Dragonfly: Why Failure? (UPDATE)

Before leaving the idea of time travel and politics, I want to ruminate for a moment on Claire's particular historical perspective in Dragonfly:

     "What's to come."  What was to come?  I wondered.  What would come, if we were not successful in our efforts here, was an armed rebellion, an attempt at restoration of the Stuart monarchy, led by Prince Charles Edward Casimir Maria Sylvester Stuart, the son of the exiled king.
     "Bonnie Prince Charlie," I said softly to myself, looking over my reflection in the large pier glass.  He was here, now, in the same city, perhaps not too far away.  What would he be like?  I could think of him only in terms of his usual historical portrait, which showed a handsome, slightly effeminate youth of sixteen or so, with soft pink lips and powdered hair, in the fashion of the times.  Or the imagined paintings, showing a more robust version of the same thing, brandishing a broadsword as he stepped out of a boat onto the shore of Scotland.
     A Scotland he would ruin and lay waste in the effort to reclaim it for his father and himself.  Doomed to failure, he would attract enough support to cleave the country, and lead his followers through civil war to a bloody end on the field of Culloden.  Then he would flee to safety in France, but the retribution of his enemies would be exacted upon those he left behind.
     It was to prevent such a disaster that we had come.  It seemed incredible, thinking about it in the peace and luxury of Jared's house.  How did one stop a rebellion?  Well, if risings were fomented in taverns, perhaps they could be stopped over dinner tables.  (130-131)

There is a curious logic to Claire's and Jamie's attempt to prevent the Jacobite uprising.  There is no abstraction here--quite different from most 18th Century causes, in fact--no sense of justice or liberty to guide their endeavors.  Rather, this is what the genuine Jacobite's possess--and, in fact, what Geilis/Geilie possesses.

Knowing that an attempt--one, particular historical attempt--to recapture the throne of Scotland will end in failure, Claire decides that to prevent the failure, she (and Jamie) should try to prevent the attempt.  Best to stop the idealist--usurper?--rather than the English, who would be dealing out the retribution?  Assuming that it is possible to prevent the whole Rising, why would it not also be possible to insure its success?  If failure can be prevented by preventing the attempt, then surely failure might also be prevented by orchestrating success.  But then, how much of Claire's perspective comes from her own biases?  She was raised by an anthropologist, wedded to a historian, and remains altogether English.

For all the demonization of Geilis/Geilie, time traveler from 1968 whom, at this point in the narrative, the reader assumes burned as a witch, she is a Scot, and her (admittedly obsessive and fanatical) 1960s patriotism is a postcolonial one.  Perhaps it is once again a reactionary move that Claire, the representative of Empire, is the sympathetic voice?  Or perhaps the reader is asked to disagree with Claire and her prevention of the Rising.  I will be searching for narrative clues to whether the reader is asked to be skeptical of Claire's endeavor (which can theoretically happen--even though Claire controls the narrative).  I suspect that she is the voice of our sympathies--the worldly pacifist, or else the virtuous Imperialist.  At least, for now...

Update, January 10:

When I posited earlier that Claire chose failure rather than success for Charles Stuart's expedition, I was considering Claire's and Jamie's efforts to sabotage Charles's attempt at reclaiming the throne of Scotland in the hopes that he would change his mind and abandon the doomed quest. Since he does not change his mind, their efforts to sabotage and dissuade become successful efforts to sabotage his efforts--thereby insuring the failure of the Jacobite Rising. It's rather as if someone went back in time to sabotage the funding for weapons, supplies, and boats to carry soldiers to the beaches of Normandy in order to prevent the invasion from happening and prevent loss of life, only to have the plans carried out with inadequate resources so that the invasion ultimately fails, resulting in even more massive loss of life.  Except that in the case of Culloden, history does not change.

When it becomes clear that Charles has involved Jamie in treason, only one option remains. As his sister Jenny says,

"There's only one thing ye can do, my dearie. Ye must go and fight for Charles Stuart. Ye must help him win." (584)

Considering that Jamie is effectively forced to play the role he has been feigning throughout the novel, it becomes lamentable that he and Claire had indeed "succeeded in preventing Charles Stuart from getting money to finance his rebellion" (592). How, then, if they had instead used Jamie's business sense to finance it, and his apparent magnetism to gain the support of the nobles and the king?  Might we have had a genre change? And a whole lot more work for the author in the coming volumes?

Is it in fact the case that Jamie and Claire orchestrated the self-fulfilling prophecy of Culloden and the failed uprising and destruction of the Highland clans?

Speculative food for thought...

The Thing About Time Travel - Pt. 2

This discussion of time travel is continued from The Thing About Time Travel - Pt. 1.

I've already mentioned that it was hard for me to read Dragonfly in Amber the first time.  Let me qualify that--it was hard for me to reconcile myself to the beginning of the novel and its implications.  Once I was reading, I was zipping through.  However, it was very difficult for me to suspend my disbelief--specifically with reference to the time travel.  What was the problem?--you might wonder.  It clearly wasn't an issue with Outlander.  Stepping through standing stones into the 18th C--why not?  But hindsight-is-not-quite-20-20 with a time traveler transported the 18th C?--not so much.  Even so, there was a lot to keep me zipping through, and I will continue to chronicle those things.  But the whole premise--"should we change the course of history?"--grated on me.

It seems to me that the whole question of "changing the future" by the time traveler's actions is a fruitless question.  It's something akin to the "chicken and the egg."  Sure--the act of time travel changes something.  It must, right?  If we believe that even the smallest thing affects everything else, and we want to believe this.  George Bailey knows it to be true, whatever the dark, Walmart-facilitating, community-destroying implications of his progressive endeavors.

But here's the thing...  In the future from which the proverbial time traveler departs, it is not necessarily clear whether the time traveler's experience in the past has already happened.

Now, I don't know anything about Dr. Who, so perhaps the creators of the Dr. Who series (both of them) deal with this issue better.  But as a child of the 80s, I was raised on the logic of Back to the Future, so I know a thing or two about how time travel is supposed to work--when you go to the past, you either have to stay out of the way to prevent crucial events from being interrupted, or you have to engineer a way to get them back on the right track again--hopefully with better results than the first go-round.

These days, the time travel motif--its groundwork firmly laid by Back to the Future--can be casually employed without over-explanation (that whole "space-time continuum" thing) in the Disney children's series Phineas and Ferb.  Though the show is generally a stroke of genius, I nevertheless quibble a bit with their elimination of "alternate universe" Candace.  In the manner of Heinlein, in The Cat who Walks through Walls, I would like to see the alternate histories existing as parallels.

Heinlein employs agents in The Cat who Walks through Walls (O! Wikipedia, how I hate thee!) to alter history in a way that will be favorable to their cause--possibly the Lunar Revolt.  Each altered timeline creates a parallel universe in which events continue along their logical paths.  Long before I read the (somewhat convoluted) Cat who Walks through Walls, I remember seeing ads for a short-lived TV-show called Voyagers!, in which time-traveling agents are sent to correct historical events that were somehow disrupted.  Given the dates, I am surprised that I remember the commercial so vividly, but I do: a boy's shrill voice intones, "Moses was found by the pharaoh's daughter--" [pushes basket] "--in the Nile!"  We can only be grateful that the constraints of the TV show did not allow for the creation of parallel timelines.  There was only one, and its events were either correct or incorrect.

The Outlander books deal with time travel as a dilemma more or less frequently, depending on the novel.  The question hangs over Dragonfly in Amber like the sword of Damocles--(I stand by the metaphor)--because the actions of Claire and Jamie (which include multiple counts of betrayal) hinge on the question of whether one (or two) mere mortals might prevent the disastrous Battle of Culloden--or the entire Jacobite Rising of 1745.

George Bailey notwithstanding, I don't believe in the ability of one person or two to make that kind of impact, even with the benefit of limited hindsight.  It seems the height of arrogance for them to make the attempt, particularly since Claire, in so doing, completely sacrifices Jamie's personal honor.  So my own skepticism limits my enjoyment--and it's pretty important to be able to admit to these biases when reading.  It's part of the "rhetorical situation" of the reader.

Literarily speaking, if the characters accomplish what they set out to do, the books would change from historical fiction to alternate history.  So if we know what genre we're reading, it's a foregone conclusion.  Watching machinations that are doomed to failure makes me glaze over a bit, right up to the point when political intrigue becomes personal tragedy.  Consider the classic Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever," which crosses personal and political destinies as Kirk is forced to sacrifice the woman he loves to prevent Hitler from winning World War II.

A far more interesting question to me--and perhaps what I think we should be asking--is whether history as the characters know it (which is also how the reader knows it) depends on time travel itself.  In Outlander, there is implicit suggestion of this very question in Claire's instructions to Jenny of what she should do to prepare for impending doom:

     "Plant potatoes," I said. 

     Jenny's mouth dropped slightly open, then she firmed her jaw and nodded briskly. "Potatoes. Aye. There's none closer than Edinburgh, but I'll send for them. How many?" 

