1989 And All That

I've just finished watching Goodbye Lenin!, the 2003 film about a woman who falls into a coma just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and wakes up after the fall of socialism in East Germany. But her loving son, having been told that any excitement will kill her, goes to great lengths to covince her that nothing has changed.

It's a good film and I enjoyed it very much. It made me laugh out loud on several occasions. I didn't like it as much as I liked The Lives of Others, another film about the the last years of East Germany, which was made three years later. But it was still pretty good.

I had a few things to say about it, and once again I'm going to resort to the dubious expedient of a numbered list:

1) It was especially interesting to me because, last year, I read Beyond the Wall: East Germany 1949-1990 by Katja Hoyer, which is one of the best books I've read in recent years.

2) Marxism is fundamentally evil because it's based on materialism and the denial of the Divine. The fall of communism was a gift from God.

Having said that...

I'm rather drawn to the aesthetic side of Eastern Bloc history-- the classical art, the big banners, the anthems, even the austere prefabricated apartment blocks. Conversely, the tacky Western consumerism that flooded in after the Wall fell hardly seems like something to be celebrated. (And Hoyer's book, sadly, makes it very plain that blue jeans and pop music probably had as much to do with the fall of the GDR as any more spiritual or humanistic ideas of freedom.)

3) Given Ireland's own experience of the 1990 soccer World Cup, it was interesting to see it feature so heavily in this film. West Germany winning the Cup seems (going by the film) to have been almost as important as liberation from communism and national reunification-- or, rather, it blended into the same euphoric mix. That this would have been the case never really occurred to me before, strangely enough.

4) The fall of the Soviet Union seems like a moment of historical clarity, a vindication of everything that is organic and enduring in society-- family, organized religion, nation. There was some discussion on whether East Germany should remain a separate country even after the fall of socialism. But, overwhelmingly, Germans wanted reunification, just as republic after republic of the old USSR demanded independence. And why wouldn't they? The nation is simply a natural institution of mankind. Communism tried to diminish it, and failed. Globalism is trying to destroy it, and encountering a massive resistance that seems to be gaining momentum all the time.

5) One of the reasons I'm so fascinated with this period is because it's always interesting to see how private life is intertwined with public life. Really, I think that's how it should be. Not every period can (or should) be as tumultuous as the fall of communism, but surely human beings are not meant to live in private bubbles of individual experience. Personally I love reading about moments that bring people together-- not in some glurgey "we are all one" way, but in a way that awakens meaningful unity-- or even division! Even, say, a hotly contested election or referendum. Sometimes we can come together by beating each other up. (Presumably anyone with a brain will realize that's a joke, and not to be understood literally.)

Is Anything Too Big or Too Small to be the Theme of a Creative Work?

Many years ago, I was watching a documentary (or a "featurette") about the Lord of the Rings movies. In one interview, Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) said something like: "Ultimately, the story is about friendship."

I remember thinking this was a bit banal. Lord of the Rings has many deep and profound themes. "Friendship" seems a bit too basic to count as one of them.

Similarly, Jack Finney, the author of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, once had this reaction to people finding a theme of conformity (or non-conformity) in his novel: "The idea of writing a whole book in order to say that it's not really a good thing for us all to be alike, and that individuality is a good thing, makes me laugh."

Another example. I remember in school, when we were studying The Merchant of Venice, the teacher told us that one of its themes was appearance vs. reality. I can remember thinking: "Well, surely that is a theme of half the plays and books ever written."

I'm not saying any of these reactions are correct. But it's an intriguing question. Can a theme be too basic for an artistic work? Or is it the very greatness of great art that it addresses fundamental themes?

On the other side of the ledger...

One of the things that's often exasperated me about superhero movies-- aside from the fact that there's far too many of them-- is when a critic (or somebody) says something like follows: "This film reinterprets the whole Batman myth."

But what do I care about the Batman myth? If a Batman film aspires to be more than just entertainment, surely it should tackle some theme or themes beyond Batman stories?

Simlarly, when people are praising Dubliners by James Joyce (or some such book), they often said: "It brilliantly captures the Dublin of the Edwardian era."

Again, why should anybody care? This seems more a task for history books than for literature, which surely should have a more enduring relevance.

Or am I wrong? Maybe no theme is too big or small for an artistic work?

A Hobby For Someone

Going to public lectures, book launches, etc. and asking the most stupid questions you can think of.

It would be funny but I don't have enough audacity do it.

I went to a talk on horror fiction many years ago. The first question was: "Where does The Secret Garden fit into this?" Maybe this guy had already instituted this hobby.

(I've always loved horror, and The Secret Garden has been a special story for me since I read it as a kid. But no, I wasn't the guy. And yes, it was a stupid question.)

Free Speech for Everybody

Laura Perrins doesn't agree with right-wingers who lament Jimmy Kimmel's cancellation.

Was Kimmel cancelled? It's not entirely clear. It seems to have been a commerical decision made by the network, based on how many viewers he offended.

At the same time, I don't think conservatives should be celebrating anybody being punished for having an opinion. We certainly shouldn't be engaging in the same "free speech has consequences" argument that progressives have made so long.

("Free speech has consequences" could be used to justify any restriction of free speech.)

Laura's article seems to come close to a philosophy of "to the victor goes the spoils", which doesn't seem very civilized. I agree with most of her articles, but not this one.

I'm not a free speech absolutist (is there even such a thing?). But I'm definitely a free speech maximalist.

Edward Feser is, in my view, more sensible.

Knausgaard and Communion

A little of the way through the second volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard's six-volume novel series, I was on the point of giving up. Not because it was boring me. It wasn't boring me.

No, I was on the point of giving up because I thought: "Am I mad to allocate so much reading time to an epic work by some modern writer when I could be chipping away at my ignorance by reading something more substantial, like history, or Augustine's City of God, or something like that?"

In the end, I decided to keep going because I'm sick of starting things and giving them up.

And it must be said, it's very interesting. Knausgaard is writing about his own life. In the book, one of his friends comments on his ability to write about completely mundane events and make them interesting. He really can.

He's especially good at writing about all the little misadventures and diversions that occur in everyday life. At one point he drops his mobile phone on a train and he thinks it's fallen into the open handbag of a woman standing beside him, who then gets off the train. He doesn't follow her because the doors are about to close--and besides, how can you ask to look in someone's handbag? (You could ask her to have a look, but that doesn't seem to occur to him or anybody else.) Eventually he gets a friend to message the phone, but that leads to further complications...

There are deeper themes in the book, of course. The main theme is the conflict between Knausgaard's consuming urge to write, on one hand, and the demands of ordinary life on the other. Another theme is the disenchantment of human life since the Enlightenment, and there are even jabs at political correctness. (In the second volume, Knausgaard is living in Sweden, and as a Norwegian he thinks it's a crazy society-- but he also mentions that Norwegians in Norway actually look up to the Swedes).

Religion hasn't featured very much in the foreground, but it's always there in the background. The first volume opens when Knausgaard is a small boy and considers himself a Christian (which seems rather counter-cultural, although later his first girlfriend is a Christian). By the time he's in his teens he calls himself ani-Christian, though there's never much evidence of this.

When his father dies, Knausgaard and his brother (both of whom seem thoroughly secular, as was their father) agree they want a religious funeral, and not some "awful humanist ceremony"--I forget the exact words used, but they were something like that.

In the office where he writes, Knausgaard surrounds himself with bric-a-brac from the pre-modern past, including religious imagery. He reads the Bible.

Then, when his daugher is christened in volume two, he surprises himself and everyone else by taking communion at the ceremony:

The priest was a young woman, we stood around her by the font. Linda held Vanja as her head was moistened with water. Ingrid left when the ceremony was over, the rest of us stayed seated. It was a communion. Joe Olav and his family stood up and knelt before the altar. For some reason I got up and followed suit. Knelt before the altar, had a wafer placed on my tongue, drank the communion wine, was given the blessing, and went back, with mum's, Kjartan's, Yngve's, and Geir's eyes on me, disbelieving to varying degrees. 

