I've known about Montaigne and his Essays for a long time but only recently have I gotten around to reading them. It's quite likely that I would have held off even longer had I not picked up a new(ish) book called Shakespeare's Montaigne (NYRB), which points out just how influential Montaigne was on Shakespeare's later plays, particularly King Lear and The Tempest. Stephen Greenblatt makes the argument that Shakespeare probably would have had access to the equivalent of a pre-print copy of the Florio translation of Montaigne's Essayes (originally published in 1603) and points out further examples where it appears Shakespeare is borrowing directly from Montaigne. While he isn't the most faithful of translators, Florio is by far the most influential, since his translation was read by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne and Francis Bacon among many others. In order to understand how these authors experienced Montaigne, the NYRB book reprints key selections taken from the Florio translation.
In addition, I have a more up-to-date Selected Essays translated by J.M. Cohen (Penguin). There is surprisingly little overlap between the two volumes. While I had started with Cohen, I have decided to switch to the Florio for now. In addition, Project Gutenberg has the entire set of Essays translated by Charles Cotton here. I picked out another 10* that looked pretty interesting on top of the 30 or so in the other two books, and that will get me a bit over 40% of all them. I probably will eventually read all the Essays but right now I wanted to get a good sampling of them.
There are a few things that do intrigue me about Montaigne. First, he kept adding to his Essays, even after they were published. In some cases, he even added material that contradicted his earlier arguments. He was a bit of a magpie, borrowing pretty heavily from the Romans and occasionally the Greeks, to shore up his own thoughts. He generally comes across as well-read but not a pedant. There is relatively little that he considered off-limits to write about.** He would have been a natural as a blogger... I am a little sorry not to have read him previously, but better late than never.
It can be a little hard to know just how serious he is at times. Here is Montaigne discussing the education of children (1.25): "If the pupil proves to be of so perverse a disposition that he would rather listen to some idle tale than to the account of a glorious voyage or to a wise conversation, ...I can see no other remedy than for his tutor to strangle him before it is too late, if there are no witnesses. Alternatively, he should be apprenticed to a pastry-cook..." Incidentally, the Cotton translation jumps straight to the apprenticeship option and leaves murder out of it altogether.
* For anyone truly interested, they are Of Sorrow (1.2), Of Fear (1.17), Of Pedantry (1.24), Of Moderation (1.29), Of Solitude (1.38), Of Sleep (1.44), Of Drunkeness (2.2), Of Conscience (2.5), Against Idleness (2.21) and Of Vanity (3.9).
** One of the more astonishing topics is his discussion of performance anxiety-related impotence and how to overcome it!
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Novels of Ideas (Musil)
I suppose virtually all novels start off as one big idea or another, but in at least some novels the characters are representing some specific train of though or strain of philosophy. In a poorly constructed novel, you end up with characters just bouncing ideas off of each other, but in a better novel of this sort, the reader actually cares about the characters and may (or may not) absorb the philosophical message. No question in my mind the Russians take this to extremes - -Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov and arguably Turgenev all wrestle with big ideas -- and often the characters do make long, important speeches to each other. While Proust's Remembrance of Time Past is certainly long and has many asides on art (and memory), I'm not entirely sure I would characterize it in the same way. In any event, it does not have all that much plot to speak of. While Gide and Camus wrote more compact novels, I would say they are more successful novels of ideas.
I'm not as sure about writers working in English, but perhaps Iris Murdoch and Nabokov would qualify. In any event, I have started off badly, since I didn't intend to make another long list. I mostly wanted to note that, after many, many years of carting it around, I am finally ready to start reading Musil's The Man Without Qualities.
I actually can't remember where or when I picked this up (and if I actually paid full price, though I hope not).
I had read that Gregor von Rezzori held Musil in very high esteem and actually modelled Abel and Cain upon The Man Without Qualities to some extent. However, I was so disappointed in the first part (The Death of My Brother Abel) that it kind of threw a bit of shade on Musil. I did a bit of a preview of The Man Without Qualities last week and decided that it seemed to have actual characters (that didn't dissolve in postmodern fripperies like von Rezzori's did) and at least some plot elements (not just endless discussions between characters), so I started in on it proper.
