monsters.
I am currently reading Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King, an historical narrative about the building of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore (known as the Duomo) in Florence, Italy. It tells the complicated, inventive, and seemingly impossible story of how Filippo Brunelleschi designed, engineered, and created one of the most significant architectural wonders of the world.
Throughout construction of the dome, Brunelleschi was forced to invent new machinery for hoisting, placing, and transporting massive amounts of brick, sandstone, marble, and mortar. It was the 15th century, and by today's standards, these inventions seem primitive (for an example, conduct a Google image search for "ox-hoist"). Most of Brunelleschi's inventions worked perfectly, and he continued to astound the people of Florence with his ingenuity. However, one invention failed. It functioned like a 15th-century duck boat, designed to transport marble across land, then float down the tumultuous Arno River, towed by a boat or by an ox on land. Unfortunately, the marine part of the trip failed, and resulted in tons of marble on the bottom of the river.
In reading the description of the boat's design, construction, and purpose, I was struck by this sentence: "Once built, this curious-looking vessel quickly became known as Il Badalone, 'the Monster' (pg. 113)."
I have a very bad habit of dissecting words and finding extra-grammatical meaning, that is, meaning beyond the rules of grammar and translation of original Latin and Greek prefixes and suffixes (English teachers will call this habit good, but it does take up a great deal of time during the day).
Il Badalone. The Monster. Bad + Alone = Monster
Is it too coincidental? The literal translation of the word "monster" into Italian is "mostro," similar to the Spanish translation "monstro." This leads me to believe that "badalone" was slang, or part of Florentine dialect which, like all dialects, veers from the formal parent language.
I wanted to get past this significant marriage of words, but the meaning of the union was too haunting.
Is a monster alienated because he is bad? Or does loneliness (literally, alone-ness) create a monster? It seems to be a classic case of nature vs. nurture. People with destructive, controversial, unpopular, harmful, and even unstable characteristics are typically chastised and eventually ignored. These become the pariahs of a society, and they live in different ways - some are physically present but solitary in their minds, while others physically remove themselves (or are removed, forcefully or not) from the population.
I was reminded instantly of one of my favorite movie quotes. It comes from the movie Big Fish:
"It was that night I discovered that most things you consider evil or wicked are simply lonely..."
I think about this often, how I believe if you peel back the layers of scorn, skepticism, antagonism, and even aggression, you will find a core of loneliness. Loneliness doesn't just affect people who live in single-room huts in the woods - there is loneliness in relationships, loneliness in society, loneliness in families. And after failed attempts to connect, loneliness seems to manifest in self-preserving acts of retaliation - the most ironic of guises.
This is perhaps most evident in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I remember reading this book in high school and feeling conflicted. I knew I was supposed to be simultaneously angry with the monster for being a killer and compassionate to him for his utter loneliness. It's a trap: loneliness surely can't justify evil, and evil shouldn't be nurtured through alienation. I found a concise summary of the story, and highlighted these two sentences:
"In loneliness, the monster seeks the friendship of the family of cottagers...Eventually, the monster tries to befriend the family, but they are afraid of him, and this rejection makes him seek vengeance against his creator."
This begs the question: Which comes first - the monster or the loneliness? The bad or the alone? Either way, Il Badalone was a failure, as it would seem both loneliness and monsters are destined to be. Bad-ness and alone-ness are already social time-bombs, fraught with volatile tension and pain. Combined, no matter in which order they are combined, they truly become monstrous. Dangerous, and perhaps even more sad, these monstrous creations can only sink, laden with tons of emotional and psychological marble that is ultimately lost in the journey.