What’s with the #6???

I may be in the minority on this one, but I enjoyed both sections we read so far. The first section, the Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, did require some active reading by looking things up. You really have to do this when you read a piece that has so many references that you are unfamiliar with. First, to check to see if they are actual places, people or things, and second to know what they mean to get the full context. As I have said in the past, I like this investigative way of reading. With the advent of the internet, information is only keystrokes away. Not so much in my earlier days as a college student. Yay, for technology.

On of the first things I noticed in Ewings section was the name of a ship the Nellie. That was the name of Marlowe’s “cruising yawl” in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. That and the talk of cannibalism gave me a sense of familiarity. I read excerpts from Melville’s, Moby Dick, last semester as well as early American travel narratives a few semesters ago. Maybe that’s why I felt comfortable reading this section since Mitchell is writing with this time period and themes in mind. Beside the different genre of writing it is important to note that Ewing is a Notary. He authenticates the legality of documents. The next section we have another character, Robert Forbisher, who works with written documents, or actually takes dictation and writes musical compositions,  an amanuensis. There seems to be patterns , motifs of the different genres in literature as well as different professions of writing.

As Kim mentioned in class, the first part is not about the character of Ewing in an individual sense entirely.  It is more about the worldview or the ideologies of the period of colonization in the late 19^th century. At first, because it took place on Chatham Isles (which is in New Zealand, thanks WIKI) I thought the focus was on the British colonization. However, as Kim pointed out Mitchell represents all the players, American, Dutch, Spanish, and the Maori themselves (“they (the Maori) proved themselves apt pupils of the English in ‘the dark arts of colonization’” (14).

Ewing’s oblivious nature to pretty much everything is annoying but even more importantly it is indicative of the mindset of the colonizers and the thought processes they cultivated to further their agenda. Through Ewing we get the language of the colonizer: savages, beast, blackamoor, demotic, nigger, darkie. We are familiar with this system of dehumanization. That whole scene with Autua is a perfect example of how fucked up it is that Ewing cannot see him as a person. But that’s the ideology of the time and has been a widespread feature of human history.

I looked in my Lit Theory book from 330 and found the theorist we read that referenced the colonization of Australia. It was Alan Lawson’s The Anxious Proximities of Settler Relations (1210). Basically, it was talking about the aboriginal claims to the lands. Lawson calls for a rewriting of the “bad history” of the old tropes that the colonizers used to justify their cause: primarily aboriginal cannibalism.

Letters From Zedelghem was hilarious. I thoroughly enjoyed the humor. This section we can zoom in on the character that is Robert Forbisher. Crap I have to go to class…I’ll finish this ASAP.

Back…

We talked about him briefly in class. He is a capitalist in the true sense of the word. He lives in a world where there is a market for everything (his musical knowledge, his body and the manuscripts he pilfers and sells to the sleazy, Jansch) that provide him with boundless opportunities.

It is important to note that it is 1931. We fast forward to a time in history that is between WWI & WWII. This is important because at this time in history art & the aesthetics were linked with power and the dictatorships of Europe. Hitler was very much interested in the arts and controlling them. Most of the composers, artists, poets had to go underground when WWII broke out.  This time period was full of disillusionment from WWI and the aftermath of the destruction. Many people in Europe had to flee their countries during the war, Vyvvan Ayers & his family fled to Scandinavia. This section reminds me of the piece I read on Lukacs. I think if we are to look at the ideologies of this time period we can’t ignore the continuance of capitalism, in the name of world dominance, according to Hitler, et al.

Richard finds Ewing’s travel journal on VA’s bookshelf. How did it get there? Also, his take on Dr. Goose was intriguing. Hmmm.