We Love Lucy: The Enduring Comic Genius of Lucille Ball

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Lucille Ball is the best female comedian America has ever known–or rather, one of the best comedians America has ever known. Why so? Why do we love that crazy redhead even half a century later?

-She was willing to make a fool of herself. Any true performer knows it’s not about ego, that one has to let go of the self in order to completely inhabit the character and to serve the text and the spirit of what is being performed. Lucy was willing to go there, be it saying things she wasn’t supposed to say (think the episode where she had to tell the truth for 24 hours), physical comedy, or making a complete mess of things. Carol Burnett also has this gift, as do Jim Carrey and Alex Borstein, among others.

-Related to the point above, pushing the limits. “I Love Lucy” featured an intercultural marriage, and one with a husband with a strong accent from a country that later became America’s number one enemy. It featured outrageous situations, such as international travel, drunkenness from a health tonic, or faking the ability to speak Spanish. The show was also set in New York City and then later Los Angeles, not in suburbia. Ricky lived the showbiz lifestyle and their beloved neighbors and friends, Fred and Ethel, had been vaudeville performers. The show makes good use of the medium, and was also the first show to be recorded live in front of a studio audience. That speaks to the talents of the cast, who were essentially performing a play in each episode.

-Excellent writers. The script for each episode is nothing short of brilliant. In less than half an hour (22 minutes), an entire microcosm of a story with rising action, climax, and dénouement is created. A start-to-finish story, perfect dialogue, and even cross-cultural humor are included. Note the occasional lapses into Spanish by Ricky Ricardo that heighten the comedy. Couple this with sharp timing all the actors involved, and you have a recipe for success. It is important to note that one of the key writers for the show was a woman, Madelyn Pugh, a rarity at that time.

-The battle of the sexes. Political correctness can fail to simply acknowledge that this is a human situation as old as mankind, and that relations between men and women are sometimes downright hilarious. Whether it’s Lucy forgetting to relay a message to her husband, buying something she shouldn’t have, Ricky excluding her from an event, Fred and Ethel’s eternal squabbles over his cheapskate nature, this is something that men and women can relate to not only in America, but all over the world.

-Glamour. No one can deny that the crisp black-and-white cinematography, elegant Dior-esque dresses, or romantic songs at the club are just a little more chic than what the rest of America had. Ricky Ricardo is certainly handsome, New York is the epicenter of style, so who wouldn’t want a little panache on the screen? The cast travel cross country, move to Hollywood, and travel in Europe. These were things that were still out of the reach for most Americans in the 50’s. Good TV over the years and even today fulfills this purpose, giving us a little bit of glamour and something just beyond our reach. Think “The Cosby Show” and their upper-middle-class Brooklyn life, “Sex and the City” with the women’s endless designer clothes and nights out at chic lounges, or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” with stunning art direction and costume design. There’s something to be said for visual escapism.

The show has mass appeal as it its themes are universal and simple. Even my grandmother in India had enjoyed it! Everyone has a favorite “Lucy” episode. Mine is when Lucy’s mother-in-law arrives from Cuba and Lucy is not able to speak with her in Spanish. She enlists the help of a Spanish-speaking magician she saw in the club and wears an earphone into which magician dictates what she should say to her mother-in-law. Naturally, it backfires with hilarious results.

What’s yours?

For the Love of Globe

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Though I feel that I should be writing on some sort of Covid-related issue, such as what to read or how to be introspective, I choose to write on the complete opposite: travel.

In a world that is alarmingly leaning toward the right, starting with our leaders like Donald Trump, and where there is extreme xenophobia, arising from different circumstances such as mass migration by refugees from parts of the world that are experiencing danger, it helps to think of the joys we have in our differences, and to be grateful for the privileges many of us have had in getting to see different parts of the world.

