The Alchemist

So, much like Sam, I couldn't stop reading The Alchemist and ended up reading it in a couple hours. I too gave away my version of the book, wanting to share this book's message with others. When I first started the book I had my doubts about it, but those doubts soon were whisked away and were replaced by complete enjoyment.
The book is obviously about Dolce Domum and it fits into this theme in that the boy returns to where he began in order to find what he was looking for. I also noticed that this book linked in with other ideas that we have discussed in class. It makes a reference to our life stories and the history of the world being written by the same hand, which made me think back to Beckett and how he believed everything was already written for us and this ultimately relates to the them Life as Fiction. The book also made a reference to "a thousand and one nights" on page 88, which made me think back to Haroun and the Sea of Stories and the first theme of the Myth of the Eternal Return.
I really enjoyed this book and all the life quotes it had to offer. I would definitely recommend this book to just about anyone, and I have actually recommended it to several people already.

The world of myth and dream

So last night I decided to finally give in and go see Avatar since it is now in 3D and all. As I was watching it I began thinking of how it related to the world of myth and dream and everything we have been talking about in class. Throughout the movie the main character, Jake, switches between his Avatar being and his human self. In order to become his avatar self though, he must go into a sleep like mode. The alien race, called the Na'vi, call the Avatar beings dreamwalkers, or something like that. As Jake gets further and further into his mission he states that he is begining to lose sense of what is reality and what is the dreamland, he says that he is begining to feel that the dreamland is the reality and that reality is the dream. The alien world, Pandora, is very mythical in the way that everything functions and how the alien race views life. They have Gods and mythical creatures that they worship. The mother of the Na'vi clan reminds me of Prospero, in that she has almost magic like abilities. She is almost like a Shaman of sorts and is able to communicate with the spirits. Overall, this flim had reminded me several times throughout the three hours it took to watch it, of the theme of myth and dream. I once again find myself relating the highbrow literature we are reading in class to the lowbrow flims I find myself being drawn to, something I never would have done before this class.

What is the Matrix?

So the question of the day was what is the Matrix. Having never seen the movie, except for the selections we watched in class, I was wondering the same exact thing. I decided to google it to see what would appear.

Here are some definitions for Matrix

• An enclosure within which something originates or develops (from the Latin word womb)


• The thick tissue at the base of a nail from which a fingernail or toenail develops


• A rectangular array of numbers (see below)

Basically from what I have read about what a Matrix is is that it is something that is contained within something else or where something else can grow from. This relates to the movie, I believe, in that the world has been surrounded by a simulated world. Which results in "reality" and a sort of "dreamland" that is contained within the "reality". The "dreamland" ultimately is growing inside of the "reality".

These ideas relate back to the idea of myth and dream in that it makes you consider what is real and what is dream and if it is ever truly possible to wake up from a dream like Shelby talks about in her blog. Where does illusion and dream meet reality and is it ever possible to truly be able to say what is illusion and what is reality? If so, how?

The Matrix, The new Alice and Wonderland, and The Tempest

******Forewarning~ if you have not yet seen the new Alice and Wonderland this may or may not ruin some of the plot line***********

So last night my roommates and I decided to go see the new Alice and Wonderland in 3D (I highly recommend it by the way). Little did I know that this movie would ultimately be linked to the current theme we are studying. In the beginning of the movie Alice has these dreams (or nightmares as she calls them) about talking animals and other strange happenings. Later in the movie she once again falls into the "rabbit hole" where she is reintroduced to all the animals and beings from the first Alice in Wonderland. They are unsure if she is "the one" and are constantly questioning it. The whole movie Alice believes that she is just in a dream and she has a conversation with the Mad hatter that went something like "this is all just a dream, I am just making it up in my head" and the hatter is very upset over this and replies "so I am not real then? I am just something you came up with?" This scene made me think back to the movie Stranger Than Fiction when he realized that he was being made up by someone elses ideas. There was also a part in the movie where they showed this calendar they had that showed what was to happen in the future, stating that everything had already been written for them.

