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A Daisy by Any Other Name: Possible Titles for The Great Gatsby

May 13, 2013 by dursinms

So, the new film version of The Great Gatsby just opened.  And Mark is currently teaching Fitzgerald’s novel in his AP class.  And this is a blog devoted to fiction. Sounds like a readymade excuse for a Great Gatsby post!  (Or two!  Or three!)  And what better place to start than the title?

Now, we mentioned this in a previous post (but don’t click back just yet!  We’re having a quiz in a moment!), but it bears repeating:  Fitzgerald was no fan of the title The Great Gatsby. “The title is only fair,” he is credited with saying, ”rather bad than good.”  Instead, Fitzgerald has a bunch of other titles he was considering.  Try to guess which of the following were actual possible titles for The Great Gatsby:Gatsby Logo 1

  1. On the Road to West Egg
  2. First Impressions
  3. Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night
  4. The High-Bouncing Lover
  5. Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires
  6. They Don’t Build Statues to Businessmen
  7.  Under the Red, White, and Blue
  8. They Who Got Shot

Of those winners listed above, only 1, 4, 5, and 7 were actual titles Fitzgerald considered for Gatsby.  As for the others: First Impressions was a possible title for Pride and Prejudice; though it would fit Fitzgerlad’s Manhattan, Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night was title of the article upon which the film Saturday Night Fever was based;  They Don’t Build Statues to Businessmen (also fitting for Gatsby) was a working title for Valley of the Dolls; and They Who Got Shot was a possible title for (wait for it) Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Incidentally, as a title for Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald was especially partial to either Trimalchio or Trimalchio in West Egg– with “Trimalchio” being the name of a character in the Roman novel The Satyricon. Now, Trimalchio is a wealthy man who throws extravagant parties, so the name does fit the character Gatsby.  The problem, of course, is that maybe 3.7% of the populace knows that.

(I’m reminded of that anecdote Nabokov wrote in the foreword to his memoir Speak, Memory; apparently, Nabokov wanted to call it Speak, Mnemosyne, after the Greek goddess of memory, but his editor warned him that “little old ladies would not want to ask for a book whose title they could not pronounce.”  Good advice, there.)

And why didn’t Fitzgerald like The Great Gatsby as a title?  Apparently, he had a problem with the “great” part.  As he explpained to his editor, Max Perkins: “There is no emphasis, even ironically, on his greatness or lack of it.”  (Ummm… really, F. Scott?  ”No emphasis” on Gatsby’s greatness?  Did you actually read your novel?)

Ultimately, Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda, along with his editor, talked Fitzgerald into The Great Gatsby. And for that, I feel I can speak on behalf of millions of readers when I say, “*Whew!*”  Honestly, do you think ANYONE in 2013 would be dressing up in flapper costunes to see the premier of a movie called Trimalchio?  Or On the Road to West Egg?

Just goes to show that sometimes artists really don’t know what’s best for their own works of art.  I mean… High-Bouncing Lover?  For real???

While we’re on the subject, here are some other great stories about titles…

  • In addition to the bizarre They Who Got Shot, Ernest Hemingway had at least thirty other working titles for A Farewell to Arms, including the following: The World’s Room; World Enough and Time; The Italian Journey; The Italian Prodigal; Love Is a Fervent Fire, Kindled without Desire; Disorder and Early Sorrow; Death Once Dead; If You Must Love; A World to See; A Patriot’s Progress; The Carnal Education; The Grand Tour; The Sentimental Education of Frederic Henry and (the most curious of all) I Have Committed Fornication But That Was in Another Country, and Besides the Wench Is Dead.
  • Great story about the movie Field of Dreams: the film, which features former baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson, was based on W. P. Kinsella’s book Shoeless Joe.  Test audiences, however, thought the title was misleading; they thought the film was going to be a movie about a homeless person.  The studio suggested Field of Dreams.  Luckily, author Kinsella didn’t mind, since his publisher originally came up with Shoeless Joe.  The title Kinsella had wanted: Dream Field.
  • Many artists have mined the works of Shakespeare for titles. Macbeth inspired William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury), Kurt Vonnegut (Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow) and Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes). Aldous Huxley found a Brave New World in The Tempest.  Sting named his second solo album Nothing Like The Sun after Sonnet 130. And one of Leo Tolstoy’s working titles for War and Peace was All’s Well That Ends Well.
  • On a related note, Star Trek writers really seem to love the Bard: Star Trek VI was subtitled The Undiscovered Country (from Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech); “Dagger of the Mind” and “All Our Yesterdays” (Macbeth) and “Thine Own Self” (Hamlet) are all names of Star Trek episodes.
  • Any frustrated Sporcle enthusiast now knows that, in Britain, the first Harry Potter book is entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone– which author J.K. Rowling prefers to the Americanized Sorcerer’s Stone. But did you know the sixth book was supposed to be called Harry Potter and the High-Bouncing Wizard?    Kidding!

