Cormac McCarthy: Why Write? (Why Read?)

What I like about Cormac McCarthy is that he's an "old fashioned" storyteller. And he shows how important that is, and how much we still "need" a good story. Postmodernism hasn't really brought much to the table to improve on a good story. And that's good news.
It's also good news that "artistes" like the Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Men) can be faithful (more or less, given the constraints of a two hour movie) to a good solid story. That said, I think for all their carefulness, they weren't able to deliver the real "message" (core? what's the word, it sure ain't message) of his book. The book is essentially about a man who finds his match in the way the world has become crazy ("green hair and bones through a nose" on the streets of El Paso). The understory--of a policeman's failure to be a true hero in Vietnam--aren't even brought up by the Coens. Also lost is the way the policeman (Tommy Lee Jones) and Llewelyn (the "main" character) are both Vietnam vets and both unable to fight against the craziness of the new evils afoot. I understand why the filmmakers thought they had to avoid this. In McCarthy's text many of these are narrated stories, long blocks of prose, sometimes interior monologues, sometimes delivered in a coffee shop. Unless the filmmakers used flashbacks (a sin of a different kind) they chose not to "bore" the viewers with "talking heads." Probably, all in all, it was a good decision, but sadly makes the movie a ghost of the text. It leaves many of the peculiarities of the original story somewhat intact (shifting points of view, "main character" disappearing about three quarters through, odd conversations in "tex-mex" metaphor language) but a two hour visual experience does not re-create a book.

Let's throw in the problem of people aren't reading anymore. People (kids mostly? or all of us?) have stopped reading because the writing they read has not kept up with good storytelling.

Example: I'm reading Stephen King's BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES (2007) and after a whalloping introduction where he does exactly what I'm doing now: berating the "writing world" for failing to deliver good product, the stories (at least the first couple) didn't excite me at all. I suspect that Mr. King has a side (like many popular and successful writers) that craves (will always crave) "acceptance" from academia. It seems to me he betrays himself in his choices. Perhaps I was thinking of Michael Chabon's effort: "Thrilling Tales."

(more later)

The Wire vs. The Sopranos

I can see from a quick Google that this is not an original topic. Duh.
I haven't read them (yet) as I wanted to "get in touch" with my own thoughts first.

I finished THE WIRE Season III. I could have cried at the beauty of the shakespearean ending of Striker and Avon betraying each other. (I even tried to tell my boys about it which is weird as they don't know any of the characters.)

Then I started to finish the part II, Season Six of The SOPRANOS (if you're not a Sopranos fan and at this point that's good).... and I was struck immediately how involved I was in THE WIRE's characters, how noble so many of them were on both sides of the law. The Sopranos, by contrast, is like watching a bunch of drunken bullies spiral downhill. I mean it has plenty of charm, and good writing ,and juicy characters, but essentially Tony is a big, fat, bully--mean, etc.
I would have liked it if they had concentrated on something "noble" in him:
trying to leave the gang?
trying to save his family? kids?
something?
His loyalty to the gang isn't even noble, as it comes down to who are good "earners" for him. Even the Italian-Catholic thing isn't too played up for it's exoticness.
Of course, I have to watch it to the end,
but it reminds me too much of my dad ("calling Dr Freud" as one of my many therapists used to say). My dad was fat and alcholic and mean (especially a mean drunk) and that look that Tony has .... it's a bit too close to home. Even my Russian Jewish father-in-law who was "higher functioning" than my Irish dad, had that ruthlessness and meanness that I see in Tony.

Yikes.
(more later)


SOME OTHER REVIEWS COMPARING THE TWO:
ref1: http://www.flakmag.com/tv/wire.html
ref2: http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2007/09/15/best_show/index_np.html
ref3: http://myownworstcritic.wordpress.com/2007/03/03/notes-on-the-wire/

re: IN PRAISE OF THOUGHT COMPETITION (wall street letter -- draft)

Dear Editor,

re: IN PRAISE OF THOUGHT COMPETITION

While I appreciate the efforts of Ms Segall-Wallace to intervene on the "no competition" culture specifically as it relates to creative writing, I was disappointed she didn't go further with her analysis of the problem. At least a generation of boys (the Harry Potter phenomenon notwithstanding) have been aliented from creative writing by a protectivist agenda that eschews action stories as part of a grand strategy to reduce bullying, potential gun violence, and generally the dangers of being male. My son went to an extracurricular creative writing class at a local flagship writers association and came back discouraged. He said it was all "Rivers and Trees"--the teacher wanting the otherwise all female class to produce stories with environmental, quirky relatives, or other "warm and fuzzy" themes. He quietly put away his story about a heroic warrior and went back to video games.

