The Malice God

I have an older relative, a second cousin, who was diagnosed in the 1960s as paranoid schizophrenic, and during my most recent visit with him in NW Arkansas a couple of weeks ago, he told me about the malice god.  This has something to do with Jesus being sexually molested by the Romans.  (My cousin was sexually molested by a neighborhood kid when he was young.) What the connection is with God and the Devil, I don't know, but in my cousin's mind, the malice god has something to do with why he is mistreated and conspired against by other people--they are operating under the orders of the malice god.

The subject came up because we were talking about the recent amputation of my cousin's left foot, and the effort by those responsible for his medical care to prevent amputation of his right foot.  He has numerous health problems and adult diabetes is now added to the list.  He didn't seek treatment for the problems he was having with his left foot until it was too late, and now he blames the attempted treatment to save his foot for actually causing the foot to have to be amputated.  So he wanted a wound on his right foot to be left untreated.  It took an appearance in court before a judge to get the wound treated without his, my cousin's, consent.  When I visited him in the Senior Care section of Sparks Medical Center in Fort Smith, the wound was dressed and he was not in a bad mood, considering.  But he did in passing mention the malice god.

Which naturally lead me, later on, to think that the malice god is the one calling the shots--you might call them pot shots--taken at Professor Larry Gopnick in A Serious Man.  And you might call the enjoyment of the movie by people like me schadenfreude.  But you'd be missing the intended intellectual slapstick aspect of the movie if you did that.

The end of the movie leaves two questions hovering:  is there something really wrong with Larry's x-rays or has the doctor got them mixed up with someone else's (the doctor, not a technician, took the x-rays, which seems odd even for 1967), and will Danny and his fellow students make it into the basement of the synagogue (will the teacher find the right key) before the arrival of the tornado?

I watched Then She Found Me again, and added it to my list of favorite movies.  So much good dialogue is in there!  That includes this exchange between April (adopted) and her brother (not adopted), although don't quote me on the exact dialogue:

"Trust me, you have no idea what it's like to be adopted." 

"And you have no idea what it's like to not be adopted. Right?"

"So, what's it like?" 
 
(there's a brief pause before he answers)

"It was exhausting. It was embarassing, sometimes." 

Oh, yeh, and one more thing about A Serious Man, from the shtetl scene at the beginning.  The dybbuk?, upon entering the home of Dora and Velvel, after Velvel, standing at the door, tells him he's welcome there, says: "You're too kind, Velvel, too kind."  Apparently so!  And that might be seen to apply to Larry also.

"Listen, O Israel..."

"Listen, O Israel, the God of Love and the God of Fear are one."  I like Then She Found Me, the Helen Hunt movie that, like A Serious Man, involves things Jewish, and from which this quotation comes.  It has some very funny parts but is quite serious overall, unlike A Serious Man.  But it's not a movie I've listed as one of my favorites, although that could change.  I keep updating the list as I remember movies I've seen and also as I see new ones or re-see old ones.  I saw Grand Hotel last night, for the first time, and it's now one of my favorites.

I also edit previous posts, such as I did to the January 5th one when I found the Laura Cunningham story that I'd actually cut out of the July 17, 1989 issue of The New Yorker. 

And on the subject of fear and love, and this being MLK's birthday, I recommend reading about Dr. King's visit to the 1958 Central High School graduation ceremony, as discussed in the book My Father Said Yes: A White Pastor in Little Rock School Integration, by Dunbar H. Ogden (Vanderbuilt U. Press, 2008).  Google Books' online preview provides instant access to most of the story.  MLK probably would not have come to Arkansas just to go to that ceremony, but he had come to Pine Bluff, 50 miles southeast of Little Rock, to give the commencement speech that year at the historically black college then called Agricultural, Mechanical, & Normal college, and now called the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

More cussin'

Well, there I go again.  In my last post, how could I have forgotten Uncle Arthur's cussing like a sailor, sitting on the steps of the dried up Jolly Roger motel pool, while Larry is trying to minister to him--at first just trying to get him not to cuss?

When Larry requests that Arthur not use the word "shit" ("Arthur, don't use that word!") Arthur, who is having an emotional breakdown, then says "fucking shit," as in "It's all fucking shit!"  If you've ever been in a similar situation with a relative or friend, you may have felt like just fleeing, or hiding, or leaving him or her alone and trying to go back to bed. Or just starting to cuss right back at 'em.  I've felt that way, all those ways.  So I was quite emotionally moved by Larry hanging in there and talking to Arthur and finally putting his arms around him after he, Arthur, goes from profane shouting to crying ("Now, I can't even play cards.").

Two previous scenes related to this one come to mind.  First, when he is talking with the woman in leg braces at the lake about Arthur, Larry says "He never complains, unlike me."  Whoops. Beware of freeloaders who never complain? Second, Sy, in the three-way meeting at Embers restaurant (where the non-beautiful people apparently gather), in telling Larry of the advantages of the Jolly Roger, mentions that it has a pool.  There we have another example of how Sy's words don't match up too well with reality:  yes, the Jolly Roger has a pool, but, even though summer is beginning, there's no water in it and it appears not to have been used in a long time.

In Larry's "Canada" dream, Arthur apologizes for his poolside outburst of the previous night as he's paddling away in the canoe.  Larry says, "It's okay," a repetitive line of his in the movie.  Of course we don't know at the time that this scene is a dream.  After little Mitch Brandt does his high-powered rifle thing, Larry wakes up and Arthur is sitting on the side of his own bed with his back to Larry. Dazed and confused by the dream and lack of sleep, Larry asks, "Were we...out by the pool last night?"  Arthur nods without saying anything but, significantly, and matching up with the dream, then says "I'm sorry."

My introduction to Jewish uncles was a story called "Sleeping Arrangements" by Laura Cunningham, published in  The New Yorker on July 17, 1989. From an Internet search, I see that the writer's full name is Laura Shaine Cunningham, and that the story I thought was fiction is actually an excerpt from her 1989 memoir.  Having read that wonderful little story (the excerpt) certainly helps me to enjoy and relate to and better understand A Serious Man.