Final Project (ish)

I think I went about five different ways with this project before I finally settled on my current idea, which hopefully will be the one I actually use.

Basically, I'm going to be extremely pretentious and try to write Signs and Symbols from the boy's point of view. I'm 90% certain that I'll do this via two different "diaries." One will be the boy's psychiatrist's notes, which would be a hyper-realistic interpretation of events, and the other will be the boy's supposed diary, which would be a mythologized interpretation of those same events. Because of referential mania, the diary might have to just be the boy's internal monologue. I'm reading and re-reading Nabokov to see if the boy would maybe have been okay with a blank book that he could put his own things in. Perhaps I'll just have to take some artistic license.

Anyway, the main focus of my version of the story is somewhat along the lines of the idea I presented in my last blog post. I also read Joe Schadt's post from the 15th of last month, per Megan's suggestion, and I'm going to incorporate the converse of Joe's idea, that life is a form of death. Death is a form of life, answers are a form of death--it's getting a little mind-twisty at this point, so I'll have to hash that out further in my own head before I try to put it on paper, or worse still, the internet. I may end up making another blog post tomorrow, especially if I have another particularly enlightening lunch hour with my friend.

Before I get into that too much, though, there's the more fundamental issue of what death is. To look into that, still in the context of a story, I'm going to draw on Eliade Chapter 5 (ascent--so for me, death as a magical ascension), Frye Chapter 5 (also ascent), Gilgamesh, Icarus, and probably several others. I want to look into the idea of a cipher, with all the meanings attached thereto, and the numbers Nabokov uses; do they form a pattern, are they some sort of cipher? In honor of Nabokov, there will probably be an anagram at some point as well.

Most of this is going to be all but unrecognizable once it gets into a story, I think, so I'll put the actual analytical bits that I've talked about here into an explication, which might actually just end up confusing the issue even further, now that I think about it. I guess we'll see how that goes. If nothing else, it can be a window into my thought processes and hopefully will provide some sort of clarity in that way.

So there in a nutshell is the fundamental idea for my final project. As I said, I'll probably amend it tomorrow (Tuesday), but for now, this is where I'm going.

Lunchtime Epiphanies

I was sitting at lunch today with my little group of friends and somehow one friend (to whom I shall refer as the Doctor, even though she's a lady) and I got on the subject of questions and answers. She just offhand made the comment that every answer leads to more questions, which I connected to class, since Nabokov, brimstone be upon him, has saddled me with referential mania.

Anyway. The connection was thus: if every answer is a form of death, but learning--which is often comprised of answers, especially in basic English classes that deal with commas and i before e and so on--also leads to more questions, then an answer is also a form of rebirth. Ergo learning is a form of immortality. Probably everyone else has already arrived at this conclusion, but for me it was kind of a mindfuck. Also, guess what's now part of my final project...

Questions for The Magus

Okay, then. Here are my questions regarding The Magus.

1. When did Conchis' scheme really begin?

2. Fowles often mentions the color white. Is he using that color as the color of purity, or of death, or of something else entirely? (Or am I just totally nuts?)

3. The last little quote at the end of The Magus goes like this: cras amet qui numquam amavit / quique amavit cras amet (reasonably literal translation with a comma for clarity: tomorrow let him love who has never loved / and let him who has loved, tomorrow love). How does this relate to the rest of the book--is it a form of death?

4. Why the little episode of hypnosis? Was it the power of suggestion or did Conchis actually hypnotize Nicholas (and does that even matter)?

5. Why does Alison really agree to help Conchis (other than her explanation, which honestly sounds a little too pat to be true)? It just seems to me that in the beginning she was so much like Nicholas as far as proclivities go that it would be really hard to get her to "side" with Conchis. Possibly I missed something.