[stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors, new books and more &: Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech
Applebutter Hill
applebutterhill at gmail.com
Tue Feb 18 01:35:50 UTC 2014
I hope you find and post your paper *grin*
Donna
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit
Pollpeter
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 10:49 AM
To: newmanrl at cox.net; 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors,new books and more
&: Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech
Robert,
Thanks for posting. I actually used this speech as a reference for a lit
paper I wrote about blindness in literature. If I can find the paper,
maybe I will post it. I found it interesting to see how blindness has
been depicted throughout the ages in literature.
BTW, I've read three books in a row right now, each containing a minor
blind character, interestingly enough. While not the greatest examples,
all-in-all, they've not been the worse depiction I've ever read. But one
thing I notice is the constant need to describe the eyes as blind or
unseeing. He closed his blind eyes, she stared with her blind eyes, he
searched with unseeing eyes, etc. As though readers need the constant
reminder that the character is blind. It makes me think of Bill's
comment about describing a blind character by their actions only,
avoiding actually referring to them as blind. That maybe by doing this,
the emphasis will be removed from the blindness. In terms of writing
itself, this isn't great writing, in my opinion because it's redundant
to continue to use blindness as an adjitive or adverb, and it almost
implies readers are stupid, as though we will forget the character is
blind if not reminded each time they do something.
Bridgit
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Robert
Leslie Newman
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 9:07 AM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors,new books and
more &: Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech
Hey you all, here is more on the topic of blind authors, the blind as
portrayed on TV, in books, etc. This is a Kenneth Jernigan banquet
speech and it hits at more of this present theme of ours:
Blindness: Is Literature Against Us?
An Address Delivered by Kenneth Jernigan
President, National Federation of the Blind
At the Banquet of the Annual Convention
Chicago, July 3, 1974
History, we are told, is the record of what human beings have done;
literature, the record of what they have thought. Last year I examined
with you the place of the blind in history-not just what we have done
but what the historians have remembered and said we have done. The two,
as we found, are vastly different. This year I would like to talk with
you about the place of the blind in literature. How have we been
perceived? What has been our role? How have the poets and novelists, the
essayists and dramatists seen us? Have they "told it like it is," or
merely liked it as they've told it? With history there is at least a
supposed foundation of fact. Whatever the twisting or omission or
misinterpretation or downright falsehood, that foundation presumably
remains-a tether and a touchstone, always subject to reexamination and
new proof. Not so with literature. The author is free to cut through
facts to the essence, to dream and soar and surmise. Going deeper than
history, the myths and feelings of a people are enshrined in its
literature. Literary culture in all its forms constitutes possibly the
main transmission belt of our society's beliefs and values-more
important even than the schools, the churches, the news media, or the
family. How, then, have we fared in literature? The literary record
reveals no single theme or unitary view of the life of the blind.
Instead, it displays a bewildering variety of images-often conflicting
and contradictory, not only as between different ages or cultures, or
among the works of various writers, but even within the pages of a
single book. Yet, upon closer examination the principal themes and
motifs of literature and popular culture are nine in number and may be
summarized as follows: blindness as compensatory or miraculous power,
blindness as total tragedy; blindness as foolishness and helplessness;
blindness as unrelieved wickedness and evil; blindness as perfect
virtue; blindness as punishment for sin; blindness as abnormality or
dehumanization; blindness as purification; and blindness as symbol or
parable. Let us begin with blindness and compensatory powers. Suppose
one of you should ask me whether I think there is any advantage in being
blind; and suppose I should answer like this: "Not an advantage perhaps:
still it has compensations that one might not think of. A new world to
explore, new experiences, new powers awakening; strange new perceptions;
life in the fourth dimension." How would you react to that? You would, I
suspect, laugh me out of the room. I doubt that a single person here
would buy such stereotyped stupidity. You and I know from firsthand
experience that there is no "fourth dimension" to blindness-no
miraculous new powers awakening, no strange new perceptions, no brave
new worlds to explore. Yet, the words I have quoted are those of a blind
character in a popular novel of some time back. (I don't know whether
the term has significance, but a blind "private eye," no less.) The
association of blindness with compensatory powers, illustrated by the
blind detective I have just mentioned, represents a venerable tradition,
reaching back to classical mythology. A favorite method of punishment
among the gods of ancient Greece was blinding-regarded apparently as a
fate worse than death-following which, more often than not, the gods so
pitied the blinded victim that they relented and conferred upon him
extraordinary gifts, usually the power of prophecy or some other
exceptional skill. Thus, Homer was widely regarded as having been
compensated by the gift of poetry. In the same way Tiresias, who
wandered through the plays of Sophocles, received for his blindness the
gift of prophecy. The theme of divine compensation following divine
retribution survived the passage of the ages and the decline of the
pagan religions. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (one of the most eminent
novelists of the last century, and the creator of Sherlock Holmes)
conjured up a blind character with something of Holmes's sleuthing
talents, in a book entitled Sir Nigel. This figure is introduced as one
who has the mysterious ability to detect by hearing a hidden tunnel,
which runs beneath the besieged castle. His compensatory powers are
described in a conversation between two other people in the
novel:
"This man was once rich and of good repute [says one], but he was
beggared by this robber lord who afterwards put out his eyes, so that he
has lived for many years in darkness at the charity of others." "How can
he help in our enterprise if he be indeed blind?" [asks his companion.]
"It is for that very reason, fair Lord, that he can be of greater
service than any other man. For it often happens that when a man has
lost a sense, the good God will strengthen those that remain. Hence it
is that Andreas has such ears that he can hear the sap in the trees or
the cheep of the mouse in its burrow . . ."2 The great
nineteenth-century novelist Victor Hugo, in The Man Who Laughs,
reflected the view of a host of modern writers that blindness carries
with it a certain purity and ecstasy, which somehow makes up for the
loss of sight. His blind heroine, Dea, is portrayed as "absorbed by that
kind of ecstasy peculiar to the blind, which seems at times to give them
a song to listen to in their souls and to make up to them for the light
which they lack by some strain of ideal music. Blindness," says Hugo,
"is a cavern to which reaches the deep harmony of the Eternal."3
Probably it is this mystical notion of a "sixth sense" accompanying
blindness that accounts for the rash of blind detectives and
investigators in popular fiction. Max Carrados, the man who talked of
living in the "fourth dimension," first appeared in 1914 and went on to
survive a number of superhuman escapades through the nineteen twenties.
In 1915 came another sightless sleuth-the remarkable Damon Gaunt, who
"never lost a case."4 So it is with "Thornley Colton, Blind Detective,"
the brainchild of Clinton H. Stagg; and so it is with the most
illustrious of all the private eyes without eyes, Captain Duncan
Maclain, whose special qualities are set forth in the deathless prose of
a dust jacket: "Shooting to kill by sound, playing chess with fantastic
precision, and, of course, quickening the hearts of the opposite sex,
Captain Maclain has won the unreserved admiration of reviewers."5 Even
the author is carried away with the genius of his hero: "There were
moments," he writes, "when powers slightly greater than those possessed
by ordinary mortals seemed bestowed on Duncan Maclain. Such moments
worried him."6 They might worry us, as well; for all of this mumbo jumbo
about abnormal or supernatural powers doesn't lessen the stereotype of
the blind person as alien and different, unnatural and peculiar. It
makes it worse. Not only is it untrue, but it is also a profound
disservice to the blind; for it suggests that whatever a blind person
may accomplish is not due to his own ability but to some magic inherent
in blindness itself. This assumption of compensatory powers removes the
blind person at a stroke of the pen from the realm of the normal-the
ordinary, everyday world of plain people-and places him in a limbo of
abnormality. Whether supernormal or subnormal does not matter-he is
without responsibility, without rights, and without society. We have
been conned into this view of second-class status long enough. The play
is over. We want no more of magic powers and compensations. We want our
rights as citizens and human beings-and we intend to have them! It is
significant that, for all his supposed charm and talent, Maclain never
gets the girl-or any girl. The author plainly regards him as ineligible
for such normal human relationships as love, sex, and marriage. Max
Carrados put it this way in replying to an acquaintance who expressed
great comfort in his presence: "Blindness invites confidence," he says.
"We are out of the running-for us human rivalry ceases to exist."7 This
notion of compensatory powers-the doctrine that blindness is its own
reward-is no compliment but an insult. It robs us of all credit for our
achievements and all responsibility for our failings. It neatly relieves
society of any obligation to equalize conditions or provide
opportunities or help us help ourselves. It leaves us in the end without
the capacity to lead a regular, competitive, and participating life in
the community around us. The blind, in short, may (according to this
view) be extraordinary, but we can never be ordinary. Don't you believe
it! We are normal people-neither especially blessed nor especially
cursed-and the fiction to the contrary must come to an end! It is not
mumbo jumbo we want, or magical powers-but our rights as free people,
our responsibilities as citizens, and our dignity as human beings.
Negative as it is, this image of compensatory powers is less vicious and
destructive than some others which run through the literature of fiction
and fantasy. The most damaging of all is also the oldest and most
persistent: namely, the theme of blindness as total tragedy, the image
summed up in the ancient Hebrew saying, "The blind man is as one dead."
The Oedipus cycle of Greek tragic plays pressed the death-in-life
stereotype to its farthest extreme. Thus, in "Oedipus Rex", in which the
king puts out his own eyes, the statement occurs: "Thou art better off
dead than living blind." It remained, however, for an Englishman, blind
himself, to write the last word (what today would be called "the bottom
line") on blindness as total disaster. John Milton says in Samson
Agonistes: Blind among enemies, worse than chains, Dungeon, or beggary,
or decrepit age!... Inferior to the vilest now become of man or worm;
the vilest here excel me, They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, Within doors, or without,
still as a fool, In power of others, never in my own; Scarce half I seem
to live, Dead more than half.... a moving grave.8
What is most striking about this epic poem is not the presence of the
disaster concept (that might have been expected) but the fact that
Milton of all people was the author. His greatest writing (including
"Paradise Lost") was done after his blindness. Then why did he do it?
The answer is simple: We the blind tend to see ourselves as others see
us. Even when we know to the contrary, we tend to accept the public view
of our limitations. Thus, we help make those limitations a reality.
Betrayed by the forces of literature and tradition, Milton (in his turn)
betrayed himself and all others who are blind. In fact, he actually
strengthened and reinforced the stereotype-and he did it in spite of his
own personal experience to the contrary. The force of literature is
strong, indeed! The disaster concept of blindness did not stop with
Milton. "William Tell", the eighteenth-century play by Schiller, shows
us an old man, blinded and forced to become a beggar. His son says: Oh,
the eye's light, of all the gifts of Heaven the dearest, best! ... And
he must drag on through all his days in endless darkness! . . To die is
nothing. But to have life, and not have sight-Oh, that is misery
indeed!9 A century later the disaster concept was as popular as ever. In
Kipling's book, The Light That Failed, no opportunity is lost to tell us
that blindness is worse than death. The hero, Dick Heldar, upon learning
that he is to become blind, remarks: "It's the living death .... We're
to be shut up in the dark ... and we shan't see anybody, and we shall
never have anything we want, not though we live to be a hundred." 10
Later in the book, he rages against the whole world "because it was
alive and could see, while he, Dick, was dead in the death of the blind,
who, at the best, are only burdens upon their associates." 11 And when
this self-pitying character finally manages to get himself killed (to
the relief of all concerned), the best Kipling can say of him is that
"his luck had held till the last, even to the crowning mercy of a kindly
bullet through his head." 12 Joseph Conrad, in "The End of the Tether",
kills off Captain Whalley by drowning, as a fate much preferable to
remaining alive without sight. In D.H. Lawrence's "The Blind Man", there
is a war-blinded casualty named Maurice, whose total despair and misery
are unrelieved by any hint of future hope; and Rosamond Lehmann, in her
novel "Invitation to the Waltz", goes Lawrence one better- or, rather,
one worse. Her war-blinded hero, although he appears to be living a
respectable life, is portrayed as if for all practical purposes he were
a walking corpse. He leads, we are told, "a counterfeit of life bred
from his murdered youth." And when he brings himself somehow to dance
with a former sweetheart, it is a sorry spectacle: "She danced with
him," says the author, "in love and sorrow. He held her close to him,
and he was far away from her, far from the music, buried and
indifferent. She danced with his youth and his death." 13 For writers
such as these, the supposed tragedy of blindness is so unbearable that
only two solutions can be imagined: either the victim must be cured or
he must be killed. A typical illustration is Susan Glaspell's "The Glory
of the Conquered", of which an unkind critic has written: "It is a
rather easy solution of the problem to make her hero die at the end of
the book, but probably the author did not know what else to do with
him." 14 Let us now leave tragedy and move to foolishness and
helplessness. The blind man as a figure of fun and the butt of ridicule
is no doubt as old as farce and slapstick. In the Middle Ages the role
was regularly acted out on festive holidays when blind beggars were
rounded up and outfitted in donkey's ears, than made to gibber and
gesticulate to the delight of country bumpkins. Reflecting this general
hilarity, Chaucer (in "The Merchant's
Tale") presents a young wife, married to an old blind man, who deceives
him by meeting her lover in a tree while taking the husband for a walk.
The Chaucerian twist is that the old man suddenly regains his sight as
the couple are making love in the branches-whereupon the quick-witted
girl explains that her amorous behavior was solely for the purpose of
restoring his sight. Shakespeare is just as bad. He makes the blinded
Gloucester in "King Lear" so thoroughly confused and helpless that he
can be persuaded of anything and deceived by any trick. Isaac, in the
Old Testament, is duped by his son Jacob, who masquerades as Esau,
disguising himself in goatskins, and substituting kid meat for the
venison his father craves-all without a glimmer of recognition on the
part of the old man, who must have taken leave of the rest of his senses
as well as his sense of sight. An unusually harsh example of the duping
of blind people is found in the sixteenth-century play "Der Euienspiegel
mit den Blinden". The hero meets three blind beggars and promises them a
valuable coin to pay for their food and lodging at a nearby inn; but
when they all reach out for the money, he gives it to none of them, and
each supposes that the others have received it. You can imagine the
so-called "funny ending." After they go to the inn and dine lavishly,
the innkeeper demands his payment; and each of the blind beggars
thereupon accuses the others of lying, thievery, and assorted crimes.
The innkeeper-shouting "You people defraud everyone!"--drives the three
into his pigsty and locks the gate, lamenting to his wife: "What shall
we do with them, let them go without punishment after they have eaten
and drunk so much, for nothing? But if we keep them, they will spread
lice and fleas and we will have to feed them. I wish they were on the
gallows." 15 The play has a "happy ending," but what an image persists
of the character of those who are blind: criminal and corrupt,
contagious and contaminated, confounded and confused, wandering homeless
and helpless in an alien landscape. Their book of life might well be
called "Gullible's Travels." The helpless blind man is a universal
stereotype. In Maeterlinck's play, "The Blind", all of the characters
are portrayed as sightless in order to make a philosophical point; but
what emerges on the stage is a ridiculous tableau of groping, groaning,
and grasping at the air. One of the very worst offenders against the
truth about blindness is the eminent French author of our own day, Andre
Gide, in "La Symphonie Pastorale". A blind reviewer of the novel has
described it well: "The girl Gertrude at fifteen, before the pastor
begins to educate her, has all the signs of an outright idiot. This is
explained simply as the result of her blindness .... [Gide] asserts that
without physical sight one cannot really know the truth. Gertrude lives
happily in the good, pure world the pastor creates for her .... Gertrude
knows next to nothing about the evil and pain in the actual world. As a
sightless person she cannot consciously know sin, is blissfully
ignorant, like Adam and Eve before eating of the forbidden fruit. Only
when her sight is restored does she really know evil for what it is and
recognize sin. Then, on account of the sinning she has done with the
pastor without knowing it was sinning, she is miserable and commits
suicide."16 In literature not only is blindness depicted as stupidity
but also as wickedness, the very incarnation of pure evil. The
best-known model is the old pirate "Blind Pew," in Stevenson's "Treasure
Island". When the young hero, Jim Hawkins, first encounters Pew, he
feels that he "never saw a more dreadful figure" than this "horrible,
soft-spoken, eyeless creature"; and when Pew gets the boy in his
clutches, Jim observes that he "never heard a voice so cruel, and cold,
and ugly as that blind man's." 17 A much earlier version of the wicked
blind man theme is seen in the picaresque romance of the sixteenth
century, "Lazatillo de Tormes". Lazarillo is apprenticed as a guide to
an old blind man, who is the very personification of evil.
"When the blind man told the boy to put his ear to a statue and listen
for a peculiar noise, Lazarillo obeyed. Then the old man knocked the
boy's head sharply against the stone, so his ears rang for three
days......"18 Throughout the ages the connection between blindness and
meanness has been very nearly irresistible to authors, and it has struck
a responsive note with audiences--audiences already conditioned through
folklore and fable to believe that blindness brings out the worst in
people. Given the casual cruelty with which the blind have generally
been treated, such villainous caricatures have also provided a
convenient excuse and justification. After all, if the blind are rascals
and rapscallions, they should be handled
accordingly- and no pity wasted.
Alternating with the theme of blindness as perfect evil is its exact
reverse: the theme of blindness as perfect virtue. On the surface these
two popular stereotypes appear to be contradictory; but it takes no
great psychological insight to recognize them as opposite sides of the
same counterfeit coin. What they have in common is the notion that
blindness is a transforming event, entirely removing the victim front
the ordinary dimensions of life and humanity. Blindness must either be
the product of sin and the devil or of angels and halos. Of the latter
type is Melody, in Laura Richards' novel of the same
name: "The blind child," we are told, "touched life with her hand, and
knew it. She knew every tree of the forest by its bark; knew when it
blossomed, and how .... Not a cat or dog in the village but would leave
his own master or mistress at a single call from Melody." 19 She is not
merely virtuous; she is magical. She rescues a baby from a burning
building, cures the sick by her singing, and redeems alcoholics from the
curse of drink. It is passing strange, and what is strangest of all is
that this absurd creature is the invention of Laura Richards, the
daughter of Samuel Gridley Howe, a pioneer educator of the blind. Like
Milton, Mrs. Richards knew better. She was betrayed by the forces of
tradition and custom, of folklore and literature. In turn she betrayed
herself and the blind, and gave reinforcement to the stereotype. Worst
of all, she doubtless never knew what she had done, and thought of
herself as a benefactor of the blind and a champion of their cause.
Ignorance is truly the greatest of all tragedies. The sickest of all the
romantic illusions is the pious opinion that blindness is only a
blessing in disguise. In "The Blind Girl of Wittenberg", by John G.
Morris, a young man says to the heroine: "God has deprived you of sight
but only that your heart might be illuminated with more brilliant
light." Every blind girl I know would have slapped his face for such
insulting drivel; but the reply of this fictional female is worse than
the original remark: "Do you not think, sir," she says, "that we blind
people have a world within us which is perhaps more beautiful than
yours, and that we have a light within us which shines more brilliantly
than your sun?" 20 So it goes with the saccharine sweet that has robbed
us of humanity and made the legend and hurt our cause. There is Caleb,
the "little blind seer" of James Ludlow's awful novel, "Deborah". There
is Bertha, Dickens' ineffably sweet and noble blind heroine of "The
Cricket on the Hearth", who comes off almost as an imbecile. There is
the self-sacrificing Nydia, in "The Last Days of Pompeii"; and there is
Naomi, in Hall Caine's novel, "Scapegoat". But enough! It is sweetness
without light, and literature without enlightment. One of the oldest and
cruelest themes in the archives of fiction is the notion of blindness as
a punishment for sin. Thus, Oedipus was blinded as a punishment for
incest, and Shakespeare's Gloucester for adultery. The theme often goes
hand in hand with the stereotype of blindness as a kind of purification
rite--an act which wipes the slate clean and transforms human character
into purity and goodness. So Amyas Leigh, in Kingsley's "Westward Ho",
having been blinded by a stroke of lightning, is instantly converted
from a crook to a saint. Running like an ugly stain through many of
these master plots- and, perhaps, in a subtle way underlying all of
them-is the image of blindness as dehumanization, a kind of banishment
from the world of normal life and relationships. Neither Dickens' blind
Bertha, nor Bulwer-Lytton's Nydia, when they find themselves in love,
have the slightest idea that anybody could ever love them back- nor does
the reader; nor, for that matter, do the other characters in the novels.
Kipling, in a story entitled "They," tells of a charming and apparently
competent blind woman, Miss Florence, who loves children but "of course"
cannot have any of her own. Kipling doesn't say why she can't, but it's
plain that she is unable to imagine a blind person either married or
raising children. Miss Florence, however, is magically compensated. She
is surrounded on her estate by the ghosts of little children who have
died in the neighborhood and have thereupon rushed to her in spirit. We
are not meant to infer that she is as crazy as a hoot owl--only that she
is blind, and therefore entitled to her spooky fantasies. The last of
the popular literary themes is that which deals with blindness not
literally but symbolically, for purposes of satire or parable. From
folklore to film the image recurs of blindness as a form of death or
damnation, or as a symbol of other kinds of unseeing (as in the maxim,
"where there is no vision, the people perish)." In this category would
come H.G. Well's classic "The Country of the Blind"; also, "The Planet
of the Blind", by Paul Corey; and Maeterlinck's "The Blind". In the
short story by Conrad Aiken, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," blindness
becomes a metaphor for schizophrenia. In virtually all of these symbolic
treatments, there is an implied acceptance of blindness as a state of
ignorance and confusion, of the inversion of normal perceptions and
values, and of a condition equal to if not worse than death. The havoc
wrought upon the lives of blind people in ages past by these literary
traditions is done, and it cannot be undone; but the future is yet to be
determined. And that future, shaped by the instrument of truth, will be
determined by us. Self-aware and self-reliant-neither unreasonably
belligerent nor unduly self-effacing-we must, in a matter-of-fact way,
take up the challenge of determining our own destiny. We know who we
are; we know what we can do; and we know how to act in concert. And what
can we learn from this study of literature? What does it all mean? For
one thing, it places in totally new perspective the pronouncements and
writings of many of the so-called "experts" who today hold forth in the
field of work with the blind. They tell us (these would-be
"professionals," these hirelings of the American Foundation for the
Blind and HEW, these pseudoscientists with their government grants and
lofty titles and impressive papers) that blindness is not just the loss
of sight, but a total transformation of the person.
They tell us that blindness is not merely a loss to the eyes, but to the
personality as well-that it is a "death," a blow to the very being of
the individual. They tell us that the eye is a sex symbol, and that the
blind person cannot be a "whole man"-or, for that matter, presumably a
whole woman either. They tell us that we have multiple "lacks and
losses." 21 The American Foundation for the Blind devises a 239 page
guidebook22 for our personal management," with sixteen steps to help us
take a bath, and specific techniques for clapping our hands and shaking
our heads. We are given detailed instructions for buttering our bread,
tying our shoes, and even understanding the meaning of the words "up"
and "down." And all of this is done with federal grants, and much
insistence that it is new discovery and modern thought. But our study of
literature gives it the lie. These are not new concepts. They are as
unenlightened as the Middle Ages. They are as old as Oedipus Rex. As for
science, they have about as much of it as man's ancient fear of the
dark. They are not fact, but fiction; not new truths, but medieval
witchcraft, decked out in modern garb-computerized mythology. What we
have bought with our federal tax dollars and our technology and our
numerous government grants is only a restatement of the tired old fables
of primitive astrology and dread of the night. And let us not forget NAC
(The National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and
Visually Handicapped). When the members of NAC and its accredited
minions try to act as our custodians and wardens, they are only behaving
in the time honored way of the Elizabethan "keepers of the poor." When
they seek to deck us out in donkey's ears and try to make us gibber and
gesticulate, they are only attempting what the country bumpkins of 600
years ago did with better grace and more efficiency. We have repudiated
these false myths of our inferiority and helplessness. We have rejected
the notion of magical powers and special innocence and naivete. Those
who would try to compel us to live in the past would do well to look to
their going. Once people have tasted freedom, they cannot go back. We
will never again return to the ward status and second-class citizenship
of the old custodialism. There are many of us (sighted and blind
alike) who will take to the streets and fight with our bare hands if we
must before we will let it happen. And we must never forget the power of
literature. Revolutions do not begin in the streets, but in the
libraries and the classrooms. It has been so throughout history. In the
terrible battles of the American Civil War, for example, the writers and
poets fought, too. When the Southern armies came to Bull Run, they
brought with them Sir Walter Scott and the image of life he had taught
them to believe. Ivanhoe and brave King Richard stood in the lines with
Stonewall Jackson to hurl the Yankees back. The War would have ended
sooner except for the dreams of the poets. And when the Northern troops
went down to Richmond, through the bloody miles that barred the way,
they carried with them the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Harriet
Beecher Stowe. It was Uncle Tom and little Eliza who fired the shots and
led the charges that broke the Southern lines. Never mind that neither
Scott nor Stowe told it exactly as it was. What they said was believed,
and believing made it come true. To the question IS LITERATURE AGAINST
Us, there can be no unqualified response. If we consider only the past,
the answer is certainly yes. We have Conventional fiction, like
conventional history, has told it like it isn't. Although there have
been notable exceptions, 23 the story has been monotonously and
negatively the same. If we consider the present, the answer is mixed.
There are signs of change, but the old stereotypes and the false images
still predominate-and they are reinforced and given weight by the
writings and beliefs of many of the "experts" in our own field of work
with the blind. If we turn to the future, the answer is that the
future-in literature as in life-is not predetermined but
self-determined. As we shape our lives, singly and collectively, so will
we shape our literature. Blindness will be a tragedy only if we see
ourselves as authors see us. The contents of the page, in the last
analysis, reflect the conscience of the age. The structure of literature
is but a hall of mirrors, giving us back (in images slightly larger or
smaller than life) exactly what we put in. The challenge for us is to
help our age raise its consciousness and reform its conscience. We must
rid our fiction of fantasy and imbue it with fact. Then we shall have a
literature to match reality, and a popular image of blindness to match
the truth, and our image of ourselves. Poetry is the song of the spirit
and the language of the soul. In the drama of our struggle to be free-in
the story of our movement and the fight to rid the blind of old
custodialism and man's ancient fear of the dark-there are epics which
cry to be written,and songs which ask to be sung. The poets and
novelists can write the words, but we must create the music. We stand at
a critical time in the history of the blind. If we falter or turn back,
the tragedy of blindness will be great, indeed. But, of course, we will
not falter, and we will not turn back. Instead, we will go forward with
joy in our hearts and a song of gladness on our lips. The future is
ours, and the novelists and the poets will record it. Come! Join me on
the barricades, and we will make it come true! FOOTNOTES 1. Ernest
Bramah, "Best Max Carrados Detective Stories", p. 6. 2. Arthur Conan
Doyle, "Sir Nigel", p. 102. 3. Victor Hugo, "The Man Who Laughs", p.
316. 4. Isabel Ostrander, "At One-Thirty: A Mystery", p. 6. 5. Baynard
Kendrick, "Make Mine Maclain", dust jacket. 6. Ibid., p. 43. 7. Bramah,
op. cit., p. 7. 8. John Milton, "The Portable Milton", pp. 615-616. 9.
Friedrich Schiller, "Complete Works of Friedrich Schiller", p. 447. 10.
Rudyard Kipling, "Selected Prose and Poetry of Rudyard Kipling", p. 131.
11. Ibid., p. 156. 12. Ibid., p. 185. 13. Rosamond Lehmann, "Invitation
to the Waltz", p. 48, quoted in Jacob Twersky, "Blindness in
Literature". 14. Jessica L. Langworthy, "Blindness in Fiction: A Study
of the Attitude of Authors Towards Their Blind Characters," "Journal of
Applied Psychology", 14:282, 1930. 15. Twersky, op. cit., p. 15. 16.
Ibid., P. 47. 17. Robert Louis Stevenson, "Treasure Island", p. 36. 18.
"The Life of Lazatillo de Tormes", summarized in Magill's "Masterplots",
p. 2573. 19. Laura E. Richards, "Melody", pp. 47-48. 20. John G. Morris,
"The Blind Girl of Wittenberg", p. 103. 21. Reverend Thomas J. Carroll,
"Blindness: What It is, What It Does, and How to Live With It". This
entire book deals with the concept of blindness as a "dying," and with
the multiple "lacks and losses" of blindness. 22. American Foundation
for the Blind, Inc., "A Step-by-Step Guide to Personal Management for
Blind People". This entire book is taken up with lists of so-called "how
to" details about the routines of daily living for blind persons. 23.
There is a tenth theme to be found here and there on the shelves of
literature-a rare and fugitive image that stands out in the literary
gloom like a light at the end of a tunnel. This image of truth is a
least as old as Charles Lamb's tale of "Rosamund Gray", which presents
an elderly blind woman who is not only normally competent but normally
cantankerous. The image is prominent in two of Sir Walter Scott's
novels, "Old Mortality" and "The Bride of Lammamoor", in both of which
blind persons are depicted realistically and unsentimentally. It is
evident again, to the extent at least of the author's knowledge and
ability, in Wilkie Collin's "Poor Miss Finch", written after Collins had
made a serious study of Diderot's "Letter on the Blind" (a scientific
treatise not without its errors but remarkable for its understanding).
The image is manifest in Charles D. Stewart's "Valley Waters", in which
there is an important character who is blind-and yet there is about him
no aura of miracle nor even of mystery, no brooding or mischief, no
special powers, nothing in fact but naturalness and normality.
Similarly, in a novel entitled "Far in the Forest", H. Weir Mitchell has
drawn from life (so he tells us) a formidable but entirely recognizable
character named Philetus Richmond "who had lost his sight at the age of
fifty but could still swing an axe with the best of the woodsmen." Back
to top BIBLIOGRAPHY American Foundation for the Blind, Inc., "A
Step-by-Step Guide to Personal Management for Blind People", New York,
1970. Barreyre, Gene, "The Blind Ship", New York, Dial, 1926. Bramah,
Ernest, "Best Max Carrados Detective Stories", New York, Dover, 1972.