I'm not quite sure how long it will take to read. The first volume is 700+ pages and the second is more like 1000 (with 600+ pages of unfinished material!). Under normal circumstances, this would probably take me through April, though I may schedule a train trip to Montreal with the added benefit of being forced to stay in one place (as it were) and get through a large chunk of the second volume. Even though I am enjoying this considerably more than Proust's Remembrance or von Rezzori's The Death of My Brother Abel, it is still highly unlikely I will make it through a second time. I will try to note down interesting passages (and perhaps post them here), so I will feel better about parting with this beast* of a book down the road.
* While it isn't too hard reading this on the train, it is just a bit too cumbersome for reading at the gym, so I am bringing Montaigne's Essays, which I'll discuss in the next post, along for my workouts. At any rate, I definitely feel bombarded by ideas right now...
I'm not as sure about writers working in English, but perhaps Iris Murdoch and Nabokov would qualify. In any event, I have started off badly, since I didn't intend to make another long list. I mostly wanted to note that, after many, many years of carting it around, I am finally ready to start reading Musil's The Man Without Qualities.
I actually can't remember where or when I picked this up (and if I actually paid full price, though I hope not).
I had read that Gregor von Rezzori held Musil in very high esteem and actually modelled Abel and Cain upon The Man Without Qualities to some extent. However, I was so disappointed in the first part (The Death of My Brother Abel) that it kind of threw a bit of shade on Musil. I did a bit of a preview of The Man Without Qualities last week and decided that it seemed to have actual characters (that didn't dissolve in postmodern fripperies like von Rezzori's did) and at least some plot elements (not just endless discussions between characters), so I started in on it proper.
I'm not quite sure how long it will take to read. The first volume is 700+ pages and the second is more like 1000 (with 600+ pages of unfinished material!). Under normal circumstances, this would probably take me through April, though I may schedule a train trip to Montreal with the added benefit of being forced to stay in one place (as it were) and get through a large chunk of the second volume. Even though I am enjoying this considerably more than Proust's Remembrance or von Rezzori's The Death of My Brother Abel, it is still highly unlikely I will make it through a second time. I will try to note down interesting passages (and perhaps post them here), so I will feel better about parting with this beast* of a book down the road.
* While it isn't too hard reading this on the train, it is just a bit too cumbersome for reading at the gym, so I am bringing Montaigne's Essays, which I'll discuss in the next post, along for my workouts. At any rate, I definitely feel bombarded by ideas right now...
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Jackie Shane RIP
I did say that I was going to cut down on memorial posts in the blog, though I decided to make an exception for Jackie Shane due to her strong connections to Toronto. She sang mostly soul
and r & b at local clubs, lighting them up with her electrifying stage presence. Then she vanished
from the scene in 1971, returning to the States, primarily to care for
her mother. While this was far before my club-going time, I actually had been slightly aware of her (due to a relatively recent reissue of her work discussed below) and was somewhat bemused when placards on the TTC discussed her in the context of the "Alternate History of Toronto." The Star has much more about her life and career here, though The Star is moving towards a paywall system unfortunately. This column should be available, however, and has some classic photos of Jackie.
A few years back, Numero Group managed to get in touch in touch with her and released an authorized anthology, Any Other Way, which included a live gig at the Sapphire Tavern. This is still available, including on iTunes* and Spotify. For the last year or so, there were rumours that Jackie would come out of retirement to do a show in Toronto, though sadly this never came to pass.
* Just a while back, I discussed the dilemma of having too much music available at one's fingertips. I've been following Numero Group for many, many years and even managed to get to one of their pop-up sales in Chicago, but I stopped buying their releases a while back (along with pretty much everyone else in the western world). At any rate, it looks like they have made their entire catalog available on iTunes, so it looks like I have an awful lot of catching up to do! Pretty much everything they put out is interesting, and often terrific, but I do have a special weakness for their Eccentric Soul series (though in terms of actual purchases, I tended to get the ones in the Cult Cargo series).
A few years back, Numero Group managed to get in touch in touch with her and released an authorized anthology, Any Other Way, which included a live gig at the Sapphire Tavern. This is still available, including on iTunes* and Spotify. For the last year or so, there were rumours that Jackie would come out of retirement to do a show in Toronto, though sadly this never came to pass.
* Just a while back, I discussed the dilemma of having too much music available at one's fingertips. I've been following Numero Group for many, many years and even managed to get to one of their pop-up sales in Chicago, but I stopped buying their releases a while back (along with pretty much everyone else in the western world). At any rate, it looks like they have made their entire catalog available on iTunes, so it looks like I have an awful lot of catching up to do! Pretty much everything they put out is interesting, and often terrific, but I do have a special weakness for their Eccentric Soul series (though in terms of actual purchases, I tended to get the ones in the Cult Cargo series).
Thinning Ranks
I almost titled this Thinning the Herd, but that has a few too many connotations of a deliberate cull. I've been to two recent TSO concerts where the music was quite good but the audience was incredibly thin - probably not even 40% full. I didn't think the music was all that challenging - Berg's Suite from Lulu and Shostakovich's Cello Concerto 2! But the powers that be are definitely picking up on this and programming less and less challenging music going forward. I am incredibly disappointed in the TSO's 2019/2020 season. They do have Barbara Hannigan coming back through, but only a single date for the one Shostakovich symphony (whereas in previous years this would have been programmed over two nights). Otherwise it is pretty much all safe chestnuts or pops concerts... It's not a shock to me that the only Prokofiev symphony is put on by a visiting orchestra. To some extent, you can only work with the audience you have (and quite frankly the lousy weather is probably keeping the increasing elderly audience from coming downtown). It's not a secret that New York, Chicago and Montreal have a more adventurous audience. It's not that Toronto audiences don't support the New Music Festivals and the like, though these do largely seem to be attended by music school types (who don't come out nearly as often to the TSO), but that's a relatively focused event, whereas for day-in, day-out attendance, the TSO can apparently only count on Beethoven and Handel's Messiah to bring the crowds in.*
It's a bit more surprising that Soulpepper's upcoming season plays it so incredibly safe. Streetcar Named Desire? Really? And Reza's Art? I'd say Shepard's Fool for Love is pretty much middle of the road, but it doesn't really matter, as I don't care enough for Sam Shepard to come out. Pinter's Betrayal is the most interesting of the bunch, but I'll be seeing that at Red Sandcastle in a couple of weeks. So I will not be dropping by Soulpepper at all in the summer and early fall. Too bad. I don't really know if they are playing it so safe because of their aging audience or the new AD is still finding her feet. While Toronto's cultural scene is much improved since the mid 90s, it still doesn't quite have the gravitational pull of New York or Chicago where there is so much going on that it doesn't really matter if a couple of companies play it safe. Here it has a much bigger impact.
* I suppose it is at least worth acknowledging that the outgoing musical director, Peter Oundjian, said that it was somewhat intentional to clear the decks for the next musical director and not continue his new music festival or Decades Project (which were more challenging), though even there if you read between the lines, not that many people turned up...
It's a bit more surprising that Soulpepper's upcoming season plays it so incredibly safe. Streetcar Named Desire? Really? And Reza's Art? I'd say Shepard's Fool for Love is pretty much middle of the road, but it doesn't really matter, as I don't care enough for Sam Shepard to come out. Pinter's Betrayal is the most interesting of the bunch, but I'll be seeing that at Red Sandcastle in a couple of weeks. So I will not be dropping by Soulpepper at all in the summer and early fall. Too bad. I don't really know if they are playing it so safe because of their aging audience or the new AD is still finding her feet. While Toronto's cultural scene is much improved since the mid 90s, it still doesn't quite have the gravitational pull of New York or Chicago where there is so much going on that it doesn't really matter if a couple of companies play it safe. Here it has a much bigger impact.
* I suppose it is at least worth acknowledging that the outgoing musical director, Peter Oundjian, said that it was somewhat intentional to clear the decks for the next musical director and not continue his new music festival or Decades Project (which were more challenging), though even there if you read between the lines, not that many people turned up...
Thursday, February 21, 2019
12th Canadian Challenge - 13th Review - The Doll's Alphabet
Reviewing Camilla Grudova The Doll's Alphabet is a challenge for me. I found most of the stories to be well written, but they left a very bad taste in my mouth. This collection is often described as a cross between Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber. (I would say that in fact quite a number hearken back to the original Grimm fairy tales where terrible things happen all the time, often not only to people who "deserve" them.)
I suppose I should indicate there are plot SPOILERS below.
Most of the stories have extensive surreal moments, such as when a dead man communicates to his wife via letters (he seems most upset that he didn't get a fur-lined coffin) or when a boy's fingers turn into fish. The first story, "Unstitching," sets the tone for the collection where women learn to unstitch their skin and let their inner selves (sort of a cross between a metallic insect and a sewing machine) free. Soon all women are doing this, though men are not able to, as they do not have true secret selves inside. Those that try wound themselves terribly with razors, all to no avail. Most of the other stories feature sewing machines or discuss sewing as something that women do to try to make enough money to enable them to have a baby.
In many of the stories, there is an oppressive social order that is never fully explained. It is just the way things are. "Waxy" has by far the most elaborate set-up, where women work at a Factory of one type or another, supporting the Man in the household, who is supposed to take Exams. Needless to say, a Man who does particularly well on his Exam will often trade up to another woman. This simplified gloss on the story makes it sound like a rip-off of The Handmaid's Tale, though Grudova focuses on a couple where the Man doesn't have official status and can't take Exams. It actually gets considerably darker from there, but I won't go into more details. "The Mouse Queen" also gets quite dark at the end when a woman, abandoned by her fairly useless husband, turns into a wolf and apparently eats up her twin children.
One thing that is quite disturbing is that when women (at least the ones featured in the stories) give birth in these stories, they either give birth to a part of a baby (like an ear) or a horrible quasi-mummified thing, like in David Lynch's Eraserhead, while the most "normal" children get eaten up. In general, the natural order of things is disrupted in these stories, almost as if the whole world has been poisoned and humans are in the last throes of existence. That is certainly my take on "Rhinoceros" where no large animals seem to have survived and zoos stand emptied. On the other hand, in other stories mice and various bugs (moths, ants, cockroaches and especially spiders) still exist, so it isn't like the entire food chain has been eliminated. Nonetheless, in many of these stories, the main things to eat are ancient (and often spoiled) tins of fruit, vegetables or even canned meat, hinting that there has been some large scale disaster in the fairly recent past.
These stories are like little windows into a horrible, decaying world with a secret core, but the secret core is still more corrupted and evil. This reminded me somewhat of Croenenberg's Naked Lunch, though the obsessive observations of bric-a-brac (and the ever-present mechanical sewing machines) with many stories set in or involving antique stores, seemed to parallel the inner world of a Jan Švankmajer film, such as Alice. As should be clear, I didn't like this trip into Grudova's imagination and won't be returning, but of course it might be much more to your taste.
I suppose I should indicate there are plot SPOILERS below.
Most of the stories have extensive surreal moments, such as when a dead man communicates to his wife via letters (he seems most upset that he didn't get a fur-lined coffin) or when a boy's fingers turn into fish. The first story, "Unstitching," sets the tone for the collection where women learn to unstitch their skin and let their inner selves (sort of a cross between a metallic insect and a sewing machine) free. Soon all women are doing this, though men are not able to, as they do not have true secret selves inside. Those that try wound themselves terribly with razors, all to no avail. Most of the other stories feature sewing machines or discuss sewing as something that women do to try to make enough money to enable them to have a baby.
In many of the stories, there is an oppressive social order that is never fully explained. It is just the way things are. "Waxy" has by far the most elaborate set-up, where women work at a Factory of one type or another, supporting the Man in the household, who is supposed to take Exams. Needless to say, a Man who does particularly well on his Exam will often trade up to another woman. This simplified gloss on the story makes it sound like a rip-off of The Handmaid's Tale, though Grudova focuses on a couple where the Man doesn't have official status and can't take Exams. It actually gets considerably darker from there, but I won't go into more details. "The Mouse Queen" also gets quite dark at the end when a woman, abandoned by her fairly useless husband, turns into a wolf and apparently eats up her twin children.
One thing that is quite disturbing is that when women (at least the ones featured in the stories) give birth in these stories, they either give birth to a part of a baby (like an ear) or a horrible quasi-mummified thing, like in David Lynch's Eraserhead, while the most "normal" children get eaten up. In general, the natural order of things is disrupted in these stories, almost as if the whole world has been poisoned and humans are in the last throes of existence. That is certainly my take on "Rhinoceros" where no large animals seem to have survived and zoos stand emptied. On the other hand, in other stories mice and various bugs (moths, ants, cockroaches and especially spiders) still exist, so it isn't like the entire food chain has been eliminated. Nonetheless, in many of these stories, the main things to eat are ancient (and often spoiled) tins of fruit, vegetables or even canned meat, hinting that there has been some large scale disaster in the fairly recent past.
These stories are like little windows into a horrible, decaying world with a secret core, but the secret core is still more corrupted and evil. This reminded me somewhat of Croenenberg's Naked Lunch, though the obsessive observations of bric-a-brac (and the ever-present mechanical sewing machines) with many stories set in or involving antique stores, seemed to parallel the inner world of a Jan Švankmajer film, such as Alice. As should be clear, I didn't like this trip into Grudova's imagination and won't be returning, but of course it might be much more to your taste.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Paris Comes to Toronto
I had a chance to check out the Impressionist exhibition at the AGO. It was a nice show. I wasn't completely surprised that there were a number of small prints and photos, particularly towards the front end of the show, which definitely threw off the flow of visitors. I knew I'd be coming back several times, so I didn't get too caught up in the smaller works and focused on the main paintings.
Here is a lithograph by Vuillard that I was able to get close enough to view.
There were also three lithographs of the Eiffel Tower, which was part of a series called Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower by Henri Riviere, who was attempting to bring the spirit of Hokusai to 19th Century Paris. I actually have a reprint of the entire album, and it is pretty neat.
I was pleasantly surprised by the number of Caillebotte paintings on view. I believe there are five, perhaps even six, including one from a private collection that has been on display at the AGO for a while. (I think the hope is that it will eventually be donated. It's certainly not a major work, but Caillebotte is among the rarer museum acquisitions (as he was wealthy enough he didn't need to sell his paintings to make a living), so it would be a bit of a coup to land one.)
This painting, from Geneva, was to me the stand-out work in the whole exhibition.
.
I'd actually seen it previously, in a major Caillebotte retrospective* at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995, but it was great seeing it again.
In addition to some well chosen Pissarros, Sisleys and Monets, there were several paintings by Maximilien Luce, with whom I am much less familiar. While his large painting The Steelworks is very prominent, I particularly liked this smaller painting, Factory in the Moonlight.
The exhibition closed with a row of Monets. One is on loan from the McMaster Museum of Art, which I must admit I have never visited, while the other is from the AGO collection, though I am not certain I have ever seen it before.
The good news is that I will have several more times to see it and these other Impressionist paintings before the exhibit closes in early May. I definitely thought this was time well-spent, almost enough to make up for the lousy weather this Feb.
* For some reason I never got around to picking up this catalog, even though it is one the best monographs on Caillebotte out there. I ordered a copy just the other day (though I had to grit my teeth to pay the extra postage from the US).
Here is a lithograph by Vuillard that I was able to get close enough to view.
 |
| Edouard Vuillard, La Patisserie, 1899 |
There were also three lithographs of the Eiffel Tower, which was part of a series called Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower by Henri Riviere, who was attempting to bring the spirit of Hokusai to 19th Century Paris. I actually have a reprint of the entire album, and it is pretty neat.
I was pleasantly surprised by the number of Caillebotte paintings on view. I believe there are five, perhaps even six, including one from a private collection that has been on display at the AGO for a while. (I think the hope is that it will eventually be donated. It's certainly not a major work, but Caillebotte is among the rarer museum acquisitions (as he was wealthy enough he didn't need to sell his paintings to make a living), so it would be a bit of a coup to land one.)
This painting, from Geneva, was to me the stand-out work in the whole exhibition.
 |
| Gustave Caillebotte, Le Pont de l'Europe, 1876 |
.
I'd actually seen it previously, in a major Caillebotte retrospective* at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995, but it was great seeing it again.
In addition to some well chosen Pissarros, Sisleys and Monets, there were several paintings by Maximilien Luce, with whom I am much less familiar. While his large painting The Steelworks is very prominent, I particularly liked this smaller painting, Factory in the Moonlight.
 |
| Maximilien Luce, Factory in the Moonlight, 1898 |
The exhibition closed with a row of Monets. One is on loan from the McMaster Museum of Art, which I must admit I have never visited, while the other is from the AGO collection, though I am not certain I have ever seen it before.
 |
| Claude Monet, Charing Cross Bridge, Fog, 1902 |
The good news is that I will have several more times to see it and these other Impressionist paintings before the exhibit closes in early May. I definitely thought this was time well-spent, almost enough to make up for the lousy weather this Feb.
