In the portion of assigned reading from Jonathan Sterne’s The Audible Past, I was particularly fascinated by his analysis of the process of embalming and its influence on sound recording. Just as embalming alters the corpse to prevent physical decay that would render the body unpresentable for viewing, the process of sound recording protects present and future auditors from experiencing the decay of the voice. The phonograph altered recorded voices in ways that transformed the internal consciousness behind the speaker’s words to perform external and cultural functions. Similarly, various alterations and the removal of internal organs from the dead body during the embalming process was performed for solely external purposes. In his book Hearing History, Mark Michael Smith writes, “While competing methods were concerned with interiority, with preserving the body in its original form, chemical embalming was concerned only with exteriority, with the appearance of the body and its potential to perform its social function” (Smith 301). He also emphasizes the idea that the recording studio is analogous to the embalming process, since the voice is transformed in ways that beautify it, just as the body of a corpse is enhanced to make it appealing to the eye.
The connections between sound recording and the embalming process pose specific threats to the culture society that has established in terms of the nature of preservation. This led me to think about my favorite song, “Here, There and Everywhere” by the Beatles, and my favorite book, “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë. John Lennon of the Beatles certainly did not live long enough to witness the longevity of this beautiful love song and Charlotte Brontë was not able to see how, through the power of her pen, she revolutionized contemporary literature. Yet both of these magnificent works live on in their author’s absence. As a matter of fact, many of the most famous works of music and literature today gained their high level of regard after the death of the artist or writer. After thinking about this in more detail, I began to question: how much of the embalming process has infiltrated into the media we encounter today? I believe that the answer to this question is A LOT.
To illustrate this point, I’d like to examine the controversy associated with the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, which occurred during the summer of 2015. After writing and publishing her beloved novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, in 1960, Lee insisted that she would never again publish another book. After Lee’s sister passed away, her new legal guardian, Tonja Carter, claimed she “discovered” a manuscript to what later became the published book, Go Set a Watchman, and brought it to the attention of various publishing companies. It was very clear that Lee never intended to publish this novel and had marginal input in the book that would bear her name. In one of her last public interviews that was conducted in 1964, Lee said, “I think the thing that I most deplore about American writing … is a lack of craftsmanship. It comes right down to this — the lack of absolute love for language, the lack of sitting down and working a good idea into a gem of an idea.” Instead of taking these words to heart, the publishing company completely ignored the legacy Lee wished to leave on the public and went ahead and published the novel. If Lee really wanted this piece of literature to have been published she would have advocated for it during her earlier years. Although the book sold rapidly once it was released, I decided to not purchase it as a protest to preserve my adoration and respect for Harper Lee’s voice, which had been so blatantly disregarded.
This issue relates to the process of embalming because Lee’s interior motives were warped and transformed into the publication of something that she never intended for the external world to see. The book became far less about what it contained on the inside and far more about its external implications regarding the prestige of being Lee’s second book. In this case, in an effort to protect certain pieces of Lee’s work from “decaying,” the publishing companies took advantage of her and published something that should have never been released. This connects to what Jonathan Sterne mentioned about “a disregard for the preservation of the voice in its original form” and how we alter the voice in forms that “perform a social function” (Sterne 297). If we step back and take a look at the media we are presented with, it is important to question if the content aligns with the initial intention behind it or if it was obstructed for a social or cultural purpose. As a result, I foresee changes in how we define “preservation,” especially within our rapidly evolving digital climate.
Works Cited:
Smith, Mark Michael. Hearing History: A Reader. United States of America: University of Georgia Press, 2004. Print.
Sterne, Jonathan. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. “The Resonant Tomb.” United States of America: Duke University Press, 2003. Pages 287- 311. Print.