LITERAL TRANSLATIONS (OR, WHAT WE THINK WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE)
Certainly the first monologue Reid delivers–a somewhat too long section from Eudora Welty’s retelling of the Circe episode in Homer’s Odyssey–is as much about power, self-esteem, and manipulation as about love. In the tale Circe falls in love with Ulysses only after she discovers he’s immune to the potion that turns his crew into swine. And having given her heart to Ulysses, she learns that often as not married men return to their wives.
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Reid’s version wittily hints that Mary’s attraction to Jesus may have been more than spiritual–“I deserve a messiah as much as the next woman”–but this tale lacks the fire and pathos of her autobiography. How could anything Luke wrote about Jesus be as compelling as a woman admitting in a quavering voice that for a time she thought, “My love wasn’t a gift worth having.”