Regards,

Dear M: Why Write II

Dear M,
Not sure why I chose "the hook" here, I think because it was handy. Abstract in a way. OK, I'm having a crisis here. Yeah, yeah, I know you've heard this before but...
What I want to know is:
1. Should I adjust myself to NOT writing for the "publishing" (read: New York Times Book Review) world?
2. If I say yes to that, how does that change my writing?
3. If I treat it like I treat my painting, then I would be fine with self publishing. Wouldn't I?
4. If I self publish will I eventually regret it? Is it impatient? Is it "bailing out"? Is it "pretending" to be a writer (i.e. you can show a "book" to you kids).
5. Do we live in a corrupt time, when corporate (i.e. big publishing houses) greed, corporate "fear" (not really that good at taking risks), combines with political correctness of the staff (I include all the players-- agents and publishers alike) to eliminate opportunities for those that don't fit the combination of these two worlds. Would they vote for Cormac McCarthy today?
I don't think so.
6. My old writing teacher talked about "the honor" of being involved in the world of writing. That sustained me for some time. But now, I see the differences between writing and painting.
In painting, I essentially enjoy the process of creating, I care very little for the world of commerce (i.e. acceptance) and have almost zero expectations for it. But in writing, I'm hoping to attract a whole industry of people who are at odds with me.

(to be continued)

WHY DO PEOPLE CRAVE NARRATIVE?

I just got bigtime distracted when I searched Google Images for the word narrative... there's my old 'pal' (not really, just a fan) Laurie Anderson on why we crave narrative. Yeah, what did she say? And why the old pic of her? I wonder what life with Lou Reed (and, duh, the years) have done to her? Nevertheless, why DO we crave narrative? Um, anyone? Anyone at all? Bueller? OK. Old joke.
Here's my shot:
We crave narrative because (apologies to my good friends who doubt evolution) it's part of our monkey/caveman heritage. It's something that HELPS OUR BRAINS cope with the immensity of what they've stumbled upon (or been graced with), i.e. consciousness. Consciousness is darn scary. That thing died and we're eating it. Gramma died and we buried her. Why didn't we eat her? When is that (is it?) going to happen to me? And will they eat me? All that kind of thinking. It's tough.
Narrative, i.e. storytelling, says sit down, let go of some small but significant part of your SELF CONSCIOUSNESS and project it (it's easy, automatic) onto the Characters in the Story. It doesn't so much matter what happens in the story, though clearly some are better (i.e. help more) than others and thus become myths, verbal poetry, eventually novels and films. But it's essentially a pretty primitive thing. It sort of 'hurts' to be conscious and we do a lot of things (drugs, narrative, gods, God) to give ourselves distraction, etc. so it won't hurt so much. Negative?
I don't think so.
Realistic.
(More later)

Why Bother (or) Living Well is the Best Revenge.

That's how I feel today: why bother. Or in the words of Gerald (of Gerald and Sara) Murphy: Living well is the best revenge.
All around what Ezra Pound called Kulchur is marching along. The novel is dying, people aren't reading. The publishing industry is firmly in the grasp of the Politically Correct. That'll guarantee it's quicker demise, but who cares: if it's for a "good cause," right? What is their good cause? Some idea that the enlightened (they don't like to think of themselves this way, they are 'the best of the people', i.e. representing what The People could be if they weren't going to Walmart) could bring about a better world. Less prejudice (gays, women, 'of color'), less war (we can reason with our enemies, has anyone thought of that, hel-lo?), economic equity (if you took the cost of walling up a suburb and divided it by the number of under-employed people and transferred...), environment (hey even if global warming were a hoax which its not, anyone who went to college knows that, but even if it were a hoax all its goals would help us out--less pollution, less "progress", fewer cars, a bigger voice for the Third World). It's all good.
Yeah, it's all good.
So what's my f*ing problem?

see the next piece:
WHY DO PEOPLE CRAVE NARRATIVE?

