#every time i talk about goethe in much detail i come out looking stupid so idk maybe the streak is still on

[shredsandpatches]

Can you expand on Faust's final fate not being earned being central to all versions of the story? Because in the Goethe at least I couldn't agree more. Faust's salvation has nothing to do with Faust and that's the point.

OKAY SO. I do want to preface what's likely to be a horrible incoherent ramble that contradicts itself like five different times per paragraph by mentioning, first, that I haven't fully worked out an actual argument or Grand Unified Theory of Faustology, I'm just kind of turning it over in my head, and, that I recognize that the Christian framework of the original versions of the story isn't always intended literally in adaptations and doesn't always reflect orthodox Christian notions of salvation and damnation. I'm still grappling with what those concepts mean to Goethe, particularly, what the ultimate end of the "ever upward" approach might be. There are definitely multiple people likely to be reading this with far more in-depth knowledge of Goethe than I have (and MUCH better German). I do think, though, that that sense of undeservedness cuts across versions of the story--certainly the serious approaches starting with Marlowe--and I also think it's important because it makes us consider why it doesn't feel quite right. What moral standards are we using to consider either Faust himself or the version of the universe in which he operates?

(eta: put in a readmore)

Marlowe's version, for instance, is very much still informed by the Reformation-era context that originally produced the story, and is rooted in his own experience being a Cambridge student at a time when Calvinism was the hot topic of the day. He presents a sharp disconnect between the theological and moral arcs of the play: as an article I recently read puts it, the primary focus is on Faustus' sins against God, not against other people (most of his actions against other people are either dumb pranks, actions arguably taken in self-defense, or actions against targets that the original audience would see as deserving, like the pope). Faustus isn't a particularly good person, of course, but neither is he particularly evil, and the idea that one's reprobate status (or impenitence, it's ambiguous) would be reflected in one's actions is weirdly absent. He's at his least sympathetic before he sells his soul. The theological arguments for his damnation are pretty cohesive but I think it also doesn't feel right on a human level: does this mean we're meant to question our own sympathies, or Calvinist/general Protestant theology? And then with Goethe's version you have the opposite issue, where Faust's motivations as described are more sympathetic than those of Marlowe's Faustus--he wants happiness, satisfaction, youth--and at the same time he causes so much collateral damage with his massive self-absorption. He doesn't generally seem to act out of malicious intent and generally doesn't actively want to wreck people's lives specifically, but at the same time he doesn't pay heed to things like the obvious and foreseeable consequences of seducing a girl who lives in a strict patriarchal society or asking a demon to convince people to move out of their house for urban planning purposes and only really acknowledges them when it's too late. What does it mean, in this case, for him to be saved, for whatever value of "saved" exists in Goethe's universe? Or, since Goethe seems to operate on a strongly allegorical level especially in Faust II (I haven't even gotten into the whole cosmic-wager side of the story) what are the big ideas at work here? We have to tease those out instead of just passing judgment on the character, and we have to hash out how Faust-the-character is quintessentially human and what that means.

So, like. The tl;dr version is that I think that because the Faust narrative is a collection of stories about our standards, what we value and what we condemn, and our human limitations and where we stand in relation to (whatever concept of) the eternal, his ultimate fate is always unsettling because the idea of sort of weighing up everything about a person and finally defining them might be relatively easy from a distance but the more you think about it the harder it gets, and it's important that we sit with that. If that makes sense.

[melodiouswhite]

Classic literature vine compilation - others, pt. 02

Victor Frankenstein: I'm not going to conversate with you. I'm not going to invest time-

Frankenstein's Creature: I think it's "converse".

Victor: Huh?

Creature: Just say "talk".

---

Victor Frankenstein: Everytime I go out there, I feel I do my best, but they don't!

Dr. Henry Jekyll: Let me ask you a very fair question: What do you do successfully?

Dr. Jekyll: Quickly.

Victor: …

---

Dr. Faust: Boys, what do you want to eat?

Edward Hyde: ThE SoUlS oF tHe InNoCeNt.

Frankenstein's Creature: A bagel.

Hyde: NO!!!

Creature: Two bagels.

