Daughters of Troy (The Trojan Women)

When I studied in London a few years ago I took a class called "Modern Drama in Performance." In which we went to see Hecuba (pictured at left). Clearly my professor meant "modern" loosely. But as she pointed out, Greek tragedies were popular that year. And surely it was no surprise for Euripides, who lived and wrote during the Peloponnesian War, to be in vogue.

The production we saw was certainly modern, from the set to the translation, which I tend to think is a necessity when it comes to Greek tragedy. Or if not a necessity, an enormous help. It's true that the stories these plays tell, and the messages they convey, still hold power millenia later. But I think that, as viewers from a radically different culture, it helps to have some kind of entrance into that world.

Which brings me to the dramatic reading of The Trojan Women, henceforth referred to as Daughters of Troy since that's what this translation titled it, I went to last night. I saw a flier for it in McNally Robinson (the bookstore where the reading was held) and, since I do like Greek tragedy and the translation and reading were both the work of Mark Rudman who is a former teacher of mine, I decided to go. I'm glad I did too, because the translation, by Rudman and Katharine Washburn, is one that really lends itself to being read aloud or performed: The language is simultaneously poetic and colloquial.

ANDROMACHE
She died her own death; she met
a fate that is sweet compared to my life.

HECUBA
Child, to see the light of day
is to be alive.
Death is nothing. In life, one harbors hope.

ANDROMACHE
Mother, who gave me life, hear now
an argument to warm your heart.
Cancel the walk from cradle to grave--
better to be dead than live in anguish.
For whoever has exhausted hope
is numb to further pain,
but whoever knows good fortune,
when he is fallen in misfortune,
is distraught with the memory
of lost happiness.
Polyxena . . . she no longer sees the light
and is severed from these evils by death.
But I, who aspired to be well-thought-of,
I, who enjoyed some good measure of success,
have met disaster.

It's a taut and effective translation and it was a pleasure to hear it read. Daughters of Troy is thought of as Euripides antiwar play, although he certainly has more than one play that shows the horrors of war: not only the ways in which war destroys the lives of those who do not fight and are left to pick up the pieces but the way in which it dehumanized victors and conquered alike. I imagine though, that it is Daughters of Troy which is particularly difficult to translate or perform, because it is a play in which virtually nothing happens. A series of speeches. So it was a nice surprise to find the reading and translation as engrossing as they were.

John Crowley and Sara Langan

Now, admittedly I'll generally take any excuse I can get to hide in my apartment. And the rain Wednesday night seemed as good an excuse as I was likely to get. It was, after all, fairly disgusting out. But I love John Crowley's writing and KGB Bar is only a block and a half from my apartment, so I pulled on my rainboots and a jacket and off I went. Really it would be fairly sad to plan a trip somewhere for weeks and then not go because you would be required to walk a block in the rain.

I've been to KGB before, or course, but never on Fantastic Fiction night (fantasy books once a month). I like KGB fairly well, although communist nostalgia does nothing in particular for me and it's generally too crowded for comfort. They put together a wonderful set of readings and from a purely aesthetic standpoint, I love that particular shade of red. But anyway, Fantastic Fiction night. Funny because as soon as you walked in you could tell there were fantasy fans in the audience. There's a number of very particular looks. The most instantly noticeable is the man, slightly balding, with the squarish black glasses and a goatee. Then you have that one guy with the receding hairline and stringy brown hair down his back. And of course there's the girl in the fishnets, badly proportioned plaid skirt, and black t-shirt with too-long, damaged hair of that particular shade of brown that really should be dyed. There are normal looking people there as well, of course, but there was definitely that particular fantasy fan look out in full force. Also, I would later realize, that particularly fantasy fan sort of social awkwardness that seems to allow them to bond happily while discussing world building and barbarians and just makes me feel like I need another drink. But anyway, the point is that I was standing there being a judgmental bitch when the reading actually started.

