Not That Kind of Girl

 If you watch HBO’s Girls, you see Lena Dunham naked approximately 5,000 times. If you read Not That Kind of Girl*, you see Lena Dunham emotionally naked roughly the same amount. I initially opened the book and thought wow…an open book! I was not astounded by my ability to literally open up the pages (although I had just painted my nails, so that's kind of impressive); I was amazed with the candidness it contained. Lena concedes that she does not possess a wealth of wisdom, yet maintains that she might still have something to offer. She tells readers, “If I can take what I’ve learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine will have been worthwhile” (Dunham, xvii). She comedically shares her insecurities so that we might feel less insecure ourselves. That way she can beat anyone to the punch when it comes to making fun of herself!

Even if you do not enjoy her quirky mannerisms or value her sense of humor, you can appreciate this woman’s incredible accomplishments. After all, she started writing/directing/acting in an award-winning television show at age 25! I can’t decide if that makes me feel inspired or if it makes me feel like complete shit. Oftentimes when I find myself watching sports (like one of those cool girls, ya know) I’ll experience an unwelcome epiphany. In between my douchey, unsubtle attempts at knowledge-dropping (“they’ve made a lot of points in the paint tonight”, “that was an incredible pick-six”, “didn’t ____ used to play for ___”, etc.) I’ll think about the players’ absurd degree of talent at such a young age and become disillusioned. But athletic skill is one thing; creative skill is entirely another. A famous football player might have a streak of bad games, but Lena is completely and totally exposing her artistic prowess, allowing the world to judge her creativity—a talent that is much more abstract and arguably more daunting to display. Furthermore, her impetus to write has an existential undertone that I obviously eat right up. She explains to a fellow writer, ‘“In our work, we create a better or clearer universe…or at least one that makes more sense. A place we’d want to live, or can at least understand’” (Dunham, 135). You sense that producing this book is therapeutic for her and you feel blessed for having been ushered into that process beside her. #Blessed.

Her quest for self-actualization is certainly not drama-free. She is theatrical throughout even the most pedantic moments of daily life, which provides her plenty of material to publicly disclose. The memoir book is divided into five chapters, each containing a conglomeration of lists and autobiographical essays. The first section, “Love & Sex” discusses her desperate attempts at losing her virginity, her awkward flirtatious intimations, and her unfortunate penchant for jerks. “Body” details her difficulties dieting (ex: “How to Remain 10 Lbs. Overweight Eating Only Healthy Food”) and her reasoning behind willingly performing her own sex scenes on Girls—“I do it because my boss tells me to. And my boss is me” (Dunham, 105). “Friendship” follows her relationship with her sister and the reasons why she loves New York-- “I like your city… I just like mine better” (Dunham, 157). “Work” relays the sexism she experiences in Hollywood and reminds readers that you can have legitimate aspirations without being ambitious all the freaking time (Can I get an Amen?). Lastly, “Big Picture” meditates on death and therapy and features one of my favorite chapters concerning her hypochondriatic tendencies. There have been complaints from some critics that the book’s structure hops around in an overly-haphazard way. I disagree; each chapter is entertaining in and of itself and I do not think the book was intended to be read as a chronological narrative.

To be honest, I can’t always relate to Lena. We have different (though not clashing) views on love, sex, body image, etc. But Lena makes you relate to her. She fondly forces you to see life through her exuberant eyes and it is difficult to not be transformed by her frankness. Her book—and her show for that matter—make me feel empowered. They suggest that you and I can fulfill our dreams by just being ourselves and staying true to said self. Granted, unlike her, I don’t come from a family of successful artists with hella connections. My dad owns a couple of Hallmarks so I think I could potentially pull a Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 500 Days of Summer and get into the greeting card biz. I also think it is very cool that she has the clout to openly reveal embarrassing stories about people in her life. For God’s sake, she chronicles her past sexual encounters in graphic detail and she currently has a serious boyfriend—the lead singer of the band fun, in fact. He is probably like “what the hell is this?” while everyone else is like “oh, that’s just classic Lena, for ya!” She can get away with so much because she’s funny and bright. I hope that someday I can mortify my loved ones via a similarly public platform. That being said, beware of transgressing me in any way. I will morph into the Taylor Swift of writing and talk all kinds of shit about you.  

In summary, Lena Dunham is on point with her intelligent, snarky swagger and her memoir rightfully earns 4 out of 5 camel humps. As with most comedic books, I do not give out a full 5 humps because it is not a “must-read”--though it is very engaging nonetheless. It is not always lol-funny but it is such a joy to read in that it relieves the burden of complicated life issues without denying their significance. At one point, I was reading it on the bus from DC to NY and I genuinely wanted the ride to be longer so that I could read more. That is a true testament to her ability to entertain because my desire was ridiculous. Buses are awful and I was sitting next to a smelly male who sifted uncomfortably in his seat all too frequently and monopolized the shared armrest. Lena is a lively soul with a good-natured humor that is comically self-deprecating without completely undermining her pride. It would be a mistake to not read this book and miss out on her wit. And because I'm apparently very into memes these days, I will leave you with this:

*Dunham, Lena. Not That Kind of Girl. New York: Random House, 2014. Print.

The Marriage Plot

Dear Mr. Eugenides,

I’m writing to confirm that The Marriage Plot* is a joke. It is a joke, right? One can only assume that you exhausted all of your creative juices on Middlesex and simply had nothing left to give. I am honestly so taken aback by how poorly executed this novel is that I’m considering tweaking my once steadfast anti-censorship views. The contrast between this trite storyline and the creativity of your previous novel (Middlesex review) is shocking, to say the least. Mid-read, I felt like I was watching the film From Dusk Till Dawn. Tarantino is a main character, so you expect great things…up until everyone transforms into low-budget vampires and you realize that you can never un-see the unnecessarily ridiculous shit you just saw. Likewise, I can never recover the time I spent reading this 400 page monstrosity. Be forewarned, however, that I will be suing you for the $4.00 I used to buy the book on Amazon.

You might be wondering why I feel so passionately disappointed by this novel. Simply put: the story is not worth telling. There are three main characters, trapped in a sickening love triangle. Madeline, the woman of mutual desire, is incredibly selfish and so boring that I actually feel burdened when her name is mentioned. To clarify, she is not boring because she is a spoiled, well-educated rich girl. She is boring because she is simple-minded…and she happens to also be a spoiled, well-educated rich girl. For instance, she has a self-imposed rule to never date guys who go to shrinks because she can’t really wrap her mind around the idea of having emotional issues that run deeper than “why hasn’t he called me back yet?” Mr. Eugenides, I’m not sure how much you know about women, but I can assure you that we’re not all sitting in our beds at night, plucking at flower petals and sullenly murmuring, “he loves me… he loves me not”. Instead, I’m currently eating dry Cinnamon Toast Crunch out of the box, listening to Drake talk about how he came through on his Wu-Tang, and trying to figure out why my “I mustache you what time it is” clock won’t properly display the time. I may not be an entirely complex person 24/7 but I am also not pining over men every second of every day and it’s frankly embarrassing that you would reduce the main character to such constant triviality. I understand that these people exist but I sure as hell don’t want to read about them.

