Fred's Place

Combination Plate 20

2012-01-10T12:54:00.019-07:00

Spoiler Warning: I will reveal important plot elements and endings if necessary in the discussion.

Moon: an SF film

Ever Since The World Ended: an SF film

Geoff Ryman: Air, an SF novel

Peter Temple: Truth, a mystery

The Mutant Chronicles: an SF? horror? slasher film

Villains in earlier SF films and stories tended to be clumped into well-defined categories: bad governments, alien invaders, mad scientists, mutated critters of all sorts (grasshoppers, ants, rabbits. . .), and the hazards of space travel. Over the years some popular types have dropped out and new ones have taken their place. For example, aliens are no longer universally viewed as evil, as demonstrated by the recent film Avatar, which also provides an example of a new type of villain--the corporation. Corporations are now portrayed as evil, or at best, insensitive to the effects they have either on beings or the environment. In fact, I can't think of a recent film or story that has a benevolent corporation. There may be some, but as I haven't read every story or seen every film, I may have missed it.

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Moon, an SF film

Sam Bell has the perfect job for a hermit, or at least a loner. He has signed a three-year contract with a mining company to monitor an automated computer- run mining installation. He will be the only human on the site, and, moreover, the mining site is on the far side of the moon. His only company has been Gerty (voice of Kevin Spacey), the computer whose job it is to run the mining operation and also to monitor Sam Bell. Sam's only contact with humans has been the occasional TV contact with his wife and daughter and a mining official. Sam's contract is nearing the end of his three years, and he is looking forward to rejoining his family. He's been alone long enough, almost too long perhaps, because he's beginning to hallucinate the presence of others on the installation.

All is still going well, though, until Gerty informs him that one of the harvesters has malfunctioned. Bell decides to take a rover there to see if he can figure out the problem. On the site he has an accident which traps him in the rover, and he is rendered unconscious.

In the next scene we see him back at the station, with no apparent injuries. He decides to go back to the site and attempt to figure out what happened. Once there he discovers another rover and a man in a spacesuit trapped inside, just barely alive.

In the next scene, we are back at the main installation and discover two Sam Bells, which for the sake of clarity, I will designate as Bell1, the first Sam Bell, the one who was injured, and Bell2, the "new" Sam Bell.

The answer, of course, is cloning. Bell2 is a clone of Bell1. However, both argue that they are the real Bell but agree to put that dispute aside for the time being. The real problem is where Bell2 came from. From this point on, the film becomes a mystery as they attempt to solve the riddle of the Bell clones. As you may have guessed by now, the villain in this film is the "evil corporation."

I found it an interesting film, low-key, and what was best, not a single car chase, gun battle, or exploding building throughout. The focus is on the relationship between the two Bells and their struggle to determine just what the real situation is. Certain questions need to be answered: Bell1 is going home shortly--just what will happen to Bell2? If Bell2 is a clone and just recently created (by whom?), how can he be the same age as Bell1?

The questions, eventually, are answered, and unfortunately, recent headlines regarding corporate and also government behavior, suggest that they really would act that way.

My favorite line in the film is also the last line in the film. Bell2 has managed to escape to Earth and has told his story to the UN. A radio talk show host has this comment about Bell2's story: "This guy is either wacko or an illegal immigrant. Either way he should be locked up for good."

I wonder what state the radio host lives in--I think I can guess.

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Ever Since The World Ended

This appears to be a low-budget, independent film. One of its most striking features is the lack of special effects. If one mutes the dialogue, one would find it hard to guess that this is a post-holocaust film.

The film is set in the San Francisco Bay area. Approximately seven years have passed since the great plague killed most of the inhabitants, and fewer than 300 people now live in the area. The disease acted so quickly that there was no chance of doing any research leading to identification and perhaps a cure. They do not know where the plague came from--whether it was a naturally evolving plague or perhaps something that escaped from a laboratory or even the result of an attack by an enemy that succeeded all too well. Since it was a disease and not a war, in the conventional sense anyway, there is no destruction, therefore no need for special effects showing any devastation.

The film is an audio-visual record made by a survivor who decided that it was time to document life as it now is after the plague. It's a comfortable, quieter, more peaceful life now. In fact, I got the feeling that many were happy that the plague took place.

To be brief, the cameraman wanders around the area, films the everyday activities of the survivors, and interviews a number of them. Some are teaching the children that survived the plague, while others work to find ways to get around the lack of a central power system--batteries are very important now. Since there was very little destruction, people live in houses just as they did before the plague. Clothing is not a problem yet, so all are dressed as they were before the plague.

There is no real government, just a group of people who meet to discuss and suggest ways of solving problems that arise. One problem that has recently arisen is the return of the arsonist. Shortly after the plague they found him setting fires (he was a firefighter before the plague), in abandoned buildings, at least so far. They forced him to leave the area and warned him not to return.

He has returned, in spite of the warning, and insists that he is cured of his problem and no longer has any desire to set fires. The group is not unanimous about what to do. Some want to give him a chance, while others see him as a threat. The problem is that there is no one who wants to watch him constantly. If he is locked up, who will be the jailer? Who will feed him?

Several of the characters decide that it is now time to try to connect up with other small communities. Five of them, including the cameraman, begin a trek to the nearest community. They expect to be gone a week or so. Several days into the trip, they are fired upon by one or more people, and one of them is wounded. Unlike characters in numerous other films I've seen, these people are not heroes who are determined to carry on, regardless of the risk. Life is too precious. They turn back.

The killing has not stopped.

At times I found the film compelling, mainly because of the format--a documentary. At no time did I get the feeling that I had seen something like this before. Since there really was no plot, no story line, I never could predict what was coming next. It is what it was supposed to be- a rather amateurish attempt to document on film the way people lived now, some seven years after the plague.

At the same time, this is also an handicap, for though it was compelling--at times-- I was only slightly involved at other times, but enough so that I was interested and never considered giving up on it. Since there were no real overarching storyline and dominant characters to follow, there really was nothing there for me to get deeply involved in.

For example, the only two incidents I remember are those which involved the arsonist who had returned and the failed exploratory expedition. Both had drama and a specific issue to be resolved. Both are resolved--sadly. I remember little about the rest of the film.

Recommended for those who are interested in post-holocaust films and would like to see an atypical treatment, something without scenes of destruction, mutants, zombies, etc.

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Geoff Ryman: Air, an SF novel of the near future

This has to be one of the most interesting SF novels I've read recently. The basic idea is simple. A means of transmitting information has been developed that will allow all humans to connect with, well, let's call it the Internet for want of a better term, without the need of any physical equipment. Instead of turning on one's PC, laptop, or other electronic device, all one has to do is think about connecting up. Once connected, the individual simply thinks about various actions instead off have to mess around with a keyboard or mouse. If wanted, I guess one could simply visualize a mouse or keyboard and interact that way.

The good side is that it is free and accessible to everyone. It's in the air. And, that's also the bad side; people do not have a choice. All, including the most isolated villagers sitting high atop a mountain or deep within a swamp or desert are hooked in--involuntarily. It wasn't clear, but I think that those who do not make an effort to hook up will not be affected in any way. It just won't be there for them. Of course, there really haven't been any long-term study made of the effects of being immersed in Air, nobody really knows what the effects will be--socially, culturally, or physically--in a few decades.

There are two slightly different formats to this process. The United Nations elected to install Air as its choice, therefore blocking the other format, which was called Gates. Gates is the format owned by a large software company (you can guess which one). The UN decided to get involved because it thought that having a political entity control a process that affected every human on the planet would be preferable to a corporation having that control.

Ryman focuses on a small isolated village in a country in Central Asia. The inhabitants are a mix of Chinese Buddhists who fled from communism decades ago, Moslems, Hindus, and indigenous peoples. They are poor, but they have managed to survive for centuries. There is only one TV set in the village, owned by one of the wealthier families. They have set the TV up so that in the evening, anyone who wishes can stop by and watch. Shortly afterwards, another wealthy family suddenly decides to get a TV, the latest and more up-to-date, as they point out, and lets it be known that visitors are welcome to stop by.

The main character is Chung Mae, a Chinese woman who has become the style leader or fashion expert for the women in the village. She learns of the project and fears for what it means to her village and their culture. She adopts the old adage--know thy enemy--thinking that learning about it will help her to fight it and thereby maintain their way of life. Of course, the ending at this point is predictable.

One example of the very predictable outcome is the episode of the collars. In her village, people who are involved in a significant event or do something significant get together, decide on a pattern, and weave a collar that is distinct from all others. It is their sign that they were involved in this event and are proud of it. Chung Mae in her interactions on the Net finds there is a great market for this type of apparel at this time. Her employees, she has a small company by this time, make up the collars and send them off to their distributor in New York. Chung Mae doesn't realize what she has done. She has taken this item of significance to the people of her village and turned it into a global accessory, worn by people to whom it is merely a fashion statement.

What will the future be like? I think Chung Mae's infant is an example. Born at the end of the novel, the infant has suffered severe burns and loss of all senses--vision, smell, hearing, touch. . .
Chung Mae says to her child, "My little future. You are blind, but you will not need to see, for we can all see for you, and sights and sounds will pass through to you from us. You have no hands, but you will not need hands, for your mind will control the machines, and they will be as\ hqnds. Your ears also burned away, but you will hear jmore in one hour than we heard in all of our lifetimes."

Without physical senses, how can the child form a sense of a separate identity?

I find this terrifying.

The last words of the novel: " . . . all of them turned and walked together into the future."

The characters walk off at the end into a bright future.

Perhaps . . .

Ryman, I believe, has constructed an allegory, with Air being the all-pervasive destructive influence of Western technological culture on local cultures and mores. I found this disturbing, but the others in the SF discussion group that selected Air disagreed. I got the feeling I was perceived as being a Luddite, one against progress. After all, I was one of the few there that didn't have a mobile phone. Well, perhaps I am. But, I still have a choice. The people in Ryman's novel didn't.

To sum up, perhaps Ryman is saying that change is inevitable, that for every gain there will be a loss, that the best one can do is to work with it, that one should do one's utmost to control it and not be controlled by it.

It's an intriguing story and one that I would recommend.

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Peter Temple, Truth
Mystery type: Police Procedural
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Time: Contemporary

It's an ironic title for at the end I wasn't sure I had found the truth. It's my first novel by Temple, so I don't know whether this writing style is typical of him. It takes a while to get into the flow for it could be described as telegraphese with its short sentences, staccato flow, and missing subjects. Several of the members of the discussion group stopped reading because of the style. One of the members called it hyper-machismo.

This is the first in a series of novels featuring the cases of John Villani, head of the homicide squad in Melbourne, Australia. Villani's problems aren't limited to solving murders, for his marriage is falling apart and his daughter is hooked on drugs. At one point, his daughter is arrested, and he decides to let her think about it overnight in jail, rather than get her out that night. His wife doesn't agree.

Other obstacles are corrupt superiors in his own department, corrupt politicians, and corrupt business leaders. He himself is not exactly pure, as one might guess from his last name--Villani. If one switches the last two letters in his name, it becomes Villain--interesting coincidence, if that is what it is. Coincidence or not, I got the same feeling from reading this novel as I did from reading several of Ian Rankin's "Rebus" stories. Corruption is in the air.

Overall Reaction: The plotting is complex, and several of the characters, including Villani, are finely drawn. If you are up for a really gritty and grubby police procedural and are willing to work a bit with the style, it's worth reading. But, don't expect to settle back and get comfortable while reading it. Its staccato style put me on edge, and it was more like starts and stops than a smooth flow.

Having said this, I would still say--take a look at it. It is different.

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The Mutant Chronicles: a film.

Actually, I think it's a misnamed film; if one considers the precise meaning of mutant, then these aren't mutants. Just what they are--I'll let you decide, if you ever watch this film.

The world is divided among four corporate states which are permanently at war with one another (see George Orwell's 1984, even though he had only three states):

1. Capitol (North America perhaps),
2. Bauhaus (Central Europe?),
3. Imperial (???), and
4. Mishima (Asia?--probably a reference to the right-wing Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, who committed suicide when he couldn't persuade the Japanese army to overthrow the government and restore the Emperor as ruler).

The film opens on a battlefield in the trenches with the Capitol army. The enemy this time is BAuhaus. The two armies have constructed trenches that stretch over many miles. Suddenly, the Bauhaus artillery opens with a sustained barrage, a sure sign of an impending attack. Then the barrage lifts, and the Bauhaus army goes over the top and charges into withering fire in the no-man's land between the two armies. It appears the Capitol lines will hold until the Bauhaus troops begin lobbing canisters of poison gas into the Capitol trenches (see World War I, for more information).

In the midst of the hand-to-hand struggle, a third force intervenes and slaughters both sides. We now switch to a conference room where the representatives of the four states are meeting. There they learn from a representative (played by Ron Perlman) of a small and unknown religious order (we know it's a religious order because he's wearing monk's robes and a hood) of the nature of the threat.

Thousands of years ago, a space ship landed carrying a machine. The machine could turn humans into slaves to do its bidding. After a prolonged struggle, the machine was finally isolated and sealed away in an underground cavern. The religious order has been tasked with keeping watch over the machine for lo these many thousands of years. Now, the machine has breached the walls confining it and is again attempting to master the human race. (I'll bet that some of this sounds vaguely familiar.)

The conference comes up with two solutions. Build space craft to take them to Mars as soon as possible. Even though they can't build enough for the entire population, there will be enough room for the leaders and the powerful and rich elite, and possibly a few of the common folk.

The second solution is to recruit a small group of warriors and hope that they might be able to get to the machine and destroy it (see The Dirty Dozen and numerous other films). The film follows predictably from this point.

One little twist is that though a single shot, even to the head, won't stop the critters from coming, a sword can and will kill them. So, this allows for a considerable amount of blood splattering and gushing as the critters are armed only with a long knife, so now there's a reason for both sides to hack away at each other.

While watching the machine attempt to convert a human, I couldn't help but remember a somewhat similar scene in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as Captain Picard is turned into a Borg. And, the critters remind me of zombies, even though a bit more agile, but certainly not any prettier--zomborgs? borbies? I don't know, but I certainly don't consider them mutants.

The atmosphere, the setting, is as dark and grim as any I've seen, and very well done. I didn't spot a zipper anywhere.

At the end, Mitch (the leader of the squad) is standing on the top of the underground tower while everything crashes down around him. Suddenly, the quiet but urgent voice of Obi-Wan Kanobi is heard: "Use the Force, Luke, use the Force." I couldn't believe this, so I froze the film, backed it up a bit, and replayed it. What was really said? It was the voice of Ron Perlman, who apparently wasn't dead, at least not yet, saying: "Jump, Mitch, trust me, jump."

The last scene of the film? Nothing after a hard day of hacking and chopping and slicing tastes quite as good as a cigarette.

Recommendation: Lots of fun, best viewed with others of like minds and with plenty of one's favorite mood enhancer.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain LI

2012-01-03T18:19:00.003-07:00

Quatrain LI is one of my favorites, and FitzGerald must have been satisfied with it also.

First Edition: Quatrain LI

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Second Edition: Quatrain LXXVI

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

Fifth Edition: Quatrain LXXI

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

As far as I can see, FitzGerald made only two changes--the substitution of the more prosaic "your" in the second and fourth lines in the later editions, for the more poetic "thy." Being somewhat perverse in these matters, I prefer "thy" for it seems, at least to me, to flow much more smoothly: "thy tears" as opposed to "your tears."

I think the reference to the "Moving Finger" that "writes" comes from The Old Testament, specifically the Book of Daniel, 5: 1-4. This is the account of Belshazzar's Feast in which sacred vessels taken from Solomon's Temple were being used in rituals to the Babylonian gods. A hand appears and writes Mene, Mene, Teqel, Upharsin on the wall, a foretelling of the approaching fall of the Babylonian empire.

It relates, therefore, back to the previous quatrains which point out that we have no control over our fate or destiny, for it is determined by powers outside our ken and there's nothing we can do to prevent or even modify it.

This is part of what I see as an element of predestination in The Rubaiyat. I haven't read any of the other translations so I can't say whether this is present in Khayyam's quatrains or is something introduced by FitzGerald.

2012: New Year's Resolution, Reading List, and Reading Challenges

2012-01-02T15:47:00.004-07:00

Last year I created a combined New Year's Resolution, Reading List, and Reading Challenges for myself. It was simply to read two books a month from my TBR bookcase, a total of 24 for the year. The Bad News is that I only managed to read 15 of 24 books, not even two-thirds of my goal. The Good News is that I managed to read 15 of 24 books, therefore removing 15 books from the bookcase. Consequently, I have decided to try again this year, hoping to either make my goal or even exceed it.

Overall it was a good year. Following is a partial list of the books I did read and would recommend.

Stella Gibbons: Cold Comfort Farm
Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha
Kim Stanley Robinson: The Wild Shore
Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf
Loren Eiseley: The Immense Journey
Fred Vargas: Seeking Whom He May Devour
Joseph Conrad: Victory
Mikhail Bulgakov: Heart of a Dog
Joseph Wood Krutch: Baja California and the Geography of Hope
KS Robinson: The Gold Coast
Thomas Mann: The Transposed Heads
Russell Hoban: The Lion of Boaz-Jachim and Jachim-Boaz
Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Bruce Stolbov: Last Fall
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn: We Never Make Mistakes
Karin Fossum: The Indian Bride or Calling Out for You
Ken Grimwood: Replay
China Mieville: Kraken
Dan Simmons: Hyperion
Jack London: The Sea-Wolf
Rudyard Kipling: Kim
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Ingrid Black: Circle of the Dead
Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland
Philip Jose Farmer: To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Michael Gregorio: A Visible Darkness
Arnaldur Indridason: Silence of the Grave
P. D. James: Death Comes to Pemberley
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching
Eliot Pattison: The Lord of Death
Kim Stanley Robinson: 40 Signs of Rain
Ben Sanders: The Fallen
C. J. Sansom: Heartstone
John Scalzi: Android's Dream
Manil Suri: Death of Vishnu

The Kilkenny Cats

2011-12-29T08:58:00.004-07:00

When I came across this poem, I seemed to be reminded of something, but I don't know exactly what it might be. Does it remind you of anything?

The Kilkenny Cats

There wanst was two cats of Kilkenny,
Each thought there was one cat too many,
So they quarreled and they fit,
They scratch'd and they bit,
Till, barrin' their nails,
And the tips of their tails,
Instead of two cats, there warn't any.

-- Anonymous --

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain L

2011-12-20T20:22:00.004-07:00

This is Quatrain L, the fiftieth of seventy-five quatrains in the First Edition. I hope to be able to do the final one-third next year.

First Edition: Quatrain L

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd Thee down into the Field,
He knows about it all--He knows--HE knows!

Second Edition: Quatrain LXXV

The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd you down into the Field,
He knows about it all--He knows--HE knows!

Fifth Edition: Quatrain LXX

The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd you down into the Field,
He knows about it all--He knows--HE knows!

The changes are minimal. The "thee" in the third line of the first edition becomes "you" in the second and fifth editions. "Question" is no longer capitalized in the second and fifth editions. The last change I can see is the substitution of "Here" and "There" for "Right" and "Left" found in the first and second editions. I guess the substitution of "you" for "Thee" modernizes it somewhat, getting away from the thees and thous and making it less self-consciously poetic. However, I prefer the "Thee" for it adds a more serious touch to the quatrain, at least in my view anyway.

Why "Here" and "There" instead of "Right" and "Left"? Perhaps the poet felt that the directions were too limiting, providing only two possibilities while "Here" and "There" provided more uncertainty--one could be moved in any direction at the Player's whim.

This quatrain follows up on the theme introduced in the previous one in that again the Player determines what happens and neither the Ball nor the chess pieces have any choice except to be moved about. This certainly sounds like predestination to me: one does good because the Player has so decided and one does evil for the same reason. And, what does this mean when one considers what both Islam and Christianity teach--that our freely chosen actions determine whether we shall achieve an eternal reward or an horrific eternal punishment?

One other point is the reduction of what so many believers have struggled with, of what so many have died for, and of what so many have killed for, to a game.

Birthdays

2011-12-16T08:52:00.003-07:00

Born on this day:

Ludvig van Beethoven in 1770

Some Favorites:

Violin concerto in D
Five piano concertos
9 Symphonies

Jane Austen in 1775

Some Favorites

Persuasion
Mansfield Park
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Emma
Northanger Abbey

Arthur C. Clarke in 1917

Some favorites:

Rendezvous with Rama
Tales from the White Hart
The City and the Stars
"The Sentinel" (basis for the film 2001: AD)

Russell Hoban: February 4, 1925 -- December 13, 2011

2011-12-14T08:22:00.004-07:00

A sad day -- Russell Hoban is no longer with us. His numerous books for children and his novels for adults remain a legacy that enriches all who have read them.

A Partial Listing of his works

The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz
Kleinzeit
Turtle Diary (filmed)
Pilgermann
Riddley Walker
The Medusa Frequency
Fremder
Mr. Rinyo-Clacton's Offer
The Mouse and his Child (filmed)
The numerous "Frances" Books for Children

Eric Hoffer: Something to think about

2011-12-10T17:32:00.004-07:00

No. 4

It seems that we are most busy when we do not do the one thing we ought to do; most greedy when we cannot have the one thing we really want; most hurried when we can never arrive; most self-righteous when irrevocably in the wrong.

