Orestes by Euripides

1/ It would have been quite interesting, I suppose, to read Orestes immediately after the Oresteia and the two Electra plays—I just couldn’t get hold of a copy at the time. Oh well. 

One thing I’ve noticed is that Euripides may create plays about the same people, but the plays are not necessarily related. His Electra and Orestes are fairly consistent, though in Orestes there’s no reference to the fact that Electra has got married (per Aegisthus’s order), but Euripides has a play called Helen in which Helen never goes to Troy—it’s just a phantom. The Helen and Menelaus in Orestes, and the Helen and Menelaus in Helen are completely different characters. 

2/ Euripides’s Orestes is very different from Eumenides, the last part of the Oresteia. At the risk of being reductive, I think we can say the central idea of Aeschylus’s trilogy is that violence begets violence and at some point the cycle of violence has to get cut—the plot of Eumenides is about whether Orestes can be forgiven or forever haunted by the Furies, and the debate boils down to whether a son owes more to the father or to the mother, whether the duty and desire to avenge his father can outweigh the crime of killing his mother. I’m not entirely sure what the central idea of Euripides’s play is—perhaps there isn’t one—what we have is a rather bitter, nihilist, and messy play in which violence piles upon violence, the characters turn increasingly monstrous, and then Apollo appears to provide a resolution that doesn’t resolve anything. I often feel Euripides is best in the middle: his beginnings often have some long and awkward exposition and his endings often have some awkward deus ex machina, but the middles are (usually) brilliant. 

What is wrong with Pylades? And Electra?  

And what kind of sick joke is it that Apollo makes Orestes marry Hermione? 

3/ There are many great passages in the play: 

“CHORUS […] O Zeus, listen! 

What mercy is there? 

Pitiful son, what is this agony, 

This blood-hunt, this persecution? 

There is a fiend of vengeance 

That drowns your life in tears, 

Sinks your house in your mother’s blood, 

Destroys your mind with madness. 

I mourn, I groan, I grieve. 

The greatest happiness is not permanent

In the world of men; 

But the storms of God rise against it, 

Like a light sailing-ship they shatter it, 

Terrors and disasters roll around it, 

Till crashing waves close over death…” 

(translated by Philip Vellacott)

4/ I can see why people say Euripides is more realistic and modern than the other ancient Greeks. 

“MENELAUS Ye gods! What am I looking at? Some ghost from hell? 

ORESTES You are right; terror and pain make me a living corpse.

MENELAUS This savage look, this mattered hair—I’m sorry for you. 

ORESTES What you describe is outward; my torments are real.

MENELAUS Your eyes are glazed with horror; your look frightens me. 

ORESTES I no longer exist; only my name is left.” 

Unlike Eumenides, in Orestes, we don’t see the Furies onstage—we only see Orestes’s madness. 

Euripides depicts Orestes committing the worst of sins—matricide—but gets us to understand him. He writes the scene of Orestes and Menelaus and gets us to empathise with Orestes’s anger and sense of betrayal, but at the same time we also understand why, after 10 years of war, Menelaus doesn’t want more conflict and bloodshed. 

Compared to the Oresteia, the plays of Euripides are less mythic: the human beings are more active, the gods are less involved. 

In Electra, it’s almost as though there’s no oracle from Apollo: we see Orestes and Electra talk about killing Clytemnestra; we see Electra urge her brother to carry on with the plan when he hesitates, like Lady Macbeth taunts and urges Macbeth; Electra also takes part in the killing, unlike the Electra of Aeschylus and Sophocles.

In Orestes, the gods don’t appear till the very end; the whole play is driven by humans; Orestes and Electra first turn to others, asking for help or intervention, as they’re facing punishment; then Pylades comes up with the idea of killing Helen and becoming heroes, celebrated for killing the woman everyone hates, rather than just known as the murderers of Clytemnestra; and Electra comes up with the plan to hold Hermione hostage as a way of bargaining with Orestes; there doesn’t seem to be any hint of the existence of the gods till the very last scene. 

And when Apollo does appear, Euripides makes one think why the gods haven’t intervened earlier and prevented all the bloodshed.

Metamorphoses: “nothing retains its form”

Detail from the title page of Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished by G.S. London, 1626.

1/ It’s a good idea to read Ovid after having read the Greeks: Ovid sometimes skips over details, expecting one to know Greek/ Roman mythology and literature; he sometimes fills in the gaps. For example, Ovid’s story of the debate between Ajax and Odysseus about who deserves to get the arms of Achilles is interesting because I’m acquainted with Odysseus from Homer and have also read Aias (or Ajax) and Philoctetes by Sophocles—neither Homer nor Sophocles depicts that scene (in the surviving texts)—so in a sense, Ovid fills in that gap. He also gives us the perspective of one of Odysseus’s companions whom Circe turns into pigs, which we don’t get from Homer. 

