One of the curious things about being unemployed is the way a schedule deteriorates right before your eyes. I was able to hold it together for a few days, a couple of weeks even, but presently the lack of meaningful work or urgency to get anywhere early became the catalyst for my schedule to crumble away like yet Sheetrock. It is almost as messy too.
I used to feel so much more connected to friends, industry, the world at large. The mornings driving to work, listening to the news on the radio, the community gossip at lunch, a feeling for the town as I drove through neighborhoods before and after work. But now it is a blur. I have no idea what is happening in the world, the setting I once depended on for news is gone, there is a vague understanding of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico but I don't think I really heard about it until the other day--until someone posted some anti BP videos on facebook, ironically enough.
It has been apparent, for sometime, that my sense of routine and order were falling apart and my feeble attempts to hold it together were completely inadequate and lacked real conviction. Honestly, I don't see that changing all that much until I actually get a job. Today, though, is an anomaly, it is a quarter to 7 and I've been up since 6.
There is a peaceful quality to mornings that i appreciate, that i thrive on actually. A time before the family is up and the serenity of the day is shattered (not in a bad way). At one time I thrived on quiet mornings, me and a cup of coffee and this blog, lately that has fallen away. It takes a morning like this, up for no reason in particular, to remind myself of the importance this time has.
I wish I could write something earth shattering and profound on my blog, something that would rock the foundation of beliefs and values and make people reanalyze their lives. Perhaps someday I will. For now I'm locked tightly on my own insular struggle, pushing as best I can forward and into the great unknown of the future.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
The Weather Seems Fair.
Yesterday's post was a downer but I had to let it go. It is a human anomaly that we can feel isolated and alone even though we are surrounded by friends and family. I am typically not bothered by the fact that the majority of my friends and I are in radically different places in life and I am not blind to the fact that we have a lot of friends because we have kids the same age, not necessarily because we connect on another level.
Our friends are awesome and supportive and generous and generally kind but it is interesting the way kids bring people together. They are the great social equalizers and they force us, as parents, out of our shells and into the world. I have often wondered if I would be friends with some of the people I am friends with if it weren't for my children.
Because many of our friends are in radically different places right now it does generate this feeling of isolation and frustration. I thought, at one time, it was envy of their homes and cars and vacation plans and well behaved children (okay, there is a little of that) but a lot of the way I identify myself is through my work and that is the way my friends, generally, identify themselves as well. Without work part of my identity is lost, no, part of my self-worth and confidence is lost and to be in community with others who have that in tact takes its toll on my emotions.
But today is a new day, there is some work to be done, and the weather seems fair. Right now, in the silence of the morning life doesn't seem all that challenging or complicated or painful. It is just the eye of the storm.
Our friends are awesome and supportive and generous and generally kind but it is interesting the way kids bring people together. They are the great social equalizers and they force us, as parents, out of our shells and into the world. I have often wondered if I would be friends with some of the people I am friends with if it weren't for my children.
Because many of our friends are in radically different places right now it does generate this feeling of isolation and frustration. I thought, at one time, it was envy of their homes and cars and vacation plans and well behaved children (okay, there is a little of that) but a lot of the way I identify myself is through my work and that is the way my friends, generally, identify themselves as well. Without work part of my identity is lost, no, part of my self-worth and confidence is lost and to be in community with others who have that in tact takes its toll on my emotions.
But today is a new day, there is some work to be done, and the weather seems fair. Right now, in the silence of the morning life doesn't seem all that challenging or complicated or painful. It is just the eye of the storm.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Shooting at Shadows, Trapped in the Fog
Life is a blur of resumes and applications right now. Three a week to maintain unemployment and several others sent into the community to various, potential employers. Taking shots in the dark when I am used to only shooting what I can see. I am careful with my ammunition, generally, but as desperation grows the shooting becomes more complex, less discerning, and far out of range. It is not easy to be unemployed, ever. But with children, married, in a circle of friends who are employed, generally doing well, busy, and employed there comes this sense of isolation. As they hear me talk about looking for work and the nature of the job market I get the sense that they don't really know what I'm feeling or going through. The feelings of dread and fear, the empty pit in my stomach that will not go away, the beating that my confidence is taking after so many rejections and non-committal generalizations about the future.
