Life Imitates Art?

In Remainder, the injured man seems to be of the opinion that life imitates art and is, therefore, inauthentic. For example, he sees movies as "authentic," because the actors appear to be one with their actions. In other words, he does not believe an intricate thought process is needed to create action, as is needed whenever he himself does any actions now after his accident. I think that is why he becomes so enamored with these flashes of "memory." They occur to him without conscious effort. Also, I am toying with the idea that that is why his "re-enactors" strike him as authentic: because they do not have to think about their actions. They are given a part, an action, a line of dialogue, and they just do it.

Power trumps recreation

Despite his apparent focus on the importance of recreation for the sake of gaining clarity or some sort of grasp on his past, I think that the evidence in Remainder indicates that the narrator actually holds control to be more important.
On pg 158, he discovers that his hired piano player has been playing a recording instead of playing live. The recording is a reproduction of his playing, just as his playing is a reproduction of the original player's playing. At first it seems possible that the problem is that he is trying to insert a reproduction of a reproduction and that the extra layer is the source of concern. This theory is debunked however, just a few pages later when he requests that a model be built of his little compound. This of course is a reproduction of a reproduction as well, but because he commanded it to be built it seems to serve some purpose for him, even to the extent of distracting his attention from the full-scale model that he has built around him.
The importance of power to the whole scheme becomes apparent when he begins moving his little action figures around in the model and then calls Naz, who he instructs to direct the movements of the actors in the full scale model in such a way as to play out the fantasy that he creates in the smaller model. The fact that he uses Naz as an intermediary to exercise this control is further evidence that his problem with the piano player does not stem with his introduction of another layer, but with the subversion of his orders. He himself introduces another layer, not only with his small model of the larger recreation but his use of Naz to exercise his control introduces another layer, even within the exercise of power that is of ultimate importance to him.

On Memory

One thing that struck me as I was reading Remainder and thinking back to Never Let Me Go is the concept of memory and collecting in each of these novels.

Kathy only mentions the collections the Hailsham kids a few times, and references how few of them kept them once they left Hailsham, and even more so how little purpose they served in the world outside of it. It's almost as if the Hailsham children didn't have use for memory, that their lives are only moving in one future direction, and mementos only serve as painful reminders of what they no longer have access to.

The concept is flipped in Remainder. The narrator uses his wealth to recreate and build back his memories, in doing so collecting people and things in order to rebuild his life.It also comes off as a very selfish desire, though somewhat understandable.

This makes me wonder then, what about memory is so important, and how different situations cast different lights on memory and its usefulness.

When I first began reading this novel, I honestly felt true and deep sympathy for this guy.  Being about my age, I felt somewhat of a connection to him and began to imagine what it would be like to lose all of my memories and past experiences and I got quite sad.  I mean, thirty years old is rather young and being that he is not married or does not have any children, he literally has his whole life ahead of him.  I felt incredibly bad for him as he was essentially robbed of his life.  Sure, he had little flashbacks of fairly insignificant occurrences from his past but these moments did not last.  All he had to look forward to was the tingling sensation these flashbacks brought on and those moments of happiness were fleeting.  So, while I did think his entire plan for a production of reenactment was rather bizarre, to say the least, I felt for the guy and at least understood where he was coming from.

Now, fast-forward a little bit......  I started to really dislike this guy when he began using his financial gains as an excuse to treat people as disposable rubbish.  I think this disgust first began to brew inside of me as he surveyed the possible actors for his enormous charade.  The way he pointed out a few "possibles" for his project and then dismissed the hundreds of other hopefuls with the flick of a wrist really irritated me.  However, I can still remember the way my blood boiled at the instant I realized I truly loathed this guy: "At a loss rate of three every two days, I'd say quite an amount.  A rolling supply.  Just keep putting them up there" (156).  Talk about a total disregard for existence!  Personally, I'm not someone you would call a "cat person" exactly.  I love dogs, but that doesn't mean I don't have sympathy for these furry little felines.  He throws them away like the old liver lady with her rubbish bag.  His accident did not only take his memories, but it also took his ability to feel empathy for others as well.

The way he walked around with a sense of complete entitlement made me crazy!  I have absolutely no tolerance for people like this.  Now, don't get me wrong.  He is absolutely entitled to the feelings that result from his accident.  It is, after all, life-changing.  However, he is certainly not entitled to treat the people around him the way he does.  While these "actors" may have had lives of their own before enlisting in his reenactment, to him, they are no more than pawns in his twisted little game.  What I found most troubling about this entire reenactment was its authenticity.  For someone who hated inauthentic people and actions with the passion that he did, the reenactments are exactly that: inauthentic.  Honestly, I found him to be quite hypocritical. 

