Metamorphoses: “Of bodies changed to other forms I tell”

 1/ First, I’m going to note that I picked up and looked at 6 different translations of Metamorphoses: Mary M. Innes translates it into prose, which I do not want; the versions by David Raeburn and Stanley Lombardo are clear but prosaic and tedious; Allen Mandelbaum takes a more poetic approach, his translation sounds good but is apparently quite loose; the Arthur Golding translation sounds very good and would be something I’d like to read, as it apparently inspired my boy Shakespeare, but it’s not very faithful and too twisty for the first read of the poem; so I decided on A. D. Melville, who seemed to strike a better balance between beauty and fidelity. 

One thing I’ve noticed doing some research on translations is that there doesn’t seem to be any strong consensus on good translations of Ovid. When people talk about Homer, Robert Fagles has a huge following; Robert Fitzgerald, the one I read, is also popular, especially for the Odyssey; Richmond Lattimore is often recommended for the Iliad; Peter Green from recent years is often recommended by classicists for accuracy; Emily Wilson is controversial, etc. I don’t see that kind of consensus about Metamorphoses—who is popular? As far as I know, there’s not even much noise about Stephanie McCarter even though she, like Emily Wilson, adds the female/ feminist perspective and criticises the bias of male translators. 

I’d say though that in a standard London bookshop, I almost always spot multiple translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey (usually Fagles, Emily Wilson, Green, E. V. Rieu, sometimes Fitzgerald, Lattimore) but Metamorphoses is usually only available in the Raeburn translation, which I do not at all like—I had to go to the Waterstones at Torrington Place to consider multiple options. 

2/ The thing about reading classics, especially something as influential as Metamorphoses, is that you get to encounter old friends. Book 1 for example has the story of Io, desired by Jove (Jupiter) and turned into a cow—I have met her in the play Prometheus Bound.

Ovid has a lightness of touch that makes him very different from Virgil, but sometimes there’s a very moving passage, such as this one about Io: 

“She browsed on leaves of trees and bitter weeds, 

And for her bed, poor thing, lay on the ground, 

Not always grassy, and drank the muddy streams;

And when, to plead with Argus, she would try 

To stretch her arms, she had no arms to stretch. 

Would she complain, a moo came from her throat, 

A startling sound—her own voice frightened her. 

She reached her father’s river and the banks 

Where often she had played and, in the water, 

Mirrored she saw her muzzle and her horns, 

And fled in terror from the self she saw.” 

(Book 1) 

(translated by A. D. Melville) 

Book 3 for example has many figures I know: Semele, Bacchus, Tiresias, Pentheus from Homer and the Athenian plays; Cadmus, Narcissus, and Echo from popular culture. 

I picked up Metamorphoses expecting much of it to be about beautiful women being chased by gods and turned into trees or animals, but it’s a much vaster, richer work, containing over 250 myths, moving seamlessly from one story to another. Each myth has some kind of transformation (the myth of Callisto in Book 2 even has three different transformations). It’s not hard to see why so many writers and artists love Metamorphoses—in the case of Shakespeare, it clearly appeals to the Shakespeare of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest. I can’t help wondering though, if Shakespeare’s fascination with transformation—each play has some kind of disguise or acting or metamorphosis—is because of his experience as an actor, or due to inspiration from Metamorphoses. 

3/ At some point I’m going to read Jonathan Bate’s How the Classics Made Shakespeare, but right now I can see traces of Metamorphoses in Twelfth Night. 

“ORSINO […] How dost thou like this tune?

VIOLA It gives a very echo to the seat

Where love is throned.” 

(Act 2 scene 4) 

That is clearly a reference to Echo, who has unrequited love for Narcissus; and the figure of Narcissus can be seen in Orsino (and Olivia). 

“VIOLA Make me a willow cabin at your gate

And call upon my soul within the house,

Write loyal cantons of contemnèd love

And sing them loud even in the dead of night,

Hallow your name to the reverberate hills

And make the babbling gossip of the air

Cry out “Olivia!” O, you should not rest

Between the elements of air and earth

But you should pity me.” 

(Act 1 scene 5, Twelfth Night) 

This passage—one of the most beautiful passages in all of Shakespeare—seems to echo Ovid’s story of Echo. 

