Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is on track to be my favorite book we have read this year by far. Though I hesitate to call it "science fiction," the book fits well into the category of speculative fiction and has more in common with "social science fiction" than fantasy. Social science fiction tends to disregard technical and physical practicality of the situations involved and place emphasis on the reaction of modern society to impressive (or simply ubiquitous) new technologies. Examples you may have heard of include Feed, Minority Report, We'll Remember it for you Wholesale (the basis for the movie Total Recall), and Gattaca. Many dystopias could also be classified as social science fiction.
As a work of social science fiction, The Metamorphosis certainly makes no attempt to explain how its situation came to be (Gregor must have... uh... metamophosed during the night) and jumps right into exploring how people would treat a monstrous vermin even if they suspected it was one of their family members. However, it goes about it in a style that reminds me of an author of a less serious form of speculative fiction.
Helpless protagonist, ridiculous situations, deadpan narration. Remind you of anything? Anything involving petunias, towels, mice, horrendous poetry, and pan-galactic gargleblasters?
The fact that Kafka's writing reminds me of Douglas Adams only makes me like it even more. Granted, Kafka is slightly more serious in how he goes about the story, but a number of thematic elements are common between the two authors' writing.
Like Gregor Samsa, Arthur Dent is a guy with an unimpressive job (works at local radio station) who wakes up one day facing a horrible calamity (destruction of the earth) but focuses on a more local issue (his house being bulldozed to make way for a bypass). Dent realizes a bit more than Samsa that the things around him make little sense, but his goals are still largely unreasonable considering his situation (trying to continue a normal human lifestyle when human life is nearly extinct).
Dent's humanity isn't necessarily degraded in HHGTTG, but he is certainly a fish out of water (insect out of proportion?) in the weird galactic setting dominated by dolphins and mice. Instead of not being human making him somehow lesser than those around him, it's the fact that he is a human, a species that merits no more description than "mostly harmless."
The other modern work of speculative fiction The Metamorphosis brings to mind is the movie District 9 directed by Neill Blomkamp, at least in the sense that it includes the premise of "guy gets turned into a giant insect/insectoid alien and is promptly ostracized by society." My guess, though, is that at no point in the book will Gregor Samsa don a mech suit and battle the minions of a xenophobic security firm.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Them Hipsters, part deux...
...in which I take back some of what I said about the characters in The Sun Also Rises. Not all of it, not most of it, but some of it.
Pedro and Cohn:
After reading the last few chapters of TSAR, I find a few of the characters less repulsive than before. As mentioned in the previous post, Cohn gained back some decency by avoiding Brett and (possibly) reuniting with Frances. His immaturity and naivete were passed on to Pedro Romero, who was pretty sure that Brett was the love of his life and would make a great spouse if she would just become an "honest woman" and grow her hair out. Maybe Pedro took some of Cohn's irrationality.
Brett:
She solves her Pedro problem. She shows signs of considering how her lifestyle affects others (aka deciding "not to be a bitch"). She actually seems kind of caring when she tells Jake not to get drunk. Trouble is, her conversion is too sudden. An about-face at the end of the book can't make me like a character I've spent two hundred pages disliking.
Jake:
The last line of the book makes me hate Jake a lot less than I did when I wrote the previous post. It's entirely possible that this is just my dark interpretation of the wording, but by saying "isn't it pretty to think so?", Jake indicates that he at least realizes he can't be with Brett. This is a big flip from earlier in the book when it seemed like Jake wanted to get back together with Brett and she was the one resisting the idea (granted, she didn't want Jake to come with her to San Sebastian because she intended to be with Cohn)...
...which means that Jake has actually changed over the course of the story.
YES!!!
I like characters who change, even if the change is a transition from insanity (when defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results) to resignation. Jake's transformation is somewhat less abrupt than Brett's, since he starts to realize he has screwed up when Montoya stops smiling at him (there's Montoya again... my favorite character in the book). Still, he was kinda boring for much of the book, so his extant character arc is merely improves my opinion to something warmer than apathy.
And I still don't understand where everyone's money comes from.
Pedro and Cohn:
After reading the last few chapters of TSAR, I find a few of the characters less repulsive than before. As mentioned in the previous post, Cohn gained back some decency by avoiding Brett and (possibly) reuniting with Frances. His immaturity and naivete were passed on to Pedro Romero, who was pretty sure that Brett was the love of his life and would make a great spouse if she would just become an "honest woman" and grow her hair out. Maybe Pedro took some of Cohn's irrationality.
Brett:
She solves her Pedro problem. She shows signs of considering how her lifestyle affects others (aka deciding "not to be a bitch"). She actually seems kind of caring when she tells Jake not to get drunk. Trouble is, her conversion is too sudden. An about-face at the end of the book can't make me like a character I've spent two hundred pages disliking.
Jake:
The last line of the book makes me hate Jake a lot less than I did when I wrote the previous post. It's entirely possible that this is just my dark interpretation of the wording, but by saying "isn't it pretty to think so?", Jake indicates that he at least realizes he can't be with Brett. This is a big flip from earlier in the book when it seemed like Jake wanted to get back together with Brett and she was the one resisting the idea (granted, she didn't want Jake to come with her to San Sebastian because she intended to be with Cohn)...
...which means that Jake has actually changed over the course of the story.
YES!!!
I like characters who change, even if the change is a transition from insanity (when defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results) to resignation. Jake's transformation is somewhat less abrupt than Brett's, since he starts to realize he has screwed up when Montoya stops smiling at him (there's Montoya again... my favorite character in the book). Still, he was kinda boring for much of the book, so his extant character arc is merely improves my opinion to something warmer than apathy.
And I still don't understand where everyone's money comes from.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Them Hipsters...
...them bullfight-watching, pernod-drinking, expat hipsters.
Think about it. They're writers. They care so much about irony. Brett was androgynous before it was cool. Jake and the rest of his com(ex)patriates are hipsters. Except for Cohn. He's the opposite of a hipster. He's chivalrous and romantic after it was cool.
Actually, the main point of this post is not that the characters in The Sun Also Rises are hipsters. It's about likability. A week or so ago I read a column in the New York Times Book Review (available online here) about whether characters in a novel have to be likable in order to keep readers interested. This got me thinking about the characters in the novels we read in class and the characters I write in my own fiction.
Begin rant.
My standards for "likability" revolve more on understanding how a character thinks than whether or not they are a nice person. I don't mind characters who are selfish, violent, or crude if I think they aren't deranged. I liked reading about Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart even if he beats his wife, cuts people's heads off, and kills his adoptive son, because I could see how much his thought process was motivated by a paranoia towards "weakness". Victor Frankenstein might ignore the possible consequences of his work and cause the death of a sizable number of his friends and family, but it's because he feels the only point of his life is to make some scientific breakthrough (and later on, to exact revenge). I like characters who are rationally irrational.
I tend to like to read about the characters I write... otherwise I wouldn't write about them. I've created my fair share of understandable jerks. Murderous paranoid philosopher? That was fun to write. Guy who makes a living off of misleading people (and isn't a politician)? I churned out 50,000 words with him as the protagonist. One of my favorite characters in a long-running, constantly changing project I intend to finish eventually (oh, sometime in the next twenty years...) is a military commander so disillusioned with the world that he equates diplomacy with murder. I don't have to agree with his might-makes-right views to enjoy writing about him and respect/pity him for the way he sees the world.
When characters continually act irrationally irrational, though, I start to lose interest in their problems. I start wondering why they don't change their behavior. They get whiny. This was my issue with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, a book I will refrain from criticizing any further because that would take up several paragraphs of ranting. Let's just say that Sherman Alexie is grouped with Nathaniel Hawthorne and, to an extent, Virginia Woolf in the category of authors whose shorter works I enjoy and longer works I do not.
Protagonists seem irrationally irrational when their motivations are things I just don't consider serious enough. If the character is actually deluded, in the case of Okonkwo and Frankenstein, something minor like masculinity or scientific glory can work as a motivating force. If the character is presented as a semi-reasonable person, though, weak motivation makes them seem shallow.
So what's a weak motivation? Love.
Characters motivated primarily by romantic or sexual impulses typically seem shallow to me. Never Let Me Go was a major letdown because it ignored the topic of cloning ethics and went after human relationships instead. Katniss was getting a bit whiny by the time Mockingjay rolled around... yeah, whatever with the whole revolution thing and ending widespread government oppression, just get me my boyfriend alive and non-brainwashed. For those of you about to jump on me for dissing The Hunger Games, I will say that Suzanne Collins managed to pull the end of the series together in a way that was satisfyingly dark to keep me interested.
On a similar note, I think it is possible for an author to pull off an enjoyable book without having any particularly deep or "likeable" characters. I think Jurassic Park is a good example. If the plot itself is engaging enough, the author can be a bit more lax with developing your interest in the characters.
(I'll have to write a post sometime about exactly why I like Jurassic Park so much...)
The problem with The Sun Also Rises, then, is that I don't like most of the characters and I'm not terribly engaged by the plot. Mike is an annoying drunkard. Cohn acts like a middleschooler. Brett messes with other people's lives and then complains about how hard it is on her. Jake just sits there and occasionally tries to get reacquainted with the woman who already turned him down. Pedro Romero is okay, but he's minor enough that my appreciation of him being not a jerk is less powerful than my hope that he gets gored in the bull-fighting ring so that something exciting can happen with the plot. Bill Gorton provides comic relief, but like the rest of them he leads a pointless life and somehow buys copious amounts of alcohol despite being bankrupt.
What makes these characters tick? Why do they lead this ridiculous lifestyle? Are they really so disillusioned after World War I that they can't do something useful with their lives? Cohn, Brett, and Jake fall into the unfortunate category of motivated by love. Pedro would be more interesting if he was some sort of vehement bullfighting purist (wait... that's Montoya... hey, a character I like!). He's also motivate by love, to an extent. Love of bullfighting, love of Brett. Mike is motivated by drinking. Bill is motivated by... irony?
What annoys me most is that the characters don't show any signs of changing the way they live. Okay, Jake, so your life is a mixture of great (bullfights, and Brett) and sucky (that injury, and Brett). Seems like the root of your problems is Brett and her corresponding drama. It's been established that you can't be with Brett. So... can't you flee? Leave Brett far behind? Go do something more exciting than cruising the bars in Paris or watching a dude with a cape kill domesticated animals? Join a monastery or something. Cohn left. He finally realized the solution to the unsolvable problem was to get away from the problem. That made me respect Cohn to an extent, but he still acted immature before that. Brett could leave, too. Avoid Jake and Pedro and Cohn and possibly Mike. But no, they just keep on drinking and going to cafes (and drinking) and staying in hotels (and drinking) and going to festivals (and drinking) and getting into arguments and fights (caused in part by drinking).
Yes, Jake has his sympathetic moments. But the combination of pointless lifestyle and hopeless behavior prevent me from feeling like his story matters to me.
End rant.
Think about it. They're writers. They care so much about irony. Brett was androgynous before it was cool. Jake and the rest of his com(ex)patriates are hipsters. Except for Cohn. He's the opposite of a hipster. He's chivalrous and romantic after it was cool.
