Ok what happened on Monday night was this - after Johnny, Shawn, Junbong and I had finished watching History Boys (by Alan Bennet), I remarked that "History Boys" feels like Tom Stoppard's works.
Junbong, casually, in his I'm-not-a-litty-guy tone- "Oh, I've never read Tom Stoppard's books."
Johnny, Shawn and I stop in our tracks and stare at him. Ah Bong looks back blankly and blinks innocuously. He concludes that we are deaf-
(More loudly and clearly) "Yah, I've never read his books."
Me - "Er, 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?' "
That's the Stoppard text all four of us covered for 'A' level literature. But Junbong just continues blinking innocuously. This is post NS life for you, in a snapshot.
---
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were very minor characters who died in Shakespeare's famous play "Hamlet". Tom Stoppard exploited this detail in his play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", borrowing their mild demise to explore the pathos of anonymity, existentialism, nihilism, oblivion.
Ironic Point One- Nihilistic Oblivion is all the more horrifying when it happens to those unaware of it. That is the thing about nihilism anyway- it is the utter nothing that engulfs everything, without room for meaningful thought or sentiments. By significantly pointing out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's insignificance, Tom Stoppard has by the very act itself reduced the very horror he is trying to show us. He paradoxically makes them major characters in his own play to lament how they're blink-and-you'll-miss-it characters.
Of course, this is not exactly his fault. It is an inevitable spin-off from the Catch-22 of nihilistic existentialism-
Heading into oblivion is most depressing when we're unaware of it. But we can't be depressed by what we're unaware of. And once we're aware that we should be extremely depressed about it, we needn't.
Ironic Point Two- Nihilism Schnihilism. So what if Tom Stoppard wrote an entire play whining about how no one knows who Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are. Junbong -STILL- doesn't know who they are. So is he the most or least faithful reader of us all?
---
Junbong, casually, in his I'm-not-a-litty-guy tone- "Oh, I've never read Tom Stoppard's books."
Johnny, Shawn and I stop in our tracks and stare at him. Ah Bong looks back blankly and blinks innocuously. He concludes that we are deaf-
(More loudly and clearly) "Yah, I've never read his books."
Me - "Er, 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?' "
That's the Stoppard text all four of us covered for 'A' level literature. But Junbong just continues blinking innocuously. This is post NS life for you, in a snapshot.
---
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were very minor characters who died in Shakespeare's famous play "Hamlet". Tom Stoppard exploited this detail in his play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", borrowing their mild demise to explore the pathos of anonymity, existentialism, nihilism, oblivion.
Ironic Point One- Nihilistic Oblivion is all the more horrifying when it happens to those unaware of it. That is the thing about nihilism anyway- it is the utter nothing that engulfs everything, without room for meaningful thought or sentiments. By significantly pointing out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's insignificance, Tom Stoppard has by the very act itself reduced the very horror he is trying to show us. He paradoxically makes them major characters in his own play to lament how they're blink-and-you'll-miss-it characters.
Of course, this is not exactly his fault. It is an inevitable spin-off from the Catch-22 of nihilistic existentialism-
Heading into oblivion is most depressing when we're unaware of it. But we can't be depressed by what we're unaware of. And once we're aware that we should be extremely depressed about it, we needn't.
Ironic Point Two- Nihilism Schnihilism. So what if Tom Stoppard wrote an entire play whining about how no one knows who Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are. Junbong -STILL- doesn't know who they are. So is he the most or least faithful reader of us all?
---
<< Home