Ruth Roman

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the second verse of “Glass securit” (Security Glass) by Serge Gainsbourg and worked on revising my translation. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I worked on transcribing and expanding on my hand written notes towards the presentation that I’m giving on Friday. I still haven’t got all my notes digitized but here’s where I left off from yesterday: 

            The Mere Wife combines the story from the Grendel poem with that of the dragon poem from Beowulf. The dragon in The Mere Wife is symbolized both by the dinosaur bones but more poetically in the end by the train. She uses it not only to kill B. Wolfe as the dragon killed Beowulf, but also the settlers in the cars. Effectively Dana does not only represent Grendel’s mother but also the mind of the dragon. But why didn’t Wolfe simply step off the track? The ending of The Mere Wife tries to resolve the problem of lost connections to one’s ancestors and culture by having them all reunite in some kind of afterlife. Because of this there is less of a sense that a genocide has been committed than there is in Beowulf. 

            Another parallel is that Grendel’s mother, like Dana, would have been content to be left alone if not for the actions her son. Grendel and Gren have far different motives for connecting with the privileged others. Grendel’s agenda is to psychologically torture Hrothgar by killing those closest to him. He kills no women, no craftsmen, no servants and no peasants, but rather only the king’s wealthiest warriors. After Grendel’s death, despite her motivation of revenge, she does not attack in a blind rage but deliberately continues her son’s political plan and takes it a step further by killing a warrior who is even closer to Hrothgar than the others, namely Aeschere his retainer. 

            In The Mere Wife no females die until Dana kills the matriarchs of Herot Hall and herself. But it is a non violent death and so non violent that it is as if it is not a death at all and they merge with Dana’s ancestors in a way that renders them no longer privileged and no longer other. There are no others in this afterlife. 

            Dana is a hero because she is innocent in the world of her story. Dana is the only first person narrator but there is also an objective narrator and sometimes voices of the collective consciousnesses of the matriarchs, the dogs, and the ecology of the mere. And finally the collective dead. 

            I weighed 86.2 kilos before lunch. 

            David knocked on my door and told me he’s leaving for Ethiopia on Thursday morning. He wants me to help take his bags down to the cab like I did last year. He’s going to leave me his keys then. He insisted on giving me $100. He’ll be gone for about a month and so I’ll water the plant I gave him last year and let pest control in when they come in mid February. 

            I warmed up some leftover roti that I brought home a few weeks ago after going out for lunch with David and had it with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of lemonade with cranberry juice.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 85 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:30. 

            I finished transcribing my handwritten notes toward my presentation and expanded on them somewhat. I also re-read Paul Acker’s essay, “Horror and the Maternal in Beowulf”. Here’s what I added this evening: 

            Dana is introduced as a victim speaking in the reader’s “I” voice. From then on we identify with her as a victim even when she is the aggressor. The “We” voice of the collective consciousness of the matriarchs renders as a collective monster. The reader is outnumbered by the “We” voices but only threatened by that of the matriarchs. What most renders Grendel and his mother monstrous is their lack of voice. If Beowulf presented Grendel or his mother as a first person speaker it would be an entirely different story. 

            Acker would say that Dana is seen as particularly monstrous because she is a mother driven to violence to defend and later avenge her child. He would compare her to her Medieval counterpart as he argues on page 2 of his essay, “that Grendel’s mother’s power to horrify partly resides in her maternal nature.” 

            The people of Herot Hall and the outsider policeman B. Wolfe who falsely positions himself in the community as the effective prince consort of Willa are seen as monstrous by Dana. Willa and the matriarchs are more monstrous for steering around their maternal roles and focusing on status while Dana behaves like a caring mother. 

            We don’t know much about the middle east factor. It is implied that Dana was fighting in the Middle East in a war that is reminiscent of the war in Afghanistan. The book does not say she was in the Middle East but it does say she was in the desert and there is a reference to people seeking god in the desert. There is also a middle eastern connection in Beowulf in the narrator’s implication that Grendel and his mother are descendants of Cain. 

            I made pizza on two mini-naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 4 of Burke’s Law. 

            Harris Crown, a successful promoter of musicals and performers dies when his brakes fail and his car goes over a cliff. Tim finds that the fluid has been drained from the brakes and the gas tank was pried at the seam so it would rupture and explode on impact. Burke goes to break the news to Crown’s wife Angel. She doesn’t seem all that broken up about it. Crown was driving Angel’s car that had been parked at the parking lot of the studio where she had her dance rehearsal. Tim determines the fluid was drained there. Burke goes to see Shirley Mills, who manages a fashion house from which Crown bought clothes for his discoveries. She’s attracted to Burke but is disappointed when she finds out he’s a cop because her father was a cop and poor. She doesn’t know that Burke is rich. He asks her about a $938 present that was bought from the store. Shirley isn’t supposed to give out clients’ personal information but he says he can get a court order. The purchase was for Mrs. Kronkeit. Before he leaves Burke asks Shirley to lunch. Burke goes to the home of Lou and Ethel Kronkeit and learns Harris Crown was Lou’s brother and his birth name was Kronkeit. Burke goes to talk with Marni Lee, one of Crown’s discoveries. While he’s there the dance instructor Rick Mason walks in. Burke goes to see Lili Bentley the gossip columnist played by Eva Gabor. She says women involved with older men see a lot of their mothers. She tells him Elinor Albrick is producing the show that Angel is in and that Rick is training the dancers. Albrick is Rick’s lover but obviously so is Marni. Burke goes to the rehearsal. He talks again to Angel and finds out that she’d asked Crown to take her car home the night he died. Tim sees Rick being let in the back door of the Crown house by Angel. Burke goes back to Lili who tells him Angel and Crown both wanted a divorce. He goes to see Albrick who says she knew about Rick and Marni and Rick and Angel. He goes to see Angel and removes some pills from her purse. He tracks them to Dr. Lusk who tells him Angel is pregnant. He goes back to the rehearsal and gets Angel to admit she’s carrying Rick’s baby. Burke tells her that Rick rigged her car to kill her and not her husband. Angel tells Albrick about the baby and she’s shocked. Rick knew she’d cancel the show if she found out so he was trying shut Angel up. Rick knocks Tim in the pool, punches Burke and runs. He’s cornered and jumps Burke but loses the fight and is booked for murder. 

            Elinor Albrick was played by Ruth Roman, who graduated from the Bishop-Lee Theatre School. Her first acting job was with the New England Repertory Company. Her first film role was a bit part in Stage Door Canteen. She starred in Jungle Queen and Belle Starr’s Daughter. She co-starred in The Window. By the 1950s she was a star. She co-starred in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, Joe MacBeth, The Sinner, The Champion, Harmony Trail, Barricade, Colt 45, Three Secrets, Dallas, Lightning Strikes Twice, Tomorrow is Another Day, Starlift, Invitation, Mara Maru, Young Man With Ideas, Tanganyika, The Far Country, The Shanghai Story, Down Three Dark Streets, Bottom of the Bottle, Great Day in the Morning, Rebel in Town, Five Steps to Danger, Bitter Victory, and Beyond the River. She starred in the Italian film Desert Desperadoes. She co-starred in the TV series The Long Hot Summer. She had a recurring role on Knots Landing. She was a passenger on the Andrea Dorea when it collided with the Stockholm and sank. She was rescued.