Art or Die: Micah Schnabel's "Humble Narrators" from Holden Caulfield to Henry
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| Micah Schnabel |
For those of us who have followed the career of Micah
Schnabel and his band Two Cow Garage, a novel should should come as no surprise. At least since Speaking in Cursive (2008), Schnabel has
referenced the products and process of his own and others' writing. Our "Humble narrator" (opening track) tells us:
If it lights you up
And if it turns you on
I will sing all to you your favorite songs
Songs, like novels, have narrators that may not correspond exactly with the author's point of view, but they can offer to both the writer and listener a unique view of the world. Sometimes, we can discern the dissonance between them through the words placed in the characters' and narrators' mouth These can be used in both songs and novels, but novels allow richer characters with nuanced perspectives. This is not to say that novels are somehow superior to songs. Indeed, in our times, one could argue that the delivery of a carefully wrought image with the right line of music can be even more powerful than the novel. But generally, the novel is also filled with elements that might not "light us up" or "turn us on" --elements that further the plot. Just as the listener seeks for particular songs on albums or artists that affect them in some way, the reader has to search for meaningful details.
Schnabel's novel will do that for the readers familiar with his recent musical output. In fact, readers will be pleased to find verbatim lyrics from Your New Normal Rockwell and TCG's new album Brand New Flag. Recognizing the allusions is pleasureful, but perhaps more importantly, because we are ultimately unable to distinguish which piece was the "origin" of the line, we are welcomed to read Schnabel's novel through the songs and the songs through the novel. In my case, this intertextuality will be taken even further back to TCG's previous records in order to generalize about the history and meaning of Schnabel's larger artistic project. In no way will this be a complete analysis of all of the songs an album, but, if you like, its analysis of the fragments that "light me up" and "turn me on."
Thus, before providing a reading of Schnabel’s novel, Hello, My Name Is Henry, I’d like to trace the lyric and thematic development of Schnabel’s writing throughout most of his career as a songwriter, pointing to specific lyrics in TCG’s catalog that foreshadow Schnabel’s foray into the novel.
If it lights you up
And if it turns you on
I will sing all to you your favorite songs
Songs, like novels, have narrators that may not correspond exactly with the author's point of view, but they can offer to both the writer and listener a unique view of the world. Sometimes, we can discern the dissonance between them through the words placed in the characters' and narrators' mouth These can be used in both songs and novels, but novels allow richer characters with nuanced perspectives. This is not to say that novels are somehow superior to songs. Indeed, in our times, one could argue that the delivery of a carefully wrought image with the right line of music can be even more powerful than the novel. But generally, the novel is also filled with elements that might not "light us up" or "turn us on" --elements that further the plot. Just as the listener seeks for particular songs on albums or artists that affect them in some way, the reader has to search for meaningful details.
Schnabel's novel will do that for the readers familiar with his recent musical output. In fact, readers will be pleased to find verbatim lyrics from Your New Normal Rockwell and TCG's new album Brand New Flag. Recognizing the allusions is pleasureful, but perhaps more importantly, because we are ultimately unable to distinguish which piece was the "origin" of the line, we are welcomed to read Schnabel's novel through the songs and the songs through the novel. In my case, this intertextuality will be taken even further back to TCG's previous records in order to generalize about the history and meaning of Schnabel's larger artistic project. In no way will this be a complete analysis of all of the songs an album, but, if you like, its analysis of the fragments that "light me up" and "turn me on."
Thus, before providing a reading of Schnabel’s novel, Hello, My Name Is Henry, I’d like to trace the lyric and thematic development of Schnabel’s writing throughout most of his career as a songwriter, pointing to specific lyrics in TCG’s catalog that foreshadow Schnabel’s foray into the novel.
TCG's Speaking in Cursive (2008) explores the peculiar reaction some men have when they encounter beautiful, intelligent, and intimidating women. Especially if they can't possess them, men tend to try and excuse or discount one of those qualities. For example, on "Bastards and Bridesmaids," Schnabel sings of a girl
Speaking in cursive.
She spoke constantly and ironically
Never-ending hipster fare
Of movies and poets and writers
No one’s ever heard of or seen
So many words so loudly
Somehow never saying a thing
We've all met these people (men and women): elitist individuals who pride themselves on their love of obscure artists best characterized by the statement: "I bet you've never heard of them. . ." Schnabel critiques them here, but on "Skinny Legged Girl" shows that he can't help but being attracted to them. Speaking of love letters he's written (the epistolary being a major theme and image throughout Schnabel's work), he sings
I have 16 that say I love you
16 more that wish you dead
Drunken Bukowski ramblings
And the five that I have left
The narrator is thus conflicted between his wish to remain the loner artist (Bukowski) and the inevitable draw of falling in love. He keeps everything as a reminder of the "damage a black rimmed glasses girl can do."
Speaking in cursive.
She spoke constantly and ironically
Never-ending hipster fare
Of movies and poets and writers
No one’s ever heard of or seen
So many words so loudly
Somehow never saying a thing
We've all met these people (men and women): elitist individuals who pride themselves on their love of obscure artists best characterized by the statement: "I bet you've never heard of them. . ." Schnabel critiques them here, but on "Skinny Legged Girl" shows that he can't help but being attracted to them. Speaking of love letters he's written (the epistolary being a major theme and image throughout Schnabel's work), he sings
I have 16 that say I love you
16 more that wish you dead
Drunken Bukowski ramblings
And the five that I have left
The narrator is thus conflicted between his wish to remain the loner artist (Bukowski) and the inevitable draw of falling in love. He keeps everything as a reminder of the "damage a black rimmed glasses girl can do."