There are also multiple metamorphoses in Twelfth Night: Viola disguises herself as a man and names herself Cesario; Malvolio transforms himself, when he believes he’s the object of Olivia’s affection; Feste wears various disguises when he joins in the prank on Malvolio; Viola’s twin Sebastian appears and gets mistaken as Cesario, and in a sense becomes Cesario at the wedding. 

4/ I don’t need to mention that the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe becomes the play-within-a-play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and inspires Romeo and Juliet, which is well-known, but now that I’ve read it, I wonder if the death of Antony in Antony and Cleopatra also traces back to Ovid’s poem. 

“At Thisbe’s name he raised his dying eyes

And looked at her, and closed his eyes again.” 

(Book 4) 

Shakespeare expands the scene, but like Pyramus, Antony also kills himself because he thinks Cleopatra is dead, and realises before dying that she is still alive.

Painting of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus by Scarsellino. 

5/ One of my favourite stories in Metamorphoses is the myth of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis. Did you know that the word “hermaphrodite” came from Hermes + Aphrodite? I didn’t. I like the juxtaposition of the myth of the Sun and Leucothoe, and the myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, and it’s such a strange, fascinating myth. If I’m not mistaken, it may have been Ovid’s invention, different from other myths of Hermaphroditus.

Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe

1/ Now this sounds more like Marlowe, though it’s an early play. 

There are some interesting phrases: “map of weather-beaten woe”, “drenched limbs”, “unweaponed thoughts”, “furrowed wealth”, “quenchless fire”, “nimble winds”, “watery billows”, etc.  

2/ Why did I decide to read Dido, Queen of Carthage when it’s not a major play by Marlowe? It’s because the story of Aeneas and Dido is my favourite part—the best part—of the Aeneid. 

However, Marlowe’s version is quite different. First of all, he complicates the plot. In the Aeneid, Dido falls in love with Aeneas, despite herself, but Aeneas has to leave for Italy because of fate, because of his sense of duty. Marlowe has to complicate the plot because his play, though short, is much longer than Virgil’s chapter, so Dido has a suitor named Iarbas and he sees Aeneas as being in his way. This of course is borrowed from the plot about Aeneas, Lavinia, and Turnus from the second half of the Aeneid. 

More importantly, Marlowe changes the characters and his play is not quite moving. Venus for example interferes even more: she transforms Cupid into Ascanius, Aeneas’s son, so as to manipulate Dido into falling in love with Aeneas—basically all the scenes between Dido and “the boy” are mere deception and manipulation. The moving scene between Dido and Anna in Virgil becomes something rather crass in Marlowe: Anna encourages Dido’s feelings for Aeneas because she herself is in love with Dido’s suitor Iarbas. 

Even Marlowe’s Dido is different: 

“AENEAS Wherefore would Dido have Aeneas stay? 

DIDO To war against my bordering enemies. 

Aneas, think not Dido is in love; 

For if that any man could conquer me, 

I had been wedded ere Aeneas came. 

See where the pictures of my suitors hang; 

And are not these as fair as fair may be?

[Showing pictures.]” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

Ridiculous.

“ANNA What if the citizens repine thereat? 

DIDO Those that dislike what Dido gives in charge, 

Command my guard to slay for their offence. 

Shall vulgar peasants storm at what I do? 

The ground is mine that gives them sustenance,

The air wherein they breathe, the water, fire, 

All that they have, their lands, their goods, their lives; 

And I, the goddess of all these, command

Aeneas ride as Carthaginian king.” 

(Act 4 scene 4) 

Dido comes across as extremely unpleasant. Hear how she talks to a servant: 

“DIDO O cursèd hag and false disassembling wretch

That slayest me with thy harsh and hellish tale! 

Thou for some pretty gift hast let him go, 

And I am thus deluded of my boy. 

Away with her to prison presently! 

[Enter ATTENDANTS.]

Traitoress too keen and cursed sorceress!” 

(Act 5 scene 1) 

Virgil’s Dido is nothing like this!

I’m not saying that a writer cannot make changes when adapting or retelling a literary work, but Marlowe’s play has none of the heartfelt passion and tenderness of the Aeneid—it doesn’t touch one’s heart—the ending doesn’t feel particularly tragic. 

The gap between Dido, Queen of Carthage and Edward II is startling. 

