Mythology for the Literal-Minded

It came to my attention this week, quite by accident, that author Mark Haddon included a piece in his collection The Pier Falls and Other Stories that retells the myth of Ariadne and Theseus. Neither is named, but the plot parallels the events of the myth closely enough (on a literal level, at least) that anyone familiar with the story will recognize what is meant. I'll be honest in saying that I didn't like the story, nor the one that preceded it, which was not myth-based, though it seemed to bear an odd kind of kinship to "The Island," the story I'm writing about. Both deal with horrific loss of life near the sea.

I sometimes feel that it's worth staying with an unpleasant book or sitting through an unpleasant movie, depending on what I perceive the artist's intent to be. I watched Munich, for instance, even though I found it difficult, because the theme was compelling. The question of just where the dividing line is between terrorists and anti-terrorists is a very real and important one, and it was brought home to me in a way I'll never forget in that film. It was worth sticking it out for the lesson it taught me.

Likewise, Mr. Haddon may well have a purpose in mind with his book, and if so, I may have gleaned it from the first two stories, though it's probably unfair to characterize the whole book without having read it all the way through. I guess what I'm saying is that if Mr. Haddon's purpose is to reveal the coarser side of human nature and the unfortunate tendency many people have of being drawn to the grisly and horrific events that befall others simply for the thrill of it, then I get what he's saying and thank him for his efforts, but I won't be reading any further. It may be that the rest of the book deals with other themes, but when I started on the third story and still found myself in carnival sideshow territory, I felt it was time to call it a day and go on to something else.

It's probably obvious to anyone who's read my book that I look at the story of Ariadne, Theseus, and the labyrinth as very symbolic and, underneath it all, life-affirming. My way of looking at it is not the only way, of course. Mr. Haddon's version is a horror story that nevertheless stays pretty close to the actual outline of the myth; the devil is in the details. His story even begins as quasi-realistic, as if Ariadne and Theseus might have been actual people--Ariadne a spoiled but sheltered princess who makes a fatal error in betraying her people for a man she's besotted with and Theseus a calculating and manipulative brute.

Mr. Haddon's way of dealing with the Dionysus part of the myth is not one I had seen before and conjures up the destructive aspect of the god. This side of Dionysus certainly appears elsewhere in mythology but not in the context of this myth, at least not to my knowledge, so it seemed to me a bit like mixing bad apples and worse oranges, though of course one has the creative license to do just that in a story of one's own telling. Ariadne's marriage to Dionysus in the classical version of the myth is a much more benign event than Mr. Haddon makes of it and supports the idea that Ariadne herself was viewed, at an earlier period of Greek history, as a powerful goddess. In some versions of the myth she, a goddess, was already married to Dionysus when she decided to help Theseus, so that perhaps the marriage on Naxos in later versions is a way of linking Ariadne, now a mortal, back to her original husband.

I discussed in my book some of the thinking about Ariadne's role in the myth, which centers on the idea that the labyrinth may originally have had a powerful religious meaning. I tend to see Ariadne as a positive figure guarding the secrets of life itself, the labyrinth in this sense becoming a symbol for birth, and even more than that, for becoming human. In that regard, her pairing with Dionysus makes sense, because he, too, is deeply connected with life in his associations with wine and the life cycle of the grape.

Whereas Demeter oversees agriculture in general, Dionysus's connection with the vine speaks of something that, paradoxical as it seems, is in some ways even more nuanced and refined. I'm talking about the life cycle of the grape and of how many things have to go just right in order for the winemaker to produce a fine wine. Dionysus presides over all of this, not just the growing of the grapes. The wine distills some of the essence of everything that goes into its making, the soil, the water, the sunlight, the container it's placed in, and, in no small amount, the soul of the winemaker, whose care of the vines has a great deal to do with how the wine turns out. Every vintage is unique, just as every person is.

By the way, I'm indebted to the movie Sideways for revealing to me so evocatively this nurturing aspect of Dionysus. That the main character, Miles, has a difficult relationship with wine, the very thing he loves and appreciates so well, is both a sad irony and a reminder that Dionysus does indeed have two sides, though bookish Miles is in some ways really more an Apollo kind of guy. Miles's boorish friend Jack, who has no appreciation for the subtle beauties of wine, embodies the dark side of Dionysus much better than Miles does. Miles's love interest, Maya, combines characteristics of both Demeter and Aphrodite, which really makes her the Ariadne to Miles's Dionysus.