     "As many as you can. They're not planted in the Highlands now, but they will be.  They're a root crop that will keep for a long time, and the yield is better than wheat.  Put as much ground as you can into crops that can be stored.  There's going to be a famine, a bad one, in two years.  If there's land or property that's not productive now, sell it, for gold.  There's going to be a war, and slaughter.  Men will be hunted, here and everywhere through the Highlands." (Outlander 672)

In preparing Lallybroch for the aftermath of Culloden, which in the 20th Century is historical fact, Claire might raise a question in the mind of the reader--when were potatoes introduced to the Highlands? Is the introduction of potatoes--and the survival of Lallybroch--a fact in Claire's 20th Century as well?  It is impossible to know, since Lallybroch was not on Claire's radar when she was in the 20th C (the first time--sigh).

The question of how time travel influences personal history is a little easier--both easier to accept change and easier to see the influence that has already occurred.  Would, for example, characters not exist had someone else not traveled back in time?  Well, no.  In fact, some characters would not exist if a time traveler had not traveled to the past.  So there are clues that the things Claire will go back and do in the 1740s will have already affected the future/present of1945 or 1965...  The very existence of Roger MacKenzie Wakefield--descendant of a woman who went from the 1960s to the 1740s (and arrived before Claire, our traveler from 1945)--strongly implies that history as we know it depends on the activity of time travel.  That's a little bit mind blowing, but not unprecedented!

Re-enter pop culture.  The Futurama episode "Roswell that Ends Well" actually has a nice treatment of the paradox of time travel--Professor Farnsworth's warning to the crewe is "You mustn't interfere with the past.  Don't do anything that affects anything.  Unless it turns out that you were supposed to do it; in which case, for the love of God, don't not do it!"  Fry takes the advice to heart, and when he inadvertently places his (presumed) grandfather in the way of nuclear testing, he assumes that his grandma must not, in fact, be his grandma, and assures his own existence by yielding to her advances.  History--and thus, the future--depend on time travel.

Meanwhile, H. G. Wells' time traveler plays it safe--he leaves the past alone and only meddles in the future, where he can't jeopardize his own existence or the history of the world.

I'm not going to touch Time Bandits.  After all, it proceeds from the warped mind of Terry Gilliam.

For me, having the characters actions explain history, or tie neatly into it, is preferable.  When there is a neat intersection, I can sit back and admire the cleverness of it all.  If changing history is going to be a valid possibility in a time travel novel, go big with it.  Have the Americans lose the Revolutionary War--I dare you!  But accept the consequences, and show me what would have happened. It never really is a possibility in the Outlander novels.  We know that from Roger's date with Brianna to view the Culloden battlefield in the beginning of Dragonfly in Amber that Jamie and Claire do not succeed.

So at the end of the day--and the novel--it really is the personal tragedy that is most important, and the impulse to change history, the hubris that propels it.  The function of the fantasy element, then?  Perhaps to reveal that hubris for what it is, and to justify Claire's suffering when she returns to the 20th Century.

The Thing About Time Travel - Pt. 1

     "And you, my Sassenach?  What were you born for? To be lady of a manor, or to sleep in the fields like a gypsy? To be a healer, or a don's wife, or an outlaw's lady?" 

     "I was born for you," I said simply, and held out my arms to him. (Outlander 650)

Admittedly, I couldn't resist this quote.  The beautiful thing about a blog post as compared to, say, an academic paper, is that you can quote simply for the sake of quoting, without heavy justification.  Not that academics don't quote because they feel like it--they simply load on the justification afterwards.  I do in fact have a reason for quoting this particular exchange--and it has to do with the complexity of who one is meant to be--one's vocation if you will--to which I will no doubt return when the question of Claire's doctoring becomes a narrative "big deal."  But here, the question of vocation is bound to marriage, and to what kind of man Claire is meant to be joined.  There is a strong sense of destiny that is very romantic, but not particularly Catholic--perhaps more pagan, or a hint of Scots Presbyterian predestination?

These lines also show Claire leaving behind a husband she chose--in the 20th Century--for one she did not choose in the same kind of conscious act of will, reversing a trope of Celtic music that is represented by such songs as "Mattie Groves" (one of the Child ballads) and "Raggle Taggle Gypsy" (which I first heard performed by the Jolly Rogues on the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast).  In these songs (and many more), the woman leaves or betrays the man she has married or been forced to marry for money or status for a man with only his charms.  Jamie is like those ideal men because he is less strictly "civilized" and does, in fact, have only his charms to offer.

And there is yet another question embedded here--can one be born in the future for someone who exists in the past?

The time travel post has been long in coming.  I'm posting now, in part, because we're heading into the new year, and it seems appropriate.  I am also posting now because I'm rereading Dragonfly in Amber, and in some ways the notion of time travel is more important to this particular novel than to Outlander--though for me, less satisfying, as it brings up more of the frustrations of the time travel motif.

If you ask "why time travel?" in reference to Outlander--which you might, considering that it could have been a perfectly satisfying historical novel without time travel--what do you get?  Well, a change in genre, for starters, and a whole fan base of druid-wannabes who will be stalking stone circles all over the British isles in the hopes of finding Jamie.  The kind of fan base that I belonged to in my Mists of Avalon days back in high school.  But that change in genre is important, because the addition of a fantasy element suggests that there's something more to the story than meets the eye.  Fantasy functions rhetorically to turn the reader's mind to difference, or to wonder.

In Outlander, the time travel difference throws into sharp relief the difference between the men--Frank and Jamie--and all they represent to Claire.  If there wasn't a suave, sophisticated, worldly, experienced Frank to calmly ask whether Claire had had an affair during the war (in not so many words) and reassure her that it would be okay (whether sincerely or not), then Jamie's sexual inexperience and more physical, rough worldliness would not have a foil.  The reader would only have his or her (let's just say "her," shall we?) experience of the Twentieth- and Twenty-first centuries to draw on for comparison, and with only a historical novel, neatly contained in the Eighteenth Century, would the reader make the comparison?  Some might.  I venture to say, though, that most wouldn't.  The novel's representation of the past would reflect only on the past, and the reader would remain quite comfortably in her own present, content to believe her current circumstance preferable in everything except the lack of a 6-foot Scot with rippling muscles and flaming red hair.  Oh, and a kilt.  Commando.

Time travel, as the "fantasy element,"functions as a means of turning the reader's attention to the contrast between the two time periods--and it does so admirably well, for the reader who is open to it.  Now, for my sister, who had regrettably read Outlander before I gave it to her for Christmas, the dilemma of whether Claire should return to Frank was a false one, given the (to her) obvious choice of Jamie.  But (Catholic understanding of faithfulness, Sacrament, and marriage vows notwithstanding), the choice of 20th Century husband vs. 18th Century husband, possible only because of time travel, underscores the differences between the men who are constructed by the centuries they inhabit.  And if the decks are stacked a bit against Frank, well... they just are.  But they're stacked against the 20th Century as well.

Now, none of this touches what I find bothersome and irritating about time travel.  And for that, because I'm being conscious of the length of my posts, you will have to wait for part 2, due after New Year's so that we can do a little time traveling ourselves.  (I know, I know.)

Happy New Year, friends!

Dragonfly: Things

The novel Dragonfly in Amber opens with Roger Wakefield clearing his deceased foster-father's house of the latter's possessions.  The first time I read the novel, I was trying to overcome the trauma of the transition between book 1 and book 2--and it was traumatic.  It took me a while to work up the will to read it because I didn't--DIDN'T--want to hear that what had (apparently) happened, happened.  So as Roger looks through the later Reverend's possessions, I didn't particularly notice what the possessions were, though I did catch the general significance of the Reverend's Jacobite artifacts, and his interest in the eighteenth century.  Nothing is placed by accident in a novel, so just for the record:

He moved toward one of the tables and picked up a smal china dish.  It was filled with small metal rectangles; lead "gaberlunzies," badges issued to eighteenth-century beggars by parishes as a sort of license.  A collection of stoneware bottles stood by the lamp, a ramshorn snuff mull, banded in silver, next to them.  (4)

The snuff mull calls to my mind Claire's attempt to spring Jamie from Wentworth prison.  Murtagh uses attempted theft as an excuse for knocking out the guard, but when Claire suggests that he take something--a snuffbox--to make it convincing, he scoffs--actual theft is a capital offense, while attempted theft is a much lighter sentence (maiming or flogging).  The snuff mull is further described as having inscriptions, "the names and dates of the Deacons and Treasurers of the Incorporation of Tailors of the Canongate, from Edinburgh, 1726" (4), but this is a detail that I can't fit into place at this point.

The "gaberlunzies" recall Jamie's friend Hugh Munro from Outlander, who gives Claire the dragonfly in amber that provides the novel's title.

I admit to having been a bit perplexed at the title otherwise.  However, there is an explanatory moment when the sense of self that a child possesses from birth, that develops during the toddler years, puts up defenses during the teen years, and then hardens itself against the world through adulthood is described as that dragonfly (69-70). The narrative voice of Claire explains:

I had thought I was well beyond that stage, had lost all trace of softness and was well set on my way to a middle age of stainless steel. But now I thought that Frank's death had cracked him in some way. And the cracks were widening, so that I could no longer patch them with denial. (70)

By this early analogy, the formation of Claire's self in relation to--and through--Jamie, and the whittling away of the amber, are the subjects of the novel.  And yet, in some ways, I would argue that the true subject of the novel is the reconstruction of Jamie--and especially, of Jamie's manhood--in Claire's image.  And it takes, in my opinion, the next few novels for Jamie to recover his own sense of self in relation to his time-traveling wife--and time travel itself is very much to blame.

