Final Paper

Let The Wild Rumpus Start!

One Man’s Journey Through Lit 436

By: Max Arcand

Literature 436

Michael Sexson

January 11, 2010, 11:00 am

Walking into my first class of my final semester in college, I was dreading it. Not only because it was the very first class of the semester, on the very first Monday of the semester, but because of the reading list I had been emailed for “Emergent Literature” just hours before, when I sleepily opened my laptop. The list read like a who’s who of literature, “Finnegans Wake (Joyce); 3 Novels by Samuel Beckett; Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Rushdie); The Following Story (Nooteboom); The Skin of Our Teeth (Wilder); The Tempest (Shakespeare); The Alchemist (Coelho); The Four Quartets (T.S. Eliot).” Another reason for my dazed and halfhearted energy for the class was simply that when I had registered for class, I thought I had registered for Emerging Literature instead of Emergent Literature. Words cannot describe the anticipation I felt about Emerging Literature; finally, after three and a half grueling years of English classes, we get to read contemporary novels by living men and women. Alas, it was not to be, as I settled into my front row seat, my palms began to sweat with nervous energy as I awaited the arrival of this Michael Sexson I had heard so much about.

Walking out of that first day of class, I think I was in worse condition then when I entered. “This class is about anything and everything,” our professor proudly exclaimed before he began to expound upon the value of highbrow and lowbrow literature, in terms I could hardly understand, referencing books I had never heard of. My mood had drastically declined from the bright promise of a fresh semester as my head spun with abstract notions of what I once believed to be great works of writing, and now understood to be “lowbrow”, also known as “crap.” As I heavily dragged on my cigarette, inhaling as much of the toxic, tar filled joy as was humanly possible, I contemplated if this was really the class for me. Would I be able to keep up with the reading load? Would I be able to keep up with the blogs? What the hell is a blog anyway? But the most important question which seemed to suppress all other thoughts and drive out all other notions of hope: am I even going to understand anything said in class? With an exhausted exhale of smoke, I made the decision to stick with Emergent Literature, see what the future held for me, and pray to God that I would see it through until the end…anyway, I needed it to graduate with a writing minor.

This paper will be an examination of my journey as a student of literature from that tense first day of class, until the final bell has rung, and I have once again returned to where I began four years ago: eager, a tad naive, and brimming with optimism for what the future holds. As I frame my own experiences through the lens of “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak, examine Joseph Campbell’s characteristics of a journey, and reminisce about some of the books we have read in class, I hope to instill upon the reader what I have learned about myself throughout this journey as well as what I have learned about the nature of stories.

“The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind, and another. His mother called him “Wild Thing!” And Max said “I’ll eat you up!” So he was sent to bed without eating anything.”[1]

Joseph Campbell’s first characteristic of a journey is “separation.” In “Where the Wild Things Are”, Max is sent to bed, away from his family, without his supper. This is essentially separation at its most basic level. Being sent away from those you love, from those who love you, until you are alone within your own being. My first task, if I was ever going to survive Emergent Literature, was to separate myself from anything I had previously known. I had to experience kenosis on a metaphysical level. In order to successfully empty myself out, I began with “Haroun and the Sea of Stories,” and went from there. Although Rushdie wrote this for his son, Zafar, and it is considered to be a children’s book, I realized that I very much enjoyed this type of writing. The main character, Haroun, was forced to separate himself from not only his father, but from every notion of the limits of possibility in this world and another. “Although it seemed obvious to Haroun that these magical creatures were so small that they couldn’t possibly have carried so much as a bitten-off fingernail, he decided not to argue.”[2] Haroun and I had to take everything at face value, believe in ourselves and those around us, and delve deeper into the unknown.

