Tag: writing

East of Eden

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Some pieces of literature just stay with you. Maybe it’s when we read them, maybe it’s who recommended them to us, maybe it is something undeniable about the work itself, but for whatever reason we pick these things up and carry them with us.

My first exposure to John Steinbeck, as for many Brits of my generation, was being forced to read ‘Of Mice and Men’ while studying GCSE English. There’s nothing like taking an exam on a book to suck out any joy from it. For better or worse, however, I think I could still answer an essay question on the text almost thirty years later…

Later on, GCSEs a distant memory, in a flurry of Americana, I came back to Steinbeck. I can’t tell you exactly when I started reading East of Eden, regarded by many as his masterpiece, but it was one of those literary experiences where the fabric of the literary world created made me instantly comfortable. Despite the 600 page length of the tome, I was hooked.

While on a long walking trip this year, I listened to the audio book of East of Eden and was reminded of why I remember this book so fondly. When I saw that it was also coming out on Netflix in a new mini-series, I had another reason to come back to the story. It has been an enjoyable experience to talk to friends old and new about it, whether they have slogged through all 600 pages in readiness for the new adaptation, or have just become aware of the novel for the first time.

I think the decision to have the book narrated makes it a very easy story to access. In the novel it is narrated by a grandchild of the central character Samuel Harrison (who is also perhaps Steinbeck himself). In the new TV adaptation, Cathy Ames narrates instead – a decision I was initially shocked by, but on reflection makes sense for the lense that the new show casts over the story.

We all like being told a story. It takes us back to being children and listening to our parents or teachers read to us. I know from my experience as a teacher that even adolescents understand more of what they hear than what they read. Steinbeck tells us the story of East of Eden in a sweeping multi-generational arc, encapsulating the lives of several families across the turn of the 20th Century, mostly in the Salinas valley of California (where Steinbeck lived).

There are ways in which the story is a series of cycles. Fathers and brothers, parents and children, over generations and asking the same questions – can we change? Are we born monsters? What do we pass on to our children and are we doomed to repear the destructive patterns of our forebears?

Through the stories of the Hamiltons, the Trasks and their children, Steinbeck paints a picture of unruly and complicated family life, with the highs and lows that go with it. From the comic antics of the Hamilton boys stealing their ma’s couch, to the fear of flying that beset one of their sisters later in life, to the deadly serious and sinister implications of Cathy’s destructive path through the lives of others in search of an uncertain and elusive independence, the story is often episodic and meandering. But rather than become tiresome, I found that this more fully paints a world of complex diverse characters. The central role played by Lee, a Chinese American in a time of intense racism, is notable, particularly as the story reaches its conclusion.

Cathy is introduced in the following way to the story – note the way Steinbeck even uses ‘I’ as the narrator of the story –

I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with tails or mouths in odd places. They are accidents and no one’s fault, as used to be thought. Once they were considered the visible punishment for concealed sins.

And then continues a little later –

It is my belief that Cathy Ames was born with the tendencies, or lack of them, which drove and forced her all of her life. Some balance wheel was misweighed, some gear out of ratio. She was not like other people, never was from birth. And just as a cripple may learn to utilize his lack so that he becomes more effective in a limited field than the uncrippled, so did Cathy, using her difference, make a painful and bewildering stir in her world.

When I saw that Florence Pugh was front and centre in every way in the new adaptation of East of Eden – as the face of the show, on the inevitable tie-in edition of the book etc. – as the latest incarnation of Cathy, I was curious and honestly nervous. How can a character written in such a sociopathic fashion be the hero of a story? The first episode starts with Cathy’s narration based on the above quotation from Steinbeck’s original, casting the story as a whole a consideration of monsters and women/men. Once I relaxed into the adaptation I was able to enjoy the reinterpretation of Cathy’s role as an abused women caught in the misogynistic world of 20th Century America – in the show young Cathy is shown being led into the woods by an older boy, insinuating an experience of childhood sexual abuse that is not there in the book (where she is shown manipulating and falsely accusing men).

