IN 1890, the American psychologist William James famously likened our conscious experience to the flow of a stream. “A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described,” he wrote. “In talking of it hereafter, let’s call it the stream of thought, consciousness, or subjective life.”
It also refers to a certain style of writing developed by a group of writers at the beginning of the 20th century. It aimed at expressing in words the flow of characters’ thoughts and feelings in their minds. The technique aspires to give readers the impression of being inside the minds of the characters. Therefore, the internal view of the minds of the characters sheds light on plot and motivation in the novel.
On a lot of internet forums, reviewers are huffing at the works of authors such as James Joyce, William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf because of their use of this writing style.
In the digital age, not only is the physical book in decline, but the very idea of ‘difficult’ reading is being challenged while the kidult boy-wizards-roman and the soft sadomasochistic porn fantasy are clearly in rude good health.
In our contemporary culture exists an active resistance to difficulty in all its aesthetic manifestations, accompanied by a sense of grievance that conflates it with political elitism. Ours is an age in which omnipresent threats of imminent extinction are also part of the background noise – nuclear annihilation, terrorism, climate change. So we can be blinkered when it comes to tectonic cultural shifts. The omnipresent and deadly threat to the novel has been imminent now for a long time – getting on, I would say, for a century – and so it’s become part of culture.
So why do I bother to write a column to encourage people to adventure themselves in this type of literature? Because one of the advantages of reading a text written in a stream-of-consciousness style is that it stimulates the reader’s own thoughts and focus, leading to an individual construction of sense.
It seems trite to say, ‘Stream of consciousness tells me something about how my mind works.’ Isn’t that true of everyone?