Moreover, as he creates Metamorphoses after the Aeneid, he writes about both the Akhaians and the Trojans, moving from Achilles, Ajax, and Odysseus to Hecuba and Aeneas, though he glosses over the story of Dido (the best part of Virgil’s poem). Funnily enough, Polyphemus, the cyclops that Odysseus tricks and blinds (which leads to his 10 years of suffering), has his own story here: an unrequited love for a nymph called Galatea. 

2/ In Metamorphoses, there are a couple of characters who would now be considered trans. If we leave aside Tiresias, the seer who transforms from a man into a woman for several years then back into a man, we have two female characters who transform into men: Iphis, raised as a boy because of her father’s sexism, falls in love with a woman, wishes to become a man, and has her wish granted; Caenis gets raped, and asks to be transformed into a man, known as Caeneus. This might offend some of you, but one thing I find interesting is that these two characters match two types of trans men (women identifying as men) that I often come across (online and in real life): tomboy lesbians who think they should be men because they’re attracted to women and think they don’t fit into the idea of femininity; and woman who reject womanhood and identify as trans (or non-binary) after experiencing sexual abuse. 

That said, I shouldn’t let contemporary politics ruin Metamorphoses. This is mythology, and we have some cool scenes of Caeneus fighting rapey centaurs.

3/ In most cases, Ovid “reduces” the characters we have encountered in the Iliad, the Odyssey, or the Aeneid—naturally, because of length—but he expands on the character of Circe: jilted by Glaucus because he loves Scylla, she turns Scylla into a sea monster; rejected by Picus because he loves Anens, she transforms him into a bird. Circe in the Odyssey is to be pitied. Here she is more powerful. Here she is vengeful and malicious. 

But then she’s not that different from the Greek/ Roman gods, is she? Metamorphoses is mainly about the lust of men and the jealousy of women. 

I like this image of Anens: 

“Tiber was last to see her; tired and worn, 

With grief and journeying; she laid her head 

By his long riverside, and there, in tears, 

Breathed weak faint words in cadences of woe, 

As dying swans may sing their funeral hymns; 

Until at last, her fragile frame dissolved

In misery, she wasted all away

And slowly vanished into empty air.” 

(Book 14) 

(translated by A. D. Melville) 

4/ In Metamorphoses, the transformations are generally of the gods putting on disguises, or human beings getting turned into things, bodies of water, trees, animals, the other sex, or gods. The oddest transformation is when the Trojan ships are transformed into sea nymphs. 

“… And one wind’s strength 

The fostering Mother called in aid to break 

The hempen hawsers of the Trojan fleet, 

And on their beam ends drove the ships to sea

And sank them. Timbers softened and the wood 

Was changed to flesh; the curved prows turned to heads,

The oars to toes and swimming legs; the sides 

Remained as sides; the heel that underlay 

The centre of the ship became a spine. 

The rigging soft sleek hair, the yards were arms, 

The colour sea-blue still; and in the waves

They used to fear they play their girlish games, 

Nymphs of the sea, born on the granite hills, 

Now natives of the soft sea-deeps, untouched 

By memories of their birthplace…” 

(ibid.)

This is weird. This is unlike any other metamorphosis in the poem. 

5/ In Book 15 (the final book), Ovid has a section called “The Doctrines of Pythagoras”, which is perhaps the finest part of the poem. 

“… In all creation 

Nothing endures, all is in endless flux, 

Each wandering shape a pilgrim passing by. 

And time itself glides on in ceaseless flow, 

A rolling stream—and streams can never stay, 

Nor lightfoot hours. As wave is driven by wave 

And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead, 

So time flies on and follows, flies and follows, 

Always, for ever new. What was before

Is left behind, what never was is now: 

And every passing moment is renewed.” 

You can see why Ovid is fascinated by transformations. You can see why Metamorphoses speaks to Shakespeare. 14 books are about mythology and legend, and the final book is about life, about change as the nature of life: seasons come and go, people age and die, nations rise and fall, animals transform their shapes, and out of corpses, new forms of life are born. 

6/ Now that I’ve finished reading Metamorphoses, I’m going to say I still prefer the Greeks to the Romans, though perhaps in the case of Ovid (and Virgil), much is lost in translation. As I wrote before, because Ovid moves from one myth to another, there’s no sense of forward movement and it’s sometimes frustrating. But I did love some parts of the book, it’s a brilliant collection of stories, and it’s good to read Ovid, to know one of the important ancient writers, and to see his influence on Shakespeare—not only obvious references as one finds in A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Twelfth Night, but Shakespeare’s fascination with metamorphosis in general—every single Shakespeare play has some sort of disguise, acting, or transformation. 

I’m going to have to read How the Classics Made Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate. 

Dombey and Son: “the golden water would be dancing on the wall”

1/ Dickens’s novels are always full of interesting images and unusual similes. 

“Spitfire seemed to be in the main a good-natured little body, although a disciple of that school of trainers of the young idea which holds that childhood, like money, must be shaken and rattled and jostled about a good deal to keep it bright.” (ch.3) 

I’m just poking at Dombey and Son, and pointing at random passages I like. 

“It being a part of Mrs Pipchin’s system not to encourage a child’s mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster, the moral of these lessons was usually of a violent and stunning character: the hero—a naughty boy—seldom, in the mildest catastrophe, being finished off anything less than a lion, or a bear.” (ch.8) 

2/ I don’t think Dombey and Son has expansive and elaborate motifs as we see in Bleak House or Little Dorrit—the main motif is the iciness of Mr Dombey—but sometimes Dickens does extend his metaphors.  

“… In fact, Doctor Blimber’s establishment was a great hot-house, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber’s cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.” (ch.11) 

He extends it: 

“… one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of the ten who had “gone through” everything), suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk.” (ibid.) 

And: 

“In short, however high and false the temperature at which the Doctor kept his hothouse, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a helping hand at the bellows, and to stir the fire.” (ch.12) 

3/ Some of you might complain that the rest of this blog post is full of spoilers, though I would argue that it’s quite obvious from the very beginning, when Mr Dombey talks about his hopes and anticipations, that his Dombey and Son is going to lose the Son.

When little Paul is dying, he watches the light on the wall:

“When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen, into night.” (ch.16) 

Dickens repeats the image:  

“Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, would gradually decline; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall.” (ibid.)

And repeats it: 

“How many times the golden water danced upon the wall; how many nights the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him; Paul never counted, never sought to know. If their kindness, or his sense of it, could have increased, they were more kind, and he more grateful every day; but whether they were many days or few, appeared of little moment now, to the gentle boy.” (ibid.) 

Sadness pervades Dombey and Son. Dickens writes about the loneliness of Florence and Paul—their father doesn’t want a daughter and doesn’t see Florence, but he also doesn’t see Paul, because his vision of a son is of an adult son working in his firm in the future, not of a child—there are many moving passages in the book as the sister and brother cling to the nurse and to each other, having lost their mother and getting no affection from their father, and it’s especially moving when Florence loses the only remaining family member who loves her. 

As Mr Dombey gets shut up in his room after Paul’s death, not seeing Florence and not letting her reach him, she watches the light on the wall: 

“It was not very long before the golden water, dancing on the wall, in the old place, at the old serene time, had her calm eye fixed upon it as it ebbed away. It was not very long before that room again knew her, often; sitting there alone, as patient and as mild as when she had watched beside the little bed. When any sharp sense of its being empty smote upon her, she could kneel beside it, and pray GOD—it was the pouring out of her full heart—to let one angel love her and remember her.” (ch.18) 

That image of the light dancing is, in Florence’s mind, associated with little Paul and his last days, and it comes back later when she imagines herself dying and receiving some love for her father at last. 

“The golden water she remembered on the wall, appeared to Florence, in the light of such reflections, only as a current flowing on to rest, and to a region where the dear ones, gone before, were waiting, hand in hand; and often when she looked upon the darker river rippling at her feet, she thought with awful wonder, but not terror, of that river which her brother had so often said was bearing him away.” (ch.24) 

What makes a good screen adaptation?

I have seen 7 screen adaptations of Anna Karenina. That probably tells you I’m a bit mad. But as a lover of literature and cinema, I’m also fascinated by adaptations—what makes a good one? 

Let’s start with Anna Karenina. Among the 7 versions I have seen, the best is without doubt the 1977 series by the BBC, with Nicola Pagett. We all know filmmakers have to make cuts, we all know filmmakers have to simplify the story, but the problem with most adaptations of Anna Karenina is that they don’t convey the complexity of the characters—Karenin in early adaptations tends to be portrayed as a monster whereas Karenin in some later adaptations is portrayed more sympathetically, with Anna and Vronsky presented as shallow and selfish—the 1977 series is the only one which depicts the complexity and self-contradictions and multiple facets of Anna, Karenin, and Vronsky; the only one which reminds me of the qualities for which I love Tolstoy’s novel. 