Cathy is still captivating in her manipulation of those around her, but she is also shown to be a victim of the sexist system in which she is trapped, and which has a very fixed set of expectations of what a women can be and do. None of which involve financial security and independence – the thing that she seems to want the most. Even those who love her – most notably her husband Adam Trask – cannot see her for who she is. Even her monstrous parts do not mean she is a vessel or prop for their hopes and dreams. Her ruthless escape from her otherwise idealised childhood, then later her married life, are undeniably shocking, but made more sense to me in this latest adaptation. What Cathy wants more than anything, and what is denied her, is her independence. Freedom from even the well-meaning men in her life who project onto her what they want to see.

The new adaptation stretched credulity for me a little in the final episode or two with the decision to have Adam’s brother Charles appear to Cathy as a ghostly manifestation of her unravelling sanity, or perhaps as a spectre of lost love – Charles is portrayed in the book, and more so in the TV show, as the only one who could truly have understood Cathy; her equal in some way. It seems a similar decision to the 1955 film adaptation of story, which leans heavily into a love-triangle storyline about Adam and Cathy’s sons and their on/off again love interest Abra. Maybe Cathy is haunted by her lost love or regrets about the ways she has lived, but it seemed a little neat to have Charles be physically manifest in that (I wonder if the filmmakers just wanted more of the admittedly excellent Mike Feist in the role).

On the whole, the new adaptation was highly enjoyable, making the themes and ideas of the original story fresh and vital. The last section of the story, focused on the Trask sons Aron and Cal, was also handled well, made all the better for restoring Lee’s central part to the Trask family and even giving us a view of his travels to San Francisco. Interestingly, the creative mind behind the new series, Zoe Kazan, is the granddaughter of director Elia Kazan who directed the 1955 adaptation – an adaptation which solely focuses on the final section of the story, on the cusp of WW1. Most famous for James Dean’s iconic portrayal of Cal Trask, this version is limited by its short run-time, but still powerfully captures the brotherly rivalry and desperate need for a father’s love that is also shown, somewhat more sympathetically, in the new adaptation.

All in all, I have relished the opportunity to think afresh about this story I love, and can only hope that more people than ever can approach this timeless story and consider what it might mean to them. After all, as Lee says, it is our choices which make us.

So I’ve been wondering

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I’m sure we all have our cultural blindspots. Bits of ubiquitous popular culture that we’re aware of, but have never really engaged in. One of those for me has long been Sex and the City. I could reference some key characters and ideas, tell you that the reboot and second film were rubbish, but not really much more than that. Oh, and that Geri Haliwell cameo.

While visiting a friend in, where else, New York City this summer I was challenged to rectify this oversight. We watched the infamous episode – actually one of the show’s last – when washed up party girl Lexi Featherston tumbles out of a window with a Splat! ‘Why is no one fun anymore?’ I enjoyed the experience, but had many questions. So I took seriously the challenge from my friend to watch the whole thing.

Cut to about three months later and I have just finished watching all six seasons, 2 movies and many podcasts. I couldn’t help but wonder, why have I waited so long to consume this wonderful show?

I’m sure all of us have been asked, with varying degrees of scepticism or eye rolling, whether we are a Miranda, a Charlotte, a Samantha or heaven forbid a Carrie. So much of the success of the show is that these women represented for a generation of women (and gay men…) archetypes that could encompass a vast and varied experience. That a hugely-successful show centred female friendship, and had women who, though on the surface were searching for love, were really choosing each other again and again, was and remains remarkable.

I think I chose the right time to watch this show for the first time. I may not be living an it girl lifestyle in New York, but I am a single person in his later thirties who has to navigate the world of societal expectations and 2.4 kids. Many of my generation grew up with this show and Carrie Bradshaw represented an aspirational idea of what being a grown up would look like. For me, I have come to Carrie et al not as an eighteen year old dreaming of my future, but as a millennial struggling through the landscape of ‘is this it?’

