I just loved these books, and I was rooting for Lisbeth Salander all the way. At work I was asked to take a personality evaluation test, and it revealed that I am person who values the human contact and relationship above the rules. Now that is definitely not to say that I am not a law abiding citizen. rather I see that each act, each thought arises from it's own unique set of circumstances. I will grant that we must use some generalities in order not to be bogged down in over thinking every thing, but in cases that give us pause, that upset us, or that we perceive that damage has been done to us or to those in our oikoumene, we must, yes absolutely must examine as best we can all the circumstances that lead up to that event.
With the character of Lisbeth Salander we see this quite clearly, as the author draws it out in microscopic, forensic detail. Who is she? How did she get to be who she is? The media rushes to judgement in the most salacious, titillating way...of course she is an insane lesbian satanist, and thus a threat to all that is good and holy and true. But that is how we are told to perceive ourselves..we are the good, the holy, the true...all others are to be excluded and condemned.
But is this really the case? It is the easy way out, and for Lisbeth and her circumstances. it is the cowards way. Her friends...those people who have come to know and appreciate her...rally to give us all that we need to know to realize that the whole is so much more that the sum of the isolated and Fox-news/Rush Limbaugh-interpreted parts.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Thursday, October 27, 2011
ἔκβασις
day one of my fall adventure log..it will be a short adventure but one that i want to enjoy. in the past i always hurried to the place that i wanted to go but now i want to savor the journey. the destination is only a part of the whole. going forth, abiding, return, like those who went into the great deserts of the Thebiad or much later (and more appealing to me), those who went into the Northern Thebiad~the primeval forests of the land now called Russia. why did they go? to seek divinity..to know themselves..or to just get away from the familiar .
i am ready, almost. got a map, instructions, and a few clothes. but it is amazing how many sundries i think i need...nail clippers, powder, razor, comb, deodorant...the list grows even as i struggle to fill it. only two books (as i wont count the kindle app as books) Cry to Heaven by Anne rice i want to finish..it has taken me to the wonderful worlds of pre-Gluck opera and the unfamiliar yet exciting world of the castrati, the pop stars of the 1730s & 40s. funny how i forget about civilization in the 1700s because as an American, my focus is on the log cabins of my pioneers and not the great opera seria of G.F. Handel that they left behind them. a special thank you to the dear one who told me about this book...
also going along is Rabbit, run by John Updike. my mind used to get lost in the past and want to dwell there always. now i care about the present, how did we get here? why do we act the way we do? Updike is the great chronicler of the average man in America in the second half of the 20th century...he has an amazing cryptic style that makes you re-read every paragraph to tease out the meat. and yes i know it is vacation but i cant be without my books. picture a 16 year old gawky boy struggling through 30th street station in Philadelphia with a big case and duffel weighted like rocks...
anyway, it is almost time to go. will check and doublecheck my list..have i got everything. geez i am such a worrier. but i do have a confidence now that i didnt have before, so i am ready to go forth and enjoy the journey as well as the destination.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Edgar Allan Poe: The Cask of Amontillado
This past year, I have been reading some works that high school English class had all but ruined for me. Great Expectations is really a good book (sorry, Mrs. Sutphin, I'm sure you t
ried your best, but our minds were not fully formed and weighted down with ennui). And...Edgar Allan Poe! He just didn't take with me the first time, but the fact that Baudelaire translated him (in the 1840s!) has lead me back to try again. I picked up a complete tales & poems at Borders for $8, poured myself a half-mug of sherry, and settled down in my library.
The Cask of Amontillado got my attention right away. I'm sure we had to read this in school, it's a see-he's-cool-guy-if-he-writes-this story. The narrator tells us about a little thing he did 50 years ago (yawn)...no, it's that he took his revenge on an adversary by walling him up alive in his basement. Now this story really spoke to me. No, not because I am an angel of vengeance with a long enemies list (I'm really not). It resonated psychologically with some of the things I have been thinking and blogging about. If you want a good analysis, then go here: http://rmmla.wsu.edu/ereview/58.2/articles/baraban.asp
I am giving what I saw in this story, I make no claim to great literary interpretation.
