Category Archives: Lit–General

Frankenstein and Self-Pity

Posted on by Amanda

I’ve spent the last few days reading Frankenstein in anticipation of my Romantic Lit class this upcoming semester (I like to get a head start when I can).  It wasn’t necessarily on my reading list before signing up for the class, though I adore Mary Shelley’s mom and had some curiosity about whether or not that way with words could be inherited.  But on the whole, science fiction doesn’t much attract me–and though, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this book isn’t really as much science fiction as it is a moral tale, society has certainly billed it as sci-fi. Before reading this, when I thought of Frankenstein, I got visions of a lab with smoking beakers and a green-faced, flat-headed dude hooked up to electrodes, making sounds like a rabid cow.  Just not something I’m really interested in.

It, of course, was not what I expected.  First off, society is wrong; Frankenstein is the doctor, not the monster.  That totally blew my mind.  How has the belief that he’s the monster been perpetuated this long?  I’m not the only one who thought he was the green guy, right?  Oh, and another thing–he’s not green.  He’s yellowish.  There is no mention of him looking like a 1980s Wesley Snipes Chia Pet.

Second, there was very little science in this fiction at all.  Dr. Frankenstein had no desire to talk about the actual science of what he was doing at all.  He was more interested in talking about himself.  And, OH MY, talk about himself he did!!

~My loose, opinion-tainted, spoiler-loaded partial synopsis here~

Once upon a time, there was an adventurous sailor who has nothing to do with the actual plot but is nonetheless our gateway to meeting Dr. Frankenstein.  This sailor has a sister to whom he writes letters.  She also has nothing to do with the plot. After reading for a long time and hearing nothing about science and green people, the reader is confused.  Then we meet a man rescued by the ship who is quite disturbed, as would anyone who spent his entire life obsessed with himself might be.  The not-very-smart adventurous sailor thinks this miserable wretch is the cat’s meow, so the stranger decides to tell him what led him to be chasing around some giant dude in a dog sled.  He prefaces the following by telling the sailor this will be a really, really miserable story.

~Nested story in adventurous sailor’s story~

Dr. Frankenstein grows up in Switzerland with some childhood friends, who he keeps in his life until he becomes responsible for their early deaths.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  At college, he discovers how to animate the inanimate, and he cobbles together corpses and miscellaneous parts to make a human form.  He works almost like a possessed man, dreaming of this person he creates being like a son and a worshipper all at once and imagining what advances for science this will bring.  But when this weird blob of organs opens its yellow eye, Dr. F. is terrified and bolts, leaving the poor thing to fend for itself.  He wanders around in terror of encountering the monster and has periods of illness.  He returns home to Switzerland when he hears of his brother’s murder, and–ACK–there he is, there’s that yellow-eyed, eight-foot-tall thing, being all ugly!  He killed his brother, the doctor was sure of it.

Later, he meets the monster in the Alps and wants to kill his creation.  The doctor is repulsed by the thing’s hideousness.  But the monster, who is surprisingly eloquent, convinces Dr. F. to hear him out.

~Nested story in Frankenstein’s story in adventurous sailor’s story~

The monster tells of how he manages to survive and learn enough to sustain himself.  He quickly figures out that people are horrified by his appearance and will drive him away, but he desires human connections.  The monster stays near a poor family who he grows to love immensely, and he secretly helps them with all their chores.  Through watching them, he learns about interactions, family, music, and language.  Eventually, he desires reciprocation of his love so much that he feels he must at least try to befriend them.  But before he does that, he tells us the story of this family’s history, as he overheard it.

~Nested story in the monster’s story in Frankenstein’s story in the adventurous sailor’s story~

I’m not actually going to go into this, but perhaps you see the point I’m trying to make about the nested stories.

This will become a seriously long post if I continue to sum up the plot, so suffice it to say that the monster just wants love and feels like hurting the whole world when he is deprived of it.  He especially wants to hurt his creator.  They become locked in a battle of revenge.  It’ s sad.

Now, here’s the interesting part, and I’ll be interested to hear what is said in class about this.  I feel immensely sorry for the monster, though he continually murders innocent people related to Dr. Frankenstein.  Dr. F., is by all accounts is victim here.  After all, he wasn’t really trying to create anything bad.  But he feels sorry enough for himself for the two of us, and I have no sympathy for him.  Here’s just a few samples of why:

“Far from being surprised at my misery, you will only wonder that I survive what I have endured”

“How can you understand what I have felt and still feel?”

(When his new wife seems sad) “You are sorrowful, my love. Ah! If you knew what I suffered and what I may yet endure, you would endeavour to let me taste the quiet and freedom from despair that this one day at least permits me to enjoy.”

Oh, and about that wife…the monster wants his creator to suffer as he suffers, and he does this by taking away all the people Dr. F. loves.  Dr. F. knows this.  Or he should, anyway–I saw it.  When the monster threatens to be there on his wedding night, that clearly meant to me that he would kill the doctor’s wife.  But the doctor just kept mourning the wedding night as the night he would die at the hands of his creation.  He says, “if for one instance I had thought what might be the hellish intention of my fiendish adversary,” he would have never gotten married.  I thought, “How did you miss it?”

He says he blames himself for the murders of his family, but, lord, it sure seems like he feels like the victim.   At the most, he blames the fact that he created something “evil,” and connects himself that way.  Couldn’t he have given the monster a puppy or something?  Shelley makes it very clear that the monster is anything but evil.  His responses are extremely human.  What seems inhuman to me is to see something as lonely as the monster and to not have any pity for it.  But all the doctor’s reserves of pity seems to be already spoken for.

“And They Lived Happily Ever After”–How The Master and Margarita Does it Right

Posted on by Amanda

Before launching into the literary subject matter at hand, I’d like to to take a moment to beg forgiveness of my esteemed reader and offer an explanation for my absence.  I’ve been doing a lot of travelling and miscellaneous adventuring. I’ve also begun to spend much of my time copyediting software engineer/dreamboat Erik Dietrich’s blog at daedtech.com. (If any of you folks dabble in things tech-y, I highly recommend the blog. Erik often draws from historical and literary sources for his software metaphors, and it’s a real pleasure to read.  That’s coming from a person who was pretty sure “C++” means “really close to being a B” and “motherboard” is the plank you walk up to get on the main flying saucer of an alien fleet.)

I’ve finally finished The Master and Margarita, and I’m just clever enough to know that there is plenty of satire afoot and just not clever enough to understand what the satire is targeting.  Maybe it requires more than a single Russian history class to understand.  I did notice wonderful hints at what Russian society is like, though.  I remember learning that Stalin was a late-to-bed, late-to-rise type and the hours of governmental operation and eventually the whole country began to mirror those hours kept by Stalin.  That explained why the literary folks at the club ate dinner near midnight. But since some of Bulgakov’s more subtle points about society were, I fear, lost on me, I will focus on that which enchanted and entertained me.  The story itself was incredibly amusing.  I loved watching Satan and his cohorts wreak havok for awhile, and I found myself wishing desperately Satan’s darling tom cat was real so he could come by and stir things up for my amusement and then go on a rampage about no one giving cats the respect they deserve.

By the the end of the novel, it struck me that I was actually rooting for the fairy tale ending–a thing which, under normal circumstances, bores me to tears.  “The poor Master and Margarita deserved to be together,” I thought near the end of the novel.  “They belong with one another, and I will throw a FIT if it doesn’t work out for them.”  Then I slapped myself, because, what,  I’m pulling for the cheesy ending?  What have I become?

But I realized that there’s a reason I can root for a happy ending to the story without feeling like it would be cliche.  After all, the two are in league with Satan, so this reader is more likely to give herself permission to cheer for romance as long it’s countered by being able to root for “evil,” too.  It’s not as sugary.  There’s balance. So, well played, Bulgakov.  I wanted your characters to be together forever.  And when they were, I was very satisfied with your ending, because, HA, it means that it pays to sacrifice your soul to Satan!  I can embrace romance and still feel edgy!

I love seeing things work in literature, and I love trying to figure out just what the author did right, making me putty in their hands (words?). I love seeing where authors fail, as well.  I thrive on the weakness of others.  Kidding, of course; figuring out where authors went wrong is very edifying to me because I’m more and more often in a position to give advice to others about their writing, and I’d like to think my advice will result in the real improvement of their creations.  Critical reading is one of those skills I aim to sharpen to an exceptionally fine point.  But, oh, perhaps you see that therein lies a real philosophical conundrum.  Just because a twist of phase, a plot device, or a directional choice doesn’t work for me doesn’t mean it that it won’t work for others.  Arguably, all taste is subjective, and what literature is good, what is bad, and even the difference between what writing is literature and what isn’t is an incredibly blurry line.  Yet, as species that has been around for awhile, we agree to keep some writers around and collectively esteem their works.  Studying them seems to be a good way to build up an idea of what is generally good and what isn’t.  But, ug, the quandries that arise when examining Hume’s expert-mimicry and the like are too great for bloggy snippets, and I’ve wandered far enough away from the topic as indicated by the title of this post.  If anyone wants to chat philosophy on these matters, I’m more than happy to dance in circles around these questions that have no answers with you.  It’s one of my favorite pastimes, and I have no resolved opinions on the matter, making me a great person to discuss things with.

