Oops

I meant brake, not break. Horrifying. I'll have to figure out how to edit these things. I hit post before I meant to so didn't reread. Yikes.

Ghosts Galore

Ghostwriters are commonly associated with the written biographies of famous people who have neither the ability nor the time to create a coherent account of their lives. Renaissance artists used ghostwriters, called assistants, to execute their artistic visions. Gianlorenzo Bernini certainly sculpted many works himself, but if he actually sculpted all the works he is credited with then he might still be working today. In some cases, Bernini came up with the idea and sculpted a prototype before turning the project over to his talented assistants.

It seems to me that Kobayashi/Tokunaga (K/T) is also a ghostwriter. He lives a ghost/like existence while executing the plan of the mysterious cult leader, His Serendipity.  K/T takes all the risk while the leader takes the credit for the “accomplishments.” This section, while not my favorite, is interesting in that it lets us peek into the mind of someone who is completely smitten with a charismatic leader of a cult. We have all heard the ravings of lunatics, but in these pages we are able to follow the actual thought process of a cult member.

As the chapter progresses, we discover snippets of background information as the narrator travels, making us piece together the whys behind his actions. Although we know that someone who joins a cult is needy or has been traumatized in some way, it is illuminating to hear directly from inside of the person’s mind. We learn that K/T despises the materialistic “unclean” society he lives in and worships the cult leader, but we get a special clue when K/T thinks: “Before His Serendipity lit my life I was defenseless. I sobbed and screamed at them to stop, but nobody saw me. I was dead” (5).

               From the outside, K/T’s family sees a man who despises them and has surrendered their wealth. The reader knows him as a diabolical nut. But the author Mitchell almost creates sympathy for K/T as we discover that he was emotionally tortured, felt victimized and begged for help. We don’t know what it is that he wanted stopped, but when he says he was dead and that no one could see him, we learn that K/T was a ghost to his family and society. He feels that his value was limited to his material success and that they never loved him (8, 9). Naturally K/T does not see His Serendipity as the greedy hoarder of others’ material success and makes excuses why money and sex are critical to the leader’s success.

We find out that K/T’s “skin” family still matters – in the middle of a paragraph his thought process comes a separate paragraph with two words: “Mom. Dad” (29).  He is a ghost to them and they are ghosts to him, diaphanous spirits passing through his consciousness. The reader can almost feel sorry for K/T, who clearly misses some aspect of his original family as he mourns the raid on his cult’s base. His Serendipity escapes the raid and becomes a ghost to the authorities and to K/T. It’s certainly no accident that when Ota gives K/T a ride he says: “Mr. Tokunaga, I presume? (31), a reference to another famous “ghost” who disappeared into the jungles of Africa for a time, Glaswegian Stanley Livingstone who was finally tracked down by a newspaper reporter. The author references His Serendipity and his escape when Ota has to break for a goat and mentions that “Caligula’s escaped again” (31).

Globalization, Ghostwritten and Zookeeper

Each of us live unique lives with distinctly different experiences.  Sometimes (like when we're in class together), we share an experience, but in infinite subtle ways, the shared experience is different for each individual.  This is how I tend to think of globalization.  We are all here, on this planet together, and we all share this common experience--in highly subjective ways.  Personally, my unique life experiences have allowed me to live in other parts of the world, and make friends with people who belong to vastly different (and similar) cultures.  I'm not really all that special though--I'm not materially rich (for the society I live in), nor am I famous or politically important--yet I have had these experiences.  That I can have these experiences suggests to me that becoming a global citizen, as I like to think of myself, is not outside the realm of possibility for most people (at least where we live).  We, those of us alive today, are the first generation to have nearly unfettered access to instantaneously communicate with each other across the globe.  Naturally, our literary texts have begun to evolve along with our communications abilities.

Ghostwritten, having been published in 1999, seems to be one of the earlier examples of how our evolving global culture is expressed by the interconnectedness of stories and characters within a novel.  Interconnected stories may not be a  new trope, but it is how texts like Ghostwritten use the interconnectedness that is interesting.  Before the "Information Age," I would suggest that the interconnectedness of stories or characters in texts seemed much more like divine providence, or characters brought together somehow by a common event.  In texts like Ghostwritten, these connections seem much more subtle and (often) banal, but this accomplishes creating a more natural, human connection.  Even though the connection in Ghostwritten is not necessarily human (the Zookeeper), it is eminently concerned with the humanity of the subjects it has been charged to "keep."  We see this on display when the Zookeeper grapples with the "problem of evil," as he debates killing a band of village-burning marauders in Africa.  Killing the marauders would go against Zookeeper's directives to protect "the visitors," yet failing to act would also violate Zookeeper's directives by allowing the marauders to kill the inhabitants of another village.  Whatever Zookeeper's true motivations, the effective result is that it is concerned with preserving life--and, by extension, humanity. 

