Symbols versus things. We excel all other animals on Earth, as far as we know, in our ability to use one thing to represent something else. Some ways we do that are conventional. Sounds, letters, and brush strokes can be used in ways that feel familiar and friendly. We can each use a word, like 'blue' for example, in sentences and contexts where we don’t question each other. But if someone points at a car I would call 'red' and says, “What a lovely shade of blue,” it will knock me out of my comfortable condition and force me to figure out what went wrong. When they use the word 'blue' in a way that doesn’t make sense to me, I look for an explanation. Did I hear correctly? Are they pointing (a symbolic gesture) at what I think they’re pointing at? Are they color blind? Is this a psychological test? Are they gaslighting me? If none of these questions help, we might start doing multiple spot-checks on what kind of role the word 'blue', actually plays in our vocabularies. If the discrepancy is too jarring, and especially if we can’t explain it away, we may become very unsettled.
Pirandello, or rather, Moscardo, points out that representation also takes place inside us, not just in the outer world. In the outer world, the letters, c-a-t are not a cat and do not even look like a cat. Similarly, in the inner world, a bunch of neural stimulations in my brain are not a cat and do not resemble a cat. Furthermore, to compare inner worlds, the neural stimulation in your brain, may resemble those in mine (only because they are two samples of neural activity) but those that are your memory of a cat in your brain are more like the ones that are a memory of an elephant in your brain (because they are, after all, inside your brain) than they are like the ones in my brain that are my memory of a cat. So, how can we even make sense of the claim that you and I are both thinking of the same thing?
Moscardo’s words are symbols that encourage us to think about symbols. It can get downright upsetting. It may trouble me to realize that someone whom I thought loved me actually only loves the symbol she has created to represent me in her self-created world. And since anything can, in the right circumstances, represent anything else (let this biscuit represent a Russian tank) my lover may easily repurpose the symbol she created to represent me, so that it comes to represent someone else. At the end of Book Second, Moscardo becomes jealous not of another person but of Dida’s symbol for him, Gengé.
We humans have always gotten in trouble when we mistake a symbol for the thing it symbolizes. But creating symbols seems to be the thing we do best.
I go on a bit in today's article (going live later tonight) about socially agreed conventions, and that's what symbols are in the end, conventions we settle on because we couldn't possibly express the nuance and depth of the real thing. Pirandello I think is expertly showing us how creating symbols is both fundamental to navigate the world and something completely absurd once you take a closer look.
There is a Buddhist undertone, right? Especially around the concepts of reality and happiness. I have no idea if Pirandello ever approached Buddhism though, I couldn't find anything about it.
Thanks! In this section I was stuck by the modernist theme of alienation — our hero is alienated from himself and all the other selves people see — as well as the apparent refutation of futurism, which sees humanity as expressed in machines. Our hero has image leaving the machines behind to be truly alone and briefly at peace.
Another great observation! In my opinion alienation is more understandable—especially considering the cultural and economical climate the middle class was going through before WW2, there was an obvious crisis of morals and values there. The rejection of futurism is more intriguing, because there has been a lot of debate re: just how much Pirandello aligned with fascist ideas, and every other fascist intellectual at the time was a futurist die-hard. Pirandello seems to be a big exception there.
I had difficulties with this part, although I liked it, but I argued a lot with the text and with myself. Hah, apparently I'm already at a level where my personalities interact.
Moscarda describes himself and Gengé as if they never intersect, but they share a body, memories, thoughts, even if we assume they are so different from each other. And this distancing from each other is unclear to me. Does he really behave so differently from his "true" self when wearing the Gengé mask? I understand and agree that we can't show our true selves, but it's impossible to be 100% fake, that's unnatural.
I really liked the part about trees that "grow" in the city. They are indeed trapped and pretending. It's an excellent metaphor for people who are also trapped in their circumstances and are not at all what they could be.
I'm very interested to see what reflections come next. And I incredibly like the selected Magritte paintings, as if he painted them for the book.
Thank you Dana! I love art and I'm ashamed at how much time I waste selecting the perfect painting, I'm afraid I'm going to run out of Magritte paintings before this slow read ends. And I talk a bit about how much we should "believe" and agree with Moscarda's very radical views on identity in tonight's entry, stay tuned ❤️
This section of the book was a real whirlwind. Disorientating, troubling, and amusing all at once. It was a pretty aggressive nature retreat yet continued to be much more relatable than I expected going into it. I am often at my most existential while in nature (removed from the occupying work of the office and hobbies of home).
A good way to describe it would be that it makes the alienating feel human and relatable, which is something Pirandello has really perfected. The nature retreat is unsettling, but there's also something gentle about it. Maybe it's the way he keeps trying to reassure the reader, maybe it's the company he's offering. Glad you appreciated the chapter, Ethan!
Well said! His reassurances were very funny to me. He's cajoling us to not worry and to come along with him, but only so that he may more thoroughly convince us of our self-delusion. In an absurd way it is reminding me of how in War and Peace, every few hundred pages Tolstoy would pause the story to take some time to reiterate how contemptuous he is of Napoleon and Napoleon worshippers.
I appreciated your final considerations: Pirandello's theories can surely be reflected upon from a purely philosophical perspective, but I think it's a philosophy that can be experienced on many levels, deeply interwoven with concrete life.
The dissociation with his "Gengé self" made me think of the late Mattia Pascal. That narrator also uses the pronouns "him" and "I" all the time while referring to different versions of himself.
The theme of self discovery and self identity is very dear to Pirandello! I'd say Mattia Pascal is more concerned about his relationship to others while Moscarda is more on the introspective side of things, so external VS internal, but there is a lot of connections there.
And I think books should never be read in a vacuum! I mean, it's also perfectly okay to just let a book be entertaining, but it is worthwhile to take a book as a chance to reflect and learn something about yourself and others, be it a silly romance novel or a big philosophical tome.
Symbols versus things. We excel all other animals on Earth, as far as we know, in our ability to use one thing to represent something else. Some ways we do that are conventional. Sounds, letters, and brush strokes can be used in ways that feel familiar and friendly. We can each use a word, like 'blue' for example, in sentences and contexts where we don’t question each other. But if someone points at a car I would call 'red' and says, “What a lovely shade of blue,” it will knock me out of my comfortable condition and force me to figure out what went wrong. When they use the word 'blue' in a way that doesn’t make sense to me, I look for an explanation. Did I hear correctly? Are they pointing (a symbolic gesture) at what I think they’re pointing at? Are they color blind? Is this a psychological test? Are they gaslighting me? If none of these questions help, we might start doing multiple spot-checks on what kind of role the word 'blue', actually plays in our vocabularies. If the discrepancy is too jarring, and especially if we can’t explain it away, we may become very unsettled.
Pirandello, or rather, Moscardo, points out that representation also takes place inside us, not just in the outer world. In the outer world, the letters, c-a-t are not a cat and do not even look like a cat. Similarly, in the inner world, a bunch of neural stimulations in my brain are not a cat and do not resemble a cat. Furthermore, to compare inner worlds, the neural stimulation in your brain, may resemble those in mine (only because they are two samples of neural activity) but those that are your memory of a cat in your brain are more like the ones that are a memory of an elephant in your brain (because they are, after all, inside your brain) than they are like the ones in my brain that are my memory of a cat. So, how can we even make sense of the claim that you and I are both thinking of the same thing?
Moscardo’s words are symbols that encourage us to think about symbols. It can get downright upsetting. It may trouble me to realize that someone whom I thought loved me actually only loves the symbol she has created to represent me in her self-created world. And since anything can, in the right circumstances, represent anything else (let this biscuit represent a Russian tank) my lover may easily repurpose the symbol she created to represent me, so that it comes to represent someone else. At the end of Book Second, Moscardo becomes jealous not of another person but of Dida’s symbol for him, Gengé.
We humans have always gotten in trouble when we mistake a symbol for the thing it symbolizes. But creating symbols seems to be the thing we do best.
