Heart of Darkness: Bloodlust, Canonical Pangea and Books That Are Hard

We took nearly six months to get through a roughly one hundred-page book, because it's extremely dense, and Arrested Development is on instant Netflix? (plus, beer.) So we cliffnoted our way through (for the second time) and tried to give Conrad the respect he deserves. (Guy was writing masterpieces in his second language!) Discussed: the canon, violence in the media and Marlon Brando (obviously).

Emily: What have you been listening to lately?
I need something fresh but classic.
Prolls will return to Chicago II.
Meredith:  oh man
Nothing "new" really. Lots and lots of Sam Cooke.

There's a new Hot Chip
Serge Gainsbourg pandora station is the bomb.
Emily: Also i did my hair for this.
maybe "did" is too strong a word.
I'm afraid my hair is in an awkward riot grrrl stage.
also today I finally put it together why prostitute-chic is the norm in 2012 America, via reading articles about "the modern woman in the contemporary American dating/workplace landscape."
Apparently there are like no viable dudes, so you have to fight for them or something, and girls think that dudes want the "hottest girl" so they dress like porn stars the end.
Meredith:  that makes all-too perfect sense
like so simple
n gross
21st century amurica can't handle our infinite nature
Emily: Yesterday a few types of people that need to be removed from the planet were presented to me. Mostly people who listen to alt rock and count calories.
This is a strangely appropriate prelude to our discussion of "heart of darkness"
Meredith:  People going crazy?
Emily: Yeah, people with hearts made mostly of murderous rage
specifically
Although i guess Kurtz was mostly just insane
Readers, watch Apocalypse: Now if you want to know what happens in the book.
Meredith: Yes, don't read it
I feel like i should be encouraging literacy of all forms
ok
so
canon
cannon
canon
why is <3 of D in it
Emily:  lemme grab the book real quick
I think it answer to that question is on the back
Meredith:  Discussion topics: why is this included in "the best writing that shaped western culture?"
you weren't serious were you?
Emily: half serious
we should call this blog "chatting the blurbs"
ok so Heart of Darkness is a "literary voyage into the inner self"
Meredith:  I like the use of "voyage." way to go, back of book
Emily:  it calls it "chilling, disturbing and noteworthy"
or one of the most of the century
Meredith:  I could see it as disturbing and chilling
then noteworthy by proxy
If i were reading it at the time it was written
Emily:  I just keep thinking of Brando as chilling.

but also as my boyfriend:

Meredith:  yes
but this kind of tapped into the unknown, and our fear and projection of it.
liiiike there's fuckin' savages out there, man.
Emily: I spose Africa was basically another planet when Conrad published this, in 1902.
So another theme, "corruptibility of humankind"-- so says the back of my edition.
Which is actually why I did actually like this book.
For lack of a better word, it's dark.
Its thesis is that humanity is not a morally pure species, and that humans are ready to come unhinged at any given moment.
Meredith: yes
"unhinged"
and what causes this
what caused it in Kurtz?
Emily: So apparently "Conrad intentionally made Heart of Darkness hard to read. He wanted the language of his novella to make the reader feel like they were fighting through the jungle, just like Marlow fought through the jungle in search of Kurtz." -- cliffsnotes
which makes me like the book more and also makes me question my own literacy.
Meredith:  WOWWWW!!!!!!!1
WOWOWOW
HAHAHA
omg that's awesome
I definitely felt like a crazy
Emily: I kinda felt like a fourth grader.
Meredith:  that's really interesting
I love a good intentional structure.
Emily:  right! thats pretty postmodern of him
Using the media as the message, etc.
Meredith:  Do you think he just made that up after the fact though...
jk!!
Emily:  right?! when everyone was like, umm actually this is really hard to get through.
Meredith:  I just read that it explores 3 types of darknesses
1. the darkness of the congo; the unknown and the literal darkness of unexplored territory
Emily:  Types Of Darknesses: our band.
Meredith:  2. the darkness of the treatment of the europeans toward the natives
and the darkness possible within us
was 3
to which i say

Emily:  what about the kind of darkness thats on the edge of town?

Emily: so basically Conrad was a total badass, because he was like IMPERIALISM IS MORALLY BANKRUPT like 100 yrs before that mode of thoughtwas embraced by crustpunks and subscribers of The Nation. I love realizing that artists that we in the modern world think are old and boring were actually the punks of their day, like the Impressionists. And now Conrad!
Meredith:  I can't explain all the feelings Conrad made me feel.
also i returned the book because i owe around $23.
BUT so i'm on the bus reading.
and it's this action scene that i had had to read about 4 times over because i felt like i forgot how to read
but it was a crowded bus and i was sitting next to someone eating a burger that smelled realll good
and, for the sake of the story, i will say that he was (and still is) black
and i'm reading about how they went to this strange land and were basically tying up people and beating them
and i see the word "nigger" a couple times
and shut the book kinda quickly
was definitely being over sensitive
but
it felt funny
because we are clearly living in a post-racial society
Emily: which leads us to:
the Canon.
IS IT STILL VALUABLE?
Meredith: i picture The Canon as a chart
a line graph
so on your x axis (horizontal?) there's time
On the vertical line at the bottom is old white dudes
up to bell hooks up top
so over time, are we still adding to the same canon? or is there a new canon?
because we've gone in a whole new direction
are people really still saying that their favorite book is Catcher In The Rye, STILL
Emily: welllllllll, it is a great book
Meredith: but it's shifted so much, the canon
like pangea
FUCK YEAH
canonical pangea
metal band
Emily: kinda feel like if there is a "new canon" its still rife with all the same old conventions-- imperialism, glorified misogyny, etc etc. so if we're talking "modern classics" in the sense that they are illustrative of a specific time in our culture, something like American Psycho would be part of it.
which, are you fucking kidding me.
Bret Easton Ellis is the yuppie posterboy.
hes not necessarily trying to tear anything down.
Meredith:  it seems like he's kind of this pseudo-punk icon for unsafe Wall Street types to read while vacationing in the hamptons
but what did he do with literary norms?
he did some stream of consciousness writing which maybe introduced some people to something new?
Emily: I guess I just think he's a joke because American Psycho is so pathologically misogynist its almost amusing
Meredith: it's sick
is he participating in it or questioning it?
eh
don't answer that
Emily: It's the same with mob movies.
or war movies.
Most of them mean to act as caveats against the violence of those settings, but the bloodlusty audience gets lost in the glamour and wishes they could take a baseball bat to a head at any given moment, a la Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.
People should at least admit that they get off on it.
Meredith:  no that makes total sense
messages get lost on audiences all the time, so one that's hidden pretty well in a glorified character is almost guaranteed to be lost
Emily: exactly. you could even look to the movie adaptation of the book we're discussing!
Meredith:  let's!