It isn't my nature to be pessimistic, I am, believe it or not, an eternal optimist but my great paradox is the dark cynicist that stands opposite my optimism. In ordinary life they are in harmony and balance. Now, slowly cynicism and darkness are taking hold. It isn't just me, my wife and sons feel the heat of the situation. The depression eeks into my relationship with my family like a fatal epidemic. My wife, who has been so brave and supportive is privy to my mood-swings and destructive depression. My five year old, a dreamer and creator and artist (so much of his personality and nature are in me as well) feels the wrath of my uncertain moods and displaced anger. I hate this time in life. The uncertainty and growing desperation, the darkness...
Self-confidence has never been a strong point in my life, perhaps I have covered my insecurities with brash humour and boisterous acts of egotism but it has all been a mask, a mask that no longer fits. There is the move from youthful insecurity to the early adult years of self-discovery into adult hood in earnest (post college, married, children) when it is supposed to fade away but now in the heat of the action I am almost paralyzed as spectres of my weakness rise up and fog my vision.
It is hard for me to vocalize how I feel, my friends don't really understand. The nagging comments my wife and I have begun to make, the pit in my stomach, the clouds of fear that hang on the horizon. I can't express it any more than to say I feel sick with no clinical symptoms of virus or disease. I feel paralyzed yet maintain movement. I feel hopeless but try to drive forward, forward into a brick wall. I am in East Germany and freedom is a yard or two away and nearly in-obtainable.
I am sorry for this darkness and depression. But that is where I'm at.
It isn't my nature to be pessimistic, I am, believe it or not, an eternal optimist but my great paradox is the dark cynicist that stands opposite my optimism. In ordinary life they are in harmony and balance. Now, slowly cynicism and darkness are taking hold. It isn't just me, my wife and sons feel the heat of the situation. The depression eeks into my relationship with my family like a fatal epidemic. My wife, who has been so brave and supportive is privy to my mood-swings and destructive depression. My five year old, a dreamer and creator and artist (so much of his personality and nature are in me as well) feels the wrath of my uncertain moods and displaced anger. I hate this time in life. The uncertainty and growing desperation, the darkness...
Self-confidence has never been a strong point in my life, perhaps I have covered my insecurities with brash humour and boisterous acts of egotism but it has all been a mask, a mask that no longer fits. There is the move from youthful insecurity to the early adult years of self-discovery into adult hood in earnest (post college, married, children) when it is supposed to fade away but now in the heat of the action I am almost paralyzed as spectres of my weakness rise up and fog my vision.
It is hard for me to vocalize how I feel, my friends don't really understand. The nagging comments my wife and I have begun to make, the pit in my stomach, the clouds of fear that hang on the horizon. I can't express it any more than to say I feel sick with no clinical symptoms of virus or disease. I feel paralyzed yet maintain movement. I feel hopeless but try to drive forward, forward into a brick wall. I am in East Germany and freedom is a yard or two away and nearly in-obtainable.
I am sorry for this darkness and depression. But that is where I'm at.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Conformity, or Not.
I have to confess to being somewhat of a non-conformist. Maybe non-conformist is the wrong word but labels like rebel, hippie, conservative, extremist don't fit. Maybe its not appropriate for me to assign my own label but I don't think that non-conformist is, necessarily, a label, rather a descriptive term for my personality.
Ultimately conformity baffles me. Not so much because a group of people--even an entire sub-culture--go about acting and dressing the same but because most of these do so under the spectre of non-conformity. If an gang of white youths from middle class backgrounds and privileged allowances turns their hair into dread locks and embraces a pseudo rasta lifestyle haven't they conformed to a American brand of Rastafarian living? They don't even have to go so far as the dreads and and the tie dye just the glorification of Bob Marley and the little "hip" linguistic choices like "Rastafarian mon" and suddenly the young, leftist thinkers have all conformed to a dramatic stereotype of pot smokin' hippies. This is an example, my problem with conformity neither begins nor stops with the dread lock rasta wannabes that flutter in and out of the insular world of like minded validification (usually found in a University setting). Conformity is no unique to the non-conformists.
I find conformity rampant in a social perceptive of acceptance and propriety. The way we dress for jobs, the way we cut (or not) our hair... Maybe its me, but it seems we, as a society, are afraid to be alone so we glom onto like minded people to validate our lives and in doing so we begin to make statements--fashion, social, political--that bring together other peoples of our ilk. This isn't necessarily a problem but it does begin to make me a bit wary. I am not in the business of validating personal ideology--religious, political, social beliefs--I have neither the time nor energy of a lifestyle of apologetics and defense of my beliefs. I am ready and willing for a dialogue but let me beg the question: when was the last time you were able to engage in an active dialogue with someone about which you fundamentally disagree? And, was it a dialogue or a shouting match? I digress.
My wife made dread lock comment yesterday and that is what spurred this little rant but in the process of dissecting these thoughts in my head it brought me to a conclusion that I hate to agree with people. Not all people but when someone holds a belief or ideology so close, close to the point of obsession my knee jerk reaction is to recoil and condemn it. Even if I agree to some extent, my mind begins to tear apart their beliefs irregardless. With left-wing liberals, right-wing conservatives, Christians, atheists, agnostics, the only people I identify with are right dab smack in the center. I can't help it. I don't mean to be an asshole or jerk, I don't intend to disagree for the sake of disagreement but most people so far into their own little world of skewed ideology and beliefs are so disconnected from reality that I can't help myself, I want to bring them down. In claiming to be non-judgemental they judge those who freely judge others. In claiming to be open minded they close their minds to those who are close minded.
I am not, admittedly, the bedrock of reason and compromise, their are some stances upon which I stand irrevocably firm; however, I am willing to dialogue about them. You will not change my mind, and I may not change yours but I'll listen to what you have to say.
On a very base level this whole spiel means that I have a problem with social conventions. It makes me sick to dress for an interview or write a functional cover letter that is recognized as acceptable. Stereotypes of romance, passion, camaraderie, art, decor all bore me to a point of vanity and conceit. In someways I have alienated myself from some very decent people leading conventional lives in acceptable ways, people chasing the American dream of their choice. Conversely I have developed some very powerful and rich friendships with people from all walks of the social ladder, people with unique talents and far reaching mind sets.
The biggest challenge I face is a lack of conviction, when asked point blank out of context of those around me. However, what are your convictions? Want to dialogue?
Ultimately conformity baffles me. Not so much because a group of people--even an entire sub-culture--go about acting and dressing the same but because most of these do so under the spectre of non-conformity. If an gang of white youths from middle class backgrounds and privileged allowances turns their hair into dread locks and embraces a pseudo rasta lifestyle haven't they conformed to a American brand of Rastafarian living? They don't even have to go so far as the dreads and and the tie dye just the glorification of Bob Marley and the little "hip" linguistic choices like "Rastafarian mon" and suddenly the young, leftist thinkers have all conformed to a dramatic stereotype of pot smokin' hippies. This is an example, my problem with conformity neither begins nor stops with the dread lock rasta wannabes that flutter in and out of the insular world of like minded validification (usually found in a University setting). Conformity is no unique to the non-conformists.
I find conformity rampant in a social perceptive of acceptance and propriety. The way we dress for jobs, the way we cut (or not) our hair... Maybe its me, but it seems we, as a society, are afraid to be alone so we glom onto like minded people to validate our lives and in doing so we begin to make statements--fashion, social, political--that bring together other peoples of our ilk. This isn't necessarily a problem but it does begin to make me a bit wary. I am not in the business of validating personal ideology--religious, political, social beliefs--I have neither the time nor energy of a lifestyle of apologetics and defense of my beliefs. I am ready and willing for a dialogue but let me beg the question: when was the last time you were able to engage in an active dialogue with someone about which you fundamentally disagree? And, was it a dialogue or a shouting match? I digress.
My wife made dread lock comment yesterday and that is what spurred this little rant but in the process of dissecting these thoughts in my head it brought me to a conclusion that I hate to agree with people. Not all people but when someone holds a belief or ideology so close, close to the point of obsession my knee jerk reaction is to recoil and condemn it. Even if I agree to some extent, my mind begins to tear apart their beliefs irregardless. With left-wing liberals, right-wing conservatives, Christians, atheists, agnostics, the only people I identify with are right dab smack in the center. I can't help it. I don't mean to be an asshole or jerk, I don't intend to disagree for the sake of disagreement but most people so far into their own little world of skewed ideology and beliefs are so disconnected from reality that I can't help myself, I want to bring them down. In claiming to be non-judgemental they judge those who freely judge others. In claiming to be open minded they close their minds to those who are close minded.
I am not, admittedly, the bedrock of reason and compromise, their are some stances upon which I stand irrevocably firm; however, I am willing to dialogue about them. You will not change my mind, and I may not change yours but I'll listen to what you have to say.
On a very base level this whole spiel means that I have a problem with social conventions. It makes me sick to dress for an interview or write a functional cover letter that is recognized as acceptable. Stereotypes of romance, passion, camaraderie, art, decor all bore me to a point of vanity and conceit. In someways I have alienated myself from some very decent people leading conventional lives in acceptable ways, people chasing the American dream of their choice. Conversely I have developed some very powerful and rich friendships with people from all walks of the social ladder, people with unique talents and far reaching mind sets.
The biggest challenge I face is a lack of conviction, when asked point blank out of context of those around me. However, what are your convictions? Want to dialogue?
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Vasectomy
This has been a crazy week. Yesterday I had a vasectomy and the days leading up to the procedure were fraught with anxiety and anticipation. Constant questions as to the nature of the decision were being made, is this the right choice? what if, what if, what if... But the choice is made and I am comfortable with that. I do have a poem to share and I would love your thoughts.
Over
I grasp at the pulp of language
to squeeze ink—into memory—from my pen.
I grasp, like a lemon, the rind and
let the juice run over my hands
onto paper, into consciousness.
The juice fills and stings the wounds carved
in my skin and like an astringent it leaves
them cold and burning.
And I am left empty again.
Having let it all go
over
my skin.
Over
I grasp at the pulp of language
to squeeze ink—into memory—from my pen.
I grasp, like a lemon, the rind and
let the juice run over my hands
onto paper, into consciousness.
The juice fills and stings the wounds carved
in my skin and like an astringent it leaves
them cold and burning.
And I am left empty again.
Having let it all go
over
my skin.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Evolving Work Ethic
I've got a cup of coffee, my oldest son is awake and pouting because it isn't time for him to sneak in and cuddle with his mother. The day promises to be brilliant with sunshine and a high of 67. The world keeps spinning and the days continue to roll in and every morning I wake up and keep trying. Keep trying to find a job, discover a career path, parent my children, and be a good husband. When I was laid off from my job as a carpenter in February, I never expected the journey and process of finding a job and discovering a fulfilling career path (not necessarily the same thing but not mutually exclusive either) would be so challenging and long.
I had never expected to be unemployed four months later. It isn't like me to not work but after a while a routine develops and presently there is a sense of contentment...no, reassignment, that sets in and even though I'm applying for jobs and filling out applications and polishing my resume and firing off application packets to various potential employers, and doing as well as I can, the belief that I'll actually find a job diminishes with each day that ends with out a phone call or another rejection.
Today I have a bit of work, not great, not challenging or exciting, not high exposure carpentry that I enjoy, but a bit of work all the same. But I am torn. I can recognize in myself the deterioration of my work ethic to some degree and how, as a way of coping, my mindset on work has become so idealistic that the ideas and yearnings some homeowners have are distasteful and horrifying to me, never mind the practical/financial applications.
So, I'm rambling on and on and I think I'll be done for today.
I had never expected to be unemployed four months later. It isn't like me to not work but after a while a routine develops and presently there is a sense of contentment...no, reassignment, that sets in and even though I'm applying for jobs and filling out applications and polishing my resume and firing off application packets to various potential employers, and doing as well as I can, the belief that I'll actually find a job diminishes with each day that ends with out a phone call or another rejection.
Today I have a bit of work, not great, not challenging or exciting, not high exposure carpentry that I enjoy, but a bit of work all the same. But I am torn. I can recognize in myself the deterioration of my work ethic to some degree and how, as a way of coping, my mindset on work has become so idealistic that the ideas and yearnings some homeowners have are distasteful and horrifying to me, never mind the practical/financial applications.
So, I'm rambling on and on and I think I'll be done for today.
Monday, May 10, 2010
A New Path
February, March, April, and now into May. The clock ticks off each hour of each day and we squeeze by, week to week, on unemployment checks. The morose darkness that plagued my mind has abated some what but the eager excitement of the early days has also abated. The process of discovery and exploration that I looked forward to so keenly has been slow and arduous, each meeting with another professional, councillor, or advisor a notch in the belt and a small step closer to figuring out the future but nothing so compelling as the path to take. And there isn't one right path. There are several and each leads to a different destination. But a combination of interest testing and personality profile has given me more specific programs to follow, the combination points me towards mass communication. For me, specifically, that means graphic design, or visual communication.
There was a time, a long time ago it seems, that i was a good photographer. Good meaning i was patient with framing shots and understood my camera (Cannon AE-1) very well. I have a box of black and white photos somewhere, the mats, i am sure, falling apart and the photo paper degenerating rapidly...I didn't know that a profession like that existed. I was horrible in the dark room and never destined for a life of photography but a life of graphics, well, it could be. I am excited at the possibility, fully, excited to have something concrete in mind. I may seem like the most indecisive person, based on this blog. First teaching now visual communications but under the gloss of the ideal is the reality, an aspect hard for me to see, and the reality of teaching is not all Dead Poet's Society.
We have come to a point where i have to choose, where I am getting to settled in the waiting place and no one is going to come get me out, it is up to me. I am tired of waiting and searching and being disappointed at the end of the week and going to bed Sunday night filled with a hollow desperation and dread of the week to come, an empty week. Monday is the worst for me, with nothing scheduled and nothing promised it is an empty day left to me to fill and the motivation to fill it has fallen flat to the floor and become heavy and fat with inactivity.
Today I have a little hope, I can visualize myself in graphic design and I can eagerly look forward to the classes and the real world application. Tomorrow, well, I'll see about tomorrow as it comes.
There was a time, a long time ago it seems, that i was a good photographer. Good meaning i was patient with framing shots and understood my camera (Cannon AE-1) very well. I have a box of black and white photos somewhere, the mats, i am sure, falling apart and the photo paper degenerating rapidly...I didn't know that a profession like that existed. I was horrible in the dark room and never destined for a life of photography but a life of graphics, well, it could be. I am excited at the possibility, fully, excited to have something concrete in mind. I may seem like the most indecisive person, based on this blog. First teaching now visual communications but under the gloss of the ideal is the reality, an aspect hard for me to see, and the reality of teaching is not all Dead Poet's Society.
We have come to a point where i have to choose, where I am getting to settled in the waiting place and no one is going to come get me out, it is up to me. I am tired of waiting and searching and being disappointed at the end of the week and going to bed Sunday night filled with a hollow desperation and dread of the week to come, an empty week. Monday is the worst for me, with nothing scheduled and nothing promised it is an empty day left to me to fill and the motivation to fill it has fallen flat to the floor and become heavy and fat with inactivity.
