Flashforward

I watched and loved the ABC series, and just recently I finished reading the book. “Flashforward”, by Robert J. Sawyer, is a book meant for SciFi lovers. And the ABC series had nothing to do with the book – except for the premise (that there was a global blackout in which people experienced a little over a minute of their futures) and the name of the scientist who alledgedly caused it: Lloyd Simcoe. Aside from that, it’s like it’s two completely different stories.

But that’s not what I want to talk about. I also don’t want to talk about how I understood little of the last 100 pages, due to the extremely detailed physics and quantum mechanics and blah blah blah; Sawyer could have been making up words for all I know, but still. I guess the whole SciFi thingy is just not for me. I also don’t want to talk about how I spent two days reading a 300-page book that I didn’t particularly like, just so that I could say (to myself, at least) that I read it. I remember informing my mother, about 15 years ago, that I was going to read The Perfume, by german author Patrick Süskind; she said “No”. And not a “no” as in, “No, I can’t believe it, how cool!”, no. It was more of a “No, I’m pulling rank here: I’m your Mother and I forbid you to read that book” kinda no. When confronted with my questioning of her completely undendable decision, she said: “Human beings spend so little time reading, that when they do read, they must make sure it is a book worth reading, with a story that will, in some way or another, add something to their life”. Clearly Das Parfum did not fit her strict definition of a worthwhile book. I get it. She had a point; she still has a point. And, today, I have to say that, although I am still not sure how I feel about her “forbidding” me to read something, anything, I should have taken her advice on “Flashforward”. Man, what a bad book! But again, that’s not what I want to talk about…

I want to talk about the possibility of the idea (or the idea of the possibility?) of being able to get a glimpse into the future.

I’m confused, I’ll admit that upfront. I believe in Karma, which (loosely phrased) means that your past life determines your current life, and that all you get in this life is a direct result of your behaviour in your past life. Right? Which means, no matter how nice and giving and caring and awesome and altruistic and philanthropic and good and all you are, if you were bad in your past life, you will pay for it in this life. Which (again, loosely phrased) kinda means that your life is predetermined to work out in a certain way. Which means that “fate” and predestination really exist, and that you have no free will. Well, you do have free will in the sense that you can do all the good you want, but your free will cannot affect your future, because it’s already predestined. And the whole idea of free will is that you can turn your life around by the choices you make.

Which brings me to the “confused” part, because I also believe in free will. But as I just said, you can’t believe in free will and believe in Karma at the same time. If I am determined to suffer in this life because I was, I don’t know, a mass murderer or something like that, in  my past life, then regardless of my good actions, I will still live a life of suffering. Right? But, if this life is the only life I get (which immediately deletes all possibility of a concept of Karma), and if I get to choose my path based on my actions, and if I’m able to realize I am making mistakes, and if I am able to fix them and correct my path and make of my life that which I want… well, that just seems awesome, right?

That’s why I’m confused. On the one hand, having all the responsability left to the Old Me (in my past life) is just great; there are no bad choices, no mistakes that I make. Everything was already predetermined by the Old Me who screwed up majorly in the past life. Right? But, on the other hand, I hate the idea of not having control of my life, of not being my own Master and Commander, and of knowing that regardless of my efforts, I cannot change the course my life has taken.

Which brings me back to the point I wanted to discuss: If I was given the chance to decide whether I wanted a glimpse of the future or not, what would I choose? The characters in both the book and the TV series were “forced” into this, because it was actually an accident. But, what would I choose? I’d love to see that everything is all right in the future, but – well, what if it isn’t? I love Honey, but what if the future showed me with someone other than Honey? Should I break up with him now because we’re not going to be together in the future? (I dreamt about this already – we are in fact together in the future.) If the future showed me winning not a Literature Nobel Prize, but rather the Physics Nobel Prize, should I stop writing and start studying physics, because that’s what the future said?

That’s what’s complicated about knowing the future: what’s to stop you from changing your present to accomodate to the future? Or, even worse, what’s to stop you from changing your present to try to change your future? That seriously did not work out for Oedipus. Why would it work for me?

I would want to say, “No, thanks” to the glimpse of the future thingy. But I know me, and I know that my curiosity is so great it kills me before the cat, so I’d say yes. And then – oh, gosh, then I’d go insane. The questions then become: how far along in the future? how long of the future? who’s future?

If only an Oracle could tell me, “It’s all going to be OK”… that really is all I need to hear. That really is all anyone needs to hear: that it’s going to be OK.

But then again… if I could be shown the future, or if an Oracle came to me to tell me everything is all right, then that means my whole life has been previously written; that I am just a puppet, an actor playing a role… I’m not too sure I like that.

 

To Have and Have Not

In his 1930s novel “To Have and Have Not,” Ernest Hemingway narrates the story of Harry Morgan’s death—not his life, for all that is left for Morgan to do is die. Not only through the actual narration, but also with the writing style, Hemingway helps the reader catch a glimpse of Morgan’s life of uncertainty and instability by changing the speaker from time to time, without notice. Once a police officer in Miami, Fla., Morgan later became a fisherman (who also rented his boat out to tourists and taught them how to fish), alternating between Cuba and the Florida Keys.  Morgan’s life is not an easy one; desperate times demand desperate measures, and the 30s sure were desperate times. A Greek philosopher once said that man is born good and society corrupts him—is this Morgan’s case? Is Harry Morgan a victim of the circumstances? Is he a tragic hero?

Harry Morgan lost his arm while bootlegging: he was trying to earn some extra dollars to feed his family with, but American Marshals caught him; to make things worse, his boat got impounded.  This gives the reader a sense of Morgan as a wounded hero—the limitations of his physical body and his possessions express the limitations of his environment.  All these tragedies together do not make a martyr out of Morgan; on the contrary, he is determined to do something to not let his family starve: “But let me tell you, my kids ain’t going to have their bellies hurt and I ain’t going to dig sewers for the government for less money than will feed them. I can’t dig now anyway. I don’t know who made the laws but I know there ain’t no law that you got to go hungry,” (Hemingway, 96).  His determination to get not only himself but also his family out of the current bad situation makes him a hero: He will do whatever he has to do to avoid his family from starving.  However, it all goes bad.

There is not much that Morgan can do—he lost his boat, so he cannot collect money from tourists; he lost an arm, so he can no longer dig for the government; all that is left for him to do is go into illegal businesses: He gets hired by three Cubans who steal a bank, and Morgan’s job is to provide the escape vehicle—a boat.  As they are escaping, things go terribly wrong and all aboard get shot, including Morgan. As he lies dying in the boat, Morgan thinks,

I guess it was nuts all right. I guess I bit off too much more than I could chew. I shouldn’t have tried it. I had all right up the end. Nobody’ll know what happened. I wish I could do something about Marie: Plenty money on this boat.  I don’t even know how much.  Anybody be O.K. with that money. […] I guess I should have got a job in a filling station or something. I should have quit trying to go on boats. There’s no honest money in boats any more.  (Hemingway, 174)

As these words echo in the reader’s mind, Morgan is slowly transformed from an evil-doing, revengeful individualist into a caring husband and father (later on in the passage he wonders what will happen to Marie, his wife, and his two daughters), who regrets getting into this dirty business. Whether his regret arises from a sincere remorse for what has happened or because of his pitiful ending is irrelevant—by this time, the reader feels nothing but sympathy and compassion for Morgan, his wife, and kids. As he dies, Harry Morgan becomes a tragic hero.

For Morgan, everything is about the money, or about a job that will bring in money—it all basically boils down to survival. This is certainly a characteristic of male providers during the Great Depression—taking desperate measures during desperate times. David Gagne says that “[Harry Morgan] represents all the characters of the 1930s struggling to continue through hopelessness,” (“Placing Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not in the 1930s”).  Does this relation to the Depression “everyman” compensate for the wrong Morgan did? Does it forgive him? Does the fact that Morgan did all he did to prevent his daughters and wife from starving, or working for the government digging sewers, glorify him?  Is Harry Morgan the ultimate, glorified, tragic wounded hero that was persecuted by censorhip?

 

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. To Have and Have Not. New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1937.

Atkinson, Ted. Law and Order: Gangsters and Fascists.  8 Mar. 2004.  Law and Order: Gangsters and Fascists slide show presentation, 9 Mar. 2004. <http://www.aug.edu/~lngtba/4100/fascism_files/frame.htm&gt;

Poor Land Makes Poor People

A common thought during the Great Depression was that “Poor Land” made “Poor People.”  William Faulkner agrees with this statement in his novel “As I Lay Dying” (1930): The Bundren family each narrate a piece of the story from their own point of view—and it is because of this narrative frame that the reader is able to dive deep into each character’s mind and catch a glimpse of how their poor land has made each of them poor people.

“As I Lay Dying” is the narration of the Bundren family’s journey from New Hope to Jefferson.  They embark on this journey to fulfill Addie Bundren’s death wish: to be buried with her family.  Early in the book, Addie dies, and the journey begins.  However, during the journey Addie (who is dead) speaks to the reader—and it is here when the reader understands why the Bundren family is so complex.

Addie married Anse Bundren for his land.  She was a school teacher who hated her job, and he seemed like a good catch because he owned a small piece of land. Being from “poor land,” having no parents alive, Addie decides to marry Anse—but she does not love him; in fact, she despises them.  She teaches herself that words like “love” are worthless, and lives her life awaiting her death.  Having been brought up in a poor land, Addie knows of nothing else but a poor life—and hence becomes another “poor person.”

This idea is reinforced when she describes her children and her reactions toward them: She does not consider herself mother to Cash nor Darl; she states that she “gave Anse the children,” and says that she “did not ask for them.”  Even Cora Tull told her that she “was not a true mother.”  She refused her breast to Cash and Darl after their time was up; however, with Jewel, her “love child” (she had a child out of wedlock, with the Reverend Whitfield), “there was only the milk, warm and calm, and I lying calm in the slow silence…”  So, Addie had Jewel for herself; then she “gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel,” and then she gave him “Vardaman to replace the child [she] had robbed him of.”  Had she not been a “poor people,” she would have been brought up to love, not only love in the word form, but love in the feeling form.

It would be easy to blame all the poorness on the mother and wife, Addie, having only read her chapter. However, throughout the novel Anse shows his signs of poorness, having lived all his life in poor land.  Anse is a farmer who has “a little property,” and a “good honest name.”  Anse is very rapidly depicted as the “anti-hero,” the character who does everything to get the bigger and better end of any circumstance. For instance, he makes his son Cash make the coffin for his mother; persuades Jewel and Darl to work to get $3.00 extra while their mother is dying (claiming that he himself cannot work, for he is allergic to sweat); convinces his neighbors to help him when he needs them (for example, getting the team of mules, food and housing while on the journey, and the spades while in Jefferson) using the argument of “good Christians;”  makes Cash, Darl and Jewel transport the coffin across the river; sells Jewel’s horse to purchase a team of mules; and ends up stealing Dewey Dell’s $10.00.

Anse’s poor mentality has made him a poor person; one who finds the need to carry his wife’s dead body from one town to another, in a journey that lasts long enough for the body to rot, stink, and attract buzzards.  However, Addie is not much better than he is: She was getting her revenge by asking Anse to promise to take her “back to Jefferson when [she] died.”

Had this couple not lived in poor land, they might not have grown to be such poor people.  Poorness in “As I Lay Dying” is not only seen in economical poverty, but in intellectual, social and emotional poverty: During the journey, when Cash breaks his leg only a few miles out of Jefferson, Anse’s solution is to cover his leg with cement; Peabody says it best when he says that he would “be damned if the man that’d let Anse Bundren treat him with raw cement aint got more spare legs.”  This shows Anse’s intellectual poverty—not even adding some kind of cream or gel to Cash’s leg before applying the cement; the Bundren’s social poverty is depicted when they stop at Grummet’s hardware store, and the marshall approaches the wagon parked in front, and requests that Anse remove that dead body from the town—a body which has been dead for more that eight days, and whose stench saturates the city until the Bundrens reach Jefferson; finally, the emotional poverty of the Bundrens is shown through the children, mostly, and their lack of a clear mother figure: Vardaman’s mother is a fish; Jewel’s mother is a horse; Darl’s mother is “is not”; and Cash’s mother is a wooden plank.  This, of course, relative to a mother who did not have children for herself, but rather gave them all to Anse.

Throughout the novel, Faulkner goes around and around the idea of poor land making poor people. The Bundrens are an example of poor land making poor people, in more than one generation.