My childhood was marked by somewhat-quadrennial trips to India that, in the earlier years before super-long-haul flights, involved multiple stops. This, perhaps, planted the seed for my curiosity about different peoples and cultures that eventually led to a degree in anthropology and a number of global homestays. My young self wondered, “Will I ever get to see those places on the ground some day?” Even the sites of different tarmacs with different airports with different landscapes was fascinating to my little eyes. I recall laundry swaying in the wind behind a house next to the airport in Manchester. Being given two little sample bottles of Courrèges cologne–glass with a round golden orb on top–at Frankfurt airport that I kept for many years. The palm trees and concrete at Kuwait Airport where we stopped to refuel. The orange sunrise over the unbelievably flat horizon at Dubai airport, and inside, the gleaming red marble interior (even in the bathroom!) and men wearing a long thobe with a red-checkered ghutra on their head. How in Delhi, passengers got off on the tarmac and were bussed to the gate. And the relief when, at 9 AM, after traveling over 20 hours, we boarded the last flight on our journey from Bombay to Madras on Indian Airlines.

When I was 15, my dream finally came true, for we stopped in London en route to- and Rome en route from India as part of our journey. And both cities did not disappoint: if anything, they were exciting beyond belief, as it was my first time in a country other than India or the border countries of Mexico and Canada. For those of us who are Indian-Americans, our sense of place and the world is shaped by these trips, for we not only lived with two cultures in the United States, but came from two cultures that spanned the globe, on vastly opposite sides of the earth. 

I am fortunate to have traveled to places where many Americans don’t usually go, and to have been able to stay with friends or in ways that forced me to “go native.” I have given a talk to high school students in rural Denmark, shopped for groceries in Austria, visited Sibelius’s house Finland (where I was allowed to tinker on his piano!), bargained with shopkeepers in India, ridden a commuter boat with locals in Bangkok.

There are still so many places I want to see. Recently, I have enjoyed watching a wonderful BBC series with journalist Sadeq Saba called “A Taste of Iran” with the result being that the bug is now in me to visit that glorious country full of a variety of stunning landscapes, ancient history, and marvelous food. Perhaps because of the trips to India that were routed via Europe and over Central Asia, I have an interest in Middle Eastern and Central Asian cultures. It is interesting to see the progression of various cultural traits and histories and rituals from Europe through the Subcontinent, how certain elements have been carried through the regions. For example, some of the architecture I saw in Bulgaria is similar to that I saw in Bhutan.

It is quite heartbreaking to think that international travel may be curtailed and may not be safe for a number of years. The pandemic has, oddly, brought us together in teaching us about our shared humanity, just as travel does. The silver lining is that it has given the earth a chance to heal, reminding us that we are not the only creatures who live on this planet. But for those of us who love to see different people and places, right now we can only have empathy for our fellow human beings who are sick everywhere: in a worn hospital in Manhattan, in a dusty flat near Tehran, in a village in Lombardia, a crowded street in Wuhan. And then we can imagine we are there visiting in better times.

TWOL Will Be Back Shortly

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Dear readers,
I look forward to posting again soon! I have been unbelievably busy in my position as an adjunct professor teaching English composition (probably the most hectic, trial-by-fire experience anyone could have for their first semester teaching: replacing someone last-minute, starting the second week of the semester and therefore having to plan the class as I go along, then a move to online teaching). I truly hope everyone is staying well during this difficult time!
Best wishes,
Sonja

In Defense of the Novel in Stories: Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop

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An agent recently turned down my manuscript as she wasn’t a fan of the novel in stories. My manuscript is not really a novel in stories, but a collection of long stories and novellas that are linked through place, à la Olive Kitteridge. And frankly, I am not really a fan of the novel in stories, nor do I read so many story collections either; I prefer through-composed novels and have always wanted to be a novelist. However, her comment really got me thinking about this form. I recently read Willa Cather’s brilliant Death Comes for the Archbishop, a book I have always wanted to read as Cather is one of my favorite authors. I also really happened to like Olive Kitteridge, which to me created its own unique world, à la Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, a close-knit community with quirky characters and their own histories. So is the novel in stories worth a second look?

I had expected Death Comes for the Archbishop to be a true novel, as that is what it is generally billed as. Cather is renowned as a novelist, though she has written quite a few stories such as the famous “Paul’s Case” that many youngsters read in high school. And indeed, there are some features of the book that are indicative of it being a novel: we can see the character arcs, especially that of Father Jean Marie Latour, whose lifespan is covered through the book up until his death. There is also skillfully placed back story about Latour’s life, and also the history of his friendship with his fellow missionary, Father Joseph Vaillant. The lives of the two men constantly come together and intertwine and then separate as they travel throughout the Southwest and elsewhere in order to minister to their flock, so to speak. The book takes place in New Mexico, which is not yet a state but a territory, and it is still largely out of contact with the American government. It is still the land of the Mexicans and Native Americans, and we see these cultures and their histories and tensions woven throughout the novel. But why is it a novel in stories?

Death Comes for the Archbishop is broken into nine sections, preceded by a prologue each of the sections contains several chapters. Each section could, arguably, be read on its own, it stands on its own. New characters are introduced in each section, and some of them do not reappear elsewhere. There is a very frequent use of the story within a story technique, which allows us to get a deeper portrait of the people and cultures in the region that existed before Father Latour arrived. One could say the book is really a series of vignettes that are connected through the fathers. In order to present the diversity of the different areas and regions to which Father Latour ministers, Cather has provided us snapshots of these places. We get to know the key characters of each area, who is most important, the key stories and histories of place, and Father Latour’s impressions. Given that the novel is based on/modeled after the story of two priests, Father Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Father Joseph Projectus Machebeuf and their time spent as clergy in the Southwest, we can see that Cather wants to give the reader glimpses into the different places and events in their lives. It is almost as though she is fleshing out a diary and transforming it into fiction.

What is most spectacular about the novel is Cather’s descriptions of landscapes and settings. There are lines that are simply breathtaking, such as, “The full moon, hidden by veils of cloud, through a pale phosphorescent luminousness over the heavens, and the towers of the church stood up black against this silvery fleece,” or, “These cloud formations seemed to be always there, however hot and blue the sky flat terraces, ledges of vapour; sometimes they were dome-shaped, or fantastic, like the tops of silvery pagodas…” Notice the juxtapositions of religious imagery with landscape in these two examples, though most often, the descriptions are simply that of nature.

Of course, there is the issue of Cather writing about Native Americans and Mexicans as a white woman. In my opinion, Cather does so with great dignity and respect given the time period. We cannot expect her to conform to 21st-century discourse about race and culture. Remember, this is not a book about Cather’s sensibilities; everything we see in the book is filtered through the lens of the French missionaries, so naturally, that will inherently have a European bias. However, Cather is careful to show the complexities of the social interactions between the French missionaries and the Native Americans and the Mexicans. Father Latour finds much to admire in the various native populations, is good friends with quite a few of the Mexicans. What is more problematic is simply the issue of missionaries and conversion. What we see through the novel as 21st century readers, especially those of us who are colonials by heritage, is how fundamentally disturbing the idea of converting people to Christianity is. This is coupled with politics and power, and it is a deep part of American history that we do not learn much about. There is much discussion, and rightly so, about Blacks and slavery. But we also need to discuss America’s Spanish and French colonial history, as that shaped much of the West and South as well as parts of the Midwest.

Cather is not proselytizing by any means. Rather, she is giving us a portrait of a man who was on a mission, a man of deep Catholic faith, and his struggles and travails as a cleric in a large territory. It is a rather odd choice of subject and protagonist for an author who wrote such strong female characters who were very often the protagonists, and was open to immigrants of many different cultures. In The Song of the Lark (my favorite book of all time), Cather writes with great affection and respect for the Mexicans who affirm and support Thea Kronborg’s musical gifts. One of the strengths of Willa Cather is that she was able to write about so many different kinds of people in so many places and do it so convincingly. Perhaps it was her deep well of empathy allowed her to do so, for in all of her books, we feel that she really cared about her characters and wanted to share their stories with us. Never sentimental (Cather hated sentimentality), she is one who writes from the heart and with great heart.

In any case, Death Comes for the Archbishop is a stunning gem that gives us a glimpse into another place and time. It may take a little while to get into the book. But once in it, the book transports us into another magical world that we may have never known, or have forgotten.

TWOL is Back!

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Dear Readers,
It is always rough when life gets so busy that there is not enough time to do all the writing one wants to, especially on this blog. I hope you enjoy reading this latest post as much as I enjoyed writing it! Happy Holidays and hopefully there should be more frequent posts here.
Best wishes,
Sonja

The Lost Art of Penmanship and Letter Writing

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Our digital age has nearly robbed us of one of the most fundamental cognitive-physiological impulses: writing by hand. Nothing compares to the pleasure of putting pen or pencil to paper, the feel of the ink gliding across the surface, the way in which we control the strokes thick and thin. What a beautiful phenomenon: thoughts materialize into something as concrete as words on the page!

Being able to write, however, is a privilege that most of us in the modern, industrial world take for granted. Even in the West, people were not largely literate until recent centuries. And for those who were, paper was still rather a luxury. For those who were able to afford it, there was the choice of the type of paper or material upon which one could write, such as skins, parchment, and then different types of stationery. There are certain parts of the world in which paper and papermaking are still an art. Think of the beautiful swirling patterns of Florentine paper, or the delicate, colorful ones of Japanese origami paper.

There is also the matter of handwriting. I’m rather alarmed to learn that many students are not learning cursive in schools anymore. Before our current age of texting, kids used to delight in writing notes to each other and slipping them to each other during class or in each other’s lockers. Making cards was great fun. Having pen pals, getting to choose the stationery and the colors of ink and the types of pens or markers and stickers were also things every kid looked forward to. But this wasn’t simply all childish entertainment: this was helping us develop our motor skills and visual-spatial abilities. I recall getting a set of calligraphy pens that came with the little booklet on how to write the alphabet in calligraphy, which I believe is a dying art. Spending quiet time learning how to write in calligraphy was as instructive as it was artistic. The Duchess of Sussex, formerly Meghan Markle, supported herself while an auditioning actress by doing calligraphy for invitations. Perhaps for some this might bring back horrifying memories of being graded poorly for “penmanship,” but I have to say there is something to being able to write legibly, if not beautifully.

None of this is a modern phenomenon. Humans have been writing, however crudely, by pressing shapes into clay tablets, then on papyrus, and then on roughly made paper. Islamic culture places a high value on the written word and therefore we can see many examples of beautiful calligraphy that is centuries old. Not to mention all the illuminated manuscripts from medieval times. One genre of writing is called the “epistolary novel,” which is a novel in letters. I think this appeals to our surreptitious delight in reading what somebody else has written, the furtive sense of snooping. Examples include the medieval correspondence between nun Héloïse and monkish scholar Abélard, and Samuel Richardson’s (dare I say) tedious Pamela. In the 90s, the brilliant artist Nick Bantock created a stunning series of “Griffin and Sabine” books that illustrated a correspondence between a man and woman, complete with colorful letters and cards that were works of art that the reader would draw out of an envelope mounted on the page. This continued into another series by Bantock known as “The Morning Star Trilogy” and then another book that filled in the time between the two trilogies. This is one of the best examples of a modern epistolary novel, and one that engages multiple senses.

I believe we need to write more letters and cards. To get away from the two-dimensional, black-and-white, non-curving nature of our digital writing. Write thank you notes by hand; send your friends a letter. They might thank you for it, and you will also be continuing the wonderful historical act of writing by hand and epistolary communication.

