From this position, the
doubt of my existence
From my disposition
Untouched by — I'm
Dont say the word busted!
Until you are allowed
To say it — it's use is only
Determined by the script
And radical pluralism
That we are all
Touched by and follow-
ers of. Shocking as
That may seem too
To all you teen-stutterers
Animated by the
Notion that we may like
What we hear but
Feel untouched of
The meaning empty-
ing a cartridge to quote
The unquotable thing and
expel the ghosts who
Obscure to explain the
Bulk of Homeric
Epithets that we like
To call you with

To the point of being gun deaf to your moral accountancies
I creed comedy and tragedy are not opposed
But positive concept with specific content like
lack of resources duped as freedom of choice

Behold you should be seeing them everywhere
True source of evil is the gaze that sees evil everywhere
And when he looked at it he said I like
this civilization and the unborn of it's eggs

Your flash player is not working in your adoration of her
flak jacket must be returned for repairs to the seat of
your true desire who tricks'd you
But I can borrow her for the death of her
Cause I am a relatively natural blonde in and out
We are spoken by a language but not by this

Reading: Jonathan Culler: Structuralist Poetics

Quotes of interesting things he has to say.

Page 58-59

There is a sense in which the resolution of oppositions that takes
place in a metaphor is the thought of the poem itself rather than the thought of a group of readers, and the critic studying the structure of that poem or a series of poems does not begin by taking surveys to discover the reaction of readers. The reason is that texts have meaning for those who know how to read them - those who, in their encounters with literature, have assimilated the conventions that are constitutive of literature as an institution and a means of communication. It is in terms of literature or poetry that poems have meaning, and one could say, paraphrasing Lévi-Strauss, that the critics's task is to show 'comment la literature se pense dans le hommes'.

Page 60

Taken as a theory of reading, Levi-Strauss's account of myth offers the student of literature the rare spectacle of an attempt to invent and test conventions for the reading of fictional discourse. Since myth and literature share, at the very least, a 'logic of concrete', one should consider his proposals concerning the reading of myth as hypotheses about semiotic operations that may be performed intuitevily in the reading of literature.

Page 61

[...] in order to make text signify, organizes its elements into
oppositional series which can then be correlated with other oppositions. This process has one extremely important consequence: the extraction of pertinent features leaves a residue which can itself be organized into various oppositions, producing the kind of plurivalency or ambiguity that many have taken to be constitutive of literary language.

Page 62

There can be little doubt that in reading poems or novels one does establish a hierarhcy of semantic features. We may interpret statements about the weather as metaphors for states of mind, but none ever read statements about moods as metaphors for the weather. The opposition between good and bad weather is not, shall we say, recognized as fundamental in itself and therefore is taken as expressing some other, more important contrast. One of the tasks of criticism might be to determine what semantic features enjoy this priviledged status and seem worthy to serve as the ultimate signifiés of symbols.

Page 62

The very oddity of the myths he [Levi-Strauss] cites, the difficulty of achieving what we would ordinarily think of as satisfactory understanding, makes clear just how much we rely, in the reading texts from western culture, on a series of codes and conventions of which we are not fully aware.

(Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics, Routledge 2002)

Toiston ja varioinnin monet keinot. Juhana Vähäsen Avaa tule.

Vähäsen kirjoittamisessa on kiinnostavaa se, miten monella hienovaraisella tavalla hän varioi runojen materiaalia. Esimerkkinä Avaa tule (Teos 2008).

Fraasien toisto, "unelmoiva katse" siirtyy kuvaamaan henkilöä toisensa jälkeen. Ensin kertojan kuvaamaa äitiä, sitten naista tenniskentällä ja lopuksi kertojaa itseään. s. 73 - 74.

[...] hänellä oli vakava syy olla joku toinen kuin oli ja hän teki sen itsepäinen kiintynyt unelmoiva katse silmissään, juuttuneena itseensä.

[...] Muistan naisen, joka nojasi tennismailaan ja jota katsoin hiukan kiihtyneesti, minulla oli kädessäni pullo Coca-Colaa ja hänellä oli unelmoiva katse, keltaiset linnut lensivät yllämme tai ehkä ne olivat tennispalloja. Mailassa ei ole mitään vikaa, hän sanoi ja minä katsoin häntä unelmoiva katse silmissäni.

Sama fraasi voi toistua edellisen kaltaisena määritteenä jostakin henkilöstä tai kokonaisena virkkeenä. s. 74.

[...] Mikään muu ei ole mielenkiintoista. Paskat kaikesta muusta.

Mikään muu ei ole mielenkiintoista. Menen elokuviin tai laitan television päälle.

Edellinen tuntuu huomattavasti perinteisemmältä retoriikalta, koska toisto on niin ilmeistä. Monimutkaisimillaan Vähäsen teksteissä toistuvat tietyt retoriset rakenteet, joiden materiaalina toimivat vaihtuvat/toistuvat aiheet/fraasit. s. 71, 75 - 76.

[...] Suuren talon ensimmäisen pimeän vesiklosetin kaakelit olivat siniset. Suuren talon toisen pimeän vesiklosetin kaakelit olivat punaiset. Suuren talon kolmannen pimeän vesiklosetin kaakelit olivat valkoiset. Suuren talon neljännen pimeän vesiklosetin kaakelit olivat kolmasosaltaan sinisiä, kolmasosaltaan punaisia, kolmasosaltaan valkoisia.

