Review of “Elmer Gantry,” by Sinclair Lewis

Elmer Gantry, by Sinclair Lewis, was published in 1927. This statement is difficult to grasp, considering how modern it feels. Not a great deal has changed in the way of humanity since its publication. This book, which is nearing a century old (90 years, to be exact), reflects current society so well that it sounds, in every way, as though it could have just been released. In fact, apart from references to technology and mentions of the year, there is nothing to mark its setting. Though it came out in 1927, it takes place a little earlier. The book opens in 1902, the title character is a college student at this point and we follow him throughout his life into his 40s. He is drunk in that opening scene, which is a very fitting start for him. Elmer Gantry is not an honest man. In fact, he is the furthest thing from an honest man that one could be. He uses various forms of Christian ministry to further himself: to gain followers, prestige, and money. His only wish is to have a huge audience hanging on his every word.

What impressed me most about this book, as I have already said, is how modern it feels. By this, I do not mean merely the style of the writing, but rather how it reflects current societal views. The believability of the characters is also noteworthy of mention. Elmer gets involved with many people during his journey, some likeable and others deplorable. Regardless as to the quality of any given character’s merits, they are all believable as real human beings. They all have goals and aspirations, they are all driven by something and have their own emotions. This book is completely immersive in not just culture, but human experience. It is a classic that everyone should read at least once in their life.

Jim Lefferts was my favorite character in the early stages of the novel. He was Elmer’s level-headed college roommate. Jim was an atheist. This fact is very important as they attended a Christian college. Jim was Elmer’s only atheist friend. At that point in his life, Elmer took no interest in religion, so he naturally did not have any other friends.

Frank Shallard was another interesting character. I did not care for him in the beginning of the novel, but as he came back into the story at later points, he became one of my favorite characters! In many ways, I would say that he was the real hero of the story. I will not say how though. This review will be spoiler free to the best of my abilities.

The book takes place in Winnemac state. No, your geography is not that bad, dear reader. Well, it may be, I cannot really say, given the fact that I do not know you. Winnemac state is an entirely fictional location invented by the author and used in many of his novels. It is situated in the Mid-West. I have never been to the Mid-West, so I cannot say that I know of the culture in that area, but I saw many parallels between my personal background and what is portrayed in this novel. There is the same uneducated dialect, backwards ways, and obsession with religion. The religious aspect stuck out most. Many people’s lives revolved around the church. In the case of my upbringing, not everyone went to Church, but everyone was religious in some minor way at the least. This novel represents a perfect commentary on the state of society, especially life in small town, USA. People know one another and they know one another’s business, there is no real privacy. People are flawed, but have a beauty of their own. All of this, all of life as reflected in a fictional state in the 20^th century is well and alive in 21^st century small towns.

I grew up in the South around the Tennessee and Kentucky state line, moving around a lot as a kid, occasionally from one state to the other. I now live in Florida. While Florida is geographically southern in its placement in the country, it is not culturally what I would call “Southern.” I always lived in small towns as a kid. In my younger years, I lived in the town square and in my later childhood, I usually lived out in the country. When I was 13, my family befriended a travelling missionary. This missionary was nothing like Elmer: he was sincere. He was crazy, but he was sincere in his beliefs! Religion was the entire center of his being. He got my family involved with a small country church, not much unlike Elmer’s first church. It was a peaceful place, but this man was still poisoned with hatred for people of other religions and could not even tolerate opposing opinions. He had his strong points though, he was trustworthy and willing to help others. There was no character in Elmer Gantry that directly paralleled him, but he is a part of what it is like to live in small religious areas.

I really appreciated the debates on issues with the Church and with religion in general. It may be difficult for people not from the Bible belt to really understand the culture, but I am sure that through the undoubted sympathy the characters must inspire toward themselves, readers from all over the world should be able to immerse themselves in the culture and time. For roughly 500 pages, we are all 20^th century Mid-Westerners.

