I NEED MONSTERS

In preparation for chapter 8 (East of Eden), an introductory "podcast" (yep, I'm going to do it!), the and discussion on the woman who began as Cathy Ames, I need your input on MONSTERS.

Classic monsters, but not by category--vampires, werewolves, zombies, Inferno, etcetera--I mean specific, individual monsters with names.  These can be from movies, they can be from books, they can be from comic books, songs, folk tales, family, whatever. 

some generic image of Grendel I found

There is one specific type of monster (though all monsters are needed!) I'm looking to focus on (the others I need for contrast's sake):

The TRICKSTER.  In Native American folklore, he's often called Coyote.  In European folklore and tales, he's often labeled Puck.  The problem I have with Puck--or pucks in general--is their general lack of deep malice.  The best example I can think of is Coyote himself, from Chabon's Summerland.  On the other end, there is Grendel, from Beowulf (from which a terribly awesome book, Grendel, was written by John Gardner).

The trickster is a liar.  A Father-of-all-Lies kind of character.  Who lies just to lie, or just to mess people up, or because it screws things up and that what he loves most.  Screwing things up. 

So, Folks, I need a LIST.  Monsters, people.  Movie fans, book fans, aficionados of horror:  Monsters.  Comment with the names of monsters.

And don't forget to sign up as follower and get your picture over there.  I'm doing a drawing soon.  That means free stuff, and as well all know:  FREE STUFF GOOD.

East of Eden VII: Meanwhile Back on the Ranch

This is perfect (and very sad): I think of a connection to Reading Rainbow while reading East of Eden, I search for the clip, and find this (which clip happens to have as one of its three host, Adam Savage, host of the best show on TV: Mythbusters, of course).  So here's the introductory string:

 (skip to the book, just a few minutes in, unless you're really into the entire episode)

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch from WVPT on Vimeo.

This is a simple, beautiful chapter.  What I love about the Hamiltons (and that's who we're talking about here) is that they always provide a respite from the ridiculous, totally over-the-top drama of the Trasks.  Returning to the Trasks is a little like the book right here.

So, into the text:

(No questions this time.)

Chapter 5

The Hamiltons:

The Boys:

1. George: "George was a sinless boy and grew to be a sinless man. ...  It is possible that his virtue lived on a lack of energy."
2. Will: The safety of conformity and thereby passive aggression against his father: "Just as his father could not make money, Will could not help making it."
3. Tom: "And he was capable of giant joy, so did he harbor huge sorrow, so that when his dog died the world ended."

In an earlier discussion comment, I talked about how Samuel and Liza together are really one complete person.  That person, according to Steinbeck's description, is the stereotypical Irishman.  That person is also Tom, though more specifically than an Irishman, he is exactly the combination of his parents.  I'll quote the entire paragraph, because it's perfect:

"When Tom was nine years he worried because his pretty little sister Mollie had an impediment in her speech.  He asked her to open her mouth wide and saw that a membrane under her tongue cause the trouble.  'I can fix that,' he said.  He led her to a secret place far from the house, whetted his pocketknife on a stone, and cut the offending halter of speech.  And then he ran away and was sick."

The Girls:

1. Una: "thoughtfully, studious, dark;"
2. Lizzie: exemplifying an extreme of her mother's distaste for "Irish frivolity" and also happens to share her name;
3. Dessie: fun, fun, fun;
4. Olive: the narrator's mother (and, at this point, that's all we get);
5. Mollie: a beauty--blond with "violet" eyes.

In summary:
"His daughter Una had become a brooding student, tense and dark.  He was proud of her wild, exploring mind.  Olive was preparing to take county examinations after a stretch in the secondary school in Salinas.  Olive was going to be a teacher, an honor like having a priest in the family in Ireland.  Joe was to be sent to college because he was no damn good an anything else.  Will was well along the way to accidental fortune.  Tom bruised himself on the world and licked his cuts.  Dessie was studying dressmaking, and Mollie, pretty Mollie, would obviously marry some well-to-do man."

 A couple points of interest, if not questions:

I think Liza knew that her husband drank and hid it.  I reference again, the string of comments from EoE IV.  Check out the Twinkie story.

