I HATE LANGUAGE !!!

This is a rant. My first one.

Language sucks. It sucks because it is filled with rules one must stick to in order to be properly understood, yet language seldom succeeds at being what it is supposed to be: a mode to communicate. Of course, we get words across. They are spoken. Then they are heard. And then there’s understanding, or so we say. I won’t go into that. Anybody who has ever had to deal with words knows that they, more often than not, fail in the end. Words fail me. Yet I must stick to outdated and sometimes unjustifiable rules of syntax and grammar to get my point across. I must follow rules so that my words don’t fail others. Am I the only one to see this as problematic? Isn’t this, simply put, the definition of imperfection? A perfectly flawed system? This would not be such a problem if there weren’t so many rules, and so many in so many different languages. Of course, anybody who only knows one language cannot comprehend what I am saying. (I take that back, some uni-lingual writers might know.) There is this image of the poet as the one who moulds words. Who labours to shape a text into a perfect piece of words that call up perfect images. I see this poet sitting at a wood table in a dark room by the light of a candle. His chemise is open and we can see pearls of perspiration on his chest. He holds his hand to his forehead in deep meditation. Suddenly he looks up in hope. But then the hope dies away and boredom, or deception, take hold of him. He looks back down, but in a minute the epiphany strikes him again and he starts dipping his quill in his inkpot, dabs it on the side and writes away! The fluffy filaments of the feather dance a fluttering dance as his words are laid down. Perfection. A job well done, he heartily grasps his jug to swallow a heavy gulp of wine. Can a gulp be heavy? Surely not. There must be a rule about “gulp.” I learned in Grammar for Teachers that each word has their inherent grammar. So language has blatant rules (many of which make little sense) and intrinsic, metaphysical-type rules. And among all that I stand frustrated, over and over again.

People tell me that I’m lucky to speak two languages so well. I admit, my English is better than most, and my French is far better than many. My dilemma comes down to the fact that I’m self-conscious. Like you wouldn’t believe. It allows me to write well, which makes me all the madder when I make a stupid mistake. And those stupid mistakes, folks of all languages have made a point of bringing them to my attention. These stupid mistakes are Gallicisms, or “des anglicismes,” or what they call in French “des fautes d’inattention,” which translates as typos. My point is always understood. My communication is perfect. But my language use, no matter how good it is, is always flawed. Teachers have repeated this to me endlessly. Peers also, especially the uni-lingual ones. I’ve even started wondering if the “uni-lings” out there have united against me. Is criticizing my words an evil way to serve their own mono-language complex? Does putting me down make them feel good?

The French have always thought that my mother tongue is English. The anglos, French. The true story is a bit more complex than that. Due to hearing problems, when I was young I spoke a language that was a mystery to all save for my mother and brother. I learned how to talk when I was 3. With limited language skills (had some catching up to do!) I was put in French immersion. From then on I went to French school, so I learned to read and write French before my mother tongue. I should also mention that my mother tongue is not my mother’s, who’s Dutch. Am I English? Am I French? In what language do I dream? (I’ve been asked that more than once.) In what language do I count? Well, I count in French because I did math in French. I think of God (when I do) in English because I went to an English church when I was a kid. I talk semantics in French, and psychoanalysis in both. I also swear in both. I actually do everything in both. For a long time both were one to me. People say I am lucky to speak two languages so well. I know I am. But sometimes I just can’t help feeling sad and discouraged and frustrated that I don’t know one language perfectly. I’d like to shut them all up! All those "Bein c't'une block" and "Well, she's French." What do they know about language? Nothing other than its naturalness, which I sometimes feel I'll never have in either of my languages. Some days, the more languages you know, the more words you have to fail you.

Dumas to Brossard to the Victorians

I got first pay cheque last Friday, so I decided to buy myself a gift. Dumas’ book was my goal, but instead I stepped out of the bookstore with three books: Les trois mousquetaires by Dumas and Nicole Brossard’s Langues Obscures, a book of poetry, and Picture Theory, an experimental novel. For those who don’t know, Nicole Brossard is one of the biggest and definitely one of the most innovative Quebec writers. If people don’t know of her it’s because she seldom makes best-seller lists. Her writing is too difficult to please a general public. But in academia, especially in the fields of feminist and experimental prose, she is headwoman of Quebec letters. Embarrassingly, I had never read her. I had picked up Picture Theory at the library a few months ago but didn’t make my way too far into the novel. At that time I wasn’t much in the mood for an intellectual challenge. Can’t say I am now, but I wanted some of her novels on hand. She greatly influenced authors that I know and admire, notably Gail Scott, who was a big influence on Anne Stone. Basically, Brossard is the trailblazer of a movement of French Quebec women writers that began in the 70’s and resonated all the way to the other side of the language divide.

All that being said, I haven’t started either of the three. I browsed through Brossard’s poetry book (very very promising read) but I basically don’t have time. I am taking two classes at Concordia and have started counting the weeks. I am very careful not to overload myself and to remain focus. A new job + 2 classes + an article (that I’m supposed to be working on now instead of writing a blog) is a lot to handle. It’s already ten o’clock and I’ll be falling asleep at my keyboard in a matter of minutes. So what I read on the bus on my way to work is a book I started before Christmas; one with which I have accepted a slow relationship. Actually, it’s very interesting. It’s called The Victorian House. It’s a history book that recounts how the Victorian middle-class lived, room by room. It offers quite a different perspective and an amazing amount of insightful information on their day-to-day habits and customs. Very enlightening. It definitely gives the impression that London in 1850 was a very dirty and difficult place. When I get home in the evening and look at my tiny apartment (that doesn’t need to be a social statement), my three great cats (that I own because I want to and not because I have mice or rats), my washer and dryer (I might one day go into the details of their laundry habits, but let me just tell you that if they had a piece of clothing made up of different colours, they would un-stitch it, wash the colours separately and then re-sew it when it was dry, which they did because they had to use different techniques and soaps to preserve the different colours and materials) and, yes, even the vacuum cleaner, with a table spread with delicious and nutritious food, I feel amazing lucky. This look into the past has got me reflecting on how good we have it, and how much we have.

about Thomas Wolfe

My friend Steve, one of my UofM pals, is one of the best known Canadian Thomas Wolfe scholars. Now, is that because he’s such an outstanding scholar, or because there are so few Thomas Wolfe scholars that he sticks out as a lone enthusiast? I, knowing him personally, would vouch for the former but, truth be told, there are indeed very few people working on Thomas Wolfe. And by Thomas Wolfe I don’t mean Tom Wolfe, the author of The Bonfires of Vanity. Thomas Wolfe is a modernist who was born in 1900 and died about 38 years later. His work is little known even in academic circles. He doesn’t tend to be comprised in “the canon,” which means that we haven’t read him in school. Exclusion from the canon does not mean that a work or an author isn’t noteworthy. It does make them less readily available, and for students who read so many books that they seldom get to read the books they feel like reading, there’s just no time to invest in them. That would explain why after having known Steve for four years I had found time to buy two of Thomas Wolfe’s books from second-hand shops, but not read them. Two weeks ago while looking through my bookshelves for something to read (why buy a new book when I already have so many to chose from?), my eyes fell upon my Thomas Wolfe books. Seeing Steve in my mind’s eye complain that none of us (our small circle of UofM buddies) have ever even read the author who made him want to study literature, I picked out one of those.

Since then, I’ve found a job. This is great news. The underlying message is that my reading time has suddenly been drastically reduced. And I, unfortunately, am not a patient reader. Not even for short stories! I am half way through The Hills Beyond and my desire for it has started to wane. There are parts of it that are truly beautiful. Some passages are very poetic. Sometimes it is a delight to read. But my general feeling is that he is too self-absorbed. He is one of those writers whose topic is pretty much always himself. Auto-fiction, as they call it. Unlike Anais Nin whose modernist effort not to come to a book’s end was to write diaries incessantly and publish them all, Wolfe writes about himself in a fictionalized manner. This wouldn’t be so disturbing if it were not only the practice than the importance he accords to it. What I mean is, he does not only fictionalize his life as closed circuit stories, he permits himself as an author to step inside the fiction he writes and criticize, and comment, and mention himself one time too many. Why Modernists found that writing about oneself is the ultimate topic, I don’t know. Why Wolfe’s self-absorption is so bothersome to me, I’m not sure. I feel there is an element of self-importance to it that I find snooty and daunting and has me dare the author with the impulse of questioning him: “Why would I be interested in you? Why should I read you and your spleen? What interest lies in it for me?” Is it, in a way, self-critique? Is that the question I ask myself about others’ possible interest in reading me?

If Wolfe were alive today, he would be a blogger. One of my sorts. I’ve felt for a while that an author who can’t manipulate a story, and by story I don’t mean a biography, is not much of an author. Of course, that’s a harsh opinion. More self-critique? Let’s stop asking questions. Besides, the alarm just rang and I must get ready for work. Wolfe will remain on my bedside table but I think I’ll pick up a new book today. I feel like reading Dumas’ Three Muskateers. I hear it’s a story you can sink your teeth into.