Affect and Absence: Irony in Siegfried Sassoon’s War Poetry
Avinash Antony & Somak Mukherjee On 13th July 1918 Siegfried Sassoon, now a decorated war-hero, was shot in the head near Arras, France. Ironically, it was not the enemy but a British soldier who shot him, thinking him to be a German soldier. This is one of the very many instances of irony that The First World War is replete with. In fact, in his seminal work Great War In Modern Memory, Paul Fussell points out “… every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends. In the great war, eight million people were destroyed because two persons, the archduke Francis Ferdinand and his consort, had been shot.”[i] This piece, however, is not an essay on irony; neither is it an essay on the Great War and Modern Memory, the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon, or war poetry in general. To be frank, this essay deals only fleetingly with some of the poems that Sassoon wrote in the years between 1914-1918.What this paper attempts to indicate is how affect is conveyed through absence: how the use of the ironic mode allows the reader to understand precisely because the poet does not speak. In the poem “The Dugout”[ii] written in July 1918, Sassoon has the speaker tell a fellow soldier not to sleep because “you are too young to fall asleep forever/and when you sleep you remind me of the dead.” One notes that almost everything remains unsaid in this poem. Except for the title, there is nothing in the poem to indicate where the speaker is, whom he is addressing, and in what conditions they are. Apart from an underground shelter, ‘dugout’ could also mean ‘a canoe’ as well as ‘a marijuana container.’ Divorced from context, it is perfectly legitimate to think that the speaker is either on a boat or in a den of vice. The poem could well be one that indicates the horrors of narcotic consumption. However, when it is put in context, one remembers the conditions the soldiers faced in the trenches. Sassoon describes these conditions in “Dreamers”[iii] I see them in foul dugouts gnawed by rats and in the ruined trenches lashed with rain. In the latter poem, Sassoon evokes the soldier’s traumatic experience in a far more straightforward manner. The poem is visceral precisely because it reveals; “The Dugout”, on the other hand, is affective precisely because it refuses to reveal. One is aware of the intensity of the trauma the speaker has suffered only when one questions why a sleeping youth reminds him of the dead. Is the speaker so affected because he has seen so many young men lying in the same manner on the battlefield? Or does the youth’s gesture while he sleeps remind the speaker of a state of innocence that, he recognizes, is long dead? The violence with which the speaker shakes the youth by the shoulder then, indicates how horrified the speaker is by the memory of death. And again, all this is indicated without once telling us whether the speaker is a soldier. Sassoon’s “Everyone Sang”[iv] also forces us to confront a strange ambiguity. It speaks about the first Armistice at Compiegne, 11th November 1918. Here he says Everyone suddenly burst out singing: And I was filled with such delight As prison birds must find in freedom Winging wildly across the white In the second stanza, the poem changes tone remarkably. Although he does say that everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted (which corresponds to the joyful tone of the first stanza), he now compares the beauty of the moment to a setting sun. He then reveals My heart was shaken with tears and horror Drifted away …O but everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing Will never be done. One isn’t sure why exactly why the singing will never be done. Is it because the joy that was felt at the end of the war will last forever? Or is it that the dead soldiers now sing as angels in heaven; their songs both wordless and inaccessible to us humans? Is the phrase “wordless songs” a contradiction? Taken by itself, the phrase “the singing will never be done” could also be a more tempered version of Adorno’s claim that “to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”[v] Barbaric, as we know, was used to refer to those considered devoid of language. Are the songs wordless, then, because no words can bear the weight of testimony? And can we ever be sure? Irony, as a rhetorical device as well as a philosophical trope, has been discussed to death. In fact, one can recall at least one death that was caused by an excess of irony: the death of Socrates. Over the years, scholars have identified many different kinds of irony, each defined in different ways. In an attempt to avoid all of these, let us propose a simple working definition of the term. If an utterance, when taken out of context, means something completely different from (and usually the opposite of) what it means when the context is considered, that utterance is ironic. Of course, situations can be ironic too, but even in such cases, there is a duality of meaning and a context that effects the difference. The etymology of the word seems to support this: ‘irony’ comes from the Greek eironeia which meant ‘deceit’ but then came to mean ‘pretended ignorance’ usually used to prove a point. One recalls Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”[vi] where it is the knowledge that cannibalism is considered an insurmountable social taboo that allows us to understand that the text is a satire. An interesting view of irony, and one that seems most apt, is presented in Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony.[vii] In positing that irony is absolute negation, Kierkegaard alerts us to the fact that the ironic statement refuses to take a stance. Logically speaking,
Kalpana Press
Avinandan Sthanpati Chandannagar/Chandernagore is usually slotted as an erstwhile French colony. Though that identity is almost shut out from memory now. It is like any other small town–congested, filthy and sporadically peppered with high-rises. The French butter, if at all relished at a distant past, and its after-taste, seems almost a surreal idea. The burrabazar area is a goldmine for the promoters. Especially since this area is close to both river Ganges and the Grand Trunk Road. In this burrabazar you will detect a century old letter press. Kalpana Press. The current owner, Swapan Das, inherited the press from his father. At one point, the press used to employ compositors and machinemen and binders. The works. The dual blow of advancement in technology and the economic downturn, has forced Swapan-babu to take care of the press. Single-handed. He is not sure about the future of the press. Perhaps a multi-storied high-rise will replace this quaint place. Who knows whether his legal claims would be honoured if such an eventuality is to befall Kalpana Press ! Here are a few snaps of a toiling, lonesome fighter of a printer, whose future remains stark and uncertain. ———————————————————————————————————————— _______________________________________________________________ ———————————————————————————————————————- ——————————————————————————————————————– —————————————————————————————————————— —————————————————————————————————————- ————————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————————- ————————————————————————————————————– —————————————————————————————————————- —————————————————————————————————————- —————————————————————————————————————- —————————————————————————————————————- —————————————————————————————————————– —————————————————————————————————————— —————————————————————————————————————— —————————————————————————————————————— —————————————————————————————————————– —————————————————————————————————————— —————————————————————————————————————— ——————————————————————————————————————- [This photo-essay was first published in Agamikaal, No. 3, 2014] adminhumanitiesunderground.org
That Titillating Object of Capital: Reading the new Airtel advertisement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9BlI9nhqTE Manash Bhattacharjee The new Airtel advertisement, which shows the relationship between a man and a woman where the woman plays the boss in office as and the wife at home, has provoked interest and discussion in the social sphere and the media. Two broad positions have emerged from the discussions. One view looks at the advertisement as a progressive innovation on gender roles, where the man soberly accepts the wife’s dictates as boss in office, while the boss also takes care to cajole her husband with her culinary skills at home. The other, critical but straightforwardly feminist, view is that despite the transformed power equation in office, the gender stereotype is restored by the wife cooking for the husband after work. Both views overlook the complete nexus of titillation the advertisement holds out to the consumer as much as they gloss over a fine reading of the advertisement itself. Reading an ad, like reading a film, involves a detailed and close insight into the political codes of the audio-visual medium. An ad, after all, is propaganda for a product, which in turn is a product of the larger capitalist machine that produces the circulation of such a promotional art. The reading of the ad film will aim to dismantle this (superficially) coherent object of titillation. Placing the Titillating Object: It is important to first re-cover the language of the ad to see through it. The ad begins with a scene in a corporate office, where a woman boss tells her two male team members that includes her husband, a particular work is urgent and needs to be finished within the day. The husband, addressing her by name, tries telling her it isn’t possible. But she insists with a touch of apology, the work simply has to be delivered. This