Grendel Grendel Grendel (1981)

I was feeling very free after my 5 finals (2 left, wish me luck) and 4 papers, so I took the liberty of watching this cartoon of Grendel that I found on youtube. Yup, a cartoon version of Grendel. Maybe we mentioned this in class and I missed it, but apparently there was short Australian animated film made in 1981, based on Gardner’s Grendel. It doesn't match the complexity of the book, but it was an interesting watch, especially since we recently covered the book.

It was very 80s. VERY, very 80s. Psychedelic geometric shapes, strange colors, abstract backgrounds, retro animation, the whole deal. Nonetheless, It was a very interesting depiction of Gardner’s book. There were many direct quotes from the book, even though the timeline wasn’t entirely accurate, and the plot stayed true to the original for the most part.

The first main deviation was the depiction of Unferth. Unlike in the book, where in Unferth is a relatively minor character among the many warriors of Hrothgars hall, the video chooses to give him a more major role, as Hrothgar’s second in command, to whom Hrothgar promises his kingdom. He is the main hero or all the warriors, not just a hero like in the book. This sets him up for the fall of his reputation’s in the apple scene, which becomes a running gag as the other characters use it to mock Unferth with again and again. Wealtheow's role is downsized. She is just a ditzy pretty face that Hrothgar takes from a trespassing king as tribute. She says “my lord” a lot. That’s it. There is no mention of the calming effect her beauty has on others, or the emphasis on her innocence like the book. On the other hand, Grendel is for the most part unchanged. Grendel is the well-spoken monster we all know from the book, just with much less anger. He’s depicted surprisingly quiet and thoughtful, with a tendency to talk to himself.

The main confusing element was it’s intended audience. With it’s bright colors and cartoon animation, it’s easy to mistake it as a children’s movie; but Grendel still eats some heads off, Wealtheow is naked for a few seconds, and Beowulf tears off Grendel’s arm rather graphically for a children’s cartoon. However the characters are very much simplified from the book, and their dialogue is more of a comedic routine, slapstick-y with some buffoonery. It’s the kind of cartoon that if I was watching it with a 5 year old, I would periodically ask them “Well, wasn’t that silly?” to check that they’re watching. Except I wouldn’t watch this with a 5 year old, because despite some silliness, and a few dance and song numbers (Grendel has one with the Dragon), it’s still Gardner’s Grendel at heart. Grendel is still lonely and confused monster trying to find his place in the world.

While it is, visually, a strange adaptation (every character has a long snout thing for a nose, so Grendel's face is different only because it's green) it gains a lot of points for two large aspects that the novel cannot have: voices and music. Whoever voices Grendel makes him sound like a sophisticated aristocrat, who should be sipping a cup of English tea. His voice is wonderfully at odds with his actions, which range from violent, to endearingly bewildered. When he’s not narrating for the viewer, his words are changed to unintelligible howls, showing what he sounds like to the Danes. 

The dragon’s voice was unexpected— he sounds like a wheezy grandfather, complete with tiny pince-nez on the bridge of his nose, so his proclamation that “I know everything!” sounds less like he’s trying to impress Grendel, and more like he’s just grumbling. To hear the two of them talking— the eloquent gentlemen and the peeved grandfather— makes the the scene very surreal,  so that when they reach the same conclusion as in the book, it still feels true to the style of book, even if it didn’t have an element of fear or eliphany in it.

Lastly there’s the music. The music was very fitting. It was interesting to actually hear an interpretation of Shaper’s songs. They were strange, sometimes lilting, sometimes dramatic, but they were strange enough to be believable. While music is a major theme in Grendel, we can only read the words not hear the melody, and while the book isn't diminished by it, the animation gains from it. 

To sum it up, it was bizarre yet interesting to watch as a followup to a book I enjoyed it, and though it doesn’t do the book justice, it’s able to emphasize certain aspects that the book can’t, and add a level of interpretation.

Milk and Magic

There is a Monster at the end of this Blog
Hi guys,
Sorry for the double posting (and a bit too late, too), but while I was studying for finals, I discovered an almost hypnotic diversion: finding the real hidden themes in our Myth and Magic course. You may have thought the stories in Myth and Magic were collected in our course due to the stimulating contrast between different ways that myth and magic were incorporated into American literature over the ages. You were sadly misled.
Behold, a collection of photographs revealing the Monster behind Myth and Magic.