There is apparently a link between excess and unattainability.

-- Eric Hoffer --
from The Passionate State of Mind

Why excess? Perhaps we hope to distract ourselves?

Langston Hughes: some short poems gathered at random

2011-12-07T12:18:00.004-07:00

The following poems come from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. These are the ones that I stopped to read a second time as I browsed through the book, opening randomly at various pages. As I write this, I'm not sure why they interested me, though. Perhaps another reading might give me a clue.

Monotony

Today like yesterday
Tomorrow like today;
The drip, drip, drip,
Of monotony
Is wearing my life away;
Today like yesterday,
Tomorrow like today.

It ends the way it begins--does that suggest monotony? He resists the impulse to make a logic chain of the two repeated lines. He could have written--

Yesterday like today
Today like tomorrow

which gives us the following progression: Yesterday-->Today-->Tomorrow

Instead he gives us-- Today-->Yesterday-->Tomorrow-->Today

Perhaps it's because the one I suggested shows a direct line from yesterday to today to tomorrow, which denotes a progression, while what he gave us was more like a circle from today to yesterday to tomorrow and back to today--no beginning and no end--monotonous.

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Without dreams, we can't leave the ground. Without dreams life cannot come forth. It seems that dreams are elusive and transient, and we must "Hold fast" to them. Could the cure for monotony be a dream?

Gods

The ivory gods,
And the ebony gods,
And the gods of diamond and jade,
Sit silently on their temple shelves
While the people are afraid.
Yet the ivory gods
And the ebony gods,
And the gods of diamond-jade,
Are only silly puppet gods
That the people themselves
Have made.

I think he forgot the most prevelant gods that the people make and worship and fear: entertainers, athletes, politicians, the past . . .

The Dream Keeper

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

When I read The Dream Keeper, I immediately thought of the earlier one, Dreams. This poem also suggests that dreams are transient and fragile, which is why they belong off this earth, castles in the sky.

Formula

Poetry should treat
Of lofty things
Soaring thoughts
And birds with wings.

The Muse of Poetry
Should not know
That roses
In manure grow.

The Muse of Poetry
Should not care
That earthly pain
Is everywhere.

Poetry!
Treats of lofty things
Soaring thoughts
And birds with wings.

Is there a touch of irony here?

Jorge Luis Borges: Possession of Yesterday

2011-12-05T09:11:00.004-07:00

This is one of the most evocative poems that I'm aware of that treats of the human preoccupation with memories and time passing and a Golden Age. Other poets have and have done it well, but this one seems special and that last line . . .

Possession of Yesterday

I know the things I've lost are so many that I could not begin to count them
and that those losses
now, are all I have.
I know that I've lost the yellow and the black and I think
Of those unreachable colors
as those that are not blind can not.
My father is dead, and always stands beside me.
When I try to scan Swinburne's verses, I am told, I speak with my father's
voice.
Only those who have died are ours, only what we have lost is ours.
Ilium vanished, yet Ilium lives in Homer's verses.
Israel was Israel when it became an ancient nostalgia.
Every poem, in time, becomes an elegy.
The women who have left us are ours, free as we now are from misgivings.
from anguish, from the disquiet and dread of hope.
There are no paradises other than lost paradises.

-- Jorge Luis Borges --
(1899-1986)

There are no paradises other than lost paradises.

How many cultures look back to a Golden Age?
Now that I've somehow stumbled into my eighth decade, how many times do I begin with "Back when I was . . ." or "many years ago . . .?

trans. Nicomedes Suarez Arauz
from World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time
Katherine Washburn and John S. Major, eds.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain XLIX

2011-12-04T08:46:00.011-07:00

This quatrain refers back to earlier ones that say that we are not masters of our destiny but only characters in a play or pawns in a game controlled by . . .?

First Edition: Quatrain XLIX

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

Second Edition: Quatrain LXXIV

Impotent Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days,
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

Fifth Edition: Quatrain LXIX

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days,
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

The most significant differences that I can see among the three editions occurs in the first two lines of the quatrains. In the first edition, the poet begins with a reference to the game--"'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days"--and then brings us in as the "Pieces" moved about at the whim of the player, whereas the second and fifth editions refer immediately to "impotent Pieces" or "helpless Pieces" in the first line. The focus has shifted from the Game to our role as either "impotent" or "helpless" pieces.

In the first edition, humans are pawns of Destiny, a theme found in most cultures around the globe. Even Oedipus, perhaps the one who, in Western literature, has been the most ill-favored of all by Destiny, still has an aura of a tragic nobility or grandeur about him. However, even that disappears in the second edition when humans are portrayed as "impotent" which suggests at least an attempt to do something which turns out to be a failure, and even worse, in the fifth edition, when humans are portrayed as helpless, or unable to even attempt to act.

The other change is the replacement of He for Destiny. It is no longer a god--Destiny or Fate-- or a blind force that controls us but "He." In an earlier post, I brought up two poems, one by Robert Frost and one by Thomas Hardy, that spoke to this difference, as to whether it was blind chance or a deliberate act by a "person," divine or demonic.

The last two lines in the three versions are identical, except for the substitution of "checks" in the second and fifth edition for "mates" which is found in the first edition. While the game is played on a "Chequer-board," which suggests a game of checkers, the terms "mates" and "checks" actually belong to chess. Perhaps FitzGerald used "Chequer-board" instead of the more accurate chess board, because he needed the extra syllable.

"Mates" connotes the end of the game when the king is mated or taken or slain, which could be seen as redundant since he also refers to "slays" in the same line. On the other hand, to "check" means to put the king in danger of being taken, and the player whose king is checked has to do something in the next move to prevent the king from being taken. In either case, though, the king can do nothing on his own, for it is up to the player to defend the king or resign and place the king "back in the Closet."

My preference: As usual, I prefer the First Edition.

It seems a very bleak view of humanity's role--certainly far from those who argue that the universe was created solely as a testing ground for us, which makes us the center of and sole purpose for the universe. Isn't there a warning in the Bible about this sort of attitude--something about pride going before a fall?

This quatrain reminds me of "Invictus," a poem written by W. E. Henley. Henley is also a 19th century writer. His dates are 1849--1903, while FitzGerald lived from 1809 to 1883. I wonder if they had read each other's work.

Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
Howe charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

-- William Ernest Henley --
1849--1903

It, if anything, is even bleaker than FitzGerald's view of us as helpless pieces. In both our fates are seen as dictated by outside forces. Henley though seems to see life, as well as the afterlife, as horrific--"Beyond this place of wrath and tears/Looms but the horror of the shade." What was it about England in the 19th century that brought about this view in, at least, some of the English poets?

Are there any poets today who could or would write:

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Dan Simmons' Hyperion, Pt. 2, an informal glossary

2011-11-27T22:02:00.017-07:00

,
This informal glossary has two sections. The first is a listing of words, phrases, and names that refer to something outside of the story but which adds depth and connections to the story. The second section contains a list of the pilgrims and some commentary about them, their names, and their tales.

This is by no means a complete and exhaustive listing for I suspect that I've missed many other allusions, either because I just didn't see them or because I was unaware of their significance. If you are aware of any that I have missed, I would appreciate a comment regarding them.

All Thing: the name of the galactic-wide legislative assembly in the novel.
--Norse/Germanic reference: the annual assembly of all communities and free peoples.
--ding, ting, thing: names of local assemblies of the free peoples in small communities.

Amalfi Schwartz: character in the novel.
--Amalfi: significant character found in James Blish's "Cities in Flight" quartet of novels, he is the Mayor of NYC which now travels in space powered by "spindizzies."

Balthazar, a refugee from Alexandria: Balthazar was a tutor for Martin Silenus, one of the pilgrims.
--Balthazar: one of the significant characters in Lawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet" and the title of one of the four novels. Silenus makes a point of mentioning that his tutor was not homosexual whereas in the AQ Balthazar was homosexual.

Grendel
--In Beowulf, the monster

Hrothgar
--In Beowulf, the king whose kingdom is terrorized by Grendel

"He side, 'Syn I shal begynne the game.' " Martin Silenus, one of the pilgrims, recites this as the priest in the novel begins his tale, which is the first told by the pilgrims.
--This quotation comes from the first tale of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Betty's Ford: a location on the river on Hyperion up which the pilgrims must travel on the pilgrimage.
--Betty Ford: possibly a reference to the wife Gerald Ford who became president when President Nixon resigned. This may simply be a coincidence, but the novel is filled with allusions and references, so I thought I would include it anyway.

John Carter:
--John Carter: hero of Edgar Rice Burrough's novels that are set on Mars.

Cat Key: location on Hyperion, major city is named Felix
-Catalina Island?

Clovis points:
--Pre-historic Paleo-Indian culture that appears around 11,500 BP years on the North American continent.

Heremis Denzel: character in novel
--I have no idea of what this may allude to, but it sounds as though it should--so I included it.
Perhaps someone may educate me as to its significance.

Father Dure: a significant character in the Priest's Tale
--Dure: archaic verb that means to sustain or to endure, very appropriate name.

The Dying Earth: first significant long poem published by Martin Silenus, one of the pilgrims.
--Title of SF novel written by Jack Vance.

Endymion: see Simmons' third and fourth novels in the series
--Endymion: Greek mythology, lover of Selene, the moon goddess, also title of unfinished poem by John Keats

Equus, Aquila, Ursa: continents on Hyperion
--Latin for horse, eagle, bear, also constellations

Flame Trees of Tesla: death-dealing trees on Hyperion--they store electricity and electrocute anything that moves in their vicinity.
--Tesla: Thomas Alva Edison's great rival
--Flame Trees: several varieties found on various continents on Earth, named because of their fiery red leaves.
--Flame Trees of Thicka: novel by Elspeth Huxley.

Gisonian Matrix and Cowboy Gibson
--William Gibson: felt by many to be the father of the cyberpunk sub-genre in SF. His novel, Neuromancer, is considered to be the first real cyberpunk novel and the first to develop the concepts of AIs, cyberspace, ICE defense systems, and human/computer interfacing.
--a significant character in Neuromancer is called "Cowb0y." "Cowboy Gibson" in Hyperion is obviously an example of confusing/conflating an author with his characters.

Meina Gladstone: one of the most powerful members of the ruling government of the Hegemony.
--William Gladstone: British statesman and prime minister, 19th century.
--Golda Meir: Israeli prime minister, 20th century
--Meina Gladstone--MG and Golda Meir--GM

Hawking drive:
--Stephen Hawking, 20th and 21st century theoretical physicist and cosmologist.

Sherlock Holmes:

Hoolie River:
--Another example of a name that I can't find anything relevant, but feel that there should be something.

Horse who could talk:
--popular Russian folk tale

Hyperion: name of most significant planet in the novel.
--Greek mythology: the Titan who was the Sun God and replaced by Apollo
--title of a long unfinished poem by John Keats
--title of the film based on the novel, expected out in 2013

Hyperion Cantos: in the novel, the title of a long unfinished poem by Martin Silenus.
--the Cantos, parts of which are known as the Pisan Cantos, a long unfinished poem by Ezra Pound.
--the canto: the basic unit of Dante's Divine Comedy, each of the three major books--Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso contains 33 cantos or chapters. The 100th Canto follows the 33 in Paradiso.

John Keats: a cybrid, a flesh-and-blood construct of the AIs, developed to gather information about human society, based on biographical records and poetry of the poet.
--John Keats: 19th century English Romantic Poet, wrote several long, unfinished poems whose titles and Greek mythic background are important elements in Simmons' four novels.

Lycius: character in the novel.
--Lycius: significant character in Keats' poem "Lamia."

Macbeth:
--see Shakespeare

Last best hope on earth:
--see President Abraham Lincoln's Annual Address to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862

Moneta: sometime lover of Kassad, one of the pilgrims
--Moneta: goddess in Roman mythology who is associated with Greek goddess Mnemosyne, the mother of the muses and the goddess of memory.
--in Keats' poem Hyperion, Mnemosyne is teaching Apollo and responsible for Apollo's awakening to his true nature, therefore she is indirectly related to the fall of Hyperion, the Titan Sun God.
--Moneta is also a name given to Juno, the chief Roman goddess and consort of Jupiter, also the Latin source for many English words, including money.

Naiad: a river port city in the novel.
--naiad: Greek mythology, nymphs who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks.

Port Romance: a port city in the novel

Ezra Pound: early cybrid, (see entry for John Keats), a failure, reportedly went mad.
--Ezra Pound: during the first half of the 20th century he was an important poet and critic, was important in advising and helping a number of poets become recognized, including T. S. Eliot and Robert Frost.

Sad King Billy: secondary character in the novel, a patron of the arts who created a city for artists, writers, poets, sculptors . . . He had his features carved into a mountainside-
--Mt Rushmore?

Ernest Shackleton:
--Ernest Shackleton: Antarctic explorer

Ship of Fools:
--title of poem by D. H. Lawrence, the quotation is from his poem.

Shrike: a murderous creature found on Hyperion. It's 3 meters tall and metallic, covered with spikes and blades. It appears and disappears mysteriously, sometimes leaving a shredded body behind and sometimes abducting the individual. Nothing is known of the creature save that it kills without warning and apparently without any purpose. It is thought to be associated with the time tombs in some fashion. Legend has it that the missing individuals are hung up on the spikes and blades of a metallic tree called the thorn tree.
--Shrikes on earth are medium-sized birds, with hooked beaks. In some places they are known as the butcher bird because of their habit of impaling their prey on thorns to keep them from scavengers.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
--Teilhard's theory is that the universe is evolving, from basic matter to chemicals and elements to life to consciousness to Supreme Consciousness incorporating the entire universe--the Omega Point--at this point the universe has evolved into the Godhead.

The Templars: a quasi-religious order or brotherhood who transport pilgrims to and from Hyperion. Their religious book is called The Writings of Muir.
--Quasi-religious/military order, founded during the Crusades, initially to protect pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. It became very wealthy and powerful during the 12th and 13th centuries and incurred the displeasure of the French King Philip IV who had the order destroyed.

The Writings of Muir: the most significant book for the Templars.
--John Muir, 20th century naturalist, author, and early advocate of the preservatlion of wilderness in the US. His numerous letters, essays, and books constituted a powerful force in the protection of the wilderness areas of Yosemite Vally, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. He is the founder of The Sierra Club.

Yggdrasil: a tree ship owned by the Templars. It is the one transporting the pilgrims to Hyperion.
--Norse mythology, a gigantic ash tree, the world tree around which the nine worlds existed. The branches of Yggdrasil are supposed to have extended far into the heavens and the tree is supported by three roots that extend far into other locations.

The Pilgrims

The Priest's Tale:
Father Lenar Hoyt, a Catholic priest.
--His tale: "The Man Who Cried God"--perhaps an echo of Christ's last words on the cross, very apt if true.
--Father Hoyt tells the story from the journal of his mentor, Father Dure. Fr. Dure discovered a group of people who had become immortal, or perhaps more appropriately, cursed with immortality, for there was a price to be paid.

The Soldier's Tale:
Fedmahn Kassad, retired military officer. Nickname: The Butcher
--His tale: "The War Lovers" which is the title of a war novel buy John Hersey, as well as the title of the film based on the novel.
--It's the story of his encounter with Moneta, a mysterious woman who becomes his occasional lover and his encounter with the Shrike.
--Kassad reminds me of the Fighters found in Frank Herbert's Dune.

The Poet's Tale:
Martin Silenus, a poet, usually has a drink in hand.
--Silenus, Greek mythology. Silenus was a devoted follower of Dionysus or Bacchus, the god of wine. Silenus is frequently pictured as being drunk. He is also depicted as having powers, for in one of the versions of the story of King Midas, Silenus is supposedly the one who gave Midas the golden touch.
--His tale: "The Hyperion Cantos"
--It's a brief autobiography, which includes his encounter with the Shrike.

The Scholar's Tale:
Sol Weintraub, sometimes called The Wandering Jew
--His tale: The River Lethe's Taste is Bitter," the story of his daughter Rachel.
--Rachel, at around age 25, was working on a excavation at the time tombs. She was trapped by the sudden appearance of a time wave and began aging backwards from that point on. She is now less than a month old. Sol occasionally has dreams (visions?) in which a voice speaks to him and commands that Rachel be sacrificed--an echo of the story of Abraham and his son Isaac from the Old Testament.
--The River Lethe: Greek mythology, all those who drank of the River Lethe experienced complete forgetfulness. Lethe is also the name of the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion who is often associated with the River.

The Detective's Tale:
Brawne Lamia: she is a private investigator.
--Brawne is the last name of the woman John Keats was engaged to -- Fanny Brawne.
--Lamia is the title of a poem written by John Keats. It's based on the Greek myth of a woman turned into a serpent or a serpent who was turned into a woman. She seduces men and then destroys them.
--Her tale: "The Long Good-Bye" It is the account of her last case, involving her client John Keats, the cybrid.
--"The Long Good-Bye" is the title of a mystery novel written by Raymond Chandler, who is considered, along with Dashiell Hammet, to be one of the creators of the hard-boiled detective story. A film of the same name was based on this novel. Another of Chandler's novels, The Big Sleep, was also filmed, starring Humphrey Bogart as Chandler's PI, Philip Marlowe.

The Consul's Tale:
The Consul: an official in the Hegemony.
--The Consul is the POV character, and we don't learn his true identity until the very end of his tale.
--His tale: "Remembering Siri" The title may seem familiar for it was published as an independent novella years before it was incorporated into the Hyperion universe.

Dan Simmons: Hyperion, an SF Novel

2011-11-26T23:16:00.006-07:00

Dan Simmons: Hyperion, an SF novel

Dan Simmons has created a rather unique work in Hyperion, the first novel in a four novel set. It is composed of three major themes—Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Greek mythology focused primarily on the Creation myths, and the poetry and to some extent the life of John Keats, the 19th century English Romantic poet. The novel also includes a dash of Norse mythology, a sprinkle of contemporary allusions, and a pinch of SF in-jokes. I must admit that at times I lost track of the story as I wandered sometimes far astray following one allusion or another. Eventually I decided to simply make notes and do the research after finishing the novel. I did so and ended up with 4+ pages of notes. I will list them in a second post, for those who are interested in such arcane activities.

The Three Major Themes:

Most obvious is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Seven strangers meet and discover they have been invited by the Church of the Shrike to make a pilgrimage to its most sacred spot, the Time Tombs. Such pilgrimages had been banned for some time, but now unexpectedly the Church has granted permission for these seven to form a party. Some have been trying for years to be accepted but have always been denied permission, up to now. Others found themselves successful on their first application while at least one individual had never even applied for permission and is going only because he was ordered to go. He was a government official and a high ranking member of the Hegemony (the government that controlled the numerous planets settled by humans) orders him to accept the invitation and investigate the strange behavior of the Church.

Upon meeting for the first time in the ship carrying them to their destination, the planet Hyperion, the pilgrims decide, more or less willingly (some more than others), to tell their stories in hopes of finding some common thread that would clear up this puzzle—why a pilgrimage now and why them?

Hyperion, therefore, consists for the most part of six tales told by the pilgrims of their sometimes direct and sometimes tenuous relationship to the Church of the Shrike. The tales are linked by the typical hardships encountered by travelers on their journey and the usual by-play among the travelers as they go through the process of getting to know each other, for they will be spending considerable time in each others’ company.

The second major theme consists of Greek mythology, especially the Greek Creation myth. Briefly, in the beginning was Chaos, an unformed mass. Out of this mass emerged Uranus, the Sky God, and Gaea, the Earth Goddess. Their offspring were the Hundred-Handed, the Cyclops, and the Titans. Uranus found it necessary to punish the Hundred-Handed and the Cyclops. Gaea feels this is unfair and appeals to the Titans to interfere.

The Titans rise up and overthrow Uranus. Saturn (or Chronos--the God of Time) now replaces Uranus as the chief god and Rhea becomes the ruling goddess. The other titans take various positions: Hyperion becomes the Sun God while Oceanus becomes the god of the Ocean. Other titans are given other realms to rule.

However, peace is hard to achieve, even among the gods, for Chronos learns of a prophecy that he will be displaced by one of his offspring. He feels this is unfair (forgetting how he got his present position) so each time Rhea, his consort, gives birth, he immediately swallows the newborn. You may see a pattern here as Rhea eventually becomes upset with such behavior. Finally she takes action and when her next child is born, she takes a child-sized rock, wraps it in swaddling clothes, and hands it off to Saturn/Chronos who immediately swallows it. Satisfied, Chronos wanders off and Rhea takes the child and raises it on a deserted island, somewhere in the Mediterranean.

When the child is old enough or rather big and strong enough, Rhea tells him some facts about their family history and encourages him to rescue his brothers and sisters. The son, actually it’s Zeus, goes to his father and forces him to disgorge his siblings. Together they attack, defeat, and assume the Titans' roles in the universal hierarchy, with Zeus now becoming the chief god, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

One of the significant issues in the Creation myth is the conflict among generations with the older generation being replaced by their descendents, and they, in turn, being replaced by their own. Gods, like humans, I guess, don’t learn from history. This clearly is foreshadowing of the coming events in the novel.

