The Invisible Counterpoint

Originally posted at Clio's Psyche, Oct. 30) In Ishiguro's "The Buried Giant," collective memory that has been suppressed, suddenly comes back full bloom. All memory of victimization, is suddenly remembered by all. Ishiguro presents it as, in one sense, quite necessary, but also as fully regrettable as it gives incontrovertible righteous fodder for the war-intending. With what's coming out of Hollywood and Washington now, his novel really resonates. For while it seems only good that we are now becoming knowledgeable of the sheer number of predators in both places, and that victims who had felt kowtowed and shamed for years are now feeling some sense of resolve and self-pride again, it is also true that both of these places are seeming more the cesspools of the corrupt of rightwing populist lore. It is possible that as we see these many reveals and long-delayed takedowns occur and realize, as it makes the previous ten...

Reader’s Guide to Fellowship of the Ring If I had to supply reader notes to Fellowship of the Ring it would be as follows: To begin, I would draw the reader to think a little more on the character of Lobelia, the would-be Shire matriarch, who is astounded that Bilbo has managed to keep his property from her all these years. She’s played for fun in this part of the book, but the reader should note she’s nonetheless a bit too present in this beginning portion of the text — when surely other options were available — to convince that she’s just there to provide levity before the plunge into darkness begins: her presence is not inconsequential, but an indicator of what was on the teller’s mind, other than a world about to discombobulate. There’s talk about keeping doors bars to her, about her returning — like a fire-breathing dragon that's once again re-generated heat — to launch a subsequent belch of haranguing, and about putting on the invisible ...

Lord of the Rings: the anti-adventure Re-reading Lord of the Rings , I know it is a great deal unfair to it to declare it such, but still my ultimate summing-up of it is as sort of an anti -adventure. Frodo begins the adventure pretty much sick of hobbits and the Shire. He thought “the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words” ( Fellowship , 82), and hoped, maybe not entirely in jest, they’d be beset upon by legions of dragons or an earthquake. This attitude, in case you’re wondering, is very much akin to Saruman’s, who saw the like of another type of rural people — the Rohirrim — as brigands whose children go about the floor with their dogs, and who couldn’t care less if the ancient forests were destroyed for the advancement of the lacunae of industry. This dismissal, in my judgment, is similar to the type of dismissal made by adolescents, who in trying to shed the maternal world they’ve long been content with, might start expressing serious malcontent. It’s...

Just a reminder that there are other ways men can predate upon women. That man who had genteel manners with you and accorded you every respect, but who voted for Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton... ostensibly over policies, but one couldn't help but wonder, given the ample vile thinking directed towards Hillary, and also perhaps because the Sanders movement noticeably eschewed talk of the empowerment of women for talk on a suffering mass of pictured as virtuous for their being so deprived and for having taken on the suffering for so long without complaint, if it was because somehow mostly out of hate of empowered, strong, professional women -- yes, that person unconsciously knows that revenge can be delivered while keeping your hands clean and yourself, in a sense, totally out of the loop as to motive. (This, btw, was Hillary's own sense of the movement. Also Gloria Steinem's. Also Salon blogger Amanda Marcotte's.) This should be what we'll see...