Gothic Brooding

Dense, dark, suspicion ruminations.

————

Shadowy suspicions that tumble darkly, in complex re-arrangements, for days on end, sometimes for years. It’s not the sort of thinking anyone chooses. It’s more likely a condition, similar to a birthmark; a life-long mark that those inflicted would like to be free of.

If only they could.

In my early 20’s, while working in the Art Department of the Educational Research Council, I witnessed a typical, though mostly harmless version.

My friend, Eddy Rygalski, was signing-up orders for his daughter’s Girl Scout cookies. No money was required, just a signature for so many of such-and-such cookies. John Sternad, the manager of the Print shop, signed-up along with many others. Next week, Eddy brought in the cookies.

The distribution was going smoothly until Sternad burst through the door. He slammed his money down on the table saying, ”There’s the !@#$% money for your !@#$%! cookies”! He stormed out, still steaming. We looked around in wonder, speechless. Sternad had turned the matter over - and over again - over the weekend. He finally decided Eddy had deliberately shamed him into buying the cookies by offering the cookies to him when so many other people were looking on, cookies he never wanted, a dirty trick, surely done solely to embarrass him into buying what he didn’t want to buy.

If true, his anger would be understandable, but still misguided.

Gothic Brooding has been around forever.

When Cain slayed Abel - seemingly without reason - Gothic Brooding provides a reason. “God accepts Abel’s sacrifices and rejects mine . . . our father, Adam, loves Abel more than me . . . I deserve as much as Abel . . . and so on, until the this . . . and this . . . and that . . . was heated to the boiling point.

Gothic Brooding gives cause for bad behavior where no cause actually exists.

It takes time and solitude to ferment properly. That may be why it occurs more often in northern climes than in southern ones. The lands of North and Northeastern Europe have fewer people, scattered more widely than do the southern lands around the Mediterranean. Tempers flare sooner in the heat and, they’re over sooner, though not necessarily without homicidal results. The mildness of the southern climate makes reckless behavior less risky.

In the cold north serious emotional restraint is often needed just to avoid dying helplessly alone in the cold. An act of thoughtless passion can put you equally on the run in both north and south, but in the south you don’t risk being frozen in the snow. Such considerations, over many years, may affect cultural character. Scandinavian and Russians tend to mull thoughts about injustice and revenge longer and more excruciatingly than do Italians and Spaniards.

I realize that’s an overly broad generalization. Nonetheless, it explains a lot.

I got started on this line of thought by re-reading Dostoevsky’s novel, The Idiot. I first read this novel some forty years ago. (I’d forgotten so much that it seemed as though I was reading it for the first time). I was soon struck by the dense entanglement of persons and plots, all blending in confusing combinations with additional persons and plots. I remembered other Russian novels that I’ve read. They all shared this quality of maze-like scheming ruminations; novels propelled by complex, suspicious that are nearly always mis-taken.

You may say that’s true of many nineteenth century novels, including French, English. and American novels - except that the Northern and Eastern European versions are nearly always more dense, dark, and complex, sometimes even hallucinatory - the sort of extended rants you might expect of someone deprived of human companionship and creature comforts for a long, long time – like a prisoner of gulag, or a lunatic.

At one point in The Idiot, one of the minor characters remarks: “. . . the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them”. The long torturous reflections that follow certainly bear this out. Events are sliced and diced to such a degree that you can easily forget the original question.

The main character, Prince Myshkin, is counterpoint to the ongoing suspicious doubt that swirls continuously through the heads of everyone else. Myshkin is consistently sincere, honest, and direct. He also sees things exactly as they are. His behaviour perplexes everyone he meets. They assume he’s an idiot. Later, when his perceptions prove true, they assume he only pretended to be an idiot in order to pull-off some unknown nefarious scheme.

Gothic brooding cannot acknowledge sincere, honest, and direct behaviour. There has to be trickery involved – somehow - along with selfish motives. I heard a story, allegedly told by Russians, about other Russians that illustrates: God appears to Ivan and offers him anything he wants, with one provision; whatever Ivan gets will be awarded double-fold to his neighbor.

Ivan asks to have one of his eyes put out.

That’s grim humor, but it’s not typical of all Russians, or any other culture.

It is typical of those afflicted with the curse of Gothic Brooding. They spend their lives contending daily with deceitful, selfish, scheming plots, most of which exist only in their own heads. It must be very tiring.

I prefer to trust declared motives until proven otherwise.

On the other hand.

Mmm, I wonder?

What was that guy really up to when he . . . ???

By K. L. Shipley

Website: https://www.eclecticessays.com