Sunday, February 22, 2004
Its interesting that though I don’t care much for any of the characters thus far in Waterland, the book itself has immense appeal for me. On the one hand, it plays to my love of fairytales and allusions to an older tradition of storytelling. And, with this second section we read this week, the book also indulges another major interest of mine, in a rather surprising combination. I’m alluding, of course, to the lengthy passage about eels, which positively sings to the former biology student within me. After two years of work with the mysteries of flatworms, I was very receptive to several pages about the equally fascinating mysteries of eels. But I strongly doubt that that is why Swift included that particular bit of natural history in the middle of his novel. What are the odds that he was expecting an audience made up of science-loving fairytale readers? Hm. Not high. So as much as the passage tickled me, I found myself musing for some days thereafter as to why it was in this book.
We’ve talked about the circular nature of Waterland. Time and history do not seem to be linear (things happen before other things happen that actually happened after the things happened?), but rather, in many ways circular, or as Laura wrote in her blog this week, in the form of a spiral. The little sidetrack into eel-infested waters (name that reference!) definitely reflects the recursive trend of the rest of the text. The eels themselves are suggested to be traveling in great circles, spawning, maturing, and spawning again. Another preoccupation in the text (or maybe its just my preoccupation…) seems to be sexuality. And again, the eels seem to reflect this aspect, as well. They’ve got that undeniably phallic shape to them (which Freddie Parr seems to be playing on when he drops one down Mary’s knickers). And the whole section about eels is, after all, focused on the sexuality and reproductive habits of the fish. But what ever actually gets explained about the sex lives of eels? Oh wait – nothing! Maybe they spawn in the Sargasso Sea, maybe they don’t. Maybe the only eels that ever actually spawn are American, and the British eels are condemned to the fate of being Darwinian dead-ends. And, maybe not. Maybe Syrski’s Organs aren’t even testes, and the eels really do reproduce through parthenogenesis. Or… maybe not.
In his section on eels, Swift makes the only reference thus far in the novel to scientific inquiry, a discipline which is generally characterized by its ability to, more often than not, explain things. And yet, the eels go on to the end of the chapter as much of an enigma as they were before. So what are the eels doing in the middle of Waterland? I suggest that they are showing us something, just in case we’ve been too dense to see it any other way so far. You can follow something back to its source. You can take samples at every stop along the way. You can attempt to reproduce conditions, you can design replicable experiments. You can do everything in your power to find an answer. And sometimes, you still can’t explain it.
Because I didn’t even talk about Tom Crick’s mother, a truly fascinating character, in my blog, a brief nod in her direction:
Fairytale I’m thinking about right now: “Donkeyskin”
Book I’m thinking about right now: Deerskin by Robin McKinley
We’ve talked about the circular nature of Waterland. Time and history do not seem to be linear (things happen before other things happen that actually happened after the things happened?), but rather, in many ways circular, or as Laura wrote in her blog this week, in the form of a spiral. The little sidetrack into eel-infested waters (name that reference!) definitely reflects the recursive trend of the rest of the text. The eels themselves are suggested to be traveling in great circles, spawning, maturing, and spawning again. Another preoccupation in the text (or maybe its just my preoccupation…) seems to be sexuality. And again, the eels seem to reflect this aspect, as well. They’ve got that undeniably phallic shape to them (which Freddie Parr seems to be playing on when he drops one down Mary’s knickers). And the whole section about eels is, after all, focused on the sexuality and reproductive habits of the fish. But what ever actually gets explained about the sex lives of eels? Oh wait – nothing! Maybe they spawn in the Sargasso Sea, maybe they don’t. Maybe the only eels that ever actually spawn are American, and the British eels are condemned to the fate of being Darwinian dead-ends. And, maybe not. Maybe Syrski’s Organs aren’t even testes, and the eels really do reproduce through parthenogenesis. Or… maybe not.
In his section on eels, Swift makes the only reference thus far in the novel to scientific inquiry, a discipline which is generally characterized by its ability to, more often than not, explain things. And yet, the eels go on to the end of the chapter as much of an enigma as they were before. So what are the eels doing in the middle of Waterland? I suggest that they are showing us something, just in case we’ve been too dense to see it any other way so far. You can follow something back to its source. You can take samples at every stop along the way. You can attempt to reproduce conditions, you can design replicable experiments. You can do everything in your power to find an answer. And sometimes, you still can’t explain it.
Because I didn’t even talk about Tom Crick’s mother, a truly fascinating character, in my blog, a brief nod in her direction:
Fairytale I’m thinking about right now: “Donkeyskin”
Book I’m thinking about right now: Deerskin by Robin McKinley