Bronte, Charlotte, "Jane Eyre", New; York, Dutton, 1963. Caine, Hall,
"The Scapegoat", New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1879. Carroll,
Reverend Thomas J., "Blindness: What It Is, What It Does, and How To
live With It", Boston, Toronto, Little, Brown and Company, 1961.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, "Canterbury Tales", Garden City, translated by J.U.
Nicolson, 1936. Collins, Wilkie, "Poor Miss Finch", New York, Harper and
Brothers, 1902. Conrad, Joseph, "The End of the Tether", Garden City,
Doubleday, 1951. Corey, Paul, "The Planet of the Blind", New York,
Paperback Library, 1969. Craig, Dinah Mulock, "John Halifax, Gentleman",
New York, A.L. Burt, nd. Davis, William Stems, "Falaise of the Blessed
Voice", New York, The Macmillan Company, 1904. Dickens, Charles,
"Barnaby Rudge", New York, Oxford University Press, 1968. -----,
"Cricket On the Hearth", London, Oxford University Press, 1956. Diderot,
Denis, "Lettre sur les Avengles", Geneva, E. Droz, 1951. Doyle, Arthur
Conan, "Sir Nigel", New York, McClure, Philips and Company, 1906. Gide,
Andre, "La Symphonie Pastorale", Paris, Gallimard, 1966. Glaspell,
Susan, "The Glory of the Conquered", New York, Frederick A. Stokes
Company, 1909. Hugo, Victor, "The Man Who Laughs", New York, Grosset and
Dunlap, nd. Kendrick, Baynard, "Make Mine Maclain", New York, Morrow,
1947. Kipling, Rudyard, "Selected Prose and Poetry of Rudyard Kipling",
Garden City, Garden City Publishing Company, 1937. Kingsley, Charles,
"Westward Ho!", New York, J.F. Taylor and Company, 1899. Lamb, Charles,
"The Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret", London, 1798.
Langworthy, Jessica L., "Blindness in Fiction: A Study of the Attitude
of Authors Toward their Blind Characters," "Journal of Applied
Psychology", 14:282, 1930. Lawrence, D.H., "England, My England and
Other Short Stories", New York, T. Seltzer, 1922. Lehmann, Rosamond,
"Invitation to the Waltz", New York, 1933. "Life of Lazarillo de
Tormes", 1553, summarized in Magill, Frank Nathen, "Magill's
Masterplots", New York, Salem Press, 1964. London, Jack, "The Sea Wolf",
New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1904. Ludlow, James M., "Deborah, A Tale
of the Times of Judas Maccabaeus", New York, Fleming H. Revell Company,
1901. Lytton, Bulwer, "The Last Days of Pompeii", Garden City,
International Collectors Library, 1946.
Maeterlinck, Maurice, "The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck", translated by
Richard Hovey, New York, Duffield, 1908. Marryat, Frederick, "The Little
Savage", New York, E.P. Dutton and Company, 1907. Milton, John,
"Paradise Lost", New York, Heritage Press, 1940. -----, "The Portable
Milton", New York, Viking Press, 1949. Mitchell, H. Weir, "Far in the
Forest", New York, Century Company, 1899. Morris, John G., "The Blind
Girl of Wittenberg", Philadelphia, Lindsay and Blakison, 1856.
Ostrander, Isabel, "At One-Thirty: A Mystery", New York, W.J. Watt,
1915. Richards, Laura E., "Melody", Boston, Estes and Lauriat, 1897.
Sachs, Hans, "Der Eulenspiegel mit den Blinden". Schiller, Friedrich,
"William Tell", translated by Robert Waller Deering, Boston, Heath,
1961. -----, "Don Carlos, Infant of Spain", translated by Charles E.
Passage, New York, Ungar Publishing Company, 1959. Scott, Sir Walter,
"Old Mortality", London, Oxford University Press, 1925. -----, "The
Bride of Lammamoor", London, Oxford University Press, 1925. Shakespeare,
William, "King Lear", New Haven, Yale University Press, 1947. Sophocles,
"Oedipus Rex", translated by Robert Fitzgerald and Dudley Fitts, New
York, Harcourt Brace, 1949. -----, "Oedipus at Colonnus", translated by
Charles R. Walker, Garden City, Anchor Books, 1966. Stagg, Clinton H.,
"Thornley Colton, Blind Detective", New York, G. Howard Watt, 1925.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, "Treasure Island", Keith Jennison large-type
edition, New York, Watt, nd. -----, "Kidnapped", New York, A.L. Burt,
1883. Stewart, Charles D., "Valley Waters", New York, E.P. Dutton and
Company, 1922. Twersky, Jacob, Blindness in Literature, New York,
American Foundation for the Blind, 1955. Wells, H.G. "The Country of the
B at d," Strand Magazine, London, 1904. West, V. Sackville, The Dragon in
Shallow Waters, New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922. Back to top
upon
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
Lambert
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 7:27 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors; RE: New Book,
blindness on TV
Donna and Bill,
How I appreciate your conversation and insight into this interesting
musing on how blindness becomes the lens through which art and
literature originate and flourish.
What a nice group of informative pieces on the authors.
I have saved it and will go back on a day when I can spend some quality
time on it, and put some thought into it. Today is dedicated to working
on, and rehearsing, two presentations that I have written - doing the
timing, etc.
on them to make sure they flow for my audience. Doing lectures and
conference presentations is something I really enjoy.
At this time, I am deeply involved in another major project. A video is
being produced that will accompany our two-person exhibition - Vision
and
Revision: Two Artists with Limited Sight, Not Limited Vision- The video
will show my work from inception and planning stage, through completion
and gallery installation. We did the final photography for it over the
weekend.
Two of my colleagues from the English Department did the voice over's of
my writings that will take the viewer actually into the process and the
thoughts I experience when working with my hands on the pieces. Little
by little, all the pieces are coming together to bring this project to
the public when the show opens on March 7th. And, while that show is
being put together for one gallery, I am already working with the
personnel at the second gallery where it will open on April 14th -
multi-tasking is something that is not optional in my world. I work on
shows anywhere from one to four years in advance - and on many levels at
the same time with gallery personnel.
Have a very productive day everyone! I am off to "practice" my talk and
do the tweaking necessary. Lynda
----- Original Message -----
From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
To: <meekerorgas at ameritech.net>; "'Writer's Division Mailing List'"
<stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 4:20 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors;RE: New Book,
blindness on TV
> Bill,
> Donna Hill here. I don't know about Homer, and neither does anyone
> else.
> His
> blindness and even his existence as the one writer of the works
> attributed to him is a matter of some controversy in the academic
> world. For proof of his blindness, lines from his poetry are used,
> which isn't quite enough for me. Homer as a blind poet is more
> important to me as a cultural myth.
>
> Milton, though he wrote his best work without sight, was
> well-educated and well-known prior to blindness. The most remembered
> line he wrote about blindness doesn't say much for adapting -- approx
> "those serve too who only stand and wait." I found a great bio of him
> on poets.org, which I will place at the end of this message.
>
> Thurber lost sight in one eye in an accident in childhood which
> apparently led to losing sight in the other later in life. He had
> enough sight to enlist in the military and function as a cartoonist
for
the NewYorker.
> Here
> is something from an article from Slate.com about him (after a
> collection of his letters was released) that discusses the effect of
> his blindness on his work.
> Block quote
> The tragedy of James Thurber.
>
> James Thurber's tragedy.
