Quote of the Day: Spurious Symbols

 

“The notion of symbol… has always been abhorrent to me… The symbolism racket in schools… destroys plain intelligence as well as poetical sense. It bleaches the soul. It numbs all capacity to enjoy the fun and enchantment of art… In the case of a certain type of writer it often happens that a whole paragraph or sinuous sentence exists as a discrete organism, with its own imagery, its own invocations its own bloom, and then is it especially precious, and also vulnerable, so that if an outsider, immune to poetry…, injects spurious symbols into it…, its magic is replaced by maggots.” — Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions, 1973

I found this quotation in another work, The Beauty of the Infinite, by David Bentley Hart, which another Ricochet member sent me to aid in my understanding of Orthodoxy. I wish I might have had that quotation readily at hand in more than a few English classes in my schooling years. Both Nabokov and Hart take great issue with the needless dissection of the beauty and flow of language in vain quests to unearth hidden meanings, while ripping the context of the language itself to shreds, and utterly failing to appreciate works on their own (and complete) merits, or on their own beauty and form.

J.R.R. Tolkien said something once quite similar, many years earlier:

I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.

“I liked white better,” I said.

“White!” he sneered. “It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.”

“In which case it is no longer white,” said I. “And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”

[Lord of the Rings, a confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman]

Sometimes hidden meanings may well indeed be found in symbols and detailed analysis of language, just as hidden workings may be found in the dismantling of machinery. But it is also well and truly possible that questing too deeply to find such things comes at a cost, and that cost may indeed be the breaking of that which one was studying, without ever having appreciated how it worked as a whole in the first place.

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  1. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    That’s what I got out of reading Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged–that the singular vision of an artist cannot be broken up without losing whatever made it great art to begin with.

    The idea of a unified vision or system or creation applies to almost anything, and it can be shattered with great loss if we are not careful.

     

    • #1
  2. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 18:3

    The little children do not analyze everything they see to wonder if it might be a symbol of something else.


    This conversation is part of our Quote of the Day Series. We still have seven openings on our schedule for December.

    We also have our Group Writing Series, which has the theme of Holiday Traditions and Treats for December. The sign-up sheet is off to a slow start for that, so if you have anything to say about any holiday, why not sign up there?

    • #2
  3. DocJay Inactive
    DocJay
    @DocJay

    Well you’ve never cut up a human being.

    Nice concepts to chew on Skip.  Worth thinking about as I drift off.

    • #3
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    DocJay (View Comment):
    Well you’ve never cut up a human being.

    None who didn’t deserve it, anyway. Oh, wait. You’re talking doctor stuff, aren’t you?

    • #4
  5. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    “No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in,” says Hemingway. “That kind of symbol sticks out like raisins in raisin bread. Raisin bread is all right, but plain bread is better.” He opens two bottles of beer and continues: “I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. The hardest thing is to make something really true and sometimes truer than true.” – Hemingway on symbolism in Old Man and the Sea.

    • #5
  6. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    DocJay (View Comment):
    Well you’ve never cut up a human being.

    Well, not deliberately….

    I probably shouldn’t say anything more, or so my attorney advises.

     

    • #6
  7. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Hemingway generally did think fairly highly of himself.

    SkipSul: so that if an outsider, immune to poetry…, injects spurious symbols into it…, its magic is replaced by maggots.”

    I got a chuckle out of this, partly because, for Nabokov, his magic often was maggots. That is, he seemed especially fond of slipping the odd maggot in here and there.

    • #7
  8. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    Christ spoke in parables. He indulged in rituals and gestures, like washing another person’s feet. The very name “our Father” is somewhat symbolic. If symbols are good enough for Him, they are good enough for me.

    As a Texan, I am particularly fond of blunt communication. But not all that needs be expressed can or should be expressed directly. The challenge is discerning when each mode of expression is warranted.

    • #8
  9. SecondBite Member
    SecondBite
    @SecondBite

    Meh.

    I agree in that I have always hated the joy-killing soul-sucking micromatic analysis we were supposed to engage in in English classes:  I used to read my assignments as rapidly as possible so I could enjoy them before the teacher began to lead us through the deconstruction.  But no one ever wrote anything without having something to say.  Unless the writing is a matter of bald-face instruction, like a tube of toothpaste, symbolism and imagery are going to be part of the way the point is made and an aware reader needs to either pay some attention to meaning or risk subliminally ingesting something toxic.

    Unfortunately, the miserable English exercises developed a useful tool.

    • #9
  10. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    Clearly your entire post is a metaphor for rape. (The neo-Freudian undercurrents are obvious as well.)

    A refusal to entertain the notion of (implicitly feminine) “hidden meaning” unambiguously echoes patriarchal imposition of “meaning” which term is paradigmatic of the forced cognition consonant with prevailing Amerikan heteronormative rape culture. A methodology that literally enslaves the narrative space within “meaning” is transgressive and violative of virtually all politico-sexual sensibilities.

    I have to admit being shocked that Ricochet has not yet taken down this phallo-aggressive post.

    • #10
  11. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    I loved literary criticism, use of symbols in writing, art, anything, really.

    I bought lilies for a friend whose dad just died, I embroidered a stole with hibiscus (national flower) and hummingbirds for a Puerto Rican priest who struggled financially to get through seminary…

    They communicate deeper meaning without adding the words that can make it awkward.

    But I agree, going too deep can be counter-productive. Most authors and artists will rely more heavily on better known meanings of symbols to communicate deeper meaning and more obscure uses will be supported in other ways by the artist. No need for interpretation to follow rabbit holes.

    Like JR Tolkien relying on and reinforcing a well known symbol of purity and innocence to make his own point.

    • #11
  12. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    A skilled writer controls the range of reasonable interpretations. A sloppy writer allows for multiple meanings without intending to or prompts confusion. A skilled writer anticipates common responses to his or her works.

    The same can be said of any art, from music to painting.

    • #12
  13. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    SkipSul: Sometimes hidden meanings may well indeed be found in symbols and detailed analysis of language, just as hidden workings may be found in the dismantling of machinery.

    On the other hand, people look for hidden meanings when there aren’t any there.  I’ve read accounts of rock musicians, artists, and other artsy-fartsy types when asked about the hidden meaning in their work (lyrics, painting, sculptures, etc.), their response was along the lines of, “What hidden meaning?  It’s just a painting of a Chihuahua puppy in a teacup.  Jeez.”

    It’s as if hidden meanings are the boogeymen of the art genre as conspiracy theories are for politics . . .

    • #13
  14. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Stina (View Comment):
    I loved literary criticism, use of symbols in writing, art, anything, really.

    I bought lilies for a friend whose dad just died, I embroidered a stole with hibiscus (national flower) and hummingbirds for a Puerto Rican priest who struggled financially to get through seminary…

    They communicate deeper meaning without adding the words that can make it awkward.

    But I agree, going too deep can be counter-productive. Most authors and artists will rely more heavily on better known meanings of symbols to communicate deeper meaning and more obscure uses will be supported in other ways by the artist. No need for interpretation to follow rabbit holes.

    Like JR Tolkien relying on and reinforcing a well known symbol of purity and innocence to make his own point.

    There are many times when writers, artists, musicians, and so forth do deliberately use symbols, but Nabokov was in particular criticizing those who look for (and find or make up) symbols where none were intended by the original creator, and so pick apart works of art and deconstruct (or destroy) them in hopes of finding deeper meanings or “what was really being said” without ever paying attention to what is actually being said or shown in the first place.  Sigmund Freud too hit on this with his quip “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”  It is all too easy to lose the sense of the forest if you are busy chopping down the trees.

    • #14
  15. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    I love to read something that is so skillfully and beautifully written that both literal and metaphorical imagery emerge, all their own. Now that is wonderful writing.

    • #15
  16. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):
    I loved literary criticism, use of symbols in writing, art, anything, really.

    I bought lilies for a friend whose dad just died, I embroidered a stole with hibiscus (national flower) and hummingbirds for a Puerto Rican priest who struggled financially to get through seminary…

    They communicate deeper meaning without adding the words that can make it awkward.

