Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

I see that Elizabeth has written a long and I'm sure thoughtful post, and I started to read it but after a sentence or two decided I should post my own thoughts first, and then read hers afterward. I look forward to reading it.

This novel touched me deeply, and I can't stop thinking about it or telling people about it. My favorite books are those about people, especially those I feel I could (or do) know. Characters in a novel often teach me something about myself or the world, or perhaps just give voice to something that I couldn't previously articulate.

Despite the fantastical plot line constructed by Ishiguro, I felt this novel was in some ways "just" a beautifully simple story about three friends growing up together, sharing triumphs and defeats and typical adolescent drama as they fought to do what so many of us do: to find a place in the world, in society---in this case, of course, in a society that had already determined their destiny for them. The horror of this practice of cloning for the purpose of harvesting organs is not to be minimized, but I felt that Ishiguro crafted the idea as a way to deliver his story, without it becoming the main focus or point. The clever device actually manages to accomplish two things that seem diametrically opposed: it offers a concept that is impressively original (although maybe not quite so shocking, farfetched, or futuristic-sounding as it once might have been, given what goes on in the world today), but at the same time is in some ways hauntingly familiar. And by that I mean that whenever there exists in society a sub-group that is ostracized or segregated or otherwise excluded from the main group, for whatever reason, we can look into our own histories (national, personal, etc.) and find similiar examples.

By having Kathy's current role as a carer as frame to the flashbacks of her time at Hailsham, the reader is initially completely unaware of the incredible revelation that is to come. Her role as a carer is not fully explained at first, and sounds similar to that of a hospice worker. Her accounts of Hailsham make it sound like a typical boarding school, and it is only with early hints from guardians who worry about the students not being taught enough, as Tommy says, "about us. What's going to happen to us one day. Donations and all that" (29) that we start to get clues. These mysterious references are sprinkled among depictions of seemingly normal everyday life at the school: students taking classes, playing together, creating friendships, sharing experiences. It is this normalcy, this human angle that any reader can relate to, even after the frightful truth is discovered, that makes the novel so poignant. Death is inevitable for all of us, even though it's going to come earlier for these students, and Ishiguro seems to say that what we do with the time we have when we're here, how we live and love and learn, is what counts.

The school strikes me as a cocoon, protecting these students, sheltering them from the outside world at the same time it essentially bars them from it, giving them a safe environment among those like themselves. The guardians and educators have created a place that encourages learning and creativity, and that readily shares with the students honest and beautiful life lessons (such as Miss Emily's teachings about sex, which, in addition to containing extremely frank explanations of the mechanics of it, fosters the notion of love, and of a wonderful physical intimacy shared between two people in love).

What then, of the meeting Kathy and Tommy have years later with Madame and Miss Emily? What can we say about Madame's comment: "Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans?" (254) and of Miss Emily's: "Hailsham was considered a shining beacon, an example of how we might move to a more humane and better way of doing things" (258), and "Whatever else, we at least saw to it that all of you in our care, you grew up in wonderful surroundings" (261). Which statement more accurately reflects your feelings about Hailsham? Were these students raised in a bubble, a safe haven far from the harsh realities of their futures (though they knew of it, it seemed something they did not discuss often, and was in fact a subject they avoided in front of the guardians because they didn't want to make their guardians uncomfortable!), granted humanity from nurturing caretakers who felt they should not be denied a life, only to have it stripped from them in hospitals years later? Is it true that their lives were worth more, were more meaningful, because of what they had while they were here, despite the inevitable carer and donor years that would follow?

Here's a big question I have: Why do the students not rebel against their lot in life? Even Ruth, the strong and bold one, who regrets that she will never be able to work in what she envisions as a dream job in an office, does not really question why that dream is not an option to her, does not question why she is doomed to give her life at a young age. Why do they just accept that this is what they were created for, why do they not demand that they are worthy of living a full and free life, as the "normals" do? And if education is so important, if the Hailsham staff is so intent on making their lives meaningful while they're able to enjoy it, on cultivating knowledge and creativity, why has their education not led them to think critically of their situation and to maybe then challenge it?

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

"Told and Not Told"

I found Ishiguro's novel thought-provoking, disturbing, fascinating, and heartwrenching. This novel touches upon serious moral issues through a deceptive writing style. Intially, when I began reading Ishiguro's work, I found the writing style to be confusing. It seemed that the narrator, Kathy, was not clear to the reader on her time frame, offering a flashback style to her voice that was at first difficult to follow. As I got further into the story, I realized that on the surface, it was Kathy's story of her time at an English Boarding School called Hailsham, and what happened while at Hailsham and after. Kathy tells the story when she is 31 years old, reflecting back to her youth at Hailsham with her friends, specifically Tommy and Ruth, and life after Hailsham at the Cottages, and then her life as a "carer". At first, I thought this story was about friendship and love, but then I realized that there was a serious undercurrent running throughout the novel, and that the writing style itself was actually a sort of metaphor for what was really going on for Kathy, Tommy, Ruth, and the other students. This "secondary" story is vaguely referred to in Part I, connected in Part II, and made clear in Part III. Just as Kathy was given "hints" throughout her childhood at Hailsham on what was to be for her in life, the reader is also given these hints; not only through the literal placing of these hints throughout the work, but also through the writing style. Just as Kathy's life begins to make sense for her, so does the narration, and the story, become clear for the reader. As Kathy experiences being "told and not told" at Hailsham, so does the reader. I came to discover that what is alluded to at Hailsham is really part of the central story in Never Let Me Go. In Part I, I thought I was just learning about life for Kathy as a typical English Boarding School student, but then I started to realize the evasive nature of life at Hailsham. While Part I appears to be the basis for this story of friendship, there is also an eerie, strange tone that is developed, especially through the use of characters like Madame, Miss Lucy, Miss Emily, and through the handling of sex, art, and Kathy's dancing to "Never Let Me Go".
Part II is life immediately after Hailsham, at the Cottages, and here the sense of sex being the furthest thing from making love is developed. Although the students learn about sex at Hailsham, it is not exactly like the way students learn about sex today, both in-school and out. It is almost robotic the way that Kathy and the other students approach sex, and while the guardians are bothered by it, the students are not. It becomes clear that Kathy, Tommy, Ruth and the other students at Hailsham have been created for a specific reason, and that the other students at the Cottages have been created for the same reason; as future donors of vital organs. It is in Part II that I began to be horrified for Kathy and the student's situation, yet Kathy and the other students were not horrified. I also began feeling sympathy and heartbreak for Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy as they search for a biological connection to Ruth's life, and the simple dreams they dream of, but can never achieve, because of who they are. I wanted the characters "revealing" of their souls to mean something; not just for me, but for them as well.
Part III is Kathy's life after the Cottages, and here is where the story comes together and connects. Interesting, Kathy's voice is the easiest to follow in this section. Part III really disturbed me as I realized how Kathy and the other students have been raised/viewed as just "things" with an eventual purpose, not people with souls. What disturbed me so much was that Miss Emily and Madame thought so highly of themselves for making a better life for their students through Hailsham; providing them with an education and some sense of a life(their point of view), but yet they knew they were raising these students/clones for life as a donor, a life which ultimately only leads to death. Miss Emily and Madame did nothing to stop the ultimate fate of these students, but what disturbed me more was that Kathy and Tommy are so accepting of this fate and that they were raised for this fate. You could argue that they have been aware of their fate their entire life, so this is not disturbing to them since this is their purpose in life. Yet the clones have experienced other human emotions, so why not now? Miss Emily and Madame are so vile, they encouraged the students to reveal their souls, but they do not acknowledge/recognize that they have souls, and this is what makes them human. When I ended this work, I couldnt help but question how we define life in our society. Here are some questions for you to consider:

1- Can Science/Medicine go to far? Is it acceptable to sacrifice a human life if many lives can be saved as a result?

2--What does it mean to be a "human"? Why did Kathy and the other students receive the education that they did at Hailsham? Were they human?

3- Would you feel comfortable teaching this novel in your current teaching situation? What are some dangers in teaching this at your school? How would you "sell" this novel to the Administration of your school?

4- Did the writing style of this novel work for you? Why or why not?

5--What do you think Ishiguro's purpose was in writing this work? What was being "told and not told"? How has history "told and not told"? Why were Kathy and the other students "told and not told"? Why was Kathy's voice telling and not telling? Did you experience any of the emotions that I did?

The Way We Think

In The Way We Think Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner argue that our mind is more complex than a computer. Many scientists have tried to make the resemblance between our brain and a computer by looking at functions such as memory, learning, symbolic thought, and language acquisition. The theory of conceptual blending, according to the authors, makes humans more complex. This happens through blends of metaphors and bodily experiences. The key to the invention of meaning are the three I's: Identity, Integration, and Imagination, all of which occur unconsciously, without awareness. Our mind operates using these three operations, and they are the subjects of The Way We Think. Also, according to the authors, they are “the key to both everyday meaning and exceptional human creativity.”

F&T present a simple example of a cup of coffee to prove the complexity of our mind and what they call “perceptual categorization.” When one of us looks at a cup of coffee, we simply perceive it as such. Neuroscience however, proves to the scientists that there are many more aspects that allow us to perceive it in such a simple manner. Our brain evaluates features such as “the color of the cup, the shape of the opening, the topology of the handle, the smell of the coffee, the texture of the surface of the cup, the dividing line between the coffee and the cup, the taste of the coffee, the heavy feel of the cup in the hand, the reaching for the cup, and so on…” There are parts of the brain, which receive each sensory detail separately and then allow us to perceive and understand simple objects such a cup of coffee in a split, single moment. It’s a fascinating phenomenon many of often don’t notice and appreciate.

Furthermore, the authors discuss the development of the study of analogy. They state that people take for granted the ability to “perceive everyday analogies, like the ability to perceive everyday identities.” To make matters easier for the readers to understand the authors give an example of what a simple analogy is. We often understand the room that we are in, and when we try to compare it with other room we have been in, we are then using an everyday analogy. Fauconnier and Turner further discussed the evolution of analogy and brought me, as a teacher, to a moment of truth and wonder. This was when they discussed the time when analogy had lost its status as a scientific topic and was even ridiculed. It was until about 1970s, when it regained its respect, and terms like mental images, narrative thinking, affect and metaphor came to live again. Researches explored terms such as mental images, visual perception and visual imagination and their relationships.

When I read this, I thought about my students and how I think that they have such a difficulty with reading and a dislike of literature, because they simply don't have the visual perception and the mental images that are described here for example. When explaining analogy, and how that "became respectable as a phenomenon," I think that I often find myself struggling to explain the content I'm teaching, especially poetry, because our "inner city" students are so out of touch with nature and life experiences, that they cannot create the mental images in their mind, and therefore cannot relate to what they're reading. It takes us teachers to provide what F&T call “the blend”, or the imaginative blended scenario, to our students, in order to allow them to relate the new schema they’re learning to an old one they’re already familiar with.

F&T claim that “complex blending is always at work in any human thought or action but is often hard to see.” I wonder how this is true in our students, especially those that don’t have much experience with certain situations that may arise in the literature we’re teaching. Let us take the romantic notion of love for example. How can we possibly help a sixth grader (in that some of you in class do teach that grade) help to “blend” that feeling? This may be a bit of an extreme situation, but what about others, such as walking on the beach, or taking a silent, peaceful walk in the forest? What kind of a relationship will our students develop with text, and how well will they be able to understand, or even care about the text, if they cannot relate to what they’re reading?

• Is it our responsibility as educators to help our students to learn how to “blend”?
• Do you feel that utilizing “blending” is an important aspect of teaching students?
• Are there ever situations that students may not be able to “blend” in order to understand a literary work or concept?
• Can “blending” ever give bad results in our classrooms?

Ps. If there are any unclear terms or questions that arose in the reading The Way We Think, and any of you would like clarification on, please let me know in this Blog or email me: a_dawidowska@yahoo.com

"The Dream of Reading" by James Richardson

Throughout The Dream of Reading, James Richardson creates an analogy between the act of reading and what happens while we dream. He does not claim that they are exactly the same; he, however, believes that they parallel one another in many ways. Richardson also examines the two in relation to each other in order to discuss the difficulties one has when actually trying to read while dreaming. This includes the examination dream, teaching dream, and other attempts to read while sleeping. Lastly, he categorizes the two different types of dreaming that we do to the different reading experiences we can have - “pure” and “borderline”.

Richardson states the connections between reading and dreaming: both the reader (with a few exceptions) and the dreamer are essentially motionless; when doing both, the eyes are constantly moving. While sleeping we enter in and out of stages of Rapid Eye Movement, and when reading, our eyes are always scanning the words on a page. Aside from the obvious, there are many other similarities. During reading, even when not moving, there are “electrodes placed on the facial muscles”. While dreaming, those “cortical impulses are also sent out to the body”. When awake, the body is able to control them and when sleeping most of our senses are shut off. Dreaming and reading both “involve the postulation of narrative in partial or total sensory isolation from the stimuli of the real world.” While reading, the reader is only “vaguely aware” of their surroundings and the dreamer is completely unaware.

You may be asking yourself, if reading and dreaming are so similar, why is it that we have so much difficulty trying to read while dreaming? Richardson pays particular attention to the examination dream, which can happen in a “zillion variations”. This dream is when we find ourselves about to take an exam and we have no knowledge of the subject or, for whatever reasons, are unable to take the exam. Dreams of reading also include the teaching dream (when we have nothing to teach or seem to be failing miserably at it) and also the actual act of reading (dialing a phone number, reading a sign, or trying to write a poem or letter). Part of the reason is that our memories compete with reading. We cannot read “much or well when sleeping because certain parts of the brain necessary for reading aren’t accessible, because the dream itself is a kind of reading …completely occupies the mind.”

Lastly, Richardson categorizes the two types of reading with the two different types of dreams we have. The first type is the “borderline” dream. This is when we are on the border of sleeping and waking. During the “borderline” dream, we are susceptible to distraction. This is compared to “borderline” reading when the reader is only skimming or scanning for a particular purpose (think of the phone book or a required reading). On the other hand, we have “pure” dreams. During these dreams, which are less typical, the dreamer is completely engrossed. When having a “pure” read, the reader is “ideally carried away unconscious, unaware of the limits”. Because of the difficult language and obstacles one faces while reading it, poetry is classified under “borderline”. Prose or fiction, which requires less strain and can be done with speed, is classified under “pure”.

Questions:
1.Do you find yourself in opposition or in favor of Richardson’s theory that dreaming and reading are very closely linked?
2.Have you experienced one or all of the dreams of reading Richardson discusses? If so, what is your intake of trying to read during a dream? 3.Richardson labels poetry as “borderline” reading and prose/fiction as “pure” reading. Do you find yourself in agreement or disagreement with this assertion?

Inventing the Humanities

Inventing the Humanities
What struck me the most as I read Reading Lolita in Tehran is Nafisi's ability to conduct her Literature classes in spite of the political struggles the students face. It is difficult to imagine the difficult circumstances under which she holds these classes, and the constant fear of being caught. Her extreme love for Literature is manifested in the fact that she is risking so much to teach that class. Some questions that came to mind are:
How can the book be compared to Rodriguez's Hunger For Memory in terms of how much the teacher and students have been changed by the books they've read?

Considering the fact that the people in Iran are reading the books under different circumstances, to what extent do these books provide freedom, and what are some of the dangers involved?

Had they been reading these books in the United States, how would their perspective have been different?

Inventing the Humanities

Inventing the Humanities

Reading Judy Blume in Flushing?

A colleague of mine recently mentioned that she once worked at a Persian school in Flushing, Queens. While I am not exactly sure of the time frame, I'm pretty sure it was some time in the last 25 years, which would be post-Iranian revolution. Her job was to teach the female students, or at least be their "teacher." She said that the headmasters made it clear that these girls were not to be intellectually stimulated in this school. So, similar to what we encounter in Azar Nafisi's memoir, she closed the door and taught them whatever she felt like (which in this case was something as mundane as a text by Judy Blume).

As English teachers, are we in some ways prevented from teaching what we really want to teach? Do you sometimes wish you could close your door and read texts not necessarily approved by the powers that be? To what extent does arbitrary bureaucracy influence your effectiveness as a teacher of English?

Denby on the Act of Reading

In Great Books, David Denby provides an account of his return to Columbia as a student for the second time in his life. He pursues the role of the student once again because of his frustrations with the act of reading. He becomes interested in understanding how others read. Through this journey, he learns more about himself as a reader in both the past and the present. Some of Denby's personal questions include: "What is the actual experience of reading 'great books'?" "What does one get out of them?" "What pleasure, what anger, what excitement and anguish?"
This leads to some questions that came about as a result of my reading and interpretation of the excerpts from Denby's Great Books.

--Harold Bloom states, "...the only thing great literature can do for us--besides offering pleasure--is to get
us to accept death more easily." Do you agree with Bloom's "limited" view on the function of
"great literature"? How do you define "great literature"?

--According to Denby, Woolf is a member of the "eternal canon." Who else deserves the status of this
"eternal canon"?

--Denby conveys his earlier and later experiences as a reader of "great literature." What does a second
reading of a literary work evoke for a reader that a first reading does not, particularly if it is some years
earlier?