Some of the lyrics on Speaking in Cursive, then, speak almost exclusively to a particular audience: young, white men who are struggling with preserving (what they view as) artistic authenticity among what they perceive as hipster, pseudo-intellectual women. To editorialize a bit, I still love this album, but I can see the point of DOA's initial review of the album.
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| "Holden Caulfield" from Catcher in the Rye |
It make sense, then, that the next album's personas, Sweet Saint Me, are more self-aware versions of those on Speaking in Cursive. Instead of a generic woman, we are invited to explore similar themes through an explicit literary character: Sally. The literary allusion allows some distance from the "narrator" of the songs. Sparknotes describes Sally Hayes as,
A very attractive girl whom Holden has known and dated for a long time. Though Sally is well read, Holden claims that she is “stupid,” although it is difficult to tell whether this judgment is based in reality or merely in Holden's ambivalence about being sexually attracted to her."
We can see this same tension in "Skinny Legged Girl" and "Bastards and Bridesmaids" -- intelligent women who are interpreted and described as pseudo-intellectuals because the male character is attracted and intimidated by them. The difference is that in Sweet's "Sally, I've been shot," we get Sally's perspective:
Holden let's be serious we can't just run away
I swear sometimes your just so childish
What did you think that I would say?
Although the main perspective in this song is still Holden, Schnabel introduces another perspective, showing its limits.
But in Sweet Saint Me, Schnabel writes less about romantic relationships and more about his relationship to music, art, and literature and-- himself. The centerpiece of the album is "My Great Gatsby," an artistic manifesto lamenting the loss of the authentic artists in the world:
Where is Woody Guthrie, man
When we need him most
Instead of folk-poetic heroes Like Guthrie, (the importance of Schnabel's "heroes" will return in the next two albums), we are left with electric Dylan and DJs making records. Schnabel pulls no punches here, claiming that the latter should be "ashamed" of their "raping and their pillaging of this thing we love" (music).
So the narrator sets himself up as the next best thing: an authentic artist trying to create something akin to the Great American Novel:
This will be my battle cry
The thing for which I fought and died
My Gatsby my Catcher in the Rye
Goodbye
Schnabel's acoustic guitar reads:
ART OR DIE
Indeed, "Gatsby" and "Brothers in Arms" put up a fight for real art while everyone else pursues the American Dream Fitzgerald demolished in his novel.
My friends were busy buying into American dream
Going to sleep as punk rock kids
Waking up part of the machine. . .
I didn't see this comin'
Thus, while Sweet Saint Me extends the novelistic style Schnabel will develop in the next few albums, distances us from a direct Holden-like narrator, and discards most songs about girls (with the exception of "Lydia"), Sweet Saint Me calls for producing a form of authentic art.
Art
Or
Die.
TCG’s next album, The
Death of Self-Preservation Society (2013), takes a step back from blatant
literary allusions, expanding the array of cultural references to Little Prince, Johnny Toxic,
Mickey Mantle, and Cinderella. In terms of the complexity of the lyrics and themes, DSPS, in my opinion remains the best TCG album to date.
The album opens with "Little Prince and Johnny Toxic," juxtaposing a children's fairytale character (albet, a complex one) with a porn-star-turned-rock-star. They are
playing Russian roulette inside of my head
While my left hand's writing a novel
And my right hand's got a finger on the trigger of a gun
And both of them are paying out at 35 to 1
Prince starts to cry because he knows that "someone has to die" (as it is in Russian Roulette) and Schnabel cries that we are in the same situation:
We are all characters in these
Broken nursery rhymes. . .
Instead of seeing ourselves as the main protagonist in a literary novel, we are nursery rhymes and child's fables--albeit broken and fractured. These are the Grimm's fairy tale versions of our Disney dreams. "No one gets out alive" in these fairy tales. They are fairy tales for our times and for a grown up. The question here is, as TCG ask on "Stars and Gutters" is
Are you growing up or are you just growing old?
Schnabel suggests that cynicism is a privilege of youth and that as we grow older, we leave it behind. Instead of dwelling in a cynical view of the status quo, we must search for a positive, creative, and artistic response that, if not actually changes the world, signifies its possibilities. Even, and this is important, if the artwork is not a "masterpiece," the artistic habits and forms should be cultivated.
30 scared the cynic out of me
Hey sweet Jane I’m painting my masterpiece
and its not Van Gogh
but I’m staying between the lines
If we can "stay between the lines," and if these lines are of our own making, then we are adhering to our own creative forms.
In this way, we can fight against the ways in which cynicism breeds detachment, loneliness, and apathy.
