I am quickly rereading Ubik. As I go I am going to have a running commentary (or at least that is my plan), a kind of dialectical journal. I will write a quote and then digress on whatever comes to mind. This seemed to bother some of you when I did this during “Till We Have Faces,” but “Oh, Well.”
All quotes come from The Library of America edition of Ubik, unless otherwise noted.
“Is a stranger tuning in on you? Are you really alone? That for the telpaths . . . and then the queasy worry about precogs. Are your actions being predicted by someone you never met? Someone you would not want to meet or invite into your home? “ p. 616
Eerie parallel to spybot software, and unauthorized wiretaps. I wonder, as did Herbert at this point in the novel, if the fear in our world is a manufactured control that has no basis in fact. Similar to Foucault’s panopticon, where because we think we are being watched we act as if we actually are being watched thus nullifying the need to be watched because we act the way we are “supposed” to act, or rather how we are told to behave.
“In the earphone words, slow and uncertain, formed: circular thoughts of no importance, fragments of the mysterious dream which she now dwelt in.” p. 619.
Again, I am rereading Ubik, so I tend to notice details in quotes that echo/inform themes which coalesced, at least for me, more as the novel came to a close. I think this line about Runciter’s “half-life” wife is a fairly good description of the “advertising” epigrams which begin each chapter. “Ubik” being the generic name for whatever product is being sold. The ads, like advertising and news bits in which we are imbued, are of “no importance” they are simply fragments which surround our waking lives, and perhaps send their tendrils into our dreams as well. It is like the idea of James Gee in which we are all a member of a discourse community where we take on the language and the implicit and tacit ideologies of those communities. It is not that there is a formalized dogma that must be followed; but, even more insidious, we simply take on the belief systems as we take part in the community or the dream in which we dwell. This plays out in the novel as Runciter’s wife’s half-life is influenced by another stronger half-lifer and as well as who is in control of who’s reality as the novel plays out its Russian doll-like panopticon of control.
4 comments:
I enjoy the dialectical journal. I can hear the sighs of the patrons from your esoteric rants.
I agree, but I'm also confused - are you saying, or is James Gee saying that we simply take on the belief system as we take part in the community in which we dwell? I concur, but I also believe that, as Dick puts it, once we are inside the world which has been presented before us, we interact, and we acquiesce, and we dilute which is non-essential for us. At least, those who are accustomed to being cognizant of our surroundings. I believe that Joe Chip knew immediately where he was, and did exactly what you said "take part," but I think he did it reluctantly, being that his ultimate goal was undetermined, which made the read more intense at that point.
Yes, there is a agency involved in the discourse community. Thus the name "discourse," but the moves we are able to make are limited by the discourse community of which we are a part. And the longer one is a part of a group the more one becomes normalized into the beliefs and practices of that group. In Dorothy Holland's book "Idenitity and Agency in Cultural Worlds," there is a chapter on AA. There she examines how over time a member of AA as they recount their story in the meetings, their story becomes more and more like the original story of the founder of AA. They reinterpret the events of their own lives in such a way that their narratives fit more closely with the accepted norm of the group they have become a part of. To bring it back to Ubik, the characters are constantly having to re-evaluate the narrative of events in an attempt to make sense of the world which is surrounding them. Chip, being undetermined as you said, thus is controlled as much as he is in control of his actions. Yes, self-awareness is important: but one must be a part of a community as well as apart from it, and to be a part of a community one gives up a bit (maybe a large bit) of control of oneself. I guess the giving up to "a higher power" (to go with AA) is a kind of agency.
Enough of my esoteric ranting; I need another cup of coffee.
The Holland book is great. Here is the first sentence: "People tell others who they are, but even more important, they tell themselves and then try to act as though they are who they say they are."
dont worry about your esoteric ranting - This is why i joined the RFB club
I stopped worrying a long time ago. As Tom Raworth, a contemp British poet said, (not a direct quote), " I started writing because I liked reading what I wrote." LOL
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