Grad School Event: 1. Purchase over priced books. 2. Make some lunch. 3. Walk to class. 4. Start a large and dangerous fire indoors.

What was so striking about Orality and Literacy was how so often each concept about the differences between oral cultures (and their methods of thinking and communicating) and chirographic/typographic cultures seemed very obvious. Ong's descriptions of the changes (for example, cultural hesitancy to trust the written word when literacy was still new) felt almost like thought experiments--where the outcomes were as I anticipated. Particularly, the topics about how memorization affected the structures of the story (and affected narrative entirely--from chapters 3 and 6) were particularly interesting for me as a fiction writer. One of my favorite novels is Don Quixote, and while this is a very literate text (with some clear evidence of revision and longer structural issues), its episodic nature is entirely related to the literacy of that time.

My first question comes about from Ong's implication that printed text implies closure--is this true (129)? While his argument is sound (that the when the text is over, it will be the same again the next time, and that any discussion with a printed text will not be able to respond in any sort of immediate way), and I agree with him that relative to oral cultures, this seems like the case, I still do not agree. I read with a pen in hand the whole time, and now I am again using my writing to respond. The closure may still exist on some levels, but the invitation for conversation for academics and anyone who isn't afraid to question print (which, by the way, the explanation for burning books was remarkable--Ong certainly has a way of saying a lot in a small space) the closure seems imperfect.

Of course, it's impossible to be able to go backwards--to unlearn this way of thought structure to be able to say anything about how I would be different without written language--but I think the results here are one of the cases of "different" but in no ways better or worse in terms of closure. Written language does not feel closed to me, or impermanent, and I think if it did, there'd be far fewer discussions about anything, and just a whole lot of memorizing.

Although there is plenty to say about the Ong book, I want to address the Rothenburg work for my second question. After reading over his essay about the challenges and virtues of translating Seneca poetry, and after reading the Declaration of Poetry Rights--seeing his Ritual was very strange. My ignorance of these cultures forces me to wonder about these: how much liberty has Rothenburg taken on these works? They seem very strange, almost intentionally shocking and strange in their straightforward commands to do fairly unorthodox things. He's very devoted to capturing the language and its sound--do these focus on that?

Without any good visual plans, here's a picture of little Walt.