Thinking About Boredom: David Foster Wallace's The Pale King

It took me a long time to read The Pale King, not because of the length or the way sometimes life makes you start and stop certain things. I wouldn't read The Pale King for the fact that it was David Foster Wallace's last fictional words on earth after he committed suicide, a suicide that deeply affected me as a fan and admirer. Even though his widow and his editor, a long time friend, reassured fans that the book was approved by Wallace, he having left notes about how to publish the book, I just couldn't do it. I was scared to read something that I felt would let me see into the mind of someone at the end of things, someone who had decided that life was too much, a thought that I, and I am sure others, have had at times in life when things got tough.

So years pass, and every now and then The Pale King creeps up on those various aggregate lists of good reads and in those damn buying algorithms by Amazon and other retailers. Each time I saw it, each time I resisted, opting for other sometimes intentional lighter fare because I just didn't want to think about the "harder" things. As you get older, however, you start thinking about what you believe are the harder, darker things in life.

Recently, my thirty-seventh birthday happened. I am at a weird space in my life where I am stuck in a twilight zone of finishing one thing with my doctorate and trying to transition back to a more socially acceptable normal working life somewhere. For those that might not know, devoting your life full time to higher academics puts you in a bubble that can be very tedious, you subsist on college campuses, classrooms, conferences, and libraries, working on your research and writing, reading repetitive materials looking for nuggets of wisdom, you lose touch with so much of the functional reality of living and working everyday, especially if you were a product of a blue collar background like myself.  For five years I have soldered on in that lifestyle, basically for the bulk of my thirties, what many would consider to be the "prime" of my life. So as it spirals to an end there is a lot of doubt, a lot of thinking about am I good enough, am I too old to get back in the game, what if I can't get a job doing what I love to do? What if I can't ever get my life started again?

When I say you start thinking about the darker things in life it doesn't necessarily mean that you are completely at a loss, some people are and I hope that they seek out others to talk and find support, but even the most mentally strong person finds themselves questioning things about life (as in the previous questions above), about the process of how do we do life after a certain amount of years on this planet? This got me to thinking about Wallace's fictional work again, the way I always enjoyed how his men, women, and children addressed the process of functioning in life. For instance, in Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, the story about the bathroom attendant. That story nails so many aspects of the difficulty of life and what we do to survive, to find meaning, even if there is apparently no meaning at all. So one day, shortly after my birthday I am at a used book store in Homewood, Alabama on an arctic vortex influenced Saturday and there The Pale King set, out front on a shelf of complete shit titles of bad romance and some completely throw away ragged mass market trade paperbacks from the 80s', the kind that have that weird chemical smell that never dissipates no matter the age or the way they were stored. In a way, my time for the book had come and I knew it.

The Pale King is about life, specifically, how do people deal with what can be the boredom and tedium that being alive presents. Wallace frames the story around people from all walks of life going to work for the IRS in the mid 1980's. His characters muse about boredom, often times comically, about how to deal with it, especially in working in accounting, or even just in trying to concentrate in a job generally. For example, take this passage:

"I know quite well how desk work really was. Especially if the task at hand was dry or repetitive, or dense, or if it involved reading something that had no direct relevance to your own life and priorities, or was work that you were doing only because you had to---like for a grade, or part of a freelance assignment for pay for some lout who was off skiing. The way hard desk work really goes is in jagged little fits and starts, brief intervals of concentration alternated with frequent trips to the men's room, the drinking fountain, the vending machine, constant visits to the pencil sharpener, phone calls you suddenly feel are imperative to make, rapt intervals of seeing what kinds of shapes you can bend a paperclip into, & c." (p.293) 

Have we all not thought this way? I know I can admit that I have, and that is the beauty of so much of the book, you want to stop, to look away, but Wallace is so good at talking to you, helping you to think and laugh and cry about the mundane that you are compelled to look, to push on, to see where the next thought is going to go. The book is like a small group therapy in itself, creating a sense of connection with you (me), and maybe that is what Wallace wanted. Maybe writing it was his therapy during dark times till the darkness unfortunately became too much. 

***The quote comes from the Back Bay Books paperback edition of The Pale King*** 

Imagery and Unison: Jeff Lemire's Trillium

Trillium Issue 8 Cover, Image Courtesy of Vertigo Comics

Writer & Artist Jeff Lemire has in-between his high profile DC Comics writing projects found time to tell more personalized stories such as The Underwater Welder and a recent Vertigo imprint offering, Trillium. The narrative, his take on the science fiction love story, is effective (even with some issues I had with the dialogue being a bit heavy handed), in stretching Lemire's ability to tell a story that has possible appeal to a wider audience while simultaneously playing with how he can visually tell a story at a major publisher. He accomplishes an, at times, affecting experience with Trillium by building what I saw was a visual theme of the unison of two people throughout the eight issue run. Here are some brief notes on how I saw that theme is attempted in each issue:

Issue 1

This introduction splits the narrative from the front and back, but introduces the theme of unity nicely in a double splash page as Nika, the main female love interest, ingests the Trillium flower and bonds with the god of the Atabithian beings. Lemire sets the stage for the visual motif of after ingestion, where the visualization forces itself out of the body of the person who has ingested it, bonding the character with the information inside and outside of oneself and later with another.

Issue 2 

The lovers meet and the firmly separate narratives unite on a full page spread before and after ingestion of the Trillium flower. Lemire also sets the unison of the two in individual panels, making sure that they are almost always together in panel when possible.

Issue 3 

A double page spread is used as the temple of the Atabithian become the connection point. I think it its interesting to note here that there is a connotation of the connective tissue to other things we connect to or come to unison with as human beings, i.e. religion, philosophy, ideology--or it may be just me, you tell me in the comments.

Issue 4 

The cover (see below) explains the unification and the layout of the book. When Nika and William are together, as they are for this issue, the narrative and panel construction works in unison, not flip-flopped, or reversed, or even jumbled up on the page.

Courtesy of Vertigo Comics

Issue 5-6

These two issues go together, as after an event in issue four, the lovers are split for these two issues, and Lemire returns to the original split narrative device.

Issue 7

Nika re-connects with the Trillium flower and the god of the Atabithian. We have re-unification with a splash page for the first time in two issues. Lemire did well to wait this long, as the emotional payoff is good for the moment, you know it is coming, but the extra issue wait gave a greater sense of relief.

Issue 8

The issue, "Two stars become one", has Lemire bringing the unison to a climax. Nika and William are in almost every single panel together, including three individual full page layouts and two double page spreads. The last one, where the two stars do finally become one, appears to be a painted or watercolor page that uses a few different techniques.

Why go to the shop?

Perhaps I just don't pay attention that much, but today I noticed something I had not in the last few years in attending free comic book day at my local shop (LCS).  It wasn't that the shop was full, that is a given on the busiest shopping day of the year for comics, rather, the place was full of happy, smiling, laughing, talking people, mixed in age, gender and ethnicity. It doesn't necessarily matter that they were talking about comics (as one would in a comic shop) and all the stuff around the shop, it was the fact this this social interaction was occurring, and that it was so full of positivity that it actually forced you to walk around with a grin on your face and make you want to join the conversation.

I could easily buy everything I bought today on Amazon, or Ebay, or even be one of those people who download illegally. But I don't, and being in that shop today proved to me yet again that the LCS isn't ready to go down without a fight precisely because of what it, and local small business, can deliver outside of the material itself-- namely an aesthetic, social, communal experience. The LCS is not a den of negative fanboy scary as portrayed in movies and (as of late) reality television. Rather, the LCS can be that kind of place you heard your grandparents talk about, that place where people went and had coffee and read the paper and chatted. And no, the Starbucks in the B&N does not offer this, and I have been in many around the southeast and people aren't sitting around reading the latest issue of Newsweek chatting about the articles. You go there for the free wi-fi that only costs you as much as the cheapest cup of whatever.

The point here I am dancing around is this: support local business as they can still be hubs of healthy social discourse and interaction. Maybe my LCS is an exception or something, I can only speak from my own experiences, however, I know that generally when I go to a locally owned place to eat, or get coffee, people are generally more in tune with each other. By all means conduct your own social experiment as I have and next time you go out hit up these places that are being swallowed by all that is convenient or one-click away and just sort of soak in what is going on. Or, even if your bold, strike up a conversation.  If you can strike up a conversation with a complete stranger in a bar you can do it here, ok?

Why myth not caring makes Flex Mentallo important

Strap yourselves in. Brace yourselves. Prepare to become fictional- from the collected deluxe edition of Flex Mentallo Man of Muscle Mystery by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly. 


Myth does not care. Myth has no concerns for money. Myth has no concerns about spatial or temporal dimensions that society struggles with. Myth pre-supposes all such material and even non-material concerns; It is not just the DNA of things, it is the actual ephemeral. Myth seemingly composes the structures of our stories and by extension the way in which we can or should interact in our cultures and individual lives.

Metis and the idea of a cultural intelligence

Detienne and Vernant (1978), writing on greek myth and culture, define metis in two ways-- "as a common noun, [metis] refers to a particular type of intelligence, an informed prudence; as a proper name it refers to a female deity, the daughter of Ocean" (p. 11). While the secondary definition frames much of what the authors discuss in their work, I want to focus on the former part of the definition about the phrase informed prudence. I believe this to describe myth as a discretionary that pre-supposes actions undertaken; therefore myth has the ability through allegory/metaphor (or story) to advise, inform, entertain, or even caution about situations that can or will inevitably occur within the course of a life lived within a societal structure. This idea is what Grant Morrison seems to be having his crisis about in Flex Mentallo. 


"I mean, when you think about it...they're like archetypal...they come right up from the depths, those things...how can they say that stuff's stupid?...Why do people get so ashamed of things? ...I mean, I really love those comics..." from Flex Mentallo, issue # 1. 


Morrison has basically spent the part of his career post-Mentallo living the life on paper of his magical word, "Shaman". Spinning out of his own existential and drug fueled trips that took him to places such as the far east (which have been well documented in interviews as well as in his book Supergods and the recent film-opic Talking with Gods), the time spent seemed to allow Morrison to reflect, and in some spiritual way interact, with the stories of heroes that so shaped and molded his writing sensibilities, although at some great pain as on display in the pages of Flex Mentallo. By believing in that he acts as a shaman medium so that myth and story may emerge from the fictional ether into a more substantial reality, Morrison legitimizes his own spiritual beliefs and perhaps even salvation. Honestly it is no different than any other religion or individual treatise on faith that people make in search of a centering in the reality that everyday life has constructed. Morrison has chosen the "fictional" (and I use quotations here to connote fiction as it is understood as a normative cultural operation which many would view Morrison's choice to be), to plant his flag in the ground.

Essentially, Flex Mentallo is Morrison fully realizing for the first time in his writing the greek idea of metis. For Morrison, the heroes and heroines of the golden age can bring to society and pop culture the values of a seemingly good moral citizenship/optimism (an interesting ethical argument I believe for utilitarianism on Morrison's part), which seem to have a quality that is ageless and timeless. It is such reasoning that I believe then that Flex Mentallo stands as a modern day treatise on the power of metis as I described above, and has lead Morrison to write from that standpoint in some of his major works in the last decade, e.g., All-Star Superman, Final Crisis, Joe the Barbarian. For Morrison it comes down to the simple idea that these fictions/stories can save us. 

Myth does not care because it exists forever in waiting for culture to utilize it. While the power of myth through the skills of oration are not once at the power the were due to the paradigm shift in western society to symbolizing/communicating through pen to paper, and now 0 to 1's, myth is very much woven into the fabrics of countless cultures. Simply, as Morrison discovered in his own way, we need myth to give us hope, and to let us appreciate what came before us, and expect the best that is yet to come, even if sometimes that gets lost in the shuffle for a little while. This is not a  new idea, as the greek concept of metis should demonstrate, but in this modern society, as Morrison believes, the concepts get corrupted and misused, turned out from the intention of showing perhaps a way of life that is more communal and egalitarian if society can accept its own possibility. So bring on the heroes and heroines, and let them shine a little light into our lives.




References 


Detienne, M., & Vernant, J.P. (1978). Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture & Society. Sussex, UK. The Harvester Press. 

Why Old Friends Are A Good Thing

(image from Kaboom studios website)


In Roger Langridge's Snarked #4, we are left with a moment of reflection by one of the oldest literary creations ever-- that dreamer, that man of La Mancha, the wise, mad, beautiful romantic Don Quixote.

As Wilburforce J. Walrus and Company dash off, after being assisted by the old knight, whom one presumed to be the white knight of the gate (i.e., from the Looking Glass story) from an earlier issue, we are left with a surprising commentary on the concluding panels:

Walrus: Many thanks Whitey--you're a gentlemen and a scholar.

Knight: (smiling) They ALL say that!

Knight: ( now alone on an empty street at night, standing next to a rather wearied looking horse and he himself drops into an expression of a sad understanding) Yep--they all say that. Then they grow up....and they do. / Ah, well. S'pose it's for the best. Come, Rocinante...Let's get some hot cocoa.

(The final panel shows them ambling off into the night, with  the cheshire cat watching them).

 While Snarked has been a showcase of Langridge's love of Caroll (through a really solid character building by the way), this nod to Cervantes and one of the most famous imaginative creations in literary history is presented in a quite frankly moving moment. I have no idea if Langridge plans on bringing back the impossible dreamer and his trusty steed (maybe some Sancho Panza action as well??), but for now its always nice that some of our old literary friends remind us that they are still around if we need them to save the day or make us smile for a moment even if we have grown up.

Snarked issues 1-5 are out in your local comic store now, or possibly available online. It is published by Kaboom!. You can also visit the webpage built by Langridge snarkisland.com 

Educational questions around comics

Well it has been a while since I posted here, but that's the life of working on your doctorate...time just gets away from you and your writing and teaching commitments become multiplied in a hurry. I just wanted to pause here at this point in the semester to think some more about why comics, or, why graphic narratives, or why sequential art? What is the appeal and why do I have this need to push it as a valid and real form of creativity, communication, and scholarship that can be used in isolation, but , rather, in my argument, in constant use with other types of media in order to create wider contexts for learners.

I am preparing soon to teach another day on comics in the classroom in a little over a month, and I am in my usual planing stages. This time, however, it just feels like this go around needs to be just as dynamic as the work being discussed. But how? That is where I am currently stuck...what is the pedagogy and theory to augment the intended practices, not only in my execution of the presentation and subsequent discussions, but also in how I can present possibilities for these pre-service teachers to actually see that it is a very real possibility of using this medium in the classroom. These questions are weighing heavily on me also as I recently have started discussions with others about the possibility of my dissertation actually being a graphic narrative. It is elating, but also scary as shit.

Next time, more about this plus actually getting back to writing about comics again, if but for a brief time.

Analyzing Chapter Two of Thompson's Habibi: Veils Of Darkenss

In transitioning from chapter one, I believe Thompson begins to explore the idea of motherly connection and female identity in the presented culture/society in chapter 2.

I need to first mention that women in harems, slavery and bondage is pushed a little further forward in this chapter. While the arranged marriage as monetary supplement is introduced in chapter one, this chapter places Dodola, the female protagonist (who has been presented in narrative age from nine to mid twenties , but more on that later), in a more developed plight of being owned in a harem. Her options as a person are just as limited as before, as Thompson has, without explicitly stating it, been able to establish the diminished role of women within this space. To open the window a bit further on Dodola and her situation, Thompson decides to lay out for the reader the story in a non-linear fashion, which at times is head scratching and others stunning. While it caused me to be a bit crossed up in figuring out a flow in the introductory chapter, it begins to make more sense in this second chapter, which may or may not be due to the problems presented( woman as objects/property, women as subservient, women as sexual currency) becoming clearer to me as I read/viewed.

Is this chapter about establishing a woman finding her independent, inner/spiritual strength?

Women as property/slaves; Women as objectified; The form of woman is shown as a vessel in which body, mind, and spirit is being examined in "Veils of Darkness". Dodola's options are presented as limited outside of having a choice of being a traditional caregiver as defined by a patriarchal ideology. Specifically, we are given a broader story about how she first, at the age of nine, is compelled to take the babe she deems Zam with her out into the world and ultimately in seclusion for many years. That relationship with Zam seemingly influences her judgement in choosing to keep the baby (more on that in a moment) she has become impregnated with as a member of a harem.

Dodola has yet to say "this is wrong", or "our treatement is unfair" or to really speak out at all as the ethical evils of prostitution, slavery, and rape are presented as just being and a natural way of life, and the reader is not given any antithesis of any kind. It is plausible for me to assume Thompson is expecting the reader to come to deeming something as unacceptable on their own based on the idea that we all aim for equality for all persons. There is another assumption I believe, however, of some sort of blanketed idea that strength and determination exist within a spiritual framework which Thompson is alluding to through the examples of allegory via religion (although that has some problems at this point as well). I am most certainly not naive, and I am aware these normed patriarchal dominant attitudes about women as secondary citizens or lesser beings than men do exist in the world and proliferate heavily through using cultural relativism as a dominant view of how to handle the delicate politics of people. This is the stickiness of ethics and morality in examining cultural attitudes and actions, but that does not let artists and authors off the hook in addressing the many sides of such issues through the characters in the work they produce (and it does always exist, as natural binaries exist). I know Thompson was thinking about the slave trade and women as slaves in his research for the book, as he discussed a bit in his interview with inkstuds in September of 2011, so I am not suggesting he is making choices in a flippant manner, rather, at this point in the text (and it could change as I read on) I believe he is showing the state of the way life goes in the world he is presenting. Perhaps this is his way of making a politically neutral position in the name of art, although the choice to be pro-life in the chapter may negate that.

A large question that persisted for me at this point in the narrative is: Why does Dodola have the choice to have the child? She is encouraged of course to abort it by the female African caregiver Nadidah, and is even walked through a medicating process to do so, but ultimately she decides not to, attempting to fill the gap she seems to need of giving care to another in this world. In thinking about this reasoning, of someone wishing to bring a child into a world of violence as has been presented, Thompson is aligning Dodola with what I believe is the only sane recourse of, as described by Nel Noddings, a feminine ethic of care. This ethic is one that is a "basic ethic [...] of caring, which involves receptivity, relatedness, and responsiveness" (Gregory & Giancola, 2003, p.338). The caregiver looks not to the dread (of existential existence, one of the individual), but instead towards the love of connection with another, specifically one that you project care and love onto and who reciprocates it back (e.g. mother and child dynamics). We have , in the span of two chapters, seen our main character exhibiting this ethic of care twice in life, from a shockingly young age of nine when she runs and hides with the one she deems Zam through the choice of accepting the trials of giving birth as a young woman. This giving seems to be rooted also in some sort of extension of the spiritual, which Thompson continues to slowly dole out in passages from the QUR'AN and symbolical imagery.

But that still doesn't change the fact that she is given the choice about the child, and this troubles me from a narrative perspective. This seems strange to me as this world that is established in which men who buy, sell and rape women, and will kill children and babies (e.g. the men debating on killing Zam in the marketplace on pages 58-59), are suddenly letting her come to term with child. I will need to investigate this more, and hopefully Thompson clears this up in coming chapters.

How does the art hold up? 

The art of chapter two spends much more time in moving away from a plethora of big splashy panels and pages to more sequential narrative action. Specifically, the sequence that stands out in the chapter is when Thompson creates an action chase sequence on pages 66-71and 75-80. Thompson decides to use a dark black for the background page effectively for this sequence, keeping the readers eye on the action in the panel rather than exploring the intricate designs that he is using elsewhere on the fringes and in the negative spaces. The chase culminates with a return to the question of nature and the debris of culture as our protagonist and babe Zam are washed up upon a giant majestic tree (the tree being used in this chapter in many metaphorical/symbolic ways) shooting up through a sewer. It really is a sequence that demands further appreciation and study by those smarter than I in such matters as sequential art!

Thompson is also very bold in choosing to explore the female body in this chapter. This is where I get  a bit tough about the decision making progress of the artist. I do not believe he is objectifying the female form, but I do raise flags about how often he chooses to draw Dodola and others nude. Yes, nudity is apart of life, and possibly historically/culturally accurate in the context of this story, but is nudity necessary in telling certain parts of the story? I have no answer, but the question does need to be raised, and I hope those who read this provide response in the comments section.

Artists of any visual medium should be asked at least the reasons for why they make the decisions about showing the naked female and male form. Alan Moore has been one person in the comics medium that has at least justified his use of sexuality as a way to explore his definition of pornography (and to debunk others), and while I don't always agree with such declarations, I do think artists should engage in such transparency with those who are exposed to the works. Again, I am not attacking Thompson, nor am I defending his choices, I am merely raising a question.

Overall chapter two provides beauty and moments of head scratching, but ultimately nothing that would not make me want to push on. Thompson is bold in narrative, sequential design and themes, and this is turning out to be indeed an ambitious work that requires the close reading I am giving each chapter! I look forward to the next chapter, and await those surprises.