Does Grendel remind you of anyone? Specifically, an eye-searing blue someone with a voracious appetite for cookies? Speak no further- I told you the truth would be painful.

Braddock Washington almost succeeded in bribing the powers that be that fateful day. Had he known what he should have used as tribute, the resulting scene would approximate the horror you see above. Try to restrain your trembling; He will not attack you through the screen.

Ancient manuscripts of Song of Solomon have revealed a newly discovered ending scene. Who knew that the monster lurked here as well? 

At last, other depictions of Grendel, cleverly disguised as Magritte knockoffs. I ask you, who is the true monster here!?

--

Anyway, it was nice to experience this course with all of you. Pictures drawn and computerized by me, with props to Lizzie for her input and editing and staying up until 3 in the morning during reading week thinking of progressively wackier ideas. :-)

Have a good night!

On Storytelling in Tracks.

When I thought about Nanapush’s role as a storyteller in Tracks, it struck me how different the Native American vision of storytelling, as portrayed by Louise Erdrich seems to differ from conventional storytelling. Nanapush tells his stories to try to bring his granddaughter Lulu closer to the tribe, and to prevent her from marrying a Morissey. Nanapush’s role as a trickster means we don’t believe his story the same way we would in another novel; there is less verisimilitude.

It is unclear whether Nanapush himself believes his stories; he mentions several times about things “not being clear” until he sits and thinks it through later. This type of phrasing almost implies that the story itself can take on a form independent of Nanapush; something we see in his magic too, when he says, “I began to sing slowly, calling on my helpers, until the words came from my mouth but were not mine, until the rattle started, the song sang itself, and there, in the deep bright drifts, I saw the tracks of Eli's snowshoes clearly”. (101)

                If Nanapush’s stories weave themselves, they differ from fact but find truth. Perhaps it is the truth of the relationship between characters, or the slow disintegration of Chippewa beliefs. But the stories don’t exist in isolation. Lulu will walk away from her grandfather’s stories changed, and readers’ perceptions have probably shifted as well. The stories don’t only find truth; they create them. Or perhaps, they shape them.

                This parallels remarkably well with Grendel’s Shaper. Just as the Shaper carved a glorious past and a heroic future from a tale of mindless bloodlust, and Nanapush brings a story to weave the remnants of his tribe back together; Grendel once conceived of creating the world blink by blink; the stories he tells himself unrolling his future. The difference is that the Chippewas saw the story as independent of themselves; hearkening back to the Native American reservation against aversion to ownership. Interestingly, John Gardner expressed similar sentiments when he said that Grendel was to “catching [Grendel’s] shrieks in cups of gold.” John Gardner also seems to believe that the story was sort of waiting out there before he “captured” it.

                Pre-modern stories were apparently meant to bring the reader closer to G-d. Certainly, the historically Jewish ‘stories’ that I know of were parables, intended to teach and make the reader think. And even though the messages are not always intentional, I think stories can be used to connect to G-d much in the same way nature can; in giving insight into the nature of His world. Modernism acknowledged American society’s loss of divinity as a cultural force. But I think, looking at the nature of stories in stories by authors, one can find a different goal: to shape a truth out of falsehoods and change the readers’ perception of his existence. A secular goal, though with moral underpinnings that hearken back to the older types of stories. But a much more universal one, fit for the modern (postmodern?) age.  

Magic

A lot of the material covered in the course is open to interpretation. It is possible to read the stories as being magical or mythical, but another way to see it is explained by the rational and mundane. Some parts of the stories are out and out impossible like the existence of Grendel, but even the stories that can be read without the myth or magic, like Young Goodman Brown, things still stand out as strange. A big part of the interpretation is if the reader wants to believe in magic. It is a little Peter-Panian (made up a word) to say it is only magical if you believe it is magical, but that is what it comes down to.

Life for some people is simpler without magic. It is difficult for them to wrap their heads around anything different from what they know of the world today. They heard of all the hoaxes, learned all of the magician’s tricks, and there is nothing that can’t be attributed to a cause. As science advances, the mysteries are less and less, which may be a factor in why the belief in magic radically declining.

All the magical stories have to come from somewhere though. There must be some experiences that people cannot satisfactorily explain through the mundane, so they turn to magic to explain. People bend the realm of possibility and speculate what if could happen, what if it did? There are traditions where myth and magic is commonplace. Some people may not think the story actually happened but it is still a part of their tradition.

