Darting off, crossing Ethiopia
Chew, Chat, Change: The Last Week
As per my message on February 24, Monday Metamorphosis hath come to its end. It was an experiment that got a little to prescriptive for my taste. I’ll continue to write deep dives into the stuff I like, but any attempts at a virtual book club are, for the time being, shelved.
That said, we had one bit of Book One left, and for the sake of closure, I thought we’d take a look at it before turning the page and moving on. Let’s comb over these stories and see what we can find. Shall we?
Oh my nuclear baby
Oh my idiot trance
All my idiot questions
Let's face the music and dance
Pen vs. Sword: Why not both?
If you’ve followed along at all, you’ll know by now that I’m not a fan of Jupiter. But I think it would be useful to set aside any feelings we have toward these characters as individuals and focus instead on how they interact with each other, and what those interactions could mean.
So, Jupiter sends his son Mercury to take out his wife Juno’s guard/surveillance agent, the 100-eyed Argus. You might’ve guessed by my wording where I’m taking this, but I’m starting to see Jupiter and Juno not as a marriage between people or gods but more as a conflict between different branches of government. Looking at the relationship through a political lens accounts for its continuation much more easily than some kind of romantic partnership, no?
So let’s look at it like it’s, say, a constitutional monarchy—you know, like Canada. Except that in this case, the monarchy has actual, political power, like I imagine the early days of the United Kingdom’s parliamentary system would’ve been. You’ve got democratic representation, sure, but the monarchy doesn’t flinch before enacting a veto or witholding a signature if its current Head so desires. It still has muscle to flex.
Jupiter would obviously fill this role, the Father of Olympus that he is. Juno, with the shrewdness, her performative submission to this “Head,” and her willful ignorance (“Oh, she’s just a lonely heifer is she? I’ll have her as a gift, then, thank-you.”) would represent Parliament.
Yes, Jupiter is plenty deceitful himself, but his lies are pretty artless. He doesn’t feel the need to weave more intricate webs because he holds the bigger hammer (or, in this case, lightning bolts). He acts like he can, more or less, do what he wants. In this way, he doesn’t resemble a king so much as a mafia boss (like a certain recent U.S. president maybe?).
Which brings us back to our current narrative. Jupiter Corleone sends his trusty son Mercury to do a little job. But the Godfather references end here because what does the son bring with him to do the deed? Ok, yes, a sword. But also, a flute?
This brings me to another element to the story I find interesting. In the plot between Mercury and Argus, we have two representatives from the powers that be. One side sends a surveillance expert, the other, an artist. Argus sticks to the task at hand. He’s told to keep watch, so he keeps watch. He relies on the advantage his weird body gives him. Mercury comes armed with a disguise, a story, a reed pipe, and a sword. Basically, he comes with a plan. He approaches the task with his imagination.
In our day and age, we don’t usually think of creative works like music and stories as weapons, but in this case, the Romans knew better. Sure, we could chock this up to the tale being told by Ovid, a poet, but I think he got away with it because the society around him would back him up on this. And a closer look at the stories around us now will quickly reveal that nothing’s changed. That’s all politics seems to be right now: storytelling. Progressives tell one story, conservatives tell another.
Right now, I’m two thirds of the way through The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel from 1988. As a pretty uninformed, western reader working through its web, the book does not seem like a weapon to me. But oh man, the leader of Iran at the time, Ayatollah Khomeini, did not see it that way. Six months after it was published, he told his own story on Radio Tehran:
“I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the ‘Satanic Verses’ book, which is against Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur’an, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all the Muslims to execute them wherever they find them.”1
Khomeini’s announcement, which came with a $1 million USD reward for Rushdie’s head, forced the writer to accept 24-hour protection from the British government.
The threat never lifted. On July 13, 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the book, was stabbed to death. Between ‘91 and ‘93, the Italian and Turkish translators, as was the Norwegian publisher, were also attacked.
For years, it seemed that Rushdie himself had avoided the deadly blowback from The Satanic Verses, thanks to the tight security offered by western nations. Then, last August, he was rushed while on stage by a 20-year-old man with a knife and stabbed at least ten times. The attack left him breathing but cost him an eye and the use of a hand.
So yeah, stories are powerful things. They can create opportunity for violence, whether by way of distraction (Mercury vs. Argus) or agitation (Rushdie vs. the Islamic extremists). At their best, like in Rushie’s case, they can subvert expectations and push against oppression. At their worst, they convince millions to become those oppressors.
Music, too, can be used to support or defy tyranny. There’s a scene in Season 1 of The Hunters where Nazis force their concentration-camp captives to play Wagner (a well-known anti-Semite) as new Jews arrive from the trains. Once the piece ends, the musicians look at each other quickly before jumping into “Hava Nagila”2, knowing it will cost them their lives.
Mercury weaves both art forms together to lull Argus to sleep. Like a lot of things in this poem, Ovid leaves the ethical question behind the assassination unanswered. But the result? Io’s two oppressors work against each other, and she manages to slip away and return to her original, two-footed form.
My dad vs. yours
Things start to sound more Biblical again after the hit on Argus and Io’s release. Ovid relies on a thin bit of genealogy for his next segue, jumping to Io’s son Epaphus and his kindergarten taunts toward a claimed peer, Phaethon.
Epaphus: “My dad is Jupiter.”
Phaethon: “Oh yeah? Well, my dad is Apollo.”
Epaphus: “Oh yeah? Prove it.”
Basically, that’s it. Phaethon, embarrassed, goes crying to Mommy (Clymene). “You want proof?” she asks. “Why don’t you go ask him yourself.” And so, he packs up and heads east, beginning a favourite genre of Greek and Roman eras—the coming-of-age search for long-lost Daddy.
It seems more than a little childish when you look at it that way, but the end of Book One also offers a classic, dare-I-say poetic send-off for Monday Metamorphosis. For the sake of the exercise, let’s all take a moment and see ourselves as that naive, lone traveller heading into the sunset, unaware of what the future holds. No matter what comes our way, I hope we’ll face it together.
https://www.thedriftmag.com/after-the-fatwa/
Translation: “Let us rejoice.”