“Haunted by Waters”

Word becomes art in Norman Maclean’s

“A River Runs Through it.”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear. It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us. You can love completely without complete understanding.”

 

One of my favorite books is “A River Runs Through It’, by Norman Maclean. Not only does the plot quickly draw you in, but the prose itself is so beautifully written.

 

Throughout the book, Norman Maclean uses words to paint pictures illustrating his life growing up along the banks of the Big Blackfoot River in early 20^th Century Montana, fly-fishing with his high-spirited brother, Paul and their father, a Presbyterian minister. The story is much more than a précis on trout fishing. It is the story of a young man’s life and how those around him shaped the person he was to become. Eventually, Maclean left Montana to study at Dartmouth and earn advanced degrees from the University of Chicago, where he later had a distinguished career and became Chair of the English Department. After he retired from teaching, Maclean wrote many books, but his most popular was “A River Runs Through It”.  In truth, though Maclean left Montana, Montana never left him. Most of his writing dealt with life there. Maclean died 1990 at 87 years of age.

 

It is true; there is a lot of fly fishing in the book, but to dismiss the story simply as that does it a tremendous injustice. In my opinion, Maclean’s prose is one of the finest examples of modern American literature. It is simply beautiful writing. For example, Maclean’s description of the river paints the perfect picture; “On the Big Blackfoot River above the mouth of Belmont Creek the banks are fringed by large Ponderosa pines. In the slanting sun of late afternoon the shadows of great branches reached from across the river, and the trees took the river in their arms. The shadows continued up the bank, until they included us”. I don’t think anyone could read that and not visualize the scene in their minds perfectly.

 

In a review for the Chicago Tribune, critic Alfred Kazin stated: "There are passages here of physical rapture in the presence of unsullied primitive America that are as beautiful as anything in Thoreau and Hemingway". I quite agree.

 

There is much more to this story than growing up fishing in a Montana river. While large parts of the book are idyllic, much of the book deals with Norman Maclean’s rebellious younger brother, Paul. In what was indeed an achievement for its time, both Maclean boys graduated from college. Paul graduated from the University of Montana and became a crime-beat reporter in Missoula.
 

 

Perhaps in rebellion of his father’s stern, but loving, upbringing, Paul often partook of drinking and gambling. Throughout the book, the task of trying to save Paul from himself often fell on Norman. Near the end of the book, in a sermon, Norman’s father speaks of his family’s frustration, trying in vain to help Paul, “Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.”

 

Perhaps no part of the book is written better than the closing paragraph, “Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them. Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn’t. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.” I know that I can relate to this, though I am not nearly the age Maclean was when he wrote that. Still, I know that as we grow older the voices of those we loved who went before us become more distant with each passing season. We can be thankful for their wisdom, probably unappreciated at the time they offered it, but their memory is treasured now.

 

I did not have the pleasure of knowing Norman Maclean, though I feel connected to him through his writing. I can also say that I have the honor of working with several professors whose spirit and pedagogical expertise would no doubt make Maclean proud. I thank all of them for their encouragement and inspiration.

 

 

The Old Man and the Tea

 

Nick watched the old man and his tea across the room at Starbucks. The old man couldn’t sip as he once did when he was young. His hands were bent with age and worn by time and hard work. That was in the days before Starbucks anyway, so what did it matter, really?

Nick ordered his usual; a venti mocha Frappuccino. The young, pretty barista asked him if he wanted whipped cream, which was a needless indulgence, thought Nick. “Nada”, he said.

“Nada?” replied the young barista who Nick thought looked like a woman he’d known in the war, a long time ago.

“Nada”, repeated Nick.

“Nada?”

“Yes, nada, nada, por favor mi amiga.”

“Ok, nada”

Nick found a table by the window and sat down to grade the exams from his class on the works of Ernest Hemingway. He sipped the mocha Frappuccino through the straw. This is a good Frappuccino, he thought. Not too much ice or foam. It reminded him of the Frappuccino he had with Francesca at Harry's Bar and Grill in Florence before she left him for the Count Di Choculati.

