Continuation.
Same deal as in part 1 of this short story collection.
I'm going to explore only Erostratus as it took me quite a long while to do, mostly due to an inability to grasp motivations and several reading errors compounding my missapprehension and the subsequent write-up(s).
Erostratus
He sits down fully clothed, in self-apparent control, inhabiting the one dominant position in the room. He tells her to undress and gets her out of her comfort zone and tells her to strut across the room naked. When her humiliation threatens to rally itself into anger he takes away her reacquisition of control through self-righteous anger by suggesting, via the showing of the gun, violence. This is his first public display of the gun. He likely hadn't consciously planned for this, but the desire for it was there all along; the blade itself.
He then mocks and berates her and finally allows her to climax him when he is in full control, having diminished her self in favour of his. Smiling with contempt he then pays her and leaves her stunned and likely traumatized in his wake. It is Erostratus on a one-on-one level, on a mental/memory level, but again: He doesn't know it yet.
Afterwards he dreams of committing violence and regrets not having shot the prostitute.
Soon after, at the office, the man learns of the story of Erostratus and finally he has a plan to meaningfully work his cravings around.
At the point where The Erostratus-story is laid out to the protagonist, something triggers within him. Erostratus' idea matches a previously unrevealed plan (to us, though possibly hinted at) of the man to commit an act of violence for the sake of posterity. The story doesn't inspire him directly because apparently the plan was there all along but here it crystalizes and it encourages him to continue. To commit to it fully.
Or that's what popular opinion might be.
Because he doesn't really: because in the end; spoiler alert; As The man's Erostratic idea doesn't fully govern his life and because he doesn't commit to it to the exclusion of doubts and other wants, he fails.
So, the story is revealed to him and the man goes into overdrive. He stops going to work and he starts planning while constantly fantasizing about what he might do.
He writes his manifesto in letters to a 102 different writers, but just like him the letter is a pointless and unfocused shambles, describing his intent in conflicting sentiments while at the same time unconsciously underlining his own weak frailties. It's a rambling account, jumping from idea to idea backed up by strings of disconnected observations and accounts of situations real or imagined.
The protagonist, whose name I ironically can not remember, starts his first person narrative describing his various philosophies and ideas while unwittingly shining a light on his own paranoia and his inability to connect with the society around him.
This is a character leading a 'somber life' but things ease up for him when he buys a gun, gripping it inside his coatpocket to give himself assurance and a sense of power. He fixates himself on it, identifies with it and looks for an opportunity to bring it with him wherever he goes. Because like in the Homer quote and, more relevant to me, the Joe Abercrombie novel; 'The blade itself incites to deeds of violence'. It empowers and assures, it strengthens and more than that; demands to be used.
His moment arrives when he seeks his regular go-to prostitute. Unable to find her, he chooses to go for another but because of his paranoia and shy nature, he first goes home to bring back the gun.
Now, the story's title comes from a scene in the book where a co-worker describes to him the story of the greek citizen, Heterostratus/Erostratus, who acquired fame by burning down the temple of Ephesus for no other reason than to be known for that singular act of arson. Having long had a vague plan for a crime like the one the ancient greek committed, he is encouraged and inspired by this story to lift himself up from everyday mediocrity to gain, like said greek, fame and notoriety.
And even before he learns of the story of Erostratus we see that every act in the book that satisfies him has its motivation in this desire; to be remembered, to dominate other's thoughts mostly through notorious acclaim.
This is why he does what he does when he humiliates the prostitute he has picked up early in the short story. With the new prostitute he isn't familiar with or attracted to he is uncertain but he wrests control back by mentally dominating her. From implanting his face in her mind, in the effort to erase all her customer's faces, the ones before and after, in favour of the one she'll not be able to forget; the man who mocked, laughed at and humiliated her. He wrongfoots her before letting her physically satisfy him. He doesn't seem to coherently realize this; afterwards he thinks to himself that what he wants is to surprise others.