Magic doesn’t have to be as grand as sparks flying from a wand, or shouting gibberish. There is subtlety in magic. There is magic in the mundane. There is magic in someone calling you when you were thinking about them; there is magic in finding the perfect shade of blue to match the outdated curtains; there is magic in getting along with people. Some may call it probability or good luck or chemistry. But what’s life without a little magic. A little unbalance can make things more exciting.

Perhaps for someone who is willing to accept that there exists miracles at work in the universe, magic isn’t such a stretch of the imagination. This primarily covers people who subscribe to a religion. These people have a tradition that tells them of historical events that defied natural laws. They have a tradition that tells them that miracles happened and to not believe would be heretical. Are miracles and magic not the same thing but with different names?

Maybe since a miracle is associated with the divine where magic is a man-made construction it is more believable. The divine is supposed to be all powerful whereas people are not supposed to be. It is understandable for people to reject a man with the ability to bend the natural laws if they do not believe man is all powerful. It is also understandable for someone to reject the notion of the divine bending the natural laws if they do not believe in the divine.  Since there is no proof one way or the other, it all boils down to what you want to believe, and perhaps there is magic in that.

 

 

Uncomfortably  Good Art

Stories are written in a multitude of flavors. For example, some are presented as works of art with magnificent sentences, vivid metaphors, ingenious allusions, or other qualities critics hold in high regard. Other stories are designed solely for entertainment purposes. For this we have genres and sub-genres to satisfy someone even with the most obscure interests. Still other stories are set up in a way that the reader will derive a lesson or message. Of course, not all stories are so simple and they can combine different flavors to get new and wonderful blend. I consider Toni Morrison’s The Song of Solomon to be one such story.

The story is entertaining. The plot is fast paced and there are shocking twists and turns to keep readers reading. The story also has messages woven into the text without it being preachy. A reader can choose to interpret the point of the story arbitrarily without a set meaning shoved down their throats. And part of the beauty of the story lies with its characters. They are so real, and I believe that is part of the problem.

In many stories the hero is someone with strength of character. The hero may not be perfect but he learns to overcome his weaknesses and becomes all the stronger for it. In some stories the hero’s weakness may be something that would be considered good in other situations. For example, the inability to kill people for the greater good or being too trusting, etc. In The Song of Solomon the hero isn’t conventional. He doesn’t do the good things. He doesn’t seem to have strength of character. He isn’t even likable. But he is real. The average human being has more negative qualities than a hero. People lie, cheat, steal, and murder. People are petty and miserable. But, the average human being is not a villain and also has positive qualities.

In The Song of Solomon, we learn about the characters as children. They are still innocent and do not yet have the negative qualities of their adult counterparts. This contrast is relatable as well. It is infrequent that we come across a child villain. The contrast also serves to highlight their shortcomings. They weren’t destined to be evil from childhood, but they are only human.

In other stories some of the main characters are motivated by power, or selfishness, too. The difference is that the motivation is singularly driven. The characters are not complex as they are in The Song of Solomon. In The Song of Solomon the characters are motivated by relatable desires such as greed, love, revenge, and power. But the motivation is not all-consuming, extreme, or singular as in other stories.

Perhaps the story leaves me with a sense of distaste because it forces me to confront that people are not perfect. The story shows the truth about people and it is not so easy to swallow. It is easier to believe that people will do the right thing, protect the weak, and save mankind. It is comforting to assume the best about people, but it is not real.

 

 

 

Inspired by The Wasteland

Just thought I'd share with the class.

I was rereading Eliot's The Wasteland when I was struck by the descriptions in Part II, "A Game of Chess," and their contrast to the mundanity of the dialogue.  While the former is extravagant and full of vivid imagery, the latter is simple, almost crass.
So I drew it.
I know Eliot is a modernist, which we identify with abstract art, but since I was planning to form it into a blog post, I felt that putting random splotches of color and calling it "Inspired by The Wasteland" would sidestepping the consideration and thought that usually goes into a post (actually up until this point I didn't have a title. Now I do). Nothing against early 20th century modern art, but I do feel that the effort the viewer puts in to interpreting it usually outweighs the labor of the artist that made it.
This is my interpretation of the poem's text. The composition was purposeful, and each object has some reference to the text. There isn't much in the illustration to interpret, since it is based directly on the words of the poem, but that's left to the viewer to decide. You're welcome to play "hidden pictures," and connect the objects to words their referenced from, as well as use the reference to bring your own interpretation of the line from Eliot's ambiguous and pivotal work.

