Sunday, March 17, 2019

Star Trek's Garak

One of my favorite characters in all of Star Trek is Mr. Garak. Garak was a former spy living in disgraced exile on Deep Space 9. He was a gifted gardener, of orchids especially, and had become an accomplished tailor. He didn't seem to realize his best days were in those professions rather than in his time spent in treachery and intrigue. What a life!

Elim Garak, whose name should have been Elim Tain, grew up in mystery even within his own family. It seemed he was always trying to figure out exactly what was going on. He was mostly alone, the kind of alone where you are surrounded but no one is looking your way. He had his precious orchids, a pet lizard for a friend, and a beautiful woman who eventually cost him everything. 

Garak knows things no one knows, important codes, devious people who can help him save the quadrant, and more than his share of other bad guys he needs to avoid. He was a beloved character, a fan favorite, myself included, but the character himself relinquished so much in the service of the state it's hard to see him as triumphant, though he fooled some of us into thinking he was. To me, he never seems weak or in need. I don't pity Garak. He seems two steps ahead, always, always figuring it out before me. But in the wonderful novel, "A Stitch in Time" (magnificently written by Andrew J. Robinson, the actor who portrayed Garak), we are given more detail about his life. In the novel he comes into focus as an aching, searching soul. That is not how a Cardassian would see himself, of course, but how a human would. Star Trek tells us stories about people out there to tell us about ourselves. 

What was it all for? At the end of Deep Space 9, Cardassia is all but destroyed and Garak returns home to help rebuild. His old house is rubble. Everyone's houses are rubble. He begins to stack his debris in elaborate piles, making an at first unintentional monument. It becomes a place to grieve and to heal, the tailor's monument, his way of offering some solace to a people he never could bring himself to be a part of until all was lost. 

Why am I writing about this?

Garak's pretend father had a secret faith. He believed in a religion, for lack of a better word, of the people who lived many eons past on the planet of Cardassia. His belief was against the law. He only shared it with Garak on his death bed and in this faith was the only place Garak seemed to find peace. Something beyond himself. Something he did not know all about already, but something that knew him, called him, and welcomed him. He embraced it only because he could not resist it. He was freed by something he had not known was real before he encountered it. It was the first enough he had found.

The book ended too abruptly for me and, apparently, there are more. I'll be reading. I feel like Garak is an old friend and I'm rooting for him. And us.

39 comments:

  1. this is absolutely remarkable writing dear Sandi!

    specially the last para touched my heart sooo deeply ,it made my eyes teary

    so finally his spiritual loneliness was given a partner who freed him!

    i always wonder about people who suffer with certain kind of spiritual solitude among which they feel so "alone"

    now in this part of my age i believe that such weird loneliness is gift
    when one does not try to satisfy it with drugs or any other kind of false worldly pollution , Lord bless him with some of his own shadow

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    1. Thank you, Baili. Weird loneliness is a gift-- I like that.

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  2. Hello, great post and story. I will have to ask my hubby about this Star Trek character, he is a big fan of the show.
    Enjoy your day, have a happy week ahead. PS, thanks for visiting my blog.

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  3. We love Star Trek! I love Garak too!

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  4. Garak, uma personagem muito interessante…
    Uma boa semana.
    Um beijo.

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  5. Was he the one who interrogated Jean-Luc Picard and kept asking him the same question over and again? Can't remember the question. At the end Picard insisted on his answer once again. Something to do with the light shining in his eyes!

    God bless.

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    1. That was Gul Madred. There are four lights!!!

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    2. Thank you. You are really good at Star Trek information. Data was my favourite character. Who's yours?

      God bless.

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    3. ha ha... maybe Shran. Love the antennas!

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  6. You are a great storyteller, Sandi:)
    Good point about faith. I think faith is the only place any of us can find peace...

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  7. Dear Sandi - thanks for sharing this special character from Star Trek. I never spent a great deal of time watching all of the series...so not familiar with this one. Glad you shared. Have a lovely day filled with His peace. Hugs!

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  8. I do remember the character from DS9.

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  9. I remember the character too but it has been a long time since I watched the shows.

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  10. Sandy, I enjoyed so much your thoughts about Elim Garak.
    You wrote:
    "He believed in a religion, for lack of a better word, of the people who lived many eons past on the planet of Cardassia." It touched me deeply! He embraced faith with all his heart and that is what gave him life and peace!
    Beautiful post!!!

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  11. Very interesting story. I never watched the later Star Trek movies so I have missed all of that. But this sounds intriguing and I appreciate you sharing it with us. makes me want to watch the movies to see what you are talking about. Maybe I should just get the book...Thank you for telling us about the faith that he discovered...Without faith we live without hope...something for all ages to remember....

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    1. Thanks, Pamela! The shows are on Netflix. Garak was on Deep Space Nine. I don't think he was in any of the movies.

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  12. We have watched a lot of those shows so I know Garak. I love hearing more about him. I'm going to try to find that book, because my hubby is a huge fan!

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  13. Happy for you to express what you were wanting to share!! You are really fluent in the language of Star Trek!! I flunked out when I tried to watch it once!! HOpe we can still be friends!! Lol!!

    Blessings and Peace!!♡

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    1. Ha ha! ;-) Different strokes for different folks, as they say!

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  14. Hi Sandi,
    I have to say that I have never watched Star trek, but I believe that anything can speak to us metaphorically.

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  15. Great post Sandi. I also enjoyed Star Trek Deep Space 9. I am also enjoying the latest series very much, and have enjoyed so many over the years. Garak was a favorite character also. I was very interested in your penultimate paragraph. Thought provoking.

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  16. Hi Sandi, As I was reading this I kept thinking to myself, Sandi is a writer. There are blogs where I struggle to read through a post. Sometimes it's like a book I've added to my Kindle ... I think I'm going to like it, I get started, and then I close it and don't go back. It just doesn't flow. Then, there are the books I can't put down. It's that kind of thing I experience here. Excellent and thank you for sharing. And I really appreciate the way you share your faith. I am lucky to have found Dandelion Tea. John

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  17. He always had beautiful stories.
    ps the church on the right is Catholic and was built after 1990.

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    1. The lake was inaugurated in 1986. The church began after 1990. It is not 100% finished even today. 👍

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  18. a great review, i am not a fan of star trek but i do find it to be interesting!!!

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  19. i am more of a Star Wars fan ...but i appreciate the way they have gotten so many fans ... lots of famous too. neat-O!! have a great week and thank you for your visits. ( ;

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  20. I use to be a Star Trek fan and somewhere along the way I stopped watching it and others movies like it. My Son showed his children the early Star Trek shows and they did not like them and I think because the newer ones have so much more action in them. It's evident watching older ones we have come a long way in tv and movies.

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  21. I'm not familiar with Star Trek and its characters, but Faith , secret or not, is something that we, humans cannot live without, as we would be just tiny dots of nothingness in this vast universe.

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  22. You make me wish I could understand/appreciate sci-fi! (I DO understand "weird loneliness".)

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  23. Don't you love it when you discover a character who lives beyond the pages of the book? I just finished a book where the character resonates long after the END.

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  24. I remember Garak, and also like the character.

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  25. Thanks for stopping by my blog. I am also lifelong Star Trek fan. Garack was indeed a remarkable character with lots of complexity and nuance. I have not read any Deep Space 9 books but this one sounds good.

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