And no, it isn't senioritis.
I actually am dreading the moment where Lee dies. I especially don't want Lee to narrate it.
I'm not really sure why I am so dreading this moment. I mean, I know that it is coming. I know Jack Ruby is going to do it. I know that. I've seen the footage. I've seen the t-shirt parody of the scene. It's coming, but I don't want to read it.
No offense to Don DeLillo, but this actually kind of surprises me that I'm reacting this much to something in the last 30 pages. His book hasn't stirred up passionate thoughts in me all along, sending me frantically to this blog to explain my burning thoughts. It has been kind of a slow read with some long and confusing (and therefore occasionally sleep-inducing) sections.
Lee is interesting, but not all that lovable. Marina would be likable I think, if we ever really got to know her. The conspirators are all strange, but also kind of distant, kind of untouchable. I don't know, maybe the fact that it is May of my senior year has something to do with the detachedness I've felt with this book, but I really think it is something to do with the writing and the plot and the historicalness of everything.
It is sort of like watching a movie you've already seen. You want to fast forward through the boring scenes and in the good scenes you aren't quite as captivated as you were the first time. You're a little cooler, a little more distant, and little more critical.
That's how I've felt reading Libra. I've already seen this story unfold and so I've got this critical distance which prevents me from falling in love with any of the characters because I already know their destiny and so I don't have hope for them, I don't believe they will change or grow because I have already seen where they end up.
It's actually pretty weird. It isn't very often that you know the ending of a book before you get to it unless you're reading a very standard plot children's book. But this one, I've know the ending for all along.
So anyway, now that I've explained why I don't want to do my homework, I guess I had better go finish it.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Can you trust the news?
Early this year, we spent a week or two in history talking about the JFK assassination and watching a documentary about it made with footage from the actual event and subsequent news coverage.
One of the things that really stood out to me was just the chaos at the police station, all the reporters everywhere and the police trying to get through this massive crowd of people with microphones. I started to wonder about what news is, as all the reports they released that had such gaping holes in information or made such jumps and twisted the story.
When reading Libra, it was really interesting to imagine what Lee thought during all of that. On page 417, it is described this way.
I also like how Lee keeps pointing out that they were all shouting questions but no one was listening to his responses, they couldn't hear.
But it gets really interesting when you are inside Lee's head and he is thinking about they ways he could play the story. Does he name all the names? Does he take any of the guilt?
This is just a "History as Fiction" moment. The character is consciously playing with history, considering whether to reveal more or less of the truth. It just reinforces that even what people say can be leaving out important information or slanting a story a certain way.
This has really struck me as I have been working on my own piece of post-modernist historical fiction and as I write even basic news for the Online Gargoyle. When I look at what is recorded in newspapers (historical for my semester project or contemporary stories I edit), it is so slanted by what people say and what the author chooses to included that it makes it hard to know what actually happened.
I mean, how many times as an Online Gargoyle author have I had to leave out information because it wasn't "relevant" or succinct or publishable, and yet that information could change the way you understand the story? Probably more than even I think.
And then the news stories that I've been reading for my project, it is amazing how many of them contradict each other about very basic stories about how the dishwasher was invented. You would think that the inventor must have told two stories, the way the articles divide so neatly between two narratives.
I bet somewhere out there there is a novel that totally plays with the idea of the newspaper as a frequently cited source of "history" and how really newspapers often print a lot of fiction as well.
One of the things that really stood out to me was just the chaos at the police station, all the reporters everywhere and the police trying to get through this massive crowd of people with microphones. I started to wonder about what news is, as all the reports they released that had such gaping holes in information or made such jumps and twisted the story.
When reading Libra, it was really interesting to imagine what Lee thought during all of that. On page 417, it is described this way.
"Hell and bedlam. Crowds jammed clear back out to the hall. Reporters still trying to press in, just arrived from the East Coast and Europe, faces leaking sweat, ties undone. The prisoner stood on the stage in front of the one-way screen used for lineups. His hands were cuffed behind him. Reporters shouting out to him."
I also like how Lee keeps pointing out that they were all shouting questions but no one was listening to his responses, they couldn't hear.
But it gets really interesting when you are inside Lee's head and he is thinking about they ways he could play the story. Does he name all the names? Does he take any of the guilt?
This is just a "History as Fiction" moment. The character is consciously playing with history, considering whether to reveal more or less of the truth. It just reinforces that even what people say can be leaving out important information or slanting a story a certain way.
This has really struck me as I have been working on my own piece of post-modernist historical fiction and as I write even basic news for the Online Gargoyle. When I look at what is recorded in newspapers (historical for my semester project or contemporary stories I edit), it is so slanted by what people say and what the author chooses to included that it makes it hard to know what actually happened.
I mean, how many times as an Online Gargoyle author have I had to leave out information because it wasn't "relevant" or succinct or publishable, and yet that information could change the way you understand the story? Probably more than even I think.
And then the news stories that I've been reading for my project, it is amazing how many of them contradict each other about very basic stories about how the dishwasher was invented. You would think that the inventor must have told two stories, the way the articles divide so neatly between two narratives.
I bet somewhere out there there is a novel that totally plays with the idea of the newspaper as a frequently cited source of "history" and how really newspapers often print a lot of fiction as well.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Coincidental murder story?
This isn't going to be a deep reflection on Libra because I've spent quite a bit of today thinking about a different story, my story.
I'm writing about Josephine Cochrane. If you don't know who she is, you should look her up. She invented the dishwasher. And she happened to do so in Shelbyville, Illinois which is about an hour and a half from here (I used to live there).
My story borrows from Libra and Mumbo Jumbo in that there is a conspiracy theory behind everything. There is a secret society of men who are working together to prevent the spread of this invention in anyway they can. They don't want women and servants liberated from the kitchen sink and able to challenge them in other areas.
Of course, this in itself would make a good story. But in a stack of books about Illinois in the 1880s and women inventors, I also brought home a book called Weird Illinois: Your Travel Guide to Illinois' Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. I got it on a whim, thinking something in it might help me out.
It did.
I found a story about H.H.Holmes, who was apparently a "diabolical druggist" and operated a "murder castle" at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 (the same fair at which Cochrane displayed her dishwasher). Apparently he is America's first known serial killer.
I won't recount the gruesome details of the gas chambers and direction tables in his "castle" or the stories of some of the more than 50 murders that appear to have occurred there. If you want some ugly Illinois history, check out the book when I return it or read this wikipedia page.
For Mr. Mitchell's sake, I won't tell you how I plan to use this information in my story (I want it to be surprising) but it probably isn't hard to guess.
Lesson learned: Looking for an interesting coinciding story to mesh with yours? Find a "weird" history book!
I'm writing about Josephine Cochrane. If you don't know who she is, you should look her up. She invented the dishwasher. And she happened to do so in Shelbyville, Illinois which is about an hour and a half from here (I used to live there).
