Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis: bearing witness through comics

Marjane Satrapi, Google Images

Reading Persepolis, especially as someone born and raised in the West, is a real eye-opener. Our self-aware narrator Marjane knows the reality of this Western ignorance all too well, and in the introduction to Persepolis, she notes simply: “… this old and great civilization [Iran] has been discussed mostly in connection with fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism… I know that this image is far from the truth”. This large collection of short autobiographical comics—in essence, a comic version of a short story collection—is an honest and open attempt to capture the true images of Iran; a response to the dismissal of its history and the people who experienced it. But most importantly it reads like an affirmation of selfhood and the duality involved in this: at once seeing yourself as an individual and yet also as one part of a much wider group.

Literally divided into two parts, part one covers Marjane’s experiences growing up as a child in Iran; with the bombings, hostile surveillance and oppression brought about by the regime. She captures the innocence of a child’s perspective through humorous and brusque scenes, which subsequently act also to lull the reader into a false sense of familiarity, only to be left in the lurch when they are just as swiftly confronted by violence and brutality. Starting the book with these recollections allows the reader to piggy-back along with Marjane’s own revelations and discoveries; as she grows up and learns more about her own country, she shares this knowledge and the realities it entails.

The second part is about Marjane’s time away from Iran, and then the eventual return, as an older and conflicted young woman. It is in this part that Persepolis considers the importance of these earlier memories and their relation to Marjane’s personal identity. The philosopher John Locke argued that personal identity is nothing more than our memories; our memories are how we can say we are the same person we were previously. In Persepolis, Marjane sets out her memories in an objective form through an act of bearing witness. However, she is not just witnessing the horrors of war and oppression, but also to the individuals forgotten by the all-encompassing nature of these phrases. There is a definite difficulty faced in trying to readjust to the Iranian lifestyle, having gained more awareness and exposure to the rest of the world: the regimes are now even more intolerable, the streets and her friends only serving to remind her of the disparity between her roots and her more recent experiences away from home.

Persepolis contains so many stories, each so personal it feels as if these are the tales of a friend: relatable hurdles of youth are thrown against the extreme backdrop of war and continual persecution. Told through ink, the simplicity and generally small scale of the panels adds to their relatability; Marjane takes us to parties, on dates, to school and through university. These emphatic scenarios make sudden violent turns even more shocking and distressing. It is well worth bearing witness to these tales and the history of all those whose lives are brought to life through Marjane’s memories.

 

 

—

Persepolis (Vintage: London, 2008)

Dumbledore’s triumph; the secret victory that changes everything

Ok, ok, ok! So – I am currently re-reading the Harry Potter series (shockingly it is only the first time I have done this since my original readthrough as a child) and literally a few minutes ago I was curled on the sofa reading the penultimate chapter of The Goblet of Fire, listening to ambient Hogwarts music (naturally), and I came across a sentence that puzzled me for a while. But then, I realised: this sentence changes everything.

Dumbledore, sitting on the steps of his office, Google images

I don’t know about you, but since discovering that Dumbledore knew all about the Horcruxes and that Harry Potter would eventually have to die in order to finally and completely destroy Lord Voldemort, I had developed some mixed feelings about the headmaster of Hogwarts. How good could his intentions truly be, if this entire time he knew the path he was setting Harry on? How could he allow himself to be so careless with his handling of the ring, knowing he would be leaving Harry with a ridiculously small amount of information on how to find and destroy the Horcruxes if something happened to him? We all know Dumbledore has had some difficulties with self-control in his past, and I wondered if maybe this was not another manifestation of that same temptation which fuelled his previous obsession –  with the deathly hallows. The temptation now, however, being the power that comes with having Voldemort wrapped around his finger.

It seems to me that you cannot help but question Dumbledore’s motives when you get to The Deathly Hallows, and read about how much our trio go through and suffer because of Dumbledore’s apparent oversight. What were you thinking Dumbledore?  Because the thing is… he knew he was dying for a while. Since his hand became corrupted, Snape told him it was pointless. Yes, Snape could keep the curse contained, but he could not eradicate it. Dumbledore was going to die. Now is the time to tell Harry everything, right? Apparently not.