The two characters, Montresor and Fortunato, interact throughout the story. When I first read it years ago, I sympathized with the narrator, Montresor. He has endured the wrong and taken action. But now I see them in a different light. Amontillado is a psychodrama, a duel between two competing aspects of a single personality. Montresor is the serious one, judgemental, religious, hierarchical minded, a calculating, humorless stay-at-home. In Freaks & Geeks terms, he is Lindsay Weir the mathlete. In Hongloumeng, he is Jia Baoyu the Confucian student who passed the National Examinations. Fortunato is the jester, curious, arrogant, spontaneous...lead by his emotions and his pride. Lindsay Weir the freak, Baoyu in the garden, on his way to becoming a wandering Taoist monk. Yes, I know I am stretching Poe's characterizations a bit, but these connections just jumped out at me. Montresor could not endure the Fortunato part of himself, so he buried it deep inside him. Will Lindsay repress her freak side to become a tool of the establishment? Would Baoyu have stayed to be a government functionary like his father? Montresor overcomes Fortunato and lives his adult life through (50 years) without him.
To live in this world we must somehow come to terms with it, and the world perfers the Montresors to the Fortunatos. My Fortunato side is an important part of my identity, yet day after day I must be the Montresor and suppress Fortunato. At least I have not walled him up in an inaccessable place. I write, draw, sing loudly to Lady Gaga (when I am alone in the car^^), visit my favorite tree, let my imagination flow freely (sometimes). But I do not float so far away that I cannot sit in my office becide the morgue and do my work.
So, thank you for a great story, Mr. Poe! (Even if I have twisted it somewhat...) I am sorry that it took me over 30 years to get back to you, and I look forward to reading more!
ried your best, but our minds were not fully formed and weighted down with ennui). And...Edgar Allan Poe! He just didn't take with me the first time, but the fact that Baudelaire translated him (in the 1840s!) has lead me back to try again. I picked up a complete tales & poems at Borders for $8, poured myself a half-mug of sherry, and settled down in my library.The Cask of Amontillado got my attention right away. I'm sure we had to read this in school, it's a see-he's-cool-guy-if-he-writes-this story. The narrator tells us about a little thing he did 50 years ago (yawn)...no, it's that he took his revenge on an adversary by walling him up alive in his basement. Now this story really spoke to me. No, not because I am an angel of vengeance with a long enemies list (I'm really not). It resonated psychologically with some of the things I have been thinking and blogging about. If you want a good analysis, then go here: http://rmmla.wsu.edu/ereview/58.2/articles/baraban.asp
I am giving what I saw in this story, I make no claim to great literary interpretation.
The two characters, Montresor and Fortunato, interact throughout the story. When I first read it years ago, I sympathized with the narrator, Montresor. He has endured the wrong and taken action. But now I see them in a different light. Amontillado is a psychodrama, a duel between two competing aspects of a single personality. Montresor is the serious one, judgemental, religious, hierarchical minded, a calculating, humorless stay-at-home. In Freaks & Geeks terms, he is Lindsay Weir the mathlete. In Hongloumeng, he is Jia Baoyu the Confucian student who passed the National Examinations. Fortunato is the jester, curious, arrogant, spontaneous...lead by his emotions and his pride. Lindsay Weir the freak, Baoyu in the garden, on his way to becoming a wandering Taoist monk. Yes, I know I am stretching Poe's characterizations a bit, but these connections just jumped out at me. Montresor could not endure the Fortunato part of himself, so he buried it deep inside him. Will Lindsay repress her freak side to become a tool of the establishment? Would Baoyu have stayed to be a government functionary like his father? Montresor overcomes Fortunato and lives his adult life through (50 years) without him.
To live in this world we must somehow come to terms with it, and the world perfers the Montresors to the Fortunatos. My Fortunato side is an important part of my identity, yet day after day I must be the Montresor and suppress Fortunato. At least I have not walled him up in an inaccessable place. I write, draw, sing loudly to Lady Gaga (when I am alone in the car^^), visit my favorite tree, let my imagination flow freely (sometimes). But I do not float so far away that I cannot sit in my office becide the morgue and do my work.
So, thank you for a great story, Mr. Poe! (Even if I have twisted it somewhat...) I am sorry that it took me over 30 years to get back to you, and I look forward to reading more!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Hongloumeng
The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber (Hongloumeng) is one of the great novels of all time. Spanning 5 volumes in David Hawkes English translation, it is longer that Proust, but much more interesting. We follow the life of Jia Baoyu, as he is pulle
d between living his dreams and conforming to the expectations of society. But that is not all; the whole Jia family, living a life of ease at the height of traditional China's civilization, is presented to us, from the revered matriarch to the lowest servant. Baoyu comes to live in Total Vision Garden, which had been built for the visit of his older sister, a concubine of the Son of Heaven. There also, in little houses, dwell many of his closest female relatives. Together they try to form an ideal society rooted in poetry and beauty, but the real world intervenes most harshly, and none of them are able to escape their fate.
d between living his dreams and conforming to the expectations of society. But that is not all; the whole Jia family, living a life of ease at the height of traditional China's civilization, is presented to us, from the revered matriarch to the lowest servant. Baoyu comes to live in Total Vision Garden, which had been built for the visit of his older sister, a concubine of the Son of Heaven. There also, in little houses, dwell many of his closest female relatives. Together they try to form an ideal society rooted in poetry and beauty, but the real world intervenes most harshly, and none of them are able to escape their fate. But I oversimplify. I cannot even begin to summarise 2,500 pages. The scenes that most stick in my mind include an exhibition of patriarchal authority that would make the Old Testament proud: "Tie him up! Beat him to death!" shouts the overwrought father at his seemingly worthless son (until grandmother interveves). My favorites have to do with the Crab Flower Club, the ga
rden's poetry society. I have always loved the company and conversation of girls, and living like Baoyu in a fantastic garden with several talented girls would be my ideal life. Shi Xiangyun is my favorite, she is the girl who drifts toward the male gender as Baoyu drifts toward the female gender. In fact gender boundaries blur throughout, especially in the running of the household by the adults. For the traditionalists, Lin Daiyu is the ideal of fragile beauty, whereas Xue Baochai in the practical conformist, who puts herself back into her traditional place.
rden's poetry society. I have always loved the company and conversation of girls, and living like Baoyu in a fantastic garden with several talented girls would be my ideal life. Shi Xiangyun is my favorite, she is the girl who drifts toward the male gender as Baoyu drifts toward the female gender. In fact gender boundaries blur throughout, especially in the running of the household by the adults. For the traditionalists, Lin Daiyu is the ideal of fragile beauty, whereas Xue Baochai in the practical conformist, who puts herself back into her traditional place. Within the poetry club, the members seek the ideal hearer for their works. Who is the one whose heart was meant to receive that which their heart has poured out? And how can we stay true to our dreams in the face of real world obligations? In the end, Baoyu does accomplish what his family expects of him, but no more. The dreams formed in the garden cannot endure, and, like the cherry blossoms, they blow away in the wind. And I have not yot even mentioned Wang Xifeng, or the haughty young nun Adamantina.
Cao Xueqin (1715-1763) is the author of most of the work, as well a possible model for Baoyu. The work at first circulated in manuscript among family. These first readers annotated and edited the work. Ruchang Zhou, a contemporary "Redologist" (student of this work) in his Between Noble and Humble: Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber, puts forth the hypothesis that Shi Xiangyun is in fact the editor "Red Inkstone," and possibly the wife of the author. Whoever they were, the editors helped Cao Xueqin steer clear of topics that might anger the government censors, and thus ensured the work's survival.
I love the challenge of a long work of fiction, but there must be some theme or investment in character(s) that pulls me along. Sheer weird wild beauty pulled me through 48 books of Nonnos' Dionysiaca. I made it all the way with Robert Musil's Man Without Qualities. But Proust left me flat, and I just didn't grow to care about anybody in the Mahabharata. Three Kingdoms, I may give another chance, but I am done with Journey to the West. Hongloumeng, I have read three times, and hope to read it again. It is, after all, the expression of my ideal pure world of beauty, poetry, girls, and dreams.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
This is a short novel written by a contemporary of Edvard Munch, whom we all know and love for his painting The Scream. Hamsun, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920, has created a Kafkaesque narrator who struggles through a very rough patch in the city, before setting out on the voyage that will make or break him as a functioning adult. Sorry about using the term "Kafkaesque,' by the way.