The third significant element consist of the poetry and some aspects of the life of John Keats, the English 19^th century poet. One of the pilgrims is Martin Silenus, a poet, who frequently recites, at appropriate and sometimes inappropriate moments, fragments of his poetry, supposedly from his as yet uncompleted masterpiece, The Hyperion Cantos. However, the fragments are really from two of John Keats’ long but unfinished poems, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, and two excerpts from two of Keats’ shorter but finished poems. The one excerpt that is not from Keats’ poetry is quoted by the pilgrim who is the first person to tell his tale, and he appropriately enough begins with a quotation from the first tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Background and Setting:

The novel is set far in the future when the human race has spread throughout the galaxy. Earth no longer exists. Humans destroyed it when some scientists made what everybody euphemistically calls The Big Mistake. It had something to do with a black hole escaping and sinking down into the center of the planet. It then proceeded to devour the planet over a long period of time, which allowed all, but a few who decided to remain, to escape.

All is not peaceful though. Three groups are engaged in a power struggle for control. One such group is the Hegemony, the government which now rules the existing human civilization. The second group consists of the AIs at TechnoCore. These are artificial intelligences which have evolved from the evolution of computers and have become self-aware. Centuries earlier they had removed themselves from human domination and gathered at a secret place known only as the TechnoCore.

The AIs themselves are split into several groups. One group wishes to eliminate the human race immediately before the humans develop sufficient technology to destroy them or perhaps regain control of them. A second group counsels patience for they believe that humans will do the job for them and eventually destroy themselves. A third group, however, argues that they should pay more attention to events taking place on the planet Hyperion, for their projections had not mentioned either the Shrike or the time tombs, which seemed to be traveling backwards in time, and therefore were visitors from the future. Before the AIs took any action, they argued, the mystery of Hyperion needed to be solved.

How can there be a civilization that doesn’t have barbarians hammering away at the city gates? Well, Simmons has provided them also—the Ousters, people who fled the Hegemony and developed their own culture and technology, and the belief that the Hegemony is holding back the human race from further development. They are the third group in this three-way struggle for dominance. The Ousters have now decided that something significant for the development of the human race is taking place on Hyperion, so they also are headed for Hyperion. Once the Hegemony discovers that the Ousters fleet is pointed at Hyperion, the government decides it’s time to solve the Ouster problem once and for all. It sends a huge fleet to Hyperion and its mission is to completely wipe out the Ousters.

As you can see, everybody who’s anybody is going to Hyperion.

Simmons apparently had some problems with the novel. He spent so much time developing this complex universe with its various contending forces and novella length stories by the pilgrims that he was unable to finish the tale in one novel. Consequently the novel ends at the point when the pilgrims have reached a point a few kilometers from the site of the time tombs, their ultimate destination. To say that nothing has been resolved is an understatement for there is at least one more tale to be told. In addition, it’s not clear yet just what the overall purpose of the pilgrimage is supposed to serve, nor why these people were chosen. I also have the feeling that I don’t know enough at this point to pose other significant questions. This is why I recommend that anyone who chooses to read Hyperion should also get The Fall of Hyperion at the same time, where presumably there will be a resolution, of some sort.

I’m not going to reveal the ending, inconclusive as it may be, because Simmons concocts an outrageous last chapter. All I will say is that it is one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history, and for some weird reason, it really works. I had to go back several times and reread it, just to make sure I was reading what Simmons had done and not filling in my own delusions.

The planet Hyperion is significant and a puzzle for two reasons. One is the existence of the time tombs, strange empty structures that look as though they might be tombs. At regular periods distortions in time occur in the vicinity of the tombs, and the scientists have decided that the tombs are actually traveling backwards in time.

The second reason is the presence of the Shrike. The Shrike is a tall, some 3-4 meters in height, metallic-appearing creature, humanoid in shape but covered with sharp spikes and blades. The Shrike appeared only some time after humans settled the planet and initially only in the area around the time tombs. Consequently it is believed there is some connection to them. Recently the Shrike has appeared in various parts of the planet where its presence is made known by the discovery of bodies that have been dismembered. Sometimes the person just disappears and is never seen again.

The Church of the Shrike consists of those who believe the Shrike is a god and therefore worships it.

Overall Rating: I found it very interesting. Each of the seven pilgrims is a unique individual, some likeable and some less so, but all have very intriguing tales to tell. At this point, it's difficult to talk about it because I really don't know much about the plot and other significant issues. This novel appears to be one long, extended introduction, and I presume the second novel, The Fall of Hyperion, will provide more information about just what is going on.

I will post another entry shortly regarding this work: it is a glossary of allusions from the novel that I’ve been able to identify. The allusions Simmons includes provide an unusually rich depth to the novel, considering the prevalence of references to Greek and Norse mythology, the use of Chaucer's pilgrimage as a structure, English poets, and contemporary individuals, as well as connections to some significant SF authors.

Joseph Wood Krutch: November 25, 1893 to May 22, 1970

2011-11-25T18:57:00.004-07:00

Beauty and joy are natural things. They are older than man, and they have their source in the natural part of him. Art becomes sterile and the joy of life withers when they become unnatural. If modern urban life is becoming more comfortable, more orderly, more sanitary, and more socially conscious than it ever was before--but if at the same time it also becoming less beautiful (as it seems to me) and less joyous (as it seems to nearly everyone) -- then the deepest reason for that may be its increasing forgetfulness of nature. She is often none of the good things which the city is, but she is almost always, nevertheless, somehow beautiful and somehow joyous.

-- Joseph Wood Krutch--
from Baja California and the Geography of Hope

Krutch seems to feel we are giving up something precious for a life that may be

more comfortable, more orderly, more sanitary, and more socially conscious than it ever was before.

Is this a fair trade or is it even true? Are people as joyous as they have been in the past?

I think perhaps William Wordsworth is saying something very similar here.

The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The wind that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

-- William Wordsworth

Abraham Lincoln: a quotation

2011-11-21T21:04:00.003-07:00

Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.

Abraham Lincoln 1858

I wonder what he would think today after reading the headlines.

Thomas Hardy: "At Day-Close in November"

2011-11-17T09:42:00.006-07:00

Here's a poem by Thomas Hardy that I just discovered by accident. I opened up the book, The Works of Thomas Hardy, to the middle, approximately, and found this aptly named poem.

At Day-Close in November

The ten hours' light is abating,
And a late bird wings across,
Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,
Give their black heads a toss.

Beech leaves, that yellow the noon time,
Float past like specks in the eye;
I set every tree in my June time,
And now they obscure the sky.

And the children who ramble through here
Conceive that there never has been
A time when no tall tress grew here,
That none will in time be seen.

A simple little poem with some lines that I like: "Beech leaves, that yellow the noon time." I didn''t realize that "yellow" is a verb, as well as a noun. It's an apt use of it here. I also like "in my June time." Perhaps it's the ambiguity here. Did he mean he set the tree during June or during the June time of his own life? Or both?

And, of course, the last stanza where Hardy comments on the shortness of memory and also the inevitable transience of all creation. Those trees, which for the children have always been there, will be gone some day, something equally unthinkable for those children, and for us too. How much of what we see about us has "always been there" and will "always be there"?

I guess maybe this poem isn't quite that simple after all.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain XLVIII

2011-11-14T19:17:00.004-07:00

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain XLVIII

While the main point of the quatrain doesn’t change, FitzGerald has varied the tone and focus of that message in the second and fifth editions.

First Edition: Quatrain XLVIII

While the Rose blows along the River Brink,

With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink:

And when the Angel with his darker Draught

Draws up to Thee—take that, and do not shrink.

Second Edition: Quatrain XLVI

So when at last the Angel of the drink

Of Darkness finds you by the river-brink,

And, proffering his Cup, invites your Soul

Forth to your Lips to quaff it—do not shrink.

Fifth Edition: Quatrain XLIII

So when that Angel of the darker Drink

At last shall find you by the river-brink,

And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul

Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not shrink.

I think the point made by all three versions is fairly clear. At some point, we will die and when that time comes, we should accept it gracefully and courageously. What has changed though, at least so it seems to me, is the tone of the quatrain as it goes through the various versions.

In the first version, the first two lines portray an almost idyllic if not Edenic scene with a river and wine and friendship and flowers. The Garden of Paradise is frequently described in this way in Moslem writings.

“While the Rose blows along the River Brink,

With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink:”

But this idyllic scene is suddenly and without warning rudely interrupted in lines three and four--:

“And when the Angel with his darker Draught

Draws up to Thee—take that, and do not shrink.”

--and the tone immediately shifts to a far darker mood with “the Angel and his darker Draught” and the interjection of Death. Moreover, the poet narrator employs a very harsh, or at least, commanding tone—we are ordered to “take that [darker Draught], and do not shrink.”

Fitzgerald made a number of changes in the Second Edition, though I think the message is still the same—death will come. The idyllic situation found the in first two lines of the first edition has almost completely disappeared in the second edition. What is left is simply a location—the river-brink. The wine, the flowers, and the companionship have disappeared. We just happen to be by a river when the Angel appears. We are now not shown what is lost by death. Perhaps FitzGerald felt the contrast to be too threatening or depressing.

The depiction of the drink has also changed from a “darker Draught” to “the drink of Darkness.” The drink is not just darker but it is the drink of Darkness, a much less euphemistic reference to death. The poet also suggests something definitely not in the First Edition. The appearance of the Angel was sudden and unexpected in the First Edition, but that changes in the Second Edition. The Angel now finds us “at last,” which suggests that we have been expecting this and perhaps even possibly looking forward to it, or at least somewhat relieved that the Angel has finally appeared.

“So when at last the Angel of the drink

Of Darkness finds you by the river-brink,”

There is also a change in tone in the three and fourth lines. Where in the first version we are ordered to take it, we now see the Angel offering his Cup and inviting us to take it. It is not simply given to us, but it is offered and we are invited to take it. We seem to have a choice here, one that we didn’t have in the first version. But, again, we are told that we should accept our fate and not draw back from it.

"And, proffering his Cup, invites your Soul

Forth to your Lips to quaff it—do not shrink."

The Fifth Edition is very close to the Second as FitzGerald kept most of the changes he made then. However, there are two changes worth noting. FitzGerald possibly felt that the “Drink of Darkness” was too harsh or threatening, for he returned to the phrasing of the First Edition when he changed it to “the darker Drink.”

Fifth Edition: Quatrain XLIII

So when that Angel of the darker Drink

At last shall find you by the river-brink,

And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul

Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not shrink.

The second change occurred in the last two lines. Instead of ending with “do not shrink,” a plea? or perhaps an order, the poet now tells us “you shall not shrink,” which is clearly closer to a command, much closer in tone now to the First Edition.

The versions are an interesting interplay of two changes in tone that actually go in opposite directions through the editions. The first is the reference to the drink, from a relatively nonthreatening darker drink to the Drink of Darkness and then a return to the gentler darker drink. The second occurs in the last line, from the command to "take it, and do not shrink" to the offering of the drink and the invitation (invitations can be refused) in the second to the invitation again in the fifth edition, but the admonition that you shall not shrink from taking it--again almost an order, in spite of the invitation.

It is unfortunate that we do not have any notes or commentaries by FitzGerald regarding the changes he made over the years. I think those would have given us considerable insight into changes in FitzGerald's own thinking. The changes in his poetry may reflect changes in him, but the rationale is not easily seen, at least by me. Others may be more perceptive.

Paul Lawrence Dunbar: "By the Stream"

2011-11-11T13:04:00.006-07:00

Considering the hectic pace of life today, the incredibly fast transmission of news (usually a catastrophe or something equally bad), the intolerance and hatred of so many leaders cloaked in the name of patriotism, and the raucous demands of various, competing interest groups, perhaps we should take some time out and meditate on something a bit slower and natural and relaxing--something as simple as leaving all of our electronic naggers at home and finding a tree to sit down and lean up against that happens to be (or perhaps maybe just the tree alone)

By the Stream

By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass,
How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens pass,
And the water into ripples breaks and sparkles as it spreads,
Like a host of armored knights with silver helmets on their heads.
And I deem the stream an emblem fit of human life may go,
For I find a mind may sparkle much, and yet but shallows show,
And a soul may glow with myriad lights and wondrous mysteries,
When it only lies a dormant thing and mirrors what it sees.

Sometimes maybe a fantasy break would be healthier for us than a coffee break.

Kenko: Essays in Idleness

2011-11-07T07:00:00.004-07:00

Chapter 2

The man who forgets the wise principles of the reigns of the ancient emperors; who gives no thought to the grievances of the people or the harm done the country; who strives for the utmost luxury in everything, imagining this is the sign of magnificence; who acts as if the world were too small for him seems deplorably wanting in intelligence. You will find in Lord Kujo's Testament the instruction, "Make do with whatever you have, from your court costume down to your horses and carriages. Do not strive for elegance." Again, you will find among the writings of the Retired Emperor Juntoku on court ceremonial, "The clothes worn by the emperor should be simple and unassuming."

-- Kenko --
Essays in Idleness
trans. Donald Keene

I think Kenko and the Greeks who argued for "moderation in all things" would understand each other here. What's interesting is that Kenko even suggests that emperors and others in power would find this an intelligent way of acting politically, that such behavior might be harmful to the country, especially if one doesn't listen "to the grievances of the people." Kenko differs from the Greeks though in that, while a Greek would support the proposition by reasoning to it, he quotes ancient emperors and other members of the nobility for his support.

Kenko doesn't argue for giving up what one has, but simply to

Make do with whatever you have, from your court costume down to your horses and carriages. Do not strive for elegance."

Today, we have considerable numbers of people in this country who are demonstrating in various places against the ways things are. I wonder if anyone is listening to them.

"Kujo-dono was an appellation of Fujiware no Morosuke (908-950). His Testament (or Admonition) is translated in G. B. Sanson, A History of Japan to 1334, pp. 180-83."

"The Emperor Juntoku (1197-1242) wrote Kimpisho, a study of court precedents and usages, between 1218 and 1221. Kenko's quotation is approximate."

Thomas Mann: The Transposed Heads

2011-11-03T16:08:00.005-07:00

Thomas Mann: The Transposed Heads: A Legend of India

This is not only a short novel by Thomas Mann, it’s also a very unusual novel for him. It’s set in India, in mythic times, so, therefore, it must be true. I’ll let Mann introduce the novel, for he does it much better than I ever could.

The story of Sita of the beautiful hips, daughter of the cattle-breeder Sumantra of the wqrrior caste and of her two husbands (if one may put it like that) is so sanguinary, so amazing to the senses, that it makes the greatest demands on the hearer's strength of mind and his power to resist the gruesome guiles of Maya. it would be well for the listener to take pattern from the fortitude of the teller, for it requires, if anything, more courage to tell such a tale that to hear it. But here it is, from first to last, just as it fell out:

As you may have guessed, this is a tale of the eternal triangle and the way it worked itself out in India of mythic times—the tale of Sita, Shridaman and Nanda.

Young Shridaman was a merchant, and the son of a merchant; Nanda, on the other hand, both a smith and a cowherd, for his father Garga not only kept cattle on the meadow and in the byre, but also plied the hammer and fanned the fire with a bird’s wing.

Shridaman followed in his father’s footsteps after “having previously devoted some years to grammar and the elements of astronomy and ontology, under the supervision of a guru or spiritual preceptor.

Not so Nanda, son of Garga. His karma was otherwise; and never, by either tradition or inheritance, had he had to do with things of the mind . . . His work as a smith had made powerful his arms; that as a shepherd had been further an advantage, for he had a well set-up body, which he loved to rub with mustard oil adn drape with gold ornaments and chains of wild flowers.

Shridaman, on the other hand, had a thin aristocratic face and a soft body, not hardened by exercise. It was the perfect body for "a noble and knowledgeable head piece." Nanda's head to the contrary was merely a "pleasing appendage" for the body was "the main thing."

In spite of, or perhaps because of, these differences Shridaman and Nanda became good friends. All was well until they met Sita, she of the beautiful hips. Both became enamored of her, but it was Shridaman who spoke first. She accepted his proposal, but they did not live happily ever after. Shortly after the wedding, Sita began to wonder if she hadn’t made a mistake, especially after seeing Nanda, for he was a frequent visitor. Eventually both Nanda and Shridaman became aware of the situation.

Six months after the wedding, the three went to visit Sita’s parents. On the trip, they found a temple to Kali. Shridaman said he wished to pray a moment and entered the temple. There he prayed to Kali and then cut his head off (obviously with Kali’s help), thus freeing Sita to marry Nanda.

Eventually Nanda goes looking for Shridaman and finds his friend. He realizes instantly why Shridaman has done this and feeling guilty as the cause of his best friend’s suicide, he resolves he cannot do anything but to follow his friend into death.

After a while, Sita becomes concerned and enters the temple in search of them. She finds them and although confused as to how it happened, she understands very well why it happened. She decides also to commit suicide by hanging herself. While she stands there with the noose around her neck, Kali appears and tells her to take the noose off or she will get her “ears boxed.”

Kali tells her that all will be well, for all Sita has to do is put the heads carefully back on the bodies and she (Kali) will do the rest. Sita does but in her sorrow and grief makes one minor mistake—she puts the heads back on the wrong bodies.

At first Nanda and Shridaman are happy with the transposition, for both had been afflicted with “the grass is greener” longings—Shridaman for Nanda’s physique and Nanda for Shridaman’s intellectual bearing and appearance. But, you may be surprised to learn (or perhaps not surprised) that all still is not well with the threesome.

From this point on, three issues are worked out in the story: (1) to whom is Sita married?; (2) what happens to Shridaman’s fine aristocratic head and intellectual capacities on Nanda’s strong young body?; and (3) what happens to Nanda’s broad happy face and rather ordinary intellect on Shridaman’s intellectual and clerkly body?

The ultimate question addressed here, therefore, is which creates and rules the person—the mind or the body?

Overall Reaction: an unanswerable question that Mann handles with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Lots of fun if you are looking for a novel that plays with ideas.

Gwendolyn Brooks: The Bean Eaters

2011-11-02T23:20:00.004-07:00

A very quiet and simple poem by Gwendolyn Brooks:

The Bean Eaters

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full
of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco
crumbs, vases and fringes.

Age and poverty and isolation? It appears at first a sad poem about two old people who seem merely to be going through the motions, waiting to die. But, in the second stanza, they are putting things away. What are those things? Do they put them in their rented back room with the "beads and receipts and dolls . . ."? Are they putting away more memories for a later day?

"Mostly Good"--Brooks capitalizes the phrase, emphasizes it this way--not great saints, but not really bad people. They are more good than bad, perhaps the best that can be said of most of us.

And then--the last stanza, "And remembering." They have their memories and those are mixed memories--"with twinklings and twinges"--as are the memories of us all. What is more, those are shared memories.

Perhaps there is more here than is visible at a cursory first glance.

Perhaps it is best simply to read the poem . . .

The Bean Eaters

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full
of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco
crumbs, vases and fringes.

William Shakespeare: Sonnet LXXIII

2011-10-30T08:48:00.004-07:00

One of my favorite sonnets by Shakespeare

Sonnet LXXIII

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

The images in this sonnet are simple and striking and apt: autumn, twilight, and the dying embers of a fire to symbolize one's later years. I realize others may differ, but I consider the first four lines-- autumn--to be among the best, if not the very best, in Shakespeare's sonnets.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

What are your favorite lines from Shakespeare?

Loren Eiseley: We Are The Scriveners

2011-10-24T17:38:00.007-07:00

We Are The Scriveners

I have not seen her in forty years.
She is old now, or lies in one of those midwestern
farm cemeteries where
no one remembers for long, because everyone
leaves for the cities. She was young, with freckles
and a wide generous mouth, a good girl to have
loved for a lifetime but the world
always chooses otherwise, or we ourselves
in blindness. I would not remember so clearly save that here
by a prairie slough sprinkled with the leaves of autumn
the drying mud on the shore shows the imprint
of southbound birds. I am too old to travel,
but I suddenly realize how a man in Sumer
half the world and millennia away
saw the same imprint and thought
there is a way of saying upon clay, fire-hardened,
there is a way of saying
"loneliness"
a way of saying
"where are you?" across the centuries
a way of saying
"forgive me"
a way of saying
"We were young. I remember, and this, this clay
imprinted with the feet of birds
will reach you somewhere
somehow
if it take eternity to answer."
There were men
like this in Sumer, or who wept among the
autumn papyrus leaves in Egypt.
We are the scriveners who with pain
outlasted our bodies.

-- Loren Eiseley --
from Another Kind of Autumn

Writing is a way of talking with someone, not only separated by distance, but also by time. Sometimes there's no way of answering; the best one can do is listen and pass on the message to someone who has yet to come. The spirit of the poem reminds me of one of my favorite poems by Walt Whitman--"A noiseless patient spider," the last stanza of which follows. You can read the complete poem if you scroll down to the bottom.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

I think Eiseley and Whitman would understand each other.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain: XLVII

2011-10-23T16:06:00.003-07:00

Edward FitzGerald made several changes in this quatrain as the editions progressed from the First to the Fifth, but the most significant one is the simple removal of one word. This brings about a substantial change in tone-- a change that impinges on theological issues important to several religions.

