Why Unferth?

Someone recently asked me, "Why Unferth? I mean, if you're going to write about somebody from another story, at least pick someone we know!"

Well, there's the rub.  First, let us all agree that this "someone" could not have been one of my students. You faithful troops all know Unferth. You are forced to. We read and reread Beowulf's boast and counter-boast; we focus on Unferth to study his role as a foil. We dissect what he says and how he says it. In fact, we hit that section so hard that my classes are typically recast afterward as those who love Unferth and those (select few, Student H...) who hate him.

But to answer this question:

It is precisely because people don't know him that I chose him. And not to play some high-brow literati game with you, gentle reader. Consider this simple truth, one that is highlighted in the "Introduction" section of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf: everyone knows the other myths (Helen of Troy, Jason and the Golden Fleece, killing the Kraken); and everyone knows the other heroes (Achilles, Hector, Odysseus), the other villains, etc. In short, everyone can rattle off, or at least nod at, the Greek and Roman canon of mythology. Very few recognize names like Hrothgar, Sigemund, Heremod, Unferth.

What happened to the English canon? Why don't we know about Unferth?

Beowulf stands as the oldest surviving story written in Old English. Our language. It is one of four pieces of literature captured in a single document now called the Nowell Codex. This document can still be viewed in the British Library in London. Important names like Shield Shiefson and Billa Celest and Hrunting are printed in that document. Names like Breca and Beowulf and Grendel.

Names like Unferth.

The Favorite

Jewel is Addie Bundren's favorite.

There. Now we can move forward.

Addie claims Jewel. The other children, according to her, "are his and not mine." It doesn't matter who his is (it's Anse), only that they are not hers. Jewel is hers. Only Jewel.

On the flip side, it is Jewel, way back in section 4, way back in the only section he narrates, who claims "[i]t would just be me and her on a high hill and me rolling the rocks down the hill at their faces." It doesn't matter who their is (Anse, Cash, Darl, Dewey Dell, Vardaman, Vernon, Cora, Kate, Eula, the rest of mankind), only that he and his mom are together. Just he and his mom. Just mom.

A great family is the best possibe kind of blessing we have a chance at on this earth. But families are tricky things. They are not always great, and even when they are, they sometimes represent poisonous things. Like competition. Exclusivity. Love itself, or at least a corrupted form of it, like needing it to the detriment of others, like an addict.

Addie Bundren, by the way, represents corrupted love. Or lack. Either way, she represents bad, gentle reader. Let us lean on the vague for a moment:

Jewel is the favorite son. For awful reasons. And I wonder if he knows that about himself. I wonder if that is the root of all his anger. I want to get on board with his absolute loyalty, his fierce love, his unequaled devotion. But I hesitate, because I worry about the source of these things.

If it is love, then I applaud you, Jewel.

I do not know that it is love.

Schizophrenic Narration or Something More

Onward and upward, gentle reader. Today we begin William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. My oh my, what a challenge. And what an easy target to call "the worst book ever written" (although my snobbishness must point to something else out there. How about Eastman's Are you My Mother? I mean, really, what a hackneyed, repetitive, plot-driven story complete with a Disneyesque cliche for an ending... worst book, indeed).

But Faulkner. What a crazy, right?

Maybe.

But what a grand example of what it truly means to be a great author. Two parts talent, and one part eyesight. Or the other way around. Probably there are more ingredients. In any event, the great authors shared a common trait: they observed humanity. Then they recorded it. But I argue that the observation is most important, because it is the method of observation, the individual lens of the author, that first dictates what ends up on the printed page. This is what makes Huxley different from Steinbeck, and both different from Austen. Huxley saw the world in decimal points and then wrote with them. Steinbeck saw the world along the lines of his moral compass and then wrote about all the directions represented by the needle. Austen, well. She knew more about getting into and out of relationships than anyone. And she described it to us.

And we are thankful to all of them. Because I don't think in science, or morality, or relational faux pas. At least not with the same level of dedication as Huxley, Steinbeck, and Austen.

But then there's Faulkner.

Now I don't imply that these other authors can't write different character types. They can. But Faulkner steps inside these different characters' heads in a way that Huxley, Steinbeck, and Austen do not. Different craft, not superior. But let us give Faulkner his due, and more importantly, let us recognize as readers the spectrum of humanity provided in As I Lay Dying.

If we flinch, perhaps it is because he writes for us. That is crazy.

Emotional, Not Just Depressing

I've had several students recently ask me "Why does everything we read in English have to be so depressing?"

