That, anyway, is what I have learned.

                If there is only one thing I can take away from this class it is I new understanding of an old truth; endings and never fun. Many of us don’t enjoy the end of the book or of a story, the emptiness that consumes us when we turn the last page and read the final line. Myths are our way to try to continue the story; they give us a prolog for what happens after this world and they give us a history that makes the present a continuation of a past never ending. Even when a myth has a ending we find a way to keep it alive for us today, reinterpreting it to fit our daily lives in hopes that the story doesn’t have to end.

From the Bible to Arabian Nights, it feels like myths are a way to make every day part of the present. The past is one continues end, full of people we have forgotten, a club we will soon join. Every day of our lives will be forgotten in history, no one will remember our accomplishments. The greatest moments of our lives will inevitably fade into room temperature blandness, existence of the past in a constant reminder that we too will suffer their fate. Myth is the key to locking this horrible fate away from us. In myth we remember the past in all of its detail, we refuse to forget all the details of Heracles life, we immortalize his every accomplishment. This gives us the glimmer of a radiant future beyond this life for even if we are doomed to die, then we at least live on in the myths of all who hear them! The stories that should have ended long ago are ever alive today because of myth. Myth is the armor that stays off the cold pain of oblivion.

Myth is also our key to dodging the inevitable end of everything. While some might say that myth gives us an end when we don’t know there is one (it was only in myth that said the world and the entire universe would have an end rather than live on forever), myth only gives us a continuation after the ending. Many myths predict an end of times, a day when all life will end and everything will fade into nothingness, but they give us a hope that it won’t actually be the end. Myth often calls the end a ‘Revelation’ a tearing away of the vale. Myth has done what mankind has wanted to do since the very beginning of its existence, eliminate the end. Myth has made the end non-existent. Our myths have changed what used to be a frightful (and possibly painful) ending into something polar opposite, a brand new beginning. At the end of times there will be a ‘Revelation,’ a great new wave of truth that was hidden from us all along will be revealed and it will change us for the better.

Myth very well be mans greatest achievement, with it we have simultaneously eliminated the voiceless and empty past, and the dark dismal future. Myth has eradicated the past by making it ever present. We remember events long ago because of myth, and these stories shape our everyday life. At the same time myth has defeated the unknown future of room temperature, by making it radiant and full of life.  

That, any way is what I have learned.

But maybe, just maybe, I’m completely wrong about all of this. Maybe eliminating the end isn’t the greatest accomplishment of myth. Maybe it’s the question myth leads to that makes us gravitate towards myth. If myth is ‘the president behind every action,’ this leaves far more myth unknown than known. Could it be that when myth truly succeeds is when it leaves us wanting more? This what endings do, they leave us wanting more; we want to know what happens to Harry Potter as an adult, we want to know how Hazel Grace gets by, we want to know how Eragon trains new Dragon Riders, we want to know how Edmond Dantès spends the rest of his life. These ending leave us wanting more, but wanting more is what carries the story on and makes it a timeless tail.

Maybe this is why myth is so great. Maybe it’s because it fills us and leaves us wanting more, so much that we relentlessly pursue it and let it inspire us. Myth is just like the girl who leaves every night telling us that she’ll finish the story tomorrow. We are forced to let myth live because we want to hear how the story ends, we want a nice little bow that wraps everything up and yet at the exact same moment we don’t want it to end. We continue the myth so the story doesn’t have to end, when the story ends, so does the excitement and joy the story brings. When the story ends we are forced to go back to our dull and boring present. Maybe the goal of a good myth isn’t the destruction of an ending, but the perpetual promise of ending that will, allegedly, come if we continue with the story long enough.

This is why Dr. Sexton doesn’t open the gift from the mysterious neighbor, for as soon as the gift is opened, the story is over. The magical, life changing flight becomes just another flight with no significance or special meaning. Leaving the gift unwrapped perpetuates the story for as long as he wants, for as long as he needs it to go on. And this is what myth does for us it gives us something to hold on to and something to reach for. Our myths make the present less mundane and dreary; every day becomes exciting and wonderful because it is part of a story that doesn’t end.

So maybe myth brings about the destruction of endings, or maybe it forces us to look for one that is always out of reach, and maybe we’ll never know the difference. Whatever myth is it will forever capture us in its snare, make us its prisoner, and make us happy to stay there.

Endings are scary, they force us to move on from the present, abandon the past, and realize that there is no future. Myth beautifully embarrasses the end and makes it something mystifying, something to study, adore, fear, understand, and be perplexed by.

That, anyway, is what (I think) I’ve learned.

Displaced Myth

Hank was a distraught war vet, down on his luck with nothing going for him. One night at local bar he met Damian. A charming young, well dressed, and educated man sat next to him ordering a Hank and coke, double and neat, same as his. They began talking, the normal small chat at first, then about origin stories, then about the ups and downs of life. After heavy drinks and equally heavy words Damian invited Hank to a small restaurant just around the corner, with stakes so good that if Hank didn't cry upon the first bight Damian would pay for him meal.

