The Big Question, part 5: Reading interpretations and getting smarter with complexity

"Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, and thrice again to make up nine ..."

Approaching now, as I hope, the centre of my argument, there is something I think I should repeat and make come out clearer. And it is about what is the SUBJECT of my argument, and what is not. It is not about “trivial” text and trivial readings which are, from my perspective, the same thing. Not seeing this was one of the reasons, I think, why my master thesis didn’t work out.

By “trivial reading” I just mean any reading where nothing happens when I am reading. Where I don’t experience anything new, or do anything different from what I did before when I was reading. I have already stated that all these reasons that have nothing to do with the SPECIFIC text I am reading, like “recreational” and “social” reasons, are important. I even think they will always be REGARDED as the most important reasons for engaging in such a questionable activity without any “reasonable” purpose, like making money or improving ourselves. And, depending on our point of view, everybody will always be right about this. Though, from an idealist – or, as I see it, “naturalist” – point of view, there has to be an INDEPENDENT reason for fiction to come into existence.

And, as this is my blog, not a rewrite of my master thesis, I am not obliged to conceal that this is personal. Even though I was successful at school, and happily submitted to all of its rules, I loathed and despised this institution from the bottom of my heart - I think, without even knowing why. The day of my revenge on this place of ignorance called “further education” came, late but nonetheless. It was the day when our new history teacher in upper school began his first lesson by actually pointing at one pupil after the other and asking them when the Middle-ages began. NOBODY had a clue. Then he stated, his voice dripping with satisfaction, that we obviously never learned anything, and that he would have to start all over again. And I wasn’t THE LEAST BIT ashamed that, at sixteen, I didn’t know when the Middle-ages began, I was PLEASED. It was just like: “O, so I have been RIGHT all this time! We ACTUALLY never learned anything …”

And “O, so I have been right …” occurred a few times in the last decades, but it didn’t occur often. One important instance certainly was my professor at uni, in his first lecture, telling us that reading was part of the human activity of solving problems. I don’t remember the original shock when I heard this, but I know what happened as a result. Whereas I remember the shock on the occasion of the much more recent interview with Richard Armitage – which I also quoted, and will probably also repeat a couple of times. Where he said that playing Thorin Oakenshield had made him reconnect with what he wanted from his carrier, which was not fame and fortune but the opportunity to investigate a character in this way. And this wasn’t even the kind of big revelation like the problem-solving bit. It is just a very clear statement about what is the best, and deepest, and most satisfying thing an actor can do with what he has learned to do. The shock was rather about the fact that anybody would actually SAY something like this in public. Or, for me just then, that somebody FINALLY SAID IT. (And the statement itself as well as its context makes it very clear that doing the things we do FOR THE RIGHT REASONS – the reasons they have been invented for – is rather the “luxury” part of things, not the “every-day” part.) But this time I was better prepared for this “window of opportunity”. This time I knew how to take up the suggestion and DO something with it.

So, what I did in the last two years and a half writing this blog was - apart from having fun with text - to collect non-trivial readings, mostly by myself, as when I was watching “The Tempest”, or “Hannibal”, or “No Man’s Land”, or “Mother!”… (I might add one more, just now, about the musical project my brother took part in, singing in the choir. They took one of the forgotten texts from the Old Testament, The Book Ruth, and, making the best use of the “trivial” means at their disposal, created something breathtaking. In fact, I couldn’t believe what HAPPENED on that stage, especially as I didn’t expect anything of the kind. I’d say, if somebody actually wants to remember WHY they believe in God, they should watch this instead of hearing a sermon. ANY sermon.)

I also collected significant “statements” on their readings by other people. Mostly by actors, in fact, because there is extremely relevant reading “behind” John Cleese playing Petrucchio, or Ralph Fiennes Richard III, or Lucian Msamati Iago, or Simon Russel Beale Prospero the way they did which I can see and describe. It doesn’t have to be conscious, as for me who immediately begins to write in my head when I see something relevant. I suppose their reading mostly goes directly into their acting. – And I have also collected a few significant statements by other readers like myself, for example by my sister about reading Kafka. Even though there is just this one sentence, it is probably the best summary of reading Kafka ever made. Or the one by my friend about reading interpretations. This one is much more comprehensive, and I have to repeat it here again:

She wrote that it came to her as an epiphany that reading (different) INTERPRETATIONS of a text is actually part of her TECHNIQUE of dealing with the world and other people. As everybody is a universe of their own, to get on in the world and be able to deal with other people, she has to find out how they think and feel. If this doesn’t work she might be in deep shit, much worse than if she knows that she will never get on with the other person, or find any common ground at all. And she enjoys reading (different) interpretations (of one text) because they explain the MANY FACETS of a fictional world, in analogy to the many facets of real people and real life issues.