Actually, the main point of this post is not that the characters in The Sun Also Rises are hipsters. It's about likability. A week or so ago I read a column in the New York Times Book Review (available online here) about whether characters in a novel have to be likable in order to keep readers interested. This got me thinking about the characters in the novels we read in class and the characters I write in my own fiction.
Begin rant.
My standards for "likability" revolve more on understanding how a character thinks than whether or not they are a nice person. I don't mind characters who are selfish, violent, or crude if I think they aren't deranged. I liked reading about Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart even if he beats his wife, cuts people's heads off, and kills his adoptive son, because I could see how much his thought process was motivated by a paranoia towards "weakness". Victor Frankenstein might ignore the possible consequences of his work and cause the death of a sizable number of his friends and family, but it's because he feels the only point of his life is to make some scientific breakthrough (and later on, to exact revenge). I like characters who are rationally irrational.
I tend to like to read about the characters I write... otherwise I wouldn't write about them. I've created my fair share of understandable jerks. Murderous paranoid philosopher? That was fun to write. Guy who makes a living off of misleading people (and isn't a politician)? I churned out 50,000 words with him as the protagonist. One of my favorite characters in a long-running, constantly changing project I intend to finish eventually (oh, sometime in the next twenty years...) is a military commander so disillusioned with the world that he equates diplomacy with murder. I don't have to agree with his might-makes-right views to enjoy writing about him and respect/pity him for the way he sees the world.
When characters continually act irrationally irrational, though, I start to lose interest in their problems. I start wondering why they don't change their behavior. They get whiny. This was my issue with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, a book I will refrain from criticizing any further because that would take up several paragraphs of ranting. Let's just say that Sherman Alexie is grouped with Nathaniel Hawthorne and, to an extent, Virginia Woolf in the category of authors whose shorter works I enjoy and longer works I do not.
Protagonists seem irrationally irrational when their motivations are things I just don't consider serious enough. If the character is actually deluded, in the case of Okonkwo and Frankenstein, something minor like masculinity or scientific glory can work as a motivating force. If the character is presented as a semi-reasonable person, though, weak motivation makes them seem shallow.
So what's a weak motivation? Love.
Characters motivated primarily by romantic or sexual impulses typically seem shallow to me. Never Let Me Go was a major letdown because it ignored the topic of cloning ethics and went after human relationships instead. Katniss was getting a bit whiny by the time Mockingjay rolled around... yeah, whatever with the whole revolution thing and ending widespread government oppression, just get me my boyfriend alive and non-brainwashed. For those of you about to jump on me for dissing The Hunger Games, I will say that Suzanne Collins managed to pull the end of the series together in a way that was satisfyingly dark to keep me interested.
On a similar note, I think it is possible for an author to pull off an enjoyable book without having any particularly deep or "likeable" characters. I think Jurassic Park is a good example. If the plot itself is engaging enough, the author can be a bit more lax with developing your interest in the characters.
(I'll have to write a post sometime about exactly why I like Jurassic Park so much...)
The problem with The Sun Also Rises, then, is that I don't like most of the characters and I'm not terribly engaged by the plot. Mike is an annoying drunkard. Cohn acts like a middleschooler. Brett messes with other people's lives and then complains about how hard it is on her. Jake just sits there and occasionally tries to get reacquainted with the woman who already turned him down. Pedro Romero is okay, but he's minor enough that my appreciation of him being not a jerk is less powerful than my hope that he gets gored in the bull-fighting ring so that something exciting can happen with the plot. Bill Gorton provides comic relief, but like the rest of them he leads a pointless life and somehow buys copious amounts of alcohol despite being bankrupt.
What makes these characters tick? Why do they lead this ridiculous lifestyle? Are they really so disillusioned after World War I that they can't do something useful with their lives? Cohn, Brett, and Jake fall into the unfortunate category of motivated by love. Pedro would be more interesting if he was some sort of vehement bullfighting purist (wait... that's Montoya... hey, a character I like!). He's also motivate by love, to an extent. Love of bullfighting, love of Brett. Mike is motivated by drinking. Bill is motivated by... irony?
What annoys me most is that the characters don't show any signs of changing the way they live. Okay, Jake, so your life is a mixture of great (bullfights, and Brett) and sucky (that injury, and Brett). Seems like the root of your problems is Brett and her corresponding drama. It's been established that you can't be with Brett. So... can't you flee? Leave Brett far behind? Go do something more exciting than cruising the bars in Paris or watching a dude with a cape kill domesticated animals? Join a monastery or something. Cohn left. He finally realized the solution to the unsolvable problem was to get away from the problem. That made me respect Cohn to an extent, but he still acted immature before that. Brett could leave, too. Avoid Jake and Pedro and Cohn and possibly Mike. But no, they just keep on drinking and going to cafes (and drinking) and staying in hotels (and drinking) and going to festivals (and drinking) and getting into arguments and fights (caused in part by drinking).
Yes, Jake has his sympathetic moments. But the combination of pointless lifestyle and hopeless behavior prevent me from feeling like his story matters to me.
End rant.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Make it stop!
To tell the truth, I was thoroughly annoyed by Phillip Glass' music for The Hours.
What? You were expecting something positive out of me? Fine.
I went back and listened to the music on YouTube, and found it quite enjoyable. There's nothing objectively wrong with the notes themselves. The problems don't arise until you overlay the music with the film.
While watching the film, I was very much thinking about it in the context of Mrs. Dalloway due to the intentional parallels between the film and the book. Woolf constantly delves into the thoughts of her characters, which can't be shown nearly as well in a visual medium. The music at times seemed to be trying to replace the inner dialogues of the characters and completely failing because it is hardly as precise as words. Is it supposed to be ominous? It certainly seems ominous in the film, but without the visuals the music is rather relaxing.
Additionally, Mrs. Dalloway does not seem like the kind of world that would have background music. Clarissa is too attuned to the details of the city; her background music should be carts rattling, shoes clicking, people babbling, pigeons cooing at each other, and Big Ben gonging every once in a while.
Even the whole "the music should make the viewer aware of the passage of time" deal got on my nerves... probably not what was intended when it was written. Yes, the music made me aware of the passage of time. It made me aware of just how long some portions of the movie were. Like when there would be a bit of dialogue and then
MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC
some more dialogue. Instead of having awkward silences or dramatic pauses, the film ended up with moments like when you call customer services and the robot on the other end says "please hold," followed by
MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK
maybe with an advertisement every once in a while, until eventually your call is answered in the order it was received.
Most of all, the constant music made it seem like there was always something going on... when there really wasn't ever much going on. We already knew that Woolf was going to commit suicide 18 years after the events of her part of the film... because we read Mrs. Dalloway, we saw Richard's suicide coming a mile away... the only part with a plot that could surprise us was the 1950s section, and how did that turn out? She's going to kill herself, says the over-dramatic music--wait, no! Just kidding! Then voila, she shows up fifty years later to explain that she abandoned her family, and that's why Richard was hallucinating and suicidal.
Okay, okay. So I'm potentially more critical of movies than I am of books. But I think that's a general trend, since New York Times book reviewers seem to be generally positive while New York Times movie reviewers are not afraid to describe films as gratuitous, confusing, or based on a screenplay with more holes than Swiss cheese.
What? You were expecting something positive out of me? Fine.
I went back and listened to the music on YouTube, and found it quite enjoyable. There's nothing objectively wrong with the notes themselves. The problems don't arise until you overlay the music with the film.
While watching the film, I was very much thinking about it in the context of Mrs. Dalloway due to the intentional parallels between the film and the book. Woolf constantly delves into the thoughts of her characters, which can't be shown nearly as well in a visual medium. The music at times seemed to be trying to replace the inner dialogues of the characters and completely failing because it is hardly as precise as words. Is it supposed to be ominous? It certainly seems ominous in the film, but without the visuals the music is rather relaxing.
Additionally, Mrs. Dalloway does not seem like the kind of world that would have background music. Clarissa is too attuned to the details of the city; her background music should be carts rattling, shoes clicking, people babbling, pigeons cooing at each other, and Big Ben gonging every once in a while.
Even the whole "the music should make the viewer aware of the passage of time" deal got on my nerves... probably not what was intended when it was written. Yes, the music made me aware of the passage of time. It made me aware of just how long some portions of the movie were. Like when there would be a bit of dialogue and then
MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC
some more dialogue. Instead of having awkward silences or dramatic pauses, the film ended up with moments like when you call customer services and the robot on the other end says "please hold," followed by
MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK
maybe with an advertisement every once in a while, until eventually your call is answered in the order it was received.
Most of all, the constant music made it seem like there was always something going on... when there really wasn't ever much going on. We already knew that Woolf was going to commit suicide 18 years after the events of her part of the film... because we read Mrs. Dalloway, we saw Richard's suicide coming a mile away... the only part with a plot that could surprise us was the 1950s section, and how did that turn out? She's going to kill herself, says the over-dramatic music--wait, no! Just kidding! Then voila, she shows up fifty years later to explain that she abandoned her family, and that's why Richard was hallucinating and suicidal.
Okay, okay. So I'm potentially more critical of movies than I am of books. But I think that's a general trend, since New York Times book reviewers seem to be generally positive while New York Times movie reviewers are not afraid to describe films as gratuitous, confusing, or based on a screenplay with more holes than Swiss cheese.
Monday, September 16, 2013
For there she was. Again.
Well, that's one heck of an ending.
The article I read for my panel presentation made a big deal over the fact that the title of the novel is Mrs. Dalloway rather than Clarissa, which supposedly signifies that Clarissa has thoroughly pigeonholed herself into the role of perfect hostess. Assuming that is true, what can we get out of the rather understated ending?
The last time Clarissa is referred to as Mrs. Dalloway is on page 179. From there until the end, she is Clarissa. Consider the last two sentences of the novel:
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.
"For there she was.", with "she" being Clarissa. Has Clarissa, by the end of the novel, broken free from the restraints of her Mrs. Dalloway occupation? Did something momentous occur while we were slogging through Peter and Sally's conversation?
No.
Sorry for getting your hopes up like that.
As far as I can tell, Clarissa is actually a fairly stagnant character. She defies the typical definition of a "2D" character, since her personality is developed in depth and she does question the way she acts; there's just no net change in her mindset. She contemplates death and other such serious matters for a moment, but turns back to her hostess job soon afterwards. She still thinks she was right to marry Richard. She presumably still hates Miss Kilman. She's still alive and appreciating city life.
The only possible change is that she is now more sure of herself than before: she cites her marriage to Richard as the source of her happiness and appreciation for life, which would seem to validate her role as Mrs. Dalloway.
So why is it that Clarissa shows up at the end? Has Clarissa supplanted Mrs. Dalloway?
No.
Sorry for getting your hopes up like that.
I have to finally conclude that calling her "Clarissa" is actually a minor point of style necessitated by the fact that Sally and Peter are the "brain characters" for the end of the book, and they are both on a first-name basis with Clarissa. "For there she was" indicates that Clarissa is there as far as Peter is concerned--and we know how accurate other characters are with their interpretations of Clarissa. The Clarissa on the last page is not a person or identity. Instead, it is a feeling Peter gets.
