So as I was reading Howl I couldnt help but think of that part in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory where Charlie and Granpa Joe drink the Fizzy Lifting Drinks. They start to fly up this shaft towards a fan and as they start to float its awesome for them...but as they start to getting to the ceiling they see the fan and they realize they are about to be chopped to bits because they cant stop. This is the perfect comparison for me to make to Ginsberg's Howl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8MVdoL27ZY
This is the best version of the scene I could find on Youtube...granted the two dont get chopped to bits in the original.
To me, this scene is exactly what Ginsberg is experiencing in Howl. He finds this way of transcending the troubles and oppression that surround him and it isnt until he sees the fan at the top of the ceiling that he realizes that this is it. Ginsberg is stuck holding himself against the ceiling while the fan is whirring just inches from his head. And I absolutely love a comment someone made on this video clip too:
"Whos great idea was it to put a giant fan on the seiling of a room that makes you float and be unable to go down."
This is almost exactly what Ginsberg says in his poem when he questions what sort of person started all this? What single man broke apart and found a seperate hell? He sets up this dichotomy in the first section where he at once recognizes and refuses reality. He makes references to the world in which he lives and in the next breath he almost laments these depictions.
He starts off with fair observation. This is what it is. This is what I wish it was. But in the second section he moves to downright refusal and denial of reality. Moloch everything. All the factors that have contributed to his situation are seen as negative and it starts to sound almost like a Jonathan Edwards sermon. To a certain extent I agree that reality kind of prevents us from achieving our own ends whatever they may be but at the same time it seems to me that Ginsberg is suggesting that there is absolutely nothing positive in reality.
He shifts towards the third section and here it seems that he kind of accepts his destiny. He laments and sympathizes with Carl Solomon and basically cries over the fact that reality is the way it is. The poem shifts from what I would call a fair analysis to downright short-sightedness back to acceptance and it is the end where I think Ginsberg finally reaches his "happy place" even though everything around him is depressing and uninspiring, he keeps his own little cottage apart from it all and it is here where Carl finally crawls to. Call it a sanctuary of sorts. Yes, Ginsberg says, reality sucks. But we have made this cottage apart from culture, apart from society, in which to seek refuge and to keep ourselves sane with. He mentions the idea of writing as self-preserving in the end of the first stanza and I think this is the point he finally arrives at.
It takes the occasion purging of emotions to maintain a status quo in Ginsberg's envinronment. To simply sit there and take it every day would eventually end up with Ginsberg saying screw it and he would merrily and happily float up into the ceiling fan.
Honestly though, I am reminded of The Joker from Batman as well when I read Ginsberg...when The Joker says, "I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it, I just do"...I think this is very true for Ginsberg and the Bohemians. If they did happen to stumble upon some ultimate truth I don’t think they would notice it. They would see it, grasp it, and it would be gone. Their focus on higher truths…like, I’ve lost my phone a few times and I’ve tried finding it for hours sometimes…almost every time my phone was in my pocket…so I think Ginsberg and Co. are looking too hard for the truth when in reality its been there all along they’ve just been too preoccupied with finding it. I would think it would be a safe connection to compare the Bohemians and the Transcendentalists though, because they are both interested in simply living. There is no need for government intrusion or regulation. Each man defines and embodies his own reality and everything that that man does in his life seeks to further validate that view or claim.
What’s funny though, I guarantee, is if society was as Ginsberg desired, he would be crying for unity and order. He would be hoping for someone to establish and define an existence in which people would be growing further and further away from each other.
The thing that I dislike most about Howl is the fact that Ginsberg never seems to acknowledge reality. Yes he observes it, but he never gives it the credibility that it deserves. I am totally in agreement with Ginsberg because yes, society is exactly what Ginsberg portrays it to be. But at the same time it is much more and the fact that Ginsberg does not recognize this detracts from the poem in my opinion.
When Ginsberg finds himself perpetually floating up towards a ceiling and eventually towards a ceiling fan, I think that he has to remember to burp...and this is exactly what Howl is to me. This is Ginsberg driving out into the middle of nowhere and letting lose a Howl of exhaustion, desperation, disgust, and frustration. And everyone has their kind of personal Howl. Some people vent frustration through cigarettes, through alcohol, through sex, through drugs, all different means to the same end...to remain sane in a seemingly insane world.
However, with the lifestlye that Ginsberg chose, I believe that he made his own bed, and it is his destiny to lie in it. You picked the poison. You chose to go against the grain. You chose to say no...What did you expect? I mean it almost feels like talking to a brick wall when I want to say I told you so to Ginsberg.
So yes, Ginsberg, keep your cottage, your safe house. There is no difference between the cottage that Ginsberg depicts in regards to emotion and the mental institution that Ginsberg depicts with regards to reality. Both are a form of admitted defeat. The mental institution...is obvious. And the cottage being set apart from the rest of civilization, not being able to co-exist with the rest of humanity.
With regards to the scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Ginsberg has overdosed on fuzzy-lifting drinks with his chosen lifestyle and in order to keep himself from floating up into the fan of death he just has to keep burping. So burp, Ginsberg, and keep burping, until you get all of it out of your system. Float back down to the ground and catch up with the rest of the group.
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