Electra- Eurpides style

Electra
Euripides
Started August 20, 2007
Finished August 22, 2007

Euripides seems to have had a thing for writing about strong, violent women. While it could not displace Medea for me, Electra also featured strong women characters that produced feelings of ambivalence in me. Electra, the title character, is the daughter of Clytemenestra and Agamemnon. The brutal history of her parents is told in other plays. While Electra is put in a bad situation by Clytemnestra's actions, I couldn't help but feel that she was pretty whiny about things- she seems to enjoy her misery in a weird way. In contrast, Clytemnestra was considerably more sympathetic than I was expecting her to be. She seemed grief stricken about what she had done but resolved to make the best of a bad situation. Which makes it rather jarring when Electra demands that her brother kill their mother even after he has second thoughts about matricide.

In addition to gripping female characters, Electra offers yet another meditation on the theme of appearance versus reality. The poor farmer who Electra has been forced to marry is probably the most honorable, good character in the drama and he disappears shortly into it. While he is of a low stature within society, he is about the only character who doesn't do anything morally questionable within the play. So don't judge a book by its cover, basically. Additionally, I was struck by how much the play seemed to question the judgment of the gods, specifically Apollo in this case. The only reason Orestes, the brother, goes through with killing his mother is because Apollo told him to (and Electra urged him to). And the play ends with a couple of the other minor gods telling Electra and Orestes that this was an error on the part of Apollo. What does it mean for humans when the gods make mistakes or don't agree?

Graphic alienation.

Summer Blonde
Adrian Tomine
Started August 19, 2007
Finished August 19, 2007

Once I started Summer Blonde, I couldn't put it down. It definitely struck a chord with me. Summer Blonde is actually a collection of 4 short stories told in a graphic novel format. For me, it was basically about lonely people reaching out for human contact in sometimes strange ways. It made me very thankful that I have a few people in my life that I feel like really "get" me, and what a great feeling it is to have that. I identified with the story that pondered "how does one go about making small talk?" maybe a little more than I'd like. Many of the characters in Summer Blonde seem to be looking for someone to fulfill them, but don't seem to know where to begin. I loved the ambiguity inherent in many of the stories. For example, in "Hawaiian Getaway," Hillary Chan has a remarkably hard time with people- she seems to crave them and hate them at the same time. Toward the end, she meets a man who she seems to click with, but it's left up in the air whether he was a "castle in the air" using her for sex or if he's just running late to meet her. Many of the stories have a hesitant touch of almost-hope at the end.

From the book jacket, I learned that the merit of Tomine's work has been hotly debated. From what I can gather, many of his characters tend to be hipster emo types who bewail lack of meaningful connection with others in their lives. I thought their connections were deeper than that though. I thought Dan Raeburn, who wrote the introduction on the book jacket, summed it up well when discussing the similarity between many of the characters- they are all seeking human connection in an increasingly alienating world. These stories were much more about creating emotion than sparking intellectual thought for me. And I need to create a new word to describe what these stories made me feel. Aching-sympathetic-identification with a touch of thankfulness? That's not quite it, but I think maybe the best I'm going to be able to do.

Huck Finn reborn.

Rule of the Bone

Russell Banks

Started July 17, 2007

Finished August 19, 2007

Rule of the Bone is yet another coming of age novel generally compared to others such as Huck Finn and The Catcher in the Rye. Personally, this one reminded me much more of Huck Finn than The Catcher in the Rye. It's told by a first person narrator, Bone, a 14 year old homeless boy who struggles with conventional society and occasionally likes to assure the reader of his honesty, which says Huck Finn all over to me. The first half at least also spends some time contemplating what it means to be American- homelessness and abuse issues, racism, religion, relationships to history, among other things. Instead of Jim, who Huck Finn patronizes, Rule of the Bone has I-Man, who Bone idolizes.

The second half of the novel consists of Bone's adventures with I-Man in Jamaica. Questions of racism and hierarchy are looked at from a different angle. While the plot kind of meanders as Bone drifts from one thing to another, there are definite moments when Bone will come out with something that just strikes me as completely true. Like toward the end when he talks about crime versus sin. Bone is on a quest for personal meaning and out to do the "true" thing , even though it very well may not be what most people would consider the "right" thing. On the one hand, you want for Bone to be saved, but on the other, you think that maybe he really is saving himself by living his life in such an unstructured way. The lack of cohesion in the novel kind of bothered me, but then, I think that the structure suits the narrator- for me, this novel was about breaking artificial boundaries- such as the way I expect a novel to be structured.