As listeners we are following Schnabel’s journey from a boyish Holden Caulfield-like character full of cynicism and spite for phony society to a mature character who realizes that maybe he isn’t writing Gatsby or painting like Van Gough, but he’s writing as sincerely, passionately, and as intelligently as he can while “staying between the lines.” Whereas literary characters like Holden are part of the “preservation society,” participating in the bastions of high literary culture concerned primarily with misunderstood outcasts, Death trades the hermetic individual’s search for authenticity amidst a fake society to a willing exposure of the self to culture’s (high and low) toxicity, to become contaminated by it, and, like some kind of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to actually become empowered—possibly even superpowered-- by the loss of the stable, assured, pure, but ultimately, lonely, self.
The album opens with "Little Prince and Johnny Toxic," juxtaposing a children's fairytale character (albet, a complex one) with a porn-star-turned-rock-star. They are
playing Russian roulette inside of my head
While my left hand's writing a novel
And my right hand's got a finger on the trigger of a gun
And both of them are paying out at 35 to 1
Prince starts to cry because he knows that "someone has to die" (as it is in Russian Roulette) and Schnabel cries that we are in the same situation:
We are all characters in these
Broken nursery rhymes. . .
Instead of seeing ourselves as the main protagonist in a literary novel, we are nursery rhymes and child's fables--albeit broken and fractured. These are the Grimm's fairy tale versions of our Disney dreams. "No one gets out alive" in these fairy tales. They are fairy tales for our times and for a grown up. The question here is, as TCG ask on "Stars and Gutters" is
Are you growing up or are you just growing old?
Schnabel suggests that cynicism is a privilege of youth and that as we grow older, we leave it behind. Instead of dwelling in a cynical view of the status quo, we must search for a positive, creative, and artistic response that, if not actually changes the world, signifies its possibilities. Even, and this is important, if the artwork is not a "masterpiece," the artistic habits and forms should be cultivated.
30 scared the cynic out of me
Hey sweet Jane I’m painting my masterpiece
and its not Van Gogh
but I’m staying between the lines
If we can "stay between the lines," and if these lines are of our own making, then we are adhering to our own creative forms.
In this way, we can fight against the ways in which cynicism breeds detachment, loneliness, and apathy.
As listeners we are following Schnabel’s journey from a boyish Holden Caulfield-like character full of cynicism and spite for phony society to a mature character who realizes that maybe he isn’t writing Gatsby or painting like Van Gough, but he’s writing as sincerely, passionately, and as intelligently as he can while “staying between the lines.” Whereas literary characters like Holden are part of the “preservation society,” participating in the bastions of high literary culture concerned primarily with misunderstood outcasts, Death trades the hermetic individual’s search for authenticity amidst a fake society to a willing exposure of the self to culture’s (high and low) toxicity, to become contaminated by it, and, like some kind of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to actually become empowered—possibly even superpowered-- by the loss of the stable, assured, pure, but ultimately, lonely, self.
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| Van Gogh, Self Portrait |
And so, stuck in a twisted fairy tale, Schnabel’s model becomes not Van Gough, the lonely
Romantic artist against the world,
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| Norman Rockwell, "Eye Doctor," 1956 |
. . . but Norman Rockwell, an artist whose
paintings graced the covers of Life magazine.
Rockwell was a popular artist of the “common man” who held a
mirror up to his society without too much editorializing. on Your New Norman Rockwell, Schnabel puts aside high literary pretentions (even if
these moments were always coated in self-reflexive irony) and focuses on the details—warts
and all—of small rural towns. Neither, it is important to note, to idealize nor critique (for to do either
would be to set himself up as an authority over and above his subject) but to
put midwesten rural life on display, to help us try and understand—not excuse—the
lives led and ideas held by the so-called “common man” in America. Schnabel can’t
put himself above these people because he tells us that with a few different
decisions and a little bit of bad luck, Schnabel could have ended up like the
rest of his town
I’m the product of your rural slums
and yes its taken me much too long
to realize this world was laughing at me/and not with me
Schnabel opens the album with a blunt declaration of his new role as an artist:
Well welcome to your new America friends
and I am your new Normal Rockwell
Painting pictures of grown adults sitting in the front seats of ’89 chevy corsicas
crushing up prescription pills
and snorting them through pink tampon applicators
With this one image, Schnabel has left behind the Romantic self-explorations and begun to document the world outside that made him (and many others like him). Art now must
bring us together through our similarities rather than divide us through our differences
I’m the product of your rural slums
and yes its taken me much too long
to realize this world was laughing at me/and not with me
Schnabel opens the album with a blunt declaration of his new role as an artist:
Well welcome to your new America friends
and I am your new Normal Rockwell
Painting pictures of grown adults sitting in the front seats of ’89 chevy corsicas
crushing up prescription pills
and snorting them through pink tampon applicators
With this one image, Schnabel has left behind the Romantic self-explorations and begun to document the world outside that made him (and many others like him). Art now must
bring us together through our similarities rather than divide us through our differences
As Schnabel’s audience, we have grown with him, away from our own possible narcissistic delusions of escaping life and living inside a pre-made literary and historical canon. Instead, as he yells passionately in Two Cow
Garage’s most anthemic song to date “Let the Boys be Girls,”We can write our OWN novels and history books
We can call this a new beginning
We can write our own soundtrack
This time around. . .
Schnabel and by extension his audience isn’t trying to fit himself or others into the literary traditions of the past, but exhorting us to write and produce and create even if the powers at be don’t acknowledge it or care. Creation is its own reward. As I noted earlier, we should cultivate artistic habits to fight a defeating cynicism.
