Remainder--What a Schmeckel Head!

I got an idea pretty early on when "I"(do we ever learn his name?) would not let people use the loo at party despite them begging and banging on the door so he could draw that stupid crack.  Is there a more odious behavior?

I was making notes about the connectedness of things until I ran out of room:  telephone wires, the tube, streets, the stock market--all things that link people, one way or another.  And then the patterns that kept drawing him in:  the sports field, tyre marks, floors, carpets--the details of the world that make it authentic.  Which is the same for the sounds:  Hoover, piano,

"I" had not authenticity himself.  "I" didn't know who he was and had to create a world.  Here's where the total control of other's comes in.  "I" hired people to act exactly how he wanted them to act, even to the point of the speed of their actions.  The re-enactors were at his whim day and night.  The building was either in "on" or "off" mode.  At times re-enactors could stand down.  Re-enactments took place when "I" wasn't there to watch.  It gave "I" a thrill to know that the re-enactment was going on over and over.  The re-enactors had no control over their lives--no agency.  Their acting was bought--they were commodified and there seemed to be no complaining--a silent workforce almost enslaved. The poor piano player took a couple afternoons off and left a tape.  "I" didn't even realize it was a tape until he caught him sneaking back in.  What is authentic and what is not is blurred throughout.

All the situations created were not authentic.  The re-enactments and stages and props were based on "I's" crazy ideas.  The production by the workforce was a total waste. Their efforts produced nothing of value other than amusing "I."  The re-enactors had nothing to show for their labor; their could be no pride in work produced.  

Eventually it wasn't enough to re-enact a killing, "I" got his jollies by seeing one of his re-enactors shot and bleeding out.  Then "I" shot one himself for the thrill.

"I" kept going and going.  The last we see of  "I" is banking and re-banking in the private jet.

What was it all about--the productions costing tons of money, the hours and hours of labor to produce nothing.

"I" was a schmeckel head (pardon my Yiddish).




 

Fetishism in NLMG

I was thinking about those things that the kids were able to get on trading days--or whatever they were called and then kept them in their own boxes.  These, aside from clothes, were the only personal items they had.  Somehow I think they were probably things that Oxfam couldn't sell.  But to the clones, they became treasured.  Is it going too far to say they became fetishes?  I think that cheesy ping pencil case was one especially with the magical quality that Kathy ascribed to it by letting the other girls think Miss Lucy had given it to her.

?

Teleology

And that is the best explanation of the phrase, "and Bob's your uncle" as I have ever heard.

P.S.  Isn't in nice we have this blog forum so I don't have to interject my silly remarks during class discussion and interrupt the flow?

Oh Commodification... how I think I understand you, maybe?

Alright, so it's no secret that I have clearly had difficulty grasping commodification.  I read this Marxist section (and re-read it, and looked it up) and now I think I have it.  So I'm writing this to work out the kinks for myself, but I'm also writing this for confirmation from you all to see if I'm actually correct in this assertion.  So, I thought I would work this out first by saying that according to Mars, commidification happens in three parts.  The first is recognizing that the object in question is a function of the human organism, that it is is physiologically altered by a human.  The second is that the quantitative determination of value is the quantity of labor that goes into an altered object.  The last is that labor assumes a social form because social value is ascribed to the product and that value is based on exhangability.  So I thought the best way to describe this is bringing it back to the conversation we had about a month ago regarding a piece of artwork that Dr. Karl called a pure commodity.  The artwork is a function of the human organism because it is altered physiologically by a human.  The artwork is then given a value due to the amount of labor time exerted during the production of that piece of art, however it is also given its value because of the social relationship of the producers to other producers.  So, this is where I became a bit confused.  If a commodity is given its value based on other producers that are presumably producing similar products (or products that are ascribed the same labor value) then how can  a piece of artwork ever really have a value?  Because wouldn't that labor value (quantity of labor) be based on amount of time it takes to produce the work, as opposed to social connotations of the artist's work?  Although, if the artwork gains commodification (or value) status based on the third part (social value- value based on other producers), then the social status of a producer should be taken into account with the value attached to the object.  So then a piece of art is not an object of utility (such as the queen Anne chair that we talked about in conjunction with artwork), but has virtually no utility, making it an object produced for the purposes of being a commodity.  Which is how, I believe, a piece of art can be described as a pure commodity.  So now here's my question, is this right?  Is this what everyone else got out of the Marx reading?

Only the self aware

Never Let Me Go is disturbing. I think we can all agree on that. But one of the things that bothered me the most was the absolute subservience of the clones, especially reflected in how Tommy was "different" and "othered" by the students. I kept waiting and waiting in the novel for a anecdote of a clone hooking up with a normal and somehow escaping the system, or even for Kath and Tommy to get it into their heads to try and run away. The only glimmer we get is Tommy raging in an empty field, then getting sullen and complying. I found that totally disappointing and ultimately quite depressing. It made me wonder if they had somehow been engineered to not really think for themselves. I can see that making sense, given we know that they have been sterilized, yet are fully functional as sexual creatures. I also wondered why sexual organs aren't considered vital organs, especially for infertile "normal" couples. There must be some line drawn in the sand regarding genetics. I wonder just how successful the novel becomes then with its tenuous ties to reality. It feels like it could happen. Maybe even is happening in some dark, secret underworld we don't know about, but the science behind the novel just isn't real enough for me to be fully on board with it.  That's why I had so much hope for Tommy, and his just being on the brink of finding out the truth, and really wanted him to figure it out, break out, and disappear into the crowd.

How much do I love this book? Let me count the ways...

How much do I love this book?  Let me count the ways...

1.  This was an honest-to-goodness absolute page-turner!  In all of my Graduate studies, I can't say that I ever across a novel that I honestly couldn't put down.  With each chapter I found myself wanting more, despite how incredibly tired I was at the time.  Each mystery kept my interest peeked and I finished reading this novel in just two sessions, both of which I was quite sad to end.

2.  The characters are so incredibly well-developed.  From Tommy and his "temper tantrums" to Ruth and her "know-it-all" no-excuses attitude to Kathy with her sincere demeanor and her ability to swallow her pride for the ultimate benefit of others, I loved each and every one of them.

3.  Ishiguro's way of inviting the reader into his world is captivating.  I truly felt as though I was just another "student" at Hailsham and that I too was going through each trial, tribulation, and emotion that each character experienced.

4.  The plot was incredibly believable, despite the scientific possibilities of it ever truly happening.  But honestly, even as I write this sentence, I question: "Could it REALLY happen?  Maybe."  Even though the process of cloning and donating were not explained in detail, the way Ishiguro alluded to the procedures made me honestly believe it could and actually may happen in the future.

5.  Miss Lucy.  What a fantastic, compassionate, naive, lovable character.  Enough said.

6.  The relationship between Tommy and Kathy.  In my opinion, THIS is a true love story.  It is one thing to date someone when you are young and go through all of the typical "puppy-love" stages, but it is completely another to have a friendship stand the test of time, trials, and other romantic relationships and to come out stronger on the other end.  Tommy and Kathy were truly meant to be, and I noticed it from the very beginning.  The hopeless romantic inside of my desperately wanted them to get the "deferral," but I think in the end, I respected the way in which their love story ended.  Even though they were never able to be truly alone together, they were also never given the opportunity to hurt one another the way that relationships sometimes force people to do.

7.  Ishiguro gives us a female leading lady who does not melt at the sight of a man or wither at the first instance of fear.  Kathy is strong, determined, and the way in which she puts others before herself does not cause the reader to pity her, but rather, to respect and admire her on a level far beyond understanding.  She is not a pathetic, lovesick teenager who abandons all of her hopes and aspirations for a romantic relationship.  She is woman, hear her roar.

8.  The pacing of this book was not only appreciated, but completely appropriate as well.

9.  The final encounter with Tommy, Kathy, miss Emily, and Madame Marie-Claude is not just heartbreaking, but also reminded me of "The Sweatshop Sublime."

"The world didn't want to be reminded how the donation programme really worked.  They didn't want to think about you students, or about the conditions you were brought up in.  In other words, my dears, they wanted you back in the shadows" (Ishiguro 264-265).

This section made me immediately think of how as consumers, we do not want to think about the conditions that are behind the clothing that we wear; we would much rather forget about the women and children who work for pennies a day and relax comfortably in our luxurious sweaters.