> By
> Wilfrid Sheed
>
> SEPT. 18 2003 3:33 PM
>
> At the age of 15 or so, I picked up The Thurber Carnival and realized
> that I'd found my Pied Piper; I wanted to be James Thurber. I would
> follow those sentences anywhere. But Thurber, The New Yorker writer
> and cartoonist (author, famously, of "The Secret Life of Walter
> Mitty"), had just passed his peak and was already descending into the
> total blindness that would embitter him and impair his writing. So,
> The Thurber Carnival was the perfect place to start, and it still is:
> It contains Thurber's essence and the best work he did in his
> pre-blind years-his cartoons and fables and those deadly little
"casuals"
> from
> The New Yorker in which husbands and wives drove each other
> absolutely, unconditionally crazy, while huge silent dogs looked on
> like Buddhas, patiently waiting for the human race to come to its
> senses, or not, as the case may be.
>
> Now we have The Thurber Letters, collected by Harrison Kinney and
> Rosemary Thurber, to give us a fuller picture of the man. Most people
> would, I suppose, if faced with the grim choice, prefer to take their
> chances as blind writers rather than as deaf composers. Homer, the
> Cyclops of literature, did OK.
> And
> Milton got a great poem out of blindness. But Thurber's letters seem
> to me inexpressibly sad, perhaps because one can perceive the
> blindness setting in slowly-and, having seen the back of his
> biography, one also knows that there will be no great poems, so to
> speak, deriving from it.
>
> ...
>
> Thurber, like many enlisted men, had seen "Paree," and it had given
> all his pieces a lick of sophistication new to American humor. In
> effect, he and his whole generation had used Paris as a species of
> finishing school where country boys like Cole Porter and Ernest
> Hemingway could major in sophistication before bringing some home with
> them. There was never any question of anyone going back to the farm,
> of course, and so in the mid-'20s a bunch of these boys decided to
> start a magazine right there-and not just any old magazine, but the
> most sophisticated damn magazine in the whole world: "Not for the old
> lady in Dubuque," as its first issue trumpeted sophomorically. The New
> Yorker did turn out to be the most sophisticated magazine in the
> world, and the British in particular went nuts trying to imitate it.
>
> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2003/09/blind_wit.html
> Block quote end
>
> Joyce had problems with his vision (iritis & glaucoma) starting in
> childhood when he needed thick glasses to read. He had numerous
> operations for it; he died during an operation, but I'm not sure if it
> was another one on his eyes. In one letter he describes himself as
> having been "incapacitated"
> for
> a week from the iritis, but I don't know if he meant by the pain of
> the condition or because he wasn't adapted to living nonvisually. I
> haven't found any references to his using any adaptations such as
> Milton did when he dictated his later poetry.
>
> Here are some snippits from an old Atlantic Monthly article on Joyce's
> literary contribution in which his vision is mentioned and
> appropriately enough the influence it had on his writing. I included
> the first quote to show how much he was passing as sighted, or how
> little his visual problems were holding him back in his early years.
The
URL's at the end.
>
> Block quote
> The Atlantic Monthly
>
> James Joyce
> By Harry Levin
> December, 1946
> ... At University College he had specialized in Romance Languages, and
> had shown such proficiency that there had been talk of a
> professorship. During his hardest years on the Continent, before a
> benefactor endowed his literary work, he worked as a commercial
> translator and as a teacher in a Berlitz school.
>
> ...
> It is a striking fact about English literature in the twentieth
> century that its most notable practitioners have seldom been
> Englishmen. The fact that they have so often been Irishmen supports,
> Synge's belief in the reinvigorating suggestiveness of Irish popular
> speech. That English was not Joyce's native language, in the strictest
> sense, he was keenly aware; and it helps to explain his unparalleled
> virtuosity. But a more concrete explanation is to be discerned among
> his physical traits, one of which we normally classify as a serious
> handicap. Joyce lived much of his life in varying states of
> semi-blindness.
> To
> preserve what eyesight he had, he underwent repeated operations and
> countermeasures. A schoolboy humiliation, when he broke his glasses
> and failed to do his lessons, is painfully recollected in the Portrait
> and again in Ulysses.
> His writing tends more and more toward low visibility; his imagination
> is auditory rather than visual. If the artist is a man for whom the
> visible world exists, remarked George Moore, then Joyce is essentially
> a metaphysician; for he is less concerned with the seeing eye than
> with the thinking mind.
>
> We may add that he is most directly concerned with the hearing ear.
> Doubtless the sonorities of Homer and Milton are intimately connected
> with their blindness. It is scarcely coincidental that Joyce, almost
> unique among modern prose writers in this respect, must be read aloud
> to be fully appreciated. In addition to his linguistic aptitude, and
> in compensation for his defective vision, he was gifted with an
> especially fine tenor voice. Professional singing was one of the
> possible careers he had contemplated. His singer's taste inclined
> toward Opera and bel canto, romantic ballads and Elizabethan airs: not
> music but song, he liked to say. His poems except for a few excursions
> into Swiftian satire, are songs; lyrics which, without their musical
> settings look strangely fragile. Yeats, upon first reading them,
> praised Joyce's delicate talent, and shrewdly wondered whether his
> ultimate form would be verse or prose.
> Operating
> within the broader area of fiction, he was to retain the cadenced
> precision of the poet. Above all he remained an accomplished listener,
> whose pages are continually animated by the accurate recording of
> overheard conversation.
>
> ...
>
> His pangs of composition have recently been described by Philippe
> Soupault as "a sort of daily damnation: the creation of the Joycean
> world. The perverse ingenuity of these later experiments has been
> deplored more frequently than deciphered. A long series of
> misunderstandings with the public inevitably reinforced those early
> vows of silence, exile, and cunning. Inhibited from writing naturally
> of natural instincts, Joyce ended by inventing an artificial language
> of innuendo and mockery. In Finnegans Wake he drew upon his linguistic
> skills and learned hobbies to contrive an Optophone--an instrument
> which, for the benefit of the blind, converts images into sounds. Out
> of it come, not merely echoes of the past, but warnings of the future.
> Mr. Earwicker's worldly misfortunes are climaxed by a lethal
> explosion: "the abnihilisation of the etym."
> Pessimists may interpret this enigma as the annihilation of all
> meaning, a chain reaction set off by the destruction of the atom.
> Optimists will stress the creation of matter ex nihilo--and trust in
> the Word to create another world.
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/95sep/links/levi.htm
> Block quote end
>
> Now for the Milton bio
> Block quote
> John Milton
>
> John Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608, into a
> middle-class family. He was educated at St. Paul's School, then at
> Christ's College, Cambridge, where he began to write poetry in Latin,
> Italian, and English, and prepared to enter the clergy.
>
> After university, however, he abandoned his plans to join the
> priesthood and spent the next six years in his father's country home
> in Buckinghamshire following a rigorous course of independent study to
> prepare for a career as a poet. His extensive reading included both
> classical and modern works of religion, science, philosophy, history,
> politics, and literature. In addition, Milton was proficient in Latin,
> Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian, and obtained a
> familiarity with Old English and Dutch as well.
>
> During his period of private study, Milton composed a number of poems,
> including "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," "On Shakespeare,"
> "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and the pastoral elegy "Lycidas." In May
> of 1638, Milton began a 13-month tour of France and Italy, during
> which he met many important intellectuals and influential people,
> including the astronomer Galileo, who appears in Milton's tract
> against censorship, "Areopagitica."
>
> In 1642, Milton returned from a trip into the countryside with a
> 16-year-old bride, Mary Powell. Even though they were estranged for
> most of their marriage, she bore him three daughters and a son before
> her death in 1652.
> Milton later married twice more: Katherine Woodcock in 1656, who died
> giving birth in 1658, and Elizabeth Minshull in 1662.
