the biography gag.

What is the context set of a biography? When are they written? What accomplishments warrant them? How accurately can someone else capture all the different facets of a human personality over an entire lifetime? How accurately can an individual capture all the different facets of his or her personality over an entire lifetime? What inspires an individual to write an autobiography? What context set has that person’s life consisted of? How does one edit an autobiography or biography? What events of a life can be thrown out in the drawing room? How do these edits affect the overall biography? What, if it exists, is the archetype of the modern biography?
My best attempts to answer that last question lead to one place: the gospels, at least for western society anyway. And why not? Fact or fiction Jesus has had a lot of people write a lot about him. Hoffman’s combo of Murr and Kreisler mirror them in several ways, be this purposeful or not. At the beginning of John’s gospel we have a take on existence just as we do in the beginning of Murr’s autobiography. As an opening, the contemplation of existence seems almost overwhelming as it roped backed into the context of a single life, but we soon realize that we are not just dealing with anyone, but with a messiah. We also know that Murr dies young. I find myself asking, has he passed before his work his completed? Curiously, Hoffman himself will die before finishing his masterpiece to its entirety. It is understood that Murr was not betrayed by any followers (he lacks them for the most part) but we do witness people who want to kill him even though he poses no direct threat to them, besides the threat of potential of change. It also seems like a running joke that Murr, as both messiah and scholar, writes his own biography. This is probably because Murr would of course feel that no one else would be talented enough to write it, not that no one would want to.
Where he may be a parody to a messiah; Murr is a highly satirical character as an enlightened scholar. He is naïve and narcissistic, under the impression that his every action is improving the life of every creature he comes into contact with. He also does not have much of a theory of mind, other than that he must be recognized as a hero. Hoffman claims that Murr is only being honest, but even this is a poke at writers and enlightenment in general. Murr also cannot keep up a relationship, nor does he seem very good at make friends. It seems that the only place Murr can thrive is when he entirely immersed in his scholarly work.
Overwhelming as he can be at times, Murr is not the only satire and Parody we encounter in the book. Kreisler’s interruptions mirror Murr’s quite well, only from the context of a biography instead of an autobiography. An early take on this is gained when Kreisler describes his childhood

“On the day of St. John Chrysostom, that is, on the twenty-fourth of January in the year one thousand seven hundred and some years more, around midday, a boy was born with a face, and hands, and feet. His father was eating pea soup at the time, and in his delight spilled a whole spoonful over his beard, at which the newly delivered mother laughed so hard, although she hadn’t seen it, that the tremor broke every string of the instrument in the hands of the lutenist playing the baby his latest murky,”

This quote sets the tone for any other descriptions that we will get about Kreisler’s childhood, that is, one big joke. An unknown child hood, or a joke of one, is a trademark of many biographies, including the one featuring god’s own son. His mother’s laughter that breaks the lute is apparently supposed to make him an “ignoramus in musical matters” so naturally Kreisler grows up to become an accomplished composer. In a way, this is the Kreisler version of Murr’s musings on existence; the romantic joke against the enlightened quest for trust. The description of a human birth becomes ironic when we consider that the other primary character in the book is a cat.
Perhaps the greatest gag of all though, is that Kreisler isn’t even present in all the sections of his book, sometimes we just have Julia and Hedwigga, other times the editor apologizes for a lack of information on Kreisler. This brings us back to a few of my yet unanswered questions. Specifically: how accurately can someone else capture all the different facets of a human personality over an entire lifetime? And: how does one edit an autobiography or biography? The answer to both of these questions becomes quite clear in Kreisler’s case, the answer seems to be: not well. Murr’s case is a bit more difficult, as the autobiographer, he gets to choose which sides of himself to show us, and I feel that Murr has probably given this a great deal of thought.