Edward II by Christopher Marlowe

 1/ The Greeks, once known, are seen everywhere. References to the ancient Greeks are scattered all over Marlowe’s play. 

 “QUEEN O miserable and distressed queen!

Would, when I left sweet France, and was embarked,

That charming Circe, walking on the waves,

Had changed my shape! or at the marriage day

The cup of Hymen had been full of poison!

Or with those arms, that twined about my neck,

I had been stifled, and not lived to see

The king my lord thus to abandon me.

Like frantic Juno, will I fill the earth

With ghastly murmur of my sighs and cries,

For never doted Jove on Ganymede

So much as he on cursèd Gaveston…” 

(Scene 4)

This is a moving scene. The play is about King Edward II’s obsessive relationship with his minion Gaveston and its impact on the realm—Marlowe begins the play with Gaveston and Edward, then writes about the resentment of the nobles, then lets us see that the one who suffers most is Queen Isabella—it is moving. 

Mortimer Senior also references the Greeks (and the Romans) when defending the King’s relationship with Gaveston: 

“MORTIMER SENIOR […] Thou seest by nature he is mild and calm,

And, seeing his mind so dotes on Gaveston,

Let him without controlment have his will.

The mightiest kings have had their minions:

Great Alexander loved Hephaestion,

The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept,

And for Patroclus stern Achilles drooped.

And not kings only, but the wisest men:

The Roman Tully loved Octavius,

Grave Socrates wild Alcibiades.

Then let his grace, whose youth is flexible,

And promiseth as much as we can wish,

Freely enjoy that vain lightheaded earl,

For riper years will wean him from such toys.” 

(ibid.) 

Even Edward compares himself and Gaveston to Hercules and Hylas in Scene 1. 

(But then a play about a gay relationship would mention the Greeks, wouldn’t it?) 

2/ Edward II is very different from Marlowe’s other plays. Firstly, it’s about English history. Secondly, whereas his other plays tend to have a dominating character—a Machiavelli or an overreacher—pushing everyone else to the background, Edward II is a much more balanced play and has at its centre a weak king (though in the second half, Mortimer threatens to upset the balance of the play and seems like a typical Marlovian figure). It’s also a more subtle play, with characters plotting and saying things they don’t mean and switching sides.

I can see the influence of Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays on Edward II, and in turn, the influence of Marlowe’s play on Shakespeare’s Richard II. 

“EDWARD Nay, then, lay violent hands upon your king:

Here, Mortimer, sit thou in Edward’s throne;

Warwick and Lancaster, wear you my crown.

Was ever king thus overruled as I?” 

(Scene 1) 

Later: 

“EDWARD My swelling heart for very anger breaks.

How oft have I been baited by these peers,

And dare not be revenged, for their power is great!

Yet, shall the crowning of these cockerels

Affright a lion? Edward, unfold thy paws,

And let their lives’-blood slake thy fury’s hunger.

If I be cruel and grow tyrannous,

Now let them thank themselves, and rue too late.” 

(Scene 6)

Edward II and Richard II both explore weak kings, favouritism, and political instability; they both raise questions about the role, power, and responsibility of the king, though I think Shakespeare goes further; Marlowe focuses more on the gay relationship between the king and Gaveston.   

About halfway through the play, Gaveston is killed; his position is then filled by Spencer, an opportunist and flatterer. 

The contrast between Gaveston and Spencer is interesting, because Marlowe lets us see that King Edward II and Gaveston love each other. The former may be an ineffectual king and the latter may be an obnoxious upstart and they both may be cruel to the Queen, but their love for each other appears to be genuine.  

“MORTIMER Why should you love him whom the world hates so?

EDWARD Because he loves me more than all the world.” 

(Scene 4) 

Marlowe does complicate things—what is the relationship between Gaveston and the king’s niece?—but he does give us Gaveston’s soliloquy at the start of the play, and in a few scenes, in Edward’s absence, Gaveston talks about him and not anyone else. It is Spencer who is like the flatterers in Richard II. 

3/ The scene in which Edward seeks refuge in a monastery is so moving. 

“EDWARD […] Stately and proud in riches and in train,

Whilom I was, powerful and full of pomp;

But what is he whom rule and empery

Have not in life or death made miserable?⁠

Come, Spenser, come, Baldock⁠, come, sit down by me;

Make trial now of that philosophy

That in our famous nurseries of arts

Thou sucked’st from Plato and from Aristotle.⁠

Father, this life contemplative is heaven.

