all the news that print will fit.
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| notes from underground - societal whispers all the news that print will fit. |
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Thursday, July 10, 2003 np: wilco - "jesus etc." it's always..somewhat odd to be reflected on by people whom dislike you. and to hear what they have to say about you without them knowing you'll be listening. not that i've been eavesdropping. it's an internet thing you see. yet another reason i confine my writings in this journal to my personal thoughts and wanderings. i don't think the particular criticism was deserved. it was more along the lines of miscommunication. but the point is taken. but that doesn't mean that pulling the hot dog switch on bryan wasn't damn funny at the time. sorry, bryan. we're a sordid bunch of self-interested isolationists sometimes. and it hurts to be called on it. even if it's a minor point. -- blood meridian lays finished. and i'm still not quite over it. it's an emotionally shaking novel. in that it makes you question the humanity of..well..humanity. being that the novel is largely based on actual events. and the death of glanton, a character you begin by seeing as a stoic rugged soldier and eventually see as a ruthless and racist nihilist, is a perfect illustration: "When they entered Glanton's chamber he lurched upright and glared wildly about him. The small clay room he occupied was entirely filled with a brass bed he'd appropriated from some migrating family and he sat in it like a debauched feudal baron while his weapons hung in a rich array from the finials. Caballo en Pelo mounted into the actual bed with him and stood there while one of the attending tribunal handed him at his right side a common axe the hickory helve of which was carved with pagan motifs and tasseled with the feathers of predatory birds. Glanton spat. cormac mccarthy's writing style is intriguing in his avoidance of much punctuation. he avoids quotes entirely, leaving dialogue melded in with the narration itself. and you can also see his dis-use of commas in many situations. the e e cummings of the prose world? not exactly. but a distinctive stylist none the less. the other thing that interested me was mccarthy's use of the word 'n-----.' his characters use it to refer to everyone non-white. native americans, mexicans and african americans alike get the epitet hurled at them, as partially demonstrated in the excerpt i quoted. it's not something i'd ever heard before. and whether it is culturally correct (as in, that's how it was really used) i know not. my previous experience with the word lies solely in its beratement of african americans. 'regeneration through violence' is a misleading tag. that phrase (which i've mentioned before) is in a praising quote on the front of the book. i certainly didn't feel regenerated through the course of the novel. in the end, the sole person to survive was one of the most corrosively vile persons in the book. or at least, perhaps. we're left to interpret exactly how the ending is carried out. but if anything it is a very precise analysis of the american penchant for destructive, degenerative violence. and no one is left unscathed. is that perhaps similar to what the directors of 28 days later were going for? we have 'the infected,' a group of random, incredibly violent humans whose sole actions seem to be the destruction of others. their murder is carried out with utmost malice, but no discrimination. they kill whom they kill. with no prejudice. and by the end of the movie we are seeing these same tendencies emerge within the humans who are not infected but are left alive to fend for themselves. i won't go into much more detail as that would be a movie spoiler. but safe to say that by the end we see little difference between the 'infected' and the non-infected. a point well made. my sole qualm with the logic (although really it holds up the overall theme, but why no explination?): why don't the infected attack one another? if they are truly imbued with a rage so deep and vitriolic that they kill everything, why not eachother? it was never dealt with. they seemed to work in groups the majority of the time. i've more ideas rattling around at the moment. but i'll leave you be for now. hot hot heat was quite good tonight, as were moving units, and i'll deal with that in my next post. should it be the topic i have in mind then. if not...ah, well. posted by J. Neas | 7/10/2003 05:09:00 AM
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