It's how other people see Clarissa, not how she sees herself, that gets the last word
The article I read for my panel presentation made a big deal over the fact that the title of the novel is Mrs. Dalloway rather than Clarissa, which supposedly signifies that Clarissa has thoroughly pigeonholed herself into the role of perfect hostess. Assuming that is true, what can we get out of the rather understated ending?
The last time Clarissa is referred to as Mrs. Dalloway is on page 179. From there until the end, she is Clarissa. Consider the last two sentences of the novel:
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.
"For there she was.", with "she" being Clarissa. Has Clarissa, by the end of the novel, broken free from the restraints of her Mrs. Dalloway occupation? Did something momentous occur while we were slogging through Peter and Sally's conversation?
No.
Sorry for getting your hopes up like that.
As far as I can tell, Clarissa is actually a fairly stagnant character. She defies the typical definition of a "2D" character, since her personality is developed in depth and she does question the way she acts; there's just no net change in her mindset. She contemplates death and other such serious matters for a moment, but turns back to her hostess job soon afterwards. She still thinks she was right to marry Richard. She presumably still hates Miss Kilman. She's still alive and appreciating city life.
The only possible change is that she is now more sure of herself than before: she cites her marriage to Richard as the source of her happiness and appreciation for life, which would seem to validate her role as Mrs. Dalloway.
So why is it that Clarissa shows up at the end? Has Clarissa supplanted Mrs. Dalloway?
No.
Sorry for getting your hopes up like that.
I have to finally conclude that calling her "Clarissa" is actually a minor point of style necessitated by the fact that Sally and Peter are the "brain characters" for the end of the book, and they are both on a first-name basis with Clarissa. "For there she was" indicates that Clarissa is there as far as Peter is concerned--and we know how accurate other characters are with their interpretations of Clarissa. The Clarissa on the last page is not a person or identity. Instead, it is a feeling Peter gets.
It's how other people see Clarissa, not how she sees herself, that gets the last word
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
The Highly Disorganized Post in which I Argue, Among Other Things, that Septimus is a Critique of the British Upper Class (to be Organized Later)
In Mrs. Dalloway, we are presented with two (intertwining?) stories following two characters: one who is conscious of their appearance, analyzes the world around them, and thinks their life is meaningful, and one who appears unfeeling towards the death of a close friend, finds their present constantly infiltrated by their past, feels threatened by a certain frequent visitor, and is unsure about their life.
The latter, of course, said she would buy the flowers herself.
When reading Mrs. Dalloway, perhaps the one passage that really jumped out at me was when Peter mentioned in his musings that Clarissa turned cold and reserved after her sister Sylvia was crushed by a falling tree.
...Syvlia?
Clarissa never mentioned a Sylvia.
For me, it was one of those moments where I stop reading and think, "Naholdonaminut. That completely changes how I view this character." I speculated that since Peter says that Clarissa changed after the event, it must have occurred during the time that Peter knew her--the time at Bourton that Clarissa has been obsessing over throughout her party preparations. It doesn't take much to remind her of Bourton in the first page of the book, so I presume it is not just something she's thinking about on this particular day. Yet in all of her reminiscing on the sea air and Peter and Richard and Hugh and Sally, not once does she mention someone named Sylvia who was crushed by a falling tree.
Hm...
As someone who enjoyed reading about Septimus and Rezia far more than reading about Clarissa, Peter Boring Walsh, and Hugh the Intolerable Ass (and all those other characters), I feel like they should have a purpose in the novel beyond just criticizing psychiatric medicine and making Mrs. Dalloway appreciate life. Instead, I am going to enter a conspiracy-theorist trance and say that Septimus' story is a criticism of the British upper class.
Yup.
To start off with, the novel takes place in London after World War I. The whole city is still recovering. But how much did it actually affect Clarissa? She mentions that she knows some people whose sons died in the war. But other than that, she's convinced that London is coming alive again. Clarissa's experience with WWI does not reflect what was reality for many families: young men (such as Septimus) enlisting in the nationalism-driven frenzy of war plans that revolved around taking the enemy capital before Christmas, and then getting gassed, mowed down by machine guns, blown up by shelling, or killed by any number of diseases going around. The other WWI experience we learn about (other than Septimus', of course) is that of Mr. Brewer, Septimus' employer. What did the Great War do to him?
"(...) took away his ablest young fellows, and eventually, so prying and insidious were the fingers of the European War, smashed a plaster cast of Ceres, ploughed a hole in the geranium beds, and utterly ruined the cook's nerves at Mr. Brewer's establishment at Muswell Hill." (84)
That description doesn't come from Mr. Brewer's thoughts--it's buried in a section of solid narration by Woolf. I can't see any way of interpreting the wording other than sarcastic. Prying and insidious can do a whole lot more than smash flowerbeds.
Septimus and Rezia, on the other hand, are the true face of postwar England. Septimus is mentally scarred from his experience on the battlefield; Rezia is a family member fretting over what to do with her injured loved one. Italy lost a higher percentage of its population than Britain did during WWI, so Rezia presumably faced war woes at home, though this is not depicted in the book.
Septimus and Rezia are still trying to heal the wounds of the war; Clarissa and the rest of the upper class seem to have already gotten over it. Compared to S&R, the stories of the other characters seem so... frivolous.
If you think I'm just saying this because I was bored to death by Peter Walsh ordering Bartlett pears and Hugh the Intolerable Ass acting like a jewelry connoisseur, please say so in the comments.
Clarissa saw her sister die, but doesn't seem to think about it any more. Has she forgotten how to feel? Is the "manliness" from the trenches (suppressing emotions) essentially the same thing that makes Clarissa the perfect hostess, the thing that defines the behavior of British high society? As I see it, Septimus the emotionally damaged war veteran is more sincere in his feelings and more in touch with reality than Clarissa and her fellow socialites are.
