The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. ISBN: 9780307268860.
One of the main elements of this book was the ability to retain your humanity while becoming less, er, "human" versus the inability to retain your humanity if you give up your individuality and become a part of the machine. In this case the machine happens to be a big, bad corporation, but you could argue that there are many varieties of machines available for us human cogs to become part of in this day and age.
I've been a good little pair of human hands, but I haven't gotten my reward yet, that reward being a more permanent part of the Society Machine, a place where I can do my job and be content at that. I mean, I've done what I can to get there. I went through all the little factories, starting with grade school all the way up to grad school (funny that the only difference seems to be one letter and several thousand dollars). Maybe Antioch was a tiny bit mold-breaking, but it was good for me nonetheless. And I have never felt like more of a cog than when I went through Kent State's program. I mean come on, my academic advisor didn't even read my senior project... or at least didn't bother making any remarks on it other than, "Your project is extensive."
What the fuck does that mean?
Anyway, where's my job? I'm sittin' here waiting to hear back from the university in Tennessee, and I'm hoping to hear a big fat yes from them, but it's so frustrating. I wasn't made for waiting. I'm not a decorative cog, I'm a greasy, dirty, hard-workin' kind of cog. I am totally willing to lose a tiny bit of individuality to get lost in the system, just so I can do something with my life. There's plenty of time outside the 40 or so hours I'd be required to spend in a job to do individual stuff. Please, please, please, someone let me be part of the damned machine.
I'll even do my own maintenance and oiling so I don't get squeaky.
Showing posts with label gone-away world-the. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gone-away world-the. Show all posts
27 May 2010
26 May 2010
Day 60: The Gone-Away World
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. ISBN: 978307268860.
There is a moment in this book, which brought back such strong memories that I can't avoid writing about it. It is a terribly delicate and difficult thing for me to talk about. That moment is when a soldier is shot and our POV-person is comforting him. The words he uses are, "I know, I know it hurts, and you are dying. I know, I am here." Although my grandmother has never been shot, to my knowledge, I have watched her on the brink of death, and these are more or less the words that ran through my head as I watched.
It was in 2005, I was in Germany working on my last co-op and staying with my mother. I didn't want to go back to the States because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to complete enough hours for my co-op or be able to finish my coursework for the correspondence course I was taking. I also didn't want to be the only grandchild to see my grandmother like that. I wanted to keep my fond memories of her puttering around the kitchen or walking the nature trails at Oxley Nature Reserve* in oversized sunglasses and a big floppy fisherman's hat. I am sad that I didn't get to keep those memories untarnished by seeing her weak, and frail, and out of her mind in pain. But I am also glad that I was there for her when she needed me, and for my mother too.
My grandmother was going through renal failure, which means her kidneys had stopped working. Between the pain and the drugs she was very seldom lucid. When she was, we tried to get her to eat, which she didn't want to do. At one point I asked her if I could get her anything to eat; she asked for butter pecan ice cream. I came back with vanilla because it was all they had in the cafeteria. In the time it took me to go three floors down and a few wards over and come back, she had lost her appetite. Luckily my grandfather was in the room and lunged for the ice cream, eating it straight out of my hand, after I asked him if he wanted it. It was like being not-quite-attacked by a really stringy dog.
Another time I was there when she started to wake up because her painkillers were wearing off. She was obviously in pain, and I kept asking her if she wanted me to call a nurse, but she kept refusing. I was stuck with the horrible decision of whether I should listen to my grandmother's wishes, or take matters into my own hands and have her drugged against her will. I don't know if it was right by her, but I had her drugged. And when I held her in my arms so the nurse could give her a suppository, I did my best not to bruise her onion-paper-thin skin or to look at the puckered scar where her breast used to be when her gown slipped. I tried not to see my grandmother as a fragile, suffering woman saying, "no, no, no, no," over and over again until the morphine started to kick in. She was too weak to even struggle, but as we laid her back down and smoothed her hospital gown and tucked her back in, she said to me, "Jane,** you have such a wonderful daughter." Jane is my aunt, married to my grandmother's son. I'm not sure if her brain was too confused and she meant me, or if she thought I was my mother, or if she actually thought I was Jane. It doesn't really matter, I thanked her all the same, told her I was sorry, and kissed her forehead as she went back into drug-induced sleep.
My mother assured me I did the right thing. I know I did the right thing for myself. It was too much to watch her writhe and convulse when she already had so little energy, but I did order a violation of her rights and her body, no matter how well meaning. I don't know that I will ever be okay with that, or with the fact that this is the strongest memory I have left of my grandmother. I know that it is the treatment I would have given an animal in pain, and I know that her body needed the rest only drugs could give her in order to heal, and I know it's the treatment I would want, even if I was refusing it at the time, but sometimes I worry that her humanity demanded more. And that I denied it.
My grandmother did recover from her renal failure. She lived another four months or so, I don't recall exactly. She just slipped away, painlessly, and that was what I wanted for her.
*If you're feeling generous, please make a donation in my name.
