A Light in the Road

I also finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”. I first heard of this author last year, when I saw the film by the Coen brothers, “No Country for Old Men”. I was intrigued, and while I didn’t go out and look for that novel, I still somehow appreciated the dark vision that was evident.

This novel deals with a society in which the natural environment seems to have been irrevocably destroyed, and the last few humans are scrambling desperately to survive. A man and his son are on the road, traveling south, looking for some form of haven but having to deal with seemingly impossible odds.

The poetic language is compelling. I was continually intoxicated by the language, and recognized a vividness of image as well as association with memories and reflective stages, in which the thoughts of sadness and loss seem to predominate. This is no happy narrative, no world of sunlight and plenitude and confidence. All these characters are in peril, and they are all lonely and seemingly lost in this world.

What kind of natural disaster could have befallen such that it could kill an entire ocean? Who can imagine the scale of extinction that could encompass the eliminations of whole species of birds, as well as the loss of fish in streams? The characters, and almost all the humans that are encountered, are reduced to scavenging for food, trying to find the last stores of canned goods, and even, most hauntingly, to cannibalism. This is most poignantly demonstrated in the episode with the three scarecrow figures that are seen from afar, one of them a pregnant woman, and the discovery that comes after.

The man is trying to protect his son, and any sense of moral rectitude and hope seems to lie in the love that they express for each other. There is no society any more. Human extinction seems to be the strongest possibility, and the dark tone of this work is echoed by the weather, by the clouds and the chill and the rain and the snow as winter sets in. It is the gloam, if I am indeed recalling a word that would suggest that period before darkness sets in, and yet, the innocence of the child seems to represent the one lonely, consoling light.

Traveling as they do, they come to know each other and to deepen their love for each other. And, as the father says in their rather terse dialogue that is so concise it becomes poetic, they are lucky. Something is sustaining them, even as they risk capture, and torture, and are punished by hunger and solitude and sickness. They reach out to each other, and each gesture of affection represents a moment of hope that stands out in the darkness.

The ending, as one may imagine in a dark work, is one that is in keeping with this predicament. There is no prospect of a happy Hollywood ending, and of a rescue by representatives of a resilient society. The truth is, society is not resilient. Disaster seems to have overtaken everyone on this road, but the journey also obeyed a human imperative. Who can exhaust the meanings of the road? It served to sustain them, and to give hope when there was none.

I look forward to reading more of McCarthy’s works.

A Dark Fantasy (Odd John)

I few weeks ago I read the book “Odd John” by Olaf Stapledon. It had been my impression that I had never read this novel before, although I had read other works by this author. However, as I delved into this work, it seemed to me as if faint memories were awoken, and with them, some reservations.

This book deals with a recurrent theme in science fiction, that of a transformed humanity. In this case, mutations are cropping up and selected humans are being born with a novel brain structure, one that increases their intelligence dramatically. The title character, “Odd John”, is one such being, and this book details the story of his life, from his beginning and the anxiety provoked by his odd appearance and behavior to his adulthood, one in which he undertakes to search for others of his kind and to form a separate society.

Their intelligence is a rank above that of ordinary humans, one so much as to brook comparison to the chasm that separates men from cattle. He, the boy, is able to progress far beyond the frontiers that have been established by the brightest of the human race, and this contributes to a feeling not only of condescension (mild, but nonetheless disturbing), but also to a certain recklessness that comes with the idea that he ordinary limits and restraints don’t apply to him. Thus providing justification for an early murder.

If one can see beyond the hero worship of the narrator, an erstwhile friend of the superhuman, one can see indeed a being who is somewhat monstrous. After all, besides his intelligence, he is also able to engage in telepathy, and can control minds by suggestion as well as by the implantation and the erasure of certain thoughts. Who can stop such a being?

Of course he and his kind will awaken fear. And this is recognized early on, because in addition to telepathy, these beings would seem to be able to see into the future, an ability to forecast, perhaps, trends and likely outcomes based on their acute reading of psychological motivation as well as sociological trends. Of course normal human society will reject them, and they will be attacked at some point.

The superman is not an innocent being, after all. With unrestrained power we have to face the possibility or, perhaps closer to the truth, the inevitability of abuses that will be committed. The book seems to obscure this with the admiring perspective of the narrator, but the reader can’t help but feel alarmed, a sensation that I have no doubt was one that was consciously crafted by the author.

After establishing their society in an island which the superhumans brutally take over by expelling and killing the inhabitants, they proceed to conduct their experiments. Part of these involve biological investigations, ones in which they callously and, once again, brutally carry out, this time by extracting eggs and other tissues from inhabitants (women, mostly) from neighboring islands. At this point, the narrator also feels a certain amount of horror, but he is also thrilled by the display of power, and it is a phenomenon to which all of us are, perhaps, susceptible.

The scoundrel and the tyrant have ever been compelling figures. I look, for example, at the doings of a tinpot dictator such as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who is always engaged in bombastic speeches, denouncing aggresors and enemies, both foreign and domestic, and expropriating property as well as shutting down free speech. They have a certain entertainment values, as if we were to imagine that they take us into a different realm of perception, one in which we can engage our own power fantasies. Like the example of the man who finds a magic ring that grants him invisibility in one of Plato’s works, evolution is at work regardless of the level of supposed intelligence, one in which we give way to brutal acts of self-interest.

These superhumans will be confronted and, after accomplishing a somewhat mysterious mission of cogitation or transcendence, one that seems undecipherable, they die and somehow sink their island. However, I am left with the impression, not of futility or ambition thwarted, but with the idea of a monstrous threat that remains ever present in human society. They may have been super-intelligent, and they may have been unnaturally dextrous physically, but they behaved with naked self-ambition as well, and seemed no more spiritually developed than an obstreperous five-year old.

It is, indeed, a dark fantasy.

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013

A little man's dreams

After a break of several months in which I have been involved in a never-ending project that has yet to reach completion, I have decided to resume blogging. If perhaps I feel less strongly than before about the need to maintain a record of books and movies and outings that I have seen and participated in this past year, I nonetheless continue to feel that this is a good excuse to include thoughts about my life and endeavours.

Earlier today I saw the German film, Merchant of all Seasons. It is a film by the prolific Rainer Werner FaBbinder, the West German director who did so much to revitalize the films of his native country. Of course, when I was a young man, I had never heard of him, but when I commenced taking German language classes at the university, I still remember the admiration that was expressed by the graduate student instructors who taught our classes. He did produce a series of compelling films that highlighted human interactions, and the ways in which German society was developing.

This film deals with the story of a rather modest, short and pudgy German man by the name of Hans, one who seems to be somewhat lost and is stumbling through life. He has experienced rejection from his family, and finds himself in a somewhat tepid marriage to a woman named Irmgard.

The film deals with the breakdown suffered by this man, as he finds himself unable to stop yearning for that which was unobtainable for him. What was unobtainable was a life that was honest, one in which class considerations, social conventions and the pressures for conformity and upward mobility were not as crushing. After all, he is a fruit vendor who peddles his product from his cart, all during a period of time in which the German economy has sprouted and grown wings, this transformation being known as the “Wirtschaftwunder”.

His family despises him, and the real love of his life rejected him. He seems out of sorts with the culture of his time, and the spirit of rising expectations. It was, perhaps, an optimistic time, but one in which everyone was compromising their values in order to gain financially. Hans, however, seems unable to do so.

We will see the desintegration of his family and, slowly enough, the continued disintegration of this man. Life in which ambition and personal dreams are unreachable seems to be a curse that he can’t withstand, and the film in its modest way suggests this psychological crisis. I say that this is done in a modest way because the acting is not particularly noteworthy. It would seem as if a director who was known for low-budget films relied on seeming amateurs, at least from what is evident in this movie.

The characters are never truly convincing. This may also be the fault of the screenplay, which seems also a little too simplistic, with much awkward dialogue that seems to not mirror the true rhythm and expression of everyday life. It seems more like a student film, and the direction as well seems somewhat amateurish. Once again, perhaps because it was one of FaBbinder’s earlier films, although I also seem to recall being very impressed with another film that came from this era, “Ali: Fear eats the Soul”, about a migrant workder (Gastarbeiter) who falls in love with a middle-aged German widow.

There are scenes that are not convincing, and that seem comical in their awkwardness. One such is the scene where he is being whipped by a towering black man during his stint in the Foreign Legion in Morocco. Who would honestly think that a mild, pudgy man with no earstwhile talent or physical dexterity would have been accepted for the Foreign Legion? And who would think that adding this background detail would in any way lend credence to the character? Once again, this must have been an early FaBbinder film.

What it does do is recall the way in which each society will inevitably generate its own outcasts. The merchant is one, unable to become a staid and respectable businessman until the very end, when it is too late. Ironically, this ends up driving him over the edge, as he reflect that it hasn’t changed the way he is viewed by his family, one that patronizes him and which he has resigned himself to never being able to win over. It seems almost like a film about adolescence in mid-life, with all the anxieties and all the self-deceptions and the untameable anger. Irmgard, his wife, forgives him after he has beaten her, but he never seems to be able to redeem himself, and gives himself over to longing.

In the end, I would hope to find more articulate, realistic, creative exploration of human dilemmas. I appreciate good dialogue, and intriguing direction, and novel ways of exploring human dilemmas. This movie, ultimately, seems somewhat frivolous. It does, however, awaken nostalgia for me, nostalgia not for the 70s when it was filmed, but for the 80s when I was a young man in college, desperate as I was to discover the world, and taking my first German courses, and feeling seduced by the spectacle of a transformed Germany. Perhaps I was also seduced by the spectacle of social mobility and transformation, on a deeply personal level.

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013

Post-mortem on a Toyota

Here are photos of the car that I was driving when I had my accident two weeks ago. It is not a pretty picture and I still feel terrible about this occurrence. Although I seem to have recovered reasonably well, and my bruises don't hurt nearly as much as they did two weeks ago, my heart still goes out to the other drivers.

Last week I managed to work up the courage to drive by that same stretch of road to evaluate the conditions and what might have led to this accident. There are numerous overpasses as this represents an interchange between two freeways. Those overpasses, at 3:30 p.m., leave large stretches of the road ahead in shadow.

The freeway also curves slightly to the left at this junction, and there are large pillars that hold up the overpasses. These pillars also block part of the view of the road ahead.

Finally, I should emphasize that the highway undulates in this stretch of the road. It curves up and then down. I remember reaching the crest and then looking at dismay at the cars that were stopped in my lane of traffic. It was a sudden discovery and I didn't have time to take any other steps to avoid the collision other than to hit the breaks. I knew there would be a terrible collision, and the woman in the car in front of me told me afterward that she saw my car approaching and also knew a collision was inevitable.

My conclusion is that this is a very dangerous stretch of road. The visibility is poor because of the shadows of the overpasses, because of the pillars that block the view ahead, because the highways is curving to the left so that those pillars are in my line of sight and because the road undulates up and then down. These factors may in part be explained by the contours of this area, since it does constitute a hilly area with the roads forging a path through them. Of course, there are much more dangerous stretches of road that leave drivers terror-struck.

My worst drive has taken place while on the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH 1), driving from northern to southern California. The road is a narrow two lane, and if you are driving south, you are on the outer ledge of a cliff that leads down dramatically to the ocean. The road curves constantly as well, and if you aren't driving at highway speeds, the cars bunch up behind you with insistent and foolhardy drivers maniacally gesturing at you. My other nightmare drive was on the interstate 5 freeway in the early morning hours (between 4 and 5 a.m.), during a stretch in the central valley, when a dense fog descended and cut down visibility to one or two feet one each side. I couldn't even see the road and didn't dare stop to the side lest I prove a target for another driver behind me.

I still wonder if I might not have suffered a terrible injury on that drive, and if all that I have experienced in the intervening years is just an illusion that is filtering in my mind as I lie in a coma somewhere. Yes, I might very well be a brain in a vat, to recall the thought experiment commonly described to philosphy students at the university when they are studying Cartesian epistemology. How do I know I exist?

The number one factor behind this crash, of course, was that this is rush hour and you must always be on the highest alert. I had thought that I was, but my perception would seem to have been faulty. I'll never forget the sickening feeling of seeing the cars stopped in my lane, and knowing there was nothing I could do to avoid the collision.

Yes, cars were bunching up in waves, as I remember studying in my physics classes at the university when we were being introduced to wave structures. Yes, cars drive in packs, and they leave open spaces in between that give a sense of false security. My friend also told me that he notes the same phenomenon has applied in his work as a retail assistant. Customers arrive in packs, and then they have long stretches in which there are few customers arriving.

The problem is, in this instance, we are talking about motorized vehicles traveling at dangerous speeds, not congestion at a shopping outlet. In this case, I have driven on this highway hundreds and hundreds of times. I still can't explain what happened. In this case, it was a "chronicle of an unforeseen calamity", if I may modify the title of a Garcia Marquez novel.

P.S. I can't help but anthropomorphize the car that I was driving. It was a trusty vehicle, and it had over 75,000 miles. It would have given several more years of trusty service. Even when we heard of all the problems with Toyota recalls due to the publicized problem of sudden acceleration years ago, I never stopped trusting this car. To me it had a somewhat forlorn appearance, tucked as it was in the back of a busy auto repair shop. According to the insurance claims officer, it has been totaled, and we will be given market value for it. This may sound silly, but I feel like apologizing to the car for the damage it sustained. And yes, of course I feel terrible about the other drivers involved in my accident, and they of course take precedence.

Jurupa Park at Southridge

I was able to attend an arts event at a public park this past Saturday. It was very, very hot in the beginning, and the temperatures didn't help to encourage people to attend. However, it cooled down as the event progressed and it was very pleasing to see massive storm cloud formations in the sky, carrying with them a promise that would be fulfilled on Sunday when we woke up with rain during the early morning hours.

These hills had never seemed particularly scenic to me, and that was one of the reasons why I had never ventured out to explore this area. What ends up happening with these parks is that they are commonly taken over by raucous off-roaders who bring all manner of motorized vehicles to perform what they deem are reckless but exciting daredevil maneouvers. They will arrive in battered trucks then use noisy vehicles to spin and race around and around, all while blaring loud thrash metal music. That was one of the reasons why I had avoided this particular park, thinking I would find more of the same.

It turns out that this park abuts a residential area and, as such, much of this raucous activity that is carried out in more desolate locations is missing here. I don't doubt that people will arrive to carry out other dubious activities in this location, such as using drugs, but at least during the daytime it seems to be fairly well monitored. The neighbors are not going to put up with unseemly activity, although I wonder how many of these middle class denizens have ventured up these hills.

They were holding a bike tournament on the day of the festival, and this event was scrupulously kept apart from the art festival that was taking place next door. I found it necessary, however, to venture over to the Jurupa Hills area, and was able to take a few photos. It seems to be fairly well used, but I wasn't able to explore more than the entrance. For one thing, my presence would have been a distraction for the bicycle course that had been set up. For another, it was over 100 degrees, and I wasn't prepared for a hike, especially if I was carrying fifteen pounds of camera equipment and a heavy tripod. I need water and good shoes, and in this park I don't doubt that there are snakes about that might cause injury to the incautious hiker. I'll have to return in the future, perhaps in the fall when temperatures have decreased.

Musings of a Brown Buffalo

I finished Oscar Zeta Acosta's "The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo" yesterday. It was a difficult book to read because it was so exasperating, being so fundamentally uneven in tone. There were, however, many interesting issues to investigate, and one must not forget that this book has been incorporated into the canon of Chicano literature.

I look forward to presenting my observations in the near future.

An ethical epic

I haven't seen all of Terrence Malick's movies, but I have been entranced by the ones that I have seen. Despite the fact that I was a young man still in junior high school I nonetheless clearly remember the reception that was extended to his film "Days of Heaven". The cinematography by Nestor Almendos was justly recognized, and the acting seemed to be in key with the understated tone of this movie, but it was the story that seemed to work its enchantment on viewers. Perhaps it was an exercise in sublime romanticism or perhaps it seemed to capture a wistful look towards the past that had been elevated in response to the disenchantment we all felt in the late 70s, but it seemed to catch hold and maintain a grip on our imagination. Of course, the idea of escape and of journeys towards new and open realms of possibility have always exercised their appeal on the western imagination, and this film was no different, as grasped even by a child of my age.

It seemed as if we heard very little from Terrence Malick in subsequent decades, and indeed, he has come to be known as a director who produces films at considerable intervals. From time to time his name registered in my consciousness, but I lament that I didn't take the time to watch his latest works. It wasn't until the highly laudatory comments with regards to his latest film, "The Tree of Life", that I undertook to begin exploring his works once again. I turned first to his film from 1998, "The Thin Red Line".

This film is an adaption of a novel that deals with the experiences of a group of soldiers during one of the pivotal battles of WWII, this being the Battle of Guadalcanal. From the very beginning, when we see a crocodile submerging itself into a pond full of algae, it struck one again the lyrical notes that I remembered from his classic of the seventies ("Days of Heaven"). It was a film that struck a deeply philophical tone, being as it was a profoundly meditative exploration of the ways in which humans abide by the values that they think define them.
Through the use of multiple first-person internal narrations we become much more connected with the characters as they reveal their own internal worlds. One obtains the unsettling sensation that these revelations are a little too personal, and that we are eavesdropping on a conversation that is not meant for our ears, however much the issues that are raised strike a universal note. It would seem as if we are placed in the position of an interlocutor who is asked to intercede for these characters, and to dispense some form of dispensation for the suffering and for injustices that are committed. This is, of course, an uncomfortable position for us.

I was struck over and over again by a plaintive note in these meditations. The characters are genuinely honest in their ruminations, and they seek an explanation for the inhuman situation in which they find themselves, treated as they are as pawns who are about to be sacrificed. It raises, understandably, questions of ethics as we ponder the meaning of violence and the petty compromises that each and every one of us makes as we proceed in our existence. It is very much an interior search that consumes all of us at certain points, and one that leaves us breathless as we consider the possibility of mortality.

The characters are all enmeshed in conflictive situations, both external as well as internal. We have the military officer by the name of Tall, played by a grizzled Nick Nolte, who reflects on the meaning of failure as he perceives it. It is an experience that humiliates him and leads him to pursue redemption at whatever cost, even if it be the sacrifice of his entire company of soldiers in the single-minded pursuit of the capture of a hill defended by Japanese soldiers. We also have the earnest Witt, a soldier who had gone awol but who was reincorporated into the ranks, and who is forever held in a form of wistful suspension as he meditates on the spirit he sees in his fellow soldiers. He represents a form of earnest reflection that serves to denounce the inhumanity of their situation, and yet through his observations we recognize how it is that this group of men are bound together, and how it is that their weakness constitutes, paradoxically, their strength.

The reason I found the character of Witt so compelling has to do with the ethical concerns that hit me as I was watching the film. While it may very well be true that we live unconsciously for the majority of the days of our lives, unable as we are to recognize and value the relationships that define our existence, it is also true that there is a fundamental spirit that coheres around groups of people as they find themselves in desperate circumstances. The idea seemed to overwhelm me after watching the film tht compassion, that ability to "see the light" in other people, is an experience that is only felt by those who are similarly cognizant of their own weaknesses and vulnerability. It cannot be attained by a higher entity who is removed from our sphere of concerns, and as distant as the religious icons to which people address their appeals in moments of desperaton. What hope of compassion do we have from a God that is removed, and that is portrayed as eternal and all-cognizant? How can this God every truly understand us and feel compassion, if compassion truly necessitates the awareness of a fundamental bond that these men come to feel as they perceive their supreme weakness and vulnerability? Pity is not the same as compassion, for pity is defined by the awareness of hierarchy, and in hierarchy, there is no bonding. It is easy enough to see the abuses of power in the actions of an officer such as Tall, although this is compensated in some minor way by the actions of his subordinate Staros, the Captain who tries to delay the order to march his soldiers up to the hill where they will certainly be slaughtered.

Is obedience a virture? Why is it that faith as presented in Christian ethics seems to involve so much needless suffering? We are left to question ourselves and to wonder, as one of the characters asks himself, about the presence of good, and of how we are left mired in a debilitating morass of ethical incertitude, where values seem to be compromised eternally for petty ends, as is all too evident in this film. "How did we lose the good that was given to us? Let it slip away, scattered, careless?". Did we indeed squander the gift that was given to us?

The experiences of these soldiers as they see their comrades cut down is one that is profoundly unsettling. Their perpetual thirst is emblematic of this quest for satisfaction, of this most elemental need to explain not only this monumental battle between two opposing forces but also the internal self-doubt that consumes them all. The married officer, Bell, is particularly consumed by the memory of the wife he has left behind, and he relives over and over one particular memory, that of a golden and melancholic afternoon spent in her company and consuming what he saw as the ultimate aspiration of all human beings: a genuine bond with another human being. Bell, of course, is fated to lose this relationship and to see his fondest hopes shattered as the movie progresses, but his relationship is perhaps emblematic of all the hopes and disappointments that we all feel.

The action sequences are indeed fairly dramatic. As the soldiers proceed in their campaign a sense of dread gradually overwhelms them, and it is only as a result of desperate actions undertaken in an attempt to combat the perception of futility that they manage to overtake the hill and proceed to overrun the Japanese line. It is evident once again that these experiences are devastating, and all the characters are left in various states of despair but also, in fleeting moments, with glimpses of a raw and angelic humanity that reveals how it is that humans are able to achieve communion once their illusions have been shattered. They are not numb and this experience of not seeming to care is not indicative of "bliss" or nirvana. They are all being born anew, but this rebirth is one that is divested of Christian theology. It is religious but it is not dogmatic.

The movie proceeds from one character to the next as we are exposed to their innermost thoughts, thoughts that are piercing in their honesty and in their desperation. This suffering reduces many to incoherence, and we see this time and again in the shots of soldiers, both American as well as Japanese, who lie in fetal crouches or who are left in various postures of supplication, crying aloud and seeking, it would seem, some explanation for the suffering they are forced to endure. The wounded soldiers who lie prostrate, with terrible wounds, and who shiver uncontrollably, or who wail bitterly like the wails of a doomed humanity that rails against the injustice of this situation, like the soldier who is given a lethal dose of morphine as the only way to get him to finish dying.

We see humanity at its extremes, and yet there are a myriad number of ways in which humans promulgate suffering amongst others. It is not a situation that is limited to wartime, for the seeds of this evil or, what we may term, compromised humanity are evident everywhere, as is all too evident in the earnest reminiscences of the soldier Train who recounts the beatings he used to receive as a small child from his violent and drunken father, or the false illusions held by others who had failed to find a place for themselves among regular society. One thinks most tellingly of officer Tall.

In the end, there is an earnestness in this film that speaks to issues of self-awareness and of what it means to be human. As evident in officer Welsh's response to the inquiries of Witt, that pair of friends who remonstrate with one another and carry out a debate as to the fundamental redeemability of humans, we see that experience of loneliness and alienation that is also, paradoxically, a marker of weakness and compassion. "Do you ever feel lonely?", Witt asks. "Only around people", answers Welsh.

Captain Staros leading his men:

The Japanese platoon as it corners Witt near the end, killing him soon after.