On Paths Unknown discussion

Thread for ending spoilers for Dradin in Love.

@ Amy; Re the very end wrt what we had discussed earlier: Here we see how very damaged he is; he was so traumatized with what happened with his parents, so afraid that he might do to a real flesh and blood person what his father did to his mother, that he would rather have a non-person, someone that he cannot hurt, or, of course, be hurt by.

I suppose I have such a deep... resonance with Dradin, because in many respects, I suppose, I -am- Dradin. (Ok, not quite, because I feel that this whole story is sort of caricatured in an exaggerated manner in order to be symbolic). But I have witnessed trauma, and I also understand that feeling of being trapped that Dradin often appears to feel.

I suspect I would get even more out of this story on an emotional level if I had the guts to dig deeper.

People who come from a very happy family background will probably not quite understand where Dradin comes from, but I have a pretty good idea, which is, I suppose, why I like this story so much.

In certain ways, I think the doll and his fascination with her, is also symbolic of our modern consumerist society. Consumerist society is so focused on outer, surface shine, that 'realness' doesn't seem to have value for them anymore.

Take for example the extreme preoccupation with plastic surgery. People would rather look like thick-lipped, big-breasted, blonde, bronzed clones of one another than to be just their real selves.

On a third level, the 'world' that Dradin constructs for himself around the robot, is possibly a reference to Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation. Baudrillard discusses "the precession of the simulacra' in this essay. He shows how in modern society, the unreal often precedes the real, with constructs like Disneyworld, the internet, and the whole "false" world that exists in modern technological society, such as for example debits and credits in a bank account instead of real money, and all the "virtual" things we have going these days.

In that sense, this story is also very Borgian.

Oh wow! I like your reading of his acceptance of his love much better than mine. I hope I can adopt it. Off to finish the reread now. (I agree with you totally on the consumerism aspect. Also, I like the direct focus on the objectification of women.)

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Oh wow! I like your reading of his acceptance of his love much better than mine. I hope I can adopt it. Off to finish the reread now. (I agree with you totally on the consumerism aspect. Also, I li..."

Ah, yes, I guess for me the objectification of women was implicit, but I should have dwelled on it more explicitly in my post (was a bit in a hurry when i posted).

Yes, in addition to the aspects I had mentioned, of course there is a strong feminist aspect to this story, which is twofold. The one theme centers around Dradin's mother, and the other one with how the doll, and Dradin's acceptance of the doll, emphasizes the objectification of women.

On some other group somewhere, we had once had an entire discussion about "men who love dolls" - it's fascinating and very creepy. I'll try and find the vid we had watched. These men buy these extremely life-like sex dolls, and they dress them up and eat supper with them, etc - it's very very creepy. The theme is also reminiscent of a feminist classic, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin.

The creepiness with Dradin reminded me of the creepiness I felt when I watched that video.

Anyway, and of course, Dradin's parents are very important in this whole setup. Here at the end, we learn that Dradin's father had forced his mother to watch while he cheated on her.
Was that why her singing was always so full of rage?

Dradin is an extremely traumatized, damaged person - he literally was forced to watch his father drive his mother insane - his mother whom he loved.

...and his father then sold her like a freak in a freak show, and when Dradin tried to protest against that, his father would beat him. It's almost too painful to contemplate... I feel such pain for Dradin's sake on that count, that I'm actually not surprised that he feels more comfortable with a doll than with people, and if you look carefully, you start wondering if deep down, Dradin had not always known that she had been an automaton.

So, so much to unpack here. (This story is much, much more amazing than I initially realized.) I cannot agree completely with your read above, but I can meet you part way. (And your thoughts have been very valuable to me in thinking this through this morning; I appreciate even as I disagree.) I'm going to put down here some of my thoughts on this and then do another post with some replies to what you have shared.

I found Dradin to be a much more poignant figure on the reread, but, although he is very naive, I don't see him as an innocent. There are many texts to reference for this work, but the most important one to me seems to be Heart of Darkness (which unfortunately I have not read recently and now will have to get to sooner rather than later), where the chief concern of the book is the wickedness of the human heart and the lie that civilization restrains it. (The reference from Signal to The Sea Came in at Midnight is not nearly as important but reinforces this point in its concern with spreading chaos.) VanderMeer seems to be asking whether Marlow would really have ever made it out; if he was in fact not more likely to become a Kurtz himself. (I'll post more on intertextual findings in the appropriate thread, but this one seems central to understanding the story to me.)

The most important thing in the book (from my reading) is actually what happened in the jungle. This is also the hardest thing to determine, because Dradin is either unable or unwilling to really remember. We know that his missionary expedition was murdered by the natives. (Dradin says gone mad or died when talking to Cadimon, but later says he was the sole survivor. He names the members of the party once: Layeville, Flay, Stern, Thaw, and Krug. When speaking to Cadimon, he leaves off Nepenthe.) When he uncovers his love, he goes immediately back to his memory of Nepenthe:

(view spoiler)[ Now he saw Nepenthe in his mind's eye in all of her darkness and grace. Now he could see her as a person, not an idea. Now he could see her nakedness, remember the way she felt under him--smooth and moist and warm--never moving as he made love to her. As he took her though she did not want to be taken. If ever he had lost his faith it was then, as he lost himself in the arms of a woman indifferent to him, indifferent to the world. (hide spoiler)]

The first time I read this, I thought he had raped her. Now I'm not so sure. It could be that she just didn't enjoy sex with him but let him have it anyway. He then goes on to remember coming to in the burning missionary station with her severed hand in one hand and his machete in the other and Nepenthe 'naked and dead next to him.' (this was after he had crawled back to the station from whatever happened to the expedition in the jungle and found the natives had set it on fire). He doesn't know if he killed her, but it seems probable.

He was in fever for three months after this, then came to Ambergris looking for work and beginning our story. He is so scarred he cannot at first remember Nepenthe's name, but when he uncovers the mannequin it all pours out of him. He begins contemplating the idea of remaining in love with the doll:

(view spoiler)[ It struck him that he could not betray this woman. There would be no decaying, severed hand. No flowers sprayed red with blood. No crucial misunderstandings. The thought blossomed bright and blinding in his head. He could not betray her. Even if he set her head upon the mantel and took a lover there, in front of her, as his father might once have done to his mother, those eyes would not register the sin. (hide spoiler)]

He says this idea is a wisdom beyond Cadimon, comparing it to his encounter with God in the rain in Morrow. (It's a very WTH? moment in literature, even as I'm rereading it again now.) At this point, he is well and truly mad, and chooses to embrace it.

Good grief, there's so much more, but this is already very long so I'm going to post it. I'm putting spoiler tags on the quotes to shorten it up a bit.

Yes, there's tons. I admit that up to this point, I only replied to the initial issues we were discussing in the first thread, and for that, I only skimmed the end - I actually still have to re-read the parts about the jungle, at the temple, and the horrors of the festival.

A bit tied up atmo, but will try to catch up with you latest by tomorrow afternoon, if not before then. In the meantime, post away! It's nice to write down one's thoughts like this; it helps to solidify them, and it's nice to later refer back to them if you need a refresher.
Re innocent/naive - I probably did mean naive, yes, and typed innocent in my hurry. (Always in a hurry these days, ugh.)

Traveller wrote: "@ Amy; Re the very end wrt what we had discussed earlier: Here we see how very damaged he is; he was so traumatized with what happened with his parents, so afraid that he might do to a real flesh and blood person what his father did to his mother, that he would rather have a non-person, someone that he cannot hurt, or, of course, be hurt by."

I still really love this interpretation, but I can't quite get there. His focus on the absence of betrayal between him and his love is in reaction to the love he already betrayed (via manslaughter, not adultery, although certainly under very desperate circumstances in which he seems not to have been in command of his faculties). At the same time, I agree his father's slow annihilation of his mother is the driving force of his compassion (quite possibly what sent him into the priesthood). He is NOT an evil person, but rather a very deluded, broken one. (Witness his attempt to save the girl with the phonograph outside H&S before the crowd arrives.) But then madness reaches out and swallows him anyway, because he his still his parents' son, because the jungle is not going to let him go, because Ambergris itself has descended into madness on this night. So, yes, on the second read, I found his plight heart breaking. He tried and failed. I am no better.

Traveller wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Yes, in addition to the aspects I had mentioned, of course there is a strong feminist aspect to this story, which is twofold. The one theme centers around Dradin's mother, and the other one with how the doll, and Dradin's acceptance of the doll, emphasizes the objectification of women. "

Very, very feminist story. His mother and the doll, but also the girl with the phonograph and, just as important as his mother, Nepenthe (whose very name is associated with oblivion).