Leonard, Madeline’s boyfriend, is a slight step up. We do not find out about his manic-depression until pretty late in the game. This might have been a half-hearted attempt at implying the insidious nature of the disease; instead, it made me feel like I had been lied to and led astray by you for no real, useful purpose. Leonard is a product of neglect and abuse; the dysfunctionality which defines his childhood becomes such a normalcy for him that it warps his ability to maintain romantic relationships later on. He feels like he is undeserving when things are going well in his love-life; these lowered expectations, coupled with his mental illness, effectively sabotage anything good he has going for him. I rooted for him until he pulled a dramatic, immature stunt at the end. I thought we were dealing with young adults in their mid-twenties, not ten year olds. At this point, I would much prefer a love story about ten year olds—specifically one involving Stan Marsh and Wendy Testaburger.

Lastly, there is Mitchell, the distant admirer of Madeline and direct foil of Leonard. After graduation, he travels through Europe and Asia, loosely as a spiritual pursuit. I respect that he actively seeks non-superficial pleasures as he tries to determine if truth can be found through the heart and not just the mind. Mainly, though, I am confused by him. His thoughts directly contradict his actions; while this is a fairly common and realistic scenario, it is unsuccessfully implemented as a cogent train of thought in your writing. The contradiction strikes me as less of a practical portrayal and more of an incomprehensible series of events. Read: why the hell are you doing what you’re doing, Mitchell? Stop.

Why would you choose such uninteresting characters for the crux of your novel?! I rue all of the wasted potential. You begin the book with the following quote from Francois de La Rochefoucauld: “People would never fall in love if they hadn’t heard love talked about” (Eugenides, 1). This is a good start; you really had something here that you could run with. It challenges readers—is love merely a social construction? Is love just a mental state that can be manipulated as such? Can you overcome predictability and express a purely original thought? Is newness even a possibility in this day and age? Are we capable of loving people in ways that don’t feel like we’re acting from a script?

I anticipated that this love triangle would be different from the “marriage plots” of previous literature, and I sincerely hoped that it would strike me as unique and unformulaic. I imagined a slew of questions that the novel could address—what defines love? Is it the same for everyone? Can unconventional pathways to love survive and thrive? Your novel, to my dismay, gave very half-ass answers. The book is overwrought with gender tensions, but the only remotely compelling romantic setback centers on Leonard’s bipolar disorder. Leonard’s understanding of love is that it can transcend all differences. Accordingly, he wonders why he and Madeline cannot seem to connect despite his disease. On the other hand, Madeline feels that Leonard is unknowable and thus unlovable unless she immerses herself in his pain and truly understands what he is going through. This sobering conclusion makes her question whether their relationship is strong enough to withstand the trials and tribulations that make Leonard who he is. In this isolated situation, I might think that Madeline is a loving, considerate person; however, taking into account the entire novel, her reluctance reinforces her crippling dependency on men. She is only capable of defining herself in relation to her significant other at the time. I thought I was going to get something refreshing from this novel. Alternatively, I am shown how women’s slavery to domesticity and lack of financial independence in the Victorian era translates to the modern day in your mind: emotional dependency. This is how I feel about people like Madeline:

As a whole, I am thankful that I read this insofar as I can (hopefully) prevent others from making the same mistake. A fellow Goodreads reviewer properly renamed the novel The Marriage Plop. Your characters are flawed in ways that typically make for appealing literature. Unfortunately, they had very little actual substance and I grew weary of crossing my fingers that each subsequent chapter would offer me deeper insights. Usually, even if I am uninterested and uninvested in a book’s plot, I can still appreciate the writing style. Not in this case. I give this book 1 out of 5 camel humps because the fact of the matter is that I would not recommend this to anyone. The 2-hump ratings I have given on the blog thus far (Crime and Punishment review and Heart of Darkness review) acknowledge the respective author’s impressive prose and the cultural relevance of a *classic*. This book is bereft of all such benefits. Its only redeeming quality is its infrequent racy sex scenes. If I’m looking to blush on the subway, there are millions of other methods I would prefer.

Regards,

A Regretful Reader

*Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Marriage Plot. New York: Picador, 2011. Print.

Cat's Cradle

Do not be dismayed by the title! I realize that cats are smelly, underhanded creatures that meet when humans are asleep to deviously plot our demise. Fortunately, the cat in Cat’s Cradle* is not a literal one; the phrase refers to a string game involving two or more players. The first player initiates the game by creating a figure with their fingers and string that simultaneously depicts either a cat or a cradle, depending on the view. Players then go back and forth, creating subsequent figures from a pre-determined list. The game ends when a player chooses a dead-end figure. This sounds like a mind-numbingly boring game. I would rather Yo-Yo for 24 hours straight, performing the only trick I mildly know how to do—“Walk the Dog”—over and over. Regardless, it serves Kurt Vonnegut’s purposes.

Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922. He attended Cornell University where he majored in Chemistry and edited an independent, student-run newspaper. He was also a member of Delta Upsilon, so all you frat boys out there—you have a pretty intelligent brother in your midst. Later in life, he endured some horrific WWII combat experiences, one of which inspired his renowned novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Post-war, he attended the University of Chicago, where Cat’s Cradle served as his thesis. The novel was not only embraced by his professors and the public, Vonnegut himself rated it an A+ in comparison to his other novels.  

I whole-heartedly agree that this story is incredibly inventive; while the novel has a vague historical context, it is entirely fictional. It is narrated by John-- an ordinary man who intends to write a book about the day Hiroshima was bombed. Through this pursuit, he meets the three children of a deceased Felix Hoenikker, the fictitious creator of the atomic bomb. These children possess a secret which leads the entire crew to an island called San Lorenzo. On the surface, San Lorenzo is a Christian country that condemns followers of Bokononism to death. In reality, everyone—even the dictator—is a Bokononist. Political defiance, I like it already!

Bokononism is a faith unabashedly based on lies. The Book of Bokonon is full of foma – “harmless untruths” and Bokonon himself explicitly warns readers to take his religion with a grain of salt. Basically:

He claims that it is utterly foolish to think that you will ever be able to understand the ways of the world or speak knowingly about cosmic significance. What the hell do you know, you’re a stupid human?! I can only imagine how enjoyable it was for Vonnegut to create and define a bunch of kooky words within a kooky, fabricated religion. Implicit in this novel is the idea that all religion is fabricated; no belief system points to an absolute truth and no divine creed accurately explains the existence of humanity. Below is a brief list of some tenets of Bokononism:

• Karass—a group of people that unknowingly help each other perform God’s will. Membership can supersede imposed boundaries like race, class, nationality, etc. Sometimes a karass consists of only two people who are particularly in-tune with each other—this is a duprass.
• Granfalloon—a phony karass. You might think that a shared connection such as similar political stance, fellow college alumni status, or parallel career path could be indicative of a karass type bond, but this is not necessarily the case. This is comforting to me-- after homecoming at UVA last weekend, I realized that while I really enjoy the company of most of you, there are some of you who I think are total asshats and I’d prefer never to see you again, much less share a karass with you.
• Vin-dit—an abrupt, hard shove towards believing in Bokononism. A calling, if you will. 
• Wampeter- the pivot around which the souls of karass members revolve. A wampeter could be anything: a painting, a speech, a plot, a sleeping bag, etc. Additionally, wampeters are impermanent; they come and go, and there is always “one waxing in importance and one waning” (Vonnegut, 52).

