The | book
Every time you look at "The Covered Sky", there are different feelings, this is a century of literary classics that have been dusted for more than 70 years, it is recommended that you read the book first and then watch the movie, the film version directed by Bertolucci cut a lot of plots.
<h1>01. People who are aware of the emptiness of life are more eager than anyone else to live authentically. </h1>
Potter was one such person.
So he planned this trip to Africa, or rather, this 'escape'. He wanted to escape from war, from materialistic Western society, from the 'straight line' of life. On this tortuous escape, Potter is looking for another value that is different from Western society, the meaning of existence, the truth of existence. In the process of gradually penetrating deeper into the vast and silent interior of the Sahara Desert, he is also infinitely close to the essence of existence, until finally through the end of the body, he returns to the true state of existence: nothingness.
He laughed at Kit's futile insistence on the values of the past: "He decided to go with her." Every time he saw her trying to build a poor fortress of Western culture in this desolate land, he always felt that he couldn't help but be funny. His love for the harsh environment of Ein Kolfa: "I feel that this city, this sky belongs to me, like this is my hometown." He hopes to resonate with Kit: "No matter how many disappointments he has experienced, he still expects her to experience loneliness and the experience of approaching infinity as much as he does." ”
His vision and expectation of Elgaa: "Is that place really isolated and inaccessible?" It was the only thing he wanted to figure out. He decided not to mention Elgaa in front of the lieutenant, lest he shatter his preconceived notions. These threads construct Potter's inner world: he is clear about the true meaning of existence. He also wrote his own unshakable truth at the beginning of his diary—that there is no difference in existence in nothingness.
And not only does he understand its meaning and is moved by infinity, he is also afraid of the shattering of values and the fall of the spirit: "I think we are afraid of the same thing, and the reasons for fear are exactly the same. None of us have found a way to devote ourselves to life with all our hearts, and we are alone in our own values, convinced that we will fall if we experience one more bump. Isn't that the case? ”
<h1>02. You can never get absolute confirmation, because there is always more than one possible direction in the future</h1>
Kitt was even more frightened.
Vast deserts bordering the sky, completely unfamiliar cultures, poor food, dirty accommodation, crowded and dilapidated buses... The body is bumping in this environment, and the heart is thrown into some metaphysical dry wasteland.
Potter was still touched by this environment in spite of his fear, but Kitt felt nothing but loneliness, anxiety, and fear: "Standing by the bedside, the silence outside surprised her deeply, and in a trance she felt that there was nothing alive within a thousand miles. The silence of the Sahara lives up to its name. She couldn't help but wonder if the sound of her breathing had always been as heavy as it was now, and whether the sound of her throat spitting that she usually didn't find so harsh was because of habit..."
"The wind knocking on the window seemed to celebrate the dark feelings she had experienced as she went deeper into loneliness."
She was always sensitive and even neurotic to potter's questions about survival, and she was tired of Potter's dreams, and she shuddered at what Potter described in the sky. She has always been very concerned about the signs of life, and has been thinking about a sign for a long time in order to find a clear result of whether things will happen in the future. If a bad result is reached, then she begins to panic long in advance.
As she went inland and the awkward cold war between her and Potter, her system of judging signs gradually failed, and she became more anxious, even with a tendency to give up free will: "She is struggling to resist her own existence." All she wanted to do was eat and sleep as usual, and then obediently welcome the signs. ”
After Potter's illness, her sense of powerlessness exacerbated her tendency: "If only she could give up and relax and know clearly that there was no hope." But you can never get absolute confirmation, because there is always more than one possible direction in the future. You can't even give up hope. ”
<h1>03.Behind the fear of choice, the aversion to free will is the avoidance of responsibility. </h1>
In a state of isolation and physical exhaustion, being forced to the only corner by reality is a relief. It's a reason to be powerless against yourself, an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for yourself.
After Potter's death, she escaped from the military base. Without Potter giving her the direction to go and giving her signs, she decided to make the signs herself. In a sense, it is a complete disregard for signs, a complete abandonment of free will.
She left with a caravan that had come across by chance. Then possessed by young merchants and old merchants of the caravan, and then taken home by young merchants to hide, she became a sex slave, ate and made love. Kit allowed himself to return to the most primitive state of man, where only the most basic physiological functions of man existed, similar to a cloaca.
That's why in the end Kitt was afraid to return to the civilized world, back to the United States: "They would spare no effort to find her, they would smash the wall she had built, forcing her to look directly at what she had buried." ”
They would force her to stand in front of a large mirror and say to her, "Look! "She had to look up, and then it would all be over. The black dreams will be shattered, and the light of terror will continue to shine in; the merciless glare will shine on her, bringing endless and unbearable pain. ”
<h1>It's easy to go from civilization to primitive collapse, just give up everything. </h1>
But how do you get back to civilization from the primitives? After experiencing death and truly coming into contact with the nothingness of life, how do you make yourself believe in the meaning of life again? How do you get back to a well-functioning value system that she sees as self-deception?
The sky was about to tear apart, and he never doubted that there must be something behind it—that thing would come at him a million times faster after the familiar canopy receded. His cries became a being independent of him, wandering in the desert non-stop. ”
Potter, his dying cry, is a permanent indictment of the nothingness of life.
Kit's renunciation of free will is the act of gou annity under the canopy of nothingness.
I was amazed by Paul Bowles' depiction of Potter's near-death experience, precisely describing what 'being' or state is.
His cries swept through the last frame: it was a speck of blood on the ground. Blood splashed on the feces. At this supreme moment, over the desert, blood and feces, two things that are different from the clouds of mud, merge together. A black star appeared, leaving a pitch-black spot in the clear night sky. The black dot leads to eternal slumber. Stretch out your hand, penetrate the delicate latitude and longitude of the obscured sky, and sleep for a long time. ”
About the author: Inner books, reading and writing only. A wandering factor in the accidental world, the party who wrote the article was happy in his heart, and also hoped that the other party could get something.