The Necessary Self

When I was young, I didn't really get Superman - I still don't, more than likely, to be honest with you. But one thing one notices about Superman, to me rather apparently, as that at root, he is a character we are to wish to emulate. Superman is, it seems to me, the ideal self in the American popular imagination (well, that's not true - perhaps it is simply the ideal man? I'd love to, as an aside, hear what the impression women had of the character in their exposure to him). He's strong, he's invulnerable, he is noble, he is attractive, etc. He's also an outsider, an immigrant (more or less - does interstellar space count as immigration?), an individualist, an, if you will, entrepreneurial hero - a believer in individual hard work, I suppose.

Well, I  came across this comic via twitter earlier this evening, and it made me consider, what does that mean? To be an ideal hero. I have an interest in this, because once upon a time, I thought I should like to write an epic poem, and epic is, naturally, attracted to the heroic. What always struck and bothered me was that, at some level, I never really believed the heroes of the great epics. Odysseus, Aeneas, Achilles - I never could quite believe the author was trying to draw an image of a real person. Superman? The same way. Batman (in his more modern incarnations) perhaps is somewhat different, he's supposed to have an internal psychology. Superman, in the incarnations I know him (and understand, I'm no comic books expert, I know there were some angsty Supermen out there at one time) is not human. He's an image of a man.

This bothers me, it troubles me. Because, you could not WRITE Superman as a real person. Oh, you could write a real person with superpowers, you could write other stories. But he wouldn't be Superman anymore. Superman can't JUST be someone who leaps tall buildings or what not. He also, in order to truly be what I'd consider Superman, stands for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Not like... he has to put a show on for TJ&AW, or do his best to approach it. He is meant to TYPIFY it. Putting Superman in a situation is less a story than a sort of physics experiment, with the impossibly pure variables that high school physics always presents. This is the difference, to me, between a Superman and a Batman (or even Spiderman, say) - when you ask me what would Batman do if he had to choose between saving a bus of screaming children, or the woman he loves, I think "Well, what is Batman like? What would Batman choose?" When you put Superman in the situation, it becomes a simple matter of ethics: "What is the virtuous decision?" Answer that question, and you know, that's what Superman would do (but then, that's a thorny question, I understand). The rest is just logistics.

At first glance, this limits Superman, perhaps, and this is how I always thought of him - what fun is it to read Superman? He's not human. I can't identify with him. But reading this comic today, got me thinking of all that I could learn from it. Because Superman is the Perfect Man - the Man to Emulate as it were - I can look at a comic book like this, and think:

"What does this say about virtue in our culture?"

Of course, I understand, there are people who would disagree with the comic as presented - culture is a generalization, and we all differentiate from our straitjackets in our own ways. But in general: this comic rang true to me. This is what the movie-ending right thing to do was.We value life, but we value freedom to make our own choices. We value compassion. We value kindness. We value democracy, and just a BIT of anti-establishmentarianism. These are who our heroes are, people like this. Our heroes are NOT John Stuart Mills-like, they do not calculate, they seldom work for the greater good in the abstract (when they do, they often turn evil). They work for the good of the individual, they work, most powerfully, saving one person at a time. Stopping a bomb from going off that will destroy New York, well, that's a MacGuffin, we don't sit there identifying with all the folks that would get blown up. We identify with revenge, or with saving a child, or with redemption, or any of the other human, individual stories that movies are about.

More than this, what is fascinating about this comic is that, in the end, Superman, inhuman, impossible, unapproachable, is all about wish fulfillment. He is superhuman, and this (much like Christ, or Buddha) makes him that-which-we-would-be, you know? And sometimes that's silly. Sometimes its, we wish, perhaps, we had enormous pecs and could look good in spandex, or a good square jaw, or that women swooned, or whatever nonsense.

Sometimes, though, its the utterly impossible and silly situation laid out here. This isn't how it happens in real life. Have you talked to a depressed person? It isn't like this, this is performance art, not mental illness. But, when someone IS depressed, it terrifies those who see them, it's this feeling of utter, complete helplessness. And we want to believe, NEED to believe, 'If I could just talk to her, just me, not all this nonsense the rest of the world is throwing at her, just the two of us. I could change her mind.' There is an arrogance there, but it is the saddest, most human form of arrogance - the arrogance born of desperation and fear. So, Superman, invulnerable, impossibly effective, is less an image of how we think things really are, but instead, a vision of how we wish they would be. If only I had been a bit kinder, a bit wiser, a bit stronger, a bit more steadfast, a bit more loyal.

The truth of course is messier. The truth is, sometimes, there is no strong enough, no wise enough, no kind enough. Sometimes, my apologies to John Lennon, but Love is NOT all you need. We cannot will the world to be right, simply by being our best selves. We can just throw ourselves at the problem, sometimes fail, and usually haunt ourself with that fear: Was I not enough? What if I had been just a little more than I am?

You can't. You can only be what you are. But that's not comforting. That's a pronouncement of doom. Some people perhaps, they can take that philosophically, find the peace of the serenity prayer, often prayed, seldom really attended to. Some people, some people need Superman, some people need to keep trying to be more.

Maybe that's what Superman is. Like Christ, he is the love so great, it inspires self-loathing, the security so great, it pricks our fear, the comfort so great it stirs our guilt. Grace and Works. The queer alchemy of redemption, that says you must be so terribly much, and realize it is never enough, and then it is enough.

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The Problem With Being a Raina

I have had a number of friends read Blankets by Craig Thompson lately, and LOVE it. I read it this morning - it was a beautiful book, technically precise, carefully balanced, perfectly tuned. But I didn't enjoy it. This isn't to say I didn't APPRECIATE it, because I did. It was a wonderful book - if they book was less well done, I would have enjoyed it more, probably. As it was, with all things to tell the truth, it is only fun to read if the truth is something you'd like to know.

If you haven't read Blankets, and you don't like spoilers, stop reading. Seriously. It is a wonderful book, and you should read it. THEN come back and talk to me about it. This isn't a review, so it will do a poor job of protecting your ability to enjoy reading the book the first time.

The real beauty of Blankets, to me, was that, more than any of the comics I've read so far, this book did a pitch perfect job of combining art and text in a meaningful, surprising way. This book is, in my mind, the reason that graphic novels shoudl be written - because art and words both have their own unique power, and the synergy of those two powers creates something neither could create on its own. The most striking example in the book for me is the way Craig visualizes Raina.

The climax of Craig's relationship with Raina comes, for me, on page 337. In a playful/serious allegory, we see Craig as an Eastern Monk, kneeling before a shrine where the idol of his Muse, Raina, sits cross legged like a Buddha, surrounded by vestal fires, and by the curling shapes of Indian patterns. Look closely for a minute at those patterns - because they recur, over and over. Look, first, at the symbol of their relationship, the blanket that appears on page 182-183:

But, again, this theme isn't just something that shows up here and there. The paisley in particular (for me at least) raises it's head over and over as he thinks of her. Shadows of it, of the curve versus the angular, appear in their first meetings, intensifying as they get to their intimate quiet moment underneath the basketball hoop.  The psalm on 310-311 is another beautifully realized, and very brazen appearance. The sex scene on 420-423 devolves to the point where the very frames of the comic have a paisley-esque fluidity, and her body itself seems to struggle to curve - the movement towards orgasm is, for me at least a continuous effort of him to wrap himself around that pattern, to work his own slouched angularity into the Eastern curvaceousness that he imagines of her.

But there's the problem. And don't get me wrong, this is totally realistic. But there are two Rainas in this book: Raina the goddess-muse-angel, and Raina the woman. The book is from Craig's point of view, and Craig sees what he needs to see - in his noble naivete, he sees what Raina could be, perhaps. But she isn't. She's a human. She fails to be a goddess, over, and over, and over. Amanda, when she read it, said she just didn't get Raina, like it seemed like she was always changing her mind. I understand Raina, I connected with her in a way that I was incapable of connecting with Craig: because I've been that person. And what she does makes perfect sense - only what she does and what Craig SEES her doing are very, very different things.

In the end, for me, that's what the book ended up being about - the moment where you learn that someone isn't what you thought. And that's why I didn't enjoy it. It was uncomfortable, because I have no idea what it is like to fall in love with someone and find out they don't exist - I had the good fortune to marry a Craig - someone who is unfailingly,  completely, exactly who they are. Not that Amanda is perfect, but she is honest, and Craig is the same way - even when he lies, he's telling the truth. I HAVE been the opposite - someone who desperately needed the world to make more sense, someone who made up a story because it seemed to explain things - and then painted over it when it turns out that telling a story doesn't make it so. There's a moment, as I saw all the prints of his blanket seeping into his vision of Raina, that I wanted to shake Craig, physically, and shout at him "Don't you see? She didn't give you a blanket of her, she gave you a blanket of you!" But of course, you can't do that - in a sense, perhaps Craig had to look in someone else to find himself. But for me, this story was foreign, distant - the story that felt present is the story of Raina - who is she in the end? She can't learn what's right, just one more thing that's wrong - and the wrong isn't in Craig, or even in their relationship. Those things were healthy, it's Raina that wasn't healthy - if she were healthy, she could have, perhaps, been what she needed to be. You can only paint the wall so many times, her story whispers, you can only paint the wall so many times. One more coat of paint, now, but still I know. You can only paint the wall so many times.

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Sandman, Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

(Note, I don't know how you're supposed to list comic books, so I just listed the writer, hopefully that's okay?)

A long, long time ago, I came across the second 'Sandman' story arc - A Doll's House. It still haunts me - in a good way, but also in a way that means I would need a lot of moral courage to pick up Sandman, ever, again. Or any Neil Gaiman - I've never read anything else by him except Blueberry Girl, which thankfully didn't seem to come from quite the same part of Mr G's imagination. I liked Doll's House - a lot. But the reasons I liked - it's strange ability to tap into your own subconscious, for instance - was also why I've since avoided it.