 

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Review of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is told through the eyes of Chief Bromden, who is a half Native American and half white resident of an insane asylum. We see very little at the beginning of the story until the main focal point of the narrative enters: Randle Patrick McMurphy, a red haired and wild Irishman who disrupts the status quo on the ward. He’s a convict who convinces the authority of a work farm that he is insane so that he might serve his sentence out at a mental hospital rather than the work farm. I could rattle on about the plot and underlying symbolism of authority and how it contains an underlying political, hippie-esque message of anti-establishment, but what would be the point? This is completely obvious to anyone who takes the time to read the novel (or watch the movie for that matter.) No, what I want to talk about is the secret meaning underlying all of this. Be fair warned: this review contains spoilers! If you haven’t read it and want to do so without knowing the ending beforehand, do not continue reading.

Admittedly, it took me a while to get use to the style of the writing. It’s written in a heavy dialect. The “could ofs” made me cringe at first, but I got use to it being a characteristic of the voice of the narrator. In many cases, it’s written in present tense as if we are hearing the thoughts of the narrator as he is presently experiencing what is going on around him. But this doesn’t hold to be true in all cases. Sometimes, he even goes into flashbacks of his childhood.

  
Chief Bromden is crazy in every sense of the word. He has trouble distinguishing fact from fiction. He describes many events that are very surreal such as during the time everyone is asleep, he believes that the night crew come in, pull a lever which causes the entire floor of the bedroom to move downward to another level, such as a basement of the ward, where there is a crew of strange human like creatures working in a boiler room. He once mentions the belief that the medicine administered to the patients on the ward contain tiny microscopic computer chips that are designed to melt when come in contact with human flesh and he continuously references “the fog,” which he says the military use to use. he even says that he knows how the fog is created, he remembers the machines from his military days. In one scene where he and McMurphy are being taken for a shock therapy treatment, he believes there is a man hooked up to a wire which is fastened between his shoulder blades and the wire pulls the man away, much like an electric coatrack.

In one of the flashbacks to Chief Bromden’s childhood we see the young Bromden at his home. There’s some white men who have come to negotiate buying the tribe’s land. They stand there, talking amongst themselves. I believe they do acknowledge little Bromden once amongst themselves, wondering where the father is (his father was the chief at this time and he was the one that they needed to talk to) but even when he speaks to them, it is as if they don’t hear him. Almost as if they can’t even see him at all. At this point, I came to a theory that I later started to doubt, but then took back up and reconsidered in light of the entire narrative: Chief Bromden, whom we see the whole of the story through the eyes of, doesn’t exist. He’s actually a figment of his own imagination. And, of course, in his own eyes he does exist, just as each one of us exist in our own eyes. You could say that each one of us is a figment of our own imagination, or a figment of our own imagining. How we see ourselves might not always be how the rest of the world sees us. So, it could be seen as a philosophical statement in this sense.

On the outer level of meaning, this event is being related to explain why the chief stopped talking: because even when he did talk, no one acknowledged him. So, he just gradually grew tired of it to the point where he gradually stopped talking. Everyone treated him as if he couldn’t talk or even hear, so he stopped talking altogether, and then everyone believed that he truly was deaf and dumb. Moving further along, we see a definite link between him and McMurphy (there’s a possible homosexual attraction that he feels toward McMurphy.) This link becomes even more apparent when McMurphy becomes the first person that he opens up to with the fact that he actually can talk. When he does this, McMurphy isn’t the least bit surprised that he can talk. Is this a realistic reaction? The secret is kept between the two of them for the majority of the duration of the novel. And when he opens up to the other inmates at the ward with this, it isn’t even so much a coming out, they barrage him with questions, and he starts answering them. He just starts talking to them, and they react as though he’d been talking the whole time. Now, why would someone ask a deaf and dumb person questions? Why would you ask something from someone you don’t believe can talk, maybe can’t even hear? Is this realistic? There’s something much deeper going on here.

Like I said before, there’s a definite link between McMurphy and the Chief. This is apparent even from the beginning. But the full significance doesn’t really come out until the end. After a party involving drugs, alcohol, and a failed escape plan, McMurphy is taken away, only to be brought back onto the ward having been lobotomized. All the other residents say that that isn’t McMurphy. They can’t believe that it’s him, they don’t want to believe it’s him. McMurphy represents freedom, he represents the Messiah from the Iron Fist of the Big Nurse. he showed them freedom, that they can fight for their freedom, that they are human beings and should be treated as such. He can’t be in this condition, the hero can’t go out like this! Well, in a sense, it’s not McMurphy. That is to say, it’s not the McMurphy that they know. This is just a corpse that happens to still be breathing at the moment.