He sits down fully clothed, in self-apparent control, inhabiting the one dominant position in the room. He tells her to undress and gets her out of her comfort zone and tells her to strut across the room naked. When her humiliation threatens to rally itself into anger he takes away her reacquisition of control through self-righteous anger by suggesting, via the showing of the gun, violence. This is his first public display of the gun. He likely hadn't consciously planned for this, but the desire for it was there all along; the blade itself.
He then mocks and berates her and finally allows her to climax him when he is in full control, having diminished her self in favour of his. Smiling with contempt he then pays her and leaves her stunned and likely traumatized in his wake. It is Erostratus on a one-on-one level, on a mental/memory level, but again: He doesn't know it yet.
Afterwards he dreams of committing violence and regrets not having shot the prostitute.
Soon after, at the office, the man learns of the story of Erostratus and finally he has a plan to meaningfully work his cravings around.
At the point where The Erostratus-story is laid out to the protagonist, something triggers within him. Erostratus' idea matches a previously unrevealed plan (to us, though possibly hinted at) of the man to commit an act of violence for the sake of posterity. The story doesn't inspire him directly because apparently the plan was there all along but here it crystalizes and it encourages him to continue. To commit to it fully.
Or that's what popular opinion might be.
Because he doesn't really: because in the end; spoiler alert; As The man's Erostratic idea doesn't fully govern his life and because he doesn't commit to it to the exclusion of doubts and other wants, he fails.
So, the story is revealed to him and the man goes into overdrive. He stops going to work and he starts planning while constantly fantasizing about what he might do.
He writes his manifesto in letters to a 102 different writers, but just like him the letter is a pointless and unfocused shambles, describing his intent in conflicting sentiments while at the same time unconsciously underlining his own weak frailties. It's a rambling account, jumping from idea to idea backed up by strings of disconnected observations and accounts of situations real or imagined.
He starts off (my interpretation) with the idea that love is shared experience, shared being and how he isn't a part of that and between the lines one can read his envy for the writers' place within humanity, and his consequent disdain for the works of escapism that they write.
He says that he resents not being able to be himself because of the peer pressure of the rest of humanity, that he wanted to be unique, singular, to be a self-moving soul without the input of the rest of them and that he resents their intrusion into his mind. That they have altered him from who he could have been.
He informs the writers that he will kill six people somewhere in paris and ends with assuring them that he knows what he is doing, that he is fully in control and that it is an act purposely committed.
But like everything the man believes, it's a lie he tells himself.
He isn't in control, and he does not decide. He anticipates and prepares but is in fact unable to act unless he is prompted by outside stimuli.
The whore at the start questions and slighly mocks him which, fuelled as he then becomes by anger, enables him to escalate the situation.
The whore at the start questions and slighly mocks him which, fuelled as he then becomes by anger, enables him to escalate the situation.
Same when the man is finally ready to go out into the street to commit his violent act. He walks and he struts, assured in his power. But he does not commit to the violence. He has opportunity aplenty but he does not do it. And he in fact can not do it until someone finally physically reaches out to him. Before, he positioned himself directly so that coming events have no choice but to escalate, but he doesn't have the final choice. In the end he always reacts.
When the man reaches out to him he, to prevent from humiliating himself by screaming, panickedly shoots him three times and then despite his careful planning he runs in a different direction than previously set out on. A chicken without its head, he runs, straight into a crowd.
When the man reaches out to him he, to prevent from humiliating himself by screaming, panickedly shoots him three times and then despite his careful planning he runs in a different direction than previously set out on. A chicken without its head, he runs, straight into a crowd.
In the crowd, the tightly packed crowd, with three bullets left, he does not take his time and, panicked, outside of his carefully planned comfort zone, instead shoots wildly. foregoing conscious aim and conscious design in favour of inner intent. The intent at the heart of his being: Stay away! rather than; Die!
It shows the lie he tells himself for what it is.
The intent of the weak man, abraded apart from society, ready to do violence to it because of his exclusion from it, his resentment at that and his fixation on this society that he can not be a part of.
