The idea for a literary interlude was triggered by a "small apocalypse" that I spotted in a short story in the New Yorker last week. Here is the specific passage that caught my eye:
New Age music is playing in hypnotic repetition, like massage-parlor background atmosphere. It gives the room a gloomy, apocalyptic air. Nobody’s smiling. The spectacular view of the white beach stretches clear down the narrow peninsula, evaporating into billowy sea foam. Two dark soldiers emerge, strolling casually along the surf line, their hawklike Indian faces set hard against camouflage uniforms, black machine guns strapped to their backs. A fleet of white pelicans sail past them, then dip low to the water. One of them plunges headlong into the green tide and comes up spewing mullet.
This story is not really about anything 'apocalyptic' per se, yet the word is invoked, and this invocation tilts the narrative in a dire direction. How do settings or environments come to take on an 'apocalyptic' aura? When an ordinary cultural experience is deemed 'apocalyptic', what narrative implications does this have for everyday people? In other words, how does apocalyptic rhetoric implicate people in a broader narrative? (I'm thinking tangentially of Raymond Williams here.) Does life become more or less urgent when an 'apocalyptic' shift is observed (or called for)? We will consider these questions in class tomorrow in conjunction with another just-published literary text that is rife with apocalypticism.
I read that story, and the ending put me off. Not only because it seemed 'typical new yorker' but because it was apocalyptic. This family came to enjoy Cancun and then on the flight back the husband spews brown liquid down his chest and dies on the plane. It reminded me of something I read about flight protocol when dealing with a dead body. It's pretty loose, and maybe you saw it or can correct me, but if a person dies its 'best' not to put them in the lavatorty or leave them in the seat because when rigor mortise sets in, it can be extremely hard to extract the body. The best place to put the body is in the isle with the family of the deceased placed closest to it, following them, the people who have to sit next to the dead body or those who paid the least amount for their ticket, so these people are called upon and moved. That's pretty morbid.
ReplyDeleteCome on, better reading, Mark! The husband does not die—another passenger dies, and, they *do* place the body in the isle: "I laid him down flat in the aisle, on his back." The husband is the observer, and it is bleak, yes—but is is really apocalyptic? I don't think so. It's glum and resigned, but anything but catastrophic (even though it *does* deploy the word 'apocalyptic').
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by "'typical new yorker'"? I'm not being glib; this is a serious question that I'm trying to suss out for myself. I agree that there is a New Yorker 'type' when it comes to literariness; but it's a slippery type, one that I can't quite pin down (and I try). Maybe we can use this point of entry as a way to further critique the poem we discussed in class today, too.
To answer some of the questions posed above i wrote about my understanding of the term "apocalypse."
ReplyDeleteThe word “apocalyptic” is used in many instances, to describe any experience or “sign” that indicates the end of the world; a complete end to an era. However, apocalypse also indicates, in a more positive light, the unveiling or revealing of a completely new idea/experience/thing, usually at this complete end. Therefore, I wanted to point out that while the term “apocalyptic literature” sometimes seems to have a negative undertone, it is ultimately positive. In our small apocalypses, I think we’ve often found that the term closely resembles the unveiling of a new idea at the end of one’s previous understanding. I’ve now come to understand the term apocalyptic as closely linked to knowledge and philosophical revelation in the world of literature. In the natural world, apocalypse takes on the image of dark clouds, extreme weather conditions, or just a rare glimpse of nature’s beauty never before seen. An apocalyptic image seems to be an image that generates signals of change, one that makes you step back, wonder, and observe. While everyday people may think of desolate ghost towns, aliens, or doomsday when thinking of the term apocalypse, the word can imply much more than that especially thinking about it in relation to literature.
And by questions I meant "How do settings or environments come to take on an 'apocalyptic' aura? When an ordinary cultural experience is deemed 'apocalyptic', what narrative implications does this have for everyday people? In other words, how does apocalyptic rhetoric implicate people in a broader narrative?"
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