The connection grows deeper still. The Chief knows that McMurphy wouldn’t want to be left like that for days, or even years. He does a final favor for him: that night, he gets up and smothers him with a pillow. Chief Bromden kills McMurphy. Then, Scanlon (one of the other residents) encourages him to make a break for it. At first, the Chief is reluctant and isn’t sure how he would even manage an escape, but then Scanlon tells him that McMurphy told him weeks ago how to escape. It all goes back to McMurphy helping the Chief regain his physical strength. The Chief lifts the control panel in the tub-room and throws it through the window, breaking the glass and making his escape through it. Are we to think it’s complete coincidence that not long after McMurphy helps the Chief regain his physical strength, he looses his own?

So, my original argument was that Chief Bromden is a figment of his own imagination. How does this play into it? Well, like I said, the connection goes further, in a way he does exist. The connection between the two characters (Chief Bromden and Patrick McMurphy) is that only one of them truly exists. When the Chief killed the weakened version of McMurphy and used his strength to make an escape, it symbolized him killing the weaker part of himself and breaking free of the prison of his own mental restraints (he was, after all, in a mental institution.)

Upon discussion of these ideas with a friend of mine, another possibility came up: perhaps it is McMurphy that doesn’t exist and he is imagined by the Chief. This idea would actually make more sense. It makes more sense in the fact that it becomes less philosophical and esoteric and more tangible.

Either of these ideas may sound pretty out there, but it is explicitly mentioned by the author on two occasions in the chapter before the last one (during the party.) Both are pieces of dialogue from the character, Harding. Those two snippets of dialogue are as follows:

“These things don’t happen. These things are fantasies you lie awake at night dreaming up and then are afraid to tell your analyst. You’re not really here. That wine isn’t real; none of this exists. Now, let’s go on from there.”

“It isn’t happening. It’s all a collaboration of Kafka and Mark Twain and Martini.” (Martini is one of the other characters.)

The Chief has an association between McMurphy and his own father; he mentions early on that McMurphy reminds him a lot of his own father and later, toward the end during an hallucinatory dreamlike experience after shock therapy, he makes a connection between the two characters, almost confuses them, though this isn’t explicitly stated in the text itself, it is implied in an abstract manner.

If the Chief imagined McMurphy, it’s not surprising that he would use characteristics of someone he knew, i.e. his father. McMurphy represents the strength of the Chief and by extension everyone on the ward (he encourages everyone to fight for their rights.) Then when the Chief regains his strength, he outgrows a need for McMurphy (an imaginary friend), he kills this side of his brain, that is to say, when he regains his strength on the conscious level of his mind, he is no longer in need of the subconscious creation of his mind, so he kills it, he is killing the weakened version of himself.

When McMurphy was given the chance to apologize for his actions and not undergo the shock therapy treatment, why did this not apply to the Chief? It was almost as if the two were being treated as a single person. Given that the nurse didn’t know that the Chief could talk, why didn’t she at least reason with him in some way? She just gave McMurphy a chance to apologize and then his decision affected both characters. Coincidence? Or was the Chief causing all these issues on the ward, and then attributing it to the alter-ego of “McMurphy” in his head? (Note: we do see the entire world through the Chief’s eyes, so what anyone else in the story perceived wouldn’t be in the text.)

We’re left with the Chief escaping and returning to his hometown, musing over returning to places he knew as a child. The final statement of “I been away a long time” gives a sense of finality but also a sense of continuance. With all of the strange ideas of the Chief, the reader is left to wonder what really happened. As the first chapter concluded, “But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.” Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t and maybe that’s part of the sense of wonder and art in the whole thing.

decluttered mind

when the rain comes,
will you be ready?

silent night thoughts
unravel,
make their way
to the surface
of conscious waters
like a floating rock
in the sea

cigar smoke,
the sound of crickets,
the day is done,
accomplish, unaccomplished

and the impending rain
catches us all unaware

10/30/14

A Meaningful Life

Sometimes, life seems meaningless. And other times, we find purpose, motivation and drive in the meaninglessness. Some new poetry coming soon.

