Carmen by Walter Dean Myers

Continuing the backfilling of my Walter Dean Myers knowledge, I picked up Carmen last week because it was the only WDM book left on the shelf (had I been a bit more diligent in my search I might have noticed the entire display full of WDM books not ten feet from me, but such is life).  Some unfortunate Cassandra at the library warned me I wouldn't like it, but I plowed ahead anyway because I have a soft spot for that particular story.

Which is weird, because I hate opera.  On a scale of one to boring it falls somewhere near stupefying.  Once in college I was handed free tickets to Tosca so I took my girlfriend there on a date (she would later go on to marry me anyway).  I remember being extremely proud of myself that I was doing something so "cultural" instead of listening to a friend's band play in a friend's basement, which is what we did most weekends.  I think it was probably twenty minutes in when I realized that I had made a grave mistake and would never get this Saturday night back.  The plot was glacial, it was more like shouting than singing, and they didn't even sell beer.  I was mystified.

But Carmen is different for me.  My dad got his Ph.D. in French and a large part of his scholarship had to do with Carmen, so from a young age I remember there being boxes and boxes of cassettes, videos, and books all over the house labeled Carmen.  I had no idea what it was, but I knew my dad liked it, so (not unlike the Kansas City Royals) I thought it must be awesome.  I remember him pointing out two separate instances where The Simspons referenced Carmen, which I think was a deciding factor in the long running parental debate on whether it was a show worth watching or not (don't think too harshly of my mother; I think she was heavily conditioned to think poorly of cartoons by my constant pleas to be allowed to watch Beavis and Butthead, which I now completely understand).

Which is why I was willing to give WDM's Carmen a chance.  Surely there must be something here.  After reading the book I'm still sure there must be something about Carmen that makes it so enduring, but whatever it is, WDM didn't manage to convey it to me.  I'm not familiar enough with the original plot of Bizet's opera to know what exactly WDM changed, but I do know that just printing the words "The Toreador Song" does not really carry the same weight of one of the catchiest and whistleable songs ever written (although I still contend that "Ce Jeu" by Yelle is the catchiest song ever written, or possibly "Picture Book" by The Kinks).  Including sheet music at the end of the book and providing two links to the music (neither of which went directly to the songs, which WDM commissioned new arrangements of, and which I ultimately failed to find) is not the same thing.

And I don't know if this one is on WDM or Bizet or Mérimée, but using the Death tarot card as a symbol of actual impending death has to be the laziest literary device of all time.  This is what I'm talking about when I say that you can feel bludgeoned by symbolism.  Give your audience some credit!  You essentially just told us exactly what's going to happen in the next act.  The tarot card scene should come with a spoiler alert.

All of which is not to say that Carmen is a bad book.  I am a huge proponent of re-imagining the "classics" into other time periods or settings.  I think telling and retelling stories is a great way to explore them.  But you have to add something each time, and I don't really know if WDM did in this case.  Changing the setting to East Harlem and changing the matador into a rapper isn't really enough to provide new perspective on the story, in my opinion.  It's more or less like moving a painting to a different wall, without changing the picture or the themes.  Does WDM make Bizet's Carmen more accessible?  Probably.  But what's the point of making something more accessible if you've gutted it of the things that made it worthwhile in the first place?  What are you giving them access to?  Opera relies on the music, staging, and actors in order to make simple plots into grandiose productions.  When you strip down an opera to its basic plot elements, which is essentially what WDM did, you're not left with very much.  I think WDM's Carmen is conceptually flawed in this way.

So what are some readalongs?  Honestly, this one kind of stumped me.  I guess you could start by dipping your toe into the world of bullfighting with a recent profile of a Spanish bullfighter that appears in this month's GQ (and appeared on the excellent longform.org).  You could check out A Rose that Grew from Concrete, the poems of Tupac Shakur, who was himself from East Harlem.  For a further glimpse into the neighborhood of East Harlem you could read The Tenants of East Harlem by Russell Leigh Sharman.  You could check out other adaptations of Carmen that WDM mentions in his afterword, Carmen Jones or Carmen:  A Hip Hopera (which stares Beyonce Knowles) and see how they stack up, along with any one of the other endless adaptations of Carmen, like The Car Man.

I'm not super excited about any of those suggestions, quite frankly.  If you (the collective you) have better ideas, and I'm almost sure that you do, share them in the comments!