Another Country – Another Title:
Re-Viewing the Novel through an Appreciation of its Title…. *

Prologue

	All titles have	at least two faces, like the Roman god Janus: one aspect ‘presents’ as text (as ‘a part’ given to that text, perhaps by the author) while another facet ‘represents’ the text (‘apart’ from that text since it is primarily ‘about’ that text and, therefore, cannot be ‘just’ that text). This representation of the text being ‘about’ the text, and in that sense ‘not’ the text, can only mis-represent that text, but, once we understand how the title might mis-represent its text then that mis-representation can then, for us, no longer mis-represent it to that same extent, in that same manner. Good titles are (dialectical) works of art, and, as you might gather, I am intrigued by this title given to this novel Another Country (first published in 1962) by James Baldwin (1924-1987). So, in this light, I would like to re(-)view this title, and not the book. (1)

Before I read this novel I wondered what the significance this title might have? Are we allowed in the wake of the Postmodern era to determine authorial intent? Let me answer this question by attempting to see, within the confines of this short paper, if the objective of this type of task can be apparently achieved? (2)

For a start, let us say “goodbye” to the Postmodern and welcome in the advent of the Contemporary era wherein all texts are now ‘treated’ in a more actively interactive manner wherein the reader no longer can be seen as an anonymous person merely seated passively in a chair… and who reads… indeed, they construct, and re-construct, the apparently self-evident intentional significance of text as if the writer is in a virtual relationship with their readers, and v.v. (because all these ‘dependent’ roles cannot be absolutely separated one from the other!)! The text is a dependent phenomenon in its own right, and, in its relationship to a text, a title is just as much a dependent phenomenon on its text in its own right to the same extent (in this multivalent world of authors, readers, acts of reading, texts, textual conventions, textual modes of life, etc.). Intent apparently making itself ‘self-evident’ to that extent its ‘intent’ is apparently set up, intentionally constituted, to be re-iterated. In other words, through repetition of the same apparent motives intent can then be progressively determined and thematized! But in this hermeneutic process we may be wrong, as in all things, but, as in all things, we can never be absolutely wrong! E.g., before us we may see an intentionally produced ‘text’ (as a humanly made object)… we see it as a book… we see that book as a novel… a book written in a certain style, by a certain author, etc., etc. No, we can never be completely wrong about this, never absolutely wrong! Already we are on a path of understanding in and through our engagement with that text however opaque, or rather translucently resistant, this text might seem to us as we actively engage with it. The hermeneutic process being no more, therefore, than an ongoing clarification of what is already apparently to hand! (3)

The Apparent Significance of this Title “Another Country”

	My first thoughts were that this title was suggesting that America was perhaps not one country but two – a white America versus a black America. This sort of division is more than hinted at, yet, this divide is repeatedly crossed in this novel with a number of characters found ‘transgressing’… Rufus, Leona, Eric, Henry, LeRoy, Ida, Vivaldo, Ellis, the Puerto Rican taxi-driver…. In a beautiful section of text the author tells us through the thoughts of Vivaldo: He stared into his cup, noting that the black coffee was not black, but deep brown. Not many things of the world were really black, not even the night, not even mines. And the light was not white, either, even the palest light held within itself some hint of its origins, in fire. Does the author really believe this, or, is this state of colour-blindness the utopian wish of the author? I don’t think so – the author is more of a gritty socially oriented realist than an idealist, so, it would be more correct to think the author is more hopeful that links could be forged between these two worlds? Two worlds, yes, but never that separated that they could be two countries; as “another country” to each other. So, it would seem, I must give up this first interpretation? (4)

	Another way of reading this title might be to see the complexity of our sexuality as “another country”. We have, e.g., a number of characters also exploring their so-called ‘bi-sexuality’… Rufus, Eric, Yves, Vivaldo…. But, at the end of the day each of these characters finds that there is an asymmetry between ‘the country’ they truly belong to and that other country, another country, in which they would be merely ‘passing through’. As Rufus says: I’m not the boy you want, mister. ‘I’m not your man.’ Again, back to the drawing board. We don’t have here “another country” only a ‘land’ to occasionally pass through and confirm ‘this’ country rather than some other. (5)

