Mythology Mondays

Introducing Mythology Mondays.  The frequency of Mythology Mondays has yet to be determined.  Perhaps weekly, but I'm anticipating something more on the order of alternate Mondays or even only once a month.

I wasn't quite sure where to start with Mythology Mondays (do I start from Zeus and work down or pick random stories?).  When I discovered last week that there was a connection between Beauty and the Beast (which was the story featured on Fairy Tale Fridays) and the story of Cupid and Psyche, I decided that was the perfect place to kick off my study of mythology and to end up the month of love. The story of Cupid and Psyche was originally found in the 2nd century tale Metamorphoses (or The Golden Ass) by Apuleius.  He used their story as part of his larger tale but it is believed that the story was around before this. 

There once was a king who had three daughters but the most beautiful was Psyche.  She was so beautiful that people began worshiping her beauty instead of that of Venus, the goddess of love.  This made Venus so jealous that she sent her son, Cupid (he of the arrows that make people fall in love), to earth to shoot Psyche with an arrow that would make her fall in love with a monster.  But when Cupid laid eyes on Psyche, he found himself smitten. When he accidentally woke Psyche up, it caused him to prick himself with his arrow and fall deeply in love with her.

When Cupid told Venus what had happened, she immediately put a curse on Psyche so that no man would marry her.  Her parents, distraught by this turn of events, consulted an oracle who told them to put her on a mountain top.  Once there, though, a west wind whisked her away to a palace where she was waited on by invisible servants. Her husband (who I must say appears out of nowhere; I guess if you showed up in his palace that made you his wife?) told her he would only visit her by night and she must never try to find out who he was until he was ready.

Although Psyche was very happy, she became homesick and talked her husband into letting her sisters visit.  When they saw how she was living, it was their turn to be jealous.  They convinced Psyche that her husband was a monster who would try to kill her while she slept.  They convinced her that she must kill him first.  So one night she hid a knife and an oil lamp when she went to bed.  Once her husband was asleep, she lit the lamp but when she saw her husband was Cupid she was so surprised that she dripped some hot wax on him.  He awoke and was so angry to find that she had disobeyed him that he left immediately and the palace disappeared. 

Psyche searches for him every where and eventually goes to Venus to implore her to help.  Venus, clever goddess that she is, says that she'll help if only Psyche will complete one impossible task after another.  With the help of ants, an mysterious voice and an eagle.  Finally Venus tells Psyche that she must go to the Underworld and bring Venus back some beauty in a box.  Once again, Psyche is helped in her task and returns safely.

But Psyche could not leave well enough alone and opened that box, only to find that it didn't contain any beauty but instead a deep sleep. Cupid, who could no longer live without her, found Psyche and put the sleep back in the box.  Then he went to Jupiter (the big guy, The God) seeking his help.  Cupid agreed to stop his mischievous ways and Jupiter agreed that Cupid and Psyche should be wed.  And they all lived happily ever after.  Except, you've got to imagine that Venus was still just a little miffed about the whole thing.

And what have we learned from the tale of Cupid and Psyche? "Curiosity killed the cat" comes to mind. What a little lesson about vanity? Or, have we instead learned that from the beginning of time, men were most interested in the outside package?  Oh, you men are all so shallow!

The story of Cupid and Psyche is both a part of mythology and a fairy tale so I've paired the actual tale with
Francesca Lia Block's short story Psyche's Dark Night, found in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me. 

Block adapts the story of Cupid and Psyche to modern times.  The pair meet online, Psyche sees a therapist, Cupid goes to AA.  In Block's version, the two actually never do see each other in the daylight until well into the story when Psyche does exactly what Psyche does in the original tale and lets her curiosity get the better of her.  An argument ensues, an argument that most adults readers will recognize as having had themselves, and the two part ways.  But they never stop thinking about each other.  Psyche feels that she is in darkness but eventually, through therapy and diligence, begins to find a version of herself that is much more whole.  Cupid also searches deep within himself.  Over time the two begin exchanging brief emails and finally meet, during the day.  Things go well, very well, and both Cupid and Psyche finally act like the grownups they are.  I thoroughly enjoyed Block's take on the story in which she incorporated so much of the original story while making it her own.

Sunday Salon - February 27

Getting geared up this week for Miss H's 16th birthday--I cannot believe my baby could be that old!  We're building a computer for her so she will have her own and I will finally get my computer back.  Does that make it more a gift for her or for me?!

Lots of fun bookish things to share with you this week. First things first: for all of you Austen lovers, Jane from Reading, Writing, Working and Playing has an entry in a competition for Austen related stories.  Jane knows what she's doing when it comes to this kind of story--she's the author of Intimations of Austen: Stories Inspired by the Works of Jane Austen.  Jane's entry delves into the character of Lucy Steele from Sense & Sensibility (#23 in the competition).  Please take a minute and vote for Jane!

From Kitty at Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books, comes this YouTube video about organizing your bookshelves.

Something in this post for environmentalists, artists and book lovers alike--art using old books.  I never cease to be amazed by the creativity of people.  I'd love to have a couple of these pieces in my home!

How's this for the perfect desk for a book blogger?  We could build them with those ARCs that we can't get rid of any other way.

 

For those of you who also love movies, here's a post from The Huffington Post about movies from previous years that have been made into movies.  What's you favorite book-to-movie?  Least favorite?

Fairy Tale Fridays - Beauty and the Beast

For the final Friday of the month of love, it seems only fitting to showcase "Beauty and the Beast."  Of all of the fairy tales I've read (so far anyway), this one exemplifies love developing in a way that is most believable.  That is, if you find it more believable that two people might learn to love each other over time, even despite appearances, rather than love at first sight as is so common.

One source states that the story was first collected in 1550 and that Charles Perrault popularized the tale in 1697.  But versions of this same story seem to go back as far as the second century and Apuleius' The Golden Ass and the story of Cupid and Psyche.
The version of the tale as we have come to know it was first published in 1740 by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve with an adaptation in 1756 that even more closely resembles the story that I read this week (although it is to her that the book gave credit for the tale) and which dropped the back stories of Beauty and Beast that de Villeneuve had incorporated.

Beauty is one of 12 children of a once wealthy merchant who has fallen on hard times.  His sons now have to farm and the daughters work hard in the house; the sons don't so much mind it but the daughters, with the exception of Beauty, are very saddened by their hardship.  After a couple of years, the merchant hears that one of his ships has finally come into port and he hurries off to take care of business with a long list of things his daughters want him to get them.  Beauty asks only for a rose.  Unfortunately when the merchant arrives in town, his former partners have already split up the profits from the ship. 

Despondent, the merchant sets off, six months later, on his return journey.  As the weather was so bad, his journey was taking an exceedingly long time and when he came upon an avenue leading to a castle, he decides to seek shelter.  He finds the castle welcoming although no one seems to be around until he plucks a rose for Beauty and is suddenly confronted by a beast.  The Beast agrees to let the merchant go after he learns what has happened to the merchant on the condition that in one month the either the merchant will return to stay or one of his daughters will.  The man agrees and the Beast sets him on his way with trunks full of treasure. 

When Beauty learns that the reason her father was found out by the Beast is because of the rose, she volunteers to take her father's place and eventually the two of them return to the castle.  Once again, when the merchant leaves he is sent off with trunks full of gifts.  Over time Beauty grows to understand Beast and to feel for him.  Every night at dinner he asks if she will marry him and every night she declines.  After some time, the Beast allows Beauty to return to see her family for two months.  While with her family, Beauty dreams every night of a handsome prince but she's also warned in her dreams that if she doesn't return, the beast will die.  When it comes to her in a dream that he is, in fact, dying, she rushes away from her family to return to Beast.  When she discovers him, she finally realizes she loves him.  That night when he asks her to marry him, Beauty agrees to be Beast's wife breaking a spell and returning Beast to his human self.  This being a castle, he is, of course, a prince.  And "Beauty and the prince lived happily ever after." 

As one of the early versions of the tale of Beauty and the Beast is the story of Cupid and Psyche, I decided to read Francesca Lia Block's take on that tale in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me.  But I'm going to wait to tell you about this story ("Psyche's Dark Night") until Monday when I'll be launching Mythology Mondays.  The story of Cupid and Psyche is as much a myth as it is a fairy tale so it seems like the perfect way to end the month of love and kick off the new feature. 

Villette Readalong - Week 3?

Okay, well, technically it's week 2 for me but as it's week 3 for everyone else, we'll go with that.

When last we left Lucy Snowe, she was on a ship headed for France, with only the vaguest idea what she would do when she got there.  On the ship, she met a young girl, Ginerva Fanshawe, who confided that she was on her way to school in Villette.  So off to Villette Lucy headed.  Despite the fact that she speaks no French, Lucy managed to get all of the way to Villette and completely by mistakes finds herself at the door of the very school Miss Fanshawe spoke of.


Madame Beck, the proprietress of the school, hires Lucy as a nanny to her two young children, primarily it appears, because she is English.  Also because Madame Beck is kind of crazy about letting employees go.  Which soon results in Lucy finding herself as a teacher.

And now things are really picking up...and love is in the air.  Ginerva confides that she has a young man whom she calls "Isidore" who is buying her expensive baubles and before long we discover that this is none other than the doctor that has become a frequent visitor at the school.  He also happens to be the son of Lucy's godmother who she hasn't seen in many years, but he doesn't recall her. Lucy's godmother, Mrs. Bretton, is also staying in Villette.  Lucy discovers this when she collapses after a long walk in the rain while she is suffering from exhaustion and depression after being left alone in the school for many weeks. 

So it turns out that Lucy, who has known all along that Dr. John was Graham Bretton, is not a reliable narrator, that she will hide things from us. At the time Villette was written, this was an unusual twist marking Bronte as a writer who was willing to take a chance.  In these chapters, Bronte once again points out the degree to which Lucy's station in life has changed and the effect this has had on her.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
304 pages
Published January 2006 by Simon and Schuster
Source: borrowed from a friend

Jeannette Walls, father, though brilliant and charismatic, was also an alcoholic who found it impossible to hold down a job.  Her mother was an artistic personality, who appears to have suffered from bipolar disorder and who had not the least compunction about supporting her family despite being educated as a teacher.  And yet these two people thought it would be a good idea to have children.

When she was only three years old, Jeanette set herself on fire cooking hot dogs while her mother was painting a picture in the next room. It was par for the course in the Walls' household.  Rex and Rosemary Walls were so wrapped up in their own dreams that they often couldn't be bothered to take care of their children's needs or supervise them in any way.  They used the excuse that they were helping their children to become self-sufficient and Rosemary believed that children shouldn't be "burdened with too many rules and regulations."

Remarkably, in some ways they were also very good parents in the children's younger years.  Rex taught them about physics, geology, and astronomy and made them believe in chasing your dreams.  Rosemary taught them art, reading and an appreciation for nature.  When Jeannette was young she became afraid one night that there was some sort of creature in her bedroom. Rex not only didn't try to tell her that her fears were not legitimate, he gave her the ability to fight them.  And, to some extent, the children bought into the idea that they were always on a great adventure, even when it meant they had to pull up stakes and leave town with nothing more than what would fit in their car.

But as the children got older they began to realize how much harder their life was than it needed to be.  They started to question why their father should spend grocery money on alcohol and pie-in-the-sky schemes and why their mother should spend her days writing novels instead of working when they could not afford to heat their homes.  When Jeannette was just nine, Rosemary's mother died leaving them money, a furnished home and land in Texas.  Somehow Rex and Jeannette managed to squander it all and soon they were involving their children in bank scams and shop lifting.

Eventually, the family was forced to head to West Virginia and the family that Rex had worked so hard to avoid for so many years.  With good reason.  Everyone in it was also an alcoholic and some of them were even pedophiles.  Things had been bad in California and Arizona; they were much worse in West Virginia.  The family became the laughingstock of the town, there was more often not no heat or electricity. The house leaked, it was falling apart and the children had to dig through the garbage after the other children had eaten at school to have food for lunch. When the children found a diamond ring on their property, Rosemary kept it for herself instead of selling it to pay bills or buy food.  When Rex needed he cash, he once used Jeannette as bait while he hustled a man, essentially pimping out his daughter.

No wonder then that all four of the children left home before they were out of high school.  Their parents followed them to New York where they continued to inflict emotional pain on their children.  When Jeannette was a grown adult, she discovered that what she had assumed was worthless land in Texas was actually quite valuable and that her mother had been holding out on them during all those years of poverty.

"All those years in Welch with no food, no coal, no plumbing and Mom had been sitting on land worth a million dollars? Had all those years...been a caprice inflicted on us by Mom?"