Brand New Flag offers hope after the death of the old dispensation, but its our responsibility to enact this hope. We are not only the "only ones who can forgive ourselves" (DSPS) but, as Sweeney's excellent "History Now" says: the future is up to us. We must do our best
not to be the laughingstocks of our great great grandchildren's history books. . .
On the other hand, we still have to find individual meaning to fight out own loneliness--outside our responsibility for the future. Schnabel's song "Beauty in Futility" is a highly self-reflexive exploration of Schnabel's current state and, by extension, the odd position of the white male ally. While on DSPS, Schnabel tries to "live all his heroes lives," on this record, Schnabel says that all of his heroes are "dead and gone" and that he's "finally found [his] voice." But he's aware enough to realize that maybe even this voice doesn't really matter:
Cause my existence isn't crucial
No i'm just another example
Just another simple luxury of white privilege at its worst
Still, loneliness, like death, is a great leveler:
Are you lonely like I am?
Searching for beauty in futility
Constantly connected disconnection
This isolation is killing me
We are connected to so many people now, this connection can even feel like isolation. We can be lonely even in a crowd or on social media. Brand New Flag explores this "connected disconnection" on a personal and political level. Like many contemporary philosophers, TCG's songs long for a collective subject, or, at the very least, holds to an idea that music, art, and political action can make us a little less alone.
But in Your New Norman
Rockwell and by extension in My Name
is Henry, Schnabel explores the limitations of his band’s inspirational
punk anthems we can sing to catalyze our own artistic creation. We are fortunate that
the tone of My Name is Henry is less Sweet Saint Me and more along the lines
of another Micah motto that his partner (in every sense possible) Vanessa Jean Speckman
blazons on maps, pins, and other art objects:
In the case of My Name is Henry, we would amend this to:
Sad Songs Make me Feel Better.
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| Art by Vanessa Jean Speckman |
In the case of My Name is Henry, we would amend this to:
Sad Books Make me Feel Better.
Why do they make us feel better? Sad art helps with our loneliness. Solitude and loneliness is not something to be glorified—not even in the context of the artist. At one point in his life, Schnabel tells us in “What a Bummer,” he tried to drink himself to death, but he reminds us:
It wasn’t poetic or romantic
it was an embarrassing mess
I was a circus clown
juggling chain saws just hoping for the best
Whether or not this was actually the case, Schnabel warns us against the temptation to become a solitary Romantic genius artist. Loneliness and isolation is something we all fight to overcome—and we all fight it in different ways, some more destructive than others.
And this theme of loneliness and its possible palliatives brings me
finally to Hello, My Name is Henry, a very
good first novel that contributes to Schnabel’s ongoing artistic project.
Indeed, for Henry and the characters in this book loneliness is the metaphysical condition of the human. Josh writes to Henry: "Humans are lonely by nature "(143). Henry's mother admits that, "loneliness drives us all" (176) and we find in the novel some variation on the truism that "we all do whatever we can do feel a little less alone" (from hugging to heroin) on several pages (39, 58, 143, 163, 176, 180).
If loneliness is the human condition, then poverty usually make sure that the escapes from it we choose are at best neutral and at worst (and its usually the worst) destructive. It's important to remember this context when reading the novel: Henry is white and poor, delivering defenses of fast food because of his normal nutrition, Valuetime, products which he suspects are all made of the same "magical paste that is just pressed into different forms." (163). He recognizes that Valuetime products saved him from hunger, but argues that anyone complaining about the fast food has never had to survive on such products. Valuetime is a real-life food product, but it also serves figuratively in the novel. "Valuetime" can be read as one valuing their time or over money (for those not having the time or energy to cook better things) or as someone saying to you, in a commercial announcers voice, "It's VALUE TIME!"
In this second sense, its the time for value not the value over the time. Either one works, but how we value time (or not value time) is a crucial theme in Hello, My Name is Henry. How much can you value time when you are in poverty? When you have nothing you can do because you don't have any money? Not only that, but when do you really have the time for anything valueable? And in the last instance: does your life (the time you spend here on earth) have any value?
I am living proof that not everybody counts
No not everybody matters ("Hello My Name is Henry")
Henry recognizes what poverty does to thought: "Poverty doesn't allow for the luxury of looking ahead to the future. There's not much time for contemplation. All your time is taken up with the struggle to exist" (177). There's the rub! You might have a ton of time, but the present moment weights so heavy you don't have any means to make the present meaningful--so why not escape the present?
For some of us, we escape into the future--the realm of the possible against the drudgery of the actual. Not mere escape from the present, but a dream that could at least be partially actualized. But for those in poverty, the future is closed. Asking his mother about her hopes and dreams, his mother responds: "My dream would have been to have the time to dream," continuing, "All I wanted was for you to not be one of them. To give you some time to dream. of something. Anything." (217, 219).
And we know that, to a certain extent, Henry is able to dream a little bit. Without those dreams, both individually and collectively, we are stuck in a purgatory of the "good old days," where "Lollipop" by the Chordettes awakes you from whatever better dreams you might have conjured in the night.
