A Dialogue between Rand and Berry

Perfection and Perception

On the short trip across that little pond called the Atlantic Ocean a friend of mine and I got into a philosophical discussion on We The Living. We talked about how the Story of the Viking and the philosophy behind it is that the internal infinite possibilities held within a single individual versus the ideals of the community and the infinite possibility of the whole. That led us to the conversation held between Kira and Andrei about God. The discussion is on how if one believes in God then one doesn't believe in life-because "whatever anyone chooses to call God -- is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above hiss own possibility thinks very litle of himself and his own life." This goes back to the Viking and the infinite possibilities within the individual. Kira goes onto say, "It's a rare gift, you know, to fell reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it." This made us think of perfection and how Kira then according to this passage perceives perfection--in the here and now.

As we continued to talk about Kira's perfection and how it is different from our own views of perfection, we came to realize that even our ideas on perfection were different and how if we were to gather defitions of perfection from everyone on the plane, each one would have a different idea of perfection (if only slightly). We then turned to how Kira perceived perfection through striving for the undefeated life and how that her definition is very dependent on situation in life. Rand describes this book as the closest thing to an autobiography that she would ever write-that the story is fiction, the setting is real and the ideals and philoshophy of Kira's are her own. With that thought we began to think of this ideal of Rand's placed in the real world. It started to become very clear how our perceptions of perfection could create internal struggles and detremental problems within individuals and how it could begin to divide groups of people.

For the individual, my best description of the internal struggle was this years suprise hit and Academy Nominee for Best Picture-Black Swan. The main character, Nina, is a prima ballerina who's dream is of playing the lead role in the classic ballet Swan Lake. Throughout the film Nina pushes herself to achieve this goal, to dance the perfect dance.

As the trailer portrays Nina's striving for perfection leds to her loss with realitity and ultiminately (SPOILER ALERT) her death. Nina's struggles are much like Kira's who stays with an abusive lover just for the sake of the potential that his life holds and the promise of making it abroad. This goal in Kira's life, to make it to the undefeated life abroad is her idea of perfection and leads to her the same fate as Nina in Black Swan.

Will this always be the price to pay to reach perfection, or is that why we mere mortals should leave perfection to the gods and just dream of the day we might see heaven?

Kira the Viking

At the beginning of the novel we find our heroine telling of the only hero that she knows of, the Viking:

"The only hero [Kira] had known was a Viking whose story she had read as a child; a Viking whose eyes never looked farther than the point of his sword, but there was no boundary for the point of his sword; a Viking who walked through life, breaking barriers and reaping victories, who walked through ruins while the sun made a crown over his head, but he walked, light and straight, without noticing its weight; a Viking who laughed at kings, who laughed at priests, who looked at heaven only when he bent for a drink over a mountain brook and there, over-shadowing the sky, he saw his own picture; a Viking who lived but for the joy and the wonder and the glory of the god that was himself."
-We The Living p. 49
We find this story reborn in Kira's life. She never saw beyond her sword-her goal of making it abroad. The sword had no boundary-she stopped at nothing to attain what she wanted whether it was saving Leo's life (her first hope at going abroad) or going it alone. She broke through barriers and reaped victories-the government who tried to make her part of the being that was made of human flesh, arms, and hot heavy breath from toiling never could and she would work her way past their lines of red tape to prove it. She laughed at kings at priests or better disguised as Commrades with party cards. She saw herself and saw the life, if even for only a brief moment, that could existed undefeated and that was her God-the life that held possibility.

The Song of Broken Glass

In We the Living Kira finds an anthem that is at the heart beat of her life. Even before times got hard for Kira she knew that this song embodied all that she wished for and it became her “last battle-march.” The music was her promise, “a promise at the dawn of her life. That which had been promised then, could not be denied to her now.” Even though Rand and Kira would probably deny it, I would argue that this song was her life’s hymn that accompanied the, “fragile girl in the flowing, medieval gown of a priestess.”

The song was The Song of Broken Glass.

