Watched Sister Midnight

Watched Sorry, Baby

Throughout the first vignette, there is a sense of separation of the viewer from Agnes and Lydie: lots of long and extreme long shots; lots of subframing by doorways; Agnes consistently, almost defensively placed alongside Lydie. This adds a layer to the bizarre, often alienating dialog style that Victor utilizes, inheriting its awkwardness and potently unsure footing from Gerwig and Baumbach. Then, the "bad thing" happens, itself separated to the extreme from the audience as we only look on time passing via the house it occurs in (one of many formal references to Woolf's To the Lighthouse, an explicit influence on the film). Once Agnes leaves this house, during the drive home and the bathtub scene, we are allowed to be close to her while she is alone, vulnerable, and fresh from the experience that creates the stagnant atmosphere of the first vignette. The bathtub scene in particular, using perhaps the first close-up in the movie, connects us with the particulars of Agnes' experience on level animal enough to feel bodily transformative. We do not experience the "bad thing" but we do experience the aftermath, the unsureness and alienation that formulates her experience in the rest of the film. Ironically, we feel connected to her primarily in this shared alienation from herself, and Victor's gift of intimacy is also a curse: to understand her alienation requires us to experience it. In the hospital, the school administrative building, and the courtroom, she is alienated, and we are alienated. There are gleaming moments of kindness, frequently from Lydie and once from a sandwich shop owner, that alleviate this constant isolation, but mostly we are caught up in her pain, her humor, and her life as after a certainty but before only doubt.

Finished second read of Claw of the Conciliator. Spoilers abound below.

Read in the compilation volume shadow & claw published for Tor Essentials. Second read of the novel; made use of Michael Andre-Driussi's chapter guide for the series.

In terms of quality of writing and exploration of thematics, it does feel to me that this is a big step up from the first novel, and Wolfe takes some big swings (a couple of which don't work out, though most do). The primary tension I observed here is between the short view, where we see a plethora of individuals that feel differingly fossilized in their particular times, and the long view, where Severian's occasional broader teleological perspective must lead him eventually to instigating broad and destructive change.

Much of the contents of the novel explores a variety of relations between individuals and their finite relationship to time. The creatures of the cave are unable either to understand or to escape their physical predicament, and who Severian positions temporally and evolutionarily (this episode inherits both the good and the bad from its clearly Lovecraftian inspirations). Vodalus and his retinue are obsessed with the past, to the point of ritualizing their cannibalism so as to gain access to something and someone that has been destroyed. This grasping attempt to remove themselves from their temporal predicament, and the ways in which Vodalus fails to do so, is the source of the first of two uses of a relevant refrain: "That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin" (Chapter I), emphasizing the petrification of the individual relative to the much broader time scales to which the narrative gestures. That Severian is able to seemingly carry out a much more successful transfer of memories than any of Vodalus' retinue makes clear that he has some amount of access to time unavailable to others (this is in alignment with his perfect memory giving him perfect access to the past). Even the Cumaean is restricted to only exploring the time in which her life will elapse (notably contrasted with not only the alien being she communes with but the undine, creating a resonance between this finite/infinite divide and the terrestrial/celestial divide).

Jonas is likely the most potent example of this, in that he is an individual who has been dramatically removed from the time in which he should be fossilized. It is this shock (admittedly along with his injuries) of both the familiar yet corrupted name and the bastardized story of Theseus that leads to his mental degradation; he cannot continue to exist in this version of the universe. Like the light in Father Inire's mirrors, he has sped too far ahead, and can only slow down and exit the narrative, in fact through those same mirrors. He is even memorialized (I think) in the play as the character of the statue, who loses a love and is condemned to his loss: "Thus stone images keep faith with a departed day, Alone in the desert when man has fled away" (Chapter XXIV). Jonas reminds us, as the brown book quotes from Francis Bacon (as identified by Andre-Driussi), that "These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient" (Chapter XXVIII).