Sara Langan read first. I'd never heard of her before. She seems like an absolutely lovely lady, although she should really stand up straighter and either wear a bra in the first place or wear one with a lot more support. Because if she was wearing one it wasn't doing its job. Judgy, remember. Anyway, the fact that she's so nice and charming seeming makes it a bit of shock to realize that she's a horror writer. Horror isn't my thing. I mean, really isn't my thing. It rates way below dragons and elves and fantastic quests, which is saying something. Because at this point they're pretty low on my list. Which isn't to say I would never read horror. I'd read anything provided someone I trusted recommended it to me. But it would take a lot of convincing. It just always seems to include slithering and swelling and the fetishization of horrible things. Now, I understand that it's horror writing and thus supposed to horrify. I get that it's supposed to make one feel uncomfortable. And for the record, based on the section of her book she read, I feel quite comfortable saying that Langan does that well. But it feels too much to me as if it's horror for the sake of horror. Or discomfort for the sake of discomfort. And if there's not some important point, some understanding that can only be reached in this way, then what's the point?

A brief google search for "purpose of horror" informs me that the purpose of horror is to challenge us, to force us to think differently. For this view, take a look at "Is Horror Literature?" which was the first link that came up on the google search. I remain unconvinced. Because let's be honest for a moment and admit that the reason for reading fiction, for the vast majority of us, is pleasure and entertainment. That's certainly why I read. Do I want to read books that contain something deeper, that change or expand my worldview? Absolutely. But I also want to enjoy the act of reading. And we can come up with all the justifications in the world for something but if we didn't like reading then we wouldn't do it. Thus, when I'm reading, or listening to someone read, about getting aroused while eating bloody dirt or what-have-you I don't feel so much challenged as concerned that this provides some kind of entertainment for people. Some kind of visceral thrill. And why is that? I don't know, but it's something I don't like. If anything I think the appeal of horror, the fact that people read and enjoy it, is more interesting than the writing itself.

Crowley read second. And let me just say that if I were a writer (which I am not) and did readings (which, it follows, I do not) then I wouldn't want to read with Crowley. Not because he doesn't seem like a very pleasant and gracious man. He does. He has a livejournal as well, which does nothing to change my opinion on that. It's just that he's such a wonderful writer. I don't mean in terms of plot, characterization, etc. (although that also) but simply in his use of language. In the way he forms sentences. Langan's writing was perfectly effective. She's clearly a good writer. But it's impossible, for me at least, not to compare the people reading, and in this comparison she suffers. Then again, nearly everyone would.

Anyway, Crowley has a nasal quality to his voice that took a bit of getting used to not because he has an unusual or unpleasant voice but because I, for some inexplicable reason had always pictured him sounding rather grander and more "serious." Like Nabokov, but from New England, so without the accent of course). I have no explanation for this mental...not image, I suppose, but the auditory version of such. It just was. And I actually am happy that he sounds as he does. It's much more pleasant seeming. He was reading from his latest book, Endless Things which is the conclusion of his Aegypt series. I'm sure I'll get to it eventually, though probably not in the near future. I started Lord Byron's Novel recently and have Otherwise sitting on my shelf, so those will come first. Not having read said series, I didn't know who any of the characters were, or anything about them, but I enjoyed the reading regardless.

By the time I left it had thankfully stopped raining.

CONVERSATION: Per Petterson and Marilynne Robinson

If anyone remembers or read my post on Housekeeping they know how I feel about Marilynne Robinson's writing. If you don't want to hear me waxing rhapsodic on that, this would be a good time to stop reading. Per Petterson I've never read and had never heard of. This reading was just after the Imaginary Geographies one and was a bit fuller. Probably partially because it was at 5 o'clock instead of 3 o'clock on a Friday and partially because it featured a Pulitzer Prize winner. Either way, there were still more seats empty then full. Probably because some people actually do work.

There were people eating popcorn which made it feel kind of like we were waiting for a movie to start. I was not eating popcorn but was listening in on people, because that's what you do when you go places alone (with a book open so it looks like you're not, of course). The woman who was sitting behind me is from the Phillipines but moved to the United States five years ago. Her children are in their forties and her husband is currently in North Korea, although she didn't say why. She was talking to the man sitting next to her who had white hair, a beard, and a liver spot on his forehead. He designs and manufactures jewelry, but the jewelry he was wearing was not his own work. His oldest son was born in 1958. One of his children refuses to have children and he thinks this is very selfish. Once, years ago, the US State Department told him not to travel to the Phillipines.

