This video of John Barrowman is super bizarre: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtDg23G1uc8. He flip flops between a vaguely British, subtle and strong Scottish, and an American accent. The whole series of interview bits (20+) is about how he keeps his strong Scottish accent under wraps when speaking to non-Scots.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Trainspotting
Dialects as misunderstood or foreign versions of English is an interesting idea; that they can create their own culture so separate from its parent that though they speak "English" its unrecognizable. Scotland, Ireland (especially Cork), and New Zealand are all disconnected from their colonists and so many generations later have designed almost their own language. The passage in Trainspotting where Begbie and Renton try to strike up a conversation with the Canadians on the train is a clear example. It's usually a humorous encounter sparked by dialect misunderstandings but as seen in the first video below, there's something darkly frustrating about people speaking the same language but still unable to communicate.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Cock and Bull "Imitation"
Things to keep in mind: Metamorphosis, hermaphroditic genitalia growth, folklore vs science, outer boroughs, sex, multiple narrators, gender stereotypes.
Brittany, a large and heavyset young woman, awoke one morning to find that while she had slept she had lost the baggage that had years ago claimed the confidence young women are expected to have. She might not have noticed this had she not formed the habit of placing a flimsy full-length mirror against the wall next to her bed so in the mornings she could see her supine body as a slightly flatter (and thus skinnier) version of her upright pear-shape. This morning, as she shifted from deflated-horizontal to familiar sitting-water balloon her breasts and stomach did not reshape around her hips. Two unfamiliar legs swung from under her floral duvet and delicately planted themselves on her carpet. As the immense quantity of fabric that was her nightgown followed suit, Brittany realized that those slender ankles were now her own. She held out her arms and pushed up ruffled sleeves to reveal smooth thin pale protrusions that ended in perfectly pointed fingertips painted her usual beigey pink. She used these hands and fingers to feel around her bed searching for wet spots, puddles, fatty chunks of flesh, reminders of the shape she was before she had fallen asleep. Finding nothing but more nightgown and sheet, she stood and faced herself in the mirror.
Brittany, a large and heavyset young woman, awoke one morning to find that while she had slept she had lost the baggage that had years ago claimed the confidence young women are expected to have. She might not have noticed this had she not formed the habit of placing a flimsy full-length mirror against the wall next to her bed so in the mornings she could see her supine body as a slightly flatter (and thus skinnier) version of her upright pear-shape. This morning, as she shifted from deflated-horizontal to familiar sitting-water balloon her breasts and stomach did not reshape around her hips. Two unfamiliar legs swung from under her floral duvet and delicately planted themselves on her carpet. As the immense quantity of fabric that was her nightgown followed suit, Brittany realized that those slender ankles were now her own. She held out her arms and pushed up ruffled sleeves to reveal smooth thin pale protrusions that ended in perfectly pointed fingertips painted her usual beigey pink. She used these hands and fingers to feel around her bed searching for wet spots, puddles, fatty chunks of flesh, reminders of the shape she was before she had fallen asleep. Finding nothing but more nightgown and sheet, she stood and faced herself in the mirror.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Book Review of "Cock and Bull"
The first half of Self's Cock and Bull did not end the way I thought it was going to. Published in 1992, it's Will Self's first book after The Quantity Theory of Insanity (1991) and is actually comprised of two novellas (not having read the second, I won't comment on it) that follow a woman and a man that grow a penis and vagina, respectively. An author heralded and/or hated for his absolutely unabashed representation of horrifying humanities, Self has carved a place for himself in the hall of Transgressive authors next to Palahniuk, the younger Amis, Ballard, and Walsh. A recipient of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, his satirical, gruesome, and clever works are recognizable talent in the literary world.
"Cock" follows Carol: a young woman from Poole or Llanstephan who lives a pretty pathetically indifferent life with her husband Dan, an alcoholic graphic designer until she begins to grow a penis. With her newfound genitalia Carol becomes independent and self-assured going so far as obtain her drivers license, attend Al Anon meetings, and rape and kill Dan. Self has a knack for juxtaposing the mundane and the ludicrous that has been compared to Kafka's by Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times. His Oxford education lends him an impressive vocabulary that can catches a reader off-guard. This intentional interruptive tactic is also employed in his use of multiple narrators that work to obscure our understanding of Self's literary intentions.