So many of the stories that the women of Sex and the City face are all about expectations. Their own expectations of themselves, their friends and the men in their lives. The expectations of the world around them. Not to mention the expectations and pressures of work, gender and love. These are things that have been at the forefront of my mind even before I started watching the show and I felt myself seen and heard in the stories of the women of Manhattan.

As I get older and see the different paths that lives can take around me, it is harder than ever to be content with the particular set of opportunities and challenges I have been dealt. I sometimes feel shut out of the more ‘conventional’ life choices of those with partners, children and a seemingly settled life. Yet I struggle with the idea of settling myself, as I have enjoyed the opportunities afforded me through being single and relatively carefree. It’s a bit like when Carrie has her Manolos stolen at an affluent friend’s baby shower – her friend simply cannot understand Carrie’s life and the value the shoes hold.

So many of the stories in Sex and the City’s 6 seasons are about these four friends grappling with what they want, accepting what they have, and coming back to each other through it all. One of the most moving moments for me is when Miranda, after years of cynicism, gently cares for her mother in law at the show’s end. She has learned to open herself up.

Without a doubt my favourite man in the show is Steve. When he says to Miranda ‘I love having your friends over’, I could shed a tear for a partner eager to accept the other as they are, including recognising that their friends are their family too.

These women, through it all, come back to each other. Sat at that table in the cafe. When Miranda shares her pregnancy while Charlotte is struggling with her fertility. When Samantha shares her cancer diagnosis (even at Miranda’s wedding – they are family, it needs to be discussed right away). When Carrie has yet another Big-related realisation or crisis – no matter what, they chose each other.

I know I have some people, friends and family, in my life who I choose to come back to. It’s hard when we move, things change, paths diverge. But I hope that we can all find those to return to time and again. Even if we don’t have wardrobes to match Carrie, we all need to find community and love like hers.

‘Go get our girl.’

Undecided

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The last few years I’ve felt a familiar push and pull. Sometimes week by week, sometimes day by day, often swifter. A push and a pull urging me forward and holding me back. It takes on forms that have shaped lives over centuries – should I stay or should I go? In this job? City? Relationship? But has also taken unique form, my own inner voice, worming deep into my subsconscious and my contemplations. How are you, Samwise, going to deal with this? What do you, Samwise, want your future to be? How can you get there? Why is it not working out? Why is it so hard?

Small decisions are easy aren’t they? I think they are for me, at least. I don’t find it difficult to decide what to do with an evening, or to just go for it and book those concert tickets. I don’t find it hard to organise my inbox or buy groceries. I think if anything I can rush into these small decisions too quickly. Somewhat impulsively, I decided to try out a new style of underwear recently. Suffice to say, I should have trod more cautiously toward that particular decision. Pants aside, as a teacher, there is much talk about decision fatigue – the idea that after a day of making hundreds of decisions for small people, you find yourself incapable of making any further choices. I can see the truth in this – a recent period of living with my parents has been lovely in part because they often decide what’s for dinner for me! But on the whole, I don’t feel burdened by choice in the day to day.

When it comes to bigger than that, I’ve found my decision-making grinding to a halt. Decisions seem to take on a weight previously absent. Taking that job, making that choice, even going on that date, can seem like choosing a path with no way back if it goes wrong. Year after year, with jobs in particular, it has seemed recently like I am in a constant cycle of applying for jobs, second-guessing those opportunities, and then ending up rejecting interviews or offers out of fear or confusion. Yet the prospect of being job-less is also scary, especially while trying to secure a mortgage (more big decisions for me to spiral about…)

It has all felt like a slow car crash of paralysis. Sometimes I have felt, I do feel, like I’m vividly stuck; unable to move forward or make choices, out of fear that like pruning a limb from a tree, all those other green shoots and hopes will fall if I choose just one direction. Othertimes, I feel more deliberate, practical, considering choices rationally. But then this seam of bright emotion and fear cuts through me – What have I done? Have I missed the boat? What have you done?

