Big Fish, Ulysses and A Random Quote

When Dr. Sexson held up Big Fish on Monday I instantly thought of the adventures of Edward Bloom in the novel and Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. They are both tales of journeys and coincidentally the protagonists have the same last name!?

I also thought about the structure of Big Fish, the novel not the movie. I love the movie, but I feel that Tim Burton missed one crucial element of Wallace’s novel. Throughout the tales that Bloom tells his son, each chapter is alternated with the same scene told slightly different ways. If I remember correctly the scene is when Bloom’s son is talking about his father, and how his father spoke of his own life and how he begins to tell it and then the reader is lead into another story.

Wallace uses the myth of the eternal return to write a tale about storytelling and the connection between father and son. Burton’s movie perfectly tells the stories but misses the theme of eternal recurrence at times. Try to read it if you have only seen the movie it is a completely different feeling and experience.

The random quote I though of as well is from Goethe. He writes, “Life is the childhood of our immortality.” I have seen that quote since I was little hanging on a small plaque in my Mother’s home, she loves Goethe, and thought it went rather well with this class. The idea that life is only the beginning and there is so much more to come.