[...] Joku, joka tuoksuu ruusuvedeltä ja joka on rakastunut oppilaaseensa. Tai joku joka ei tuoksu ruusuvedeltä, mutta on siitä huolimatta rakastunut oppilaaseensa. Tai joku joka tuoksuu ruusuvedeltä eikä kuitenkaan ole rakastunut oppilaaseensa.

[...] Ehkä se on sittenkin vaikeampaa kuin helpompaa. Mikä tahansa voi olla vaikeampaa tai helpompaa. Olen ehkä liian itsepäinen ja vaativa. Mikä tahansa voi olla vaikeampaa tai helpompaa tai kumpaakin niistä.

Edellisissä otteissa kutakin kertojan lausuntoa varioidaan kolme kertaa. Kaakelit ovat siniset, punaiset ja valkoiset. Ja sitten vielä kerran kolmasosaltaan siniset, punaiset ja valkoiset. Samaten: tuoksuu/ei tuoksu ruusuvedeltä, rakastunut/ei rakastunut; kolme kertaa. Ja vaikeampaa/helpompaa; kolme kertaa.

Samankuuloisen sanan toistaminen muunneltuna. s. 68. Huomaa sanat: kuinka, kuvioivat, kuivalle, kuvaile, kuvitella, kuvioidessa.

Muistan lukeneeni kuinka Land Rover hiukan väkivaltaisesti, tai pikemminkin sen takana, nopeammin uivana yksikkönä kiersi metsän. Se taipui mutta ei unohtunut leikkikentän laidalle, talojen varjoon jossa nestevanat kuvioivat, leikkimään. Se oli suuri tapaus, sanoaksemme sitä sellaiseksi, jossa nestevanat kuvioivat, niin kuin taustana, taustana kaikelle turhuudelle ja kaikelle rakkaudelle, kuivalle muusta. Kuvaile muuta, on järkevää katsoa televisiota ja kuvitella, on mahdotonta astua samaan aikaan supermarketin ovesta sisään, esimerkiksi sen kuvioidessa tätä. Land Rover, jonka sielu on tehty aavikolle ja vuorille, ajattelematta, vain tuntien sen ja sen hienoiset nestevanat jotka valuvat pitkin tietä.

Aiheiden toisto ja niiden ympärillä varioiminen, varioitavien ja toistettavien aiheiden/rakenteiden/fraasien verkosto ja viittaussuhteet, ne muodostavat itse kirjan rakenteen. Luulen että tästä rakenteesta voisi piirtää jonkinlaisen kaavion, mutta siitä ehkä myöhemmin.

The Tape

Sorry to trouble you she says at the door.
So she assumed that she could have known I was troubled.
I ask her to play the tape again.
I think it's important to make sure that it was a tape not an album radio broadcast or other.
Who was speaking on the tape?
Why she had to know that? Why she assumed I knew it?
When she entered she placed her shoes under the chair.
Shall I put the shoes to the closet?
Leave them under the chair I said. Let's listen to the tape.
But she did not listen to me only walked about in the room and spread her scent all over. She also talked incessantly.
You do not like me talking?
You have always talked. That's a nice scent. Unfortunately I just burned a scented candle. I can't identify if it's patchouli or what?
Give me a break you don't know a thing about scents.
She assumed that she was irritating me and now she did. Except the scent I liked.
Could it be pine?
I told you!
Of course I meant heather but now I had shaked her ground and I liked that.
Her scent made me forget she was there. That was obviously her aim.
Shall we listen to the tape?
No. Move about a little I would like to know that scent.
I open the window.
She took the tape from her bag. It smelled of celluloid.
Play it again. I must know if it's you or the tape.
You really like it. Pine you say?
Why did you think I wouldn't like it?
Close the window.
You don't like open window?
Do as I say and I take my shoes from under the chair and put them in the closet.
Now you're talking business play the tape again and you can do what you want. Like...
Shoes.
Tape
She stood at the door and asked where she can put the shoes.
I closed the door and opened the closet door.
What do you have in that bag I asked her. I tried to sound casual.
You are trying to sound casual. Are you worried?
Why should I be? Nice shoes. You have the tape in your bag?
Yes. You want to listen?
No, lets open the window first and talk. I want to let some fresh air in. I have burned a scented candle.
What scent? Patchouli?
Pine.
I would say heather.
That comes from outside I opened the window.
You are hasty.
I closed the closet door she walked into the living room.
What's this smell?
I burned a scented candle.
She played the tape.
Who's talking on the tape?
You are hasty. No chitchat. No exchange of pleasantries. You ask too much. What's the matter are you worried?
No.
Yes you are. Play it again. You are hasty. I want to listen to it all the way before I say anything.
Sometimes you say without saying anything.
If you think like that why are you here. You can listen to my silence in many ways. In other places.
Don't be cross. Listen the tape and say what you think.
I was cross. But I feel pleasant now. Where is the tape?
In the bag.
Open it.
It's open. The tape is here. Where is your tape deck?