Theater Review: "Trojan Women (After Euripides)"

In a posting on September 25th, I mentioned that my wife, Susan, and I were going to be attending a performance of Euripides' Trojan Women by the SITI Company at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California, on October 1, 2011.  It is my opinion that there may not be a better outdoor venue for the staging and production of classic theater anywhere in the United States.

In 1954, J. Paul Getty opened the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Malibu site.  Once the new Getty Museum was opened in 1997 in the Sepulveda Pass, the Getty Villa in Malibu was then completely renovated and ultimately reopened to the public in 2006.  It now houses the Getty's antiquities collections of arts associated with the cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria.  The Villa itself is modeled after the Villa dei Papiri, a Roman country house in Herculaneum that was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.  I have to say that if you're in the Los Angeles area, I strongly recommend that you visit the main Getty Museum, the Getty Villa in Malibu, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).  These really are three of the best museums in the country, in my opinion.

On the property of the Getty Villa is the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater.  It is an outdoor amphitheater just like those found among the ruins of the cities and towns of ancient Greece.  Each fall (typically September and early-October), the Getty Villa stages performances of classic theater in this amphitheater.  For example, recent classical performances have included productions of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Elektra, Euripides' Hippolytos, and Aristophanes' Peace.  For its fall performance in 2012, the Getty is scheduled to put on Euripides' rarely performed play, Helen.

In preparation for seeing the play, I did take the opportunity to read a recent translation and discuss it with Susan.  I chose to read the translation by Alan Shapiro that is included in The Complete Euripides: Volume I--Trojan Women and Other Plays (Oxford University Press, 2010).  This is a powerful, hard-hitting and relentless tragedy that essentially forces the reader to acknowledge the absolute devastation of war and its utter futility.

In a nutshell, the plot of Trojan Women is as follows--

The Trojan War is over, the Trojans have been defeated and the Greeks are victorious.  All that remains for the Greeks is to load up the booty of war, raze the city to the ground, and sail for home.  Part of the 'booty' to be divvied up are the Trojan royal women, including the Trojan Queen Hecuba, and her daughters, Cassandra and Polyxena; Hector's wife, Andromache; and Paris' concubine, Helen (formerly the wife of Menelaus, one of the Greek chieftains).  The play covers the few hours of time as these women come to realize the full extent of the devastation that has been visited upon them and their beloved Troy, and as they learn what is to become of them as they 'farmed' out to the various Greek commanders.  Hecuba starts the play with a long lamentation, almost an ode to grief as she recounts the death of King Priam, the death of all of her sons, and the sack of Troy--and it just gets worse and more tragic from here.

We find out that Hecuba's daughter, Cassandra, the virgin prophetess/priestess of Apollo, has been awarded as a concubine to Menelaus' brother, King Agamemnon of Argos; and that Andromache is to be given to Neoptolemus, Achilles' son; Hecuba's daughter, Polyxena has just been sacrificed on Achilles' tomb; and that Hecuba herself is to be given as a slave to serve Odysseus.  We also learn that Helen--"the face that launched a thousand ships"--is to be returned to Sparta to meet her fate at the hands of her husband, Menelaus.  The final insult comes near the end of the play when the young son of Hector and Andromache is taken and hurled from the walls of Troy by the Greeks--thus extinguishing the royal line of Priam and Troy.  Hecuba now knows that even Hope itself is gone as she laments, "O child, O city--what's left to suffer? How much further/Can we fall into complete destruction?"

Last night was also the last performance of Trojan Women (After Euripides), and it was completely sold out.  Susan and I headed down to the Getty Villa late in the afternoon.  The weather was absolutely ideal too, with an evening temperature in the mid-70s.  Our plan was to arrive early enough to have a nice dinner on the veranda overlooking the amphitheater and take in the ambiance, and then be able to select good seats for the performance.  An added bonus was that while we were eating we were able to watch the actors and actresses come out onto the stage at the base of the amphitheater and practice their movements and warm up their voices.

The SITI Company's performance was directed by Anne Bogart, and used an adaptation of Euripides' play written by Jocelyn Clark.  The ensemble's acting during the performance was simply magnificent!  I especially wish to acknowledge the performance of Ellen Lauren in the role of Queen Hecuba.  Hecuba is on the stage during the entire performance, and she delivered her lines with passion, emotion, drama and pathos.  The pitch of her voice rose and fell with the tortured movements of her body as she delivered her lines and I was swept into the vortex of her lamentations, her overwhelming grief, and her palpable anger at the Greeks and her antipathy for Helen, whom she blamed for all that had befallen Troy and her family.  Lauren's performance was just stunning--from start to finish!

