Mehreen Ahmed's Blog - Posts Tagged "stream-of-consciousness"
Stream of Consciousness: A note on parallelism with Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Mehreen Ahmed’s Moirae
http://www.cosmicteapot.net/mehreen-a...
When the stream of consciousness technique was first introduced at the turn of the 20th century, it was difficult for many publishers to accept it. Mainly because, such a style endorsed ungrammatical choppy sentences and sentences that had not made much sense. After James Joyce, finished and published Ulysses, it was almost impossible to comprehend it, because of the many spelling and grammar errors in it: mother was spelt as nother and many such errors in punctuations through to the last chapter which concluded in a total mayhem with Milly’s thoughts. It had 5000 errors and many of them were intentional.
Stream of consciousness as suggested by the terminology is but an internal act of undeterred flow of thinking. When reflected in narration, the written language flows unplugged without stops. Sentence endings and punctuations in the narrative are rare and often ungrammatical with misspellings as they would appear in the characters’ thoughts. Monologues, therefore, take precedence over dialogues and soliloquies. Such thoughts are sporadic and must never find an audience. They appear in the mind spontaneously and remain there for as long as the characters are engaged with the selves.
Only narrators who are omniscient and omnipresent have access to those private thoughts and it is their jobs to soak them up like sponge and wring out the sponge in narrations so the reader would know exactly how they took place in the characters’ minds. As a mediator, between readers and the characters, the narrators do not interpret or intervene in such thought processes, rather allow for the narrations to be filtered through them.
Having said the above, how does this definition fit Moirae? Although Moirae is an ode to a nondescript, floating population, it is nevertheless an allegory and a dream allegory at that. The story is one of persecution where innumerable nameless people are seen fleeing their villages together on a boat called the Blue Moon, to seek asylum elsewhere. However, the place in which asylum is sought is not free of danger either. And they soon find their fates hanging in the balance, once again.
The narration takes place in a dream of the main character, a female protagonist by the name of Nalia. Nalia is intelligent but is a poor village girl. She sees things through her wavering dreams which the narrator follows and pens down as they appear. The only place where the narrator’s presence is felt is when she introduces her own PoV. However, those points of views have also been interjected in a dreamlike fashion so they would merge seamlessly into an already existing dreamline that Nalia is dreaming.
As for the other characters, they are all conceived in Nalia’s one gigantic dream, where diverse thoughts, voices, actions and experiences have slipped. We see them through a haze of smoke-screen. The many errors littered across the novel are thus accounted for as stream of consciousness; a result filtered through this lucid dreaming. The ending of the novel is particularly dreamlike where a utopia has been painted and delivered to this long suffering, plight-ridden people. A place where spectacular new life begins.
One parallelism that can be drawn between Moirae and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is this, Heart of Darkness is a voyage just not to Africa, but into the minds of a confused peoples at the brunt of the horrific treatment by the British colonization. The chaotic, stream-of-consciousness style Conrad adopted displayed the confusion of those characters, and challenged the readers to think what the writer meant. Conrad experiments with this style, left some sentences without ending: "not a sentimental pretense but an idea;…something you can set up…and offer a sacrifice to…." (Conrad, Longman p. 2195), very choppy sentences full of holes for readers to interpret for themselves what they meant.
Conrad talks of the "two women knitted black wool feverishly,” similar to Moirae where the character Nalia records her story in her knitting, in her dreaming, of the horrendous persecutions by the regime. This which substitutes Conrad’s British of "weak-eyed devil(s) of a rapacious and pitiless folly" (Conrad, Longman pp. 2198, 2199, & 2202). Like Conrad's mind moves through a long literary monologue to convey to the reader his ideas, Nalia in Moirae does the same, interpreting perceived notions of democracy through long monologues in her knitted tales.
When the stream of consciousness technique was first introduced at the turn of the 20th century, it was difficult for many publishers to accept it. Mainly because, such a style endorsed ungrammatical choppy sentences and sentences that had not made much sense. After James Joyce, finished and published Ulysses, it was almost impossible to comprehend it, because of the many spelling and grammar errors in it: mother was spelt as nother and many such errors in punctuations through to the last chapter which concluded in a total mayhem with Milly’s thoughts. It had 5000 errors and many of them were intentional.
Stream of consciousness as suggested by the terminology is but an internal act of undeterred flow of thinking. When reflected in narration, the written language flows unplugged without stops. Sentence endings and punctuations in the narrative are rare and often ungrammatical with misspellings as they would appear in the characters’ thoughts. Monologues, therefore, take precedence over dialogues and soliloquies. Such thoughts are sporadic and must never find an audience. They appear in the mind spontaneously and remain there for as long as the characters are engaged with the selves.
Only narrators who are omniscient and omnipresent have access to those private thoughts and it is their jobs to soak them up like sponge and wring out the sponge in narrations so the reader would know exactly how they took place in the characters’ minds. As a mediator, between readers and the characters, the narrators do not interpret or intervene in such thought processes, rather allow for the narrations to be filtered through them.
