Are you young? Are you under a lot of pressure? Do you occasionally addle your mind with drugs? The Book of Relevations is the place for you. Bob Paisner lays it out. Take notes.
We play with form. We formally play.
This is our story for Friday.
P.S. "So: youth is apocalypse."
First off I don’t know how many people in our class has read the book of revelation but I have, and the book scared the shit out of me, so to actually read what someone thought as the literal version of the book in the bible is even more scary because you never know what is going on in someone’s head. This was actually interesting though because he is talking through the bible basically because he is working on a paper for a religion course.
ReplyDeleteThe story basically goes through the events of Armageddon in the book of revelation and ties it in with whatever is going on around him at the time of him writing this. It starts with the beginning and the angel appearing to God, to the seven churches, to the seven seals, to the seven trumpets, to the seven plagues and everything in between. The sources from the bible sure helped this out a lot because if so it would seem he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I really found this interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEbPhlis7Nc&feature=related
ReplyDeleteI can just picture the religion teacher, upon finishing this paper, staring into the middle distance for about ten minutes, then standing, pacing silently, interspersed by an errant "what... I don't... there's... no, no", then walking straight to the nearest liquor store, grabbing a handle of Knob Creek, killing it right there on the spot, and THEN paying for it.
Here's this college kid with absolutely no humility whatsoever, egomaniacal to the last extrapolation, finding parallels between his Quaalude addiction and the visions of the Biblical prophets. Self-satisfied in the "bruising solitude of moral superiority". I want to shake his shoulders like a pair of sacrilegious maracas.
This story has to have one of the best character constructions I've ever read-- I'm still in awe after its end. "You're always making things bigger than they are, or harder than they have to be..."
P.S. Rick Moody's bio ends on page 666.
First of all, I really do not like this narrator. He kind of creeps me out and reminds me way too much of one of my friends. It's uncanny and frankly scares the crap out of me. But that aside...
ReplyDeleteThe book of revelations is the only book I've ever read in the bible, and I thought it was increadibly bizarre. However, I find it to be a very appropriate choice for this narrator. It's very peculiar the parallels he makes between the book and his own life. He over-exaggerates everything, and at one point I almost feel bad for him.
I think my favorite part of this story is Dodgson, as morbid as that might seem. There is something almost appealing about the control he excersises over Judith. It would be one thing to say that he was controlling, but the instances used and the detail of it are so unsettling. In fact I think that is this story's strength: to make the reader uncomfortable and a little disturbed.
As someone who has never read revelations, though I did pull my bible out and try, I’m just not in to it tonight, I was really lost throughout the story when he was talking about the bible. And as I guessing from what others have said, revelations really fits with this narrator, so ok. I really didn’t like that narrator at all. I kept thinking back in my head to Arnold Friend, and while he was supposed to be very creepy, I wasn’t as bothered by him as I am Bob Paisner. This guy seems completely unaware of what he’s doing to the people around him and at times I really just wanted to reach into my book and shake him yelling, “CREEPER!!!”
ReplyDeleteI think if I read the book of revelations, I may have liked this story more because I could have found the mentioned parallels, but since I didn’t…you get the point.
I do however, really like how Rick Moody has really given us this character in a way that we don’t really second guess anything we know about him and how he views his world.
I'm going to be leading this discussion in class with the Fi meister, but I just have to say:
ReplyDeleteKnob Creek, ftw.
I don't completely hate this narrator like everyone else seems to. It is funny how oblivious he is to the fact that no one really likes him. He becomes president of his dorm building with no opposition in the election. No one comes to his dorm meetings. Then he proposes this ridiculous and offensive party idea "Inquisition Night". His idea is completely denied by the others "And then they told me that my election had been a big joke in the first place; they told me that I misunderstood a simple prank."
ReplyDeleteThe form of this is really cool. A term paper that slowly reveals who the person is, which can only really happen with a person like this, someone who thinks he can relate himself to the book of Revelations. But is that so far-fetched? Isn't that what we do at this age? Relate larger issues to our own experiences. "Always making things bigger than they are, or harder than they have to be". It's interesting to see the repetiveness of 7 and how he compares things to the religious stories. (this last part is kind of a stretch) He also mentions how his intials are almost 666, like he feels like he is the devil and he paints Dodgson almost as the way the devil would see God, as the control-freak trying to keep his girl away from him.
Like Sarah, I too have never read Revelations, I don't even have a bible to use as reference. That being said, I was also confused by a lot of the tangents that Bob went off on. Regardless, I enjoyed the way Moody constructed his character, however creepy he may have been. However, everyone seems to have a consensus that Bob is this awful, Arnold Friend-type character, but I think that Dodgson is a much more detestable character Ordering what Judith was allowed to wear, how she was supposed to eat, and calling her the mother of abominations; this guy is pretty much the king of misogyny, so it's understandable why Bob hates him so much.
ReplyDeleteBut under all the heavy religious parallels that Moody paints, there is also a great sense of veiled humor. Some of the more apparent lines include the description of Dodgson as looking like "a murderous shoe salesman," and the idea of the "Inquisition Party."
All in all, as confused as I was at some points (ok, a lot of points), I found this to be one of the most enjoyable things we've read this semester.
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ReplyDeletehaha man oh man, I can't get over the hilarity/pretentiousness of this narrator. I mean, as soon as the story begins you get a pretty clear understanding that this guy thinks he's got the whole God idea down, almost to the point that he may think he God...or at least wrote everything that details what God is. Aside from the obvious, grading, yet entertaining, narrative we are thrust into a decently interesting story.
ReplyDeleteThe arrogance of it all made it as beautiful and fun as it was to read I guess, Andrew already did a pretty solid way of noting that though, being an egomaniacal-humility-less son of a bitch. The fact that it left me with plenty of questions floating around in my head and thought-inducing ideas caused me to be pretty pleased upon finishing it. Hell, you hate and love the bastard whether you like it or not; once the arrogance and humor is all tossed aside.
I thought this story has a really perfect blent of an unlikeable character who isn’t that much different from who we are when it comes to figuring life and ourselves out. I kept feeling that there was a main narrator and then a second main narrator for when he talked about the religious aspects because he was much more ambiguous and worldly when he spoke about the book of revelations.
ReplyDeleteI think this book is also shares this really common and interesting balance of religion and drugs. Drugs let your mind think about things from a different perspective and yet it usually doesn’t get associated with The Bible, especially the book of revelation, but those references combines with the Term Paper style of the story make both of those often separated issues allow to flow together.