If we talk about War and Peace, Bondarchuk’s film series from 1966-1967 is popular, but I would argue that it only focuses on the epic-ness of the book. It is technically spectacular but shallow and hollow, stripping the story of depth and complexity, removing Tolstoy’s philosophical and religious ideas, reducing Pierre’s search for meaning, simplifying the “thinking characters” (Pierre and Andrei), paying little attention to emotional conflicts between characters, etc. The 1972 series by the BBC, though imperfect, shows a much better understanding of Tolstoy’s characters and ideas, and respect for the text. 

This doesn’t mean I think only faithful adaptations are worthwhile, doesn’t mean I think filmmakers have to be slaves to the sources. When I complain about film adaptations, people sometimes accuse me of being a purist, but I’m not. I find it fascinating when a classic story is moved to a different setting, a different culture: the story of Dangerous Liaisons for instance is moved from 18th century France to feudal Korea in Untold Scandal, and modern-day America in Cruel Intentions; Fingersmith, set in the Victorian era, is adapted into South Korean film The Handmaiden. 

Sometimes it doesn’t work quite well: Bride and Prejudice does a few clever things, moving the story of Pride and Prejudice to modern-day India and making Mr Darcy American, and it’s fun enough, but it doesn’t have the sense of urgency of Jane Austen’s novel, either in the sisters getting married or in the Wickham sub-plot; the Mrs Bennet character is therefore just vulgar and annoying; and Lalita (the equivalent of Elizabeth Bennet) comes across as nationalistic and more confrontational than witty, which gets tiresome after a while. But sometimes it works wonders: in Ran and Arashi ga oka, Kurosawa and Yoshida take King Lear and Wuthering Heights respectively as a starting point, and create something different, something very Japanese, something that stands on their own. As I wrote in a recent blog post about Wuthering Heights, Arashi ga oka is its own thing—Onimaru is not Heathcliff; Kinu is not Catherine; Hidemaru is not Hindley; Mitsuhiko is not Edgar Linton; Tae is not Isabella; Yoshimaru is not Hareton; young Kinu is not Cathy—the characters can be mapped onto Emily Bronte’s characters but they are different and their relationships are different. And yet it captures the violence, savagery, eroticism, and strangeness of Emily Bronte’s novel, which the supposedly faithful adaptations of Wuthering Heights don’t do, as most adaptations only focus on the love story, reduce the malice and brutality, and often cut the second generation.

A similar example is Clueless: loosely based on Emma and set in an American high school, it is its own thing, loved by both Jane Austen’s fans and people who have no idea it’s inspired by a 19th century novel; yet at the same time, Amy Heckerling captures the essence of Austen’s novel much better than some supposedly faithful adaptations do. What I mean is that Emma might be snobbish, she might misperceive everything, she might make a mess of people’s lives, but she means well and wants to do good and has self-reflection—we also see this in Cher in Clueless, whereas Anya Taylor-Joy and especially Gwyneth Paltrow portray Emma as bitchy, catty, even two-faced, nothing like Austen’s character. 

The trouble is that most screen adaptations are not faithful adaptations which take the text seriously and show great understanding of the source story (such as the 1995 Pride and Prejudice); but they are also not interesting adaptations which take the novel as a starting point and become their own work of art (such as Jan Švankmajer’s Alice). Most adaptations are usually somewhere in the middle. 

Take for example the 2005 Pride and Prejudice: it doesn’t transcend its source material and become its own thing; what we have instead is a film which focuses on the attraction and romance but neglects the theme of pride and prejudice, and the development of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy; Matthew Macfadyen’s Darcy doesn’t show much change throughout the story; and Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth often behaves out of character (can you imagine Jane Austen’s Elizabeth eavesdropping on her family members then bursting in on them? Or watching Georgina behind a door then running away like an intruder, with no manners? Or snatching a letter from her father’s hand?).

Or, take the 1999 Mansfield Park: it takes liberties but doesn’t become an original work of art; it’s just an awkward adaptation by someone who doesn’t accept Fanny Price as written by Jane Austen and turns her into something else, and has her accepting Henry Crawford at first, going against the text.

The 2022 Persuasion also seems to be an odd thing that is neither approach: perhaps I shouldn’t comment as I haven’t seen the whole film, but from what I have seen, it is neither a faithful adaptation, depicting the Regency era, nor an independent film with the story moved to the modern era; instead, Carrie Cracknell has characters of different skin colours wearing Regency costumes but speaking modern slang, and changes the character of Anne Elliot beyond recognition (it is perhaps aimed at the audience of Bridgerton).

And this is something lots of people don’t seem to understand: whenever someone criticises a film adaptation for misrepresenting or betraying the text, some people just say fidelity is unimportant and the film is its own work of art, but most of the time it isn’t—most of the time it doesn’t have enough strengths and originality, most of the time it doesn’t transcend its source material—all we’ve got is just a poor film that doesn’t quite transfer a great work of art onto the screen. 

10 favourite adaptations of literary works (in chronological order): 

• Rebecca (1940) 
• The Innocents (1961), from The Turn of the Screw 
• Tom Jones (1963) 
• Woman in the Dunes (1964) 
• Anna Karenina (1977) 
• Ran (1985), from King Lear 
• Arashi ga oka (1988), from Wuthering Heights 
• Alice (1988), from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 
• The Age of Innocence (1993)
• Pride and Prejudice (1995) 

2009 series and 1988 film—the most interesting Wuthering Heights adaptation is Japanese

I don’t know what possessed me, but yesterday I saw two different adaptations of Wuthering Heights: Arashi ga oka (1988) from Japan, and the 2009 TV series featuring Tom Hardy. 

There isn’t much to say about the 2009 series. There are changes. One of the main changes is that they remove the character of Lockwood and change the structure, starting with the removal of Linton Heathcliff to Wuthering Heights, and young Cathy’s first meeting with Heathcliff, which means that we see the revenge on the second generation before knowing who they are and how they relate to each other. Could that be an interesting choice? Perhaps, but I don’t think it works very well. 

Another fault is what I see as a carelessness about the ages of the characters: the introduction of Catherine to the Lintons and the incident of the bulldog should take place in their early teens, we see them differently when they are adults; we need to see time pass between Catherine’s introduction to the Lintons and the marriage proposal, to see Heathcliff find Catherine slowly drifting apart from him; the series also doesn’t mark very well the 17-year gap, as the characters barely look any older.

The worst change is the ending with Heathcliff—I shall be a good girl and not spoil it for those who want to see the series, but I’m sure you would agree. But overall, it’s quite a forgettable adaptation: the series makes more explicit the incest idea but does nothing with it; Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley have more chemistry than Kay Adshead and Ken Hutchison (in the otherwise commendable 1978 series), but as we see in most adaptations, much brutality is removed, Catherine is defanged, and it doesn’t have the strangeness and savagery of the novel.

Arashi ga oka has a much more interesting approach. As Kurosawa creates Throne of Blood out of Macbeth and Ran out of King Lear, Yoshishige Yoshida takes Emily Bronte’s novel as a starting point and creates something different, something very Japanese. In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff’s method of revenge hinges on 18th century English property, inheritance, and marriage laws; all this has to change when Yoshida adapts the story for feudal Japan. The characters are different—Onimaru is not Heathcliff; Kinu is not Catherine; Hidemaru is not Hindley; Mitsuhiko is not Edgar Linton; Tae is not Isabella; Yoshimaru is not Hareton; young Kinu is not Cathy—the characters can be mapped onto Emily Bronte’s characters but they are different and their relationships are different. For instance, Kinu marries Mitsuhiko not because marrying Onimaru would bring her disgrace and she wants to be rich, but because, according to custom, she would have to become a priestess and leave the mountain, and marrying him is her only way to escape that fate. The relationship between Kinu and Mitsuhiko is therefore changed, and Onimaru’s method of revenge is not the same. 

One may complain that Kinu (the equivalent of Catherine) is defanged and she doesn’t quite match the wildness and savagery of Onimaru, but as I said, Yoshida only uses Wuthering Heights as a starting point and creates a work of art of his own. Arashi ga oka is very Japanese—even the acting seems to bear the influence of Noh theatre. And yet, when I think about it, Arashi ga oka has the violence, savagery, eroticism, and strangeness of the novel; and Onimaru has the brutishness, ferocity, and viciousness of Heathcliff; he even seems demonic. 

I can see why many people think Arashi ga oka is the best adaptation of Wuthering Heights. If you want a faithful adaptation, this won’t be for you. But if you want a film that stands on its own and at the same time does capture the strangeness, brutality, and eroticism of Emily Bronte’s novel, this is the film to watch. There is something elemental about it. 

I will also add that Arashi ga oka is very visually striking and well-framed. Even if you don’t like the film as a whole, you would love the cinematography. 

Strongly recommend.