Why had I done it?

Had I become a Christian?

I, a fervent anti-Christian from my early teenage years and a materialist in my heart of hearts, had in one second, without any reflection, got my feet, walked up the aisle and knelt in front of the altar. It had been pure impulse. And, meeting those glares, I had no defence. I couldn't say I was a Christian. I looked down, slightly ashamed.

There's more but I'm not going to type it all out.

Scandinavia has long been presented as the model secular society by secularists. It's interesting (and encouraging) to encounter evidence that it remains haunted by God and by Jesus-- which is what a Christian would expect.

As for materialism, it's always seemed to me like a dead-end for all art and literature. What is there left to say?

Is The Establishment Really All-Powerful and All-Seeing?

Probably everybody who reads this blog would agree that there's a recognizable ideological establishment in the Western world. It has a near-stranglehold on many of the institutions of our society and its propaganda is unremitting.

Lots of people seem to agree with this analysis. There's all sorts of different theories on the nature of this elite. Some people even think it's the Illuminati or the Knights Templar  or something like that.

My guess is that it's no single identifiable group, that it's simply a transnational elite who have common sympathies.

Alarmingly, many people seem to think that this elite is almost omniscient and omnipotent; that any apparent reverses it endures (Brexit, for instance) is simply a part of the Grand Plan; and that any apparent opposition to it (Jordan Peterson, for instance) is actually Controlled Opposition.

This theory seems unfalsifiable to me. The concept of the all-powerful, all-seeing elite is so flexible that it could wrap itself around any facts.

It also seems to fly in the face of experience. I've said that the propaganda of this elite is constant. What amazed me is how crude it is, as well.

Time and again we have seen that propaganda backfire. To take the example of Brexit again, "Project Fear" was so crude and alarmist that it couldn't be taken seriously.

Similarly, the sort of ideological propaganda that we're all subject to every day reaches such levels of overkill that it seems impossible that it wouldn't backfire.

I've heard some people argue that this is all a part of the plan. The reaction against it is also part of the plan. That just seems unlikely to me.

Another reason I think the elites can't be infallible is because human beings are too unpredictable. It regularly happens that somebody who's just too rich, too powerful, or too successful for the elites to silence breaks ranks and utters some heresy. Again, I'm sure you can think of many examples.

I don't think fatalism is a healthy attitude, and I don't think it's justified when it comes to this subject.

Ebert's Most Hated

Every few years, I get a good laugh by re-reading this selection of zingers from Roger Ebert's most devastasting movie reviews.

My favourite is definitely this one: "This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." (It's for a comedy with an obscene name so, if you're curious, you'll have to read the article. Or at least skim it.)

But don't get me wrong, I also appreciate this one: "Watching Mad Dog Time is like waiting for the bus in a city where you’re not sure they have a bus line". (This unfortunate film also won this unenviable accolade from him: "the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time".)

And then there's his verdict on the Spice Girls, the stars of Spice World: "What can you say about five women whose principal distinguishing characteristic is that they have different names?"

Mind you, I don't agree with all his evaluations. The Dukes of Hazzard is one of my favourite films, although I seem to be alone in my enthusiasm for it. (Even the cast disparaged it.) Halloween III isn't one of my favourite horror films, but it's definitely in the second division (to a great extent on the strength of that incredibly creepy jingle that plays in a sinister advertisement, "Three more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween..")

I watched all the Resident Evil films that had been made up to 2018 over the Christmas of that year, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They're goofy, but fun. I saw Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo in the cinema and found it endearingly stupid. I laughed several times.

I thought The Village (and its twist) deserved much better than to be featured on this list, and The Usual Suspect is good by any standards.

Still, his put-downs are a hoot.

To find out what happened when Ebert ran into someone who'd been on the receiving end of one of these reviews-- probably the worst of them, in fact-- read here. It's both funny and heartwarming.