Outlander: Ghosts

By way of wrapping up my posts on Outlander, I want to step back into the early chapters of the book, before Claire is transported to the 18th Century.  There is a moment so haunting that it stays with me, and periodically, while reading the rest of the series, I wonder how it could happen, and if it will be explained.  Had Outlander been a stand-alone book, it would not need to be explained the same way, because, (paradoxically) with less detail provided, the mystery would not require explanation.  But as it is, I think back occasionally, and think, "But when--and why?"

It is not a moment that involves Claire, but her (first, 20th Century) husband Frank.  Returning to their lodgings on a blustery night, Frank recounts, in stages, what he has seen:

"Well, only a man, really," he began, measuring out a jigger for himself and two for me. "Standing down in the road outside."
...
"Yes, he was down at the edge of the garden on this side, standing by the fence.  I thought"--he hesitated, looking down into his glass--"I rather thought he was looking up at your window."
...
"[H]e seemed terribly unhappy about something.  Not that I could see his face well; just something about the wat he moved.  I came up behind him, and when he didn't move, I asked politely if I could help him with something. He acted at first as tough he didn't hear me, and I thought perhaps he didn't, over the noise of the wind, so I repeated myself, and I reached to tap his shoulder, to get his attention, you know. But before I could touch him, he whirled suddenly round and pushed past me and walked off down the road." (19-20)

Asked to describe the figure, whom Claire observes sounds "rude," but "not very ghostly," Frank reviews both his appearance and what was, in fact, ghostly:

"Big chap," said Frank, frowning in recollection.  "And a Scot, in complete Highland rig-out, complete to sporran and the most beautiful running-stag brooch on his plaid.  I wanted to ask where he'd got it from, but he was off before I could."
...
"[I]t wasn't his dress that was odd.  But when he pushed past me, I could swear he was close enough that I should have felt him brush my sleeve--but I didn't.  And I was intrigued enough to turn round and watch him as he walked away.  He walked down the Gereside Road, but when he'd almost reached the corner, he. . . disappeared."
...
"The wind was cutting up like billy-o, but his drapes--his kilts and his plaid, you know--they didn't move at all, except to the stir of his walking." (20)

The Outlander books are peopled with ghosts, and this is merely the first appearance.  But most often, they seem present to people who want or need them, and provide some kind of comfort. This early apparition, whom we will later recognize as Jamie, is mournful, and roaming.  And in particular--and most disturbingly--he seems to be separated from Claire.

I find it interesting that Jamie seeks Claire in a time when he has not entered into her life, but hundreds of years after he was part of his.  It speaks to the nature of the connection between them, but it suggests a parting--the kind of parting that their vows forbid:

Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone. 

I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.  

I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done.  (267)

If their parting from life should be a parting in the afterlife as well, then that undermines the spiritual and physical unity built up in the novels.  But the afterlife is uncertain, and mysterious, and perhaps there is something in the novels' cosmology that would explain the apparent contradiction.  I hope not!  If having the mystery solved means having Jamie roaming after death, separated from Claire, I would prefer not to have the mystery solved.  After all, I'm Catholic.  I'm okay with m/Mystery!

Happy Christmas, friends!

Outlander: Gaining (18th C) Perspective...

This is likely my penultimate post on Outlander.  One of the things I have tried to avoid is analyzing the most dramatic events, or disclosing too much for a potential reader.  So there is one major even that I will not discuss.  And really? I enjoy looking at the smaller moments.  The larger ones make their own impact.  The small things that really give the novel its character are more easily overlooked.

In one of my earlier posts, I mention how the novel draws the reader's attention to our historical biases, catching the reader in the act of thinking like a 21st Century person.  One such moment occurs in one of the final chapters in the novel, as Claire, unnoticed, observes Jaime examining his mutilated right hand, which she has set for him.  First, she examines the hand with him, from a distance, and from the doctor's perspective, taking responsibility for the current state of the injured hand:

     The stigma of the nail wound in the palm of the hand was quite small, and well healed, I was glad to see; no more than a small pink knot of scar tissue that would gradually fade.  On the back of the hand, the situation was not so favorable.  Eroded by infection, the wound there covered an area the size of sixpence, still patched with scabs and the rawness of a new scar.
     The middle finger, too, showed a jagged ridge of pink scar tissue, running from just below the first joint almost to the knuckle.  Released from their splints, the thumb and index finger were straight, but the little finger was badly twisted; that one had had three separate fractures, I remembered, and apparently I had not been able to set them all properly.  The ring finger was set oddly, so that it protruded slightly upward when he laid the hand flat on the table, as he did now.
     Turning the palm upward, he began to manipulate the fingers gently.  None would bend more than an inch or two; the ring finger not at all.  As I had feared, the second joint was likely permanently frozen.  (838)

When, in an earlier chapter, she sets the bones in the hand, Claire regrets the absence of modern medical conveniences--notably, the x-ray machine.  Her examination of Jamie's hand focuses on the shortcomings in her abilities, and it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that these shortcomings are, from the perspective of the WWII field nurse, due to the absence of the proper equipment. Claire's Twentieth-Century perspective guides her interpretation of Jamie's emotional reaction as he examines the hand:

     He turned the hand to and fro, holding it before his face, watching the stiff, twisted fingers and the ugly scars, mercilessly vivid in the sunlight.  Then he suddenly bent his head, clutching the injured hand to his chest, covering it protectively with the sound one.  He made no sound, but the wide shoulders trembled briefly.
     "Jamie." I crossed the room swiftly and knelt beside him, putting my hand softly on his knee.
     "Jamie, I'm sorry," I said.  "I did the best that I could."
     He looked down at me in astonishment.  [....]
     "What?" he said, gulping, clearly taken aback at my sudden appearance.  "Sorry?  For what, Sassenach?"
     "Your hand." I reached out and took it....
     "It will get better," I assured him anxiously.  "Really it will.  I know it seems stiff and useless right now, but that's only because it's been splinted so long, and the bones haven't fully knitted yet.  I can show you how to exercise, and massage.  You'll get back a good deal of the use of it, honestly---"
     "Did you mean...?" [...] "Sassenach," he said, "ye didna think that I was grieving for a stiff finger and a few more scars?"  He smiled, a little crookedly.  "I'm a vain man, maybe, but it doesna go that deep, I hope." (838-839)

At this point, the narrative has led the reader through Claire's perspective, which is close to our own.  We want perfection and wholeness, because we have medicine and science that offer near-perfection and wholeness.  Jamie's words, rather than reflection on his own vanity, register as an indictment of our own time, with its vanities.  He continues:

"I was crying for joy, my Sassenach," he said softly.  He reached out slowly and took my face between his hands.  "And thanking God that I have two hands to hold you with.  To serve you with, to love you with.  Thanking God that I am a whole man still, because of you." (839)

These words, spoken within the walls of an abbey, remind Claire and the reader that the practice of amputation was historically the only (limited) way to prevent infection of damaged limbs that could not be repaired because of incomplete anatomical knowledge, among other things.  Beyond the practical concern--that a man with missing limbs would have limited prosthetic options (Jamie's brother-in-law has a wooden leg), and would have strict limitations on his abilities and ability to support himself and his family--the phrase, "I am a whole man still," which also suggests his other, primary anatomical manifestation of manhood, evokes bodily integrity--the bodily integrity that would, according to Catholic theology, be preserved in heaven after the General Resurrection (the reason why Catholicism has always either prohibited or discouraged cremation).  By saving that part of his body, Claire has saved part of his soul.  But she was, until that moment, in ignorance of his fear:

[T]hen I remembered the butcherous assortment of saws and knives I had seen among Beaton's implements at Leoch, and I knew.  Knew what I had forgotten when I had been faced with the emergency.  That in the days before antibiotics, the usual--the only--cure for an infected extremity was amputation of the limb. (839)

Thus, while a Twentieth- or Twenty-first Century sensibility agonizes over ugliness, imperfection, and limited use, the Eighteenth Century man rejoices in the soundness of his flesh, and the wholeness of his body, which is, after all, the container for the soul.

