Multiple Reading Personalities

“So much for human fortune. When all is well/ a mere shadow can turn it upside down/ in the face of calamity, the slightest blow destroys/ like a wet sponge blotting out a drawing./ I do not pity myself, I pity mankind.” (Cassandra, in Agamemnon)

In what is likely to be a common complaint here, writing this entry was terribly difficult, not so much as was the case for Beowulf for all the uncertainties associated (though they are, if anything, more numerous), but because of the fascination I have with all myths, legends, interpretations and characters peripheral to the story. I have spent hours reading through Wikipedia and other sources, have started re-reading modern adaptations (including from Giraudoux), and I just cannot get enough.

The Oresteia is a trilogy relating the final episodes of the malediction on the House of Atreus (which, strangely enough, starts with Tantalus, Atreus’s grand-father). The early episodes of the House’s history are not part of the Oresteia. Child cannibalism and murder run through it (I checked out infantivore, but it doesn’t seem to be a word… yet): Tantalus fed his own son, Pelops, to the Gods, in a sort of deranged test to see if they would notice. They did, and that landed him in Hell, where he was made to endure the aptly-named Torment of Tantalus. The Gods also put Pelops back together, including a piece of ivory to replace the shoulder eaten by a distracted Demeter – and in good ancient Greece logic, proceeded to curse him and his descendants for the sin of his father. Pelops made matters worse by assassinating his future wife’s father: to gain the hand of Hippodamia, he needed to beat her father King Myrtilus in a chariot race. He ensured his victory by having his opponent’s chariot sabotaged, killing Myrtilus in the process.

Pelops’s two sons, in turn, had a troubled relation, which much treason, adultery and stealing the throne from one another repeatedly (with the help of meddling Gods). Suffice to say that, as a result, illegitimate children were fed to their father Thyeste by their uncle Atreus. Aegisthus was then procreated by Thyesthe (through incest, of course), expressly to avenge his father. Atreus meanwhile had two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus, who lived in good intelligence, each reigning over a different city. The brothers married half-sisters Clytemnestra and Helen, daughters of Leda. When the Trojan War started, Agamemnon went to support his brother, sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia to get favorable winds.

The first play of the Oresteia – Agamemnon – starts with the return of the victorious king to his city of Argos. He is triumphant, bearing treasure and a new concubine (Cassandra) as the reward of his toils, but the celebration will be short: Clytemnestra leads him into his house with disproportionate honors, and immediately murders him with all the ritual pomp of a sacrifice to the Gods. Cassandra, who predicted the murder as well as her own death, faces her fate soon after. The play ends with the triumph of Clytemnestra and her lover. He appears decidedly weak and arrogant in the play – letting her commit the act (which makes it more dishonorable to Agamemnon), bragging about his new position when she calls for peace now that her daughter has been avenged. The play ends with the threat of Orestes’s revenge.

The next play, The Libation Bearers, is the story of that revenge. Orestes, back from exile, tricks his mother into granting him an audition with Aegisthus and herself, and kills them both. I read (from a source I can no longer locate) that the tragedy marks a symbolic transition from a world where males and females where equally valued to a dominance of the masculine. This could be confirmed by the fact that Electra, Orestes’s sister, takes up the cause of her brother and father: she is deaf to the appeal of her mother in the name of her sister Iphigenia. The Furies, a remnant of the old order (they equally pursue patricides and matricides) then appear to persecute Orestes.

The third play tells of the resolution of the curse: Orestes flees first to Apollo, who ordered the murder of his mother, but the God cannot convince the Furies to leave his protege alone. He is then sent on to Athena’s temple: she arranges for him to be tried by 12 (male) judges, who are split equally between forgiveness and revenge. She settles the matter by casting her vote in favor of acquittal, making it a principle that pardon should be preferred to revenge when in doubt. She also renames the Furies to the Eumenides (the Kindly Ones), given them the new, much more feminine role of making the fortune of worthy humans. This settlement ushers more changes: the switch to a mortal justice and the abandon of vendetta as the preferred mode of conflict resolution.