The Master, Margarita, and Twin Peaks

Posted on by Amanda

I’m utterly convinced that David Lynch is the reincarnation of Mikhail Bulgakov.  I’m about halfway through The Master and Margarita, and everything is so surreal that I can’t tell who is crazy and who isn’t.  There are skips in time, supernatural occurrences, and people with cryptic and prescient messages (though not armed with chunks of driftwood). Like Lynch’s, sometimes Bulgakov’s story is whimsical, sometimes it’s dark.  The only difference is, with Lynch, I root for the good guys, and with Bulgakov, I’m on the side of Satan. I’m not totally sure what that says about me.  But in my defense, the trio of Satan, his, um, “manager,” and his Cheshire cat companion victimize people who are selfish, obtuse, frivolous, and generally hateable, and it’s pretty hilarious when they get manipulated.

For instance, Satan puts on a black magic show for a Moscow audience.  The crowd has seen Satan’s cat rip off the head of the master of ceremonies and reattach it.  Whether the act is an illusion or not, to the audience, it’s a portentous sign.  Most audience members are fairly shaken, especially the women.  Yet, the next “trick” is to open up a ladies’ shop onstage and invite women to come partake of the Parisian dresses, lavender shoes, and jeweled bottles of perfume, and, after a moment’s hesitation, all previously-seen violence is forgotten.  The women storm the stage, demanding all sorts of luxury items.  One woman can be heard berating her husband for his reluctance to let her join the legion of clucking hens fussing over froof onstage.  I found the scene an accurate reflection of society’s goldfish-proportioned capacity for memory.  And I was absolutely DELIGHTED to find that, when the women left the theater in their new finery, it began to disappear, leaving them on the street in their underwear.  Score one for Satan.

I think it might be interesting to examine Satan’s role in this book as an administer of justice.  Maybe that will be a task for when I finish the book.  And maybe that’s where Lynch and Bulgakov differ.  Lynch’s evil is simply chaos personified, or maybe, more accurately, an entity that thrives on the pain of decent people.  Satan in The Master and Margarita perhaps deals out harsher punishments than people really deserved (the ladies in the theater get off by far the easiest, as far as TMATM punishments go), but I will tentatively say that all the people who suffer are greedy, pompous, or just horribly stupid.

More later.

Gogol’s “The Overcoat”

Posted on by Amanda

Having teeth forcibly removed from my head has slowed my The Master and Margarita progress to a plod, but I’m getting through.  (That’s why I had previously said it would take two days to read or forever to read–I was scheduled in two days for the removal of several impacted and/or generally evil teeth. I knew it was going to make me a vegetable for, like, a week.  But unable to eat vegetables. All the qualities of being a vegetable without the nutrition of vegetables.  Okay, I’m going to stop with the vegetables now…as you see, all my faculties have not yet returned.)

I’ve been alternating between The M and M and a collection of Russian short stories I have on the Kindle, and I just finished Gogol’s “The Overcoat.”  I’d read it before, but I’d forgotten how absolutely heart-wrenching it is.  This is why I love Russian lit as much as I do. Russian lit has this amazing combination.  Eloquence normally puts a kind of professional, decorous distance between the speaker and the spoken-to.  But Russian lit is eloquent and raw and intensely personal and amazingly human at the same time, and the combination is just jaw-dropping.  Nothing does this combination like Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground, in my opinion.  But Gogol’s “The Overcoat” is another example of how there must be something in the water in Russia or something.  These authors compose the most stirring works.

