"But aren’t all great quests folly?" -Jess Walters

Jess Walters' new novel Beautiful Ruins ties the past to the present by weaving a young Italian hotel owner's crush on a beautiful, dying 1960s American film actress with a washed up producer Michael Deane's final quest to do good. I will admit, I never read romance, but this novel caught me off guard. I didn't realize I was reading a romance until I was 3/4 done! The characters were vibrant, funny, and flawed, and there's something about experiencing the behind-the-scenes of a film set that makes me feel like a spy.

This novel takes place during the filming of Elizabeth  Taylor's 1963 movie Cleopatra.  In attempt to cool Liz Taylor's (she played Cleo) love affair with Richard Burton (he played Antony, see right) the movie's producer (Michael Deane)  stows Burton's other lover, Dee Moray, in a small hotel in a nearby Italian fishing village. Deane's plan is that Burton will be forced leave the film set (and thus, Taylor) to find Dee, who is "dying."(You can probably guess what's actually wrong with her, given it's 1963 and whenever a young woman disappears, it usually means she's suffering from just one kind of perfectly natural "ailment.")

But 50 years later, when Pasquale, the now elderly hotel owner, shows up in Michael Deane's office in Hollywood with a plan to find Dee, an unlikely group of film addicts band together to find the once-dying actress.

And like all good romances, the ending is happily ever after.  But man, I rarely read this kind of "fluff," and while I suppose this was better than average fluff, Walters attempts to appease the literary types and throws in a couple of references to the greats, like this quote from Kundera, which seems to easily sum up the novel's theme: "There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact."Too often we're concerned with the past or the future, and miss our present opportunities completely. While the characters of the novel seem to have learned this lesson, they are powerless to revise its paradox.

Maybe I'm just ready for summer and needed a beach read sans the beach (there was frost this morning). Nonetheless, I would recommend this to all you romance readers out there, but I'm off to find something a little more gritty and realistic.

"Kill Your Babies": An Etymology

We've been discussing how to revise / re(envision) a piece of writing, and I've been stressing the importance of learning how to "kill your babies" (not literally!) but how to part with content that's good and that you love but just doesn't fit your piece.

The phrase "kill your babies" comes from Euripides' Greek play Medea, which is about Medea's husband Jason's betrayal and Medea's ultimate revenge. Medea's husband is Jason, whom you might have heard of from Greek mythology--he is the famous leader of the Argonauts and their epic quest for the Golden Fleece. Medea is the sorceress who helped him with this task, and even killed her own brother to help Jason.

So, based on the title of this post and the background I've provided, you can probably infer how Medea avenges Jason: she literally kills her own babies.

Watch the comic version: 'Jason and Medea' (English) http://bbc.in/rSgvoM or this claymation:

But what's surprising about this play is how much sympathy you feel for Medea as you read. Sure, she's raging. She's hateful and she even proclaims, "Hate is a bottomless cup; I will pour and pour,” but her situation is not foreign to us. When Medea learns that Jason has abandoned her and started a new family with the Princess of Creon, we can't help but sympathize with Medea's sense of betrayal.

Additionally, Medea understands her anger but also understands she is powerless to stop it. She doesn't make excuses for her actions, but she seems to understand the grave power of her emotions which can beat out common sense, as Medea states:
                    “I understand too well the dreadful act
                     I'm going to commit, but my judgement
                    can't check my anger, and that incites
                    the greatest evils human beings do.”

This play was written in 410 BCE, but its plot could have been on a TV soap opera yesterday (and probably was). This story is all about the tension of gender roles: Jason expects Medea is calmly accept the fact that he's taken a new wife and to hand over her children. Medea will not part with her children.  Anyone with divorced parents can see this is an early version of a custody battle. On a societal level, Medea  represents the oppressed. She has no rights and little room for making independent choices, which leads her to make the most exaggerated and independent choice of all to prove her point: she can get everyone's attention by choosing to murder her own offspring.  This play is all about recognizing oppression and its ugliness, in the ancient world and today.

