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Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives
In this acclaimed book, Torgovnick explores the obsessions,
fears, and longings that have produced Western views of the
primitive. Crossing an extraordinary range of fields
(anthropology, psychology, literature, art, and popular
culture), Gone Primitive will engage not just
specialists but anyone who has ever worn Native American
jewelry, thrilled to Indiana Jones, or considered buying an
African mask.
"A superb book; and—in a way that goes beyond what
being good as a book usually implies—it is a kind of gift to
its own culture, a guide to the perplexed. It is lucid,
usually fair, laced with a certain feminist mockery and
animated by some surprising sympathies."—Arthur C. Danto,
New York Times Book Review
"An impassioned exploration of the deep waters beneath Western primitivism. . . . Torgovnick's readings are deliberately, rewardingly provocative."—Scott L. Malcomson, Voice Literary Supplement
fears, and longings that have produced Western views of the
primitive. Crossing an extraordinary range of fields
(anthropology, psychology, literature, art, and popular
culture), Gone Primitive will engage not just
specialists but anyone who has ever worn Native American
jewelry, thrilled to Indiana Jones, or considered buying an
African mask.
"A superb book; and—in a way that goes beyond what
being good as a book usually implies—it is a kind of gift to
its own culture, a guide to the perplexed. It is lucid,
usually fair, laced with a certain feminist mockery and
animated by some surprising sympathies."—Arthur C. Danto,
New York Times Book Review
"An impassioned exploration of the deep waters beneath Western primitivism. . . . Torgovnick's readings are deliberately, rewardingly provocative."—Scott L. Malcomson, Voice Literary Supplement
335 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 21, 2023
When I was housesitting recently for an artist with an enviably huge art library I read the chapter on Gauguin in Primitivism in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern, an enormous 2-volume catalogue/text to accompany a MOMA show from 1984. Of course everyone knows about Gauguin's sojourns in Tahiti and interest in Polynesian art, but I was most interested in the fact that they first discussed his time in Brittany as part of his interest in the primitive, the Bretons being a sort of rustic Other within France. Anyway, I was recently reminded of the book, reading some critiques of it (I remember finding much of it unreadable, myself) and the associated show for all the reasons you might expect. And I thought I would see if it was at my local library. It wasn't, but this book came up from my keyword search, and I thought I would give it a try.
I honestly expected it to be irritating, and the first chapter did not bode well, with an eye-rollingly ridiculous Freudian critique of the cover design of an edition of Malinowski's The Sexual Life of Savages that was published 25 years after the author's death: "The author's name penetrates the name of the book. . . Both the female symbol and the photograph of the jungle hug the bottom of the cover -- they are marginalized, separated from the world of logic, language, words, authority." But this sort of silliness falls away very quickly, before the first chapter is finished, and Torgovnick goes on to offer interesting and generous thoughts on all sorts of writers and thinkers, from anthropologists like Malinowski to art critics (including William Rubin, who curated the "Primtivism" MOMA show, edited the book, and contributed the introduction as well as by far the longest chapter, on Picasso) to novelists like DH Lawrence to Freud himself. Part of the thing that made it refreshing is its age: Torgovnick has more breadth of reference than Twitter, and can discuss things that are bad or problematic, as bad and problematic, and go on discussing it, instead of stopping there and throwing into a homogenized pile of "fascism". She does discuss the Nazis and their emblematic, and entirely typical of all of Western culture in the 19th and 20th Centuries, use of the primitive as both good -- blood and soil, volkisch, ancient Aryan valor -- and bad -- the "barbarian" races and "degeneration" etc., without needing to say Levi-Strauss, Roger Fry, Lawrence, Margaret Mead, and Freud etc are all Nazis, even though they all are critiqued. Even using the word "primitive" would make us cringe today (I can't imagine ever describing any person or society that way), and necessitate some unreadably labored circumlocution; Torgovnick recognizes the fallacy of the word and concept of course (that's, like, the whole book) but refuses even the quotation marks Rubin uses to protect himself, saying "the heritage of Western domination cannot be abolished by wishing or by typography."