The idea of romanticizing and idealizing the past to escape from an uncertain and heavy present is al lot of people's main problem in Brooksville (the fictional town in which Henry lives). Henry is at least self-aware enough to not fall for the idea to blame others (God, black people, etc.) for America's current plight. Political opinions that any liberals or leftists would identity with (another way we feel close to Henry) peek through in the novel: "These flags have nothing to do with anyone's heritage. It's all about the color of people's skin" (191). However, Henry (and by extension, Schnabel) paints an understanding portrait of those who go into the military for a different life: "Their parents called them assholes and their teachers called them idiots. Now they have a chance to be hero" (35). Still, as already noted, he won't defend those whom he thinks blame others for their lot in life. The fact that we are alone extends to the idea that we have to find our own meaning--no matter the hand's dealt to us. TCG, not to be confused with Henry or Schnabel himself, are evangelists for amateur creative production:
We can start our own bands in our basements
And we can break up citing creative differences
Henry tries to do something along these lines. Although first choosing to carry (but not read) books "as a shield," he eventually drew himself into them. He has a theory that defends the continual encounter of new art:
I have a theory that once a person stops reading, writing, listening to new music, new things, that person stops developing emotionally. They then find themselves in a stasis of sorts. That’s when this good old days takes root" (43).
We can then understand why the repetition of "Lollipop" is such a hellish condition: the same music from the same era of an idealized life.
Henry's primary reading material lately is a comic called Memory Currency. When I mentioned above that we do not know whether songs inspired the novel or vice a versa (and that this indecision is actually a good thing) this title is one of those elements. At a small solo show in Detroit, Schnabel played a song called "Memory Currency," which was a song dedicated to all of the great moments in his life--the things he had done. This song doesn't seek to try and bring the past back into the present or even long for those days, but instead appreciates moments in his past that have brought meaning. I tried to find the song in order to analyze it more closely, but I haven't been able to, but I feel like a couple lines from "Jazz and Cinnamon Toast Crunch" can get at its essence.
Me and Shane Shooting Pool in an Anarchist bar in Amsterdamn
I played a safety and the locals lost their minds
I played a safety in a game of pool in an Anarchist bar in Amsterdam
And I guess that's probably all you really need to know about me. . .
Similar moments in the past fill Schanbel's song, "Memory Currency." I always loved that last line: "and I guess that's probably all you really need to know about me"--as if this one moment, this one image, is somehow the essence of Schnabel--his--what T.S. Eliot calls--"objective correlative."
So while our past certainly is part of our makeup, and it should indeed be important, we should not take those positive memories specific to us as individuals and associate it with the times themselves. Or, perhaps even worse, forget the shittiness of those times themselves but still hold on to them like its the only thing we have to live for. Henry says pretty bluntly that people like his grandfather, who raped his mother (200), who "did nothing but create pain and and hardship for others while here on earth" should not be mourned (77). And of course, he was a product of those so called "good old days" when everything was "so grand." These people should especially not be mourned because there are others who "just die" with no fanfare whatsoever (81)--and hell, they coulda been good people.
The extent to which our individual past determines us is a major question in the novel--especially in regard to family. In America, we have this idea that family is the strongest bond possible. That is, Americans believe the family is the strongest and most important forming institution. My mother has adopted from her mother a family slogan that merely reinforces this idea: "family is everything." Family--blood--ties us together beyond thought. Blood is stronger than the the ties of even our deeply held values that we have arrived at through experience, argument, and reflection.
Schnabel illustrates this well when two sisters are arguing over abortion and the one for it enlists Henry's help. After thanking Henry for the help, she explains that despite their fundamental differences, "We’re sisters. Bound together, all the history, the blood. WE would never choose to be friends out in the world. But we shared parents and that’s a tough connection to shake" (54). The same rhetoric appears when Henry confronts a little girl's father who justifies his exploitation of her tragic death by claiming "It was my blood running through her veins" (153). Henry, not knowing the girl at all, showed more compassion for the girl in the heat of the moment and afterwards than this so called "father."
This question: to what extent am I my father's son? is a question explored in literature throughout the ages and Schnabel dramatizes it in the novel through the plot point that the father of the little girl who died turns out to be his own father. Henry is terrified that he will become this person as his fate and tells himself he thinks he'd want to kill himself if his roots "ever started to come out" (206).
Henry does his best to find things that allow him to escape or at least postpone what he expects to be his fate. Two figures represent a way out for Henry: an older woman named Marge, who will eventually give him money to take a bus out of Brookesville and his friend, Josh, with whom he corresponds via letters. Henry describes Josh's letters early in the novel:
“there were lots of letters from Josh. Notes to remind me that there was more out in the world than just Brooksville. It may seem small, but these letters and notes are a big help to me getting through the day [. . .] just small reminders of a world beyond my narrow existence" (41).