For those who have not had the experience, “The Overcoat” traces the last days of a man who is very awkward–too socially inept, in fact, to communicate in full sentences.  Kind of like me right now.  He walks around with fruit rinds and fuzzballs and various garbage attached to his coat, probably smells funny, and likes to keep to himself.  He very much reminds me of Melville’s Bartleby, though he is immensely dedicated to his work as a copier and, after work, goes home and copies for pleasure.  He has no friends, no family, and is quite poor.  Everyone at his job teases him relentlessly because of his shabby dress and general weirdness, and that in itself, as told by Gogol,  is fairly heartbreaking.  But, when a freezing Russian winter is setting in and he discovers holes in his decrepit overcoat which cannot be patched, he must begin to scrimp and save for a new one.  As he helps the tailor pick out the material and discusses its manufacture, he begins to feel excited about the new coat.  Here’s part of Gogol’s mastery–to see this man’s existence so far has been so sad that the reader feels positively elated as the man starts to show signs of life. As he dreams of his new coat, he starts living for the day that he can put it on.  On the very first night he has it, he gets mugged and it is stolen. He dies from the sickness he gets from exposure to the cold that night.  Go ahead, cry.  It’s okay.

Gogol keeps a beautiful balance in his narrator’s voice throughout all this.  The storyteller is present in the story, but he makes himself disappear at the crucial moments, and then makes us aware of him again later to shock us out of the story and call our attention back to him again.  The push and pull of the seriousness of the narrator’s retelling is fascinating.  The one relaying the story is a fairly lighthearted person, as can be seen in the beginning, and that’s certainly a contrast to the material the lighthearted person is relaying.  The thing that really strikes me about the story is how immensely compassionate it is without using gimmickry to try to appeal to the reader.  It’s almost as if Gogol himself felt so much for his invention, this character whom the world had forgotten, that he had to write about it and didn’t care much what we, the reader thought.  Though the narration and the push and pull of seriousness that I mentioned seems like a tactic or an emotive device of some sort, I almost feel as if Gogol just knew the perfect way to express his own sympathy for the forgotten and his devices are an outflow of compassion.  I don’t really have any evidence for that.  It’s just a feeling.  I usually know when I’m being manipulated into feeling something–it’s like authors fall back on triggers (cue rape, child abuse, or man hitting woman.)  And this is so authentically, actually, gimmick-free-ly moving.  It’s refreshing.  And also (sniffle) sad!

Cloud Atlas, Continued: I Love You, Mr. Mitchell

Posted on by Amanda

Cloud Atlas was just stunning, folks.  What an amazing read.  I’m left so dizzy and disoriented by it that I hardly know what to say.

The elements of the book are so disparate (yet strung together so purposefully) that I think it’s natural to want to tie it all together.  I think you could make a good case that the book is about enslavement and freedom.  Every narrative in the story deals with captivity, humans that want to dominate other humans, and the longing to be free.  The stories tackle issues of enslavement in such amazingly different ways, though–the first deals with it through colonialism, the second via prisons of the mind, the third by binding a character to a conspiracy from which she cannot look away from, the fourth by the portrayal of a high-security retirement home, the fifth and sixth through literal enslavement, and then back again until we re-reach colonialism.

I’m pretty sure you could also make a case that the book is all about how irrevocably humans are tied together.  The comet birthmark appears on the shoulders of so many of the characters in the book, and seeing how the title refers to the book’s of mapping of souls, perhaps it’s a reference to some kind of cosmic link between souls past, present, and future.  I would have to iron out that idea to make it smell less like hippie and more like literati.

May I just say I’m delighted to see that an EBSCO search through my school’s library’s academic search reveals works of criticism already published on this book?  May I express my dismay at how few of these are available in PDF, instant gratification form?  If anyone is doing some summer Christmas shopping, I would like to put in a request for a subscription to every literary journal on the planet.  Expensive?  Yes.  But can you put a price on the look of joy on a little girl’s face?

Now that Cloud Atlas is consumed but not forgotten, I release all my literary energies on the eagerly-anticipated, sparkly package recently arrived from the happiest place not exactly on earth (Ebay)–The Master and Margarita! 

Has this ever happened to you?  In the course of conversation, someone uses a word you’ve never heard before.  You look up the word and then go about your merry business. During the course of said merry business that same day, you hear the word again.  Then twice that week. Then ten more times that month.  The Master and Margarita is that word, for me.  I’d never heard of it before last semester.  My History of Russia teacher recommended it to me, and ever since, I’ve wondered how I’ve gone a week without hearing about it, let alone thirty years.  It pops up everywhere.  I’m very excited to read this and share my thoughts.  I have two days to finish it (explanation and whining to come–stay tuned).

