The H-Word

  In perusing the nigh-on-400 comments made on The New York Times’ website concerning Lorrie Moore’s article “Send Huck Finn to College,” one gets a taste of the immense can of worms that was opened when NewSouth Books announced their new, “n-word”-free edition of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  The commentators – and the author – bring up good points:  Does the American canon need revision?  Yes.  Is the literature on the average high school curriculum racially biased?  Sometimes.  Is the infamous “n-word” a sensitive term connoting centuries of racism and atrocities?  Of course.  Should Huck Finn be censored?  Absolutely not.  Censorship is the worst enemy of literature.   But Moore’s point in writing her article is not questioning whether or not the book should be censored – she stands unequivocally against it – but whether or not Huckleberry Finn should be taught in high schools in the first place.

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"Jane Eyre" Chapters 1 - 4

      For a class on Victorian Literature, I am again reading through Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece Jane Eyre.  For this post, I am focusing on the first four chapters of the novel, representing Jane’s time at Gateshead with the Reed family and her mistreatment there.  In particular, I want to briefly discuss the liminality of the novel and the action of thresholds in these first four chapters. 

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R.I.P. Heath

3 years ago today, at 2:45 p.m., Australian film star Heath Ledger was found unconscious in his Manhattan apartment.  He was pronounced dead at 3:36 p.m. the same day.  The Oscar-winning star of The Dark Knight, Brokeback Mountain, and A Knight's Tale was only 28 years old.  He is greatly missed.

HEATH LEDGER (4 APRIL 1979 - 22 JANUARY 2008)

The New Catwoman

Warner Bros. announced on Jan. 19 that Anne Hathaway would officially be the latest starlet to portray Catwoman in Chris Nolan's upcoming film The Dark Knight Rises.  The character has had a grand tradition within Batman media, Anne Hathaway being the sixth woman to play the femme fatale in a live-action role.  Before her came Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, Lee Meriwether, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Halle Berry -- not counting the character's various animated incarnations.  But the two big questions here:  Can Hathaway pull it off?  and is it a good idea to have Catwoman in the third film at all?  To both, my answer is yes.

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Buffy Turns 30

Not to detract from our discussions of RRNR, but today is a very special day.  Buffy Anne Summers turns 30 today!  This is not the anniversary of the airing of the show (which is March 10) but the actual birthday of the actual character within the Buffyverse.  Happy B-day Buff!

Rudolph Discussion #3: Alchemy

In order to understand the alchemical imagery inherent in the television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, one must first understand alchemy itself and the way that it expresses itself in works of art, specifically in literature and film.  The goal of alchemy is to achieve the production of the Philosopher’s Stone: an artifact that produced the Elixir of Life and also could transmute base metals (such as lead) into pure gold.  In alchemy, the path to the production of the Stone was a sequence of metallurgical/symbolic/spiritual stages known as the Magnum Opus (English: the Great Work).  The Work is separated into three convenient stages – nigredo (the blackening), albedo (the whitening), and rubedo (the reddening).  In the rubedo, the Stone is produced.

           

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Rudolph Discussion #2: King Moonracer

In my annual watching of RRNR, one of the parts that always confused me – that never actually seemed to belong – was the Island of Misfit Toys adventure shared by Rudolph, Hermey, and Yukon.  They reach the island on an ice float, where they are met by Charlie in the Box and a whole cadre of other “misfit toys.”  So why is there an entire island of discarded toys?  And why are they lorded over by a flying lion named King  Moonracer?

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Rudolph Discussion #1: The Rudolph Triptych

No, its not Robert Ludlum’s new Christmas-themed novel. It is a Christmas tradition in my family to sit down at some point during the Christmas season and watch all of the Christmas specials from my childhood. Classics such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story all have their special places in my heart, but no movie stays with me like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. From Hermey the Misfit Elf to the Island of Misfit Toys, the movie is perfect. However, it wasn’t until I had read John Granger’s The Deathly Hallows Lectures that I realized the esoteric, alchemical imagery hidden within the story of the reindeer-savior of Christmas.

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WHAT I'M READING:

Alchemy by Titus Burkhardt

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight by Joss Whedon, etc.

Quidditch for the Sages

Since this blog is just sort of a ranting post, I thought I would share with you a teensy observation I have made about the Harry Potter series, which I adore. Because most of you may not realize this, one of the "scaffoldings" upon which the narrative of the Potter series is designed is called "Literary Alchemy." Rowling employs symbols and allegory relating to the ancient alchemical Magnum Opus in order to underscore her protagonist's quasi-apotheosis in Deathly Hallows. We are probably not all acquainted with the finer points of alchemy, but this is of little importance. What I wanted to point out was how Quidditch, the main sport of the wizarding world and an event important to 6 out of 7 of Rowling's books, reinforces the alchemical references. In particular, I wanted to talk about the Golden Snitch.

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