The characters and roles of Cassandra, Andromache, and Helen were generally solidly performed; although I thought the character of Cassandra, played by Akiko Aizawa, was perhaps a little 'watered down', from that of Euripides' original. Cassandra's foretelling of what befalls the House of Atreus--as well as herself and Agamemnon--is so significant and emotionally powerful, and is the source of several other superb tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, as well as Euripides.  Cassandra's prophetic lines in Euripides' play injects that note of utter horror at what is out there looming on the horizon for Agamemnon, his wife Clytemnestra, and their children Orestes and Elektra (and I highly recommend a reading of Aeschylus' The Oresteia for this horrifying story).  I just didn't pick up on that as much in Clarke's adaptation as perhaps I would have liked.  What worked really well in the performance though was the 'debate'--almost an indictment and trial, if you will--between Hecuba, Menelaus, and Helen.  While Helen tried to foist the blame for all that has happened onto Aphrodite (the Goddess of Love), Paris, or even Hecuba herself, no one buys it.  The only question that is not answered by this adaptation, or even in Euripides' original, is what does finally happen to Helen (and that is left for other plays).

There were a several very apparent and intriguing deviations from Euripides' original that Clarke introduced in his adaptation.  The first was the use of Poseidon as a moving stage prop, if you will, during the entire performance.  In the original play, Poseidon provides an introduction and tells the audience about his founding of Troy, helping to build the city, and his rage that the other gods and goddesses have all conspired against him to bring the city down.  That was done here as well, but then Poseidon kind of lurks in the background, with an arm stretched out toward whichever woman happened to be speaking at the time.  It almost seemed to make Poseidon appear impotent and incapable of doing anything--and maybe that it is precisely what Clarke was striving for here.  Another deviation was that instead of Andromache giving up her son, Astyanax, to Talthybius (the Greek envoy, or Herald) to be hurled to his death from the walls, she smothers the infant to her breast and gives the little corpse to the Greeks to 'save' him from being killed at the hands of the Greeks.  Hmm, I need to think on this for a while, maybe it worked, but maybe it didn't.  Finally, Clarke's adaptation also included a role for Odysseus, who makes an entrance toward the end of the play, and makes pronouncements on behalf of the Greek commanders and kind of tidily wraps everything up.  All in all, I think that this worked well, and reinforced the kind of casual and impersonal way that the Greeks approached the sack of Troy and enslavement of the women.

Both, Susan, and I unhesitatingly gave this performance 4 out of 5 stars.  The acting was very, very good.  Jocelyn Clarke's adaptation was bold and audacious, and I think mates up well with Euripides' original.  The costuming was magnificent too; with the women in simple white gowns or robes, the Greek herald Talthybius is a black uniform like that of a SWAT policeman, and Menelaus and Odysseus in crisp, neatly tailored suits.  The staging of the play on the portico of the Getty Villa and on the slate stage of the amphitheater was just exquisite and just added ever so much to our overall experience.  While this play was written by Euripides in 415 B.C., and may have been written as a protest against Athenian militarism and hegemony during the Peloponnesian War, it still comes across as one of the great anti-war statements of all time.  If you have the chance to see any production of Euripides' Trojan Women, I highly recommend that you avail yourself of the opportunity.

***

Review: "Antigone" By Sophocles

I have just finished reading four different translations of Sophocles' classic tragedy Antigone, which was chronologically the first of his three great 'Theban Plays.'  The other two, in the order written, include, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus.  Antigone is thought to have been written around 441 BCE.  I thought it might be interesting to briefly compare and contrast the four very different translations that I read.  As is to be expected, each had strengths and weaknesses.  At least you'll get a sense of what the various translations are like; and if you are a high school English teacher this might even be a helpful posting.

First though, it is probably worth just giving a thumbnail sketch of the plot of the play.  Antigone, Ismene, Polyneices, and Eteocles are the adult children of the accidentally incestuous marriage of Oedipus and his mother Jocasta.  The story of Oedipus and Jocasta is told in Sophocles' other two 'Theban' plays (mentioned above).   Also, if you have never read Antigone, and are worried about 'Spoilers,' you may just want to scroll down to the bottom and look at the comparisons between the four versions, and skip the next five paragraphs (i.e., those between the ***).

***

In Antigone, we find the two sisters, Antigone and Ismene, together in the Greek city of Thebes where a great battle has just concluded, and both of their brothers have been killed.  In fact, Polyneices and Eteocles have killed each other in single combat; with Polyneices fighting on the side of the Argive army attacking Thebes and its defenders, including his brother Eteocles.  The new king of Thebes, Creon, is their uncle (their mother, Jocasta's brother).  While Creon orders full military honors and funeral rites for the slain Eteocles, he issues an edict that the sisters' brother's body, Polyneices, be left to rot and be eaten by scavengers.  This harsh order profoundly offends Antigone's sense of family honor, and it completely runs afoul of the wishes of the gods that all dead are treated with respect and buried with appropriate honor and dignity.  Creon further adds that if anyone attempts to bury the dead man that they will be immediately executed.

Antigone asks her sister to go out on the battlefield and give their slain brother's body its proper funeral rites.  Ismene, however, is afraid of violating Creon's orders and refuses to help.  Antigone is appalled at her sister's weakness, and goes out by herself.  She finds her brother's body, purifies it, and covers it with earth to protect it from the scavengers--all done in direct defiance of Creon's edict.  The covered body is discovered by Creon's sentries, and is re-exposed to the elements.  The disobedience is reported to Creon as well, who is enraged that someone would disobey his direct orders.  Of course, Antigone is then caught attempting to rebury her brother's body, and is brought before the king.

The dialog between Antigone, Creon, and the Chorus is truly amazing and quite powerful.  It is the classic example of someone standing up and doing the morally correct thing, and knowing full well that what they do may cost them their life.  This represents the power of the individual against that of the State.  In fact, early on in the play in an example of imperial hubris, Creon utters a statement that we seem to hear from our political leaders time and time again--"And he who cherishes an individual beyond his homeland,/he, I say, is nothing."  Antigone stands up to Creon by simply stating that her honor, and the honor of her family, compelled her to do what she had done, and that it was also the law of the gods.  Creon says that she must pay the ultimate price for her "treachery" as he puts it.  He sentences her to death, and that she must be walled up inside of a tomb.

At this point the Chorus, comprised of Theban elders begins to doubt the wisdom of Creon's actions against Antigone.  On top of that, Haemon, Creon's son comes in and begs his father not to kill Antigone.  Haemon loves her and wishes to marry her.  More importantly, Haemon also believes that what Antigone has done for her slain brother is only right and proper.  He tells his father that even the citizens of Thebes believe that Antigone has simply upheld her family honor, and has committed no crime and should be spared.  Creon cares not for the opinions of the citizens and does not relent.  He orders Antigone to be taken away.

Later the blind 'seer,' Tiresias comes and chastises Creon for his hubris and arrogance, and ultimately convinces Creon that his edict was wrong-headed.  Creon accepts this verdict and orders the release of Antigone.  But it is too late!  When Creon and his guards arrive at the tomb, they find that Antigone has hanged herself, and that Creon's son, Haemon is in the process of committing suicide to be with her in the Land of the Dead.  Unfortunately, it only gets worse for Creon.  Upon returning to his palace in Thebes, he finds that his wife, Eurydice, has killed herself over the suicide of her son, as well as the death of her older son in the recent battle--both deaths she lays at the feet of her husband, Creon.  The Chorus has the last word--

"The mighty words of the proud are paid in full
with mighty blows of fate, and at long last
those blows will teach us wisdom."

***

Okay, here are the four different translations that I read.  I have to say that they are all quite good; and while the plot is obviously the same, there are subtle differences in meter, lyricism, tempo, and use of contemporary language.

1.  The first version I read was in an edition entitled Sophocles I from the University of Chicago Press (1991), and the translation was authored by David Grene.  This was very solidly done and quite poetic.  It also comes with the other two "Theban" plays, referenced above.  
2. The second version I read was from the "The Greek Tragedy in New Translations" series entitled, Antigone, from the Oxford University Press.  This 1973 translation was prepared by Richard Emil Braun, and was also very well done.  Like Grene's translation (No. 1), seemed to emphasize an adherence to a classical interpretation and felt rather scholarly.
3. The most modern and intriguing rendition was the one prepared by the Irish poet, Seamus Heaney in 2004.  Heaney's version is entitled The Burial at Thebes.  I found this to be a fresh, fast-paced, and a very poetic and lyrical modern translation.  Heaney also incorporated an interesting structure in the poem, and uses a meter of three-beats per line for the dialogs of Antigone and Ismene, four-beat lines for the Chorus (similar to the old Anglo-Saxon of his Beowulf translation), and then iambic pentameter for Creon.  Cool, huh?
4. My favorite translation of Antigone was that of Robert Fagles in the Penguin Classics edition entitled, The Three Theban Plays (1984).  This edition includes the two 'Oedipus' plays and the Antigone, and was nominated for a National Book Award.  I really enjoy Mr. Fagles' translations, as they truly seem to feel classical, but are very understandable.  I truly enjoyed his translations of The Iliad (reviewed here) and The Oresteia; and this translation of Antigone is just as majestic and lyrical.  I highly recommend the Fagles' translations of any of these enduring classics.

