
MK Tzvetan Todorov, in his work
Life in Common: An Essay in General
Anthropology writes about the
reception of art: “The beauty of art
includes complex perception because
it arouses not only the senses but also
the sense: the sense by which human
experience enriches art. In this way
art gets closer to other forms of
intellectual and spiritual experience.
When I read a book which impresses
me, a book by a philosopher or a
scientist, a poet or a novelist, I feel that
I become part of a relationship which
enables self-fulfilment through the
mere contact maintained through the
power of thought or inexhaustibility
of an image: it is as if my existence
were literally expanding.” What does
the experience of reading mean to
you?
Andrej Červeňák For me, listening
to and reading fairy tales in my
childhood was an escape from reality to
the realm of dreams which – the other
way round - affected reality so that the
Truth, Goodness and Beauty of folk tale
characters might win. Treading with
them over the seven hills and seven
valleys I also discovered other worlds,
other people, another reality, different
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from the one which I experienced in a
poor little village house. Later – in my
youth – reading stirred my fantasy so
that I could participate in the joys and
sorrows of literary characters. I wanted
to help them in their miseries and
troubles, unaware that it was them who
helped overcome my life feelings and
emotions, thoughts and visions.
As an adult, I understood that I had
become a product of reality, dream and
fantasy, which connected me with three
worlds – the natural world, the social
and the transcendental, with three
subjective truths (the truth of heart,
reason and will), with three deities in
all religions, etc. Literature and art - the
roads towards the Absolute - showed me
how to apprehend life’s vicissitudes as
small relativist matters in the context of
the Infinite. It is possible that the roots
of my interdisciplinary understanding
of literature, culture and art reach as far
as that…
One of my most powerful reading
experiences has been a short story by
Dostoyevsky The Dream of a Ridiculous
Man… In his dream the protagonist
experiences joy and happiness from
contact with people who live in a world
that resembles the one before the Fall
of Adam and Eve on the planet Sirius.
Brotherhood of all people flourishes,
joy and happiness of one person is joy
and happiness of all. The character
asserts that he saw the Truth and after
coming back from the realm of dream he
decides to spread this Truth in real life.
He believes that people can be happy
on our planet also – consequently, they
called him a ridiculous man. Were we
indeed ridiculous?
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You have been devoted to the
professional study of literature for a
few decades. Could you tell us what
shaped your interest in Russian
literature in particular?
A Č My relationship with Russian
literature had a prologue: during
the First World War my grandfather
fled to the Russians, who sent him to
the hinterland to work on the soil of
Russian landowners. When he came
back and tottered on the stony Slovak
soil, he stopped from time to time, set
his eyes to the east and looking at me
and my brother, he sighed: “Oh, Russia,
Russia, Russia … that divine chernozem
… to have that here …”
For that reason, after the Second
World War I went to the Greek Orthodox
grammar school in Prešov – later
renamed the Russian grammar school.
There I encountered Pushkin for the
first time and he has astonished me by
his harmony and universality for all my
life. There I read also Dostoyevsky for
the first time (but really just read and
did not understand). My diploma work
at the Faculty of Arts at the Comenius
University in Bratislava was on the
harmony of life, man and literature
(Rhythmical prose in the work by Leskov);
my PhD. thesis was about the poetry of
life, man and literature (Vajanský and
Turgenev). Only the dramatic-tragic
events of 1968 (for seven years almost
in the street) threw me into the embrace
of an advocate of the humiliated and
insulted – F. M. Dostoyevsky.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Russian literature is univocally
related to and inspired by the
traditions of mysticism, the supernatural, spirituality and mystery.
All these traditions are closely
associated with the use of symbols.
Could you tell us more about the
significance of symbols in Russian
literature? Is it possible for today’s
readers to understand the symbols
of the past fully?
A Č Words in a work of art can have
the feature of a sign, icon or symbol.
The same may be said about a literary
work; and the interpretation (of a
word and of a work) depends on
the reader. Are Gogol’s Dead Souls,
Goncharov’s Oblomov, Korolenko’s The
Blind Musician symbols, icons or signs
of the Russian and panhuman reality?
There was an adaptation of Dead
Souls in the Nitra theatre, in which the
characters (notably Chichikov) uttered
contemporary slogans about how to lie,
steal and get rich. An artistic image of
great depth and power (an image as a
sign, icon and symbol) is inexhaustible;
it will communicate till manceases to
exist.
Our students attended a lecture on
Tolstoy and they were shocked when
the tragedy of Anna Karenina was
explained by a lecturer as a tragedy of
eroticism and sexuality. We understood
it as … a sign, icon and symbol of
two ethical problems: what is more
important in a woman’s life – desire
for love or responsibility as a mother?
… Russian literature is a condenser of
an immense spiritual power; it can be
compared to a breath-taking symphony
(what is an image of symphony – is it a
sign, icon or symbol?) of various musical
instruments. Some of them express
anthropological depression, others
mean social protest, the third group
may stand for spiritual contemplation,
the fourth one panhuman solidarity,
the fifth group … As the symbols of
the abovementioned and of other
aesthetical-spiritual energies they
symbolise a temporal form of man and
his timeless symbolical variability. A
small man … worthless man … man-god
of Russian literature is not insignificant
only in terms of serfdom and political
absolutism – as we learnt at school – but
he is also small when he faces natural
and cosmic eternity. The elements of
mysticism, of the supernatural, spiritual
and mysterious arise somewhere there.
In the Bjørndal trilogy, by the
Norwegian writer Trygve Gulbranssen,
one of the characters – Old Dag –
says: “To see life from above as a short
passage of road between the eternity
we come from and the eternity we go
towards – that is the first sight we
need so that we may understand the
connection”. This issue of Ars Aeterna
pursues the topic of eternity. What
does eternity mean to you?
A Č The problem of eternity is
associated with the eternity of the
Universe, Nature and Man. Everything
that has a beginning has also an end.
However, as Dostoyevsky said, the
beginnings and the ends are unknown
to us. Everything that has no beginning
does not have an end either – it is
eternal. Only Deurg (the Creator) of
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everything is eternal – God, or gods –
thus claim the believers. He created
the Universe, Life and Man that are …
eternal or just temporal? Believers are
content since they trust everything is in
God’s hands. But the sceptics, atheists
and scientists need evidence. However,
objective evidence does not exist and
likely will never exist.
We know (thanks to the signals that
have reached us after millions of light
years, thanks to the Hubble Space
Telescope and other instruments) less
than 10 per cent of the universe. And
what about the other 90 per cent?
What laws of the quantum cosmology
are valid there? We used to have a
theory of the origin ofthe Big Bang,
yet there might have been an infinite
number of Big Bangs. It seems that
“energy compressed to a maximum”
(and science claimed that energy is
related to matter) could be the energy
of anti-matter (of dark matter and
black holes). In order to understand the
essence of dark matter and its energetic
power, scientists decided to move their
focus to the universe. If this power is
controlled and brought to the Earth,
it could replace all forms of energies
known today. The possibility that the
Universe, Life and Man would become
eternal then cannot be eliminated. Some
scientists are convinced that man and
humankind would experience this form
of eternity as inhabitants of all planets
in the universe.
This reminds me of Merezhkovsky,
who claimed that there used to be the
humankind of the Father, which deserved
the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the
destiny of Atlantis; now there is the
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humankind of the Son, who suffered
and delivered mankind from suffering,
so that it also deserved something else,
something more; this humankind will
be followed by the humankind of the
Spirit which will last forever. So this
way of understanding eternity also
exists. Scientists (Davies, Hawking,
Toepler and others) claim that man will
have to save himself by the journey to
the universe. However, today’s Homo
sapiens has no preconditions for that
– will he mutate? Russian philosopher
Fyodorov was convinced that the
meaning of life on Earth is that all sons
of all times joined together, brought
sons, fathers and mothers of all times
back to life and lived eternal life on all
planets of the universe. Do you know a
more fantastic idea of eternity? What
kind of eternity will that be – physical,
Christian (eternity of human souls)
or Muslim (eternity of reincarnated
people)?
It is fascinating to read the ancient
myths and to learn that people had
similar dreams in all places of the world.
Be it Sumerians, Egyptians, Jews or
Aztecs, Brazilians, etc., they all believed
in their gods, longed for eternal life,
spread the same ideas and thoughts.
For instance: “The Word became earth”
(Heraclitus, 700 years before John the
Baptist) – “In the beginning was the
Word and the Word was God” (John the
Baptist). All religions preached the idea
of eternity, differing only in ways they
imagined it (from the cult of Phallus as
a life-giver to nirvana – immortality of
the human soul), etc.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
How do you interpret eternity in the
wider context of Russian literature?
A Č Classic Russian literature is
anthropocentric in its essence. Man is
a medium through which the authors
submerge into his natural animality
(the romanticism of Dostoyevsky),
social misery (Shchedrin), spiritual
transcendence (Dostoyevsky), historical
tragicality (Tolstoy), etc. They all examine
“man as a mystery” (Dostoyevsky), but
each of them uncovers only a part of
his universality. Why is each writer’s
perception of man different? Religions
are out of the discussion here as all
is determined by God. Science offers
hundreds of explanations: already at
the moment of the Big Bang, entities
(para-energies) originated which predetermined everything; human bodies
contain all forms of life which have
ever existed, even those which have
ceased to exist (anthropic principle);
human genotype – from the humanoids
to Homo sapiens (a concrete Andrej);
human DNA (22 chromosomes, 11 from
each parent); prenatal life, practices of
mankind and socialisation of genotype
to phenotype; social realisation during
lifetime etc.
Then what conditioned the character
and activity of Lermontov, Turgenev
and Artsybashev and their “children”
– Pechorin, Bazarov and Sanin? What
makes them temporal and what eternal?
I do believe that man is eternal. Man’s
brain (millions of brain cells and billions
of synapses which connect all cells) - as
a Demiurge of everything that exists
above the nature – is a “god-like” Creator.
Is it possible that God or the Universe or
Nature would throw - after man’s death
- such an entity (para-energy, metaenergy) to the waste container of the
Earth? Think of Alyosha Karamazov and
Andrei Bolkonski lying on the ground
(Alyosha embracing it as a mother “Syra
Zemlya”, Bolkonski bidding farewell
to life); when they stood up they were
different men (Alyosha fell to earth as a
dreaming youth and stood up as an adult
combatant). What did their contacts
with the stars, with the universe, mean?
Thematic characters (Onegin, Pechorin,
Zosima) feel the fire of stars within
themselves (contact with eternity) but
also the croaking of frogs in earthly
swamps (contact with transience).
As a literary scholar you have
been exploring the works of F. M.
Dostoyevsky for many years. How is
eternity depicted in his works?
A Č God exists only if he exists in a
human heart. The same can be said
about Eternity. People are heirs of the
history of the Being, but they are also
the anticipation of its Eternity. Mitya
Karamazov is mortal; he is a rake of
the decaying reality of the 19th century,
but he is also an eternal intermediary
of mythological culture and civilisation
(he is an heir of Danaus, a father of
fifty daughters). Alyosha Karamazov is
a Russian youth who flees from sinful
reality to the monastery, but he is also
as eternal as Christ since he prepares
the ground for the arrival of the mangod Myshkin. Ivan Karamazov is a child
of Bazarov, yet he is also the son of
scientistic travellers to the realm of
stars and cosmic kingdoms.
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Man’s eternity is in his fight for
tomorrow and in his dream of Eternal
Eldorado, Kitezh and Paradise on Earth
… God – the Father created man in his
image and this creation (creativity)
became man’s (with the help of God’s
Son) way to God. Nietzsche fought so
that man returned to God and became
Man-God. He rejected the god who
betrayed this mission in human hearts,
and pursued the unity of God and Man.
Dostoyevsky made God and Satan equal
in their fight over man, in the arena of
his soul. Did he feel the same as our
ancestors who preached the unity of
Eros and Eris, love and hatred, peace
and war, hostility and friendship of
Neikos and Philotes in human hearts
(Empedocles)?
Talking about Dostoyevsky and his
meditations upon human life, I would
like to quote a few more sentences
from the work of Gulbranssen. These
are the last words of Old Dag, his
testimony and life truth: “What we
struggle for and what we want to
achieve is joy in this life … and peace
… with eternity. And only one road
leads there, a road inside, through
the goodness of heart. We can see
it now … after all life … and it was
spoken by him, who has the right
to say so … he, who is for us … when
everything within usextinguishes …
The road to the meaning of life leads
through reason and thoughts to his
commandments … There is no other
way except … through Christ…” Are
there any links between this message
and the philosophy of Dostoyevsky?
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A Č Yes, the road to eternity leads
through human hearts. The heart asks
man to love everything – lilies of the
valley that wake up in the morning and
birds which sing, a howling wolf and a
crying man (the starets Zosima from
The Brothers Karamazov) – but first
and foremost it asks to love Christ. But
other virtues (Satan), such as egoism,
pride, envy, and hatred “rampage” in a
human heart also, not only love.When
Dostoyevsky’s first wife Isaeva was
lying on her deathbed, Dostoyevsky
meditated: “Masha is lying there,
on the table. Shall we ever see each
other again? To love your neighbour
as yourself – as the Gospel asks – is
impossible. The law of nature prevents
it, the law of the self”. Christ preached
and he lived accordingly.
The Grand Inquisitor (The Brothers
Karamazov) acts as Christ’s deputy on
Earth, but he preaches something, and
his acts are contrary to his words. He
reproaches Christ that he could feed
hundreds of people with a few loaves of
bread but he let man starve and die in
starvation; that he could make miracles
but he refused to do it to subjugate
the Tempter; that he could rule in the
name of the mighty Father, yet he died
helpless on the cross. However, if Christ
executed those three potencies – bread,
miracle and power – he would humble
man and make his free choice for God
impossible; on the other hand, he
enabled the powers of Evil to enslave
man for a piece of bread (practices by
social potentates), to blind and humble
him by “miracles” (this is done by the
myth-forming and technical creators of
“miracles”), so that the mighty of this
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
world would rule over the weak in the
name of various demagogies.
For this reason the Grand Inquisitor
asks Christ, his institutional ruler, to
leave and not to interfere with matters
which he (a man) in His name (in the
name of God) pursues. In his name (in
the name of the Inquisitor) thousands
of god-fearing people perished. But the
Inquisitor was an heir to the history of
humankind (for instance, the Roman
Senate accused about 7, 000 devotees
of the Dionysian Mysteries and
sentenced them to death in 186 B.C. –
Merezhkovsky). Christ says nothing.
He kisses the Inquisitor on his ninetyyear-old lips and leaves. What does
that kiss mean? There are hundreds of
interpretations. What is yours? What
significance did Christ and his teaching
have two thousand years ago and
what is its significance today? What is
different and what stayed the same?
What kind of Christ is being preached
today in hundreds of teachings and
religions (there are more than twenty
registered in Slovakia)? Goodness in
human hearts?
For me, the Christological motif is
principal and crucial in Dostoyevsky’s
work. Christ connects what is
incompatible: man and God,
transience and eternity. It seems to
me that today’s culture does not know
how to handle the person of Jesus
Christ. What is your interpretation
of Christ or Christological motifs in
Dostoyevsky’s writing?
A Č Dostoyevsky was concerned with
the problem of man and Christ during
all his life. Even though he explored
Christ in the characters of Myshkin, the
starets Zosima, Alyosha Karamazov and
the peasant Marey, he felt and perceived
him always at the creation of every
character. Even Makar Devushkin (from
the debut Poor Folk) acts in the name
of Christ as a symbol of goodness in
his heart. Even Raskolnikov (the novel
Crime and Punishment) - who preaches
that man has the right to commit one
small evil act (to murder a man) in the
name of a thousand deeds of goodness
– in the end of the novel he awakes from
the madness of the idea and adheres
to Sonya Marmeladova and the Gospel
(she reads to him about the resurrection
of Lazarus). God created man in His
image; he expelled him from Eden after
he committed sin, but he gave him a
chance to come back.
From the perspective of science, the
purpose of the origin of the universe
was to create conditions for the origin
of life, the purpose of life is to create
conditions for the origin of man; what
is then the purpose of man? That is the
question of the logic of cosmic evolution.
Scientists ponder over the perspective
of two billion years for man on Earth,
and for that reason other scientists
ponder that man has to prepare for life
away from this planet; thus man must
change not only as a psychologicalmaterial being (mutation of Homo
sapiens into Homo cosmicus?), but also
as a spiritual being (para-physical, metamaterial, trans-material, etc.). Cannot
immortality and eternity be found in
this? Prince Myshkin (Christ, Valjean
and Don Quixote in one character) was
preparing in his life for something like
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ARS AETERNA
this; people were pleased, yet when
they noticed how far they had gotten
from God and the Christ of Goodness,
Truth and Love, they killed him as they
once killed Christ. Dostoyevsky was a
believer, but his faith was not dogmatic,
it was philosophical, transcendental,
cosmic, mystical, etc.
One of the well-known sentences
of Dostoyevsky is his comparison
of a man to a mystery. One of your
monographic works has the title
Tajomstvo Dostojevského (1991) (The
Mystery of Dostoyevsky). Mystery
implies mystique, secret knowledge;
but on the other hand it also incites
the eternal desire for knowledge. In
what way has Dostoyevsky remained
a mystery to you?
A Č In the monograph Mystery of
Dostoyevsky, which was to be printed
in 1971, but was actually only printed
after twenty years (in 1991), I read
and approached the life and work of
Dostoyevsky in three ways – I considered
him as an advocate of the humiliated and
insulted (social concepts), as a seeker of
the Absolute (Christian-philosophical
concepts) and as an analyst of human
consciousness and subconsciousness
(Freudian-naturalistic concepts). That
was my polemic with the monologism
of the era. I tried to uncover man as a
mystery that has been reduced by the
times to a social being (the substance
of man is his place in the system of
production). “The world dostoyevskiad”
showed something different, so during
the period of normalisation – as a man
of the year 1968, a docent and vice12
dean, I was thrown out into the street …
Dostoyevsky remains a mystery not
only for his work but also for his life.
I have been thinking until now when
did Dostoyevsky (a poor man in social
terms, a Petrashev revolutionary,
in Siberian exile and a prisoner …)
become Dostoyevsky – a prophet,
looking into the history of man and his
future. When? Wasn’t it at the minute
of his death, when his whole life was
revealed before his eyes? Standing at
the place of his execution, he had just
two minutes left – what did he feel in
those moments? In the novella Katerina
(The Landlady), written in the preSiberian period, the character thought
in terms of whole epochs; after the
experience of the moment of death he
started to think with micro-particles of
subconsciousness, consciousness and
superconsciousness.
What do our ancient emotional and
thinking moments of life mean? In the
novel Idiot, a lady – a confidante of the
Tsarina though sentenced to death by
human envy - was at the guillotine.
She bows her head under an axe and
begs the executioner - “Please, wait a
while, sir, just a while.” What this while
meant for her we don’t know. What
“the” while meant for Dostoyevsky
we know from his work and life. At
the beginning of the 20th century a
great admirer of Dostoyevsky, a writer
and critic V. Rozanov (he wrote a
comprehensive study on Dostoyevsky’s
Grand Inquisitor) rejected the past
but didn’t accept the future either. He
created the philosophy of the moment,
the philosophy of “now”: what was
was, what will be – we don’t know,
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
there is just now, this very moment …
When I travel around Slovakia and I see
billboards which “scream”: eat this and
that, send emails, do sports, experience
and enjoy this life (this moment), I think
of Rozanov and Dostoyevsky. Have
they anticipated life as a moment or
is it just me thinking so (my receptive
consciousness)?
Your next monograph focuses on
dreams in Dostoyevsky’s works.
Dreams have very specific significance
in different cultural spaces and they
touch upon the sphere of the unknown
which we cannot control. How does
Dostoyevsky use dreams?
A Č After its publication (1999), my
monograph Dostoyevsky’s Dreams
(Dostojevského sny) met with a big
response (I have recorded more than
twenty reviews and responses to
the publication). Human dreams are
among the greatest mysteries of man.
Its scientific explanations (nervous
system, functioning of brain cells,
thalamus and hypothalamus, etc.) do
not explain the ontological substance
of a dream: what is it that we can see,
hear and feel in a dream? What kind of
reality is that? It resembles the entity
of the first three minutes after the Big
Bang, when “Spirit” has already ceased
to be spirit and “primordial matter” is
not yet matter (it is “spirit-matter”).
A dream seems to be a fossil from the
time when there was NOTHING, out of
which originated SOMETHING and from
that EVERYTHING. In the process of
cosmic evolution such an entity settled
into three basic constants of the Being –
to the universe, into life and into man; out
of which three communication systems
developed – the cosmic communication
system, the biological communication
system and the anthropological
communication system. There is an
ontological connection between them
– they are interconnected and they
transmit
(exchange)
information.
That’s why we have dreams which react
to the reality we experience, dreams
which are panhuman and we have also
dreams which are cosmic. To think that
those have nothing in common with our
lives is a mistake. Man is a product of
the universe, of life and anthropoids;
these three “producers” don’t take their
eyes of him at all. Because of that, each
dream we have (even the most fantastic
one) is about ourselves …
Three dreams of Rodion Raskolnikov
represent three types of dreams –
natural (drunkards beating a little horse
that small Rodya tries to protect), social
(a dream Rodion has after the murder
of an old woman and which negates
logic of his reason) and a cosmic dream
(at the end of the novel) sent by the
universe in the form of the “trichina”,
which infect each pseudo-realist (all of
them) who murder/s all other people.
What an image of the Apocalypse! This
dream only managed to stop man and
mankind, who in the name of infallibility
and logic excuse any crime. Reason
(pseudo-reason) as the greatest enemy
of everything and everyone!?
In the series of lectures called
Interdisciplinary Dialogues at the
Faculty of Arts, CPU in Nitra, you gave
a lecture about the relation between
13
ARS AETERNA
Einstein and Dostoyevsky. They have
many things in common even though
it doesn’t have to be obvious at first
sight. Einstein claimed repeatedly
that the most beautiful thing we can
experience is the mysterious. He
considered it to be the source of all
true art and all science and to whom
this emotion is a stranger, who can
no longer pause to wonder and stand
rapt in awe, is – according to Einstein
- as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
A Č When I read Einstein’s words that
“Dostoyevsky gives me more than any
scientist …” I suddenly felt the truth.
Both of them based their ideas on
Planck (light isn’t emitted in waves but
in quanta – the quantum theory of light,
but not only of light …), by which all
three of them (first, Dostoyevsky, then
Planck and finally Einstein) anticipated
the quantum structure of the universe
(the planets exist as individual cosmic
quanta kept in unity by gravity
and repulsion). The three brothers
Karamazov – as cosmic, biological and
anthropological quanta of mythological,
religious and scientific civilisation –
live their own individual life but they
also form the unity of the panhuman
“Karamazovian”.
Each character in Dostoyevsky’s
novels has a single separate voice
(M. Bakhtin called Dostoyevsky’s
novels polyphonic), independent (as
a phenomenon) from any other voice,
but unified (in the essence) with all
voices. These facts inspired Einstein
who refused the Absolute and declared
the Relative truth. There is no absolute
truth. Everything depends on the system
14
of coordinates in which the truth exists
or should be asserted (what is true in
one system may be untrue in the other).
When N. Bohr raised the problem of
complementarity (two contradicting
“untrue” views can be “true” in the same
system of coordinates) in 1927, and thus
opened the discussion with Einstein;
both scientists referred to Dostoyevsky,
to his seeming paradoxes that
anticipated the scientific discoveries
of Planck, Einstein and Bohr. There is
a link between a polyphonic novel, the
theory of relativity and the theory of
complementarity that brings together
science and art and anticipates an
interdisciplinary scientific-artistic way
of thinking that can get to the beginning
of all beginnings.
.
Erich Maria Remarque in his novel
The Black Obelisk writes: “Time,
space and the law of causality are
the Veil of Maia which conceals our
free view”. In this perspective, the
physical and real thus become the
obstacles to true knowledge. Do you
think that art - which disrupts time,
space and causality easily - can lead
to “real knowledge”?
A Č In the Slovak context, the Veil of
Maia, related to the work by Švantner,
was discussed in a very inspiring way
by professor Števček. Schopenhauer
found it in Indian philosophy – man
wants to live fully, but there is the Maia
Veil between me and you, between a
phenomenon and its essence, between
dream and reality, which (the veil is our
lack of knowledge and ignorance of the
real truth) prevents it.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Bohr had been inspired by an old
Chinese legend about a Sage who saw a
Divine butterfly in his dream that also
saw him in a dream. When the Sage woke
up, he was bewildered: What would
happen if the butterfly woke up first? He
had an idea: two images (of a man and
of a butterfly) seem to be contradictory,
but they are actually supplementary
and alternate. Dostoyevsky described a
similar situation in his story The Dream
of a Ridiculous Man: the main character
refuses the absurdity of real life and
accepts an ideal image of the world
in a dream; yet he eventually accepts
the absurdity and he even decides to
transpose it to the ideal image of the
world in a dream …
Human reason splits the World and
Man into separate parts (man into body
and soul, heart and lungs, paediatrics
and neurology), but the parts create the
unit and the unit is a sum of individual
parts. The idea of the “pan-science”
and the theory of everything - which
are based on the subject of man as
the Whole, the Absolute - originate
nowadays. All distinctions between
science and art (theosophy advocated
the unity of science, art, philosophy and
religion a hundred years ago) are being
disposed of. We are at the beginning of
… what? Are we at the beginning of a
new era of humankind which permeates
to the bottom of bottoms of the micromacro-mega-reality?
Society has been often criticised for
hypocrisy and insincerity. One of the
characters in the abovementioned
novel The Black Obelisk states if man
did not pretend, he would be crucified.
Is our reality indeed so dark?
A Č Evil has seized the world to an
extent unseen until now. We didn’t
know, for instance, the true lies and
false truths of our Gorillas, the truth
of the mighty in Iraq and Afghanistan,
etc. The law of nature rules – a wolf is
right, not a lamb; the stronger devour
the weak. What will come next? More
than a hundred and fifty years ago
Dostoyevsky elaborated the idea of “the
double”. He wrote that he “didn’t find
any other deeper idea”. Unsuccessful
Goladkin I meets his double Goladkin II
who is successful.
Some hundred years after this, Buber
came up with the idea that the meaning
of human “I” is given by human “Thou”.
Man is not what he thinks he is, but
he is an intersection of several other
forms of “you” which create some
idea (a model, an image of his “I”). An
authentic private person and the very
same modelled social person is not the
same man (let’s recall the principle of
complementarity). Man is a mystery,
as Dostoyevsky said, and he will always
remain so. He doesn’t pretend; he just
seems to be different depending on the
system of coordinates from which he is
observed.
E. M. Remarque is right in a way
that Evil in man would want to crucify
him. Dostoyevsky preached (ethical or
ontological?) transformation of man
who would give up his “I” for “You” and
“You” give up your “You” for “I” – both
will perish but they will be created
instantaneously as new born-again
people. Is it utopia or is it a way towards
man’s eternity?
15
ARS AETERNA
And a bit of humour: reality may be
dark because everything was actually
created from dark matter, or antimatter …
You emphasise that literature
conveys the message “of man about
a man – for man”. That is its major
significance. The focus thus lies in
humanity, humanness, in goodness.
Goethe once said that Art deals with
that what is difficult and good. Could
you mention a few literary works
that you consider being the ultimate
expressions of art and which offer us
the touches of eternity?
A Č I really understand literature and
art as the “aesthetic-anthropological
and spiritual activity of a man, to man,
for man” – that is a concept which
has been developed through my
brushes with dramatic life, through
brushes with theatre and contacts
with Russian literature, foremost with
Dostoyevsky. It is based on three pillars
– anthropocentrism, interdisciplinarity
and comparative studies which I have
been dealing with all my professional
life. “The concept of three” forms its
backbone and it integrates the triad
of man (for example motivation for
his activity on the levels of genotype
– phenotype – nootype), the triad of
objective reality (the universe – nature
– society), three styles (descriptive –
iconic – operative), three kinds of values
(natural – social and cosmic-spiritual),
etc.
Everything in a literary work is human.
And literary science should be human
also. The study of – let’s say – oxymoron
16
or counterpoint just for oxymoron’s
and counterpoint’s sake (their use,
systematics, types, etc.) is nonsensical;
using gentler words is a baby’s rattle. To
understand the character and functions
of oxymoron and counterpoint means to
understand correlative entities in a man,
for a man. This anthropomorphism has
affected almost all scientific disciplines
– there is anthropological cosmology,
philosophy, semiotics, biology, etc. The
world and man are – thanks to the
rationality of science but also thanks to
the irrationality of human actions – in
danger. “SOS” – that is a calling of God, a
vision of eternity, faith and love towards
everything and everyone …
There are authors – whom I reread
constantly – who lead up to such
positive, creative (and not negative
and destructive) feelings: Dickens
and Shakespeare, Dante and Cervantes,
Balzac and Goethe, Švantner and M.
Urban, Mickiewicz and Ťažký, Tužinský
and many others. From Russian
literature it is mainly Pushkin, Turgenev
and Dostoyevsky.
Life on today’s Titanic asks everyone
and everything (interdisciplinarity,
synthesis, koine) to unite and rescue
man. Will that happen?
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Self on the Verge of Eternity. Iñarritu’s art of cinema
Alena Smiešková
Alena Smiešková received her PhD. from Comenius University in Bratislava. She is
currently editor-in-chief of the Ars Aeterna journal and works as the head of the
Literary Section at the Department of English and American Studies, at the Faculty
of Arts, at the University of Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra, Slovakia. She has
published articles and chapters in books on American ethnic writing, American
film and the Holocaust. Recently, she has published a monograph on Philip Roth,
one of the most important living American writers: Mýtus. Realita. Rozprávanie.
Prípad Philip Roth. (2011). She translated a book for young adults by Lauren Oliver:
Before I Fall (2010, translation: Kým dopadnem, 2011)
Abstract:
The article discusses one of the most influential contemporary directors Alejandro
González Iñárritu and his films from the perspective of the concept of eternity.
