Dream Eater

Recently I saw the film Wonder Woman, which draws on ancient Greek mythology to depict an intersection of mortal and immortal dimensions in a World War I setting.  Like Wonder Woman, Koi, the main character of this 2017 novel by my daughter’s friend, K. Bird Lincoln, brings super-human powers into the human realm.  And they both pit female power against the male deities that would control them and the rest of humanity.

Unlike Wonder Woman, Koi, a Japanese American, has grown up in the human world of contemporary Portland, Oregon.  She is only partly aware of her paranormal/supernatural/mythological ancestry and lives in fear of human touch, which triggers her power to read people’s dreams. Also, while Wonder Woman invokes Western myth, Dream Eater draws on non-Western sources--Japanese, Middle Eastern and Native American. 

Because of her fear of human touch, Koi has isolated herself, even from her family.  In an effort to build a normal life, despite the continual flashes of other people’s dreams, she begins working toward an accounting degree at Portland Community College.  One day she crosses paths with a Japanese Kitsune (fox) shape-shifter, who, she later learns is on a mission from the mythic “Council” to retrieve her father.  At about the same time, Koi bumps into a professor and reads his dreams of murder.  Later, the professor enlists Koi’s help in translating her family’s obscure Japanese dialect.  Meanwhile, Koi’s sister, Marlin, who has a real job, calls on Koi to take over temporary care of their father, who apparently suffers from Alzheimer’s, so she can get some work done.  It seems the Kitsune, Ken, has experience with elder care, so he offers to help, not revealing his ulterior motive. 

From this point on the narrative resembles an action adventure, which is played out as much in Koi’s body as in external reality.  Her proximity to Ken stirs erotic sensations while the professor arouses fear and horror.  When the professor kidnaps Marlin, Koi and Ken, with Dad in tow, are off on an adventure involving rescue, encounters with such mythological powers as the Middle Eastern Ullikemi and Native American Thunderbird, deception, multiple battles, and eventually Koi’s discovery of her own superhuman powers.  Throughout it all, we vicariously experience Koi’s psychic drama, as well as the physical action.  There is constant turmoil, made all the more chaotic by the ambiguity of just who is good and who is evil, who is the ultimate power and who is the surrogate.

Allegorically speaking, this urban fantasy can be read as a coming of age narrative, in which Koi, innocent of her full power, encounters the evil in the world, discovers her true identity and learns that she can not only read dreams but eat them, that is, take their power into herself, and, if the dreams are evil, she can use that power to fight evil.  In other words, she discovers, not only the evil in the world, but also her own capacity for evil.  The moral allegory is thus no simple tale of good vs. evil, but a complicated interrogation of power, in which good must know evil in order to defeat it. 

The novel is also a budding love story, as, parallel to the action adventure, Koi also battles her increasing attraction to and attachment to Ken.  Her journey of self-discovery becomes a sexual awakening, as well as a lesson in the power of relationships and interdependence, thus overcoming her initial isolation.  And it is not only the relationship with Ken that ultimately breaks through Koi’s isolation, for her primary motive in the action adventure is to rescue her sister and protect her father.  Thus, as her relationship with Ken develops, her family relationships are restored.  She is able to honor both her Japanese Baku (dream eater) father and her human Hawaiian mother, and thus her own hybrid nature.

What is most striking about the novel, besides the blending of non-Western mythological traditions, is, as noted earlier, the way in which so much of the action takes place in Koi’s body and psyche.  Her sensations, including physical cravings for coffee and dark chocolate; distinctive smells, especially spices; powerful images and sounds; erotic attraction; emotional turmoil; and the non-human sensations of dream fragments, dream-eating, and ultimately the wielding of dream power.  Dream-eating is paralleled by human hunger for pizza, burritos, and her father's Bi Bim Bap. All this is conveyed in a language that juxtaposes contemporary vernacular with ancient traditions, just as Koi’s human self is juxtaposed with her mythic self.

At one point Ken makes specific reference to Joseph Campbell and his book The Power of Myth, based on the PBS documentary with Bill Moyers, and its theory of universal patterns that cross the boundaries of culture and society.  Thus, Japanese Baku are paralleled by Morpheus in Western myth, Ojibwe dream catchers, Slavic Nocnitsa, and medieval succubi.  Campbell would argue that universal cross-cultural images and narratives reflect shared human experience and a common human nature. 

With the rise of postmodernism in the later 20^th century, Campbell’s theories fell out of favor.  Postmodernists highlighted difference in human experience, culture, and society, even going so far in some cases as to deny human nature.  Human belief and behavior is individual, arising out of culturally specific influences, distinct social environments, and unique individual experience. 

Rather than reducing this debate to an either-or choice, I prefer a both-and approach.  While cultural, social, and individual differences are significant, they are not necessarily definitive, and it is our shared humanity that enables cross-cultural communication and understanding.  While we are always mired, to some extent, in our own history, experience, and culture, we are capable of transcending, to some extent, those limitations in order, not only to co-exist, but also to participate in a shared human community.

Whatever cultural limitations define Wonder Woman and Dream Eater, they both serve as images, not only of female power, but also of the intersection between the human realm and that of imagination, of history and myth, of time and infinity, society and vision.  They both participate in Joseph Campbell’s universal hero myth of trial and quest.  And they both interrogate, not only female power, but all power, using power-from-within and power-with to defeat power-over.

Dreams, like myth, exist in a borderland between human reality and mysteries beyond human comprehension.  In Dream Eater dreams are the gateway to self-discovery, empowerment, connectedness, and higher consciousness.  Eating becomes a trope for fully participating in both worlds.  As Koi says in the end, "That's what people did, wasn't it?  Eat evil, battle dragons, and then go home and make sushi."  So, as K. Bird says, “Dream without fear…”  And, when back in reality, “…drink coffee without limit."

The Price of Salt

When I went to see the movie Carol, I thought I had read the 1952 novel it was based on by Patricia Highsmith, but I quickly realized I had not. The movie was disappointing to me. I thought the dialogue was superficial and the relationship unconvincing.  Perhaps the book would be better.  It was, but only because Highsmith is a good writer, who makes it worthwhile, despite the same unconvincing relationship.

The Price of Salt is presented from the point of view of Therese, the young, naive shop girl, who falls in love with the older, married, sophisticated Carol, and who, by the end, is well on her way toward a professional career. Though it is largely Therese's story, the emotional focal point is Carol, which somehow justifies the book being later republished as Carol. But that change sacrifices a unique and powerful metaphor, which captures what is best about both the movie and the book.

The novel is both a coming of age narrative and a coming out story. Therese is just 21, working as a store clerk while trying to build a career as a theater set designer. (In the movie she is just 19 and has not yet seriously begun to pursue a career in photography.) She has a boyfriend who wants to marry her, but she is unenthusiastic, to say the least. When Therese waits on Carol in the store, it seems to be her first same-sex attraction experience, and it's a powerful one. The two women begin to see each other, and Therese slowly begins to acknowledge that her connection with Carol is romantic. Carol, who is in the midst of a divorce and child custody dispute, is more experienced, but it is actually Therese who makes most of the explicit verbal advances, perhaps only half knowing what she is doing. (In the film Therese is more reserved but is clearly more interested in Carol than in any man.)

On a car trip west the two women eventually become sexually intimate. (In the film Carol is the initiator, but in the novel it is clearly mutual.) This relationship is a sexual awakening for Therese, but for Carol it becomes an undoing.  Her husband has had them followed by a private detective, who gathers enough incriminating evidence to use against Carol in court.  The love story hits the rocks as Carol returns to New York, leaving Therese behind, and ends up promising never to see Therese again, or any woman romantically, in order to have visitation rights with her daughter. (The film depicts the legal dispute somewhat differently, but in both cases Carol gives up the joint custody fight.)

Meanwhile, Therese begins to come to terms with her self-discovery, her loss, and her future. At one point, mourning Carol's absence, she questions. "...how would the world come back to life? How would its salt come back?" (The film makes no mention of this metaphor.)

But it is Carol who pays the highest “price of salt.” In the end she refuses to agree to all the terms of the divorce, sacrificing some of her visitation rights in hopes of being reunited with Therese, or, at the least, being able to live an authentic life. Therese, having returned to New York to pursue her career, at first spurns Carol's offer to live with her, but finally, perhaps having both come of age and come out to herself, perhaps feeling on more equal terms with Carol, perhaps simply unable to resist, perhaps all of that, returns to renew the relationship, knowing that there will no doubt be more price to pay in a world that is hostile to them.

So why do I find this relationship unconvincing? It isn't just the age, class, and experience differences; it's the superficial dialogue and seemingly superficial interactions. As good a writer as Highsmith is, she expects us to take the narrator's word instead of dramatizing any depth in the relationship. If we read a biography of Highsmith, we learn she didn't really experience a successful relationship herself. Could that explain her inability to make a fictional one believable?

Highsmith is better at description and narration than she is at dialogue.  Some passages are admirable as poetry. Others are striking in their unique word choice. In the following passage she captures the fragility of relationships, perhaps based on her own experience:

“Was life, were human relations like this always, Therese wondered. Never solid ground underfoot. Always like gravel, a little yielding, noisy so the whole world could hear, so one always listened, too, for the loud, harsh step of the intruder's foot.”

But, to what extent does that sense of instability in human relations derive from the realities of same-sex relationships in the fifties?  A primary value of the novel, and of the movie, is the way it represents the price historically exacted by society for same-sex love.

Although the novel is unusual for lesbian fiction in the time period by portraying a "happy ending," it's hard not to wonder whether Therese and Carol can sustain their relationship with so little social and institutional support.  In any case, there will no doubt be more price to pay for a world with salt.

The Great Gatsby

I have not seen the latest film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, but the commercial hype led me to reread what at one time in my life I might have said was my favorite novel of all time.

There is something about the writing style, the wedding-cake richness and artifice that greatly impressed me as a college student.  This time, the language, while I could still admire it, struck me as more pretentious than I had ever thought before, and that, of course, reflects on the narrator, Nick Carraway, who struck me as more snobbish, more deceptive (perhaps self-deceptive) and evasive than I had remembered.  He presents himself as a product of the Midwest, which is more “decent” and less corrupt than the East Coast and East Egg.  Yet Nick is in the thick of enabling two adulterous affairs and covering up the truth of a traffic accident that resulted in someone’s death. 

Nevertheless, as with Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, there is incredible power in language that can take the ugliest, most sordid of human experiences and transform it into artistic beauty.  But that is what art and imagination can do, and that is largely what the novel is about, for Gatsby has that same power of imagination to take someone as shallow, hollow, and, as Nick says, “careless” as Daisy and transform her into a romantic ideal.  Nick also projects his romantic idealism, not only onto himself, but also onto Gatsby’s character and onto the whole tragic tale.

If one can look past the misogyny and anti-Semitism of the novel, one can perhaps appreciate how Nick allegorizes its events into a cultural narrative of the American experience and ultimately into a universal statement of the human dilemma, in which we find ourselves forever caught in the web of contradictions between our imaginative vision and the ashes of our own corruption (except that Nick seems to present himself as an innocent bystander rather than a full participant). 

Gatsby’s story parallels the quintessential American success story and I could not help but think of some of his literary forbears—Rip Van Winkle who transforms himself from a hen-pecked husband into the town raconteur after disappearing for twenty years; Ichabod Crane, the fortune hunter, who is attacked by the headless horseman (see previous blog posts Feb. 6, 2013); and, of course Benjamin Franklin, whose project to achieve human perfection pre-figures Gatsby’s self-improvement notes on the book cover of his boyhood copy of Hopalong Cassidy (see previous blog post March 12, 2010).  Like Rip, Gatsby transforms himself from the poor son of “unsuccessful farm people” into a product of his own imagination.  Like Ichabod he courts a woman more for the dream of “money” that she represents than for her own character.  And like Benjamin Franklin he projects the image of a self-made man, who has pulled himself up by his own bootstraps.

In the classic American success story it is hard work and moral virtue that takes one from rags to riches.  In Gatsby’s case it is imagination, opportunism, and criminal activity which bring him to the lavish mansion across the bay from the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock.  The American Dream of material prosperity, in this version, rests on a rotten foundation of moral corruption.

West Egg and East Egg on Long Island Sound represent not only the Midwest and East Coast, but also the New World and the Old World, new (cheap) money and old aristocracy.  Just as the original European settlers glorified and romanticized their plunder of North America, so Gatsby justifies his criminal career in terms of his romantic ideal, personified somehow by the wholly inadequate Daisy. 

In the end we realize that, like all of us, as Gatsby pursues his dream he ultimately hurtles toward his own death.  And the novel suggests that his story is somehow emblematic of the American experience, full of romantic idealism that founders on corruption and destruction.  Between the quintessential city of New York, where their money is made, and the homes of the wealthy on Long Island Sound lie the ash heaps of vulgarity, duplicity, betrayal, violence, and crime.  Overlooking it all are the sightless eyeglasses of T. J. Eckleberg, an abandoned advertisement that seems to represent either the godlessness or the god-forsakenness (or both) of the whole American experiment.

But, of course it is not just American culture; it is the universal story of our human potential for greatness alongside our capacity for evil. 

And so, the dark side of the “success story” is that of ill-gotten gains, and the “love story” is marred by greed, deception, and adultery.  And Nick’s “coming of age,” to the extent that it is that, is aborted by his failure to recognize the evil inside that he carries with him when he returns to the “decent” Midwest.

In Nick’s eyes Gatsby’s sordid life is redeemed by the power of romantic idealism, and perhaps the same can be said of the American dream and the whole human enterprise.  But the phrase “Great Gatsby” also rings hollow with irony, as the mythical host of lavish parties ends up dying alone in his swimming pool at the hands of a misguided revenge-seeker and buried with a bare handful in attendance at his funeral.

The Scent of Rain and Lightning

Previous posts noted how Charles Dickens successfully combined popular appeal with literary value (see Apr. 17, 2011, and Dec. 17, 2012). I doubt that Nancy Pickard will ever achieve the status of Dickens, but her 2010 novel, The Scent of Rain and Lightning, is a good example of how popular fiction can provide aesthetic appeal as well as entertainment, address timeless themes, and offer social commentary.

Part family saga, part detective story, part revenge tragedy, part coming of age, part love story (a la Romeo and Juliet), part adultery narrative, part moral lesson, the novel combines all these genres in a compelling way and enhances the whole with interesting structural twists and a spectacular rendering of landscape on the Kansas plains.

The Linders are the socially prominent family of Rose, Kansas, and environs.  Their cattle ranch is prosperous, their reach is wide, and their three sons stand in line to sustain the family name, wealth, and power.  Their daughter establishes a successful history museum in an abandoned bank building and marries a lawyer, who lends his expertise to the family system.

One morning in 1986, after a furious thunderstorm, during which the family becomes separated, the Linders’ eldest son is found shot to death in his home, in Rose, and his wife’s bloodied sundress is found in an empty vehicle off a road out of town.  She is nowhere to be found.  Their three-year-old daughter is safe with her grandmother at the ranch, where she had spent the stormy night.  Suspicion immediately falls on Billy Crosby, who carries a grudge against the family, though there are some folks who claim he was too drunk that night to commit any crime.

Nevertheless, the LInders seek revenge against Billy, who had vandalized their ranch and killed one of their cows, and their influence, plus the inexperience and incompetence of the local sheriff, results in a successful prosecution and sentencing of Billy to many more than 23 years in in prison, but 23 years later his son, a lawyer, has his sentence commuted because of investigative and prosecutorial errors.

Upon his return to Rose more violence ensues as his wife is shot to death and Billy seeks revenge against the Linders.  Billy is sent back to prison, but life in Rose does not return to normal.  New evidence regarding the 23-year-old crime comes to light and the true culprit is revealed, once again destroying the stability of the Linder family.

Parallel to the detective story and revenge tragedy is an initiation plot.  Jody Linder, who lost her parents at the age of three, has grown up, gone to college and returned to teach high school in Rose.  Her coming of age has unfolded in the wake of early trauma.  As the opening line of the novel states, “Until she was twenty-six, Jody Linder felt suspicious of happiness.”

How will she come to terms with the violence done to her family in 1986; the release of the man she always held responsible for the loss of her parents; her discovery of the role of her family in the injustice done to Billy; the violence that erupts after Billy’s return; and the shocking revelation of the truth of what happened to her parents?  Will she emerge from all the trauma, pain, deception, and suffering as a mature woman able to trust in happiness?  Or, will she forever remain suspicious and bitter, unable to escape the legacy of her past and her family?

The love story here intersects with Jody’s initiation into the dark side of life, for the person for whom she has harbored a long-standing attraction is none other than the son of Billy Crosby.  They had avoided each other as children, but were always drawn to each other by a common bond.  Who else could understand the childhood trauma they had both experienced?  Yet, as in Romeo and Juliet, their families are enemies.  After Billy’s murder of a Linder ranch hand, following his return from prison, and his second attempt to vandalize the Linder ranch by starting a grass fire, Jody despairs of ever seeing Collin again.

Just a few months later, however, after Billy’s innocence in the loss of Jody’s parents has become known, she is able to confide to her family that she and Collin have been secretly seeing each other.  At the end of the novel it appears that a family reconciliation is possible without the sacrifice of the young lovers, as is the case in Shakespeare’s tragedy.  Indeed, as in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (see previous post of Feb. 2012), it seems the two young people have it within them to redeem their parents.

But why would Jody’s parents need redemption?

At this point the love story intersects with the adultery plot, for Jody’s mother, on that fateful night, thinking her husband was on business in Colorado, had sent her daughter to spend the night with grandmother Linder and arranged an adulterous tryst at her home.  When Jody’s father comes home unexpectedly, violence erupts.  Her father is killed and her mother disappears. As with most adultery narratives, the cheating wife is punished, and we do eventually find out the fate of Jody’s mother.  Her partner in deception is also found out and punished.

By the time all is revealed Jody has learned that her mother was immature, shallow, flirtatious, and even guilty of petty theft from her in-laws.  Having been raised by her grandparents, Jody turns out more like her more honorable father.

Thus, as Collin, having been raised by his more honorable mother, redeems his father, Jody redeems her mother.

The adultery plot obviously delivers a moral lesson, but that’s not the only one.  There is a message about the wages of deception, class bias, abuse of power, and revenge. 

As revenge tragedies typically demonstrate, one act of revenge leads to another, unleashing a cycle of violence.  In this case, revenge also short circuits the legal system, obscuring the truth, reinforcing deception, and postponing the achievement of justice.

The cycle of revenge can only be redirected by an act of forgiveness.  And in this case that comes from the younger generation, when Collin forgives the Linders for helping to falsely imprison his father, and when Jody (and we trust her whole family) forgives Collin for being Billy Crosby’s son.  Perhaps more importantly, Jody forgives her family for the injustice they perpetrated against Billy Crosby, an act which leads to the burden of hate and fear she feels toward the Crosbys and of ignorance about the fate of her mother and the truth behind her father’s death.

 It is forgiveness and love that ultimately breaks the cycle of revenge, violence, and deception.  Similarly, the romance between Jody and Collin overcomes the class conflict that leads to abuse of power on one side, resentment on the other, and social prejudice on both sides.

In addition to the moral lessons embedded in it, the detective story ultimately explores the complex relationship between order and disorder.  The seeds of the crime are usually found beneath the surface of apparent order, and out of the disorder of the crime emerges the order of truth and justice.  Psychologically, the detective story allows us to process our own fear of the consequences of hidden disorder and reassures us that order can ultimately be restored.  In The Scent of Rain and Lightning it takes 23 years for these complexities to play out.

But the novel is more than a morality tale, a psychological thriller, an initiation narrative, a love story, and a revenge tragedy redeemed by love and forgiveness, though it is all those things.  It is also an ingeniously structured narrative with two flashbacks to 1986 embedded in the 2009 drama of Jody confronting her past, discovering the truth, and finding her future.  The night of the powerful storm, the adulterous tryst, the death of Jody's father, and the disappearance her mother occurs at the textual center of the novel.  But the Kansas landscape with its unpredictable weather provides a symbolic backdrop to the entire narrative.  And the powerful image of Testament Rocks rising from the plains serves as a reminder of the timeless human story, of which that of the Linders and Crosbys is but one more iteration.

My one criticism would be that some parts, especially those dramatizing Jody's emotional reactions, seem overwritten, but that is no worse than what you might find in a Dickens' novel.