regrets are illuminations come too late - Joseph Campbell

(Yes, as I’m teaching Gilgamesh, I’m revisiting some of The Hero With A Thousand Faces.)

Some of you know of my (near obsessive) self-identification with Henry Higgins.  Some more of you know that I identify more with the Higgins of Pygmalion, but vastly prefer My Fair Lady (I may be in the minority on this one).  And a few of you know that My Fair Lady renders me a weeping baby every single time.  When she walks in at the end, oh my God, the waterworks start like nothing else.  And then when Rex Harrison has the look of love and relief and thankfulness on his face- for only a split second-  and then turns right back into the old Higgins and says the line (One of the best lines ever in movies- you should know it!) and slides into his hat- my heart leaps in admiration and self-recognition.

And finally, one person knows that all day Tuesday I was listening to MFL soundtrack- multiple times.  I don’t know why- just was struck by the mood.  And that very night one of my gay poker buddies told me about this at Atlantic Station (scroll down to September for the goodness).  

A whole month!   Now all I have to hear is that it’s being presented in 35mm.  I know I’m a snob about stuff like that, but I can watch it at home on video anytime.  I may not even see it if it’s just a projected DVD.  But if it’s in 35mm, just try to keep me away.  Would love to do ALL of them.  (A regret:  it’s Thursday at about 9pm, so students who studied & watched  it with me last year really can’t go see it- which is a shame because the unit was a blast & they LOVED it.)

Nevertheless:  With a little bit of luck, it’ll be in 35mm and I’ll be unavailable for text messaging on Thursday the 10th!

Total. Baby. Weeping. Me. Here. Yes, The Gayest Thing I have Ever Heard In My Entire Life

The deciphering activity I posted yesterday met with moderate to good success.  1st period was more interested in the solution to the puzzle; 5th period enjoyed solving it.

It wound up being simpler than I thought it would- the teacher and “trial run” student I ran it by both thought the original was too hard, so I added an extra letter or two.  The whole puzzle was solved in about 15 minutes by most pairs (I was hoping for a minimum of 30). 

The key to the puzzle, I thought, was reasoning out that _ eco_ _ would become “second.”  Once that was solved, enough letters could be placed in other blanks that other trial-and-error attempts could be made.

As I wandered around the class, I watched the students begin to modify their approach to the puzzle.  Some pairs took the “_ eco _ _” and began to go

The Rosetta Stone- Something I've based many activities on. (not just the one described here)

through the alphabet to see how many letters could begin a word with “eco” as the next three letters.  Sort of a hangman, and I saw several columns on student’s papers- the letters going down the side reading, for example a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z.Other pairs were just running through it ramshod.  Some took the context/content-based approach to see what words from the Babylonian/Gilgamesh unit might fit-  vocab and contextual words like “firmament, pantheon, Gilgamesh, Tigris, Euphrates, Hammurabi’s Code.“  (One group actually recognized “Hammurabi” and was able to use that as their main word to start codebreaking.)

It was fantastic to see them applying both content knowledge, problem solving skills, cooperative effort (something, you know, not all gifted kids are famous for), and, when I have them write tomorrow- metacognition (I have added a paragraph asking them to explain what the “break” was in their deciphering.).

The activity wasn’t 100% success- it wasn’t as difficult as I hoped, nor did every child “get the point,” (but then again, when does that happen?  I just wish a few more in first period would have explored deeper.) but I did accomplish my goals of exploring content, thinking skills/ application to situations other than the content, and communication of their ideas.  Hence, I have titled this post “Moderate to Good Success.”

Despite the fact that the gifted program at my school has been diminished and devalued in lieu of pumping AP classes as full as possible, I persevere in trying to bring higher education- which develops the sort of thinking skills that goes beyond test scores.  Here is a nice activity helping kids understand translation in action- in a text such Gilgamesh, etc.   The rationale for the activity comes after the jump.

Gilgamesh Deciphering Activity Revised

I wrote this “mystery strategy” -based activity not only because it deepens an understanding of the content area (Gilgamesh, Babylonian & Persian history/culture)- which is the focus of our AP classes; there are additonal goals in my gifted classroom.   