It focuses on the interpretation and analysis of three of his films as they offer the
confrontation of the Self and time. The article presents the director as a director
“without borders” and examines formal and conceptual qualities of three Iñárritu’s
films: Amorres Perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Biutiful (2010). It discusses
some specific filmic elements such as the employment of conceptual metaphors, inbetweenness of characters and principle of collage/ montage as a narrative technique.
The above quoted poem by 18thcentury poet William Blake was used as
a motto for our conference on the Self
and Eternity. It is no coincidence. This
tiny, brief poem in a few lines expresses
the thoughts of philosophers of many
centuries before, on the Self when
confronted with eternity. The poem
To see a World in a grain of sand,
A Heaven in a wild flower,
An Infinity in the palm of your hand
and an Eternity in an hour.
captures the possibility to experience
the dynamism of life, its beauty and
intensity in minute details of the world,
as Blake states in the poem: in “a grain
of sand, in a wild flower”. When Blake
juxtaposes infinity with the momentary,
he makes any hierarchic temporal
relations relative. The line “To see …
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ARS AETERNA
An infinity in the palm of your hand”
presents the ecstasy of the moment,
when touching one’s hand erases the
past, present and the future, blending
them in one infinite continuum. Blake’s
words are an invocation of eternity,
which represents original and infinite
temporality, and which in precious
moments can be replaced by the
moment of self-being when, as Blake
puts it: [one can see] an eternity in an
hour. Such illumination makes soul
immortal. It comes to the inquisitive Self
to question and criticize and reflect on
the given patterns of the world. It is the
philosophical Self, which is not satisfied
with the world already containing
answers. In the view of Ancient
philosophers such Self carries within
the sparkle of immortality, it contains
‘divinity’. (Olšovský, 2011, p. 270) As
art has been always close to philosophy
my article analyses the oeuvre of one
of the most striking directors of the
present time, Alexandro González
Iñárritu. His films render contemporary
situations with the pure intensity and
insistence of time momentum, where
his protagonists experience the Self on
the verge of eternity.
Alexandro González Iñárritu: Director of the Other.
“Director without Borders”.
Alexandro González Iñárritu is a
contemporary Mexican film maker. He
has become an attractive asset of the
American independent movie scene
after achieving success not only in
Mexico but also internationally with
his first film Amorres Perros (2000).
Before Amores Perros brought him
critical and commercial acclaim, he
had worked as a DJ in one of the most
popular radio stations in Mexico City,
taken a film course and worked as a
commercials director for TV. As Littger
suggests in his book of conversations
with contemporary American directors,
Iñárritu, as well as Michel Gondry, David
Fincher, Peter Segal and Bryan Singer,
belongs to the group of self-made
directors. (2006, p. 145) Though he has
made only four feature films so far, he
has been one of the most influential film
directors of recent times.
18
His first film Amorres Perros won
numerous awards and prizes including
the Critics Week Grand Prize at the
Cannes International Film Festival, the
Audience Award at the American Film
Institute’s International Film Festival,
the British Academy Film Award for Best
Film not in the English Language, and
11 sections of Ariel Awards, also known
as the Mexican Academy Awards. The
film introduced to world cinema actor
Gael García Bernal, who had previously
appeared in Mexican soap operas,
but soon became one of the most
internationally renowned actors.1 Then
Iñárritu wrote the script and directed
a segment “Mexico“ which was featured
in 11’09”01―September 11 made by 11
film directors from countries all over
the world about the sadly infamous
collapse of the Twin towers. He had
become a filmmaker much sought by
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Hollywood. His first film 21 Grams
(2003) stars two Academy Awardwinning actors, Sean Penn and Benicio
Del Toro, and Naomi Watts, who had
starred just one year before in David
Lynch’s film Mullholland Drive (2002).
As King claims: “In industrial terms
the film lies between Hollywood and
more formally independent domain.”
(2004, p. 85) It was distributed by
Focus Features, which is an offshoot of
Universal Pictures, and is considered
one of the so-called “Hollywood
Independents.” (Tierney, 2009, p. 113)
As Tierney continues further on in her
article on Iñárritu it is interesting to
note that the “Hollywood Independents”
have
produced
English-speaking
feature films by non-US directors in the
last few years2. (ibid.) Three years later
Iñárritu directed, produced and wrote
the script for the film Babel (2006),
which saw him awarded the Best
Director Award in Cannes and starred
two widely acclaimed actors, Brad Pitt
and Cate Blanchet, and rising young
Japanese star Rinko Kikuchi3. It was
also distributed by an offshoot of a big
Hollywood studio, Vantage Paramount.
Iñárritu’s latest film Biutiful (2010) for
which Javier Bardem, who played the
protagonist Uxbal, received the Best
Actor Award in Cannes and an Academy
Award Nomination, was distributed by
Focus Features as well.
As Tierney claims “these industrial
shifts” also changed the stylistics of
mainstream cinema and brought into
the mainstream the aesthetic strategies
of independent cinema. (ibid.) It is
one of the reasons why she calls him a
“director without borders” and argues
that Iñárritu erases geographical,
aesthetic and industrial borders
between Mexico and the United States.
(2009, p. 103) In her view Iñárritu
employs stylistic strategies that are not
nationally specific. In my view Iñárritu’s
artistic answer to the question of
global identity is similar to what Serge
Gruzinski, at the end of his book What
Time is There, proposed: “the only way
of getting to grips with the globality
that surrounds us and overruns us” is
to “belong to many worlds and at many
times without seeking to reduce them
or standardize them”. (2010, p.160)
The protagonists in Iñárritu’s films
belong to many worlds and at many
times. His cinematic presentation in
no way reduces or standardises them
(the character and their worlds); on
the contrary, they strike us with vivid
persuasion and credibility and at the
same time oddity and authenticity.
Geographically, the setting of his
films moves around the globe: Amorres
Perros (2000) situated in Latin
America, in Mexico City, 21 Grams
(2003) in an unidentified American
town in the USA,4 Babel (2006) in
Morocco, the United States, Mexico and
Japan, Biutiful (2010) in Barcelona.
Picking up Tierney’s metaphor of a
director without borders I assert that
protagonists in these films occupy the
little known territory, the territory
In-betweenness.
19
ARS AETERNA
that is “in-between”. If we consider a
border or a limit as a line delineating
and identifying the difference between
the inside and outside, continuity and
discontinuity, centre and periphery,
proper and improper, insider and
outcast, then these characters occupy
the territory “in-between”. Gloría
Anzaldúa, an American Chicana writer,
would call the territory “borderlands”
(or in Spanish “La frontera”) in a sense
that people who inhabit the territory
belong to neither of the systems they
are involved in. They can be attributed
multiple roles, thus being fully accepted
in neither of the systems, or move
in times from one system to another
thus to be excluded from either one. It
is the territory that is obscured to the
general eye, rarely presented, at times
unpresentable. In the language of logic
it is the territory that is neither A nor
non-A, and is referred to as the excluded
middle.
As an example I would like to discuss
his first film Amorres Perros. In my
opinion what made for the international
acclaim of the film was precisely the
roughness and openness that disclosed
the emotional intensity and depth
of the depicted stories as well as the
“in-betweenness” that characters in
their social roles occupied. Similarly
to 21 Grams and Babel the film is “…
structured around an accidental event
whose effects branch off in different
directions to weave a human tapestry of
independent and but interrelated lives.”
(Deleyto, C., Del Mar Azcona, M., p. 20)
The three films can be characterised
as multiprotagonist films, a genre,
which at present has its own thematic,
20
narrative, and visual concerns. I would
like to propose here a reading in which
the films circle around a conceptual
metaphor, a central sign that is the key
to the interpretation of their theme,
way of narration, and visual style.
Following the sign viewers can weave
together the independent lives of the
movies’ multiple protagonists. In the
film Amorres Perros dogs function as
such a sign.
The film is based on three independent
stories: the story of Octavio, a poor
young man who lives in Mexico City and
wants to get out of the slums with his
brother Ramiro’s wife Susana; the story
of supermodel Valeria, who wants to
start a new life with her lover Daniel;
and El Chivo, a professional killer, whose
background as an antigovernment
guerilla is briefly outlined. Their three
lives intersect at the beginning of the
film in a tragic accident.
Iñárritu arranges the stories of the
protagonists into several segments,
which are dislocated from linear
narration and fragmentally assembled.
In this way the viewers can see them
either as living in between two systems
(e.g. official and unofficial) or as
transferring from one to the other (e.g.
insider/ outsider) thus moving beyond
existing normative borders. As was
mentioned above, in all three stories the
central reading can be derived from the
appearance of a dog in circumstances
intrinsic for a particular character.
Dogs in general are understood as the
closest friends to humans. They share
many noble qualities with humans,
such as loyalty and sensitivity. The
relationship between a dog and its
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
master very often lasts beyond the grave.
The personality of the master affects the
dog’s behavior as well as it is said the
master starts to look like his or her dog
after some time. These generalisations
work for the protagonists of the film;
their dogs reflect on who they are and
how they can deal with their lives.
Octavio, who dreams of an escape
from a rough and uncultivated life,
earns the money for the escape at dog
fights. The platform of dog fights is an
illegal business that attracts people
(exclusively men) from lower social
classes, and outlaws to earn money
and enjoy brutal fights full of violence
and blood. Octavio moves between two
social models. On one hand he wishes
for a stable, straight life with the love of
his life, his brother’s wife, on the other
hand he exposes his beloved dog to
danger and cruelty because he knows
this way he can earn money for the life
he dreams about. On one hand stability,
conformism, Catholic values of family, on
the other hand crime, violence, cruelty.
He does not belong to either of these
systems. He is a sensitive, emphatic man
and even though he knows how to move
around in the world of crime, he does
not belong there. He wishes for a good
life with a woman whom he loves, but
this woman is married to his brother
and as it appears later in the film, in
spite of his brother’s abuse she still
loves her husband. Octavio has all the
predispositions to be a good father, good
husband and a caring supporter of his
ideal family and yet, this is not the world
to which he belongs. In this respect the
scene where he waits for Susanne at the
bus station, full of expectations of a new
beginning, discloses his delusion at best.
His dog and his dog’s life are the analogy,
a metaphor of his master’s destiny.
Similarly, the way Octavio treats his dog
(he cares for him, trains him, yet does
not hesitate to expose him to danger
and violence) foreshadows Octavio’s
delusive expectations that he could
break from the constraints of poverty,
social exclusion and discrimination to
become free.
Valeria’s story is the simplest of all
to decode. We could say that Iñárritu
employs this in many respects stereotypical example to make a sharp contrast
with the brutality and coarseness
of the other two stories. Valeria is a
supermodel who has just recently
moved to a new flat with her lover
David. Her world is clearly delineated
through several scenes and shots: she
appears on a TV show, receives all the
glamour and fame of a celebrity, she is
shown a new flat where she is about to
move with her lover (who is going to
leave his family, his two daughters, for
her); billboards featuring her beautiful
body are visible all over the city.
But is it really her world? The media
world Valeria represents is only the
world of appearances and surfaces.
That world appropriates her body and
uses it as a commodity. How much and
for how long does she belongs to it?
Not only does the tragic accident
that severely injures her leg change
her status from a desired supermodel
immediately to an unemployed woman,
but it also complicates her relationship
as well. Is her world really the new flat
she started to occupy with her lover?
Does his decision to leave his family free
21
ARS AETERNA
him from his other bonds, thus making
him free and happy for a relationship
with Valeria? Iñárritu is very abrupt
and clear about this. The flat that was
supposed to be Valeria’s new world
becomes a trap that extinguishes not
only her lover’s desire, it also grasps
her pet dog, which seemed to be
the only intimate and understanding
being she shared a relationship with.
The disappearance of the dog, whose
appearance stereotypically matches our
expectations about a dog a supermodel
could own, under the unfinished floor
in the flat, is devastating for her and
the idea that it could be eaten by rats
who she can hear in the silence at night
unnerves her. Then the flat and dog
both function as metaphors for Valeria’s
life. The material one, an unfinished
and possibly treacherous flat, implies
the impossibility for Valeria to integrate
fully into its environment. The scene
when an already injured Valeria in an
invalid chair circles around the flat and
hole in the floor in search of her beloved
pet is one of the most bizarre and ironic
in the film. The physical metaphor, her
dog, embodies the qualities and a type
of relationship she longs for, thus its loss
implies the impossibility for Valeria to
have such a relationship and eventually
the exclusion from the world of safe and
simple things, when her leg has to be
amputated.
The professional killer El Chivo lives
alone, hiding as a bum. For years the
only companions to him have been
the dogs he finds on the streets, dogs
that he treats, trains, and loves above
all. El Chivo lives beyond the border of
what we generally imagine as civilised
22
society, yet he preserves some of
the most innate humane qualities:
kindness, empathy, care, and bondage.
It is paradoxical that similarly to
Octavio and Valeria, his best qualities
are invested disproportionately. Being
a professional killer, he gets paid for
killing people. As an outlaw, living on
the edge of the society, he invests his
affection exclusively in his dogs. One of
the deepest moments in the film, which
tests viewers ability to sympathise with
a character not because they know
whether he is good or bad, but because
they feel with him because he is a human
being, is when El Chivo comes back
home to his hiding place, which is an old
and dilapidated house, and finds all his
dogs dead or injured, and bleeding. He
has to kill those who would not survive
and takes care of the one that can make
it. It is, “by chance”, Octavio’s dog, whom
he took away during the accident and
whom he had already cured from dog
fight wounds. It seems that Octavio’s
dog is the strongest, the one that can
survive many afflictions, similarly to
his master now, El Chivo. At the end of
the film it is El Chivo who escapes and
finds a way out from the netherworld
his life had been so far. He comes back
to his face, which he had been hiding
for years, and with the money he has, is
open to a new life, a new beginning and
a new identity.
The closing shot is one of the examples
of the cinematic sublime Iñárritu has
exercised in his films. The camera
shows in a long shot the landscape,
uninhabited, just the cracked, dry earth
and the sky. The scene is shot through
blue-tinted lenses, which together with
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
the music score adds to the melancholic
quality. The restrained composition
of the shot includes only life elements
and two figures from the back moving
to the horizon. The two of them are
El Chivo and his dog. El Chivo has
crossed the borders of different worlds
several times. First, when he, a university
professor, had been excluded from official
life as an antigovernment supporter
and became an outcast; a second time
as an outcast when, in order to sustain
a certain kind of living, he was forced
to become a professional killer – an
outlaw, it was then he died in the eyes
of that first (official) world. Eventually,
he crosses the boundary again when
he appropriates a new identity to enter
and join the world to which he had been
dead for a long time.
What the cinematic shot presents is
a frame within a frame. Understanding
image as a window to the intelligibility
of the world, the frame of a shot is a line
separating the image from reality, thus
making the reality more understandable
through the image. (Petríček, 2009,
p. 38) The line of the horizon within
the image replicates the line of the
intelligibility of the world, at the same
time being a line which constantly
moves further away when we move
closer. The horizon in the image is there
not only for El Chivo to approach, yet it
always remains inaccessible, it is there
also for viewers, as a constant reminder
of the secret of the world.
The first three of Iñárritu’s films are
typical for the fragmentation of time
and space in a story. Under the name
‘collage’ the principle has been known as
an ancient art technique and received its
prominence mainly in the arts of the 20th
century. As Gregory L. Ulmer maintains,
collage has become “the single most
revolutionary formal innovation in
artistic representation” in Western Art in
the 20th century. (1998, p.84) Originally,
the technique involved attaching various
materials to the surface of an artwork,
thus transferring them from one context
to another. A collage-like principle
was also employed in early cinema,
especially by film experimenters such
as Sergei Eisenstein and D.W. Griffith.
The technique is called montage and
refers to the organisation of shots by
an editor attributing individual shots
with a significant position in a narrative
line. Therefore, the narrative line is free
from any logical and linear constraints
and the shots acquire meaning as they
conflict and collide. As a result both
collage and montage destabilise the
traditional homogeneity and integrity
of a work of art and correspond to a
new understanding of time and space in
both modernism and postmodernism.
The difference between public
and private time and the way our
consciousness, specifically our memory
deals with the split and how our mind
filters the outside world at the threshold
of our consciousness were the themes
and topics discussed in literature as well
as in the philosophy of the early 20th
century. Philosophers such as Henry
Linearity vs. Collage
23
ARS AETERNA
Bergson and Edmund Husserl, writers
like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and
William Faulkner were either formally
or conceptually preoccupied with the
new role the Self plays within time.
The theme of time, the possibility that
our mind can construct and perceive
different realities5, has been further
developed by postmodern thinkers and
in postmodern art. Artistic examples
would include genres of science fiction
and cyberpunk, where possibility
of time travel and cosmic travel, the
presentation of virtual reality became
bountiful settings and themes.
The film narration changes as a
result of time and space fragmentation.
It is mainly perceivable in the genre
of multiprotagonist films. The rising
popularity of the genre has been
observed since 1990 as a departure
from traditional single protagonist
movies (del Mar Azcona, 2010, p.
3 - 4). These films are characterised
by several protagonists, who have
“similar narrative relevance” to the
interpretation of the film, as a result
narrative integrity of films falls into
pieces.6 (ibid. p. 2)
Iñárritu does not create in a vacuum.
His works are deeply rooted in the
circumstances of the contemporary
world and what before was just the
genre of science fiction, now he admits
has become our reality: “I think that we
have been exposed to many different
media now – the kids are now basically
dealing with three, four, five realities at
the same time: they are watching CNN
and are reading the treadmill at the
bottom of the screen, then a friend calls
from New York while they are receiving
24
an e-mail from New Zealand…And the
virtuality that we are now living in
makes our minds more prepared to deal
with stories that are nonlinear – you
can be playing with several realities.”
(Littger, 2006, p. 190) The preparedness
of the viewer is a precondition to receive
the narrative that “is inspired as much
by postmodern society as by other
texts.” (Deleyto, del Mar Azcona, 2010,
p. 23) Those other texts, as Iñárritu
publicly admitted several times, are
not Tarantino’s films, who he has been
compared with, but William Faulkner’s
novels. (Ohchi, 2009, p. 5)
Critics say that if 21 Grams (2003),
Iñárritu’s second film, had not been
shot in its specific form, it would be a
cheap melodrama. (King, 2004, p. 84)
But is not so with many other films,
which we consider the finest examples
of contemporary cinema? Kieslowski’s
Blue (1993), Refn’s Drive (2011),
Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), to give just
a few examples. The story is usually
simple, almost banal, sometimes
lacking rational links for the motivation
of characters, yet, together with all
the other technical elements that
contemporary film can employ: music,
camera angles and types, new forms
of editing, enhancements and shades
of colour, and a specific narrative form,
makes for the astounding final result.
“It’s like everything else. Tequila you
have to serve in a small glass, because
the flavor is different if you serve it in
a tall glass; or whiskey or champagne
they have their own form. And I think
sometimes form is intrinsic to the
essence of the thing” says Iñárritu in an
interview with Littger (2006, p. 188)
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
This is true about his multiprotagonist
movies; the form and the content are
interlocked, one cannot be without the
other; if chance, which puts together the
protagonists in an existentially edged
moment is a triggering element, it is
also an element of the thematic concern
and visual style.
Directors, writers, artists make up
complex art works, intricate, weblike forms and then critics come
and disentangle them to make them
intelligible in linear interpretations.
The position of the viewer in the cinema
differs though. When watching the film
21 Grams for the first time with no help
of a critical synopsis or interpretation,
a fresh, pristine viewer in the “age of
innocence” experiences the totality of
an intuitive response to a discourse
and visual configurations that can be
overwhelming, beyond comprehension
or which s/he had never thought before
as presentable. The viewer is able to
sustain the weight of the “unbearable
lightness” precisely because s/he is just
the voyeur of the cinema silver screen,
the frame, which corresponds to the
human desire for the intelligibility
of the world. Because the frame, as it
has been suggested above, “allows to
distinguish the framed image from the
outside environment in some way”.
(Petříček, 2009, p.38) It also ‘organises’
the separated slice of ‘reality’, and in
this way every image separates the
intelligible from the unintelligible.
(ibid., p. 39) As Petříček further
develops this idea, “the intelligibility is
a precondition for a survival of a human
being in a non-human environment, as
if a rational substitute of an instinct:
to put someone in a picture or to be a
picture of something means to have a
survey and elementary orientation, to
understand bluntly, to be acquainted
with something.” (ibid.) The viewer
thus can “be put in a picture” regarding
the phenomena, which outside of
the frame would appear chaotic,
incomprehensible, crushing with their
weight the individual consciousness.
Moreover, the viewer is in an active,
participatory role; in the case of a
multiprotagonist film it means s/he
assembles the fragments (of time and
place), the ‘preexisting messages’ into
an intelligible story.7
I have suggested above that each
of Iñárritu’s films centres around a
conceptual metaphor that allows for
making analogies and contrasts and
makes his films accessible to reading
from different points of view. In 21
Grams such a metaphoric sign is the
heart. The three protagonists are linked
through the concept of the heart in the
following way: Jack Jordan is an exconvict who lives in Memphis and has
turned to Christianity for help. He lives
with his family, a wife and two children,
what is now a pious life, supporting
young convicts in their search for love.
Love is Jesus, as many times symbolised
by the throbbing, radiating heart in
Catholic churches. Driving his car
he accidentally kills Cristina Peck’s
husband and her two little daughters.
Cristina is a former drug addict and
in the new situation she finds herself
heart-broken. Paul Rivers is a university
professor who is suffering from a severe
heart condition. The only possibility
for him to live is a heart transplant;
25
ARS AETERNA
he receives the transplanted heart
from Cristina Peck’s husband. King
argues that the film occupies a “hybrid
position”, industrially (I have pointed
out to that above) and also in terms of
form and content. (King, 2005, p. 80)
On one hand its narrative structure
and the use of film stock is alternative,
very much in the tendency of American
independent cinema, on the other
hand the storyline “might seem closer
to the stuff of somewhat implausible
melodrama.” (ibid.)
The heart has become one the most
profane symbols. Traditionally the
heart symbolised the core of the human
being - its intellectual, emotional and
spiritual centre. The shape of the heart,
which we can find as a pictorial symbol
in many representations, has, however,
nothing to do with the actual shape of
the physical heart inside one’s body.
We only rarely imagine the shape of
our heart and in idiomatic expressions
such as broken heart, from the bottom
of my heart, heartless, aching heart;
its physical reality escapes our mind
to be subconsciously transformed
into stylised hearts found in box of
chocolates, postcards, text messages
and emails – clichéd symbols of love and
affection. It seems incredible to realise
how intricate, precise and carefully
constructed the most vital muscle of
our body is.
In a linear cause-and-effect rendition
the storyline of 21 Grams may
seem to be “somewhat implausible
melodrama”, however, the central sign
of a heart allows for a different reading
of the film. Visually and conceptually
the film renders presentations of the
26
unpresentable. Idiomatic expressions,
which are accepted as customary,
and familiar structures of language in
everyday speech acquire a bitter edge
when experienced with a real impact.
They are incorporated in the film as a
discourse or visual configuration. For
example, in the scene where Cristina
goes through the scraps of clothes,
the only physical remnants of her
daughters, who only hours before had
been integral part of her life, it “tears
her heart out”. When Paul’s heart is
transplanted he is given another chance
to live. He follows Cristina, knowing
that her husband’s death made his
life possible. After several “random”
encounters she eventually agrees to
have lunch with him. She is confused
by his attention, puzzled because as
she says: “I haven’t spoken to anybody
in months. …You can’t just walk up
to a woman you barely know and tell
her you like her…” When he tells her
the truth about his motivation she is
angry but later she “takes him into her
heart”. Jack got his second chance as an
ex-convict to teach others about love,
sympathy and support. Although he
ran away from the site of the accident
he knows that he deserves punishment
and in this way “his heart is in the right
place”, he turns himself in. In the final
scene Paul shoots himself because
his heart “stands still” literally and
figuratively. After the accident Cristina
goes swimming regularly, engages
herself in routine activities, yet her heart
is broken and bleeding. Paul, literally
and figuratively, “follows” his heart. His
new transplanted heart belonged to
Cristina’s husband; he follows Cristina
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
when he finds out who had been the
donor and later on his affection for
her develops. At the end of the film we
get to the “heart and soul” of what the
film communicates, as Paul, in a voiceover, says: 21 grams is the measure of
our lives, it is the exact weight a human
being loses at the moment of death, “at
the heart of 21 Grams is a concern about
questions of identity, of measuring that
which seems ineffable – the essence of
life, or what makes us distinct, unique as
individuals.” (King, 2004, p. 80) Precisely
measuring that which is ineffable and
framing it in powerful images makes
for the films sublime quality. As the
film concludes the last shots show
a kaleidoscope of images, from the
past, present and future of the three
protagonists. Some of them viewers
have seen, but now they are presented
with a new, different perspective – to
see what was then hidden, like in a shot
from the swimming-pool where we
eventually see what Cristina’s smiled at,
her sister’s middle finger being shown,
or we follow Paul as he dies in hospital,
his heart giving up, or we see that
Cristina, pregnant with Paul’s child, can
enter her daughters’ room eventually,
and Jack as he returns home to his
family. The last seconds of the film show
an abandoned pool behind the motel
where Jack, Paul and Cristina met in an
act of revenge. The camera screens the
pool covered with blue plastic, unused,
out of order, as the snow falls. Falling
snow flakes and a truck that passes the
pool are the only indicators of passing
linearity of time.
Time is a Gift of Eternity. What does it mean to live and what does it
mean to die?
The third example I would like to
discuss is Iñárritu’s latest work, the
film Biutiful (2010). Although Biutiful
does not follow the structure of a
multiprotagonist film it bears certain
characteristic affinities with previous
Iñárritu’s works. We see the protagonist,
Uxbal, between two worlds. Terminally
ill, he is a man in a liminal stage between
life and death; he knows he is dying; but
he also has paranormal abilities and can
talk to dead people shortly after they
die. In this way he already knows the
afterworld, which for the rest remains
an enigma. The theme of Iñárritu’s
previous films: absent fathers recurs
also in Biutiful. Uxbal did not know his
father, who had moved to Mexico before
Uxbal was born, and died there never
seeing his sons. Uxbal takes care of his
children, a daughter and a son because
he and their mother are separated (she
suffers from manic depression and is
unfaithful to him with his brother). As a
dying man he knows they will be left in
the world alone.
The third element, which links
together Iñárritu’s films, is the
active involvement of viewers in the
construction of the meaning in the
film narration. Unlike Iñárritu’s first
three films the structure of this one is
traditionally linear. With one exception:
the beginning and the ending of the
27
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film. The first and the last scene in
the film reduplicate. One illuminates
on the other and in their replication
the film comes the full circle. It also
accentuates the film’s central theme –
the confrontation of a man with his own
mortality. Circular form is thus equally
intrinsic to the content. The circle as a
sign recurs in the film: as an object – a
ring, in the microstructure of the first
and final sequence, and as a discourse –
auditory and semantic, the sound of the
sea, waves. Circle as an old symbol of life
and eternity echoes the protagonist’s
struggle with time. But what is time?
Can we as human beings, bound to the
linearity of life finitude, answer this
question?
Miroslav Petříček, the Czech
philosopher, says time is one of the
oldest and most intricate philosophical
problems. Philosophy has always tried
to answer what is contested by time and
what is beyond time: “what is temporal
and what is on the contrary timeless,
eternal.” (Petříček, 2009, p. 36) We
perceive time as movement. But what
is it that passes? Where does it go? In
general there are three elementary time
divisions: the past, present and future.
But to remember the past, we need to
have memory and thus in the process
of remembering the past what comes
to existence in the present moment is
the past; Petříček calls it the “present
past”. (ibid.) What is the future? Our
hopes and desires as they come to life
in our mind in the present, therefore
the future can exist only as the present
future. In his view, the present does not
exist, it is that which has just passed or
the one that is coming right now. But
28
can we confront in our consciousness
that nothing, which the present is? Can
we confront it now? Petříček answers
no, we can do it only in eternity. But
how can we imagine eternity? Are we
able to imagine eternity that is the
past, present and the future at once?
(Petříček, 2009, p.)
I will withhold Petříček’s interpretation of eternity and its relation
to time for a moment and I will let
the language of literature give us the
answer. In a recent novel Indignation
(2008) Philip Roth, one of the best living
American writers, sets up the following
situation. In one of the opening chapters
he uses a flash-forward temporal
manipulation and constructs what it
means for his protagonist to face the
weight of the past, the now and the
future simultaneously.
“What happened next I had to puzzle
over for weeks afterward. And even
dead, as I am and have been for I don’t
know how long, I try to reconstruct the
mores that reigned over that campus
[…] that fostered the series of mishaps
ending in my death at the age of nineteen.
Even now (if “now” can be said to mean
anything any longer), beyond corporeal
existence, alive as I am here (“here” or
“I” means anything) as memory alone
(if “memory”, strictly speaking, is the
all-embracing medium in which I am
being sustained as “myself”), I continue
to puzzle over Olivia’s actions. Is that
what eternity is for, to muck over a
lifetime’s minutiae? Who could have
imagined that one would have forever
to remember each moment of life down
to its tiniest component? […] And would
death have been any less terrifying if I’d
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
understood that it wasn’t an endless
nothing but consisted instead of
memory cogitating for eons on itself?”
(Philip Roth, Indignation, p. 54, 2008,
Slov. translation 2009)
Thus are we able to imagine eternity?
Petříček says: “As human beings we
cannot withstand eternity, that is all
being in one moment, all the past, all the
present, all the future as if in one point.
If eternity showed us all being at once,
we would collapse under the sight that
would be so ineffable and unbearable.
Therefore, eternity gave us time
because we can experience gradually all
being, and eternity. Time is the only way
for us how to perceive the totality of
being.” (Petříček, 2009, p. 26) From this
point of view “time is a gift of eternity”
Petríček adds, making an analogy with
a famous line by William Blake. (ibid.)
Time is a “symbol”, a “sign” that shows
that we are mortal human beings. Then
what is the relation between time and
eternity asks Petříček? “Eternity is
the depth of time. It is the depth of
its secret. Time originates in eternity
and it returns to eternity.”(Petříček,
2009, p.37) The last sentence in
the previous paragraph verbalises
traditional pictorial representations of
eternity and infinity, such as lemniscus,
a mathematical symbol of infinity,
Uroboros - the ancient symbol of a
snake eating its own tail, Shrivatsa –
the Tibetan knot or Moebius strip.
