Nathan Reichenbach

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Research and Writing 1

If I’m being honest with myself, I haven’t been making time to write my research paper outside of school yet.  This is not good, because it’s due next Friday, which is extremely soon.  Yet, all hope is not lost, and I’m still confident that I’ll get the paper done, but I know that I should really start to expand on my research and writing outside of school if I want to explore the ideas that Huxley writes, and truly make sense of them.  I’m aware that I’ll have to put a good amount of time into researching the ideas that Huxley writes, considering much of them are allusions and require context to be understood in their entirety.

This is not to say that I haven’t started writing my paper yet, since I have a lot of it done in my writer’s notebook, but what I need to start doing is putting the ideas I’ve developed about my book onto the computer in an organized way.  I’m still not fully sure of how all the chunks I’ve written will fit together, so I’m going to go through the rubric and try and organize them effectively.

For now, here’s a picture of Huxley on top of the cactus, peyote, which contains the psychedelic drug, mescaline.  This plant along with the drug is definitely a source of inspiration for Huxley in writing Island, so I plan on citing it.

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Thoughts on Technology & Humanism (Change my View)

While listening to the book Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff, these thoughts have been floating around my mind recently, so I thought I’d organize them into words for my own sake:

To put the common, primordial, human values that tie us all together (socializing, experiencing natural beauty, humor, etc..) behind the values that are proliferated by man made structures/systems like money, social media, Television, etc, would mean that we would be sacrificing my most human (in an evolutionary sense) and visceral values to be replaced with platforms that exist within spaces in which it is impossible for them to be aligned with what is natural for humans to value.  For instance, take social media.  Social media platforms may have at first been created with the intent of bringing more people together, and allowing them to expand upon and stay updated on their social web.  Yet, alongside this goal of “enriching” the social connections of humans, will always be the goal of making a profit, since social media exists inside of another space (the economy), where there will always be the goal of making a profit, as this is the leading incentive to invent and make a platform such as Facebook.  What I’m doubtful of is that companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Google are (moving forward,) programming their platforms with the goal of preserving our most human values.  Instead, what seems to be happening is that the platforms are designed with the primary goal of maximizing our time spent on these platforms by playing on our most automatic, unconscious biases and responses, since our time on these platforms results in a greater profit for them.  

Is this betrayal of the values that make us human a result of the driving force which is competition within a market?  If so, it makes me uneasy to think that this competition is taking place within another man made structure that is the marketplace.  Ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that when all man made structures/concepts/ideas are stripped away.  All we’re left with is our primordial values and desires, such as forming meaningful social connections.

With the future in mind, I’m worried that not enough man made platforms are being engineered with keeping in mind the goal of preserving our most human values.

What makes us human, and what is left of us when what makes us human is compromised by platforms (whose primary intentions aren’t to safeguard what makes us human) that were ultimately man made?  Moving forward, I think that it’s imperative that we program technology and platforms to serve humans, and minimize a world in which we are slaves to the technology’s and platform’s programmed goals.

[toastgod500]

Reading the Work 5

Alright so it feels like I’ve been chugging along with this book for a long time now, definitely many months.  In an attempt to understand this dude Huxley and his perverse ideas and notions (at least for today’s Western standard), I began listening to his The Doors of Perception on audio book, where he recounts his experiences with taking the psychedelic drug, mescaline.  From listening to this, I’ve came across many quotes that help aid my understanding behind Huxley’s motivation and inspiration for writing Island.  I’m fairly certain that the line of thought Huxley follows in The Doors of Perception is directly responsible for the way he structured the ideal society, Pala, and its civilians in Island.