The theme of the place of women is always one I am very sensitive to, so it certainly struck me strongly during my reading – especially as I was not expecting it there. Another dimension I was not expecting in tragedy was the surprising humor that permeates the play. Witticisms (“your speech was like my absence, too long“) and sarcasms (Cassandra, on being praised for her courage: “the fortunate never hear praise like that”) are certainly far from laugh-out-loud jokes, but they help a text otherwise impressive by its directness and darkness keep a very theatrical elegance.

“After many trials, he was destined to face the end of his days in this mortal world; as was the dragon, for all his long leasehold on the treasure.”

Starting a note on Beowulf, even in this remote corner of the web, is a daunting endeavor – even though the poem itself was a captivating read, far from the dusty and obscure epic I was dreading. It certainly helped that I had encountered the story before, even in such inaccurate forms as in The Thirteenth Warrior and Zemeckis’s eponymous animated film.

The poem itself is not the culprit for my feeling intimidated: I cannot judge the merits of Seamus Heaney’s translation except for one thing – its ability to make the story feel close to the reader, lively and still pulsing with a sense of both excitement and loss. I am very aware, however, that I barely even scratched the surface of the work.

Set in Scandinavia (Denmark and Sweden) in the late 5th to mid-6th century, Beowulf tells the story of a Geat (Southern Sweden) warrior, a slayer of monsters: Beowulf. A man of extraordinary strength, courage, loyalty and generosity, Beowulf is the perfect embodiment of the Germanic code of honor. Searching for occasions of valor, he comes to the rescue of Hrothgar, a Danish king whose Great Hall is plagued by repeated incursions from Grendel, a monster jealous of men. Beowulf ambushes him and fights him without weapons, tearing a limb from the monster who flees to die in his lair. This first victory is greatly celebrated, but Grendel’s mother soon comes to avenge her son. This strikes me as in keeping with the blood-feud the men themselves wage (perhaps a condemnation of the primitive, unforgiving vendettas?), though it is not a comment I have come across elsewhere.

Beowulf does not shy from this new enemy, but increases his fame by pursuing her to her cave at the bottom of a monster-infested lake. He kills her in combat, and is greatly rewarded in honor and in gold. Returning to the Geats, he loyally passes on the gold to his king Hygelac, who rewards him in land and rings. The thane remains faithful when his king dies, refusing to take the throne as long as a legitimate heir lives. He will finally access it, and reign as a great ruler for many years, protecting his people from its enemies. His own end will come in the form a dragon (a wyrm!) awaken from his sleep and devastating the land. Beowulf will fight it and win with the help of Wiglaf, a young warrior, but victory is bitter: Beowulf dies from his wounds and most of his thanes deserted him in his hour of need, their cowardice hinting at a defenseless country who soon must fall.

Of course, the battles with fantastical creatures are no more factual than they need to be, but I imagine them to carry a great deal of symbolic truth: the age of men, meaning in this interpretation the age of Christianity, is coming. The old myths are dispatched by men still mostly pagans (and perhaps it is why their kingdoms must fall…). Additionally, much of the historical dimension of the poem (human wars, alliances and family trees) is supported by other findings (cultural, archeological, etc.).

Transition from one order to another, then? This is the interpretation I choose to favor, for in the poem I feel a mourning for the old world as well as a resignation to its unavoidable disappearance. Some scholars have argued that Beowulf is closer to an “ethnographic” rendition of Germanic mores for an English readership. I cannot judge the merits of these ideas, so I am going to go with my instincts here!

Another transition I am extrapolating from the raging debate on the origins of the epic (dated from the 8th to the 11th century, depending on whom you choose to trust) is that from the oral to the written: Beowulf is written in old English alliterative verses and contains traces of a wide variety of dialects, not to mention clear signs of having been (re?)-transcribed and edited by two different scribes. It has been argued to be anything from a mere transcription of oral tradition to an original, singular-author work, with  multiple intermediate interpretations (two authors, three authors and two scribes, etc.).  I could not pronounce myself on this, but the strong structure of the work (three battles interlaced with poet songs and reminiscences, two locations separated by a sea and many years, etc.) seem to speak to some level of intention.