	Another suggestion might be to see this ‘other country’ as that psychic realm of loneliness. This must be one of the themes of this book through its sheer thematic repetition. On numerous occasions the novel tells us that: It’s a lonely city… I’m lonely. Aren’t you lonely, too? Yet, this ‘loneliness’ is overcome from time to time. In a deeper sense, I would argue, it is only because ‘we are at home in this world’ that when we feel ‘not so at home’ that we then feel lonely. In other words, our loneliness is a sign that we should not see ourselves as completely alone in this world? Even strangers see us…. (6)

	Alienation and the overcoming of alienation are two interwoven themes in this novel. An inability to overcome alienation could be ‘read’ as that which results in death (as in the case of Rufus and his suicide). On the other hand, many characters do seem to attempt this passage with some degree of success if only as a tentative work still in progress. What other avenues do we have – madness? Could this ‘other country’ be the ultimate in alienation, namely, death? Yet, despite the death of Rufus, his ‘presence’ continually re-occurs throughout the rest of the book. So, while alienation and death might figure in the connotation of this expression they cannot be its primary meaning! (7)

It should also not be forgotten that this author transmits an Afro-American point of view where violence from White Americans is perceived as part of the landscape for many of its non-white American citizens. Then, in contrast, there is the incident in the park where Richard’s two sons were assaulted by a small gang of coloured boys. The observation too, from the Afro-American point of view, that the Police were not regarded in the same ‘friendly’ manner, on the whole, as by white folk. Various anecdotes in this same vein, about family, friends or community, reinforce this aspect of alienation in ‘your own country’ and its asymmetry between the ‘oppressed’ and their ‘oppressors’. Still, why would the author title this book this way if this narrow sense of alienation were alone intended? What does the author say when dealing with this expression ‘country’ (through his repetition of this word)? (8)

	Is the title meant literally? Does the author really mean another country, i.e., some other country. Cass tells us: “This isn’t a country at all, it’s a collection of football players, and Eagle Scouts. Cowards. We think we are happy. We’re not. We’re doomed….” In our identification with the ‘plight’ of these characters we might ask “should we then not try to escape to some other country?” At one point in the text, Ida muses that if they were ever able to save some loot they might be able to pack up their bags and go to another country: And in another five or ten years, when we get the loot together, we can pack up and go to one of those countries.’ Then savagely, ‘And what do you think will have happened to us in those five years! How much will be left? But the thought is soon put aside as impracticable. On the other hand, one character, Eric, does find love in another country and in a sense was able to better appreciate himself by going outside his own country. Still, he returns to America to be followed by his beloved Yves which must put paid to this suggestion. However, in the same direction, this leads me on to ask that perhaps this finding love ‘is finding another country’ and that should be perceived as the primary intention of this author?! (9)

	Vivaldo, at one point, is thinking… and the text states: Perhaps it was he who did not know how to give, did not know how to love. Love was a country he knew nothing about. So do we have a solution here – love is another country, a country perhaps that some of us are able, eventually, to go to, whilst others can never find themselves arriving there? But, why be so exclusive in this interpretation? Why not intuitively accept these other secondary meanings as also being in play here, such senses as discussed above, namely, these divisions of race, sexuality/so-called bisexuality, loneliness, other forms of alienation, aggression and fear of violence, death along with a feeling of love itself; a love that transcends these limitations… and lets us re-settle in this new land…? (10)

Conclusion

	Authorial intent can never be absolutely ascertained, but, then, as argued, it also can never be absolutely not understood! It, therefore, can never be absolutely misunderstood! For how otherwise could we read novels if this middle ground was not there for us to also share… and, perhaps, enjoy?! Mis-understanding can never be an absolute non-understanding! All the reader can do is let the author assist them in their discovery of what is apparently intended… along with letting the author ‘take them for a ride’ by not making things too simple… hoping, in the process, we find some pleasure in the ‘discoveries’ or ‘revelations’ made on that ‘shared’ journey! (11)