The Ladder of Eccentric Women Walking Away

Anne Tyler is not of my favorite authors, not really. I find her too middle-aged chatty. Though she's the eccentric at the neighborhood coffee klatche, nevertheless you'd only be talking to her if you had for some reason to stay at the klatche, a condition I can't imagine in real life. It's not that I don't like eccentric women, I do. My favorite characters in SIX FEET UNDER (on the second viewing) are Brenda, the nutcase, and Claire, the angst-ridden artiste.

But in her book LADDER OF YEARS Tyler postulates a middle-aged eccentric woman named Delia Grinstead who decides whimsically one day (refreshingly ignoring the psycho-medical implications) to walk away from her family. The beauty of the story is that she is not abused, is not a drug addict or married to one, doesn't even hate her husband. She just feels that she has lost her life, lost her independent existence and one day it calls to her and she follows. She leaves the family at the beach and takes a bus to nowhere. Many times over the years of parenting (and I am still raising two teenage boys) I think about this story. It is an archetype. This morning my wife mentioned it (though if you mention it you're probably not going to do it). In my version she walks away with them, leaving me to wonder why I am alone in the house, and to quote the great line from THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA: "Oh, well."

Fear of.... pretty much EVERYTHING

It's hard to admit how afraid I am. Of so many things. Of doing things (anything). Of not doing things--"losing out." I am afraid when someone doesn't like me: what are they seeing, my fatal flaw? I am afraid when people like me: how have I fooled them, when will it end and how bad will it be? I am afraid when I make something: I am exposing how bad I am at this thing, how will this harm me? I am afraid when I don't make anything: I am normal, normal is death, death is imminent.
Today I am facing new technology. I have loaded WINDOWS (via BootCamp) on my Mac and with some help from Geek Squad, I am ready to encounter a technology I have been looking forward to for years. Dragon Naturally Speaking. Part of me is of course expecting to be DISAPPOINTED. I am so afraid of disappointment. I think a disappointment will open a yawning hole in the world and reveal (finally, like P.J. Farmer's RIVERWORLD series) that the whole of creation in manipulated (by alien, probably demonic) forces. Seeing this is what people aren't supposed to see and I'll never be the same. I may even become a meth freak after this (their skin: the horror, the horror!).
What if it works? What will I be afraid of then? I will be afraid that (1) is will be a massive distraction that will kill any hope I have of ever producing a decent piece of PUBLISHED work; (2) if it works really well I may create something totally unanticipated, something out of control, something that will change me (ala INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) and even if the thing is good (and published and a success) I will know in my heart (ala BEING JOHN MALKOVICH) that I am not who I claim to be (Random Lizard)... but someone else, someone I don't know and the person PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS RANDOM LIZARD is in some bottled up hell where I will awaken shortly.

(Thanks to Miranda July, Borges, and Kafka)

The Writer's Next Step

Ok, let's assume you're right that we live in a corrupt age as far as the arts go. This means people are promoting works (both fiction and fine art) for reasons OTHER than they are very good. These reasons may not be clear to the promoters who may be getting gratification from areas OTHER than aesthetic. For example, they get an ego boost (moral boost?) from reading an underprivileged person of color, the same kick someone might get from volunteering or giving money. The kick is that they are doing A GOOD THING (promoting diversity, help oppressed voices be heard, abating global warming, etc.).

"Good" writing (or "good" art) are no longer definable. Good writing is easier to define: grabs you, brings you in, use of language, etc etc.

People are swamped with images and stories, in their desperation and confusion they seek out TRUE stories (ie. from People Magazine to biographies to non-fiction generally). They skip over the fact that nonfiction doesn't necessarily mean "true" (see memoir which is often made up to make the teller look better). They also miss the "old wisdom" that truth is something that helps us understand human nature, the world, the universe, ok even God, better. Wisdom is not necessarily something easy to get from nonfiction (even the Help Section).

Your next piece.
It's difficult to write from anger, to tame anger and make it work for you.
First you need to connect with your passions. I call this your territory. What are my passions? I have a passion for being against "true believers" (often comes out as conservative/contrarian politics but that's only because I'm in a very Blue State). I have a passion for creativity (often comes out as a respect for Outsider Art (as I am highly skeptical of the Art Establishment, not even sure I like the Outsider Art Establishment all that much). I have a passion for Mystery -- I have ready access to awe, and hate most things that put us to sleep (like fear, like fear of Global Warming, or Terrorism, or Republicans, or Godless Liberals...).

I feel strongly that people are interesting because at the core we are mysteries even to ourselves. I believe Paradox comes as close to Truth as we're probably going to get. Putting these two thoughts together: if you find a person's essential Paradox, you are close to understanding (ok appreciating) the mystery of who they are. I'm not saying everyone is interesting, in fact, most people are boring because they've put themselves to sleep ("Calling Professor Gurdjieff!).

Why Write #5 (Planet Terror)

What I can't understand, now that I look at my work, is how much it is about "blabbing" about "being heard"....

My philosopher-king said I'm in conflict between wanting to be "liked" and wanting to be "contrarian"... as if, there I am in the corner... being the mad/bad boy telling everyone (the fool?) what it is they might be WRONG about... and I want to be LIKED for it? I'd be better off accepting the curmudgeon role... ah, but.. there are curmudgeons like crazy uncle Al that no one wants to talk to and entertaining skeptics.... like... who?

Why do I want to be a writer anyway? Is it to "entertain" people? Why would I care about that? What if I were to start over, what I were to be SELFISH about it all, what would I get out of it?

It's embarrassing all this stuff about this and that topic, who cares? The ranter. Who cares? Do people even care about their own opinions? There must be a PAYOFF for fear and terror and anger... (fear of oil depletion, "crash of the dollar", fear of flesh eating bacteria, hatred of Bush)... it's like we're always trying to WAKE OURSELVES UP and normal life fails us in this regard so we drink TONS of caffeine and SCARE OURSELVES TO DEATH.
So what's the role of the fiction writer in all this?

Is it, like Robert Rodriguez (PLANET TERROR) says, "keep making shit."

(I take this philosophically in the sense that one must stay alive, being creative is being alive, so just f*in' do it.)

Why All Young, Attractive, Writers of Color Are Geniuses

THE DEW BREAKER by Edwidge Danticat

It's not that the writing is so bad, it's not. It's OK. But if a white male (without proper credentials via biography) wrote this, it would never have been published. Though ostensibly fiction, what seems inherent in the attraction of the book is the authenticity of the story. This is a person who's "been there" not unlike the book A LONG WAY GONE by Ishmael Beah (which my son is reading now). Here's the thing: one can't suppress the sense that it is the STORY these people (or people close to them) have lived that makes us read on. These are tragic and dramatic stories. That does not mean, however, that this is necessarily "good writing" (in the same way Graham Greene is good writing, or Patricia Highsmith, both favorites of the moment).
Has it always been so? One imagines some "True Stories from Africa" written by an upper class twit in Victorian times. Ah, but such books did not survive the ages.

Will The Dew Breaker survive? How does it even stack up against "fiction about Haiti"? There's a sense that the literary establishment is doing a subtle form of affirmative action--promoting "authors of color" especially where, given the dramatic content of their stories, there can be no denying they are rich in something. But what? Danticat knows the territory alright, knows Haiti and the Haitian diaspora, but is she a decent storyteller? The New Yorker (the old artiber of taste, now bowing to it's political agenda like most of New York) thought so apparently.

But one suspects we supposed to appreciate these stories within a context of (a) the "unheard voices" of diverse people of color; (b) damage done to the Third World probably directly caused by capitalism, especially Republicans, especially the "current administration"; (c) a debt, a literary reparations where we have to allocate a certain percentage of our publishing/reading to stories like this; (d) other pluses: a survivor, an [attractive] young woman who can write!

It's hard even to bring up these questions.

The reviews of the book are gushing positive from the Amazon and Barnes and Noble sites. I need a reality check. I need someone to read this that is not afraid to say, it's not good writing. Ah, but if it were memoir (mem-wa!) we could forgive the lack of subtlety in drawing character, we could say--it is true, how amazing this poor woman survived. This is part of the draw in books like A Long Way Gone. You continually are amazed: this really happened! To a boy! To THIS boy/author!

But what happens when dramatic stories are revealed to be "made up" - what if Mr. Beah was an adult living in Brooklyn. What outrage. (One thinks of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces controversy). His book was presented as memoir and when revealed to be (largely? what percentage?) fictional, the outrage poured on him. We were lied to, yes, but how many stopped to say: was a it a good story, with good characters, does it work as fiction?

