Post by Tess Sadowsky: The curious relationship between literature and reality: A letter to Warren Liu

Dear Warren Liu,
Thank you for your presentation last week at Scripps College. Your research on Asian American literature is definitely thought provoking. While on one hand your analysis is difficult to fully understand because of my lack of experience with Asian American literature, on the other hand, the lens of ethics, aesthetics and politics creates a point of access for many audiences. The construction of perceived reality through literature occurs in a range of texts. Your case study of Asian American literature zooms in on the true crisis that can result from the constraining modes of interpretation. If this framework is applied to other collections of writing, people could observe how, at times, literature and analysis confine art, artists and its subjects. This contrasts the concept of literature as an outlet from societal paradigms. A certain underlying critique becomes the norm and falls back into the trap of a prototype. Your analysis of Asian American literature’s crisis of representation uniquely highlights this dual nature of literature.
The emphasis on experimental literature as a means for permeating the assumptions that persist in textual groupings underscores a new conception of protest. By exiting what is considered the common agenda of certain writers, it is not what is in the text that disputes common modes of thought, but actually what is not there. Your choice of Sesshu Foster’s poem in City Terrace Field Manual appropriately highlights a difficulty of distinguishing a piece as Asian American literature. While still using ethics, aesthetics and politics, the audience understands how this structure of analysis does not need to be constrained by precedent. It is also clear how readers grasp onto what is considered Asian American. Political terms that are held hostage include, “immigration” and “labor.” When you also point to the aesthetic assumption of reality, the crisis is fully absorbed. The experimental literature falls prey to the conventional analysis, and as a result is stuck within common assumptions. Since readers strive to conventionalize Foster’s unconventional poem, his attempt at expanding the scope of Asian American literature and its analysis becomes completely stifled.
This analysis of Foster’s poem challenges basic methods for understanding many types of literature. However, it also leaves the question of what to do next. In your lecture, a need for education and some unlearning seemed to mold the formula for how to solve the crisis of Asian American literature. A continued outline is needed for serious reconstruction of the assumptions at hand. Without a more specific model for re-analysis, a crisis of a deficient structure would likely arise. Even though structure limits interpretation it is also required. While the negative effects of a parochial analysis are apparent, how is one to draw the line between a limiting analysis versus an appropriate evaluation? Just writing that actually helps me somewhat answer my own question. By declaring an evaluation of a text as “appropriate,” I ask for a value judgment, and this reveals a major problem.
Nonetheless, it is not just value judgments that you point to as hindering Asian American literature. A major part of the crisis is the assumption that the primary function of the literature is to reveal reality. The aspect of literature that allows for criticism of a social system is then less effective. Since condemnation occurs in the literature, people believe it is taking place in reality, and are unlikely to be inspired to change highlighted offenses. Thus, a crisis of all literature and reality ensues. Literature loses its necessary role as a way of escaping and understanding, and reality is devalued all together.

Thank you for inspiring a greater look into the important connection of literature to ideas of analysis, politics, ethics and representation.

Sincerely,
Tess Sadowsky