Emily: kid firing rounds to the tune of "Satisfaction"
VIOLENCE=SEX etc
from the comments: "This is an anti war film...but everytime I watch it, it motivates me to participate in war! God damn you hollywood! You have brain washed me into a deep desire to conduct war. I lust after it. I have always craved the glory of war! Deep down, I feel a strong love for mankind...yet at the same time I want to destroy it. Thank you sir! Fuck you and I love you!"
how convenient. Also, that has to be a joke.
Meredith: Obvi franky ford coppola saw the anti-imperialist message in Conrad's novella
god, artistic intentions are a rickety ole ladder
it's funny that scene with "Satisfaction" gives me goosebumps while it makes some people want to "shoot shit"
Emily: I feel like the whole "violence in the media is really unhealthy" is SUCH an unpopular argument, I get my ass handed to me all the time.
like, JUST BECAUSE I WATCH TORTURE PORN DOESN'T MEAN I WANT TO TORTURE PEOPLE
which, i guess.
but, really?
Meredith:  I know I know
it's how I learned the word "desensitized"
Emily: Whether you want to inflict violence on someone else or not, it's still going to numb the shock of seeing 33 AFGHANI CHILDREN SLAUGHTERED on the front page, until it's something that we're used to and accepting of, and not able to connect with what that actually means and is.
Meredith:  ugh yes
So that's kinda weird, like, how much of what is important in the canon is lost on us
Emily: ie the anti-imperialst message of Heart Of Darkness?
Meredith:  Precisely
Emily: yes, very true. perhaps every message that's difficult to comprehend is bound to be hidden under layers of whatever hollywood needs to wrap it in to make it a sellable product to idiots who will eat it up.
Conrad thought imperialsm was wrong and framed a book around that view. Coppola turned that book into a movie about an imperial war and ostensibly about why it was bad.
People are excited about violence after watching it. 
Meredith:  Do you think a true auteur is one that doesn't try to appeal to the masses?
Emily:  yes.


Emily: what have you been reading?
Meredith: Just Kids
And the sci-fi edition of the New Yorker
how about you?
Emily: I've been reading Cherry by Mary Karr and Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon.
which are both great
Meredith: Are they in the canon?!
Emily: Maybe subcategories of the canon!
like, Other canon
Female memoir and Native post-On-The-Road American travel-core
Meredith: can there be only one canon though, you know?!
Emily:  hmmm, yes.
I think you're right
!
Meredith:  But it's like, how dare we put American Psycho and Their Eyes Were Watching God in the same canon?
Emily:  good point.
"plurality of perspectives in American letters" or some sht
Meredith:  I get that, yeah. maybe I'm just rebelling/don't get why we have a canon still
Emily: well, "postmodernism" was/is? a dismantling of the canon.
so I guess we don't?
Meredith:  how so? because won't we just end up considering Paul Auster or Thomas Pynchon part of the canon
It shaped our cultural conscience.
Emily: I think by definition, the Canon is basically prewar white dudes. Your Hemingways and Faulkners. After WWII, the floodgates opened and sort of replaced or refuted everything that came before.
Suddenly, women and non-europeans had access to that club and kind of just made the originals look stale.
Meredith:  I like thinking of it as Pangea.
It just seems like it would be crazy to have it remain the same.


Next Time on Chattin The Classix!: You think you know Sci Fi? Well, we don't! Join us on an adventure into the future, the year 1992, where we'll explore the dark heart of the android and the electric sheep of which they may or may not dream.

The Great Gatsby: Part Two

About the work which was initally dismissed by the critics and ignored by the public but would eventually immortalize him, Fitzgerald proclaimed "I want to write something new, something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned."
In this edition of Chatting The Classics, we decide whether he achieved his goal, as well as explore Fitz's struggles with his own genius, the ameritween dream, and how google advertised this to us whilst chatting about The Greatest Great American Novel: "EMO DATE SITE EMO GOTH SITE EMO PUNK SHOP".

But first some sample lines:

"I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity."

"She appeared at his side like an angry diamond and hissed."

"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired."

"I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life."


just sayin.