If you read Hunger as a narrative, a traditional novel, you will be disappointed. Better to stick with Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment. Hamsun's narrator, his K, his analog-I, seems to drift on through from one thing after another by the power of his own inner compulsions. But what are they? Ahh! Once you ask that question, you will be on the way to seeing the deeper level of Hunger, as a tale of a boy trying to become a man and take a place in the symbolic order.
I hated Biblical allegory because I never saw it on my own. Once somebody pointed out the hidden, deep and secret meaning, then I could say, 'Aha! I get it!' But never a minuite before. In literature, sadly it is the same, but, thanks to Freud, Jung, Erich Neumann, and the demigodic Lacan, I enjoy what I find so much more. And Hamsun digs deep, oh so deep.
The novel is about 200 pages in the Penguin Classics edition, divided into four sections. In the first, we are dragged along through three days of the narrator's life. And what a life! Signs and talismans abound. But I don't want to spoil your digging, so I will only hit the high points. Our poor young man has already pawned all that he brought with him from home. What remains are the clothes on his back, his pencil and paper, and a borrowed blanket which will eventually become part of a great moral struggle. But let's look at the pencil. It is the extention of his hand, and thus of his brain, where all the knowledge cramm'd in by classics-loving schoolmasters is kept. And it is the way he proposes to earn his place in society. Write!-- yes, but what? He wants, it seems, to write serious literature, but the only things he can sell for now are newspaper articles, articles to the public taste (ugh!) and not learned gobbledeguk, as his father..oops....I mean his editor reminds him later. But today he must move one more step down the ladder of life and pawn his vest. Trouble is, he forgets to remove the pencil from the pocket! His talisman of manhood is lost! And he must do all he can to get it back.
Having no vest meant that it is no longer possible for him to even pose as a respectable person, much less keep warm at night. In part two, the narrator takes refuge in jail for a night, where he takes on the identity of an important person who has not been able to make it home. He does pull it off, but then cannot take part in the breakfast provided for the homeless, lest he blow his cover. Andreas Tangen, journalist--is his assumed identity, but it is a sham. When he does get to the place of empowerment, the editor's office, what he had written is rejected out of hand. To the editor it is a non-incident, for he has a place in the symbolic order, but for the narrator, the pittance he would have been paid is a matter of life and death.
In part three, he meets a girl around whom he has thrown a web of fantasy as his 'Princess Ylajali.' Turns out, she has taken a fancy to him as well, though God only knows why. He can's smell very good, and sleeping in one's clothes does nothing for the appearance. In the real time of the novel, I cannot explain it, other that a strange whim, but in the world of symbols she is the (gasp) mother figure in his Oedipal drama. On the winding way to her sitting-room he is symbolicaly castrated twice, by biting his finger and when a bakery wagon crushes his foot. If that were not enough, Hamsun hits us with a third symbolic castration when, just before he reaches his prize (no, not THAT!), Ylajali discovers that his hair is falling out. (Think Sampson, but dont run off to read Milton's Sampson Agonistes.)
I wont spoil the fourth part, other than to say Primal Scene? Yeh, it's in there. From the 1700s on, I have found that education went well ahead, even though based in the classics, but jobs for all these newly educated were few and far between. Hölderlin could be a pastor, if there were a parish for him, or he could be a tutor to some rich brats, treated no better than a house servant. Not that there's anything wrong with being a house servant, but the education received put the mind on lofty, unobtainable things. The Brontë family, including brother Branwell struggled with this as well. The girls could be governnesses or work in a Madeline-y school in Brussles. Branwell tried to work for the railroad. Baudelaire has a better start, but his voyage was a disaster; he gave up half way and returned home. We can only hope for better things from the voyage of Hamsun's narrator in Hunger.
