I hope those of you who read this post will indulge me as I simply write about Love, not necessarily in regard to any particular book or article. Again, I offer this in the spirit of the original essayists, who would use this form to think on paper and try out ideas and concepts. These are the somewhat coherent thoughts of someone writing on a dark, cold, and windy Sunday evening.
I suppose I could start with the famous Chapter 13 from 1st Corinthians about Love that seems to be read at most Christian weddings. I find it among the most poetic passages in the Pauline letters, but is Love that black and white. I wonder if the couples who choose this passage consider the full context of these words.
"1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
Is it really true that if I have faith, but not love then "I am nothing." Love never fails, but many of these marriages do, right? Does love always persevere? I realize that Paul make be expressing "Agape", God's love for humanity, but I think we as humans tend to put this in our own terms, don't we? I don't know if Love always perseveres, but I do know that it evolves and changes as do relationships. In fact, as the passage notes, we too have to mature and put away childish things, even sometimes our notions of what Love is and what it does.
After nearly 18 years of marriage, I still love my wife, but that Love is not necessarily the same type of Love that first brought us together. We have had so many experiences and changes to our lives that I don't think the Love could be the same. Our circle of Love has expanded to include not only the two of us, but our three children as well.
If you have paid attention you will see that I continue to capitalize Love. This is intentional, because I think it is important enough and powerful enough to deserve that distinction. However, I do this in part to also call attention to the fact that Love is a powerful force to be reckoned with. It is not merely the shallow sentiment found in greeting cards and Hummel figurines, it one of the elemental forces of our universe. I often prefer to think of Love as the Ancient Greeks did when they personified it as Eros. Even today in words like "erotic", we see the darker, dangerous, and sensual connotations of this term. Pardon the pun, but this type of love is not to be fucked with.
I can intellectual appreciate what Paul is saying by placing Love above both faith and hope, but I don't know about that. For me, I cannot imagine Love without faith and hope. Being in love and staying in love requires large elements of both faith and hope. If you don't have faith in what you love, the Love is never going to last. It seems to me that this is why Love can and often does persevere. Similarly, hope is for me an essential component of what keeps love going to. Who doesn't hope that their Love will stand the test of time? However, even these concepts leave us with an incomplete sense of what Love is. Love isn't some Platonic ideal state that just sort of finds you and the object(s) of your affection. You hve to work damned hard on your Love. And if you don't all the faith and hope won't keep that Love alive.
To conclude with a thought similar to that of Paul, I'll quote the Beatles who once sang, "All you need is love, love, love is all you need." Still not sure that's all you need, but it is a helluva start.
Peace and Love,
Czar
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
There is No Sun in My Life Today
In the Family Way
“There is No Sun in My Life Today”: A Day of the Dead Diary
by
Nicolas Shump
October 31- There is No Sun in My Life Today
These are the words spoken by my eldest son upon hearing of the death of his Great-Grandpa Homer. He goes on to say that nothing like this has ever happened to him before. He is nearly 7. There is a message on the answering machine as we return home from our Halloween festivities. My wife’s grandfather has died. He was nearly 89 years old. His birthday is in three weeks. We had already bought him a birthday card. It is All Soul’s Day.
October 31- Now and at the Hour of Our Death
Every night when we put our boys down for bed we say several prayers. For the last year or so, they have been saying the Hail Mary. Initially, I decide that the phrase “Now and at the hour of our death” seems too frightening for little boys, so I amend it to “rest.” Not a major change, only one word, but it did shift the emphasis away from the finality of death, which was my intention all along.
Recently, I looked through their religious education booklet where I discover that by next year my eldest son could begin his preparations for his First Holy Communion. He is supposed to be able to recite the Hail Mary. So my wife and I decide to teach them the correct prayer. We have only been saying the new version for a couple of weeks. At first, both boys tend to emphasize the word “Death,” practically yelling it out. We find this amusing to hear this, but as we pray tonight, I wonder if it has taken on a new meaning. We conclude with a special prayer for Great-Grandpa Homer.
October 31- The Communion of Saints
Another prayer the boys have learned is “The Apostles Creed”, though it is a children’s version found in their First Catholic Dictionary. A few weeks ago, one of the boys asked me what the “Communion of Saints” is. I said that we should look it up in their Catholic dictionary. According to the dictionary, the Communion of Saints is the entire Church, the whole community of believers, living and dead. I have always found this concept to be comforting, the belief that the dead are still part of our faith community. Catholicism for me has always included an awareness, if not a tacit presence of deceased relatives in my life. I recall watching my mother faithfully light candles and pray before the Virgin Mary. It might have been for her intercession, though often it was for souls in Purgatory.
Some readers might dismiss this notion as nothing more than base superstition, but I definitely affirm the Communion of Saints. I celebrate the continuing presence of the Dead in my life. Our society is too concerned with pushing death and the dying into some corner where it can be safely ignored. We care for the sick in nursing homes or in lonely hospital wards. We gladly let others take care of our sick and dying while we busy ourselves with the illusion that we can maintain our youth indefinitely and somehow cheat death. “Remember you are dust and to dust and to dust you shall return.”
November 1st- All Saint’s Day
It is also the beginning of El Día de Los Muertos/The Day of the Dead. I go to work to request bereavement leave, which is granted. We leave for Hays, Kansas when I return from my office. Darkness blankets the lonely Kansas plains as we head down I-70. My wife reminisces about her grandpa. She recalls little thing- the way he flipped a match around in his fingers, his sweet tooth, the westerns that he read, and his overalls. She cannot remember him wearing anything besides his overalls. A few days earlier, we had taken the boys to the KU Anthropology Museum for some Halloween activities. The skeletons known as calaveras immediately drew the attention of my sons. These drawings, which adorned the walls of the exhibit, have become a familiar symbol of The Day of the Dead. As we pass an altar/ofrenda my wife is amused by the Diet Coke can found on one of the altars. I explain to her that the relatives of the deceased believe that the dead can return on these days, so the families place favorite items on these altars in anticipation of their return. As I listen to my wife speak of her grandpa, I begin to picture what his ofrenda would look like.
November 2nd- What Will My Legacy Be?
This is a question that has preceded the death of my wife’s grandpa. What does a life mean? How do we measure it? At work, I come across an obituary for a retired member of the Association I work for. I read of his professional life, his military service and his family. Is this the sum of a human life? I think of my children, ages 7 and 6, and my wife; I suppose this is my legacy. But how will my children remember me? What moments will catch hold in their memory, incidents that I may have forgotten about completely?
A friend tells us that she is divorcing her husband because of repeated infidelity. They have three children. What legacy is her husband establishing for his family? I am both saddened and angered by this news. What motivates someone to betray his marriage vows? It is by nature a selfish act. No though is given to the damage done to his spouse or his children. How will he be remembered as a father? I have seen the destructive nature of divorce in the life and relationships of my siblings. Several have been married more than once, while others seem averse to the idea of marriage altogether.
November 2nd- Family Trees
In my office there is a family tree drawn by my eldest son. It is a small tree with our immediate family only. After today, we might be able to fill in some empty branches. At the funeral home, we meet some relatives for the first time. It is remarked that that one of my boys looks like a Bence, his great-grandpa’s family. He quickly responds that he is a Shump, but the resemblance is undeniable. We exchange phone numbers and addresses, along with promises to send pictures and Christmas cards. A cousin from Oklahoma speaks of genealogical information for the Bence family that he will send to us. Our boys are the only children at the service.
November 2- Saying Our Goodbyes
As we leave Hays, we make one final stop-two actually. At a local florist, my wife looks for something to put on her grandfather’s grave. Not finding a suitable flower arrangement, she settles on a small teddy bear. She says that it reminds her of her grandpa. At the cemetery places the bear on the grave, it is actually the grave of her birth father. Her grandfather’s remains will be interred with his son, Buddy. I think of how often my sons crawl into our bed at night. Everyone agrees that Homer would want to be with his son now.
November 3rd-The Sun Also Rises
It has been a long week already, although it is only Wednesday. I see a card on the kitchen counter from a dear friend who is writing to announce the birth of her new baby daughter. At the school book fair, my wife finds a book that we plan to give to our nephew who is going to be a father in the spring. We are going to be grandaunts and granduncles. Amidst the mourning life does go on. I look at our sons and think of the poignant words of my son that I chose for this column. I can only respond by hugging him and saying that “The Sun Also Rises.”
The Kaw Valley Independent, November 15-December 14, 1999 (Volume 3, Issue 17)
“There is No Sun in My Life Today”: A Day of the Dead Diary
by
Nicolas Shump
October 31- There is No Sun in My Life Today
These are the words spoken by my eldest son upon hearing of the death of his Great-Grandpa Homer. He goes on to say that nothing like this has ever happened to him before. He is nearly 7. There is a message on the answering machine as we return home from our Halloween festivities. My wife’s grandfather has died. He was nearly 89 years old. His birthday is in three weeks. We had already bought him a birthday card. It is All Soul’s Day.
October 31- Now and at the Hour of Our Death
Every night when we put our boys down for bed we say several prayers. For the last year or so, they have been saying the Hail Mary. Initially, I decide that the phrase “Now and at the hour of our death” seems too frightening for little boys, so I amend it to “rest.” Not a major change, only one word, but it did shift the emphasis away from the finality of death, which was my intention all along.
Recently, I looked through their religious education booklet where I discover that by next year my eldest son could begin his preparations for his First Holy Communion. He is supposed to be able to recite the Hail Mary. So my wife and I decide to teach them the correct prayer. We have only been saying the new version for a couple of weeks. At first, both boys tend to emphasize the word “Death,” practically yelling it out. We find this amusing to hear this, but as we pray tonight, I wonder if it has taken on a new meaning. We conclude with a special prayer for Great-Grandpa Homer.
October 31- The Communion of Saints
Another prayer the boys have learned is “The Apostles Creed”, though it is a children’s version found in their First Catholic Dictionary. A few weeks ago, one of the boys asked me what the “Communion of Saints” is. I said that we should look it up in their Catholic dictionary. According to the dictionary, the Communion of Saints is the entire Church, the whole community of believers, living and dead. I have always found this concept to be comforting, the belief that the dead are still part of our faith community. Catholicism for me has always included an awareness, if not a tacit presence of deceased relatives in my life. I recall watching my mother faithfully light candles and pray before the Virgin Mary. It might have been for her intercession, though often it was for souls in Purgatory.
Some readers might dismiss this notion as nothing more than base superstition, but I definitely affirm the Communion of Saints. I celebrate the continuing presence of the Dead in my life. Our society is too concerned with pushing death and the dying into some corner where it can be safely ignored. We care for the sick in nursing homes or in lonely hospital wards. We gladly let others take care of our sick and dying while we busy ourselves with the illusion that we can maintain our youth indefinitely and somehow cheat death. “Remember you are dust and to dust and to dust you shall return.”
November 1st- All Saint’s Day
It is also the beginning of El Día de Los Muertos/The Day of the Dead. I go to work to request bereavement leave, which is granted. We leave for Hays, Kansas when I return from my office. Darkness blankets the lonely Kansas plains as we head down I-70. My wife reminisces about her grandpa. She recalls little thing- the way he flipped a match around in his fingers, his sweet tooth, the westerns that he read, and his overalls. She cannot remember him wearing anything besides his overalls. A few days earlier, we had taken the boys to the KU Anthropology Museum for some Halloween activities. The skeletons known as calaveras immediately drew the attention of my sons. These drawings, which adorned the walls of the exhibit, have become a familiar symbol of The Day of the Dead. As we pass an altar/ofrenda my wife is amused by the Diet Coke can found on one of the altars. I explain to her that the relatives of the deceased believe that the dead can return on these days, so the families place favorite items on these altars in anticipation of their return. As I listen to my wife speak of her grandpa, I begin to picture what his ofrenda would look like.
November 2nd- What Will My Legacy Be?
This is a question that has preceded the death of my wife’s grandpa. What does a life mean? How do we measure it? At work, I come across an obituary for a retired member of the Association I work for. I read of his professional life, his military service and his family. Is this the sum of a human life? I think of my children, ages 7 and 6, and my wife; I suppose this is my legacy. But how will my children remember me? What moments will catch hold in their memory, incidents that I may have forgotten about completely?
A friend tells us that she is divorcing her husband because of repeated infidelity. They have three children. What legacy is her husband establishing for his family? I am both saddened and angered by this news. What motivates someone to betray his marriage vows? It is by nature a selfish act. No though is given to the damage done to his spouse or his children. How will he be remembered as a father? I have seen the destructive nature of divorce in the life and relationships of my siblings. Several have been married more than once, while others seem averse to the idea of marriage altogether.
November 2nd- Family Trees
In my office there is a family tree drawn by my eldest son. It is a small tree with our immediate family only. After today, we might be able to fill in some empty branches. At the funeral home, we meet some relatives for the first time. It is remarked that that one of my boys looks like a Bence, his great-grandpa’s family. He quickly responds that he is a Shump, but the resemblance is undeniable. We exchange phone numbers and addresses, along with promises to send pictures and Christmas cards. A cousin from Oklahoma speaks of genealogical information for the Bence family that he will send to us. Our boys are the only children at the service.
November 2- Saying Our Goodbyes
As we leave Hays, we make one final stop-two actually. At a local florist, my wife looks for something to put on her grandfather’s grave. Not finding a suitable flower arrangement, she settles on a small teddy bear. She says that it reminds her of her grandpa. At the cemetery places the bear on the grave, it is actually the grave of her birth father. Her grandfather’s remains will be interred with his son, Buddy. I think of how often my sons crawl into our bed at night. Everyone agrees that Homer would want to be with his son now.
November 3rd-The Sun Also Rises
It has been a long week already, although it is only Wednesday. I see a card on the kitchen counter from a dear friend who is writing to announce the birth of her new baby daughter. At the school book fair, my wife finds a book that we plan to give to our nephew who is going to be a father in the spring. We are going to be grandaunts and granduncles. Amidst the mourning life does go on. I look at our sons and think of the poignant words of my son that I chose for this column. I can only respond by hugging him and saying that “The Sun Also Rises.”
The Kaw Valley Independent, November 15-December 14, 1999 (Volume 3, Issue 17)
The Undiscover'd Country
A look at El Día de Los Muertos/The Day of the Dead
by
Nicolas Shump
In perhaps the best-known soliloquy in the English language, Hamlet struggles with the decision of whether or not to commit suicide. What prevents him from carrying out this deed is his fear of what he characterizes as “the dread of something after death/The undiscover’d country from whose bourn/No traveler returns.” (Hamlet III, i) For many Mexicans and Mexican Americans, there is no such fear. Instead, death is accepted as merely another part of the continuity of life. This is expressed in the many religious and cultural rituals that comprise El Día de Los Muertos/The Day of the Dead, which falls on November 2nd.
Thus while many of us gear up to celebrate Halloween, many Mexicans are making preparations for El Día de Los Muertos. The two are, in fact, closely related. Halloween precedes the Catholic Feast Days of All Saints (El Día de Todos Santos, on November 1st) and All Souls. While All Saints’ Day occupies an important role in the Catholic liturgical year, All Souls Day is equally, if not more, important in Mexican culture.
Many scholars trace the origins of El Día de Los Muertos to pre-Columbian Aztec religious ceremonies. According to Victor Mendoza Grado, this festival originally was “held during the Aztec month of Miccaihuitontli, which was presided over by the goddess Mitecacihuatl/The Lady of the Dead.” Originally, this festival was held near the end of July or the beginning of August. After the colonial encounter, the Spanish Catholic priests moved the celebration to coincide with the Christian celebration of All Saints and All Souls.
The result is a syncretic celebration that has allowed for a blending of pre-Columbian and European Catholic approaches to the remembrance of the dead. The festivities often begin with a procession known as La Noche de Duelo/The Night of Mourning. This candlelight procession to the local cemetery ends with friends and relatives of the deceased eating a meal at the cemetery.
It is common for the celebration to begin with an homage to the children who have died, also known as los angelitos/little angels. The adults are remembered on the following evening of November 2nd. In addition to the food for the families of the deceased, food is prepared for the dead as well.
The path to the food is marked with marigold petals, which serve a dual purpose. It is believed that such bright flowers help the Dead to see the path to the food. Additionally, marigolds, also known by their indigenous names, cempazuchitl or zempasuciti, traditionally symbolize death.
In addition to the pilgrimages to the cemetery, the Dead are remembered at home too with altars known as ofrendas/offerings. The term is used for the food, drinks, and other items collected for these altars. The food can take various forms, but sweet bread is a staple.
El Pan de Los Muertos/The Bread of the Dead is perhaps the best known of the many foods served during El Día de Los Muertos. The bread is a round loaf with coils of dough baked on top, which are supposed to symbolize bones or skulls.
The Day of the Dead served as a primary inspiration for one particular Mexican artist, whose legacy is still evident today. José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) was a popular and influential Mexican artist, whose images known as calaveras/skulls have become synonymous with visual representations of El Día de Los Muertos. Posada took the figure of the Grim Reaper, known in Mexico as a calaca, and transformed it into an icon of Mexican folk art and culture.
Posada deftly transferred this symbol of folklore into an image that served political purposes, as in his work known as Cuando la revolucíon Maderista (a reference to the Mexican revolutionary leader Francisco Madero, who briefly served as President of Mexico in the aftermath of the overthrow of Porfirio Diaz). Other images like El Jarabe en Ultratumba show calaveras shown singing and dancing.
With its irreverent attitude toward death, the Mexican belief of death as another cycle of life, it provides a contrast with the intellectual angst of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Whether it is clothed in the religious trappings of Catholicism or in the beliefs of pre-Columbian mythology, it is a hopeful and celebratory spirit that reminds us that the Dead need not live only in our heads, but can be found also in our hearts.
As Thornton Wilder once wrote, “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
The Kaw Valley Independent, November 3-November 17, 1998 (Volume 2, Issue 4)
by
Nicolas Shump
In perhaps the best-known soliloquy in the English language, Hamlet struggles with the decision of whether or not to commit suicide. What prevents him from carrying out this deed is his fear of what he characterizes as “the dread of something after death/The undiscover’d country from whose bourn/No traveler returns.” (Hamlet III, i) For many Mexicans and Mexican Americans, there is no such fear. Instead, death is accepted as merely another part of the continuity of life. This is expressed in the many religious and cultural rituals that comprise El Día de Los Muertos/The Day of the Dead, which falls on November 2nd.
Thus while many of us gear up to celebrate Halloween, many Mexicans are making preparations for El Día de Los Muertos. The two are, in fact, closely related. Halloween precedes the Catholic Feast Days of All Saints (El Día de Todos Santos, on November 1st) and All Souls. While All Saints’ Day occupies an important role in the Catholic liturgical year, All Souls Day is equally, if not more, important in Mexican culture.
Many scholars trace the origins of El Día de Los Muertos to pre-Columbian Aztec religious ceremonies. According to Victor Mendoza Grado, this festival originally was “held during the Aztec month of Miccaihuitontli, which was presided over by the goddess Mitecacihuatl/The Lady of the Dead.” Originally, this festival was held near the end of July or the beginning of August. After the colonial encounter, the Spanish Catholic priests moved the celebration to coincide with the Christian celebration of All Saints and All Souls.
The result is a syncretic celebration that has allowed for a blending of pre-Columbian and European Catholic approaches to the remembrance of the dead. The festivities often begin with a procession known as La Noche de Duelo/The Night of Mourning. This candlelight procession to the local cemetery ends with friends and relatives of the deceased eating a meal at the cemetery.
It is common for the celebration to begin with an homage to the children who have died, also known as los angelitos/little angels. The adults are remembered on the following evening of November 2nd. In addition to the food for the families of the deceased, food is prepared for the dead as well.
The path to the food is marked with marigold petals, which serve a dual purpose. It is believed that such bright flowers help the Dead to see the path to the food. Additionally, marigolds, also known by their indigenous names, cempazuchitl or zempasuciti, traditionally symbolize death.
In addition to the pilgrimages to the cemetery, the Dead are remembered at home too with altars known as ofrendas/offerings. The term is used for the food, drinks, and other items collected for these altars. The food can take various forms, but sweet bread is a staple.
El Pan de Los Muertos/The Bread of the Dead is perhaps the best known of the many foods served during El Día de Los Muertos. The bread is a round loaf with coils of dough baked on top, which are supposed to symbolize bones or skulls.
The Day of the Dead served as a primary inspiration for one particular Mexican artist, whose legacy is still evident today. José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) was a popular and influential Mexican artist, whose images known as calaveras/skulls have become synonymous with visual representations of El Día de Los Muertos. Posada took the figure of the Grim Reaper, known in Mexico as a calaca, and transformed it into an icon of Mexican folk art and culture.
Posada deftly transferred this symbol of folklore into an image that served political purposes, as in his work known as Cuando la revolucíon Maderista (a reference to the Mexican revolutionary leader Francisco Madero, who briefly served as President of Mexico in the aftermath of the overthrow of Porfirio Diaz). Other images like El Jarabe en Ultratumba show calaveras shown singing and dancing.
With its irreverent attitude toward death, the Mexican belief of death as another cycle of life, it provides a contrast with the intellectual angst of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Whether it is clothed in the religious trappings of Catholicism or in the beliefs of pre-Columbian mythology, it is a hopeful and celebratory spirit that reminds us that the Dead need not live only in our heads, but can be found also in our hearts.
As Thornton Wilder once wrote, “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
The Kaw Valley Independent, November 3-November 17, 1998 (Volume 2, Issue 4)
Monday, November 1, 2010
Summertime Blues
I have not read anything else written by Chris Knopf and am not familiar with his Sam Acquillo Hampton Mystery Series. This new novel, Elysiana, appears to be a departure for Knopf as it recounts a summer on the Jersey Shore in 1969. The main characters are Gwendalynn Anders who finds herself so stoned out of her mind that she somehows falls asleep in Michigan and ends up in New Jersey in Elysiana, the town whose name is also that of the novel. Gwendalynn eventually meets up with Jack Halcyon (I think Knopf chooses these names intentionally, but he doesn't really do much to show us how and why these names are important. Other characters include the ambitious and morally questionable Norman Harlan, the Borough Council president whose professional jealous leads him to think of taking out the mayor of Elysiana who stands in the way of Harlan having control of the town. Another antagonist for Harlan is Avery Volpe, the captain of the beach patrol. As you can imagine in a beach community, Volpe would have a certain standing in the community that relies on the beach for its livelihood.
There are numerous other characters who come in and out of the main narrative and who are connected admirably by Knopf's storytelling. The use of the beach patrol allows Knopf to create a cast of characters whose personalities would not normally interact, but do as members of the rather elite beach patrol.
Knopf brings his story to a climax by the presence of a rather destructive hurricane that is headed directly towards Elysiana. As the weather approaches, the various schemes, love triangles, and peculiar relationships tighten as well. Without spoiling the ending, the story has a series of what I think can be called "happy endings", but in several cases they are a bit too neatly resolved. The fate of several of the characters is rather incredible, though as a reader I felt myself glad to see these various endings. Still, I think that Knopf might have found a more sophisticated and believable manner of completing some of these stories.
I think Knopf is particularly good at drawing his characters and establishing relationships. However, I did feel that most of his female characters were quite traditional in their desires and life goals. Often they function as a form of sexual release for several of the characters even if there is not "sex" occurring between the men and women in the story. Here I feel that Knopf has fallen back into the generic trappings of mystery and detective novels that he is better known for. There is an elegiac tone in this book as the author takes us back to a perhaps more naive and hopeful time. It is a good read, though I think there is much in Knopf's fictional world that is underutilized.
Czar
There are numerous other characters who come in and out of the main narrative and who are connected admirably by Knopf's storytelling. The use of the beach patrol allows Knopf to create a cast of characters whose personalities would not normally interact, but do as members of the rather elite beach patrol.
Knopf brings his story to a climax by the presence of a rather destructive hurricane that is headed directly towards Elysiana. As the weather approaches, the various schemes, love triangles, and peculiar relationships tighten as well. Without spoiling the ending, the story has a series of what I think can be called "happy endings", but in several cases they are a bit too neatly resolved. The fate of several of the characters is rather incredible, though as a reader I felt myself glad to see these various endings. Still, I think that Knopf might have found a more sophisticated and believable manner of completing some of these stories.
I think Knopf is particularly good at drawing his characters and establishing relationships. However, I did feel that most of his female characters were quite traditional in their desires and life goals. Often they function as a form of sexual release for several of the characters even if there is not "sex" occurring between the men and women in the story. Here I feel that Knopf has fallen back into the generic trappings of mystery and detective novels that he is better known for. There is an elegiac tone in this book as the author takes us back to a perhaps more naive and hopeful time. It is a good read, though I think there is much in Knopf's fictional world that is underutilized.
Czar
Some Guys Have All the Luck
While I did not ultimately like Danny Tobey's debut novel, The Faculty Club, I must confess that I may have been colored by the author bio. It reads "Danny Tobey is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School." Some guys have all the luck, right? It's pretty easy to hate a guy like this without knowing anything else about him, isn't it?
The novel begins with a flashback from the narrator recounting his parent's reaction to his acceptance into law school. Curiously the author refers to the school as "the greatest law school in the world, but doesn't name it. In fact, when the narrator describes the tour guide and the three lies associated with the founder of this particular school, he is actually referring to Harvard University. So the novel seems to be set at Harvard, though Tobey is rather vague on some of these details. I'm not sure why. The protagonist is Jeremy Davis, a first year law student who stayed at home because of his father's illness. Davis now finds himself surrounded by academic superstars who are Rhodes Scholars and have class, sophistication, and money well beyond his own.
He finds himself thrown into the company of three other students: Nigel, a young wealthy Black British student who first befriends Jeremy; John, a charismatic Harvard grad and Rhodes Scholar; and Daphne, a fantastically beautiful Yale grad and Rhodes Scholar as well.
Soon, Jeremy finds himself working for the distinguished Professor Ernesto Bernini who had formally been U.S. Attorney General, and competing with his new friends for 3 spots in an secretive, exclusive, and potentially dangerous club. When Jeremy is seemingly rejected from this club, he finds himself determined to find out what this club is all about and to potentially expose its secret rituals. He finds himself asking an old high school friend Miles to help him out. Miles seemingly knows everyone at this school and helps to introduce Jeremy to a somewhat shady character named Chance who is a reporter of sorts.
Before Jeremy was excluded from his candidacy to this club, he mets an older gentleman who seems to have a rather unusual if not macabre fascination with human skulls and crypts. This leads Jeremy, Miles, and Chance on a search to find the headquarters of the secret club called V & D.
When Jeremy was still competing for V & D, he and Daphne had teamed up to win the Mock Trial competition, defeating Nigel and John in the process. To do this, he had to basically expose a med student as a fraud who used her father's connections to cover up her academic deficiencies. To make matters worse, Jeremy and this med student, Sarah had met each other socially prior to the mock trial and left a possible relationship hanging in the air after a chance meeting.
After learning that his actions contributed to Sarah's suicide attempt, Jeremy tries to make amends, which are eventually accepted by Sarah who then becomes romantically involved with Jeremy. She too joins the other three in search of V & D.
These portions of the novel are well-rendered and plausible, if a bit imitative. However, the novel flounders as we get close to the climax involving the V & D. Here Tobey introduces a mishmash of medieval alchemy, voodoo, and a quest for immortality that truly doesn't hold together. Though we learn about the purpose of the V & D, there is considerable vagueness regarding the society and what Tobey calls "the sun pole."
We have a relatively happy ending, but an unsatisfactory ending to a novel that began with a very intriguing premise.
If you are curious about the inner workings of the Ivy League, this novel is for you. I think Tobey might have had a better book had he not tried to be so ambitious with his plot.
Better luck next time, Harvard.
Czar
The novel begins with a flashback from the narrator recounting his parent's reaction to his acceptance into law school. Curiously the author refers to the school as "the greatest law school in the world, but doesn't name it. In fact, when the narrator describes the tour guide and the three lies associated with the founder of this particular school, he is actually referring to Harvard University. So the novel seems to be set at Harvard, though Tobey is rather vague on some of these details. I'm not sure why. The protagonist is Jeremy Davis, a first year law student who stayed at home because of his father's illness. Davis now finds himself surrounded by academic superstars who are Rhodes Scholars and have class, sophistication, and money well beyond his own.
He finds himself thrown into the company of three other students: Nigel, a young wealthy Black British student who first befriends Jeremy; John, a charismatic Harvard grad and Rhodes Scholar; and Daphne, a fantastically beautiful Yale grad and Rhodes Scholar as well.
Soon, Jeremy finds himself working for the distinguished Professor Ernesto Bernini who had formally been U.S. Attorney General, and competing with his new friends for 3 spots in an secretive, exclusive, and potentially dangerous club. When Jeremy is seemingly rejected from this club, he finds himself determined to find out what this club is all about and to potentially expose its secret rituals. He finds himself asking an old high school friend Miles to help him out. Miles seemingly knows everyone at this school and helps to introduce Jeremy to a somewhat shady character named Chance who is a reporter of sorts.
Before Jeremy was excluded from his candidacy to this club, he mets an older gentleman who seems to have a rather unusual if not macabre fascination with human skulls and crypts. This leads Jeremy, Miles, and Chance on a search to find the headquarters of the secret club called V & D.
When Jeremy was still competing for V & D, he and Daphne had teamed up to win the Mock Trial competition, defeating Nigel and John in the process. To do this, he had to basically expose a med student as a fraud who used her father's connections to cover up her academic deficiencies. To make matters worse, Jeremy and this med student, Sarah had met each other socially prior to the mock trial and left a possible relationship hanging in the air after a chance meeting.
After learning that his actions contributed to Sarah's suicide attempt, Jeremy tries to make amends, which are eventually accepted by Sarah who then becomes romantically involved with Jeremy. She too joins the other three in search of V & D.
These portions of the novel are well-rendered and plausible, if a bit imitative. However, the novel flounders as we get close to the climax involving the V & D. Here Tobey introduces a mishmash of medieval alchemy, voodoo, and a quest for immortality that truly doesn't hold together. Though we learn about the purpose of the V & D, there is considerable vagueness regarding the society and what Tobey calls "the sun pole."
We have a relatively happy ending, but an unsatisfactory ending to a novel that began with a very intriguing premise.
If you are curious about the inner workings of the Ivy League, this novel is for you. I think Tobey might have had a better book had he not tried to be so ambitious with his plot.
Better luck next time, Harvard.
Czar
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Another Biblical, Catholic, Conspiratorial mystery novel
This is the second novel by Tom Knox the pseudonym of the British journalist Sean Thomas. I have already reviewed his first novel, The Genesis Secret, which though it hand its moments, is not nearly as compelling or well-written as his second novel, The Marks of Cain.
Like Genesis, The Marks of Cain has the strange little Dan Brown-style note stating that though it is a work of fiction, "it draws on many genuine historical, archaeological and scientific sources." Knox makes excellent use of his journalistic skills to artfully set compelling tableaus that he then weaves together into a main narrative thread. I found myself wanting to further research the construction and subsequent history of the La Tourette monastery designed by Le Corbusier, Eugen Fischer and the history of his eugenics research in Africa and his connection to the Nazis, and the history of the Basque region of Spain and the fate of the "Cagots." If you are wanting a novel that provides a great deal of historical, religious, and cultural information, but doesn't read like a reference guide, I highly recommend the novels of Tom Knox. The fact that he has the gift to turn this information into a riveting mystery/adventure story is icing on the cake.
As I previously mentioned, Knox typically chooses two or three different characters and stories that at first glance do not seem connected at all, only to bring them all together by the close of the story. In this case, we begin with the odd and humorous scene of British journalist Simon Quinn attending a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. As you might inspect from a detective/mystery story, Quinn is soon summoned by the authorities to cover a rather gruesome murder scene that has all the signs of ritual type of murder. One murder leads to another and another and soon we are carried away on Quinn's quest to find the common thread of these murders. Somewhat unexpectedly, Quinn finds himself learning a great deal about the eugenics movement and the work of Eugen Fischer and more recent work on the Human Genome Diversity Project.
David Martinez, a British American professional returns to the U.S. to be with his dying grandfather, only to learn upon his grandfather's death that there is a mystery to his and David's family origins that lead him into a dangerous journey among the Basque as he attempts to understand his grandfather's past and the true fate of David's parents who died tragically when David was a teenager.
Eventually the paths of Quinn and Martinez path as they and the reader slowly begin to pierce together the pieces of the puzzle involving Corbusier, Nazi eugenics, the Cagots, and the old reliable institutional bad guy (the Roman Catholic Church). Some of these connections are well-documented like the decision by Pius XII not to speak out more forcefully about the treatment of the Jews by Germany in World War II. Others, like the La Tourette monastery and the history of the Cagots were news to me. Knox does a superb job of making these connections work fictionally, even if they do not always support the history or vice versa.
Knox does what a good historical novelist should do which is to connect the dots in an interesting way that allows the reader to believe in the story they are being told and to want to reach the resolution as much as the characters in the story do. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and I would recommend his work to anyone who is a fan of this growing genre of fiction. While I would still give Dan Brown credit for writing more compelling novels, the intellectual substance of Knox's work is far superior to that of Brown.
Enjoy!
Czar
Like Genesis, The Marks of Cain has the strange little Dan Brown-style note stating that though it is a work of fiction, "it draws on many genuine historical, archaeological and scientific sources." Knox makes excellent use of his journalistic skills to artfully set compelling tableaus that he then weaves together into a main narrative thread. I found myself wanting to further research the construction and subsequent history of the La Tourette monastery designed by Le Corbusier, Eugen Fischer and the history of his eugenics research in Africa and his connection to the Nazis, and the history of the Basque region of Spain and the fate of the "Cagots." If you are wanting a novel that provides a great deal of historical, religious, and cultural information, but doesn't read like a reference guide, I highly recommend the novels of Tom Knox. The fact that he has the gift to turn this information into a riveting mystery/adventure story is icing on the cake.
As I previously mentioned, Knox typically chooses two or three different characters and stories that at first glance do not seem connected at all, only to bring them all together by the close of the story. In this case, we begin with the odd and humorous scene of British journalist Simon Quinn attending a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. As you might inspect from a detective/mystery story, Quinn is soon summoned by the authorities to cover a rather gruesome murder scene that has all the signs of ritual type of murder. One murder leads to another and another and soon we are carried away on Quinn's quest to find the common thread of these murders. Somewhat unexpectedly, Quinn finds himself learning a great deal about the eugenics movement and the work of Eugen Fischer and more recent work on the Human Genome Diversity Project.
David Martinez, a British American professional returns to the U.S. to be with his dying grandfather, only to learn upon his grandfather's death that there is a mystery to his and David's family origins that lead him into a dangerous journey among the Basque as he attempts to understand his grandfather's past and the true fate of David's parents who died tragically when David was a teenager.
Eventually the paths of Quinn and Martinez path as they and the reader slowly begin to pierce together the pieces of the puzzle involving Corbusier, Nazi eugenics, the Cagots, and the old reliable institutional bad guy (the Roman Catholic Church). Some of these connections are well-documented like the decision by Pius XII not to speak out more forcefully about the treatment of the Jews by Germany in World War II. Others, like the La Tourette monastery and the history of the Cagots were news to me. Knox does a superb job of making these connections work fictionally, even if they do not always support the history or vice versa.
Knox does what a good historical novelist should do which is to connect the dots in an interesting way that allows the reader to believe in the story they are being told and to want to reach the resolution as much as the characters in the story do. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and I would recommend his work to anyone who is a fan of this growing genre of fiction. While I would still give Dan Brown credit for writing more compelling novels, the intellectual substance of Knox's work is far superior to that of Brown.
Enjoy!
Czar
Sunday, August 15, 2010
I've Got a Secret?
The Genesis Secret is the first novel of Tom Knox who is a British journalist. In its subject matter, it has drawn comparisons to The DaVinci Code and other similar thrillers involving religious and Biblical themes. I think Knox's work is more literary than Brown's, but Brown does a superb job of pacing his novel and literary quality aside The Genesis Code is not a page turner like Brown's works. Nevertheless, Knox's work is still a good read and provides a glimpse of a world that I was totally unfamiliar with.
The centerpiece of The Genesis Secret is a site in Turkish Kurdistan known as Gobekli Tepe, which is an archaeological site nearly 12,000 years old. This means that it might be the oldest site of human civilization known to humanity. Within that region there is a group of people known of the Cult of the Angels or Angelicans. Within their own culture they are called the Yezidi.
The protagonist is a British-American writer named Rob Luttrell who stumbles upon a more complex story than an ancient archaeological dig when he is assigned to cover this site. Along the way he meets a French osteoarchaeologist and biological anthropology looking through the human remains in these sites.
Soon Luttrell and Brown are on a search for something known as "The Black Book" that originally belonged to the Yezidi and whose location might be still in Kurdistan or might be in Europe. A nice twist is the incorporation of selections of Irish mythology and history found in James Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
More sinister is the existence of a group of young rich men who try to relieve their ennui with macabre and grotesque ritual killings of individuals who happen to get into their way as they conduct their own search for "The Black Book." Readers learn about the origins of a European-Asian encounter with the Hellfire Club, whose members included Benjamin Franklin.
Without giving away the ending, I felt the "secret" in the title was anti-climactic. Nor is the secret revealed necessarily as earth-shattering as the book leads to believe it is.
This rather mundane "revelation" might not be the fault of Tom Knox, but might be more a characteristic of a genre of literature that might be reaching the point where the strange nexus of religion, politics, science, and faith might have exhausted the store of secrets that drive these novels.
However, I did enjoy this book and found myself staying up late into the morning to finish it.
Czar
The centerpiece of The Genesis Secret is a site in Turkish Kurdistan known as Gobekli Tepe, which is an archaeological site nearly 12,000 years old. This means that it might be the oldest site of human civilization known to humanity. Within that region there is a group of people known of the Cult of the Angels or Angelicans. Within their own culture they are called the Yezidi.
The protagonist is a British-American writer named Rob Luttrell who stumbles upon a more complex story than an ancient archaeological dig when he is assigned to cover this site. Along the way he meets a French osteoarchaeologist and biological anthropology looking through the human remains in these sites.
Soon Luttrell and Brown are on a search for something known as "The Black Book" that originally belonged to the Yezidi and whose location might be still in Kurdistan or might be in Europe. A nice twist is the incorporation of selections of Irish mythology and history found in James Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
More sinister is the existence of a group of young rich men who try to relieve their ennui with macabre and grotesque ritual killings of individuals who happen to get into their way as they conduct their own search for "The Black Book." Readers learn about the origins of a European-Asian encounter with the Hellfire Club, whose members included Benjamin Franklin.
Without giving away the ending, I felt the "secret" in the title was anti-climactic. Nor is the secret revealed necessarily as earth-shattering as the book leads to believe it is.
This rather mundane "revelation" might not be the fault of Tom Knox, but might be more a characteristic of a genre of literature that might be reaching the point where the strange nexus of religion, politics, science, and faith might have exhausted the store of secrets that drive these novels.
However, I did enjoy this book and found myself staying up late into the morning to finish it.
Czar
Illness and Confession in Modern American Poetry
Fellow Bibliophiles,
I'm back! July was a month of transitions for me as I moved and had some other changes personal and professional.
I have been doing some reading and will definitely have more to blog in the very near future.
Adam Kirsch who is a poet and book critic wrote a study of six modern American poets titled The Wounded Surgeon: Confession and Transformation in Six American Poets. The poets he considered were Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berrryman, Randall Jarrell, Delmore Schwartz, and Sylvia Plath.
If you have read some of my earlier blogs, I have reviewed several books that cover similar territory or some of these same authors. As a KU undergrad I took a class on the poetry of Robert Lowell and John Berryman. I took another class on the poetry of Marianne Moore and Wallace Stevens. In another life, I might have pursued a PhD in American Literature and become an academic reader of poetry. I did not, but I still remain a dedicated and impassioned reader of poetry and I do confess that I have a particular fondness for what some critics call "The Middle Generation", which comprises poets like those mentioned above who came after the great American and European modernists like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and others.
I have the collected works of Lowell and Berryman and individual collections of poetry by Plath. I've read Bishop's and Jarrell's poetry, and am least familiar with Schwartz. In addition to earlier blogs on Peter Davison's memoir of the Boston literary scene and Jeffrey Meyers study on mania in some of these poets, I've read the major biographies of Lowell and Berryman. I also read Bruce Bawer's study titled the Middle Generation that included all of these poets except for Bishop and Plath. So I was very excited to see what Kirsch would do with these poets.
Overall, this is an excellent introduction to the work, if not the lives of these poets. If you have only read a few poems by these authors in your survey lit classes in high school and college, this would be a good place to learn more about them. If you want to see a very fine example of close reading of poetry, Kirsch's work is a great template. It is obvious that he is familiar with the poets under consideration and offers thoughtful and occasionally insightful readings of individual poems.
However, considering that he considers all six poets in under 300 pages, the individual chapters are certainly condensed and I would recommend reading this book in parts rather than all at once. There were times that I felt there was no overarching organization to his reading of these poets' work rather than a rough chronological outline. He simply goes from poem to poem or work to work without providing much of a road map. Some thematic headlines or section divisions would have made the chapters more cohesive.
For someone who has studied these poets, both academically and privately, I am not entirely satisfied with this work. A common theme that runs through the work of several of these poets is religion. Lowell began his life as Boston Brahmin Puritan, converted to Catholicism, and later seemed to have abandoned organized religion. Berryman had a similar conversion experience late in life after he went through alcohol rehab. Finally, Schwartz was born to Jewish immigrant parents and many of his poems reference his Jewish roots. Kirsch is not a particular sensitive reader when it comes to the the role that religion played in the poetry of this writers. He seems to be unable to consider the genuine conversion of these poets when they write "religious poetry." Instead, he tries to point out how the imagery or themes are inconsistent with organized religion. What this tells me is that Kirsch has a rather shallow understanding of religious belief. Just because someone calls themselves a Christian or a Jew does not mean that every word that comes out of their mouth or their pen has to be pious. However, this seem to be the standard that Kirsch applies to these authors. It is as if he can tolerate and appreciate ambiguity in their poetry, unless the topic is religion. As someone who has a great understanding of modernist and New Critical techniques in poetry, I do not understand why Kirsch seems to be unable to accept ambiguity, if not outright contradiction from religious poets.
Personally, I believe that when they were writing their poems, that these poets were true believers. Does that mean the religion "stuck"? No, it certainly did not with Lowell and Berryman's conversion occurred so late in his life that we don't know what might have happened had he lived longer.
Kirsch writes, "'Eleven Addresses to the Lord.' . . . But these addresses are born of urgent personal need, and they throw overboard all the irony, doubt, and grief that made the Dream Songs authentically religious poetry." Kirsch doesn't tell you what the criteria for "authentically religious poetry" is, except that it cannot be statements of faith or belief! Again, Kirsch's inability to understand the anthropology of religion is puzzling. He goes on to discount the poetry because it appears so soon after Berryman's conversion. "Yet the very recent date of the conversion, and still more the absence of any reticence or introspection, make this experience hard to credit; while it may have been real, it does not become poetically convincing." What the hell does "poetically convincing" mean? Also, is there a certain time limit on conversions, before the poets who have undergone this conversion become "poetically convincing?" When someone undergoes a conversion experience, it seems axiomatic to me that they don't show reticence or introspection. That may come later, as Thomas Merton's life and writing would illustrate, but any new convert is full of belief and their experience of the spirit of the divine.
Kirsch's decision to focus on the poetry and not the lives of these poets is admirable, but there are times that the reader needs to know that Robert Lowell suffered from manic depression or that Sylvia Plath did have a passionately tortured life. Using Plath as an example, Kirsch notes how too much of the writing on Plath has involved her life and not her poetry, but he does not even mention that Plath sat in on Robert Lowell's poetry seminars. Might this have affected her poetry? In other places he notes the community these poets had, but curiously leaves Plath all alone. He does not hardly mention her marriage to Ted Hughes. Again, this area has been well documented, but does he consider how that influence and the influence of her being a wife and mother had on the work she produced in her short personal and poetic life?
Finally, the book abruptly ends with his chapter on Plath. There is no concluding postscript or epilogue to tie the theme of this book and the work of the poets together. The Wounded Surgeon is a good introduction to how to read poetry and to the work of these six poets, but I'd still recommend Bruce Bawer's Middle Generation and the individual bios and critical studies of the poets that Kirsch includes in his bibliography.
Czar
I'm back! July was a month of transitions for me as I moved and had some other changes personal and professional.
I have been doing some reading and will definitely have more to blog in the very near future.
Adam Kirsch who is a poet and book critic wrote a study of six modern American poets titled The Wounded Surgeon: Confession and Transformation in Six American Poets. The poets he considered were Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berrryman, Randall Jarrell, Delmore Schwartz, and Sylvia Plath.
If you have read some of my earlier blogs, I have reviewed several books that cover similar territory or some of these same authors. As a KU undergrad I took a class on the poetry of Robert Lowell and John Berryman. I took another class on the poetry of Marianne Moore and Wallace Stevens. In another life, I might have pursued a PhD in American Literature and become an academic reader of poetry. I did not, but I still remain a dedicated and impassioned reader of poetry and I do confess that I have a particular fondness for what some critics call "The Middle Generation", which comprises poets like those mentioned above who came after the great American and European modernists like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and others.
I have the collected works of Lowell and Berryman and individual collections of poetry by Plath. I've read Bishop's and Jarrell's poetry, and am least familiar with Schwartz. In addition to earlier blogs on Peter Davison's memoir of the Boston literary scene and Jeffrey Meyers study on mania in some of these poets, I've read the major biographies of Lowell and Berryman. I also read Bruce Bawer's study titled the Middle Generation that included all of these poets except for Bishop and Plath. So I was very excited to see what Kirsch would do with these poets.
Overall, this is an excellent introduction to the work, if not the lives of these poets. If you have only read a few poems by these authors in your survey lit classes in high school and college, this would be a good place to learn more about them. If you want to see a very fine example of close reading of poetry, Kirsch's work is a great template. It is obvious that he is familiar with the poets under consideration and offers thoughtful and occasionally insightful readings of individual poems.
However, considering that he considers all six poets in under 300 pages, the individual chapters are certainly condensed and I would recommend reading this book in parts rather than all at once. There were times that I felt there was no overarching organization to his reading of these poets' work rather than a rough chronological outline. He simply goes from poem to poem or work to work without providing much of a road map. Some thematic headlines or section divisions would have made the chapters more cohesive.
For someone who has studied these poets, both academically and privately, I am not entirely satisfied with this work. A common theme that runs through the work of several of these poets is religion. Lowell began his life as Boston Brahmin Puritan, converted to Catholicism, and later seemed to have abandoned organized religion. Berryman had a similar conversion experience late in life after he went through alcohol rehab. Finally, Schwartz was born to Jewish immigrant parents and many of his poems reference his Jewish roots. Kirsch is not a particular sensitive reader when it comes to the the role that religion played in the poetry of this writers. He seems to be unable to consider the genuine conversion of these poets when they write "religious poetry." Instead, he tries to point out how the imagery or themes are inconsistent with organized religion. What this tells me is that Kirsch has a rather shallow understanding of religious belief. Just because someone calls themselves a Christian or a Jew does not mean that every word that comes out of their mouth or their pen has to be pious. However, this seem to be the standard that Kirsch applies to these authors. It is as if he can tolerate and appreciate ambiguity in their poetry, unless the topic is religion. As someone who has a great understanding of modernist and New Critical techniques in poetry, I do not understand why Kirsch seems to be unable to accept ambiguity, if not outright contradiction from religious poets.
Personally, I believe that when they were writing their poems, that these poets were true believers. Does that mean the religion "stuck"? No, it certainly did not with Lowell and Berryman's conversion occurred so late in his life that we don't know what might have happened had he lived longer.
Kirsch writes, "'Eleven Addresses to the Lord.' . . . But these addresses are born of urgent personal need, and they throw overboard all the irony, doubt, and grief that made the Dream Songs authentically religious poetry." Kirsch doesn't tell you what the criteria for "authentically religious poetry" is, except that it cannot be statements of faith or belief! Again, Kirsch's inability to understand the anthropology of religion is puzzling. He goes on to discount the poetry because it appears so soon after Berryman's conversion. "Yet the very recent date of the conversion, and still more the absence of any reticence or introspection, make this experience hard to credit; while it may have been real, it does not become poetically convincing." What the hell does "poetically convincing" mean? Also, is there a certain time limit on conversions, before the poets who have undergone this conversion become "poetically convincing?" When someone undergoes a conversion experience, it seems axiomatic to me that they don't show reticence or introspection. That may come later, as Thomas Merton's life and writing would illustrate, but any new convert is full of belief and their experience of the spirit of the divine.
Kirsch's decision to focus on the poetry and not the lives of these poets is admirable, but there are times that the reader needs to know that Robert Lowell suffered from manic depression or that Sylvia Plath did have a passionately tortured life. Using Plath as an example, Kirsch notes how too much of the writing on Plath has involved her life and not her poetry, but he does not even mention that Plath sat in on Robert Lowell's poetry seminars. Might this have affected her poetry? In other places he notes the community these poets had, but curiously leaves Plath all alone. He does not hardly mention her marriage to Ted Hughes. Again, this area has been well documented, but does he consider how that influence and the influence of her being a wife and mother had on the work she produced in her short personal and poetic life?
Finally, the book abruptly ends with his chapter on Plath. There is no concluding postscript or epilogue to tie the theme of this book and the work of the poets together. The Wounded Surgeon is a good introduction to how to read poetry and to the work of these six poets, but I'd still recommend Bruce Bawer's Middle Generation and the individual bios and critical studies of the poets that Kirsch includes in his bibliography.
Czar
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Is it all Relative?
The September 24, 2009 New York Review of Books has a review essay by John Searle, Philosophy Professor at Cal-Berkeley. Searle is a longtime contributor to NYRB (that's how us cool kids refer to it). I'm a novice when it comes to "philosophy of mind" stuff, but from what I can gather, Searle is a solid academic who still writes books and articles for a literate and non-academic audience.
In this particular piece he reviews Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism by Paul A. Boghossian, published by Oxford U Press. It is a short book, only 139 pages, but from Searle's review it seems to raise some important issue.
As an erstwhile academic, I have studied my fair share of what is known as social constructionism. One of my main graduate mentors is a firmly committed social constructionist as are many of her fellow sociologists.
Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge is usually acknowledged as the Ur-text of this intellectual movement. Boghossian defines it this way: "A fact is socially constructed if and only if it is necessarily true taht it could only have obtained through the contingent actions of a social group."
Now you might disagree with this premise, but that doesn't seem to be so dangerous, right?
Another famous philosopher, Donna Haraway, writes about "situated knowledge", that our worldview is situated in a particular number of contexts. But it is not necessarily any more valid or better than another. I do agree in part with this belief. For example, despite the rabid beliefs of someone like Fred Phelps and his demented followers, "Homosexuality" as we currently understand it, did not exist back in the culture of the ancient Hebrews and early Christians. Therefore these Biblical condemnations are actually specific to the practice of sodomy or the trade of temple prostitution that Paul warns against in some of his letters. The act of sodomy existed, but not the belief or identity of homosexuality. If we accept the work of Michel Foucault, homosexuality does not come into being until the 19th century (if I'm recalling his writings accurately). Now, as both Boghossian and Searle rightly point out, this can be a slippery slope. They both cite the following example: "Recent research shows that he [Ramses II] probably died of tuberculosis . . . a social constructivist who has denied that this was possible,' asking 'How could [Ramses II] who died circa 1213 BC] pass away due to a bacillus discovered by Robert Koch in 1882?'" REALLY! No wonder mainstream culture has such a negatively dismissive view of academia. Go figure!
As someone who formerly taught undergrads in classes like Humanities and Western Civ I-II and Understanding America, I have experienced how prevalent, if poorly understood, this idea has become. In both classes we tackled difficult issues like religion, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. It was the rare student who dared to take a strong position, which could have potentially alienated me or their fellow students. This came to the fore in HWC when students read selections from the Hebrew, Christian, and Muslim scriptures. I explained to my students that despite their common Abrahamic heritage, they all made "truth claims" that were mutually exclusive. To cite one example, all three faiths had contradictory views on the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, it is true that I a student was free to reject all of these truth claims and religion in general, but even this was something that most students were uncomfortable doing. Also, they certainly rejected my idea of grading on a "relativist" scale. Then they all became fans of objective truth and standards.
As someone who has studied and applied social constructionism in my own academic work, I do see its usefulness, but I ,like Boghossian and Searle, ultimately reject this epistemological position. I do believe that we can still find timeless wisdom (episteme) and that knowledge is not ultimately relative and contingent.
If I may make a plug for a publication, I think the New York Review of Books is one of the best publications around. If you are looking for a magazine that takes art, literature, and ideas seriously, NYRB is for you. The contributors are almost uniformly excellent and well-qualified to provide their commentary and analysis and they have the gift of handling difficult ideas and translating these ideas and experiences into prose accessible to a wider audience.
Czar
In this particular piece he reviews Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism by Paul A. Boghossian, published by Oxford U Press. It is a short book, only 139 pages, but from Searle's review it seems to raise some important issue.
As an erstwhile academic, I have studied my fair share of what is known as social constructionism. One of my main graduate mentors is a firmly committed social constructionist as are many of her fellow sociologists.
Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge is usually acknowledged as the Ur-text of this intellectual movement. Boghossian defines it this way: "A fact is socially constructed if and only if it is necessarily true taht it could only have obtained through the contingent actions of a social group."
Now you might disagree with this premise, but that doesn't seem to be so dangerous, right?
Another famous philosopher, Donna Haraway, writes about "situated knowledge", that our worldview is situated in a particular number of contexts. But it is not necessarily any more valid or better than another. I do agree in part with this belief. For example, despite the rabid beliefs of someone like Fred Phelps and his demented followers, "Homosexuality" as we currently understand it, did not exist back in the culture of the ancient Hebrews and early Christians. Therefore these Biblical condemnations are actually specific to the practice of sodomy or the trade of temple prostitution that Paul warns against in some of his letters. The act of sodomy existed, but not the belief or identity of homosexuality. If we accept the work of Michel Foucault, homosexuality does not come into being until the 19th century (if I'm recalling his writings accurately). Now, as both Boghossian and Searle rightly point out, this can be a slippery slope. They both cite the following example: "Recent research shows that he [Ramses II] probably died of tuberculosis . . . a social constructivist who has denied that this was possible,' asking 'How could [Ramses II] who died circa 1213 BC] pass away due to a bacillus discovered by Robert Koch in 1882?'" REALLY! No wonder mainstream culture has such a negatively dismissive view of academia. Go figure!
As someone who formerly taught undergrads in classes like Humanities and Western Civ I-II and Understanding America, I have experienced how prevalent, if poorly understood, this idea has become. In both classes we tackled difficult issues like religion, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. It was the rare student who dared to take a strong position, which could have potentially alienated me or their fellow students. This came to the fore in HWC when students read selections from the Hebrew, Christian, and Muslim scriptures. I explained to my students that despite their common Abrahamic heritage, they all made "truth claims" that were mutually exclusive. To cite one example, all three faiths had contradictory views on the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, it is true that I a student was free to reject all of these truth claims and religion in general, but even this was something that most students were uncomfortable doing. Also, they certainly rejected my idea of grading on a "relativist" scale. Then they all became fans of objective truth and standards.
As someone who has studied and applied social constructionism in my own academic work, I do see its usefulness, but I ,like Boghossian and Searle, ultimately reject this epistemological position. I do believe that we can still find timeless wisdom (episteme) and that knowledge is not ultimately relative and contingent.
If I may make a plug for a publication, I think the New York Review of Books is one of the best publications around. If you are looking for a magazine that takes art, literature, and ideas seriously, NYRB is for you. The contributors are almost uniformly excellent and well-qualified to provide their commentary and analysis and they have the gift of handling difficult ideas and translating these ideas and experiences into prose accessible to a wider audience.
Czar
Life in the Big Apple
Dear Fellow bibliophiles,
Sorry for the long time being away. Life has been even more complicated than usual for me.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had resisted reading any Jay McInerney out of resistance to the hype that accompanied the publication of his first novel, Bright Lights, Big City. For some reason, McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis were grouped together when they made their respective debuts. McInerney objected publicly stating that anyone who looked at their respective prose would not make such a mistake. He's exactly right. Bright Lights, Big City is everything that Less than Zero was not.
It is funny, endearing, and well-written. It too was quickly turned into a film starring Michael J. Fox as the nameless protagonist who was spurned in marriage by his wife Amanda, played by Phoebe Cates in the film. Having seen the film first, I was surprised by how closely the film follows the novel. Why I completely prefer McInerney to Ellis is that the former has the ability to create not only believable characters, but ones that I as a reader want to learn more about. I do care about these characters, unlike the nihilistic brats in Less than Zero. McInerney's characters are not necessarily happier than Ellis' characters, they simply have more interesting and complete lives.
This novel is loosely based on McInerney's earlier life in New York City as an aspiring writer in the 1980s. Though he too can portray the decadent and mostly empty lives of his characters, the sense of humor throughout the novel kept me going and I finished this novel in short order. My Vintage Contemporaries edition has a blurb from Raymond Carver and I can see why a craftsman like Carver would admire McInerney's work. It has a true literary quality to it and there is a heart to this novel that hooks the reader from the opening pages. McInerney's anonymous protagonist could be Holden Caulfield all grown up and coked out in the 1980s as he still suffers various "phonies" and still looks for something real and authentic. It is a quick read and one that I would definitely recommend.
Czar
Sorry for the long time being away. Life has been even more complicated than usual for me.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had resisted reading any Jay McInerney out of resistance to the hype that accompanied the publication of his first novel, Bright Lights, Big City. For some reason, McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis were grouped together when they made their respective debuts. McInerney objected publicly stating that anyone who looked at their respective prose would not make such a mistake. He's exactly right. Bright Lights, Big City is everything that Less than Zero was not.
It is funny, endearing, and well-written. It too was quickly turned into a film starring Michael J. Fox as the nameless protagonist who was spurned in marriage by his wife Amanda, played by Phoebe Cates in the film. Having seen the film first, I was surprised by how closely the film follows the novel. Why I completely prefer McInerney to Ellis is that the former has the ability to create not only believable characters, but ones that I as a reader want to learn more about. I do care about these characters, unlike the nihilistic brats in Less than Zero. McInerney's characters are not necessarily happier than Ellis' characters, they simply have more interesting and complete lives.
This novel is loosely based on McInerney's earlier life in New York City as an aspiring writer in the 1980s. Though he too can portray the decadent and mostly empty lives of his characters, the sense of humor throughout the novel kept me going and I finished this novel in short order. My Vintage Contemporaries edition has a blurb from Raymond Carver and I can see why a craftsman like Carver would admire McInerney's work. It has a true literary quality to it and there is a heart to this novel that hooks the reader from the opening pages. McInerney's anonymous protagonist could be Holden Caulfield all grown up and coked out in the 1980s as he still suffers various "phonies" and still looks for something real and authentic. It is a quick read and one that I would definitely recommend.
Czar
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Judging a book by its cover
For several years before and during my undergraduate years at KU, I worked at the Town Crier in downtown Lawrence. It no longer exists, but it was a bookstore, pipe shop, and Hallmark card store. We sold magazines too. I worked there mostly for the books and the employee discount.
For me, one of the first things that attracts me to a book is its cover. Often with the books displayed with only the spine visible, I am drawn to titles. This was the case with Scott Bradfield's first novel, The History of Luminous Motion. Bradfield had earned a PhD in English from Cal-Irvine, part time home of Jacques Derrida.
I have learned that Bradfield is now an American expat who lives in London. He has written several additional novels and has achieved a modicum of fame for an speech turned into in a essay titled "Why I Hate Toni Morrison's Beloved."
This is my first and probably last Bradfield novel I will read. The novel is the story of an 8-year old boy Phillip who lives with a mentally ill mother who makes a living by stealing the credit cards of men she sleeps with. Phillip's father comes in and out of his life throughout the novel. Phillip kills one of her mother's boyfriends who they had actually moved in with. The man, Pedro, according to Phillip is one of the few decent men his mother had met. From the grave, Pedro occasionally appears to counsel Phillip on a variety of topics.
Phillip's two friends in the novel are a pair of 12-year olds named Rodney and Beatrice.
From what I described so far, the novel is a bit odd, but I suppose there are 8 year olds who are capable of murder and probably women like Phillip's mother too. So that is not my primary beef with Bradfield's novel. It is the utter implausibility of the maturity and interests of the three kids. Now I'm a fan of Marquez and other magical realists. I don't mind the appearance of fantastical elements into a narrative, but I think Bradfield over does it.
To his credit, Bradield is a gifted writer who has a true talent with his prose. Here is Phillip's mom explaining the concept of luminous motion:
“‘The history of motion is that luminous progress men and women make in the world alone,’ Mom said. ‘We’re moving into sudden history now, baby. That life men lead and women disavow, that sure and certain sense that nothing is wrong, that life does not beat or pause, that the universe expands relentlessly. You can feel the source of all the world’s light in your beating heart, in the map of your blood, in the vast range and pace of your brain. That’s the light, baby. You don’t need any other. Just that light beating forever inside of you.’” (42)
Bradfield also excels at creating vivid portraits of the inner landscape of his characters. This is a description of Phillip's mom and her darkness:
“Sometimes I even looked forward to having the darkness take me places. I took me down luminous rivers on large rotting rafts and barges. I saw strange birds flying overhead, and the eyes of other creatures emerging from the mucky water. I traveled down the river where twisted houses sat on shores filled with dark men who wouldn’t come outside. The dark men were inside whispering about me. They held heavy spears and weapons by their side while their addled women cooked large pots of gristly meat and hung their washing out to dry. The men wore loincloths and streaks of paint on their arms and faces. A few mangy dogs lay around outside the circle of men, contemplating the dim fire. One of the dark men was my father.” (130)
We learn of Phillip's desire if not for love, then for an enveloping sense of affection:“I never wanted to be loved when I was eight years old. I wanted to be crushed by soft massive arms. I wanted to be lifted into some towering embrace. I wanted to be hugged so tight I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to be hugged until my eyes watered and my lungs collapsed and my heart popped.” (140) Though there is an implicit sense of violence in this description, there is also the presence of a deep longing in Phillip. Since Phillip does not find this embrace, he turns to drugs (taken from his parents, weed, and various types of beer and hard liquor. This is where the novel starts to leave a bad taste in my mouth. Because everyone knows of 3rd graders who can easily score good dope and cheap liquor. Phillip is kept out of school too, so he sits around stoned and drunk all day.
When he does go out, Phillip hangs with Beatrice and Rodney his 6th grade "mentors" for lack of a better term. Rodney at least has an ambition. “So that’s when I decided to become a warlock. To master the satanic arts of black magic. Devil worshipping, for you laymen. I want to learn to master what they call the black arts.” (178)
Beatrice rounds out this odd triumvirate of boy murder and apprentice warlock by appearing to be the group intellectual.
Here's Beatrice lecturing Phillip on one of his intellectual shortcomings:“Man’s myth of intentionality. I do things to you. Prediction. Subject and object. The dream of perfect cosmic grammar.” (170) Is this the type of grammar they teach in schools now? It gets better though. Beatrice not to be outdone by Rodney's aspirations of the dark arts embarks upon an ambitious reading project.
“I’ve been reading a lot lately, Phillip, since we broke up. French feminists, existential Marxists. I’m teaching myself French so I can read Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason— much of which has been improperly translated, from what I understand.” (171) So the real question I suppose is what Beatrice woudl be doing if she and Phillip had not broken up? Heidegger, Camus or perhaps de Beauvoir?
For me, all it would have taken is for Bradfield to add ten years to the age of the protagonists to make me go along for the ride, but I don't know that even Garcia Marquez would try throwing in a prepubescent devotee of French existentialism!
Without spoiling the ending, Rodney and Phillip embark upon a violent course of action encouraged partially by the dead Pedro.
If you can imagine a trio of messed up, but hyperintellectual tweens with a passion for drugs, sex, and violence, this is the novel for you. I couldn't make it work.
Czar
For me, one of the first things that attracts me to a book is its cover. Often with the books displayed with only the spine visible, I am drawn to titles. This was the case with Scott Bradfield's first novel, The History of Luminous Motion. Bradfield had earned a PhD in English from Cal-Irvine, part time home of Jacques Derrida.
I have learned that Bradfield is now an American expat who lives in London. He has written several additional novels and has achieved a modicum of fame for an speech turned into in a essay titled "Why I Hate Toni Morrison's Beloved."
This is my first and probably last Bradfield novel I will read. The novel is the story of an 8-year old boy Phillip who lives with a mentally ill mother who makes a living by stealing the credit cards of men she sleeps with. Phillip's father comes in and out of his life throughout the novel. Phillip kills one of her mother's boyfriends who they had actually moved in with. The man, Pedro, according to Phillip is one of the few decent men his mother had met. From the grave, Pedro occasionally appears to counsel Phillip on a variety of topics.
Phillip's two friends in the novel are a pair of 12-year olds named Rodney and Beatrice.
From what I described so far, the novel is a bit odd, but I suppose there are 8 year olds who are capable of murder and probably women like Phillip's mother too. So that is not my primary beef with Bradfield's novel. It is the utter implausibility of the maturity and interests of the three kids. Now I'm a fan of Marquez and other magical realists. I don't mind the appearance of fantastical elements into a narrative, but I think Bradfield over does it.
To his credit, Bradield is a gifted writer who has a true talent with his prose. Here is Phillip's mom explaining the concept of luminous motion:
“‘The history of motion is that luminous progress men and women make in the world alone,’ Mom said. ‘We’re moving into sudden history now, baby. That life men lead and women disavow, that sure and certain sense that nothing is wrong, that life does not beat or pause, that the universe expands relentlessly. You can feel the source of all the world’s light in your beating heart, in the map of your blood, in the vast range and pace of your brain. That’s the light, baby. You don’t need any other. Just that light beating forever inside of you.’” (42)
Bradfield also excels at creating vivid portraits of the inner landscape of his characters. This is a description of Phillip's mom and her darkness:
“Sometimes I even looked forward to having the darkness take me places. I took me down luminous rivers on large rotting rafts and barges. I saw strange birds flying overhead, and the eyes of other creatures emerging from the mucky water. I traveled down the river where twisted houses sat on shores filled with dark men who wouldn’t come outside. The dark men were inside whispering about me. They held heavy spears and weapons by their side while their addled women cooked large pots of gristly meat and hung their washing out to dry. The men wore loincloths and streaks of paint on their arms and faces. A few mangy dogs lay around outside the circle of men, contemplating the dim fire. One of the dark men was my father.” (130)
We learn of Phillip's desire if not for love, then for an enveloping sense of affection:“I never wanted to be loved when I was eight years old. I wanted to be crushed by soft massive arms. I wanted to be lifted into some towering embrace. I wanted to be hugged so tight I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to be hugged until my eyes watered and my lungs collapsed and my heart popped.” (140) Though there is an implicit sense of violence in this description, there is also the presence of a deep longing in Phillip. Since Phillip does not find this embrace, he turns to drugs (taken from his parents, weed, and various types of beer and hard liquor. This is where the novel starts to leave a bad taste in my mouth. Because everyone knows of 3rd graders who can easily score good dope and cheap liquor. Phillip is kept out of school too, so he sits around stoned and drunk all day.
When he does go out, Phillip hangs with Beatrice and Rodney his 6th grade "mentors" for lack of a better term. Rodney at least has an ambition. “So that’s when I decided to become a warlock. To master the satanic arts of black magic. Devil worshipping, for you laymen. I want to learn to master what they call the black arts.” (178)
Beatrice rounds out this odd triumvirate of boy murder and apprentice warlock by appearing to be the group intellectual.
Here's Beatrice lecturing Phillip on one of his intellectual shortcomings:“Man’s myth of intentionality. I do things to you. Prediction. Subject and object. The dream of perfect cosmic grammar.” (170) Is this the type of grammar they teach in schools now? It gets better though. Beatrice not to be outdone by Rodney's aspirations of the dark arts embarks upon an ambitious reading project.
“I’ve been reading a lot lately, Phillip, since we broke up. French feminists, existential Marxists. I’m teaching myself French so I can read Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason— much of which has been improperly translated, from what I understand.” (171) So the real question I suppose is what Beatrice woudl be doing if she and Phillip had not broken up? Heidegger, Camus or perhaps de Beauvoir?
For me, all it would have taken is for Bradfield to add ten years to the age of the protagonists to make me go along for the ride, but I don't know that even Garcia Marquez would try throwing in a prepubescent devotee of French existentialism!
Without spoiling the ending, Rodney and Phillip embark upon a violent course of action encouraged partially by the dead Pedro.
If you can imagine a trio of messed up, but hyperintellectual tweens with a passion for drugs, sex, and violence, this is the novel for you. I couldn't make it work.
Czar
Monday, May 31, 2010
The New Mestiza
Any edition of this book is fine, but the 2nd edition has an excellent introduction by the Chicana scholar Sonia Saldivar-Hull that explains some of the strategies Gloria Anzaldua uses in this book, especially regarding the langauage (code-switching).
The third edition has a number of tributes to Anzaldua who died in 2004.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestizaa is a groundbreaking work that combines queer theory, socioogy, literature, cultural studies, and history with an autobiographical narrative about Anzaldua's life.
I didn't like it the first time I read it, but it has grown on me. Unfortunately, this is often the only book that grad students in English, American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Queer Studies are exposed to from a Chicana/o perspective. Anzaldaua's work should still be read, but it is not the only work of this type worth reading.
Czar
The third edition has a number of tributes to Anzaldua who died in 2004.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestizaa is a groundbreaking work that combines queer theory, socioogy, literature, cultural studies, and history with an autobiographical narrative about Anzaldua's life.
I didn't like it the first time I read it, but it has grown on me. Unfortunately, this is often the only book that grad students in English, American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Queer Studies are exposed to from a Chicana/o perspective. Anzaldaua's work should still be read, but it is not the only work of this type worth reading.
Czar
Shamanism and Science
The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge is a brilliant and thought-provoking book that argues there for the connection between the drug-induced trances of an Amazonian tribe and their creation myths are somehow related to modern genetics.
Jeremy Narby holds a Stanford PhD in Anthropology who did his dissertation on these Amazonian peoples, though this is not his dissertation. Instead it is one of the most interesting and intellectually challenging books I have ever read! It brings together so many of the issues that interest me: Religion, Science, Evolution, Physics, Cosmology, the Supernatural, and Indigenous knowledge. I initially thought of the writings of Carlos Castaneda, but there is a scientific and intellectual rigor in Narby's book that I can not find in Castaneda's writings.
I find that Narby makes a compelling case for the unity or at least the synthesis of 20th century biology, DNA, and the indigenous knowledge and visions of these South American shamans.
Reading Narby's experience of taking hallucinogens was eerie, but I could relate to some of his sensations. Your mind is never the same after these types of experiences. Though your more rational self may want to deny the reality of "altered states" of consciousness, the vividness of the experience won't allow you to deny them entirely or to dismiss the possibility of them either.
I fond myself in constant agreement with Narby about the arrogance and consequent ignorance of Western "science" and knowledge. Finally, Narby's narrative is compulsively readable. It is a tremendously important book.
Another book I taught with class of students who similarly found it provocative and insightful.
Czar
Jeremy Narby holds a Stanford PhD in Anthropology who did his dissertation on these Amazonian peoples, though this is not his dissertation. Instead it is one of the most interesting and intellectually challenging books I have ever read! It brings together so many of the issues that interest me: Religion, Science, Evolution, Physics, Cosmology, the Supernatural, and Indigenous knowledge. I initially thought of the writings of Carlos Castaneda, but there is a scientific and intellectual rigor in Narby's book that I can not find in Castaneda's writings.
I find that Narby makes a compelling case for the unity or at least the synthesis of 20th century biology, DNA, and the indigenous knowledge and visions of these South American shamans.
Reading Narby's experience of taking hallucinogens was eerie, but I could relate to some of his sensations. Your mind is never the same after these types of experiences. Though your more rational self may want to deny the reality of "altered states" of consciousness, the vividness of the experience won't allow you to deny them entirely or to dismiss the possibility of them either.
I fond myself in constant agreement with Narby about the arrogance and consequent ignorance of Western "science" and knowledge. Finally, Narby's narrative is compulsively readable. It is a tremendously important book.
Another book I taught with class of students who similarly found it provocative and insightful.
Czar
When East Meets West
In the aftermath of 9/11 when many U.S. citizens fervently sought revenge on the Osama Bin Laden and Afghanistan for its role in the attacks, there was an email that circulated virally regarding the situation in Afghanistan and the prospects for its future if the U.S. decided to attack. The email was written by an Afgan-American named Tamim Ansary who had initially only sent the email to some of his friends. Before he knew it, he had become an Internet celebrity. He wrote this memoir after his email made its way around the world.
West of Kabul, East of New York is a touching memoir by Ansari whose parents sent him to the U.S. to finish high school. He then went to Reed College (as did I briefly) and settled down in the U.S. It is a well-written and a timely meditation on the relationship between the East and the West and between Islam and the rest of the world. Ansary is rather pessimistic about the future of East-West relations, but this is still a work worth reading.
Czar
West of Kabul, East of New York is a touching memoir by Ansari whose parents sent him to the U.S. to finish high school. He then went to Reed College (as did I briefly) and settled down in the U.S. It is a well-written and a timely meditation on the relationship between the East and the West and between Islam and the rest of the world. Ansary is rather pessimistic about the future of East-West relations, but this is still a work worth reading.
Czar
Cosmopolitanism in a shrinking world
Kwame Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers is a brilliant and lucid book that attempts to make a case for shared values in our increasingly fragmented world. Appiah was trained as an analytic and moral philosopher, but he also wrote the foundational text on African philosophy that has been part of the movement to get away from the narrow confines of traditional continental philosophy.
Personally Appiah is the son of a Ghanian father and an English mother. He incorporates his own biography into the text to show how contingent knowledge can be. He also writes about tricky issues regarding cultural patrimony, national traditions, and global ethics. With the exception of one chapter that is rather heavy on an exposition of logical positivism, Appiah's book is not for specialists or academics. I taught this book to several classes of students and they loved it.
Czar
Personally Appiah is the son of a Ghanian father and an English mother. He incorporates his own biography into the text to show how contingent knowledge can be. He also writes about tricky issues regarding cultural patrimony, national traditions, and global ethics. With the exception of one chapter that is rather heavy on an exposition of logical positivism, Appiah's book is not for specialists or academics. I taught this book to several classes of students and they loved it.
Czar
American History before America
As part of my conviction that "American" history has for far too long existed on an East-West trajectory as opposed to a North-South one which is more historically accurate and culturally even more relevant now than ever, I assigned my American Studies students to read and/or view the film of Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion/Account in survey AMS classes.
An interesting true account of de Vaca's "adventure" after his Spanish crew was shipwrecked in Florida. He eventually walked to Texas. He was nearly unrecognizable to the Spanish soldiers that found him and his slave and indigenous companions.
A story of an encounter between Europeans and indigenous people a century or so before the pilgrims.
Czar
An interesting true account of de Vaca's "adventure" after his Spanish crew was shipwrecked in Florida. He eventually walked to Texas. He was nearly unrecognizable to the Spanish soldiers that found him and his slave and indigenous companions.
A story of an encounter between Europeans and indigenous people a century or so before the pilgrims.
Czar
WTF just happened?
I have met several academics who claim that Pedro Paramo by the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo inspired them to pursue a career in academia, specifically in Latin American literature.For all of you Garcia Marquez devotees, read this mindbending novel by a Mexican novelist who is often cited by Marquez and others as a precursor to "magical realism."
I read it in English and I'm still not sure what happened. If you thought the last couple of seasons of Lost where confusing, try this short novel on for size.
Czar
I read it in English and I'm still not sure what happened. If you thought the last couple of seasons of Lost where confusing, try this short novel on for size.
Czar
The Continuing Education of Richard Rodriguez
This particular post is about Rodriguez's first two books Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez and Days of Obligation: Arguments with My Mexican Father.
Though I don't agree with his argument in Hunger, Rodriguez is one of the writers who I admire the most and will read anything he writes.He considers topics like bilingual education and affirmative action which were controversial in the early 80s when this book came out and are still so today. Rodriguez was an aspiring academic researching his dissertation in the British Library when he has a crisis of conscience about the advantages that he received because of his heritage and ethnicity. So he abandons academia to inadvertently become a darling of conservatives since he opposes bilingual education and affirmative action, if class is not part of the equation. He can get carried away stylistically at times, but I think each book he writes is better than the last.
Hunger is collection of essays more than a sustained piece of writing.
Rodriguez's second book, Days is a better one than the first in my opinion. This has a larger focus as it covers Mexico, but still maintains his autobiographical frame.
Rodriguez also comes out as a gay man in this book, though he has always thought his sexuality was evident in his first book. Not to me it wasn't. Though he still opposes bilingual education and affirmative action, he has matured and realizes that American still has considerable issues with color, race, identity, and immigration among other topics.
Czar
Though I don't agree with his argument in Hunger, Rodriguez is one of the writers who I admire the most and will read anything he writes.He considers topics like bilingual education and affirmative action which were controversial in the early 80s when this book came out and are still so today. Rodriguez was an aspiring academic researching his dissertation in the British Library when he has a crisis of conscience about the advantages that he received because of his heritage and ethnicity. So he abandons academia to inadvertently become a darling of conservatives since he opposes bilingual education and affirmative action, if class is not part of the equation. He can get carried away stylistically at times, but I think each book he writes is better than the last.
Hunger is collection of essays more than a sustained piece of writing.
Rodriguez's second book, Days is a better one than the first in my opinion. This has a larger focus as it covers Mexico, but still maintains his autobiographical frame.
Rodriguez also comes out as a gay man in this book, though he has always thought his sexuality was evident in his first book. Not to me it wasn't. Though he still opposes bilingual education and affirmative action, he has matured and realizes that American still has considerable issues with color, race, identity, and immigration among other topics.
Czar
How to Write Well
Every one who writes in their work or their leisure should have this book. On Writing Well by William Zinsser is the BEST book I have ever read on writing. Not so much for creative writing, but for non-fiction, journalism, and even academic writing, Zinsser is the shit! Buy the 30th anniversary edition, because unlike other books, he has continued to update it over the years.
Czar
Czar
Promising American Poet
For my money, Ben Lerner is one of the best, most intelligent, and most ambitious poets writing today. The Lichtenberg Figures is a collection of edgy sonnets that totally plays with the whole history of the sonnet form. Ben is also a great guy to have a beer with. He's originally from Topeka and edits a literary journal called No.
Czar
Czar
How Great are the Great Books
Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf and other Indestructible Writers of the Western World is a well-written account of David Denby's decision to go back to Columbia University to re-take their "Great Books" program. The best parts are when he relates the books to people and events in his life. Thinking of Hobbes after being mugged on the subway, memories of his mother when reading King Lear, etc.
He spends too much time dichotomizing his perspective as a middle aged man to that of his young classmates. He is also took quick to discount the leftist revisions of the canon. I don't think he contextualizes the time period when Great Books programs like Columbia's began and how things have changed by the 1990s.
However, his closing chapters are very powerful and this book is worth reading. I used this considerably when I taught Western Civ at KU.
Czar
He spends too much time dichotomizing his perspective as a middle aged man to that of his young classmates. He is also took quick to discount the leftist revisions of the canon. I don't think he contextualizes the time period when Great Books programs like Columbia's began and how things have changed by the 1990s.
However, his closing chapters are very powerful and this book is worth reading. I used this considerably when I taught Western Civ at KU.
Czar
On the Road and looking for an exit
I don't know exactly when I bought this book, but it had to be after 1983 as I have a 25th anniversary edition. Probably after going to Reed College and having my friend, Jools, rave about Jack Kerouac and The Beats.
I remember reading an essay about rereading books by the critic Sven Birkerts. I think he specifically wrote about rereading On the Road. He ruefully notes that it isn't nearly as good or compelling as when he read it as teen. Since I never read this book in my "youth", I cannot comment on Birkerts' assessment, but I know that I was not impressed by this book at all.
The narrators seems like dopes, racists, and misogynists. Their adulation of "the Negro" is terribly objectifying and orientalizing. They came off sounding like privileged white boys who wish they could somehow be black! Some of their language and dialogue is so funny, especially the whole discussion of "It." The scenes where they apparently experience these moments of transcendence come off as faux mysticism.
Still Kerouac does have some narrative skill. His brief mediation on death (103) hints at the restless longing many of us have as we feel our youth slipping away. However, I cannot help thinking that the narrator as an older, but ultimately less interesting and less compelling version of Holden Caulfield
Czar
I remember reading an essay about rereading books by the critic Sven Birkerts. I think he specifically wrote about rereading On the Road. He ruefully notes that it isn't nearly as good or compelling as when he read it as teen. Since I never read this book in my "youth", I cannot comment on Birkerts' assessment, but I know that I was not impressed by this book at all.
The narrators seems like dopes, racists, and misogynists. Their adulation of "the Negro" is terribly objectifying and orientalizing. They came off sounding like privileged white boys who wish they could somehow be black! Some of their language and dialogue is so funny, especially the whole discussion of "It." The scenes where they apparently experience these moments of transcendence come off as faux mysticism.
Still Kerouac does have some narrative skill. His brief mediation on death (103) hints at the restless longing many of us have as we feel our youth slipping away. However, I cannot help thinking that the narrator as an older, but ultimately less interesting and less compelling version of Holden Caulfield
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The search for knowledge
I think this makes a great graduation gift for high school seniors. At the same time, it is a veritable treasure trove of information about the history of the West and of a good deal of world history. Daniel Boorstin, a trained historian and the former Librarian of Congress has an encyclopedic grasp of his subject and writes with elegance and wit. Though you might not expect it, this is a page turner of a book. He has a tremendous gift for storytelling and his characterizations bring so many time periods and historical personages off the page that it had a virtual documentary feel to it.
The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself is one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read.
The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself is one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read.
God and Philosophy
God and the Philosophers: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason is Thomas Morris' anthology of philosophers speaking about their own religious faith and often conversions contains not as much "reason" as the subtitle suggests. Many of the contributors are academic philosophers and primarily Protestant believers. They do good intellectual biographies, but most cannot seem to articulate how their reason led them to faith. Now, reason does not have to be the primary criteria, but this read more in part like stories of religious conversion from a group of professional philosophers.
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The biography of God
God: A Biography is one of the most original and compelling readings of The Tanakh (The Hebrew Scriptures), I've come across. Miles is a former Biblical scholar and Jesuit priest, but this is a very scrupulous and balanced take on Yahweh that I have ever come across. His reading of Job is illuminating.
I used this every time I taught the Hebrew Scriptures in my HWC classes at KU. It is a fascinating work and very provocative in his readings and conclusions about the nature of Yahweh.
Czar
I used this every time I taught the Hebrew Scriptures in my HWC classes at KU. It is a fascinating work and very provocative in his readings and conclusions about the nature of Yahweh.
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A Philosopher's Philosophy
Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy is dated, but a classic in the field by one of the 20th centuries most influential philosophers. It is interesting to see how he handles his predecessors. Mostly fair, but he was also a prominent atheist, so the more religious philosophers get a bit of a slanted take by Russell. Russell won the Nobel Prize for Literature so he writes extraordinarily well and can truly explain the central philosophical problems throughout the ages.
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Philosophy for Dummies
The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy is a great book because it is taken from a TV program where experts on a particular philosopher would be interviewed by Bryan Magee who is himself a philosopher. So, you get very conversational, but still substantive explanations on the big names in Western Philosophy.
If you need help getting through an intro philosophy class or simply want to know more about Western Philosophy this is the book for you.
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If you need help getting through an intro philosophy class or simply want to know more about Western Philosophy this is the book for you.
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Jesus the Revolutionary
For 3/4 of this Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, John Dominic Crossan strikes me as a typical lapsed believer who has to explain away everything that doesn't fit with his theory/reading of Jesus. Perhaps he gives reasons in some of his other writings, but Crossan has a zealous, if not obsessive disdain for anything supernatural. This is fine for an atheist or agnostic, but when he talks about Christianity or faith in the last chapters, I had to ask what type of God does he believe in?
His cross-cultural method is solid, but he does not subject these alternate sources to the same scrutiny that he does for the canonical gospels. He never tells you why The Gospel of Thomas or the Q Gospel, if he does exist as a "gospel", are better than the four Gospels in The New Testament. His methodology here is sloppy, if not random. I find his explanation for how the Gospels were constructed to be more more implausible than just accepting them as mostly accurate accounts of some of the life and teachings of jesus. If this is what the Jesus Seminar is all about, I'm not terribly impressed.
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His cross-cultural method is solid, but he does not subject these alternate sources to the same scrutiny that he does for the canonical gospels. He never tells you why The Gospel of Thomas or the Q Gospel, if he does exist as a "gospel", are better than the four Gospels in The New Testament. His methodology here is sloppy, if not random. I find his explanation for how the Gospels were constructed to be more more implausible than just accepting them as mostly accurate accounts of some of the life and teachings of jesus. If this is what the Jesus Seminar is all about, I'm not terribly impressed.
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Healing ourselves
Norman Cousins is a hell of a good writer. I guess he was a long-time editor of the Saturday Review. He engages you by taking complex medical issues and humanizing them. I think the autobiographical component is the best part of the book.
It is amazing how sick he was and how completely he recovered. I also agree that the patient needs to be very involved in his/her healing, of course, much has changed in medicine since Anatomy of an Illness was published. Perhaps this is a result of his writing,especially regarding the patient-doctor relationship.
One thing that needs to be noted is that Cousins has the advantage of wealth and has access to the finest doctors in the U.S. and the world. He doesn't really acknowledge this. Nor does he consider how his education factored into his approach to healing.
Yes, patients can get access to information, but would your average patient be able to interpret the information as well as Cousins does?
I would recommend this book for anyone battling a major illness and for anyone in the health care field.
Czar
It is amazing how sick he was and how completely he recovered. I also agree that the patient needs to be very involved in his/her healing, of course, much has changed in medicine since Anatomy of an Illness was published. Perhaps this is a result of his writing,especially regarding the patient-doctor relationship.
One thing that needs to be noted is that Cousins has the advantage of wealth and has access to the finest doctors in the U.S. and the world. He doesn't really acknowledge this. Nor does he consider how his education factored into his approach to healing.
Yes, patients can get access to information, but would your average patient be able to interpret the information as well as Cousins does?
I would recommend this book for anyone battling a major illness and for anyone in the health care field.
Czar
The art of the essay
I first read Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony in high school. Thomas was a medical doctor, cancer researcher, and contributor of short essays about medicine and science to the New England Journal of Medicine and other publications. This included some of those, but also had other essays about nuclear war and the arts and humanities.
It is in some ways a period peace as during the mid 1980s Thomas was seriously worried about the prospect of nuclear annihilation at the hands of Ronald Raygun or the evil Soviet Empire that only lasted for about 5 years after this book was published. The title essay refers to Thomas no longer being able to listen to this symphony without imagining the end of life on earth. It seems quaint to have that belief now, but it was a real fear 25 years ago. Late Night Thoughts is a beautifully written book. Thomas' work is one of the reasons I enjoy the essay so much as a literary genre.
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It is in some ways a period peace as during the mid 1980s Thomas was seriously worried about the prospect of nuclear annihilation at the hands of Ronald Raygun or the evil Soviet Empire that only lasted for about 5 years after this book was published. The title essay refers to Thomas no longer being able to listen to this symphony without imagining the end of life on earth. It seems quaint to have that belief now, but it was a real fear 25 years ago. Late Night Thoughts is a beautifully written book. Thomas' work is one of the reasons I enjoy the essay so much as a literary genre.
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John Knowles search for peace
Having long dreamed of attending a prep school like Exeter that Knowles fictionalizes in both A Separate Peace and Peace Breaks Out, I recently re-read A Separate Peace and read Peace Breaks Out for the first time this spring. As an aside, I don't know if it is possible for former Exonians to write about their school without an undercurrent of death. In addition to Knowles, John Irving has written at least two novels, The World According to Garp and A Widow for One Year that are all partially set at a fictionalized Exeter and have students dying and a fair amount of violence in their narratives.
The main focus of A Separate Peace is the relationship between Gene and Phineas, who is an amazing natural athlete. I thought Knowles created a really believable and vivid friendship between these two and did an admirable job of getting into the psyche of adolescent boys in WWII America. I found him to be a dazzling and eloquent writer too.
Skip twenty years or so into the future in real time, but only a few years in fictional time and we have another novel set at this same school with a protagonist who is an alum returning from WW II to his old school to become a teacher. The tone is entirely different and if I didn't know any better, I wouldn't have attributed Peace Breaks Out to the same other as A Separate Peace. It is a much more cynical book and Knowles for the most part abandons the poetic and elegiac tone of his earlier work.
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The main focus of A Separate Peace is the relationship between Gene and Phineas, who is an amazing natural athlete. I thought Knowles created a really believable and vivid friendship between these two and did an admirable job of getting into the psyche of adolescent boys in WWII America. I found him to be a dazzling and eloquent writer too.
Skip twenty years or so into the future in real time, but only a few years in fictional time and we have another novel set at this same school with a protagonist who is an alum returning from WW II to his old school to become a teacher. The tone is entirely different and if I didn't know any better, I wouldn't have attributed Peace Breaks Out to the same other as A Separate Peace. It is a much more cynical book and Knowles for the most part abandons the poetic and elegiac tone of his earlier work.
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Gatsby
What an amazing piece of writing. Does it honestly get much better than this? Had Fitzgerald written nothing else, he still would have had a lasting legacy with this novel.
Though it is relatively short, it is incredibly rich and leaves itself open to a variety of readings. A truly gorgeous novel.
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Though it is relatively short, it is incredibly rich and leaves itself open to a variety of readings. A truly gorgeous novel.
Czar
Robert Pirsig is a talented writer and I really enjoy the whole "Phaedrus" thing, although the mystery of who or what Phaedrus is left me ambivalent at times.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values grabs you narratively and keeps you engaged. I thought the whole Chataqua premise was corny and unnecessary.
His discussion of science and quality was excellent. I do agree that intelligence is often held against you and undervalued in American society. I too do not always understand the gatekeeping that goes on within academia, although I do appreciate it better now than I used to.
I still like Aristotle, though I can see Pirsig's criticism of Aristotle and his influence. It was interesting to read Pirsig's take on Reed College, a school I briefly attended 25 years ago
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values grabs you narratively and keeps you engaged. I thought the whole Chataqua premise was corny and unnecessary.
His discussion of science and quality was excellent. I do agree that intelligence is often held against you and undervalued in American society. I too do not always understand the gatekeeping that goes on within academia, although I do appreciate it better now than I used to.
I still like Aristotle, though I can see Pirsig's criticism of Aristotle and his influence. It was interesting to read Pirsig's take on Reed College, a school I briefly attended 25 years ago
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Not your Mother's mother
Okay, Unraveled: The True Story of a Woman Who Dared to Become a Different Kind of Mother almost needs to be read in tandem with her earlier "Hannah's Gift" about the brief life of her daughter who died as a toddler. After the death of her daughter, the author's marriage begins to fall apart. So, she takes a retreat where she meets a man who becomes her second husband. They have a torrid affair while on this retreat and she comes home to tell her husband that she doesn't love him any longer and wants a divorce.
She also chooses to leave, one or two children, with her husband. She makes a pretty clean break of it too. However, she eventually decides that she needs to be in her childrens' lives.
It is rather disturbing, but it also points on the very gendered and heteronormative nature of modern American marriage and motherhood. I'll give the author big props for candor.
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She also chooses to leave, one or two children, with her husband. She makes a pretty clean break of it too. However, she eventually decides that she needs to be in her childrens' lives.
It is rather disturbing, but it also points on the very gendered and heteronormative nature of modern American marriage and motherhood. I'll give the author big props for candor.
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Ted Hughes' Alcestis
This is a rather tender and moving play for Euripides, but I especially like this translation by Ted Hughes, widower of Sylvia Plath. Given that this is a play about a wife who offers to die for her husband, I cannot help but think that Hughes had Plath in mind when he translated this play.
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A 20th century Puritan
I really enjoyed Paul Mariani's biography of John Berryman, Dream Song, so I had high hopes for this book too. Mostly everything I liked about the Berryman bio is missing from here. It is tedious with too much detail and is basically a very matter of fact retelling of Lowell's life. It is reminiscent of Michael Mott's The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton in this respect.
The life of the subject is lost in all the details. Instead of interpreting the details and information through his own critical filter, Mariani just piles it on. It's weird, but Mariani is himself a respected American poet, but as a biographer he seems to lose all that makes poetry worth reading. The vividness, the discriminating use of details, the voice, all these are absent from Mariani's work.
He rarely even tries to read Lowell's poetry critically. He talks of the critical reception of his work, and quotes contemporaries or other critics, but offers too little of his own analysis.
Mariani seems to be in such awe of Lowell that he refuses to consider him critically. It would be a good reference work if you did not know much about Robert Lowell, but not for any insight into him as a poet. If you want a good biography of Robert Lowell, I'd recommend Ian Hamilton's Robert Lowell: A Biography.
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The life of the subject is lost in all the details. Instead of interpreting the details and information through his own critical filter, Mariani just piles it on. It's weird, but Mariani is himself a respected American poet, but as a biographer he seems to lose all that makes poetry worth reading. The vividness, the discriminating use of details, the voice, all these are absent from Mariani's work.
He rarely even tries to read Lowell's poetry critically. He talks of the critical reception of his work, and quotes contemporaries or other critics, but offers too little of his own analysis.
Mariani seems to be in such awe of Lowell that he refuses to consider him critically. It would be a good reference work if you did not know much about Robert Lowell, but not for any insight into him as a poet. If you want a good biography of Robert Lowell, I'd recommend Ian Hamilton's Robert Lowell: A Biography.
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Poetry in Boston
The Fading Smile: Poets in Boston from Robert Lowell to Sylvia Plath is a poignant, lyrical, and revealing memoir on Boston area poets like Lowell, Plath, Anne Sexton, and others. Peter Davison seems to have known or met everyone. He dated Plath briefly, attended Harvard with many of these writers, and as the poetry editor of The Atlantic Monthly and a publisher and editor, published many of these writers.
I like his decision to organize this book around the Boston literary scene. Though he usually only devotes a chapter to a particular poet, I think his portraits are often superior to book-length treatments of these writers. An admirable combination of literary analysis and memoir.
I actually met Davison once when he came to read his own poetry at Reed College. A very intelligent, friendly, and gracious man.
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I like his decision to organize this book around the Boston literary scene. Though he usually only devotes a chapter to a particular poet, I think his portraits are often superior to book-length treatments of these writers. An admirable combination of literary analysis and memoir.
I actually met Davison once when he came to read his own poetry at Reed College. A very intelligent, friendly, and gracious man.
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Poetry and Mania
Jeffrey Myers is a well-respected biographer who has written on a variety of poets, novelists, and other writers, but this is a classic example of an author making his materials fit his thesis. While this is a good read, Myers' work is shoddy on scholarship. I've read enough of the poetry and secondary sources on both Berryman and Lowell to know that this is a disservice to both of them and their work. The section on Randall Jarrell and Theodore Roethke I can say less about.
Manic Power: Robert Lowell and His Circle has an obvious debt to Nietzsche's Dionysian/Apollonian paradigm. By claiming that these writers "suffer" for their art, he discounts the importance and influence of mental illness, alcoholism, and other factors like family history. A fascinating case study, but I can't imagine that serious scholars of these poets would give his thesis much credence. It is a considerable critical leap.
A better work covering similar ground is Bruce Bawer's The Middle Generation: The Lives and Poetry of Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, and Robert Lowell.
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Manic Power: Robert Lowell and His Circle has an obvious debt to Nietzsche's Dionysian/Apollonian paradigm. By claiming that these writers "suffer" for their art, he discounts the importance and influence of mental illness, alcoholism, and other factors like family history. A fascinating case study, but I can't imagine that serious scholars of these poets would give his thesis much credence. It is a considerable critical leap.
A better work covering similar ground is Bruce Bawer's The Middle Generation: The Lives and Poetry of Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, and Robert Lowell.
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World Religions
The anthology edited by Clifton Fadiman titled The World Treasury of Modern Religious Thought is another book I found through the Book of the Month Club (BOMC). I'm glad I did too. This is the best one-volume anthology of world religions I have found. The essays are often written by prominent religious thinkers like Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber, and others. It also has excellent essays by religious scholars who are less known by the general public, but are prominent scholars of particular religious traditions. Atheism is also well-represented in this volume too, adding an important voice to the dialogue underway in this collection.
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Existentialism Primers
I first discovered Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre by Walter Kaufmann at a Library book sale where I picked up a cheap paperback copy. I had by this time read some excerpts of Sartre and I think a bit of Kierkegaard and knew of Kaufmann from his work with Goethe's Faust and the works of Nietzsche. It was originally published in 1956, but has been republished through 2003, though I don't know how much updating Kaufmann did over the years.
Still, this was a great introduction to the philosophy of existentialism in both literature and philosophy.
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Still, this was a great introduction to the philosophy of existentialism in both literature and philosophy.
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The Tao
I have read a few different translations of the Tao Te Ching, including versions by Stephen Mitchell and John Wu. I have another version by my former boss and colleague, Stanley Lombardo that I have not made my way through yet. At this time, I prefer the version of John Wu, because Wu translates more faithfully to the actual Chinese text. Again, when you are dealing with poetry, the idea of translation becomes rather slippery. However, Mitchell in his notes admits that he has made sometimes major changes to the text because he feels he has a better sense of what the author meant to say. I'm obviously paraphrasing Mitchell here, but I think it does give the gist of Mitchell's method for reworking Lao Tzu. I'm not comfortable with that sort of interpretation, because it is not really translating if you change not so much the words, but the thoughts of the original author and text.
Regardless of these pedantic asides, anyone unfamiliar with the Tao should check it out.
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Regardless of these pedantic asides, anyone unfamiliar with the Tao should check it out.
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Enlightening your Heart and Mind
Both of these anthologies, The Enlightened Heart and the Enlightened Mind, are edited by the scholar, poet, translator, Stephen Mitchell. For those of you interested in poetic and religious ecumenism, I would highly recommend these two works to you. The first is an anthology of world poetry with mostly religious and mystical themes. The second is a related collection of writings from sacred scriptures from nearly all of the major world religions.
Both works demonstrate how much we all, as world citizens, share despite our national, cultural, ethnic, or religious differences.
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Both works demonstrate how much we all, as world citizens, share despite our national, cultural, ethnic, or religious differences.
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Practicing Peace
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist Zen master who Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated for the Noble Prize. His book Being Peace is a transcript of a talk he gave on the subject of peace in the mid 1980s. It is so readable and quotable, not to mention full of wisdom and hope. Great stuff!
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Reading Rumi
I first read Rumi in Stephen Mitchell's anthology of world poetry titled The Enlightened Heart. I subsequently read some of his poetry in editions published by various presses. Rumi was a 13th century poet born in Afghanistan who is representative of the current in Islam known as Sufism, which is a more mystical and less dogmatic form of Islam. Rumi is known for his sensual and playful poems. If nothing else, he is worth reading to see the variety of currents within a religion like Islam that is often relegated to a monolithic form associated with fundamentalism and violence.
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Race on the Genomic level
Undoubtedly there are few topics as controversial in the history of the United States than the concept of race. From founding documents like the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, to the Gettysburg Address, MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech to President Obama's Inaugural Address, race has maintained a central role in the national identity of the U.S.
Jenny Reardon's fascinating and sophisticated ethnographic work on the scientists and science behind race takes this discussion to a whole new level- that of the genome. Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics is a truly interdisciplinary work that gets the science right, but also demonstrates that unfortunately the work of these scientists cannot nor should not be isolated in their pristine research labs. No one lives in a vacuum and I think this book shows exactly the issues at play when scientists and pundits speak about the "biological irrelevance" of race.
Though it is a reworking of her doctoral dissertation, I used this with a class of mostly juniors and they were able to handle it just fine. I should disclose that Jenny Reardon is a friend of mine who I knew from my undergraduate days at the University of Kansas. Nevertheless, her book rocks!
Czar
Jenny Reardon's fascinating and sophisticated ethnographic work on the scientists and science behind race takes this discussion to a whole new level- that of the genome. Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics is a truly interdisciplinary work that gets the science right, but also demonstrates that unfortunately the work of these scientists cannot nor should not be isolated in their pristine research labs. No one lives in a vacuum and I think this book shows exactly the issues at play when scientists and pundits speak about the "biological irrelevance" of race.
Though it is a reworking of her doctoral dissertation, I used this with a class of mostly juniors and they were able to handle it just fine. I should disclose that Jenny Reardon is a friend of mine who I knew from my undergraduate days at the University of Kansas. Nevertheless, her book rocks!
Czar
A Frenchman in America
I'll confess that I have not read Democracy in America in its entirety, but I have read enough to know that this is a work that every American student (U.S. or otherwise) should be familiar with. I made it a mission of mine to have my American Studies students read portions of de Tocqueville because I passionately believe that he is an other who should be on the American Studies canon, if there were an American Studies canon. I don't think you can call yourself a true student of America (regardless of your field of study or discipline) if you are not conversant with Democracy in America. I have the Mansfield volume, but there are many excellent editions. Read It!
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Grad School Guides
Graduate School Companion by Princeton Review, Graduate School for the Twenty-First Century by Gregory Colon Semenza, Getting What You Came For by Robert Peters, The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career by John A. Goldsmith, et. al.
I used to help direct a program for students interested in academia. These are the main texts I used. The Grad School Companion has some useful information, but alone it is not worth using. I do like some of the ways it helps students to consider what issues are important in making their informed choice of the best graduate program for their needs. Similarly, the Chicago Guide is co-written by three different academics and suffers from the lack of a single voice. Some of their roundtable discussions are useful, but it is probably better for those already in grad school. Getting What You Came For is a good book, but it is rather dated and written for students interested in the sciences. For my money, and from the responses of my former students, Semenza is the best of the bunch. Having said that, he is writing for humanists and to a lesser degree students in the social sciences. However, I do think he touches on a variety of topics that even students in the sciences can profit from considering.
Grad school is a grind, but with some of these resources, you will have a step up on your peers.
Czar
I used to help direct a program for students interested in academia. These are the main texts I used. The Grad School Companion has some useful information, but alone it is not worth using. I do like some of the ways it helps students to consider what issues are important in making their informed choice of the best graduate program for their needs. Similarly, the Chicago Guide is co-written by three different academics and suffers from the lack of a single voice. Some of their roundtable discussions are useful, but it is probably better for those already in grad school. Getting What You Came For is a good book, but it is rather dated and written for students interested in the sciences. For my money, and from the responses of my former students, Semenza is the best of the bunch. Having said that, he is writing for humanists and to a lesser degree students in the social sciences. However, I do think he touches on a variety of topics that even students in the sciences can profit from considering.
Grad school is a grind, but with some of these resources, you will have a step up on your peers.
Czar
Post-Colonial Studies
Two works that I would recommend in tandem are The Post-Colonial Studies Reader (2nd ed. 2005) edited by Bill Ashcroft, published by Routledge Press and Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory edited by Williams and Chrisman, published by Longman.
The first volume had an impressive collection of primary source postcolonial readings running the gambit from former British colonies in the Carribbean and Africa, as well as more Asian postcolonial theorists from the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent. The second work has longer, but complete texts, including the famous or infamous essay, "Can the Subaltern Speak" by Gayatri Spivak. Both have excellent introductions and together provide a rather comprehensive introduction into Postcolonial Studies. I subjected some of my students to some of the Colonial Discourse volume and about 1/3 of the class dropped after that first week.
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The first volume had an impressive collection of primary source postcolonial readings running the gambit from former British colonies in the Carribbean and Africa, as well as more Asian postcolonial theorists from the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent. The second work has longer, but complete texts, including the famous or infamous essay, "Can the Subaltern Speak" by Gayatri Spivak. Both have excellent introductions and together provide a rather comprehensive introduction into Postcolonial Studies. I subjected some of my students to some of the Colonial Discourse volume and about 1/3 of the class dropped after that first week.
Czar
Critical Theory
For those of you in grad school or soon to be headed that way, I would highly recommend A Dictionary of Critical and Cultural Theory published by Blackwell. It was first published in 1997 and I don't know if there has been a second edition, but this was an invaluable resource for me during my grad years. It is a true dictionary and not very portable, but I found its depth to be more useful than some of the other more concise editions. It doesn't have everything, not that any volume does, but I usually found what I needed to know and then some with this resource.
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Chicano Literary Theory
Dear Friends,
Please indulge me in a few academic posts here and there. Haven't spent a decade or more toiling in the fields of Chicana/o and Latina/o literary and cultural theory, I have to find an outlet for this work every now and then. I've very judiciously resisted the urge to comment on each and every book of theory I read, but I do have to single out Juan Bruce Novoa's Retrospace:Collected Essays on Chicano Literature, Theory, and History. First, Bruce Novoa's work was the first I found when I became interested in this subject as a KU undergrad. Novoa is one of the first theorists to devote a considerable amount of work to this field. Though he is an academic, his writing is also relatively free of the theoretical and critical jargon that others primarily used as Chicano theory and criticism became more institutionalized.
Finally, Bruce Novoa even during the heyday of Chicana/o literature and civil rights, is rightly critical of the emergence of a Chicana/o canon that tended to marginalize those works and writers who did not conform to what the critics felt Chicana/o identity was. As someone who identifies as a Chicano, but who has a Germanic surname, does not speak Spanish as a native, and who is not usually identified as a Chicano, this spoke to me.
Czar
Please indulge me in a few academic posts here and there. Haven't spent a decade or more toiling in the fields of Chicana/o and Latina/o literary and cultural theory, I have to find an outlet for this work every now and then. I've very judiciously resisted the urge to comment on each and every book of theory I read, but I do have to single out Juan Bruce Novoa's Retrospace:Collected Essays on Chicano Literature, Theory, and History. First, Bruce Novoa's work was the first I found when I became interested in this subject as a KU undergrad. Novoa is one of the first theorists to devote a considerable amount of work to this field. Though he is an academic, his writing is also relatively free of the theoretical and critical jargon that others primarily used as Chicano theory and criticism became more institutionalized.
Finally, Bruce Novoa even during the heyday of Chicana/o literature and civil rights, is rightly critical of the emergence of a Chicana/o canon that tended to marginalize those works and writers who did not conform to what the critics felt Chicana/o identity was. As someone who identifies as a Chicano, but who has a Germanic surname, does not speak Spanish as a native, and who is not usually identified as a Chicano, this spoke to me.
Czar
Lazarillo de Tormes
One of my all-time favorite works of literature. I am such a fan of this Spanish novel that one of my email account names is "Lazarillo de Tormes." Considered the first picaresque novel and a classic of Golden Age Spanish literature. It is a very bawdy and satirical tale of a young boy named Lazaro or Lazarillo who is poor and is apprenticed to a cruel blind man by his family.
There are some decent English translations, but this is best read in the original. If you have to read a translation, I would go with W.S. Merwin's translation. I wrote a third of my undergrad thesis on Lazarillo.
Czar
There are some decent English translations, but this is best read in the original. If you have to read a translation, I would go with W.S. Merwin's translation. I wrote a third of my undergrad thesis on Lazarillo.
