How to interpret? To the letter or what?
How to interpret traces of the past is no easy or self-evident matter. The practices for doing so are nowhere specified in detail, and it is always a matter of matching and balancing (or not balancing) working practices for reading with the specifics of particular choices of documents or other traces. A debate concerning this has taken place between us [Liz Stanley and Emilia Sereva] and readers might find interesting our attempts to set out our views in a way that the other can understand and sympathise with these. Perhaps some people might even find this helpful in their own struggles with interpreting the traces of the past!
This debate came about specifically in relation to us discussing a trace on the Whites Writing Whiteness website, ‘The Forbes, the Men and Nomalanga’s Baby’. This concerns how to interpret a number of Forbes diary-entries, and so we encourage reading it hand in hand with this Blog.
Emilia to Liz 11 November 2015 15:08 GMT
Raining here too, but we are atop a huge hill so no flooding.
Have read doc — I found your analysis to be very interesting and it emphasises the key elements at play, and I may have something to add with respect to Kate’s stance about the situation —
My previous thoughts re Kate’s position about the Bismarks:
I thought Kate took Bismark’s side (siding with the men) because her loyalty is to him. I got the sense that she knows Bismark quite a bit better than Nomalanga, and thus is ready to defend him given her relationship with him?
She seems a very loyal woman, and is thus affected when misfortune happens to any of ‘her people’. That Nomalanga took off with her baby and a man to whom she was not ‘married’ seemed another thing that upset/angered Kate given the indecency of such actions AND the ramifications for Bismark.
Is that anything?
My best wishes, Emilia
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Liz to Emilia 11 November 2015 15:22 GMT
This is interesting, but I wonder what you think are the specific words or phrases that indicates that Kate is loyal to Bismark, that she is ready to defend him, and that she is disapproving the ‘indecency’ of Nomalanga going off.
So please tell me what you think indicates the knowing, defending, disapproving and indecency, the words and phrases you think show this. I don’t ask for frivolous reasons, because how such things are discerned is the essence of interpretation, isn’t it? and it connects with how closely we stick to the actual words that are said or written, and how much we extrapolate beyond this. Please write a kind of formal response to this, because we can then tidy this exchange up when it’s finished, and include it together the documents. These things are important but not much spoken about in any detail.
Best wishes, Liz
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Emilia to Liz 11 November 2015 16:44 GMT
Dear Liz,
Here’s what I’ve got so far… :
Though not overtly stating that she sides with Bismark, Kate’s description of Nomalanga’s actions, Bismark’s attempts to remedy the situation, and the stances of David, the other men and the Law all diminish the legitimacy of Nomalanga’s actions. Kate uses these examples and details as a means of supporting that Bismark is in the right, and is the victim.
Kate’s use of the word ‘complain’ on 12 July (a word she doesn’t often use), and inclusion of David’s comment that Nomalanga is the more dangerous of the two spouses suggests Kate (and David) giving Bismark the benefit of the doubt at the outset. On 14 July, Kate also writes that Nomalanga ‘complained’ in her description of both parties’ trips to see the SAC; suggesting the unfounded nature of Nomalanga’s stance.
She describes in terms of how Bismark is on the side of both the ‘Kafir and English’ law – having gone with Gubasie to the SAC as a sign of good faith, and how David supports him given his supplying of a note. The entries for the 14th and the 16th July use the term ‘misbehave’ to describe of Nomalanga’s actions – again bringing forward the supremacy of the laws regarding child custody, and also her disapproval of what Nomalanga has done.
Kate also describes Nomalanga in terms of ‘this woman’ on 14 July – a phrase marking the distance between writer and subject. Bismark, the husband in this situation, is described as ‘helpless’, having done nothing wrong. All the neighbourhood men agree Nomalanga’s actions merit death, and publically condemn them
——
What isn’t included here is the fact that Kate followed and recorded this series of events. I’m sure she doesn’t record all area disputes, but picked this one.
My best wishes, Emilia
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Liz to Emilia 12 November 2015 11:59 GMT
OK, I don’t think I agree with you about a number of the things you’ve just commented on, but I can appreciate now more about where you’re coming from on these matters. Let me respond to your five main points one by one so we can see where we’re up to on this.
If Kate doesn’t ‘overtly state’ that she ‘sides’ with Bismark, then this is your interpretation, and I think it somewhat of an overstatement. You’re extrapolating beyond what is actually there, I think. Also, at the forefront surely has to be that the Forbes diaries were public documents and could be and on occasion were called as evidence in legal cases of various kinds. The various mentions of troubles and causing troubles in what Kate writes it seems to me have to be located in that context. I don’t think that you can point to anything that demonstrates that Kate supports Bismark being in the right and being the victim (to use the terms in your email). Again, please tell me the exact words – no extrapolation beyond the words, but the words themselves! I’m really willing to be convinced, but can’t see it.
When you say that Kate doesn’t often use the word ‘complain’, you’re referring to your work on others of the Forbes diaries. Fair enough, if you can provide reference across all of the diaries by doing something like a word search. Also, I’m wondering why you interpret the word ‘complain’ as meaning something unfounded. In many of the court cases and other events involving the police, the local landrost and other officials, the words complain and complaint are often used in Forbes letters. This is contemporary usage, whereas perhaps now the connotation of complain has changed and this is what your interpretation is based on?
‘Misbehaviour’ is another term with a loaded contemporary meaning, and it appears in various pieces of Transvaal legislation and also customary law as a shorthand description. However, I’m puzzled why you read Kate’s stance just in terms of Nomalanga’s behaviour or misbehaviour, and don’t also relate this to the behaviour of the men in appearing en masse about redress, and also Kate’s status as the official writer of the official farming diaries. Both of these latter seem to me as important or perhaps even more so than the specific behaviour of Nomalanga and Mashisiman.
I agree with you about ‘this woman’ being a distancing way of phrasing it, but this could bear a number of interpretations. It could be repulsion at the sexual behaviour, or it could be concerned with the trouble caused by this (you think the former, me the latter, is that our basic difference?). Also I’m curious that what you say about this focuses on ‘possible death for Nomalanga’, and you don’t mention that this applies also to Mashisiman. I can’t find a sign that the men are specifically focusing on Nomalanga here.
Your last comment about Kate picking particular events to record, and that she didn’t record all disputes that occurred on Athole homefarm or on the Estate more widely, reminds me of something. This is that Kate does record some other clashes between men and women at Athole in various letters, and these accounts too do not explicitly take sides. But they DO problematise the conduct of ‘the men’ and men’s claims over women. What do you make of that, and does it shift your views at all I wonder? Once more the interesting relationships between the Forbes letters and diaries is on the agenda!
Finally – a new question – what do you see as the main differences between us methodologically here, that is, about how interpretation of these documents is done? Do you think I’m being too cautious, anal, missing the point?
Best wishes, Liz
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Emilia to Liz 12 November 2015 14:09 GMT
Methodologically, my claims are – as you see – largely unfounded and steeped in contemporary assumptions and projections. In truth, at most I have a sense or a feeling about her stance, and no real proof; I found some and tacked them on. I think there is something behind what Kate is writing to do with loyalty to Bismark etc, but there’s not enough evidence to argue this.
I think I have fallen victim to the assumption that I know her having read her diaries.
My best wishes, Emilia
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Liz to Emilia 12 November 2015 14:30 GMT
Well, even if you have that’s not so terrible. And don’t give way so quickly! What about the actual documents? you haven’t let on much about how you approach them. Is it that ‘knowing Kate in general’ is guiding your reading/interpreting, or that you’re unclear as to the methodology of close reading, or that you’re picking up on a number of hints and clues and putting them together to make something bigger, or what?
Best wishes, Liz
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Emilia to Liz 12 November 2015 15:00 GMT
When I read anything, I make up a voice to read the text (as though a voice of the writer or character is reading to me) and this helps me read – I’m auditory/visual mix where learning and memory is concerned. As such, the more I read, the more the voice changes and eventually I get senses about the tone and feelings of the author/character
The more I read, the more I feel I have a sense of Kate’s feelings on particular matters given mostly general assumptions, word usage, and occasionally changes in handwriting and crossed out mistakes. I think I can tell when she’s angry about something, but I may be totally wrong.
I only feel as though I know her. I likely don’t know her at all — in the same way I don’t know Norbert Elias [a social theorist we’re both interested in], but feel very close to him, and as though we have things in common. In reality I expect the situation would be very different. This brings up a larger question to do with whether anybody really ever knows anybody else! Defeatist me is turning into quite the positivist.
That being said, I usually try to take things at face value so I don’t screw up the summaries by adding my own views.
My best wishes, Emilia
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Liz to Emilia 12 November 2015 15:37 GMT
So if I were to say, here is a piece of text which is 15 lines long, and I want you to analyse what the text says, how it says it, how the writer is positioned and how it positions the reader, how would you go about it? That is, what I’m asking is, about the things that you sketch out in your email, do they work when you’re asked to analyse something very specific and focused? or do you do something different?
Best wishes, Liz
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Emilia to Liz 12 November 2015 15:00 GMT
Assuming I have no prior knowledge of the writer, I would read the text through several times and try and get a sense of the voice. Then I’d think over what I’d read, and re-read. It would very likely be difficult – or impossible – for me to adequately analyse a single document without any sort of background or context. Without any such frame of reference, I would by default impose my present-day views on the text and very likely misread it in one or more ways. But, is it ever possible to understand the context from the viewpoint of the writer? I feel as though the only means of remedying this is to work with larger collections.
I don’t think the things I’ve sketched out in my previous email work at all with one-off documents, as the ‘senses’ and ‘understandings’ I’ve accumulated develop over reading hundreds of entries.
With larger collections, the context develops over the course of years, and eventually takes precedence over my present-day interpretations. In reading the Forbes diaries in sequential order, for example, the elusive things like writers’ personalities, phrasing, moods, and relationships come forward over months and sometimes years. But, even having read years of diaries, how can I get away from imposing my present-day views? There seems no way around it. Is it possible to ‘take things at face value’ in practice?
My best wishes, Emilia
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We haven’t provided ‘an end’ to this debate but left it hanging. There is no one simple form of closure that can be operated, unless one of us were to depart so much from ‘the stuff’ that it was obvious we’d just made it up. But we’re both operating in good faith and wanting to do our best by the traces and the people whose lives that provide small partial and tricky representations of.
Last updated: 12 November 2015