Bad is Good: Downfall in Literature

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I recently finished rereading Anna Karenina, and I am currently watching the latest Clint Eastwood film, “The Mule,” which is based on a true story. And it is absolutely delightful! A charming Midwestern octogenarian horticulturalist becomes a drug runner for a Mexican cartel, and finds himself more and more embroiled in their world, unable to escape for fear of retaliation or death. Though initially a means to earn money to help pay for his granddaughter’s wedding and other expenses once he is foreclosed, “Grandpa Earl” seems to slowly relish the life he has now attained, complete with gold bracelet, Lincoln pickup truck, and easy women.

This led me to think about the theme of downfall in literature: what makes it so compelling? Why is it such an interesting and oft-repeated trope or topic?

In Anna Karenina, we can’t entirely say Anna is a fallen woman; that would be too simplistic. We initially feel sympathetic for her, a vibrant woman stuck in a loveless marriage to a stuffed-shirt bureaucrat. However, her passion and her desires lead her to lose sight of what is important, separate her from her son, and make her so jealous that she commits suicide. We see this downward trajectory throughout the course of the novel. Her narrative arc is the key driving force of the novel. Roxanne, by Daniel Defoe, is another such example, and probably one of the best. A woman of virtue, she resorts to any means she can find to support herself and her children, which includes becoming a mistress. And lest we fault women, we can also remember that the juicy, Gothic classic The Monk by Matthew Lewis is also from this time. A lustful monk ends up committing murder, and there are all kinds of other peccadilloes along the way, including pregnant nuns.

In modern times, we can look at Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, a novel so over-the-top that it is truly singular in its first-person narrative voice. Alexander Portnoy is a nice Jewish boy from a good family, but his sexual appetite becomes his undoing. And as the reader, boy, do we enjoy the ride! One of my favorite stories, Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem,” one could argue, also deals with the theme of downfall. Jackson Jackson is a homeless Native American who needs to obtain money in 24 hours in order to buy back his grandmother’s regalia. But rather than judiciously saving the money, he squanders it in the course of the day. The ironic–and funny–twist is that (spoiler alert) despite his misbehavior, he ends up getting the regalia in the end. And of course, we can’t go without mentioning another doubly named antihero, the infamous Humbert Humbert of Nabokov’s Lolita. An intelligent, cultured man, the protagonist not only seduces his landlady’s daughter, but then kidnaps her and takes her on a wild ride. He meets his due, captured by the police at the end. The rich prose is a hallmark of Nabokov, who creates such a rounded character in Humbert Humbert that we cannot help but be engaged with the novel.

What do these novels and stories have in common? I would argue that they harken back to the most fundamental of Christian themes: the fallen angel. Also, by setting up a protagonist on some sort of moral high ground–something that is implicitly of the basis of our Protestant/Anglo cultures, the author creates the expectation of morality, that the lead character should behave in some sort of ethical way. We have our societal expectations of how people should or shouldn’t act, and when a character deviates from that, there is the cognitive dissonance between the expectation and the action. This gap makes for great literature and a great story. Also, what is the trajectory that this character goes through? What are the trials and tribulations? Is s/he justified? Is s/he really a victim of society, or does s/he have agency to make rational decisions? Finally, is there any redemption for the protagonist, either through external means, or self-redemption? These are significant questions an author must answer. Also, the author must establish a certain degree of virtue in the protagonist at the beginning, create her or him as likable and establish a rapport with the reader.

The journey of this character on the downward spiral is what makes for great reading. Yes, we may know the outcome or answer already, but how we get there is what is so delightful. Rich prose, a variety of obstacles, thwarting expectations, acting out of the need for survival–these are just some of the elements we might find in a downfall novel or story.

There will always be prudish readers who dislike these anti-heroes, who lament their lack of virtue. But shouldn’t literature and art be a fantasy world in which we can act out or explore our baser emotions in an enjoyable way?

The Women of Letters Celebrates 7 Years!!

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Dear readers,
I am so happy that you have been with me on this journey for the past seven years as of this month. This blog has been nothing but a delight to write, and I hope you have enjoyed reading it is much as I have enjoyed writing it. And, I hope this might inspire you to write a blog of your own! Here’s to another seven more years. Keep writing, and keep reading, whatever the genre. Thank you so much for your support!
Love,
Sonja

In Memoriam: Toni Morrison

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This morning’s news broke my heart: the great Toni Morrison is dead. I found tears coming to my eyes when I understood that no more great works could come from this titan of world literature. I have only read two novels by Ms. Morrison, and I have seen and read some of her interviews, watched part of a documentary on her. But her impact and influence has been significant upon my literary development.

My senior year in high school, Morrison’s Song of Solomon was part of our AP English curriculum. I had begun working on a novel, been reading more sophisticated novels, and thinking seriously that down the line, I would be an English professor. Song of Solomon was indeed quite a hefty, challenging novel, and I sat with my pink highlighter in hand, trying to mark the important passages. And after reading chapter after chapter, something finally hit me: Morrison used recurring symbols and motifs. And in my late teenager’s mind, that’s how I realized what real literature was – it had symbols! There was something about Morrison’s language and imagery that was built into the structure of the novel in a deeper way than anything else I had read. It made a profound impression on me, and I would indeed say that book was what really taught me what Literature with a capital L was.

Flash forward years later to 2018. I am in my MFA program at Warren Wilson, in my third semester, and we are required to write a long analytical essay of 30-45 pages. I want to study omniscience, and I am adamant that I use Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as my key text. My advisor concurs, but also insists that I add a second novel in which I will study omniscience. He suggests Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and refines my topic to looking at how omniscience moves in scene and zooms in and out. I agree to that, as I feel I need to become more familiar with Morrison’s work, and knowing that she is truly one of the greats of modern literature. I’m also happy to have a second female author whose work I will analyze, especially a minority woman writer. Part of the challenge of writing my essay is that I have to select the passages I analyze myself.

Morrison’s novel is not entirely written in omniscience; in fact the omniscient passages are limited. Once I do hone in on the two chapters of each novel I will analyze and compare, I noticed that there is a parallel between the novels. In each novel, there is a “groundwork” or “hologram” chapter in which the themes and ideas of the whole novel are encapsulated in one chapter. This is usually fairly early on in the novel. I do indeed study how Morrison uses omniscience, and what also strikes me significantly is Morrison’s use of diction. Her word choices really do a lot to create the setting, work with the themes of the novel, and add a layer of complexity to her fiction. For example, the way she describes the Breedloves’ neighborhood and house is very detached and apathetic, the family dynamic is very detached as well. This is crucial, because this sets up the contrast to what will happen to young Pecola Breedlove in the novel, and how her community by and large ignores this tragedy. In one of the obituary articles I read this morning, Morrison noted that one of her goals in writing was to bring attention to one of the most vulnerable members of society: a young black female. This is exactly what she does in The Bluest Eye.

I recently returned from a Warren Wilson alumni conference where I taught a class on diction. Naturally, I used a few passages from The Bluest Eye. Morrison is really a master of language and diction, and anyone who is interested in this topic should read her work critically.

I recall that once in an interview several years ago, someone asked her about the canon, given that she herself is African-American and the canon has largely been white male and needs to be diversified and more reflective of American society. Her answer was simple–“add to it.” Morrison read all the greats of the old canon as a child. I think this is something all minority writers need to do, even if they choose to diverge from it or even bash it. Nobel laureate poet Derek Walcott (whom I got to see at a very small talk at the University of California San Diego several years ago) also was very well-versed in the canon, though he is considered a key representative of Caribbean writing.

The literary community has indeed suffered a devastating loss, but I suppose Morrison would want us to move forward while also understanding American history, specifically, Black history. She has left us a lot of good ways to do this through her writing.