After all these years, I finally picked up a book by George Eliot. Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda have been sitting on my to read shelvAfter all these years, I finally picked up a book by George Eliot. Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda have been sitting on my to read shelves (my real world shelves, not my virtual shelves) for ages, taunting me with their must read-ness.
It took my daughter to make me finally pull Silas Marner from the shelf, and that only because she wanted to read it book club style with me.
I'm mostly glad I did, but I can't help feeling that maybe Silas Marner wasn't the best Eliot book to start off with. It is slight: in size, in scope, in theme, and I expected much more from her writing. Then again, it was that very expectation of more that held me back from reading Eliot all these years. I expected her novels to be work, and Silas Marner wasn't that, so maybe reading Silas Marner first was exactly what I needed to do. I feel much less afraid of Middlemarch than I used to.
So thanks, Brontë (my daughter, not one of the sisters). You've pushed me down a literary road I always wanted to travel. ...more
It is funny, scandalous, wonderfully inclusive, political, powerful, and always relevant. I teach it often, and read itLysistrata is one of my faves.
It is funny, scandalous, wonderfully inclusive, political, powerful, and always relevant. I teach it often, and read it even moreso; I've taken part in staged readings and watched it on-stage, but this is the first time I have listened to a translation of Aristophanes. Listening didn't go well.
The problem is with the narration. Not the narrator herself, though.
The solo voice the publishers hired to deliver every character in the play --Marnye Young -- was quite good. She has excellent variation in her tones, is incredibly adept at changing her voice to play multiple characters convincingly, and has an impressive array of accents at her disposal. Sounds good doesn't it?
Well, the problem is that no matter how strong Young's abilities are, asking one person to voice the entire cast of Lysistrata, including the choruses, is a bit like asking one person to play all eleven positions on a football pitch -- disastrous. It is a struggle throughout the listening to tell characters apart when the lines are being delivered fast and furious. A few extra cast mates would have made all the difference. Truly, I feel bad for Young that she was not given more support and that her exceptional vocal skills were wasted here (although one can't help wondering how flattered she must have been to take on such a challenge on her own).
The worst part, though is that the producers seemed to realize somewhere along the way that forcing Young to do the work on her own was a bad idea because they tried to rectify their error with post-production audio fiddling. They added reverb and layered Young's voice, and generally made a hash of all the strophe and anti-strophe, turning something that should have been melodic and musical into something robotic and droning. It's embarrassing stuff, and -- for me at least -- all the tinkering made this audio nearly unbearable.
It is a great play ruined. Listen at your own peril, my friends. ...more
I'm stopping. I can't spend time with these people anymore.
Bathsheba is excruciating. She is spoiled, selfish and unkind, much like the Prince who beI'm stopping. I can't spend time with these people anymore.
Bathsheba is excruciating. She is spoiled, selfish and unkind, much like the Prince who became a Beast, and beautiful as she is reported to be she is ugly because her personality is ugly. I hear tell that she is becoming something of a feminist icon these days. I sure hope not. I can't imagine any intelligent, strong willed woman who would want to behave like a toddler throwing a fit at bedtime. It's not strength. It's selfishness.
But the men are no better. Perhaps I am stopping before I have enough information about Sergeant Troy, but he seems to be a cad of the highest order, sort of Hardy's version of Mr. Wickham, and if he is he is no less than Bathsheba deserves. Boldwood, despite being the victim of one of the cruelest pranks in literature, is an entitled prick of the highest order, and Gabriel Oak, the moralistic shepherd whose attempt to love Bathsheba is a crime against the social order (and would usually have my support simply based on the class struggle he's undertaking) is really the creepiest of stalkers.
