The emotional core of All Souls: A Family Story from Southie comes from its very first sentence which emphatically defines Southie as "the best place in the world." (MacDonald 1) This is Michael Patrick MacDonald's mother's (or Ma's) proclamation, but it is Michael who espouses it, to the bitter end (and beyond, but that's another subject). It is Michael who feels, already as an 8-year-old, that "It was good to be part of the neighborhood." (68) He feels this way on an evening that does not sound especially "good" at all: "One night as I sat in the window watching and waiting for something to explode, I saw a giant cockroach appear out of the corner of my eye." (67, italics mine) This neighborhood sounds frightening and disgusting. And yet, the 8-year-old Michael thinks, above all: "This was great... My whole family and a good portion of the neighborhood were sticking together to gang up on the giant cockroach." (67)
Nor is this crazy episode that combines "tension building" and "sticking together" isolated or atypical in the Old Colony projects in South Boston where Michael grew up. The tension certainly builds fast in the protests against forced busing in Boston in 1974, and so does unity of the very different parts of Southie. And again, it is this unity that (the child) Michael perceives: "God, we couldn't have been living in a better neighborhood! Everyone's sticking together, I thought." (75-76)
This rather rosy perception does not last. Peaceful motorcades are quickly followed by racial fights and horrific riots, until Michael comes to feel "sick of the police, sick of busing, sick of being thrilled or scared, and sick of the hate." (91) It's about this time that Michael's older brother Davey remarks that Southie is "worse than Mass Mental" (105), the (no longer extant) psychiatric hospital where Davey had been committed. Even Ma starts to think that maybe Southie isn't the best place in the world, after all. During yet another incomprehensibly violent protest over forced busing, Ma says that "she didn't know where to turn, what to belong to...." (118) All of the above represents one shift in their attitude about Southie, one turning point--among many. This is not a work of fiction with a neatly defined dramatic arc. This is messy reality (and how).
Just as Michael initially believes that Southie is the best place in the world, so he initially believes that the outlaw Whitey Bulger is some sort of benevolent ruler, "...the king of Southie, but not like the bad English kings who oppressed and killed the poor people of Ireland... He had definite rules that we all learned to live by, not because we had to, but because we wanted to." (110) While Michael's feelings about Southie shift back and forth many times before he decides unequivocally that it is a "death trap" (205), Michael's feelings about Whitey Bulger are not equivocal in this way at all. After the murder of his older brother Frankie--and, before that, the suspicious death of his older brother Davey--Michael sees clearly that Whitey is part of the "Irish Mafia" and he forbids his much younger brothers, Seamus and Stevie, to go to neighborhood stores connected to Whitey and the "bad guys." (199) More than that, it turns out that Whitey was an informant for the FBI: a traitor as well as a killer, not some benevolent father figure. There is no ambivalence about Michael MacDonald's condemnation of Whitey Bulger.
In the end, there is ambivalence about Michael MacDonald's attitude to Southie. Although he decides that Southie is a "death trap"--although he swears that he'd "never come back to Southie again" (236)--he does, after four years away, move back near the Old Colony Project where he grew up. He comes to see, and focus on, what is worthy and valuable about Southie: from "its loyalty and caring for poor souls like Bobby-Got-A-Quarter" (257) to "[their] solidarity with the mothers who'd been victimized and silenced by violence and the drug trade." (259) Indeed, he feels that this kind of solidarity reflects "the real Southie, the good Southie." (259)
And Michael MacDonald leaves us with an image of "the good Southie": a vigil at the Gate of Heaven Church, where, he writes--
[Hundreds of Southie residents] stood in line in defiance of the strong winds and pouring rain, and walked past the bagpipers playing "Amazing Grace." They were children, teenage friends of kids who'd committed suicide, mothers whose kids had been murdered...older men and women with canes.... A few black and Latino women got out of taxis they'd taken through the storm, braving the town they'd always been warned not to enter, and being embraced by women like Kathy Havlin and Theresa Dooley. (262)
Amen to that.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
A memoir with muscle
This small book covers a lot of territory, besides territory in Japan, Greece, New York, or Boston. In under 200 pages, Murakami brings up many issues: attentiveness to rhythm and music, preference for solitude, his inclination towards setting expectations for himself, total commitment, habituation, acceptance of events outside his control, and, of course, a multiplicity of connections between running and writing.
Last year, as I read this book, many of these issues jumped out at me, for instance, his preference for solitude, which he asserts early on at length:
...I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone...as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I've had this tendency ever since I was young.... I could always think of things to do by myself. (15)
This was refreshing. This was true of me. This is true of me this morning. I sit on the back porch of my host's home in Washington State near Vancouver, and I put together this essay on What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I pause to look at the plants, herbs, and flowers in pots on the wooden railing. I read Catfish and Mandala, which I'd bought a few days before at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, then I head toward the Clark County Fair, where I will pick up a shuttle bus to Vancouver Mall. From Vancouver Mall, I decide to go into Portland and take a look at Pioneer Courthouse Square, from there wending to the Chinese Garden in Old Town... I, too, can always think of things to do by myself.
A word that jumped out at me at the start of the book is "accept," first on p. 17 ("...we merely accept that vast expanse [of sky]...") and then on p. 18 ("Just like I accept the sky, the clouds, and the river.") Nor is this a mere flash never to re-appear. On p. 22, Murakami talks about accepting the process of aging, on p. 86 about accepting his body and face, and on p. 120 about accepting "my runner's blues"--a sudden loss of enthusiasm for running, as much a mystery to him as "the tide rising and falling, John Lennon's death, and miscalls by referees at the World's Cup." (120)
All this talk of acceptance struck me for a couple reasons. One, it brought back to mind the concept of Radical Acceptance in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), a concept that was hard for me to grasp until I connected it to the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." (Which, nevertheless, presents a tall order.) Two, at the same time that Murakami stresses acceptance of life events, he is talking a lot about running, which involves striving. At one point, when his whole body starts hurting during an ultramarathon, Murakami "tried to talk each body part into showing a little cooperation" (109), so that he could finish the race. He is not accepting his body's aches; he is not accepting an event outside his control. Is this a contradiction to his usual Radical Acceptance? Or a complement to it? (My guess: a complement).
This year, while pedaling vigorously on the elliptical at the gym, I remembered that Murakami had talked about making the muscles used to unwonted physical effort. This came as a relief. Instead of a heroic "No pain, no gain" push, working out could be a matter of gradual strengthening through habitual physical exertion. Murakami puts it in this (humorous) way:
If you carefully increase the load, step by step, [your muscles] learn to take it. As long as you explain your expectations to them by actually showing them examples of the amount of work they have to endure...as long as you take your time and do it in stages, they won't complain--aside from the occasional long face--and they'll very patiently and obediently grow stronger. (71)
For this habituation to be effective, total commitment to the process is required. This is not a hardship for Murakami. Quite the opposite. It is customary for him to "totally commit to whatever I do." (31) When he opened a jazz club after college, he "figured...that since failure was not an option, I'd have to give it everything I had." (25) The phrase "everything I had" recurs--
when he decides to become a professional novelist, and then when he chooses long-distance running to keep fit. And it inspired me to work out at the gym at least four mornings a week for about two hours.
Murakami's many connections between running and writing are indisputably at the heart of this book, and yet, I confess, they did not make much impact on me. Except one. In Chapter 4, Murakami talks about the qualities a novelist needs: talent, focus, and endurance. Unlike talent, he writes, focus and endurance can be acquired through training--i.e., through habituation--like the strengthening of muscles. He draws this conclusion briefly on p. 78 but then elaborates on it from p. 79 to p. 82...
...with humility, humor, and candor. Wowza!
Last year, as I read this book, many of these issues jumped out at me, for instance, his preference for solitude, which he asserts early on at length:
...I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone...as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I've had this tendency ever since I was young.... I could always think of things to do by myself. (15)
This was refreshing. This was true of me. This is true of me this morning. I sit on the back porch of my host's home in Washington State near Vancouver, and I put together this essay on What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I pause to look at the plants, herbs, and flowers in pots on the wooden railing. I read Catfish and Mandala, which I'd bought a few days before at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, then I head toward the Clark County Fair, where I will pick up a shuttle bus to Vancouver Mall. From Vancouver Mall, I decide to go into Portland and take a look at Pioneer Courthouse Square, from there wending to the Chinese Garden in Old Town... I, too, can always think of things to do by myself.
A word that jumped out at me at the start of the book is "accept," first on p. 17 ("...we merely accept that vast expanse [of sky]...") and then on p. 18 ("Just like I accept the sky, the clouds, and the river.") Nor is this a mere flash never to re-appear. On p. 22, Murakami talks about accepting the process of aging, on p. 86 about accepting his body and face, and on p. 120 about accepting "my runner's blues"--a sudden loss of enthusiasm for running, as much a mystery to him as "the tide rising and falling, John Lennon's death, and miscalls by referees at the World's Cup." (120)
All this talk of acceptance struck me for a couple reasons. One, it brought back to mind the concept of Radical Acceptance in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), a concept that was hard for me to grasp until I connected it to the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." (Which, nevertheless, presents a tall order.) Two, at the same time that Murakami stresses acceptance of life events, he is talking a lot about running, which involves striving. At one point, when his whole body starts hurting during an ultramarathon, Murakami "tried to talk each body part into showing a little cooperation" (109), so that he could finish the race. He is not accepting his body's aches; he is not accepting an event outside his control. Is this a contradiction to his usual Radical Acceptance? Or a complement to it? (My guess: a complement).
This year, while pedaling vigorously on the elliptical at the gym, I remembered that Murakami had talked about making the muscles used to unwonted physical effort. This came as a relief. Instead of a heroic "No pain, no gain" push, working out could be a matter of gradual strengthening through habitual physical exertion. Murakami puts it in this (humorous) way:
If you carefully increase the load, step by step, [your muscles] learn to take it. As long as you explain your expectations to them by actually showing them examples of the amount of work they have to endure...as long as you take your time and do it in stages, they won't complain--aside from the occasional long face--and they'll very patiently and obediently grow stronger. (71)
For this habituation to be effective, total commitment to the process is required. This is not a hardship for Murakami. Quite the opposite. It is customary for him to "totally commit to whatever I do." (31) When he opened a jazz club after college, he "figured...that since failure was not an option, I'd have to give it everything I had." (25) The phrase "everything I had" recurs--
when he decides to become a professional novelist, and then when he chooses long-distance running to keep fit. And it inspired me to work out at the gym at least four mornings a week for about two hours.
Murakami's many connections between running and writing are indisputably at the heart of this book, and yet, I confess, they did not make much impact on me. Except one. In Chapter 4, Murakami talks about the qualities a novelist needs: talent, focus, and endurance. Unlike talent, he writes, focus and endurance can be acquired through training--i.e., through habituation--like the strengthening of muscles. He draws this conclusion briefly on p. 78 but then elaborates on it from p. 79 to p. 82...
...with humility, humor, and candor. Wowza!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Hear ye! Hear ye!
This blog is going on summer vacation. It plans to return in the fall with entries on two memoirs--What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami, and All Souls: A Family Story From Southie, by Michael Patrick MacDonald--followed by a slice of non-fiction life--Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer.
Hope you like!
Hope you like!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
More sound and fury, signifying something
The Signet Classic's short bio of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley tells us that Mary wrote Frankenstein as a result of a story-writing competition among the Shelleys and Lord Byron. In the Author's Introduction to a re-issue of Frankenstein in 1831, Mary Shelley more than confirms this.
First of all, Mary puts herself in a community of Romantic poets amid the majesty of Nature that first shines, and then rains, upon them, thus confining them to the house--and ghost stories. (Shelley, viii) Then, after they read these ghost stories, Byron proposes that each of them write a ghost story (ix); then, after she listens to a conversation between Byron and Shelley related to galvanism in which "the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth," Mary announces that she has thought of a story (x); then, after she writes a "few pages, of a short tale...Shelley urged me to develop the idea at greater length...." (xi) Two things stand out here. One--at every point, before and during the genesis of Frankenstein, relationship to another person, or persons, was crucial to the development of Mary Shelley's work. Two--Nature plays a pivotal role in the course of events. Not coincidentally, I suspect, both the importance of relationships and the centrality of Nature make a recurring significant appearance in Mary Shelley's novel.
At the very start of Victor Frankenstein's narrative, the focus is on family, marriage, and friends. Frankenstein says of his parents that "they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of live to bestow them on me." (33) When he is about five, his parents adopt a peasant girl, Elizabeth, who becomes "my more than sister--the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and all my pleasures." (35) After his parents settle in Switzerland, he unites himself in the "bonds of the closest friendship to one among [my schoolfellows, Henry Clerval]." (37) Loving relationship with another is clearly the goal of existence, perhaps even the pinnacle of emotional health.
After Frankenstein leaves behind family and friends for the university at Ingolstadt, he develops a habit of solitary scientific pursuit. From asking himself, "Whence...did the principle of life proceed?" (50), Frankenstein then examines and analyzes "all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me." (51) At first, this "sudden light" waxes into "the first enthusiasm of success" (52), but soon it wanes into "my person...emaciated with confinement" as he pursues his goal of animating lifeless matter "in a solitary chamber...separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and a staircase...." (53) The result of all this isolated activity is a monster whose life is, in turn, utterly confined and defined by isolation.
The monster tells his creator that, in his wanderings, he soon discovered that people either fled from him or attacked him. Consequently, he creates for himself a "hovel" (102), from which he then observes a girl, a young man, and an old man. Especially, he observes that "they enjoyed one another's company and speech, interchanging looks of affection and kindness." (106) In addition, he hears the story of the beautiful woman from Turkey; he learns that she, Safie, and the young man, Felix, are in love--a love that was nearly thwarted by Safie's autocratic father. Far from being thwarted, their love is augmented by the study of language (presumably, French). Study does not, however, improve the monster's condition. On the contrary--"Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was." (125) More and more, the monster longs for what 20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow called belongingness. High stakes. And, of course, the monster loses. Once again, people (the girl/Safie) either flee him or people (the old man/Felix) attack him. So, now unquestionably isolated, the monster commands his creator: "My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create." (137)
Meantime, throughout, relationship to Nature is as important as relationship to another. Initially--although he has created the monster--Frankenstein can still take pleasure in "happy, inanimate nature.... A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy." (68) The monster also initially takes pleasure in Nature, particularly in the moonlight and in birdsong. (99) But soon, utterly alienated and enraged, the monster kills Frankenstein's much younger brother William and then implicates the devoted family servant, Justine, in the murder. Upon the deaths of William and Justine, Frankenstein cannot take pleasure in Nature, but rather considers drowning himself in a "beautiful and heavenly" lake. (87) There are a few times, later, when Nature can still please, divert, or console Frankenstein, but predominantly he feels like "a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul...." (153) Frankenstein's friend Clerval, who does not feel like "a blasted tree," feels invigorated by the country around the Rhine:
...I have seen the mountains of Le Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange, but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river that I never before saw equalled. (148)
And so on. The literary critic, Howard Bloom, in his Afterword to Frankenstein, suggests that Mary Shelley based Clerval on the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and I suspect that he is right. Nature is absolutely no footnote to Henry Clerval...
...and neither is it a footnote to Elizabeth (Lavenza), who says to Frankenstein on their honeymoon:
Observe how fast we move along and how the clouds...render this scene of beauty still more interesting. Look also at the innumerable fish that are swimming in the clear waters.... What a divine day! (183)
Very apparently, unity with another and harmony with Nature are inextricably intertwined, in a novel, in the early 19th century. And they still are, for the non-fictional rest of us, in the early 21st century.
First of all, Mary puts herself in a community of Romantic poets amid the majesty of Nature that first shines, and then rains, upon them, thus confining them to the house--and ghost stories. (Shelley, viii) Then, after they read these ghost stories, Byron proposes that each of them write a ghost story (ix); then, after she listens to a conversation between Byron and Shelley related to galvanism in which "the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth," Mary announces that she has thought of a story (x); then, after she writes a "few pages, of a short tale...Shelley urged me to develop the idea at greater length...." (xi) Two things stand out here. One--at every point, before and during the genesis of Frankenstein, relationship to another person, or persons, was crucial to the development of Mary Shelley's work. Two--Nature plays a pivotal role in the course of events. Not coincidentally, I suspect, both the importance of relationships and the centrality of Nature make a recurring significant appearance in Mary Shelley's novel.
At the very start of Victor Frankenstein's narrative, the focus is on family, marriage, and friends. Frankenstein says of his parents that "they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of live to bestow them on me." (33) When he is about five, his parents adopt a peasant girl, Elizabeth, who becomes "my more than sister--the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and all my pleasures." (35) After his parents settle in Switzerland, he unites himself in the "bonds of the closest friendship to one among [my schoolfellows, Henry Clerval]." (37) Loving relationship with another is clearly the goal of existence, perhaps even the pinnacle of emotional health.
After Frankenstein leaves behind family and friends for the university at Ingolstadt, he develops a habit of solitary scientific pursuit. From asking himself, "Whence...did the principle of life proceed?" (50), Frankenstein then examines and analyzes "all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me." (51) At first, this "sudden light" waxes into "the first enthusiasm of success" (52), but soon it wanes into "my person...emaciated with confinement" as he pursues his goal of animating lifeless matter "in a solitary chamber...separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and a staircase...." (53) The result of all this isolated activity is a monster whose life is, in turn, utterly confined and defined by isolation.
The monster tells his creator that, in his wanderings, he soon discovered that people either fled from him or attacked him. Consequently, he creates for himself a "hovel" (102), from which he then observes a girl, a young man, and an old man. Especially, he observes that "they enjoyed one another's company and speech, interchanging looks of affection and kindness." (106) In addition, he hears the story of the beautiful woman from Turkey; he learns that she, Safie, and the young man, Felix, are in love--a love that was nearly thwarted by Safie's autocratic father. Far from being thwarted, their love is augmented by the study of language (presumably, French). Study does not, however, improve the monster's condition. On the contrary--"Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was." (125) More and more, the monster longs for what 20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow called belongingness. High stakes. And, of course, the monster loses. Once again, people (the girl/Safie) either flee him or people (the old man/Felix) attack him. So, now unquestionably isolated, the monster commands his creator: "My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create." (137)
Meantime, throughout, relationship to Nature is as important as relationship to another. Initially--although he has created the monster--Frankenstein can still take pleasure in "happy, inanimate nature.... A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy." (68) The monster also initially takes pleasure in Nature, particularly in the moonlight and in birdsong. (99) But soon, utterly alienated and enraged, the monster kills Frankenstein's much younger brother William and then implicates the devoted family servant, Justine, in the murder. Upon the deaths of William and Justine, Frankenstein cannot take pleasure in Nature, but rather considers drowning himself in a "beautiful and heavenly" lake. (87) There are a few times, later, when Nature can still please, divert, or console Frankenstein, but predominantly he feels like "a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul...." (153) Frankenstein's friend Clerval, who does not feel like "a blasted tree," feels invigorated by the country around the Rhine:
...I have seen the mountains of Le Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange, but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river that I never before saw equalled. (148)
And so on. The literary critic, Howard Bloom, in his Afterword to Frankenstein, suggests that Mary Shelley based Clerval on the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and I suspect that he is right. Nature is absolutely no footnote to Henry Clerval...
...and neither is it a footnote to Elizabeth (Lavenza), who says to Frankenstein on their honeymoon:
Observe how fast we move along and how the clouds...render this scene of beauty still more interesting. Look also at the innumerable fish that are swimming in the clear waters.... What a divine day! (183)
Very apparently, unity with another and harmony with Nature are inextricably intertwined, in a novel, in the early 19th century. And they still are, for the non-fictional rest of us, in the early 21st century.
Monday, May 31, 2010
More sound and fury, from Gaston
Just as, these days, Europe and the U.S. et al. think of Iran as a source of terror, spearheaded by Iran's President Ahmadinejad, so Persia is a source of terror for Paris in The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux. The Phantom has come back to his birthplace, France, from Persia via Turkey (also a threatening region of the world, when The Phantom of the Opera was published in 1910.) In Persia, the Phantom has turned his architectural skills toward the construction of a torture chamber; he is employing his skills of construction for purposes of destruction. Similarly, he builds a palace for the Shah that allows the Shah to move about unseen and even to disappear utterly; that is, the Phantom has built a defensive weapon (against, quite possibly, the Shah's enemy, the Emir of Afghanistan). Thus, the Phantom perfects his evil in Persia and, after a Persian police chief rescues him from execution, he is able to take this perfected evil back to France, specifically, the Paris Opera.
This Persian police chief, known throughout as the Persian, is inextricably linked to the Phantom (Erik). He knows the Phantom well, as he points out frequently but most specifically and at length in this paragraph, in his narrative:
I knew my Erik too well to feel at all comfortable on jumping into his house [in the cellar of the Opera]. I knew what he had made of a certain palace at Mazenderan [in Persia]. From being the most honest building conceivable, he soon turned it into a house of the very devil, where you could not utter a word but it was overheard or repeated by an echo. With his trapdoors the monster was responsible for endless tragedies of all kinds. He hit upon astonishing inventions. Of these, the most curious, horrible and dangerous was the so-called torture chamber. (179)
The Persian describes the torture chamber as a hexagon lined with mirrors and containing a tree that "was absolutely true to life and was made of iron so as to resist all the attacks of the 'patient' who was locked into the torture chamber." (192) The Phantom's other inventions well-known to the Persian include the ability to create certain sound effects--such as the roar of a lion or the pattering of rain--intended for torture to the point of insanity and death.
The Persian is well aware of the Phantom's utterly destructive nature. He knows and says that "[Erik] is a real monster--I have seen him at work in Persia, alas..." (171) and "...he was restrained by no scruples and he employed his extraordinary gifts of dexterity and imagination...to prey upon his fellow men." (219) Nevertheless, this Persian police chief rescues Erik/the Phantom from execution by the Shah, thereby allowing this "real monster" who is "restrained by no scruples" to travel out of Persia first to Turkey, where he constructs deceptive devices for the Sultan's use, and then to Paris, where he assists in constructing the Opera--which he later decides to make his home--and from where he terrorizes the Opera managers, singers, and dancers et al., and ultimately, secretly, threatens the lives of hundreds of opera-goers.
The Persian, eventually realizing his terrible mistake, decides to lead the jealous, enraged Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, to the Phantom's house in the cellar of the Opera, in order to kill this monstrous Phantom, after all. Instead, the Phantom nearly kills both Raoul and the Persian--who maintains contact with the Phantom even after the near-death event. And especially meaningful contact, too.
The Persian is writing his narrative of events for the Paris newspapers, when the Phantom visits and tells the Persian that he is going to die "of love for [Christine Daae], I...I tell you!...If you knew how beautiful she was...when she let me kiss her...." (211) This kiss is a radical event for this man, whose hideousness drove away his own mother. For the Phantom, this kiss means that a woman has loved him for his own sake, and it is this perpetually frustrated desire, to be loved for his own sake, that has obsessed and driven him all his life. He confides this over-riding desire first to the Persian (on p. 175) and then to Christine herself--"And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself." (182) No question then--at the core of this story is a universal longing, to be loved for oneself versus being loved for one's good looks--definitely demonstrated by Christine's other admirer, Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny.
And yet, it is the Persian who concludes The Phantom of the Opera and so it is the Persian and, consequently, Persia that stays in the reader's imagination. In this way, the melodramatic horror of The Phantom of the Opera manifests itself within a context of East-West tension--tension that has escalated again especially sharply since 9/11. The tension might be described in this way: the East (Iran, Iraq et al.) terrorizes the West (Europe and the U.S. et al.) which then seeks to conquer, or at least control, the East. But then, on second thought--just as the Phantom initially comes from France--so, clearly, terror can come from anywhere...and so, perhaps, today terror is coming not as much from the East as from the West's persistent portrayal of a maniacal East, which, like the Phantom of the Opera, must then be hunted down....
This Persian police chief, known throughout as the Persian, is inextricably linked to the Phantom (Erik). He knows the Phantom well, as he points out frequently but most specifically and at length in this paragraph, in his narrative:
I knew my Erik too well to feel at all comfortable on jumping into his house [in the cellar of the Opera]. I knew what he had made of a certain palace at Mazenderan [in Persia]. From being the most honest building conceivable, he soon turned it into a house of the very devil, where you could not utter a word but it was overheard or repeated by an echo. With his trapdoors the monster was responsible for endless tragedies of all kinds. He hit upon astonishing inventions. Of these, the most curious, horrible and dangerous was the so-called torture chamber. (179)
The Persian describes the torture chamber as a hexagon lined with mirrors and containing a tree that "was absolutely true to life and was made of iron so as to resist all the attacks of the 'patient' who was locked into the torture chamber." (192) The Phantom's other inventions well-known to the Persian include the ability to create certain sound effects--such as the roar of a lion or the pattering of rain--intended for torture to the point of insanity and death.
The Persian is well aware of the Phantom's utterly destructive nature. He knows and says that "[Erik] is a real monster--I have seen him at work in Persia, alas..." (171) and "...he was restrained by no scruples and he employed his extraordinary gifts of dexterity and imagination...to prey upon his fellow men." (219) Nevertheless, this Persian police chief rescues Erik/the Phantom from execution by the Shah, thereby allowing this "real monster" who is "restrained by no scruples" to travel out of Persia first to Turkey, where he constructs deceptive devices for the Sultan's use, and then to Paris, where he assists in constructing the Opera--which he later decides to make his home--and from where he terrorizes the Opera managers, singers, and dancers et al., and ultimately, secretly, threatens the lives of hundreds of opera-goers.
The Persian, eventually realizing his terrible mistake, decides to lead the jealous, enraged Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, to the Phantom's house in the cellar of the Opera, in order to kill this monstrous Phantom, after all. Instead, the Phantom nearly kills both Raoul and the Persian--who maintains contact with the Phantom even after the near-death event. And especially meaningful contact, too.
The Persian is writing his narrative of events for the Paris newspapers, when the Phantom visits and tells the Persian that he is going to die "of love for [Christine Daae], I...I tell you!...If you knew how beautiful she was...when she let me kiss her...." (211) This kiss is a radical event for this man, whose hideousness drove away his own mother. For the Phantom, this kiss means that a woman has loved him for his own sake, and it is this perpetually frustrated desire, to be loved for his own sake, that has obsessed and driven him all his life. He confides this over-riding desire first to the Persian (on p. 175) and then to Christine herself--"And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself." (182) No question then--at the core of this story is a universal longing, to be loved for oneself versus being loved for one's good looks--definitely demonstrated by Christine's other admirer, Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny.
And yet, it is the Persian who concludes The Phantom of the Opera and so it is the Persian and, consequently, Persia that stays in the reader's imagination. In this way, the melodramatic horror of The Phantom of the Opera manifests itself within a context of East-West tension--tension that has escalated again especially sharply since 9/11. The tension might be described in this way: the East (Iran, Iraq et al.) terrorizes the West (Europe and the U.S. et al.) which then seeks to conquer, or at least control, the East. But then, on second thought--just as the Phantom initially comes from France--so, clearly, terror can come from anywhere...and so, perhaps, today terror is coming not as much from the East as from the West's persistent portrayal of a maniacal East, which, like the Phantom of the Opera, must then be hunted down....
Thursday, May 20, 2010
What's with all the sound and fury, Robert?
It's back to the nineteenth century with a vengeance, in the dangerously imbalanced world of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. It's a world that could well bring to mind Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which was originated by Marsha Linehan to treat Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), a disorder characterized by identity disturbance, impulsivity, suicidality, and anger (characteristics indubitably evinced by Jekyll/Hyde!). In DBT, the desired outcome is integration of Reasonable Mind ("Vulcan" logic) with Emotion Mind (passionate reaction) bringing about Wise Mind (serene intuition). In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one might say that Emotion Mind overwhelms and destroys Reasonable Mind, consequently destroying any possible emergence of a Wise Mind.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde begins not with Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde but with the lawyer Mr. Utterson, assuredly the novel's representative of reason who no doubt drinks that transformative drug, wine, in moderation. But why do I mention wine? Let me count the reasons. 1) The second sentence of the first chapter tells us--"...when the wine was to Utterson's taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye." (Stevenson 37) 2) When Utterson has to make a difficult decision, he summons his head clerk and "a bottle of a particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his house." (68) And this is no incidental bottle of wine but rather--
...the acids were long ago resolved; the imperial dye had softened with time, as the colour grows richer in stained windows; and the glow of hot autumn afternoons on hillside vineyards, was ready to be set free and to disperse the fogs of London. Insensibly the lawyer melted. (69)
3) When Dr. Jekyll's butler Poole visits Utterson in a state of terror, Utterson gives him a seat and a glass of wine that, Utterson observes with astonishment, "was still untasted when [Poole] set it down to follow [Utterson back to Jekyll's house]." (79-80) Very apparently, Utterson has learned to turn that transformative drug, wine, to his own satisfying ends, while staying in the realm of Reasonable Mind. In clear contrast, Dr. Jekyll creates a transformative drug that turns against his Reasonable Mind while driving him into his Emotion Mind.
Near the start of the story, Jekyll's "fanciful" will offends the conservative Utterson (46), while Jekyll's "fanciful" ideas offend the scientific Dr. Lanyon (47). Then, somewhere between that night and the early morning, after conversing with Lanyon about Hyde, Utterson finds himself besieged by the very fancifulness that he despises and distrusts, specifically, "...now his imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved." (48, italics mine) Unquestionably the imagination is a danger to be avoided, as opposed to a framework of system and logic, which is to be carefully constructed and maintained. And so, Utterson sets out to remove the danger of imagination, an aspect of Emotion Mind, by examining the mystery, an activity of Reasonable Mind--"From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door in the by-street of shops...by all lights and at all hours of solitude or concourse, the lawyer was to be found on his chosen post...And at last his patience was rewarded." (49) Similarly, from that point in the book forward, Utterson's methodicalness of investigation contrasts sharply with both Dr. Jekyll's loss of control over his own experiment and Mr. Hyde's impulsive, aggressive, and criminally violent behavior.
In a letter to Lanyon, Jekyll uses the word "reason" several times, twice, dramatically, in the first short paragraph:
There was never a day when, if you had said to me, "Jekyll, my life, my honour, my reason depend upon you," I would not have sacrificed my left hand to help you. Lanyon, my life, my honour, my reason, are all at your mercy...." (94, italics mine)
Then, at the end of the letter's third paragraph, Jekyll refers to the potential "shipwreck of my reason." (95) Reason is an essential commodity for Jekyll (and Lanyon and Utterson, et al. and so on). So is--as Jekyll himself puts it, in "Henry Jekyll's First Statement of the Case"--"the balance of my nature" (113) or "those balancing instincts" (116) or "the balance of my soul" (118). Dialectical Behavior Therapy is surely concerned with balance, specifically, tempering extremes of Emotion Mind with consistent application of Reasonable Mind (for instance, noticing the experience but not evaluating it).
Certainly, Emotion Mind is not necessarily a dangerous, poisonous thing. Without Emotion Mind, there would be no romance, no art, literature, or music--for a start. Rather, there isn't much place for Emotion Mind in the Victorian world of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or--let's not kid ourselves--in the technocratic, bureaucratic world of 2010...and Hell hath no fury like Emotion Mind scorned!
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde begins not with Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde but with the lawyer Mr. Utterson, assuredly the novel's representative of reason who no doubt drinks that transformative drug, wine, in moderation. But why do I mention wine? Let me count the reasons. 1) The second sentence of the first chapter tells us--"...when the wine was to Utterson's taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye." (Stevenson 37) 2) When Utterson has to make a difficult decision, he summons his head clerk and "a bottle of a particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his house." (68) And this is no incidental bottle of wine but rather--
...the acids were long ago resolved; the imperial dye had softened with time, as the colour grows richer in stained windows; and the glow of hot autumn afternoons on hillside vineyards, was ready to be set free and to disperse the fogs of London. Insensibly the lawyer melted. (69)
3) When Dr. Jekyll's butler Poole visits Utterson in a state of terror, Utterson gives him a seat and a glass of wine that, Utterson observes with astonishment, "was still untasted when [Poole] set it down to follow [Utterson back to Jekyll's house]." (79-80) Very apparently, Utterson has learned to turn that transformative drug, wine, to his own satisfying ends, while staying in the realm of Reasonable Mind. In clear contrast, Dr. Jekyll creates a transformative drug that turns against his Reasonable Mind while driving him into his Emotion Mind.
Near the start of the story, Jekyll's "fanciful" will offends the conservative Utterson (46), while Jekyll's "fanciful" ideas offend the scientific Dr. Lanyon (47). Then, somewhere between that night and the early morning, after conversing with Lanyon about Hyde, Utterson finds himself besieged by the very fancifulness that he despises and distrusts, specifically, "...now his imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved." (48, italics mine) Unquestionably the imagination is a danger to be avoided, as opposed to a framework of system and logic, which is to be carefully constructed and maintained. And so, Utterson sets out to remove the danger of imagination, an aspect of Emotion Mind, by examining the mystery, an activity of Reasonable Mind--"From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door in the by-street of shops...by all lights and at all hours of solitude or concourse, the lawyer was to be found on his chosen post...And at last his patience was rewarded." (49) Similarly, from that point in the book forward, Utterson's methodicalness of investigation contrasts sharply with both Dr. Jekyll's loss of control over his own experiment and Mr. Hyde's impulsive, aggressive, and criminally violent behavior.
In a letter to Lanyon, Jekyll uses the word "reason" several times, twice, dramatically, in the first short paragraph:
There was never a day when, if you had said to me, "Jekyll, my life, my honour, my reason depend upon you," I would not have sacrificed my left hand to help you. Lanyon, my life, my honour, my reason, are all at your mercy...." (94, italics mine)
Then, at the end of the letter's third paragraph, Jekyll refers to the potential "shipwreck of my reason." (95) Reason is an essential commodity for Jekyll (and Lanyon and Utterson, et al. and so on). So is--as Jekyll himself puts it, in "Henry Jekyll's First Statement of the Case"--"the balance of my nature" (113) or "those balancing instincts" (116) or "the balance of my soul" (118). Dialectical Behavior Therapy is surely concerned with balance, specifically, tempering extremes of Emotion Mind with consistent application of Reasonable Mind (for instance, noticing the experience but not evaluating it).
Certainly, Emotion Mind is not necessarily a dangerous, poisonous thing. Without Emotion Mind, there would be no romance, no art, literature, or music--for a start. Rather, there isn't much place for Emotion Mind in the Victorian world of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or--let's not kid ourselves--in the technocratic, bureaucratic world of 2010...and Hell hath no fury like Emotion Mind scorned!
Sunday, May 9, 2010
What's going on, Jon?
Several years ago, a rather Buddhist supervisor of mine asked me, "What are you believing?" A momentous question, it stayed in a corner of my brain. The question re-emerged as I read There Is No Other, a stunning collection of short stories by Jonathan Papernick.
Initially, the first short story of the collection ("Skin for Skin") reads like a letter to the (now defunct) "Ask Beth" column in The Boston Globe. Girl arranges to be alone with boy, who, thereupon, wants to do more than make out. She does not want to do more than make out, but she does not want to be a "cocktease," either. What's a girl to do? Especially--and here ends any resemblance to "Ask Beth"--when the girl is Jewish and the boy is not. This matter of faith is neither light-weight nor easily surmounted. Although the boy quotes Friedrich "God is dead" Nietzsche, he lifts the crucifix "over his head with great difficulty, as if he were bearing the True Cross on his narrow shoulders...." (Papernick 10) Although the girl defines herself as "not Jewish" but rather "a secular humanist [who believes] in self-determination," she is nevertheless shocked to see the boy's uncircumcised penis against his thigh, "like the emergence of a sea monster from a bathtub." (11) Indeed, she is so shocked that she feels compelled--well, never mind the particulars--the point is, what she believes compels her toward what she ends up doing.
If the first story is like "Ask Beth" with a twist, then the second story ("There Is No Other") is like NCIS with a twist: the suicide bomber is a black Jewish 7th grader, Junius Barker, who promises not to blow up the classroom if someone can tell him why the Jews are the Chosen People. The "someone" who could tell him is the teacher, Aaron Needle, but the boy has decidedly turned on him--"And you, Needle, zip it." (24) Rising tension between Junius and Needle is dissolved in a prayer--
"You shall know today, and take to heart, that Adonai is the only God, in the heavens above and on earth below. There is no other." (27)
The word "other" is what resonates. The concept of "the other" meaning "the alien"--a concept crystallized by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex--is at the heart of this story. Despite the prayer uniting Junius and Needle, Junius feels very much like "the other," a feeling he pours forth in this rant:
"I want to know which half of me is chosen, the top half or the bottom, the inside or the outside, or the other way around? Why is it so hard to figure out? If God separated Jews from the other nations and gave them a different destiny, which half of me is chosen, which half of me bows down before the King of Kings, and which half can go fuck himself?" (29)
After throwing his arms around Junius in an embrace, which Junius resists, calling Needle a "homo" (yet another "other"), Needle whispers, "I believe in God. There is no other." (32) Needle's belief leads him--and Junius--to death, an ecstatic moment for Needle.
Another story in this collection ("The Miracle Birth") brought to mind a piece of Nurse Apple's Cookie Speech in the Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle--"My name is Apple, A-Double P-L-E, a fruit well mentioned in the Bible, that best seller of many miracles. I cite the Ten Commandments and the Burning Bush, to name only two." And I cite the Immaculate Conception (of Jesus), which is preceded, in the Old Testament, by the miraculous birth of Isaac to the exceedingly post-menopausal Sarah. Unquestionably, childless Shira Bavli in "The Miracle Birth" feels the weight of Biblical history: "Every time Shira came up to Jerusalem, she realized that [its] gravitational pull...was a hundred times that of the rest of the world, rendering even the simplest encounter as heavy as a stone cut from Solomon's Quarries." (50) Or, is Shira believing something about Jerusalem that endows it with this "gravitational pull"? In any case, Shira does give birth, at 40, to a girl, who, at 18, gives birth to a boy who, Vered believes, is the Messiah. Either of these births could be "The Miracle Birth" of the title, but, what I'm wondering is, does Vered really believe that her mother has "no faith that tomorrow can be better" (71), or is that just an angry retort in a mother-daughter spat of Biblical proportions?
In all these stories, belief in someone or something--could be "yer darling sweetheart baby" or "baseball for the Palestinians"--surely transforms the believer. All these stories repay a belief in the transformative power of stories.
Initially, the first short story of the collection ("Skin for Skin") reads like a letter to the (now defunct) "Ask Beth" column in The Boston Globe. Girl arranges to be alone with boy, who, thereupon, wants to do more than make out. She does not want to do more than make out, but she does not want to be a "cocktease," either. What's a girl to do? Especially--and here ends any resemblance to "Ask Beth"--when the girl is Jewish and the boy is not. This matter of faith is neither light-weight nor easily surmounted. Although the boy quotes Friedrich "God is dead" Nietzsche, he lifts the crucifix "over his head with great difficulty, as if he were bearing the True Cross on his narrow shoulders...." (Papernick 10) Although the girl defines herself as "not Jewish" but rather "a secular humanist [who believes] in self-determination," she is nevertheless shocked to see the boy's uncircumcised penis against his thigh, "like the emergence of a sea monster from a bathtub." (11) Indeed, she is so shocked that she feels compelled--well, never mind the particulars--the point is, what she believes compels her toward what she ends up doing.
If the first story is like "Ask Beth" with a twist, then the second story ("There Is No Other") is like NCIS with a twist: the suicide bomber is a black Jewish 7th grader, Junius Barker, who promises not to blow up the classroom if someone can tell him why the Jews are the Chosen People. The "someone" who could tell him is the teacher, Aaron Needle, but the boy has decidedly turned on him--"And you, Needle, zip it." (24) Rising tension between Junius and Needle is dissolved in a prayer--
"You shall know today, and take to heart, that Adonai is the only God, in the heavens above and on earth below. There is no other." (27)
The word "other" is what resonates. The concept of "the other" meaning "the alien"--a concept crystallized by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex--is at the heart of this story. Despite the prayer uniting Junius and Needle, Junius feels very much like "the other," a feeling he pours forth in this rant:
"I want to know which half of me is chosen, the top half or the bottom, the inside or the outside, or the other way around? Why is it so hard to figure out? If God separated Jews from the other nations and gave them a different destiny, which half of me is chosen, which half of me bows down before the King of Kings, and which half can go fuck himself?" (29)
After throwing his arms around Junius in an embrace, which Junius resists, calling Needle a "homo" (yet another "other"), Needle whispers, "I believe in God. There is no other." (32) Needle's belief leads him--and Junius--to death, an ecstatic moment for Needle.
Another story in this collection ("The Miracle Birth") brought to mind a piece of Nurse Apple's Cookie Speech in the Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle--"My name is Apple, A-Double P-L-E, a fruit well mentioned in the Bible, that best seller of many miracles. I cite the Ten Commandments and the Burning Bush, to name only two." And I cite the Immaculate Conception (of Jesus), which is preceded, in the Old Testament, by the miraculous birth of Isaac to the exceedingly post-menopausal Sarah. Unquestionably, childless Shira Bavli in "The Miracle Birth" feels the weight of Biblical history: "Every time Shira came up to Jerusalem, she realized that [its] gravitational pull...was a hundred times that of the rest of the world, rendering even the simplest encounter as heavy as a stone cut from Solomon's Quarries." (50) Or, is Shira believing something about Jerusalem that endows it with this "gravitational pull"? In any case, Shira does give birth, at 40, to a girl, who, at 18, gives birth to a boy who, Vered believes, is the Messiah. Either of these births could be "The Miracle Birth" of the title, but, what I'm wondering is, does Vered really believe that her mother has "no faith that tomorrow can be better" (71), or is that just an angry retort in a mother-daughter spat of Biblical proportions?
In all these stories, belief in someone or something--could be "yer darling sweetheart baby" or "baseball for the Palestinians"--surely transforms the believer. All these stories repay a belief in the transformative power of stories.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Yo, Reinaldo!
From the very beginning of Before Night Falls, by Reinaldo Arenas, a primary tension is between what Arenas does not have and what he does have, between absence, loss, or lack on the one hand and benefit, sensuality, and enjoyment on the other. For much of his life--and therefore for much of this memoir--the things that Arenas does not have increases, while what he did have or came to have decreases, until it seems he cannot survive the resulting privation. Although, fortunately, privation is succeeded by liberation, there is no happy-ever-after in which benefit outweighs loss. Arenas does not provide a narrative arc in which the tension, after reaching a climax, is resolved.
In the beginning was a father who left a mother who "did not have enough practical sense to be raising a child" (1, 3, Arenas), a house "filled with abandoned women" (4), and a God that did not answer prayers (5). Meanwhile, he was "a skinny kid with a distended belly full of worms from eating so much dirt." (1) In sum--a childhood characterized by abandonment and poverty. Then, at the start of the second chapter, Arenas transitions to those things that sustain and nourish him: "I think the splendor of my childhood was unique because it was absolute poverty but also absolute freedom, out in the open, surrounded by trees, animals, apparitions...." (5) Especially trees, about which Arenas writes this rhapsody:
I used to climb trees, and everything seemed much more beautiful from up there. I could embrace the world in its completeness and feel a harmony that I could not experience down below.... To climb a tree is to slowly discover a unique world, rhythmic, magical, and harmonious, with its worms, insects, birds, and other living things...telling us their secrets. (5-6)
Also at this time, Arenas develops a world of "almost mythical and supernatural characters and apparitions." (6) And--"I created and performed a series of endless songs and staged them all across the fields." (17) In a childhood characterized by poverty and abandonment, Arenas nevertheless discovered both the magic of the natural world and the world of his own imagination.
Arenas' early discovery of the natural world leads, at age six, to his discovery of his homosexuality. "This was the river," he writes, "that gave me a gift: an image that I will never forget" of "over thirty young men bathing in the nude...all those naked bodies, all those exposed genitals...I realized, without a doubt, that I liked men." (8) His sexuality is one of the things that Arenas does have, that benefits him and gives him enjoyment, during a short life marked by loss. Sex is a source of enjoyment, as in "I had switched from possessor to possessed and enjoyed it fully." (70) or "...I was able to enjoy those excited guys...." (165) Sex is an adventure, as in his recurring use of the phrase "erotic adventures" (80, 92, 159). Sex is a topic requiring focused attention, as in two chapters titled "Eroticism" (18-20, 93-116). Throughout the book, Cuban politics and homosexuality inevitably and frequently intersect.
The other thing that Arenas certainly has, that benefits him and gives him enjoyment, is his writing. His first story, a two-page story titled "The Empty Shoes," gets him out of "Fidel Castro's sphere" and gives him access to the "magical world of the National Library...." (71-73) His novel Singing from the Well brings him into contact with the Cuban writer Lezama Lima who, in turn, gives him inspiration for more writing--a felicitous cycle. Writing is central to "...a great feast. We would all bring our notebooks and write poems or chapters of our books, and would have sex with armies of young men." (101) In New York, a few years after getting out of Cuba, Arenas and friends created a magazine, Mariel, in which they could freely write what they really thought. Arenas assures the reader that, although "the magazine folded," it left behind "issues that are a real challenge to the literature of exile and to Cuban literature in general." (298-299)
Nevertheless, the collapse of Mariel magazine is a loss in a series of many losses for Arenas: the loss of a father, of previously loyal friends, of his manuscripts, and, ultimately, of his freedom. His imprisonment in Morro Castle in the Port of Havana, terrifying to read about (177-201, 207-217), must have been all the more terrifying to experience.
Arenas barely survives imprisonment in Cuba, only to find "really no solace anywhere" (308), including New York, which he experiences more as a place of painful exile than as happy haven. As opposed to, say, the fictional autobiography David Copperfield, depicting the triumphal march of David Copperfield, the memoir Before Night Falls does not present a rosy future for non-fictional hero Reinaldo Arenas.
In the beginning was a father who left a mother who "did not have enough practical sense to be raising a child" (1, 3, Arenas), a house "filled with abandoned women" (4), and a God that did not answer prayers (5). Meanwhile, he was "a skinny kid with a distended belly full of worms from eating so much dirt." (1) In sum--a childhood characterized by abandonment and poverty. Then, at the start of the second chapter, Arenas transitions to those things that sustain and nourish him: "I think the splendor of my childhood was unique because it was absolute poverty but also absolute freedom, out in the open, surrounded by trees, animals, apparitions...." (5) Especially trees, about which Arenas writes this rhapsody:
I used to climb trees, and everything seemed much more beautiful from up there. I could embrace the world in its completeness and feel a harmony that I could not experience down below.... To climb a tree is to slowly discover a unique world, rhythmic, magical, and harmonious, with its worms, insects, birds, and other living things...telling us their secrets. (5-6)
Also at this time, Arenas develops a world of "almost mythical and supernatural characters and apparitions." (6) And--"I created and performed a series of endless songs and staged them all across the fields." (17) In a childhood characterized by poverty and abandonment, Arenas nevertheless discovered both the magic of the natural world and the world of his own imagination.
Arenas' early discovery of the natural world leads, at age six, to his discovery of his homosexuality. "This was the river," he writes, "that gave me a gift: an image that I will never forget" of "over thirty young men bathing in the nude...all those naked bodies, all those exposed genitals...I realized, without a doubt, that I liked men." (8) His sexuality is one of the things that Arenas does have, that benefits him and gives him enjoyment, during a short life marked by loss. Sex is a source of enjoyment, as in "I had switched from possessor to possessed and enjoyed it fully." (70) or "...I was able to enjoy those excited guys...." (165) Sex is an adventure, as in his recurring use of the phrase "erotic adventures" (80, 92, 159). Sex is a topic requiring focused attention, as in two chapters titled "Eroticism" (18-20, 93-116). Throughout the book, Cuban politics and homosexuality inevitably and frequently intersect.
The other thing that Arenas certainly has, that benefits him and gives him enjoyment, is his writing. His first story, a two-page story titled "The Empty Shoes," gets him out of "Fidel Castro's sphere" and gives him access to the "magical world of the National Library...." (71-73) His novel Singing from the Well brings him into contact with the Cuban writer Lezama Lima who, in turn, gives him inspiration for more writing--a felicitous cycle. Writing is central to "...a great feast. We would all bring our notebooks and write poems or chapters of our books, and would have sex with armies of young men." (101) In New York, a few years after getting out of Cuba, Arenas and friends created a magazine, Mariel, in which they could freely write what they really thought. Arenas assures the reader that, although "the magazine folded," it left behind "issues that are a real challenge to the literature of exile and to Cuban literature in general." (298-299)
Nevertheless, the collapse of Mariel magazine is a loss in a series of many losses for Arenas: the loss of a father, of previously loyal friends, of his manuscripts, and, ultimately, of his freedom. His imprisonment in Morro Castle in the Port of Havana, terrifying to read about (177-201, 207-217), must have been all the more terrifying to experience.
Arenas barely survives imprisonment in Cuba, only to find "really no solace anywhere" (308), including New York, which he experiences more as a place of painful exile than as happy haven. As opposed to, say, the fictional autobiography David Copperfield, depicting the triumphal march of David Copperfield, the memoir Before Night Falls does not present a rosy future for non-fictional hero Reinaldo Arenas.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
And now for something completely different
Why a mouthful of a name for a book club? Why a novel made up entirely of letters? There are reasons, good reasons. Let me count them.
1) This book club was born (of scary, hasty necessity) as the Guernsey Literary Society. Then, insisting on refreshments at book club meetings, a book club member "concocted a potato peel pie: mashed potatoes for filling, strained beets for sweetness, and potato peelings for crust." (Shaffer and Barrows 51) Thus--the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Fair enough (as my trainer might say) but why a potato peel pie in the first place? This brings me to--
2) Very importantly, this novel is set on the English island of Guernsey during German occupation in World War II. No doubt because of the occupation, butter, flour and sugar--the usual ingredients for a pie--were scarce, and so this book club member, Will Thisbee, made do with beets, potatoes, and potato peelings. Thus was necessity the mother of invention, of a potato peel pie.
Actually, a similar necessity gives birth to the invention of the book club at all. German patrol officers are about to arrest Amelia Maugery and friends for breaking curfew, when one of Mrs. Maugery's friends, Elizabeth McKenna, claims that "we had been attending a meeting of the Guernsey Literary Society, and the evening's discussion of Elizabeth and her German Garden had been so delightful that we had all lost track of time." (29) Necessarily fast thinking brings about the invention of a literary society.
3) This entirely epistolary novel--a form of novel I associate with the 18th century--makes possible a focus on significant anecdotes, like the anecdote about the creation of the Guernsey Literary Society, an anecdote demonstrating the bravery of Elizabeth McKenna, an aspect of her character that is demonstrated in other anecdotes in other letters throughout the novel. Interestingly, at one point, the book publisher for the protagonist, Juliet Ashton, tells her, "Strings of anecdotes don't make a book" (200), and yet anecdotes do make this book.
There are many anecdotes about the German occupation of Guernsey in World War II, in which it is shown that necessity is the mother of invention, in grave--and less grave--circumstances. A couple such anecdotes inform us about making soap from pig's fat (80) and a way to stalk German soldiers with intermittent whistling (172). There are anecdotes about the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, an especially memorable anecdote having to do with Isola Pribby's determination to read head bumps (224). Then there are letters in which the letter-writer's choice of anecdote tellingly reveals the character of the letter-writer: letters of recommendation (or not) for Juliet Ashton, from Lady Bella Taunton and Reverend Simon Simpless, and letters from Guernsey resident Adelaide Addison, warning Juliet away from the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. (Adelaide Addison--who signs off with the absurd "Yours in Christian Consternation and Concern" (67)--reminds me of the persistently proselytizing Miss Clack in The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. Miss Clack, however, is a more fully realized, and therefore more sympathetic, character than Adelaide Addison, who is only, briefly, a thorn in the side.)
In the same letter in which he declares that strings of anecdotes don't make a book, book publisher Sidney Stark tells Juliet Ashton that the core of her book is Elizabeth McKenna. He writes--
I'm sending back the ms and your letters to me--read them again and see how often Elizabeth is spoken of. Ask yourself why. Talk to Dawsey and Eben. Talk to Isola and Amelia. Talk to Mr. Dilwyn.... (201)
I see Sidney's point (Mary Ann Shaffer's point?), and yet, once again, I do not agree with him (Mary Ann Shaffer?). I came to dread yet another story about the spirited Elizabeth. She is as un-believably heroic as Little Dorrit (in Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens) is un-believably saintly.
It seems to me, the core of this book is the importance of reading. Early on, Juliet makes clear to Sidney "my interest in their interest in reading" (93), an interest that has a significant impact on the lives of the members of the literary society. For instance, an interest in Thomas Carlyle brings about a new friendship, while an interest in Marcus Aurelius nearly ends an old friendship. Reading is not an incidental thing to do for these Guernsey residents.
In sum--although the voice of the protagonist, Juliet Ashton, can veer towards perkiness-overload, Juliet's focus on the act of reading (and writing, and story-telling), explicit and implicit throughout, is wonderfully obdurate in the era of the iPhone and Windows 7.
1) This book club was born (of scary, hasty necessity) as the Guernsey Literary Society. Then, insisting on refreshments at book club meetings, a book club member "concocted a potato peel pie: mashed potatoes for filling, strained beets for sweetness, and potato peelings for crust." (Shaffer and Barrows 51) Thus--the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Fair enough (as my trainer might say) but why a potato peel pie in the first place? This brings me to--
2) Very importantly, this novel is set on the English island of Guernsey during German occupation in World War II. No doubt because of the occupation, butter, flour and sugar--the usual ingredients for a pie--were scarce, and so this book club member, Will Thisbee, made do with beets, potatoes, and potato peelings. Thus was necessity the mother of invention, of a potato peel pie.
Actually, a similar necessity gives birth to the invention of the book club at all. German patrol officers are about to arrest Amelia Maugery and friends for breaking curfew, when one of Mrs. Maugery's friends, Elizabeth McKenna, claims that "we had been attending a meeting of the Guernsey Literary Society, and the evening's discussion of Elizabeth and her German Garden had been so delightful that we had all lost track of time." (29) Necessarily fast thinking brings about the invention of a literary society.
3) This entirely epistolary novel--a form of novel I associate with the 18th century--makes possible a focus on significant anecdotes, like the anecdote about the creation of the Guernsey Literary Society, an anecdote demonstrating the bravery of Elizabeth McKenna, an aspect of her character that is demonstrated in other anecdotes in other letters throughout the novel. Interestingly, at one point, the book publisher for the protagonist, Juliet Ashton, tells her, "Strings of anecdotes don't make a book" (200), and yet anecdotes do make this book.
There are many anecdotes about the German occupation of Guernsey in World War II, in which it is shown that necessity is the mother of invention, in grave--and less grave--circumstances. A couple such anecdotes inform us about making soap from pig's fat (80) and a way to stalk German soldiers with intermittent whistling (172). There are anecdotes about the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, an especially memorable anecdote having to do with Isola Pribby's determination to read head bumps (224). Then there are letters in which the letter-writer's choice of anecdote tellingly reveals the character of the letter-writer: letters of recommendation (or not) for Juliet Ashton, from Lady Bella Taunton and Reverend Simon Simpless, and letters from Guernsey resident Adelaide Addison, warning Juliet away from the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. (Adelaide Addison--who signs off with the absurd "Yours in Christian Consternation and Concern" (67)--reminds me of the persistently proselytizing Miss Clack in The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. Miss Clack, however, is a more fully realized, and therefore more sympathetic, character than Adelaide Addison, who is only, briefly, a thorn in the side.)
In the same letter in which he declares that strings of anecdotes don't make a book, book publisher Sidney Stark tells Juliet Ashton that the core of her book is Elizabeth McKenna. He writes--
I'm sending back the ms and your letters to me--read them again and see how often Elizabeth is spoken of. Ask yourself why. Talk to Dawsey and Eben. Talk to Isola and Amelia. Talk to Mr. Dilwyn.... (201)
I see Sidney's point (Mary Ann Shaffer's point?), and yet, once again, I do not agree with him (Mary Ann Shaffer?). I came to dread yet another story about the spirited Elizabeth. She is as un-believably heroic as Little Dorrit (in Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens) is un-believably saintly.
It seems to me, the core of this book is the importance of reading. Early on, Juliet makes clear to Sidney "my interest in their interest in reading" (93), an interest that has a significant impact on the lives of the members of the literary society. For instance, an interest in Thomas Carlyle brings about a new friendship, while an interest in Marcus Aurelius nearly ends an old friendship. Reading is not an incidental thing to do for these Guernsey residents.
In sum--although the voice of the protagonist, Juliet Ashton, can veer towards perkiness-overload, Juliet's focus on the act of reading (and writing, and story-telling), explicit and implicit throughout, is wonderfully obdurate in the era of the iPhone and Windows 7.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
What's going on, Mann?
