Be Kind: Rewind

As a high school student I walked the three miles around my neighborhood every day for exercise. I got to know every mailbox, dog, tree, pothole, and storm drain in every kind of weather and at every time of day. It comforted me to know my own stomping grounds so intimately, considering that I went through high school unable to map my own identity.

The same cannot be said for Quinn in Auster's City of Glass. The more he walks the same grounds in New York, the less he seems to know about himself. It's as if my neighborhood walking was a rewinding of character, while his is an unwinding. I found that my daily walks allowed me to collect myself and think more clearly about what I had to accomplish for the evening, while he seems to lose more of his identity with every step. Perhaps it's the complex nature of his task that makes his walks different from mine. I always left the house with no qualms about anything, because it was my one time of day when I could be alone. Quinn is conversely so isolated that it doesn't matter whether or not he's alone on his walks: he is unraveling all the same with the intensity of his task. The more he invests in it, the more of himself he loses. The difficulty for him lies in the tradeoff: should he continue following Stillman, which gives him a sense of literal and figurative direction, or should he stop walking and lose direction in order to save his identity?

Ask the Panel

I was never into comic books as a kid. It wasn't until after I went to college that I began to follow several monthly publications, crossing the street on the third Wednesday of every month to pick up my subscription. Graphic novels are newer to me, though. I was especially surprised by how quickly City of Glass read, considering the slow, contemplative pace of many of the works we've read this semester.

It's not even the pace of the plot that makes the novel a breeze. Rather, it's the ease with which one is able to glide from frame to frame, if one knows how dialogue/narration bubbles work on the page. In short: layout matters. I would venture even further to say that the layout of Glass compliments the story itself. Most of its pages are made up of identical rectangular frames, the same per row and column. I believe this arrangement lends itself to the "noir" novel as a genre, where plot and characters are often identical to those in other books, though with several small, crucial differences. I have often found that mystery books follow a common formula, much like the police procedurals seen on television. This pattern is reflected in the grid-like arrangement of City of Glass, which is notably abandoned after the author's primary concern is no longer the case of Peter Stillman. When the mystery takes a backseat, the form changes to reflect Quinn's deteriorating state of mind. No longer do we see uniformity, but an increasing dependence on triangles and open frames, whose uneven nature confirms that the book's characters and story influence their own delivery.

Life in a Glass House

In keeping with last week's literary comparisons I wanted to talk about Auster's City of Glass with regards to Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. From what I've read so far the former appears to be a variation on "film noir," that genre of movies about hard-boiled detectives who run around in the shadows. It's interesting to see how the blacks and whites of these films translate on to the page, not to mention the implosive, invasive themes that are a cornerstone of such films as The Maltese Falcon and Rear Window. Many of these devices are present in Androids as well, though Dick's novel is much less illustrative in its approach to its own mystery.

I finished reading Androids shortly before starting City of Glass. Perhaps it's just because I'm reading them back to back, but the theme of isolation kept jumping out at me as I perused the latter. There are so many frames containing only a single character, despite the fact that these people live in a huge city. Auster's character spends so much time in the head of his imaginary detective that I began to wonder whether or not Auster's character actually existed. This form of isolation is just as present in Androids, in which a bounty hunter must navigate the deserted streets of San Francisco alone as he searches for rogue robots. The bounty hunter is so utterly alone that he fashions a companion similar to Auster's detective by way of an electric sheep. It cannot speak to him, but he finds more comfort in the singular presence of that sheep than in any human. I find it interesting that Auster appears to use the same device in his story about cities: sometimes we are most alone when we are surrounded by people.

Anger in Paradise

As we reach the meat of Morrison's Paradise I can't help but compare its style and content to several works by Stephen King. It's probably something I should have brought up in class while we were on the Fight Club tangent, but King's short stories "Jerusalem's Lot" and "Children of the Corn" both express the same small town anger I feel in Ruby.

The first aspect of this anger that comes to mind is isolation. The citizens of Ruby escaped the mainstream in order to build a strong, supportive community for themselves. However, once isolated, this goal became the town's curse. Isolation from the world has distorted the people's perspectives, making what was once normal in everyday life an abomination in this cloistered realm. One such instance of this in King's stories about small towns comes in "Children of the Corn," in which a couple find themselves stranded in a Midwest town surrounded by children who worship a monster in the cornfields. Isolation plays a role in that the children have been away from society for so long that killing one of their own in the middle of the street becomes normal behavior. The couple, who hail from somewhere in typical America, are aghast at the murder they witness, which goes to show the discrepancy between norms in each location. A similar event occurs in "Jerusalem's Lot," an epistolary story during which a man battles the demons who inhabit his house and woods. The citizens of the town do not consider it odd that demons run wild in the woods, while the man enters a crazed panic because of their presence. Again, the discrepancy between mainstream and small town views causes the latter to be portrayed in anger.

The Condominium

I was at home last weekend when my dad and I started talking about the condominium he used to own along with our house. He once rented it to a couple whose children I knew from school. One of these kids was my classmate and I can recall saying one day, when he was poking fun at me, that my dad was his landlord and could evict him. In retrospect, this was a really low blow. The jokes he was making about me did not warrant this kind of counter. But I wanted to finish with the upper hand, so I played the best card I could think of off the top of my head.

He didn't say anything about it to his parents. I could tell because my parents never got a call from his parents about what had happened at school. The exchange stuck with me, though. I'm no longer worried about being scolded by my folks, but I am interested in how the space that a man calls home can be claimed by another. Renting apartments for college is one thing, but to truly dwell in place that is not really one's own is, I would imagine, unsettling. Maybe that's the reason why part of the American dream is to buy a home. The Levittowns of 1950s New York support this notion: everyone needed to own land, not matter how akin it was to the plot next door. Not having this piece of the dream leaves one isolated from the ideal and unnerved with oneself. I've noticed that true adulthood in this country is achieved when one leaves his or her parents and moves into a house of one's own. Maybe it's this tension between childhood and adulthood that brought up to the topic of the condo when I was talking at home with my dad. College is creeping closer to a close with the passing of each semester and I'm still not ready to grow up!

Black and Blue

Though we didn't view the film in its entirety, I have a feeling that watching too much of Orson Welles' adaptation of The Trial might just have ruined a beautiful Thursday. The black and grey of K.'s world with its strange sense of industrial attics, contrasted with the dark blue and bright white of the sky outside our classroom window, made for a class that was at once torturous and intriguing.

I'll be the first to say that last Thursday was "one of those days." Attending class to talk about The Trial after CT's bout with the rain seemed to betray the waiting I'd done, cloistered in my dorm room, waiting for a dry spell so I could run to get lunch. However, upon watching several key scenes from later in the film, I gradually began to appreciate what Welles was attempting. Steel girders slapped across bookshelves in the house of a lawyer: something's gotta be in play.

What most interested me was how much larger some of the book's settings were depicted on camera. Take that same lawyer's house, for instance. Whereas Kafka offers readers a sense of claustrophobia in the lawyer's abode (which goes to show how stifling the law can be), Welles' sound stage looked like a wing out of Bruce Wayne's mansion. I interpret this to be something that Welles did to put K.'s feeble defense in perspective with the giant of the law. This keen difference distracted me from the blue sky outside the classroom (that's where the 'intriguing' comes in) and made it all the more desirable once the picture stopped ('torturous').

A Trial Run

After viewing the opening scenes of Orson Welles's film adaptation of Kafka's The Trial, I wanted to blog a bit about its visual take on claustrophobia. The film opens in K's apartment, the ceiling of which hangs about two feet lower than most other ceilings I've seen in residencies. K is barely able to stand at full height and seems to be pressed down in his house, a notion closely related to the novel's assertion that we are not even safe from the hands of authority in our own dwellings. I'd even go further to say that because Welles shoots his scenes almost entirely from low angles, he's insinuating that even things familiar and homey to us may be turned into oppressors.