10.  Hands-down: Best novel I have read in quite a long time!

Perfectly Unsettling

As has been mentioned, I also found the choice of words to create this other world very interesting - "completed", "carer", etc. This is what I love about a dystopian novel, Everything seems so much like our world except for this one oddity that has its own terms and there is acceptance of it by the characters. The idea of cloning and donors is especially a bit haunting because I can see it being part of the future (a far future, but still, I can see it).
The idea of Hailsham is both very idyllic as well as unsettling. There is the beautiful boarding school setting with close friends (though not the greatest of friendships... who wants to be friends with Ruth as a kid?) and it all just seems the perfect way to spend a childhood. But then, the unsettling moments with the guardians, Kathy's feeling of knowing something isn't right. Knowing you're different but not being sure what exactly that all entails. Not having truly personal relationships, everyone seems to be on the edge. It's an odd tone I can't quite put my finger on.
I am definitely still set on Hogwarts for my fantasy English boarding school. No thanks, Hailsham.

Ishiguro's world building through langauge

In the first half of the book, Ishiguro carefully controls the language used to withhold information from the reader.  In essence, Ishiguro creates his own vocabulary by giving words like "carer," "donor," and "completed" new Never Let Me Go-specific meanings.  Ishiguro does not explain these meanings directly, he introduces them organically through Kathy in the narrative.  Kathy speaks to the reader as if the reader should be familiar with what these words mean (in her world), but of course the reader does not know the special meanings which these words carry until much later on in the narrative.  I think this does two very interesting things.  First, this reproduces the "flashback" journey of Kathy, Ruth and Tommy as they learn who and what they are; Ishiguro creates the opportunity for a reader-response scenario where the reader's discovery emulates that of the characters.  Second, and maybe more importantly, Ishiguro's use of language is part of "world building."  Just as important as the concept that Ishiguro created additional meaning for words within Never Let Me Go is his choice of the words themselves.  "Complete(d)," "carer," and "donor" are all rather innocuous words in themselves, but they are also generally positive words.  Caring for someone is seen as a noble thing, as is donating.  Complete suggests a positive end to something, though it has more potential than the other two words for negative connotation.  These are supposed to be good words, but Ishiguro uses them to signify things that, in plain terms, would be dark and disturbing to people.  Because, for most readers, these words have a mostly positive connotation associated with them, and Ishiguro uses them to represent such ugly things in the world he builds, it says something about that world and the people that live in it--that it is deceptive.  

Clones as Guardians

I found it to be an interesting choice to use "regular" people as Guardians, rather than keeping the entire cloning system a bit more self-contained by filling those roles with clones. The clones at no point (at least through the first 19 chapters) seem to have any will to change their role in the world. The only attempt at subversion that is demonstrated throughout most of the book is by Miss Lucy, a non-clone. The clones do seem to have all of the other responses of "normal" people, with the exception of an utter willingness to accept their pre-determined lot. By making this so easy for the clones to accept, does it make it easier for us as readers to accept as well? So far the book has not really evoked any sympathy in me for the clones; their lives are odd and sad but their own lack of any attempt at change has left me feeling like more of a detached viewer than Miss Lucy struck me as. (We'll see if something in the last few chapters changes this for me this afternoon.)

I just realized that I may not have been explicit in my main point which is: If the clones offer no resistance to the accepted order, I think we could argue that even if they were placed in the (distasteful?) role of Guardians, they would still be unlikely to make an attempt to change the way things are.

Who are you talking to Kath?

I guess I am still thinking about narration after the past week of Darkmans talk. One thing that kept creeping up on me while I read Never Let Me Go was when Kathy says "I don't know what it was like where you were" several times through the novel. I wish I could find where because I forgot to mark it. Regardless it is an interesting device in the narration. She is either directly addressing someone whom she is caring for or someone in the proximity. Perhaps even more disturbingly she could be addressing us, the readers, as if we were in this world. The first time I read it I felt less connected to the narration because of it, like someone was trying to co-opt me into a certain state which I did not want to be in. This was before I knew about the clones and every time after that reveal this phrase became more and more concerning to me. It is based upon the fact that we have knowledge of he world, of its inner workings. If I am able to understand the meaning behind her examples then that means that I am either a clone being harvested or a citizen willing to stand by and let these people be harvested. Regardless this narrative choice by Ishiguro is haunting.

The Commodification of the "Human" Body

Spoiler Alert! Don't read if you haven't finished the novel completely. I don't want to give anything away!

In Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go, the main characters Kath, Ruth, and Tommy are raised in a mysterious boarding school somewhere in the English countryside. Through the novel, which is told in flashback's through Kath's perspective, they develop from children into adults. They go about their lives knowing they are meant for something greater and knowing that someday they will begin donating their vital organs to others. By the way did I forget to mention they are clones?!
Throughout the novel, Kath and her friends only attain so much knowledge about their true purpose and at the end, they still do not obtain all of the facts about why they were created and why they are treated the why they are.
The issue of commodities and commodification comes in to play when we think about Kath, Ruth, and Tommy as commodities themselves. According to Marx commodities comes into existence through two reasons, one, to satisfy a human need and two, due to the effort of human labor (664). He also states that, "the products of labor become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible" (664). Using these two ideas from Marx, I wish to discuss Kath and friends in terms of commodities.
As a product of human labor, a clone, and having been created to fulfill a societal need, organ donation, Kath and her companions would qualify as commodities according to Marx. However, unlike a table, which is inanimate, Ishiguro's reoccurring question of the humanity of clones like Kath, complicates Marx's theory and evokes millions of questions, which the novel debates, as to what is makes us human?
If it is our abilities to produce products through hours of labor which are relevant to society, than would not Kath and her friends, through the production of vital organs be considered as human? Because the can "create" something that society needs?
Another point would be in regards to the art work the Hailsham students are prompted to create. While the aesthetic pleasure of viewing art is not a commodity; the fact that Kath creates something through labor and that it is valued based on the system at Hailsham cannot be overlooked. The question it implies however, is whether this example is a "mock" or created system which mirrors the production of commodities in the real world? Does Ishiguro use the Hailsham Exchanges as symbolic of the real life system which commodifies the bodies of Kath and the other clones?

It's All in Our Minds

Never Let Me Go is the pinnacle of dystopian fiction. What could be more awful than creating humans to be used for spare parts for other humans? I’m not sure why anyone would think the clones might not have a soul but we are never told exactly how these clones were created. This cloning idea is the latest 1984-like scheme that we already know has the potential to become true.

Probably the saddest part of the book is at the very end when Kath learns that Tommy has “completed” (287). It’s an interesting choice of language. Ishiguro could have used the word “died” but that would be too human-like. These clones are part of a business transaction so it’s appropriate that the language would be business-like. Even Kath calls the cloned people “donors,” which identifies them solely by their functions as human beings(3). While Kath is a “carer,” it’s a title similar to nurse so it isn’t such a loaded term even though we know she will eventually become a donor (3). It’s interesting that they are given first names and only the first initial of the last name, as if they don’t really have a true identity, which I guess they don’t.

Other thoughts: the “sales” are the only connection the characters have with the outside world, which is interesting because they are actually the commodities and that will eventually become their primary/sole connection with the outside world. Ishiguro’s style is muted and plain – there are no incredibly emotional scenes. There is an overall melancholic feel to the narration; if it were a color it would be beige.

Most curious to me is the submissiveness of the characters, their acceptance of their fate with no thought of escaping even though they have some freedom as they get older. It’s very creepy that they are so accepting of their fate. So what keeps them so powerless? Is it a physiological characteristic bred into them? Is it drugs? They have freedom but don’t exercise it even when they know they could find some happiness by living as couples. It seems to emphasize that the greatest barriers we have as humans are the ones we construct in our own minds.

Never Let Me Go: An Argument for Veganism

Humans are cloned, raised, and then slaughtered (in stages) for their body parts.  Then the novel continues with the argument, are they really human?  Do they have souls?

Hailsham, an enlightened stock yard, encourages the livestock to be creative--to show that they do have souls.  How else could they be creative?

And then love.  Bulls and cows enjoy sexual relations--recreational, not affirmational.  But some do form romantic--"love"--attachments.  There is even a rumor that the authorities will put of the trip to the abatoir for three years if they can prove they are in love.  This, of course, is not true.

