/lit/ - Literature

>>10983642
>>10984227
this is from a review of that book on amazon:

>the Sandstone Papers speaks to the myriad questions that arise in the midst of the passing moments--commuting to work, walking to-and-fro, riding in a silent elevator, a curious glance made by a fellow pedestrian, waiting in line at the post office, in those moments just before closing one's eyes before a night's sleep. Marty Glass has a unique gift of being able to address the needs of the diverse seekers in an era that, in many ways, refuses to recognize how perplexed it truly is. The `signs of the times' are everywhere and yet an imperative question is posed: what role or character are you playing in the allegory called life?

that last sentence is so interesting. this idea - contrary to the absolutely summoning existentialist ideas of being the Subject Supposed to Know, and with everything that follows from this, whether from nietzsche or jung or freud...what if there's a much smarter way of looking at this?

you're one of these characters. a passing character in someone else's life. just a type, not the hero. one of my favorite things about ff6 was how it elided so cleverly the idea of the Big Hero Who Changes Everything. because that role goes, as always, to the one who suffers the most - and who was in that case kefka, the doomsday clown who is experimented on Because Reasons and Because Modernity. he's not the hero, but he does Change Everything, and he does it because he is a victim of circumstances. ff6 has no true hero, not even terra. and they are all struggling with nihilism, in some form or another. even before the apocalyptic event actually occurs within the plot.

when you aren't the hero anymore - when even heroes can't change the way things are - things change. now this is *not* the message parents tell their children, for obvious reasons. but i've been wondering about this like this for years.

in some sense, the yuga isn't really caused by deliberate action, of course. it happens for reasons only partly thinkable in terms of a mandate of heaven. in the west we call it modernity, capitalism i guess. but when the revolution *fails*...i mean this is where we really have to think about things way more carefully. and even at the end of ff6 it's not like the land gets cured.

the point is not to talk about vidya even more, given that there's a dedicated board for that. more that the idea of accepting that maybe you can only really practice a kind of fidelity to a misguided type...all of the hype about Be Yourself and Be Authentic and the rest - what if it's just not possible? you really can't Be Yourself. it just might not work that way. even baudrillard's 'i am my own simulacra' sounds kind of desperate.

i guess i'll have to pick up a copy of that book.