Also, artistic critique is always appreciated, but not strictly speaking necessary.



http://emmy663.deviantart.com/art/Wasteland-Sketch-453898893

Questioning Reality

         Interestingly, I also do a very similar thing to what ST describes in her blog post “Unifying Our Stories.” When I read books of myth and magic I automatically think of ways in which I could explain those events rationally. For example, when I imagine Hagar in Guitar’s bedroom unable to murder Milkman, my immediate reaction is that love has handicapped her and she is therefore unable to kill Milkman. I do not conclude that there is a magical, protective force surrounding Milkman that prevents Hagar from stabbing him. So too, when Guitar tied the noose around Milkman’s neck in an attempt to strangle him, and Milkman seemingly comes back to life, I picture Milkman receiving an adrenaline rush, a phenomenon common to people in life and death situations. This event is similar to being numb to pain when running through thorn bushes to escape a threatening situation. It is the result of our autonomic nervous system, a system that unconsciously regulates the body and is responsible for “fight or flight” responses. A “fight or flight” response is an unconscious physiological response to danger that involves an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, blood glucose levels, and prepares the body to fight or flee. Furthermore, I’m not even phased by Pilate not possessing a navel, as there is a fellow staff member that I work with at camp that also doesn't have a navel. I believe the reason for my zealous tendency to rationalize is due to our brains constantly attempting to make sense of information that we process. 

  There is plenty of research in the psychological field of study that portrays this idea. There was someone named Joe who was suffering from severe seizures. He had his Corpus Callosum, the connection between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, severed as a surgical management option for his epilepsy. However, the left side of the brain processes things in the right visual field, and the right side of the brain processes things that appear in the left visual field. Without the connection between the two sides of the brain, information Joe viewed in his right visual field and processed in his left brain, could not reach the right side of his brain, and information Joe viewed in his left visual field could not reach the left side of his brain. Additionally, speech is processed in the left brain, while the right brain is more visual. Therefore, when the word BELL was flashed in Joe’s left visual field and the word MUSIC was flashed in his right visual field, and he was asked to point to the picture that corresponded with the word that he saw, he chose the picture of a bell rather than that of music. When he was asked why he chose that picture, he explained to the researcher that he saw the word music and subsequently and innocently concocts a story as to why the picture of the bell represents music. Joe believed he heard church bells outside a few minutes prior and therefore he associated bells with music. Curiously, no church bells had chimed. Joe knew he was in a lab and that they were manipulating his brain, and he still fabricates a reason for why he chose a picture of a bell for the word music. The brain feels a need to explain occurrences, and when the brain cannot come up with a plausible explanation it goes to such an extreme extent to rationalize the event that it invents answers that may not even exist. Unfortunately, this often unknowingly leads to wrong perceptions of reality.  

A similar idea is portrayed in Man’s Search for Meaning, a book by Viktor Frankl about his experiences in Auschwitz. Frankl explains that in order to survive the hells of the Holocaust, men had to maintain a vision of a future goal.

Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost. The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging arguments was, “I have nothing to expect from life any more.” What sort of answer can one give to that?

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

The only way for human beings to prevent despair in that situation was for their brain to dream up a future. Many men did so despite the fact that the chances for a positive outcome were slim to none. However, those that did survive the Holocaust were those that had familial visions, spiritual visions, and the like. 

        Perhaps myth and magic have more of a hold in reality than our brain allows us to believe.

       Woe is the power of the brain. Woe is the weakness of reality. 

Solomon's Other Song

King Solomon actually wrote more than one song. The first one that comes to mind is his ubiquitous Song of Songs, which we automatically associate with Toni Morrison’s novel. But Solomon is also famous for his song, Ecclesiastes, which is poetic in nature and riddlesome in its quest for meaning.

In my mind, Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, has a lot more to do with Ecclesiastes than it does with Song of Songs. Throughout the novel, there are parallels between the lessons that Milkman learns through the trials he faces and the very lessons that Solomon teaches us straight-out from his own text.

Firstly, in the second verse of Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” This reminds me of the episode in the novel when Guitar and Milkman are daydreaming about what they will spend all of their money on once they’ve stolen the ‘gold’ from Pilate. As they amble down the street, Guitar notices a white peacock and notes: “Peacock can't fly - "too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can't nobody fly with all that sh*t"(179).