Just over the last little while, I (like probably everyone else on earth, I guess) have followed Mr Gaiman on twitter - he's an excellent tweeter, and the experience of listening to him has really made me feel like he's one of the nicest people. Twitter is nice that way, when used righ,t because it shows people for who they are, and who Mr Gaiman is, is a genuinely sweet person. Aside from seeing Coraline last year (AHHHHHHHHH!), I've thus been bombarded with the idea that maybe, just maybe I should try him again.

Well, guess what, I'm not sure Preludes and Nocturnes is the best book to convince me that I have developed sufficient moral courage to read Neil Gaiman.

I say that because there is some very, very, VERY intense ideas in here. If you do not want to be disturbed, this book is not recommended, because it is a genuinely disturbing read, particularly certain chapters of it (24 Hours! Ah!). I won't sugarcoat it. This book is hideously, deformedly ugly in terms of what happens.

And nonetheless, it was also beautiful, sweet, even playful at times. The last story has widely been hailed as the best in the book, and in the afterword, Mr Gaiman says he first found his own unique voice writing it. And he's write, I hear more of the Neil I hear twittering in this book: A little off perhaps, but clever, good-hearted, optimistic and realistic, quirky, irreverent. It's a sweet, meaningful story, not a perfect story, but a real one. And then peppered through the other stories there is tehse same bright moments. The scene with Constantine's old girlfriend was moving, for instance, and the scene in which the Martian Manhunter offers one of the other superheroes to come in and have some Oreos had that pleasantly quirky esotericism that I love in the author.

And in the darker parts, there are moments that are uniquely powerful. The disturbing stuff is, genuinely, disturbing, of course, but beyond that, he taps into some of the more subtly queasy parts of human nature. Take Dream's response to Lucifer (yes, that Lucifer), when Lucifer threatens to keep him captured in hell:

You say I have no power? Perhaps you speak truly. But-- you say that dreams have no power here? Tell me, Lucifer Morningstar... Ask yourselves, all of you... what power would Hell have if those imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?

The power of the quote - and the power of the best of Gaiman's moments - is it's duality. On the one hand, sure, the demons he's speaking to stil maintain a semblance of humanity, because a part of their soul can still dream of heaven. It is their one comfort - and even if it is the comfort that makes them continue to suffer, it's also a real, meaningful comfort, it is teh 'hope' that earlier defeats the powers of Hell, to return Dream's helmet to him.

But then, on the other side, it is that same dream - a dream that is, after all impossible to come true - that teases the demons to do desperate, terrible wickedness. Love and Hope cannot live without a dream. But neither can hate - without the dream of revenge, of return, they could have no force to hate with. So it is with humans. Take the 'American Dream' in it's various forms over the years. IT's the dream that drove Edison to make the lightbulb, it's the dream that drove American soldiers to free the concentration camps. It's also the dream that drove American soldiers to slaughter the indians, and the dream that drives the consumerism that enslaves most of the world today. Dreams are messy, amoral things - as is Dream himself. Another example of this is in the scene where Rosemary is being held captive by Dee. The force of human connection is there throughout the whole section. And it's what makes us love Rosemary - who I really did love. Say Stockholm Syndrome all you like, but reading the pages as she drove John Dee to his destination, and slowly began to pity and understand him - as a human being, instead of a monster and a criminal - I felt the best of human nature, the ability to look past anything to see and love another person. Of course, that universal human love (SPOILER!)




ends up getting Rosemary killed, when there are several points if you reread the section, when she COULD have stopped him. At one point, the gun just sits on the dashboard between them - and it's clear that Dee is both not all there and deeply distracted - and it even feels for a while as if he's feeling a little more human himself. IT would have been so easy for her to take the gun, and shoot him. And it would have saved not only her, but countless others. Love is a double edged sword, and cold reason is as well.




(END SPOILER)

Of course, the search for Gaiman's voice in the book has it's negative ramifications. There are stories - and points in stories - that feel slow. Or overdone. Or hackneyed. The book is very imperfect, it's pacing is uneven and confusing sometimes, some of the stories feel gratuitous and childish, at moments. But, in a sense, I'm glad they feel this way. There is a sort of book-within-a-book, where you watch as an artist grapples with himself, with his faultless skill at mimicking other artists, with maybe even a little timidity and awkwardness over how to speak for himself, and in the end, you see him take the dangerous leap and become his own self. It's a powerful tale in itself, even if Gaiman I imagine reads through the book now and feels dissatisfied and frustrated with his mistakes.

Just as a side note, if you, like me, are a complete geek, there are fan annotations of every Sandman story at http://www.arschkrebs.de/sandman/annotations/. This can be particularly helpful if you, like me, know NOTHING about the connections made to the larger superhero world (I, for instance, had not idea who the heck the Martian Manhunter was). Sometimes the annotations are good, sometimes less so, but nonetheless, an interesting reference.

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