How Pure is Baseball?

W.P. Kinsella's novel, Shoeless Joe, is the final novel we read in my senior seminar class. Unfortunately for Kinsella, the four books which preceded it were by some of the most lyrical and talented authors of the 21st century. As a result, this book was compared to other narratives well out of its league and did not fair very well in that comparison. The writing style seemed simplistic and the metaphors clunky. Of course, we were used to Morrison, Updike, Erdrich and O'Brien, so there are not many writers who could follow up satisfactorily. But my issues do not solely rest in style. I take issue with much of the content as well. Most people know this story in the form of the Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams. It is a heart warming tale about the purity of the American dream and the value of small town America. I loved the movie as a kid and still can't bring myself to change the channel if I flip to it on cable. That could partly be because I am inexplicably a sucker for Kevin Costner movies, but there is also something seductive about this story.

The movie does take the typical artistic license in its telling of the story. One interesting change which I imagine has something to do with some sort of legal issue is casting James Earl Jones as the author figure rather than including J.D. Salinger as the book does. Besides any legal issue, it may also have been more convenient for the Hollywood story. Instead of Ray having to travel all the way to Boston to find J.D. Salinger like he does in the book, he only has to go to Chicago to find James Earl Jones character. Yet something is definitely lost because the book dwells a lot on the similarities between Holden Caufield and the protagonist of Shoeless Joe, Ray Kinsella. Also the presence of J.D. Salinger connects the narrative to the history of the American novel in a way the fictional author who James Earl Jones plays does not. Yet what is retained is a meditation on the nature of creativity and creation itself. Ray seeks out J.D. Salinger because he believes he has received a divine message that Salinger has a secret pain that needs to be resolved before he can write again. Ray believes Salinger owes it to his many fans to continue to create the narratives which people have identified with and love. That is a belief which Salinger himself greatly resents since it is Salinger's gift to use as he sees fit not because the American public demands more. Despite Ray's conviction that Salinger should write more, he reacts in a similar manner to the author when faced with a similar dilemma. Ray becomes quite upset that Salinger is invited to leave the ballpark which Kinsella built with the ball players. Ray believes it is his right to see what is beyond the corn because he built the venue in which the ghostly ballplayers play. He is forced to realize that the actual act of creation does not guarantee him control over what is created.

One change which Hollywood made which actually improved on the novel was included a more rounded character as Ray Kinsella's wife. The women of the novel are beyond deplorable. They are either completely compliant to their man's desire and beautiful or ugly, disagreeable and highly religious. Ray's wife Annie constantly supports him in whatever he desires and then waits in bed for when he is ready. Ray's identical brother's partner, Gypsy, provides the same unfailing supports as Annie, despite the fact both men could use a hard dose of reality at times. Also Ray's father and Moonlight Graham both give up their dreams centered around baseball to settle in a small town with the women they have met. Their wives are the proverbial ball and chain. As Ray never fails to remind us, it was Annie's idea to rent the farm. Other women such as Annie's mother and Eddie Scissons' daughters, hide behind their religion and care for no one but themselves. There is not a single woman in the entire text who has any authority, input or real voice at all. In the movie version, Annie has some opinions and a little backbone. She is still blind in her support of Ray, but she is still an improvement over the book version.

The poor depiction of women is just one element of what I feel is the biggest failing of the novel. To me, the novel romanticizes a past which is dominated by white men. There are two themes which jump out immediately to the reader, the first is baseball as an allegory for religion and the second is an undercurrent of anti-authority. It pits small town America against corporate, urban America. Despite being set in Iowa, the narrative almost has a North verse South feel. Baseball is not only an allegory for Religion but the true American dream. Baseball is supposed to represent the purity of the American dream, small town American and rural life. Yet that begs the question, how pure is Baseball? That question is particularly relevant in Today's world of steroids and HGH. But it is revisionist to think Baseball was any more pure in the days where only whites were allowed to play. Despite Baseball's elevated status as America's pastime, it has never been an entirely pure or good thing. In this novel in particular, it seems to represent a misogynistic pastime. There is a yearning for a time when things were simple, women obeyed and blacks weren't allowed to play.

I still managed to enjoy this book overall (I still blame my being a sucker for Kevin Costner movies), but there are obviously parts I have take exception to as well. It is a nice story if you can get beyond the sexism (which most of my class could not). There are some really interesting parallels with Religion which have been explored to a great degree. Overall though, I think I'll stick with the movie version.

Tracking Mythology, Identity and Family.

Part of our assignment for my Senior Seminar class (the class for which I have read the past four books) was to familiarize ourselves with Chippewa myth and also to come to class able to talk about several critical approaches to this text. Google searches did not turn up very reliable sources on Chippewa myth, so I ended up looking at several books in Ames (Illinois Wesleyan's library) on Ojibwa religion and mythology. A few books had some really good information about the creation myth which is centered around Nanabozho who is also known as Nanapush. These myths obviously have relevance since Nanapush is also the name of one of the narrators of the novel. The Water Monster, Mishebeshu, is also a major figure in Chippewa myth and appears in the novel as the Lake Man who Fleur is purportedly in league with. Water and wind also figure heavily in the mythology. Wind is personified by four brothers who are controlled at various times by Nanapush through his tricks. All these motifs play heavy roles in the narrative and are worth brushing up on if you were previously unaware of their significance.

There are a lot of parallels between Tracks and Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. Both novels feature non-white protagonists attempting to find their identity and happiness in a society dominated by whites. Tracks differs from Song of Solomon because the characters in Tracks are trying to keep alive their own society and are in touch with their traditional culture. The characters in Song of Solomon try to get back in touch with a culture they never knew and are trying to subsist within white society rather than creating their own. Ultimately, African-Americans are Americans since they were bereft of their own heritage for so long. Native Americans on the other hand were left their culture but not their land. Yet that does not mean that the characters in Tracks are in any less of a search for their identity, especially the young. Characters like Pauline, Fleur, Eli and Nector Kashpaw watch their culture fail to survive in the face of western oppression and greed. They struggle to reconcile what they are being told by their elders, what they believe about their heritage and the realities they face every day. Much like Milkman and Guitar try to orient their history and their family's history within their current experiences, the youth in Tracks do the same with a much more concrete reminder of what was.

