Term Paper Topic

Well, our days are winding down to a close, and paper topics loom before us, frightening and captivating. If only there was more time..... My sister commandeered the Internet for most of last night, so I apologize for this blog being a bit late. However, here it is.

When thinking about possible term paper topics, I knew I wanted to write about Beckett. Earlier on in the semester, I wrote a blog...more like a rant of sorts, about people dismissing the darker side of life as "depressing" and moving on. I railed on those who would rather not feel these emotions, deny their existence, rather than walking through that avenue of fire to find the revelation and discovery on the other side. Some things are worth being felt....deeply. I really connected with Malone Dies. Though he strips away everything from his characters, I found this absence, this nothingness, was full. Just as when true silence abounds all around you and you feel it like a physical presence or force, I found this emptiness to be deafening.

In my paper, I will be adressing this process of kenosis or emptying out of self to reach the core. This term relates to alchemy in some ways, but is more connected to a process of awareness in my eyes as opposed to a process of purification, though this absolutely comes into play. There is a certain sense of endurance in Malone, a desperate clinging to life combined with unattachment and breaking down. I find the paradox of emptying self to find self incredibly engaging. In my paper I want to describe or dive into this process and see what results.

Finnegans Wake Annotated Page (457)

As always when reading Finnegans Wake, I realize there is no real means of full understanding. After annotating my page, page 457, I was by no means closer to understanding the page as a whole. I could only latch onto vague trends and other noncommittal understandings. There seemed to be a lot of sexual references on the page. One example, for instance, is "drawhure deelish." Hure is the German word for whore, quite literally meaning prostitute. Deelish, I considered to contain several puns, for instance, deal-->concerning money such as the deal between the prostitute and here customers, delicious, also dervish--> sources of wisdom in the middle eastern Sufi faith. Dervish means "one who opens doors" in Persian, and the whirling dervish is a dance to achieve religious ecstacy.

Along with several sexual, or at least sensual, references on this page, there are a lot of religious references as well. Could Joyce be meaning to draw a parallel between the two?? I think so. "penitent Ferdinand" could refer to Ferdinand in the Tempest, but perhaps more aptly refers to Ferdinand King of Leon and Castille and member of the 3rd Order of St. Francis. This king of Spain fought to free spain from the Saracens and married the pious daughter of the then King of Germany. Ferdinand dedicated multiple churches to the Blessed Virgin Mary, here contrasted with references to whores and prostitutes on this page.
The "Devil a curly hair" passage refers to The Devil and The Farmer, a short story from England in 1893 which tells of a wager a farmer made with the Devil. In order to escape the bet, he told the Devil he could not straighten a curly hair on an anvil. When the Devil could not, he left the farmer in peace.

One reference that I found particularly interesting as far as how Joyce transformed the language of the actual quote in the rhythmic way he does is the passage that goes, "a tear or two in time is all there's toot." Literally it sounds like" a tear or two in time is all there is to it". Could this refer to the loss of virginity? The words also refer to a passage in the Bible that goes, "a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak". This passage is from the Ecclesiastes 3:7 and speaks about the "vanity of human life".

The end of this page seems to be a conversation between a man and a woman. She "tactilifully grapbed her male corrispondee". Working with the word "tactilifully", I basically did a word association or simply stated, a calling to mind of similar words this could be referring to. I found, tacit-->unvoiced, unspoken, implied; tempus-->tempest, time, tempus fugit--> Latin for "time flees"; temptation; impetuous; tumultuous; turbulent. Also the word "grapbed" could reference "grappled" and quite obviously "bed".

The tone of this page seemed overtly sexual but also connected to religion. I found that marriage of seemingly opposing systems of thought intriguing. Of course there have always been saints who have referred to their relationship with God in sexual terms. See The Esctacy of St. Therese by Bernini below for a visual example of this concept. But Joyce does this in an entirely new and subtle way. I wonder what this means to the work as a whole. However, I know there is no "meaning", no final truth, no unifying theme. This continues to upset me about Finnegans Wake...I don't think I will ever be reconciled to the idea of a world without too many references and yet without universal meaning at all....

