A Symphony of Silence

The Tower of Brass by Edward Coley Burne-Jones

Listen…What can you hear?

I do enjoy a nice bit of silence. Despite being an extrovert – someone who is energized by being around other people, as opposed to being alone – I dislike noise when I am trying to think. I find music and words too engaging. I’ve never been able to work with the radio on. (Phone-ins are particularly painful!) Sometimes I have to drive home in silence because the auditory stimuli of the day is almost overwhelming.

However, silence can be so many things.

It can be calming, awkward, cruel, gentle, controlling, restful, agonising, a gift, a punishment, an absence, a presence.

“Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.”

Charles de Gaulle

Silence is a witholding of connection, an emptiness or failure, a stifling and concealment where there is

“Nothing to be said.”

Philip Larkin

Yet silence is the sublime and inexpressible art of perfection; a yearning and desire that is beyond words; an acceptance and completeness.

“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides.”

Artur Schnabel

The written and, therefore, silent word holds a unique and pivotal place in holding the paradoxes of emptiness and wholeness, the self and the other, in tension. The writer wrestles to express thoughts and emotions that are wordless, to translate a foreign code into a language the reader can recognise and respond to, to make the unseen visible and the inaudible heard.

“most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered”

Rainer Maria Rilker

The reader is immersed in a symphony of silence, vibrating with pitch, dynamics, tone and duration of meaning, created by the text. It is a tender and vulnerable relationship, where one is both an insider and an outsider, an observer of and participant in the experience.

“A book is a little bit of silence in the hands of the reader. The one who writes is peaceful. The one who reads does not break the silence.”

Pascal Quignard

So, where to go from here? Perhaps a good read; a viewing of the ‘silent’ film, ‘The Artist’; a listen to ‘The Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel, 4’33″ by John Cage, ‘Silence’ by Portishead or, my musical choice, ‘Time Zones’ by OMD. From the 1983 album, ‘Dazzle Ships’, it features a babble of voices from around the world.