Unexpected Parallel: Fowles and Melville

In chapter 14 of Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man, the narrator intrudes to tell the readers not to blame the author for creating an inconsistent character, for in the real world, most people are inconsistent. The narrator then shares some reflections on human nature and on characters, in fiction and reality.

And in chapter 13 of John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, the narrator intrudes to admit he doesn't know what his characters are thinking and that he can't fully control them. He then shares some reflections on writing, reading, and human beings in fiction and reality.

It's rather clear that metafiction is not any post-modern development, even if it is post-modern writers who relish in it. The seeds can be traced far back, at least to Cervantes in the novel. And so too have many novelists swung it back to blur the lines between fiction and reality. I leave you with a wonderful passage from Fowles' 13th chapter:

"But this is preposterous? A character is either 'real' or 'imaginary'? If you think that, hypocrite lecteur, I can only smile. You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it...fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf--your book, your romanced autobiography. We are all in flight from the real reality. That is a basic definition of Homo sapiens."

Utilitarian thinking in The Quiet American

DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY READ THE QUIET AMERICAN: I hate to be responsible for giving away endings.

In The Quiet American, Pyle, like Don Quixote and Madame Bovary, has read the wrong books, and thinks reality should match what he's read in books. Fowler is like Rick in Casablanca: he believes he is neutral, but he learns that he cannot be uninvolved.

After witnessing the atrocities of war, after seeing a woman covering her dead baby and a man cut in half by a bomb Pyle is responsible for, Fowler recognizes that he must act. Because of the damage the well-intentioned Pyle has and can cause, Fowler acts to have Pyle killed.

Pyle is willing to aid atrocities for what he sees as a greater cause. Of the deaths of civilians after a bombing, he says "They were only war casualties. [...] It was a pity, but you can't always hit your target. Anyway they died in the right cause. [...] In a way you could say they died for democracy." The individuals that were killed were simply collateral damage for Pyle in the greater cause of bringing democracy to Vietnam. And for this naivety and the damage his innocence can cause, Fowler is complicit in his murder.

And yet, Fowler's action is not terribly different from Pyle's action. Pyle is willing to sacrifice lives in a utilitarian ethic--their lives will bring about a greater good. Fowler is willing to sacrifice Pyle's life in order to save other lives--to bring about a greater good. That we can look back and say that both men failed in their goals (Pyle couldn't bring democracy to Vietnam, Fowler couldn't prevent the terrible violence and suffering that came from American involvement in Vietnam) can make us question the efficacy of violence as a means to an end. But while we may sympathize with Fowler's action more than Pyle's, they both acted on the same principle: life is expendable if it is for a good reason.

Fowler recognizes his utilitarian assessment, too: "what right had I to value her less than the dead bodies in the square? [...] I had judged like a journalist in terms of quantity." And he recognizes his similarity to Pyle: "Was I so different from Pyle, I wondered? Must I too have my foot thrust in the mess of life before I saw the pain?"

It is a beautifully written and incisive book.

All of Western literature is but a retelling of Don Quixote

Re-reading Shaw's Arms and the Man, I'm struck by how familiar the story really is. It's the story of the confrontation between an Ideal and Reality.

I've read it in Don Quixote, in Madame Bovary, in Death of a Salesman, in M. Butterfly. I've seen it in Main Street, I've encountered it in Faulkner and Steinbeck. It's in "Dulce Et Decorum Est" and a lot of other war poetry. It's even in The French Lieutenant's Woman, though treated a bit differently. I suppose it pre-dates Cervantes: you can sense it in Chaucer. And if you want, you can add to the list of books about it.

Over and over we see these characters deluded with a fantasy, with an outrageous ideal, with a cherished image. And over and over again, we see the comic and tragic consequences when these characters are forced to face reality. I suppose it's a natural theme for literature, for made up stories.

Torrential Downpour

"In short, anything can be said of world history, anything conceivable even by the most disordered imagination. There is only one thing that you can’t say–that it had anything to do with reason."
In a recent post, economist David Berri writes about books applying economics to other subject, and discusses the idea (as expressed by Tim Harford) that

"Rational people respond to incentives: When it becomes more costly to do something, they will tend to do it less; when it becomes easier, cheaper, or more beneficial, they tend to do it more. In weighing up their choices, they will bear in mind the overall constraints upon them: not just the costs and benefits of a specific choice, but their total budget. And they will also consider the future consequences of present choices."