Redford and Farrow as Gatz and Daisy gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh

Faults, Females and Franzia

Emily: So even though F thought the novel was brilliant, one area that he acknowledged as weak was his development/ lack thereof of Daisy.
He wrote to critic Edmund Wilson:
“the worst fault in it, I think is a BIG FAULT:
I gave no account (and had no feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relationship between Gatsby or Daisy from the time of the reunion to the catastrophe [the car accident that kills Daisy’s husband’s mistress].”
Meredith: Interesting. I definitely felt that. That's the downside of having the 1st person limited narrator--they become the most flushed out and there's a necessary balance between telling a story and having the narrator be believable. So other character development might suffer as a result.
Emily: This essay that I read by Sarah Beebe Fryer* says that F was as confused by Daisy as Nick was, and then she drops this on us:
“Nick's keen observations of her behavior demonstrate not that she is unable to feel and express strong emotions, but that she deliberately avoids them, because she recognizes the pain they can entail.”
which, WHOA
DONT WE ALL
Meredith: OH
MY
GOD
that's it.
Emily: also: "Daisy clings-- unsuccessfully-- to a gay, superficial ‘careless’ world in an effort to protect herself from what are for her the terrifying dangers inherent in caring.”
hello, human condition.
Also, he worried about his lack of development of her and focus more on Tom and Gatsby would make the book more of a "mans book" and hurt its popularity amongst the womens.
Meredith: The lack of emotional detail of Daisy and Gatz around the accident was interesting.
Emily: I like how Fitzgerald does that, and conceals some detail from the reader, rather than shoving it in the reader's face.
It's more intriguing.
I love Nick’s judgments of Gastby et al, because they're so severe in a way.
But don’t necessarily dictate how we should feel about the characters, and really say more about Nick himself.
He says toward the end he never trusted Gatsby.
I did.
also I’m drinking Franzia.

*Donaldson, Scott. Critical Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1984


Did Chris Carrabba Like English Class?

Emily: so I just started reading Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo by Andy Greenwald of Spin.
it’s completely ridiculous but I can't put it down.
So he begins with a scene of a Dashboard show.
which, BEEN THERE.
Meredith: l0ser.
Emily: um, plz it was transcendent.
At the end of the intro, Greenwald says:
"Emo is seeking a tangible connection out of intangible things.... emo is Fitzgerald’s eternal green light and emo is Salinger hoping beyond hope that Jane Gallagher will keep all her things safely in the back row..."
!!!!!!!!!!
Meredith: guhhhh
Emily: It just grabbed my attention because I picked up this book from the "hot picks" shelf at the public library because it appealed to my tween nostalgia, and it JUST HAPPENS TO MENTION Fitz, Gats and the Green Light. And that seems to be the true, immortal legacy of this book-- that it's code for connecting oneself with the Grand Legacy Of American Literature, that The Great Gatsby in itself means The Great American Novel.
Meredith: didn't you say that when we were reading Franny and Zooey?
that Salinger/Franny and Zooey were totally emo
Is it that writing style that's totes emo? or the men who author them?
Emily: Well in that case, Salinger and his characters are so angsty that you can't help but be reminded of emoness.
But in Greenwald's analogy, I think he's using the Green Light of Gatsby to represent a certain longing
that defines all great art?
not sure
that may be overreaching
also emo is not great art
but, LOVE U CHRIS





Meredith: lolz
Emily: So Greenwald says that emo music is a form of "connection" in the way that the green light is Gatsby's connection to Daisy from across the bay of East Egg.
It leads him to what he wants, but can’t quite reach, in the same way emo is to teens to what they want, whether it’s for society to "understand them" or their crush to like them back or whatever it is that tweens spend their days journaling about.
Meredith: so wanting to shop at PacSun and for the cute boy in school to reciprocate the crush is like the ameritween dream.
Emily: yess!
Meredith: does T.J. Eckleburg understand the dream?
his stature almost seems mocking.
Emily: Money is God
Upward mobility is God
Meredith: dang

The Anxiety of Influence

Emily: so, this is the most rated English-language book of the 20th century.
do you think it deserves it?
Meredith: well
it's the Citizen Kane thing


No Spoilers!
where you look at what were the ideologies of the time, what the author was doing during that time, what other authors were not doing during that time. it explains the success.
No, I don't think it was the best book ever.
but I do think it was incredibly valuable and changed the way we view novels.
Citizen Kane makes me sleepy. but it's beautiful and brought artistic cinema to the mainstream.
do you think it's deserving of that title?
Emily: first of all, that trailer is spooky as fuck.
ORSON WELLES' VOICE
Well, I can see why Gatsby does have that title.
it’s sort of like that buzzband that blows up and wins a Grammy
like the Arcade Fire



Safe enough for the grammys, uproariously boring.