Begging for Reality

I found the passage where the narrator is begging for change. It is right after he leaves Daubenay's office and is headed towards the stock broker. He just got this huge sum of money, and hasn't blown it on fantasy yet, and he chooses to stand on the side of the street and passively beg. He starts this facade because it makes him feel "intense" (44). That language, I believe, is indicating that he feels more than fake at that moment. His actions to beg are making him feel placed. He says how "I just wanted to be in that particular space, right then, doing that particular action" (44), but what does that particular place and action gain him? What can he feel or imagine as real from this? He can feel "so serene and intense that I felt almost real" (44). Something that he does not know yet but will consume him later on. He has a connection to all the people milling about and passing to work, a tangible monetary connection. The begging is allowing him to feel himself and the people around him based on the fact that they could give him money; he is attempting to occupy a "space," as he calls it, in which the community supports him which in turn dictates that he belongs to a community.

Some Remainders about "Remainder"

            McCarthy's narrator in Remainder suffered from an extremely traumatic event.  In effect, this event establishes a sort of barrier in the life of the narrator; events before the accident are only remembered in part, and the narrator is constantly searching to reproduce the feeling of events that took place before his accident.  This interests me for a few reasons.  First, there is the ubiquitous question:  Can we (as Humans) have authentic experiences?  Second, I think the narrator's traumatic barrier is only partially related to the physicality of his injuries.

            The first question is definitely a universal, philosophical question that Remainder tries to answer, but what I find most interesting is this barrier that the narrator has between experiences he has before the accident, while trying to reproduce those experiences (and feelings) after the accident.  I have known a few people, who have not been victim to any sort of physical trauma, that have been driven by the same sort of search for authenticity that the narrator is looking for.  In fact, after a massively traumatic event in our lives, it seems only Human that we might seek comfort in how we remember we felt before the event, and to even seek out how to recreate that feeling--it's just that most of us don't have millions of dollars to throw around (and we realize that moving on is a powerful thing, hopefully).  Why is it that some people seem obsessed with re-creating the past?  Whether it's the spouse who cheats on their partner and wants to put the pieces back together, or the accident victim wanting to recover portions of lost memory, or someone with PTSD who is tormented by the past, but can't seem to escape reliving it--for some it seems like something they cannot control.

            I also wanted to talk about Naz.  On an authorial level, what a brilliant device to enable the narrator to carry out these grandiose plans.  But despite McCarthy's genius using Naz to facilitate all this crazy stuff, I'm a little perplexed by his character.  He's introduced as a Brahmin, traditionally the highest caste in India, but was also the priest caste; only Brahmins can traditionally become clergy.  I find that pretty interesting since Naz is able to arrange or acquire virtually anything the narrator wants--even offering to arrange having people killed.  What might McCarthy be trying to say about religion and divinity by very intentionally tying Naz to priesthood?

Remaining Sane in Remainder

At first I was fascinated... then I was bored... and when the re-enacting turned into a scene he wasn't even originally in... I got irritated.

Not only are these "re-enacted" experiences not authentic, but his ACTUAL experiences can't be authentic because he's looking to re-enact them! He just seems like a stubborn, indulgent, and rich man who certainly got used to having a lot of money pretty quickly! Once he realizes he can hire people to manage, and do anything he wishes, he gets absolutely out of control. I don't understand how he can still get the tingling experience he's looking for when he does the same thing over and over repeatedly - like when he repeats going past the liver woman multiple times in the same time period. The "fakeness" is obvious, so how does that illusion for him still take hold?
Why does he decide has has to re-enact the tyre shop experience? Is it that moment of a "miracle" that wasn't a miracle?
(Did anyone else think about the poor actor who had to get that blue liquid splashed on him all day?)

And I'm with Christina... the moment he said to just get more cats after they were dying from falling off the roof.... Done with this guy.

Simulacra Land

First, Any one else want to slap this guy or is it just me? If I was reading this book for leisure I would've put it down after he said he didn't care if the cats died, as long as it looked right! And that poor old liver lady! Making her do the same thing again and again just for his enjoyment? Yeah, he's right up there on my list of least favorite literary characters with Holden Caulfield and Billy Pilgrim.  Alright now on to the serious part of the post...

The nameless narrator of Tom McCarthy's Remainder is a bit out there. In a real world he would have never been able to accomplish the things he did. To set up reenactments and hire people to reenact his weird memories all so that he can have a "real" experience. It is ironic that what  he believes is a real experience is how Robert Di Nero acted in the movie when movies are scripted down to the very last detail, much like what the narrator decides to do with his building.
He is constantly searching for a true aesthetic experience through the creation of his mad little world. I could not understand how anyone in the novel would have listen to him for more than five seconds before heading out the door. To control people the way one controls dolls is more than a little creepy.
In terms of Post-modernism, which we discussed in the beginning of class as valuing manufactured nostalgia, depthlessness, and culture within a society, I would have to say that our narrator has created a Post-Modernist dream land. His constructed apartment building therefore can be seen merely as a form of simulacra. The whole building appears real in the way he has dressed it, ordered it, and hired the people to preform within it, but it is a fake. A construction in the head of a crazy man bend on creating the perfect human experience, yet going about it the entirely wrong way.
In addressing these elements of Post-Modernism, I believe McCarthy is asking the reader to question what is real in the world? All of the scene we see are manufactured and manipulated by the narrator in his quest for something "real." What can this tell us about the fate of true aesthetic experiences in the world? Are there any left? Or are all the things we experience recreations of other events, stories, and historical moments? 

