Sunday, May 17, 2009
Best of the Week: Michael can LIVE
This week in our discussion of Michael K, as we got t0 the end of the book, we started talking about how Michael possibly escaped the system by his intense nonconformism. At the end of the book, Michael compassionately imagined a scenario in which he would get water for people who depended on him. He said that if he just had a teaspoon and some string, he would lower the teaspoon and raise it and it would be filled with water and 'in that way... one could live.' I made an attempt to analyze this passage by saying that Michael has realized he can survive by living step by step, but was incorrect. Some of my extremely intelligent classmates later fixed my statement by saying that Michael can not only survive in this way, but live. This was a good discussion to sum up LTMK, because a lot of the book is about finding meaning. The absurd premise of the book makes it hard to find significant meaning in Michael's life, but as a class, we realized how special Michael is because of his ability to escape the system and live his own way. This relates to another point that we discussed this week which was Michael as God, or as a religious or other-worldly figure. Michael is a universal example of someone who escaped the system by living in his non-comformist, under the radar way. Overall, we had a lot of great discussion this week!
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Margot, I actually found your initial observation that you made in class to be very important and insightful. It is crucial, after deeply exploring Michael K's god-like qualities and his effects on other people, that we remember that he is merely human, and lives a very simple life; we should beware over analyzing his simplicity, as that is one of the beauties of this book. I also really liked your strong emphasis on the fact that he escaped the system through nonconformity, not through any real conscious effort. He was clearly more concerned, in my opinion, with living his life to the fullest in the way he deemed fit, rather than waging war on the system or actively revolting. That would not be escaping the system, but merely falling deeper into it.
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