Highlights from Disco Elysium by ZA/UM Last read on February 10, 2022
Highlights from this book
-
Money doesn't make you happy, but it lets you be unhappy for a while longer.
-
Focus on other people's troubles. Not your own. That is the relief.
-
It was a market mirage fueled by cocaine and quantitative easing.
-
The key of history is in the lock - keep turning, at any cost?
-
In her green eyes you see a mixture of truth and self-satire. Decades of guilt and pride.
-
She prefers a fantasy world -- an infraculture with its own dress code and vernacular. It is an illusion, I'm afraid. There is no refuge from the supraculture. One may dye their hair green and wear their grandma's coat all they want. Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead...
-
A conglomerate the size of Wild Pines is like a shark -- if it stops moving and growing it will die. Then what becomes of those 72,000 employees who depend on Wild Pines for their pay cheques.
-
I like theory more than story. Outward movement, not vortices.
-
When power calls you, you come. But power itself is a fragile trick of perception.
-
The moralintern are a fact. I try not to have an opinion on facts -- until they change. And it doesn't look like that's about to happen.
-
It's always a challenge to describe the person you know best in the world.
-
But my own code serves me well. If my code starts failing -- a code can fail a man as well as a man can fail a code -- then I will have to submit to a new one.
-
There are no non corrupt systems anyway. And moralism is the most corrupt of them all anyway.
-
There he stands. Proud, rigid, and alone, like a cracking marble statue.
-
0.000% of communism has been built. Evil child-murdering billionaires still rule the world with a shit-eating grin. All he has managed to do is make himself 'sad'. He is starting to suspect that Kras Masov "fucked him over" personally with his socio-economic theory. It has, however, made him into a very, very smart boy with something like a university degree in truth. Instead of building Communism, he now builds a precise model of this grotesque, duplicitous world.
-
Rhetoric: "At least they're interesting. Each one has a process just like yours, running in the space between their ears, full of secrets."
Perception: "People are beautiful. Statuesque. Parodies and tragedies of themselves. A great democracy of creatures..."
-
Our things are a part of our life world. They're made with human sweat and they share human history. We should care about them as we care about humans, to some extent at least.
-
Congrats -- you're sober. It will take a while for your body to remember how to metabolize anything that isn't sugar from alcohol, so you're going to be pretty ravenous soon. Eat plenty. You can expect your coordination and balance to improve in a couple of weeks. In two months, you might start sleeping like a normal person. Full recovery will take years, though. It'll be depressing. And it'll be boring. Don't expect any rewards of handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time.
-
Real art is dense and difficult. If it didn't feel like you had to wrestle a suicidal bear to get through it, you weren't really reading.
-
It's in a way, admirable how quickly he composes himself after such a blow. This man digs authority. Even when it's bullying him.
-
Every day, the wind shifts the reeds and whatever was left in them: tambourines and condom wrappers, plastic and glass bottles, the smell of decay.
-
A chance to get in contact with the future. A beautiful, terrible thought.
-
Have you noticed the quiet? Every so often, you might hear a gunshot pierce the air somewhere in Jamrock. But in Martinaise? No gunshots, no sirens. The people are languishing in boredom and complacency. This place is a sepulcher. We'll paint it red. We bring the raucous -- you bring the sirens.
-
A laughing skull. Death hilarious. This is gonna be baaaad...
-
Mercenary tattoos -- for all the boys looking for an adventure -- a blood splatter on the seas.
-
This is an Oranjese Map of the Waterways -- a sailor's tattoo worn by wayfarers of the Dolorian century, over 300 years ago. The sailors would mark their bodies to map their travels.
The sailor's soul would use it to fly back home if they should die abroad. This is a sort of... contraption. To be reeled back in by. The silver cord, as they would call it.
"I've spoken to him. For now the soul is fastened inside his corpse".
That is precisely what the sailors feared when they drew these maps. A fear of drowning -- within one's own corpse.
-
I wield an army of drunks. Do not underestimate the effect of such a force if it is pointed in the right direction.
-
Winter, slow to let go of Revachol, flecks some more wet snow from above. The snow falls lazily, making the beach sand paler still, mixing with the rust-colored sewage run-off. And to think -- it seemed as though it were already spring.
-
TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE
ONLY IN THE NEXT WORLD -- FOR NEW PEOPLE
IT'S TOO LATE FOR US
WREAK HAVOC ON THE MIDDLE CLASS
-
The grave's coming for your little 'identity' sooner than you think, homes.
-
Might even be nice to have some company... He said that in spite of himself. He's more attached to the human than he'd like to think.