Now that that list is over, hopefully I’ll be less bombarded by those little, annoying red squiggly lines coming at me from spell-check. In sum, Bokononism seeks to embody the notion that a useful religion can be founded on lies. San Lorenzo is an underdeveloped, unproductive country overpopulated with poor people. For its inhabitants--who lead miserable, stinking existences-- truth is the enemy. They want to escape the cold, brutal reality of their living standards. In order to distract them from their plight, Bokonon—the island’s ruler at one point, outlawed himself. He wanted to jazz up the people’s lives, noting that, “a really good religion is a form of treason” (Vonnegut, 173).

Though Bokononism seeks to make life more tolerable and peaceful, it does not shy away from cynicism related to the fate of mankind. It balances a wry, irreverent acceptance of the way life ultimately is with the desire to make things as enjoyable and entertaining as possible (absurdism, anyone?). As such, the only thing sacred in the religion is mankind. One story within The Book of Bokonon describes a man questioning his purpose in life. God retorts by inquiring why everything must have a purpose. When the man persists with his original query, God simply says, “‘Then I leave it to you to think of [a purpose] for all this,’” before he drops the mic and walks away (Vonnegut, 265). I did not realize that God had so much swag.

I have some ideas about the deeper meanings of this book; I could be completely pulling them out of my ass or I could (hopefully) be onto something. Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist, i.e. he favors science over religion as a tool to make sense of the world. Because of his philosophical stance, I can do a little deducting. It is not difficult to observe—and personally feel for that matter—that humans are plagued by a throbbing need to have something to live for. In response, we often turn to religion to give our lives meaning and render our existence less mundane and inconsequential. Vonnegut feels that religions and the rituals that accompany them attempt to meet this human need but are sometimes destructive in the process.

Man is sacred in Bokononism which indicates that this particular religion is potentially on to something. According to Vonnegut, religion in general is pretty ridiculous; instead, let’s focus on human agency so that we can actually get some shit done. Towards the end of the book, John acknowledges “the cruel paradox of Bokononist thought…the heartbreaking necessity of lying about reality, and the heartbreaking impossibility of lying about it” (Vonnegut, 284). Newt, one of the Hoenikker children, is a midget. Ruthlessly ridiculed, he would probably love to lie to himself about his height to get through the day, but he obviously cannot. Walking beside another person or stopping to look in the mirror would shatter that lie. So, reality is not always that great and we might not effectively squash our desire for purposeful lives on a wider scale. BUT…let’s do the best we can with what we have and try and adopt a human-centered philosophy that encourages active participation in life and love for all our fellow creatures.

Now, what’s the deal with the title? “Cat’s Cradle” as a game begins with a figure that can be seen as a cat or a cradle, depending on one’s perspective. In my opinion, Vonnegut is making a parallel between the number of different shapes you can make with the string and the various religions we desperately cling to in our attempts at self-assurance. All religions: Bokononism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc., are the same in that they’re made of lies. (Of note: this is my interpretation of Vonnegut and not necessarily reflective of my own beliefs). I am not entirely sure if that is what he meant by the title, but I love that the novel still has me ruminating on the subject and I’m open to suggestions. That being said, there are multiple additional controversial topics underlying the text (arms race, technology, science) that I did not have time to discuss here but might be of interest to another reader.

Overall, I found the novel brilliant and captivating; the story was queer and the philosophy behind it was stimulating. Furthermore, it was a very easy read, with short, digestible chapters. I am a total sucker for gallow’s humor and I absolutely recommend this book to anyone who shares that predilection. Even if you’re not into religion, philosophy, science, being entertained, expanding your knowledge base, etc., the Bokonon aphorisms are both comical and wise enough to draw you in. Lastly, there is a group of people who form the “Camp of Bokonon” and attend Burning Man every year. Considering Burning Man looks like one of the most incredible events that mankind could possibly participate in, I’d say that that confirms this novel is deserving of the 5 out of 5 camel hump realm.

*Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat’s Cradle. New York: The Dial Press, 1963. Print.

Gone Girl

Gone girl*—there’s a girl, and she’s gone! The title does most of my summarizing for me, so I’ll keep it brief and show you the decency of not giving away any more than the back of the book does. As most of you may know, this novel is the inspiration behind the newly released Oscar-buzzing film. Like any female who has eyes, I have a huge crush on Ben Affleck. When I heard that he was going full on nude for this film, I decided I had to read this book as quickly as humanly possible before I could hit the theatres. I’ll put on my movie critic cap for a hot second and say that he honestly was spot on in his portrayal of the character. That naked chick from the Blurred Lines music video also makes an appearance, so guys and girls alike can enjoy because ~objectification is in~.

The novel itself is divided into thirds and each chapter goes back and forth between the husband (Nick Dunne) and the wife (Amy Dunne). Nick’s sister, Margo, is also heavily involved which is tight because she reminds me of Kim Kelly from Freaks and Geeks. The see-saw structure allows the reader to see two perspectives of the same problem—a catastrophically failing marriage. Additionally, in my opinion, it serves as a metaphor for the tug-of-war nature of their relationship. Having been betrothed for five years, they begin to succumb to the claustrophobic strains of both financial and relational hardships; their increasingly blatant lack of connection causes them to become people that they didn’t want to be (nagging, untrusting, overbearing, etc.) which in turn creates an even deeper rift between them due to resentment. Their obligations slowly morph into “Love-Honor-and Obey” because they can no longer differentiate between the concepts of love and control (Flynn, 352). The matrimonial trifecta—wow, marriage sounds like so much fun!

Their marriage was not always necessarily destined for doom; it actually had the makings of a very healthy, enduring relationship in its incipient stage. Sure, their backgrounds seemed incontrovertibly incompatible—she was a trust fund girl from an uptight family and he didn’t even know how to pronounce quinoa. In his defense, I only discovered quinoa even existed as a substance a little over a month ago (on Labor Day to be exact—shout out to my girl Callie Jones). Truthfully, I still don’t know how to pronounce it. Despite his lack of suitable grain knowledge, they hit it off with some ground rules in mind. Most importantly, they refused to settle. They mocked “if only” relationships in which married men and women claimed that their marriage would be better off “if only…” (Flynn, 29). They acknowledged that one of the benefits of being with someone is to be known and understood intuitively. This notion reminds readers that maybe there is a certain shallowness to a relationship if it does not challenge you. They helped make each other who they are…which leads them to wonder who they are without each other.