In this episode, Milkman comes to an important understanding of who he is, in the context of contrasting his needs from Guitars. Although Guitar dreams of material luxuries and a life of plenty, Milkman knows that the money to him is only a means to get to his ultimate destination, which is a place of freedom and control from his family and the society around him. Milkman realizes that the gold is only a vehicle to secure his freedom, and that in truth, it’s “new people, new places, command” that he wants.

Another example of a parallel between the works is Solomon’s musings about the futility and repetitiveness of life. He says: “the sun rises and the sun sets, and hastens to the place where it will rise again… the wind goes south and turns about unto north; it turns about continually in its circuit and the wind returns again to its circuits etc (1:6-7).”

Milkman too, becomes a slave to the rote patterns in his life, and realizes that his own passiveness is what is making his life futile and devoid of meaning. In my own understanding, Milkman realizes that without stimulation and an active drive to pursue life, he is stagnant, like the inanimate sun, wind, or river that Solomon describes. Therefore, Milkman asserts himself to seek out his own roots, to dirty his expensive clothes, to muddy his shoes in order to uncover the truth about his past and present. And in this pursuit, where Milkman must actively work to resist entropy, he becomes great. Just as the sun and wind follow a circuit that is dictated by nature, Milkman must break out of his own tendencies to be lazy, selfish, and insensitive, in order to begin to live.

And once Milkman comes to this place of understanding, he, like Solomon, learns to “praise the dead that are already dead more than the living that are yet alive (4:2).” After his trek, he realizes that life and death are more than just the physiological difference in pulse. He ultimately understands that a dead man can be very much alive, a notion embodied by Pilate, who always maintained that man contains the intrinsic ability to transcend death. At the same time, Milkman sees how a man who is biologically alive can be equally dead, as Guitar increasingly immerses himself in the business of blood-exchange and loses his conscience to the mechanic destruction of human life. Thus, when Milkman leaps from the edge at the end of the novel, he welcomes his fate knowing that regardless of whether he lives or dies, he has ultimately chosen to transcend both. 

Unifying Our Stories

When reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court the big question on my mind was: So, did it actually happen? Although it didn't seem to matter much to Mark Twain I couldn't help but wonder whether Hank actually traveled back in time or if it was all just a figment of his imagination. 

A similar phenomenon happens when reading Song of Solomon,  and really just about every story we have covered in this class. When reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow I thought not about the message of not being a free-loader but instead wondered if the headless knight really existed. When reading Young Goodman Brown I was not as concerned about Goodman Brown's attempted Satan worship as I was curious as to if it was a dream or actually happened. And so it goes on with every story. 

Reading stories this way is reasonable – in fact its reasonable to a fault. We all live in a world of reason and rules. Usually we don't even notice the rules until they are broken. In my life I don't have to pay attention to the fact that nobody flies and everyone just stays on their own two feet because no one is trying to defy the rule that people do not fly. So in a story when I am confronted with a character in a story who tries to fly and does, my first reaction is not what is the point, why would the author give her character a special ability? I think "how did he do that?" 

Reading reasonably is especially easy when the author leaves the magic ambiguous. Twain lends his story easily to an interpretation that Hank was simply mad the whole time. 

However when reading a story with regular conceptions of "rules" a reader loses out. It doesn't really matter if Hank went back in time or imagined the whole story from a bed. And whether the witchcraft was real or not doesn't –practically speaking – change how Goodman Brown feels about his wife. Milkman experiences weird and wonderful magical things and it doesn't particularly matter if they are real or not. Reading reasonably only allows for a very superficial understanding of a story. If a person reading a Connecticut Yankee and only looked into whether or not Hank time traveled or not then he would miss the whole satire, the humor, and everything that makes the book worth reading.

Toni Morrison might be reminding her characters that it doesn't functionally make a difference if the thing they are afraid of is real, but she is also reminding a reader to stop knit-picking and let himself go in the story.     

 

Myths and Tradition

Myths and stories are often a way of describing how something happened when we’re not sure what really happened. Some realistic, some ridiculous, and some that only seem true if they are part of your belief system. In class we discussed how Erdrich’s books have a mystical element that is true to the Native Americans, but seems fanciful to us. In one of my education classes we just read the book How Big is a Foot by Rolf Myller, which is a very funny children’s book telling the story of how the foot became standardized to the unit it is today. This book was introduced with the discussion about it being a “myth” meaning a story that is made up to explain something. Grendel, and its original, Beowulf, can be read as the myth of how Denmark became unified. These myths, with different gradations of plausibility, can all be seen as filling a need for a story of how something became what we know.