There are several points at which Severian begins to grasp at a solution to this petrification within time. Early in the novel, before consuming Thecla's flesh, Severian begins to philosophize on his own death: "I saw how little it weighed on the scale of things whether I lived or died, though my life was precious to me. And of those two thoughts I forged a mood by which I stood ready to grasp each smallest chance to live, yet in which I cared not too much whether I saved myself or not" (Chapter IX). This double mood, created essentially out of a cognitive dissonance, strives to reconcile the finite with the infinite (note here that Severian is a Christ-like figure, who references an incarnated and finite version of the infinitude of God). Dorcas' understanding of the Conciliator accords with this attitude, who "once took a dying woman by the hand and a star by the other, and from that time forward he had the power to reconcile the universe with humanity, and humanity with the universe" (XXVI).

Jolenta, though her rape intersects these themes with Severian's misogyny in a manner that is clumsy at best (see post here), does offer a perspective on his beginnings towards succeeding in this manner. As she begins to die, he begins to feel some amount of legitimate compassion for her (an off-putting but important process), until at her death he repeats the refrain he had said of Vodalus at the beginning of the novel: "[Jolenta's body] had been washed clean of beauty. In the final reckoning there is only love, only that divinity. That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin" (Chapter XXXI). Although it has taken the removal of the illusory beauty that sparked Severian's misogynistic rage towards Jolenta, he does seem to experience some real level of empathy, and to feel (perhaps for the first time towards another) the extreme weight of the finitude of life. He has, through the claw and through his own hatred, failed Jolenta, and now her life is concluded, extant within time and immutable. I am entering the terrain of the series that I really don't remember very well, but I hope that this perspective improves his attitude in the coming novels.

Oh god why does it have his ugly ass face as the app icon

you can make fun of old people all you want but then you'll be knitting with a good album on and a cup of tea and you'll be like this is excellent actually. the old ladies were right about this one. about the crosswords too, by the way

The Long Goodbye is a fantastic deconstruction of the noir film, and it helped me finally click into place what noir really is.

The hardboiled detective that is cynical as hell is only that way because he's the last man alive with any decency or humanity. The other people he interacts with during the case, or perhaps at all, don't follow any code. They lie, cheat, steal and do anything and everything to enrich themselves regardless of the cost of others. That's why he's so tired all the time: doing the right thing is exhausting if you know you're only going to be punished for it.

Philip Marlowe in this movie exemplifies that fully. He gives a friend a ride to Mexico, and the next day police are at his door asking questions. Do they simply respect his right to be silent? No, they assault him and imprison him until he talks (he never does, but they let him out anyways when they don't need his testimony anymore). Gangsters are after him for money he doesn't have and had no idea even existed. Everyone lies to him, abuses him or just uses him as a plaything.

What does he do in return? Stay honest and loyal at every turn. He helps his friends, he listens to people that beg him for help. At one point he notices a low level gang member is tailing him. His response is to give him advice on how to better stay hidden, and even tells him where he's going in case he gets lost on the way. He's messing with him, but he's also just straightforwardly helping a person that is actively trying to harm him.

The movie begins with Marlowe trying to feed his cat. His cat wants only one brand of cat food, and he doesn't have it. The store doesn't have it either, so he tries to put other food into an empty can and pretend it's the same. The cat scratches him for his deception and leaves. The cat has the same moral code as Marlowe, the difference being that cats are proud and Marlowe is a complete and utter loser. He's a cat in a world of vicious dogs, including multiple scenes where he is literally chased by a dog.

Most other noir films, especially before this one, doesn't have the hardboiled detective be quite so pathetic. That archetype was created for the 40's and 50's. This film takes Marlowe to the 70's, where he's a man out of time. The world has moved on without him, and his only response is to rage against this change. For Marlowe, that means trying to put on a happy face and uphold his own values no matter what anyone else thinks.

I really thought this was going to be a fun murder mystery (and it still is, the plot is fantastic here) but it's actually a great character study of not just Philip Marlowe but noir protagonists as a whole. Pretty amazing film.

Zhao Tao through the years in Jia Zhangke's Caught by the Tides (2024)

major traffic incident

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE / PORTRAIT DE LA JEUNE FILLE EN FEU Dir. Céline Sciamma (2019)

the banshees of inisherin (2022) dir. martin mcdonagh

Finished Citadel of the Autarch

Spoilers below. Read in the compilation volume sword and citadel published for Tor Essentials. Second read of the novel; made use of Michael Andre-Driussi's chapter guide for the series. I won't immediately move on to a first read of Urth, although I'll come back to it eventually. Very good series, but I need a break.