---

Victor Frankenstein: Dr. Jekyll, are you talking to yourself?

Dr. Henry Jekyll: *sighs* Yes, it's the only way I can have an intelligent conversation.

Victor: … :(

---

Dr. Henry Jekyll: You overrated twink!

Victor Frankenstein: I'm not a twink! I'm a twunk!

Dr. Faust: *off-screen* OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS, DID YOU HEAR THAT?! THE SQUIRT THINKS HE'S A TWUNK!!!

*laughter in the background*

Dr. Jekyll: *grins* You were saying?

Victor: … I hate you all.

---

Victor Frankenstein: I did a bad thing.

Dr. Faust: Does it affect me in any way?

Victor: … No?

Dr. Faust: ThEn SuFfEr In SiLeNcE.

---

*Victor Frankenstein, Edward Hyde and Dr. Faust, in prison for alleged male prostitution.*

Victor: Nicolas! Thank God, you're here!

Nicolas Flamel: Arrested for male prostitution, I can't believe it!

Dr. Faust: Nicolas, we're innocent!

Nicolas Flamel: I know that, I can't believe those dumb Bobbies would think anyone would pay money to sleep with you!

Hyde: Oh, actually-

Victor & Dr. Faust: *cover his mouth* Shhhh!

---

Dr. Faust in 1541: So I succeeded in making myself immortal, but I can't let anyone know, because they're already hunting me down like a heretic, so I'll blow up a hotel and fake my death.

People, after finding a grievously mutilated flesh Dummie, following the explosion: Oh, the Devil finally collected him!

Dr. Faust, from a hidden spot: … Well, it worked. -_-

---

Dr. Faust, after watching Goethe's play about him: Wtf did I just watch?! This is so wildly inaccurate, I can't even-

---

Dr. Faust: I'll have you know, that I'm a sweet treat!

Nicolas & Perenelle Flamel: …

Dr. Faust: I'm a fucking delight to be around, okay?!

---

Dr. Faust: He, Victor!

Victor Frankenstein: Yeah?

Dr. Faust: Just a teeny question!

Victor: Sure, what is it?

Dr. Faust: I need an assistant. Someone who's intelligent, has a modicum of pragmatism and ISN'T Nicolas.

Victor: *excited* Oh, I'd be happy to-

Dr. Faust: Can I have that homunculus of yours?

Victor: *crestfallen* Oh … sure.

Dr. Faust: YES!!!

---

Frankenstein's Creature: *tells Dr. Faust his story*

Dr. Faust: *inhales slowly*

Dr. Faust, to Victor Frankenstein: Victor … you're one piece of shit.

Victor: Wut.

---

Dr. Faust, to Dr. Henry Jekyll: So you actually finished school and have several doctorates and other degrees in many different fields?

Dr. Jekyll: Yes?

Dr. Faust: You're a rigorous note-taker?

Dr. Jekyll: Yes.

Dr. Faust: And you don't shy away from risks to self to obtain greater knowledge?

Dr. Jekyll: No!

Dr. Faust, to Victor Frankenstein: You're dead to me, kid. Dr. Jekyll is my new scientific partner.

Victor: D:<

Dr. Jekyll: … *overwhelmed* Thank you.

---

Dr. Faust: Bro!

Frankenstein's Creature: *waving a handless arm* Yo!

Dr. Faust: What the fuck?

Frankenstein's Creature: Oh, I didn't tell you, I lost a hand!

Dr. Faust: What do you mean, you just lost a hand?!

---

Victor Frankenstein: Hey, Johann!

Dr. Faust: Hm?

Victor: You seem to be very fascinated in my creature-

Dr. Faust: Well, duh! He's an artificially created human, of course I'm fascinated! Every alchemist would be thrilled to have a real homunculus around!

Victor: But since you like mine so much … why did you never make one yourself?

Dr. Faust: *considers* ... Well, I have thought about it, but the only valid reason for me to make one would be the wish to have a companion, or a friend.

Victor: But you have friends.

Dr. Faust: Exactly. Besides *glares at Victor* Why would I create an artificial life, when I can just adopt a child?

Victor: … You're still sour about what he told you, aren't you?

