Honour

So I've been re-reading rosemary Sutcliffe's 'The Eagle of the Ninth' again.  And as usual, reading results in fanart...

No I'm not going to tell you where in the book this occurs or what's going on - you have to go read it for yourself.  Also I just really wanted to draw some mountains!  And guys.  Guys on mountains...

The Folklore Bookshelf

I've been working on a personal project since I moved into my current house about a month ago.  Since I like to track my progress I took some photos as I went along, although most were taken in the dim bulb-light of my room and may have come out a little fuzzy.  What do you think?

When I first got this bookcase it was very very purple.  A bit too purple in fact, so I decided to redecorate it.  Being me, that doesn't just mean painting it a less scary colour, but covering it in images and stories I enjoy that really fire up my imagination.  So in there, hidden amid the oak leaves, you might see a Wasp Salesman peddling his wares, a leaping hare the size of a Shetland pony, a selkie just beginning to change into her human form, an owl brewing a kettle, and a motley gang of musicians scattered about, some of which are not quite human.

It took about a month to do from beginning to end, as I painted in one or two figures per night, and only then when I had the time, but I love having this in my room!  Totally worth the effort.

I've been reading... and watching... a whole bunch of stuff.

I've been a bit of a culture vulture this week, indulging in a serious film, a not-so-serious film, a book I will probably never read again, and a comic of epic proportions that I still haven't finished.

• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• Julie and Julia
• Foucault's Pendulum (by Umberto Eco)
• Habibi (in progress)

I've been reading...

...The Hunger Games Trilogy, which was completely fantastic (in a gruesome sort of way).  I borrowed them off my housemate, stormed through all three in about two days, and then spent another day just mulling it all over.

While trying not to give too much away (although someone's making a movie of the first book now, so I guess the premise is pretty easy to come by) I have to say that the series really made me think.  The first book is mainly about man's inhumanity to man, and also how  you can NEVER TRUST THE MEDIA!  Seriously, I'll never watch television the same again.  It was like reading a Ben Elton book, only with death instead of sarcasm.  In the second and third books it becomes more about what happens when you upset the status quo, the emotional and psychological toll violence and hardship takes on people and how it changes them.  The end chapters of the final book were really quite sad and poignant because while we see (some of) the characters go on to live out their lives, we also find out that they're so irreparably damaged by what they've experienced that they are unable to enjoy the freedom they fought for.  Even grimmer is the fact that in some ways they have taken on the very characteristics that angered them to the point of rebellion earlier on in the series - they have become the kind of people they were trying to beat.  You see several characters make a decision about whether or not to treat the losing side the same way they were treated at the beginning of the books.  The motivation is partially to make them understand what they did, but mostly it is revenge.  Some vote Yes, some No, and it is genuinely hard to blame those that agreed.

I am very fortunate to live in a country which hasn't seen war on it's own land for over sixty years, but it's happening in other places as I type this, and it would be very naive to think that it will never happen here again.  I wonder what atrocities will we stoop to when it happens, and how the victors will treat the defeated side in the aftermath.  At the end of every conflict there has to be a delicate balance of justice and mercy to account for those wronged, but also provide the conditions for a peaceful future to grow, but when it's your own neighbours or family who have been hurt it must be extremely difficult to be objective.  Take the gap between the First and Second World Wars; the Allied powers got that balance wrong, bringing Germany to it's knees in a combination of debt and shame that contributed to the economic depression and starvation of the 1920s.  That desparation in turn paved the way for a more radical leader who claimed he could restore his people's wellbeing and pride.  Which he did.  It was just a shame that he also wanted his own revenge too, not to mention dictatorship over the free world.  Oops.

Not that history is ever that simple to dissect, but the anger of one set of people leads to anger in another, and soon events begin to spiral out of control.  I think it might take the end of the world before we break that cycle.

I've been reading... The Eagle of the Ninth

I'm subtitling this 'This Curse of the Bromance'.  Contains spoilers

 I fell onto Rosemary Sutcliffe's The Eagle of the Ninth after watching and very much enjoying the recently released movie adaption The Eagle.  Sutcliffe wrote a short series of book during the 1950s which are all based around the invasion, occupation, and hurried departure of the Roman Empire from Britain.  The Eagle of the Ninth is the first in the series and follows a young Centurion, Marcus Flavius Aquila, through his first command on the dangerous frontier of Hadrian's Wall and subsequent dismissal from the army following an injury.  Marcus has spent his entire life working towards a military career in order to regain the lost honour of his family following his father's shameful defeat in battle, and is forced to consider a new life as a crippled civilian.  Hearing that the bronze Eagle standard used by his father's former legion has been spotted in the hands of the northern barbarian tribesman, he resolves to try and steal it back with only his British-born slave Esca for help.  Either version of the story makes for a good Swords-'n'-Sandals adventure with a more personal touch, and although it won't win any Oscars I found it very enjoyable.  I'd highly recommend either the book or the film, but that's not really what I want to talk about.