    But I agree, going too deep can be counter-productive. Most authors and artists will rely more heavily on better known meanings of symbols to communicate deeper meaning and more obscure uses will be supported in other ways by the artist. No need for interpretation to follow rabbit holes.

    Like JR Tolkien relying on and reinforcing a well known symbol of purity and innocence to make his own point.

    There are many times when writers, artists, musicians, and so forth do deliberately use symbols, but Nabokov was in particular criticizing those who look for (and find or make up) symbols where none were intended by the original creator, and so pick apart works of art and deconstruct (or destroy) them in hopes of finding deeper meanings or “what was really being said” without ever paying attention to what is actually being said or shown in the first place. Sigmund Freud too hit on this with his quip “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” It is all too easy to lose the sense of the forest if you are busy chopping down the trees.

    I should add that the book where I found this quote is itself a theological treatise on the importance of Beauty in and of itself, at its own face value, so Hart (the author cited in the OP) is especially keen to (as it were) deconstruct the deconstructionists, hence his fondness for the quote.  I’m only a little ways into the book (and it is a large one, and deeply philosophical to the point of requiring me to keep a dictionary handy – this is rare for me), so I’m in no position to yet comment on Hart’s arguments, other than the (very very) brief summary given here.

    • #16
  17. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Stina (View Comment):
    I bought lilies for a friend whose dad just died, I embroidered a stole with hibiscus (national flower) and hummingbirds for a Puerto Rican priest who struggled financially to get through seminary…

    This reminds me of an icon-writer in our city, who gave a demonstration of how icons are made in the Orthodox church. One of her icons had a hummingbird hovering at the top. Now since I know hovering doves are to be expected, I asked her why the hummingbird, anticipating the answer she gave: the hummingbird was the bird she thought of when she thought of the Holy Spirit.

    There isn’t room for indulging mere whims when it comes to making an icon – it’s quite a traditional practice. My best guess is she wouldn’t have done something like that without first receiving a spiritual father’s blessing to do so. Perhaps one reason she would have gotten the blessing is that, in context, it remained clear enough (for example, to someone like me) that the bird, while a different species, was still a metaphor for the Holy Spirit.

    • #17
  18. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):
    I bought lilies for a friend whose dad just died, I embroidered a stole with hibiscus (national flower) and hummingbirds for a Puerto Rican priest who struggled financially to get through seminary…

    This reminds me of an icon-writer in our city, who gave a demonstration of how icons are made in the Orthodox church. One of her icons had a hummingbird hovering at the top. Now since I know hovering doves are to be expected, I asked her why the hummingbird, anticipating the answer she gave: the hummingbird was the bird she thought of when she thought of the Holy Spirit.

    There isn’t room for indulging mere whims when it comes to making an icon – it’s quite a traditional practice. My best guess is she wouldn’t have done something like that without first receiving a spiritual father’s blessing to do so. Perhaps one reason she would have gotten the blessing is that, in context, it remained clear enough (for example, to someone like me) that the bird, while a different species, was still a metaphor for the Holy Spirit.

    I like that, because the hummingbird is the only one that can fly in place, so “hover”.

    However, the goal was the verse from Matthew about clothing the flowers of the field and feeding the birds of the sky. If God would do such for the least of creation, how much more would he do for you? Flowers and birds were the goal, hibiscus was a revelation and hummingbirds feed on hibiscus. It fit well together. It looked nice… red tropical blooms surrounding a cross with blue birds.

    The design was approved by a priest before I underwent the work. Having colors from every church season makes it universal. He uses it for Weddings and Baptisms.

    • #18
  19. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Old Bathos (View Comment):
    Clearly your entire post is a metaphor for rape. (The neo-Freudian undercurrents are obvious as well.)

    A refusal to entertain the notion of (implicitly feminine) “hidden meaning” unambiguously echoes patriarchal imposition of “meaning” which term is paradigmatic of the forced cognition consonant with prevailing Amerikan heteronormative rape culture. A methodology that literally enslaves the narrative space within “meaning” is transgressive and violative of virtually all politico-sexual sensibilities.

    I have to admit being shocked that Ricochet has not yet taken down this phallo-aggressive post.

    You forgot to say “intersectionality.”

    • #19
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