Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Never let me go and stay connected

I finished reading Never Let Me Go on Monday and my clearest memory is the perception of the main characters' dilemma - their sheltered upbringing, then their gradual acceptance of their sad fate - as analogous to the fate of people in society in general. Those of us brought up in above average families in terms of education and economic wealth, and a measure of love, tend not to lack some cherished dreams and fantasies lingering from childhood into adulthood. But what a shock adulthood can be for so many! Expending your energies for the sake of others who are shut off from you by the barriers and burdens of bureaucracy, in order to earn a living. This, it occured to me, is what was meant by the concept of a donation.

Of course I don't pretend that the analogy holds up all the way, perhaps I am too self-centred and my own life's anomalies prevent me from imagining Ishiguro's characters living the way he wants us to believe they did. They are me, and I am not a clone. Although it is just as true that in the bureaucratic world I am replaceable like practically anyone else. New age self-growth remedies aside, no amount of self-promotion will ever cause that annoying reminder of bottom-line factuality to stay away.

On a different note I was thinking of the fundamental connectedness of everything and everyone and wanted to remind you that this highly spiritual concept does not you shouldn't disconnect from time to time. But ideally, hey, I think the connection is the healthiest thing one earth! What can be better for your emotional, physical, and mental health than having the harmonious companionship and support of your entire being?

Has Internet Art been forgotten? Not at all! It has transported itself through time and will reappear in soon. xxx

3 comments:

Darko said...

Hi buddy

I have been readign quite a lot recently.

I have just finished Coetzee's Foe. AN amazing amazing writer... perhaps all literature is dominated by the tirany of narrative... I strongly recommend you to read this author...

Now I am struck by Kenzaburo Oe's "a personal matter"...

I really love literature....

Take care man!!!

thundercomb said...

I loved Foe, it's probably my favourite novel by Coetzee! His critique of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and the modernist world view is very clever.

thundercomb said...

Well, actually I should say a critique of gender, race, colonialism and Enlightenment Ideals.

And, as you say, the tiranny of narrative. Do you know any authors who successfully do without narrative in the context of a novel? I thought of Burroughs and the use of the cut-up technique (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique)