DISCLAMER: Here's an essay I wrote about temporal discontinuities, as portrayed by the American novelist Don DeLillo. I wrote it last semester and its been sitting on my mind, so I decided to throw it on the blog. The novel presupposes the reading of two of DeLillo's novels (Underworld and Cosmopolis). Enjoy.
Temporal Discontinuities: A Shift Portrayed By the Consummate Author
Faryan Amir-Ghassemi
When dealing with historical epistemologies relevant to our society’s evolution, an avid observer of change must denote the sticky switch from modernity to post-modernity. One of the first rules of post-modernism (unspoken, yet resonant) is that post-modernism isn’t the linear progression that follows modernism. It exists, almost fleetingly, in a deviant timeline. The historian Michel Foucault denotes transitions between generations or time periods as discontinuities, the “stigma of temporal dislocation that it was the historian’s task to remove from history” (Foucault, 8). The “anthropological themes” (methodologiess of differentiating epochs and eras) that we dictate upon our history seem to fall short in deducing this latest, and greatest transition into the post.
However, from a societal standpoint, shifts in aggregate behavior patterns shed light into this troubling discontinuity, for society often does not fully catch up with the metanarratives that guide it.
Through the course of the semester, our analysis of post-modern literature has exhibited a wide range of perspectives, from different timepoints. Our most prevalent and notorious author, Don DeLillo, created two literary works that dwell within opossing time periods (1960s-1990, and 21st century, respectively). Underworld, his unofficial masterpiece, dealt with cold war structures within the collapse of modernity, while neoliberal thematics were analyzed through truly postmodern light in Cosmopolis. The hyper-acceleration of the societal upheval, as portrayed by one author, through two novels, speaks of the transitory shift that our society has seemingly disregarded. The Foucaultian discontinuity can be exemplefied through the subtleties and differences of the two texts.
Before we can analyze the differences in the texts, we must understand the shift that guides the transition. At the end of the Second World War, the prevelant theorems regarding philosophy and humanity seemed to have been obliterated by the carnage that ensued during those disasterous years. The inception of post-modernism was creeping close, and much of the “civilized” world struggled with the absurdist nature of their decimated existence. Modernism, which rejected romanticism and realism, through its development of impressionism, futurism and suprematism (among other cultural movements) was dealing with an abundance of nihilistic and absurdist post war philosophy (e.g. Beckett, Camus). Some argue (most notably Robert Hughes) that this global shift could bear the creation of postmodernism as the successor of antiquated modernity (Wikipedia, 2004). However, this linear progression doesn’t hold valid to our Foucaultian perspective. Modernism did not simply vanish after the Nuremberg Trials; it still exists in our society today. The bleeding of the antiquated philosophies is as prevalent as the citing of obsolete technologies in the eyes of Eric Packer.
The analogy of “bleeding” begins to explain the cultural mixture that we are dealing with. However, the economic term stagflation seems to be much more apt in describing the situation. Stagflation was an economic condition that occurred during the OPEC pricing years in the 70s, when inflation increases while growth does not. If you use that analogy within a cultural context, the cultural progression continues to inflate (creating new philosophies such as post-modernism), while the antiquated or regressive culture (modernism) equilibrates in the less avant-garde areas of the society. For example, in the United States, we find the most burgeoning cultural regions in the heavily urbanite and consumerist sectors, such as New York City and Los Angeles (highly post-modern), while the culture of the more rural and suburban areas stagnates behind the urban thrust. So we find ourselves, today, in a post-modern, modernist stew. Albeit, due to the proliferation of mass media, the more regressive sectors catch up quicker towards the progressive; nevertheless, stagflation prevails.
Even so, we must be careful when trying to deduce the cultural and philosophical changes of such an entropic period of time, to a simple economic phenomenon. Our historical perspective still skews towards congruent and linear progression. We have learned all our life about the transition of epochs (from the Dark Ages to the Renaiscance to the Scientific Revolution etc…), and there is some truth in their demarcative bearings. We simply can not discount progressive discontinuity, for the sake of stagflating culture. There must be some sort of shift from modernist thought to postmodernist thought. This gap reminds me of the author Jorge Luis Borges. David Foster Wallace writes, “Borges is arguably the great bridge between modernism and post-modernism in world literature. He is modernist in that his fiction shows a first-rate human mind stripped of all foundations in religious or ideological certainty -- a mind turned thus wholly in on itself.” On the other hand, he exudes postmodernism because, “he knows that there's finally no difference -- that murderer and victim, detective and fugitive, performer and audience are the same” (Wallace, 2004). If Borges can act as a paradigm, or our literary “bridge,” we must understand the characteristics of such a transitory author. It is in Borges’ works, which detail the problems between individualistic romanticism and mass culture that we can find this.
If modernism harkens on isolation and absurdism, while post-modernism attempts to explain collectivism and meta-narrative consumer culture, there can be an “absolute point” where the transition reveals itself. Francis Fukuyama, among others, would denote the end of the cold war (symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall) as the turn into neoliberal hegemony. From neoliberalism, we find a new metanarrative to govern our existence, one that propels postmodernism to its highest degree.
The overarching thematic element of Underworld was, undeniably, the Cold War. It begins to develop with the “shot heard around the world,” as the paradigm for the ball applies towards the Russian nuclear testing. It was a historical epiphany, in that the traditional (Claueswitzian) war paradigm was no longer valid, as two enemies both yeilded the keys to Armageddon:
The ascending spiral of violence in which Clausewitzian war, driven by its own “logical” need to run to extremes, drew the newborn Promethean energies of the modern age, one after another, into its mighty orbit—leading, in a paradoxical culmination, to the terrorized calm of the nuclear stalemate (Schell, 63).
Relatively speaking, the historical precedent set by every major geopolitical conflict was now obsolete. DeLillo develops this idea through the characters which he portrays. The alienation of each individual—whether it be Nick, or his wife Marian, or Bronzini, or even Marvin—speaks towards the modern struggle with the realization of nuclear annihilation. Beginning with Nick, we see a despondant and maligned individual, struggling with the actualities of married, suburban life and the realization of a lack of fulfilling purpose. Repetition is a key theme that DeLillo utilizes in Nick’s monologoues due to the repetitive nature of his existence. His despondance towards those around him and his fixation on the Branca ball all speak of the travails of a generation lost.
We begin to see more of this with Marvin, who almost acts as an obsolete and distantly representative structure of Nick (albeit with different quirks and characteristics). His struggle with knowledge, heredity and epistemology shows the absurdity of realism, in that the lineage of such an object can only go so far (“Reality doesn't happen until you analyze the dots,” he says). Their link, the baseball, is the culmination of memerobilia and collectivism; the ultimate fetish, actualized and passed on to the singular person who accepts it for its true value.
Marian also counter-acts Nick, in her traditional role as wife and mother. Their relationship, flagged with tribulation and isolation, acts as an emphasis on habituated love. This habituated love, which entails adultery and despondance, acts like a paralell to the hedonism exuded through their generation (1980s consumer culture). She lives her life through the eyes of others, finding charisma, danger and charm to be the most intriguing of qualities.
All of these characters serve to facilitate DeLillo’s insistance on the isolation that was so symptomatic to the American persona during that time in history. They all are detached and jagged characters, but the forces of hyper-reality, the post-modern revivalism, nip at their heels, through the metanarratives that bind them.
Fast forward ten years into the future and DeLillo paints a far different world. Although Cosmopolis is meant to take place during one day, in one area of the world, with one techno-genius character (as opposed to Underworld which is more wholistic and thorough), the acceleration of modernity into post-modernity is undeniably present.
Borrowing, one more time from Borges, Wallace describes Borges understanding of post-modernity as “know[ing] that there's finally no difference -- that murderer and victim…are the same” (Wallace, 2004). This is one of the central thematic structures of Cosmopolis. We see it in the relationship between Eric Packer and Richard Sheets. They act as paralell characters, within such different situations. One is the derelict sociopath, while the other is the esoteric sociopath (can you figure out which one is which?). The only thing that separates them is success in a world where dollars are as fleeting as air (“Everybody’s ten seconds from being rich” says Eric (DeLillo, Cosmopolis, 196)). The Schumpterian forces that drive Eric Packer’s existence are symptomatic of a neoliberal geo-political system where effeciency and marketability are all that matter. A world where the forces that drive its progression are often accelerated to where they cannot be rationalized. The individual is marginalized to where his or her output and effect on the market is denoted. Consumption and savings functions rule supreme. Human beings are accordingly categorized into values. Eric reaps his vast fortunes off of his brilliant ability to rationalize the irrational behaviors of market patterns and consumer demands (e.g. page 200).