So, we must conclude, the author is not really referring to another country! The title, as expected, must misrepresent this book. Or, perhaps he is really referring to “another country”? The text tells us: ‘…If all the children who get here every year were brought here by love, wow! Baby, what a bright world that would be!’ …and “…How can you live if you can’t love? And how can you live if you do?” Might not “another country” be this same country remade through the powers of love in all its paradoxical, polyvalent, perplexing forms? A love grasped through letting go… as Eric in one of his speeches suggests: -well, Yves, who is much younger than I, will also dream of escape. I must be prepared to let him go. He will go. And I think… that he must go… All I can do is love him… I can’t be free when I know I’m not. I’ve got to live with that, I’ve got to learn to live with that… There’s nothing here to decide. There’s everything to accept… Another country, indeed, a world with less egotistically driven illusion and a greater openness to each other… a world of maturity along with a willingness to discover and find ‘revealed’ how things really are!? (12)

	At the end of the day we must ask, however, are we any wiser in this regard? Have we really understood what this title ‘says’ about this novel? In this instance we find that neither a literal interpretation of the title nor a metaphorical one quite captures its richness of apparent intent and that we might find ourselves in a better position if we were to regard it as more symbolic, as an existential symbol of what the book appears to thematically address, namely, and this is tentative speculation, that continent of love we so incontinently know about, of which a certain number of people plan some day to visit and of which a lesser number actually arrive, and, an even fewer number get to stay. Or am I wrong, again, and that we have already arrived… only we have not quite recognized and realized this fact of our being-with-others…? (13)

					                    	        Noël Tointon, Sydney, 16.4.06.

Epilogue

	I would like now to address some further philosophical issues that are surfacing in my reflections on the relationship between titles and their entitled texts. (14)

	Just as titles cannot fully explicate the texts they are set up to represent, so, too, entitled texts are unable to fully explicate the titles appended to those texts. Hence this sense of an existential deficiency in intentional significance of the relationship between these two aspects of a text, i.e., the textual presentation and the meta-textual represenation. On the other hand, as intimated, we have an existential excess when we engage any text and/or its title if we find ourselves in a position to adequately interpret, i.e, read the same. Therefore, in the light of these concerns I would like to address the question as to what makes for a ‘good’ text and what makes for a ‘good’ title of that same text? (15)

	A ‘good’ text, I believe, is one that appears both to accomplish the objectives intended for that text and is productive of an existential surplus of value relatively in excess of that found expressed by other texts of a similar nature or purpose; this definition recognizing both a pragmatic aspect and a sort of deontological aspect in relationship to what is ‘good’ or, rather, ‘adequate and apposite’ to the richness of that text or title. All presentations are systematically integrated to some extent through the degree of gestalt integration already present in the acts of intentionality that brought that text forth. However, what is at stake here is the comparative degree of an existential excess expressed in our re-engagement with that same text (and its title). This also calls for a ‘serious’ engagement that is properly conducted, appropriately approached and validly reflected upon. Yet, however ‘seriously,’ or ‘earnestly,’ we engage with a text, a ‘good’ text should release a degree of value greatly in excess of that ‘invested’ in this process. (16)

	So, with this in mind, what would make for an ‘apposite’ title? Well, a good or great title needs to be appended to a good or great text, or, at least an equally good or great text. Then, both must be productive of an existential excess, indeed, a comparatively greater existential excess than that apparently ‘expressed’ in texts of a similar genre. Then, too, a significantly greater sense of an existential deficiency needs to be intuitively experienced in our inability to have the title explicate its text and v.v. (17)

	Thus, in reflection upon my reading of this novel, Another Country, I feel that I have already argued that both this text and its title have demonstrated a comparatively richer degree of an existential excess of value. This text, certainly, is finely nuanced in its depicted simulations of the human condition and richly reflectively upon both the same and its own textual commentary. Moreover, this title defies a full explication of its existential significance. Moreover, as demonstrated, there is a successful failure to fully explicate the relationship between the title and its text and, hence one must conclude, we have here both a ‘good’ text and a ‘good’ title. Could we agree on this? Hopefully, although I fear readers unable to ‘suspend’ their prejudices might not be so rewarded. (18)
            	        N.