Subjectivity.

Image courtesy of beckybedbug.com. Would have used a picture of my own copy but I don't have it on me at the moment.

Several years ago, I read this novel called 1Q84 by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It was a very thick book of over a thousand pages and cost quite a bit, but there was something about it that made me curious enough to want to actually spend money on it (probably using some book vouchers, can't quite remember) and then read it from end to end.

One of the reviews cited on the book's cover called it "a work of maddening brilliance", and I was eager to find out why that was so. To be fair to the novel, I did find it rather intriguing, and I quickly sped through it. Not quite as quickly as I did the last three Harry Potter books, but quickly enough.

Oh, it was "maddening", alright.

Upon finishing it, I found myself in a state of frustration and deep dissatisfaction, wondering how on earth a book that left so many questions unanswered (and not even in a good way - there's leaving your reader to speculate and there's leaving your reader hanging) could in any way be considered to be a work of brilliance. Linguistically, maybe, but good language is the minimum you would expect from a renowned author.

After ranting to my roommate at the time about the book, I put it away and haven't really thought about it again since. Until today, that is, when I finished the last book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Similar to 1Q84, it had an ending which I felt was quite unsatisfactory, though in this case it wasn't because there was a multitude of important questions left unanswered, but instead because the story felt as if it'd ended far too abruptly and should have gone on for maybe half a book longer.

I was then prompted to check out some reviews of 1Q84 on Goodreads. The first reviewer absolutely loved it, and crowed on about... well I don't remember really, but I remember that it made sense. It was about looking at the novel as a piece of art and viewing the big picture behind it. What I understood, mainly, was that the plot of a novel was just a component of its artistry, and not the entirety.

Personally, though, I've always felt that the most important thing about a novel was the story, and I'm clearly not the only one. I read a few (very) negative reviews and found myself agreeing with the points raised.

So the question is: Is a novel, first and foremost, a story or a work of art? I suppose there is no right or wrong answer, and it all depends on you and what you care about. Different people appreciate different things, and to different degrees.

I watched the latest Star Wars film with a few friends about a couple of months ago. One absolutely loved it, while another absolutely did not. I was more in the middle - I enjoyed it, though I did admit it was heavily flawed. Three people watched the same movie, yet all three had different opinions about it. (There was a fourth guy with us, but he had nothing to say about the film at all.)

That's the thing about art, and pretty much any abstract concept: it's subjective. There are some things that just can't be nailed down to concrete rules. Art represents diversity - the diversity of opinion. Different people like different things. Different people think in different ways.

One of the major issues with the world we live in is that people can't seem to respect diversity. That's where racism, sexism, and any other negative -ism you can think of come from. If people can't respect diversity in things that are objective (race, gender, etc.), is it really any wonder that they also have a problem respecting diversity in things that are rather more subjective? Is it any surprise that people have difficulty in agreeing to disagree?

(Yes, I do admit that sometimes there are opinions that are just plain wrong. I'm referring to situations where diversity of opinion shouldn't lead to verbal abuse and even physical violence, but somehow sometimes do. You know what I'm talking about.)

So how do we fix this? Does teaching people to respect objective diversity automatically teach them to respect subjective diversity or vice versa? Does one really even affect the other? Who knows. Maybe someone should do a study on that. Maybe someone already has.

I wonder if giving art more importance will help. Back in school, I hated studying it, as I never really had the talent for painting or drawing or crafting anything that vaguely resembled anything. But what if art was more than just making pretty pictures? What if kids in school learned more about appreciating and interpreting art instead of simply producing it? It would certainly make the subject more interesting, as well as helping to develop thinking skills.

In conclusion:

• Art = Subjectivity
• Subjectivity = Important
• Art = Important

This started as a rant about 1Q84, but ended with me... realizing stuff. I guess that's what art can do to a guy. Well played, Murakami. Well played.

I should really read more novels.

Memory.

Here's a little something I wrote some time ago to submit somewhere but didn't quite make the cut. Figured I'd post it here (with a few further edits) so that it'd at least see the light of day. Big-ups to Fizah and Shayan for proofreading.

***

A blinding white light greeted the man as he regained consciousness. It took a while for his eyes to adjust themselves, but when they finally did he became aware of where he was: a small, beige-colored room that was completely empty except for a long mirror on the wall directly in front of him, a small stool underneath it, and the bed he was lying on. The room was brightly lit by three fluorescent lamps on the ceiling. A metal door stood shut next to the mirror.

The man saw himself in the mirror, dressed in a green hospital gown with the lower half of his body covered by a brown blanket. His head was completely shaven. His tanned face looked pale and tired. He tried to move, but found numbness in his limbs.

“Hello…?” he croaked. “Is… is anybody there?”

The door opened. A large orderly in a blue uniform entered, carrying a bottle of water. Without a single word, he pressed a button on the side of the man’s bed to sit him up and proceeded to gently place the mouth of the bottle to his lips. The orderly slowly tilted the vessel, and cool water trickled down the man’s dry throat as he audibly gulped it down.

“Thank you,” he said. The orderly nodded in response before promptly exiting the room.

A few minutes later, the door opened again. This time, it was a smaller, balding old man in a white coat. He carried with him a pen and a clipboard.

“Good evening, John,” he said cheerfully, grabbing the stool by the mirror and sitting himself down by the bed. “You can call me Dr Aziz.”

“Where…” – John stopped to clear his throat – “…where am I?”

“Why, you’re in a hospital, of course!” was the doctor’s enthusiastic reply.

“What?” asked John, confused. “Why?”

Dr Aziz smiled. “You don’t remember?”

“I… I don’t…”

A dark night. An empty road. Bright headlights from out of nowhere.

 “I was… in an accident?”

Dr Aziz nodded, a strange smile still on his face. “You were; a terrible one. Can you tell me what you remember from it?”

Screeching brakes. Crunching metal. Shattering glass. A screaming woman.

John’s eyes widened as a horrible feeling came over him. “Rose,” he said, quivering. “Where is she?”

“Rose?”

John tried getting up, but his body refused to cooperate. He was getting more and more anxious. It was unsettling how… upbeat the doctor seemed.

“My sister… where is she?”

Dr Aziz’s expression suddenly changed. He looked down at his clipboard, his eyebrow raised. Something wasn’t right.

 “Where’s Rose?”

 “Don’t you worry,” he calmly told John. He seemed composed, but no longer happy. “Rose is fine. She’s resting.”

“I need to see her,” John said, almost pleading.

“Soon,” Dr Aziz replied. “You can barely move yourself.”

John let out a long, despairing sigh. He closed his eyes, not noticing as the doctor scribbled down some notes with his pen.

 Dr Aziz removed a photograph of a smiling woman from his coat pocket. He held it up in front of his patient.

“John,” he said. “Take a look at this. Is this Rose?”

John opened his eyes – they widened almost immediately.

“Yes, that’s her!” he exclaimed. “Where did you get this?”

“It was with your other belongings,” replied the doctor. “Are you sure she’s your sister?”

“What? Of course!”

Dr Aziz stayed silent for a few seconds, scribbling down some more notes.

“Is there a problem?” John asked.

“Don’t you worry,” smiled the doctor. “That’s all for now. You rest up and I’ll see you again soon.”

***

The next morning, Dr Aziz entered the room again, wearing his white coat as always. “Good morning,” he greeted John, as cheerfully as he had the day before. “How are you feeling today?”

“I can’t move,” came the reply. John was fairly alert; he’d been awake for a couple of hours. An orderly had changed him into a fresh gown and fed him breakfast before Dr Aziz had come in. “Am I… paralyzed?”

“No, no,” Dr Aziz chuckled. “You’ll be able to move soon. Now, I have a visitor for you.”

“A visitor?”

The door opened. It was a woman, seated in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse. The woman was in a hospital gown similar to the one John was wearing. She also had her arm in a cast and bruises all over her face and body. Despite her battered appearance, John recognized her instantly as the smiling woman from the photograph.

“Rose? Is that you?”

The nurse pushed the wheelchair over to John’s bedside. Dr Aziz motioned for her to leave the room, and she duly obliged.

