Semester Project

The Letter

My semester project takes the events of the Three Mile Island incident and narrates them with a twist through the perspective of an onsite worker. I wanted to include some sort of frame narrative, and I did this with a chain-letter type vibe. The title page is meant to convey that, as well as the changes in font.

Tralfamadorianism?

While reading my article about my panel presentation, I found the concept interesting. Vonnegut is against Tralfamadorianism, states the author. This seemed almost counterintuitive to me, as Tralfamadorianism is portrayed as a saving grace to the poor traumatized little Billy. How could one be against the theology that helped a traumatized war veteran make piece of the world around him? It makes a lot more sense when we zoom out from the perspective of just Billy Pilgrim.

Just looking at it objectively, the tralfamadorian perspective is pretty bleak. Individual choice is a concept, everything is chance and has been sit in stone. It's a very depressing outlook on life, considering one thing many humans cherish is freedom/free-agency. However, by seeing life as preordained, it gives one easy explanations for why traumatic events happen. For example, Dresden was going to happen no matter what, allows one to easily distance themselves from these events.

Clearly, the one thing Billy wants is distance, all throughout the book Billy is zoned out, acting out a separate part of his life, or on a planet hella light years away (Sometimes all 3). While tralfamadorianism allows one to distance themselves from the happenings around them, this tends to breed more apathy than anything else. I for one can't bring myself to agree with tralfamadorianism, but I haven't been a prisoner of war or lived through a firebombing or plane crash, so I can't speak for Billy.

What is "The Work"?

While plenty Jes Grew related topics receive somewhat scarce explanations, few come up as much as the work. It's a central part to the Moses story arc, it's used by both Papa LaBas and Black Herman, along with others in the past. The work shows up all over, and is in essence any expression of the supernatural done by a practicioner of the Osirian religion. But is there a solidly defined work?

That's a harder question to answer. For one, we see the work done in different ways. Moses uses his own destructive version of the work, causing massive damage to Egypt and showing how destructive practicing the work with the left hand can be. On the other hand when the work is practiced properly, with the right hand of course, it can bring good results. Causing the healing of Earline, being believed partially responsible for the knockings, as well as other beneficial aspects of Jes Grew.

On the one hand, life and the growing of living things / nature are all aspects of Osiris. On the flipside, destruction and death are more Set-esque. Most noticeably is the presence of both of these sides within the work. Could this suggest some kind of balance or compromise between Set and Osiris years ago? Maybe the work could transcend both of these gods, as it is clear Osiris was up to some magical things all those years ago. Maybe Osiris was the first practitioner of the work, rather than its creator, and the work is just some supernatural force we'll never understand. Who knows?

Coalhouse vs. Mumbo Jumbo

In class, the idea of the "New Negro" as it appeared in the Harlem Renaissance was brought up. Now writing a blog post around one book is nothing new, but it gets spicier when you start to compare  concepts that span different books. In this sense, I want to connect Coalhouse Walker Jr. to the world of Mumbo Jumbo, and see how he would fit in it? As it stands, I'd like to see how our 2 protagonists compare to Coalhouse, Berbelang and Papa LaBas. Before we get to Coalhouse, we should focus on the differences between Berbelang and LaBas. The former seems to be deeply concerned by the "Jes Grew Epidemic", while the latter has no qualms  "Jes Grew"

With this in mind, even Papa LaBas is considered to be an old school character or atleast old, so how exactly would he embody a "New Negro"? For one, the new negro during the renaissance was considered to be "with it". Dressing nicely, being respectable, but also expressing their connections to Africa as well as their Blackness in general.

By this vein, one could consider "Jes Grew" as an experssion of blackness. It comes from Jazz, a black music form, involves the expression of one's emotions through dance, as well as it being considered an illness by white people in the book. Thus, I'd consider one's stance on Jes Grew indicative of their status as a new negro or not.

With that, how would Coalhouse view Jes Grew? Well, as a ragtime musician, I'm sure he'd be more than supportive of its successor. In a sense Coalhouse was a "New Negro" before his time, holding pride in the black ragtime artist in his time. Now on that note, what would one consider Berbelang, if not a New Negro?

Ragtimes

While I'm not the biggest fan of Rag as a style of music, I've certainly played a few in my short time on this Earth. With that I had an interesting association between the book and the movie. The book itself feels kinda like a rag, from its structure to plot escalation. Rag has its connection with silent films and other forms of entertainment such as live dance performances, etc. This gives rag music a sense of fun, taking away from its seriousness. By the same token, some situations in this book are extremely comical due to their absurdity combined with the very matter-of-fact way lots of the book is presented. Situations like Houdini's "fantastic" escape of the jail cell only to lead into his encounter with Henry K Thaw would be something decently fitting to put a good 'ol rag tune to. I'm not saying rag music is inherently comedic, because that's not what it was going for. That's precisely what makes me relate it to Doctorow's book more.
Alongside this, the book seems to frequently catch the reader off guard with some of its statements. 180 turns like Father as well as other characters seemingly sudden problematic outbursts tends to throw readers for a loop sometimes. Much like syncopation, some of the changes in pacing of the book will catch you off guard too. Especially Coalhouse's bombing of the city surprised me. While I don't know what to expect, I predict that the title of the book will get little to no explanation by Doctorow himself, so I;m just drawing conclusions from whats been read so far. If you have any other thoughts or connections, or the exact opposite and want to disprove a connection I've made, I'd be happy to hear it.

Care for me

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xdFtHNgpau8t3AL85Y2rEmw92a7UED4OXYGiKWWMrf8/edit?usp=sharing

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