My story borrows from Libra and Mumbo Jumbo in that there is a conspiracy theory behind everything. There is a secret society of men who are working together to prevent the spread of this invention in anyway they can. They don't want women and servants liberated from the kitchen sink and able to challenge them in other areas.
Of course, this in itself would make a good story. But in a stack of books about Illinois in the 1880s and women inventors, I also brought home a book called Weird Illinois: Your Travel Guide to Illinois' Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. I got it on a whim, thinking something in it might help me out.
It did.
I found a story about H.H.Holmes, who was apparently a "diabolical druggist" and operated a "murder castle" at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 (the same fair at which Cochrane displayed her dishwasher). Apparently he is America's first known serial killer.
I won't recount the gruesome details of the gas chambers and direction tables in his "castle" or the stories of some of the more than 50 murders that appear to have occurred there. If you want some ugly Illinois history, check out the book when I return it or read this wikipedia page.
For Mr. Mitchell's sake, I won't tell you how I plan to use this information in my story (I want it to be surprising) but it probably isn't hard to guess.
Lesson learned: Looking for an interesting coinciding story to mesh with yours? Find a "weird" history book!
Monday, April 23, 2012
The KGB
Whenever Lee encounters anything to do with the KGB or the prisons or Gary Powers is mentioned I shudder inside because I have the faintest idea what that was like.
A few years ago, while I was living in Lithuania, I visited The Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius. It was the former KGB headquarters in Vilnius and it was terrifying. There are things about it that I absolutely can not forget. When I was there, it had been less than 20 years since the prison had been in active use, but it had rooms that seemed like Medieval torture chambers. Between 1940 and 1960, over 1000 executions took place in the basement of the building.
There are pictures which can not convey the awfulness that you feel when you are inside that building but they might give you some idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mental_cell_in_museum_of_genocide_victims.jpg A torture cell.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2011/4/29/1304097386882/A-cell-at-the-Museum-of-G-007.jpg
A normal prison cell.
http://www.way2lithuania.com/sites/way2lithuania.com/files/museum%20of%20genocide%20victims.jpg
The execution room. The glass cases hold objects found in the room.
http://tampaxtowers.blogspot.com/2012/01/vilnius-kgb-museummuseum-of-genocide.html
A series of pictures from the prison and descriptions of the various rooms.
http://www.t52.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/lithuania-105.jpg
The basement hallway.
I know that what we sometimes read about the KGB and see in movies about the cold war is scary, but I haven't come across anything that conveys the true horror of what I saw in the Lithuania headquarters and I know that was just the tip of what they did. The true impact of the horrors was evident in the way people walked and interacted.
I heard that before the Soviet Union collapsed they used to display the bodies of people they had recently executed on the streets. They would post guards by the bodies and if anyone reacted as they walked by, those people were arrested because they must sympathize with the executed. So even twenty years later, people generally keep their eyes on the ground and they don't greet one another in the street. Every one has been trained to ignore others in case they are being watched by how the react to someone.
Anyway, that is a not very cheerful blog post but something to keep in mind as you read about the KGB. And it also makes you wonder what CIA headquarters are like.
A few years ago, while I was living in Lithuania, I visited The Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius. It was the former KGB headquarters in Vilnius and it was terrifying. There are things about it that I absolutely can not forget. When I was there, it had been less than 20 years since the prison had been in active use, but it had rooms that seemed like Medieval torture chambers. Between 1940 and 1960, over 1000 executions took place in the basement of the building.
There are pictures which can not convey the awfulness that you feel when you are inside that building but they might give you some idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mental_cell_in_museum_of_genocide_victims.jpg A torture cell.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2011/4/29/1304097386882/A-cell-at-the-Museum-of-G-007.jpg
A normal prison cell.
http://www.way2lithuania.com/sites/way2lithuania.com/files/museum%20of%20genocide%20victims.jpg
The execution room. The glass cases hold objects found in the room.
http://tampaxtowers.blogspot.com/2012/01/vilnius-kgb-museummuseum-of-genocide.html
A series of pictures from the prison and descriptions of the various rooms.
http://www.t52.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/lithuania-105.jpg
The basement hallway.
I know that what we sometimes read about the KGB and see in movies about the cold war is scary, but I haven't come across anything that conveys the true horror of what I saw in the Lithuania headquarters and I know that was just the tip of what they did. The true impact of the horrors was evident in the way people walked and interacted.
I heard that before the Soviet Union collapsed they used to display the bodies of people they had recently executed on the streets. They would post guards by the bodies and if anyone reacted as they walked by, those people were arrested because they must sympathize with the executed. So even twenty years later, people generally keep their eyes on the ground and they don't greet one another in the street. Every one has been trained to ignore others in case they are being watched by how the react to someone.
Anyway, that is a not very cheerful blog post but something to keep in mind as you read about the KGB. And it also makes you wonder what CIA headquarters are like.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Hidell
On about page 90 of Libra, I started to realize that there were occasional references to this "Hidell," whatever that is, that kept showing up in various places.
For example, the first time you see it is right after Oswald's nickname Ozzie the Rabbit is explained. All you get is this one little line:
But it didn't really help me all that much. I mean, seriously, if you take an ee+hide, you don't get anything that makes sense. And what does "Don't tell" have to do with it? Mystifying.
The next time this mysterious Hidell showed up I started wishing I had taken psychology and understood all of Freud's thinking. I feel like Lee, not really sure what ego and id really are but feeling like they must have significance.
And then yet another paragraph that seems to suggest an answer, but instead is more confusing. Clearly we have a reference to Jekle and Hyde, but exactly how that is being used I'm not sure. Perhaps Lee is considering himself both a jerk and a person who hides, and in that way he has a double personality. Or perhaps Jerke refers to his cellmate.
For example, the first time you see it is right after Oswald's nickname Ozzie the Rabbit is explained. All you get is this one little line:
Seven pages later, it shows up again twice with very little explanation.
"Heindel was known as Hidell, for no special reason." (82)
"Hidell in a dark jacket with a pouncing tiger on the back."I thought this next paragraph would help me understand when I first caught sight of it as I read.
"Hidell means don't tell." (89)
"Take the double-e from Lee.
Hide the double-l in Hidell.
Hidell means hide the L.
Don't tell." (90)
But it didn't really help me all that much. I mean, seriously, if you take an ee+hide, you don't get anything that makes sense. And what does "Don't tell" have to do with it? Mystifying.
The next time this mysterious Hidell showed up I started wishing I had taken psychology and understood all of Freud's thinking. I feel like Lee, not really sure what ego and id really are but feeling like they must have significance.
"We live forever in history, outside ego and id. He wasn't sure he knew exactly what the id was but he knew it lay hidden in Hidell." (101).
And then yet another paragraph that seems to suggest an answer, but instead is more confusing. Clearly we have a reference to Jekle and Hyde, but exactly how that is being used I'm not sure. Perhaps Lee is considering himself both a jerk and a person who hides, and in that way he has a double personality. Or perhaps Jerke refers to his cellmate.
"Hidell means don't tell.And the last one I found in the reading seems to refer to Oswald getting closer to the East.
The id is hell.
Jerke and Hide in their little cell." (101)
"Hidell climbs the ancient creaking stairs" (109)
Perhaps you can tell that as I finished my reading tonight I was getting pretty curious about what this Hidell was and what is signified. So I googled it. And guess what, Alek Hidell was an alias used by Lee Harvey Oswald! So it is important somehow! Now I get to keep watching references to this and wondering what DeLillo is trying to say with these short, semi-random interjections about Hidell. Stay tuned for a possible follow up if I figure this out!
"Hidell creeps closer to the East" (134)
Monday, April 9, 2012
Double YUCK!!!!
In response to Mr. Mitchell's comment on my previous post, I would just like to add to my last thoughts: DOUBLE YUCK!!!!
I've read some gross short stories, The Lottery being chief among them. But nothing compares to the grossness of "Lyndon." It is just DISGUSTING.
I do not really care to read page after page of detailed recounting of Lyndon B. Johnson's bodily functions (like the nasal inhaler--I can't take the constant information about LBJ sticking this thing up his nose and inhaling-ugghhh!). And I don't want to hear about his use of a wastebasket as a toilet or his meetings held in the bathroom. And what is with the narrator's husband's mysteriously gross wasting disease?
I would give you some examples of passages that make my stomach turn, but it just seems insensitive for me to subject you all to that.
So I'll conclude with this parting thought: all this detail makes me like Lyndon B. Johnson even less. It doesn't humanize him for me, it turns me off. I'm so glad that story is over and I hope Libra is totally different.
I've read some gross short stories, The Lottery being chief among them. But nothing compares to the grossness of "Lyndon." It is just DISGUSTING.
I do not really care to read page after page of detailed recounting of Lyndon B. Johnson's bodily functions (like the nasal inhaler--I can't take the constant information about LBJ sticking this thing up his nose and inhaling-ugghhh!). And I don't want to hear about his use of a wastebasket as a toilet or his meetings held in the bathroom. And what is with the narrator's husband's mysteriously gross wasting disease?
I would give you some examples of passages that make my stomach turn, but it just seems insensitive for me to subject you all to that.
So I'll conclude with this parting thought: all this detail makes me like Lyndon B. Johnson even less. It doesn't humanize him for me, it turns me off. I'm so glad that story is over and I hope Libra is totally different.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Sometimes I Just Don't Want to Know
In general, there is a point in relationships where you decide that either you want to get to know this person better (knowing that their could be stuff you don't want to know about or deal with) or you want to keep this relationship on the same level and go no deeper.
I'm feeling like I would rather take the second course of action with Lyndon B. Johnson. This short story,"Lyndon," has pushed me to a point where I'm thinking that the Johnson I read about in the history books was more pleasant than the mental picture I'm building as I read on page by page.
I think this is especially true of major historical figures. For example, I wouldn't mind learning more about some of the people in my classes or that I've met through various extracurriculars. They are interesting people and while their lives can be messed up, somehow that doesn't usually destroy my view of them.
But historical figures, they don't have a chance to redeem themselves. When you find out that the queen you looked up to was actually rather cruel, or that Helen Keller grew up to be very different than the girl who stuck her hand under a pump, or that Christopher Columbus wasn't the nice explorer you thought he was, you don't get to see them redeem themselves. Forever after, your image is tainted.
That's not to say that knowing the truth isn't better than the idealistic picture. It's just more disappointing.
I guess all that is to say that I don't really want to read any more about Lyndon B. Johnson on a personal level. True or not, he's been ruined for me by a farting scene. I don't know if I'll ever be able to think about the huge impact he had on American history without seeing that scene.
I hope Libra isn't like this short story. Because there is truly some stuff I just don't want to know.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Analysis of Power: Think Small
If Mumbo Jumbo is a novel concerned with national and international power struggles between Jes Grew and the Wallflower Order, and Slaughter-House Five is about the effects of war (the epitome of international power struggles) on a generation of boys like Billy Pilgrim, then Kindred analyzes a very different type of power struggle, the power struggles in everyday human interactions and relationships.
Octavia Butler really focuses on the small shifts in power in the relationships between masters and slaves, and people from the future, in the ante-bellum south. Her book doesn't have as many slap-in-the-face postmodernist forms, in part I think because she is less interested in discussing the mega power struggles than she is in putting normal relationships under a microscopic and trying to understand how slavery affects people in the past, and how it still affects people in the future.
Octavia Butler really focuses on the small shifts in power in the relationships between masters and slaves, and people from the future, in the ante-bellum south. Her book doesn't have as many slap-in-the-face postmodernist forms, in part I think because she is less interested in discussing the mega power struggles than she is in putting normal relationships under a microscopic and trying to understand how slavery affects people in the past, and how it still affects people in the future.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Is Rape Wrong When It's Not Wrong
All last week we kept coming back to the question, is Rufus' continual raping of Alice wrong when culturally it isn't really wrong? Can you judge a person based on the ethics and morals of another time? Are there absolute wrongs that transcend time and place?
I'm still not really sure how to answer that question. Sometimes I feel like Rufus must be totally wrong, even if to him it seems excusable. Other times I want to think he can't help but be a product of his time.
But what I find interesting in Kindred is that Dana seems to almost shift her position on this issue as time goes on.
For example, on her second trip back when Dana is almost raped by the patroller. Her response is immediately to defend herself, running and wrestling and eventually clubbing him (of course, minus the important first opportunity when she chooses not to gouge out his eyes). She believes rape is totally and completely wrong, a normal viewpoint in 1976 America, and so she flares up against it with a lot of anger and desperation.
She says:
Dana of course then kills Rufus for trying, so at the last second it appears that her 20th century ideas about rape and what is acceptable behavior kick in and she physically defends herself. But it is dangerously close. Life in her ancestors' world almost took her from willing to defend herself from rape to silently accepting it. Almost.
I'm still not really sure how to answer that question. Sometimes I feel like Rufus must be totally wrong, even if to him it seems excusable. Other times I want to think he can't help but be a product of his time.
But what I find interesting in Kindred is that Dana seems to almost shift her position on this issue as time goes on.
For example, on her second trip back when Dana is almost raped by the patroller. Her response is immediately to defend herself, running and wrestling and eventually clubbing him (of course, minus the important first opportunity when she chooses not to gouge out his eyes). She believes rape is totally and completely wrong, a normal viewpoint in 1976 America, and so she flares up against it with a lot of anger and desperation.
She says:
He reached out and ripped my blouse open. Buttons flew everywhere, but I didn't move. I understood what the man was going to do. He was going to display some stupidity of his own. He was going to give me another chance to destroy him. I was almost relieved.
He tore loose my bra and I prepared to move. Just one quick lunge. (42-43)On her last trip, Dana is also almost raped.
He pushed me back on the pallet, and for a few moments, we lay there, still. What was he waiting for? What was I waiting for?
He lay with his head on my shoulder, his left arm around me, his right hand still holding my hand, and slowly, I realized how easy it would be for me to continue to be still and forgive him even this. So easy, in spite of all my talk. (259-260)Dana realizes that she has become so accustomed to 19th century ideas about rape and a man's right to do things to his slave women that she is in danger of silently accepting a rape. She had told Alice that she wouldn't go to Rufus, but she is right on the verge of giving in.
Dana of course then kills Rufus for trying, so at the last second it appears that her 20th century ideas about rape and what is acceptable behavior kick in and she physically defends herself. But it is dangerously close. Life in her ancestors' world almost took her from willing to defend herself from rape to silently accepting it. Almost.
Monday, March 12, 2012
What happens next?
So far in this English class we've read some pretty terrible and terrifying things. Coalhouse Walker's rampages were pretty scary and there were some tense moments when he was in the art museum. The secret orders in Mumbo Jumbo sometimes did intense things, like that bizarre killing of the official who caught Jes Grew at the beginning. And Slaughterhouse-Five was certainly not a light-hearted book, although it was sometimes funny. The killing of many innocent civilians and the horrors of war are not easy to brush off.
But so far, the book that scares me most is Kindred. While reading my back tenses up; my eyes don't leave the page. I stop hearing the music in my room and I want to ignore my brother when he asks me a question. All I want to know is does Dana escape safely? Is she going to be seriously hurt? How does she get home?
Octavia Butler is inspiring the kind of utter terror that the best books use to pull you into the story, to make you so nervous that you can hardly pick the book up for fear of what will happen while at the same time it calls to you from across the house making you itch to read it.
In no other book so far this semester have I been as intensely gripped by the story and compelled to continue reading. Not that I haven't enjoyed the other books, I have enjoyed them quite a bit. But this story is just calling to me, "Read me, read me! Find out what happens next!"
But I can't. I've finished tonight's reading and I must stop now or I'll be up all night finishing the novel and then I'll have to watch myself all week so that I don't spoil the plot for others. But I really want to know, what happens next?
But so far, the book that scares me most is Kindred. While reading my back tenses up; my eyes don't leave the page. I stop hearing the music in my room and I want to ignore my brother when he asks me a question. All I want to know is does Dana escape safely? Is she going to be seriously hurt? How does she get home?
Octavia Butler is inspiring the kind of utter terror that the best books use to pull you into the story, to make you so nervous that you can hardly pick the book up for fear of what will happen while at the same time it calls to you from across the house making you itch to read it.
In no other book so far this semester have I been as intensely gripped by the story and compelled to continue reading. Not that I haven't enjoyed the other books, I have enjoyed them quite a bit. But this story is just calling to me, "Read me, read me! Find out what happens next!"
But I can't. I've finished tonight's reading and I must stop now or I'll be up all night finishing the novel and then I'll have to watch myself all week so that I don't spoil the plot for others. But I really want to know, what happens next?
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Just the Way You Are
One aspect of Billy's non-war world that we haven't touched on in class is his relationship with his wife Valencia.
At some points, she strikes me as a very repulsive person. She is all about money and jewels and appearances and doesn't strike me as very authentic. She seems like a person who would wear too much make-up and is generally unpleasant to hang out with. Sometimes I think that Billy is wondering why he is married to her because she is insensitive or boring (seriously, how much does one need to talk about the pattern for one's silver?). Here are some of my favorite descriptions of Valencia:
"Um." What kind of response is "um" to a bride on her honeymoon? That is just such an awkward moment when it seems like a great place for a romantic scene. But no, we just get Billy Pilgrim uncomfortably not wanting to audibly express his thought about no one in their right mind marrying her.
But at the same time there are a couple of very sweet moments with Valencia. My favorite is when Valencia decides that she will lose weight for Billy and become beautiful to please him. Billy responds, "I like you just the way you are" (153).
There is enough in the text that you can read this as just a detached Billy saying something without a lot of meaning or significance because he knew the marriage "was going to be at least bearable all the way" (153).
But I like to see it as a touching moment where Billy looks to her and affirms her as she is, not asking her to become someone else for him. Maybe they aren't the most loving couple ever, but he recognizes that their relationship means a lot to her and doesn't want to hurt her.
So while I sometimes nod my head along with Billy's realization that he might be crazy to marry Valencia, I also find their relationship satisfying as a model of love, more so than his relationship with Montana Wildhack, because he stays with her even if she isn't beautiful or enjoyable. He loves her just the way she is, as much as Billy can really love. Which makes me think of the song, but that is really just a side note.
At some points, she strikes me as a very repulsive person. She is all about money and jewels and appearances and doesn't strike me as very authentic. She seems like a person who would wear too much make-up and is generally unpleasant to hang out with. Sometimes I think that Billy is wondering why he is married to her because she is insensitive or boring (seriously, how much does one need to talk about the pattern for one's silver?). Here are some of my favorite descriptions of Valencia:
She was rich. She was as big as a house because she couldn't stop eating. ... She was wearing trifocal lenses in harlequin frames, and the frames were trimmed with rhinestones. The glitter of the rhinestones was answered by the glitter of the diamond in her engagement ring. The diamond was insured for eighteen hundred dollars. (136-137)
She was one of the symptoms of his disease. He knew he was going crazy when he heard himself proposing marriage to her, when he begged her to take the diamond ring and be his companion for life. (137)
He had been rewarded for marrying a girl nobody in his right mind would have married. (151)
Valencia adored Billy. She was crying and yelping so hard as she drove that she missed the correct turnoff from the throughway. (233)At other points their relationship just makes me want to laugh. There is very little romantic about their relationship. For example, in the conversation recorded on their honeymoon Valencia starts crying because she "never thought anybody would marry [her]." "'Um,' said Billy Pilgrim" (153).
"Um." What kind of response is "um" to a bride on her honeymoon? That is just such an awkward moment when it seems like a great place for a romantic scene. But no, we just get Billy Pilgrim uncomfortably not wanting to audibly express his thought about no one in their right mind marrying her.
But at the same time there are a couple of very sweet moments with Valencia. My favorite is when Valencia decides that she will lose weight for Billy and become beautiful to please him. Billy responds, "I like you just the way you are" (153).
There is enough in the text that you can read this as just a detached Billy saying something without a lot of meaning or significance because he knew the marriage "was going to be at least bearable all the way" (153).
But I like to see it as a touching moment where Billy looks to her and affirms her as she is, not asking her to become someone else for him. Maybe they aren't the most loving couple ever, but he recognizes that their relationship means a lot to her and doesn't want to hurt her.
So while I sometimes nod my head along with Billy's realization that he might be crazy to marry Valencia, I also find their relationship satisfying as a model of love, more so than his relationship with Montana Wildhack, because he stays with her even if she isn't beautiful or enjoyable. He loves her just the way she is, as much as Billy can really love. Which makes me think of the song, but that is really just a side note.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Fiction lies about soldiers, says Vonnegut
URBANA 1969--
According to the New York Times, women are often being told lies by the media about what the ideal body shape is. Media tells them that the must be unreachably beautiful, perfectly attired and done up to the standard of photo-shopped models in magazines.
If you were an alien who only knew about earth from our written media, you might be shocked to meet a human woman.
"Where are the real women?" You might ask. "Where are the skinny, tall, shapely women? These earth women are too fat, too short, too plain to be real women."
According to Vonnegut's hidden message in his new novel Slaughter-House Five, fiction and media also lie about what a soldier really is like. They perpetuate an image of the soldier as a hero in uniform with superhuman courage who makes heroic gestures in the face of the enemy. They encourage readers to admire their strong arms and deep devotion to the American cause.
Vonnegut's war widow asks questions like the alien.
"Aren't you awfully old to be in the army? Aren't you awfully young to be in the army? Are you supposed to be in the army [directed at Billy]?"
The soldiers in front of her don't look like "real soldiers," she says. They don't match up to the image she has of soldiers as grand, strong men who can take on any enemy.
And that is the hidden message of Vonnegut's novel: There is no such thing as a "real soldier" just like there is no such thing as a "beautiful woman" as the media and fiction present them.
But shhhh, there is a reason Vonnegut has to write a whole novel to disguise that idea. The media doesn't want people to catch on. It is bad for recruiting and national security.
According to the New York Times, women are often being told lies by the media about what the ideal body shape is. Media tells them that the must be unreachably beautiful, perfectly attired and done up to the standard of photo-shopped models in magazines.
If you were an alien who only knew about earth from our written media, you might be shocked to meet a human woman.
"Where are the real women?" You might ask. "Where are the skinny, tall, shapely women? These earth women are too fat, too short, too plain to be real women."
According to Vonnegut's hidden message in his new novel Slaughter-House Five, fiction and media also lie about what a soldier really is like. They perpetuate an image of the soldier as a hero in uniform with superhuman courage who makes heroic gestures in the face of the enemy. They encourage readers to admire their strong arms and deep devotion to the American cause.
Vonnegut's war widow asks questions like the alien.
"Aren't you awfully old to be in the army? Aren't you awfully young to be in the army? Are you supposed to be in the army [directed at Billy]?"
The soldiers in front of her don't look like "real soldiers," she says. They don't match up to the image she has of soldiers as grand, strong men who can take on any enemy.
And that is the hidden message of Vonnegut's novel: There is no such thing as a "real soldier" just like there is no such thing as a "beautiful woman" as the media and fiction present them.
But shhhh, there is a reason Vonnegut has to write a whole novel to disguise that idea. The media doesn't want people to catch on. It is bad for recruiting and national security.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Going to War
The Children's Crusade, an alternative title for Slaughterhouse-Five, suggests that the people who fought in World War II were more babies than men. That they were innocent children not heroic warriors.
In chapter one, the "author" or character of the author, has a conversation with Mary O'Hare about how he should portray those who fought. Mary tells him:
Mary is thinking about who fights war, who leaves home and puts their life on the line. And I think that is an important question Vonnegut is trying to raise about all wars.
I think it is likely that he is thinking about the Vietnam War in his mind, because it was going on as he wrote the novel. The Vietnam War was fought by generally younger men than those who fought in WWII. People disagree about the average age of a Vietnam soldier, but it appears to be somewhere between 19-22.
One of the things that many interviewees in our counterculture oral history project mentioned is that they didn't know anything other than John Wayne. It was an accepted idea that if America was in a war, the young men went and served just like their fathers had in WWII. Or it was until the anti-Vietnam movement took off.
One of the interviewees, Joseph Miller, who served during the war, said:
I really agree with what he is trying to do. My friend's brother and his best friend have both joined the National Guard, and I hear they are planning to go active in the army (meaning they could be sent overseas) when they graduate from college. They want to make a career in the military. My cousin is also going to school to be a pilot in the air force. I worry about them because I'm not sure if they know what war is like, that they are as likely to come back in a casket or with PTSD than as a hero whose name will be in the history books. I think they may be more like children, more like Billy Pilgrim, than they see themselves as.
So maybe writing an anti-war novel is kind of like writing an anti-glacier novel. But at least Vonnegut is trying to show young people the other side of the movies.
In chapter one, the "author" or character of the author, has a conversation with Mary O'Hare about how he should portray those who fought. Mary tells him:
"You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And War will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." (18)
Mary is thinking about who fights war, who leaves home and puts their life on the line. And I think that is an important question Vonnegut is trying to raise about all wars.
I think it is likely that he is thinking about the Vietnam War in his mind, because it was going on as he wrote the novel. The Vietnam War was fought by generally younger men than those who fought in WWII. People disagree about the average age of a Vietnam soldier, but it appears to be somewhere between 19-22.
One of the things that many interviewees in our counterculture oral history project mentioned is that they didn't know anything other than John Wayne. It was an accepted idea that if America was in a war, the young men went and served just like their fathers had in WWII. Or it was until the anti-Vietnam movement took off.
One of the interviewees, Joseph Miller, who served during the war, said:
I think perhaps this is what Vonnegut is trying to do with his novel. He wants to put out a war novel that isn't about John Wayne, that doesn't paint pictures of heroism and glory without showing the real cost and pain of war.We didn’t know anything about war, really, it was all movies, it was all John Wayne. Nobody really bled, nobody really got hurt.
I really agree with what he is trying to do. My friend's brother and his best friend have both joined the National Guard, and I hear they are planning to go active in the army (meaning they could be sent overseas) when they graduate from college. They want to make a career in the military. My cousin is also going to school to be a pilot in the air force. I worry about them because I'm not sure if they know what war is like, that they are as likely to come back in a casket or with PTSD than as a hero whose name will be in the history books. I think they may be more like children, more like Billy Pilgrim, than they see themselves as.
So maybe writing an anti-war novel is kind of like writing an anti-glacier novel. But at least Vonnegut is trying to show young people the other side of the movies.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Postmodernist Parallels
I'm sure that I'm not the only one who kept seeing parallel topics and ideas in the postmodernist books we've read this semester - Ragtime and Mumbo Jumbo and now the beginning of Slaughterhouse-Five.
Let me just start a basic list of parallels ideas/topics I've seen in at least two novels so far:
For example, let's look at the issue of the Ford Motor Car Company and Henry Ford which are mentioned in Slaughterhouse-Five and carefully examined in Ragtime. Ford is an epitome of the hard-work-gets-you-somewhere philosophy and his cars are a prime example of American consumerism in the 20th century. Fast forward to the 1960s and 70s, when our postmodernist novels were written, and there is a growing movement that rejects both of those philosophies. Young people are just chilling, hanging out, listening to music. They may not have a career goal in mind, in fact "career goals" sound pretty ludicrous next to images of hippies and the youth of the counterculture. These young people also rejected consumerism to some degree, moving to communes or living off the land. If you watch a couple counterculture movies in World since 1945, you may also think they all ditched the general rules of personal hygiene!
So maybe one reason that Ford comes up in these postmodernist novels is that he and his car company stand in such stark contrast to some of the things that are going on as the novels are being written. The contrast helps the authors distinguish the 1910s and 1920s from the time of writing. Just as when a modern reader notices the strangeness of certain values in a historical novel about puritans, the 1970s reader (and others since then) would feel a certain distance from the mindset and values of the 1910s and 1920s as encapsulated in Henry Ford.
I could go on about some of the other parallels, like how the Negro experience concept is very reflective of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but I hope the explanation of Ford gives you the idea. Plus, I know there are more parallels that I marked or noticed but can't find now that I am trying to write about them. If you notice any, let me know!
Let me just start a basic list of parallels ideas/topics I've seen in at least two novels so far:
- Houdini (Rag +MJ)
- Slumming (Evelyn and Thor Wintergreen (MJ 89))
- Ragtime music (Rag+MJ 89)
- Minstrelsy (Rag+MJ 136)
- The idea of a Negro experience (Rag+MJ 117)
- Ford Motor Car Company (Rag+SF 23)
For example, let's look at the issue of the Ford Motor Car Company and Henry Ford which are mentioned in Slaughterhouse-Five and carefully examined in Ragtime. Ford is an epitome of the hard-work-gets-you-somewhere philosophy and his cars are a prime example of American consumerism in the 20th century. Fast forward to the 1960s and 70s, when our postmodernist novels were written, and there is a growing movement that rejects both of those philosophies. Young people are just chilling, hanging out, listening to music. They may not have a career goal in mind, in fact "career goals" sound pretty ludicrous next to images of hippies and the youth of the counterculture. These young people also rejected consumerism to some degree, moving to communes or living off the land. If you watch a couple counterculture movies in World since 1945, you may also think they all ditched the general rules of personal hygiene!
So maybe one reason that Ford comes up in these postmodernist novels is that he and his car company stand in such stark contrast to some of the things that are going on as the novels are being written. The contrast helps the authors distinguish the 1910s and 1920s from the time of writing. Just as when a modern reader notices the strangeness of certain values in a historical novel about puritans, the 1970s reader (and others since then) would feel a certain distance from the mindset and values of the 1910s and 1920s as encapsulated in Henry Ford.
I could go on about some of the other parallels, like how the Negro experience concept is very reflective of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but I hope the explanation of Ford gives you the idea. Plus, I know there are more parallels that I marked or noticed but can't find now that I am trying to write about them. If you notice any, let me know!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
New Grammatical Thinking
Semicolons have always been my grammatical weakness. When I was younger, I knew that I didn't know how to use a semicolon so I just didn't use it. But I thought I knew when to use commas.
Because I thought there was a RIGHT way to use commas. You know, like the way the grammar book tells you.
Obviously, Ishmael Reed needs to go back to elementary school grammar class or else there is a totally different way of looking at the rules and conventions of writing that I never learned. Here is one of his "sentences."
Pardon me, the humble unpublished student, but if I ever wrote that in a paper I would be murdered by my English teachers.
"Use commas!" they would say. "You need a clear subject and a verb!"
"Clarify, clarify, clarify."
But here I am, reading this sentence in a book in an English class and it isn't being used as an example of poor grammar. Instead it is praised as an example of cleverly stepping outside the bounds of grammatical and structural conventions to question why they exist in the first place.
Welcome to the world of postmodernist writing where you can no longer call bad grammar, "Bad grammar." No, you have to appreciate the courage it takes to break the mold and believe that there is no absolute right or wrong even in grammar.
Maybe it is a good thing, a way of bringing new thoughts into the world. But whatever it is, that sentence still doesn't make a lot of sense. What is a "give-and-take of the ultra absurd"?
Because I thought there was a RIGHT way to use commas. You know, like the way the grammar book tells you.
Obviously, Ishmael Reed needs to go back to elementary school grammar class or else there is a totally different way of looking at the rules and conventions of writing that I never learned. Here is one of his "sentences."
The dazzling parodying punning mischievous pre-Joycean style-play of your Cakewalking your Calinda your Minstrelsy give-and-take of the ultra absurd. (152)
Pardon me, the humble unpublished student, but if I ever wrote that in a paper I would be murdered by my English teachers.
"Use commas!" they would say. "You need a clear subject and a verb!"
"Clarify, clarify, clarify."
But here I am, reading this sentence in a book in an English class and it isn't being used as an example of poor grammar. Instead it is praised as an example of cleverly stepping outside the bounds of grammatical and structural conventions to question why they exist in the first place.
Welcome to the world of postmodernist writing where you can no longer call bad grammar, "Bad grammar." No, you have to appreciate the courage it takes to break the mold and believe that there is no absolute right or wrong even in grammar.
Maybe it is a good thing, a way of bringing new thoughts into the world. But whatever it is, that sentence still doesn't make a lot of sense. What is a "give-and-take of the ultra absurd"?
Friday, February 3, 2012
Traveling Art Detention Centers
During today's assembly did anyone else think about our discussion about Centers of Art Detention (a.k.a. museums) from this morning?
Not that Uni Gym is like a museum, but the idea that western civilization has a way of removing people and artifacts from their native environment to "showcase" and "educate" people about the rest of the world, or rather, to devalue and weaken the original culture.
When I think about the assembly, I think it is kind of sad. Our western culture has swept away so much of what culture was here before Europeans arrived that now people from those original cultures have to perform their culture in front of other people for "entertainment."
For example, over the summer I took a trip to South Dakota. We visited a reservation on our way, and we learned from our leaders, and from what our eyes saw, about the huge problems that the people living there faced. We learned about unemployment, the way our government treats the people, the living conditions, the schools, and the battles they have fought for rights we take for granted. Going to visit their world, to inhabit their world for a few hours, challenged my ideas and my understanding of their culture.
The assembly, on the other hand, taught me very little about Gene's world and may have increased some of my stereotypes. I said "awesome" a few times, I learned that I am "awesome," that I am a "storyteller," and that I should follow my heart. I watched Gene do a dance and play some music that in Uni Gym seemed ridiculous. Were I walking with him in Alaska, watching him do those same acts in the environment in which they have true beauty and meaning, I think I would have found it moving and beautiful. As it was, I had to stop myself from seeing him as a fulfillment of many stereotypes I have about Indians.
Isn't this what Reed implies by using "Centers of Art Detention"? That museums remove art from a context in which they have true beauty and significance and put them in places where school children can point at them and say, "that is so weird"? That western civilization must keep other cultures safe from their own artifacts and rituals?
A disconcerting idea, but it kind of explains the guilty feeling I get when checking out exhibits on Africa in a museum. Do you get it too? The kind of feeling like something just isn't quite right about you standing on that marble floor starring at an Egyptian mummy? Do you get it when you look at artifacts in museums about your own culture? Because I don't. I don't feel wrong when I stare at a diorama in the Abraham Lincoln Museum. Is it because museums about my own culture are just celebrations and educational exhibits, while exhibits about other cultures are designed to diminish those ways of life in my eyes?
If you weren't in 2nd hour for this discussion, you might check out page 15 in Mumbo Jumbo. I think it might make you question what was really going on during today's Uni Period.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Too much of a good thing
You know how when you are a little too enthusiastic about putting sprinkles on sugar cookies, your mother usually says something like, "Remember, there can be too much of a good thing"?
That's what I feel like telling Ishmael Reed.
It isn't that I don't like his book, because I think I do. I mean, it is very weird different and unusual (notice the Reed style lack of commas) but I'm finding it creative and engaging as well.
It's just all his unexplained allusions. There are just WAY too many.
Tonight alone I have three full notebook pages of things I looked up, and I didn't write paragraphs about each one! I just wrote something like, "Black Herman=stage magician (Benjamin Rucker). Sold patent medicine early. Harlem=home base. Buried alive a lot."I googled 32 people phases songs places and religions. And I still feel like I'm missing stuff.
It's like Reed is just POURING allusions out of his mind onto the page instead of sprinkling them lightly around to add hints of extra sweetness. I'm a little overwhelmed, 42 pages in and I already have over six pages of reference information, information that is essential to understanding his meaning.
Maybe it is just me, but I feel like Reed needs a little help remember the common adage about too much of a good thing!
That's what I feel like telling Ishmael Reed.
It isn't that I don't like his book, because I think I do. I mean, it is very weird different and unusual (notice the Reed style lack of commas) but I'm finding it creative and engaging as well.
It's just all his unexplained allusions. There are just WAY too many.
Tonight alone I have three full notebook pages of things I looked up, and I didn't write paragraphs about each one! I just wrote something like, "Black Herman=stage magician (Benjamin Rucker). Sold patent medicine early. Harlem=home base. Buried alive a lot."I googled 32 people phases songs places and religions. And I still feel like I'm missing stuff.
It's like Reed is just POURING allusions out of his mind onto the page instead of sprinkling them lightly around to add hints of extra sweetness. I'm a little overwhelmed, 42 pages in and I already have over six pages of reference information, information that is essential to understanding his meaning.
Maybe it is just me, but I feel like Reed needs a little help remember the common adage about too much of a good thing!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
When I have to restrain myself
Republished with a few changes from my blog for the counterculture oral history project.
Have you ever been sitting in a class, listening to a teacher and just wishing everyone in the room could be making the same epic connection as you?
I had one of those experiences last week. We were reading a book called Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. It was written in 1974, so just at the end of the time our counterculture documentary wraps up. We were talking about this character Younger Brother, who puts on blackface and hangs out with this gang of black radicals who are threatening to blow up J.P. Morgan’s art gallery in about 1913. Now, this didn’t actually happen, but in our discussion we were talking about what Doctorow was trying to say about whites who were involved in black radical causes and whether they are real or posers. And that just took me into a land of counterculture thoughts.
In my seat I was jumping up and down, biting my tongue to keep from blathering on and on about how the dynamic between African Americans and whites in the counterculture era is one of the most interesting things that comes out in our script and in all the interviews we have.
The section about Project 500 has probably some of the most obvious examples of this. One of our Caucasian interviewees told a story that I think really sums it up in a unique way. She talks about how she was proud of her non-materialistic leanings, of not living in a fancy place, because she wanted to be outside the materialistic norm. And she talks about how confused she was by African Americans who were demanding better housing when she was so proud of the drafty conditions.
Clarence Shelley, one of our interviewees, summed it up the difference between the causes students were interested in really well:
“The Vietnam war, for example, was not a black issue at first. Black students’ concerns were much more personal. They wanted reactions and safeguards against violence, against police brutality, against students having demonstrations and sit-ins. If the issue didn’t deal with a racial problem it didn’t mean as much to them. Whereas the white kids were concerned about things like free speech. About, well, the war was a big one. The uses of recreational drugs, all that stuff. Whereas the black students’ concerns had much more to do with how they were treated, how they were accepted.”
Most of the other examples hit on the same themes as above. Sometimes it is African Americans explaining why they thought the hippie movement was pointless, an exercise of affluent white students. Sometimes they are white students sharing their confusion about why their efforts to be involved with the civil rights movement were rejected or dismissed by black students.
So what was Doctorow saying about this issue in American culture? Was he affirming whites who put on blackface (metaphorically) and were involved in the civil rights movement or was he pointing out how easily they could leave the movement and not have to face any consequences in their daily lives?
Personally, I think Doctorow is affirming the efforts of anyone who takes part in trying to right racial injustice in America, whether they are the victims or not. Younger Brother doesn't strike me as undermined. I don't think he is jokingly participating in Coalhouse's little band. He seems to genuinely believe in the cause and be willing to sacrifice. He literally puts on the blackface and goes to the extreme for his belief in the rights of Coalhouse.
Now whether Doctorow is affirming the use of violence in the struggle for justice is the topic for another blog post, because you could fill books on the issue!
How you see it makes all the difference
"Viewed simply as verbal artifacts histories and novels are indistinguishable from one another. We cannot easily distinguish between them on formal grounds unless we approach them with specific preconceptions about the kinds of truths that each is supposed to deal in." ~Hayden White, "Fictions of Factual Representation," page 122.
When I looked back at the first entry in my notebook about the differences between history and fiction, I think that I wasn't so far off, at least at a basic level. History and fiction do have a lot in common, especially the element of narrative and piecing together a story from either fragments of facts or figments of the imagination paired with facts.
But a month into the class, I also have a change I might make. Maybe it is the influence of all the postmodernist essays we've been reading, or maybe it is my own partly postmodernist mindset (not like I consciously have aligned myself with postmodernism but because I think I, like most people in my generation, have grown up in a world that has been strongly influenced and infiltrated by postmodernist ideas).
But whatever the origin, I think I would make one significant change to my original thoughts. I would now be more willing to say that history is narrative and stories that we believe happen, where with a novel we know what happens originates at least partly in the author's imagination. I think this accounts for the claim that all history is "made up" in the sense that someone chooses which details to include, which version of events "must" be right.
And that is where White's quotation really makes sense. He is right, if you just look at a novel and a history they are impossible to tell apart simply by the language. If you only consider the works themselves, than there is no difference between history and fiction.
But if you take the reader's perceptions into account, then you have to say there is a difference between history and fiction because we perceive them differently.
When you say "history" I automatically think "true, fact, what actually happened." When you say "fiction" my brain thinks "the made-up stories in the library, novels, imaginary." Those are my preconceptions about what each type of book is supposed to be; so if you hand me a novel I don't assume what goes on actually happened, and if you hand me a history textbook I believe that what I will read is true.
As a person who grew up in a postmodernist influenced world, I do have a nagging sense of doubt about the absolute truth of history and I am open to the idea that fiction and history are have much more in common that I usually acknowledge. But I am not ready to say that there is no difference between them because I think that as long as people read them with different assumptions, the two genres will be different.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Not so idiotic after all
"...She was checked in her response, which was to condemn him for an idiot..." ~Ragtime page 226.Sometimes Father looks like an idiot. It is just a fact. Depending on how you interpret "idiot" you might think I'm saying he seems not very intelligent or not very authoritative or just bumbling and foolish. And I mean all of those things.
Father's trip to the North Pole, or his part on Peary's journey to the pole, is really not the most impressive adventure. In that scene he comes off a little bumbling and non-authoritative. He's just a weaker link on the mission, sent back as soon as possible while the real men go on to the pole.
Father's awkward request for "coon songs" from Coalhouse Walker makes him seem somewhat foolish and socially un-intelligent. He is a little bit insulting, a little bit demeaning, but seems mostly just ignorant of what is socially acceptable.
And of course, there is Father's brilliant idea of taking the boy to a baseball game which provokes the above response from Mother. To clarify, she does check her impulse to call him an idiot, but you get the idea that it was a natural and fitting response to this idea. The baseball game has trouble written all over it for the father-son relationship. Actually, it turns out better than I anticipated, but all these scenes help create an idea in the reader's mind that Father is kind of an innocent idiot. He doesn't seem malicious, totally brainless, or reckless. Just sometimes foolish.
This set up then makes the end of Part III very interesting as Father looks like a voice of reason, a figure with authority and guts, a true mediator, not an idiot at all.
I think part of this comes from a reader's desire for the conflict in the book to be resolved. Readers don't want Coalhouse to blow up Morgan's collection; they don't want the Attorney General to have his way.
No, readers are looking for an ending to the drama, a satisfactory conclusion to the strife. So Father looks very clever, or at least strong and well-intentioned, as he tries to mediate between the two sides carrying messages back and forth. He wants to de-escalate the situation, which has the affect of making him appear more mature and reasonable than Younger Brother with his ideas of a revolution and violent approach to resolution.
And not only Father benefits from this, Coalhouse does too as he walks out into the rows of police and guards. Coalhouse is ready for an end to the conflict and for evident justice. He gets his car, and he trades the life of Conklin for the lives of his gang. So then he calmly turns himself over, knowing it would be death. Notice that Coalhouse, for all the violent acts he commits, doesn't come off as violent. Younger Brother seems violent. Coalhouse just seems to be in search of justice which is a form of reconciliation and restoration of things to their proper state. And if justice means he must die, then let justice be served.
So the two men who throughout the book have instances where they look idiotic (or insane in Coalhouse's case) in the final crisis come through as the most intelligent, well reasoned, respectable characters. I guess they aren't such idiots after all.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Morgan's Nose
Was anyone else expecting to get an illusion to Pinocchio in the passage about J.P. Morgan's nose on page 139? I was waiting, and waiting and it didn't come.
I checked it out, and the story was written in 1883, so it would have been a valid reference by the time of the novel. And the movie by Disney came out in 1940, so Doctorow's 1970s audience should have been as familiar with it as we are today.
It is completely appropriate since every time "he made an acquisition or manipulated a bond issue or took over an industry, another bright red pericarp burst into bloom."
It isn't exactly the same, but every time Morgan makes another business deal his nose gets uglier and larger just like Pinocchio's nose grows every time he tells a lie.
So why no Pinocchio?
Why does Doctorow use Nathanial Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" instead?
Okay, I guess Hawthorne is a little bit more highbrow than Pinocchio. And the moral of Hawthorne's story does fit Doctorow's point about Morgan's in-humanness a little bit better.
But still, he could have at least thrown in one little line about Pinocchio. It would have been so perfect!
I checked it out, and the story was written in 1883, so it would have been a valid reference by the time of the novel. And the movie by Disney came out in 1940, so Doctorow's 1970s audience should have been as familiar with it as we are today.
It is completely appropriate since every time "he made an acquisition or manipulated a bond issue or took over an industry, another bright red pericarp burst into bloom."
It isn't exactly the same, but every time Morgan makes another business deal his nose gets uglier and larger just like Pinocchio's nose grows every time he tells a lie.
So why no Pinocchio?
Why does Doctorow use Nathanial Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" instead?
Okay, I guess Hawthorne is a little bit more highbrow than Pinocchio. And the moral of Hawthorne's story does fit Doctorow's point about Morgan's in-humanness a little bit better.
But still, he could have at least thrown in one little line about Pinocchio. It would have been so perfect!
Monday, January 9, 2012
The Postmodernist Doubt
The first time I really learned what postmodernism meant was about a year ago, on a Sunday morning, talking with some friends and our youth group leader. We were talking about doubt.
Our leader explained it like this: your generation has grown up in the postmodernist mindset that there is no universal truth, no system of meaning that has the right answer, and therefore you tend to doubt or question even those things that you are convinced are true.
You can find almost the same exact thing in "Postmodernism is Dead." Maybe he has read that article...
For me, this really resonates. I don't know whether this applies to people who are in their twenties and above, but for my age bracket it seems to sum things up well.
Take for example, religion and tolerance. The whole mantra of our generation in the US seems to be: "be tolerant" or "all religions are equally valid." It hasn't always been that way. People used to be fully convinced that theirs was the only religion and the only truth. Of course, that led to some pretty nasty treatment of those who didn't agree with them so I'm not saying tolerance is all bad. I just think religious tolerance is an issue where it is easy to see the difference that a postmodernist mindset makes.
I wonder how much effect these postmodernist thoughts have on our mental health. Believing that nothing you believe is universally true is pretty disorienting, don't you think?
Our leader explained it like this: your generation has grown up in the postmodernist mindset that there is no universal truth, no system of meaning that has the right answer, and therefore you tend to doubt or question even those things that you are convinced are true.
You can find almost the same exact thing in "Postmodernism is Dead." Maybe he has read that article...
For me, this really resonates. I don't know whether this applies to people who are in their twenties and above, but for my age bracket it seems to sum things up well.
Take for example, religion and tolerance. The whole mantra of our generation in the US seems to be: "be tolerant" or "all religions are equally valid." It hasn't always been that way. People used to be fully convinced that theirs was the only religion and the only truth. Of course, that led to some pretty nasty treatment of those who didn't agree with them so I'm not saying tolerance is all bad. I just think religious tolerance is an issue where it is easy to see the difference that a postmodernist mindset makes.
I wonder how much effect these postmodernist thoughts have on our mental health. Believing that nothing you believe is universally true is pretty disorienting, don't you think?
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