First Edition: Quatrain XLVII

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in--Yes--
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be--Nothing--Thou shalt not be less.

A rather bleak stanza--the end of everything, including us is nothing. The only consolation, if it can be called that, is that if all we do ends in Nothing, then we won't be any less in the future, when we will be Nothing. Theologians from various religions may wish to dispute the poet-narrator's bleak view of existence and its aftermath.

Perhaps the "if" in the first line of this rather convoluted stanza offers some hope. "If" it all ends in Nothing--it's not a definite statement, but suggests only a possibility that all may end in Nothing. However, the previous stanzas that relegated us to the status of playthings and actors in a drama created by the Master suggest that since our only role is that of entertainment, this would hold little hope of anything beyond that, except perhaps to be taken out of the box for another game. That doesn't strike me as much of an eternal reward, although it may be an improvement over eternal punishment.

Second Edition: Quatrain XLV

And if the Cup you drink, the Lip you press,
End in what All begins and ends in--Yes,
Imagine then you are what heretofore
You were--hereafter you shall not be less.

The poet-narrator no longer refers to "Nothing" in this stanza. Instead, it is left open. Our ultimate end shall be the same as our beginning, unknown. We are what we were and we shall not be less in the future. Taoists would agree here for in the Tao Te Ching, it is written that all come from the tao and ultimately return to the tao. And the tao is unknowable, as is told in the first stanza of Chapter One (traditional order)

The Tao that can be told of
Is not the Absolute Tao,
The Names that can be given
Are not the Absolute Names.

Fifth Edition: XLII

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press
End in what All begins and ends in--Yes;
Think then you are To-day what Yesterday
You were--To-morrow you shall not be less.

The most significant changes between the second and fifth editions are the substitution of Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow for reference to the beginning, the present, and the future. As does the second edition, this version also leaves open just what our status was in the beginning and in the future, and it also suggests that our status is the same for all three--yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

What does "the Wine you drink, the Lip you press" end in? --the same that everything begins and ends in . . .

Why the change from "Nothing" to ambiguity? Perhaps comments from religious leaders?

The quotation comes from The Wisdom of Laotse, translated by Lin Yutang.

Michel de Montaigne: an observation

2011-10-22T14:37:00.002-07:00

I generally consider Michel de Montaigne to be a realist, but at times I wonder if he is also a bit of a cynic.

It is well to be born in a very depraved age; for, in comparison with others, you are reckoned virtuous at small cost. He who, in our days, is merely a parricide and sacrilegious is withal a worthy and honourable man.

-- Michel de Montaigne --

from "Of Presumption"
The Essays of Montaigne

In our day, how many times have you heard someone attacking a politician and someone, in defense, will say: "Well, at least, he/she hasn't . . ."? It's sad when the best defense one can offer is that the individual could be worse.

Eric Hoffer: Reflections

2011-10-21T00:17:00.003-07:00

#5

Due to the imperfection of man's instincts there is a pause of faltering and groping between his perception and action. This pause is a seedbed of the apprehensions, the insights, the images, and the concepts which are the warp and woof of the creative process. A shrinking of the pause results in some degree of dehumanization. This is as true of highly grained specialists and dogmatic True Believers as of the mentally deficient.

Both iron discipline and blind faith strive to eliminate the pause of hesitation before action, while the discipline that humanizes and civilizes aims at widening the interval between impulse and execution.

Art humanizes because the artist must grope and feel his way, and he never ceases to learn.

-- Eric Hoffer --
from Reflections on the Human Condition

Some interesting thoughts here.

One could speculate that during that widening pause between impulse or perception and action or response, people could conceivably think differently than they did the last time and therefore might change their ideas. That suggests that changing one's mind now and then when felt necessary is more human than never changing one's mind at any time. So, those who insist on attacking others for changing their minds are actually complimenting them, are calling them more human and civilized. A strange thought.

Michel de Montaigne put it much more succinctly.

Only fools are certain and immovable.

Han-shan: a poem

2011-10-19T10:31:00.005-07:00

Han-shan is a classic example of China's hermit Zen/Tao poets. His poetry carries elements of both Zen Or Chan, as it was called in China, and Taoism. Just who he was is not known. His adopted name, Han-shan, means Cold Mountain, which is where the cave in which he lived was located.

His poetry was discovered, according to tradition, after he died, written on the walls of his cave and the trees, rocks, and walls in the area and near several villages. His poems, some 300 of them have been preserved, are generally short and simple. Perhaps that is why I like them. The most common themes are nature and human behavior, frequently remonstrances against pretension and greed and pleas to turn to the good or virtuous life.

#3

The Cold Mountain Road is strange
no tracks of cart or horse
hard to recall which merging stream
or tell which piled-up ridge
a myriad plants weep with dew
the pines all sigh the same
here where the trail disappears
form asks shadow where to

-- Han-shan --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
trans. Red Pine

Translator's note: "The last line is also indebted to T'ao Yuan-ming's Form, Shadow, and Spirit,
in which Form and Shadow turn to Spirit for a solution to their transient existence.

In a note, Red Pine describes his visit to Han-shan's cave on Cold Mountain years ago, and it doesn't seem to be any easier to find or get to today than it was in the 8th and 9th centuries when Han-shan lived there.

The last line puzzles me for it seems almost as though a line is missing or perhaps an infinitive.

"form asks shadow where to _____"

Han-shan has a number of poems in which he describes the difficulties of reaching his shallow cave on Cold Mountain. Perhaps he's trying to discourage people from visiting him. But, his poetry really wasn't widely known until after his death, so perhaps that may be only a part of the reason. Whatever the reason, I get a clear sense of the rugged wilderness in which he lived and how easily I could get lost.

KING KONG . . . Kong . . . kong

2011-10-16T15:14:00.003-07:00

Hollywood again exercises its creative powers by remaking a classic film. This time it’s one of the best monster films ever made—King Kong. So far there have been two remakes since the original came out in 1933--one in 1976 and the latest, so far, in 2005.

Warning: I shall reveal significant plot events and the ending.

The plot, to summarize, is thus: “civilized” people are on their way to exploit the “savages” of an uncharted island in the south Pacific. The inhabitants of the island worship a giant ape and decide the female aboard the ship would be a perfect sacrifice. So they kidnap her one dark and stormy night. The giant ape, King Kong, is pleased with her and takes her off to his lair. Those aboard the ship get up a rescue party, and the hero single-handedly rescues her from her large, hairy admirer. Enraged, Kong follows, is captured, and is brought back to New York. Put on display for the entertainment of the depression era citizenry, Kong breaks free, grabs the heroine, and climbs the highest building around, where he is attacked by aircraft and ultimately plunges to his death.

King Kong I (1933): According to imdb.com, the original King Kong has two directors (both unaccredited), Merian Cooper and Ernest B. Schoesack. This version is characterized by its setting—dark, moody, threatening. The landscape is bleak and ominous. The film is in black-and-white which adds to the darkness of the story and its setting. Its special effects, while primitive compared to today’s technology, still are very effective. Moreover, they do not distract from the story so that the viewer spends more time marveling over the effects and forgets about the story.

King Kong II (1976) John Guillerman is the director of the second version. He attempts to update it by changing the purpose of the voyage to an oil exploration expedition. It is in color, so it lacks that dark grim tone that characterized the first version. He also changed the site of Kong’s death by moving it from the Empire State Building to the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The male lead also has long hair, an obvious attempt to play to the young crowd. Guillerman also brought into the open the sexual undertone that lurked beneath the surface in the first version, especially the celebrated scene by the waterfall. The special effects, as to be expected, were superior to the first version, but really added little to the overall effect of the film which has become just another action-oriented film, one among many..

King Kong III (2005) Peter Jackson directed this version, and based on what he did to King Kong, I fear for the fate of The Hobbit, which he is, no doubt, busy improving on what JRR Tolkien had written. It’s due in 2012. This version of King Kong is a farce, a mockery of both versions, but especially the first. It lacks both the dark undertone of the first or the overt sexuality of the second.

In this version, the story seems to be mostly an excuse for the special effects, which ultimately become ludicrous. The fight dangling amidst the vines strains the imagination to its limit. The dinosaur stampede, while technically well done, is a joke. How could humans on foot escape being trampled by the lumbering dinosaurs in that narrow area bordered by high walls? Rather than inducing tension and fear in me, I laughed throughout both episodes. Moreover, Kong, throughout the film, hops about like a squirrel monkey or a young chimp, rather than a huge ponderous gorilla. To add to the farcical nature of the film, Jackson adds a chase scene at the end with Kong chasing the hero who’s driving a car--a car chase scene! It ain’t Bullitt, that’s for sure.

The endings of the three, surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly), demonstrated some significant differences. One is the length of the time that lapses from Kong’s escape from the chains to his death. In the first version, this took approximately twelve minutes while the second and third versions stretched it out to over 25 minutes. In the first and third versions, Kong clearly is shot and, as a result, falls from the top of the Empire State Building. The films ends with Denham’s last line—“It was beauty that killed the beast.” In the second, the ending, to me anyway, is bit ambiguous. Did Kong fall from the World Trade Center tower because he was shot or did he simply give up and let go, thus committing suicide? Guillerman dropped the last line.

In the first version, Ann Darrow clearly fears Kong, while in the later versions, she attempts to save his life, even at the risk of her own in the third version. In fact, instead of avoiding him, she goes to meet him in the Jackson version (2005), and the viewer is treated to a comic interlude with Kong doing pratfalls on the ice. Well, at least Jackson didn't have them racing in slow-motion across a flower bedecked field to meet each other.

One other difference concerns the relationship between the Ann Darrow character and the male lead. In the first and third versions, there’s the sense they will be together, while the second version is far more ambiguous. She is surrounded by the press and the crowd; she has become a celebrity which can’t help but be seducing since she, in this version, is a starving actress who had gotten in trouble for stealing a loaf of bread to ease her hunger. He, at the same, time, is struggling to get to her but can’t because of the crowd of admirers and the press. I can easily see this as symbolic of their future relationship, if any.

As you may have guessed, I definitely prefer the first version and will choose that one when I choose to see it again. If I’m interested in a more erotic version, then I will go for the second. I see no reason to see the third unless I encounter some disagreement about what I think I saw in it, and then it will be only to double-check my memory.

P.S. A thought just occurred to me. During the ‘30s, ‘40’s, and ‘50’s, heroines were wont to refer to significant males, especially at tender moments, as “you big lug,” or “you big galoot,” or “you big ape.” I wonder. . . No, probably just a coincidence.

Something to think about

2011-10-14T15:24:00.003-07:00

Since philosophy has been able to find no path to tranquillity which is open to all, let every man seek it for himself.

Michel de Montaigne (Feb. 28, 1533--Sept. 13, 1592)
from "Fame"
The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

I guess Montaigne has never listened to any of those social-political-religious prophets who are always preaching that "one size fits all" is the only path to paradise.

Serendipity

2011-10-11T14:02:00.003-07:00

The Red Cockatoo

Sent as a present from Annam--
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.

And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.

Po Chu-i (772--846)
from World Poetry
Arthur Waley, trans.

I wonder what kind of cage our society uses today. What takes the place of those stout bars?

Contracts?

Lin Yutang: Oct. 10, 1895 to March 26, 1976

2011-10-10T07:48:00.004-07:00

Would a different attitude or perspective on life make this a better world? Certainly today's headlines should make us wonder if something isn't wrong somewhere. Lin Yutang presents an idea that appears to be non-existent in the world's leaders and their followers.

The world, I believe, is far too serious, and being far too serious, it has need of a wise and merry philosophy. The philosophy of the Chinese art of living can certainly be called the "gay science,' if anything can be called by that phrase used by Nietzsche. After all, only a gay philosophy is profound philosophy; the serious philosophies of the West haven't even begun to understand what life is. To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average business man does, for no business man who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher. This is not merely a casual thought, but is a fundamental point of view with me. The world can be made a more peaceful and more reasonable place to live in only when men have imbued themselves in the light gayety of this spirit. The modern man takes life far too seriously, and because he is too serious, the world is full of troubles. We ought, therefore, to take time to examine the origin of that attitude which will make possible a whole-hearted enjoyment of this life and a more reasonable, more peaceful and less hot-headed temperament.

-- Lin Yutang --
from The Importance of Living
Chapter One

Any thoughts?

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain XLVI

2011-10-08T17:27:00.006-07:00

Edward FitzGerald elaborates on his reference to the "Game" in the previous quatrain. In this quatrain, he diminishes the human race considerably. Our significance in the universe is no more than figures devised for entertainment.

First Edition: Quatrain XLVI

For in and out, above, about, below,

‘Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show

Play’d in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,

Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

Second Edition: Quatrain LXXIII

We are no other than a moving row

Of visionary Shapes that come and go

Round with this Sun-illumined Lantern held,

In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

Fifth Edition: Quatrain LXVIII

We are no other than a moving row

Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go

Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held,

In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

FitzGerald made extensive changes in wording when he published the Second Edition; however, the meaning is still the same. We are not real, but simply phantoms devised for the entertainment of the Master of the Show, a figure which does not appear in the first version. Instead, we are puppets who entertain some unknown viewer.

One difference is that in the first edition, the universe is included,

“For in and out, above, about, below,

‘Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show”

while in the later editions, it is only we who are the figures of a Magic show. The Candle which stands for the sun has become a “sun-illumed Lantern.” I think the significance might be that in the later editions the Master of the Show is part of the universe, perhaps a creature like us, but not the creator of the universe. This concept might be considered heretical or blasphemous by powerful religious figures and, therefore, dangerous.

There is another difference between the first and later editions. The first edition ends with a period, suggesting that this quatrain is complete. Later editions end with a semicolon, which indicates that the thought is not complete in the quatrain, but we must join it with the next quatrain for the full thought.

The “Magic Shadow-show” plays a role in another work, Proust’s monumental In Search of Lost Time. Early in the first volume, Swan’s Way, the narrator reminisces about his childhood, and how, when he was especially nervous, usually around bedtime, his parents would place a magic lantern atop the lamp in his bedroom. It was a multi-sided box with removable glass panels that had a picture story painted on them. The heat from the lamp would cause the device to rotate, so that the figures cast on the wall would traverse the room as the device rotated.

What seems most apt for this quatrain is that the figures had no real substance of their own, but would fill out or flatten according to what they were cast upon (such as a curtain or a dresser or a flat wall) as they traversed the room. They would take their reality, their fullness, from their environment, and not by any virtue of their own. In addition, the figures and their adventures were created by and existed only at the whim of someone else, the “Master of the show” in the second and fifth editions.

FitzGerald’s analogy also echoes that of Plato’s Cave, which Plato describes in his Republic. It is one of the Socratic dialogues in which, according to the Wikipedia entry, ”Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.”

In this quatrain, the poet-narrator is clearly Socrates’ philosopher for he alone has detected the real nature of the shadows and has returned to enlighten the prisoners—the rest of us.

That we are mere figures of entertainment refers also back to the previous quatrain in which the poet-narrator encourages us to “Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.” (Quatrain XLV, First Edition).

I suspect this quatrain would be very disturbing to those who believe that the universe was created solely for us, a place wherein we are tested to determine the goal for our immortal souls. Instead, we are reduced to mere shadow figures, and our sorrows and joys are nothing more than entertainment for others. In today’s terms, we are all figures in sitcoms and dramas produced solely to fill in the gap between commercials.

My preference? It would have to be for the First Edition, as usual. The First Edition version makes us part of the universe whereas from the Second Edition on, we just seem to be figures inserted there at the whim of the Master of the Show.

Serendipity: more autumn poetry from China

2011-10-04T14:22:00.004-07:00

Listening to a Monk From Shu Playing the Lute

The monk from Shu with his green lute-case walked
Westward down Emei Shan, and at the sound
Of the first notes he strummed for me I heard
A thousand valleys' rustling pines resound.
My heart was cleansed, as if in flowing water.
In bells of frost I heard the resonance die.
Dusk came unnoticed over the emerald hills
And autumn clouds layered the darkening sky.

-- Li Po --
(701--762)
trans. by Vikram Seth

A lute seems the perfect instrument to capture the flavor of autumn. The only other instrument, I think, would be the flute--well--maybe a cello. That would make an interesting trio--a lute, a cello, and a flute. I wonder if there are any works composed for this trio.

from Autumn Thoughts

Leaves fall turning turning to the ground,
by the front eaves racing, following the wind;
murmuring voices seem to speak to me
as they whirl and toss in headlong flight.
An empty hall in the yellow dusk of evening:
I sit here silent, unspeaking.
The young boy comes in from outdoors,
trims the lamp, sets it before me,
asks me questions I do not answer,
brings me a supper I do not eat.
He goes and sits down by the west wall,
reading me poetry--three or four poems;
the poet is not a man of today--
already a thousand years divide us--
but something in his words strikes my heart,
fills it again with an acid grief.
I turn and call to the boy:
Put down the book and go to bed now--
a man has times when he must think,
and work to do that never ends.

-- Han Yu --
(768--824)
trans. by Burton Watson

One can't always live in the past; today is always interrupting, isn't it.

Both poems are taken from
World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time
Katherine Washburn and John S. Major, editors

Wallace Stevens: October 2, 1879 to August 2, 1955

2011-10-02T15:18:00.003-07:00

An intriguing poem by Wallace Stevens. Actually, I'm not sure what to make of it.

The Silver Plough-Boy

A black figure dances in a black field.
It seizes a sheet, from the ground, from a bush, as if spread there
by some wash-woman for the night.
It wraps the sheet around its body, until the black figure is silver.
It dances down a furrow, in the early light, back of a crazy plough,
the green blades following.
How soon the silver fades in the dust! How soon the black figure
slips from the wrinkled sheet! How softly the sheet falls
to the ground!

The silver sheet--moonlight?

the black figure/green blades following: a god/deity responsible for fostering the growth of crops?

Li Po: Now and then, a glass of wine, or two or . . .

2011-09-30T15:55:00.004-07:00

Li Po (701 AD--762 AD)

Drinking Alone In The Moonlight

Number One

Beneath the blossoms with a pot of wine,
No friends at hand, so I poured alone;
I raised my cup to invite the moon,
Turned to my shadow, and we became three.
Now the moon had never learned about drinking,
And my shadow had merely followed my form,
But I quickly made friends with the moon and my shadow;
To find pleasure in life, make the most of the spring.

Whenever I sang, the moon swayed with me;
Whenever I danced, my shadow went wild.
Drinking, we shared our enjoyment together;
Drunk, then each went off on his own.
But forever agreed on dispassionate revels.
We promised to meet in the far Milky Way.

-- Li Po --

Number Two

Now, if Heaven didn't love wine,
There wouldn't be a Wine Star in Heaven.
And if Earth didn't love wine,
Earth shouldn't have the town of Wine Spring.
But since Heaven and Earth love wine,
Loving wine is no crime with Heaven.
The light, I hear, is like a sage.
The heavy, they say, is called the worthy.
If have have drunk with the sage and worthy,
What need have I to search for immortals?
Three cups and I've mastered the Way;
A jarful and I am at one with Nature.
A man can get hold of the spirit of drinking,
But no point explaining to those who abstain.

-- Li Po --

Old Tai's Wine Shop

When Old Tai goes down below,
He may still make Young Springtime brew;
But there's no Li Po on the Terrace of Night,
So who in hell will he sell it to?

-- Li Po --

from World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse
from Antiquity to Our Time
Elling O. Eide, trans

(Now--where is that corkscrew?)

Confucius: Sept. 28, 551 BC (trad)--479 BC

2011-09-28T08:22:00.004-07:00

Some thoughts from the Master:

"The Master said, 'At fifteen I set my heart on learning; at thirty I took my stand; at forty, I came to be free from doubts; at fifty I understood the Decree of Heaven; at sixty my ear was attuned; at seventy I followed my heart's desire without overstepping the line.' "

"The Master said, 'A man is worthy of being a teacher who gets to know what is new by keeping fresh in his mind what he is already familiar with.' "

"The Master said, 'If one learns from others but does not think, one will be bewildered. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril.' "

"The Master said, 'I do not see how a man can be acceptable who is untrustworthy in word. When a pin in missing in the yoke-bar or a large cart or in the collar-bar of a small cart, how can the cart be expected to go?' "

"Lin Fang asked about the basis of the rites. The Master said, 'a noble question indeed! With the rites, it is better to err on the side of frugality than on the side of extravagance; in mourning, it is better to err on the side of grief than on the side of formality.' "

from Confucius: The Analects
Penguin Classics
D. C. Lau, trans.

Some Autumn Thoughts

2011-09-26T09:41:00.003-07:00

from "The Preface"

"Autumn is that season in between: not summer, though still somewhat like summer, and not winter, though still somewhat like winter. It is the season that does not seem to progress--like spring--as much as it juggles blazing opposites in a great circle. It is the season of work to be taken up after summer rest, and the season to harvest the work of the summer and to turn over the garden and tuck it in for its own long sleep. It is the season that grabs the attention of the moment as we take up our schedules again. And it is the season that reminds us to look ahead, to prepare for the orneriness of winter. It is the season of brilliant October leaves and drab November branches, of yellow warm days and cold crystal nights, of the unfamiliar clunkings of radiator and furnace, the smell of blankets taken out of the cedar chest, and the first touch of silver frost on thew windowpane that quickly melts away--until, one morning, it doesn't.