The narrative also illuminates the damage done to the traditional family/clan structure which was very important in Native culture. None of the main characters have a nuclear family intact. In particular, there is a distinct absence of biological fathers in the text. Even Eli's status as Lulu's biological father is put into question. The families have been destroyed by disease, alcohol and hardship. As a result there is no hierarchy of authority or an established process for decision making. There is no natural check to improper behavior or built in defense against the encroaching lumber company. In-fighting features heavily in the novel as the Native community comes under constant attack from both internal and external pressures. I believe those threats are only made possible by the disintegration of the family and the loss of authority that results. Before that disintegration, there is no possible way the Lazarre and Morrisey boy assault Margaret Kashpaw like they do. Nor is Nector allowed to betray Fleur in the way he does. The break down of the family robs the community of its ability to protect itself. Nanapush, Fleur, and the Kashpaws do what they can to form a substitute family, but it can only do so much and the bonds are not as strong as blood.

I am writing a longer paper on this book that will touch upon the ideas I have sketched out in here. I am going to compare Pauline from Tracks's and Macon Dead from Song of Solomon's attempt to find their identity and how that attempt impacts their status within the community. I'll probably post a few updates from the paper at various points, but I also hope to continue to read and make posts about other books. Right now, my agenda is to post about W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe and Love Medicine.

Tracking Erdrich

Tracks is Louise Erdrich's third novel and includes the same characters from the first two, Love Medicine and the Beat Queen. Even though it is the third published novel, it is not an extension of the story lines from the first two but rather a prequel to Love Medicine. Apparently Tracks was the first novel Erdrich started writing but either shelved it to write the other two or just published it last. Either way, anyone who has read Love Medicine and/or the Beat Queen needs to pick up this book and delve into the events leading up to those two books. I have only read a part of Love Medicine in another class, but my brief exposure to it really made me appreciate how revealing Tracks is.

For anyone who is not familiar with Erdrich's trilogy, Tracks still stands up fantastically on its own. It took me a while to become oriented in the text, so I enjoyed the second half of the book far more than the first. That phenomenon would probably be resolved by reading the other two books first, but I do not think it is necessary. The story centers around a Native American woman, Fleur and the destruction of the community she is apart of from internal and external pressures. The story is told through two narrators, Grandfather Nanapush and Pauline Puyat, who switch off between chapters. Nanapush is telling the story to Fleur's daughter Lulu but I am still unclear as to who Pauline is telling her story to. It is clear that choosing to structure the novel as a frame narrative was very deliberate since the act of story telling is incredibly important to Native American tradition. The frame narrative also gives the reader reason to question the narrators' reliability though as both Pauline and Nanapush lie or are accused of lying at different points of the text.

We begin with Nanapush recounting how he rescued Fleur as a young girl when her entire household succumb to disease. She is a Pillager, a feared family considered in league with the Lake Man who lives in Machimato (the lake in the reservation). She and her brother Moses were the only survivors from an outbreak of tuberculosis. Only Nanapush was brave enough to go into the house and bring Fleur out. He takes he home to live with him as his daughter and her brother is taken in by another family but he eventually leaves the community entirely and lives by himself in the woods as a medicine man. Fleur herself is only half tamed and is described in both male and female terms. When she is old enough, she heads into the local white town, Argus, to earn enough money to pay the allotment tax to the government on her family ancestral property. Here the narrative switches over to Pauline, who is a mixed blood and does not feel at home among the tribe. She convinces what is left of her family to send her into town so she can learn to make lace with the nuns. She is sent to town but ends up sweeping the floor of the butcher shop which Fleur ends up working in rather than learning to make lace.

Already you can see some of the binary aspects of the text emerge. The two narrators, one being male and the other female, one telling the story to a child about things taking place in the native community, the other possibly telling it to no one for no other reason than her own vanity about the white community. Yet it is important not to get too caught up in the binary divisions of this novel because nothing is black and white. It is a western temptation to draw hard lines between characters and characteristics. In the Native tradition Characters frequently possess contradictory traits. In Chippewa mythology, Nanapush is also the name of the primary agent in the creation story. He is often described as Culture-hero and trickster which are difficult to reconcile if you are judging him in a binary sense. There is not the same sense of pure good and pure evil in Native culture, life is more of a mixture of a variety of traits. Having said all that, Erdrich is mixed and has grown up with both traditions, including a large exposure to Catholicism. So binary oppositions and judgments do not need to be thrown out the window entirely, but it is helpful to ignore your first impulse to classify characters as either this or that and familiarize yourself with some Chippewa culture and myth to really understand what is happening in the text.

Between the two narrators, we follow the formation of a new family structure with Fleur at its center. Nanapush's mentee, Eli Kashpaw, becomes enamored with Fleur when she returns from Argus and eventually becomes her lover. Eli moves into the Pillager homestead and Fleur gives birth to Lulu. Margaret Kashpaw, Eli's mother, initially disapproves of the match, but with the arrival of her granddaughter, she comes around as well. Margaret and Nanapush develop a relationship and a family is formed from the remnants of many other families. Pauline eventually becomes a nun and has her own place in this family despite being unwanted. The story follows to communities struggle to stay afloat amid pressure from a white logging company who wants their land. Their bonds are tested and broken at various points of the text as they try to figure out how to navigate in a world which is white dominated while holding onto their Native American identity, if they can. I will leave this post here as mostly a summary and pick up a new post in the near future to do some more analysis and talk about what I got out of this text. (which was a lot, so I hope it is even coherent!)

How well does Magical Realism age?

This post will pick up the Widows of Eastwick but a post on Tracks will be coming soon because I am over half way through the book and have a lot of thoughts on it. But for now I'd like to stick with the Widows of Eastwick and explore the book in terms of Magical Realism. It is particularly interesting to me because at this point in their lives, the women have come to regard their foray into witchcraft as a foolish preoccupation of their youth. Maybe that characterization is a little harsh, but they do not believe in the power in the same way they did when they were recent divorcees.

