I’m completely lost as to how to interpret this first part of Gould. Initially, we are given a stunning insight on the instability of the western psyche, and it’s trend towards escapism through tourism, but it we look on a larger scale, the narrator is a fraud attempting to validate his lies. In such a context, given the nature of the narrator, he seems to be wanting to make tourists believe they are unstable. It would seem a funny con indeed to conjure a syndrome of western civilisation out of nowhere, but it seems to be the kind of thing the narrator is trying to do. From the author’s perspective, then, I can’t tell if he’s trying to say that the tourist generation is hiding from a crisis of existentiality, or if it is telling itself/being told it has a crisis when it really has none.
This is combined with the ethereal ambiguity of supernatural events occurring in a modern context, and the inconsistent writing that is somehow hard to follow. While it could have been simply that someone stole his book, and that the Conga was really drunk, etc, the author seems to lead us to believe that something unnatural is going on. Since the narrator mentions that Gould’s story was incredibly inconsistent, and that he was going to be narrating as Gould, what’s to say he’s not embellishing everything? We can honestly not tell, from the narrator’s view, whether he’s telling a truth or not, and even then, if he remembered what Gould said in the first place.
And if there really is something supernatural, what does that even mean?
I’m feeling a lack of solidity which seems to lead to an inability to judge the actual characters as who they are, but rather who gould, through the narrator, imagines them to be. I doubt we will see many real characters, but many who are distorted, in a very narrative fashion, into extremes, and some who are within themselves probably distorted to opposite extremes. I don’t sense much normalcy coming about anytime soon, and because of the messy nature of the book, I don’t think we are going to get much about what the author is trying to say either without tiring ourselves through piles of inconsistency.
Perhaps if we all fixate of different aspects of the work, plausible motifs, evanescent themes, we will come to some order out of what I’m reading simply as chaos. If we do, will we have succeeded in interpreting the work correctly, or just adding layers to the fiction? I feel like letting this book alone, and just reading it.
I’m really relieved you considered supernatural influence as well, because I was a little worried that my interpretation was perhaps a little too influenced by all the science fiction I’ve read (not spacey, I’m thinking more American Gods and the like).
ReplyDeleteBut if we accept something unnatural as a key element, that really makes it much more difficult to accept the story, which is a huge problem. Gould’s journal-sketchbook has yet to be validated, and the narrator’s attempted restructure of the novel… well there’s just no way we can accept that with 100% confidence.
But then I have to ask - does it matter? I think from what we’ve read so far the actual story really isn’t important. And as Josh was saying in class, Gould’s and the narrator’s interpretation could very well be more ‘truthful’ (and by that I mean, I’m not sure, real maybe?) insofar as it speaks to us, the reader. No matter what the story actually is, how we read it is what matters, and I think that’s why the narrator was unable to validate Gould’s book in the beginning.
Anyway, I’m very excited to read this book, and I agree with Roman, I’m just going to read and try not to judge just yet.