For instance, in The Doors of Perception, Huxley writes, “The urge to transcend self-conscious self hood, is as I have said, a principal appetite of the soul.  When for whatever reason men or woman fail to transcend themselves by means of worship, good works, and spiritual exercises, they are apt to resort to religions, chemical surrogates, alcohol, and goof pills in the modern west, alcohol and opiods in the East, Hashish in the Mohammedan world, alcohol and marijuana in Central America...” He then goes on to summarize, “the employment for religious purposes of toxic substances is extraordinarily widespread.” The relationship between religion and psychedelics can be traced back to the current part of Island that I’m reading, in which a group of teenagers, are each given a monitored dose of a psychedelic, and then led to a chapel where a religious ceremony is held.

Other memorable quotes from The Doors of Perception include...

“In mescaline experience the implied questions to which the “I” responds is of another order.  Place and distance cease to be of much interest.  The mind does its perceiving in terms of intensity of significance, profundity of existence, relationships within a pattern.”

“All that the conscious ego can do is to formulate wishes, which are then carried out by forces of which it controls very little and understands not at all.  When it does anything more, when it tries too hard for example, when it worries, when it becomes apprehensive about the future, it lowers the effectiveness of those forces, and may even cause the devitalized body to fall ill.  For the moment, that interfering neurotic, who in waking hours tries to control the show, was blessedly out of the way.”

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Reading The Work 4

At the moment, my book is telling me an anecdote of Dr. Andrew, one of the main founders of the island Pala, and also a practitioner of animal magnetism.  In this anecdote, Dr. Andrew’s medical services are requested to remove a tumor from the Raja’s face.  Huxley sets up the anecdote by explaining that with any usual, non metaphysical methods, this tumor would be impossible to remove.  However, once Dr. Andrew puts his patient under a trance using “animal magnetism,” Dr. Andrew is able to perform the surgery and save the Raja’s life with ease.

Reading this I was very skeptical and confused, since I’ve never heard of animal magnetism in my life.  Surely if this method was as powerful as Dr. Andrew claimed it to be, I would’ve heard of it in my lifetime.  So I looked it up, to find Wikipedia defining animal magnetism as, “ also known as mesmerism, was the name given by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century to what he believed to be an invisible natural force (Lebensmagnetismus) possessed by all living things, including humans, animals, and vegetables.“  My first reaction was what the hell is this shit, this man Huxley is clearly insane.   Why would he spend ten pages talking about some mystical practice?  What is his motivation to insert this passage on animal magnetism with such an elaborate buildup?

I feel like to an extent, many of the practices, tenants, and characteristics of the ideal Palanese society, are implemented in the book because Huxley is an advocate of these methods himself.  On a broad level, the society implements a systematic distribution of psychedelics.  One instance of this is seen In the book, where Dr. Roberts explains a tradition in Pala as, “’An ordeal which is the first stage of their initiation out of childhood into adolescence.  An ordeal that helps them to understand the world they’ll have to live in, helps them to realize the omnipresence of the death, the essential precariousness of all existence.  But after the ordeal comes the revelation.  In a few minutes these boys and girls will be given their first experience of the moshka-medicine.  They’ll all take it together, and there’ll be a religious ceremony in the temple.”

[katesilverman-blog]

Process 5

I have finished reading my book! Overall, it was a bumpy ride reading Mrs. Dalloway. I had quite a few hesitations at first, as I have stated in my first few posts. However, as I kept reading it grew on me more and more. I learned to appreciate Woolf’s complex sentence structure, as well as the shifts from character to character. As I have concluded my reading, I have some final thoughts. 

First of all, throughout the novel Clarissa often reflects back on the past and worries about the future ahead. These instances increase towards the end of the novel. Lines such as, “how it is certain we must die” (Woolf 175), are examples of her worrying about the future. This complex mixture of reminiscing and fear of the future leads to the ultimate story about awareness of life. 

In addition, the last page of the novel is what really sparked my interest and excitement about my future research. Sally Seton says, “’What does the brain matter…compared with the heart.’” This line was surprising to me because I didn’t think much about the contrast between what one’s brain and heart will make them feel or think. My immediate thoughts lead me to think about Clarissa Dalloway and how important her appearance is to her. I think that her heart tells her to screw what people think and do what she makes her feel alive and free. However, I think her brain sends a reminder to keep her appearance up, which ultimately stops her from doing a lot of what she wants. 

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 Dear Miss Kate Silverman,

I think that’s an important part of reading this book- Woolf’s complex sentence structure.  From a Google search, I learned in the first sentence of Woolf’s Wikipedia page that she was, “ a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.”  Holy shit mate.  This must be really really important in the history of writing if it was placed in the first sentence of her Wikipedia page.  Regardless if you knew she was famous for this or not, it’s cool that you could pick up on this unique feature to Woolf’s writing and come to appreciate it by the end.  

Lastly, that’s an interesting comparison that you bring up between the brain and the heart.  It’s interesting to think that this is an idea that has surely been thought about by others, but Woolf touches on, that could have really been supported by recent scientific evidence.  In other words, I’m pretty sure there has been better scientific research on decision making than there was in 1925.  I started to read a book on a decision making called Thinking Fast and Slow which essentially covers the idea that in each person, there is an automatic, unconscious decision maker (which could be compared to the heart) as well as a consciously thought out decision maker (which could be compared to the brain).  I would look into this idea further if you continue down this idea of heart vs brain.  

[katesilverman-blog]

Process 4

I spoke a little too soon in my last post. I had said that Mr. Dalloway hasn’t even appeared in the book so far, and next thing I know he appears on the very next page. In this last chunk I read, I was given the chance to get to know Richard Dalloway and Clarissa’s daughter, Elizabeth. Here is what I found to be the most interesting about the two:

Richard is a politician, who did not make it to be a Cabinet member. After being with Hugh Whitbread, a fellow conservative, he is disgusted by his arrogance and decides to immediately run to his wife. He buys her flowers, wants to tell her he loves her, but can’t. For some reason he can’t find it in himself to tell his own wife that he loves her. 

Elizabeth seems to be pretty passive. Unlike most other characters in the book, the reader does not have much insight into her internal thoughts. However, I have found that she is adored by her parents and Miss Kilman. Miss Kilman seems to be Elizabeth’s partner, which pisses Mrs. Dalloway off. Clarissa and Miss Kilman are opposite people. While Clarissa is wealthy, conservative, and privileged, Miss Kilman is quite the opposite. Although Elizabeth is loved dearly by her mother, he relations with Miss Kilman seems to put a rift between the two. 

I enjoyed getting to know Mrs. Dalloway’s family. Strangely enough, it took over 100 pages for the reader to really get to know the two. I feel like Clarissa loves her family, but almost values other relationships more, specifically the ones she had in the past. While her family gives her comfort and status, Peter Walsh and Sally Seton give her adventure and more pure emotions. Sometimes the most valuable relationships are not the ones that come easily, and I think that Clarissa is struggling facing the decisions she has made in the past. 

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To whom it may concern,

First of all, I really enjoy the last name Whitbread and am scared by Kilman.  I can see how you would get confused in the abundance of characters, as I found myself when reading over this blog post of yours.  From this, I can conclude that it would be very helpful to avail yourself of the shmoop character chart.  I’m thinking that this would be a good idea for my own book, which has many characters with similar names.  Anyways, I think that it’s constructive to go back over the plot and character’s relationships with each other as you did here, to gain a clearer understanding of what’s going on in your book.

What a coincidence that in your last post you came to the conlcusion that love sucks because of all these struggles that the characters were facing alongside their loved ones, but in this post you came to the conclusion that, “ Sometimes the most valuable relationships are not the ones that come easily.“  This is exactly what I was getting at in the last post. with the rule of courtship being that difficulty to obtain a relationship directly correlates with the value of the relationship.  Is this true???