At the same time it also describes the
introductory and final sequences of
the film Biutiful. Time, personified in
the protagonist Uxbal (time is a sign, a
symbol of our mortality), which viewers
perceive at the beginning of the film, is
the future of the protagonist, but we
cannot know it in the first moments of
the film narrative. The scene duplicates
at the end to finalise the infinite loop.
This time the camera shows more, the
same way as the viewer already knows
more. It is a new perspective, a different
point of view, which, however, heads for
the beginning to cancel itself eventually.
“The future is the beginning to which
time returns to cancel itself: eternity
is within time as its [time’s] truth and
desire. “ (ibid.) This is convincingly so
for the first and final moments of the
film. The surreal sequence allows us
to follow Uxbal on the verge of his own
death. His desire to meet his father is
materialized. He meets him in eternity.
The truth of the opening and final
sequences, however, lies elsewhere.
Viewers’ participatory role to the
reading of sight (image) and sound
in the introductory and final film
sequences can be compared to the
creative role viewers play in the
construction of meaning in Iñárritu’s
first three films, which employed a
collage-like principle. The sound –
voices in the first minutes though they
come as if off-screen – corresponds with
the image (two hands in a mime-like
performance) and it is clear the sound
and image occupy the same space. The
two hands metonymically refer to the
bodies viewers cannot see and thus
involve the viewers in the meaning
construction, asking questions about
who they belong to and in what way they
are related, and what the significance of
their presence in the specific moment
of time is. Because the precise meaning
is withheld from the viewers almost to
29
ARS AETERNA
the end of the film, the hands function
primarily as pure aesthetic objects
whose beauty is foregrounded and
implicitly communicates the beauty of
the moment’s significance in time.
Everything in the sequences of my
discussion duplicates as if to give
another meaning to either the formal or
contextual aspects in presentation. The
voices discuss the following:
“Is it real?
That’s what my father told my
mother…
I never thought I would touch a real
diamond…
It’s yours my love.
Really? I always saw mom wearing it
on this finger. She said it wasn’t real.”
Without knowing the context, and
regardless of any specific circumstances,
what acquires primary significance in
the scene is the emotional and aesthetic
intensity. The scene is very intimate.
Two hands function conceptually as the
symbol of human bondage. In minimalist
representation the communication on
the screen moves beyond the limits of
human fallibility. It is the example of
sublime beauty recurrent in Iñárritu’s
films. Even without any contextual frame
of reference, which is not dissimilar to
the construction of meaning in Iñárritu’s
earlier films, the viewers recognise the
weight of the moment, which aspires to
eternity. Time is a gift of eternity.
The voices discuss the ring. The
symbol of eternity. Endless repetition.
The exchange of generations. The
question of its authenticity illuminates
also on the moment, time itself. Is it real,
what happens, does it happen for real?
The possible and the imaginary meet.
30
The following sentence of the dialogue:
“Your mother never heard that sound”
does not correspond with the image.
Although the temporal synchronicity
is attained, the space changes and the
voice of the protagonist sounds offscreen. It does not belong to the space
whose image the viewers can see on the
screen.
I have mentioned above that Uxbal
belongs to two worlds in the film coded
in two different mise-en-scenes. The
mise-en-scenes represent incompatible
worlds. The distinguishing marker
between them is the way humans are
placed within time. In one time matters,
in the other time is insignificant. The
protagonist moves between them
effortlessly, alluding thus to the liminal
stage he finds himself in. One of them
is the diegetic world –the world of
the story. There the dialogue about
the ring between dying Uxbal and his
daughter take place. The other one
appears on the screen introduced with
the sentence referred to the above and
it is the hypodiegetic world, the world
within the world of the story.
The essential quality of montage as
a narrative strategy used in Iñárritu’s
earlier films is that juxtaposing shots
makes them conflict and collide and it
is from the collision that the meaning is
produced. Here, within one shot sight
and sound are juxtaposed to illuminate
on one another and from that reflection
meaning is produced.
With the words “Your mother never
heard that sound” the mesmeric and
mesmerising landscape comes into
view. It is the netherworld of the blue
colour, which also recurs in other of
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Iñárritu’s films. A forest covered with
bluish snow and vertical trunks of trees
look like a maze. The sound comes from
a different ontological system and its
epistemology has to be gained in the
process of creative reconstruction.
The dialogue continues:
“What sound?
The sound of the sea. When I was
young there was a radio station that
played sounds of the sea. The gigantic
waves. The sound frightened me.
Why did it frighten you?
The bottom of the sea made me afraid.
All the things that live down there.”
During the dialogue the camera moves
along the landscape, in addition to
voices we can hear the sound of the sea,
the voice imitates the sound but it is still
unclear. The camera falls on an owl lying
on the snow in a close-up. We can see a
feather fluttering on it, as if the sound
which was mentioned and which we
could hear caused the feather to move
in the air. Two things happen here; the
owl – as an object and also symbolic
sign – is presented and juxtaposed with
a word: frighten.
How does the word frighten and owl
correspond, the viewers ask. Why is the
speaker afraid of the bottom of the sea?
Iñárritu carefully constructs the vision
of the netherworld through auditory,
visual and conceptual devices. The
rumbling sound of the sea, the snow
covered forest with no beginning and
end, and the owl. In certain religions
the owl is understood as the guardian
of the underworld, the keeper of the
spirits, protector of the dead. The sound
of the sea, evoking infinite depth and
infinite dimension was the source of
Uxbal’s primal fear in childhood, which
assumed full meaning on the verge of
his death. The past and the present are
fully interlaced, the present meets the
future.
“Daddy? Daddy?” The voice of his
daughter comes from a different time
and different space. Uxbal has entered
the afterworld. We see him from the
background and another figure of a
young man coming to him through the
forest. At the beginning of the film the
epistemology of these characters is
concealed, the voice saying daddy could
belong to a young man, addressing the
older one. The same way as the death
is the enigma, as the reason why the
sound of the sea evoked fear, we do not
know who and in what circumstances
is addressed. In the final replica of the
introductory sequence at the end of the
film the voice says “daddy” three times.
The third time we hear the voice is
frightened because the father does not
respond.
When a close-up of Uxbal’s face (Javier
Bardem) appears on the screen it is visibly
paler and looks like a death mask. In a
conversation with the young man they
speak fragmentarily with no context,
but of the things they both obviously
know. The young man has been in the
territory for a while, he is more knowledgeable, though physically younger:
“You shouldn’t wear a ponytail here. You
look like a fox. It scares the owls.” At the
end of the film it is obvious that the past
and the present come together with
no future awaiting, just eternity. Uxbal
and his dead father meet in the place
where no time reigns but owls are the
guardians.
31
ARS AETERNA
Iñárritu has confirmed again with
his latest production that he remains
a director who shifts and reorganises
geographical, industrial and specifically
aesthetic borders. Although the
narrative strategy in the film Biutiful
differs from his earlier oeuvre he
remains faithful to the authentic and
impressive way of presenting our
contemporary world. Similarly to
the previous films he sees the world
as complex, heterogeneous, where
the way things are connected is not
always explicable, where the classical
causality saying what is fate and what
is coincidence, who is guilty and who is
innocent, is almost impossible to define.
The Self overcomes death in eternity,
but is death the only limit the Self
needs to overcome? The story of Uxbal,
as Iñárritu says, is “not about death.
It’s about life. It’s a hymn to life.” (The
Telegraph interview) The worlds
Iñárritu constructs make it possible to
think that death is a frontier uniting
all limits and that overcoming death in
moments when the soul acquires the
sparkle of immortality we overcome all
limitations we face during our lives.
Endnotes:
Bernal starred later in Motorcycle Diaries (2004) , The Science of Sleep (2006) , Mammoth
(2009)
2
e.g. Swimming Pool (2003) by French director Francois Ozon
3
She recently gave a brilliant performance in Japanese adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s
novel: Norwegian Wood (dir. by Hung Tran, 2011).
4
It was shot in Memphis, in one of the poorest metropolises in the South of the United
States.
5
In modernism private and public, in postmodernism multiple worlds
6
e.g. Gosford Park (2001), Love Actually (2003), Crash (2004), My Blueberry Nights (2007),
Vantage Point (2008)
7
Geoff King in his article on 21 Grams gives a detailed account of the film’s composition
and how the seer perceives and models the narrative in a linear sequence. He for example
points to different camera media used in the film to differentiate between the settings,
or such minute details as color shades framing stories of particular protagonists, or their
visual appearance (beard, shaven, unshaven) to distinguish among diverse time layers.
For more detail see: King, G. (2004, p. 88)
1
32
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Works cited:
» Deleyto, C., Del Mar Azcona, M. (2010) Contemporary Directors. Alejandro González
Iñárritu. Urbana, Chicago, Springfield: University of Illinois Press. p. 154
» González Iñárritu, A. 2010. Biutiful. Los Angeles: Focus Features/ This is That Productions
» González Iñárritu, A. 2006. Babel. Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures/ Paramount Vantage
» González Iñárritu, A. 2003. 21 Grams. Los Angeles: Focus Features/ This is That
Productions
» González Iñárritu, A. 2000. Amorres Perros. Mexico D.F.: Altavista Films
» Gruzinski, S. 2010. What Time is There? Cambridge, Malden: Polity Press. p.216
» Littger, S. 2006. The Director’s Cut. Picturing Hollywood in the 21st Century. New York,
London: The Continuum Publishing Group Inc.
» Ohchi, S. 2009. William Faulkner and Alejandro González Iñárritu: The Fragmentation of
Time and Space in a Story. The Faulkner Journal of Japan. Number Eleven. November
2009. The William Faulkner Society of Japan. http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/wfsj/journal/
no11/EJNo11.html
» accessed on February 14, 2012
» Olšovský, Jiří. 2011. Slovník filozofických pojmů současnosti. Praha: Grada Publishing.
pp. 333
» Petříček, Miroslav. 1997. Úvod do (současné) filozofie. Praha: Hermann & synové. p. 178
» Petříček, Miroslav. 2009. Myšlení obrazem. Praha: Hermann & synové. p.201
» King, G. 2004. Weighing up the Qualities of Independence: 21 Grams in Focus.Film Studies:
An International Review. Issue 5 November 2004, Manchester: Manchester University
Press. pp. 80-91
» Thierney, D. 2009.Alejandro González Iñárritu: director without borders.New Cinemas
7:2. pp. 101- 117 doi: 10.1386/ncin.7.2.101/1
» Ulmer, G.L. (1998) The Object of Postcriticism. In: ed. by Foster, H. The Anti-Aesthetic.
Essays on Postmodern Culture. New York: The New Press. pp. 83 – 111
» Alejandro González Iñárritu interview for Biutiful:
» http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmmakersonfilm/8288951/AlejandroGonzalez-Inarritu-interview-for-Buitiful.html downloaded on Feb 11, 2012
Alena Smiešková
Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Filozofická fakulta UKF v Nitre
email: asmieskova@ukf.sk
33
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Self, Eternity, and Oral History
Andor Skotnes
Andor Skotnes, Ph.D., is Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History
and Society at The Sage Colleges in Troy and Albany, New York, USA. During fall
semester 2012, he was the Fulbright Scholar in the Department of English and
American Studies, University of Constantine the Philosopher, Nitra, Slovak Republic.
Previous to this, from September 2000 to June 2001, she was a Fulbright Scholar
in Americans Studies at the University of Tokyo and Japan Women’s University in
Tokyo, Japan. From 1985 to1990, he was Assistant, then Acting Director of the
Columbia University Oral Research Office, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
His most recent book, Race and Class Struggles on the Middle Ground, Baltimore and
Maryland, 1929-1942, will be published by Duke University Press in Fall 2013.
Abstract:
This paper explores the nature of oral history as a methodology useful to many
disciplines, and its relationship to the self and eternity.
While teaching as a Fulbright scholar
at the University of Constantine the
Philosopher in Nitra, Slovakia, during
the fall of 2011, I presented a version of
this paper at the conference sponsored
by my adoptive Department of English
and American Studies. The theme of
the conference was “Self and Eternity,”
a theme that can be approached from
many philosophical and disciplinary
perspectives. One of my interests is oral
history, a field in which I have worked
for over a quarter century. It struck me
immediately that “Self and Identity”
has everything to do with oral history,
so I decided to reflect in my conference
presentation (and subsequently in this
paper) on the conference theme from
this perspective.
I want to start by defining oral history
34
broadly as the collection by means
of recorded interviews of personal
testimony on life (and hence historical)
experiences. Given this definition,
the relation of oral history to the self
seems evident. For the informant or
interviewee, an oral history interview
gives her or him the opportunity to
reminisce about and create stories
out of remembered perceptions of
the past, to explore the self—indeed,
to construct and reconstruct the self.
Participation in a good oral history
interview is, for the interviewee, often
enlightening and sometimes profound.
New understandings of the self are
discovered or, more precisely, created.
Such understandings can be particularly
intense and surprising for interviewees
who don’t regard themselves as
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
historical actors, who “don’t understand
why you want to interview me—I’ve
never done anything interesting.” The
experience of an interview can help
interviewees develop awareness of
their selves as shaped by a range of
historical processes, and as shaping a
range of historical processes. I don’t
want to overstate the case by claiming
that oral history can be transformative
for the interviewee, but sometimes it
can be, in at least small, incremental
ways—and occasionally in big ways.
This transformative potential is, on the
one hand, why activists in community
history and organizing projects have
used oral history to reclaim and
reconstruct the historical memory of
subaltern selves and communities.
And it is why, on the other hand,
psychologists and psychiatrists use
something very like oral history
interviewing to help patients develop
understandings of inner processes of
history and the self.
For interviewers and researchers, oral
history interviews also have to do with
the self in a somewhat different way.
Like all forms of personal testimony,
oral history provides a window—albeit
a mediated one—into individual lived
experience, and by extension into the
interior of historical processes. Unlike
other forms of personal testimony,
such as autobiographies and memoirs,
oral history gives the researcher
the power to probe that interior by
asking questions and by guiding the
interviewee in creating understandings
of lived experience that the latter may
never have considered. While there
are dangers in such a power, it can
greatly enhance knowledge of the lived
experience of history, especially the
history of those groups of people on the
lower levels of the social pyramid, who
are less like to leave personal testimony
in any other form. Oral history therefore
gives us very valuable access to the
inner history of the self from, as some
social historians put it, “the bottom up.”
Finally, by way of introduction, I
want to briefly discuss oral history’s
relationship to the second part of the
conference theme, eternity. From the
point of view of interviewees, recorded
oral history interviews allow them to
leave accounts of their life experiences—
and thereby a bit of the themselves—
as a legacy. This possibility is often a
profound motivation for interviewees,
especially those engaged in family oral
histories where their testimony may be
passed down to future generations of
kin, but also to those who participate
in other types of interviews. Early
in my career as an oral historian, I
was employed by a major, archivalbased oral history project, to do a long
interview with a White Southern man,
then in his seventies, who had been a
life long activist in the U.S. civil rights,
labor, and progressive movements.
Although I had never met him before,
I found him to be wonderfully warm
and articulate. And to say that he was
passionate about his interview is to
seriously understate the case. He was
inexhaustible (and I, though much
younger than he, wasn’t). Our interview
lasted many intense hours over three
days and was remarkably rich and
detailed. Later I learned that, although it
wasn’t evident at the time, he was very
35
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ill when I interviewed him. He died not
long afterward. In retrospect it is clear
that he saw this interview as his gift to
posterity, to, in a sense, eternity. This
realization was very moving to me, and
I hope that I helped him reach his goal.
I don’t want, however, to continue to
dwell “philosophically” on oral history
and the conference theme. Rather I
want to discuss on more practical levels
what oral history is, and how it can help
us to explore the inner history of selves,
and provide rich legacies for posterity. I
want to start this discussion, though, by
indicating some things that oral history
is not. Despite the claims of some of its
most enthusiastic practitioners, it is not
in any sense an autonomous academic
discipline, nor is it a sub-discipline
of history or any other discipline. It
is something much more modest—a
methodology, a tool by which we can
tease out certain kinds of insights and
understandings. It is though a creative
tool that can be very useful to many
disciplines: obviously to history and the
social sciences, but also to literature and
the arts (more on that later). It is also
necessary to indicate that oral history is
not the study of oral tradition, although
the two may sometimes overlap. The
latter has to do with stories, values,
and knowledge that are handed down
orally, generation to generation. The
former, as indicated above, has to do
with oral accounts of lived experience.
Oral history comes in many shapes
and sizes. A brief survey interview, a
radio or television news interview, even
a job interview, can all be considered
oral history, and can all produce useful
historical information. However, the
36
type of oral history interview that elicits
the most intriguing testimony, and
yields the deepest insights, is the life
history or life story interview. Life story
interviews tend to be long (often hours
long) and open ended; they encourage
the interviewee to reminisce freely, to
reach back into his/her memory for
details, to develop complicated and
nuanced stories about his/her life. A life
story interview is like a wide-ranging
conversation, in which experiences are
recalled, tales are told, and the past is
probed. But is a very particular type of
conversation. In most good, everyday
conversations, the participants swap
stories. In a life story conversation,
only one of the participants—the
interviewee—tells the stories. The
other—the
interviewer—frames
and guides the conversation, asks
the questions, follows up, and, most
importantly, catalyzes. A life story
interview is a very asymmetrical
conversation.
Why do life story interviews often
produce the richest personal testimony?
The best answer I can give to this
question is to offer an example and a
short excerpt of such an interview.
A couple of years ago I did an interview
with an alumnae of my school, Russell
Sage College. She graduated in 1950,
and, at the time of the interview, was in
her late seventies. The overall purpose
of the interview was to record her
memories of college experiences, and
to get her account of how these had
impacted her life. However, in good
life-story style, I began by asking her
about her early years. She told me that
she grew up in a middle-class, Jewish
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
family in eastern Massachusetts. Her
father manufactured soda pop, and,
after Prohibition was lifted in 1933,
distributed a regionally brewed beer.
Her mother raised the children, looked
after the home, and operated as the
secretary-treasurer of her father’s
business. Her father was protective of
the children, and he wouldn’t allow her
to ride a bicycle—something she rues
to this day—because the family lived
on a heavily trafficked route to Boston.
During her adolescence in the World
War II years, she was a girl scout and
was “gung-ho” for service work, so she
became a volunteer “plane spotter”; she
recorded the fly-overs of every plane she
could find from her position at the top
of one of the town’s highest buildings.
She learned to identify many types of
planes by their shapes (although she
did not recall exactly why they had her
do this). Additionally, she described
her town as a “port of embarkation”
for troops leaving for the war overseas,
and related how her father “clamped
down on where I could go and what I
could do” because there were so many
soldiers and sailors around. It was, she
said, “the last ditch for them” for they
were about to ship out, so her father
wanted to make sure that she was “OK.”
Nevertheless, despite strict paternal
oversight, she found ways to explore
the diversities of her community:
We lived in front of—it sounds bad but it wasn’t—the building behind
our house was a bowling alley and a dance hall. All of the big name
bands used to come in, in the afternoon or the morning or the day
before the night they had—I guess today they call it a gig. And so I met
such people as Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey
and Gene Krupa –I met that whole array of people who were popular
at that time. And the story that I love is the one about—oh, now I
won’t remember his name. The fellow with the very raspy voice…
Interviewer: Jimmy Durante?
No, no, no, a bandleader. A Black fellow.
Interviewer: Louie Armstrong?
Exactly!
Interviewer: You met Louie Armstrong?
Louis Armstrong! When I met Louis Armstrong what happened was,
there were a couple of us—we were just high school kids, or maybe in
the eighth grade. But anyway, we used to go up there in the afternoon,
because we knew all these name bands would be there, and we could
37
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get their autographs. And so I approached Louie Armstrong, and
they were busy sitting at a table, and I asked him if I could have his
autograph. To this day I remember exactly what he said. [in a deep,
gravely voice] “Don’t bother me, babe, can’t you see I’m gambling?”
[raucous laughter]
Interviewer: Really?
And I never got his autograph!
Interviewer: That’s very funny. There was gambling there, too?
No. But they had time to waste, and they were only going to play in
the evening, and this was in the afternoon. And in my high school
yearbook, I have the autograph—not that I’m such a fan of any of these
things now, but this was then—of Cab Calloway!
Interviewer: He played there also?
He played there also! And Glenn Miller. Anyway, it was interesting.
This excerpt, and the account of an
early life in which it is embedded, and
indeed the whole interview of which
it is a part, offers data and insights for
all kinds of analysis and reflection—
historical, sociological, anthropological,
psychological, linguistic, gendered—
and it offers material for a range of
literary and artistic endeavors. There
is no room here to further probe the
possible uses of this interview; I simply
want to offer it as an illustration of
the rich potential of the open-ended,
asymmetrical conversations of life
story interviewing.
In this paper, I have alluded a number
of times to the potential that oral and
life story interviewing has for literature
and the arts, a potential that has been
realized increasingly, if without much
38
fanfare, in recent decades. In closing,
I want to focus on this potential, both
because it is less obvious than the
potential that oral history holds for the
social sciences. Moreover, the “Self and
Eternity Conference” was sponsored
by a department that combines
American Studies and English language
literature, and I would therefore like
to link oral history more explicitly to
literary practice. However, instead
of attempting some sort of survey in
this regard, I want to focus on oral
history and one literary/artistic field:
theatrical performance. Oral history
has contributed to the dialogue, themes,
and plots of theatrical productions from
guerilla and street theater, to plays
presented in fancy big US city venues
(and subsequently video-recorded
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
and broadcasted). Perhaps the bestknown examples of the last are Anna
Deveare Smith’s “documentary theater”
pieces. Her plays, Fires in the Mirror
and Twilight: Los Angeles, were oneperson performances, based on her
extensive interviewing of participants
and witnesses to two racially-charged
incidents, in which she spoke the
words and inhabited the personas of
her informants. The results were, by all
accounts, dramatic and moving.
But I also want to write a few words
about the other end of the spectrum—
about a more modest and localized
blending of oral history and theater.
Several years ago at my college, my
colleague Leigh Strimbeck, a theater
professor, gathered a group of
undergraduate women (Russell Sage
College is an all-women’s school) to
study, gather data, and collectively
create a play that, in Strimbeck’s words,
“looks with compassion and humor
at the tyranny of the media towards
women’s bodies, the struggles young
women have with this issue and their
attempts to see themselves and others
in a different, more empowered way.”
Together the group interviewed some
125 women between the ages of five
and eighty-three about this topic, then
they took their testimony and created
the play, Mirror, Mirror. This play has
been performed many times since its
creation in 2008, mainly at colleges
and high schools, with a cast that has
changed over time; as the cast changed,
so did the play, for new testimony was
elicited, and new dialogue written.
Because the play draws so heavily on
interviews—not full-blown life story
interviews, but shorter ones of a lifestory type—it resonates powerfully
with the women in the audiences.
Performances have almost always
been followed by lively discussions
between the cast and those who
viewed it. Mirror, Mirror is of course
similar in character to the famous
and internationally performed Vagina
Monologues by Eve Enser. However, an
important difference between the two
plays is the close relationship between
the cast of Mirror, Mirror, the testimony
that the dialogue is based upon, and,
in many cases, the original informants
themselves, which gives this play an
exceptional
immediacy,
intimacy,
and authenticity—and an exceptional
authority in its depiction of lived
experience.
There is of course much more to say
about oral history and its many uses
and products. But my purpose here
has been simply to suggest some of the
ways that oral history and life story
interviewing can enable us to probe the
inner dimensions of the experiences
of the self. The degree to which oral
history realizes its potential in this
regard, and the degree to which it
engages eternity, however, will depend
largely on the creativity of the projects
and practices of those of us who employ
this methodology.
39
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Endnotes:
Anna Deavere Smith, Fires in the Mirror, New York (Anchor Books, 1993); Fires in the
Mirror [DVD], Monterey Video, 2009, Twilight: Los Angeles, New York (Anchor Books,
1994); Twiligh:t Los Angeles [VHS], PBS, 2001; clips of both plays are available online on
YouTube.
2
On Mirror, Mirror, see http://leighstrimbeck.com/mirror-mirror/ (accessed 1 February
2012); Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues, New York (Villard, 2007) and “The Vagina
Monologues,” http://www.randomhouse.com/features/ensler/vm/ (accessed 1 February
2012).
1
Andor Skotnes
Professor of History
Chair, Department of History and Society
The Sage Colleges
USA
email: skotna@sage.edu
40
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
’We don’t become refugees by choice.’
Memories of Exile
Teresa Meade
Florence B. Sherwood Professor of History and Culture, Union College, Schenectady,
NY. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including A History of
Modern Latin America (2009), A Companion to Gender History, ed. (2006, 2004),
A History of Brazil (2010, 2004) and ‘Civilizing’ Rio: Reform and Resistance in a
Brazilian City (1997).
Abstract:
This paper will examine the self in transition: the life of an individual uprooted from
her homeland, forced into exile, and eventually re-settled in another country. The
paper is a part of a larger project that seeks to explain not only Mia Truskier’s life,
but to answer questions about the lives of refugees. What kind of a world do refugees
encounter? Is there any similarity, over time and place that marks the refugee process?
My talk explores the self in transition:
the life of an individual uprooted from
her homeland, forced into exile, and
eventually re-settled in another country.
From the outset I want to emphasize
that this is a work in its infancy. In
this paper I am presenting a few
ideas, inviting feedback, and, for now,
refraining from specific conclusions.
This paper contains most of what I
delivered in person at the Self and
Eternity Conference; minus the taped
interviews. I have noted in the text
where I had inserted the interviews, and
hopefully the gist of what the interviews
stated will be apparent.
My subject is the life of one woman,
Mia (Tlusty) Truskier, who escaped
from Poland in 1940 at the age of 19
and settled after the war in the United
States. From an upper middle class
Jewish family, Mia and her 23 year old
husband, Jan Truskier, Jan’s mother,
Regina (1889-1968), and Jan’s 17 yearold cousin Ryszard Landau (b. 1922),
who was orphaned when his parents and
9-year-old younger sister were killed in
the German bombing of Warsaw, made
their way to Rome, Italy where they
lived out the Second World War under
semi-clandestine circumstances.
These four people escaped from Nazioccupied Warsaw in April 1940 on the
basis of Bulgarian visas that, although
costly, were found to be invalid because
they had been issued by an “honorary”
rather than an “official” Bulgarian consul.
As luck would have it, the worthless
Bulgarian visas nonetheless allowed
the group to purchase transit visas
good for 24 hours in Italy. Mia’s mother,
Paulina (Szurek) Tlusty (1898-1957),
did not leave with her daughter for Italy
because she hoped that her husband,
41
ARS AETERNA
Zygmunt Tlusty (1895-1942), and 22
year-old son, Tadeusz Tlusty (1916-87),
who had joined the short-lived (one
could say non-existent) Polish army to
repel the Nazi invasion, would return to
Warsaw. They never returned. Zygmunt
Tlusty, Mia’s father, died as a result of
the harsh conditions he endured in a
Soviet work camp in Archangiels, where
he and other Poles were imprisoned as
a result of the agreement that divided
Poland between the USSR and Germany
in late September 1939.
Mia’s mother, Paulina, herself only
42 years old, remained in Warsaw
throughout the war working with her
brother-in-law, Feliks Gradstein, forging
and distributing false identity papers
for Jews and others who were trying
to leave. As Jews passing as gentiles,
Paulina and Feliks were in tremendous
danger doing what they did. Feliks died
in the bombing before Warsaw was
liberated. Paulina left the city when
the Soviet army entered, traveling on
foot and with what rides she could get,
until she reached Rome and joined her
daughter and her family there. When
the war ended, Paulina immigrated to
England where she lived and worked
until her death in 1957.
After the War, Mia and her immediate
family settled in California. In California
Mia was, and still is at the age of 91,
involved in various progressive causes. I
came to know Mia through my husband,
Andor Skotnes who is a longtime friend
of her son, Peter. She became a of interest
to me because I was writing a book on
the US Solidarity Movement with Latin
American liberation movements, 19602000. I interviewed Mia about of her
42
longtime work with East Bay Sanctuary,
located in Berkeley, California. The
East Bay Sanctuary is an organization
today that provides legal and material
assistance to refugees seeking asylum
in the US from political, economic and
racial oppression in their home country.
The bulk of this population is from
Central and South America, but today
includes many refugees from Africa and
the Middle East. Mia does this work,
because, as I quote her in the title to
this talk, “’We don’t become refugees by
choice.’ In the course of interviewing Mia
I determined to change the topic of my
book from a study of the sanctuary and
Latin American solidarity movement
to a biography of one of its strongest
advocates: Mia Truskier.
My study of Mia touches on the
conference theme of “eternity,” in so
far as an her live demonstrates that an
individual’s identity is never eternal.
One needs, sometimes, to change, falsify,
and adapt new identities in order to
survive. To illustrate, Mia Truskier has
worked for several decades in the US
providing assistance to refugees, most
of who have entered the US illegally
and made their way to the little office in
Berkeley. She has done so because she
too was an illegal alien at one time: she
escaped from Poland where her identity
as a Jew placed her in great danger,
and stayed in Italy illegally, but when
Mussolini joined forces with Hitler, she,
and her family became “illegal enemy
aliens.” A part of her story in Europe
centers on how she was helped, and
helped herself, while her story in the
US is one of her work to help other
refugees, who are likewise struggling
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
to help themselves. The story of Mia,
and of her mother, Paulina, raises other
questions, including the motivation of
individuals who choose to step outside
their comfort zone to take risks to help
others in dangerous circumstances. In
sum, how does the self transform under
perilous circumstances such as war and
repression?
In addition, I am writing a biography
that seeks to explain not only one life,
that of Mia Truskier, but also that of
the world and political circumstances
around her. Mia’s story and that of her
family members provides the human
face of a much larger narrative about
a place the historian Timothy Snyder
has called “the bloodlands.” The areas
of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus are where
the vast majority of civilian casualties
occurred in World War II, either gassed
in Nazis ovens, shot and buried in mass
graves, worked to death and starved.