Pick a Blog, Any Blog

As always, there comes a point in the semester where Dr. Sexson asks us to specifically mention a fellow blogger's work that has influenced us in some way. And, much like every semester before, I am unable to choose just one person to recognize. Each and every blog has offered us something that we needed, and if any one of those blogs was missing, the map of the class would be altered irreparably. We would be at a loss. Sam's blog is a wealth of information, offering us a detailed record of Dr. Sexson's lectures as well as providing us all with so many outside references to dive into. Rio, our "resident geek", offers us an entirely new dimension to the class, transforming it from a simple lecture and note-taking atmosphere into an multimedia, interactive environment. Jon Orsi has gone mad, thankfully. His dedication to exploring certain themes or concepts in depth through the texts (especially Beckett) is something to be admired. James' blog reads as poetry and raises so many questions to ponder over. Sarah Burke's blog shows how much she is thinking about the themes in relation to life. I could go on and on, mentioning every blog and every classmate.

The wonderful thing about blogging in the class setting is that it allows us to see just how varied our classmates are. It allows us to learn from each other, to laugh even as we grow in all directions. Dr. Sexson's classes are far from the question-and-answer, fill-in-the-blank, mindless regurgitation of information courses that I have experienced in the class. We take charge of our own education , for ourselves, even as we follow our cult leader and his wisdom. =) I could hardly choose just one classmate, or one blog out of this riotous stream of information.

Define: Alchemy

"An Alchemist in his Workshop" by David the Younger Teniers

This week's assignment: to blog about what "alchemy" is.

Well, at first I thought I would search the internet for relevant videos and articles on the subject of alchemy, but a simple google search on multiple variations of this theme seemed useless. I was flooded with images with "healing properties", doomsday prophecies set to pictures, and historical presentations on how alchemy has been perceived throughout the ages. In the field of art, I came across countless images like the one above depicting an elderly scholar surrounded by the clutter, often with an apprentice of some sort, attempting to achieve some transformative power.

None of these images or ideas seemed to align with the idea of alchemy as we discussed it and as I believe it to be in relation to ourselves and our world. Alchemy, simply said, is the power to transform. It is the quest to control one's environment, the quest to control and transform the self. When one thinks about the stereotypical idea of turning lead into gold, one must think of it as a simple metaphor. This is what we must do for ourselves....as an action and a process. We must transform the low-brow into the high-brow, and I think that is the goal of this class. How do we move from the state of lead, of demotic language, to a state of gold, into the realm and language of the gods?

I think the vital difference between an "alchemist" as Coelho would define him and the average man is the mentality of control and observation. We often become restricted by our surroundings, believing the illusion we have been born into, illusions such as place and specific identity. Without going into the "soul of the world" and "personal legends", I think it is safe to say that the process by which we break out of these restrictions or limitations is the process by which we become, rather than passive observers in our lives, truly active, engaged, and creative controllers of our own selves. Call it a transformation of soul, call it a hero's journey, the process remains the same. It is the shift of values, the shift between worlds by a P2C2E, the waking up to our simulation and the act of revelation. This is "alchemy," the active recognition and taking part in a process of realization and transformation.

The Throwing of Books

This semester seems to be one of book throwing. Now, I know for English majors, the very idea of hurling a book across the room at full speed and considerable force seems reprehensible, even an act of sacrilege. But I confess! I have committed this blasphemy several times this semester. I think the first book that I threw across my living room was that of Finnegan's Wake. I was frustrated with a language that wasn't language and yet all language. I was frustrated at not being able to read. In conventional terms. I don't really blame myself for that one though; Sexson warned us this might happen.

Next, I threw Beckett.....lovingly. I had just read a particularly mundane passage in Molloy and frustratingly let the book fall to the floor with a satisfying thud. The important thing about Beckett though, is that I picked it back up. And I loved reading Malone Dies.

