Snapshot Reviews: Solaris (book), Batman Begins, Beyond Good and Evil
Solaris (book) —
Thrown immediately into a world of eerie isolation, Solaris keeps the reader ever on edge as they wait to see if the world will snap completely and reveal itself to be reality, or if it will dive in and immerse itself entirely in the strange oceans of mystery.
When Kelvin arrives at the station, the fact there are still humans on it serves to offer more confusion than clarity. Something has gone — something is — wrong, and no one is talking. Soon the poisons that ail Sartorius and Snow are revealed, but the sever has already been made, and Kelvin moves to the chopping block.
From the arrival to the Space Station to the end of the book the world unfolds in a way that remains incomprehensible to the reader; whatever guiding hand exists outside of Kelvin’s world remains mysterious, and the mystery is furthered through the attempts at familiarity — through the uncanny. The strangeness is only suspected until just before halfway through, when Kevlin wakes up to a familiar face.
What is initially comforting grows soon turns into fear — for the guest has long been dead, but she does not know this. Her living as if she had never died — and her return every morning, despite attempts to “change” this — is as ever haunting as the tremors of dream and reality began to crumble.
Yet, it is the bigger mystery that carries the story to a compelling fruition and keeps the pulse of the unsettling world steady. The “intelligence” — the ocean — is conceived as an all knowing and nearly all powerful entity. The reader feels that the bounds of the unknown have already been surpassed twice by whatever knowledge the strange Ocean possesses.
The question that pushes the tension into ignition is the moral ambiguity of the Ocean. The Ocean seems to be the cause of terror and tragedy — through Gibriarian’s end, and the re-opening of deep wounds for the other three. It is clear that the impending “offness” will slowly claim the sanity of Snow and Sartorius — and eventually Kelvin.
But is the Ocean evil — does it only wish to destroy? We might say that if it did, it would go about it differently. Yet, perhaps the Ocean gains a pleasure from the poking and prodding of its visitors, and seeing to what capacity it can make their minds abandon them, or be challenged to abandon them, before they all inevitably say: I like it here.
Batman Begins —
The opening act for Nolan’s sacred Caped-Crusader trilogy not only tells a rich and deeply personal origin story, but displays the archetypal war between the warrior and his internal fear with such potency that we, the audience, feel as if we are standing side by side with our Dark Knight, facing our own fear.
Nolan is not shy about displaying the central theme of the erosive power of fear clearly, and he does so through the prompting of the three antagonists: Ra’s, Scarecrow (Crane), and Falcone — each with something unique to reveal.
Falcone, the drug-crime lord, is the most tangible and simple antagonist of the three. Fear is his method for acquiring and maintaining power. It is simply a means of control. Because of his simplistic relationship with fear, he is the most easily defeated, and Batman overpowers him with ease — even to the point of humiliation.
Crane brings Batman to a temporary low through the use of fear as psychological warfare. Crane’s poison threatens to bring Bruce back to his fearful state that reveals the unsealed threats and pains of his past. But the fear that threatens to break loose within Bruce is shown to be nothing more than an anomaly — the poison cannot rattle away the years of training and psychological endurance he found with the League of Shadows. Batman recovers and storms Arkham. Crane — though providing some resistance — ultimately falls too, acting as a stepladder to the third antagonist.
Although he faces some serious competition, Ra’s is arguably the most complex villain in the entire trilogy. He is the most like Batman; in fact, they are almost indistinguishable save for one characteristic: Ra’s maintains that the ends can, in extreme circumstances, justify the means. Batman thinks they never can.
Ra’s’ manifestation of fear is first to pull it out of Bruce — to “cleanse” him of his fear. Second, Ra’s uses fear as the fire which — he believes — will cleanse Gotham from itself. The purging characteristic of mass hysteria is Gotham’s antidote, he maintains. But, even while approaching his death, Ra’s still holds a deep affection for Bruce; and one is tempted to feel that Ra’s is almost relieved when defeated — perhaps he sees in his death the proof Gotham is not completely lost — as he thought — while the Batman stands.
After Ra’s falls, Batman’s journey to fearlessness is complete. He understands himself and what he stands for better than ever, and he believes that he too understands the mind of the criminal, sophisticated or not. But what is to be the grounds for temporary victory is soon to become the rubble of inevitable defeat — for even he cannot see what dark force is coming next. The limits of Batman’s idealism are yet to be realized, and a messy world sets itself against him to test his deepest moral foundation—it lurks just behind the turn of the next card.
Beyond Good and Evil —
Nietzsche is as ever provocative as he is passionate in the thundering follow-up to his colorful and prophetic Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche’s context to bring his philosophy to life is draped in the socio-historical perspective, with references to the ancient Greeks, Biblical history, his contemporary scholars, and direct attacks and analyses’ of fellow german philosophers — namely Hegel and Schopenhauer.
Nietzsche does not write to be accessible, but the sheer entertainment value of the scathing arrows that he fires without ambivalence are reason enough to read in of itself. He is by no means easy to read. Many passages will require revisits, and many topics will require further research and exploration for understanding.
The Philosopher often pigeonholed as the one who killed God is given much needed nuance with an attentive read of this book. His points are rarely what the stereotypes make of him, and to him the death of God was not a laughing matter.
His insights into what it means to take action, to walk one’s own path, and live courageously will put most life-coaches and self-help books to shame. His southern regions possess enough bravery to point to items in dire need of addressing, namely the coward that undermines us all.
He is at once a physician as he is a mortician. His view of the central problem of modern man is compelling, where to him the inversion of our deepest, instinctual values have betrayed us at the hands of schemers. In his own courage, Nietzsche does not just order a diagnosis, but a prescription and, whether one agrees with him or not, he is — in the very least — not a nihilist, but a deep affirmer of life.