That's not to say that Woolf presents Clarissa as a superficial person. The upper-class characters are depicted with all the depth and complexity Woolf thinks is necessary in modern writing; it's just that their less significant struggles are elevated in their minds to the same level as Septimus' psychological "crime" and punishment.
...aaaand I've totally lost any sense of organization. Please excuse the mess.
The latter, of course, said she would buy the flowers herself.
When reading Mrs. Dalloway, perhaps the one passage that really jumped out at me was when Peter mentioned in his musings that Clarissa turned cold and reserved after her sister Sylvia was crushed by a falling tree.
...Syvlia?
Clarissa never mentioned a Sylvia.
For me, it was one of those moments where I stop reading and think, "Naholdonaminut. That completely changes how I view this character." I speculated that since Peter says that Clarissa changed after the event, it must have occurred during the time that Peter knew her--the time at Bourton that Clarissa has been obsessing over throughout her party preparations. It doesn't take much to remind her of Bourton in the first page of the book, so I presume it is not just something she's thinking about on this particular day. Yet in all of her reminiscing on the sea air and Peter and Richard and Hugh and Sally, not once does she mention someone named Sylvia who was crushed by a falling tree.
Hm...
As someone who enjoyed reading about Septimus and Rezia far more than reading about Clarissa, Peter Boring Walsh, and Hugh the Intolerable Ass (and all those other characters), I feel like they should have a purpose in the novel beyond just criticizing psychiatric medicine and making Mrs. Dalloway appreciate life. Instead, I am going to enter a conspiracy-theorist trance and say that Septimus' story is a criticism of the British upper class.
Yup.
To start off with, the novel takes place in London after World War I. The whole city is still recovering. But how much did it actually affect Clarissa? She mentions that she knows some people whose sons died in the war. But other than that, she's convinced that London is coming alive again. Clarissa's experience with WWI does not reflect what was reality for many families: young men (such as Septimus) enlisting in the nationalism-driven frenzy of war plans that revolved around taking the enemy capital before Christmas, and then getting gassed, mowed down by machine guns, blown up by shelling, or killed by any number of diseases going around. The other WWI experience we learn about (other than Septimus', of course) is that of Mr. Brewer, Septimus' employer. What did the Great War do to him?
"(...) took away his ablest young fellows, and eventually, so prying and insidious were the fingers of the European War, smashed a plaster cast of Ceres, ploughed a hole in the geranium beds, and utterly ruined the cook's nerves at Mr. Brewer's establishment at Muswell Hill." (84)
That description doesn't come from Mr. Brewer's thoughts--it's buried in a section of solid narration by Woolf. I can't see any way of interpreting the wording other than sarcastic. Prying and insidious can do a whole lot more than smash flowerbeds.
Septimus and Rezia, on the other hand, are the true face of postwar England. Septimus is mentally scarred from his experience on the battlefield; Rezia is a family member fretting over what to do with her injured loved one. Italy lost a higher percentage of its population than Britain did during WWI, so Rezia presumably faced war woes at home, though this is not depicted in the book.
Septimus and Rezia are still trying to heal the wounds of the war; Clarissa and the rest of the upper class seem to have already gotten over it. Compared to S&R, the stories of the other characters seem so... frivolous.
If you think I'm just saying this because I was bored to death by Peter Walsh ordering Bartlett pears and Hugh the Intolerable Ass acting like a jewelry connoisseur, please say so in the comments.
Clarissa saw her sister die, but doesn't seem to think about it any more. Has she forgotten how to feel? Is the "manliness" from the trenches (suppressing emotions) essentially the same thing that makes Clarissa the perfect hostess, the thing that defines the behavior of British high society? As I see it, Septimus the emotionally damaged war veteran is more sincere in his feelings and more in touch with reality than Clarissa and her fellow socialites are.
That's not to say that Woolf presents Clarissa as a superficial person. The upper-class characters are depicted with all the depth and complexity Woolf thinks is necessary in modern writing; it's just that their less significant struggles are elevated in their minds to the same level as Septimus' psychological "crime" and punishment.
...aaaand I've totally lost any sense of organization. Please excuse the mess.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Why Howie is not a birder (complete with photos!)
In which I infuse birding into my English class blog, just like I did in Nonfiction Writing.
One reason I had such a hard time tolerating The Mezzanine was that I kept having moments like when Howie reads the passage by Aurelius about the triviality and transience of human life and immediately declares the statement incorrect. I repeatedly disagreed with Howie/Baker on many of the issues he was trying to provide insight into. Why was I so opposed to so many of the opinions expressed in the novel?
Howie's insights just don't jive with my birding philosophy.
1. Small details
When you start birding, you think that identifying birds is all about noticing tiny little details in the field marks in order to differentiate species. This is partially true; this is the kind of thing that seems to fit in with the way Howie assesses the world. However, identifying birds based on detail is highly impractical. The more you bird, the more you recognize species not by their details, but by their overall impression. There's often no time to appreciate fine marks individually, or even a way to see said marks clearly. When a small, fast-moving bird bolts from a pond as you approach and heads straight into the sunset, there's no time (or viewing possibility) to consider things like:
"Eye ring, like an esteemed British gentleman with a monocle, or eye line, like the spectacles of a Princeton professor?"
"Texture of velvet and color of inexpensive fast-food chain chocolate shake, or wearing a tweed suit made of river-bottom silt?"
"Beak long and thin like needle-nose jeweler's pliers, or closer in appearance to a wedge doorstop?"
