The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture by Gary Saul Morson

The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture Reviews

• 
  Al Bità

  There are some books which can be both fascinating and exasperating in equal measure. This is one of them.
  
  For anyone who is interested in seeing just how far and to what depths rationalisation of a concept can take you, this is certainly a good book to start with. As the title of the book tells you, this is a book about the words of others. What is implied is that someone, somewhere, first uttered the sounds which we now call “words” — and that if and when such words are remembered and repeated to others, we are then “quoting” them. So far, so good.
  
  Once someone, somewhere, first developed “writing”, or signs which when written, drawn, carved, etc. will allow a potential reader/interpreter of those signs to “hear” them, a new level of understanding occurs; and this can go on more or less ad infinitum. By the time we arrive at the present day, the level of complexity is so intricate that, as Morson rightly points out, just about everything we write/say today can be considered as a quote from someone or somewhere or something else. It may very well be that nothing we might do in this regard can free us from the maze.
  
  The more one delves into this maze, the more intricate it becomes. Questions of authenticity arise (did x actually “say” these words? in what language? how good are translated sayings? etc.) — and by association, how accurate they are (what happens when a so-called “original” quote is found out by research to be a mis-quote; especially when the mis-quote itself becomes the “new” quote? And then we can also find mis-mis-quotes… and even dis-quotes…
  
  We also have many other words we use instead of “quotes”: sayings; excepts; extracts; epigrams; epitaphs; axioms; proverbs; aphorisms; adages; treasuries; anthologies; stories; verses; jokes; witticisms; ripostes; retorts; imitations; copies; plagiarism; etc. Morson adeptly and unrelentingly uses razor-sharp reasons to provide many witty, laconic revelations on most of these. The combined effect can be quite mind-blowing and dizzying… and potentially confusing as well… (In the sections dealing with Anthologies, I was quite amazed and intrigued at the level of esoteric sophistication suggested by the title Viking Book of Aphorisms — eventually I realised that this had nothing to do with obscure Aphorisms dug up from early Viking literature, but was in fact a Book of Aphorisms produced by the publishing house operating under the name of Viking!).
  
  As I read through this work, I kept on feeling a kind of mild objection like: “Yes, but…” over and over again, until it became more like “Enough! Enough already!” One “inevitable” conclusion was a kind of affirmation that indeed, whatever we might write or say in future can and must only be considered a “quotation”, whether we are aware of it or not. It is suggested that society and culture are thus defined.
  
  The word Morson uses to convey this consistency is continuum: the idea is that there is an unchanging quality that goes through history and remains at the core of any word or idea, presumably in perpetuity. By the end of the book, however, he realises that this perennial paradox (it’s been around for quite some time) has “problems”: one cannot use any specific instance as an example of the continuum without also acknowledging that it is, in fact, specific, and therefore different from any other instance — so it can’t be a continuum, which must remain the same. Morson tries to accommodate this paradox by asserting that there is a “continuum of separability”. For me, that solves nothing.
  
  When we get to the end of the book, I feel that Morson is attempting to mollify what might be interpreted as a pessimistic view of our society and culture, by saying that the future will always bring forth new quotes. He attempts to justify our propensity for quoting as part of who we are and how we live and form ideas of our selves and our cultures; and that this will go on forever and ever. It all sounds so “aphoristic” to me, and hardly “convincing”. Just being upbeat for the sake of being upbeat is neither here nor there. After reading a work which essentially argues that everything we say and write is nothing more that a “quote”, Morsons’ final sentence “We have not yet begun to quote.” rings hollow to me.
• 
  Lauren Albert

  Why do we quote? How do we quote? When are we misquoting and when are we quoting but it just doesn't happen to match with the extract of the work we are quoting? Does a quote change if it originates with someone different from the one we thought said it? When something said in a movie becomes a popular quote, should it be attributed to the character, the actor, the screen writer or the novelist who wrote the original story? Morson deals with so many questions and complications that my head was spinning.
  
  “A quotation whose author is forgotten becomes a saying; a saying used too often becomes a cliché; and an idiom is a cliché taught in a grammar.” 65
  
  “To be precise: whether they quote words, actions, or places, quotations must do two things. First, they must more or less reproduce an original, as a verbal quotation recognizably reproduces words. Second, they must do so precisely as a re-enactment, intended to be perceived as such. They must point to another, similar action.” 79
  
  “One reason that quotations must be quotable is that they function as complete, if brief,// literary works and so, like all literary works, must be capable of standing on their own. Though it may be drawn from some larger work, the quotation does not require the context of that larger work. As a quotation it is not part of anything. It is taken from a larger work so that it may stand on its own.” 81-2
  
  “We might say that a work’s literariness begins precisely where its documentary value ends.” 82
  
  “Animals imitate, but they do not mimic. //Quotation belongs to humanness.” 282
  
• 
  Peter Poole

  
  http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/suthe...
• 
  ehk2

  A very delightful journey among the "words of others". I enjoy Mr. Morson's sense of humour.
  
  "nihil dictum quod non dictum prius, methodus sola artificem ostendit" (from The Anatomy of Melancholy) -we can say nothing but what has been said, the composition and method is ours only...