Wednesday, April 1, 2020 — 6A
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
“The Authenticity Project” gets its title from a
notebook a lonely old man leaves behind. As he searches
for authenticity in a world full of lies, he begins by writing
his own truth in the pages of a notebook. In return, he
only asks for one thing: that the reader who finds the
authenticity project writes their own truth. And maybe
then we can be more honest with each other.
“The Authenticity Project” is a successful attempt by
Clare Pooley to show how isolated
we all are. While we uniquely find
ourselves physically isolated in real
time, Clare Pooley brings to light
that many of us hide behind facades:
from our misleading social media
personalities to our carefully conveyed
daily dispositions. The characters
Pooley dreams up emphasize the extent
to which we are separated; however,
with an enticing plot, Pooley shows just
how easy it is for us to reconnect.
Pooley uses a unique structure
to introduce the characters. The
authenticity project is first left behind
by Julian Jessop, its creator, in a small
cafe. Monica, the owner of the cafe,
is the first to find the notebook and read Julian’s story.
Following suit with the project, Monica writes her own
truth before leaving it in another location. The man to pick
it up becomes our third character, and so on.
The unique structure allows for the profound
immersion of each distinct character: Julian, the creator of
the authenticity project, is a lonely but fierce artist whose
persona lights up the pages; Monica, who first finds the
authenticity project, is a strict but caring woman; Hazard,
the proceeding reader, is a man whose name perfectly
sums him up. The book moves on to include several
other specific characters who appear to clash more than
coincide.
However, as the characters read each other’s secret
personal stories, they routinely find that they can relate.
It was humanizing to see how such clearly different
characters, each with different priorities and interests,
could relate to each other, and even more humanizing to
see the effort of each person to help the other out.
In light of current events, it is easy to get lost in the chaos
of news cycles and mandates and global statistics. Of course
it is important to stay updated on the global pandemic, but
it can be incredibly draining to read about it, let alone for
those who are experiencing it in more intrusive ways. Yet,
a glimmer of positivity has emerged
from the pandemic in how strongly
people — specifically strangers —
have cared for one another: when an
airline threw a mini-graduation for
onboard seniors, when New Orleans
quarterback Drew Brees donated $5
million to Louisiana, and when little
kids posting their drawings to their
windows to spread joy.
The willingness of strangers to help
each other out is continuously explored
within the novel: We see the characters
go distances (some in a literal sense)
to help one another. Most of the
characters spilled their struggles and
trauma onto the pages of the notebook,
feeling that the cathartic process was comforting enough.
Yet, as they go on their own missions to help previous
writers, all fail to realize that someone is looking out for
them, too.
Though I appreciated the book providing a distraction
from our disorderly world, as the project touched
more characters, I felt them becoming more and more
stereotypical in contrast to the original people Pooley had
introduced.
Finding hope within each other
in ‘The Authenticity Project’
LILLY PEARCE
Daily Arts Writer
Farewell,
our
adopted
Michiganders. Sudden virus has
taken the Midwest, turned it
upside down and shook the life out
of it like an old piggy bank. Streets
are empty. Human interaction has
vanished from our lives. Memories
of people hang like smoke in the
room. Counting Crows once sang,
“If dreams are like movies, then
memories are films about ghosts.”
The flat, gray expanse that is Ann
Arbor is haunted by these ghosts.
By you, by the Arborites holed up
at home, by the gothic mythology
woven into the fabric of this region.
The true horror of the Midwest is
the excessive generalities applied to
it. Midwesterns are not one people.
Michiganders and Kansans are no
more Protestant and hardworking
than
New
Englanders
or
Southerners. It is not all cornfields
and folk tradition. The cornfields
hide no monster other than the
rising suicide rate among farmers.
The folk traditions mask nothing
besides our industrial fallout and
the sharp segregation of our cities.
The Midwestern identity is not one
identity, but rather the quiet and
torturous struggle between these
competing identities.
The western corners of the
Midwest — Nebraska, the Dakotas,
Kansas — know this pain. Take
Prairie Madness: the deep isolation
and
torrential
winds
often
caused prairie settlers to suffer,
succumbing to depression, violence
and even suicide. Some farmers still
claim to hear voices in the fields.
Similarly, the Midwest’s literary
canon chronicles not the self-
sufficient do-gooder of popular
consciousness, but the trauma of
isolation.
Gene Wolfe’s “Peace” is one
such
example.
Published
in
1975, the novel tells the story of
Andrew Weer, an elderly man in a
small Midwestern town, through
scattered memories and dreams.
The narrator’s memories are often
nonlinear, transcending both time
and the traditional bounds in
which memories exist. While its
patience may at first seem gentle,
this novel is truly harrowing.
Weer’s narration is contradictory
and ambiguous. Scattered like
breadcrumbs are hints of murder.
It is a meditation on the danger of
religiosity and the inevitability of
sin. Perhaps most terrifying of all,
Weer is likely dead, his narrative
told by his ghost. But it is worth
wondering
whether
he’s
truly
dead, or if he has always been a
ghost — another Midwesterner
floating through his conflicting,
claustrophobic landscape.