This particular test covered “The Sun Also Rises” and he’d asked the students to discuss the allegory of the running of the bulls in Pamplona to Hemingway’s view of life and to what Gertrude Stein called “The Lost Generation”. Nick had a hard time getting the students to connect with this book, so he knew the bull would soon be running all over the pages they had written. He forged on anyway, because even the young and clueless deserved a break in this world and that was more than the young soldiers got in the war, but at least they were brave and died with grace. The first essay he read confirmed what he feared. “I think the protagonist, Jake Barnes, and his friends cared more for the wine in their goat-skin bag than for the lives of the innocent bulls in the ring. As a member of PETA, I was disgusted by this book and therefore, I did not read it.” Nick sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes and looked out the window at the hills like white elephants.

His weary eyes fell on a fly hopelessly buzzing against the glass pane next to him. “I must kill you”, he said to the fly. “I love you as one of God’s creation, but I must kill you.” He thought of the really big flies he’d hunted out in the dumpsters behind the shopping center when the he was young and time spread out before him like a trout stream in Idaho. Now, he thought, I am neither so young nor so eager to hunt those flies. Besides, he didn’t have the big bug zapper that he’d bought from the blind street beggar in Mozambique.

That’s when he saw her. She opened the door and stood for a moment trying to balance the shopping bags and her latte. He was unable to take his eyes off of her. She was bathed in light so radiant it reminded Nick of the surface of the sun, or maybe the thing the ophthalmologist uses to see the back of your eye. Maybe it was just the sun reflecting off the truck delivering ice cream to the Rite-Aid next door. He knew that the woman of his dreams had just walked into this clean, well-lighted place, or was it well lit place? No matter. He had to possess her. He yearned to take her to Paris and share quiche at a café along the Seine as he did with Elaine in the days after the war and all of the brave young soldiers had gone. He wanted to take her to hunt rhino below the snows of Kilimanjaro. He longed to take her fishing big marlin in the Stream and later drink the dark red wine at The Floridita in Habana. He knew none of that would ever happen. She was probably in love with another, someone he knew was not worthy of her. He’d been wounded in the war and he knew he could not satisfy her as he once did the farm girl in Spain he’d met during a lull in the fighting when their passions flamed and burned hot in that barn like two running bulls and he was as brave as Belmonte, yet lacked the bull fighter’s grace.  Still, he was drawn to this amazing visage in the doorway and could not help himself.

“Here, let me help you” he said to this struggling beauty of the Bloomingdales bags.

“Nada”, she said.

“Nada?”

“Si. Nada, senior. Nada. Déjeme sola. Mi corazón pertenece a otro.” (“Leave me alone. My heart belongs to another.”)

With an aching heart, he retreated to his table. He’d been brave and strong, but to no avail. The woman struggled through the door and fell into the embrace of a man in a Mercedes. He knew at that moment that life was nothing more than a bad mojito made with great rum. This was still a damn good Frappuchino.

 

 

 

 

"Bold Talk For A One-Eyed Fat Man": A Comparison of Charles Portis' Classic Western Novel of Grit and Revenge and the Films That Followed

"People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band". So begins young Mattie Ross' narrative in Charles Portis' classic novel that has been made into two major motion pictures.

The original 1969 film, directed by Henry Hathaway ("How The West Was Won","The Sons of Katie Elder" and many more classic films),  has always been one of my favorite movies, and having seen the Oscar nominated "remake", I decided to read the original book to see how well it holds up against these two films and more importantly to explore the novel's rich characters more deeply.

Both films follow Portis' original story very well, but the main difference between the two is which of the main characters has "true grit"? The 1969 film is dominated by John Wayne and his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn, the tough one-eyed Marshall hired by Mattie Ross to avenge her father's murder. Let's face it, The Duke dominated every film he was ever in. You can argue that he always played John Wayne, but there is no doubt that he was a Hollywood legend. It should come as no surprise then that the Cogburn in the original film, is the "man with grit" sought by Ross to hunt down her father's killer. This is not the case in the remake. In the 2010 Coen Brothers' film, Cogburn, wonderfully played by Jeff Bridges, is not the focus. Here, young Mattie Ross is the one with grit. She is, after all, only 14 years old, yet fearless and dogged in her determination to see Tom Chaney brought to justice. Hailee Steinfeld, in her first major motion picture role, is just 14 years old herself, yet she captures the essence of Mattie Ross much better than Kim Darby did in the original film. Steinfield's Ross is also much closer to what Portis envisioned in his novel. She is at once scared and brave, confident yet anxious, driven by an Ahab-like obsession to see Chaney pay for his crime.

