As I sit at the Chicago O' Hare airport waiting to issue my boarding passes, I am reminded of yesterday, when my flight arrived late and I had to take up a room at a nearby hotel. I am especially reminded of how hungry I was, and how I took revenge on that emaciated state by devouring, quite literally like a caveman, a gigantic burger using my now quickly evaporating collection of dollars.
I am reminded of that burger, and that burger is perhaps one of the most vivid images of America, or at the very least, the America that I have encountered, that I take back with me. And while it's tempting to give in to that kind of jargon now, the bleeding heart but stern dialectic ruing the treatment of animals and their slaughter, I will refrain. Because if there is something else this one month trip to America has taught me, fraught as it was with all sorts of coming-of-age-sequences, it is that it is finally time to stop treating literature as a way out, or even as a solution. It is time to stop feeling morally righteous about a literary work. It has no room in our lives. It is a farce.
But this is immediately a daunting proposition. What interests me about literature the most right now is possibly its ability to engage with things and sensations that might appropriate the non-human, or the 'animal'. I chanced upon this through science fiction, which taught me the importance of asking questions over arriving at solutions. And then, one fine day, here in Kansas, I visited an university, and talked with two professors regarding my desire to study science fiction for a PhD, but I also added that science fiction per se wasn't really taught or encouraged in very many places. It turns out that SF is taught and practiced under a different set of umbrella terms: ecocriticism, animal studies, posthumanism and so on and so forth. So if I want to do something on those lines, those are my choices. Fair enough. But the problem with something like ecocriticism is that it is perhaps impossible to critique our treatment with nature on literary grounds without becoming somewhat more involved. Soon, literature gives way to activism. And I have had my share of Facebook activists, and frankly, I detest them with a rare and exuberant blend of hatred and incredulity.
What I do when I am feeling troubled regarding something I once used to love but do not find myself appreciating in quite the same way is this: I start thinking and reading up on it a lot. Sometimes even irrelevant things which have no immediate impression on me, but with time, sink in in a fashion that is very very tangible. So it is with 'animal studies'. It is something I feel very strongly about, but it is not something that lends itself to more pragmatic ventures such as working for animal preservation. The latter is something that I have long since wished to do but haven't had the courage to pursue. So I stick with the former, and hope to dabble in it. Much like the best literature isn't always, not even by a long shot, written by the best people, so 'criticism' and understanding the state of things, or how things are represented, must perhaps always be a fatal remove from what it talks about.
So it is now, sitting at the airport, that the last, bubbling remains of today's burger made me want to make this blog, perhaps already doomed for extinction because of its flimsy origin. Let's see where I take it, or where it takes me.
I am reminded of that burger, and that burger is perhaps one of the most vivid images of America, or at the very least, the America that I have encountered, that I take back with me. And while it's tempting to give in to that kind of jargon now, the bleeding heart but stern dialectic ruing the treatment of animals and their slaughter, I will refrain. Because if there is something else this one month trip to America has taught me, fraught as it was with all sorts of coming-of-age-sequences, it is that it is finally time to stop treating literature as a way out, or even as a solution. It is time to stop feeling morally righteous about a literary work. It has no room in our lives. It is a farce.
But this is immediately a daunting proposition. What interests me about literature the most right now is possibly its ability to engage with things and sensations that might appropriate the non-human, or the 'animal'. I chanced upon this through science fiction, which taught me the importance of asking questions over arriving at solutions. And then, one fine day, here in Kansas, I visited an university, and talked with two professors regarding my desire to study science fiction for a PhD, but I also added that science fiction per se wasn't really taught or encouraged in very many places. It turns out that SF is taught and practiced under a different set of umbrella terms: ecocriticism, animal studies, posthumanism and so on and so forth. So if I want to do something on those lines, those are my choices. Fair enough. But the problem with something like ecocriticism is that it is perhaps impossible to critique our treatment with nature on literary grounds without becoming somewhat more involved. Soon, literature gives way to activism. And I have had my share of Facebook activists, and frankly, I detest them with a rare and exuberant blend of hatred and incredulity.
What I do when I am feeling troubled regarding something I once used to love but do not find myself appreciating in quite the same way is this: I start thinking and reading up on it a lot. Sometimes even irrelevant things which have no immediate impression on me, but with time, sink in in a fashion that is very very tangible. So it is with 'animal studies'. It is something I feel very strongly about, but it is not something that lends itself to more pragmatic ventures such as working for animal preservation. The latter is something that I have long since wished to do but haven't had the courage to pursue. So I stick with the former, and hope to dabble in it. Much like the best literature isn't always, not even by a long shot, written by the best people, so 'criticism' and understanding the state of things, or how things are represented, must perhaps always be a fatal remove from what it talks about.
So it is now, sitting at the airport, that the last, bubbling remains of today's burger made me want to make this blog, perhaps already doomed for extinction because of its flimsy origin. Let's see where I take it, or where it takes me.
No comments:
Post a Comment