Susan Howe Blog Response

Susan Howe's book The Midnight is a chaotic compilation of various texts, histories, people, and emotion. It is difficult to describe the structure of her work for it lacks any real grammatical or thematic boundaries. She separates her text into different sections composing of prose-like pieces along with parts that are structured like poems. There are many images scattered throughout the text that give a collage-effect to the book. Howe threads numerous themes and nodes in her text which force the reader to make connections and be active. This also makes the book not only significant in its content, but also in the experience of reading it.

To be honest, when I read the first two sections of this book I couldn't get myself into it. This worried me because usually even if i Don't understand a text, I can appreciate it for other aspects. It wasn't until the last section and our class discussions of this section that it became more clear to me what Howe is trying to do. As many people have mentioned, a major theme of this book includes the disorienting effects of insomnia. Never is a mind more scattered, confused, and overwhelmed than in this state, and this is the primary aim of Howe: to extract all the chaors and strangeness of a human mind as well as different texts and bring them to the surface. This is why many of her images and references don't immediately make sense or connect. For example all the Alice and Wonderland images set throughout the text don't necessarily relate to the text displayed next to or around the image, but Howe is more focused on the ideas surrounding the story of Alice and Wonderland such as dream-like adventures and the question of what is real or unreal. Additionally, on page 74, there is an image from Alice and Wonderland that has been cut and pasted onto a newspaper which goes with one of her other central themes of books or texts as objects. She places emphasis on her belief that texts tell a story and should be manipulated, added to, and decorated in order to make them unique to oneself. Her family and Irish heritage play a large role in her book as well which at first can be confusing to try and distinguish the specific people but becomes clearer as the text unfolds. Howe plays around with the concepts of revealing and covering up objects which is a recurring effect of her book as well. She unveils certain ideas or images while hiding others so while reading it one has to work to break down the different concepts.

I believe Howe is successful in grasping the madness of life and pieces of texts. She utilizes so many devices to convey a chaotic representation of these thoughts and images. All the different styles and ideas that How presents create a disorienting reading experience which is exactly her goal. Multiple people have mentioned that while reading her book, it is almost like entering this insomniac state of mind where objects or ideas may exist on some level, but are distorted and altered in one way or another. I don't believe her book holds many things to "figure out." It is a representation of all the insanity we repress in our mind and that is sensored in texts. What is so interesting about her book is that what is repressed will never end. There can be no real closure to her book. My reading experience took a big 180 after realizing all the tactics she uses and how relatable it really is to everybody, whether they'd like to admit it or not.