Identify specific examples in the novel of each dimension of the paradigm:

 
— “disciplinary” (historical discourse, empirical knowledge & methods)

e.g. from today’s section: Hiroshima testimony recording; Dresden, psycho-therapy;
all of Oskar’s scientific references, (including his mechanical/anatomical account of sexuality…?)

 
— cultural discourse

Art/Literature (e.g. Hamlet, Metamorphosis);
Pop Media (e.g. Sleepless in Seattle, Harry Potter);
Contemporary/Consumer Culture (e.g. email, AOL “You’ve Got Mail!”; Google, Starbucks, Coney Island, New York Times)

 
— personal discourse (autobio, family history)

…most of this in the novel is invented, as Oskar’s.
But for our project, we’ll include elements from our own personal dimension (background / experience, family, anecdotes).

 
In terms of the novel, Foer
— lives in New York (”The Sixth Burrough” = New Jersey?)
— is vegetarian (”are these tamales vegan?”)
— — his newest book Eating Animals (2009) is not a novel but a non-fiction and personal account of vegetarianism
— never met his maternal grandfather, who survived the Holocaust

 
Hypothesis / Q.
— to read this book and not feel anything indicates a limited capacity for being affected,
as well as possibly an entrenched position within one of the modes of judgment (belief or reason), thus unable to intuit affect and experience or to engage with Life…..?
 

Notes from today’s class

 
To clarify and remind about a few important points,
differentiating Foer’s complex (and masterful) poetics.

 
First, on the question of Oskar’s key and the “impossible quest” narrative:

On the one hand, the key (and Thomas Schell) is the “linking feature” of the heterogeneous network of NYC residents with the last name of Black — just like Inverarity as “linking feature” between “random” aspects of Oedipa’s quest in Crying of Lot 49.

However, just as with Oedipa’s belief in a conspiracy,
Oskar believes there is some connection between his father and someone named Black, linked by the key (and sometimes he believes they might have died together). In any case, Oskar believes he can acquire the “hidden” and lost knowledge of his father’s secret (the key/vase) from the person Black — just like Oedipa’s attending the auction, for the appearance of the mystery bidder (connex. with Trystero? Inverarity?)

 
So, in a limited sense, Oskar’s quest is his attempt to engage the unknown and impossible (unknowable) “answer” (truth?) of his father’s “secret” (paranoia mode).

 
 
Q. for our experiment and method:
does the key necessarily produce resonance between the two disparate / discrete narratives of Oskar and grandfather (1960s-70s), within the assemblage?

 
 
Interface (review)

— means or method of engaging or mediating that which is unknown

(”interface metaphor” being the use of something familiar to understand/engage something unfamiliar)

“the unknown” dimension extends to the “unknowable” aspects of life, not accounted for by empirical knowledge or methods (e.g. Science).

For example,
the disaster
the past (lost to “oblivion” — Lethe)
another person’s subjectivity

 
Just as his father’s death is incomprehensible and unknowable to Oskar,
so is fatherhood for Grandfather — first with Anna and then Oskar’s grandmother.

 
— note Grandfather’s strategies for engaging the two scenarios:

first, to imagine (”invent”) possible futures with Anna, in which they are happy regardless of circumstances;
then, to write, to tell stories, to live through writing once he has ceased “living” (new experiences) — including stories in the conditional mode (e.g. “if I had said…”), which still have real effects for him.

— remember the crucial nature and function of writing and art, operating in the mode of “as if” versus the “as such” of empirical reality.

— Grandfather’s writing letters that he does not intend to send or for them to be read has real effects (benefits) for him, living through his writing in the sense of the Virtual (real but not actual).

 
//

Q. what of Oskar’s characteristic practice of inventing, including impossible inventions? This practice can be understood as having real effects (benefits) for him too, yes?

 
— likewise, compare his journal writing (”feelings book”), which is not addressed to or for anyone to read,
and his Stuff that Happened to Me scrapbook….

 
— Virtual effects also appear in three instances when Foer “tricks us,” describing what Oskar “would have done” (wished to do) as if he did.
The result for us as readers (unless we dismiss these imagined scenes?) is likely similar to the sense of someone’s proceeding with the consequent feeling from imagining “as if I had done what I could/would have done” (conditional mode)….

 
 
Hypothesis (or conclusion?)
— writing (and especially the Virtual mode) is both the interface with the unknown/unknowable (impossible/Lethe) aspects of life, for Oskar and Grandfather
and
the “linking feature” that produces resonance between their narratives,
less a formal connection (”link”) than the musical sense of counterpoint or theme/variation. Or better, the resonance is the “chord” produced by Grandfather (musical note 1) and Oskar (note 2), in the same “key” due to their affect (mood, disposition, subjective dimension); this is not metaphorical, as the expression (the novel) conveys feeling the way music does — especially with other “notes” producing different “chords,” e.g. with Grandmother as a third note (literally, with her frequency making it a minor chord).

Oskar’s father is also part of the expression, except he is the missing “third” (note) — thus, the “empty fifth” chord of expression in the resonance between Oskar and Grandfather.

 
Resonance through Assemblage Poetics

Consider: would their writing and invention be as expressive of affect/experience if presented singularly in the novel? (in other words, would either story be as expressive and affective on its own, as in simple stories, unlike the assemblage that Foer composes?)

Likewise the expressive figures and the incidental (coincidental?) appearances in the various narratives…(e.g. books in Grandfather’s life: pre-bombing Dresden, post-silence, post-departure from Grandmother; in Oskar’s life, pre- and post-disaster)

Notes from Monday

Laura H. —
Oskar’s invented “quest,” impossible task of finding the lock for the key.
— his way of engaging the incomprehensible fact of the (random? secret?) key in the vase and the unknown name (”Black”).
— impossible to know truth (Lethe), with loss of his father.

* effect: resonance, father’s Virtual “presence” (?) for Oskar in present; or, father as real factor (affects Oskar) without being actual in presence.

 
Tahara —
Assemblage: perspectives of Oskar, Grandfather, and Grandma.

* key lesson for our poetics: multivalent, at least two narratives with two respective spatio-temporal settings.

 
Our “Assemblage Expression” will write with entire paradigm:
— personal (autobio, family history, anecdotes)
— disciplinary (history, rational/empirical, “facts”)
— cultural (art/Lit, pop media; technology?)

Q. could a narrative from personal discourse dimension of paradigm serve as “counterpoint” to historical experience narrative? (producing resonance between the two “frequencies” or “notes”)
Need not explain or explicitly link, but present distinctly; resonance will (hopefully?) emerge through your intuition, as with choosing figures from disciplinary and cultural dimensions.