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas: Genre-Pogo Sticking, and Doing it Well

Posted on by Amanda

A multitude of apologies to any who held me to my promise to report on Gravity’s Rainbow.  As the great poet Amanda once said, the best laid plans of mice and men are oft thwarted by their own incalculable sloth.  I wanted a book, I was upstairs, Gravity’s Rainbow was in the basement, Cloud Atlas was in the guest bedroom.  Cloud Atlas wins by proximity.

I had put the book on my Christmas list knowing next to nothing about it.  An author in the New York Times’ book review had opined that all students of literature should read it, and I had thought, “Students of literature? Why, that’s me!  Someone’s telling me to do something!”  So, like any well-programmed English major automaton, I sought out a book because the “experts” say I should.  Now, this robotic behavior is only re-enforced, because Cloud Atlas is simply stunning.  I love you, experts!

I’m only a little more than a third into the book, but the post simply couldn’t wait.  I am quite enthusiastic about the experience so far.

A review from the Boston Sunday Globe is printed on the back of my Random House edition, and it describes the defining characteristic of the book best, I think: “One of the biggest joys of Cloud Atlas is  watching Mitchell sashay from genre to genre without a hitch in his dance step.”  I couldn’t agree more.  The book opens with a entries from a kind of travel journal written by a credulous, wholesome, and rather dense character.  The year is about 1850, and Mitchell does a pretty great job of mimicking the spelling, phrasing, and general mindset of the times.  (Some of the colloquialisms–“backcountry,” “refused to take a cent for it”–ring a little inauthentic for the 19th century, but whatever…since another character later mentions feeling the same way about the phrasing in the travel journal in another section, I wonder if it won’t be addressed later in the book).  Mitchell demands some investment from the reader right away, which may be off-putting to some.  It’s hard to orient yourself to what’s going on in the first few pages, and the writing is rather dry.  This is because the character writing is himself a grandmotherly milquetoast, not because Mitchell lacks zest as a writer.  He is plenty zesty and proves it in the next section.

The first section ends abruptly.  I mean, mid-sentence abruptly.  It’s jarring, which, I assume, is calculated.  The next section is written masterfully and was such a pleasure to read.  It consists of letters written by a gregarious, rougish young musician living in Europe in the 30s to his friend, Mr. Sixsmith.  The character is despicable but immensely entertaining, and the letters are wonderfully done.  Mitchell balances perfectly the language of a man of high English breeding who engages in lower-class behavior and acts on socially-rejected, promiscuous or frowned-upon desires, and Mitchell never misses a beat as far as era-appropriate language goes.  This young man stumbles upon the travel journal from the first section and sells it to a collector.  (And then prostitutes himself to the collector. And then robs him.)  Voila! The first two pieces are connected.

The rest of the sections continue to be like that–connected in unexpected, interesting ways.  The next section is a suspense/mystery piece set in the 70s, with a young journalist protagonist (a woman refreshingly not romantically defined) who meets Mr. Sixsmith, recipient of the previous section’s letters.  She winds up finding those letters, among other things.  This section, in keeping with the genre, is comparably readerly, though not brainless.  It’s a  page-turner, and I had difficulty putting it down.

The next section is written by a crotchety old Englishman, and  it is hilarious.  I’m not even sure what the genre is.  Irreverent 2000s realism?  The section’s narrator is an editor, and a mystery woman sends him the contents of the previous section to examine for publication.  Connection!

This collection of interrelated-short-story-type of snippets is extremely appealing to me.  I almost feel as if I’m a part of an exclusive club or part of an inside joke.  Every new section talks about people I already know from before, and I get to maybe learn more about those people or see what connections they have with other people or events.  Sometimes I wonder if that’s why magazines like People attract eyes at the grocery store or being in the gossip loop is so valued–because we all have this interest in finding connections between people, and we bond over these connections.  Like, “Ooo, an actress, I recognize her.  And she knows this actor, who I also know, but never knew that she knew.  And they’re having a baby, creating a hybrid person out of these people I know…”  Maybe these new interrelated-short-story collections are my version of People magazine, because I really enjoyed Jennifer Eagan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad for the same six-degrees-of-separation-like reason.  Each section elaborates on a person I’ve already met, and I get to see who that person winds up knowing and how their stories affects others’ stories…

May I just say, too, that I am tickled by the presence of an author, living and writing NOW, at this VERY MOMENT, who does not feel a compulsion to include Superfluous Raunch in his book?  Construction of any type of media these days is apparently considered unfinished without the inclusion of some S.R., and it’s a breath of fresh air to see its absence in Cloud Atlas.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Anna Karenina

Posted on by Amanda

Welcome me back from my week-and-a-half jaunt around Portugal and Spain!  In between visits to cathedrals and flamenco shows, I managed to read most of Anna Karenina (81%, according to the Kindle).  Not the most Spanish of novels, I know, but it’s been on my to-read list for an eternity.  It’s my first real experience with Tolstoy–I’d only read snippets of his before, and I figured it’s a little silly of me to proclaim a love for Russian lit without being familiar with him.

Anna is only one of several main characters.  We don’t even meet her until we’re a good bit into the book.  The novel, on the whole, traces the consequences of infidelity as well as incidentally acting as an interesting historical record of the engagement and marriage process for the late 1800s Russian noble class.  Tolstoy’s voice is clear in some parts and unclear in others. He’s certainly trying to make the reader feel for Anna, the unfaithful wife, or at least see things from her point of view if we don’t morally approve.  I suspect he’s making some commentary on the injustice of society–the unfaithful men get very different treatment than the unfaithful women, and he calls attention to that in several places.  Tolstoy shows great sensitivity to the plight of women in the book, in general.  Through Dolly, we hear how conscious he is of the difficulty of motherhood (bodily and otherwise).  Through Kitty’s vulnerability as she awaits a proposal, we see Tolstoy is aware of the terrible uncertainties of future well-being that an unmarried woman has.  And the only really sympathetic male character has classically female traits.  Levin feels things deeply, is constantly thinking of romance, and is moody.  (Unbearably so, actually.)

While Tolstoy shows a great ability to pull back and see issues from multiple perspectives, his portrayal of what I assume he considers true love is, well, ugg.  The couple we’re clearly supposed to be cheering for, Kitty and Levin, have a “love” that was founded on the shakiest ground imaginable.   Levin had been angling for Kitty’s older sisters first, but they had all gotten snatched up too quickly.  So, by process of elimination, he “loves” Kitty.  From there, Levin seems to sincerely enamored with Kitty, but I could never forget that Levin would pretty much love whoever was marriageable.  Kitty is simply a flake.  She’s quite young, so I suppose that has plenty to do with it. Still, her behavior made me sigh audibly as I read.

Kitty and Levin’s married life is as exasperating as their courtship.  They are constantly consumed with emotion and are subject to whim and bouts of debilitating jealousy.  When I left off (at 81% finished), Kitty was about to have a child.  God help that poor infant.

Anna and Vronsky also drive me crazy.  Theirs is a case where both parties had pushed all in and thrown down their cards and, now, they just live with the consequences.  Anna is the picture of quiet desperation, constantly terrified that Vronsky has stopped loving her.  Vronsky is obsessed with Anna when he thinks he might lose her, but he enjoys his life as bachelor and longs for a return when they finally run away together.  For Vronsky, the grass is always greener.  He is both turned off and pleased by her clingy behavior.  Then, he’s both relieved and paranoid when she holds any part of herself back.  That isn’t love.  That’s codependency.  But I guess anything’s better than Anna having to be around that horrible, stuffy husband of hers.  Yeesh.

I think that Tolstoy is realistic in his portrayal of relationships to a certain extent.  No relationship is perfect, and, especially with these characters, the couples’ problems are quite believable.  What isn’t believable is that any of the relationships in this book has lasted this long.  Shouldn’t have Levin have stabbed Kitty in a fit of jealousy by now?  Vronsky is clearly a rake–why hasn’t he kicked Anna to the curb so he can go out drinking with his friends more often?

I just read that they’re making a new Anna Karenina movie.  Keira Knightley stars.  Funny, I pictured Minnie Driver…dark, super-curly hair, kind of pudgy face…oh, well.  Sometimes I think the whole reason I hate the book-to-movie transfer is because I picture the characters.  Then, when something isn’t as I picture it, I’m like, “this movie is sham!”

Lessons From Julius Caesar

Posted on by Amanda

It’s always amusing to hear famous lines or sayings in their original context.  I always liked that Gerry Rafferty song “Right Down the Line,” declaring appreciation for someone who’d always been there for him.  He should have read Julius Caesar, because it turns out that his line “you’ve been as constant as the Northern Star” is code for “you’re about to be stabbed by a huge group of conspirators.”