But, I have discovered a reason to believe that Dumbledore should not be so readily labelled a guilty man, who merely wanted to keep Harry alive long enough to die at the right moment. Let me give you some context: Harry has just returned from the graveyard, from watching Voldemort resurrect before his eyes, and he is recounting what he saw to Dumbeldore in his office. Harry explains how Voldemort, small and frail and less-than, uses some of Harry’s blood to help bring him back to his full power. And then we get the following lines.

For a fleeting instant, Harry thought he saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore’s eyes. But next second, Harry was sure he had imagined it, for when Dumbledore had returned to his seat behind the desk, he looked as old and weary as Harry had ever seen him [p.604]

First of all, I quickly rescanned the prior paragraph. Just before this reaction, Harry was remembering Voldemort’s reasoning for needing Harry’s blood; the protection his mother’s sacrifice has given Harry would be broken. I can imagine this happening in two ways: either Voldemort having taken some of Harry away from himself (Harry being the protected entity) has diluted this protection, or the protection has extended to include Voldemort himself under its protective care, making the protection redundant; why would you need to be protected against yourself? But why would Dumbledore be happy about any of these scenarios? The whole point is that the protection is broken; Voldemort can touch Harry, he can harm Harry, and Harry’s life is on the line. What is there to be so triumphant about?

This is what I figured. Yes, in the end, we learn that Dumbledore knows Harry will have to die in order to make Voldemort mortal and have any chance of defeating him. Yet, this is the moment that Dumbledore learns that Harry will survive this blow. Dumbledore has figured out that even after he dies, Harry’s blood will run through Voldemort’s veins, and with it, Lily’s protection. We don’t even know if Dumbledore has completely figured out the Horcruxes at this stage… he doesn’t really have reason to be looking into it, as up until right now, Voldemort’s whereabouts have been unknown. Dumbledore may not, in fact, know that Harry himself is a Horcrux. Now, he may have simply realised that if Voldemort were ever to attempt to murder Harry, there is still hope for his protection.

And so I think that through taking Harry’s blood, Voldemort has both diluted Harry’s protection – enabling Voldemort to eventually curse him – and extended his protection; meaning that he cannot be killed by Voldemort so long as Voldemort is alive. Dumbledore knew that this would save Harry. And if he was already aware of the Horcruxes at this stage, his triumph is born from the fact that he no longer has to worry about Harry’s inevitable death. Harry will survive it. Although we do not even know if he had reached this conclusion yet. Now we can see why Dumbledore is not so guilty as we may have imagined but was actually aware the entire time that Harry had a chance to survive.

 

 

Jean Wei’s ‘Heat’ – an argument for forgiveness

Picking up Heat by Jean Wei was an instant delight: the illustrations within are so colourful and charming; you flick through the pages and see a usually unwelcomed visitor being taken in by a small and unassuming family, seamlessly falling in place and into the flow of everyday life with these people. Upon closer reading, however, we see a much deeper narrative centred on the importance of forgiveness.

Heat follows a giant, naked fire demon through their transition into a quiet but hardworking farm-hand [1]. This quaint, rural farm is run by Auntie Anne and her Grand-Niece Katy, and for a good majority of the book, we bounce along quite nicely; watching the relationship between the trio grow and also witnessing the caring relationship between Anne and her love-interest Clara. Cute scenes unfold: we see our fire demon – who earns the name ‘Red’ for obvious reasons – is taught how to help out on the farm and around the house,  witness the tender moments between Red and Katy, and smile at the child-like innocence of Red encountering everyday situations, as well as their quiet moments of solitude.

Then we see a relationship which is not so clear-cut, drawn into even sharper focus through the contrast with the kind and tender relationships prior to this. For there has been a falling out between Anne and her actual Grand-daughter, Maya. The two haven’t been seen together for years, and it is revealed that Maya had left the farm to start a small glass-making business with a partner. We are shown there is a clear divide between them, but the exact nature of this fall-out is only hinted at. It does, however, seem to be focussed on a dispute over Maya’s role within the family, on the consequence of her actions and the reasons behind them. Essentially, there appears to be a conflict surrounding purpose, and this has thrown Maya to question where she belongs.