I've no doubt that Hardy is making some truly important points about class, saying something tremendously cynical about the nature of love, and doing his best, as always, to make us see some of the ugliness that is humanity, but I can't stick around to find out. I dislike the characters too much to go on (even if that was the point)....more
I found myself back in Paris this winter because my 10 year old son, the indomitable Miloš, took on The Three Musketeers for his essay, and I read it I found myself back in Paris this winter because my 10 year old son, the indomitable Miloš, took on The Three Musketeers for his essay, and I read it in support. It is my sixth or seventh reading, but I haven't read it in a while so I honestly can't remember which reading it is, not that it matters. I had quite the experience this time through.
In the past I have been obsessed with the treatment of Milady de Winter -- both Dumas' treatment of her and the Musketeers' treatment of her -- but this time I was much more focused on the Musketeers themselves. Most if not all of that can be chalked up to Miloš' essay topic. About half way through he was zeroing in on the fact that the Musketeers, particularly Athos and D'Artagnan (who begins the tale unattached then turns Guard then turns Musketeer) are vastly less than heroic. So my reading went down the same path, and damn are they an ugly bunch.
I've spoken and written of their iniquities in the past, so I'll leave the listing of their bad behaviours aside, but I will say that I was struck most profoundly -- once again -- by the way pop culture has twisted the Inseparables.
I am sure that Dumas' didn't conceive of them as humorous, sexy, devil-may-care, lily white, honourable or even upstanding heroes. He conceived of them as flawed men living in a flawed society, busy taking advantage of whatever they could to get ahead, get in a bed, get rich or richer or forget their pasts. Sure they are fun to read when they have a rare sword or musket fight (and there are precious few when you consider the page count of this book), but so much of who they are is so unsavoury that, as Miloš said to me, "they can't be heroes." No. They really can't.
I wonder if we started a petition of literary fans if we could get HBO to produce a version of the Musketeers that makes them appear as they truly are, though I doubt it. BBC has succeeded in making their time dirtier and grungier, and even made Cardinal Richelieu vastly more nasty than Dumas intended, but their Musketeers are as charming as ever Hollywood made them. I, for one, would rather see the nasty Musketeers. I want to see them as they were conceived by Dumas. That would be something. ...more
Never have I read such a marvelously plausible work of Science Fiction. There are many prophetic works, and plenty of works of farther distant futuresNever have I read such a marvelously plausible work of Science Fiction. There are many prophetic works, and plenty of works of farther distant futures that I can see being possible, but The Space Merchants is mostly here right now, and everything else (if you exchange Mars for Venus) is merely moments away. And that is a scary fucking proposition.
Pohl & Kornbluth's world is an overpopulated mess, where food and water are at a serious premium and the super-rich dominate the use of goods and services. And that world is ruled by the all-powerful ad agencies, who just happen to have overtaken every industry. There is a President who is no more than a useless figurehead. There is martial law that everyone happily accepts. There are Orwellian levels of thought control without any need for thought police because advertising and media do the job quite nicely. And there is the usual group of revolutionaries working clandestinely for the "good of all."
The Space Merchants has been on one of my must read lists for twenty years, and I've only now gotten around to it because I tracked down a two part radio play of it on Relic Radio's Sci-Fi podcast. I'll be giving it a listen tonight, but I am not sure how close to the book a sixties CBS radio play can be, especially considering the damning criticism of America's consumer culture, and its ambiguously depressing ending. I imagine it is going to end about halfway through Mitchell Courtenay's journey, when his capitalist dreams are complete. I'm kind of stoked, regardless.
One last thing, if you are looking for a classic work of Sci-Fi to turn into a mini-series SyFy, this is the the work for you. Mitchell Courtenay could easily be the Don Draper of Sci-Fi pop culture. And there's even a part for Peter Dinklage (and a damn good one).
Charles, you had it absolutely right. I am so glad I got around to this. ...more
Out of idle curiosity, I've lately been turning my reading to Scoutie into a discovery of the source texts for Disney's biggest films. I stumbled uponOut of idle curiosity, I've lately been turning my reading to Scoutie into a discovery of the source texts for Disney's biggest films. I stumbled upon versions of both Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty that were surprisingly close to Disney's Princess movies, and we had much fun with them (I wish old Walt hadn't cut the baby-eating Ogre Queen Mum from Sleeping Beauty, though. What fun that would have been).