The sensitive reader will conclude that despite the live stocks' cloned conception, they are human. We see the full spectrum of humanity in their daily lives  However, they are raised for a purpose and, as much as one might be squeamish about the business of the farmyard, the public sees the benefits of this peculiar arrangement--it will save the life of someone dear, or important.

The enlightened stock yards are dismissed and the livestock are continued to be raised in what we are given to believe are horrific conditions.

Authenticity and (re)production:

Are they any less authentic/human because of the reason for their creation?  Their production is based on science--cloning, life created with out love--or at least some level of passion.  And they are not allowed to reproduce-have children--themselves.  They are reproduced on an assembly line basis.

Let's not forget the ban on smoking to keep the meat in good condition.

Anyone for a nice big steak?

Cheerio,

Wayne

 

I'm Sure You All Are Wondering

I first blog on Darkmans was that it was not a cohesive, organic work.  So many parts of it seemed to have no relation to other parts.  When I was finished, I wondered, what the hell was that?  Now, it still does not make much sense when looked at as one entity but, as we have taken it apart on the blogs here and in class, the parts are comprehensible, it's putting them together that is the problem.

Cheers

"edges"

While reading Ghostwritten and Darkmans, I have noticed the idea of liminality arising over and over again. Particularly, I have noticed the recurrence of edges, like quasars on the edges of black holes. "Gaffar's father had been born in Sinjar, on the Syrian/Iraqi border (it was the Kurdish lot to be born on the edge of things, the perimeter, to be squeezed into the outer reaches; at worst to be persecuted, at best loathed and ignored)" (Barker 66). I am beginning to see edges as a part of globalization. Biopower, for example, by categorizing everything, must have many "edges." I am curious as to why these edges would be come so prevalent in globalization. I realize that there was an "acceptable" and a "other," before biopower, large groups with which persons could identify. Now that nothing is "other," and everything is classified, is labeled, does this greatly increase marginalization?

Feet

I have been thinking about the recurrent theme of feet in this.

Now, after reading Julies post about the mutation of language, I wonder about the mutation of feet and shoes.

Kane's mother, we assume, was born with normal feet but then through her career as a dancer, her feet became deformed by overuse.  Yet, she created beauty through dance that resulted in the destruction and ugliness of her feet.

And then there are the pointed toes.  In Beede's dream he looks down at his feet, "- were tightly encased in a pair of  tiny, leather shoes; ornate leather pumps, dramatically pointed.  And the toes - (320).

Later Kane--in some kind of state--is thinking that he is putting soil in his shoes, "His tiny, hand-made, exquisitely stitched, ludicrously pointed boots . . ." (572).

Were these Medieval shoes and they were both channeling John Scogin?

More about shoes is the discussion between Elen and Kane about his feet.  Kane believes he has "unnaturally large feet" but Elen tells him, "'You have perfectly normal-sized feet.'" (394). They embark on a discussion of Doc Martens and, though "'Manufactured in the UK [...] They don't depend on the exploitation of third world labour.'" But Kane says '''there may be serious Human Rights issues in the country - or countries - where they source their rubber . . .'" (395).

I think here we have "The Sweatshop Sublime."

And please don't think I have a foot fetish.

Cheers,

Wayne

The narration of Darkmans is still something that I am grappling with. I want to find meaning in the spaces and endless parenthetical statements. Like we were discussing in class last week the narration breaks on the page give the reader a wide breadth of signals on the page. What I have noticed is that on the pages where there are breaks it reads, to me at least, like the narrator is being cut off and being thrown from the narrative for a few seconds. It only takes that long for you to read the small pieces of Kane's thoughts on page 71 but what strikes me is how at each cut there is a "-" behind and in front the narration. Kane is forcefully interjecting his thoughts into the lines of narration at these points. The narrator is not finished speaking but Kane's words come in and break apart the way it should look. Kane's unwillingness to let the narrator narrate then devalues the narration. If the one telling the story cannot get a word in edge-wise then why should we listen? I believe that is the reason that it takes so much effort to read this novel, we are constantly seeing a struggle between the story trying to tell itself and the characters being uncooperative. On page 240 it seems as though Kane and the narrator are both trying to do the same job, which makes it difficult for the reader to identify important information. In this passage there is a perfect example of how Kane is butting in on the narrator's expertise, 

"Wasn't it simply giving him carte blanche to think about - to dwell on - to linger . . . 

On her? 

Elen?

Or... 

God -

Worse still (standing quietly behind her, almost eclipsed by her shadow / 

Beede?

No.

No It was the foot." (240). 

Kane supersedes what would have been accomplished in narration to let his thoughts in. When the narrator finishes the firsts sentence in this section by saying "linger" it's even hard to tell if that is Kane's thoughts or the narrator's description because it is italicized. Then at the end they echo each other's thought, that it cannot be Elen or Beede, just the wart. They are both attempting to realize the same thoughts and words and they come out simultaneously.

Shifting Identity and a cup-o-noodles

I couldn't help but jump on Chang and Voge's website while reading Walkowdtz's "Close Reading in an Age of Global Writing."  As she went through the various examples I decided to watch the ones she was talking about.  She wrote of Chang and Voge that "In their work translation helps generate solidarities both smaller and larger than the nation" and that was certainly true for me as I watched "Morning of the Mongoloids."  The latest version is in German/English, so I wasn't able to watch the Porteguese one that she watched but I think that I may have experienced a similar result.  I related everything back to myself, my language, and my country.  At first, with the translated language being German, I thought that this clearly must be a German man.  Once he left the apartment and speculated as to where he was and suspected Chinatown, I thought he must have been transmigrated to one of the Chinatowns in the states, because after all, part of this story is relayed in English, right?  After I finished and the last two shots are that he is eating a cup-o-noodles which is great for a hangover, and then it just hangs on the last screen. I don't know if anyone else watched these, and if they got a huge laugh at the end because (not only is it true that cup-o-noodles are a very enjoyable hangover food) I knew I was duped.  I knew as soon as I read that last line that I was ascribed a degree of drama and intensity to this story that was uncalled for.  There is a degree of error in translating and in confusing details, but what was so great about both Walkowdtz's piece and the website was that in the end, global write is translatable.  A story that although in English, really does show the solidarity between a presumably European man, myself (an American woman) and this manifested Korean identity.  Furthermore, the actual story indicates that the identity of any of these traits (European, American, Korean, man, woman) are constructed based on various factors that are constantly at risk of shifting.

iiny-ieny-eeny...

So a few other people have mentioned the use of language in Darkmans. But I don't think anyone has pointed out the fascinating tracing of English becoming English, and how skillfully Barker plays with the transformation of words.

In my undergrad studies I did a fair bit of work in linguistics and old and middle English. Though I didn't love everything about Darkmans one thing I did really enjoy was watching the characters take Middle English (sometimes even middle French and German) and Germanic words and work the sounds out until they became recognizable modern English. I've always enjoyed tracing how our language came to be and particularly pointing out what's a Germanic word, what's a French word and how they mushed together to get English. As far as I know, I no longer have the OED in full online, as I believe it is restricted to institutions or paying members. So I'm not sure if the words I'm looking at in this passage are truly "old worlds."

So I'm pretty sure that these words that are coming to the characters stem from John Scogin's supposed possession and influence on the characters, being that he is a learned scholar of the times, living in I think France. (I was never really sure where he came from, but that he was an educated jester, which seems unlikely as it is. So suspend some belief there). When Beede wakes up in the shower in chapter 12, he's totally disoriented, and his thoughts are in a different language. The first instance that isn't just reactionary sounds is "pen" and "penna." In Latin, penna specifically means "feather." So either Beede is thinking rather haltingly or Barker is playing with her words, since a "penna" could also be considered a quill, or a pen. From there he switches to "feder" which sounds like it's a bastardization of "feather" to English speakers, but really it's the German word for "feather."  Interestingly, "feder" also is a Latinate root from "fidere" for words that have a trustworthy connotation, such as federation or as the sound gets warped fidelity. (http://www.english-for-students.com/feder.html). I wonder just how deeply Barker looked at these word plays, since Beede is in no position at this state, particularly with his warped sense of reality to be trusting things. Particularly black feathers in his shower.

The section goes on. Beede eventually goes through several permutations of words until he uses his blood as ink for the quill, really showing how Barker is playing with her reader.

This word play happens all over the book, but really only with Kane, Beede and Dory, the three who are most affected by the "possession" and with Kane only in his dreams. I'm not quite sure what that means for the difference between Beede and Kane, perhaps a generational thing, but for Dory it's more obvious because he's already bilingual, so it makes sense that he'd think of words in another language until he came across the one he was looking for.

