so on page 78 in his super awesome book that i just desperately love, ong says "texts are inherently contumacious." after reading that sentence, i was like wow - what a profound though. oh wait, i have no idea what it means.
so after a little trip to dictionary.com, i found out that contumacious means disobedient, more or less. i don't feel like texts are disobedient because they've surrounded me my whole life. to me, they represent structure, information, and a gateway to my imagination. i consider puppies to be disobedient - and i challenge you to find a piece of literature that pees on the new carpet (although some of them pee on my soul). i would argue that texts aren't the disobedient ones - authors are. they are the catalysts hurling the written word into our faces.
and now that i know what contumacious means, i'm going to try and incorporate it into my vocabulary to sound like the pretentious english major i'm meant to be. thank you, walter ong. not for your book or your ideas, but for your choice of word.
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Shannon, though i've definitly never found my books peeing on my carpet (or my soul) I do find they tend to jump off the shelves of my bookcase when they've become so cramped from others put on top of them. In fact one fell from atop a shelf onto my computer and smashed the keyboard to oblivion.
ReplyDeleteYes authors are the catalysts 'hurling' the written word into our face. But yet that would be a lie. Wouldn't it? authors don't hurl anything at us. For the most part all authors do is put down their thoughts, their 'learned lies' onto paper. Hopefully from there it will go to print where it will be shared with the world where the statement can never be 'truly' taken back. It can't be argued with, though we can argue with the author, hopefully get a correction or a 'new' manuscript printed. But that old copy, it is pigheaded, it is Stubborn, it is intractable, no matter what it won't change itself.
To say that authors are inherently contumacious is to say they are pigheaded, headstrong, and that there opinions are solid as rock, never to be swayed. It is to say they disobey the basics of discussion.
What i believe ong is saying is that without the author talking to us with the text we cannot fully understand any questions we have.
Think of this post i am making.
I am showing that text can be a form of communication back and forth.
but if you don't respond it is not.
If you do respond it is. But if another human comes acrossed this in a hundred years she will only be able to find answers to her questions outside of you and me. The text is void of the proof that person wants. Thus it will take on a thesis of a sort. She cannot find any answers to her questions and know they are true. They are only tight-bonded or loose-bonded beliefs that she will hold.
so
texts are iherently contumacious, not authors.
I believe arguing this proves my point alone.