Thursday, October 08, 2009

As Opposed to a Wrestler

I'm pretty sure that the toilet paper in the bathrooms on my school's campus is made out of shards of glass. I kid you not, that shit is like sandpaper, and I'm reasonably certain that my labia is half an inch shorter now than it was in July.

My Brit Lit class is studying book I of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene at the moment, and there's this chick named Una who rides behind the knight named Red Crosse on a "lowly ass". She's got this lamb on a leash and she's kind of dragging it along with her (apparently NOT for dinner, which was my guess), and the whole ridiculous band of travelling beatitudes is rounded out with a dwarf who walks behind Una's ass. Her donkey, not her ass. But I guess also her ass if he's behind her, since we're getting technical here.

So there are all these one-to-one parallels between Una and Christ: she's riding a donkey, Christ rode a donkey. She's leading a lamb, Christ is a "shepherd of men". Her name (more or less) implies "truth" or "singularity". Christ was "the way, the truth, and the light," or something like that. Forgive my botched Biblical references, I've spent the last 10 years trying to scrub that shit out of my brain folds.

But then there's this dwarf.

What the fuck is the dwarf doing there? If the lamb wasn't dinner, I hope to god that poor misshapen dude wasn't scheduled for braising, although that might have made the story a little more appetizing...(see what I did there? appetizing? god I'm good) Was he busting into Mini-Me sketches every 20 miles to keep up morale? Was Redcrosse into some kinky shit when the sun went down?

That poor, shrunken man seems to be some kind of hand servant to Una, and scholars conjecture perhaps he represents Una's bodily needs - the pooping, the eating, the sleeping - all of those things that aren't spiritual, but are necessary when one is trapped inside a human body. I'm not sure who decided that the dwarf represents the shittiest things about humanity, but whatever. This was the 16th century and nobody ever accused those pigs of being politically correct.

Spenser describes the dwarf as lazy because he's always pulling up the rear, and I'm thinking to myself, "Ok, so Redcrosse is on a horse, Una's on a donkey, and the dwarf is using his tiny little stumps of legs, endlessly running to keep up with them. He's hustling as fast as he can go, all over the fucking kingdom, chasing this crackpot knight who appears to be accomplishing nothing other than LOOKING FOR TROUBLE, nobody listens to his advice, nobody asks his opinion, for for the love of god why can't he just ride the damned sheep already?!

And he's the lazy one. Um, sure that makes perfect medieval sense.

Anyhow, the class was debating the dwarf's possible symbolic meaning when one guy piped up and said, "Sometimes a dwarf is just a dwarf."

I'm pretty sure I heard the angels in heaven at that moment because truer words have never been spoken, and now I have a new personal mission statement because DAMMIT! Sometimes a dwarf IS JUST A FUCKING DWARF.

16 comments:

  1. Don't ask me... I never could do those literary interpretation things. It was like I read an entirely different book than everyone else. So my vote is that the dwarf is just a dwarf. And Una's ass is just her ass.

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  2. i love how at one time or another some scholar was like

    "well obviously dwarf=poop" hahaha

    i'm with the "sometimes it's just a dwarf" guy. i think someone was just trying to add some flavor to their story

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  3. sounds like David Lynch wrote this instead of the other person. you know, since he has a dwarf obsession and all.

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  4. 'I kid you not, that shit is like sandpaper, and I'm reasonably certain that my labia is half an inch shorter now than it was in July.'

    - best thing I have read today!! Thanks :)

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  5. When i took British Lit, my professor was a total perve and found behind every line in every piece a small (or large) bit of porn. Our mid-term paper was on the Fairy Queen and I made every penile and fuck reference I could and got an A. Totally whored myself out.

    And yeah. sometimes a dwarf is just a dwarf.

    I'm not sure how I found your blog, but I do like it here.

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  6. *giggles* sorry, I can't stop laughing at this post... but the guy in your class nailed it in the head. Sometimes a dwarf is just a dwarf and means nothing. Lit classes can really drive one crazy!!!

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  7. I kind of feel smarter now.

    Thank you.

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  8. LOL. I can totall relate to this. I was an English major and clearly remember wanting to jump on my desk and scream when things got a little too "philisophical" with the tweedy types with their fake accents and chipped mugs of tea. Yeah - tea. In chipped mugs. They behaved as though each little line in each little poem had such deep meaning that it sent them blissfully tumbling into the cosmos where they could hear the music of the spheres and all. There were a lot of sighs, studious looks of concentration and facination, and chin tapping. I should have let it go. I should have said something. Because you're right - sometimes a dward is just a fucking dwarf.

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  9. Ignore all my typos. I'm a casted gimp right now and type with one hand. :)

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  10. I'm just waiting for the day I can use that.

    The dwarf thing, not the sandpaper on my labia.

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  11. On our modern-day road trips we carry personal DVD players, video games and iPods. Back in the day, they had no such means of entertainment so, they'd pack a dwarf or two...and maybe a monkey.

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  12. I think maybe dwarfs are tasty. Like lamb.

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  13. I love this. I need a tattoo.

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  14. that is how I feel about assholes. (that would be used the adjective not the noun)

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  15. Exactly, why can't something just be a STORY? I mean, everybody knows dwarves make for good storytelling. Apparently they even knew it in the dark ages.

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You.Yeah, you. Speak the fuck up.