Leaning towards this as my favorite volume of the series. Not so much of a particular through-line that stood out to me as in the others, so here are some assorted thoughts.

On the subject of women: this book seems to work significantly better than the previous ones. Foila and Daria feel significantly more real than most of the other women in the books, and Dorcas retrieves some of her reality in her brief appearances and mentions (I am particularly happy to have seen Wolfe's quote that, when Severian expresses his feeling of betrayal by all women (II), he "means that men want to be loved more than any other thing is loved, and that though they may occasionally attract such love, they never have the power to hold it" (Andre-Driussi, p. 67), which confirms for me that though Wolfe's own misogyny sometimes shows in the text, Severian's is intentional and distinct, and actually interesting). The presence of Thecla especially solidifies in this volume, and her interjections feel often more legitimate and distinct than Severian's, and their love feels significantly more realized ("I clasped my heart's companion to me, and felt myself clasped. I felt myself clasped, and clasped my heart's companion to me" (XXV)).

I am particularly fond of the story competition. I tend to favor tales within tales, and the broad literary range Wolfe evoked in these stories was a delight. Melito's tale is reminiscent of Chaucer as well as Aesop; Hallvard's grasp of sagaic tone is compelling (my wife, my children, my children, my wife is a particularly resonant motif); Foila's Bretonic quest has many of the strangely-gendered qualities of Marie de France. I was particularly interested in the tale told by Loyal to the Group of Seventeen, which reminded me of the Egyptian poem The Eloquent Peasant. Would be curious to know what kind of ancient Egyptian poetry Wolfe had in his known library.

Severian's compassionate self is finally achieved to a much greater extent here than in any of the other novels. Two passages come to mind, of his contemplations on empathy with the dead at the end of XXVI (echoing the end of Joyce's The Dead), and of Triskele as "the ambassador of all crippled things" (XXXI). Wolfe's language about disability in the passage is a product of its time, but once one considers the actual message, that Severian is able to not only accept the legitimacy of disabled people, but to embrace his own disability by the novel's last sentence. The overwhelming impression, to my mind, is one of great compassion, and while Wolfe fails sometimes (his racist/racializing tendencies often leak into this volume), he sometimes succeeds greatly.

Probably the most interesting thread I noted was a couple of brief moments connecting different associations to plants. There is certainly the claw, a rose thorn, carefully positioned so that the burning rose motif early in the series culminates in the connection to the burning bush of Moses, the lowly briar through which God communicates, and thus Severian's realization that all ground is holy, that all thorns are Claws. Beyond that, two vegetal images seem connected to me. In chapter VIII, the Pelerine tells Severian that "every person, you see, is like a plant. There is a beautiful green part, often with flowers or fruit, that grows upward toward the sun, toward the Increate. There is also a dark part that grows away from it, tunneling where no light comes" and then elaborates that "it is the roots that give the plant the strength to climb toward the sun, though they know nothing of it". Then, in chapter XVII, Ash says that "my house strikes its roots into the past", recalling the image described by the Pelerine, but also the image of the tendrils of the nenuphars. As in shadow, we see the past in its impossible complexity as a series of knotted, writhing roots, that, though they are crucial to the growth of the organism, can catch and tangle, and drown unsuspecting children who spend too much time underwater. Ash is perhaps such a victim, who lives in a world that can no longer grow, and can only look to its roots for the beauty of the past. When Severian removes him from his home, he is exactly "some scythe, whistling along the ground, [that] sever[s] the stalk from its roots", so that "the stalk would fall and die, but the roots might put up a new stalk" (VIII). The creation of the future, to Wolfe, is destructive, as is any choice in that it eliminates the potential futures the other choices represents. But to get caught in the roots, to consider too carefully what might have grown out of the decided past, is dangerous. It is perhaps successfully achieved by the mysterious "first Severian" (although the extent of Andre-Driussi's theorizing seems presumptuous to me), but this is itself a careful pruning, so that Severian, or the New Sun, is a worker in the garden of the universe.