Before Sunset

Before Sunset offered a vastly different perspective on Jesse and Celine’s relationship. Jesse is clearly the more romantic character – he was the only to return to Vienna six months after their first meeting. Although Celine comes prepared with an inarguable excuse, she seems to find some humor and entertainment in the situation. Initially, she wasn’t able to remember certain aspects of their meeting very clearly, although she later claims to remember perfectly. Jesse, on the other hand, wrote a book to both celebrate and lament their relationship in the hopes of inciting another run-in with Celine. Additionally, throughout the course of the day, Celine seems to be somewhat disinterested in Jesse’s advances – All her speak of love and relationships is tainted with cynicism. He is still hopeful and clinging to his image of desire, whereas Celine seems to have given up hope.

Perhaps Jesse finds his other relationships to be unfulfilling because he is still holding on to the unshattered, idealized image of Celine. His unrealized desires run a constant loop of doubt in his mind, leaving him with an unsettling feeling about his various significant others. Celine experiences a similar phenomenon, but it seems to be less pronounced. I’m inclined to believe that Celine has learned a thing or two about desire since their first meeting. She explains to Jesse that she prefers to be with men who are away on business or otherwise traveling the majority of the time. Although this preference may not be a conscious one, it makes sense. These relationships would be easier for her to maintain because the ideal image of her significant other is more difficult to shatter. She largely constructs this image by herself while her lover is away and not around enough to shatter it.

In my opinion, Before Sunset fell flat in comparison to Before Sunrise. During their initial meet, they were complete and total strangers, but by the time they reconvened nine years later, they had formed countless preconceived notions about one another. There is something more raw and honest about an intimate conversation with a complete stranger. You’re not being careful to tiptoe around certain subjects and there is no need to feel embarrassed if you’ll never see that person again. Once a relationship has been established, it’s natural and, to some extent, uncontrollable to censor the information shared. For example, Celine and Jesse were hesitant to talk about their respective significant others. There were a few brief occasions that they did broach the subject, but they emphasized the insignificance of these relationships. If the two had never met before, this likely would not be the case. The content of the conversation is fundamentally different. 

Steve Almond: No Introduction Needed

I am a technical person – I do my level best to base my arguments on logic over emotion. However, if Steve Almond were trying to argue me into falling in love with his character’s beloved, he would not have a hard time. It’s one thing to observe the consequences of desire in literature, it’s another thing completely to feel the character’s whirlwind of emotions that make the consequences irrelevant. I think this is what I found to be most remarkable about Almond’s readings – he’s able to show the yin and the yang of love. Where many authors seem to get caught in either romanticizing or being bitter about love, he was able to let the character’s emotions in the moment shape the tone. 

Steve Almond did the most beautiful job of showing the delicacy and the value of love and desire despite their inevitable downfalls. He was able to describe the situation from the perspective of the person in love in a real and relatable way, which is a difficult feat. While we were reading The Bad Girl, the general consensus of the class seemed to be that Ricardo was being outrageously pathetic for his lover. I didn’t feel Ricardo’s burning need for the Bad Girl’s acceptance – it seemed like the reader had to delve deeper into the text to feel any character empathy. Similarly, Madame Bovary was overwhelmingly disliked for her flightiness and poor decisions. Although I found her relatable in some ways, I had a hard time mustering up empathy for her situation because I didn’t feel as though I had a raw understanding of her emotions. If Ricardo and Emma were Almond’s characters, I don’t think I would have doubted their intelligence or motives in the least.

I am nothing even reminiscent of a creative writer – the characters in my writing are typically Greek letters and symbols that appear in equations. However, I still found a lot of value in what Almond had to say about exposing his characters emotionally through sex and desire. When in love, I believe people are most vulnerable. Realizing a desire, or acting on that desire opens a certain window of vulnerability because to our desires define what we lack. In Skull, for example, Sharon’s desire for Jake to be turned on by her false eye reflects the lack of acceptance she’s felt in the past.  Steve Almond’s ability to convey that message so clearly is incredible; if anyone else had tried to summarize Skull, my overall reaction would most likely have been skepticism and doubt. He tackled something of a mountain in this piece. Almond makes such a strong emotional argument about the intimacy of skullfucking (I genuinely could not think of a less vulgar term to use here) that you can’t even question it. It doesn’t seem strange or taboo, and I can honestly say that there are very few things that can alter perception that thoroughly.

On a casual sidenote, I went into the lecture with no preconceived notions about Steve Almond, but left absolutely enchanted. I very much enjoyed his readings and I feel as though I took a lot away from that lecture. I surprise myself in saying this, but he actually made me wish I were a writer. This may not sound noteworthy, but I can’t remember ever wishing to be anything other than a mathematician. Although I still don’t anticipate any career changes in my future, Almond certainly made me see and appreciate the art of writing in a vastly different way.

Sexuality and the Police State in Férid Boughedir’s Halfaouine

Sexuality and the Police State in Férid Boughedir’s Halfaouine

Robert Lang

Noura is a boy stuck in the stage between childhood and adolescence while simultaneously making the complicated transition from being ‘one of the kids’ to ‘one of the men’. In one scene, two older boys are talking to a girl, and the boys will not let Noura join because, “this isn’t kid stuff.” Shortly thereafter, several younger boys splashing each other by the water fountain and ask Noura to join and his response is, “I’m not a kid anymore.”  Although Noura wishes to assimilate into male society, he finds that the men are less accepting of childish characteristics than are the women.

At the beginning of the movie, he does not know how to express his desire, or even what to make if it in the first place. Towards the beginning of the film, he frequently observes women respectfully and from a distance.  In this way, he is flirting with desire without falling under its full effects.

The women in the film act as a shield and shelter for Noura to the harsher aspects of adult male society. It is his mother who protects him from his father’s violence and cares for him, both in the physical and emotional senses. However, Noura’s budding desire for the opposite sex is driving a wedge between himself and his shelter. These women have raised and nutrtured him, but his budding sexuality faces him with the conflict of assimilating into male culture. It seems as though the women perceive desire, sexuality, and love as a private matter – a taboo, of sorts. The men that Noura interacts with, however, are very open when discussing these matters. Due to this dichotomy, he finds himself incapable of expressing his own desire in the female sphere – it is only among the men that he is able to talk of desire. Although the male society is less tolerant of childhood nuances, it offers a well-established norm for the expression of desire.

I found Professor Lang’s quote about finding the soul and beauty in the Tunisian culture as a means to overlook the oppression to be very applicable. The police prove to be a hostile force of opposition throughout the film, but his enchantment with the new experience of desire keeps these worries from Noura’s mind. Last semester, we saw this them appear in several of the pieces we focused on, most notably in the Object of Desire. We have seen lovers overlook terrorism, oppression, and death to enslave themselves to desire and bask in the rapture that is their beloved.