And, yes, I give this book seven thumbs up^^
If you read Hunger as a narrative, a traditional novel, you will be disappointed. Better to stick with Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment. Hamsun's narrator, his K, his analog-I, seems to drift on through from one thing after another by the power of his own inner compulsions. But what are they? Ahh! Once you ask that question, you will be on the way to seeing the deeper level of Hunger, as a tale of a boy trying to become a man and take a place in the symbolic order.
I hated Biblical allegory because I never saw it on my own. Once somebody pointed out the hidden, deep and secret meaning, then I could say, 'Aha! I get it!' But never a minuite before. In literature, sadly it is the same, but, thanks to Freud, Jung, Erich Neumann, and the demigodic Lacan, I enjoy what I find so much more. And Hamsun digs deep, oh so deep.
The novel is about 200 pages in the Penguin Classics edition, divided into four sections. In the first, we are dragged along through three days of the narrator's life. And what a life! Signs and talismans abound. But I don't want to spoil your digging, so I will only hit the high points. Our poor young man has already pawned all that he brought with him from home. What remains are the clothes on his back, his pencil and paper, and a borrowed blanket which will eventually become part of a great moral struggle. But let's look at the pencil. It is the extention of his hand, and thus of his brain, where all the knowledge cramm'd in by classics-loving schoolmasters is kept. And it is the way he proposes to earn his place in society. Write!-- yes, but what? He wants, it seems, to write serious literature, but the only things he can sell for now are newspaper articles, articles to the public taste (ugh!) and not learned gobbledeguk, as his father..oops....I mean his editor reminds him later. But today he must move one more step down the ladder of life and pawn his vest. Trouble is, he forgets to remove the pencil from the pocket! His talisman of manhood is lost! And he must do all he can to get it back.
Having no vest meant that it is no longer possible for him to even pose as a respectable person, much less keep warm at night. In part two, the narrator takes refuge in jail for a night, where he takes on the identity of an important person who has not been able to make it home. He does pull it off, but then cannot take part in the breakfast provided for the homeless, lest he blow his cover. Andreas Tangen, journalist--is his assumed identity, but it is a sham. When he does get to the place of empowerment, the editor's office, what he had written is rejected out of hand. To the editor it is a non-incident, for he has a place in the symbolic order, but for the narrator, the pittance he would have been paid is a matter of life and death.
In part three, he meets a girl around whom he has thrown a web of fantasy as his 'Princess Ylajali.' Turns out, she has taken a fancy to him as well, though God only knows why. He can's smell very good, and sleeping in one's clothes does nothing for the appearance. In the real time of the novel, I cannot explain it, other that a strange whim, but in the world of symbols she is the (gasp) mother figure in his Oedipal drama. On the winding way to her sitting-room he is symbolicaly castrated twice, by biting his finger and when a bakery wagon crushes his foot. If that were not enough, Hamsun hits us with a third symbolic castration when, just before he reaches his prize (no, not THAT!), Ylajali discovers that his hair is falling out. (Think Sampson, but dont run off to read Milton's Sampson Agonistes.)
I wont spoil the fourth part, other than to say Primal Scene? Yeh, it's in there. From the 1700s on, I have found that education went well ahead, even though based in the classics, but jobs for all these newly educated were few and far between. Hölderlin could be a pastor, if there were a parish for him, or he could be a tutor to some rich brats, treated no better than a house servant. Not that there's anything wrong with being a house servant, but the education received put the mind on lofty, unobtainable things. The Brontë family, including brother Branwell struggled with this as well. The girls could be governnesses or work in a Madeline-y school in Brussles. Branwell tried to work for the railroad. Baudelaire has a better start, but his voyage was a disaster; he gave up half way and returned home. We can only hope for better things from the voyage of Hamsun's narrator in Hunger.
And, yes, I give this book seven thumbs up^^
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Harry Potter VII.1 movie review
This is a movie for fans, so if you are not a fan, then stay home and watch Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. Noo, I'm not being a meanie, I'm saying this for your own good. If you want to be a fan, then start at the first movie and work your way up.