                Hank kindly thanks his acquaintance for the offer and the company, insisting that it was late and he must be off. Damian pressed on, continually insisting that his new friend join him. After continual pressing from Damian, Hank left in anger. Hank roamed around the town for some time in a half drunken stupor, eventually settling on a water bed, cardboard heavy from the early afternoon rain. Damian walked up not a second after his eyes fell. “Do you want a real bed?” After a painful silence filled with the pride of not wanting to accept a strangers help, Damian said, “Come with me.”

                Damian took Hank to a small desolate ninth floor apartment. The place wasn’t worthy of housing such a successful man as Damian. Damian explained that he rarely used this apartment but it tended to gather some dust due to the almost complete abandonment. He asked Hank to need it clean for him on the off chance that he ever needed to bring someone by and that if he stayed there and kept it clean he would pay him handsomely. Hank, feeling like he had no other option, agreed to this rather outlandish deal. Without a word, Damian left the apartment.

                Looking around Hank found that the apartment was nothing more than a small room; a bed, stove, bookshelf with two books, small fireplace, but no shower or sink to even wash his face. If Hank didn’t know better he would have guessed he had gone back in time to a small fifteenth century cottage, except for one small piece of discarded wood in the corner, a stretched and worn violin. He did what he could to keep it clean and tired to keep the fire going. After a couple months Damian returned, by himself, not saying a word to Hank. He simply game a nod of approval and left. Several months later Damian returned again to a spotless apartment and a mangled thing. Due to the lack of any way to clean himself Hank had become something that could only be called a shadow of a human being. His hair was long and disheveled and his beard matched. Damian gave him a suitcase, few cloths for his back, and sent him on his way. Hank wanted to protest and demand his payment, but Damian was gone before he could take a breath.

                Hank left the building and proceeded to the nearest hotel he could find. On his way Hank opened the suitcase, put on a jacket but to his surprise he found money hidden beneath his cloths. More than he could possibly count in the street. When he got to the hotel the owner tired to drive him away, but when he pulled out a stack of hundred dollar bills the owner quickly changed his mind. Too tired to clean himself Hank instantly fell asleep. When Hank awoke he found that someone broke into his room and stole all the money Damian had given him. Hank went to the front desk, but helpful was the antithesis of what the owner was when he explained the break in. More desolate than ever Hank left the hotel.

                As he was walking Hank found a small piece of paper in the jacket pocket, seven numbers with a hyphen between the third and fourth numbers. Hank found the nearest pay phone; before the first ring ended he heard Damian’s voice on the other line. Hank explained what had happened, “I’ll be there in five,” is all Damian said. When Damian arrived he took one look at Hank and took him to a salon (a salon he owned) and they gave him the royal treatment, after a few hours of pampering Hank didn’t even recognize the face looking back at him. Damian walked in to the salon with the battered suitcase in hand. He gave it to Hank, they shook hands, and said good buy.

                Hank moved on, using the money to rent a small apartment and to buy a used violin, a small token of the time he spent with Damian. He would pass the time by playing his violin on street corners and in the park. Until one day a prominent Wall Street banker heard him playing while he walked through the park. He was so impressed by his talent that he gave Hank his card and told him he was hosting a gala in a few weeks and would like to have him as entertainment. Hank graciously accepted the offer and soon found himself in the room with some of the most powerful men and women in the county.

                As the night began to wind down and Hank had stopped playing for the night, while he socialized with the guests, he found himself involuntarily gazing upon a beautiful women across the bar. The man who invited him called over his daughter and the women he was gazing upon began to walk over. They were introduced and instantly began falling in love. In what felt like a day they were married, and Hank was learning how to take up the business for when his father in-law would step down.

The End

A little more Storyteller

I would like to offer a defense of my post on ‘The Storyteller,’ that appeared to come under some scrutiny a few lectures ago. I think there is a grievous misunderstanding of what is meant when I used the word ‘likeable’ and this needs some clarification. I did not mean ‘likeable’ in the since that the character is an enjoyable person, or that the character is someone I would like to spend time with. The Joker, Walter White, Hannibal Lecter, and the like are not ‘likeable’ characters; they are not people would want to consider your friends. However, these characters are some of the best characters ever developed! They are complicated, multi-dimensional, and demand your attention the second they appear.  

I will admit my word choice of ‘likable’ may not have been the best, but I stand by what I said. Mascarita is not a well developed character would have been a better way to put it.

All in all I still am not a fan of ‘The Storyteller.’ It failed to captivate my interests and never made me want to read. I liked the way Llosa writes, jumping back and forth between narratives, but I never felt the desire to continue reading, there was never a point in the story I felt a desire to know what would happen next.

 But in fear of the riot that would ensue from my dislike of something everyone else (maybe blindly) enjoys, I’ll give it a ‘C.’