Throughout the story he is always an observer and even in moments of intimacy is unable to take part fully.
It's how the tale opens and how it then continually progressess. He watches out of his window, looking at the men below, judging them but not letting them feel his disdain, not reaching out and instead holding that resentment close. He observes the whore, he observes the people streaming out of the theatre and is always solely in his mind. He sits in at the conversation at the office and interjects only a few comments, and unlike in his mind, he actually barely ripples the pool of their collective thoughts.
Every description in the story is about others or his seperation from them.
But he knows this. He is aware of it and his seclusion has become his salvation and he takes what little strength he has from it. It has become his monomania. And it needs to escalate. to become a statement. And that statement needs to be violence. But it's not what he wants.
If his ultimate design had been Erostratic fame through murder, at the point where he enters the crowd he could have picked off three targets here, 2 random passersby and himself or just three random people; Instead, his shooting wildly around (likely hurting no-one) shows the lie that the man apart from society only wished to kill it. He wants to be a part ot it. But because of his inability to be a part it through his own actions, he devises a plan that desperately demands society to take notice.
It shows the lie he tells himself for what it is.
The intent of the weak man, abraded apart from society, ready to do violence to it because of his exclusion from it, his resentment at that and his fixation on this society that he can not be a part of.
Throughout the story he is always an observer and even in moments of intimacy is unable to take part fully.
It's how the tale opens and how it then continually progressess. He watches out of his window, looking at the men below, judging them but not letting them feel his disdain, not reaching out and instead holding that resentment close. He observes the whore, he observes the people streaming out of the theatre and is always solely in his mind. He sits in at the conversation at the office and interjects only a few comments, and unlike in his mind, he actually barely ripples the pool of their collective thoughts.
Every description in the story is about others or his seperation from them.
But he knows this. He is aware of it and his seclusion has become his salvation and he takes what little strength he has from it. It has become his monomania. And it needs to escalate. to become a statement. And that statement needs to be violence. But it's not what he wants.
If his ultimate design had been Erostratic fame through murder, at the point where he enters the crowd he could have picked off three targets here, 2 random passersby and himself or just three random people; Instead, his shooting wildly around (likely hurting no-one) shows the lie that the man apart from society only wished to kill it. He wants to be a part ot it. But because of his inability to be a part it through his own actions, he devises a plan that desperately demands society to take notice.
The most obvious insight into this we get when he has finally done the deed and has run into a restaurant's bathroom. He waits and waits, all bullets gone but the final one that is destined for himself, until he gets outside input. But as the outside remains silent, and the thoughts lengthen in the quiet, he can not commit to the suicide he had planned for, and oh, aren't there reasons to hold off?
When voices outside suggest that he can not get away they halt and leave the choice up to him. He has their attention but not their input and doubt sets in. The reasons to hold off multiply and his resolution wavers. He, like in everything he does, fails to commit and invents excuses and doubles back on a forgotten hope for him to try and connect with society: The man was coughing when he left him and 'Maybe I didn't kill him...'
When he hears a sound outside prompting a commitment, he is still unable to kill himself and uncertain whether he has even killed a man; the act that was supposed to make of him a contemporary Erostratus, he steps outside.
When voices outside suggest that he can not get away they halt and leave the choice up to him. He has their attention but not their input and doubt sets in. The reasons to hold off multiply and his resolution wavers. He, like in everything he does, fails to commit and invents excuses and doubles back on a forgotten hope for him to try and connect with society: The man was coughing when he left him and 'Maybe I didn't kill him...'
When he hears a sound outside prompting a commitment, he is still unable to kill himself and uncertain whether he has even killed a man; the act that was supposed to make of him a contemporary Erostratus, he steps outside.
-----
Firstly; I obviously remember the protagonist's name. It's an ironic little joke that shows my disdain for the character.