So, there you are--a quick review of four different versions of Sophocles' Antigone.  This is an important play to read and ponder.  The moral message put forth in the play illustrates a dilemma that just about each of us probably encounters at least once over the course of our lives.  What the Antigone teaches us is that it is the choice of an individual to stand up and be faithful to a code of ethics, with honor, integrity and personal responsibility in the face of external pressures, sometimes forcibly applied, from others advocating a different, but immoral course of action.  This is important stuff today, just as it was in Sophocles' time.

Review: "Agamemnon" from "The Oresteia" By Aeschylus

I am in the midst of participating in a group read and discussion of Aeschylus' extraordinary trilogy of plays known as The Oresteia with one of my on-line groups on Goodreads.  First of all, I need to acknowledge that I am pretty much a neophyte when it comes to any form of study of the great written works of antiquity, and this applies even more so to any of the surviving examples of ancient Greek drama.  I am currently in the process of remedying this woeful deficiency.  Sure, like most of us, I was required to read bits and pieces of The Iliad and The Odyssey in high school, but I don't recall ever having picked up any of the great classic plays of antiquity.

I also want to point out that with all of the reading that I have done over the course of my adult life I have encountered countless references and allusions to various ancient literary works, and I have always had to sheepishly read over that reference or allusion and therefore not fully comprehending the point.  Clearly, many of the authors of the great literature that we all read and love so much owe a great deal to these earlier poets and authors of antiquity for the classic essays, poems, and dramas that have survived.  One immediately thinks of Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Tennyson, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and William Butler Yeats, just to name a few, as representatives of those who've relied upon and embraced that ancient story-telling tradition in their own works.  I finally came to the realization that in order to fully understand and appreciate many of the world's great literary works, that I needed to spend some time studying these earlier classics, including the ancient Greek canon.  This was my rationale for joining my on-line group in the discussion and analysis of The Oresteia by Aeschylus.

It is generally believed that Aeschylus was born near Athens in 525 B.C. of a noble family.  It appears that Aeschylus fought with the Greek army in its classic battle against the invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon.  Over the course of his life, Aeschylus wrote more than seventy plays, of which only seven have survived in one form or another.  Three of those surviving seven plays make up The Oresteia and were written by Aeschylus in 458 B.C., two years before his death in 456 B.C., at the age of sixty-nine years old, at Gela in Sicily.

The Oresteia is unique in that it is the only surviving example of the ancient tradition of the usual trilogy of Greek tragic drama.  The fourth part of The Oresteia that Aeschylus would have originally presented as the normal Greek dramatic tetralogy, the satyr-play, was entitled Proteus; and would have presented the gods and heroes in comic situations that would have lightened the mood of the audience following its viewing of the preceding three tragedies.  Unfortunately, The Oresteia's satyr-play has not survived.  The three tragedies that comprise The Oresteia include:  Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides.  Collectively, the three plays tell the story of a royal family, the House of Atreus of Argos, and its journey from a dark and bleak legacy of treachery and vengeance to the establishment of a process for formal determination and atonement of guilt through the use of a trial and jury--the process that we now know as Justice.  In essence, the three plays recount Aeschylus' allegorical telling of the history of the Athenian people's journey from the chaos of vendetta-law to that of an enlightened civilization establishing order through the fair application of justice.  As Robert Fagles and W.B. Stanford say so eloquently in their introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of The Oresteia, that it "...is our rite of passage from savagery to civilization."

In a nutshell, Agamemnon is the story of the triumphant return of Agamemnon from the Trojan War and of his murder by his wife, Clytaemnestra.  The Trojan War, prosecuted by the Greeks with the help of the gods, resulted in the deaths of a great many Greek soldiers and the utter destruction of Troy and all of its peoples.  Homer's Iliad tells us that the Trojan War was initiated when the Trojan prince, Paris, wooed Helen, the wife of Menelaus, and spirited her off to Troy.  Menelaus and his brother, Agamemnon, then rallied the Greek army and set off in hot-pursuit to 'rescue' Helen and avenge the insult done to the Greek peoples' honor.  In order to obtain favorable winds for the Greek fleet to sail eastward to Troy, Agamemnon was compelled to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigeneia; an act that Agamemnon's wife, Clytaemnestra, cannot forgive, and which she broods upon during the entire ten-year period that Agamemnon is gone fighting.  Are you seeing a theme emerging here?  There's a whole lot of killing going on, and most of it is associated with revenge--i.e., the application of vendetta-law.