-
Apres Le Monde - Le Gris; Apres Le Gris - Le Monde De Nouveau (After the world, the pale. After the pale, the world again).
-
Listen, you Moralintern lackeys. You're a mob, enforcing the unlawful privatization of Revachol. Twenty fat men in the Occident are stealing it all -- and you're their body guards.
-
You cannot make out any of his details, but you do feel the overwhelming prescence of... capital. The feeling causes all the hairs of your body to stand at attention like soldiers preparing for review.
-
No One likes foreign mercenaries. The leftists hate them, the fascists hate them, even the moralists think they're bad taste.
-
"RACISTS ARE GENERALLY NOT VERY GOOD EXAMPLES OF THEIR RACE". He gestures to the lorryman down the street. "I AM NOT LIKE THEM. I AM CRANIOMETRIC PERFECTION. I HAVE TAKEN THE TROUBLE TO PERMENANTLY DRAW A PHRENOLOGICAL GRID ON MY SKULL AND FEATURES. THIS SHOULD DISPEL ANY DOUBT.".
-
The people who made this world intended it to be better for you, but they failed. It is easier to live in their failure with this by your side.
-
Free from self awareness. No deliberation, only execution. With his reel-to-reel mixer blasting the anthem of a future that will never come, the young man observes your moves for a second.
On the coast of the Martinaise isle, in a small weather-beaten stave church build 380 years ago by settlers from the Occident, most likely to guard against an anomaly at its centre, an officer of the RCM is contorting his body into idiotically rigid shapes, as he invents the future of dance music... it's the hardest anyone has ever danced.
-
I AM LA REVACHOILIERE. I AM THE CITY. I AM A FRAGMENT OF THE WORLD SPIRIT, THE GENIUS LOCI OF REVACHOL.
MY HEART IS A WIND CORRIDOR. THE BOTTOM OF MY AIR IS RED. I HAVE A HUNDRED THOUSAND LUMINOUS ARMS.
COME MORNING, I CARRY INDUSTRIAL DUST AND LET IT SETTLE ON TREE LEAVES. I SHAKE THE DUST FROM THOSE LEAVES AND ONTO YOUR COAT.
I'VE SEEN YOU, I'VE SEEN YOU. I'VE SEEN YOU WITH HER -- AND I'VE SEEN YOU WITHOUT HER. I'VE SEEN YOU ON THE CRESCENT OF THE HILL.
THE MODULATIONS OF MY VOICE ARE NOTED DOWN WITH THERMOMETERS AND BAROMETERS. YOU FEEL ME IN YOUR NOSTRILS, ON THE LITTLE HAIRS ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK.
I ALSO RESIDE IN YOUR LUNGS AND VESTIGIAL ORGANS. EVERYWHERE THERE IS SPACE.
YOU ARE AN AGENT OF THE CITIZENS MILITIA. AGENTES IN REBUS, WHEN YOU WEAR YOUR COAT, YOU WEAR MY SOUL.
YOU MOVE THROUGH MY STREETS FREELY, IN MOTOR CARRIAGES AND ON FOOT. YOU HAVE ACCESS TO HIDDEN PLACES. YOU ALSO CIRCULATE AMONG THOSE WHO ARE HIDDEN.
I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT. I LOVE YOU.
-
It's what this Soona person is looking for, and trying to measure. It'll be fruitless though. She won't be able to measure it. People like that always want to measure everything, all those things they really can't. You can't measure shit like this... it's not like... with substance.
-
I saw some piglets suckling their dead mother. After a short while they shuddered and went away. They had sensed that she could no longer see them and that she wasn't like them any more. What they loved in their mother wasn't her body, but whatever it was that made her body live.
-
You shouldn't listen to what people say, you should listen to what they are.
-
There is a difference between narcotics and group elation. One kills you, the other does not.
-
The world spirit does not have a body. It has organs. Hard core is an organ of the world spirit. This Arno van Eyck track is an organ. The carpentry and glass-cutting that built this house are also organs. She's a thief if you ask me. An organ thief.
-
Humanism leads to eating sugar and pigs. Humanism was invented to mass produce billions of humans. Billions of humans can mass produce hundreds of billions of pigs. She liked games. Her legacy, the thing we're living, isn't real life. It's a strategy for some kind of victory. Against a long dead opponent.
-
"What are you suspicious of?" "Oh, it'd be easier to list stuff I'm not suspicious of. I'm not suspicious of sound and colour. Mechanics and chemistry also have a trueness about them. Most anything else decieves. Wants to steal your life away."
-
"What's suspicious about pork and wheat?" "It's our only shit. We should make better use of not being animals -- or cereal grains -- ourselves. Having food is a means to an end. But the left never talks about the end, only the means. Caps are likewise suckers, constantly sleepless in worry."
"Their movement's only concern is producing enough pig and wheat for everyone -- the end goal of humanity. The original mistake was assuming that words have more being than bodies. That's what lead us astray, far from our true lives. But we may yet find a way back."
-
You mentioned true life. What would that be like?
"A life is true if it's free from fear and internal division among oneself. And others -- mankind has seeds of greatness in it. A germinal will come, a return to trueness. It will be hard core. Beats and bright lights will shatter falsehoods. Never impulses for the collective body. We are very much alike in basic structure. A hard enough beat would awaken everyone to a truer calling -- in unity! Hard core is utmost dedication. Thoughts from the spinal cord. It's a potent superlative as well. Maybe you're confused because you're being too specific about it? Try consulting with your spinal cord... like before, when you pulled those primal dance moves. I'm sure the world was glad to see them again after all that time."
-
What is all of this? The scent, the sound, the air? This world of matter and its pale antipode. The camera of her mind glides over the surface of the water. There is a term of endearment they coined for it. In the Dolorian century, when humanity was high on this world, discovering more and more of it -- these archipelagos included. Elysium. We used to think it was a sphere, but that is beginning to look less and less likely by the day. Between the big three scientific contributors, they're piercing together a dark grey corona. Pale covers 72% of the surface. There are gray flares and prominences, even arcs above entire isolas... The images are blurry, but if there was a sphere in there it certainly looks like it fractured a long time ago. They say there is a rarefied envelope of matter surrounding the darkened disc of our planet. Or, to speak more plainly, imagine vast swathes of land disrupted by nothingness. It's like the corwning of the world. It's insane. Very disco. You'd love it.
-
"Detective Du Bois..." He bows lightly. "It was downright tragic. Now let's go". To him, being a cop in the RCM was truly expressed in that performance.
-
There it is again -- the scent of apricots, with a touch of cinnamon. Smells like the end of some distant summer. The surface of another planet, or some ancient temple. The sun sets into the sea, but the water does not boil. Instead it turns to liquid gold. For a moment, the world's store of precious metals seems to increase dramatically, and you are rich... Bitter, citrus, sweet, it seems to grow stronger, like a glow, withe very breath you take... until a blossom of skin and flower petals erupts behind your closed eyes. Made of toffee, cream, and distance.
-
This is a person coming to terms with a new reality. One where they are wrong. It's not easy.
-
One leader and one follower, the most ancient power dynamic.
-
Econoclards claim to be communists, but in reality they're just liberals with hard-ons for spreadsheets. The Gottwald school look like communists, they talk like communists, but scratch the patina and you'll see beneath that they're just depressed liberals who've read too many books.
"And what about the liberals? Are they liberals, too?" "Of course not. The only people who call themselves liberals are mouth-foaming reactionaries." "Basically indistinguishable from fascists. You'd need an x-ray machine to tell the difference"
-
Are they being sarcastic? You feel like you're caught in some elaborate joke labyrinth, but it's impossible to see your way through. It's always that way. Beneath the crust of irony there's a molten sincerity that threatens to erupt forth... you may witness it yet.
-
"It's heavier than I was expecting." The rifle rests in his open palms. Its position reminds you of something... The attitude of a priest bearing one of the holy relics of his faith. Though it is long out-of-service, its power is evident to him.
-
Soon you're debating whether a de-commodified spirituality is even possible under communism... Probably not, is the answer. Which isn't to say it isn't sometimes still useful.
-
This limbed and headed machine of pain and undignified suffering is grinding to a halt. Tired of walking the desert, it doesn't want to think anymore.
-
We prefer difficult books. Books that might destroy you, if you don't destroy them first.
-
"What is Oranjese literature about?" "Fear of failure, fear of death. How it sucks to be Oranjese. All national literatures are -- only the name of the nation changes". If that's true, then Revacholian lit would fit you like a glove.
-
Something is bad in my head. In the past. That's where it always comes from, isn't it? From the head -- and from the past.
-
"Yeah, I don't wanna say that shit about him. Tell them it's not my style. They'll have to, you know -- if they want to jazz up the charges -- they'll have to get someone more..." She searches for the word, then shrugs. "Rapeable". "Could that be why they lynched him? Jealousy?" "I hope not". A pause. "Actually, I know that's not the reason. I'm careful about that kind of thing. Not crossing the wires, you know. But that's probably where they got the rape idea." "What do you mean?" "Men like that? I don't know". Another pause. "It's the way their imaginations work". I suspect it's what they'd like to do to me."
"It sounds like something happened and you don't want to acknowledge it." "Let me make this 100% clear then, officer. I was not sexually assaulted." She tilts her head. "Would I be as flippant if I had been?"
Empathy: You get the feeling she might be.
-
Volition: Soft, light brown eyes look back at you, directly into the space between your eye sockets. You see the smoke rise from between her painted red lips. She's beautiful... I have bad news for you. You know these guys?
Suggestion: Who, me?
Authority: Yes, you. He's talking about you, you grovelling sycophant.
Volition: You too.
Authority: Me? Get outta here, I'm solid.
Volition: These guys are compromised. She's got them singing along to her tune. The little beeps and bloops you trust for info -- you can't trust them anymore. I'm sorry I didn't catch it sooner. It takes conscious effort on your part.
You: Which ones exactly are affected?
Volition: There's no way of knowing. At the moment I'm afraid it's best to assume... all of them.
Electrochemistry: Bullshit, man. I ain't compromised.
Volition: Especially that guy. That guy's the most compromised one in here.
Electrochemistry: No fucking way, man, I just want a drag of that sweet Menthol ziggie.
Volition: Really? Quick, tell me what's under her jumpsuit?
Electrochemistry: GLORY. TRUTH. SOFTNESS. PROTECT HER. SHE WANTS YOU.
Volition: I take it back. He's got it pretty bad, but this next guy is on another level entirely...
Suggestion: She likes you. The Crownhead is a boring condom. He's jealous. This is human nature.
You: How did this happen?
Volition: Like it always does -- through subtlety.
You: What Can I do?
Volition: There's nothing you can do about it. You are how you are -- and she is how she is. Things will go as they do.
You: Can't you turn them normal again?
Volition: No.
You: What use is this then?
Volition: It's better to know you are being played than to be played without knowing it, is it not?
You: What is her plan.
Volition: You can't draw a sound conclusion. The one who usually does says...
Logic: She may want to control the information rollout -- not to become a suspect. She may have a past she's escaping, unrelated to this case. You doubt it's something truly insidious.
Volition: See? It's oddly moderate. Probably compromised.
You: Does that mean she's been lying to me?
Volition: I think it's safe to assume: yes. Mr. Thesbian here hasn't been speaking up. If he were, I suspect there would be paeans to her truthfulness. Like this...
Drama: She isth a laedy most fair and juste!
Volition: In his defence -- to reduce him to such inadequecy, she probably had to employ half-truths more often than outright lies.
Rhetoric: That is correct. And ommisions too.
You: Can I trust that guy?
Volition: A little. They're all still of limited use, interpreting things to the best of their ability. Maybe they add flair or something? I wouldn't know. I don't add flair. But when it comes to assessments of character, or factual accuracy they are not to be trusted. Not with her.
You: Can I trust any of them ever again.
Volition: Don't be melodramatic. You can trust them. Just not with her.
Perception: A light green speck, and imperfection, on the outer rim of her right iris. It sparkles...
You: I've been talking to myself long enough. Let's get back to it.
Volition: Don't worry, it's only been four or five seconds. You've got this.
You: "Miss, are you manipulating me?"
The silence broken, she exhales a cloud of smoke and says... "God, no!"
Later...
"He told me --- love did him in."
"That's not funny officer."
Composure: Her voice is like a slash through the air. Her shoulders tense up.
Volition: There. She momentarily lost control over Straight-Back-Guy! It appears she feels guilty.
Later...
Empathy: You sense a little hesitation there -- or maybe even fear? The stress was on the wrong syllable.
Drama: Welcome to the wake-up club, brother.
Volition: (About Kim) This bastion of willpower -- his watchmen have been sleeping too, you can be absolutely certain now. But he's coming around.
-
Shivers: A free Revachol... There is a low, distant rumble on the motor tract. A great machine, shaking the pillars down south. Electricity runs up your spine.
-
There is nothing more she can say. The final decision is yours -- you alone stand on the throne of your Mind.
-
The Return of what exactly? "Of the king? Of the nation? Of communism? Return on investment?" She tilts her head. "I don't know exactly. It's meant to be vague, as promises generally are. But at the same time, I mean -- things can't go on like this forever. Something will give. It always does."
-
It's an empty vessel, an amphora waiting to be filled. Something always returns from the past -- it's how the future happens. And when it does, many guesses turn out to have been right.
-
The man does not know the bullet has entered his brain. He never will. Death comes faster than the realization.
-
A simple hypothesis can be wrong, but it's something to build on.
-
Evil is when nature and spirit meet in the wrong place.
-
You see two cold eyes looking at you -- through all the smoke and the panic. And a pistol, raised, aiming at your chest, point blank. Then the man squeezes the trigger. His eyes seem unnaturally bright, shining like stars. Something in the fear must distort him somehow. He is evil. And the end.
-
I'm pretty sure he did all those things -- and then had to internalize them to keep on living. Until they just... sort of turned into his... What's the word I'm looking for? Persona? "Running joke. I was gonna say running joke."
-
She said she's heard of you from Jamrock. That you play suspects against each other. Open them up, like cans.
-
His grip is firm and reassuring. Like holding a piece of unpolished granite. "You should be a cop, Titus." "When are you gonna get it through your dumb head?" He scoffs. "I already am., I just wasn't sure you were".
-
I'm done thinking about this [Finish Thought].
Volition: That's right. Finish Thought. Just finish it and conveniently go on.
Logic: Don't listen to this guy. The theory was solid. He's just jealous. Move on, it's no use harassing her further.
-
Horrific Necktie: This is it. I'm gonna hit the ground and burn away now. Most of the people in this yard are gonna die -- if not all. Probably you too It's a COMPLETE DISASTER.
Volition: No Not a disaster. Weave this into the story of you. Walk out of it's ruins. Save those who can be saved -- I'm on your side.
Espirit de Corps: And the lieutenant too. And the men behind your back, drawing their weapons... you can live. You can get out of this.
-
Suggestion: Brother, you should put me in front of a firing squad. I have no words for how much I failed you.
-
Everything here reminds me of you, and the horrible times we had. The nights we stayed up fighting for our dying love. I have to wipe it all off me -- and be clean again.
-
Oh yes, this is real darkness. It's not death, or war, or child molestation. Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart, Harry.
-
We communards still hoped and they needed to snuff that hope out.
-
Men without ideals are only animals.
-
Traitors. It's better alone. I watched the people of this city turn the lights back on, more and more each year. Ruins, glimmering in the dark, like a fucking merry-go-round. The material base for an uprising has eroded, the working class has betrayed mankind and themselves... There is no flame to fan. There is nothing left -- of the world, of our dreams.
-
"May the 13th, '08, 44 years ago," he looks north. The horizon was black with Coalition airships. Their petroleum rose to the sky and it looked like... like it formed the clouds. Storm clouds. When they started shelling it was... dark magic. The combined might of international capital, all at once - all the greed and terror in the world - tore in Revachol. It lifted streets from the ground and turned houses into ghosts. The mask of humanity fell from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death... the sweetest, most courageous people in the world," he's silent for a second. "You see the fear and power in its eyes. Then you know." "What?" "That the bourgeois are not human."
-
"Well -- here is my theory: What if this is an absolutely normal reaction to the world we're living in? What if this is not a significant anomaly at all, something not to be explained, approached as a defect? Look at the sensory input here" He gestures toward the scenery. "Look at the ruins, the neon, listen to the radio, the multitudes. The people. Live here for forty years... As a police detective, he's like a magnetic reader on the world-tape -- to borrow a known metaphor. Harry's been pushed flat against it. Total input. Hard-wired to the free market... He just needed for it to end."
-
He's anything but a loser. Although he would like to be seen as one. It's cooler that way.
-
Under the evening sky the great district turns on its lights: A chessboard of wooden houses, 80,000 living souls inside. Firetraps as far as the eye can see -- from Main Street to Precinct 41 atop the motorway, to Boogie Street forking into the snowswept horizon...
You close your eyes and hear the dogs bark. A lone woman sits by a factory window, dreaming of meteorite strikes. On Rue Saint-Gerome a square bullet slides into a square-shaped chamber. In Old South a man without eyelids smiles. Spring has come. It's time.
Torson? Yes.
Mclaine?
Yes.
Heidelstam?
No.
Vicquemare?
Yes.
Du Bois?
Of course.
"Really?" Nix Gottlieb looks up from the list. "I hear he's unstable.."
"You say that like it's a bad thing", Captain Ptolemy Pryce gestures with a ball point pen. It's dim in the office and the curtains are drawn. "Harry's our man, he'll pull through. When he does, he'll side with the people."
"Understood." Gottlieb returns to the list.
"Minot?"
"Of course."