Noncorpum

This book was fantastic. I could not get enough of it and have so far recommended it to 5 people. It was one of the most enjoyable reads that I've had in a while and one of the reasons for that is the section involving the "noncorpum" entity. It's search for his origins and the story of the three who think about the fate of the world brings it to inhabit Jargal, while talking to a few men seeking stories, but not the stories it wants. The drunken wizened man says, "There's no future in stories ... Stories are things of the past ... No place for stories in these market democracy days" (172). Stories are something outside of the market then, stories like these animals who think on the fate of the world and the camel who gives away his features. They are worthless in the marketplace because the future is not something available to them, they cannot carry a signified value within the marketplace structure. They cannot fluctuate and change like the value of money, they cannot be used to acquire wealth or status; stories can sit in museums about lost culture and accrue dust.

If this is the case, what does this story mean to tell us about literature in a capitalist society? Are stories perhaps just something that has been commodified in order to retain the cultural history of the subject or perhaps real stories have gone away? Our noncorpum friend finds a story to be the means to enlightenment, it finds past, present, and future in it's story. So perhaps this suggests that stories function as a means for self discovery to cast off the capitalist venture of commodification. Stories can help those who have been torn from their nations and cities to find a place again.

The Limits of Language and the Never Ending Connections of "Night Train"

Quentin Tarantino has made quite a few movies in which he mashes genre. One in particular is his World War II themed, spaghetti western, revenge flick Inglorious Basterds.  A group of American soldiers, compiled of Jewish men, are sent into German occupied areas so that they can kill Nazis.  In one scene, Brad Pitt's character is discussing an assassination plot with Diane Kruger's character and language becomes an important attribute.  Undoubtedly, this is Tarantino's way of poking fun at Americans because we presumably do not know nearly as many languages as others.  However, this also highlights a very important aspect of language.  Pitt's character must infiltrate a theater by playing the role of an Italian, but he only knows basic Italian with an incredibly bad accent.  Kruger's character is multilingual and mocking Pitt, while the scene itself is stressing the importance of language and communication.  I find it interesting that the limitation of Pitt's character is his lack of language, the inability to understand another person.  Language and connectivity are something that David Mitchell clearly places importance on in his hyperlink novel Ghostwritten.  As Rita Barnard accurately describes, "Ghostwritten forcefully reminds its readers that the world is a multilingual place; it invites them, through the overarching metaphor of ghostwriting, to adopt a kind of drifting or spectral relation to language, a relation that estranges English while reducing the alienness of other tongues" (213).  By placing this importance on language and connectivity, which by the hyperlink form alone lends itself to what Barnard argues as a cosmopolitan text, Mitchell is making a statement as to how different perceived connections and actual connections are.

As many have pointed out in their posts this week, this novel's connections between these characters left a lot of people wanting more.  These small connections that we all hunted for while reading didn't have the same satisfying effect as the final throws of Hotel World, like Julie mentioned, or as Nikki pointed out, there were characters that we wished we knew more about.  For this I agree, but what I found most interesting about these subtleties is how little the actual connection to another person or even another place was necessary for me to shoot back to that character.  This allowed the book to become very visceral for me.  While the book is giving me very little to connect to, I find myself making connection is a rapid fire, natural manner.  For instance, the zookeeper says at one moment when discussing a fireball that he/she set off in Texas that "china teacups rattled," implying of course that there were people using china teacups, not that the teacups in China shook, this immediately made me think of the "Holy Mountain" chapter.  The zookeeper offered the most interesting connections in my mind. 

 The zookeeper acts as a "god" perspective and the language of the zookeeper is technical so it naturally separates Bat both intellectually, as Bat is very colloquial, but spatially because the zookeepers descriptions imply that he/she is sitting on a satellite.  This calls to mind the vastness that is our planet.  As Barnard points out, this section is the most shifting in regards to time and even space.  Although the entire chapter takes place inside a radio studio, it is through the zookeeper that the global movement takes place.  I find it fascinating that the action in this chapter takes place only through language.  Of course, a novel only offers language for action to take place in, but there is descriptive movement that allows the readers to imagine actual movement, while in the "Night Train" section, the implied movement is implied again through the zookeeper because Bat remains in the studio.  This separates the reader further from action, or distills action further, implying that the connections between people spatially is what distills the "closeness" that people feel emotionally.  

The zookeepers first conversation with Bat is qualified by a phone call from Mrs. Rey, the writer..  Mrs. Rey tells Bat, "The human world is made of stories, not people.  The people the stories use tell themselves are not to be blamed.  You are holding one of the pages where these stories tell themselves, Bat" (378).  Mrs. Rey is telling Bat to allow the connections between people to happen, receive the calls that may be insane or unreliable because those stories are connecting people and are told in the language of connection and are organic happenings.  It is in this language, the art of story telling that connections take place, and Bat even accredits Mrs. Rey for the reason he stays on the line with the zookeeper, allowing the connections to be made.  During the second conversation with the zookeeper, language is addressed in a very sidelined comment when Bat says, "No doubt you speak Italian?" and the zookeeper replies, "Languages are a necessary part of my work" (390).  Language is a tool that the zookeeper uses, and as a perfectly logical "artificial intelligence," the zookeeper understands the pragmatic uses of language, while Mrs. Rey is clearly stating the idealistic uses of language: to transmit not only information as the zookeeper would do, but to also express ideology and sentiment with all the flourishes of human emotion.  