>
> During the English Civil War, Milton championed the cause of the
> Puritans and Oliver Cromwell, and wrote a series of pamphlets
> advocating radical political topics including the morality of divorce,
> the freedom of the press, populism, and sanctioned regicide. Milton
> served as secretary for foreign languages in Cromwell's government,
> composing official statements defending the Commonwealth. During this
> time, Milton steadily lost his eyesight, and was completely blind by
> 1651. He continued his duties, however, with the aid of Andrew Marvell
and
other assistants.
>
> After the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, Milton was
> arrested as a defender of the Commonwealth, fined, and soon released.
> He lived the rest of his life in seclusion in the country, completing
> the blank-verse epic poem Paradise Lost in 1667, as well as its sequel
> Paradise Regained and the tragedy Samson Agonistes both in 1671.
> Milton oversaw the printing of a second edition of Paradise Lost in
> 1674, which included an explanation of "why the poem rhymes not,"
> clarifying his use of blank verse, along with introductory notes by
> Marvell. He died shortly afterwards, on November 8, 1674, in
> Buckinghamshire, England.
>
>
>
> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/707
> Block quote end
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cheryl
> Orgas & William Meeker
> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:59 AM
> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors;RE: New
> Book, blindness on TV
>
> Linda,
>
> Blind or visually impaired authors Homer, John Milton, James Joyce,
> and James Thurber come to mind first. That they were known for their
> works rather than their blindness is to me a measure of their success.
>
> Several authors have written novels without using common vowels, such
> as the letter "E." So how about a novel or short story depicting a
> blind character without using the word "blind?" That is, describing
> them and their actions including alternative techniques and letting
> the reader figure out that they are blind.
>
> Or how about a novel or short story written without visual
> descriptions. That is, using only descriptions of sounds, textures,
> tastes, and feelings?
>
> I can think up these ideas, but I lack the skill, drive, and
> self-disclipline to execute them. So have fun.
>
>
> Bill Meeker
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
> Lambert
> Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 6:59 AM
> To: newmanrl at cox.net; Writer's Division Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind; RE: New Book,
> blindness on TV
>
> This conversation is making me begin to think about some authors I
> taught in the past in Humanities and English courses. Now that I am
> "aware" of blindness, which I was NOT at all in the past, I am
> wondering how I would interpret the literature of a blind author. I
> taught Bourges and I never
> knew he was blind! I am thinking that now, if I go back to read his
> work,
> I will interpret many things in a different way. I taught the "Book
> of Sand" every semester! Hmmmm. Now it makes even more sense as an
> exampe lof of Postmodernism which was the focus it had for me at the
> time. WOW, this is beginning to be a revelation to me. I know that
> many of the artists I taught were blind or visually impaired, but
> their work was not generally explored through that lens.
> I am going to begin looking much deeper into this for my own research
> - if anyone has any more information on artists and writers who
> are/were blind I would love to hear from you as I begin my own little
> research project on this matter.
>
> I am re-learning how to do Power Point presentations now. Normally,
> this is how I lectured but until now, I could not have done it again.
> I know now, that I can do it, it's just going to take awhile for me to
> teach myself again. I am scheduled to do two presentation at Slippery
> Rock University of PA in March - I'll use my milestone to give me
> verbal "cues" as I am speaking, for these presentations. But, I want
> to begin to develop some presentations using power point and I am sure
> I can do it again - I just need to have the time and put in the work
> to accomplish it. I have always loved doing lectures and
> presentations and I want to do them again - so I am gonna work on it!
>
> Lynda
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 11:22 PM
> Subject: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind;RE: New Book,
> blindness on TV
>
>
>> Hi you all, this has been an interesting conversation:
>>
>> Here is another generalization that many around the world have
>> developed over the eons: Blindness is the most God awful, feared
>> physical condition that mankind can experience.
>>
>> I had read and heard this forever, from the mouths of people on the
>> street, to what I've learned in a variety of college classes..though,
>> over the past couple of decades blindness has been pushed down to
>> third place. Guess what has eclipsed being blind as the most feared?
>> Aids and cancer. And hey, I can believe that these two physical
>> conditions are far worse...after all, either one of these two monster
>> conditions can kill you!!! (Though, there are some who feel that
>> blindness is a living death. And yeah, if you allow it to rule! And
>> this is where the NFB has done the world a great service...as in we
>> have developed a philosophy, built a framework of alternative
>> techniques, and influenced the making of a wide variety of tools that
>> in combination...will allow most of us to reduce the effects of
>> blindness, down to a level whereby most of us can say with an
>> honesty level of 100%, 100%, that the loss of sight is not a major
>> impediment to living a successful and happy life. No...the true
>> problem we face is more the ignorance and the lack of information
>> about the human potential to successfully live with blindness is the
>> toughest impediment to being blind. MMM, go figure? [Being blind
>> isn't the problem, living in a world of ignorance is.]
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>> Applebutter Hill
>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:10 PM
>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>
>> Lynda,
>> At 70, I should certainly hope you (or anyone) would have developed a
>> healthy level of skepticism. *grin*
>>
>> I know that black people face prejudice and low expectations, but I
>> think the fact that white people enslaved them to actually do
>> something, makes that low level quite a bit higher than for blind
>> people. We aren't deemed capable of planting a field, keeping up a
>> household or even caring for children -- as the incident in the
>> Midwest a few years ago shoed, when a child was removed shortly after
> birth from its blind parents.
>>
>> Our traditional purpose is to give the average person something they
>> can look at and say, "Well, I may have problems, but at least I'm not
> blind."
>> We
>> also have traditionally provided them with opportunities to do good
>> deeds.
>> Expecting us to no longer be helpless fundamentally changes how they
>> see themselves.
>>
>> Your post reminds me of a story I heard from a blind woman who was
>> accepted to grad school. Her aunt was furious that she had stolen the
>> position from someone who could really benefit from it. The belief
>> was that anything that a blind person accomplished was just another
>> example of the kindness of strangers in elevating a pitiful person
>> and helping them feel better about themselves. BTW, she has a
>> doctorate in law. I heard many similar stories when I was writing
>> about Braille literacy -- they weren't on topic at the time, and I
>> had hoped to gather some of the things people told me into articles
>> about some of these more subtle things that are going on to this day,
>> but it never happened. Donna
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>> Lambert
>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 6:31 PM
>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>
>> Donna, yes, the expectations for blind people are very low. I
>> believe that is why blind people as a group are the highest educated
>> of all people with disabilities, yet, they are the lowest employed
>> people of all the groups. This says it all - we are not expected to
>> be smart, able, or willing to succeed at anything more than very low
>> levels. This is my own thoughts on it and I recognize I am quite
>> skeptical about it
>> - but heck, I am 70 years old now, so I guess I can blame it on my
age.
>> I think we have to work so far beyond what other people have to do to
>> find success at so many things. And, this is also true of black
>> people. I do not know this from a distance, or from reading books on
>> the subject which of course I do all the time. I know it personally,
>> because my son is black and his family is black - they are very
highly
>> educated professionals - she a physician, he a psychologist. At
every
>> level, black people still face very low expectations and racism - and
>> I think blind people are very close to the same in the general view
of
>> the ST"STUPID public. I agree with you. They are ver STUPID, but we
>> won't tell them that, just yet. lol
>>
>> Lynda
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 3:34 PM
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>
>>
>>> Lynda,
>>> Like you've noticed with your sister and the key, sighted people
>>> will not accept anything we do as anything other than a fluke or a
>>> miracle. Even faced with a clear description of the usefulness of
>>> other senses, they somehow still have to brush anything aside that
>>> conflicts with what they kno ... Blindness is essentially
>>> insurmountable. I think of it as being similar to the days when a
>>> few nutheads were trying to explain to the human race that the world
>>> is not
> flat.