Czar
Dante's Divine Comedy
Dante and I go way back to my sophomore year of high school when I was introduced to The Inferno in my high school Humanities class. For many students and readers, The Inferno is the only exposure one gets to Dante. This is a great shame. I was fortunate to attend Reed College where I read the entire Divine Comedy in their one year Humanities 1 class. This experience of reading two different translations of Dante was instructive for me too. I think like many readers, I assumed you could just do a single word for word (Babelfish) type of translation. I think it was Robert Frost who said something about poetry being what cannot be translated. This is often true, because when you can experience the mastery of someone like Shakespeare in his original English, you might wonder how this is going to be conveyed in another language.
My first reading of Dante was through John Ciardi's poetic rendering that attempted to partially preserve the terza rima of the original Italian. I think it is in his Purgatorio that he provides his method for translating Dante into English poetry. While I can appreciate the work he does, it shows how much of the original Italian is lost even with an American poet like John Ciardi, who freely admitted he was no Italianist.
At Reed, we read the full translation of Allen Mandelbaum. Mandelbaum is a poet too, but he is also a very accomplished translator of modern Italian poets like Quasimodo and Ungaretti, as well as being an award-winning translator of Virgil's Aeneid, which he translated prior to tackling the Divine Comedy. Mandelbaum does not attempt to keep the Italian form of terza rima, but I think he does a masterful job of translating the poetry of Dante into English. I did study Italian at KU and was, at one time, able to read Dante in the original Italian. Thus far, Mandelbaum is my preferred translator of Dante.
When I transferred back to KU, I took the class offered by KU's Dante scholar Richard Kay on the Divine Comedy. Professor Kay choose yet another translation: the Penguin version by Mark Musa. I asked him why he did Musa over Mandelbaum. He admitted that Mandelbaum is a more poetic and faithful translation, but that Musa's contained much better end notes for students. I would agree with this assessment and Musa's translation does have some good touches of the original poetry too.
Since I last read an entire complete translation of Dante, there have been several notable translations of parts or all of the Commedia. I have read Robert Pinsky's Inferno, which reminds me of Ciardi's, only updated. I think Pinsky does an admirable job, but it is not Dante.
I have, but have not read the translation by the Hollander's, though it is on my list of books to get too. I also want to read W.S. Merwin's Purgatorio, which is often not read like the final section of the Paradiso. Other translators like C.H. Sisson and Michael Palma have made translations too, so there is still plenty of work to be done in these areas. As I work through these various translations, I will be sure to post my thoughts here.
Happy Reading, pilgrims!
Czar
My first reading of Dante was through John Ciardi's poetic rendering that attempted to partially preserve the terza rima of the original Italian. I think it is in his Purgatorio that he provides his method for translating Dante into English poetry. While I can appreciate the work he does, it shows how much of the original Italian is lost even with an American poet like John Ciardi, who freely admitted he was no Italianist.
At Reed, we read the full translation of Allen Mandelbaum. Mandelbaum is a poet too, but he is also a very accomplished translator of modern Italian poets like Quasimodo and Ungaretti, as well as being an award-winning translator of Virgil's Aeneid, which he translated prior to tackling the Divine Comedy. Mandelbaum does not attempt to keep the Italian form of terza rima, but I think he does a masterful job of translating the poetry of Dante into English. I did study Italian at KU and was, at one time, able to read Dante in the original Italian. Thus far, Mandelbaum is my preferred translator of Dante.
When I transferred back to KU, I took the class offered by KU's Dante scholar Richard Kay on the Divine Comedy. Professor Kay choose yet another translation: the Penguin version by Mark Musa. I asked him why he did Musa over Mandelbaum. He admitted that Mandelbaum is a more poetic and faithful translation, but that Musa's contained much better end notes for students. I would agree with this assessment and Musa's translation does have some good touches of the original poetry too.
Since I last read an entire complete translation of Dante, there have been several notable translations of parts or all of the Commedia. I have read Robert Pinsky's Inferno, which reminds me of Ciardi's, only updated. I think Pinsky does an admirable job, but it is not Dante.
I have, but have not read the translation by the Hollander's, though it is on my list of books to get too. I also want to read W.S. Merwin's Purgatorio, which is often not read like the final section of the Paradiso. Other translators like C.H. Sisson and Michael Palma have made translations too, so there is still plenty of work to be done in these areas. As I work through these various translations, I will be sure to post my thoughts here.
Happy Reading, pilgrims!
Czar
Greek Pastorals
The version of The Idylls by Theocritus I read was a translation by Daryl Hine, though I cannot speak to the accuracy of the translation from the ancient Greek. Hine is somewhat chippy about other translators however.
This work is much more bawdy and erotic than I expected. Very homoerotic 'pastoral' poems that make me look at Richard Rodriguez's use "the pastoral" in a different light. I'm also reminded of Ginsburg on occasion and even hip hop, because often there is a contest of sorts between two shepherd/poets. The language is not ornamental, but rather plain like the work of Hesiod. I don't see much of the bucolic trope of later pastoral poets like Virgil or Milton. Nevertheless there is a strong undercurrent of desire in these poems.
Czar
This work is much more bawdy and erotic than I expected. Very homoerotic 'pastoral' poems that make me look at Richard Rodriguez's use "the pastoral" in a different light. I'm also reminded of Ginsburg on occasion and even hip hop, because often there is a contest of sorts between two shepherd/poets. The language is not ornamental, but rather plain like the work of Hesiod. I don't see much of the bucolic trope of later pastoral poets like Virgil or Milton. Nevertheless there is a strong undercurrent of desire in these poems.
Czar
Gilgamesh
What a difference a text can make. I did not find Ferry's translation of Horace to be impressive, but I love what he has done with Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse. His method is reminiscent of Robert Lowell's work in Imitations, where Lowell often translates from other English translations rather than consulting the original language. Ferry does this here. His use of repetition, similar to Homeric epithets is well done.
I've taught N.K. Sandars' Penguin edition, which is probably more faithful to the original, but the poetry is not there. It is here in Ferry's translation.
Czar
I've taught N.K. Sandars' Penguin edition, which is probably more faithful to the original, but the poetry is not there. It is here in Ferry's translation.
Czar
Horace and the Buddy Poem
The Odes of Horace: A Bilingual Edition. I think that Horace is best taken in small doses. Trying to read ode after ode becomes somewhat overwhelming. Ferry has some good lines, but I don't feel he's a poet/translator like Robert Fitzgerald or Allen Mandelbaum. Perhaps this is merely Horace, but I don't know Latin.
Horace can be very epigrammatic, though there is a certain melancholy to these odes, which might be the influence of Stoicism. The sentiment is often noble, though at times there is a certain sensuality as well. These are very masculine poems, many are virtually "buddy" poems.
Czar
Horace can be very epigrammatic, though there is a certain melancholy to these odes, which might be the influence of Stoicism. The sentiment is often noble, though at times there is a certain sensuality as well. These are very masculine poems, many are virtually "buddy" poems.
Czar
New African American Poetry
Kevin Young went to the same high school I did in Topeka, KS, but I do not think this is the home referenced in the title. Must be nice to study poetry with Seamus Heaney, but that's what getting into Harvard will do for you.
Kevin is a gifted poet with a knack for lyrical descriptions and he keeps the narrative flowing in his verse. However, at times there is almost too much narrative going on. Some of these poems read like history lessons, they are fine but I question the veracity of the experience. His use of the first person seems anachronistic at times, because I don't think he is old enough to have lived through some of these events he narrates. Overall, Most Way Home is an excellent first collection of poems.
Czar
Kevin is a gifted poet with a knack for lyrical descriptions and he keeps the narrative flowing in his verse. However, at times there is almost too much narrative going on. Some of these poems read like history lessons, they are fine but I question the veracity of the experience. His use of the first person seems anachronistic at times, because I don't think he is old enough to have lived through some of these events he narrates. Overall, Most Way Home is an excellent first collection of poems.
Czar
Jesus Lives
Jesus: The Man Who Lives is a powerful book. Malcolm Muggeridge writes with tremendous passion and lucidity. This is an inspiring book because Muggeridge makes faith in Jesus so tangible and compelling. He is cynical and witty at times, but he is also extraordinarily faithful to his Lord and even to his Church. Muggeridge was a convert to Christianity, having been a Communist earlier in his life.
The illustrations in the book are nice, if haphazard, but they do form a suitable complement to the text. You cannot finish this work without feeling some reverence, especially if you are a believer. Muggeridge's enthusiasm for Jesus is evident on every page. He is a dazzling stylist, but doesn't allow this to overpower his narrative.
Czar
The illustrations in the book are nice, if haphazard, but they do form a suitable complement to the text. You cannot finish this work without feeling some reverence, especially if you are a believer. Muggeridge's enthusiasm for Jesus is evident on every page. He is a dazzling stylist, but doesn't allow this to overpower his narrative.
Czar
What Would Jesus Do?
Joshua: A Parable for Today is a compelling read, but is not the best written book. Joseph Girzone tells a pretty good story, but parts of this read like stuff coming out of an intro fiction writing class. The conversations are stilted and artificial.
Nevertheless, the conceit of Jesus coming back to Earth under the radar is refreshing. There is a sort of Will Rogers wit to Girzone's observations about religious practice, all the more interesting coming from a retired Catholic priest.
His riff on marriage is passionate, but incomplete. Certainly Catholicism has overregulated this and annulment has been a nightmre, but the character, Joshua, seems to forget his own words about marriage in the Gospels.
How Joshua interacts with Jewish characters is refreshing, but also left underdeveloped. I thought his dialogue with Catholic church officials could have been a bit more biting and incisive, especially the constant references to Joshua not having the authority to comment on Church matters.
Girzone calls this "a modern parable", but I don't see the lesson fleshed out completely, although I suppose one could say the same thing about the scriptural parables.
Czar
Nevertheless, the conceit of Jesus coming back to Earth under the radar is refreshing. There is a sort of Will Rogers wit to Girzone's observations about religious practice, all the more interesting coming from a retired Catholic priest.
His riff on marriage is passionate, but incomplete. Certainly Catholicism has overregulated this and annulment has been a nightmre, but the character, Joshua, seems to forget his own words about marriage in the Gospels.
How Joshua interacts with Jewish characters is refreshing, but also left underdeveloped. I thought his dialogue with Catholic church officials could have been a bit more biting and incisive, especially the constant references to Joshua not having the authority to comment on Church matters.
Girzone calls this "a modern parable", but I don't see the lesson fleshed out completely, although I suppose one could say the same thing about the scriptural parables.
Czar
Phormio by Terence is a work with little substance. Phormio is the most interesting character, the rest are mostly one dimensional and leaden. Another play with mistaken identity at the core, but so slight when compared to the Greeks or later Comedy.Plautus' The Captives is a Roman comedy, but the Roman comedies pale in comparison to the work of Aristopanes. It does not have the humor of Aristophanes and if it is more of a tragi-comedy, it doe not have the seriousness, the gravitas of the Greek tragedies.
Intricate plots, Byzantine intrigues, but little drama or comedy. Shakespeare could take similiar material and work wonders with it. All in all, rather thin.
Czar
Intricate plots, Byzantine intrigues, but little drama or comedy. Shakespeare could take similiar material and work wonders with it. All in all, rather thin.
Czar
Racine's Phedre
This post is a combo of my reading of three versions of this Racine play. Blame my comparative literature background on this one.
The eminent American poet Robert Lowell translates the classic play Phaedra by Racine in rhyming couplets. This form can work for some genres, but even if Racine had couplets in the original, in English, it does not work. It is overly mannered and I found myself going "da,da, da, da" as I read this version. I would have loved to see Lowell do a version in blank verse to see what he could have produced.
Ted Hughes' version is pretty good. It is concise and direct. I wonder if this type of writing is what made Samuel Beckett such a fan of Racine? Of course, Hughes despite being the British Poet Laureate and good poet is best known as the husband of Sylvia Plath at the time of her suicide. He guarded over her literary estate as well, so he controlled what we know of her poetry and other posthumous writings.
Richard Wilbur's was the final of three translations I read and I liked this one the best. It was the most poetic and to me best displayed the classicism Racine is associated with in terms of literary style. Wilbur is a good poet, so I'm not surprised he produced a good translation, although I must admit I have no background in French to judge the true quality of the translation.
It is interesting that both Ted Hughes and Robert Lowell translate this play and Aeschylus' Oresteia. The themes of infidelity, possibly incest, and betrayal are an intriguing subtext.
Czar
The eminent American poet Robert Lowell translates the classic play Phaedra by Racine in rhyming couplets. This form can work for some genres, but even if Racine had couplets in the original, in English, it does not work. It is overly mannered and I found myself going "da,da, da, da" as I read this version. I would have loved to see Lowell do a version in blank verse to see what he could have produced.
Ted Hughes' version is pretty good. It is concise and direct. I wonder if this type of writing is what made Samuel Beckett such a fan of Racine? Of course, Hughes despite being the British Poet Laureate and good poet is best known as the husband of Sylvia Plath at the time of her suicide. He guarded over her literary estate as well, so he controlled what we know of her poetry and other posthumous writings.
Richard Wilbur's was the final of three translations I read and I liked this one the best. It was the most poetic and to me best displayed the classicism Racine is associated with in terms of literary style. Wilbur is a good poet, so I'm not surprised he produced a good translation, although I must admit I have no background in French to judge the true quality of the translation.
It is interesting that both Ted Hughes and Robert Lowell translate this play and Aeschylus' Oresteia. The themes of infidelity, possibly incest, and betrayal are an intriguing subtext.
Czar
A Roman Medea
Not much to this version of the Medea myth from Seneca. The version by Euripides is far superior in every respect. The story line is the same, but there is nothing new that Seneca's version brings to the myth. Moreover, it has none of the power, the raw energy of the Greek version. By comparision, Seneca's Medea is tame and much too civilized to kill her own children. There is some bitterness and resentment, but not the horrific vengeance of the Medea of the myth. It lacks the Dionysian force of the Greek original.
Czar
Czar
An Indian Romeo and Juliet
The play Sakoontala is charming, sweet, and romantic much like Romeo and Juliet. Sakoontala endures much for her husband, but I feel the play develops her character and that of the others well.
I think the scene between the king and his son rings true as they interact as you would expect a father and son to.
The only criticism is the curse involved in the play. It seems arbitrary and forced as a plot device.
Czar
I think the scene between the king and his son rings true as they interact as you would expect a father and son to.
The only criticism is the curse involved in the play. It seems arbitrary and forced as a plot device.
Czar
Medieval Morality Plays
I thought Everyman was fine for what it is, a medieval morality play. It is heavy handed and not terribly dramatic, but this was not its purpose necessarily. I first read it in a high school Humanities class. It compared poorly to Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, and Ibsen's The Wild Duck.
The Second Shepherd's Play is terrible. It is bizarre and poorly constructed. The grafting of the Nativity Play doesn't work either.
Adam, a morality play not included here is even worse. It reeks of anti-Semitism and is unoriginal and formless. The first few scenes are drawn directly from Genesis, probably the point, and the testimony from other prophets doesn't add much to the work.
Maybe these plays achieved their purpose of instructing the faithful, but I' concerned with the dubious nature of the material conveyed.
Czar
The Second Shepherd's Play is terrible. It is bizarre and poorly constructed. The grafting of the Nativity Play doesn't work either.
Adam, a morality play not included here is even worse. It reeks of anti-Semitism and is unoriginal and formless. The first few scenes are drawn directly from Genesis, probably the point, and the testimony from other prophets doesn't add much to the work.
Maybe these plays achieved their purpose of instructing the faithful, but I' concerned with the dubious nature of the material conveyed.
Czar
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