Eventually, they begin to discuss Memory Currency, ostensibly an old comic book they used to read together, one that seems to be not very well made and composed by different artists. The entry of another fictional work into a fictional work is usually a clue that these two works are going to reflect one another in some way. Indeed, Memory Currency serves as a generative device for entire narrative. Henry begins to develop theories about Memory Currency that speaks to the novel we have in our hands, writing,
"From what I can tell the reader is living inside of the writer’s head The changing of artists on different pages and jumping from space to earth and back to space. The whole premise is that you are inside of the writer’s head and you are seeing inside of his ideas while he’s writing it. It’s almost interactive. And it makes way more sense once you realize its not supposed to make sense. It’s not a linear story. It’s just a really far-out idea this guy was going for.” (144)
He then focuses on a character named Captain Jane:
Captain Jane drawn dead and bleeding from her red-haired head. Her face is mangled and there’s a gun lying just out of reach of her right hand. My heart sinks. . .If my theory is correct, this represents the author either wanting to kill himself or may just the idea of death. There is no dialogue on the page. I flip to the next page and find that’s its blank.” (275).
The page afterward says:
Indeed, for Henry and the characters in this book loneliness is the metaphysical condition of the human. Josh writes to Henry: "Humans are lonely by nature "(143). Henry's mother admits that, "loneliness drives us all" (176) and we find in the novel some variation on the truism that "we all do whatever we can do feel a little less alone" (from hugging to heroin) on several pages (39, 58, 143, 163, 176, 180).
If loneliness is the human condition, then poverty usually make sure that the escapes from it we choose are at best neutral and at worst (and its usually the worst) destructive. It's important to remember this context when reading the novel: Henry is white and poor, delivering defenses of fast food because of his normal nutrition, Valuetime, products which he suspects are all made of the same "magical paste that is just pressed into different forms." (163). He recognizes that Valuetime products saved him from hunger, but argues that anyone complaining about the fast food has never had to survive on such products. Valuetime is a real-life food product, but it also serves figuratively in the novel. "Valuetime" can be read as one valuing their time or over money (for those not having the time or energy to cook better things) or as someone saying to you, in a commercial announcers voice, "It's VALUE TIME!"
In this second sense, its the time for value not the value over the time. Either one works, but how we value time (or not value time) is a crucial theme in Hello, My Name is Henry. How much can you value time when you are in poverty? When you have nothing you can do because you don't have any money? Not only that, but when do you really have the time for anything valueable? And in the last instance: does your life (the time you spend here on earth) have any value?
I am living proof that not everybody counts
No not everybody matters ("Hello My Name is Henry")
Henry recognizes what poverty does to thought: "Poverty doesn't allow for the luxury of looking ahead to the future. There's not much time for contemplation. All your time is taken up with the struggle to exist" (177). There's the rub! You might have a ton of time, but the present moment weights so heavy you don't have any means to make the present meaningful--so why not escape the present?
For some of us, we escape into the future--the realm of the possible against the drudgery of the actual. Not mere escape from the present, but a dream that could at least be partially actualized. But for those in poverty, the future is closed. Asking his mother about her hopes and dreams, his mother responds: "My dream would have been to have the time to dream," continuing, "All I wanted was for you to not be one of them. To give you some time to dream. of something. Anything." (217, 219).
And we know that, to a certain extent, Henry is able to dream a little bit. Without those dreams, both individually and collectively, we are stuck in a purgatory of the "good old days," where "Lollipop" by the Chordettes awakes you from whatever better dreams you might have conjured in the night.
The idea of romanticizing and idealizing the past to escape from an uncertain and heavy present is al lot of people's main problem in Brooksville (the fictional town in which Henry lives). Henry is at least self-aware enough to not fall for the idea to blame others (God, black people, etc.) for America's current plight. Political opinions that any liberals or leftists would identity with (another way we feel close to Henry) peek through in the novel: "These flags have nothing to do with anyone's heritage. It's all about the color of people's skin" (191). However, Henry (and by extension, Schnabel) paints an understanding portrait of those who go into the military for a different life: "Their parents called them assholes and their teachers called them idiots. Now they have a chance to be hero" (35). Still, as already noted, he won't defend those whom he thinks blame others for their lot in life. The fact that we are alone extends to the idea that we have to find our own meaning--no matter the hand's dealt to us. TCG, not to be confused with Henry or Schnabel himself, are evangelists for amateur creative production:
We can start our own bands in our basements
And we can break up citing creative differences
Henry tries to do something along these lines. Although first choosing to carry (but not read) books "as a shield," he eventually drew himself into them. He has a theory that defends the continual encounter of new art:
I have a theory that once a person stops reading, writing, listening to new music, new things, that person stops developing emotionally. They then find themselves in a stasis of sorts. That’s when this good old days takes root" (43).
We can then understand why the repetition of "Lollipop" is such a hellish condition: the same music from the same era of an idealized life.
Henry's primary reading material lately is a comic called Memory Currency. When I mentioned above that we do not know whether songs inspired the novel or vice a versa (and that this indecision is actually a good thing) this title is one of those elements. At a small solo show in Detroit, Schnabel played a song called "Memory Currency," which was a song dedicated to all of the great moments in his life--the things he had done. This song doesn't seek to try and bring the past back into the present or even long for those days, but instead appreciates moments in his past that have brought meaning. I tried to find the song in order to analyze it more closely, but I haven't been able to, but I feel like a couple lines from "Jazz and Cinnamon Toast Crunch" can get at its essence.
Me and Shane Shooting Pool in an Anarchist bar in Amsterdamn
I played a safety and the locals lost their minds
I played a safety in a game of pool in an Anarchist bar in Amsterdam
And I guess that's probably all you really need to know about me. . .