I go on a bit in today's article (going live later tonight) about socially agreed conventions, and that's what symbols are in the end, conventions we settle on because we couldn't possibly express the nuance and depth of the real thing. Pirandello I think is expertly showing us how creating symbols is both fundamental to navigate the world and something completely absurd once you take a closer look.
Our fly with an uneven nose sounds much like Buddha.
There is a Buddhist undertone, right? Especially around the concepts of reality and happiness. I have no idea if Pirandello ever approached Buddhism though, I couldn't find anything about it.
Thanks! In this section I was stuck by the modernist theme of alienation — our hero is alienated from himself and all the other selves people see — as well as the apparent refutation of futurism, which sees humanity as expressed in machines. Our hero has image leaving the machines behind to be truly alone and briefly at peace.
Another great observation! In my opinion alienation is more understandable—especially considering the cultural and economical climate the middle class was going through before WW2, there was an obvious crisis of morals and values there. The rejection of futurism is more intriguing, because there has been a lot of debate re: just how much Pirandello aligned with fascist ideas, and every other fascist intellectual at the time was a futurist die-hard. Pirandello seems to be a big exception there.
I had difficulties with this part, although I liked it, but I argued a lot with the text and with myself. Hah, apparently I'm already at a level where my personalities interact.
Moscarda describes himself and Gengé as if they never intersect, but they share a body, memories, thoughts, even if we assume they are so different from each other. And this distancing from each other is unclear to me. Does he really behave so differently from his "true" self when wearing the Gengé mask? I understand and agree that we can't show our true selves, but it's impossible to be 100% fake, that's unnatural.
I really liked the part about trees that "grow" in the city. They are indeed trapped and pretending. It's an excellent metaphor for people who are also trapped in their circumstances and are not at all what they could be.
I'm very interested to see what reflections come next. And I incredibly like the selected Magritte paintings, as if he painted them for the book.
Thank you Dana! I love art and I'm ashamed at how much time I waste selecting the perfect painting, I'm afraid I'm going to run out of Magritte paintings before this slow read ends. And I talk a bit about how much we should "believe" and agree with Moscarda's very radical views on identity in tonight's entry, stay tuned ❤️
This section of the book was a real whirlwind. Disorientating, troubling, and amusing all at once. It was a pretty aggressive nature retreat yet continued to be much more relatable than I expected going into it. I am often at my most existential while in nature (removed from the occupying work of the office and hobbies of home).
A good way to describe it would be that it makes the alienating feel human and relatable, which is something Pirandello has really perfected. The nature retreat is unsettling, but there's also something gentle about it. Maybe it's the way he keeps trying to reassure the reader, maybe it's the company he's offering. Glad you appreciated the chapter, Ethan!
Well said! His reassurances were very funny to me. He's cajoling us to not worry and to come along with him, but only so that he may more thoroughly convince us of our self-delusion. In an absurd way it is reminding me of how in War and Peace, every few hundred pages Tolstoy would pause the story to take some time to reiterate how contemptuous he is of Napoleon and Napoleon worshippers.
Ha! Tolstoy's quirk was bashing on ol' Nappy, Pirandello's was to cause the reader existential dread, for fun! I don't know which one I prefer.
I love this reading!
I appreciated your final considerations: Pirandello's theories can surely be reflected upon from a purely philosophical perspective, but I think it's a philosophy that can be experienced on many levels, deeply interwoven with concrete life.
The dissociation with his "Gengé self" made me think of the late Mattia Pascal. That narrator also uses the pronouns "him" and "I" all the time while referring to different versions of himself.
Can't wait for Book III!
The theme of self discovery and self identity is very dear to Pirandello! I'd say Mattia Pascal is more concerned about his relationship to others while Moscarda is more on the introspective side of things, so external VS internal, but there is a lot of connections there.
And I think books should never be read in a vacuum! I mean, it's also perfectly okay to just let a book be entertaining, but it is worthwhile to take a book as a chance to reflect and learn something about yourself and others, be it a silly romance novel or a big philosophical tome.