Apparently, I'm feeling brave today. Maybe. Not really. But I'm still going to go and disagree with all the established interpretations of all those high-and-mighty literary critics or whatever they were. Seriously. It's almost bizarre how many life-altering symbols people tend to find in pieces of art in which the author did nothing more than talk about a lazy afternoon that wouldn't leave their mind for months, or a death scene from a film (that will make everybody wonder who the hell died in the author's life that he should write such sad poetry), or whatever. I'm not really a fan of all that deeper meaning mumbo jumbo (unless it's about fandoms. Then I'm all for it). I usually don't waste my time with it, either.
But then The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Elliot happened (go read it. You absolutely have to read it. Because reasons). I adore that poem. I really do. And it just so happens that every single impression I get while reading it contradicts everything other people have written about it, which is kind of weird and makes me wonder if all of them really thought the same way or just read old analyses and tried to say the same things with different words. Ugh.
Whatever the case, they talk about stagnation, about indecision and social paralysis, alienation and loneliness, of how too much knowledge can make a person a prisoner. They talk about emptiness and sterility of the modern world, about the meaninglessness of time in the poem, about some kind of sexual innuendoes, and, above all, the forever unasked question. Not that I spent nearly as much time on that poem as the 'professionals' did—I'm merely talking about my impressions here—but I can't help but to ask if we've really read the same poem. Because what I see are clever metaphors and innovative comparisons. It's a person who dares to think, whose mind easily wanders, who seems to have a very poetic imagination. A person who does ask the most important question.Yeah. sure, he doesn't really ask the "you" he is talking to anything. He doesn't profess his love, or enquires about the purpose of life, or says what do I know what. But is that really the most important question? The most important for him?
I think not. Look at this wonderful part of the poem:
| Do I dare | |
| Disturb the universe? | |
| In a minute there is time | |
| For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. |
Now, allegedly, this is supposed to indicate he is incapable of making a decision. Just like "It is impossible to say just what I mean!" should indicate his inability to express himself, not the general lack of words in a language. I disagree. Sometimes, languages can be a pathetic excuse of a communication tool. Sometimes, there are no words to express whatever people want to express. That's why art exists in the first place, right? Because sometimes a whole book is needed to describe a wound a person has suffered, or a canvass full of criss-crossing lines that only look pretty to everyone else but show some profound truth to the author that nobody else will ever be able to see. It's why people write poetry instead of just saying, "Yeah, I love that person, period." It's not that simple. It's not ever that simple. Let's not even get me started on how every individual will understand the very same words a little bit differently, interpreting them on the basis of their previous experiences. How then should saying that something is impossible to convey with words be automatically attributed to the speaker's impotence? (Okay, yeah, there is context, but I still fail to see it. So sue me.)Back to that "overwhelming question" that Prufrock doesn't ask. Except he does. He keeps asking himself all the time. "Do I dare?" Because that's it, isn't it? Before we can go on asking anyone anything, be it some deep, profound questions or completely trivial things, we have to know if we actually want to do it. If we dare to. That seem more important to me than asking a girl out. Or a guy. Or both at the same time, what do I care. If we don't know what we want how do we ask for it? If we don't know whether we really want an answer or not, why would we ask anything?
I got this one quote in a fortune cookie years ago, way before I could really comprehend its meaning. Know what you want, or you will have to like what you get. It seems simple, but it's really not. (Go look up the law of attraction or something like that. You might understand what I mean.) How often do we only think about what we don't want? How about trying to decide between two options, neither of them we like, because we think that's our only choice? And if we do happen to spare a moment and think about what we do want, we're always convinced things have to come into our life in a certain way. (But they don't. They sneak in through the back door and smack you upside the head.)
So no, I don't think Prufrock is an indecisive person caught in stagnation (I don't believe in stagnation anyway). He's just thinking. And if that's laughable—well, too bad. And please don't tell me you've never had to make a choice that kept you awake at night and disturbed during the day. That you've never had to make a choice that really made you wonder if you dared to disturb the order of the universe. That kept your mind running circles.
The interpretations say this is supposed how "Prufrock indecisevely cycles around even the smallest of concerns". Even if he did—they wouldn't be the smallest of concerns then, would they? That's just being mean, dubbing them the "smallest concerns". Who are they to presume what is a big and what a small concern for somebody? It's the same thing as accusing somebody of not asking the right question again. Not the right for them, apparently, but why should they care.
I don't think this stanza (my favourite, by the way ^^) is about cycling around concerns. It seems peaceful to me. There is somebody who acknowledges that there will be time later, that not everything has to be done in this very moment. Façades we wear, death, creation—those aren't insignificant tiny concerns. Or work. Decisions and indecisions. Much less "time for you and time for me." What is so small about all that? What? Seriously, if those things aren't important, then what is?
The poem is much to long for me to write about every single line, but I suppose I don't have to. Nor do I want to. I do, however, wish that some people would stop thinking they can explain every single art work in exactly the right way. They can't. They never will be able to. And that's okay. Everyone has their own truth, after all.
~Stay awesome.
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