They knew the whole time that they were doing something different than everyone else
and then they win a Grammy
and redefine everything afterwards
for a minute, at least.
I do think that his style was incredible strong
The intention in his phrasing is so subtle but powerful enough to move a train
[see: lines from intro of this post]
Meredith: hah absolutely
Emily: that’s what I loved about it
the restraint
but in a much different form than Hemingway
Comparing the two, Hemingway was intentionally holding back in a really loud way, but F was whispering, and whoever wants to listen closely will have their mind blown
Meredith: mmmmmhm
there was a modesty about his writing, for sure
but then you run into passages [see above above]/the whole book that really blow you away
Emily: right!
like: "He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American-- that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth, and even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games."
!!!!!!!!!!!!! what?!?!?! amazing.
It seems quiet, but when added up you really step inside his genius.
Anyone can write a few great lines.
No one can compile them into a successful composite
except this guy.
I like how the "modernists" weren’t afraid to be beautiful and epic.
Whereas the postmodernists don’t want either.
possibly because there's no truth to tell
and no beauty to tell it with.
BLAH BLAH "I studied liberal arts and now I'm sad about things kind of!!!™"
But really, I can't think of a specific Delillo passage I recopied or really asserted itself in a poetic way
Meredith: yeah absolutely.
Actually, White Noise was the last book I finished before this one, funnily enough.
and I remember smiling/lol-ing at certain points but nothing made me doggy ear the page due to beautiful writing.
only an expected mind fuck here and there
or like a "bwhoa!"
Emily: I miss books that weren't secretly about the apocalypse
Like this one.
Meredith: Yes. Gatsby is a simple-ish story with a greater meaning, but that meaning was not The End.
Emily: Does our obsession with the apocalypse distract us from love?
and other human things?
i.e. our collective cultural obsession
Meredith: is love a distraction?
Emily: no, that’s the whole point
what else are we here for?
Meredith: why weren't people in the 1920s writing about the apocalypse?
Emily: because they were drinking moonshine
and having a time
women were sort of liberated
and being scandalous, showing their calves, and the dudes were distracted
because of all those calves
and then the "stock market crashed"
probably due to the high volume of exposed calves
Meredith: paranoia wouldn't be invented for another 50 years
Emily: but people still believed in things
and then we went to war to make money for the country
millions of people were murdered thanks to the mechanism of progress
and then no one believed in anything ever again
the end.



yup.

BUT WAIT...

Meredith: um also, the cover was painted by an artist and was commissioned prior to the book being finished
Emily: that’s an awesome cover
Animal Collective's "Bluish" vid was sort of based on it!

Strawberry Time Lapse from animal collective on Vimeo

Next Time on Chatting The Classics: The Doors Meet the African Jungle! More Hemingway! British stuff! And everything else you never read in high school because you were too busy writing Thursday lyrics in your spiral notebook.

The Great Gatsby: PART ONE

Dear friends and stalkers,
Welcome back to 2Literate2Work. We'd like to apologize for the long recess between chats-- we were both busy turning 26, Meredith moved across the country and Emily paid off almost all of her library overdue fees. But we never did finish Jane Eyre (srry CharBro).

For this chat, we took to The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, or that book that everyone lists as their favorite because they were required to purchase it in high school, it's about money and they don't know how to read. It's always seemed a little pale but apparently Hunter S. Thompson re-typed the manuscript as a youth so he could feel what it was like to type a masterpiece. We figured we should give it another shot.

For our readers who are illiterate or homeschooled, Gatsby is considered by many to be the defining American novel of the 20th century. It's narrated by Nick Carraway, who finds himself entangled in the of world Jay Gatsby, the mysterious millionaire next door. Affairs, automobiles and moonshine are the other characters. Gatsby was written in 1926, "The Height of American Excess" (tm) version 1.0, right before the stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression. =PARTY TIME.



Love, Money and Death in Modern America

Meredith: sitting at a cafe, getting ready and to chat and drinking a coffee and taking notes, was listening to some ella fitzgerald and thelonious monk to set the mood
but they're playing KE$HA "we r who we r" in this shop, and that fits so much better
spot on
re: moral decay
Emily: wait, are you drinking?
should i be drinking?
Meredith: ugh no. just coffee.
WWFScottD?
Emily: G&T!
but I'm only drinking tea.

so THIS BOOK. Love! money! the American dream!
Meredith: anddd how!
Emily: had you read it before?
Meredith: nope. you?
Emily: I was supposed to for my junior year English class, but didn't
my misspent youth, etc.
But I remember my teacher, Mr. H. Wayne Curtis, telling us that T. J. Eckleberg, the big glasses that served as an advertisement and watched over East Egg was a representation for god. Metaphor for decreased prominence of god in the modern world? CHECK
Meredith: yeaaah wow
So Nick moves from the mid-west to New York to work in "bonds" and other boring things in the city
Emily: right, he's an outsider to the east, as are all the main characters
I read it as sort of a cautionary tale of the new American mobility of the twentieth century.
For the first time, you didn't have to risk your life in a covered wagon to go east or west
And New York is where the most cherished American commodity was: money
Meredith: yes
Emily: what did you think of the specific characters?
Meredith: well I thought the great Gatsby would be "greater" or i guess i didn't know in what sense he was great. i certainly wasn't expecting someone so fallible.
Emily: yes! but that's him as the representation of the American dream: he ascended from nowhere to become this titan.
Meredith: so clearly his money was his greatness in many senses. it was really sad at the end that no one showed up to his funeral.
(spoiler alert, yadda yadda yadda)
Emily: that’s when i almost cried! In public!
Meredith: was it because people were "busy" that they didn’t go to his funeral or because they didn't want to risk getting in trouble, if they were bootleggers?
Emily: it's the contrast between old and new money. All the people at his parties were old money and the ones who really knew him acquired their money in unsavory ways, and couldn’t be associated with him. Hence, his empty funeral.