Caesar may have been Northern-Star-consistent in his determination not to welcome exiles back into Rome, but as far as being a reliable beacon of guidance for people to look up to, he has a decidedly shorter life span than any star.  I read Julius Caesar in high school, but I had forgotten most of it, so I figured I’d read it again.  I was pretty sure Caesar didn’t make it, but I didn’t remember much else, so I was surprised to find what I had thought would be the stabby climax of the play in Act III, not V.  I was also surprised to see that this play was more like Hamlet, with a main character tormented by inner conflict, than, say, Othello, which involves a lot of individual entities in conflict with one another (not that Othello lacks inner conflict, of course).  I just kind of assumed we’d see a lot more of Brutus and Caesar dealing with one another, and a lot more of Caesar in general.  But, really, the play focuses on Brutus’ struggles and justifications, his relationship with Cassius, and, later, his contrast with the character of Mark Antony.

That last thing–the difference between Mark Antony and Brutus–is quite interesting.  Brutus is complicated, but his intentions are simple.  Those intentions are always out in the open (“Brutus-ally” honest?  RIMSHOT!), and they involve only wanting the best for Rome.  The character seems “good,” right?  Yet, as a reader, I felt like killing Caesar was the wrong thing for him to do, so Brutus becomes a kind of villain to me.  I suppose that’s probably because Shakespeare established Cassius, rather than Caesar, as the character who I’m not supposed to like, so anyone who associates with him to conspire against Caesar becomes part of the “bad guy” crew of the play.  The tragedy is not about the downfall of Caesar, like I thought it might be, but about Brutus’ good intentions leading to bad choices.  (Which in turn lead to death, naturally–consider the author.)

I have no idea what Mark Antony’s intentions are–maybe loyalty.  It’s hard to tell.  Unlike Brutus, Mark Antony is shrewd.  He sees that serious trouble awaits him if he does not play nice with the conspirators, but his true alliance lies with the dictatorship–he is on Caesar’s side.  Then he wins the fickle, not-too-bright public to his side in a rhetorical masterpiece (3.2.72-on, beginning with lines you’ll recognize: “Friends, Romans, countrymen…”).  Mark Antony manipulates; Brutus is manipulated.  Mark Antony is in favor replacing the republic with a monarchy; Brutus murders Caesar for perceived tyranny and wants the people to have a voice.  Yet, I very much like Mark Antony.  He seems to be the hero of the play (at least, the un-tragic one). What does that mean?

Another thing that bothers me is this: Brutus, against the wishes of Cassius, does not want Mark Antony to die along with Caesar.  Then, also against the wishes of Cassius, Brutus kindly allows Mark Antony to give a public eulogy for his beloved leader.  Brutus trusts in the people of Rome.  He is a kind of populist and fears a dictatorship will silence the people’s voice.  He also fatefully believes that people can simultaneously mourn Caesar and realize that his death is for the best.  Mark Antony, of course, sees the common people as a tool.  He supported Caesar’s dictatorship and intends (I think) to reestablish that dictatorship as soon as possible. He is right about the commoners, of course–in Act III, the sheep-like masses are easily swayed.  This play really seems to send the message that

1. Rebellion against autocratic rulers = bad.

2. You should kill anyone you suspect may not be loyal.  You’ll regret it if you’re kind.

3. Common people are dumb and need an all-powerful leader to control them and tell them what to think.

4. TRUST.  NO. ONE.

Bummer.

Another important thing to note about this play–there’s a whole slew of ends-justifying-means questions posed.  The obvious example is of course the one Brutus deals with: is killing a friend, fellow Roman, and leader for the sake of the common good is the right thing to do?   A less obvious one is this: if you have to pretend to support enemies and appear to change your principles in order for justice to be done (Mark Antony), is that okay? Or is it better to be a person who always loudly and honestly adheres to what he thinks is right, even in the face of danger (Brutus)?  In essence, when Mark Antony shakes the bloody hands of those who killed Caesar, he defiles himself and his principles.  I could see how he might shrink in the eyes of a reader.  He can be two-faced, and he’s certainly a schemer. Yet, I just saw him as a man who knew how to further the cause of justice as he sees it.