Similar moments in the past fill Schanbel's song, "Memory Currency." I always loved that last line: "and I guess that's probably all you really need to know about me"--as if this one moment, this one image, is somehow the essence of Schnabel--his--what T.S. Eliot calls--"objective correlative."
So while our past certainly is part of our makeup, and it should indeed be important, we should not take those positive memories specific to us as individuals and associate it with the times themselves. Or, perhaps even worse, forget the shittiness of those times themselves but still hold on to them like its the only thing we have to live for. Henry says pretty bluntly that people like his grandfather, who raped his mother (200), who "did nothing but create pain and and hardship for others while here on earth" should not be mourned (77). And of course, he was a product of those so called "good old days" when everything was "so grand." These people should especially not be mourned because there are others who "just die" with no fanfare whatsoever (81)--and hell, they coulda been good people.
The extent to which our individual past determines us is a major question in the novel--especially in regard to family. In America, we have this idea that family is the strongest bond possible. That is, Americans believe the family is the strongest and most important forming institution. My mother has adopted from her mother a family slogan that merely reinforces this idea: "family is everything." Family--blood--ties us together beyond thought. Blood is stronger than the the ties of even our deeply held values that we have arrived at through experience, argument, and reflection.
Schnabel illustrates this well when two sisters are arguing over abortion and the one for it enlists Henry's help. After thanking Henry for the help, she explains that despite their fundamental differences, "We’re sisters. Bound together, all the history, the blood. WE would never choose to be friends out in the world. But we shared parents and that’s a tough connection to shake" (54). The same rhetoric appears when Henry confronts a little girl's father who justifies his exploitation of her tragic death by claiming "It was my blood running through her veins" (153). Henry, not knowing the girl at all, showed more compassion for the girl in the heat of the moment and afterwards than this so called "father."
This question: to what extent am I my father's son? is a question explored in literature throughout the ages and Schnabel dramatizes it in the novel through the plot point that the father of the little girl who died turns out to be his own father. Henry is terrified that he will become this person as his fate and tells himself he thinks he'd want to kill himself if his roots "ever started to come out" (206).
Henry does his best to find things that allow him to escape or at least postpone what he expects to be his fate. Two figures represent a way out for Henry: an older woman named Marge, who will eventually give him money to take a bus out of Brookesville and his friend, Josh, with whom he corresponds via letters. Henry describes Josh's letters early in the novel:
“there were lots of letters from Josh. Notes to remind me that there was more out in the world than just Brooksville. It may seem small, but these letters and notes are a big help to me getting through the day [. . .] just small reminders of a world beyond my narrow existence" (41).
Eventually, they begin to discuss Memory Currency, ostensibly an old comic book they used to read together, one that seems to be not very well made and composed by different artists. The entry of another fictional work into a fictional work is usually a clue that these two works are going to reflect one another in some way. Indeed, Memory Currency serves as a generative device for entire narrative. Henry begins to develop theories about Memory Currency that speaks to the novel we have in our hands, writing,
"From what I can tell the reader is living inside of the writer’s head The changing of artists on different pages and jumping from space to earth and back to space. The whole premise is that you are inside of the writer’s head and you are seeing inside of his ideas while he’s writing it. It’s almost interactive. And it makes way more sense once you realize its not supposed to make sense. It’s not a linear story. It’s just a really far-out idea this guy was going for.” (144)
He then focuses on a character named Captain Jane:
“Ok. Stick with me here. . .But I think Captain Jane is the
personification of an idea. Every time she shows up a new idea is introduced.
Whether it’s a changing of landscape or introducing a new character. It’s a
visual for the reader to show the writer having an idea. And the different
drawings of Captain Jane represent what kind of an idea it is." (144)
The final part of the theory is that the writer is not even primarily concerned with the reader, but with himself:
"This is a good chance to test my working theory of her [Captain Jane] being the physical representation of the author introducing a new idea—not to
the readers but to himself. Or maybe I’m just crazy. I’ll let you know either
way.” (183)
These passages provide clues for the eventual revelation hinted at by Henry's mother telling him that we need to "talk about Josh" when he tells her that he is going to live with him in the city. At first, the reader might wonder: oh no, is Josh a heroin addict who has been lying to Henry this entire time?
No, the truth is worse and yet is the truth that if it were lacking would make the novel so much less successful as a work of art.
As Henry opens up the latest issue of Memory Currency on the bus, he is shocked to see
Captain Jane drawn dead and bleeding from her red-haired head. Her face is mangled and there’s a gun lying just out of reach of her right hand. My heart sinks. . .If my theory is correct, this represents the author either wanting to kill himself or may just the idea of death. There is no dialogue on the page. I flip to the next page and find that’s its blank.” (275).
The page afterward says:
I AM SORRY
THE END
Luckily, this is not the end of the novel. Rather, Henry wonders what happened: "“Has
the author killed himself? Has he just killed the character? Was he just out of
ideas?. . .I have no revelations. No new theories" (278).
To comfort himself, he pulls out the first letter from Josh, his, if we remember the earliest description "notes to remind himself that there was more out in the world than just Brooksville" that are "a big help getting through the day" (41).
Dear Henry,
I'm sorry I had to leave without you. I got the opportunity and
had to take it. I'll get things started and you can come
as soon as your ready.