As for Liza herself taking up the drink:  So she's got this "iron will."  Any such iron will against a vice, I think, represents a fear of that vice--not a fear for others, but for self--extant of the fear that once started, you'll never stop!  Liza is, if not proof, then example-- "a more relaxed and happy woman" with a few tablespoons of port in her.

'Til Monday, toodle-oo.

Scariest Disney Movie Ever

Stephen King is wrong.  It's Pinocchio. 

And vampires versus zombies?  ...

Thoughts?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/festival/2010/10/vampire-revival.html

East of Eden VI: The Aches of the Restless and Young

Okay, so this isn't a direct parallel for Adam and Cyrus in chapter 4, but I couldn't help but think of it as I read:

For those of you just getting into this, Charles has just beat the crap out of Adam, and for questionably/debatable motive (my favorite kind), he's run off after chucking the hatchet (intended for butchering the pounding, though alive, remains of his half-brother) that proved useless after a brief, half-hearted search, and their Dad, Cyrus, has stumped off into the night, shotgun in tow, to do?  He's not sure.  He's just mad.  He loves Adam better, after all, which, we'll learn, is terribly unfair.  Now Adam is pulsing weakly in bed, and representatives of the United States Cavalry arrive, at Papa's request, to enlist the boy. 

Jerk.

***

Reading Questions 5

Chapter 4.1

1. The first major point of interest, which sets the parallel-story tone for the rest of the chapter, is that of Charles's hiding.  He brutalizes his brother, seeks to hack him up with a hatchet, and then takes off, not out of fear, but self-preservation.  He knows--though he can't articulate it's WHY, and won't be able to for some thirteen or fourteen years--that his father will not easily forgive him, and the punishment, if he doesn't stay away until things chill out, will be dire.  Remember Cain's eventual flight?  Remember Adam and Eve's hiding?  (Be it known that from here, the different points of the Bible's version get pretty muddled up, details and parallels being cast from character to character and family to family over generations.) 
2. "The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts do the same in their degree, down to a stone stepped over in the path or a breath caught at sight of a pretty girl or a fingernail nicked in the garden soil."
3. Cyrus brings in representatives from the cavalry to enlist Adam, not because he's got the boy secure here under the weight of his injuries, but because it's time.  Why?

Chapter 4.2

1. Violence is in everyone, as was said earlier, but Adam is growing not in violence, but in passivity, and why?  BECAUSE of all the violence around him.  Is he hitting bottom the way Cyrus believes he must?  After all, "Men like Adam ... have to do a little soldering."  There's a ring of duty to this.  Despite his passivity, he will have to a maintain a level of soldiering, no matter how much he hates it.  What good, if any, is all this doing him?  Note also that while Adam is being forced to soldier, Charles is forced to till the ground--agriculture, the ultimate labor of the pacifist (unless you're reading Grapes of Wrath).
2. Why does Charles write so much to Adam?  The poor man's confused! --both utterly hating and completely loving his brother simultaneously.  Is such complicated emotion even possible?
3. "Tonight I cleaned the house, and it is wet and soapy and maybe not any cleaner.  How do you suppose Mother kept it the way she did?  It does not look the same.  Something settles down on it.  I don't know what, but it will not scrub off.  But I have spread the dirt around more evenly anyways.  Ha!  Ha!"
4. The shift in tone in the hesitant letter at the end of the chapter comes with the shift of writing implement.  There is symbolism here, considering the topics before and after the shift.  What?
5. "I ought to be wandering around the world instead of sitting here on a good farm looking for a wife.  There is something wrong, like it didn't get finished, like it happened too soon and left something out.  It's me should be where you are and you here."  (!)  Cain kills Abel; Charles almost kills Adam.  Charles recognizes/feels that he should be wandering; Adam's all over the country.  Genesis, chpt.4, v.12: "...a fugitive and a vagabond shalt though be in the earth." and v.16: "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden."  If you haven't read this chapter from the Old Testament.  Read it.  Genesis, chapter 4.

East of Eden: Chapter 3 Backtrack

Extra Question:

Go back and re-read the last sentence--better to go back to the paragraph before, as well.

Considering Adam's efforts to seek out Alice's smiles, is it possible he doesn't mind the beating and lack of credit for the little gifts, without either of which  this last smile--at best DIRECTED AT HIM, and at least IN HIS OBVIOUS PRESENCE--would not have happened?