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Show , Spring 2004 page 23 LITERATURE on Creativity The Cheese Monkeys: Conformity Becomes Individuality in this Novel BY LYNDSEY SCULL I was home from work and exhausted. If one more customer had asked me for a "lotta", I would have seriously considered homicide. Obviously, I was ready to not think about or smell like coffee anymore. I just wanted to read. A friend had loaned me Chip Kidd's, The Cheese Monkeys and I was anxious to delve into its supposedly deliciously sardonic depths... "Ladies and Gentlemen, behold: The Enemy:" He raised the blinds, and there was the street below. Townies going up and down the land. Greased efficient gears in the Village engine. Harmless. "Relentless. Unstoppable. You cannot hope to defeat them..." These people, they were the enemy? I was barely finished with the prelude and I was already confused. Looking out my own window, I encountered a strikingly similar scene as the one depicted in the novel. People going about their routine lives... driving their cars... going to their jobs... each day no different from the previous...simply a cog in the urban engine. A-ha! The blinds were lifting. And so unfolds a coming of age story that is profoundly relatable to anyone who has questioned the given traits of Western world thinking. Three graphic design students attending college in the suppressive era of the 1950s realize that society is essentially a factory, churning out uniformity and mental numbness. The trio begins to realize that to avoid becoming "the enemy", their thought processes must undergo careful consideration of everyday life. "The Venus de Milo. Do you really think anyone would give a good whoop about it if it were intact? Okay, maybe it would be still stuffed away in some museum, but we wouldn't know THE CHEESE MONKEYS BY CHIP KIDD SCRIBNER PUBLISHING (2002) 288 PAGES about it, I wouldn't be talking about it right now. It-she's in our heads because she has personality/' Who pays attention to the mundane? To be unforgettable a person, sculpture, or even idea must have an idiosyncrasy to it. The Cheese Monkeys continuously emphasizes this point of individuality and distinction. Individuality is a sacred right to which everyone has access. To conform and slip into a societal mold is to deny oneself the opportunity to live creatively and define life. Winter Sorbeck, one of the principal characters, the graphic design professor, affects three students more profoundly than most college instructors. His demanding and demeaning criticisms of their work and attitudes shock them into realizing the faults of living life under conformity's thumb. His shrieks and accusations actually mask a very caring and driven mentor that shows them, eventually, that creative design is not just an academic skill, it helps to define the world. "You are a designer. You have to eat the world with your eyes. You must look at everything as if you're going to die in the next five minutes." Winter Sorbeck stresses the beauty that exists in every object, not just creativity in the classroom. His most valuable gift to his students was the concept that creativity can be devoured and contrived from every scene, if one is aware enough. The shift of perspective takes place when a life of insipidness and acceptance is jettisoned and replacec creativity and individuality as main priorities. Winter Sorbeck preaches that every person is presentee with two options: to accept a life of monotony or to seize the world and to inject creativity and individuality into everyday activities. I suppose even making a "lotta" can be beautiful. |