For me, there's not a lot in this book that's really very engaging, but this was one aspect that I really enjoyed, probably because I felt a little smug when I noticed it.

What is Literature?

I know that there are a number of answers to the question, “What is literature?” To wit: (1) it is anything written, (2) it is writing that is deemed to be superior in quality and of lasting value, (3) it is whatever you think it is, and (4) no one really knows because it is one of those unanswerable questions.

Rebecca Walkowitz in this week’s article goes by definition number 3 and approaches it as anything that involves words. I think she’s right about world literature being redefined by globalization but I wonder about the choice she made in deciding to do some close reading of the material produced by Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries.

The people behind the website describe themselves as artists and they produce something that to me seems to be more performance art than literature. Flashing words at the viewer, even if the words do form sentences eventually, is not literature in my book. I’m not saying it has no value; I found it all very interesting but after the fourth chapter(??) I could “read” no more because I was afraid I might have a seizure and that would be especially upsetting as I am not normally prone to seizures. It seems to me that the Chang-Voge work is the kind that belongs on the fourth floor at MOMA along with the artwork featuring a record player scratching along on an album or with the artwork of mirrors sticking up willy-nilly out of globs of what looks like dryer lint or with the white wall with black letters that say “A WALL PITTED BY A SINGLE AIR RIFLE SHOT” (the museum explains that they decided against actually shooting the wall so they settled on just writing the explanation of what the artist did). I like all kinds of art even though some of the more outlandish stuff on the fourth floor is beyond my ken.

So, when Walkowitz tries to do some close reading of the new type of world literature I wonder why she chose the Chang-Voge stuff. Was it the most outrageous example of “literature” she could find? I know that someday there will be only electronic stuff to read and that the Chang-Voge work is apparently “distinctive,” but I wonder how typical that style will become as opposed to stories that will be “born-digital” and “born-translated” but won’t be flashed at the reader.

I get her point about how the definition of world literature is changing in so many ways (translated immediately, available immediately, etc.), but I’m not sure what these new close-reading strategies are that she concludes are needed in the “Age of Global Writing.” I question whether the “writing” that Chang and Voge do can even be classified as writing and how representative it is of storytelling in our increasingly digital world. Does this mean that “A WALL PITTED BY A SINGLE AIR RIFLE SHOT” is literature too?

P.S. (Apparently I am rather thick because I don't really see any new close reading strategies outlined in her article, which she delivered to audiences all over the country. As I am doing the presentation on this reading, I will read this a few more times so perhaps by Thursday I will figure out the strategies. Nevertheless, I will still question the definition of "literature."

And you thought YOUR family was dysfunctional?!

How does one talk about Darkmans without addressing the completely dysfunctional relationship between Beede and Kane?  One need not venture far to smell that there is certainly something rotten in Denmark.  Out of the astounding 838 pages, it only takes a handful before the reader realizes that this father-son duo is in absolute shambles.  I mean, what son happens to run into their father at a coffee shop and demands, "Beede, why the f*** are you here?" (17)?  Aside from the colorfully disrespectful language, shouldn't this random meeting be considered more of a happy coincidence rather than a dreaded fate?  Don't get me wrong, there are certainly times being on the other side of the globe isn't far enough away from certain unnamed relatives, but the banter between this gruesome twosome certainly does not give off the fuzziest of feelings.  As uncomfortable as their relationship made me feel at times, it never appeared to faze them.  Their interactions with one another were completely normal and par for their twisted course.  It is as if they fed off of each other.  It is as if they yearned for it.  I believe that there is an absolutely perfect selection that so precisely sums up their relationship: "And because Beede, his father, was so exquisitely dull (celebrated a kind of immaculate dullness-he was the Virgin Mary of the Long Hour) Kane had gradually engineered himself into his father's anti.  If Beede had ever sought to underpin the community then Kane had always sought to undermine it.  If Beede lived like a monk, then Kane revelled in smut and degeneracy.  If Beede felt the burden of life's weight (and heaven knows, he felt it), then Kane consciously rejected worldly care" (20).   This strained relationship is paramount to the "plot" of this novel and without it, we would sadly miss the je ne sais quoi that these lovely lads possess.  I wonder though, would they be equally interesting if they were on their own?  Would they demand as much attention or consideration if they did not interact with one another?  I seriously think not.  Beede without Kane is like peanut butter without jelly.  Kane without Beede is like Batman without Robin.  It just wouldn't work.  I'm certainly not saying that I desire this type of relationship with my parental units, but I am saying that there is a definite and dare say, required amount of dysfunction in every relationship for it to function on a normal level.

And Back to the Scotland Vote

In The New York Review of Books, 11/6/14 there is an article on the Scottish vote for independence (Ian Jack, 48-9).  He reports that the most votes for "Yes" were in Dundee and Glasgow.  In his analysis of the voting, Ian Jack reports:

"[I]n Glasgow and its formerly industrial hinterland--if the referendum was to be won. Together with newly formed socialist groups in the Yes campaign, it stressed the misery that neo-liberalism and the UK government's austerity policy was bringing to many areas that were already poor and rundown, particularly the towns and settlements around Glasgow that until forty years ago rolled steel, made ships, and dug coal.  Yes campaigners reproached the London government for benefit cuts, food banks (the modern equivalent of soup kitchens), and alleged threats of to funding of the National Health Service, and envisaged a happier future in which a more generous welfare system would be sustained by tax revenues from North Sea oil" (49).

Sounds like some of our class discussions and blogs, doesn't it.

Wayne

Update

After posting my initial blog, a brief but honest view of the novel,  have indeed looked at what all y'all have written and now have been able to make more sense of Darkmans.  This is not to say that I like it any better.  And this from someone who enjoys and identifies to some extent with the weird in this world.  I did like the Dina Broad and thought her last name an apt description of her persona.

Cheerio,

Wayne

Harvey and His Stuff

While I was reading Darkmans there was one section that I really thought connected to the ideas and critical theories we have been reading in class. In Part 2 the chapter called "Abacus Builders LTD" we get a full description of Harvey Broad. And by description all I mean is a list of the products that he has coated himself in, this man is nothing but a walking commercial for useless construction themed paraphernalia. From his "builder's buddy" which is a "kind of  construction worker's gun holster" to his flashlight, "totally water and shock resistant. Blasts out 500 Lumens"  and cost $392 (175). So I have never worked construction but if you need a flashlight that can resist shocks, someone probably didn't do their job right. The flashlight is also military grade, or so it is marketed. Not only s he decked out in ridiculous gear but he is obsessed with the fact that it all relates to American products. His wrap around sunglasses are from QVC and his truck has been modified by Bob Chandler, "a folk hero of the American car industry" (176). Harvey identifies with the idea of rampant consumerism intrinsic to the world's view of America. Not once does the narrator stop to give us a glance at what Harvey actually looks like, he is only defined by the products he has and how luxurious, or difficult they were to achieve. This man truly exists in the sweatshop, but not once does he stop to think about the origin of his products. Those QVC sunglasses were most likely made in a factory in China with grueling conditions and hours. His flashlight claims to be the "first choice of the American military" (175) but I would wager it just said that on the front of the box (although it would make sense that the government would spend that crazy amount of money on a so-so torch) to entice consumers with some small connection to the military. He does not even say what branch, just "the military" and how "they don't screw around" (175). This is a man that capitalism has possessed, he is only the value of the things on him, or the narrator only sees fit to define him by what he can purchase.

Darkmans, language and style

            Let me start out by saying I was not a big fan of Darkmans.  Some of my dislike has to do with style, but mostly I just found that I didn't like it on some grander level.  Despite this, I appreciate some of the things Barker does, even if I didn't really enjoy the novel all that much. 

            Already mentioned was Barker's grammatical style, and it is both brilliant and terrible at the same time.  Some might even argue with my choice to describe it as "grammatical" style, because she eschews so many "rules" of traditional grammar.  This is not something new to us in Contemporary British Literature, but in some ways Barker's style choices seem almost more egregious than, say, Kelman, because we can almost excuse the latter as stream-of-consciousness with Kelman making appropriate grammatical choices to express this specific mode.  Barker, on the other hand, sporadically departs from traditional grammatical forms for a more subtle, pinpoint effect.  Barker's italicizing, bolding, and loose (at times) punctuation and paragraphing all have authorial intention behind them to create a specific effect in the reader.  Occasionally Barker's stylistic choices can be confusing, but the underlying idea behind her choices--to add another layer to the text through grammar--is a concept that has a lot of potential for writers.

            Barker's other admirable achievement in Darkmans lies in the novel's preoccupation with language.  We have talked before about language being an arbitrary relationship between signs and signifiers, and Barker seems keenly aware of this.  Darkmans is laced with double-meanings and authorial influence attempting to influence how the reader makes meaning of the language employed.  What I'll call "language control" begins with the first sentence of the novel ". . . Ashford; the gateway to Europe."  It is very strange that Barker describes Ashford in relation to another place, and yet stranger that Barker assigns that other place to be "Europe."  Ashford is in the county (?) of Kent, in England (Britain or the United Kingdom), part of the continent of Europe, on the planet of Earth, et. cetera.  Barker's choice to use "Europe" in her description of Ashford is significant and intentional, and representative of the type of language control Barker employs on almost any given page of Darkmans.

Tangled and Incomprehensible Web

Oh Ms. Barker, what an infuriatingly tangled web you weave.

After Dr. Karl said something to the effect of: "Well, a lot of my students have hated this book, but I hope some of you will love it," I was absolutely determined that I would find a way to at least like it.  Sadly, however--after much tenacious effort, mind you--I did not like it.  Actually, and please forgive my candor for saying so, I can now be successfully added to the group of past students who have also hated it. 

Perhaps what I found most troubling and annoying was the lack of a coherent plot or even, a plot at all.  Sure, there is a central cast of characters whom we follow throughout the 838 pages, but the only person who seems to have any real motive or purpose is Beede.  In Beede's quest to "right the wrongs" that have been done to him as a result of the theft of his precious antique tiles, the so-called "plot" becomes even further complicated.  We meet even more people whose motives are unclear.  I honestly began to feel like I was a detective assigned the impossible task of uncovering mysterious clues that did not even exist.  There were moments in the midst of my sheer and utter bewilderment that I could almost hear the demonic cackle of The Darkmans himself making fun of me. 

Aside from the exceptionally disjointed storyline, Barker's use of language threw me for yet another loop.  In reference to Gaffar's Turkish/broken English, I'm embarrassed to even admit how long it took me to realize what the bold faced type was meant to symbolize.  In addition, the ways in which Kane switches from eloquent and comprehensible English to suddenly relaying his thoughts through broken and incomplete sentences was also rather jarring.  Although Peta says this condescendingly, I believe that there is a great deal of truth in relation to the language gaps I found in reading this novel: "...the absurd idea that language has these gaps in it and that lives can somehow just tumble through (825).

Alright, I know I may be coming off as a bit harsh, but don't get me wrong though, I totally appreciate the epic creativity that went into Barker's efforts.  In order to produce characters and language with such depth and interest, there is a certain amount of je ne sais quoi that only a brilliantly skilled author can possess.  Although I was utterly confused and frustrated to no end in my reading of this novel, there is a certain amount of credit Barker is deserved.  And as much as I personally didn't like the novel, perhaps she can be labeled as a kind of literary genius (albeit possibly wacky) in her own right.  After all, hasn't it been said that some of the most profound literary works were created by people a little off their rockers?  Wasn't it Sylvia Plath who infamously stuck her head in an oven?

Jobs in Darkmans

Throughout Darkmans, many of the characters are identified specifically with reference to their professions. The chiropodist and the unemployed mother seem to stand out to me in this regard. While they do not seem to be pigeonholed into categories based solely upon these professions, there does seem to be a preoccupation with them.
In light of this, I think that Dory's observation that Harvey was operating three distinct businesses and that he carried a different cell phone for each one, is significant. I think that the correlation between a character and his or her profession is made explicit by the narrator's comment: "And he certainly didn't know (how could he?) that each business represented a different 'side' to Harvey (in much the same way that different outfits and accessories represented a different 'side' to Barbie)."
It seems that the novel expands upon the idea of businesses as representative of the people that engage in them by allowing the reader to engage in a bit of stereotyping and formulating assumptions (which often prove to be true, as in the case of the unemployed mother) about the characters based upon where they fit into the economics of society.

Darkmans as Teacher?

Darkmans has a pretty informal tone throughout the book. The point of view switches back and forth between characters, and even during the narrative focuses on both the narrative, and internal thoughts of the characters as they are reacting to what is taking place on the narrative. But something that struck me was points in the novel where Barker just flat out uses her characters to dictate political opinions and it very much pulled me out of the novel.

The first section that really bugged me was the section where Beede is talking to the cart collector at Tesco about his importance to the store and the chain of workers it takes to get a consumer their goods (particularly through home delivery). Of all the characters Beede is the most teacher-y, but his little diatribe in this section borders on uncharacteristic and really sounds like Barker just hashing out her economic opinions. And it goes on for pages: " 'But what if they're disabled?' Beede challenged him. 'Then they can get their shoppin' delivered on the internet. (delivered on the internet? what?)' 'And how many people are needed to facilitate that?' Brian shrugged. 'Well, let's count them off shall we? There's the person at the computer --for starters-- who receives the order, the person who goes out into the shop and collects the order, the person who stores it until delivery, the person whose job it is to coordinate the transport...' (352). Beede's little diatribe about the evil Tesco reads like a Plato discourse. I dunno, it's just something that really seemed a bit forced in the writing for me.

I was fine to let it go as just a one time kind of annoying thing, until it cropped up again, later in the book. The section with Kane and Peta felt very similar. Here's a couple of characters who were talking about forgery, and suddenly we're reading about branding and exploited workers. It seemed like Barker just took the novel and steered it in a completely different direction to air some personal grievances, then swerved back into the story. That section is even longer--a full ten pages of "lesson." (391-401).

It almost feels like most of the things we've been discussing in class can be summed up in those passages, but it's the way that they're written, and how it seems so shoehorned into the narrative that really bothers me. I guess it's the didactic nature of it, but also the way that it uses a character, then postulates and answers its own questions with a "lesser," learning character.  I found it fussy, and there could have been a better way to include these ideas in the narrative, or leave them out entirely, if they're only going to be used as "teaching moments." There are several other places where the novel does this, but these passages were the worst for me.

MY IQ EQUALS MY SHOE SIZE

When Garrison Keillor, one of my favorite writers, moved to Denmark with his new wife, he was unfamiliar with the Danish language. The New Yorker writer discovered that in Denmark his IQ now equaled his shoe size. He was able to contribute words like “yes,” “no,” and “I don’t know,” and phrases like “My luggage is at the train station” and “Where is Aunt Jane’s pencil?”

I thought of that as I read Darkmans, and was interested in the difference between what someone says in an unfamiliar language and what they would say in their fluent language. In a section of one passage Gaffar says the words “cat,” “bell,” and “fucking nuthouse.” In actuality, Gaffar is saying “Because it’s starting to weigh me down a little — the whole cat thing, the whole bell thing… First your father insinuates it, and then you do. Yeah? And I’m not entirely sure if the confusion that’s developing between us here is based on some fundamental linguistic or cultural difference, or if I’m living in a complete fucking nuthouse— but the fundamental facts of the matter—as I see them….” (507). The passage continues with Gaffar, in Kurdish, using vocabulary like voyeuristic and blithely.

It’s certainly easy to dismiss someone’s intelligence when he can barely string two words together. I found that aspect of the author’s experimentation with language and form interesting, but I admit that I was confused half the time during the story. I really thought that at the end the chiropodist (a new vocabulary word for me) would turn out to be evil. Maybe she is and I don’t realize it because the plot was so hard to follow.

As to some of her other experimentations, at first I got a kick out of the thought bubbles in which we hear what a character is thinking via an isolated word in italics, but then I found it tiresome. I felt the same way about the descriptions in parentheses. I liked them occasionally, such as: “The unmentionable hung between them like a dark canal (overrun by weed and scattered with litter—the used condoms, the bent tricycle, the old pram) (340). It was a gross but a vivid visual and I always appreciate visual writing. I did appreciate some of her other language. For example, when she describes the turkeys as “a posse of grey-suited prison guards;” Gaffar’s discomfort with vegetables, “…he was perky by the broccoli, tranquil by the onions, sanguine by the potatoes”; and Peta’s “dark, hand-painted brows which decorated her fine-boned face like two fabulous pieces of Chinese calligraphy” (362, 361, 368). 

