Looping Wor(l)d

“only compiled memories of clues, announcements, intimations, but never the central truth itself, which must somehow each time be too bright for her memory to hold; which must always blaze out, destroying its own message irreversibly, leaving an overexposed blank when the ordinary world came back.”

A relevant quote from “The Crying of Lot 49” (that is, depending on what chapter you hit, great or infuriating):

“You don’t understand,” getting mad. “You guys, you’re like Puritans are about the Bible. So hung up with words, words. You know where that play exists, not in that file cabinet, not in any paperback you’re looking for, but-” a hand emerged from the veil of shower-steam to indicate his suspended head-“in here. That’s what I’m for. To give the spirit flesh. The words, who cares? They’re rote noises to hold line bashes with, to get past the bone barriers around an actor’s memory, right? But the reality is in this head. Mine. I’m the projector at the planetarium, all the closed little universe visible in the circle of that stage is coming out of my mouth, eyes, sometimes other orifices also…”

“This River Awakens” is a book written by Steven Erikson (as Steve Lundin, his real name) whose publication (1998) precedes “Gardens of the Moon” by one year. This makes probably his first published work ever. It is going to be republished next year by Bantam UK, and it seems that this new version will differ in some ways:

I know I battled with an editor over my first novel, This River Awakens, and on some fronts I lost that battle — which is why the re-release of that novel will see my fixing it and thus bringing it closer to its original, un-surrendered state. And I use the [nonexistent] term ‘un-surrendered’ quite deliberately here, because I felt that in losing those battles I surrendered some of the sanctity of that novel, and that it suffered for it.

Since I was curious about some opinions on that book I was able to get an used copy of the first version. I was expecting to find some talent in embryonic state, that would then develop in the Malazan series as we know it. Something “greener” than Gardens of the Moon, which is usually considered a bumpy ride on its own. Instead I could be totally fooled if you told me this was Erikson’s most recent and mature book, the result of his craft being honed through 3 millions+ words.

One would also expect that a story set in our world and without fantasy elements would have a kind of prose that is far, far away from Malazan stuff. Instead it couldn’t be closer and even more powerful, as there’s not a secondary world to “separate” and insulate the feelings coming from it. Prose and characterization as sharp as they can be, seemingly coming from an author at the very apex of his possibilities.

I wanted to put here some quotes to show a couple aspects. The beginning of the book is similar to the beginning of Memories of Ice, and you can see how the style carries over (to non-fantasy stuff) without losing anything of its power and suggestion (and the first line is worth among the memorable ones).

Memory begins with a stirring. Spring had arrived. There was life in the air, in the wind that turned the cold into currents of muddy warmth. And life in the ground as well – a loosening of the earth and its secrets, a rustling of spirits and the awakening of the dead.

Like remembrance itself, it was a time when things rose to the surface. Forces pushed up from the tomb of wintry darkness, shattering the river’s ice and spreading the fissures wide. Sunlight seeped down, softening the river bottom’s gelid grip. And things were let go.

What I look on now, after all these years, is a place of myth. For this was a place that told us that there was more than just one world.

This instead a quote from later in the book, again displaying a power of prose and anthropomorphic style of description that permeates everything. The “simple” world seen by a young boy.

The machine in the driveway seemed to be decomposing all on its own: every time I looked it was smaller, as if, now that its soul had been exposed, it was crumbling under the sun. Father had removed most of the larger parts and had carried them into the garage, where each part was placed in its own bucket of gasoline, like organs in jars. A pool of black oil had spread out from the machine – a tar pit collecting plant stuff, insects – I grinned at the thought – woolly rhinoceroses, mastodons…

The pool’s placid surface showed nothing – it might be miles deep – there was just no way to tell. Somewhere under that surface might hide the history of mankind, of the whole world. And, somewhere down in the thick, congealing blackness, there might lie giants, suspended for all time.

But when I picked up a stone and dropped it into the pool it was, of course, less than half an inch deep. And the machine was not the body of some god, exposed and bleeding out Creation like an afterthought. It had no soul, only parts, and none of those parts worked. And it was not as massive and imposing as it had once been. Still, since I as yet had no idea of what its function might be, there was an air of mystery about it; a secret with all the clues laid out, yet still a secret.

I left the garage and walked to the front porch. The door opened and Father stepped out, dressed as usual in his blue coveralls. Placing his hands on his hips, he glared at the machine, then sighed.

“Think you’ll get it to work?” I asked.

And finally another little quote because it’s pertinent with the discussion over at Scott Bakker’s blog:

The room reeked of blood and bile, and the hot air seemed laden with steam. Laughter filled Sten’s skull – the monsters. And yet, suspended somewhere in the haze of his thoughts, remained a detached awareness – a small piece of sanity looking outward into the maelstrom, offering comments now and then with a voice cold and sardonic. Of course they’re laughing, the voice told him now – look around you, Sten, smell the air, taste your lips. It’s reality that’s all around you now, Sten, and it’s no different from this pleasant little house that’s in here – right inside your head. You’ve done it, Sten. You’ve achieved the dream of a million philosophers. You’ve shaped reality to fit your ideal, to a tee. Aren’t you proud?

I received today an ancient-looking book with a stamp of “Berkeley Library, University of California” that I ordered used from Amazon. Title is “The Dream of Reality”.

This Saturday I was randomly discussing “Infinite Jest” with my friends, I come back home and find out Scott Bakker had posted a review of the book. From there, as you can see in the comments, spawned a long discussion between me and him (mostly) as much about the book as about these extreme theories on “reality” and “science”. One of those coincidences, patterns that bend and return to origin.

Anyway, the discussion is mostly there, in the comments, and I won’t even TRY to give a summary over here.

What I’ll do is paste the last page of this book:

THE FINAL SUMMARY

So we have come full circle. Chapter 1 began by identifying how we live in language, an object language that generates an objective reality. The notion of objectivity was then explained from epistemological, linguistic, and neurological perspectives. The principle of undifferentiated encoding was also discussed.
Chapter 4 through 7 then addressed the question: Can we account for cognition without first positing the existence of an objective reality? A closed computational view of the nervous system was offered as an alternative explanation for cognition and our experience of reality. Thus, we have two different accountings for cognition.
The problem of solipsism was introduced, the identity of another stipulated, and, by evoking the principle of relativity, the world postulated. The observer’s choice to infer the world based upon the experience of perceiving another observer was then offered as the basis for ethical behavior.
The question was then raised: Since these two accountings, these two epistemologies, use and need language, can they account for language? We found that only constructivism’s connotative notion of language allows for the emergence of language – second-order behavior arising in social context.
A denotative language generates an objective reality but cannot generate itself; it cannot account for itself. A connotative language can account for both human experience and the emergence of language.
Thus, the final chapter closes the thoughts in this book by folding Chapter 7 back to Chapter 1, closing this system of ideas – the final closure. Therefore, I would like to suggest that if the reader has the time and interest, it would be extremely useful to reread this book. If one accepts the notion that we are nontrivial machines, then it is but a short step to assume that each recursive journey through these seven chapters will be a different experience.

Heinz Von Foerster, a man of infinite jest.

Some quotes from a randomly found article.

What does cultural materialism do? It seeks “to allow the literary text to ‘recover its histories’ which previous kinds of study have often ignored” although the “relevant history is not just that of four hundred years ago, but that of the times (including our own)

The cultural materialist is likewise “optimistic about the possibility of change and is willing at times to see literature as a course of oppositional values”—oppositional, that is, to the “structures of feeling” that are the “dominant ideologies within a society” (Barry 183-4). This creates a need to consider “ALL forms of culture” (183), or in other words to climb deeper the way Oedipa does.

Oedipa’s paranoia could well be called optimism, faith that she is not crazy, but that a structure exists in which she CAN find answers. In fact, she can hardly afford NOT to believe it, with so many showcases of that structure materializing around her.

This cultural materialist optimism about “the possibility of change” would suggest, in both cases, that the disinheritance serves the characters for the better, directing them toward a more enlightening epiphany of their place in the world.

In fact, this theme persists in many examples that find room in those branches of that tree. This theme is better defined as a fairy tale escapism, the classic stepping into another world in hopes of a higher understanding. Could it be that, for example, THE MATRIX of the Wachowski brothers has more in common with LOT 49 than just postmodernism?

Like Neo of THE MATRIX, she seeks an escape from isolation and ignorance into a Wonderland where if nothing else she might feel free.

Everything from a rabbit hole and a looking glass to a wardrobe and a vision becomes a doorway into an underworld, or simply ANOTHER world in which the characters at least hope to find clarity.

Wonderland, the Matrix, Never Land, Narnia…these are only advantageous to their guests so far as they can provide a better way for them to see themselves.

This is an escape and indoctrination into a world to the extent that the visitors become “aliens” to their own original setting, no longer contributing to its dominant morality. Alice cannot forget Wonderland, Neo chooses to remain separate from the Matrix, and Oedipa, apparently, cannot continue unless as “unfurrowed, assumed full circle.”

The cultural materialist would best identify with the question Oedipa asks herself: “Shall I project a world?”

In this case, the theory and the texts do not simply validate each other, but instead confirm the structure to which they belong. This structure, in its very essence, seeks to “project” in a variety of ways new worlds by which to interpret reality.