Tamar: Conclusion

Well, kids, I confess I tried to cheat. And got busted for it. I'm a loser, I know.

So, Tamar, that lovely epic poem of Robinson Jeffers. She's the one who fucked her brother, got pregnant, then fucked another guy so maybe she could pass the child off as the other guy's. Instead, though, she takes her aunt, who channels the dead, and her other aunt, who's retarded, down to the seashore, after (and this is important) setting the house on fire. There, aunt #1 (Stella) channels the voice of Tamar's dead aunt (on her father's side), whose name is Helen. Turns out, Daddy had been fucking both his wife (Tamar's mother) and his own sister (dead Helen).

Somehow, a bunch of Indian spirits come up on Tamar and rape her, right there on the beach. Dead Helen gets pissed off because ol' Tamar's gettin' lippy, so she causes T to abort the fetus right out there on the beach. There's a weirdly gratuitous seaweed dressing scene, but we won't go into that.

So, when Tamar wakes up, Dad has found out what's been going on between her and her brother, and of course isn't very pleased. The brother keeps trying to go off to war (WWI), but keeps coming back and arguing with Tamar, who's by this time completely lost it. Obviously, the house didn't burn down, but no one knows who set fire to it, so she implicates the other guy she fucked, the hapless puppy who's been appearing only to emphasize how stupid and blind people can be when they're in love. Ahem.

Odd interlude (yes, another one), where Stella urges Jinny (the retard) to look through the walls and see what's going on in the next room. Turns out, Dead Helen had also been diddling Jinny! Man, it just keeps gettin' weirder.

Climax of the poem, Brother whips Tamar with his riding crop as he's attempting to leave the house for good. Tamar's b/f shows up, they get into a fight, Brother stabs B/F.

In the other room, Jinny gets left alone with a lantern. She starts dicking around with it, falls in love (literally) with the fire, and coaxes it out of the lantern, thus burninge herself up and setting the whole house on fire.

The end of the poem, of course, is Brother attempting to leave the house, but Tamar holding him close, whereupon everyone (dad, dead b/f, Helen, Stella, Jinny, Tamar and Brother) go up like The Man on Saturday night. End of story.

Jesus. And I've still got several hundred other pages to go. Once again, I find that I don't have the patience for the short stuff, but I think I'm back into another of his "epics." There's already talk of whiskey and gambling, and losing one's wife for three days as a result.

Indecency! Decadence! Loose morals! Yes, this is California...