Barker is certainly experimental and buries the English stereotype of stodgy. There is nothing stodgy about this novel. Oh, there is also some stuff about economics. I vote for Wayne to discuss that.

Expressing Language in Darkmans and Ghostwritten

Nicola Barker's Darkmans is a novel of pure experimentation. Everything from the absence of a coherent plot to the use of typical dialogue tags are different from the typical novel. Barker's form is highly experimental. we have already seen experimentation with "typical" form in several of the other novels in this class. Kelman's experimented with Sammy's language, Smith and Mitchell experimented with narration as well as language, and once again in Barker's novel we see this kind of experimentation. 
However, I want to draw a parallel between the representation in Barker's novel in relation to Mitchell's portrayal of language specifically.
As discussed in class, Mitchell's Ghostwritten employs the use of "transfer" to get his reader to understand, that although the text is written in English certain characters are actually speaking in other languages, such as Quasar in the first and final sections is supposedly speaking Japanese. However, Mitchell does not do anything other than tell his reader that this is how he wants them to read. Barker takes a different (and I believe a more successful) approach to this idea in her novel.
In Darkmans, the character of Gaffar is supposed to be Kurdish. Barker both tells us this through his physical description but also through his speech. Barker bold faces the text in his dialogue that is supposed to be Kurdish in order to make it stand out as different. For example, 'You're too, dman skinny already," Gaffar protested, "what do you want salad for? You need some good protien. Chicken. Steak. Lamb. Not salad. Salad's shit. Just water with a dash of color...' (Barker 221). Here Barker bold faces the words that are supposed to be in another language and does not bold the words that are supposed to be English. This provides the reader with a physical clue to the language in the novel, unlike in Mitchell's novel were we as readers just have to pretend. So in spite of the fact that all the words are in English, the bolded words suggest to the reader that Kelly only understand the non-bold words in Gaffar's lines of  dialogue. This is how Barker suggests/demonstrates language in her text more successfully than in Mitchell's novel, through her use of nontraditional and experimental writing techniques. 

Darkmans

I am looking forward to reading other people's blogs on Nicola Barker's Darkmans.  All the while I was reading it and after finishing, I pondered and cogitated over the meaning.  Having given a great deal of thought, I have come up with the following conclusion:

It don't make no sense!

Cheerio,

Wayne

Biopower--Outside it?

I was listening to the "Writer's Almanac" this morning on the wireless and Garrison Keillor recited this poem by W.S. Merwin:


To the Happy Few

Do you know who you are

O you forever listed
under some other heading
when you are listed at all

you whose address
when you have them
are never sold except
for another reason
something else that is
supposed to identify you

who carry no card
stating that you are--
what would it say you were
to someone turning it over
looking perhaps for
a date or for
anything to go by

you with no secret handshake
no proof of membership
no way to prove such a thing
even to yourselves

you without a word
of explanation
and only yourselves
as evidence

Warning!

Thank you, Dr. Karl, for assigning us to read Never Let Me Go.  I have had to double my daily dose of Prozac.

Cheerio,

Wayne

The players are all in...

I found it fascinating that Petersberg and London, with their adventurous narrators were back to back. In Petersberg we have Margarita, who is openly admitting that she takes "lovers" for personal gain.  For Margarita her sexual relationships don't always equate love, but power, until she falls for Rudi. I find it interesting that of all the men for her to really love, she loves the one who is most unavailable even though he is "hers." Between Rudi's drug use and his various "respectable" or  "club" women, he seems to be spending time with everyone but her. Tatyana's conversation with Margarita  also seems to be steering Margarita away from Rudi. The difference between Margarita and Marco is that though Margarita is a  monogamous relationship, she is still engaging in outside sexual activities for the good of the relationship, while Marco switches from a wider net to a monogamous relationship with Poppy.

At the beginning of Marco's chapter he is sorta kinda in an "open relationship"  with Poppy, the mother of his daughter. But he talks quite freely of his various conquests and bedmates. He seems to have a string of one-night stands or short stints of casual sex. I don't think it's right necessarily to label him as commitment phobic, but he seems to rely on his idea of fate and destiny to decide his actions. There are several different women and names he mentions in his chapter, each one a memory triggered by a thing or a place he sees, but he always seems to come back to Poppy or compare them. His luck in the casino, and the near miss of being very rich, then very dead, really pushes him to make an actual decision for himself. Unlike Margarita who's brush with death ends with Rudi being taken from her, Marco's near miss only serves to draw him closer to Poppy.

The two chapters almost serve as a moral foil. Margarita's crimes and relations though small until she kills Jerome, land her in jail. Marco's big mistakes and flustering nets him a wife. I think Margarita's crimes are worse, art theft is a big deal. But did she only do it for love? Marco's failure to settle on any one thing leads him various bad paths, broke, in debt, floundering, but it takes a scare to push him to decide. The two stories back to back have more power as a couple, than the would if they were spread out through the book.

The Novel as a Vehicle for Awareness in Current Society

Okay, so this is mainly speculative and hopefully the group presentation on Vermeulen will help clarify my thoughts on the subject of biopower. I was interested in the section of the article in which Vermeulen quotes Foucault saying, "'that there is a fundamental, essential kinship between tragedy and right...just as there is probably a kinship between the novel and the problem of the norm' (175)" (Vermeulen 388). I took Vermeulen's thoughts here to be in reference to reading the novel as a global or national literary device. So to say that the ideal "global/national" novel presents itself readers with a view of society and the world around them, which include the problems their society is facing. For example in Ghostwritten, as unethically as his organizations motives are for creating a racial pure world, Quasar does point out the problems current society is facing in relation to technology. At one point he says, "The usual red-and-white TV transmitter, was broadcasting the government's subliminal command frequencies" (Mitchell 4). Quasar's cult has taught him that technology is used by the government to spread lies to the population. He also believes that this is what makes the world outside of his cultist group "unclean."
So while, most people in current society do not share these beliefs, it does however point to a negative reputation of technology and its consuming influence on humanity today. I believe in this way, that Vermeulen's reference to Foucault can relate to the problems in our current society but addressing them through novels. Since novels reflect the conditions of the worlds in which they are written.

Close reading Zookeeper (and Bat)

            After the section break on page 386, as in numerous other places in the "Night Train" chapter, the new section opens with Bat doing his disk jockey spiel.  Interspersed with Bat's radio jargon, there are some interesting pieces of information hidden in the paragraph.  Bat talks about three musicians:  Thelonious Monk, Milton Nascimento and Joao Gilberto.  Monk is a celebrated American jazz musician, which makes perfect sense for Bat's show, but the other two don't seem to fit as well.  Notably, both Nascimento and Gilberto are both Brazilian musicians.  This choice of musicians by Mitchell does two distinct things within the novel:  First, it further establishes Bat's character as a lover of eclectic music, which makes sense given his role as a radio show host.  Secondly, the choice to reference musicians from outside the United States (or Britain), suggests at a very basic level the global society that Mitchell seems to be trying to portray.  It is important to note that Bat references many musicians and songs throughout the "Night Train" chapter, and it is possible that Mitchell uses these references as literary devices to accomplish different things at different times (for example, playing off of Dylan's "Jokerman" and Streisand's "Superman" earlier in the chapter for a different juxtaposing effect).

            On the following page, Zookeeper calls in for his second conversation with Bat.  Close reading Zookeeper is a nuanced affair, because Zookeeper seems to lack the subtleness and tact of a Human.  Bat seems interested in Zookeeper for the novelty factor; as a host he wants to keep this crazy--but entertaining--person talking, and as a result Bat seems to acquiesce not press Zookeeper too hard on any of the details that emerge.  Perhaps most interesting out of this exchange on 387 is when Bat asks Zookeeper about seeing the aurora from the inside, to which Zookeeper responds:  "The rules governing use of language are complex, and I lack practice in words.  Imagine being drunk on opals."  Despite seeming hesitant, possibly even avoidant, Zookeeper creates a beautiful metaphor for what it might be like to see the aurora from within.  (Well, let's not forget that it's Mitchell that creates this metaphor, but through the voice of Zookeeper).  For Zookeeper, this simple metaphor adds a level of complexity to his character.  Zookeeper may be a non-corporeal being, but he can see the beauty of the aurora, and more importantly, can engage in the art of crafting metaphors.  Both of these things suggest a depth of emotion to Zookeeper, who Mitchell seemed to design to be a cold, distant character. 