It is in this section, "Night Train," that the technological age meets an arcane source of entertainment, the radio talk show.  Mitchell chose a DJ of a late night talk show to host the artificial intelligence that is capable of destroying and saving the world.  Language acts as both an inhibitor of our abilities to connect, as Tarantino pokes fun at, or a tool of connectivity.  As the radio program comes in contact with this artificial intelligence, Bat receives cosmopolitanization from within while the zookeeper gets localization from without, as Barnard would say.

 

The Woman on the Holy Mountain

As Barnard points out, Mitchell is at pains to transcend the nationalistic sphere of the novel in writing Ghostwritten, attempting to create a global work. It is interesting to me that in reading the novel I seemed to resist this. Barnard talks about the shifting point of view and the work that it does to expand the book beyond national borders and about the hyperlinking of the sections to give a sense of "sutured omniscience" to the narration. Despite this I found the section narrated by the old Chines woman, whose insular views predominated the writing to be The most interesting. Perhaps because it seemed to be able to stand alone (although the explanations provided by the noncorpum, particularly about the talking tree, did help to make sense of several confusing points). In one sense it was the section that most resembled a traditional novel in that it followed a single character throughout the course of her life and told that story from her point of view. I think that this gives evidence to the fact that the traditional novel is actually a nationalistic art form and highlights the difficulty that we have in thinking about a globalized world.

Lack of Connection with Time & Space

While I certainly did love the buried connections in Ghostwritten that make me want to read it again, Rita Barnard's reference to Anderson's theory that a novel should have a shared space or time (to link it nationally) is exactly what may have bothered me most about the novel. As Barnard states, the timeline is actually "randomly overlapping succession". She points out that some sections are straightforward - for me, the most noticeably is St. Petersburg. In the complete other direction is that of "Holy Mountain" where I wasn't sure "when" I was at in many given points of the narrative. I knew where, but not when. The Tea Shack woman goes through childhood to death in this section, not sequentially, and through so much history that it's a real whirlwind to get through. I found it fascinating because through all of the world's changes, she kept on with her Tea Shack, rebuilding when she needed to, but never changing her ways. The thing that changed for her was the guests and the ease of her getting supplies, and that's about it.

Like Jennifer or Julie said, I wanted the connections to be bigger. There were so many minor characters that I wanted to know about and I assumed they would all come together, but they don't (e.g. Poppy and her daughter, India; Alfred and Roy, etc.). And at first I thought the ending was fantastic - were they all on this subway train? But that has to be false, because the majority were never even in Tokyo. Maybe it's kind of a disturbing connection and way to end, but at the same time I felt that it was great - unfortunately it's not what happened. The nods to each section are awesome, but at first I thought these nods would connect to each character specifically and link them to being on the train, instead it's more of a wink from Mitchell to us with references to places and people.

Chance

I was completely captivated and enthralled by the first chapter of Ghostwritten.  Each page was more exciting than the last and I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat.  I couldn't wait to find out what the crazy Quasar's motives were and to meet the "Almighty Serendipity."  The complex relationship between the Quasar and His Serendipity both annoyed and fascinated me.  The intricate web of lives the Quasar wove in order to keep his identity and intentions secret were not only amazing, but done in a fashion that appeared to be a second nature to him.  Needless to say again, I found myself truly enraptured--although a bit disturbed--by the storyline.  So you can imagine my shock and total disappointment when the succeeding chapters did not answer the countless questions aroused by the first!  It took an incredibly amount of patience and detective work on my behalf in order to unearth the connections between each chapter and character which I honestly found, quite aggravating.  Don't get me wrong, I am up for and enjoy a good challenge, but to me, the connections were convoluted and hidden almost too well.  Once I was able to get over my initial anger toward Mitchell, I shifted my focus to appreciating his clever and unique style of writing.  When I did this, I began to discover countless similar threads, aside from just the relationships between the characters, in each chapter.  One particular recurring concept that I found interesting and worth mentioning is that of chance.

Although it is not most obviously referenced until the "London" chapter, chance first appears in the name of the mysterious "Serendipity" in the very first chapter.  By definition, "serendipity" refers to something that occurs by happenstance, luck, coincidence, or by some sort of fluke.  It is different than saying something is or was fated or destined to be.  Chance continues to be a hidden theme in the "Tokyo" chapter when Satoru goes back inside the record store to answer a phone call against his first impulse.  It is by pure chance that the phone rang at that exact instant and by that chance he meets his love, Tomoyo.  Satoru even refers to the chance of such an incident happening at that exact moment when he states, "I've thought about it many times since:  if that phone hadn't rung at that moment, and if I hadn't taken the decision to go back and answer it, then everything that happened afterwards wouldn't have happened" (53).