* For some reason I never got around to picking up this catalog, even though it is one the best monographs on Caillebotte out there. I ordered a copy just the other day (though I had to grit my teeth to pay the extra postage from the US).
Monday, February 18, 2019
12th Canadian Challenge - 12th Review - The Penelopiad
While it isn't strictly necessary to have read Homer's Odyssey prior to reading Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad (as she provides a bit of guidance in the introduction, as well as quite a number of asides by Penelope that comment on the main themes of the Odyssey), it is certainly a much richer experience if you are well versed in Odysseus's adventures. I'm going to write the rest of this review assuming you are at least somewhat versed in them as well and thus will not bother with the typical spoiler warnings for a story that is over 2000 years old...
Up until a month ago, I was familiar the overall outline of the Odyssey (and had read Joyce's Ulysses) but had never read the original. Now of course I still haven't read the original Greek, but I've read a couple of solid translations and thus it seemed like a good time to read Atwood's take on Homer.
Atwood focuses generally on the fact that Penelope doesn't do a whole lot in the Odyssey other than fall down on her bed a lot and cry, though she does assist in accelerating Odysseus's plan to rid his palace of the suitors by forging ahead with an archery contest (giving herself up as the first prize). Incidentally, Atwood is hardly the first scholar to suggest that Penelope easily saw through the disguise,* as it would hardly have made sense to give up on waiting for his safe return right after she had just received the most concrete news that he had not died after all. But Atwood focuses quite intently on the fact that Odysseus decided that quite a few of the palace maids were "bad apples," so he had his old nurse point out the worst, and she fingered twelve maids who were loose (having taken some of the suitors as lovers) and talked back. Melantho, the only maid named in the Odyssey, was particularly saucy and had no reverence even for Telemachus. Odyssey says they must all be killed (after they are forced to clean up the enormous, gory mess after the battle with the suitors) and delegates this task to Telemachus. Telemachus ends up hanging all 12 of the maids.
Atwood is really going for two things here. First, she wants to give voice to Penelope, though Penelope mostly tries to justify her general lack of agency (in the Odyssey) by saying that her mother had been a naiad (a water spirit) and had modelled the art of flowing around obstacles and not putting up too much open resistance. Second, she wants to make the case that the maids were actually acting on Penelope's behalf, getting close to the suitors and finding out things about them that Penelope could then use to play them off each other. If a few of them, such as Melantho, fell in love with the role** (and perhaps her suitor as well), that was a risk that Penelope had to run. Given that Penelope was locked away during the slaughter of the suitors (and hadn't been able to fully confide in Odysseus in his beggar garb), her biggest regret is that she didn't tell the nurse, Eurycleia, who might then have interceded to spare the maids. Nonetheless, Penelope still justifies her own actions in saying that she thought Eurycleia was a fairly big blabber-mouth who might have let the cat out of the bag too soon, i.e. at any point over the previous 10 years prior to Odysseus's return.
I should probably mention that all of this is being related as if Penelope is one of the spirits of the dead (just like the ones that Odysseus conjures up in Book XI) and Helen is also around, still tormenting her in various subtle ways. The maids are there as well. Odysseus puts in an appearance now and again, but he gets very upset by the maids, who seem to hold him the greatest blame, though they aren't too pleased with Penelope either. (Unless I totally missed it, Telemachus is just talked about but never really appears in the land of the dead.) While Penelope pleads with the maids to forgive her husband, since it was at least partly her own fault, they haunt him, dancing with their feet just off the ground, driving him slightly mad, so that he drinks of the river Lethe and gets reincarnated, leaving her again and again. (I'm almost certain that Atwood is drawing on Virgil here and not Homer.)
There are quite a few sly asides scattered throughout the book, particularly when Penelope and Helen meet up. She also points out that she doesn't know when or why the shroud that she delayed finishing up became known as Penelope's web (as if she were a spider), which doesn't please her. Basically, she isn't all that happy with her lot, but she also doesn't think that drinking from the river Lethe will necessarily lead to any more happiness (particularly as Atwood posits that after dying for a second or third time, the dead remember their past lives).
One of the more intriguing aspects of this novel is that it was actually turned into a stage play in 2007. I've actually seen it twice - first in Vancouver and then when George Brown put it on in Toronto in 2017. I passed on seeing Hart House do it, and apparently a theatre in London, Ont. just put it on recently. It's got pretty good legs for a relatively recent play, though of course it is by Atwood and has many, many roles for women (in fact, it is normally staged with an all-female crew, with the actors doubling as the maids and then all the other roles, male or female). While I like Enda Walsh's Penelope quite a bit, the focus is on the verbal pyrotechnics of four remaining suitors and Penelope is basically just a silent beacon to them. If anything she has even less agency (and voice) than she does in the Odyssey itself. That said, it doesn't appear Walsh's Penelope has ever played Toronto, and I do hope it does one of these days.
It does seem fitting that the cover of the play version of the Penelopiad focuses on the maids, which is the inevitable outcome when the focus is split away from Penelope to the suffering of the maids. It's not that they don't sing their songs of outrage in the novel, but there is a big difference between reading the words on the page and having 10 or 11 or 12 actors say them in unison!
After comparing the two editions, I would say that Atwood (and the theatre types that helped her whip this into shape) have done an excellent job in distilling the main points. You still have Penelope's discussion of her troubled childhood and her verbal sparring with Helen. There are plenty of sly asides. But the material is considerably tighter. While it is a shame that a couple of amusing stanzas of The Wily Sea Captain song are cut (it goes from 15 stanzas to 7), it is quite possible that the entire song would have just been a bit too much. That said, it is a particularly clever piece of writing in the original novel (it's section xiii), managing to squeeze in almost all of the key elements of the Odyssey, even his being rescued by Nausica and her maids on "laundry day." In the play, the second to last stanza really ought to end in "dodger" or "garage-er" or something. Instead it ends "'Tis she that does send his heart soaring!," which is a fine sentiment but doesn't rhyme with anything else in the song.
There are two sections of the novel that are dropped completely. One is a fabricated anthropology lecture on the significance of the number 12 in the original legend (section xxiv), while the other (section xxvi) is a People's Court trial where Odysseus is going to try to get relief from the plaintiffs (the Maids). While these are both interesting, they do stand out quite a bit from the rest of the novel and are post-modern trappings (which some people enjoy and others loathe). These two sections can fairly safely be excised for a tighter overall narrative. All things considered, the play version may be the best way to experience Atwood's Penelopiad, particularly if you can actually see it in performance.
* Athena had transformed Odysseus into the guise of an old beggar, going so far as to make most of his hair fall out.
** This is a deliberate echo of Jon Sinclair's poem on Thelonious Monk where Monk is accused of falling love with the act (of feigning madness).
Up until a month ago, I was familiar the overall outline of the Odyssey (and had read Joyce's Ulysses) but had never read the original. Now of course I still haven't read the original Greek, but I've read a couple of solid translations and thus it seemed like a good time to read Atwood's take on Homer.
Atwood focuses generally on the fact that Penelope doesn't do a whole lot in the Odyssey other than fall down on her bed a lot and cry, though she does assist in accelerating Odysseus's plan to rid his palace of the suitors by forging ahead with an archery contest (giving herself up as the first prize). Incidentally, Atwood is hardly the first scholar to suggest that Penelope easily saw through the disguise,* as it would hardly have made sense to give up on waiting for his safe return right after she had just received the most concrete news that he had not died after all. But Atwood focuses quite intently on the fact that Odysseus decided that quite a few of the palace maids were "bad apples," so he had his old nurse point out the worst, and she fingered twelve maids who were loose (having taken some of the suitors as lovers) and talked back. Melantho, the only maid named in the Odyssey, was particularly saucy and had no reverence even for Telemachus. Odyssey says they must all be killed (after they are forced to clean up the enormous, gory mess after the battle with the suitors) and delegates this task to Telemachus. Telemachus ends up hanging all 12 of the maids.
Atwood is really going for two things here. First, she wants to give voice to Penelope, though Penelope mostly tries to justify her general lack of agency (in the Odyssey) by saying that her mother had been a naiad (a water spirit) and had modelled the art of flowing around obstacles and not putting up too much open resistance. Second, she wants to make the case that the maids were actually acting on Penelope's behalf, getting close to the suitors and finding out things about them that Penelope could then use to play them off each other. If a few of them, such as Melantho, fell in love with the role** (and perhaps her suitor as well), that was a risk that Penelope had to run. Given that Penelope was locked away during the slaughter of the suitors (and hadn't been able to fully confide in Odysseus in his beggar garb), her biggest regret is that she didn't tell the nurse, Eurycleia, who might then have interceded to spare the maids. Nonetheless, Penelope still justifies her own actions in saying that she thought Eurycleia was a fairly big blabber-mouth who might have let the cat out of the bag too soon, i.e. at any point over the previous 10 years prior to Odysseus's return.
