Penthesilea, House, etc
Ugh. I am struggling to plod through Middlemarch, and I have to say, my love of George Eliot has not grown from my freshman year in college and Mill on the Floss. I find her cumbrously wordy, and I find Dorothea tedious. Or odious. Both, probably. Celia is the one bright spot in the narrative, and she's not even a major character. (She does, however, seem to share Oscar Wilde's opinion that people who can discourse brilliantly on anything at any time would be unbearable at breakfast. The British were not morning people, it seems.)
As such, I think I want to share with you some rather more pleasant and enjoyable reading I've been doing lately.
First off, Kleist's "Penthesilea." It is in many ways such a brilliant, brilliant play. Hurrah for the German Romantics for being... well... everything, before the French ever got there. In this case, for being rather Derridian, in any case.
My favorite part of "Penthesilea" comes at the very end, after she has killed Achilles in a frenzy, and is slowly coming to the realization of what she's done.
PENTHESILEA: Kissed him dead, did I?
Didn't kiss kim, no? Really tore his flesh
to shreds? Please say!
--An error, then,
I see. A kiss, a bite--how cheek by jowl
they are, and when you love straight from the heart
the greedy mouth so easily mistakes
one for the other.
(Kneels before the corpse.)
Unhappiest
of men, forgive me, please! It was a slip--
I swear it, by Diana--of the tongue, no more,
because I am remiss and fail to stand
guard over my rash mouth the way
I should. But now I say it to you as
I meant it, unmistakably.
(Kisses him.)
Just so,
beloved, that and nothing more.
I just really love all the speech imagery, and how it continuously hovers on the brink between the literal and metaphorical, and between words and action (which is the point, of course).
And I love the way that Kleist has her kill herself at the end. He very specifically has both stage directions and dialogue ensure that Penthesilea has given up all her weapons to the other Amazons, so that she stands unarmed. And then he has her say that she will descend into the depths of her soul and make a dagger out of her misery, remorse, etc, and then
...to this dagger now I offer up my breast:
like so! and so! and so! And once
again! --And now all's well.
(Topples and dies.)
So he has her literally speak herself to death. It's... really awesome.
At this point, I was going to go on and talk about Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone and my love thereof, but I think I've been long enough already. Another entry, perhaps. Instead, I think I'll just briefly mention that my roommate has gotten me into watching "House, MD," and I am annoyed at how taken I am with the show. Or rather, I am taken with House and with his pretty blond assistant, (Dr. Robert Chase) and that is just so stereotypical. I mean, House is all clever and sarcastic and crotchety, and we're obviously supposed to love that, and dammit, I do.
For those of you unfamiliar with the show, the conceit is basically that House is extremely selfish, uncouth, bitter and sexist and takes bets on his patients' health and what-not-else, but is a brilliant doctor. It's a pretty unoriginal conceit, though very well-carried out, and thus my love of his character is extremely unoriginal also. But I can't help it. I love it when a more responsible, practical doctor says, "You can't make a diagnosis from that!" and House answers, "What, is that like, a bet?"
And of course there's tons of homoerotic subtext between House and this aforementioned practical doctor, who's crashing at House's place while undergoing a divorce.
But I don't even care, because here we come to my second shame--my totally inappropriate attraction to House's young male assistant. Inappropriate because in this case, it's not at all character-based--he's shallow and uninteresting and kind of a jerk--but, you know, pretty. Dammit.
As such, I think I want to share with you some rather more pleasant and enjoyable reading I've been doing lately.
First off, Kleist's "Penthesilea." It is in many ways such a brilliant, brilliant play. Hurrah for the German Romantics for being... well... everything, before the French ever got there. In this case, for being rather Derridian, in any case.
My favorite part of "Penthesilea" comes at the very end, after she has killed Achilles in a frenzy, and is slowly coming to the realization of what she's done.
PENTHESILEA: Kissed him dead, did I?
Didn't kiss kim, no? Really tore his flesh
to shreds? Please say!
--An error, then,
I see. A kiss, a bite--how cheek by jowl
they are, and when you love straight from the heart
the greedy mouth so easily mistakes
one for the other.
(Kneels before the corpse.)
Unhappiest
of men, forgive me, please! It was a slip--
I swear it, by Diana--of the tongue, no more,
because I am remiss and fail to stand
guard over my rash mouth the way
I should. But now I say it to you as
I meant it, unmistakably.
(Kisses him.)
Just so,
beloved, that and nothing more.
I just really love all the speech imagery, and how it continuously hovers on the brink between the literal and metaphorical, and between words and action (which is the point, of course).
And I love the way that Kleist has her kill herself at the end. He very specifically has both stage directions and dialogue ensure that Penthesilea has given up all her weapons to the other Amazons, so that she stands unarmed. And then he has her say that she will descend into the depths of her soul and make a dagger out of her misery, remorse, etc, and then
...to this dagger now I offer up my breast:
like so! and so! and so! And once
again! --And now all's well.
(Topples and dies.)
So he has her literally speak herself to death. It's... really awesome.
At this point, I was going to go on and talk about Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone and my love thereof, but I think I've been long enough already. Another entry, perhaps. Instead, I think I'll just briefly mention that my roommate has gotten me into watching "House, MD," and I am annoyed at how taken I am with the show. Or rather, I am taken with House and with his pretty blond assistant, (Dr. Robert Chase) and that is just so stereotypical. I mean, House is all clever and sarcastic and crotchety, and we're obviously supposed to love that, and dammit, I do.
For those of you unfamiliar with the show, the conceit is basically that House is extremely selfish, uncouth, bitter and sexist and takes bets on his patients' health and what-not-else, but is a brilliant doctor. It's a pretty unoriginal conceit, though very well-carried out, and thus my love of his character is extremely unoriginal also. But I can't help it. I love it when a more responsible, practical doctor says, "You can't make a diagnosis from that!" and House answers, "What, is that like, a bet?"
And of course there's tons of homoerotic subtext between House and this aforementioned practical doctor, who's crashing at House's place while undergoing a divorce.
But I don't even care, because here we come to my second shame--my totally inappropriate attraction to House's young male assistant. Inappropriate because in this case, it's not at all character-based--he's shallow and uninteresting and kind of a jerk--but, you know, pretty. Dammit.