Septimus vs Clarissa

Clarissa and Septimus, at first glance, feel like very separate and different people. But why do they have a strange connection? I believe that both of them are deviant in the system of “social society”, where they suffer from a lack of true, emotional connection. 

Clarissa is presented as a very social individual throughout the book; she plans parties, is married, and has numerous friends in high society. However, we learn later on that she does not feel emotionally “connected” with them. She throws parties in the attempt to create bonding moments between people her age, which is rarely seen. She is in a stable marriage with a successful husband, but they are rarely emotionally open with each other. Her own husband struggles to tell her that he loves her, even after decades of marriage. This is not viewed as a bad thing, as she says “a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house; which Richard gave her, and she him.” (7) Since this independence is something she prefers, it’s a reason she chose Richard over Peter. Nonetheless, despite Clarissa knowing that people will always have distance between each other, she still tries to connect with them through her social parties. 

Septimus shares the same fate, but on a much more extreme level. After his traumatic experience at war, he struggles to connect with the people he loves, especially his wife Rezia, who is forced to take care of him while he can barely say coherent sentences. His doctors make things even worse as they are extremely dismissive of his condition, and wave him off saying some time spent relaxing would help for sure. Septimus ultimately feels like his lack of connection to others leads to him losing control over his own life. Thus, as a final act of protest he ends his life as a way to show he still has some control. The difference between him and Clarissa is that she was able to accept living without these intimate connections, while he spiraled out of control. But in some way, it could be argued that he is “free” from this burden, compared to Clarissa who still has to go through it every day.

Clarissa has never met Septimus, so why does she feel such a strong connection to him? Clarissa knows exactly what it’s like to feel emotionally estranged by the people surrounding her. However, instead of expressing it outwardly in big bursts, she keeps it quietly to herself, manages to come to terms with it. The story ends with Clarissa going back to her party, while Septimus’s fate meant going back to heaven. Ultimately, Clarissa is the “victor”, while Septimus’s end implies his inability to adapt to the world.

rambling

Every day when I come home from school, my mom asks “How was school?” My answer is always “Good.” When people ask me about my day, I say it was boring. The reason? Because to me, it is relatively straightforward. I had classes. I went to them. I ate food. I did my work. It’s a very repetitive schedule. To Howie however, each of these actions probably has infinite potential for discussion. I wonder how Howie’s mom felt after he came back from school as a kid. She probably stopped asking him in the fear that he would blab for so long she wouldn’t get anything done anymore. I believe that Nicholson Baker is trying to tell us, through Howie, that our everyday lives contain a lot more than we usually notice.

I’ve probably drunk from a straw thousands of times. Here’s what I notice when I drink from them: Wow this drink is nice. Of course I have little thoughts like enjoying the cool sensation of cold water/soda going up the straw and touching my lips for the first time, or feeling the carbonation sizzle on my tongue. However, it was never something worth analyzing. Baker, however, presents drinking straws as something very unique and yet has issues that I had never even thought of, describing “a plastic straw floating in a paper cup [as] a small, precise problem of fluid dynamics” (Baker 42). Everyone sees a paper straw “bob” up on a drink lid before including me, but I’ve never thought about it nor even given any mental attention to it whatsoever. All there is is a sliver of vague recognition, more of a “concept” that flashes through your brain rather than something that is expressed into words. I think it’s funny how Baker decides to use elegant and eloquent prose to describe this conceptual sensation so deeply and accurately. This happens with other objects throughout the novel as well, like shoelaces and paper towels. Howie obsesses over every single one of these things, as if expanding thoroughly on something not worth expanding on. That’s what makes reading his thoughts so entertaining. In a regular novel, many details like these are cut out as they aren’t relevant to the plot. Baker does the complete opposite and makes these digressions the whole point of the book. 

Baker does more than just tell us that ordinary objects are worth looking at. He also dives into themes of growth, coming-of-age topics, and how this magical way of viewing the world might exist in each of us, being most active in childhood and slowly fading away as we age. Howie, of course, seems like an obvious exception—The escalator is a prime example. The escalator is, in my opinion, the clearest demonstrator of his superpower. He rides the elevator every freaking day. There’s nothing that gets more boring than that. However, somehow on a random day he still looks at it intently, considering its design and comparing it to integrals, looking at how the light hits the blackness of the railings and disperses into different light-patterns. This kind of fascination is childlike in nature. Kids can look at something hundreds of times and still enjoy it as if its brand new. I remember I played with one toy for years as a kid and it never got old. Howie never loses this childlike aspect of everyone’s personality. In one perspective you can claim he is left in the dust while everyone else progresses in maturity. But is becoming desensitized to the environment truly a good thing? I don’t think Baker thinks so.

intro

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