Well, curiosity did not kill me. It perplexed me. It brought me to a state of exasperation, annoyance, even a little sadness. Here's how it happened--
About a dozen years ago or more, I started work on a novel that I called "Yours, Loco," in which a bisexual man with manic depression (Theo) writes letters within his journal to a younger male co-worker (Zack). He never sends these letters--which he signs "Yours, Loco"--and which are partly journal entries and partly declarations of love for this (slightly) younger man. Upon reading some of "Yours, Loco," my sister Eliza said that it reminded her of Death in Venice. I had run across a copy of Death in Venice in my parents' house, and I could not imagine what "Yours, Loco" could have in common with Thomas Mann's masterpiece. So, I consigned Death in Venice to the Recycle Bin of my brain.
A year ago, I joined a meetup called Classic Books, where one of the organizers talked a little about Thomas Mann, enough to revive my curiosity about his writing. Then, a few weeks ago, a member of Classic Books recommended that we read The Magic Mountain (by Thomas Mann). Although I was daunted by the length of The Magic Mountain, my interest in Thomas Mann was now thoroughly piqued, and so I went out and bought Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories. (At 75 pages, Death in Venice could be called a really long short story, or a novella.)
Like Professor Stepanovich in Anton Chekhov's "A Boring Story," Gustave Aschenbach in Death in Venice is distinguished but distressed. At the start, Aschenbach "undertook a walk in the hope that air and exercise might send him back refreshed to a good evening's work" (3), but instead the walk sends him to a "mortuary chapel...silent in the gleam of the ebbing day." (4) The day is not the only thing that is ebbing. Despite a heroic self-discipline that has produced a long and magnificent literary career, Aschenbach now yearns only for "new and distant scenes...flight from the spot which was the daily theatre of a rigid, cold...service." (6-7) And this is really the least of a profound ennui: "...he got no joy of [his work]--not though a nation paid it homage...his work had ceased to be marked by that fiery play of fancy which is the product of joy...." (7) Even Aschenbach's journey to Venice is joyless. He fixates with (un-provoked) disgust on a fellow passenger, he barely reconciles himself to the leaden, misty weather, and he dwells with disquiet on the un-licensed gondolier--despite getting a free gondola ride to his hotel. It seems that Aschenbach has become inclined to accentuate the negative, anywhere.
The first evening at the hotel in Venice, just before dinner, Aschenbach notices a Polish teenage boy with his slightly older sisters and their governess:
Aschenbach noticed with astonishment the lad's perfect beauty. His face recalled the noblest moment of Greek sculpture...the observer thought he had never seen, either in nature or art, anything so utterly happy and consummate. (25-26; italics mine)
From that time to the moment of his death, Aschenbach is only an observer of this Polish boy. He never speaks to the boy; he never interacts with the boy, called, he thinks, Tadzio. He witnesses Tadzio's appearance "with extraordinary grace" at breakfast the next morning (29). He contemplates the activities of Tadzio and his companions on a nearby beach, reserved for hotel guests. He especially notices one of these companions--
One lad in particular, a Pole like himself, with a name that sounded something like Jaschiu, a sturdy lad with brilliantined black hair..., was his particular liege-man and friend. Operations at the sand-pile being ended for the time, the two walked away along the beach, with their arms around each other's waists.... (32)
At a later time, Aschenbach has the opportunity to speak to Tadzio but hesitates and then passes him by without speaking (47). In the very last scene, Aschenbach observes a fight between Tadzio and Jaschiu, then watches Tadzio walk away to a sand-bar, far from Jaschiu--and Aschenbach, who collapses and dies. (74-75)
To borrow the concept of "observer/participant" from anthropology--Aschenbach becomes more of a participant in regard to reports of sickness sweeping Venice. He speaks to a shopkeeper, the hotel manager, and a performer at the hotel, about this threat of death hanging over Venice. No sickness, they all say, just the sirocco. Finally, a clerk in the English travel bureau in the Piazza tells Aschenbach the truth: cholera has spread from China through Afghanistan and Syria to Southern Italy, and to Venice, where "there was a hideously brisk traffic between the Nuovo Fundamento and the island of San Michele, where the cemetery was." (64-65) At this critical point, Aschenbach's "participant" behavior stops; he says nothing to Tadzio's mother, so he can continue being an "observer" of Tadzio.
There is much more to be said about Death in Venice. For instance, why the recurring references to Classical mythology? They may illuminate Aschenbach's condition to the reader, but they do not seem to illuminate Aschenbach's condition to himself...unless he does not want to save himself? Possible--and one of various puzzles to ponder in Thomas Mann's novella.
About a dozen years ago or more, I started work on a novel that I called "Yours, Loco," in which a bisexual man with manic depression (Theo) writes letters within his journal to a younger male co-worker (Zack). He never sends these letters--which he signs "Yours, Loco"--and which are partly journal entries and partly declarations of love for this (slightly) younger man. Upon reading some of "Yours, Loco," my sister Eliza said that it reminded her of Death in Venice. I had run across a copy of Death in Venice in my parents' house, and I could not imagine what "Yours, Loco" could have in common with Thomas Mann's masterpiece. So, I consigned Death in Venice to the Recycle Bin of my brain.
A year ago, I joined a meetup called Classic Books, where one of the organizers talked a little about Thomas Mann, enough to revive my curiosity about his writing. Then, a few weeks ago, a member of Classic Books recommended that we read The Magic Mountain (by Thomas Mann). Although I was daunted by the length of The Magic Mountain, my interest in Thomas Mann was now thoroughly piqued, and so I went out and bought Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories. (At 75 pages, Death in Venice could be called a really long short story, or a novella.)
Like Professor Stepanovich in Anton Chekhov's "A Boring Story," Gustave Aschenbach in Death in Venice is distinguished but distressed. At the start, Aschenbach "undertook a walk in the hope that air and exercise might send him back refreshed to a good evening's work" (3), but instead the walk sends him to a "mortuary chapel...silent in the gleam of the ebbing day." (4) The day is not the only thing that is ebbing. Despite a heroic self-discipline that has produced a long and magnificent literary career, Aschenbach now yearns only for "new and distant scenes...flight from the spot which was the daily theatre of a rigid, cold...service." (6-7) And this is really the least of a profound ennui: "...he got no joy of [his work]--not though a nation paid it homage...his work had ceased to be marked by that fiery play of fancy which is the product of joy...." (7) Even Aschenbach's journey to Venice is joyless. He fixates with (un-provoked) disgust on a fellow passenger, he barely reconciles himself to the leaden, misty weather, and he dwells with disquiet on the un-licensed gondolier--despite getting a free gondola ride to his hotel. It seems that Aschenbach has become inclined to accentuate the negative, anywhere.
The first evening at the hotel in Venice, just before dinner, Aschenbach notices a Polish teenage boy with his slightly older sisters and their governess:
Aschenbach noticed with astonishment the lad's perfect beauty. His face recalled the noblest moment of Greek sculpture...the observer thought he had never seen, either in nature or art, anything so utterly happy and consummate. (25-26; italics mine)
From that time to the moment of his death, Aschenbach is only an observer of this Polish boy. He never speaks to the boy; he never interacts with the boy, called, he thinks, Tadzio. He witnesses Tadzio's appearance "with extraordinary grace" at breakfast the next morning (29). He contemplates the activities of Tadzio and his companions on a nearby beach, reserved for hotel guests. He especially notices one of these companions--
One lad in particular, a Pole like himself, with a name that sounded something like Jaschiu, a sturdy lad with brilliantined black hair..., was his particular liege-man and friend. Operations at the sand-pile being ended for the time, the two walked away along the beach, with their arms around each other's waists.... (32)
At a later time, Aschenbach has the opportunity to speak to Tadzio but hesitates and then passes him by without speaking (47). In the very last scene, Aschenbach observes a fight between Tadzio and Jaschiu, then watches Tadzio walk away to a sand-bar, far from Jaschiu--and Aschenbach, who collapses and dies. (74-75)
To borrow the concept of "observer/participant" from anthropology--Aschenbach becomes more of a participant in regard to reports of sickness sweeping Venice. He speaks to a shopkeeper, the hotel manager, and a performer at the hotel, about this threat of death hanging over Venice. No sickness, they all say, just the sirocco. Finally, a clerk in the English travel bureau in the Piazza tells Aschenbach the truth: cholera has spread from China through Afghanistan and Syria to Southern Italy, and to Venice, where "there was a hideously brisk traffic between the Nuovo Fundamento and the island of San Michele, where the cemetery was." (64-65) At this critical point, Aschenbach's "participant" behavior stops; he says nothing to Tadzio's mother, so he can continue being an "observer" of Tadzio.
There is much more to be said about Death in Venice. For instance, why the recurring references to Classical mythology? They may illuminate Aschenbach's condition to the reader, but they do not seem to illuminate Aschenbach's condition to himself...unless he does not want to save himself? Possible--and one of various puzzles to ponder in Thomas Mann's novella.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
What's going on here, Ivan?
Not all of Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev, features fathers and sons. Certainly the sparks of intergenerational conflict fly but less so between a father and son than between a university graduate's aristocratic uncle (Pavel Petrovich) and his friend from university (Bazarov). Meanwhile, from the start, there is tension between the two university friends, Arkady and Bazarov, who are presumably of the same generation. Paralleling this tension are two markedly different romances, between Arkady and Katia (relatively light), and between Bazarov and Mme. Odintsov (not remotely light).
At first, it seems that a rift has occurred between Nikolai Petrovich and his son Arkady, who has just graduated from the University of St. Petersburg. On the one hand, Arkady says, "...it's not for a son to sit in judgment on his father..." (Turgenev 91), but, on the other, he feels he is "being magnanimous" toward his father (91) who really has the less "emancipated outlook." (82) Undoubtedly there has been a shift but, it soon turns out, not a shift that creates a damaging rift between father and son.
The intergenerational conflict happens between Arkady's friend, Bazarov, and Arkady's uncle, Pavel Petrovich. After Arkady informs his uncle Pavel that Bazarov is a Nihilist, "a person who does not take any principles for granted, however much that principle may be revered," Pavel has this to say: "We of the older generation think that without principles...taken as you say on trust one cannot move an inch or draw a single breath." (94) These are fighting words (of a polite sort), and this is only the beginning of a fight between Pavel and Bazarov, which ends in a duel without any specific cause and with only one (reluctant) witness. Long before this duel, Bazarov tells Arkady that his father, Nikolai, is "a good man...but he's old-fashioned, he's had his day" (118), a comment that Arkady does not refute--but does not endorse, either. Bazarov, not Arkady, is the rebellious, potentially parricidal "son" here. Meantime, Nikolai, saying to Pavel that Bazarov may be right, is hardly "Cronos" defending his realm against the "Zeus" Bazarov. Pavel takes on that role, of the powerful, wrathful father, upon declaring to his brother, "Well, I shall not give up so quickly.... I have got a skirmish with that [Bazarov]...I feel sure of that." (121) In the end, neither "father" nor "son" wins.
A primary conflict in Fathers and Sons takes place not between father and son but between friend and friend, i.e., Arkady and Bazarov. Tension between the friends emerges slightly on the matter of Arkady's father's estate--
The friends walked on a few steps in silence.
"I've been all round your father's establishment," Bazarov began again. "The cattle are inferior, the horses mere hacks. The buildings aren't up to much and the labourers look like a set of inveterate loafers...."
"You are pretty censorious today, Yevgeny Vassilyich." (115-116)
Tension between the two simmers until (the Nihilist) Bazarov declares that Arkady is talking like his aristocratic uncle (211), a retort that nearly escalates into a wrestling match. Finally, upon leaving Mme. Odintsov, Bazarov also tells Arkady in an unmistakably friendship-severing diatribe:
"There's no audacity in you, no venom: you've the fire and energy of youth but that's not enough for our business. Your sort, the gentry, can never go farther than well-bred resignation or well-bred indignation, and that's futile. The likes of you, for instance, won't stand up and fight...."
(271)
And so on and so forth. Meantime, just as Arkady is a relatively light-hearted man, so is Arkady's courtship of Katia--during which he praises the Russian name for the ash-tree--relatively light-hearted. A short while afterward, Arkady's proposal to Katia initially veers between eloquence and nervousness but then gets to the point with a final emphatic "I love you...do believe me!" that is met with "Yes." from Katia. (268) And so, Arkady's romance with Katia ends in an engagement. On the other hand, just as Bazarov is a relatively heavy-hearted man, so Bazarov's romance with Mme. Odintsov becomes fraught with "unceasing awareness of unceasing danger." (264) It ends in separation.
Fathers and Sons also features a difficult relationship between Bazarov and his father, Vassily Ivanych, who, at one point, compares himself to the Ancient Roman hero Cincinnatus, as well as a lengthy characterization of Bazarov's mother, Arina Vlassyevna, "who ought to have lived a couple centuries earlier, in the days of Muscovy." (202) But what makes Fathers and Sons of especial interest is Turgenev's ability to capture the many kinds of relationships people may engage in with each other, of which father and son is only one.
At first, it seems that a rift has occurred between Nikolai Petrovich and his son Arkady, who has just graduated from the University of St. Petersburg. On the one hand, Arkady says, "...it's not for a son to sit in judgment on his father..." (Turgenev 91), but, on the other, he feels he is "being magnanimous" toward his father (91) who really has the less "emancipated outlook." (82) Undoubtedly there has been a shift but, it soon turns out, not a shift that creates a damaging rift between father and son.
The intergenerational conflict happens between Arkady's friend, Bazarov, and Arkady's uncle, Pavel Petrovich. After Arkady informs his uncle Pavel that Bazarov is a Nihilist, "a person who does not take any principles for granted, however much that principle may be revered," Pavel has this to say: "We of the older generation think that without principles...taken as you say on trust one cannot move an inch or draw a single breath." (94) These are fighting words (of a polite sort), and this is only the beginning of a fight between Pavel and Bazarov, which ends in a duel without any specific cause and with only one (reluctant) witness. Long before this duel, Bazarov tells Arkady that his father, Nikolai, is "a good man...but he's old-fashioned, he's had his day" (118), a comment that Arkady does not refute--but does not endorse, either. Bazarov, not Arkady, is the rebellious, potentially parricidal "son" here. Meantime, Nikolai, saying to Pavel that Bazarov may be right, is hardly "Cronos" defending his realm against the "Zeus" Bazarov. Pavel takes on that role, of the powerful, wrathful father, upon declaring to his brother, "Well, I shall not give up so quickly.... I have got a skirmish with that [Bazarov]...I feel sure of that." (121) In the end, neither "father" nor "son" wins.
A primary conflict in Fathers and Sons takes place not between father and son but between friend and friend, i.e., Arkady and Bazarov. Tension between the friends emerges slightly on the matter of Arkady's father's estate--
The friends walked on a few steps in silence.
"I've been all round your father's establishment," Bazarov began again. "The cattle are inferior, the horses mere hacks. The buildings aren't up to much and the labourers look like a set of inveterate loafers...."
"You are pretty censorious today, Yevgeny Vassilyich." (115-116)
Tension between the two simmers until (the Nihilist) Bazarov declares that Arkady is talking like his aristocratic uncle (211), a retort that nearly escalates into a wrestling match. Finally, upon leaving Mme. Odintsov, Bazarov also tells Arkady in an unmistakably friendship-severing diatribe:
"There's no audacity in you, no venom: you've the fire and energy of youth but that's not enough for our business. Your sort, the gentry, can never go farther than well-bred resignation or well-bred indignation, and that's futile. The likes of you, for instance, won't stand up and fight...."
(271)
And so on and so forth. Meantime, just as Arkady is a relatively light-hearted man, so is Arkady's courtship of Katia--during which he praises the Russian name for the ash-tree--relatively light-hearted. A short while afterward, Arkady's proposal to Katia initially veers between eloquence and nervousness but then gets to the point with a final emphatic "I love you...do believe me!" that is met with "Yes." from Katia. (268) And so, Arkady's romance with Katia ends in an engagement. On the other hand, just as Bazarov is a relatively heavy-hearted man, so Bazarov's romance with Mme. Odintsov becomes fraught with "unceasing awareness of unceasing danger." (264) It ends in separation.
Fathers and Sons also features a difficult relationship between Bazarov and his father, Vassily Ivanych, who, at one point, compares himself to the Ancient Roman hero Cincinnatus, as well as a lengthy characterization of Bazarov's mother, Arina Vlassyevna, "who ought to have lived a couple centuries earlier, in the days of Muscovy." (202) But what makes Fathers and Sons of especial interest is Turgenev's ability to capture the many kinds of relationships people may engage in with each other, of which father and son is only one.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
What's going on here, Edgar Allan?
(Note: I read The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, by Edgar Allan Poe, in a compilation called The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales.)
First off, Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, feels like two distinct narratives. The first narrative (Poe 202-304) chronicles various dangerous and horrifying adventures at sea, ending in rescue by a ship named The Jane Guy. The second narrative (304-371) chronicles the (ultimately dangerous and horrifying) exploration of islands in the Southern Indian Ocean near Antarctica.
Within both narratives, there are recurring extremities, like despair or joy, deprivation or deliverance. There is rarely a "happy medium" throughout. At one point, Pym writes in his journal: "In moderate weather we might have easily captured [the shark]." (296) But, the point is, it is not moderate weather and so they do not capture the shark, which remains an imminent danger in Pym's narrative of many "imminent dangers" (270). Which brings me to another recurring issue in Poe's novel--precariousness. From the start, Pym finds himself in dangerously uncertain situations. Hiding on board ship the Grampus has this scary consequence:
My head ached excessively; I fancied that I drew every breath with difficulty; and, in short, I was oppressed with a multitude of gloomy feelings. Still, I could not venture to make any disturbance by opening the trap.... (218; italics mine)
Although Pym does escape this trap, he escapes into an even more precarious situation. More on that later.
The first striking thing is the extremity of Pym's experiences evoked by Poe's language, such as "ravenous appetite," "state of absolute putrefaction" and "great disquietude...disorder of mind" all within six lines of each other on p. 217. And this is only the beginning of one nightmarish situation for Pym. "Disorder of mind" is soon followed by dreams "of calamity and horror," followed by "some huge and real monster," followed by "an overpowering sense of deliverance...." (219-220). Despite this deliverance, Pym has fever and almost intolerable thirst. He becomes almost too feeble to move. Not much later, Pym swings from "exceeding joy" to "extreme horror and dismay" (222, 223). More extreme horrors--about five more--occur, until his rescue by his friend Augustus, at which point Pym swings back to that "exceeding joy" again.
The mutiny on board the Grampus--itself presenting an extreme of butchery--is successfully defeated only after Pym disguises himself as a corpse that "presented in a few minutes after death one of the most horrid and loathsome spectacles...." (259). After this, however, survival remains tenuous, to the point of cannibalism, a "last horrible extremity" (287) that Pym tries to avoid but cannot. This horrible extremity, followed a dozen days later by the horrific death of Augustus, swings to rapture at the sight of a ship, the Jane Guy. After rescuing Pym and Peters, the only survivors left on the Grampus, the Jane Guy diminishes any extremities. A more or less "happy medium," involving exploration of islands in the Southern Indian Ocean, ensues for several months. This does not last, and, by the end of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, extremely "unusual phenomena" indicating "a region of novelty and wonder" (368) lead Pym and Peters to "a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men." (371) Poe has established that extremity--not moderation--is the norm.
Another norm in this narrative is uncertainty. After leaving behind the stability of home on Nantucket, Pym finds himself almost immediately threatened by very precarious situations. If Pym had ventured to make a disturbance by opening the trap, he might have been discovered by the mutineers and thrown overboard. If Pym had not disguised himself as the corpse of Rogers, he, Augustus, and Peters might not have "found ourselves masters of the brig" (265) after all. If Pym et al. had not "lashed themselves firmly to the fragments of the windlass," they would have drowned--"As it was, we were all more or less stunned by the immense weight of water which tumbled upon us...." (268). Indeed, since most of Pym's narrative takes place on the ocean, the forces of wind and water (and sun and sharks) are often the cause of many precarious situations threatening the ships or the lives of its sailors. Nature is as potentially destructive as other human beings. No Peaceable Kingdom is to be found anywhere in this narrative.
Sometimes strategizing does prove effective. We do not have to abandon all hope on entering this narrative. This is not Dante's Inferno--but maybe it is not far from it, either.
First off, Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, feels like two distinct narratives. The first narrative (Poe 202-304) chronicles various dangerous and horrifying adventures at sea, ending in rescue by a ship named The Jane Guy. The second narrative (304-371) chronicles the (ultimately dangerous and horrifying) exploration of islands in the Southern Indian Ocean near Antarctica.
Within both narratives, there are recurring extremities, like despair or joy, deprivation or deliverance. There is rarely a "happy medium" throughout. At one point, Pym writes in his journal: "In moderate weather we might have easily captured [the shark]." (296) But, the point is, it is not moderate weather and so they do not capture the shark, which remains an imminent danger in Pym's narrative of many "imminent dangers" (270). Which brings me to another recurring issue in Poe's novel--precariousness. From the start, Pym finds himself in dangerously uncertain situations. Hiding on board ship the Grampus has this scary consequence:
My head ached excessively; I fancied that I drew every breath with difficulty; and, in short, I was oppressed with a multitude of gloomy feelings. Still, I could not venture to make any disturbance by opening the trap.... (218; italics mine)
Although Pym does escape this trap, he escapes into an even more precarious situation. More on that later.
The first striking thing is the extremity of Pym's experiences evoked by Poe's language, such as "ravenous appetite," "state of absolute putrefaction" and "great disquietude...disorder of mind" all within six lines of each other on p. 217. And this is only the beginning of one nightmarish situation for Pym. "Disorder of mind" is soon followed by dreams "of calamity and horror," followed by "some huge and real monster," followed by "an overpowering sense of deliverance...." (219-220). Despite this deliverance, Pym has fever and almost intolerable thirst. He becomes almost too feeble to move. Not much later, Pym swings from "exceeding joy" to "extreme horror and dismay" (222, 223). More extreme horrors--about five more--occur, until his rescue by his friend Augustus, at which point Pym swings back to that "exceeding joy" again.
The mutiny on board the Grampus--itself presenting an extreme of butchery--is successfully defeated only after Pym disguises himself as a corpse that "presented in a few minutes after death one of the most horrid and loathsome spectacles...." (259). After this, however, survival remains tenuous, to the point of cannibalism, a "last horrible extremity" (287) that Pym tries to avoid but cannot. This horrible extremity, followed a dozen days later by the horrific death of Augustus, swings to rapture at the sight of a ship, the Jane Guy. After rescuing Pym and Peters, the only survivors left on the Grampus, the Jane Guy diminishes any extremities. A more or less "happy medium," involving exploration of islands in the Southern Indian Ocean, ensues for several months. This does not last, and, by the end of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, extremely "unusual phenomena" indicating "a region of novelty and wonder" (368) lead Pym and Peters to "a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men." (371) Poe has established that extremity--not moderation--is the norm.