Dr. Faust: Yes, actually. What exactly did you expect someone composed of rotting flesh, body parts and even muscles taken from different people to look like?!

---

Dr. Faust: *reads his way through Dr. Henry Jekyll's notes* Hmm … interesting. Not bad, I'm impressed.

Dr. Jekyll: *excited* Really?!

Dr. Faust: Really. Your notes are very detailed and make it easy for me to understand what exactly you do. You got a some things wrong about human nature, though.

Dr. Jekyll: *awkwardly* I know … those old notes embarrass me, actually.

Dr. Faust: Well, you know how the saying goes: errare humanum est. And taking notes helps to self-reflect. Besides *grins* you're only fifty years old and you're not Luise either.

Dr. Jekyll: …

Dr. Faust: … I did it again, didn't I?

Dr. Jekyll: Did what?

Dr. Faust: Be condescending. Sorry, I didn't mean to. It just happens sometimes.

Dr. Jekyll: It's fine. ^^

---

Dr. Faust: Okay, so I am Dr. Faust himself, but what about it? I'm not that great, Frankenstein should have realised that by now! So why is he always in my face?!

Perenelle Flamel: Victor? He loves you!

Dr. Faust: Wut.

Perenelle: *sighs* Jean … he has a crush on you.

Dr. Faust: Okay, wtf, wtf, wtf, hell to the no!

Perenelle: What's wrong-

Dr. Faust: Apart from the fact that I'm incapable of being in love? I don't like that kid at all! I've never even treated him well, what the heck!

Perenelle: Jean, calm down!

Dr. Faust: I do not like this! Hm. Looks like I have to be more of an arsehole to him to get rid of his puppy love-

Perenelle: *picks up a broom* I DON'T THINK SO!!!

---

Frankenstein's Creature: Verily I say unto thee: lay thine eyes upon the field in which my fucks are grown. And behold that it is barren. Mood 24/7.

---

Evil scientists: We did some scientific research with this girl-

Victor Frankenstein: You screwed up a perfectly good child, that's what you did! Look at her, she's crippled and traumatised for life!

10yo Luise: Q_Q

---

Dr. Faust: For the first time in my life, I feel over 200!

Nicolas Flamel: You know why that is, mon chér?

Dr. Faust: Why?

Nicolas: *deadpan* Because you're over 400.

---

Victor Frankenstein: Johann, can I borrow your golden-framed glasses, your gold watch and your golden chain?

Dr. Faust: *suspiciously* Are you planning to come back?

---

Dr. Faust, about Victor Frankenstein: Why did I agree to take that brat as my apprentice?

Perenelle Flamel: Because you two 'ad a one-night-stand.

Dr. Faust: …

The Flamels: …

Dr. Faust: *sighs* Why did I ever let that happen?

Nicolas Flamel: Because you two got drunk.

Dr. Faust: Why am I even discussing this with you two?!

The Flamels: *shrug* Beats the 'ell out of us.

---

Victor Frankenstein: I was never once robbed or murdered, when I lived with Elizabeth!

Dr. Faust: … Look, you could just as easily have been murdered, living with Elizabeth!

Frankenstein's Creature: I'm surprised he wasn't murdered BY Elizabeth!

Victor, the Flamels and Dr. Faust: …

---

Victor Frankenstein, to Nicolas Flamel and Dr. Faust: What do you think goes better with my waistcoat? The watch or the chain?

Dr. Faust: The watch.

Nicolas: *shakes his head* An amateur's mistake. Can't you see that the chain of the watch accentuates 'is emaciated posture?

Dr. Faust: Well, that may be, but the silver chain draws attention to his nonexistent shoulders!

Nicolas: Yes, but the watch leads the eye even lower - to that 'uge spare tire! Jutting out over those broad birthing 'ips!

Victor: *deadpan* Why don't I just wear a sign that says: "Too ugly to live"?

Nicolas: Fine. But what are you going to 'ang it from, the chain or the watch?

Victor: NEITHER, I'M GOING TO SPRAY-PAINT IT ON MY HUMP!

---

Victor Frankenstein, to the Flamels: Tell me, why do you have no children?