It is the season that teaches us that our lives are made not to run in smooth and easy paths, predictable, and even, always known. Our lives are messy, sometimes scheduled, sometimes random, sometimes prepared for, sometimes taken on the fly as we juggle our own blazing experiences, all of which come at us with their contradictions and with their own joys and sorrows. It is the season that teaches us that beginnings and endings are part of our experiences; though autumn represents the fulfillment of cycles, fulfillment must also bring ending. And it is the season that reminds us that maybe we are not our own; we neither mark out nor control all the paths we may take.

And like all the season, autumn teaches that these aspects of our lives are not negotiable--they are part of our experience in this world. School buses, soccer practice, apples, grapes--this is the stuff of our daily life. But our response to changes, renewals, endings, and the confusing mix of day-to-day moments--this is the stuff of our spiritual life."

from Autumn: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
Gary Schmidt and Susan M Felch, editors

Joseph Wood Krutch: more from Baja California

2011-09-24T23:04:00.003-07:00

from Baja California

"Even an amateur like myself will seldom lack something to see if he will only look. 'Lift up thine eyes unto the hills' is a religious exhortation. 'Go thou to the ant, thou sluggard,' is a scientific one. And, at least for certain temperaments, it is the more fruitful. Because I obey it, the place where I am is never really the same place two days in succession, and I can take every morning the same short walk down a certain wood road because it is not really the same walk."

I should start up my walking routine again. I can feel my muscles atrophying--spending too much time at the keyboard and too little on my feet. But, I find walking boring, at least in the residential area of Tucson where I have been living for decades. Perhaps I should try Krutch's technique and see if every day does give me a different walk, even if it's the same sidewalks. Look for differences instead of seeing only the same things again and again.

Fall Equinox

2011-09-23T07:09:00.013-07:00

Like last year, the first day of autumn, or the Fall Equinox, doesn't seem much like fall here in Tucson, where the temperature is expected to hit 100. But, the Sun and the Stars have decreed that today is the day, so here's a few poems that may be closer to reality in a month or so.

For you in northern climes, therefore:

Under the Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the fragrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
with a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

-- Carl Sandburg --

(Autumn--the season of memories . . .)

Yellow autumn moon . . .
Unimpressed the scarecrow stands
Simply looking bored

-- Issa --
from A Little Treasury of Haiku

Autumn Refrain

The skreak and skritter of evening gone
And grackles gone and sorrows of the sun,
The sorrows of the sun, too, gone . . . the moon and moon,
The yellow moon of words about the nightingale
In measureless measures, not a bird for me
But the name of a bird and the name of a nameless air
I have never--shall never hear. And yet beneath
The stillness that comes to me out of this, beneath
The stillness of everything gone, and being still
Being and sitting still, something resides,
Some skreaking and skrittering residuum,
And grates these evasions of the nightingale
Though I have never--shall never hear that bird.
And the stillness is in the key, all of it is,
The stillness is all in the key of that desolate sound.

--Wallace Stevens --

(I find this the most puzzling of the autumn poems.)

#656

The name - of it - is "Autumn" -
The hue - of it - is Blood -
An Artery - upon the Hill -
A Vein - along the Road -

Great Globules - in the Alleys -
And Oh, the Shower of Stain -
When winds - upset the Basin -
And spill the Scarlet Rain -

It sprinkles Bonnets - far slow -
It gathers ruddy Pools -
Then - eddies like a Rose - away -
Upon Vermilion Wheels -

-- Emily Dickinson --
from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
ed. Thomas H. Johnson

Autumn Note

The little flowers of yesterday
Have all forgotten May.
The last gold leaf
Has turned to brown.
The last bright day is grey.
The cold of winter comes apace
And you have gone away.

-- Langston Hughes --

Gathering Leaves

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?

-- Robert Frost --

(That last line raises some questions, doesn't it? Frost has a habit of doing that. Does the poem end on an ominous note?)

Dry cheerful cricket
Chirping, keeps the autumn gay . . .
Contemptuous of frost

-- Basho --
from A Little Treasury of Haiku

(This poem also seems to end on an ominous note.)

(Just noticed the double tie-ins with the previous poem.)

John Scalzi: Android's Dream, an SF novel

2011-09-21T11:55:00.006-07:00

John Scalzi’s Android’s Dream

Usually I select a book to read, excluding those chosen by a book discussion group that I belong to, on the basis of the author or perhaps subject matter or a recommendation. Seldom I select one because of its title. I hope this isn’t too discouraging or disappointing to writers who spend considerable time trying to choose the perfect title for their books. But, titles really don’t mean that much to me until after I’ve read the book. Then, I become aware of the significance, if any, of the title. There are, though, some exceptions to this rule.

John Scalzi’s Android’s Dream is one of those exceptions. I had already read Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, and while I enjoyed it, I wasn’t impressed enough to put Scalzi into my “must buy” category. It was the combination of the title and the cover art that made me decide to purchase and read this book. The title, as I have already mentioned, is Android’s Dream. The cover of the paperback edition that I have has a metal robot lying on its side with sheep floating above it; obviously this is what the robot is dreaming. A robot dreaming of sheep!

This could only be a reference to Philip K. Dick’s Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep? More clues are inside the work. First, robots or androids play no role in the story. Secondly, we are told that the sheep are blue sheep—electric blue, to be precise and are called Android’s Dream, for some inexplicable and possibly “literary” reason. So, the android’s dream is of electric blue sheep. And, this isn’t the only reference to an science fiction writer in the novel.

The plot is straightforward—an SF thriller probably would describe it best. Earth is part of a galactic organization. One of the alien races, the Nidu, is undergoing a leadership crisis. It’s leader has died, and various clans on the planet are struggling to gain control, which means complete domination of the planet. The path to leadership is a bit strange: to become the Supreme Leader, the contenders must fulfill the succession ritual exactly as it has been specified by the previous leader. One of the peculiarities of gaining leadership among the Nidu is that the Supreme Ruler gets to determine the ritual for his successor, which presumably will give some advantage to his clan.

The ritual at the present time requires the blood of a specific type of sheep developed by human geneticists. The unusual pattern of its DNA results in blue-colored sheep. A rival clan has gone about enthusiastically killing all of this particular strain of sheep. If all of the sheep are killed, then nobody can gain power through the use of the ritual. Therefore the succession is determined by a power struggle among the clans. And, this rival clan has quietly managed to place a number of its members in positions of power in the planet’s space navy.

Harry Creek, a member of Earth’s State Department, has been assigned the task of locating one of the sheep as a favor to the clan presently in power. If one of the sheep could be located, the ruling clan would be able to fulfill the ritual, maintain control, and, no doubt, look very favorably on Earth. The Earth military forces , however, have a different plan in mind and are determined to prevent the State Department from delivering a sheep.

This all seems a waste of energy for it appears that all of the sheep are dead. Creek, however, discovers that the required DNA is not lost. Some criminal geneticists have been conducting experiments in which animal DNA has been implanted into humans. One woman who had the DNA of the sheep is now dead, but she had a daughter. Creek finds the young woman, who, strangely enough, owns a pet shop. The sheep DNA has not affected her in any way, as it is part of what is called junk DNA, that part which appears to play no role in human development, or at least, none found so far. Some of her blood would be sufficient to successfully pass the ritual.

Harry, and the young woman, are forced to go on the run, because both the Earth Military and the rival alien clan are determined to prevent her from reaching the alien planet. It is at this point that a third force enters the fray, a religious cult--.the Church of the Evolved Lamb. It’s Founder was “M. Robbin Dwellin, an early 21^st century science fiction writer of admittedly modest talents and a man on the make. . . .” An SF writer who establishes a religious cult? L Ron Hubbard?

This is not a serious novel. Scalzi is enjoying himself by poking fun at a variety of targets. If a corporation can be called a person by the courts, then in a courtroom scene reminiscent of some of Heinlein’s forays into the legal system, a human woman can be ruled to be an alien species unto herself and, as the duly appointed ambassador of her species, has diplomatic immunity.

One small byplay among two of the characters on Earth referred slightingly to both the Washington Senators and my Chicago Cubs as the two worst teams in baseball.

One of the featured attractions is Takk, an alien who appears to be the animal? equivalent of a Venus fly-trap. Takk eliminates his victims by opening a fissure in his trunk and ingesting the unfortunate one. Takk is presently on a pilgrimage, learning (gastronomically as well as by other means) all about the various races that inhabit the galaxy. There is a touching scene near the end between Takk and one of his victim, for they find that they are religiously compatible.

Overall Rating: I’d give it a 4 on a 5 point scale. It’s basically a chase novel with due homage to two SF writers, both of whom rank high on the quirky scale: PK Dick and L. R Hubbard. The reader has to be alert, also, to pick up the sly jests and comments Scalzi scatters about.

Highly recommended.

Basho: Sept. 15, 1644--Nov. 28, 1694

2011-09-15T18:34:00.004-07:00

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, September 15 is the traditional date given for Basho's birth. As it comes shortly before the Fall Equinox, it would seem to be good date. Again, we will go around the year with Basho.

Spring

a)
ah, spring, spring,
great is spring,
etcetera

b)
ah spring spring
how great is spring!
and so on

This one caught me by surprise. I was expecting some image (another cherry blossom haiku perhaps) of the wonders of spring and instead got hit by boredom. Even haiku poets get tired of writing about the same old thing. Or, perhaps this is a "finish it yourself" haiku.

I prefer the second version, for "etcetera" sounds a bit pompous, while "and so on" better conveys the tedium of yet another haiku about the glories of spring.

Summer

departing from an old friend

a)
deer horns
developing their first branch:
our separation

b)
deer antler
now branching at the joint
farewell!

This haiku is more about separation than about summer. There's also a hint of sadness there that isn't obvious at first, at least it wasn't to me. Those branching antlers will never meet again. Is an "old friend" one who has been a friend for a long time or a friend who is getting old, or perhaps both. Could it be a quiet suggestion that they probably will never see each other again? This might be the final farewell.

I would go with the second version, but only by a slight preference. I don't like "joint," for it seems harsh, but "farewell" comes across more succinctly to me than "our separation." It echoes more clearly the hint carried by those antlers that branch and will never meet again.

Autumn

a)
autumn wind
through an open door--
a piercing cry

b)
autumn wind's
mouth at the sliding door
a piercing voice

The harsh wind of Autumn accompanies the withdrawal of life outside that door. What is that "piercing voice"? Is it a cry of despair?

I would go with the first version this time. "Mouth" bothers me.

Winter

a)
at a poor mountain temple,
a kettle crying in the frost,
the voice frigid

b)
a poor temple
frost on the iron kettle
has a cold voice

There is an example of personification in these two versions, but what is being personified differs. In the first version, the kettle is crying amidst the frost with a frigid voice, but in the second, it is the frost on the kettle that has a cold voice.

I think I would go with the first version here, today anyway. Some might go for the second version because considering frost with a voice is certainly more striking.

Bonus haiku

a)
wind from Mt. Fuji--
carrying it in my fan,
a souvenir for those in Edo

b)
a Fuji wind
placed here on a fan
a souvenir of Tokyo

I just like the idea here--a fan carrying a breeze from Mt. Fuji.

I prefer the first version this time; the second line seems clumsy--"placed here on a fan".

a) these versions are from
Basho's Haiku: Selected Poems of Matsuo Basho
trans. David Landis Barnhill

b) these versions are from
Basho: The Complete Haiku
trans. Jane Reichhold

Serendipity

2011-09-12T09:10:00.006-07:00

Since the Fall Equinox or the First Day of Fall is September 23 this year, less than two weeks from today, this poem seemed appropriate.

Late Summer

In the gentle evening of the summer,
which is tired with the festival,
the water is clear
and the fish are at the bottom.

Holding leftover wreaths
in their languid arms,
trees are
already dreaming.

The last bird has flown by,
holding a black sound
in its beak.

Farewell, summer,
quicken your pace as you go . . .
Stars fall quietly into the water . . .

-- Tada Chimako --

from Summer: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
Gary Schmidt & Susan M. Felch, editors

Something to think about:

2011-09-11T10:00:00.004-07:00

109

"There are men of evil mind, who would make of everything a crime, and not because of passion, but just naturally. They condemn everybody, some for what they have done, and others for what they may do. It is the sign of a narrow mind, as cruel as it is vile, for they charge so immoderately, that of motes they fashion beams with which to put out the eyes. Slave drivers in every position, they would make a galley of what was an elysium, for in the midst of excitement, they push everything to extremes. The large soul, on the other hand, finds an excuse for everything, if not in intention, then in inattention."

Balthazar Gracian (1601-1658)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
trans. Martin Fischer

Unfortunately, we are still cursed with this sort, some five hundred years later. In fact, they may be more powerful now than before, since they seem to be able to make full use of modern communication technology to spread their message of hatred for everything not to their own narrow biases. They are found everywhere: extremists on both sides of the aisle in politics, religion, science, the arts . . .

Loren Eiseley: from The Immense Journey

2011-09-03T19:42:00.003-07:00

Loren Eiseley: Sept. 3, 1911--July 9, 1977

I have read many works in which the author discussed or lamented what is variously called the human predicament, the human situation, or the human condition, and usually treated from an existential or a moral or a theological or even a literary point of view. Below, Loren Eiseley writes about the human predicament, but from a slightly different perspective--a sociobiological perspective perhaps or maybe even an epistemological perspective. What would you call it?

We are now in a position to see the wonder and terror of the human predicament: man is totally dependent on society. Creature of dream, he has created an invisible world of ideas, beliefs, habits, and customs which buttress him about and replace for him the precise instincts of the lower creatures. In this invisible universe he takes refuge, but just as instinct may fail an animal under some shift of environmental conditions, so man's cultural beliefs may prove inadequate to meet a new situation, or, at an individual level, the confused mind may substitute by some terrible alchemy, cruelty for love.

As another author once said, we live in a virtual world, for we have given up the real or natural world for a world of ideas. We don't interact with things, but with the ideas of things. Eiseley also differs from other writers in that, while others see humans as victims of an uncaring universe or deity or fate, he suggests that we have created our own predicament, and we may be victims, but we are also the perpetrators of our situation.

John Fowles: from Wormholes

2011-08-29T13:40:00.007-07:00

I'm slowly working my way through John Fowles' collection of personal essays, literary criticism, memoirs, and other writings. The following are quotations from an essay "I Write Therefore I Am," which he wrote in 1964.

In January of 1963 I decided to leave work. I can't imagine myself as a professional writer. Writing has always been with me a semireligious occupation, by which I certainly don't mean that I regard it with pious awe, but rather that I can't regard it simply as a craft, a job. I know when I am writing well that I am writing with more than the sum of my acquired knowledge, skill, and experience; with something from outside myself.

Inspiration, the muse experience, is like telepathy. Nowadays one hardly dares to say that inexplicable phenomena exist for fear of being kicked in the balls by the positivists and the behaviorists and the other hyperscientists. But there is a metatechnics that needs investigation.

I don't think of myself as "giving up work to be a writer." I'm giving up work to, at last, be.

To a career man, I suppose, the decision would seem lunatic, perhaps even courageous. But a bank vault is secure; an atomic shelter is secure; death is secure. Security is one of the prison walls of the affluent society; even since the pax Romana, being safe has been an unhealthy mega-European obsession.

Back in 1964, anyway, he probably would be considered a bit of a romantic--writing as a form of being, inspiration coming from somewhere else, outside himself; disdain for the positivists and "hyperscientists. I could see him getting along comfortably with Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, LeFanu, Blackwood, or M. R. James.

Weather Report

2011-08-27T15:43:00.003-07:00

Tucson, Arizona

3:26 MST

Temperature: 108 F

Humidity: 14%

Heat Index: 105 F

Vendor of bright fans
Carrying his pack of breeze . . .
Suffocating heat!
-- Shiki --

It may be a dry heat, but it's still hot.

Michel de Montaigne: on Montaigne

2011-08-26T15:10:00.008-07:00

The following quotation is from Montaigne's Introduction to the first edition of his Essays.

"To the Reader"

This is an honest book, reader. It gives you to know, at this outset, that I have proposed to myself only an intimate and private end; I have not considered what would be serviceable for you or for my renown; my powers are not equal to such a design. I have devoted these pages to the particular pleasure of my kinsmen and friends; to the end that, when they have lost me (which they must do ere long), they may find herein some touches of my qualities and moods, and that, by this means, they may cherish more completely and more vividly the knowledge thy have had of me. Had I purposed to see public favour, I should have better adorned myself, and presented myself in a studied attitude. I desire to be seen in my simple, natural, everyday guise, without effort and artifice; for it is my own self that I portray. My imperfections will be seen herein to the life, and my personal nature, so far as respect for the public has permitted this. I assure you that, had I been living among those nations which are said still to dwell under the benign license of the primal laws of nature, I should very readily have painted myself quite completely, and quite naked. Since, reader, I am thus, myself, the subject of my book, it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on so trivial and empty a matter.

So, farewell. From Montaigne this first March, 1580.

Montaigne says elsewhere that he knows that others hold different opinions, but he has no intention of convincing or converting others to his way of thinking. He is simply telling the reader what he himself thinks.

So, here is Montaigne on his subject: Montaigne

My purpose is to pass quietly and not laboriously what remains to me of life. There is nothing I care to weary my brains about, not even learning, however great its value. In books I seek only to give myself pleasure by worthy entertainment; or, if I study, I then seek only the learning which treats of the knowledge of myself and which instructs me how to die well and to live well.

. . . . .

If I meet with any difficulties, I do not bite my nails over them; I give them up, after attacking them once or twice. If I sat down to them, I should waste myself and my time; for I have a nimble wit. What I do not see at the first attack I see even less by persisting about it. I do nothing without animation; an continuation and too earnest effort confuse my judgement, dispirit and weary it.

. . . . .

If this book wearies me, I take up another; and I give myself to it only at times when the irksomeness of doing nothing begins to lay hold upon me. I care little for new books because the old ones seem to me fuller and stronger; nor for those in Greek, because my judgement can not do its work with imperfect and unskilled comprehension.

Michel de Montaigne
February 28, 1533 -- September 13, 1592
"On Books"
from The Essays of Montaigne

The last sentence of the quotation refers to Montaigne's imperfect knowledge of Greek rather than to any imperfections that may be in the books themselves.

Serendipity

2011-08-23T14:19:00.012-07:00

One of the poet's favorite or at least one of the most frequent themes is death. I think Emily Dickinson wrote several hundred poems on that theme. I suspect that probably every poet of some fame has written at least one or more on death. And, their treatment of death is as varied as they themselves are. Here is one I just discovered that dates back to about 1900 B. C., over four thousand years ago.

Death is Before Me Today

Death is before me today
like health to the sick
like leaving the bedroom after sickness.

Death is before me today
like the odor of myrrh
like sitting under a cloth on a day of wind.

Death is before me today
like the odor of lotus
like sitting down on the shore of drunkenness.

Death is before me today
like the end of the rain
like a man's home-coming after the wars abroad.

Death is before me today
like the sky when it clears
like a man's wish to see home after numberless years of captivity.

-- anon --
c. 1900 B. C.
W. S. Merwin, trans
World Poetry
Katharine Washburn & John B. Major, Editors

The anonymous poet's view is that death is just returning home after a long absence. Taoists say something very similar: we come out of the Void, are here for awhile, and then return to the Void.

But, there's Dylan Thomas, whom I think would not agree.

(from) Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

. . . . .

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Come. bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And Emily Dickinson?

Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The Carriage held but just Ourselves —
And Immortality.

We slowly drove — He knew no haste —
And I had put away
My labor — and my leisure too,
For His Civility.

We passed the School where Children strove
At Recess — in the Ring —
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain —
We passed the Setting Sun —

Or rather — He passed Us-
The Dews drew quivering and chill —
For only Gossamer, my Gown —
My Tippet — only Tulle —

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground —
The roof was scarcely visible —
The Cornice — in the Ground

Since then — ‘tis Centuries — and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity.

I think she and the anonymous Egyptian poet would agree.

And the haiku poets of Japan

A saddening world:
Flowers whose sweet blooms must fall . . .
As we too, alas . . .
-- Issa --

Death-Song

Leaf alone, fluttering
Alas, leaf alone, fluttering . . .
Floating down the wind.
-- anon --

Death-Song

I have known lovers . . .
Cherry-bloom . . . the nightingale . . .
I will sleep content.
-- anon --

Death-Song

If they ask for me
Say: he had some business
In another world
-- Sukan --

Traditionally, haiku poets would, if they were able, write one last haiku, which then became their death song. Ideally it would express their feelings about their impending death.

As for me, well, death is in the future for all of us. It approaches at its own speed and will meet us at its own choosing. There's no need, though, to rush forward to greet it. It will come. Perhaps between now and that day, I may agree with the anonymous Egyptian poet or Emily Dickinson.

But not today.

The haiku are from
A Little Treasury of Haiku
Peter Beilenson, trans.

Ray Bradbury: August 22, 1920,

2011-08-22T15:13:00.005-07:00

Spoiler Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and events.