I, for one, felt a strong cohesion in the work, with deep echoes from one part to the next, from one aging, falling king to the other. And I have to admit it moved me.

I feel like the rabbit from Alice these days, running after time as the list of things I should be doing, should already have done and should do very soon keep getting longer and longer. On this blog, for instance… I still want to rework its appearance quite substantially – not until this is done will I feel like sharing it with anyone.

And then, there are the recent reads I need to summarize here:

• The Great Gatsby (love you, Fitzgerald)
• Electre (in its Giraudoux French version)
• the Oreisteia from Aeschylus
• Beowulf (in the wonderful Seamus Heaney translation)
• Pamela (oh Richardson, how I had to battle to get through the book!)
• and Frankenstein!

Then there are the books I should read for “literary education” purposes – maybe Paradise Lost will be next. I started a few weeks ago but put it aside recently without even realizing it (I have been reading mostly from my new Kindle, and Paradise Lost I own as a physical book). On the other hand, I have been trying to nurture my flailing creativity recently – I had been writing a fantasy novel, but about 3 weeks ago, about 35,000 words into it (and while I know what should happen next), it just started refusing to be written. I am trying to get my imagination started on it again by nourishing it with fairy tales and other fantasy works that I think might be relevant, but so far no luck.

At least it’s led me to reading old Breton legends, which I find fascinating. They are a part of a culture that was my grandparents’, but that was never passed on in my family – reading them almost feels as if I was remembering long-forgotten childhood memories.

“What crime had they committed? The Earth had decreed that they were an offense on the land and must be destroyed. “

Nothing in Achebe’s novel is simplistic, and the quote I chose to illustrate it is a good example of this: far from describing the fate of the Igbo people, oppressed by white colonists ignorant of customs of the land, it applies to the traditional destiny of twins, abandoned at birth for being decreed “abominations” and left to die a horrendous death in the evil forest.

Things Fall Apart is full of complexities: written as a rebuke to the mid-twentieth century white vision of Africa and colonialism, it takes its title from an Irish poet (Yeats); a harsh indictment of Christian missionaries, it shows how their religion was an instrument of acceptance for outcasts of traditional society; a lament for tradition, it also highlights its shortcomings and violence. This sensitivity is the novel’s best trait, making it impossible to discount as partisan, and probably a very important argument for its immediate impact at release. I found it to also make the novel slightly less compelling from a story point of view, making empathy with the characters even more difficult than it already was from their distance to me (a woman from post-colonial France, an agnostic and a hater of conflicts). What remains is a thoughtful, intelligent discussion, and the memory of a writing more rhythmic and somewhat less melodic in language than I often associate with gifted novelist. That last point also is a clear intent from Achebe, in homage to the intrinsic beauty of the Igbo language, misunderstood as it was by colonists.

The story itself is that of Okonkwo, a man on a quest of strength and respectability. His entire life is built in opposition to that of his father, a man seen as weak for his lack of material ambition and leisurely tastes. In contrast, Ononkwo is hard-working and inflexible to the point of violence in his moral convictions. Both men however are victims of a contrary fate, dying alone and their bodies denied a clan burial, Okonkwo as punishment for his sin (in the Igbo tradition) of suicide, his father for dying of a taboo disease.

Okonkwo’s fate is perhaps even harder for the long struggle that has been his life. A hard worker, he is marked by ill luck from the start: the year he first attempts to make his fortune (by planting yams lent by a local strong man) is one of astounding adverse weather. Still Okonkwo perseveres, and soon makes a fortune sufficient to live comfortably with three wives. His status in the clan rising, he is asked to take care of a prisoner from another tribe. The young man, Ikemefuna, becomes a loved member of his family and a model for Okonkwo’s own son, the gentle Nwoye: tragedy strikes again when the clan orders the murder of Ikemefuna. Driven by fear of weakness, Okonkwo not only accepts, but also participates in the execution despite warnings not to – a treason he will pay the price of depression for.

