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· December 31, 2007 9:23 PM by
Colleen Shirazi
· December 31, 2007 9:43 PM by
Dain
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Posted by Dain, Monday, December 31, 2007 5:02 AM (Eastern)
Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange is the epitome of "cult classic", both the book and the film adaptation. I have not seen the movie, though I want to, but I could easily get my hands on the book. The novel's protagonist, Alex, is fifteen, and likes violence, drugs, and rape, as well as Beethoven's 9th, all of which are made much of. It is a slim volume, which is well, because the book itself is written in a language reminiscent of Finnegan's Wake, and if you detest Joyce, as I do, the best you can say of such absurdity is, it is used to better effect than FW, because it starts to make sense after a while, as thick slang does have that mish-mashy quality. For me, the dystopic horror doesn't telegraph that well, but maybe I am too thick-skinned. There is too much elegance in Alex, and by this I do not mean his music, but he seems to have such moral sensitivity in his observations of others, and yet I have no idea why he disregards it. It seems only partially fleshed out. While there is a longstanding tradition of charismatic villains, I leave this book shrugging my shoulders. We tend to think of youth as a precious commodity—we Americans, in particular. It is, indeed, a most marketable age. But as Trey Parker (of South Park fame) has pointed out, "Kids are bastards."
Don Quixote is not a work that requires much introduction. He is contemporaneous to Shakespeare, but I am somewhat skeptical of any collusion between them. There is something about each that stands alone. They never think alone, no artist does, but the great ones, they stand alone. They share titles, however, as harbingers of modernity. Cervantes is generally credited with the first modern novel, which brings to mind such academic discussions as "What is modernity?", which like many other erudite discussions is too wrapped up in its own self-importance to notice the simple answer: modernity is the comparison of today against yesterday. When someone says, "I don't get modern art, it looks rather awful," we tell him, "It is a statement against tradition!"
When the myth-dazzled Don Quixote, after a night of bloody beatings and confused identities, concocts his rosemary-and-Ava-Maria-laced panacea, with the ever simple and ever greedy Sancho Panza looking on for secrets to sell, it is such a repulsive mixture that they both end up sick. Later, Don Quixote attacks a flock of sheep (in his mind a great Muslim army), and the shepherds stone him. Sancho Panzo worries about the state of his teeth, and the knight expounds on the importance of dentition, and asks his squire to examine his mouth. Sancho Panza sticks his head into Don Quixote's mouth, who vomits the toxic mixture from before, which disgusts Sancho Panzo so much he vomits the same on Don Quixote, and, in Cervantes' own words, "the two of them were left as splendid as pearls."
Though the text itself covers only a short space, it is quite rich, as my attempts at summary demonstrate quite clearly. So much happens and very little happens at the same time. What makes this novel such a marvel is the discrepancy between the great comedic cruelty in what happens to Don Quixote, and the sweet and melancholy tenderness in what passes through his mind. What happens when we try to live the past, not just in imagination but in reality? Under the coarse light of modern day, you have Don Quixote. In spite of the handful of centuries that separate Cervantes from the modern reader, he remains eternally fresh, because the story's premise is modernity itself: the comparison of today against yesterday.
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December 31, 2007 9:23 PM,
I read A Clockwork Orange a long time ago... You can see it's utterly soaked in the Cold War mentality. I'm not sure what it would be like reading it now. It's interesting to note if its shocking futuristic quality has already kind of come and gone...where, say, 1984 still has its shocking futuristic quality (or at least the aspect of waiting for the other shoe to fall).
December 31, 2007 9:43 PM,
I'll admit I did not catch onto anything Cold-War-ish , but then, my first real memory of a world event is the fall of the Berlin Wall, so I truly have a post-Cold-War mindset. But I agree that 1984 still retains that atmosphere of deadness and horror as beautifully as it did so long ago, so maybe that does not matter.
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