‘Too human: Shame, horror, aversion’ by Kevin Hart

Welcome to the ABR podcast, with some of Australian book reviews contributors, discuss major issues, or read their reviews and creative writing. My name is Karissa Chai and I'm the Peter Rose Editorial Cadet at ABR. If you enjoy these podcasts, think about subscribing to the magazine. You can do so for as little as $6 a month for a digital subscription or $10 a month for print plus digital. This week on the ABR podcast, Kevin Hart reviews "Turning Away" the poetics of an ancient gesture by Benjamin Saltsman. Saltsman examines our instinct to turn away whenever we are faced with death, grief, helplessness, loss and pain. He traces the representation of this elemental human gesture from literary classics and ancient artwork to modern films, plays and narratives. Hart notes that Saltsman's book is a study not only of a version, but of transformation, but what is the ethical implication of turning away in a world of violence, pain and grief? This is more than flinching heart-rights. It is a reaction of horror mixed with shame. Kevin Hart is the Joel Wright University Distinguished Professor at Duke Divinity School. Here is Kevin Hart with two human, shame, horror, a version, published in the May issue of ABR. Hi, my name is Kevin Hart. I teach at Duke University in the United States. And my most recent books of carne which came out last year in 2025 with cascade press and firefly which just came out with pit street poetry in Sydney. I'm talking today about Ben Saltsman's really interesting book, Turning Away, The Poetics of an Ancient Gesture which has just come out from Chicago University Press. The Swedish poet Thomas Trunze Terürmer tells us in his remarkable poem The Bookcase that he obtained a set of books shows on a dead woman's apartment and filled it with books. In that ordinary gesture he let in the dark world. Something came from underneath he says, rose slowly and inexorably like a massive column of mercury. And he adds, "One was not allowed to turn one's head away." But yet we do turn away whenever we are faced with death, grief, helplessness, loss and pain. How many times can a man turn his head, Bob Dylan sings, pretending he just doesn't see. Holden also reminds us just as memorably that the old masters understood human suffering perfectly well. He points us to Brugel's painting, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus as an example, observing how everything turns away quite leisurely from the disaster. The young boy who had been flying high in the sky and whose wings fell apart when the wax holding them together melted, falls into the green water and drowns. Yet everyone nearby has a job to do. The plowman carries on making his furrow, the sun goes on shining and the ship continues on its course. No one lifts a finger to help for Icarus. In turning away Benjamin Sultzman examines this human or two human gesture as it's been represented from the classical world to modern times. To begin by considering Euripides Agamemnon as he covers his face when his daughter, if a junior, is taken away to be sacrificed so that the Greeks can advance to Troy. Then we study Leontius in Plato's Republic who shuts his eyes so as not to see the corpses of executed men, only to look back at them. This is followed by the famous scene of Augustine in a millenies garden who also turns away, bearing his face in his hands in his moment of religious crisis. We confront the crucifixion of Jesus and note how figures in the tabloh, including the sun, were coiled from its horror. And then we return to the primal scene of the Western imagination, with Adam and Eve cast out of the garden of Eden, Eve hiding her face as she glances one last time at what they have lost. Each scene coheres around a conceptual problem. Agamemnon's evasion of the sight of his daughter, which is carried away to be killed, so he believes, introduces us to the theme of the averted gaze. We encounter ambivalence in Leontius, who once wishes not to see the corpses, but simply cannot help himself. With Augustine's conversion we touch on the sense of sight, which most surely embodies aversion, and not the sense of hearing, for example. Darkness is the theme of the crucifixion. Human blindness brings about the death of Christ. The song goes dark and grief covers all. Finally, we ponder retroversion, when Eve looks back at the paradise she's lost. Throughout Sultzman follows the gesture of turning aside, allowing the effective states associated with it to appear in their own ways. The analyses are varied, rich, and compelling. Most of the discussion revolves around visual images, paintings and photographs, passing seamlessly from higher to popular culture, although literary works have their place as well. Sultzman shows himself to be a highly effective close reader of Greek and Latin, his examinations of Plato and Augustine. His attention to aversion is just as persuasive. He sees how turning away never fully eliminates the thing seen, and he's finally aware that when we look away, it's not always easy to distinguish grief from the performance of grief, and that the gesture of aversion joins together shame and horror in a disturbing manner. We turn away and horror, and we feel shame because of what we've seen. We might say that the ancient world gave us true phenomena that have long existed as phased counterparts. There is contemplation, the calm beholding of a situation or a scene, in which the spectator is entirely free in what he or she sees. One is reminded of Socrates teaching the young men of Athens to separate themselves from the world of the senses and to view the forms as clearly as they can. Also, there is fascination, the Roman fascinus, a phallic amulet worn by men, women and children toward off the evil eye. If one looked at the amulet, one would not be gazing at the beautiful face, and one's envious look would therefore be deflected. Where contemplation is free, fascination is bound. You cannot take your eyes away from what you see. When writing his book, Salzmann has slipped between contemplation and fascination, in order to see how a version is culturally composed as a gesture. What appears in classical times gets reworked in medieval times, varied in the early modern age, and comes back changed in unforeseen ways in our own day. So turning away is a study not only of a version, but of transformation. Each of these ancient and medieval scenes is like a rock tossed into a pool of water, disturbing its surface, Salzmann writes. They cause waves. Later he adds, "As these waves act upon one another, they not only connect across distances, but also change their direction in complex and unpredictable ways." In turning away, Salzmann has provided a template for reading many visual image, poem, play, film, and narrative. He shows not only how the gesture of a version takes place in literary works, but also how readers turn away from scenes while just getting sight of them. I think of William Cooper's poem lines written during the period of insanity, which bears an anguish that's insupportable to author and reader alike, but which, once read, sticks in the mind like a thorn. I think of Vasily Grossmann's novel Life and Fate, especially of the scene in which a group of Jews is gassed in the extermination camp. And I think also of Kormac McCarthy's blood meridian, will its stark depiction of the Glanton gang perpetrating brutal violence on the borderlands of Mexico and Texas. One aspect of reading each literary work is turning away from the unbearable pain it presents. This is more than flinching. One is ashamed in part of being of the same species as those who gas the Jews and those who sculpt people for ready money. And one is also ashamed oneself for witnessing, however briefly, the dreadful images that the novels convey so vividly. Yet even as one recoils, one knows full well that these things must be faced. You and I live in a world of violence, pain and grief, and we are not allowed to turn our heads away. subscribing to ABR. Subscriptions start from just $10 a month for full digital access. Visit our website for more information. We'd like to thank Stacey Chan who edits the podcast, as well as our contributors who take the time to read their articles and creative writing. And if you enjoy listening to the ABR podcast, please consider leaving us a review on iTunes.