My namesake(s) resurfaced with the release of The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan and my arduous plough through Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald Chernow (1149 pages). Did my parents choose from one of these two heroic figures?
Nolan, the director of Memento and Oppenheimer, has produced a visually breathtaking IMAX epic of the two decade-long journey of Odysseus, marked by the fall of Troy (Trojan Horse), to return to Penelope in Ithaca beset by numerous nefarious suitors who presumed her husband to be dead. Challenged by the unending calamities in the man-eating Cyclops, Circe who transforms his men into pigs (very graphic), Sirens, sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis, and nymph Calypso who enraptured him for 7 years, he survives, slays the usurpers and reunites with his faithful. Of course, critics have judged it ‘banal’ without the gods (except Athena), sex, and appropriate casting. Interestingly, others point out that Nolan renders this a morality play in which violation of the sacrosanct Zeus’ law – sacred hospitality to strangers and foreigners – leads to the downfall of civilization … with contemporary relevance. I think the nearly 3-hour film is definitely worth a widescreen if not IMAX view. [*on poster]
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was the Brigadier (1*) General of the Western Army, the General (4*) of the Union Army, never losing a battle, and the 18th two-term President of the U.S. On a trivial note, the initial-only S., due to a clerical error at West Point, lead to nicknames ‘Uncle Sam’ (at West Point) and Unconditional Surrender (during Civil War). Chernow has compiled another exhaustive (and exhausting) tour de force (recently read Mark Twain) that quite frankly reframes Grant’s entire career and character which had been variously distilled to a ignoramus, drunkard, butcher, philistine, undeserved battle victories, and guileless, naïve and as a consequence corrupt. Upon deep reexamination Grant was an astute military strategist who could quickly envision the entire battlefield (and overall war strategy) in 3D and swiftly alter tactics in real-time. Despite the military advantages, three Eastern Generals before him could not vanquish the pesky Robert E. Lee. Grant singlehandedly crafted the conciliatory surrender at Appomattox that permitted confederates to return home with a horse and pistol without facing treason and thus paved the way for the re-unification. Grant’s humility was notable. His height and unprepossessing appearance led other generals to mistake his patrician-appearing physician to be him – but he never took offense. On the eve of his inauguration, he slipped into Washington by train, rode a public coach to the White House completely undetected and to his relief no reporters. He was completely respectful and faithful to his wife Julia despite many years apart and a hands-on doting father. Grant constantly lamented the loss of life and never gloated in victory, visiting the injured after battle. In the military and political realms, he was the first to sanction an African American (freed slaves) troop under his command, to advocate not only for freedom from slavery (with Lincoln), but also birthright citizenship and the right to vote (Amendments 13, 14 and 15) especially the latter, unlike many Northern abolitionists. He actively supported Reconstruction (education of blacks) and initially quelled the domestic terrorists in the KKK. He appointed the first black African American ambassadors, 5,000 postmistresses, the first Native American as head of Indian Affairs and invited African Americans, including Frederick Douglass, to the White House, to the chagrin of many colleagues. He began national park system, advocated for civil service and for public education for all! He never took a bribe himself, but his Achilles heel was to trust to a fault that colleagues and patronages were cut from the same ethical cloth as he, resulting in valid charges of corruption. At the outset of the Civil War at age 39, he was by any account an abject failure. He had been discharged from the Army for drunkenness, failed in business and farming falling deep into debt, finally reduced to a store clerk under his younger brothers. And then in the most improbable transformation, the war provided opportunity and elicited the best of his abilities, and within four years he rose to the top General, never losing a battle. Unimaginable, but I can relate to his essential character traits, core ethics and humanity.
Ulysses Macauley is a fictional 4 year-old growing during 1940’s in William Saroyan’s The Human Comedy a coming-of-age story set during 1940’s wartime. He represents observant innocence full of curiosity and wonder. “He smiled the smile of the Macauley people – the gentle, wise, secret smile that said ‘Hello’ to all things.” My father, a graduate student in English had given me this inscribed pocketbook. After my mother passed, we decluttered and donated this book to a local secondhand book shop. Imagine my gentle surprise, when it reemerged as a recycled Christmas present to me, confirmed by the original inscription. My father treasured this book, frequented bookstores (definitely), and retethered me to this tome.
So … what's in a name and which namesake ‘Ulysses’ is most like me? Did I ‘inherit’ my peripatetic nature from the Greek’s interminable sojourn, or my passion from his fearsome intensity? Did my parents ever consider, even perversely, me straddling the Mason-Dixon Line by juxtaposing Ulysses and Lee? Indeed, as just discovered, I am completely sympatico with the General’s genuinely understated self, his bedrock ethics and moral character, and deference (including federal protection) for diversity. And, like our fictional preschooler, I was exuberant and curious youngster, more desirous of being outside than in, and at times wish I could recapture a modicum of that wondrous self. So which one was I named after? The one behind … door #3. No, I don’t respond to Ulysses (knowing the speaker knows naught of me) or Hey U., and so U. mains a remnant to honor my parents’ intent. And so I remain a firmly entrenched, unencumbered B with no trailing i or period … simply A B ... C?
*the Ulysses in the foreground is actually a 4’ 6” Canadian woman stuntwoman – now that’s a role reversal!