sets up the tensed atmosphere for what follows. As the woman leaves office, she checks with her husband engrossed in the work she has assigned him. There is a resigned look on the husband’s face as the woman enquires about the work at hand. While leaving, she tells him to call her if he needs help. On her way back, the woman calls the man from her car, this time addressing her husband by name, asking him what he would like for dinner. The expression on the woman’s face suggests that the husband has given an indifferent reply. Next, she is shown at home, in casual clothes, raking her mind for the perfect cuisine to prepare for dinner. The husband receives her call at work, asking him to come home, to which the man gently indulges in mock play telling the wife his boss has given him work to finish, and disconnects the phone. But the man immediately receives a video call where the wife shows him the delicacies awaiting him at the dinner table. She teasingly asks him to tell the boss that his wife is calling him back home. The man teases back, prodding her to tell the boss herself. There is a smile of reconciliation on the man’s face and the wife ends the call by once again insisting he return soon and that she is waiting for him. The temptations for the man are in place. The fruits of a good day’s work await him. He has satisfied his boss at the workplace the way a child satisfies his teacher at school, and has suitably earned the right to enjoy his reward. The coquettish boss-cum-wife and the aromatic dinner at home are equally inviting. They are also charged with erotic content. Wife and dinner are both appetising signals sent through the smartphone. The man at work, having served the conditions of corporate urgency well, is now being asked to return home and feast on his fantasies. The fantasies have been laid out before him. The woman has changed her role from boss to wife. This double role play keeps the man on his toes. The work and pleasure principles have been evenly distributed to keep the client’s ego balanced and satisfied. Economy of the Titillating Object: It is an incredibly neat ad, with both the man and the woman playing their roles in tune with the smooth background score. There is a delectable transition from workplace to home space, and the new-age couple fits hand-in-glove into the larger bourgeois dream of a perfectly run nuclear family. Their personal dreams merge with the capitalist dream and both worlds are happy together. Within this rosy scenario, smartphone smartly inserts its presence and completes the picture. Unlike the feminist complaint, the woman is at the top of the power equation, both in office as well as at home. Just because the wife cooks for the husband, the gender stereotype doesn’t fall into place. The gender equation between the woman and the man has to be understood within the new, advertised economy of their relationship. Just as the woman, as the suave and persuasive boss in office, holds control over the man’s productive capabilities, as the inviting wife who calls him for the dinner she has herself prepared, she holds equally supreme control over the man’s libidinal proclivity. The woman, enjoying power in the smart move to reverse gender roles, is the very symbol of capitalism in this newly erected capitalist economy of the ad. She alone owns the power to dictate, control and lure the subject of labour, the man’s labour power. She alone owns the power to dictate, control and lure the subject of desire, the man’s libidinal power. So what if she cooks for the man? Capitalism can cook for you to extract the necessary amount of your labour power, and to lure the excess of your libidinal power. Capitalism can cook for you to suck your blood. If the idea of labour is a norm in the capitalist economy, any form of desire (for food and sex) is the excess, the exception that needs to be tamed, controlled and dissipated within the
Images of Listening: Word-Pictures from a Journey through Music
Moushumi Bhowmik and Sukanta Majumdar The pictures are spread before us like disjointed tiles—photographs from our long and entwined journey through music in Bengal. It’s two of us; one singer and writer, the other sound recordist and sound artist. We have been travelling together, sometimes also with friends, in this eastern part of the Indian subcontinent for almost a decade, recording music that comes out of people’s lives; in sound, image and text. On a cold and dry afternoon in January 2005, Golam Shah Fokir was playing music in his house in Shaspur village in Birbhum, West Bengal, India and we were recording him. ‘Take what you can,’ he said to the camera, ‘these might well be the last pictures.’ Also the last songs, as it turned out within a couple of months of our field trip. Golam Shah Fokir used to sing songs about the mysteries of the universe and the divine experience of love—they are called fokiri and murshidi gaan. For decades he had sung in shrines and festivals, gathering communities of listeners around him. The singer is also the teacher, imparting lessons to those who listen in faith, the insiders. Our presence was for a different purpose, hence our listening was also different; we knew Golam Shah would soon be gone and with him, a time in history. It is difficult to know how old he was then. Time can both weather, as well as make wiser. But he seemed to have a premonition of death and on this day he played it out almost with a sense of humour. Totally photogenic, he posed for the camera, singing, talking, instructing, smoking; conscious of all the attention he was drawing and the recording equipment that surrounded him in that passing moment. He knew the value of being recorded, he knew in his own way about the power of recordings to preserve time, for he kept instructing his sons Salam and Jamir to sing their best. We took pictures of him playing with his sons, alone with his old violin, with his wife, daughters, sons, their families, children, villagers, with his followers and friends and also with us. He had full sway over his domain that day, almost pushing his frail body, voice and breath beyond their limits. We captured his image as he listened to our recording of his songs; then returned the headphones satisfied, saying, ‘Khub high class!’ Uttar Shobharampur jari মাদুর harmonium Akbar HOSSAIN torch Jainuddin mini disc Faridpur Sylhet chandrabati ভায়োলিন কোম্পানি headphones maadur dhol লন্ঠন HEADPHONES Probhati sandals Jasimuddin Kumar nodi Ma Fatema TASCAM HD recorder তবলা utshaho Sushoma Ahmadpur রসের জাউ Asmani Namaaz tube-well HEADPHONES maadur Montu hurigaan Surma nodi Ibrahim Boyati শম্ভুনাথের চায়ের দোকান condenser mic cycle-rickshaw মাসিমা Hobu-Pagla headphones khol CHANDIDAS bichchhed First there is the performance, the moment of the making of the music, which is also the moment of recording, as well as the moment of experiencing the music live; then follows the ritual of listening to the recording. Sometimes we have conversation with the players, then we too—mostly Moushumi—become players. Sukanta silently records. He passes around the headphones after the recording is over, some listen, others look on. Later we look at photographs of singers and audiences caught in the act of listening. Words emanate from the images—words, the sound of the words, word-pictures, evoking memory and desire. There are different ways of listening and different expectations written on these varied faces. Chandrabati mashima, who was about 78 when we first recorded her in her home in Sylhet town in 2006, had appeared totally self-conscious from the beginning. She would stop us in the middle of the song if she felt she had made a mistake. Erase that bit, she said to Sukanta. Then when she listened to the recording, it seemed as if she was intently examining her reflection in the mirror. A smile of contentment lit up her face from time to time. At the other end of the spectrum, far from this personal response, would be an obscure village by the Surma river called Shadhusree, also in the Sylhet region, where both singer and audience had collectively made music all through a night in the Spring of 2008. Such is the nature of this music—it is ritualistic and communal. At the break of dawn they listened together to their songs. It is such an absorbing image! One listens, others look on in anticipation, trying to guess at the sound from the expression on the listener’s face, who is actually listening alone, through headphones. In our heads, their last song ushering in a new day, the probhati, keeps playing, long after it is over. Probhato samay kale, Shachiro angina majhe/Gourchand nachiya beray re. The mad poet sings and dances at dawn, touching his listeners with the spirit of love. We talk about ourselves. Sometimes I think I miss the touch of the skin of the sound. My listening is mediated by the machine, filtered through the microphone, recorder and headphones. I also miss seeing all the things going on around me. I feel inadequate in other ways. I am too focused on the immediate and obvious to hear anything else. Sometimes the visual distracts me. Often it is only in your recording that I hear the details. Think how Hajera Bibi of Faridpur was talking about another time in her life which was filled with people. She kept saying, my voice wasn’t like this, this is no song that I am singing, remember? Yes, the dog barked and there was the prayer call of nightfall in the distance. Isha’a. Someone was drawing water from the screeching hand pump in the courtyard. A child was crying, her grandniece’s I think. Hajera Bibi was trying to recall names and words of songs. I know. I’ve heard that fading light in your recording. —————————————————— Moushumi Bhowmik, singer and writer, and Sukanta