And so, through the novel, we see a collection of static and machinistic characters that lack the depth and individual quirks of the characters we saw in Underworld. It’s arguable that this is because Cosmopolis is a shorter novel, but I believe that DeLillo is showing us something with these “Pulp Fiction” characters. The individual is marginalized into its role, regardless of personality and individuality. Around Eric, we see his security guard Torvald, his driver Ibrahim, his financial advisor Jane Melman, his spiritual advisor Vija Kinski, even his newly acquired wife, Elise. They are all described through the purpose they serve, rather than the people they are. The only trace of humanistic quality we see is within the carnal nature of his lust for women (or even more deductively, for sex from these women). It seems that humanity has been reduced to this primal instinct, and the rest has been marginalized.
We see a lot of the post-modern congruence within Eric’s talks with Vija. Her general philosophical statements act almost as DeLillo the essayist describing the malaise of our post-modern condition:
Because time is a corporate asset now. It belongs to the free market system. The present is harder to find. It is being sucked out of the world to make way for the future of uncontrolled markets and huge investment potential. The future becomes insistent. This is why something will happen soon (DeLillo, Cosmopolis, 79).
The jetztzeit quandry we see displayed in Cosmopolis (as well as books such as Pattern Recognition) play an integral part of the understanding of temporal discontinuities (Moser, 2004). Jetztzeit is a german word meaning “nowtime,” where our conception of time and progression becomes obsolete. There is no future because it does not allow for the worries of futurism. It revitalizes Foucault and galvanizes post-modernism. It plays into the economic and temporal shift that our post-modern society has taken. This is the neoliberal world that Eric Packer lives in and it is the representaiton of our future (dystopic or not). It is a far cry from the world portrayed in Underworld, a place existing just ten years in the past.
DeLillo utilizes more than just thematic narrations to create this difference. The tonality and description of these two worlds are key elements of difference. We see changes in language, description and emphasis of language (e.g. the signification of the signified) in each of the works. In Underworld, the hidden and decadent trash scenes were countered by the suburban lifestyles of Nick and his family. Through this, the refuse piles are mirrored by the cleanliness of the suburban lifestyle (and then furthered into the afterlife). The novel attempts to create a homeostasis, or equilibrium, through the surroundings. It still professes that we are equilibrated within our surroundings, having to deal with the problems of trash and garbage. We see some of this by the descriptions he utilizes when talking about the vast trash mounds that escape the attention of the masses:
The mountain was here, unconcealed, but no one saw it or thought about it, no one knew it existed except the engineers and teamsters and local residents, a unique cultural deposit, fifty million tons by the time they top it off, carved and modeled, and no one talked about it but the men and women who tried to manage it, and he saw himself for the first time as a member of an esoteric order, they were adepts and seers, crafting the future, the city planners, the waste managers, the compost technicians, the landscapers who would build hanging gardens here, make a park one day out of every kind of used and lost and eroded object of desire (DeLillo, Underworld, 185).
Cognizance acts as a rare and “esoteric” gift that Brian has. He is the puppetmaster, controling the marionette i.e. public perception. There is a sense that idealism needs to be checked and valued, in order for society to stay ordered.
DeLillo also breathes life within the characters he projects in Underworld. He acclimates each character with idiosyncracies and traits. They are flesh, not just “meat space.” The characters are developed, not just as products of their environment. The surly descriptions of Marvin, and Klara and Bronzini, in their weathered age give them meaning, regardless of purpose.
In Cosmopolis, we do not have this feel at all. The pulp characters are static and redundant. Their beings are predicated on their purpose. Many critics slandered the book for its flat and machinized dialouge. Michiko Kakutani, who is an avid fan of Underworld describes the interaction in Cosmopolis as, “devoid of the electric detail and dead-on dialogue hat have been the hallmarks of so much of Mr. DeLillo's earlier works” (Nytimes.com, 2004). However, if we give DeLillo the benefit of the doubt (through his regiment of works acrued), we should ask, why is the dialouge and interaction is so static and banal. Perhaps it is because of the condition which he tries to portray. The characters which interact speak in dialects or codes more than they do in language. Language, in a sense, is minimalized into the basic and most efficient form of communication, that needs no reason, only methodolgy (“Computer power eliminates doubt” (DeLillo, Cosmopolis, 86). Effeciency is the world of Eric Packer, nothing more. This is what he tries to denote through the dialouge.
He furthers this in all of his descriptive techniques. The depiction of landscape and area is minimalized in a formulaic sense (through the tunneled environment of the limo). The obsequious members of Eric’s entourage are almost as two dimensional as the city itself. One should observe the morose nature of the area’s description.
