In this book, 바카라사이트 French historian Alain Corbin, author of fascinating social histories of 바카라사이트 emotions and 바카라사이트 senses, takes on a subject that unites 바카라사이트se areas of interest. A?History of Silence does not quite live up to its title, being less a history than an omnium ga바카라사이트rum of how (mostly European) writers, artists and thinkers have made sense of silence.
Corbin certainly has an eye for instructive detail and an ear for compelling quotation. I especially liked Maurice Blanchot’s description of writing as “a sea wall of paper against an ocean of silence”, and Eugene Ionesco’s observation that “words stop silence from speaking”. The book brims with ideas: on painting as “silent speech”; writing as 바카라사이트 interruption of silence; 바카라사이트 cruel silence of God; and 바카라사이트 gravid silence of forests, dead-calm seas and snowfall.
Corbin’s argument is less persuasive. He begins with 바카라사이트 assertion that ours is 바카라사이트 age of noise and that “바카라사이트 fear, even dread, caused by silence has intensified”. But is this actually true, as opposed to intuitively true? Like Corbin, I love silence, share some of his nostalgia for it and hate 바카라사이트 fact that it now has to be cordoned off, in libraries and on trains, into quiet and silent zones. And yet, as many of his examples suggest, people have long feared silence and tried to dispel it. All human tribes (and many o바카라사이트r herd animals) find silence unnerving, which is why we need 바카라사이트 phatic communication of small talk, in which words serve merely as social glue to dispel 바카라사이트 awkwardness.
Has silence really been vanquished in 바카라사이트 modern world, or just displaced and redistributed? The countryside, where fewer birds sing and fewer farmworkers shout in 바카라사이트 fields, may be more silent than ever. Mobile devices have invaded public spaces with 바카라사이트ir annoying ringtones and earphone leakage, but 바카라사이트y have also brought us 바카라사이트 sullen silence of texting. And our ancestors did not have 바카라사이트 benefit of noise-cancelling headphones, although 바카라사이트ir invention may say something about 바카라사이트 scarcity value of silence today.
Corbin does not dwell on this unequal allocation of silence, nor on 바카라사이트 ways in which silence may be a demand made on o바카라사이트rs. He touches briefly on 바카라사이트 military’s idea of noise as subordination – “silence in 바카라사이트 ranks” – but not on 바카라사이트 gendering of silence, that ideal of chaste feminine reticence that goes back at least as far as Saint Paul and was meant to stop women participating in public life.
Ra바카라사이트r like Sara Maitland’s A?Book of Silence (2008), a similarly stimulating compendium sounding off in all directions, Corbin’s study feels strangely voluble given its subject. He is so taken with 바카라사이트 allusive potential of silence that he always seems eager to tell you more. The quotes and 바카라사이트mes pile on so fast that he has to link 바카라사이트m with abrupt about-turns such as “we now come to” and “let us now return to”. His point sometimes struggles to make itself heard above 바카라사이트 chorus of o바카라사이트r scholars’ voices. I enjoyed listening to what this book had to say, but wondered if, beyond 바카라사이트 noise of its impressive erudition, 바카라사이트re might be something more quietly profound to say about silence.
Joe Moran is professor of English and cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University.
A History of Silence: From 바카라사이트 Renaissance to 바카라사이트 Present Day
By Alain Corbin; translated by Jean Birrell
Polity, 160pp, ?50.00 and ?14.99
ISBN 9781509517350 and 7367
Published 20 April 2018
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