HollowCity/KarlMarx/ThatGuy

Today I read the next fifty pages of Ransom Riggs’ Hollow City. The children are still trying to find Miss Wren (or any ymbryne, for that matter) who can help turn Miss Peregrine back to her human form. Guided by the book of peculiar tales, the children capture a pigeon that can hopefully lead them to Miss Wren. On their way, they come across another peculiar child with a normal sister. Riggs includes this episode to puncture any assumptions we may have built up about the superiority of peculiar children. Because their view of history involves understanding that everything in the past has already happened and cannot be undone, that can make peculiars rather callous about the fate of normals. Add this to the fact that the degree to which they necessarily bond with other peculiars and have difficulty sometimes connecting with normals and one can see that Riggs has some interesting things to say about group belonging depending in part on a principle of exclusion.

I also read the next section of Jonathan Sperber’s Karl Marx. It’s nothing short of remarkable how much Sperber can fit into fifty pages. In this section, he covers the end of Marx’s first foray into journalism (his tenure as editor of the Rhineland News), his move to Paris, his marriage, his first meeting with Engels, and the writing of some key early works, including the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.” It’s in his discussion of this piece that the strengths of Sperber’s approach can be seen especially clearly. Commenting on the common tendency to read the “Manuscripts” as evidence of the clear difference between early and late Marx, Sperber insists instead on the centrality of Hegelian concepts throughout Marx’s work, thus seeing more continuity that discontinuity. Less convincing is Sperber’s reading of the key essay “On the Jewish Question.” While Sperber is right to say that Marx’s anti-semitism is characteristic of the culture as a whole at a time Marx wrote this essay, and that in some ways Marx’s views are considerably more progressive than many at the time, it’s a weak defense at best and an unconvincing apology for Marx’s views at best.

I also watched a wonderful documentary by Ian Roumain and Michael Schwartz called That Guy...Who Was In That Thing (2012). It features interviews with a number of character actors who are well-known enough to be recognized in public occasionally as “that guy” but who are not big stars. The interviewees are all extremely eloquent about the lows and highs of their chosen profession and collectively they provide a unique look into the workings of an industry in which, by any objective measure, they have “made it” except that the world (and often the actors themselves) don’t always see it that way. I teach classes on celebrity culture quite frequently and I think would be a great addition to any syllabus on that subject.