Having said the above, how does this definition fit Moirae? Although Moirae is an ode to a nondescript, floating population, it is nevertheless an allegory and a dream allegory at that. The story is one of persecution where innumerable nameless people are seen fleeing their villages together on a boat called the Blue Moon, to seek asylum elsewhere. However, the place in which asylum is sought is not free of danger either. And they soon find their fates hanging in the balance, once again.
The narration takes place in a dream of the main character, a female protagonist by the name of Nalia. Nalia is intelligent but is a poor village girl. She sees things through her wavering dreams which the narrator follows and pens down as they appear. The only place where the narrator’s presence is felt is when she introduces her own PoV. However, those points of views have also been interjected in a dreamlike fashion so they would merge seamlessly into an already existing dreamline that Nalia is dreaming.
As for the other characters, they are all conceived in Nalia’s one gigantic dream, where diverse thoughts, voices, actions and experiences have slipped. We see them through a haze of smoke-screen. The many errors littered across the novel are thus accounted for as stream of consciousness; a result filtered through this lucid dreaming. The ending of the novel is particularly dreamlike where a utopia has been painted and delivered to this long suffering, plight-ridden people. A place where spectacular new life begins.
One parallelism that can be drawn between Moirae and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is this, Heart of Darkness is a voyage just not to Africa, but into the minds of a confused peoples at the brunt of the horrific treatment by the British colonization. The chaotic, stream-of-consciousness style Conrad adopted displayed the confusion of those characters, and challenged the readers to think what the writer meant. Conrad experiments with this style, left some sentences without ending: "not a sentimental pretense but an idea;…something you can set up…and offer a sacrifice to…." (Conrad, Longman p. 2195), very choppy sentences full of holes for readers to interpret for themselves what they meant.
Conrad talks of the "two women knitted black wool feverishly,” similar to Moirae where the character Nalia records her story in her knitting, in her dreaming, of the horrendous persecutions by the regime. This which substitutes Conrad’s British of "weak-eyed devil(s) of a rapacious and pitiless folly" (Conrad, Longman pp. 2198, 2199, & 2202). Like Conrad's mind moves through a long literary monologue to convey to the reader his ideas, Nalia in Moirae does the same, interpreting perceived notions of democracy through long monologues in her knitted tales.
Rose's Lament
Daddy dad! Oh what am I to do now? Malcolm? No no nothing! He is but a baby No Oh this! This despair. Unbearable pain. The loneliness. But Malcolm is still small. Who? What am I to do? Quiet. Listen! Listen to the music. It is but the music of silence. For life has completely gone out of him. Grey lips, Pale. He is so pale. Frozen like the still snow topped mountain. His body cut out to melt. Pulverise in grave. Eaten away by moths of… days go but nights…Oh how dark is it? How dark is it in that grave? Peter Peter can you hear me? The coffin to be lowered. Swollen like a belly full of water. the river flowed. The shimmering silver but look something sails it sails but not in isolation. Multitude of swollen floating. Floating like fallen leaves and the thin stringy water dripping barks of the poplars. Wake up! Peter please wake up. Look at our Malcolm. How he thrives in health… Who would take over Peter? All this wealth! The Gold! Yes the Gold. Who would run the business now? Malcolm can’t! I can’t either. John? What does he know? He doesn’t know business.
Oh but you were never there. Look at me. Look me in the eye and tell me how was I to cope? Those lonely days have silenced our lives. Yours and mine, infidelity! That was it wasn’t it? But I ran on the beach. I flung myself on the sand. I sink. Peter hold me. Pull me up. For I’m lost without you. I never knew I was so helpless. Have you seen God? Have you seen my two mothers. Emma and Lydia. Speak to me Peter please. Show yourself to me? Have you entered the heavenly nether-lands of death.
Life. thrives beautifully in a never ending stream of life. Where there is no pain, no death, no fear. But is it me? is it really me in that kingdom of heaven? Peter I have questions for you. One too many to ask God. Eternal life. What would that be? The ocean in the front. Shimmers of dark water of odra… not down that way? Acheron? The river of pain. Through the powerful lenses of the lighthouse but… the Cocytus. The wails never end. They never do…When will I see you Peter? Will you come in my dream? There I see … I see you now… a shadow … an apparition …come to tell me how I failed. That strong smell of the skin balm. I can smell your odor. Your body odor does not beguile me. But Oh it does round and round the Oceanus. The laments of the widow down the Phlegethon down the depths of Tartarus.
Oh but you were never there. Look at me. Look me in the eye and tell me how was I to cope? Those lonely days have silenced our lives. Yours and mine, infidelity! That was it wasn’t it? But I ran on the beach. I flung myself on the sand. I sink. Peter hold me. Pull me up. For I’m lost without you. I never knew I was so helpless. Have you seen God? Have you seen my two mothers. Emma and Lydia. Speak to me Peter please. Show yourself to me? Have you entered the heavenly nether-lands of death.