On the one hand, Jean Wei draws a strong contrast between Anne’s relationship with Maya and her relationship with Red, whilst on the other, both Red and Maya appear to be going through similar identity struggles. Both are wondering about their utility; Maya wondering ‘Was I useful?’ and Red being criticised by the narrator, who we can even read as Red’s own internal dialogue: “What are you, Demon? Do your job, Demon. Useless Demon… What are you”.

In the end, through Red, Anne is allowed to enact the forgiveness she has never been able to give to Maya – perhaps through stubbornness, anger, or hurt: “[…] you’re more than the help you’ve given me here […] You don’t need to deserve to exist. You don’t need to prove anything to me. I’d just like to spend more time with you”. Here, the word ‘deserve’ is key; to deserve something implies that you have earned it somehow, through your actions and behaviour. We could see this as relating to an imagined individual purpose. But Anne realises that this is tangential to existence; that, as the Existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre wrote, ‘Existence precedes essence’ [2]. This means that we exist before we can determine our own purpose and there is no such thing as a ‘reason for existence’ already embedded within us.

Yet, Red goes against this in the very beginning, where our narrator taunts ‘But, warm one, what are you? What more can you be? What more, but to bring fire to light!’. For, usually, heat is something that is necessary i.e. as a casual response to fire. Unlike the concept of heat, however, we humans do not have such clearly defined reasons for existence; there is no rule telling one person that they are made to tend the fields and another that they are to shape and create magnificent works of art from the dangerous and sharp-edged material of glass.

Red, the embodiment of heat in this story, goes against this predetermination and instead carves out their own path. This is what leads Anne to realise that it is simply being human that is worthy of consideration and acceptance; our human freedom, and with it, our mistakes and our triumphs, unites us. This should allow us to be a little more forgiving of others, and I hope it helps Anne and Maya forgive each other too, finally.

 

 

—-

[1]  Wei, Jean, Heat (Peow Studio, 2018)

[2]  Crowell, Steven, “Existentialism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/existentialism/&gt;.

 

 

Charles Burns’ ‘Black Hole’ and the timelessness of high-school angst

Charles Burns’ ‘Black Hole’ via Google Images

I was left open-mouthed by a lot of what happened within Charles Burns’ Black Hole, and it took me a few moments to realise that the majority of the drama which took place was completely detached from the reason I had picked up the book. I picked up the book because I was intrigued by its seeming basis in the science fiction genre. Set in the mid-1970s, Black Hole is a story revolving around a sexually transmitted disease which mutates its owner: growing new body parts, excess skin, boils, spots, bulges and second mouths. It would manifest in different ways for different people.  In the end, this wasn’t the focus of Burns’ gaze. No. In this gripping graphic novel, Burns’ use of raw, honest detailing is predominantly used to share with us the raw and emotive world of teenage angst.

Here, I will be highlighting the subtle ways in which Charles Burns’ portrays the Existential Angst experienced, specifically, by the American teen.  In Philosophy, angst represents a necessary anxiety we experience because of our status as free, undetermined, creatures. In other words, it is a symptom of the fact that there are absolutely no rules as to what we should or should not do, no cosmic guidance on how to act, and no one to tell us which is the best path.

By no large stretch can we see how this angst can become prevalent during the teenage years; when most of us cannot avoid thinking about the future and all that it entails. For the teenager residents in suburban Seattle, this angst is embodied by the mutations of their peers. Of course, one of the big decisions or dilemmas of secondary school involves the testing of relationships and sexuality. Perhaps there are first boyfriends or girlfriends, sexuality may be discovered, feelings get stronger, and the entire school seems to be holding its breath and waiting for you to testify to these things.

In Black Hole, these decisions are put on display for everyone through often grotesque means. Surprisingly, those students without the disease do not seem to rule out relationships with their condemned peers. On one hand, the nature of desire and lust is that it is hardly reasonable, but on the other, it seems that the decision of whether or not to make any kind of ‘move’ is heightened by the idea that either path will be clearly identifiable by friends and family. Suddenly, the high school dating scene, usually something adults laugh at when looking back on because of its intangibility and temporality, is something which will stay with them permanently for the rest of their lives. For, whether they give in to desire or not, they will be left wondering what life would be like if they did otherwise.