Instead, you have to judge the bird in a holistic way (like the college application process!) to determine whether it's a Spotted or Solitary Sandpiper.
2. Celebration of the man-made
Cities, manicured lawns, urban landscaping: just say no. The fact that something is aesthetically pleasing to the human eye typically means it is artificial and not aesthetically pleasing to the eye of a bird looking for some half-decent habitat.
3. Convenience
Howie loves convenience, and the ingenuity that must go into making things convenient. With birding, the less convenient it is, the more exciting the birds will be. For one thing, if a location is easily accessible and the habitat clearly visible, it is also highly disturbed and there will be fewer birds there. Large, isolated preserves are better. Secondly, finding a bird you've never seen before feels far more rewarding if you had to work to find it. I went to the Rio Grande Valley for spring break one year, and found a Green Jay eating from the birdfeeders at a nature center. It was a gorgeous bird, but I was so underwhelmed by how easily I had found it that I only took one photo, which later turned out to be blurry and badly lit.
On the other hand, when I was visiting Massachusetts to look at colleges, I took the time to head out to a wind-battered, snow-covered, bare-rock cape where I walked around for an hour looking out at ducks and grebes (1) from a quarter mile away, and it was exciting.
After not finding much and reaching the time when we were supposed to turn around and head back to the car, I found one of the species I hoped to see there in the first place:
That photo was taken through a spotting scope looking down from the location pictured below:
Those Harlequin Ducks were nowhere near as close as the Green Jay, and the climate in Cape Gloucester in March were far less comfortable than those of Harlingen in March, but the sighting was so much better because I had worked to get it.
I ended up taking about 50 photos of the Harlequin Ducks.
4. The clean backgroundtrick delusionHowie thinks that isolating an object magically transforms it into something worth looking at. When nature is concerned, there are two names for putting an animal in a situation in which it is easily observed and contemplated: taxidermy and zoos.
If I had to pick one category of birds that I have trouble identifying, it would be dead. I spent some time looking through the bird collection at the Natural History Survey over the summer, and kept misidentifying the feathered carcasses in the climate-controlled, alcohol-stenched room. When a bird is preserved past its expiration date, it is no longer easily recognizable. The overall size is wrong, the proportions are wrong, there are no behavioral field marks with which to identify it; all you have are the fine details that I typically don't use when identifying birds in the wild (see reason 1). This is how some birds end up with names that initially seem nonsensical: Orange-crowned Warbler, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Those species were named by ornithologists who, because they were holding dead birds in their hands, could base their identification of the species on "field marks" that aren't reliable in the field.
Zoos, on the other hand, at least have birds that are alive and look like they ought to. However, because they're on display and tend to be easy to see, birds in zoos don't count. They're pretty. You get good views of them. They make great photo subjects:
But in the end, they just aren't real enough. You know that the bird will be there (unless there's some cage-cleaning going on), and you know it's in a habitat that has been designed to provide a mixture of privacy and visibility. Birds in zoos can't go on your life list (2), and they're not as satisfying as those you see in the wild (see reason 3).
My main objection to the clean background trick, though, is that it goes against the first rule of nature photography: don't take a photo of an animal. Take a photo of an animal interacting with it's environment. If you isolate the bird from its surroundings, you may be able to examine the bird more closely, but it's not particularly exciting. As far as I'm concerned, birds (and objects) are more beautiful and interesting when they are doing what they are meant to do rather than preserved motionless against a serene background.
My preference for seeing things in their natural surroundings also extends to aircraft. When I was little, I would go to air museums and obsess over the numerous planes on display. For a few years now, though, I've been attending the EAA Airventure air show and fly-in in Oshkosh, WI. At that event, the majority of the aircraft are in flying condition, and you can watch them in the air rather than parked in a hangar. Air museums just aren't interesting any more, because though they may have unique and rare vehicles, they aren't doing anything. A simple flyby is a huge improvement over stationary display for any plane.
In the end, Howie was rather difficult for me to connect with not because of his writing style or meandering consciousness, but because he was usually talking about something I didn't care about (Late 80s corporate world) or expressing views I disagreed with. When I came across the passage regarding the Clean Background Trick, and Howie mentioned how it is used in museums, I did not think, "Hey, you're right, that's kinda cool." Instead I thought, "Hey, you're right, and I hate the way most things are displayed in museums." My constant opposition to Howie's way of viewing the world destroyed the only aspects of The Mezzanine that would have kept me reading: acknowledgement of the unique insights and amusement from the wacky writing. I wouldn't say I was offended by the book, but I was definitely having my Howie vs Aurelius moments:
"Wrong, wrong wrong! I thought. Destructive and unhelpful and misguided and completely untrue!" (120)
Maybe my anger would have been tempered if Howie had mused about pigeons for a while...
Footnote:
1. I love grebes! They're gorgeous, amusing to watch, and have some crazy adaptations for life in aquatic and coastal habitats (propeller feet, feathers that bend at right angles, etc). Plus, their babies are adorable.
2. A list of all bird species one has seen in the wild.
Answer to the identification challenge: Sandhill Cranes
All but two photos were taken by me. You can probably guess which two I wasn't behind the camera for.
One reason I had such a hard time tolerating The Mezzanine was that I kept having moments like when Howie reads the passage by Aurelius about the triviality and transience of human life and immediately declares the statement incorrect. I repeatedly disagreed with Howie/Baker on many of the issues he was trying to provide insight into. Why was I so opposed to so many of the opinions expressed in the novel?
Howie's insights just don't jive with my birding philosophy.