In the first novel, the women attempt to downplay the role their hex played on Jenny Gabriel's fate by questioning the magic which they had stood by previously. They reasoned that Jenny died due to a natural manifestation of terminal cancer. It was purely coincidental it was only after they placed a hex on Jenny that she began to show symptoms of the disease. So it is no surprise the women continued to distance themselves from witchcraft from that point forward. Lexa herself does not feel the same connection to nature she once did and at the start of the novel she disparages the importance she placed on both nature and witchcraft in her youth. Sukie and Jane feel similarly and make comments to that effect at various points at the novel. Yet when the do finally take a trip together it is to return to Eastwick and get back in touch with their "witchy-roots". Still, it is only Lexa who takes it seriously when they decide to try to erect a cone of power for the first time in thirty+ years. The other two dally on their way back from Jane's hospital visit and are not fully invested in the process which Lexa has so painstakingly set up. The magic is reluctant in this novel when it was abundant in the previous one. There are no transformations of tennis balls or love charms at all. Yet when the women do erect the cone of power, the magic is more undeniable than in any other instance. Sukie's former lover's hand begins to regenerate, Joe Marino's Daughter conceives a baby and Jane dies in a violent fashion. Yet there is a medical explanation for Jane's death not to mention her advanced age. It is a constant conflict and is left unresolved by Updike as to what is actually taking place, how much is magic and how much is scientific.

This conflict is embodied by Darryl Van Horne's replacement, Chris Gabriel. The scene in which Chris is originally summoned by Gretta Neff is a very magical scene and yet when it is later explained by Chris, it was nothing more than a phone call. It is similar to the attacks which Chris makes on Jane and then Lexa. His electron shooter springs from work he did with Darryl and alludes to the devil's work from the original novel, yet Chris himself admits that he doesn't think it works. The discomfort which Jane felt that was originally attributed to Chris could have very well been just her aged body failing her.

So my question is, do these plausible or semi-plausible explanations for the magical elements remove the novel from being considered Magical Realism? If it doesn't, would it be considered more Magically Real or less than the first novel? I believe the novel still can be considered Magical Realism. Updike's characters' propensity to search for logical answers for the magical elements is reflective of the western mindset. It is that propensity which is at the heart of many Latin American author's belief that White America cannot write within the genre. Yet in my opinion, Updike accomplishes just that. By allowing his characters to question what is actually happening, he creates a realistic western reaction to magic. But moments like the regeneration of Sukie's former lover's hand or Jane's death at the price moment she drew her tarot card, suggest that the magic is real and it is more than just a coincidence. So there is the natural questioning of anything which does not follow logic and accepted reality, but the narrative suggests that these moments are actually taking place. The result is a viable form of Magical Realism written by a White American. For the second question, I feel that the second novel is actually more Magically Real than the first. The first novel may contain more actual instances of magic, but it ends with the women trying to undermine the reality of that magic to help alleviate their own guilt of Jenny Gabriel. In this novel, they take the opposite road as they try to get back in touch with the power they once enjoyed. Of course the attempt to distance themselves from that power yet again after Jane's death, but the events that follow (the pregnancy and healing of the hand), provide an affirmation which cannot be denied.

Switching gears, I did enjoy the Witches of Eastwick more. This novel wrapped up a few loose ends from the first, but it tended to meander a little more. It took the first two thirds of the book for the women to even get back to Eastwick. It also covered a greater amount of time through the course of the narrative. Months turn into years before the story gets from start to end. I think those gaps disrupt the flow of the novel. The continuity of time in the first one created a different energy level. In the Widows of Eastwick, the energy ebbs and flows as different story lines reach their full arc before a new one begins. I did enjoy both though and they are worth a read.

Maleficia Revisited

The Widows of Eastwick is John Updike's follow up to the Witches of Eastwick almost a quarter century later. It is set in 2008 (the year the book was published) which makes it almost forty years later than the setting of the first book. At this point the three women live in different parts of the country and their second husbands are either dead or die shortly after the beginning of the novel. The women are all in their 70s and yet still as lively as ever. The novel begins by reintroducing us to Lexa in her new life as a widow in the South-West. The novel start by joining Lexa on a trip Canada. By beginning with Lexa alone, Updike is able to demonstrate how her mentality about life has changed over time. She has lost touch with nature, sees the witchcraft of her younger years as somewhat of a fad and still carries the guilt of what they did to Jenny Gabriel. After the trip the women begin to get back into contact but Sukie's husband is still alive. So Lexa and Jane decide to take a trip together to Egypt. Again, Updike sets up the situation to show the evolution of his characters and how their interaction has changed because of those developments. Finally Sukie's husband passes away and the three women decide to take a trip together.

Where else would the three women go but back to Eastwick of course. They rent a condo in the old Van Horne mansion or more specifically the room which had once been the hot tub room. They immediately are confronted with their past when Lexa runs into the wife of her old lover, Joe Marino. The women also see Gretta Neff, the wife of one of Jane's lovers when they go to a local concert and Sukie meets one of her old lovers when she returns to Dock Street. Their reasons for returning are partly to get back in touch with a part of their lives when the three were connected and they were enjoying themselves, partly to make up for past wrongs and partly to stir up more mischeif.

It is an incredible literary experiment. Such a large amount of time has past and Updike is at such a point in his life that these women are drastically different and yet retain the essence of the earlier characters. It is also incredible how topical this book is. It really nails the post 9/11 hysteria that gripped this country. Writing from the standpoint of an old women who lived through some very momentous times in this country and being written by a man who actually did live through those times, creates a very interesting perspective from which to view recent events. A lot of American hostility toward to Arab world was relflected in Jane and Lexa's attitudes towards Egypt during their trip. It was a very clear picture of the atmosphere that exists throughout most of this country. It was also interesting to see the treatment of sex. Lexa claimed to have lost interest in the physical aspect of sex, but the treatment in this book is far more explicit than when they were in their sexual primes. Especially for Sukie, who does not feel that same absence of a sexual appetite. Her past and current sexual activity is dealt with in some detail when it was skirted with more general description in the Witches of Eastwick. Maybe it is just a relfection of our societies increased acceptance of more explicit sexuality and a greater exposure to sex in general, but it is definitely a noticible shift from how it was previously portrayed.

There is one passage in the book which is incredibly important to my reading of the Witches of Eastwick. The passage is an exchange between Lexa and her eldest daughter who stayed in Eastwick to marry and raise a family,
"Girls your age just can't realize how few opportunities there were for women when I was young. Our job was to make babies and buy American consumer goods. If we fell off the marriage bandwagon, there was nothing much left for us but to ride a broomstick and cook up spells. Don't look so shocked, it was power: Everybody needs power. Otherwise the world eats you up."
"What about children? Isn't having them and loving them power enough for most women?"
"'In sorrow thou shalt bring forth cildren,'" Alexandra quoted, the quotation being fresh in her memory, "'and thy desire shall be to they husband, and he shall rule over thee.' Isn't that utterly disgusting?"

This passage sums up my impression of what Updike was trying to accomplish in the Witches of Eastwick. I felt as though Updike was trying to capture the essence of individual feminism during that time period. Women were given another option towards having control in their own life and an absolution when it came to traditional moral responsibility. As a result, our society went through some what of a tumult because the traditional familial model with women in a position of subordination was rejected. But that was not a bad thing, it was a necessary development. I am going to leave this post here, but I think I will come back to this idea as well as give a few more impressions about this book in my next post. Hopefully my many readers will be able to hold their collective breath in anticipation.

Past as Present: Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon

The chronology of this novel can be difficult to follow at times. It begins with the day the protagonist is born. The opening scene is a man preparing to jump to his death from the local hostpital, Mercy. Passing by is Ruth Foster Dead and her two daughters First Corinthians and Magdalene call Lena. A crowd gathers and as the man throws himself to his death, Ruth Foster Dead goes into labor basically on the steps of Mercy Hospital. Her circumstances lead to her son, Macon Dead, being the first black baby born in the hospital. Also during this opening scene, we are given some history of the town and Ruth Foster Dead. She is the daughter of Dr. Foster, the first black doctor in town which lead to the street he lived on being called Doctor street by the black residents. The white residents were not overly fond of this phemenon, so the city posted many signs declaring that the street name was Mains Avenue and not doctor street which conveniently gave the black population justification to start calling it Not Doctor Street. Already, the major themes of the novel emerge. We are exposed to the current racial culture of the town, we are given some of the history of the family of the protagonist, the issue of nomenclature is raised and we are also introduced to the protagonist's best friend and his aunt although we are unaware of it at the time.

It takes some time to sort out the details of the family and their situation as the boy grows up, so the reader is never quite sure what to believe. Macon Dead's father, also called Macon Dead is probably the wealthiest black man in town. His business is rental properties and he owns a good portion of the poor black section of town. His ambition is what drew him to Ruth Foster. He came to town and worked his way up until he felt secure enough to approach Dr. Foster about his daughter. Their relationship was based on status rather than love. Ruth herself is a very bizarre character and her unusual practice of breast feeding her son until he was much older than was necessary lead to the younger Macon Dead acquiring the nickname Milkman. From that foundation, the story is fleshed out both into the future as we follow Milkman into his late thirties as well as the past as we learn the more immediate history of the family but also where the family originated from. The past is a major theme in this novel. Knowing where you came from and who your people are is central to your all around development.

The entire Dead family, including Milkman's two sisters as well as Macon's sister, Pilate, and her family, suffer because of their lack of history. Macon and Pilate grew up in Danville. Their father was a slave in the South and came North after being freed. He was given his name when he registered as a freeman. The "yankee" who registered him was drunk and filled out the information in the wrong spots. The original Macon Dead was illerate and did not catch the mistakes until it was too late. He worked his way from nothing to having "the best farm in the county" becoming an inspiration to all the other blacks in the area. Par for the course in the early 1900s, late 1800s, a local wealthy white family decided they wanted Macon Dead's land and killed him for it with out suffering any judicial repercussions. The younger Macon and Pilate were forced to flee for their lives and eventually split up over an incident that caused bad blood between them for the rest of the novel. The original Macon's emphasis on things and his singular goal of becoming a land owner inspired in his son an obsession with ownership. Possession and ownership is equated with power in the younger Macon's eyes and he becomes single minded in his pursuit of it. At one point Milkman's best friend, Guitar, says that "he has the heart of a white man." It is another major theme of the novel. Ownership becomes a family value for the Dead men at the expense of relationships and their own happiness. Morrison clearly looks down upon middle class values of security and the pursuit of wealth in favor of what is characterized as lower class values of family and community.

There is an incredible amount going on in this novel and every single scene is important and plays a role in shaping the culture and course of the action. No word is wasted in crafting a superb narrative. Even the more ancillary characters have a lot of depth and development. Relationships between men and women and races are explored in great detail. Ultimately the ending may be somewhat unsatisfying but how can Morrison suggest a resolution of some of her themes when they are far from resolved in our society today.

Religious Allusion in Going After Cacciato

The religious allusions abound in Going After Cacciato and create, to me, the most compelling underlying theme. Simultaneously, Cacciato becomes a representative of Christ and Buddha. O'Brien was able weave both Eastern and Western religious traditions into the plot which is incredible to me. Similar to my embarrassing disclosure about my inability to recognize Darryl Van Horne as a Satan-figure in the Witches of Eastwick, I also have to admit that I only recognized O'Brien's allusions in a more general sense. Yet once it was brought up, the specifics jumped out at me and were overwhelmingly present in the text. I would have to do some more research if I was going to present a more unified theory on this, but I do have some impressions that I want to sketch out in this post and at least reference some of the more obvious allusions. Unfortunately I have a lot more experience in the Christian tradition and am not overly familiar with Buddhist and other Eastern philosophies, so I will have more to say about Cacciato as a Christ-figure, but that does not mean that O'Brien privileges the Western belief system.