By chance, Neal Brose drops dead of diabetes at an extremely unfortunate and coincidental moment.  By chance, the old woman happened to come across General Brain in a paradoxical moment.  By chance, the noncorpum located his lost memory of origin.  By chance, Margarita finds herself in the hands of the police.  By chance, Marco escapes near death and bankruptcy.  By chance, Bat Segundo's late night radio show crosses lines with the "zookeeper/His Serendipity."  And by final chance, Quasar evades death by his own hands.  This novel features a series of characters all met by the fickle and elusive phenomenon we call chance.   

What Really Makes a Hyperlink?

If forced to choose between Ali Smith's Hotel World and David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, as far as "hyperlinked" stories are concerned, I think that I'd pick Hotel World.

Ghostwritten for me was very weakly and tenuously interconnected between one vignette to the next, and the chapter where all the stories collide simply wasn't enough of a payoff for me. While I did enjoy wondering when the previous character(s) would pop up in the next chapter, I found that I was more driven to spot it like Where's Waldo than actually engaging in the text, and I don't think that's good enough. This was particularly frustrating in the transfer from St. Petersberg to London, where the character you were expecting to pop up, Margarita Latunsky, wasn't the character mentioned. I was much more interested in her and the FBI agent, than I was with the offhand mention of John the painter.

I felt that Ali Smith did a much better job of weaving the characters and story lines together to create an interconnected novel. Perhaps that is the point of David Mitchell's novel, that we are only barely connected to the world around us at any given time, but based on the second to last chapter, and the apocalyptic feel of it, I expected it to end up being much more "We Are the World" and less  "99 Red Balloons."

Smith's direct connection between one character to the next not only made the text feel more cohesive, but it also played up the concept of interconnection much more strongly. Yes, her novel is contained to one small town in England, but the concept of hyperlinking is still present. Though Mitchell makes the novel more global, he fails when it comes to finishing the package. I felt let down to spend so much time in different character's heads, and then never really see or hear from them again, except in passing. I found I cared more for the backpackers who popped up multiple times than I did for anyone else, and there were several more compelling characters to care about. Smith uses her characters much more directly, and even centers the novel around Sara Wilby, though not everyone is aware of the circumstances of death or even that she existed. By having the character from the previous chapter interact with the one in the following, I felt that the novel was more successful in terms of taking separate lives and combining them into the one life of the World Hotel.

Mitchell does have some truly admirable skillsets, namely how very different and strong the voices of the different characters are and how each section feels like a different genre. However, I don't feel that he is as good at picking up, or even creating, disparate threads of narrative and braiding them together in one story, as a hyperlinked text might imply.

David Mitchell: Possibly a Literary Genius?

Can we all take a moment to admire the literary genius that is David Mitchell's Ghostwritten?

Ten chapters, nine characters, nine cities, six male, two female, one noncorpum entity circling minds in Mongolia, and possibly the end of the world controlled by a disembodied being called the Zookeeper, all intertwined in one glorious novel which interlinks ideas of humanity with the globalize world in which we live. (Not to mention the fact that some of his characters, Denholme and Timothy Cavendish as well as Luisa Rey, transcend the parameters of this novel to take up lives of their own in his second novel, Cloud Atlas.)

I believe the brilliance in Mitchell text come from the way he intertwines his characters stories together and apart all in connection with the globalized economic world in which they live. Quasar, the colorful terrorist in Okinawa, complains about the appearance of globalized businesses showing up in the city stripping it of all its “pure” glory and making it a city of the unclean. In this first section of the novel Mitchell introduces one man’s thoughts of the globalization of the world around him and see it in a negative light however, some of Mitchell’s other characters react differently.

Satoru in the Tokyo record shop admires the records that play music from all over the world. He does not see them as a tool or globalization, but as something he can enjoy. The globalization of trade and economic goods has introduced him to the world of Jazz music, something that might not have been available to him otherwise. Additionally, the trains that were first built, most likely as a what to get goods from one place to another, now allow backpackers like Caspar and Sherry to journey through lands that they previously may have only read about it books.

Another point worth mentioning is the sheer about of economic goods that play small, yet important roles throughout the story, Satoru’s records, Katy Forbes’ Queen Anne chair, Sherry’s copy of War and Peace (translated from its original Russian for her consumption), the painting of Eve and the Serpent at the center of Margarita’s chapter, which is then reproduced on a poster in Katy Forbes’ apartment which Marco sees when he wakes up, all the way to the Kilmagoon whiskey made and bottle on Clear Island and drunk by Bat Segundo in his late night radio station broadcast room.

Clearly Mitchell has a lot to say about the globalization of the world economy and does so through the medium of an amazing novel which is full of strong dynamic characters and an overarching plot that ties people together in a way that only the real world can.  

I just need a fiver (Jerremy & Julie)

Banknotes have existed in England since the 16th century. The earliest banknotes were handwritten receipts issued by goldsmiths with whom individuals made deposits of gold coins. Each goldsmith would honor only his own receipts but the addition of the words “or bearer” after the name of the depositor allowed the notes to be exchanged and circulated among the public in a limited fashion. In 1694 the Bank of England was established and began to issue bank notes that also acted as receipts for the deposit of physical gold. During the 18th century the bank began to move toward the use of pre-printed notes, gradually standardizing them and reducing the amount of information that was filled in on each individual note by the cashier issuing the receipt. England went off the gold standard several times during wars between the formation of the Bank of England and 1931 when it finally abandoned the gold standard altogether.[1] Consider this bit of circular logic from the Bank of England: “Exchange into gold is no longer possible and Bank of England notes can only be exchanged for other Bank of England notes of the same face value. Public trust in the pound is now maintained by the operation of monetary policy, the objective of which is price stability.”[2]

With the standardization of banknotes issued by the Bank of England, the notes themselves have become a more identifiable product. This “product” must be produced just like any other and involves the sourcing of materials, including paper, cotton, ink and even metal for the small security threads that are included in the modern notes. Considering the production of these notes from the perspective of Robbins’ article brings to mind the far-reaching scope of not only the sourcing of these materials, but of the labor required, not only to produce the raw materials and transport them to the printing presses, but also to design the notes, approve the designs and then to physically manufacture the notes. Perhaps the inconceivable scope of this process has contributed to the Bank not discussing any of it on their website; after all, the Bank officials are not the type of intellectuals that Robbins proposes to task with the contemplation of the ramifications of such complexities.

Robbins’ example of the user of the kettle being the “beneficiary of an unimaginably vast and complex social whole”[3] is not only applicable to the use of the banknote but must be expanded upon when considering the utility of the note itself. Whereas the user of the kettle reaps the benefits of the kettles labor (a very specific payoff), the user of the banknote not only has the ability to utilize the outcome of all of the labors that have gone into the production of the note, but because the note itself represents the ability to gain access to the other products and services rather than performing actual labor, it allows the bearer access to the labor of any products/he chooses and by corollary, the ability to reap the benefit, not only of the labor of that potential kettle, but also the benefit of all of the labor that went into producing it.

By extrapolating Robbins’ concept of access to the labor of a product which is itself a benefit of the labor of an immeasurable supply chain, to encompass the potential of a banknote in its ability to signify any and all products and therefore any and all labor and supply chains, the banknote becomes the ultimate symbol of power. A sense of this power is conveyed on the bank of England’s website in the FAQ section discussing banknotes:

 

Are old Bank of England notes worthless?

No; all Bank of England notes retain their face value for all time.[4]

This assertion seems a fitting point of entry into Ali Smith’s novel, Hotel World.  In fact, much like specific items of American  currency, specific serials and designs of Bank of England notes can be worth more than the face value, especially by collectors. For Clare, this certainly becomes true with the five pound note she is given by Duncan, even though her note is a standard issue.

So how does the face and permanent value of the note compare to the characters it is associated with? For Clare, “it’s worth more than anything” [5], symbolically. The fact remains that the note’s value remains “five pounds” no matter the significance it holds for her. But it’s importance increases as something that Clare can hold. For Sara, it is a representation of her missing place in society. Her human value is equivalent to value of her exchange of work for money, and money for goods. When Clare withholds the five pounds from circulation, Sara’s value becomes five pounds. But the five pounds is only valuable to Clare because it is something that was owed to her sister. If Duncan had bet Sara a cheeseburger or a  bottle cap, would it still be as valuable to Clare? It is very likely that as long as it was a tangible item, it would hold infinite value for Clare, even if it was something comparatively worthless.  

Clare first mentions the five pound note in the third paragraph of her tirade, stating “& since there was the five pound note” [6].  The five pound note exchanged hands once, in the time we see it, from Duncan to Clare, and it’s very clear that the exchange is much more symbolic than it is an actual purchase or return on a bet. Duncan has been holding on to this note since Sara’s death, folding it into a little square to the point where it loses its recognizability [7]. It isn’t until Clare unfolds it that she discovers what it is and what it means to Duncan. For Duncan the five pound note represents a debt that he will never be able to pay, and the guilt associated with it. After he gives it to Clare, it becomes a sacred object to her, something of Sara’s that she can hold on to that isn’t intangible frass, such as dust with Sara’s dead skin cells, or the dried detritus of Pepto from the bottom of the cup she used.

Clare’s relationship with money is dependent on it’s value in comparison to Sara. When Else leaves “her share” from the money that was given to her as she sat on the stairs, Clare doesn’t even respond to it [8]. The money isn’t hers, and it isn’t Sara’s, therefore it holds no value.  The wealth isn’t valuable to her unless it is tied to Sara. This is echoed in the response to the trophies that her father tries to throw away, even though they are not necessarily valuable items, to Clare they are worth more because they were Sara’s possessions [9]. When Sara is removed from circulation, her value in society is decreased, as she no longer contributes to the flow of money.  

 

To Clare, Sara’s worth is incapable of decreasing.  However, when the five pound note is removed from circulation, it never loses its value, and has the potential to increase based on any significant features it may have. Who knows, with England’s pending switch to plastic notes in 2016, cloth based notes may have more worth than their face value.

---

[1] http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/about/history.aspx

[2] http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/about/faqs.aspx#general

[3] Robbins, 84.

