Book 002 Bridge
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It's often said that literature (or, in fact, art in general) talks about things in an indirect way, that what is meant is usually not what is actually said. Being an observant teenager who had spent his childhood in a post-socialist country, I did suspect that George Orwell's Animal Farm wasn't really about pigs, but considering that this could be true all the time, and using this as our starting point will help tremendously in deciphering any poem or obscure story.
So how does this indirection work, and why is it there at all? Any text, or painting, sign, sculpture, traffic light or musical note is some kind of communication, and so literature is communication as well: the author says something, and the reader listens. But what if there's an obstacle between them? Imagine a wide, swampy river, and the author and the reader stranded on its two sides. If they cannot communicate directly, the sensible thing to do is to take a detour, maybe upwards, in the form of a bridge.
The author, instead of saying what she means directly, will "translate" it before rendering it into text, which can then travel on top of the bridge to the reader, unhindered by the mud and the water.
The premise of this book is that this translation uses images.
The importance of these images is given by the fact that with the correct approach, it is easy to find them, and they will not only tell us whether some text is artistic, but also point at how the text works: what is at its centre, how it builds up, and how it means. It is the presence of images that makes the communication indirect and artistic--if it's art, there are images; if there are no images, then the text you're reading is a news report or a math exam. Clever, informative, just not art. But how can we be so sure and what exactly are these images? This is what we're going to explore.
Next: Ask How, Not What /
Previous: Foreword /
Contents