Saturday, September 27, 2003
(2:42 AM) | Anonymous:
What to Make of a Diminished Thing?
(I am sorry to break the string of song lyrics-as-headlines I had going. But this is still a line from a poem, so it's at least still lyrical. I live for technicalities.)
It's sad that I've gotten out of the habit of re-reading books. I used to do it all the time. I tried to follow a rule that I'd re-read a book before reading each new one back in high school. I think now I pretty much look at the vast quantity of knowledge I haven't even found out about yet, including whole FIELDS of scholarly academia that I haven't read page 1 of, and it just seems like there's no time.
But the thing about re-reading a book is that a lot of things that were unclear the first time can be revealed the second and nineteenth times through. For example, I've recently been forced to re-read Catch 22 for a class. It has been completely revealing.
Don't get me wrong, I've loved the book from the first time I saw the awkward dancing man on the front. (Dangit, I'll say it: "It was love at first sight" HA HA INSIDE JOKE) However, the first thing I realized that I never understood was the chronology, I couldn't find any sort of pattern to how the story is being told. A lot of authors use time or symbolism or certain phrases to provide an outlying structure to a book. Heller gives us none of that. Or at least so I thought.
On second reading, the structure of the book seems to be psychological. Instead of going from what happened when, it seems rather to be a constant struggle. It is someone telling a story while trying desperately to avoid the crucial element to that story. Namely, the narrator is trying to tell the human story without having to reveal the awfulness of Snowden's secret...the secret he spilled all over the back of Yossarian's plane.
That's right...this one:
"It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all."
It's the same dark secret which is avoided at all costs in Heart of Darkness, or basically any other work of important fiction. In spite of every structure we've set up to maintain our sanity, this mere matter remains and burns them all to the ground if it is acknowledged as such.
Every system we have set up will fail to make us any more than matter. The communist manifesto will fail you, the words of the bible will fail you, the state of the union address will fail you, the latest Bill O'Reilley book will fail you, and the latest Michael Moore book (which is (un)comically set beside the O'Reilly one in EVERY bookstore both online and physical I've visited in the last month...) will fail you.. There is nothing you can do to avoid the fact that we are matter, we are going to die, and what's worse, people are trying to kill us. Of course they aren't aiming specifically for us with their terrible policies, their stupid retributions and their anti-everything biases, but as Yossarian knows, that doesn't matter.
Now we're all horribly depressed. That's if we're lucky, if not, we're insane, or soon to be. That's why the painfully obvious fact that we are all going to die is so well hidden by society and everyone else today. We're given a million ways to prolong that life. We can achieve wealth and reign supreme, thus prolonging our life through pleasure. Or we can somehow establish a legacy where we will live vicariously on through those who take up the idea after us. Or, there's always the option that Dunbar took in the book, of trying to make life go as slow as possible in order to live forever.
This is where covering up the secret gets dangerous. People strive so hard to live forever, whether individually or collectively in a company or a State, that they are willing to do untold harm to others to ensure their life goes on as long as they can see. People will kill, literally kill for anything they see as a ticket to a few more years of "life." Countries have fought to extend their lifetime as a power through meaningless and frivolous wars that have killed millions, people have killed and done every other wretched terror to their friends and especially their enemies to extend their life, whether it be in actual years, in fame, or in wealth. Perhaps it's best symbolized by the pursuit of the actual fountain of youth in the real world, but folks, every war ever fought was over the fountain of youth. (I AM KING OF SOUNDBYTE.)
The secret, if revealed, runs the risk of making us go insane. A life less the standard structures is perilous at best. But only the oldest structure survives: to simply keep breathing, and to help others keep breathing. I know it isn't the most glorified thing to base one's life around. It certainly lacks the luster of accumulating a mega-million dollar empire, but it is the only structure which can lead to a healthy life within and with others. It seems strange to derail the attempt to live forever in one paragraph, and then tell people simply to keep breathing in the next. It certainly sounds contrary. But, It is the spirit which gives life meaning at all, (remember: the spirit gone, man is garbage). The life of the spirit is maintained in this simple gesture of breathing, and helping other breathe. To keep breathing is to love. If we can't handle the raw openness of this structure, which I'm not sure anyone can with sanity, I don't know, it's probably okay to lay down some simple guidelines, but no standard can be admitted which puts first extending this breath forever. All things must realize their own end, this life will one day be over, the very hands I am using to type this will one day be nothing but bone for someone like Mike Carlisle to break apart and analyze.
Shout out to Mike.