The book and the two films depict the complex, formal language of the era in which the story takes place. (To her credit, throughout the film, Steinfield has no trouble at all with the complex dialogue.) Contractions were seldom used in the late 1800's. Note the lack of contractions in the following two examples:

From the 2010 screenplay:

Mattie Ross: If I had killed Chaney, I would not be in this fix; but my gun misfired.
Lucky Ned Pepper: [Chuckling] They will do it. It will embarrass you every time. Most girls like to play pretties, but you like guns do you?
Mattie Ross: I do not care a thing about guns, if I did, I would have one that worked.


Portis' writing is even more detailed, and accurate for the time, as seen in this part of the narrative: " I had hated these ponies for the part they played in my father's death but now I realized the notion was fanciful, that it was wrong to charge blame to these pretty beasts who knew neither good nor evil but only innocence. I say that of these ponies. I have known some horses and a good many more pigs who I believe harbored evil intent in their hearts. I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces? Some preachers will say, well, that is superstitious 'claptrap'. My answer is this: Preacher, go to your Bible and read Luke 8: 26-33." (True Grit, Page 25). For those of you who don't remember your New Testament, that part of Luke 8 deals with Jesus and the demon possessed pigs.

Another interesting character is the Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf (Pronounced "La Beef"), played in the original film by Glenn Campbell and in the remake by Matt Damon. As with Mattie and Rooster, this character in the remake is portrayed more accurately to the novel than in the original film. In Portis' book, LaBoeuf is shown to be an able, though egotistical, lawman. He is on Chaney's trail to bring him back to Texas to be tried for the murder of a State Senator. In a Los Angeles Times story on Matt Damon in this film, ("Matt Damon enjoys being 'a true nincompoop' in 'True Grit'", L.A. Times, 12/26/10) LaBoeuf is described as "a Texas Ranger who may be more windbag than Winchester." I love that description. Even Damon, when asked in this article about his character stated, "I am a true nincompoop in this movie." To be sure, LaBoeuf is a bit of a windbag, but I have to disagree with Damon's assessment: LaBoeuf is a competent lawman, though he does seem to be "right proud of his cowlick",  as Mattie Ross describes him in the book. We are introduced to him slightly differently in the Coen Brothers' film than we are in the original film. In the 1969 film, and in the novel, Mattie meets Laboeuf at dinner in the boarding house, but in the remake, she encounters him on the dimly lit front porch of the boarding house. LaBoeuf is seated in a chair smoking a cigarette. I like this character introduction much better. There is a bit of mystery about who this person is. In just a few simple lines of dialogue, the Coen Brothers introduce LaBoeuf  not only as a Texas Ranger, but as someone overly impressed with himself. There is a great little bit of business here with the way Damon pulls his jacket aside to reveal his badge and states, "I'm a Texas Ranger" while looking at Mattie thinking that she will be as impressed with that fact as he obviously is. She isn't impressed.

Obviously, no discussion of True Grit would be complete without taking a look at Rooster Cogburn. We touched on him briefly, but a much more in-depth look is warranted. The novel provides us with an interesting  back story that is absent in the original film. Cogburn harbors a dark past. He is a flawed hero. Cogburn is a former Confederate Army Officer who rode with William Cantrill. Cantrill is a real person. History books often describe Cantrill as a war criminal responsible for the Lawrence Kansas Massacre. A deadly raid during the Civil War where Cantrill and his men ransacked the town, killing many civilians, including women and children. The town, now home to the University of Kansas, was apparently chosen for destruction due to the fact it was a center for abolitionists. Cogburn later drifted around the Midwest, possibly with a gang of robbers, before becoming a Marshall. In fact, at the time of the story, he has been a Marshall for only a few years. He is an effective lawman, but he's also a drunk with few social graces.

