"Reading" and "interpretation" have common meanings that are, at best, secondary or even tertiary to academic literary criticism. Authors sometimes give readings from their work before a live audience. Audio books have been common for years. Such a reading requires that the lifeless text be interpreted if the reading is to sound at all natural, if it is to be listenable. And that's how I first became acquainted with some of our canonical texts. My father read them to me at bedtime – Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Moby Dick (I bet he skipped the whale taxonomy), plus a ripping good yarn or two, such as King Soloman's Mines. I marveled at how natural his voice sounded.
For better or worse, however, aural reading doesn't have much presence in literary criticism, not even among critics of drama.
Whatever.
Which brings me to Heart of Darkness. Jeb and I have been having a little discussion in the comments to one of yesterday's posts and he starting talking about how one would interprete, that is read aloud, that crucial line from the text: "My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my—" And that sent me off in search of an audio version. And I found one, one that's free on the web, courtesy of LoudLit.org, which offers other texts as well.
It's been uploaded in 10 segments, 1-4 for chapter one, 5-7, for chapter 2, and 8-10 for chapter 3. The Nexus paragraph, as I've been calling it, is about a quarter of the way into segment 7. As you may recall, that paragraph enters the text in the course of an attack. We get that attack at the end of segment 6, so you might want to start at, say, 17:53, which is just before the attack.
There's a brief pause at c. 2:24 in segment 7 and we shift from Marlow to the (unnamed) frame narrator; back to Marlow at 2:56; frame narrator at 4:30 for a short remark ("He was silent for a long time."), then back to Marlow at 4:36. That begins paragraph 103, The Nexus. This paragraph is the structural center of the text. Our phrase is at 6:42.
There's lots to say about what's going on here. In that interval between the two interruptions by the frame narrator, Marlow talks about Kurtz and says this:
Oh yes, I heard more than enough. And I was right, too. A voice. He was very little more than a voice. And I heard—him—it—this voice—other voices—all of them were so little more than voices—and the memory of that time itself lingers around me, impalpable, like a dying vibration of one immense jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage, or simply mean, without any kind of sense.
The voice, and that's what this story is, a succession of voices.
"The voice, and that's what this story is, a succession of voices."
ReplyDeleteThe actor is using the declamatory style. Story is built on a series of highly complicated inflections (he is seriously good).
Pushed for time and it is a long texts but when he hits it, it is alive and it is spoken without error. Series of very carefully crafted little jewels.
In these places no notes to give nothing further needs to be said.
No higher praise than having nothing to say.
Art is at its most interesting when the teacher or the critic is redundant and something else is taking place in the room that requires no thought or effort.
Glad to hear your judgment, Jeb. I thought he was good, but I'm not an actor. A musician, yes, but that's a different performance skill.
DeleteI would like to understand more of youre American tradition here.
ReplyDeleteDeclamitory style very familar and identical in places minus some of the basics (but all the difficult high skill parts) with a range of notes I could not do as I have never learned them or heard them before. Highly complex. Almost like the rule turned the other way round.
Non -European element that is seriously crafty: It has to be traditional.
Where does that come from?
I don't know. What styles are there other than the "declamatory style"? What differentiates it from other styles?
DeleteWhat I'd think is American is movies, though in some ways movies are an international medium. Thus before "talkies' French films were as likely to be shown in America as anything else. Translating French title cards into English was trivial.
I don't know much about vocal style in film acting. But "the method" looms large in American film mythology. And it's a bit late in the game. While it's an outgrowth of a Russian, Stanislavsky, in American it's strongly associated with Stella Adler and the Actor's Studio in NYC which is post WWII. Marlon Brandon is the prototypical "method actor." And "the method" stands in contrast to "classical" technique, exemplified by Olivier (in this view of things). Classical technique, in this account, is about conscious and deliberate craft, while the method is about 'psyching' yourself into the role indirectly by absorbing background and cultivating 'sense memory' etc. You might want to go to YouTube and look up James Lipton's series "Inside the Actor's Studio". Very method-oriented,
And then there is the "masks or faces" question posed by Diderot (I believe), a book assigned to me early in college. I'm sure I read at least some of it. But I don't recall anything specifically.
And then there's minstrelsy, very important in America in the 19th century. Gave birth to vaudeville, which in turn became the Broadway stage.
And then there's the view I've seen espoused, but can offer no citation, that for the masters, there's no difference between 'classical' and 'method' technique.
Father was a natural at reading. So effortless that he did not sound to be interpreting. Each and every character was defined but without calling attention to itself. The "through line" of Father's reading was always his own voice, dipping through the heights and depths of reading with an ease that carried the story.
ReplyDeleteYes!
Delete"And then there's the view I've seen espoused, but can offer no citation, that for the masters, there's no difference between 'classical' and 'method' technique."
