Go home Meursault--you're drunk

I think that one of the reasons why there is so much conflict in the sixth chapter of The Stranger is because Meursault is drunk, and this impairs his ability to think clearly about what he is doing. He is no longer the passive, nonchalant character from the first few chapters but instead displays emotion as he forgets to put on his apathetic act. 

Aside from the fact that Meursault tells us that he drank tons of wine during their beach picnic, there are other hints that Meursault is not in his usual state of mind as he has been before.

In this chapter, for the first time we see Meursualt taking sides in an argument instead of just passively watching and calling things "interesting." Perhaps being drunk makes Meursault forget the fact that he's supposed to be "emotionless." Not reacting to things emotionally must take a great deal of thought and effort, and in his sober state Meursault is used to being able to filter out his emotions completely. But, once he is drunk he is no longer able to filter things normally.

This is evidenced through the fights with the men who follow Raymond and Meursault to the beach. Meursault seems to have some sort of emotional investment in the fights because instead of standing back and not fighting he takes a side with Raymond. This is a first, because in other conflicts he has never really intervened but merely watched (e.g. when Raymond beats his girlfriend and when the old man beats his dog). In the beach fights, though, Meursault looks out for Raymond by yelling "Look out, he's got a knife!". This not only shows that he was on Raymond's side, but that he was somehow emotionally invested enough to want to warn Raymond of the weapon.

Also, the way Meursault describes the beach and the hot summer day is very surreal and almost dream-like. This is because he was drunk and not seeing the world as clearly as before. He comments on the fact that he has a piercing headache and can't stand the hot sunlight. Maybe this was because he was dehydrated and the alcohol in his system also caused him to get sick. (I looked this up, and apparently drinking too much on a hot summer day makes you more likely to get heat illnesses.) 

Perhaps Meursault's drunkenness is the reason why he chooses to shoot the man four more times than necessary. This is also an example of Meursault feeling emotion because he says that the four shots created unhappy emotions for him: "Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness. "

All the same, I don't think that the fact that he was drunk makes his crime any less serious. It would be false to say "Oh, well. He was drunk so he didn't actually mean to kill anybody." What I do think is interesting, though, is seeing this second side to Meursault where he shows at least a small bit of emotion (fear/judgement/unhappiness). 

Reading books to read minds

I was listening to NPR a week or so ago and I heard a Story of the Day podcast that was about the study that found that reading literature makes you more socially adept by enhancing your ability to perceive the thoughts and feelings of people around you. I thought immediately of The Sun Also Rises.

The study compared what they called popular fiction novels, books with predictable plots and common tropes, and literary fiction which tends to be more focused on complex character development and hidden meanings. Many times, readers have to infer what's going on in literary novels. 

The scientists found that the people who read literary fiction did better on tests of mind reading, and the group who read popular fiction did about as well as people who hadn't read anything at all. The explanation for this was that reading books is like immersing yourself in a new world of social interaction, and that even though it is a fictional one you still go through some of the same analysis and thinking when reading literary fiction that you do when interacting in real life.

I think Ernest Hemingway is a good example of this kind of literary fiction that makes you think critically about human interaction. The Sun Also Rises is a great example of a book that requires much inference to be fully understood.  The iceberg effect that Hemingway uses means that you almost have to read the book twice to get all the references and small details that are important to how the story unfolds.

The Sun Also Rises is a book that revolves completely around social interaction with ironic subtext that the reader has to decipher.  Jake's narration gives more background understanding and also interprets the conversations that he has with the people around him. One good example of this is all of the meaning behind Jake's last words of the novel: "Yes, isn't it pretty to think so?". Throughout the entire book, the reader has to interpret Jake's narration to figure out how exactly his judgements and biases influence the story. 

Perhaps this was one of the reasons why I didn't like the book very much when we first began reading. I didn't pick up on all of the small details, and I couldn't understand how a story like this would be interesting. It seemed to have little plot aside from various relationship conflicts and drinking at bars. After all the class discussions, though, the book became more interesting as we made connections and inferred what was going on in the story.

I personally think that it's cool to think that after reading literary fiction we're better at mind reading. It almost makes me want to go out and read a bunch of literary fiction just so that I can be a mind reader and (if I may reference Mrs. Dalloway just once more) be able to know people by instinct like Clarissa Dalloway felt she could.

If Bill Gorton was a taxidermist

Bill Gorton would probably make ridiculously ironic stuffed animals if he ever decided to become a taxidermist. He would also probably come up with most of these ideas while drunk. (Picture taken on the Uni German trip)

We walked down the St. Martin Strasse on a chilly June evening. The road split into two. One road was surrounded by small shops. The other had mostly hotels and restaurants. 

"We are smack dab in the middle of tourist central."  Brigitte pointed to the shops. "Better pull out your wallet because we're expected to pay some big bucks here. Garmisch doesn't pull anything over on me."

We walked on.

"Here's a fun tourist shop," Brigitte said. "Want to buy anything? Perhaps a stuffed hare?" 
"Come on," I said, "You can't seriously be buying into that tourist trap."
"Suppose they're hiding drugs in in it," Brigitte joked.
"Whoever made it was probably on those drugs," I said. 
"I want one," said Brigitte, "Just one winged bunny. And it even smokes!"
"For 50 euros? Hell no."
"Think of what it'd mean to have one though. You pay for their drug addiction. They give you a centerpiece to scare the neighbors." 
"It'd probably scare customs more than your neighbors."
"Fine. Have it your way. Doomed to a life of mediocre decor. Don't say I didn't warn you."

We walked on.