What. The bloody hell. Is this book? I thought that because it made a little cameo in A Single Man it would be good. That whole class lecture scene is incredibly intriguing. Amazing! But noooo. This book couldn't hold my attention for five minutes. I'd read twenty pages and be like... "What the hell is this?" Not because it was terribly difficult or anything--it just wasn't interesting or amazing. I mean, it pretty much was exactly about and representing what Isherwood had the students and George say (this may help). It was helpful to read A Single Man first, actually, despite the fact that it gave me far too high expectations... I mean, it was like a pseudo-sparknotes deal.
So. What the book is actually about--I trust you've peeked at the post linked above, so I need not explain what the title is referring to--though I think Huxley got his mythology confused. Endymion, if I remember my mythology, was a sheepherder who was given immortality--but he was eternally sleeping. This preserved his youth... On the other hand, there is another more unfortunate mortal who had won a goddess's affections. His loving goddess, unfortunately, forgot to ask Zeus to grant her beloved eternal youth along with his eternal life. So--the man lived forever, but withered and eventually turned into a cricket. There's a subplot--which becomes the main plot--involving a diary of a man who lived in the seventeen-hundreds. The 'mainest' character of the book is a millionaire named Stoyte. He is terrified of dying and has his personal physician working on the secret to immortality (apparently). So yes, the doctor has a man's journal--an earl's, actually--who basically feared the same thing. Noticing that the carps in the estate's pond are supposedly over one hundred years old, he decides to start eating the guts of the oldest carp to see what it will do for him. What it does for him, is make him very, very... hmm... Long lived and fertile. At the very end of the book, they find this man--he's holed up and locked away in a basement because he's devolved. (He also gave a bit of the mixture to a housekeeper who was ill, and she too is locked away with him.) So--like the cricket--he was given eternity but he withered on it--to something far more disgusting and pathetic than a cricket. He's filthy, only wearing a shirt--a group consisting of Stoyte, the doctor, and a young woman who I will get to later watch him, stunned, for a few minutes... In that time he and the woman chatter to each other like apes. The man has blemishes and sores on him from living in such poor conditions (which aren't entirely his fault, admittedly...) But what is repulsive is that he just pees. Right where he's sitting. Doesn't even get up, doesn't get up right away after he's sitting--and beyond being gross, it's disturbing. The woman is just kind of there (the ex-Earl slaps her once or twice), but the man still has habits that he did so often while coherent that he just kind of does them. He is wearing a ribbon and a medal, and he gets up and polishes them while humming a particular favourite tune of his--and every time he and his ex-housekeeper chatter at each other, their noises are described as on the verge of being understandable, echoes of coherence--and so on. So yes, he withered like the cricket, but in a far worse way.
And--I realize I've been spoiling the ends in the very beginning of these posts quite often as of late--but now I feel that I absolutely have to tell you Stoyte's reaction to this gruesome spectacle. Stoyte appears to be grossed out for a moment, but he can't seem to quite understand the situation: "Mr. Stoyte broke his silence. 'How long do you figure it would take before a person went like that?' he said in a slow hesitating voice. 'I mean, it wouldn't happen at once... there'd be a long time while a person... well, you know; while he wouldn't change any. And once you get over the first shock--well, they look like they were having a pretty good time. I mean in their own way, of course. Don't you think so...?' he insisted" (356). The doctor just laughs at how pathetic he is. Actually, the more I think about it, the more that this Doctor seems almost like a god figure of the novel... Beyond everyone's personal hangups and--he just seems a lot more intelligent and more powerful than everybody else. The doctor may even be seen as a devilish figure--he is holding out powerful temptations (he seduces the young woman who saw the devolved people, and makes her feel pleasure during sex, eek), and has the key to immortality in his palms--and he's messing with everybody with utter glee. He likes watching everybody floundering for nothing more than his own amusement.
So, the story starts out when a middleaged man named Jeremy goes to America to do some bookkeeping for Mr Stoyte. From here we meet the doctor, Obispo, Pete (O's assistant, who falls for Virginia), Virginia, Stoyte's mistress, Stoyte himself, and a few others.
My first note has to do with Jeremy--seven pages in he writes a letter to his mother, "Oscar Wilde's old friend, the witty and cultured Mrs. Pordage" (7). Of course I would mark that--as for the name, she is entirely fictional. I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise, but you never know.
I also want to mention that this is Jeremy's first time in the country--and he's in California first! He's hit with a barrage of neon marketing and superficiality, the likes of which he's never seen before. He's very overwhelmed, he starts trying out lingo and promising himself he'll try the things advertised, like certain types of burgers or milkshakes. It's overwhelming and strange, because he's never seen this sort of mass advertising and everything. It all seems as it is: absurd, alien, disgusting, rotten, pointless, a mockery--because it's being looked at by a foreigner (he is not necessarily seeing things as rotten or disgusting, but through his eyes, things look that way--like the neon-lit cemetery. He's in awe of it and I was disgusted)--it's essentially the same way Thompson and his Attorney see Las Vegas in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, except without the lizards and bats and overwhelming fear--but those few moments when Thompson is sober and disgusted, basically the same. And even when he's tripping, all the lights and signs and flashes and all overwhelm him and seem terrifying in their own right.
Stoyte has a terrible temper--his doctor has warned him that if he gets too riled, he's likely to give himself a second stroke. So: "'God is love,' he said again, and reflected that, if people would only stop being so exasperating, he would never have to lose his temper. 'God is love.' It was all their fault" (37). This cracked me up. I hope I don't need need to point out the humour... Do I?
The grossest thing I learned from the book was, unsurprisingly, explained by Obispo. He talks about theories of prolonging life, and untrue rumours--that sour milk will lengthen your life or what have you. One popular surgery in the days before the first World War it was apparently popular to have sections of your colon removed--that was thought to prolong health, I guess. Huxley is not making this up, I just looked it up. It killed 50% of people who tried it within two years, and even if it didn't, with a quarter of a colon you have to, um, "evacuate" as the doctor puts it, quite often. Yeah, so my point is, ew ew ew, gross gross gross, Jesus why, ew gross, vomitrocious.
As for George of A Single Man talking about what Huxley has cited as the "stupidest text in the Bible"--it is, to remind you, "They hated me without a cause". I guess this disturbs George's students, though Huxley in his own book basically says what George says, except in a more concise manner without examples and not as expansively (though I suppose concise would imply that?). And it's weird to think... A student raises the Holocaust in response to George's agreement with Huxley on this being the stupidest scripture. This book was written in 1939--when the very first Jews were being taken into ghettos and camps.
"For what hope, he asked himself, what faintest glimmer of hope is there for a man who really believes that 'they hated me without a cause' and that he had no part in his own disasters? Obviously, no hope whatever... In some measure they are directly or indirectly responsible. Directly, by the commission of stupid or malicious acts. Indirectly, by the omission to be as intelligent and compassionate as they might be" (107).
Later Huxley adds that the most sensible text of the Bible is "'God is not mocked; as a man sows, so shall he reap'" (256). I agree--and if the God bit makes you uncomfortable, add 'fate' or 'destiny'--or even cutting it out altogether works.
"'As a man sows, so shall he reap. God is not mocked. Not mocked,' he repeated. 'but people simply refuse to believe it. They go on thinking they can cock a snook at the nature of things and get away with it. I've sometimes thought of writing a little treatise, like a cook-book. "One Hundred Ways of Mocking God," I'd call it. And I'd take a hundred examples from history and contemporary life, illustrating what happens when people undertake to do things without paying regard to the nature of reality. And the book would be divided into sections, such as "Mocking God in Agriculture", "Mocking God in Politics", "Mocking God in Education", "Mocking God in Philosophy", "Mocking God in Economics". It would be an instructive little book. But a bit depressing,' Mr. Propter added" (282-283). "'Cock a snook'"?
"'Bad art can't do so much harm as ill-considered political action'" (172). Originally I marked this because again, Huxley mentioned Oscar Wilde, but then I realized that there was a good point--he's playing off of Wilde's "art for art's sake". Even if the art you make is mediocre, it's not as bad as a terrible political move--et cetera.
So far as i know, the earl whose diary is found and read is not based on any real earl. Again, I guess that probably goes without saying, but that's not the point--the point is that the earl 'wrote' a pretty bit of poetry and I was just checking if it was thieved... Anyways, the results, other than one passage, are pretty bad--"'If only the rest were silence!'" (213). Hehe.
The doctor, although he plays as a sort of God character, he is a smug fool too--he's just stupid in different ways--he's one of the sort who would have caused Brave New World. The doctor vaguely mentions several authors--the one he says specifically is Shelley--that he could have fixed, thanks to his modern medicines and therapies. Because many great pieces of art and literature are created out of suffering, I believe what he (Huxley, not the doctor) is essentially saying is that modern amenities can basically end art--beauty--and so on. Which again is exactly what is illustrated in Brave New World. There's a scene where Jonathan asks the man who suppresses all old literature and art if he has any use for old things, and the man says no, and then Jonathan asks even if they are beautiful, and the man says "'Particularly when they're beautiful'". (No source, but I promise that that is the exact line.)
My last note that directly corresponds to a page is the quote attached to the spiel about the silliest/most important quotes from the Bible. My last comment is again on the earl and his immortality secret: raw carp guts. It doesn't specify if it's just one dose or several that keeps up youth indefinitely (which bothers me greatly, the housekeeper lady is recorded to have taken it once when she was ill, but no other records of her taking it are there... Which doesn't really make sense...)