Today I have a little hope, I can visualize myself in graphic design and I can eagerly look forward to the classes and the real world application. Tomorrow, well, I'll see about tomorrow as it comes.
Friday, May 7, 2010
My Style...Or Not
Lately I've been doing a lot of reading and trying to define the kind of writing I want to do, in the long term. I have always wanted to be a clever, cheeky writer who was capable of infusing gritty, compelling, human stories into a lighter, more comical format. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is one such example of a writer who writes in a sort of casual comical fashion but his novels and stories are gritty and challenging. And even if I couldn't, at the very least, pull off the comical style, the light hearted, sarcastic, cynicism that seems to inform my normal life, I had always hoped to be funny. But I'm not a comic writer, not on purpose anyways. I have a heard time keeping things on focus and on track--you may have noticed.
I would love to write, simply about beer. A blog cum website, www.howtodrinkbeer.net, is a light, personal approach to the finer aspects of a pint of suds without the inherent pretension that surrounds food and beverage critics. I love beer and can wax poetic for abnormally long periods of time on the finer points of the brews I enjoy and lay out a diverse list of popular and rare beers to try as time allows. But I struggle when it comes time to articulate my love of beer in writing. I have the same problem with coffee and biking and soccer and fishing...I expect to convey the deep emotional ties I've built and the end result falls flat in a corny cliche. Bike Snob NYC (www.bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com) writes, daily, about the world of cycling as he sees it in New York. He is a fantastic, candid, cheeky writer who hammers out blog postings every day. But I am not destined to be like these writers.
It is my style to lay down the personal struggles I face. Whether in fiction or non-fiction. As I start to write, the stories take shape in a personal way and soon the prose is laced with a darker side of language. I read writers from all walks of life and have found comfort and truth in all styles of writing. So the process of defining how I write has been long in coming...maybe not long in coming but to articulate and label has taken some time. Even now, it is vague in my mind.
I don't know that style has to be so defined but it does help.
I would love to write, simply about beer. A blog cum website, www.howtodrinkbeer.net, is a light, personal approach to the finer aspects of a pint of suds without the inherent pretension that surrounds food and beverage critics. I love beer and can wax poetic for abnormally long periods of time on the finer points of the brews I enjoy and lay out a diverse list of popular and rare beers to try as time allows. But I struggle when it comes time to articulate my love of beer in writing. I have the same problem with coffee and biking and soccer and fishing...I expect to convey the deep emotional ties I've built and the end result falls flat in a corny cliche. Bike Snob NYC (www.bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com) writes, daily, about the world of cycling as he sees it in New York. He is a fantastic, candid, cheeky writer who hammers out blog postings every day. But I am not destined to be like these writers.
It is my style to lay down the personal struggles I face. Whether in fiction or non-fiction. As I start to write, the stories take shape in a personal way and soon the prose is laced with a darker side of language. I read writers from all walks of life and have found comfort and truth in all styles of writing. So the process of defining how I write has been long in coming...maybe not long in coming but to articulate and label has taken some time. Even now, it is vague in my mind.
I don't know that style has to be so defined but it does help.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
A Little Bit of Mailer on My Mind
Norman Mailer's WWII novel, The Naked and the Dead, is a polarizing book. It is entrenched in the warfare of the soldiers minds, and highlights the individual: their strengths and fallibility's. Briefly, the novel is centered around a recon squad in the Pacific towards the end of the U.S. campaign against the Japanese in WWII and their part in taking the island Anopopei. The recon squad the book focuses on is tired from a previous campaign and the veterans of the squad are beginning to show signs of wear and exhaustion and post traumatic shock. Mailer's real genius in the novel is the way he dissects the personalities of the individuals as they try to function as a collective. It is very much a class novel and the struggle and mistrust between the enlisted men and the officers is a constant theme and is very interesting on the heals of the great depression. We tend not to think of the U.S. as being a country that is embroiled in class struggles, but Mailer's novel, intentionally or not, pits the proletariat under the thumb of the bourgeoisie and the bitter, painful resentment surfaces in subtle and harmful ways. But I don't believe that class struggle is the crux of The Naked and the Dead. The heart of the novel is in the reactions of the soldiers to war, the army, and the collective objective: survive.
The Naked and the Dead polarized me as I read. I have never wanted to believe in the cowardice or fears of the historical American soldier. As a strict backlash to the nature of humanity I have always put them on a pedestal and idealized the role of those who fought so long in WWII as liberating hero's, never once stopping to put together the racial and political tensions that were so powerful in this country as the war consumed the globe. See, I wanted the soldiers in my mind to be the brave squad from Saving Private Ryan and if there was to be extreme cowardice by one soldier it was juxtaposed by absolute bravery by another. Mailer's novel drops bravery from a 12 story building to watch it shatter on the streets below. There is no bravery in The Naked and the Dead, there is only the personality of man as they fight for their lives, cling to their loves, and writhe painfully as the world they remembered slowly vanishes from sight. It was said of Larry McMurtry that he wasn't afraid to kill his darlings. It could be said of The Naked and the Dead that there are no darlings and as a reader i developed a near perfect disdain for nearly every character in the book, they are so elementary flawed and despicable. But I think Mailer buries their humanity deep within their flaws. It is within the constant worrying and fear that elements of their family and children and childhood appears and it is the way they cope, in the company of fearful men, that they become despicable. In this way, perhaps, it becomes the story of why soldiers react the way they do, the pressure of the collective upon their shoulders, driving them to heinous and violent acts.
The novel is littered with minor faults and many of the social commentaries are half cocked and incomplete and nothing is solved within the novel. In the end the ultimate sacrifices, pains, and toils are committed in vain, the outcome decided long before the troops landed an Anopopei. But then, perhaps the point of the novel all along.
The Naked and the Dead polarized me as I read. I have never wanted to believe in the cowardice or fears of the historical American soldier. As a strict backlash to the nature of humanity I have always put them on a pedestal and idealized the role of those who fought so long in WWII as liberating hero's, never once stopping to put together the racial and political tensions that were so powerful in this country as the war consumed the globe. See, I wanted the soldiers in my mind to be the brave squad from Saving Private Ryan and if there was to be extreme cowardice by one soldier it was juxtaposed by absolute bravery by another. Mailer's novel drops bravery from a 12 story building to watch it shatter on the streets below. There is no bravery in The Naked and the Dead, there is only the personality of man as they fight for their lives, cling to their loves, and writhe painfully as the world they remembered slowly vanishes from sight. It was said of Larry McMurtry that he wasn't afraid to kill his darlings. It could be said of The Naked and the Dead that there are no darlings and as a reader i developed a near perfect disdain for nearly every character in the book, they are so elementary flawed and despicable. But I think Mailer buries their humanity deep within their flaws. It is within the constant worrying and fear that elements of their family and children and childhood appears and it is the way they cope, in the company of fearful men, that they become despicable. In this way, perhaps, it becomes the story of why soldiers react the way they do, the pressure of the collective upon their shoulders, driving them to heinous and violent acts.
The novel is littered with minor faults and many of the social commentaries are half cocked and incomplete and nothing is solved within the novel. In the end the ultimate sacrifices, pains, and toils are committed in vain, the outcome decided long before the troops landed an Anopopei. But then, perhaps the point of the novel all along.
Monday, May 3, 2010
A Literary Legend
On Friday I finished A Farewell To Arms. The novel left me feeling morose and down. So much happens between the lines in Hemingways novels, to take his work at face value is a dramatic understatement of his considerable talent. It is truly his ability to say so much with so little that I love about Hemingway. The understated way he describes setting and the surface way lovers comunicate. I read the novel and never thought that the protagonist, Fredrick Henry, really new his lover, Catherine Barkley.