[4] http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/about/faqs.aspx#general

[5] Smith, 216

[6] Smith, 185

[7] Smith, 205

[8] Smith, 206

[9] Smith, 192-195

Walking for Miles in Sammy's Shoes

When Sammy wakes up on the street after a raucous night, he discovers three things about himself: his back is sore, his head is pounding, and he is wearing a pair of “auld fucking trainer shoes” (1). Throughout the remainder of the novel How Late it Was, How Late, Sammy literally walks in someone else’s shoes as he tries to figure out how to operate in a world he can no longer see. Author James Kelman invites the reader to walk in Sammy’s shoes and view the world from the perspective of an unemployed man who cannot seem to navigate the labyrinth created by an unresponsive government.

            Sammy knows these trainers, or sneakers, are not his prized “leathers” because for a brief time in between waking up on the street and getting beaten blind he can see his feet (Kelman 1). What he cannot see even when he has sight is that he is walking in shoes that were probably made by someone who is even worse off than he is, someone who is also ineffectual at communicating with a powerful system, in this case a transnational corporation. As Sammy totters about the streets with only a painted mop handle to guide him, he is constantly annoyed by the shoes, which he thinks ruin his smart look. The fashion issue aside, Sammy is unaware that the shoes were probably made by the exploitive labor of some woman in Indonesia or China working for pennies.

Sammy isn’t the only one blind in this picture — Nike shoes were a popular brand in Scotland when the book was written in 1994 and during that time the company was criticized for turning a blind eye to the way in which its products are produced. A $25-billion company, Nike seemed to suffer from its own version of Bruce Robbins’ “Sweatshop Sublime” theory. Just as a consumer might find it overwhelming to comprehend the origins of a teakettle, Nike found it conveniently overwhelming to contemplate the origins of its bank account. It’s a pathetic cycle: the company exploits one worker by paying poverty wages in order to make a product that will be used to exploit another worker, also making poverty wages, by charging that worker/consumer a high price for a product that cost only a few dollars to make. Consider the advertising possibilites: “Buy the new Nike shoe, The Exploiter, from one exploited worker to another!”

Nike turned a blind eye for the most part as if the problem were truly sublime rather than a problem that easy to solve. When the brand name became synonymous with the word sweatshop, protesters standing outside Niketown stores motivated the company to improve working conditions at its overseas factories. Nike shoes are primarily produced in factories in Asia (China, Indonesia, South Korea, India, Japan) although they do have factories in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Italy, and Bosnia. The problem is not completely solved, however; last year in Indonesia female workers at a Converse (owned by Nike) factory said they were routinely slapped, kicked, and called names like “pig” and “dog” (“Two Faces of Economic Development”). In response to continued complaints about the production of its footwear, Nike now offers on its website an interactive guide listing the countries producing the goods and information about the workers, including gender and age. (nikeinc.com).

Although Robbins contends that activism is not a good solution to the issue of worker exploitation as “the general population is likely to hear only another form of elitism,” protests against Nike apparently shamed the footwear company into setting a minimum standard for its factories (Robbins 93, Wong). It’s ironic that Sammy ends up in The Exploiter trainers and that his own shoes were taken by a guy who presumed him dead, or so Sammy hypothesizes. And it's interesting that Sammy complains throughout the novel that he is wearing someone else's shoes, a mysterious, ghost of a man. The shoes literally do not fit him and, at the same time, perhaps the discomfort has a deeper source --  it’s clear in the novel that everyone and everything merely trots along oblivious to the fate of others in the same city and around the globe. Sammy just keeps on walking in those trainers and telling himself that he is “gony be fine…that’s all ye do, step by step, ye walk step by step, by step, ye keep going” (Kelman 57).

Group project by Sandra Parker, Shannon Pfeifer, Tony Bonura

Kelman, James. How Late it Was, How Late.

Wong, Annabelle. “Two Faces of Economic Development: the Ethical Controversy Surrounding U.S.-Related Sweatshops in Developing Asian Countries.” Global Ethics Network. May 2013.

Nikeinc.com

Robbins, Bruce. “The Sweatshop Sublime.” P. 93.

How Late it Was, How Late, Group Project

       In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four people are watched constantly by "Big Brother,"  a name for the State.  Infractions against the rules are seen and noted.  The guilty party is punished.  When Orwell wrote this futuristic novel, such technology did not exist, or was not in common use.  Readers of the book would think the notion of being watched constantly was not possible.  Yet this has come to be.  When people think they are being watched it is not necessarily paranoia.  Bruce Robbins would include this in his notion of the "sublime," a technology that is so far-reaching and seemingly everywhere that it ultimately beggars comprehension:  where does the surveillance by the State, or private citizens for that matter, leave off.  For a better understanding of the surveillance camera in Sammy's world we need to look at when they were introduced and why in Great Britain.