Another norm in this narrative is uncertainty. After leaving behind the stability of home on Nantucket, Pym finds himself almost immediately threatened by very precarious situations. If Pym had ventured to make a disturbance by opening the trap, he might have been discovered by the mutineers and thrown overboard. If Pym had not disguised himself as the corpse of Rogers, he, Augustus, and Peters might not have "found ourselves masters of the brig" (265) after all. If Pym et al. had not "lashed themselves firmly to the fragments of the windlass," they would have drowned--"As it was, we were all more or less stunned by the immense weight of water which tumbled upon us...." (268). Indeed, since most of Pym's narrative takes place on the ocean, the forces of wind and water (and sun and sharks) are often the cause of many precarious situations threatening the ships or the lives of its sailors. Nature is as potentially destructive as other human beings. No Peaceable Kingdom is to be found anywhere in this narrative.
Sometimes strategizing does prove effective. We do not have to abandon all hope on entering this narrative. This is not Dante's Inferno--but maybe it is not far from it, either.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
What's going on here, Gregory?
Who or what is lost in Lost, by Gregory Maguire? Probably wandering Winnie, or perhaps the troubled ghost (a la "Ghost Whisperer") that Winnie discovers in her cousin's flat near Hampstead Heath, London. In any case, it sounds from the title that the state of being lost will the central problem to be solved, or at least evaluated, in the novel. I am not so sure.
I am sure that a recurring theme in Lost has to do with being closed off (from external influence) versus being open (to external influence). Specifically, Winifred Rudge, from the start, tries to close herself off from the people around her and, therefore, from any impact those people might have on her. On p. 12, Maguire tells us that Winnie "hid in a herd of other bleary registrants...." Repeat--hid. She is intending to keep herself at a distance from Mabel Quackenbush, a coordinator for an adoption agency called Forever Families. This doesn't work out. A couple sentences later, "...one of the Boys ambushed her by the coat-rack" (Maguire 12). A couple pages later, "...her cover was blown" (14), and, not much later than that, Mabel Quackenbush says to Winnie--"You. Sorry. They ran you through the computer. They said you have to leave. No discussion." (17) Thus, despite trying to close herself off from the people at Forever Families, "they" have an impact on Winnie, anyway.
Winnie very briefly mentions her cousin, John Comestor, then leaps into her "mental map of London" (29). She briefly mentions him a short while later, then leaps back into her own thoughts: "She worked up some jovial remarks so she could enter with a flourish" (34). Again, her goal is to keep her distance from someone else, to prevent meaningful contact. She insists to herself that "[her] relationship with John wasn't a relationship. It was cousinhood, and stepcousinhood at that" (38). This sounds like self-deception, since "cousinhood" does not prevent meaningful contact. Meanwhile, if it was only "cousinhood, and stepcousinhood at that," why does John's absence unsettle her as much as it does? Probably, it is too late for Winnie to keep her distance from John. And--it becomes clear--it is.
If Winnie was bent on closing herself off, she would have immediately returned to Boston. Instead, she stays in the London flat and speaks with the construction workers that John has called in--a conversation that leads her to the resident ghost. At this point, she might have flown back to Boston. Instead, she visits another building tenant, Mrs. Maddingly, and says, "We hear a rapping noise...We thought you might be having some renovations done." (53) After an extensive visit with Mrs. Maddingly, Winnie goes to see Allegra Lowe, introduced earlier as "the lead so-called girlfriend, who did arts therapy of some sort...But [Winnie] liked standing apart from all that." (39) And yet, Winnie stands in Allegra's kitchen and says--"I arrived from Boston last night and John doesn't seem to be in residence. Do you know where he is?" (65) An extensive visit with Allegra Lowe leads to a visit with Allegra's neighbor, Rasia McIntyre--another extensive visit, which leads later on to meaningful contact with the clairvoyant Ritzi Ostertag and history professor Irv Hausserman. Far from closing herself off, Winnie is opening herself up to various outside influences.
Indeed, there's a part of Winnie that's always been open--her imagination. She studies a painting of an ancestor, Ozias Rudge, that John displays in his bedroom, and relates it back to her present--
The old man staggered toward the viewer, but his eyes were unfocused and his knees about to unhinge...he didn't know where John Comestor was, either...his eyes were trained inward, at some abomination in his own mental universe. (44-45)
Later, while talking with Mrs. Maddingly, part of Winnie, a novelist, is "channeling [her heroine] Wendy Pritzke, dialing her up" (55). It seems that Winnie is open to what is not rational, more so than she is willing to admit to others or herself, so that it is the history professor Irv Hausserman who points out to her, "Nothing odd in the supernatural as a field of interest. Nor in our sharing the interest. We did meet in a clairvoyant's salon, after all." (159)
After discovering John, Winnie unequivocally tells him, "There is a paranormal presence in the house...." (197) Winnie is so open to this paranormal presence that it takes her over and Winnie develops a second self, leading her to France. At the very end, Winnie is willing to go to Cambodia with one of the parents from Forever Families to bring back the baby the parents have adopted. Winnie cannot close herself off, after all.
Winnie is disoriented, but (I think) not lost.
I am sure that a recurring theme in Lost has to do with being closed off (from external influence) versus being open (to external influence). Specifically, Winifred Rudge, from the start, tries to close herself off from the people around her and, therefore, from any impact those people might have on her. On p. 12, Maguire tells us that Winnie "hid in a herd of other bleary registrants...." Repeat--hid. She is intending to keep herself at a distance from Mabel Quackenbush, a coordinator for an adoption agency called Forever Families. This doesn't work out. A couple sentences later, "...one of the Boys ambushed her by the coat-rack" (Maguire 12). A couple pages later, "...her cover was blown" (14), and, not much later than that, Mabel Quackenbush says to Winnie--"You. Sorry. They ran you through the computer. They said you have to leave. No discussion." (17) Thus, despite trying to close herself off from the people at Forever Families, "they" have an impact on Winnie, anyway.
Winnie very briefly mentions her cousin, John Comestor, then leaps into her "mental map of London" (29). She briefly mentions him a short while later, then leaps back into her own thoughts: "She worked up some jovial remarks so she could enter with a flourish" (34). Again, her goal is to keep her distance from someone else, to prevent meaningful contact. She insists to herself that "[her] relationship with John wasn't a relationship. It was cousinhood, and stepcousinhood at that" (38). This sounds like self-deception, since "cousinhood" does not prevent meaningful contact. Meanwhile, if it was only "cousinhood, and stepcousinhood at that," why does John's absence unsettle her as much as it does? Probably, it is too late for Winnie to keep her distance from John. And--it becomes clear--it is.
If Winnie was bent on closing herself off, she would have immediately returned to Boston. Instead, she stays in the London flat and speaks with the construction workers that John has called in--a conversation that leads her to the resident ghost. At this point, she might have flown back to Boston. Instead, she visits another building tenant, Mrs. Maddingly, and says, "We hear a rapping noise...We thought you might be having some renovations done." (53) After an extensive visit with Mrs. Maddingly, Winnie goes to see Allegra Lowe, introduced earlier as "the lead so-called girlfriend, who did arts therapy of some sort...But [Winnie] liked standing apart from all that." (39) And yet, Winnie stands in Allegra's kitchen and says--"I arrived from Boston last night and John doesn't seem to be in residence. Do you know where he is?" (65) An extensive visit with Allegra Lowe leads to a visit with Allegra's neighbor, Rasia McIntyre--another extensive visit, which leads later on to meaningful contact with the clairvoyant Ritzi Ostertag and history professor Irv Hausserman. Far from closing herself off, Winnie is opening herself up to various outside influences.
Indeed, there's a part of Winnie that's always been open--her imagination. She studies a painting of an ancestor, Ozias Rudge, that John displays in his bedroom, and relates it back to her present--
The old man staggered toward the viewer, but his eyes were unfocused and his knees about to unhinge...he didn't know where John Comestor was, either...his eyes were trained inward, at some abomination in his own mental universe. (44-45)
Later, while talking with Mrs. Maddingly, part of Winnie, a novelist, is "channeling [her heroine] Wendy Pritzke, dialing her up" (55). It seems that Winnie is open to what is not rational, more so than she is willing to admit to others or herself, so that it is the history professor Irv Hausserman who points out to her, "Nothing odd in the supernatural as a field of interest. Nor in our sharing the interest. We did meet in a clairvoyant's salon, after all." (159)
After discovering John, Winnie unequivocally tells him, "There is a paranormal presence in the house...." (197) Winnie is so open to this paranormal presence that it takes her over and Winnie develops a second self, leading her to France. At the very end, Winnie is willing to go to Cambodia with one of the parents from Forever Families to bring back the baby the parents have adopted. Winnie cannot close herself off, after all.
Winnie is disoriented, but (I think) not lost.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
What is going on here?
Before I write a commentary on another book, I'll pause for station identification--what is "Cognosco"? There are a couple things that it is not. 1) It is not book reviewing. I am not praising or attacking, recommending or rejecting a book. 2) It is not literary criticism. I am not studying a book through the lens of a literary theory, e.g., structuralism. Because I never developed an interest in the use of literary theory (a requirement in my English BA), I never developed strength in the use of literary theory, either. (N.B.: This weakness may be unfortunate. I just read about many kinds of literary criticism: formalist, structuralist, and deconstructionist criticism--involving discussion of the text only--sociological and feminist criticism--discussion of the text in relation to society and history--and mythological/archetypal and psychoanalytic criticism--discussion of the text in relation to religious beliefs, archetypal imagery, or psychoanalytic concepts. To name a few. Once again, ignorance is not bliss.)
So--what is this? The answer lies (surprise) in the Latin word "cognosco," which means "I am getting to know," as opposed to "scio" or "I know." I am a student of the book I have chosen to write something about, as opposed to an authority delivering a truth. First, I choose a book that has got my attention somehow. Then, I select an aspect of the book that especially interests me. In both cases, I am following up on a question once posed by a professor at the Boston University School of Education: "What interests you?" This may sound like a rather innocuous, commonplace question to you, but it revolutionized the way I looked at any text. Instead of selecting some obvious subject or theme in a book, whether or not it really engaged me, I zeroed in only on that part of a text that I really cared about. Thus, by honoring myself and my interests, I ended up writing about the text with enthusiasm and thoroughness, as opposed to dull dutifulness leading to something fragmented.
Which brings me back to this blog. Having selected a subject that really engages me, I take notes, complete with quotes, and put them all together in paragraphs of (more or less) Prussian orderliness. Then, as I am writing, "cognosco" occurs--
"I am getting to know" my subject, and, of course I hope, so are you!
So--what is this? The answer lies (surprise) in the Latin word "cognosco," which means "I am getting to know," as opposed to "scio" or "I know." I am a student of the book I have chosen to write something about, as opposed to an authority delivering a truth. First, I choose a book that has got my attention somehow. Then, I select an aspect of the book that especially interests me. In both cases, I am following up on a question once posed by a professor at the Boston University School of Education: "What interests you?" This may sound like a rather innocuous, commonplace question to you, but it revolutionized the way I looked at any text. Instead of selecting some obvious subject or theme in a book, whether or not it really engaged me, I zeroed in only on that part of a text that I really cared about. Thus, by honoring myself and my interests, I ended up writing about the text with enthusiasm and thoroughness, as opposed to dull dutifulness leading to something fragmented.
Which brings me back to this blog. Having selected a subject that really engages me, I take notes, complete with quotes, and put them all together in paragraphs of (more or less) Prussian orderliness. Then, as I am writing, "cognosco" occurs--
"I am getting to know" my subject, and, of course I hope, so are you!
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