O, that I might this life in quiet lead!...” 

(Scene 19)

In Shakespeare, there are many speeches about the burdens of being a king (King John, Henry IV…), or about the downfall of a king (Lear, Richard II…). What caught my attention was the word “whilom”—formerly, in the past—which I had never seen in Shakespeare, and possibly had never seen before. 

The abdication scene is even better, and again I can see Marlowe’s influence on Richard II. 

There are some very good lines: 

“EDWARD […] The griefs of private men are soon allayed;

But not of kings…”

(Scene 21)

This is followed by an image of “the forest deer” and “the imperial lion”—Edward refers to himself as a lion quite a few times, but he’s not much of a lion, is he? 

I like these lines from the same speech: 

“But what are kings, when regiment is gone,

But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?” 

This is also good: 

“EDWARD I know not; but of this am I assured,

That death ends all, and I can die but once.” 

(ibid.) 

4/ I note something interesting Marlowe does a few times throughout the play, though I don’t know what you call these pairs of lines—thesis and antithesis? 

“KENT For he’ll complain unto the see of Rome.

GAVESTONE Let him complain unto the see of hell.” 

(Scene 1) 

“EDWARD Lay hands on that traitor Mortimer!

MORTIMER SENIOR Lay hands on that traitor Gaveston!” 

(Scene 4) 

“QUEEN [to Gaveston] Villain, ’tis thou that robb’st me of my lord.

GAVESTON Madam, ’tis you that rob me of my lord.” 

(ibid.) 

“WARWICK Saint George for England, and the barons’ right!

EDWARD Saint George for England, and King Edward’s right!” 

(Scene 12) 

“GURNEY Your passions make your dolours to increase.

EDWARD This usage makes my misery increase.” 

(Scene 23) 

“EDWARD III My lord, he is my uncle, and shall live.

MORTIMER My lord, he is your enemy, and shall die.”

(Scene 24) 

“LIGHTBORNE What means your highness to mistrust me thus? 

EDWARD What means thou to dissemble with me thus?” 

(Scene 25) 

The best wordplay in Edward II, however, is when Mortimer decides to kill Edward and wants to cover his tracks:  

“MORTIMER […] This letter, written by a friend of ours,

Contains his death, yet bids then save his life.

Reads. ‘Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est’,

‘Fear not to kill the king, ’tis good he die.’

But read it thus, and that’s another sense;

‘Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est’,

‘Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.’

Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go…” 

(ibid.) 

According to a post I came across, the line comes from Holinshed—sent by Adam de Orleton, not Mortimer. 

5/ In 1970, the BBC broadcast a double feature done by Prospect Theatre Company: Edward II and Richard II with Ian McKellen playing Edward and Richard, Timothy West playing Mortimer and Henry Bolingbroke, Paul Hardwick playing the Earl of Warwick and John of Gaunt, and so on. 

Both are wonderful productions—the entire cast is perfect. Ian McKellen is great, as always (I saw Richard II back in November); Timothy West has a lot more to do as Mortimer; but I especially like Diane Fletcher as she helps me understand better the character of Queen Isabella and her changes throughout the play. 

The more I think about Edward II—such a great play—the more annoyed I get with the Marlovian theory, i.e. the conspiracy theory that Marlowe faked his death and was the real Shakespeare. It’s a distraction from a much more worthwhile pursuit of rereading, rewatching, analysing, getting immersed in Shakespeare’s plays; it’s also a distraction from the brilliance of Marlowe’s actual plays when we should be celebrating and promoting Edward II and Doctor Faustus. 

If you are in the UK and have a school/ university email address, both productions are available on the ERA website. Otherwise, they’re on Youtube, though the quality is a bit lower. 

On Emma (2009), starring Romola Garai [updated]

 

Why do we—I mean I—keep watching different adaptations of the same novel? 

Yesterday I saw the 2009 Emma, which is the 4th version I’ve now seen of Jane Austen’s novel, after Gwyneth Paltrow (1996), Kate Beckinsale (1996), and Anya Taylor-Joy (2020). Or the 5th, if you count Clueless (1995). 

