“A tale is about other tales; it is also the teller and her
telling, my wife would’ve said. A story written down loses because written
language is an artificial technology. That story has to fictionalize a
readership and its author. So in my writing down of the housekeepers tale(s), I
risk losing the teller and the full mana of her tale” (Wendt 105).
Albert
Wendt suggests that stories are really just about other stories. Similarly,
travel experiences relate to previous travel experiences. When Marco Polo tries
to relate his tales of travel, he circles back to Venice. In Black Rainbows, readers attempt to make
sense of the narrative by also going back to what we know. In this scene, the searcher explains the risk
involving in story telling. In a similar way, travelers relating their
experiences run the same risk. When retelling accounts of traveling to exotic
places, as the narrative unfolds, the speaker risks losing some of the original
spark she felt in that particular city. Just as, when we attempt to record our
own personal history, we risk losing some of original sensations that cannot be
recreated through the written language.
In
Black Rainbows, recalling or
attempting to recall one’s history is equally as risky. In order to be a
perfect citizen, one must purge themselves of their history. However, just like
the storyteller, one’s history is not an isolated event. Stories are not merely
stories, but “a tale… about other tales”. I find these claims relatable to the
experience of travel and particularly, the difficulty in recounting one’s
experience of travel as an isolated incident. In order to speak of travel
experience, one always relies on previous experiences. Cities build upon the
past in the same way. However, the notion that a “story has to fictionalize a
readership and its author” is like the traveler retelling their experience and
Albert Wendt attempting to draw his readers into his novel. Stories, like
traveling, require a relationship between author and reader, or city and
traveler. However, there is the suggestion that through written accounts, the
author loses some of the original spark. This remains true with travel. The
idea that written language is an “artificial technology” seems particularly
appropriate when retelling travel stories. Our language feels inadequate to
describe the feeling one has in a new city. The sense that artificiality is
embedded within human language is also true. Our written language is made up of
words that symbolize things, but those words do not accurately describe my
particular experience in my favorite city.
Storytellers
reveal our history and experience, not a written account of an isolated event.
In Black Rainbows the same holds
true, one’s personal history is not simply a written account using inadequate
language, but a story told to one’s self built upon other stories. In this way,
travel through the mind becomes a means of accessing one’s past. In order to
access one’s past; one must travel back through the stories they’ve told that
add up to one personal history as a whole.
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