A literary tradition in a folkloric idiom, from the Icelandic Saga to the Basque contest-poetry of bertsolaritza has many key differences from a written one. These stories, passed down from generation to generation and often with some degree of improvisation create a literature in constant evolution. It is also a literature which, apart from a very few respected storytellers, does not elevate the author to the revered position that he occupies in modern written literature — in fact, there is no real concept of author in a story told for so many years that it simply becomes ‘a story’ rather than ‘a story by x’. It is a literature which applauds deviating from the original, improvising, improving, forgetting and remembering. It is a literature which thrives on constant innovation. Even in the act of transcribing Sagas and other primarily oral traditions we are irrevocably altering the dynamic of a literature which previously existed in a state of constant evolution and flux. It is also a literature in which any evolution is gradual, there are few paradigm shifts, since the basic stories stay more or less the same for decades if not centuries.

There is no solution to this problem. Oral storytelling and tradition (and by this I more specifically I mean the skill of remembering and telling stories that are never written down) is all but dead in first-world western culture. In written stories, and even in recordings of stories being told we are creating a subtle but crucial change in how these stories are transmitted: we are giving the listener the ability to re-read, re-listen, and therefore learn much more closely the stories being told. That is to say, the re-teller of a story no longer has to gloss over or make up the parts of the story that he doesn’t remember. However, it seems ridiculous not to record a tradition that is so obviously on the decline. These opposing points of view are equally valid, and I find it almost impossible not to agree, however hypocritically, with both statements. I cannot deny that the written word, and in most cases modern media, is supremely beneficial to society: it allows the development and retention of complex ideas and fantastic levels of creativity through development and revision; it allows us to learn and transmit knowledge in a way that is all but impossible within a society with no knowledge of the written word; it allows the dissemination of this knowledge to previously unthinkable numbers of people.

But part of me really misses being told a good story.

Related posts:

1. Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and The Death of the Author
2. Subversion / Reversion: The deconstruction and reconstruction of the Western cultural narrative through a Native American idiom in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water

Isabel caminaba por la calle. Era una chica guapa; tenía el pelo rubio, y los ojos azules, como el azul del mar mediterráneo. Sus labios brillaban, y cada hombre que pasaba por delante de ella acababa mirándola. Este día llevaba ropa muy hermosa, porque iba a una fiesta. Su vestido relumbraba con todos los colores de un arco iris, y se podía ver toda su figura — perfecta, joven, sensual, como una princesa griega de los mitos clásicos.

No siempre había sido así. Cuando era joven, siempre se sentía inferior, siempre pensaba que sus hermanas eran más felices y más guapas. Pero en su adolescencia llegó a ser muy bonita, y ya se dio cuenta de su propia hermosura. No demasiado; no tanto que se consideraba el ombligo del mundo, pero ya se había dado cuenta.

La calle era el opuesto de Isabel: Un desierto gris de concreta y acero, sin belleza, sin alma, sin amor. Las hojas (amarillas, rojas, marrones por el otoño) volaron en círculos, abatiéndose como buitres en el viento; las bolsas de plástico bailaron, ahora suavemente, triste por el muerto del viento, ahora con rapidez, entrecortadas, como si estuvieran celebrando su reanimación.

En este momento, Isabel se volvía lo más feliz que nunca. Sabía que en esta fiesta estaría el chico que amaba. Isabel, como estaba, hubiera podido tener cualquier chico, pero no eligió el más popular o el más apuesto. No le molestó lo que le dijeron las otras muchachas, porque este chico bajo y negro, que no les gustó ni la familia ni los amigos de Isabel, ella amaba.

Cada vez Isabel pensaba en su amor moreno, se puso emocionante. Todas las cosas le hacía recordarse del. Hoy, las nubes estaban mullidos como su pelo, los árboles — otoñales, sin sus hojas — estaban delgadas, enjuto y nervudo como su cuerpo musculoso.

El fin de semana pasada se le había dicho que le amaba; él no dijo nada, pero a Isabel, le entendía que significaba este silencio. Todo el mundo sabe que los hombres no muestran sus emociones, su amor.

Isabel paró. No quiso llegar temprano a la fiesta. Entonces, decidió sentarse en el bordillo y observar a la gente. Mirar a las personas que pasaron por allí era una de sus pasatiempos preferidos. Continuamente cambiando, la gente era la parte más interesante de la existencia, opinaba Isabel. Ella creía que se podía aprender mucho del aspecto de una persona.

Mientras se quedó allí, Isabela estaba contenta. ¡Pero ya necesitaba ir a la fiesta! Se había perdido en su reflexión, y parecía que tan pronto como se sentó, se tardó. Corría por las calles, y finalmente llegó a su destinación. ¿Pero donde estaba su amor? Buscó entre las piernas de sus amigos, y lo vio: “Aquí estoy, perrito”, gritó. Su mama le oyó y le castigó: “Isabel, tiene mas tiempo por el pinche perro que nosotros. ¿Por qué no saludaste a su familia y sus amigos?”. Pero Isabel no escuchaba; estaba enamorado.