However, there is also a reading whereby Charles is trying to tell us that this is what it really does feel like to be a teenager; as if you will be forever accountable for the decisions you make now. It is where right now is the most important time in your life, and it is what you do right now that matters most with the shaping and formation of that life. Recently, I read a letter to my future-self I had written during my secondary school examinations, and it read basically as an apology letter in case I had not studied hard enough and had not got the grades I wanted. Now, I laugh at the letter. But at the time, those exams were synonymous with my future. Here, Burns is trying to allow us the reader an unflinching glimpse into the teenager psyche: where fainting in Biology class can feel equivalent to being swallowed by a black hole, and an unplanned one-night stand makes your skin peel and shed until you don’t even feel like yourself anymore.

Simply, Charles Burns assimilates teenage angst into an undeniable visible form and through this demonstrates the timelessness of these uncertainties. For every teenager, the present seems to, above all, defy time and space with its demand for decisiveness: their own unique black holes.

 

Plurality of Meaning in Murakami’s ‘Nausea 1976’: A Phenomenological Approach

If you have read any of Murakami’s short stories, you will know how their brevity really emphasises the search for meaning in his narratives. I have discussed the ambiguities of these meanings previously, but there is also a plurality of meaning which is being highlighted by the imagery used. This imagery is so strange and unique, that we cannot help but imagine some grand meaning behind it – why are her ears so beautiful and magical, why is her sister in an endless slumber, and why on earth are fish falling from the sky? His conversational tone invites us to seek out these connections, and I feel as though, as a reader, I am being teased with the answer to some great secret being dangled directly on the page.

Michael Dachstein’s ‘Time Traveler’ via Google images 

Nowhere is this more obvious than in Murakami’s short stories, where large casts and sequences of events are no longer diluting the metaphors and symbolism present. Instead, we are forced to confront the meaning directly. In ‘Nausea 1976’, particularly, we are presented with quite a simple story – readers of his larger novels will be familiar with untangling more complex narratives, jumping all over the place both spatially and temporally – in which our narrator is talking to his friend who tells him of a time when he has a strange case of vomiting for ten consecutive days [1]. Yet, during this period he experiences no other symptoms or discomfort but simply finds himself unable to keep meals down, and every day he receives a strange phone call from an unknown caller, who would simply say his name and then hang up.

Listening to this story, along with our narrator – who turns out to be Mr Murakami himself – I found myself using every detail given as a clue to help form some kind of connection between the two. There were clues as to why it started, but less as to why it ended when it did, and there were clues as to why there were phone calls, but less as to why there was nausea. Is it because of his lack of romantic emotion or his continual betrayal of friends? Is he being punished by them, or by some other force? Of course, there was no definitive resolution as the end.

However, we are given an insight into Murakami’s phenomenological attitude toward these kinds of metaphors and symbolism. Phenomenology, in philosophy, considers the unique experiences that having a consciousness necessitates [2]. In other words, it considers how our consciousnesses make us see the world in different ways, due to varying intentional states of the perceiver. For Murakami, the same holds for stories. At the end of his bout of nausea, the mysterious caller says one additional thing to Murakami’s friend: ‘Do you know who I am?’ (p. 195). ‘Do you know who I am?’ – the ‘know’ informs us that the answer is something which needs to be sought out, it needs to be considered, it is an ‘intentional state’ which phenomenology claims can lead to a change in meaning.

Additionally, our mysterious caller invites the reader into a privileged dialogue with one of Murakami’s metaphors, asking us to really consider it. The friend tries this, in as logical a manner as he can manage given the strangeness of the situation: ‘I suppose it could have been someone from my childhood, or someone I had barely spoken to […]’ (p. 195). All of his suggestions revolve around his own experiences and memories (‘from my childhood […]’), prompted by the questions appeal to what he may ‘know’; an appeal to his own consciousness (for how can anyone really ‘know’ what is experienced by another…?). And yet, this is inevitable. Of course, any metaphorical meaning we do consider is likely to be self-projected:

 

“So, what you’re telling me, Mr Murakami, is that my own

guilt feelings – feelings of which I myself was unaware – could

have taken on the form of nausea or made me hear things

that were not there?”

“No, I’m not saying that,” I corrected him. “You are.”

(p. 195)

 

This goes for all of Murakami’s work, he is offering up his metaphors to the reader; allowing them to find their own meaning in his stories: ‘[…] I’m not saying that,” I corrected him. “You are.”‘ He surrenders authorial intention, and with it places the responsibility for meaning in the hands of the reader: ‘Anyhow, it’s just a theory. I can give you hundreds of those.’ (p. 196).  Or, as Irish poet Louis MacNeice eloquently put it: ‘The world is crazier and more of it than we think/ Incorrigibly plural […]’ [2].

Here, we cannot help but be reminded of a remarkably similar phenomenological account, provided in a novel with the very same title: Jean Paul-Sartre’s ‘La Nausée’ (‘The Nausea‘) [3]. In his first novel, the existentialist philosopher Sartre also documents a strict diary-keeping story-teller, who is as baffled by the various meanings of things – and of existence itself – that he begins to experience a continual feeling of nausea, based in his sudden disillusionment with the world around him and his inability to reclaim meaning. After all, Sartre is the same philosopher who wrote that ‘Existence precedes Essence’, or, to put it simply, he realised that it is only given our existence in the world that we can posit any meaning into such a life and that it is, therefore, our duty to decide this for ourselves.

In a way, this is the same mantra with which Murakami encourages those reading his stories to uphold – to add essence to his narrative despite the plurality of meaning. Otherwise, the absurd will simply stay absurd. Towards the end of Sartre’s Nausea, meaning seems to slide and waiver altogether as absurd imagery replaces everything else: in a deep existential angst, the narrator describes centipedes replacing human tongues and facial spots bursting to reveal additional eyes. It has been noted that the core of many existentialist aesthetics (plays, novels, and art produced by the ‘Existentialists’) is a phenomenological one [3]. Perhaps Murakami is also an Existentialist of sorts, his novels and stories are traditionally viewed from the same, rather detached narrator, who observes the absurd happenings within the story with an often frustratingly thoughtful acceptance. This leaves us to simply consider our theories, which will be bound up in our own experience of the world.

In the end, the meaning of the nausea and the phone calls is left open. The only advice offered by the Murakami in the story is this: ‘the problem is which theory you are willing to accept. And what you learn from it’ (p. 196). And I think this a philosophy to be applied to reading any meaning or symbolism into Murakami’s writings: it doesn’t matter what he intended by this image or that metaphor, what matters is what meaning resonates within us; something that we can learn from.

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

[1] Murakami, Haruki, ‘Nausea 1979’ in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (London: Vintage, 2007) pp. 183-197.

[2] MacNeice, Louis, ‘Snow’. Accessed via https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/snow/ on 03/12/18.

[3] Smith, David Woodruff, “Phenomenology”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/phenomenology/&gt;.

[4] Deranty, Jean-Philippe, “Existentialist Aesthetics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/aesthetics-existentialist/&gt;.

 

 

 

Colour and emotion within ‘Ismyre’ by B. Mure – a study of aesthetics

I went to Bristol Comic and Zine fair earlier this month, and I picked up a lot of goodies. One of the most immersive things I picked up was a copy of B. Mure’s Ismyre [1]. I was lured in by its promise of a fantastical narrative featuring magic and a city of anthropomorphised creatures.  Also, I will admit, I have been a growing fan of the artist’s work and wanted to see how they translated their illustrative talent into the comic form.

B. Mure did not disappoint. Furthermore, I found, despite the relatively short length of the comic, I was taken on a story where my emotions were tugged at in many complex directions. I wondered how this was done. Ismyre is drawn in a relatively loose and rough manner – or at least made to look this way – so I was left impressed by the emotional journey it had taken me on. Looking over it again, I now see that a lot of these emotional arousals (by which I mean the emotions aroused in me by the work) are down to B. Mure’s colouring technique.

B. Mure appears to use watercolour to colour their comic. In the majority of panels, we see yellow for light and warmth and blue for shadows and coldness. Indeed, these are quite natural pairings of colour and emotional expression. The brilliant contrast between these creates a beautiful night-time atmosphere and adds realism to the otherwise simple line-art. Yet, B. Mure also uses colour to create much more depth than this, and it is through his use of layering and additional colours that B. Mure is able to create deeper emotional resonance within panels.