I also thought Fitzgerald was attempting to point out the frivolity of the upper classes, in that sense
Meredith: so if the American dream was to have lots of money and live lavishly, why didn't Daisy leave Tom for Gatsby?
Too much of a hassle?
Emily: ah, ok so this was also hearbreaking and earthshattering: Daisy really loved them both. She gave up Gastby, who she loved more, for the security of Tom.
Meredith: did she love Tom?
Emily: in a certain way. she can't truthfully tell Gatsby she never did.
it's the DECEIT OF THE HUMAN HEART!
which is why this book is so huge
it tackles the nature of human love, money and modern america all at the same time
in less than 200 pages
Meredith: myessss so good
Emily: so Tom Buchanan
Meredith: yeah wtf Tom
Emily: he reminds me of every conservative I’ve ever met
Meredith: hahah yeah. just kind of a hypocritical jerk
total square
doesn't like "art"
Emily: yeah, super dominant authoritarian personality. and racist.
Fitzgerald really explores a lot of different personality archetypes.
Tom, the "brute" as Daisy calls him
Nick is the sane, thoughtful one
and Gatsby is a hyper-driven mystery
And Daisy and Jordan-- Daisy is a pretty fool, and Jordan is a little tougher and more jaded.
I do like how he writes the women. They felt real to me.
Meredith: me tooooo!
Emily: good work, F.!
Meredith: his writing made me melt toward the end.
Some of the most beautiful prose ever.
like this: "it was dawn now on Long Island and we went about opening the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house with grey turning, gold turning light. The shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves. There was a s low pleasant movement in the air, scarcely a wind, promising a cool lovely day."
HOW'D HE DO THAT
There’s also a lot of talk of movement, it seems like things are constantly moving, which speaks to what you were talking about the new modern mobility
Alsoooo, a lot of "east and west" talk
And he was among the expats to move east across the Atlantic to France
Emily: with Hway and stuff! they were friends!




Hway and Fitz in Paris


It seems like his prose exists somewhere in the middle of the hypermodern (for the time) of Hemingway and the more descriptive Victorian style, which is ALSO what the book was about! Transition.
Meredith: i kept being surprised that this man writing in the 1920s was writing with emotion.
it was great!
hemmy trained me well
Emily: yes, seriously. It seems like a simple book but it's a machine.
And it went unrecognized in his lifetime!
Meredith: right. Well it's super autobiographical, which, show me a book that isn't. But this one very much so.
Emily: true! Zelda[Fitzgerald’s wife] almost didn't marry F. because he didn't have money!
And she was a southern debutante! JUST LIKE GATS AND DAISY



F. and Zelda, 1921

Meredith: also, it might be my birthday being right around the corner, but the passage where Nick Carraway talks about his birthday. There was lots of drama going on. And he just suddenly remembered. Which I thought was really sad.
And then: "thirty-the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair..." f. scott f. was 29 when this book was published!
Emily: UGH
yes
I hope I forget about this book before I turn 30.
Meredith: i found myself feeling so sorry for him.
Emily: I love the scene where he and Jordan break up over the phone.
"I don’t know who hung up with a sharp click but I knew I didn’t care."
it’s so brutal.
Meredith: yes
Emily: ALSO
there is some dialogue in here that killed me
when Daisy says to Gatz "you look so cool. you always look so cool." And Nick describes that as Daisy telling him she loves him in front of a room full of people, including her husband.
I was like GAHHHHHHHHHH
those lines are quiet but so powerful.
Each character has a really distinct voice.
Meredith: Also "angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away."
Emily: yesss! Who doesn’t live in that space 24 hrs a day.
Meredith: for reals, love that shit.
I really didn't know the story when I was starting it. And to be honest felt myself dipping into boredom. But definitely redeemed itself and it might have just been where I was.
But it was funny-- you texted me "i'm at the good part"
and right when i got there, i knew what you were talking about.
Emily: yes! Toward the end when Daisy and Gatsby are sort of getting together but you know it doesn't end well.
speaking of
this line KILLED ME: “they had never been closer in their month of love nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.”
Meredith: I
KNOW
RIGHT
jesus
talk about melting
Emily: I was like uhh, yeah, thats everything, ever, right there.
Then the flip side, when Gatsby goes back to to Daisy's in Louisville after he gets back from the war, and she's already married tom:
“but it was going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.”
GUUUHA it so perfectly captures the feeling of having had everything and losing it, and in that moment the life and fulfillment you thought you would have disappear forever. The end of youth.
Meredith: I have such a crush on F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Emily: he is crushable.
Can the modern world even make someone like this?
No one is sincere or believes in lips brushing collars anymore.


The Drunk and The Careless

Meredith: Woody Allen just made this film, Midnight in Paris
where he kind of reconstructs the feeling of the 20s and the world that F. Scott conveyed
and Owen Wilson’s character desperately wants to live in the 20s, in Paris, with Hemingway and Fitz-g, and Gertrude stein, etc.
and there are characters playing f. Scott and Zelda and Zelda is a drunk, but actually kind of charming. and F. Scott is such a real guy. and Hemingway is the best.
mixed reviews on the film, but the FEEEEELING was nice
also Adrian Brody plays Salvador Dali. Ooof.