Posted in Books, Movies, Uncategorized, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

A “Dear John” Letter: How I Stopped Being a Hater and Learned to Appreciate John Cena

April 5, 2013 by dursinms

John CenaDear John:

You don’t know me, but for years, I hated you.

It’s nothing personal, since I didn’t actually hate the person “John Cena.”  Just the character “John Cena”—the one on TV, the one you’ve played for a decade in World Wrestling Entertainment.  The handsome, muscular, high-fivin’, flag-salutin’, corny-joke-crackin’ company man.  The modern-day superhero, who wears brightly-colored T-shirts while forever preaching the values of “hustle, loyalty, and respect.”

Man, I hated that guy.

Now, I know what you’re thinking:  “Why?  Why such animosity directed toward an obviously righteous and upstanding guy?  After all, would you hate on Superman?”  Apparently, yes.  And I wasn’t alone, judging by the boos and jeers you routinely inspire from a large segment of the WWE Universe.

Oh, don’t get me wrong: you have millions of devoted, rabid fans who will cheer your every move.  But you also have equally devoted, rabid detractors—just as many and just as loud. In fact, whenever you’re in the ring, arenas across the country resound with dueling chants:

“Let’s go, Cena!”
“Cena sucks!”

“LET’S GO, CENA!”
“CENA SUCKS!”

Now, as to why they think you suck, I can’t say for sure. Maybe they resent that you’re always the focus of the show, or that your matches are predictable, or that you vanquish bad guys too effortlessly. Or maybe some folks don’t like you because you’re not Stone Cold Steve Austin.  You don’t swear.  You don’t flip people off.  You don’t drink beer in the ring.  You’re the smiling, perfectly manufactured poster-boy for a kinder, gentler WWE. And for that, they hate you.

And me? My beef had more to do with your character’s lack of dimension.  Basically, you’re too heroic, too virtuous—and as a result, not particularly compelling, dramatically.  After all, any interesting character, in any form of entertainment, needs to have cracks, vulnerabilities, shades of grey.  In terms of drama, your lack of imperfections is your biggest weakness.

None of this is your fault, incidentally.  You’ve been saddled with the hardest role in professional wrestling—that of the squeaky-clean good guy.  And you play that role well.  No one, not even the Haters, can question your work ethic or your dedication to the company.

Nor can anyone doubt your success: your merchandise sales are right behind Hulk Hogan’s and Steve Austin’s.  (Pretty good company, I’d say.)  But that success also limits you: WWE execs don’t want to do anything too extreme with you—and that includes turning you into a bad guy (something pretty much every pro-wrestler does at some point)—for fear of messing with their cash-cow.

So, yeah, John… for many years, I was firmly in the “Cena Sucks!” camp.  But then something changed.  In a way, this change had a lot to do with one of your catch phrases. “You can’t see me,” you’re fond of saying—and it was true.  I couldn’t really “see” you, not fully, because I was only looking at you one way, from the perspective of a jaded wrestling fan.  But I’m also a parent.  So I tried “seeing” you as a parent would.  Or more accurately: I tried to see you as my own children would.

For years, I shielded my twin sons from wrestling.  After all, I lived through the WWE of the late ’90s; I couldn’t expose my kids to the occasionally mature (read: downright sleazy) content.  But a little over a year ago, knowing the WWE adopted a tamer, “PG” format, I took them to their first live wrestling event.  They were eleven years old.

