Myriads Of Me: Tellur's Journal

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

10.3.09

Stigmata... (Część IV)

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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

M. Jędrzejczak describes the narratives of Philip K Dick as ones in which there exists:

a psychologically complicated protagonist in an extraordinarily challenging situation, without a clearly-defined goal in life, set against an unintelligible mechanism without any rational hopes of succeeding in his struggles. (22)

The unintelligible mechanism is at first embodied in the persona of Palmer Eldritch, but as the adversary becomes dehumanized, he becomes an abstract mechanism; an integral part of the world's construction.

Such a description of a protagonist set against a mechanism may as well be applied to Edilyn from MA. Her personal "Palmer Eldritch" is Letterman ─ the exterior factor which endangers her inner integrity. First considered likable (23), Letterman is later described to appear like a very large toy (24). In no way does he transcend ontological boundaries like Palmer Eldritch, yet as a public figure he just as much endangers the integrity of his guests and expects them to sacrifice their personality. He does, however, manage to divide Edilyn ontologically into an actress and a "real" person ─ mutually exclusive roles ─ which shatters her integrity and is the cause of anxiety. Edilyn tells Letterman that:

Those things you listed are assets, is all they are. They're my assets, David, they're not me. (25)

However, if Edilyn as an actress is a mere simulacrum of Edilyn as a "real" person ─ than she "refers" to something which has long ceased to exist. Having taken Xanax and chosen to act out the part of a "real" person ─ having chosen to appear genuine ─ Edilyn has become her own simulacrum.

CONCLUSION

The postmodern themes as rendered in My Appearance and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch are realized through similar means both within and without science-fiction. While Wallace's rendering of those themes is perhaps more subtle, Dick takes the approach of extrapolating them to their extremes, ad absurdum. While the postmodern genre enables Wallace to work within the boundaries of the subjective phenomenological, working within the boundaries of science-fiction allows Dick to further explore similar themes in the ontological.

WORKS CITED

  • Cetnarowski, M., "Wyjście z cienia. Szare Eminencje fantastyki", Czas Fantastyki nr 4 (17) 2008
  • Dick Ph. K., "How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later", I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon, 1978
  • Dick, Ph. K., The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, New York, 1991
  • Jameson, F., POSTMODERNISM, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Duke University Press, Durham, 1995
  • Jędrzejczak, M., Dick Philip Kindred. Życiotwórczość, Warszawa, 2008
  • Lipsky, D., The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace, Posted Oct 30, 2008 @ The Rolling Stone Magazine
  • McHale, B., Postmodernist Fiction, New York, Methuen, 1987
  • Szyda, W., "Narkotyczne ekstrapolacje", Czas Fantastyki nr 4 (17) 2008, Warszawa, 2008
  • Wallace, D. F., "My Appearance", Girl With Curious Hair, 1989

(22) Translated for the needs of this essay from Jędrzejczak, p. 47.: Skomplikowany psychologicznie bohater postawiony w niezwykle trudnej sytuacji, nie posiadający żadnego jasno nazwanego motoru życia, ścierający się z niezrozumiałym mechanizmem, nie posiadający żadnych racjonalnych przesłanek do sukcesu w swoich zmaganiach.
(23) Wallace, p. 180.
(24) Wallace, p. 197.
(25) Wallace, p. 193.

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8.3.09

Stigmata... (Część III)

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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.

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4.3.09

Stigmata... (Część II)

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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

While it could be argued that most narratives within literature are about restoring order, in postmodernism homeostasis is restored not by altering the exterior world, but by modifying the protagonists' psyche, often by the peculiar means of drugs (either illegal or prescribed) or psychoanalysis. Anxiety produced by the exterior world is countered by the protagonist's modification of their inner space. Through a catalog of adjectives, the narrator of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (3SPE) provides an account of Barney Mayerson's anxiety at the very beginning of the novel:

His head unnaturally aching, Barney Mayerson woke to find himself in an unfamiliar bedroom in an unfamiliar conapt building. Beside him, the cover up to her bare, smooth shoulders, an unfamiliar girl slept on (...) (7)

Interestingly enough, the first familiar thing in the novel turns out to be a familiar suitcase, that of psychiatrist Dr. Smile (8).

