A literary psychological analysis of the Cronicals, by cranialjax.
James Joyce (an Irish writer of some repute!) concocted a deliberate sort
of punning english as his voice. This deliberate playing with the *sounds*
of the words leads to both intense interesting ambiguities about their
meaning and etymological juxtapositions that reference semantic
similarities. it's like it both adds fuzziness and depth at the same time.
now Joyce of course was a great writer, but what he was doing actually
comes quite naturally to some people, often it seems (to me), to Irish
people who seem to have a really interesting way of using language. a good
example was an Irish friend of mine who referred to the harbour dredging
ship as a drudger rather than a dredger. it immediately conveys not only
the utility of the vessel's function, but adds the dimension of the
repetitive drudgery of its work. he didn't even realise he had said it! he
knew it was a dredger, but he said drudger. it wasn't that he couldn't call
it by it's official spelling/pronunciation, nor that he had deliberately
chosen a Joycian expression. This was an unconscious Joycianism, like a
Freuudian slip of a creative kind. i am tempted to refer to these
unintentional creative literary parapraxes as "Joycian Slips", and it seems
that SPIKE'S spelling generates heaps of these interesting and enriching
literary fireworks.
I'm not saying that SPIKE perhaps even realises that he is doing it, my
Irish friend only noticed how creative his subconscious mind was being when
the particular instance was specifically pointed out to him, but a
spellchecker would utterly destroy one of the most important elements of
SPIKE'S work, the element IMHO that lends his work the authentic depth of
charm that give it such a bewitching quality (or to create a Joycianism of
my own, bewhiching quality!).
Here are a few examples from SPIKE'S most recent post that show what i am
on about:
"His pack containd a week supply of food,"
This change from the usual "week's" to "week" echoes the word "weak",
suggesting that the quantity may not really be sufficient after all. I
can't see any neater way of introducing that little element of doubt than
this device. The fact that the device and its subtle effect *may* be
unintentional at SPIKE'S conscious level makes no difference to the lovely
little ambiguity it injects into the reader's mind.
" "Why don't you leave him allone just becous he is differnt" "
"Alone" is rendered almost as "all one". What an interesting philosophical
train of thought that sparks. See what I mean yet?
Just look at the ambiguity in the title, "The meating". What associations
that brings forth, overtones connected with food, prey, death, sex... It's
all in there like a little russian doll, layers of interpretation that each
reader can make their own.
Now this next one is a beauty,
"a ball of flam grew in his hand".
Stage magicians use "flim-flam" to misdirect and produce their entertaining
deceptions. Here the wizard's flame is presented with that little element
of doubt attached to it - how powerful is his magic really? - and of course
we are reminded that this is territory where our disbelief is suspended and
any childhood memories of party magicians are reinvoked.
OK, I know that SPIKE isn't doing this consciously, 'it's
just a spelling mistake' you can say, but the proof of the pudding is in
the eating, and what i think we are being served with here is a
parapraxical glimpse into the underlying intelligence of this wonderful
writer's mind. Like i said, i have been struggling to express what it is
about SPIKE'S "voice" that makes it so essential IMHO that spellchecking is
not applied to his work.
In e-mail land, where many good stories start all we have is plain
text. Emoticons such as smileys and other textual devices have been
developed for this medium to lend inflection and tenor. They are a valid
new departure in the development of written language, not i contend just
some passing nerdy CB radio type fad. The richness that results from the
disclosure of extra depth in SPIKE'S individual use of the medium is
another such addition to the lexical armoury. A happy accident maybe,
but so was penicilin - it's not always good idea to clean things up too
hastily!
woof woof lick :+P
cranialjax@cambs.net
(creator of the on & offline Jaden websites)
In the course of many typed conversations with SPIKE I've been constantly amazed how it's almost as if his unconscious screams to be heard, perhaps that's why he writes. Zooish parapraxes pepper his phrases at every turn and the dreams from within are revealed. I (being a psychologist) enjoy reading his work in Freudian terms and can only note the
Joycian quality of it. My interpretation of the value of the unique
presentation of SPIKE'S work is of course wholly subjective, others may say
it is a construction of my own making, but isn't construction what we all do to some extent whenever we read? The joy of words is that we can play
with them, and that what one reader constructs is wholly different to what
another has in mind. There is a certain medieval, faerytale quality to the Cronicals, that sets them in a future more like the magical lands of childhood's imagined past. The spelling is very Elizabethan, and for me that evokes a certain theatric atmosphere. If SPIKE'S work was robbed of it's
characteristics I think it would be the poorer as a vehicle for phantasy, so the texts are presented with no editing at all.