Hillerman/Hobsbawm/TopoftheLake

Today I read the next section of Tony Hillerman’s 2006 novel The Shape Shifter. Hillerman develops a transnational dimension to Leaphorn’s investigation by introducing the possibility that Jason Delos used to be a CIA agent who was allowed to leave the agency after misusing funds during the Vietnam War. Hillerman draws a parallel between American imperialism and internal colonialism within the United States by having Leaphorn bond with Delos’ assistant/servant/virtual slave Tommy Vang, a Hmong who Delos brought back from Vietnam with him. In an extended conversation, Leaphorn and Vang find many parallels between the histories of their respective peoples. It’s worth mentioning that Leaphorn and Vang get this opportunity to bond when Vang is trying to retrieve a slice of poisoned fruitcake that Delos gave Leaphorn in an attempt to kill him off. A poisoned maraschino cherry seems like such a bizarre choice of murder weapon for Hillerman that it resembles the eruption of an Agatha Christie moment in a novel that is otherwise its polar opposite!

I also read the next fifty pages of Eric Hobsbawm’s Fractured Times: Culture and Society in the 20^th Century. Not surprisingly, a connecting thread that runs through what are in other ways unconnected short pieces in this section of the book is an interest in the history and fate of intellectuals. One form this interest takes is Hobsbawm’s reviews of biographies of famous twentieth-century scientists. His discussions of J.D. Bernal and Joseph Needham emphasize not only the personal peculiarities of these figures, peculiarities that perhaps stopped them from having as distinguished a career as they might otherwise have enjoyed, but also the range of their interests and accomplishments. Without saying so explicitly, one can imagine that Hobsbawm would be skeptical of the excessive specialization that characterizes research in both the arts and the sciences today. Hobsbawm is also concerned about the fact that in many ways we appear to be living in a post-intellectual age, or at least in an age where intellectuals have less public prominence than before (he mentions Noam Chomsky as an honorable exception to this rule). This may be true, but one can’t help but feel that this is only true if one defines ‘intellectual’ in a fairly narrow (i.e., non-Gramscian) sense.

I also watched the third and fourth episodes of Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake. It was already clear that Robin Griffin’s investigation of Tui’s disappearance was extremely personal, but that aspect of the plot intensifies dramatically in these two episodes. Coming back to Lake Top in the first place has immersed Robin back in her traumatic past, epitomized by her being gang raped as a fifteen-year-old, an event that led to her and her mother leaving for Australia, where Robin gave birth to a child. Finding Tui and ensuring that she receives justice is obviously a way for Robin to process what happened in her own life, which means that her frustration with what she sees (accurately) as the inaction and possible corruption of the local police builds up and eventually boils over when she recognizes and assaults one of her attackers. Two other aspects of these episodes struck me. The first involves a local man, a convicted pedophile, who is identified as a suspect in Tui’s disappearance and then apparently commits suicide (though it is likely he was killed by vigilantes). His death exemplifies Campion’s portrayal of the way in which the scapegoat figure is made to pay for forms of sexualized violence against women and young girls that are normalized and which, relatively unspeaking, go unpunished. The second is a feature of the show that is obvious right from the opening episode (even in the extraordinary opening title sequence) that is, the landscape and scenery that form the backdrop of the show. One can imagine how its monumentality could be used to lend nobility and grandeur to what is being portrayed (think the ‘Lord of the Rings’ films) but in Top of the Lake, it is instead used to emphasize how Robin’s efforts are dwarfed by forces too big for her to overcome by herself. We will see whether or not the show ultimately changes its mind about how much difference a single person can make.