Here are three short tales by Ray Bradbury, whose birthday we celebrate today. I’ve read only one of them, “The Crowd,” and possibly I might even have seen a TV dramatization of it. When I think of the story, an image comes to mind. The camera, if that’s what it is, is on the ground facing up and one can see faces all around, just as if one were lying on the ground with a crowd gathered about. The other two stories are new to me, but also enjoyable, if one can take a touch of horror along with some greed.

-------------------------

“The Coffin”

Charles Braling was old. His brother Richard was younger. Charles was rich, and almost everything he did made him richer. Richard was poor, except for what Charles gave him. Everything Richard did had been a failure. Charles was dying; he had perhaps only several weeks to live. That was why he was in such a hurry to complete his latest invention—“The Braling Economy Casket.” Richard wasn’t dying, which meant there were two reasons for him to be happy: one was that he wasn’t dying and the other was that Charles was. In spite of their many differences, the two brothers did share something—a mutual hatred.

Richard, along with greed, possessed one more characteristic: curiosity. Curiosity may not always be fatal, but it’s certainly much deadlier when paired off with greed. That was why, when Charles died, he ignored Charles’ last wish, to be buried in his special casket, which he had finished minutes before he died. Richard wanted to find out just what this coffin could do. Perhaps it might be marketable. It was his brother’s idea after all, and those had been remarkably profitable. So, he called the funeral parlor, and gave his orders: “Ordinary casket . . . No funeral service. Put him in a pine coffin. He would have preferred it that way—simple. Good-by.”

Now, Richard thought, to find out about the coffin. It was approximately twelve feet long, with a central open section about six feet in length. It had two covered sections, one at the head and one at the foot, each about three feet in length. The casket lid was transparent at the head position. The casket was also extraordinarily wide, perhaps three feet wide on each side of the central chamber for the body. Richard could see no openings or hatches or buttons or any way of getting inside those compartments, at least from the outside. So, he decided to get in the casket and test it. There were ventilating holes around the sides, and just to be safe, he told the gardener to come upstairs in about fifteen minutes to make sure all was well.

So, he crawled inside and looked around. He could see nothing that would give him access to the compartments. Suddenly the lid slammed shut and locked. He panicked at first, but then relaxed. There was enough air in the casket, along with the ventilating holes, and the gardener would soon be along. He might as well relax.

Then . . .

“The music began to play.

It seemed to come from somewhere inside the head of the coffin. It was green music. Organ music, very slow and melancholy, typical of Gothic arches and long black tapers. It smelled of earth and whispers. It echoed high between stone walls. It was so sad that one almost cried listening to it. It was music of potted plants and crimson and blue stained-glass windows. It was late sun at twilight and a cold wind blowing. It was a dawn with only fog and a faraway fog horn moaning.

. . . . .

The sermon began.

The organ music subsided and a gentle voice said:

‘We are gathered together, those who loved and those who knew the deceased, to give him our homage and our due—‘

‘Charlie, bless you, that’s your voice!’ Richard was delighted. ‘A mechanical funeral, by God. Organ music and lecture. And Charlie giving his own oration for himself!’

The voice continued:

“We who knew and loved him are grieved at the passing of Richard Braling.”

Richard thought he had misheard the voice. That should have been Charles Braling.

And then Richard found out just how complete the funerary arrangements were that Charles had built into the Braling Economy Casket.

I felt a bit sorry for Richard, for after all, he hadn’t really done anything that wrong. But, if he had followed Charles’s wishes, and if he hadn't been so greedy and curious, none of this would have happened.

-------------------------

“The Crowd”

I had read this story long ago and, as I mentioned earlier, may even have seen a dramatized version of it. It’s a quiet little story based on observable facts, something we have all seen, but, as far as I know, only Ray Bradbury wondered about it and gave us this little gem. We’ve all seen this: an accident happens and a crowd forms. Where did all these people come from? Who were they? The sidewalks and entrances may have been empty before, but let an accident happen and a crowd forms.

Mr. Spallner had been in an accident—lots of noise, tumbling motions, and then silence.

‘The crowd came running. Faintly, where he lay, he heard them running. He could tell their ages and their sizes by the sound of their numerous feet over the summer grass and on the lined pavement, and over the asphalt street; and picking through cluttered bricks to where his car hung half into the night sky, still spinning its wheels with a senseless centrifuge.

. . . .

Where the crowd came from he didn’t know. He struggled to remain aware and then the crowd faces hemmed in upon him, hung over like the large glowing leaves of down bent trees. There were a ring of shifting, compressing changing faces over him, looking down, looking down, reading the time of his life or death by his face, making his face into a moon-dial, where the moon cast a shadow from his nose out upon his cheek to tell the time of breathing or not breathing any more ever.”

Several weeks later, Spallner was released from the hospital and eventually returns to his office. While talking with a colleague, he hears the sound of a crash from the street below.

“Spallner walked to the window. He was very cold and as he stood there, he looked at his watch, at the small minute hand. One two three four five seconds – people running—eight nine ten eleven twelve – from all over, people came running –fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen seconds – more people, more cars, more horns blowing. Curiously distant, Spallner looked upon the scene as an explosion in reverse, the fragments of the detonation sucked back to the point of implosion. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one seconds and the crowd was there, Spallner made a gesture down at them, wordless.

The crowd had gathered so fast.”

Spallner becomes obsessed with the crowd. He searches old newspaper for pictures of accidents and begins to see that some of the faces in the photographs of the crowds went back decades, seemingly without aging. He detects patterns of appearances of faces in the crowds. Some faces appeared in only one photograph, but others showed again and again. And some of the accident victims died because somebody in the crowd had moved them before an ambulance arrived on the scene. Was that deliberate, Spallner wondered?

Spallner gathers his evidence and decides to take it to the police. Perhaps they might make something of it. But, he never makes to the police station.

“He was rather shocked, but not surprised, somehow, when the truck came rolling out of an alley straight at him. He was just congratulating himself on his keen sense of observation and talking out what he would say to the police in his mind, when the truck smashed into his car.

. . . . .

The crowd was there. . .

He hadn’t felt much at the impact, his spine was hurt. He didn’t dare move. . .

Someone said, ‘Give me a hand. We’ll roll him over and lift him into a more comfortable position. . .”

Lucky Spallner. Thanks to his curiosity and his keen sense of observation, he is now going to get the answers to all his questions about The Crowd.

--------------------------

The Scythe

This is a horror story, about a man who has just hit bottom, and thinks that it can’t get worse. He should have talked to my grandmother, a cheerful soul; one of her favorite sayings was “Things are never so bad they can’t get worse.” I guess that was meant to cheer us up, but somehow it never quite succeeded.

Drew Erickson was out of work, out of money, and out of gas. That he was also lost didn’t make much difference since he couldn’t go anywhere even if he did know where to go. With him were his wife Molly and their two children.

Off in the distance he could see a golden wheat field, ripe enough for the scythe. And, beyond that, a small farmhouse. Hoping for help, trading work for food and perhaps shelter, he went to the farmhouse. He got no answer when he knocked and called, so he went in. He found the occupant upstairs in the bedroom.

“The paper lay open on the pillow beside the old man’s head. It was meant to be read. Maybe a request for burial, or to call a relative. Drew scowled over the words, moving his pale, dry lips.

To him who stands beside me at my death bed:

Being of sound mind, and alone in the world as it has been decreed, I, John Buhr, do give and bequeath this farm, with all pertaining to it, to the man who is to come. Whatever his name or origin shall be, it will not matter. The farm is his, and the wheat; the scythe, and the task ordained thereto. Let him take them freely, and without question – and remember that I, John Buhr, am only the giver, not the ordainer. To which I set my hand and seal this third day of April, 1938.

[Signed] John Buhr, Kyrie eleison!

A scythe leaned on the wall beside the bed. “Words were scratched on the blade: Who wields me – wields the world!”

Their luck had changed: food in the refrigerator, shelter, a bull and several cows, and a farm that was theirs.

Several days later, Drew decides to go to work. The wheat needs cutting. He went out with the scythe. At the end of the day, he was puzzled. The golden wheat he cut down began immediately to rot and disintegrate as he watched it. Secondly, it was a huge field but only a small portion was ripe for cutting, a portion that he could do in one day. On the second day, he could see green shoots already springing up where he had cut down the ripe stalks, and another portion of wheat that had been green yesterday was now ripe for cutting.

Eventually Drew tries to stop cutting the wheat for it rotted away too quickly to be harvested. Cutting the wheat, therefore, was a waste of time. But, when he tried to stop, he felt some force working on him, forcing him eventually to go out there.

While cutting a ripe section of wheat one day, he swore he could hear his mother’s voice cry out as he cut a stalk. He became convinced that he had killed his mother. And the rest of the wheat? Were they also people. He sent off a telegram and got word several days later that his mother had died, approximately at the same time he had cut that stalk.

Drew now understood the meaning of the words on the scythe; he was Death. The true horror of what he was doing struck home when he encountered stalks that he knew were his wife Molly and his two children.

Spoiler Warning: I reveal the ending of the story at this point.

“And then, sobbing wildly, he rose above the grain again and again and hewed to the left and right and to left and to right and to left and to right. Over and over and over! Slicing out huge scars in green wheat and ripe wheat, with no selection and no care, cursing, over and over, swearing, laughing, the blade swinging up in the sun and falling in the sun with a singing whistle! Down!

Bombs shattered London, Moscow, Tokyo.

The blade swung insanely.

And the kilns of Belsen and Buchenwald took fire.

The blade sang, crimson wet.

And mushrooms vomited out blind suns at White Sands, Hiroshima, Bikini, and up through, and in continental Siberian skies.

The grain wept in a green rain, falling.

Korea, Indo-China, Egypt, India trembled; Asia stirred, Africa woke in the night…

And the blade went on rising, crashing, severing, with the fury and the rage of a man who has lost and lost so much that he can no longer cares what he does to the world.

. . . . .

“Once in awhile during the long years a jalopy gets off the main highway, pulls up steaming in front of the charred ruin of a little white house at the end of the dirt road, to ask instructions from the farmer they see just beyond, the one who works insanely, wildly, without ever stopping, night and day, in the endless fields of wheat.

But they got no help and no answer. The farmer in the field is too busy, even after all these year; too busy slashing and chopping the green wheat instead of the ripe.

And Drew Erickson moves on with his scythe, with the light of a blind suns and a look of white fire in his never-sleeping eyes, on and on and on . . . ”

I wonder: is it more comforting, after reading the daily headlines and studying the history of the human race, to think that what we do is caused by madmen, rather than by sane, ordinary people.

A thought just occurred to me. Could Drew be symbolic of weapons makers and inventors or creators of weapons--possibly nuclear weapons?

Kim Stanley Robinson: The Gold Coast

2011-08-21T07:17:00.007-07:00

Kim Stanley Robinson's The Gold Coast (TGC) is one of the three novels in what was first called "The Orange County" trilogy, but is now being marketed as "The Three Californias." However, I still prefer my title, "The California Troika." The three novels are set in Orange County, California, at approximately the middle of the 21st century. However, they do not overlap because Robinson has postulated three widely differing futures for Orange County. It is, therefore, an alternate universe series, of a very unique kind.

I have already posted on another of the three novels--The Wild Shore (TWS), .which was a "What if" novel--one that answers the question what if there was a nuclear attack on the US? What would life be like for the survivors in Orange County some half century later?

The Gold Coast belongs to the “If this goes on” category, for it postulates the continuation of the Cold War along with massive urban population growth for Orange County, which is now a center for the military-industrial complex. Much of the industry in Orange County now consists of defense contractors, corporations whose existence depends upon gaining contracts for military weapons. The novel is an extrapolation of Orange County in the 80s when it was written.

The third novel, Pacific Edge, is a “What if” novel and is, in comparison to these two, pure fantasy. I will go into that in more detail in a later post.

While the two novels occupy widely varying universes, Robinson appears to have created a very broad pattern, at least for these two novels. The main character is a young male, Jim McPherson. In TGC he is about a decade older than the main character (Hank Fletcher) is in TWS. Physically McPherson is older; however, he still is a teenager for he hasn’t grown up yet. McPherson is still “finding himself.” He has two part-time jobs, one as a data entry clerk and the other a part-time instructor at a night school.

A second commonality is the importance of the relationship between the young man and his father, though the relationships are quite different. Jim McPherson’s father, Dennis, is an engineer who works for a defense contractor. A significant part of the story concerns the father’s problems at work, both with the work itself and his immediate supervisor, whose goal is getting the task done, regardless of whatever harm this might do to his subordinates.

The father has a dream: the weapons system (reminds me a bit of Pres. Reagan’s Star Wars System) he is now working on could eliminate the need for nuclear weapons. It might not completely eliminate war, but at least it will remove a possible nuclear holocaust that both threatens and sustains the volatile political world situation. As it is, the US is now involved in “Open wars in Indonesia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Thailand” and “Covert wars in Pakistan, Turkey, South Korea, and Belgium.”

Dennis McPherson’s job and employer are two of the reasons for the estrangement between Jim and his father. Jim is vaguely opposed to the war and therefore opposed to his father’s work. Dennis is unhappy with his son whom he feels hasn’t grown up yet, even though he was graduated from high school a decade ago. He also feels he’s being used by Jim as Jim only comes around when he wants a free meal and he needs his father to work on his car.

Both novels begin with digging into the past. In TWS, Hank and his friends, one night, go to a graveyard, hoping to dig up some coffins and find something valuable that they could use for bargaining at the local swap meet. In TGC, Jim and his friends dig up a parking lot, which covered the foundation of a school, hoping to find some relics of the past. In both cases, they are discovered and are forced to leave without finding anything valuable.

In both novels, there is an old man named Tom. Tom is an important character in TWS as he is one of the few sources of information about the world before the nuclear holocaust. In TGC, Tom is Jim’s uncle who plays a very minor role in the novel. However, he too is a source of information (occasionally) of what Orange County was like half a century ago.

One of the strongest parts of the novel is Robinson’s creation of a culture that is recognizable today, with some major differences, of course. If one were to describe Jim’s life, one couldn’t go too far wrong by bringing back the old cliché: “Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.” One of Jim’s friends is Sandy, who is an independent drug designer. What I find interesting is that his drugs are taken with an eyedropper and deposited directly on the eye. I guess this makes for a quicker absorption as it goes directly into the brain and also more efficient as less of the drug is lost along the way. Another friend is Tashi, who lives in a tent on a roof and tends his own rooftop garden. He fixes computers and other electronic devices.

The controlling technology in this world is TV. Nobody in the late 80s could have foreseen the development of the mobile phone and its impact on society. TV in TGC has supplanted reality. Jim, at a party, having accidentally hit himself on his head and under the influence of Sandy’s latest creation, has gotten himself involved in a ping-pong game with the local champion and is playing way over his head, making spectacular volleys and saves. The game gains the interest of the other partygoers who eventually leave the room the game is being played in for the adjoining room where they can watch it on CCTV. All of Jim’s friends, including Jim, have their places wired for CCTV so they can see what’s going on in any room from any room in the place. They would much rather watch the game on a TV screen than watch it directly.

Another incident demonstrating the superiority of life on a monitor over a flesh-and-blood presence occurs shortly after the ping-pong game. Jim hooks up with Virginia, and they leave the party for her place for sex. They arrive at her place:

Virginia flips on the lights, turns on the video system. Eight little cameras mounted high on the walls track them with IR sensors, and two big sets of screens on the side walls show Virginia undressing, from both front and back. Jim finds the images arousing indeed . . . They maneuver into positions where they can both see a wall of screens.

. . . . .

her face is in exquisite profile . . . and her breasts . . . well it’s almost enough to distract him from the screens. . .

The screens flicker and go blank. Glassy gray-green nothingness.

Virginia jumps off Jim . . . Angrily she punches the buttons of the control panel over by the light switches.

She can’t get the system to work. Sex is no longer interesting in itself, but only as performance.

Fortunately Jim comes to the rescue. He moves a large mirror into the room so that now they can see their reflections. They resume, finding the mirrors a bit kinky as the two couples stare back at each other.

The Plot: Jim becomes increasingly dissatisfied with his life and decides to become actively involved with a group that opposes the military-industrial complex. He begins with slapping posters around the mall and eventually gets involved with sabotaging the defense contractors. Eventually the group decides to attack Laguna Space Research (LSR), the company that Jim’s father works for.

Then it gets complicated and several plot lines converge. The next target is LSR. Since the group attacks installations only at night and only where there are no guards, many companies are putting guards in places they never were before. Surprisingly, LSR suddenly removes the guards from the site where Dennis McPherson is developing his super-weapon. The attack on LSR is set up. Sandy, who also occasionally deals as well as develops drugs, had to dump overboard a shipment of drugs along the coast where LSR is situated. He is told by those who ordered and paid for the drugs that he’s got to go back this night because the police and DEA will be distracted by an attack on LSR.

OVERALL COMMENTS: a complex tale with multiple themes—fathers and sons, the generation gap, the military-industrial complex, the effects of technology on those embedded in it, knowingly or otherwise. Recommended for those looking for a complex tale set in the near future that has some disturbing similarities to our own. Again, it makes no difference which of the three--The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast, or Pacific Edge--you read first.

Joseph Wood Krutch: more from Baja California

2011-08-19T12:11:00.003-07:00

Once again Joseph Wood Krutch opposes the more traditional attitude and, I must admit, makes some interesting points while doing so.

Too long a view in either time or space makes people miss a great deal that is close at hand, and it is my experience that those who are quickly bored in the country are usually those who lack "the microscopic eye," those to whom "nature" means only "scenery," and "scenery" means only "views." Charles Lamb once declared that he would not much care if he never saw another mountain, and, while I would not by any means go so far, I think I know what he meant. To know nature only that way is like knowing a city only by its skyline. To feel the life of either city or country, one must be actually in it, aware of the excitement and variety of individual lives. People are often blamed because they cannot see the wood for the trees, but that does not seem to me so bad as not seeing trees for the wood.

Several Eastern philosophies talk about mindfulness, which, roughly speaking, means living in the present. Too many people, according to Buddhists and Taoists, spend too much time going over the past and worrying about the future. Instead, we should focus on the present, we should live now, and we should be aware of what we are now doing and where we are now.

"When eating a peach, eat the peach."
Anon

Something to think about:

2011-08-16T15:02:00.005-07:00

1.3

Like students of art who walk around a great statue, seeing parts and aspects of it from each position, but never the whole work, we must walk mentally around time, using a variety of approaches, a pandemonium of metaphor. No insight or association, however outlandish or contradictory, should be forbidden us; the only thing forbidden should be to stand still and say, "This is it."

-- Charles Grudin --
from Time and the Art of Living

Sometimes I understand Grudin and sometimes I don't. This is one of those "don't" times.

I know what a statue is, and I know what the students are walking around, but what do students of time "walk mentally around"?

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XLV

2011-08-15T13:17:00.004-07:00

Quatrain XLV is one of those rare quatrains that disappear after the first edition. So far, I think only one other quatrain was dropped completely and never returned.

First Edition: Quatrain XLV

"But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee."

The first two lines of this quatrain echoes two earlier quatrains, IX and XXVI, in which the poet/narrator invites the reader to leave all this behind:

Quatrain IX:
"But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot:"

Quatrain XXVI:
"Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To Talk; . . ."

I don't remember whether this pattern shows up in later quatrains, but I wouldn't be surprised. It has been used by other poets for one can find it among English Renaissance poetry and contemporary poetry as well. T. S. Eliot begins "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" with Let us go then, you and I. It's meant to draw the reader into the poem and to the way of the narrator's thinking.

The narrator wants the reader to leave this unpleasant place where the Wise wrangle and to let be the quarrel of the Universe, and although he refers to the quarrel of the universe, I suspect he really means the wrangling of the Wise and their quarrel about the nature of the universe.

The last two lines are rather strange, and I wonder if these lines are the cause of this quatrain's disappearance in later editions.

And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee."

"Hubbub" refers back to "wrangle" and "quarrel." "Coucht" is an archaic term, one of whose meanings is "to lie in ambush or concealment: lurk," and this seems to fit the idea of hiding away from the fuss in a corner, unnoticed, one could hope.

The last line, however, suggests something more than a simple attempting to avoid notice or to escape the wrangling--"Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee." To me, this implies striking back in some way at those who are making a game of thee--playing with thee for amusement or entertainment-- or perhaps making light of what happens or being amused by it. We should not take what happens to us too seriously--it is all a game. Perhaps Shakespeare is saying the same thing here:

"All the world's a stage

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts."

This monologue, from As You Like It--Act II, scene 7, ends with "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." And, we see this echoed in the last line of Quatrain XXIII, "Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!"

We are actors playing many roles--with many entrances and many exits--and even though we may die, there will be more plays and more roles and more games.

The question is, of course, is just who is making a Game of thee. Is it God? And, if so, the last line certainly doesn't encourage us to take God's plan seriously, if it makes a Game of thee, a work of entertainment.

Another meaning of game is an activity with specified rules and regulations and a way of determining a winner. Are we involved in this sort of Game?

Or should we simply take another cup of wine and leave all this wrangling behind us.