I would like to suggest that the excerpt we heard Erdrich read in class is another example of a story that was made to fill a need.  Below is a copy of the passage from the older version (so not exactly what we heard): 

“There are, of course, the slick and deadly wheels of reservation cars. Poisons, occasionally, set out for our weaker cousins the mice and rats. Not to speak of the coyotes, the paw-snapping jaws of clever Ojibwa trapper steel. And we may happen into the snares set as well for our enemies. Lynx. Marten. Feral cats. Bears whom of course we worship. I learned early. Eat anything you can at any time. Fast. Bolt it down. Stay cute, but stay elusive. Don’t let them think twice when they’ve got the hatchet out. I see cold steel, I’m gone. Believe it. And there are of course all sorts of illnesses we dread. Avoid the bite of the fox. It is madness. Avoid all bats. Avoid all black-and-white-striped moving objects. And slow things with spiny quills. Avoid all humans when they get into a feasting mood. Get near the tables fast, though, once the food is cooked. Stay close to their feet. Stay ready.

 But don’t steal from their plates.

Avoid medicine men. Snakes. Boys with BB guns. Anything rope-like or easily used to hang or tie. Avoid outhouse holes. Cats that live indoors. Do not sleep under cars. Or with horses. Do not eat anything attached to a skinny, burning string. Do not eat lard from the table. Do not go into the house at all unless no one is watching. Do not, unless you are absolutely certain you can blame it on a cat, eat any of their chickens. Do not eat pies. Do not eat decks of cards, plastic jugs, dry beans, dish sponges. If you must eat a shoe, eat both of the pair, every scrap, untraceable. Sit quietly when they talk of powwows. Slink into the woods when they pack the vans. You could get left behind in Bwaanakeeng. Dog soup, remember? Dog muffins. Dog hot-dish. Don’t even think of hitching along.

Always, when in doubt, the rule is you are better off underneath the steps. Don’t chase cars driven by young teenage boys. Don’t chase cars driven by old ladies. Don’t bark or growl at men cradling rifles. Don’t get wet in winter, and don’t let yourself dry out when the hot winds of August blow. We’re not equipped to sweat. Keep your mouth open. Visit the lake. Pee often. Take messages from tree stumps and the corners of buildings. Don’t forget to leave in return a polite and respectful hello. You never know when it will come in handy, your contact, your friend. You never know whom you will need to rely upon.”

Erdrich, Louise (2009-10-13). The Antelope Wife (Kindle Locations 1208-1225). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

While this story has value as entertainment (as evidenced by the fact that we all laughed while listening to it), I think that it has a larger value to the Native American myth. We attribute the fact that dogs have a survival sense not to do these things to our modern knowledge of psychology, and we talk about “self-preservation” and about “altruism”. There are theories about survival of the fittest and instincts for survival. We talk about Pavlovian conditioning and test learning on mice. However, all this is dependent on our assumption that dogs have these ingrained habits and that they don’t need to be taught like humans do. 
                The Native American myth is not only stories, but it a ritual of the passing of tradition (I am so inclined to call it mesorah).  Therefore, they also attributed a story to how the dogs passed on their traditions of survival similar to themselves. This passing of tradition and passing on keys to survival is a common theme in Native American writings.

 I’m wondering if this story about a conversation between dogs is related to the general tendency I have noticed in that Native Americans attribute more human characteristics to animals than our culture does. Is this a valid observation? The conversation that the dogs are having in this piece is an interesting compromise between a human passing on tips for survival and a mockery of how a dog sees the world. However, it is attributing more thought and learning to a dog than we would.

Western Imagery and Names in Song of Solomon

Toni Morrison said that things don't go well for her characters when they mix with Western myth, and it's pretty clear that many characters get the shaft in this book. But her use of Western imagery and naming sequences is particularly interesting, especially when compared with the other names characters end up with, like Guitar.
First, the cave. Caves are an important feature of Greek Mythology as well as Song of Solomon. In Song of Solomon, events in a cave set off much of the tension in the book. Here, Pilate and Macon kill their father (probably), and leave gold behind, which causes the split between Macon and Pilate. (The gold also highlights a deeper split in their natures over their philosophy on money in general. Macon thinks it's the only true freedom, while Pilate and her family are happy to live without-- Hagar constantly gives away her winnings).