He finds no return address. Just his name addressed on the front.
Is it better to know or not to know?
Is it better to know or not to know?
Is it better to know or not to know? ("White Envelope," Your New Norman Rockwell)
Henry's revelation is our revelation: Henry created Josh and he most likely drew and wrote Memory Currency himself--to be just a little less alone. Henry is Josh is Captain Jane--the representation of an idea or a theory to himself and "not to the reader" (though we have intercepted these letters as well).
Memories run through his mind.
The image of the future crashes down into the crushing weight of the past and the present with no future.
He's stopped reading. He has "no new theories." He hears a baby crying--the signification of youth and new life--what should by all rights be a figure in the novel for his new life.
But instead it represents the possibility of his becoming "one of them"--
"Can you please shut that baby the fuck up!" (284)
He writes: You almost made it.
And the final words of the novel:
"The easiest thing in this world is to become the very thing you fear the most." (285)
We do not know what happens to Henry after that. Does he become cynical and decide to scapegoat the current generation and its new values and diversities for his own failures in life? Does he, to use a psychoanalytic term, "traverse the fantasy" of Josh and realize that he has the responsibility to make his life meaningful?
While the novel wraps up its metafictional dimension by the end, we are left wondering whether it was better when Henry was "crazy," and whether Josh, the city, and Memory Currency was that "something. Anything" of which his mother could hope he could dream?
It's amazing what happens to the present when the future is introduced. Instead of idealizing and romanticizing the past, the present is infused with the excitement of possibility:
"The next couple days pass like a cough syrup dream. Fast and slow all at the same time. The smallest actions become romantic. Sweeping the apartment floor. Filling the candy racks at work. Every conversation with Mel. It's all taken on a new context now that there's an end in sight. It's funny how a change in perspective can put your whole existence in a brand new light" (239).
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
("Little Light" Brand New Flag)
But is even this an escape? It it a temporary drug like a "cough syrup dream" or a heroin nod? Is his excitement for the future or for his reuniting with the past (Josh)?
These are open questions that readers must decide for themselves.
Perhaps some of the last words should be given to "Josh" in a letter to Henry:
“What I think is that none of us are really supposed to be here, not any more than anyone else. It’s important to remember that you are just as equipped as everyone else to handle life. It’s not easy for anyone. We’re all out here struggling. It’s also important to remember to not get addicted to the struggle” (99).
This reader hopes that this is not the end for Henry. I think we want to believe that those impoverished can overcome its "hamster wheel." We certainly want to believe that our past does not ultimately determine our future. And I think we want to believe that, with Henry, that "the author is somewhere writing something new and not dead" (278).
And luckily for us, the author of Hello, My Name is Henry, Micah Schnabel, is alive and well
Giving a voice to everybody and anybody
Who never had the opportunity to speak
Sincerity as my queen
And Death, my every present King
("These Divided States," Your New Norman Rockwell)
------
You can stream and buy Micah Schnabel's solo work as well as Hello, My Name is Henry at
And the final words of the novel:
"The easiest thing in this world is to become the very thing you fear the most." (285)
We do not know what happens to Henry after that. Does he become cynical and decide to scapegoat the current generation and its new values and diversities for his own failures in life? Does he, to use a psychoanalytic term, "traverse the fantasy" of Josh and realize that he has the responsibility to make his life meaningful?
While the novel wraps up its metafictional dimension by the end, we are left wondering whether it was better when Henry was "crazy," and whether Josh, the city, and Memory Currency was that "something. Anything" of which his mother could hope he could dream?
Art
Memory Currency, Josh, the City, Dreams, Future
Or Die.
It's amazing what happens to the present when the future is introduced. Instead of idealizing and romanticizing the past, the present is infused with the excitement of possibility:
"The next couple days pass like a cough syrup dream. Fast and slow all at the same time. The smallest actions become romantic. Sweeping the apartment floor. Filling the candy racks at work. Every conversation with Mel. It's all taken on a new context now that there's an end in sight. It's funny how a change in perspective can put your whole existence in a brand new light" (239).
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
("Little Light" Brand New Flag)
But is even this an escape? It it a temporary drug like a "cough syrup dream" or a heroin nod? Is his excitement for the future or for his reuniting with the past (Josh)?
These are open questions that readers must decide for themselves.
Perhaps some of the last words should be given to "Josh" in a letter to Henry:
“What I think is that none of us are really supposed to be here, not any more than anyone else. It’s important to remember that you are just as equipped as everyone else to handle life. It’s not easy for anyone. We’re all out here struggling. It’s also important to remember to not get addicted to the struggle” (99).
This reader hopes that this is not the end for Henry. I think we want to believe that those impoverished can overcome its "hamster wheel." We certainly want to believe that our past does not ultimately determine our future. And I think we want to believe that, with Henry, that "the author is somewhere writing something new and not dead" (278).
And luckily for us, the author of Hello, My Name is Henry, Micah Schnabel, is alive and well
Giving a voice to everybody and anybody
Who never had the opportunity to speak
Sincerity as my queen
And Death, my every present King
("These Divided States," Your New Norman Rockwell)
------
You can stream and buy Micah Schnabel's solo work as well as Hello, My Name is Henry at
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