In the movie the characters keep referring to Alice as the one, much like Neo is the one in the Matrix, the Savior of sorts. Ultimately it is Alice who saves everyone in the end, much like I assume Neo does since I have yet to see the whole movie. Throughout the Matrix movie, they make references back to Alice in Wonderland when they talk about the rabbit hole and "follow the white rabbit". I also feel that Miranda is "the one" in The Tempest, but she also does not know it. She, much like Neo and Alice, lives in two different places reality and dreamland. Her father controls her dreams in a way by controlling when she is awake and when she is asleep, but also because she is so naive from having only experienced life on the island he can manipulate what she holds to be real. All these dream states also relate back to Finnegans Wake in that the whole book was about being in a dream. And they also relate back to Samuel Beckett's novels in that someone else has already written what is and they are just living it out. It was crazy to me as I was sitting in the movie theatre and all these similarities began popping out at me, making me think back to the highbrow readings we have done and how those influence the lowbrow movie that I was currently watching, something I would never have done before taking this class.

Beckett and the Prison

As I was researching Beckett I came across a play that he wrote titled "Happy Days" which is about a woman who is buried in the ground up to her waist in the beginning and then as the play progresses she gets deeper and deeper until she is up to her head. She is all alone except for a man named Willie, who she is constantly talking to and he is no where to be seen until the very end of the play.
As I was researching the play itself I came across a YouTube video about a women's prison who used the play in a creative arts project to relate it to their own lives. One lady makes a reference to the gun and what it represents in her life and what it represents in Winnie's life. Another talks about the forgiveness in the play and how that is all that we really want out of life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvJnl6KYaM8

This video really made me think about the way I relate to different texts and plays and the effect they can have on you. It is crazy how someone elses words can reflect your own life almost exactly without them having ever met you. It also makes you think twice about your own life after watching these women talk about their lives.

Truth vs Fiction

Throughout the three novels by Samuel Beckett he is constantly reminding his readers that this is just a story and not truth. Five instances of this are:
1) pg 35 "The house where Lousse lived. Must I describe it? I don't think so. I won't, that's all I know, for the moment. Perhaps later on, if I get to know it." Here he is pulling the reader out of the story by saying that he is not going to describe it right now, but maybe later.
2) pg 52 "But instead of trying to satisfy this wish I stayed where I was looking at it, if I may say so, looking at it as it shrivelled up and finally disappeared, like the famous fatal skin, only much quicker." Here he is letting the reader know that this is something that is being written by saying 'If I may say so'.
3) pg 61 "And backsliding has always depressed me, but life seems made up of backsliding, and death itself must be a kind of backsliding, i wouldn't be surprised. Did I say the wind had fallen? A fine rain falling, somehow that seems to exclude all idea of wind." Here is is pulling the reader out of the story by 'forgetting' what he had written and then asking the reader "Did I say...?"
4) pg 91 "I had forgotten them. I saw the sheep again. Or so I say now." In this section he is basically telling the reader that he is fibbing about what he is writing in this story.
5) pg 13 "he didn't seem to be in a hurry, he was loitering, I've already said so, but after three minutes of me he is in a hurry, he has to hurry." Beckett is bringing himself into the story again as the writer by saying 'I have already said this'. This pulls the reader out of the story and reminds them that this was written as a story.

The 20 minute lifetime

So as I was reading The Four Quartets I came across a passage that reminded me of a 20 minute lifetime. It goes "You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure, That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here. When the train starts, and the passengers are settled To fruit, perioficals, and the passengers are settled (and those who saw them off have left the platform) Their faces relax from grief into relief, To the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours. Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past Into different lives, or into any future; You are not the same people who have left that station Or who will arrive at any terminus," (41)
This made me think of a twenty minute lifetime because it is as if these people are on a time traveling train, experiencing a new life that will seem like a lifetime, but is in actuality only a mere couple of hours. They will be taken away to experience something new and will end up at the next station the same people with this new lifetime experience in their mind.

Studying all these different experiences of twenty minute lifetimes makes me wish that I too had a story to tell of another life within my current life, but sadly I do not. The closest I believe that I have come to having such an experience is in my dreams, most of which I can never remember. I am still crossing my fingers, though, that one day in the near future I will be able to retell a twenty minute lifetime experience of my own.