Good question, gentle reader. But let's clarify the terms. Let's demand specificity, because that is precisely what our authors expect of us (remember, Blake told us that "to generalize is to be an idiot"). Instead of leaning on depressing as our umbrella term, let us instead consider the alternative emotional.

We will quickly find that emotional is more apt. I don't necessarily seek out depression in my reading, but I do need to be moved. Not merely entertained, but moved. Great literature lends itself to pockets of high emotionality. It isn't just that Holden is so damn depress-ed/ing; it is that even though he is, he still loves his sister unconditionally. And it isn't quite so important that Ros and Guil die(?) in the end of their play; it is much more important that we-as-audience are rooting against their demise and, therefore in the process, holding fast to our own humanity. Also, it isn't quite about the fact that Beowulf dies; it is that he (or anyone) cannot become legend until he (anyone) first stops moving. Of course Beowulf needs to die. Are facts depressing?

Make no mistake, I love happy endings. And, I am not a literary snob. I love reading fun and funny things. I love good guys winning well. I fell in love with Tolkien's epic quest, and I revisit it now and then because I know that it turns out okay in the end. But even this tale has sacrifice also, has darkness also. Because that's what great literature has: goodness, sacrifice, darkness. Parceled out in pieces. Jigsawing, jockeying, juxtaposing for footing in our hearts and minds.

I don't read McCarthy because I want to see the evidence of the deepest pits of hell on earth. Yikes. But when I read McCarthy, I am reminded of just how the abyss looks from where I am seated, and just how close it can sometimes be. And then I look around again and smile, because it's just a book, no matter how close to real life--on any plane--it strikes.

That is the glory of reading, yes? The smile just after.

13 Ways of Looking at an Underground Man

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the mouth of the underground man.

 

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

One of the blackbirds told me that unless
I shooed away the other blackbirds,
I would never act, and therefore,
Amount to nothing.

 

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

The underground man then pointed out all
The other parts of the pantomime.

 

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

Apparently one plus one does not equal two.
Deal with it, underground man.

 

V
Underground men do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

Because they are underground and
Never hear blackbirds whistling in the first place.

 

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
It is Russia. Why is this surprising?

 

VII
O thin heroes of St. Petersburg,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the muddy feet
Of the women about you?

 

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I will not share them, for I am

An underground man.

 

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

The circles are really squares.
When you put that one together,
Give me a call.

 

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Gatsby became dismayed because the
Green light was his.
Gatsby, may I borrow some money?
Says the underground man.

 

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For soldiers looking to

Punch him in his
Underground shoulder.

 

XII
The river is moving.
The underground man must be whining.

 

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
Yellow and murky snow.

Like the laws of nature dictate, or
Like a dog peeing from the frozen heavens.
Either or.

Heading Underground Once Again

Here we are gentle reader, heading somewhere but not here, steering our attention to heroes and mud and nothing in between, celebrating laziness so long as it is certainly present and accounted for.

We are going Underground.

Call it sickness, call it self-aware loathing, call it a whine-fest. Whatever. I am excited.

Here are my Top 5 Reasons for wanting to head Underground:

1. I like saying the author's name. It's like a verbal jungle-gym.

2. There is a shoulder duel. Just shoulders and spite. Something I have always wanted to do. In the hallway...

3.  I love puzzles, and page for page these Notes have more paradoxes to unravel than anything else we read.

4. Our unnamed narrator sounds crazy. And maybe he is crazy, but this is beside the point, because whatever he is, he is saying a whole lot of things. To be sure, I would never say some of the things he says, but there are some things he says that I would want to say. And probably never will. For whatever reason. But he says them, which means I am not alone in my thinking, and this comforts me.

5. Simply, I can leave. The Underground ends the moment I close the book. Thoughts and ideas and insults and laughs and headaches linger only if I allow them. Such is the awesome power of reading.

Who knew.

The Slings and Arrows of Fear

I believe to be ____ or not to be ____ is the proper fill-in-the-blank that Hamlet implies. In other words Hamlet asks us, gentle reader, whether or not we want FEAR to exist as a primary motivator in our lives. So forget the question, let's skip to the implications:

To be a good student despite the social uncoolness attached to it, or not to be;

To be an applicant to a really tough university even though you may not get in, or not to be;

To be a voice of reason among your crowd of peers during weekend activities even though everyone else is doing it, or not to be;

To be reliable especially when you have miles to go before you sleep, or not to be;

To be proud of your accent, weight, beliefs, and fears even among the popular kids, or not to be;

To be something new even if you don't be it well, or easily, or if you fail at it miserably, or if it comes hard and with struggle, or you are the only person who takes pleasure in it or sees the value of it...

Or not to be.