{"id":14323,"date":"2019-11-18T00:06:53","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T05:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=14323"},"modified":"2019-11-18T07:58:58","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T12:58:58","slug":"nina-maclaughlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/11\/18\/nina-maclaughlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Nina MacLaughlin\u2019s \u2018Wake, Siren\u2019: A MeToo Retelling Of Ancient Greek And Roman Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nina MacLaughlin says that she began her brilliant, lyrical, painful new book \u201cWake, Siren\u201d<\/a> when she took a stab at rewriting the ancient Greek and Roman tale of Callisto from the nymph\u2019s perspective and in the nymph\u2019s voice\u2014raped by Jove (Zeus), turned into a bear by his vengeful wife Juno (Hera), swept into the sky and turned into a constellation by Jove.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see all the stars around me, and I wonder, Are you the same as me?\u201d MacLaughlin\u2019s Callisto says. \u201cIs this what we all are? Fires fueled by fury, burning through the nights?\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLaughlin first drafted her version in February 2018. \u201cI liked hearing her voice in my ear,” she writes. “The next day, I wrote another\u2014Daphne. After three, it took hold and took off. I read a story, reread it, then spent the day listening to the voice in my mind, trying to hear what this woman sounded like, what story she wanted to tell and how.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cambridge author will read from her resulting book, \u201cWake, Siren\u201d (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, at 7 p.m.<\/a> It\u2019s the Roman poet Ovid’s 8th century “Metamorphosis” retold through the lens of #MeToo. Instead of glorifying the ancient Greek and Roman gods as superheroes, they\u2019re accurately described as serial rapists, gropers, domestic abusers, kidnappers, molesters, online stalkers\u2014perpetrators who get away with their crimes.<\/p>\n

These are the classical deities as Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump. (MacLaughlin says #MeToo \u201cwas totally on my mind. How can you ignore any of it?\u201d But writing a #MeToo \u201cMetamorphosis\u201d? \u201cThat completely was not my intent.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look especially beautiful when you\u2019re scared,\u201d the sun god and rapist Helios tells Leucothoe. MacLaughlin\u2019s Eurydice says, \u201cFor some people \u2026 what feels familiar about love is getting hurt, is getting reminded that you\u2019re worthless, is the powerful feeling of someone else giving voice to a voice that lives in you that tells you that you are pathetic and stupid and bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are fierce, searing, furious tales of pain\u2014beautifully told. \u201cIt\u2019s not the serpents writhing from my head that turn people to stone,\u201d MacLaughlin\u2019s Medusa says. \u201cIt\u2019s my rage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis book felt like a bodily event,\u201d MacLaughlin tells me. The writing of the book took less than three months, she says. \u201cIt\u2019s really painful. There\u2019s a lot of terrible, violent, horrific shit. \u2026. When I had to read it over for the first time, I was like, \u2018Oh, fuck.\u2019 It was a glimpse into my mind that felt extremely uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nina<\/a>
Nina MacLaughlin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All Things Change<\/strong><\/p>\n

MacLaughlin studied classics and English at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In her 20s, she worked at The Boston Phoenix\u2014putting together the calendar of event listings, writing articles, and rising to become managing editor of the website. (Note: I wrote art criticism for The Boston Phoenix and The Providence Phoenix.) Then she worked for nine years as a carpenter. Now at age 40, she is a books columnist for The Boston Globe and builds tables, carves spoons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Phoenix was so much more grossly sexist and so much more grossly misogynistic\u201d than working in the building trades, MacLaughlin says. \u201cThe trades, the men that we worked with were respectful, funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLaughlin first read the \u201cMetamorphosis\u201d about seven years ago, she says, while writing her 2015 memoir \u201cHammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter.\u201d She mentions Ovid\u2019s tales in the book\u2019s prologue as a way to consider her transformation from journalist to carpenter: \u201cWithout the gods to guide us, to cast their spells of transformation, how do we become something other than we were?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fucking book is so goddamn beautiful,\u201d MacLaughlin says of the \u201cMetamorphosis.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s so alive. It\u2019s so sensual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that\u2019s brought home again and again in the \u2018Metamorphosis\u2019 is all things change,\u201d she says. \u201cThe idea of change was still very compelling to me. As I think it always will be. \u2026 My awareness was on the idea of who\u2019s allowed to tell a story and this sort of anger and pain that must have been involved for the women who didn\u2019t get to express that in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you come out of the other side of something horrific?\u201d MacLaughlin says. \u201cHow do you deal with time passing and getting older. So these different modes of transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLaughlin\u2019s method in \u201cWake, Siren\u201d can bring to mind the voices from beyond the grave of Edgar Lee Master\u2019s 1915 \u201cSpoon River Anthology\u201d cycle of poems as well as classics teacher Madeleine Miller\u2019s 2018 novel \u201cCirce,\u201d a feminist recasting of the infamous goddess of Homer\u2019s Odyssey into a hero. “I was not surprised by the portrait of myself,” Circe says in Miller\u2019s version, “the proud witch undone before the hero’s sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime for poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThese stories are so\u2014old isn\u2019t the right word\u2014they\u2019re in us,\u201d MacLaunglin says. \u201cThese are the stories that make up the way humans understand ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe major players are often the male gods, also the female gods. The writers were men\u2014Ovid, obviously a man\u2014and the translators were mostly male. It\u2019s this filtering down of this male perspective,\u201d MacLaughlin says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThinking about translation, one of the things that struck me was the very euphemistic way rape is described,\u201d MacLauglin says. Phrases like \u201cdeflowered\u201d or \u201che attained her love.