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Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2008 - 04:48 pm: | |
It appears that my number has come up...according to our reading group schedule, that is.
This month's selection is one of my all-time favourite Ramsey stories: 'Boiled Alive'. I shall be posting my thoughts on this one after I've given the tale a fresh read this week.
If any of you feel inclined to post your impressions before that time, have at.
Best,
Richard |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 11:50 pm: | |
I'm happy to report that 'Boiled Alive' held up and then some. It is one of my favourite Ramsey stories for many reasons.
To begin, the fictitious film afer which the tale is named will always be evocative of the mid-'80s era of splatter films (or, as they were renounced in Britian: "the video nasties.") I was quite young when these sleazy films were making their way into the mom-and-pop video stores of my youth. When the character of Mee discovers the box for BOILED ALIVE amidst tapes for NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN and SHRIEK OF THE MUTILATED, I could *see* that video store and relate totally to Mee's feeling of being strangely attracted to a movie he knew would likely repulse him.
To me, the most telling line of this story occurs after Mee votes against a peace movement group using the community hall, at which point he thinks, "Life wasn't as precarious as they made it out to be...it had a pattern you could glimpse if you had faith."
To a certain extent, 'Boiled Alive' can be viewed as a study of patterns. Consider the character of Mee; a man with a dreary jump punching in number patterns to ensure that employees of a car plant receive their proper salary. He spends his lonely hours studying the pattern of employees driving in and out of the grid-marked parking lot. He watches the lights outside his apartment window. He eats meals. It is a clockwork tedium.
But then, the strange phone call where Mee hears the words "Boiled alive," opens him up to a larger and more paranoid pattern. Was it just coincidence that the film's character of Dr. Doncaster has the same phone number as Mee? Is the person phoning him just playing clips of 'Boiled Alive' to taunt him?
Despite Mee warning himself not to entertain superstitious thoughts, he nonetheless finds himself being sucked into the vast pattern of making his life part of the 'Boiled Alive' myth, if such a thing even exists.
I find this story anguishing to read. The initial phone calls to Mee are almost comedic in their icy unnaturalness ("Boiled alive." "Is this the home of Dr. Doncaster?").
The scene where Mee dines with a coworker and his mother is painful. I found myself cringing at the strained conversation, and relating wholly to Mee's feelings of shame for having subjected his hosts to the BOILED ALIVE videotape. (Note: As a young boy I had the tortuously awkward experience of trying to view a VHS copy of HALLOWEEN II with my elderly grandmother, whose comments and reactions were on par with Macnamara's and his mum's.)
I find this tale to be one of Ramsey's most existential, primarily because Mee seems to be begging for a release from his tourniquet-tight routine of work-eat-sleep-repeat, yet when something outside invades his life, it winds up being far worse than his humdrum routine. Mee is intruded upon by coincidence, by strange suggestion, perhaps by his own sense of helplessness.
In a way, all the characters in this story --- indeed, almost everyone in the modern world --- are being boiled alive. We so often find comfort in the rituals of daily life (I do, at least), yet these same rituals can quickly become stifling. But is it safe to call upon some force of strife to crack the ice we're frozen in? Perhaps a larger, more chaotic pattern will consume us with fire. We yearn for release, but also fear it.
In many ways we are all being boiled alive. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 01:11 am: | |
I agree that there are some very comedic elements in this story - it's almost painful to read at times, especially, as Richard says, in the scene with the co-worker's mother watching the video. Bravura stuff from Ramsey in these passages!
There's a sort of squalid emptiness at the heart of Mee's world, something he's trying to fill with this semi-mythical film. And what exactly does his name mean? Mee...Me...Us? Is it really that simple, or one of Ramsey's literary tricks?
This is certainly a fascinating piece, and one that deserves scrutiny. |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 04:06 pm: | |
Zed wrote:
"There's a sort of squalid emptiness at the heart of Mee's world, something he's trying to fill with this semi-mythical film."
Absolutely. This is one of the elements that makes the piece so painful. Mee is utterly lost. His life is repetetive and hollow, yet when he pounces upon the coincidences connected to the BOILED ALIVE film, things only go further south for him.
We also notice that Mee never really vents his spleen or frustrations blatantly in this tale. Ramsey gives the reader glimpses into his thought processes, but I think on a certain level Mee quietly accepts the tedium as being the true "pattern" of life...until he receives that first phone call, at which point he begins to question whether or not the world is larger than his workaday routine.
Zed also wrote:
"And what exactly does his name mean? Mee...Me...Us? Is it really that simple, or one of Ramsey's literary tricks?"
Good point. I had noticed how appropriate Mee's name is. After all, the man is so isolated, and the tale seems so existential, that it really is Mee/Me/Us that become consumed by our own inner fire.
Great stuff, and I feel we've only scratched the surface here. |
Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 05:21 pm: | |
Mee eats 'boiled beef' and as he does I see him almost consuming himself through tedium. We're all stuck in world that never lives up to our expectations - all herded like cattle too.
Richard comments 'when something outside invades his life, it winds up being far worse than his humdrum routine.' Reminds me of that old saying be careful what you wish for.... |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2008 - 09:01 pm: | |
If Simon's ready, I shall open the 'Mackintosh Willy' December thread (or he can open the thread, of course). If not, we can move on to a different story.
Best,
Richard |
Simon Strantzas (Nomis)
Username: Nomis
Registered: 09-2008
| | Posted on Saturday, December 13, 2008 - 05:24 am: | |
I don't know. It's a bit hectic right now. I'd rather do January.
Perhaps we should skip it on the whole this month? I can be the only one behind the eight ball. |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Saturday, December 13, 2008 - 06:27 pm: | |
Works for me. We'll hold off until the new year.
But Simon, I thought you would have been used to living behind the eight ball by now... |
Simon Strantzas (Nomis)
Username: Nomis
Registered: 09-2008
| | Posted on Saturday, December 13, 2008 - 09:12 pm: | |
I've often got black balls right in my face, it's true, but I suspect we're talking about two different things. |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2008 - 01:07 pm: | |
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2008 - 09:23 pm: | |
Joel's used an emoticon! It must be an imposter using his account! |
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