Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Molloy
Reading the beginning of Molloy, I was thinking of a topic we discussed a few times in class, about how we visualize the story we are reading. Several people said they see it almost like a movie playing in front of them. I usually read this way, too. For Molloy, it feels different. I see it almost as a movie, but I feel more inside Molloy's head. It is a very internal type of narration where Molloy is witnessing events but instead of taking them for their external value, tries to come up with internal reasonings. I think I'm just wondering if anyone else thinks it feels different. The repetition of words and phrases increase this internal feel where I see the story unfold through Molloy's eyes yet still see him externally at the same time. My mind is also making weird connections at the moment due to stress and lack of sleep, so my point is: does anyone else view it this way?
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One of the things that prevent me from visualizing "Molloy" in my usual way (I usually have images or filmlike scenes in my head), is the fact, that Molloy seldomly tells or describes us something as definite (because he cannot remember properly). He excessively uses the word "perhaps" and most of his comments are qualified in the next sentence or paragraph, by stating that what's being said might be true, but could also be totally wrong.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I see things more internally. Almost like I'm visualizing his daydreams more than an actual story
ReplyDeleteFor me, I couldn't see Molloy like I would any other novel because of a moment on page 10 that jerked me out of the narration. Molloy says, " The air was sharp for they wore greatcoats." It may just be an expression, or a problem with the translation, but when I read it I was confused about the narrator's sense of causality. The air wasn't sharp because the men wore greatcoats, the men wore greatcoats because the air was sharp. And while I realize that there are many explanations for this sentence structure that don't involve Molloy being crazy or backwards, I do feel sometimes like Molloy is backwards or inverse. He is definitely uncertain, as we established in class, so perhaps he was just uncertain about why the air was sharp or the men wore coats. The end point I want to make is that that sentence ripped me out of conventional reading. I was originally reading it from his perspective, but then I got all confused about the kind of person that thinks the air being sharp is a result of people wearing greatcoats instead of the other way around. So from then on in the story (if you can even really call it that) I was afraid to read it from his perspective, from a fear of going mad (because I was afraid of identifying too closely with the narrator).
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ReplyDeleteAfter today’s discussion, I’ve been thinking about the difficulty Molloy has with expression and particularly “naming” things. Caitlin, your notion of external values and internal reasonings reminds me of the instances where Molly mention his identity in relation to words or names. Perhaps, like Lessing, Molloy’s frequent tendency to forget names suggests that labeling, saying, or externalizing something in the world doesn’t make it more real than the things, ideas, and experiences processing through Molloy’s mind. “Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum day…” (41). If his “sense of identity is wrapped in a namelessness” then he doesn’t have to label, define, or categorize himself. As long as we, as readers, are willing to read Molloy’s events of experiencing, he’ll take advantage of our desire for a name-something we can use to aid our understanding-and turn it against us. In this sense, we may actually be the ones who desire a level of reasoning or resolution that Molloy suggests doesn’t or shouldn’t exist.