Nicolas & Perenelle Flamel: *burst into tears*

Dr. Faust: *death-glares at Victor*

Victor: Oh crap, I'm sorry!

---

Dr. Faust: Ooo, they make me so mad, I'm gonna fly to Antarctica and shoot a penguin! *runs off* They're so stupid, they're so stupid!

Victor Frankenstein: *silently contemplates wtf Johann was drinking earlier*

---

Victor Frankenstein: *first time drunk* Hey, betcha I can hit this note? Ü

Frankenstein's Creature: Nonono, please don't-

Victor: *shrieks badly*

Perenelle Flamel's wine glass: *shatters*

[popofventi]

MENTAL YOGA SUNDAY / 5 FAVORITE LONG FORM READS THIS WEEK / ISSUE No. 17

Mental Yoga Sunday posts are meant to be like a big mute button you aim at the rest of the world. Just you, your chair, a mug, a spot next to a dust-filled sunny spot or a rainy window. Take in a long form read...sip by sip.

1

How Helping a Stranger With a Severed Finger Saved My Life (Narratively)

"Por favor. Call 911,” the man says. “Finger. Cut.” He authenticates his succinct claim by holding up his blood-streaked fore-arm. With his left hand, he is clenching a wad of handkerchief around his right pinky.

I feel certain this is a scam and want to tell him to piss off, but I’ve never seen this bloody forearm ploy before, and I don’t know how it plays out. “No. Have. Phone.” I say, as if English is also my second language.

“Have phone,” he says and dips his chin toward his front pants pocket.

I don’t want to stick my hand in there, but I have no proof this is a con job, and the blood does look real, so I gesture for my kid to stay on the stoop and I move toward him. Maybe there isn’t even a pocket in there, I think, maybe it’s just a hole and I’m going to touch his penis. Or maybe as soon as my hand is inside he’ll snatch my wrist and steal my money, kidnap my kid, and touch my boob.

In his pocket, I find a flip-phone. I slip it out and step back out of arms’ reach.

I stare at the phone. “I don’t know how to use it.” Which is true. Even though it’s 2004, I have never used a cellphone before.

He grits his teeth and lifts his face to scan the street for anyone else – besides this stupid lady – to help him. He’s shit out of luck, this street is deserted and I’m all he’s got. He takes a deep breath, steps toward me and points with the pinky of his good hand at the button marked “talk.” As I press the nine, the one, and the one, I think, Finally! I’ve always wondered when I would get to call 911.

The operator answers and after I give her the address I say, “I’m here with this guy, and he says he cut his finger.”

“Is it bad?” the operator asks me, being a better person than I, she doesn’t immediately doubt the veracity of his claim.

“Is it bad?” I ask him.

“Si.” - Read Full Story

2

The Mall of My Dreams (3 AM Magazine)

"The concourses inside the mall were empty; its hallways quiet. No shoppers anywhere, no sales clerks to be found. Storefronts were lit and stocked with merchandise, Muzak played. But otherwise, the place was deserted. As I looked around, I noticed that the entire mall was rendered in spare parts pulled from memory, a Brutalist apparition. It had a common area and glass elevator that I recognized from the movie Weird Science, where Gary and Wyatt, played by Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith, are publicly humiliated when their preppy tormentors pour a cherry Icee on their heads from the mall’s second floor. The white hexagonal skylights were an architectural detail pulled from Fairlane Town Center in suburban Detroit—a mall I visited only once with my wife, Michelle, and our oldest son Ethan, when he was still a toddler. And the terrazzo floors were identical to those at Monroeville Mall.

As I approached the food court in the center of the mall, it was as if someone had flipped a switch, bringing an entire community of automatons to life. It was quiet one moment, then cacophonous. There were men and women engaged in conversation while eating large slices of pizza; a father and his young daughter in line at an ice cream shop, deciding which flavor to choose; a young couple kissing in the far corner near a gumball machine; and a group of old men in windbreakers sipping coffee near a decorative fountain. But something strange had also happened. The immediate landscape of the mall was crystalline and defined except where it disappeared into a stark black abyss at its edges. It reminded me of the set for The Charlie Rose Show, and how Charlie and his guests and even the table between them all seem to hover in the eternal black of the universe, as if suspended on wires. When I looked out toward the edges, there was nothing." - Read Full Story

3 

Behind a $13 Shirt, a $6-an-Hour Worker (Los Angeles Times)

"Before dawn six days a week, Norma Ulloa left the two-bedroom apartment she shared with four family members and boarded a bus that took her to a stifling factory on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles.