Something to think about:

2011-08-11T09:49:00.004-07:00

The mass of people believe their judgements to be their own. They get very offended when it is suggested that they have actually received them ready-made from others and have simply been puppets of popular opinion all their lives. They speak in the current jargon and dress in the latest fashion--not from any personal sense of style but just to fit in. And these servile imitators actually believe they are self-determining. How ridiculous! This is an incurable sickness because people are convinced that they are not suffering from it. It is a universal madness, because everyone is infected. It is, therefore, a complete waste of time for me to try to return people to their own intrinsic instincts. Oh Well!

-- Chuang Tzu --
from Taoist Wisdom
Timothy Freke, editor and trans.

Chuang Tzu seems to believe that this is a universal trait, that all people are this way. I think there are many who simply follow the crowd, but it's hard to distinguish between those who are just trying to fit in and those who have reached the same conclusions on their own. How does one know which is which?

Otomo no Yakamochi (718?--785 AD): a lament

2011-08-10T14:34:00.004-07:00

I think I've said this before, but just in case I haven't, I'm always surprised as I read poems and stories from various cultures and times at the universality of certain themes. It's almost as if these were part of our DNA. In how many stories and poems that you have read have the themes of the following poem appeared? The shortness of life? The transitoriness of all around us? Nature as an exemplar?

A lament on the ephemerality of life

The life a man leads
is but a transient affair:
so it has been said
through all the generations
since the ancient time
when heaven and earth began.
Observed from afar
on the broad plain of heaven,
the radiant moon
sometimes waxes, sometimes wanes;
so, too, with treetops
in the foot-wearying hills:
when springtime arrives
they glow with blossom's beauty,
and in the autumn
their leaves of many colors
are touched by dew and frost
and scatter before the wind.
The life of a man
seems to be no different.
The pink flush of youth
fades from the complexion,
the raven tresses,
black as leopard-flower seeds,
take on a new hue;
the morning smile dies at dusk.
I am powerless
to hold back the tears that fall
like a flooding rain
when I think of man's transience,
of how he declines
with changes invisible
as a blowing wind,
with changes unremitting
as the flow of a river.

Envoys

It is precisely
because all is transient
that even mute trees
put forth blossoms in springtime
and in autumn shed brown leaves.

When I contemplate
the brevity of man's life,
I am indifferent
to worldly things: how many
are the days I spend in thought!

-- Otomo no Yakamochi --

from Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology
Steven D. Carter, trans.

This poem was written some twelve hundred years ago in a different culture, but I don't think one needs a degree in literature to understand it completely.

Loren Eiseley: from The Immense Journey

2011-08-08T21:05:00.004-07:00

One of Loren Eiseley's recurring themes is that evolution has not stopped with us. Some evolutionists appear to resemble creationists in this: they have replaced the dictum that God has created us as the pinnacle of Its creation with Evolution has brought us forward as Its supreme achievement. The following is a quotation from the essay "The Snout" in The Immense Journey. The Snout is Eiseley's nickname for the creature who lived in water but was also able to travel for a short distance on land to reach another pond.

We teach the past, we see farther backward into time than any race before us, but we stop at the present, or, at best, we project far into the future idealized versions of ourselves. All that long way behind us we see, perhaps inevitably, through human eyes alone. We see ourselves as the culmination and the end, and if we do indeed consider our passing, we think that sunlight will go with us and the earth be dark. We are the end. For us continents rose and fell, for us the waters and the air were mastered, for us the great living web has pulsated an grown more intricate.

To deny this, a man once told me, is to deny God. This puzzled me. I went back along the pathway to the marsh. I went, not in the past, not by the bones of dead things, not down the lost roadway of the Snout. I went instead in daylight, in the Now, to see if the door was still there, and to see what things passed through.

I found that the same experiments were brewing, that up out of that ancient well, fins were still scrambling toward the sunlight. They were small things, and which of them presaged the future I could not say. I saw only the they were many and that they had solved the oxygen death in many marvelous ways, not always ours.

I found that there were modern fishes who breathed air, not through a lung but through their stomachs or through strange chambers where their gills should be, or breathing as the Snout once breathed. I found that some crawled in the fields at nightfall pursuing insects, or slept on the grass by pond sides and who drowned, if kept under water, as men themselves might drown.

. . . . . . .

Perpetually, now, we search and bicker and disagree. The eternal form eludes us -- the shape we conceive as ours. Perhaps the old road through the marsh should tell us. We are one of many appearances of the thing called Life; we are not its perfect image, for it has no image except Life, and life is multitudinous and emergent in the stream of time.

I remember reading once a commentary on Eiseley in which he was characterized as morose, depressing, pessimistic, etc. I have read much in Eiseley and disagree. The above quotation suggests, instead, an optimistic view of life.

Combination Plate 19: An Announcement

2011-08-07T17:33:00.004-07:00

To those, if any, who have been patiently awaiting me to finish Combination Plate 19, my apologies. I hadn't realized that it has been a month since I posted the first commentaries.

It's done.

I have just added a brief commentary on Fred Saberhagen's Changeling Earth, an SF novel, and a nonreview of Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines.

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XLIV

2011-08-07T08:49:00.009-07:00

While it may not look like it, Quatrain XLIV is the sixth and final quatrain in a series that refers to the grape or to wine. This may not have been clear in the first edition, but FitzGerald made a change to the previous quatrain in the second edition, that also appears in the fifth edition, which makes it much clearer.

First Edition: Quatrain XLIV

The mighty Mahmud, the victorious Lord,
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters and slays with his enchanted Sword.

Second Edition: Quatrain LXII

The mighty Mahmud, Allah-breathing Lord,
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.

Fifth Edition: Quatrain LX

The mighty Mahmud, Allah-breathing Lord,
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.

FitzGerald has introduced some interesting changes in the Second Edition, all of which are carried through to the Fifth Edition. As far as I can tell, the Second and Fifth Editions are identical, so whatever differences there may be were inserted in the Second Edition.

In the First Edition, the first line ends with "the victorious Lord," which has been changed to "Allah-breathing Lord." The change, of course, introduces Allah. Mahmud is the "Allah-breathing Lord." In Greek, for example, the word for breath and spirit is the same. In
English, we have several words that have "spir' as a core: "respiration" and "inspiration." "Respiration," of course, refers to breathing, while a theological definition of "inspiration" is "a special influence of a divinity on the minds of human beings."

I see the change as follows: in the first quatrain, the poet gives credit to Mahmud alone--"the victorious Lord"--he is victorious, with no reference to any other person or agency. In subsequent quatrains, Mahmud is inspired by Allah and not only inspired, but so filled with Allah that his breath is infused with Allah.

I think this also influenced FitzGerald's decision to change "his enchanted sword" to "his whirlwind sword" in the Second Edition. "Enchanted" suggests magic, a fantasy, or a fairy tale, while "whirlwind" evokes a more physical or real world, and, also, the relationship of wind and breath. In addition, "whirlwind" also evokes God, for God and "whirlwind" appear together in the Bible in several places, one being in "The Book of Job," where God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind.

Finally, "Scatters and slays" in the First Edition becomes simply "Scatters" in the Second and also the Fifth Edition. I think this reflects FitzGerald's decision to remove it from the realm of fantasy, for one can never really slay the " black Horde/Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul." At best, one can scatter or drive them away, but they always return.

While there are numerous Mahmuds in history, one note I came across said this Mahmud (971-1030 AD) is the one who conquered and ruled what is now Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North-West India.

What has all this to do with grapes and wine? Well, Mahmud scatters "all the misbelieving and black Horde/Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul." This doesn't sound like the foes of a physical conqueror; instead these are the foes of the spiritual self, the soul.

If we think back to the previous quatrain, Quatrain XLIII, we read that the grape can transmute "Life's leaden Metal into Gold." In other words, the grape can change our lives from dull lead to Gold--the grape can improve our lives. The problem is that the last line of Quatrain XLIII , the First Edition,

"The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice
Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute."

ends with a period, which suggests the end of the thought. It breaks the theme off at this point, leaving Quatrain XLIV hanging by itself. In the Second Edition of the previous quatrain, FitzGerald, possibly having recognized the problem, ends the quatrain with a colon, which tells the reader that what follows is in some way related to what precedes the colon.

"The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute:"

The colon in the Second and Fifth Editions, therefore, ties the two quatrains together, so that the two are clearly linked.

The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute:

The mighty Mahmud, Allah-breathing Lord,
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.

Now we see that the Grape that confutes the jarring Sects, that transmutes life's dullness into gold, is also a conqueror of the "Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul." This colon also relates back to the first colon in the quatrain, so that the Grape is now described in three ways: its logic that confutes the jarring sects, its alchemical ability to transmute life's dullness into Gold, and its spiritual power to scatter the soul's fears and sorrows.

This quatrain is one that those who argue for an interpretation of grape and wine into the more theologically acceptable forms of grace or Allah's aid can point to. I can see it either way, although I must still argue that seeing the grape and wine simply as grape and wine is far more consistent with the previous quatrains.

Serendipity: Nietzsche

2011-08-06T17:17:00.004-07:00

Quotations taken from Human, All-Too-Human

83
The sleep of virtue. When virtue has slept, she will get up more refreshed.

I guess a little sinnin' is good for you, at least according to Nietzsche. But, I wonder--are people really more virtuous after engaging in an sinful escapade, or two, or three, or . . .?

184
Untranslatable. It is neither the best nor the worst in a book that is untranslatable.

I included this because I don't understand why he thinks this should be so.

189
Thoughts in a poem. The poet presents his thoughts festively, on the carriage of rhythm: usually because they could not walk.

I've often thought the same about many contemporary music groups: those with the spectacular light shows, colored smoke, strange costumes and hairstyles, and bizarre behavior usually are trying to hide that they are, at best, mediocre performers and/or singers. I guess they hope the audience won't notice how truly bad they really are.

All quotations from Human, All-Too-Human are taken from The Portable Nietzsche, translations by Walter Kaufmann.

Kenko: Essays in Idleness

2011-08-03T20:01:00.004-07:00

Kenko (approx. 1283-1350) is a Japanese Buddhist priest. Kenko was a low-ranking member of the imperial court, but for some unknown reason he left the court.

Essays in Idleness seems to have been written between 1330-1332, after he left the court. The oldest surviving text dates back to 1431, about a century after Kenko composed the 243 short essays that comprise the work. It seems as though it was never published during his lifetime.

It is desirable that a man's face and figure be of excelling beauty. I could sit forever with a man, provided that what he said did not grate on my ears, that he had charm, and that he did not talk very much. What an unpleasant experience it is when someone you have supposed to be quite distinguished reveals his true, inferior nature. A man's social position and looks are likely to be determined at birth, but why should not a man's mind go from wisdom to greater wisdom if it is so disposed? What a shame it is when men of excellent appearance and character prove helplessly inept in social encounters with their inferiors in both position and appearance, solely because they are badly educated.

A familiarity with orthodox scholarship,* the ability to compose poetry and prose in Chinese, a knowledge of Japanese poetry and music are all desirable, and if a man can serve as a model to others in matters of precedent and court ceremony, he is truly impressive. The mark of an excellent man is that he writes easily in an acceptable hand, sings agreeably and in tune, and, though appearing reluctant to accept when wine is pressed on him, is not a teetotaler. (emphasis mine)

-- Kenko --
from Chapter 1
Essays in Idleness

* A note by the translator, Donald Keene
"Scholarship in the Confucian sense -- learning useful in governing a country or of intrinsic moral value."'

An interesting description of "the excellent man" from 14th century Japan. It reminds me somewhat of the European ideal courtier or the Renaissance man.

While he begins with the physical, he then moves quickly to the inner resources of the individual and later suggests that one can't do too much about one's social position or physical appearance, but a good education is something the person can do something about.

I enjoyed his initial comments about a person with physical charm, who didn't say things that grated (content or sound?) on one's ears and who "did not talk very much."

My favorite part is the last sentence--"The mark of an excellent man is that he writes easily in an acceptable hand, sings agreeably and in tune, and, though appearing reluctant to accept when wine is pressed on him, is not a teetotaler.

Would you like to see someone like this in the hallowed halls of Congress or state legislatures or various governors' mansions or the White House?

Serendipity: John Fowles, Wormholes

2011-07-30T02:17:00.005-07:00

I have never really wanted to be a novelist. For me the word carries a load of bad connotations--like author and literature and reviewer, only worse. It suggests something factitious as well as fictitious, insipidly entertaining; train-journeyish. One can't imagine a "novelist" 's ever saying what he actually means or feels--one can hardly even imagine his meaning or feeling.

These words have had connotations because they suggest that in some way writing and being a writer aren't central human activities.

I've always wanted to write (in this order) poems, philosophy, and only then novels. I wouldn't even put the whole category of activity--writing--first on my list of ambitions. My first ambition has always been to alter the society I live in; that is, to affect other lives. I think I begin to agree with Marx-Lenin: writing is a very second-rate way of bringing about a revolution. But I recognize that all I am capable of is writing. I am a writer. Not a doer.

Society, existing among other human beings, challenges me, so I have to choose my weapon. I choose writing; but the thing that comes first is that I am challenged.

--John Fowles --
from Wormholes

Wormholes is a collection of John Fowles' non-fiction writings: "essays, literary criticism, commentaries, autobiographical statements, memoirs, and musings." The quotation is the very first lines of the work. It's quite a surprise to read that one of the premiere English novelists (or so I regard him) "never really wanted to be a novelist." He's a revolutionary who doesn't believe the pen is mightier than the sword, yet found that his best weapon is the pen.

Are his novels really the response to challenges from society?

Some novels by John Fowles: The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Magus, The Collector, The Ebony Tower, and Daniel Martin.

Something to think about

2011-07-28T19:36:00.004-07:00

3

That we pursue something passionately does not always mean that we really want it or have a special aptitude for it. Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. It is usually safe to predict that the fulfillment of an excessively cherished desire is not likely to still our nagging anxiety.

In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.

-- Eric Hoffer --
from The Passionate State of Mind

Well, one part that I can agree with is that even getting what we want doesn't satisfy us for long.

Do we often go after substitutes instead of what we really want?

Is the chase more important than the capture or the acquisition? Or, possibly another way to ask: Is the journey more important than the destination?

Joseph Wood Krutch: Baja California

2011-07-26T13:28:00.005-07:00

Joseph Wood Krutch's Baja California and the Geography of Hope is a very unusual book, in that it's hard to explain just what it is. It's a Sierra Club Publication (copyright 1969), and my copy is a large format paperback book. It's getting rather decrepit, so one of these days I'm going to search for a hard back copy.

It has text by Krutch, some of which comes from other works by him, photos by Eliot Porter, and lines of poetry by Octavio Paz, translated by Muriel Rukeyser. The color photographs are taken in Baja California. I don't know if Paz's poetry is specifically about Baja, but they do seem to be about a desert landscape, so they are appropriate. I'm doing a search now for the book from which Paz's poetry was taken to see if I can learn more. Krutch's text varies: some of the commentaries are about Baja while some seem more to be inspired by Baja than specifically about Baja California.

I am going to make several posts about the book over the next few weeks. Rather than attempting to tell you about the book, I'm going to let Krutch speak for himself. He does a far better job than I ever could. Baja California and the Geography of Hope is part travelogue, part philosophical musings, part societal commentary, and part . . .?

"I can understand how an astronomer may conclude that God is a mathematician. The planets seem to know where they are going and what they are about. Theirs is a formal, unvarying dance which moves in accord with an abstract scheme of delightful regularity; and the mathematical physicist seems to have discovered that the microcosm is, despite the disturbing presence of certain principles suggesting indeterminacy, a good deal like its big brother the system of heavenly bodies. But the world of living things exhibits no such co-operation of part with part, no such subordination of the unit to the whole. The God who planned the well-working machines which function as atom and solar system seems to have had no part in arranging the curiously inefficient society of plants and animals in which everything works against everything else; and the struggle between, let us say, the mouse which would continue its species and the owl which would feed its young goes on inconclusively millennium after millennium."

-- Joseph Wood Krutch --

Los huesos son relampagos
en la noche del cuerpo.
Oh mundo, todo es noche
y la vida es relampago.

Our bones are lightning
in the night of the flesh.
O world, all is night,
life is the lightning.

-- Octavio Paz --

There is much talk today about disturbing the balance of nature or the web of nature or ecological networks, while others use system theory when they talk about the environment. Are these really out there in the environment, in nature, or are these abstract constructs applied by us? I wonder if we lose anything by using these models.

Edgar Allan Poe: "The Black Cat"

2011-07-24T13:57:00.008-07:00

"For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not--and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified--have tortured--have destroyed. me. Yet I will attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror--to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place-- some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects."

This is the opening paragraph of one of my favorite Poe tales, "The Black Cat." This tale can be read in a variety of ways. Most often it is printed in a collection of supernatural horror stories. It can also be seen as the ravings of a madman. Another way, and my favorite, is as a story told by a sane man who has concocted a mix of fact and fiction, designed to convince the reader that the teller is mad and therefore should not be executed by reason of insanity.

"The Black Cat" is one of a group of tales by Poe that I call "1st person confessionals." It's been awhile since I read all of Poe's stories, so there may be some that I have missed, but for now, I put four stories in that category: "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Tell-tale Heart," and "The Imp of the Perverse." (See my post on May 17, 2009 for some comments on this story and Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground).

1. All four are told in the 1st person.
2. All four are murderers.
3. All four are now revealing the whole story.
4. All four were driven by uncontrollable forces to commit their crimes.

The problem is that these are first person narratives. They cannot be evaluated in the same way as a third person narrative. The third person narrator can be trusted since the third person narrator is outside the story and, therefore, has no reason to deceive or mislead the reader. The first person narrator, however, is inside the story, may be involved in the events, and therefore may have solid reasons for deceiving the reader or listener. The reader must evaluate the story in the same way any person's story would be judged--on the basis of what is known about the teller, the teller's possible motivation, and the likelihood of the story itself. How likely or unlikely are these events? Can these events by verified by other sources?

To begin, what is your reaction to the first paragraph of the story which I just quoted? How does it strike you? Notice that the teller contradicts himself throughout. First, he calls the story "wild" and then immediately afterwards, calls it "homely." It's as if he can't make up his mind as to how he wishes to present the tale so that it would be most convincing: is it "wild," a "Horror," "terrible," a "Phantasm"? Or "homely," "mere household events," "common-place," "an ordinary succession of very natural causes and events"? How could the reader avoid being sympathetic to the teller who is so completely confused by this inexplicable series of events?

What do we know about the teller? He obligingly fills in a bit of his background: "From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. " He was lucky in his choice of a spouse for he tells us that "I married early and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own."

What happened to turn this genial, kindly, docile, and humane person into the monster that he reveals later in the story? "The Fiend Intemperance --through which my general temperament and character . . . experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them." It was the "Fiend Intemperance"-- a demon outside him that controlled him. He is not responsible.

He now proceeds to tell the reader the events that lead him to his cell, and the gallows in the morning. His story regarding the mutilation of his first cat doesn't sound reasonable. He is very drunk when he comes home and decides to cut out the cat's eye. Cutting out an eye requires considerable coordination. Could someone drunk really do that? Gouge or stab the eye perhaps, if he got lucky, but, imagine holding a struggling cat in one hand while very drunk and trying to cut out an eye? Not too likely I should think. He may have done it, but I don't think he was drunk when he did it. And, of course, we have only his word for this. Who else could confirm that this happened?

The second and most ridiculous? unbelievable? impossible? unlikely? series of events takes place when the house burns down. In the morning, most of the house is destroyed except for the wall behind the bed, where appeared "as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous. There was a rope about the animal's neck." How can this be explained?

It's simple. He relates that he had killed Plato, the cat, by tying a rope around its neck and hanging it in the garden. When the house caught fire, people had rushed into the garden and attempted to waken him by taking the hanging corpse of the cat and throwing it through the window. It then struck the newly plastered wall with such force that it was covered by dripping plaster.

Is it really plausible that one would kill a cat by hanging it from a tree? And, is it really likely that someone would cut down the corpse of a cat hanging from a tree and throw it through the bedroom window in hope of awaking the occupants when the house was on fire? Or, is it more likely he had killed the cat and had plastered it in the wall to see if that was possible, as perhaps an experiment of some sort?

The third series of unlikely events culminates in the death and burial of his wife. He asks his wife to accompany him on some household errand (never explained) downstairs into the basement, where he is nearly tripped up by the second cat. Enraged he raises his axe (which he conveniently just happens to carrying--perhaps for that household errand?) to kill the cat, but his wife interferes and enraged, he kills his wife instead. Fortunately for him, there was a false wall in the basement which he could easily remove and place his wife's corpse in the opening. There he buries her and plasters up the wall. Again, I have some serious doubts about his tale of what happened.

I think Poe has created a fascinating narrative in which a sane man attempts to convince the reader that he is mad, and at the same time provides, through inconsistencies, evidence of his sanity. As for the mysterious events about the cat, well, what witnesses are there to corroborate his story? His wife?

Serendipity

2011-07-22T20:53:00.009-07:00

Greetings,

Here are two poems that I discovered while slowly working my way through a collection of poetry. In fact the two are on the same page.

The first poem is not really that memorable, except for its title and one line. It's a lament for what we lose as the years pass by. If someone wishes to provide a translation for the title, I will add it to the post and, of course, credit the source.

