Friday Flotsam: Washington, ‘Dorian Gray’ and ‘The Odyssey’

/ DBreitenbeck

1. My judgment is that the American Revolution was one of the stupidest, most asinine and unnecessary revolts in history.

And yet, the figure of Washington gilds this absurdity with such sublime heroism that it nearly outweighs every other consideration.

I think that might be a good summation of the American character: objective absurdity overlaid with true nobility. It gives the country a delightfully boyish kind of feel

2. It’s my opinion that the two incomparably greatest men America has produced (speaking in an secular rather than a sacred sense) are George Washington and Robert E. Lee. Rebel warlords who subordinate their own ambition for the good of their country are among the rarest of human specimens, and it is perhaps our nation’s finest distinction that we’ve had two.

3. I am finding that The Picture of Dorian Gray deteriorates upon re-reading. Part of the problem is that, as I’ve said before, the lead characters – Dorian and Lord Henry – are just so repulsively evil, and in such a petty, superficial way, that it becomes oppressive to spend time in their presence. They’re effeminate hedonists who mistake their inability to perceive substance for intellectual superiority, making them at once infuriatingly pathetic and nauseatingly smug.

Now, that is part of the point of the story: Dorian exists in a world of glittering shadow, while his portrait serves as a record of his true nature. But the big issue I’m finding is that the book is too long and drawn out for its story. Oscar Wilde let’s his pen run away with him too much for page upon page of emotive descriptions and superficially witty sayings, so that when the payoff finally comes it’s too little too late for satisfaction. I think something closer to a Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde length would have served the story better.

4. On reflection, I think the pleasure Dorian Gray may largely depend on how amusing you find Lord Henry’s non-stop bon mots. At first, they’re delightful. Then about the third chapter they start to get tiresome. Then on re-reading you realize: “These are completely empty and exist solely to sound clever by inverting expectations.”

It was a little like my experience of Las Vegas. Riding up and down the strip, I first thought that it looked really cool. Then about the half-way point it hit me: this is all fake. And I stopped caring.

5. On the other hand, re-reading The Odyssey in full for the first time since college, my impression is “Oh, my God; this is amazing!” I had not appreciated it back then, the rich, interwoven patterns blended with human realism: Telemachus’s shyness when approaching Nestor, Nestor’s sincere, but slightly-overbearing hospitality, Helen’s uncertain honesty and aura of feminine danger, the warm affection expressed by the surviving veterans, and so on, all in just the first few books. Being more versed in storycraft than I was then, I find I can appreciate the heights of art far more.

6. On the subject of Helen, she only appears the one time in the book, but she stands out as a definitely dangerous figure. On the protagonist’s side, to be sure, but wielding the kind of power that calls for caution: skill in potions and magic, seductively manipulative, and possessing great subtlety of perception. Her protestations that she had regretted her decision to leave Menelaus long before the fall of Troy ring more than a little hollow, particularly in light of her subsequent account of how she tried to trick the Greeks who were hiding inside the horse (and yet, did not warn the Trojans themselves), which suggests that, however kindly she treats Telemachus and however docile she seems to be, this is not a woman you would be wise to trust, let alone offend.

She’s no warrior or ‘badass’ or even what we would call an ‘independent’ woman, but Helen manages to be legitimately intimidating even while sitting at dinner at home; a feat few of today’s “strong female characters” could muster. She represents a kind of hyper-femininity; woman’s powers pitched to an extreme, which is an archetype that people seem to have forgotten how to write these days.

7. Penelope, on the other hand, is the archetype of the faithful wife (contrasting both Helen and Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra); a woman of considerable powers of her own, but who directs all her forces toward the end of guarding her fidelity. As her husband used all his tricks and stratagems to besiege Troy, so she uses all of her own tricks and stratagems to guard the citadel of her family against the suitors who are ‘laying siege’ to Odysseus’s home. Said home being fundamentally comprised of the bond of husband and wife, which the suitors seek to break (and as shown at the end by the motif of the immovable marriage bed around which the whole palace was built).

Again approaching it with the equipment to receive it, I find myself amazed at just how good Homer’s epic really is.

