Neil Gaiman’s “Miracleman” Issue #5

This is a very interesting installment. Gaiman uses a spy to symbolize the isolation, alienation, and paranoia that seems to be pervasive in society as a whole. The protagonist, a woman spy, navigates a shadowy world where she is suspicious of everyone, imagining connections and conspiracies which may or may not be real. At one point, she gazes out the window, and snippets of conversation surface in her mind as she tries to make sense of her existence.

Night: I stand at my window, staring out at the lights of the city. There’s a shape there, if only I could place it. Something I almost understand. Phrases run through my head. “Rudnitsky’s gone triple.” “He’s a martyr to his back, our Darren.” “It’s need to know, 1860, and you don’t need to know.” “The plumber still didn’t come, I see.” “Sorry, love. We’re out of hake. I can do you some lovely mackerel.” “It’s the city, Ruth. It’s where we live.” A movement catches my attention, in a distant window. I fetch my binoculars from a drawer, focus them.

(p. 12)

The artwork in this issue is perfect. It is dark and grainy, which reflects the shadowy world that is the reality of the spy. The combination of the imagery and the lonely internal dialog does an amazing job of evoking the loneliness and lurking uncertainty of the spy, which is also the loneliness and uncertainty of the post-millennial individual.

Thoughts on “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace – Part 11: On Pornography

I woke early this morning, made some coffee, and sat down to read more of Infinite Jest. One of the protagonists in the story, Hal, was reminiscing about when his older brother Orin got caught by their father as Orin was getting ready to watch “Behind the Green Door.” Their father does not forbid his son from watching the film; instead, the father explains why it would be better if he waited until he had more experience before watching the movie.

But Himself said that if Orin wanted his personal, fatherly as opposed to headmasterly, take on it, then he, Orin’s father – though he wouldn’t forbid it – would rather Orin didn’t watch a hard-porn film yet. He said this with a reticent earnestness there was no way Orin couldn’t ask him how come. Himself felt his jaw and pushed his glasses up several times and shrugged and finally said he supposed he was afraid of the film giving Orin the wrong idea about having sex. He said he’d personally prefer that Orin wait until he’d found someone he loved enough to want to have sex with and had had sex with this person, that he’d wait until he’d experienced for himself what a profound and really quite moving thing sex could be, before he watched a film where sex was presented as nothing more than organs going in and out of other organs, emotionless, terribly lonely. He said he supposed he was afraid that something like The Green Door would give Orin an impoverished, lonely idea of sexuality.

(pp. 955 – 956)

There is no doubt that many young people learn about sex through pornography, especially in the age of the internet, when access to porn is a click away. And while I personally have nothing against pornography, Wallace is correct that it establishes a lonely idea of sex. Pornography removes intimacy from sex and transforms it into a solitary, isolated experience for too many people.

I cannot help but wonder if the proliferation of online porn is having a negative impact on our society. It seems that there is a growing sense of alienation and isolation as people become more engrossed in virtual experiences, experiencing life vicariously instead of actually engaging in the experiences that life has to offer. I can’t say for sure, but these are my musings this morning.

Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to share your thoughts.

“The Outsider” by H. P. Lovecraft

My close friend Byron recently posted that this is her favorite story by Lovecraft. Since she is someone whose literary opinions I highly respect, I decided to read it. Surprisingly, it was not in my hardcover collection of Lovecraft’s works, but I was able to find it online (click here to access the online version). If you are not familiar with this story, you should read it first, because there are spoilers in this post. It would be impossible to write about this story without giving away the ending.

This story sucked me in from the very first paragraph, which expressed a feeling of alienation which often plagued me when I was younger.

Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, and vine-encumbered trees that silently wave twisted branches far aloft. Such a lot the gods gave to me – to me, the dazed, the disappointed; the barren, the broken. And yet I am strangely content and cling desperately to those sere memories, when my mind momentarily threatens to reach beyond to the other.

Like my younger self, the protagonist spent his days living vicariously through books, seeking to escape the lonely crypt of isolation.

I would often lie and dream for hours about what I read in the books; and would longingly picture myself amidst gay crowds in the sunny world beyond the endless forests.

The outsider then decides to ascend the tower of the castle where he dwells. The description of the climb up the tower caused my heart to race, sensing that some terrible secret lay at the top, or that some dire event would occur upon reaching the summit. I kept getting images of The Tower card from the tarot deck and the impending doom associated with the card.

Ghastly and terrible was that dead, stairless cylinder of rock; black, ruined, and deserted, and sinister with startled bats whose wings made no noise. But more ghastly and terrible still was the slowness of my progress; for climb as I might, the darkness overhead grew no thinner, and a new chill as of haunted and venerable mould assailed me.

Upon reaching the top of the tower, the outsider is thrilled by the light of a full moon. I got the sense that the person was experiencing a symbolic birth, emerging from the birth canal symbolized by the tower, to come forth into a new realm of light and mystery.

As I did so there came to me the purest ecstasy I have ever known; for shining tranquilly through an ornate grating of iron, and down a short stone passageway of steps that ascended from the newly found doorway, was the radiant full moon, which I had never before seen save in dreams and in vague visions I dared not call memories.

The person discovers that the tower actually led up from an underground vault. He then wanders forth until he comes upon a group of people, who flee from him in horror. The outsider does not understand why until he comes upon a mirror and sees his reflection, discovering that he is but the decayed remains of a long-dead person.

I did not shriek, but all the fiendish ghouls that ride the nightwind shrieked for me as in that same second there crashed down upon my mind a single fleeting avalanche of soul-annihilating memory. I knew in that second all that had been; I remembered beyond the frightful castle and the trees, and recognized the altered edifice in which I now stood; I recognized, most terrible of all, the unholy abomination that stood leering before me as I withdrew my sullied fingers from its own.

The tale concludes with references to ancient Egypt, leading one to conclude that the outsider is a mummified being who after countless centuries has finally been resurrected. Unfortunately, though, the world has changed, and there is no longer a place where he belongs. He is left to haunt this realm, riding the winds of night along with the other ghouls and creatures of darkness.

All of us emerge from our dark wombs bringing with us vague fragments of memories. We are then cast into a world in which we are alone, outsiders, until we connect with creatures like ourselves. Then, after we die, we again traverse the dark corridor as we move toward the light of the next realm of our existence. This cycle of birth-death-rebirth is what Lovecraft captures in a frightening and fascinating way with this story, a story I suspect I will read again.