Emily: !@!!!!!1 me: ok, I’ll have to see it.
yeah, Fitz was a drunk but apparently didn’t drink and write.
or edit
Meredith: it's interesting, the edition I got from the Seattle Public Library, Ballard location, is the 75th anniversary edition (wow!) and it spoke about how he wasn't a strong speller and edited SO MANY drafts.
Emily: back in the age of typewriters!
Meredith: this one said it restored it kind of close to the original
And they restored thousands of commas or something
Because those things are no decorations
But yeah, I can imagine him going back and forth between leaving and omitting a comma. It can totally change a sentence, as we great writers know.
So many dogs with rain coats on right now, btw
Emily: my edition said that he had a “pitch perfect sense of the English language,” which I think definitely comes through.
comma misuse is enraging.
Meredith: yesss, that phrase is really incredible, and was certainly proven true.
what did you think of nick as narrator?
Emily: I liked him. He’s understated but reliable, and he has his own personality.
I like his contempt for everything in East Egg by the end.
Meredith: I liked him too. very sincere
He says "I am one of the few honest people I know."
Emily: yes, judgmental but also knows his own flaws.
So towards the end of the book, Nick decides Tom, Daisy and everyone of their class are "careless" and I think that’s an interesting word to use.
it seems simple and almost weak but when you think about it, it’s pretty cutting.
it’s close to selfish, it almost seems to mean lazily so.
not even selfish for a reason, just completely disregarding of anyone else at all.
because they can afford to be.
Meredith: which, is that exemplified in the accident, when Daisy kills Myrtle, the woman Tom’s having an affair with while driving Gatsby’s car?
Emily: yes, totally. and the affairs themselves, and Gatsby’s death, when Myrtle’s husband kills Gatsby-- Daisy and Tom just leave town.
Meredith: the lack of any type of emotion except from Tom seemed careless to me, too.
Emily: they've purchased immunity from the norms or courtesies of human interaction.
they don't have to abide by them.
which is why nick judges and dislikes them.
Meredith: right. he's a humble mid-westerner.
just like F. Scott F.!
Nick seemed so reluctant to go east at the beginning of the book
like he was doing just because that's what he's "supposed to do"
go to college, get job, meet wife, etc.
which doesn't sound too different from 2k11
except Yale probably cost a couple hundo more
I downed an americano at the last cafe I was at because they didn't have wifi! doh
so now I’m at vegan bakery and it smells weird and spicy
Emily: where are you, Kuwait? who doesn’t have wifi?
Meredith: srsly.

Emily: Fitz knew he was destined for greatness with this book, BUT NO ONE ELSE DID!
one of my favorite things about F. is that he knew he was a genius
he really pushed this one through on his faith in it
Meredith: did he feel like that with all his work? or was it just this one that he thought "that's gonna be a good one"?
Emily: he said: "The author would like to say that never before did one try to keep his artistic conscience as pure as during the ten months put into doing it... what I cut out both physically and emotionally would make another novel.”
and, the first printing was only 5,000!
and the obits barely mentioned it when he died!
and the NYT said "he never grew up"!!!!!!!!!1111111
Meredith: how old was he when he died? and was it from 2 much booze?
Emily: He was 44. And I think so... all the best ones go that way. BUT, he thought it should become a favorite of "classrooms, profs, lovers of English prose."
AND IT DID!
Meredith: YES IT DID
I read that he was in Italy when it was in the publishing process
so he wasn't right there through it all which I can imagine was stressful. he should have just skyped
Emily: I am lisnin to Justice's new album right now in honor of F's Parisian expat days



Meredith: ah tres bien! j'adore les artists francais
Emily: si si!
have you seen the Gatsby movie?!
w Redford?!?!?!?!
and Mia Farrow?



The greatest love story of our time!!!!
Meredith: noooo!
Emily
you'll never believe this
I just went to look it up
they're making a 2012 version, in production now
this is like that time we read jane eyre (hyperlink to ourselves)
Emily: srsly@!!!!!!!
Meredith: leo diCappiez!
Emily: Hollywood is cesspool of mediocrity and needs to Hunter S. Thompson itself
Meredith: was HST gun to the head?
Emily: yeah
Speaking of death:
F's grave is inscribed with THE FINAL LINE FROM GATSBY: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Meredith: jeeSUS
Emily: that is pretty heavy
Meredith: IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL
Emily: "epic" in the most-non fratty use of the word possible
Meredith: legit.

Next: Is Daisy a fully realized character? Is Nick a judgemental douche? How can we talk about Dashboard Confessional in conjunction with the text? AND MORE

A FAREWELL TO ARMS

Welcome to 2literate2work!!!1, in which we'll discuss the deeper meaning of sacred literary texts while comparing Hemingway to TLC.

This week: Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms. Set in Italy during World War 1, it was published in 1929 and cemented Hemingway's spot in The Canon/ boring sophomore English classes. Arms tells the story of a Henry, an American lieutenant in the Italian army who meets Catherine, an English nurse, with whom he falls in love and knocks up. There are also some war scenes.

WW1: It is What It Is

Emily: AWW GIRL
LETS TALK ABOUT HEMINGWAY
babay
let's talk about you and me
Meredith: Chattin' the Classics: Part 1
At first i was all 'does this guy know how to party or what?' ...yawn
Emily: and HE DOES!
Meredith: and then i was all, geez meredith, show some respect. this is war! this is the ww1!
so much booze
Emily : on that note, can i say i didn't realize this was a "war book"
until i opened it
talk about YAWN
and I read most of the book while drinking, in honor of Hway. I was like, how original, a war book. but then, i spose he sort of "invented" the genre.
Meredith: but it's so nonchalanty.