They cheered for you, John. And I don’t even remember encouraging them to cheer for you; somehow, they just knew. As did all the other kids in the arena.  And at that moment, amidst the deafening “Let’s Go, Cena!’ chants, suddenly my mind flashed back, to a Larry King show (of all things).

It’s July 2007. Wrestler Chris Benoit had killed his family and then himself, and you and several other wrestlers are talking with Larry, trying to make sense of this horrific event.   A mom calls and asks what she should tell her children.  In reply, Bret “The Hitman” Hart offers up just three words: “Watch John Cena.”

Good advice.  Kids should watch—and admire—John Cena, both the person and the character.  The person John Cena, because you seem like a legitimately good guy: not only do you never get any bad press, but you’ve visited more sick and dying kids (over 300) than any celebrity in the history of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.  And the character John Cena, because you stand for something.   A lot of things, actually.  “Never Give Up.” “Rise Above Hate.” “Hustle, Loyalty, Respect.” These are the ideals emblazoned across your T-shirts—and they’re good ideals.  Ones I want my sons to embrace.

So, John… on April 7th, you’re set to face the WWE Champ, The Rock, in the main event of the WWE’s WrestleMania 29 pay-per-view extravaganza.  WWE hopes to shoehorn 90,000 fans into New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium—and you know half of them will be chanting, “Cena sucks!”  But I’m here to tell you: don’t let the Haters get you down.  Just keep concentrating on the other 45,000.  The kids.  The ones that need you.

Let’s Go, Cena!

Posted in TV | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

St. Patrick’s Day Literary Quiz

March 17, 2013 by dursinms

Top o’ the morning, Erin go bragh, and may the road rise to meet you!  For our 50th post, we prepared a special St. Patrick’s Day Literary Quiz, celebrating Irish (or Irish-American) writers and their works.  We came up with seventeen questions (in honor of March 17th), and just so you know:  some are tougher than the blarney stone, and leave just as bad a taste in your mouth!  Answers follow…

irish writers

  1. What is the last story in James Joyce’s short story collection Dubliners?
  2. From which William Butler Yeats poem did Chinua Achebe borrow the title Things Fall Apart?
  3. Which Irish-born writer is famous for classic “chick-lit” novels such as Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, Watermelon, Sushi for Beginners, and This Charming Man?
  4. What is the name of Jonathan Swift’s well-known satirical essay, in which he advises the Irish to sell their children for food in order to relieve the problems of famine and poverty in Ireland?
  5. He may not have won an EGOT (and for all non-30 Rock fans out there, that stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony), but Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw is the only person to have won a Nobel Prize for Literature AND an Oscar.  For what film did Shaw win the Oscar?
  6. In Samuel Becket’s famous play, who are the two main characters who are waiting for Godot?
  7. How many Pulitzer prizes did Irish-American playwright Eugene O’Neill win?
  8. Which Seamus Heaney poem begins, “Late August, given heavy rain and sun/ For a full week, the blackberries would ripen”?
  9. Which best-selling Irish writer, whose sixteen novels include Glass Lake, Tara Road, and Circle of Friends, died last summer, on July 30, 2012?
  10. What is the title of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde’s only novel?
  11. Stephanie Meyer owes a blood debt to this nineteenth-century Irish-born writer, whose Dracula is the prototypical vampire novel. Who is this author?
  12. Which Irish writer was famous for his short stories, including “The Majesty of the Law,” “The Drunkard” and “My Oedipus Complex”?
  13.  I am an importance voice in the literature of the American South.    My stories (including “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”) have influenced rock-and-roll demigods Bruce Springsteen (who allegedly read my stories while writing the album Nebraska) and Bono, of the Irish supergroup U2; in fact, Bono alludes to my story “The Enduring Chill” in the lyrics of the song “One Tree Hill.”  And while I was not born in Ireland, I do have Irish ancestry and an Irish last-name. Who am I?
  14.  The “S” in “C.S. Lewis” stands for “Staples.”  What does the “C” stand for?  (And yes, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia was born in Belfast, Ireland.)
  15.  Which Irish college houses the Book of Kells, an ornately decorated rendering of the Four Gospels, dating back to the Middle Ages?
  16. What is Gulliver’s first name in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels?
  17. Who is Angela in Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes?