After throwing a Shakespearean play the other day (I'm beginning to detect a trend: This class is bleeding into others) after muddling through its lengthy introduction, I picked up The Alchemist. Mere hours later, I had the unmistakable feeling that this would follow the others. Turning the pages with restrained vehemence, I voiced my opinions to my sister and roommate. She had already laughed at me when, without provocation, I had thrown the book I was reading previously at least four feet to a clatter of pages on the floor. Now she laughed again. I'm glad I was some sort of amusement for her, at least. =)

I didn't like The Alchemist because it didn't engage me. It read like a self-help book with talk of "Personal Legends" and the "Soul of the World" etc. I noticed that after each revelation that Coelho presented, the narrative voice would change to describe in great detail how the boy now believed this, was certain of that. It seemed to me that Coelho presented the idea and then took the reader, embodied in the boy, and told that reader "you belieeeeeve me......you belieeeeeve", like a sorceror or a simple trickster whose trick was all too evident. Without a doubt, the greater themes of definitions of place and of dreams are of vital importance in anyone's life. Truly, we can often only know a place by leaving it, or at least by having a mentality that allows one to distance oneself from attachment and self-limitation. However, in the Alchemist I feel this theme is diluted or diffused even as it is staring me in the face like a brick wall. Is there anything wrong with wanting to find the truth for oneself, in wanting a book to engage me and entrap me like, say, a Nabokov novel??

I suppose I have become spoiled by a semester of reading Nabokov. I want to be so engaged in the details and their relation to the whole, grand master scheme that I almost physically cannot put the book down. I want to know there is something more beneath the surface, something tangible and concrete, even if that "reality" is an illusion as well. I am quite content to peel back the layers of one of his novels incessantly. As horrifying as it is to say this, I simply don't feel that connection or sense of being vividly engaged with the material this semester. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the low-brow is too obvious to be compelling, and the high-brow, such as Finnegans Wake, is like a fearsome giant looming over me. I have no weapons. I feel the works of Nabokov are every bit as difficult and meaningful, if not more so, than what we are reading.

I'm frustrated and wondering, why do I feel the constant need to throw something at the nearest wall?? I think Beckett may be my saving grace in the end, but only because Malone Dies gripped me. I simply don't know what to do about the throwing of books. Quite frankly, I don't think they can take much more abuse. =)

A Three Hour Tour =)

When presented with the idea of having three hours to live and the question of what to do with one's remaining time, the temptation is always to say dangerous...life-affirming things we usually would not do. "I would go skydiving, mountain-climbing....(fill in your favorite extremely dangerous activity here....)". Others seek to treasure what they know to be great and that they already have, the simplest pleasures of life we often take for granted. "I would spend time with my loved ones, finally finish that book, watch a sunrise". The reality is that most of us would probably waste our remaining moments in this world by freaking out about our imminent doom and striving to prevent it.

For me, I would like to believe that I could face the discovery of my soon-to-be end with some measure of strength. I like to believe that if it came to that, life would be sweeter to me, even more than it already is, more vivid. Even now, as I have no idea when my end (beginning??) will be, I have a sense of taking everything into myself. I used to be obsessed with the idea of capturing all the....beauty....the value of this world in art. My personal revelation came with the knowledge that one never truly captures that vision (of the intrinsic value of all things), one can never....really equate it. One can only come close. This fact disturbed me greatly because I was forced to confront the impermanence of even that immortality......immortality....framed?...in impermanence? I discovered that I did not have to capture it. I could let it move through me.


Now I don't mean to channel here any eccentric notions of energy travel or "flow"...though I will not be the one to discount these theories either. It was, rather, a certain process. I would be struck by something....the exact light of a tree-branch lit by a street lamp....the quality of the sound of a single drop falling from an icicle into a mud puddle...the divinely infinite reflection of the sky on a street wet from recent rains. Rather than seek to capture it, memorize it, assimilate that vision into myself, I would identify it. I would give it the time and the attention it deserved in that moment, and having paid that spark what it was owed, I let it go. I let it move away from me, accepting that the exact shade of the sky or the exact feeling of recognition between strangers for instance would be lost......but.....not altogether lost. I had lost the need for containment, limited definition perhaps. Call it what you will.


I would hope that my last three hours on earth would be spent with this experience or a similar one--only the beauty and richness of that experience would transcend even itself. I would hope that my time would be spent....living....because I consider this...underlying value and beauty, the framework that underlies our menial existence, I consider this to be....life.