The difference lies in how the ceiling and shots become higher once K leaves his room. When he is eating his breakfast in the community dining room, the camera looks down on K and ceilings are nowhere to be found. I for one felt a little easier once he was seated at the table eating food, something familiar and normal. Perhaps this also had to do with the fact that someone friendly was serving him, a situation absent from his own bedroom. The presence of this friendly figure actually made the room bigger for me (or at least distracted me from the feeling isolation that otherwise pervades the building). I'm interested to see how locations other than K's apartment, especially the courtroom, play on these different forms of claustrophobia and safety.

Stage Sets Pt. 2

I wanted to continue a meditation on stage sets, about which I began writing last week. With those previous comments in mind, it's worth noting that I've now performed five shows (as of yesterday) on that set in Willimantic. In that time I've come to know its contours, blind spots, creaks, and warped boards as well as (or better than) any location I've frequented in the past few months. Considering this description of the set I think it would make a good blog post to speak about ephemeral homes.

This concept doesn't apply only to stage sets. In my opinion dorm life may also be considered "ephemeral" living. Because I live on campus and spend my time away from my dorm on a stage, I find myself in a situation I've not often encountered in my life: I have two temporary homes and no permanent home. Looking at this setup from an outsider's perspective, I would imagine that the person in my shoes would feel uprooted, without grounding, and a little lost. However, having lived in this transitory state for the past few years, I can say with certainty that I've grown accustomed to it. Dorm rooms are the same temporal homes as stage sets in their willingness to give you up in order to accommodate the next person. Students move in and out of dorms from year to year while stages see ten or more sets per year, hosting actors for weeks or even days at a time. The meaningful objects and devices of one's life can easily move from dorm to dorm, while stages need only new layers of paint and trimmings to seem fresh again. This comparison leads me to believe that the stage as a home doesn't care much for its inhabitants: it's the meaning with which we imbue these places that makes them so uncannily ours.

The Apartment Pt. 2

Now that we've all but finished viewing The Apartment I realize that seeing the film in halves had its benefits. Around the middle of the movie, when Fran overdoses on sleeping medication in Baxter's apartment, Baxter undergoes a distinct shift in character. In the first half of the story it's Baxter's supervisors who truly own his apartment, but when his boss makes him responsible for Fran's health during the second half Baxter takes the reins.

It's interesting that it takes love for Baxter to claim ownership of his home. By claiming ownership I mean forcing out a supervisor who attempts to "christen" his apartment while he's still there nursing Fran, as well as using the place and its amenities for himself. These actions stand in contrast to occasions earlier in the film when Baxter simply vacates his apartment for his superiors' sexual endeavors at a moment's notice. Because Fran is the one to turn this habitual abandonment around, I believe that all Baxter needed in order to assert himself was someone to care about. Once he is given responsibility for a human Baxter takes responsibility for his apartment and himself. It's almost as if Fran were a key, something that Baxter had sorely missed earlier in his life. Not necessarily her womanliness--after all, Baxter brings a girl back to the apartment before discovering Fran--but that innate sense of affectionate duty that accompanies love. Because Fran's overdose is the catalyst for every outward event that occurs in the second half of the film, it must lead to this inward shift in Baxter.

Stage Sets Pt. 1

I was cast in a play in Willimantic at the beginning of this semester. On my way to rehearsal I often think about how stage sets as "places" might be an interesting idea to explore in my blog. With the production now in the heart of its run, I think it's about time to write a bit about this notion.

I've done theatre since the seventh grade. In all that time I can't think of a single onstage set that I have not gradually come to think of as my home. Whether it's the Forest of Arden from Shakespeare's As You Like It or a mock steam engine from The Wind in the Willows, there's something about inhabiting these spaces over a period of months that makes them something greater than plywood and paint. Each actor with whom I've ever worked has his or her spot onstage that he or she occupies more often than other people. These spots become territory. They are marked by spare costumes, personal water bottles, used sweat rags, difficult lines scrawled on nearby set pieces, broken pens and pencils, and an array of other physical details that bring a sense of "dwelling" to the location. It is not uncommon for actors to spend three, four, or five hours a day occupying these spaces. Yet after a number of months they are torn down, unhinged, folded up, and stored until next year, during which they will host new actors and acquire new meanings. The great number of hours one actor spends in his or her spot is erased from existence.

Despite the ever-changing nature of these spots onstage, I find them to be true places. Non-places are temporary according to many of the theorists we've read in class, but all of those other traits (identity, genuineness) are present. What's more, I feel terrible dismantling my "spot" when a play is over, which goes to show that temporariness can actually create true places, not prevent them.

The "Apart"-ment

Yesterday we began watching Billy Wilder's The Apartment in class and I wanted to record a few observations and reflections from the portion that we've watched so far. The theme of the film appears to be possession and ownership: C. C. Baxter owns his apartment by deed, but doesn't see enough of it to call it his property because he's always letting his supervisors borrow it for their sexual rendezvouses. This causes him distress not only out of sleeplessness, but also (though he doesn't seem to acknowledge it yet) out of a sense of belonging. He spends much of the day in his office complex, certainly a non-place by the look of it. Every desk and row on his floor is the same as the others and every person does the same repetitive tasks. Because no such environment could inspire a sense of belonging in any sane person, Baxter's apartment should be a haven for ownership and personal bearing. This is not the case, however. While his coworkers leave work for their homes, Baxter stays on at the office, sitting alone at his desk in an empty room. His sense of belonging is thrown off by both having to remain in this non-place longer than anyone else and also by often not being able to reenter his apartment when his supervisors are done with it for the night. Afterwards Baxter is left to pick up their garbage in his own place, which only further entrenches the notion that he doesn't belong anywhere. In a world where one's comfort is often determined by material means, not having this sense of ownership must be upsetting for him.

Here There Be Horses

Despite all of the social revelations that come towards its end, I found the most interesting part of Book 4 of Gulliver's Travels to be Gulliver's first encounter with the Houyhnhnms. Two of this breed of intelligent horses appear to Gulliver as he hides from the Yahoos (after making enemies of them with the flat of his sword). One approaches him, examines him, and calls on his partner to decide what to do with him. In the meantime Gulliver reflects on the grace and knowledge of these horses, remarking that breeders of such wise beasts must be very smart. He talks of going to find the dwellings of this breeding race of men, unaware that humans are the true Yahoos in this episode.

What intrigues me most about this encounter is the ease with which Gulliver casts assumptions about the Houyhnhnms. Being a man of science, and having just finished a voyage thematically focused on the pros and cons of scientific inquiry and rational thought, one would think that his character might regard the two horses objectively before considering their human masters. If they exhibit the traits of wisdom, why not go regard them as sentient beings? Why frame one's observations inside conventional laws of nature when one's past three voyages should discredit with this train of thought? I took from this instance that one ought not take for granted what others take or don't take for granted.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Heidegger's "Building, Dwelling, Thinking" is his definition of the term "mortal" in relation to the concept of dwelling. The writer breaks it down into four components, which state that in order to be mortal one must "save the earth," leave natural elements like the sun and moon to their own devices, do not attempt to influence divinity, and strive to live life well in expectation of death. Combined these items constitute what Heidegger defines as dwelling on this earth.

I found this interesting because I've only ever thought of dwelling as a noun to mean a physical "home." Never had I considered it as a term to describe our mortality. When I think of the word "dwelling" I think of caves, places with light or fire, where people can sleep and keep warm. To regard it as a figurative noun is to connect the idea of the home with our survival. I'm reminded of that list of basic necessities without which man cannot survive: food, water, clothing, shelter, etc. The shelter is the one that Heidegger targets, though I've always thought of shelter as the weakest addition to that list. Is it really that important for man to have a roof over his head to survive? Or does Heidegger's definition of the dwelling make this the most important necessity of them all? I can see how all of the other requirements of survival could fit under the umbrella of "dwelling," but do not believe that "shelter" means the same thing. The former transcends physical needs, while the latter remains there.

Another Swing at Will

After taking a closer look at the so-called "heath" in King Lear, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at another use of space in Shakespeare, namely the Forest of Arden in As You Like It. (Last week I finally saw Kenneth Branagh's 2006 film adaptation, which does some cool stuff with this space.) The forest stands in stark contrast to the court of France, from which all of the play's major characters hail. At the start of the piece one may note that most of these people are snobbish, materialistic, self-centered, and greedy. It seems as if the atmosphere of the court, in combination with the greed of an uncle, the jealousy of an older brother, and the neediness of some of the women, make the civilized world a very untamed place. This stands in opposition to the Forest, whose inhabitants enjoy peaceful contemplation and tranquil happiness in the heart of nature.

It's a theme that literature has seen before and after the composition of the play: can nature be less wild than the world of men? Once the characters from the French court escape to the forest, they begin to see what is truly essential in life. To offer affection to another person, to have that affection reciprocated: these become the only things that matter. The disputes of the court, and even the reasons for which the characters left it in the first place, are made unimportant in light of these simple virtues. The Forest is described as a rough and unorganized place, but somehow the lack of order brings about the opposite effect in people. There are not any malevolent distractions, such as gambling and fighting for possessions, out in the woods, which I take to mean that once temptation is removed, we return to a more primal, thoughtful way of life. Stated simply, our definition of "order" is what nature would consider "chaos" and vice versa.

The Heath (Lear Acts III & IV)

Though I read Acts III and IV of Lear before reading Turner's "King Lear Without: the Heath," I found that my train of thought while reading the heath scenes reflected quite accurately some of the sentiments Turner expresses in his essay. For instance, Turner explores the notion that Lear's Britain is textually vast and contains little sense of locality.

Could it be said that the heath is merely a plane of existence on which these characters have little other to do than ponder life? Lear's oddly sensible rants and the Fool's equally reasonable puns, not to mention Edgar's false insanity, seem to support this. Their contributions highlight aspects of the human condition from the many traits of female treachery to reflection on why people prize some objects as necessities more than others. The vagueness of the location also shows Shakespeare's focus on cognition over all: he offers no picture of the heath through the words of his characters, except in their accounts of the poor weather overhead. In this sense I am left with a mental image of a flat, grey plain dwarfed by gusts of wind, lightning bolts, and clouds. This locale is, in my opinion, the plain of the mind, where the playwright is free to take his characters on thoughtful journeys in between short bursts of plot-driven dialogue among Goneril, Regan, and Edmund. To that end the castle scenes are for movement, while the heath scenes are for reflection. This exchange is not unlike today's television dramas, which have a strict script formula that switches between periods for action and periods for thought on said action. The heath is simply a physical plane of the mind where Lear and company ponder the consequences of what went on in their castles.

"Land" of Constant Sorrow (Lear Acts I & II)

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the places in King Lear is how the people who inhabit them change (superficially and earnestly) when they go from one location to the next. It's Lear himself who brings about this change in his subjects, particularly within his daughters. In Act I, Scene 1, when they arrive at his call to express their love and allegiance to him as their father, the three daughters are within Lear's own court. He is still in control of the kingdom. Regan and Goneril show the utmost respect and courtesy to him out of necessity: if they are to receive a portion of his kingdom, they must lather him with tribute beforehand, though inwardly they're only so kind to him out of material desire. (Cordelia is the exceptional daughter, but she doesn't appear again in the Acts we've read to this date.) When Regan and Goneril re-encounter Lear at their own estates, their father's power now in their hands, they don't grant him the same grace as in the first scene of the play. Rather, they treat him like an old man who believes his elderly status gives him clout now that his political power is gone, regarding him with bewilderment. The exchange of royal power elicits this switch of manner from one location to the next.

Consider the fact that the events of these first two acts take place at two courts: one Lear's court, the other Regan's new court. In his own court Lear holds all the cards, so his daughters respect him. In her court Regan holds all the cards, but Lear interprets this as disrespect. There's nothing Lear can do about his opinion, however, because he's not on his own ground anymore. These first two acts therefore establish the importance of land when it comes to having sway in your own affairs. To quote Tim Blake Nelson in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, "You ain't no kind of man if you ain't got land."

When Hell Freezes Over

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Inferno is (for me) the portrayal of Hell as becoming colder the lower one goes. Common depictions would have one believe that greater depth equals greater temperature. Take, for example, the earth on which we live. The crust and atmosphere, likened to the upper levels of Hell, are cold and wet. The center of the earth, on the other hand, is a hot, molten mess. Considering the thermal opposition of these two settings, why doesn't our poet stick to convention and construct his Hell in accordance with our geologically sound view of the earth?

The most obvious answer to this question is that science hadn't gotten that far when Dante composed the Divine Comedy. No one knew about the molten core of the earth; however, they did know about volcanoes and magma. From where else might lava come, other than deeper in the earth? Why does Dante seek, in light of this recorded natural event, to portray the belly of Hell as frozen? Hailing from Italy would, I assume, only increase the likelihood that Dante was aware of volcanic eruptions, the country situated in a stew of volcanic activity. The only reason I can think of that would cause him to overlook this phenomenon is artistry: it is vital that Dante maintain a legendary and religious aspect to his work, so why not imbue the fall of Lucifer with frigidity rather than heat? Such an approach to this seismic event (literally and figuratively) only increases the chances that his work will catch the eye of the Church and, in turn, its sizable laity. To me (with little background in the religious history of Dante's Italy, mind you), this is as much a literary tactic as a marketing one.

Focused on Holes

I'd like to talk a bit about the use of lakes and mires in Cantos XXI and XXII of the Inferno. When considered within the physical scheme of a big crater created by the fall of Lucifer, these small depressions compliment the intricacy of Hell in the same way that strainer holes add to a kitchen collender. (You're bound to see a lot of dishwashing references in light of the title of this blog.) These lakes and mires permit only certain sinners' souls to permeate them, in the same way that collender holes only allow certain forms of food to flow through them.

I wonder about this "holes within holes" landscape. One might liken it to a tidepool, complete with different forms of life in each pocket of a large watery basin. In these two cantos Dante investigates the plight of Barrators, while in previous cantos he spoke of the Wrathful as they suffered in the Styx Marsh. Could these be thought of as crabs and shrimp? Or is this analogy business going a little too far? Perhaps it would be better to investigate these miniature hells in terms of their depth: by including lakes and mires in Hell, isn't Dante creating "more" depth in circles that are seemingly flat? Dante often mentions that these lakes and mires are abysses of their own. If this is the case, isn't there a whole secondary measure of hellish depth we haven't considered? Where do these abysses lead, and should they be measured topographically along with the rest of Hell?

Intro/Inferno (Cantos I-V)

So here's to all things topographical! (Applause.) After two geography classes at UConn, I'm finally being exposed to a side of it that I may very well enjoy. No more demographic studies: this is Dante's Inferno we're talkin' about!

Enough pep. I'm here to talk a bit about the first five cantos of the Inferno, in particular its intricate, circular portrayal of hell. I'm used to the Biblical depiction of hell described in rousing sermons by my childhood priest, and hadn't seen such a complex schematic of the place until picking up this poem. It's contours may almost be likened to a tree stump or an onion, with some circles/layers imagined as larger, smaller, busier, emptier, more agonizing, or less terrible than their neighbors. This sits in stark contrast to my previous mental picture of hell as a single domain beneath the earth, where souls aren't separated by the degrees of their sins. In light of these first five cantos, I realize that my view of the great Devil's Den has been systematically dulled by cartoon versions of it, in which the devil sits as a dark, brooding figure in a cave of flames. Here, on the contrary, I saw an interesting mixture of characters out of epic poetry, Greek and Roman mythology, and Christianity.

As I finished up the reading, I couldn't help but wonder if the topographical intricacy of Dante's hell was a result of his use of many literary, historical, philosophical, and mythological figures, or whether it was the other way around: the great capacity of Dante's hell spawning the inclusion of these characters. Either way, I'm prepared for an interesting read. Considering I've only reached the second circle out of seven, I'm certain this question will be answered over the coming week. Stay tuned.