A success story of one of the most pervasive parasites in modern times: Escapism

Before we get too involved into the areas that escapism has been especially successful in to date, I would like to take a brief look at what it is, and what meaning it has to me personally. The Merriam-Webster definition is as follows, “habitual diversion of the mind to purely imaginative activity or entertainment as an escape from reality or routine.” And an “escapist” is someone who possesses this habit. In this context escapism basically refers to anyone who regularly uses their imagination, and importantly, that one can be an escapist without any outside input on hand. That being said, there are myriad mediums that are, in part, escape-inducing, the list is different for everyone, but classical examples include books, television, film, and videogames. I personally believe that any object perceivable to humans could possibly induce escapism, but some objects seem to do it better than others. (The reasons for this are somewhat beyond the scope of this post, but I may touch on them briefly.) Anything that stimulates imagination, it seems, can help induce escapism.
At this juncture I’m not really sure if I should comment on the all the negative connotations commonly associated with escapism. I think it will be enough for me to say that I consider myself to be an escapist, but that I do not consider the “real” world to be unbearable, or completely unsatisfying. I do not believe there is anyone alive who finds the real world completely unbearable, no matter how many hours a day they play video games. Also, I do not feel that whether or not I am addicted to anything has any relevance to whether or not I am an escapist.
So, with all this nonsense hopefully one will come away with the idea that when you perceive something you then think about it, and if you then imagine that something in a context different from its original context you are practicing escapism. You do this often enough and you can call yourself an escapist. Escapism is a parasite in the sense that it interrupts your regular life, and is enticing because it gives you an opportunity to become someone else somewhere else. Also, like any good parasite, escapism watches out for itself and ensures its survival by utilizing medium that tend to inspire the infected to go out and create more escapism-inducing medium. Anyone who has ever been inspired enough to create something should know what I’m talking about. I understand the process goes like this, you see something interesting, think about for a while and then you start imaging it in different forms and contexts. If you get into it, you tell someone, and that’s really all it takes, the process can repeat itself. If you’re really into it then you’ll probably produce a tangible version of it. Now you’ve not only caught the escapism “bug”, but you’ve also helped give it you someone else. If we consider this, then one begins to understand not only how wide spread escapism is, but also how long it has been around. How would our lives be different if humans were not able to look at things in a context different from the original?
I will admit that there is a hole or two in what I am telling you, for one thing, most of what I have been saying so far sounds as if it is under the assumption that in order to create something one must be an escapist. While I think it is difficult to create without first escaping, I also realize that some creations are intended to be as real as possible in all aspects. (Morel’s invention?) I also acknowledge that, in using one’s imagination to create, that “escaping” is not necessarily the intent. Even allowing for these two things, we cannot escape escapism entirely because whatever you create can still induce escapism in someone else.
In class on Friday, I shared with everyone that I consider escapism to be one of the most significant parasites in my life. I also stated my top two mediums to be writing and video games. By the comparison, any video game is easy. Just go control someone else’s creation in someone else’s world. If you die, it’s usually not a big deal. If you win, you can always play it again. My favorite games have always been the ones that give the most freedom of control over your environment. Grand Theft Auto does this pretty well, so does Oblivion (although not nearly as well as Morrowind did), and Spore is almost revolutionary (although still limited in so many ways).
As far as I am concerned, writing is the last word in escapism. When I write, I feel as if the whole process is suspended in escapism. I am either working at abstracting new ideas from ones I’ve heard elsewhere, or I’m furiously trying to remember times I’ve done it in the past. For the true escapism junkie, writing puts video games to shame, and I would like to see a day in my life where I spend more time writing than I do playing video games. I’m just not strong enough yet.

A disclaimer

With the start of my parasites class, it seems likely that my blog might be getting a few more visits, it will also certainly get several more posts. That being said I want to inform anyone who decides to wander these pages that past blogs show who I was, not who I currently am. I am not particularly proud or ashamed of any entry, but I am interested to see if any of them have any relevance to this new class. I suppose all this could be said in a singe sentence: I'm putting the past behind me.