Outlander: Innocence and Experience Pt. 2

Claire's sexual experiences in the Twentieth Century--from her first kiss at 8, then premarital sex (mentioned casually in a later novel) before wedding Frank--as compared with Jaime's relative inexperience throughout the series, highlight i/Innocence in a way that ultimately transcends sexual inexperience.  In this first book at least, Jamie--in spite of his experience of war and colonial "justice"--is an innocent.  He is a virgin, he has a strong sense of honor, and his sense of honor is, at least partially, tied to his idea of virginity.  Beyond a demonstrated unwillingness to compromise Claire's honor when they are mere acquaintances by spending the night in her room, and absolute indignation at the idea that he might have bedded Claire without wedding her, Jaime recounts his father's romanticism and good advice:

"[O]nce I got old enough for such a thing to be a possibility, he told me that a man must be responsible for any seed he sows, for it's his duty to take care of a woman and protect her.  And if I wasna prepared to do that, then I'd no right to burden a woman with the consequences of my own actions." (602)

and

"He said the greatest thing in a man's life is to lie wi' a woman he loves...." (603)

It is important to recognize the tie between sex and love in the latter, and the tie between sex and reproduction in the former.  These--and the concept of honor that, for Jamie, ties them all up in a neat package--go hand-in-hand with his innocence.  Though his r/Romanticism sets him apart from the men around him, many of whom do exploit women, he is also set apart from Claire's time, in part by comparison with Frank's experience:

There was nearly fifteen years' difference in their ages, for one thing, which likely accounted for some of the differences between Frank's urbane reserve and Jamie's frank openness.  As a lover, Frank was polished, sophisticated, considerate, and skilled.  Lacking experience or the pretense of it, Jamie simply gave me all of himself, without reservation. (305)

Earlier, the narrative voice of Claire had remarked that he "made love with a sort of unflagging joy that made [her] think that male virginity might be a highly underrated commodity" (287).

Not surprisingly, Jamie's innocence--almost prelapsarian--is the blurring of the distinction between soul and body--a split that manifests itself in striking ways when the texts introduce additional Twentieth-century characters.

Claire responds to Jamie's innocence.  It connects her soul to his.  But she views the world through her Twentieth-century lens of experience (represented by her own early experiences of physical demonstration), which Jamie negotiates from his vantage point:

     "Not the same thing, is it?" I said.  "Loving and wanting, I mean."
     He laughed, a little huskily.  "Damn close, Sassenach, for me, at least." (599)

It is Jaime's i/Innocence, here, that closes the gap between the physical (wanting) and the spiritual (loving).

***

And in some ways, Claire steals his innocence--a topic I will revisit when I move through Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager.

ROTK: Thinking about Denethor

On Friday, December 14,  many lives were interrupted--some permanently.  In the face of this, I am interrupting my posts on Outlander, just for a moment.

On Friday, December 14, Peter Jackson also released another of his interpretations of Tolkien.  I have not seen The Hobbit.  But I remember that, when Fellowship of the Rings was released into theaters on the heels of September 11, 2001, it offered some comfort in its portrayal of Tolkien's noble, beautiful Middle Earth--a world that was crumbling, but was still worth fighting for.  The film reminded us, in Tolkien's words, that "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."  It gave us a vision of joining hands and bravely facing what might lie ahead, however beautiful or terrible.

By the third film, many of these ideas--prominent in Tolkien-- had been left by the wayside, or reduced to an afterthought.  I focus on Denethor, because Jackson's film gives us a vision of Denethor as a near-demonic madman, first with a mouth full of berry juice, dripping red down his chin--heavily (and heavy-handedly) symbolic of the blood of his people, and of a flaming Denethor hurling himself off a cliff.

Denethor has always registered with me as painfully tragic.  He kills himself, and tries to kill his son.  He is corrupted by the absolute evil of Sauron.  But he is not a demon, or, strictly speaking, a monster.  He is simply a soul in absolute despair.  And Tolkien gives the reader, in the words of Gandalf, the tools to understand Denethor's actions:

"Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death," answered Gandalf.  "And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair, murdering their kin to ease their own death." (835)

Because of his despair and pride in his own false knowledge, Denethor is unable to face life.  But he is equally unable to face death alone.

Tolkien evokes "heathen kings."  Wives thrown onto the pyres at Norse funerals, or buried alive.  The accompaniment of souls into the afterlife is an idea evoked in Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, when Nimue kills herself after betraying Kevin the Bard to his death--Morgaine is comforted that Kevin will have someone waiting for him on the other side.

We are afraid of death.  We seek company in our fear.  We want a blaze of destruction to signify our mark on the world, and to give us the courage to die.  A grand gesture.  I am reminded of the video to Pearl Jam's "Jeremy," which does not (as some suggested when the video was popular) show the boy committing an act of violence on others, but rather, depicts suicide and death as a grand performance.  It is a madness of pride and egotism.  But it is very, painfully, human--and a symptom of our broken world.  A world that, in some ways, returns to primitive customs in the absence of Faith and in response to despair.

And as we ask why, one discourse is lacking--a discourse that centers on our fear of death, but also human desire for companionship, despair in isolation, and pervasive lack of faith in a world to come, or in a God who will comfort us on the other side.

Outlander: Innocence and Experience Pt 1 (-or- Analysis of a Misreading)

I pause tonight on a troubling passage that requires a bit more work than a fluid, popular novel should--not because of its difficulty, but because of its ambiguity.  The curious passage occurs as Jaime and Claire are discussing how Jaime happened to remain a virgin for 23 years, which involves a story of his first kissing his cousin--at 14--and the consequent conversation with his uncle, which resulted in his not kissing another girl until he was 16.  The passage goes something like this:

    "And what of you, my bonny Sassenach?" he asked, grinning.  "Did ye have the wee laddies panting at your heels, or were ye shy and maidenly?"
     "A bit less then you," I said circumspectly.  "I was eight."
     "Jezebel.  Who was the lucky lad?"
     "The dragoman's son.  That was in Egypt.  He was nine."
     "Och, well, you're no to blame then.  Led astray by an older man.  And a bloody heathen, no less." (605).

I admit to being troubled by this the first time I read it.  Why, I wondered, should the author make this particular decision?  I have seen numerous discussions--academic and less so--on childhood sexuality, including claims from adults that they had sexual encounters which were not forced, with peers at young ages.  And certainly children can be sexually curious.  But what this passage seemed to be implying seemed a bit extreme, first.  Second, Claire's revelation does not at all disconcert Jaime, who simply laughs it off.  Jaime's opinion of sexual honor has been well established, and in later novels, he expresses shock that Claire was not a virgin when she was first married (to Frank, in the 20th Century). That seemed to me to contradict this exchange rather blatantly.

Or does it?

It occurs to me that my puzzle is based on a misreading.  There are two possibilities here.  Since they are discussing virginity, Claire could be referring to her own when she says, "I was eight."  (Because I tell you--no claim related to sexuality is so far-fetched that it couldn't show up in fiction.)  But they are also talking about kissing.  So I will now eagerly conclude that Claire's first kiss was a 9-year-old Egyptian boy, when she was eight.  And that makes me much happier.  Though seriously?  I shouldn't have had to work so hard to get there.  I think the author was being cryptic.  Although no doubt scholarship on childhood sexuality has poisoned my brain, influencing my initial interpretation.

Outlander: Wives and Punishment

The contemporary mind recoils from wife-beating.  It largely rejects physical punishment of any kind except that self-inflicted kind that falls under the heading of keeping 'fit'.  So spanking as child discipline frequently registers as child abuse.  Corporal punishment in schools is still on the books in Texas, but is generally rejected.  And it is from this vantage point--this thoroughly modern rejection of physical punishment--that the reader shares in Claire's outrage that her new husband proposes to physically discipline her--an adult woman, his beloved wife--by taking a strap to her bare @ss.

I am certain that I disapproved when I first read the novel.  I must have disapproved.  I was not necessarily outraged, because it is, after all, a historical novel, and I was wholeheartedly along for the ride.  We have already had two near-rapes, by this point, as well as a forced marriage, so the real questions are 1) whether Jaime will go through with it, and 2) how or whether Claire--with her 20th Century sensibilities--will react to it.  There are two additional questions, however:  3) how the narrative will justify it, and 4) whether the reader can accept it.  #4 depends, of course, on the answer to #3, and in justifying corporal punishment of a wife, the text returns to the physicality of existence--the embodiment of the individual consciousness.

In preparing Claire for her punishment, Jamie stresses the influence of the body on the mind:

"Now, listen.  Ye understand me, ye say, and I believe it. But there's a difference between understandin' something with your mind and really knowing it, deep down. [...] I will have to punish you... so that you will know." (392)

Truth, he suggests, is felt in the body in a more real way than it is known in the mind.  As troubling as the situation is to a modern sensibility, corporal punishment will reinforce what she has already confessed to understanding--that she needs to obey and trust her husband, because he knows the tangible consequences of action in a way that she does not.

Without knowledge of where she has come from, Jamie nevertheless connects Claire's failure to understand the physical, tangible realities of existence to her origins:

"Ye come from a place where things are easier, I think.  'Tis not a matter of life and death where ye come from, to disobey orders or take matters into your own hands.  At worst, ye might cause someone discomfort, or be a bit of a nuisance, but it isn't likely to get someone killed." [...] "It's the hard truth that a light action can have verra serious consequences in places and times like these." (391)

In Claire's time, things happen on a different scale, and though she feels connected to the horrors of mechanized warfare, she is detached from the relationship between personal actions and consequences.  Consequences in the modern world are less harsh, less tangible, and less connected to the physical reality of existence.

There are other possible justifications for corporal punishment in Claire's case, if one allows for one minute that corporal punishment of a wife by a husband can be justifiable.  The reader might consider the fact that Claire has just betrayed Jaime--not simply refused to follow his orders, but engaged in an actual act of betrayal, which, however justified, was still betrayal.  The narrative allows the reader to sympathize with Claire's motives, however, so this is not a valid justification for corporal punishment--even if the mind were inclined to turn in that direction, which it likely is not.

Jamie also provides possible justifications by painting a picture of the 18th Century Scottish culture of corporal punishment.  His stories of being beaten evoke a kind of primitive justice--but one meted out by elders and parents to children, not by a husband to a wife, whom we would wish to see as his equal. The closest we come to accepting this kind of logical rationale based on a kind of justice comes from a different analogy--the punishment of a wife as akin to the punishment of a soldier.

Before she knows that Jamie plans to discipline her, Jamie presses Claire to understand the seriousness of her actions:

"Do ye realize, Claire.. that all of us came close to bein' killed this afternoon? [...] Aye, so ye realize," he said. "Do ye know that if a man among us had done such a thing, to put the rest in danger, he would ha' likely had his ears cropped, or been flogged, if not killed outright?" (390)

 A kind of equality arises, in which Claire is put on par with the men in the party, who would also be expected to follow orders and to avoid acting rashly and putting the others in jeopardy.  Again, he stresses:

"There's such a thing as justice, Claire,  You've done wrong to them all, and you'll have to suffer for it."  He took a deep breath. "I'm your husband; it's my duty to attend to it, and I mean to do it." (392)

Outlander: Reactionary Moments #2

I should say that the Outlander books are looooooong books.  The small paperback I have is 850 pages.  This means that I will have many more "moments" (no--not generally THOSE kind of moments) before I'm finished reading.  That was my disclaimer--I hope I don't lose you along the way, and that you will be interested in what I'm saying even if you're not interested in the book, per se.

What I'm calling the "reactionary" moments interest me in particular.  The novels are not quite fantasy--fantasy has been presumed traditionalist.  They are not quite that, either.  They are mostly historical fiction, and I've mentioned before that the author flirts with a romance classification, which could almost be justified by the fact that it's a forced marriage, but the heroine likes it.  It's not the "romance" style of reactionary novel that we have when it comes to gender, though.

We have a very strong female protagonist and narrator in Outlander, and she does hail from the Twentieth Century.  She does, in fact, try to change the culture--or, rather, the men--around her.  In failing, she reveals some things to the reader about historical gender roles.  For example, as she travels with her new husband and his kinsmen, it becomes apparent to the men that she should be able to defend herself.  Although one remains firm in his conviction that "the only good weapon for a woman is poison" (349), the others, collectively, teach her to defend herself with a dirk and a sgian dhu ("sock dagger").  She learns, however, that a misplaced stab can numb the forearm.  The next line of defense for a man is a gun (and they all laugh uproariously at that), but when asked, her husband firmly refuses to teach her to shoot--because she is a woman.  Her response is perhaps predictable:

"Oh?" I said sarcastically. "You think women aren't bright enough to understand the workings of a gun?" (348)

Their responses foil her post-suffrage indignation, however.  First,

"I've a mind to let ye try it," he said at last.  "It would serve ye right."
Rupert clicked his tongue in annoyance at us both.  "Dinna be daft, Jaime.  As for you, lass," turning to me, "it's not that women are stupid, though sure enough some o' 'em are; it's that they're small." (348)

And then, after a description of the difficulty of firing the weapon and the bruises that result, even when  fired by a muscular Scot of over 6 feet,

"I'd let ye see for yourself," he said, raising one eyebrow, "but I like ye better wi' all of your teeth.  You've a nice smile, Sassenach, even if ye are a bit feisty."  (348)

This argument convinces our heroine.  The wry commentary is typical of Jamie--as Claire and the reader begin to learn--who is not especially sexist, by the way.  So begins a battle of wills that interrupts the honeymoon--a battle fought, more often than not, with gender as the playing field (in this book, at least).  I'm not putting my money on modern sensibilities.

Outlander: "Flesh of My Flesh"?

Continuing my reread of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander, I have come to what I feel is one of the most important and central ideas that runs throughout books 1-7 in the  Outlander series:  the embodiment of love.  And whatever boundaries the books might challenge or cross, including the frank representation of sexual encounters, as much for the purpose of titillation as for any other purpose, the representation of embodied love--and I mean this to be distinct from embodied gender or sexuality--can be read as distinctly Catholic.

The moment against which the amorous physical encounters (and there are non-amorous physical encounters as well) should be measured occurs after the marriage liturgy of the two main characters.  In a gesture that the male protagonist, Jamie, admits is somewhat pagan, the bride and groom have their wrists cut and bound together as they recite, in Gaelic, the following lines:

Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone. 

I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One. 

I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done.  (267)

There are obvious correlations here to Christian marriage (and the narrative admits as much), particularly the central line, with the union of bodies through marriage joining two into one.  Two become one in the sexual act, but also in the conception of a child--the creation of a new soul that is One from the Two of the married couple.  The procreative meaning is implicit and explicit in the marriage liturgy and in Catholic theology of marriage.  However, though the lines sort of rhetorically evoke that idea--tapping into the things we might already know about marriage--the novel's particular dramatization of the marriage rite does not evoke the possibility of offspring.  Frankly, there's no time to consider it.  The circumstances in which the marriage occurs--with both characters on the run from the English (and a sadistic bastard of an Englishman, to boot), the bride dealing with a coerced marriage of necessity, knowing that she is already married to a man who will not be born for 200 years (and that her two weddings will take place in the same church)--do not leave room for fruitful considerations.  Claire's childbearing hips do receive some attention in the following chapter, but as her previous marriage has been sterile (the separation of spouses during the war receives partial blame), procreation just isn't an urgent concern.

In the first line of this presumably pagan vow, "Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone," there is (appropriately) an echo of biblical Creation.  The creation of generic 'woman' from generic 'man' is echoed in the first line, which is predictable, as that particular verse from Genesis generally frames the Sacrament of Marriage, and is transferred to this particular man and woman.  The Man and Woman recreate each other.  In marriage, each, somehow, participates in the creation of the other.

Taken as a whole, the vow also evokes Incarnation and Sacrament--the physical manifestations of spiritual Truth.  The giving of Spirit that accompanies the giving of the Body firmly connects the spiritual and the physical.  There is no dichotomy--no split between Body and Soul in the Outlander novels.  Sex--married physical union in particular--as the expression of a transcendent spiritual love, binds the body and the soul together.  Love is Embodied. (Love is Incarnate.)  The Soul is Embodied.  And there's the hint that this embodied love--this complete connectedness--is the means by which the Soul endures.

This is particularly worth noting in a book with such... thorough dramatization of... enthusiastic marital sexuality.  It becomes difficult to dismiss the scenes as gratuitous when they so very clearly represent what is right between Jamie and Claire. The Outlander books inundate the reader with physical unity. That's nothing special in itself--any romance novel might do the same. But there is something about the connection between the two that is desirable, and special, and different, and feels True.  This novel tells the reader something about love that bears thinking about.  The series is peppered with counterexamples as well.  So here, in the first novel, in the context of a marriage--THE marriage--the reader is told explicitly:  Love is Embodied.  Love is physical.  And to commit to Love spiritually and emotionally is to commit to its Physicality.  That's a profoundly Catholic concept--even when we're not talking about marriage and sex.  Love has a body.   And when that Embodiment is denied, and when commitment to the physical union is incomplete or lukewarm--that's when the reader can expect conflicts.

Outlander: Notable Moment #1

I am currently re-reading the first in a series of books that first embarrassed me, then engrossed me, and finally inspired me.  I have now--in the course of a very few months--read every work of fiction that author Diana Gabaldon has produced.  This is a blushworthy admission, since some all of the books are quite blushworthy, at least in part.  But--I hasten to add--that is not all that's going on in them.

By way of description, I will refer you to the author's own web site.  To give some context, I will say that they are not for all readers--if they were muted down to, say, PG-13, perhaps.  But I would not advocate that, and I'll reveal why in the course of rereading and writing about them.  I will further say that they involve time travel.  A woman from the 1940s finds herself--quite unexpectedly, and with an unraveling explanation--in the 1740s in Scotland.  And the conflicts that arise because of this displacement form the context for my first "notable moment."

When I first read the book, while still feeling rather sure that I was reading a romance novel, part of my brain was trying very hard to justify reading it.  My first observation was that this novel has moments when it is quite reactionary.  Perspectives that we comfortably take for granted in the 21st Century, the novel subverts quite neatly by reintroducing historicity.  That is, Gabaldon doesn't stretch historical plausibility to help our heroine get along in 18th Century Scotland (well, not much).  Things that could have happened, happen.  When the protagonist, Claire, acts like a 20th Century woman (albeit an early 20th Century woman), consequences ensue.

So as I was rereading, I was struck by the particular way in which the narrative--through the consciousness of Claire--inducts the reader into this way of thinking about historical practices.  A young boy has been accused of theft.  The likely punishment will be to lose a hand or an ear.  A lesser punishment would be to have his ear nailed to the post.  Claire is horrified by the barbarity, but has to face her situation practically. She has little opportunity to influence the outcome (though what opportunity she has, she does exercise).