“Universal Harvester” by John
Darnielle is a novel with similar
disturbances. This novel tells the
story of a video store clerk in 1990s
Iowa. When some video tapes come
back with strange clips spliced into
the tape, so begins an unusual and
patient tale of obsession and terror,
set against the backdrop of the
isolating rural landscape. People
might cry out for help in cornfields,
“but nobody usually hears them. A
few rows of corn will muffle the
human voice so effectively that,
even a few insignificant rows away,
all is silence,” Darnielle writes.
It is, at the same time, both a
reflection of belonging and grief,
and a realization that the true
horror of life is scattered among
the daily banalities. The narrative
shifts, splits, mutates. The ghost
and the narrative are one and the
same.
While not Midwestern — it
takes place in Dallas — I cannot
help but return to the 2017 film,
“A Ghost Story.” Starring Casey
Affleck (“Manchester by the Sea”)
and Rooney Mara (“The Girl with
the Dragon Tattoo”), this film is
heartbreaking, quiet and caustic.
Affleck’s character passes away,
but returns as a ghost, draped in
a sheet like a child. He watches
the life he knew — and his wife
— slip away from him. Shots in
this film are long, dragging like
Affleck’s white sheet along the
ground. But Affleck’s pain — one
of confinement, of dormancy, of
helplessness — feels pertinent and
relatable for both the identity-
conflicted Midwestern and the
quarantined
alike.
Affleck’s
struggle to communicate and his
longing for affection are poignant
and understood best in this era of
agonizing torpidity.
The world is quieter now, hollow
and overcast. Like a decrepit
house come nighttime, the ghosts
have come out. But they were
always here. The isolation, the
claustrophobia,
the
loneliness.
Once you exit the once-crowded
Ann Arbor streets, everything
goes flat. Pickup trucks sag rusty
in fields. Gas station lights are the
only evidence of life for miles. The
cornfields are alive with whispers.
For those of us left in the Midwest,
we again become the ghosts from
which we once hid, trapped with
nowhere to run in our enforced
confinement. We have all become,
like the Midwest, full of ghosts. So
have our memories.`
Midwestern tragedies
and the new American
ghost story
MAXWELL SCHWARZ
Daily Midwest Columnist
BOOK REVIEW
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
“The
Authenticity
Project”
Clare Pooley
Pamela Dorman Books
Feb. 4, 2020
DAILY MIDWEST COLUMN
The true horror
of the Midwest
is the excessive
generalities applied
to it. Midwesterns
are not one people.
MUSIC REVIEW
5 Seconds of Summer grows
up and impresses on ‘CALM’
KATIE BEEKMAN
Daily Arts Writer
In 2020, One Direction is a distant memory and
Fifth Harmony feels like a fever dream. But the
groups of the 2010s haven’t completely withered away
yet. While other successful acts have succumbed to
certain members going solo, Australian pop rock band
5 Seconds of Summer has persisted in staying relevant.
Their latest release CALM shows how they’ve managed
to make it in the new decade.
On CALM, the band sounds like they have moved
out of their first studio apartment and into a sleek
new bachelor pad — a far cry from their debut record’s
garage-style grittiness. If their transition hadn’t been
as smooth, the change in sound might be interpreted
as selling-out to appease a more mainstream audience.
However, their satisfyingly linear progression into
crisper instrumentation makes their evolution feel
inevitable.
On CALM the 5SOS soundscape is dark, bold and
surprisingly tidy; however, they’ve matured without
losing sight of their boyish beginnings. The strut-
worthy “No Shame,” for example, is a confession that
the boys really do like the attention they’ve been getting.
Wrapped up in shimmery production, they playfully
admit “I love the way you’re screaming my name.”
Though their refined new direction was a logical
next step, 5SOS still had to stretch themselves to get
there. The album opener “Red Desert” sounds as airy
as the song title suggests. All four members harmonize
throughout the track — something you’d be hard-
pressed to find anywhere else on their discography.
On “Teeth,” lead singer Luke Hemmings’s breath
functions as a beat. Overall, the effort they’ve put into
experimenting while sounding polished can be heard
throughout the album .
Still, CALM feels safe. The group walks the same
lines they’ve drawn out for themselves since their
beginning, just at glossier new heights. They continue to
juggle sounding simultaneously sweet and edgy. They
continue to build up acoustic production that explodes
into euphoric pop moments. Most importantly, 5SOS
continues to keep hold of their signature balancing act:
being pop punk and mainstream radio-friendly.
Sometimes that means they sound kind of boring. On
the first stretch of the album 5SOS comes out swinging,
but by the last stretch they lose their momentum. “Best
Days” and “Not in the Same Way” are sunny and soft,
but easily grow drowsy.
Similar to the band’s sound, CALM also marks a
gradual expansion in 5SOS’s thematic territory. A
throughline is the exploration of chaotic relationships.
On rock-leaning “Easier” and rollicking “Lonely Heart,”
Hemmings’s relationship hangs by a thread. Even in
the more secure-sounding relationships detailed in
“Wildflower” and “Lover of Mine,” subtle hints at
past mistakes seem to anchor all of 5SOS’s romance in
uncertainty.
It’s unsurprising then that CALM navigates identity
in a way that feels very 20-something. On “Old Me” the
group literally “shout outs” their old selves to thank
them for all the good and bad they’ve brought into their
lives now. They take a step back, however, on “Thin
White Lies” to grieve their old selves.
Read more online at
michigandaily.com