Of course, this can all get very tricky. What if who you are to them isn’t really who you are? There are disastrous consequences of pretending to be something you’re not just to get someone to like you. Reason number 928348 why you should order a burger on the first date rather than a salad, otherwise it’s just bad precedent. In all seriousness, it’s obviously unsustainable to keep up appearances when you’re in an intimate relationship—there’s nothing intimate about pretenses. Their passion for each other is thus tempered by their inability to fully define themselves. For instance, Amy mentions that she doesn’t want to be someone people just like; she’d hate to be written off simply as a “nice girl”. If you had to describe me with one word and you chose “nice”, I’d probably slap you in the face just to prove you wrong. People are complex and Amy doesn’t want to be one-dimensional; even if it means that things get a little messy, she’d rather spice it up. Preach.  Unfortunately, in the days before Amy goes missing, Nick felt like instead of knowing her, he was mostly trying to solve her. But was he the mastermind behind her disappearance?! You’ll have to read and see.

In terms of psychological insight, the novel does impressively well. It has some thought-provoking deeper-level moments of substance, like when Nick questions the sentience of humans. He is being so closely criticized in his response to his wife’s disappearance that oftentimes he is forced to artificially craft his emotions in order to garner support. He’s seen the movies, read the books, and perused the articles—he knows how a caring, loving husband is supposed to react when his wife goes missing. And isn’t that to some degree what we all do? We draw on all of the emotional data we’ve subconsciously collected over the years and subsequently understand how to appropriately respond to a given situation. To be simplistic, our reactions might stem from the brain rather than the heart because “we are all working from the same dog-eared script”—a script which reflects what others have already done/said/looked like in a similar scenario (Flynn, 73). I can’t help but think of my post on Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception* in which he claims that each of us is an “island universe” only capable of empathizing with one another by synthesizing what we’ve witnessed or experienced in the past (Huxley, 13). Food for thought.

Overall, I felt that the novel was largely a commentary on how women sometimes feel (whether it’s true or not) that most men want to fashion them for their own purposes rather than let them just be themselves. This is an interesting and semi-valid complaint considering the utter lack of female agency until recent decades. At the same time, it's not that straightforward. Flynn does not want to put anything or anyone into a defined box--including feminism. In light of this, I wondered what the author’s husband thought about her writing. Like, “Hey honey, when you put that bit in about the husband and wife hating each other deep down…uh… that doesn’t reflect how you feel about me, riiiight?” Gillian Flynn has published three novels: Sharp Objects (2006), Dark Places (2009), and Gone Girl (2012). I have not read the other two but I can imagine these names are not exactly comforting to a husband. He is a lawyer—hopefully a divorce attorney so he can divorce her ass if she ends up adopting the ways of her fictional characters.

At the risk of sounding like a complete and total douche, this book is excellent for some lowbrow reading. Everyone needs their light literature dessert, so to speak, and this will reasonably quench your thirst for a suspenseful crime drama. Kind of like eating a bowl of Blue Bell ice cream (the only ice cream anyone should be eating, the South does it right) without whipped cream. I mean it’s really good and everything…but you could do better. The novel is extremely creative but it’s also sort of a cheap—albeit masterful—exploitation of the reader’s emotions to make it more entertaining. Consequently, Gone Girl gets 3 out of 5 camel humps. The most significant factor in my rating was the handful of plot holes in the ending—admittedly though, it was a tough story-line to finish writing. Still, fairly disappointing when a novel is air tight for the first two thirds before it goes caput.

*Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. Print.

*Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2004. Print.

Catch-22

Catch 22*: A paradoxical dilemma in which a condition intrinsic to a specific problem is simultaneously responsible for preventing the solution.

Now, what does that actually mean in real life? Say, for instance, that your parents make you get a job but also mandate that you drive yourself there. You don’t have the funds to buy a car because you don’t have a job yet, and you can’t get the job because you don’t have any way of getting there. It’s a lose-lose situation. 

The term “Catch-22” is now a broadly used colloquialism, but Joseph Heller was its seminal author. The logical conundrum appears for the first time when the higher-ups deny Yossarian (our fictional leading man) relief from combat duty. They tell Yossarian that he can only be discharged if he applies and has a diagnosis of insanity; however, if you apply for removal from a warzone where you can very easily be off-ed at any moment, you are utilizing rational faculties that prove your sanity. Basically, you’re screwed.

Like Yossarian, Heller served in the Air Force during World War II. Presumably drawing from his own wartime experiences, Heller imbues Catch-22 with a cold-hearted, satirical cynicism. Each character is presented as a caricature in order to mockingly amplify the ridiculousness of war. As a result, there is not a whole lot of plot necessary to drive the novel; instead, he just throws a bunch of guys with nonsensical personalities into a military base and hilarity ensues. 

Some core themes of the novel: 

·         The arbitrariness of allegiance: "It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead” (Heller, 120). 

·         The murkiness of morality: Because Yossarian is surrounded by so much death and destruction, he isn’t exactly super fond of the big man upstairs. In an enraged tirade, he rants, “What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly, little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It’s obvious He never met a payroll” (Heller, 177). Lolol I love when Yossarian gets pissy. 

·         Sex and coercion: Women play very interesting parts in the novel. As a woman, I am pretty into that. The objectification of women is rampant and virtually every female character either practices sex-work or employs sex for manipulative purposes. In my opinion, Heller portrays women in an overly-sexualized cycle, mirroring his portrayal of men in an overly-aggressive cycle.

·         The fragility of man: Not only are these men entirely powerless in the face of women because of their lust, but they also inevitably succumb to mortality. Yossarian realizes the hard away that men are fragile beings. When one of his friends dies, he macabrely says, “It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter…drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage” (Heller, 442).

Overall, Heller masterfully discusses these themes through characters who never leave you bored. He's also absolutely hilarious. The novel is divided into chapters, each one concerned with a different character; therefore, it is not chronologically linear. Because of this, the jokes inter-loop and many of them are made funny through repetition, a la Arrested Development. It wasn’t necessarily funny the first time around when they did the chicken dance…when Michael couldn’t pronounce Anne’s name… when J. Walter Weathermen taught the kids a lesson (like why it’s always important to leave a note)…when George Michael showed off his Star Wars dance moves… or when anyone, anywhere says Annyong. But it sure as hell was funny the second time. Similarly, Catch-22 has its own set of ongoing jokes. 

Heller makes me laugh and think critically at the same time, so Catch-22 gets 5 out of 5 camel humps. 

*Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1955. Print.