Rose mustered a smile. “It’s me, darling. Are you okay?”

John looked confused. “What?”

“Is there something wrong?” asked Dr Aziz.

“Is… is this really Rose?”

“Of course it is.”

“Something’s not right,” said John suspiciously. “She looks like Rose and sounds like Rose, but Rose would never call me darling.”

“Why not?” protested Rose. “You’re my husband!”

“What?” John was shocked. “No! I’m your brother!”

There was a startled silence.

“Don’t… don’t you remember our honeymoon?” asked Rose. “Don’t you remember that night on the beach? With the campfire?”

“That… that was with my wife!”

“I am your wife, John,” Rose pleaded. “I’m not your sister!”

She reached out and held his hand. “Darling... try to remember...”

John froze as the woman’s touch triggered a frenzy in his brain. His mind was struggling to reconcile his conflicted memories, and the stress showed on his face. He started to sweat.

Rose quickly removed her hand. “Put him to sleep,” she said urgently. “Now.”

Dr Aziz removed a syringe from his coat pocket and stuck the needle into a vein on John’s arm. He soon calmed down and lost consciousness.

The doctor breathed a sigh of relief. “That was a close one, Laila,” he said. “You might have pushed him too hard there.”

“Perhaps,” Dr Laila said, getting up from her wheelchair. She removed her wig and pulled off the cast from her arm. “But at least he’s still alive. Remember what happened to the last one?”

Dr Aziz nodded at his research partner. She was much younger than he was – about thirty years his junior – but she was equally brilliant. It was the reason why he’d chosen her to work with him on this project.

“At least we’ve made progress,” said Dr Aziz. “We got the memories mixed up again, but this time the misconsolidation didn’t fry the subject’s brain. That means the degree of the error wasn’t as severe as before.”

         Dr Laila was wiping off the fake bruises on her face with a tissue. “That is true,” she said. “Now we just need to bring the error down to zero.”

            “Just a matter of fixing the coding,” Dr Aziz said. “I’m confident we’ll be able to do it before the deadline.”

He placed his hand on his partner’s shoulder. “We’re so close to cracking this, Laila. I can feel it.”

            “We’d better be,” replied Dr Laila. “I hate dressing up like this.”

One year later…

The Opposition Leader, seated at his desk, was listening carefully, not quite believing what he was hearing. It sounded like something straight out of science fiction.

“Let me get this straight, Halim,” he said, addressing his chief aide, who stood before him. “You’re saying this device has the ability to transfer memories in and out of a person?”

“That’s right, sir,” said Halim, nodding. “I saw it happen with my own eyes. They’ve already started mass-producing handheld versions of the device.”

“Do you realize what this means?”

Halim was silent. He knew precisely what it meant.

“Memories come from experiences,” said the Leader. “Experiences dictate the way a person thinks and acts. If this device can take away memories and create new ones, it can completely change a person’s thoughts and mannerisms.”

The chief aide nodded solemnly.

“The government now have a device,” continued the Leader, “that can physically brainwash people. Instead of having to psychologically break down the mind’s defences, they can just go directly to the source.”

“It’s… terrifying, sir,” said Halim. “What should we do?”

“The people need to know,” said the Leader.

“No one will ever believe us,” said Halim, shaking his head. “We’ll sound like lunatics.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

Halim reached into his trouser pocket. “We can’t beat the government, sir,” he said. “They’ve already won.”

His hand emerged; in it was a silver, pen-like object. “The only option left is to join them.”

The Leader stood up, his body tense with fear. “Halim,” he whispered. “What is that?”

Putting on a pair of sunglasses, the chief aide held the device up vertically to eye level. His four fingers were wrapped around it with his thumb perched on top.

“This little thing,” Halim said, “was made specially for you.”

His thumb pressed down on the device; there was a blinding flash.

“How are you feeling, sir?” Halim asked, grinning. He removed his sunglasses. “You look a little dazed.”

The Opposition Leader blinked. “I… I understand now,” he said. “Everything is… so clear.”

“The Prime Minister knew you’d see it our way,” smiled Halim.