Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all! How are you all? Good I hope. Lately I've seen a lot of change, it's a little hard to get used to. More time on my hands lately, which is not something I am used to at all. We'll see if I manage to thrive or drive myself mad.
So driven by the holiday today, I'm pushing my usual reviews post a few days. I have a big place in my heart for Irish literature. Every year around this time I try to take some time and reread The Dead by James Joyce. The Dubliners is the only work of his that I have made my way through. Give me time, someday I will tackle Ulysses. Someday. Joyce was the first writer to take stream-of-consciousness writing to it's full potential. His genius lies in the realization that literature can be more than what it was. Joyce gave literature the kick in the pants it needed. I am always amazed by those who realize the next evolution in an art form. In his short story The Dead Joyce sees the potential of post-modernism.
Lessons from Classic Literature: The Dead
1. Human Beings by nature are selfish. Gabriel spends nearly the entire night caught up in his own selfish needs and desires. He worries so much about himself that he is myopic to everyone around him.
2. Traditions are important. I love the aunt's and their family holiday party. When I was a young child my grandmother would have a similiar party every year. Everybody in the family would attend, even extended relatives that I would never know. These sortof get-togethers are essential.
3. When it comes to toasts keep it simple. Gabriel chooses to focus on the hosts of the evening: his aunts. By letting go of "the quote" he puts the focus on them and not himself. It is his first generous act of story.
4. We all need friends like Freddy Malins. Freddy is an easy moral scapegoat, but he's not so bad. Every group needs it's black sheep though.
5. All you need is love. Like the Beatles said Gabriel's epiphany at the end of the story is that love supercedes death. It is a link between the living and the dead.
Have a great couple of days! Book Slave.
4 comments:
Great analysis of the dead. Have you ever seen the John Huston movie? It's very true to the text and doesn't read any subtexts in, but it's a good film.
Thanks. Yes I have seen the movie by John Huston. So much of the story is internal and you can't translate that to a movie. Some stories just can't be adapted to a visual medium. Although I will say Angelica Huston kills her monologue at the end of the film.
It is great fun to apply your comments to Anne Pigone’s “The Ugly”, an Irish feminist’s rewrite of “The Dead”.
1. Human Beings by nature are selfish. Gabriel spends nearly the entire night caught up in his own selfish needs and desires. He worries so much about himself that he is myopic to everyone around him.
Pigone’s Gabriella is more uninterested than myopic about everyone around her.
2. Traditions are important. I love the aunt's and their family holiday party. When I was a young child my grandmother would have a similiar party every year. Everybody in the family would attend, even extended relatives that I would never know. These sortof get-togethers are essential.
The tradition in “The Ugly” is a wedding party, the carving of the bird in “The Dead” is the actual wedding ceremony in “The Ugly”, but as I see it, Gabriella sees this wedding as anything else but essential
3. When it comes to toasts keep it simple. Gabriel chooses to focus on the hosts of the evening: his aunts. By letting go of "the quote" he puts the focus on them and not himself. It is his first generous act of story.
I don’t agree with that assessment. I agree with Pigone that the speech is more pompous hypocrisy than anything else. I think Huston’s film makes the same interpretation as well.
4. We all need friends like Freddy Malins. Freddy is an easy moral scapegoat, but he's not so bad. Every group needs it's black sheep though.
Freddy Malins is Carmen in “The Ugly”. She could probably drink him under the table and then some.
5. All you need is love. Like the Beatles said Gabriel's epiphany at the end of the story is that love supercedes death. It is a link between the living and the dead.
This is what me think of “The Ugly” when I read your comments. After Gabriella’s speech the song taken up by the guests is “All You Need is Love”, in place of “Jolly Good Fellows”. That is an amazing coincidence if you didn’t have “The Ugly” in mind when you wrote these comments.
Actually I've never read "The Ugly" so I'm afraid the parallels are lost on me. I'll just have to add it to the evergrowing TBR pile. Thanks!
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