The Bell Jar

This book is bound to make you feel alllll of the feelings. If you don’t know about Sylvia Plath, the author behind The Bell Jar, it’s best to imagine her as the Michael Jordan of depressed people. But in spite of it all—or rather, in my opinion, because of it all—this girl can write even better than Jordan can ball. Plath was an esteemed intellectual, collecting numerous prizes for her poetry and excelling academically. Her downward spiral began after a disappointing month in New York City where she served as guest editor of Mademoiselle magazine. Luckily, I’m ten months in and my only downward spiral occurred after one too many drinks walking down the never-ending staircase of my friend’s elevator-less apartment (lookin at you, Arturo, Matt, and Harold). Following a series of hang-ups during her city stint and an inhumane administration of electroshock therapy, Plath made her first suicide attempt by swallowing an entire bottle of sleeping pills and hiding in a crawl-space underneath her home. You would think that would do the trick; however, she was discovered and rescued three days later. Upon revival, Plath was institutionalized for her depression for six months and thereafter seemed to maintain a steadier emotional path. Fast forward nine years… at age thirty she was found with her head in the oven, dead of carbon monoxide poisoning. Because this blog is intended for both literature AND laughs—here’s a picture made in very poor taste that will probably piss people off: 

"Selfie-a Plath"

[photo cred: Gina Renna]

The novel itself is labeled semi-autobiographical but the only differences I can decipher are name changes. It was published for the first time in American posthumously for fear that it would shame her loved ones who are blatantly present in the book. The Bell Jar follows Plath (Esther Greenwood) from her eager entry into New York to the day she departs from the mental institution. I knew what I was diving into with a Plath book, so I was surprised to see that the first third of the novel is not overtly depression-laden. This is precisely what makes the reading experience such an emotional roller coaster. Her depression creeps up on her insidiously until it is all-encompassing. At one point she claims, “I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn’t thought about it” (Plath, 77). The eyes of her self-proclaimed shortcomings glare menacingly at her in the foreground of a dark, indifferent world. She realizes that she is about to graduate from college… and she’s really only good at “doing college”! She frighteningly feels, “like a racehorse in a world without racetracks” (Plath, 77). As her future dissipates into a flat, bleak, desolate waste right before her eyes, a still numbness eerily stretches over her. She stops showering, stops changing out of her pajamas, and stops getting out of bed entirely despite her inability to sleep. Eventually, she can no longer focus and is thereby deprived of her love of literature. All of the distractions that were holding her intact disappear and she slowly unwinds until she unravels. She started with a smorgasbord of dreams and ambitions and ended with the glass shards of her shattered visions. Plath provides the metaphor of a prolific fig tree, extending in all different directions, while she stands there “starving to death, just because [she] couldn’t make up [her] mind which of the figs [she] should choose” (Plath, 77). Her paralyzation left her utterly drained inside, allowing her depression to fill and consume her completely. She “felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo” (Plath, 3).

The above quote is one of my favorites from the book because it is proof that the novel is engaging from both a story-standpoint and writing ability. I’m convinced that all good writers are a little depressed. To write well, you must be truly in tune with yourself/your feelings and the people around you/their feelings; when you experience life in such a rich, intense way like that, you’re inevitably going to encounter a bit of depression because you feel sadness that much more palpably. As poet David Jones once said, “It is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so very deeply.” I personally love books that I can really relate to—that inexplicable moment of euphoria when you’re like damn, I know exactly what they’re describing! The only way an author can really accomplish that for the reader is by fully understanding humanity and the spectrum of emotions that accompanies being human.

For instance, I absolutely love going to Chili’s. The service is impeccable, the atmosphere is lively, the food is to die for, and they have excellent deals at the New Jersey location that I travel to on Sunday’s (because God knows why there is not a Chili’s in Manhattan). How would I write about my experience at Chili’s in a way that caters to both people who have and haven’t eaten there (God knows why there are people who exist who haven’t gone to Chili’s)? Ideally, I would want the Chili’s-attendees to read my piece and exclaim, hell yes, that’s exactly how I feel when I go. At the same time, I want to help people who haven’t eaten there understand what it could be like. You have to be able to evoke both imagination (for the non-Chili’s eaters) and truth (for the Chili’s eaters). In order to do that, you must be very in tune with your environment and emotional responses, both positive and negative. Plath is such a heart-wrenching writer because she speaks with the clarity of one who has suffered the pain. I believe that she can speak truth to those who have experienced depression while simultaneously painting a vivid picture for those who have not.

Some of you might be wondering about the book’s title. Her first verbatim usage is towards the end of the novel, when she characterizes herself as “sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in [her] own sour air” (Plath, 185). I love when books inconspicuously squeeze their title into the story. I felt like a giddy Peter Griffin in the “420” episode of Family Guy when the policeman busts in declaring, “I don’t appreciate drug addicts in my town! I’m a Family Guy” (“420”*). The bell jar Plath resided in left her rotting behind an acerbic, distorted lens with which to view the world. When she is set to leave the mental facility, she explains that now “the bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above [her] head. [She] was open to the circulating air” (Plath, 215).  Herein lays my only problem with the novel. Now, I don’t buy into the romanticization of suicide à la Romeo and Juliet. But this woman went through a horrific, disturbing loss of the capacity to enjoy or even tolerate her life…and she somehow managed to give it all a tone of beauty by depicting her descent into madness so poetically. She does not do her ascent the same justice. While she made it clear that the bell jar hung above her precariously, I was never truly convinced that it even came off of her in the first place. By no means does this undermine the entirety of the novel, but it unfortunately does make the ending fall a little flat for me. I can only speculate that this was a reflection of Plath’s own misgivings in facing life again outside of the institution and that she did not yet know how to describe her feelings outside of the bell jar. Because of this, I give the novel 4 out of 5 camel humps. I hoped the book would never end because I wanted her to continue brilliantly describing her struggles. But when it did come to a close I was not persuaded that those struggles were diminishing, and I was left with a question mark that hung as negatively over my head as the bell jar allegedly hung over hers.

*Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1971. Print.

*“420” Family Guy. Fox. WXIA, Atlanta. 19 April 2009. Television.

Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

                I’m on the subway feeling like a bag of dicks and contemplating if I have any scrap of dignity left after my friend’s bachelorette party weekend. I’m almost at the Union Square stop when I reach my inevitable conclusion: no. Fortunately, I have at my fingertips someone even more of a joke than me--and it isn't just the girl on the seat next to me sucking terribly at 2048. It is Chelsea Handler. Are you there, Vodka? It’s me, Chelsea* is a collection of short, comical autobiographical essays that depict Handler’s ridiculousness at various ages. Turns out she hasn’t matured a bit from age eleven to now. On the other hand, she’s seriously running shit. She has authored four books on the New York Times bestseller list, hosted her own late night talk show for seven years, and has even scored a spot on Maxim’s Hot 100 list a couple of times. She also has her own column in Cosmopolitan which is shamelessly my one true goal in life. The book gained widespread success after her first book, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands impressed readers in 2005. I’m personally intrigued by that one, mainly because I don’t think I’ve got the audacity to read 50 Shades of Grey in public and a girl’s gotta spice up her day somehow.