Death and What Comes Next

In honour of Halloween and the devastating news of the far to early, soon to be, death of the author Terry Pratchett. I thought I would share with all of you a great short story from Pratchett about death.

http://www.lspace.org/books/dawcn/dawcn-english.html

Death and What Comes Next, was my first introduction to the brilliant and creative author and I hope you can all see the same beauty and talent that Mr. Pratchett brings to the page.

Half a Storyteller

As of writing this I am only about half way through The Storyteller, but considering I’m missing a few blog posts I thought I would give my opinion of the book so far.  The book has yet to truly catch my interest. The Storyteller seems to be more of a book about cultural acceptance rather than mythologies. There are a few brief paragraphs on some of the tribe’s myths and practices, but the bulk of the story appears to be about the attempts to change their culture.

The character Mascarita is a very unlikeable character. While I can sympathize with him and his desire to preserve the native cultures, his reactions and solutions are very radical and impractical. Mascarita is extremely opposed to any form of outside contact with the tribes. I will admit that he does have a good reason to be distrustful of western contact with the native tribes, past interactions between the two have never gone very well for the natives, but I think that Mascarita is hasty to say that all contact should there for be cut off between the two worlds. I completely understand why he is so distrustful of outsiders, but by his logic we can preserve all the great works of art, the mona lisa, the pieta, and the sistine chapel by locking them away and never letting people come in contact with them. It preserves them and protects them from people like Laszlo Toth, but what good is that? What is the point of preservation if not to share it with the world?

Hopefully the second half of the book can change my mind.

Analyzing pg. 33 (A bit of foreshadowing)

The page I picked was not at all random. I came across it while reading, not looking for a page to analyze.  Perhaps it was the fates leading me to that page, knowing of the trials yet to come. As we move from the beginning of all things to the initiation, a common theme begins to form. What we find when we look at the trials and tribulations that mark an ‘initiation,’ we see that the trails are not the end goal in and of themselves. The reason behind the trial is the reward and comradely that follows after completing the trial.

We see this on pg. 33 of “The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony.” Dionysus has just drugged and raped Aura, a mighty huntress, and left her impregnated with twins. Aura is furious with Dionysus and tries to have the children killed when they are born. Dionysus then calls upon the help of Nikaia.

Nikaia is a former victim of Dionysus; she too was drugged and raped by Dionysus and left with a child. Like Aura, Nikaia was a great huntress and killed any man who dared to try to seduce her. Dionysus now comes to her and asks for her help to save the child of his evil deeds. While many would never help the person who committed such boundless evils against us, Nikaia doesn’t. Calasso gives a slight glimpse as to why, “…now Nikaia would be able to see that another huntress had come to the same sorry end. Now she could take comfort, Dionysus said, in the thought that she formed part of a divine order.” We see in Nikaia the same thing we see in all groups that have a rite of passage, a form of comradely.  It may seem sick or sadistic when we think of this, Nikaia is getting joy out of watching another go through the same horror that she endured, but it is how we all feel and what we expect to become ‘one of us.’ When we watch underclassmen of the same major struggle through the classes we went through (PHSX 261) we experience the same thing, we see their struggles as a rite of passage, as a coming of age, earning their stripes. While in the middle of the trial we may see things as pointless and dismal, once we’re clear we can see how the tribulation was shaping us and making us better. After the darkness we know that we could never have accomplished all that we’ve done if it had avoided the challenge.

This is even clearer when we look at the name of Nikaia’s child; “Teleté which means ‘initiation,’ ‘ultimate achievement.’” The child is proof of her initiation into the ‘divine order.’ Nikaia has overcome the immense obstacle before her and arrived on the other side stronger because of it, so much so that she names her child ‘ultimate achievement.’

Same Story Different Myth

As we listen to the different myths from cultures all around the world, we can’t help but notice a pattern. Similar ideas repeated again and again, ideas that go beyond culture or geological boundaries. In light of these similarities we can’t help but wonder why are these myths so similar? What caused them to have so many parallel themes? I would like to share with you one theory that I have found somewhat plausible.

John Hick is a well-received philosopher of religion and in his book ‘An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent’ he tries to give an explanation of why we have so many different religions (myths). Hick argues that there is a ‘divine’ being, but Hick insists that this divine being is not separate from the world nor is it one with the world; it is neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. This divine thing is something completely different from all of our understandings of divinity. Hick proposes that humanity has come into contact with this divine thing throughout history, the differences in religion (myth) arise because of the peoples different cultural past. 

To Hick if this divine thing makes contact with a group of people, the way they understand or interoperate this contact is largely depended on their culture. Even though all the people are coming into contact with the same thing, because they have different cultural pasts, they understand or explain the divine differently. According to Hick, every myth is equally right, and equally wrong. This is why so many myths have comparable elements; they are similar because they stem from the same divine thing, the discrepancies arise from the different cultural encounters with the divine thing. 

While I personally think that this theory does have some crucial flaws, it still does seem to be a reasonable explanation of the facts. What do you think? What best explains why myths are so similar?