Two relevant goals (which I strive for), alebeit not ones required by the AP Crurriculum:

1.)  The activity  also  illuminates challenges and biases in any study of culture, and, most importantly, demands that students excercise problem solving skills, incorporate trial and error(I purposely gave little enough information, and even added some “omissions” to throw kids off), and-

2.)  – in a skill too many gifted kids lack- the ability to communicate their own knowledge- explain the end result. 

(I should probably add a metacognitive paragraph also where the kids describe the process, but, as you see, space was tight.  I’ll probably give it orally.)

Feel free to adapt or steal!

Taro comments, below:

Again? Surely by now you’ve read that book-Frodo wasn’t all that old by hobbit standards. Hobbits normally lived over 100 years compared to our 70; and yes the tweens corresponded to our teens, so that a 33 yo hobbit was the equivalent, physically, our 21 year old.
Yes, I’ll grant that EW was under 21 himself, but I think he did a fair job of playing a mature man.
Frodo, at fifty, would have been about the equivalent of our early 30’s. Most 32 year-olds do not consider themselves middle-aged. But anyway, as you were sort of pointing out, I think that PJ’s much-shortened version of the story kind of pretended that he started out years sooner.

Rankin Bass' Frodo from "Return of the King" (1980)

Without wanting to belabor the point, at the beginning of Frodo’s quest, he is already 20 years beyond his “tweens, as the hobbits called the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.”  (Fellowship of the Ring p.22)  Arguments about middle age aside,  Frodo certainly is a lot older than an irresponsible child, and still has a sense of tiredness about him- a wearing thin- when he begins his journey. 

This is part of made Bilbo so reluctant to journey in The Hobbit.  At fifty-five, Tolkien definitely refers to Bilbo as older and set in his ways; he describes in The Hobbit that Bilbo had become comfortable in his settings, and

…got something a bit queer in his make-up from the Took side,something that only waited for a chance to come out.  The chance never arrived until Bilbo Baggins was grown up, being about fifty years old or so, and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by his father, which I have just described for you, until he had in fact apparently settled down immovably. (p.3; above emphasis is mine)

Bilbo Baggins from Rankin Bass' "The Hobbit" (1977)

This goes on into Fellowship of the Ring, where Tolkien and the hobbits of the shire note that even for hobbits, fifty is “the usually more sober age” (p. 46)

So it went on, until his forties were running out, and his fiftieth birthday was drawing near: fifty was a number that he felt was somehow significant (or ominous); it was at any rate at that age that adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo.  Frodo began to feel restless, and the old paths seemed too well-trodden.  He looked at maps, and wondered what lay beyond their edges: maps made in the Shire showed mostly white spaces beyond its borders. (p. 46)

Tolkien’s Frodo has long held the Tookish side in check, which makes his readiness to volunteer (at the Council of Elrond) to take the Ring to Mordor something that he, at some level, is completely aware that he was meant to do so, as opposed to PJ’s Frodo, where the scene is directed in such a way that Frodo’s decision is reactionary to the chaos around him.   Here’s from the ‘Council of Elrond,’ p. 303 (emphasis is mine):

“A great dread fell on [Frodo], as if he were awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken…”

(I totally grant, btw, that both versions of Frodo are additionally motivated by a reluctance to give up possession of the Ring.)

I concede, partially, to the comment above, but still must argue that a more experienced and older Frodo provides the character with a level of self-awareness, and even self-sacrifice, that Elijah Wood does not.

On another note (one which I will not explore now), Fran Walsh herself acknowledges that Tolkien would likely have not approved of the younger age of Frodo.  I’ll grab the transcript of the interview when I get home.

On a final note, extended periods of time are important to Tolkien.  We’ll look many examples of where age- old age- is important in the work.  (As it is to this whole Anglo-Saxon lens I’m trying to read it through now.)

And thanks to Taro for holding my feet to the fire on this!

Okay, so as I’m reading Gilgamesh [which, by the way, I left at a movie theatre- and so had to go find another identical copy tonight of the Penguin edition and try to re-annotate the whole thing!   ], and this was the passage that stuck out to me, as Gilgamesh questions Utnapishtim why he cannot have unlimited life:

Utnapishtim said, ‘There is no permanence.  Do we build a house to stand forever, do we seal a contract to hold for all time?  Do brothers divide an inheritance to keep for ever, does the flood-time of rivers endure?  it is only the nymph of the dragon-fly who sheds her larva and sees the sun in his glory.  From the days of old there is no permanence…’ (p.106-107)

Beautiful passage.  Poor Gilgamesh now faces the fact that he must eventually die.   It plays into a lot of the anglo-saxon stuff that I do so enjoy.  

So here’s the issue, and it’s not with the passage, but rather the textbook I am teaching out of:  The textbook stresses the importance of Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality.   Three quotes from the background information on page 12; emphasis is mine:

Its concerns, however, are timeless and universal:  how to become known and respected, how to cope with the loss of a dear friend, and how to accept one’s own inevitable death…

Most important, [the writers of Gilgamesh] gave the narrative its central theme: the search for immortality…

Gilgamesh seeks immortality, but instead he learns that, for him, there is no permanence. 

And now, the “Connecting to the Literature” preview on page 13:

You may have tried to imagine what it would mean to live forever.  The hero of Gilgamesh can think of nothing else.  He is desperate to find the one man who has the secret to everlasting life.

Finally, from the review on page 29:

Question 3: (a) What does the outcome of Gilgamesh’s quest suggest about human limitations?  (b) How might the tale he brings home to Uruk eventually grant Gilgamesh the immortality he seeks?

Question 9: Cultural Connection: What personal goals set by people today might be considered quests for immortality?  Explain.

All the quotes from the textbook seem to fit nicely with the actual passage from the poem.  Here’s the kicker:  the passage quoted above isn’t in the textbook at all.  In fact, there is neither an excerpt from nor even a synopsis of any part of the chapter (incidentally, ‘Chapter 4:  The Search for Everlasting Life’) the editors seem to find so important.

Is it too much to ask that Prentice Hall could have the editors preparing the secondary and primary material for their textbook work together?  I mean, if the secondary source stresses Gilgamesh’s search for everlasting life as the most important section of the work, then shouldn’t that section be included in the primary excerpts?   Gah!

This is just another reason I should leave teaching and go into the textbook business. 

No, not really. 

But still.

So I’m teaching Gilgamesh for the first time next week.  Truth be told, I can’t even remember the last time I read Gilgamesh, or even if I have ever done so in its entirety.   I would prefer to have picked up Mitchell’s verse translation, but the student textbook  has excerpts from N.K. Sanders’ prose.  So I picked up the Sanders’ Penguin Classics prose edition, from which the excerpts were taken.

Anyway, onto the Hot Gay Love (Babylonian Style):

Beautiful Gilgamesh encounters rough-from-living-in-the-wilderness Enkidu. 

[Enkidu's] body was rough, he had long hair like a woman’s; it waved like the hair of Nisaba, the goddess of corn.  His body was covered with matted hair like Samquan’s, the god of cattle.”  p.63

Woof.

In any event, Gilgamesh’s mother describes Enkidu: 

I made [Enkidu] for you, a goad and spur, and you were drawn as though to a woman…you will love him as a woman and he will never foresake you…

[And then Gilgamesh and his mother discuss a second dream]:

Gilgamesh said, ‘Mother, I dreamed a second dream.  In the streets of strong-walled Uruk there lay an axe; the shape of it was strange and the people thronged round.  I saw it and was glad.  I bent down, deeply drawn towards it; I loved it like a woman and wore it at my side.’ [His mother] answered, ‘That axe, which you saw, which drew you so powerfully like love of a woman, that is the comrade whom I give you…] pp.66-67

“Alright, Jobie,” you say,  “but this is platonic love, which you yourself are so often to point out in old texts like this.  The closest of man to man, brother to brother that was so common in ancient times.”

I disagree.   There is a distinct difference between “loved like a brother,” and “loved like a woman.”  Arthur Hallam wasn’t ever “loved as a woman.”  Then there is this gem from page 77: 

Then [Gilgamesh and Enkidu] took each other by the hand and lay down to sleep; and sleep that flows from the night lapped over them.