                It’s important to understand what kind of person you’re reading about when reaching for something on the lighthearted side. Chelsea’s stand-up comedy career launched after she told her DUI story to a class of fellow offenders and realized her delivery was on point. That should accurately give you an idea of who we’re working with. This woman gives me hope that I can continue to be a hot mess and not only not self implode but perhaps even make a career out of it! And in fact, Chelsea and I vibe very well on a lot of issues. For instance, she is a huge asshole. I’m not sure if I was an asshole all along but I will say that living in New York exacerbates my jerkish tendencies. I avoid eye contact with homeless people at all costs, I’m definitely not going to take any flyers people are handing out, if you’re walking slow in front of me I’m liable to punch you in the face, and I certainly don’t plan on doing the ALS ice bucket challenge. Chels (if I may) happens to live in Los Angeles, but she still has firm opinions on a specific subset of the homeless population. While in Costa Rica, she tells us that…

“…a homeless man with a dog approached us and put his hand out. This happens to be something that I have a real problem with: homeless people with pets who approach you for food. How can they have the nerve to beg for food when they have a perfectly delicious dog standing right there? I didn’t care if this guy understood English or not. ‘Tell me when you’re out of dog, buddy. Then we can talk about splitting a falafel’” (Handler, 239)

See, she’s a jerk. While I do love that about her, I can’t ever fully respect someone who doesn’t like dogs. Or sweater vests for that matter (another serious character flaw of hers). I like most dogs better than most humans and a sweater vest is the single hottest thing a guy could ever wear. But while she does have quite the laundry list of things she does not like (redheaded men, children, doing favors for friends, going on vacations with family members, restaurants without full bars, etc.), there is one thing she is very vocally passionate about: midgets. This woman really loves midgets and there is an entire chapter devoted to explaining how her self-proclaimed “healthy obsession” developed. I’m pretty indifferent to midgets, but I will admit that my favorite Jackass bit involves them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl4ButVeOUQ. The only thing that’s missing is Tyrion Lannister.

Midgets and all, this book was pretty good. Not mind-blowing or anything but it did its job—it made me laugh, aloud even, and it gave me a brief break from the more serious tone that runs through so many of the books I choose to blog about. With all of the sadness in life (I saw Alpha Dog the other night and that shit was depressing), it was a breath of fresh air. Chelsea doesn’t take a single bit of her life seriously and I respect that immensely. Sure, she’s obnoxious and offensive, but it’s all in the name of hilarity and I’m not entirely sure that her jokes on controversial topics are reflective of how she truly feels about the issues. She has actually gone through some intense stuff in life—one of her brothers died when she was just nine years old and she had an abortion at age sixteen—but she copes with them through laughter. She might not be your cup of comedic tea but I think that everyone could find at least some part of her book funny. If not, you probably have a giant stick up your ass and you should get that checked out.

Moreover, the writing itself isn’t so simpleminded. Her witticisms were executed well and you could tell that she has some brains. It’s certainly not something Floyd Mayweather could just pick up and read (lol speaking of 50 cent, fun fact: Handler dated him for some time). Overall, I give it 3 out of 5 camel humps. It gave me some giggles but it wasn’t a must read; it might be a good idea to have on your book list but you don’t need to drop everything and put it at the top of your queue.

*Handler, Chelsea. Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea. New York: Gallery Books, 2008. Print

Lolita

“Light of my life, fire of my loins”—I wondered why the first lines of Lolita* spoke to me in a sultry singing voice as I read them. Then it hit me…Lana Del Rey’s “Off to the Races”. Go read the lyrics and it’ll feel like you’ve read a cheapened summary of the book with an altered, more consensual ending.

While Lana certainly lets us know she gets with older, grungy guys (watch the “Ride” music video, good lawd), she doesn’t express interest in the atypical age gap of this novel. Humbert Humbert (yes, you read that correctly), the 36-year-old narrator of Lolita, tells the story of how he falls into a deep, desperate, and dangerous love affair with a "little nymph", Dolores Haze (aka Lolita, aka Lo). By his own definition, a nymphet is a sexually bewitching creature between the ages of 9 and 15. According to H.H., nymphetness is accompanied by a slight daemonic quality because of the perilous magic she possesses. When he sees his Lolita nymph for the first time, he believes that his undying love for her-- however complex it might be—is the pinnacle of joy.

So how did Nabakov pull off this love story without coming across as disgustingly creepy? He doesn't. Humbert Humber is creepy. Never once did I forget Lolita’s age and fragility. In my opinion, Nabakov wasn’t trying to make readers sympathetic to H.H…he just wanted us to recognize he was human. He's a human with piggish opinions of women, for sure, but those people do exist. 

Fun fact about Nabakov: he was also a lepidopterist (jot that down for your next trivia event). After he published Lolita in 1955, the butterfly professional expressed frustration that critics “pronounce[d] Lolita meaningless because it did not teach them anything” (Nabakov, 314). He was basically like: guys this is good stuff! Why does there always have to be some deep underlying moral implication? What about the fact that this is art? You experience an aesthetic bliss when you read it. Can’t you just enjoy my book without reading between the lines to pinpoint my position on pedophilia? PS I'm not a pedophile I prommmmise.

Content aside, Nabakov is a poetic writer skilled at wordplay. You don't have to like the main character to appreciate the writing. Nabakov perfectly depicts a manipulative, obsessed, self-deceived, hysterically-in-love man. The guy is gross, but Nabakov nails the grossness. Humbert Humbert's infatuation with Lo, both erotically and emotionally, shaped his entire life, and the end of the novel was sincere and heart-breaking.

I hope that this novel’s peculiar plot doesn’t make you so uncomfortable that you miss out on Nabakov’s magical prose. I give Lolita 5 out of 5 camel humps. 

*Nabakov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Vintage International, 1955. Print.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

                This is undoubtedly my most overwhelming undertaking yet. In school, if you didn’t understand something, you could kind of bullshit your way through a paper. Here, blog-bullshitting defeats the point. As such, I think I’ll approach this book the way the author rode his motorcycle—at a slow and steady pace, so bear with me! This is a book that has to be chewed, not swallowed.

                Let’s start with the basics. According to Pirsig (the author), there are two separate modes of understanding the world that up until now have been incompatible with each other in the Western sphere. Think of these as completely different visions of reality, as entirely different dimensions. There is the romantic approach which is concerned with what things are (artistic appearance, feelings/intuitions instead of facts, aesthetics rather than reason, living in the moment, etc.) (Pirsig, 85). This outlook is embodied in Pirsig’s motorcycle-riding friend John Sutherland who leaves the maintenance of his bike to the mechanics—he’d rather not bother with all that detailed science stuff. Conversely, there is the classic approach which is concerned with the underlying form of things, i.e. what things mean (purely using rational analysis). Pirsig himself appears to adopt the classic viewpoint—when something goes wrong with his bike he is able to resolve the issue himself using problem solving skills. It is difficult for a romantic to find common ground with a classicist and this is the source of quite a bit of trouble.

