disconnected

[calimac]

Well, it's happened again: something that's been puzzling me intermittently for decades, whenever it comes up.

Somebody uses the phrase "Only connect," in some context suggesting that they take it as a deeply meaningful personal motto. In this case it occupied an LJ userpic.

And I ask, "What does that actually mean?" By itself it's meaningless (connect what to what? and what else besides connect are you not supposed to do?), and context has never enabled me to make sense of it.

And I get one of two replies. Either I'm referred to the original source of the phrase in E.M. Forster's Howards End, or else to an essay by P.L. Travers that focuses on the phrase.

Here's the Forster paragraph.

"It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die."

Now, I do not consider myself a particularly stupid person. But I cannot make much sense out of that paragraph. If the thrust is, "Put passion in your prose," then "Only connect" seems a very peculiar and unexpressive way of putting it; nor does that seem to be the thrust of Travers' equally uncommunicative essay, whose theme seems to be an inchoate series of ideas weakly summarizable as "find meaning in life." Well, duh.

I'm missing something somewhere. Tell me in your own words, not Forster's or Travers's: what do you mean by it?

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Does a preceding Forster paragraph help?

"Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the gray, sober against the fire."

It seems to me that in the context of the whole of Howards End, it refers to connections both within the individual and between individuals. Within the individual, I think that "Live in fragments no longer" is on point.

Before she went off the deep end, Anne Rice wrote, in Interview with the Vampire, of "persons in whom emotion and will" are one. To me, that refers to somewhat the same thing: a completely integrated human being.

However, I think that many (most?) people use the phrase more to refer to inter-personal, rather than intra-personal, connections.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Yes, that does make it clearer. It also makes the whole thing more watery pish. It further raises the question: since this is where all the unclear metaphors (prose/passion, monk/beast) in the succeeding paragraph are introduced and made clear, what makes anybody think that quoting the later paragraph by itself is going to convey anything?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Because the quoter presumes that others already know the context? See my comment above.

Also, when something is used as, for example, an epigraph, it isn't always--in my experience, with scholarly books as well as more popular works--meant to convey something to the reader--at least not at the point where it appears. Sometimes it's meant to set a tone, or it is explained when one reads the entire work, or (I suspect) the author just likes it.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I'm making two separate criticisms of two separate usages, here.

1) My criticism of it for making no sense without context is not so much for its use as an epigram, but for its use as an explanation of what "only connect" means.

2) My criticism of it as an epigram is not merely for its making no sense without context - though the best epigrams do make sense by themselves - but also because, as sartorias says, it's not a very good paragraph.

Further, the example I linked to was not some random occasional use of it in some obscure chapter heading, but somebody holding it up as the whole thesis of their blog (which, you'll notice, they named for it). And I've seen it quoted before, in similar high esteem.

A random occasional quote would not be worth deconstructing in this manner. But here's this piece of gobbledegook that is being held up as some kind of gold standard of something.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Sometimes we (or some of us) read or hear words that speak to us without our having the ability to restate them in such a way that they speak to everyone, or to one specific other person (such as calimac). If we had the ability to express the idea in some other words, we probably would have already done so.

I mentioned the Anne Rice quotation, "persons in whom emotion and will are one." The first time I read that, more than 30 years ago, I thought, "Oh! Yes!" It has remained a touchstone for me ever since. When I have quoted it, however, sometimes people have asked me what it means. Well, if I had the words other than those to say what it means, I wouldn't have had such a moment of discovery when I first read it, and I wouldn't have held on to it ever since.

This, I think, is what some people get from poetry (I seldom do): the words say something that the reader/hearer instantly recognizes, but has never come up with the words for.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The people to whom "only connect" is meaningful seem to find it meaningful without context. Insofar as they provide a larger quote, it's a quote without sufficient context. They're reminding themselves, rather than explaining it to other people. That's fine for themselves, but when they are attempting to explain it to people who don't get it, courtesy expects an attempt at explanation, or at least an honest statement that they can't think of one. Throwing a wad of out of context quotation is as nonsensical as throwing a wad of the Gettysburg Address at someone who asks what "Four score and seven years ago" means.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

When the meaning of something is clear to one, one does not necessarily grasp precisely what amount of context and/or explanation might make it clear to some randomly chosen other person.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

However, a person possessed of even a modicum of clue would guess that a small wad of blatantly out of context quote would not suffice.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

No matter what possible explanation I posit, you seem to have no response but to say something insulting about anyone who would think it sufficient. Have you ever entertained the remote possibility that you simply do not have the capacity to understand something that is obvious to a lot of other people? (This is not meant as a slighting remark. No one of us has the capacity to understand everything, and probably most of us at some time or other stumble on something that many other people find obvious and we just can't grasp.)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Don't be silly. In the first place, some of the things that people, including you, have said here have aided my understanding somewhat. An out of context wad of the original quote did not help, and it was thoughtless to imagine that it would.

Secondly and even more clearly, you were the person who realized it was out of context, and provided the greater context that clarified it! So you, more than anyone else, should grasp that the fault lay in what was (not) offered.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I did not realize it was "out of context"; I thought it possible that more context would help. I find it quite likely that someone would have found the original quote (in your original post above) sufficient; you indicated that you did not, so I provided more.

Here's the full story: I do not recall ever having heard or read, before this discussion, the quotation "Only connect." I have never read Howards End, nor any other Forster (though I have seen some films from his works). When I read your post, I immediately came up with the meaning that I put forth in my initial comment above. However, before posting the comment, I went looking for some context, to see whether I might be on the right track. I found the context quite easily by Googling. I thought, yes, it appears that it does mean at least something like what I immediately thought of. So I provided the further context. I saw no "fault" at all in what had been offered to you, but you made it clear that you did, so I offered more.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Why is it watery pish? Just because it doesn't speak to you? Obviously it speaks to some others.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Watery pish speaks to a lot of people. Rod McKuen was very popular in his day. So is ... I dunno, Deepak Chopra. Name your pish, people love it.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

But why is this watery pish?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

If you have to ask ...

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I do, I do.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Another quotation not as famous as it's supposed to be, then? I was alluding to this guy.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Funny. I was responding in the manner of an exchange in Blazing Saddles.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

A film I've never seen. So it, too, is not as famous as you think.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly: quotations are instantly and fully recognizable to people who are familiar with the source, recognizable at some level to a certain number of other people, and incoherent to the rest.

I would have bet money that you haven't seen Blazing Saddles.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Do you find all of Forster watery pish?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

What I've read of Forster, which is very little, dismays me greatly. I once wrote an article using the fact that Forster disdained storytelling to the point of acknowledging only with the greatest reluctance, "Yes - oh dear, yes - the novel tells a story", as evidence of the decadence and uselessness of mainstream modern literary culture.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Then why are you spending any time and effort trying to understand what people who--apparently--admire Forster's writing see in a two-word quotation from it?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Because I was hoping that perhaps they could translate it into English. I strongly dislike the attitude of the other Forster quote, the one I just gave above, but, unlike "Only connect," I don't fail to understand what he means.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I should also clarify that the "watery pish" reaction came after I did begin to understand WTF he was talking about.