As Snyder’s book demonstrates, the
distance of time and especially space,
has allowed those of us in the West to
explore and discuss the two powers
who divided Poland, the Soviets and
the Germans, in detached comfort.
Historians have sparred and theorized
about who was worse: Stalin or Hitler.
But the civilian populations, who lived
under and died as a result of the policies
of both these men were not at liberty
to debate this question. They endured
the sufferings of those years as part of
a single historical moment. As Snyder
argues:
“During the consolidation
of National Socialism and Stalinism
(1933-1938), the joint German-Soviet
occupation of Poland (1939-1941), and
then the German-Soviet war (19411945), mass violence of a sort never
before seen in history was visited upon
this region.” (Snyder, 2010, p. viii)
Thousands, including the members of
the Tlusty and Truskier families, fell
victim to the murderous policies of each
of these regimes
Finally, the main sources for my
work so far include about 15 hours of
recorded interviews that I conducted in
December 2010 and August 2011. I lived
with Mia while doing the interviews,
thus talked with her constantly about
her life, perused photographs, looked
at her many art projects, and scanned
the collection of letters and documents
in her house in Berkeley. At 91 Mia
is mostly housebound, frail and with
aches and pains, but very alert mentally.
She watches the news, keeps up a fairly
active correspondence and talks on
the phone with friends and relatives in
Polish, English and Italian.
Mia Tlusty, later Truskier, grew up
in Warsaw in the apartment building
owned by her parents, located on
Nowogrodzke Street, 17. She attended
one of the best secondary schools for
girls in Warsaw. It was a municipal
school, of which there were five for boys
and one for girls. She graduated at the
top of her class. Despite this Mia was
refused admission to the architecture
university in Poland because of a
well-known, but unspoken, quota on
Who is Mia Truskier? Why did she leave Poland?
43
ARS AETERNA
Jews. Because her family had financial
resources, she left Poland to attend the
Federal Institute of Technology School
of Architecture in Zurich, Switzerland.
In Switzerland, Mia met Jan Truskier
(1917-88) who was from a very
wealthy Polish Jewish family. Like Mia,
they were assimilated, non-observant
Jews and did not practice any religion.
Mia only met Jan when they were in
architecture school in Zurich, mainly
because the Truskiers spent less time
in Warsaw and Jan was not in the
same social circle as the Tlustys. The
Truskiers had houses and relatives
in other parts of Europe, and they
traveled often. As evidence of their
prestige and connections, Jan’s uncle,
Abraham Adolf Truskier (1871-1941),
was a major political activist and one
of the few Jewish members of the
Polish Parliament, and the only one at
the time he was in office. Adolf died in
the Warsaw Ghetto.
[AT
THIS
POINT
IN
THE
PRESENTATION, I PLAYED A SHORT
SEGMENT
FROM
THE
TAPED
INTERVIEW: Mia describes her school
in Warsaw, her decision to enter the
university in Zurich, and how she
met Jan. She also gives us an idea
of anti-Semitism in Poland and the
international nature of the university in
Switzerland.]
When the war broke out in September
1939 Mia and Jan were both home on
vacation from university. After the
invasion, Poland was divided between
the Soviet Union, which claimed the
eastern half, and Germany, which
claimed the western half.
Mia and Jan determined to leave, and
married in January 1940 in a Catholic
church after converting to Catholicism,
purely for the purpose of obtaining
visas. Mia asserts that she would never
have converted to Christianity under
normal circumstances, but given the
limited options her family faced in
1940, she and Jan did so in order to
escape Poland. Traveling with these
papers, Mia, Jan, and Jan’s two relatives
left Poland in the spring 1940, hoping
to get back into Switzerland (they could
not), to a relative of Mia’s in Milan, or
to any safe destination. According to
Mia, “When you are running from a
forest fire, you don’t stop to wonder
whether there might be a precipice at
the edge of the forest.”
Drawing on money the Truskiers
had maintained (clandestinely) in
a Swiss bank account, and mostly
on the basis of Mia and Jan’s work,
they were able to live out the war
years in Italy. At various points, they
encountered considerable risk. While
Italy did not enforce anti-Semitic laws
as did Germany, it was allied with
Nazi Germany and as such subject to
periodic and capricious anti Jewish
policies. Their status as Polish exiles,
presumably Christians, was never
questioned, although their situation
was never without risk. Mia recounts
witnessing the partisan bomb blast in
the Via Rasella, which killed 32 German
Getting out of Poland
44
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
soldiers. At Hitler’s express orders the
Nazis retaliated by rounding up and
shooting over 200 Italians, specifically
targeting Jews, and burying them in
a mass grave outside the city. The
retaliatory action, referred to as the
Fosse Ardeatine or Ardeatine Tombs,
sought to silence Roman opposition
to the Nazi occupation and suppress
the growing anti-fascist resistance
movement. (Portelli, 2003) Given that
Mia worked and lived near the site of
the bombing, even witnessed it, she
was in danger.
Mia’s father, Zygmunt Tlusty and
her older brother, Tadeusz, who
was in medical school, answered the
mandate calling on all men between
the ages of 16 and 45 to join the Polish
army to resist the German invaders.
Mia emphasized that her 45-yearold father agonized over leaving his
wife in Warsaw, but felt it was his
obligation to join this fighting force
because he was a very patriotic Polish
citizen and proud of his young nation,
politically in existence only since 1918.
As it turned out, no organized Polish
military, certainly one capable of
resisting the Wehrmacht, existed and
most of these men, and their families
who accompanied many of them, were
killed on the roads outside Warsaw.
In the ensuing chaos, Tadeusz and
Zygmunt took refuge with some friends
at their house in Lwów (now L’viv and
in Ukraine). Eventually they were sent
to a Soviet work camp in Archangiels,
on the White Sea. Tadeusz’s girlfriend
and later first wife, Wanda Szenwald
(1910-?), made her way to Lwów
and then was forced on with them to
Archangiels. The three remained in
this work camp under very difficult
and arduous conditions until 1941
when Germany invaded the USSR and
the camps were dissolved.
In 1942 the three were loaded on
trains to Kazakhstan, where Zygmunt
died as a result of the conditions he
suffered in the work camp. He is buried
there. Tadeusz was picked up by the
British army, was sent to Beirut to
finish medical school, and served with
the British until the end of the war, as
did a large number of Polish nationals.
He settled in England after the war and
died in 1987. Wanda Szenwald Tlusty
and Tadeusz divorced, both remarried,
and Wanda went back to Poland after
the war and little is known of her life in
Poland except that she remarried and
had children.
[AT
THIS
POINT
IN
THE
PRESENTATION, I PLAYED A SHORT
SEGMENT
FROM
THE
TAPED
INTERVIEW: The first excerpt is Mia
describing her father, his pride in
Poland as a nation, and his reasons for
answering the call-up to resist the Nazis.
In the second excerpt, Mia reads from
a letter that Wanda sent to Paulina in
which she describes the conditions in the
work camp. Finally, a third selection is
Mia explaining to me that she was able
to send packages to the camp, at least
for a while.]
Life in the Soviet Work Camps
45
ARS AETERNA
Paulina’s Story - Warsaw during the War
It is Paulina’s letters to Mia that provide
the unique piece of this story. Writing in
a code that she and Mia developed over a
period of time in their correspondence,
Paulina describes Warsaw throughout
the war, both day-to-day events and, to
the extent possible, the fate of friends
and relatives and her own work in
underground activities. Together with a
secretary at Holy Cross Catholic Church
Paulina falsified baptismal records,
which, in turn, her brother-in-law Feliks
Gradstein, distributed. Gradstein, the
widowed husband of Zygmunt’s sister
Stella, would take the streetcar through
the Ghetto, jump off in the middle, and
make his way to contacts there. Mia
does not know whether they worked
with a group of people or not, but Feliks
may have. The latter survived until the
last days of the war when he was killed
in the Soviet bombing of the city. (For
a discussion of the Polish Underground
and the forging of identity papers, see
Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter:
The Past Within Me by Simha Rotem
(Kazik), trans/ed. Barbara Harshav
(from Hebrew) New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 1994. Rotem
likewise describes obtaining baptismal
certificates from a contact in a Catholic
parish in Warsaw, but does not name
the Church.)
[AT THIS POINT IN THE PRESENTATION, I PLAYED A SHORT SEGMENT
FROM THE TAPED INTERVIEW: Mia
describes the secret code that Paulina
devised in order to communicate with
her in the letters she wrote from occupied
Warsaw to Mia in Rome.
Life in Italy and Mia’s Art
Another part of the story, which I
will end with today, is that Mia and
her husband Jan were refugees, but
they had resources. They had money,
not a lot, but enough and they were
skilled. Mia and Jan both worked in
Rome during the War (they eventually
obtained work permits), lived in a nice
pension facing the old wall of Rome.
They ate in a dining room with a crosssection of Italian military and European
exiles, German SS officers, refugees,
aristocrats and all kinds of people from
all over Europe. Today the pension has
been converted to the very ritzy Hotel
Splendide, on Via Porta de Pinciana in
46
the Veneto section of Rome. Mia sold
her crafts to an elegant specialty store,
Myricae, which still exists. Mia is a very
skilled craftswoman and she made
nativity scenes, lamps, and Christmas
trees that were carried in Myricae.
The high end store, run during the war
by Teresa Massetti, is at Via Frattina,
36 near the Piazza di Spagna (Spanish
Steps). In addition, Mia took classes
in architecture at the University. She
was unable to register formally for
the courses because of her illegal
status, but she did continue her formal
education. Jan eventually got work
as an architect, and they were able to
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
support themselves with these jobs.
[THE CONCLUSION IS A VIDEO TAPE
OF MIA TRUSKIER: In the video Mia
exhibits a number of photographs of
her family that she saved from Poland,
and she also shows a number of pieces
of art that she brought from Italy.
The video demonstrates her dogged
resourcefulness in Italy. Finally, she
shows a number of art works that she
has made for fundraisers and benefits
at the Oakland, California East Bay
Sanctuary. This video clip illustrates
the continuity between her life as a
refugee in Italy and her work as an
advocate for refugees today.]
Works cited:
» Snyder, T., 2010. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. London: Random House,
Inc.
» Portelli, Alessandro. The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and Meaning of
a Nazi Massacre in Rome. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
Teresa Meade
4 Harding Avenue
Delmar, New York 12054 USA
email:meadet@union.edu
47
ARS AETERNA
Between Imitation and Self-relection –
the Postmodernist Rendering of Oscar Wilde’s
myth in Will Self’s Dorian
Petr Chalupský
Petr Chalupský received his PhD. from the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague,
Czech Republic. He is currently the Head of the Department of English Language
and Literature at the Faculty of Education of Charles University, where he teaches
English and British Literature, Literary Studies and Literary Theory. Specialising in
modern British fiction, his research interests include in particular the image of the
city and its culture in contemporary British literature. He has published articles
in journals and conference proceedings, most recently “Crime Narratives in Peter
Ackroyd’s Historiographic Metafictions” in the European Journal of English Studies
(Routledge, 2010), and contributed to Beyond 2000: The Recent Novel in English
(Wałbrzych, 2011) and Literary Childhoods: Growing Up in British and American
Literature (Pardubice, 2008). In 2009 he published a monograph The Postmodern
City of Dreadful Night: The Image of the City in the Works of Martin Amis and Ian
McEwan.
Abstract:
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) has inspired many artists to render
or remake its story of the classical myth of everlasting youth and beauty, the result
being countless stage adaptations and film versions rather than literary attempts at
rewriting the novel. Will Self’s Dorian (2002) creates an analogous story to Wilde’s
by setting it exactly one century later in time, in 1980s and 90s London. The aim of
this article is to present Will Self as a writer and to demonstrate that rather than
an imitation or a shocking provocation, Dorian represents an original metafictional
literary experiment which, apart from rendering Wilde’s novel, explores a wide
range of themes, such as the psychogeography of London, the role and influence of
mass media in contemporary Western consumer society, and the eternity of human
imagination and creativity.
I say what I mean, although I seldom mean what I say.
(Henry Wotton, Dorian, 144)
48
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
The theme of art as a means of capturing,
preserving and thus eternalising its
object’s beauty and wisdom is as old as
humankind and its need to express life
experience in a creative and imaginative
manner. In literature this is most likely
best expressed in Shakespeare’s sonnet
XVIII in which the poet confidently
assures the young gentleman to whom
the poem is addressed that his youthful
beauty will forever be preserved from
decay and death in the “eternal lines” of
the sonnet. However, at the same time,
people have always toyed with the idea
that it would actually be much more
desirable if one could remain young
and beautiful instead of the artefact,
and have looked for some device which
would take the burden of growing
old off their shoulders. This conceit
is most famously dramatised in Oscar
Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1891), which shows the devastating
consequences of what follows when the
eponymous protagonist’s wish to retain
his innocent-looking youth and charm
while his portrait would bear all the
evidence of his moral corruption and
physical degradation is granted.
The alluring promise of Wilde’s story
together with its elaborate, intellectually
and aesthetically profound style have
made both the novel and its author a
cult, a timeless myth of human vanity
and vulnerability and its gifted creator,
which have fascinated artists of all kinds
ever since. While the various theatre and
film adaptations are almost impossible
to count, literary reactions have proved
to be a more demanding challenge due
to the original’s stylistic and linguistic
exceptionality. Therefore, despite the
postmodernist fondness for parody,
paraphrases and pastiche, the attempts
at rewriting Wilde have been quite rare.
A highly sensitive and successful one
is Peter Ackroyd’s The Last Testament
of Oscar Wilde (1983), a fictional diary
the writer supposedly kept in Paris
during the last weeks of his life. The
work cleverly combines real historical
personages and events with fictitious
ones, but its true mastery rests in
Ackroyd’s ability to adopt and recreate
Wilde’s language and style teeming with
images, metaphors, puns, paradoxes
and aphorisms, which “provides
conclusive evidence that Ackroyd’s
‘strong predecessor’ did manage to
transcend his mortality” (Onega, 1998,
p.34). A different attempt at recreating
Oscar Wilde is Jeremy Reed’s novel
Dorian: A Sequel to the Picture of Dorian
Grey (1997), which, as its title suggests,
follows up the original story and brings
together its fictional characters with
that of their maker: having survived the
mutilation of his portrait but repelled
by the ageing process, Dorian Gray
flees with Lord Henry Wotton, who has
left his wife, to Paris in 1897, where in
one of their nocturnal wanderings they
accidentally meet Oscar Wilde who
has just been released from prison and
now is a master of the occult arts. This
encounter has a redemptive effect on
Dorian, but he eventually dies in Venice
where he is planning to secretly marry
an adoring young man. Like Ackroyd’s
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde,
Reed’s Dorian is a notable stylistic and
narrative achievement rather than an
ingenious story which could rival that of
Wilde.
49
ARS AETERNA
Will Self’s Dorian (2002) represents
yet a different attempt at creative
reworking of Wilde’s work as it neither
tries to adopt his style nor imagines
the novel’s continuation. It can be
compared to a similar literary project,
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
(2008), Peter Ackroyd’s rendering of
Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein
(1818). Both Ackroyd’s and Self’s novels
are set in specific historical contexts and
feature a mixture of fictitious and reallife personalities, both are set in London
which plays a more determining role
than that of mere setting, and both have
surprising endings that turn their main
plot into a playful narrative conceit.
However, while Ackroyd moves Shelley’s
story only a few years forward in time
to the period roughly between 1811 and
1814, Self’s version takes place exactly
a century later than its model, between
the years 1981 and 1997. The novel thus
imagines what the story of The Picture
of Dorian Gray might be like if it were
happening at the end of the millennium.
It is subtitled “an Imitation,” and Self
accordingly adheres to Wilde’s novel by
keeping to its symbolism, central plot
line, main characters and their names
and placing them into the historical,
social, cultural and political framework
of predominantly 1980s and 90s
England. Dorian depicts the social milieu
of that time’s upper-class London gay
community, with all its characteristic
features, including promiscuous sexual
behaviour, drug abuse and decadent
lifestyle. Basil Hallward is a conceptual
artist, a Warhol acolyte, who does not
paint the Adonis-like Dorian Gray, but
makes a video installation entitled
50
Cathode Narcissus which captures the
young man’s beauty on nine monitors.
Dorian does not fall in love and betray a
poor actress, but a black male homeless
drug addict and prostitute, Herman. The
revenge is not attempted by his brother,
but by his gay skinhead lover nicknamed
Ginger; Wotton, Hallward. Dorian
and their likes do not smoke “heavy
opium-tainted cigarettes” (The Picture
of Dorian Gray, p.8) or take opium,
but are addicted to a range of soft and
hard drugs such as marihuana, cocaine,
amphetamines and heroin. And the
community is not infected by syphilis,
but by HIV and AIDS. Self sees the
1980s and 90s as time of political, social
and moral decline and decadence in
England, a period reminiscent of the fin
de siécle a century earlier. This parallel
is introduced at the very beginning of
the book, claiming that the two periods
had in common “a Government at once
regressive and progressive, a monarchy
mired in its own succession crisis, an
economic recession both sharp and
bitter” (3), which only emphasises the
eccentricity of the secluded social milieu
the story takes place in.
There are, however, several divergences
between the two novels which in effect
set the modern version free from the
limits of its model’s narrative framework
and plot construction, namely its
language, the role of London within
its narrative framework, its relation
to the outside historical reality and its
playfulness, culminating in the final
twist. The novel’s subtitle is therefore
rather ironic and as such refers to
a playfully postmodern variation of
Wilde’s original which is more than its
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
mere imitation. It is symptomatic that
the book originated as a screenplay, but
as Self was nearing its completion he felt
the limitation of the form and decided to
go on working on the script and turn it
into a novel, “which allowed him to retain
creative control” (Hayes, 2007, p.149). In
order to accomplish such a challenging
project, he necessarily needed the space
and other possibilities, linguistic and
narrative, that only the genre of the
novel allows. Self commented on the
relationship between Dorian and The
Picture of Dorian Gray by saying that the
first is not only a modern imitation of the
latter but also “a homage […] The Picture
of Dorian Gray is the prophecy and
Dorian is the fulfilment” (McCrum 2002).
The aim of this article is to demonstrate
that Self’s Dorian is a far more complex
literary accomplishment than its title
and subtitle suggest: it is not only an
inventive and imaginative rendering
of the original, but, simultaneously, its
organic continuation which celebrates,
apart from the classic’s myth, the
eternity of human imagination and the
very process of creative writing.
The essential problem a writer
reworking The Picture of Dorian Gray
faces is the choice of language. He/she
can try to imitate Wilde’s figurative
language, full of evocative passages
based on countless images of sight,
smell and motion and thoughtful
conversations abounding with irony
and sarcastic gnomic statements, a
language that refers to taboo topics
only indirectly in hints and innuendos.
Or he/she can create a language of his/
her own that feels more appropriate
to the historical and social framework
of a modern version. In Dorian, Self
opts for a peculiar combination of
these approaches. On the one hand, he
narrates his story in a crude voice, full
of argotic and slang words--a language
that does not avoid straightforward
descriptions of obscene or otherwise
provocative scenes, from pornographic
delineations of sexual orgies to
detailed accounts of the process of
taking, and the effects of, hard drugs.
That the novel employs discursive
means much unalike Wilde’s is made
clear in its very first paragraph, where
instead of the scents and odours of
flowers in Basil’s studio, the reader is
presented with the coarse-sounding
characterisation of the hedonistic and
affluent environment in which the
main protagonists live:
When the reader is astonished, the writer is in accord with himself –
the language, the city and the real-life events in Dorian
Once you were inside the Chelsea home of Henry and Victoria Wotton
it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night-time. Not only was
there this crucial ambiguity, but the seasons and even the years became
indeterminate. Was it this century or that one? Was she wearing this
skirt or that suit? Did he take that drug or this drink? Was his preference
for that cunt or this arsehole? (3)
51
ARS AETERNA
Such choice of language well reflects
the novel’s cast and makes their
utterances and values more plausible
and lifelike. As the writer himself used
to be a drug and alcohol addict for
most of the time period that the novel’s
story depicts1, he uses much of his own
experience in evoking the atmosphere
and customs of the London drug
community. The various slang terms
for drugs and drug paraphernalia give
an air of authenticity to the speech of
their dealers and users in the same way
as the vulgarisms and pornographic
scenes help evoke the decadent and
bohemian lifestyle of the upper-class
gay community during the “roaring”
1980s. In a world where homosexuality
and drug abuse are no longer taboo
topics, Self logically sees no reason why
his language should depict them only
indirectly.
On the other hand, Self does use more
elaborate language registers on several
occasions to show Henry Wotton’s
distinctive turn of phrase, and in the
descriptions of London and its particular
areas. Self’s Wotton is probably the
character who most resembles its
model – egotist, irresponsible, indifferent, but also smart, witty, and, most
of all, eloquent and well-spoken.
Therefore, his speeches often contain
the aphorisms, bons mots and paradoxes
of a sharp-eyed observer of life. Some
of the phrases are in fact identical with
the original: “A man can be happy with
a woman as long as he doesn’t love her”
(133). Some are almost identical: “[W]e
are in an age when appearances matter
more and more. Only the shallowest
of people won’t judge by them” (20),
52
compared to “Beauty is the wonder
of wonders. It is only shallow people
who do not judge by appearances”;
or “When you fall in love […] you join
the league of the self-deceived” (101),
compared to“the one charm of marriage
is that it makes a life of deception
absolutely necessary for both parties”.
But most of them are altered variations
adapted for modern times and the
story’s purposes: “Everyone who isn’t
a pseudo-intellectual loves television
– it’s so much realer than reality” (66,
emphasis in original), compared to“I
love acting. It is so much more real than
life”; or “When the doctors disagree, […]
the patient is in accord with himself”
(125), compared to“When the critics
disagree, the artist is in accord with
himself”; or “I’d give up doing drugs
altogether, if I wasn’t afraid of other
people taking them without me” (34),
compared to “There are many things
that we would throw away if we were
not afraid that others might pick them
up”. And there are many more of them,
some rather difficult to spot if one is
not well-acquainted with Wilde’s text.
This perpetual oscillation between
the language of crude realism and
conversational witticism gives the
novel a special dynamism, and invites it
to be read as an independent text that
communicates with and comments on,
rather than imitates, the original.
The second instance when the
language of Dorian abandons crudity
and assumes a poetic dimension
is when different areas of London
where the action takes place are
described. Will Self is a London writer
and the city has always been one of
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
the crucial concerns of his writing,
which explores the “interlocking
relationships between place, identity
and cognition” (Hayes, 2007, p.7). He
is often ranked, together with writers
like Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd, as
a representative of “psychogeography”,
a narrative that strives to point out
the special effects a particular locality
might have on the psyche and the
behaviour of people connected with
the location, by discovering a link
between the geography of the area and
its reflection in one’s consciousness.
When moving around Chelsea, Dorian
feels the interconnectedness between
his psyche and the area’s atmosphere
and architecture:
As a writer, Self has been repeatedly
compared to Martin Amis, and this
passage reminds a reader of Amis’s loose
London trilogy, Money (1984), London
Fields (1989) and The Information (1995),
where he also uses the combination of
the city and its weather as a metaphor for
the states of mind of his characters and
the whole of society.. Self’s descriptions
of London thus always transcend
the mere physicality of the place by
attributing it a psychological dimension
whose lines of force help him draw an
imaginary map which captures the city’s
mental topography. When, for instance,
he describes the area of Battersea,
his language displays a great deal of
psychogeographic discursive markers:
Then he could hear nothing save the scream of his own shredded
psyche through the taut steel rigging of consciousness. He knew from
experience that when his own encephalogram grew spikier – with both
the amplitude and the frequency of his brain waves mounting – he also
observed the strange weather in the streets deteriorating. Tight isobars
were ruled across the shopfronts on the King’s Road and Fulham Road,
while the frightening vortices of low-pressure cyclones formed over
Redcliffe Gardens and Edith Grove. (169-70)
No amount of imperial landscaping can cover up this malodorousness,
the swamp that lies beneath the pleasure gardens and the miasma
percolating through the run-down ornamental terraces. […] The city,
feeling itself to be moribund, is simplifying its routines, deaccessioning
its most solid and durable possessions in favour of sentimental trinkets
and plastic gewgaws. It wants to move into a gigantic granny flat, where
– while still preserving the illusion of independence – it can have all of
its practical needs taken care of. (62)
53
ARS AETERNA
When the city’s topographies become
the subject of Self’s narration, the
language changes immediately into
what is one of his idiosyncrasies:
employment of a broad range of
vocabulary, which might be viewed as
both impressive and annoying by the
reader, resulting in recurrent layering
and juxtaposing of diverse, often
seemingly incongruous, imagery--a style
that “often leaps between journalistic
declarative sentences and rapid verbal
riffing, expanding the dimensions of his
extended metaphors and descriptive
catalogues” (Hayes, 2007, p.4).
London in Dorian is made simultaneously present, yet absent, at every
step – even though the novel features
numerous descriptions of the city, it
is mostly perceived from a detached
perspective, as Wotton and Dorian
inhabit a world where their only touch
with the city’s ordinary life is achieved
through drug dealers and kept workingclass lovers. As a result, many images of
the city are seen through the windscreen
of their expensive cars or windows of
their luxury houses. Their city is thus
an abstract one, merely a stage set of
the spectacular performance of their
extravagant lives: “Henry Wotton drove
his five-litre Jaguar around central
London as if he were at the wheel of
a powered lawnmower, and the city
itself but a rough oblong of lawn, to
the rear of a romantically ruinous
country house. A lawn planted with
stucco models of famous metropolitan
buildings, perhaps one-tenth scale,
between which he piloted his vehicle
at once lazily and wildly” (25). When
the heavily equipped police are facing
54
rioters in the streets, Dorian reluctantly
interrupts watching his image on one
of the Cathode Narcissus monitors only
to take a glance from the window: “The
reflection of the riot flickered yellow
and red on the smooth tan screen of
his perfect face as he stood, legs apart,
giving the correct formal shape to his
immaculate Japanese kimono” (50).
Wotton’s and Dorian’s attitude to the
city is a condescending one, as they
almost never personally encounter its
real manifestations, remaining safely
secluded in the material attributes of
their social status.
Self’s fiction often presents the city
in terms of a protagonist, both familiar
and enigmatic, one that is always ready
to interfere in the story and change
the course of events. “Dusk fell over
the summertime city like a hunter’s
net weighted with the threat of nighttime. London mewled and thrashed,
then, becoming completely entangled,
lay still, awaiting its chance to lash out
again” (137). In Dorian he goes even
further than this, for there is even a
character called London who becomes
a metaphorical embodiment of the
major social issues the city was coping
with in the late 1980s and 1990s: the
person nicknamed London is a black,
second-generation immigrant drug
dealer and addict. Moreover, the rich
men’s protective seclusion from the city
proves highly insufficient, and it this
very drug dealer and addict that infects
them with the fatal virus. The languages
and discourses Self employs in Dorian,
in order to depict London’s various
meaning levels within the novel’s
narrative framework, signal the multi-
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
faceted role of the city as it (unlike
in The Picture of Dorian Gray where
it serves by and large as the setting)
alternately becomes a virtual reflection
of its dwellers’ consciousness as well
as a significant catalyst of events, and
occurrences in their lives.
Spanning the sixteen years between
1981 and 1997, Dorian is embedded
in its historical time through a series
of indirect means and references:
important events or known personages
are often discussed or hinted at in
conversations, but, most importantly,
they are presented in media and in
the characters’ commentaries on
them. As the electronically mediated
virtual reality determines the very plot
construction, Self deliberately chooses
the story of the most prominent media
icon of this period, Lady Diana Spencer,
to bracket his. She not only participates
in the same charity projects as Dorian,
but even sends flowers to his funeral.
“Diana, as blonde, ingenuous and
seemingly indestructible as Dorian
himself, is glimpsed at the key points
where her career intersects with his […]
all mediated, like Dorian’s video-portrait
itself, via the deadpan glamour of the
TV screen” (Bartlett, 2002). Set in the
early golden era of electronic media, the
televised images of her fate permeate
the novel, intertwining thus the two
myths, a classical one with a modern
one, into a social satire of life in the age
of Baudrillardian third-order simulacra.
They for the first time coincide during
the royal wedding which Dorian, Wotton,
Campbell and Herman watch shortly
before they indulge in sexual and drug
orgies, during which Herman infects
them with HIV. “As Diana walks up the
aisle of St Paul’s, Dorian is enjoying an
afternoon of shared needles and ‘what
can only be described as a conga line
of buggery’ in Knightsbridge. And as
she slips her finger into the Windsor
ring, so the conga line is infiltrated by
AIDS” (Heawood, 2002). As the novel
progresses, other fragments of Diana’s
media image glimpsed on television are
interwoven into its story: her shaking
gloveless hands with a HIV-positive
gay man at a pioneering AIDS clinic at
London’s Middlesex Hospital in 1987,
her visit to another HIV/AIDS hospital
ward accompanied by Barbara Bush in
July 1991, the frank public confession
about her husband’s unfaithfulness
during an interview with BBC’s
Panorama on November 20, 1995, and
her death in a car crash on 31 August
1997. At the same time, Dorian leads
his double life of private debauchery,
moral degradation and public deception
through ostentatious acts of charity,
while thanks to the monitors he retains
his once immaculate beauty. A parallel
is thus drawn between Dorian’s and
Diana’s deadly progresses, both marked
by wrong choices, pretence, hypocrisy
and succumbing to the power of
electronic media. The fact that “Lady
Di” is the stage name of one of the
kind-hearted transvestites who truly
help Basil when he finds himself at the
bottom in New York, while Dorian is
enjoying the privileges of the Manhattan
well-off artistic and bohemian circles,
only underscores the parallel’s irony.