HIS HOLY CULTNESS, AND ONE MAN IS ACTUALLY AN ISLAND

I was intrigued with the first chapter on Quasar and his fervent beliefs. I have always found it fascinating that people can be so blind to what I see as the glaring contradictions in cult leader behavior, so I thought it interesting to read the thoughts of someone who was a believer. The entire chapter on Okinawa contains a plethora of biblical references, all pointing to “His Serendipity” as the savior and eternal god of light who will rule over the “New Earth” by Christmas, the birthday of the Christian savior (Mitchell 24). He will take control in a blaze of light – the comet. In the meantime, Quasar is trapped and isolated in Okinawa —he is not only literally on an island surrounded by an impossibly deep ocean but metaphorically as well because he is alone and surrounded by the unclean.

HIS SERENDIPITY AS A GOD: His name means good fortune and is capitalized just as Jesus’s name is capitalized in all references (noun and pronoun); he is revered like a god (5). He “prophetically” chooses Quasar’s name, as if His Serendipity is an omniscient prophet soon to return to save his people (5). He will “claim his kingdom,” just as Jesus did (5). The leader’s assistants are “Ministers” and he is their “Lord” (6, 28). He wears sandals, as Jesus did, and purple robes, the color of royalty/majesty (9). Quasar kneels and kisses the “holy ruby ring,” just as Catholics do in honoring bishops; and Quasar kisses the leader’s “mouth of eternal life” (9). He is “divine” and will one day gloriously “enter Jerusalem” as the savior (16). To the “unclean, he is “a devil from hell” (22). He is captured by a mob and jailed, similar to Jesus’s experience at the hands of the Romans (25).

BELIEVERS AND NONBELIEVERS: Quasar sees the non-cult members as beholden to the capitalist god and notes with disgust the girl with the pink Minnie Mouse hat, the trash on the beach, and department stores. He says the hotel clerk may not “believe” him and references people checking in “false” names (3). Clearly there are many believers/nonbelievers in the Bible and references to false idols and false disciples. It’s ironic that Quasar thinks the unclean are false when in fact he is giving false names. Quasar refers to non-cult people as “unclean”, “evil,” and sinners just as the Bible does in referring to people in need of grace (3, 19). To himself, he is one of the “faithful,” a “herald” (5, 6). He refers to the “unclean” government as “the voice of the snake charmer,” which makes him the snake but that’s the lesser of two evils (6). Quasar is one of the “chosen ministers of justice,” as if he were chosen in the way that God chose the Jews; he considers himself a holy man who makes a “sacrifice” and dispenses divine justice (6, 7). Quasar notes that previous cult members were “souls” (Biblical reference) who were “betrayed” (like Jesus) (8). The cult is a “family of the spirit” and members are “disciples” (9, 13). He is told by a dog (?!#*!) to eat eggs, the symbol of rebirth (28).

THEOLOGY:  The cult leader’s has numbered rules are called “Sacred Revelations[s],” one of which is “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out;” it is phrased as if it came from the King James Bible and its repeated references to “an eye for an eye” (Mitchell 7, 10) (Matthew 5:38). The organization is called “The Fellowship” (7).

JESUS-LIKE: All of this deceit bothers Quasar, who, once he utters the false name, records these feelings: “Pinpricking in the palms of my hands. Little thorns” (3). Clearly Quasar is referring to Jesus’s crown of thorns and the stigmata, though Jesus certainly suffered more than just pinpricks. So it seems he is comparing himself to Jesus and has been wronged by this process of having to deal with the unclean and tell lies in order to achieve his end of purifying the world. Quasar also has a “bandaged hand” (3). At the end of the chapter he keeps washing his hands because his palms seem to be permanently “blotchy” (25).

PLACES: The hotel corridors are “empty as catacombs,” which is what Quasar hopes to turn the hotel and world into – a giant catacomb (4). He also wishes to return the earth to its “virginal state,” a reference to the Virgin Mary and purity (5). The name of his cult is called “Sanctuary,” which to him is his place of comfort in this unclean world. He calls the department stores “windowless temples,” which seems as if these modern people worship capitalism as their ark of the covenant, which is stored in a temple (Mitchell 4). He walks among palm trees and there is a market with Mediterranean fruits and spices (8, 27). The post-apocalyptic world will be a “Paradise” (17).

LIGHT: He looks into “the eye of the sun,” which of course is the symbol for light (4). Jesus is often portrayed as having a face that shines like the sun and artists have often painted him with rays of light beaming from him on all sides. Of course the sun is in the heavens and the Bible contains numerous references to Jesus as “the light of the world” (Bible, John 8:12). The cult leader has “lit” Quasar’s life (Mitchell 5). The end of the world will be like “White Nights” (5). For now, Quasar is in the unclean world or “the darkness” (5). Quasar receives gamma waves; gamma is the Greek word for the numeral 3, also the number for the holy trinity (father, son and holy spirit), and it is the type of ray that is emitted from the brightness of an explosion. Once the cult leader is captured, the light is gone both literally and metaphorically: “Clouds began to ink out the stars, one by one” (32).

There are probably many more references. I'm tired now, though, so maybe I will have to comment on my own post tomorrow. 

Quotation Marks

This is something I wanted to post earlier, but my blog access went wonky.

Joyce Carol Oates reviewed In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman in The New York Review of Books (10/23/14, 59-60).  This book, by the way, fits in with much of what we have discussed in this class in a post-colonial, South Asian kind of way.

Ms. Oats refers to "the author's decision not to use quotation marks further renders the novel dreamlike and remote" (60).  In How Late it Was, How Late there are no quotation marks.  How Late is dreamlike if not downright nightmarish in many aspects.  As for "remote," Sammy's blindness removes him from interacting fully--seeing--the world.  Nor do we see Sammy's world,  either by his relaying of events or the narrator's.  This removes the reader from the observable world as well.  We have discussed in class that we don't know what Sammy looks like, what his flat looks like, what the offices he visits or the people with whom he interacts look like--we don't "see" anything.   Is this a way of telling us that we can not comprehend what Sammy's life is like, much as the workers at the DSS?

Just a wee bit to mull over.

Wayne

Fakes and Forgeries

I was interested in the bits involving Jerome.  Before we know that he is an art forger we see him making tea with "real Wedgwood" (212) but in the remaining pages where he is an active character, there are repeated references to things not real, or used as substitutes for the real.  We learn that he is "wanted for treason in Britain" (213), an example of being false to his country.  There is a "flying jacket that not possibly belong to [him]" (213).  Margarita, not able to find an ashtray, uses a saucer (213).  Then he greets Rudi with "mock-bows" (215).  More examples of things not being what they are or standing in for something else are in the scene where he and Margarita argue about the painting.  When she points a gun at him he says, "this isn't the movies" and later refers the gun as a "little toy" (250).  He says that Rudi is her "puppet-master" (250).  During the argument Jerome refers to his "forgery" (250).  In a particularly vicious tirade is his reference to Margarita's "makeup and hairdo, you encrusted tart" (251).  What finally frosts her is Jerome's calling her "my dear," she replies to this by telling him, "my name is not 'my dear.' My name is Margarita Latunsky" (250). After she shoots him, she repeats, "Margarita Latunsky" (251).
     What got me thinking along these lines was the reference to Foucault of criminality.  Pieter Vermeulen  writes, "the category of 'criminality' covers a series of life forms lurking behind such criminal acts: 'the delinquent, the monster, the homosexual, the pervert'" (Vermeulen 388).  I would not want to accuse David Mitchell of homophobia, but I wonder about his writing the forger as a homosexual who almost comes across as a stock character.  Margarita comments about his apartment, "Jerome keeps the place tidier than a woman would" (213).  I noted references to things being not real/authentic--is Mitchell implying that the ultimate forgery in Jerome's life is that he is not a "real" man, especially compared to Rudi.  I think I might be over-reading on this one. 

Cheers,
Wayne
 

We'll Be Watching You

The novel Ghostwritten and the Vermeulen article raise the issue of “ghosts,” or invisible powers and that reminded me of something current that invades our lives – the fact that we can be “seen” so often without our knowledge. While I do believe in conspiracies, I do not think that President Clinton ordered the bombing in Oklahoma City or other such paranoid nonsense.  The chapter in Ghostwritten on the Zookeeper reminded me of something that I try to forget, which is that our lives are catalogued, analyzed, and viewed by people or even entities.