Secondly; I do not like this story. I confess to feeling almost nothing but disdain for the ideas and idiosynchrasies that make this character tick. To take violence out on others because of failings of the self is deplorable. Failing, then, in the execution of a plan based on the doing of harm to others, to have as intent that this is supposed to be the public capping stone to the broadcasting of your privately held beliefs, is utterly pitiful.
Also, in the last part it becomes very difficult to talk about this character because I believe him to be expressly written by Sartre to be negative. He has been very carefully neutered of any sympathetic qualities. At parts where insight would be neccesary for motivation purposes there is none or it is completely hidden. I'm also guessing this is to arouse bewilderment in the reader at all the hidden and possibly conflicting emotions that are only hinted at when we see the outside response that the character gives; Laughter at odd times, singing, screams and curses with any internal reasoning absent. It suggests that at the end the character, through sleep-deprivation and mania becomes so emotionally disturbed and erratic that any sustained reasoning by him is solely governed by outside impulse and due to its insanity alien to conventional thought.
It's a First person narrative that reads like an unhinged Cormac Mcarthy, but placed almost completely on the inside, and treading close to the insane.
As usual: Slightly uncomfortable reading but very intimate and interesting despite its negativity.
Secondly; I do not like this story. I confess to feeling almost nothing but disdain for the ideas and idiosynchrasies that make this character tick. To take violence out on others because of failings of the self is deplorable. Failing, then, in the execution of a plan based on the doing of harm to others, to have as intent that this is supposed to be the public capping stone to the broadcasting of your privately held beliefs, is utterly pitiful.
Also, in the last part it becomes very difficult to talk about this character because I believe him to be expressly written by Sartre to be negative. He has been very carefully neutered of any sympathetic qualities. At parts where insight would be neccesary for motivation purposes there is none or it is completely hidden. I'm also guessing this is to arouse bewilderment in the reader at all the hidden and possibly conflicting emotions that are only hinted at when we see the outside response that the character gives; Laughter at odd times, singing, screams and curses with any internal reasoning absent. It suggests that at the end the character, through sleep-deprivation and mania becomes so emotionally disturbed and erratic that any sustained reasoning by him is solely governed by outside impulse and due to its insanity alien to conventional thought.
It's a First person narrative that reads like an unhinged Cormac Mcarthy, but placed almost completely on the inside, and treading close to the insane.
As usual: Slightly uncomfortable reading but very intimate and interesting despite its negativity.
-----
I could have easily approached this story as it was presented. The protagonist, straight-up, as a humanity-hating man. This is something that I dismissed because I chose to look at the story in a manner that made the man redeemable, however so slight.
If I had looked at this tale, approaching the man as a complete misanthrope, executing a plan solely gunning for true Erostratic fame; then it would be a silly story, wouldn't it?
Because after all; he utterly fails within the context of the story, on every level.
He doesn't commit to his plan, stalls and wavers at every turn, completely botches it when he finally does, ends up might not having killed even one person, and cowers in a bathroom and ends up being comforted by promises not to hurt him. He doesn't open the door because of those promises but it's a factor that nonetheless has an effect on him. He is pitiful in every way. The very picture of an inadequate terrorist.
Sartre's point to this story would have been ridicule I suppose. To show a profound contempt for the people like this, who think like this.
He makes his protagonist not a hero and not even an anti-hero. Just a character that we follow around for a little while. There's not a shred of sympathy to be found and when the story ends he will get beaten. He will get mocked and laughed at just like he did to others.
And yet. I'm almost certain this was the way it's supposed to be approached.
But I know only the barest of Sartre's philosophies and I like to approach the stories for story's sake. So I deliberately chose this other path.
I think it reads better the way I wrote it out initially, with the character's redeemable quality of subconsciously wanting to rejoin society, even if that is completely wrong.
And yet. I'm almost certain this was the way it's supposed to be approached.
But I know only the barest of Sartre's philosophies and I like to approach the stories for story's sake. So I deliberately chose this other path.
I think it reads better the way I wrote it out initially, with the character's redeemable quality of subconsciously wanting to rejoin society, even if that is completely wrong.
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