                A related modern day crisis, he claims, is how humans (romantics especially) butt heads with technology. I don’t know shit about technology. I watched Her the other day (great movie, highly recommended, have some tissues on deck for sure) and found myself distracted by wondering the whole time what an operating system really is. So, yeah I’d say there are some current problems with the relation between humans and technology. Confirm. Pirsig explains that, “technology has somehow made you a stranger in your own land” (Pirsig, 20). Okay, I can be on board with that. He also says that “what’s wrong with technology is that it’s not connected in any real way with matters of the spirit and the heart…people are asking if we must always suffer spiritually and aesthetically in order to satisfy material needs” (Pirsig, 211). Now you’ve lost me. 

                I started to break it down. I’m texting you, you’re texting me… we’re communicating but there isn’t the kind of deeper, more personal interaction that you can have when you talk face-to-face. Well, duh. My heart isn’t fully in it—you’re not speaking to my spirit, you’re speaking to my phone. Moreover, rapid advances in technology can be very overwhelming. All those technology types are consistently offering ways to make my life easier and more efficient but isn’t constant connection also a source of stress? So, I’m talking to a phone rather than a person and I feel somewhat alienated from the here-and-now because technology is urging me to think about what’s coming next. Read: I’m lonely. Pirsig pins this as the “loneliness of objectivity” (Pirsig, 460).

                What does objectivity have to do with loneliness? Well, everything, and we can blame those goddamn Greeks! There is a philosophical concept called mythos (as opposed to logos) which holds that the patterns of beliefs we have today are reflective of a culmination and evolution of prevailing attitudes of the past. To use an analogy, the trees we have in front of us are results of the shrubs they used to be (Pirsig, 499). The way we look at the world today is an outgrowth of how humans have previously looked at the world, even in prehistoric times (side note: for a better understanding of this in regards to religion specifically, I recommend “The Evolution of God” by Robert Wright). We (Westerners) are slaves to the mythos of subject-object distinction. I (the subject) am looking at my bomb ass new tablet right now (object). I have an automatic understanding that I am separate, physically and emotionally, from that tablet. We are such slaves to this line of thinking that we don’t even remotely acknowledge that there could be any other way. Pirsig is like woahhhhhh hold up…what about Tat Tvam Asi (Sanskrit for “thou art that”)? Eastern philosophy asserts that, “everything you think you are and everything you think you perceive are undivided” (Pirsig, 177). We believe that the separation of subject and object is reality when in actuality it’s just an “artificial interpretation superimposed on reality” (Pirsig, 361). It’s not reality itself. Even if you don’t buy into all this, hopefully you can at least acknowledge that it’s possible that you don’t buy into all of this because you were somehow programmed not to—that the Western outlook on life is so ingrained in your brain that it’s difficult to admit that there could be other ways. After all, “our common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of ghosts from your past” (Pirsig, 44).

We’ve established that, according to Pirsig, the division between subject and object is illusory. This leaves the subject feeling a bit outside of things and left alone…the loneliness of objectivity (ringing bells with our feelings of hostility with regards to technology?). There are disciplines that empower you to remove the subject-object illusion—one of which is Zen (Pirsig, 177). Ah ha, there’s the Zen! Finally. But what if there were other ways too? Ways which permeated day-to-day life? Ways which went all the way back and addressed that romantic-classic distinction I spoke about before? These problems—the way we feel about technology and the inability of romantics and classicists to see eye to eye—are "caused by the inadequacy of existing forms of thought to cope with the situation” (Pirsig, 211). The mythos we have that praises subject vs. object also hails rationality. Rational thought is important, but according to contemporary science, it’s the only thing that’s important. All of this talk of loneliness and incompatibility is in part due to the fact that we are relying on an outdated mythos. Western dogmatic intransigence has left us with “old forms of thought to deal with new experiences” (Pirsig, 212). And technology is particularly vulnerable because Aristotle sure as hell didn’t see the iPhone coming. What we desperately need is a cross-fertilization of Western and Eastern forms of thought.

Pirsig offers a satisfying, albeit quite confusing, resolution. He claims that “the solution to the problem isn’t that you abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of rationality so that it’s capable of coming up with a solution” (Pirsig, 211). He reminds us that the structure of reason and the methods of rationality that we’ve inherited are “emotionally hollow, aesthetically meaningless, and spiritually empty” (Pirsig, 143). He holds that the way to enlarge rationality is by introducing “quality” as a third entity in the subject-object dualism, creating a metaphysical trinity. It would be enormously difficult for me to fully and comprehensibly explain his understanding of quality in a reasonably short manner, so you’ll have to trust me a bit. If you want to understand “quality”, pick up a copy of the Tao Te Ching and replace the word “Tao” with “quality”. Quality is primarily concerned with the relation between subject and object. As a result, it is neither objective (it does not reside in the material world), nor subjective (it does not reside merely in the mind), but somewhere in between (Pirsig, 301).

Let’s try a concrete example. When you are fixing a motorcycle, you are selecting which facts to observe and which facts to ignore. You might consider the weather if you’re concerned about a part being too hot whereas you might not be totally fixated on the color of a wire that doesn’t have anything to do with the hot part. If you do this fact-selecting purely scientifically, i.e. disinterestedly, you could fix the problem but there certainly won’t be any oomph to it. It will probably not be aesthetically pleasing but it will do the job; thus, the mechanic has chosen classical/rational reasoning over the romantic approach. Pirsig is saying, wait! There are more options! You no longer have to pick and choose. Don’t look at that screw objectively. If you’re a good mechanic you can separate the good facts from the bad ones using quality as your guide. You make the first move to fix the problem and you get the feeling (romantic) that the cycle is worse off because of this move (bad quality) so you need to problem solve in a different direction (classic). High quality work uses underlying forms that are good (classic) to attain something that looks good (romantic), thereby enjoining both perspectives and leaving no one behind. We’re so used to blindly following the “tendency to do what is ‘reasonable’ even when it isn’t any good” (Pirsig, 462). With quality as a guide, you are a craftsman that is truly engaging in contact with basic reality. The world becomes dynamic-- you’re no longer an outsider in your own life, rather you are an active participant! You gain an “understanding of what it is to be part of the world, and not an enemy of it” (Pirsig, 486). Life is malleable based on which pathways you deem “good quality”—and they are numerous. In terms of the motorcycle, you feel a sense of identity with the machine you’re working with—that malleability changes the OBJECT you’re working with just as much as it changes the SUBJECT. Object and subject become one and the same. Tat Tvam Asi. His metaphysical trinity has now fused “three areas of human experience which are [currently] disunified: religion, art, and science.” (Pirsig, 353). Science is no longer “value free” aka “quality free”. By doing all of this, he “showed a way in which reason may be expanded to include elements that had previously been unassimilable and thus have been considered irrational” (Pirsig, 377). He has expanded reason to include quality-- to be centered around it in fact.

