Daniel Clausen's Blog - Posts Tagged "sage-and-the-scarecrow"
The Perfect Novel (Sage and the Scarecrow)
My first novel -- The Sage and the Scarecrow -- was far from perfect. In some places, the book is downright dreadful. It's the youthful expression of a wish rather than a novel. Nevertheless, recently, I've taken up the challenge of revising it and turning the chapters into short stories.
This is difficult. It means I have to cut out some things that strike me as beautiful.
Here is one part I recently cut. It's the narrator describing his conversation with an English professor.
"I then asked him a critical question, to which he provided a complex answer. I asked him this just because it had been occupying my mind of late. I asked: “What do you think constitutes the quintessential novel?” Not an easy question, since I was asking him what the novel should be in its ideal form. Foster was more or less a Marxists, so I was expecting him to say that a quintessential novel should expand the boundaries of the established ideology, or expose it, or something to that effect; but no, as he is often apt to do, Professor Foster surprised me. He said that a novel, in its perfect form, ought to present a state where the harmonious integration of the world is shattered. The character should inhabit a world in which he feels estranged; the book should then work toward a world that is, at the end, unified in some fundamental way. Or, conversely, a novel should work from a state of totality (unison) toward a state of disunity or estrangement...it’s something I’ll always remember: a gem of wisdom from a very good teacher. "
I was describing in a sense what I was trying to do with my novel. I start with a character whose world is crumbling and try to end with a world that's somewhat put back together, if not completely perfect.
Quintessential is the word I use there. That's the kind of word a 19-year-old would think is pretty smart. This time around, I refer more generally to perfection. The key question, as I write these little short stories is -- can I recapture the angst and yearning of youth.
I think I can. In some ways, I'm more of a 19-year-old than I've ever been.
This is difficult. It means I have to cut out some things that strike me as beautiful.
Here is one part I recently cut. It's the narrator describing his conversation with an English professor.
"I then asked him a critical question, to which he provided a complex answer. I asked him this just because it had been occupying my mind of late. I asked: “What do you think constitutes the quintessential novel?” Not an easy question, since I was asking him what the novel should be in its ideal form. Foster was more or less a Marxists, so I was expecting him to say that a quintessential novel should expand the boundaries of the established ideology, or expose it, or something to that effect; but no, as he is often apt to do, Professor Foster surprised me. He said that a novel, in its perfect form, ought to present a state where the harmonious integration of the world is shattered. The character should inhabit a world in which he feels estranged; the book should then work toward a world that is, at the end, unified in some fundamental way. Or, conversely, a novel should work from a state of totality (unison) toward a state of disunity or estrangement...it’s something I’ll always remember: a gem of wisdom from a very good teacher. "
I was describing in a sense what I was trying to do with my novel. I start with a character whose world is crumbling and try to end with a world that's somewhat put back together, if not completely perfect.
Quintessential is the word I use there. That's the kind of word a 19-year-old would think is pretty smart. This time around, I refer more generally to perfection. The key question, as I write these little short stories is -- can I recapture the angst and yearning of youth.
I think I can. In some ways, I'm more of a 19-year-old than I've ever been.
The Parable of the Statue (Sage and the Scarecrow)
Project Summary:
The following is a short excerpt from my 2004 novel "The Sage and the Scarecrow". At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
Sometimes the hardest part of writing a longer work, like a novel, is deleting parts that don’t quite fit into the book or slow the story down.
The following short story is a part of a chapter that I recently decided to delete from the novel. I’ve left it a little raw, so you get a taste of what my works-in-progress feel like.
The Sage and the Scarecrow
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can "cure" him.
The acrid, nuclear rain had melted parts of the statue into something inhuman.
It has nothing that could be recognized as a face, and the parts that are supposed to look like hands and fingers are molded into stumps.
I try to recall a passage from the Tao Teh Ching. I try to bring something to life from my useless memory. The passage has to do with heaven and earth and their connection.
The statue mumbles to me, “...not live for themselves.”
“That’s right,” I say with an exhausted smile. “They live for each other. Heaven and earth live for each other.”
I look up but don’t recognize any form. Its melted face and hands are something less than human. Only when I turn away does it speak to me.
*
“If heaven lives for earth, and earth lives for heaven, then it must mean there are magical connections between all things.”
I think about Jennifer’s hand in mine, my hand in hers. I feel a sense of completeness. Just out of view, I know my dad will be there too. There are four books now, a few magic mushrooms, and some scattered pages from Plato’s Republic.
*
“Speak to me again,” I say to the statue-creature. “What is the relationship between heaven and earth?”
I make a circle out of my thumb and pointer finger and put it over my eye like a monocle.
“Eye of the beholder,” I say. I look at the statue. “This is monocle I will use to see the beauty of the apocalypse.”
I try to see the world through this monocle, to make sense of all the tangles of thumb-twitching zombies and the acrid smell of death and my own stomach pains, but the tangles stay tangled and the statue remains an unrecognizable something.
And it takes all the wisdom and forbearance I can manage with stomach pains not to call it ugly.
*
“The Sage wants to remain behind…” I mumble.
“But he finds himself ahead of others…” the statue-thing whispers back.
In my younger years, my dad would sing to me songs from the Wizard of Oz. One magic mushroom and I would be back with him, in my bedroom, two mushrooms and I’d be someplace I couldn’t predict. Three and I would obliterate myself completely and this whole world would dissolve like the statue’s face.
“You have to come with me, statue,” I say. “Don’t stay here. I’m so lonely.”
*
“Everything needs its opposite,” I say aloud. “I need Jennifer. What do you need?”
Its mouth begins to open but nothing comes out.
“You need the thing that can listen to you? That can hear your voice? I’m sorry. I can’t hear your voice.”
Its mouth opens again but nothing comes out.
“You need the thing that can recognize your form, but I’m not that thing.”
The rain begins to come down again, and I think, This is how I die. The nuclear rain will melt me into nothing.
*
That night the rain comes down. At first I want to stand next to the statue and let the rain warp me into something that can understand and love it the way it needs to be understood and loved. The first drops burn me horribly. I resist the urge to eat the mushrooms. I draw from a well of courage I had long forgotten. I will die and become a creature that can love.
But then, I find myself in a dark space.
The statue has formed around me, into a tender embrace. What could have been its back or its face or some other part I was no longer fit to recognize protects me from the acrid, nuclear rain.
Finally, I recognize the statue’s form. Its form is love.
The following is a short excerpt from my 2004 novel "The Sage and the Scarecrow". At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
Sometimes the hardest part of writing a longer work, like a novel, is deleting parts that don’t quite fit into the book or slow the story down.
The following short story is a part of a chapter that I recently decided to delete from the novel. I’ve left it a little raw, so you get a taste of what my works-in-progress feel like.
The Sage and the Scarecrow
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can "cure" him.
The acrid, nuclear rain had melted parts of the statue into something inhuman.
It has nothing that could be recognized as a face, and the parts that are supposed to look like hands and fingers are molded into stumps.
I try to recall a passage from the Tao Teh Ching. I try to bring something to life from my useless memory. The passage has to do with heaven and earth and their connection.
The statue mumbles to me, “...not live for themselves.”
“That’s right,” I say with an exhausted smile. “They live for each other. Heaven and earth live for each other.”
I look up but don’t recognize any form. Its melted face and hands are something less than human. Only when I turn away does it speak to me.
*
“If heaven lives for earth, and earth lives for heaven, then it must mean there are magical connections between all things.”
I think about Jennifer’s hand in mine, my hand in hers. I feel a sense of completeness. Just out of view, I know my dad will be there too. There are four books now, a few magic mushrooms, and some scattered pages from Plato’s Republic.
*
“Speak to me again,” I say to the statue-creature. “What is the relationship between heaven and earth?”
I make a circle out of my thumb and pointer finger and put it over my eye like a monocle.
“Eye of the beholder,” I say. I look at the statue. “This is monocle I will use to see the beauty of the apocalypse.”
I try to see the world through this monocle, to make sense of all the tangles of thumb-twitching zombies and the acrid smell of death and my own stomach pains, but the tangles stay tangled and the statue remains an unrecognizable something.
And it takes all the wisdom and forbearance I can manage with stomach pains not to call it ugly.
*
“The Sage wants to remain behind…” I mumble.
“But he finds himself ahead of others…” the statue-thing whispers back.
In my younger years, my dad would sing to me songs from the Wizard of Oz. One magic mushroom and I would be back with him, in my bedroom, two mushrooms and I’d be someplace I couldn’t predict. Three and I would obliterate myself completely and this whole world would dissolve like the statue’s face.
“You have to come with me, statue,” I say. “Don’t stay here. I’m so lonely.”
*
“Everything needs its opposite,” I say aloud. “I need Jennifer. What do you need?”
Its mouth begins to open but nothing comes out.
“You need the thing that can listen to you? That can hear your voice? I’m sorry. I can’t hear your voice.”
Its mouth opens again but nothing comes out.
“You need the thing that can recognize your form, but I’m not that thing.”
The rain begins to come down again, and I think, This is how I die. The nuclear rain will melt me into nothing.
*
That night the rain comes down. At first I want to stand next to the statue and let the rain warp me into something that can understand and love it the way it needs to be understood and loved. The first drops burn me horribly. I resist the urge to eat the mushrooms. I draw from a well of courage I had long forgotten. I will die and become a creature that can love.
But then, I find myself in a dark space.
The statue has formed around me, into a tender embrace. What could have been its back or its face or some other part I was no longer fit to recognize protects me from the acrid, nuclear rain.
Finally, I recognize the statue’s form. Its form is love.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Research Log # 1)
What is a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl”? That was my question not too long ago.
My working definition comes from this article: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
“Let's say you're a soulful, brooding male hero, living a sheltered, emotionless existence. If only someone could come along and open your heart to the great, wondrous adventure of life... Have no fear, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is here to give new meaning to the male hero's life! She's stunningly attractive, high on life, full of wacky quirks and idiosyncrasies (generally including childlike playfulness and a tendency towards petty crime), often with a touch of wild hair dye. She's inexplicably obsessed with our stuffed-shirt hero, on whom she will focus her kuh-razy antics until he learns to live freely and love madly.”
Now that we’ve set up the definition of MPDG, we have to set out some basic research questions:
Why bother with this research?
How do we know when we have a MPDG?
Is a MPDG always bad?
Can this research be done narratively?
Let me give you some preliminary answers to this question:
Question 1: Why bother with this research?
As soon as I ask this question, a young girl who may or may not have been my friend for a very long time, looks longingly in my eyes. “You silly hipster, always lacking motivation and impetus. You’re always asking questions that speak of ennui bordering on nihilism. So, I appear and try to rescue you from yourself.”
“Yes,” I say, “But is this strictly necessary?”
“Typically, this is the question that is answered emotionally once your journey is over.”
So, the answer to this first question is -- the research might be necessary to craft a better “soulful and sensitive youth in distress” tale. It seems that there are a lot out there -- most known in movie form -- and that many of them are starting to fall into cliches and tropes that they need to be rescued from.
So perhaps this research is necessary if I don’t want a future reader to think, Oh no, not another one of these characters!
Question 2: How do we know when we have a MPDG?
Question 3: Is a MPDG always bad?
Question 4: Can this research be done narratively?
These three questions I’ll answer as a bundle.
I try to tell the girl with the wide eyes and the dark black hair that at times the MPDG is in the process of being deconstructed -- such as in the movie 500 Days of Summer.
She touches her nose twice and then makes some random motions with her hands. She has only been communicating with me in sign language of late. I make some random hand motions back that, hopefully, express my feeling futility with the entire enterprise.
It’s clear that I can’t answer these question yet. At least not the way they are meant to be answered. It’s also clear to me that I don’t have to play the MPDG’s counterpart -- the sensitive, soulful, ennui-stricken youth. I can be any character I choose. Including the brass-tacks, no-nonsense, square-jawed type.
So, I try this instead: “Now listen missy. I don’t want no trouble from you. We’re going to get to the bottom of this mess, forthwith. If you got any backtalk for me, I think you should bottle it and save it for another sap.”
This gets a new reaction from her. She changes to the submissive damsel in distress. “I do declare, finally a REAL man. A man of action is here, everyone,” she declares to anyone in earshot range. “Do save me from my own cliches, good sir.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do! Now shut ya yap.”
***This research is part of my efforts to re-write parts of my 2004 novel, The Sage and the Scarecrow, as 2-4 page short stories. You can read more right here: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
My working definition comes from this article: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
“Let's say you're a soulful, brooding male hero, living a sheltered, emotionless existence. If only someone could come along and open your heart to the great, wondrous adventure of life... Have no fear, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is here to give new meaning to the male hero's life! She's stunningly attractive, high on life, full of wacky quirks and idiosyncrasies (generally including childlike playfulness and a tendency towards petty crime), often with a touch of wild hair dye. She's inexplicably obsessed with our stuffed-shirt hero, on whom she will focus her kuh-razy antics until he learns to live freely and love madly.”
Now that we’ve set up the definition of MPDG, we have to set out some basic research questions:
Why bother with this research?
How do we know when we have a MPDG?
Is a MPDG always bad?
Can this research be done narratively?
Let me give you some preliminary answers to this question:
Question 1: Why bother with this research?
As soon as I ask this question, a young girl who may or may not have been my friend for a very long time, looks longingly in my eyes. “You silly hipster, always lacking motivation and impetus. You’re always asking questions that speak of ennui bordering on nihilism. So, I appear and try to rescue you from yourself.”
“Yes,” I say, “But is this strictly necessary?”
“Typically, this is the question that is answered emotionally once your journey is over.”
So, the answer to this first question is -- the research might be necessary to craft a better “soulful and sensitive youth in distress” tale. It seems that there are a lot out there -- most known in movie form -- and that many of them are starting to fall into cliches and tropes that they need to be rescued from.
So perhaps this research is necessary if I don’t want a future reader to think, Oh no, not another one of these characters!
Question 2: How do we know when we have a MPDG?
Question 3: Is a MPDG always bad?
Question 4: Can this research be done narratively?
These three questions I’ll answer as a bundle.
I try to tell the girl with the wide eyes and the dark black hair that at times the MPDG is in the process of being deconstructed -- such as in the movie 500 Days of Summer.
She touches her nose twice and then makes some random motions with her hands. She has only been communicating with me in sign language of late. I make some random hand motions back that, hopefully, express my feeling futility with the entire enterprise.
It’s clear that I can’t answer these question yet. At least not the way they are meant to be answered. It’s also clear to me that I don’t have to play the MPDG’s counterpart -- the sensitive, soulful, ennui-stricken youth. I can be any character I choose. Including the brass-tacks, no-nonsense, square-jawed type.
So, I try this instead: “Now listen missy. I don’t want no trouble from you. We’re going to get to the bottom of this mess, forthwith. If you got any backtalk for me, I think you should bottle it and save it for another sap.”
This gets a new reaction from her. She changes to the submissive damsel in distress. “I do declare, finally a REAL man. A man of action is here, everyone,” she declares to anyone in earshot range. “Do save me from my own cliches, good sir.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do! Now shut ya yap.”
***This research is part of my efforts to re-write parts of my 2004 novel, The Sage and the Scarecrow, as 2-4 page short stories. You can read more right here: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Research Entry # 2): The Research Assistant
Background summary: In an attempt to write a novel about youth and personal discovery, I’m researching the topic of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. My hope is that the research will help me write a more complex female character.
You can look up a basic definition of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_P...
Since this research is an adventure of self-discovery, it’s only natural that I have a research assistant to guide me. My research assistant has been chosen for political reasons. She’s a slightly depressed goth girl with black lipstick who smokes and swears.
I show her the quote from Zoe Deschanel's “New Girl” show to demonstrate some of the stereotypical habits of the MPDG.
"I brake for birds! I rock a lot of polka dots! I have touched glitter in the past 24 hours! I spent my entire day talking to children! And I find it fundamentally strange that you're not a dessert person; that's just weird and it freaks me out! And I'm sorry I don't talk like Murphy Brown! And I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something to make it slightly cuter!"
— New Girl
She scoffs. “I brake for no one. Nothing rocks quite like punk rock. I’ve punched a dude in the last 24 hours. I spent my entire day telling my shit ex-boyfriend to go fuck himself. I find it fundamentally strange that you’re a dude in his mid-30s taking this shit remotely serious. I’m not sorry for shit. Like this other chick, I hate your f***king conformist attire. I wish you weren’t such a douche, and even though I’m fictional the only reason I’m here is because I want to get paid.”
“This is a serious project,” I protest. “This is going to help me write a better novel.”
“I really don’t care.”
Since a research assistant should actually help me find stuff out I’m depressed that there isn’t an actual MPDG around.
You can look up a basic definition of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_P...
Since this research is an adventure of self-discovery, it’s only natural that I have a research assistant to guide me. My research assistant has been chosen for political reasons. She’s a slightly depressed goth girl with black lipstick who smokes and swears.
I show her the quote from Zoe Deschanel's “New Girl” show to demonstrate some of the stereotypical habits of the MPDG.
"I brake for birds! I rock a lot of polka dots! I have touched glitter in the past 24 hours! I spent my entire day talking to children! And I find it fundamentally strange that you're not a dessert person; that's just weird and it freaks me out! And I'm sorry I don't talk like Murphy Brown! And I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something to make it slightly cuter!"
— New Girl
She scoffs. “I brake for no one. Nothing rocks quite like punk rock. I’ve punched a dude in the last 24 hours. I spent my entire day telling my shit ex-boyfriend to go fuck himself. I find it fundamentally strange that you’re a dude in his mid-30s taking this shit remotely serious. I’m not sorry for shit. Like this other chick, I hate your f***king conformist attire. I wish you weren’t such a douche, and even though I’m fictional the only reason I’m here is because I want to get paid.”
“This is a serious project,” I protest. “This is going to help me write a better novel.”
“I really don’t care.”
Since a research assistant should actually help me find stuff out I’m depressed that there isn’t an actual MPDG around.
The Therapist or the Dictator? (Sage and the Scarecrow)
Project Summary: The following is a short passage from Chapter 2 from my 2004 novel The Sage and the Scarecrow.
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can “cure” him.
Excerpt from Chapter 2 “The Therapist or the Dictator?”
Eventually, the subject of my dad’s funeral came up.
“I didn’t go. I’ve never liked funerals. Besides, he wouldn’t have cared. All the important things I needed to say to him, I said at home. He would’ve thought it was a load of nonsense.”
“Did you cry after he passed?”
“I did enough crying while he was sick.”
He asked me a few more questions, but I wasn’t listening.
I asked him, “Do you ever tell any of your patients, ‘Yes, all your fears and paranoias are completely justified and it’s the world that should change, not you’?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Sometimes I’d like to,” he said. “But the truth is it’s easier to change yourself than to change the world. There are things I’d like to change. I guess maybe I’d like someone to tell me that I could change it all. Then again, that person would be a different kind of monster. Someone with a youth mob and guns, instead of advice and medication like me.”
That made me really think. “It’s either the therapist or the dictator then?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
I looked up at Jamie in his nice suit. I suddenly admired this guy. He was listening to me. He knew I was on some wavy ocean steering between the Scylla of apathy, amorality, and neglect and the Charybdis of fascism and totalitarianism.
And that was the crux of it. With his suit and tie, he made me think that perhaps this -- my quest -- wasn’t a complete waste of time.
You can read the entire chapter here:
https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can “cure” him.
Excerpt from Chapter 2 “The Therapist or the Dictator?”
Eventually, the subject of my dad’s funeral came up.
“I didn’t go. I’ve never liked funerals. Besides, he wouldn’t have cared. All the important things I needed to say to him, I said at home. He would’ve thought it was a load of nonsense.”
“Did you cry after he passed?”
“I did enough crying while he was sick.”
He asked me a few more questions, but I wasn’t listening.
I asked him, “Do you ever tell any of your patients, ‘Yes, all your fears and paranoias are completely justified and it’s the world that should change, not you’?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Sometimes I’d like to,” he said. “But the truth is it’s easier to change yourself than to change the world. There are things I’d like to change. I guess maybe I’d like someone to tell me that I could change it all. Then again, that person would be a different kind of monster. Someone with a youth mob and guns, instead of advice and medication like me.”
That made me really think. “It’s either the therapist or the dictator then?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
I looked up at Jamie in his nice suit. I suddenly admired this guy. He was listening to me. He knew I was on some wavy ocean steering between the Scylla of apathy, amorality, and neglect and the Charybdis of fascism and totalitarianism.
And that was the crux of it. With his suit and tie, he made me think that perhaps this -- my quest -- wasn’t a complete waste of time.
You can read the entire chapter here:
https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Manic Pixie Dream Girl - Research Entry # 3
When I was a young writer, aged 19, writing my first novel, I created what would now be called a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl”. Up until about a few days ago, I had no idea this term even existed until read it on a GR group forum. But yes, like Zach Braff and Cameron Crowe, I’m guilty of creating a dream girl.
In my first novel, deep in my own immaturity. I created a dream girl that the hero hoped would “save him.” I wasn’t modeling this after movie characters, but rather after Phoebe from Catcher in the Rye. Phoebe isn’t a love interest, but rather the sister of Holden Caulfield. She represents childlike innocence and the moral clarity that comes with such innocence.
It seems only natural that sensitive male characters who have grave doubts about adulthood and other morally ambivalent realities should seek out a kind of savior and that this savior should be a woman, and that this woman not necessarily be strong, classically beautiful, but rather have a kind of asymmetric abilities that disrupt the “ennui” (a loathed term perhaps) of the sensitive protagonist.
So, what’s the problem? Is it a problem?
I guess the problem is that it’s becoming like whiney hipster porn -- perhaps?
In other settings, I’ve written about the problem of Catcher and the Rye and the curious case of the two-star reviews. I’ve written about Youth and its Discontents and where it goes right and wrong. Perhaps the problem is that the genre has become somewhat predictable -- it’s hard to tell, book tropes don’t wear on people the same way movie tropes do, especially if there is a much smaller sample.
There is a huge sample of romcoms and bodice-ripper romances. Youth and its discontent tales are still numerous in both film and literature, but not so much that readers automatically recognize the tropes.
From my research so far, readers are less likely to find these characters in fiction than they are in movies. Perhaps even in movies the use of these characters is defensible.
It’s hard to say.
An open question - How many Manic Pixie Dream Girls can you think of in literature?
In my first novel, deep in my own immaturity. I created a dream girl that the hero hoped would “save him.” I wasn’t modeling this after movie characters, but rather after Phoebe from Catcher in the Rye. Phoebe isn’t a love interest, but rather the sister of Holden Caulfield. She represents childlike innocence and the moral clarity that comes with such innocence.
It seems only natural that sensitive male characters who have grave doubts about adulthood and other morally ambivalent realities should seek out a kind of savior and that this savior should be a woman, and that this woman not necessarily be strong, classically beautiful, but rather have a kind of asymmetric abilities that disrupt the “ennui” (a loathed term perhaps) of the sensitive protagonist.
So, what’s the problem? Is it a problem?
I guess the problem is that it’s becoming like whiney hipster porn -- perhaps?
In other settings, I’ve written about the problem of Catcher and the Rye and the curious case of the two-star reviews. I’ve written about Youth and its Discontents and where it goes right and wrong. Perhaps the problem is that the genre has become somewhat predictable -- it’s hard to tell, book tropes don’t wear on people the same way movie tropes do, especially if there is a much smaller sample.
There is a huge sample of romcoms and bodice-ripper romances. Youth and its discontent tales are still numerous in both film and literature, but not so much that readers automatically recognize the tropes.
From my research so far, readers are less likely to find these characters in fiction than they are in movies. Perhaps even in movies the use of these characters is defensible.
It’s hard to say.
An open question - How many Manic Pixie Dream Girls can you think of in literature?
Enter the Behemoth (excerpt from Sage and the Scarecrow)
Project Summary: The following is a chapter from my 2004 novel The Sage and the Scarecrow.
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can "cure" him.
Manuscript Note: The parts in the text that are in normal fonts take place in the world we know. The parts in italics take place in an apocalyptic landscape that is either in his imagination or in an unspecified time in the future.
*
I lost track of time for a little while, not thinking.
Now, looking back, my mantra should have been: Brian is an idiot, a dope; or Brian is a selfish prick, an egotistical man-child, who in two more years will have an overpriced degree and no education and will latch on to his parents' money like a leech.
Something like that.
So there I was, in the food hall, in a state of tranquility and peace on an otherwise shitty day when he arrived, bursting with narcissistic joy. He sat down and slapped me on my shoulder, awakening me from my trance. He slid the Tao Teh Ching away from me and then turned it around on the table so that he could read it.
"What is this?" he said, looking through the book. "What kind of weird crap are you into now?" He flipped through the book, and then asked me, "Is this your handwriting?" referring to the handwritten notes in the margins.
"No," I said. "I'm borrowing the book from a friend."
"Is it a chick?" he asked.
"That's right," I told him.
He looked through the book some more, then said something like, "Listen man, I need your help. I'm supposed to meet some chicks at a frat party tonight. I figure you and I can go take them clubbing. I'll foot the bill, and you can woo them with your conversational skills and innocent charm. It'll be just like old times. I know you haven't been laid in forever, and I've heard that Susan chick in your English class wants you. She'll be there. I guarantee you it's a sure thing, dude..."
He went on and on like this for a while, and it was pretty easy to get bored, but not so easy to interrupt. Brian liked to hear his own voice, and, when he got going, he never shut up.
*
I am alone, fatigued, and have horrible bowel problems. I am close to the city now, though. Or at least the ruins of the city.
I need to find food. The rice I had taken from the university is almost finished. I need to find shelter. It won't be long before the rain starts. The shitty, rancid, nuclear rain.
The rains could kill you.
*
The first time I met Brian I asked him why he was a business major. He looked at me, in all my naivety, and answered my question as if there was only one possible answer -- "I like money."
I had helped Brian get through his Finite Math class. It was weakness really, but, also, I didn't know anyone around campus and I thought getting to know him would help me integrate into university life—not that I cared all that much, but it really does get lonely being around so many people and not knowing anyone.
He took me to a party with him one night and discovered that with the right amount of alcohol and motivation I was actually a pretty good conversationalist and could be quite entertaining. Ever since then he'd been hounding me into going to parties with him or clubbing. I went because I liked the experience of meeting new people. It got me out of my routine and pulled me away from whatever I was into for a little while—whether it was studying, reading, or lately my obsession with the perfect society.
Since I had started working two jobs, I had seen less of Brian. I had barely heard from him since I was so busy. But ever since I'd quit my job at the restaurant and cut my hours down at the library, I'd been seeing more of him. I think Angie taking an interest in me also had something to do with this sudden attention, but I can't really be too sure.
Angie used to be Brian's girlfriend. I think it ended in some horrible way, and I think this had fueled Brian's misogyny—pieces of ass, cunts, pussy, and the rest. I also think that he wanted some measure of revenge. But it's hard to tell, even from hindsight, because Brian really didn't talk very much about his relationship with Angie. It must have been a sore subject.
*
I find sanctuary in what is now the empty, dead husk of an office building. I walk up the stairs of the building. The windows are blown out, but I am able to find old, stale crackers and other things to eat in some of the cabinets. I also find alcohol. Expensive alcohol. Brandy.
*
"Sorry Brian," I said. "Unfortunately, I'm busy studying tonight. I was just taking a break from reading my psychology notes. My final is on Tuesday and I still have three chapters to go."
"You have plenty of time to study. I don't think you understand what you're doing. Susan wants to fuck you in the worst way."
"She wants me to cosign her car loan?"
He paused for a moment. I think it took a full minute to realize I'd told a joke of sorts. He gave something that might be described as a laugh.
"Come on, Pierce. Tag that shit..." and he went on like that for a while. I had trouble paying attention to Brian once he got going.
I'm stuck, because I'm trying to figure out an explanation that won't provoke ridicule and will make him shut up and leave. Once he stopped, my excuse went something like, "I don't know, it just seems that I have better things to do. Besides, I'd rather not flunk out this semester."
*
There are signs of life in the building. Someone is living here and it isn't just one of the thumb-movers.
I hear someone in the office rattling around in the shadows.
I want to say something bold and normal like, "Show yourself." But in reality, madness has crept in. The fringes of my mind are like Japanese o-mikuji papers -- wishful thoughts, twisted and tied, left to blow in the wind.
So I say, "Neee! Neeee!"
The rains start and their acrid smell reminds me that I am close to death, or that I am already dead.
I pull out one of the five books in my satchel: Plato's The Republic. I start reading passages from it.
When I try to read out loud, all I can say is, "We are the knights who say, "Nee!""
I consider the bottle next to me and wonder if Plato will go well with brandy.
*
Brian liked having me around because it helped him feel good about himself. Brian was crude and very clumsy, socially and intellectually clumsy. Because of this, I was sure he had become ingrained with a deep sense of inferiority, which he shielded with a ridiculous amount of bravado. It was embarrassing and magnificent to watch at the same time.
I was pretty sure he hung around me because it made him feel smart. He told me this once, sort of. He told me that it made him feel good that he had someone he could talk to that had about the same level of intelligence. Sometimes he asked if we could talk about something "intelligent" because he was tired of the talks he had with his frat buddies. Sometimes he even brought girls with him to listen, which I thought was humorous, amazing, and sad.
I humored him. I had all sorts of ways to pass the time with conversations. I had done it so often, with so many people, that it had become a chore.
All his frat friends did was drink, swear, and brag about how they fucked women. Whenever Brian had problems with something he came to me because I was supposed to be sensitive, or a good listener, or something. Lately, though, I really hadn't felt like putting up with his shit.
Brian was the most materialistic guy I had met in my life, but the problem was, he wanted it both ways. He was ruthless when it came to possessing things, but when his dad forgot to send his money, or one of his girlfriends told him to fuck off, he cried to me about things: he'd whine about things not being fair and women being bitches, even though the foundations for his success were built on the premises of hierarchy and domination. He couldn't take being someone else's object, the victim of power relations—it was this paradox in his thinking that bugged me more than anything.
*
There are voices in the dark telling me to put on the suit. What suit? In the CEO's suite there are a number of suits that are still wearable. (In other words, the holes from rats weren't too large. The part of me that isn't telling me to wear the suit tells me to eat the suit).
There is no reason to wear a suit in the apocalypse. As far as I can tell the apocalypse is not a formal occasion. But then again, there is no reason to do anything in the apocalypse, except perhaps survive. (Eat the suit!)
My radioactive mushrooms can take me places without suits, but the voice from the shadow keeps saying, "Put it on."
*
I had lost track of our conversation. "What were we talking about again?" I asked him.
"I want you to come party with me so that you can get laid," he said, succinctly.
"Oh, right," I said. "Sorry, but I have all this studying to do. You understand." He didn't, but maybe if I assumed he did, he would just leave.
He began to read the inside cover of the Tao Teh Ching. This really made me angry. Jennifer had written a note on the inside cover that was very personal.
"Would you mind not reading that?" I asked. "That's really very personal."
"What is she? A girlfriend? Was she your first lay? Let me read," he kept reading the book, which had me peeved. There really wasn't anything for him to make fun of in the note, but I didn't like the idea of Brian just invading my privacy like that.
"Shit, it sounds like you have this bitch wrapped around your little finger."
I had had enough. I thought about the easiest way to offend him.
"You don't have to swear. No one else is listening to you," I said.
"What?" He looked kind of startled (success). He couldn't comprehend what I had just said to him.
"Nobody else is listening to you. You don't have to put on your act," I said, nonchalantly. "So just cut out the swearing."
This bothered him. He wasn't enraged, but he suddenly became self-aware. I had never quite been so straightforward with Brian before. I had mentioned a couple of times briefly that I thought he had a deep sense of inferiority, and that sometimes he came on too strong, but I never made a case of it. I never told him what I really thought, which was that he was a phony.
*
I'm sure that I'm not alone in the office building. Something lives there. Something terrible. It whispers to me in the dark.
Wear the suit, it whispers.
But I am already wearing the suit.
When had I put it on?
I read passages from Plato's Republic.
From the shadows, I hear the voice whispering. "Gold." "Rationality." "Born to rule."
*
I had put it to him very straightforward now. I was pushing toward conflict because I needed it.
"I don't know what you're talking about, fucker." His face was turning red, more with embarrassment, though, than with anger. He knew he was becoming red too, and he was trying to hide it. I could see his embarrassment turning to anger.
I decided to ease up. Why get into something I didn't have to, especially with Brian, who despite his crudeness, meant well.
"Fine, you're right," I said. "Besides, you know I just get jealous when you swear like that, my being the product of a strict Christian upbringing and all." He was confused by this last remark. He couldn't decide whether I was giving ground with an apology or making a joke. Either way, it disarmed his anger, and thus, worked the same as an apology. He still held my book, though, which bothered me.
We looked at each other for a long moment.
He finally said, "Are you coming tonight?"
"No, I'm not. I already told you that."
"You have to," he said. "I told Susan you'd be there. It was the only way to get her cute friend to come along..." He spent some more time trying to convince me, but I really couldn't concentrate on anything he was saying because he was holding Jennifer's book in his grubby little hands. Eventually, he said something like, "Take Susan and ask her to cook breakfast when you're done. That way if the sex is bad, you can at least get a decent meal out of it." It was getting pretty bad, and I didn't really want to listen to any more of his crap.
"I need my book back," I told him. He didn't give me the book back.
"Why are you so mental about this book?"
"It's not mine, I told you this already. My friend gave it to me. I can't let it get messed up. See, look, your sweaty palms are already soaking the pages," I said.
"Fuck you."
We just looked at each other for a long time, again. The whole situation was becoming annoying, but I could see that he was bent on trying to get me to go with him. I was pretty sure that he actually had promised Susan that I would be there, and he was worried he would look bad if he didn't deliver. I wasn't going to go, though. Simply put, I didn't like hanging out with Brian anymore. And I certainly didn't want to be a pawn in some scheme to satisfy his sex drive, or social drive, or any other drive.
Then he did something that was pretty incredible, but which I thought was so much like Brian. He simply assumed that I would go, and then he took Jennifer's book as leverage. He said, "I'm going to hold onto this. You give me a call on my cellphone. I'll be up in my dorm getting ready. Be there in about a half hour."
He walked off with her book. I guess I hadn't wounded his ego as much as I should have. When I had the chance I should have embarrassed the hell out him. I should have just called him a phony, a tool, a douche bag, snatched the book out of his hands and left.
*
In the executive suite of the office building, I can see that the acrid, nuclear rain has stopped. It has cleansed some of the finger-twitching-zombies and made a rich landscape for mushrooms that could send me to far off places, make me forget about food, and expedite the end of my existence in this world.
I am also, now, wearing a suit listening to whispers in the dark -- "Gold." "Rationality." "Born to rule."
The Tao Teh Ching. Is that one of the books in my bag? I want to look inside my bag but find myself drinking brandy instead.
"The behemoth..." I whisper. "He's here. He's hungry."
The whispers echo in my head louder. "Born to rule."
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can "cure" him.
Manuscript Note: The parts in the text that are in normal fonts take place in the world we know. The parts in italics take place in an apocalyptic landscape that is either in his imagination or in an unspecified time in the future.
*
I lost track of time for a little while, not thinking.
Now, looking back, my mantra should have been: Brian is an idiot, a dope; or Brian is a selfish prick, an egotistical man-child, who in two more years will have an overpriced degree and no education and will latch on to his parents' money like a leech.
Something like that.
So there I was, in the food hall, in a state of tranquility and peace on an otherwise shitty day when he arrived, bursting with narcissistic joy. He sat down and slapped me on my shoulder, awakening me from my trance. He slid the Tao Teh Ching away from me and then turned it around on the table so that he could read it.
"What is this?" he said, looking through the book. "What kind of weird crap are you into now?" He flipped through the book, and then asked me, "Is this your handwriting?" referring to the handwritten notes in the margins.
"No," I said. "I'm borrowing the book from a friend."
"Is it a chick?" he asked.
"That's right," I told him.
He looked through the book some more, then said something like, "Listen man, I need your help. I'm supposed to meet some chicks at a frat party tonight. I figure you and I can go take them clubbing. I'll foot the bill, and you can woo them with your conversational skills and innocent charm. It'll be just like old times. I know you haven't been laid in forever, and I've heard that Susan chick in your English class wants you. She'll be there. I guarantee you it's a sure thing, dude..."
He went on and on like this for a while, and it was pretty easy to get bored, but not so easy to interrupt. Brian liked to hear his own voice, and, when he got going, he never shut up.
*
I am alone, fatigued, and have horrible bowel problems. I am close to the city now, though. Or at least the ruins of the city.
I need to find food. The rice I had taken from the university is almost finished. I need to find shelter. It won't be long before the rain starts. The shitty, rancid, nuclear rain.
The rains could kill you.
*
The first time I met Brian I asked him why he was a business major. He looked at me, in all my naivety, and answered my question as if there was only one possible answer -- "I like money."
I had helped Brian get through his Finite Math class. It was weakness really, but, also, I didn't know anyone around campus and I thought getting to know him would help me integrate into university life—not that I cared all that much, but it really does get lonely being around so many people and not knowing anyone.
He took me to a party with him one night and discovered that with the right amount of alcohol and motivation I was actually a pretty good conversationalist and could be quite entertaining. Ever since then he'd been hounding me into going to parties with him or clubbing. I went because I liked the experience of meeting new people. It got me out of my routine and pulled me away from whatever I was into for a little while—whether it was studying, reading, or lately my obsession with the perfect society.
Since I had started working two jobs, I had seen less of Brian. I had barely heard from him since I was so busy. But ever since I'd quit my job at the restaurant and cut my hours down at the library, I'd been seeing more of him. I think Angie taking an interest in me also had something to do with this sudden attention, but I can't really be too sure.
Angie used to be Brian's girlfriend. I think it ended in some horrible way, and I think this had fueled Brian's misogyny—pieces of ass, cunts, pussy, and the rest. I also think that he wanted some measure of revenge. But it's hard to tell, even from hindsight, because Brian really didn't talk very much about his relationship with Angie. It must have been a sore subject.
*
I find sanctuary in what is now the empty, dead husk of an office building. I walk up the stairs of the building. The windows are blown out, but I am able to find old, stale crackers and other things to eat in some of the cabinets. I also find alcohol. Expensive alcohol. Brandy.
*
"Sorry Brian," I said. "Unfortunately, I'm busy studying tonight. I was just taking a break from reading my psychology notes. My final is on Tuesday and I still have three chapters to go."
"You have plenty of time to study. I don't think you understand what you're doing. Susan wants to fuck you in the worst way."
"She wants me to cosign her car loan?"
He paused for a moment. I think it took a full minute to realize I'd told a joke of sorts. He gave something that might be described as a laugh.
"Come on, Pierce. Tag that shit..." and he went on like that for a while. I had trouble paying attention to Brian once he got going.
I'm stuck, because I'm trying to figure out an explanation that won't provoke ridicule and will make him shut up and leave. Once he stopped, my excuse went something like, "I don't know, it just seems that I have better things to do. Besides, I'd rather not flunk out this semester."
*
There are signs of life in the building. Someone is living here and it isn't just one of the thumb-movers.
I hear someone in the office rattling around in the shadows.
I want to say something bold and normal like, "Show yourself." But in reality, madness has crept in. The fringes of my mind are like Japanese o-mikuji papers -- wishful thoughts, twisted and tied, left to blow in the wind.
So I say, "Neee! Neeee!"
The rains start and their acrid smell reminds me that I am close to death, or that I am already dead.
I pull out one of the five books in my satchel: Plato's The Republic. I start reading passages from it.
When I try to read out loud, all I can say is, "We are the knights who say, "Nee!""
I consider the bottle next to me and wonder if Plato will go well with brandy.
*
Brian liked having me around because it helped him feel good about himself. Brian was crude and very clumsy, socially and intellectually clumsy. Because of this, I was sure he had become ingrained with a deep sense of inferiority, which he shielded with a ridiculous amount of bravado. It was embarrassing and magnificent to watch at the same time.
I was pretty sure he hung around me because it made him feel smart. He told me this once, sort of. He told me that it made him feel good that he had someone he could talk to that had about the same level of intelligence. Sometimes he asked if we could talk about something "intelligent" because he was tired of the talks he had with his frat buddies. Sometimes he even brought girls with him to listen, which I thought was humorous, amazing, and sad.
I humored him. I had all sorts of ways to pass the time with conversations. I had done it so often, with so many people, that it had become a chore.
All his frat friends did was drink, swear, and brag about how they fucked women. Whenever Brian had problems with something he came to me because I was supposed to be sensitive, or a good listener, or something. Lately, though, I really hadn't felt like putting up with his shit.
Brian was the most materialistic guy I had met in my life, but the problem was, he wanted it both ways. He was ruthless when it came to possessing things, but when his dad forgot to send his money, or one of his girlfriends told him to fuck off, he cried to me about things: he'd whine about things not being fair and women being bitches, even though the foundations for his success were built on the premises of hierarchy and domination. He couldn't take being someone else's object, the victim of power relations—it was this paradox in his thinking that bugged me more than anything.
*
There are voices in the dark telling me to put on the suit. What suit? In the CEO's suite there are a number of suits that are still wearable. (In other words, the holes from rats weren't too large. The part of me that isn't telling me to wear the suit tells me to eat the suit).
There is no reason to wear a suit in the apocalypse. As far as I can tell the apocalypse is not a formal occasion. But then again, there is no reason to do anything in the apocalypse, except perhaps survive. (Eat the suit!)
My radioactive mushrooms can take me places without suits, but the voice from the shadow keeps saying, "Put it on."
*
I had lost track of our conversation. "What were we talking about again?" I asked him.
"I want you to come party with me so that you can get laid," he said, succinctly.
"Oh, right," I said. "Sorry, but I have all this studying to do. You understand." He didn't, but maybe if I assumed he did, he would just leave.
He began to read the inside cover of the Tao Teh Ching. This really made me angry. Jennifer had written a note on the inside cover that was very personal.
"Would you mind not reading that?" I asked. "That's really very personal."
"What is she? A girlfriend? Was she your first lay? Let me read," he kept reading the book, which had me peeved. There really wasn't anything for him to make fun of in the note, but I didn't like the idea of Brian just invading my privacy like that.
"Shit, it sounds like you have this bitch wrapped around your little finger."
I had had enough. I thought about the easiest way to offend him.
"You don't have to swear. No one else is listening to you," I said.
"What?" He looked kind of startled (success). He couldn't comprehend what I had just said to him.
"Nobody else is listening to you. You don't have to put on your act," I said, nonchalantly. "So just cut out the swearing."
This bothered him. He wasn't enraged, but he suddenly became self-aware. I had never quite been so straightforward with Brian before. I had mentioned a couple of times briefly that I thought he had a deep sense of inferiority, and that sometimes he came on too strong, but I never made a case of it. I never told him what I really thought, which was that he was a phony.
*
I'm sure that I'm not alone in the office building. Something lives there. Something terrible. It whispers to me in the dark.
Wear the suit, it whispers.
But I am already wearing the suit.
When had I put it on?
I read passages from Plato's Republic.
From the shadows, I hear the voice whispering. "Gold." "Rationality." "Born to rule."
*
I had put it to him very straightforward now. I was pushing toward conflict because I needed it.
"I don't know what you're talking about, fucker." His face was turning red, more with embarrassment, though, than with anger. He knew he was becoming red too, and he was trying to hide it. I could see his embarrassment turning to anger.
I decided to ease up. Why get into something I didn't have to, especially with Brian, who despite his crudeness, meant well.
"Fine, you're right," I said. "Besides, you know I just get jealous when you swear like that, my being the product of a strict Christian upbringing and all." He was confused by this last remark. He couldn't decide whether I was giving ground with an apology or making a joke. Either way, it disarmed his anger, and thus, worked the same as an apology. He still held my book, though, which bothered me.
We looked at each other for a long moment.
He finally said, "Are you coming tonight?"
"No, I'm not. I already told you that."
"You have to," he said. "I told Susan you'd be there. It was the only way to get her cute friend to come along..." He spent some more time trying to convince me, but I really couldn't concentrate on anything he was saying because he was holding Jennifer's book in his grubby little hands. Eventually, he said something like, "Take Susan and ask her to cook breakfast when you're done. That way if the sex is bad, you can at least get a decent meal out of it." It was getting pretty bad, and I didn't really want to listen to any more of his crap.
"I need my book back," I told him. He didn't give me the book back.
"Why are you so mental about this book?"
"It's not mine, I told you this already. My friend gave it to me. I can't let it get messed up. See, look, your sweaty palms are already soaking the pages," I said.
"Fuck you."
We just looked at each other for a long time, again. The whole situation was becoming annoying, but I could see that he was bent on trying to get me to go with him. I was pretty sure that he actually had promised Susan that I would be there, and he was worried he would look bad if he didn't deliver. I wasn't going to go, though. Simply put, I didn't like hanging out with Brian anymore. And I certainly didn't want to be a pawn in some scheme to satisfy his sex drive, or social drive, or any other drive.
Then he did something that was pretty incredible, but which I thought was so much like Brian. He simply assumed that I would go, and then he took Jennifer's book as leverage. He said, "I'm going to hold onto this. You give me a call on my cellphone. I'll be up in my dorm getting ready. Be there in about a half hour."
He walked off with her book. I guess I hadn't wounded his ego as much as I should have. When I had the chance I should have embarrassed the hell out him. I should have just called him a phony, a tool, a douche bag, snatched the book out of his hands and left.
*
In the executive suite of the office building, I can see that the acrid, nuclear rain has stopped. It has cleansed some of the finger-twitching-zombies and made a rich landscape for mushrooms that could send me to far off places, make me forget about food, and expedite the end of my existence in this world.
I am also, now, wearing a suit listening to whispers in the dark -- "Gold." "Rationality." "Born to rule."
The Tao Teh Ching. Is that one of the books in my bag? I want to look inside my bag but find myself drinking brandy instead.
"The behemoth..." I whisper. "He's here. He's hungry."
The whispers echo in my head louder. "Born to rule."
Waltz with Behemoth (excerpt from Sage and the Scarecrow)
This chapter is a continuation of my last blog post "Enter the Behemoth".
Project Summary: The following is a chapter from my 2004 novel The Sage and the Scarecrow.
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can "cure" him.
Manuscript Note: The parts in the text that are in normal fonts take place in the world we know. The parts in italics take place in an apocalyptic landscape that is either in his imagination or in an unspecified time in the future.
*
He took Jennifer’s book from me—it was a kind of violation. Unknowingly, Brian had crossed a line. I tried not to take it personally. I tried really hard.
I watched him walk off with her book in his hands. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would bring the book back or hurt him the way I wanted to. I guess he was used to abusing me this way.
I sat for a long time in the food court, considering my situation. Angie was either looking for me right now, or she had found some other guy to unload her burden on. My final paper was coming up, along with my psychology final, and my history final. Somehow, though, I couldn’t get over Jennifer’s book in Brian’s sweaty hands. The same hands he probably used to masturbate.
I picked at my food and thought about the Tao Teh Ching in Brian’s sweaty hands, him tossing it around, misplacing it, flipping through it with mild interest, general disregard. Brian had no respect for anything. I could hang out with Brian, just as long as I didn’t have to take him seriously. He could do or say whatever he wanted with me. I just regarded him as the punchline to some joke nobody else was getting. The funniest thing about the way people interacted with Brian was that they took him seriously—that both bothered me and humored me at the same time.
I thought of Jennifer painting at her college and being treated with as little regard as Brian had for the Tao Teh Ching. One fine piece of “ass,” “pussy,” “tail,” all the objectifying words in the vocabulary—regarding her as a thing, just as he regarded the book as a thing. And he would use the book to get what he wanted from me, and in turn, he would use me to get whatever he wanted from some girl. The girl wasn’t Jennifer, but it could’ve been.
*
.The Republic is the heaviest of the five. I had already committed much of it to memory. Horrible, fallible, memory.
Beware the one book, the professor’s voice says in my head.
Shut up. Shut up.
The other voice is whispering from the shadows. I rip a few pages out of the Republic. I fold them and put them in my satchel with the other books.
I lift the book like a weapon.
I would kill the thing in the shadow. The behemoth.
*
I imagined what it would be like fighting with Brian. It always ended the same way, getting in a first punch and then losing badly.
He was bigger. I couldn’t beat him the way I wanted to, but I could beat him. I was sure of it. I thought about his fancy car, his women, the wing of the dorm named after his father: all these things pointed an unequivocal finger toward my objective, and Brian’s demise. When it came down to it, Brian’s luxury bred a very specific type of weakness.
But I couldn’t think about Jennifer anymore. I finished my turkey sub and orange juice. I cleaned up and went for a walk. I took a longer path toward the dorm just to cool off. I walked by the lake at the edge of our school and sat on a bench for a little while. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t leave without me.
After I waited long enough I went to Brian’s dorm and knocked softly. He opened the door. He was with one of his frat brothers. He introduced me. Said something dumb. Laughed with his frat brother. I didn’t. I didn’t say anything.
“There’s no way you’re going like that, are you?”
I told him that I was going, but that first I needed to return the book before I left or else the girl would be mad at me. “Come on Brian,” I said. “You wouldn’t make me look bad in front of one of my ladies, would you?”
I saw that he had just left the book on his table like a dumbass. I took it and then left without saying goodbye.
I went back to my dorm, an Angie-less dorm, thank goodness, and closed the door. I opened up Jennifer’s book, began to read.
I waited.
*
. I pretend for a moment that I’m not the weakling I am, waiting in the shadows, hiding. This time, I’ll be the hunter. I take a small piece of magic mushroom. It doesn’t take long before its magic begins to work.
My suit is now shaded the color of a lion’s skin. The heavy copy of Plato’s The Republic is strong enough to fashion into a spear: gold, silver, and bronze.
“Gold.” “Rationality.” “Born to rule.”
The Republic is my weapon. I would use it as a spear.
*
A year ago I would have tried to fight Brian. That was before last summer, before my dad’s cancer had gotten really bad. Before I had to deal with things like the will, and medical bills, and my dad’s violent spells of vomiting.
“What the fuck,” he said, when he entered the room. “Why’d you have to disrespect me like that in front of my friend? You’re still mad because I took your book?”
“What, you mean this book?” I said, holding it up so he could see it.
He just looked at me. He thought I was his best friend. He acted like I was his best friend.
“The book with the inscription on the back cover. I’m sure you didn’t read the one on the back cover. It’s from a girl named Jennifer. Do you have any idea who Jennifer is? She doesn’t go here because she’s dead, Brian. I have talked about her probably a million times, I just don’t think you’ve been listening to me.”
I said this nonchalantly, the same way he handled Jennifer’s book. It was a lie of course. I had never talked to Brian about Jennifer, or anything else that was important to me for that matter.
“Jennifer’s a girl I knew in high school. She was my girl. I fucked her rotten, Brian. Man, I lost track of how many times I fucked her. I had her and then I made her make me breakfast, just like you said. Let me tell you something, she was one solid piece of ass. I would lend you her number, but you see she died of cancer, you colossal, worthless fuck. Have you ever known someone with cancer, Brian? Have you watched someone’s hair fall out, and their skin dry up, and their cheeks hollow out. I don’t think you have. And I don’t think you’ve been listening to me. Because the girl’s name on the back cover died a horrible death. Much worse than you’ll see in your lifetime.”
This was a lie. Jennifer never died of cancer. My dad had died of cancer, not Jennifer. But I was not a nice person anymore. I made him feel worse.
“My senior year of high school she was in-between hospitals. I was in-between girls, because let’s face it, who would ever want to date a girl with fucking cancer? I tell you what, though: if she could have been only half the fuck she was…sure couldn’t cook afterwards, though. Don’t you hate it when the bitches whine and moan like that? All she could do was give me this fucking book. See, look, she even wrote all over the pages. Poor bitches with cancer are the worst, don’t you agree?”
He was crying by this point. I’d never seen a grown man sob like he did. When it came down to it, he was really very weak. I was crying a little too. The things I said hurt, even though I didn’t want them to. It helped my cause, though, because Brian was about to break down. At this point, I just wanted to make him hurt. I wanted him to rethink any ideas he ever had about using women like Jennifer. I wanted him to suffer.
“See the picture inside?” He wasn’t looking. “Look at her, fucker!” I showed him the picture, but he wouldn’t look. “I want you to go out tonight and think of her cancerous body while you fuck whichever girl you’re going to fuck!” I was yelling at this point. I threw the book at him, purposely missing. He walked out of the room, sobbing like a baby. I wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to get a grip.
Originally, I hadn’t meant to be that cruel. I thought maybe I should’ve just hit him, and lost a fight. It seemed like a much better solution afterwards.
Something had happened to me. I had lost control. I picked up the Tao Teh Ching and tried to smooth out the pages. I felt like throwing it away. I felt sick. I went into the bathroom and threw up. I felt like tearing up the pages, but this was not Jennifer’s fault. My losing control was not her fault. I kept telling myself this. I put her picture back in the book and smoothed out the pages. I thought about going to find Brian. But then I thought about people like Brian sitting next to Jennifer in classrooms and at frat parties (even though I knew she would never go to a frat party). I decided not to.
*
. When I find my prey, I plunge my spear deep into its bowels.
Perhaps at one time it had been a behemoth. But when the mushroom’s magic wears off, I am just a hollowed out man in an old tattered suit.
My behemoth is just a decaying corpse in a decaying office.
My copy of the Republic is nowhere to be found. There is nothing in my hand, but my stomach feels lighter. I imagine that in my fever-dream I must have eaten it.
“Gold.” “Rationality.” “Born to rule.”
It was my own voice echoing from my head into the world. The hollow mantra of a world that had destroyed itself.
Project Summary: The following is a chapter from my 2004 novel The Sage and the Scarecrow.
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can "cure" him.
Manuscript Note: The parts in the text that are in normal fonts take place in the world we know. The parts in italics take place in an apocalyptic landscape that is either in his imagination or in an unspecified time in the future.
*
He took Jennifer’s book from me—it was a kind of violation. Unknowingly, Brian had crossed a line. I tried not to take it personally. I tried really hard.
I watched him walk off with her book in his hands. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would bring the book back or hurt him the way I wanted to. I guess he was used to abusing me this way.
I sat for a long time in the food court, considering my situation. Angie was either looking for me right now, or she had found some other guy to unload her burden on. My final paper was coming up, along with my psychology final, and my history final. Somehow, though, I couldn’t get over Jennifer’s book in Brian’s sweaty hands. The same hands he probably used to masturbate.
I picked at my food and thought about the Tao Teh Ching in Brian’s sweaty hands, him tossing it around, misplacing it, flipping through it with mild interest, general disregard. Brian had no respect for anything. I could hang out with Brian, just as long as I didn’t have to take him seriously. He could do or say whatever he wanted with me. I just regarded him as the punchline to some joke nobody else was getting. The funniest thing about the way people interacted with Brian was that they took him seriously—that both bothered me and humored me at the same time.
I thought of Jennifer painting at her college and being treated with as little regard as Brian had for the Tao Teh Ching. One fine piece of “ass,” “pussy,” “tail,” all the objectifying words in the vocabulary—regarding her as a thing, just as he regarded the book as a thing. And he would use the book to get what he wanted from me, and in turn, he would use me to get whatever he wanted from some girl. The girl wasn’t Jennifer, but it could’ve been.
*
.The Republic is the heaviest of the five. I had already committed much of it to memory. Horrible, fallible, memory.
Beware the one book, the professor’s voice says in my head.
Shut up. Shut up.
The other voice is whispering from the shadows. I rip a few pages out of the Republic. I fold them and put them in my satchel with the other books.
I lift the book like a weapon.
I would kill the thing in the shadow. The behemoth.
*
I imagined what it would be like fighting with Brian. It always ended the same way, getting in a first punch and then losing badly.
He was bigger. I couldn’t beat him the way I wanted to, but I could beat him. I was sure of it. I thought about his fancy car, his women, the wing of the dorm named after his father: all these things pointed an unequivocal finger toward my objective, and Brian’s demise. When it came down to it, Brian’s luxury bred a very specific type of weakness.
But I couldn’t think about Jennifer anymore. I finished my turkey sub and orange juice. I cleaned up and went for a walk. I took a longer path toward the dorm just to cool off. I walked by the lake at the edge of our school and sat on a bench for a little while. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t leave without me.
After I waited long enough I went to Brian’s dorm and knocked softly. He opened the door. He was with one of his frat brothers. He introduced me. Said something dumb. Laughed with his frat brother. I didn’t. I didn’t say anything.
“There’s no way you’re going like that, are you?”
I told him that I was going, but that first I needed to return the book before I left or else the girl would be mad at me. “Come on Brian,” I said. “You wouldn’t make me look bad in front of one of my ladies, would you?”
I saw that he had just left the book on his table like a dumbass. I took it and then left without saying goodbye.
I went back to my dorm, an Angie-less dorm, thank goodness, and closed the door. I opened up Jennifer’s book, began to read.
I waited.
*
. I pretend for a moment that I’m not the weakling I am, waiting in the shadows, hiding. This time, I’ll be the hunter. I take a small piece of magic mushroom. It doesn’t take long before its magic begins to work.
My suit is now shaded the color of a lion’s skin. The heavy copy of Plato’s The Republic is strong enough to fashion into a spear: gold, silver, and bronze.
“Gold.” “Rationality.” “Born to rule.”
The Republic is my weapon. I would use it as a spear.
*
A year ago I would have tried to fight Brian. That was before last summer, before my dad’s cancer had gotten really bad. Before I had to deal with things like the will, and medical bills, and my dad’s violent spells of vomiting.
“What the fuck,” he said, when he entered the room. “Why’d you have to disrespect me like that in front of my friend? You’re still mad because I took your book?”
“What, you mean this book?” I said, holding it up so he could see it.
He just looked at me. He thought I was his best friend. He acted like I was his best friend.
“The book with the inscription on the back cover. I’m sure you didn’t read the one on the back cover. It’s from a girl named Jennifer. Do you have any idea who Jennifer is? She doesn’t go here because she’s dead, Brian. I have talked about her probably a million times, I just don’t think you’ve been listening to me.”
I said this nonchalantly, the same way he handled Jennifer’s book. It was a lie of course. I had never talked to Brian about Jennifer, or anything else that was important to me for that matter.
“Jennifer’s a girl I knew in high school. She was my girl. I fucked her rotten, Brian. Man, I lost track of how many times I fucked her. I had her and then I made her make me breakfast, just like you said. Let me tell you something, she was one solid piece of ass. I would lend you her number, but you see she died of cancer, you colossal, worthless fuck. Have you ever known someone with cancer, Brian? Have you watched someone’s hair fall out, and their skin dry up, and their cheeks hollow out. I don’t think you have. And I don’t think you’ve been listening to me. Because the girl’s name on the back cover died a horrible death. Much worse than you’ll see in your lifetime.”
This was a lie. Jennifer never died of cancer. My dad had died of cancer, not Jennifer. But I was not a nice person anymore. I made him feel worse.
“My senior year of high school she was in-between hospitals. I was in-between girls, because let’s face it, who would ever want to date a girl with fucking cancer? I tell you what, though: if she could have been only half the fuck she was…sure couldn’t cook afterwards, though. Don’t you hate it when the bitches whine and moan like that? All she could do was give me this fucking book. See, look, she even wrote all over the pages. Poor bitches with cancer are the worst, don’t you agree?”
He was crying by this point. I’d never seen a grown man sob like he did. When it came down to it, he was really very weak. I was crying a little too. The things I said hurt, even though I didn’t want them to. It helped my cause, though, because Brian was about to break down. At this point, I just wanted to make him hurt. I wanted him to rethink any ideas he ever had about using women like Jennifer. I wanted him to suffer.
“See the picture inside?” He wasn’t looking. “Look at her, fucker!” I showed him the picture, but he wouldn’t look. “I want you to go out tonight and think of her cancerous body while you fuck whichever girl you’re going to fuck!” I was yelling at this point. I threw the book at him, purposely missing. He walked out of the room, sobbing like a baby. I wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to get a grip.
Originally, I hadn’t meant to be that cruel. I thought maybe I should’ve just hit him, and lost a fight. It seemed like a much better solution afterwards.
Something had happened to me. I had lost control. I picked up the Tao Teh Ching and tried to smooth out the pages. I felt like throwing it away. I felt sick. I went into the bathroom and threw up. I felt like tearing up the pages, but this was not Jennifer’s fault. My losing control was not her fault. I kept telling myself this. I put her picture back in the book and smoothed out the pages. I thought about going to find Brian. But then I thought about people like Brian sitting next to Jennifer in classrooms and at frat parties (even though I knew she would never go to a frat party). I decided not to.
*
. When I find my prey, I plunge my spear deep into its bowels.
Perhaps at one time it had been a behemoth. But when the mushroom’s magic wears off, I am just a hollowed out man in an old tattered suit.
My behemoth is just a decaying corpse in a decaying office.
My copy of the Republic is nowhere to be found. There is nothing in my hand, but my stomach feels lighter. I imagine that in my fever-dream I must have eaten it.
“Gold.” “Rationality.” “Born to rule.”
It was my own voice echoing from my head into the world. The hollow mantra of a world that had destroyed itself.
Blonde as the Ocean is Blue (Sage and the Scarecrow)
Project Summary: The following is Chapter 4 from my 2004 novel The Sage and the Scarecrow.
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
If you are interested in reading the eventual completed revised edition of “The Sage and the Scarecrow”, please email me at ghostsofnagasaki [at] gmail [dot] com
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. In his mind, there are two worlds. In one world he is a second-year college student trying to finish the semester; in another world, he roams an apocalyptic landscape searching for scraps of wisdom that will lead him to the perfect society. In both worlds, he is on a quest to find a girl named Jennifer, his best friend, true love, and the only person he believes can cure him.
Blonde as the Ocean is Blue
Or
Magic Mushrooms and Coconut Horses
There is a girl on the beach as the mushroom clouds blossom. The world is ending slowly. She holds my hand. She doesn’t tell me everything will be alright. She’s silent, but her hand transmits a message: Things will survive that are beautiful and one day, the things that gave you great joy and hope will live again on this planet or another.
Her hair is blonde like the ocean is blue and takes me to places far away.
...the memory vanishes and I’m cold now. The professor / wiseman has left me. I decide to tear several pages from one of the books in the satchel.
“Fat heard in her rational tone the harp of nihilism, the twang of the void.” The words of Horselover Fat. And then gone in the blaze.
I take pages from another book. “I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the Earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again.” The words disappear into a blaze and keep me warm.
The fire burns crisp and clean and I try to remember what it’s like to feel her hand in mine. I start to lose the memory and with it myself. The fire disappears for a moment, and then I’m truly alone.
*
Enough time had elapsed for me to think that Angie had left. I went upstairs to my dorm, which (to my relief) was empty. I picked up my notes for psychology along with my copy of the Tao Teh Ching and took the elevator downstairs.
By this time it was getting dark, and I was beginning to feel hungry, so I stopped at the food court and picked up a turkey sub and some orange juice from one of the delis. I sat down alone and began to look over my notes for psychology. After about thirty minutes of looking over them, I took a break and began to skim through my copy of the Tao Teh Ching.
A long time ago my friend Jennifer had given the book to me. I used a picture of her as a bookmark. In this picture she’s at school. She gives me the peace sign with a simple smile. She’s impossibly young in the photo.
*
I had begun meditating some time ago, not because I needed some spiritual energy or something, although it probably couldn’t hurt, but because I wanted to understand Taoism. Jennifer had given me the book on the condition that I begin meditating every day. It seemed silly. At one point I even bought some incense candles and a CD with some ancient monks chanting. I think it bothered my roommate. He dropped out midway through the semester, not because of the chanting, but because of other problems that I really never found out too much about (probably drugs).
I had read the Tao Teh Ching many times since Jennifer had given it to me. Wonderfully abstract, with its references to the synthesis of a whole, it reminded me of the philosophy of G.W.F Hegel, although Jennifer would kill me if she knew I was comparing Taoism to western philosophy.
*
There are mushrooms in one of the fields. I hope they have magical properties. I need magic to go back. I need to go back to a time in high school where things seemed okay.
*
The introduction of the book says the Tao Teh Ching “is suggestion rather than statement…a boldness and exuberance of expression for which paradox is the only adequate form…it challenges us at every turn to expand our view of life’s possibilities”; this statement occupied my mind for a long time. At one point late in my freshman year, the passage had even spurred me to write an essay on paradox as a form for one of my English courses (I wrote about the writing of Lao Tzu, but also, Nietzsche, Thoreau, and Emerson). Another contribution to the custom house of literary analysis, as Salinger would say.
I ate my sub and concentrated on the phrase: “The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence,” because it was underlined. I had not underlined it, she had, Jennifer. Because it was her book, I had only borrowed it, and I never wrote in it. I knew I would probably never have a chance to give it back to her, but still, I always thought that it would be rude to write in her book.
*
Jennifer is there, but I still can’t see her face clearly.
*
I looked at the photo in the pages of Tao Teh Ching.
*
“You can see me clearly now, can’t you?”
“But I can’t hold the vision long. If the world were to end tomorrow and I lost this photo, I don’t know how long I could hold onto your memory.”
I’m in my room from high school, in the same house I was thinking about selling with my aunt. On the wall of my room is a picture of Monty Python. They were all in armor from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
We sat, leaning up against my bed.
“What do you want to say to me?”
“I don’t know. I write you letters and then I tear them up. I think about what I would say to you over and over and then erase them from my memory like bad dreams.”
“You don’t want to tell me about your quest?”
“I’m so embarrassed,” I confess. “What am I doing?”
There is a voice in the other room.
“Is that my dad?”
“You can go to him. It’s okay.”
“No. No, I’m here with you.”
“How do you know I’m not in the apocalypse with you?” she asks me.
“Easy,” I say in my best British accent. “Because you don’t have shit all over you.”
That made her laugh.
Her face starts to fade.
“What do you want to do?” she asks.
“Watch you read. Watch you paint. Watch you be happy. I just want to be with you.”
She holds my hand until it’s over.
I am back in the field. There are mushrooms everywhere. I feel my stomach cramp up. I’ll vomit pretty soon.
I could kill myself one mushroom at a time so I could sit in a room in my old house with Jennifer again.
I take the mushrooms with radioactive magic properties and put them in the satchel with my books.
I take a very small piece of one of the mushrooms and put it in my mouth.
There is a city off in the distance. The partial mushroom takes effect and a person appears behind me in full knight’s armor with the two halves of coconuts. I nod to him and then I ride on my invisible horse as the man behind me makes the sounds of horse hooves with the clacking of coconuts.
*
I ate my sub, sipped at my fresh-squeezed orange juice, which was very pulpy just the way I liked it, and concentrated on the word “Door,” strangely capitalized.
“The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence,”
It didn’t mean anything. It was translated from kanji and the random capitalization of the word door was simply a figment of a translator’s imagination.
My thoughts turned to another door I had found in a novel I had read this semester. Ambiguous and surreal, I had seen the word in a Kafka novel, The Trial, the parable about the doorkeeper and the man who waits until death to enter the door. Both “Door” and “door” seemed so far from understanding. I thought about what Jennifer would tell me to do: She would have probably told me to move in the spirit of the Tao and forget all about understanding--abandon it--and to just make my mind still. That somehow, through this act, I would be content.
So I did. I tried to make my mind still, not still my mind.
*
Jennifer always said that painting is what happened when you stopped trying.
With my five books, some missing many pages, my magic mushrooms, and the man behind me making the sound of hooves with coconuts, I gallop toward the ruins of a city. I’ll find things there. Perhaps food. Perhaps the library. Perhaps something else. Answers seem too much to hope for.
I start to sing, “Just...re-member...that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving...and revolving at 900 miles an hour…”
*
My mind was still. My mind was beautiful. I was being moved swiftly along an ocean of pages, memory, and hair as blonde as the ocean is blue.
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
If you are interested in reading the eventual completed revised edition of “The Sage and the Scarecrow”, please email me at ghostsofnagasaki [at] gmail [dot] com
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. In his mind, there are two worlds. In one world he is a second-year college student trying to finish the semester; in another world, he roams an apocalyptic landscape searching for scraps of wisdom that will lead him to the perfect society. In both worlds, he is on a quest to find a girl named Jennifer, his best friend, true love, and the only person he believes can cure him.
Blonde as the Ocean is Blue
Or
Magic Mushrooms and Coconut Horses
There is a girl on the beach as the mushroom clouds blossom. The world is ending slowly. She holds my hand. She doesn’t tell me everything will be alright. She’s silent, but her hand transmits a message: Things will survive that are beautiful and one day, the things that gave you great joy and hope will live again on this planet or another.
Her hair is blonde like the ocean is blue and takes me to places far away.
...the memory vanishes and I’m cold now. The professor / wiseman has left me. I decide to tear several pages from one of the books in the satchel.
“Fat heard in her rational tone the harp of nihilism, the twang of the void.” The words of Horselover Fat. And then gone in the blaze.
I take pages from another book. “I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the Earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again.” The words disappear into a blaze and keep me warm.
The fire burns crisp and clean and I try to remember what it’s like to feel her hand in mine. I start to lose the memory and with it myself. The fire disappears for a moment, and then I’m truly alone.
*
Enough time had elapsed for me to think that Angie had left. I went upstairs to my dorm, which (to my relief) was empty. I picked up my notes for psychology along with my copy of the Tao Teh Ching and took the elevator downstairs.
By this time it was getting dark, and I was beginning to feel hungry, so I stopped at the food court and picked up a turkey sub and some orange juice from one of the delis. I sat down alone and began to look over my notes for psychology. After about thirty minutes of looking over them, I took a break and began to skim through my copy of the Tao Teh Ching.
A long time ago my friend Jennifer had given the book to me. I used a picture of her as a bookmark. In this picture she’s at school. She gives me the peace sign with a simple smile. She’s impossibly young in the photo.
*
I had begun meditating some time ago, not because I needed some spiritual energy or something, although it probably couldn’t hurt, but because I wanted to understand Taoism. Jennifer had given me the book on the condition that I begin meditating every day. It seemed silly. At one point I even bought some incense candles and a CD with some ancient monks chanting. I think it bothered my roommate. He dropped out midway through the semester, not because of the chanting, but because of other problems that I really never found out too much about (probably drugs).
I had read the Tao Teh Ching many times since Jennifer had given it to me. Wonderfully abstract, with its references to the synthesis of a whole, it reminded me of the philosophy of G.W.F Hegel, although Jennifer would kill me if she knew I was comparing Taoism to western philosophy.
*
There are mushrooms in one of the fields. I hope they have magical properties. I need magic to go back. I need to go back to a time in high school where things seemed okay.
*
The introduction of the book says the Tao Teh Ching “is suggestion rather than statement…a boldness and exuberance of expression for which paradox is the only adequate form…it challenges us at every turn to expand our view of life’s possibilities”; this statement occupied my mind for a long time. At one point late in my freshman year, the passage had even spurred me to write an essay on paradox as a form for one of my English courses (I wrote about the writing of Lao Tzu, but also, Nietzsche, Thoreau, and Emerson). Another contribution to the custom house of literary analysis, as Salinger would say.
I ate my sub and concentrated on the phrase: “The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence,” because it was underlined. I had not underlined it, she had, Jennifer. Because it was her book, I had only borrowed it, and I never wrote in it. I knew I would probably never have a chance to give it back to her, but still, I always thought that it would be rude to write in her book.
*
Jennifer is there, but I still can’t see her face clearly.
*
I looked at the photo in the pages of Tao Teh Ching.
*
“You can see me clearly now, can’t you?”
“But I can’t hold the vision long. If the world were to end tomorrow and I lost this photo, I don’t know how long I could hold onto your memory.”
I’m in my room from high school, in the same house I was thinking about selling with my aunt. On the wall of my room is a picture of Monty Python. They were all in armor from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
We sat, leaning up against my bed.
“What do you want to say to me?”
“I don’t know. I write you letters and then I tear them up. I think about what I would say to you over and over and then erase them from my memory like bad dreams.”
“You don’t want to tell me about your quest?”
“I’m so embarrassed,” I confess. “What am I doing?”
There is a voice in the other room.
“Is that my dad?”
“You can go to him. It’s okay.”
“No. No, I’m here with you.”
“How do you know I’m not in the apocalypse with you?” she asks me.
“Easy,” I say in my best British accent. “Because you don’t have shit all over you.”
That made her laugh.
Her face starts to fade.
“What do you want to do?” she asks.
“Watch you read. Watch you paint. Watch you be happy. I just want to be with you.”
She holds my hand until it’s over.
I am back in the field. There are mushrooms everywhere. I feel my stomach cramp up. I’ll vomit pretty soon.
I could kill myself one mushroom at a time so I could sit in a room in my old house with Jennifer again.
I take the mushrooms with radioactive magic properties and put them in the satchel with my books.
I take a very small piece of one of the mushrooms and put it in my mouth.
There is a city off in the distance. The partial mushroom takes effect and a person appears behind me in full knight’s armor with the two halves of coconuts. I nod to him and then I ride on my invisible horse as the man behind me makes the sounds of horse hooves with the clacking of coconuts.
*
I ate my sub, sipped at my fresh-squeezed orange juice, which was very pulpy just the way I liked it, and concentrated on the word “Door,” strangely capitalized.
“The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence,”
It didn’t mean anything. It was translated from kanji and the random capitalization of the word door was simply a figment of a translator’s imagination.
My thoughts turned to another door I had found in a novel I had read this semester. Ambiguous and surreal, I had seen the word in a Kafka novel, The Trial, the parable about the doorkeeper and the man who waits until death to enter the door. Both “Door” and “door” seemed so far from understanding. I thought about what Jennifer would tell me to do: She would have probably told me to move in the spirit of the Tao and forget all about understanding--abandon it--and to just make my mind still. That somehow, through this act, I would be content.
So I did. I tried to make my mind still, not still my mind.
*
Jennifer always said that painting is what happened when you stopped trying.
With my five books, some missing many pages, my magic mushrooms, and the man behind me making the sound of hooves with coconuts, I gallop toward the ruins of a city. I’ll find things there. Perhaps food. Perhaps the library. Perhaps something else. Answers seem too much to hope for.
I start to sing, “Just...re-member...that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving...and revolving at 900 miles an hour…”
*
My mind was still. My mind was beautiful. I was being moved swiftly along an ocean of pages, memory, and hair as blonde as the ocean is blue.
Sage and the Scarecrow - The Parable of the Statue
Project Summary: The following is Chapter 7 from my 2004 novel The Sage and the Scarecrow.
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
If you are interested in reading the eventual completed revised edition of “The Sage and the Scarecrow”, please email me at ghostsofnagasaki [at] gmail [dot] com.
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. In his mind, there are two worlds. In one world he is a second-year college student trying to finish the semester; in another world, he roams an apocalyptic landscape searching for scraps of wisdom that will lead him to the perfect society. In both worlds, he is on a quest to find a girl named Jennifer, his best friend, true love, and the only person he believes can cure him.
The Philosophy of Fuck All
Or
The Parable of the Statue
In the picture I have stuck between the pages of the Tao Teh Ching Jennifer is wearing her glasses with thick black plastic frames proudly as a testament to her geekdom. Whenever I think of her, I always think of her with those same thick black frames around her eyes.
After Brian left my dorm, I looked at that picture for a long time. I sat in my chair at my desk and looked and looked and thought about her with the gorgeous blonde hair, that smile, those brilliant and positive eyes, and that way of making me feel...like the world wasn’t coming to an end.
I think about her and what she would think about what I have become.
*
In my wandering through the city I come upon a statue.
The acrid, nuclear rain has melted parts of the statue into something inhuman. It has nothing that could be recognized as a face, and the parts that are supposed to look like hands and fingers are molded into stumps.
I try to recall a passage from the Tao Teh Ching. I try to bring something to life from my useless memory. The passage has to do with heaven and earth and their connection.
The statue mumbles to me, “...not live for themselves.”
“That’s right,” I say with an exhausted smile. “They live for each other. Heaven and earth live for each other.”
I haven’t taken any magic mushrooms. The statue must really be alive.
I look up but don’t recognize any form. Its melted face and hands are something less than human. Only when I turn away does it speak to me.
*
At some point I stopped looking at the picture and put it back inside the pages of the book. I thought about maybe writing some things down. I keep a journal just to write down all the things that happen in my life, get things off my mind, get things straight, the usual reasons.
It helps.
I mixed strange meditations, swearing matches, and essays probing the intricate issues of my life with words that I wrote down to pass the time. It was all there in text to refer back to: a written record of my nonsensical obsessions and neuroses.
I wrote in my journal for a little while. Then I went to the park just near my dorm. To sit on a bench, feel the night air, and think by myself. All worthy pursuits.
A perfect setting for just saying “Fuck all” -- which in just such a setting could be considered coherent philosophy.
“Fuck all” seemed an epiphany at the moment.
It was a December night. Anywhere else it would have been cold, but cradled in the sunshine state so close to the equator, all the night wind could manage was cool. Still I felt a chill come over me. I was shivering.
I sat in a park in my university and thought about my classes and school: How distant and surreal they seemed at the moment, and how little they interested me.
Please don’t rain, I thought. A cool wet night is more than I can bare at the moment.
*
The statue goes silent. I beg it to speak to me. I try to recall more passages from the Tao Teh Ching, but my mind is an empty cabinet, no food nor thought.
I feel a light something touch my shoulder and find part of my dirty shirt melting away.
The acrid nuclear rain has come to put me out of my misery.
*
I slowly began to move away from the F-word to a place less comfortable. I thought about how a man on a plane once recited to me an entire Raymond Carver poem by memory. It was a funny thing to remember at a time like that. It made me feel better, though. He pronounced each word elegantly, and he seemed inspired by the act of remembering.
I don’t remember which poem he had memorized. Perhaps it was “Happiness.”
Here is a few lines from that poem.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
I had never memorized a poem before—I still haven’t. I was born of that generation that thought memory was an antiquated technology.
Only my journal to guide me, or to lead me astray.
*
My useless, useless memory. I can bring forth no words...so the statue refuses to speak.
*
But I knew some of the words to “Werewolves of London,” my dad’s favorite song (“I saw a werewolf drinkin' a piña colada at Trader Vic's / His hair was perfect.”).
The man on the plane told me how he had insomnia, how he hadn’t slept in days. Then he told me about his dating woes, how tough it was to get a date being an insomniac who wasn’t that attractive and who consequently had a bad sense of humor.
I sympathized.
He really did have the worst sense of humor and he never shut up. He made me smile, though. Eventually a joke would hit the mark, and it made the plane ride all that much better. Because, as he told me later on, “Sometimes all you have are bad jokes.”
I think my dad understood this. The man in the airplane sort of reminded me of him. Except my dad never had dark bags underneath his eyes, and, from what I understand of my dad’s youth, he was quite the ladies’ man.
*
The rain continues to fall. I feel a burn on my hand. I feel a burn on my cheek, a sweet kiss from the apocalypse.
I don’t accept death quite yet. I want to live. Or, at least try to live long enough to complete my journey. I look up the statue whose features have been melted into formless shapes. Another drop burns my forehead.
I smile and try my best with my last moments to remember the statue as it used to be. Something beautiful and unique. A glittering poem, a day at the beach, a hug on a bad day from someone you loved, a man on a plane pouring his heart out...
Things that existed before the world decided that “Fuck all” was a better alternative.
*
My entire life was recorded within the hardbound confines of my notebook: my dad, Jennifer, everything. Where was my life going? Where had I gone wrong? How could I do better?
These were all good, healthy, boring questions to ask.
Which is why it was absolutely necessary to reject them.
Instead I leaned heavily on the crutch of “Fuck all,” this simple phrase that solved so many more problems at the moment. The highest plain on Hegel’s dialectical hierarchy ended in two word.
I should write a paper on it, was my thinking. It will be all about moving from the philosophically pristine goal of objective truth toward an existentialist stance of what’s the point (similar to Nietzsche’s statement “God is dead”?). Fuck all was the highest truth because I was ready to fight wars and go on pilgrimages for it. Soon every man shall know the glory of the doctrine of Fuck All.
The thought was an especially funny one, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I must have looked like a madman, sitting alone on a Friday night in a park near my dorm when I thought the rain might come, laughing to myself.
*
More of the acrid nuclear rain comes to burn my skin. I laugh a little with my cries of pain.
I look up.
For a moment, I think I can see a face. Someone happy at a time when normal pleasures were normal. I pretend that I recognize this person and his normal happiness. I pretend it’s someone gentle, a familiar face.
The only friends in the apocalypse are the ones you insist on seeing, even when they are not there.
“Despite it all,” I tell the faceless statue, “I want to live just a while longer so I can know a pleasure or two not unlike the days before the world said ‘Fuck all.’”
The statue’s body unfurls and bends toward me. It leans forward and covers me from the acrid, shitty, nuclear rain.
Something where his head is supposed to be opens ever so slightly, and I hear these words, “I know how you feel.”
At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
If you are interested in reading the eventual completed revised edition of “The Sage and the Scarecrow”, please email me at ghostsofnagasaki [at] gmail [dot] com.
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. In his mind, there are two worlds. In one world he is a second-year college student trying to finish the semester; in another world, he roams an apocalyptic landscape searching for scraps of wisdom that will lead him to the perfect society. In both worlds, he is on a quest to find a girl named Jennifer, his best friend, true love, and the only person he believes can cure him.
The Philosophy of Fuck All
Or
The Parable of the Statue
In the picture I have stuck between the pages of the Tao Teh Ching Jennifer is wearing her glasses with thick black plastic frames proudly as a testament to her geekdom. Whenever I think of her, I always think of her with those same thick black frames around her eyes.
After Brian left my dorm, I looked at that picture for a long time. I sat in my chair at my desk and looked and looked and thought about her with the gorgeous blonde hair, that smile, those brilliant and positive eyes, and that way of making me feel...like the world wasn’t coming to an end.
I think about her and what she would think about what I have become.
*
In my wandering through the city I come upon a statue.
The acrid, nuclear rain has melted parts of the statue into something inhuman. It has nothing that could be recognized as a face, and the parts that are supposed to look like hands and fingers are molded into stumps.
I try to recall a passage from the Tao Teh Ching. I try to bring something to life from my useless memory. The passage has to do with heaven and earth and their connection.
The statue mumbles to me, “...not live for themselves.”
“That’s right,” I say with an exhausted smile. “They live for each other. Heaven and earth live for each other.”
I haven’t taken any magic mushrooms. The statue must really be alive.
I look up but don’t recognize any form. Its melted face and hands are something less than human. Only when I turn away does it speak to me.
*
At some point I stopped looking at the picture and put it back inside the pages of the book. I thought about maybe writing some things down. I keep a journal just to write down all the things that happen in my life, get things off my mind, get things straight, the usual reasons.
It helps.
I mixed strange meditations, swearing matches, and essays probing the intricate issues of my life with words that I wrote down to pass the time. It was all there in text to refer back to: a written record of my nonsensical obsessions and neuroses.
I wrote in my journal for a little while. Then I went to the park just near my dorm. To sit on a bench, feel the night air, and think by myself. All worthy pursuits.
A perfect setting for just saying “Fuck all” -- which in just such a setting could be considered coherent philosophy.
“Fuck all” seemed an epiphany at the moment.
It was a December night. Anywhere else it would have been cold, but cradled in the sunshine state so close to the equator, all the night wind could manage was cool. Still I felt a chill come over me. I was shivering.
I sat in a park in my university and thought about my classes and school: How distant and surreal they seemed at the moment, and how little they interested me.
Please don’t rain, I thought. A cool wet night is more than I can bare at the moment.
*
The statue goes silent. I beg it to speak to me. I try to recall more passages from the Tao Teh Ching, but my mind is an empty cabinet, no food nor thought.
I feel a light something touch my shoulder and find part of my dirty shirt melting away.
The acrid nuclear rain has come to put me out of my misery.
*
I slowly began to move away from the F-word to a place less comfortable. I thought about how a man on a plane once recited to me an entire Raymond Carver poem by memory. It was a funny thing to remember at a time like that. It made me feel better, though. He pronounced each word elegantly, and he seemed inspired by the act of remembering.
I don’t remember which poem he had memorized. Perhaps it was “Happiness.”
Here is a few lines from that poem.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
I had never memorized a poem before—I still haven’t. I was born of that generation that thought memory was an antiquated technology.
Only my journal to guide me, or to lead me astray.
*
My useless, useless memory. I can bring forth no words...so the statue refuses to speak.
*
But I knew some of the words to “Werewolves of London,” my dad’s favorite song (“I saw a werewolf drinkin' a piña colada at Trader Vic's / His hair was perfect.”).
The man on the plane told me how he had insomnia, how he hadn’t slept in days. Then he told me about his dating woes, how tough it was to get a date being an insomniac who wasn’t that attractive and who consequently had a bad sense of humor.
I sympathized.
He really did have the worst sense of humor and he never shut up. He made me smile, though. Eventually a joke would hit the mark, and it made the plane ride all that much better. Because, as he told me later on, “Sometimes all you have are bad jokes.”
I think my dad understood this. The man in the airplane sort of reminded me of him. Except my dad never had dark bags underneath his eyes, and, from what I understand of my dad’s youth, he was quite the ladies’ man.
*
The rain continues to fall. I feel a burn on my hand. I feel a burn on my cheek, a sweet kiss from the apocalypse.
I don’t accept death quite yet. I want to live. Or, at least try to live long enough to complete my journey. I look up the statue whose features have been melted into formless shapes. Another drop burns my forehead.
I smile and try my best with my last moments to remember the statue as it used to be. Something beautiful and unique. A glittering poem, a day at the beach, a hug on a bad day from someone you loved, a man on a plane pouring his heart out...
Things that existed before the world decided that “Fuck all” was a better alternative.
*
My entire life was recorded within the hardbound confines of my notebook: my dad, Jennifer, everything. Where was my life going? Where had I gone wrong? How could I do better?
These were all good, healthy, boring questions to ask.
Which is why it was absolutely necessary to reject them.
Instead I leaned heavily on the crutch of “Fuck all,” this simple phrase that solved so many more problems at the moment. The highest plain on Hegel’s dialectical hierarchy ended in two word.
I should write a paper on it, was my thinking. It will be all about moving from the philosophically pristine goal of objective truth toward an existentialist stance of what’s the point (similar to Nietzsche’s statement “God is dead”?). Fuck all was the highest truth because I was ready to fight wars and go on pilgrimages for it. Soon every man shall know the glory of the doctrine of Fuck All.
The thought was an especially funny one, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I must have looked like a madman, sitting alone on a Friday night in a park near my dorm when I thought the rain might come, laughing to myself.
*
More of the acrid nuclear rain comes to burn my skin. I laugh a little with my cries of pain.
I look up.
For a moment, I think I can see a face. Someone happy at a time when normal pleasures were normal. I pretend that I recognize this person and his normal happiness. I pretend it’s someone gentle, a familiar face.
The only friends in the apocalypse are the ones you insist on seeing, even when they are not there.
“Despite it all,” I tell the faceless statue, “I want to live just a while longer so I can know a pleasure or two not unlike the days before the world said ‘Fuck all.’”
The statue’s body unfurls and bends toward me. It leans forward and covers me from the acrid, shitty, nuclear rain.
Something where his head is supposed to be opens ever so slightly, and I hear these words, “I know how you feel.”