\u201d A story about the Sirens is translated \u201choneyed music poured from their lips,\u201d when the original Latin is \u201cmouths.\u201d MacLaughlin says, \u201cWho tells the stories matters. What words are used matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does \u201cWake, Siren\u201d relate to MacLaughlin\u2019s own experience? \u201cI\u2019ve never been turned into a myrtle tree, but I have an imagination regardless if these things have or have not happened in my life,\u201d she says. \u201cThe job of the writer is to insert yourself into whatever that experience may be and overlap your own experience.\u201d And the book does reflect \u201ca profound frustration with how women are seen and treated. Frustration does not get close to the word.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLaughlin\u2019s Procne says after recounting how her husband raped and tortured her and her sister: \u201cPeople want to know. And then they don\u2019t want to know. That keeps happening. It\u2019s so horrid, it\u2019s so gross, people say. It\u2019s too loud. And either you want to know or you don\u2019t want to know. And it\u2019s easier not to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow ugly this stuff is and how disgusting and how perverse and how we are both drawn to and repelled by it,\u201d MacLaughlin says. \u201cThese stories get ignored\u2014the way police respond to domestic violence, the way women get treated on the internet. And there are no protections or consequences. It\u2019s easier not to know. And for a woman to think it\u2019s not that bad. \u2026 maybe it\u2019s not that bad, maybe I\u2019m overreacting.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLaughlin\u2019s Scylla says, \u201cI thought about how maybe the worst violence isn\u2019t the physical part, but what it does to the mind.\u201d MacLaughlin\u2019s Io says, \u201cOne does not need to be jailed to be imprisoned, to be caged by something that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLaughlin says, \u201cWhat\u2019s so insidious is the amount of time it takes from your life, the amount of time that you have to think about it. \u2026 Your mind is focused on what did I do wrong to bring this on myself. \u2026 It is a thief of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cWake,<\/a>
\u201cWake, Siren\u201d by Nina MacLaughlin. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Who Gets What They Want?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWake, Siren\u201d prompts questions about why these stories of men sexually assaulting women are so seminal for Western culture. MacLaughlin says, \u201cIt is to me an art of examining these stories that help form the basis of storytelling. And it sort of demands we look at the ways these stories live in us, the things we take for granted, the things we don\u2019t investigate and just sort of absorb.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLaughlin says, \u201cIs it punishing to be a woman? Yes. That is something it says about our culture, our civilization. It is. It has been.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do these ancient stories reveal about men? \u201cThey\u2019re scared. There\u2019s a lot of fear,\u201d MacLaughlin says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard making these sweeping generalizations. That\u2019s an impossible thing to say. But there\u2019s fear. I do think that\u2019s a big part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201cWake, Siren,\u201d fear is often a harbinger of violence. MacLaughlin\u2019s Procne warns, \u201cA man whose fear has made him angry is one of the most dangerous kinds of men.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLaughlin says, \u201cThat hinges on ideas of power and who gets what they want, who has a right to certain things. I have this right to this pleasure. I have a right to your body. Your wants are an irrelevance. Your need to be safe is an irrelevance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The old tales of the Greek and Roman gods can be seen as allegories of the rich and powerful. The deities are gangs\u2014or royalty. \u201cThe people in power can act with a level of impunity which we are sort of seeing to the max now,\u201d MacLaunglin says. \u201cI\u2019ve accumulated enough power that I can get away with it. The gods and goddesses are all flawed and jealous and vengeful and petty.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLaughlin says, \u201cIf there\u2019s a way out it\u2019s going to involve a lot of just saying\u2014the women who are standing up and saying this happened to me\u2014that\u2019s the first step of the way out. And there being consequences: that you are fired, that you\u2019re not worshipped in this cultural pantheon. Shame is a potent motivator. If the possibility of shame motivates you not to behave in certain ways that\u2019s great. I want to be careful. I do not have the answers. What\u2019s the way forward? I don\u2019t know the answer to that. I hope everybody keeps talking. That\u2019s not a solution. But I hope the conversation keeps happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nina<\/a>
Nina MacLaughlin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Nina MacLaughlin says that she began her brilliant, lyrical, painful new book \u201cWake, Siren\u201d when she took a stab at rewriting the ancient Greek and Roman tale of Callisto from the nymph\u2019s perspective and in the nymph\u2019s voice\u2014raped by Jove (Zeus), turned into a bear by his vengeful wife Juno (Hera), swept into the sky […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[638,42,636,98,219,639,637],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14323"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14326,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14323\/revisions\/14326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}