The current/future state of things Eliot/Brunner

There is an uncanny similarity between TS Eliot's Wasteland and Brunner's Sheep Look Up.
To begin, both are complicated pieces centering on the state of a reality that is tied not to one character but several. In a strategic manner both Brunner and Eliot set up and execute social commentaries that reflect for the latter the current state of things and for the former the future state of things.

Both begin their works with the image of death, decay and dying. While Eliot upfront questions the fate of man, emphasizing the fragmented past and implying that such a past could only lead to a futile future, Brunner questions the current state of his characters of the future, while emphasizing his character's and reader's fragmented present. By beginning in such a way, they both establish and work toward developing a theme wholly involved with the bleak state/fate of man. It is this theme narrative that sets the stage for a discussion about the current/future environment.

The moves that are most compelling in each work coincide as well. Both Elliot and Brunner, in the beginning of and throughout their works attempt to “wake up” their audience. They do so through directly engaging the reader: Elliot through initially calling the reader out by name and Brunner by utilizing a filigree of ads, short excerpts, and poetry that explicitly expose the declined environment of his characters’ "now". In addition, and perhaps more importantly both works establish the notion of mankind as not made up of autonomous individuals but interconnected entities that thrive, die, and suffer individually yet collectively.

Another thread that is paralleled in these two works is the statement about the decay of society physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Both Brunner and Elliot use nature, myth, urban waste, and biblical reference to create this statement. They do so to create a statement that speaks to how society is now (the now being defined in relation to their characters) lifeless or actively becoming so because their spirits have departed or in the case of Brunner are being forced to depart. This departure, both writers attribute to political affairs.

Another similarity between the two is their use of images to display the unnatural state of man. While Elliot couples contradicting images to evoke the incongruence of them, Brunner juxtaposes messages from different media with the lives of characters such as Pete Goddard and Philip Mason (death of a salesman?) who exemplify the last strong hold of the traditional family.

Overall both writers appear to emphasize the idea that death – described both spiritually and physically is imminent and does not discriminate. They do so by displaying how industry, which seems to be one of both writers' biggest dislikes, is ultimately valueless in that it leads to death and cannot be spun for profit within the grips of it.

Finally, they also emphasize the importance of time by warning the reader of the mortality of men. They do so by placing man in a sterile environment (politically, religiously, and physically) that not only provides no opportunity for growth but also limits the life a person has while residing within it.

In the end, both Eliot and Brunner leave off their works in purposeful ambiguity: so as to beg the question: can society, a reason-centered entity, recover or will chaos undermine reason?

...who happens to be black

I've heard this phrase often...in fact I've said it myself. Maria, who happens to be Latino, or Paul who happens to be Asian, or Malcolm who happens to be ____________(fill in the blank)

This phrase however, contextualized within the writing of Philip K Dick and Fredrick Jameson is worth exploring and speaks to a literary tradition which neither acknowledge, purposefully or not.

Philip K Dick states that Stuart is the central narrative that ties all of the others together and Jameson asserts that Stuart initiates and enables the narratives to construct and carry out a rather dense interplay that I DO understand, thank goodness for diagrams, but think may be a bit over thought.

Jameson states: "that the the initial point of view figure(Stuart)happens to be black has the function of staging the appearance of the first really unusual character.

Dick states: My favorite character in the novel is.....Stuart Mc Conchie...who happens to be black... it was daring to have a major character be a black man.

I choose to look at Stuart as an object of "American Africanism" a terms coined by Toni Morrison in her book Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and Literary Imagination. He is so, because he represents in Morrison's words paraphrased:
A trope which little restraint has been attached to that is connected to the denotative and connotative blackness that African people have come to symbolize. A trope that imbues a non-white character with the ability to signify the entire range of views, assumptions, readings, and misreadings that accompany Eurocentric learning about marginalized peoples.
Essentially, Stuart is a part of the disabling virus within literary discourse, that allows a way of talking about and a way of policing matters of class, sexual license, and repression, formations and exercises of power, and meditations on ethics and accountability. The use of Stuart, enables the possibility of contemplating chaos and civilization, desire and fear, which leaves him to function as a mere mechanism for testing the problems and blessings of freedom (6-7)

And is he not all of this?
He seems the epicenter of the book, so says Dick. He is the centrifugal force that mediates the fracture(s) of society, by witnessing and partaking in the chaotic, and making possible the restructuring of society even on the microcosmic scale.

And if we look to Stuart as Jameson does, we can position him as enabling Dick to talk of a sexually independent (hedonistic?) woman, the hierarchy of social relations displayed in the "characterological system", and a meditation on value(s).

A truly daring move would've been to make Stuart the psychiatrist or Walt Dangerfield. A truly daring move would've been positioning him at the head of the West Marin community.

While Dick believes he is being progressive by using Stuart in such a way, he fails to acknowledge that he in fact is in-step with a long literary tradition of American Africanism, however intentional or not.

Coming together

I've always found solace in the "beat" writers. And I think Gary Snyder is a good place to start with regards to tying the readings for this week together.
And so to begin with Snyder:

"We can enjoy our humanity with its flashy brains and sexual buzz, its social cravings and stubborn tantrums, and take ourselves as no more and no less than another being in the big Watershed. We can accept each other all as barefoot equals sleeping on the same ground. We can give up hoping to be eternal and quit fighting dirt..." (84)

Forrestor and Huxley's societies say: no,no we can't.

While their pro/an tagonists say "yes" in different degrees: Kuno who isn't quite sure about acceptance and others...just difference..and space within which "things" (whatever they are) are possible. And Helmholtz and John the savage who say yes to parts but not to the whole of the statement. The Savage - yes to "taking ourselves as no more and no less than another being.. and accept[ing] each other all as barefoot individuals sleeping on the same ground"..etc. Helmholtz as yes to "flashy brains and sexual buzz, it's social cravings and stubborn tantrums.."

And then on to the second part

"...The wild requires that we learn the terrain, nod to all the plants and animals and birds, ford streams and cross the ridges, and tell a good story when we get home."

Huxley via Bernard seems to agree with the "tell a good story when we get home" bit but ignores the learning and the necessary nods that are part of the experience.

Forrestor via Kuno seems to agree with the learning and the nods, the fording of streams and the crossing of ridges, and in telling a good story; however, unfinished it is.
But then there is Kuno's mother and the greater part of Forrestor's society who says no to all "direct experience"

And in Huxley, Lenina with her soma addiction to soften the blow of anything not in agreement with her ordered state of reality especially so when in touch with "the wild" on her excursion to Malpais and interactions with the savage states quite explicitly "no" to Snyder's new "cultural ethic of the wild" (82) And we mustn't forget Mond - internally conflicted - Mond who though acknowledging the benefits highlighted in Snyder's quote finds his freedom as being more important than telling a true...self involved vs divorced story. (I'm thinking the linda stary here)

And throughout all of the above Lefebrvre's idea echos incessantly within the outcasts Kuno and John with regards to how they see the society which has or seeks to exclude or incorporate them into the system:
"The concepts of desire and pleasure were not to be conceived as categories of the impossible, a “bad” utopia, but were an expression of a wider recognition among intellectuals, workers, students and other elements of the underlying population that the emptiness of lived experience demanded a revolutionary transformation of everyday life as the condition of the possibility for the achievement of freedom which remains the highest aspiration of social being."(143)