I had often wondered about how anyone could say to someone else "now she is the mother, you are not the mother" as if legal papers is where parenthood is at, much less specifically motherhood.
A father's role is far more about providing of needs of the child post birth, while taking care of the mother during and after the birth is imporatant too - but it all can be done by someone who was not present at conception at any point, and so one could with meaning say, "he is far more a father of the child than the genetic donator of the dna", in many situations.
But a long journey of conception to birth with risks to organs, work, and one's very life, cannot ever be held without meaning; and even if the mother who gave birth hated the whole procedure and the fetus with a rage and a venom, nevertheless her bond cannot be negated, even if it is poison to the child that is unwanted with a vengeance wich most children including those of rape are not - every child is after all a part of her for better part of a year, feeding on her body, carried under her heart, with their experiences and emotions and thoughts intertwined (never mind what you think about ability of the woman and fetus to think or feel).
The only parity is between the genetic and the birth mother, if they happen to be separate, as is now possible with ivf procedures; and a third person, woman or man or even one of third - that is, no - gender, taking care of the child post birth, can equal the other - genetic and biological - mother, but not negate their importance, much less replace the dna or whatever else went into the growing of the embryo into the born child.
The often read or heard (tv, films) sentence "you are not the mother now, she is" has led me to suspect that it was indeed about the rights and legalities involved, and parenthood was seen as a right while the child was not an adult - notice the absence of such rights when the grandparents are denied rights to the grandchild, by the generation in the middle; as if becoming parents has automatically cancelled the rights of the parents of those that now became parents.
What is this concept of rights, of legality and ownership? People who are so very gung ho about copies, piracies, copyrights, how do they negate rights of parents, reality of so basic a kind? Is it all about who has money, who pays - albeit no one pays for the baby officially, still, the underlying logic being, the adoptive parents paid the expenses and moreover have the paper signed and authorised? Thus too the hurry to copyright and patent someone else's heritage across the world so the original ones can now be denied while the copiers profit?
At one time I had had a conversation with someone about a director held to be great, whose most popular work is adapted from a great writer's story and distorts the original considerably, so as to change the whole portrayal of a delicate story into one that can only be described as bordering on stink. The person I was then conversing with was one of the many fans of this director, which really is a fan following based on world wide recognition and a lack of concern for half the world or a perception broader than mind, and I had simply said, you have not read the original. Since the original writer is held greater in esteem by same logic by most for same reasons without even reading him, although many indeed do read and follow and sing his works - he wrote prose, poetry, set his own songs to music and brought a revolutionary university into being - this was unanswerable. Fortunately so, too.
This following conversation happened more recently and brought out a bit more of what is involved in people's thinking about all this, and it tells a tale of attitudes about various issues involved, about copyrights and righteous indignation of some people, nations, cultures against copies and adaptations, while they accept any distortion whatsoever of the original just so long as money has been paid and a contract signed by the original creator if he or she is not dead and copyrights not lapsed.
It explains, too, the theft of Basmati and turmeric medical properties and other ancient knowledge some attempted to copyright so the original populations could stand to lose the heritage of millennia.
.............................
.............................
Dr. J. G.
.. Glass Palace is a good one especially with the historical and geographical details, very evocative. I like to read things that give one information about such things - different places, culture, how people think and live, and often it is more informative to read it in story forms where main characters are supposed to be fictional. Even in such supposedly trivial read as Perry Mason or PG Wodehouse or Agatha Christie, one gets something of this nature (California law or England). When it is merely titillating it is not all that worth - and in this one (The Glass Palace) I found the titillating bits irritating, they were out of tune, a bit like ugly patchwork, as if some editor at publishing or something made the writer do it for sake of selling, or he once in a while felt he had to muck about - but such bits are about one percent or less, and mostly it is very worth reading.
................................
Bill C
I love the works of W. Somerset Maugham. I have not read his early plays but his novels Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, The Letter, Rain and his last work, The Razor's Edge, were wonderfully written and insightful.
I even thought the movies of each one of these books was also excellent with Bette Davis and Leslie Howard in Of Human Bondage; Joan Crawford and Walter Huston in Rain; Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney in The Razor's Edge; Bette Davis and Herbert Marshall in The Letter and The Moon and Sixpence with George Sanders.
.............................
Dr. J. G.
I did not know Razor's Edge was his last work, but it does make sense. I thought the films were not as good as the books, especially the Razor's Edge, since they changed the stories a lot - just as they did with The River by Rumer Godden, too. But perhaps there is more than one version. I am unsure of which one I saw, the latter (River) had someone like Harrison Ford or Mel Gibson and the setting was changed to a middle of US mill town with workers homes rather opposite from the original.
Many films do change a lot of details, often enough to lose the main point or make the original story unrecognisable. That includes some of the most renowned directors too.
I rather liked plays of Maugham, the one memorable I can think of is Constant Wife - begins similar to Women by Claire Booth Luce, but goes on to be very different. Luce's work was safer and sadder, more acceptable to conservatives. Maugham had no fear of being different - radicals and eccentrics were not merely allowed but prized and much feted in Britain, so the success of Shaw as well to the level of being a great celebrity.
I have often wondered if others notice the differences between the two versions of the film Man Who Knew Too Much by Hitchcock and see the differences of the two societies he lived in when he made them, the two versions are so very different in various details.
I think I have read almost everything by Maugham, but cannot be sure of course, didn't buy a complete works, - don't remember Letter but think I read it. Problem is when I think of that title what comes to mind is the story by Stephan Zweig!
...................................
Bill C
I agree that the movies of Maugham's work do not replicate the books but I thought the movies were well done simply as movies, not as recitals of the books. I think Braveheart is a good movie but there is hardly a lick of truth in it beyond the basic generalities.
...................................
Dr. J. G.
Yes, I see - but sometimes a great work of literature is far too alive to be remoulded, and while you might not feel that way about these you might about others. There are probably other films that deviate from the original work that I might not disapprove of as much either. I do find that the Razor's Edge loses a great deal in cutting corners and staying short of lofty peaks. So does River, and some others.
Sometime though the film might rise higher and I thought Grapes of Wrath did that.
I am not sure you have thought over logical implications of replacing "authenticity" with "mere recitals" though. This line of reasoning might lead to disparaging of original creators be they writers or musicians or poets or whatever, with a free for all piracy and distortions and an attitude of "it was paid for wasn't it" which really downgrades any original or creative work.
My take on this - a copy or an adaptation is fine and an honest admission of the due to the original is to be appreciated, but a payment however high does not entitle the buyer to change the original much less distort it out of all its meaning any more than an adoption entitles the adoptive parents to change the blood, the dna of the adopted to their own. Keeping the original title is really unnecessary when so much is changed that the work is no longer the same but is a copy.
There are perhaps hundreds of love stories across the world with feuding clans, yet it would be chaos if everyone called theirs Romeo And Juliet, there would be some complaints from the original heritage proud connoisseurs, righteously and with outrage. Another example, it was better for the Kon - Tiki voyager to name his travel story Kon-Tiki rather than Odyssey, even though the voyage across Pacific with the sort of boat he used was of no less importance for the understanding of world history, anthropology, social sciences, navigational sciences, and so on.
And the differences in the two versions of the Hitchcock films made with a gap of time and geography tell their tale of the societies he lived in.
................................
................................
That last is of course for anyone to see if only one can open eyes and not be blinkered against admission of reality. Both versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much are available for anyone to see, and I wonder if Hitchcock not only was concious of the very visible, very clear difference and the implications, but retained it starkly with a toungue in cheek for all to see with what it meant about his social milieu and the change therein from pre wwII UK to cold war US.
I wonder if it was only geography, at that, and time was of less importance in the difference brought about. Was time a factor at all, at that?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment