Examining George Saunder’s “Jon”… “Because love is a mystery but the mechanics of love need not be.”
In the exposition of Saunder’s short story the protagonist, Jon, makes this naïve statement on the eve of discovering very private forms of self-love. Well, at least the mechanics of it. As the act leads him to push boundaries created by “coordinators,” Jon begins to see the world through love-tinted glasses and in his case, it’s not all rosy. Instead, it threatens the consumer driven high he once enjoyed in a Vonnegut-styled setting where the nation is built on target audience communities, and celebrities are the people who review new products. Jon’s resulting conflict then becomes how to master the real mechanics of love: the everyday choices that involve more than yourself, the responsibilities of the physical act, the sacrifices it inspires you to make just to be near the person, and even greater… the difficulty of expressing love once you realize how hopelessly inadequate language can be for that task.
There is much more thematically to the story but I hesitate to delve into it for two reasons: the story truly is a must read, and should I decide to teach it, I’ve already given away too much to students who are cheating by reading this and who need to trust what the story has provoked them to think on their own!
However, for fellow English teachers or lovers of language:
I find Saunder’s statement about language the most interesting. While working to obtain my teaching certificate, it was brought to my attention that one of the reasons to teach the classical canon of literature is to ensure that the population has a similar body of knowledge from which is draw on and make connections. It is thought that on some level we are able to express ourselves clearer through commonly read examples and metaphors that we’ve all interacted with during our secondary education. Saunders seems to point out that this common language has now been created through advertising, or I would argue, TV shows and movies. Yet, is he saying, by the end of the story, that this type of common language (think: Jersey Shore) is full of hot air and empty metaphors? Does it then impel us more so to thrust Keats, Dickens, and Shakespeare on students to save them from an inadequate common consciousness? Or is it just that– language- whether it be from an advertisement or from an esteemed poet, will never unravel the labyrinth of human emotion so it really doesn’t matter whether we teach the same classical literature to hordes or if we teach different quality contemporary literature to a few, because regardless of what we teach, at best all we’ll have is a beautiful collection of imperfect metaphors to share with each other about who we are?
yayyyyyy!!! i’m thrilled you read and blogged about it! lady, i had chills reading this. LOVE your interpretation and questions at the end!! seriously we could have an excellent discussion about this face to face, but i will say this: yes….the complexity of us….the need for human connections and to understand each other and to relate…these concepts are always at the forefront when i teach…and as teachers we’re consistently taught that if we cannot relate or show our students how the work we teach relates to them, then we have nothing. and in life, we are grasping for ways to make connections, to find common threads, to talk and understand and perceive through the lenses of each other, and quite often it’s through all these shared experiences that we can make meaning. whether they be literature, movies, trivia, pop culture, filing cabinets in our brains that store ways for the human soul to pour out whatever it is that direct language limits. ahh, language….we are just always searching to find it.
love!
Now I really have to read this story. Loved the blog. We’ll talk after I’ve done some reading.
ok, but you also have to come back and answer the questions!
Woe are we should we ever have to succumb to popular (why,why,why?) entertainment fads for our inspirational writing and common cultural reference source material. The beauty of creative writing is that by its own limitations are we able to continuously find newer ways to express our interpretations and understanding of life and its myriad experiences and the rainbow of feelings they can inspire in us. Similarities and differences are what make the human experience discussible, shareable, teachable, learnable and as such, entertaining. Good prose and poetry (subjective opinion notwithstanding) in any and every culture is our constant attempt to define and understand this world and each other. The turn of a phrase, the metaphor applied, the verbiage used allows different folk to see things differently than they might have otherwise. We can each bite an apple and taste the same thing. It is how each of us chooses to describe what they taste that makes each taste different and truly adds flavor and nuance and enrichment to our lives. So, (see previous blog re: ‘so’) keep teaching ‘classics’, both old world AND contemporary, and yes, try to “save” these young minds from their otherwise limited perspectives. Just reflect on how much better your own mind interprets the world because of what you’ve read and you have your answer.
I agree, but what did you think Saunder’s was putting forth in the story?
My takeaway from ‘Jon’ is that in this age of consumerism & the catch phrase being king, we are slowly losing our identities and ability to discern what is real in the world as opposed to what we are told to believe. Political strategists and power brokers now use advertising methodology to sell their ideology to those who would throw themselves in alignment with a party platform. Too many people no longer think through their personal politics or beliefs but merely parrot the party line like singing an advertising jingle
(LI 69842). The earworm effect. The desired result? Power and control. News information sources no longer provide the in depth story as our attention spans diminish and absorb only the well turned headline nugget, however skewed, left or right.
Yet the story points to the inevitable human instincts, basest of which being sexual desire and leading to feelings and love and an instinct to experience real life, interact and connect with other humans even at a cost of lost creature comforts (including social status). While reading this I couldn’t shake the picture of Paris Hilton having to give up her ‘assets’ and having to live in ‘the real world’ (hey, great idea for a show!). A perfect example of a sheltered stunted personal development whose perceptions are through such tinted glasses and who would have her own uncomfortable process adapting to a world most of the rest of us know and live in.
The unfortunate part is this Vonnegut-esque setting, as you well described it, is close becoming not so farfetched when I observe the direction of this ever changing environment/society we live in. Electronic shorthand and ‘reality’ programming is making us dumber, less informed, and increasingly withdrawn and/or detached. I myself have been coming out from behind my privacy screen less and less all the time. When I do, I try to always be properly velcroed, as we can see by the story, that can lead to another whole set of problems for us entirely. Now there is a lesson for you all right.
I also wanted to comment on the way Saunders wrote the characters’ dialogue, both internal and conversational, reflecting their dependence on their limited ‘perceived’ experience in their communicative skills set. Their ability to properly express their feelings, thoughts and emotions is stunted and limited to the catch phrase descriptives of their advertising collective. Another negative aspect of that possible future we are creeping toward.
I believe this was one of the things you were touching on in your blog entry. Continuing to teach students how to interpret and appreciate good writing remains an important mission. We have all witnessed an application of a little too much “Jon”-speak in the conversational style of today and it slowly infiltrates mainstream communications at every turn. I too often talk to younger people who stare at me blankly at the use of any reference older than they are. Each time, I’m left to wonder what these people are learning in schools these days. Go ahead and force them to blow a little dust around their local library. Unlike many of his characters, a little Shakespeare never hurt anyone.
PS – I’m sure you’d be interested in Saunders “The Braindead Megaphone” for personal enjoyment.