Flight: Professor Miller suggested that Milkman could be compared to Icarus, who flew too close to the sun, crashing and burning on his arrogance. I think that the hero's journey Milkman undergoes demonstrates his success rather than failure.

 However, when looked at from a woman's perspective, Song of Solomon does not appear so triumphant. One person who always struck me as a depressing figure in Greek myth is Penelope, the wife of Odysseus. Penelope is the soul of loyalty, diligently turning away a hundred eight suitors while Odysseus philanders with Circe and other women. Worse still is Ariadne, who helped Theseus navigate the labyrinth and was abandoned by him. In Song of Solomon, many women are held back by a double standard or abandoned, like Hagar and Sweet.

 Circe, too, one of the most powerful people of myth, is sort of left haunting her own house.

 While concepts in Song of Solomon come mainly from Greek mythology, many names are biblical. For example, Saul, the man Milkman fights with a broken bottle, is also (sha'ul) שָׁאוּל, the bitter king of Israel who was fated to be succeeded by David. Milkman's fight against Saul makes him a David-like figure, though one wonders if Morrison is combining the story of David and Saul and David and Goliath, since David never fought Saul directly, and Milkman won with an unconventional weapon, just like David's slingshot in the latter fight.

Hagar's name, too, comes from the second wife of Avraham (Abraham) in the bible. Like the biblical Hagar, Song of Solomon's Hagar was cast out by her lover.

 King Solomon is also referenced in Song of Solomon's title. King Solomon was gifted with wisdom, though he was punished for taking too many wives and had trouble with his children, who split the kingdom in two. In Song of Solomon, Milkman's great grandfather Solomon supposedly flew back to Africa, leaving his wife and 21 children. Later issues in the family may also hearken back to Biblical Solomon, such as the split between Macon and Pilate.
Though three books in the Hagiographa are attributed to Solomon (Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes), Song of Solomon probably refers to Song of Songs, which ostensibly deals with issues of love.

 However, Song of Songs isn't the only book from its category mentioned in Song of Solomon. Milkman's mother is named Ruth (which is unlikely to be coincidence in a book that includes names like Milkman and Guitar). Biblical Ruth is another paragon of loyalty and love, who follows her mother-in-law into a foreign land after her husband dies, eventually remarrying to Boaz. Ruth is the ancestor of Solomon and David, connecting Song of Solomon's Milkman further to David. However, it is hard to see how Song of Solomon's Ruth herself compares to the biblical Ruth.

Though Song of Solomon's Ruth's husband never died, Ruth might have been better off if Macon was dead. It seems like Ruth has to deal with her husband being a living dead person- his name is Dead, their relationship is dead, but still he lives on to torment her. (Interestingly, Macon seems get more use out of his full name, Macon Dead, than any other Dead relative). Ruth seems to have an obsession with death-- it even says in the book that she dealt with death far more strongly than anything in life. It's almost as if Ruth is made to contrast with biblical Ruth, and to envy her for the love she gave and got. SOS Ruth has lots of love, but no one to accept it.
So, does anyone have any more allusions to Western concepts from Song of Solomon?

A Poor Man's Elegy for Gabriel García Márquez

R. I. P. Gabriel García Márquez 

Today I am aware that I am poor--and poorer yet--for the loss of Gabriel García Márquez. Not to underestimate literal poverty (I have some mild experience with that), but today's poverty seems sadder. I am poor in that I have only really read two of his novels. I am poorer now that I know for sure that only a fixed number remain and that their creator is no longer with us.

Is Márquez the greatest novelist of the twentieth century? It seems pretty likely. He probably would have cited Faulkner, and I can understand that. I might even agree with it depending on whether I had read One Hundred Years of Solitude or Absalom, Absalom! more recently. You can make a strong case that Márquez exceeded his master, just as Faulkner to my mind exceeded James Joyce. But there is no doubt Márquez directly affected more people than Faulkner, touched more hearts and minds, and inspired people in the best possible sense, more so than Faulkner. For a writer of his weirdness and stylistic ambition this was a heroic achievement. It is neither elegiac nostalgia nor subjective overstatement to describe his balance of literary ambition and public appeal as one of the greatest achievements in the history of art.