In the original film, Wayne is, as I said, John Wayne. His Cogburn is a drunk, but we don't hear about his dark past. It just wouldn't do to cast The Duke as anything less than heroic. He speaks of former jobs and a past marriage that didn't work out, but there is little mention of anything else.

Interestingly, there is a scene in the 1969 film that Wayne's detractors have always cited as an example of  his ultra conservative political views. Cogburn, in a state of drunkenness, shoots a rat. Here is the dialogue: 

Rooster Cogburn: Mr. Rat, I have a writ here says you're to stop eating Chin Lee's cornmeal forthwith. Now it's a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of the same. See, doesn't pay any attention to me.
[shoots the rat]
Chen Lee: [Runs into the room] Outside is place for shooting!
Rooster Cogburn: I'm servin' some papers!

Critics charge that this is an example of Wayne's ultra-conservative views, including the theory that criminals cannot be rehabilitated. While Wayne may have held that view, this scene is straight out of Portis' novel.

Jeff Bridges' portrayal of Cogburn in the 2010 film is much closer to the book. He's unkempt, a drunk and possibly murders suspects instead of trying to to arrest them. He is an imperfect hero. Bridges plays him pretty much according to the book, but he also adds a bit of "The Dude" character he famously played in "The Big Lebowski." Bridges' facial expression and the way he says, "We?" in response to Mattie telling him she is joining him on the search for Chaney is The Dude in all his glory.

Many people say that they don't care for the way the Coen Brothers often abruptly end their films. (See Tommy Lee Jones' lamenting soliloquy in "No Country For Old Men."). In True Grit (2010), the ending seems abrupt to some, but it follows that of the novel. Mattie Ross is 40 years old, never married and still as tough as she was many years earlier. In Portis' novel, speaking on the subject of marriage, Mattie states, "I never had the time to get married but it is nobody's business if I am married or not married...... I never had the time to fool with it. A woman with brains and a frank tongue and one sleeve pinned up and an invalid mother to care for is at some disadvantage, although I will say I could have had two or three old untidy men around here who had their eyes fastened on my bank. No, thank you!" (Page 306)

Mattie's closing narrative tells of how she made a journey to visit Rooster Cogburn a few years earlier, but he had died before she could meet up with him. Mattie had Cogburn's body disinterred and brought to her farm to be buried in her family's plot. She also writes that she never heard anything more of LaBoeuf.
"If he is yet alive and should happen to read these pages, I will be pleased to hear from him. I judge he is in his seventies now, and nearer eighty than seventy. I expect some of the starch has gone out of that 'cowlick' "(Page 306).

She closes with, "Time just gets away from us. This ends my true account of how I avenged Frank Ross's blood over in the Choctaw Nation when snow was on the ground." (Page 307).

Before time gets away from me as well, I hope you've enjoyed this comparison of Charles Portis' classic novel and the two films that were adapted from it. It was well worth the time to read Portis' novel and I hope that you do so as well. I also encourage you to make your own comparison of the book and rent the 1969 film before seeing the current motion picture.

La Noche de la Campesino

With sincere apologies to Carlos Fuentes, Ernest Hemingway and anyone else who reads this....

La Noche de la Campesino

By Larry Levy

Seeking fresh night air, Manuel hobbled out of his shack. Gazing up at the infinite heavens he tried to recall his youth as a campesino, working the land of the rich and terminally corrupt, Don Eduardo Espinosa de Manteca. The old man was long gone now of course. No doubt consigned to a hell not even he could imagine, or so Manuel hoped.

Manuel was the bastard son of an illicit union between Espinosa and Carmen Diego. Carmen, Manuel’s mother, had been a campesino too and had the misfortune of becoming distracted in the fields one sad day and fell into the grain thresher losing a limb in the process. To this day, thought Manuel, he cannot bring himself to eat an empanada without thinking of his sainted mother and her misfortune. At least, reasoned Manuel, his mother still had a job on the plantation after her terrible accident. Otherwise, the evil Espinosa would have told Garcia, his cruel foreman, to turn her and her bastard son out. Manuel hoped that there was a special place in hell for Espinosa and Garcia. The idea that both were thrown into grain threshers for all eternity always brought a sad smile to Manuel’s deeply lined face.

Manuel knew he could ill afford to stay outside for too long on this night or any night. Long years of breathing grain dust working in Espinosa’s silos had left him short of breath and the cold, winter nights in the village made breathing all the harder. He also knew that tomorrow at dawn he would make his way to Samuel’s Bodega for café and more of those damned empanadas. Thank God for Samuel. In all these years he never charged him a single peso for desayuno and Manuel always repaid him by slowly sweeping the inside of the old bodega with the traditional broom made from palm fronds found on Espinosa’s plantation.

Life in the village had changed little since Manuel’s youth. Campesinos still made their way to the plantations each day. The days were just as long. The work was just as hard. The sun was just as hot. The humidly was just as oppressive. The pay, such as it was, hadn’t changed much either. But then, there wasn’t much to buy in the village. In fact, the only thing that had changed was that now they served another master.

Soon after Espinosa’s bones were laid in his grave his plantation was quickly purchased by American owners no one ever saw or knew. It was said they would come down with their families in the summer and stay in Espinosa’s large main house, but they seldom ventured out to the fields or went into town very much. There were stories in the village that the owners were, depending on who you spoke to, drug lords, CIA or movie stars; Maybe a combination of all three. No one really knew for certain and, to be honest, no one really cared all that much.

Manuel had changed. He was no longer the sinewy, lean, dark-haired man he once was. The years had been as cruel as Espinosa’s words and deeds once were. Manuel was bent and old and not good for working in the fields anymore. He was cast aside and forgotten by most and helped by only a few. Of course, there was Samuel, who made sure Manuel always had plenty to eat and enough cerveza to forget the ghosts of his past and the fear of his future. Espinosa and the government said there was no God, so he assumed there was no future beyond the grave. All that was just the padre’s talk and Manuel could find all the talk he wanted at the bodega. Sometimes the other campesinos would buy him cerveza, which the padre would never do. It didn’t matter. Either way, Manuel knew he was never going to see heaven.

No one ever asked him why he sought the oblivion of cerveza each night. Maybe no one cared. Or, maybe they all knew the secret already. It was best to just let Manuel be and speak in hushed tones about what he claimed he had done. “Spain had its Don Quixote, we have Manuel”, the villagers joked. The difference was Manuel didn’t tilt at windmills. No, his foe had been much more dangerous.

Few could still remember exactly how Espinosa’s demise came about. Those who were old enough to remember all seem to agree that something very strange happened that cold winter night so many years ago and the village was better for it. Manuel knew the story all too well.

The plan came to him one night while watching The Godfather Part II on the yellowing screen in the village’s dilapidated movie theatre. Vito Corleone had returned to Sicily to seek vengeance on the old don who had murdered his parents. Manuel realized that the old don was a Sicilian version of Espinosa and that he should exact a pound of flesh for all the pounds of flesh his mother lost in the grain thresher. Even worse was the thought of Espinosa making love to his mother. Though the act resulted in Manuel’s birth, it still revolted him whenever he thought about it. He knew he could never be as brutal as Vito Corleone, so he had to come up with a plan less odious than a stabbing.  Manuel fell asleep in the theatre, probably due to too many empanadas and cerveza, and awoke long after the film had ended and all the villagers had returned to their homes. Even though it was very late, Manuel was still bent on revenge and he knew just where to find Espinosa at that hour. Manuel knew that Espinosa liked to enjoy a late evening smoke on his balcony. The only thing Espinosa loved more than his wealth was his Cuban cigars. Manuel snuck into the hacienda, went up the stairs to the master suite and burst through the door to find the old man on his balcony. Enraged, Manuel yelled as he ran toward Espinosa, who instinctively backed up, and was so startled that he fell backward and landed in the fountain below: The one in the courtyard with the urinating cherub. 

You could say that Espinosa met his demise not so much from Manuel’s rage, but from the fall and being peed upon by a smiling, concrete angel all night in the cold winter air. It didn’t matter much to Manuel. Dead is dead, as they say.

Some nights, if Manuel had drunk enough cerveza in Samuel’s bodega, he would start re-telling the story. The campesinos would look at each other, roll their eyes and say, “Manuel, you are borracho again.” That wouldn’t matter to Manuel. He knew what he knew and sometimes that is enough.

The End