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Middle C
Middle C - Spine 2014
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Discussion - Week Four - Middle C - Chapter 33 - 45
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I finished this book last night. Overall, even though I found it quite funny most of the way through, I think it was fundamentally very sad. The ending, which is in one sense a victory for Joey/Joseph/Professor Skizzen, it also the moment where he seems to have completely replaced any possibility of self with his public (and largely fraudulent) personae. With this loss (or burial?) or self seems to evaporate as well any chance of any meaningful connection to another human being. None of this, however, made me dislike the book. I forsee myself re-reading it in years to come, and I've added it to my favorites. It was really a great end of the year treat.
Nicole wrote: "I finished this book last night. Overall, even though I found it quite funny most of the way through, I think it was fundamentally very sad. The ending, which is in one sense a victory for Joey/Jos..."In the end though aren't you who you pretend to be to others (to badly paraphrase the theme of Mother Night). Could that moment be where he accepts his true self? I wish my reading was fresher, but like you I plan to return to this one.
Or, the moment when Joey/Joseph/Prof Skizzen isn't figured out is when he has finally become nobody at all. There is a sense of tragedy to the whole affair, especially disconcerting is the hints that something has happened to Miriam and he seems completely unaware of it.My thoughts, Miriam his mother has passed away. However, if I'm reading this correctly, this is a good thing. Miriam in some ways is one of the few real characters who is trying to connect with other people. While Joey who has completely fabricated his life is somehow outside that chain of events because he is afraid of it. He has avoided the horrors of humanity, but unfortunately, he has avoided his own as well.
And yet, there are lots of layers here that demand a re-read, especially given that for some of the novel Miriam has an authorial influence over the narrative, particularly from the beginning. Also, It would just be a joy to do a re-read of this novel.
Matthew wrote: "Also, it would just be a joy to do a re-read of this novel."Yes.
I really enjoyed this novel and, like Nicole, found it ultimately sobering at the end of a trail of delightful and tasty crumbs both entertaining and profound. It's not at all the sort of book that I would naturally choose to read and therefore I am particularly interested in the insights and opinions of the other BP readers. Almost despite myself I began to identify with the layered selves under which Joey/Joseph/Prof Skizzen operated; akin to James's observation, I am often even consciously aware that I am tailoring myself to fit the identity I want to represent before the persons and circumstances at hand. I'm not familiar with any of Gass's other works so this one read has left me feeling a little disoriented - as I mentioned, this novel, with its just-short-of stream of consciousness format, is not my usual reading fare.
I really enjoyed Middle C & will be reading more Gass in the future. I'll echo the comments from Nicole and Matthew - I thought that the ending, where Joey has been completely hidden and Skizzen has been perfectly sculpted, was very sad. All identity is a construct and Skizzen is this concept taken to the extreme - there's no speck of truth left, no soul, only facade. I agree that something bad has happened to Miriam. Throughout the story our narrator distanced himself further and further from her, until reaching full Skizzen & not minding if she is dead.I liked the way that Gass teased us by giving glimpses of compelling characters, then leaving us to imagine what happened to them. I loved Mr. Hirk, Hazel Hawkins, The Major & Miss Moss, but their stories drop away when Joey leaves their lives.
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In brief, what was this book about? What was at stake? Why should I care about these characters? What is memorable about the novel? In other words, is this book lauded because it was written by the eminent William H. Gass or for its merit as great literature?
Gass reportedly spent something like 15 years writing this book, and as enjoyable as it is to read his sentences, in the end, it seems like a banal muddle of a novel about some very ordinary, banal muddled people, doing banal muddled things. I haven't been able to find Gass' message or point or whatever, and I'm not sure if he found it either.
Like all of you, I enjoyed reading this book while I was reading it, did not enjoy it after I finished, if that makes sense...
This is how I felt while everyone was loving Under the Volcano this year....I understand what you're saying, even though I didn't really share your experience. I think for me, the aboutness of the book was loneliness and isolation. And also the ways in which lying about who you are to the world can cause that isolation, and also kind of hollow you out to create a distance even from yourself. Go long enough thinking of yourself in the third person -- Joey, Joseph, Professor Skizzen -- and soon you're left with nothing but those guys.
I should say, too, that personally, I was sort of hesitant about whether or not to participate in this read: it meant buying the book when we're short on shelf space, and I was very worried that it was going to turn out to be over-hyped because of the whole greatwilliamhgass thing. So the book actually (pleasantly) surprised me. I was also surprised by how not-painy in the brainy it was, so I wonder if that's part of it for you. Structurally, it's pretty much just a novel like any other.
Conclusions/Book as a whole