"Cock" follows Carol: a young woman from Poole or Llanstephan who lives a pretty pathetically indifferent life with her husband Dan, an alcoholic graphic designer until she begins to grow a penis. With her newfound genitalia Carol becomes independent and self-assured going so far as obtain her drivers license, attend Al Anon meetings, and rape and kill Dan. Self has a knack for juxtaposing the mundane and the ludicrous that has been compared to Kafka's by Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times. His Oxford education lends him an impressive vocabulary that can catches a reader off-guard. This intentional interruptive tactic is also employed in his use of multiple narrators that work to obscure our understanding of Self's literary intentions.
Will Self and Psychogeography
(Okay, sorry this is late)
So, Will Self is a self proclaimed flaneur, or person who likes to stroll. In an interview with Frank Bures for Worldhum.com, Self explains his interest in psychogeography, its background and how it helps him understand urbanity.
Coined by Guy Debord in 1955, psychogeography is "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals" (link). The exploration of one's environment in the frame of Debord's definition is only fully understood via a detached sense of observation. As Self says in the interview, "the solitary walker ambles through the metropolis, experiencing its richness and diversity when freed from the need to use it" (Worldhum). There is an emphasis placed on the necessity of anti-capitalist attitudes. This "work, consume, die" lifestyle mentioned in the interview is a dark sentiment shared by many of the transgressive authors we have and will study in class.
The "Cock" half of Cock and Bull follows Carol as her views on life change with the growth of her penis. A brief synopsis: she realizes her husband, Dan, doesn't make her feel like a woman; she begins to masturbate; she grows a penis; Dan joins AA; she gets her drivers license; she walks to the liquor store and buys an enormous quantity of alcohol which she feeds to Dan; she rapes and kills him. If psychogeography is an understanding of surroundings via walking and observing, then what is the significance of Carol's license? She spends her entire life walking or being driven because she is legally incapable of driving herself so she has spent her life taking in her surroundings without actively participating in them. The securing of her license is in step with her mental transformation into first, an independent person and secondly, an ambiguously gendered human. Self equates the ignorance of one's environment to a "benighted peasant" (Worldhum) and questions the "human-defined geography." Carol spends most of the story as a pretty pathetic or, at best, nonchalant woman; basically indifferent to her husband's alcoholic benders, her lack of education or work, or Beverly her lesbian pseudo-partner. After she begins to plan the rape of Dan, however, her attitude becomes focused and thorough. Once Dan is dead she quickly takes care of Dave 2 and as it becomes clear later, many other men. Perhaps Self is indicating that her lack of enthusiasm was a dam of oppression released by her destruction of her husband?
So, Will Self is a self proclaimed flaneur, or person who likes to stroll. In an interview with Frank Bures for Worldhum.com, Self explains his interest in psychogeography, its background and how it helps him understand urbanity.
Coined by Guy Debord in 1955, psychogeography is "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals" (link). The exploration of one's environment in the frame of Debord's definition is only fully understood via a detached sense of observation. As Self says in the interview, "the solitary walker ambles through the metropolis, experiencing its richness and diversity when freed from the need to use it" (Worldhum). There is an emphasis placed on the necessity of anti-capitalist attitudes. This "work, consume, die" lifestyle mentioned in the interview is a dark sentiment shared by many of the transgressive authors we have and will study in class.