(I mention the years so you can see the Emma craze from 1995-1996—I don’t know why though). 

At the moment, I’m not quite sure if my favourite is the Kate Beckinsale version, or the 2009 one with Romola Garai, by which I mean that both are very good, but neither have the perfection, the this-is-obviously-the-best-ness of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice. 

Let’s start with what I like about the 2009 series. Consisting of 4 episodes, it’s the longest of the versions I’ve seen: it has time to develop the story, to show the glances and half-smiles and secret looks, to let us see Emma change over time. It looks good: well-framed, well-lit, showing the beautiful English countryside. Some of the supporting performances are excellent, especially Blake Ritson as the good-looking but oily, mercenary, small-minded Mr Elton, and Rupert Evans as the self-centred, thoughtless, but charming Frank Churchill. I also like that Harriet Smith is not turned into a goofy and ridiculous character, as done in some other adaptations: portrayed by Louise Dylan, she is simple, impressionable, not very bright; but there’s a gentleness and timidity about her that makes Emma, Robert Martin, and others love her. Most importantly, Jonny Lee Miller is a very good Mr Knightley, and there’s great chemistry between him and Romola Garai. The 1996 TV movie depicts accurately the age gap from the novel, but Kate Beckinsale and Mark Strong have less chemistry, and I think it’s better when Mr Knightley can be seen as a romantic interest— he may be 16 years older, he may scold her and lecture her, they may be old friends, but there must be something that convinces us about the transformation of their life-long friendship into romantic love, something that makes us rejoice in their realisation and their happy ending—Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller have it, and make me realise that it’s not quite there between Mark Strong and Kate Beckinsale.

In many ways, it is a good adaptation, and I do like the way the series emphasises Emma’s loneliness and listlessness after her sister and then her governess gets married, leaving her alone with her father, without a female companion, without guidance, without something to do. 

But there are certain things that don’t work quite so well. For some reasons, Sandy Welch (the screenwriter) and Jim O’Hanlon (the director) tone down some of the characters: Mr Woodhouse is less tiresome and ridiculous; Miss Bates is less garrulous and exasperating; Mrs Elton is still self-centred and annoying but less vulgar, less crass, and actually quite physically attractive. These changes—when I think about them—affect how we see Emma. And that leads to the most important question: how is Romola Garai’s performance as Emma? In some ways, she’s a very good Emma: Emma meddles with people’s lives and messes many things up, but Romola Garai has that charm, that innocence and pure-heartedness of Jane Austen’s character, whereas Gwyneth Paltrow or Anya Taylor-Joy can come across as catty, disdainful, even fake, and extremely unlikeable. But Romola Garai plays Emma as animated, high-spirited, almost like a teen girl—perhaps almost like a modern teen girl—I prefer the elegance of Kate Beckinsale, and her approach to the character. 

What do you think?  

Addendum: I forgot to mention that during holiday, I watched When Harry Met Sally for the first time. What a wonderful, delightful film! The characters are all different, but I thought about When Harry Met Sally as I watched the close friendship between Emma and Mr Knightley turn into romantic love. 

Moby-Dick: “like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee”

1/ Moby-Dick is full of symbolism. I must thank Tom of Wuthering Expectations for pointing out that Ishmael is identified with water, and Ahab, with fire. 

“Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove?” (ch.1)

Ahab’s shadow and his closest companion—his Mephistopheles?—is Fedallah, a Parsee, a fire worshipper. The fire imagery—the association of Ahab with fire—is most obvious in Chapter 96 “The Try-Works”, and the rest of the book is filled with fire imagery. 

“I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what’s made in fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell’s probable.” (ch.108)

To kill Moby Dick, Ahab wants a new harpoon. To destroy what he sees as the embodiment of all evil, he turns to witchcraft. 

“… “No, no—no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb?” holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale’s barbs were then tempered.

“Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!” deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood.” (ch.113) 

This is something I didn’t notice in my first reading: Ahab rejects water; he’s later killed by water. 

The quote in the headline comes from chapter 119. 

2/ This is a rather odd passage:  

“It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson’s chest in his sleep.

Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.

But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them.” (ch.132) 

Moby-Dick is a very strange book. 

3/ I don’t know what it means, but I’ve noticed the bird motif in the last chapters of the novel. 