In Notes from the Underground, Dostoevsky raises an objection against (among other things) the belief that human beings will behave according to their own best interests, if they could only be taught them. The man from the underground suggests that human desire cannot be easily quantified, and further suggests that "reason is only reason and satisfies only man’s intellectual faculties, while volition is a manifestation of the whole of life, I mean of the whole of human life including both reason and speculation."

It again strikes me that the mode of thinking Dostoevsky argues against is precisely the mode of thinking in economics. The man from the underground seems to suggest that people's desires transcend simple definitions of "incentives," that humans can and do behave against their own incentives or best interests (primarily in order to assert their free will, to prove they are not sprigs on a barrel organ), and that humans can't really be expected to act according to reason (as they often don't).

I'm chasing after windmills.

Finishing a book
I've been carrying Dostoevsky's The Idiot around with me for about a month. I'm a horrifyingly slow reader (ah, but I remember what I read fairly well, better than most, I think), the timing has been bad (finals week grading, Holiday visiting, lots and lots of football), and frankly taking care of a one year old limits reading time.

As I've been in Dostoevsky's world, it has felt to me as a world without beginning (since I started it at a Final, associating it with last semester, which seems worlds away by this point) and no end. And now, I'll soon be leaving this world. It's a bit...disorienting. In my thesis on John Fowles' The Magus, I argue that Nicholas the narrator's suicide attempt is inauthentic, because the weight of the pages after this chapter convince the reader that the attempt will fail. And the weight of pages of The Idiot has seemed interminable, as if the events could carry on forever (Dostoevsky's seeming lack of structure contributes).

But now I've got less than 90 pages, and it's terribly obvious that events will end. I know they soon must. And yet nothing in the book is occurring as if any denouement is on its way.

But the next book I plan to read is Dostoevsky's The Adolescent, so I won't be out of his world for long. I've really be working through the master's major works. Dostoevsky is my desert island novelist--I don't think I would need any other novels but his.

(and if you're curious, my desert island playwright is, of course, Shakespeare, and I do not have a desert island poet, as the infinite varieties and beauties of poetry cannot allow me to limit myself to but one poet).

Watching
Here's what I've been watching over winter break:

Day Watch. OK.
The Big Lebowski. Very funny.
Superbad. Very funny.
The Brothers Solomon. This is the sort of movie my wife and I frequently watch and often love: it's not technically "good," and it's low budget and unknown, but it is filled with genuinely creative, funny moments.

I've also been rewatching season two of The Sopranos, and occasionally rewatching episodes of season nine of Seinfeld.

And lots and lots of football. Miserable, miserable football.

Frame Stories

I just rewatched Moulin Rouge, and to be clear, here is the frame for the story.

On screen, we see a red curtain open up and images start to flicker on a screen; this is frame one, an audience watching a film.

In the image, we see Toulouse singing about Christian; this is frame one, Toulouse singing about the story.

We then flash to Christian, writing on his typewriter; this is frame three, Christian writing his story.

We're at least three steps removed from the actual story: we're watching a movie about a movie about a guy telling the story about a guy telling a story. There's a sketch in The Kids in the Hall about two guys sitting in a bar talking about a movie one of the guys watched the night before, and then we see the movie, and in the movie, two characters are talking about a movie one saw where two guys were sitting in a bar discussing a movie. There's an episode of The Simpsons in which characters share stories and read notes that bring us into stories within stories within stories to an absurd degree. That's what this seems like, but it's for real. And then, of course, Christian's story is about writing a play that reflected his own life story. I'm getting tired.

Other famous frame stories? There's Heart of Darkness, where a guy tells the story about hearing Marlowe tell a story. There's The Turn of the Screw, which if I remember correctly, a guy tells a story about another guy telling a story he heard (there may have been somebody writing the story down). There's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a very famous frame story. There's Frankenstein, where Frankenstein tells his story to a particular ship captain. Of course Don Quixote may have started this all: the narrator describes reading and translating from a particular chronicler or Quixote's adventures. The frame story is a very old function and convention of Western literature.

The benefits of a frame story? Sometimes the frame itself can add thematic meaning. Sometimes it places the audience into the story. Sometimes it renders the narrative unreliable.

Think about frame stories.