The "Cock" half of Cock and Bull follows Carol as her views on life change with the growth of her penis. A brief synopsis: she realizes her husband, Dan, doesn't make her feel like a woman; she begins to masturbate; she grows a penis; Dan joins AA; she gets her drivers license; she walks to the liquor store and buys an enormous quantity of alcohol which she feeds to Dan; she rapes and kills him. If psychogeography is an understanding of surroundings via walking and observing, then what is the significance of Carol's license? She spends her entire life walking or being driven because she is legally incapable of driving herself so she has spent her life taking in her surroundings without actively participating in them. The securing of her license is in step with her mental transformation into first, an independent person and secondly, an ambiguously gendered human. Self equates the ignorance of one's environment to a "benighted peasant" (Worldhum) and questions the "human-defined geography." Carol spends most of the story as a pretty pathetic or, at best, nonchalant woman; basically indifferent to her husband's alcoholic benders, her lack of education or work, or Beverly her lesbian pseudo-partner. After she begins to plan the rape of Dan, however, her attitude becomes focused and thorough. Once Dan is dead she quickly takes care of Dave 2 and as it becomes clear later, many other men. Perhaps Self is indicating that her lack of enthusiasm was a dam of oppression released by her destruction of her husband?
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Palahniuk's "Guts"
After reading the accompanying essay, I suppose what's most horrifying about "Guts" isn't that its based on true stories, or that it makes people faint but that it takes something this graphic to induce physical trauma in contemporary audiences when Oliver Twist and Ciderhouse Rules caused the same reaction a few decades ago. What is about today that makes audiences more jaded and less susceptible to "light" horror?
"Guts" is next level graphic. As Palahniuk pointed out in his essay it was usually the "corn and peanuts" detail that pushed people over the edge. Maybe its the intricacy that causes the discomfort. When I think of other contemporary stories that are gratuitously gory I consider Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and that skinning scene in Murikami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. In both books the big horror scenes are about skinning; a totally irregular act that very few people encounter in this day and age. Masturbation on the other hand is one of those societal taboos that everyone has (at least) dealt with.
"Guts" is next level graphic. As Palahniuk pointed out in his essay it was usually the "corn and peanuts" detail that pushed people over the edge. Maybe its the intricacy that causes the discomfort. When I think of other contemporary stories that are gratuitously gory I consider Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and that skinning scene in Murikami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. In both books the big horror scenes are about skinning; a totally irregular act that very few people encounter in this day and age. Masturbation on the other hand is one of those societal taboos that everyone has (at least) dealt with.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Nights at the Circus and Feminist Portrayal
There are many different portrayals of the feminine body or "type" in Nights.
Fevvers
Lizzie
Ma Nelson and the six prostitutes (Louisa & Emily, Annie & Grace, Jenny, Esmeralda)
Madame Schreck and the five museum exhibits (Fanny, Sleeping Beauty, Wiltshire Wonder, Albert/Albertina, Cobwebs)
The baboushka and her murderess daughter
Mignon
The Princess
Sybil, the green-bowed monkey and the tigress (??)
"To sing is not to speak, if they hate speech because it divides us from them, to sing is to rob speech of its function and render it divine..." (Page 153).
Monday, March 19, 2012
Nights at the Circus
Portrayal of females, fairy tale, high-low factors, fantasy/reality, unconventional sentences that confuse the reader, complicated vocabulary
After Crash and Money I was surprised at the tame attitude of Angela Carter's Night at the Circus; I was expecting something much ruder. After contemplation the transgressive tendencies of the novel become apparent but they aren't like those of Amis and Ballard. Carter's blending of genres and fictional realities and use of unconventional sentence structures (with an academic vocabulary) push her into this new authorial category in a surprisingly subtle way. There are folk story qualities to her writing with the blatant foreshadowing (the mysteriously intellectual chimps, Fevver's eyes, and the midnight clock) and grimy glamour but her use of almost incorrect syntax is delicately arresting.
To tackle the syntax: Nights could easily be read for its entertainment factor without any thought to literary hierarchy but Carter's purposefully choppy or repetitive sentences prod reconsideration of author intention. There are a lot of commas in this book. "Her geniality evaporated; she squinted at him beneath her thick pale lashes with almost hostility, seemed ill-at-ease, reached out to toy with her bunch of violets in a bored fashion" (page 43). There is something slightly off-putting about this sentence; why are there no "ands"? Also, for someone who grew up in a Cockney brothel, why is Fevver's vocabulary so advanced? How does she know what a "Manichean version of neo-Platonic Rosicrucianism" is?