“… But already the sable wing was before the old man’s eyes; the long hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with his prize.

An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin’s head, removing his cap to replace it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would be king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen accounted good. Ahab’s hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on and on with it; far in advance of the prow: and at last disappeared; while from the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was dimly discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea.” (ch.130) 

And when the ship goes down, a hawk goes down with it: 

“A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.” (ch.135) 

I finished rereading the book yesterday, after over 7 weeks. Shakespeare took possession of Melville, and created Moby-Dick.  

Moby-Dick: “That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate”

“Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will.” (ch.86) 

It often puzzles me that lots of readers don’t seem to notice that there are two quests in Moby-Dick: a physical quest (Ahab’s pursuit of Moby Dick) and a metaphysical quest (Ishmael’s search for meaning). Ahab is not the only obsessive: he’s obsessed with a whale; Ishmael is obsessed with the whale. 

For what is the whale? Leviathan? A sea monster? A personification of all that maddens and torments? A dumb brute? A dish? A poor animal murdered to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men? Some inscrutable, unknowable thing? 

“‘All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.’” (ch.36) 

Even Ahab does not know—the whale is beyond his reach. 

Thus Ishmael seeks to know the whale, to learn everything he can—from head to tail, from blubber to skeleton—so as to grasp the meaning of Moby Dick, of the chase, of his own survival. Ahab is mad, but is Ishmael not, too, a madman? 

“Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals—morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire—by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be—what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,—all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go.” (ch.41) 

What’s the White Whale to them, indeed? But Ishmael too was part of the chase. Ishmael too went down with the Pequod—and yet he survives. What’s the meaning of that fatal chase? And his own madness? And what does it mean that he alone lives? 

But Ishmael isn’t free; his soul continues to be possessed by the madness of the old man. 

“Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. […] These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable.” (ch.68) 

It was only when I got to the chapter “The Doubloon” that I realised that Ishmael’s obsession with meaning—with signs and wonders—came from Ahab. 

"But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them." (ch.99) 

Ahab seeks meaning in a doubloon; Ishmael sees hieroglyphics on the skin of a whale. 

“‘There’s another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg—all tattooing—looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the Cannibal? As I live he’s comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon’s Astronomy in the back country…’” (ibid.) 

Ahab sees signs and wonders on the surface of a doubloon, and on the skin of Queequeg. That remark on Queequeg might only be a passing thought for Ahab, but Ishmael later repeats it: 

“Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of grotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on his body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last.” (ch.110) 

What are these mysteries in the tattoos of Queequeg, and on the skin of the whale? Do they contain answers? But Ishmael can never know, and the entire book is his quest for meaning, his attempt to strike through the mask. 

On Odissea (1968), an 8-part adaptation of the Odyssey

 

Over Christmas, my family and I watched Odissea, an Italian-language adaptation of the Odyssey in 8 episodes—not a Christmas series, I know—but what can be more Christmassy than returning home and reuniting with your family? 

According to Wikipedia, this is the most faithful version. It’s also my favourite adaptation so far, unlikely to get surpassed. Now some of you might think, is it going to be the most epic, spectacular version you’ve seen of Homer’s poem? The answer is no. But it is made by people who respect the text, and have a deep understanding of it. 

If we have to narrow down to the three main things that the Odyssey is about, I would say: the intelligence of Odysseus and his development as a character, the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope, and the education of Telemakhos. Odissea gets all three right. Most adaptations, because of time, tend to ignore the last one, but it is important in the Odyssey—why does Athena make Telemakhos travel if he learns no news of Odysseus and the trip doesn’t advance the plot?—it’s for his education, for him to learn about the father he has never known, and see how things work in a happy kingdom not torn apart by greedy suitors and disloyal servants. He also learns to be independent, away from his mother, away from home. Renaud Verley conveys well the helpless anger of Telemakhos at the beginning, and the confidence towards the end as Telemakhos fights the suitors next to his father. 

The development of Odysseus is also good, largely thanks to the performance of Bekim Fehmiu. At the beginning, he doesn’t express much on his face, making me afraid that he looks the part but isn’t quite right for the role, but this is a cautious Odysseus, a weary Odysseus, wanting nothing but to go home after 10 years of wandering and suffering. We see a different Odysseus in the flashbacks—more animated—especially in the episode of the Cyclops: a cunning Odysseus, a proud and impetuous Odysseus, causing his own downfall and the loss of his men. We see that cunning look again when he’s back in Ithake, as he watches his household and observes the enemies and calculates his moves. 