Besides race and our debt to the underprivileged of this world, the other issue here is youth. Like Zadie Smith, Ms Danticat is a attractive young woman of color. What if she were old, ugly? One senses the book (and I assume visits with Oprah) would be less compelling. We like youth; we like beauty. We like the fantasy (in theater, films, art, literature) that a young (hopefully attractive) person can be a genius. I suspect there is something innate in us that looks for a (recently born) savior. Old saviors are merely nags or tiresome. Young "genius" doesn't NEED aging to help us appreciate their message. Their passion is more than compensation for any lack of wisdom, or lack of understanding of human relationships, or errors attributable youthful brashness. One thinks of Michel Basquiat, the young (also Haitian-American) who became overnight the darling of the New York art world (no small thanks to Andy Warhol who elevated him from street artist to 'genius'). While it's true his paintings (years after his premature death before the age of 30) are still fresh, one wonders what would it have been like to see him age, mature, ala Jasper Johns, or DeKooning? Would our fascination fade or would his skill continual to evolve and amaze? Would he be merely forgotten (his 15 minutes of fame long gone) as another "genius young street artist" took his place?

What complicates all of this is our de-valuing of wisdom and aging. There are exceptions, of course, but the world we live in tends to like to ogle the physical attributes of our geniuses, better yet if they have, ala Danticat, exotic stories. On so many levels we are entertained and titillated. But not on the level of literary achievement!

There, I said it.

R. B. Kitaj and the Tate Gallery Disaster of '94

I've seen Kitaj paintings before. I think before I was seriously painting I found them interesting. I even remember marking him down once on a sheet of paper along with Anselm Keifer--people to look up. What a great name, too.
As my own paintings have evolved, the only "modern" artist (besides Magritte, of course) I have allowed "into the family" has been Neo Rauch.

Yesterday I read in THE ECONOMIST that R. B. Kitaj died. At first, I was only mildly interested but nevertheless read the obit. Then it hit me. The story of the "1994 Tate Gallery disaster"--this was something! Without knowing much about it (so far), this is what I know:
(1) Kitaj is considered "illustrative" which means "bad" or "decorative" to many critics;
(2) Kitaj moved around stylistically, realism, surrealism, other forms, this also irritates critics who like people to be stylistically unique, evolving, in a word comprehensible. The idea that artists, perhaps whimsically, move around and try things goes against the image of "serious/obsessed" that critics like. Stylistic whimsy is considered "freshman in art school" sort of work, lost, sans personality, even immature;
(3) The critics finally got an opportunity rather late in Kitaj's successful career to savage him and they did so with a vengeance at the Tate Gallery show in London in 1994. The shock was so great to Kitaj that he claimed his second wife died (heart attack?) from the impact of all the negativity;
(4) I think it was about this time that Kitaj got more serious about identifying himself as a Jew and even casting the criticism as anti-Semitic and also moved to the United States (ostensibly to punish London).

I should also say I am reading Roger Kimball's RAPE OF THE MASTERS, and it all sort of fits together. These things:
1. Art criticism in our time does not service the artist or the appreciator. It services the academics and the museums. It has attempted to make art something that requires advanced degrees to understand ("decode texts") and the "person in the street" is now an idiot, though still pandered to occasionally by blockbuster shows (Picasso, Impressionists, even Georgia O'Keefe and Frida Kahlo) that pay the rent.
2. Art as a practical craft, enjoyable hobby, pleasurable activity (collecting and making) has been pretty much lost. Perhaps lost is not the right word (there still thousands of art centers all over the country) but completely marginalized and shunted away from "serious" art. Now, sadly the worlds are separated, probably permanently.
3. This is why the average person feels intimidated to buy original art (as opposed to poster, reproductions or even decorator art) and hang it on their walls. If they find the art for sale it's probably by an amateur (maybe at an art fair?) and the only way to like it AND still hold their head up as a half-way educated person is to be quite aggressive about liking it, knowing full well that the serious art world will not like or approve of this piece. I think the growth of "lowbrow" art is largely fueled by this combination of frustration and anger and sheer love of images. It's partly, too, why I think magazines like JUXTAPOZ have an aggressive "street" veneer as if they have to be tough (pretending not to have stepped foot in a college for example) and 'outsider' in their way.
4. I think the growth of Outsider Art, too, as a specialty has to do with this divorce of the average person's taste from the abstruse ("globally concerned") art of say the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis). Though outsider art gallery owners, collector and appreciators can sound quite pedantic (see their excruciating efforts to define terms and castigate posers) the work they champion for the most part is accessible: narrative, quasi-narrative or surreal, often with an interesting technique. Rarely does a piece of outsider art need an explanation of why you should like it. Certainly some is revered more than another, and the "bio" of the artist matters (best when the artist is mentally disabled and from a marginalized race), but you would rarely be looking at a pile of crap/nonsense and have someone telling you why this crap/nonsense is sooooo important.
5. Kitaj got mugged by the art critic establishment, fierce as they were to "put him in his place." How dare he try to be important and international when he was JUST a painter, figurative besides. He didn't even have the torturous story of Francis Bacon (ah, the agonized homosexual popes imprisoned with sides of beef!) to make it all the more palatable. What would happen at the thousands of art schools if Kitaj was considered "important" -- god forbid people might even start painting still lives with rabbits again. Where would we be then?-- the critic worries.

