Mirrors and Magic: Fifth Business, Islam in Pakistan, Solaris

Mirrors and Magic: Fifth Business, Islam in Pakistan, Solaris 

"We don't know what to do with other worlds: we don't need other worlds. We need a mirror."

-Solaris

What are we looking for? And would we know if we found it?

I recently read and/or watched a number of works that raise this question, in rather different ways. All three also reflect on a related question: is our desire ultimately for something other, or only for ourselves? Is our desire ultimately for truth, for reality, or can it be fulfilled in illusion? Is there something out there?

This is a question central to modernity; and even more central in the much-advertised age of AI. AI, as I have again and again emphasized in this space, is mostly false advertising, and even then mostly not new. Nevertheless, it is not without its genuine effects. The rise of Large Language Models has, thus far, done little or nothing to increase economic productivity, encourage creativity, aid discovery, increase leisure, manifest a generalized god-like intelligence, or accomplish any other goal touted by its creators to garner venture capital. It has, however, helped a few kids commit suicide, driven a few more insane, and successfully imprisoned a growing number of people in obsessive intellectual and faux-religious and faux-personal relationships with mirrors. And that is not without significance. 

Hence, in this issue of my patented "Three Extremely Different Works of Art in Different Mediums Reviewed Together According to A Philosophical or Social Theme" (TM) series, I will be examining two books and a film that all, I think, ultimately center on this same all-too-human problem, this same disconnect between what we think we are looking for and what we actually encounter, out there in the world: between our desire for the other, and the comforting, imprisoning facsimile of the mirror. 

What Went Wrong? Hitchcock's Vertigo, Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides, and Gene Wolfe's Peace

What Went Wrong?

Hitchcock's Vertigo, Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides, and Gene Wolfe's Peace

"What went wrong? That is the question, and not 'To be or not to be.'"

-Gene Wolfe, Peace (1975)

These are times when nearly everyone in America is engaged, it seems to me, in asking one question: what went wrong? 

This is not, I should say, a question confined to either Right or Left on our soi-disant political spectrum.  Trumpists think about nearly nothing except what went wrong under Biden, and Obama, and since Harry Truman; and, increasingly, about what has gone wrong and is going wrong under Trump. Progressives, looking at their electoral defeats, looking at Trump's America, ask themselves the same question. Leftists, social conservatives, Distributists, Communists, Integralists--even the tiniest sub-factions of American politics seem to spend more time analyzing how things have gone wrong than how they might possibly go right. 

Yet for all that, virtually no one, it seems to me, actually tries to answer the question in any comprehensive or philosophical or historically satisfactory way. People produce, say, accounts of ways in which government has gotten less efficient; or how regulations have impeded economic growth; or, at best, how cultural movements or technological developments have caused kids to be less happy or art to be less good. These are all, though, from my perspective, so many discussions of symptoms rather than diseases, of effects rather than causes. 

To understand any human phenomenon, no matter how technical, one must understand human motivation and action. And considered in that light, apparent oppositions frequently conceal unities, and apparent triumphs already hold the seeds of their own downfalls. Most fundamentally of all, one cannot solve a problem until one has recognized what the problem is; nor can one undo a mistake until one understands what the mistake actually was. 

In my next post (probably), I will write about the more political and social side of this question. Today, though, I want to write about three works of art that are, in my mind, at least, connected by precisely their attention to more hidden and human seeds of harm and destruction, the ways in which these seeds grow and unfold, and the destruction they wreak when full-grown. All three films are in at least some sense tragedies; and hence all pose the same basic question of their characters' downfalls: what went wrong? 

Homo Vanus Patiens: On The Interpretation of Seven American Nights and A Modest Primer on How to Read Gene Wolfe

Homo Vanus Patiens 

On the Interpretation of Seven American Nights and A Modest Primer on How to Read Gene Wolfe

The passing of Gene Wolfe in 2019 went, like much of his literary career, mostly unnoticed by the world at large. As before, plaudits were published by his admirers--a piratic crew of literary critics, academics, fellow science fiction authors, Catholics, and nobodies--declaring him, for the umpteenth time, the greatest [blank] of his generation--with the blank to be filled in, depending on one's personal preferences, with "literary sci-fi writer," "sci-fi writer," or even just "writer." These praises make for odd reading, and I imagine would be odder for anyone who had not read him before: as they consist usually of writers struggling to find the right adjectives and express just what about this guy was so good. And usually failing.