**Name changed, because I'm not sure how much my relatives want to be involved in this blog.
There is a moment in this book, which brought back such strong memories that I can't avoid writing about it. It is a terribly delicate and difficult thing for me to talk about. That moment is when a soldier is shot and our POV-person is comforting him. The words he uses are, "I know, I know it hurts, and you are dying. I know, I am here." Although my grandmother has never been shot, to my knowledge, I have watched her on the brink of death, and these are more or less the words that ran through my head as I watched.
It was in 2005, I was in Germany working on my last co-op and staying with my mother. I didn't want to go back to the States because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to complete enough hours for my co-op or be able to finish my coursework for the correspondence course I was taking. I also didn't want to be the only grandchild to see my grandmother like that. I wanted to keep my fond memories of her puttering around the kitchen or walking the nature trails at Oxley Nature Reserve* in oversized sunglasses and a big floppy fisherman's hat. I am sad that I didn't get to keep those memories untarnished by seeing her weak, and frail, and out of her mind in pain. But I am also glad that I was there for her when she needed me, and for my mother too.
My grandmother was going through renal failure, which means her kidneys had stopped working. Between the pain and the drugs she was very seldom lucid. When she was, we tried to get her to eat, which she didn't want to do. At one point I asked her if I could get her anything to eat; she asked for butter pecan ice cream. I came back with vanilla because it was all they had in the cafeteria. In the time it took me to go three floors down and a few wards over and come back, she had lost her appetite. Luckily my grandfather was in the room and lunged for the ice cream, eating it straight out of my hand, after I asked him if he wanted it. It was like being not-quite-attacked by a really stringy dog.
Another time I was there when she started to wake up because her painkillers were wearing off. She was obviously in pain, and I kept asking her if she wanted me to call a nurse, but she kept refusing. I was stuck with the horrible decision of whether I should listen to my grandmother's wishes, or take matters into my own hands and have her drugged against her will. I don't know if it was right by her, but I had her drugged. And when I held her in my arms so the nurse could give her a suppository, I did my best not to bruise her onion-paper-thin skin or to look at the puckered scar where her breast used to be when her gown slipped. I tried not to see my grandmother as a fragile, suffering woman saying, "no, no, no, no," over and over again until the morphine started to kick in. She was too weak to even struggle, but as we laid her back down and smoothed her hospital gown and tucked her back in, she said to me, "Jane,** you have such a wonderful daughter." Jane is my aunt, married to my grandmother's son. I'm not sure if her brain was too confused and she meant me, or if she thought I was my mother, or if she actually thought I was Jane. It doesn't really matter, I thanked her all the same, told her I was sorry, and kissed her forehead as she went back into drug-induced sleep.
My mother assured me I did the right thing. I know I did the right thing for myself. It was too much to watch her writhe and convulse when she already had so little energy, but I did order a violation of her rights and her body, no matter how well meaning. I don't know that I will ever be okay with that, or with the fact that this is the strongest memory I have left of my grandmother. I know that it is the treatment I would have given an animal in pain, and I know that her body needed the rest only drugs could give her in order to heal, and I know it's the treatment I would want, even if I was refusing it at the time, but sometimes I worry that her humanity demanded more. And that I denied it.
My grandmother did recover from her renal failure. She lived another four months or so, I don't recall exactly. She just slipped away, painlessly, and that was what I wanted for her.
*If you're feeling generous, please make a donation in my name.
**Name changed, because I'm not sure how much my relatives want to be involved in this blog.
25 May 2010
Day 59: The Gone-Away World
This is a most hideous cover. I apologize, but I'm not the author, and what was he thinking? Because of this I will make an exception of including the book cover for every post I write about this particular horrendously bedecked book. So you only have to see it once, but I get to keep blathering about it. You're welcome.
Since I'm already on the topic of book covers, let's go with that. This book has actually been almost painful to read. It feels like the cover itself is telling me to go away and play outside. Even with the book open, the colors almost scream at me. I am rather familiar with the whole not judging a book crap. I am rather familiar about the whole not judging a book crap. But you know what, it often does say a lot, if not about the book, then at least about the author. Or at the very least, whoever had control of selecting the cover.
What is this book about? This book is about a world that was created after a terrible, terrible "Go Away" bomb was dropped. This bomb has done something to change the world so that mutant-y things roam the earth...I think. In this case the blaring cover causes about as much confusion as the writing. We're introduced to a mass of characters in a bar, and as we're just getting to know them the power goes out, and Oh look! End of the world! Do we get to see a handy resolution to this, with a lovely climactic build-up and a hero-saves-the-day ending? Well...I don't know yet. Because Harkaway went from end of the world to OMG BACKSTORY INSERT HERE!!! And I haven't gotten past it yet. I try not to post before I finish the book in case there are some big hooj themes that reach up and slap my head around with thoughty goodness. But technically, the cover is both the start and the end of the book, so um, yeah.
Anyway, what I was saying about the cover... This guy is smart. There's a lot of smart in the book. Maybe a little too much smart. Those studies in philosophy and sociology and politics may have helped Harkaway write this book, but they did not give him marketing smarts. What says end of the world like make-me-puke-after-three-hours-of-color-induced-migraine? Well, yeah, not this actually. The colors are just a little too cheery and jarring to really put me in the mood for a wild ride through...hundreds of pages of backstory.
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