I happened on something interesting in this article (caution, spoilers for entire book, for anyone clicking through). VanderMeer says "The entire story I saw as my tribute to English author Angela Carter—not pastiche, but my approach to the same subject matter from a man’s point of view, which would necessarily comment on the objectification of women in a very different way."

I've not read any of Angela Carter's stuff, but it seems to me that what he's trying to show is a man destroyed by this objectification. First, his father destroys his mother, ruining her opera career, confining her in the backwater of Morrow, then selling her to the asylum/show on a riverboat. Then Dradin himself destroys Nepenthe (not because he wants to, but because he is unable to relate to her properly, unable to love her well - I don't readlly blame him for her death; that seems to me more like a freak accident, but I could see how some might argue differently). Then Dradin creates this pseudo love life around the mannequin, which is exploited by Dvorak to both their destruction. Then Dradin is unable to save the girl with the phonograph from the crowd as she refuses to run. Then, finally, he discovers that his love was entirely his own construct, and what sanity he has left disintegrates. So the destruction of woman leads to the destruction of man.

Traveller wrote: "Anyway, and of course, Dradin's parents are very important in this whole setup. Here at the end, we learn that Dradin's father had forced his mother to watch while he cheated on her."

Hmmm, I read this as his father cheating on his mother after her madness, before he sends her to the Bedlam people. (Also there is a "might once" in that quote, and Dradin is not strictly reliable at this point, so it's hard to say.) I find it significant that his mother has no voice except her singing, and that is silenced, so I definitely do think his father drove his mother insane through his indifference to her and her art. (I read the rage as stemming from his refusal to attend her performances.)

Traveller wrote: "Yes, there's tons. I admit that up to this point, I only replied to the initial issues we were discussing in the first thread, and for that, I only skimmed the end - I actually still have to re-rea..."

Sounds good; the library is kicking me off the computer. I'm off to read Heart of Darkness.

Oh wow, Angela Carter! Yes, I have read some of her, and although I did not like all of The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, I suspect that is because I'm not quite 'with" what angle of feminism she is coming from. In fact, on another group and on this group, I have agreed with members to do a feminist project involving her The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography. Now, how interesting that... see, this is why I just adore group discussions! Thank you!

Will come back and comment more later.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Hmmm, I read this as his father cheating on his mother after her madness, before he sends her to the Bedlam people. (Also there is a "might once" in that quote, and Dradin is not strictly reliable at this point, so it's hard to say.) I find it significant that his mother has no voice except her singing, and that is silenced, so I definitely do think his father drove his mother insane through his indifference to her and her art. (I read the rage as stemming from his refusal to attend her performances.) "

This is true; his mother becomes like nothing - the mud is surely significant and symbolic of her silencing... yes, like I say, I had skipped to the end, so thanks for your more accurate observations there; I concur that the indifference is the main thing - and/but remember that indifference can be expressed in various ways. The poor woman must have felt intense frustration to have been railroaded like that.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Yes, there's tons. I admit that up to this point, I only replied to the initial issues we were discussing in the first thread, and for that, I only skimmed the end - I actually st..."

That promises to be quite a read. It would be nice to discuss HOD with you as well!:) I hope I remember enough of it, because I don't have time for a re-read.
See what i mean with Vandermeer being highly intertextual?

Might be a plan to discuss Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad in reference to this story in it's own thread; here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Having read this story four times, here are some themes I am thinking about:

Forgetting vs remembering: this surfaces again and again. He takes the way to the hostel that has forgotten itself. He can't remember the jungle. Nepenthe's name is a drug of forgetfulness. (Lots else, I'm sure, but I'm almost out of library time again.)

Dismemberment: I was struck by how many images of dismemberment there are throughout the story.

The river: not only Dvorak's tattoo, but also Albumuth Blvd becomes the River Moth during the festival, and it is the river that will carry him away in the end.

The jungle: going to have to do a reading focusing on the color green. What jumped out at me this time was the moonlight bathing the city green during the festival, and green has always to this point been associated with the jungle. (The theme that the city becomes the jungle/hell/madness during the festival reinforced.

Also, treachery seems to be a big theme.
Remember that I had, at the beginning said that Dradin is naive, and you had disagreed because he had killed at least one person, (it does seem like he had killed her, yeah) and perhaps raped her? ...sure, I had used the wrong word - I had said "innocent" when I meant naive - but I still think he is naive - quite obviously so, because he tends to take things at face value.

