Well, I haven’t made an actual blog post in a very long time, but here it is. A Note on the Kingdom of This World.<\/p>\n
I should have written this post in the beginning of last week but I have been thinking about it for a while now, and I think my opinion on it has changed a little. In the beginning, all I could think about was how the narrator of the story took a more omniscient point of view and I thought that the reason behind this was because Carpentier wanted the audience to judge for themselves whom to sympathize with (of if we should sympathize with any of the characters). Though I still somewhat hold that opinion, \u00a0I think it has shifted a little bit. And it’s due to this one thing I’ve found in the novel: that it can essentially be read backwards and the reader will still get the same story. A story on slavery, revolution, the notion of freedom… And judge whether or not it exists. The events that take place repeat itself and repeats for the same reason, provoked the same way but within different iterations. So, I have to ask… Who are the guilty ones? Because it seems as though no one is right and no one is wrong.<\/p>\n
\nThe Hollow Men<\/h1>\n
Mistah Kurtz-he dead
\nA penny for the Old Guy<\/em><\/div>\nI<\/b><\/div>\nWe are the hollow men
\nWe are the stuffed men
\nLeaning together
\nHeadpiece filled with straw. Alas!
\nOur dried voices, when
\nWe whisper together
\nAre quiet and meaningless
\nAs wind in dry grass
\nOr rats’ feet over broken glass
\nIn our dry cellarShape without form, shade without colour,
\nParalysed force, gesture without motion;<\/p>\nThose who have crossed
\nWith direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
\nRemember us-if at all-not as lost
\nViolent souls, but only
\nAs the hollow men
\nThe stuffed men.<\/p>\nII<\/b><\/p>\n
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
\nIn death’s dream kingdom
\nThese do not appear:
\nThere, the eyes are
\nSunlight on a broken column
\nThere, is a tree swinging
\nAnd voices are
\nIn the wind’s singing
\nMore distant and more solemn
\nThan a fading star.<\/p>\nLet me be no nearer
\nIn death’s dream kingdom
\nLet me also wear
\nSuch deliberate disguises
\nRat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
\nIn a field
\nBehaving as the wind behaves
\nNo nearer-<\/p>\nNot that final meeting
\nIn the twilight kingdom<\/p>\nIII<\/b><\/p>\n
This is the dead land
\nThis is cactus land
\nHere the stone images
\nAre raised, here they receive
\nThe supplication of a dead man’s hand
\nUnder the twinkle of a fading star.<\/p>\nIs it like this
\nIn death’s other kingdom
\nWaking alone
\nAt the hour when we are
\nTrembling with tenderness
\nLips that would kiss
\nForm prayers to broken stone.<\/p>\nIV<\/b><\/p>\n
The eyes are not here
\nThere are no eyes here
\nIn this valley of dying stars
\nIn this hollow valley
\nThis broken jaw of our lost kingdoms<\/p>\nIn this last of meeting places
\nWe grope together
\nAnd avoid speech
\nGathered on this beach of the tumid river<\/p>\nSightless, unless
\nThe eyes reappear
\nAs the perpetual star
\nMultifoliate rose
\nOf death’s twilight kingdom
\nThe hope only
\nOf empty men.<\/p>\nV<\/b><\/p>\n
Here we go round the prickly pear
\nPrickly pear prickly pear
\nHere we go round the prickly pear
\nAt five o’clock in the morning.<\/em><\/p>\nBetween the idea
\nAnd the reality
\nBetween the motion
\nAnd the act
\nFalls the Shadow
\nFor Thine is the Kingdom<\/em><\/p>\nBetween the conception
\nAnd the creation
\nBetween the emotion
\nAnd the response
\nFalls the Shadow
\nLife is very long<\/em><\/p>\nBetween the desire
\nAnd the spasm
\nBetween the potency
\nAnd the existence
\nBetween the essence
\nAnd the descent
\nFalls the Shadow
\nFor Thine is the Kingdom<\/em><\/p>\nFor Thine is
\nLife is
\nFor Thine is the<\/p>\nThis is the way the world ends
\nThis is the way the world ends
\nThis is the way the world ends
\nNot with a bang but a whimper.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n– T.S. Eliot<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, I haven’t made an actual blog post in a very long time, but here it is. A Note on the Kingdom of This World. I should have written this post in the beginning of last week but I have been thinking about it for a while now, and I think my opinion on it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21083,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[907592,468,907594,907593,893355],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alejo-carpentier","tag-arts-one","tag-t-s-eliot","tag-the-hollow-men","tag-the-kingdom-of-this-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21083"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}