Spoiled Rich Kid, Saves World?

Trump is looking stronger in the polls, which might imply Americans seem focused more on not re-electing the typical DC politician who speaks "political-ease" and "newspeak," those who've mastered the art of "plausible deniability." The latest polls show that many Americans admire Trump, not so much because of what he is actually saying, but because he seems to speak "truth to power." Whether one agrees with his claims, which is a minor area of dispute, what's most admirable--in many Americans' opinions--is that Trump doesn't kiss DC tail. He actually seems to enjoy stirring up the hornet's nest. It's a sort-of "Spoiled Rich Kid, Saves World" meme.

"They Are All Gone Into the World of Light!" by Henry Vaughan

I'm thinking of putting together an anthology of poems on the theme of light called Poems to Light the Way. Here's one by Henry Vaughan (1622-1695).
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"They Are All Gone Into the World of Light!"

They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which this hill is dressed
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days;
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.

O holy hope, and high humility,
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have showed them me
To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous death! the jewel of the just,
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know
At first sight if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.

If a star were confined into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.

O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under Thee!
Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty!

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass;
Or else remove me hence unto that hill
Where I shall need no glass.

(1655)

Was Cormac McCarthy's Judge Holden Inspired by the "Horror of it All"?

     In Cormac McCarthy's novel, Blood Meridian (1985), there is a character called Judge Holden, who represents the horror of 19th century expansion of settlers into the Texas-Mexico borderlands.
     As a white, bald, philosopher of war, Judge Holden, (a.k.a "the Judge") argues throughout the novel for a "might makes right" view of the Wild West, exemplifying a sort of Nietzschean "will to power." This will to power seeks to cease judgement by crushing judgment, thus creating an ironical passing of judgement on all those who cross the warrior's path.
     In Francis Ford Coppola's film, Apocalypse Now (1979), there is a character, Colonel Kurtz (based on Joseph Conrad's character of the same name in Heart of Darkness), who closely resembles Judge Holden in appearance and philosophy. Also large, white and bald, Kurtz is depicted by the actor, Marlon Brando, who channels a monologue on violence, often called "The Horror of it All" speech. In his speech, Brando muses on the inability of the American soldier to win the war in Vietnam, mostly because the American soldier doesn't have the will to win; not like the enemy, who not only has the will to win, but has the heart to be as ruthlessly violent as necessary to win, as well.
     Though it is well-known that McCarthy found inspiration for Judge Holden in Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue (1956), in this blog post, I explore the similarities between these two characters and propose the possibility that Cormac McCarthy found inspiration in Brando's improvised performance of Colonel Kurtz, and used this monologue as the model for Judge Holden's character in Blood Meridian. To find a possible connection between McCarthy's inspiration for Judge Holden, it might help to look at Brando's inspiration for Kurtz.
     As reported by Dennis Hopper and Francis Coppola in an interview on the Making of Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando didn't read Heart of Darkness. I don't consider it as inspiration for Brando's interpretation of Colonel Kurtz. However, in considering the recent release of the documentary "Listen to Me Marlon," which explores the practice of talk therapy, whereby Brando would record his own voice, seemingly to help himself talk through his problems. Though this is a believable interpretation of Brando's talk sessions, it could possible be that this practice of recording himself may well have incidentally helped Brando brainstorm his subconscious in search of Colonel Kurtz. It could have been a sort of character identification, a tool of method acting whereby actors get closer to the character they are trying to portray. But, that's a secondary point I'll develop in a future blog post.
     It is my contention here that Brando may have been exploring his subconscious mind via the recorded monologues, during the time of the filming of Apocalypse Now, and the effect creation was Colonel Kurtz. He relied on his intuition on the set, which produced much consternation and conflict with other actors and the director. He knew, after many years of successful acting, to rely on his instincts. He knew how to explore a character. Even though some have alleged that "he was crazy" (Rita Moreno), it may be possible that this was a technique Brando used to delve deeper into character. Brando refused to confine his creativity to the script. At one point, Coppola even decided to just roll tape during all of Brando's improvisational monologues, hoping for a few gems to keep for the final cut. After sifting through tapes of recorded film, Coppola decided on the following lines.
     In a conversation between Brando's character, Colonel Kurtz, and the lone soldier sent to kill him, Brando states, "Have you ever considered any real freedoms, freedoms, from the opinions of others, even the opinions of yourself?" It seems here that Brando is focusing on the problem of conscience in the mind of a mass murderer. Later on, Brando/Kurtz, speaks of the violence of the Vietnam War:
     "I've seen horrors, horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that. But you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face. And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces, seems a thousand centuries ago, we went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after . . . and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile, a pile of little arms. And, I remember, I-I-I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And, I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized, like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond...a diamond bullet right through my forehead...And I thought: My God...the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters...These were men...trained cadres...these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love...but they had the strength...the strength...to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral...and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling...without passion... without judgement...without judgement. Because it's judgement that defeats us."
     As Kurtz is killed by Willard, Kurtz utters his final words, "The horror. The horror."
     Imagining Cormac McCarthy saw this film, and was deeply moved (I haven't asked him, so I only presume this happened), he might have modeled Judge Holden on the powerful presence portrayed by Brando's Kurtz.
     In Blood Meridian, the narrator describes Judge Holden's band of scalp-hunters as “A legion of horribles . . . death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning.”
     When the Judge declares, “It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."
     “A man seeks his own destiny and no other, said the judge. Wil or nill. Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that selfsame reckoning at the same appointed time, for each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well. The desert upon which so many have been broken is vast and calls for largeness of heart but it is also ultimately empty. It is hard, it is barren. Its very nature is stone.”
     “A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”
     “He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.”
     “Whatever exists, he said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."