>>>
>>> Coincidentally, I just got an e-mail from a rehab counsellor in PA,
>>> who I reached out to on Linked In -- I offer them a free e-book
>>> version of my novel and explain why I think it has value for them
>>> and their clients. I mention the issue of dealing with low
>>> expectations. This man said that, as
>>
>>> a
>>> person who used to work with BVI and now works with other
>>> disabilities, he believes that the issue of low expectations is much
>>> worse for those with vision loss. I have always felt that way, but I
>>> don't have the credentials to say so. It meant a lot to me to hear
>>> that
>> from someone.
>>>
>>> You hit on the reason behind my removing all references to blindness
>>> from my online book descriptions; it's a taboo. Just imagine someone
>>> getting my book and not knowing that the heroine is blind and has a
>>> guide dog. They will have to read through at least a page before it
>>> becomes clear to them. Some will be angry with me, because I didn't
>>> warn them. Some, I hope, will have gotten hooked by something else
>>> in the story and read it anyway. It's fiction, so they don't have to
>>> change their stupid belief systems, but I hope they will have a bit
>>> of an adjustment in spite of themselves. Donna
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>> Lambert
>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:18 AM
>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>> It's a Friday morning snow storm here - a beautiful day outside.
>>> Time to get some coffee and begin my day, but first I wanted to drop
>>> a not on your discussion which is so interesting to me.
>>>
>>> I think Bridgit really hit it - unless a sighted person has had a
>>> lot of time together with a blind person, they are really clueless
>>> and they could care less about knowing positive things. They still
>>> live with the mentality of the question they have asked themselves
>>> and each other for years, "Would you rather lose your sight, or your
> hearing?".
>>> To sighted people losing sight or hearing is the worst case scenario
>>> they can think of and they are not about to look any closer into
>>> either of the two life-challenges. And, as Henrietta, experienced,
>>> even close family members really don't understand how we do things.
>>> Not really. They watch us, but we are a mystery to them even though
>>> they have been around us many times over the years. Occasionally
>>> there is some little revelation that they grasp, but I think it is
>>> very rare.
>>>
>>> A couple years ago I went on a short 5 hour trip with my sister.
>>> When we arrived at our cousin's home, we had instructions to locate
>>> her house key and let ourselves in because they were away on
>>> vacation and we would have their home to stay in. My sister
>>> retrieved the key, as instructed. She began to try to open the
>>> door. She fiddled around for quite awhile with the key and the lock
>>> in the door - yet, she could not get it open. She tried turning the
>>> key around, tried going faster, slower, but no luck. Finally,
>>
>>> I
>>> quietly said to her, "Give me the key and let me see what I can do."
>>> She snickered and said "Oh, sure, you are going to open the door
>>> that you can't even see!" I took the key from her, felt the key,
>>> and inserted it into the door's lock slowly. Then, I put my left had
>>> on the door, just above the lock, so I could FEEL any movement the
>>> lock would make. And, I leaned very close to the lock, and I
>>> listened. Very quickly, as I slowly turned the key, I felt the
>>> vibration of it moving, and I heard the click as it was disengaged.
>>> I smiled, and handed over the key to her, and said, "The door is
>>> open." She loudly proclaimed, "I cannot believe it! A blind person
>>> could open the door and I couldn't."
>>>
>>> I smiled at her and said, "You could not open the door because you
>>> were using only your eyes. I opened it because I could feel it and
>>> hear it moving." To her it was something very weird that I had
>>> actually opened up the door that she had struggled with and could
>>> not get the job done. I think in her mind it was a lucky accident
>>> even though I explained why it happened. Most sighted people do not
>>> think we can do much of anything, no matter what we achieve -
>>> honestly, that is what I think. So, for most sighted people to read
>>> about a blind hero in a fictional account, I say, "Dream on!" I
>>> think the interest level for a sighted person to even read a book
>>> through is really a stretch unless that person is really on a
>>> mission to learn more about blindness and diversity and inclusion.
>>> Maybe in a literature course, where it would be included in the
>>> required reading, but on their own, I think the chances are quite
>>> slim. But, then, as I write this I am optimistic enough to think I
>>> see a "movie" that could be made that would be exciting to them. Who
>>> knows? I sure don't. Why is it that we are constantly told we are
>>> "amazing" when we do things that are high level achievements for
>>> anyone at all? Why is it that some people droll all over us about
>>> how inspiring we are and how tragic it is that we
>> lost our sight?
>>> I just smile at them and say, "NO, not really! It is just who I am
>>> and who
>>
>>> I
>>> have always been." That usually leaves them speechless and the
>>> conversation ends. Write on! Lynda
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 9:07 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>>
>>>> Great story!
>>>> Donna
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>> Henrietta Brewer
>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:32 PM
>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>> You guys make me laugh. You're right, Sighted people can't imagine
>>>> the blind being the hero. At Christmas, when the power was out in
>>>> our town, I had twenty five or thirty people here most days. We had
>>>> a generator so we had a few lights but not in more then half the
>>>> house.
>>>>
>>>> I didn't think much of it while everyone was here. Though I was
>>>> tired of doing all the fetching because no one could find anything
>>>> in the dark. When
>>>> everyone left and I was cleaning house, I saw how difficult it was
>>>> for our guests. They had only a flashlight in the bathroom and
their
>>>> bedroom and nothing was where it should be.
>>>>
>>>> they all mention now, that they will call me in any black out. But
>>>> it took reality to get even family to realize that a blind person
>>>> can be helpful in a black out. lol Henrietta On Feb 13, 2014, at
>>>> 12:10 AM, Bridgit Pollpeter
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> When I wrote a short mystery story for a detective fiction class I
>>>>> took at university, I made my main character blind, which is the
>>>>> first time I did this. Anyway, at one point, the house the two
>>>>> main characters are sleeping in goes up in flames, and the blind
>>>>> character navigates them out of the house. Using his other senses,
>>>>> he makes it out the front door. I did do some research before
>>>>> writing the scene, but mostly based it off my own knowledge of
>>>>> what a blind person might do in that particular situation. When
>>>>> critiqueing our stories, a classmate said, to my face, it wasn't
>>>>> believeable that a blind person could do that and I should change
>>>>> that scene. Another classmate, to my surprise, said who better
>>>>> than a blind person to navigate through a situation where sight
>>>>> wouldn't be much help because of the smoke, and that by smell and
>>>>> feeling heat, surely a blind person would be able to navigate just
>>>>> as well, if not better, than a sighted person. After considering
>>>>> this point, the first person half-heartedly agreed. My point being
>>>>> that I agree with Chris that even though these stories are being
>>>>> written by blind people, most of the sighted world can't, or
>>>>> won't, buy a blind person doing the things we make them do, living
>>>>> as independent, active,
>> vital people.
>>>>>
>>>>> Bridgit
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>> Chris Kuell
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:47 AM
>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Donna,
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm generally skeptical by nature, but I really hope they do a
>>>>> good job with this show. It's exactly what we've been talking
>>>>> about here--an opportunity to crush the stupid stereotypes and let
>>>>> the public see a guy who is interesting, and just happens to be
>>>>> blind. If it does a good job, and if the public enjoys it, it
>>>>> could open the door to more blind characters in the
>>>>>
>>>>> arts. Personally, I feel certain that the reason books like yours
>>>>> and mine aren't getting read by agents and traditional publishers
>>>>> is because we have blind protagonists. An agent, or more likely,
>>>>> an agent's assistant reads my query and thinks--a blind
>>>>> protagonist? Nobody is going to buy that. It's too outside
>>>>> mainstream experience.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hopefully, the times, they are a changing.
>>>>>
>>>>> chris
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
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>>>>> o
>>>>> tm
>>>>> ai
>>>>> l.com
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
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