[katesilverman-blog]

Process 3

I have had enough confusion for one book. I gave up and just looked up a character chart on SparkNotes ( https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dalloway/characters/ ). I had a very hard time following the plot of the book because the author uses characters’ names and writes about them as if the reader already knows who they are (and clearly I don’t). This chart somewhat helped me understand who everyone is, however it did not explain the connections to the main character, Clarissa Dalloway, if there even is a connection. So far, the only connection seems to be that these people pass each other throughout their days.

Besides my frustrations with the characters, I have some other thoughts. My first being that love sucks! Everyone in this book who supposedly “loves” each other seems to be more tortured by their relationship than anything else. Here are some examples: 

1) Clarissa’s husband, Mr. Dalloway, hasn’t even been in the book so far, he is just a presence (or lack there of). The few times he has been mentioned hasn’t been very positive either, such as the fact that he is meeting with another woman for lunch. 

2) Rezia’s husband, Septimus, is suffering from what seems to PTSD from WWI. However, no one can diagnose it as PTSD because it wasn’t discovered until the 80s. She takes him from doctor to doctor, trying to find out what is wrong and why he is talking about killing himself. Although she loves him and wants to help him, Rezia is unbelievably unhappy, and she doesn’t know anyone else so she is all alone and has no one to talk to about it. Also, she wants kids before she gets too old and Septimus is not in a place to have kids, so some of her dreams are being postponed or destroyed if he does not find proper help. 

3) Peter Walsh just seems tortured. He was rejected by Clarissa, who is married to another man. Now, he loves Daisy from India, who is also married to another man. He is either stuck on the past and mourns about Clarisaa, or he is setting himself up for an unhappy future, falling in love with a married woman. 

Another thought I have is about death. Throughout the book, several characters think about whether or not life is meaningful, if they are worth something, or if anything is worthwhile. On page nine, Clarissa contemplates if she is okay with the fact that everything in the world will go on when she dies. Will it matter if she ceases completely? Woolf uses the quote “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun/ Nor the furious winters’ rage.” It is  song by Shakespeare. I wonder if these allusions to death and afterlife foreshadow a death in the book. But, I am only halfway through and the party (Mrs. Dalloway’s party) hasn’t even begun! Stay tuned for more information. 

[toastgod500]

Dear Mrs. Silverman,

It seems like your book is very depressing, and I’m hoping that for your sake you start to read about some joyous occasions or themes further on in the book.  Still, there’s a lot to learn from other people’s suffering and despair, such as coming to the conclusion that “love sucks!” I wonder if this is Woolf’s intended message, and why would she insert such a pessimistic message into her book?  Was her heart broken in the 3rd grade crush on the playground and she has never forgiven him since?????  We may never know.  Maybe she is trying to say that for love to exist, some sort of suffering must exist as well- or in other words, one cannot exist without the other.  Similar to the rule of courtship that went something like “the relationship is only as good as it is hard to obtain.”  No pain no gain I guess.

[katesilverman-blog]

Process 3

I have had enough confusion for one book. I gave up and just looked up a character chart on SparkNotes ( https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dalloway/characters/ ). I had a very hard time following the plot of the book because the author uses characters’ names and writes about them as if the reader already knows who they are (and clearly I don’t). This chart somewhat helped me understand who everyone is, however it did not explain the connections to the main character, Clarissa Dalloway, if there even is a connection. So far, the only connection seems to be that these people pass each other throughout their days.

Besides my frustrations with the characters, I have some other thoughts. My first being that love sucks! Everyone in this book who supposedly “loves” each other seems to be more tortured by their relationship than anything else. Here are some examples: 

1) Clarissa’s husband, Mr. Dalloway, hasn’t even been in the book so far, he is just a presence (or lack there of). The few times he has been mentioned hasn’t been very positive either, such as the fact that he is meeting with another woman for lunch. 

2) Rezia’s husband, Septimus, is suffering from what seems to PTSD from WWI. However, no one can diagnose it as PTSD because it wasn’t discovered until the 80s. She takes him from doctor to doctor, trying to find out what is wrong and why he is talking about killing himself. Although she loves him and wants to help him, Rezia is unbelievably unhappy, and she doesn’t know anyone else so she is all alone and has no one to talk to about it. Also, she wants kids before she gets too old and Septimus is not in a place to have kids, so some of her dreams are being postponed or destroyed if he does not find proper help. 

3) Peter Walsh just seems tortured. He was rejected by Clarissa, who is married to another man. Now, he loves Daisy from India, who is also married to another man. He is either stuck on the past and mourns about Clarisaa, or he is setting himself up for an unhappy future, falling in love with a married woman. 

Another thought I have is about death. Throughout the book, several characters think about whether or not life is meaningful, if they are worth something, or if anything is worthwhile. On page nine, Clarissa contemplates if she is okay with the fact that everything in the world will go on when she dies. Will it matter if she ceases completely? Woolf uses the quote “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun/ Nor the furious winters’ rage.” It is  song by Shakespeare. I wonder if these allusions to death and afterlife foreshadow a death in the book. But, I am only halfway through and the party (Mrs. Dalloway’s party) hasn’t even begun! Stay tuned for more information. 

[toastgod500]

Dear Mrs. Silverman,

It seems like your book is very depressing, and I’m hoping that for your sake you start to read about some joyous occasions or themes further on in the book.  Still, there’s a lot to learn from other people’s suffering and despair, such as coming to the conclusion that “love sucks!” I wonder if this is Woolf’s intended message, and why would she insert such a pessimistic message into her book?  Was her heart broken in the 3rd grade crush on the playground and she has never forgiven him since?????  We may never know.  Maybe she is trying to say that for love to exist, some sort of suffering must exist as well- or in other words, one cannot exist without the other.  Similar to the rule of courtship that went something like “the relationship is only as good as it is hard to obtain.”  No pain no gain I guess.

[katesilverman-blog]

Process 2

I am about 70 pages into my book right now, and I can feel that I am becoming more engaged with it. Before, I would dread the thought of reading it, partly because I am not a huge reader and partly because I found it dull. However, now, I am intrigued with the characters. It is obvious that the protagonist is Clarissa Dalloway, since the title of the book is named after her. I would say the next “most important” character so far is Peter Walsh, her almost fiance from years ago. Besides these two characters, everyone else seems to have little importance to the plot so far, however I predict that they will all slowly become more prevalent since each of them had a large description.

In addition, I am- although I hesitate to say it- beginning to appreciate the simplicity (though it is not simple even in the slightest) of the story. Here is what I mean. Every sentence in the book is like the first sentence in this paragraph. Woolf loves to use dashes, semi-colons, and parenthesis to show the inner thought of the characters. At first I hated this, and I still don’t love it, but I think that it really helps me read it as if I were inside the brain of each character. It really emphasizes the contradiction of thought and action, as well as the internal conflict within every character. Now, this doesn’t seem simple at all (and it isn’t). The sentence structure is very complex, however the entire book is the time-span of one day. The events that take place seem very menial, which many would think would make to be a very boring novel. I started out as one of these people, but the more I read I am learning to find the importance of these events. This is making me start to contemplate the daily events in my life, and is making me question my reasoning in doing them and their importance, or lack thereof. 

As I continue reading, my next goal for myself is to find the importance of the secondary characters, and why Woolf chooses to describe them and their lives. In addition to characters, I want to start looking into where Woolf uses the most imagery and question why she elaborates on those objects, events, or past events. 

[toastgod500]

To: Ms. Silverman,

Happy to hear that you’re enjoying the book more than you previously had.  That is good news.  I definitely relate to you when you say that you dread the thought of reading your book.  This is what I’m feeling currently, and like you, I’m hoping to suddenly become enthralled with my characters, but it is not happening yet unfortunately.  One question I have is that if you suspect Peter Walsh to be the “most important” character, why then is the book named after Clarissa Dalloway?  Maybe this is something to keep in mind as the plot develops.