To begin, the very mission that they embark upon has religious parallels. They follow Cacciato as a "guiding light" from the Hell of the war to the very romanticized paradise of Paris. On the way they are left tantalizing clues as to the path to follow and often times are heading to Paris without a clear sense of where Cacciato is, just operating on faith that he is always ahead of them. He also providentially appears to help them out of jail in Tehran. More than that you never see him engage in violence and his encounters with Paul Berlin provide Berlin with the sustenance to continue. In an article I read, the scene in which Berlin has Cacciato touch the grenade was seen as a parallel to Christ's temptation in the desert. In a more direct allusion, Cacciato is cornered and possibly killed on a hill, not a valley or a cave, but a hill, much like the place which Christ was crucified. Without the other allusions, that last part could be coincidence, but the last scene ends on the hill without any physical evidence of Cacciato which parallel's Christ's ascension into heaven after his own death. Cacciato also is pursued and needs to be caught to atone for the companies sin of deserting the war. Some of these allusions I am drawing are relatively thin, especially since Cacciato did not wait three days after his "death" to ascend to heaven, but they do add up. He is also seen as a monk in Mandalay and is constantly a figure of benevolence, which is characterized as dumb by the more cynical members of the company.

As for Eastern allusions (as far as I can tell), the most obvious is Cacciato's appearance. His round, always smiling, pudgy face is a fair rendition of Buddha. He always stays within himself and maintains an equilibrium. Also many of his actions can be characterized as Taoist. For example, when he is fishing in the crater that has filled with rain, there is no way he will ever catch a fish, so the activity will never end which is inline with Taoist views of the joy is in the actual activity instead of the result. My knowledge of Eastern philosophy and religion doesn't allow me to make any more points, but some very well read people have made other connection, so I trust that they are there.

Which philosophy is ultimately endorsed by O'Brien, if any, is the question that is raised by this duality. I think the evidence points more towards an Eastern philosophy more strongly, but I also think there is an underlying message of the importance of spirituality. Once again, these are more impressions than well researched theses. To me, what Paris turns out to be is blow to the Christian tradition. Paris is a city like all the others that the group passed through to get there. There is poverty and ugliness if you want to look for it. There is no peace and no happy ending when they finally catch up to Cacciato. Soldiers and police are still searching for them and there are still consequences to be paid. If they reached Paris and somehow found a way to be absolved of their desertion and Paul Berlin was allowed to settle down with Sarkin Aung Wan, then the Christian tradition would be fulfilled. Yet the opposite happened and their journey from East to West is reversed. They were headed West to be absolved and find paradise, but they just ended back East. In fact before the end of Paul Berlin's imagined journey, both Lieutenant Corson and Sarkin Aung Wan have headed back East. So Berlin's love and a mentor of sorts have already left the West. I think this evidence adds up to an endorsement of Eastern philosophies. There is a lot of possibility in this line of thinking and I would need to do some serious research in Eastern religion to back some of my impressions up, but I wanted to get some of these thoughts out. As always any comments are welcome and maybe I'll come back and develop these ideas a little more in the future.

Imagination, War and Vietnam

The prose style of Going After Cacciato if fairly simple. It contains lots of repetition and straight forward language characteristic of soldiers and war. Of course the style is the only thing that is simple about this novel. I wanted to call the story itself relatively simple with incredibly deep currents and complex ideas underneath it, but that is not exactly correct. The narrative is centered around Paul Berlin, an American soldier from Des Moines, Iowa fighting in the Vietnam war. From there it gets more complicated. Much of the plot is revealed slowly and more towards the middle of the novel. We are introduced to Paul Berlin and some other members of his company including Oscar Johnson, Doc Peret, Harold Murphy, Stink Harris, Eddie Lewis and Lieutenant Corson pursuing yet another member of their company, Cacciato who has gone AWOL in a supposed attempt to walk to Paris. The chronology jumps around from there and we are not quite exactly sure how their chase ends except they seemingly have Cacciato surrounded on a hill after pursuing him for several days. Later Paul Berlin is on watch duty in and observation post, passing the tedious time by imagining how the chase had ended. So begins the central crux of the novel, what really happened and what only happened in Spec Four Paul Berlin's mind and more over, which is more meaningful? As the novel progresses, we also learn some of the history leading up to Cacciato's departure to give the reader a much more complete picture of Paul Berlin and his situation.

Going After Cacciato contains allusions to a number of other war novels from previous eras including; the central debate of the Red Badge of Courage, the absurd nature of Catch-22, Hemingway's short, descriptive prose as well as others like Johnny's Got a Gun which I haven't read. Yet it also contains the elements and themes that are unique to Vietnam War novels, which is what I want to explore a little in this blog post. There were many elements of this novel which felt cliche-ed to me. I would never call this book a cliche because it is probably what set the standard and was the real thing which resulted in the cliche, but now that we are 37 years beyond Vietnam, I have been beat over the head with some of the details to the point that they loose their meaning. Unfortunately this novel becomes a victim of my over-exposure. For example, it has gotten to the point that we are making parodies about these Vietnam war stories. Recently the movie Tropic Thunder came out as just one of those parodies and a lot of thematic characteristics of Going After Cacciato appear in the film.

Despite those cliches there are more than a few enduring questions raised by the novel and many underlying themes that are incredibly compelling. As we talked about in class today, when reading this novel you have to keep an eye out for the dualities. Some of the big ones are East vs West and a some of the character pairings, also at what point does their mission to bring home a deserter become an act of desertion itself? Also some of the religious parallels and implications are staggering in their scope. Cacciato becomes, at once, a representation of both Christ and Buddha as the group pursues him from East to West. The questions raised consist of some of the usual war questions, what is the purpose of war and what is the nature of courage, but of course with the usual Vietnam twist. Besides those there are also some very interesting debates about the nature of obligation and the importance of purpose in war, it also touches upon the nature of reality and how important dreams and your imagination is.

I was most interested in watching the development, if any, of Paul Berlin's attitudes and character through-out the novel. The majority of the novel takes place in his imagination which made some of my classmates question whether any actual development could occur, but in my opinion, that is the best place to see any evolution that Berlin undergoes. From this vantage point, I analyzed the other characters as representatives of parts of Berlin himself, or people in general, which allows them to be static and one-sided as I think they tend to be. I see Doc Peret as a representative of rationality. I initially wanted to label him as logic, which he still might be considered, but I think that analysis is incomplete. He is logical in the sense that he believes what he sees and even though he is a doctor, he believes medicine is "what works" rather than actual science. He is blind in that way and willing to rationalize an explanation from the evidence he has. He tries to make sense out of what he sees instead of speculating on what could be unseen but still relevant.

