Regarding Incest, again

Sometimes I notice that a word or a concept or a thought keeps presenting itself until I pay attention to it. For instance, the word "terrapin" -- a not terribly common word -- has been showing up left and right. I keep hearing people talking about terrapins (not turtles, but using the word "terrapin"), I've seen it written 10 or 12 times lately, and I recently discovered there is some Maryland college sports team for whom the mascot is The Terrapin (not known for speed, perhaps, but persistence?). And about a year ago, I started seeing my own initials on cars all over Nashville. I swear, I saw it on no less than 6 different cars over the span of about 10 days! But all this is just to say that I'm currently consumed with presentations of incest in Asian art forms-- and how it differs from the way, say, an American writer would handle the topic. See also my post on Charlotte Sometimes and N.P. for some other thoughts on this, too.

Last night, I finally got to see the last (though 2nd, in terms of release date) of Chan-wook Park's Vengeance trilogy, Oldboy. There's pretty much no way I can discuss this without offering a few spoilers so-- beware! Stop reading if you want to be surprised during your own viewing. Key to the plot of this movie are two affairs-- one between a brother and sister (the brother kills the sister because he thinks he got her pregnant, though, after her death, he discovers it was a hysterical pregnancy-- and thus blames the guy who put the idea in her head that she was pregnant by spreading rumors about her. And the other is between father and daughter-- roughly 20 years later, the brother from the above scenario has plotted out a very elaborate plot which entails imprisoning the rumor-spreader for 15 years and then hypnotizing him so that he falls in love with his own daughter. Interestingly, when the whole reasoning behind the scheme is revealed, the rumor-spreader/father is devastated and he cuts out his own tongue. This is, obviously, significant because his tongue is his mode of sin, both literally and metaphorically. In some flashback scenes, we learn that there was some cunnilungual action between he and the not-pregnant sister-- and, of course, there's the issue of him running off at the mouth. So then, instead of getting lost and running away from the situation with his daughter, he has himself hypnotized again so that he'll forget that he is his lover's own father... and then he continues, tongue-less, deeper into this relationship.

I also just finished reading my third Haruki Murakami novel, Kafka on the Shore, because, despite its pop-fiction pulpy quality, and the fact that I can pretty much anticipate Murakami's bag of tricks, I'm still pretty enthralled with the way he is able to extract an emotional resonance out of what could be a distracting-in-its-kookiness style of plot development. And I love the fact that he tugs on a awful lot of threads and then, picks and chooses which ones are necessary to resolve. That way,I, the reader, still feel like I have some work to do. But anyway, Kafka on the Shore delves into some issues of incest as well, as Kafka, our hero, is running both away from an towards and oedipal prophecy that he'll kill his father and fuck his mom and sister. The prophecy does indeed play out-- in characteristically quirky Murakami fashion, it's mostly metaphoric-- but the interesting part is that the more Kafka embraces his desire for the mother-like character and sister-like character (they are, as they say, more "family of choice" as opposed to "family of origin"-- or perhaps his spiritual mother and sister?), the more "right" his actions become. I mean, in a story about prophecy, one presupposes that the idea of "destiny" is granted, but it's like Kafka himself gets happier or more comfortable or somehow more himself (i.e., "the toughest 15-year-old in the world") the more he explores his sexual desire for these women. And that desire is also a vehicle towards his maturation, I guess. Oh, and I feel like I should say that, stylistically, Murakami writes sex scenes better than most. They are frank and colloquial (or at least, the translater chooses words like "cock" and "blowjob" and "come" instead of anything more vomitously flowery) and so, they seem authentic without having a...um...pornographic? goal of turning a reader on. I am reminded, in comparison, of Barrico's Silk, in which one character rambles on and on, in graphic detail, using annoying euphemisms, in an attempt to arouse both another character in the book and the reader-- and, frankly, it just wound up being cheesy. Well, and that book has pretty much the same plot as that Pina Colada song (seriously! look up the lyrics).

Anyway, all this is just to say that I'm interested in the way that these Asian writers use the concept of incest quite a bit differently than most contemporary American writers would. I'm thinking here of Katherine Harrison's The Kiss, maybe, that controversial memoir(?) in which the writer discusses her affair with her father and her anger with her mother for letting it happen. Here, it's conceptualized, clearly, as abuse-- and results in much therapy for Harrison. And I'm wondering how much of our discomfort with incest-- and yeah, this is so fascinating to me because it seems such dangerous ground on which to tread-- is culturally concieved? I mean, in a culture in which some variety of primogeniture, formal or otherwise, is the rule, incest is a great way to prevent dispersion of familial assets, right? I'm thinking of Arthurian legends, of course-- in which the consumation of the Arthur/Morgan brother/sister relationship was, again, about fulfillment of destiny. But then, follow me here, I'm also thinking about how I've read that people are predisposed to not being able to be physically attracted to family members for pheremonal reasons. Apparently, if I encounter someone who comes from a very similar gene pool as myself--say, my brother-- it's going to be difficult for me to feel, ugh, sexually attracted because I'll think he smells yucky-- whereas someone more genetically divergent from myself is more likely to smell appealing-- thus we have a little biological insurance designed to prevent inbreeding. And I can vouch for the fact that I don't think any male family members smell too good. *shudder*

So, now, conclusions I can draw? I don't really know. Banana Yoshimoto's N.P. treats incest as pretty much no big deal, Murakami uses it as an in-road to an atypical, condensed, quasi-Bildungsroman, and Chan-wook Park conceptualizes it as traumatic, yes, but, well, not redemptive, exactly, but also as a comfort and escape for the main character, certainly. Somehow these pieces do not seem to invite the judgement of the outsider in the same way that some Western examples like Byatt's Angels and Insects or that Parker Posey movie, The House of Yes do. I mean, both of those stories are told from the point of view of a horrified person who is an interloper into the family dynamic. This perspective is obviously far more comfortable than one in which I am forced to feel sympathy for a character who crosses these boundaries. But, as usual, I'm far more excited about the prospect of watching the machinations of transgressors, instead ofoutside judgers. However, I feel like I want to vehemently disclaim any notion that I'm trying to culturally categorize my observations when I think the stuff I'm mooning on and on about are specific to the idividual works. It's just that, as I rarely aspire to be anything other than rapt audience, I enjoy being pushed out of my comfort zone-- and I seem to have incest in Asian countries on the brain right now. Hence, the musing. Okay, how weird is it that I have been thinking this much about this topic?

I think this is as good a place to end as any.