Again I was surprised by how closely the Disney company (this time under Katzenberg/Eisner) adhered to the text. All the key elements remain in the movie; they are often altered but they're there: the Enchantress (evil in the book), the rose(s), Belle's father meeting the Beast first, food magically appearing, Belle's release and return. I didn't expect the versions to be so closely related without Walt Disney's personal influence, but they were and that's likely at the root of why Disney's Beauty and the Beast is so successful.
What I found most delightful, however, is how much friendlier Villeneuve's original is compared to the Disney movie (I've since discovered that it is not much friendlier. It is actually the Beaumont adaptation, which is what I read, that is friendlier. I need to get my hands on the original). The Beast is far less the abusive kidnapper and much more a Prince trapped in bestial form. He's kinder from the outset, anonymously providing food and shelter for Belle's father, the tired, cold, passerby, and only reveals himself and takes her father prisoner when the father attempts to pick a rose for Belle. Moreover, there is no apparent clock the Beast is racing against, no nasty Gaston to muddy the waters, and no foolish villagers marching to destroy the Beast in his castle, and less of a feeling that Belle is a kidnap victim who falls prey to the Stockholm syndrome.
It's a straight up tale of love developing through friendship, and a tale of kindness and selflessness being rewarded. Winnie-the-Pooh is next (not a discovery for me, but it is for Scout). One more thing about this version of La Belle et la Bête: the art by Walter Crane is kind of beautiful in its quaint way -- even in an eBook....more
A -- Alfheim: It's the place where thThe English ABCs of D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths (with one addition and some subtractions) by Miloš & Brontë*:
A -- Alfheim: It's the place where the elves live. There's lots of elves there with bows, and they have long blonde hair and pointy years. The wear archer clothes and stuff.
B -- Balder: The God of Light (is he the God of Light? Maybe he's just goodness. No, he's the God of Light too). He was always happy. He was never mad. He just smiled the whole time. I can't remember a time when he was mad. He died because Frigg asked everything not to hurt him except mistletoe, then Loki, disguised as an old woman found out it was unsafe, then made an arrow out of mistletoe, gave it to Balder's blind brother, then Loki helped Hod shoot Balder, and Balder died.
C -- Chess and Chessmen: Almost everybody plays chess, the gods that is, and I didn't know that chess was made back then. The gods probably invented it, the god of gold that is because they were golden chessmen. Or maybe it was the Gnomes. They seem more like the building type.
D -- Draupnir: I think it would be cool to have a bracelet like Draupnir. It was cool that Odin put it with Balder in his funeral pyre.
E -- Embla: Embla is one of the first humans created by the Gods. She was the first woman.
F -- Fenris: He's Loki's son who is the big wolf who grows too big to control. He's not scared of anything, so he's fearless, and he's very big, and he can open his mouth so wide his bottom jaw can touch the Earth (Midgard), and he bites off Tyr's hand. Plus, he's stuck at the bottom of Yggdrassil.
G -- Garm: He's the dog who guards the gate to Hel.
H -- Hel: She's Loki's daughter who rules Hel, which is named after her.
I -- Ida: The green field of Asgard with a whole bunch of buildings that I expect are huge, and it is very busy.
J -- Jotuns: The Jotuns live in a very, very cold world on the tree. Instead of their beards being soft and furry, they're cold and hard like icicles. The Aesir and them don't agree with each other. Thor challenges every Jotun he sees, and kills it and stuff, declares war on it, I'd say.
K -- Kvasir: Wasn't that the drink that made people smart? Odin was wise after drinking it or something.
L -- Lidskjalf: That's the seat where Odin sits and he can see everything.
M -- Midgard's Serpent: It's scary. Very, very scary, and it's always angry, and apparently it's not too heavy for Thor.
N -- Nanna: She is the wife of Balder. She is pretty nice, and she is my favourite of all the ladies in Asgard.
O -- Odin: He is the All Father and the ruler of Asgard. He has a very, very, very fast horse with eight legs named Sleipnir. He only has one functional eye, and he pulls his hair down over his missing eye. In the Norse myths, he's my (Miloš') favourite.
R -- Rungnir: He was a pretty big Jotun, really tall, and he had the second fastest horse on the entire World Tree. He's pretty cool, and fairly strong, and Thor beat him in a duel, but his head isn't fairly strong becaues Thor smashed it, right?
S -- Sif: She is beautiful, and she has the best hair. If she was a Charlie's Angels she'd be Jill. Her hair was blonde but it became gold.
T -- Tyr: He is very brave, and he is pretty strong too. Fenris ate his hand, so he has only one hand. He is also pretty nice. He is one of Odin's sons.
U -- Utgardsloki: He was super smart. It was awesome how he made all the tricks, the illusions, to trick Thor. I thought Thor would win. I loved the fact that Thor didn't win and that Utgardsloki won.
V -- Vanir: The battle between them and the Aesir was pretty interesting. They were pretty cool, and some of them joined the Aesir.
W -- War: The Norse Gods fought too much, definitely. They were really violent. Whenever somebody died nobody even cried, except for Balder, or then their wives die too. It's weird the way they were with death and war.
Y -- Yggdrassil: It's a cool tree. I like how it is holding all the Nine Realms in place and stuff. It is there to keep everything in place. I like that Yggdrassil is so important, and trees are because they give us air and stuff, but this tree is more important because it is holding our worlds together in one space so Midgard, Asgard, Jotunheim and all the rest would probably spin off into space without the tree.
Æ -- Aesir: Whenever they said something they promised, they had to do what they promised, so instead of being fierce they did what they said they would, but when they failed to do what they said they would something bad happened, and eventually it caused Ragnarokk.
*I just finished reading this to my twins last night. We start the Greek Myths tonight. ...more
So I think Manny and Beth-Ann have it spot on. Peter Rabbit dies in this book, and his escape is a moment-of-death fantasy. Peter is the Peyton FarquhSo I think Manny and Beth-Ann have it spot on. Peter Rabbit dies in this book, and his escape is a moment-of-death fantasy. Peter is the Peyton Farquhar of kids books.
Farquhar, for those who don't remember, is the Alabama Confederate (gentleman farmer / non-combatant) from Ambrose Bierce's An Occurence on Owl Creek Bridge. He's strung up to a railroad bridge to be hanged by the Union soldiers, but his rope breaks and he pulls of a miraculous escape, only to have his escape end with him still on the rope as he chokes to death.
Well, little Peter doesn't have Union soldiers to string him up, but he has old Mr. McGregor to chase him around the garden, and in Peter's attempt to escape he dives into a watering can -- and I say he drowns. How's that for a cautionary tale? I figure that Peter's death in the watering can is also a euphemism for rabbit stew, and Peter becomes a yummy dinner for Mr. and Mrs. McGregor. Lucky farmers that they are.
But Peter, at least, is able to enjoy a moment-of-death fantasy where he goes home and declares to Mother Rabbit that he's learned his lesson. But even at home, even in his fantasy, death begins to close in, and while his siblings play and the smells of cooking rise up to greet him (Mrs. McGregor's kitchen as she skins his corpse, perhaps?), Peter ends his day (and his life) wrapped in the blankets of his little bed. Shivering from the cold he caught in the Mr. McGregor's water bottle.
Death comes to us all, little bunny, especially when we ignore our parents! Remember that.
Culinarily, I think I need to get my own little rabbit for a stew. It's been a while, and rabbit is de-lish. ...more
This is the first time I've read this book. Hard to believe, isn't it? It's especially hard to believe when I consider my mother -- this is just the sThis is the first time I've read this book. Hard to believe, isn't it? It's especially hard to believe when I consider my mother -- this is just the sort of schmaltzy crap she loved. I probably missed this book because it falls in that range between picture books and chapter books that I skipped in my reading progression.
