4-D
Every morning, around 7am, Fredo opens his door and Fido steps out to do his business and frolic a few minutes. Fido’s days are crammed with inactivity as he awaits Fredo’s return home from work. Around 4pm every day, Fido gleefully welcomes home Fredo, who quickly changes, grabs up Fido’s leash and then the two of them walk to the park – Fredo walking off the tensions of the day; Fido taking the opportunity to sniff and chase.
Then, one day, Fredo doesn’t appear at the appointed time. Fido eventually goes to investigate and finds his friend apparently still sleeping. Fido whines. Fredo doesn’t wake. Fredo never wakes again. Fido’s life has changed irrevocably.
Does Fido indulge in speculations on the nature of reality? Does he conclude that the nature of reality has fractured, that there was a real world in which there was a Fredo and, now, an unreal world in which there is no Fredo? Or maybe, the before-world was unreal and now he must face a reality he has no way of understanding.
Fido does what Fido does – he licks his own bollocks – because he can – and moves in with the family next door who have three children who keep Fido entertained throughout the day. No more waiting. Maybe he remembers Fredo, maybe he doesn’t in this new life which is far less structured and far more smelly than that other one.
Life changes; reality doesn’t!
Life is change but, of course, we humans are not very good at dealing with change – especially profound, life-shattering, changes. We must - because we can - speculate on the nature of reality itself as a way of dealing with the impact of change upon our lives. Somehow, it is far easier for us to wander off into the wilderness of fantasy in which, because we are, in our own minds, of such cosmic importance, reality itself is bent to our purpose or consequence.
It is just as likely that we construct a reality for ourselves, in which we – or I – get to feature in a starring role. Those of us who fall prey to this fantasy are usually diagnosed as psychotic or some other profoundly scientific-sounding state. Erwin Lukesh, in ‘4-D’, does precisely this, as do many serial killers, apparently. The serial killer is such a fascinating character because they are so extreme an example of ourselves.
There was, with ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991), and all the books and films that came after, right up to 2017s ‘The Snowman’, a golden opportunity for popular culture to fully explore the depths of the human psyche and offer insights in a medium that we all relate to. Unfortunately, popular culture, no more than high culture, found itself unable to point the lens at the only object of any real interest – ourselves.
So, we are doomed to suffer the likes of Slavoj Žižek uttering sentiments like: Beyond the fiction of reality, there is the reality of the fiction.
Reality is more Sisyphean than fictional.
Reality is something to be lived - the smellier the better.
Human speculation is a wonderful thing – largely because it is unfettered from the constraints of having to live. The ‘alternative facts’, with which the United States is now living, are no more than an infantile speculation upon reality. Kellyanne Conway is the Slavoj Žižek of Trump's America.
Then, one day, Fredo doesn’t appear at the appointed time. Fido eventually goes to investigate and finds his friend apparently still sleeping. Fido whines. Fredo doesn’t wake. Fredo never wakes again. Fido’s life has changed irrevocably.
Does Fido indulge in speculations on the nature of reality? Does he conclude that the nature of reality has fractured, that there was a real world in which there was a Fredo and, now, an unreal world in which there is no Fredo? Or maybe, the before-world was unreal and now he must face a reality he has no way of understanding.
Fido does what Fido does – he licks his own bollocks – because he can – and moves in with the family next door who have three children who keep Fido entertained throughout the day. No more waiting. Maybe he remembers Fredo, maybe he doesn’t in this new life which is far less structured and far more smelly than that other one.
Life changes; reality doesn’t!
Life is change but, of course, we humans are not very good at dealing with change – especially profound, life-shattering, changes. We must - because we can - speculate on the nature of reality itself as a way of dealing with the impact of change upon our lives. Somehow, it is far easier for us to wander off into the wilderness of fantasy in which, because we are, in our own minds, of such cosmic importance, reality itself is bent to our purpose or consequence.
It is just as likely that we construct a reality for ourselves, in which we – or I – get to feature in a starring role. Those of us who fall prey to this fantasy are usually diagnosed as psychotic or some other profoundly scientific-sounding state. Erwin Lukesh, in ‘4-D’, does precisely this, as do many serial killers, apparently. The serial killer is such a fascinating character because they are so extreme an example of ourselves.
There was, with ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991), and all the books and films that came after, right up to 2017s ‘The Snowman’, a golden opportunity for popular culture to fully explore the depths of the human psyche and offer insights in a medium that we all relate to. Unfortunately, popular culture, no more than high culture, found itself unable to point the lens at the only object of any real interest – ourselves.
So, we are doomed to suffer the likes of Slavoj Žižek uttering sentiments like: Beyond the fiction of reality, there is the reality of the fiction.
Reality is more Sisyphean than fictional.
Reality is something to be lived - the smellier the better.
Human speculation is a wonderful thing – largely because it is unfettered from the constraints of having to live. The ‘alternative facts’, with which the United States is now living, are no more than an infantile speculation upon reality. Kellyanne Conway is the Slavoj Žižek of Trump's America.
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