Some years ago, writing about stage adaptations of fiction, I noted: "There is a simple law governing the dramatization of novels:... if it is worth doing, it can't be done; if it can be done, it's not worth doing." Certain reviewers did me the honor of calling this Simon's Law, and I might as well state it now as far as the screen is concerned, "Simon's Law" may still serve as a useful warning but has no legality. For two reasons. First, because unlike the stage, the screen possesses as many resources as fiction, so that, for example, extended narration is possible on screen, backed up by an extensive visual scenario, but not on the stage, where it must become monotonous; similarly, stream of consciousness has its filmic equivalents in montage, voice-over dialogue, closeups and extreme closeups, dissolves, etc., whereas on stage, as mere verbiage, it cannot fail to bore. Secondly, because the screen can fully illustrate what the novel can only name or describe. Of course, this is a mixed blessing, because such illustration can make things overexplicit and oppressive; still, it is there as a resource for those who can effectively handle it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When I heard the word "stream" uttered with such a revolting primness, what I think of is urine and not the contemporary novel. An...d besides, it isn't new, it is far from the dernier cri. Shakespeare used it continually, much too much in my opinion, and there's Tristam Shandy, not to mention the Agamemnon.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no reality of consciousness independent of the effects of various vehicles of content on subsequent action (and hence, of... course, on memory).LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
the research on fatigue And the movements of packers; the gradual exploring of all the... Octaves of radiation; Tomorrow the enlarging of consciousness by diet and breathing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In ordinary speech the words perception and sensation tend to be used interchangeably, but the psychologist distinguishes. Sensati...ons are the items of consciousness--a color, a weight, a texture--that we tend to think of as simple and single. Perceptions are complex affairs that embrace sensation together with other, associated or revived contents of the mind, including emotions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There, burying each gloomy thought, each sad reflection in the hearse of dissipation, [we] lost the remembrance of our woes, our c...ruel misfortunes, our agonising sorrows--and graciously permitted them to glide along the stream of reviving comfort, blown by the gentle gale of new born hopes till they reposed in the bosom of oblivion--then--no! 'tis impossible! this style is too great, too sublime to be supported with proper dignity--the sublime and beautiful how charmingly blended!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To course that span of consciousness thou'st named The Open Road--thy vision is reclaimed!... What heritage thou'st signalled to our hands!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When we imagine what it is like to be a languageless creature, we start, naturally, from our own experience, and most of what then... springs to mind has to be adjusted (mainly downward). The sort of consciousness such animals enjoy is dramatically truncated, compared to ours. A bat, for instance, not only can't wonder whether it's Friday; it can't even wonder whether it's a bat; there is no role for wondering to play in its cognitive structure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is part of the nature of consciousness, of how the mental apparatus works, that free reason is only a very occasional function ...of people's "thinking" and that much of the process is made of reactions as standardized as those of the keys on a typewriter.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Consciousness, we shall find, is reducible to relations between objects, and objects we shall find to be reducible to relations be...tween different states of consciousness; and neither point of view is more nearly ultimate than the other.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »