Beloved I

This 1987 novel by Toni Morrison might be her most “beloved.” It also might be the richest, most complex, most difficult, and most rewarding of her works.

Often categorized as “magical realism," it can also be read as a historical novel, a fictional slave narrative, a socio-political study, a psychological novel, a gothic romance, a re-enactment of Biblical myth, or a mythologizing of African American experience in universal terms.

Historically the characters and their stories represent the African American experience of slavery and its aftermath. Like the traditional slave narrative, it recounts Sethe’s escape from captivity to freedom, but its main focus is her post-slavery quest for liberation from the psychological and social legacy of slavery and achievement of full selfhood, independence, self-worth, and dignity as a human being.

The novel’s roots in history include the actual story of an escaped slave mother who murdered her own child rather than have her recaptured, a story that Morrison researched in newspaper archives. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beloved_(novel). Its roots in slave narrative can be traced to Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, in which Jacobs confesses that at one point she thought she would rather see her own children dead than to suffer the indignities and cruelties of slavery. The myth of the Terrible Mother can be found in pagan traditions of the Earth Mother or Great Goddess, a personification of Nature, who not only gives us life but also takes it. A monotheistic parallel can be found in the Old Testament Jehovah who not only saves and protects his “chosen people” but also punishes them, sometimes with death and destruction, a la the great flood.

Mythological and religious references abound in this story of the murdered child, Beloved, who returns to haunt and “possess” the mother who killed her until the “devil child” is finally exorcized and purged by suffering, perseverance, love, family, and community.

At one level the story represents Sethe’s guilt and atonement for the murder of her child (or, in other terms, her psychological illness and recovery), but the historical and mythic contexts lift it to another level, in which Beloved represents the burden of slavery carried, not only by the fictional Sethe and her family, but by all African Americans, a burden that must be lifted before full “salvation,” psychological health, and ethnic pride can be fully achieved.

This story of redemption likewise rises to the level of universal myths of birth and creation, fertility, quest, death and resurrection, sacrifice and salvation. At the same time it addresses a contemporary social and political debate over the extent to which individual behavior is the result of genetic, biological, psychological, social, economic and political circumstances and the extent to which it is the result of free will, choice, and personal responsibility. Though Sethe’s act of infanticide can be explained in terms of her brutalization in slavery and the psychological damage she has suffered as a result, the novel does not let her off the hook as an individual responsible for her own actions. We might be tempted to judge her “not guilty by reason of insanity,” but the novel holds her accountable and insists that she undergo a necessary penance before she can achieve both moral and psychological “at-onement.”

In the end, in a work that is filled with images of fertility, birth, and creation, Sethe experiences a kind of moral and psychological death followed by resurrection and rebirth.

Similarly, the novel suggests, African American culture and community, having suffered the destructive effects of slavery, will be reborn into health and vitality. For all the horror and tragedy that the novel depicts, it is a redemptive narrative that offers hope to all individuals and communities, of whatever ethnicity, who have been victimized, brutalized, and terrorized by history.

"Hive Dancer"

I’ve known Edie Rylander and her poetry since 1980. She writes about rural life, nature and natural history, family, marriage, farming, American history and culture, even football (though I don’t think that Brett Favre poem has been published yet) in a style that is both elegant and earthy.

“Hive Dancer” (see previous post), from her book of the same name, magically combines self-expression with factual information about hives and bees. Rylander compares herself and her lifespan of 69 years to a worker bee, with a lifespan of 45 days, distinguishing herself from the queen bee, which lives “one to three years,” and the male drones, which die after mating or eventually get driven out of the hive by the workers. She then compares her own lifespan to that of a worker bee: “…day one…would be about equal/To year twenty for me”; “Middle-aged workers (ten to twenty-one days)”; and “The old worker bees/On average, days eighteen to forty-five).”

While she was born “helpless” the worker bee “Emerges full armed with stinger…Honeypot, wax glands, pollen basket.” In each stage of life the worker bee carries out useful functions maintaining the hive, nourishing the queen and the larvae, making honey and storing it, protecting the hive from disease, and finally, in its old age, adventuring, foraging, scouting, bringing home “The pollen, the water, the plant resin, the nectar,/Everything that feeds the hive,” and doing “the bee dance,/Showing distance and direction to food sources…” At age 69 Rylander celebrates her identity as “Old Tatterwings the hive dancer…Humming off in search of sweetness/Borne on the song of her wings.”

In this self-identification with the worker bee, Rylander explicitly separates herself from the queen bee, who “Kills her sister queens, drives Mom away,/Flies, mates, multiple times, comes home,” and lives out the rest of her fertile days “Laying eggs, laying eggs, laying eggs—“ As mother of three, Rylander might have justifiably identified with the fertile queen, but rejects the dominant role and chooses that of sustainer, nurturer, builder, protector, one of “the tough old girls,” the dancers who “bring the good stuff home.”

Culturally speaking, the queen might be associated with our glamorous fertility symbols--the Marilyns, the Raquels, the Brittanys, the Lindseys, the Angelinas--who compete among themselves for adoration from their fans, followers, and would-be mates. And while they luxuriate in the honeycomb of celebrity status, the everyday women go about their work at home, in fields and offices, classrooms and hospitals, stores and factories, driving trucks, flying planes, sustaining, nurturing, protecting, building and bringing “the good stuff home.” “Hive Dancer” consciously rejects the role of woman as beauty queen and embraces a larger vision of “women’s work.”

Appropriately, it does so in a style that is down to earth and colloquial at the same time that it is soaringly lyrical and elegant, both familiar and educated, tough and sweet. It combines mundane information about bees and hives with personal story, metaphor and myth. Queens, drones, and worker bees emerge as both natural facts and mythical beings.

Hive Dancer is one of three volumes of Rylander poetry, the other two being Dancing Back the Cranes and Dance with the Darker Sister. See Red Dragonfly Press http://www.reddragonflypress.org/reviews/3265.

Like a true dancer, this poet combines both muscle and magic.

A Poem for "the tough old girls"

                        "Hive Dancer"

It seems all my life I've been a worker bee.
("Lifespan of the Worker Bee"
Says that poster at the Minnesota State Fair
Which I come back to every visit.)

Though there's no reasonable way
To compare the lives
Of old women and bees,

And anyway, why not be a queen?
Queens live one to three years;
Workers average forty-five days.

A queen struggles up out of the comb,
Kills her sister-queens, drives Mom away,
Flies, mates, multiple times, comes home,
And then that long last act
In the dark heart of the comb,
Fed and groomed by her little sterile daughters,
Laying eggs, on a good day, equal to her body weight,
Laying eggs, laying eggs, laying eggs--

Then of course there are drones--male--
Drones can't feed themselves, drones can't sting,
Drones fly when the queen flies,
Mate, if lucky, then die.
Some fail at queen-catching and bumble on home,
Hang around the hive cadging honey
Till summer ends, and the workers drive them away.

And there's no equivalent in human development
For that egg and larva business.
Sixty-nine years ago I came out helpless,
While a worker (three days an egg, twenty-one days
Curled in her cell in the comb)
Emerges full armed with stinger
Plus all those useful tools,
Honey-pot, wax glands, pollen basket.

But assume, for the sake of the poem
That day one for a worker bee
Would be about equal
To year twenty for me.

In days one to fifteen,
Young workers clean and polish cells,
Shovel out food to ever-hungry larvae,
Feed and groom the queen,
Cap the brood cells.

Middle-aged workers (ten to twenty-one days)
Build new comb, unload nectar from the foragers,
Convert it in their bodies into honey.
Ventilate the hive with their wings.
Some become undertaker bees,
Flying away the dead; diagnosing
Disease in the brood,
Flying sick larvae off
Where they cannot infect the rest.

Now comes the part I like. It is
The old worker bees
(On average, days eighteen to forty-five)
Who are the adventurers,
The foragers, the scouts.
It is the tough old girls bring the good stuff home,
The pollen, the water, the plant resin, the nectar,
Everthing that feeds the hive.
It is the old workers who do the bee dance,
Showing distance and direction to food sources,

And I, I am Old Tatterwings the hive dancer,
Having escaped a thousand dangers,
Zooming in with a golden load,
Making my circles and figure-eights,
   Basswood, two hundred yards south.
   Clover, north by northwest.
   Look out for bee-eating birds, for bad weather.
   Avoid two-leggers, unless they attack the hive.

I am the hive dancer,
Humming off in search of sweetness,
Borne on the song of her wings.

                                                       --Edith Rylander, Hive Dancer

Three Cups of Tea

The recent 60 Minutes episode that challenges the accuracy of this 2006 narrative by David Relin and Greg Mortenson (Mortenson’s name is listed first on the title page, but Relin wrote the book with Mortenson as consultant) aired just as I was about to start reading it.

Questions about dates and time sequences raised by 60 Minutes and others are partially addressed by Relin in the introduction. After complaining about Mortenson’s habitual tardiness, Relin writes, “He operates on Mortenson time, a product, perhaps, of growing up in Africa and working much of each year in Pakistan.”

The question of whether Mortenson was actually kidnapped by Taliban as recounted in the book is another issue. Relin didn’t observe that incident but relied on Mortenson’s account. We may never know the truth about it unless it is settled in court, but even such a settlement would, no doubt, leave much that is unresolved.

The current brouhaha about this book raises the whole postmodern issue of “truth.” Even if there is such a thing as objective truth, is it knowable by the human mind, which can only know things subjectively, or at least only as our human powers allow us to know things, not as they independently exist? Rather than dwelling on truthfulness, the postmodernists say, let us focus on the way discourse functions socially and politically. Instead of asking, “Is it true?” let us ask, “What purpose does it serve? Who does it benefit in the ongoing power struggle that constitutes our social reality?” If Three Cups of Tea contributes to the betterment of impoverished, illiterate, uneducated communities in central Asia, then it is valuable discourse that is worth our time and admiration.

We could spend many hours debating the philosophical ins and outs of postmodernism, but it is worth noting that even postmodernists start with certain assumptions of “truth,” namely that we can’t know objective reality and that our entire social reality can be characterized in terms of a power struggle. (Note the blatant contradiction: If we can’t know objective reality, then how can we know that our entire social reality is a power struggle?)

My own view is that, while it is undoubtedly “true” that we cannot fully know objective reality, we can know it more or less objectively. Just because we cannot know absolute truth does not give us license to say anything we want and claim it is “true.” Our human task is to sort out which truth claims are most credible, based on experience, evidence, facts, and logic, and which are least credible, based on the same criteria. Our human dilemma is that even our most credible truths, based on those criteria, are partial truths, constantly subject to revision. Truth is a matter of probability, not certainty.

So, what of Three Cups of Tea? First, I want to suggest that, while it is presented as non-fiction narrative, the book might best be understood as persuasive discourse, not as a supposedly factual account of persons, places, and events.

This is not to say that factuality is not important to persuasion; indeed, the factual challenges that have been raised are damaging to the persuasiveness of the account. However, it is to say that factual precision may be less important to the effectiveness of the book than general credibility. Readers will forgive factual lapses if they find the overall narrative believable enough to support its thesis.

What is the thesis of Three Cups of Tea? I would say it is the claim that building relationships of trust with the Islamic world and helping that world reduce poverty, improve education, and increase access to multiple sources of information will do more to end terrorism than military solutions alone.

No one has questioned the accuracy of the book in terms of its representation of the local languages and culture or of the general mission that Mortenson carried out in the mountainous regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The overall impression it leaves of a friendly, generous, hospitable people who welcome strangers bringing gifts that they actually need and can actually use has gone unchallenged. If the publisher had included a disclaimer on the title page that the book is “based on Greg Mortenson’s true life experiences," that might have made it more acceptable to its critics, but I doubt it would have made a lot of difference to most readers.

As Samuel Johnson said to the 18th century neo-classical critics who insisted on the “unities of time and space” in the theater, most readers “are always in their senses.” Just as they know that “the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players,” so do they know that most purportedly non-fiction narratives are based on memory as much or more than fact, are selections from reality (not a replica of it), and are often exaggerated, embellished, or even fabricated in parts to enhance the story.

Whatever liberties the book takes with details are less important than the truth of the overall message about cross-cultural relationships and ways that Western, Christian nations can build trust and win friends among people who might otherwise be ripe for terrorist recruitment.

Nonetheless, Greg Mortenson’s creative memory and looseness with facts could and no doubt has damaged his credibility in some quarters. There are those who will say he “lied,” that is deliberately set out to deceive, and to the extent that such charges undermine his character, they will damage the persuasive effect of the book, the credibility of his work, and ultimately the success of his mission. Such is the risk of non-fiction.

Those readers who accept the representation by journalist David Relin of Mortenson’s character—that of a man full of soul and passion, sloppy with details, fuzzy about time and numbers, disorganized, impractical, no doubt naïve, but highly intuitive, empathetic and compassionate—will allow him the credibility that he is due and be amazed at what he has accomplished.

Facts and truthfulness do matter, but so do good story-telling, good character, good intentions, and good accomplishments. Readers must weigh these values and reach their own conclusions.

To close with a somewhat literary question, what is the significance of the title of the book? I think those three cups of tea refer to the hospitality of the mountain people that Mortenson encountered and their cultural practice of placing relationships above business transactions. They would conduct business only after time was taken for human social interaction and trust-building. Our own Western practice is more often to be on time and “get down to business” right away so we can go on to the next appointment. The title draws attention, not only to Mortenson’s understanding of that cultural difference, but perhaps also to his affinity for the central Asian way of life, which made him so effective there.

A Tale of Two Cities

It is hard to think of another novel that is famous for both its opening and closing lines: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”; “It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done…”

Those two quotes also represent two poles in Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel: the pole of history and the pole of the individual, the public and private. The personal narrative of Charles Darnay and his family becomes entangled with the public history of the French Revolution, and both narratives play themselves out on a larger allegorical or mythic stage, if you will, of good vs. evil and redemption vs. tragedy.

The message of the historical narrative seems to be that the vengeance of the oppressed is no better than abuse of power by the oppressor, that violence and excess are worse enemies than any particular social class. At the individual level, the message seems to be that while love has the power to redeem, there are those in every social class who are unredeemable. At the allegorical or mythic level, while good may ultimately triumph over evil, there is a terrible price to be paid for that victory.

These broad themes are dramatized in Dickens’ inimitable style of caricature, melodrama, sentimentalism, colorful scene-painting, irresistible humor, and unforgettable pathos. It is easy to see why Dickens had, and has, both popular appeal and literary value. That combination is a rare talent.

One would expect Dickens to sympathize with the downtrodden, but in A Tale of Two Cities he shows the dark side of the French revolutionaries and Republicans as well as of the French aristocracy. He dramatizes the injustice of which both are capable when in positions of power. The Marquis who thinks almost nothing of running down a peasant child under the wheels of his carriage epitomizes the cruelty and arrogance of the ruling class before the Revolution, while the DeFarges and the woman called “the Vengeance” represent the viciousness of the street mobs bent on revenge during the Revolution.

These “unredeemable” characters are balanced by the redeemed: Charles Darnay, son of the aforementioned Marquis, who renounces his aristocratic heritage and goes to London, where he works for a living teaching French; Dr. Manette, who, after years of imprisonment by the ruling class is able, not only to accept Darnay as his daughter’s husband, but also to put himself at risk by defending Darnay in the Republican court when he is arrested simply because of his bloodline while on a trip to Paris to help a friend; and the drunken wastrel Sydney Carton, whose love for Darnay’s wife and Manette’s daughter becomes the redemptive power that enables him to replace Darnay in the prison cell and take his place on the scaffold.

Good and evil are equally to be found in each social class, and while “good,” in the form of democracy and the survival of a loving family, may ultimately triumph, the stage of history is littered with the bodies of good and evil alike who have died in the struggle for freedom and equality.

A Tale of Two Cities is a redemptive novel of political emancipation, personal atonement, and love triumphant, but it does not deny the dark side of human nature or of human history. The opening lines are no mere rhetorical flourish, for the novel vividly dramatizes the days of the French Revolution as, indeed, “the best of times” and “the worst of times…”

The Rainbow

Reading was interrupted when my Nook failed as I was trying to finish this 1915 D.H. Lawrence novel. I ended up reading the last few chapters on the Kindle application on my smartphone. Ah, the joys of e-reading!

I was familiar with Lawrence, having read, and in some cases studied, Sons and Lovers, Women in Love (the sequel to The Rainbow), selected poems, a few short stories, and Studies in Classic American Literature, possibly the most idiosyncratic commentary on American literature ever written. I had also seen the 1969 Ken Russell film of Women in Love, but not the 1989 film of The Rainbow, also directed by Russell.

My undergraduate Modern Fiction professor had engrained in me the habit of reading Lawrence through a Freudian lens, while my graduate professor emphasized the “sense of the numinous” in Lawrence. That counterpoint sums up the experience of grappling with the almost whiplash-like contradictions in Lawrence’s work. As you will see in this blog post, I have added a socio-political lens as well.

On the one hand, the human experience in Lawrence boils down to the biological urge for pleasure and dominance played out in endless power struggles with family, lovers, society at large, and even oneself. On the other, it is nature and natural expression that offers the only hope of redemption in an overly-“civilized," mechanized modern society.

The Rainbow tells the story of three generations of Brangwens: Tom, who marries a Polish widow with a young daughter; Will, Tom’s nephew, who marries Anna, Tom’s step-daughter; and Ursula, eldest daughter of Will and Anna, who pursues a teaching career and has both a female and a male lover. Each character struggles with sexual desire and the urge to dominate in all relationships, whether sexual or not. All the relationships are fraught with conflict, both expressed and repressed. In addition, the characters seek some kind of fulfillment in a society that is bound by tradition, artificiality, alienation, and industrial dehumanization.

In each generation Lawrence dramatizes the relentless Freudian conflicts that, according to Freud, characterize the human condition. Yet, whereas in Freud, these conflicts are never resolved, except in momentary flashes of pleasure or triumph, Lawrence seems to hold out hope of “salvation” in nature, as symbolized, for example, by the rainbow that appears to Ursula in the final scene.

Or, is Ursula simply deluding herself that any kind of redemption is possible? Such are the whiplash contradictions between nature as power struggle and nature as spiritual reservoir.

The first chapter of the novel is a paean to the natural world in rural England, scarred by coal mining to feed the industrial factories and populated by those like the Brangwens who are trapped in the conflict between nature and society, closest to the redemptive power that nature seems to offer, yet yearning for the ego advancement that society can provide.

What is most remarkable to me in The Rainbow is the language that Lawrence creates to represent the teeming energy of the Freudian Id and the awakening of consciousness in his characters. No one before Lawrence had written in such concrete terms of sexual desire, aggression, the will to power, the urge to submit, the longing for unity and transcendence, and the ever incomplete process of growing awareness.

And as that language captures the conflicted tumult of human psychology, it is sometimes difficult to tell when it is the characters’ and when it is Lawrence’s psychology.

Case in point: Ursula’s affair with Winifred is introduced in affirmative terms in a chapter entitled “Shame.” The waning of Ursula’s passion for Winifred is comparable to the ebb and flow of her feelings for Anton, but she looks back on her relationship with Winifred as a death-dealing “side show,” as if it were a freakish affair, unlike the one with Anton. Her feelings of revulsion for Winifred are associated with her growing maturity. Is this Ursula’s homophobia or Lawrence’s or both?

Later, when Anton returns from Africa, telling Ursula about “the strange darkness, the strange, blood fear” and “the blacks,” who “worship…the darkness,” is that Anton’s racism or Lawrence’s or both?

The Rainbow is an iconoclastic novel, challenging Victorian conventions, easy sentimentalism, and British cultural traditions, especially with respect to sex, courtship, marriage, domestic life, women’s roles, and religion. While it boldly depicts a lesbian relationship, it fails to challenge the prevailing homophobic attitudes of its day. And while it seems itself at times to “worship” nature, darkness and all, it also seems to reinforce popular Western imperialistic and ethnocentric views of nature-worshipping “blacks” on the Dark Continent.

These contradictions are perhaps the most difficult for a contemporary, progressive, pro-gay rights, anti-racist reader to grapple with, while a conservative reader, like those in Lawrence’s time who prosecuted it for obscenity and banned it, will be most offended by its open treatment of human sexuality and its Freudian view of human relationships.

Siddhartha

I first read this 1922 German novel by Herman Hesse as a college student in the 1960’s when it enjoyed a period of popularity in the U.S. among those participating in or interested in the 60’s counter culture. When I recently returned to it, all I could remember was the image of a Buddha-like man contemplating a river. Turns out that memory captures the final resting place of Siddhartha’s spiritual journey.

One way to read the novel is as a rejection of Western culture, especially Christianity, and an embrace of the Eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Hesse had been raised by his missionary parents in strict Christian piety. He showed his rebellious character early when he ran away from the Evangelical Theological Seminary, where he was enrolled. Ironically, his love for Indian culture and Buddhist philosophy had been learned through his parents, who had been missionaries to India. Hesse’s life could be seen as a continual spiritual conflict between his Christian and Buddhist roots.

Siddhartha’s spiritual journey could be viewed as Hesse’s own wish-fulfillment for ultimate enlightenment and peace. The novel takes place in India during the lifetime of Gautama Buddha between the 5th and 7th centuries B.C.E. Just as Hesse had rebelled against the Christianity of his missionary parents, so young Siddhartha rebels against the Hinduism of his Brahmin father and leaves home to seek enlightenment. Siddhartha meets the Buddha but refuses to become a disciple, choosing to learn from his own experience rather than the teaching of a religious leader.

He goes to the city and begins to live a worldly life, pursuing wealth and pleasure. After sating himself with materialism, he leaves his lover, who is pregnant with their son, contemplates suicide, and then returns to a life of asceticism at the river under the tutelage of a wise ferryman.

Reunited with his son after the mother’s death, Siddhartha experiences the cycle of youthful rebellion as a father, just as earlier he had experienced it as a son. From the wise ferryman he learns to let go of trying to find his runaway son, listen to the sound of the river, and accept the natural cycle of life. In the end Siddhartha attains the wisdom and enlightenment he had sought from the beginning.

Siddhartha could thus be viewed as a projection of Hesse’s own rejection of his parents’ Christianity, his own spiritual journey, and his own yearning for enlightenment. As such, it spoke to the 60’s generation of young Americans rebelling against the “establishment” and the Vietnam War, seeking enlightenment on their own, and exploring Eastern ways of religion and culture.

Another way to read the novel is as a modern re-enactment of the ancient hero myth, in which a spiritual seeker leaves home, undergoes his or her trial and suffering, confronts the reality of death, and is reborn into spiritual attainment, whether it be as wise one, as prophet, or as deity.

Either way, certain universal truths of the human story are affirmed: the quest for independence and authenticity, the inevitability of suffering and death, the possibility of redemption and spiritual fulfillment.

Also, either way, certain ironic contradictions, perhaps irresolvable, make themselves felt. Siddhartha rejects the teaching of religious leaders and insists on learning on his own. Yet he readily accepts the teaching of a courtesan, who instructs him in the ways of love and desire. Likewise, he submits to the teaching of the ferryman, who instructs him in the wisdom to be learned by listening to the sound of the river. One way of resolving this contradiction is to distinguish between learning from established and recognized authorities and learning from those at the margins of society, with the latter having more to teach than the former.

A related contradiction is that between Siddhartha’s chosen path of independence and his ultimate dependence on others as he travels his road to wisdom. His professed individualism is belied by his experience of learning from relationships with others. Again, perhaps this contradiction can be resolved if we note that Siddhartha learns for himself independently the lesson of humility that he can learn from others.

Or, perhaps these contradictions are irresolvable.

In any case, Siddhartha’s ultimate source of wisdom is the sound of the river: nature, not society.

While working on this blog post, I came across a symposium on teaching the novel (http://www.aasianst.org/EAA/Siddhartha.htm), in which is debated the value of using the novel to introduce Western students to Eastern religions vs. the claim that the novel offers a misleading and distorted representation of Buddhism. I concluded that while Siddhartha is an excellent study of one man’s spiritual quest, one would do well not to rely on it for an authentic understanding of Indian culture and Buddhist philosophy. For such understanding, one would do better to study the texts of Eastern religions rather than the writing of a German novelist struggling with his Christian identity.