Tie-breaker!

What is “Bloomsday”—the date on which James Joyce’s Ulysses is set?  (a) July 2, 1902 (b) June 12, 1903 (c) June 16, 1904, or (d) July 16, 1905

ANSWERS

  1. “The Dead”
  2. “The Second Coming” (The line is, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”)
  3. Marian Keyes
  4. “A Modest Proposal”
  5. Pygmalion (1938).  Shaw also wrote the play on which the film is based.
  6. Vladimir and Estragon
  7. Four, for Beyond the Horizon (1920), Anna Christie (1922), Strange Interlude (1928), and Long Day’s Journey into Night (1957).
  8. “Blackberry Picking”
  9. Maeve Binchy
  10. The Picture of Dorian Gray
  11. Bram Stoker (Incidentally, his actually first name is “Abraham.”)
  12. Frank O’Connor
  13. Flannery O’Connor
  14. Clive
  15. Trinity College
  16. Lemuel
  17. Angela is the author’s mother, who is a native of Limerick, Ireland.  Frank McCourt himself was born in New York, but eventually his family moved to Limerick.

Tie-Breaker:  (c) June 16, 1904

How’d You Do?

15-17 Correct: Pot o’ Gold!

11-14 Correct: Shamrock-star!

6-10 Correct: Lucky Guesser

2-5 Correct: Green around the Gills

0-1 Correct: Potato Famine

Posted in Books, Poetry, Writing | Leave a Comment »

Favorite Passages, Part 1: Reached

March 13, 2013 by dursinms

reached_510

“I know what she means. Writing, painting, singing—it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.”
(Reached, Ally Condie)

Last week I finished Reached, the final book in Ally Condie’s YA dystopian trilogy beginning with Matched and Crossed. This passage from the final pages of her story confirms what I believed from the beginning: Condie has written a 1,245-page love letter to the arts. And through all the drama and romance, she beautifully depicts the ways in which writing, painting, and music can uplift, inspire, and transform.

You see this in a place called The Gallery, where members of the Society gather to share the things they’ve created: pictures, poems, fashion, sculptures. Some sing, while others learn to write. The novel’s protagonist, Cassia, reflects on what makes this place so special and powerful: “I like it best when I hear the whispers of those who are here for the first time, who stand before the wall with their hands over their mouths and tears in their eyes. Though I could be wrong, I think many of them feel as I do whenever I come here. I am not alone.”

For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.

We tend to mark time by the major events in our lives – birthdays, weddings, graduations, the birth of our children. But when you add those up, the number is small. I’ve had 43 birthdays (counting the actual day of my birth), one wedding (let’s hope it stays that way!), three graduations (I’m not counting elementary school), and one experience of childbirth (twins… two for the price of one!)

Compare that number—48—to the total number of hours I’ve spent on this earth: 376,680. (I’ll pause for a minute while you go get your calculator and tally up your hours!) But more importantly, these hours are made up of moment

Relaxing with a really good cup of tea,
Meeting a friend for lunch
Throwing snowballs after a blizzard
Crying tears of shared sorrow
Laughing so hard your stomach hurts
Soaking in the beauty of a sunset

No matter how ordinary they may seem, every moment “between footsteps” makes up our journey and makes our journey worthwhile. That’s what Condie means by “the space of waiting.” And the question she so movingly poses in these final passages of Reached is: how will we fill that space?

Posted in Books, Inspiration | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

Dark Moons, Furious Sounds, Immigrant Rainbows: Different Interpretations of The Wizard of Oz:

March 8, 2013 by dursinms

Wizard of OzMake no mistake: he—or she—had a brain, all right.

Unlike a certain singing scarecrow, whoever initially found the parallels between Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and the film The Wizard of Oz definitely did not have a head full o’ stuffing.  Only an intellectual wizard, after all, could notice that “The Great Gig in the Sky” plays when Dorothy’s house flies in the tornado.  Or that the cash register sound at the start of “Money” is synchronized to the exact moment the movie turns from black-and-white to Technicolor.  Or that Dorothy’s listening for the Tin Man’s heart coincides with the sound of a heartbeat on the album.

