After reading Mr. Mitchell's most recent blog post I was struck by a general questioning of the Coming Of Age novel as a genre. Clearly there is a notable degree of irony in James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and this is important as we learn ourselves to understand that Joyce is in part making fun of who he use to be. I can certainly sympathize here, I'm not fan of who I was four years ago, and quite honestly I probably will be ashamed of who I am today in another four years. Quite frankly it makes me remarkably uncomfortable to talk about my past self in any manner that doesn't shed some kind of ironic light on me. If I want to describe who I was at the age of thirteen, it's certainly not going to focus on the kid who got good grades, and was a fairly good musician. The focus of any story I tell about myself is certainly going to involve a good deal of making fun of who I used to be. What I would be telling you would be more along the lines of "that one kid who didn't shower often enough, thought it was so cool to appear depressed, and listened to Disturbed because it made him feel so in touch with his anger". I don't approve of who I used to be and I have to add in irony to any story I tell about myself simply to make myself comfortable with telling the story.
What I wonder is whether the introduction of irony into a Coming Of Age Novel is something that is simply vital to the genre or whether this is something that everyone feels like they have to put into any story about themselves in order to distance themselves from that person they used to be. The general consensus seems to be that no body wants to identify as their old selves in fact. Everyone--myself included--wants to get as far away from who they used to be as possible. It's simply not seen as socially acceptable for someone to seem as though they like who they were in their adolescence. If I were to tell you, the reader, that last year I was a much more mature and stable individual than I am now, and I achieved some pretty impressive things you'd scoff at me. I'd scoff at me to. But is this sense of distancing one's self from their adolescence simply part of who any supposedly matured individual is? It seems strange to think of a supposed genius like James Joyce introducing irony as a method simply to distance himself from his teenager James Joyce. That said if I were he and telling a story of my life I would certainly feel obliged to make fun of my past self. I suppose my end question is this: Is irony and self-mocking in stories we tell about ourselves something that is simply part of who we are, or is it something that every writer puts into his story in order to convince readers (themselves included) that they don't still think they're so great?
I agree with you, and I also feel when writing about myself that it is easier to make fun of myself then to try and look honestly at who I was. I think this is true for two reasons: 1) Our society is often averse to compliments and earnestness. I feel more comfortable poking fun at my friends than trying to give them heartfelt compliments, because baring one's should is strange in our culture 2) Looking back ironically lets us establish more difference and lets us pretend that person isn't us. If there is no irony it is all to easy to move from evaluating ones past self to evaluating ones present self, which is a very uncomfortable thing to do.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the irony arises in part as a result of simply perceiving for ourselves that life entails going through "phases"--and once we can see ourselves as having been in the midst of a particular phase at a particular time, which we no longer relate to, we're struck by how mutable our characters are. We actually feel a palpable distance from the person we're contemplating, even as we recognize that person as us. I'd say that no matter how much we might build up the irony, to "laugh at" that young fool, there's still an important and strong recognition of the self involved, too. No matter how "distant" we get, it's never actually the same as depicting/contemplating an imaginary person, or a friend, or someone we've observed. It's *us*, and there's always a bit of a wince of self-acknowledgment to the irony.
ReplyDeleteAnd I definitely see this in Joyce, and this is why I want to both attune readers TO the irony, but not have them be TOO obsessed with it: Joyce is both laughing at his younger self AND completely affirming all these stages as crucial to his development. Maybe his piety was a bit extreme, but so is his "vocation" as an artist--and the two are connected. Irony helps him (and us) recognize the limitations of his perception at any given point; but it also should give us an awareness that our OWN perception at any point will be limited. Or, we're *always* potentially susceptible to future irony.