I confess I didn't read the whole book. The chapters are somewhat self-sufficient (and have that weird academic thing where they say "for more on this, see Chapter 3" even though you're on Chapter 9 so one would think you have read Chapter 3 already) and I picked and chose the ones that interested me, and read them somewhat out of order. But I enjoyed what I read. I may go back and read the rest. We'll see.
Like Torgovnick, some of my favorite artists -- Picasso, Matisse and the Fauves, the Brucke artists, Stravinsky -- were influenced 'primitive' art, and 'primitivized' their own work, although I have to say that only rarely do the markedly 'primitivized' works appeal to me, especially the "directly inspired"/copied/appropriated type which were the focus of Rubin's MOMA show. The art called primitive is pretty hit or miss for me too, and I always feel acutely aware of not knowing the context which seems necessary to appreciate it. As Torgovnick discusses, a mask on a wall in a museum omits the whole rest of the costume, the dance, the religion, the cultural milieu; she notes that when Baule mask-carvers were asked to appraise a mask, they mentioned formal design/technique ("The horns curve nicely, and I like the placement of the eyes and ears") of the type that Rubin and that sort of modernist would insist is the only consideration, but also "it executes very interesting and graceful dance steps" and "the Dye god is a dance of rejoicing for us men. So when I see the mask, my heart is filled with joy." The Expressionists, as even Rubin knew, misread the 'expression' of African art, seeing "violence and horror and sexuality" that wasn't there (although Rubin only knew this because, a man entirely in the Greenbergian MOMA paradigm, he disdained Expressionism; he was only too happy to see horror, violence, and sexuality in the supposedly 'African' faces of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.)
This review is already too long, and I could go on and on about the topic (why did critics universally call the impossibly complicated rhythms of The Rite of Spring "primitive"?), but I'll just end with Torgovnick's sympathy for the search that the writers she discusses were on, even when they were absolutely terrible people like Lawrence -- even Henry Morton Stanley, the 'explorer' who enabled Leopold II to found the Congo Free State. She sees them as "secular but yearning for the sacred, ironic but yearning for the absolute, individualistic but yearing for the wholeness of community, asking questions but receiving no answers", and I can only say, me too. It seems to me that a lot of people feel this way, and often look to "the primitive" for the fulfillment of these yearnings. In general, like Lukács whose concept of "transcendental homelessness" she is using here, I tend to look more toward the "archaic", like ancient Greece, than the "primitive", but I'm not sure the distinction matters much. In any case, I don't think that all of us who feel that way are therefore Nazis. But it seems like in these days, there's a hard binary being insisted on, where either you are a secular liberal who is happy to let Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT make all art from now on because what are you some kind of Luddite (= Romantic = Nazi) or you are a fascist. It's nice to read a book where that's not the attitude, and yet emphasizes that "the primitive" is always made to be whatever "the modern" wants it to be, in contrast with itself -- if "the modern" is mechanistically violent and oppressive, "the primitive" is placid and pastoral; if "the modern" is bloodless and overcivilized, then "the primitive" is savage and bestial. And it makes me wonder: why is it that we so often go looking for these answers in the primitive, in the imaginary past?