The city only catches Eric’s eye in the most minimal of senses. Several times in the book, DeLillo points out how Eric never looks at many people he interacts with on a daily basis (“He felt a trace of the old stale pleasure, dropping an offhand remark that makes a person feel worthless” (DeLillo, Cosmopolis, 192)). Their faces are like patterns, lying unchecked, where he does not have time (or reimbursement) for decyphering. The most stirring example was of the driver Ibrahim, whom he looks at for the first time in years of service, while going to Anthony’s. Eric analytically deduces much about Ibrahim based upon the scars on his face.
Even more bizare is his reaction towards the violent protests that occur around his limo. In front of the carnage, the clash and the self-immoliation, a sense of belonging is reasoned through DeLillo’s understanding of the riot. The fact that miscreant behavior is a part of the culture (i.e. the counter-culture is a byproduct of the culture itself) really speaks towards the acceleration into full post-modernity. Eric is only struck minimally by the breathtaking carnage that he watches.
So what is DeLillo trying to say, other than our culture and society has shifted rapidly since the early 1990s (anyone who has been alive in this period of time could easily agree with the statement)? I believe the key to this question is within Cosmopolis, in that the novel was the “dud,” the “failure,” the mistaken exposé into the realm of Paul Auster’s fantasy (Updike, 2004). Cosmopolis was, actually, an exploration into what people don’t want to see, hear or feel. It is the world that will creep into reality, which no one wants to believe. It reminds us of the desert of the real, not in the sense that our utopia has crashed, but that it has corrupted and rotted into such a mess. The daily actions of neoliberal market fluctuations shift hundreds of billions of dollars, based on whimsy and supposition. Our global economy has turned into a house of cards, which relies on a total rejection of morality. And so, as we grapple with the forces that evolve before we can understand them; our Jetztzeit culture lies confused and devoid of purpose, much in the same way as was Eric Packer on his last day.
DeLillo only hints at a cogent solution. He recognizes the Schumpterian force that devours Eric Packer, when his ability is no longer up to date, but speaks of the remnance, or stagflation of morality. We see the touch of morality in the French humility artist Andre Petrescu. His attacks on the famous figures of hegemonic power, whether it be consumerist (Michael Jordan) or political (Fidel Castro), hints towards the deconstruction of our abysmal heirarchy. He says, “Today you were creamed by the master. This is my mission worldwide. To sabotage wealth and power” (DeLillo, Cosmopolis, 142). We see the glances of morality in the funeral progression of Brutha Fez, with the lines of mourners, celebrating the spirituality of the artisian. We see the hints of morality and spirituality in the reference to the Rothko Chapel (albeit, Eric wishes to consume it in his capitalist endeavors). There are still elements in the hyper-real society of Cosmopolis that give glimmer towards hope, but they all are fringed on the corners of society. In order for them to prosper, they require the resuscitation of morality in a society that glorifies effeciency.
And so, I revert to the crux of the argument that our Foucaultian discontinuity does exist (as DeLillo exemplifies in the novels). To give one last insight on the situation, one might view Bernard Newman’s “Broken Obelisk” (cover page photo, shown at the Rothko Chapel) as an excellent representation between the transitional dislocation between modernity and postmodernity. If the bottom pyramid is the structured ascent of modernity, then the top structure of the broken obelisk is post-modernism, which juts through, in a broken and assymetrical manner. Its transition period (the connection between the two structures) is a point that is not meant to exist, if only for the structural support that reality imposes upon it.
Works CitedDeLillo, Don. Cosmopolis
Scribner. New York, NY. 2003
DeLillo, Don. Underworld
Scribner. New York, NY. 1997
Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge.
Tavistock Publications. New York, NY. 1969
Kakutani, Michiko. “Books of The Times; Headed Toward a Crash, Of Sorts, in a Stretch Limo” New York Times. 24 Mar 2003. < http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-page?res=940CE7D61730F937A15750C0A9659C8B63>
Moser, W. “Canada Research Chair In Literary And Cultural Transfers” 15 Jul 2003. < http://www.sciencessociales.uottawa.ca/transferts/eng/prog-sensib.asp>
Rapley, John. Globalization and Inequality: Neoliberalism’s Downward Spiral Rienner Press. London. 2004
Schell, Johnathan. The Unconquerable World Metropolitan. New York. 2003
Updike, John. “One Way Street” The New Yorker. 24 Mar 2003
Wallace, Foster David. “Borges on The Couch” New York Times. 7 Nov 2004 < http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E3D6123DF934A35752C1A9629C8B63>
Wikipedia. “Modernism” 4 Dec 2004. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism>
Wikipedia. “Postmodernism” 1 Dec 2004 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism>
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