actualwolf
06-27-2007, 12:54 AM
What follows are random thoughts that I jotted down while reading TCATHR. A few are substantive, but most are idle reflections. This has a lot in common with D.F. Lewis' "'Off the Cuff" post that was posted in the Reviews section, but I'm posting this here because I intend a more traditional reader reponse for posting in that section.
p.16
-"We may think ourselves as 'being alive' in moments of exhiliration or well being, yet we have no smaller portion of life in us when we are depressed in some other style."
This reminds me of two different works. One, a folk song whose name escapes me at the moment, by Kelly Caldwell, a musician far too local to my area to google effectively. It's about her dating a much younger man. Instead of "making her feel young" the affair only serves to remind her of her own mortality. The chorus goes: "Oh, I've finally realized/this is what it's like to be alive."
Also, this 'prayer' by Adolfo Quezada. "God of the Wild, you are different from what I expected. I cannot predict you. You are too free to be captured for the sake of my understanding. I can't find you in the sentimentalism of religion. You are everywhere I least expect to find you. You are not the force that saves me from the pain of living you are the force that brings me life even in the midst of pain."
Amen!
-"When the theme of life and death arises . . . our minds go blank."
Mercifully so. Once I realized that I was incapable of imagining what it would be like to no longer exist, it ceased to cause me any excessive existential torment. In this way I look forward to death, because I'm confident I won't be bothered by anything anymore. (Though I still do everything I can to sustain and prolong my life.) It won't matter to me then, so it may as well never happened, which is to say that it never mattered at all.
p.21
"I think, therefore I will die; but I cannot let that keep me from acting as if I did not think."
I own "A Tragic Sense of Life" but must confess to not having read it. I do identify with the sentiment of the authors summation, however, I don't know if I've ever thought of myself as heroic or "spunky" in any regard.
p.27
". . . pain is essential . . . is the guiding principle of all organisms."
This is one of those moments, when as a reader, I am equally delighted and horrified to see my own thinking exactly reflected in someone elses words.
p.30
On a second read through, the "big self having bigger or littler selves" riff reminds me of the section about the "Characters" section in "Creating Horror."
The sentiments of the second paragraph remind me of the 1960s comic story "It's Too Bad," by R. Crumb, which limns the futility of the American Dream (as well as ambition and hope in general).
p.37-38, footnote 7
You have me for the majority of this little rant---right up until the last sentence. I take it that we _must_ not accept Zappfe's voluntary extinction agenda sheerly because it is so impractical given the conditions described in this passage as to be impossible?
Michel Houellbecq envisioned a far more likely scenario in his novel "The Elementary Particles," which ends with humanity (except for dead-end Shaker-style holdouts) agreeing to systematically replace itself with a far more practical "superior" organism. Rather than voluntarily going extinct, human beings are voluntarily improved upon. While this may seem to be just more of the same, the new breed of humanity is exactly the kind of being that would go voluntarily extinct.
But I suppose you're right that, short of this sort of fundamental change in the nature of the human animal, I suppose we (nor any version of "us") will never get there.
p.39
"It adds clarity to the field of ethics, if we formulate our demands negatively."
This is how I've always gone about making decisions. I've received criticism from more than one person on this, so it's nice to see the validity of this position so eloquently explained. I take comfort in it, though I doubt that my critics would give me any pass if I pointed out the logical conclusion of this position in attempts to fortify it.
p.46
"In a very real sense, Buddhism was the prototype of neuroscience . . ."
Bravo! I assume you've read about the Dalai Lama's invitation to speak at last years annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience.
p.52
I am used to the phrase "ego death" meaning something else entirely---the killing of the "self" through submission to spiritual power (Allah, etc). I must say that I prefer this variety.
Though far less likely to realize, it seems much more preferable to actual suicide.
p.53
The description og the hypothetical society of ego-dead that begins on the previous page rings strongly of John Lennon's "Imagine." I'm glad to see that you bring that song up later in the text.
p.58
The "pyramids" passage is fantastic.
p.60
-"But societies do not like to think about that. They want their entities to exist for all time. They want them to be undead."