The feeling of being lost in the wilderness that I felt in the book is well-reproduced in the movie. Our characters that we have come to know and love (or hate) are there doing their parts. Shadows of nazi-ism aside, the plot winds on to a reasonable caesura, leaving us to wait until next June to continue on to the neo-apocalyptic conclusion.
There are only two small problems. One is the lack of Hogwarts. I felt this in the books as well, since I had come to love them primarily as a school story. Good Bye Mr Chips always brings a tear to my eye, so I was looking forward to a peek into a 7 year boarding school. But I did not get that, unless Deathly Hallows is a metaphor for senoiritis. My other problem is Severus Snape. I have always thought him a bit too complex. Perhaps this has to do with my wondering why there is a Slytherin at Hogwarts at all. To me it is as if God invited the Devil into heaven to be a part of the Trinity. Ok, well He may have tried that in the Book of Job, but, Origen's apokatastasis aside, it grates on me. Slytherin is evil, get them out! Ok, maybe I am too muggled or not spiritually evolved enough to get it.
Bottom line: if you are a fan, it is a must see. If you have, like me, enjoyed the books enough to overlook any faults, dont turn back now!
The feeling of being lost in the wilderness that I felt in the book is well-reproduced in the movie. Our characters that we have come to know and love (or hate) are there doing their parts. Shadows of nazi-ism aside, the plot winds on to a reasonable caesura, leaving us to wait until next June to continue on to the neo-apocalyptic conclusion.
There are only two small problems. One is the lack of Hogwarts. I felt this in the books as well, since I had come to love them primarily as a school story. Good Bye Mr Chips always brings a tear to my eye, so I was looking forward to a peek into a 7 year boarding school. But I did not get that, unless Deathly Hallows is a metaphor for senoiritis. My other problem is Severus Snape. I have always thought him a bit too complex. Perhaps this has to do with my wondering why there is a Slytherin at Hogwarts at all. To me it is as if God invited the Devil into heaven to be a part of the Trinity. Ok, well He may have tried that in the Book of Job, but, Origen's apokatastasis aside, it grates on me. Slytherin is evil, get them out! Ok, maybe I am too muggled or not spiritually evolved enough to get it.
Bottom line: if you are a fan, it is a must see. If you have, like me, enjoyed the books enough to overlook any faults, dont turn back now!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Scott Pilgrim movie review
Just saw the Scott Pilgrim movie as my Black Friday treat. I have not read the graphic novels, so that was a plus. I read Miyazaki's Nausicaa before seeing the movie, and it totally ruined it for me. (Though the movie and I have since reconciled.) On the other hand, seeing the Harry Potter movie(s) without having read the books.....is not a good idea. Anyway, back to Scott Pilgrim and his wacky world. And I loved the wacky world, I really did. It was campy and game-y and full of manic energy. But the characters...ugh! Scott the slacker was very slack, until he burst forth into super game fight mode. Too unfocused, except for his attachment to Ramona. Aaah, Ramona, she was a total blank to me, and to Scott too, it seems. Who was she but a blank canvas for him to project his unrealistic and unresolvable desire for his Lacanian objet petit a. Knives by contrast was wonderful, obsessed to be sure, but she showed genuine character growth and would be well rid of both Scott and Ramona, who seem to flow into deserving each other without my caring one way or another. So, on the basis of the quirky energy and Knives, I will say that this movie is worth seeing at least once, and I just may give the graphic novels a page-through at the bookstore.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Life is miles ahead of me...
Ever get the feeling that life has moved miles ahead of you? Back when I was religious, I had a library that was equivalent to a monastic library from the middle ages. Then I got a Christian Book Distributor Catalog in the mail with a CD which held 40 books! At that moment I knew that the world had moved right past me into another century! It was shocking and depressing at first, but I pulled myself together, got a computer, and...well I still love real books, and I just can't read online books, but I feel better about where I stand. Sometimes I feel that I am with or ahead of the curve, like with Utena (!)...I loved Utena from the start, Toradora, and Marimite too. But then when a cultural reference comes up in media that I don't get...like Aqua Buddha, Snookie, or "the Situation," then I feel like I am back to square one again. But...no despair! I just dig out my laptop and Google to get back in the know. *sigh* But I really don't want to know ALL of this, do I? Someday I must forget it all, then forget that I have forgotten. Only then will I be able to smile the smile of insanity and be truly happy!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Getting rid of attached books
Haaa! Here I am again in my library trying to get rid of books. It is sooo hard to do because each of them is attached to a personal narrative about time & place, interests long cherished, or to the person who gave them to me. So how do I break free from these narrative attachments? Well first I must single out the personas that serve as the focus of the narratives. The bits of identity that comprise "me" (Lacan's le corps morcele) have gathered into these chemical compound-y things. These personas, as I will call them for lack of a better term, are imprinted with an idealized image and labeled with a name, such as "me the scholar ...behind my Lennon-glasses I am wise and kind, always eager to study history and philosophy."
