1.
Identify the setting of each scene.
2. Make a
narrative timeline of the whole story.
3. There
are two narrators in the work. Their narratives are woven together and often
intersect. Describe these narrators in as much detail as you can. Is either of
them a self-conscious narrator? If so, identify passages that suggest an
awareness of their status as narrators.
4. Go
through each sentence and determine who is narrating. Are there any passages
where it is not clear who the narrator is? Does a switch in narrators ever
occur in mid-sentence?
5.
Identify all fantastical and surrealistic elements of the work.
6. What
are Mezu 馬頭 and Gozu
牛頭? What is the connection
between Mezu No. 9 and the girl? Discuss the function and significance of Mezu
and Gozu in the work.
7.
Identify elements of both humor and pathos in the story? Do these elements
harmonize together in the work?
8. Identify
all references to music in the work. Discuss this motif of music and how it
relates to the story as a whole. Why does the rooster taste of rock and roll?
What is this business with the SONY walkman in the final section? What powers
does music seem to be invested with?
9.
Discuss the poetic elements (e.g. rhythm, metaphor, metonymy, repetition,
ambiguity, symbolic language, etc.) in the work.
10.
Discuss the aural/musical elements in the work (e.g. emotive swells, dynamics,
symphony-like moments of calm followed by crescendos and climaxes, duets, songs,
cries, howls, bleating, etc). Make a kind of musical score that charts this
development.
11.
Discuss the visual aspects of the work (colors, visual images, references to
camera lenses and film techniques, etc.). What is their composite effect?
12. What
techniques of rhetoric are employed in the work (e.g. digressions, indirect
expression, ambiguity, non sequiturs, etc.)? Indentify and explain the relevant
passages. What is the composite effect of these elements?
14. What is the connection between the goat and
the girl?
15.
Having now read and listened to the entire work several times, what do you
consider the theme(s) of the work to be? Explain.
16.
Identify and discuss the Buddhist imagery/references in the work. How do these
relate to the overarching theme(s) of the work?
17.
Discuss the significance of the following passage, particularly with reference
to these notions of diary consumption and resurrection:
The
diaries you are chewing on are the diaries I am now supplementing. It’s just
that for each diary your stomach decomposes, you race further toward the
resurrection. With each notebook that your stomach breaks down—wait,
resurrection? Isn’t this a garbled metaphor? I don’t even know. All I can say
is that with each notebook your stomach digests you roundly embody another
aspect of the universe. I could probably replace “roundly embody” with “master
a posteriori.” “Make flesh and blood” might work too. For this is why I write
Why I wrote then
Why I am writing now
With this little hand
Little hand that is not even ten
With these little fingers and a big pen
18.
Discuss the significance of the following passage. Is this episode to be read
as an allegory?
—Sever it! you crooned.
You instruct this goat in
purgatory to sever the cycle now.
For this is the main theme.
—You must stop devouring these
telegrams, these tidings and these telegrams!
The theme evolves.
—Here, chew on this instead. As a surrogate!
What exactly did you hand
over? Though a matter purely of song lyrics, what? The this that you sang was that.
You know what. And it is now time for you to hand it over. Hand over that. You will extend your hand and . .
. I shall hand over this. You are now
fully mindful. The scene is now devoid of all mindlessness. You will presently
offer him your hell diary, as surrogate edible paper. I will offer him my hell diary, as surrogate. That’s right, I’m the one
doing the thinking now. The so-called hell diary that belonged to Number Nine.
You follow? Mezu Number Nine was me, you see. And the Mothers was my
affiliation. I was the hell warden who kept a diary of what happened . . .[1]
I hand over the diary.
19.
Consider this motif of “burning/incinerating memories.” How does it relate to
(1) the episode with the goat, (2) to the atomic bombing at the end, (3) to the
Vietnam War dream, (4) to Buddhist references and notions of transmigration (rinne), etc.?
[1] Gokusotsu (Skt: bandhana-palaka) are wardens in hell who torture the damned and
feed on their flesh. They are often depicted with heads of beasts and
semi-human bodies.
1 comment:
You might want to say something too about the apocalyptic imagination that informs this work. -Mother
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