It’s almost like I have some kind of fetish for flexibility. Maybe that’s a bit strong. But I certainly aspire after an idealised 2025 life of working from home. The idea of being able to do my washing on a weekday is certainly exciting. Of not having to balance health concerns with fears about upsetting the balance of work. As a teacher, it is a unimaginable dream to have that kind of work life. Often finding time for the loo is difficult enough.

I am increasingly aware that my jealousies and frustrations are focused on the things I envy and desire the most – one of those, at the moment, is the flicker of anger when I see or hear about other’s work schedules. After teaching primary children for almost fifteen years, the fear and desire intertwined in a ‘grass is greener’ way when considering other forms of employment is visceral for me. Not to mention debilitating when it comes to considering a way forward.

I don’t want to be fuelled by frustration or envy, but to find the next positive step myself, even if that feels hard to imagine at the moment. While discussing this with a friend recently, he decided to just ask ChatGPT (something I confess I have never done) and in listing my experience and qualifications to a freakily human computer generated voice, made me feel like this could be possible perhaps. That maybe I am not stuck, but just at a natural transition point. Suffice to say, ChatGPT had many useful suggestions and directions in which I could go. I need to strategise, with or without AI, to make some of those ideas work.

In that echoing place we find ourselves in sometimes, often when we can’t sleep or at the end of a long day, with different voices urging us on and holding us back, it can be so hard to navigate a way forward. But that is what we must, what I must, try and do. The vivid emotions of frustration and stress can burn us out; are reminders that something about the place we find ourselves in is unsustainable. I hope that in this fog of uncertainty, I can navigate a way forward.

What to Write When You Don’t Know

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I enjoy writing. I really do. I like the way that we can weave these artificially constructed letters and words together to make something fun, moving, entertaining or beautiful.

That’s why I started this blog. I just wanted some incentive to write. I didn’t really know what I wanted to write about; I just thought I’d try it and see what happened.

On the whole, I have enjoyed writing about travelling and ‘growing up’ and just life. Yet recently, just having the page hasn’t been much of an incentive to write. The last post was almost six months ago.

Why haven’t I written anything in a while? Well, busyness and laziness both play their part. It’s hard to make time for something like this when life is so full that extra time feels like it has to be downtime. But I think I’ve been forgetting something I’ve written about here before – writing is restful.

Yes, being creative with words is restful for me. Creativity is vital for us all to rest, in whatever form that takes.

It’s all too easy to ‘switch-off’ and binge. Whether on food, TV or even sleep. Rest like this doesn’t reach all the way down into my centre. Doesn’t calm those stormy depths of my soul which can lead to me feeling so exhausted.

Choosing to spend an entire weekend in PJs with the TV remote is sometimes needed, but doesn’t help me to process or make-sense of all the things that are inevitably playing on my mind.

Big things like ‘where am I going?’ or ‘how can I be more fulfilled?’ and smaller things like ‘what do I need to say to them?’ or even ‘what am I going to cook this week?’

So here I am.  At my keyboard. Typing. Attempting to turn letters into something that makes sense. Trying to help my swirling thoughts attain some kind of coherence.

I need to keep reminding myself that I have a reason to write. I have thoughts that won’t leave me alone. Hurts big and small which need to be faced. Things that need to be addressed, even if it feels like chipping away at an Everest of uncertainty.

I know that writing about these things, whether publicly or privately, can help. So I’m reminding myself to try. To pick up the pen, to make time, to marshal my thoughts and my words into something that might just make sense. That might just help me to calm those stormy waters.

So if I haven’t posted anything in a while, ask me why. Remind me to try. Ask me what I’m thinking about. If I say ‘oh, I’m OK’ then press on, because I’m probably just putting off something. Aren’t we all?