ReplyDeleteTechnique is the same as the limit here is anatomy. Style is a very different matter.
Declamatory inflection is not natural so takes a bit of time to learn but anyone who can act can learn. Its a stage style, so work in film or t.v you are going to look little different from a method actor.
I have never understood why post modern and emprirical thinkers often got so angry with each other but method and classical actors can be a bit like that as well. A sort of form of over aggresive flag waving with a slight dash of D. Trump swagger.
"Father was a natural at reading. So effortless that he did not sound to be interpreting. Each and every character was defined but without calling attention to itself. The "through line" of Father's reading was always his own voice, dipping through the heights and depths of reading with an ease that carried the story."
ReplyDeleteQuality of stillness and calm, the voice and story transforms into the light and shadow of the room, the flicker of the fire.
What will always live on the breath given from one to another.
Your response, Jeb, touches me very much. Weeping actually. Yes, "what will always live on the breath given from one to another." Thank you for this!
DeleteAnd, yes, stillness and calm. With "the voice and story" to "transform into the light and shadow of the room, the flicker of the fire." Hearing Father read was an incredible way to learn. Moral clarity carried its own weight without the burden of righteousness; joy was manifest with the simplicity and tenderness of wonder; fear was rightly faced with a rapidly beating heart and a resolve to stay steady to think. I have had many teachers in my life. I can say unequivocally that he was one of the best, and in great measure because he communicated so well what he appreciated. It was that simple.
Delete"beating heart and a resolve to stay steady to think."
DeleteYes. Acting is no more than this. It is what you have to first learn. To keep the body free of stress to speak and move.
Its also the calculation you make with inflection.
“'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my-
five rapid heart beats (include the last my)
"everything belonged to him.”
Its detached and has a quality of stillness and directness. To what extent is it a detached measured judgement or to what degree is it limed, the heart beating with a resolve to stay steady on it's feet?
Two exteme points (an emotional register) full emotion/ complete clarity and distance. That gives an inflection range, for "everything belonged to him.”
Inflection is detrmined by a wider emotional register, its drawn from the text but the final inflection and form is determined by who is sitting in front of you.
So wonderful to hear your insights, Jeb! As it happens, I write poetry. What you describe as emotional register and inflection -- both inflection as text and inflection in its form determined by "who is sitting in front of you" -- encompasses what has always been my goal in reading/performing the poems. Because what matters most is the experience of the listener. If I am doing my job well, the poem should transform into the light and shadow of the room. Whether people "get" the words isn't the the reason for reading. (Actually, when I read a poem I'd written for a funeral, I gave out copies ahead of time purposely because I wanted to avoid peoples' varying degrees of fear about "understanding poetry.") Indeed, I want people to have the experience that is closer to how poetry begins in the first place -- in the light and shadow, eventually making its way into a whisper in my ear. Inflection Inflection inflection! Yes! Thank you, again, Jeb!
Delete"Its a stage style, so work in film or t.v you are going to look little different..."
ReplyDeleteSame in singing technique. Opera requires a technique that allows the singer to project over the orchestra into a large hall. Pop styles in the 20th century developed with the aid of amplification. Can't imagine Sinatra without a microphone.
Voice wise, method actors would learn projection. Declamatory style adds extra unnatural inflections that project well.
ReplyDeleteGoing to listen to a section of the book. I think I have identified where the sound may come from.
African american preaching.
Low zzz whistling sound. Zero sybilance which suggests it is learned and intended to project.
I noticed he does not control sybilance the same way I would. American preachers are the same in this regard.
You get the same patterning you get with verse. Its no different from a play. Latice thing you get when you follow the inflection. Then the visuals which have a very different pattern but do not require the same effort to produce as the inflection and rhythm.
ReplyDeleteConrad must have been walking around inside it. Translating into words then going back again. Serious memory and mind at work I think.
I can't see how you could just construct this cold on a piece of paper.
On 'the sound', are you talking about something in the actor's delivery or something in the text that the actor delivers?
ReplyDeleteAfrican American preaching–if you want to investigate, there's plenty of this at YouTube. An interesting place to start would be with Obama's eulogy for Clementa Pinckney, which I've blogged about. He wasn't raised in that world, but he's got the preaching vernacular down cold.
As for Conrad, of course English wasn't his native language; Polish was.
The inflection in the sound. Text gives you the range.
ReplyDeleteIts like a very precise muscal note. Its very difficult to keep 200 300 people all in the same space. At points in a script you know the inflection will do that. You hit the note, it takes the whole space and everything in it, part moves away, you know in the next line you have another one.
Dealing with the tide an audiance ebbs and flows in and out of absorbtion. Points in an inflection range from which they will have no escape.