It’s all very fascinating.  Provocative.  And completely impossible.  I mean, come on: are we really supposed to believe the guys from Pink Floyd were watching Wizard of Oz while recording the album? Not likely.

This isn’t a knock on the anonymous wizard (or wizards) who originally noticed the similarities.  Far from it: making these connections is a creative act in itself.  And does it matter whether or not Pink Floyd intended to connect its album to Wizard of Oz?  I don’t see why it should.  When an author puts something out into the world, he or she gives up a degree of control.   The audience takes it from there.

Of course, I can’t give props to the folks interpreting the text without acknowledging the greatness of the text itself.  If The Wizard of Oz wasn’t so rich, so paradoxical, so chock full of themes and iconic characters, could those anonymous folks have made so many connections?

That’s not to take anything away from Dark Side of the Moon, which is a trippily complicated text in itself.  I’m just saying that if you take a text as complex as Wizard of Oz and juxtapose it with an equally complex text (such as Dark Side of the Moon, or hundreds of other texts), you’re bound to find some connections.

I actually have an example of my own, regarding the similarities between The Wizard of Oz and William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.  In case you never read The Sound and the Fury (or, as in my case, you read it but had pretty much had no earthly idea what was going on), the novel focuses on a promiscuous Southern woman named Caddy Compson and her three brothers: Benjy, who is mentally handicapped; Quentin, whose incestuous obsession with Caddy contributes to his suicide; and Jason, who is… just mean.  (There is also a plot in there, apparently… but I don’t think I was ever smart enough to figure it out.)

I took a Faulkner seminar in college, and in one of my papers, I made the case (only half-jokingly) that Faulkner borrowed liberally from L. Frank Baum’s original Wizard of Oz novel (published in 1900) for The Sound and the Fury (published in 1929). Caddy, Faulkner’s centerpiece character, is obviously Dorothy; Benjy matches up the brainless Scarecrow; Quentin—or Quen-Tin—is Tin Man; and Jason, the gruff yet easily frightened “king” of the Compson household, is the Cowardly Lion.

I went on to talk about how both texts involve the idea of dreams vs. reality, with Benjy’s stream-of-consciousness narration being particularly dream-like, in that he tends to collapse past and present events into one.  Admiitedly, a bit of a stretch.

Years later, as a high school teacher, I came up with a better Oz-connection; this time, I didn’t connect Oz to a text but to American history.  On some level, I was inspired by Henry Littlefield’s “The Wizard of Oz: A Parable on Populism,” which spelled out the allegorical aspects of Baum’s novel: The Scarecrow is the supposedly ignorant American farmer; the Tin-Man is the industrial worker who toils so hard for so long, he actually becomes a machine himself; the Cowardly Lion is (believe it or not) William Jennings Bryan; the Wizard is any president who doesn’t have the power to give the people what they need; and Dorothy is Everyman (or Everywoman), trying to muddle his/ her way through.

Now… did Baum intend any of this?  Henry Littlefield seems to think so, and he makes an extremely compelling case why. But again, does Baum’s intention even matter?  Littlefield’s reading is an interesting intellectual exercise, one that gives us a new way of looking at a classic text.  That’s enough for me. (I should note: Littlefield was also a high school teacher… just saying.)

My interpretation goes in a different direction than Littlefield’s.   Most significantly, I’m interpreting the 1939 film version, not the novel.  I start with the song “Over the Rainbow,” the lyrics of which were written by a gentleman named Yip Harberg.  A businessman who lost everything in the Great Depression, Harberg went to Hollywood and became a songwriter.   His work on Wizard of Oz won him an Academy Award.  Talk about an American success story (which is sort of curious to say, since he was a committed socialist).

Now, two things you need to know about “Over the Rainbow.”  First: the rainbow symbol does not appear in Baum’s novel; it was used in the film to help reinforce the innovative use of Technicolor.  (That’s why they changed Dorothy’s magic slippers, silver in the book, to ruby red.)  Secondly: Yip Harberg is the son of Russian immigrants, who emigrated to the United States before Harberg was born.