One of the meaning levels of the novel
is a satirical parable about the power
and nature of electronic media in the
55
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modern Western world, conceived
through the character of Henry Wotton
and his attitude to television. He is
aware of the deceptive hyperreality of
the televised images sponging on “the
most intense, carnivorous, predatory
voyeurism” (12) of a society infused
with the values of commercial
consumer culture, whose potential
of appearing “realer” than life allows
them to not only to simulate but
eventually to substitute the reality
in which the viewers supposedly
live. Wotton represents a poignant
and outspoken commentator on the
medium. Moreover, when referring
to Princess Diana, he always uses
contemptuous or offending epithets
and labellings taken from commercial
TV or tabloid press discourse, which
metaphorically outline the ridiculous,
ever-changing and often paradoxical
image of the princess in the media,
such as “the Princess of Bulimia”,
“Fatty Spencer”, “Royal Fag Hag”, “Her
Royal Regurgitation”, “the Princess
of Clothes”, and “Thickie Spencer”.
At the same time, claiming that her
every “particular act – her grazed
heart crying out for a Band-aid, while
she shops ‘til every last equerry
drops – constitutes the very Zeitgeist
itself ” (108, emphasis in original), he
points to that time period’s obsession
with such a mediated hyperreality.
Even though Lady Diana did actually
learn what to do to have the media
on her side, the inevitable hypocrisy
and
double-life
this
involved
only intensified her unhappiness,
loneliness and despair, and made her
once again a convenient target for
56
further assaults by the media. While
Dorian transforms himself into a
“social chameleon” (107), assuming
various identities and performing
different roles in order to disguise the
unscrupulousness of his character,
Diana is made a victim of similar
unscrupulousness by the media.
Symbolically, in the early 1997 Cathode
Narcissus successfully penetrates into
commercial television advertisements
and pop videos, becoming a “digital
virus” (271), thus suggesting the
ultimate abandonment of the last
ethical principles of media – a few
months later media were at the centre
of Diana’s untimely death during a
hysterical hunt by paparazzi. Yet even
a tragedy is a treat for the media for it
fits perfectly into their semi-fictional
portrayal of the princess; as Wotton
notes, “so perfect is this marriage
between fact and fiction, so ideally
mythic” (274, emphasis in original).
The stories of Dorian and Diana are
thus of reversed mechanisms: while
the first can live the wondrous eternal
myth of his life undisturbed because
the electronic medium sets him free
by taking on itself all the undesired
consequences, the latter is forced to
live a myth the media co-fashioned for
her -- and they were willing to chase
her to death when she finally chose to
live a life of her own.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
On self-relection considered as one of Self’s ine arts – postmodernist
playfulness in Dorian
A crucial aspect of Will Self’s Dorian, in
which it definitively departs from being
a mere imitation of The Picture of Dorian
Gray, is its postmodernist playfulness
in the form of intertextuality and, above
all, metafictional commentary through
the problematisation of the novel’s
narrative authority. Besides reworking
the original novel, Dorian contains
numerous quotes from and allusions
to other texts, both non-literary (such
as the references to Schopenhauer’s
writings), and literary. We can find there
Joris-Karl Huysmans’s famous novel Á
rebours (1884), which as the “yellow
book” crucially forms the personality
and view of life of Wilde’s Dorian Gray,
because Wotton “fancies himself as de
Montesquiou, the real-life model for
Des Essientes, the decadent hero of
Huysmans’s novel” (56). In order to
describe Basil’s vain New York pursuit
of artistic inspiration, Wotton compares
his friend to Coleridge’s Ancient
Mariner (85). When commenting on
popular culture’s increasing obsession
with various manifestations of
violence, Wotton ironically subverts
the key premise of de Quincey’s On
Murder Considered as one of the Fine
Arts (1827) by claiming that “[m]urder
shouldn’t be considered one of the fine
arts; rather it’s one of the wilder forms
of popular entertainment” (217). When
Dorian and his friends are sharing
needles during a group drug taking
session, lines about mingling of bloods
from John Donne’s poem “The Flea” are
quoted to evoke the “strange blending
of the essences of the five men” (67).
Donne’s notorious metaphysical poem
of cooing and seduction is once again
referred to when Dorian fiendishly
“seduces” Basil into taking drugs after
five years of abstinence. And when
in Los Angeles Gavin is persuading
Dorian to come back with him to
London, planning that he will “light out
for the territory” because he cannot
imagine he will “miss the old bastard
that much” (196), the statement brings
to mind both the original quotation at
the end of Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn (1885), as well as Iain Sinclair’s
psychogeographic non-fiction Lights
Out for the Territory (1997), in which
the author walks the streets of London
looking for its obscure and hidden
signs and patterns, revealing thus a
disturbing side of modern urban life.
The main act of Self’s narrative
playfulness in Dorian is the final
metafictional twist, partly reminiscent
of that of Ian McEwan’s Atonement
(2001), which by pointing out the
novel’s fictitiousness redirects the
reader’s attention from the story to the
process of writing, and the question of
narrative authority. Like McEwan, Self
scatters a few prompts in the text which
suggest that Wotton is more than a
character. At the beginning of the book
the narrator notes that “Henry Wotton
could have written a brilliant book
about the life and times of … Henry
Wotton”. And Wotton himself admits
that he would have written a roman à
clef if he had lost his car keys (41), only
57
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to lose his car keys repeatedly in the
subsequent story, indicating that the
reader might anticipate obtaining a key
to Self’s variation of the roman à clef
genre that he/she is reading. When at
the end of the story Gavin asks Wotton
why he told the revenge-driven Ginger
where to find Dorian, and thus “decided
that Dorian should die” (217), Wotton
steps out of being only a character in
the story and assumes the position of
a writer, explaining that getting Dorian
killed is not retribution but “a kind of
symmetry we seek, a rounding off of
events” (218). Symptomatically, the
only response to this comes from Cal
Devenish, a once promising writer
of one successful novel2, who claims
of Wotton’s story of Dorian’s eternal
youth while the video installation ages
in his stead-- this “portrait riff […]
has the resonance of a modern myth”
(219) because it makes its protagonist
“the icon of an era in which everyone
seeks to hang on to their childhood
until they’re pressing furry fucking
teddy bears against wrinkled cheeks”
(220, emphasis in original). This is
not only an assertion of Wotton’s
narrative authority, but also Self’s
ironic comment on his own novel.
This passage, at the same time, leaves
the problem of the succession of the
story’s narrative authorities unsolved,
as Wotton’s statement, “Whatever
my faults, I have at least lived my life
at first hand, rather than filtering it
through this paper as part of a literary
experiment” (220), poses a question
of whose lines the reader is actually
reading – whether there is yet someone
else between Wotton and Self.
58
It is the Epilogue where the novel
turns truly hilarious and self-reflexive.
At first, Wotton dies leaving two copies
of his novel, one of which his wife
Victoria gives to Dorian. The Epilogue
starts with an innocent joke presenting
two poles of how people might feel
when they are used as characters in
fiction: Dorian is furious because he
has been portrayed negatively while
Victoria finds it amusing in part
because she has been made richer and
more successful in it. This is followed
by an open act of self-praise by Self
when even the outraged Dorian must
admit that “despite his poetic licence
Henry had displayed a powerful turn of
phrase in his writing” (261). After that,
the “real” Dorian is presented, including
his attempt at psychological analysis
of the motivation behind Wotton’s
literary spitefulness. However, he is
soon troubled by a mysterious inner
voice that appears to be Wotton’s
narrative voice, informing Dorian that
they are “all inventions of one sort or
another […] I don’t think you should
feel too bad about the way things have
turned out” (276, emphasis in original).
It is at this point that the novel reveals
that at least part of the Epilogue was
Dorian’s attempt at completing, or
even correcting, Wotton’s novel from
his perspective--an attempt destined
to fail for being artless and implausible
as is ironically reflected in Wotton’s
narrative voice’s criticism: “your dog
was a badly-drawn touch – no one
would’ve believed that you had one;
you aren’t the faithful type. And as for
the Gray Organisation, frankly, Dorian,
your fantasy of business prowess
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
is – well – laughable” (277). Henry
Wotton then metamorphoses into
his new incarnation, this time being
Ginger who has eventually come to
kill Dorian. However, Ginger is an even
less probable narrative authority than
Dorian, a mere joke, which could be
repeated endlessly, made by the only
true narrative authority behind the
novel – Will Self. Dorian thus employs
a similar strategy as Martin Amis’s
London Fields (1989), where three
characters also strive to assert control
over the narrative, only to be shown as
puppets in the hands of the author in
the end.
I don’t think we should feel too bad about the way things have turned
out – conclusion
“I don’t write fiction for people to
identify with and I don’t write a picture
of the world they can recognise. I write
to astonish people” (quoted in Hayes,
2007, p.1), says Will Self and Dorian
only confirms his words. The unique
combination and juxtaposition of
the quotidian and mundane with the
surrealist, absurd and extraordinary is
what forms the essence of his writing,
which he himself labels as “dirty
magical realism” (quoted in Hayes,
2007, p.5). For all its sexual explicitness
and frequent argotic verbosity, Dorian
is undoubtedly a provocative if not
downright shocking text and as such
might not be to everyone’s liking. Yet
this aspect of the novel should not
overshadow its other meaning levels.
It is, above all, a puzzling, self-reflexive
text, an inventive narrative experiment
adapting a classical myth while, at the
same time, commenting on the very
process. On top of that, it provides a
fresh and piercing insight into some
of the much-concealed mechanisms
and traumas of the contemporary
Western consumer society. Golomb
(2003, p.74) observes that Self’s fiction
creates a community defined by his
peculiar themes and eccentric and
dubious characters, “at once personal
and impersonal, often springing from
his own experiences but not confined
by them” (Golomb, 2003, p.84). It is a
community the reader needs to get used
to at first, but, as Dorian demonstrates,
once he/she does, it proves worth the
effort.
Deliberately “concerned with the
avoidance of predictability, precedent
or classification” (Bradford, 2007,
p.52), Dorian exemplifies a variant of
the writerly novel, foregrounding “both
language, refusing to treat or use it as
a transparent window on the world,
and the activity of writing: games are
played on the reader, frames broken,
the conventions of fiction exposed
and the ontological status of fictional
characters is questioned” (Alexander,
1990, p.167). Although it starts as
a pastiche, a late-twentieth-century
version of The Picture of Dorian Gray,
thanks to its many differences and its
author’s idiosyncrasies, (namely, the
use of various language registers, the
role of the city, the parallel relation
59
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between the story and its cultural and
socio-political externalities), and its
playful narrative conceit, the novel
assumes sociological, psychological
and metafictional perspectives, and
addresses a range of new themes,
which makes it more than an imitation
of Wilde’s original. These include
the theme of 1980s and 90s London
homosexual and drug subcultures,
the psychogeographic determining
influence of London’s atavistic and
hidden forces and patterns on the visible
manifestations of the city life, the role
60
of electronic mass media in fashioning
and shaping the celebrity culture, and
the hyper-consumer culture’s infantile
obsession with youth and youthful
looks. Moreover, by suggesting the
potentially never-ending succession
of narrative authorities in the story,
Self points to an implicit yet equally
significant theme – the eternity of art
and literature. The novel can thus also
be read as an original paean to limitless
human creativity and imagination,
which can do far more than simply
preserve beauty.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Endnotes:
1
Will Self is infamous for snorting heroin even on board John Major’s jet during the election
campaign which Self was covering for the Observer in April 1997. He decided to quit
completely a year later.
2
The character of Cal Devenish also appears in Self’s short story “The Nonce Prize” from
Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys (1998) and his novel The Book of Dave (2006).
Works cited:
» Alexander, M. 1990. Flights from Realism: Themes and Strategies in Postmodernist British
and American Fiction. London: Edward Arnold.
» Bartlett, N. 2002. Picture of ill-health. The Guardian (12 September, 2002). Available at:
» http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/sep/21/shopping.fiction
(Accessed
11
October, 2011).
» Bradford, R. 2007. The Novel Now: Contemporary British Fiction. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing.
» Golomb, L.A. The Fiction of Will Self: Motif, Method and Madness. In Lane R.J., Mengham
R., Tew P. (eds.), 2003. Contemporary British Fiction. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 74-86.
» Hayes, M.H. 2007. Understanding Will Self. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
» Heawood, J. 2002. The sincerest form. (29 September, 2002). Available at:
» http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/sep/29/fiction.features2
(Accessed
11
October, 2011).
» McCrum, R. 2002. “Self analysis.” The Guardian (29 September, 2002). Available at:
» http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/sep/29/fiction.willself (Accessed 11 October,
2011).
» Onega, S. 1998. Peter Ackroyd. Plymouth: Northcote House.
» Self, W. 2003 (2002). Dorian. London: Penguin Books.
» Wilde, O. 1994 (1891). The Picture of Dorian Gray. London: Penguin Books.
Petr Chalupský
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Education, Charles University
Prague, Czech Republic
email: petr.chalupsky@pedf.cuni.cz
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The Passion: Eternal Past Reconsidered
Diana Židová
Diana Židová is a PhD. student at the Department of English and American Studies,
Constantine the Philosopher University, Nitra. She is currently working on her
dissertation concerning literary works produced by later generations of emigrants
of Slovak/Rusyn origin in America. Her previous research was based on Thomas
Bell’s remarkable novel Out of This Furnace in which she pointed out its multifaceted classification with emphasis on immigrant novel, and stated imaginary
and geographical boundaries which still perpetuate between Slovak and American
literary academia. Her interests therefore mainly include the variations of ethnic
identity found in Slovak diaspora in the literature of the 20th century.
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to analyze how the concept of the eternal past can be
disrupted by the postmodern narrative mode, using historical and fantastic features,
in the novel The Passion (1987), written by a contemporary British writer Jeanette
Winterson. It raises questions about who gets to tell the (hi)story of Napoleon
Bonaparte, the Emperor; Henri, a cook; and Villanelle, a cross-dressing Venetian. The
paper also discusses the subversion of the gender roles, resulting in Henri’s failure to
accept reality, and Villanelle’s decision to abandon her lover.
Introduction
Jeanette Winterson’s entry into
Slovak bookshops seems like the result
of a difficult and long-term journey.
Readers can find only her mythological
story about Greek heroes Atlas and
Hercules, set in the 21st century in the
title called Weight (1995), in Slovak
translation1. However, a winner of The
Whitbread Book Award for her first
novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
(1984), the Prix D’Argent, of the Cannes
Film Festival for the script of this novel,
and many others, Winterson offers
many more books, and simultaneously
addresses a wider range of topics than
62
apparently realized in Slovakia.
Born in Manchester, Winterson was
adopted by orthodox Pentecostal
Christian parents. As she claims on
her website, she was not meant to be
clever, and reading literature for a girl
from a working class was dangerous.
Later on, after she fell in love with a
girl at the age of sixteen, her exodus
from her home became only a matter
of time. She then worked in different
places, including a lunatic asylum and
a theatre, while studying English at
Oxford University. Deeply affected by
the Bible, which was one of the six
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
books in her house, and the only one
she was allowed to read, Oranges, her
first-fruit, has become a great success.
What makes Oranges Are Not the
Only Fruit interesting is Winterson’s
concept of writing. Here she clearly
reviews her life journey from
childhood to maturity, while exploring
nuances of her sexuality in contrast to
Christian surroundings. What is more,
through writing, her “ongoing interest
in the very nature of storytelling and
Reconsidering the Past
its centrality to the way we all struggle
to make sense of our lives” (Rennison,
2005, p. 187) develops and becomes
much more visible in her subsequent
novels. Not only the storytelling, but
history, family life, love, desire, the
future, and boundaries are discussed
in her later works such as The Passion
(1987), Sexing the Cherry (1989),
Written on the Body (1992), Gut
Symmetries (1997), The Powerbook
(2000), and others.
In British literature of the last few
decades, authors such as Julian Barnes,
Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift and many
others are inclined to use historical
background as a framework for their
writing. In fact, the preoccupation with
this topic can be traced back into 1970s.
However, Philip Tew (2007, p. 125)
writes about “crisis of the genre” when
he observes that:
Without any doubt, literary works
raise a question of great importance
by
reconstructing,
reorganizing
and more often than not parodying
historic events and characters. Hence
it must be taken into consideration
that factuality is not at all the primary
aim of such fiction writings. What one
might recognize as important is, on the
contrary, subjectivity and playfulness,
opening discussions of the texts to
innumerable interpretations.
What
is more, strategies such as repetition,
parallelism, allusion and others,
disrupt a narrative’s continuity, causing
that one element involved in the text
invokes and rejects at the same time.
It generally means that writers present
the narratives in such a way that
one does not know whether to take
advantage of, and interpret, historical
facts mentioned in the books which may
or may not be based on truth or facts.
Conversely, fantastic elements in the
texts normally make up the atmosphere,
and their explanation is far more
[…] the historical past [is] interfused both with the present, and with
the imaginary and supernatural modes of interpreting reality. This
kind of reworking of long-established modes of narration, in order
to synthesize apparently irreconcilable qualities within the imagery,
marks out one major strand of contemporary novels that transform
history, parable and myth into something contemporaneous. (ibid.)
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ARS AETERNA
elusive. In addition, modes of writing
vary from realism through magical
realism to fairy tales. Such modes at
their best part can be seen, for example,
in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
or The Satanic Verses. Interestingly, in
Midnight’s Children he intentionally rechanges some historical facts to confuse
the reader. As a result, opening scene
reassures the reader that perplexity
of Saleem, the main character, is quite
frequent in the novel: “I was born in the
city of Bombay . . . once upon a time. No,
that won’t do” (2006, p. 3). In A History
of the World in 101/2 Chapters, Julian
Barnes questions the process of history
making: “History isn’t what happened.
The Passion
History is just what historians tell us.
There was a pattern, a plan, a movement,
expansion, the march of democracy; it is
a tapestry, a flow of events, a complex
narrative,
connected,
explicable.
One good story leads to another.”
(Barnes, 1989, p. 242) In discussing
storytelling, one must mention Graham
Swift’s Waterland in which the author
speculates about connection between
past and future in the depiction of
the world history, particularly as they
influence family history and vice versa.
On the whole, it is a (wo)man affected
by the historical shifts and it is his/her
life being re-told and re-shaped as it is
observed in The Passion, too.
Jeanette Winterson’s novel, The
Passion, comprises four parts. The first
part “Emperor” is the narrative of Henri,
a twenty- year old servant in Napoleon’s
service living in France. Henri is a close
observer of Napoleon’s character and
his biggest admirer. The next part “The
Queen of Spades” follows Villanelle’s
footsteps in Venice, the city of mazes.
Born with the webbed feet, a daughter of
a boatman, Villanelle has supernatural
power, for instance, she can walk on
water or live without a heart. More
than her webbed feet highlight her
masculine tendencies: she is passionate
about cross-dressing and gambling in a
casino where she works. Here she meets
a redheaded woman who becomes
her lover. After her heart is stolen,
Villanelle’s only goal is to get it back.
She finds the heart in the following part,
“The Zero Winter”. In Russia she meets
Henri and tells him that she has married
a man who sold her as a prostitute to
Russian soldiers. They together wander,
pretending to be Polish, back to her home
in Venice. She then sends Henri to steal
her beating heart back from the woman
who keeps it in a jar. Henri from the very
first minute of their meeting falls in love
with her and, Villanelle, because of the
sympathy she feels for him, does not
resist his rather feminine affection. In
the last part, “The Rock”, however, Henri
is accused of killing Villanelle’s husband
and is put in a madhouse which leads to
his fatal end.
The Passion is regarded as one of
Winterson’s best novels. The book was
awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
for the best work of fiction in 1987. Her
novel has been categorized many ways,
such as, “a quixotic blend of historical
fantasy and magical realism” (Bradford,
64
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
2007, p. 121), “superficially a historical
novel” (Rennison, 2005, p. 187), “a new
‘grotesque’ form” (Meyer Middleton,
2003, p. 213), and “historiographic
metafiction”2 (ibid., p. 214). Without
rejecting the previous characterizations,
a grotesque, a common description of
fairy tales, might be acceptable, too. It
has already been mentioned that authors
use storytelling as a specific device
in postmodern books. This device is
used in The Passion, too, when different
characters echo phrase: “I’m telling you
stories. Trust me.” (Winterson, 2004,
HENRI
VILLANELLE
feminine
static
masculine dynamic
p. 5)3 Obviously, the purpose of this
recurrent expression is to highlight
magical elements in the work, because
it occurs right after a story which is very
unlikely to have happened.
As one may learn from the characters
of Henri and Villanelle, Winterson
organizes her work on a contrastive
basis. Thus, it is necessary to compare
the most distinctive traits of the two
characters to prove that the author’s
aim lies in the subversion of the gender
roles.
fixed
sensitive
weak
loose
sensible
strong
As it is seen from the image above, Henri does not fulfil generally approved gender
expectations. His weak body construction foreshadows his forthcoming failure:
I wanted to be a drummer. The recruiting officer gave me a walnut and
asked if I could crack it between finger and thumb. I could not […] The
cook sized up my skinny frame and reckoned I was not a cleaver man
[…] He said I was lucky, that I would be working for Bonaparte himself,
and for one brief, bright moment I imagined a training as a pastry cook
building delicate towers of sugar and cream. (P 5)
By the same token, Villanelle is
not able to realize her female nature
because of her inability to settle down.
However, one must not understand
this concept as a schematic one,
because Winterson’s portrayals are
not black and white. In fact, Henri in
his uncontrolled, passionate way kills
the cook, Villanelle’s husband, and cuts
out his heart; Villanelle is shocked at
such brutality and starts to cry. But in
the end, it is she who leads him home:
“I raised my head fully, my knees still
drawn up, and saw Villanelle, her back
towards me, a rope over her shoulder,
walking on the canal and dragging our
boats.” (P 129)
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It is passion which initiates the routes
taken by Napolen, Henri and Villanelle.
At the same time, it is passion which
changes history in the form of re-telling,
re-writing, and re-reading the stories of
lives. By writing a diary Henri recollects
his memories from the historical point
of view, and a reader can get to the
previous life of a young boy raised
by a religious family. Having no other
relatives, Henri feels happy inventing
his past in his imagination: “Everyone
else in the village had strings of relations
to pick fights with and know about. I
made up stories about mine. They were
whatever I wanted them to be depending
on my mood.” (P 11) Winterson makes
us aware that Henri’s story is not a
trustworthy one, therefore longing for
a totalizing genre of a historical novel
would be problematic and misleading.
Despite the fact that some historical
facts are unquestionably visible, such
as Napoleon and Joséphine, one must
not forget that the postmodern mode of
writing sets different goals than factual
description. Hence, looking at this
novel as a fiction seems to be the most
suitable option.
In addition, Henri’s narrative from
the very beginning of the novel reflects
his naivety, as when he contemplates
the nature of belief after calling for the
signs from God, without any response.
“I can’t be a priest because although
my heart is as loud as hers [mother’s]
I can pretend no answering riot. I have
shouted to God and the Virgin, but they
have not shouted back and I’m not
interested in the still small voice. Surely
a god can meet passion with passion?
She says he can. Then he should.” (P
9-10)
Furthermore,
Henri’s
feminine
attitude affects his notion of the future.
The act of writing a diary makes it
possible for him to reconstruct the past,
and history as well.
It must therefore be recognized that
Henri is predetermined to be weak and
sensitive, focusing on his feelings and
dreams. What is more, Winterson uses
irony to mock his limited knowledge: “I
learned the word ‘intellectual’ which I
would like to apply to myself.” (P 9) Yet,
Holmes admits that his notebook could
“offer an ontological reference and
validity.” (qtd. in Tew, 2007, p. 127)
In contrast, Villanelle is a very strong
woman with a steady character, always
acting courageously. One can observe
that in Villanelle, Winterson created
a woman without any weak parts,
except her passion. Still, one may argue
that her sense of passion is somehow
controlled. This is seen at the end of
the story when she leaves the woman
she longed for before, the one who
I wanted to be a drummer. The recruiting officer gave me a walnut and
asked if I could crack it between finger and thumb. I could not […] The
cook sized up my skinny frame and reckoned I was not a cleaver man
[…] He said I was lucky, that I would be working for Bonaparte himself,
and for one brief, bright moment I imagined a training as a pastry cook
building delicate towers of sugar and cream. (P 5)
66
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
stole and kept her heart. She comes to a
conclusion that this relationship would
set strict boundaries and thus suffocate
her: “I have had affairs. I will have more,
but passion is for the single-minded.”
(P 145) Abandoning her house and
going in search of other ways of life
not only speaks to her dynamic and
unsettled nature, but it clearly points to
her as the true heroine of this novel. On
this basis it may be inferred that what
one is able to witness is Winterson’s
ongoing contrastive approach in the
depiction of Henri and Villanelle. If one
still persists that this is a fairy tale, it
should be noted that such an upside
down story could be invented only in a
postmodern world, where men become
women and women become men. Still,
it is probable that Winterson is here
inspired by Angela Carter’s specific
approach in re-creating traditional
fairy tales.4
One of the characteristics showing
quite precisely Winterson’s intensions
in differentiating the characters is their
capacity to think about the shape of
snowflakes. As Henri expresses his
thinking, “They say that every snowflake
is different. If that were true, how could
the world go on? How could we ever
get up off our knees? How could we
ever recover from the wonder of it?” (P
42-43) The evidence seems to indicate
that Henri continually re-questions the
wonders of life, and consequently feels
deeply affected by them. One wonders,
is it his naivety which looks for
answers or is it something disordered
in his mind? On the other hand, Henri’s
questions might be perceived as
characteristically mythic: “Myth lives
entirely by the presence of its object –
by the intensity with which it seizes and
takes possession of consciousness in a
specific moment. Myth lacks any means
of extending the moment beyond itself,
of looking ahead of it or behind it, of
relating it as a particular to the elements
as a whole.” (Cassirer, qtd. in Tew,
2007, p. 128) Nevertheless, Villanelle
seems to be much more at ease when
speaking about snowflakes: “She […]
said the Russians could hide under the
snowflakes. Then she said, ‘They’re all
different.’ ‘What?’ ‘Snowflakes. Think of
that.’ I did think of that and I fell in love
with her.” (P 87-88)
“The Zero Winter” part of the book
indicates a shift in Henri’s awareness
when he resolutely decides to abandon
Napoleon’s footsteps for good. “I don’t
want to worship him any more. I want
to make my own mistakes. I want to
die in my own time.” (P 86) What does
he mean by ‘his own time’? It may be
inferred that Henri refers to the time
not connected with Napoleon. In other
words, he totally resists being a part of
Napoleon by his willingness to create
a history of his own. To be quite exact,
Henri loses his faith and his passion
because Napoleon’s power decreases,
and he sees the effects of the war
in Russia, too. As Meyer Middleton
reports, “here the Napoleonic Wars
initially direct the narrative.” (2003, p.
213) As Henri suggests, “You play, you
win, you play, you lose. You play.” (P 43)
Hence, by playing and trying he is still
motivated to find someone different to
admire.
At the end one can see Henri’s longing
for a fixed life when he does not want
67
ARS AETERNA
to go with Villanelle and to abandon his
room on the rock, his plants, his garden,
and his thoughts. Henri becomes more
contemplative and philosophical,
thinking about his love to Villanelle in
the madhouse.
Now it is Villanelle who is put on
the pedestal. However, she refuses
to become his wife, and thus Henri
redirects his passion toward himself
in the end. He chooses a life on the
one hand of re-reading his notebook,
repeatedly deconstructing his past, on
the other hand, he continues writing,
“so that I will always have something
to read.” (P 159) On this basis it may
be observed that Henri is not given
the potential to see the world clearly.
After all, he was not created to be a
hero in this story. His function is to
collect material for writing (hi)story,
to create something which is his only,
and, finally, to have a right to invent his
own passion. Nonetheless, this passion
predestines his failure and he becomes
enclosed in his own world. Susana
Onega in her monograph on Jeanette
Winterson cites Carl G. Jung’s treatment
of schizophrenics to argue that Henri
might not be insane in the ordinary
way. She is convinced that “Henri is not
a madman but a ‘mythmaker’” (2006, p.
75). All in all, the resolution seems to
indicate that while Villanelle is free of
her passion, Henry follows the fate of
his emperor Napoleon Bonaparte – and
becomes lost, forgotten and figuratively
buried in the land of his own mind, on
the rock.
A common phenomenon in British
fiction in the last few decades has
become the use of history and its
shaping power. Many significant writers
such as Julian Barnes, Salman Rushdie,
Graham Swift and others write in their
works about historical changes, effects
of past on future, and they highlight
the act of re-writing, re-telling, and
re-reading when constructing their
own books of (hi)stories. Although the
historical background in their novels is
crucial, it is the wo(man) who affects
the cycle of life and at the same time is
affected by the never-ending flow of life.
Jeanette Winterson in her novel The
Passion incorporates history, fantasy
and myth creating in a multilayered
fiction about Henri and Villanelle
during Napoleonic Wars. By subverting
gender roles, the feminine and the
masculine specifics are markedly
“I am in love with her; not a fantasy or a myth or a creature of my own
making. Her. A person who is not me. I invented Bonaparte as much as
he invented himself. My passion for her, even though she could never
return it, showed me the difference between inventing a lover and
falling in love. The one is about you, the other about someone else.” (P
157-158)
Conclusion
68
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
altered. Henri’s fixed attitudes toward
the future as well as his sensitive and
naive nature predestine his failure. His
lack of strength to cope with reality is
contrasted with the great willingness
to love and be loved. Nevertheless,
the target of his emotional longing,
Villanelle, is not possible to attain.
Villanelle, being a strong woman,
refuses to hold on to steady passion
by reconsidering her faithfulness, and
therefore sets out on another journey,
somewhere in the unknown world.
Endnotes:
The book was entitled Ťarcha and published by Slovart in 2005.
For an explanation of the term “historiographic metafiction” see Hutcheon, L., 1988. A
Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. London: Routledge.
3
All subsequent references in the text are to this edition of the novel.
4
Angela Carter published The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories in 1979, a collection of
stories based upon fairy tales and folk tales.
1
2
Works cited:
» Barnes, J., 1989. A History of the World in 101/2 Chapters. London: Vintage.
» Bradford, R., 2007. The Novel Now: Contemporary British Fiction. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing.