However it came about, I only just read this book. I shared it with my little Scoutie Kat as our bedtime book. It took a couple of nights, and she loved it, especially the part about the fairy and the painting it was accompanied by. It became, "My own Rabbit," in Scoutie talk. And it wasn't so bad. I certainly enjoyed the experience, although I think most of my enjoyment sprang out of cuddling with my two year old and enjoying her enjoyment.
I was surprised to discover that this book is sort of the Toy Story Pinnochio. Crappy Bunny is made. Crappy Bunny is loved by its boy. Crappy Bunny is tossed out to be burned when the boy has Scarlet Fever. Crappy Bunny becomes mottled real bunny because he was so loving. Real Crappy Bunny and its boy see each other one more time. Tears or giggles or sighs of "...um, yeah," depending on your age and reason for reading.
I can see why it was loved back when it was written. I can see why little kids dig it, especially if they're cuddled up with their Moms and Dads, but for me, for me now, it was nothing special. ...more
Hey you! Yeah. You! How the fuck can you dislike Hamlet?!
I'm not talking about the play here; I am talking about the man. Fuck you aDear Hamlet Hater,
Hey you! Yeah. You! How the fuck can you dislike Hamlet?!
I'm not talking about the play here; I am talking about the man. Fuck you and your bullshit about his "indecision," that indecision sets him apart. Unlike everyone else in the play -- who slay their foes willy-nilly or embrace their personal ignorance to engage in tacit murder or let their passions o'errule their reason -- Hamlet takes his time with his revenge, refusing to be fooled by a damned ghost, looking for proof, making sure that Claudius is really guilty before he acts.
Yeah, yeah, Hamlet was mean to Ophelia. I don't disagree. But Hamlet can hardly be considered the only factor in her death/suicide. And it's not like she didn't deserve it. Polonius and Laertes, Claudius and Gertrude (and maybe even that sneaky bastard Horatio, the last to see her alive) played their parts in her "madness," and it's not like Ophelia didn't have her own hand in her demise. Hamlet loved her. Hamlet's father dies, he's seeing ghosts, his mother is banging his uncle, and there's Ophelia -- at the behest of her family's patriarchs -- cutting off Hamlet when he needs her most. I'd be pissed if she did that to me. I'd call her a whore and a weakling and mock her until she left me alone. Where's her backbone? Where's her love? Nowhere to be found; hence, Hamlet's anger (not that I blame Ophelia, though. What the hell could she do considering the world she was living in? Considering the power of the men in her life?).
And what about Hamlet's thoughts on the equality of mankind? How can you hate on a guy who thinks the way Hamlet does? This is a cat who spends most of his soliloquys holding an in-head debate about the equality of man in death. This is a guy who puts kings and nobles on the same level as fishmongers and worms. He's a guy who embraces life in death without fliching. He sees the "providence in the fall of sparrow" and knows it is good.
Yet you hate him. Why?
Is it because your high school teacher sucked? Is it because you are daunted by Shakespeare and Elizabethan English? Is it because you are convinced that Hamlet is a whinger? Is it because you've fallen prey to a century-plus of Freudian disassembling? Is it because you expect Mobster-style decisiveness? Would you like it more if RockStar put out a shooter game called Grand Theft Elsinore?
Or are you simply a dumbass?
Go watch Lion King or Strange Brew and get back to me.