that's in the dictionary, right?
buttttt it's basically autobiographical.
Emily: yes, nonchalantly
Meredith: no L. it's an adjective
Emily: ah, but of course
Meredith: so can i also say that i kinda hate using "woman gets pregs" as a plot twist
Emily: war is hell-- BUT WAIT!
these ladies just can't stop themselves from getting knocked up!
Meredith: i guess when folks aren't practicing family planning, it actually is a plot twist IRL, but still.
anyway. talk about tragic.
woof
Emily: I know! I read the ending in a public place and gasped, predictably
what do you think of his writing style?
Meredith: it's so hemingway
Emily: it is pretty hemingwayesque
Meredith: i mean it's good for being intentionally specific with deets
modernism, etc
he's the father of modernism?
Emily: right, or the "papa" of modernism.
the blurb on the back of my book basically says he’s the greatest writer to ever have lived.
Meredith: totally disagree.
my book is clothbound hard cover blue with his john hancock and a feather.
so handsome.
Emily: yeah, he was a handsome man.
Meredith: i meant the book cover.
Emily: oh right.
so I read about his “iceberg theory” which apparently supposes that the prose itself is only the "tip of the iceberg" whereas the true meaning or implications of it are what lie beneath the surface.
BUT I WANT DESCRIPTION!
Meredith: ah yeah. or some kind of inner dialogue.
Emily: not stoically suffering through it.
Meredith: i guess the lack of inner dialogue, i.e. emotion, lent itself well to stoic manly men.
Emily: yes.
Meredith: and the priest was a big baby because he talked about his feelings.
Emily: yes.
Meredith: but i think i had a hard time reading into the text further.
because his style seems so surfacy and factual, like he didn't want me to delve any further.
World War 1: it is what it is.
Emily: “WW1: you win some, you lose some.”
however, there was one passage i was struck/impressed by.
Meredith: tell me.
Emily: it's when he's thinking about falling in love with Catherine.
and planning an escape from the war with her.
and he goes into this long reverie, and i think it's as imaginative or descriptive or dare I say emotional as the book gets:
“Maybe she would pretend that I was her boy that was killed and we would go in the front door and the porter would take off his cap and I would stop at the concierge’s desk and ask for the key and she would stand by the elevator and then we would go into the elevator and it would go up very slowly clicking all the floors and then our floor and the boy would open the door and stand there and she would step out and I would step out and we would walk down the hall and I would put the key in the door and open it and go in and then take down the telephone and ask them to send a bottle of capri bianca in a silver bucket full of ice and you would hear the ice against the pail coming down the corridor and the boy would knock and I would say leave it outside the door please. Because we would not wear any clothes because it was so hot and the window open and the swallows flying over the roofs of the houses and when it was dark afterward and you went to the window very small bats hunting over the houses and close down over the trees and we would drink the capri and the door locked and it hot and only a sheet and the whole night and we would both love each other all night in the hot night in Milan. That was how it ought to be. I would eat quickly and go and see Catherine Barkley.”
I love the rhythm of that passage; it seems breathless. It’s the one time in the book where he allows himself to fall through the surface (or to go beneath the iceberg, if you will)-- while still maintaining that patented concise clip, and here I think that amplifies the emotion rather than replaces it. Here, he reminds me more of (post)modern male protagonists than someone trapped inside their own stoicism.
Meredith: yeah definitely, it's romantic and idyllic.
what did you think of Cath?
Emily: I actually liked her. Although obviously at times she is a little too eager to please. But I do like her-- when we first meet her, she tells Henry that he doesn't have to lie to her about whether he loves her. She’s not delusional. Overall, i think she's a pretty fully realized character. What did you think?
Meredith: I thought she was obnoxious at times. like "you don't really love me. I’m terrible," etc.
Emily: ha yeah-- overall, I get the feeling that Hemingway himself likes and respects her. I guess I was imaging her in the form of a film heroine from the same period, and they're all the same way. Falling over themselves trying to please their men, apologizing for themselves, etc. So I didn't hold that against her.
Meredith: yeah exactly. Definitely had to do some mental time configurations. And in that sense, yes, she's great.

“Why should he make us feel good at the end? This is war.”

Emily: All the battle scenes were a bit much. I think because i was left wanting for an emotional response to them.
Meredith: but they were hardly battle scenes!
Emily: I felt like I was watching a war from 100 miles away. I want to be in there!
Meredith: It was all "then they took over the mountain and then we shot and then they came up and then etc". Realllly distant/impersonal.
Emily: Yeah- how can you demonstrate that "war is hell" without showing the loss as well as the action?
Meredith: Even the scene with the bridge when they captured that one guy. It was literally right there. But still pretty far away.
Emily: All Quiet on the Western Front, also about WW1, does an excellent job of putting you into the trenches, so to speak, with the aim of trying to make you experience the terror and futility of war. It succeeds and I think it's a better "war novel" altogether.
Meredith: ah haven't read it.
Emily: so good. should be on our list. once we recover from this one.
But SPOILER ALERT to our readers: so Henry survives the war, this act of immense inhumanity between people. But Catherine doesn't survive the war of nature vs. human by dying after giving birth to their son.
Meredith: oooof
Emily: Which: Catherine's death: banal plot twist used only to magnify the horrors of war/ tragedy of our protagonist?
or
a metaphor to show that nothing on earth is benevolent?
there are always small wars that take innocent lives?
Meredith: What I thought was a banal plot twist when it first was introduced became truly tragic when put in the context of Henry's life.
Emily: my biggest fear of the book: Catherine's death is used to justify the entire story, to nicely bookend a hellish episode in Henry’s life and to make the reader feel like they've Experienced Something Epic and Moving and “A Triumph”.
Meredith: Why should he make us feel good at the end? This is war.
Emily: not saying we all deserve a happy ending, but it made me wonder what the book was about: war sucks or life sucks?
Meredith: also, while he was writing that, his wife was currently undergoing a cesarean section!
Emily: oh wow .

didn't know that.
hm.
Meredith: the whole book for the most part mirrors his life up until that point.
He served as an ambulance driver in the Italian army.
Emily: right.
Meredith: i don't think he escaped execution.
Did he? irl?
Emily: he killed himself.
so, i guess not.
Meredith: self execution
Emily: at 61
in Idaho
with a Nobel prize and a Pulitzer on his shelf.
Meredith: damn. hate when that happens! That kind of leads me to believe that it really does get worse.
Emily: but he seemed to be profoundly fucked up. Not in the worst way, but in a fundamental way.
Meredith: do you think it was the pressures to be manly and stoic?
That’s so crazy. Someone who doesn't let on that he feels feelings offs himself.
Emily: Perhaps being born with an intense want for something that doesn't exist outside your own mind manifests itself in those ways sometimes. But, what great writer isn’t born that way?
Meredith: born wanting?
Emily: I was thinking that H is the opposite of writers like DFW and Agee, who really throw themselves screaming across the page. But maybe they're more alike than I originally thought.
Meredith: yeah. They made their depression/frustrations obvious.
Emily: Yeah... there seems to be an inherent dissatisfaction with The Way Things Are in all of them. Which obviously drove them to create in the first place. And killed them, in the end.
But maybe all humans are that way, and writers are just more in touch with those tendencies.
Meredith: right.
Emily: Or more compelled to explore them and hanging them up for the world to see.
Meredith: Oh man. elliott smith just came on my itunes!!!

WWHT?

Meredith: it’s interesting comparing Hway and DFW/Agee
Emily: i guess that's always my first instinct.
like how some people compare humans to Jesus.
Meredith: i'm not as well versed in DFW. But they seem so opposite
Emily: yeah. I guess my main struggle with Hemingway was to feel empathy for him, because I'm so used to reading people who really just cut their heart out and leave it bleeding on the page for you to see, and that's what I'm drawn to and really impressed by-- people who are willing and able to do that.
Meredith: that makes sense. But then it's the separation of the author and the author's work.
Emily: right, just stylistic differences.
Meredith: okay, so he didn't fuck your mind, but he must have had similar feelings to other literary deities enough to find the same shit as unbearable. is it wrong that that gives him cred?
Emily: right, exactly. He just expresses it in a different way, maybe quieter.
Meredith: right.
Emily: well, it seems like he invented this particular brand of modern hyper-masculine stoicism (i keep going back to that word) that really defined an era in American literature and permeated other media too. I think of Bogart, of other classic film idols who embodied that same sort of emotionally unavailable guy.
Meredith: yeah absolutely. Is modernism defined as just very literal writing?
Emily: probably, a departure from Elizabethan or Victorian prose... less flowery and embellished.
I think to look at that literal writing in the context of modern war makes it more interesting:
Meredith: ooooo, you
Emily: these things that were happening were so horrific that there was no other way to describe it than in an emotionally detached manner. and all you can do is relay the events and let the reader feel it themselves.
Meredith: So i wonder how many books were written about war in that time but publishers wouldn't publish them if they were too real or cut too deep or something. I don't know how big the censorship was for ww1 to the public.
Emily: mmm, good point. would be an interesting PhD thesis ha.
Meredith: but the access we have to war now is so much more than it ever was
via wikileak vids and tweets
Emily: true. will there be any novels to come out of the first gulf war or the "Iraq War"?
probably only video games instead.
Meredith: ugh. Gross.
they're RIGHT THERE ON THE FRONT LINE OF THE ACTION though
thats how to breed stoic manly men now
desensitize them to fighting in the front
Emily: right, it's not like those games are used to indoctrinate young kids into thinking like a soldier/ normalize killing brown people.
Meredith: bam
Emily: because they've already virtually been there.
Meredith: so weird
ah
ahhhhhh
Emily: what would hemingway think?
WWHT?
also, at least the US recently lowered standards for accepting soldiers, so at least none of them can think critically let alone write a novel about the horrors of postmodern warfare.
Meredith: oh man
Emily: so this all impresses the shit out of me re: hemingway. guess it's all relative.
Meredith: why couldn't Henry join the US army?
Emily: not sure... it seemed like he wanted to join the Italians? Don’t really know how that would be possible. Don’t really "get" the "rules" of war.
Meredith: rule #1: do not tell anyone about war club
Emily: rule #2: do not tell anyone about war club
Meredith: *do not talk about war club
Emily: ahh right. we're bad at being bros.
I found the iceberg metaphor kind of appropriate because sometimes he just seemed really cold.
Meredith: totttttttez
and he's not going to give you anything more.
Emily: yes.
DUDES WHO ARE READING THIS, WE LIKE SENSTIVE BROS WITH FEELINGS
but who can still fix things
JK
Meredith: and can grow hemingway beards
Emily: yeah, that's a must
maybe staring stoically off your safari vehicle while plucking your freshly slayed condor is also a must.
Meredith: with rifle pictured stage left.
Emily: there are so many photos of him on safari. with some natives.
Meredith: teh gun stays in te picture
Emily: he's is the whitest and maliest white male ever to have existed.
Meredith: 'a hard man is good to find' -m. rivlin
Emily: you're the 4th member of TLC.
or third, now.
miss u left eye.
salt and pepa > TLC
Meredith: duh.
although early tlc
like creep is good
Emily: CRZSXYCL
Meredith: like their older stuff better
same with Hemingway
Emily: yeah, FWELL2ARMS is like his CRAZYSEXYCOOL: masterpiece.
Meredith: HAHAHAHAH
Emily: "the old man and the sea" is his "waterfalls"
one big metaphor
Meredith: that was his single.
Emily: it totally was... won a Pulitzer, like how TLC won the respect of the critics/ community at large for singing/rapping about important issues
like "the drugs"
and setting shoes on fire in the bathtub of your boyfriends mansion
Meredith: hahhahahha
damn, girl.
he had it coming
Emily: he sure fuckin did.



Next time: teenage rioting with Franny and Zooey.