I honestly expected it to be irritating, and the first chapter did not bode well, with an eye-rollingly ridiculous Freudian critique of the cover design of an edition of Malinowski's The Sexual Life of Savages that was published 25 years after the author's death: "The author's name penetrates the name of the book. . . Both the female symbol and the photograph of the jungle hug the bottom of the cover -- they are marginalized, separated from the world of logic, language, words, authority." But this sort of silliness falls away very quickly, before the first chapter is finished, and Torgovnick goes on to offer interesting and generous thoughts on all sorts of writers and thinkers, from anthropologists like Malinowski to art critics (including William Rubin, who curated the "Primtivism" MOMA show, edited the book, and contributed the introduction as well as by far the longest chapter, on Picasso) to novelists like DH Lawrence to Freud himself. Part of the thing that made it refreshing is its age: Torgovnick has more breadth of reference than Twitter, and can discuss things that are bad or problematic, as bad and problematic, and go on discussing it, instead of stopping there and throwing into a homogenized pile of "fascism". She does discuss the Nazis and their emblematic, and entirely typical of all of Western culture in the 19th and 20th Centuries, use of the primitive as both good -- blood and soil, volkisch, ancient Aryan valor -- and bad -- the "barbarian" races and "degeneration" etc., without needing to say Levi-Strauss, Roger Fry, Lawrence, Margaret Mead, and Freud etc are all Nazis, even though they all are critiqued. Even using the word "primitive" would make us cringe today (I can't imagine ever describing any person or society that way), and necessitate some unreadably labored circumlocution; Torgovnick recognizes the fallacy of the word and concept of course (that's, like, the whole book) but refuses even the quotation marks Rubin uses to protect himself, saying "the heritage of Western domination cannot be abolished by wishing or by typography."
I confess I didn't read the whole book. The chapters are somewhat self-sufficient (and have that weird academic thing where they say "for more on this, see Chapter 3" even though you're on Chapter 9 so one would think you have read Chapter 3 already) and I picked and chose the ones that interested me, and read them somewhat out of order. But I enjoyed what I read. I may go back and read the rest. We'll see.
Like Torgovnick, some of my favorite artists -- Picasso, Matisse and the Fauves, the Brucke artists, Stravinsky -- were influenced 'primitive' art, and 'primitivized' their own work, although I have to say that only rarely do the markedly 'primitivized' works appeal to me, especially the "directly inspired"/copied/appropriated type which were the focus of Rubin's MOMA show. The art called primitive is pretty hit or miss for me too, and I always feel acutely aware of not knowing the context which seems necessary to appreciate it. As Torgovnick discusses, a mask on a wall in a museum omits the whole rest of the costume, the dance, the religion, the cultural milieu; she notes that when Baule mask-carvers were asked to appraise a mask, they mentioned formal design/technique ("The horns curve nicely, and I like the placement of the eyes and ears") of the type that Rubin and that sort of modernist would insist is the only consideration, but also "it executes very interesting and graceful dance steps" and "the Dye god is a dance of rejoicing for us men. So when I see the mask, my heart is filled with joy." The Expressionists, as even Rubin knew, misread the 'expression' of African art, seeing "violence and horror and sexuality" that wasn't there (although Rubin only knew this because, a man entirely in the Greenbergian MOMA paradigm, he disdained Expressionism; he was only too happy to see horror, violence, and sexuality in the supposedly 'African' faces of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.)
This review is already too long, and I could go on and on about the topic (why did critics universally call the impossibly complicated rhythms of The Rite of Spring "primitive"?), but I'll just end with Torgovnick's sympathy for the search that the writers she discusses were on, even when they were absolutely terrible people like Lawrence -- even Henry Morton Stanley, the 'explorer' who enabled Leopold II to found the Congo Free State. She sees them as "secular but yearning for the sacred, ironic but yearning for the absolute, individualistic but yearing for the wholeness of community, asking questions but receiving no answers", and I can only say, me too. It seems to me that a lot of people feel this way, and often look to "the primitive" for the fulfillment of these yearnings. In general, like Lukács whose concept of "transcendental homelessness" she is using here, I tend to look more toward the "archaic", like ancient Greece, than the "primitive", but I'm not sure the distinction matters much. In any case, I don't think that all of us who feel that way are therefore Nazis. But it seems like in these days, there's a hard binary being insisted on, where either you are a secular liberal who is happy to let Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT make all art from now on because what are you some kind of Luddite (= Romantic = Nazi) or you are a fascist. It's nice to read a book where that's not the attitude, and yet emphasizes that "the primitive" is always made to be whatever "the modern" wants it to be, in contrast with itself -- if "the modern" is mechanistically violent and oppressive, "the primitive" is placid and pastoral; if "the modern" is bloodless and overcivilized, then "the primitive" is savage and bestial. And it makes me wonder: why is it that we so often go looking for these answers in the primitive, in the imaginary past?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 19, 2011
Marianna Torgovnick provocatively undertakes anaylses, utilizing the wide range of the fields of anthropology, psychology, literature, and art, on how the primitive has structured Western culture. Torgovnick maintains that Western society manipulates alternately the terms noble savage or cannibal whenever an image of the primitive is evoked. In other words, Western culture vacillates between emulating the one and fear of the other. Torgovnick analyzes these fears, obsessions, and longings as Western society has developed images and ideas about the primitive through scholarly books, art galleries and museums, adventure novels, photography, travel literature, television programs, and fashion.
Torgovnick's views on feminism are pervasive throughout the book. In the introduction, she attacks the cover of Bronislaw Malinoski=s book The Sexual Life of Savages as being male-on-the-top order, although the contents of the book describes social customs in which women of high rank are elevated on platforms over men. (p 6) At times, throughout the book, Torgovnick's feminist stance reads too much into what she is trying to examine. The example above is a case in point. Thoughout her book, Torgovnick asserts her case of the domination and exclusion of women. At times her interpretations come on too strong.
According to the author, to study the primitive is thus to enter an exotic world which is also a familiar world. That world is structured by sets of images and ideas that have slipped from their original metaphoric status to control perceptions of primitives images and ideas that [she] call tropes (p 8). The term is appropriate because they encompass images and ideas as well as visual and verbal modes of expression. Examples would be: primitives are like children; primitives are our untamed selves; and primitives are free. These tropes form the base of Primitivist discourse. Torgovnick claims that ". . . the needs of the present undermine the value and nature of the primitive. The primitive does what we ask it to do. It tells us what we want it to tell us" (p 9). There is also a ". . .tendency to perceive primitive peoples or things through the lens of Western myths". Such crossings of Western myths and primitive peoples or institutions create a never-never-land of false identities or homologies. The identities and homologies are false because the two items compared enjoy only a spurious equality (p10-11). By studying the primitive we return to ourselves by how we define the Other.
How we define the Other brings us back to ourselves becomes the essence of this book. This is a thought-provoking statement. Torgovnick delves into the lives of various authorities in different fields of study to analyze their work based on their background and some possible reasons as to why they persist in certain matters. She exposes Freud's fascination with the primitive art forms and how much his work was influenced by his being Jewish which in a sense is the Other. Malinowaki's innermost thoughts about his work with the Trobriand Islanders have been revealed through the recent publication of his diary. The turmoil he faced reflects the age in which he lived and the sexual mores of the time.
Margaret Mead had her own agenda in what she wrote. She believed that by studying primitive cultures we would be enlightened about our own culture. Looking at the ways adolescent girls behaved in Samoa, we would be able to understand more about adolescence in the West. She claimed certain sexual behavior (homosexuality) was commonplace in Samoa thus the implications were the same for the West. She was very subtle in her representation of this, of course, this was the 1960's and such things were not general topic of the day.
Another area that Torgovnick covers is art and the connection to Primivitism during the early 1900's. The Museum of Modern Art, under the direction of William Rubin, produced a showing (and an eventual book) of modern interpretation of the primitive. As I browsed through this book, at times I felt an indignation at the artist's interpretation of native art, whether it be North American Indian, African, and Oceanic. At other times, I was moved by the beauty of certain pieces and what they inspired within me. Torgovnick has selected several excellent representations of art to exemplify the intent of her writing. One of these representations is the art work of Ed Rihacek entitled Gone Primitive. This painting of a white women sitting in the midst of primitive art will evoke many different responses. The response I would love to hear is the response of a Pacific Islander or someone from Africa to this piece.
Torgovnick is correct in her statement that the primitive is in our museums and homes, in our closets and jewelry boxes, in our hearts and in our minds. The primitive is everywhere present in modernity and postmodernity, as impetus or subtext, just as modernity or postmodernity forms the subtext of much ethnological writing and thinking. A voyeuristic interest in the primitive surrounds us in what we see and hear, what we learn and read, from the cradle to the grave: it is part of our atmosphere, or the culture we live and breathe. We have no need to Ago primitive because we have already gone primitive (p 246).
Torgovnick has used successfully the representations that she feels comfortable with, someone else would use different representations. Her main purpose is to provoke further discussion on the subject and to open up alternative possibilities of attitudes about how we as Western society perceive the Other and thus ourselves.
Torgovnick's views on feminism are pervasive throughout the book. In the introduction, she attacks the cover of Bronislaw Malinoski=s book The Sexual Life of Savages as being male-on-the-top order, although the contents of the book describes social customs in which women of high rank are elevated on platforms over men. (p 6) At times, throughout the book, Torgovnick's feminist stance reads too much into what she is trying to examine. The example above is a case in point. Thoughout her book, Torgovnick asserts her case of the domination and exclusion of women. At times her interpretations come on too strong.
According to the author, to study the primitive is thus to enter an exotic world which is also a familiar world. That world is structured by sets of images and ideas that have slipped from their original metaphoric status to control perceptions of primitives images and ideas that [she] call tropes (p 8). The term is appropriate because they encompass images and ideas as well as visual and verbal modes of expression. Examples would be: primitives are like children; primitives are our untamed selves; and primitives are free. These tropes form the base of Primitivist discourse. Torgovnick claims that ". . . the needs of the present undermine the value and nature of the primitive. The primitive does what we ask it to do. It tells us what we want it to tell us" (p 9). There is also a ". . .tendency to perceive primitive peoples or things through the lens of Western myths". Such crossings of Western myths and primitive peoples or institutions create a never-never-land of false identities or homologies. The identities and homologies are false because the two items compared enjoy only a spurious equality (p10-11). By studying the primitive we return to ourselves by how we define the Other.
How we define the Other brings us back to ourselves becomes the essence of this book. This is a thought-provoking statement. Torgovnick delves into the lives of various authorities in different fields of study to analyze their work based on their background and some possible reasons as to why they persist in certain matters. She exposes Freud's fascination with the primitive art forms and how much his work was influenced by his being Jewish which in a sense is the Other. Malinowaki's innermost thoughts about his work with the Trobriand Islanders have been revealed through the recent publication of his diary. The turmoil he faced reflects the age in which he lived and the sexual mores of the time.
Margaret Mead had her own agenda in what she wrote. She believed that by studying primitive cultures we would be enlightened about our own culture. Looking at the ways adolescent girls behaved in Samoa, we would be able to understand more about adolescence in the West. She claimed certain sexual behavior (homosexuality) was commonplace in Samoa thus the implications were the same for the West. She was very subtle in her representation of this, of course, this was the 1960's and such things were not general topic of the day.
Another area that Torgovnick covers is art and the connection to Primivitism during the early 1900's. The Museum of Modern Art, under the direction of William Rubin, produced a showing (and an eventual book) of modern interpretation of the primitive. As I browsed through this book, at times I felt an indignation at the artist's interpretation of native art, whether it be North American Indian, African, and Oceanic. At other times, I was moved by the beauty of certain pieces and what they inspired within me. Torgovnick has selected several excellent representations of art to exemplify the intent of her writing. One of these representations is the art work of Ed Rihacek entitled Gone Primitive. This painting of a white women sitting in the midst of primitive art will evoke many different responses. The response I would love to hear is the response of a Pacific Islander or someone from Africa to this piece.
Torgovnick is correct in her statement that the primitive is in our museums and homes, in our closets and jewelry boxes, in our hearts and in our minds. The primitive is everywhere present in modernity and postmodernity, as impetus or subtext, just as modernity or postmodernity forms the subtext of much ethnological writing and thinking. A voyeuristic interest in the primitive surrounds us in what we see and hear, what we learn and read, from the cradle to the grave: it is part of our atmosphere, or the culture we live and breathe. We have no need to Ago primitive because we have already gone primitive (p 246).
Torgovnick has used successfully the representations that she feels comfortable with, someone else would use different representations. Her main purpose is to provoke further discussion on the subject and to open up alternative possibilities of attitudes about how we as Western society perceive the Other and thus ourselves.
June 26, 2016
Torgovnick closely reads and contextualizes a list of modern intellectuals and discovers that most of them are basically just masturbating to images of topless natives. Extremely readable despite its academic intentions, she offers a corrective to viewing the primitive as a stage on the path towards modernism or as the personification of Freud's "id" (and therefore something to be suppressed by a colonizing "superego"). Hitting me where I live is what I'll call a blackface tendency, to use the primitive as a way to make myself seem more civilized.
I feel like I might want to read this again some day, which is a pretty strong recommendation. I would also like to see a similar book looking at primitivism in more recent examples of pop culture, literature and scholarship. Like Torgovnick's second chapter, "Taking Tarzan Seriously" I want a book that starts off taking Cameron's Avatar and Gibson's Apocalyptico (or whatever that Mayan film was called) seriously. That looks at cats like Wade Davis the way Torgovnick looks at Tobias Schneebaum. And, yeah, I especially want someone with Torgovnick's chops to get behind the curtain of wizards like John Zerzan.
This book also made me think about librarianship. On the one hand, you want to keep older, thoroughly discredited works if they were of significant importance at the time. On the other hand, maybe something like The Golden Bough should be moved from BL310 .F72 to somewhere in PR... know what I mean?
I feel like I might want to read this again some day, which is a pretty strong recommendation. I would also like to see a similar book looking at primitivism in more recent examples of pop culture, literature and scholarship. Like Torgovnick's second chapter, "Taking Tarzan Seriously" I want a book that starts off taking Cameron's Avatar and Gibson's Apocalyptico (or whatever that Mayan film was called) seriously. That looks at cats like Wade Davis the way Torgovnick looks at Tobias Schneebaum. And, yeah, I especially want someone with Torgovnick's chops to get behind the curtain of wizards like John Zerzan.
This book also made me think about librarianship. On the one hand, you want to keep older, thoroughly discredited works if they were of significant importance at the time. On the other hand, maybe something like The Golden Bough should be moved from BL310 .F72 to somewhere in PR... know what I mean?
January 16, 2010
This book was a “wow” for me. It’s not an easy read, but it's well researched, provocative, interesting, and works steadily toward building its case. It’s older, published in 1990 by the University of Chicago Press, but feels fresh. It makes a lot of illuminating points about culture – particularly western culture’s view of other culture’s – and objectification. Its arguments are made within chapters with titles like “Taking Tarzan Seriously” that go into great detail about things like cultural tropes, prominent researchers, or art history, but have a common thread. A strong feminist sensibility runs throughout as well.
September 18, 2009
I really enjoyed Torgovnick's critique of multiple uses of the "Primitive" in pop culture. The sections on Tarzan had me giggling, as well as her look at Levi-Strauss.
For someone versed in modern anthropology or primitive art critique there is nothing revolutionary here, but she writes with a clarity that I found refreshing.
For someone versed in modern anthropology or primitive art critique there is nothing revolutionary here, but she writes with a clarity that I found refreshing.
January 29, 2008
This is a mixture of lit crit and cultural critique. Sometimes this book is a bit esoteric, but Torgovnick has a lot of very true things to say about our society and its fascination with the primitive. The chapters on Tarzan are my favorite.
November 30, 2007
another solid primitivism text. some thorough initial discussion in the first few chapters.
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