Gene Wolfe, it must be said, is hard to describe. He is also, at least for some, hard to read. As I write this, the top prompts for "Gene Wolfe" on google include the plaintive cry, "How do I read Gene Wolfe?" 

How do I read Gene Wolfe? This is very emphatically the right question to ask. Most classic works of literature are, at heart, exceedingly simple in content--love story, adventure, horror, relationship drama, novel--even if frequently daunting in execution. For most such books and authors, the right advice is exactly the opposite of what we were taught in high-school English class: relax, forget all about symbolism and subtext and social and cultural context, and try to enjoy the book exactly as you would Animorphs. The paradox of Gene Wolfe, however, over which many literary critics and random forumgoers have struggled in the decades since he began his career, is that despite writing for a "pulp" genre shared with Animorphs, he is the rare author who does, in fact, demand to be read carefully, thoughtfully, analytically, considerately. 

Intimate Portraits of Madness: American Psycho, Uncut Gems, Remains of the Day

Intimate Portraits of Madness: American Psycho, Uncut Gems, Remains of the Day

[In this column, I will again return to the mini-art-criticism format by discussing three works of art which I have read/watched over the last several months, which I believe are extremely connected to each other. Obviously there are lots of spoilers.]

American Psycho (2000)

"I can't believe Bryce prefers Van Patten's card to mine..."

My story parallels those of many other men of my generation. I finally watched American Psycho recently after years of seeing business card memes on the Internet. 

American Psycho is what is known as a "cult classic."

Like many other critics to write about American Psycho, I am haunted by the fear that I may sound as nonsensically bullshitting as its protagonist, stereo aficionado Patrick Bateman, does in the key scene in which he energetically monologues meaningless critical jargon about Huey Lewis and the News while dancing around with an ax. 

This cult-classic critical indie darling...*axe noises*

Mini-Art-Criticisms: Star Wars, Fellowship of the Ring, There Are Doors, Star Trek The Motion Picture

Mini-Art-Criticisms: Star Wars, Fellowship of the Ring, There Are Doors, Star Trek The Motion Picture

[I am experimenting with various formats in this column as I continue to be quite busy (and also because experimenting with various formats is what this column is all about). This week, I decided to collect some thoughts on a few books and films I have read/watched recently.]

In the last week or so, I have read the following books in their entirety, and watched the following films. The latter is a bit unusual, as I rarely watch films these days. Nonetheless, it occurred to me that they really dovetail in various ways quite nicely.

Silence: An Exercise in Film Criticism and Cultural Jeremiad

Note: Every possible kind of spoiler exists herein. Proceed at your own risk.

The elusive, controversial American Catholic filmmaker Martin Scorcese spent roughly thirty years trying to adapt Silence, a novel by the equally elusive and controversial Japanese Catholic writer Shusaku Endo. After momentous efforts and many false starts, the film was finally released last year, to general bemusement and a box office take of roughly 16 million (on a 40 million budget). The film’s distributors, perhaps hoping to avoid controversy, promoted the film very little, and released it only in a heavily limited number of theaters for a very short run. The film was ignored by all major cinematic awards, garnering no Golden Globe nominations and only one Academy Award nomination (for best cinematography), which it did not win. Although it had its vociferous defenders, including most top film critics, it also garnered its share of controversy and vicious criticism, from a number of very different sources. For all intents and purposes, the film sank like a stone, leaving few ripples in its wake.

Still, I saw it, and I also followed the buzz surrounding the film fairly closely; and I found both the film and the responses it provoked almost equally fascinating. I read the novel the film is based on a number of years ago, and, as with Scorsese it has stayed with me ever since; and this in turn inspired me to read a moderate amount about the historical situations that inspired the novel, as well as other works of its author, Shusaku Endo. I also come at both film and novel from the perspective of a practicing Catholic who studies intellectual history academically and also (while by no means being an expert) reads a great deal of Catholic theology, present and (mostly) past. All this has given me, I think, a perspective on film and book different from the average American. It is my basic contention, then, that the film, being what it is, has a great deal to tell us about the perspectives and basic orientations of the people who watched it. And this in turn has a great deal to tell us about the current state of our society.