God, this is hot stuff.    And I’m only halfway through it.  I am willing to bet that these passages are strangely left out of the student excerpts.  I will check and let you know on this, as well as check against some verse translations & in Mark Woods.  Yeah, because I always get back to this stuff.

As I have espoused before, and will surely espouse again, Peter Jackson’s movies are masterpieces and should not be criticized.  As film, they are flawless.

If one insists on comparing them with source material (again, I think this is a mistake, but still….), there is a fatal flaw.  It is not, as many have suggested, the omission of Tom Bombadill, nor, as Mr. Lyles suggests, the altering of the scene between Eowen and the Witch King (which I agree is sad, but not unforgiveable), or the omission of the Scouring of the Shire (I actually view this as an improvement- ask me why).

No, Peter Jackson’s biggest sin, if we view the LOTR films as an adaptation rather than a stand-alone narrative, lies in the casting of Elijah Wood. 

Now, I think Elijah Wood did an excellent job, and is an excellent actor.  And it’s not just because he’s the first cousin of one of my closest friends.

It’s because he’s young.

Frodo is, at the beginning of the novel,

still in his tweens [emphasis Tolkien's], as the hobbiits called the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three….Frodo was going to be thirty-three [again, emphasis Tolkein's], 33, an important number:  the date of his ‘coming of age.’  [Del Rey/Ballantine edition, Chapter I, pp. 22]

Then, as Gandalf returns, and the adventure proper starts, Frodo’s

fiftieth birthday was drawing near: fifty was a birthday tha twas somehow significant (or ominous); it was at any rate at that age that adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo.  Frodo began to feel restless, and the old paths seemed too well-trodden… (pp. 46)

The difference is in NO WAY insignificant.  Young, pretty Elijah Wood gives us a Frodo who is just starting out in the world, a ‘rebellious’ hobbit who is searching for a new path.  The character is significantly different from a middle aged man who is moving on from a life he is tired of, as is the suggestion of Tolkien in the original novel.

It puts me in mind of Anakin Skywalker, whom Lucas turned into a whiny teenager who makes a rash youthful mistake. instead of a Dr. Faustus-esque character who openly decides to emrbrace the darkside.  Lame, and much less interesting.

Consider also the difference between the (masterpiece) staged revival of Chicago and the (again, masterpiece) filmed version.  In the play, Roxie is an aging starlet, desperate to recpature the spotlight (similar to Velma), which differs significantly from Renee Zellweger’s young woman looking up to Velma who is only trying to make it for the first time.

Soon, as we go through Fellowship (which most of you who read understand I’ll never finish, given that it’s something I’ve started), we might look more at how a fifty-year old Frodo differs significantly from a twenty-year old one.

Unfortunately, at GHP this year, the Anglo-Saxon class has gone over like a lead balloon.    Very different from previous years.  It also is a shame because in going back through the hobbit, I have several different direct allusions (i.e.- allusions the kids would get) to various parts of the Anglo Saxon culture I teach in class, such as kenning, riddling,  and the fierce bond between maternal uncle and nephew, among other things.  To wit:

“I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly, I was chosen for the lucky number….. I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water.  I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me…. I am the friends of bears and the guest of eagles.  I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider…”

…This is of course the way to talk to dragons, if you dont’ want to reveal your proper name (which is wise), and don’t want to infuriate them by a flat refusal (which is also very wise).  No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time trying to understand it.    (p.223 [ Chapter XII] in Ballantine/Del Rey paperback)

and

Of the twelve companions of Thorin, ten remained.  Fili and Kili had fallen defending him with shield and body, for he was their mother’s elder brother.  The others remained with Dain; for Dain dealt his treasure well.  [This last sentence is another Anglo Saxon trope, but never mind that now.]   (p.292-293;  Chapter XVIII)

Dale (and others) insist that Tolkien (in addition to telling a good story, which I totally concede) writes good prose.  I’m rereading, for the first time in 20 years, The Hobbit. We’ll see if it’s true. The prose is as simple as the story, but I don’t know that that’s a bad thing at all.

UPDATE:  I have started a long Tolkien project.  It has been years since I read Lord of the Rings, and I have not read them since I did my Anglo-Saxon studies in graduate school.  I’ll be re-reading them through that lens.