How the West was Exchanged for a More Dynamic West

Is there no value that cannot be exchanged for a more dynamic value? Two authors come to mind: Tao Lin and Zadie Smith. Our Contemporaries. I plan on doing a brief comparative study. I see that a comparitive study is necessary, for each of these authors have exchanged the truth value of violence (I am cut, therefore I bleed) for the truth value of conception (sperm meets the egg, then Mr/Ms Baby is born).

EEEEEEEE by Lin is a short novel divided into three parts (reminiscent of another baby book by Ariel Dorfman), there is pre-womb, womb, and violence/conception/marriage. The first part, which deals in the black spaces of nonexistence, involves the conversation between two specks. One speck is an Israeli, the other an unidentified militant subversive with no particular political partiality. One may ask, on hearing the summary, how can specks speak to one another? Well, this is a good question, rather it is a point. We all know that 'pre-womb' in reality is an ominous darkness, similar in some ways to the stage directions in The Tempest (shapes appear, what is a shape?) and to give this ominous darkness specks is for no other reason than to make it recordable. I have no patience for this bastardization of pre-reality, and the conversation between the specks is null. The exchange is obvious. If you can't see in this example how value (p) is exchanged for dynamic P (D{p}) then I suggest reading Plot to Underestimate America by Richard Yates.
We will skip over the second part of Tao Lin's book. "The womb," he writes, "is the whale, the embryo is the whale-song" I think not, Mr. Lin. I think not!
However, the third portion of this book is fascinating. And while this is only a blog I cannot go into greater detail. Though I would like to cover one scene in particular. The anti-protagonist, a fellow named Mike (may or may not be the speck/embryo(whale-song)) marries an ex-prostitute involved in the theater (we thank M. Proust for this inspiration) and after seeing that she has been unfaithful to him with a killer whale (motiff or fugue?) He impregnates her. Instead of intercourse, however, he clubs her over the head. Perhaps the blood, which Lin descibes as "crawling from her skull, across the Venetian rug, like a melting ice statue, not at all like a human baby" is supposed to bring us back to the pre-womb specks, for pre-life and conception, both in Lin's world, are impossibilities without discreet ideologies (that is, without discreet relationships to the material world (i.e., -D{p/-p})). Is it cyncism or an objective look at dynamic exchange when Mike, after killing/impregnating his ex-prostitute thespian, befriends the killer whale and invites him out for drinks so they may sing together? My opinion: It is Lin's conception of 'truth' after truth values have been exchanged for more dynamic truth values. (We may write the equation like this: +/-p =-p-+p{D(p)=D(-p)}).

Oh, out of time. I have not yet covered Zadie Smith's Authograph Man. This will be the next blog. My penis has fallen out of my pants and my dog has just entered the study. And a good day to you!