» Meyer Middleton, K. Jeanette Winterson’s Evolving Subject: ‘Difficulty into Dream’. In:
Lane, R., Mengham, R., Tew, P.. (eds.), 2003. Contemporary British Fiction. Cambridge:
Polity Press, pp. 210-225.
» Onega, S., 2006. Jeanette Winterson (Contemporary British Novelists). Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
» Rennison, N., 2005. Contemporary British Novelists. Oxford: Routledge.
» Rushdie, S. 2006. Midnight’s Children. London: Vintage.
» Tew, P., 2007. The Contemporary British Novel. London: Continuum.
» Winterson, J., 2004. The Passion. London: Vintage.
Diana Židová
Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Filozofická fakulta UKF v Nitre
email: diana.zidova@ukf.sk
69
ARS AETERNA
Samsárická existencia – konečná večnosť
Miroslava Obuchová
Miroslava Obuchová, PhD. studied Slovak Language and Literature and Ethics
at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia. She finished her
PhD study in 2010; the topic of her thesis was Theravada Buddhism. Miroslava
Obuchová is currently working at the Department of General and Applied Ethics at
the Faculty of Arts (CPU in Nitra). Her lectures and professional interests focus on
the basics of Buddhism, ethics in intercultural dialogue and tolerance as an ethical
issue.
Abstract:
The paper focuses on the reception of existence through the lens of the Buddhist
thought concept, its awareness and knowledge, and understanding of its problematic
character, which determines and also establishes the final phase of the Eightfold
Path leading to the end of suffering. The term suffering is one of the key notions in
Buddhism, as it is – together with finiteness and non-disposal of its essence “I“ – the
main attribute of the Path which may be observed in everyday empirism based on
true observation. A brief explanation of other relevant terms cannnot be ignored
either, including those of kamma, samsara and nibbana. Focusing on them we will try
to prove or disprove the hypothesis that Buddhism leads to indolence and passivity
due to its first noble truth (life is suffering).
Podľa buddhizmu je existencia
charakterizovaná tromi elementárnymi
vlastnosťami – je pominuteľná (aniččá),
neuspokojivá, t. j. plná utrpenia
(dukkha) a bez ‚ja‘, bez svojej vlastnej
podstaty (anattá), čiže „telesnosť je
pominuteľná, cítenie je pominuteľné,
vnímanie je pominuteľné, mentálne
formácie sú pominuteľné, vedomie je
pominuteľné. A to, čo je pominuteľné,
je podrobené utrpeniu. O tom, čo je
pominuteľné a je podrobené utrpeniu
zmien, o tom nemôže vo vzťahu
ku skutočnosti nik povedať: ‚Toto som
ja, toto patrí mne, toto je moje ja‘“
70
(NYÁNATILOKA MAHÁTHERA, 1993,
s. 25). Tento prístup sa dotýka piatich
skupín javov, nech sú akékoľvek, teda
na všetkých úrovniach času, bez ohľadu
na akúsi kultiváciu, vlastné či cudzie.
V intenciách buddhizmu je existencia,
resp. jej elementárna a dominantná
vlastnosť – utrpenie – kombináciou
piatich javov – tzv. khandhá. Tento
pojem je preto pre buddhizmus jedným
z kľúčových. Prostredníctvom neho
totiž dochádza k selekcii, diferenciácii
jednotlivých fyzických a psychických
javov, z ktorých je zložený nielen svet
ako taký a tiež akýsi vesmír našej
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
osobnej skúsenosti, ale aj ten-ktorý
jednotlivec, vďaka čomu potom možno
lepšie porozumieť samotnej samsáre
a príčinám jej ‚rozvinutia‘. Sú to totiž
práve ony, o. i. na podklade ktorých sa
ako konzekvencia minulých žiadostivostí a lipnutí rodí vždy aktuálna
existencia. Prostredníctvom nich sa
zase udržiavajú momentálne túžby,
pridŕžania sa na svojom zdanlivo individuálnom živote. Tým sa formuje
zárodok ďalšej inkarnácie, pretože
prítomnosť týchto javov kumuluje
k sebe vždy ďalšie a ďalšie hmoty,
materiály, čím eskaluje i vôľa k životu1.
Medzi javy, ktoré sú človekom
reflektované ako jeho individuálne,
osobné ‚ja‘, čo je však podľa buddhizmu
iba nesprávne nazeranie na realitu
práve cez jej zastieranie kvôli lipnutiu
na týchto skupinách povrchných
a klamlivých zložiek, patria telesnosť,
cítenie, vnímanie, vedomie a mentálne
formácie. Pod skupinu telesnosti (fyzické
a fyziologické javy, procesy) patria štyri
elementy, vo všeobecnosti známe ako
živly, t. j. oheň, voda, zem a vzduch,
o ktorých sa však v tejto súvislosti hovorí
ako o prvkoch pevnosti, tekutosti, tepla
a pohybu. Sú buď interným (vnútorne
prežíva-ným), alebo externým elementom, a prostredníctvom kammy sú prítomné, hoci nie v identickom pomere,
v čomkoľvek hmotnom – ako v osobnej
telesnosti, tak vo vesmírnej matérii,
v organickej aj anorganickej hmote
so všetkými jej procesmi či stavmi.
Prvkom pevnosti sú napr. vlasy, nechty,
zuby, koža, mäso, šľachy, kosti, mozog,
srdce, pľúca, žalúdok a i. Prvkom
tekutosti je v tele prítomná tekutina,
ako napr. krv, žlč, hnis, pot, tuk, slzy,
sliny, hlieny, moč a pod. Akýkoľvek
kammou nadobudnutý zahrievajúci,
vysušujúci alebo spaľujúci oheň v tele
je prvkom tepla a prvkami pohybu
sú všetky nahor a nadol stúpajúce
či klesajúce vetry, nádych a výdych,
a tiež pohyby ovplyvňujúce údy atď.
(NYÁNATILOKA MAHÁTHERA, 1993,
s. 20–21). V buddhizme sa rozlišujú tri
druhy cítenia, a to cítenie príjemného,
nepríjemného a ani príjemného, ani
nepríjemného. V súvislosti s vnímaním
sa artikuluje šesť útvarov – vnímanie
tvaru, pachu, chute, zvuku, hmatu
a predmetu mysle. Na úrovni vedomia
(vedomie so všetkými jeho úrovňami,
tzn. vedomie samotné, podvedomie,
poznávanie, intelekt, rozum, duchovný
intuitívny vhľad alebo vnor, nadsvetské
stavy vnímania, cez stav oslobodzujúcej
iluminácie a bezsmrtný stav, až po
stav nibbány) sa rozlišuje šesť jeho
typov, konkrétne – vedomie tvaru,
pachu, chute, zvuku, telesného vnemu
a tzv. vedomie mysle, čo znamená
uvedomovanie si konkrétnych zmyslov
(NYANASATTA THERA, 1992, s. 46).
Mentálnymi formáciami (charakter
utvárajúce mentálne a emočné formácie) sú myslené všetky zložené,
príp. podmienené činnosti mysle2,
ktoré sú (spolu s vnímaním a cítením)
inherentné v každom jednom okamihu
činnosti vedomia. Najviac relevantné
sú tri z nich – zámer (četaná), zmyslový kontakt (phassa) a pozornosť
(manasikára), pričom je to práve
zámer (tzn. upriamenosť na jednotlivé
zmysly, vrátane predmetu mysle),
ktorý je akýmsi spúšťačom či faktorom
utvárania, a tým pádom udržiavateľom
v samsáre.
71
ARS AETERNA
Samsára býva zvyčajne prekladaná,
či dokonca reflektovaná ako kolo
existencie, kolobeh znovuzrodení,
čo sú však synonymá, ktoré možno
za plnohodnotné rozumieť iba v
rámci istých obmedzení3. Všeobecne
možno konštatovať, že samsára je, na
rôznych stupňoch, resp. úrovniach
existencie považovaná za proces strasti,
nestálosti, za cyklus, reťazec neustáleho
opakovania inkarnácií, tzn. opätovných
bytí, prejavujúcich sa na poli strastiplného života, čiže na akejsi osi
zrodenie–starnutie–smrť, klamlivosť
a nepokoj, pričom vo všetkých týchto
kvázi komponentoch existencie je
inherentný neodmysliteľný prvok
utrpenia. Toto však nie je dôkazom
toho, že by bola samsára v konečnom
dôsledku bezcieľna, ale v rámci jej
pochopenia vyvstáva tiež problematika
samotnej existencie, ďalej kauzality
a inkarnácie. Odpútanie sa od tzv.
tvoriacej hmoty, ktorá je udržiavateľom
v samsáre, od vôle k životu, nie je
jeho zavrhnutím alebo útekom pred
ním. Zriecť sa sveta znamená netúžiť
po uspokojovaní svojich zmyslových
túžob a lipnutiach, a teda upriamovať
pozornosť skôr na duchovnú tvorivosť,
na cestu poznania. Na nej je dôležité
uvedomenie, že ani jeden z prvkov nie je
skutočným ‚ja‘, nepatrí jedincovi, vždy je
iba tou-ktorou skupinou a tým-ktorým
prvkom, tzn. pevnosti, tekutosti, tepla
a pohybu, a to, čo býva označované ako
individualita, je v skutočnosti iba nepretržite sa opakujúcim procesom rôznych
psychologických a fyziologických, pominuteľných a v konečnom dôsledku
tiež neuspokojivých, neuspokojujúcich
javov. Samotný jedinec teda nie je
72
tým, čo označuje ako svoju telesnosť,
vedomie, vnímanie, cítenie či mentálne
formácie. Jedným z kľúčových cieľov
je preto na základe pochopenia náuky
o ‚nie-ja‘ eliminácia žiadostivosti,
ktorej vyvrcholením bude potlačenie
spomínanej vôle k životu, túžby po ňom.
Tým ustane proces závislého vznikania,
prejavujúceho sa na poli nevedomosti4.
Na jej podklade sa totiž rodí nielen
sankhárá v zmysle piatich skupín
javov, ale aj ich ‚produktov‘, výtvorov,
akými sú napr. predstavy o svete.
Rovnako to platí pri utrpení, tzn. ak sú
sankháry predispozíciou k utrpeniu,
ich odstránením možno utrpenie
eliminovať. Sankháry sú o. i. nielen tým,
čo spôsobuje ďalšiu existenciu, ale sú
konzekvenciou činnosti (opäť prejav
závislého vznikania). Snahou je preto
odstrániť všetky sankháry a ich orientácie, čiže negovať sankháry ako také.
Ak má byť totiž definitívnym cieľom
nibbána, potom nemožno odstraňovať
iba zameranosť sankhár na negatívne a
príklon k dobru, ale usilovať sa neutiekať ani k pozitívnemu. Aj to totiž na
jednej strane podlieha nestálosti, a teda
nie je vylúčená zmena k prežívaniu
negatívneho vnímania, na strane druhej
je ale negatívnym hneď od počiatku,
pretože to, čo zdanlivo, primárne
reflektujeme ako svoje pozitívne vnímanie, v skutočnosti v nás taktiež (či už
v zmysle obavy, strachu atď.) evokuje
pocity ťaživé, strastné.
V súvislosti so samsárou a primárnymi
inkarnáciami do jednotlivých ríš existencie vyvstáva elementárna otázka po
počiatku5, resp. metafyzických súvislostiach ako takých. Je fakt, že podľa
Pálijského kánona a iných textov, ktoré
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
možno považovať za jedny z primárnych
v rámci buddhizmu, Gautama toto
odmietal reflektovať s odôvodnením, že
ide o udržiavanie sa alebo chytanie sa
do sietí klamlivých, bludných názorov,
špekulatívnych myšlienok, zbytočných
či neužitočných otázok, tzn. takých,
ktoré sú jedným z negatívnych komponentov pri dosahovaní nibbány, keďže
aj tak nie je možnosť ich definitívneho
overenia a konečného, nepopierateľného záveru6. Nevidel osoh v usilovaní sa o upanišádové splývanie attá
s brahma (okrem toho, v konečnom
dôsledku sa s týmto názorom ani nie
celkom identifikoval), v úvahách nad
otázkami života a smrti, impulzom
k vzniku sveta atď. Napriek tomu,
explanácia pojmu ‚ja‘7, minimálne pokus
o ňu, je namieste, pretože v nemalej
miere zasahuje ako do pochopenia
kammy, tak i seba samého. Ako už bolo
naznačené, ‚ja‘ v intenciách buddhizmu
je ponímané nie celkom identicky
k upanišádovému výkladu brahmaattá8. Človek v sebe (pod vrstvou
povrchového ‚ja‘, tzn. v našom ponímaní
ega) nemá akési skutočné ‚ja‘, attá,
o ktorom by sme mohli uvažovať ako
o samostatnej a nesmrteľnej entite
alebo duši, ktorá je tým elementom,
ktorý zostáva aj po zániku tela a ktorá
sa uchováva v podobe ďalších inkarnácií
a v nových telách. Pod nánosom týchto
zložiek nie je v skutočnosti nič, čo by
bolo možné považovať za pravú
podstatu človeka. Typickým príkladom
používaným aj Minaříkom je analógia
s vozom alebo domom. Voz tvoria
kolesá, oje; dom je zložený z trámov,
brvien, strechy atď., kde je však voz
alebo dom sám o sebe? (DAVID-
NEELOVÁ – MINAŘÍK, 1993, s. 73)‚ Ja‘ je
teda podľa buddhizmu iba iluzórna
predstava, existenciu ktorej možno
pripodobniť k etikete. Čiže tak, ako
etiketa je/nie je tým produktom, ktorý
označuje, tak ‚ja‘ je/nie je osobou,
dušou. Attá nie je odolné voči akýmkoľvek zmenám, rovnako ako nie je
večné a zbavené utrpenia. Argumentácia,
ktorá sa v súvislosti s dokazovaním
objavuje, je založená na prístupe logiky,
čo je ďalším dôkazom toho, že Gautama
reálne mohol odmietať špekulácie a že
jeho reflexia sveta je vystavaná najmä
na poznávaní skutočnosti a nie viere,
fideizme. Konkrétne – „ak je J predpokladaným ‚ja‘ a T definíciou tohto ‚ja‘
ako niečoho trvalého, blaženého a nepodrobeného vôbec žiadnej zmene, a dosadíme S k označeniu ‚stredného termínu‘, piatich skupín skúsenosti, zo
sylogistického vzorca potom vyplýva,
že ak je ‚ja‘ trvalé, blažené a nepodrobené
vôbec žiadnej zmene, ale päť skupín
uchopovania je nevečných, neuspokojivých a podrobených zmenám, tak
päť skupín nie je ‚ja‘, resp. je ‚nie-ja‘“
(NYANASATTA THERA, 1992, s. 51).
Znamená to teda, že tak, ako je chybný
predpoklad, že ‚ja‘ je piatimi skupinami,
tak je mylný i ten, ktorý ‚ja‘ považuje za
čosi transcendentné a stojace nad nimi.
Hoci buddhistická koncepcia taktiež
rešpektuje pôvodný starý dualizmus,
v dôsledku ktorého vyčleňuje attá
z pominuteľného tela, tzn. prisudzuje
mu atribút nesmrteľnosti a nemennosti,
na rozdiel od Upanišád ho nepovažuje
za prvok usilujúci sa o splynutie
s brahma, čiže so ‚všehomírom‘, ale za
niečo, čo stojí ako mimo tela, tak
aj mimo sveta. Dôkazom tohto pos73
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tavenia mimo svet je, že hoci je nemennou ideou duševného žitia, pravou
podstatou, človeku práve pre procesy
ustavičných zmien nie je dopriate
prežívať pokoj. Optimálnym sa v tejto
veci zdá byť postoj považujúci
problematiku attá – anattá za zbytočnú,
zbytočne udržiavajúcu človeka v spleti
neistoty a skepsy, v dôsledku ktorých sa
potom spomaľuje jeho aktivita na poli
dhammy a na osemdielnej ceste, čo by
tiež mohol byť moment uvedomenia si
nezmyselnosti lipnutia na sebe samom
a na odklone od egoizmu smerom
k ontológii celku. Gautama sa (a ani od
členov svojej sanghy to nevyžadoval,
práve naopak) na rozdiel od upanišádových mysliteľov primárne nekoncentroval na reflexie, autoreflexie či
kontemplácie o identifikácii attá, tzn.
individuálnej duše s dušou tzv. ‚všehomíru‘. Zaoberal sa najmä človekom, jeho
vyslobodzovaním sa zo samsáry, pričom
o každom z jej členov je pritom
dokázateľné, že je pominuteľný a podliehajúci utrpeniu. Napr. telo je ,nie-ja‘.
Ak by totiž telo bolo ‚ja‘, neviedlo by
k trápeniu a bolo by možné ovládať ho
podľa svojho želania9. A tak, ako je
pominuteľné všetko to, čo spadá pod
atribút telesnosti, nevečným je taktiež
všetka skutočnosť, pretože ak by
neexistovala možnosť jej definitívnej
konečnosti, stratilo by na relevancii viacmenej celé buddhistické učenie, predovšetkým jeho tretia a štvrtá ušľachtilá
pravda (utrpenie možno odstrániť;
k odstráneniu utrpenia vedie osemdielna cesta). Buddhizmus reflektuje ‚ja‘
výlučne ako proces, ako spleť
mentálnych funkcií10, ktorých povaha je
v podstate neosobná, prázdna, aj keď
74
človek to tak v dôsledku svojej nevedomosti a lipnutia na predstave, na
(iluzórnej) idei čohosi vlastného,
intímneho nevníma. Avšak i napriek
tomu – mimo týchto momentov mysle
samostatná entita ‚ja‘ neexistuje11. Čiže
náuka anattá predstavuje tvrdenie,
podľa ktorého je bytie jednotlivca
a bytie sveta vnímané ako proces
neustále sa meniacich javov, a nič, ani
dohromady, ani osobitne netvorí žiadnu entitu ‚ja‘/ega, resp. dušu, podstatu
či vlastníka. Je to len neosobná a neuzavretá jednotka12. Tak, ako je iba procesom neustálych zmien a bez akejkoľvek
podstaty alebo nekončiaceho, nezanikajúceho ‚ja‘ bytie sveta (zdá sa, že jediným oporným pilierom je prítomnosť
ontologicky daného utrpenia), tak je
i bytie človeka iba procesom neustále sa
meniacich javov, zárukou čoho je jeho
kammický potenciál. Ak dôjde k jeho
vyčerpaniu, nastane ukončenie týchto
procesov, a tým pádom dôjde k oslobodeniu človeka z reťazca samsáry. Pojem
prázdnoty je potom v buddhizme
jedným z kľúčových13. Na ilustráciu
vnímania nepodstaty, prázdnoty býva
uvádzaný príklad s Gangou, tzn. „dobre
vidiaci človek hľadí na nespočetné
bubliny, ktoré sú unášané prúdom
Gangy, pozoruje ich a dôkladne skúma.
Keď ich dôkladne preskúma, poznáva,
že sa javia ako prázdne, duté a bez
podstaty ako pena. Presne rovnakým
spôsobom prevádza mních pozorovanie
všetkých telesných javov, cítenia,
vnímania, formácií a stavov vedomia, či
už sú minulé, prítomné alebo budúce,
vlastné alebo vonkajšie, hrubé alebo
jemné, vznešené alebo nízke, vzdialené
alebo nízke. Pozoruje ich a dôkladne
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
skúma, a keď ich dôkladne preskúma, poznáva, že sa javia ako prázdne,
ničotné a bez akéhokoľvek ‚ja‘“
(NYÁNATILOKA MAHÁTHERA, 1993, s.
26). Toto možno implementovať aj na
oblasť pravého poznania – prečo človek,
ktorý ho nadobudol, na ničom nelipne.
Je to predovšetkým vďaka tomu, že či
pozoruje niečo príjemné, nepríjemné
alebo ani príjemné, ani nepríjemné,
zakaždým si naplno uvedomuje fakt
nestálosti, vďaka ktorému netúži,
neutieka sa, nestrachuje sa, a tým
plynule sleduje cestu k nibbáne. Avšak
buddhizmus tieto úvahy o ‚ja‘ považuje
za súčasť tzv. nemúdreho uvažovania
(rovnako ako tomu bolo v prípade
otázok z oblasti metafyziky a pod.).
K rozhodnutiu sa pre zmenu vo svojom
živote, k uvedomeniu si strastiplnosti
existencie a života ako takého nie je
nevyhnutne potrebné poznať odpovede
na otázky typu – Som? Ak som, kto som?
Čo som? Čím som bol? Budem po zániku
svojho fyzického tela? Je ‚ja‘ mojím ‚ja‘,
alebo nie je, a mnohé iné. Prirodzene, na
istých miestach im značnú mieru
relevancie, bezpochyby, priznať treba14,
v konečnom dôsledku ale neexistuje
žiadne ‚ja‘, ani nič, čo by tomuto ‚ja‘
patrilo alebo prináležalo. Jeho ilúzia sa
však môže prejavovať rôzne. Či už
v podobe bludného presvedčenia
v dualitu, v rámci ktorej človek verí
v nesmrteľnosť ‚ja‘ (vo forme duše) po
zániku fyzického tela – tzv. eternalizmus,
alebo ako viera v intenciách materializmu síce sa utiekajúca k nedualite,
ale napriek tomu klamlivo nástojaca na
tom, že ‚ja‘ je niečo vlastné, niečo,
čo je hlavným usmerňovateľom
a indikátorom ľudského života – tzv.
anihilacionizmus (NYÁNATILOKA
MAHÁTHERA, 1993, s. 46). Napokon je
dôležité vedieť, že táto ilúzia ‚ja‘ je spolu
so zlovôľou, lipnutím a žiadostivosťou
jedným z tých prvkov, ktoré sú vlastne
kľúčovými udržiavateľmi v strastiplnej
samsáre, v utrpení15.
Pochopiť, že utrpenie je v živote
ustavične prítomné, že sa mu v zásade nemôžeme vyhnúť, pretože
prestupuje existenciu každej bytosti,
hoci v rôznych podobách a tvaroch,
je zároveň kľúčom k postupnému
napĺňaniu zmyslu, ktorým je o. i. úsilie
o harmonizáciu života napriek tejto
skutočnosti. Prostriedkom, ako dôjsť
k takémuto poznaniu, resp. ako sa
s ním vysporiadať na úrovni optima,
by malo byť čisté poznanie, ktoré je
v buddhizme označované ako pravé,
tzn. také, ktoré stojí na najvyššom
stupni osemdielnej cesty a ktoré je
mimo akúkoľvek temporalitu, priestor,
prežívanie osobného šťastia alebo
strasti, a tiež mimo individuálnu vôľu
jednotlivca. Utrpenie je princípom sveta
a Gautama sa k nemu stavia v intenciách
tohto presvedčenia už pri formulovaní
svojej prvej vznešenej pravdy, t. j. celý
život je utrpenie16. Ani v dôsledku tohto
zdanlivo pesimistického presvedčenia
sa však Gautama neusiloval o jeho
priamočiare negovanie, pretože len
život vo svete vedie k naplneniu, resp.
cieľu, tzn. iba životom v súlade s pravým
poznaním a konaním, ktoré prestúpi
každodennú existenciu, možno ukončiť
samsáru. V prípade, že by sa človek
dokonca rozhodol odísť z takéhoto
života napr. prostredníctvom suicídia,
odporovalo by to Gautamovej strednej
ceste17. Utrpenie je teda skutočné, čo je
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dokázateľné každodennou empíriou.
Rovnako je tiež faktom, že aj udalosti
a javy primárne sa javiace ako bez
utrpenia a strasti, sú nimi v konečnom
dôsledku presiaknuté a nemožno ich od
reality utrpenia separovať18. Rovnako
ako pri samsáre, ani pri dokazovaní
utrpenia nemožno vyvodzovať závery
iba s ohľadom na jeden konkrétny
život. Dôležité tiež je nevzťahovať
pojem utrpenia výlučne na fyzickú
bolesť a na reminiscencie viažuce sa
k nepríjemným zážitkom počas aktuálne
prežívaného života, ale na všetko,
čo mu podlieha a čo spôsobuje. Pod
utrpením treba spoznávať i nemožnosť
dosiahnuť trvalého uspokojenia, keďže
všetko podlieha ustavičnej zmene, a tým
pádom teda tiež, ako sme už hovorili
inde, aj stavy šťastia sú vlastne
zárodkom neskoršieho utrpenia
alebo tzv. smädu po živote19. Kto je však
meradlom utrpenia? Ak je ním samotný
človek, resp. bytosti jednotlivých ríš
existencie, potom sa vynára otázka,
či azda nie je svet iba takým, akým ho
človek vníma prostredníctvom svojich
zmyslov, a či v momente eliminácie
zmyslov, resp. piatich skupín javov
zostane. Na jednom mieste sa dokonca
doslova píše: „[...] Ako ďaleko siaha
šesť oblastí dotykových, tak ďaleko
siaha subjektívny svet, a ako ďaleko
siaha subjektívny svet, tak ďaleko
siaha šesť oblastí dotykových. Ak je
šesť zmyslových oblastí odstránených
úplne a bez stopy, je odstránený
i subjektívny svet, subjektívny svet nie
je“ (LESNÝ, 1996, s. 79-80). V tomto
prípade je ale na mieste akcentovanie,
že úryvok pojednáva výsostne o svete
subjektívnom, čo v konečnom dôsledku
76
nehovorí nič o svete ako takom, o svete
objektívnom. Toto stanovisko je totiž
bližšie skôr Upanišádam, od ktorých sa
buddhizmus v nejednom bode odklonil.
Ak by tak tomu nebolo, znamenalo by
to, že utrpenie je vlastne iba preludom,
pričom jeho odstránením by zároveň
došlo k vyslobodeniu sa zo sveta. Avšak
buddhizmus reflektoval svet ako miesto
s objektívne prítomným utrpením, tzn.
dôležité bolo prostredníctvom pravého
poznania a konania v intenciách osemdielnej cesty usilovať sa o dosiahnutie
nibbány, čo znamenalo i zánik
kammického potenciálu a následné
pričinenie sa o ukončenie samsáry.
V rámci pripustenia možnosti, že by
okrem tohto nám známeho sveta
predsa len existoval aj svet posmrtný,
je oprávnené uvažovať nasledovne
– konaním pozitívnych činov, ktoré
sú vo vzťahu k mravnosti, múdrosti
a meditácii žiaduce, zabezpečuje si
vlastne človek svoju posmrtnú účasť
v nebeskej sfére, resp. v nebi. Ak by ale
bolo pravdivé buddhistické stanovisko,
znamenalo by to, že po zániku tela
(odhliadnuc teraz od kammického
potenciálu, resp. energie, ktorá sa
bude ďalej inkarnovať podľa svojich
zásluh) síce nebude jestvovať žiadna
duša vstupujúca do neba, avšak bytosť
si zabezpečí minimálne (napriek
všadeprítomnému utrpeniu) pokojný
život už tu na zemi, tzn. život v intenciách
pravého poznania a konania. Navzdory
niektorým interpretáciám, ktoré
na buddhizmus hľadia cez snahu
neprežívať ani negatívne, ani pozitívne
emócie, domnievame sa, že takéto
tvrdenie nie je celkom oprávnené,
a to minimálne s ohľadom na texty
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
v Dhammapadame: „Z milého sa rodí
radosť, z milého sa rodí strasť, kto sa
zbavil milého, nemá radosť, ani strach“
(LESNÝ, 1996, s. 79-80). Človek teda síce
v konečnom dôsledku nemá lipnúť ani
na pozitívnych konzekvenciách svojich
činov, rozhodne sa im ale nemá brániť,
ba dokonca do istej miery je prirodzené,
že z nich prežíva radosť, pretože ich
konanie je vlastne plnením si svojej
povinnosti. Avšak na druhej strane nie
je správne prežívať enormnú radosť
z piatich skupín javov, keďže utiekanie
sa k nim, lipnutie na nich je udržiavaním
sa vo svete plnom utrpenia, a tým pádom
by sa vlastne radoval zo strasti. Treba
si teda udržiavať istú mieru odstupu,
alebo inak povedané – zachovávať si
stav nelipnutia, nežiadostivosti, stredu.
Za zdroj žiadostivosti20 býva považované predovšetkým cítenie, avšak
treba zdôrazniť, že nielen cítenie samo
o sebe, ale cítenie spolu s nevedomosťou,
čo je evidentné najmä pri uvážení toho,
že i človek, ktorý dosiahol stav nibbány,
môže mať pociťovanie. Vďaka svojmu
dosiahnutému poznaniu už ale na ňom
nelipne, tzn. správa sa v intenciách
pravej mravnosti, a rovnako tiež
nelipne a netúži po ďalších existenciách
(v prípade, že by tá aktuálna bola
príjemná). Túžba býva najčastejšie
definovaná ako túžba po živote. Tá
by mala byť odstránená v celej šírke,
pretože inak by bol človek „ako strom,
ktorý bol porazený, ale ktorého korene
zostali neporušené, vždy rastie, a tak
znova rastie i utrpenie, pokiaľ nebola
túžba úplne zničená“ (LESNÝ, 1996,
s. 123). Znamená to, že človek sám
je vlastne príčinou seba samého,
iba od neho samotného závisí, či sa
bude naďalej inkarnovať do života
plného strasti a utrpenia, alebo či
dosiahnutie stav vyvanutia, nibbány.
Na druhej strane, človek môže mylne
identifikovať nibbánu so smrťou.
V takom prípade sú potom jeho obavy
pred ňou opodstatnené21. Znamená to
totiž, že ak nedosiahol pravé poznanie
(napokon, v dôsledku toho vlastne
vedie taký život, aký vedie), môže mať,
či už z viery v posledný súd alebo zo
skutkovej odplaty, oprávnený strach.
