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.

The Myth of the Eternal Return

After watching the Matrix in class i had been bitten by the bug. I had to scrounge through my roommates movie collections and find the others. A small matrix session ensued and thus many hours were wasted in front of the tv. However one particular quote i found interesting was when the Architect is speaking with Neo and says, "Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the Anomaly revealed as both beginning... and end" It brought to mind the first theme of the class, The myth of the eternal return. The flaw the architect is speaking of is simply Love. Which then brought to mind a quote spoken by Dr. Sexon today in class, ( something along the lines of) "Marriage is rape". Does this mean love is consensual rape, or that love doesn't necessarily exist in a perfect world, only in the created realm of the matrix?

Some Notable Matrix Magic

- When Smith pulls up in an Audi at the beginning of the film, his license plate is IS 5416. In the King James Bible, Isaiah 54:16 says, "Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy."

- The idea of all programs being born from The Source, an entity of pure light, and returning there after their purpose is fulfilled is a philosophy borrowed from the Hindu belief in Brahma, who in Hindu mythology, is a god composed of pure life energy. This god created all things, and it is man's destiny to return to Brahmand after his/her destiny is fulfilled.

- "Know thyself", the phrase in the kitchen of the "oracle", was the inscription above the entrance of the Delphic Oracle.

- Neo's room number is 101. Room 101 was the place in George Orwell's book "1984" where people were sent to be tortured and would end up believing something that wasn't true.

- The book Neo hides his computer discs in is called "Simulacra and Simulation". The chapter where they're hidden called Nihilism. Nihilism often involves a sense of despair coupled with the belief that life is devoid of meaning.

- The blocking moves Neo uses against Agent Smith upon his realization of being "the One", are the exact same techniques Daniel LaRusso uses against Mr. Miyagi upon his realization that he has in fact been karate training in The Karate Kid (1984). Sand the floor, paint the fence, wax on, wax off...

- Before his character's final speech at the end, Keanu Reeves never has more than five sentences in a row to speak.

- When Morpheus is explaining "What the Matrix is" to Neo, he uses the phrase, "Welcome, to the desert of the real." This is a paraphrase from Jean Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation", the hollowed-out book where Neo keeps his illegal software. The quote can be found in Chapter One - The Precession of Simulacra, Page one, Paragraph 2, "It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire, but ours. The desert of the real itself." * The directors made every member of the cast and crew read this book.

Notable Quotable

A wise man once said, "A writer is a device for turning alcohol into words."