VLVL2 (12): Parrot in a Chinese Cage

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

As if Wicks were a parrot rather than a parson:

    Instead of the traditional repertoire of short, often
    unrelated phrases, the parrots could tell full-length
    stories- ... -so becoming necessary members of house-
    holds, telling bedtime stories to years of children,
    sending them off to alternate worlds in a relaxed and
    and upbeat set of mind, though after a while the kids
    were dreaming landscapes that might have astonished
    even the parrots. (223)

Interesting medium, parrots. Seems like this type could replace
carrier pigeons by memorizing messages instead of just having 
written notes strapped to their legs. That would beg the question 
as to whether or not they actually "understood" the messages they 
were carrying.

Some people believe parrots are capable of thought as well as
the language to back it up:

    http://www.123compute.net/dreaming/knocking/alex.html

So what's 'ol pynch up to here? And what, if anything, does it suggest 
about the nature of language and narration, besides the more obvious 
parody of the Rev, who may have his own agenda regarding "a message" 
-other than just avoiding "Winter's Block and Blade"? The parable of the 
parrots in VL reminded me of this M&D passage:

    Up late between Stars, Mason listen'd downhill to the Owls
    as they hunted, and kill'd, himself falling into a kind of
    stunn'd attendance but a step and a half this side of Dream...
    In the Turning-Evil of this time, awaiting her sure Return,
    he seem'd one night to push through to the other side of
    something, some Membrane, and understood that the death-
    faced Hunters below were not moaning that way from any
    cause,- rather, 'twas the Sound itself that possess'd them,
    an independent Force, using them as a way into Secular Air,
    its purposes in the world far from the Rodents of the Hill-
    side, mysterious to all. (188)

An "independent Force," indeed. So, does our own language "possess" us 
the same? using us as a way into "Secular Air"? Given the precariousness 
of our own grasp on freedom that might not be such a bad thing, e.g.:

    The answer may lie in simple grammer. From its first
    sentence, "The Principles of Newspeak" is written con-
    sistently in the past tense, as if to suggest some later 
    piece of history, post-1984, in which Newspeak has
    become literally a thing of the past- as if in some way
    the anonymous author of this piece is now free to discuss,
    critically and objectively, the political system of which
    Newspeak was, in its time, the essence. Moreover, it is 
    our own pre-Newspeak English language that is being 
    used to write the essay. Newspeak was to have become 
    general by 2050, and yet it appears that it did not last 
    that long, let alone triumph, that the ancient humanistic 
    ways of thinking inherent in standard English have persisted,
    survived, and ultimately prevailed, and that perhaps the
    social and moral order it speaks for has even, somehow,
    been restored. (Forward- 1984, xxiv)
    
It would be as if the code used by Frenesi's "hacker" God had somehow 
taken on a life of its own- become independent and secular- affording
some objectivity and perspective- like that rare moment of "undeniable 
clairvoyance"  when Frenesi glimpsed her own insignificance and lack of 
exemption- only she had gone further, and pushed through to the other 
side of "some Membrane" of her own, to discover there some mysterious 
property inherent in the code itself, offering her, or any of us, a slim 
chance 
of redemption- or at least a livelihood.

Enjoy your weekend.

respectfully