In this sad moldering little room were seven other men, seven other organisms, hundreds of pounds of tissue and bone, breathing, pumping blood, burning calories, processing nutrients, filtering out contaminants and toxins, transmitting neural impulses, seven warm grisly unpleasant animals rooting about, for pay, in the entirely public cavity he used to think of as his soul. Kramer was dying to look at McCoy, but decided to be cool and professional.I was, obviously, interested in the rat. But it was especially intriguing to begin with the idea that Sherman wasn't an animal at all but a place, an "entirely public cavity he used to think of as his soul," and all the other people were animals rooting around in that place. As "warm grisly unpleasant animals," I guess they were rats, from Sherman's perspective. Then we shift to Kramer's perspective, and he's seeing Sherman as the rat (and thinking about other rats he has known).
What does a rat look like when he’s listening to himself being a rat in a room full of people who know he’s a rat—going wired to see his girlfriend? Unconsciously, but profoundly, Kramer was relieved. Sherman McCoy, this Wasp, this Wall Street aristocrat, this socialite, this Yale man, was as much a rat as any of the drug dealers he had wired up to go rat out their species. No, McCoy was more of a rat. One doper didn’t expect much from another. But in these upper reaches, upon these pinnacles of propriety and moralism, up in this stratosphere ruled by the pale thin-lipped Wasps, honor, presumably, was not a word to be trifled with. Yet backed to the wall, they turned rat just as quickly as any lowlife....
Really, everyone is seen as a rat here, but no one sees himself as a rat. Kramer sees himself as above ratdom, while Sherman sees himself as nothing at all. Both men — projecting rattiness onto others — protect their own interests.
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All lawyers have to represent rats. They can afford to pay. The sweet innocent ladies who spend their time at church are very rare calients, and then we usually charge them a 10% fee just so they don't feel they are charity cases , which they actually are. But they often will brag about what a great lawyer you are.
But the wealthy rat clients usually complain about you for charging them a reasonable fee after you win their near impossible, miracle case.
More to the point, this passage is why we love Wolfe. He is spot on describing the life that we faced in the roaring 1980s.
A universal state of affairs, under the correct circumstances.
Where all the incentives drive people to be rats, few will be otherwise.
There is no different model for human behavior unless the context is different.
The context includes the education, socialization, and social structure in which the participants live.
"I am I, and my circumstances" - Ortega y Gassett
This should be obvious, but ideologies exist that deny it.
"Really, everyone is seen as a rat here"
In the story everyone is a rat. There are no likeable characters, though some are decent-enough: for example, the just-doing-the-job types such as the cops Martin, Goldberg, the head of DA Homocide Bernie Fitzgibbon, the judge; even Sherman's parents.
But for the story's principal rats, the sleaze factor spills over. No vessel is large enough to hold it all.
What does a rat look like when he’s listening to himself being a rat in a room full of people who know he’s a rat
Like Carlo Rizzi when Michael tells him that he's going to have to answer for Santino.
And once Strzok is indicted for obstruction of justice (point shaving in the Hillary case) watch him rat out McCabe and McCabe will rat out Comey and Comey will rat out Obama.
Ortega y Gasset had the great advantage of having been a journalist, and indeed having been of a publishing family. Unlike the usual philosopher he was accustomed to deal with reality on the spot, having been, for instance, at Melilla, in 1921, to see the result of the Spanish disaster at Annual.
Most of his work, especially the journalism, does not seem to be available in English. His "Annual" is on my list of works to tackle, for translation, on my retirement. I have a very long list.
What does a rat look like when he’s listening to himself being a rat in a room full of people who know he’s a rat?
Like Michael Cohen testifying.
Reminds me of Lucky Jim's hangover.
"His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum."
A large part of "A Man in Full" is about how not to be a rat.
Part of Wolfe's answer to "Bonfire".
"A Man in Full" and "Bonfire" aren't really about race, that is incidental. It is a mechanism, an observation, a part of the setting. Its like the bombardments in "All Quiet on the Western Front".
And there is plenty of race in "A Man.." .
Back to blood is a little more complicated because there are several plots, there is the police officer caught in a race sensitive narrative, there is the young Haitian American teen caught between his professional father and his delinquent teen friends there is an art theft subplot
With all the rat talk on Althouse, the part about the "rat-bitch fight" made me laugh out loud when I read it, but I could say nothing about it because we weren't there yet.
"Man in Full" is not really "American" at all.
Of Wolfe's works, its likely that one could rewrite this thing most easily and plop it down in Argentina, say, replacing all the close observation of course, but the structure would stand. The point of it is Wolfe's treatment of Stoicism, heck, he tosses in the actual work of Epictetus.
How does he resolve the troubles of the protagonists? That way. A very un-American way indeed.
Cue photo of Michael Cohen's testimony.
Tag with:
Michael Cohen
So what are we supposed to make of this:
"...in the entirely public cavity he used to think of as his soul."
1. The extent of Sherman's soul is what has been exposed to these people and rooted around in. There is no more to his soul than what they have seen and rummaged around in.
2. Before all this started, the part of Sherman that they have seen and rummaged around in is what Sherman would have identified as his soul if he had thought about it. But he now has a more expansive understanding of his soul. His soul hasn't changed but how he understands and relates to it has changed, because of the experiences he has undergone in this novel.
3. It's not just that how Sherman understands his soul has changed as a result of his experiences in the novel. His soul has actually changed, as well as his understanding of it, and this thing that the people are rummaging around in isn't his soul, because his soul has changed from the thing they are getting to know and rummaging around in.
4. And the readers of the novel, having rummaged around in Sherman's soul for these many pages, they either see that his soul has changed, or their understanding of it has changed, or else they don't see or understand the dynamism surrounding his soul as the result of his experiences. (The readers who don't see the change are like the people in the room?)
McCoy said 'yes' to being a rat because he couldn't say 'no' to beaver.
I am Laslo.
Can't help but think of the Sopranos episode where Tony takes his daughter to visit a college.
"Hello, rat!"
David Begley @2:33 Your mouth to God's ear. I fervently hope for justice in that matter before I die. Democrats and lefties both are inured to their crimes effect.
buwaya @2:24: "Where all the incentives drive people to be rats, few will be otherwise."
How true. Reading Conquest's "The Great Terror", I kept waiting for one of the victims to stand up and call bullshit on the whole affair. Instead, they implicated others in an attempt, usually unsuccessful, to save their own sorry skins.
As I recall, Bukharin came closest. By that time, of course, Stalin's goons were not above persecuting innocent wives and 12-year old children to pressure the "defendants". This happened to Bukharin as well, but at least he did not crater as abjectly as the rest of them.
Reading the book, which seems to be off everyone's radar screen these days, is a wonderful antidote to optimism about human nature, for any who suffer from it.
I mentioned pyatkov and radek, whose ordeal was featured in burleigh sacred places but also montefiore the court of the red czar (about stalin)
What does a rat look like when he’s listening to himself being a rat in a room full of people who know he’s a rat?
Alex, who is KamaSutra Harris??
Althouse is where right-wing fantasies go to die.
This is from the comments section in the Seattle Times.....winning!!
Squirrelly, as if she's hoarding babies behind a wall.
"But the wealthy rat clients usually complain about you for charging them a reasonable fee after you win their near impossible, miracle case."
I found that really true at the mid-levels of big corporate clients. Did you ever do any work for GECC? They were the worst.
Kramer would be the hero in any other book, and seeing him reduced to his id is perfect.
My favorite moment in any book i have ever read is the cops standing in advance so they don't have to stand to respect someone entering the room. The pettiness is moving.
Rat is a recognized shorthand for DemocRAT.
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