Life. thrives beautifully in a never ending stream of life. Where there is no pain, no death, no fear. But is it me? is it really me in that kingdom of heaven? Peter I have questions for you. One too many to ask God. Eternal life. What would that be? The ocean in the front. Shimmers of dark water of odra… not down that way? Acheron? The river of pain. Through the powerful lenses of the lighthouse but… the Cocytus. The wails never end. They never do…When will I see you Peter? Will you come in my dream? There I see … I see you now… a shadow … an apparition …come to tell me how I failed. That strong smell of the skin balm. I can smell your odor. Your body odor does not beguile me. But Oh it does round and round the Oceanus. The laments of the widow down the Phlegethon down the depths of Tartarus.
Jacaranda Blues by Mehreen Ahmed
Brilliant!
ByPage-Hungry Bookwormon October 10, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition
Jacaranda Blues is one of those stories that remain with you for a long time. It borders on the stream of consciousness technique. In fact, Rhonda's life at the time when the story starts is much the same as Clarissa Dalloway's, as Rhonda herself points out! The writing is brilliant. We see everything from Rhonda's perspective and it helps us realize the pain and drudgery involved in her daily dozen. We think with her and we think like her! Although the story follows Rhonda's different thoughts and explores her psychology, nothing is incomprehensible or overcomplicated. The unnecessary complexities of novels that deal with similar themes make them go beyond the ken of average readers. In many such books, I've failed to find a proper story and perhaps not having a story has become a trend in contemporary literature. This book, however, has struck a balance between having a story and delving in the depths of a character's thoughts. Using this kind of a narrative technique is very difficult and the author has used it to perfection! I'll definitely be watching out for other novels by this author and I'd recommend this book to people who appreciate good literary fiction.
ByPage-Hungry Bookwormon October 10, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition
Jacaranda Blues is one of those stories that remain with you for a long time. It borders on the stream of consciousness technique. In fact, Rhonda's life at the time when the story starts is much the same as Clarissa Dalloway's, as Rhonda herself points out! The writing is brilliant. We see everything from Rhonda's perspective and it helps us realize the pain and drudgery involved in her daily dozen. We think with her and we think like her! Although the story follows Rhonda's different thoughts and explores her psychology, nothing is incomprehensible or overcomplicated. The unnecessary complexities of novels that deal with similar themes make them go beyond the ken of average readers. In many such books, I've failed to find a proper story and perhaps not having a story has become a trend in contemporary literature. This book, however, has struck a balance between having a story and delving in the depths of a character's thoughts. Using this kind of a narrative technique is very difficult and the author has used it to perfection! I'll definitely be watching out for other novels by this author and I'd recommend this book to people who appreciate good literary fiction.
An open letter to Mehreen Ahmed
MoiraeAn open letter to Mehreen Ahmed from Joan Eyles Johnson, winner of the Earnest Hemingway Prize for short fiction, 2016: Moirae by Mehreen Ahmed.
11
FEB
Dear Mehreen,
As an English teacher, I found some of it disturbing with spelling errors and switching back and forth with punctuation and long passages that seem unconnected. In other words, it is confusing and difficult as an English teacher to read.
Now as a writer, I am impressed by the literary references, the beautiful and often lush descriptive metaphors and strong storytelling talent that continues throughout the book. I see the stream-of-consciousness and juxtaposition of styles as following Ezra Pound’s “Make it new.”
As a teacher of creative writing, I would tighten up many spots that I see to jar the reader or even yank the reader violently from one narrative to another.
Over all, Moirae is a beautiful example of an earnest attempt at a new kind of writing, and that is commendable, however, I wish I could talk with you as you completed each chapter, which by the way is beautifully divided and managed. I like the Faulknerian switch in point of view from first chapter to the second. I would have asked you delineate the characters in such a way that their family relationships were made even more clear. The thing I most liked was the strangeness of the setting, the fact that I was never sure of what and where and if in your novel. I like that very much. I like your voice, Mehreen.
11
FEB
Dear Mehreen,
As an English teacher, I found some of it disturbing with spelling errors and switching back and forth with punctuation and long passages that seem unconnected. In other words, it is confusing and difficult as an English teacher to read.
Now as a writer, I am impressed by the literary references, the beautiful and often lush descriptive metaphors and strong storytelling talent that continues throughout the book. I see the stream-of-consciousness and juxtaposition of styles as following Ezra Pound’s “Make it new.”
As a teacher of creative writing, I would tighten up many spots that I see to jar the reader or even yank the reader violently from one narrative to another.
Over all, Moirae is a beautiful example of an earnest attempt at a new kind of writing, and that is commendable, however, I wish I could talk with you as you completed each chapter, which by the way is beautifully divided and managed. I like the Faulknerian switch in point of view from first chapter to the second. I would have asked you delineate the characters in such a way that their family relationships were made even more clear. The thing I most liked was the strangeness of the setting, the fact that I was never sure of what and where and if in your novel. I like that very much. I like your voice, Mehreen.
