Just a few comments from Friday's class.
-The power of the written word was emphasized through the story of Baby M in which a surrogate mother decided to keep the baby. The courts eventually ruled in favor of the couple for whom she had carried and given birth for because of the written arrangement they had all agreed to and signed before hand. While I tend to agree with this case (she knew what she was agreeing to do) there are certainly cases when circumstances change that are beyond the scope of the original contract and even more frequently, contracts that are simply unfair. If I trick you into signing a contract allowing me to kill you, that shouldn't count as suicide. Caution and common sense should always be used in such cases, despite the concrete nature of writing.
-We discussed Finnegans Wake (Fin Again/Fun Again/Awake/A Wake) which seemed very entertaining, though nearly incomprehensible. This book was cited as an attempt to return to the style of orality. A concept I've been trying to work with in terms of filmmaking. Obviously films are capable of sound (unlike books) but given their similarly concrete nature they still lack something. I wonder if Finnegans Wake would be a good audio book?
The novel is circular. The "end" of the texts drops off in such a way as to be continued by the very beginning, thus it is endless. This concept reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Don't continue reading this paragraph if you dislike (minor) spoilers, but the book covers the history of a fictional town, focusing on a specific family line. At the very end , both the town and the last of the family line are about to die. In the apocalyptic chaos of these final moments, the last family member finally interprets and reads a prophecy that had been written down long ago. It contains the entire history of the family, leading up to the moment that the man is reading it. It is essentially the same novel within itself. This moment invites another read and gave me an entirely different comprehension of everything I had just read.
I dare anyone to read Mark Leach's Marienbad My Love, found here. Which was basically only written to be ridiculously long in every way imaginable. It is seventeen million words long, the title alone (Marienbad My Love is the "condensed" version) is nearly seven thousand words. That being said, I've read some excerpts and there is a sense of fun in reading it, similar to Finnegans Wake. I expect there had to be, or else the aythor would have lost his mind, assuming he hadn't already.
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5 years ago
100 years of solitude is a fantastic book. I read it this christmas in argentina where it was first published, and random people, even in small villages, had told, or gestured, to me that they enjoyed the book. I often think of Macondo in relation to the power of stories. When...oh...what's her name...Ursula! ya, when ursala dies, so do her stories and eventually the town. She is like the Sherehezade. Its also intresting how art isolates in the novel, like making little gold fishes alone in a workshop. Parker, I'd like to call you Brave Parker Buendia. It's not in the tradition, but its a thought.
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