Apart from a private psychoanalytical suitcase, Barney Mayerson and the other protagonists from 3SPE also resort to drugs as a means of dealing with their anxieties. This is also true of Edilyn from Wallace's My Appearance (MA), who takes the anti-depressant Xanax on a daily, if not hourly basis. In both texts drugs are depicted (advertised) as something common and mundane, although neither text provides a clear answer as to whether drugs reduce nervous mental states ─ or produce them. W. Szyda notices this ambiguous function of drugs in 3SPE, claiming that:

Despite Dick's clear fascination with drugs, he never restricts himself to naive idealism. Although he indeed depicts the therapeutic features of drugs as a means of maintaining mental hygiene (...) he also shows the profound areas of destruction caused by the addiction. (9)

In MA, the unsettling omnipresence of drugs is described in one of the Letterman features:

He and the staff quickly presented a list of ten medications, both over-the-counter and 'scrip, that resembled well-known candies in a way Letterman claimed was insidious. (10)

Dick himself takes this similarity to the extreme by overtly naming one of the drugs in 3SPE "Can-D". Another drug is openly advertised in a similar fashion to consumer goods with the slogan: Be choosy. Chew Chew-Z (11). The author is conscious of the postmodern game on the level of meanings. He believes that:

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. (12)

In MA, the destructive influence of Xanax on the psyche is implied in the scene in the taxi cab, when Edilyn's husband in a spell of paranoia question's the driver's good intentions:

"He can't hear us," I said.
"...if this were somehow taped and played back on the air while you looked on in horror?" (13)

While in Wallace's narrative drugs affect the protagonist's mental state and cognitive awareness, Dick goes to the extreme of allowing for drugs to change the ontological status of the world itself. Because in his narrative the protagonist's inner space is projected upon the exterior world, the subjective mental states induced by the drugs become objectified and undergo reification. Indeed, M. Jędrzejczak confirms that:

the world of narcotic visions is not at all illusionary and unreal in comparison to the so-called reality. (...) Hallucination as a part of the psyche is equivalent to the protagonists' landscape and their normal interactions. (14)

(7) Dick, Ph. K., The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, New York, 1991, p. 4.
(8) Dick, p. 4.
(9) Translated for the needs of this essay from Szyda, W., "Narkotyczne ekstrapolacje", Czas Fantastyki nr 4 (17) 2008, Warszawa, 2008, p. 17: A zatem nie kryjąc fascynacji "dragami", nie popada Dick w naiwny idealizm. Wskazując na terapeutyczne właściwości narkotyków jako środków psychicznej higieny (...) odsłania jednocześnie obszary głębokiego spustoszenia, jakie powoduje nałóg.
(10) Wallace, D. F., "My Appearance", Girl With Curious Hair, 1989, p. 186.
(11) Dick, p. 50.
(12) Dick Ph. K., "How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later", I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon, 1978 (http://deoxy.org/pkd_how2build.htm)
(13) Wallace, p. 180.
(14) Translated for the needs of this essay from Jędrzejczak, p. 53: Świat wizji narkotycznych w niczym nie jest pozorny i nie prawdziwy w stosunku do tzw. realności. (...) Halucynacja jako przynależna do obszaru psychiki jest równoważna z krajobrazem wokół postaci oraz ich zwykłymi interakcjami.

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2.3.09

Stigmata... (Część I)

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Tym razem zamieszczam ostatni w tym semestrze esej, który powstał na potrzeby kursu o postmodernizmie. Jednak jak zwykle znalazłem sposób, by połączyć dociekania akademickie ze swoją prywatną pasją – literaturą science-fiction. Philip K. Dick jest jednym z moich ulubionych pisarzy, jednak nie czytam jego powieści zbyt często. Ponieważ są bardzo specyficzne, pozwalam sobie na jedną taką lekturę rocznie, co oznacza, że przeczytałem może z sześć jego powieści. Każda z nich jednak okazała się do pewnego stopnia ważnym przeżyciem, często estetycznym, a zawsze intelektualnym. Dick jest bowiem zarówno artystą, jak i intelektualistą. Wśród swoich narkotycznych wojaży porusza również zagadnienia ontologiczne, epistemologiczne i te najważniejsze – eschatologiczne. Można sobie z niego szydzić, że szukał Boga wśród halucynogennych grzybów, ale dopiero poznawszy jego twórczość można pojąć ogrom konstrukcji jego światów i metafor. Zapraszam do lektury mojego eseju, który rozważa podobieństwo konstrukcji narracji i świata w tekstach postmodernistycznych i science-fiction.

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

INTRODUCTION

In POSTMODERNISM, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, F. Jameson describes postmodernism as literature with a populist rhetoric;

fascinated by [...] a "degraded" landscape of schlock and kitsch; [...] of so-called paraliterature, with its airport paperback categories of the gothic and the romance [...] and the science-fiction novel: materials they no longer simply "quote" [...] but incorporate into their very substance. (1)

Indeed, because the transition from modernism to postmodernism also implies a shift of the dominant from the epistemological to the ontological (2), postmodernism has inevitably begun to share a common denominator with, among others, science-fiction, the ontological literary genre par excellence (3), in which ontological experimentation is taken to its utmost extent within a system of traditional tropes almost exclusive to this genre. Though somewhat clichéd, the tropes of time travel, multiple dimensions, virtual reality and artificial intelligence, among others, allow for extensive ontological experimentation both within the literary world and on the surface of the text itself.

Jameson's one-sided claim, however, leaves an impression of academic condescension. The relationship between postmodernism and science-fiction is not limited to the former incorporating elements of the latter. Instead, the relationship is mutual and science-fiction also incorporates elements of the postmodern. By the time of Philip K. Dick, science-fiction has long evolved past its roots of Gernsback's scientific realism and Campbell's paranormal sublime and escapism (4). Dick himself was one of the precursors of science-fiction's voyage from outer space towards inner space ─ the subjective psyche of a postmodern protagonist. In the words of M. Jędrzejczak, Dick:

himself coined the phrase "literature of inner projection", one in which interior psychological issues are projected onto the exterior world and become three-dimensional, real and tangible. (5)

The aforementioned projection is perhaps the very feature which differentiates postmodern science-fiction from postmodern mainstream literature. While both share a common denominator and tackle similar themes, in postmodern mainstream literature the subjective mental states of the protagonists affect their phenomenological perception of the exterior world, while in science-fiction such mental states may as well affect the objective ontology of the exterior world itself.

David Foster Wallace's literature is also far removed from escapism into the unintelligible, "academic" postmodern. In his own words, he wanted to write stuff about what it feels like to live. Instead of being a relief from what it feels like to live. (6)

The aim of this essay is to examine the inner space of the postmodern protagonist and their experiences of ontological and phenomenological nature both within and without science-fiction, on the basis of David Foster Wallace's My Appearance (1989) and Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965). Although coming from diverse literary traditions, both texts share a surprising number of similarities. The intention is not to contrast them, but rather to show how certain established postmodern themes are executed within texts from different genres.

(1) Jameson, F., POSTMODERNISM, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Duke University Press, Durham, 1995, pp. 2-3.
(2) McHale, B., Postmodernist Fiction, New York, Methuen, 1987, p. 10.
(3) McHale, p 16.
(4) Cetnarowski, M., "Wyjście z cienia. Szare Eminencje fantastyki", Czas Fantastyki nr 4 (17) 2008, Warszawa, 2008, pp. 28-33.
(5) Translated for the needs of this essay from Jędrzejczak, M., Dick Philip Kindred. Życiotwórczość, Warszawa, 2008, p. 31: Sam uknuł termin, który brzmi: Literatura wewnętrznej projekcji, taka, w której wewnętrzna problematyka psychiczna zostaje przeniesiona na świat zewnętrzny i staje się trójwymiarowa, realna i konkretna.
(6) Lipsky, D., The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace, Posted Oct 30, 2008 @ The Rolling Stone Magazine (http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23638511/the_lost_years__last_days_of_david_foster_wallace).

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