Love, Brad
p.s. this is a Ceridwen-special: a drunken review.
there is no better way to kick off a semester of literature than a modest proposal. one smart ass student always tries to derail the conversation withthere is no better way to kick off a semester of literature than a modest proposal. one smart ass student always tries to derail the conversation with an early declaration of the proposal’s satire, but no one listens, and within moments i have a class of fifty - sixty students angry, frustrated, and sometimes rabid as i take swift’s ironic side and ask the students, with all the seriousness i can muster (which is quite a bit), if we shouldn’t give it a try? i follow that up with “why not?” after “why not?” then smack them upside the head with their universal humanist superiority complex, and force them to think. it’s so new to them they leave hating me or loving me. but they do leave thinking. poor bastards. except that one mormon in the front row. he never leaves thinking anything other than how superior he is. and what a dipshit i am....more
iii. Finished, but I need some time to let this sink in. The review is coming.
iv.One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is about non-conformity. It is also about the horrors of the mental health system circa the late ‘50s & early ‘60s. I am sure it is about some other things I didn’t pick up this time around. But it is also about metaphor, and that was the theme in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that most spoke to me.
Chief Bromden is the narrator, you see, and he is schizophrenic. Some would say he is an unreliable narrator because of his hallucinations. I think those people are wrong. I don’t see his opening statement as an admission or a warning:
I been silent so long now it’s going to roar out of me like floodwaters and you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.
I see this as a declaration that just because he is schizophrenic, just because he sees the world differently from you, doesn’t invalidate what he’s seen and what he’s been through. It is a declaration of his reliability, and one that I heeded throughout my reading.
Because, you see, like many schizophrenics, Chief is aware that all the things he sees may not be there, or aren’t there for everyone. He knows that people around him will call him crazy when he is fogged in or trying to clean the green filth from the walls of the meeting room. He knows that people will shun him for the way he sees the world, so he – or Ken Kesey – needs you to know that he recognizes your biases before he even starts telling this story, and he needs you to hear him despite that, not just listen with a condescending head pat for the poor crazy Injun. Some of the things he sees may intrude on what you call reality, but reality is still there amidst the "crazy" stuff.
And oh! what he sees. He isn’t just witness to a battle of dominance-submission-freedom. He isn’t just a witness to sadism and selfishness. He isn’t just a witness to hope. He isn’t just a witness to change. He is gifted the ability to see metaphor. For you, metaphor is a tool with which you understand the world. Your brain takes some input, filters it through metaphor, and out comes your meaning. But the Chief takes some input and that input suddenly becomes the metaphor and that meaning is the metaphor. Perhaps that’s what all schizophrenics see. Perhaps that’s their “illness.” Perhaps it’s their gift. An ability to see metaphor as a physical construct, for metaphor to cease being a filter and become reality.
And that was the book for me. Despite all the great characters, despite the battle for control that rages between Ratched and McMurphy, despite the damage done and the control won and lost and won and lost, I was totally focused on the journey through Chief’s mind. I get him. And I love him. And I still love Milos Foreman’s film of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest -- good thing too since I named my son after Foreman -- because the film and the book are two completely different works. They are akin. No doubt. And they are both beautiful. But they are too different (in delivery) to be considered the same.
My mind was blown.
v. I guess I'll have to add this to my "crazier-than-a-lobotomized-mcmurphy" shelf, even thought it isn't crazy at all....more
It is often said that what makes the classics classic is their relevance to any given now. That those stories -- from those of Shakespeare to those ofIt is often said that what makes the classics classic is their relevance to any given now. That those stories -- from those of Shakespeare to those of Austen to those of Faulkner -- are truly classic because they speak to us across the ages with messages that are in some way universal.
Carson McCullers' debut masterpiece, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, goes beyond mere relevance to our now and, instead, offers a picture, written in the late thirties about a Georgian town in the thirties, of our today (minus COVID). Hers is not a tapestry on which we can find threads of our current reality but a tapestry that actually encapsulates our current reality. And the only threads that don't offer up our current reality, the slightly less familiar threads, are threads what we might think of as quaint nostalgia but have not trouble recognizing.
The personal concerns of Singer and Mick and Biff and Dr. Copeland and Blount are the concerns of us or the people around us. The crimes of the town are the crimes we see around us (especially if we happen to live in the good ol' U.S. of A.). The ills of the town and the state and the country McCullers' people move through and contend with are ours. Present are our racial divides, class divides, gender and sexual divides, mental health divides; present our our desires, our hopes, our fears, our missed opportunities, our failures. And all of these things in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter add up to the sum of tragedy that is our now.