Though not an immigrant himself, is it possible that Harberg was telling the story of his immigrant parents in the song “Over the Rainbow”?  Check out some of the lyrics:

* “There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby”…
* “Dreams that you dare to dream really do come true”…
* “Where troubles melt like lemondrops”…

Aren’t those exactly—I mean, EXACTLY—the kinds of things that someone a hundred years ago, living in Eastern Europe, would say about America?

With that as a foundation, I suggest that the entire 1939 Wizard of Oz film can be seen as an allegory for the American immigrant experience of the early 20th century.   The black-and-white Kansas portion represents their life back home, where they wistfully think about this mythical new world, America—a place where the streets are literally paved with gold. (That’s the yellow brick road.)  Filled with this hope that their daring dreams really will come true, they arrive at the new country, draped in their new home’s colors. (Dorothy, remembers, wears a blue and white dress and ruby-red shoes.)

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for many of these immigrants to realize that this wonderful new place is not what it’s cracked up to be; like the Wizard itself, the new world is an illusion.  And soon, these same wide-eyed immigrants, who risked everything to come to America, face a hard truth: “There’s no place like home.”

Granted, the interpretation needs some work.  I admittedly have some holes to fill. (Who’s the Scarecrow?  What about the Flying Monkeys?)   But it does offer a new perspective, doesn’t it, on a century-old tale?

To me, it all comes back to the text, L. Frank Baum’s original vision.  What started in 1900 as merely America’s greatest fairy tale has had so many lives, so many incarnations—from the 1939 film to The Wiz in the 1970s to Wicked in the 2000s and now to the new film, Oz, The Great and Powerful.  Why has it had such a long shelf-life?

Answer: because Baum is not like his wizard.  He’s the real deal.  He had brains and heart and courage. His vision was rich and deep, great and powerful.  And the lesson all writers can learn from him, I think, is this: the more you put into a text, the more someone else can get out of it.

Posted in Books, Movies, Songs, Teaching, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Twelve Observations About Twelfth Night (Part 1)

February 21, 2013 by dursinms

bosom buddiesI recently re-read Twelfth Night, after a twenty-year hiatus. And I have to say: that play is kray-kray. Oh, it’s fun and light-hearted, and it has some important things to say about gender and identity.  It’s just not the most realistic depiction of life you’ll ever seen.

For the uninitiated, here’s the basic plot:  Viola is caught up in a storm at sea and washes up on the shores of a strange land called Illyria.  For reasons that defy logic, she decides to disguise herself as a man in order to work as a servant for the duke, the lovesick Orsino.  Donning a new name (Cesario) and an apparently extremely convincing costume, Viola becomes fast-friends with Duke Orsino, who asks her (him) to speak on his behalf to the lovely Olivia, who has sworn off men for seven years.   As it turns out, though, Olivia’s man-fast lasts considerably shorter; she immediately falls in love with Cesario/ Viola—who, conveniently enough, has a secret crush on Orsino.

Things get even nuttier later when Viola’s twin brother Sebastian, presumed dead, also washes up in Illyria, totally unaware that his sister is not only alive and living in this same city (what are the odds, right?), but has been basically masquerading around as him for three months.  So Sebastian is confused why all these strangers seem to know him… but not so confused that he declines the marriage proposal of Olivia (whom Sebastian has just met).   Despite these complications, all’s well that ends well: Viola and Sebastian reunite, and Viola and Orsino get married (even though, just moments before, Orsino considered her to be his male servant).

Yeah, so… a little light on the realism, that Twelfth Night.  I’m not saying that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a fact.  Even Shakespeare himself recognized this: in Act III, the character Fabian says, in a moment of inspired self-reflexivity, “If this were play’d upon a stage right now, I’d condemn it as an improbable fiction.”

Improbable or not, though, it’s a great play, one worthy of analysis and discussion.  I have twelve observations/ discoveries about Twelfth Night.  Here are the first six:

(1) As far as Shakespearean titles go, the name Twelfth Night is pretty nonsensical.  It refers to the Feast of the Epiphany, the last night of the Christmas season—but that never comes up in the play. Instead, scholars have surmised that the play was first performed on the “twelfth night”—hence, the name.  I wonder why more current-day screenwriters don’t try something similar.  It would clear up a few things….

