War of the Worlds


I got my degree (PhD) in English and at one time thought of myself an avant-garde writer; my hero was Beckett. But I got tired of that kind of work--it seems intentionally tiring--and though I still like difficult music (I can't carry a tune so difficult music is easy for me) I now prefer what could be called fiction and poetry and even movies that tell good stories well. It's surprisingly hard to do.

But after I read an article in *Liberation* on the US writer Brian Everson, in which they described him as a star in the post-modern firmament, I thought I should read his and others' work I'd neglected. It was an unpleasant experience. The work I had chosen was Everson's *Dark Matter*, chosen, in part, because it was slim and thus lightweight, good for a plane trip.

The phrase, "pretentious twaddle" springs to mind. No phrase rang true, no sentence right. Words were chosen purely for effect not sense, and if the word didn't exist ready made, Everson was all to happy to coin it fresh. Worse: he'd coin a new word even if an old one were waiting expectantly. Thus, scrutined not scrutinized. And of course vowels were made verbs not because they had to but because he wanted it that way. In fact, the entire disgusting narrative was an exercise in having one's will. The horrible story reflected the violence done in the words, a violence that was misogynistic, nihilistic, brutal.

What this sort of work does is privilege experience, for one can write a far more interesting essay expounding the logic and point, and far more lucidly, too. But why is the experience at all worthwhile? What is gained by such a tawdry circus of barbaric violence? The most obvious point would be a dislocation/dismantling of the subject, but I am sure that Everson has more lofty goals, at least I hope he does, as that goal is not new, Beckett and Céline could have spoken it, as could many others. I'm just not interested, for any lesson given by Everson is ultimately a sadistic performance of banality and control, and goes nowhere. In short, it's boring and really annoying.

I'd rather watch the movie Sin City again, which is just as misogynistic, just as violent, just as nihilistic, but so much better told, so much better narrated. Words are not the enemy, they are loved, they are the deadly friend: they make for the subject, just as they incriminate him. Sentences are in the Kafkaesque sense one's punishment, one's destiny, one's identity, one's subject. Why is this preferable to the antisubject nihilism of Everson? Because ultimately Everson's story is about himself, his ego, and as I said before, that's boring.

Something like that boredom attaches to Spielberg's War of the Worlds (WoW). Let's compare it to Independence Day (ID)of 1996. Both are more or less faithful retellings of Wells' famous story, with WoW being the more faithful--and more problematic. ID combines Wells with Shakespeare's Henry V--Bill Pullman as the young king giving the famous yet once more into the breach speech may cause second glances but it works. In fact, the movie works brilliantly, and is both a rousing movie as well as a purely enjoyable experience in which one loses oneself in the pleasure of the narrative.

In contrast, WoW has compelling images and a narrative but there is a fatal disconnect between the two. Instead of each scene, each plot node moving the narrative forward, they isolate it: no flow but stutter. We see Tom Cruise in this or that perilous spot, we see him emote, we see him do things and we are conscious we are seeing all this. The scenes are spectacular, they are brilliantly set. The entire picture in my memory has become black and white riven with crimson, blood as in Sin City, but the scenes do not each lose their individual identity to become part of the trajectory. Zeno's paradox made film. In contrast, no one scene or act is so overwhelmingly important in ID that it stops motion; there is rather the arc of the arrow that is of interest not the interest in its arc.

Tom is not at fault here. The fault really lies in Wells' rather lame story (for 2005) and in Spielberg's adaptation of it. When Wells wrote it more than 100 years ago, germs were big news--he went on to write other stories in which they featured prominently, as did Mark Twain. Sure they are still big news--think of H5N1--but as figured in the story, the germs the aliens die from are the only germs in the story. So, as a metaphor they don't work and as a narrative ploy, they also don't work, as they are effectively a deus ex machina.

Of course, in ID, germs are also important--which is one reason it's a retelling of Wells' story. The disaffected and very clever Seth is inspired to think of using a computer virus against the alien's system when his overprotective father warns him about catching cold. Deployed, the virus fatally kills the alien system. Does this make sense? Not really: Seth is able to devise the virus in the space of what seems like a day against a computer system that is alien. But it makes narrative and emotional sense, as we like Seth and like Pullman and like the father and like the stereotypes (scattered like familiar jewels) and the twice told tale this is. So we forgive silliness like the devising of the virus and join in on the game.

And that's what's missing with the post-modern shattering of narrative arc into pixillations: the reader is not really invited to join in on the fun as much as forced (within bounds) to listen to what amounts in the end, something didactic and just a little boring.

Posted: Tue - October 25, 2005 at 06:37 PM          

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