I think there are a number of relevant points about reading contained in this statement, partly even about reading fiction, though this is not at the centre of it. But I think that the “many facets” of a fictional text are the key point here about fiction. Of course, reading interpretations of fictional texts is closely related to reading fiction, as interpretations are texts ABOUT a fictional text. And reading interpretations makes us see not only what people THINK about the text but what actually might be contained in the text that WE cannot see. At least this was how I used them when I still had to read interpretations. To understand what I didn’t understand and uncover blind spots. I never really ENJOYED reading interpretations. I always felt that they tended to disturb my own immediate and exclusive relationship with the text - that they might destroy my reading. But I certainly regard it as ONE technique of reading fiction, pointed at the many facets and possibilities contained in the text. And this COMPLEXITY is certainly an extremely relevant point why we love, and enjoy, and need fiction.

I wrote a few times already that, for me, the most important part of dealing with fictional text appears to be to find TRUTHS that I wouldn’t be able to find in any other way. But I don’t think I really explained what I meant by it. I don’t think I could before I hit on this. For example, truthful acting occurs when an actor is able to “fuse” the many facets of a fictional character in his acting, and it is often only then that we can SEE the character – see the forest INSTEAD of the many trees, as we would say in German - and feel that he or she is represented convincingly and truthfully. And this kind of truth is in fact the domain of fiction – what fiction provides MORE EFFICIENTLY than any other medium. To show us the many facets of a fictional world, and, by this, makes us experience the world as MULTI-DIMENSIONAL. We usually don’t consciously deal with the real world as multi-dimensional because we have to DEAL with it. Most often we envisage it as two-dimensional: good or bad, beautiful or ugly, fat or thin, rich or poor, important or unimportant … This is our mental TECHNIQUE of dealing with it because, usually, we have to take decisions fast and without much thinking. And, as they obviously work so well, we are easily influenced and “corrupted” by these simple pairs of opposites so that we don’t even SEE anymore what bounty the world actually provides. Reading fiction, we enjoy this bounty. Reading interpretations might even enhance this experience because we have to BECOME AWARE of it.

“Investigating a character like this” is also about this complexity, which is why I liked it so much. A complexity we USUALLY don’t experience in real life – where people seem to be mostly interested in how much people drink, and with whom they have sex, and maybe what car they drive and how much money they make - not even WHAT they do to make that money!  This is probably at the bottom of why we experience fictional characters so differently, and enjoy their existence so much. And it is what ONLY actors can do “in this (extensive) way”. It is their field of expertise, and their privilege. It is actually about something that wouldn’t exist without what they do. This is obvious, at least for everybody who loves to see this kind of thing. Needs it as well to help their own imagination. What is less obvious for us to see is that, through relevant reading, we are creating complexity, meaning, and truth FOR OURSELVES. I enjoyed “Hannibal” from the start, but I loved it from the moment I discovered “participating”. It is this moment where we “join in” – get ourselves in there – that it begins to happen. That complexity is created. In “Hannibal” it was probably the reason why I was thinking of ART all the time, not horror. In particular, it restored the meaning of BEAUTY by twisting the received concept of it to the furthest point – without losing it by JUST disgusting or frightening me. My deep dissatisfaction with the “two-dimensional” perception of beauty in real life got addressed for the first time in this radical way. (In the meantime I have used the experience to “deepen out” other texts!) I think I was even deeply moved because of this, and felt that I was taken seriously for the first time. And I ENJOYED this.