Enter the corporation a "body," taken so seriously in the United States that it has been granted de facto citizenship.
-"As usual the predicted apocalypse did not arrive."
Were the predictions really so dire? I can't call to mind works of this nature with the possible exception of Toffler's "Future Shock." I assume you to be better read on this subject than I.
Is there anything you were thinking of specifically?
p.61
-" . . . with a smattering of emotive images and strains of maudlin music . . "
I am reminded the manipulative climax (a birth scene) of a film I recently saw, called "Children of Men." It should be lauded for its documentary style and honesty in its portrayal of brutality and generally low opinion of human behavior. Still, tt is effectively ruined by its message of "hope." I asked the friend of mine who showed it to me, why as a fellow pessimist, she liked it so much, she said because she believes it to be a very reliable prediction of the global hell this handbasket is bound for, whether or not we spontaneously go sterile.
-"For an atheist living in a religious society, a befiting pose would be to start praying if you want to win friends and influence people of wealth and power."
Exactly the position advocated by Leo Strauss, one of the intellectual founders of the current American "neo-conservative" movement. He said that figures in power that encourage religious worship but not be limited by its moral codes. I have long suspected that many of our contemporary politicians only use religion as a tool to win votes.
p.63
" . . .execrable mantras . . ."
I've always rejected the idea that "everything happens for a reason" as palliative BS, but don't think that the other three listed here ("life goes on, accept the thigns you cannot change, whatever will be will be") are as deserving of scorn. In particular the idea that life goes on brings as much a sense of deadened futility as it does hope. Yes, it is often invoked to mean "Life goes on. Things may suck, but chances are that they will get better sooner or later," but it can as easily be interpreted to mean: "Life goes on. Things in my life suck and I have no choice in the matter. I have no choice but to be alive until I am dead. I will wake up every morning and watch life perpetuate itself in a manner as ceaseless as it is mindless, whether I like it or not. Life goes on." "Accept the things you cannot change" seems like good advice for navigating through an absurd world such as ours, and "whatever will be will be" is offensive only in its tautological nature.
p.64
-" . . . tragic existence founded on lies that we tell ourselves . . ."
I recently encountered an omnibus of Joan Didion's non-fiction writings titled "We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live." As fitting as it is despondent.
-" . . .unless an obtrusive physical of psychological woefullness pushes suffering front and center . . ."
Here, it seems to me, that you are clearly speaking (or at least thinking of as you wrote) anhedonia, a condition I find both fascinating and terrifying. I only feel comfortable bringing this up because you have mentioned it in published interviews. It seems to me that the main difference between yourself and I is that I, despite taking my daily antidepressant, have only had a glimpse of what this condition truly means. The story of myself reading this work has largely bee one of intellectual acceptance but emotional disconnection. There have been many notable moments when I laughed out loud and wanted to clap my hands, or I interrupted a friend to share with them a passage, but on the whole, it goes something like this: "I can see what you mean--can't deny it on any logical ground (save for a few minor quibbles)---but I don't /feel/.
it." At least, not most of the time.
One notable exception:
In early May, while driving my attention was drawn to a small forest along the side of the highway. Normally, I find trees extremely calming to look at, but given recent events in my life I was at that moment in such a state of despair that I saw them in a new light.
Trees feed on both ends, with the branches through which they absorb sunlight being -direct corresponding parts to their roots embedded in the earth. I've imagined trees as craggy hands before, and thought about how puny even the tallest are compared to the immensity of the sky, to say nothing of what lies beyond. But never before had I thought of them as malignant. Maybe it was because they were second growth scrub, but they were not comforting in the least to look upon.
I thought of the trees growing and bearing seeds which can only fall within close proximity of the branches that bore them. How many seeds must fall for a single offspring to take root? Its rather like the millions of invidual spermatazoa contained in a single burst of ejaculate. And if any particular seed by chance takes root and grows, the process will merely repeat itself, like blooming spores, or the rapidly subdividing cells of cancer.