The main point of this blog comes from when I sat down to watch the movie with my housemate.  I'll need to give you an idea of the two main characters first and the book and the film are set out slightly differently, mainly because of their different audiences and times of writing, so bear with me and I'll be fast:

Book version:
Book Marcus is quite different from Film Marcus. He's more enlightened (almost too enlightened to be realistic in some ways) about the nature of a slave. He saves Esca mainly out of sympathy and frees him before the quest even starts, so the story here really is mainly about the search for the Eagle. There is never any question that Marcus and Esca are on the same side, and even towards the British tribes who currently hold the Eagle Marcus has no real enmity, saying that if the tribesmen are able to keep the Eagle from him they are welcome to it. His aim in finding it is not to regain his honour so much as to prevent it becoming a trigger for further bloodshed. Still, the companionship between the two is central - in contrast to the film in which no women appear, in the book you meet a grand total of one woman, which was very much the way of the times. Men and women had different functions in society and operated in very different worlds, rarely seeing much of each other until a marriage was decided upon, and even then the union was often financially or socially driven. Esca needs less explaining as he is roughly the same in both the book and film: prickly, reserved and determined to cling to the sense of honour that is all he has left to him after being snatched away from his former life. I think this idea of being honour-bound is very interesting and something we've lost in our culture, but that's a pondering for another day.

Film version:
In the film Marcus subscribes very much to the view of Roman law and sees his slave as nothing more than a piece of property.  While he and Esca are able to work together well enough, the course of the movie revolves around the testy relationship between the two of them.  Esca, honour-bound into Marcus' service after the Roman saves his life on a self-pitying whim, rails inwardly against the master who represents the nation that killed his family, invaded his home and forced him into slavery.  In the meantime Marcus drags them both relentlessly through the Scottish Highlands in the hope of bringing the pride and glory of Rome back to his family, and cannot comprehend how anyone could despise the empire he has dedicated his life to.  At the start neither of them understands the other at all but by the end of the journey each has come to recognise that neither of their nations is purely good or evil, and their forced reliance on each other turns into a strong and trusting friendship that is tested when Marcus finally frees Esca from his enslavement and Esca in turn helps him defend the Eagle rather than running to safety himself and leaving his former master behind.

The Main Point:
The point of all this back-story is that I jokingly described the film to my friend as a "bromance" (that is, a slang term for a very close but non-sexual relationship between two men, such as between brothers - hence the "bro" in bromance.  If you're not sure what that looks like, think of the friendship between Frodo and Sam from Lord of the Rings, JD and Turk from Scrubs, or Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.  For some reason there doesn't seem to be a female equivalent).  It's true that The Eagle is a bromance, if only by necessity due to the lack of women, but mainly because of the depth of the friendship that evolves between Esca and Marcus.  But for some reason my friend has taken this to mean that the two main characters are gay, and cackles with laughter every time she finds a line in the movie or passage in the book that she feels backs this up.

If that's how she wants to see it then that's down to her (although if she did turn out to be right surely it ought to be worthy of a neutral shrug rather than hysterical giggling), but I think it does a great disservice to men in general to immediately assume that two male characters are sexually or romantically attracted to each other simply because they care about each other.  The author would be extremely unlikely to write two gay main characters into a book for teenagers and get it published (one of her adult books does allude to a relationship between two male characters, but it is very underplayed).  Additionally both the twenty-something-year-old actors and the director of the recent film have said that the characters weren't written or played gay, so where is this idea coming from that they are romantically involved?  Why is it that the behaviours they read as a bond between brothers are being read by others as signs of a sexual attraction? 

Much of it may be just the way our social conduct has changed over time.  Since 'coming out of the closet' has become more common and accepted over that last few decades there seems to be a pressure on both men and women to define their sexuality in a way that wasn't there before, and so any behaviour that could be interpreted ambiguously has been cut down, such as in this case showing signs of strong affection for another man, even if that affection is platonic.  So of course, any time we see those rare signs of affection they are jumped on, and mountains made out of molehills.  The excellent Charity Bishop has noticed a similar trend in female duos, with fans clamouring for relationships within the space of a few episodes.

