Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Explanation of the video.
I would not normally have posted the Watchmen movie trailer here, but for some reason, DashBlog would not send it to Dilettante's Diary.
I do think HPL would've liked the trailer.
I do think HPL would've liked the trailer.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Chapter VII.
Just when it looks like this text becomes a traditional narrative, Poe throws something else in. Pym goes into disguise once more, this time as the dead seaman Rogers.
The interesting thing about this passage is the plot that the anti-mutineers have to use in order to retake the ship. Brute force won't work because they are outnumbered, but deception will. Because the mate has poisoned Rogers and feels guilty about it, he is vulnerable to having his conscience used against him by Pym, Augustus and Peters. It's as if Poe is saying that a brute-force narrative will not work so well as a narrative that finds the reader's vulnerabilities.
The interesting thing about this passage is the plot that the anti-mutineers have to use in order to retake the ship. Brute force won't work because they are outnumbered, but deception will. Because the mate has poisoned Rogers and feels guilty about it, he is vulnerable to having his conscience used against him by Pym, Augustus and Peters. It's as if Poe is saying that a brute-force narrative will not work so well as a narrative that finds the reader's vulnerabilities.
Chapter V-VI.
Chapter V recapitulates Augustus's efforts to make contact with Pym after the mutineers take the ship. There may be something there in terms of comparative narration, but that's not really what I'm after. Nothing struck me right away.
I was beginning to wonder about Chapter VI. Odd things going on: a diversionary lecture about proper cargo stowage in a ship's hold; the story about the lone survivor of a shipwreck whose cargo of corn shifted and brought the craft down; the details about the open spaces in the Grampus's hold; Tiger's recovery. But now it makes its own sense, because Poe/Pym has turned to journal entries to continue the narrative. Chapter VI is its own stowage, one of narrative rather than of material, and its attention to careful packing tells the reader that one's own narrative should be packed with equal care.
I was beginning to wonder about Chapter VI. Odd things going on: a diversionary lecture about proper cargo stowage in a ship's hold; the story about the lone survivor of a shipwreck whose cargo of corn shifted and brought the craft down; the details about the open spaces in the Grampus's hold; Tiger's recovery. But now it makes its own sense, because Poe/Pym has turned to journal entries to continue the narrative. Chapter VI is its own stowage, one of narrative rather than of material, and its attention to careful packing tells the reader that one's own narrative should be packed with equal care.
Chapter IV, continued.
This contrast on Poe's examination of the self with Lovecraft's is interesting. It's like in Lovecraft, the self utterly disappears. His narrators are gentlemen, educated, discerning, and helpless in the face of what to them is chaos. When confronted with the weird and the unknown, the narrators dissolve. Even Randolph Carter, if I'm recalling Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath correctly, doesn't really come across as a personality.
I bring this up because of Pym's ongoing worry about his own authority in the fact of the weird, unknown things he sees:
"I have been thus particular in speaking of Dirk Peters, because, ferocious as he appeared, he proved the main instrument in preserving the life of Augustus, and because I shall have frequent occasion to mention him hereafter in the course of my narrative--a narrative, let me here say, which, in its latter portions, will be found to include incidents of a nature so entirely out of the range of human experience, and for this reason so far beyond the limits of human credulity, that I proceed in utter hopelessness of obtaining credence for all that I shall tell, yet confidently trusting in time and progressing science to verify some of the most important and most improbable of my statements."
Dirk Peters is the 'half-breed' that Pym/Poe-the-editor/Poe-the-writer mentions in the Preface. He is a witness to what occurs, yet he cannot be trusted because of his mixed race. But it's not like people of Poe's time didn't fully trust those of pure race, with the exception of slaves, who went as part of a ratio of truth. The veracity of someone's statement was filtered through the cultural conventions about his race, and while whites could be trusted completely, so to speak, others could be trusted as well if their 'place' were taken into account. Note that they could be trusted, but were not always trusted. So it makes its own sense that Peters is not a reliable informant.
Here's an interesting passage:
"From all the calculations I can make on the subject, this must have been the slumber into which I fell just after my return from the trap with the watch, and which, consequently, must have lasted for more than three entire days and nights at the very least. Latterly, I have had reason both from my own experience and the assurance of others, to be acquainted with the strong soporific effects of the stench arising from old fish-oil when closely confined; and when I think of the condition of the hold in which I was imprisoned, and the long period during which the brig had been used as a whaling vessel, I am more inclined to wonder that I awoke at all, after once falling asleep, than that I should have slept uninterruptedly for the period specified above."
If I am recalling Moby-Dick correctly, Melville at more than one point discusses whale oil at length. Ambergris for certain, and I believe whale oil as well. Poe's take is different through his use of the word "stench." Melville wouldn't have done that, given the way that he romanticizes whales. Or really, given the way that the whale's body becomes the blazon for so many things.
I bring this up because of Pym's ongoing worry about his own authority in the fact of the weird, unknown things he sees:
"I have been thus particular in speaking of Dirk Peters, because, ferocious as he appeared, he proved the main instrument in preserving the life of Augustus, and because I shall have frequent occasion to mention him hereafter in the course of my narrative--a narrative, let me here say, which, in its latter portions, will be found to include incidents of a nature so entirely out of the range of human experience, and for this reason so far beyond the limits of human credulity, that I proceed in utter hopelessness of obtaining credence for all that I shall tell, yet confidently trusting in time and progressing science to verify some of the most important and most improbable of my statements."
Dirk Peters is the 'half-breed' that Pym/Poe-the-editor/Poe-the-writer mentions in the Preface. He is a witness to what occurs, yet he cannot be trusted because of his mixed race. But it's not like people of Poe's time didn't fully trust those of pure race, with the exception of slaves, who went as part of a ratio of truth. The veracity of someone's statement was filtered through the cultural conventions about his race, and while whites could be trusted completely, so to speak, others could be trusted as well if their 'place' were taken into account. Note that they could be trusted, but were not always trusted. So it makes its own sense that Peters is not a reliable informant.
Here's an interesting passage:
"From all the calculations I can make on the subject, this must have been the slumber into which I fell just after my return from the trap with the watch, and which, consequently, must have lasted for more than three entire days and nights at the very least. Latterly, I have had reason both from my own experience and the assurance of others, to be acquainted with the strong soporific effects of the stench arising from old fish-oil when closely confined; and when I think of the condition of the hold in which I was imprisoned, and the long period during which the brig had been used as a whaling vessel, I am more inclined to wonder that I awoke at all, after once falling asleep, than that I should have slept uninterruptedly for the period specified above."
If I am recalling Moby-Dick correctly, Melville at more than one point discusses whale oil at length. Ambergris for certain, and I believe whale oil as well. Poe's take is different through his use of the word "stench." Melville wouldn't have done that, given the way that he romanticizes whales. Or really, given the way that the whale's body becomes the blazon for so many things.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)