Nicholas Peterson
Instructor: Avra Spector
HSS1-M: Freshman Seminar
12-09-14
The Word Scratcher
What happens to an oral culture when someone starts writing it down? What are the dangers of written words or stories, of using the same language as the police reports and laws? Solibo Magnificent is a metaphor, an exploration of the fate of an oral tradition in an age of writing. In the middle of telling one of his greatest stories under a tamarind tree, Solibo Magnificent, the storyteller, dies from being “snickt by the word”. The story takes place around the unexplained death of the storyteller Solibo in the midst of a small group of intrigued story listeners. While the Fort-de-France police are called to the scene, the witnesses suddenly …show more content…
Chamoiseau directs the reader to the characters of the old world tradition; specifically the witnesses involved who were hassled by the police. From understanding the definition of a word scratcher as provided in the text, the reader can assume that nothing in the oral tradition of story telling is permanent; it lives, breathes, and changes, hence the argument that Chamoiseau is simply a "word-scratcher". "One writes but words, not the word". "You should have spoken. To write is to take the conch out of the sea to shout: here's the conch! The word replies: where's the sea? " This leads the reader to be empathetic towards the characters of the oral tradition because of its sense of the sublime or magical quality that involves a certain belief to …show more content…
Now, Inspekder, stop your thinking, let the dark and the silence weigh in your head, then, as quickly as you can, ask yourself: what happens when life isn’t what it should be—and when your mind draws a blank…? —And they concentrated on these questions so hard that they returned from this forgotten ravine with a sack of despair on their minds, Pilon’s shoes wouldn’t cling to the humid ferns, the sloping spiderwort. [ . . . ] What the suspects had said of that man, words to which he had paid so little attention, was taking shape in his memory just as a new stream begins to act like a river."
The Inspector at this point in the novel begins to seem as if he will side with his witnesses based on his discussion with the old sorcerer. Despite the fate of novel or of the inspector’s beliefs, the reader has long ago sided with the belief in magic, with “knowing” something way beyond textbook knowledge. Perhaps the progress of this certain sympathy towards fictional beliefs is the main theme that the reader might take away after reading this
Instructor: Avra Spector
HSS1-M: Freshman Seminar
12-09-14
The Word Scratcher
What happens to an oral culture when someone starts writing it down? What are the dangers of written words or stories, of using the same language as the police reports and laws? Solibo Magnificent is a metaphor, an exploration of the fate of an oral tradition in an age of writing. In the middle of telling one of his greatest stories under a tamarind tree, Solibo Magnificent, the storyteller, dies from being “snickt by the word”. The story takes place around the unexplained death of the storyteller Solibo in the midst of a small group of intrigued story listeners. While the Fort-de-France police are called to the scene, the witnesses suddenly …show more content…
Chamoiseau directs the reader to the characters of the old world tradition; specifically the witnesses involved who were hassled by the police. From understanding the definition of a word scratcher as provided in the text, the reader can assume that nothing in the oral tradition of story telling is permanent; it lives, breathes, and changes, hence the argument that Chamoiseau is simply a "word-scratcher". "One writes but words, not the word". "You should have spoken. To write is to take the conch out of the sea to shout: here's the conch! The word replies: where's the sea? " This leads the reader to be empathetic towards the characters of the oral tradition because of its sense of the sublime or magical quality that involves a certain belief to …show more content…
Now, Inspekder, stop your thinking, let the dark and the silence weigh in your head, then, as quickly as you can, ask yourself: what happens when life isn’t what it should be—and when your mind draws a blank…? —And they concentrated on these questions so hard that they returned from this forgotten ravine with a sack of despair on their minds, Pilon’s shoes wouldn’t cling to the humid ferns, the sloping spiderwort. [ . . . ] What the suspects had said of that man, words to which he had paid so little attention, was taking shape in his memory just as a new stream begins to act like a river."
The Inspector at this point in the novel begins to seem as if he will side with his witnesses based on his discussion with the old sorcerer. Despite the fate of novel or of the inspector’s beliefs, the reader has long ago sided with the belief in magic, with “knowing” something way beyond textbook knowledge. Perhaps the progress of this certain sympathy towards fictional beliefs is the main theme that the reader might take away after reading this