I should probably mention that all of this is being related as if Penelope is one of the spirits of the dead (just like the ones that Odysseus conjures up in Book XI) and Helen is also around, still tormenting her in various subtle ways. The maids are there as well. Odysseus puts in an appearance now and again, but he gets very upset by the maids, who seem to hold him the greatest blame, though they aren't too pleased with Penelope either. (Unless I totally missed it, Telemachus is just talked about but never really appears in the land of the dead.) While Penelope pleads with the maids to forgive her husband, since it was at least partly her own fault, they haunt him, dancing with their feet just off the ground, driving him slightly mad, so that he drinks of the river Lethe and gets reincarnated, leaving her again and again. (I'm almost certain that Atwood is drawing on Virgil here and not Homer.)
There are quite a few sly asides scattered throughout the book, particularly when Penelope and Helen meet up. She also points out that she doesn't know when or why the shroud that she delayed finishing up became known as Penelope's web (as if she were a spider), which doesn't please her. Basically, she isn't all that happy with her lot, but she also doesn't think that drinking from the river Lethe will necessarily lead to any more happiness (particularly as Atwood posits that after dying for a second or third time, the dead remember their past lives).
One of the more intriguing aspects of this novel is that it was actually turned into a stage play in 2007. I've actually seen it twice - first in Vancouver and then when George Brown put it on in Toronto in 2017. I passed on seeing Hart House do it, and apparently a theatre in London, Ont. just put it on recently. It's got pretty good legs for a relatively recent play, though of course it is by Atwood and has many, many roles for women (in fact, it is normally staged with an all-female crew, with the actors doubling as the maids and then all the other roles, male or female). While I like Enda Walsh's Penelope quite a bit, the focus is on the verbal pyrotechnics of four remaining suitors and Penelope is basically just a silent beacon to them. If anything she has even less agency (and voice) than she does in the Odyssey itself. That said, it doesn't appear Walsh's Penelope has ever played Toronto, and I do hope it does one of these days.
It does seem fitting that the cover of the play version of the Penelopiad focuses on the maids, which is the inevitable outcome when the focus is split away from Penelope to the suffering of the maids. It's not that they don't sing their songs of outrage in the novel, but there is a big difference between reading the words on the page and having 10 or 11 or 12 actors say them in unison!
After comparing the two editions, I would say that Atwood (and the theatre types that helped her whip this into shape) have done an excellent job in distilling the main points. You still have Penelope's discussion of her troubled childhood and her verbal sparring with Helen. There are plenty of sly asides. But the material is considerably tighter. While it is a shame that a couple of amusing stanzas of The Wily Sea Captain song are cut (it goes from 15 stanzas to 7), it is quite possible that the entire song would have just been a bit too much. That said, it is a particularly clever piece of writing in the original novel (it's section xiii), managing to squeeze in almost all of the key elements of the Odyssey, even his being rescued by Nausica and her maids on "laundry day." In the play, the second to last stanza really ought to end in "dodger" or "garage-er" or something. Instead it ends "'Tis she that does send his heart soaring!," which is a fine sentiment but doesn't rhyme with anything else in the song.
There are two sections of the novel that are dropped completely. One is a fabricated anthropology lecture on the significance of the number 12 in the original legend (section xxiv), while the other (section xxvi) is a People's Court trial where Odysseus is going to try to get relief from the plaintiffs (the Maids). While these are both interesting, they do stand out quite a bit from the rest of the novel and are post-modern trappings (which some people enjoy and others loathe). These two sections can fairly safely be excised for a tighter overall narrative. All things considered, the play version may be the best way to experience Atwood's Penelopiad, particularly if you can actually see it in performance.
* Athena had transformed Odysseus into the guise of an old beggar, going so far as to make most of his hair fall out.
** This is a deliberate echo of Jon Sinclair's poem on Thelonious Monk where Monk is accused of falling love with the act (of feigning madness).
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