Biopower and You Owe Us Your Organs

I am interested in the idea of what one is "supposed to do" or "made to do." This seems to be a recurring theme among the clones in Never Let Me Go. I don't think the interconnectedness we see in Hotel World and Ghostwritten, which imply that we all play a part and affect each other in some way, no matter how minor, has far to go to get to the idea that we are have a given purpose or part to play. I think this is the progression from systems of control and discipline to biopower that implies that we each have some sort of role or part to play, nothing as overt as, "You are clone; you owe us your organs." It's something more subliminal. After all, once you have been categorized, doesn't it make it that much easier to give you a role?

WANTED: PEOPLE AND CATS WILLING TO BE ZOMBIES IN SISYPHEAN DRAMAS, NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY, MUST BE WILLING TO WEAR HOCKEY MASK AND HAVE GOOD CONTROL OF PERSONAL MUSCULATURE FOR SLOW MOVEMENTS, LONG HOURS, EXCELLENT PAY. BONUS IF YOU CAN SMELL CORDITE ON EVERYTHING.

Well, what to say about this book. The nameless narrator is a sick man and we get to see him slowly descend into madness. He transforms from a hapless OCD person into a narcissistic lunatic who will kill to keep the “game” going (234). It’s not surprising he doesn’t care about the cats – by this time we see that he’s a madman who needs these reenactments like a drug, an opioid to help him feel that tingle so he knows he’s alive, authentic. But what’s worse is that Naz continues to supply cats even though he questions the morality. Yet he still does it because money buys everything – even loads of cats destined to become cat pizza. From there it’s not a huge leap to buying people destined to become people pizza.

The narrator’s existential search is painfully detailed in minimalist language. There are many references to the narrator’s desire to feel that tingle, which starts when he asks for spare change. He loves that rush from doing something he isn’t supposed to do and from there he wants to reenact reality which was actually never reality because much of the initial “experiences” were from inside his head. So he’s making inauthentic experiences into authentic so he can feel authentic.

From the start everything smells like cordite, a slow-burning modern substitute for gun powder. That was certainly a clue that we were headed, inexorably and slowly, for a major explosion. In the end everything does explode – bodies, planes, and the mind. Of the many questions left lingering, one that sticks in my mind is: Who bought the bullets and loaded the guns? It must be Naz because the crazy dude can’t do anything. It speaks volumes about Naz and the seductive power of money.

The insanity heats up in chapter 8:

Page 160: He spends hours and hours analyzing the properties of the oil spot.

Page 161: He practices the shirt maneuver for an entire day and then with the building in the “on” mode.

Page 162: The poor liver lady gets no rest.

Page 164: He has the motorbike dude kneel on the swing. Now he’s pushing the model swing at the same time. Very creepy. Norman Bates-type creepy.

Page 176: I suppose the kids need employment but this is really nuts. Naz hesitates but he does it. Again. And another hockey mask in the scene. It’s a horror story. A scene from the Twilight Zone, a passel of tyre zombies, a Sisyphean task, hell.

Page 178: Hilarious but sick. Crazy person says the gushing of the liquid onto the driver and the amount of stain on the boy’s clothes weren’t quite right but notes that it was okay because it was “minor.”

Page 186: He’s studying forensics. He can’t wait for the reenactment: “I think I’d have gone mad otherwise…” Hmmmm…

Page 188: He’s mentioning a blimp. Would he…?

Page 189: Uh oh. Guns.

Page 199: He thinks he’s an enlightened being.

Page 207: He would have tried out the Uzi but “didn’t want to get all self-indulgent.”

Page 224: He wants the concierge to do nothing but do it slower, to think slower, and he believes he will be able to know that.

Page 220: We learn that lab animals will seek trauma to get a fix from the body’s opioids. Interesting.

Page 225: Crazy and funny at the same time: He’s too bored to do it slowly.

Page 228: We’re going military now with a “deserted camp” and “massing troops of darkness”; now the sun is not cooperating.

Page 232: Now he wants to reenact a reenacted moment.

Page 233-308. We learn that he feels an orgasmic tingle during the real reenactment in the bank with the real deaths (293). It’s all downhill from here. Literally. That figure 8 is also the symbol for infinity. He wants to see everything from above, the models and the reenactments, as if he were a god. His money gives him that power to create life experiences and to end lives as well. And with the palms facing up, well that's a Jesus reference, it seems to me.