The talk was introduced by Philip Gourevitch and moderated by Radhika Jones. Robinson wore black and a red scarf with gold pinstripes. Petterson, jeans with an untucked blue shirt and dark gray jacket with a gold pin on the lapel. No, I don't know why I keep telling you what the authors were wearing. Yes, I realize it's boring because they're authors and fashion is not actually their forte. This was Petterson's first time in New York (he's from Norway, incidentally) although he had been to the US before. That always strikes me as odd because I'm so convinced that New York is, in fact, the center of the universe. An attitude that annoys me in other people, and yet I forgive it in myself.

They began by reading a bit of their most recent novels. Petterson's being Out Stealing Horses and Robinson's being Gilead. I think--and for some reason I didn't think of this during the first event) that it must be strange for Petterson to read words he both did and didn't write. He wrote his story, chose his words, and then it was translated into English by someone else, and their mark is on the story as well. There's a kind of shared ownership between him and the translator. I'm interested in the invisible chasm between the two. The novel he wrote and the novel he is reading, which are are same but also different. If I were to ask a question, that's what I would ask about.

Petterson said at some point--after Robinson said that, with Housekeeping she thought she was writing an unpublishable novel--that to write while thinking of your audience would destroy everything. I suppose, the fragility of the creative process. That sense of fragility carries over into my reading, I think.

Waiting to go into the theater between talks, a woman near me asked me if I'd read Gilead. I said I had and she said, "Isn't is just beautiful." It wasn't a question, but the answer, in case you're wondering, is yes, it is beautiful. Still, it seems like it's not sufficient to just say that it's beautiful. I recommended it to my mother once and she didn't love it nearly the way I loved it. Instead she kept arguing that certain plot points were unrealistic, and I didn't know what to do with the fact that she wasn't as dumbstruck by the novel as I was, so I never recommended it to anyone again. I did once give it to a friend as a gift but I never asked her if she read it or what she thought of it. Let me take a moment to note that I usually don't care overly much if people don't like the books I recommend. This is an exception not the rule.

Anyway, this pertains to the fragility I talked about above. I feel as though if I get too close to the writing, examine it too thoroughly, the sentences will some how break apart, shattering into all their component pieces. And the beauty would be gone because it's in the tensions between the words. Which is absurd, of course, because the writing is permanent insomuch as something can be permanent, printed in thousands upon thousands of books. The only thing that I could change (through overanalyzing, whatever) is my relationship to the book and the way I hold the words in my head. But that's not the way I perceive it.

Enough of that though. Petterson and Robinson also talked about the reasons they deal almost exclusively with families in their books. Robinson talked about how any human bonds have analogs in family bonds. How the human impulse toward loyalty is found at its most basic in family and this makes the severing of family interesting.

Robinson ended the talk by saying that when she writes she has to love and respect the character her writing is centered around. It's something that really shines through in her writing, which I talked about a bit in my post on Housekeeping. So many authors seem to have an antagonistic or critical approach to their characters unless they use said character as a stand in for themself or some kind of wish fulfillment, so it's always nice to see an author who obviously loves and connects to his/her characters while simultaneously being fundamentally separate from them.

Imaginary Geographies

With Daniel Alarcón, Arthur Japin, Tatyana Tolstaya; moderated by Deborah Treisman


This talk was up in a theater that's part of Lincoln Center. Which is fine and easy to get to and all except for the fact that it was disgusting out. By the time I got there I looked kind of like I'd just popped out of a washing machine. Curly hair and that kind of damp, almost raining weather don't mesh well. Granted, the little old ladies and men who make up most of the audience for these things (particularly at 3 o'clock on a Friday afternoon) aren't going to care. But I still hate looking like I haven't even bothered when going somewhere.

The person coordinating the talk then had to ask people to move down toward the front. Which seemed kind of funny considering that the people there were not, shall we say, of an age to be gossiping with their friends at the back of a classroom. I think it's just that people don't want the speakers to actually look at them. You don't want to be observed when you're there to observe other people. And what if you yawn, or look bored or what have you? Very troublesome.

Anyway, the reading. They started out by each reading a bit of their writing, which I always find fairly boring except insofar as it lets me see what a writer I'm not familiar with is about. It's like going to see a musician, sure I like their music but I could just listen to a cd. I want to see what they have to say and how they dress and talk. It's a bit of a cult of celebrity thing I suppose, except for the fact that at readings you sometimes get to hear about a readers process or inspiration or what have you. And there's often a question or answer session during which people prove that there is indeed such a thing as a stupid question. Or at the very least that there are people who enjoy hearing themselves talk far more than I do. And I talk a lot.

