Chapters 1 and 2 of Gatsby: Unreliable Narration

Quite quickly it becomes apparent that the narrator of this novel can't be trusted. When a narrator, a storyteller, confesses that he is "inclined to reserve all judgments" about people, the first thing that popped into my mind is that he can't be trusted. And what about this early line: "the intimate revelations of young men...are marred by obvious suppression." Is he alluding to Freud here? What credibility would that bestow upon the narrator? All I can think now is what the narrator might be hiding in this story, this "intimate revelation" that we are now privy to.

Sprinkled throughout the first chapter are little hints that Nick is, for all his pride, a little ashamed of his Midwest heritage. He even mentions in the very beginning that he never thought he would leave the East coast, for the midwest seemed so remote an meaningless to him after serving in the war. He speaks of Tom with contempt -- but can't help being impressed. When he speaks of the way Tom and Daisy entertain, he refers by way of contrast to how an evening is spent "back West" where people appear to be in a "nervous dread of the moment itself."

There is some ample self loathing going on here; I just wonder what will be become of this perspective. I'm already imagining having to map the book, sectioning off the narration from the action and the dialogue. I know that it's not a fully reliable science, but when I can isolate the mostly objective discourse (I know, impossible) from the obviously subjective, I get more of a feel for the conversation a text seems to be having with the universe.

I love the handle Fitzgerald gets on the individual who feigns modesty and humility through tight lipped restraint, but inwardly harbors an intense grudge against almost everything he meets that does not live up to his impossibly high (and often narcissistic) standards. To have an opinion about everything, but never express it, as well as pride oneself for the ability to remain silent, seems terribly dishonest. I find myself having more appreciation, as well as more disgust, for Tom, who although a cheat and a bigot, seems somehow more honest than Nick. Honesty seems to be a major concern of this novel.

The Great Gatsby: The First Read

Much has been made of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It holds the #2 ranking on Modern Library's list of the 100 best novels, sandwiched between Joyce's Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man. And so it goes for me; rarely will my tastes rise to the levels set by professional list makers -- I almost find it insulting when they match up. I think I have only read Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, which is such a heartbreaking story, and so beautifully written. It prompted me to read several biographies concerning Scott and Zelda's relationship, as well as Nancy Milford's biography of Zelda. I want to say I have read This Side of Paradise, but I don't think so. In any case, it's been a long enough time for me to have forgotten much of both of those novels, and it's high time I return to F. Scott, and it about time I read Gatsby.

I'm excited to read it; I'm reminded of how excited I was to read The Sound and the Fury. I am not as eager to read Fitzgerald as I was Faulkner, in fact, this current read was a toss up between rereading Sound or beginning Gatsby. I opted for Fitzgerald. I feel like I got to know him first, you know, before Hemingway and Faulkner, and then, later, got reacquainted with him through Hemingway's remarks and characterizations. I've always had a thing for Fitzgerald, and I've always been a little in love with his and Zelda's relationship. I'm sure it won't disappoint. I'm going to go over my reading notes here, so feel free to add your comments, interpretations, and criticism of my analysis.

Well, I am considered the tail end of Generation X...

Which means that I'm old enough to have seen the last Star Wars (VI) ('83 -- I was only four but I remember cheering when the sand monsters swallowed Boba Fett) and the Last Crusade ('89) in theaters. It also means that I've been tortured through three unbearable prequels and now this last (one can hope it's the last) indignity -- The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I have tried really hard not to like Shia LaBeouf. I mean, Even Stevens was a relatively good show for Disney, but I found the popularity of Holes somewhat inexplicable, and LaBeouf's hyper-active detective teen in Disturbia almost put me off the campy enjoyability of the teen flick. However, I did think he was pretty good in his first run with SNL, and his second was even better -- more paced, and more...well...handsome. I'm really not one to be attracted to ones younger than myself -- but even in a film with Harrison Ford -- Indiana Jones -- Han Solo -- I found myself wanting to know more about Mutt, as his character is nicknamed. Well, I think I'll get my chance, since the movie is formulated to carry on the tradition through LaBeouf.