The narrator's vocabulary is interesting for its obscure items: "steatopygous" is on the first page. How can a clock have a "prolegomena" (page 89)? Not unlike Money in this way, Carter makes sure her reader is aware that her characters are abnormal in ways beyond their physical characteristics. The repetitive use of the word "surely" coupled with Walser's doubts about Fevver's narrative enforce the reader's unease with the story's validity.
There is a feminist undercurrent masked by folk story traditions in the form of Madame Schreck's performers, Fevver's intense femininity, the sacrificial incident with Rosencreutz, and this quote said by Nelson: "Oh, my little one, I think you must be the pure child of the century that just now is waiting in the wings, the New Age in which no women will be bound down to the ground" (Page 25).
After Crash and Money I was surprised at the tame attitude of Angela Carter's Night at the Circus; I was expecting something much ruder. After contemplation the transgressive tendencies of the novel become apparent but they aren't like those of Amis and Ballard. Carter's blending of genres and fictional realities and use of unconventional sentence structures (with an academic vocabulary) push her into this new authorial category in a surprisingly subtle way. There are folk story qualities to her writing with the blatant foreshadowing (the mysteriously intellectual chimps, Fevver's eyes, and the midnight clock) and grimy glamour but her use of almost incorrect syntax is delicately arresting.
To tackle the syntax: Nights could easily be read for its entertainment factor without any thought to literary hierarchy but Carter's purposefully choppy or repetitive sentences prod reconsideration of author intention. There are a lot of commas in this book. "Her geniality evaporated; she squinted at him beneath her thick pale lashes with almost hostility, seemed ill-at-ease, reached out to toy with her bunch of violets in a bored fashion" (page 43). There is something slightly off-putting about this sentence; why are there no "ands"? Also, for someone who grew up in a Cockney brothel, why is Fevver's vocabulary so advanced? How does she know what a "Manichean version of neo-Platonic Rosicrucianism" is?
The narrator's vocabulary is interesting for its obscure items: "steatopygous" is on the first page. How can a clock have a "prolegomena" (page 89)? Not unlike Money in this way, Carter makes sure her reader is aware that her characters are abnormal in ways beyond their physical characteristics. The repetitive use of the word "surely" coupled with Walser's doubts about Fevver's narrative enforce the reader's unease with the story's validity.
There is a feminist undercurrent masked by folk story traditions in the form of Madame Schreck's performers, Fevver's intense femininity, the sacrificial incident with Rosencreutz, and this quote said by Nelson: "Oh, my little one, I think you must be the pure child of the century that just now is waiting in the wings, the New Age in which no women will be bound down to the ground" (Page 25).
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The Voice of John Self, pages 52 to 117
The most obvious tactic of voice-driven fiction is that it forces the reader to rely solely on what the narrator says. Speculation is futile because when or if anything in the plot is revealed it is still under the subjective guise of the voice. Let's say that the criteria for a "successful" voice is that it is a) convincing and b) incites some feeling within the reader to relate to or at least pity the narrator. Examined next to these two points John Self is a champion narrator. Despite his horrifying eating, drinking, pornography, misogynistic habits he manages to keep the reader not only curious and entertained but feel something beyond disgust. A few classmates admitted to experiencing: sympathy, pity, and even a little concept-harmony. John Self described by someone else through base terms would never provoke any of the listed responses but because his inner monologue is so intriguing he's turned himself into a sympathy-inducing antihero.
There is a very long paragraph that starts on (my) page 64 with "Standing in the nordic nook of the kitchen, I can gaze down at the flimsy-limbed joggers heading south towards the Park. It's nearly as bad as New York." Within this paragraph John let's us on quite a few things that go beyond his disdain for exercising and his cold apartment. Below we have an example of how John manages to convince us that his condition isn't actually his fault:
"Now they want to feel terrific for ever. The Sixties taught us this, that it was hateful to be old. I am a product of the Sixties - an obedient, unsmiling, no-comment product of the Sixties - but in this matter my true sympathies go further back, to those days of yore when no one minded feeling like death the whole time" (64).