Summer reading from http://www.cpinternet.com/~mbayly/callasasmedea.htm:

MEDEA
"Myth and Marx" - excerpts from Italian Cinema: From Neo-Realism to the Present by Peter Bondanella.
"Medea: Myth and Reason" - excerpts from Pier Paolo Pasolini by Stephen Snyder.
"Medea: Tropism of a Transplanted Race" by Molly Haskell.

THE MAKING OF MEDEA
"Medea and Callas" - excerpts from Pasolini Requiem by Barth David Schwartz.
Excerpts from Maria Callas Remembered by Nadia Stancioff.
Excerpts from Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend by Arianna Huffington.

NEIL GAIMAN: WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

I follow him on twitter @NeilHimself, and even regularly check his blog, but I'd never read anything other than his young adult novel Coraline so I decided to give Neil Gaiman's American Gods a try. At first the story grabbed me. Easy-going Shadow, the main character, is released early from prison, only to find himself mysteriously approached by a series of modern day mythical remnants. There's a grouchy leprechaun, a mysterious all-knowing, all-seeing Mr. Wednesday, and an array of other washed up, down-on-their-luck fairy tale creatures. Sort of like Shrek for adults. I was intrigued because I don't know much about myths and folk stories from other cultures, and the novel seemed to be weaving these tales into a fractured all-American web.

So, I continued to follow Shadow on his journey back into "civilian" life. How easily accepts the mystery surrounding him! Gold coins and magic and cryptic conversations all appear out of nowhere! He wakes up in strange places, but always with a full stomach and in the comfort of a bed. And at one point, he even watches an old woman pull the moon out of the sky and return it to his palm in the shape of a silver dollar! Shadow travels across the Midwest, to the Bad Lands,  down south to a funeral home run by modern day equivalents of the Egyptian gods Anubis and Horace, and back again until he must (too easily?) make life-threatening choices about what role he will play in the penultimate war between the gods and humans. (What are they actually fighting over? I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with the humans believing in technology instead of the spirits.)

But what I'm realizing as I trudge through is that Neil Gaiman cannot write female characters. All the female goddesses or dead human women so far (now I'm 85% finished)  serve the purpose of teasing or comforting the male characters.

For example, there's Laura, Shadow's dead wife, who dies in a incriminating situation revealing her affair with Shadow's best friend, Robbie.  She continues to follow and tease Shadow as a ghost for the rest of the book--can she help him come back to life?--and Shadow just can't seem to make up his mind: Is he still in love with her? Does he want to help her? Or is he spiteful about her betrayal? Then there's Easter, the goddess of the said-Holiday, who is sassy, "curvaceous," and restores Shadow's health upon his deathbed with her nutrients. Also, there's Sam, a young Native American college student and lesbian, who has an unlikely crush on Shadow (but he's a boy!?).  Thus, it's my opinion these female characters only serve the purpose of serving the men, and  this novel would certainly not pass the Bechdal Test. 

When I have a strong opinion I love to do some research and find others that agree with my strong opinion. :) I did some research only to confirm: Neil Gaiman overly relies on stereotypes. This story, and probably many of his others, relies on the old hero journey. This formula is re-blogged from Neil Gaiman: sorry unbro, it’s not me, it’s you:

• gutless, spineless everyman-loser protagonist with limited personality, intelligence, and no charm: hereafter known as Mr. Cliched Stock Type
• the woman who henpecks Mr. Cliched Stock Type
• Mr. Cliched Stock Type discovers a hidden magical world
• Mr. Cliched Stock Type discovers a special destiny, either prophesied, part of his secret magic heritage, or both
• Mr. Cliched Stock Type fulfills special destiny

Haven't heard that story before! So, what space does this formula leave for a female character that resembles a human and not a male's accessory?  And you might even ask, what space does this formula leave for fully developed male characters too? I'm convinced it's possibly to do it all, maintain this classic hero structure while also making it new,  and to also incorporate believable characters of both sexes. So, my search continues for a satisfying sci-fi read.