In his article “Pararealism in Circe,” Derek Attridge proposes that the episode of Circe is “pararealism” or “faulty, irregular, disordered, and improper,” reality. He initially supports this claim by commenting on the play format of the chapter. Circe, at least in regard to form, is the most “traditional and secure” (122) of all of the chapters in Ulysses thus far, despite its extremely odd content. As Attridge points out, “from start to finish, we know, thanks to clear typographical distinctions (whatever edition we’re using) whether we are reading a stage direction, the name of a speaker, or a speech”—a gift the previous chapters have not afforded us (122). Thus, the interesting nature of Circe lies in the “bizarre goings-on,” (122) or the odd events that Joyce has chosen to bring to life for his readers.
One strategy of reading Circe, according to Attridge, is to “sustain the fiction that the chapter is a realistic account of events in a part of Dublin” (123). He then claims this strategy is a poor one, mentioning a “weaker (and therefore more useful),” nuanced reading strategy previously described by critic Hugh Kenner (123). Kenner describes Joyce’s intent behind Circe to “place all figures, all analogies, all ruminations on the plane of the visible and audible” (123). But Attridge disagrees with even this more sophisticated claim, saying that Kenner’s claim seems unlikely, because “every detail would have to be traceable back to something one of the characters—in the “real” world—is doing, thinking, or feeling,” and that Kenner’s claim places a “huge interpretive burden on the reader” (123).
Attridge argues against attempting to trace everything in Circe back to reality, and insists that “a more successful mode of reading is at first sight the most naïve one: simply to accept what the typography and tone tell us” (123). Because of the stage directions, Attridge argues that the reader is meant to imagine Circe as a play with “no limit to the special effects,” with Virag’s voice just as “real” as anyone else’s voice, and definitely not a voice we could imagine coming from the mind of Bloom (123). But he also says that his argument does not mean the real and the unreal are indistinguishable. He concludes by stating that the real and the unreal “shade” one another and have a “mutual interference,” (125) but are most definitely separate. Hence, the episode of Circe is what he calls “parareal” (119).
I found Attridge’s extremely intriguing, because it is difficult to know how to read a chapter like Circe. While I think I ultimately do interpret the chapter as parareal, just as Attridge describes, I did not find his argument totally convincing. I thought his mild refutation of Kenner’s claims, while helpful in building his argument, were not completely accurate. I think it is possible to read Circe and trace every detail back to one of the characters in the real world, what they are “doing, thinking, or feeling” (123). I also think the “huge interpretive burden” (123) he claims Kenner’s idea places upon the reader is what Joyce intended. The novel as a whole places the “interpretive burden” on the reader, and many things do relate back to reality, at least in the indirect way a dream relates back to real life.
Although I refuse to discount Kenner’s theory completely, I do like Attridge’s suggestion to read Circe in a “naïve” way, because I believe naivety introduces endless possibility—something I do think Joyce is asking us to bring with us when we read Circe. In this way, what Joyce is asking readers to do in Circe is a burden, but it is also the ultimate form of parallax not to take everything for reality, while taking everything seriously. It is a tough job for us as readers, but not an impossible one.
My favorite part of Attridge’s article is his conclusion: “the most important transformation affected by Circean magic is that of the reader, into someone who will accept, on the same plane and with the same kind of attention, a prostitute smoothing her eyebrows and a man on pink stilts emerging from the chimney-flue” (125).
Attridge, Derek. “Pararealism in Circe.” European Joyce Studies (2012): n. pag. ProQuest. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment