Reality?

Once again I seem to be finding elements of the class in everything that I watch, whether it is high brow (ish) or low brow. The themes seem to find their way, in some manner or another, into almost everything.


The most recent film in which caught my attention was "Pan's Labyrinth." It is a great movie, I absolutely recommend it to everyone, especially if you have any interest in Spanish or the civil war that took place there. It is about a little girl who has grown up in the midst of a war, has dealt with abuse from her step father, and who loses a mother. In order to cope with the horrors surrounding her, she creates her own little world in which she is a kind of hero. I think it ties in really well with the theme of Life as Myth and Dream. For her, it is very real. However, for everyone else it is simply fairy tale talk. It begs the question, what is real? Is a world that has been constructed by one's mind but still effects one greatly real? Or must it be something that is agreed upon by everyone? If that is the case, is there such a thing? For the little girl, life was what she imagined. Although most people would call her delusional or say that she is living in a dream world, are we all not to a degree?

A low brow television show was the next place that I found a questioning of reality. In one episode of CSI a man is accused of murdering his brother, and when questioned about it the man tells a heartbreaking story. Moments later his entire story is shown to be a lie. He then goes on to create a different reality through the use of his words and imagination. Pretty much all of what he says does not hold true to the evidence that has been collected, and at one point one of the officers says, "Well you are just one fistfull of lies wrapped in another." The murderer's response is, "It's the truth, I swear to God, even if it never really happened." This reminded me of the theme Life as Fiction and Language. Although his lies were uncovered, people make up or embellish on stories every day. Such "lies" may not have actually occurred, but by telling someone they did, and making them believe that they did, the lies become an actual part of someone's reality.

This is something that I have been thinking about a lot as well. If a good portion of everyone's "reality" is based on what others say or what they see in the media, but a good portion of that is biased and not wholly "truthful," than what is real? Nobody's realities can be real if they are based significantly on things that never occurred or occurred in a different way. If there are a number of witnesses to a crime, it is guaranteed that all of them will have seen and will recount something slightly different. If there was an absolute truth or reality, than how can this be the case? So many people take what others tell them to be an exact truth, but I think that one must always keep in mind that it is not. One must always question the reality of others, and even one's own reality because after all, it is just as biased as everyone elses.

The Following Story

I simply find this book extremely amusing. There have been numerous instances, which I will discuss in more detail in a moment, that have caused me to laugh out loud and in doing so procure odd looks from my peers.

Herman Mussert is just such a strange and awkward character. When he awakes in a completely different city than he has fallen asleep in, he immediately tried to rationalize it. He began by convincing himself that he was not dead because he had the ability to think. Mussert then tried to figure out if he was in fact himself in another place, or if he had inexplicably become someone else. His reaction to the whole situation, one which should cause panic and confusion, was so odd. In fact, it kind of reminded me of the main character in Kant's Metamorphosis. Noteboom actually includes the idea of metamorphosis throughout the book as well, and even with regards to a beetle, although not a dung beetle like that in Kant's book. Actually, he talks about a sexon beetle, which of course was kind of funny as well since our professor's name is Dr. Sexon and he somehow inadvertently seems to find his way into many of the books we read.

I think the thing that I found most funny about Mussert is his blatant awkwardness when it comes to human contact. He is so in tuned and emotionally connected with literature, but when it comes to humans he has no idea how to act. Sex is almost a painful thing for him to think about because the thought of physical human contact is so foreign and awkward for him. It is during scenes depicting such awkwardness that made me laugh the most. For example, he describes the sound made by a can opener tearing through the metal of a can as "one of the most sensual experiences he knows" (9). How is that in any way sensual? Most people find that noise irritation at best. His description of Latin and literature is much more sensual then his interaction with women. He compares his fingers to "a bunch of child molesters on the run from an institution" (22) when it came to people, but the caress of a page of a book was much different for him. Mussert feels like he is at home within his books, almost like he is part of them. He completely disconnects himself from people throughout the book. An example of this can be found on pg 28:

"So-called real life had only once interfered with me, and it had been a far cry from what the words, lines, books had prepared me for. Fate had to do with blind seers, oracles, choruses announcing death, not with panting next to the refrigerator, fumbling with condoms, waiting in a Honda parked in a Lisbon hotel. Only the written word exists; everything one must do oneself is without form, subject to contingency without rhyme or reason."

He is just so awkward! Everything about him is awkward. I can't imagine having him as a teacher. It cracks me up.

20 Minute Lifetime in Other Works

It is funny how once certain themes or ideas are brought up in class they seem to pop up everywhere. Since we have started discussing the idea of a 20 minute lifetime in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and Notebooms The Following Story it seems like I see it incorporated into films and books everywhere.

To begin with, we watched a Star Treck episode in class that was based on the theme. Although it was mos definitely a low brow version of the 20 Minute Lifetime, it did illustrate it well. I enjoyed watching it in class. It is always kind of nice to see both sides, the high brown and low brow versions, in order to gain a better grasp on the idea. At times the high brow versions complicate things to such a degree that it is difficult to fully understand them. That was most definitely not the case with the Star Treck version. In fact, one could pretty much guess what was going to happen before it did. Again, it was a nice break and fresh of breath air.

Another novel that the theme of the 20 Minute Lifetime can be found in is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. John Orsey brought this up in class briefly, and it reminded me of it. Throughout the book there are notes regarding past scenes that flash in Aureliano's mind as he stands in front of a firing squad awaiting his death. Although these memories do not comprise the whole novel as Mussert's do in The Following Story, there are multiple mentions of the vast amount of time that streams through his head right before death is supposed to come to him.

A movie in which the 20 Minute lifetime plays a huge role in is "Contact." Jody Foster plays a woman who has been attempting to make contact with beings from outerspace for a long time, and finally does. When contact is made, a set of directions for constructing a vessel is sent to earth. Two prototypes are made, and Jody Foster takes her place in the second one. As the vessel is started she witnesses all kinds of amazing things and even makes contacts with an "alien" (who has taken the form of her father) in a virtual reality constructed in a certain way to make her feel most comfortable. She is able to speak with him and discuss what is out in space and who the aliens are. She then returns to earth, and in doing so the vessel crashes. When she returns and speaks with her colleagues they don't believe what she has said because to them it looks as if the shuttle never took off and in fact simply fell strait through the machine. What they saw occur in mere seconds really lasted 18 hours for the character that Jody Foster plays, and there is blurred footage that proves it. It is most definately a low brow example as well.

Two other films that incorporate the same theme are the new "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Wizard of Oz."

30 Words from Finnegans Wake

I have decided on the 30 words (38 actually) that I am going to memorize from Finnegans Wake. Unfortunately I won't be there to present in class, but will be taking part in the riverrrun project to make up for it.

My passage is from page 213 and goes as follows:

"Well, you know or don't you kennet or haven't I told you every telling has a taling and that's the he and she of it. Look, look, the dusk is growing. My branches lofty are taking root."

I chose this section because I feel like it is quite pertinent to the class, or that at least it can be decipher in such a way to make it pertinent to the themes of the class. "Every telling has a taling," to me, seems to imply that behind every story that has ever been told, there is some sort of fictitious element or "tale." This could pertain to literature or a story that a friend simply tells another friend. His "branches lofty taking root" could be his story beginning to take hold. The themes that I see most within this little section are Life as Myth and Dream and Life as Fiction. If every story has some bases on a "non-truth" so to speak, than how can life be based on truth. The elements of fiction that accompany every story culminate into a life more based on fiction than "truth," if there even is such a thing. Truth is something that is in the eye of the beholder, and that varies from person to person. Therefore, the stories that they tell and the things that talk about, hold some sort of subjectivism and lack in absolute "truth."