The Storm

Continuing with the cave theme, here are some images from the cave of Les Trois Freres. The first is a description of the set of drawings as a whole. The figures overlap each other, move into one another and with one another in a swirl of activity. This abundance of action in the scene echoes the storm in the tempest, (no, I don't mean the physical storm...remember this is all an illusion). I am speaking of the storm of illusion, make-believe, and deception wrought by the magician figure in the book, Prospero. The second image in the three I have posted, is a detail of one figure in the mix, and is said to be a shaman figure with the power to shift into the mind of an animal, assume its physical shape, etc. See how the figure's hands and feet are human rather than animalistic in order to depict this synthesis. The third and final image is a hybrid of man and beast yet again and is described as a lesser sorceror with a musical bow. This figure seems to parallel Ariel whose powers in the art of deception enable Prospero to enact his own magic. The musical connection between the two can be seen here as well.

What The Tempest describes for us is the idea of submitting oneselves to be voluntarily deceived. We adopt "matrices" and other illusions, immersing ourselves in art and literature in order to achieve our own immortality to be sure. But there is another element to this willing participation in a cycle of lies and passing dreams. Why do we go out to see movies, the most literal version of the images played for prisoners in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"? Why write great literature and subject ourselves to the ongoing struggle of differentiating or synthesizing art and immediate life? Why believe the lie, once we know it is a lie? In essence, "what's the point of stories when they aren't even true"? I feel this is a major theme presented in this class, and one that deserves our prolongued attention. Why make art? This is a question that has endured since the very conception of art, as can be seen in cave painting such as these.

There is a power there, in the deception. What strikes me time and again is the idea that we gain insight about ourselves and our world through deception. Through gates of deception, illusion, and falsehoods do we find what we call truth. Yet there is an aspect of the unveiling that must not be forgotten. Perhaps it is not the falsehood that captures us but the revelation, the epiphane achieved only through art rather than direct experience. How is this sort of revelation different than that achieved through one's own interactions with the world through physical means? Which is more valid? Can we even speak in those terms?

In this article on the caves at Lascaux, these ideas of creation, the dream, and surrogate versions of "reality" are explored in more detail. It reads fairly quickly and, I believe, raises interesting topics for discussion. Here are a few excerpts from the article:

"What is interesting about these creations is that they were the forerunners of the symbolic and sensory realm of art, drama and literature, which has become increasingly elaborate with the progress of civilization. Each in a different way, has allowed humanity to escape the literalness of its surroundings, to raise our collective noses off the ground, as it were, and produce a vision of other ways of living and other possible worlds, which are enough like this world to seem plausible."

"cave painters and their descendents had to journey inside them, and leave the rest of the world behind. The images were lit by flickering lamps, which must have added to the sense that they were in a world apart, a world modeled after their own fears and desires, and perceptions. [. . .] (and are) an expression of our desire to escape into seemingly human worlds, made lifelike through the application of art and technology, in which the landscape is that of the imagination."

"Today, as we increasingly live inside lifelike fictions, and re-create our surroundings as an endless form of immersive fiction, one has to wonder what will become of human nature. Will it change, as well, or will we end up reenacting the same things our ancestors did, but in increasingly spectacular forms?"

In this last paragraph, we see the emergence of the theme of eternal recurrence. The goal, then is to relive each cycle in greater splendor then the last, to be more, reach for more, to really "know a place for the first time". Perhaps we must also know ourselves anew. This is the key. We need to be like Miranda in that we view the world with fresh eyes in every moment. We must be aware of the cycle, be aware of the illusion (self-created or imposed on us i.e. the Matrix) yet still retain our transformative powers as creators....whether this be transforming the self or transforming one's own sphere of influence however large that may be. This is the vital importance of Miranda to the storm. We must incorporate into ourselves each of the powers here represented in order to "release them from their bands with the help of our good hands". From Caliban, we gain natural powers, from Miranda this sense of wonder and revelation, from books the power to transfrom; the list goes on. What role do we play on this stage on which we are "merely players". Are we then to become Prospero, master of our own illusion? I leave the answering of this question to my reader.