Insecurity

[atelierpenny]

Typically, I do not like a lot of the insecurity that plagues modern works of art. Films lampshading and undercutting themselves, triple A games embarassed to be games and trying to act like movies, etc. I know, real original opinion. But on the rare occasion, a work dripping with insecurity will stick in my brain. Not because I necessarily enjoy that aspect of it, but because something about it haunts me.

 

I don't really like Hello Charlotte much, a fact that makes me rather sad given how those closest to me hold it so dear. I found the bulk of it listless and confused. The cast felt very wispy and flat. The third act is for sure a strong shift in tone and purpose (it feels like it has a lot more of one for what its worth), but more as a cynical unpleasant slap to the reader.

 

Episode 3 is a work which hates its fans. And sure, I mean I get that people online were and still are really annoying about this work, probably amplified tenfold if you are the author but it just comes across really... petty, grimy, small, hateful, empty, angry... I could go on. And in many ways it must have been damn cathartic to write. It is raw and personal above all else. It makes the already rather dismal in tone series even more pessimistic. Dark topics like suicide and violence are romanticized heavily or just inserted into the lives of these characters,,, for what? To crap on anyone who was weird and parasocial about the cast in the first two chapters? To try to further the already extremely dark tone of the work? Even if this is something larger than life for the author and probably a huge moment of self reflection for a lot of the fans this work is so clearly aimed at, years removed from it from afar it feels so small. It is also really presumptuous about its reader. I am not one of those people, so what is the point of even reading this? Putting these meta discussions of the relationship between artist and audience next to the aforementioned tragedies just makes me roll my eyes, as if these are supposed to be equivalent topics in tone. While HC always had metafictional elements and forth wall breaks, this feels really immature and fumbled in execution.

 

Yet I do think about the work a lot. Granted, I hang around a lot of people who hold the series dear, so it will just come up in my brain. But there is something to this work that has grabbed me in some way. For what its worth, it is presumptuous of me to assume I know what it is like to experience the author's small amount of internet fame. Every bit of recognition from a crowd of strangers online I have ever received has put a dense terror into my heart, perhaps moreso than the several near death situations I have been in. I always thought that was why I loved public speaking so much, I can see my whole audience, see instant reactions to what I say, perhaps even talk to people who come up to me after I present. But I find a great fear in that unknown of the anonymous audience, even for all the good it can bring. I can feel a relation to etherane's feelings presented in this work, when I think about it like that. It screams at its audience that “you don't know what I've been through”. I am sure as hell not a confrontational or angry enough person to do that. I just ignore or block or even delete it if I find the swaths of attention too great if I made something. But that way of being, in its own way, lacks confidence. HC3 is confident about its lack of confidence, at the very least, and I can kinda get behind that as a growing artist myself.

 

Hello Charlotte was especially on my mind when reading The Flowers of Buffoonery, Osamu Dazai's less discussed prequel to No Longer Human. Well, it technically is a prequel, but that is not really what it is about. Dazai tells the story of No Longer Human's protagonist in the hospital after a suicide attempt. As the story goes on, Dazai himself interjects on the story. A lot. He talks about the writing decisions he made about the book during the book, often making fun of them or just hating them outright.

"I should quit while I'm ahead. The more I say, the less sense I make. It feels like I haven't even scratched the surface of what really matters. And that isn't much of a surprise. I've left out a great deal. Which only makes sense, really."

“This novel is a failure. It has no climax, no denouement. It seems I paid too much attention to the style. As a result, the story is a heap of purple trash.”

To be nice to it off the bat, this kind of meta writing was probably unheard of in 1935 when this book came out. But fuck if it is not exhausting to read. Like if you think the book sucks so much and you want me to agree, why am I still here? Like Hello Charlotte, Flowers of Buffoonery was an early work for Dazai, and I find I can forgive a lot of it knowing that he does become a much better and more confident writer in his later novels (I really should get around to etherane's other works because I am sure I would feel the same way with those). I do not like how it plays out in the actual novel, but I find something compelling with the parallels drawn between the actual plot of the book and Dazai's feelings on actually publishing his works at all. He views his own work with great fear, wondering if it is even worth publishing if the average person will not understand the feelings at play. Similarly, the novel's protagonist along with his friends and family visiting the hospital dance around the topic of suicide for the majority of the novel, as if it would be too awkward or damning to bring up. I find this story potent enough on its own without Dazai's interjections bringing it either right in front of my face or right into the trash because he does not like it. But it does make for a fascinating read as someone who is otherwise a fan of his novels, not to mention the severe feelings of loneliness like no one understands you line up with the lived experience of depression for many. I just felt a little bit like Dazai was treating me like an idiot by being so forward about it all. It plays a lot better when the semi autobiographical writing is something you the reader have to dig for yourself in his later novels.

Comments

[stepnix]

something about art as a self-contained work vs art as a more active conversation with the author. very interesting read