     What is this monster, the Judge? Who is this Col. Kurtz? I will further compare these two characters in future posts. 

Is Metadiscourse Possible? (A Flashback)

Here's something I wrote in 1998. Looking back on it now, I wonder what in the world I was thinking. I obviously had a limited understanding of point of view.
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Andrew Keating
Rev. Rechtien
EN 3362W
November 2, 1998

Is Metadiscourse Possible?

      When characters within a story engage in the anomaly of metadiscourse, they can easily get caught in an infinite regression. This regression can interestingly be guided by other characters within the same story. In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Polzunkov” a man and his audience discuss this very notion; they talk about the way the man is telling a story.
      Characters in a story may get caught in a brief regression as they tell a story of their own. An infinite regression is what philosophers call “the method of infinite descent.” For the purpose of this analysis, an infinite regression is when a character discourses the plot of one story within the framework of another story, which inevitably leads to the telling of another story within the original story as well. As confusing as it may seem, similarly, in mathematics this concept applies when “it can be shown that for any number, if [the original number] satisfies the condition then there is a lesser number that does also, the method of infinite descent then allows the inference that no number satisfies the condition” (Flew 174). Within one story may contain the intriguing subsumation of infinitely many stories (numbers).
     The regression can and must be guided by other characters within a story or metadiscourse to be effective. When talking about the discourse of a story while still inside the story, a character is doing what one might do when standing between two mirrors; the person’s reflection (metadiscourse) may seem to go on forever. When the man--Osip Mihalitch--finally begins to tell his story, a crowd gathers around giving him responses as to how to tell the story. For instance, Osip begins his discourse with: “gentlemen, allow me to tell you something. I can tell you a good story about Fedosey Nikolaitch” (432). The crowd responds with: “tell it, Osip Mihalitch, tell it” (432). The crowd responds with the demand and guideline of “no puns!” (432). It seems the characters in the audience serve are a heuristic guideline in that a pun--a humorous use of a word to suggest another that sounds the same--should not be used, otherwise Osip’s story will continue to go on forever.
     Dostoyevsky’s story is about a character--Osip--who tells a story about how he is going to tell his story, wherein another character within Osip’s story will begin to do the same, and so on.