Amazing book about narcissist: EASt oF EDEN

[sea storm]

 This book is a treasure.  Steinbeck hits all the criteria for Ns and I can only imagine it is because he knew one.  This person in the book is so poisonous to the people who get close to her.  She has this sexual magnetism that both males and females are strongly drawn to.

Highly recommended

Sea

[dandylife]

Additionally, along those lines, there is going to be a movie coming out soon (may have premiered in US) starring Julianne Moore that will be about a n-istic woman and how she ruins people's lives. It's called Savage Grace. Can't say it sounds "good", but it could be enlightening (or triggering!).

Thanks, Sea Storm for that heads up as well.

Dandylife

[gjazz]

Savage Grace is about to release in the U.S.  About a mentally ill woman who seduces her son.  A true story.

[Certain Hope]

Thank you, Sea! I've never read East of Eden, but will pick it up from the library this week.

The movie Savage Grace, though... no way I could view it. Makes me sick just thinking about it. I see it's based on a book, though... reading the story might be a bit easier to take, but I dunno.

Carolyn

[Overcomer]

Always ready for a good book.....

[LilyCat]

That's so funny that you post about a novel, because I wanted to as well. I've been re-reading Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and I am deeply immersed in it. It is an amazing book. I guess when I had to read it for a grade in college, I couldn't appreciate it. Or maybe I didn't have enough life experience to understand it.

He also must have known an N or two. He seems to know a lot about the feelings of victimization. He is such a story teller ... and his descriptions of nature and the culture are so rich and poetic.

I know it has a tragic end, but I am going to be so sorry to finish this book. I'm finding it very helpful in thinking about various issues.

[sea storm]

It makes sense that writers would have experienced Ns and tried to make sense of the experience. it is so devaluing and undermining to a person.

In East of Eden,  the father builds a myth about himself as a war hero. He talks of his exploits in various famous battles and theembellishments grow with the years. He decides his sensitive son will ammount to nothing if he doesn't go to war. Son does not want to go but does. Dad plays his sons off against each other so that he is the main character in their worlds.  He drives the kids to the depths of sibling rivalry by choosing a golden chidl. Meanwhile the golden chidls life is no picnic but the less favoured chidl doesn't get it.

Later the dad ends up in Washington as a big shot, based on his bs war stories.  When he dies he leaves his kids a great deal of money and it is pretty obvious that he had no legal way to get the money. The boys are left with realizing that there father is not who they thought he was . As youth they did not have the capacity or insight to grasp what a first class weirdo he was and even when they get the news, it does not really register.

Of course they are set up to be inept at life with little or no judgement that they can trust. Intuition de-railed.  So one of the sons marries a Narcissist/pyschopath.  He is oblivious to her true nature, but on the other hand she is expert at presenting the exact face needed for the job.  He loves her passionately and occasionally we get glimpses of what is going on in her ferral brain. things like ka- ching that means money for me, or I will benefit from this.  She does not give a fig for anyone. 

This is only page 168 and there are at least another 400 pages.

I think minds have fuses and they actually can get blown. So people avoid overloading them, and choose denial or dont have the resources to understand the N,  or have to go through the nightmare as an adult to try to make order of the chaos they experienced as kids.  It is all there in this book.  WOW>

Sea

[cats paw]

Hi Sea Storm,

  I just wanted to comment that I read this book a few years back and I really enjoyed it, despite the one poisonous character.

  What was the word or phrase that basically translated to "thou mayest" or something like that ?  Timshel ?

  Quite a thought-provoking work.

cats paw

P.S. You were posting at the same time I was, so I wanted to add that I liked your metaphor of fuses.

[ann3]

Sea Storm,

Thanks for the recommendation.  I want to read it.  I saw the movie w/ James Dean, but it seems, as often happens, the essence of the book did not translate to the screen.

IMO, in the film, the dysfunction of the foo is evident, but not the Nness of the father.

ann

[Izzy_*now*]

hi sea storm (and ann3)

Sea,
Have you reached a part in the book where Aaron and Caleb are born?

I'll tell you why I ask.
The original movie is about these 'almost' grown boys (as in "not too mature") and their father. Mother is elsewhere.

I just watched it again online (2 hrs.)

Now another 'East of Eden' was on TV. It began somewhere else with people perhaps a generation or two back, and Aaron and Caleb did not come into the movie until about ½ way through (4 hours--A special) so I imagine the book was followed more closely in the special. I saw it only once and never again.

Does this fit in with what you are reading now? What page? 442 and you are ½ way through!!!

443, you can talk to me
444, go read some more
xx
Izzy

[sea storm]

Hi All,

I am up to the part where the twins are born and father does not have the heart to name them for a year. He is too depressed about losing the N.

The twins were the focus of the movie???????????? That is not what I would have chosen. There is really a missing link in most people's brains concerning Ns.  Maybe most people would think it was no big deal if they saw it described in a book, but Steinbeck has it down completely. Even how intergenerational it is.

I would love to see those movies. I have no idea how to download movies. Do you have to pay money for them? 

Sea storm

[Izzy_*now*]

Hi sea S

Are the twins named yet? Aaron and Caleb? Their father and them are the focus, if that's who they are.

Izzy

[jordanspeeps]

Thanks for the thread sea storm! I love, love, love this book.  I love Steinbeck as well.  Did you know that he wrote this book as a means to explain to his children and grandchildren the convuluted story of their family history?  Only a story so entrenched in real life could be this compelling!  What stood out to me was the way Nism travels down the bloodline and the way the female narcissists in the book displayed their cruelty.  There were so many triggers for me it was amazing.  This book is in my top 5 of all time!

Tiff 

[sea storm]

Yes, this book is epic and brilliant.  His family history. Wow........ It is so grounded in deep personal experience that it had to be.

So far the men are much nicer than the women. This bugs me a bit. You've got the bitter, competent, rock of Gibralter or the women who eat razor blades for breadfast.

I am reading about the brothers now. This is sibling rivalry gone terrible wrong. Well, no wonder with pops so out of it that they don't have names for a year.  The subtlety of the power plays of the dark shadow twin are so creepy.  He undermines his brother so profoundly and the brother has no idea. Non whatsoever. But his life is completey altered because of his brother Cals envy.  Maybe that is why god gave us intuition.  Sometimes we can't consciously know every detail of what is going on but we just feel something is wrong.

The bad brother is a slanderer too and he is so swift and sneaky.

This is

[sea storm]

Ah the downstairs renter just came to tell me he is renting for another month. Goodie.

This is a story of narcissism and the effects on the innocents.

He deals with every aspect imaginable.  He struggles with the matter of choice.  Life was so proscribed that everything one did was defined and the smaller the box, the better.  So how do you explain evil people? Do they choose? or do they just act out a prewritten script. We have all struggled  with that one.


There is a whole subtext about lying and trust, freedom and responsibility.  I must be coming out of the fog to be able to relish reading this book.

I have read tons about narcissism, pathological lying, swindling, slander, psychopaths.  Someone said that psychopaths understand the words but not the music of relationships.   This is really the music and the art of understanding the narcissist.  What a feat.

Sea storm