I think that this is a really interesting conclusion that you came to in your second paragraph here.  First, to understand the purpose of Woolf’s decision to insert the thoughts of characters at times where the flow of the sentences are disrupted.  But furthermore, I really admire that you are connecting Woolf’s decision to insert menial events to your own menial events.  This is really good, and ultimately, what I think the purpose of reading is- to make you question your habitual actions or thought patterns.  I have recognized this aspect of my own life through reading as well, as really good authors have the ability to go into minute detail for an event that may have only taken 1 second in real time.  Unlike movies and reality, the reality created by writing isn’t constricted by time, allowing it to zoom into details we would otherwise look over.

[katesilverman-blog]

Process 1

I started reading my book this week and I have mixed emotions. I don’t like to judge a book based off of the beginning of it because I typically don’t become engaged until the middle of it. However these are my first few questions: why aren’t there chapters and why is one sentence an entire paragraph? As I was reading, I realized that I hadn’t reached the second chapter for a while, so I glanced ahead to see how many more pages until the next chapter when I realized, there aren’t any. I am not a huge fan of this since I like to use chapters as checkpoints in my reading. Also, Woolf likes to use semicolons. A lot. This causes me to get a little lost while reading because she has a lot of side notes while she writes, which are marked by parenthesis and semi colons.

Other than those two things I can’t complain. One thing about this book that I noticed is that it is told from the point of view of a narrator, which is not uncommon. I believe Woolf does this so that she can show the internal thoughts of many characters, allowing me (the reader) to understand everyone in the book. This gets a little confusing at times, but the more I read the more I understand it.

I am excited to see where the plot of the book goes, considering the whole book only covers one day. I have been introduced to a lot of characters in the first 30 or so pages and am curious to see where all of them will fit in with the whole story.

[toastgod500]

Kate,

I definitely relate to you when you say you have mixed emotions starting to read your book.  As for me, I’m about 140 pages into my book, and still have extremely mixed emotions, leading towards the bad emotions side.  Still, it seems like your complaints are about the technical aspects of the book, and as you said, I think that as you read, you’ll be able to adjust to these changes.  But still, I wonder what is the purpose of writing a one sentence paragraph?  It must have been an imperative sentence to convey to the reader.

I think it’s beneficial to try and cultivate a curious mindset when starting to read a book, just as you write you’re doing.  Instead of focusing on the tedious details and what has already happened in the beginning of the plot, I think its best to wonder what is going to happen just as you’re doing.  I believe this will result in you wanting to read more, which is essential if you want to finish you’re book.

[toastgod500]

Reading the Work 3

Recently my motivation to read my book has been a bit drained, and I haven’t posted in a few weeks.

I could make excuses like the book isn’t exactly JUICY yet.  If it was JUICY I feel like I would be more ready to sit down with the book and grind it out.  But I feel like I’ve been drudging through the past chapter that seems to go on about the “Southeast Asia Petroleum” and “royal initiates.”  

Also, something that is difficult is the book’s constant use of allusions, which are understandably difficult to understand, since they are allusions from 1962.  A lot of these allusions are Huxley using famous deceased people’s names as adjectives, such as “Baudelaire” and “Voltairean.”  The thing is, these are used in an obscure context that would make no sense to the person who doesn’t know who these people are.  For instance, Huxley writes, “and the bony, emphatic mask of Savonarola positively twinkled with his Voltairean smile.”  How the hell would I know what a Voltairean smile is unless I had the internet to look it up!?  Even with the internet, I can’t really find what a Voltairean smile even means.  What did Huxley expect people to do in the 1960′s reading his book who couldn’t even begin to conceive of a “Voltairean smile”?  I feel like to an extent maybe his audience is people who will readily understand these allusions.