My second note is that a popular Roman condiment/dish was fermented fish paste--the exact recipe for making this... thing is unknown, though apparently historians have sought after the dish for quite some time. My point is that Romans, judging from statues, aged really, really well. And it's been proven that having a diet that's high in fish is about as healthy as you can get--well, it was at one point. Now that all fish are supposedly up to their gills in mercury... So, Huxley has something! We've found the key to immortality! HAHAHAHA--no, that's stupid. The reason why Huxley chose carp is because they live so incredibly long. But yeah, a diet with fish as a staple bis very healthy, but probably won't lengthen your life to two hundred years/turn you into an ape person. That is all, good night.
MLA Citation Information: Huxley, Aldous. After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. Ivan R Dee, Inc: Chicago, 1993.
Showing posts with label Brave New World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brave New World. Show all posts
Monday, August 15, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The Bible: John, Acts of the Apostles, and Romans
Introductions stopped being needed posts and posts ago...
First up is the book of John, again, a telling of the story of Jesus.
So, my first note has to do with Samaritans. After reading these books, I find myself faced with the age-old question: What the hell is a Samaritan? When I was a kid and I asked that in Sunday school, our teacher skirted the issue because she clearly did not know either. Fairly recently, it occurred to me that Samaritan sounds a lot like Semitism. Semitism is another way of saying Judaism, so Samaritan=Jewish person, which seemed pretty logical. However, there is a passage in Luke that threw me for a loop: "(Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans)" John 4:9. Maybe that was true in those days, but in these days, the two groups are very similar. Considering how Samaritans practice, it seems more likely that this was a human statement by John, rather than an objective statement based on fact...
"But Jesus answered them, 'My father is still working, and also I am working'" John 5:17
Jesus also only feeds the five thousand in John's chronicling of events.
"'The world cannot hate you [the disciples], but it hates me [Jesus] because I testify against it that its works are evil'" John 7:7. Also, according this section, not even Jesus's flesh-and-blood brothers believed he was who he said. (What about Joseph? No further mentions of him after Jesus's birth...)
"'Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin'" John 8:34.
Oh, and the story 'A Man Born Blind Receives Sight'--that gets a 'super-metaphor' status. Jesus gives sight to a blind man? No further explanation is necessary.
Only in John's version of the story is it specifically Mary (Magdalene) who buys the ointment and rubs it on Jesus's feet with her hair. (True story! Yuck.) This is also the only time it is said that Judas was the one who protested her buying the ointment instead of giving money to the poor. After he says that, John adds in parenthesis: "(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it)" John 12:6. I'm going to say that's almost certainly slander.
"'The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may hot overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light'" John 12:35-36.
Only in this version does Jesus wash the disciples' feet.
Also, when Judas leaves, it is said he does so because Satan enters him. That's new, too.
"'How can you say, "Show us the Father?" Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?'" John 14:10. Okay, come on, this is a hard thing for somebody to wrap their heads around, Jesus! It's harder for me to believe that he is in the father as well as vice versa. My brain does not bend that way well. What rubs me the wrong way is that Jesus says, if you can't believe that, then "'believe me because of the works themselves'" John 14:11. That sort of policy doesn't seem right to me... I suppose it's better than not believing at all, but it almost seems like, I don't know, cheating.
Also, in this version, Peter does not weep after he realizes he has denied Jesus three times and therefore fulfills Jesus's prophecy; rather, he goes to warm himself with the waiting soldiers and slaves.
Okay, and maybe I missed this in all four of the books, but that bit about the other crucified criminal who is forgiven by Jesus while they're hanging isn't in any of them. That kind of made me sad. In a weird way, I liked that story.
Acts of the Apostles is basically about miracles performed by the disciples after Jesus's crucifixion.
Now, Jesus heals a lot of lepers and those bedridden. Many more acts of this kind occur in this book, which leads me to wonder about the acts. I can't think of a cure for the lepers that could have occurred through regular means, other than those he made wash (since people hardly washed in those days, it is possible that a simple dip in a river could be enough to remove infection or other impurities)... But those who could not walk: perhaps Jesus was, well, silly as this may sound, a sort of early chiropractor? And before he died he taught his skills to Peter, hence why Peter (I mention Peter specifically because the notes pertaining to this are next to 'Peter Heals a Crippled Beggar') could do as he did. It sounds like a decent hypothesis...
For my next note--it may seem silly to compare this group with a group that wouldn't appear until about 1,800 years later--but I read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test before this, so cut me some slack. That book is about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, a group which would rather reject mainstream society and make their own. They tried their best to live communally while sharing absolutely everything--no money was used, and even norms regarding monogamous relationships were disregarded. (Sounding familiar? Perhaps you've read Heinlein's Stranger in A Strange Land, one of the books that inspired Kesey.) Another thing they attempted to reject was religion, though KeseyLevite... [who] sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet" Acts 32, 34, 35-37. Granted, the Pranksters tried to eject money, but still. Just saying... And while I'm making the argument that I am, cleanliness is next to fordliness, and Ford is in his flivver--and all is well with the world.
Also, according to Acts, Jesus was crucified on a tree.
Romans are also referred to as 'Hellenists', which is rather strange, as that was what the Greeks called themselves. That would have gone into antiquity when Roman became a superpower and super-dominator of the ancient world, but okay, fine...
What I find really interesting is that while Paul is in Athens, he recognizes that the Athenians are very religious, and he commends them for it. He sees, among all the Athenian altars to all the Athenian gods, one that reads "'To an unknown god'" Acts 17:23. He goes on to say that that unknown god is his God, and though the Athenians have been worshiping incorrectly, it is good for them to be so full of faith and spirit, they need only to mend there ways but a little. "'From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and boundaries of the places where they would live, so they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him--though indeed he is not far from each one of us'" Acts 17:26-28. I absolutely one-hundred percent love this passage.
My next note is from Romans--the full title of the book being 'The Letter of Paul to the Romans'. It is, from what I understand, Paul attempting to educate the Romans in the ways of Christ.
First of all, Paul is referred to as a servant of Christ--though a footnote tells us that in the Greek he is referred to as a slave of Christ! Not sure how I feel about that one...
"Claiming to be wise, they became fools" Romans 1:22.
Anyways, Paul says that in the beginning, and even now/then, people were aware of God's presence and existence through the majesty of the world and its workings that are obviously always surrounding. The people didn't honour God properly, and are basically called idiots in their inability to understand this, and from their misunderstanding created various other gods and deities. (Paul is being a lot harsher on the whole of Rome than on Athens...) And because of this, God "gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another" Romans 1:26-27. Roman men sleeping with other men? Unheard of! You must be thinking of some other empire that was notorious for its, er, sexual freedom.
"All those who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law" Romans 2:12.
"For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart--it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God" Romans 2:28-29. At its base, this is saying, it's the heart, rather, your faith--you could go to church or synagogue or mosque or whatever else you may participate in every Sunday, Friday, Saturday, or whatever day you choose to go, and you could celebrate Purim or Christmas or Passover or Ramadan or Easter or what have you, but if you don't believe it doesn't mean a thing. People will say "What a fine, upstanding person, going to X every Y day, like a good, right Z should", but their words don't mean a thing, you see? It's just a symbol (as would the actual physical circumcision be). The heart is what counts most--and although this does not completely apply, or maybe not at all, I feel compelled to insert this here in relation to that last quote or at the very least what I just wrote: "People have good hearts whether or not they live like Dharma Bums"--Jack Kerouac
"'Rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die'" Romans 5:7. I'm not sure if I understand what is being said here exactly--the better a person is, the less likely someone is to die for them...? And this brings up what I've been thinking since reading Matthew. Perhaps this is too skeptical and cruel of me--undoubtedly it is--but I couldn't help it: "Martyrdom was to me merely a tragic form of scepticism, an attempt to realise by fire what one had failed to do by faith. No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their heart tells them is not true"--Oscar Wilde*
"The wages of sin is death" Romans 6:23.
'The Law and Sin' and 'The Inner Conflict' are rather intriguing--they voice some very common arguments and problems with religious teachings. (They're both located in Romans 7, and I'll provide you with a few quotes from both.) "What then should we say? That the law in sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'... Apart from the law sin lies dead" Romans 7:7-8.
From 'The Inner Conflict': "For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh; sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" Romans 7:14-15. That is, by acting good he is acting as he does not want, and in some way, hates it. It also treats sin as a sort of separate personality--"It is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me" Romans 7:20--which takes over the body and acts as it wants.
"So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin" Romans 7:25.
"Let love be genuine" Romans 12:9.
"Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer" Romans 12:12. Or, if you'd rather, persevere in hope or faith. Again, it is the heart of the matter, not exactly the matter itself...
"Extend hospitality to strangers" Romans 12:13.
"We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves" Romans 14:7. It goes onto say that we live and die in God, but I like this just as well--if not more--just taken at that face value. It gives me hope.
"Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin" Romans 14:23. This I don't like a bit. I think it's quite unfair and unjust.
"The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet" Romans 16:20. Again, this doesn't feel quite right at all.
Well, here we are. You're probably wanting a reaction to Jesus now--I promised I would include one--and I'd be willing to say he was a visionary, certainly. Clearly he was and still is an important figure. It bothers me, though, how flat a character he is. I mean, in Matthew his character bounces all over the place like a pinball, but by John he's just a flat fellow. He doesn't seem human (of course, depending on what you believe, there's a very good reason for that), though his words and teaching do carry a great power, regardless of your religious inclinations. Honestly, this is going to sound lame, but I preferred him in Jesus Christ Superstar (how does one treat a musical's title?)--because he was portrayed as a human with faults and fears. He was scared to die, he was upset that he'd be betrayed, and though he eventually accepted it, he certainly cried out to God about it. Only once in the books does Jesus cry out (in one situation, I mean, this occurs in the the first two books), and that is right before he dies--he cries out, "My father, why have you forsaken me?" Thus reality meets idealism, but, are you getting what I'm driving at?
I really like Romans. It's sort of like a latter version of Leviticus, at least that's how I see it. It's pretty interesting.
*I apologize if this seemed like a rude quote to include, considering what I am implying by including it, but again, I could not help it. It's simply my reaction to what I read.
MLA citation information: Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Edition. American Bible Society: New York, 1989.
Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics: What's the Buzz? from the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack (I told you to expect a facepalm!)
This post's cryptic song lyrics: Keep my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds--I'm the arrow, you're my bow, shoot me forth and I will go
First up is the book of John, again, a telling of the story of Jesus.
So, my first note has to do with Samaritans. After reading these books, I find myself faced with the age-old question: What the hell is a Samaritan? When I was a kid and I asked that in Sunday school, our teacher skirted the issue because she clearly did not know either. Fairly recently, it occurred to me that Samaritan sounds a lot like Semitism. Semitism is another way of saying Judaism, so Samaritan=Jewish person, which seemed pretty logical. However, there is a passage in Luke that threw me for a loop: "(Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans)" John 4:9. Maybe that was true in those days, but in these days, the two groups are very similar. Considering how Samaritans practice, it seems more likely that this was a human statement by John, rather than an objective statement based on fact...
"But Jesus answered them, 'My father is still working, and also I am working'" John 5:17
Jesus also only feeds the five thousand in John's chronicling of events.
"'The world cannot hate you [the disciples], but it hates me [Jesus] because I testify against it that its works are evil'" John 7:7. Also, according this section, not even Jesus's flesh-and-blood brothers believed he was who he said. (What about Joseph? No further mentions of him after Jesus's birth...)
"'Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin'" John 8:34.
Oh, and the story 'A Man Born Blind Receives Sight'--that gets a 'super-metaphor' status. Jesus gives sight to a blind man? No further explanation is necessary.
Only in John's version of the story is it specifically Mary (Magdalene) who buys the ointment and rubs it on Jesus's feet with her hair. (True story! Yuck.) This is also the only time it is said that Judas was the one who protested her buying the ointment instead of giving money to the poor. After he says that, John adds in parenthesis: "(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it)" John 12:6. I'm going to say that's almost certainly slander.
"'The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may hot overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light'" John 12:35-36.
Only in this version does Jesus wash the disciples' feet.
Also, when Judas leaves, it is said he does so because Satan enters him. That's new, too.
"'How can you say, "Show us the Father?" Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?'" John 14:10. Okay, come on, this is a hard thing for somebody to wrap their heads around, Jesus! It's harder for me to believe that he is in the father as well as vice versa. My brain does not bend that way well. What rubs me the wrong way is that Jesus says, if you can't believe that, then "'believe me because of the works themselves'" John 14:11. That sort of policy doesn't seem right to me... I suppose it's better than not believing at all, but it almost seems like, I don't know, cheating.
Also, in this version, Peter does not weep after he realizes he has denied Jesus three times and therefore fulfills Jesus's prophecy; rather, he goes to warm himself with the waiting soldiers and slaves.
Okay, and maybe I missed this in all four of the books, but that bit about the other crucified criminal who is forgiven by Jesus while they're hanging isn't in any of them. That kind of made me sad. In a weird way, I liked that story.
Acts of the Apostles is basically about miracles performed by the disciples after Jesus's crucifixion.
Now, Jesus heals a lot of lepers and those bedridden. Many more acts of this kind occur in this book, which leads me to wonder about the acts. I can't think of a cure for the lepers that could have occurred through regular means, other than those he made wash (since people hardly washed in those days, it is possible that a simple dip in a river could be enough to remove infection or other impurities)... But those who could not walk: perhaps Jesus was, well, silly as this may sound, a sort of early chiropractor? And before he died he taught his skills to Peter, hence why Peter (I mention Peter specifically because the notes pertaining to this are next to 'Peter Heals a Crippled Beggar') could do as he did. It sounds like a decent hypothesis...
For my next note--it may seem silly to compare this group with a group that wouldn't appear until about 1,800 years later--but I read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test before this, so cut me some slack. That book is about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, a group which would rather reject mainstream society and make their own. They tried their best to live communally while sharing absolutely everything--no money was used, and even norms regarding monogamous relationships were disregarded. (Sounding familiar? Perhaps you've read Heinlein's Stranger in A Strange Land, one of the books that inspired Kesey.) Another thing they attempted to reject was religion, though KeseyLevite... [who] sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet" Acts 32, 34, 35-37. Granted, the Pranksters tried to eject money, but still. Just saying... And while I'm making the argument that I am, cleanliness is next to fordliness, and Ford is in his flivver--and all is well with the world.
Also, according to Acts, Jesus was crucified on a tree.
Romans are also referred to as 'Hellenists', which is rather strange, as that was what the Greeks called themselves. That would have gone into antiquity when Roman became a superpower and super-dominator of the ancient world, but okay, fine...
What I find really interesting is that while Paul is in Athens, he recognizes that the Athenians are very religious, and he commends them for it. He sees, among all the Athenian altars to all the Athenian gods, one that reads "'To an unknown god'" Acts 17:23. He goes on to say that that unknown god is his God, and though the Athenians have been worshiping incorrectly, it is good for them to be so full of faith and spirit, they need only to mend there ways but a little. "'From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and boundaries of the places where they would live, so they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him--though indeed he is not far from each one of us'" Acts 17:26-28. I absolutely one-hundred percent love this passage.
My next note is from Romans--the full title of the book being 'The Letter of Paul to the Romans'. It is, from what I understand, Paul attempting to educate the Romans in the ways of Christ.
First of all, Paul is referred to as a servant of Christ--though a footnote tells us that in the Greek he is referred to as a slave of Christ! Not sure how I feel about that one...
"Claiming to be wise, they became fools" Romans 1:22.
Anyways, Paul says that in the beginning, and even now/then, people were aware of God's presence and existence through the majesty of the world and its workings that are obviously always surrounding. The people didn't honour God properly, and are basically called idiots in their inability to understand this, and from their misunderstanding created various other gods and deities. (Paul is being a lot harsher on the whole of Rome than on Athens...) And because of this, God "gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another" Romans 1:26-27. Roman men sleeping with other men? Unheard of! You must be thinking of some other empire that was notorious for its, er, sexual freedom.
"All those who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law" Romans 2:12.
"For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart--it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God" Romans 2:28-29. At its base, this is saying, it's the heart, rather, your faith--you could go to church or synagogue or mosque or whatever else you may participate in every Sunday, Friday, Saturday, or whatever day you choose to go, and you could celebrate Purim or Christmas or Passover or Ramadan or Easter or what have you, but if you don't believe it doesn't mean a thing. People will say "What a fine, upstanding person, going to X every Y day, like a good, right Z should", but their words don't mean a thing, you see? It's just a symbol (as would the actual physical circumcision be). The heart is what counts most--and although this does not completely apply, or maybe not at all, I feel compelled to insert this here in relation to that last quote or at the very least what I just wrote: "People have good hearts whether or not they live like Dharma Bums"--Jack Kerouac
"'Rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die'" Romans 5:7. I'm not sure if I understand what is being said here exactly--the better a person is, the less likely someone is to die for them...? And this brings up what I've been thinking since reading Matthew. Perhaps this is too skeptical and cruel of me--undoubtedly it is--but I couldn't help it: "Martyrdom was to me merely a tragic form of scepticism, an attempt to realise by fire what one had failed to do by faith. No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their heart tells them is not true"--Oscar Wilde*
"The wages of sin is death" Romans 6:23.
'The Law and Sin' and 'The Inner Conflict' are rather intriguing--they voice some very common arguments and problems with religious teachings. (They're both located in Romans 7, and I'll provide you with a few quotes from both.) "What then should we say? That the law in sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'... Apart from the law sin lies dead" Romans 7:7-8.
From 'The Inner Conflict': "For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh; sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" Romans 7:14-15. That is, by acting good he is acting as he does not want, and in some way, hates it. It also treats sin as a sort of separate personality--"It is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me" Romans 7:20--which takes over the body and acts as it wants.
"So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin" Romans 7:25.
"Let love be genuine" Romans 12:9.
"Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer" Romans 12:12. Or, if you'd rather, persevere in hope or faith. Again, it is the heart of the matter, not exactly the matter itself...
"Extend hospitality to strangers" Romans 12:13.
"We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves" Romans 14:7. It goes onto say that we live and die in God, but I like this just as well--if not more--just taken at that face value. It gives me hope.
"Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin" Romans 14:23. This I don't like a bit. I think it's quite unfair and unjust.
"The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet" Romans 16:20. Again, this doesn't feel quite right at all.
Well, here we are. You're probably wanting a reaction to Jesus now--I promised I would include one--and I'd be willing to say he was a visionary, certainly. Clearly he was and still is an important figure. It bothers me, though, how flat a character he is. I mean, in Matthew his character bounces all over the place like a pinball, but by John he's just a flat fellow. He doesn't seem human (of course, depending on what you believe, there's a very good reason for that), though his words and teaching do carry a great power, regardless of your religious inclinations. Honestly, this is going to sound lame, but I preferred him in Jesus Christ Superstar (how does one treat a musical's title?)--because he was portrayed as a human with faults and fears. He was scared to die, he was upset that he'd be betrayed, and though he eventually accepted it, he certainly cried out to God about it. Only once in the books does Jesus cry out (in one situation, I mean, this occurs in the the first two books), and that is right before he dies--he cries out, "My father, why have you forsaken me?" Thus reality meets idealism, but, are you getting what I'm driving at?
I really like Romans. It's sort of like a latter version of Leviticus, at least that's how I see it. It's pretty interesting.
*I apologize if this seemed like a rude quote to include, considering what I am implying by including it, but again, I could not help it. It's simply my reaction to what I read.
MLA citation information: Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Edition. American Bible Society: New York, 1989.
Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics: What's the Buzz? from the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack (I told you to expect a facepalm!)
This post's cryptic song lyrics: Keep my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds--I'm the arrow, you're my bow, shoot me forth and I will go
Monday, July 26, 2010
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
What what what I'm back! Yeah, it took me ten days to finish that last post. In that time I finished this book, read about 5/7ths of a Ray Bradbury short story collection and most of Sense and Sensibility, the latter I would be done with if Willoughby didn't make me want to break a board in half with my forehead. (Did I use 'latter' right? I always get former and latter confused.)
Anyway. Here we go, Nabokov's 'contemporary American classic' Lolita. The book is about Humbert Humbert, a middleaged man with a particular love for 'nymph/ets'--young girls, something like ages 8-14. Lolita is his main flame around whom most of the book unsurprisingly orbits around. His obsession with nymphets appears to stem from a brief tryst with a girl around the age of thirteen when he too was in his youth. Lolita herself is the daughter of the woman who he's renting a room from. At the start she is twelve and very much a catty little brat. I have a movie book with a special section on Kubrick, and a write-up on his film adaption of the book, and with it there's a close-up picture of Lolita peering over heart-shaped sunglasses and seductively sucking on a lollipop--and my first thought upon looking at it is always "she looks like a catty little bitch". Well, yeah, she is--she is exactly the personality I inferred from that one still. She's a brat, not raised correctly, and also believe it or not promiscuous (to a certain extent, because the story is told by Humbert Humbert and not an omniscient narrator, we can't be sure of how promiscuous she actually was). All right: Begin!
Humbert's chapter one, what would be the introduction if not for the foreword which is a write-up by a nonexistent PhD, reads as follows: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps... She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns" (11). One: Where the hell does he get the name Lolita from Dolores? There had to have been an explanation for this I missed. (The usage of the word* nowadays comes from the book itself, so no help there.) Two: Did he just compare himself to Jesus? Tangle of thorns--thorn of crowns? He just implied he was a--for the literary phrase--a Christ figure? Yeah, yeah he just did. Ooookay.
In the fifth chapter, Humbert describes exactly what constitutes a nymphet, the age, the look, and how only certain few can stop them--you must be an "artist and a madman... with a bubble of hot poison in your lines and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine" (19). To this he adds, in parenthesis, "oh, how you have to cringe and hide!" (19). So, on one level, he's aware, very aware, that it is not an acceptable condition, his--but at the same time, his in length details and explanation of his "hot poison" are enough to make your skin crawl like that steak in Poltergeist.
"Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for" (21). That is, Humbert could have sex with a normal acceptable woman of his age but preferred children--nymphets--demons--Liliths and their far more tempting ways. (Because he is clearly more attracted sexually and otherwise to the youthful females, and Lilith in her legendarium--a stronger base in Jewish tradition rather than Christian, though she does appear once in a while--is the sexually appealing female as opposed to Eve who... wasn't? Well, Lilith is essentially a succubus, lamia, et cetera.) Humbert also attempts to... eh, I can't think of the word... but say his tastes were okay based on famous figures, Dante and Petrarch (?) who loved certain girls of nine and twelve, respectively. He also admits he had the "utmost respect for ordinary children" (21) and their innocence--note the wording. Ordinary children.
"Oh, my Lolita! I have only words to play with!" (32). Okay, I remember being made uneasy--incredibly so at some points to the point of feeling stomachsick--while I read, but rereading it chills me ever more. What's the weirdest part is, is because of the strangely childish way it is written (for example, Humbert often refers to himself by his own name as a child often will when agitated or playing) you feel disgusted--but at the same time can't help but like the guy, at least a little. There are parts where you literally want to be sick, put the book down, kill Humbert--but you feel weirdly for the guy. It's hard to understand unless you read it, I guess, but it probably has a bit to do with that it's written from his perspective. Again, read it and get back to me. (I assume it's written in the fashion I imagine it to be--if I am correct--to reflect his taste in the immature, and possibly signal the immaturity in his own mind, for being attracted to children--never aging in his tastes or for the rest of mind. Maybe?)
His description of Canada/Alaska--"We lived in prefabricated timber cabins amid a Pre-Cambrian world of granite" (33). No, I didn't just show favor to this quote because he mentions a prehistory era, I actually thought it sounded cool of its own merit! (And I feel like it's a very 'Mountains of Madness'-esque description or Lovecraftian in general description.) In the next breath he complains about eskimo girls--"Nymphets do not occur in polar regions" (33), which made me laugh, admittedly.
Humbert when dealing with Lolita at least early on speaks a few times of the devil tempting him and then scorning him with her--giving him a chance gaze or gasp and then ruining it. In which case, to further thwart his picture of himself as a Christ in a crown of thorns he was tempted and fell to the temptation. My next mark is an obvious biblical reference again to Adam and Eve--Lolita is tossing about an apple (Humbert even describes it as "Eden-red" [55], might I add!) and on one throw she throws it up--and Humbert, sitting next to her upon sofa, caught it above her waiting hands. While he holds it, she takes a bite of it. From that moment on, we know exactly where eventually she will head. But wait, there's more! A few moments later, same scene, he takes Lolita's magazine from her and she pounces upon him, ending up sitting in his lap. He does not take her then--but he does have his, uh, own moment--what he refers to as a spasm--that Lolita is completely unaware of.
Humbert has a mild fantasy in which he imagines giving Lolita and her single (but not for long) mother sleeping tablets so he may have his way with Lolita and then imagines the confrontation about the pregnancy which would ensue. "'Mother, I swear Kenny never even touched me.' 'You either lie, Dolores Haze, or it was an incubus'" (67). This is just me being annoying: according to folk tradition, incubi cannot impregnate their victims (at least not without help from a succubus). Just saying.
"Remarkable how difficult it is to conceal things--especially when one's wife keeps on monkeying with the furniture" (87).
At one point Humbert does drug the girl, though he does not enact his plan... But as proof that Humbert is not a narrator we can entirely trust, we have Lolita partially drugged removing a velvet ribbon from her hair, saying she's been such a "disgusting girl" (113) and wants to go on and tell him how so. That's a sexually-charged scene that's certainly a product of a fantasy of Humbert's, probably based on Lolita saying just that (as she kissed Humbert earlier in the chapter) but the pulling of the velvet ribbon out of her hair, tossing it about and what the whole scene gives the feeling of--it has been bent by Humbert.
It is Lolita who initiates the first actual act of intercourse between them--something she at that point had apparently had a few times with a few male friends. What is apparently considered normal 'sex play', at least by Humbert. I--what? Is this a forties and older thing? Maybe I was just a prude nine-year-old? Or maybe this book is actually set in Brave New World. Lolita didn't even know its relation to reproduction. Apparently it's a thing kids just did. ...Yeah, I'm thinking Brave New World.
Humbert enrolls Lolita into school, the Beardsley school, a school of epically foolish proportions. Let me give you a portion of the headmaster's school plan: "...We are more interested in communication than in composition. That is, with due respect to Shakespeare and others, we want our girls to communicate freely with the live world around them rather than plunge into musty old books... We have done away with the mass of irrelevant topics that have traditionally presented to young girls, leaving no place, in former days, for the knowledges and the skills, and the attitudes they will need in managing their lives and... the lives of their husbands. Let us put it this way: the position of a star is important, but the most practical spot for an icebox in the kitchen may be even more important to the budding housewife" (162). The headmaster goes on to add that weekend dates or more important than Medieval dates to the modern child, and what could a child care for learning about Ancient Greece or other history or anything, really. That's pretty much a 'well, let's not even try'! Humbert says upon hearing this he was appalled--with which I can wholeheartedly agree. I only mention it because of how appalling exactly it is. I hope schools don't exist like this nowadays. Another thing I want to mention is during this speech, she refers to Humbert by name several times--obviously Humbert Humbert is a pseudonym, and as if to prove this further she calls him by several different but similar names.
At one point they stop in the sound town of Soda--"Soda, pop 1001" (201). Very clever, Nabokov. I chuckled.
The scene that made me want to kill Humbert the most was when Lolita has a fever. He checks her breathing, undresses her and decides she must be sick after inspecting her lower feminine regions. Besides just looking, he tastes them. Then and only then does he give up "all hope of intercourse" (219) and take her to the hospital. Absolutely repulsive, even moreso than all else, even.
"'Because really... there is no point in staying here.' 'There is no point in staying anywhere,' said Lolita" (222).
"One mercifully hopes there are water nymphs in the Styx" (228). Humbert, of course.
"I could not kill her, of course, as some have thought. You see I loved her. It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight" (246).
The ending isn't too shabby, either. Maybe I haven't mentioned (in which case, shame on me) that this whole book is written as a testimonial while Humbert is in prison. So, the end is an acceptance of his future which is rather sweet, even with Humbert's past acts in mind--nowhere near a complete redeemer of him or his situation, but. He gives Lolita his best, gives her some advice, and makes the request that this testimony of his only be published after Lolita's death--"And this is the only immortality you and I will share, my Lolita" (281).
Afterwards, there is a, well, afterword by Nabokov himself. Instantly I was hooked to this thing--in the second paragraph he talks about how much he hates people who prod for the author's purpose in writing such a thing in particular, or what exactly he meant to say in his work. He was none to fond of symbols and allegories, either. Vladimir... I think we just became best friends.
Don't have much to say. It was an okay book. It was certainly engaging, interesting and oftentimes disturbing, but I wouldn't say it's quite a 'contemporary classic'. This was probably one of the first if not the very first widely-distributed book that were about pedophilia (don't quote me on this though) and thus, to beat a dead horse, automatically gained a status. But it's actually worth a read, unlike other books in that category... Yeah, that's right, I'm looking at you Mary Shelley. You want to go!?
MLA information: Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Berkely Medallion Books, 1977. Print.
Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: The Reeling by Passion Pit
This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: They say I'll only do you wrong--We come together cause I understand just who you really are, yeah
*True story. Gothic lolitas, girls dressed in those Alice in Wonderland-esque dresses, trying to look like young porcelain dolls (they're particularly popular in Japan) all have their roots from the title of this book and its subject matter.
PS. Got a haircut! I feel like Lola from Run, Lola, Run, even though my hair isn't as short, as messy, or as red.
Anyway. Here we go, Nabokov's 'contemporary American classic' Lolita. The book is about Humbert Humbert, a middleaged man with a particular love for 'nymph/ets'--young girls, something like ages 8-14. Lolita is his main flame around whom most of the book unsurprisingly orbits around. His obsession with nymphets appears to stem from a brief tryst with a girl around the age of thirteen when he too was in his youth. Lolita herself is the daughter of the woman who he's renting a room from. At the start she is twelve and very much a catty little brat. I have a movie book with a special section on Kubrick, and a write-up on his film adaption of the book, and with it there's a close-up picture of Lolita peering over heart-shaped sunglasses and seductively sucking on a lollipop--and my first thought upon looking at it is always "she looks like a catty little bitch". Well, yeah, she is--she is exactly the personality I inferred from that one still. She's a brat, not raised correctly, and also believe it or not promiscuous (to a certain extent, because the story is told by Humbert Humbert and not an omniscient narrator, we can't be sure of how promiscuous she actually was). All right: Begin!
Humbert's chapter one, what would be the introduction if not for the foreword which is a write-up by a nonexistent PhD, reads as follows: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps... She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns" (11). One: Where the hell does he get the name Lolita from Dolores? There had to have been an explanation for this I missed. (The usage of the word* nowadays comes from the book itself, so no help there.) Two: Did he just compare himself to Jesus? Tangle of thorns--thorn of crowns? He just implied he was a--for the literary phrase--a Christ figure? Yeah, yeah he just did. Ooookay.
In the fifth chapter, Humbert describes exactly what constitutes a nymphet, the age, the look, and how only certain few can stop them--you must be an "artist and a madman... with a bubble of hot poison in your lines and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine" (19). To this he adds, in parenthesis, "oh, how you have to cringe and hide!" (19). So, on one level, he's aware, very aware, that it is not an acceptable condition, his--but at the same time, his in length details and explanation of his "hot poison" are enough to make your skin crawl like that steak in Poltergeist.
"Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for" (21). That is, Humbert could have sex with a normal acceptable woman of his age but preferred children--nymphets--demons--Liliths and their far more tempting ways. (Because he is clearly more attracted sexually and otherwise to the youthful females, and Lilith in her legendarium--a stronger base in Jewish tradition rather than Christian, though she does appear once in a while--is the sexually appealing female as opposed to Eve who... wasn't? Well, Lilith is essentially a succubus, lamia, et cetera.) Humbert also attempts to... eh, I can't think of the word... but say his tastes were okay based on famous figures, Dante and Petrarch (?) who loved certain girls of nine and twelve, respectively. He also admits he had the "utmost respect for ordinary children" (21) and their innocence--note the wording. Ordinary children.
"Oh, my Lolita! I have only words to play with!" (32). Okay, I remember being made uneasy--incredibly so at some points to the point of feeling stomachsick--while I read, but rereading it chills me ever more. What's the weirdest part is, is because of the strangely childish way it is written (for example, Humbert often refers to himself by his own name as a child often will when agitated or playing) you feel disgusted--but at the same time can't help but like the guy, at least a little. There are parts where you literally want to be sick, put the book down, kill Humbert--but you feel weirdly for the guy. It's hard to understand unless you read it, I guess, but it probably has a bit to do with that it's written from his perspective. Again, read it and get back to me. (I assume it's written in the fashion I imagine it to be--if I am correct--to reflect his taste in the immature, and possibly signal the immaturity in his own mind, for being attracted to children--never aging in his tastes or for the rest of mind. Maybe?)
His description of Canada/Alaska--"We lived in prefabricated timber cabins amid a Pre-Cambrian world of granite" (33). No, I didn't just show favor to this quote because he mentions a prehistory era, I actually thought it sounded cool of its own merit! (And I feel like it's a very 'Mountains of Madness'-esque description or Lovecraftian in general description.) In the next breath he complains about eskimo girls--"Nymphets do not occur in polar regions" (33), which made me laugh, admittedly.
Humbert when dealing with Lolita at least early on speaks a few times of the devil tempting him and then scorning him with her--giving him a chance gaze or gasp and then ruining it. In which case, to further thwart his picture of himself as a Christ in a crown of thorns he was tempted and fell to the temptation. My next mark is an obvious biblical reference again to Adam and Eve--Lolita is tossing about an apple (Humbert even describes it as "Eden-red" [55], might I add!) and on one throw she throws it up--and Humbert, sitting next to her upon sofa, caught it above her waiting hands. While he holds it, she takes a bite of it. From that moment on, we know exactly where eventually she will head. But wait, there's more! A few moments later, same scene, he takes Lolita's magazine from her and she pounces upon him, ending up sitting in his lap. He does not take her then--but he does have his, uh, own moment--what he refers to as a spasm--that Lolita is completely unaware of.
Humbert has a mild fantasy in which he imagines giving Lolita and her single (but not for long) mother sleeping tablets so he may have his way with Lolita and then imagines the confrontation about the pregnancy which would ensue. "'Mother, I swear Kenny never even touched me.' 'You either lie, Dolores Haze, or it was an incubus'" (67). This is just me being annoying: according to folk tradition, incubi cannot impregnate their victims (at least not without help from a succubus). Just saying.
"Remarkable how difficult it is to conceal things--especially when one's wife keeps on monkeying with the furniture" (87).
At one point Humbert does drug the girl, though he does not enact his plan... But as proof that Humbert is not a narrator we can entirely trust, we have Lolita partially drugged removing a velvet ribbon from her hair, saying she's been such a "disgusting girl" (113) and wants to go on and tell him how so. That's a sexually-charged scene that's certainly a product of a fantasy of Humbert's, probably based on Lolita saying just that (as she kissed Humbert earlier in the chapter) but the pulling of the velvet ribbon out of her hair, tossing it about and what the whole scene gives the feeling of--it has been bent by Humbert.
It is Lolita who initiates the first actual act of intercourse between them--something she at that point had apparently had a few times with a few male friends. What is apparently considered normal 'sex play', at least by Humbert. I--what? Is this a forties and older thing? Maybe I was just a prude nine-year-old? Or maybe this book is actually set in Brave New World. Lolita didn't even know its relation to reproduction. Apparently it's a thing kids just did. ...Yeah, I'm thinking Brave New World.
Humbert enrolls Lolita into school, the Beardsley school, a school of epically foolish proportions. Let me give you a portion of the headmaster's school plan: "...We are more interested in communication than in composition. That is, with due respect to Shakespeare and others, we want our girls to communicate freely with the live world around them rather than plunge into musty old books... We have done away with the mass of irrelevant topics that have traditionally presented to young girls, leaving no place, in former days, for the knowledges and the skills, and the attitudes they will need in managing their lives and... the lives of their husbands. Let us put it this way: the position of a star is important, but the most practical spot for an icebox in the kitchen may be even more important to the budding housewife" (162). The headmaster goes on to add that weekend dates or more important than Medieval dates to the modern child, and what could a child care for learning about Ancient Greece or other history or anything, really. That's pretty much a 'well, let's not even try'! Humbert says upon hearing this he was appalled--with which I can wholeheartedly agree. I only mention it because of how appalling exactly it is. I hope schools don't exist like this nowadays. Another thing I want to mention is during this speech, she refers to Humbert by name several times--obviously Humbert Humbert is a pseudonym, and as if to prove this further she calls him by several different but similar names.
At one point they stop in the sound town of Soda--"Soda, pop 1001" (201). Very clever, Nabokov. I chuckled.
The scene that made me want to kill Humbert the most was when Lolita has a fever. He checks her breathing, undresses her and decides she must be sick after inspecting her lower feminine regions. Besides just looking, he tastes them. Then and only then does he give up "all hope of intercourse" (219) and take her to the hospital. Absolutely repulsive, even moreso than all else, even.
"'Because really... there is no point in staying here.' 'There is no point in staying anywhere,' said Lolita" (222).
"One mercifully hopes there are water nymphs in the Styx" (228). Humbert, of course.
"I could not kill her, of course, as some have thought. You see I loved her. It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight" (246).
The ending isn't too shabby, either. Maybe I haven't mentioned (in which case, shame on me) that this whole book is written as a testimonial while Humbert is in prison. So, the end is an acceptance of his future which is rather sweet, even with Humbert's past acts in mind--nowhere near a complete redeemer of him or his situation, but. He gives Lolita his best, gives her some advice, and makes the request that this testimony of his only be published after Lolita's death--"And this is the only immortality you and I will share, my Lolita" (281).
Afterwards, there is a, well, afterword by Nabokov himself. Instantly I was hooked to this thing--in the second paragraph he talks about how much he hates people who prod for the author's purpose in writing such a thing in particular, or what exactly he meant to say in his work. He was none to fond of symbols and allegories, either. Vladimir... I think we just became best friends.
Don't have much to say. It was an okay book. It was certainly engaging, interesting and oftentimes disturbing, but I wouldn't say it's quite a 'contemporary classic'. This was probably one of the first if not the very first widely-distributed book that were about pedophilia (don't quote me on this though) and thus, to beat a dead horse, automatically gained a status. But it's actually worth a read, unlike other books in that category... Yeah, that's right, I'm looking at you Mary Shelley. You want to go!?
MLA information: Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Berkely Medallion Books, 1977. Print.
Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: The Reeling by Passion Pit
This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: They say I'll only do you wrong--We come together cause I understand just who you really are, yeah
*True story. Gothic lolitas, girls dressed in those Alice in Wonderland-esque dresses, trying to look like young porcelain dolls (they're particularly popular in Japan) all have their roots from the title of this book and its subject matter.
PS. Got a haircut! I feel like Lola from Run, Lola, Run, even though my hair isn't as short, as messy, or as red.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Big Brother is Watching You
First off, I am writing this at my school's annual write the night. Replace 'Heidi' with 'Angela' and this will probably happen at least once tonight: 
Even more appropriate because Marky Mark is hosting this event, with brief visitations by Robby D and Big Mikey. And hopefully Kool-Aid. Oh yes, Kool-Aid.
Even more appropriate because Marky Mark is hosting this event, with brief visitations by Robby D and Big Mikey. And hopefully Kool-Aid. Oh yes, Kool-Aid. In case if you haven't guessed, I am on 1984 by George Orwell, which is an incredibly awesome book. For those of you thinking it's kind of like the Fairly Oddparents movie where gorillas take over, yeah... that's the joke. Those silly Gorillaz...
It's a totalitarian society set in, duh, nineteen eighty-four. It's the more pessimistic brother to Brave New World. (I don't feel I need to get into greater detail--after a while it's like, uh duh. Think of the comic book version of V for Vendetta. Cameras everywhere, watching everyone, everything is controlled and rationed. Fascism and bahh. I'm sorry; I can't concentrate. I've been stocking up on sugar all day and DISNEY SONGS.
There is the fear of Big Brother and the thought police, who are ready to spot you and kill you even if you so much as act a little bit different because that means you're having rebellious thoughts and must be killed. A bit like the SAT proctors. I mean... how would they find out if you've spread it around? Are they monitoring you? Yes, and then they take you out behind the chemical sheds and shoot you. IT IS LOGIC.
Early on, Winston says that when he drinks gin he imagines that it perspires through his skin. (This will be important later on! I didn't make a note of it the first time around, but this time I was all OH HEY NOW I GET IT MORE. THANK YOU MARKY MARK.) When I drink cream soda, I pretend it's gin and I'm Winston and all my problems are disappearing too! Does that make me depressed, or a pseudo-alcoholic? I've never drunken gin, for the record. I AM A GOOD PERSON.
"'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" See, the first part it kind of depends. Obviously, if the old controllers are overthrown, the future can't be controlled by them... oh wait. I'm being stupid again! That can apply either way, and basically just reinforces the second half... Ooh, how deliciously evil. I can dig it. Oh, wait, that would make me a terrible person. But you have to admit, if you're on top, nothing like that would be bad. Well, until V makes a deal with your second-hand man who you mercilessly verbally abuse.... Crud.
Ooh, my favorite scene is next. Winston's job is to falsify records and make up records, and the one we see him creating is a record of a Comrade Ogilvy, a model citizen in every respect. Winston's closing comment to his work is: "Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once that act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar." I tried arguing the possibilities of this point in my journalism class last year, but Heidi was most opposed to it. But really, what an interesting idea! I mean, do we have for sure evidence that, say, the Caesars were real? That Charlemagne was real? A few texts mean nothing, arguably. I mean... Myths. They were over exemplified truths (we think) so who's (whose?) to say Vlad Dracul's murder sprees aren't the same? (Be nice, I can't think of anybody.) Or that anything is real! Reality is a lie! Find me a hippie commune! Now.
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." Yes, it contradicts itself and makes you want to eat someone's face. But... it kind of makes sense. I mean, it never says anything about attaining full consciousness, right? I mean, just realizing something is wrong and should be differently could arguably be enough to make you say I want to change this. I want to uproot this. Which would be the thought of rebellion... and then after they rebel they have the whole world ahead of them... I think I lied. I have no clue what I'm talking about.
Oh, and a funny thing is that the party obviously wants to make the past seem awful and terrible and all ("Everybody's happy nowadays!") but when they talk about how awful the capitalists were--they always mention the top hats. Those damned top hats! Out, damned top hat, out! I disapprove. You know how I feel about Victorian-era dress. But... see, my theory is... you know how HG Wells apparently considered not wearing a hat a sign of insanity? They creators knew it was insane and by banishing top hats they banished sanity! Man, I'm like Bill Nye over here. Solving problems and stuff.
Winston ends up having a secret (for a while) affair with a girl named Julia... and he calls her a rebel "from the waist down". Exactly. She's just in it because she really likes sex. Her rebellion is a normal teenage to parent rebellion--I don't like your ways because they're your ways. And since they disprove of sex, she's just like sexy times all the time. So... that's fun. I guess. GAH. THEIR REBELLION ISN'T REAL AND THAT PART I HATE.
Also, there's this long scene where Winston is telling someone who he thinks is part of the Brotherhood (the rebellion) all he'd do for them--yeah, it sounds like in V for Vendetta (the movie) when Natalie Portman was like I'll help you, even if it means people will die and then chickens out. Winston doesn't have the guts for it, and Julia would maybe do it just because she's being a normal angry teenager who likes sex and throwing acid at children's eyes.
Also, a book Winston receives says that war is necessary for man to keep in touch with reality. Even less than that, conflict. Yeah--paradise can't exist. Being happy eternally is the same as being mediocre for eternity is being nothing for eternity. It sounds unpleasant. I'm not so much for war, but I am for interpersonal conflicts.
"'Sanity is not statistical.'" / "The point is, if there was only one person alive, it would be impossible for him to be insane." A paraphrasal which I can't possibly cite properly, because of course, the book with the quote in it is at home and I'm in school. At 8:57 PM, regardless of what Blogger claims.
"'We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them.'" Basically a character in my NanoWrimo story's mantra. He totally brainwashes his enemy into becoming his most loyal vizier in an act of revenge that's a little too complicated to get into now.
Winston's greatest fear happens to be rats, which made us kind of bros, because my greatest fear happens to be mice. But the thing is, see, he's being threatened with the rats in these cages... and although I'm scared of mice, I'd only be scared if they were out of the cages. If I see mice in cages, I don't even care. Oh, it's a mouse. When it's out of a cage, however, that becomes OH SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS ALLAH BUDDHA THERE IS A GODDAMN MOUSE. And often much more foul language comes out too. I--I don't like mice. But my point is, good luck threatening me, O'Brien. Unless if you happen to have access to the first Jurassic Park movie, but too bad you destroyed it already! Yes! I win! I deserve candy! FEED.
All right, so that's cool. I guess I'll get to Nanowrimoing now. And making up various other verbs. So... bye?
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
"A gramme is better than a damn!"
HI ROBBY D 'SUP. I WAS KIDDING ABOUT THE SURVIVOR THING I WASN'T TRYING TO BE MEAN. BFFS? (Told you I'd do it, Emma!)
So what I was planning on doing was taking advantage of my price-wavered application to Fordham (like I'd ever get in) but it is scary! So instead, I'm blogging and watching the 'Jerusalem' music video (by Matisyahu). And maybe rapping along. Hey. I'm good at it! Also this music video is awesome. (And so is Matisyahu!)
Finally--enjoy the hypnopaedic quotes I found from Brave New World:
"Everyone belongs to everyone else."
"Ending is better than mending."
"The more stitches, the less riches."
"A gramme is better than a damn." (This will forever haunt me in math and science classes. Forever.)
"One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments."
"Everybody's happy now"/"Everybody's happy nowadays"
"Everyone works for everyone else."
"Even Epsilons are useful."
"Never put off till to-morrow the fun you can have today."
"When the individual feels, the community reels."
"Progress is lovely."
"Cleanliness is next to fordliness." (Okay, so this one wasn't one of the hypnopaedic slogans, but I think it's pretty hilarious.)
"Civilization is sterilization."
"A doctor a day keeps the jim-jams away." (I think that one is my favorite. It always makes me giggle a little.)
"A gramme in time saves nine."
"Was and will make me ill."
"Ford helps those who help themselves."
Haha, I didn't even mean to mention--oh, those hilarious parallels. Anyway, I decided to give them their own little bit. Because they rhyme. Man, all laws and advice should be in rhyming. I could get behind it. "I plead the second/it's reckoned/the right/tonight/to bear arms/in yardarms". Okay, it's not a perfect science, but they'd have official law-poeming guys.
So what I was planning on doing was taking advantage of my price-wavered application to Fordham (like I'd ever get in) but it is scary! So instead, I'm blogging and watching the 'Jerusalem' music video (by Matisyahu). And maybe rapping along. Hey. I'm good at it! Also this music video is awesome. (And so is Matisyahu!)
Finally--enjoy the hypnopaedic quotes I found from Brave New World:
"Everyone belongs to everyone else."
"Ending is better than mending."
"The more stitches, the less riches."
"A gramme is better than a damn." (This will forever haunt me in math and science classes. Forever.)
"One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments."
"Everybody's happy now"/"Everybody's happy nowadays"
"Everyone works for everyone else."
"Even Epsilons are useful."
"Never put off till to-morrow the fun you can have today."
"When the individual feels, the community reels."
"Progress is lovely."
"Cleanliness is next to fordliness." (Okay, so this one wasn't one of the hypnopaedic slogans, but I think it's pretty hilarious.)
"Civilization is sterilization."
"A doctor a day keeps the jim-jams away." (I think that one is my favorite. It always makes me giggle a little.)
"A gramme in time saves nine."
"Was and will make me ill."
"Ford helps those who help themselves."
Haha, I didn't even mean to mention--oh, those hilarious parallels. Anyway, I decided to give them their own little bit. Because they rhyme. Man, all laws and advice should be in rhyming. I could get behind it. "I plead the second/it's reckoned/the right/tonight/to bear arms/in yardarms". Okay, it's not a perfect science, but they'd have official law-poeming guys.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Feel Good, Inc.
Hm, first off: All my rec letters but Borkowski's have been completed. Hooray, I get to go to college! So that's cool. And, in an effort to bring home the fact that Oscar Wilde > James Joyce to Marky Mark, I brought in the action figure. He was mightily impressed and commending me on its awesome when Robby D came in and Marky Mark insisted I show it to him: Verily, I say they were both quite impressed. Robby D was cracking up.
Robby D: "That's so dorky, you're actually cool!"
Marky Mark: "In our eyes you're really cool--like up here. In your peers' eyes, however..."
Robby D was like, "Maybe I'll put it in your recommendation letter!" But fortunately, he didn't. Haha.
Well, then: otherwise my amusing x-block (Marky Mark's class was fairly hilarious too) I am finally getting off my butt (or actually, down on it) to write up a bit on Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
It's the future--a future not nearly as oppressive as Anthem, but still fairly oppressive and behind. Society technology-wise is impressive (baby-incubating machines!) but people are very infantile. Everyone 'worships' (for it is claimed they are atheists, but--) Henry T Ford, the creator of mass production. Is creator right? Well, it's as close as you can get, I guess. LSD ('soma') and sex are the basic activities of everyone, whenever they want. Oh, and people are split into castes by intelligence and stature which is tweaked with while babies are still in their incubating machine things.
Ah, and people are controlled through classic conditioning and hypnopaedia. Hypnopaedia is learning through what you hear in your sleep*, kind of like that episode of Dexter's Lab where he tries to study during his sleep by playing the French record and ends up just learning 'omele du fromage' instead. Classic conditioning is... well, think of it as how you'd train a dog: when your dog goes outside, you praise him and maybe give him a treat. When he has an accident in the house, you'd yell at him. Eventually he learns to only go outside because he likes being praised and prefers it to being yelled at. I bring this up because we get an example of this early on with a set of Delta babies. They're shown flowers. Naturally, the babies are attracted to the beauty and begin crawling to the flowers. Babies get too close: Sirens ring, an electrical current threaded throughout the floor electrocutes them all. This is repeated until the Delta babies learn to hate and fear the beauty. Why? Because if they take vacations to enjoy the beauty, they aren't consuming. The whole society is based around production and consumption with hardly another point but that continual cycle, all in honor of Henry T. (I wonder if he was still alive when this book was first published? Wonder how he felt about it, if he was...)
Ah, yes, and Henry T has also been given the credit for everything. Well, kind of: He is accredited with first saying "History is bunk" (certainly not the case!) and with Freud's works. These are the only two cases I can spot, but I'm going to assume he basically receives credit for anything pre-Brave New World society. Jeez, Henry T!
Bernard is an annoying coward, for the record. He acts as though he hates society--but he doesn't fit in because although he is an Alpha Plus, his stature is too short and likes doing things alone, and has a million little things that make him difficult to fit in with everyone else. So he is upset and agitated, especially with the rumors flying about that the reasons why he has all these undesirable traits is that there was "alcohol in the blood-surrogate." But, as soon as he has John and everyone loves him, oh my gosh society is awesome I'll talk to you later I've become an overnight womanizer. And ergh... he just annoys me. Though Bernard is an awesome name, and I did name my Beanie Baby hedgehog that. But that is besides the point.
"'I'd rather be myself,' he said. 'Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.'" Good job being a hypocrite, Bernard! High five? Oh, and to be fair, Tyler's theory on this holds water as well. He felt left out in society and unaccepted so he was grumpy and upset. Thus, when John came and everyone loved him, he decided society wasn't all that bad--because he was happy. He was in a good mood. So everything was better. Which may be repeating what I typed above, but seeing as I actually argued with someone about it as a class assignment instead of pretending Dante can hold a conversation and has read the book made me feel the need to bring it up.
"'Do you see that damned spot?'" I love John for this. He's referring to blood, of course, but even more, he's referring to Shakespeare's play Macbeth, which happens to be my favorite play of Shakespeare's.
Unfortunately, being the idiot I am, I seem to have left my Contemporary Lit folder in my locker, so you'll have to wait until probably Wednesday to get the hypnopaedic list. Normally I wouldn't care so much, but I do want to include them. I'd wait, but you guys have been waiting for, on average, a thousand years.
Oh, and I watched Eyes Wide Shut last Friday. It is, I believe, Kubrick's final film. Uh. You know how I often talk about how much I like Kubrick? Well. And as for Kidman... oh, I was so excited after seeing The Others. She was so terrible in this movie. The movie was terrible. But she was worse! This movie... Kubrick had to have been high as a kite. A Clockwork Orange (also Kubrick) was a freaky movie; it's supposed to be. This weirded me out more. No lie. There's a scene where Tom Cruise goes into a weird orgy underground cult thing. What? Then they're like, "You're an outsider, Tom Cruise..." Then a girl dies, Cruise thinks it was murder on the cult's part, it was just an OD, then he reconciles with his wife. No, I didn't get it either. The only things I have been able to come it with were: The sex cult was like fight club, only with sex instead of fighting. The second is my theory of what the movie was supposed to be about. Which would be: always in movies, an event isn't just an event. It always leads to some vendetta or scheme or what have you. What I think Kubrick was trying to do, or what I'm pretending he was trying to do was say, what if it was just an isolated event. Oh. Cool idea in theory, but there's a reason why no one else has touched it.
Aside from that, it was kind of really shoddy. I guess Kubrick was probably pushing 70 or so, so we should cut him some slack... but grr. It was so--compared to his other works--KUBRICK! Man. It was a bad movie from start to finish. Its saving grace was the fact that Tom Cruise looked gorgeous in it. And even then, I was paying a lot more attention to the puzzle I had on the ground in front of me. With a cat on it. Maybe that was foreshadowing to the fact that I'm going to end up as a crazy cat lady. Aw...
The reason why this took so long to post is I've been incredibly busy. Two essays and a project, and I was in Virginia for the long weekend. How long did it take? Well, today's the opening day of Where the Wild Things Are.
EDIT: Normally I would make you connect the title with the post if there's a connection worth having, but I think the Feel Good, Inc music video lends itself well to Brave New World. It's by the Gorillaz.
Robby D: "That's so dorky, you're actually cool!"
Marky Mark: "In our eyes you're really cool--like up here. In your peers' eyes, however..."
Robby D was like, "Maybe I'll put it in your recommendation letter!" But fortunately, he didn't. Haha.
Well, then: otherwise my amusing x-block (Marky Mark's class was fairly hilarious too) I am finally getting off my butt (or actually, down on it) to write up a bit on Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
It's the future--a future not nearly as oppressive as Anthem, but still fairly oppressive and behind. Society technology-wise is impressive (baby-incubating machines!) but people are very infantile. Everyone 'worships' (for it is claimed they are atheists, but--) Henry T Ford, the creator of mass production. Is creator right? Well, it's as close as you can get, I guess. LSD ('soma') and sex are the basic activities of everyone, whenever they want. Oh, and people are split into castes by intelligence and stature which is tweaked with while babies are still in their incubating machine things.
Ah, and people are controlled through classic conditioning and hypnopaedia. Hypnopaedia is learning through what you hear in your sleep*, kind of like that episode of Dexter's Lab where he tries to study during his sleep by playing the French record and ends up just learning 'omele du fromage' instead. Classic conditioning is... well, think of it as how you'd train a dog: when your dog goes outside, you praise him and maybe give him a treat. When he has an accident in the house, you'd yell at him. Eventually he learns to only go outside because he likes being praised and prefers it to being yelled at. I bring this up because we get an example of this early on with a set of Delta babies. They're shown flowers. Naturally, the babies are attracted to the beauty and begin crawling to the flowers. Babies get too close: Sirens ring, an electrical current threaded throughout the floor electrocutes them all. This is repeated until the Delta babies learn to hate and fear the beauty. Why? Because if they take vacations to enjoy the beauty, they aren't consuming. The whole society is based around production and consumption with hardly another point but that continual cycle, all in honor of Henry T. (I wonder if he was still alive when this book was first published? Wonder how he felt about it, if he was...)
Ah, yes, and Henry T has also been given the credit for everything. Well, kind of: He is accredited with first saying "History is bunk" (certainly not the case!) and with Freud's works. These are the only two cases I can spot, but I'm going to assume he basically receives credit for anything pre-Brave New World society. Jeez, Henry T!
Bernard is an annoying coward, for the record. He acts as though he hates society--but he doesn't fit in because although he is an Alpha Plus, his stature is too short and likes doing things alone, and has a million little things that make him difficult to fit in with everyone else. So he is upset and agitated, especially with the rumors flying about that the reasons why he has all these undesirable traits is that there was "alcohol in the blood-surrogate." But, as soon as he has John and everyone loves him, oh my gosh society is awesome I'll talk to you later I've become an overnight womanizer. And ergh... he just annoys me. Though Bernard is an awesome name, and I did name my Beanie Baby hedgehog that. But that is besides the point.
"'I'd rather be myself,' he said. 'Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.'" Good job being a hypocrite, Bernard! High five? Oh, and to be fair, Tyler's theory on this holds water as well. He felt left out in society and unaccepted so he was grumpy and upset. Thus, when John came and everyone loved him, he decided society wasn't all that bad--because he was happy. He was in a good mood. So everything was better. Which may be repeating what I typed above, but seeing as I actually argued with someone about it as a class assignment instead of pretending Dante can hold a conversation and has read the book made me feel the need to bring it up.
"'Do you see that damned spot?'" I love John for this. He's referring to blood, of course, but even more, he's referring to Shakespeare's play Macbeth, which happens to be my favorite play of Shakespeare's.
"'For instance,' she hoarsely whispered, 'take the way they have one another here. Mad, I tell you, absolutely mad. Everybody belongs to everyone else--don't they? Don't they?' she insisted, tugging at Lenina's sleeve." This is scarier. Like I may or may not have said earlier, there isn't really such a thing as marriage or a monogamous (is that the word?) relationship. Life after work is one continuous orgy. The lady saying this, Linda, is John's mother--forced to leave the 'civilized' society because she became pregnant. She was forced to move to an Indian reservation, and after all these years, upon Lenina and Bernard's arrival is ecstatic to see people from the old world. Of course, she feels the need to speak in length that she shares Lenina's disgust about the people, and how strange their customs are, and all that. But, she is so entrapped by the 'civilized' society's view the Indians' idea of marriage and monogamy scares her. She is scared to care for just one person, and to love. To love! To feel something more than lust for a person, beyond that. Good God. Can you imagine? I believe that's the most sinister part of Brave New World, over the soma and the discourage of knowledge and encouraging orgies and all that. To fear something like love and real, true affection.
Linda's death is also frightful. The people in Brave New World's society have been desensitized against death. They are taken to see the dead and dying hospitals and then given chocolate cream or eclairs, so eventually they'll just associate the death with the treats... I think they were given soma too. Basically government-issued LSD. So when John discovers Linda dead and makes a fuss, the nurses all become quite irritated: "As though death were something terrible, as though anyone mattered as much as all that!" Basically saying corpses aren't worth mourning for.
Ooh, my favorite chapter is chapter sixteen. Following Linda's death, there's a whole scuffle, involving Bernard and Helmholtz. John, Helmholtz and Bernard are dragged off to the Controller. This man is an Alpha Plus of extreme intelligence--in fact, he is on the same level as John. He understands where John is coming from. He understands what John wants. So why doesn't he agree and reform society? As uncomfortable as his truths are--"'Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't.'" Stability and progress and so on... beauty clouds the views. Truth makes it difficult for people to focus on and stick to a certain goal. Sure, you may not have Shakespeare or God (though this argument confused me, Henry T Ford's presence made it feel very much like they were worshiping him) but you no longer have social instability. No one is never in danger. "Everybody's happy nowadays", so says the hypnopaedic slogan. This may sound sick, but, it doesn't sound too bad. Who doesn't want safety? Even the Controller, although he is saddened and lonely because no one else can share his knowledge and whatnot, is smart enough to know that these means really are necessary. And why someone who was such an obvious dissenter in his early years would be chosen for such a position of power... I'm thinking it's like how men in the IRS are ex-tax cheaters themselves. Fraud...ers. I... I'm trying! Anyway, I was basically the only person in the class who rather pitied the Controller. I felt bad for him, being all alone at the top like that.
A quick note on Helmholtz: He's one of my favorite characters in any book. He has the feeling society isn't quite right, but he isn't suddenly throwing away all his old values and norms from that society. He doesn't suddenly understand and accept new beliefs like something so simple as drinking water. John reads Shakespeare to him and says something about mothers--and Helmholtz cracks up. Regardless of his feelings of discontent, he still can't suddenly reject everything he was raised upon, like every character in everything else seems to quite easily. High five, HH.
"'Christianity without tears--that's what soma is.' 'But the tears are necessary.'" I'm quite fond of chapter seventeen, too. Both of them are tied for number one.
"'Isn't there something in living dangerously?'" My personal belief is if you haven't come close to dying, done something stupid while knowing you could easily be dragged to the bottom of the sea or hitting a tree (I decided to see if it really was impossible to fall down a mountain today. I was doing great till I landed on a patch of wet leaves.) or what not you haven't really gotten the full palate because you haven't had that exhilaration. Not only the fear, but the ecstasy afterwards when you realize you're not dead after all. Too make up for the lack of this in the lives of the people in Ford's State (So much less obnoxious to type than Brave New World every time! Do they actually ever refer to it as Ford's State in the book?) people are injected with VPS, which basically floods the system with adrenaline. It makes the body react the way it would react to fear or rage, but without actually feeling it and letting it hold you. "'...Without any of the inconveniences,'" as the Controller. John, fed up, retorts: "'But I like the inconveniences.' 'We don't,' said the Controller. 'We prefer to do things comfortably.' 'But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.'"
Unfortunately, being the idiot I am, I seem to have left my Contemporary Lit folder in my locker, so you'll have to wait until probably Wednesday to get the hypnopaedic list. Normally I wouldn't care so much, but I do want to include them. I'd wait, but you guys have been waiting for, on average, a thousand years.
Oh, and I watched Eyes Wide Shut last Friday. It is, I believe, Kubrick's final film. Uh. You know how I often talk about how much I like Kubrick? Well. And as for Kidman... oh, I was so excited after seeing The Others. She was so terrible in this movie. The movie was terrible. But she was worse! This movie... Kubrick had to have been high as a kite. A Clockwork Orange (also Kubrick) was a freaky movie; it's supposed to be. This weirded me out more. No lie. There's a scene where Tom Cruise goes into a weird orgy underground cult thing. What? Then they're like, "You're an outsider, Tom Cruise..." Then a girl dies, Cruise thinks it was murder on the cult's part, it was just an OD, then he reconciles with his wife. No, I didn't get it either. The only things I have been able to come it with were: The sex cult was like fight club, only with sex instead of fighting. The second is my theory of what the movie was supposed to be about. Which would be: always in movies, an event isn't just an event. It always leads to some vendetta or scheme or what have you. What I think Kubrick was trying to do, or what I'm pretending he was trying to do was say, what if it was just an isolated event. Oh. Cool idea in theory, but there's a reason why no one else has touched it.
Aside from that, it was kind of really shoddy. I guess Kubrick was probably pushing 70 or so, so we should cut him some slack... but grr. It was so--compared to his other works--KUBRICK! Man. It was a bad movie from start to finish. Its saving grace was the fact that Tom Cruise looked gorgeous in it. And even then, I was paying a lot more attention to the puzzle I had on the ground in front of me. With a cat on it. Maybe that was foreshadowing to the fact that I'm going to end up as a crazy cat lady. Aw...
The reason why this took so long to post is I've been incredibly busy. Two essays and a project, and I was in Virginia for the long weekend. How long did it take? Well, today's the opening day of Where the Wild Things Are.
EDIT: Normally I would make you connect the title with the post if there's a connection worth having, but I think the Feel Good, Inc music video lends itself well to Brave New World. It's by the Gorillaz.
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