But these seemingly benign personas have trapped me. They are difficult to live up to, for one thing, and the bits of me that are excluded from their mix cry out for attention--and go off to form personas of their own. (Be quiet, Mariko! Not NOW!) That may be the norm in Second Life, where these personas can be given pixilated form, but in Real Life, this process becomes problematic. As narratives of support for or the failures of these personas weave themselves around them, they become like prisons.
So how can we free our identity from these personas, which grow in power as we use them in our interactions with others, and as narratives grow upon them like weeds? Julia Kristeva says we should use language to free ourselves from these bonds. We must disrupt our process of identifying with the personas we have created or have been created for us by the expectations of others. When we believe in and act out our narratives, we are in as much of a fantasy world as Oz or Middle Earth. The narratives are easy and comfortable habits to slip into, but they are self defeating as they keep us going around in circles, stuck in the same ruts. Help me, Julia! If I cannot be a sage like T'oegye, free from narrative attachment to the past or the future, at least let me have more conscious control over what I do have.
*Ahem*...anyway, to get back to the original problem, the personas that have attached to the narratives of why I am such a person who should like these topics or should read these books...today, here and now, I confront you! Monk, Renaissance scholar, Hermetic Philosopher, Wm. Blake scholar, JRRT lover, Bible student! You are not me! (What a presumptive collection!) All of you together have included in your make-up parts of me, but not some of the most important parts (like humor, general silliness &c)! Begone, I adjure and command you, in the name of the Thrice Great Hermes and his disciple Tat...(oops), ummm...I mean, in the name of Ozma, fairy soverign of the marvelous land of Oz! Ok, that's done, now...back to the books. Anyone want a 38 volume set of the Church Fathers?
But these seemingly benign personas have trapped me. They are difficult to live up to, for one thing, and the bits of me that are excluded from their mix cry out for attention--and go off to form personas of their own. (Be quiet, Mariko! Not NOW!) That may be the norm in Second Life, where these personas can be given pixilated form, but in Real Life, this process becomes problematic. As narratives of support for or the failures of these personas weave themselves around them, they become like prisons.
So how can we free our identity from these personas, which grow in power as we use them in our interactions with others, and as narratives grow upon them like weeds? Julia Kristeva says we should use language to free ourselves from these bonds. We must disrupt our process of identifying with the personas we have created or have been created for us by the expectations of others. When we believe in and act out our narratives, we are in as much of a fantasy world as Oz or Middle Earth. The narratives are easy and comfortable habits to slip into, but they are self defeating as they keep us going around in circles, stuck in the same ruts. Help me, Julia! If I cannot be a sage like T'oegye, free from narrative attachment to the past or the future, at least let me have more conscious control over what I do have.
*Ahem*...anyway, to get back to the original problem, the personas that have attached to the narratives of why I am such a person who should like these topics or should read these books...today, here and now, I confront you! Monk, Renaissance scholar, Hermetic Philosopher, Wm. Blake scholar, JRRT lover, Bible student! You are not me! (What a presumptive collection!) All of you together have included in your make-up parts of me, but not some of the most important parts (like humor, general silliness &c)! Begone, I adjure and command you, in the name of the Thrice Great Hermes and his disciple Tat...(oops), ummm...I mean, in the name of Ozma, fairy soverign of the marvelous land of Oz! Ok, that's done, now...back to the books. Anyone want a 38 volume set of the Church Fathers?
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