As she is ruminating on the unfolding event, she turns first to her knowledge of history:

Like any schoolchild, I had read Dickens.  And earlier authors, as well, with their descriptions of the pitiless justice of those times, meted out to all ill-doers, regardless of age or circumstance.  But to read, from a cozy distance of one or two hundred years, accounts of child hangings and judicial mutilation, was a far different thing than to sit quietly pounding herbs a few feet above such an occurrence. (170)

 This is something akin to saying, "This isn't something that you have to worry about, dear reader," without the direct narrative address.  We are sitting pretty; our character is not.  She has been jostled out of her comfort zone, and the narrative endeavors to jostle us as well, even if we are sitting pretty in our fluffy couches reading about horrors.  And let me tell you--this narrative will jostle you.  And it even jostles a bit as, not quite content with distant historical context, Gabaldon brings the reader a little closer in to the process of looking back on historical events:

Like so many, I had heard, appalled, the reports that trickled out of postwar Germany: the stories of deportations and mass murder, of concentration camps and burnings.  And like so many others had done, and would do, for years to come, I had asked myself, "How could the people have let it happen? They mist have known, must have seen the trucks, the coming and going, the fences and the smoke.  How could they stand by and do nothing?" Well, now I knew. (170)

 In the space of a page, the reader has moved from 18th Century Scotland, to 19th Century England, to 20th Century Germany, as the narrative asks her to consider the power of an individual conscience in the face of overwhelming cultural and social opposition in each separate context.  Suddenly, the judgments that contemporary readers are content to pass on the past from positions of relative complacency are called into question.  And that is a nice rhetorical move.

Reviving Booknotes?

It's been a while, but I am considering resuscitating and re-imagining my Booknotes blog.  Yesterday, I was talking to a friend outside of church, and I mentioned that in my present job of software trainer, I find myself pouncing on the student workers, or even participants in my Microsoft Word or Outlook classes.  It goes something like this:

"Hey--is that a book you're reading?  [...]  What book are you reading?  [...]  I read books.  [...]  Is it a good book?  [...]  What's it about? [...]  Oh!  Have you read [x] book?"

Yes, I'm a little starved for literary conversation.  But at the same time, I have read more books over the past year than I did during all of grad school.  I enjoy talking to people about what I'm reading while I'm reading it.  But generally the people around me have not read the book I'm reading when I'm reading it.  So I either talk anyway, or I let it go and keep reading.  Enter the blog.

When I taught my last children's lit course as a postdoc, I required blogging assignments for each book in the course.  The students were required to write three posts--one that "anticipated" the novel (sort of a go-ahead-and-judge-the-book-by-its-cover assignment), one that closely analyzed a "notable moment" in the novel (something that caught their attention while reading), and one that looked back on the novel and offered a finished analysis.

The one that resonates most with me is the second, because that's how I read, and that is how an advanced student of literature should read.  It is the collection of "notable moments" that forms itself into innovative research ideas, since these are the ideas that stimulate the mind of the reader/researcher.  So the posts you will be reading are these:  my "notable moments."  Whether or not they form themselves into any other shape, or simply mirror the shape of my own mind as it engages with texts, I don't know.  But I feel like the externalizing will be... well, something that wasn't out in the world before.  And right now, that feels like something.

Alex O'Donnell and the 40 Cyber Thieves: A Review of Regina Doman's Most Recent Fairy Tale Novel, Pt. 1

Sometimes it is a painful thing to write a review.  In general, I think the blogging convention is to follow the old advice that begins,  "If you don't have anything nice to say. . ."  In fact, that is a general guideline for all writers of reviews.  So I want to begin by saying that I do have nice things to say about the book.  I think that Doman is an excellent storyteller.  With the proper editorial support, I believe that her books would be as good as anything that J. K. Rowling has produced.  The last 1/3 of Alex O'Donnell and the 40 Cyber Thieves, in fact, had me on the edge of my seat.  I "accidentally" stayed up until almost 3 A.M. finishing the book because I simply never found a stopping-point.  The action sequences were gripping, and even though I did figure out who the "bad guy" was--it will be obvious for most by the time it is important--I still wanted to see how everything would unfold.  I had so much adrenaline pumping when I finished that it was a while before I got to sleep, and I did not sleep restfully.  This is not a typical response for me, but it does justify my comparison to J. K. Rowling.  Though Rowling does not make the adrenaline pump, her books are definitely page-turners, and it can be difficult to sleep because my mind is stimulated by the action of the story.

I can also point to Doman's skill with characterization--by the end of the novel, a character who annoyed me--whom I simply did not want to like--gained a hold on my interest in spite of the fact that I didn't know how a reader was supposed to perceive this character.  In fact, I am rather frustrated on behalf of the character because there are some things that I would like to see better conceptualized.  I have a high opinion of Regina Doman's talent, and I can't wait until she really distinguishes herself as a novelist and gains a significant readership and critical attention.  In my last review of Doman's work, I expressed my eagerness "to read more in the series to see how Doman has developed as a writer across multiple books, and how she has developed her characters."  This book isn't there yet.

Others might be, however.  By Doman's description on her web page, Alex O'Donnell and the 40 Cyber Thieves is "campy."  While other of her novels deal with "more serious themes," this is a lighter book.  I would not agree with that assessment, though it definitely explains the title.  My next disclaimer is that I have not read the books that she wrote between The Shadow of the Bear and Alex O'Donnell and the 40 Cyber Thieves.

And, finally, I want to explain my motivation for writing a critical review--that is, a review that criticizes.  I believe that every author is entitled to the highest level of criticism available.  I approach every book I read with the same critical eye.  I believe that it shows the highest respect for a novelist and her work to treat it as I would a work that I teach in my college courses.  I further believe that by providing criticism--negative criticism, if you will--we stand to expand the dialogue on the novel and the author's works more generally.  The purpose, ultimately, is to inspire, not to tear down.  I believe that Doman has talent, and that her project--writing Catholic fiction for teens--is an admirable one.  Ideally, I would like to see her succeed on a greater scale.  Hopefully, my piece of criticism will contribute in some way to that goal.

With such a lengthy disclaimer, my reader must at this point expect a brutal review.  Let me further contextualize, then, and say for any who do not already know that I am an academic by training.  My perspective is different from a fan's perspective.  My question from the outset is, "What might prevent this book from becoming a classic of children's literature?"  And it is from that point that I begin my critique.

My first complaint about the book is something that I noted in The Shadow of the Bear, too--the tendency to set up an easy dichotomy to explain evil behavior.  In both novels, the bad guy is a flaming atheist.  This, to my mind, is a bit too easy.  It was far-fetched (and sketched in a much more detailed way) in The Shadow of the Bear, but in Alex O'Donnell, the motif is repeated in an offhanded way that sends the reader the message that bad guys are conscious atheists out to belittle and undermine Christian belief.  It isn't enough that the bad guys are trying to KILL the protagonists, they have to try to destroy their worldview, too.  And it sets up a persecution complex--everyone bad is trying to destroy my beliefs.  In both cases, you have a figure who is like the demon un-man from C. S. Lewis's Perelandra--consciously doing evil in order to fly in the face of God and belief--but without the demonic possession that justifies that character.

As a remedy, I would like to see a "Catholic gone bad" "bad guy" (which, in The Shadow of the Bear, he kind of was--on an exaggerated level) or an atheist/agnostic "good guy":  not someone who is held up as an example of belief, but simply someone helpful who does not share the same beliefs as the protagonist(s), and yet enters into dialogue with the protagonists about belief.  Someone for whom the protagonists could say a passing prayer for understanding--hers or theirs.  In a similar vein, I would rather like to see an evil character, who, like Gollum, gives us the shadow of the possibility of redemption.  We are Catholic.  We believe that the possibilities of Redemption and God's grace exist for every human being.  Many of us resist the death penalty for this reason--perhaps we need to remember this in our fiction.

Like my concern about dichotomies, my next critique is strongly informed by my academic training--and it renders the books unacceptable in mainstream circles, though it pains me to say so.  The concern is culture.  The novel is based on a story from 1001 Arabian Nights--a Persian work of literature--one that may have been a fake.  Frankly, I expected a Middle Eastern protagonist.  I may have been relieved to learn that this was not the case, but I was waiting for when the Middle Eastern subtext would become apparent.  It never did.  And again--perhaps this is good.  It might have been playing into--or against--a trend.  But by choosing to use "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves" as the fairy tale, the author makes the choice to evoke either near-eastern/Middle Eastern culture (if the story is actually Persian) or European orientalism, which exoticises that region.

The cultural confusion is only enhanced by the characters of the novel.  First there is Alex, an Irish Catholic boy whose family is obsessed with aspects of Asian (mainly Japanese) culture (mainly martial arts) but remains ignorant of most other aspects of that culture.  Then there is Kateri, a Polish-Vietnamese girl whose name nevertheless evokes a Native American Saint.  There is a moment in the text in which the narrator notes that Kateri is often presumed to be Native American, but sadly, there is no follow-up to this compelling revelation.  Kateri has a chip on her shoulder because non-Asian Americans lump all Asians together--an accusation that, rather than being dis-proven by, is epitomized by her boyfriend Alex.

So the novel starts with two competing cultural sub-texts--the Persian (Oriental) and the Japanese/Vietnamese (Oriental), both of which are objectified by Westerners. Referring to the Near East and Far East as Oriental was an error committed in different time periods, but the only way to reconcile the Persian story with the Asian and Asian-loving characters is to conflate both into Oriental, which would lead the reader into a significant cultural error or a simplistic cultural analogy.

