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I have often mentioned this in the blog: Literature is more than a sum of its parts. In other words, a literary text – like any self-respecting art form – provides you with more than simply all of its words, paragraphs, and chapters.

To talk about literature being more than a sum of its parts is another way of saying the following two things:

• The creation of meaning is not only the author’s job.
• Symbolic power is exclusively (think about that for a moment) found not in what you see but in what you don’t.

I was pondering on today’s topic while listening to a song – as I mentioned above, all self-respecting art is more than a sum of its parts. And so, I decided to use this song as an example case.

Literature is More than a Sum of its Parts: The Visuality of Meaning

I have talked about visuality before, defining it as “a rendering of reality that is subjective and has visual foundations”. This literally means that two of us can look at something and “see” something different.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, each one of us carries a personal ideology in everything that we do. This affects the way we read, the way we see (or “see”), the way we ultimately interpret the world around us.

Art that Is more than a Sum of Its Parts Is disproportionately Evocative

The song I referred to earlier is an old (1996) song by the Greek band Pyx Lax. What made me start pondering on art, literature, and how they contain more within them than what “is there” is how disproportionately evocative the song is, compared to its length and simplicity.

The song, called “Mary’s Dreams” is about 2:30 minutes long. It contains a simple guitar intro, a similar outro, and a single 6-line verse between them. And yet, I can’t put in words how much affective power it packs in its short length.

Let’s take a look at the lyrics. The translation is mine, and it’s a literary, not literal translation. It’s still very close to the original Greek lyricsΠώς αλλάζει η ζωή μας σε μια νύχτα.
Τι είναι λάθος το πρωί, και τι αλήθεια.
Σαν τα όμορφα τα χαμηλά τα σπίτια,
που αντέξανε στου χρόνου τη συνήθεια.
Σαν τα όνειρα της Μαίρης της μπαρόβιας,
γίναν δάκρυα οι προσμονές σε φυλακή ισόβια., but there is an inevitable bias introduced. Keep that in mind, we’ll return to it because it’s important when we talk about literature being more than a sum of its parts.

How can life really change in one night,
what is wrong in the morning; what’s right.
Like the beautiful houses lying low
that are still kept in life’s undertow
Like Mary’s sad dreams and lost years;
imprisoned for life, turned the hopes into tears

How Do Visuality and Meaning Meet?

This, really, is another way of talking about the subjectivity of meaning and experiencing.

The song has a particularly vivid effect on me. For you – especially if, as I assume, you are not a Greek speaker – the effect is different. The images and feelings evoked vary.

As a result of many intangible elements, my experiencing is entirely different than yours. Such elements are both direct/”objective”, such as the hue of the singer’s voice or the particular lyrics chosen – and indirect/subjective, such as elements related to my personal memories, nostalgia, and what not.

If we could quantify it, the difference between your meaning and mine is a difference that already goes beyond the sum of the song’s parts. Your own affective response alone – even considering your not understanding Greek or having related memories – is already beyond the sum of the song’s parts.

When Literature Is more than a Sum of Its Parts, Bias is the Measuring Stick

I spoke earlier about my introducing bias into the lyrics by translating them the way I did. Another element we need to understand is that there is always bias, in everything that we receive as audiences.

When you read book A, your mood that day is introducing bias. So does whether you read book B during a sunny summer weekend or in a rainy November evening.

Bias is good, when it comes to audience reception.

Bias is what facilitates feelings and an emotional response. You can’t have art without an emotional response.

Effectively, bias is the measuring stick that helps us gauge (not to mention create) meaning.