In that mode, Stink Harris personifies the violent, unthinking side of human nature. He doesn't understand what is happening and cannot control himself but he is characterized as a "fighter" and "scrappy." A scene to back this characterization up was his inability to stop shooting the water buffalo after being startled. In psycho-analytic criticism, I would call him the ID. He is all action and reaction without any higher minded principle.

The brief view we have of Harold Murphy causes me to classify him as a sense of duty or obligation in a very concrete sense. As in, he is bound by duty because of the consequences of not fulfilling it rather than a more high minded ideal. He leaves the group after they vote to follow Cacciato farther than they would actually be allowed to. He is essentially banished after the other characters vote to continue. He has voiced his opinion, made his stand but is overridden and as such, he disappears. Once the group crosses over into Laos, they are only chasing Cacciato as a pretense, they are really escaping the horror of Vietnam, as they are forced to admit to the SAVAK officer in Tehran.

Lieutenant Corson represents an older romanticized notion of war. He constantly makes comments about how this is not his war and soldiers don't fight with the same heart that the did in the past. He is worn down by the mindlessness of Vietnam but still believes enough in his soldiers not to waste their lives unnecessarily. He also represents a certain wisdom and common sense that is wasted in Vietnam. He only becomes effected when the return to more civilized lands.

Oscar Johnson is a representation of masculinity and a survival instinct. By default, those qualities make the other enlisted men look to him for leadership, not only because he is their sergeant but because he is a man who will survive the war. He is the first to suggest getting rid of Lieutenant Martin and is quick to suggest trying to catch Cacciato to flip him for their own safety. It is a kill or be killed world to Oscar. He forces Paul Berlin to see the ugly side of survival.

In that way Oscar Johnson is set up in a duality with Lieutenant Martin. Lindsay Martin is representative of abstract duty. His version of war is unlike any other character and he believes in the rules that govern war in the face of all contrary evidence. His insistence that the men follow standard operating procedure by checking the Viet-Cong tunnels before blowing them, needlessly endangering his men's lives, is nonsensical in the field. Yet he sticks to it because he believes in the abstract ideas laid down in the safety of a classroom. Just like the rules don't translate to the field, Lindsay Martin is unable to maintain his grip on his soldiers and loses his life because of it.

Eddie Lewis represents a humor and how it is used to deal with war. He is quick to joke about death and some of the uglier things around him. Yet he is ultimately ineffective and is constantly told to shut up by the other soldiers. Despite the absurd nature of the war, the soldiers still want certain things, like death, to still be treated with respect. When Eddie makes jokes about Buff's death and how he looked like a praying Arab, Doc Peret and Oscar turn on him and begin making fun of him for his supposed expertise in praying Arabs.

Cacciato is innocence. He is the child-like innocence that remains deep within us but is worn down over time. He cannot comprehend much of what is going on, so it slides by him without effect. Even so, he cannot stay in Vietnam for too long and eventually decides it is time for him to leave and walk to Paris. So essentially Paul Berlin and company are pursuing innocence as they leave the horror of the war behind him. Also men like Stink Harris and Oscar Johnson need to get rid of Cacciato for their own survival. Innocence is the natural enemy of the violence of Stink and the cynical nature of Oscar.

These thoughts are pretty quick sketches of a possible way the novel can be interpreted. I think there is a lot more to be worked out here for it to be a passable theory but there is validity. Since most of the action takes place in Berlin's mind, all these characters could very well be stand-ins for the various parts of himself which struggle to co-exist and process what he is seeing. It really is a great book and has a lot of depth. I think trying to develop any other theories in this post would be a mistake, so I will leave it here. Keep a look out though, because I think I will come back and do another post about Cacciato which explores some of the religious parallels in this novel.

Updike's the Witches of Eastwick

This was my first foray into Updike, so I jumped in without exactly knowing what to expect. Instead of doing the English major sort of thing and doing some preliminary research, I delved into the book so I could form my own reactions and opinions. It turned out to be something other than anything I was expecting. Of course now that I have done some research on Updike and am a little more familiar with his writing style, it should have been exactly what I expected. True to form, the Witches of Eastwick is a highly descriptive, luridly detailed novel that delves deeply into personal relationships. The plot centers around the lives of three divorcees, Alexandra Spofford, Jane Smart, and Sukie Rougement, in the Rhode Island town of Eastwick. As is suggested by the title, all three women have developed supernatural powers after their divorces. The three friends have been enjoying the empowerment of their liberated, post divorce lives as they take whatever pleasures they desire, after all "being a divorcee in a small town is a little like playing Monopoly; eventually you land on all the properties" (Updike, 25). Yet there is apparently diminishing return in that sort of life as they become increasingly bored. Enter Darryl Van Horne, a brusque New York city business man and inventor. He buys a long abandoned mansion just outside of town and provides the shake-up that the three witches had been looking for. Alexandra and Jane both harbor desires to make this man their own as they trade their Thursday evening gatherings with each other for a steamier get together in Van Horne's hot tub.

The town and the women are given another shake-up when a murder-suicide takes place. That event prompts the introduction of another character into the witches' lives, as the grown children of the deceased return to town. The witches take young Jenny under their wing and invite her and her brother to their gathering with Van Horne. Things do not exactly go as planned for the women as Jenny usurps the position coveted by Lexa and Jane as the sole object of Van Horne's affections. As the women emerge from the fog of being under Van Horne's influence, they have choices to make about how they want to react to their new situation. I'll end my synopsis there and let any readers of the blog find out what happens from there on their own. That should be enough of a refresher for anyone who has read the book and enough context for anyone who has not.

