{"id":1636,"date":"2021-03-03T23:46:35","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T04:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=1636"},"modified":"2021-03-11T13:46:40","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T18:46:40","slug":"1636","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2021\/03\/03\/1636\/","title":{"rendered":"A Pearl in a Mussel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2018Among their [the Ya<\/span>mana] variations of the verb
\n\u201cto bite\u201d was a word that meant \u201cto come surprisingly on a hard substance
\nwhen eating something soft
\ne.g. a pearl in a mussel.\u201d\u2019\u201d (Carson 80).<\/span><\/p>\n

As Geryon gets older, he slowly begins to accept that he likely will not see Herakles again. In other words, he is \u201ceating something soft;\u201d though he doesn\u2019t know it, he will soon come upon something hard. His life is not necessarily mundane, but it seems to be going as he expects it to. However, the reappearance of Herakles serves as the moment that Geryon \u201ccome[s] surprisingly upon a hard substance\u201d in the midst of his eating something soft. Herakles throws a wrench in Geryon\u2019s plans and brings him to Peru. The moment on page 107, where Herakles and Geryon reunite in the middle of a bookstore in Buenos Aires, serves as a moment that Geryon begins to reevaluate his life. This reevaluation, however, actually comes in the seconds before Herakles appears, where Geryon thinks, \u201cKissing makes them happy…and a sense of fruitlessness pierced him\u201d (Carson 107). Geryon feels like everything he is doing is pointless; perhaps, indeed, it is a mundane life, eating something soft and only getting what he expects. Herakles, then, could potentially be a welcome change to Geryon\u2019s everyday sameness, but if this were the case, then why does Geryon (and even Ancash) seem so utterly exhausted of Herakles\u2019 buoyant personality and neverending presence? On the streets of Buenos Aires, the reader sees \u201cHerakles jumping ahead like a dog \/ smelling everything and pointing at objects in the shops. Ancash and Geryon \/ came behind\u201d (Carson 113). In Peru, \u201cA silence tossed itself across the tall gold heads of the fennel stalks between them [Ancash and Geryon]. \/ Into this silence burst Herakles\u201d (Carson 144). Herakles consistently jumps into and out of scenes; his personality bubbles up over the top of any container Geryon or Ancash try to hold him in, and he acts childish in almost every way possible. These circumstances lead me to believe that Geryon now merely tolerates adult Herakles, who still acts immature in every way except sexually. Therefore, it is not difficult to believe that if Herakles is the \u201chard substance\u201d that Geryon comes upon surprisingly, Herakles is not entirely welcome, but simply accepted and moved past.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2018Among their [the Yamana] variations of the verb \u201cto bite\u201d was a word that meant \u201cto come surprisingly on a hard substance when eating something soft e.g. a pearl in a mussel.\u201d\u2019\u201d (Carson 80). As Geryon gets older, he slowly begins to accept that he likely will not see Herakles again. In other words, he … Continue reading A Pearl in a Mussel<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}