1. Small details
When you start birding, you think that identifying birds is all about noticing tiny little details in the field marks in order to differentiate species. This is partially true; this is the kind of thing that seems to fit in with the way Howie assesses the world. However, identifying birds based on detail is highly impractical. The more you bird, the more you recognize species not by their details, but by their overall impression. There's often no time to appreciate fine marks individually, or even a way to see said marks clearly. When a small, fast-moving bird bolts from a pond as you approach and heads straight into the sunset, there's no time (or viewing possibility) to consider things like:
"Eye ring, like an esteemed British gentleman with a monocle, or eye line, like the spectacles of a Princeton professor?"
"Texture of velvet and color of inexpensive fast-food chain chocolate shake, or wearing a tweed suit made of river-bottom silt?"
"Beak long and thin like needle-nose jeweler's pliers, or closer in appearance to a wedge doorstop?"
Instead, you have to judge the bird in a holistic way (like the college application process!) to determine whether it's a Spotted or Solitary Sandpiper.
 |
| You have two seconds to identify this pair of birds before they disappear behind the reeds. Hint: they aren't sandpipers. Sandpiper move too quickly, so I don't have any photos of them flying away. |
2. Celebration of the man-made
Cities, manicured lawns, urban landscaping: just say no. The fact that something is aesthetically pleasing to the human eye typically means it is artificial and not aesthetically pleasing to the eye of a bird looking for some half-decent habitat.
3. Convenience
Howie loves convenience, and the ingenuity that must go into making things convenient. With birding, the less convenient it is, the more exciting the birds will be. For one thing, if a location is easily accessible and the habitat clearly visible, it is also highly disturbed and there will be fewer birds there. Large, isolated preserves are better. Secondly, finding a bird you've never seen before feels far more rewarding if you had to work to find it. I went to the Rio Grande Valley for spring break one year, and found a Green Jay eating from the birdfeeders at a nature center. It was a gorgeous bird, but I was so underwhelmed by how easily I had found it that I only took one photo, which later turned out to be blurry and badly lit.
 |
| Meh. (Click on photos to enlarge) |
On the other hand, when I was visiting Massachusetts to look at colleges, I took the time to head out to a wind-battered, snow-covered, bare-rock cape where I walked around for an hour looking out at ducks and grebes (1) from a quarter mile away, and it was exciting.
 |
| Cold and wind and water add up to exciting birding. |
 |
| YESSSSSS! |
 |
| Now that's birding. |
I ended up taking about 50 photos of the Harlequin Ducks.
4. The clean background
If I had to pick one category of birds that I have trouble identifying, it would be dead. I spent some time looking through the bird collection at the Natural History Survey over the summer, and kept misidentifying the feathered carcasses in the climate-controlled, alcohol-stenched room. When a bird is preserved past its expiration date, it is no longer easily recognizable. The overall size is wrong, the proportions are wrong, there are no behavioral field marks with which to identify it; all you have are the fine details that I typically don't use when identifying birds in the wild (see reason 1). This is how some birds end up with names that initially seem nonsensical: Orange-crowned Warbler, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Those species were named by ornithologists who, because they were holding dead birds in their hands, could base their identification of the species on "field marks" that aren't reliable in the field.
 |
| These guys are ruby-crowned. You got a problem with that? |
 |
| Cute couple. |
My main objection to the clean background trick, though, is that it goes against the first rule of nature photography: don't take a photo of an animal. Take a photo of an animal interacting with it's environment. If you isolate the bird from its surroundings, you may be able to examine the bird more closely, but it's not particularly exciting. As far as I'm concerned, birds (and objects) are more beautiful and interesting when they are doing what they are meant to do rather than preserved motionless against a serene background.
 |
| Okay... interesting, maybe, but it looks like clipart. |
 |
| Better... |
 |
| Best. Dinnertime! |
 |
| Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatross with a clean background. |
 |
| There's a bit of an improvement. |
 |
| Different paint scheme, but these are still L-39s. I admit the blue sky is a sort of clean background, but the lighting and angles you get on the planes in flight are much more interesting than the one parked on the ground. When experiencing the flyby in real life, you also get the sound and movement to make it more impressive in the air. |
 |
| Planes interacting with each other... |
 |
| ...and planes interacting with their environment. This would still be an interesting photo if it were just the two aircraft apparently flying straight at each other while inverted. But when you include the rest of the scene, it's two aircraft apparently flying straight at each other inverted... while only 20 freaking feat off the ground near a national guard base and cutting a pair of ribbons held up by people standing on the runway. |
In the end, Howie was rather difficult for me to connect with not because of his writing style or meandering consciousness, but because he was usually talking about something I didn't care about (Late 80s corporate world) or expressing views I disagreed with. When I came across the passage regarding the Clean Background Trick, and Howie mentioned how it is used in museums, I did not think, "Hey, you're right, that's kinda cool." Instead I thought, "Hey, you're right, and I hate the way most things are displayed in museums." My constant opposition to Howie's way of viewing the world destroyed the only aspects of The Mezzanine that would have kept me reading: acknowledgement of the unique insights and amusement from the wacky writing. I wouldn't say I was offended by the book, but I was definitely having my Howie vs Aurelius moments:
"Wrong, wrong wrong! I thought. Destructive and unhelpful and misguided and completely untrue!" (120)
Maybe my anger would have been tempered if Howie had mused about pigeons for a while...
Footnote:
1. I love grebes! They're gorgeous, amusing to watch, and have some crazy adaptations for life in aquatic and coastal habitats (propeller feet, feathers that bend at right angles, etc). Plus, their babies are adorable.
2. A list of all bird species one has seen in the wild.
Answer to the identification challenge: Sandhill Cranes
All but two photos were taken by me. You can probably guess which two I wasn't behind the camera for.
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