Reading the Agamemnon turned out to be a truly amazing experience for me.  First, it is an absolutely riveting and horrifying tale that simply comes to life on the page.  Obviously, I read an English translation of the play, but it still just feels ancient.  Fagles' translation is incredibly lyrical and spare and very effectively conveys the emotions of the players and the sheer horror of the plot.  Secondly, the moral messages embedded as adages in the play almost leap out at the reader.  A few of the more well-known adages include the following: 'violence begets more violence,' and 'Helen--the face that launched a thousand ships,' or that 'the sins of the father are visited upon the son,' and so forth.

The play starts with the watchman notifying Queen Clytaemnestra that he has spied the signal that Agamemnon is finally returning to Argos.  She begins preparing the palace for his return.  In the meantime, the Chorus of elders comes in and provides us with the back-story of the House of Atreus and its bloody legacy, the reason for the Trojan War, and the sacrifice of Iphigeneia.  At this point a messenger arrives detailing the breadth and scope of the Greek victory over the Trojans as well as the great losses suffered by the Greek army.

Finally, Agamemnon arrives at the palace and is welcomed by the Chorus.  Clytaemnestra comes out, almost like a spider emerging from its lair, and cajoles her husband to step down from his chariot onto a broad tapestry of red cloth that she has placed on the ground from his chariot to the palace doors.  The symbolism is rich as she says,

"Quickly.  Let the red stream flow and bear him home
to the home he never hoped to see--Justice,
lead him in!"

The vision of the red tapestry reminded me of the elevator scene in the movie adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining when the elevator doors open and the blood spills out in a great gush across the floor!  Also, you need to know that only the gods can set foot on crimson tapestries, so Clytaemnestra is able to make Agamemnon commit an egregious offense by walking on it.  Symbolically, Agamemnon has turned his back on the audience watching and walks toward his doom as he enters the spider's lair, his wife also has the last word as she closely follows behind him.  The palace doors close.

At this point we realize that there has been another person in the chariot with Agamemnon.  It is Cassandra, one of the daughters of the late King of Troy, Priam.  Cassandra is an oracle, a prophet, whose powers were bestowed by the god Apollo, but he also made it such that she wouldn't be believed.  Standing in the chariot she immediately begins to foretell the bloody murder that is about to occur inside the palace.  [The photograph, at left, is of Ms. Lilo Baur in the role of Cassandra in the Royal National Theatre's production of The Oresteia in November 1999.  Awesome, huh?]  Cassandra tells the Chorus,

"Murder.  The house breathes with murder--bloody shambles!"

She sees that with the murder of Agamemnon by Clytaemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, that the curse on the House of Atreus continues; nothing changes, and chaos and the Furies still rule.  The Chorus listens to her with mounting horror; as they too now have a sense of impending doom.  Cassandra tells the Chorus that she too must die at the hands of Clytaemnestra, but that she will go to her death with honor and dignity--a daughter of a King--and not a slave as the booty of war.  Before Cassandra enters the palace to meet her own death, she leaves the chorus with an important prophecy,

"There will come another to avenge us,
born to kill his mother, born
his father's champion."

This entire scene between Cassandra and the Chorus is absolutely spellbinding, and the pathos and drama is palpable.  Some of the most powerful dialog I've ever read.

I can almost hear Colonel Kurtz from the movie Apocalypse Now,

"Oh, the horror...the horror..."

The play now essentially comes to its terrible conclusion with the opening of the palace doors and the Chorus then witnesses the wrathful Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus standing over the bloodied and butchered bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra.  Clytaemnestra has exacted her bloody revenge upon Agamemnon for his killing of their daughter.  Violence begets more violence.  Chaos rules!

The Agamemnon is Aeschylus' portrayal of why vendetta-law cannot work for a civilized society.  He has now set the stage for the profound moral questions that Orestes and Electra, the surviving children of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, must answer in the next play in the trilogy, The Libation Bearers. 

***
Stay tuned for my review of The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides.

[This review is based upon the Agamemnon, the first play included in the Penguin Classics softcover edition of The Oresteia, translated by Robert Fagles, 1979, 335 pp.]

Review: "Jude the Obscure" By Thomas Hardy

A few days ago I finished Thomas Hardy's last novel, Jude the Obscure.  I was completely overwhelmed and truly needed a few days to reflect upon the experience and collect my thoughts before attempting a review.  Bear in mind too, that this is the first time that I have read Jude, and I sincerely believe that this novel may require a lifetime of reading and study in order to fully tease out and understand the import of Hardy's message.

First, a little background about the novel.  This novel took Hardy sometime to write.  He started with an outline in 1890, and did not complete the book until 1894.  It was first published serially in Harper's New Monthly Magazine from December 1894 to November 1895, and then it was published in book form.  Hardy took a lot of heat for the novel from reviewers and critics, other authors, as well as the general public.  It developed a reputation as Jude the Obscene.  The relentlessness and vitriol of the negative criticism caused Hardy to forsake ever writing another novel of fiction; and he spent the remaining thirty some odd years of his life concentrating on his poetry.

I also want to include, at this point, a strong 'Spoiler Warning.'  In crafting this review, and discussing Hardy's authorial intent, I am finding it quite impossible not to discuss some relatively important plot points and elements.  Therefore, continue reading at your own peril.  All I can observe is that regardless of what I can say, or what you may have heard about this novel, it is a monumentally huge novel that simply must be read by any and all students of great literature.  Okay, consider yourself forewarned.

In some respects, Jude the Obscure can be looked upon as the coming of age story of Jude Fawley.  Others have postulated that it is also an anti-bildungsroman as it documents, as we shall see, the slow and torturous destruction of Jude and his ideals.  Interestingly, this is the only Hardy novel, that I am aware of, that starts with the protagonist as a child and follows him through his life.

In Jude the Obscure, Hardy addresses the prevailing Victorian attitudes associated with social class and standing, educational opportunities, religion, the institution of marriage, and the influence of Darwinism on modern thought.  Throughout the novel, Jude, Sue Bridehead, and Arabella Donn are used by Hardy to explore and develop the all-encompassing portrait; and to some degree, indictment; of the society and time that Jude and Hardy reside in.  It seems that the novel sets up an examination of the contrasts between the idealistic romanticism of the second generation poets, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley (whom Hardy truly admired), and the more modern cultural movement of social Darwinism.

First and foremost, this is a novel of ideas and ideals.  Jude is a sensitive young fellow, always concerned with the lot of the animals and people around him.  As a child he is even dismayed at seeing trees cut down, and can't bring himself to scare away the 'rooks' (crows) that are eating the seed from a newly planted field that he's been paid to protect.  Later, as an adult he is compelled to leave his bed late at night and find the rabbit, screaming with pain, that has been caught in a trap and dispatch it as an act of mercy.  These are some of the first signs of Jude-the-romantic, and Jude-the-dreamer.  The ideals he has formed are something really quite different from that of the world around him, and this can't bode well for him.

The first third of the novel focuses on Jude's desire to become an educated man and become admitted to the great colleges of 'Christminster' (loosely modeled on Oxford) in Hardy's 'Wessex' countryside.  Jude, like Hardy, is an autodidact and teaches himself Greek and Latin, and views Christminster as the "city of lights" and "where the tree of knowledge grows."  Jude's romantic visions and ideals suffer a terrible blow when he is denied admittance to the colleges and is advised that "remaining in your own sphere and sticking to your trade..." is his best course of action.  Idealism aside, Jude now begins to understand that his social class and standing will continue to strongly influence his future.

Issues associated with Love and Marriage also dominate much of the novel's landscape, and can be quite painful to read and consider.  Early on, Jude is essentially trapped into a truly disastrous marriage with the attractive, but coarse young woman, Arabella Donn, the daughter of a pig-farmer.  Trust me, she can slaughter the animals that Jude cannot.  Arabella's 'unique' method of introducing herself to Jude is to throw a bloody pig's penis at him as he walks by while she is cleaning and sorting the offal of a slaughtered hog!  Simply put, Arabella is the 'Delilah' to Jude's 'Samson.'

Jude's young cousin, Sue Bridehead, on the other hand, is at times, one of the most erudite and intellectual women of the fiction of the late-Victorian.  Ethereal and fairy-like, Sue is an idealist too, but her idealism tends towards a more modern view; even though some its roots reflect that of the second generation Romantics too.  For example, Sue quotes to Jude, several lines from Shelley's great poem, Epipsychidion (Three Sermons on Free Love).  At first blush, it seems easy to assume that Sue endorses the Shelleyan view of 'Free Love' and not binding oneself contractually and exclusively to only one other.  While Shelley meant this from the perspective of sexual gratification, Sue has developed her own brand of romantic idealism that leads her to believe that it is only the iron-clad contract (marriage) that dooms the relationship.

I had to spend some time thinking about Sue and her beliefs, but I have come to the preliminary conclusion that neither she, nor Hardy, are anti-marriage, but that it is the nature of the contract of marriage in the Victorian age (i.e., with all of its trappings of submission, subjugation, and so forth) that doom its likelihood of long-term success in her view.  In fact, in support of this notion, Hardy made a notebook entry in 1889, in which he writes, "Love lives on propinquity, but dies of contact."

It seems that Hardy's development of the character of Sue Bridehead and the novel's storyline may reflect a portion of his own troubled relationship with his wife Emma and her increasing religious beliefs through the years of their own marriage.  Also, it may well be that Sue's character reflects a bit of Hardy's cousin, Tryphena Sparks, a woman that he is rumored to have had an affair with in 1868, and who later died in 1890.  Hardy, in the Preface to the 1895 edition of  Jude, stated that the novel was partly inspired "by the death of a woman" in 1890.

Even though Sue Bridehead bears children with Jude, sexual relations and intimacy remains a very difficult proposition for her.  For example, when married to her first husband, Richard Phillotson, she is startled awake by him entering her bedroom absentmindedly (they slept in separate rooms), and she leaps from a second story window into the night rather than sleep with him!  Again, much of the time she is with Jude, they also sleep in separate bedrooms, which has the effect of keeping Jude's passions for her quite 'hot'.  This is not, however, the romantic ideal of the loving wife and life-mate that Jude has envisioned for his dear Sue though.  It is also not the picture of romantic idealism for Sue either, as she is truly looking for a partner through which she can fully experience Love's spiritual and intellectual bonds, and not just the contractual or the sexual.

Toward the end of the novel there occurs such a shocking event that finally and irrevocably alters the lives of Jude and Sue, and largely severs their tenuous emotional and spiritual bonds to one another.  The romantic ideals of both are smashed hopelessly and simply cannot be reassembled.  Modernization has come and displaced the old world romanticism of Jude Fawley and Thomas Hardy.  Jude-the-Dreamer and Jude-the-Idealist have no place in this new order, because to transcend to his ideals means that he must die as Keats and Shelley so eloquently discovered.  Unfortunately for Jude, even Arabella is present to witness his final suffering and agony.  Jude's story has become, in a very real sense Hardy's modern retelling of the 'Book of Job.'  [Note the word play too -- the "J" from 'Jude' and the "Ob" from 'Obscure']

As I said above, I have a sense that I have probably only just scratched the surface of this titanic novel, and that there is much, much more to glean.  It is full of allusion and metaphor, and rife with biblical references and nods to Hardy's literary ancestors, Milton, Wordsworth, and Shelley.  Before I tackle Jude again, or re-read any of his other novels for that matter, I want to first read Claire Tomalin's recent biography, Thomas Hardy (2006); Rosemarie Morgan's Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy (1988); and also delve into Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (1981), edited by James Gibson.

Read this novel!  When you are through, let me know; for I'd love to discuss it with you and see what you think too.  Five out of five stars for me.

[My review is based upon the Everyman's Library hardcover edition (No. 115), published by Alfred A. Knopf , 1992, 519 pages.  The book-jacket was created as a tie-in for the 1996 film adaptation entitled, Jude, directed by Michael Winterbottom, and starring Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslett.  By the way, I am having an absolute devil of a time finding a DVD of this adaptation.  Any ideas?]

Review: "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" By Thomas Hardy

I have almost finished reading much of the major fiction of Thomas Hardy this summer.  I just completed a re-reading of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.  As I recall, the last time I read this novel was in the mid-1970s while I was in the U.S. Coast Guard.  All I can say is that this has to have been one of the most intense novels that I believe that I've ever read.  Reading this book rivals the literary and emotional experiences I have had with Hardy's The Return of the Native, Charlotte Bronte's Villette, Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, and Tolstoy's masterpiece, Anna Karenina.  In my opinion, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is one of the monumental literary achievements of the entire Victorian Era.  A stunning novel!

A tragedy in six parts, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is set in Hardy's fictional Wessex in southwestern England.  The novel follows the beautiful Tess Durbeyfield from the age of about sixteen until she is about twenty or twenty-one.  The story's plot revolves around Tess and the two men that feature prominently in her life; the first is Alec Stoke-d'Urberville; and the second, Angel Clare, is the youngest son of a country parson.  Like in all of Hardy's novels, names are everything.  For example, it turns out that even Tess's name, 'Durbeyfield,' is simply a corruption, over time, of the name of her noble d'Urberville ancestors who now reside in their stone vaults in the church-yard in Kingsbere.