“Hey, you want to see that new movie February 18th?”
“Sure.  When’s it coming out?”
“Duh!”

(2) Speaking of titles, Twelfth Night is the only Shakespeare play with a subtitle (What You Will), which could refer to three things:

(a) The audience (as if Shakespeare, acknowledging the role the theater-goers have in the creative process, is conceding, “You folks will do with this play what you will.”  Or maybe he’s saying, “I know I’m taking a walk on the wacky side with this one, but hey, I think it’s cool. So, say whatever you want. I gotta be me.”);

(b) The playwright’s own name (Has there ever been a writer more infatuated with his own name than Master Shakespeare?); and

(c) Ahem… a certain part of the male anatomy.  (I’m serious:  “will” is bawdy Elizabethan slang—and Shakespeare sure does enjoy some bawdy slang!  Of course, since this play involves a woman dressing as a man, maybe the punning especially works here.)

(3) Twelfth Night is one of four—count ‘em: four—Shakespearean plays involving shipwrecks, the other three being Comedy of Errors, The Tempest, and Pericles.  And who can blame Will for going to the shipwreck well so often?  After all, a shipwreck is dramatic, visually compelling.  Thus, when The Tempest opens with a storm at sea, we are immediately thrown into a tense and chaotic scene.

Similarly, in Twelfth Night—actually, it’s not similar at all; the storm happens off-stage, in-between the first two scenes of Act I.  Missed opportunity, I think—as do others; from what I’ve read, some Twelfth Night directors have flip-flopped scenes 1 and 2, which means the play begins with Viola, the main protagonist.  (Of course, that means Orsino’s famous line “If music be the food of love, play on” no longer opens the play, which causes some purists to cry foul.  Eh, can’t win ‘em all…)

(4) For my money, a whole play based on cross-dressing smacks of genius on Shakespeare’s part.  Remember: back in the day, male actors played the female parts.  So, in the case of Twelfth Night, you have a male actor playing the part of a woman playing the part of a man.  How convolutedly cool is that?

(5) And yet, despite its coolness… the whole reason behind the cross-dressing is a little contrived.  So, let me get this straight: disguising herself as a boy is the ONLY way Viola can get a job in Illyria?  Yeah, yeah, I get that she knows absolutely nobody, and she needs food and shelter and all that.  And yeah, yeah, she first thought of going to Olivia’s first, only to be told that she wasn’t seeing anyone (due to that whole “mourning-for-seven-years” thing).  But you’re telling me there is not a single other person living in Illyria who could lend her a hand?  Or that she’s so desperate that cross-dressing is her only option?  And where did Viola get all these men’s clothes, anyway?

I’m reminded of Bosom Buddies, that early-80’s sitcom starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari as two wicked cheap guys who dressed in drag so they could live in an inexpensive apartment for women.  So the two can’t afford to pay rent but they can buy an entire new wardrobe of women’s clothing?  (Incidentally, you know the whole double-meaning of the title Bosom Buddies?  That they’re best friends but they’re also dressing up as women, which means they have fake bosoms?  I literally JUST figured that out last year, a whole thirty years after the fact. Man, either the pun is that subtle or I’m that slow.)

(6) Speaking of sitcoms… Twelfth Night showcases Shakespeare’s susceptibility to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome (CCS).  And who is Chuck Cunningham, you ask?  Why, he’s an original character of Happy Days, of course—the college-aged, basketball-playing older brother of Richie and Joanie Cunningham, the eldest child of Howard and Marion Cunningham.  Chuck appeared sporadically on Happy Days during Seasons 1 and 2, then in Season 3, he went upstairs… and never emerged again.   The writers just dropped him.

Well, three-hundred-and-fifty years before Joanie loved Chachi, some Shakespearean characters experienced the same disappearing act.  And some pretty major characters at that. Where did Benvolio go after Act III of Romeo and Juliet?  What about the Fool in King Lear?  What happened to him? In Macbeth, Fleance fled and never came back.  Same with Donalbain.