I was reminded of the green blackness permeating everything in "Nethescurial," and of "Severini" in which features a darkness that is described as not only being like a sewer, but also like a jungle. A rain forest.
The meaningless vulgarity filled me with a fear and loathing that I can't describe, except to compare it to certain emotional states described in your fiction. I am glad not to feel that way anymore.
But not one month later I was camping in the wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and finding myself moved, as I usually am, by not only the placidity of the great lakes but also by the active quiet of the pine forests. "This is a place that has made peace with itself," I remember thinking.
-"Never have I felt happier with myself than in the sickest and most capable periods of my life."
I believe this capability is a trick that evolution had played on us, to keep us going. I,
personally, have had a very rough past two months. The previous structure of my life has fallen to shambles, but I have often felt bizarrely elated, even if that elation has been immediately preceded or followed by despair.
A phrase from Philip Roth's "The Dying Animal" comes to mind: "masochistic rigor," a temperment that the narrator describes as necessary to the institution of marriage, but might be broadened to all of life.
p.72
"And anyone who is consoled by Metzinger's Zennist wordplay is kidding himself."
Personally, I don't see a problem with that. It seems inevitable to me. I do it myself and don't feel bad about it. It's only when one becomes so confident in their delusions that they feel the need to press them on other people with either unwelcome rhetoric or violence that I take exception. The consolation is only in preventing pre-death anxiety. I imagine that even most zen-masters go to their deaths as ignobly as anyone else.
One of the most powerful realizations of my adult life has been learning that the truth does NOT "set you free." Being able to see through illusions has rarely spared me their devastation, no matter how shattering the "truth" may seem at the time. Like my notes about the tale end of 64, it's a matter of intellectually "knowing" something but not intuitively "feeeling" it. I blame the multi-level structure of our brains.
p.80
"Although few would own up to it, even to themselves, we love havoc in both life and art."
A statement as bold as it is true.
p.81
Even before learning that the discussion of Sweeney Todd was previously published as a stand-alone essay, I felt that this section felt "dropped in." Interesting stuff, but feels incongruous with the tear you were on in the previous section.
p.84
"The supernatural may be considered as the metaphysical counterpart of insanity. . . '
Here, my jaw dropped. Why hadn't I realized this before?
p.89
"For God's sake, he is not replying to a pollster's survey . . ."
I realize that it's strictly rhetorical, but I find this invocation strange.
p.96
Nothing much to say about the second graph here other than to acknowledge its brilliance.
p.99
"To be on drugs is to expose as an impoent whimst Schopenhauer's Will . . ."
I think that depends entirely on which kind of drugs.
Brought to mind, a secondhand anecdote by Kurt Vonnegut. He learns that a friend of his has experimented with heroin. He asks what its like. The friend reports that he enjoyed it very much but could never do it again. Why? Because for the first time in his life the "existential itch" to /do something/ stopped.
p.100
" . . . niggers . . ."
I objected to the use of the word "retarded" in earlier notes, so I thought it might be
worthwhile to explain why a far more hateful epithet gets a pass. It's largely because of relevance---when trying to convey the total lack of value that society sees in its gutter dwellers only the harshest language will do. Also, the use of the first person plural. If the author had wrote " . . . by those people who, whatever the shade of their skin, are just niggers." it would have an entirely different implication, at least to this reader.
p.101
"A large corporation once financed a television commercial that blandly stated . . ."
I assume that if you knew, you would have cited appropriately, but I didn't think it would hurt to ask.
p.102
"What vow of silence keeps them from informing their offspring . . ."