We live in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and that tale is beautifully, inspiringly told. Make of that what you will....more
I don’t really know why, but when I think of Siddhartha I think of hippies. I am sure I’ve seen a copy of Steppenwolf or Siddhartha in the hands of a I don’t really know why, but when I think of Siddhartha I think of hippies. I am sure I’ve seen a copy of Steppenwolf or Siddhartha in the hands of a hippy in a movie, or I've read about some hippy being a fan of the book in some bio about a sixties' rock star. Whatever the reason, though, that connection tugged on my reading of Siddhartha like gravity.
People often talk about how the hippies went from being love children opposed to Vietnam to investment bankers approving of the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan, but there is little sadness attached to that talk. If anything it is used as an implied argument for the righteousness of the latter position, as though love is childish and imperialism (or just plain vengeance) is the adult reality.
I, too, have often wondered how one became the other, but I’ve always felt pretty bummed about the shift. I’m even sadder about it now that I’ve read Siddhartha. If my imagination of old tattered, dog eared copies of Siddhartha passing from reader to reader in communes has any kernel of truth to it, the old hippies clearly missed Hesse’s warning.
You see, Siddhartha does precisely what the hippies did. He turns his back on his search for Nirvana and runs smack into the corruption of possession. He grows fat, old, corrupt and poisoned by the comfort that enticed him to give up his search for the way. But Hesse lets him find his way back again. He hears the river, and the river leads him to love and timelessness and peace and living. It’s kind of beautiful, actually. But the important thing is that he sees his move into mercantilism and gambling and societal membership as a failure and returns to the happiness of simplicity.
If the hippies really did read Siddhartha, it’s too bad they didn’t heed Hesse’s message, but then they probably didn’t read it after all. It’s probably nothing but a piece of fancy that found its way into my head through some obscure piece of popular culture.
So "Om" to you, and go listen to the river....more
Ivanhoe. Seriously?! Could there be a more arbitrary title to any famous book in the English language? It would be like naming Lost "Benjamin Linus," Ivanhoe. Seriously?! Could there be a more arbitrary title to any famous book in the English language? It would be like naming Lost "Benjamin Linus," or naming the original Dragonlance Chronicles "Caramon Majere." This isn't a book about Ivanhoe, it's a book with Ivanhoe in it.
Sir Walter Scott must have been sitting around his room with his D&D dice to come up with Ivanhoe.
Random Title List for Unnamed Book I Just Finished Writing About King Richard's Return From the Crusades and the Defeat of His Slightly Crazy Brother Prince John Roll 1d20
1. Lady Rowena 2. Brian de Bois-Guilbert 3. Front de Boeuf 4. Friar Tuck 5. Isaac the Jew 6. The Black Knight 7. Cedric 8. Ivanhoe 9. Richard Coeur-de-Lion 10. Prince John 11. Athelstane 12. Wamba 13. Rebecca 14. Albert Malvoisin 15. Waldemar Fitzurse 16. Gurth 17. Maurice de Bracy 18. Locksley 19. Ulrica 20. Me
It's paradoxically inspiring and frightening that the things the Greek playwrights were writing about still resonate today: inspiring that their insigIt's paradoxically inspiring and frightening that the things the Greek playwrights were writing about still resonate today: inspiring that their insights and idiocies remain relevant to modern readers, and frightening that humanity has made so little progress that the insights and idiocies of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles still concern us.
I picked up the Oresteia because I thought it was about time I put the plays to the tale I thought I knew. I found what I expected:
The children were eaten: there was the first affliction, the curse of Thyestes. Next came the royal death [if we ignore the sacrifice of Iphigenia:], when a man and lord of Achaean armies went down killed in the bath. Third is for the saviour. He came. Shall I call it that, or death? Where is the end? Where shall the fury of fate be stilled to sleep, be done with?