Iowa's King Lear

A Thousand Acres

Jane Smiley

Started July 25, 2007

Finished August 9, 2007

Though it started somewhat slowly, by the end of A Thousand Acres I felt like I'd been on a rollercoaster or something- it actually left my heart pounding by the end. I know, I know... Iowa farm life circa 1979 does not sound like an exciting read, but dear god Jane Smiley can write when she wants to (very mixed reviews on her latest book... This is actually the only one I've read thus far, although now I'm definitely interested in reading more...). And I think Smiley has the "street cred" to write about life in Iowa... She got 2 degrees at the University of Iowa and then taught at Iowa State for a long time- writing about what she knows worked out for her in this case.

Anyway, A Thousand Acres is kind of a revisionist adaptation of King Lear. Because of this, the read is greatly enhanced by knowing something about King Lear. I'm not saying it's necessary to go read the play or anything, but the Sparknotes summary adds another layer to the experience: Summary I'm generally a sucker for that kind of thing- I like to re-examine the old from a new angle- but this really struck a chord with me. Instead of Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, you get Ginny, Rose, and Caroline. And though I remember thinking the two older daughters were just basically greedy and evil in King Lear when he read it in high school, Smiley definitely shakes things up by having Ginny, the oldest daughter, be the narrator. In A Thousand Acres, plain evil is eschewed for multiple shades of grey.

A Thousand Acres is considerably more sympathetic toward the two older daughters and harder on the failings in the father and Caroline- at least internally. Interestingly, the spectators to the action within the novel still largely seem to view the two older daughters as evil, manipulative, and greedy, while their father is seen as heroically tragic- just what you're supposed to think at the end of King Lear. However, there's more to the story in A Thousand Acres, even if it doesn't become general knowledge or really change people's opinions. Indeed, what seems to be the real evil in A Thousand Acres is an unwillingness to accept anything beyond the surface- in other words, seeing things only in terms of black and white. More information makes things murkier, which the most frustrating characters avoid at all costs. The father and Caroline simply refuse to hear anything that they don't want to- anything that changes their core beliefs about themselves and their family. Interesting that Caroline is a lawyer, supposedly wanting all the facts to find the truth... Although I guess thinking in terms of black and white would actually be helpful for a lawyer- you only want to support your side of the case, afterall.

After reading this novel, I'm excited to watch the film adaptation sometime soon. I don't want to get my hopes up too much though.... I suspect the book blows the movie out of the water. The tagline of the movie is " Best friends. Bitter rivals. Sisters." (IMDB). This indicates to me that it'll probably concentrate on the falling out of the two older sisters. While that's important, I'm not sure it's the defining storyline of the novel...

Harry Potter! (Warning: Spoilers)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

J.K. Rowling

Started July 22, 2007

Finished July 23, 2007

Well, I find it somewhat amusing that so many extreme Christians get so up in arms over Harry Potter, because the Christian overtones really came out in the last book. Harry must sacrifice to save everyone else, eh? Granted, a lot of fantasy seems to have religious elements in it- the whole good versus evil thing, I guess. I'm not going to ponder what that means... the relationship between religion and fantasy... but it's definitely there. I was generally happy with the grey areas included within the Harry Potter... while it's hard to see Voldemort as anything other than pretty much pure evil, I think interesting questions are raised about why. He had a pretty awful home life, but then so do a lot of people who aren't evil. It's not like his disposition comes from Satan, at least according to J.K. Rowling, anyway.

I found what Rowling did with Snape and Dumbledore even more interesting in the last book. Although Snape's motives for helping Dumbledore and protecting Harry are less than pure, he does act out of love for someone other than himself. Even better than a "bad" guy possessing humanity, though, is a "good" guy acting selfishly at the cost of others. Dumbledore's power-craving past, which apparently makes him scared of himself, was an excellent twist. And then there are characters like Draco, who sucks, but isn't utterly evil. Generally.

In any case, I was quite pleased that J.K. Rowling managed to end the series without killing any of the main characters in a way that didn't feel like cheating.