Alarcón was wearing jeans, layered t-shirts, and converse sneakers. So he basically looks (and at times talks) like a slacker college student, which, because I was sick and cranky, caused a minor existential crisis for me. I thought for a moment that if you're not the sort of person who writes, you should want to be the sort of person who is written about. I meanwhile, I am the sort of person who works at a nine-to-five desk job and then goes home and heats up dinner in the microwave. Oh the angst. Then I remembered that I actually quite like my life, and had a moment of annoyance at the fact that he couldn't even be bothered to put on a nice pair of shoes when he was going to be on a stage, and felt better. He read from Lost City Radio which is set in an imaginary city much like Lima, Peru.

Japin wore a suit with a sweater (no tie), has mostly greyed hair, and talks like he has money. Not what he says but the way he speaks. He read from a book called The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi, about two African boys who were given to the king of Denmark. Tolstaya is overweight and wears gold-rimmed glasses. I think she dyes her hair. She wore jeans too (tapered and fairly awful), but at least paired them with nice boots and a red shawl. She read a story called "Okkervil River." There's a beautiful bit of description in it..."apple-round heels," that struck me. I kept getting distracted by listening to her accent and forgetting to listen to the actual story. She's the great-grandniece of Leo Tolstoy. Unlike Pasternak's grandniece she's not writing scandalous books about Princess Diana or cleverly-titled chicklit, so props for that.

After they read there was a a panel discussion and question and answer session. The first question put to them was why they chose to use imagined settings. Alarcón explained that he chose an imaginary city for expediency--so he wouldn't have to worry about getting details correct. "To escape the burden of reality." Japin spoke of finding a new reality. Talked about his father who was mentally disturbed and about going to visit him as a boy. He said it seems to him that it wouldn't be bad to be mad so long as one tuned into the right world. Tolstaya said that literature was both a way out and a way of being in a better place while remaining in the same place. When asked specifically about writing under a repressive regime, she said it was good for literature (hardly a new idea, after all) because it forces writers to write about things indirectly, through allegory, etc. To just say, "I don't like the regime," is boring and annoying (a la Wainwright's Going to a Town, no?) and that noone likes any regime. She then mentioned that although the titular river is a real river in St. Petersburg, she had never been and would not go, because if she doesn't go then the place can be anything she wants it to be. She also said that there is a band in Texas that is named after her story which is named after the river where she is never been, adding one more layer to the imagined place. I looked up the band, incidentally, and they're not very good. I'd stick with the story.

They talked then about historical fiction such as Japin writes. He said that he considers reality a gateway into imagination. Tolstaya talked about nostalgia for the past and how culture is destroyed by time, war, etc. The effort to capture this feeling in writing. All fiction, she said, is imaginary (and historical, as I understood her) because what is written about is gone. That we imagine again and again and think we know.

The question and answer session began then and the first question was, ignoring the topic for a moment, what are you actually thinking about now. I'm quite interested in the topic of imaginary geographies so I thought the question was kind of annoying. Happily, Alarcón brought it right back to the topic--at which point I decided that I did like him after all--by saying that he was thinking about immigration, and New York as an imaginary geography for other people. That it is a place imagined in different ways by people all over the world. Japin followed this up by a story about women in Accra who spend their days typing in NYC tickets (hurrah for outsourcing) and have to create their own version of the city because they don't know what it's actually like.

The last question is about memory and forgetting. Alarcón talked about young writers (not unlike himself) remembering what had happened in Peru, and how creating a kind of chronicle of memory is a good thing, although something that others would also like to avoid. He talked about politicians and bureaucratic functionaries in particular wanting the past to be forgotten there. Japin spoke of creating alternate biographies or histories by using the facts that are usually forgotten and skipped over. How you can take things that are all true but create entirely different stories just by choosing what to use and what to cast aside. Tolstaya then spoke about people wanting to forget the truth. How there is a difference between what we think we remember and what really happened and that people don't want the truth. She talked about how people are forgotten and thrown out of history and we allow it to happen because the truth destroys and is painful. But she also talked about the way truth has of seeping out.

