New Continent, Same Me

I'm moving in about a week, and as I wrote this (ed: but not as I deleted, like, 3/4 of this; it's me, from the fuuutuuuure) I'm in the Midwest for the week for work. Hence, no posts for a while. I will resume my daily posting schedule any year now. Apologies for the tardiness.

That cleared, this outing I read "Daylight", and Jesus H Christ I did not like it. Credit where it's due, Greaves did some stuff I found worked in the chapter, too. The center-piece just didn't sit well with me.

Ollie, of Course

Yeah, duh and/or obviously this is what I didn't like.

The attempt by Dorley's staff on Ollie's life is what you might call callous indifference, if you lowball the charges. Somewhere between attempted murder and innocence. Honestly, it reminded me of Madge Oberholtzer (CW: real life horrors unspeakable.) It upset me not because I like Ollie ("who?"), but because of Harmony's scar, and the bend towards a Learning Opportunity at the end of the chapter. I know this is layered fiction; there's always an interplay between allegory and character-driven work, but the former took on the aspect of a brick and the latter got squished.

Should have given him a light when he asked for one.

Ollie, kept in an almost literal oubliette.

I see that there's an open-faced allegorical meaning here. The conditions of life can and do make people suicidal; Dorley as "what if cis but trans?" again. Registered; heard.

And I get that there's a less-blunt-force-obvious metaphorical underpinning to be had too. The invisibility and absence of light convey absence and attenuation. From one's true self or one's own life or one's whatevered whatever. This is Ollie's rock bottom; it's the beginning of turning away from was es gibt? and towards warum ist es so schwer, die Welt zu lieben?

I'm not opposed to using something like this in fiction, for whatever purpose really. I think e.g. Melissa's near death experiences were really powerfully handled. I just didn't feel like the groundwork was adequate to the case here. Or almost, the lack of groundwork was almost supposed to be the reader's fault? Compare/contrast Spec Ops: the Line and Christine's brief moment of guilt.

We've been wrapped in perspective so much and those perspectives have made (not to put a hat on a hat on a hat in some kind of groundless senseless hat-ladder) everything that is the case. Ollie has, critically, not been the case, basically ever. So he's a mere device. To end Chapter 37, to start some new arc, whichever. At best Ollie works as sort of a Brechtian undifferentiated man, but this is a series that generally cares so much about the specifically personal debt that the individual owes themself. And one that even in depicting Ollie takes care to give him a unique mental register as narrator. It just clanged for me.

Enough Complaining

This window faces east. Mostly. Enough. Anyway, it’s supposed to be clear tomorrow morning. Clear enough. You’ll get the sunrise.

I don't know, this is all a bit anvilicious, to pay a visit to The Fobidden Wiki.

She's got a scar, she's like me.

Blech!

What Worked for Me

On the other hand, Frankie and Val as knowing newcomers are excellent to probe which parts of Dorley are cruel and which are merely unorthodox. Their liminal position in Dorley makes everyone a little bit uncomfortable and the way they put people off balance is a great new social dynamic.

Frankie

Having Frankie around as the analogous Dorley to the Older Sisters' recruits heightens the horror of the chapter. She's a well-timed ironic highlighter for this chapter. Great decision to have her as our way in to this part of the text. The same goes for Val. Their combined presence really recalls what happened to Diana when we read about what happened to Ollie, and I think I'd have quit reading without them being deployed so well.

Everyone Else

I am not in the business of throwing people away. I prefer not to be, anyway.

Bea, to Frances.

Much of the time, Dorley lies in an anxious, self-conscious, contradiction. That's why it works so well as fiction, I think; the layers of anxiety engage the reader on a few simultaneous levels wherever possible. It's a book about force that is really about choice. A comedy that is about a whole host of tragedies. A nested ironic text that is stuffed to the gills with painfully sincere redemption. At its best it hangs together and it's riveting. For every moment of profound choice, there's the overwhelming, psychically damning, constant physical and mental submission. For every menty-B there's ten jokes about Weetabix. Sometimes that tension resolves and we get Beth's introduction. Or we get Will's process of evolution. Or this chapter, that didn't work for me but I'd bet is someone's absolute favorite.

Errant thoughts

That Fucking Website

It’s a TV Tropes reference, and he’s using it wrong.

There is no "right" way to use a TV Tropes reference. Such a place is without virtue. Also Melissa, from Dorley's perspective at the time, had a bridge dropped on her, but it turned out she was just put on a bus.

So-- Oh god how cursed is the Dorley TV Tropes page? I will not be finding out. One can only bear so much strife in this world.

Beth's Bike

Interesting symmetry here between Beth's attempt on her life and Ollie's. Failure to thrive. Hostile work environment. Pressing in of the world on oneself in ways that feel like they cannot be endured. No light to help grow the metaphorical seed.

Raphael, in Contrast

"Raphael, stop helping" / "This is part of my process!"

I'm cautiously enjoying Raph's current lease on life.

I think I'll be one of those nerdy librarian women.

So, I think I get what's going on with him? It seems like Raph wants to be desired, basically, more than he wants to be Raph, or maybe anyone, specifically. There's contradiction there as well, the good kind. Raph wants to be what people want him to be, but that's not necessarily an "authentic" (barf) way to live.

"There can be no forced feminization from falsehood," to quote Heidegger (speaking of people who should've been basemented.)

Val's Vigil

Nice detail for Val to light candles for the fallen in her life, given the events of the chapter.