Torture, Television, Terrorism, McLuhan and the X-Files

I'm going to make an X-files/Marshall McLuhan leap here. Those that dare follow.... the truth is out there and the medium is the message. How do you put these two things together: (1) World War II veterans justified fire bombing Dresden and nuking Hiroshima as the lesser evil, something necessary to save lives; and (2) the widespread obvious disdain in our, however mild, use of torture, i.e. waterboarding et al in our "war on terror"?
My premise is that television has done, is doing, something to our brains. I'm not referring to the recent study that television has a liberal slant. That's another whole story and not relevant to what I'm saying. Let me see if I can say it simply: Television mimics the feelings one would have if one were involved in a "real" community (with real people who interact and know each other). Behind "the voice" of television (a combination of "news"--we'll get you that story about the boy in the well, we know you're following that--and advertising--take a break from the boy in the well et al and see how this friendly world of products is moving along and join us!)
I know this is clumsily expressed, but at the core of what I'm saying is that the presence of television (not the Internet at the moment) in our world is a reassuring voice affirming our own dominance. Now you could say, what about fear--doesn't the television scare us constantly (global warming, terrorism, Bush, forest fires, E coli, etc.) ? How can it scare us and reassure us at the same time?
Ah, that's where we could really use Marshall McLuhan if he wasn't SILENCED BY THE X-FILIAN CONSPIRACY.... Really? Yeah, why not? What happened to the popular voice critical of television? Disappeared completely. The "perfect viewer" of television (one "it" tries to make us all into) is a person who is (a) basically liberal-centrist, (b) an avid consumer of electronics, hair products, etc. with money to spend on these things, (c) someone very worried and scared and wanting to watch to get the next update on the Scary Thing Of The Moment, (d) someone also completely reassured that "we," however corrupt by religion and conservatism, will overcome our enemies and progress inevitably to a world of improved race relations, less war, more egalitarian income distribution, less "rich people", more diversity, etc.
The key here is the sense that no matter how scared we are, we can still shop and no matter how awfully scary our enemies are, we can still AFFORD to dribble away any advantages we might derive from our greater economic or military prowess. In fact, the "tv voice" says the moral thing to do is to level the playing field, which means, allow our enemies more success. It will prove our superiority. This is why, for example, celebrities visit Hugo Chavez. They are affirming our lack of fear in him, the dominance of our EVOLVING/IMPROVING culture (as opposed to the people we might be at the moment, so Red and so Blue). The reason this is hard to put into writing is partly my lack of skill, but also because it's so deeply true that it's hard to step away from and SEE.

