Monday, March 7, 2011
Unconditional Surrender, Guten Tag
My impression of the organization of this passage was that it is what Ugresic considers the only way to accurately describe Berlin. She wants to ensure that all the intricacies and idiosyncrasies that she holds as key to the description of Berlin are well depicted to come together as the overall essence of Berlin. Many of these things cannot be stated explicitly so she uses these eloquent descriptions of different seemingly random facets of Berlin people, culture, and environments. The organization of these descriptions comes in a way that is much like the way one might think about something freely, without much prompt or parameters. The thoughts float around based on loose associations but every thought has obviously come to mind as a piece of the overall notion. In other words, if you were to ask someone outright to "describe Berlin", you would get a much more limited answer than if you said "talk about Berlin, whatever comes to mind."
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I agree, personally I enjoy her scrambled "stream of consciousness" writing because it gives her time to comment and describe each thought thoroughly and then move on to the next thought without worrying about the transition or flow.
ReplyDeleteWill's claim of Guten Tag being Ugresic "talking" about Berlin accurately describes the feel of the chapter. The way the story goes about makes one feel like they are truly inside the authors head. Through Ugresic's perspective, a more intimate version of Berlin is told.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a great point about the limitations of "describing" compared to speaking "whatever comes to mind". Also, simply describing things seems to be limited to the physical aspects so the listener doesn't get the speaker's perspective or emotions.
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