Here, it is suiting to draw parallels to the aesthetic theories regarding music. It has been noted that when there is a mixture of major and minor keys in a piece of music, and we look at the combining and positioning of these as a whole, we can feel aroused within us more complex emotions [2]. In contrast to this, it is noted how a piece of music strictly in either minor or major key, can only allow us at most to feel either happy or sad, but nothing more. Instead, it is the inter-relation of these keys that can give music the ability to tell a story.

In Ismyre, colour is used in the same way as chords to express the emotion of the panels and it is the layering of our base colours – set out as blue and yellow – that contribute to more complex emotional arousal in the reader. For example,  the first page is only made up of blue and yellow.  Each panel represents a small moment of time, and the scene is played out relatively slowly for us to absorb the beginning of the story, and start to become familiar with the main character, Edward. It presents quite a simple series of actions and the emotional pulse of the page is quite subdued: we feel calm and relaxed.

In contrast to this, we also see panels where colours are combined and overlayed and thrown together in a way which, in comparison to this first page, force a deeper complexity. They do this firstly by literally forcing the reader’s attention to increase – there is more to take in as our eye cannot flow over the page so easily anymore – and secondly by increasing the emotional arousal felt by the variety of colours displayed.

So now, we have a greater response to the images displayed and we are spending more time considering the artwork itself. This extra time contributes to the increased response felt, and the colours aid the complexity of the emotions aroused within. On just the second page, when other colours begin to be introduced, our focus is snatched up quickly as we feel the shift in Edward’s mood: from a subdued contentment to a curious intrigue and the notion that something mysterious is going on…

This arrival of new colours hints at the arrival of a deeper plot and, as a reader, we know we are not simply going to watch Edward carving at his table forever but that a mystery is unfolding. This happens again and again in Ismyre, and although you may argue that the contrast of simply using two colours and draw a scene into clearer focus through the clear division of the colours, it is still true that these scenes are often found to be seeking out one key emotional response, reflecting that of Ed. But when something more pivotal is occurring, or when panels are crowded with other characters or emotions are charged and changeable, we are introduced to more colours.

I can’t wait to read B. Mure’s second book set in the town of Ismyre, Terrible Means, and to see whether the use of colour is continued in this way, and I would highly recommend Ismyre for anyone interested in fantasy, magic and strange worlds full of mysterious and intriguing characters.

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Ismyre by B. Mure (London: Avery Hill Publishing, 2017)

[2] Music & Meaning by Jenefer Robinson (Cornell University Press, 1997)

 

‘After Dark’: Murakami’s Temporal Lullaby

Murakami’s After Dark lasts for the duration of a single night in the centre of Tokyo. The pages are a-buzz with the perpetually busy city. But at night, a different kind of crowd begin to dominate the streets and a series of closely-knit, but independent, events unfurl. With the action sharply divided by frequent chapters from the perspective of a young woman who had been asleep for several months, we cannot help but imagine if the whole plot is a dream (it certainly feels like it).

After Dark’s dream-like nature is only reinforced by the fact that, often, the reader only receives fragments of information during a scene: until – suddenly – there are dramatic links between stories, as in a dream when the isolated episodes begin to blend together so that afterwards we are left with a simple incredulity: how could I not tell this was a dream?

With one narrative slowed down to the sleeping heart-rate of Eri Asai, and the other charged with the increasing momentum of events surrounding her sister Mari (who is awake and out in the city), After Dark prompted me to consider the correlations between Sleep and Time.

Eri Asai’s constant, sleeping form poses a metaphor for Relative Time. Throughout After Dark, Eri acts as a reference point for the passage of time in the novel. The events of the night speed up and combine and separate as ideas of causation and coincidence are forced upon the reader: Was it inevitable that the events ended up this way, influencing each other?  We lose track of time whilst reading as the plot thickens and we discover new connections. We don’t know, in the beginning, that Mari is the younger sister of Eri Asai. We are simply guided back and forth between their narratives by a very omniscient narrator, strikingly familiar to ourselves.