Twelfth Night may be one of the most egregious examples of Shakespeare’s CCS.  In Scene 2, Viola is talking to a character known only as Captain, presumably the captain of the ship that just sank.   The Captain not only tells Viola about Orsino and Olivia (he’s either known them or had heard about them previously), but he’s the one Viola enlists in her scheme to disguise herself as a man.  “Conceal me what I am,” she says to the Captain, “and be my aid” (I.ii.54).

In fact, the Captain is the only person Viola knows on Illyria and the only person who knows her secret.  So that seems pretty important, no?  Apparently not.  After Act I, he disappears from world literature forever.  Seems like an oversight– which I have to admit, I enjoy.  Sort of refreshing when the greatest playwright of all time screws up, isn’t it?

Part II of Twelfth Night Observations… coming soon (providing, of course, I don’t come down with Chuck Cunningham Syndrome…)

 

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Quiz: Football in Fiction

February 3, 2013 by dursinms

footballMaybe you know this already, but the Baltimore Ravens is the only pro sports team named after a work of literature: Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”  (In fact, the team’s mascot is apparently a bird named Poe.)  With that curious bit of trivia in mind, we present a football-themed literary quiz.  Maybe you can break it out in between plays at your Super Bowl party?  (And yes, we acknowledge that it would have to be a pretty lame party if you’re asking your guests literary questions….)

  1. In Death of a Salesman, what is the name of Willy Loman’s oldest son, the star football player who never graduated from high school?
  2. And where was this character supposed to go to college?  (He threw into the furnace his sneakers imprinted with the name of the school.)
  3. What novel takes place during World War II at the Devon School, where students invent a game named blitzball, a combination of rugby and football?
  4. This young-adult novel which features a character named Darry, the captain of his high school’s football team who could have gone to college on a football scholarship; however, after the death of his parents,  he gave up on his dream to take care of his brothers, one of whom is named Ponyboy. What is this novel?
  5. Who is the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a Native American ex-football player who now pretends to be a deaf-mute?
  6. Which Tennessee Williams play features a former professional football player named Brick, whose possible romantic feelings for his former teammate Skipper may be the source of his current alcoholism?
  7. Toughie: What was the name of Brick and Skipper’s team? (Hint: it’s fictional.)
  8. I am an American author who played high school football and, during World War I, drove an ambulance in Italy for the American Red Cross.   I later drew on these experiences when I created Nick Adams, a former football player and World War I soldier, who is the protagonist of more than twenty short stories.   Who am I?
  9.  “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.  When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football again were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury.” These two sentences begin which beloved American novel?
  10.  The film Stand By Me features John Cusack as Dennis, a star high school football player whose death haunts his younger brother Gordie.  On what Stephen King short story is Stand By Me based?
  11.  On the Road author Jack Kerouac had a scholarship to play football for an Ivy League university, but after cracking his tibia and squabbling constantly with the coach over his lack of playing time, he dropped out of college completely.  Which university was it—Brown, Columbia, or Princeton?
  12. In The Great Gatsby, what is the name of Daisy’s husband, “one of the most powerful ends that ever played football” at Yale?
  13. I am the sixteen-year-old male narrator of a great American novel.  My story begins as I am standing all alone on Thomsen Hill, next to a Revolutionary War cannon, as my school Pencey Prep’s football team plays Saxon Hall.  I am just about the only one not at the game—except for the kid who lives next door to me, an acne-ridden senior named Ackley.  Who am I?
  14. Which Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, famous for his “Rabbit” novels, has written a short story called “In Football Season”?
  15.  Which Robert Cormier young adult novel opens with high school freshman named Jerry Renault throwing up after trying out for the football team?

Answers

  1. Biff Loman
  2. University of Virginia
  3. A Separate Peace
  4. The Outsiders
  5. Chief Bromden
  6. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
  7. Dixie Stars
  8. Ernest Hemingway
  9. To Kill a Mockingbird
  10. “The Body”
  11. Columbia
  12. Tom Buchanan
  13. Holden Caulfield
  14. John Updike
  15. The Chocolate War

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