I want to piggy back on Sarah's post on lucid dreaming, but before I do that...kids, in Inception, what was the process called that everyone was more familiar with, the process of stealing ideas in someone's sleep, and DiCaprio's work was mainly to help people defend against it? Inception was idea planting...what was the word for idea stealing?? I can't think of the word!
This movie, Waking Life, blew my mind when it came out. I sort of wish I owned it, but I'll just put it on my queue. Anyway, it's about lucid dreaming and it is a TRIP. I love the look of it, too. I like the technique where they use live actors, and then animators work after the film is shot to convert the live actors into drawings...another film that used this technique is A Scanner Darkly, a Phillip K. Dick story -- those drawn actors are absolutely recognizable.
Do you kids know Phillip K. Dick? Maybe not, but you probably know his work. He was a Long Beach writer: "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"(the short story that was the basis for my favorite Ridley Scott film, Blade Runner), the short story, "Minority Report" -- he's someone to know about and read. Brilliant science fiction.
Gosh, do I have a point? Maybe not. Well, let me manufacture one for you...Ursula K. LeGuin said that science fiction is a thought experiment, and the purpose of a thought experiment, "as the term was used by Schrodinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future...but to describe reality, the present world. Science fiction is descriptive, not predictive." Huxley was not a futurist, but a novelist, which is to say, a liar -- and we, we all KNOW it's a lie, but in the process of reading, we come to believe...so before you start thinking "Maybe this could come true, maybe he predicted the future, maybe he caused in vitro fertilization by imagining it..." Remember, Huxley was just a guy, living in a particular moment. And when he wrote BNW, he was a pretty young guy...37 or 38. Still a green sapling.
I just finished my re-read of BNW today. All that self flagellation at the end...come on, Aldous. How would a young man raised as an outcast in an indigenous culture adopt self flagellation as a practice? Where does he get this sense that the flesh is debased? No American native culture I've ever read about taught that about the body. It's not in Shakespeare. His mom certainly didn't teach him that.
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As far as the self-flagellation goes...
ReplyDeleteWasn't it part of the ceremony when Huxley first introduced the Savage Reservation. John even commented on it... he said he could've lasted longer or something like that.
If not, then maybe Huxley was trying to include the self-flagellation because it was popular in Europe during the plague. (they thought the self sacrifice would cause God to forgive them and he would end the plague)
Oh, and I agree with your point that writing is descriptive rather than predictive. We get so caught up trying to apply his work to today that we forget that Huxley was just writing his thoughts and opinions about his day.
Oh, that's right! They were beating themselves at the reservation. I forgot.
ReplyDeleteOh, by the way, the word for stealing is "extraction". Really good movie, by the way.
ReplyDeleteAnd also, I figured if Huxley was going to make John an outcast/rebel/eccentric, he might as well go to bombastic levels.
ReplyDeleteExtraction, right. I think someone must be doing that to me.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I can't think of anyone I actually like or admire in BNW. Maybe Watson, but that's a stretch.
ReplyDelete