Happy New Year 2015, everyone!

the theory of everything and how the world came to be (a random series of disconnected streams of consciousness)

sleep consciousness
arrives in fields of
lucid chamomile

dorthy meditates
perched on a poppy
flower

the theory of everything,
eternity in
a fraction of a second –
be still, wisdom,
for insanity is leaking
from whence yourself have come!

condensation: plastic glass
sits evenly
upon its sweaty
foundation

tropical poet has dreams
of snowmen
and romantic sleigh rides

the cycle of the mind, discovered
the potential of the mind, unlocked

10/20/14

we came from cracked concrete sidewalks

i

sometimes i itch
for caffeine near midnight,
is it near midnight already?
again?

The artist’s choice of drug
alteration of perception,
stamina and energy!
alteration of mind

it’s late
and I don’t want
to spew out some old
tired cliche
like
“addiction
is a double edged sword”

we’re waiting for the rain
to come and cleanse
our sins –
the tv said there’d be rain
(damn weather man!)

like a sundial in the closet,
we all find ourselves
misplaced
(only, we put ourselves here)
“keep the coffee comin’, babe!”

addiction is self-administered
poison
(psyche)

and rain doesn’t cleanse anything
that piss doesn’t cleanse

mossy rock, waterfall, desert sands
and cacti,
visions of old sages

addiction, knowledge, psyche, words,
meditation, prayer,
chantings

my mind wanders back
to the sundial in the closet
gathering dust

ii

experiencing early childhood
in the 1990’s,
the birth of hip-hop,
disco is dead
long live disco

iii

you remember
when we were
in the desert
and we drank
one another’s sweat?

silence falls upon
a vast night –
and then
the whistle of the wind

(we bleed ink and wine)

iv

dawn cracks,
we sip cheap coffee
from styrofoam cups

the night before,
old sitcoms
blared from the telly
back in the hotel room

we were so full of dreams
and aspirations

People, Sunflowers and Honeybees and I Guess We’re All Just Passing Through Anyway

And so it is nearing one year that I started this blog, and there is, as of yet, very little on here. I’ve been thinking a lot recently, about people, about things I’ve done, things I’ve not done, material things, ideas, pondering what I want to do with my life: going to school, studying, becoming serious about my writing, etc. I’ve been thinking about people, how there are those people in our lives that just gradually fade out. And not because they’re bad people or we’re bad people or anything of the sort. Sometimes, we just don’t click in the right way, or our lives are filled with sunflowers and honeybees, or something like that.

There are also those that make only the briefest appearance in our lives, and those, dear reader, are the ones I’ve been pondering of as of late.

There was a calm Sunday, late morning to early afternoon, last summer. I decided to spend some time at the old Buddhist Temple I frequented, for their weekly picnic-like event. I made a new friend or two, spent several hours with them. I never saw those people again. And there are also those friends from frequent café visits, bus rides and art events. Some stay in our lives for a day, a week, a few months, and then they gradually fade out. I was an irregular attendant at that Temple anyway, coming and going at various times dependent upon what was going on in my life. I guess we’re all just passing through anyway. And there are so many experiences to be had.

foggy images

foggy images floating
along the perpendicular
of the conscious and the subconscious –
i was walking along a long hall
(strange pictures appearing before me)

foggy images of strange rituals
guiding me in my waking hours
appearing in my deep sleep –
strange people,
natives to some strange land,
are dancing joyfully

4/15/09

pieces of peace

i pray unto mars,
the everlasting god of bloodshed,
that he should deal mercifully
with the hearts of the peoples of the world,
but all i receive in return for all of my supplications
is a lake of blood
and a leaking heart

the journey home

(a poem in seven parts)

part, the first

and the moon melted
leaving crescent shaped visions
upon the eyes of all the children

come on, dance with me,
let’s do all the things
that we’ve always wanted to do
but were too afraid to do:
after all, tonight is our very last night alive
just like last night was

part, the second

the personification of death,
the twitching and itching of human flesh,
the knife cuts through the skin
like blood seeps through satin lingerie

the twitching and itching,
oh!  the slow, soft, sensual death –
there was a man in a long black robe,
he lured me to a room,
offering immaculate delights –
the sensuality in his eyes,
the soft madness in his voice,
the madness in my ears:
the truth be told, i must die

oh! bleeding ears,
and decaying eye balls,
decaying body, decaying spirit –
decaying deception

part, the third

i watched him fuck a million women with his tongue,
a million screams trapped in his throat,
a million deities defiled by his hands!

