Money 2/29/12

Sorry about the crappy picture, but I didn't want to type the whole page! It's page 175.

This whole page is funny. It's a drunk funny, and also a sad funny. It is exaggerated, absurd, and farcical. The exaggerated-ness presumably comes from Self's drunkenness. The absurdity and farce is quite present - the things he does while drunk are absolutely ridiculous. The things he says are ridiculous. John Self is himself ridiculous.

I feel that Amis disagrees with the Roman view of humor (according to the article we read). His humor (as much modern humor is) is offensive, obscene, and arrogant. Self's drunkenness is funny but publicly inappropriate, and his behavior due to his drunkenness is funny but inappropriate as well. Much of his behavior is offensive to both specific characters and to particular groups of people outside the book. Much of it, due to the pornographic elements of the book, is obscene as well. But regardless, it's funny, and very much in keeping with the character Amis is portraying.

This scene is also humorous relief from the awkward previous scene in which Self and Lorne meet. It removes the tension and allows the reader a break from the seriousness of other parts of the books.

Money 2/27/12

"The car and I crawled cursing up the street to my flat. You just cannot park round here anymore. Even on a Sunday afternoon you just cannot park round here anymore. You can doublepark on people: people can doublepark on you. Cars are doubling while houses are halving. Houses divide, into two, into four, into sixteen. If a landlord or developer comes across a decent-sized room he turns it into a labyrinth, a Chinese puzzle. The bell-button grills in the flakey porches look like the dashboards of ancient spaceships. Rooms divide, rooms multiply. Houses split - houses are tripleparked. People are doubling also, dividing, splitting. In double trouble we split our losses. No wonder we're bouncing off the walls" (64).

In terms of plot, this passage is indistinct. In terms of Martin Amis' voice, it is extremely telling. It is basically an entire figurative paragraph. It begins with personification. Cars, of course, cannot crawl or curse. The second and third sentences demonstrate repetition, which emphasizes John Self's statement. The rest of the paragraph is figurative as well - houses do not literally halve, divide, into multiple other houses. Landlords and developers may, in fact, restructure their buildings, but they don't actually make them into labyrinths or Chinese mazes. "The bell-button grills in the flakey porches look like the dashboards of ancient spaceships" is a simile, comparing the bell-button grills in the flakey porches to the dashboards. Rooms do not literally divide or multiply as he implies. Houses cannot park. People cannot divide or split. This language is extremely figurative, and does a marvelous job of creating a mental image not unlike that of cells dividing and multiplying. It's a very biological image and works well to portray what Amis presumably means.

This paragraph is also incredibly demonstrative of Amis' writing style in this work. So many things in Money are repetitive and figurative. Self is constantly comparing things and repeating several subjects - money, pornography, drinking, Selina, etc. the paragraph also demonstrates the casual tone Amis uses to create Self. Sentences are generally short and blunt, and very in keeping with Self's projected personality.

This paragraph also demonstrates how much Amis uses hyperbole. He exaggerates a lot of things for dramatic effect - from crawling up the street to not being able to park anymore. In all likelihood, he was probably going a normal speed up the street, and despite it being challenging, it is probably possible to park. Houses don't actually divide into sixteen residences. It's all exaggerated, as much of the writing in the novel is.

Money 2/22/12

In Martin Amis's Money, the main character is hard for me to relate to. I'm sure some people are able to relate to him, but probably not most. To him, everything is about girls (one in particular, but also less specifically), drinking, and money. Especially money. Though one might suspect the importance of money in this book because of the title, I was nevertheless surprised by just how much it showed up. He isn't a terribly likable man - he has bad habits and problems. It's hard to understand him and why he is the way he is and why he does the things he does.

Amis is sort of a dark cloud over the whole book. He makes the places and characters what they are, and gives them the dingy, slightly ominous feeling they have. This is New York, but it isn't the New York I know. Amis makes the book into John Self's New York - a place very distinct from the real New York, but New York nonetheless. These aren't the parts of New York you see unless you're looking for them.

"In the end I had ample time for my farewell to New York. First off, I gave Felix a fifty. He seemed strangely agitated or concerned and for some reason kept trying to make me lie down on the bed. But he was pleased, I hope, by the dough. I love giving money away. If you were here now, I'd probably slip you some cash, twenty, thirty, maybe more. How much do you want? What are you having? What would you give me, sister, brother? Would you put an arm round my shoulder and tell me I as your kind of guy? I'd pay. I'd give you good money for it." Pg 48

In this passage, Amis does something strange and off putting. John Self goes from narrating to immediately addressing the audience. It puts the reader in a strange position, going from simply being told and comprehending what is happening to having to actually think about and potentially produce an answer. This passage also demonstrates both Self's and Amis' casual tone. Words like "dough" and "cash" give the narration a particular feel, as does addressing the audience directly. This feeling quite clearly defines Amis' work.

Crash movie

The movie Crash is a fairly good representation of the novel by J.G. Ballard. There are parts that are surprising, even apart from the obvious and necessary differences that are inevitable when changing a written work into a visual one. My first indication of the differences between movie and book was the realization that the characters were driving on the left side of the car. This led me to realize that their accents were not British. Following this, I noticed that their license plates were Canadian. The setting of the novel is so important and distinct that the shift from London to Canada was quite obvious and a bit unsettling. Why Canada? How much more difficult would it have been to find British actors and film in England? While the movie is an "adaptation," and as such, is subject to changes, this is a crucial part of the original story that should have remained intact. That said, the more specific locations were portrayed extremely well and what seemed like in keeping with the book. The road settings were similar to how they were described in the book, and Seagrave's home was as unclean and unsophisticated as I imagined. The hospital ward was as I had pictured, as was the apartment. The attention to detail in these settings, while changing the location of the book, was interesting. It was also fascinating that the film was actually less graphic than the book. This is particularly interesting because the movie is visual, while the book is only words. Ballard's descriptions of the sexual acts in the book were far more detailed and descriptive than the visual counterpart. While probably better for finding an audience, this drastically changed the movie from the book.

Crash 2/13/12

Even after reading and contemplating Crash, I still have very little idea of what Ballard's intent was with this novel. His world, while realistic in the sense that there aren't any dragons or people with magical powers, turns everything we, in the real world, know upside down. Crash is everything not normal, everything extreme, everything not "morally right" (by whatever definition). It's uncomfortable and unrealistic, but somehow, he makes it seem real. Because it is so absurd, it is hard to tell whether Ballard has written this book for a similar reason to Swift writing A Modest Proposal, or if there is some message hidden behind it. Is it a message on modern human reliance on technology for happiness and entertainment? Is it a comment on the pursuit of sexual pleasure? Whatever his intent, it is not explicitly stated (despite the book being rather explicit...).

Ballard style imitation

He watched her. The way her feet fell softly, heel to toe. The way her hair moved as she walked, each hair touching others with an almost imperceptible sound. The way her dress was just a little too long in the back. Irritating. So irritating. He took a step after her.

He could hear the sounds of his sneakers on the pavement - the squeak of the rubber and the crunching of tiny stones and grit. He wondered briefly if she could hear it too. Decided she couldn't. He watched her walk as he followed, her weight falling slightly more heavily on her right leg. She looked unconcerned. Oblivious. Perfect. It was all perfect. He followed.

Crash 2/8/12

The relationship between Vaughan, Ballard, and Catherine has grown deeper and more complex. Catherine is deeply interested in Vaughan, and Ballard's interest in Vaughan continues to grow. While both Ballard and Catherine are interested in and attracted to Vaughan, the reader is left to wonder a bit to what extent Vaughan feels the same about them. Clearly, from Vaughan and Catherine's experience in the car wash, he is at least somewhat interested in her. But will Ballard get what he wants, and have a sexual encounter with Vaughan? Does Vaughan have any interest in that?

Imitation of Ballard's voice:

He watched her. The way her feet fell softly, heel to toe. The way her hair moved as she walked, each hair touching others with an almost imperceptible sound. The way her dress was just a little too long in the back. Irritating. So irritating. He took a step after her.

Crash and Menippean Satire

The repetition of and emphasis on Ballard's accident is interesting. This alone clearly demonstrates the obsessive nature of both Ballard and the novel. The scene - both the physical place and the event itself - are very important to Ballard. He revisits this scene over and over, and goes so far as to involve other people in his fantasies about it. He drives past the scene of the accident time after time and derives some strange sort of pleasure from it. This particular crash seems more important to him than crashes in general. He gets the exact same car after his is wrecked, goes to visit his totaled car, starts a relationship with the woman whose husband he killed in the crash, and, of course, revisits over and over the place the crash occurred. The idea of negative theology is interesting as well. Though the concept is fascinating, I've had a hard time directly relating it to Crash. What is the belief that is absent, that suggests an unnamable belief?