Bloody Thick "Lightness"
Jan. 30th, 2008 06:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salienneOkay, I have a bunch of fellow literary geeks on my FL, right? So tell me, please, what the hell does this mean?
...for Italo Calvino, Lightness is the flexible; the weightless; the mobile; the connective; vectors as distinct from structures. Italo Calvino explored Lightness in the first of his Six Memos For The Next Millennium. He saw Lightness as an important aspect of post-modern society and existence that should be celebrated; he, like Heraclitus, never viewed Lightness as negative, indeed he never ascribed any evaluative content to it.
(^from wikipedia)
Near as I can tell, the guy was obsessed with flying imagery in literature. That's nice. A)Isn't that a bit, idunno, obvious? And B)If there's more to his "lightness" theory, shouldn't he do more than give really bad examples and other examples of random things flying?
He also went into how melancholy and humor were light at some point. And specific details, and small things like atoms, though that only makes sense on a very surface level.
And then he went back to flying things.
And now I have to write a paragraph on two pieces of literature, one "heavy" and one "light." Gee, if only if only this made sense. -_-;;
Seriously though. If anyone happens to understand what the hell this guy is talking about (beyond, "Ooooh, look, it flies or is literally light in the non-heavy sense--yay 'lightness'!"), I would be delighted to hear it and would be very, very, very thankful. Because I don't like BS'ing English/writing assignemtns, and I'm stuck with this guy's essays for the next semester, and it would be really rather helpful.
EDIT: Ok, apparently my roommate gets it. Except she can't explain it, and I disagree with what she does try to explain from my reading of it. Maybe this guy's mind works on some weird level that I just can't grasp? Even the roommie admits he seems to be explaining something without really trying, though...
And from what I am starting to grasp, I still think it's utter bullshit. *Mutters about pretentious things in the writing community*
EDIT 2: Oh, I can BS with the best of them, yes I can... For anyone who's interested:
According to Italo Calvino’s definition of the concept, an example of a “light” piece of writing is the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. In this series, Lyra, a young girl, lives in, literally, another world, a sort of escapism from our “heavy” reality that conveys “lightness.” Then, throughout the trilogy, she travels between several worlds, each somehow magnificent, daring, and different, none of them embroiled in the weight of the mundane. Even her soul—which, in our world, is something said to be bound within the body—is free to roam away from her in the shape of whichever animal it sees fit. Later on in the book, although this “daemon’s” shape becomes fixed, he can roam even further, this ability freeing him in much the same way that this book frees the reader. The language of this book also often has a “dreamy” quality, giving the reader a sense of floating along to the ebb and flow of the tale as Lyra moves through grand adventures, many of them metaphorically related to modern-day politics and religion. Such metaphors, according to Calvino, would also be “light.” Furthermore, these books contains several examples of flying beings, such as witches and angels, and these beings reflect the book’s elevation above the mundane heaviness of this world. Similarly, one of this trilogy’s most important motifs, Dust, is by its nature “light”—nothing but tiny particles falling to the ground—while, at the same time, it also manages to hold a significance and thoughtfulness Calvino says fine works of “lightness” should contain. Overall, His Dark Materials is a work of fantasy that, quite literally, “[flies] to another world, another level of perception” (Calvino, 27), thus transcending the boundaries and utter weight of all the monotonous habits and details of everyday life.
A piece of literature that would be considered “heavy” is Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This story is thoroughly immersed in the day-to-day life of relatively well-to-do members of society living in the late 1700’s, and it does not attempt to escape such boundaries. Instead, one gets a story of love, marriage, misunderstandings, and societal restrictions all found within the confines of these people’s lives in England. The reader sees everyday conversations between Elizabeth and her father, her sisters, and Mr. Darcy, for instance, and stands alongside Elizabeth in appraisal of Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins. Furthermore, lofty ideals or the earth as a whole are not important to this plot; instead, the novel focuses on the practical concerns of everyday people, such as how much money Mr. Bingley has, whether Mr. Darcy is a good man, and whether Elizabeth is beautiful enough to attract a good husband. Along these lines, the language of this novel is similarly straightforward. There are no long flowing images, metaphors, or descriptions of “Dust,” ethereal mist, or levitation. Instead, one sees the characters make progress in their own lives but, in the end, end up in just the same world that they started in. In both the straightforward literary style and the “normal” events of the novel, the characters remain stuck in “the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world” (Calvino, 4).
...for Italo Calvino, Lightness is the flexible; the weightless; the mobile; the connective; vectors as distinct from structures. Italo Calvino explored Lightness in the first of his Six Memos For The Next Millennium. He saw Lightness as an important aspect of post-modern society and existence that should be celebrated; he, like Heraclitus, never viewed Lightness as negative, indeed he never ascribed any evaluative content to it.
(^from wikipedia)
Near as I can tell, the guy was obsessed with flying imagery in literature. That's nice. A)Isn't that a bit, idunno, obvious? And B)If there's more to his "lightness" theory, shouldn't he do more than give really bad examples and other examples of random things flying?
He also went into how melancholy and humor were light at some point. And specific details, and small things like atoms, though that only makes sense on a very surface level.
And then he went back to flying things.
And now I have to write a paragraph on two pieces of literature, one "heavy" and one "light." Gee, if only if only this made sense. -_-;;
Seriously though. If anyone happens to understand what the hell this guy is talking about (beyond, "Ooooh, look, it flies or is literally light in the non-heavy sense--yay 'lightness'!"), I would be delighted to hear it and would be very, very, very thankful. Because I don't like BS'ing English/writing assignemtns, and I'm stuck with this guy's essays for the next semester, and it would be really rather helpful.
EDIT: Ok, apparently my roommate gets it. Except she can't explain it, and I disagree with what she does try to explain from my reading of it. Maybe this guy's mind works on some weird level that I just can't grasp? Even the roommie admits he seems to be explaining something without really trying, though...
And from what I am starting to grasp, I still think it's utter bullshit. *Mutters about pretentious things in the writing community*
EDIT 2: Oh, I can BS with the best of them, yes I can... For anyone who's interested:
According to Italo Calvino’s definition of the concept, an example of a “light” piece of writing is the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. In this series, Lyra, a young girl, lives in, literally, another world, a sort of escapism from our “heavy” reality that conveys “lightness.” Then, throughout the trilogy, she travels between several worlds, each somehow magnificent, daring, and different, none of them embroiled in the weight of the mundane. Even her soul—which, in our world, is something said to be bound within the body—is free to roam away from her in the shape of whichever animal it sees fit. Later on in the book, although this “daemon’s” shape becomes fixed, he can roam even further, this ability freeing him in much the same way that this book frees the reader. The language of this book also often has a “dreamy” quality, giving the reader a sense of floating along to the ebb and flow of the tale as Lyra moves through grand adventures, many of them metaphorically related to modern-day politics and religion. Such metaphors, according to Calvino, would also be “light.” Furthermore, these books contains several examples of flying beings, such as witches and angels, and these beings reflect the book’s elevation above the mundane heaviness of this world. Similarly, one of this trilogy’s most important motifs, Dust, is by its nature “light”—nothing but tiny particles falling to the ground—while, at the same time, it also manages to hold a significance and thoughtfulness Calvino says fine works of “lightness” should contain. Overall, His Dark Materials is a work of fantasy that, quite literally, “[flies] to another world, another level of perception” (Calvino, 27), thus transcending the boundaries and utter weight of all the monotonous habits and details of everyday life.
A piece of literature that would be considered “heavy” is Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This story is thoroughly immersed in the day-to-day life of relatively well-to-do members of society living in the late 1700’s, and it does not attempt to escape such boundaries. Instead, one gets a story of love, marriage, misunderstandings, and societal restrictions all found within the confines of these people’s lives in England. The reader sees everyday conversations between Elizabeth and her father, her sisters, and Mr. Darcy, for instance, and stands alongside Elizabeth in appraisal of Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins. Furthermore, lofty ideals or the earth as a whole are not important to this plot; instead, the novel focuses on the practical concerns of everyday people, such as how much money Mr. Bingley has, whether Mr. Darcy is a good man, and whether Elizabeth is beautiful enough to attract a good husband. Along these lines, the language of this novel is similarly straightforward. There are no long flowing images, metaphors, or descriptions of “Dust,” ethereal mist, or levitation. Instead, one sees the characters make progress in their own lives but, in the end, end up in just the same world that they started in. In both the straightforward literary style and the “normal” events of the novel, the characters remain stuck in “the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world” (Calvino, 4).
