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.About Stephens and his daughter, Banksnotes,  that relationship between a male parent and a child especially a maleparent who is both threatening and supportive and nurturing that combina-tion is really a powerful one, a dramatic one, I think. 22 By the end of the book,Stephens disappears like a demon banished to the concrete jungle.The bravuraperformance of actor Ian Holm in the film ably captures that eloquent Faustianquality of Stephens.As a viewer, one wanted to put the eloquent djinn, brimmingwith rage, back into a bottle whenever he appeared infallible, soaring, andunstoppable.As is his habit, Banks somewhat modifies the metatext he employs in thiscase the incest occurs between father and daughter, not mother and son.Egoyan remains scrupulously faithful to Banks s novel in this most importantmatter as he piles on his medieval, Romantic, and Victorian overlays.WhenSamand Nichole first appear in the filmin a shockingly effective scene, theviewer presumes that they are lovers in the barn romantically lit with candlesthat are dangerously supported by flammable bales of hay.It s an incendiaryimage.In an amusing and muted cameo, Egoyan symbolically casts Banks asthe novel s Doctor Robeson, the surname being a tribute to the great singer,actor, and social activist Paul Robeson the creative artist as social diagnosti-cian and healer of local tragedy.While Egoyan created a different kind of work of art out of the novel bywisely eliminating religious and philosophical considerations, he kept very closeto the plot and physical setting of the novel; he replicated the tragic plot.Nicole,as the victim, grasps at a new solution that will mitigate the narrative of her vic-timization, at least in terms of self-respect.Her solution provides an element of110 Russell Banks: In Search of Freedomrevenge and rejection toward her father which may perhaps eventually findopaque sublimation in her future songwriting.While it s not in the novel, thefilm, through mere visual innuendo, allows Nichole to transfer her romanticlongings from her father to another older man, Billy, which makes perfectpsychological sense and illustrates a process of healing in her psyche.Althoughthe film deletes the delicious demolition derby that concludes the novel, it keepsa carnival ending, visually emphasizing the circularity of a Ferris wheel and thehope of happiness that a carnival invokes as it displays a smiling Nichole, yet thatvery image of circularity imply an eternal repetition in the carnival of abuse.Banks s novel exposes the gossipy limitations of small town life, while it affirmsthe joys of knowing local characters in an intimate manner as it provides aparable about a town s exile from its once happy past, since the people andtown change irrevocably after the accident.As a parable of the fall set in America, The Sweet Hereafter ranks in achieve-ment alongside Zora Neale Hurston s 1926 dialect story  Sweat. 23 WhileHurston s serpent becomes symbolic of male infidelity, brutality, andthe exploitation of women under a double standard, Bank s serpent exposes acrime just as old and even more horrible.Hurston s parable presents an ironictragedy dyed in crass sexism, while Banks provides an anguished tragicomedy,ending with the hope that women can transcend the seductive limitations menruthlessly impose in the name of love.Both novel and film provide remarkable works of art in different mediums.The novel contains more depth, humor, and wry nuance than the film, but thefilm retains an unusual authenticity to the novel that remains both commend-able as well as independent.It supplements the novel with stunning poetic vis-uals and subtle implications through camera work and remarkably effectivemontage.Steven Dillon aptly describes the film as a  film/poem that worksthrough montage rather than plot.24 Both novel and film continue to be worthyof multiple contemplations that invoke thoughtful and complementary com-parisons on the nature of accident and tragedy in life.10Rambling Picaresque:Rule of the BoneThen I sat down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful,but it warn t no use.I felt so lonesome I almost wished I was dead.Then awayout in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes.I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnWhile Rule of the Bone (1995) appropriates various themes and motifs fromJames Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, F.ScottFitzgerald, and J.D.Salinger, its story retains great originality and its narrator svoice projects a vibrantly nuanced, vividly contemporary idiom, as it artfullyprovides a weedy blend of slang and adolescent argot under an ironic tropicalumbrella.The arc of its plot and the depiction of the young narrator s mentalstates, vacillating between bluffing boast and pitiful insecurity, cast a near-seamless spell on the action.The voice and difficulties of the narrator becomemore memorable than those of neurotic, nerdy Holden Caulfield and as com-pelling as the younger, adventurous Huck Finn.This coming-of-age extendedmonologue bridges Banks s background in New England with his Caribbeanvisitations and themes.Its focus fixates on Banks s obsessive theme of an irre-sponsible father and the quest for a substitute father so common among alien-ated adolescents, with tragic consequences, but the narrator s voice eventuallyprojects the tone of a wise survivor like Melville s character Wellington Redburnfrom the novel of that name.Rule of the Bone, a first-person narrative in a realistic vein that dabbles withimprobable coincidences, opens with 13-year-old Chappie (his actual name isChapman, the diminutive of the first English translator of Banks s favoriteauthor, Homer) Dorset immersed in a fog of marijuana and sardonic adolescentattitude.As with Twain and Salinger, there s an intimacy to the narrative aswell as fragility by the end of the chapter Chappie exhibits a traumatic psycho-logical meltdown and we witness him nearly kill his beloved cat Willie with agun.The safety catch is on, and when he unlocks it, he falls into a trance, pumping112 Russell Banks: In Search of Freedomrounds into his stepfather s and mother s bed, an action heavy with symbolicanger [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]