The Horizontal Perspective of Reality, Term Paper Example

In the literary world, each year there are different novelties and literary works that are praised for their extraordinary or unconventional thinking representation of thoughts or narration structure. Personally, sometimes I find these works being intriguing, while, on other occasions, there is more attention than actual content. On the other hand, there are some works that are an exception and make you pay attention to every detail because details make the whole narration multi-facetted and colourful. The novel “10:04” by Ben Lerner is one of these exceptions. The essay is a personal reflection on the novel in terms of mosaic reflection of the non-linear description of reality.

The story is about a year of life of the main narrator (the name is unknown), who is a writer in the City of New York. He had published a story in the New Yorker and was offered a substantial sum of money to write a novel. In this regard, the narrator suggests that he will look at the plot from various perspectives of the future, and so the story within the story describes various perspectives of narrator’s life. At the same time, he was diagnosed with a heart condition which could result in his death at any moment. He also has a best friend Alex, who wants him to become a biological father of her child and asks him to donate sperm for this purpose. He also returns to Texas for writers’ event. All these variations of the story line create the impression of the multi-dimensional perception of reality and the place of an individual in it. Although the author is sophisticated in combining diverse futures in a singular experience, personally, my fascination with the story is not due to the multiple story lines, but because of his reflection of a moment in life.

In this regard, Lerner does not use the conventional linear description of events following one another alone (Arendt and Gottlieb 68). He also adopts a certain temporal stillness of the moment in order to describe the horizontal reality around the individual. In other words, when describing a certain event in narrator’s life, Lerner explains not only his immediate actions but also facilitates his thoughts about where he as an individual fits in terms of a larger picture of reality at that very moment. Through the narrator’s self-examination and constant egocentric doubt, Lerner creates connections of the narrator with the world around him at that very moment of the narration (Nayar 23). In its turn, he manages to create the impression of hyperrealism since the time seems to be frozen and the reader is experiencing the reality through the narrator’s thoughts and expressed connections to the world around him in a single moment of time (Nayar 47). For instance, the simple act of food consumption becomes a picture of the world in it full complexity:

“I swallowed and the majesty and murderous stupidity of it was all about, coursing

through me: the rhythm of artisanal Portuguese octopus fisheries co-ordinated with

the rhythm of labourers’ migration and the rise and fall of art commodities and

tradable futures in the dark galleries outside the restaurant and the mercury and

radiation levels of the sashimi” (Lerner 156).

This passage demonstrates small pieces which are creating the mosaic of human existence in a single moment of time related to the rest of the world. The food on narrator’s plate is related to other people that took part in its transportation and preparation, which gives it a human context and a story to tell the narrator. The human context of his existence at that very moment of time is further deepened by economic and environmental considerations that make one’s realisation of existence more multi-dimensional and palpable (Nayar 73).

Furthermore, this interconnectivity of an individual with the rest of the world does not only result in fullness of one experiencing of the reality, but also that linear development is very much programmed: school, university, getting a job, getting married and having a family. However, concentration on the immediate moment of life gives an individual an opportunity to realise one’s existence and life, in general, actually to feel it (Arendt and Gottlieb 65). Although the narrator does not seem to change much in his life, his thoughts in the moment of horizontal perception of life are the most philosophical and existential. One of my most favourite passages is narrator’s dilemma about alternatives to having children. Although I do not think that having children is just an instinct or a socially-constructed norm, I like the narrator’s perception of horizontal reality and the nature of moments in it:

“…and let it branch out horizontally into the possibility of a transpersonal

 revolutionary subject in the present and co-construct a world in which moments can

be something other than the elements of profit”  (Lerner 47).

In this regard, I am sympathetic to the idea that human interconnectivity can be experienced in a single moment of time when one’s perception is shifted from the future-looking point of view to the present in its multi-faceted diversity. On the other hand, while the narrator is looking for the new ways of reconstructing the world, I think the more important is to realise and pay attention to its diversity and interconnectivity at a certain point of time the way it is, thus experiencing the reality at its full potential.

Overall, I think that through the complex narrative perspective, the author managed to demonstrate how multi-dimensional and interconnected human reality is. In order to realise it fully, the attention needs to be paid to the present moment rather than being constantly future-looking. In this regard, the tree-dimensional reflection of future demonstrates only one unchangeable truth that all depends on the evaluation of the present moment. Based on that evaluation, decisions and actions are made that lead to a certain future. I think that this novel is a change of perspective on the human perception of life in the contemporary interconnected world.

Works Cited

Arendt, H. and Gottlieb, S. Reflections on Literature and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 2007. Print.

Lerner, B. 10:04. New York, NY: Faber & Faber. 2014. Print.

Nayar, P. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to Ecocriticism. London: Pearson Education. 2010. Print.