I found The Moviegoer to be, though daunting at times, a true and unfettered statement about the human condition. The search for meaning in one's life is no new feat, especially in the literary world, and to conclude decisively as to whether or not Binx is successful in his search is to bring false certainty to subjectivity. The "malaise" is everywhere and in everything and everyone...maybe true maturity and enlightenment only come with comprehending and accepting that fact. It is not my intention to imply that life is all gloom and doom and ultimately death...I only mean that there is no real escape from "everydayness." I would venture to say that we all can relate to that; I know I can.
John ("Jack") Bickerson ("Binx") Bolling is just like me, but worse. Much worse. I, too, find myself quite often with the inability to connect with the world (and the people) around me. I, too, struggle with the age old existential meaning of my life. I find that the majority of my day to day conversations are wrought with everydayness and superficiality. I can probably count the number of people who truly understand me on one hand. Do these things alone make me strange and out of place? No...it is the fact that I am able to identify the malaise and the everydayness (where others may simply avoid it) that makes introspective creatures like Binx and I aware of the despair.
The fact that Binx has such a lengthy list of aliases alone is a bit of tangible proof that this man has absolutely no idea who he is.
Do I believe that Binx has found what he is looking for? My answer is no. I feel that Binx goes on this great quest for amazing and all-inclusive answers that will let him know his place in this world. That is not what he finds. He cannot look to his father for the answer, nor to his mother, nor Marcia/Linda/Sharon, nor God, for that matter. He cannot find it by making money or pleasing Aunt Emily or fixing Kate. Binx can only make sense of his life once he accepts that the malaise is just part of it...and running from it won't help, for its only a matter of time before the malaise presents itself all over again with someone/something new. Those few moments in life where the malaise is gone are what make it worth living; those moments where we see beyond the everydayness of it all and can feel nothing but gratitude. I cannot say with certainty that Binx has this revelation, but I hope so.
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It takes time to think and figure out what exactly life is and what it is supposed to be. You made it pretty clear that you could relate to what Binx was feeling and thinking throughout the novel, at least in the sense of his fighting everdayness. I think fighting the malaise simply takes looking at things with a different perspective. Binx has no foundation save for his family, and even that is a very distant connection for him. He interacts with his family and and goes through the motions, but he does not seem to connect with most of them. The only person he seems to connect to is Kate and if she were to die, his sense of connectedness with the world would only lie in his business dealings. It seems a very sad way to live. I think it is important to find the meaning of life and to live for a purpose. To just live for the purpose of oneself, as Binx seems to do, is to encounter dead-ends and frustrations simply because you are trying to figure things out only as they relate to you and not how they relate to a bigger picture. I think that Binx starts to look outside himself when he begins a genuine love-relationship with Kate, but true fulfillment will never come from ourselves or another person. It is imperative to have a bigger picture mentality. However, it is also important to be thankful for the small things in life. You mentioned transcending the everydayness and having gratitude. Maybe it's important to look at most, if not all, moments as important. We never know when life may be taken from us. Kate took the perspective of wanting to take her own life because she couldn't figure out her purpose. Binx looked at live as so banal that he had trouble appreciating it, except when he saw a movie. The lives he saw portrayed in movies were special and unique and I think he wanted his own life to be a very special story. Maybe that's why he appreciated moveies so much. In any case, maybe if he had been more thankful for the people in his life and the experiences he had with them then he would have been slightly more immune to the malaise. Something I have found in my life is that it is all about perspective and maybe escaping the malaise is as simple as finding a new way of looking at things.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy your insight into Binx's character! It seems to me that you possess a wonderful ability to see this character when many people like myself cannot. The fact about the aliases was one I never thought of. However I do have a question. In your life filled with the malaise and the superficiality of it all how do you make a life out of moments that are devoid of it? Is that just letting your life pass by? Not to insinuate at all that this is the life you lead or even that I understand the inner workings of your mind but to me Binx's life is a sad one filled with depression. In fact the book was so depressing that I had to put it down and step away from it all. How in the world do we escape and everydayness that is inescapable? Is the mere fact that we have been able to identify it enough or it that just the beginning of the rabbit hole? How far will you have to fall to find the answer? I do agree with you that Binx did not find the answer that he sought for such a big part of the novel and his life but I wonder if there really is an answer to his "search". What if his search is no more than a game he plays to keep him occupied? And more importantly is this search what naturally occurs to every human when they question their purpose on the planet? I have one more question to ask and then no more I promise. What is the despair that you see? This is the part of the character that I could never understand. Why does life have to comprised of horrible and desperate moments waiting for death when you can enjoy what surrounds you, even the everydayness.
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