She spent 11 hours a day there, pinning Forever 21 tags on trendy little shirts and snipping away their loose threads in the one-room workshop. On a good day, the 44-year-old could get through 700 shirts.

That work earned Ulloa about $6 an hour, well below minimum wage in Los Angeles, according to a wage claim she filed with the state.

Ulloa’s claim is one of nearly 300 filed since 2007 by workers demanding back pay for producing Forever 21 clothing, according to a Los Angeles Times review of nearly 2,000 pages of state labor records.

Sewing factories and wholesale manufacturers have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle those workers’ claims. Forever 21 has not had to pay a cent." - Read Full Story

4

This Tiny Country Feeds the World (National Geographic)

"In a potato field near the Netherlands’ border with Belgium, Dutch farmer Jacob van den Borne is seated in the cabin of an immense harvester before an instrument panel worthy of the starship Enterprise.

From his perch 10 feet above the ground, he’s monitoring two drones—a driverless tractor roaming the fields and a quadcopter in the air—that provide detailed readings on soil chemistry, water content, nutrients, and growth, measuring the progress of every plant down to the individual potato. Van den Borne’s production numbers testify to the power of this “precision farming,” as it’s known. The global average yield of potatoes per acre is about nine tons. Van den Borne’s fields reliably produce more than 20.

That copious output is made all the more remarkable by the other side of the balance sheet: inputs. Almost two decades ago, the Dutch made a national commitment to sustainable agriculture under the rallying cry “Twice as much food using half as many resources.” Since 2000, van den Borne and many of his fellow farmers have reduced dependence on water for key crops by as much as 90 percent. They’ve almost completely eliminated the use of chemical pesticides on plants in greenhouses, and since 2009 Dutch poultry and livestock producers have cut their use of antibiotics by as much as 60 percent." - Read Full Story

5

The Coming-of-Age Con (Aeon)

"Near the end of J D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951), the novel’s hero Holden Caulfield buys his sister Phoebe a ticket to the carousel in the park and watches her ride it. It begins to rain, and Holden – having spent most of the book in some form of anxiety, disgust or depression – now nearly cries with joy. ‘I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don’t know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all.’

Holden watches his sister reach out for a ring from her bobbing horse, and he has a profound revelation: life is about maintaining some form of optimism and innocence – of continuing to try, even in the midst of an impossible world. Later, Holden says he gets ‘sick’, but now he is mostly sanguine: he plans to go to a new school in the autumn and is looking forward to it. Holden has had an emotional experience and, as a result, has found himself. This, in turn, will allow him to enter society, which marks his growing up.

The term Bildungsroman was coined by the philologist Karl Morgenstern in the 1820s to denote ‘the hero’s Bildung (formation) as it begins and proceeds to a certain level of perfection’. The term grew in popularity when in 1870 Wilhelm Dilthey wrote that the quintessential Bildungsroman was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1796), in which the protagonist has the double task of self-integration and integration into society. According to Dilthey, self-integration implies social integration, thus the Bildungsroman is concerned predominately with leading the protagonist (and the reader) into his productive societal place. It is largely from this tradition that most contemporary coming-of-age culture, Salinger included, springs.

Take, for instance, the fact that the culminating fight scene in most superhero stories occurs only after the hero has learned his social lesson – what love is, how to work together, or who he’s ‘meant to be’. Romantic stories climax with the ultimate, run-to-the-airport revelation. The family-versus-work story has the protagonist making a final decision to be with his loved ones, but only after almost losing everything. Besides, for their dramatic benefit, the pointedness and singular rush of these scenes stems from the characters’ desire to finally gain control of their self: to ‘grow up’ with one action or ultimate understanding." - Read Full Story