In any case, I suppose you could say almost everyone in his life betrayed/rejected him: his father betrayed him by driving his mother insane, his mother betrayed him by cracking up, Dvorak deceived him, Cadimon rejected and betrayed him by turning him away; - you could even say the shopkeeper took advantage of him, for that matter... the city had betrayed his expectation of a "fun" festival - and I imagine Nepenthe had rejected him; so the only thing in the world which had not rejected him, was the doll in the window - no wonder he is so invested in his fantasy of her.
..and I guess this fit in with the dismemberment theme that you mention: his childhood was dismembered, and later his dreams and illusions are dismembered, as is his "innocence" (as opposed to naivete, which I think he still has) in the jungle with Nepenthe and the tribal attack on them - oh, and there's another rejection - the people he had tried to convert to his religion, chose to attack him instead.

That's a good point. Regarding Dradin's naivete, betrayals, and his forgetting/remembering, I'm beginning to think this passage (as he comes upon his love in H&Sons at the end, just before he walks around and pulls back the sheet) is key to the transformation he undergoes:

His woman, the woman of his dreams, gazed off into the charred red-black air, the opposite street, or even toward the hidden River Moth beyond. He thought he saw a hint of movement as he approached her--a slight uplifting of one arm--she no longer concerned with the short view, but with the long view, the perspective that nothing of the moment mattered or would ever matter. It had been Dvorak's view, with the map that had taken over his body. It was Cadimon's view, not allowing the priest to take pity on a former student.

(He doesn't say it, but it was his father's view as well, in accepting payment for his mother's madness from The Bedlam Rovers.) This really is a very heartbreaking story.

On a slightly more upbeat note, I found this:

Flickr set of taken from Tribe Theatre's production of "Dradin, In Love"

This looks so awesome; I really want to see it, but it was staged in Ireland and it doesn't look like there's a DVD anywhere. :(

http://tribetheatre.com/projects/

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "(He doesn't say it, but it was his father's view as well, in accepting payment for his mother's madness from The Bedlam Rovers.) This really is a very heartbreaking story. "

Indeed - that whole family situation and his mother's fate which of course impacted his own seems to be the core of it.

Oh! I suddenly remember passages I had wanted to comment on weeks ago:

"Dad had, when still young and thin and mischievous, invited Cadimon over for tea and conversation, surrounded in Dad’s study by books, books, and more books. Books on culture and civilization, religion and philosophy. They would, or so Dad told Dradin later, debate every topic imaginable, and some that were unimaginable, distasteful, or all too real until the hours struck midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock, and the lanterns dimmed... [...]
He tried to imagine the richness of his father’s conversations with Cadimon—the plethora of topics discussed, the righteous and pious denials and arguments. When his father mentioned those conversations, the man would shake off the weight of years, his voice light and his eyes moist with nostalgia. If only Cadimon remembered such encounters with similar enthusiasm. [...]

In their calm but blank gaze, their slack mouths, Dradin saw the shadow of his mother’s face, and he wondered what she had done while his father and Cadimon talked. Gone to sleep? Finished up the dishes? Sat in bed and listened through the wall?

Phew, that told me a lot about Dradin's parents' relationship. If the father did not have a soul-mate in the mother - was not interested in her singing, and she either not interested or otherwise not included in his intellectual pursuits, what on earth was their relationship based on? Probably the age-old thing that is the bane of many marriages - initial sexual attraction.

(Which is either not enough in the long run and usually fades with time as well.)

In this regard, it is interesting to note that Dradin approaches "his love" very differently - his attraction for her seems to be, ironically, on a fantasized 'soul-mate' level as he fantasizes about having her for a soul-mate who would share his reading matter with him.

As you say - heart-breaking indeed.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "On a slightly more upbeat note, I found this:

Flickr set of taken from Tribe Theatre's production of "Dradin, In Love"

This looks so awesome; I really want to see it, but it was staged in Irelan..."

Ah yes, the play - it does look quite awesome, thanks for the pics.

Btw, I have made a thread for The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris, here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , which I'm not -that- impressed with; but I REALLY would like for us to discuss The Transformation of Martin Lake, which we can do here : https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , and which I shall comment on shortly.