Barry R. Ziman's Blog
August 16, 2023
Girls, Crimes, and the Ruling Body- Author's Notes
Girls, Crimes, and the Ruling Body
In Girls, Crimes, and the Ruling Body (GCRB) the crude exercise of power shapes and influences all kind of relationships: marital, personal, professional, sexual, and political. Who has control and who wants control, or more of it, is an omnipresent, hierarchical tension inherent in the human condition and even more so in the world of politics.
The GCRB plot may involve murder and missing girls, and the tribulations of the protagonist; but these narrative elements are almost diversionary background. The real story emerges from the subliminal, and not so subliminal narcissistic and hedonistic impulses and psyches of characters who crave elusive fulfillment.
The book is fiction, but a real truth lurks in the implacable and even nihilistic pursuit of power by some. In the novel. infidelity and deception are the modus operandi of necessity for political operatives, where the facade of truth telling can often effectively conceal nefarious intentions.
But can truth prevail over power, or can truth not even exist unless it possesses power? Even the source of true power in a democracy according to one character is ultimately rooted in the influence and prestige conferred by money and not the procedural legitimacy derived from the democratic process.
An unspoken undercurrent of class warfare permeates the GCRB characters' lives as it does in the real word. Relationships —both personal and political — between the characters are corruptibly complex and superficially transactional, without sincerity or loyalty. In the GCRB world, romantic love, like idealistic politics, is illusory and swept aside by the colossal forces of money and power.
The idiosyncratic, manipulative and self-aggrandizing nature of some characters, grotesquely magnified when imbued with authority, ultimately shapes institutions and thereby determine political outcomes. For the novel turns inside out and upside down the conventions and profundities of idealistic positioning. For example, what appears as liberal thought and socially progressive ideals under scrutiny becomes a ruse and platform for self-serving purposes, deceptively devoid of fundamental altruism or earnest philosophical embrace.
The triumph and the tragedy of democracy is that it relies upon the needy imperfections of humanity, embodied in the electorate and in those they elevate. (Granted, there is no other reasonable alternative.) In GCRB, cajoling politicians seek to seduce or exploit for their own purposes, with the greater good irrelevant.
To underscore this cynical theme, the novel revels in and is revelatory regarding the hypocrisy of legislative action, from a death penalty debate being used to conceal a murder, to a Governor's veto solemnly couched as an administrative pretext for discreetly unethical profit when an analogous bill is signed into law.
The legislative theatrics of political eloquence and self-righteous posturing are revealed as sometimes nothing more than an elaborate, inscrutable alibi for predatory, criminal conduct.
A subtle GCRB literary motif is the almost ubiquitous appearance of smoke and mirrors, the latter of which serves to deflect, reflect, conceal or reveal, the vanity and flaws, physical and emotional, of the characters.
The prevalence of cigarettes is symbolic evidence of wanton hypocrisy in legalizing, regulating and taxing a product that appeases, pleases and kills the very electorate that empowers the decision-makers. For the novel's intents and purposes, the cigarettes could be nothing more than a symbolic substitute for the criminal carnage of legalized firearms. And the miasma of the smoke conveniently serves to conceal and obscure every potential revelation of truth that hovers in the air.
Further symbolism of the mirror motif in the novel shows a connection to secrets—both the hiding and revealing of them. The mirror also, in turn, becomes a literary device for the reader to consider the characters as a plausible reflection of the real world we inhabit and, of greater implication, the contemporary body politic. — Barry R. Ziman
In Girls, Crimes, and the Ruling Body (GCRB) the crude exercise of power shapes and influences all kind of relationships: marital, personal, professional, sexual, and political. Who has control and who wants control, or more of it, is an omnipresent, hierarchical tension inherent in the human condition and even more so in the world of politics.
The GCRB plot may involve murder and missing girls, and the tribulations of the protagonist; but these narrative elements are almost diversionary background. The real story emerges from the subliminal, and not so subliminal narcissistic and hedonistic impulses and psyches of characters who crave elusive fulfillment.
The book is fiction, but a real truth lurks in the implacable and even nihilistic pursuit of power by some. In the novel. infidelity and deception are the modus operandi of necessity for political operatives, where the facade of truth telling can often effectively conceal nefarious intentions.
But can truth prevail over power, or can truth not even exist unless it possesses power? Even the source of true power in a democracy according to one character is ultimately rooted in the influence and prestige conferred by money and not the procedural legitimacy derived from the democratic process.
An unspoken undercurrent of class warfare permeates the GCRB characters' lives as it does in the real word. Relationships —both personal and political — between the characters are corruptibly complex and superficially transactional, without sincerity or loyalty. In the GCRB world, romantic love, like idealistic politics, is illusory and swept aside by the colossal forces of money and power.
The idiosyncratic, manipulative and self-aggrandizing nature of some characters, grotesquely magnified when imbued with authority, ultimately shapes institutions and thereby determine political outcomes. For the novel turns inside out and upside down the conventions and profundities of idealistic positioning. For example, what appears as liberal thought and socially progressive ideals under scrutiny becomes a ruse and platform for self-serving purposes, deceptively devoid of fundamental altruism or earnest philosophical embrace.
The triumph and the tragedy of democracy is that it relies upon the needy imperfections of humanity, embodied in the electorate and in those they elevate. (Granted, there is no other reasonable alternative.) In GCRB, cajoling politicians seek to seduce or exploit for their own purposes, with the greater good irrelevant.
To underscore this cynical theme, the novel revels in and is revelatory regarding the hypocrisy of legislative action, from a death penalty debate being used to conceal a murder, to a Governor's veto solemnly couched as an administrative pretext for discreetly unethical profit when an analogous bill is signed into law.
The legislative theatrics of political eloquence and self-righteous posturing are revealed as sometimes nothing more than an elaborate, inscrutable alibi for predatory, criminal conduct.
A subtle GCRB literary motif is the almost ubiquitous appearance of smoke and mirrors, the latter of which serves to deflect, reflect, conceal or reveal, the vanity and flaws, physical and emotional, of the characters.
The prevalence of cigarettes is symbolic evidence of wanton hypocrisy in legalizing, regulating and taxing a product that appeases, pleases and kills the very electorate that empowers the decision-makers. For the novel's intents and purposes, the cigarettes could be nothing more than a symbolic substitute for the criminal carnage of legalized firearms. And the miasma of the smoke conveniently serves to conceal and obscure every potential revelation of truth that hovers in the air.
Further symbolism of the mirror motif in the novel shows a connection to secrets—both the hiding and revealing of them. The mirror also, in turn, becomes a literary device for the reader to consider the characters as a plausible reflection of the real world we inhabit and, of greater implication, the contemporary body politic. — Barry R. Ziman