masturbation and the smell of death,
dripping blood and the smell of new born babies,
teenagers rolling around in mounds of death

dripping semen from stab wounds
and desecration of sacred matters

visions of ballerinas
dancing around flaming bodies,
tears falling from the eyes
of the rotten carcasses
while little miss sunshine runs around
searching for her head

psychotic worms crawling around
on the inside of my tongue,
the taste of rubbing alcohol
and the smell of the grim reaper’s cologne

night out on the town,
we’s gonna get real fucked up
we’s gonna go fuck lady liberty
(like, who hasn’t already?)
yeah, we’re gonna
piss on the lawns of the white house
and wipe our asses on your flag

(justice was long ago crushed
under militaristic ass kissing,
justice was exchanged for a
symbolic counterfeit)

part, the fourth

it’s like, the whole damn world
is falling apart, man!
you know what i mean?
we’ve surrounded ourselves
with all these symbols
and we’ve forgotten what’s really real
do you get what i mean, man?

it’s like, being out in the middle of the desert
with a whole bunch of nothing
and no one around
you start seeing things
it’s like you become your own best friend
(the creations of your mind,
your subconscious desires)

i can’t feel your hand, where did you go?

i wanna go home

part, the fifth

it’s been a long time out in the wilderness,
things have changed now,
things aren’t the same now

coming home, you think to yourself,
“hey man, this ain’t my house!
where the hell am i?”

(soft piano music in the background,
devil’s guitar, playing in your head)

ideas resurface in your mind,
corruptions of past perceptions

to taste his kisses straight from the womb,
grows sweeter through the years
passions inflamed, just you and him
all else, vapor sent by the gods

life fucks us all and the grim reaper gets sloppy seconds

(nuestra pequeña muerte)

deep in the pit of the stomach of the beast
even the walls speak,
whispering bloody murder

sanctified virgin sacrificed on lonely alter’s opening

laying out under the egyptian desert’s sun
trying to divine the meaning of divine visions
forming before our eyes

oh, ra, grant to us this day understanding
let us carry the sun in our eyes
let us carry your intentions in our perceptions

part, the sixth

while feasting upon the brains of dead worms
you forgot what true nourishment tastes like upon your tongue

eden: oh, land of eternal youth,
oh, land of my long forgotten youth
i long to know you, to be with you

“i’ll see you on the other side of eden!”

finally, nights are getting shorter,
days are getting longer
the moon, oh, the moon!
i have not had faith except for the moon
and i shall dwell in wisdom
oh, i shall dwell in wisdom
(sun and moon: eternal eclipse)
death: take me, i am yours!

part, the seventh

spirits of the long dead,
poets of rivalry:
i give homage to thee

(ego is a tyrant)

let us resurrect venus and unite her with mars

let’s get drunk under the moon
divinely mad, lunatics
let’s dance under the moon
in our intoxication
let’s make love under the moon,
let’s make love to the moon
let the sun consume our bodies
look: this is me!

sacred madness, divine lunacy, holy folly

naked children running down the road,
old people walking on water and dancing on fire

i want to make love to the angel of death,
i want to feel his heart beat so close to mine –
blood running cold;
body weak and pale, stiff, unmoving

(death comes in soft whispers)

oh death, i long to be absorbed into you,
to be your living memory,
to be in your perfected perfection,
to be in you, to be you

(i closed my eyes,
but you were still there,
i could see you
ever watching, ever waiting)

greek gods, statuesque figures,
come to unite us with the infinite:
infinite possibilities, infinite solutions,
infinite deities, infinite entities

like a strange sojourner in a foreign land
come to worship at his feet
(let’s get drunk and forget why we came here,
reasons are for those with preserved sanity)