Some other allusions include, “Antinous,” “Manichean,” and a lot of “Savonarola.”

These allusions aren’t terrible, it’s just that it takes extra effort to understand, so I can’t really just sit down with the book and get on a roll with reading it.  I end up having to read it with the internet at my side, so I can look up some arcane word or reference that Huxley uses.  I’m going to continue on with the book, but I’m aware now that it might take some extra effort to understand.

[katesilverman-blog]

Picking the Work

AI first started this search by Googling “fiction books with scholarship.” I quickly found that this was an ineffective way to find a book that I would find interesting that was under 500 pages. My next step was to ask my sister and her fiance for suggestions since they both did this project years ago. When Allison showed me some books they seemed to be too overdone, such as books like Fahrenheit 451. So, I went to Ian. 

His first suggestion was The Alchemist. This book is about a guy who had a reoccurring dream about finding a treasure. He later found out that this dream was known to be prophetical. So he went out to follow his dream to find the treasure. However, I was told this was not the best choice because of the lack of criticism. Back to the drawing board I went. 

My next choice was Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, which was about a man who found himself to be half human, half wolf. He finds no joy in the world that he lives. The book goes through his journey with this. However, Mr. Kreinbring believed that I should find a female author, someone that I could relate to better. 

My last two ideas were Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf or Night at the Circus by Angela Carter. Between the two I decided on Mrs. Dalloway because the author is more well-known and her work has more scholarship. That will be the book I use for my final project. 

[toastgod500]

This seems like you had a lot of choices to pick from, which is good.  Also, I think that it’s constructive that you consulted to Kreinbring on your book choice.  It’s kind of interesting that he recommends that we read books that are written by an author of the same gender as us.  It makes me wonder how much the gender of the author seeps into the themes or concepts of the book.  Would it make more sense to pick a book where the protagonist is the same gender as us?  For instance, what difference does it make if the female protagonist is the figment of a male/ female author?  

Just like we were talking about in my process of picking the book, I think it’s good that you picked a book because of your own interests, instead of the interests of others, because if you search, you can always find a negative opinion on a piece of literary work.  I think Mrs. Dalloway will be a good choice, yet even on goodreads, the fifth to the top review is 1/5 stars and begins with “ Virginia Woolf I hate you.” This person is probably a hater.

[toastgod500]

Reading the Work 2

When describing the main character, Will Farnaby, Susilia McPhail reflects that he has, “’The physique of a Messiah.  But too clever to believe in God or be convinced of his own mission’” (Huxley 28). Reading this made me curious of what Huxley’s own views on religion were, so I began to look it up.  

I found that, in Brave New World, Huxley satirizes the “feel good” religions that involve dancing and tambourine smacking and singing.  While he has explored man’s disillusionment with organized religion in Brave New World, he still could be appropriately labeled as a spiritual man, and has apparently attempted to get in touch with spiritual creatures.  He has also taken various hallucinogenic drugs in his time and written multiple books on his experiences with them.  (https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-was-aldous-huxleys-backround-religion-how-173469)

No matter the book, I think it’s immensely important to understand the context of the author’s life at the time the book is written if one wishes to understand the motivation behind the theme, purpose, and characters within that book.   Furthermore, one must understand the context surrounding the author’s life, and the time period in which the author is writing, and how the historical context might shape their writing. To look into the context and have a solid grasp of the author’s possible motivations is something I don’t do enough, and I’m going to make an effort to do for Island.  

So going forward, it’s important for me to note that Island was published in 1962, 8 years after The Doors of Perception was published, wish I understand to essentially be his account of his first experiences with hallucinogens.  What this means for Island, is that this book is surely hinted with some of his spiritual insights from taking hallucinogens.  I already see this coming through the theme of paying attention to the present moment, since that is all there ever is, which is a common insight one can have from taking hallucinogens.