I really enjoyed and am intrigued by this book. I have read and heard many responses that dismiss this book as either not the best from Updike or lacking depth as a novel in general. These impressions do not give this work enough credit. It is said that this novel was written in part as a response to Updike's critics to show that he can write from a woman's perspective and does not hate women as was suggested. If that is the case, then it would make sense that this novel is not quite as strong as some of his other work because he is writing from a vantage point that he is not quite comfortable with. I cannot understand how readers could not recognize the depth of this novel though. I believe that most readers write it off because of large role that sex plays, but if you can get beyond that there is a wealth of insights and intriguing possibilities in this novel. As my professor pointed out, there are a million paper topics contained in this book. My favorite possibility to pursue, and one that I am currently pursuing in a paper, is the feminist angle. Given Updike's previous unflattering depiction of women and his current witches' preoccupation with the carnal, critics were quick to respond negatively from a feminist vantage point, but I believe that is an overreaction to the surface elements of the novel as well as an unfair carry over of preconceptions about Updike. Despite the three's seeming obsession with sex and the control Darryl Van Horne is able to exert over them, these are strong women who have a lot of influence over their environment in a time when women were just starting to take control over their own lives. They obviously are flawed characters and still carry the effects of previous conceptions about the limitations of gender even while being on the front line of the sexual revolution. Yet they still are on that front line. They did divorce their husbands and they have turned their attentions inward, breaking the cycle of always putting themselves secondary to the men in their lives. As a result they develop not only supernatural powers but also power over their own lives as they recognize what it is they desire and pursue that. Much of that power and desire manifests itself in sex, but that is somewhat logical since it was sexual desire that was denied to them for so long and it is through sex which they can manipulate other men in the community. It is particularly interesting to me to explore what it is which the women actually gain from their sexual escapades and what their primary motivators are. I believe that by analyzing the needs they are trying to meet as well as the result of their actions in relation to sex reveals a very feminist stance in the novel.

There are plenty of other incredibly intriguing ideas to pursue though. I am embarrassed to admit that I did not consciously recognize Darryl Van Horne as a Satan figure until it was pointed out in my later research. That being the case, his eventual involvement with the Unitarian church and more specifically the sermon he delivered is a damning assertion against that denomination and raises some very interesting question about religion and Updike's views on it. In that same vein, the local newspaper is named the Word an allusion to the bible and is edited by Clyde Gabriel, the angel who announced the coming of Christ. Yet it is for this newspaper that Sukie writes her weekly gossip column about local affairs and is far from a literately prestigious periodical. It is also within the Unitarian church which where a woman gains the only recognized position of power in the form of Brenda assuming the role of minister. It is a convoluted variety of messages that is incredibly interesting to wade through.

There is also another angle which my professor pursued in his own published work on the book. He drew the comparisons between Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and Updike's work. Professor Plath saw the Witches of Eastwick as a modern reimagining of Hawthorne's Colonial New England. The witches become central to the novel instead of being on the periphery as they are in the Scarlet Lette and adultery becomes more everyday in Updike's vision. It that line of analysis is interesting to you then I encourage you to look up the article Giving the Devil His Due by James Plath.

This book is very rich in really fascinating detail and in my second time through it, more and more stands out to me. It is worth the read just for some of the quotes. The prose is fantastic and as I write my paper I will probably use the blog to explore some more ideas that I have. If not though, expect the next post to concern Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato.

Magical Realism

I am going to have to put Dickens on hold for awhile as I start my final semester of college. I do intend to continue the blog and use it as a place to log thoughts about the books I am reading for my senior seminar, which is the only literature course I have this semester. The senior seminar is titled American Magical Realism and we are reading books by Updike, Tim O'Brien, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison and W.P. Kinsella. We have already read the Witches of Eastwick by Updike and now will be moving on to Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien. Before I get into the novels though, I want to briefly talk about what Magical Realism is as a point of reference.

Magical Realism's roots begin in German and Eastern European literature in the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It is characterized by the presence of something(s) amazing or magical in an otherwise ordinary situation and the fantastic element is usually treated as a matter of course by the characters and narrator. That is about as simple of a definition as I can give but since there is not a truly agreed upon definition, it does not encompass everything. It is important to note that if the Magical elements mount up to the point that the book clearly does not take place in this world or becomes fantasy (ie. Lord of the Rings) then it is not Magical Realism. From my own experiences, a good indicator is if an event takes place in an otherwise realistic novel that has you questioning whether or not that actually happened or was a figment of a characters imagination or symbolic language for another event, then it could be Magical Realism. The key is that in Magical Realism, the fantastic event actually took place and while it may be symbolic, it is a part of the reality of the novel. My popular culture analogy was the TV show, Family Guy, in particular Stewie's ability to talk. In the first few seasons everyone was confused as to whether or not the family could hear what he was saying or it was just an internal monologue that was made external for our benefit. Of course my professor did not exactly get or appreciate the reference, but I think it is a fairly decent example.

From its roots in Germany, Magical Realism was then claimed and developed as a distinctly Latin American literary form. Its development in Latin America added an element of faith to the Magical Real. In a culture that is more religious and more accepting of events the Western World labels impossible, Magical Realism was a perfect fit and became tied to an emerging cultural identity in Literature. It is no coincidence that the growth of Magical Realism took place during a time period in which Latin America was struggling to find their own identity and voice in the global community. We read several short stories in the beginning of the class to give us an ideal of what is and is not Magical realism. My favorite was the Handsomest Drowned Man in the World by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it is short and worth a read if you are interested in an example. (Click on the title to get to the story online).

That cultural investment makes it a difficult form to break into if you are an outsider and yet there is enough American literature which can be classified as Magical Realism I am taking a class on it. From my brief introduction to Latin American Magical Realism in the short stories I mentioned earlier and North American Magical Realism in Updike, there is a marked difference in style. At least in Updike, the tone is much more cynical and irreverent than the more mystical and religious tone of the Latin American work. Of course, Updike is more irreverent and cynical than most, but I believe the lack of true mysticism in American culture makes it impossible to believably replicate the Latin American treatment of magical events. It will be interesting when we get to Erdrich and Morrison since the Native American and African American traditions feature mysticism much more prominently and are far more conducive to this sort of style.

I'll keep this post focused on Magical Realism in general and in the next post I'll give a brief synopsis of the Witches of Eastwick as well as some thoughts and reactions to the novel. It is going to be a great semester and the class has been really exciting so far. I would definitely recommend the novel if you enjoy Updike. If you are easily offended by salacious Literature, I would avoid it because sex is a central theme in the novel. If you can get beyond that though, it is worth it because there is an incredible amount of depth and very interesting thoughts and insights on a variety of subjects.