There is a theory of time in which the flow of time is not an objective reality, but is something projected onto reality by our experience of it (Smith, 2016). In After Dark, we are forced to keep track of time at the beginning (and end) of every chapter: chapter numbers are accompanied by the image of a clock, on which we watch time slowly move forwards. I realise how much I appreciated this as I read, how I could better imagine the plot alongside these time-references. How have I managed to immerse myself in books without this fictional guidance? I wondered.

But this is exactly the issue at hand: normally, frequently without any guidance at all, we superimpose a timeline onto fiction. We wait for some cues to confirm this “The next day” or “three years later”, but if these fail, we – the reader – become the reference point to time. As we read the dialogue, the dialogue is performed in our heads. In After Dark, Murakami takes this control from us; we are kept to a strict series of events, happening in a predetermined timeframe. And this is why I felt so reassured when the events slowly pushed and influenced each other, time was being set out for us so nice and orderly. 

And yet, this aid to immersion further distances us from any narrative involvement: time is taken from our hands. We become like the sleeping Eri Asai, cared for and unchanged by what happens elsewhere in the city, at night, after dark. The narrative lens Murakami provides – the ‘camera’ he describes us as looking through as we watch Eri sleep, even the ‘bird’ flying over the city in the very opening chapter, viewing all from above –  forces us to reflect upon our own involvement in time… wondering whether time is perhaps dependent on this involvement.

 “In both that room and this room, time is passing at

the same uniform rate. Both are immersed in the same

temporality. We know this from the occasional slow rising

and falling of the man’s shoulders. Wherever the intention

of each might lie, we are together being carried along the

same speed down the same river of time”

—-

[1] Smith, Nicholas J.J., “Time Travel”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-travel/.

[2] Murakami, Haruki, After Dark (London, Vintage, 2008)

Leibniz and Daemons in Phillip Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage

Daemons are my favourite part of Phillip Pullman’s universe. They unify His Dark Materials and Volume One of The Book of Dust, and whenever I remember the concept of them, I am filled with the same childhood awe and fascination. However – Daemons come with a lot of philosophical baggage.

In Pullman’s universe, Daemons act as a physical representation of the soul. This much readers can take for granted. They come into existence at the same time as their human counterparts and disappear when they die.  Daemons change and fluctuate as the human grows and matures, and eventually stabilise in form; settling on one animal representation. I loved the idea of having a constant companion; someone to talk to, who could change forms to assist in adventures, to pet and comfort. This is what I imagined when I read Northern Lights as a child, and what continues to get me enamoured by the idea of Daemons.  Does this stabilisation mean our souls become set on one path or another? Does it mean we have discovered the self? Does it mean we have lost some of the curiosity of youth? These are questions raised from the settling of a Daemon on a specific animal form.

One question raised a lot in La Belle Sauvage the causal relationship between the Daemon and human. For example, can a Daemon know something that its human does not? Often Malcolm and his Daemon Astra have conversations where she provides advice or assistance. Malcolm – via our narrator – hints that he already realised what she tells him in some part of his mind. Perhaps these occasions are simply representations of self-deceit; Malcolm didn’t want to acknowledge these realisations, or he clocked them only sub-consciously. These allow Astra to share them with him, and for them to converse, as she represents a separate part of his consciousness. If we really want to use the philosophical jargon, we could say that Astra’s thoughts and observations supervene upon Malcolm’s own understanding and actions. In this way, the relationship between Daemon and Human become synonymous with Leibniz’s theory of mind-body interaction.

In the seventeenth century, we were all pre-occupied with how the body and the mind communicated to each other. This was bound up in the hesitations being made by some regarding the existence of the soul, and by others, trying to fit the soul into this conversation e.g. if the mind is the same as the body, then on what plain – and where exactly – does the soul inhabit? In La Belle Sauvage, we are told that consciousness “is a perfectly normal property of matter, like mass or anbaric charge; that there is a field of consciousness which pervades the entire universe, and which makes itself apparent most fully – we believe – in human beings”. Unlike many others of his time, Leibniz claimed that the mind and body were of the same material substance, and distinguished them only on a metaphysical level. This allowed the soul to still play a significant role in his discourse, being metaphysically distinct from the body. In other words:

“for any person P, P‘s mind is a distinct substance (a soul)

from P‘s body.” [1]

Combined with Pullman’s reference to consciousness, we may see Daemons as the embodiment of this ‘distinct’ but connected – as Leibniz would argue – substance. They are the consciousness that makes itself most apparent in humans. It makes itself most apparent in a most obvious of manifestations: an actual animal counterpart that follows, and is connected to, the body by some invisible force.