My love of One Hundred Years of Solitude has somewhat inhibited my appreciation of the rest of his work. While I have read One Hundred Years three times and skimmed it a couple more, the only other novel that I have read by Márquez is Autumn of the Patriarch, which I read while traveling through southern Mexico with a woman I had once been in love with. Throughout the trip we fought meanly, and Márquez was my escape. There was something darkly thrilling about reading Autumn of the Patriarch in my hotel room after visiting Teotihuacan and Xochicalco in a romantic fury. But for me, like so many others, it is One Hundred Years of Solitude that carved a permanent place in my imagination. So many of its characters populate me that just thinking of Melquíades, Colonel Aureliano, José Arcadio, Ursula, Remedios, Pilar Ternera, poor Pietro Crespi, Amaranta, Meme, and (my favorite obscure character of all time), Francisco the Man makes me feel a bit Whitmanesque. While the novel has been as influential as anything written in the twentieth century and Márquez's style has led to an international movement and revolution in how we think of storytelling, reading One Hundred Years of Solitude is ultimately a deeply personal experience that no one should deny herself.

Gabriel García Márquez has died. I like to imagine that what really happened is that he floated up to the Heaven of Genius, like Remedios the beauty, the calmest presence in the crazy world he inspired, the eye of our storm, but I know that the truth of surviving cancer (or rather of not surviving it, having watched my father succumb to melanoma) and of living with Alzheimer's disease (an uncle on my mother's side) is no one's idea of paradise.

In December of 2008 Márquez told some of his fans at a book fair that writing had worn him out. While it is somewhat comforting to know that his superhuman creativity did at least test his mortal reserves, it was also sad to hear such an admission from a human being whose imagination seemed boundless. I insist on believing that Márquez, even when his Alzheimer's was at its worst, could still count himself the king of infinite space. "This is the great invention of our time," José Arcadio Buendía said. Not ice, but the world making powers of Gabriel García Márquez.

A Hint of Yankee Among the Danes

With a rebellion in Ukraine and a civil war in Syria, one may wonder what are the prerequisites for a successful revolution. Is having a goal and some support enough? How much action is necessary to promote change? 

In chapter eight of Grendel, John Gardner makes a short, yet bold statement about revolution, that is slightly overlooked due to the novel’s primary focus on philosophy, or more particularly nihilism and solipsism. Hrothulf, the king’s nephew is frustrated by the socioeconomic standings within Hrothgar’s kingdom. The peasants labor, while the aristocrats collect the resulting riches, yet the peasants live drastically poorer lives than the thanes. Red Horse, the old peasant who mentors Hrothulf in his quest to revolt teaches him that “by a single stroke, the most criminal acts must be converted to heroic and meritorious deeds… The total ruin of institutions and morals is an act of creation. A religious act. Murder and mayhem are the life and soul of revolution” (Gardner 117-118). 

Although Gardner was born after Mark Twain had already passed away, this idea of violence being crucial to a revolution reminded me too much of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Hank himself reflects that “no people in the world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed must begin in blood, whatever may answer afterward” (Twain 103). Both Hank and Hrothulf’s mentor seem to believe that nonviolent protests are not productive enough to bring about change. However, as expected, this opinion found in Grendel is tainted by nihilistic beliefs. The Red Horse continues to explain that revolution “is not the substitution of immoral for moral, or of illegitimate for legitimate violence; it is simply the pitting of power against power, where the issue is freedom for the winners and enslavement of the rest,” and he concludes with the depressing thought that “all systems are evil. All governments are evil. Not just a trifle evil. Monstrously evil” (Gardner 119-120). 

It is possible that this is the core difference between Hank’s and the Red Horse’s seemingly similar opinions on how to carry out a successful revolution. In Grendel, violence is necessary for a revolution, because revolution is meaningless in the sense that it will never lead to universal justice. Rather, revolution just perpetuates a cycle of the strong usurping the weak or the rich exploiting the poor, so for levels of society to change positions, power needs to meet power. On the other hand, in A Connecticut Yankee of King Arthur’s Court violence is necessary in the beginning in order to create change, however that isn’t the essence of the revolution. The essence of the revolution is in fact to achieve universal freedom, which benefits all of society. According to Hank, violence is a means to an end that is better and more promising, as opposed to the opinion of the Red Horse who believes violence is a means to an end that is different but not objectively better than what existed beforehand. If violence achieves the latter, conceivably violence is necessary to promote change, but could one still consider it a prerequisite for a successful revolution? According to Hank it would seem as if a revolution needs to generate positive change in order to be considered successful, while the Red Horse seems to think that a revolution’s success is based on any effective change, whether that change is good or bad. Being as positive change is a rather subjective measure, perhaps the Red Horse’s pessimistic views aren’t so far off.