7 thoughts on “Friday Flotsam: Washington, ‘Dorian Gray’ and ‘The Odyssey’”

  1. I’ve chewed it over, and I don’t think she did it. Tried to trick the Greeks, I mean. I think she made it up.

    At first I thought, actually, is that good writing? If she’s on the Trojans’ side, she’d simply warn the Trojans; but if not, why should she risk the Greeks’ lives and their attempt? What’s her motivation here? (I suppose the cynical might say, she wanted to make sure only the best men won, because she’d rather end up with whoever’s the better man, or some such; I’m not sure I’m satisfied with that explanation.)

    And that’s to say nothing of the fact that Menelaus would’ve been in the horse and known that his wife is trying to get them all killed; running off is one thing, trying to throw them to the enemy’s another entirely.

    But then, she had to have a motivation for telling Telemachus et al., regardless – hope that it would have an effect she intended, upon her audience. In which case, that’s the motivation – in some way impressing them – for telling it… and it doesn’t make much difference whether the tale was actually true. (It is not, after all, like anyone suitably impressed by her cunning and the threat she could present would go rat her out by attempting to fact-check her with anyone who had been in the horse at the time.)

    So yeah, that’s my theory; I think she was just trying to scare and/or wow Telemachus and made up the bit about trying (but only indirectly!) to get the men, including his dad and including her husband, killed by treachery at the climax of the war right before she would be taken back if they win.

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    • Actually, I misremembered: it’s *Menelaus* telling that story to boast of Odysseus’s presence of mind: that he alone of the Greeks inside the horse could resist Helen’s voice, which imitated their wives (foreshadowing the Sirens). He attributes it to ‘some demon’ urging her on for one last effort at destroying the Greeks (“I don’t know why you tried to get us all killed, my love.” “Oh, darling, I don’t know either!”).

      My own reading is that she suspected the plot, but wasn’t certain, and this was a way of testing her theory, which was foiled by Odysseus’s presence of mind (though her cluing to the plan at all shows how cunning she was). That, and I think there is a bit of ‘may the best man win’ to her; that she doesn’t exactly have a lot of personal loyalty and will tailor her response to whichever side she ends up in the hands of.

      That’s the thing I like; the implication that she’s so beautiful and so manipulative that her husband completely shrugs off her trying to get him and his men killed.

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  2. On another note. Did you know the Egyptians have an account of the abduction of Helen and the Trojan War? And that they claim Helen was taken against her will and never made it to Troy?

    See, the Egyptians have an Egyptian word for the very Egyptian flavored idea of the soul, and another Egyptian word for a person’s doppleganger or evil twin or something – everyone was thought to have one, just as everyone has a soul. (There might’ve been a third word I’m supposed to remember; alas, high school was a long time ago and I don’t actually remember any of these Egyptian words. Okay I think one was “ka” but I forget which meaning it belonged to.)

    Well, the story goes ­(as Egypt tells it anyway!) that Paris and Helen were shipwrecked on the coast of Egypt (seems pretty far out of their way between Greece and what’s now Turkey, but okay, the Egyptians somehow heard of the War, so…) And Helen was lost somewhere in Egypt, while her double ran off with Paris. Just as well for Helen since she had been kidnapped, not eloped. And then, when Menelaus was on the return voyage with “Helen”, little suspecting she wasn’t his real wife, wouldn’t you know it but they got shipwrecked in Egypt too! (I’m sure Odysseus has opinions on all these shipwrecks.) And the real Helen found Menelaus. And they returned to Greece. And they all lived happily ever after – except Helen’s double, I assume, who missed the opportunity to take Helen’s place as queen of a city-state and have half-changeling children and put them on the throne.

    (Spooky alternate history idea, there. Greek empire ruled by Egyptian half-changelings. Probably shenanigans involving Circe and Medea and other followers of Hecate, who I vaguely want to say was already an Egyptian or some other non-Greek goddess the Greek witches borrowed; not to mention the half-animal men Egyptians worship as gods. WooOOooo.)

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    • I suppose I should say “had” rather than “have”, seeing as we’re talking about ancient Egyptians not modern ones. Sometimes I forget we’re not still living in the ancient world. It certainly feels more real than the world we’re all supposed to new normal in today.

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