Like the passing Native American reference, the Irish Catholic identity of the O'Donnells has unexplored potential, though their relative poverty and untidiness border on stereotype.

The novel thus provides the reader with a huge melting pot mess that can not be sorted out.  If Doman's point is to stress the continuity between cultures, particularly given that both families are members of the Universal Church, or if the cultural conflict and correspondence are meant to seem quintessentially American, these are points that are not made in the novel; the reader has to reach for what s/he knows of Catholicism and America, and piece things together for herself.  Every evocation of culture makes a point.  The professional writer who seeks an audience for her ideas must articulate very clearly what point her novel makes about culture.

More to come. . .

Theoretical Musing on Rossetti's Goblin Market

I'm looking at a book I have about Marian theology and imagery being used for feminist purposes in the Victorian period, and it underscores a fear I have--I don't exactly want to say that this is a feminist move by Rossetti. In fact, I want to say that it's quite a traditionalist move, and unlike the author I'm reading, I don't particularly think that this is an example of religious traditionalism being used in the service of the Victorian women's movement.  I do not think that Rossetti has any kind of positive regard for Laura's sexual "energy," but neither do I think that Lizzie is being submissive. I rather want to say that this is, in a way, a Christian allegory reworked for the express purpose of leading women to Christ through the intercession of Mary--or other women.  This is not, in itself, a feminist move because it lacks the socio-political implications.  The only social implications are the part of the allegory that deals with RESISTING the sexual advances of men, who are grotesque in their pursuits of pure women.  Not a feminist statement.

Is Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market a Marian Poem? - pt. 1

I have taught Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market several times-mostly in the context of my Introduction to Literature course focused on fantasy, but most recently in my Survey of British Lit II. Through teaching the poem, and including selections from C. Rossetti when I teach Children's Lit, I have come to an appreciation of her as an author that I otherwise would not possess. Goblin Market in particular is a strange poem--one of the "long" poems that were popular among poets of the Victorian Period, sharing this designation with E. B. Browning's Aurora Leigh (another I have come to appreciate through teaching), Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book, In Memoriam and Idylls of the King by Tennyson. Unlike the others, which are about British, poetic, or personal identity, and unlike In Memoriam, which is about the conflict between religious belief and, well, just about every aspect of contemporary life in the event of a loved one's death, Goblin Market is about temptation, sin, and redemption. I am not at this point terribly well acquainted with what critics have said about this poem, as I like to teach literary works from an understanding of the author, time period, and navigate meaning via student responses and my own interpretive instincts rather than relying on what the standard opinion happens to be. When my students have written papers about Goblin Market, we have had difficulty locating sources on the poem. One interpretive difficulty, however, is the ending of the poem, and how to interpret the relationship between sisters Lizzie and Laura.

The poem tells the story of Laura and Lizzie, who are subjected to temptation by goblin men, who offer them choice fruits for their pleasure. While Lizzie takes a "see no evil, hear no evil" approach (l. 50-51), Laura succumbs to the temptation, buying the goblins' goods with a lock of hair, and begins to be consumed with desire for the forbidden fruits--a desire which causes her to waste away and lose interest in ordinary sustenance and "modest" activities and pleasures, and which can not be fulfilled because the goblin men are no longer visible or audible to her (l. 242-259). The eroticism of the poem is striking, and has been captured in many illustrations, including illustrations published in Playboy. When Laura buys the fruit, for example, for which she pays with her body-- "a precious golden lock" and "a tear more rare than pearl"--she "suck'd their fruit globes fair or red" ((l. 126-128). The description of the experience of eating the fruits and the fruit itself fairly oozes with sexuality (no pun intended):


Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flow'd that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She suck'd and suck'd and suck'd the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She suck'd until her lips were sore. . . .

That the poem's subject is sexual temptation is very thinly veiled, and presents no interpretive difficulty.

However, the poem does the unexpected: it redeems the sinner. Laura's sister Lizzie opts to communicate with the goblin men in an attempt to save her sister--she offers to pay with money, but the goblins are unwilling to have her take the fruit rather than consuming it. The sexual allegory here may be seen to fail or to remain consistent, as sexual experience is not something that can be carried away, or taken for another, and certainly two sexual sins do not produce redemption. Lizzie does not, however, consume the fruit, though she is subjected to physical abuse and though the goblins smash the fruits on her lips in their attempts to make her eat. These juices, licked and sucked off of Lizzie, make Laura well.

The nature of the sisterly relationship and the nature of the redemption are points open for analysis, as both are provocative. Any Christian allegory would have to place Lizzie as a Christ figure who sacrifices herself--albeit only partially--to redeem her sister but it seems unlikely that Rossetti, a strict, traditional, and increasingly High Church Anglican, would have created a female allegory for Christ.A facile answer is that it is not meant to be strict allegory, but merely an allegorical tale of Christian self-sacrifice. Even accepting it as such, it is difficult to see how, in the Victorian period, a fallen woman could be redeemed, in spite of the prevalence of paintings that treat the theme of redemption after sexual sin. In the paintings, the woman is sometimes taken from the streets by a male relative or simply has her conscience awaken from within as she bestirs herself to leave the lover who "keeps"her. In Goblin Market, the fallen woman is redeemed by a woman in a scene that is almost as erotic as Laura's original sexual encounter with goblin fruits.

The redemption of woman by woman is not necessarily a surprise given Rossetti's own work with reforming prostitutes--testimony to her own belief in female solidarity in the face of men's sexual use and abuse.The poem's moral focuses on the nature of sisterhood rather than sexual temptation, downgrading what has previously seemed to be the focal point of the poem:

"For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."

The final lines of the poem provide both a puzzle and a somehow unsatisfying resolution. "There is no friend like a sister" seems a weak close to a poem that seems to portray allegorically both male-female and female same-sex eroticism.The relationship between the sisters is described in sensual terms early in the poem, as

Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other's wings,
They lay down in their curtain'd bed:

The sisters sleep entwined, "Cheek to cheek and breast to breast/Lock'd together in one nest" (197-198).When Lizzie returns with the juices, the sensual descriptions begin to seem sexually charged, as Lizzie tells Laura,

"Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeez'd from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me;
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.(467-474)

And Laura does:

She clung about her sister,
Kiss'd and kiss'd and kiss'd her:
Tears once again
Refresh'd her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She kiss'd and kiss'd her with a hungry mouth.(485-492)

This seemingly sexually charged encounter with her sister causes Laura, in essence, to die to self and sexual desire, to suffer and emerge reborn.

Critics have discussed whether this is, indeed, a homoerotic encounter, thinly veiled by the invocation of biological sisterhood that is reinforced by the somewhat forced moral at the end. It seems that the relationship between the two women is either homoerotic, with "sisterhood" as a metaphor, or a literal "sisterly" relationship in which sensuality spills into sexual imagery. On the other hand, existing within the sisterly relationship (however defined) is a sub-text of woman-for-woman Christian self-sacrifice that can redeem (hetero)sexual sin. The nature of this Christian self-sacrifice is somewhat vague, as it can not be linked allegorically to what Tolkien would later call "the true myth" of Christianity, which means that this kind of redemption must only have personal and perhaps social significance rather than pointing, as Christian allegory is wont to do, to religious Truth--unless it points directly to the role of woman in the "true myth" of Christianity, and so reveals a religious Truth that directly impacts the sisterhood of all women. There is much in Goblin Market that points to Mary, the new Eve, as intercessor who reveals Christ to women, or leads women to Christ. In fact, Goblin Market might be said to recommend Mary as an intercessor to women whose experiences of men make them unable to accept God in the person of a man.

To Be Continued. . .

Musing: Author-Audience Engagement and "Issues"

This is a repost from a comment I made on a friend's Facebook status.  It started as a discussion of summer reading choices for high school students, but I found myself considering the choices and asking (again--as I did with The Giver) why assigned reading in middle and high school so clearly focuses on specific social and political topics:

I find that in middle school and high school, often the idea is to introduce the students to "issues" that someone or other feels that the students need to or will need to consider in their lives. So the works are front-loaded with sexuality, race, gender, abortion--you name it. That tends to bug me pedagogically and as a parent. And when I was in high school and college, I resented it as a cheap way of getting me to talk about politics! ;) The funny thing is that I don't dislike books about social concerns, but so often the "message" or "issue" dominates. It's like teaching from an anthology that divides the literary works into sections like "coming of age," "love & relationships," "death & dying," etc. The book announces too plainly what you're supposed to be considering while reading it, and for me, that eliminates the interest because there's nothing to engage me.

In another post, I considered how authors engage readers with matters of spirituality, and without rereading what I wrote then, I will assert that open-ended questioning, even if it tends toward one reading or another (as in Clarke's "The Star") is more effective than something like Lewis's allegorical treatment of Christianity in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for example, which answers the questions for the reader rather than encouraging further consideration of the relevant questions.  This is something that Lewis improved upon as he developed as a writer.


In the case of The Power and the Glory, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or "The Star," it is clear enough what the author wants the reader to be considering.  In a book that dramatizes a woman's consideration of abortion, it is equally clear.  Or is it more so?  Initially, considering just why those big social issues bothered me, I wrote the above, that the books are limiting my ability to interpret what the narrative is "about," if you will, and also the following:


I like books that give me enough complexity that I can insert myself into the dilemma, and enough flexibility that if I'm not particularly interested in thinking about one question, I can engage with something else.

I'm not sure this statement applies to why I'm drawn to The Power and the Glory, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and "The Star," or even Fahrenheit 451.  It is pretty clear that the former deal with questions of spirituality and the truth of religious belief, and the latter deals pretty explicitly with questions of literacy.  But they don't make me feel constrained to think in a certain way.  The difference could be in the level of analysis in the novel--how closely the reader experiences the dilemma, or how closely the character experiences the dilemma--the complexity/theoretical nature of the issue--why this is important, whether its importance is situational, and how broadly applicable the questions are--and perhaps how mundane the issue is--is it a daily life issue, or is it something that applies to Life?  This last question flies in the face of feminist theory, among others, which sees the particular as having the importance ("the personal is political," after all. . .) and while I wouldn't argue, I would ask what importance one finds in the particulars that are presented, and whether it is possible to broaden out that importance to connect other particulars.  When I read about someone's relationship foibles, what exactly am I supposed to get from that?  When I read D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and Virginia Woolf, those relationship foibles are supposed to tell me quite a lot about power structures, personal interactions, and the possibility of closeness.  The particulars broaden out.  When I read about someone's decision whether or not to have an abortion, what am I supposed to do with that?  If I already know my own conviction on the subject, is dramatizing someone else's dilemma going to tell me anything beyond the reasons why someone considers this particular action?  Am I supposed to reexamine my conviction?  From the novelist's point, likely.  From the teacher's perspective, why else tech it but to introduce and hash through the topic/"issue"?  But I'm not sure that this is what makes a truly engaging literary text.  Is this what readers want to get from a text?  Some readers, sometimes, sure.  But this is not, perhaps, the most sophisticated use of literature.  Do Uncle Tom's Cabin and To Kill a Mockingbird cause us to consider the bases on which we judge other human beings?  Most likely.  But other abolitionist novels might only lead us to consider whether slavery should be legal, or if we should own the slaves that we have.  These questions are no longer relevant, and so the novels' temporary importance is now historical evidence.

To be continued. . .

The Shadow of the Bear: A Review of Regina Doman's Fairy Tale Novel for Teens

On Friday afternoon, I received The Shadow of the Bear by Regina Doman.  On Friday, before going to bed, I finished The Shadow of the Bear by Regina Doman.  I had already read Ch. 1 online, which you can find here.  At 221 pages, the book is a quick and engaging read.  I have been interested in Doman's novels for a while, having seen them reviewed by Sarah Reinhard, and mentioned elsewhere, and having an interest (professional and otherwise) in fairy tale retellings (the course I'm teaching this semester focuses on retellings/revisions, and includes quite a few fairy tales).  Beyond that, however, I wanted to see what a Catholic adolescent novel looked like, and whether it could be done well.

That last sentence reveals me as the skeptic I am.  I have read contemporary Christian fiction for teens before, of the Protestant variety, as a pre- to early-teen, and found the "troubled-teen-finding-Christ-and-a-boyfriend" motif, well, boring.  Far-fetched.  Trite.  But then, I was one of those (along with Neil Gaiman) who felt rather betrayed when she realized that the Chronicles of Narnia were really about Christianity, and not just good stories.  I got over it.  Fairy tales, Narnia, and Christian fiction notwithstanding, I have an interest in children's literature that is both professional and personal.  Fantasy is my preference, but I am interested in what makes quality children's literature--a term that is both disputed and controversial.  This is my disclaimer of sorts, a prelude to the review.

I enjoyed the book very much.  I found it compelling to the point that I realized that in order to get anything else done over the weekend, I would have to read it on Friday--hence, the rush.  It was a quick read, and elements of suspense propelled it along.  The first chapter raised enough questions to entice the reader, though the necessary exposition in chapters two and three slows things down a bit.  In these chapters, I experienced certain doubts about the book.  It seemed too self-consciously what it was, namely--a Catholic novel for literary-minded high school students, from the reference to "sheltering the stranger and tending the sick" in Ch. 1, to the overt Frost reference in Ch. 2, and the brief discourse on art, beauty, and truth in Ch. 3 with its allusion to Keats.  The last reference in particular made me groan a little, especially since it was a follow-up to a discussion of form, content, and Truth in the previous chapter that peaked my curiosity, but which was not truly developed and instead evolved into the idea that sacred objects should be treated appropriately and added to  the characterization of the "good guy" and the "bad guy."  My literary sensibilities cringe a little for similar reasons when the character Bear takes to calling Blanche "Snow White."

The novel has an interesting typographical feature, in which a white or shaded rose at the beginning of the paragraph designates whose consciousness is narrated in that section--that of Blanche or her sister Rose.  I discovered this device when a narrative ambiguity led me to question which sister's "voice" was represented in a passage.  It was in one of the "Blanche" sections, at the end of Ch. 4, that I detected a shift from the background material and discovered how evocative  a writer Dolman could be.  The passage describes a subway ride that is full of uncertainty because the character's trust in the mysterious "Bear" is not complete.  There is a tension between the reticence of one sister and the excitement of the other, and the shadows and reflections in the subway car enhance the tensions and doubt that colors the scene.  I was significantly impressed.

One of the novel's great strengths is characterization.  I was immediately drawn to the hesitant, doubting, outcast Blanche.  For me, she is like a Catholic version of MTV's Daria.  Her sister Rose, while likable, was not as accessible to me, though I am uncertain whether this is because of my own personality or narrative bias.  Bear, while vague, contradictory, and inaccessible, is immensely attractive, and Fish, while not really fleshed out, reminds me of Christian Slater's role as Robin Hood's brother in the Kevin Costner "Prince of Thieves" film--sarcastic and likable.  Doman evokes character depth without working too hard on the psychological portrait.  In so doing, she strikes a balance between a flat fairy tale character and the round characters we expect from contemporary novels.  The supporting characters are a bit less satisfying, falling too easily into types.  I was rather disappointed in the villain, as having a murderous atheist aesthete sketched with broadly homosexual overtones as the evil character in a Catholic novel was kind of facile--stacking the decks a bit.  And his association with post-Vatican II habit-less, possibly lesbian nuns was another moment in the early chapters that seemed a bit overdone.

The greatest surprise for me was the novel's treatment of chastity.  Beyond one more of those early exposition moments, which left me singing, "Come out Virginia, don't let me wait. You Catholic girls start much too late. . . .", I was impressed by the handling of the theme.  The most striking thing is that the novel assumes the moral standard.  It is not a matter for negotiation within the action of the novel.  The reader does not enter into a tormented discourse on the pressures of teen sexual urges.  Rather, you enter into the worldview of the characters, which holds chastity as an acknowledged good.  Though Blanche and Rose are not necessarily in line with their peers when it comes to their high regard for sexual morality and unwillingness to compromise, this fact does not cause the sisters any mental anguish--just the usual cruelty inflicted by teenagers on their classmates. In some circles this might be regarded as naive.  Decades ago Judy Blume set the standard by presupposing compromised morality as a natural feature of adolescent and pre-adolescent hormones and social scenes.  This novel is not so prescriptive.  The effect is not to deny that adolescents are confused about this topic.  But this is fiction, and as fiction, it takes as its prerogative the ability to select the worldview it represents.  So if the tormented adolescent enters a novel in which the characters are not confused about chastity, and uphold this value, perhaps s/he will emerge with a new consideration of why chastity might be a value to uphold.  On the other hand, if a self-assured adolescent enters the novel, s/he will not be subjected to the kind of moral relativism that generally accompanies portrayals of adolescent sexuality.


In reading The Shadow of the Bear, I asked myself if I would feel comfortable giving it to my 13-year-old son.  It is a challenge to find books written for a teen or pre-teen audience, especially for a child who reads above his/her grade/age level, that do not address overly-mature themes.  It is a challenge to find fiction for this same age range that assumes that boys will be an interested audience!  Speculating on reading habits of boys vs. girls, I believe that this execution of the fairy-tale novel, cast as it is within the school-story genre with a Nancy Drew twist, is more likely to interest female readers, in part because of the female protagonist(s).  Thinking about situations that arise in the book, there is one that I consider too mature for my 13-year-old, involving as it does an incredibly awkward, potentially exploitative situation at an after-prom party.  The situation was very realistic and believable, and tastefully executed, but it centers around a senior prom, an experienced teen boy, alcohol, and unchaperoned movie-watching.  I would not feel betrayed if he was given the book by a kindly librarian and read the scene, but as a parent, I'm not sure he's ready for an introduction to that kind of situation.  But I know my son, and this is not a general rule for every 13-year-old.  The odd thing is, I didn't have the same reservations about the casual "snogging" in Harry Potter, but there was never the suggestion in HP, as there was here, that the "snogging" might end in sex--consensual or non-consensual.


The Shadow of the Bear interested me, entertained me, and finally, impressed me, and I am eager to read more in the series to see how Doman has developed as a writer across multiple books, and how she has developed her characters.