thoughts on THE HEART OF THE MATTER

The biggest issue I had with the book was the author's relationship to the "literal" Catholicism of his main character, Scobie. Was Scobie a true believer or was he already so deeply wounded (by the loss of his child, I suspect) that his religion is a legalistic "shell" he lives inside of. In this sense he "believes" the Church's teachings but not so much with his HEART (title reference) but with this HEAD.
In his head Scobie is a depressed (dare I say?), fairly hopeless fellow that gets what little pleasure he can from following rules (including promises). But then his "depression" (for lack of a better word, perhaps spiritual crisis?) has eaten away at his resolve to truly abide by the rules. For example, when he meets Helen he's remarkably unconflicted (at first anyway) about moving into the affair. We were not privvy to his discussions with himself (or God) about should he have an affair, should he sin? Of course, he should or perhaps cannot stop himself from sinning. So too it is with the (sacred?) rules of his job. He breaks his own rules to help the pathetic Portugese boat captain trying to write a letter to his daughter in Germany.
It's as if Scobie is two people, the "head" part (the rule follower) inevitably loses out to the "heart" part as in the game Rock, Scissors, Paper. If Scobie really loves God the most (as implied in the end) then is it really the God of the Catholic Church or some unknowable God? When he actually talks to God (a pretty amazing scene in any "modern" book) God doesn't really want him to kill himself because that is hopeless and there is "always hope if one is alive." So in the end Scobie is playing by his own rules, not God's or man's.
What are his rules that make his suicide inevitable? One might say that he's doing it out of "love" for Helen and Louise to make their lives more comfortable by his absence. But for Helen's new lover to kill himself when she's just lost her husband--this is a gift? And what of Louise? The kindest thing he could have done for Louise is to look the other way while she plays with Wilson, a pattern they'd already somewhat established. I found that curious, too--how did this Catholic couple come to be so urbane and sophisticated about something like Louise kissing Wilson, and Wilson loving her? They were acting like post-Christian sophisticates in how little it bothered them that they each had another lover. Wouldn't the logical ending be merely to continue this pattern, though much less dramatic.
Was Scobie playing some kind of dangerous game where he "believed" (in England and the Church) and "disbelieved" (illegal activities, affair-tolerance) at the same time? Was it a form of self disgust that he couldn't sustain this two-faced-ness that led him to suicide, more as an existentialist (Camus said the only real question is suicide) than a fallen-away Catholic sure he would be going to a literal hell. I don't think Scobie really believed he was going to hell. It was more that he challenged God, let's see what you do with THIS rule-breaking: I'll kill myself and throw myself on your mercy. Let's see you (God) decide Heart or Head, see how you like the quandry you've put us in!

Ayn Rand's GUIDE TO PARENTING

Redefining Selfishness:
Don't look at the dog in her day cage when you're driving away. She's fine.
Remind yourself many times during the day who you are by saying the words, "Be Selfish." At first it may feel weird, but trust me, it'll grow on you.
Remember, Selfish isn't MEAN. Mean is neurotic, you want to hurt someone. Selfish is merely accepting the STATUS QUO OF REALITY that we're separate, rational beings in an irrational* world. The only way to navigate the paradox of all this is to remind yourself of your separateness and act accordingly. There are many "tendrils" that will reach out to prevent you from acting this way. "Society" (a bad word I know) has built-in preferences, such as a parent is UNSELFISH, a nice person is UNSELFISH, but as we know, this kind of unselfishness is usually neurotic. What it really means is that the person's agenda is hidden, they get satisfaction from CONTROLLING others (children), they like to manipulate others into thinking of WELL of them (how "unselfish" they are!) and lastly they are merely righteous and lazy and want to convince you they are right (i.e. good, i.e. unselfish) because they "care more" than you do about "others" including other things, even imaginary things like "The Earth." Can anyone really care about The Earth? How absurd. Isn't this really the same thing as a Puritan saying what he cares more about is the SALVATION OF SOULS? It's all imaginary geography, however pseudo-scientifically sounding.

Are Liberals More Insane Than Everyone Else?

It's hard to accept that for the rest of my life I will not be represented by a senator or president. It's also hard to accept that "global warming" is dividing us, and due to the difficulty of dis-proving it, will probably not go away. Already my friends (intelligent! nice!) are making life-altering decisions such as taking the bus to work to "do something for the earth." I can only think it's the decline of (a) religion ["do something for Africa"?]; (b) patriotism [save string in time of war]; and/or (c) capitalist values [I need my car to get around, to do my work, to advance my career]. Even the convenience of parenting is losing out, though I have to admit I am not the biggest fan of the car and driving. I love mass transit, where it's in place already and works (eg. New York). Even in Chicago it's of marginal value to the visitor, there's is a commuter system.
Liberals are not insane, of course, any more than one could say a fundamentalist Christian (Four Horsmen of the Apocalypse..anyone? anyone at all?) is insane. People live as Taleb ("The Black Swan") says in their own Platonicity--the mental map of the world as they see it. Some see Apocalypse, some see Global Warming, some see I want my kid to get into M.I.T. (or in my case)--how come the world can't appreciate how brilliant I am. LOL.