As Okonkwo starts to get better, things sour again when he is the accidental cause of the death of one of his friend’s sons. A seven-year exile with his family ensues, and when finally they return to the clan, it is to find the village slowly infiltrated by white missionaries. As Nwoye joins the ranks of the converted and a series of skirmishes between old and new rules take place, Okonkwo’s anger mounts, until finally he tries to confront the white men despite the tribe’s reticence. Defeated, Okonkwo finally hangs himself before he can be executed, a final act of defiance that signs his definitive ostracism from the clan.

For a book closing on the death of its main character (and on the subsequent meditation of the European District Commissioner who, seemingly unaffected by the reality of the scene, dreams of a tamed Africa), Things Fall Apart ends with a singular feeling of unresolved questions. The Commissioner’s dreams of a quick and total “pacification” (how condescending!) of Africa are as doomed as Okonkwo’s dreams were. What does the future hold? The narrator does not seem to have any better answer than his creations.

“As to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an elephant.”

What a treat Great Expectations was for me! I am generally not a fan of heroes taken on a ride by circumstances and impulses they never even attempt to control, but when the storm is so perfect, so delightfully, magically perfect, who would complain?

Had I been English, or American, or a little less lucky, I would probably have read Great Expectations a lot younger, and would no doubt have had a great time of it, but would I have been able to enjoy the wonderful writing? Would have I made the difference between the social satire and the magical fairy tale undertones? I would have been happy with the mists, convicts and friendships; but would I have enjoyed Estella’s coldness and Pip’s ungratefulness?

The story itself sounds very XIXth century in the importance it gives to social structure: Pip, an orphan raised by his brutish aunt and his illiterate (if benevolent to the point of sainthood) uncle, comes into a sum of money of mysterious provenance. The money is to allow him a gentleman’s education. Everybody, Pip included, assumes that the money originates in the favor of a local old lady, Miss Havisham, a rich spinster driven to madness years ago by a broken engagement. The suspicion seems even stronger for the fact that the attorney in charge of the affair is also Miss Havisham’s; alas, Pip will later discover that the generosity is that of a convict he helped as a child. The dishonorable origin of the money, and the obligations it created for Pip will drive him away from society and from the young, cold-hearted pupil of Miss Havisham he is in love with, Estella.

While this, formally, could be the summary of the plot line, it missed all the important points of the book – in particular, its structure as a fairy tale and its formidable secondary characters. Pip is not a bad hero, far from it: he evolves through the novel, a rarity for the times, and has a complex character torn between selfishness and tenderness, intellectual aspirations and emotional ambitions, snobbery and simplicity… And yet I failed to find him compelling when compared to the lush cast of the book, most of whom forfeited some dose of realism to bask in the glory of unabashed whimsy: Miss Havisham, the witch who renounced the sun, forever clad in her torn bride’s dress, leaving among rot and spiders, casting spells and torturing her victims in an endless revenge; Estella, the barely seen and satisfactorily poorly explained temptress, the mysterious incarnation of her godmother’s sortileges, lovely and icy – the daughter of a gipsy and of a murderess, who seems to respond to violence more than to gentleness; Jaggers, the corrupt attorney of strong persuasion, with his fascination for evil and his compulsive hygiene, who eggs his victims on to evils; and many more, including the noble best friend, the gentle maiden, the double-faced adviser, the incarnated phantom of past guilt… Even Old Barley, the father of Herbert’s (Pip’s best friend) fiancée, who is described as no less than an ogre, was fascinating. And then there are the locations, the misty marshes of Pip’s childhood, the ruined domain of Miss Havisham, the dreary, sooty London of taverns and justice halls…

With so much thrown in, how could I begrudge Pip his lack of direction, especially when he makes up for it in honesty in the telling and a humorous voice? I even thought Dickens’s revised ending – with the young man finally tried getting the girl – was superior in poetry and a better fit to the rest of the book than the more modern, more realistic one, where Pip and Estella end alone and full of unspeakable regrets. “I saw no shadow of another parting from her“, concludes Dickens in this new version. Were I feeling facetious, I could argue that Dickens creates an ambiguous ending with this sentence – after all, Pip has not generally been the most lucid observer – but I prefer to take it with the same diffuse feeling of promise that the more traditional phrase, “and they lived happily ever after“.