Every year at Christmas I have to tell my son that he can’t use my laptop from the fall until December 26. As I investigate gifts for him, the computer (or the Zookeeper behind it) remembers what I have done and helpfully encourages me to buy more by sending me endless ads for products I investigated buying and for ones I actually bought. Last year I bought him a set of the Harvard Classics and I was immediately inundated with ads for book companies also selling the same series. I ordered him a tennis racket, and was peppered with ads for all kinds of tennis gear. If my son wanted to find out the contents of his wrapped gifts under the tree, all he would have to do is go on the web from my laptop. Supermarkets record similar buying information through their club cards, which is why young women who buy pregnancy tests receive advertisements for diapers and formula. The information is catalogued and then the “Zookeeper” figures out what other products a woman of the age might like to purchase.

Vermeulen discusses biopower versus sovereign power – the bottom line is that our lives are ruled to some extent by either a politician in a slick suit or by an invisible ruler. The latter ruler, however, is more insidious, more invasive, practically invisible. Our Zookeeper (and we don’t even know who or what that is) eases us into the abyss with daily incursions into our privacy that seem fine until we realize just how much power we have given over to corporate and government entities. While some paranoids want to stamp government out of our lives (conveniently on some issues anyway) and withdraw to a cabin with an Uzi, I just want the Zookeeper to give me a little more space. It reminds me of the aphorism of the frog who jumps out of the boiling water but who meets a slow death in tepid water. Are we in tepid or boiling water? Or are we unaware that we are in the water?

Quasar

I've been thinking about the name Quasar. The character chose this name and I would like to understand why. A quasar is located at the center of large galaxies in the area surrounding a super massive black hole. It is characterized by an active accretion disk which feeds the black hole; as such it spits out an enormous amount of energy, sometimes more than whole galaxies. Quasars are also defined by their distance, they are the most distant objects we have detected in the known universe which means they are also some of the oldest objects we have ever seen. So why would such a name be chosen by this member of a terrorist sect?

Perhaps it is because of the imagery of brightness. Quasars emit energetic beams of radiation from their poles and this radiation is so bright that despite their relatively small size they are incredibly easy to spot. So this leads me to think that Mitchell was playing around with the reader, making them imagine a bright celestial body while also foreshadowing the comet that appears at the end of the novel. So the name here is a link, another piece of the global chain that connects all of these characters. But beyond the natural implications of the name it removes his connection to the ideologies of the impure world around him., He is no longer Keisuke Tanaka but Quasar, an elemental force as old as the universe. He is attempting to remove himself from the global sphere that held sway over him. Perhaps Quasar is running from the global. But in this scenario is that possible? Can one ever escape the globalized society? 

Biopower on Today (show) and Ghostwritten

            After reading Vermulen's article about Ghostwritten and biopower, my first inclination is to do some Robbins-esque research into the methods by which our own government might be engaged in biopower.  I had to look up the term biopower, and according to Wikipedia (which at least sounds right), is that Foucault coined the term to describe the techniques by which a state (or other entity) attempts to control the population.  So let's start with the Today show.

            I often watch shows like Today as a sort-of guide in what NOT to buy.  In an hour of the Today show, you might see generally the same thing on any given morning:   An interview with a Hollywood star with a new film being released (on the promotion tour, so to speak); a rushed cooking segment with a "celebrity" chef, with the hosts putting on their best smiley face while they eat half-cooked food at the end; another rushed segment with a "fashion expert" who professes to intimate all the secrets of how to get high fashion at the lowest prices possible; a medical segment about the newest disease sweeping the nation; a single song concert by a generally inoffensive musical group; a short weather report; a hastily read segment of "national" or "world" news--all of this interspersed with short segments of the hosts of the show interacting with fans (who swarm outside, even in freezing New York winters).  What I'm not sure about is whether this is supposed to be simulative of some authoritative American experience everyone is supposed to have, or if they're just trying to get us to buy shit.  There isn't really a question of whether or not this is biopower in action.  People do, in fact, buy the fashionable clothes featured on the show, and the go home and cook the meals featured on the show, and go out on the weekend and see the films of the actors featured on the show, stopping on their way at the pharmacy to pick up the new drug for the ailment caused by the last miracle drug they took that had side-effects.  The question that remains:  Who is the executor of this biopower?  Perhaps this is what Mitchell is beginning to get at in Ghostwritten:  exploring the question of who is doing these things to us, so we can get at the bigger question of why.

authorship

I was thinking about the varying voices in Ghostwritten and began to wonder about the Satoru section (Tokyo).  Satoru focuses much of his attention on music, drifting in and out of dream-like sequences as a means to explain the feelings he has that are induced by music.  Much of the attention is on Satoru's feelings and because of these feelings I began to question authorship.  If the author acts as the creator, then there should be a constant narrative voice associated with the author.  But, in a text that compiles a cacophony of voices, each voice is given equal "authorship" of their own story, considering these different chapters are composed primarily in the first person.  Satoru's imagery to portray his emotions can be understood as tiny pieces of art that offer a deeper understanding of not only Satoru, but the emotional and aesthetic response associated with experiencing art.  Through Satoru's eyes, we are able to see a deep emotional connection to music, and, possibly, glimpse the forming of art.

When Satoru listens to an album called "Undercurrent" he describes the music: "an album of water, choppy and brushed by the wind, at other times silent and slow under trees.  On other songs, chords glinting on island seas" (48).  While the description certainly defines the album title, he is bringing the music to life, associating it with nature and thereby making music, jazz music, natural.  He is "painting a picture" and allowing the reader to understand what they may or may not have listened to by assuming that they would be able to understand these natural elements.  Saturo becomes an artist when describing this music.  His voice begins to intertwine with the earthy tones of the jazz music that he describes so that we can understand an intricate character.

What's more interesting is how Satoru calls attention to authorship, "for a moment I had an odd sensation of being in a story that someone was writing, but soon that sensation too was being swallowed up" (55).  This made me question who was speaking to me.  While Satoru is clearly the narrative voice, Mitchell takes this moment to pull himself into the story and call attention to a feeling of not being in control of what is happening by presenting this in the form of storytelling, another medium of art.   These thoughts are coming through as Saturo's but Mitchell is commenting to the reader that this is in fact still a story.  This could possibly be an attempt to describe how art is made, or at least Mitchell's art.  The story begins to take on a life of its own, regardless of the narrative voice and regardless of the author.

As we discuss this novel as a piece of globalization, or as an expression of a globalized narrative, authorship begins to reveal itself as a woven thread that passes through various places, people, and times.   This could possibly be understood as an indicator to the reader that controlling this story is not one individual, but that these various voices have just as much "authorship" as Mitchell. And part of a globalized text, or at least an attempt at weaving a globalized text, is recognizing that sensation, "of being in a story that someone (else) was writing."

Barnard and Vermeulen in a car on the M-25

I think that it interesting that both Barnard and Vermeulen would agree that Ghostwritten  exhibits features of globalization but that there seems to be one point about which they disagree: they offer vastly different interpretations about how it gets there, specifically with reference to the novel's stylistic changes from one section to the next.
It's almost as if they have set off together on the M-25 from Dartford and they both want to get to Heathrow but one thinks they should go north (counterclockwise) and the other south (clockwise): either way, they'll both get there but they want to take opposite paths. (link at bottom for visual explanation)
I'm specifically referring to Barnard's claim that the radically different modes of narration call the reader's attention to the diversity of perspective within the book. Barnard claims that the ability of the reader to engage with these characters both from within and without allows them to collectively take on the role of an updated (semi)omniscient narrator that helps to bridge the gap between the national novel and the new globalized one. Of utmost importance here is the claim that Mitchell calls attention to the differences through noticeable changes in style.
Juxtaposed with this is Vermeullen's claim that the novel does not break with its "traditional repertoire." He claims that the novel's sections flow more seamlessly together and that there is little attention called to the shifting narrative point of view caused by radically divergent technique. His claim for globalization through biopower in fact relies upon the idea that the novel does not divert from its traditional tropes and instead uses them in order to call attention to the globalization that it portrays (390).
To push the metaphor further, they both agree that the use of narrative modes is the key (the M-25 will get them to where they want to go) but the each argue in favor of using them in opposing ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M25_motorway#mediaviewer/File:Ringways_3_%26_4.png