From: Rich Puchalsky Subject: Re: The Bridge: spoil-o-thon Date: Monday, May 14, 2001 6:51 PM Twenty-seventh post Coda Hey, I should take up a collection here. Who wants to read the fascinating conclusion, all secrets revealed! please send five dollars to ... never mind. The last chapter starts with the narrator arguing, apparently, with himself. First he goes through the reasons for staying in a coma, saying "What the hell do you think you're doing? You were happy there! Think of the control, the fun, the possibilities!" This seems like a very bad tack to me; the narrator wasn't having much fun in the latter part of his Bridge experience. Perhaps sensing this, the narrator goes on to say that he'll be chucked out of the partnership, tried for drunk driving, no more flash cars, getting older etc. Then he mentions his resentment of Andrea: "You always did what she wanted [...] it was role-reversal all right, and you got screwed." "she rejected you, [...] if you show signs of recovery she'll be off again." But, the narrator replies that if he does nothing they might just turn his life-support off, isn't self-preservation supposed to be the most important principle? He goes on to say that he and Andrea have left their marks on each other, helped to shape each other, even if they never saw each other again they'd be a part of each other. That doesn't mean they belong to each other, but it means that in some sense they already have each other. (Note: I mentioned before that shared experience was the only thing that can't be replaced. This is a variant of that sentiment; it's also a variant of the ideal of selfless and eternal love, that you can be happy just having known the other person, even if you never see them again.) The narrator says that if he wakes up she may go back to Gustave, but says that "You had decided you didn't grudge him that, or was that just the drink talking?" A heated exchange with himself ensues until he says that he meant it, he meant it. "Damn it I did, too." he replies. All right, why the heck is the narrator arguing with himself? Who are these two people, has he suddenly gotten split personality disorder? No, I think that he's just sort of abstracted his Brooke side, the part of himself that wants to stay in a coma, and his Joyce side, the side that wants to wake up. It sounds funny, but they both really are him. The narrator says "And another thing: she still thinks things happen in threes. There was her father, dying in the car; then Gustave, under sentence [...] then me." He says that no doubt he and Gustave are very similar, and that they might like each other, and that he's sure that Gustave would have got on with Andrea's father the same as he did, and for the same reason ... but if he can stop the similarities there, he will, "I will not be the third man!" This is the strongest symbolic reason why there are three planes, three diamonds, I think. Note that the narrator thought he got along with Andrea's father because he thought that neither of them took anything entirely seriously. Even at this dramatic moment I have to wonder about the narrator's self-knowledge; he's certainly taking *this* seriously. He probably got on with Andrea's father because they were very similar in most ways; educated, smart, upper-middle class. Just as we might be starting to think that he was getting pretty unselfish, he thinks a "slightly sneaky" thought; now that he realizes that he and Gustave are alike, he knows what *he'd* tell Andrea if he was the one slowly dying and she wanted to martyr herself looking after him... Of course we may wonder if he really does know what he'd tell her. And lastly, the final burst that seems to end the argument, a burst of youthful desire for experience and lust for life. First he says that he wants to go to that other city and meet Gustave, then "Damn it I wanna *do* things!" He wants to go to India, stand on Ayers Rock, get wet in Machupicchu, surf, hang-glide, see the aurora borealis, etc. etc., ending with "I want to be in bed with three women at once!" The final thing that decides him on waking up is, symbolically, his body's desire to do things. The barbarian has ended up saving him; he will live on in the barbarian's body. And just like the barbarian this list is pretty much pure Id. And guess what one of those things he wanted to do was? "I want to walk inside a lava tunnel", yes it's an image later used in _Look To Windward_. It seems like all of the Culture was floating around in Banks' head at this time. Next he grouses that he's going back to Thatcher's Britain and Reagan's world, a sign that he's apparently decided to wake up. He says that at least the Bridge was safe, but then he says maybe not, he doesn't know. (We've already seen that it wasn't really safe, he probably would have died if he had, for instance, lain down under the lash of the guy who was lashing bodies, because it would have been a signal to his body to give up.) Then there is a curious part. He says he doesn't need the machine to tell him the choice, the choice is not between dream and reality, it's between two different dreams. One is his own, the bridge and all he made of it, the other is the collective dream, our corporate imagery. Well, highly amusing as it is to think of Banks (or the narrator, whichever) as a Bodhisattva or an ascended yogic master who knows that the material world is an illusion, the Veil of Maya -- I think that this is bollocks. Banks is an atheist, the narrator is an atheist, no matter which one of them is really saying this, in their own terms they are wrong. You simply can't say that reality is comparable to a dream you're making up; if someone dies in The Bridge, nothing has really happened -- they might even be alive again later -- but if someone dies in the real world, they are gone, and if you're an atheist of Banks' type, you have to think that they are permanently gone. You can't compare the effect of our culture on how we perceive events, and on how we act, to a situation in which nothing is real. This just sounds like a formula for rejecting responsibility, as if the narrator was saying "Hey, the real world is a dream too, so it doesn't really matter that I crashed my car and spent seven months in a hospital in order to make my girlfriend feel guilty." But the narrator does think that at least no one else was hurt or killed in the crash, he's not sure if he would have wanted to come back then. The narrator makes more Bridge metaphors: a thing become place, a means become end, a route become destination, and equates this with the three of diamonds. It's "vast and ruddy frame forever sloughing off and being replaced" -- i.e., it's like a living creature -- "like a snake constantly shedding, a metamorphosing insect which is its own cocoon and always changing" -- both common metaphors for personal transformation. There's a bit where he remembers a drug experience, then a little two-columned section in which part of the writing says "Brahma wakes". Brahma is the Hindu god who created the universe, as the narrator created The Bridge. Hell, maybe the narrator picked up some fashionable Hindu from Andrea and that explains the world-is-a-dream bit earlier. Finally, he actually seems to be in his body. He has a tough time ("Lie back and think of Scotland") and realizes that he's going to have to learn how to control his body again, but he starts by smelling Andrea's perfume, then feeling things, then he sighs, then opens his eyes. Andrea is sittingthere, she sees him waggle his toes. He's hungry. He clears his throat and Andrea relaxes, just like that. He - who has remembered his name -- is almost embarassed. (He should be.) She nods slowly, and says "Welcome back," smiling; he says "Oh yeah?". And that's it. Next, my conclusion. If anyone remembers an unanswered question that I said I'd get to later and haven't gotten to by now, please remind me of it.