The familiar bloody tale of cannibalism, infanticidal sacrifice, vengeance, more vengeance, and the Gods ordained entrenchment of patriarchy were all there. The three plays of the Oresteia -- Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides -- were brutal, lovely, frustrating, illogical, brilliant and exciting in turns. I spent some of my time trying to suss out a way to stage these entertainingly without wholesale change, and some of my time thinking about the insights and idiocies that the Oresteia offered.
Amongst it all, I was shocked to discover something fresh -- at least to me. We often talk about the stultifying power of patriarchy, how that power has twisted up our cultures into the ugliness we know now, and the blame for that power is widely accepted to be the responsibility of those who made the power, hold the power and don't want to give it up.
What struck me in the Oresteia is that most people, from that day to this, from Ancient Greece to our modern globalized world, are responsible for the power of patriarchy (at least partially) because they desire infantilization. Few, so very, very few, want to be adults (metaphorically speaking). They don't want to make choices, they don't want to accept responsibility, they don't want to face conflict, they don't want to think. They want protection, they want to be told, they want to justify, they want to conform, they want to remain permanent metaphysical children embracing illusory comfort.
In the Oresteia the gods are credited with every act taken, so the players live or die believing that another is responsible for what they've done. They remain willing children of the gods.
It's a human willingness that I see all around me 2,468 years after the Oresteia was written. Is it any wonder the concerns of Aeschylus still plague us today?...more
When I first met Erika, for some long forgotten reason and situation, someone said, "Do you like my hat?"
I answered: "No. I do not." There was an awkwWhen I first met Erika, for some long forgotten reason and situation, someone said, "Do you like my hat?"
I answered: "No. I do not." There was an awkward pause and I added, "Good-bye. Good-bye again," with some totally bizarre, guttural, kiddie voice. It became a fun inside joke for Erika and me, but for the life of us, we couldn't remember where it came from. It sounded familiar; it didn't sound me-invented, but we couldn't place it.
Then we had babes, and I picked up a bunch of board books -- and there it was.
"Hello!"
"Hello!"
"Do you like my hat?"
"I do not."
"Good-by."
"Good-by."
It wasn't quite how I remembered it, not quite the way my mind had twisted it over all those years, but we had finally found the source, and we were stoked.
5 years later my boy is reading it to me. It is a great book to foster reading , but even if I didn't have a prior bond with the book beyond learning to read, I would still love Go Dog. Go because of my son.
That was me, that is your humble commentator, sitting down to pass my glazzies over a book eemyaed A Clockwork Orange'What's it going to be then, eh?'
That was me, that is your humble commentator, sitting down to pass my glazzies over a book eemyaed A Clockwork Orange I'd sobirated from the biblio. I was ready to be tolchocked in my litso, to have my mozg pried out of my gulliver, to feel that sickening drop in the yarbles when falling from a great tower block; I expected to be preached to by that nadmenny veck A. Burgess in all his high goloss; I expected to loathe Alex and all his malenky malchick droogs. But by Bog or God I got something much more horrorshow.
I actually enjoyed A. Burgess's nadsat burble. I found veshches -- like all the ultra violence and razrezzing and oobivatting and twisted radosty -- to be oomily delivered. I ponied where little Alex was coming from and raged against the millicents and infintmins and prestoopniks and bolnoy sophistos that were arrayed against him. I actually guffed and smecked at like many veshches. But I nearly platched at how malenky little Alex saw the error of his ways and looked forward to a life of chai and a zheena and malenky vecks of his own.
But once I viddied the story like once I wanted rookerfuls, and I've returned again and again, both to A. Burgess's book and S. Kubrick's sinny.
A Clockwork Orange is one of the five or six true greats ever govoreeted. The nadsat isn't at all gimmicky. The lomticks of philosophy are compelling and grow in relevance with the passing of raz. And I for one, oh my brothers, will always "remember the little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal."
Now he was a chelloveck of malevolently heroic proportions....more
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