“That very night in Max’s room a forest grew, and grew- and grew until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around. And an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year, to where the wild things are.”[3]

Max’s journey through the vast jungle in his room, and later through the deep ocean, “in and out of weeks, and almost over a year, to where the wild things are,” can be interpreted as more than just his emotional and physical separation from the life he left behind. Max was forced to make a conscious separation away from his family and home. T.S. Eliot, in his definitive book, The 4 Quartets, writes “To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not/ You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy./ You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance./ In order to possess what you do not possess/ You must go by the way of dispossession./ In order to arrive at what you are not/ You must go through the way in which you are not./ And what you do not know is the only thing you know.”[4] Max, the wild thing, and I, are both forced into a precarious position. We must both forget what we know to be possible, forget what we believe to be true, and almost forget who we are in order to complete our journey. It will, for the most part, not be filled with happiness and elation, but will be excruciating in some places, tolerable in others, and ultimately beneficial in the end. In a sense, he and I will remain as a single being throughout our journeys; only his vessel will be an actual boat, dependent on its durability and that of its craftsman, and mine shall be my judgment, intelligence, and capacity. As is illustrated in Maurice Sendak’s words, this journey will not be short. It will be both long and arduous, and the final outcome will be completely dependent on the effort which is put into the task.

“And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible claws; till Max said “Be Still!”And tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all, and made him king of all wild things.[5]

“Initiation,” the second characteristic of a journey according to Joseph Campbell. Just as Max the wild thing initiated contact with the scary and fierce looking animals, I needed to initiate contact with another crazed animal, highbrow literature. This particular literature took the form of Cees Nooteboom’s novel The Following Story. The first attempt at reading Nooteboom, through all 115 pages of this book, I struggled. Comprehension seemed to leave me quicker than Herman Mussert’s life, motivation and happiness took flight faster than Haroun when he was in the Twilight Strip, and confidence eluded me at every stage of the journey. But just as Max had tamed the savage beasts with his unwavering glare, so should I tempt the fates by perseverance. It was my personal legend, so to speak, within the context of this class, to decipher the words everyone else in the class seemed to easily understand. I understand now that what I needed to do, not matter how imposing and confusing it seemed to be at the time, was to put on a brave face and meet my enemy head on: first Joyce, than my old nemesis Shakespeare, and finally Nooteboom. If I were ever to understand what these stories were about, what the nature of these stories and their importance is, I would have to take that first step. Open The Book. Just as Max had become the wildest thing of all by taming those very beings which Sendak refers to as “wild things”, I had to tame my wild things and become their very antithesis – the wildest thing of all.

“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”[6]

This is the aspect of our journey where the main characters, Max and I, begin to enjoy our new surroundings and take comfort in the unknown and mysterious. We are beginning to experience plerosis. In Max’s case it is the joy and contentment which comes with the camaraderie of his wild partners. In Haroun’s case, it is the self-satisfaction he experiences by being brave and cunning while fighting against Khattam-Shud. In Herman Mussert’s case, it is the understanding that he has passed on” from one state of being into another,” brought on by his “mysterious mental maneuver.”[7] And in my case, it is the filling of happiness which blooms from the transformation, the metamorphosis, I have endured, and the understanding which emanated from my perseverance and deciphering of this literary code.

“Now Stop!” Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper. And Max the king of all the wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all. Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat so he gave up being king of where the wild things are. But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go – we’ll eat you up – we love you so!” And Max said, “No!”[8]

At this stage in the journey, Max and I have become conscious of our metamorphosis into a being no longer resembling the form in which we began. We have actually altered our mental state to take on the new role as the king of all the wild things. However, here is where our two paths shall diverge, only to meet again in the future. As Max has become unhappy with the life he now lives and yearns to return from where he began, I have become empowered, and can no longer return to my original state. Even if I could, would I want to? I do not believe there is really an answer to this question, as the question itself remains implausible. I am like a newborn in that my eyes hurt, because I have begun using them for the first time. I can no longer be conscious of only that which surrounds me. From now on my mind immediately explores depths previously unknown and experiences altered states of being regularly as I travel through life. Haroun became equipped with this knowledge once he returned to Earth, remembering his sojourn to the second moon of Earth, Kahani. Mussert was able to rest peacefully after accepting and acknowledging his apparent demise. And I have emerged out of the chaos, to view my life not in a linear fashion, but now as a cyclical journey, and understand, as Borges said, we are all each other. In stories, I have lived as Haroun and Mussert, just as I have lived as their creators, Rushdie and Nooteboom. Such as Bill Murray was forced to relive eternally his life in one day until he got it right, I can now understand that this is the proverbial “nightmare of history.” Reincarnation in the form of another being, set to live out this lifetime in another form, over and over again.

“The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye. And sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him – and it was still hot.”[9]

Joseph Campbell sums up the characteristics of a journey with the final stage of “return.” Max returns home to find a hot supper and the love of family awaiting him. Herman Mussert finds peace and relief as he returns to death, and Haroun finds his happiness and mother awaiting his arrival at home. T.S. Eliot’s concluding statements read, “We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time.”[10]

April 21, 2010 11:00 am

Today I shall present my final paper to the class. It is supposed to be the sum of all that I have gained throughout my journey as a student in Emergent Literature. But what exactly is it that I have learned? Is it that life is no longer a linear motion, but remains cyclical, ever-repeating? Or that we are destined to live out our lives as another being, in another time? I think all of this and more is what I will be able to take with me away from my four years at Montana State University. I have learned that I can no longer remain stagnant while the world turns around me, but I must adapt and change to suit my surroundings. Just as Haroun and Mussert changed and evolved, so must I. As Johnny said in his paper presentation today, “I did not like Bob Marley’s music, because I did not listen to the words he spoke.” I can no longer afford to not listen; listening and understanding are one in the same, and if I ever hope to make it in this life or the next, I need to open my eyes, ears and heart to the world around me. I need to channel my inner Max and tame the wild things.

---

[1] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 1-3.

[2] Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, p. 64.

[3] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 4-8.

[4] T.S. Eliot, 4 Quartets, p. 29.

[5] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 9-13.

[6] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 14.

[7] Cees Nooteboom, The Following Story, p. 61.

[8] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 21-23.

[9] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 24-29.

[10] T.S. Eliot, 4 Quartets, p. 59.

Let The Wild Rumpus Start! One Man's Journey Through Lit 436

Something is wrong with my blog. I am going to speak to Rio and Sexson and see if i can't get it cleared up so i can post my final paper on my blog. Sorry!

"Or did you think i was too stupid to know what a eugoogoolizer was??"/Last Blog

Emergent Literature passed away on Friday, April 30th, 2010. It will be remembered by all those who have graced its classrooms, and will live on in spirit through all the texts and blogs written about Literature. It is survived by Professor Michael Sexson. For the past 4 months, Emergent Literature has almost been a thorne in most peoples sides. Almost. But perhaps it will best be remembered for some of the texts its studentes studied while in class. Three Novels by Samuel Beckett, Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, The Tempest by William Shakespeare, Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie, The Alchemist by Paul Cuelho, The Following Story by Ceest Nooteboom, The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot, and The Skin of Our Teeth by Thorton Wilder. Or perhaps its students will solely take away lessons from the film versions of each theme: The Matrix, Star Trek: The Inner Light, Stranger Than Fiction, or the always popular, Groundhogs Day. One thing is for certain, each student will undoubtedly take away from this class, a new vision of what constitutes a novel. Whether highbrow or lowbrow, accessible or not, captivating or utterly devoid of interest - a new appreciation has been sought and granted to all who have graced through the doors of Emergent Literature. It will not be easily forgotten, no matter how much one tries, nor should it. The lessons we have learned, through Emergent Literature's life and death, is that these are the same; that death is a continuation of life, and ones spiritual being can and will live on for many generations long after their physical mass has left this planet. In summation, Thank you Emergent Lit. For the heafty life lessons you have ingrained into our heads, for the abstract thought with which you have provoked countless discussions, and for the abilities you have bestowed upon us to not only see the world through our eyes, but through the eyes of everyone who has come before us, everyone who is with us now, and everyone who will come after us...

Final Presentations

I was really impressed with the amount of work that went into all the final presentations. I know how hard ours was to coordinate/carry out, everyone did a fantastic job. A few presentations which stood out in my mind were the 20 minute lifetime group, that video you made was awesome! I still want to know whose tye-dyed bear suit you were wearing?! The editing and the story were amazing. Although i really had no idea what to expect from the presentations, having never been in a Sexson class, i was totally blown away. I think everyone went above and beyond their themes and ended up illustrating the entire semester throughout each presentation. The 20 minute lifetime, dolce donum, the eternal return, the world as myth and dream, and life as fiction and language, if i do say so myself, were all really amazing presentations. I enjoyed the discrepancies between the highbrow and lowbrow examples everyone used from Galdiator, to writing their own verse, to the continuous use of Neo and Sexson throughout the presentations. It all came together very nicely and made for an entertaining week of finals. Although i can honestly say that in my college career, that is in the last 4 years, i have never done a video project, or a final group project, and can safely say that i am happy to put the stress of it all behind me.

As for the individual presentations, i hoped you all enjoyed Where The Wild Things Are. As it was one of my favorite books growing up as a kid, it seemed only necessary to include it as my final comparison between highbrow and lowbrow lit. Thomas' presentation, where he read us The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is also one of my favorite book. It is just so pertinent to everything in life. Great Choice. of course i cannot mention the final presentations without saying something about Brianne's rap. It was hilarious, but also informative. Very creative and well done. The beat behind the lyrics was also really great, did you protools that yourself?? In my four years at MSU it was probably the most enjoyable final presentation i have had the pleasure of watching. Another presentation which stood out in my mind was the ribbon dance Lisa performed. Although i couldn't quite understand the relationship to the texts, i give her credit. I do not think i have the necessary fortitude to stand and deliever something as wonderful as a ribbon dance in front of a class. You may have one upped Brianne in my book. Kudo's to everyone, these presentations were not only hilarious but very informative!

Good vs. Evil

Highbrow vs. Lowbrow Characters

These are just a few of the similarities/differences i have noticed when looking at highbrow and lowbrow Lit:

Highbrow: these characters tend to be somewhat socially awkward and many of them are not easily relateable (who can really relate to Malloy). They are typically not someone you would identify yourself with. At least not me. And finally, there's usually the duality of right vs. wrong being played out in highbrow novels through their characters. (Examples: Mussert, Malone, Moby Dick's Main, etc.)

LowBrow: These characters are presented in an easily understandable fashion. They tend to almost be relateble. Or should i say, someone you can look up to, seek to emulate or deisre to become. Through these characters, the battle between good vs. evil is usually waged. (Examples: Robert Langdon, Haroun, Santiago, etc.)

My Fellow Bloggers

I think the blogger who has had the most impact on me throughout the semester has to be Bizz. Although her blogs arn't filled with long diatribes and pungent remarks about other works of highbrow lit (usually), she constantly hits the nail on the head with each blog. Suffice it to say, she usually makes the class much, much easier for me to understand. SHe, out of all the other bloggers, makes this whole on-line reading and writing as interesting as i believe anyone could. When she does however delve into a highbrow book, or a deeper meaning, she does so with great tenderness (meaning making her reference available to the masses), which i think no other member of Emergent Lit can do. She isn't afraid to not know the answer (Blog: "haroun and stuff") "They both imply that stories for stories sake are meaningless or are just simplistic entertainment for children. I remember Prof. Sexson saying something to the effect that FW sounded more like language of babies, or small kids trying to talk which is often nonsense. But we love to listen to it anyway. I don't know why" I love the "I don't know Why" sentence. There's a deeper conclusion there, we all know it, but the great thing is Bizz leaves those conclusions to make up to you. She won't tell you the answer, like so many others, but we all know, that she knows it. So congrats Bizz, and thanks for making the class slightly easier!

What Seest Thou Else

We were told to ask someone "What Seest Thou Else In The Dark Backward and Abysm of Time?"

Although i have asked quite a few people, the end result is always the same - they stare, as if through me, and then completely disregard what i had previously said. I think the world today isn't interested in round about ways to ask a question. True, one can ask it in simpler terms, "what do you see/can you learn from the past", but it doesn't sound nearly as good. I believe we now have what prof. Sexson calls, "The Infantilization of Literature". This may be so, but is this really such a bad thing? Harry Potter and the Twilight series have brought books into homes and onto childrens shelves who probably would never really pick up a book. Just as FW and Ulysess have most likely turned some people off from "highbrow" lit because of the sheer complexity of the novels.

Beckett, Stranger than Fiction, The Tempest, FW

What is the relationship between all of these books? Good question. Is it that the Tempest and FW are works of Highbrow? Along with Beckett? Yes.
The Tempest, FW and Beckett both deal heavily in the theme of the world as a dream or an illusion. What is real? How can real be defined? How can we know 'real'? Sounds alot like the Matrix... All of these books deal with a character within a novel. A story within a story. Fiction as life. In a sense, they also deal with fate. Do we choose our own path, or is our path chosen for us? An interesting relationship between beckett and Stranger Than Fiction is that in both stories, Beckett and STF's 'author' both kill of 8 people in their stories. The author also tentativly reminds the reader that what they are engorged with is simply, a work of fiction. In STF Karen Eiffle says, "And with a subtle piece of fiction..." and in Beckett he says, "It is midnight and raining" then goes on to say "it is not midnight or raining". Joyce, Beckett and STF all have the never ending list in them. Harold is a counter whereas Joyce counts many, many, many things. Ultimately the reader is forced to understand that these characters, though real they may seem, are not the masters of their own destiny. It has been written. This reminds me of a quote from the Matrix when Morpheus asks Neo why he doesn't believe in destiny, he replies, "I don't like the idea of someone else having control over my life."

Floyd and Beckett

This song reminded me of Samuel Beckett's 3 Novels when he discribes his bike:

"I've got a bike
You can ride it if you like
It's got a basket
A bell that rings
And things to make it look good
I'd give it to you if i could
But i borrowed it

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything
Everything if you want thing"

"Bike" Pink Floyd

The Inner Light

The Star Trek episode, The Inner Light, was, in my opinion, rediculous and funny, and i can see why we watched it and how it highlighted the theme "the 20 minute lifetime"
Obviously Captain Piccard, in his nucleonic beam induced stupor, lived out his entire lifetime in roughly 20-25 minutes. In order for him to accept his fate/reality, as it were, he had to find out, or rediscover, who he was and where he was. This reminds me of the Futurama episode where Lela is stung by a giant bee and dies, but really thinks Fry is the one who was stung. Throughout the episode she tries to convince herself that Fry is still alive (even though she's in a coma) until she begins to go crazy imagining a life without Fry. Long story short, Fry gives Lela some of his possessions to remind her of him and the world she has temporarily left behind. Similarly, Captain Piccard's friends and family put his old flute in the spaceship so he will remember them and remember to tell their story. Unforgetting the forgotten. It is he who must retell this story, and relive out his past life. You can relate this to Eliot's 4 Quartets, Page 31, last stanza:

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the vening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.

Essentially, we need to arrive where we started, but realize that we are again back at the same place, realize how we've changed throughout our journey and change.

FW and the Skin of OUr Teeth

Antrobus and Earwicker families both have Mom, Dad, 2 Sons, Daughter

The play Skin of Our Teeth was very dreamy and most of the time it was hard to differentiate between the two worlds. Finnegans wake is similar in that it is often hard to discern where the story is taking place, who is in it, what is going on, and whether it is actually happening.

The play, in its more dramatic stages, seems to fluctuate up and down. Often returning to where it began. As FW is a cycle, this ties in nicely with what Joyce was doing.

The play and FW both take us completely through the history of man (albeit very shortly)

The phrase Skin of Our Teeth comes from the book of Jobe, Joyce often makes satirical remarks about/ quoting the bible in Finnegans Wake

To me, at least, SOT is an easier way to understand the ciclical nature of FW. a sort of middlebrow between the low and the high.

Yakko's World Recital

I am not able to post the Video, but this is the Animaniacs naming the countries of the world: although some are not countries anymore, and others have been added, it is still a great list:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDtdQ8bTvRc&feature=related

The eternal reminder of the eternal list

James Joyce, Finnegans Wake:
"A cartridge of cockaleekie soup for Chummy the Guardsman; for sulky Pender's acis nephew deltoid drops, curiously strong; a cough and a rattle and wildrose cheeks for poor Piccoline Petite MacFarlane; a jigsaw puzzle of needles and pins and blankets and shins between them for Isabel, Jezebel, and Llewelyn Mmarriage; a brazen nose and pigiron mittens for Johnny Walker Beg; a paper flag of the saints and stripes for Kevineen O'Dea; a puffpuff for Pudge Craig and a nightmarching hare for Techertim Tombigby; waterleg and gumboots each for Bully Hayes and Hurricane Hartigan; a prodigal heart and fatted calves for Buck JOnes, the pride of Clonliffe; a loaf of bread and a father's early aim for Val from Skibereen..." (Page 210)

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:
"We had two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, 5 sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galexy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw either, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked in to a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can."

I think that last line by Thompson sums up Joyce's lists. "Not that we needed all that, but once you get locked into a serious collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can" (paraphrased). Joyce continues to push the envelope of what is decent, what is expected, and what is, dare i say, "normal"?

Another's Take on the Wake

I read a friend of mine a passage out of Finnegans Wake, actually the passage i chose to recite at the FW reading our class held. "Return sainted youngling and walk once more among us. The rains of Demani are masikal as of yere, and Baraza is all aflower. Seeker of calmy days, as shiver as shower can be". His reaction was more or less the same as Sarah's reaction which invloved, "that is gibberish. I can write nonsensical words on a page, but this guy can actually make money off of this shit?" And when he found out this was considered to be one of the great novels of the modern world, he nearly lost it. Long story short, he did not understand what i read. Not that i completely understood what it was. But after i told him to close his eyes and just listen, he seemed to relax a bit, even laugh. Which is what its all about, enjoying the moment, it doens't matter whether you understand everything, just enjoy the fact that its there. I believe this to be the central tenant of FW, i could be totally wrong, but i enjoy the fact that Joyce took such an unusual approach and actually had the balls to publish something he knew would most likely get crucified in its reviews. Enjoy enjoy enjoy.

The Eternal Recurrance

This is the image i had in my mind when i blogged about the cyclical life. The perfect representation of a non-linear fashion: the phoenix. This picture is a cropcircle (not really a circle? so what do you call it?) but i thought itwas awesome. The phoenix rising from the ashes to begin anew. Joyce completing FW and Ulysess, complementing both night and day, the ever repeating circle.

Me in FW again

While perusing FW again, i saw another example of how i am constantly in Joyce's distorted brain. Page 16:

"you tolkatiff scowegian?"

My highschool in New Hampshire was "Souhegan", inevitably, every time someone asks me where i am from/what highschool i went to, their reply is the same "you went to skowhegan?"
No, not sKowhegan, but SoUhegan". I interpret Joyce's lines as "you talkative skowhegan", or "you talk of skowhegan?".... No James, i talk OF SoUhegan.

FinnaBen

The day Ben Leubner came into class, i was no more expecting to understand Finnegans Wake than any other day. However he did shed some light on a few pages, as well as how to interpret what exactly you're reading. Ben began with how we, as a society today, examine books: in a linear sort of fashion. We lives our lives by the time passing by on the clock, by our eternally reoccuring schedules, and by the rise and fall of the sun. This is not how FW should be looked at. Think of Finnegans wake as a cycle. It has no beginning or end, but is a story about what happens to us after death, that foggy period between life and reincarnation (if you're so inclined to believe in this sort of thing). The text, as it sits in front of you, is only half of what Joyce wrote. This is evident when one reads the first word: Riverrun, and the last word: the. It is a never ending cycle. Two different parts, to the same whole, always complementing eachother, but constantly contradicting eachother. It is no code to crack, it just is. So forget what you know, or thought you knew about literature. Let the book teach you about language and the world around you, let the book remind you of life, and how when one thing ends, another always begins. When the sun begins to set, you can always count on it rising the next day. When one life ends, another inevitably begins.

Rushdie vs. Joyce

How does Salmon Rushdie connect with Finnegans Wake? This is an interesting question. Although there's probably a multitude of connections which can be made, here's a few i found interesting:
- "Murder, Murder, spock obi New Year" (pg. 130 in SOS)
This reminded me of the language Joyce uses throughout his text, although in Haroun it is the language of gestures. Perhaps Joyce new of this and many of what is written in FW has to do with not only how to pronounce the words, but how you animate yourself while reading... something to try in the future

- "It's a complicated palace and we're a little lost" (pg. 107 in SOS)
This is a bit how i feel when i am reading finnegans wake, "a little lost". I think it's the sheer multitude of languages Joyce includes, how many of the words are phonetically written on the page so it helps to read out loud, and probably more so, that i really still can't quite figure out what FW is about.

-"Feeling like you's was lost in the bush" (pg. 107 in FW)
This passage pretty much summed up my feelings towards FW at the outset of the semester. Although i now know the path i am able to take to decipher its code, many times i feel myself lost in the proverbial "bush"

-"As he watched the shadow warriors martial dance, Haroun thought about this strange adventure in which he had become involved. 'How many opposites are at war in this battle between Gup and Chup!' he marvelled. 'Gup is bright and Chup is dark. Gup is warm and Chup is freezing cold. Gup is all chattering and noise, whereas Chup is silent as a shadow. Guppees love the ocean, Chupwalas try to poison it. Guppees love stories, and speech; Chupwalas, it seems, hate these things just as strongly.' It was a war between love and death." (pg. 125 in SOS)
This quote has summed of much of the class in words better than i can put down on paper. The eternal opposite, ying and yang, light and dark, love and hate. I believe, at least in my interpretation, that FW is a compliment to opposites. I haven't read Ulyssess, but isn't that the book of the day, and isn't FW the book of the night. The eternal cycle.

-"riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs." (pg. 1 in FW)
- "A way a lone a last a loved a long the" (pg. 628 in FW)
The eternal return

Finnegan and Maxton

A nickname my highschool girlfriend gave to me was "Marx". Don't ask me why, because i simply don't know, to this day she still calls me Marx every now and again. I just happened to be flipping through the pages of FW and thinking about how i am included in this literature. So i started to turn the pages to dates which seemed important in my life. July 29th, my birthday (29/7=page 297) But there was nothing which immediately jumped at me. Try again. 206 (I graduated highschool in 2006) - although i could have drawn similar conclusions with the word "keel" as i teach sailing when i am not a student, i decided to move on. Page 210 (2010 the year i graduate college), i could have drawn conclusions using the word "acid" ( i won't go into it) or using "Johnny Walker" because, hey, who doesn't like to dip into the whiskey once in awhile. After a disparaging brows through FW, i came across page 365 (the number of days in a year when earth completes its revolution around the sun) and came across "what with his marx and their groups...". Thought it was quite interesting that this horrid nickname was to be found on the exact page numbered for the culmination the earth takes on its orbital path around the sun.

Let The Wild Rumpus Start!

Final Paper

For my final paper I am writing about my journey as a student from the beginning of Emergent Literature until its close. That is, from the reading of "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" ("Max A") until the reading of "The Following Story" ("Max Z"). I'm planning on framing my paper through comparisons of "Where the Wild Things Are" and comparing that Max's journey with this Max's journey. Joseph Campbell identifies the three characteristics of a journey as: Separation, Initiation, and Return. How have I separated myself now from myself then? What initiated this separation? And upon my return, how am I different? Essentially what I'm trying to figure out is how I have changed as a person through each aspect of this journey we call "Emergent Literature". My story will ultimately show my metamorphosis as a student through each of the themes in class, and show what I have learned about the nature of stories through two different books which deal with stories, The Sea of Stories and The Following Story.