Myriads Of Me: Tellur's Journal

Wanderlust%20ProjectQuantcast

Wanderlust Project to moje muzyczne alter ego – projekt, nad którym pracuję od końca 2008 roku. Zapraszam Was do przesłuchania mojej twórczości!

8.3.09

Stigmata... (Część III)

POKAŻ/UKRYJ SPIS TREŚCI | POKAŻ/UKRYJ TREŚĆ NOTKI

The Postmodern Protagonist's Inner Space Against the Backdrop of an Outer World in David Foster Wallace's My Appearance and Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

In both texts, contemporary, secular societies still regain the need for playing out rituals of spiritual nature. In Dick's novel, drugs, though common, are often described as a religious sacrament. Through drugs, Mayerson was able to join with his fellows in the most solemn moment of which they were capable (15). This is also alluded to in the description of a peculiar, double "holy trinity": Two in six, Sam Regan thought. The mystery repeated; how is it accomplished? (16)

In Wallace's My Appearance, this spiritual function is fulfilled by the Letterman show. Although both rituals aspire to be profound representations of something sacred ─ unity, socialization, conversation ─ both are in fact mere simulacra. In Dick's 3SPE:

Fran tended to take the position that the translation was one of appearance only, of what the colonists called "accidents" ─ the mere outward manifestations of he places and objects involved, not the essences. (17)

Most protagonists, if not all, are conscious of participating in a simulacrum, yet insist on doing so because of its having become as real as reality itself.

Anne said, "You have faith in that. And yet you know that the Earth it takes you to isn't the real one."
"I don't want to argue it," he said. "It's experienced as real; that's all I know." (18)

For Edilyn, her participation in the Letterman show is also a matter of subjective experience, her own and that of the audience. She is to appear both sharp and relaxed (19). The participants are conscious of the simulacrum; the simulacrum is conscious of itself:

David Letterman had a tiny label affixed to his cheek [which] said MAKEUP. This was left over from an earlier joke, during his long monologue, when Letterman had returned from a commercial air-break with absolutely everything about him labeled. (...) His [Shaffer's] bald spot had a label on it that said BALD SPOT. (20)

That the simulacrum of the real replaces the real is stated overtly in the following statement: But even if something's an anti-show, if it's a hit, it's a show. (21)

(15) Dick, p. 32.
(16) Dick, p. 40.
(17) Dick, p. 35.
(18) Dick, p. 104.
(19) Wallace, p. 181.
(20) Wallace, p. 190 & 194.
(21) Wallace, p. 188.

Ciąg dalszy nastąpi...

Posted by Tellur at 18:30 Labels:

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)