       Video surveillance using technology began in the late 1960s.  Through the 1970s and 1980s , video surveillance systems used VCR tapes that frequently had to be changed as they became full.  In the 1990s, however, video surveillance switched to digital video recording (DVR) in which information is recorded and stored digitally.  Three are no tapes to change.  Through the 70s and 80s, the retail sector became full of surveillance cameras.  Until the mid-80s in Britain, however, the use of surveillance publically was somewhat limited.  In 1985 in Britain, the first large scale space surveillance was created in Bournemouth.  This idea was very slow in spreading until, in 1993, the kidnapping of a toddler from a shopping center was caught on surveillance cameras.  The boy has subsequently been murdered by his 10 year old kidnappers.  The crime, being high profile and age of the killers making it "sensational,' this footage his kidnapping was played over and over again on television.  The forces of rising crime and public anxiety then coupled with government funding caused an enormous increase in public video surveillance systems.  This would have been the situation when How Late it Was, How Late was written.  The sudden bourgeoning of the surveillance state.  Certainly, having just started spreading so rapidly, one can understand there being much suspicion and anxiety about being watched all the time.


      The first time that Sammy, the main protagonist in How Late it Was, How Late encounters a video camera--or thinks he does--in the book is when he is thrown in a jail cell after having been "straightened [...] out" by the police (sodjers).  He was 'bursting for a piss."  He urinated in a pail in the jail cell.  Unfortunately, partly because he was "trembling like fuck," he urinated on the floor.  At that point "he imagined the sodjers watching him on VTR, notebook in hand: 'peed the floor.'" Sammy wiped up the mess.  He thought to himself, or the narrator thought for him, "he hadnay reached that fucking stage."  Subsequent to this episode, throughout the book, Sammy is not overly concerned with cleaning up after himself or even bathing.  What was it about being viewed on the VTR, real or imagined, that motivated him to clean up the urine?  It seems that it was the remnants of pride, or at least, self-esteem.  He did not want the police watching him to think that he was the kind of person who would urinate on the floor and not clean it up.  This is ironic as throughout the book he does not seem overly concerned with what people think of him.  His motivation was to appear as something he was not, something he wanted to be.


     In the previous instance Sammy was not yet blind, though he would be shortly.  After he had become blind, he needs to use and elevator.  The paranoia of being watched starts when Sammy says, "this is fucking lovely!" when he gets on the elevator and coughs to cover up he fact that he had spoken out loud.  He figures the elevator is "probably fucking bugger man know what I'm talking about, or else a VCR, probably there was a VCR" and fears "that security cunt was sitting watching him right this very minute, having a week laugh to himself cause Sammy was talking and there was naybody there.  Aye fuck you he said and moved his head around, Fuck you."   It's odd that Sammy is so concerned immediately after speaking, and that he's so paranoid since he didn't say anything that would be a problem if anyone was indeed watching.  Sammy has this odd fear of being judged and just verbally lashed out whenever he feels like it--he says "fuck you" in his thoughts and out loud.  Why would he be so defensive/scared about this?


     Why would this be the case.  It seems only when he thinks that a surveillance camera or an audio "bug" is monitoring him that he is concerned with his actions.  This may be explained by the possibility that has projected a "power" on the electronic devices--the ever present eye--that watches and records his actions.  Human eyes do not bother him.  It is his awe of the electronics, the "sublime," and his thinking of the seemingly endless potential of where the films of him will go--a record of his life that he fears will be shameful if observed.  Human eyes are finite, the world of recorded surveillance is infinite.


Amanda Alers
Nikki Darrow
Wayne Alber

Mazola Corn Oil (Group Project)

    Hotel World Group Project

by Christina Hedding, Matt Knapp, and Jennifer Mannara

In Hotel World Else observes the egocentricity (in regards to production) not only of hotel guests, but the employees as well. This relates to the Robbins’ article in that he discusses a person’s desire to not think about the process of production or who was impacted in the making of material objects such as shirts, oils, and coffees. Mazola corn oil’s jingle/slogan states, “Mazola/Simple corn oil/Mazola/Lets the flavour through/You never taste the oil/You only taste the food/With Mazola” (Smith 82). The idea that this oil—an object or product—is a necessity in cooking or frying but one supposedly cannot detect that it was even used, reflects the operations of the Global Hotel.  Much like Mazola’s slogan promises that their corn oil cannot be tasted, therefore is undetectable, the presence of Global Hotel guests and employees cannot and do not desire to be detected as well.

   In examining the text from Smith’s novel in which Lise, bedridden with some unknown illness, contemplates the Mazola Corn Oil song readers can see parallels to Robbins’s idea of “the sweatshop sublime.” While lying in bed, Lise starts to sing the corn oil jingle in her head, “Mazola/Simply corn oil/Mazola/Lets the flavor through” (Smith 82). Here the lines of the jingle are ingrained into Lise’s mind in spite of the fact that she can hardly remember what day it is, she can still remember the words to the corn oil song. This shows how deeply advertising becomes ingrained into our minds as consumers. However, as Robbins suggests we do not think any deeper than the surface of this issue. We as consumers never look beyond the bridges of our own noses. We go to the store and by corn oil, or any other product, without thinking about its origins. Even if we read the label of the bottle and find where the corn oil was made or distributed we never think beyond that because our minds are already full of things we deem more important.

Another passage in which readers can see an example of Robbins’ theory at work is where Lise contemplates the Corn Oil commercial itself:

The voice that was singing the Mazola song inside her head, the same woman’s voice that had sung it years ago…was friendly, reassuring. Mazola lets the flavor through. The pictures of the oil bottle and then the hands of the lady, delicate and ringed, letting chips fall on to kitchen paper and then shaking them off again, had demonstrated in a moment to millions how ungreasy the chips were, how little oil they left on the paper (Smith 82).

Here Smith is trying to show the hopelessness of Lise’s state by allowing her to only remember something ingrained in her brain by some marketing company years ago. This description of the commercial states, “had demonstrated in a moment to millions” which shows that even in her invalid state Lise recognizes the power of advertising in her consumerist culture. However, it also exemplifies Robbins’ idea of the “sweatshop sublime” because Lise does not wonder; where was the oil made? Who made it? Under what conditions? How much were the workers paid? Who picked the corn and processed it to make the oil in the first place? These are all questions that make up the chain of resources that would lead to production of the oil. That production then becomes lost in the minds of the average consumer, like Lise, because they do not wish to think about it. Lise is unable to ponder these questions because she is ill, but the rest of the able-bodied world around her also chooses not to question this “chain of resources” further supporting Robbins’ argument.

This inability to perceive the lines of production and work is important to Robbins’ piece, in the spirit of that we will trace back the origins of the Mazola corn oil. When Lise hears the jingle she does not contemplate the people behind it, be it the marketing firm who concocted the jingle or the workers growing the corn out of the country. When researching Mazola Corn Oil we found they did not point to where they purchase their raw materials or any other production but they do label their parent company as ACH Food Companies, Inc. When looking at the ACH website we see that they are a company centered in the United States but their parent company, Associated British Foods, is headed in the UK (ACH). Mazola was acquired by ABF in 2002, and this leads us further down the line. ACH states that:

ACH Food Companies source from high-risk sectors in developing countries where working conditions have not yet reached the high standards found in more developed countries. We strongly believe in the beneficial economic and social effects of sourcing from such countries. However, under no circumstance, does ACH support or condone the use of forced or slave labor for any human being, especially children. Our supplier approval process contains screening protocol to help insure we use only vendors that meet our high expectations for the ethical treatment of their workforce. (ACH)

ACH freely admits that it employs labor in developing nations but are quick to assure the consumer that it does not employ suppliers who use “forced or slave labor” (ACH). While they claim to be free of sweatshop conditions that does not mean that the product is free of bad production methods. Mazola has bought corn and other vegetables from a known GMO corn supplier called Ingredion, “Corn Products, known today as Ingredion Inc. …  supplied the material for Argo cornstarch and Mazola corn oil” (Tseng). GMO grown vegetables have little oversight, no need to label their own product when used, and contain many chemicals that are harmful to the environment. Lise does not interact with this, could not from her position on the couch, unable to move or do any prolonged action, but this product is effecting her life. Just as the jingle says you never taste the oil, you never taste the production. This same lease manifests in the people inside the Global Hotel.

Day in and day out, people check in and check out of the Global Hotel. While these are clearly actual people, they are forgotten the moment they check out, perhaps even sooner sometimes. They sleep in the beds, order room service, and use the tiny little bottles of shampoo and prepackaged Q-tips, yet when they leave, it is as if they never even existed.  Maids, chefs, bell boys, and concierges do not know their names or their back stories. All they know is that however long they are guests of the hotel, it is their job to make them comfortable with as little personal interaction or interference as possible. Once the guest’s stay has come to its conclusion, the hotel employees wipe away all evidence of their existence at the moment of their check out. The beds are remade, tiny bottles replaced, and the minibars restocked for the next guest. The same process repeats itself again as the new guests check in, unable to detect any prior visitors in “their” room.

When observing the same scenario from a hotel guest’s perspective, almost the same can be said. When checking into Global Hotel, guests forget the face of the receptionist the moment they are handed their room key. No further thought is given to them because as far as the guest is concerned, their job is complete. They enter their immaculately made-up room and do not give a single thought to those who inhabited it prior to them. They do not think about the neatly folded towels, the fresh linens, the stocked minibar, or the tiny bottles of shampoo that magically reappear every time they step out for a day of shopping or an evening meal. Sure, they are well aware that someone has taken care of their rooms but that thought is as quickly forgotten as it arrived in the first place. Perhaps some guests may give thought to a few of these occurrences and some hotel staff may think about their guests after their departure, however the majority of them do not and their lives all go on, business as usual. Isn’t it easier to forget?  Isn’t it easier to not think about other’s back stories?  Isn’t that exactly Bruce Robbins’ point?       

The comparison between Mazola corn oil and the happenings of Global Hotel speak to Robbins’ idea that whether or not one gives thought to the people behind the production line or the label on a shirt, “…the result is the same as if you had not examined the label. All lines converge in the end on the same box:  you put on the shirt and forget about it” (85). We want to use the corn oil but we certainly don’t want to remember that it has been used.

                                                               Works Cited

"ACH." ACH. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2014.

Smith, Ali. Hotel World. New York: Anchor, 2002. Print.

Tseng, Nin-Hai. "Corn Products (Fortune 1938)." Fortune. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2014.