Napokon, žiadostivosť je vlastne
aj pôvodcom samotného utrpenia, čo
je stanovisko druhej ušľachtilej pravdy,
či skôr odpoveďou na otázku, ktorá
sa pri nej núka, a síce – čo spôsobuje
vznik utrpenia22. Buddhizmus rozlišuje
až tri typy žiadostivosti – zmyslovú
žiadostivosť po uspokojovaní svojich
najzákladnejších zmyslov, túžbu po
rozkoši; žiadostivosť po existencii
viažucu sa na túžbu po živote vo vyšších
a pozitívnejších vrstvách existencie,
kde fakt utrpenia nie je prítomný až
tak explicitne, túžba po živote, v rámci
ktorého by človeku bolo umožnené
napĺňať danú túžbu, žiadostivosť;
žiadostivosť po nebytí spájaná ani nie tak
s nibbánou, ako skôr s materialistickou
predstavou, že po smrti ‚ja‘ nie je už toto
v žiadnom vzťahu s realitou, hoci človek
nemá žiadnu istotu, že by to tak po smrti
skutočne bolo. Predovšetkým primárna
žiadostivosť pritom vzniká na poli
zmyslovosti, tzn. na mieste, kde sa vedno
s kammickým potenciálom objavuje
pocit príjemného alebo nepríjemného.
Tzn. tam, kde sa dáva priechod prejavom
piatich skupín existencie, vzniká
žiadostivosť a tým pádom utrpenie.
Žiadostivosť sama o sebe pritom
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nemusí byť vyslovene jedinou príčinou
kammického potenciálu. V súvislosti
so závislým vznikaním si ale treba i na
tomto mieste uvedomovať, že toto sa
viaže aj na žiadostivosť, a tým teda
nemožno eliminovať predpoklad, že na
jej základe vzniknú také negatívne javy,
ako napr. závisť, hnev, zloba a mnohé
iné.
Tak, ako sme vyššie hovorili o závislom
vznikaní vedomia, možno hovoriť aj
o závislom vznikaní akýchkoľvek iných
javov. Toto je dokonca nevyhnutným
k lepšiemu pochopeniu samotného
vzniku utrpenia, pretože práve ono
je v konečnom dôsledku explanáciou
druhej ušľachtilej pravdy. Závislé
vznikanie všetkých javov býva ponímané nasledovne – „okom viditeľný tvar
priťahuje, pokiaľ je tento tvar príjemný,
a odpudzuje, ak sa tento tvar nepáči.
Sluchom, čuchom, chuťou, hmatom
a mysľou vnímané predmety priťahujú,
pokiaľ sú príjemné, a odpudzujú,
pokiaľ sa nepáčia. Takto prežíva ten,
komu chýba všímavosť a chápajúce
oslobodenie mysle, buď prijíma, alebo
odmieta, či už prežíva akékoľvek cítenie
[...] – príjemné alebo nepríjemné alebo
neutrálne – je tým cítením via-zaný
a lipne na ňom. Tým v ňom vzniká
požívačnosť a žiadostivosť [...] po
cítení. Kde je žiadostivosť po cítení,
tam je lipnutie [...] a lipnutím je
podmienený rast bytia [...]. Na tomto
raste bytia závisle vzniká budúce
zrodenie [...] A v závislosti na zrodení
vzniká starnutie a smrť [...], strasť
a nárek, bolesť, zármutok a zúfalstvo.
Tak vzniká celá hromada utrpenia“
(NYÁNATILOKA MAHÁTHERA, 1993,
s. 31). Akcent na pociťovanie nie je
78
pritom náhodný. Práve pociťovanie
sa azda najvýraznejšie uchováva
v pamäti, vďaka čomu (v prípade
pociťovania príjemného) evokuje, či
skôr nabáda nielen k zachovávaniu si
týchto ‚reminiscencií‘, ale sa tiež usiluje
o ich obnovovanie vo forme ďalších
analogických zakúšaní identických
pocitov. Obdobné je to pri pocitoch
nepríjemných a ani príjemných, ani
nepríjemných, resp. neutrálnych, pretože v prípade takého pociťovania si ich
taktiež minimálne pripomína, príp.
uvedomuje, čo je nepopierateľná forma
lipnutia a lipnutie je zase jednou z príčin
udržiavania sa v samsáre. Túžba po
existencii, resp. vôľa po živote nie je ale
výsledkom samotného cítenia. Dôležitá
je spojitosť cítenia a nevedomosti.
Ak by tak tomu nebolo, potom by
človek dosiahnuvší nibbánu ešte počas
práve prebiehajúceho života nemohol
disponovať žiadnymi citmi, čo nie je
celkom pravda. Práve preto je potrebné
zvážiť ambivalentný postoj, a síce –
vďaka dosiahnutiu pravého poznania,
ktoré je jedným z predpokladov vôbec,
nie je ani mizantropom, ani na živote
nelipne, a tak teda zabránil ďalším
inkarnáciám. Cieľom by potom malo byť
spočiatku azda vedomé dosahovanie
a cizelovanie indolencie, ktorá sa
prejavuje nielen vo forme nelipnutia na
svojich zmysloch a konzekvenciách ich
činnosti, ale tiež v eliminácii lipnu-tia
na všetkom, čo je predmetom jeho aktuálneho a predchádzajúceho prežívania,
resp. na akýkoľvek podnetoch.
Negatívne konzekvencie kammy (či
už v priebehu tej istej alebo neskoršej
inkarnácie) nemožno ale reflektovať
cez prizmu akejsi vyššej bytosti, ktorá
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
(ako je tomu napr. v prípade semitských
náboženských systémov23) rozhoduje
o ďalšom osude tej-ktorej bytosti, ale
výsostne ‚životná energia‘, energia
konkrétneho bytia (nie vyslovene
konkrétneho indivídua, osoby). Človek
by si mal byť teda plne vedomý toho, že
jeho želania ohľadom uskutočňovania
vlastných túžob budú sprevádzané
strastnými okolnosťami. Tieto sa
pritom prejavia kedykoľvek, keď k tomu
dozrejú všetky, aj vonkajšie okolnosti,
pretože prúdenie energie24 nie je závislé
na fyzickom tele. Energia kammy
prestupuje aj mimo telo, čo znamená, že
na (ďalšie) smerovanie bytosti vplýva
bez ohľadu na fyzickú smrť. Okrem toho
(teda s výnimkou inkarnácií) tým máme
na mysli tiež jej pôsobenie v rámci
duševného sveta, pretože odhliadnuc
od narodenia, ochorenia a smrti,
azda všetky ostatné formy, prejavy
strasti a utrpenia sa rodia nie na poli
telesnosti, ale v rovine tzv. duševnej,
resp. duchovnej. V intenciách tohto
teda poníma svet ako celok, tzn. ako
miesto s prestupujúcou sa skutkovou
energiou plynúcou zo všetkých
činov bez výnimky, čiže zostávajúcej
i potom, ako samotný čin pominie. Ak
je ale túžba negatívna, pretože vedie
k cizelovaniu piatich skupín javov,
a tým pádom k udržiavaniu v samsáre
a v plynutí kammickej energie, ako je
potom možné, že sa v buddhizme hovorí
o túžbe po dosiahnutí nibbány? O túžbe
po vyslobodení, po pravom poznaní?
Buddhizmus sa v tejto súvislosti opiera
jednak o pojmovú dezinterpretáciu,
resp. o používanie prekladu tohto
konkrétneho slova na rôzne ďalšie
slová (čo nie je problém iba pri tomto
pojme), ale tiež o skutočnosť, že existujú
minimálne dva typy túžby – túžba, ktorej
dôsledkom je napr. emočná závislosť,
ale tiež taká túžba, ktorá nevedie
k nesprávnemu názoru a lipnutiu.
Znamená to teda, že buddhizmus
nazerá za povrchný obal slov a robí
diferenciu ako medzi jednotlivými
homonymami, tak i v rámci translácie.
Čo je vlastne príčinou utrpenia? Má
vôbec pre život človeka nejaký hlbší
a relevantnejší zmysel poznať odpoveď
na túto otázku? Minimálne Upanišády mu
prikladali zmysel, resp. príčinu, pričom
takémuto prístupu sa v konečnom dôsledku nebránil ani Gautama, práve
naopak. Ako sa ale vysporiadať so
vzniknutou diskrepanciou, kedy sa
na jednej strane o utrpení hovorí ako
o ontologicky danom, avšak zároveň
ako o fakte, ktorého príčinou je ľudská
žiadostivosť a nevedomosť? Pojmu
utrpenia sa v skutočnosti nezačal
venovať práve Gautama, reálne sa totiž
objavuje už v upanišádovom období,
avšak až Gautama ho nevysvetľoval
výlučne v intenciách univerzálnosti,
ale od generalizácie utrpenia prešiel
ďalej, a síce – zaoberal sa otázkou jeho
pôvodu a odstránenia cez racionálnu
analýzu. Nepochybne, jedným z variantov môže byť považovanie utrpenia
za bezvýhradne spojené s princípom
existencie, v dôsledku čoho by potom
cieľom jeho odstránenia malo byť
splývanie s hýbateľom, činiteľom,
ktorý je mimo jeho dosahu, ktorého sa
utrpenie nedotýka. Ak by tomu tak bolo,
neexistovala by, zdá sa, možnosť, ako
ho zlikvidovať zvnútra, keď je akýmsi
všeobecným obalom okolo sveta
a života v ňom25. Gautama rozpracoval
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systém dvanásťčlenného reťazca26 vzťahujúci sa svojím zaradením skutkov
na činy minulé, prítomné i budúce
ku kammickému zákonu, avšak bez
ohľadu na to, že by niektorým ďalším
členom, príp. kategóriám prisudzoval
väčšiu či menšiu mieru relevancie.
Buddhizmus, v podstate identicky so
súdobým indickým myslením, považuje tieto vlastne za rovnocenné.
Treba mať ale na mysli, že to bol práve
buddhizmus, kto do myslenia začal
implementovať prvok racionality (viď
napr. kauzálny zákon), a teda snahu o
elimináciu mýtizovania a pod. Navyše,
práve na dvanásťčlennom reťazci vidno
i úsilie o reflexiu na všadeprítomný
a nepretržitý princíp pohybu ako
takého. Pohyb v buddhistickom ponímaní je reverzibilný, vďaka čomu
vlastne Gautama deklaruje možnosť
vymanenia sa zo samsáry a utrpenia.
Na prvý pohľad sa síce môže zdať,
že je to presne naopak, tzn. že práve
reverzibilita pohybu udržiava človeka
v kolobehu utrpenia, pretože človek sa
prostredníctvom nej sústavne navracia
k zdroju utrpenia akoby systémom
priviazanosti k pružnému lanu, ktoré
ho permanentne, napriek akejkoľvek
osobnej sile, snahe a zainteresovanosti, mechanicky vťahuje naspäť
k počiatku a bráni mu tým odpútať
sa. V skutočnosti ale, ak uvážime
buddhistické reflektovanie pohybu
v intenciách spomínanej špirály, nie
kruhu (kedy by azda reverzibilita
skutočne mohla byť ponímaná viac
negatívne), je potom reverzibilný pohyb
tým dôležitým prvkom, vďaka ktorému
sa človek (už s naakumulovanými
skúsenosťami a poznatkami, a koniec80
koncov – i kammou) vracia k primárnej
príčine svojho vzniku. Tú potom môže
cez poznanie postupne eliminovať,
rovnako ako nesystémovosť a živelnosť
unášania sa v takomto pohybe. Ide teda
o akýsi samopohyb neudaný primárnym
hýbateľom, ale vznikajúci iba kvôli jeho
nositeľovi, jeho nepravému poznaniu,
a ktorý je potom (v závislosti od stupňa
dosiahnutého poznania) buď v správnej,
alebo nesprávnej rovine nositeľom
ďalšieho vývoja prostredníctvom seba
samého. Existencia (aj ľudská) je ale
podľa Gautamu bez akéhokoľvek účelu,
preto je teda cieľom jej trvalý zánik,
tzn. aj s ohľadom na ďalšie inkarnácie,
a to prostredníctvom vedomého,
pravého snaženia sa. Môžeme si potom
klásť otázku, čo má vlastne v takomto
svete27, takto vnímanom živote zmysel,
resp. čo v ňom je a čo nie je hodnotou.
Pokiaľ vychádzame z hypotézy28, že
svet je ‚riadený‘, usmerňovaný vplyvom
autohybnej skutočnosti, potom možno
naozaj skonštatovať, že sú si všetky veci
v ňom rovné, že nič nie je meradlom
hodnoty čohosi iného a že všetko má
svoju hodnotu samo o sebe. Toto je
spôsobené či vysvetliteľné vďaka tomu,
že svet nevzniká zo samopohybu, ale
že samopohyb vzniká z reality sveta.
A keďže všetko si je rovné, potom,
prirodzene, nemožno otázku existencie
vzťahovať iba na ľudí, ale na všetko
vo svete existujúce. Podľa Gautamu
sa ale nerodíme do sveta, v ktorom by
bolo apriórne dané, čo má hodnotu
(a akú), a čo vôbec nie. Z toho teda
vyplýva, že vlastne nič nemôže mať
hodnotu samo o sebe, ale až na základe
nejakého ukazovateľa, indikátora. Čo
ním teda je? Ak je možné dať bytostiam
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
a veciam zmysel, potom je nevyhnutné
pripustiť fakt, že na základe niečoho
sa tak predsa musí diať. Buddhizmus,
v podstate celkom logicky, argumentuje
tým, že pokiaľ by boli ciele a zmysly vo
svete apriórne dané niečím nad svet
nadradeným, bytostiam tu žijúcim by sa
ich nemohlo podariť dosiahnuť, pretože
by disponovali iba tým, čo prináleží
životu na zemi. Práve preto je podľa
neho dôležité uvedomovať si možnosť
stanovenia si svojho vlastného cieľa,
pričom definitívnym by malo byť práve
dosahovanie nibbány. Na tomto mieste
sa ale potom stretávame s nemalým
paradoxom, a síce – na jednej strane
hlásanie ukončenia existencie ako
najvyššieho zmyslu či cieľa života, a na
strane druhej – akcentovanie aktívnej
lásky. Primárne by sa mohlo zdať, že
nejde až o také ambivalentné postoje
k životu a otázke jeho zmyslu, avšak
ak si tieto stanoviská rozpracujeme,
dospejeme k nasledujúcemu: keďže
neexistujú žiadne absolútne hodnoty,
ktoré by boli hodnotami samy o sebe
a každá existencia je orientovaná
najmä na seba, potom je evidentná
individualizácia. Človek necíti skutočne relevantný zmysel ani vo
svojom vzťahu k iným, hoci najbližším
ľuďom, môže prepadať apatii a pod.,
a azda jediným riešením mu pripadá
práve vyhasnutie takejto existencie
prostredníctvom nibbány. Nemôže ale
vari človek nachádzať zmysel i v láske
k iným ľuďom a svetu, nech je v ňom
akokoľvek veľa utrpenia, a to napr.
snahou o jeho elimináciu (neskorší
ideál bódhisattu)? Sám Gautama predsa
hlása potrebu všeobjímajúcej lásky.
Údajne dokonca hovoril o konaní v láske
a z lásky, o aktívnom a úprimnom29
konaní dobra ako o tom, čo dáva
ľudskému životu zmysel, čo by zase
nebol až taký paradox – veď konaním
dobra, altruizmom môže vyplniť inak
prázdnu a ničotnú existenciu a dať
jej zmysel pri ceste za dosiahnutím
vyvanutia. Tak či onak, je nepochybné,
že Gautama, aspoň pokiaľ je známe,
nedokázal
racionálne
odôvodniť
akúsi diskrepanciu objavujúcu sa
v jeho učení, a to rozpor medzi ním
hlásanou existenciou, ktorej nepripisoval
žiadnu hodnotu a význam, a zároveň
aktívnou láskou, ktorú reflektoval ako
relevantnú, ba priam záväznú hodnotu
v živote každého človeka, bytosti.
Vrátiac sa k utrpeniu, logicky vzaté,
ak je pôvod utrpenia v žiadostivosti,
potom je k jeho odstráneniu potrebné
eliminovanie práve onej žiadostivosti,
dosiahnutie vyhasnutia všetkých javov,
na podklade ktorých sa rodí, teda
prekonanie
telesnosti,
vnímania,
mentálnych formácií, cítenia a vedomia,
v dôsledku čoho napokon nastane
ukončenie kammického procesu a zánik vo voľnosti30. Znamená to, že
človek primárne prestane pripisovať
relevanciu piatim skupinám javov, čiže
tiež iluzórnej predstave o dôležitosti
svojho ‚ja‘, a tým, že na nich a na
dôsledkoch ich činnosti prestane lipnúť,
odbúra zase žiadostivosť, ktorá je
spolu s nevedomosťou jednoznačným
zdrojom energie udržiavajúcim v procese samsáry. Podľa Gautamu tkvie
vyslobodenie zo samsáry nie v upínaní
sa k Bohu či silám mimo tohto sveta, ale
jedine a výlučne vo svojej individuálnej
činnosti, ktorej vyvrcholením, avšak
do istej miery tiež prvopočiatkom,
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je uvedomenie a následne aktivita
vyplývajúca z negácie toho, čo bolo
rozpracované v druhej ušľachtilej pravde.
Ak spozná strasť a pozná, ako vzniká
a ako zaniká, a pozná cestu vedúcu
k zániku strasti, dosiahne správny
náhľad, jeho náhľad je priamy. Čo je
strasť, čo je vznik strasti, čo je zánik
strasti a aká je cesta vedúca k zániku
strasti? Zrodenie je strasť, staroba,
choroba, smrť, zármutok, nárek, bolesť,
skľúčenosť a zúfalstvo je strasť, keď
človek nezíska, po čom túži […] krátko
povedané – päť skupín lipnutia je strasť.
A aký je vznik strasti? Je to onen smäd
spôsobujúci opätovné bytie spojené
s radosťou a vášňou a nachádzajúci
potešenie hneď tu, hneď tam, teda
túžba po rozkoši, túžba po bytí, túžba
po nebytí – tomu sa hovorí vznik strasti.
A aký je zánik strasti? Je to zánik tohto
smädu bez akejkoľvek vášne, vzdanie sa
jej, jej odvrhnutie, oslobodenie sa od nej,
jej odstránenie – tomu sa hovorí zánik
strasti. A aká je cesta vedúca k zániku
strasti? Je to ušľachtilá osemdielna cesta
(Zbavitel, 2008, s. 24). Znamená to preto,
že ak je príčinou utrpenia nevedomosť,
žiadostivosť, zmyslovosť, lipnutie,
začať treba práve od ich eliminácie31.
Výsledkom tejto aktivity potom bude
(ak dôjde k vyprchaniu nahromadenej
energie, žiadostivosti, a nevzídeniu
novej) nibbána. I vzhľadom na kontext
je pochopiteľné nazerať na nibbánu
ako na najvyšší stav, ktorý možno
dosiahnuť, ako na optimum a konečný
cieľ osemdielnej cesty. Definovaná býva
cez prizmu akéhosi najvyššieho mieru
najčastejšie, a vzhľadom na sanskrt
zrejme oprávnene správne32, ako
vyvanutie, príp. vyhasnutie, a to piatich
82
javov, ich negatívnych konzekvencií,
predovšetkým zármutku, strasti, zaslepenosti, nenávisti a žiadostivosti.
Reálne si tento stav, jeho nositeľa
možno predstaviť ako bytosť, ktorá sa
už viac nezmieta na poli žiadostivosti,
želaní, nenechá, aby ním lomcovali
zmätočné pocity a vášne. Podľa nám
dostupných prameňov sa zdá, že
v théraváde sa v súvislosti s nibbánou
hovorilo najmä ako o (subjektívnom33)
stave dosiahnutom ešte pred zánikom
fyzického tela, pričom sa tak údajne
deje iba v kontexte mníšskeho života. Na
jednej strane sa potom vlastne akcentuje
iba tzv. riadny život mníchov, tzn. taký,
ktorý prísne sleduje a rešpektuje to,
čo je mníchom dané, na strane druhej
býva zdôrazňovaný odchod do kvázi
bezdomovectva, čiže život v striktnej
askéze, aby bol takto mních pod
väčšou ochranou pred podľahnutím
žiadostivosti34. Vzhľadom na fakt, že
rýdzi buddhizmus je možné praktizovať
bez ohľadu na ne/príslušnosť k inštitucionalizovanej forme, nemožno potom
s istotou negovať potencialitu nemnícha
dosiahnuť nibbánu. Koniec-koncov,
jedným z príkladov, poukazujúcich
na to, že ani mníšsky život ešte nie je
zárukou ukončenia samsáry, svedčí
nasledujúci dialóg medzi ctihodným
a kráľom: „‘Dosiahnu všetci ľudia
konečné vyvanutie?‘ ‚Nie, všetci ľudia
ho nedosiahnu. Len kto pripustí, čo
má pripustiť, kto pochopí, čo treba
pochopiť, kto sa vyvaruje toho, čoho
sa treba vyvarovať, kto rozpozná, čo
treba rozpoznať a kto uvedie v skutok
to, čo treba vykonať, ten dosiahne
konečné
vyvanutie‘“
(ZBAVITEL,
2008, s. 208). Pálijský kánon podáva
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
predovšetkým výklad, resp. vyjadruje
sa k nibbáne dosiahnutej ešte počas
(aktuálne prežívaného, a zároveň teda
posledného) života. K nibbáne ako
posmrtnému stavu aspoň najstarší
buddhizmus explicitné stanovisko
vlastne nezaujal. Z rôznych iných alúzií
však možno dedukovať, že posmrtnú
nibbánu reflektoval ako stav blaženosti.
Blaženosť by mala byť, vzhľadom na
všetko to, o čom sme písali vyššie,
ponímaná skôr ako negatívny aspekt,
na tomto mieste treba ale akceptovať
nuansu, ktorá sa pri pojme blaženosti
(v súvislosti s nibbánou a najstarším
buddhizmom) objavuje, a to – blaženosťou sa nemyslí strasti zbavený
stav, stav prežívania výlučnej radosti
a potešenia, pseudohedonizmus. Pokiaľ
buddhizmus chce reagovať na otázky
týkajúce sa posmrtného života, resp.
stavu posmrtnej nibbány, potom sa mu
to, zdá sa, nemôže podariť inak, ako
pomocou ambivalencie k nestálej túžbe
po živote35. Dalo by sa síce oponovať,
že na túžbe po živote možno predsa
bazírovať pevne, bez skepsy a zaváhaní,
je to ale možné vtedy, keď sa človek musí
potýkať s niečím negatívnym, strastným,
kedy si kladie otázky po príčinách,
pôvode, fatalite. Takéto uvažovanie je,
minimálne podľa konštatácií niektorých
autorov36, možné považovať za pendant
voči buddhistickému agnosticizmu.
Iste, na jednej strane treba priznať, že
buddhizmus sa reálne odmietal venovať
problematike, ktorá nie je evidentne
dokázateľná („Ako nepoznáme cestu
iskry zasiahnutej kladivom, ktorá, sotva
sa objaví, pravidelne ihneď zmizne,
tak nemožno poznať cestu ľudí úplne
vyslobodených, ktorí unikajú záplave
pút vášní a ktorí sa stali účastníkmi
neochvejnej
blaženosti“
(LESNÝ,
1996, s. 136), alebo príklad so šípom,
o ktorom sme sa zmieňovali na inom
mieste), ale na druhej strane, možno
hovoriť o agnosticizme? Buddhizmus je
síce racionálny, to ale v zásade nemusí
znamenať, že akcentoval poznanie
v akejkoľvek, i neemipirickej oblasti.
Nibbána po smrti je podľa Pálijského
kánona popretím života v akejkoľvek
sfére, života ako takého, pretože
tento je plný utrpenia. Nebude teda
viac zrodzovania do žiadnej z ríš,
pretože energia kammického zákona
je vyčerpaná37. Nibbánu preto možno,
ako to naformuloval už Hajko, označiť
za potenciálnu možnosť zavŕšenia
ľudskej existencie, čím sa stáva jediným
dôkazom čohosi stáleho v človeku,
akýmsi trvalým základom ľudského ‚ja‘,
trvalým a večným cieľom, „ku ktorému
sa síce môže principiálne každý
jednotlivec dopracovať, ktorý sa však
prejaví, nadobudne platnosť až vtedy,
keď v súvislosti s ním ľudská bytosť
stratí svoj individuálny charakter“
(HAJKO, 2008, s. 171). Pokiaľ by sme
k interpretovaniu, resp. definovaniu
nibbány mali pristupovať nie v
pozitívnom zmysle, potom je namieste
pochopiť, že atribút negatíva sa tu
objavuje vlastne iba v rovine výpovede,
tzn. „je to ustanie strasti, potlačenie
chtivosti, nenávisti a klamu, úplné
vyhasnutie skupín existencie“ (KÜNG
– BECHERT, 1998, s. 35). A teda aj na
základe tých konštatácií, ku ktorým sme
dospeli na inom mieste práce, nibbána
je ako absolútny zánik v nihilistickom
zmysle vnímaná iba človekom, ktorý
nedospel k skutočnému pravému
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poznaniu. Dôležité je teda pochopiť,
že nibbána aj napriek nedostatočnosti
relevantne ju opísať naším pojmovým,
myšlienkovým aparátom, nie je
ani ničotou, ani večným životom
v akomsi raji vo význame semitských
náboženstiev, ale skôr
stavom
blaženosti. Pokiaľ ide o to, ako je možná
existencia blaženosti tam, kde už nemá
byť žiadne vnímanie, Sáriputta, jeden
z hlavných Gautamových učeníkov,
odpovedá: „Práve to je blaženosťou
nirvány (nibbány – pozn. aut.), že
v nej nie je žiadne vnímanie“ (KÜNG –
BECHERT, 1998, s. 36).
Endnotes:
Vôľa k životu je teda kvázi oným spojovadlom na poli zachovania energie. Pokiaľ dôjde
k jej odstráneniu, výsledkom bude postupné ustatie dovtedy kumulovanej energie, pričom
konzekvenciou sa stane definitívne ukončenie znášania svojich predchádzajúcich činov
(ako pozitívnych, tak negatívnych).
2
„‘Ctihodný, možno rozlíšiť jednotlivé stavy mysle, keď sú v spoločnej súčinnosti, a povedať:
toto je vnem, toto vedomie, toto myslenie, toto chápanie, toto skúmanie a toto hodnotenie?‘
‚Je to tak, akoby kuchár pripravil polievku alebo omáčku zo smotany, soli, zázvoru, rasce,
korenia a ďalších prísad a kráľ by mu potom povedal: oddeľ mi chuť smotany, chuť soli,
chuť zázvoru, chuť rasce, chuť korenia a chuť ostatných prísad... Bolo by možné oddeliť z tej
polievky alebo omáčky chuť kyslú, slanú, horkú, pálivú, trpkú alebo sladkú? A presne tak
je to s jednotlivými stavmi mysle‘“ (ZBAVITEL, 2008, s. 215–216). Navyše pri dosahovaní
čistoty mysle je o. i. dôležité to, aby človek zbytočne neprehlboval svoje prebývanie na
poli negatívneho uvažovania, čiže v rámci zvyšovania kvality interpersonálnych vzťahov
ide predovšetkým o to, aby človek prestal s permanentným premýšľaním o negatívach
druhých ľudí, a aby sa miesto toho viac koncentroval buď na to, že aj on sám by mohol
byť z niečieho aspektu podrobený kritike, alebo aby zohľadňoval aj dobré vlastnosti ľudí,
s ktorými sa stretáva. V dôsledku toho sa potom bude, predpokladáme, minimalizovať ako
pocit nadradenosti, tak i rivality, pričom treba myslieť na to, že príklad je viac ako poúčanie
a nekonštruktívna kritika. A taktiež, keď človek vidí sám na sebe, že nie vždy je jednoduché
vysporiadať sa s osemdielnou cestou, resp. bez zaváhania a chýb po nej smerovať, mal by
byť voči ostatným do istej miery ohľaduplnejší.
3
Na mysli máme opakovanie sa jednotlivých aspektov strastiplnej existencie, avšak nie
absolútne identických.
4
Na nevedomosti závisia podnety (dôsledky kammy, resp. ňou vytvorené), na zložkách
uvedomovanie si ako zárodok ďalšieho bytia na ňom potom závisí meno a podoba, telo
a myseľ, tzn. duchovno-telesná podstata, z nich vyvstáva šesť zmyslových oblastí na nich
styk so svetom pri narodení, zmyslový kontakt na styku pociťovanie, na pociťovaní túžba,
žiadostivosť, na nej lipnutie na živote, životoch, na tomto lipnutí zase vznikanie, na vznikaní
narodenie a na samotnom narodení potom zase závisí staroba a smrť (LESNÝ, 1996, s. 83).
5
Na rozdiel od nášmu kultúrnemu kontextu známejších, príp. bližších myšlienkových
systémov, náboženstiev, buddhizmus neprijíma moment alebo akceptovaný prvok
Stvoriteľa.
1
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Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
V tejto súvislosti je známym jedno z jeho podobenstiev – „...akoby bol niekto zasiahnutý
otráveným šípom a jeho priatelia, spoločníci alebo príbuzní by poslali po chirurga, avšak
tento človek by prehlásil: ‚Nenechám si ten šíp vytiahnuť, pokiaľ sa nedozviem, kto je ten
muž, ktorý ma zranil; či je to šľachtic, kňaz, obchodník alebo sluha, aké je jeho meno a z akej
rodiny pochádza, či je vysoký alebo nízky alebo prostrednej postavy.‘ Takýto človek by
zomrel prv, než by mohol všetky veci zistiť“ (NYÁNATILOKA MAHÁTHERA, 1993, s. 45).
Semitské vierovyznania bývajú na tomto mieste, naopak, prijímané ako tie, ktoré sa otázke
počiatku nevyhýbajú. Odpoveďou na prípadné polemiky o tom, kto je Boh a prečo by mal
byť ponímaný cez prizmu súcitu, ak stvoril svet plný utrpenia, dospievajú k viac-menej
identickému konsenzu, resp. stanovisku – pokiaľ na otázku niet jednoznačnej odpovede
(ako napr. v prípade, že nie je fakticky overiteľný čas a zrod Boha alebo jeho zámer, motivácia
k stvoreniu sveta), konštatuje sa nevyspytateľnosť božích ciest. Na druhej strane, v prípade
buddhizmu nebýva širšou, opozitnou či až ofenzívne zameranou verejnosťou akceptovaný,
príp. akceptovateľný Gautamov postoj nevyjadrovania sa k metafyzickým problémom a
otázkam z dôvodu ich nezmyselnosti pre praktický, mravný život.