The relevance of all of this is to spice up our monotonous lives. Pirsig’s consideration of the dullness and emptiness which plagues modern existence is eerily similar to that of Aldous Huxley’s in The Door of Perception and I swear Pirsig just needed to take some mescaline. In the midst of the surrounding far-reaching government attempts at reform and the wide-sweeping efforts to placate the masses, Pirsig felt that the best way to start was at the individual level. Develop this notion of quality and oneness with the objects around you and go from there (Pirsig, 381). Individual worth is a resource begging to be cultivated (Pirsig, 484). One of my favorite parts is when he comedically states, “You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? Easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally” (Pirsig, 417). Fixing a motorcycle isn’t divested from the rest of your existence. If you’re a lazy thinker six days a week, do you really think you won’t be a lazy thinker on the seventh? “The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be ‘out there’ and the person that appears to be ‘in here’ are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together” (Pirsig, 417).

One particular institution he feels is holding the individual back is the University. He claims that schools teach students to imitate…but to imitate slyly so as to deceive the teacher into thinking you were not imitating (but really, everybody is in on it). If you regurgitate, you get an A. It’s originality that’s really treacherous…that’ll get you anywhere from an A to an F (Pirsig, 242). Creativity and unique expression is squashed and foregone in exchange for a diploma. Now, I do not think this is entirely true, mainly because I think my University was awesome and provided an excellent, high-quality learning environment. But, he has a point. I probably wouldn’t be able to turn this blog in as an answer to an assignment in school. Well why not? I’ve by no means mastered his philosophy but I’ve clearly learned something and I’ve been able to (hopefully somewhat successfully) communicate that certain something in relative layman terms. Personally, I think it’d be refreshing to have a course taught on solely this book.

After all of this, you might have some questions. Like, who is this Pirsig guy and why does he have all of these wild ideas? The book reads like an autobiography but there’s very little characterization (he notes that he does this intentionally—he is not a novelist, he is an orator) (Pirsig, 169). We know that he has a wife, but she is never named and rarely mentioned which I find a tad rude. We know that he has at least one son, Chris, who is his cycle companion throughout the entirety of the book. Guh Chris is a huge brat. You can’t really gauge how old he is because he’s so moody and whiny but you have to guess that he’s too old for his actions because he’s on this long road trip and does a lot of hiking and mountain climbing and backpacking. But at the same time, Pirsig exacerbates the problem because he doesn’t know how to deal with him. He doesn’t strike you as the best father. He has an ominous, nebulous past. He is very curt and doesn’t always truly say what he’s thinking even when the truth would better the situation. Indeed, his past is a major plot driver. In real life, Pirsig’s obsession with Quality and the surrounding philosophical implications resulted in a nervous breakdown. He was diagnosed with depression and paranoid schizophrenia and involuntarily subjected to electroconvulsive therapy. Yowza. The book is written several years after this shocking diagnosis (hehe). From this perspective, he explains everything that his former-pre breakdown self thought in terms of Quality, referring to this person as Phaedrus. He then picks up where Phaedrus left off. Interestingly, he does not consider himself insane but he does recognize why others thought so. He explains that “to go outside the mythos is to become insane” (Pirsig, 450). When you drastically deviate from the thought processes of your contemporaries, people begin to wonder. They started to not take his philosophic statements seriously because they labeled him as crazy. “When you look at an insane guy, all you see is that he’s insane so you don’t really see him at all” (Pirsig, 100).

While I can sympathize with that rationale, that doesn’t make me totally like him. For one, he’s pretty arrogant and I think that his opinion of his new philosophy was self-aggrandized. He constantly said that what he was exploring was of utmost importance and that his work was so unprecedented that it was filling a huge void. Pretty pompous, even if it’s true. I guess to convey an extreme viewpoint to ignorant masses you have to be a little over the top but still, chill. Truthfully, I think it is a little less groundbreaking than he pictured. But that might just be because I have yet to see how this reimagining of objects and my relation to them will play out in my life. Perhaps I will feel like an entirely new, better person. As a 23 year old going through a complicated moratorium phase I am often terrified at the fact that I am in charge of my own life. I am ultimately responsible for screwing up or not screwing up. Envisioning my steps in terms of quality…might help? At the same time, it doesn’t give me a whole lot to hold on to tangibly. But that’s just the Westerner in me and I am confident that I am capable of adaptation.

The story of Chris is even harder to digest and I almost feel bad for calling him a brat. Chris was the victim of a stabbing five years after the book’s publication—an incident which Pirsig bravely confronts in a brief afterword in my copy. It was an extremely emotional read and it grappled with death in a philosophical way that I could deeply identify with, which led me to respect Pirsig even more. Shortly after Chris’ death, Pirsig, in his fifties, found himself potentially the father of a newborn when his second wife became pregnant. At first, they decided to terminate the pregnancy. After a while, they chose to have the child, believing that her life was a continuation of the pattern that Chris left behind. In any event, it was a poignant couple of pages.

Another question you might have is: why the motorcycle specifically? I went back through my annotations all Harriet-the-Spy-like and saw that on the third page he notes that when you’re on a cross country road trip in a car, you’re just a passive observer through a window, whereas on a motorcycle you’re actually in on the action (Pirsig, 5). In my opinion, this is a parallel for being a true participator in life. In on the action. In on creating a quality world and a quality self. The motorcycle was actually a large source of frustration for me during my reading. I do not want to maintain a motorcycle. I do not want to hear a detailed description of which screws attach which parts. But, I had faith and it paid off.

For the record, the way I wrote this blog post is exactly how he wrote the book. At ease and conversational, but with structure and clearly-defined flow. He argues that he did not want to write in essay form because he didn’t want it to sound like “God talking for eternity” (Pirsig, 216). I admire that he is able to skillfully present a modern day metaphysical philosophy in a way that deviates from typical works of philosophy and reads more like a story. And that’s exactly why the book is the cult classic that it is.

All in all, it was an edifying book but I can only say that after the fact—I liked it much better when I was done with it. I thought to myself, wow I really learned something—and not just about myself but about the world and history. I got to hear about scientific materialism, classical formalism, Euclid’s postulate, the Sophist vs. Socrates/Plato/Aristotle conflict, etc. At first I didn’t like it because I didn’t understand it. Well, that’s just stupid. And if I maintained my motorcycle like that it would be very poor quality. Furthermore, his emphasis on creativity was encouraging. I don’t know about you, but oftentimes I get intimidated by creativity. I think—what if I’m not creative enough—or I attack a problem rationally first and foremost and then try and salvage some originality by sprinkling some last minute creativity on top. This book reminds me that anyone is capable of uniqueness because as human beings we can recognize what is good quality work and go from there. It won’t be good quality if it’s a mere imitation. Because of this, I give the book 4 out of 5 camel humps. It’s not exactly a walk in the park but it’s worth the run.

*Pirsig, Robert, M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1974. Print.