It comes from a real operetta that is still preformed in Russia to this day. It is from Emmerich Kalman’s Die Bajadere.  "It was the most wanton operetta from over there, from abroad. It was like a glance straight through the snow and the flags, through the border, into the heart of the other world.”  "There were women in shimmering satin from a place where fashions existed, and people dancing a funny foreign dance called 'Shimmy,' and a woman who did not sing but barked words out, spitting them contemptuously at the audience, in a flat, hoarse voice that trailed suddenly into a husky moan--and a music that laughed defiantly, panting, gasping, hitting one's throat and breath, an impudent drunken music, like the 'Song of Broken Glass,' a promise that existed somewhere, that was, that could be."

Kira searches throughout the story, unknowingly to find this song, the answer to her unspoken prayer of what life could be. At the end of the story she hears the song at first the song trembles even hesitates but then it burst forth in “fine waves, like the thin, clear ringing of glass.” The song was of consummate human joy. The song and the end of her life showed how much had been possible and that “Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.”

Kira Argounova and Jo March

The year doesn't matter, but what does is that times were hard and not only the small comforts of life were gone. Pure survival became the driving force of everyday life. Women weren't property, but they weren't on equal footing with men as tradition dictated; however with times as such a closing of the gap was found with unease. In these very real times two fictional characters stand out to me. Even though the year was 1860, New England, America in the midst of the Civil War and 1924 Petrograd, Soviet Russia in the middle of the rising red tide of communism, the two women characters in the two very different novels share many of the same qualities.

Meet Citizen Kira Argounova, daughter of the bourigouesis and Jo March, daughter of a union officer. Both of these women were not the average woman of their days. Kira and Jo had their own way of viewing life and driving passions that allowed them to accomplish whatever they put their minds' to. For Jo it was her writing and taking care of Beth, for Kira becoming an architect and taking care of Leo and her family. Both had individualistic tendencies, but showed caring hearts under their rough exteriors.

My point is that we can find common threads in the most unlikely of places and the old cliche of "you can't judge a book by its cover" is still very true to this day.

A Short History of the color RED

Ancient Folklore says that the first color perceived by man was RED; maybe that’s why it has remained through history as one of the most powerful colors, with the most stories, meanings and symbolism behind it. Even in modern times a person suffering from a brain injury that becomes temporarily color-blinded states that the first color they begin to discern is red. Also studies done in present times have been conducted in regards to color association. On average the color red is associated with two words – power and hunger.

Neolithic hunters, Anglo-Saxons, Norse all of these people believed that the color red held magic powers and often times would bury their dead with red ochre. Red was said to protect from evil spirits in these cultures. The warriors and hunters would paint their weapons red which they believed endowed magic. In Australia the aborigines still hold this belief even in modern times. Roman gladiators drank the blood of their enemies so that they could absorb their strength. In the Middle Ages red sheets were used as protection against “red illnesses” like fever, rashes and miscarriages. Ruby gems, red garlands and red scarfs were signs of protection as well and often worn in weddings during the 18^th century in some cultures.

A red rose became the symbol of love and fidelity in many cultures. In Greek and Roman mythology the red rose sprang alive from the blood of Adonis who was killed by a wild boar on a hunting excursion. The red rose thus became the symbol also for the cycle of growth and decay. In Christian beliefs it is associated with the Cross and the bloodshed of Jesus of Nazareth.

Red also held more negative meanings as well. Israelites would paint red animal blood over their doorframes to ward off vindictive spirits. In Egypt the red sands of the desert represent the destructive god Seth. Egyptian writers used red ink to dictate nasty words; contrast that with Christianity in which many Bibles use the color red to indicate God/Jesus speaking.

In regards to We the Living, the book tells the very real story of the rising red tide of communism in Soviet Russia, even though the novel is fiction. The cover of the book only depicts one image – a red piece of barbed wire. The color red, appropriately then, is state time and time again in its pages. It is interesting and understandable that with all the varying symbolisms behind red that it became the rallying red flag in which the communists assembled behind. 

The Girl Who Took Short Showers

American blonde, who never longed,

Life was kind, but she was blind,

Always hygienic,

For grace she was told, was in it,

She smelled of sweet lilac her priest would tithe to that,

She never stopped to hear the cries,

Of those who suffered greater than thy,

Rail thin arms and bloated stomachs from days sitting by the road side,

Or mutilated bodies from days of genocide,

Were images never found in her head,

But in her heart she held a secret,

For in her soul she saw their eyes that cried no tears,

She took short showers.

-Melissa McDuffee