And so, this would explain why Daemon and human alike experience pain during separation. Spatial distance represents fragmentation of the self; of consciousness. Although distinct metaphysically (one is animal, one is human), they are of the same substance in Leibnizian terms, and the harmony of their connected state is disrupted when they are torn apart.

 

 

 

 

[1] Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/#DenMinBodIntAssPreEstHar

 

 

 

Spookiness and the Sublime in Murakami’s ‘Dance Dance Dance’.

 

The Two Comedians by Chris Peters, via Google Images

 

In Philosophy, the ‘Sublime’ is what we experience when we are confronted with the vastness of existence. It refers to an underlying nature that we occasionally acknowledge by experiencing the incomprehensibility of the thing itself. I think often when we are overwhelmed, this sensation is accompanied by, or almost indistinguishable from, fear. Or, as Edmund Burke unabashedly notes, a certain ‘Terror’.[1]

‘The Sublime’ is indeed a philosophical notion and refers to such occasions and scenarios that induce in us a reflection of pain and, or, danger. For the narrator in Dance Dance Dance, his reality has been overtaken by occurrences of the Sublime, and this is exactly why reading this book can often create a certain trepidation; an uneasy empty-stomach feeling… a terror.[2] For example, when the elevator opens, not onto the modern hotel interior, but instead onto the musty darkness of the Sheep Man’s realm; or, when our protagonist finds skeletons seated around a television in a tucked away room, in an abandoned office block, in a busy street in Hawaii, these happenings are unnerving exactly because of the unknown danger they taunt us with.

Are we one of those skeletons? Are the other characters we have come to like being represented by those skeletons? Will they die soon? What awaits in the darkness of the other realm and will it harm us? This underlying terror produces a rather spooky tone, and it is there even in the hinted at imperative of the title; the Sheep Man demanding our narrator to just keep dancing;

 

“Dance. It’stheonlyway […] Dance. Don’t think. Dance.

Danceyourbest, likeyourlifedependedonit, Yougotta-

dance”

 

We picture a frantic, eager dance; full of a fear that keeps him moving. The Sublime is manifest in this fear; a fear that is always around the corner from our Narrator, but never truly visible. Fear of a warning, rather than of a thing itself: “It’stheonlyway”. Its origin is lost behind the ‘connections’ which are desperately weaved to make sense of his life.

Chaos itself merely fuels the Sublime, and the more desperate the search for a connection, a unity, the more the chaotic nature reasserts itself. For, Burke identifies that one thing that makes terror so distinct is that it has a certain ‘obscurity’, and this is exactly the issue for our narrator. Burke writes that:

 

“When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can

accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension

vanishes”

 

Now, the Sheep Man represents our narrators need to have things make sense (to remove the obscurity he is experiencing): “Weconnectthings. That’swhatwedo. Likeaswitchboard, weconnectthings. Here’stheknot. Andwetieit”. But our narrator has focussed too much on the absurdity of things, and his threads are splaying and falling around him. Thinking too much is the cause of his terror, and he is advised against this by the Sheep Man: “Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougottadance. Don’teventhinkwhy”. Here, we see general advice aimed at mankind. Don’t think about your situation, don’t pause but just keep on moving.

The music becomes our lives. The Dance becomes our response to it. The terror of the Sublime cannot be ignored, but we can move on from this. We can dance and not think too hard about it. Go with the flow, as they say. And so, throughout the book, we are ourselves eagerly trying to make sense of the plot, of the loose ends we are shown and of the various unique characters presented to us; how do they fit together? What will happen to them? And then death intervenes. And with it, we are back to the Sublime. Yes, the reading of this book is tense and frustrating, but when the narrator stops questioning things, we find we can also relax again. We are happy that he is happy. And we join him in his dance.

 

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[1] Edmund Burke, The Sublime and Beautiful

[2] Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance