Spook Country

“WILLIAM GIBSON” the cover flaunts, “One of the most astute and entertaining commentators on our astonishing, chaotic present” as my eyes fall to the noticeably smaller title of the novel: “Spook Country”. This book had been commended me by our fearless leader and so I approached it with great expectation and the outlook that if nothing else there would be material enough to write ten volumes of blogs. At the end I feel as though I’ve been cheated out of 373 pages, not that I hated it; just that it didn’t do anything for me. It wasn’t even that entertaining. However in hindsight there may have been one or two themes worth mentioning.

The story is that of a rock-star turned journalist who has accepted an assignment from a magazine that is just getting on its feet, yet seems to be extremely well funded. Our rock-star turned journalist main character is to investigate and write an article on an emerging form of art. This art is virtual yet is stationed in specific places by GPS technology. The art cannot be seen unless one knows where to look and has a type of virtual reality helmet. It is almost as though a whole new world exists layered on top of the real world.

One of the characters describes how this form of art came to be by comparing it to virtual reality:

“We’re all doing VR (virtual reality), every time we look at a screen. We have been for decades now. We just do it. We didn’t need the goggles, the glove. It just happened. VR was an even more specific way we had of telling us where we were going. Without scaring us too much right?”

Our character, known as Bobby in the book, is explaining something deeper than simply telling us how this form of art came to be. Bobby is telling us how technology has crept into the lives of our characters and overtaken humanity at a surprising rate, “It just happened.” It has been happening for decades now, he is telling us. “The world we walk around in would be channels.” Our world will be simply channels because the technology is slowly becoming a different world. The virtual reality may one day become the reality and our world nothing but channels through which these messages are transmitted. In the book this “virtual world” is symbolized by these artistic renderings. There are renderings of fields of flowers, famous murders and incidents, and giant squids; these renderings exist whether the populace is aware of them or not. It is a type of world layered on top of their own.

This book forced me to consider the electronic utilities and the access we have to them today. I know I personally use the internet for simply emails, research and the occasional blog. All of this is a mere fraction of its potential in light of this book. As individuals with access to the internet we hold in our hands a power of persuasive opinion and very nearly unlimited potential. It is something powerful enough to shape our future and we have access to it as individuals… We live in interesting times.

Through the reading of this book one thing continued to haunt me. That is the blog I wrote concerning the book written by C.S. Lewis ” Out of the Silent Planet”; the parallels drawn between in one case a world that is completely unknown and alien (Malcandria, Out of the Silent Planet) and an emerging virtual world that the vast populace has no idea about. In both cases there is something above and beyond the thought process of normal day-to-day individuals.

What lies beyond?

What lies beyond, through the gateway of death? Is death a gateway or is it more comparable to a dead-end? In a previous blog “Are we ignorant?” I wrestled with the question of whether there is indeed a greater world than we want to see; is there a spiritual realm to which we are ignorant? In death a man will think and meditate on the things that he has avoided his whole life. If there is a spiritual realm is it too governed by the taskmaster of death? If God is outside of time, is He also greater than the chains of death or was Nietzsche correct in stating that God is dead? In death nothing is certain and even the certainty of death flees from us, because we do not know what that means.

“The Spire” by William Golding is the complex story of a Dean Jocelin of the Cathedral Church of Our Lady who gives himself to the building of a spire and in doing so brings himself to ruin. Our story culminates in the death of the main character, but shortly before his dying breath he exclaims:

“Now- I know nothing at all.”

In his death Jocelin doubts all of his achievements through his life and comes to doubt even the motivation and his “will” behind the three year construction project of the 400 foot spire. Jocelin once viewed this project as his reason for living and believed that it was given to him in a vision that he might fulfill it. Despite the many hindrances, setbacks and discouragements of the spire always pushing him on is the faith that “Its God’s will in this business.” and that God wants the tower built. There are constant references referring to the tower needing to be built on faith heedless of what the foundations are like: “You are like all the rest; …You haven’t any faith.” The tower is built because of Jocelin’s will and belief in what he is doing: “his will, his blazing will… that illuminated and supported the new building”. Yet as he comes to the end of his life everything is called into question. In the last pages we find him asking over and over in vain repetition “Has it fallen yet?”. Jocelin’s dying fills him with doubt and everything that had once been solid and unshakeable within him is now riddled with holes of questioning and uncertainty. A man of the cloth, Jocelin at his dying moment is still seized by panic and terror.

In life there are those things that take priority and that seem to be more important and then there are those things that we place under these. In Jocelin’s life we can see his fascination with this spire to the point where he is consumed by it, and in the end of his life he questions whether it mattered at all; he would ask “was it all for nothing?” I feel that Jocelin would plead with us to call into question everything and to think through and evaluate what really matters so that at our end we might not suffer the same fate.

There are two views about everything

With a small bit of nostalgia and the regret that one will never be able to relive the past again I personally come to the close of my first semester at Emmanuel Bible College. “All good things must come to an end” and in this frame of mind my last blog is to be written. Before I continue I want to praise the efforts and teaching style of Luke Hill. I feel as though I have learned a skill that I will be able to use through the rest of my life and not a simple memorization of facts that will soon fade from memory.

I have completed all 5 of my books that I bought for this semester. In that small cluster were two books of a trilogy written by C.S. Lewis. I wrote my first blog on the elements I found in “Out of the Silent Planet” (the first of this trilogy) and will now conclude my writings with what I’ve found in the conclusion of this trilogy: “That Hideous Strength”. Reading through this writing I came upon a quote that struck a chord inside of me; that I couldn’t stop thinking about.

” I suppose there are two views about everything,” said Mark. “Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer.”

This quote takes place early in the narrative and is a comment about the N.I.C.E. (National Institute of Coordinated Experiments) whom Mark very much wants to be a part of in order to achieve “success” in life. Bill Hingest initiates this exchange by telling Mark “You’ll do yourself no good by getting mixed up with the N.I.C.E.- and by God, you’ll do nobody else any good either.” Bill here is making a statement of something absolute; something that cannot be disputed. Bill Hingest is making a claim on an absolute truth to which Mark responds that there is no absolute.

I believe that this quotation can be extrapolated to today’s world where many would claim that truth is relative to the person and where people have conceded to finding what “works” as opposed to looking for what is ” true”. There are so many different views as to the meaning behind life and you the reader know of the vast mosaic of religious beliefs that exists. We as a society have started to give up looking for the truth. Society is producing meaninglessness by eliminating the hunger and thirst for the truth by supplementing it with the filler of acceptance of multiple views. This tolerance is in and of itself a joke- not in the moral reactions and what it hopes to accomplish and elicit- but in that the tolerance of one mutually incompatible view is the intolerance of another. This rejection of truth in favour of something that “works” will drag society under. If everything is relative than everything is meaningless; disorder and chaos will ultimately reign. There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer, to give up on looking for the answer is self destruction. Maybe the best thing we can do is start by looking for the problem.

The Will

What is the will inside of man? Is it a representative of our free will or is it an entity of its own that has its own interests and goals? Stupid question? – maybe… but then again maybe not. Take a look at some excerpts from “The Spire” by William Golding.

“”…his will, his blazing will, was shut down to a steady glow, that illuminated and supported the new building”

” But my will has other business then to help”

“I have so much will, it puts all other business by.”

“the fog got into the church; but it still could not interfere with his will.”

“Only Jocelin, impaled on his will would find a cheerful answer to the needles in each ear.”

“…used at last like a lever on a fulcrum of vertigo; all so contrived to bring the will within a single moment of defeat.”

“It was my voice that spoke the words, he thought. No. Not my voice. Voice of the devouring Will, my master.”

“He could only crouch, clinging to his will, or whatever will it was and try to hold up the spire and the men with it, in the new, clammy place.”

“The will itself opened Jocelin’s lips and promised them more money among the flames of love; and they hugged the lean body that was the vessel of the will.”

The progression of the Will from a part of Jocelin into a separate entity can be seen in the novel. The author comes to represent the will not as a part of Jocelin but his very master and begins to describe Jocelin as simply the vessel of this greater Will. To me this has several implications, the first of which is as a Christian I would make the claim that God’s spirit lives in me and I am a vessel of something much greater then myself. “The Spire” is written in a religious context so I do not feel that it is inappropriate to apply the texts to a religious lifestyle. I see in this book a stress to analyse and determine everything inside of a person of faith that pulls and leads them into certain actions. Just because you call something “God’s will” does not make it so. It is painfully obvious that whatever will this is in the book it is not of God despite Jocelin’s claim that it is so. This will only serves to destroy the religious institution and the people involved with it. In the end Jocelin is destroyed and dies with regrets and questions claiming “I now know nothing.” And so this book speaks that we must measure and ascertain what is truly of God and not to misuse the concept of faith. 2 Corinthians would tell us that as a Christian we are a new creation yet our old desires and our old sinful nature are still there and must be subdued. The story of Jocelin is telling us that with all wisdom and discernment let us evaluate our motives and what is behind our actions every day we live; is it God, ourselves or is it something more sinister?

 

When the end comes…

What lies beyond, through the gateway of death? Is death a gateway or is it more comparable to a dead-end? In a previous blog “Are we ignorant?” I wrestled with the question of whether there is indeed a greater world than we want to see; is there a spiritual realm to which we are ignorant? In death a man will think and meditate on the things that he has avoided his whole life. If there is a spiritual realm is it too governed by the taskmaster of death? If God is outside of time, is He also greater than the chains of death or was Nietzsche correct in stating that God is dead? In death nothing is certain and even the certainty of death flees from us, because we do not know what that means.

“The Spire” by William Golding is the complex story of a Dean Jocelin of the Cathedral Church of Our Lady who gives himself to the building of a spire and in doing so brings himself to ruin. Our story culminates in the death of the main character, but shortly before his dying breath he exclaims:

“Now- I know nothing at all.”

In his death Jocelin doubts all of his achievements through his life and comes to doubt even the motivation and his “will” behind the three year construction project of the 400 foot spire. Jocelin once viewed this project as his reason for living and believed that it was given to him in a vision that he might fulfill it. Despite the many hindrances, setbacks and discouragements of the spire always pushing him on is the faith that “Its God’s will in this business.” and that God wants the tower built. There are constant references referring to the tower needing to be built on faith heedless of what the foundations are like: “You are like all the rest; …You haven’t any faith.” The tower is built because of Jocelin’s will and belief in what he is doing: “his will, his blazing will… that illuminated and supported the new building”. Yet as he comes to the end of his life everything is called into question. In the last pages we find him asking over and over in vain repetition “Has it fallen yet?”. Jocelin’s dying fills him with doubt and everything that had once been solid and unshakeable within him is now riddled with holes of questioning and uncertainty. A man of the cloth, Jocelin at his dying moment is still seized by panic and terror.

In life there are those things that take priority and that seem to be more important and then there are those things that we place under these. In Jocelin’s life we can see his fascination with this spire to the point where he is consumed by it, and in the end of his life he questions whether it mattered at all; he would ask “was it all for nothing?” I feel that Jocelin would plead with us to call into question everything and to think through and evaluate what really matters so that at our end we might not suffer the same fate.

Spook Country

“WILLIAM GIBSON” the cover flaunts, “One of the most astute and entertaining commentators on our astonishing, chaotic present” as my eyes fall to the noticeably smaller title of the novel: “Spook Country”. This book had been commended me by our fearless leader and so I approached it with great expectation and the outlook that if nothing else there would be material enough to write ten volumes of blogs. At the end I feel as though I’ve been cheated out of 373 pages, not that I hated it; just that it didn’t do anything for me. It wasn’t even that entertaining. However in hindsight there may have been one or two themes worth mentioning.

The story is that of a rock-star turned journalist who has accepted an assignment from a magazine that is just getting on its feet, yet seems to be extremely well funded. Our rock-star turned journalist main character is to investigate and write an article on an emerging form of art. This art is virtual yet is stationed in specific places by GPS technology. The art cannot be seen unless one knows where to look and has a type of virtual reality helmet. It is almost as though a whole new world exists layered on top of the real world.

One of the characters describes how this form of art came to be by comparing it to virtual reality:

“We’re all doing VR (virtual reality), every time we look at a screen. We have been for decades now. We just do it. We didn’t need the goggles, the glove. It just happened. VR was an even more specific way we had of telling us where we were going. Without scaring us too much right?”

Our character, known as Bobby in the book, is explaining something deeper than simply telling us how this form of art came to be. Bobby is telling us how technology has crept into the lives of our characters and overtaken humanity at a surprising rate, “It just happened.” It has been happening for decades now, he is telling us. “The world we walk around in would be channels.” Our world will be simply channels because the technology is slowly becoming a different world. The virtual reality may one day become the reality and our world nothing but channels through which these messages are transmitted. In the book this “virtual world” is symbolized by these artistic renderings. There are renderings of fields of flowers, famous murders and incidents, and giant squids; these renderings exist whether the populace is aware of them or not. It is a type of world layered on top of their own.

This book forced me to consider the electronic utilities and the access we have to them today. I know I personally use the internet for simply emails, research and the occasional blog. All of this is a mere fraction of its potential in light of this book. As individuals with access to the internet we hold in our hands a power of persuasive opinion and very nearly unlimited potential. It is something powerful enough to shape our future and we have access to it as individuals… We live in interesting times.

Through the reading of this book one thing continued to haunt me. That is the blog I wrote concerning the book written by C.S. Lewis ” Out of the Silent Planet”; the parallels drawn between in one case a world that is completely unknown and alien (Malcandria, Out of the Silent Planet) and an emerging virtual world that the vast populace has no idea about. In both cases there is something above and beyond the thought process of normal day-to-day individuals.

Looking back

Looking back at the two books I have finished reading in my English literature course I began thinking specifically about how reading both books analytically has affected me. Following this train of thought I began to think specifically how I was affected mentally and emotionally during the reading of Cormac McCarthy’s book “The Road”. Thinking about how I was affected I came to realization that there was something besides just the literary element that affected me. McCarthy’s book follows a father and a son figure through a post-apocalyptic nightmare. The forsaken and godless terrain that these two traverse is built into the structure of the book. The hopelessness and overbearing sense of uncertainty and despair is mirrored in the absence of chapter breaks and a series of short chronological logs much akin to a diary in its place. The story is told with these bestrewed sequences recorded with what seems to be no regard to increments of time. This serves to heighten the sense of despair in showing us that the characters view day after day as much the same: travelling through gray and dreary lands. It is interesting to note that generally as the book progresses the time gaps between blurbs seem to grow larger. Does this show our father and son protagonists losing interest in the world around them? Losing interest in their living at all?

A second interesting note in the construction of the novel is the absence of personal names. Throughout the book the father is referred to as “the man” and the son is only ever referred to as “the boy”. I don’t know why, maybe to stimulate a detachment from the characters. It is possible that in being introduced impersonally to the characters we as the readers are to feel as though we are friendless and ostracized, alone and alienated in strange land. This would continue to contribute to the effect that the novel would have on the reader.

With the fact that how a book is organized and designed spatially, or even how a story is narrated has an impact on the reader I went back to the first book I read “Out of the Silent Planet” by C.S. Lewis. Near the end of the novel I found something peculiar.

“It was Dr. Ransom who first saw that our only chance was to publish in the form of fiction what would certainly not be listened to as fact.”

This quote from the last chapter in the book puts forth the concept that this story is in fact a story within a story that was put forth with a specific purpose. The narrator of the chronicle of professor Ransom here is explaining to us that Ransom’s adventure was shown as fiction because he knew nobody would believe it if it claimed to be non-fiction. This narrator of Ransom’s story is explaining to us that the story of Professor Ransom was put forth with different names to protect the identity of those involved. However despite the change of names the narrative was put out in order to make those who read it wary of those issues dealt with in Professor Ransom’s chronicle.

It is interesting to look back on the book “Out of the Silent Planet” with the new perspective that it was written with a purpose. This adds depth to the story and makes me think more critically of the events that happened. Were they twisted to make a point? Or do they clearly portray the issue that the narrator wants to address?

As a conclusion I’ve realised that there is much more to a book than the literary element. It’s interesting to realise that things such as how a book is organised as in “The Road” or how the story is narrated as in “Out of the Silent Planet” has an impact on the how book is received by its audience and how the book is read. Even seemingly trivial things such as the cover influence the effect that a book has on its readers for better or worse.

Are we ignorant?

I have just finished reading “Out of the Silent Planet” authored by C.S. Lewis. Perhaps one of the major themes of the book can be summed up in a quote made by Oyarsa, the great spirit of the planet Malcandrea. This quote occurs during the climax of the book; a conversation between the ruler of Malcandria and the human intruders.

“In your own world you have attained great wisdom concerning bodies and by this you have been able to make a ship that can cross the heaven; but in all other things you have the mind of an animal.”

Oyarsa here is telling the fictional characters of this book that man does indeed have great knowledge and ability in the area that deals with the physical world. This knowledge is demonstrated in the assembly and operation of a spaceship. However mankind is being told that it is missing something; in everything else mankind has the mind of an animal. The character of Oyarsa is telling us, as the human race, that for all our knowledge of physical “bodies” man is base and deprived of a greater reality and that in these things that we have the mind of an animal.

Then what are these “other things” separate from physical bodies? Today many people would divide what makes up a person into three distinct parts, the body, the mind, and the soul. The body would represent simply the physical being, the mind refers to our logic and perhaps to some extent our likes and dislikes, and finally the soul is the person that we try to communicate to others. The soul holds the essentials of who we are. Is this what Oyarsa is attempting to communicate with us? That we have to forsake the strict pattern of materialism that is rampant in modern society and that we have to maybe care more for family (the “minds” of others), and consider and meditate on who we are becoming and become more conscious of the events that shape us (our soul so to speak)?

During this conference Weston (the human side of this conversation) argues that it is our right as man to supersede and to dominate and subjugate other life forms to ensure the survival of mankind. Weston is arguing that “life is greater than any system of morality; her claims are absolute” (pg 157). He believes that man has the right to conquer other planets for the survival of mankind because that is what is ultimately important. Oyarsa responds to Weston’s statement by asking what will be done when all the planets die out; to which Weston has no answer. Oyarsa continues on to add that although the people of Malcandria could have taken over planet earth long ago, that they in have chosen to leave behind fear of death.

“but one thing we left behind on the harandra: fear. And with fear, murder and rebellion. The weakest of my people does not fear death.”

And it is in this quote that we see the major differences between humanity and those under lordship of Oyarsa. Humanity is scared to die while the malcandrians realize that there is something more, that this life is not the be all and end all; they will not cease to exist in death. In light of this interpretation maybe when Oyarsa said that humanity has the mind of an animal he meant that we have much knowledge of the physical dimension but not of the spiritual dimension; that with regards to the spiritual dimension we are ignorant. The fictional character of Weston was so absorbed and dominated by the knowledge of the physical world that he had that he believed that there was no outside reality, no bigger picture. Weston couldn’t see anything outside of what he claimed to know. He was told that in all other things he had the mind of an animal; that he was ignorant of something greater. Are we ignorant of something greater? Do we have an open mind or are we so desperate for an absolute truth that we create it out of a lie? Just as a majority vote does not determine truth, neither does ignoring something make it any less relevant.

 

A colorless overview

“I’m going to let you in on a secret. I am page on 69 of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and I hate it.”

This quote is taken from a blog that I had tried to write two weeks earlier. The story is that of a man and his son trapped in a post apocalyptic nightmare. The events take place some years after a major nuclear exchange. We are dropped in a land devoid of hope, following a man and a small child on their journey towards the south for no determined reason. Ash coats the landscape replacing with a pipeclay hue what teemed with colours and life in the past. The few who have survived these past years have done so by reverting to a type of animal state of mind: cannibalism has become a constant, human rights have been abolished and survival is the only god that remains.

As I read these first few sections of the book I found that I hated it. It was a land belonging to the dead and those that walked and breathed in it were no more alive than those who lay naked and as stiff as a board in the cold. The horrors of the book became real to me and they began to slowly filter through that literary barrier and worm into my being. 20 minutes into my read I began to beat off the demons with a crucifix. I found myself interspersing my attention between my readings and bible verses that are posted on my walls to remind me of what I knew to be true.

I was suffering. I was in pain. Phrases like:

“Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before.”

“Barren, silent , godless.”

“There he just sat watching the ashen daylight congeal over the land.”

“Everything as it had once been save faded and withered.”

“If they got wet there’d be no fires to dry by. If they got wet they’d probably die.”

    ”Do you want to die? Is that what you want? I don’t care, the boy said, sobbing. I don’t care.”

Phrases like these wound their ways into my heart and laid their eggs of despair in the deepest darkest places of my being. I began to despair of life. I hated the despair. I hated the book for doing it to me. I hated the words that battered my being and slowly sucked my will to live.

It was then that I recognised something. I was beginning to see as the characters would see in their story. There was something inside of them that drove them on, but it was more than the will to live. Something inside of them drove them to say

“We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we? … we’re the good guys.”

Maybe a sense of morality is what is compelling them. This would be an interesting contrast to the complete degradation of morality in the other survivors. It has to be something deeper than that, or maybe as the book progresses we will see their morality degrade as well. As of right now, reading on page 183, I don’t know why our protagonists seem to be dealing with their situation better than I am.