He resents the societal impulse to exercise and passes it off as some cultural fad or idea that doesn't have any true backing and yet somehow he's convincing. There's an element of self-righteousness in his character that makes the reader want to believe his rants. On the next page he says, "it does my poor old ticker good to see someone really totalled - by his own hand, mind you. Not blasted by outside nature or misfortune, which only frightens me." In one breath he stands up for something totally outrageous (being so drunk during a business lunch that he needs to vomit) while displaying some bizarrely touching vulnerability.
Despite the fact that Fielding has convinced John that he really impressed Butch, the end of this paragraph suggests he might have urinated on himself instead. An act that wouldn't count as a "hit" with a glamorous actress. A lot of the success in our narrator's voice comes from the truthful and purposeful ignorance of humiliation. "Ay! don't let it touch me! Keep it away... So I lock the suit up again, back in the slammer with its partners in crime... far from my touch" (66). His tendency to bury the unwanted is the perfect excuse for alcoholism and the relentless need to make more money.
There is a very long paragraph that starts on (my) page 64 with "Standing in the nordic nook of the kitchen, I can gaze down at the flimsy-limbed joggers heading south towards the Park. It's nearly as bad as New York." Within this paragraph John let's us on quite a few things that go beyond his disdain for exercising and his cold apartment. Below we have an example of how John manages to convince us that his condition isn't actually his fault:
"Now they want to feel terrific for ever. The Sixties taught us this, that it was hateful to be old. I am a product of the Sixties - an obedient, unsmiling, no-comment product of the Sixties - but in this matter my true sympathies go further back, to those days of yore when no one minded feeling like death the whole time" (64).
He resents the societal impulse to exercise and passes it off as some cultural fad or idea that doesn't have any true backing and yet somehow he's convincing. There's an element of self-righteousness in his character that makes the reader want to believe his rants. On the next page he says, "it does my poor old ticker good to see someone really totalled - by his own hand, mind you. Not blasted by outside nature or misfortune, which only frightens me." In one breath he stands up for something totally outrageous (being so drunk during a business lunch that he needs to vomit) while displaying some bizarrely touching vulnerability.
Despite the fact that Fielding has convinced John that he really impressed Butch, the end of this paragraph suggests he might have urinated on himself instead. An act that wouldn't count as a "hit" with a glamorous actress. A lot of the success in our narrator's voice comes from the truthful and purposeful ignorance of humiliation. "Ay! don't let it touch me! Keep it away... So I lock the suit up again, back in the slammer with its partners in crime... far from my touch" (66). His tendency to bury the unwanted is the perfect excuse for alcoholism and the relentless need to make more money.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Amis's "Money"
Is the mysterious caller John's conscience cricket?
What an incredible dissection of an alcoholic's lifestyle! So much blacking out, so much regret. It's really depressing. There is an element of monotony but it might only be a symptom of severe self loathing or of someone who has definitely given up. The book is no where near as emotionless as Crash.
Everything is drawn very cartoonishly: Selina's outfits, the tennis match ("Fielding... holding his barndoor-sized steel bat in one hand and a dozen yellow tennis balls in the other" pg 31), Fielding in general...
What to make of the description lists? Selina's wardrobe and list of fears (page 15) sets up a nice definition of her.
The telephone as a friend and enemy. Money as the answer to everything: obesity, love, friendship.
Caduta Massi means "rock fall" in Italian. Beau soleil means sunshine but that's less interesting than rock fall.
What an incredible dissection of an alcoholic's lifestyle! So much blacking out, so much regret. It's really depressing. There is an element of monotony but it might only be a symptom of severe self loathing or of someone who has definitely given up. The book is no where near as emotionless as Crash.
Everything is drawn very cartoonishly: Selina's outfits, the tennis match ("Fielding... holding his barndoor-sized steel bat in one hand and a dozen yellow tennis balls in the other" pg 31), Fielding in general...
What to make of the description lists? Selina's wardrobe and list of fears (page 15) sets up a nice definition of her.
The telephone as a friend and enemy. Money as the answer to everything: obesity, love, friendship.
Caduta Massi means "rock fall" in Italian. Beau soleil means sunshine but that's less interesting than rock fall.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Intent in "Crash"
Crash is something other than just disruptive. Ballard is using Symphorophilia as a cultural result of technological dependency and passing judgements on societal tendencies towards violence and low-brow culture. James's world is contained in metal machines, with a constant upper barrage of airplanes and fly overs and the traffice-clogged roads that travel under the Ballard's balcony but the narrator isn't condemning this new society for losing sight of the natural world. The only mode of transportation used by the central characters is the automobile so they themselves are held in metal eggs whenever they leave their homes. Interaction in the outside world only occurs while inside these cars and true communication only comes when they crash into each other. According to James, these crashes allow for new understandings of sexuality: the crash "victim" experiences not just a mental sexual awakening but also a physical one in the form of "new orifices." James actually fantasizes about the destruction of his wife's mouth and face in an accident, "a new exciting orifice opened in her perineum by the splintering steering column, neither vagina nor rectum, an orifice we could dress with all our deepest affections" (180). Here, Ballard runs with the idea of the inevitable transgressive.
If societal tendency moves towards knocking down what has become familiar and rebuilding something in the name of revolution or a cultural shift then perhaps Ballard is considering a true future. Within the character's themselves there is a feeling of constant search: James and Catherine first look for ways to keep each other sexually aroused and turn to intentional and open adultery; James's crash opens new understandings of arousal with just the idea of violence, then with Gabrielle's wounds, then with Vaughn. In our contemporary world cars are very much a part of daily normal life. I think Ballard belives that humans will soon have to respond to this normativity in the same way that they have responded to other cultural stagnancy (flappers, hippies, punks, etc).
I have the distinct feeling that Ballard has very little faith in humanity. The fascination with celebrities throughout the book and the throngs of people that gather around the car crashes condemn the low-brow addiction to lives more interesting than our own. Snippets of fame and violence are jarring reminders that normal life is boring?
One more note: the word marriage is really stuck in wherever it'll fit within the last fifty to 100 pages. The marrige of the metal and organic bodies is interesting but I haven't figured out why yet...
If societal tendency moves towards knocking down what has become familiar and rebuilding something in the name of revolution or a cultural shift then perhaps Ballard is considering a true future. Within the character's themselves there is a feeling of constant search: James and Catherine first look for ways to keep each other sexually aroused and turn to intentional and open adultery; James's crash opens new understandings of arousal with just the idea of violence, then with Gabrielle's wounds, then with Vaughn. In our contemporary world cars are very much a part of daily normal life. I think Ballard belives that humans will soon have to respond to this normativity in the same way that they have responded to other cultural stagnancy (flappers, hippies, punks, etc).
I have the distinct feeling that Ballard has very little faith in humanity. The fascination with celebrities throughout the book and the throngs of people that gather around the car crashes condemn the low-brow addiction to lives more interesting than our own. Snippets of fame and violence are jarring reminders that normal life is boring?
One more note: the word marriage is really stuck in wherever it'll fit within the last fifty to 100 pages. The marrige of the metal and organic bodies is interesting but I haven't figured out why yet...
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
James and Vaughn
Let's focus on the hypothesis that JG Ballard is interested in showing his readers how disturbing or embarrassing it is to depend so much on technology. The hierarchy of characters in Crash is based on not only the damage they've received from automobiles but also from their lack of emotional receptors. To James there is also an element of sexual awakening that accompanies these life-threatening moments. It is unclear whether or not any of the crash victims besides James experience this awakening but if we look to him as a paragon of the enlightened then perhaps they must. With our introduction to Vaughn, James slips in the idea that "he was saved from being no more than a pushy careerist with a Pd.D by a strain of naive idealism, his strange vision of the automobile and its real role in our lives" (64). James might actually look to Vaughn as something of a prophet. He knows much more than everyone else about this compartment everyone spends all of their time inside. This puts a bizarre spin on the idea that JG Ballard is denouncing the public's insistence on driving/the materialism associated with driving. It isn't that the people shouldn't be obsessed with their cars but that they are obsessed with them for the wrong reasons. Vaughn knows the right reasons to manipulate and understand traffic.
Vaughn's lack of emotion, dented features and obsession with death-by-crash can be interpreted as his movement away from human "normalcy" and towards some weird automobile/technological machine mash up. James's obsession with the sexual potential or nature of cars is revealed in several passages that blend the line between organic and mechanical shapes. During his first sexual encounter with Helen in his car: "This small space was crowded with angular control surfaces and rounded sections of human bodies interacting in unfamiliar junctions..." (80); "The plastic laminates around me, the color of washed anthracite, were the same tones as her pubic hairs... The passenger compartment enclosed us like a machine generating from our sexual act an homunculus of blood, semen and engine coolant" (81). In this last passage James actually conjures up a baby created by their bodies and the car.
It should be noted that after James can drive alone he and Catherine don't drive in the same car even if they're going to the same place.
Vaughn's lack of emotion, dented features and obsession with death-by-crash can be interpreted as his movement away from human "normalcy" and towards some weird automobile/technological machine mash up. James's obsession with the sexual potential or nature of cars is revealed in several passages that blend the line between organic and mechanical shapes. During his first sexual encounter with Helen in his car: "This small space was crowded with angular control surfaces and rounded sections of human bodies interacting in unfamiliar junctions..." (80); "The plastic laminates around me, the color of washed anthracite, were the same tones as her pubic hairs... The passenger compartment enclosed us like a machine generating from our sexual act an homunculus of blood, semen and engine coolant" (81). In this last passage James actually conjures up a baby created by their bodies and the car.
It should be noted that after James can drive alone he and Catherine don't drive in the same car even if they're going to the same place.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Ballard's "Crash"
In Crash the mechanics of automobiles acts as a filter for the narrator's sex life. Or, if not a filter than a substitute for elements of a sexual act.
As with his wife's inability to "reach orgasm without an elaborate fantasy of a lesbian sex-act" (35), he himself is unable to think about his wounds without thinking about sex. "These descriptions seemed to be a language in search of new objects, or even, perhaps, the beginnings of a new sexuality divorced from any possible physical expression" (35). He might be suggesting that as one ages senses dull and new ways to stimulate have to be invented. Catherine and her husbands sex lives have to be constantly reconsidered in new lights: violent news, lesbianism, and now his accident.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Nabokov's "Natasha"; "Bakhtin on the Novel"
Nabokov plays with ideas of the ordinary. There is a prominent magical quality to Natasha's, Baron Wolfe's, and old Khrenov's ways of seeing and living. The younger two characters are especially adamant about removing themselves from the everyday through their imaginations and there's a languid sense of reality detachment. On their outing, Nabokov moves the young couple in and out of the real world first with their stories, then with the empty cafe, the mention of Levitan, and then with Khrenov's ghost. Like Kafka or Burroughs the reader is unsure of what is actually real and what might be a bizarre imaginative tangent, a device created for emphasis or exaggeration.
In class on Wednesday Robin mentioned how difficult it would be to make a movie that actually captured a Nabokov novel/story because so much of his brilliance is in his manipulation of language. This is absolutely true but there is a cinematic quality to his settings. The comparison of the spring day outing to a Levitan landscape is pretty picturesque. Nabokov's attention to detail (clothing, furniture, light, color) brings the reader into the scene, magnifying his facility with magical realism. Also, the "dead little old man with the waxen nose" is quite an image.
Nabokov has an amazing ability to make everything erotically charged: hair parts, hand-washing, lumpy couches, colors even. Actually, he makes everything that would otherwise not be considered in any way sexual, erotic. There's a synesthetic quality to his style that pushes the words to blend ideas as well as color feelings.
Bakhtin's theories of polyphony are applicable to "Natasha" in that nothing of the story would be understood with only one character voice. The three dialogues of Natasha, Baron Wolfe, and old Khrenov exist to elevate one another and create a spherical understanding for the reader. An interesting aspect of this essay is the idea of dialogic hierarchies. Where in Nabokov's short story do we understand who sits higher within the social ladder of the character list?
In class on Wednesday Robin mentioned how difficult it would be to make a movie that actually captured a Nabokov novel/story because so much of his brilliance is in his manipulation of language. This is absolutely true but there is a cinematic quality to his settings. The comparison of the spring day outing to a Levitan landscape is pretty picturesque. Nabokov's attention to detail (clothing, furniture, light, color) brings the reader into the scene, magnifying his facility with magical realism. Also, the "dead little old man with the waxen nose" is quite an image.
Nabokov has an amazing ability to make everything erotically charged: hair parts, hand-washing, lumpy couches, colors even. Actually, he makes everything that would otherwise not be considered in any way sexual, erotic. There's a synesthetic quality to his style that pushes the words to blend ideas as well as color feelings.
Bakhtin's theories of polyphony are applicable to "Natasha" in that nothing of the story would be understood with only one character voice. The three dialogues of Natasha, Baron Wolfe, and old Khrenov exist to elevate one another and create a spherical understanding for the reader. An interesting aspect of this essay is the idea of dialogic hierarchies. Where in Nabokov's short story do we understand who sits higher within the social ladder of the character list?
Cut-Up Compostition
As his parachute filled and caught his fall he stopped stressing out about the ingate silt. Everything in his head slid away with the waning floor and his eyelids sank to half mast. His senses dulled so he could barely hear his dad yell-talking into the phone about "raring circulation bioengineering." His limbs were limp, a feeling he craved almost more than the flight of his brain and he bent his fingers, barely able to make a fist. Luke was staring at him from the bean bag chair. "Replacement major, man," he said. "Don't even worry about your dad and the workshop shit. The silt probably won't even clog. He won't even notice." He could tell Luke was speaking at a normal speed because of the way his lips moved but his head was so side-vetted that it sounded like Luke was speaking soooo slowwlyy.
He couldn't even respond to Luke's attempts at comfort. He was fucked anyway. His dad will notice and he will lose his glossy syntax saved for customers, detonating into anger mode, screaming bloody murder. He looked down at his arm. The rhymed hirudin stubbed upwards into his vein was still leeching liquid into his blood stream. The hirudin was a nice touch. He didn't have to do anything except let go.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Recent Forerunners, William S. Burroughs
Evident in Bradley the Buyer of Naked Lunch, a nervous energy pervades Burroughs's writing style and makes the reader pretty uncomfortable. Throwing himself on the ground, begging for his job, "thrusting" fingers into his mouth, smiling horribly. Very distasteful but intriguing. The number of characters Bradley affects (in/directly) is impressive for a short excerpt: Lupita, the boys, colleagues, the District Supervisor, the Judge. People talk about it, fight it, and perpetuate it.
Burroughs was 60 during this interview, an age in which he seems dulled to earlier ideas of political disdain. Of (or preceding) the Beat generation, he is someone I consider a persuasive opponent of capitalist ideals but during the interview (and perhaps because of the direction of the interview itself) he comes off as a much more secure and resigned in his ideas of literature, spirituality, and drug rehabilitation. Much less paranoid anyway. I liked his sticking up for Eliot: how does anyone think he wasn't a verbal innovator? And his confidence that all is illusion.
All of these writing excerpts are examples of transgressive literature. The junkie that eats the DS, the doctor that dances with scalpels and his patients lives, the "cut up" poetry: they all exemplify a different understanding of mental processes and desire to portray something very unlike the usual. Burroughs leads with something familiar and ends with something horrifying but not necessarily false, just "wrong."
Burroughs was 60 during this interview, an age in which he seems dulled to earlier ideas of political disdain. Of (or preceding) the Beat generation, he is someone I consider a persuasive opponent of capitalist ideals but during the interview (and perhaps because of the direction of the interview itself) he comes off as a much more secure and resigned in his ideas of literature, spirituality, and drug rehabilitation. Much less paranoid anyway. I liked his sticking up for Eliot: how does anyone think he wasn't a verbal innovator? And his confidence that all is illusion.
All of these writing excerpts are examples of transgressive literature. The junkie that eats the DS, the doctor that dances with scalpels and his patients lives, the "cut up" poetry: they all exemplify a different understanding of mental processes and desire to portray something very unlike the usual. Burroughs leads with something familiar and ends with something horrifying but not necessarily false, just "wrong."
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)