With all the recent reviews of Hardy’s novels that I have written this summer I am sure that I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but Hardy’s descriptions of the pastoral lives of the Wessex simple folk are ever so beautiful and enchanting.  With his descriptions I always feel like I am right there experiencing the moment with the characters of the novel.  Even in the scenes loaded with human drama and pathos there is always the touchstone to the natural environment.  Hardy’s literary signature seems to be his ability to relate, and even bind together, the natural environment with the environment of real human emotion.

This is a novel of double-standards and sacrifice and the young and noble Tess is the unfortunate recipient of the negative consequences associated with the actions and feelings of both Alec and Angel.  Tess becomes, if you will, the Magdalen continually seeking redemption from those who probably can't, or won't grant it.  Based upon Hardy's own view of the Victorian society, it was highly unlikely that the Magdalen could be absolved or redeemed, and I believe that that realization must have affected him profoundly.  In reading this novel, I have come to believe that Hardy loved Tess more than any other woman that he "invented" and wrote about; you can almost feel his love for this "pure woman" emanating from each page.  Hardy wrote in one of his notebooks in 1895 that “Love lives on propinquity, but dies of contact.”  For me, this relatively short sentence completely illuminates the common thread and theme that links every one of Hardy’s novels and much of his poetry.

Symbolism, visual imagery, and allusion are all deftly used by Hardy as this 'folk tale' is recounted; and at times it does feel like a nightmarish and horrifying folk tale told around the fire on a dark and stormy night.  There are numerous references to Milton's Paradise Lost, the Book of Genesis, and several of the Pauline letters of The New Testament.  This is a harsh and unforgiving world that Tess finds herself in, with 'Punishment' the watchword and little in the way of 'Hope' or 'Happiness' looming on her horizon.  Mixed with the religious, there are also numerous examples of pagan symbolism and rituals; all of which contribute to the colored pigments that Hardy has applied to the canvas of Tess's life as the sacrificial victim of her society.

Having now read most of Hardy's novels, and a good number of his short stories, I can make the observation that Hardy likes to include a 'witch' in his tales.  There are good witches and bad witches, but they are all here in Hardy’s Wessex, including: 'Bathsheba Everdene' (Far From the Madding Crowd); 'Eustacia Vye' (The Return of the Native); 'Lucetta Le Sueur' or ‘Elizabeth Jane’ (The Mayor of Casterbridge); 'Felice Charmond' (The Woodlanders); 'Tess'; and, finally, 'Sue Bridehead' and ‘Arabella Donn’ (Jude the Obscure).  Think about it for a momentl; but each of these women absolutely bewitches and intoxicates one or more of the male characters in each of the novels; generally with tragic and disastrous results.  And Tess is no different.  Both Alec and Angel are completely besotted with Tess, and almost continually blame her for being a 'temptress'; the 'Eve' to their 'Adam.' 

I have to say that both, Alec and Angel, infuriated me to no end throughout much of the novel.  While Tess, with her simple ways and innocence, makes bad decisions (with Fate's kind help, I might add), these two men are the basest, most cowardly and hypocritical, and end up becoming two of the most despicable male protagonists in fiction, in my opinion.  Each of these men, at numerous times, could well have done the right thing and brought Tess salvation and full redemption, as well as given her the love and affection that she so desired and deserved.

Finally, even when Angel Clare comes to his senses and realizes what Tess is, and what she means to him, it is Tess, herself, that says, near the end, "It is too late...Too late, too late!" 

For Tess it truly is too late!

***

Now it is on to Jude the Obscure.

[My review was based upon the Everyman's Library hardcover edition of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, published in 1991 by Alfred A.Knopf.  The black and white photograph accompanying this review was taken by me on Christmas Eve in 2006 in a cornfield near my daughter's home in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Somehow, this image reminds me of the fields and tree-lined borders of Hardy's Wessex countryside.  'Click' on the image for a larger view.  Enjoy!]

Meme: Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is:

"The mixed, singular, luminous gloom in which they walked along together to the spot where the cows lay, often made him think of the Resurrection hour.  He little thought that the Magdalen might be at his side."

My teaser was taken from page 154 of my current read-- Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, Everyman's Library hardcover edition, Alfred A. Knopf, 1991, pp. 464.

I haven't read this book in years, and I am truly enjoying my re-read of this amazing novel!  Reading "Tess" is kind of like standing on a hill and watching two trains speeding toward one another at breakneck speed on the same track; you just know that something very bad is going to happen!  One of Hardy's best!

[The rules for Teaser Tuesdays comes from MizB at Should Be Reading]