I will take on Antony and Cleopatra next to see how my hero fares.  (I’ve read enough Shakespeare to predict he fares poorly.)  Stay tuned.

I Read the Oedipus Trilogy and Had Some Thoughts

Posted on by Amanda

I’ve read the first part of the Oedipus plays three or four times in the past, and I figured it was time I see what the other two had to offer.  Oedipus at Colonus tells of Oedipus’ arrival at Athens.  He is accompanied by the ever-distressed Antigone.  The play culminates in Oedipus’ death.  In Antigone, the play’s namesake goes back to Thebes to bury her brother, who died in an act of passive suicide.  Since Thebes’ King Creon has decreed that Polynices’ (Antigone’s brother’s) corpse should be left to rot, Antigone also commits passive suicide by ignoring the law (before she commits real suicide, like her mother, and like her fiancee, and like her fiancee’s mom–you get the point).   Everyone yells at everyone else throughout the plays, which is pretty much how all Greek literature seems to roll.  I don’t want to be one of those people who thinks that, if it’s not my culture, it’s an inferior culture.  But I always feel like I’m watching an unsupervised kindergarten class as I read Greek literature.  Take the Illiad….

AGAMEMNON: You’re poopy!!

ACHILLES: You’re poopy!!

AGAMEMNON: You’re poopy times infinity!!

ACHILLES:  [Sobbing]  MOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!

The Oedipus plays have a lot of this, too.  Something that struck me about Antigone, for instance, is that she has the same pick-a-fight mentality that most of the heroic men have.  When her sister points out that burying their brother could mean death, Antigone says, “Don’t make me hate you. I’ll disown you so fast.” (I probably don’t need to clarify that that’s my paraphrase, right?)  A pretty intense reaction, isn’t it?

Side note–The character of Antigone seems to confirm something I’d been thinking earlier.  I wonder if ancient Greek writers struggled to craft heroines.  They either make their woman character ragingly, self-righteously antagonistic like a man (Athena), make her pure, meek, and self sacrificing (Penelope), or make her an awkward combination of both (Antigone).  But I think there’s an argument to be made that Clytemnestra is an exception to this rule–she is a heroine character (arguable in itself, I know) who is both not an imitation of a man (also arguable) and not submissive (assuredly unarguable).  I could talk adoringly about Clytemnestra for hours.  But maybe another time. Back to Oedipus.

Oedipus, like Antigone, snaps furiously for no real reason that I can see.  Polynices, his son, has come to have a friendly interaction with his father, and Oedipus, in essence, says, “I hope you and your brother die.  In fact, may the gods have you two kill each other.”  Oedipus claims that Polynices kicked him out of his homeland, but I think Oedipus is a little senile or something–I read the first play, and I’m quite sure Oedipus insists on his own banishment.  I don’t even remember Polynices being named.  Perhaps I’m missing something.  But, even if I am, there’s more fury to be discussed…

Oedipus has snapped on someone before–those of you who remember the first play will see the same victimization played out in the third play, this time with Creon at the persecution helm.  Poor Tiresias!  He’s always been my favorite, and he seems like one of the only “adult” characters in the trilogy.  He isn’t governed by fury and indignation.  He’s the only one who sees things with perspective. (I’m not going to talk about the blindness-irony because it’s gotten enough “press,” in my opinion, and I’m not interested in rehashing tired ideas.)  And Tiresias is always being attacked for his ability to perceive.  Here, watch:

OEDIPUS/CREON: Tell me what you know

TIRESIAS: You’re not going to like it

OEDIPUS/CREON:  Tell me.

TIRESIAS: [Tells]

OEDIPUS/CREON: Who asked you to speak, you insolent, treasonous idiot?  You’ll pay for this!

TIRESIAS: [Sighs]

Most characters besides Tiresias are rather one-dimensional for my liking, but the character of Creon is actually quite interesting.  He, like Oedipus, does things that make him seem villainous, yet I find myself sympathizing with him.  Creon thinks that everyone around him is concerned only with profit and has decided it is up to him to weed out the corruption that greed causes.  It’s pretty sad when, like Oedipus again, his stubbornness and (figurative) blindness come back to haunt him.

Aristotle championed Sophocles as a master for a reason; all these plays are pretty excruciating.  I’m just glad I’m reading them and not watching them.  I saw a snippet of the first play on a You Tube video once, and it made me want to throw up.  No, someone put his eyes back in, augh!