It may be partly the fault of us women too.  We go on and on about how men are so much more insensitive than us and can't express their emotions that I'm afraid we're all actually starting to believe it -even to expect it.  Being masculine apparently now also implies being callous, crude and emotionally shallow, and so if any man does decide to be vulnerable with his friend it is seen as being far too forward or feminine compared to what is socially acceptable.  The trouble is, I don't think that's the truth at all.  I firmly believe that all of us, men and women, are capable of much more
humanity than that in the way we act towards each other, and that it's not the potential for sex but our belief in the value of other human beings that drives us.

The ability to be emotionally open or close with another person doesn't make you a wuss or determine your sexuality, it shows courage, trust and strength of character on both sides!  To assume that any man who genuinely cares about his friend must want to be involved with him romantically is demeaning to the great and noble hearts of the men around us, and if we don't want them to lose that ability to care then we'd better stop laughing at them for it.

So guys, it comes down to this.  I believe that you are capable of great kindness, selfless genorosity, and emotional depth.  And it appears there may be scant few of us left that think so.  Don't let us down.

So... is it a real book or just an imaginary one?

Picked up Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah from the second hand book stall in the market for tuppence, and if you're like me and enjoy having your brain stretched then I would highly recommend it. 

The story is narrated by a man who lives by travelling from town to town giving plane rides for a living, and Donald Shimoda, who is doing the exact same thing, having quit his two previous occupations; one as a mechanic, and one as a messiah.  Yes, you heard me -miracles and all.  During the time the two men spend travelling together, Shimoda attempts to explain to Richard why he quit, and how he can learn to see past the world presented to us as reality.

It's really a fascinating book, one of the ones that suddenly makes you aware of things that you had probably known, or secretly suspected, about life for a long time, but perhaps had forgotten or put to the side.  One or two parts are a little contrived, but the idea behind the story, the two main characters, and the setting more than cover for those moments, so I didn't really mind.  It'll probably be a tad hippyish for some people, but then I guess you only get out of these things what you're willing to put in.  If you don't want to consider anything new, you won't.  Personally I spent a couple of hours after I had finished it just thinking it all over.
My only real negative would be that, as with most books on the metaphysical, you shouldn't take it as gospel without questioning it, as some of the reviews on it seem to do.  It's engaging, thought-provoking, and inspiring, but not infallible.  But nevertheless, definitely worth a read.  It's one of those books that, although not lengthy, makes you wish that the world could be better than it is, and to question the simplest of the things you do from day to day without thinking.

Steady there, chuckles

"I love you, not only because you are deformed; but because you are low. I love monsters, and I love mountebanks. A lover despised, mocked, grotesque, hideous, exposed to laughter on that pillory called a theatre, has for me an extraordinary attraction. It is tasting the fruit of hell. An infamous lover, how exquisite! To taste the apple, not of Paradise, but of hell; such is my temptation. It is for that I hunger and thirst. I am that Eve, the Eve of the depths. Probably you are, unknown to yourself, a devil. I am in love with a nightmare. You are a moving puppet, of which the strings are pulled by a spectre. You are the incarnation of infernal mirth. You are the master I require. I wanted a lover such as those of Medea and Canidia. I felt sure that some night would bring me such a one. You are all that I want. I am talking of a heap of things of which you probably know nothing. Gwynplaine, hitherto I have remained untouched; I give myself to you, pure as a burning ember. You evidently do not believe me; but if you only knew how little I care!"

Victor Hugo ~ 'The Man Who Laughs'  p195:
 
I don't know about you, but I read that and get the shudders.  Literature is amazing :)  That said, you think this is bad, try reading his Hunchback of Notre Dame.  It's a good deal different from the Disney movie and rather depressing.  Hugo was, if I have it correctly, living in a time when more people were starting to believe that there was nothing more to the world than the immediately reality we see around us (this was when most people in Europe were still Christian by rote so this was quite shocking stuff).  No spiritual element, no God, no nothing, just cold hard math.  To be fair, some of them found some wonder in that, but a lot of them set out out to show everyone else how the world could function without a God -and others how they couldn't- and that this was the way they should live.  So they wrote this idea into stories. 
 
Unfortunately for those that reckoned mankind could function without God, in these books everyone usually ends up either dead, about to die, or horribly depressed. 
Kinda shot yourselves in the foot there, didn't you guys :)