Great Expectations

A month has gone by since my last post and I am only a tenth of the way through Dicken's Great Expectations. I had very high expectations for this project when I started it but unfortunately, I did not engage in this book quite as precociously as I did 1984. I have been distracted by A Staggering Work of Heart Breaking Genius by Dave Eggers and I am ashamed to admit that I also indulged in Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner. So far I really have enjoyed Great Expectations. I am definitely a fan of Dickens and really loved David Coppefield. It is just slow going though and does not suck me in the way more contemporary works do. I also am having a hard time really grasping what I want this blog to become. It is meant to be a sort of journal as I record my responses to literary classics, so I can have access to those impressions at a later date. Yet my initial impulse as an English major is to add structure to what I am writing and give it some sort of thesis. As I meander through my impressions it feels sort of juvenile and incomplete. I am not writing some sort of high browed criticism or dissecting the themes from some sort of critical standpoint and I feel as though this blog suffers because of that. I do not want to be insincere with what I write though and even as this blog meanders and may not say anything ground breaking, it will be my honest responses to what I have read. I really hope that some people do end up reading this and give me some sort of response if they have read the same works and want to add something to the conversation.

As for Great Expectations, the language can be tough at times as the narrative does its own meandering. I really enjoy the juvenile innocence that Dickens writes with such ease though and the humor still makes me laugh even if I cannot relate to the time period. I am interested to see how the his voice progresses over the course of the novel. There was a clear maturation in David Copperfield as the narrator grew up and I expect to see something similar in this novel. By blogging about it, I hope to be more aware of it as I read. Right now, Dickens has captured the boy's psyche very well as he views things from a completely uninitiated perspective. He takes everything at face value and questions anything that he is ignorant about. It is a refreshing and enjoyable perspective to see through especially after the cynicism of 1984. In the next post I'll record any changes to that perspective and talk a little more about my impressions of the plot and thematic elements as they unfold a little further.

1984 was 25 years ago!

This post was a long time in coming as things have gotten pretty busy for me. I finished 1984 awhile ago now, but it is definitely a book that will stay with me. The farsighted nature of what George Orwell wrote was astounding. Even if the particular technology that he envisioned was incorrect, the gist of what he was getting at did. Winston basically works a cubical job for the ministry of truth. The tubes that bring papers to his desk for him to work on are computers before computers were ever conceived. The interactive Telescreens are becoming increasingly possible and nothing is more important in today's society than information. The growth of social media through the internet and the ability for everyone to access information that they would previously never have had, has given us the impression that we see things more clearly than ever. Yet as 1984 aptly illustrates, history is just an agreed upon viewpoint of past events and just because the majority agrees with it does not mean that version of events is correct.

Winston's struggle to navigate in a society where everyone could potentially feel the same way that he does about what is going on but is so tightly controlled that anything other than complete obedience is swiftly crushed has to resonate with Americans in a post 9-11, patriot act society. More than ever we have the means and the desire to monitor and control the general public's reaction to the decisions made by those in power. The patriot act is a right wing example, but Barack Obama's presidential campaign utilized social media and our increased ability to have direct contact with individuals like never before to win the '08 election. There is a lot of promise and good in the information technology revolution that has been taking place but 1984 also illustrates the dangers that come with that. Information is freer than ever but we are still getting it through the lens of whatever our source is and we are less wary of the role that filter plays on the veracity of that information. Orwell published the book in 1949, so the setting was a 35 years in the future. We are now 25 years beyond the futuristic setting of the novel and far from being obsolete, it has gained more relevance.

Beyond the relevance to our present day society, it is very interesting when it is looked at in the context of its own time. It was written not too long after the end of WWII during the beginning of what became the Cold War. A nuclear bomb had been dropped and no one wanted to see WWIII even as battle lines were being drawn in Germany and other parts of the world. So it is interesting to see the stalemate that Orwell saw taking place. Also the difference between the psyche of Winston and Julia is facinating. Winston has greater ideals of what society should be based on what he remembered experiencing as a child. Julia, who has only known a Big Brother dominated society, seems to have none of Winston's high mindedness and her rebellion is characterized by the brutality of the society she was raised in. Winston has a hard time not letting his distaste show while Julia strives to be the ideal citizen on the surface to cover up her illicit rebellion. Julia has essentially mastered the core of what Big Brother is about. She engages in double think much more easily than Winston can. She can throw herself into the activities mandated by the society while fundamentally disagreeing with them. It was an interesting psychological experiment to create the two characters from two very different experiences. When you add O'brien to the mix, it becomes even more itneresting.

I loved this book and it definitely takes its place as one of my favorite. I would like to write some more about the ending but I would hate to spoil it for anyone that reads this before they read the book.

The Beginning

At some point, I hope to be a college professor. Whether that happens or not, I want to be better read. I also want to remember how I reacted to those books at the time and have access to the thoughts that they evoked. That's where this blog comes in. The plan is to take notes while I read and turn those into blog posts. As I go, I will have a record that I can go back an access whether I am a professor, writing a paper or just reading the book for a second time. Any sort of comment is welcome. I would love to add more books to my read list based off recommendations and any discussion created would be great.

I am currently reading 1984 by George Orwell and will have a post up soon about the first 2/3rds of the book and should have the rest of it finished shortly after. So far it has been a very entertaining read. Being twenty-five years later than even the book's futuristic setting only further drives home the messages. On one hand, the picture Orwell paints can be closely linked to the sinister image that we have of the Soviet Union. On the other, there are strong parallels to our own society as information technology becomes increasingly invasive in our daily lives and we struggle to define how much access is right. To me, the Patriot Act and other concessions that we've made as a society in the name of preserving our "freedom" are policies that the Party would have applauded. War is Peace, Slavery is Freedom, Ignorance is Strength. My first reaction is to scoff at the absurdity of the Party's Motto, but in the age of advertising and sensationalism, they hit closer to home than even in Orwell's time. I am loving this book so far and I'll post a more unified reaction to it soon.