And that's where time ran out and the panel ended. I know this seems like a disorganized summary but it's difficult with panels like this. They wind up somewhat disorganized in reality as well as in typed up summaries. To be honest, I tend to prefer lectures because I need my information in little linear bits to begin with. A little silly, maybe, but true. And beyond that, I always want people to go on talking and speak about things in more depth, which doesn't really work when they're sharing an hour with other writers. Still it was an interesting panel to listen to.

There was a signing with books for sale afterward. I always feel bad if I don't buy anything but I really don't have the money to buy extra books at the moment (particularly not at full price) and I don't have the time to read them or a place to put them, so I just bought a cookie and waited for the next talk to start, and figured there were plenty of other people buying books and even if anyone noticed they wouldn't care. And went on feeling guilty because I have a complex, but whatever.

Oh the Places You'll Go

I went to see Stephanie Elizondo Griest read/speak at McNally Robinson today. Her book is titled 100 Places Every Woman Should Go and she's certainly the most enthusiastic author I've ever seen. Seems very pleasant and like a lovely person. The topic of the book is something I'm of two minds on. On the one hand, yes it's great for a woman to travel. On the other hand, why should women go to places because they're women? Why shouldn't both men and women go to these places? After all, I might want to go to places in a book entitled 100 Places Every Man Should Go should such a book exist. There's a lot more thought and nuance in the subject, of course, but you can see where I'm coming from, no? I do not want my travel to be gender-determined.

I think part of the problem for me might be that I'm not so into the idea my womanhood. I don't mean femininity by that but the idea that I'm part of a community of women. I don't think of other women as my sisters--except for my real sister, of course--nor do I think I have some kind of bond with other women solely due to the fact that we have two X chromosomes. The touchy-feely aspect just doesn't work for me. Along a similar vein, Griest talked quite a bit about "mother road" and while I've traveled a bit I can't say I've ever thought of travelling in terms of trusting to "mother road" or something of that sort. Mainly because I think that sort of stuff is kind of crap.

This sounds critical and I don't really mean it to be. It's just a difference in outlook. There were other things that I did like and/or agree with. Relying upon the kindness of strangers when on the road, for example. Certainly I've experienced that and it's something that's stayed with me.

There did seem to be some interesting and helpful advice (certainly she had interesting and helpful things to say) and I think I'll go check the book out in the bookstore. Much of the information might be more for my sister than me, I think. I've got a job to worry about and can't really go travelling. I'm sure I could if I wanted to live a nomadic life of sorts but I'm too much of a homebody for that.

"There's just so much reality out there."

I went to the Barnes & Noble on 6th and 22nd today to see William T. Vollman read from his new book, Poor People. Seems like a nice guy, incidentally. Took the time to speak to people while he was signing books and personalize the books with little drawings. Anyway, the book was published by Ecco, which is an imprint that I think puts out really interesting stuff. It's basically a series of vignettes in which Vollman speaks to poor people, which is pretty much as depressing as it sounds. Here's the end bit of what he read:

She didn't know anything.

Do you have some dream for your future?

Yawning, head now listless on her little fist, she said: I just want to go back home.

I gave her what she said she needed to go back home on, guessing that tomorrow and the next day she'd still be there, and then I asked her: In your idea, why are some people rich and some people poor?

I think I am rich, she said dully.

She was already slipping into death, and perhaps had never been alive; by which I don't mean that she might not eke out another twenty or fifty semiconscious years. The last I saw of her, she was sitting sideways in her place just outside the railroad station entrance, clutching her white plastic bag of belongings beside her, not looking anybody in the face.

There was a little girl at the reading, with one or both of her parents. I don't know. She was wearing a puffy red jacket and a frilly red skirt over jeans lined in pink flannel and cuffed about an inch-and-a-half. While Vollman read, she lay under one of the CD stands and looked at the pictures in an oversized Winnie the Pooh book.

After reading, Vollman took quite a number of questions. A few that I remember...On whether writing the book was a way of dealing with seeing such horrible things: No, it was harder to write the book and is harder to read it. When actually there you're thinking about more practical things and have no time to focus on the sadness of it. In response to, "Is poverty inevitable or is it possible to 'make poverty history'": He thinks that poverty is inevitable because one type of poverty is relative poverty and people will only be unequal. Russian beggars he spoke to talked about how, under communism, everyone was poor. So perhaps you could eliminate 'poverty' by making everyone poor. (Doesn't seem like a good option to me.) When asked to explain the great range of his books: "There's just so much reality out there. I'm interested in everything."