(Thinking about this, I suddenly understood why the number 3 is considered to be so special and kind of “magical”. It is because three is what is ABSENT in our current representation of the world. What appears impossible – or the thing that we cannot imagine, or have to figure out in the first place. I remember this sentence from “The Spooks” (series) which stayed with me, though I didn’t know why, that “OF COURSE there is a third possibility” (I didn’t check if I quoted it exactly but this was what it meant.) And now I know why, and I found the explanation in “Macbeth” – which I was very pleased with. It was some time ago that I hit on the “equivocation” which is, in my opinion, the most important element of semantic structure in the play. (“Fair is foul and foul is fair”…) But the real power I believe the witches wield is that they command complexity dealing with the three and nine. So, they are always one step ahead of “us” for whom it is already difficult to deal with the fact that every thing has TWO sides – as, like Macbeth, we are driven by the desire to make the world exactly suit US. His story proves that this single-minded perspective is neither the smartest nor the most humane. One of the wisest things I ever heard by the famous Bavarian comedian Karl Valentin - though probably not strictly true – is that “every thing has THREE sides: one good, one bad, and one funny”. It might have been strictly true for him - so, the third possibility is kind of contingent. What we chose to fill this slot – and if we want to fill it at all - is up to US. It is our own choice about how we see the world, or ability to see the space between a rock and a hard place, or - if we want – up to magic or transcendental powers. Three is ominous, and we very rarely manage more than three. IN FACT we are probably doing more than three all the time because every problem of any importance obviously doesn’t have just three possible solutions but x to the ten – or something like it. “We” are getting smarter with computers and algorithms all the time when it comes to constructing cars and the like, but on a personal level … I don’t know. It might still be “Macbeth” most of the time.)

But it isn’t JUST about what we enjoy. In “Hannibal” murder and cannibalism are the background for beauty being set off like this. And I REALLY didn’t enjoy watching “Mother”. My GENUINE bad feelings were what made the metaphor work. The truth that I discovered became integrated into my experience on a much deeper - and more permanent - level because of the WAY I discovered it. Watching “No Man’s Land” was so great because I hit on unknown human territory, but the truth of it was about something frightening. To actually SEE that space between the speaking and the kind of material content of a person open up and widen was unsettling. And “The Big Short” became one of my favourite examples as to which extent a fictional text is able to uncover the truth about a real-life issue because - in the most entertaining way imaginable – it unravels what actually happens when we ACT UPON THE TRUTH. Makes us able to picture the consequences of just starting to do this instead of lying indefinitely. Our world, as we know it, would just go to pieces … There is this uncomfortable truth about problem-solving: even though any number of problems are probably “solved” by not dealing with them I am convinced that the first step to actually move an issue forward is a thorough analysis. One that takes its complexity into account and doesn’t do away with something as important as the constitutive role of lies in the fabric of reality. (There is this belief – which I also hold! – that we don’t lie as a rule, just as an exception. But this might be one of the biggest lies “we” are telling ourselves … (My BIG favourite about lying “truthfully” - which might also be called “the art of giving successful interviews” - is the bit from “House of Cards” where Claire Underwood unexpectedly faces the challenge to have to talk about her buried past. Somehow I never get around to analyzing it. My favourite sentence by her: “I hate lying.” might actually be the clue to lying successfully.))

Most of the time, complexity is no fun at all. What suits us in real life are simple solutions to complicated problems, but this isn’t how it works. What I liked best about my friend’s statement, and what compelled me to understand it, was what I called its “harshness”. It has an urgency to it that suggests that it is about a REAL problem. It is not about making friends or liking each other. (Which is partly what READING FICTION is about if we follow Schiller. A big part of it certainly is about the luxury of “being human” – which certainly is very important in its own right!) Not about the surface on which we are all one big family, but about what is beneath the surface where people use what little power they have ruthlessly to get others out of their way, bully and frighten them to take advantage. Most people who are doing this on a daily basis – which IS most people, by the way - wouldn’t own to it, not even to themselves. In fact, it is called “networking”, and there are probably few people who would describe it like I just did. But my big think about her statement began with the realization WHY I didn’t understand at first. Because, even though in the back of my head there is always this little space for the “real world”, I had quite forgotten about it. I had an unexpected reminder, just recently, that this is IN FACT the real world, which can be very uncomfortable to live in and where we HAVE to “network” not to go under. Which means that we have to FIGURE OUT what other people REALLY want and think. What they actually SAY is of little consequence, but I had forgotten how little until recently my workmate, whom I see every day, unexpectedly told me how she had been bullied by one of my other workmates – whom I see every day as well – to the end that she decided to work fewer hours. I was shocked – actually less about the fact THAT this happened than that I hadn’t been aware of it. Not being aware of the things going on “underneath”, and not networking, might not be something I can afford. It might just be a matter of time until the same thing happens to me.

Absurdly, reading fiction CAN be some kind of reminder that a real world of infinite complexity is STILL out there. It isn’t often, I think, but I know that seeing “The Big Short” made me finally change my attitude towards politicians and other people suggesting simple solutions. I DON’T LISTEN to them anymore. I don’t take ANYTHING of this kind seriously anymore. Which means that I ACTUALLY became smarter. But I don’t think that this is what usually happens when I am reading. The really interesting bit about my friend’s statement in this context is that this might be what happens when we are reading INTERPRETATIONS. At least for me her description makes perfect sense, because, doing this, we are leaving the comfortable area of ourselves and the text having an intimate relationship of whatever nature. When we are reading interpretations we are dragging the text out into the open to submit it to a different kind of game which consists in figuring out what other people are doing with it. As I wrote, I don’t like it that much, as other people are likely to lie about or conceal what happened between them and the text when they are telling others about it, telling them what they are supposed to think and feel instead. (Not networking, in my case, is not an expression of how much but of HOW LITTLE I trust other people …) But this doesn’t mean that, if you really like it and are good at it, it might not be a great technique of figuring out what is going on in OTHER PEOPLE’S minds.

And the reason for this, I think, is that, unlike the real thing, it is still PLAYING. Networking can be great, I don’t doubt that most people like it – as long as it isn’t them who are getting hurt. I suppose, playing, we can “do” a great deal of things without getting hurt, even getting hurt … (I remember somebody actually saying about his vr experience that he experienced dying – which wasn’t PLEASANT. I bet …???!!! But, even though he died in virtual reality, he wasn’t actually dead. So that, I figure, he can try again and get better at it. And it is strange that there are very few questions I would like to ask an actor if I ever met one. But, as such an astonishing amount of what they do has to do with dying or killing, I’d like to know what felt better. I doubt that I would get an honest answer in this case of ANYONE, but I actually suspect it is dying. At least they always look as if they genuinely enjoyed their death scenes – which cannot be said for most sex scenes, by the way.) In real life, if we get hurt, we avoid doing the same thing again. It is also, I think, how we think we LEARN – which is very rarely true. Even small children are rather smart at avoiding damage in the first place. And I supposed we have developed SMART techniques for not being hurt in a world of unforeseeable complexity - one of which is certainly playing.

Even though this felt as if I had made a lot of progress on the Big Question, this is probably only a beginning. Technically speaking, it is only about one kind of “fictional activity”: reading interpretations. So, there is no answer yet to how exactly reading fiction plays into the activity of solving real-life problems. And there are probably more ways than just one to get smarter - and better at solving real problems - by playing with fictional text. What is important though, and should be made absolutely clear, is that, with probably very few exceptions, no real-life problems ever get SOLVED directly by playing or reading (– same as nobody learns anything useful by playing violent video games, not even killing!) By playing, we probably rather experience that we can imagine and try things we haven’t encountered before. (Which might be the reason why violent video games actually can become dangerous.) We can try out more and get smarter – but it will only get EFFECTIVE if we use some of it in real life situations like networking situations.

In particular, we might get used to the fact that our view of the world is not the only way of looking at it. I always think that I know this, but I always forget how long the way from knowing something to making this knowledge work actually is. Playing and reading might be two of our most efficient techniques of taking shortcuts, speeding things up – which doesn’t seem to be much but in fact can hardly be overestimated in a world of infinite complexity. I am sure that there is something in it, but it is still very fuzzy. And, right now, I have no idea how to proceed. Maybe, for now, I’ll just weather the incomprehensible yearly madness called “Christmas” which now starts already in Mid-November – at the latest! - and ENJOY complexity watching “House of Cards” – whereas, right as I am writing this, “out there” the four negotiating parties who have to come to an agreement today if they want to run this country, are probably beaten by complexity.

I am ALWAYS beaten by complexity watching “House of Cards”, by the way, but this is what I like about it. Being “on top” obviously doesn’t interest me anymore – though it has to happen occasionally for the game to proceed. But KNOWING that I know nothing seems still to be the best part.