A somewhat humorous exception is a "children's" song that the comedian Denis Leary (who has children himself)called "Life's Gonna Suck," the complete lyrics of which can be found at
http://www.bluelyrics.net/d/denis_leary_lyrics/lifes_gonna_suck_lyrics.html
p.106, note 3
I feel wary of challenging the argument here, especially since the author feels passionate enough about it to call its target nothing less than "The greatest oversight in the history of human thought," but I don't think that the answer proposed here suffices. This is largely because it rests on an assumed concern for the eternal in the reader. I can only speak personally, but I have little more than a detached interest in the cosmic. In fact, I would wager that most people care more for their abscence from the presumably familiar times that will follow their deaths than the loss unknowable eons past and present---not the other way around. After all, people are nothing more than products of their culture, and culture is nothing if not small in the grand scope of things. As the largely unchecked devestation of the life support system on which we depend should demonstrate, most people are incurious about things that operate on anything other than an a person-sized scale. If people can't even relate to their own planet, how can they be expected to appreciate the vastness of time and space? For most people, the "infinite" means God and the anecdotal afterlife, a decidedly anthrocentric dimension. This is not to sat that these people do not fear death, being dead or dying! But the idea of the cosmic would not seem to make most people any more afraid of death than the rationalization would make them less afraid of it. Either way, they just don't get it.
p.109
"The reader is invited to reflect to no avail on any acquisition or pursuit that is not more trouble than its really worth."
Strictly speaking, sleep does not qualify as an aqcuisition but might be considered a pursuit for those who lack it. The state of natural unconsciousness is often wholly rewarding for next to no effort. Then again, I almost never remember my dreams, and when I do, they are never nightmares.
p.112
-"These movies, the better ones, are often based on works of fiction."
I'm curious about examples. Three that good ones that spring immediately to mind are The Haunting, the Exorcist, and Dark Water.
-". . . But the great names of this literary genre do not select what atmosphere they will use---" One exception that springs to mind regarding this statement (that I largely agree with) is the work of Ramsey Campbell, specifically his short fiction collection "Demons by Daylight," which is organized around the intentionally chosen atmosphere of daytime. It's quite possible that every one of these daylit stories unconsciously came to Campell, but it seems as likely to me that it was a conscious experiment. For the most part, I think the results are admirable.
p.119
On the subject of "cheat" endings, I am immediately reminded of Fred Chappell's "Dagon." The story as the athor originally wrote it, ends with the death of the protagonist. having been completely negated as an individual by a backwoods cult, he is sacrificed to the pagan deity.
It's the perfect resolution to what is easily the most dreadfully oppressive story I have ever read. But Chappell decided that it was too depressing and tacked on a bizarre coda of less than a page, in which we discover that after death the sacrificed preacher merges with a cosmic "leviathan." It's ultimately ambiguous in what this means, and fittingly cosmic for a Lovecraft tribute, but is an obvious cop out.
I haven't read The Tenant, but would like to. I can't help but notice the similarity of the
final scene, as you describe it and the end of your MWINYD. The brutalized protagonist, caught in limbo between life and death, threatened by another part of himself that stands at the foot of the hospital bed.
p.121
" . . . We can still establish a pecking order in the unreal."
On my second read thru, I reacted to this idea with disgust. I am reminded of dehumanized prisoners creating a secondary hierarchy among themselves. Wholly without control of their fate, and with even less illusions than the rest of us who are "free," they persist in perpetuating violent nonsense, unnecessary complicating an already horrible situation.
p.124
"That we are critters is a verdict decided on a technicality."
I try to see humans (myself included) because it goes so far towards explaining behavior better than speculating as to "deeper" motivations. But you're right: Ego only lets you go so far.
p.125
"Who could live through a story whose end they knew in advance---not in a general sense but as to the how and the when?"
Immediately reminded of "Timequake" by Kurt Vonnegut, a novel without much to recommend it but its titular conceipt: a "hiccup" in the universe that causes the previous 10 years to repeat exactly.
Everyone is conscious of having lived through this period in their lives already, but are powerless to change anything. They are forced to relive every excruciating moment, every outrage, every mistake. When the "Timequake" has resolved itself, the vast majority of humanity has forgotten how to live beyond basic physical systems, having lapsed into near catatonic apathy about their own lives.
p.128
"a puppet universe in which the strings pull themselves."
String theory!
p.129,note 2
" . . . which would be madness without an underlying recognition on he part of the reader that the substantiality of their own world will never be eclipsed by that of the story in which they are 'lost'."
Anyone else reminded of "Nethescurial?"
p.131
"So are those who approach human consciousness as something it were better never to have been."
Hate to split haire, but isn't the point of this book that we're all doomed? I don't see why would-that-it-never-were types should be anymore doomed than your average existentialist, or anyone else who is conscious of their consciousness.
p.16
-"We may think ourselves as 'being alive' in moments of exhiliration or well being, yet we have no smaller portion of life in us when we are depressed in some other style."
This reminds me of two different works. One, a folk song whose name escapes me at the moment, by Kelly Caldwell, a musician far too local to my area to google effectively. It's about her dating a much younger man. Instead of "making her feel young" the affair only serves to remind her of her own mortality. The chorus goes: "Oh, I've finally realized/this is what it's like to be alive."
Also, this 'prayer' by Adolfo Quezada. "God of the Wild, you are different from what I expected. I cannot predict you. You are too free to be captured for the sake of my understanding. I can't find you in the sentimentalism of religion. You are everywhere I least expect to find you. You are not the force that saves me from the pain of living you are the force that brings me life even in the midst of pain."
Amen!
-"When the theme of life and death arises . . . our minds go blank."
Mercifully so. Once I realized that I was incapable of imagining what it would be like to no longer exist, it ceased to cause me any excessive existential torment. In this way I look forward to death, because I'm confident I won't be bothered by anything anymore. (Though I still do everything I can to sustain and prolong my life.) It won't matter to me then, so it may as well never happened, which is to say that it never mattered at all.
p.21
"I think, therefore I will die; but I cannot let that keep me from acting as if I did not think."
I own "A Tragic Sense of Life" but must confess to not having read it. I do identify with the sentiment of the authors summation, however, I don't know if I've ever thought of myself as heroic or "spunky" in any regard.
p.27
". . . pain is essential . . . is the guiding principle of all organisms."
This is one of those moments, when as a reader, I am equally delighted and horrified to see my own thinking exactly reflected in someone elses words.
p.30
On a second read through, the "big self having bigger or littler selves" riff reminds me of the section about the "Characters" section in "Creating Horror."
The sentiments of the second paragraph remind me of the 1960s comic story "It's Too Bad," by R. Crumb, which limns the futility of the American Dream (as well as ambition and hope in general).
p.37-38, footnote 7
You have me for the majority of this little rant---right up until the last sentence. I take it that we _must_ not accept Zappfe's voluntary extinction agenda sheerly because it is so impractical given the conditions described in this passage as to be impossible?
Michel Houellbecq envisioned a far more likely scenario in his novel "The Elementary Particles," which ends with humanity (except for dead-end Shaker-style holdouts) agreeing to systematically replace itself with a far more practical "superior" organism. Rather than voluntarily going extinct, human beings are voluntarily improved upon. While this may seem to be just more of the same, the new breed of humanity is exactly the kind of being that would go voluntarily extinct.
But I suppose you're right that, short of this sort of fundamental change in the nature of the human animal, I suppose we (nor any version of "us") will never get there.
p.39
"It adds clarity to the field of ethics, if we formulate our demands negatively."
This is how I've always gone about making decisions. I've received criticism from more than one person on this, so it's nice to see the validity of this position so eloquently explained. I take comfort in it, though I doubt that my critics would give me any pass if I pointed out the logical conclusion of this position in attempts to fortify it.
p.46
"In a very real sense, Buddhism was the prototype of neuroscience . . ."
Bravo! I assume you've read about the Dalai Lama's invitation to speak at last years annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience.
p.52
I am used to the phrase "ego death" meaning something else entirely---the killing of the "self" through submission to spiritual power (Allah, etc). I must say that I prefer this variety.
Though far less likely to realize, it seems much more preferable to actual suicide.
p.53
The description og the hypothetical society of ego-dead that begins on the previous page rings strongly of John Lennon's "Imagine." I'm glad to see that you bring that song up later in the text.
p.58
The "pyramids" passage is fantastic.
p.60
-"But societies do not like to think about that. They want their entities to exist for all time. They want them to be undead."
Enter the corporation a "body," taken so seriously in the United States that it has been granted de facto citizenship.
-"As usual the predicted apocalypse did not arrive."
Were the predictions really so dire? I can't call to mind works of this nature with the possible exception of Toffler's "Future Shock." I assume you to be better read on this subject than I.
Is there anything you were thinking of specifically?
p.61
-" . . . with a smattering of emotive images and strains of maudlin music . . "
I am reminded the manipulative climax (a birth scene) of a film I recently saw, called "Children of Men." It should be lauded for its documentary style and honesty in its portrayal of brutality and generally low opinion of human behavior. Still, tt is effectively ruined by its message of "hope." I asked the friend of mine who showed it to me, why as a fellow pessimist, she liked it so much, she said because she believes it to be a very reliable prediction of the global hell this handbasket is bound for, whether or not we spontaneously go sterile.
-"For an atheist living in a religious society, a befiting pose would be to start praying if you want to win friends and influence people of wealth and power."
Exactly the position advocated by Leo Strauss, one of the intellectual founders of the current American "neo-conservative" movement. He said that figures in power that encourage religious worship but not be limited by its moral codes. I have long suspected that many of our contemporary politicians only use religion as a tool to win votes.
p.63
" . . .execrable mantras . . ."
I've always rejected the idea that "everything happens for a reason" as palliative BS, but don't think that the other three listed here ("life goes on, accept the thigns you cannot change, whatever will be will be") are as deserving of scorn. In particular the idea that life goes on brings as much a sense of deadened futility as it does hope. Yes, it is often invoked to mean "Life goes on. Things may suck, but chances are that they will get better sooner or later," but it can as easily be interpreted to mean: "Life goes on. Things in my life suck and I have no choice in the matter. I have no choice but to be alive until I am dead. I will wake up every morning and watch life perpetuate itself in a manner as ceaseless as it is mindless, whether I like it or not. Life goes on." "Accept the things you cannot change" seems like good advice for navigating through an absurd world such as ours, and "whatever will be will be" is offensive only in its tautological nature.
p.64
-" . . . tragic existence founded on lies that we tell ourselves . . ."
I recently encountered an omnibus of Joan Didion's non-fiction writings titled "We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live." As fitting as it is despondent.
-" . . .unless an obtrusive physical of psychological woefullness pushes suffering front and center . . ."
Here, it seems to me, that you are clearly speaking (or at least thinking of as you wrote) anhedonia, a condition I find both fascinating and terrifying. I only feel comfortable bringing this up because you have mentioned it in published interviews. It seems to me that the main difference between yourself and I is that I, despite taking my daily antidepressant, have only had a glimpse of what this condition truly means. The story of myself reading this work has largely bee one of intellectual acceptance but emotional disconnection. There have been many notable moments when I laughed out loud and wanted to clap my hands, or I interrupted a friend to share with them a passage, but on the whole, it goes something like this: "I can see what you mean--can't deny it on any logical ground (save for a few minor quibbles)---but I don't /feel/.
it." At least, not most of the time.
One notable exception:
In early May, while driving my attention was drawn to a small forest along the side of the highway. Normally, I find trees extremely calming to look at, but given recent events in my life I was at that moment in such a state of despair that I saw them in a new light.
Trees feed on both ends, with the branches through which they absorb sunlight being -direct corresponding parts to their roots embedded in the earth. I've imagined trees as craggy hands before, and thought about how puny even the tallest are compared to the immensity of the sky, to say nothing of what lies beyond. But never before had I thought of them as malignant. Maybe it was because they were second growth scrub, but they were not comforting in the least to look upon.
I thought of the trees growing and bearing seeds which can only fall within close proximity of the branches that bore them. How many seeds must fall for a single offspring to take root? Its rather like the millions of invidual spermatazoa contained in a single burst of ejaculate. And if any particular seed by chance takes root and grows, the process will merely repeat itself, like blooming spores, or the rapidly subdividing cells of cancer.
I was reminded of the green blackness permeating everything in "Nethescurial," and of "Severini" in which features a darkness that is described as not only being like a sewer, but also like a jungle. A rain forest.
The meaningless vulgarity filled me with a fear and loathing that I can't describe, except to compare it to certain emotional states described in your fiction. I am glad not to feel that way anymore.
But not one month later I was camping in the wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and finding myself moved, as I usually am, by not only the placidity of the great lakes but also by the active quiet of the pine forests. "This is a place that has made peace with itself," I remember thinking.
-"Never have I felt happier with myself than in the sickest and most capable periods of my life."
I believe this capability is a trick that evolution had played on us, to keep us going. I,
personally, have had a very rough past two months. The previous structure of my life has fallen to shambles, but I have often felt bizarrely elated, even if that elation has been immediately preceded or followed by despair.
A phrase from Philip Roth's "The Dying Animal" comes to mind: "masochistic rigor," a temperment that the narrator describes as necessary to the institution of marriage, but might be broadened to all of life.
p.72
"And anyone who is consoled by Metzinger's Zennist wordplay is kidding himself."
Personally, I don't see a problem with that. It seems inevitable to me. I do it myself and don't feel bad about it. It's only when one becomes so confident in their delusions that they feel the need to press them on other people with either unwelcome rhetoric or violence that I take exception. The consolation is only in preventing pre-death anxiety. I imagine that even most zen-masters go to their deaths as ignobly as anyone else.
One of the most powerful realizations of my adult life has been learning that the truth does NOT "set you free." Being able to see through illusions has rarely spared me their devastation, no matter how shattering the "truth" may seem at the time. Like my notes about the tale end of 64, it's a matter of intellectually "knowing" something but not intuitively "feeeling" it. I blame the multi-level structure of our brains.
p.80
"Although few would own up to it, even to themselves, we love havoc in both life and art."
A statement as bold as it is true.
p.81
Even before learning that the discussion of Sweeney Todd was previously published as a stand-alone essay, I felt that this section felt "dropped in." Interesting stuff, but feels incongruous with the tear you were on in the previous section.
p.84
"The supernatural may be considered as the metaphysical counterpart of insanity. . . '
Here, my jaw dropped. Why hadn't I realized this before?
p.89
"For God's sake, he is not replying to a pollster's survey . . ."
I realize that it's strictly rhetorical, but I find this invocation strange.
p.96
Nothing much to say about the second graph here other than to acknowledge its brilliance.
p.99
"To be on drugs is to expose as an impoent whimst Schopenhauer's Will . . ."
I think that depends entirely on which kind of drugs.
Brought to mind, a secondhand anecdote by Kurt Vonnegut. He learns that a friend of his has experimented with heroin. He asks what its like. The friend reports that he enjoyed it very much but could never do it again. Why? Because for the first time in his life the "existential itch" to /do something/ stopped.
p.100
" . . . niggers . . ."
I objected to the use of the word "retarded" in earlier notes, so I thought it might be
worthwhile to explain why a far more hateful epithet gets a pass. It's largely because of relevance---when trying to convey the total lack of value that society sees in its gutter dwellers only the harshest language will do. Also, the use of the first person plural. If the author had wrote " . . . by those people who, whatever the shade of their skin, are just niggers." it would have an entirely different implication, at least to this reader.
p.101
"A large corporation once financed a television commercial that blandly stated . . ."
I assume that if you knew, you would have cited appropriately, but I didn't think it would hurt to ask.
p.102
"What vow of silence keeps them from informing their offspring . . ."
A somewhat humorous exception is a "children's" song that the comedian Denis Leary (who has children himself)called "Life's Gonna Suck," the complete lyrics of which can be found at
http://www.bluelyrics.net/d/denis_leary_lyrics/lifes_gonna_suck_lyrics.html
p.106, note 3
I feel wary of challenging the argument here, especially since the author feels passionate enough about it to call its target nothing less than "The greatest oversight in the history of human thought," but I don't think that the answer proposed here suffices. This is largely because it rests on an assumed concern for the eternal in the reader. I can only speak personally, but I have little more than a detached interest in the cosmic. In fact, I would wager that most people care more for their abscence from the presumably familiar times that will follow their deaths than the loss unknowable eons past and present---not the other way around. After all, people are nothing more than products of their culture, and culture is nothing if not small in the grand scope of things. As the largely unchecked devestation of the life support system on which we depend should demonstrate, most people are incurious about things that operate on anything other than an a person-sized scale. If people can't even relate to their own planet, how can they be expected to appreciate the vastness of time and space? For most people, the "infinite" means God and the anecdotal afterlife, a decidedly anthrocentric dimension. This is not to sat that these people do not fear death, being dead or dying! But the idea of the cosmic would not seem to make most people any more afraid of death than the rationalization would make them less afraid of it. Either way, they just don't get it.
p.109
"The reader is invited to reflect to no avail on any acquisition or pursuit that is not more trouble than its really worth."
Strictly speaking, sleep does not qualify as an aqcuisition but might be considered a pursuit for those who lack it. The state of natural unconsciousness is often wholly rewarding for next to no effort. Then again, I almost never remember my dreams, and when I do, they are never nightmares.
p.112
-"These movies, the better ones, are often based on works of fiction."
I'm curious about examples. Three that good ones that spring immediately to mind are The Haunting, the Exorcist, and Dark Water.
-". . . But the great names of this literary genre do not select what atmosphere they will use---" One exception that springs to mind regarding this statement (that I largely agree with) is the work of Ramsey Campbell, specifically his short fiction collection "Demons by Daylight," which is organized around the intentionally chosen atmosphere of daytime. It's quite possible that every one of these daylit stories unconsciously came to Campell, but it seems as likely to me that it was a conscious experiment. For the most part, I think the results are admirable.
p.119
On the subject of "cheat" endings, I am immediately reminded of Fred Chappell's "Dagon." The story as the athor originally wrote it, ends with the death of the protagonist. having been completely negated as an individual by a backwoods cult, he is sacrificed to the pagan deity.
It's the perfect resolution to what is easily the most dreadfully oppressive story I have ever read. But Chappell decided that it was too depressing and tacked on a bizarre coda of less than a page, in which we discover that after death the sacrificed preacher merges with a cosmic "leviathan." It's ultimately ambiguous in what this means, and fittingly cosmic for a Lovecraft tribute, but is an obvious cop out.
I haven't read The Tenant, but would like to. I can't help but notice the similarity of the
final scene, as you describe it and the end of your MWINYD. The brutalized protagonist, caught in limbo between life and death, threatened by another part of himself that stands at the foot of the hospital bed.
p.121
" . . . We can still establish a pecking order in the unreal."
On my second read thru, I reacted to this idea with disgust. I am reminded of dehumanized prisoners creating a secondary hierarchy among themselves. Wholly without control of their fate, and with even less illusions than the rest of us who are "free," they persist in perpetuating violent nonsense, unnecessary complicating an already horrible situation.
p.124
"That we are critters is a verdict decided on a technicality."
I try to see humans (myself included) because it goes so far towards explaining behavior better than speculating as to "deeper" motivations. But you're right: Ego only lets you go so far.
p.125
"Who could live through a story whose end they knew in advance---not in a general sense but as to the how and the when?"
Immediately reminded of "Timequake" by Kurt Vonnegut, a novel without much to recommend it but its titular conceipt: a "hiccup" in the universe that causes the previous 10 years to repeat exactly.
Everyone is conscious of having lived through this period in their lives already, but are powerless to change anything. They are forced to relive every excruciating moment, every outrage, every mistake. When the "Timequake" has resolved itself, the vast majority of humanity has forgotten how to live beyond basic physical systems, having lapsed into near catatonic apathy about their own lives.
p.128
"a puppet universe in which the strings pull themselves."
String theory!
p.129,note 2
" . . . which would be madness without an underlying recognition on he part of the reader that the substantiality of their own world will never be eclipsed by that of the story in which they are 'lost'."
Anyone else reminded of "Nethescurial?"
p.131
"So are those who approach human consciousness as something it were better never to have been."
Hate to split haire, but isn't the point of this book that we're all doomed? I don't see why would-that-it-never-were types should be anymore doomed than your average existentialist, or anyone else who is conscious of their consciousness.