Translation:

Isabel walked down the street. She was a pretty girl; she had blonde hair and blue eyes, blue as blue of the Mediterranean sea. Her lips glistened, and each man that walked past her stopped, looking at her. This day she was wearing beautiful clothes, because she was going to a party. Her dress glittered with all the colours of a rainbow, and you could see her all of her curves — perfect, young, sensual, like a princess from the Greek myths.

She had not always been like this. When she was younger, she always felt inferior, always thought that her sisters were happier and better looking. But in her adolescence she came to be very pretty, and now she realised her own beauty. Not too much; not so much that she considered herself better than everyone else, but now she had realised.

The street was the opposite of Isabel: a grey desert of concrete and steel, without beauty, without soul, without love. The leaves (yellow, red, brown for the autumn) circled, swooping like vultures in the wind; the plastic bags danced, now smoothly, sad for the death of the wind, now quickly, jerkily, as if they were celebrating its resurrection.

At this moment, Isabel was the most happy she had ever been. She knew that at this party would be the boy that she loved. Isabel, as she was, could have had any boy, but she didn’t choose the most popular or the most handsome. It didn’t bother her what the other girls said, because this short, black boy, whom neither her family nor her friends liked, she loved.

Each time that Isabel thought of her dark lover, she became excited. Everything reminded her of him. Today, the clouds were springy like his hair, the trees — autumnal, without their leaves — were thin and wiry, like his muscular body.

Last weekend she had told him that she loved him; he said nothing, but Isabel understood what this silence meant. Everyone knows that men don’t show their feelings, their love.

Isabel stopped. She didn’t want to arrive early to the party. So, she decided to sit on the kerb and watch people. Watching the people that walked by was one of her favourite pastimes. Continually changing, people were the most interesting part of existence, Isabel thought. She believed that you could tell a lot from somebody’s looks.

Whilst she stayed here, Isabel was happy. But she needed to go to the party! She had lost herself in her thoughts, and it seemed that as soon as she had sat down, she was late. She ran through the streets, and finally she arrived at her destination. But where was her love? She searched between the legs of her friends and she saw him: “Here I am puppy”, she cried. Her mother saw her and scolded her: “Isabel, you have more time for the bloody dog than for us. Why haven’t you said hello to your family and friends?”. But Isabel did not hear her. She was in love.

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Young’s Literal Translation

1. In the beginning of God’s preparing the heavens and the earth –
   the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness ‘is’ on the face of the deep, and the
2. Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters
3. and God saith, ‘Let light be;’ and light is.
4. And God seeth the light that ‘it is’ good, and God separateth between the light and the darkness
5. and God calleth to the light ‘Day,’ and to the darkness He hath called ‘Night;’ and there is an evening, and there is a morning — day one

Douay-Rheims Bible
God createth Heaven and Earth, and all things therein, in six days

1. In the beginning God created heaven, and earth
2. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters
3. And God said: Be light made. And light was made
4. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness
5. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day

The Bible in Modern English
Genesis: God creates everything in 6 days

1. First, God created heaven and earth
2. The earth was black, and God’s spirit moved over it
3. Then God made light
4. He liked the light, and separated it from the dark
5. He called the light day and the dark night, and a night passed

And here’s one which was supposedly written for the younger generation, but I’ll leave you to decide what you think of this hidden treasure

The Street Bible
Genesi Stuff Starts Up

1. First off nothing. No light, no time, no substance no matter. Second off, God starts it all up and WHAP! Stuff everywhere!
2. The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function — just darkness: total. And floating above it all, God’s Holy Spirit, ready for action
3. Day one: Then God’s voice booms out, ‘Lights!’ and, from nowhere, light floods the skie
4. and ‘night’ is swept off the scene
5. God gives it the big thumbs up, calls it ‘day’

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An Amazing Alliterated Article

Beginning by broadening the boundaries of the brain, boredom brought me to begetting a bemusing, beguiling and boundless brief.
To crush the creative constraints of common conjecture with careful cogitation!
Discovering the delight of disassembling dialect, I decided to demonstrate the diverse deviations derived from diligent development of discourse.
English is endlessly expressive, easily exploited and engineered.
I found firmly following the foregoing formula a fairly formidable folly.
This game generates great glee, and a growing glossary.
However, having hoped for hours of happiness, I was horrified by the harrowing hardship.
Instigating this innovative and intellectually interesting item is initially irritating.
I am justifiably jubilant at this juncture of jargon.
The key to keeping in kilter is keenness.
Languishing in this linguistic labyrinth leaves a laughable lingual lattice.
Moreover, mollifying my manifestly mean mission mandates much meditation.
Nevertheless, in nonchalantly notating this nebulous and nefarious nuisance, I nourish my notions.
Originally, the objective occasioned an obtuse and obfuscated oratorio.
Proceeding postulates palliating the preliminary premises of parlance and patois.
This questionable quest is quintessentially quixotic.
I am required to rigorously and rapaciously ransack my registers.
Society has seldom seen such stupidity and senselessness.
Treading the titillating track twixt tenacity and triviality takes talent.
This undulating utterance unravels ubiquitous unities.
A voluptuous variation of vocables is valuable in this venture.
Which word will work?
Xylophone, xenophobe, xerox?
Yet I yield and yammer:
I have zigzagged to my zenith!

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