Monday 29 October 2012

Orientalism

Edward W. Said, 1978
(October 2012)



There’s a type of person. A certain type of person. You know who I mean, the type that’s heard about ‘books furnishing a room’ and taken that to mean that books are more important for what they look like and what signals having them is supposed to send out than the words and ideas they contain. Wankers, in other words.

I’ll admit to a certain failing in that regard myself. It’s not that I’ve ever bought a book just to stick it on the shelf in the hope of making me look smarter. Every book I’ve ever bought, every unread book in my house, I fully intend to read at some point in the future; with the excusable exception of a Dan Brown I was unable to tactfully refuse when a relative pressed it on me. Life’s just too fucking short.

Anyway, everything on my shelves is there in good faith. I meant to read them when I bought them, and genuinely think that I really will get round to all of weightier tomes at some point before I die. But Pratchett is just so much funnier than Plato and the more intellectual, more difficult stuff keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the pile.

However, I refuse to become one of those people, so I’m going to embark on a (very slow) ‘back-to-basics’ campaign wherein I actually read those smartypants books, instead of just having them there and relying on summaries and quotations from them in other more accessible works. Given I’ve been throwing the ‘Orientalism’ label about a bit recently, Professor Said’s up first.

This work has achieved some serious political influence and so it’s easy to forget that, at its core, it’s primarily a work of literary criticism. And some fairly recondite literature at that. It’s not an easy read, and I’m having a hard time deciding how much of that is inherent and how much is due to the passage of time (again).

It’s been a few years since I did my ‘Theories and Methodologies of the Social Sciences’ modules, but the initially striking thing about Orientalism is the vehemence with which Said was fighting battles which, in the contemporary social sciences at least, seem to have been won so long ago the results are pretty much taken as given. I’m more up on my physical science history than its social science counterpart, so it may be that this work was a key player in winning those wars. I couldn’t say, but there a large parts concerning the constructed nature of knowledge (i.e. that data are produced, not discovered) and the role of the academy as mediator that seem so obvious now as to be redundant. If you filleted out those now archaic arguments, this book would be about half the length, so for once relying on those summaries in other works might not have been so foolish.

However, the other 50% is perhaps more relevant now than ever. It’s another book that I could have chosen a hundred illustrative quotes from. This is the 2003 edition with a preface from the author written just before his death, and obviously after the Twin Towers came down. It’s scary just how little changed between one edition and the next.

A lot of this reminded me of how Japan views its relationship with The West, or even just Abroad: seeing it as a single, unchanging, monolithically homogenous ‘other’. The difference of course being in the power relationships and the extent that ‘other’ is to be studied (not understood), managed, or subjugated.

So a dense book that flips between the redundant and the vital. Annoyingly, it does so fairly unpredictably so it’s never entirely safe to start skimming (though this is of course my own failing, not the book's). Even more annoyingly, Said regularly drops in pretty substantial quotes in untranslated French*, which I could just about get the gist of but certainly didn’t help with the smooth transition of ideas from page to thought.

One of those books that alternates between making you feel much, much smarter and very, very stupid.


*Not even translated in the footnotes.

10 comments:

  1. Buying books you don't read - I've never been able to do that. I read faster than I shop. I do have a few books of my son's that I've never been able to get into - Love in the Time of Chlorea being one of them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love buying book almost as much as reading them. I'll happily admit that it borders (Borders! Ha!) on a compulsion. I've previously trotted out my line about being nervous with no unread books in the house, I'm pretty sure, but it still holds. The to-read pile is getting a little stupid though, if I'm being completely honest.

      Delete
  2. A book any decently read person should read, even with the anachronisms you point out. This book, like 'Guns, Germs and Steel', is one that took the flaccid notion that there are different valid points of view and validated it with devastating precision.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Absolutely. So much of it is still terrifyingly relevant. Shame he's no longer with us to give us a revised edition.

      Delete
  3. I haven't tackled one of these books for years and I am scared to do so. I don't know if I have the mental leeway anymore to be honest. I spend all day (except for my blog breaks hehe) translating dry material and I've had enough of it (I do enjoy it though) once I get home. I have a one hour window or so to read and relax so I don't know if that is enough for this kind of book.

    I had a bit of a spree in the first few months of this year due to various factors and bought way too many books, though I have culled a few now. I do like to buy books and then just leave them on the shelf, as I usually stare at the shelf for a while when I've just finished a book and I'll always find something that I really want to read at that time, making it the most pleasurable. Call it a cooling-off period perhaps.

    Oh and I hate the French, Latin etc., like everyone is supposed to know it. It just makes me feel stupid and annoyed because I may have missed and important point.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is a certain very specific pleasure in choosing what to read next, isn't there? I hadn't really appreciated it until you mentioned it, but I definitely know what you mean.

      I can see how it'd be a bit of a busman's holiday for you though. The level of language I'm involved with day-to-day is far more basic however, so there's actually a real satisfaction to be had in going for something that stretches me a bit more.

      Delete
  4. The French part would make me feel like he is trying to make ME feel dumb. If I'm on the net the language droppings might be a fun or not challenge within but while holding a book?....I'd feel annoyed and wonder how important that is and would eventually find out what it means and if it's not THE lost alchemists recipe for making gold I'd be upset..directions to Hoffa's body? Some fucking thing besides some "smart" guy trying to be ..whatever the fuck he's trying to be?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thing is, he's being pretty 'smart' already. The English by itself isn't exactly entry level: he's even more fond of diversions and nested sub-clauses than I am, which is saying something.

      And now of course you've made me want to go back and double check it all just to make sure there really isn't a recipe for turning lead into gold somewhere in there.

      Delete
  5. Just today, Joe Queenan was interviewed on NPR. The featured link on their page has an excerpt from his latest book:

    My obsessive reading life — 7,000 books and counting — has been thrilling, but I am willing to concede that people like me are as mad as hatters.

    It is part of a passage in One For The Books that kind of reminds me of an earlier post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 7000? Lets say 50 books a year for the next 50 years (optimistically), that still only leaves 2500.

      That's kind of depressing, actually :(

      Delete