I’ve been dealing with some fairly major bouts of anxiety due to a trifecta of factors (some physical, some mental) and while I’ve been taking a break from my usual manic internet socializing, I’m using the free time to do something productive. It’s a good way to keep myself from sinking into too many deleterious thoughts and turn my hamster-wheel-on-crack brain to something that will add to my overall creativity once I pull myself out of the slump.
So have a glitter-vomit Fable raptor and a couple of book reviews! I’ll try to finish a classic every couple of days or so and offer up some commentary. It’s not a true critical response. The books I’ll be reading are the stuff scholars masturbate incessantly too, so rather than add to the ever growing pile of literary circle-jerk (said in the fondest way of course, I ADORE crazy dissection, and who doesn’t love a good intellectual orgy now and then?) I’ll just speak on the books I’ve read as a matter of humorous opinion. Hopefully it’ll wet your appetite to go check the books out yourself.
First up is “Metamorphosis”, by Kafka. Shortest summary I can provide: guy turns into roach. He dies. Everybody celebrates.
No really, that’s the book.
Well ok, there’s more than that.
Basically Gregor is the biggest tool of any jabbed into the soft, loamy soil of the garden of inadvertent idiocy. His whole existence is tied to supporting his family and pay off their debt. So when he wakes up and is suddenly an enormous garbage-eating insect, his first thought is “oh my, my boss will be so angry I can’t come into work today!”
Dude, you are a BUG. A giant BUG. Maybe react to the fact that you are no longer a member of the mammal family and THEN start worrying about the minor details of your meager, grey existence!
And this doesn’t let up. The whole book is him, as a bug, regretting and hating himself for every moment his family has to spend taking care of their suddenly-an-arthropod son. They’re bewildered—rightly—by his transformation, and their bewilderment slowly morphs into regret and loathing as their living bank account is now just as dependent on them as they were to him. Fuck you Mr. Bug! You can’t make money, so you’re no family member of ours!
Scratch the “Gregor is the biggest tool” comment from before. He can’t help it. He’s apparently genetically programmed to be a tool. This whole family is made of tools. We got a whole toolshed of douchery happening here.
FOR GOD’S SAKE WON’T SOMEBODY CALL THE DOCTOR?! Your son is an INSECT!
So the whole thing spins out of control, Gregor dies when an apple gets lodged in his carapace, and the family considers themselves destitute when in fact they’re doing fairly well for themselves. It takes their roach-son’s death for them to finally realize “oh hey wait, we’re supposed to act like sensible adults here. I guess maybe considering we’re all employed and not homeless, things aren’t so bad.”
In short, the book is dark-dark-dark, and hilarious. Seriously awesome novella. It makes you ask questions, search for deeper meanings in every event that happens, and if you’re a sicko like me, taking a certain amount of delight in Gregor’s death. He kind of “oh wells” and passes on. I can’t help but be mad at him, mad at his family, and pity the lot of them.
That poor toolshed.
Second book I finished was “Flatland”. Anybody familiar with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos is aware of this book to some degree. There’s a world called Flatland where everything exists in two dimensions. there’s no up or down, only cardinal directions. But the square is made aware of a third dimension when a sphere suddenly presents itself to him and intersects his world. The sphere, to the square, appears as a morphing circle. Only when the square is lifted from his limited plane does he see the sphere, and the world, as it truly is.
The book is often used as a thought experiment to introduce us 3D’ers to the possibility of a fourth, fifth, and higher spatial dimension.
But what you DON’T hear is how Flatland isn’t about math at all. Edward Abbott, the writer, in the 1880s wasn’t talking about abstract philosophical concepts or mathematical possibilities. He was commenting on the hierarchy of Victorian society and how the pursuit of status limited the evolution of society. Promises of status by way of gaining extra sides every generation (until one came indistinguishable from a perfect circle) were merely a tool to keep the masses occupied with their social situation rather than concern themselves with alternative possibilities. Thinking outside of the box is forbidden, education is strictly regulated, and mass murder and genocide is the default response to those deemed “irregular”.
Variation in thought is shot down as quickly as its brought to light. A Square (the protagonist) chides his Hexagonal grandson for imagining 3^3 when obviously only 3^2 exists. In doing so, he inadvertently sabotages his own efforts to bring to Flatland the revelation of the third dimension. His imaginative grandson, having been chastised by his betters into a more conformist mode of thinking, now believes A Square’s description of extra dimensions to be nothing more than a joke.
Even Flatland’s own leaders refuse to accept the truth. Every thousand years they are presented with evidence of the third dimension. The revelation is passed to every subsequent generation of circular Priests but not as a lesson, but as law. No preaching of the third dimension is allowed. All prophets who’ve received the wisdom of the Solids are imprisoned or put to death. The supremacy of the higher Polygons must never be threatened by the imaginations of those below them.
The world A Square inhabits is incredibly well-realized, as are the lower dimensions he imagines. The world of one dimension, Lineworld, and the world of no dimensions, the Point, all display the same hubris of Flatland and even Space/3D-world (where in the Sphere scoffs at the concept of a dimension above 3, despite having just pulled a Flatlander into his own world!) Everyone imagines their kingdom to be the most perfect. Objective viewpoints are quashed as soon as they are brought to light.
It’s a beautiful illustration on the necessity of education and critical thinking. That objectivity, the ability to separate one’s self from the emotional rigor of the world around you, can elucidate new discoveries. It’s an ode to the thinkers, philosophers, and scientists of the world to keep striving for greater truth even in the face of extreme adversity. And that while social constructs serve their purpose, they’re not the end-all be-all of existence.
All told from the perspective of a humble Square.
Most stories I’ve picked up written from the same time period have an exhausting supply of language shoved on to the reader. Dickens, much as I love your stories, you are a tiresome read at times. But Flatland has a brevity of language packed with such well-done descriptions that the broken illustrative ASCII of my Kindle didn’t hamper my imaginings of the world. The archaic language is easily understood. At not point did I feel like I was fundamentally separated from the author’s point by history. If anything, the perspective seemed almost contemporary by the standards of its time! Abbott added an in-character foreword in 1884 to explain the misogyny some critics claimed the book presented (Lines are Women, and are given second class citizenship for arguable reasons).
Great world-building, awesome thought-experiment, and once again a book that makes you think. Give it a go, you won’t regret it!