[toastgod500]

Reading the Work 1

So far, I’m enjoying reading my book, although I’m a bit confused by how what went on in the first few pages.  My current understanding is that Will Farnaby got into a car accident which killed Molly, who was someone he loved dearly.  But I think that this might’ve been a dream?  I'm definitely going to go back and re read those pages.  

After looking back at the first few pages, I’m pretty sure that the main character, Will Farnaby, was in fact dreaming or in some sort of dream state, as he lied mangled on the island he’d just washed up on.  Yet, why would Huxley begin the book with a dream?  I think this was to establish the (what I think is going to be) central theme of the book -- that a lot of unnecessary suffering roots from not paying attention to the present moment, and letting your mind wander to the past or present.  While Will Farnaby is in this dream state, his stream of thoughts is constantly interrupted by birds on the island who are chirping “Attention.”

What I’m still confused about is who is Molly? And if Will’s initial dream is of someone dying in a car crash, how did this dude wash up on an island?

I think the choice of writing in third person is to allow Huxley to insert his philosophical insights into the text, which I’m curious to see how this unravels in the rest of the book.  For instance, the narrator remarks, “The really extraordinary thing was that he should be here, he reflected, under the trees and not out there, at the bottom of the Pala Strait, or, worse, smashed to pieces at the foot of the cliffs” (Huxley 7).

[toastgod500]

Picking the Work

When I was picking a book, I wasn’t that concerned with choosing a work of fiction that would only satisfy my interests.  For one, I try to be open to whatever I read, and find ways so that while a book may not be inherently interesting, there are always things I can take away from it.  I even sometimes enjoy reading about things that I wouldn’t think would interest me, because often through the exposure of unfamiliar ideas, that is what will push me to think differently and become a better reader.  So, in line with this thinking, I picked a book that I thought would interest me, but that I also was aware would be a fairly difficult read for me.  

I’d heard the book I chose, Island by Aldous Huxley, being mentioned by a few authors I’ve read in the past year.  First, Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now mentions how the society in Island is inhabited by talking birds, which are constantly blurting “Attention!” and “Here and Now!”  I found Tolle’s book to be extremely helpful in my own life, the thesis being that to be content and at ease, all you truly need to do is focus your attention on the present moment.  I was curious of how and why Huxley would incorporate this claim into a work of fiction, but at the time I decided to not read it.  Then about a week ago, I heard Sam Harris mention the book again on a podcast about mindfulness, which made my curiosity intensify.

I was first introduced to the idea that Island might be a difficult read when my eyes fell upon the first Goodreads review for the book, where the critic, layman Tom, gave the book 2/5 and began his review with “ This book was simply unbearable to read. “  This was definitely not something I wanted to hear as possible reader of the book.  Still, I chose not to let his review affect my decision to read the book.  I’m always skeptical of reviews of anything, and the biases or hidden agendas that the reviewer might have, resulting in a skewed review.  Reviews are, after all, subjective; but still, this was the top review for the book, meaning that it got the most up votes, so it surely must hold some truth to it.

I almost wish that I hadn’t even looked at the reviews in the first place, and would be impartial to determining if the book was hard to read or not on my own.  Regardless, I am going to find out for myself, since the book is in my possession.  >:^)

[fotogrimsi-deactivated20230306]

[toastgod500]

Productivity

Now that I’ve just woken up

From a 3 hour nap on a Saturday night,

It’s time to knock out some math homework.  

Take that you mother function. I’m gonna

Beat my college essays to death

With a foreign object. Next, what I’ll do

Is I’ll read Infinite Jest

3 times. Then I’m gonna go stand

In front of a library and get people

To sign a petition to start school later

so I don’t have to take so many naps.  

I’m gonna send in a job application

To Google, but only after first learning

Python.  Last, I’m gonna rewrite the

Declaration of Independence.

I’m a snake that’s shedding all my

Layers of procrastination until all that’s

Left is a naked hunk of productivity.