“Under the wreckage, the whole town was crushed, the mighty Samson among them.”

Never before (or after) was a haircut so disastrous…

In the Book of Judges (13-16), the story of Samson unfolds, and this story is all too familiar for nearly everyone in The People of Paper: a man, weakened by the seductive powers of a woman, meets his demise.

As a Nazarite, God has given Samson superhuman strength, which he used to defeat the Philistines on numerous occasions, killing thousands along the way.   Samson’s story in Judges 13-16 plays out like a see-saw of revenge between him and the Philistines.  Twice Samson experienced a woman’s betrayal, the latter resulting in his demise.  Samson’s wife, Delilah, assisted the Philistines in defeating him.  By cutting his hair, Samson’s agreement as Nazarite was broken, and as a result, “the Lord had left him” (Judg. 16.20).  With Samson’s power lost, he was taken into custody by the Philistines, and (long story short) he was brought in front of their Kings and harassed: “they made him entertain them and made him stand between the columns” (Judg. 16.24-25).

A tactical error, however, was made by the Philistines; they allowed Samson’s hair to grow back, allowing him to recuperate the Lord’s strength, and…well…Samson was pissed:

So Samson took hold of the two middle columns holding up the building.  Putting one hand on each column, he pushed against them and shouted, “Let me die with the Philistines!”  He pushed with all his might, and the building fell down on the five [Philistine] kings and everyone else.  Samson killed more people at his death than he had killed during his life. (Judg. 16.29-30)

Salvador Plascencia uses Samson’s story in the final chapter of The People of Paper.  He likens Saturn (or Sal or Himself?) to Samson: a man with superhuman strength brought down by the woman he loves.  In both cases, love for a woman turns on itself, acting as a smokescreen for the uprising of the newly strengthened masses (Philistines/EMF).  As Samson loses his superhuman strength, Saturn’s control over his own story slips from his grasp.  Saturn’s authorial voice is absorbed, and the book’s characters take control (note: chapter fifteen (one of the numerous ‘columned’ chapters) begins with Saturn’s column blank for three pages).

The structure of the book’s final chapter demonstrates the ultimate showdown between Saturn and his characters.  Literally nineteen different voices collide, competing for the book’s authorship and (perhaps most importantly) the book’s final word.  Like Samson, however, Saturn ‘prevailed’.  Samson found renewed strength in capillary regrowth, and Saturn’s body “adapted” to the sadness of his lost love, allowing him “to summon enough strength to press against the columns” (242).  At last, “[o]nce the first support was down the others were easily tipped, all the columns falling, giving Saturn full control of the story” and subsequently the last word (242); appropriately, that last word is “sadness”.

As a reader, we witness this battle between author and his subjects, but whom are we to support?  In the final chapter, Rita Hayworth complicates this question:

It is Delilah who is the hero, the one who brings the brute down.  Avenging the deaths of the thousands he killed.  Standing up for the Philistine people and the tender skin of their cocks. (235)

But in what light are we supposed to view Rita Hayworth?  She forsook her lettuce pickers, substituting the new for the old.  Come to think of it, much of the novel is about substitution: old, lost loves are replaced by newer ones.  Just about all of the characters in this book participate in some kind of substitution, and so the big questions that I’m not quite ready to answer are: Do these substitutions work?  Do they provide workable alternatives?  Can the broken-hearted ever heal or, at the very least, manage the weight of their losses?

I’m not sure.

One last note of interest: Although Saturn ‘succeeds’ in taking back his story, eliminating the other authorial voices, the final paragraph suggests he has not truly regained power:

Together [Federico de la Fe and Little Merced] walked out of their stucco, through the softest of all lawns, and Little Merced, who still stunk of dead fish, raised her parasol, shading her and her father.  They walked south and off the page, leaving no footprints that Saturn could track.  There would be no sequel to the sadness. (245)

Saturn can no longer contain the characters within the borders of the page.  Without Federico de la Fe and Little Merced, Saturn cannot write a sequel.   The story ends not because the author has chosen to end it, but because he has lost the power to extend it.  Perhaps this echoes Samson’s story.  He must sacrifice himself to kill the Philistines: “Under the wreckage, the whole town was crushed, the mighty Samson among them” (234).

Enjoy:

Grateful Dead’s “Samson and Delilah”