I also like Irene Papas (a Greek actress) as Penelope. Odissea makes more explicit Penelope’s recognition of Odysseus under disguise, and her test of him at the end—I slightly prefer the subtlety of Homer—but Irene Papas is so good in these scenes that it doesn’t matter. I especially like her anger as she comes to meet Odysseus after the killing of the suitors—this is something I have not considered—she has waited for 20 years, she has stayed true, but Odysseus saw her with distrust and hid from her his identity?

Among the supporting characters, I think the best cast are Constantin Nepo as Antinous and Karl-Otto Alberty as Eurymakhos. My only complaint, if anything, is that I don’t particularly like Scilla Gabel as Helen, and I wish they had done something to make Kalypso (Kyra Bester) look a bit “less human”, being a nymph, but this is trivial.  

I suspect that Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the Odyssey is going to be similar to Bondarchuk’s adaption of War and Peace—spectacular and technically impressive, but hollow—and even worse, as it’s historically inaccurate. Odissea is similar to the 1972 War and Peace or the 1977 Anna Karenina—not the best production values perhaps, but an excellent adaptation. 

Odissea is available on Youtube (if you don’t mind the subtitles being imperfect). 

On Ulysses (1954), an Italian adaptation of the Odyssey

Filmmakers all have to make changes when adapting a literary work, which sometimes works very well, but in the case of Ulysses (1954), pretty much every single change makes the narrative worse. 

One big change is that they reduce the role of the gods. But instead of pushing it to the extreme, as in The Return (2024), removing the gods altogether and stripping the Odyssey of all mythology, Ulysses makes a half-arsed attempt: Circe (Kirke) is still there, combined with Calypso; Ulysses (Odysseus) still speaks to the dead; we still see the Cyclops; but we don’t see Athena and we don’t see Polyphemus cursing Ulysses and his men and calling for their destruction. The very thing that causes the 10 years of wandering and all the lives lost is cut; the curse instead comes from Cassandra during the war, when Ulysses destroys a statue of Poseidon. 

Another change is that Ulysses in the film is no longer a storyteller: the flashbacks are him recalling past events—regaining his memory—rather than telling King Alcinous about his adventures; and we don’t see him making up stories upon his return to Ithaca (Ithake). 

But the biggest and worst change is the way they handle the last few chapters of Homer’s poem: even if you don’t agree with my interpretation that Penelope long suspects the identity of the beggar, does a kind of double talk with him so as to keep the secret from her spying servants, and comes up with the test of the bow as a convenient way of placing a weapon in his hands, you would probably still find it disappointing that in the film, the idea of the bow comes from Ulysses—in his disguise as a beggar—rather than Penelope herself. Why is Homer’s Odysseus so desperate to return home, to reunite with Penelope? Why does he reject the power of Kirke and the promise of immortality from Kalypso and the youth of Nausicaa? Because Odysseus and Penelope are a perfect match, because they’re both intelligent and full of tricks—their like-mindedness is an important point in the Odyssey—the Penelope in the film has the loyalty and constancy of Homer’s character, but not her cleverness (except the weaving trick). The film cannot explain why he longs for her, especially when they have Penelope and Circe played by the same actress (Silvana Mangano).

Another important point is that in the Odyssey, Odysseus and Penelope test each other—Odysseus has to test her because of the warning from Agamemnon, but she also has to test him—all that is removed from the film. We don’t even see Ulysses quietly go around and observe who remains loyal and who has betrayed him in his household. 

The film seems to focus on the fun scenes, and in a way, it is fun. Kirk Douglas is a more energetic and charming Odysseus/ Ulysses than Ralph Fiennes—not because Ralph Fiennes lacks charm, but because he plays Odysseus as a weary man, haunted by war—the bow scene is especially fun. Another positive thing I can say is that, compared to the grey and drab look of Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film, the costumes here are more interesting, more colourful and imaginative.  

Oh well. I don’t expect Nolan’s film to be any better. 

Anyway. 

Reading and viewing plans for 2026

 

Two Pride and Prejudice series are coming up: a Netflix straight adaptation (top) and The Other Bennet Sister by the BBC (bottom). 

1/ I wrote in December 2024: 

“Even if there is little impact, I can’t help feeling an urge to fight against anti-intellectualism and inverted snobbery, against identity politics and Critical Race Theory, against philistinism and the School of Resentment. 

One of the ways to fight is reading and analysing and promoting classic books.

[…] Even if the philistines and authoritarians win, even if the public becomes increasingly ignorant of classic works because of tiktoks and a million other distractions, I will not lose—because these books I read are mine.” 

That still stands. 

Compare the reading ideas in that blog post and the recent post about my reading in 2025, I’ve done quite well, haven’t I? So for next year, I intend to: 

• Continue getting to know ancient Greek literature and culture. 
• Explore the ancient Rome. 
• Start on the King James Bible. 

These are the main reading projects. Why the Bible? some of you might ask. It’s one of the most important texts in the world, and one of the texts that shaped Western civilisation. I read Western literature not knowing any of the Biblical stories; I wander through the National Gallery not catching any of the religious references; that has to change. Shakespeare is going to look very different once I have read Ovid and the Bible.

As my interest in the Bible is literary rather than religious, I guess I don’t need to explain why I’m going for the King James version rather than something more modern.

Some other reading ideas scattering around: 

• Read more Dickens, possibly Our Mutual Friend. 
• Explore more of the 18th century. 
• Read some non-Western books (such as the Akutagawa book I recently bought on impulse in Jakarta). 
• Possibly reread Wuthering Heights.

2/ There are quite a few adaptations of classics that are currently out or soon appearing: 

• Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein: you don’t expect me to watch this one, do you? This is by one of the worst directors working today. 
• Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights: all the promos I have seen—the trailer especially—tell me that the writer-director has not read the novel. I might however watch it for a laugh. 
• Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet: no, I don’t intend to watch a film about Shakespeare when the director says she understands about a third of Shakespeare’s language and has to rely on the actor—not a Shakespearean actor and not an expert—for interpretation. 
• Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: everything tells me I’m going to hate this film—why is Hollywood scared of colours?—but bring it on, I’m ready to yell at Nolan. 
• Euros Lyn’s Pride and Prejudice (Netflix): do we really need another version of Pride and Prejudice? The perfect version exists (1995). I don’t really like Jack Lowden and Emma Corrin as Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, and don’t have any positive feelings towards Netflix—the only appeal is Olivia Colman as Mrs Bennet. I might still see it though, unless it turns out to be like Netflix’s Persuasion. 
• Jennifer Sheridan’s The Other Bennet Sister (BBC): we have another Pride and Prejudice series coming up, but this one looks more interesting as it does something different—focuses on Mary Bennet—and seems to have more colours. 
• Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility: there isn’t much to say as I haven’t seen anything about this upcoming film except the cast. Would it be as good as the Ang Lee film? Most likely not. But I don’t think anyone’s going to disagree that, much as we love Emma Thompson, she’s a bit too old for Elinor. 
• Emma Frost’s The Age of Innocence (Netflix): look, can this possibly match the perfection that is the Martin Scorsese film? Daniel Day-Lewis? Michelle Pfeiffer? Winona Ryder? We don’t need another adaptation.   

What did I miss? 

3/ I don’t really have any plans for film watching, other than that I’d like to watch more films from the 1930s. 

Moby-Dick as my Bible

For a few years after I read Moby-Dick the first time, I often picked it up to reread certain chapters or passages. I stopped after a while—there were other books—but continued to carry some passages with me over the years. 

“Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.” (ch.68)

This for instance has long been part of the blog.

Moby-Dick is one of the books that mean the most to me partly because it’s three books in one: a novel about the obsessive pursuit of a whale, a whale and whaling encyclopaedia, and a philosophical book.

“All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” (ch.41) 

O man, beware of becoming Ahab! 

“Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp—all others but liars!

[…] Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.” (ch.96) 

Great works of art such as Moby-Dick should not be reduced to self-help, but we love some books more than others not just because of literary merit, but because they resonate with us, because they reach something in us, because for some reason they stay with us over the years. Moby-Dick speaks to me. 

PS: Speaking of the Bible, about last month or so, I bought the King James Bible. Going to have to read it at some point.