All of this is just to say that in my reading of the labyrinth myth, Ariadne and Dionysus are both nurturing figures, and there is some support for this in scholarship. I was honestly rather shocked by Mr. Haddon's story, and even though I think most people realize there are many ways to read a myth, I want to point out, in this era of sensationalism and over-emoting that takes place everywhere from The Weather Channel to the nightly news, that the most shocking interpretation of a story isn't necessarily the best one and definitely isn't the only one. You can look at life through the eyes of love as a rich adventure filled with beauty and interest (despite its many serious problems) or you can look at it as a carnival sideshow, with one freakish event screaming for your attention until another one even worse comes along to take its place. I recommend that you not be that guy. (You know the one I mean.)

I don't know whether to thank Mr. Haddon for a lesson in the dangers of literal-minded mythology or to wash his mouth out with soap, but I rather suspect he had a reason for telling the story the way he did. As an example of literature as shock therapy, I'm not sure I've ever seen its equal. It's like a literary hairshirt. A tiny dab of that may be edifying, but more than that is going overboard. Whether he even expects you to finish the book or not is a question I'm not sure I can answer.

Rainy Day Mnemosyne

I’m reading a book called Ariadne's Thread, in which author J. Hillis Miller uses the associated metaphors of thread and line to examine narrative. I've been thinking so much about the labyrinth itself that I had forgotten the aftermath of the story until Miller reminded me. After escaping the labyrinth, Theseus abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos.

Without Ariadne's help, Theseus could not have defeated the Minotuar and found his way out of the labyrinth. Despite this, he doesn't feel obligated to stick with her and ends up marrying her sister instead. That's Theseus's little white sail in the painting above, as he hightails it out of Naxos. Ariadne has just realized she's been betrayed when Dionysus shows up with his retinue, telling her to forget about Theseus, that he himself is her rightful husband.

This painting reminds me of my first conscious encounter with mythology. I must have been about four, and I was fascinated by an ad in a magazine for what, as I remember it, was chewing gum. The ad was full of fantastical figures – gods, goddesses, nymphs, cupids with arrows – crowded together in a busy tableau. I couldn’t stop looking at it. I didn’t quite know who they were, but I think what enchanted me was the energy and variety; they had human characteristics but were obviously not people. I was in awe of this not-quite-human cast and the dynamic interplay.

The chapter I’ve been reading in Miller discusses character in literature and the problem of “self.” Miller examines the assumptions we make about the unity of self and casts doubt on them. He is only taking up the thread, so to speak, of other critics before him who deny that we can speak of the self as a distinct, consistent entity, believing instead that identity is a "necessary fiction."

In spite of the attempts of so many philosophers to dispense with the self, for me the idea sticks. I do experience myself as a consistent identity, with attitudes and ways of thinking that persist from day to day. I think most people do the same. Ten years from now, I will be able to remember tonight, just like I can now remember myself as a four-year-old.

Mnemosyne, one of the oldest of the immortals, is Memory in Greek mythology. She is the mother of the nine Muses (and may even have been somewhere in that fascinating ad all those years ago). Memory makes identity possible, so maybe Memory is Ariadne’s thread, the constant matter out of which a life is woven. This is Memory not just in the sense of what I consciously remember but also in the sense of instinctual and biological memories buried in my cells.

When I first encountered Ariadne and Dionysus in this myth, they seemed like a strange couple. But if myth is really a reflection of lived experience, their belonging together makes sense. Ariadne holds the thread that makes inspiration possible. This thread allows Theseus to penetrate deep into a mystery he couldn’t have managed otherwise, but back in the light of day, he discards the thread. Theseus is, after all, a warrior, and lives by the sword, not by inspiration. Dionysus, a vegetation god, embodies creative life force, ecstasy, song, and dance. Cross him with inspiration, and that makes art. Maybe if you follow the thread back far enough, you always meet Dionysus.