It became harder and harder to read this book as it went on. As a person whose life has revolved around her children for more than 20 years, it is unfathomable to me that any two people could be so selfish, even given their demons. Walls does a marvelous job of portraying her parents as something more than just people who deprived their children for years; she has worked hard to find the motives behind their actions (or just as often inaction).  Rex was very proud of what his children became and he and Rosemary deserve their share of credit for the successes the their children have had.  They would certainly not be the people they are today had they been raised in any other way.  They are all bright, hardworking, contributing members of society despite having not had that example set for them.

"One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree.  I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house.  I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight.

Mom frowned at me.  "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said.  "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that give it it's beauty."

Sunday Salon - February 20

It's been a slow reading week again; I've been distracted by the spring-like weather we've been enjoying.  Throwing doors and windows open makes me feel the need to start washing down walls and cleaning out closets. 

I read "One Amazing Thing" by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and am now back to reading "The Glass Castle" all while trying to catch up with the "Villette" readalong.  I was surprised to realize, well into "Villette," that I have already read it.  Does not remember reading  it mean that I really didn't like it?  Do I keep reading if it was that unmemorable for me?  I'm sure I will; I'm not good about giving up on a book.

We're watching a t.v. show about Perseus this morning and it's once again reminding me of how much I enjoyed my Greek mythology class as a college freshman.  And how little I remember about mythology.  So I'm wondering if I can squeeze in "Mythology Monday" as well as "Fairy Tale Fridays" and still find the time to read books.  Perhaps a monthly thing?

I'm going to be finishing "The Glass Castle" this week and starting "Beatrice and Virgil" by Yann Martel for a TLC book tour in March.  What are you reading this week?

Fairy Tale Fridays - Rapunzel

This week's fairy tale love story is "Rapunzel."  The story of "Rapunzel" as we are most familiar with it is the Grimm Brothers version.Here's something interesting I found while researching the tale of Rapunzel, however, a side by side comparison of the Grimm Brothers' take on the Rapunzel.  It appears that even the good brothers had multiple versions of the tale!

The Brothers Grimm was adapted their story from "Persinette" which was written in 1698 by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (the dauphine of Louis XIV of France).  Another influence on the familiar tale was "Petrosinella" told by Giambattista Basile (yeah, him again). But the origins of "Rapunzel" are much older.  A 10th-century Persian fairy tale, Rudaba, appears to be the original twist on the tale of a woman letting down her hair for access to her tower prison.

Once again we have a fairy tale that opens with a couple wishing for a child.  In their home, there is a small window in back that overlooks a walled garden owned by a witch.  One day as the woman is looking out at the garden she sees some rampion radish (rapunzel) and is overcome with a desire to have some. Eventually her craving becomes so great that she tells her husband she will die without eating some.  So two nights in a row he risks the witch to get his wife some rampion.  But on the second night the witch catches him.  When he tells her why he is there, she allows him to take all he wants in order to keep his wife alive but the cost will be his unborn child (although the version I read doesn't say so, it's clear that the woman's insatiable craving is a result of pregnancy).  The man agrees and when the child is born, the witch takes her and locks her in a tower where there are no stairs or doorways.  To gain access the witch calls to the child, Rapunzel, to lower her hair which the witch scales to reach the top.  One day a prince riding nearby hears Rapunzel singing and is enchanted.  But he can't figure out how to get to her until he happens to see the witch, one night, calling out to Rapunzel.  The next day he does the same thing.  Of course, Rapunzel, who until then had never seen a man, falls in love with him and allows the prince to visit her daily and they devise a plan to help Rapunzel escape.  But just before they are able to effect the escape, Rapunzel lets slip to the witch that the prince has been visiting.  The witch chops off Rapunzel's hair then takes her to a remote desert.  When the prince returns, the witch lowers the Rapunzel's hair.  When the prince reaches the summit, the witch tells him he will never see Rapunzel again but before she can kill him, the prince leaps from the tower.  He survives but has landed in thorns which blind him, fulfilling the witch's prophecy.  Despondent, the prince wanders then land until one day he stumbles upon Rapunzel.  Recognizing him, she cries because of what has happened to him.  Miraculously, her tears heal his eyes and the couple...and their child...return to the prince's kingdom.