Thursday 30 April 2009

Blurry

In my last blog entry I wrote about people with vision-impairment who I’d noticed in my neighbourhood. It got me thinking about vision. Vision is something I don’t take for granted. It’s very precious and can be easily lost. Or significantly dimmed. My eyesight started dimming when I was about 16. My glasses prescription was pretty weak though, just slightly indented glass. But when I was about 19 my eyesight started to rapidly go downhill. I was continually going back to the optometrist to get stronger prescriptions. I was worried I was losing my sight. I would get the doctor to check for a tumour. The doctor kept assuring me that I wasn’t going blind. Probably being at Uni didn’t help my weak eye muscles – not that I studied very hard. (But having a University degree has greatly helped me in life). Eventually my eyes settled, when I was about 22, and my prescription hasn’t changed since then.

If I didn’t have my glasses I would not be blind. I could get around, but I’d have to be very careful – I’d prefer not to have to do it. However, when I’m at home I don’t always wear my glasses, especially in the morning, before I need to see properly. The world looks quite different and interesting through blurry eyes. Objects take on new shapes and dimensions, sometimes blending into each other. My depth perception is a little off-kilter. I especially love to look at the trees outside my windows; the leaves are a haze of floating green, disconnected. My cat looks more furry. If I look at myself in the mirror my skin appears smoother. It’s always fun to see a brown mark on the wall because when I get my face nice and close to inspect it, it invariably turns out to be a spider. A giant, hairy spider*.

I have a question/dilemma I pose to myself occasionally (I have a lot of free time, and, being a weird loner – and possibly insane – but cute and cuddly insane - I often find myself in conversation with myself). If I had to chose between being blind or deaf, what would I chose? In the end I always chose deafness, but it’s a hard choice. I love sound – music, human voices, animal voices, wind, rain, strange creaking in the middle of the night – I get so much enjoyment from sound. But I think it would be harder to function day-to-day in this world without vision.


*Goliath bird eating spider:



Dinner:



The one that got away:

Sunday 26 April 2009

Walking in the Hood/Vision

Sometimes I go for a long walk around my neighbourhood – mainly so my knees don’t seize up (too many years of netball and volleyball (for which I'm way too short to play anyway)). There are nature reserves and creeks scattered throughout, and lots of trees. It’s a middle-class (whatever that means) suburb, established around the 1880’s, with interesting flora and fauna (including some loud possums), and featuring a lake and a Sikh Temple (there aren't many in Melbourne, so I think it's a feature). Prior to becoming a residential suburb it was home to paddocks and orchards. And prior to this it was home to Indigenous Australians, who inhabited the area way longer than anyone else.

Over the years, I’ve noticed three visually impaired people walking about. There’s a woman with a guide dog (a beautiful black Labrador who gives dirty looks to drivers who don’t stop AT THE PEDESTRIAN CROSSING to let the woman cross the road), a small-framed man who walks quietly with a gentle walking stick and a large-framed man who walks loudly with an aggressive walking stick. Being near a main railway station/mini bus depot, it’s a good area for people to live who don’t drive or don’t have a car (or who have an older car, ie me, which has a major breakdown at least once a year).

One time I approached the small-framed man. He was standing on a street corner looking like he might be waiting to cross the road, so I asked him if he needed assistance. But, since I have little control over my vocal chords, it came out as “DO YOU NEED ASSISTANCE!?”. He politely declined, but I wondered if I’d scared the shit out of him and he just wanted me to go away.

Then there’s the large-framed man. He’s wild. I'm a little frightened of him. Nothing is safe from his walking stick; not trees, not fences, not even small children and puppies. I’ve seen him crossing roads with reckless abandon. I’m guessing his view is that a driver should stop their car if they see a person with a walking stick crossing the road. And anyone who disagrees with this, say a driver who beeps their horn, would find themselves beaten senseless with a walking stick. Quite rightly. Sometimes I have had self-pity that my eyesight is so poor and that I have to wear glasses – glasses that enable me to see with 20/20 vision and not have to use a walking stick! One day I should go for a walk without my glasses – give myself some perspective.

I'm concerned that the previous paragraph might seem like I was mocking the large-framed man (I'm actually editing this post the next day). This wasn't my intention. The words were written with admiration and affection. If his walking style reflects his attitude to life then I like his attitude. I wonder if he is naturally a fast walker (like me) and so a more assertive walking stick technique would be necessary. Or, if his hearing isn't the best, he may need to make more noise with his stick to find his path. I've thought about having a chat with him but I'm worried that if I approach him with: "nice weather we're having", it might come out as "NICE WEATHER WE'RE HAVING!".

Saturday 18 April 2009

Come to Daddy

Before I became middle-aged, I used to stay up all night watching "Rage" on the ABC. Unfortunately, in my antiquity, I need my beauty sleep - well, my not-quite-so-hideous sleep - so I haven't watched Rage for some time. But I remember, in the etherealness of 3am, and coupled with the zombie-trance of too many hours watching video clips, having the bejesus scared out of me by Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy". I found it on YouTube and have placed it here on Effulgent13 for the viewing pleasure of my faithful readers. Turn up the volume and always remember: "I will eat your soul!"

Hugs and Kisses, Nicole.

Wednesday 15 April 2009

Wisdom from Karamazov

In regards to love, Elder Zosima says this:

"Fanciful love thirsts for a quick deed, swiftly accomplished, and that everyone should gaze upon it...Active love, on the other hand, involves work and self-mastery, and for some it may even become a whole science." (The Brothers Karamazov, pg 62)

Go Elder Zosima, you're the (holy) man.

Saturday 11 April 2009

A Clockwork Orange (and other Weirdo Novels)…Explained!

Lord be praised.

(This blog entry kind of got away from me and became very long, so I’ve divided it into sections)

The Art of Fiction

I’ve been reading a non-fiction book called “The Art of Fiction” by David Lodge (a non-fiction book about fiction, groovy). I’ve decided that, despite my overwhelming confidence in the enormity of my brain, there are some things I don’t completely understand. Weirdo novels being one of them (although I do understand weirdos). And it’s unlikely I’ll be taking myself off to college to do a course in literature anytime soon (mainly because I’d have to write…essays…but also, they might not let me in, especially if they read this blog). So I have to work out ‘the weirdo novel’ by myself, and I need some instruction.

“The Art of Fiction” is a collection of articles, written by David Lodge for the Washington Post and the Independent on Sunday, explaining and exploring different styles of literature. Each chapter is titled with a particular literary style or technique, eg magical realism* or intertextuality or unreliable narrator (Effulgent13 would fall into this category). The chapter then begins with an excerpt from a novel that highlights the particular literary style, and is followed by 3 or 4 pages of discussion.

The book gives a good overview of how to read not-so-straight-forward novels for someone who hasn’t studied literature since high school and who maybe didn’t pay as much attention to the teachers as she could have. It’s also given me an appreciation of the history and development of the novel. For example, I was interested to discover that in 18th century novels, the weather, and especially the weather as a reflection of a character’s mood, was hardly mentioned. But by the 19th century, no self-respecting novel would be caught published without at least one: “the weather added what it could of gloom”**. I’m always in two minds about the use of weather as a literary device – sometimes the sky thunders because of excess moisture and ionisation in the atmosphere, sometimes the sky thunders because the God’s are angry and sometimes the sky thunders because Heathcliff is angry. Dark and stormy Heathcliff, as written by Emily Bronte in the brilliantly moody “Wuthering Heights” (and sung about, in an impossible octave, by Kate Bush). I did enjoy Heathcliff’s brooding passion (although I was alarmed by his frequent ejaculations).

But I was extra interested to find an excerpt from “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess under the chapter heading ‘Ideas’. A ‘novel of ideas’ is a novel in which “ideas seem to be the source of the work’s energy, originating and shaping and maintaining its narrative momentum – rather than, say, emotions, moral choice, personal relationships or the mutations of human fortune”. English ideas-novelists (eg Anthony Burgess) tend to use satire or utopian/dystopian fantasy for their explorations; whereas, European ideas-novelists (eg Jean-Paul Satre, Dostoyevsky) tend to have highly articulate characters engaging in philosophical dialogue, without too much action (no car chases, explosions, bank heists etc).

A Clockwork Orange

The excerpt David Lodge uses from “A Clockwork Orange” details how 15-year-old Alex has been 'cured' of his previous enjoyment of beating and raping people (ultraviolence). Alex has undergone the Ludovico Technique. This is an experimental method whereby the subject is injected with nausea inducing drugs, then forced to watch films containing alarmingly realistic, high levels of violence (including street beatings, gang rape and war footage of torture and murder). The debilitating pain and nausea Alex experiences during these sessions eventually become part of his biochemistry, in a Pavlovian-type response. He can no longer witness or, more importantly, participate in, any kind of violence without feeling intensely ill. He also can’t fight back if he is attacked. In the words of the prison chaplain: “He has no real choice…he ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice”. And so he has been dehumanised.

It’s hard to feel sympathy for a character such as Alex, though, given his own record of unsympathetic dehumanizing. And this is where the novel is so strange (to me). Alex completely lacks empathy, and is aesthetically attracted to violence and to other people's suffering (a pretty lethal combination). Without any insight into why he might be like this, Alex isn’t really a human character . He’s a distortion; a bizarre archetype of a self-absorbed, hedonistic, disconnected, impulsive, manipulative, passionate, angry human. An archetype otherwise known as 'teenager'. But, in the case of Alex, the author’s nightmare vision of teenager.

So I’ve now gone and re-read “A Clockwork Orange” with open and more informed eyes. It’s definitely a thought-provoking read. At times I still found the style (first-person nadsat*** language) and content (some disturbing violence) difficult to handle. But, mostly, I was able to get into the flow of the language and be objective about the violence. I still found one scene extremely distressing though; when Alex rapes two 10-year-old girls. I read through it very quickly. Interestingly (disturbingly?), in the film version of “A Clockwork Orange”, Stanley Kubrick replaced the child-rape scene with a consensual threesome between adults (Alex being portrayed by 28-year-old Malcolm McDowell and the two "girls" being about 18-years-old). I wonder if the film would’ve reached the same level of cult status if this scene had been shown as it was written in the book.

Throughout the novel there are explorations of social/political/cultural habitats, group mentality and dynamics, survival instincts, social engineering, economics. And entwined into all these themes is the perpetration of violence to get desired results – by Alex, by Alex’s gang, by police, by scientists, by governments and by Alex’s victims. But the novel doesn’t offer solutions or attempt to understand the psychology of violence, that’s not its intention. Instead, it challenges the reader’s understanding of society by showing brutal extremes of that society.

(PS: I didn’t get much of this from watching the film, which, in my opinion, crossed over into sensationalism).

And finally:

I seem to be re-reading (and, hopefully, better understanding) most of the books from my Incomprehensibles list – the books that I own, at least. “Heart of Darkness”, “The Sound and the Fury” and “Paradise Lost” all came from the library. Of course, I could take them out again, and it’s not out of the question that I might try reading ”Heart of Darkness” again. But “Paradise Lost”, which is an epic poem (who came up with this crazy literary style?), really annoyed me, not so much for its style but for its continuation of the theme ‘woman is conniving-ruthless inferior and man is feeble-innocent favourite, helpless in the face of her ambition-driven seductive wiles (read vagina)’, espoused and popularized by religious doctrine. And, as for “The Sound and the Fury” and my interest in its ‘southern gothic’ style, I’ve since realized that I’ve already read the masterpiece of southern gothic - “Flowers in the Attic” by Virginia Andrews.


* I know it’s called magic realism, I just think 'magical' sounds more, uh, magical

**From “Emma” by Jane Austen

***’Nadsat’ is the name given to the dialect spoken by the teenagers in the novel. It was created by Anthony Burgess, from a combination of cockney rhyming slang and Russian. As the book was published in 1962, during the era of cold war and Communist paranoia, it's possible that the author was equating scary teenagers with scary communists. And Anthony Burgess was a Catholic, and Catholic’s are notoriously terrified of communists (eg the DLP (Australian) or Joseph McCarthy). [As a lapsed Catholic, I no longer fear the 'reds under the bed', however the right-wing conservative in the cupboard scares the shit out of me.]

Saturday 4 April 2009

Or is it me?

A few weeks ago this is what I thought (Banalities from my life):

-I keep finding myself attracted to men with idealistic views of romantic love

-I keep finding myself attracted to men who won’t get involved in romantic love because they don’t want their idealism shattered

I'm wondering if maybe I was a little harsh with my comments. There could be other reasons for someone not wanting to get involved with me. They could be busy. They could be involved with someone else. Maybe they're not comfortable with my strange ways (hell, sometimes I'm not comfortable with my strange ways). I guess it's possible, though extremely unlikely, that I'm not as gorgeous as I've always led myself to believe.

But something that's been playing around (huh?) in my mind is this: maybe I'm a little idealistic about smoochy love myself. I certainly was in my 20's. I was somewhat fickle. I wasn't a stayer (or a slayer). I tended to rush into relationships, then rush right back out when things weren't working. Although, I think the problem was more the rushing in - being all starry-eyed and believing in 'magic' (not that I was hexing people, my powers weren't that strong back then - I mean the whole: "she/he is the one, la, la, la, I'm sooo happy now"). And there was some level of peer-conformity pressure going on; people around me were all paired up, especially the females, and some of my friends were married by their mid-twenties. I could barely feed myself in my mid-twenties, let alone work out what qualities were important to me in a partner. And what qualities were important to me in me.

But now, at 41, resplendent with many grey hairs, dodgy knees and exciting middle-aged skin, I should be wise and knowledgeable about everything, especially lurv. My eyes shouldn't be drifting into starriness...or, at least, only rarely drifting into starriness (I think some starriness every now and again is good for the soul; just be careful not to damage your retina).

And, in honour of starriness, here is a picture of a moderately famous painting called "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh - with spectacularly hallucinogenic stars, which will definitely damage your retina (but in a good way):





Karamazov count: pg 52 (I'm actually reading 2 pages every day, as it's easier to start at the top of the left-hand page each time - so my revised total length of time to finish the book is now 446 days or 1.22 years)