The nut shell: the novel is set in Italy in World War I and centers around a young American who is commissioned as a Lieutenant driving ambulances on the eastern front. He meets an English (Barkley) nurse and they fall in love. He is wounded, sent to Milan, and Cathrine Barkley follows him. While in Milan they engage in an affair which results in pregnancy. When Henry's wounds are healed he is sent back to the front. At the front the Austrians launch an offensive and the Italian line crumbles in dramatic fashion. A consequence of the retreat is the summary execution of nearly all the field officers involved. Henry deserts, meets his lover, and together they flee to Switzerland.
I feel that in Hemingway's fiction, he draws heavily from his experiences. I feel, too, that his male protagonists are extensions of the man himself. I have read enough Hemingway to recognize the stereotype men in his novels. They are athletes, they are sportsmen and excellent shots with rifles, shotguns, and pistols. They are aware and capable and they seem always to be on the losing side. This theme of his main characters losing is set early in his career as a writer. Without spoiling A Farewell to Arms his novels offer an almost telepathic foresight into the death of the great writer himself.
In A Moveable Feast he writes that he always started the days work with the truest sentence available to him, that way if the days work went to shit he had something true to fall back. To Hemingway, it seems, that the authentic components of the work, that which he new to be true, where safe, good, and capable of carrying his work. Perhaps that's why his writing captivates and moves me so much. It is authentic. The sparse nature of his writing only lends itself so much more to the rich understanding he had of insecurities, the brittle human nature, and the surface bonds of love that turn out to be, often, temporary, deep, and powerful.
I love Hemingway's work, in part, for the contradictions it brings to the contemporary style of literature. His characters are rich and complex but between the lines of text. His descriptions are powerful and full of color but between the lines of text. The stories and the characters speak for themselves and the plot is, as it should be for great writers, secondary to the readers relationship with the characters. I say, read A Farewell to Arms, read The Sun Also Rises, read For Whom the Bell Tolls, read Hemingways books and revel in the work of a literary legend.
The nut shell: the novel is set in Italy in World War I and centers around a young American who is commissioned as a Lieutenant driving ambulances on the eastern front. He meets an English (Barkley) nurse and they fall in love. He is wounded, sent to Milan, and Cathrine Barkley follows him. While in Milan they engage in an affair which results in pregnancy. When Henry's wounds are healed he is sent back to the front. At the front the Austrians launch an offensive and the Italian line crumbles in dramatic fashion. A consequence of the retreat is the summary execution of nearly all the field officers involved. Henry deserts, meets his lover, and together they flee to Switzerland.
I feel that in Hemingway's fiction, he draws heavily from his experiences. I feel, too, that his male protagonists are extensions of the man himself. I have read enough Hemingway to recognize the stereotype men in his novels. They are athletes, they are sportsmen and excellent shots with rifles, shotguns, and pistols. They are aware and capable and they seem always to be on the losing side. This theme of his main characters losing is set early in his career as a writer. Without spoiling A Farewell to Arms his novels offer an almost telepathic foresight into the death of the great writer himself.
In A Moveable Feast he writes that he always started the days work with the truest sentence available to him, that way if the days work went to shit he had something true to fall back. To Hemingway, it seems, that the authentic components of the work, that which he new to be true, where safe, good, and capable of carrying his work. Perhaps that's why his writing captivates and moves me so much. It is authentic. The sparse nature of his writing only lends itself so much more to the rich understanding he had of insecurities, the brittle human nature, and the surface bonds of love that turn out to be, often, temporary, deep, and powerful.
I love Hemingway's work, in part, for the contradictions it brings to the contemporary style of literature. His characters are rich and complex but between the lines of text. His descriptions are powerful and full of color but between the lines of text. The stories and the characters speak for themselves and the plot is, as it should be for great writers, secondary to the readers relationship with the characters. I say, read A Farewell to Arms, read The Sun Also Rises, read For Whom the Bell Tolls, read Hemingways books and revel in the work of a literary legend.
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