Did you know that Ford is 68?

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is, well, it's bad. It's as bad as National Treasure II. This movie plays like a nightmare that Speilberg had about making a tired, trite, and overreaching IJ4. I thought it was just awful and soul-crushing. Digital film and CGI have distorted and, in my opinion, ruined everything I love about campy 80s movies. Ford seemed like he was playing a parody of Indiana Jones, not inhabiting the character as usual. In fact, the whole film seemed like a joke on the audience; I would have been satisfied seeing this film as a two part miniseries on Pay Per View! Todd kept telling me, you know this movie is simply a vehicle for La Beouf and could be a commercial for a new ride at Disneyland...and I suppose I have to get used to the idea that I might never again get to see a movie made in the campy 80s style that I love so much.

Thoughts Whilst Soaking My Feet at Midnight

Reasons that I could lose my mind:

1. Finals. I have five finals; one take home essay (Jon's drama class), American Lit exam on Monday (good riddance, senoir!), and then three back to back exams on Tuesday: British Lit, Lit Crit, and Poetry.

2. Anniversary. It's my tenth wedding anniversary tomorrow -- well, in ten minutes, anyway. I'm so excited, but I've actually been making the plans for this one so I'm a little nervous. I mean, I'm even painting my nails. This is serious.

3. Family. My brother's fifteenth wedding anniversary is today, and his in-laws are throwing a party for him and his wife on Saturday. I have extended family coming down to visit for this "event" and I have way too many issues (let me fill your ear sometime) to begin to deal with this using any semblance of balance and normalcy. Ahhhhh, family.

4. Commencement. Yes, I'm walking in commencement. So that means that I have to go to the rehearsal on Wednesday, hopefully they have a gown left I can buy, and get my butt to the ceremony on Thursday. This commencement business is a lot of work. I'm kind of dreading it now. This stupid week!

5. Housekeepers are coming tomorrow.

Whew! Ok, reasons I have to be grateful:

1. I did really well this semester. I thought I would crack taking so many classes and being on two campuses, but overall I think it went well. I wrote one of my best essays, well, ever, this semester in Drama class (rarely do I ever get full points), and I had such a lovely day at the awards ceremony. (Pictures soon, but I cried when I saw how...I looked. So shallow! It was such a wonderful day.)

2. Anniversary! I can't believe I've been married for ten years! It goes by so fast, and it's hard to make the good times last, and yes, well, that Flaming Lips song is so pervasive, yet still hasn't lost it's appeal. I really think that being married has saved my life. Almost everything I am and have today is because of the opportunity afforded me by the love and graciousness of my husband. What can I say, I'm a true monogamist, and man! I am fortunate!

3. Family! Man, these people! There would be such a void in my life if they weren't there to keep filling it with...a necessary dose of reality. I've got to learn to take it easy with these guys; I mean, they're all I've got, really.

4. Graduation. I started out on this path (here come the waterworks), just hoping to be able to graduate high school, and now I'm going to be getting my first college degree. I'm overwhelmed. I remember my first day at Fullerton -- it was in one of those portables by the Wilshire Auditorium, Reading 142. It was the first time I had been in a real classroom since the eighth grade. What I can I say? I was hooked.

5. I have housekeepers!!

Life gets out of control so easily these days. I'm so grateful, but so stressed. Thanks for being a friend.

The Scarlet Letter: Should Good Grades Sting?

I looked at the USC grad school webpage today (oh boy), and UCLA, and am beginning to weigh my options. USC would cost me roughly $45,000 for four semesters, and UCLA is about the same (I think; I couldn't find a straight answer to the question of tuition appropriate for the programs), so I'm trying to catch my breath as I consider that when I commit to graduate school I can't give up. I'm not the giving up kind, but since I'm plagued by feelings of low self-worth I kind of stammer at the thought of (and I know I shouldn't think of it this way, but I can't help it) my husband spending over $20,000 a year on my education. I'm just overwhelmed by the thought of this immense responsibility. Todd is not my parent, so it's not like he "owes" me, and as much as I would like to subscribe to the idea that "his" money is really "our" money, and that once we said "I do" we meant "I do share all my material wealth with you," I just get a little short-winded when I think of how much this is going to cost us. I know it's worth it, but I'm still afraid of the idea.

Mostly I'm scared to death that I will be judged by a panel of instructors as infuriating as my current American Literature professor, who seems to delight in (figuratively) slapping me around. I mean the guy is a real sadist. I mean a "real" sadist because he conceals his penchant for inflicting insults with a veneer of affable cameraderie. We have a fine relationship in class, but when writing to each other (like in essays/feedback and emails) we seem to live on other planets and I seem to be speaking a made-up language. I already wrote about my essay on modernism; heck, I even posted it for you. I got it back, and on the exam (which consists of the essay plus a 30 question test) I ended up earning an A- (27/30 on the multiple choice -- some of the assigned readings weren't in my edition of the anthology so I had to guess -- and a 3.66 GPA for essay) so the grade is not the problem; it's the comments on the paper.

I write:

William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway are two writers of this period whose fiction contains examples of modernist characteristics such as stream of consciousness narrative, multiple and unreliable narrators, as well as narrative and characters that use language to commute around a topic without discussing it directly; this commonly referred to as Hemingway’s theory of omission. These writers used their special ability with these techniques to promote ideas and experiences of alienation.

and he comments, "Is this another trait? If not, why discuss it? It's not true across the board."

I write:

However, it was unfamiliar territory for writers like Faulkner and Hemingway, who would come to master stream of consciousness writing in their careers. Modernists used stream of consciousness to alienate characters from their setting and the action occurring around them, and expose the rift in characters’ interrelatedness.

he comments, "Stream of consciousness is a technique -- it's a narrative technique if fiction, but not a way of writing. They don't use it to alienate characters -- I've got no clue why you're alluding to alienation here or trying to force this generaliztion, which isn't true..."

Me:

William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying is comprised amost fully of stream of consciousness writing and maintains the theme of isolation.

he comments, with lines drawn and words circled, "...not true...not writing -- "narration"...This statement isn't an answer to the questions why is here here?"

I write -- strictly from my notes this time, reciting almost VERBATIM what he told us in class:

In addition to stream of consciousness narrative and omission, “Snows” utilizes multiple narrators to add to the theme of separation. At the end of the story, when Harry is facing death, his narrative breaks off and a new one takes it place. This new narrative contains no stream of consciousness writing, and doesn’t appear to be in the cynical voice of Harry, the original narrator. It describes Harry being rescued by someone he knows, and being airlifted out of his camp

His note? "This is quite a stretch? Leave it at F's novel to exemplify what multiple narrators are?"

I simply cannot communicate with this instructor. I was at least attempting to frame modernist techniques with the (weak, but recommended) theme of alienation, and he comments that there was no need, when he had, in fact, emailed me that I would have to discuss how these techniques related to a modernist theme. Plus, the idea that these techniques explore the theme of alienation was taken directly from my notes of his lecture. We might as well be speaking a different language. I got an A- on the essay, but I actually feel ashamed of the grade, because his comments indicate that my paper is totally meaningless, and that I can't follow directions. Why would you give that kind of a paper an A? This has to have been the worst class I have ever taken. How can you get American lit wrong? I've heard that the instructor I'm taking for American Lit I in the Spring is an awesome teacher. I'm so glad to get this semester at DH over with I'm about to dissolve into a pile of ashes. Then it's onward to Syntax (a class I desperately need to take and inscribe every facet of into my brain), and the History Western Civilization, which is just going to make me mad. I mean what is it? Egyptians, Sumerians, Byzantines, Greeks, Romans, Britons, Americans? They're all a bunch of jerks. Whatever. I'm PMS -- some more scarlet letters to add to this depressing rant.

Whenever I want to fail at finding you, all I have to do, is dream.

I saw a show on the discovery channel about dreaming. It showed, rather fabulously, how dreams work. It had this badical rendering of a person sleeping, and you could see how their eyes looked while they were sleeping, roving about -- ohh it was eerie. It revealed to me how I have such a distinct emotional impression of how a person looks with their eye(lids) closed, and how it's really such a silly thought, that it means anything, cause under those lids we are really an unflinching lot. The program explained that dreaming is where we go over the events of the day and sort through information and decide whether or not to store it in our deep memory or not. This explains why there are so many disjointed aspects of our dream narratives. But what it doesn't explain is why my dream-T. S. Eliot was trying to attack me with an axe -- and was actually hacking me with it (although I couldn't feel any pain), or why I constantly have a dream in which I'm looking for a very specific person and I can never find them. I have recurring dreams (the plot recurs, although sometimes the images and characters change), and every so often I have lucid dreams where I try out flying and stuff. So while I get that the brain is sorting during these experiences, it doesn't explain why the brain gives us a virtual reality to sort them in.

A dream can set the tone for the whole day. If it is an especially haunting dream, I often won't feel like I can function in the "real" world until I have written something for the day. I think it's so interesting that scripture contains sacred dreams. The idea of dream as communication is so appealing to me, even if I'm only communicating with myself.

To completely digress, I watched Death of Salesman, the Hoffman/Malkovitch version, yesterday, and it is quite a disturbing play. All the characters are disturbing. The mother is fascinating. I think the most interesting thing is the end, when Biff has completely broken down and confessed to his father that he is a 'nobody' and that he is not 'a magnificent' boy like his father has always dreamed, and right after this magnificent display of emotion, the family goes back to their old ways. Immediately. Hap tells them he's going to get married, the mother is back to being loving, and the father says something like, 'that boy's really going to be something.' I like how the only thing missing from this family is honesty. I like the idea that wanting to be well liked is an agenda of dishonesty that eventually self-destructs. In wanting your children to be liked you sacrifice your own honest relationship with them. I still think that I like The Crucible better -- a far as the text goes (Daniel Day-Lewis might have a little something to do with it).

Good City People Who Find the Gold at the End of the Reading Rainbow

Did I tell you I loved this show as a kid? The places you could go in books! We would read a story together, LaVar Burton and I, and he would teach me about race relations and growing up poor in Brooklyn, and I would bask in the glory of reading, reading, reading...I adored that show, and between it and Sesame Street, I feel like I kind of grew up with Brooklyn. When I went to NYC for the first time two years ago, it was so strange because it felt so familiar. Los Angeles is so detached from what I feel must be the American Experience. When I went on my road trip last summer I really felt like for the first time I was connecting with a lot of literature that I had been reading my whole life (and a lot of TV I had been raised by...um, I mean exposed to) -- and it's funny, but living in Long Beach, a quite historic city for Los Angeles, I realize that I don't think I will be able to live in an unhistorical neighborhood again, by choice. I love, of course, Downtown LA, but it's not quite ideal...yet. I love Old Town Orange, and Uptown Whittier (where I was raised), and obviously I love Fullerton, and the Hollywood Hills are super, and I like Silver Lake and Los Feliz and Pasadena... I mean, it's funny, but you couldn't really pay me to live in one of those fabricated Orange County neighborhoods ever again. And I hope this doesn't sound weird -- but I don't know if I'm going to ever feel that comfortable not living in an ethnically diverse neighborhood again. My in-laws live in a fabricated community in Orange County called Rancho Santa Maragrita, and when we get together with friends who live there they all ask us with this infuriating knowingish concern, "So HOW is it living in Long Beach?" Like we've moved next door to VIP Records and have Snoop Dogg over for BBQ every night. Several people, SEVERAL, have commented that it was probably a good idea that I grew my natural hair color out and got rid of that white blonde, you know, living in Long Beach. Several. It's strange what Long Beach does to you. It puts some reality into your life, some grit under your nails (acutally that's probably true, what with the port and all), and although there are gangs and thugs and overcrowded tenements, and dozens of homeless and loonies, dirty streets and trash clogged drains and bar after bar after bar after bar, and historical buildings that become gentrified and disrespected (goodbye Acres of Books; I understand why you had to sell out, but it still broke my heart; goodbye cool building at 7th and Pine; you had those awesome windows and unzoned lofts that you let people live in anyway; be careful Hotel America, with your secret society basement and 1900s building date; watch out Jergins Tunnel, I imagine the Long Beach Historical Preservation Society will not be able to salvage your art deco loveliness and treat you with even shred of respect given to the Flight of Angels; and farewell all that's left of Long Beach -- you live precariously on the razor's edge), well, I love this town. It gets into you. I like going home. I'm home now, here in Long Beach. Of course I'm an Angeleno - I'll move if I need/have/want to, but I love this city. You know, people here talk to each other. All the time. We pet eachother's dogs, I even hi-fived a guy the other day, a guy I didn't even know. They opened another teller to alleviate the line at the Washington Mutual, and we expressed our approval by slapping hands in the air. We do our share of muttering, too, but we aren't afraid to say hi or acknowledge that we exist. That's why I'm always so surprised to learn how violent Long Beach is -- I mean, we communicate! But then I remember how over crowded it is here, and I understand. I may love it here, high above the ground, with one of the best views (I think) in the whole city, and I have the privilege of observation and whatnot...I'm not so spoiled that I fail to see how spoiled I am.

All this just to talk about Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People." The first time I read this was in Blythe's American Lit II class, and Blythe was so excited about it this story, while I wondered what all the fuss was about -- wait! Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a clever story, and immensely humorous, but I didn't feel I "learned anything" from this story, and I kind of glossed over it. Well, boys and girls, I read the story again for, well, American Lit II II, and had a whole different experience. What a brilliant story. I had this emotional experience reading the play, and I think I had this experience because I recently read and analyzed Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, and focused on how repressed and tortured artists feel, especially when their art is subversive or goes against the ideals of the culture that feeds it. There's a sort of prophet archetype that the artist, especially in what I'm hoping I'm accurate in describing as Southern Renaissance Literature, fulfills. We are so proud in America, so invested in our ability to absolve ourselves of our sins, that when artists come along and show us our immorality, we expel. I'm really into this issue of Discipline and Punish that Foucault brought up, this leper thing vs the plague thing and the Panopticon -- seriously, I'm seeing it everywhere (even if I can't explain exactly what I see) -- but back to O'Connor, she ties all these things together AND MAKES IT FUNNY, I MEAN AS FUNNY AS IT REALLY IS!! I actually felt the horror this time as Hulga loses her grasp on reality, as she literally loses the one thing that makes her feel whole -- the line where she she imagines a life with the con man, a life in which he takes her leg on and off everyday, I mean, I felt so much empathy for this character who had everything figured out -- but only figured out with her leg on, when she was whole. Once you lose control over the part of yourself that you feel defines you -- or you realize exactly what it is that makes you vulnerable -- or you become aware that someone can disarm you without your consent -- it's really painful, and hit me much harder this time. Of course it's so funny. When he tells her that he was born not believing in anything and that he wasn't born yesterday...oh it's priceless.

I bought a the complete short stories of Flannery O'Connor at the bookstore in the square at Oxford, Mississippi, and I'm hoping to get more acquainted with this writer...and that maybe I'm meant to be a Southern Renaissance scholar. I'm certainly drawn to these writers. I've got the 19th century New England guys (Hawthorne and Melville) and these southern misfits. Somehow I feel right at home -- take a look, it's in book, a reading rainbow.