7
Hoci nie priamo v buddhizme, pre Indiu je, zdá sa, typická skepsa ohľadom tzv. západného
chápania pojmu ‚ja‘, či dokonca ich vnímanie je diametrálne. Min. v hinduizme sú napr.
v rámci džňánajógy charakteristické rôzne cvičenia na správne uchopovanie pojmového
aparátu, resp. na kritické myslenie ohľadom jednotlivých pojmov a ich interpretácie.
Známym je o. i. práve príklad na pojem ‚ja‘, príp. ‚moje‘ – ak totiž človek ukáže na nejaký
predmet, ktorého je vlastníkom, a teda ho označí ako ‚môj‘, neznamená to, že on sám je
tým predmetom. Ak ale poukazuje na niektorú z častí svojho tela alebo na svoje vlastnosti,
pričom o nich hovorí ako o ‚toto je môj, moja, moje‘, spravidla si pod tým predstavíme
práve jeho osobu, čiže tieto ‚súčiastky, súčasti‘ považujeme za toho-ktorého človeka. Na
tomto príklade vidno nuansy jednotlivých homoným a tiež vysporadúvanie sa východného
myslenia s pojmami súvisiacimi s ‚ja‘ a jeho ekvivalentmi. Iste, v bežnom živote je
prirodzené používať tieto osobné alebo privlastňovacie pronominá vzťahujúce sa k osobe,
avšak podľa buddhizmu nie je správne lipnúť na ich sémantickom význame, resp. na
obsahu, ktorý je v nich klamlivo inherentný. Potom by sme teda mohli pripustiť hypotézu,
že aj Gautama svojím učením o anattá nepopieral vlastne existenciu ‚ja‘, podstaty, duše ako
najvyššej reality, ale skôr mal na mysli, že čokoľvek, čo si človek o ‚ja‘ myslí alebo povie,
nemôže byť attá, pretože attá je mimo všetkých slov a predstáv (protiargumentáciu pozri
priamo v texte).
8
Pojem brahma je vyjadrením neosobného súcna, najvyššej reality. Je prejavom ako
absolútneho bytia a vedomia, tak i absolútnej radosti, je nielen tvorcom všetkého, ale
zároveň aj všetko prestupuje. Rovnako je nám ťažko dostupný attá, a to napriek tomu, že
je naším najvlastnejším ‚ja‘. Avšak týmto ‚ja‘ nemáme na mysli 5 skupín javov (vedomie,
cítenie, vnímanie, telesnosť, mentálne formácie), pretože takéto vysvetľovanie attá by
nás opäť voviedlo k prejavom individuality, a tým aj egoizmu, ale dušu, ktorá síce sídli
v hmotnom tele, no nie je súčasťou osobného ega, ale brahmu. Preto je hlboké pochopenie
ich vzájomnej jednoty konečným cieľom, teda dosiahnutím duchovného oslobodenia, a
zároveň v sebe spája pochopenie bytostnej jednoty všetkého vo svete.
9
Identický prístup zaujal aj k cíteniu, vnímaniu, vedomiu a mentálnym formáciám.
10
Sem možno zaradiť napr. samotnú kammu, vipáku a slobodnú vôľu.
11
Neznamená to ale, že prijatie faktu anattá zároveň znamená absenciu humanizmu
či prosociálnosti. Uvedomenie si povahy v intenciách anattá naďalej zostáva v rukách
6
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každého‚indivídua‘, čo znamená, že u takej bytosti síce nastane stav duchovného
oslobodenia, konkrétne konzekvencie na poli interpersonality a jej vzťahu k svetu sú však
nie celkom predvídateľné. Takáto bytosť sa môže potýkať min. s rovinou alebo životom
v intenciách arahat alebo bódhisatta, pričom ani na úrovni arahata nemožno apriórne
negovať jeho záujem o prosociálne správanie.
12
Autoreflexia, sebaanalýza v intenciách náuky o ‚nie-ja‘ je ťažšie prijateľná o fakt, že ‚ja‘
človek nepovažuje za čosi vágne alebo numinózne, ale práve naopak, za čosi, čo mu je
najbližšie a najprirodzenejšie. Okrem toho, človek sa iba ťažko vzdáva predstavy, že je takou
osobou, akou si byť želá, resp. že ho za takého (z aspektu tzv. Joháriho okna) považujú aj
iní ľudia, rovnako ako ‚ja‘, i napriek evidentným zmenám na poli prežívania, považuje za
nemenné, nepodliehajúce zmene a za s ničím neprepojené, tzn. samostatné.
13
Prázdnota nie v zmysle nihilizmu, t. j. ničoty, ale eliminácie nereálnych projekcií, alebo
tiež z hľadiska popretia akýchkoľvek charakteristík.
14
Napr. pri výklade pôvodu, inkarnácií a i.
15
Všeobecne sa hovorí až o desiatich putách (samjodžana): klam ‚ja‘ (sakkája-ditthi),
pochybovačnosť (vičikiččhá), lipnutie na pravidlách a obradoch (sílabbata-parámása),
žiadostivosť zmyslov (káma-rága), zlovôľa (vjápáda), žiadostivosť po jemnohmotnej
existencii (rúpa-rága), žiadostivosť po nehmotnej existencii (arúpa-rága), domýšľavosť
(mána), nepokoj (uddačča), nevedomosť (avidždžá) (NYÁNATILOKA MAHÁTHERA, 1993,
s. 49).
16
„Mnísi, toto je vznešená pravda o utrpení: narodenie je utrpenie, staroba je utrpenie,
choroba je utrpenie, odlúčenie od toho, čo je milé, je utrpenie, ak človek nedosiahne to,
čo si želá, je utrpenie, skrátka, päť skupín javov, ktorými prenikáme k svetu, je utrpením“
(LESNÝ, 1996, s. 71).
17
Gautama samovraždy explicitne údajne ani neschvaľoval, ani nehanil, neskôr však boli
vyslovene zakázané.
18
Napr. zaľúbenosť (vedúca sa pospolu so strachom o zdravie milovaného alebo o jeho
stratu) či pôrod (ako jeden z prvých predpokladov pre život plný súženia a bolesti).
19
V rámci vysporiadania sa s touto skutočnosťou dochádza k poznaniu, že tak, ako sú
pominuteľné stavy šťastia, ktoré v zásade odvracajú našu pozornosť od strastiplnej povahy
všetkých javov, tak je pominuteľné aj utrpenie. Z toho následne vyplýva nielen to, že človek
by v prípade negatívneho obdobia svojho života nemal upadať (chronickému) zúfalstvu,
ale čo je dôležitejšie, je to tiež indikátorom toho, že pominuteľné sú dobré aj zlé prežívania,
a stav nibbány (ako stav neprežívania ani blahodarného, ani zhubného) nie je utópiou.
20
Žiadostivosť nielen v spojení s lipnutím, ale tiež závisťou, žiarlivosťou, mamonou a i.
21
Mienime tým prípad človeka konajúceho nedobré skutky alebo utiekajúceho sa
k hedonizmu.
22
V tejto súvislosti však máme na mysli predovšetkým vznik utrpenia jednotlivca, nie sveta
ako celku.
23
Napriek tomu ale v istom zmysle nemožno théravádový buddhizmus považovať za
striktne ateistický, o čom svedčí jedna z elementárnych ríš existencie, v ktorej prebývajú
dévovia. Avšak bohovia nie sú večnými a všemocnými bytosťami, tvorcami a udávateľmi
mravného poriadku. Jediným relevantným rozdielom medzi nimi a ľuďmi je azda iba v tom,
že žijú v relatívne lepších podmienkach, čo ale nič nemení na fakte, že sú taktiež súčasťou
samsáry a pod vplyvom odplaty za svoje skutky.
24
V súvislosti s touto energiou nemožno hovoriť o neutralite, ona totiž neutrálnou nie je.
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Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Vždy má v sebe aspekt pozitívna alebo negatívna, tzn. jasnú tendenciu. Preto ak sa dosiahne
stav neutrality, ktorý je cieľom, nastane nibbána.
25
Azda jediným možným riešením, ako sa z utrpenia vymaniť, by mohla byť upanišádová
jednota attá-brahma, vďaka ktorej ľudia verili, že práve splynutím s brahma, ktoré tomuto
utrpeniu nepodlieha, možno docieliť oslobodenie.
26
Výklad dvanásťčlenného reťazca možno pritom zhrnúť do nasledujúcej podoby – pôvod
všetkého utrpenia je v nevedomosti, neschopnosti dosiahnuť oslobodzujúce poznanie
pominuteľnosti fenomenálneho sveta, ako to bolo vyjadrené v ušľachtilých pravdách.
Človek nachádzajúci sa v zajatí tejto nevedomosti sa dostáva do vleku neuvedomelých
voľných podnetov, ktoré ho orientujú na javovú stránku skutočnosti. Pod vplyvom týchto
popudov jeho vedomie, poznávajúca schopnosť, ktorá po smrti nezaniká, ale vstupuje do
ďalšieho ´prevteľovania´, zmocňuje sa novej telesnej schránky, získava ‚meno a podobu‘.
Nový jedinec je obdarený zmyslami, ktorých dotykom so zmyslovými predmetmi vznikajú
pocity a predovšetkým smäd po zmyslových pôžitkoch, lipnutie na veciach tohto sveta a na
telesnosti, ktorá netvorí naše pravé ‚ja‘. Tým vznikajú predpoklady k ďalšiemu zapojeniu sa
do strastiplného kolobehu zrodení, ktorý neskončí, pokiaľ nebudú odstránené jeho príčiny,
tzn. smäd a nevedomosť (ZBAVITEL, 2008, s. 59).
27
Tzn. vo svete, v ktorom by absentovalo pochopenie jeho iluzórnej povahy.
28
Buddhizmom je považovaná za viac-menej fakt odporujúci upanišádovému učeniu o attá
a brahma, príp. semitskej viere v Boha.
29
Neúprimné konanie, resp. konanie dobra s výlučným zámerom na dosiahnutie lepšieho
zrodenia v rámci kammy vedie skôr k opačnému výsledku.
30
„Valiace sa hnutie, ktoré nazývame vlna – a ktoré neznalému pozorovateľovi dáva ilúziu
jednej a tej istej vody pohybujúcej sa po hladine jazera, – je vytvárané a podporované vetrom
a udržiavané nahromadenými energiami. Keď ale vietor ustane a žiaden nový vietor nebude
opäť bičovať vody jazera, nahromadené energie sa postupne spotrebujú a akýkoľvek vlnivý
pohyb ustane. Podobne i oheň, ak nedostane nové palivo, po spotrebovaní všetkého starého
paliva zanikne“ (NYÁNATILOKA MAHÁTHERA, 1993, s. 36–37).
31
„Úplné odstránenie a zánik nevedomosti vedie však k zániku podnetov, zánik podnetov
k zániku poznávania, zánik poznávania k zániku mena a podoby, zánik mena a podoby
k zániku oblasti vnímania, zánik oblasti vnímania k zániku dotyku, zánik dotyku
k zániku pociťovania, zánik pociťovania k zániku smädu, zánik smädu k zániku lipnutia,
zánik lipnutia k zániku vznikania, zánik vznikania k zániku zrodenia, zánikom zrodenia
zanikajú…zármutok, nárek, plač, skľúčenosť mysle a zúfalstvo. Takýto je zánik všetkého,
čo je strastné“ (ZBAVITEL, 2008, s. 58).
32
V sanskrte je slovo nirvána odvodené od predpony nir- a koreňa -vá vo význame vanutie
(NYÁNATILOKA MAHÁTHERA, 1993, s. 37).
33
Stav nibbány možno spoznať predovšetkým prostredníctvom samotného jeho ponímania
ako stavu, čo znamená, že človek nie je zmietaný permanentnými zmenami, premenlivosťou,
pohybom. Pravé poznanie sa prejavuje ako v rovine múdrosti, tak i meditácie a mravnosti,
pričom dôležité miesto zohráva práve fakt zodpovednosti. V neposlednom rade je tiež
determinantom aj ďalšie nezrodzovanie sa, tzn. po dosiahnutí parinibbány nenastane už
v dôsledku vyprchania kammickej energie žiadna inkarnácia.
34
Nie je to ale akási cesta ľahšieho odporu? Iste, život v osamelosti nie je práve
najjednoduchšou voľbou, avšak v konečnom dôsledku treba pripustiť, že v akejsi izolácii
od vonkajškovosti je, zdá sa, predsa len akoby ľahšie dodržiavať jednotlivé zásady, nie je tu
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totiž taká vysoká miera konfrontácie. Ak aj človek žije v osamotení, čo si od neho vyžaduje
enormnú úprimnosť voči sebe samému, pretože nemá žiadnu spätnú väzbu, žiadne
‚zrkadlo‘, ktoré by ho upozorňovalo na prípadné diskrepancie, rovnako môže upadnúť do
presvedčenia, že žije správnym životom. Ak by sa mal však s niekým konfrontovať napr. na
poli správnej reči, možno by tento dôležitý aspekt osemdielnej cesty zakrátko zlyhal.
35
Takého človeka opisuje Gautama nasledovne: „Pre toho, v kom nesídli rozkoš, ktorý
prekonal pochybovanie a nemá túžby, nie je iného vyslobodenia [...] Takýto človek je úplne
zbavený túžby […] podarilo sa mu dosiahnuť oslobodzujúce poznanie a už viac nelipne na
túžbe, ani na živote“ (LESNÝ, 1996, s. 130).
36
Ako napr. LESNÝ, 1996, s. 139.
37
Takto tomu ale bolo až v neskorších častiach, spočiatku sa hovorilo iba o pozemskom
svete, resp. o ukončení zrodzovania do ríše ľudí, a tým pádom do (od nej) nižších sfér
existencie.
Works cited:
»
»
»
»
»
»
»
»
DAVID-NEELOVÁ, A. – MINAŘÍK, K. 1993. Pronikavý vhled. Praha : Canopus.
HAJKO, D. 2008. Úvod do indickej filozofie. Bratislava : H&H.
KÜNG, H. – BECHERT, H. 1998. Křesťanství a buddhismus. Praha : Vyšehrad.
LESNÝ, V. 1996. Buddhismus. Olomouc : Votobia.
NYNASATTA THERA. 1992. Základy buddhismu. Praha : Alternativa.
NYÁNATILOKA MAHÁTHERA. 1993. Slovo Buddhovo. Praha : Stratos.
PCHRA KHANTIPÁLO. 1995. Úvod do buddhismu. Bratislava : CAD PRESS.
ZBAVITEL, D. 2008. Raný indický buddhismus. Praha : Argo.
Miroslava Obuchová
Katedra všeobecnej a aplikovanej etiky
Filozofická fakulta UKF v Nitre
e-mail: ppastelka@gmail.com
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Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Almost Real… Who is Watching and Who is Being
Watched?
Peter Mikuláš: Reality TV. (Reality TV), IRIS, 2011.
Reviewed by Mária Kiššová
Reality TV by Peter Mikuláš is not
only about the phenomenon of reality
television. The publication covers a
much wider spectrum of media studies,
and the author presents various genres
of reality TV in a broader context and
often ventures out of its territory
providing interesting information about
genre variations and modifications.
According to Peter Mikuláš, the main
aim of his book is to understand reality
TV as a communicative and marketing
phenomenon in specific contexts. It
is TV programming characterised by
genre hybridity and mutations. One
of its typical features is convergence
between television and so called new
media; its influence on current media
culture is strong and intense.
The book is divided into seven
parts; most attention is paid to the
genres of reality TV and its marketing
aspects. Mikuláš emphasises that
genre distinction is crucial for a viewer
because when the genre is distinct, or
in other words, if the viewer “knows”
the genre beforehand, it is a significant
factor in “potential communication”
(p.14). Speaking of its artistic and
educational values, reality shows may
be banal, superficial and shallow, but
they definitely represent a significant
trend and they have become - due to
multifaceted reasons - one of the most
popular types of TV programme ever.
Peter Mikuláš lists several disciplines
which need to be consulted if we want
to study reality television as a cultural
and social phenomenon. He mentions
media communication, psychology,
sociology, economy and marketing,
ethics, linguistic and cultural studies.
Looking closely at the reception and
popularity of reality TV in Slovakia, the
boom of the genre came in 2005-2006
(it was the only dominant genre on
TV then), following extremely popular
shows with the dominant function of
entertainment such as Milionár (starting
in 2000 and based on Who Wants to be
a Millionaire?). Reality television is not
resistant to changes and alterations.
Ruled by ratings, the main objective of
any commercial TV programme – and
reality TV is highly commercial – is to
maintain or increase the number of
viewers and profit from the advertising
that is closely related to the programme.
When a genre gets boring, an alteration
and a “new” form appears. This can be
seen for instance in the replacement of
game shows by make-over shows. The
reviewed publication thus also serves
as an overview of the recent history of
reality television, in which Slovak but
also foreign programmes are discussed.
For the genre analyses, the following
reality shows have been selected:
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112 (wrongly called city soap by TV
Markíza), Nora and Braňo (based on
the daily life of a controversial couple),
VyVolení (an adaptation of Hungarian
Reality show Való Világ (Real World))
and Wife Swap.
The term reality television is essentially an oxymoron. All TV programmes
are based on transmittance, representation and illusion of reality. In this
sense, reality TV wants to emphasise
spontaneity, unscripted situations and
events, and persuade us that it gives a
chance to “ordinary people” to become
famous (offering Andy Warhol’s 15
minutes of fame). This book also
documents that reality television is
part of contemporary globalised world
(reality shows “travel” and appear within
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a very short time in geographically and
even culturally distant countries); from
the social perspective they are made
to address a mainstream viewer and
very frequently decrease the quality
of what one can see in the media, in
this case on TV. A very positive aspect
of Mikuláš’s book is that he does not
moralise nor lament the “garbage-like”
content of most of these shows. His
book proves that reality TV needs to be
studied if we want to understand why
it is so meaningful for us to watch and
to be watched. Contemporary media
outlets give plenty of opportunities for
those who dare to join this world, yet
the frequent disillusion following such
encounters show they can be a far more
negative than positive experience.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Historical Compendium of the West Slavs: From
Paganism to Christianity
Peter Ivanič: Západní Slovania v ranom stredoveku. (The West Slavs in the Early
Medieval Ages), Nitra: UKF, 2011.
Reviewed by Mária Kiššová
The book Západní Slovania v ranom
stredoveku (The West Slavs in the Early
Middle Ages) covers a wide range of
historical, cultural, social and religious
information and material on the West
Slavs. Peter Ivanič, the author of the
monograph, has been working as a
scholar at the Institute for the Research
of Cultural Heritage of Constantine and
Method at the University of Constantine
the Philosopher in Nitra for several
years and his research interests and
publications cover the period of early
Christianisation and the Middle Ages in
Central Europe.
Chronologically, the book deals with
the era starting in the early sixth
century and finishes in the 12th to 13th
centuries, depending on the significance
and social and historical development
in particular regions. The first chapter
offers a detailed overview of the
works which deal with the West Slavs.
Peter Ivanič’s research is elaborate
and complex, his references include among others - publications of Slovak,
Czech, German and Polish scholars;
many of them document the results of
current or very recent archaeological
and historical findings. This chapter is
followed by the characterisation of the
natural environment of the early Middle
Ages, and the next chapter highlights the
theories of the origins of the Slavs. Here,
the author stresses that autochthonic
and migration theories prevail in
current scientific debates. Individual
chapters on different ethnic groups who
lived in the region are arranged in the
chronological order. These include the
Slavs of the sixth and seventh centuries,
the Avars (together with the Slavs and
Samo’s tribal union), the Great Moravian
Empire, the period of the Kingdom of
Hungary, the Czech region in the early
Middle Ages, Poland and the Polabian
Slavs. Special attention is given to the
paganism of the West Slavs and the
process of Christianisation.
The reviewed publication is suitable
for professionals and researchers but
also for students of history, ethnology
and cultural studies who are interested
in this period and geographical territory.
With respect to this, the very positive
and commendable aspects of the book
are its clear and precise structure
and refined style. For the lay reader,
such a topic, especially if it contains
numerous references to other works,
could be tiring. This monograph by
Peter Ivanič has the opposite effect and
many passages actually provoke and
stimulate further reading. For example,
the chapter on the paganism of the
West Slavs discusses the major gods
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of the Slavic pantheon, temples and
cult attributes which map significant
archaeological sites, including the
temple fortress of Arkona, the Gross
Raden site, Mikulčice, and Most near
Bratislava. Monumental statues and
idols made of stone and wood provide
fascinating historical sources which
prove the rich religious thought of
Slavs at the time. Reading about the
beliefs of the West Slavs, one is indeed
overwhelmed how many parallels with
other ethnic groups and mythological
systems can be discovered.
One of the issues which problematise
our interpretation of the era is
obviously the lack of written sources.
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This is also the case of the period of
early Christianity in the region which
is – as Ivanič emphasises - covered by
a limited number of written documents.
Due to this, they have to be interpreted
extremely carefully.
In 2013 we will commemorate the
1150th anniversary of the Byzantine
Mission, likely one of the most significant
events in our past. It is natural that
the sources of our heritage must not
be forgotten, and knowledge about
them should be part of general cultural
awareness. For that reason also, the
publication of Peter Ivanič Západní
Slovania v ranom stredoveku should be
given particular attention and response.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Irish Literature in Focus: John McGahern’s lyrical
portrayals
Lýdia Čechová: John McGahern – Disclosing Irish Identity (John McGahern – lyrické
rozkrývanie írskej identity), Nitra: FF UKF, 2011.
Reviewed by Simona Hevešiová
While visiting The Times Cheltenham
Literature Festival in October 2011, Edna
O’Brien, the doyenne of contemporary
Irish literature, shared her not-sooptimistic insights on current literary
development with the festival audience.
Describing the writing of what she
called ‘serious literature’ as a dying
flower, O’Brien pointed to the tendency
of many writers to disregard the power
of the language while focusing merely on
the thematic aspects of their narratives.
With the heated debate around the
controversial term ‘readability’ brought
about by the Booker Prize judges last
year, the criteria for good writing seem
to be coming under increased scrutiny.
According to O’Brien, all great prose is
poetry and that is why she sees reading
as a dedicated and challenging vocation.
Her statement, an obvious tribute to the
tremendous potential of language, also
points to the disappearing artistry of
the previous generations of writers.
John McGahern (1934-2006), whose
work is analysed in the new monograph
Disclosing Irish Identity by Lýdia
Čechová, published by the Faculty
of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher
University in Nitra, belonged to a
generation of writers that maintained
and cultivated a magic relationship
with words while revelling in their
multi-layered meanings. Words, seen
as physical presence rather than the
inevitable tool a writer uses to construct
a story, were always selected with care
and precision and the author paid
close attention to their auditory and
rhythmic qualities. In the words of John
McGahern, quoted at the beginning of
the monograph, “[w]ords had been a
physical presence for me for a long time
before, each word with its own weight,
colour, shape, relationship, extending
out into a world without end.”
As Čechová aptly demonstrates by
quoting numerous examples from his
texts, the writer’s careful manipulation
of language helped him to achieve an
almost impressionistic portrayal of
Irish reality. Clearly, McGahern’s short
fiction, positioned at the centre of
Čechová’s attention, aims to strike the
sensory receptors of his readers by
creating tangible landscapes of Irish
life. The frequent use of recollections
and dreaming, which slow down the
pace of the narrative, enable him to
capture everyday reality through the
prism of poetry. He thus forces the
reader to slow down the pace of his/
her reading in order to pay attention to
the details.
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In terms of its form, the monograph
follows a clearly delineated structure.
Starting with a basic biographical and
bibliographical overview, the author
then introduces the main thematic
focus of McGahern’s work, which
oscillates within the boundaries of
the ever-present topics reappearing
in works of Irish authors. Obviously,
there have always been certain themes
that seemed to be inherent in the Irish
literary tradition, such as the inevitable
link between fiction and political or
historical events and religion. The
Joycean themes of paralysis, frustration
and identity quest are echoed in the
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writing of many of his followers,
McGahern included. His characters long
for the old world, the old Ireland, yet at
the same time they seek authenticity
and freedom. War, dysfunctional relationships between men and women,
or problematic father-son bonds also
enrich McGahern’s thematic scope. All
in all, Lýdia Čechová’s book, comprising
extremely skillful analyses of chosen
texts, is a valuable contribution to the
body of academic discourse on contemporary Irish writing and provides a
highly enjoyable and informative read
for all those who want to find out more
about it.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
The Case of Philip Roth
Alena Smiešková: Myth. Reality. Narrative. The Case of Philip Roth, Nitra: FF UKF,
2011.
Reviewed by Emília Janecová
Philip Roth is one of the most
famous living writers of contemporary
American literature. Starting his career
in the late 1950s, he has written an
enormous number of novels and short
stories, which after a detailed analysis
of their structure and content can be
regarded as a reflection of the most
significant tendencies of American
writing in the last half-century. In
order to reveal them all and to their
full extent, Roth’s writing should be
considered against the backdrop of
manifold contextual factors, none of
which should be omitted.
The monograph Myth. Reality. Narrative.
The Case of Philip Roth (2011) by Alena
Smiešková presents an overview of
Roth’s literary works in a wider context
while focusing on the similarities and
developmental differences reflecting
Roth’s shift from modernism towards
postmodernism strategies and which
operate within discourse concepts of
myth, reality and narrative. Smiešková
focuses mainly on the works Goodbye,
Columbus (1959), Eli the Fanatic
(1959), My life as a Man (1974), The
Ghost Writer (1979), Counterlife (1986),
Operation Shylock (1993), Sabbath’s
Theatre (1995) and American Pastoral
(1997). In their interpretative analysis
she ponders upon the influence of
the petering out of modernism, the
characteristics of ethnic writing and the
augmenting features of postmodernism
present in Roth’s writing in both
structure and content.
By expanding upon the characteristics
of Roth’s writing, the author of the
monograph portrays the situation
of American literature after the
Second World War and its subsequent
development in the following decades.
This period was characteristic because
of the emergence of ethnic writing,
which naturally brought new elements
and strategies into writing and which
soon became a representation of the
encounter and subsequent coexistence
of various cultures. These elements
have always been present in Roth’s
literary works and have often been
assigned as a principal characteristic.
However Smiešková does not treat
them as the only significant aspect of his
writing, but approaches them as only
one facet among many, later becoming
an enriching foundation for newer
postmodern elements and strategies.
The novel Portnoy’s Complaint (1969)
is acknowledged as a milestone and she
states that the works written before this
novel represent more the seriousness of
modernist writing focused on searching
for one’s identity, while the later works
are based on irony, demythologisation
and deconstruction of American identity,
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evaporating the borders between fact
and fiction and tackling questions on
the origins of art and the role of the
author.
All these particular characteristics
of Roth’s writing are presented in a
complex way and the attractive collage
approach used in encompassing the topic
96
finally results in linear and systematic
conclusions. This contemplative but
ultimately clear approach and natural
and understandable style of writing, as
well as the attractiveness of the chosen
topic, should guarantee a positive
response not only in the academic
environment.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
Women Breaking Down the Walls
Adriana Kičková: Ženy a britská diplomatická služba. (Women and the British
Diplomatic Service), Nitra: UKF, 2011.
Reviewed by Mária Kiššová
Women’s fight for positions in international diplomacy has been long and
difficult. As Adriana Kičková shows in her
book Ženy a britská diplomatická služba
(Women and the British Diplomatic
Service), there have been difficulties,
obstacles and – paradoxically - a lot
of diplomacy has been needed to get
some improvement and progress in the
matter.
The book focuses on the period
between the 1780s and the 1960s. It
starts with the description of the first
women employed at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. It was in 1782 when
“necessary” women started to work at
the recently constituted ministry and
there is even the specific historical record
of a Martha Southcott, the very first
woman working there and responsible
for the practical issues of household
management. The following chapters
of Women and the British Diplomatic
Service present a chronological overview
and analysis of the question of women
over three periods. The first one
focuses on the issue of women and
the diplomatic service during the First
World War and includes subchapters
on the MacDonell Commission, the
anti-discriminatory law (the so-called
Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act) of
1919, the Tomlin Commission and the
Schuster Commission. Since the social
status of women significantly depended
on education, Kičková presents the
wider context and also mentions the
situation in this field, especially from
the late 1870s onwards, when the first
universities offered places for young
women. The second period presents
the Eden reforms during the Second
World War; the third one concentrates
on the post-war situation, when the
Gowers Commission and the Plowden
Commission actively contributed to the
issue.
The historical overview based on the
primary research materials mostly from
the British National Archive in London
and the University of Newcastle is
followed by interesting bio-sketches of
women who influenced the diplomacy
and politics of the 20th century. Biosketches are ordered alphabetically,
starting with Margery Irene Corbett
Ashby (1882-1981) to Lilian Pauline
Neville-Jones (1939-). Closer attention
is given to Gertrude Bell (1868-1926),
likely the most well-known female
politician, traveller, and archaeologist
of the fin-the-siècle era and to Mary
McGeachy (1901-1991), the first woman
to be given British diplomatic rank in
1942 and the Director of Welfare for the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration in 1944. The book also
includes a useful list of primary and
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secondary sources and the attachment
in English Regulations for her Majesty’s
Diplomatic Service from 1872.
Kičková’s book shows that women
in international diplomacy faced a lot
of hostility, discrimination and malice,
and their efforts often hit a brick
wall built by the British government.
Progress was extremely slow due to
various reasons, including the deeply
rooted conceptions of a suitable status
for a man and a woman. In this sense,
“men were predestined for leadership
and women for care” (p. 90). Current
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statistics also prove that there are still
big discrepancies between the numbers
of men and women in the diplomatic
service. Thus, the scepticism one feels
from the author’s concluding words is
neither unexpected nor surprising. It is
sad that the media often concentrates
more on image, clothes and hairstyle
than on the activities and efforts of
female diplomats. However, that opens
up a much bigger issue and shows other
high and thick walls which need to be
broken down.
Vol.3, No.2 / 2011
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