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam*

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for awhile, and then closes
Within a dream.

-- Ernest Dowson --
(1867-1900)

After rereading it, several times, I think I may take back what I said above. This seems to be one of those quiet poems that slowly and subtly work their magic. That magic line, of course, became the title of a very decent film, and if I'm not mistaken, the theme song from the film was high on the pop charts at that time. It's been a long time since I watched the film, but I feel that the film did capture the poem--that sense of loss--but conveying that ironically by referring to two symbols not usually associated with loss: wine and roses.

The second stanza would be my favorite.

*The following translation of the title and comment are from Steven Pentz, who is the author and owner of the very classy blog First Known When Lost, the address of which is posted following his comment. You can also log on directly by going to the blog list in the column on the right side of this page.

"Fred: the title of Dowson's poem comes from Horace's Odes (I,iv,15). One translation is: "the short span of our life forbids us to indulge in long-term hope." Disclaimer: I did NOT figure this out for myself -- I found it in the edition of Dowson's Collected Poems edited by R.K.R. Thornton (pages 224-225).

http://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/
-------------------------

A contemporary bit of wisdom, which unfortunately by now has become a time-worn and hackneyed cliche, has something to do with taking time to smell the roses. Here's a poem which presents the same idea, but adds something to it.

Leisure

What is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like stars at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

-- William Henry Davis --
(1871-1940)

Today we are more likely to be staring at the lifeless flat screen of a TV set, or a computer monitor, or a mobile phone. Our life is filled with electronic bits and not with our organic brothers and sisters, or even with granite or marble (unless shaved and smoothed).

Both poems are from The World's Best Poems
Mark Van Doren and Garibaldi M. Lapolla, ed.

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XLIII

2011-07-20T11:44:00.005-07:00

This quatrain is the fifth in a series of six linked quatrains that refer to the grape or to wine, and specifically to its superiority to reason and logic.

First Edition: Quatrain XLIII

The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice
Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

Second Edition: Quatrain LXI

The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute:

Fifth Edition: Quatrain LIX

The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute:

There are minimal differences among the three editions. Several nouns go from upper case to lower case in the second and the fifth editions. "Subtle" in the first edition changes to "sovereign" in the second and fifth editions which makes the Grape more of a ruler and supreme. Gold itself was often referred to as the Sovereign Metal. The most significant difference occurs at the end of the fourth line: in the first edition, the quatrain ended with a period, while the second and fifth editions end in a colon. The period indicates that the thought is complete within that quatrain, whereas the colon in the second and fifth indicate that the thought is not complete yet. The colon often tells the reader that what follows the colon will either extend the thought of or provide an explanation for or an example of the idea immediately prior to the colon.

I've read comments that state that the "two-and-seventy sects" refer to all the world's religions. The only point that's not clear is whether Islam is included. Alchemy was the forerunner of chemistry (I suspect some might dispute this), and it's focus was the transmutation of metals into gold. This was to be accomplished by employing the Philosopher's Stone which would change anything it came into contact with into gold. It's not quite clear just what the Philosopher's Stone was supposed to be, probably because no one ever found or created it.

Again, the narrator puts forth the theme that religious disputations are a waste of time, and that one would be wiser and happier drinking wine. Wine's "Logic absolute" is superior to the contending religious groups, for it is impossible to debate anything with one who has imbibed a considerable amount of alcohol.

Serendipity

2011-07-17T10:23:00.007-07:00

This seems strangely familiar. It's probably as true today as it was over five hundred years ago and no doubt as true as it has been throughout human history.

"I should readily excuse in our people the having no other pattern and rule of perfection than their own manners and customs; for it is a common fault, not of the vulgar only, but of almost all men, to aim at and abide in the manner of life to which they are born. . . But I complain of their special lack of discernment in allowing themselves to be so cheated and blinded by the authority of present usage, that they are capable of changing ;their opinions and judgements every month, if custom so pleases, and that they form such diverse judgements about themselves. When they wore the busk of the doublet between the breasts, they maintained by vigorous arguments that it was in its proper place. Some years later, lo, it has dropped down to between the thighs; they jeer at the former fashion, declare it unbecoming and unbearable. The present style of dressing makes them incontinently condemn the earlier style, with so great a determination and so universal an accord, that you would say that it is some sort of mania that turns their understanding about. Because our changing is so sudden and so swift in this respect, that the inventive powers of all the tailors in the world could not supply enough novelties, it is inevitable that the despised styles should often come again into fashion, and the others themselves soon after fall into disrepute; and that the same judgement may, in the course of fifteen or twenty years, adopt two or three, not simply different, but quite contrary, opinions with an incredible inconsistency and fickleness. There is no one of us so keen of wit that he does not allow himself to be fooled by this contradiction, and his inner as well as his outer eyes to be unconsciously dazzled."

Michel de Montaigne
from Chapter XLIX Of Ancient Customs
The Essays of Montaigne

I would disagree with Montaigne only about the length of time involved. It may have been a few years when he wrote this, but today, fashions change every year, or less. And it's equally true in politics, as well as for celebrities, songs, books . . .

Joseph Wood Krutch and the Boogum Tree

2011-07-12T08:25:00.003-07:00

The boogum tree is one of the oddest trees on the planet and is found mainly in Baja California. Following are some comments by Joseph Wood Krutch about the boogum.

"One finds the boogum wild only in Lower California. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I should not believe it, for it is far more improbable looking as a tree than the giraffe is as an animal. Whether it was christened by some admirer of Lewis Carroll or whether some accident of convergence is responsible for the fact that even the gravest botanical treatises call it by a name which occurs elsewhere only in The Hunting of the Snark, I do not know. In any event, the name is gloriously appropriate because the boogum tree looks far more like something out of Alice or the Snark than like any real tree.

Speaking of the strawberry, Dr. William Butler, a worthy who was one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, made the sage remark, 'Doubtless God could have made a better berry but doubtless God never did.' Doubtless he could have also made a queerer tree than the boogum, but if He did I have never heard of it.

What one sees when one undertakes to contemplate it is an inverted, green-backed cone, six or eight feet high and with the proportions of a carrot. The general effect is rather like a huge taproot that has for some reason grown up into the air instead of down into the earth. From this cone scattered twigs a few inches long project foolishly in all directions. At some seasons a few futile leaves dangle from these twigs, though they were bare when I saw them. Only another Lewis Carroll word will do to describe it; like the borogoves in Alice, it is "mimsy"--which, as Humpty-Dumpty explains, means both flimsy and miserable.

So inelegant a solution of a problem is seldom achieved or at least seldom persisted in by Nature, who may not be infallible but who has buried most of her mistakes in geologic time, where this one ought to have been forgotten along with some of the equally inadvisable animals who had their regrettable day. The essayist Charles D. Stewart once analyzed the orthodox tree "as an invention," but he did not mention this one which, so far from being a credit to the inventor, looks like one of those unbelievable triumphs of no ingenuity exhibited by the patent office in hopes of raising a smile. To see three of these vegetable monstrosities together--and three together I have seen, one like a chunky carrot, the other two foolishly elongated--is to suspect that some of nature's journeymen had made trees and not made them well, they imitated an organism so abominably. If the time ever comes when the desert no longer seems to me at all strange, I know how I shall remind myself that it is. I shall imagine a mouse-that-never-drinks [the kangaroo rat] resting in the conical shade of a boogum tree."

Joseph Wood Krutch
from Baja California and the Geography of Hope

I have seen a boogum tree. It was shortly after I arrived in Tucson to attend the University of Arizona. I was walking about the campus and came across a small desert garden with several types of cacti and mesquite trees. There was also some thing else there which I knew had to be a boogum. I had never seen one before, but I had read a description of the tree. Nothing else would dare look like that.

Combination Plate 19

2011-07-08T09:10:00.010-07:00

Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and endings.

Ken Grimwood: Replay, an SF novel

Edith Wharton: A Son at the Front, a novel

Anthony Trollope: The Last Chronicle of Barset, a novel

Fred Saberhagen: Changeling Earth, an SF novel

Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, a nonreview

-------------------------
Ken Grimwood's Replay has to be one of the most unusual time-traveling novels I've read. It's the answer to the commonly asked question--"What would you do if you could go back in time and do it all over again, knowing what you know now?" It's also closest to Audrey Niffenegger's novel, The Time Traveler's Wife, for in both works the time travelers have no control over their movements. However, where the time traveling seemed to be completely random events in Niffenegger's book, there is a very strict pattern in Grimwood's novel.

Jeff Winston, a successful forty-three year old business has a heart attack at the office and dies at 1:06 PM on October 18, 1988. He knows that he is having an heart attack and dying. When he regains consciousness, he decides he hadn't died after all. But . . .

Confused, he sees the date on the cover of a news magazine--May 6, 1963. Winston discovers that he has returned to his 18 year-old self. His body is that of an eighteen year old, but he retains all of his memories. He now has a chance to do it again, knowing now what will come.

He uses his knowledge as one might predict. He bets on sporting events and political races and the stock market. He becomes a very rich man. However, he also remembers his heart attack at the relatively early age of forty-three. This he feels he can change also, with a healthy diet and regular exercise and the best medical care he can afford, and he now can afford the best. Shortly before the day that he had first suffered the heart attack, he gets a complete medical checkup and it told by the doctor that he is in excellent health. However, he again suffers an heart attack at the same age as his first trip and dies.

He again regains consciousness and finds himself back in 1963, but, a short time later than his first trip. He hadn't gone back quite as far this time. And, this was to be the pattern. He would die at age forty-three and return to an earlier stage in his life, but always a bit later than his previous reincarnation. The result is quite startling: each time he suffers an heart attack and goes back into the past, the period becomes shorter and shorter, and unless there is some change, he can see that at some point there will weeks, then days, then hours between his death and his resurrection.

Eventually he meets two others who share his situation--a young woman and a man--both of whom are quite different. During one of his trips, he attempts to change historical events by letting others know, and this has results completely unforeseen by him.

It's an interesting story, with no SF or Fantasy elements present, except of course for the strange form of time travel which allows him to live his life, or that period of it, again, and again, and again. . .each time with a chance to answer the question: "What would you do if you could do it over again?

-------------------------

Edith Wharton: A Son at the Front

This novel is quite different from most of Edith Wharton's works. It is set, for the most part, in Paris, and not in New York. The novel begins just days before the beginning of World War I. The focus is less on the actual fighting and more upon the war's effects on those who are part of what is called the Home Front. These are the people who will not see combat directly but will be affected by the war regardless.

John Campton is an American painter who has lived for many years in Paris. He is divorced and his wife has remarried. His wife got custody of their son, George. Now, John and his son are going to take a trip, and then George will leave for the US and his new job. It may be the last time he will see his son for a long time.

However, just as George arrives in Paris, WWI breaks out. Since George was born in France, he has dual US/French citizenship. Within a day of the outbreak of hostilities, France orders a callup of all eligible males which includes George.

While John can't prevent his son from being drafted, he does his utmost to keep George out of combat. Ironically, he finds his greatest and most influential ally to be Anderson Brant, his wife's second husband, whom he dislikes intensely.

While the novel focuses on the Comptons, their story is embedded in a tapestry that depicts life in Paris during the War--those who sacrifice their time and energy and wealth in support of France and its soldiers and also those who use the situation to profit from it.

This is not one of Wharton's best novels. The war dominates the plot, which leads to a weak story line, with little of the subtlety and complexity of characterization and plot that typifies most of Wharton's works.
-------------------------

Anthony Trollope: The Last Chronicle of Barset

This the sixth and final novel in the Barchester series. It's also, I think, the longest in the series, comprising 700+ pages of small print. This is understandable as Trollope attempts to finish the series. In this work are most of the major characters that were featured in the earlier five novels: the Grantlys, Mr. Harding and his daughters and their husbands, Frank Gresham, the Thornes, Johnny Eames, Lily Dale, and Augustus Crosbie, along with the Crawleys and the Proudies, and various others.

The featured families are the Grantlys and the Crawleys. Josiah Crawley, the poverty-stricken, inordinately proud and insanely obstinate curate of Hogglestock, is at one of the centers of the novel, along with Johnny Eames and Lily Dale.

Crawley has been accused of stealing a twenty pound check (the equivalent in purchasing power today of $1900+). The repercussions of this go far beyond his own possible imprisonment, for his daughter Grace is all but engaged to Henry Grantly, the son of Archdeacon Grantly. The archdeacon is appalled at the thought of his family being connected to the daughter of a thief and has threatened to cut off his stipend and disinherit him by leaving his estate to his oldest son.

Mrs. Proudie, the domineering wife of Bishop Proudie, decides to get involved (this is not unusual for her as she considers herself to be the moral and social leader of the community) and harasses Bishop Proudie to assume more ecclesiastical powers than he has and remove Crawley even before his civil trial. She comes to a fitting end, and only those who regret having no one to hate in the novel will miss her. The narrator does try to point out her virtues, but as the narrator admits, it's probably to late to attempt any sort of rehabilitation in the mind of the reader.

The second thread is that of Johnny Eames' courtship of Lily Dale. In a previous novel, he had just reached the point of proposing to Lily when Augustus Crosbie appears and in a whirlwind courtship gets her to fall in love with him. However, within a week of their announced engagement, Crosbie breaks it off for an engagement to a heiress (Lily will bring no money to the union, and Crosbie needs money to finance his career). Lily, regardless of Crosbie's treatment of her, decides she is in love with him and will be true to his memory for the rest of her life.

In the Last Chronicle, Johnny hasn't given up hope and continues his courtship. Then Augustus reappears (his wife has conveniently died shortly after their marriage). He says he is still in love with Lily, now realizes his mistake, and wants to know if there's any hope for him.

The major problem with the work is its predictability. Trollope has already told us in a previous novel the outcome of the Johnny Eames--Lily Dale courtship. Since goodness usually wins out, Crawley will be vindicated; the only question is how he got the check and why he thought it was his. He thought he got it from his friend, the Dean, but the Dean insists he never gave him the check.

Once the problem of the theft is resolved, then the young lovers, Henry and Grace, will be able join their lives in eternal wedded bliss. Since the young lovers in Trollope always overcome the obstacles, they will be united at the end, and therefore, the problem of the theft will be resolved some way.

Overall, It's a massive work and requires a decent set of notes and what is especially needed is a listing of the characters and the roles they played in the previous novels. While the novel probably can be read without the others, I would strongly recommend reading the others to get the full flavor of the work. As a concluding work for the series, I would say that it's successful.

-------------------------

Fred Saberhagen: Changeling Earth, an SF novel

This is not one of Saberhagen's best novels. It was first published in 1973 and according to my edition, it has had ten printings. So, it has a very good publishing history. It's an action-oriented tale set in the far future, after a catastrophic war between the East and the West.

Being set so far in the future, little details remain of the war, but the conflict goes on, between two factions, the Empire of the East, and small groups of rebels. The weapons are medieval, and some combatants, wizards, etc., have magic powers--dark magic and white magic--as well as the ability to call up spirits in times of need. There is even a magic talisman that both sides recognize as being powerful in some unknown way.

The Empire of the East has the talisman, but shortly after the beginning of the novel, a small band of rebels infiltrate a guarded compound and steal the talisman with the aid of a slave who is the maid to the consort of one of the high ranking officials in the Empire. The remainder of the story is of the pursuit of the rebels by the forces of the Empire, and the struggle by those holding the talisman to gain a sanctuary somewhere in the North, a place where the source of the white magic is to be found.

Once the sanctuary is gained, the rebels discover that all is not as it seems. The war between the East and the West had actually been directed by AIs on each side of the conflict. Both AIs had launched powerful electro-magnetic beams at each other, and in the collision, demons appeared. Were they created by the collision or released by the collision? That wasn't clear, but they were there and they influenced the course of the war. Those who developed powers on both sides called for a truce and together worked to subdue the most powerful demons. They were successful. But now, one of the wizards of the East decided he was strong enough to call up and control them.

The novel then is the story of the last battle between the East and the West, that had been in hiatus for so many thousands of years.

-------------------------

Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines

This will be something different. I will briefly discuss why I stopped watching this film.

I had enjoyed the first one in the series starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the bad guy. His style of acting fits perfectly the humorless and inhuman nature of the android or robot. There was a plot and a bit of character development and plenty of action. It was enjoyable to turn one's brain to Low and just go along with the story. The special effects were excellent also.

Making the Terminator almost unstoppable added to the fun as one could watch the thing being slowly chopped to pieces as its programming, which did not allow for failure, carried it on to its final destruction. More satisfaction, I think, is provided by the slow demolition of the creature than by simply blowing it up.

I also watched the second Terminator film, when Arnold returns as a good Terminator who is programmed to protect rather than destroy. I didn't enjoy this one as much as it was all action, all car and truck chases, all gun battles, and all explosions and fire and so on. The plot or story emerged only at the end when they attempted to stop the development of the AI that turned on humanity.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started up the DVD of Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines. I soon found out. T1 began when Arnold appears nude and wanders a short distance until he finds a human with clothes. OK, that makes sense. T3 begins the same way, only the nude terminator is a female, attractive naturally. The terminator then wanders out into the street to find a female whom she presumably kills and takes her car and clothing. What is confusing is that the terminator appears in a clothing store and could simply have taken clothing from the store before wandering out.

Once in the car, the terminator begins a search for its targets, the same way T1 began. Then before anything else happens, we are presented with a car chase. It's at that point I decided I wasn't in the mood for another all action, all gunfight, all car chase, all explosion film. I suppose that I will be told that I gave up too soon, that there really was a decent plot or story line that went beyond a race to save some of the targets before the terminator got them all.

I guess it's a prejudice of mine. A film really can't be all that interesting if the director has to begin with a car chase scene. I also gave up on the last of The Lethal Weapon series, which also had a car chase scene in the first few minutes. I have developed several rules now: first, regardless of how good the first in a series is, the rest get weaker the further they get from the original film, and secondly, a good indication of the film's weakness in plot and storyline is how soon the car chase scene is inserted after the opening credits.

Progress Report: 2011 New Year's Resolution

2011-07-08T08:55:00.002-07:00

I made a New Year's Resolution to reduce the number of books in my TBR bookcase by reading two a month. Well, I've reached the half way point, and I should have read twelve books by now. As you can see by the sidebar, I've read only eight books. This doesn't bode well for the project.

However, I still hope that I will be able to catch up by the end of the year. These are the next four I plan on reading. The next one is definitely Kim Stanley Robinson's Pacific Edge. That's the second of the three works in his California Troika. I'm not sure of the order for the rest.

Kim Stanley Robinson: Pacific Edge
Conrad/Ford: The Inheritors
Solzhenitsyn: We Never Make Mistakes
Thomas Mann: The Transposed Heads

Serendipity

2011-07-08T08:24:00.005-07:00

Here's an old favorite that I haven't read in years. And, now that I've just encountered my 73rd birthday, it's becoming a bit more personal.

With Rue My Heart Is Laden

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had.
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.

And another which I hadn't read before but which also seems to fit a melancholy mode.

Far In A Western Brookland

Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By ponds I used to know.

There, in the windless nighttime,
The wanderer, marveling why,
Halts on the bridge to hearken
How soft the poplars sight.

He hears: long since forgotten
In fields where I was known,
Here I lie down in London
And turn to rest alone.

There by the starlit fences,
The wanderer halts and hears
My soul that lingers sighing
About the glimmering weirs.

Both poems are by Alfred E. Houseman (1856--1936). They seem more appropriate for a late gloomy fall day, rather than a blistering hot day in summer.

Serendipity

2011-07-05T22:25:00.003-07:00

I think I would vote for him.

Montaigne quotes King Seleucus: "'he who knows the weight of a sceptre would not stoop to pick it up if he found it lying on the ground.'

Montaigne then goes on to say: "he [King Seleucus] said it thinking of the heavy and painful duties which are incumbent on a good king. Surely it is no small matter to have to govern others, when so many difficulties present themselves in governing ourselves. In this matter of commanding, which seems so delightsome, I am strongly of the opinion, --in view of the frailty of man's judgement and the difficulty of choice among novel and doubtful things, --that it is much easier and pleasanter to follow than to lead, and this it is great peace for the mind to have simply to pursue a beaten track and to be responsible for oneself alone.'"

Michel de Montaigne
Chapter XLII, Of the Inequality Between Us
The Essays of Montaigne
trans. George B. Ives

Who would be the ideal candidate? I would choose one who didn't want the job, but who would do his or her best, and then try to get out as quickly as possible.

Serendipity

2011-07-01T19:37:00.003-07:00

This is something new I've decided to try out. Some might call it blog clutter, but I prefer "Serendipity," which one source defines as "Good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries." What this means here is that during my reading, I frequently come across poems, comments, quotations, even an occasional fact or two that I find interesting, and so I will post them here, more or less regularly.

My first Serendipity entry is a poem by Alexander Pope:

Ode on Solitude

Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Bless'd who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day;

Sound sleep by night: study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please,
With Meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

-- Alexander Pope --

He's not asking for too much, is he? Just the simple things in life, the basic necessities.

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XLII

2011-06-30T10:25:00.004-07:00

Quatrain XLII is the fourth in a series of six linked quatrains, joined by references to the grape or wine.

First Edition: Quatrain XLII

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas-- the Grape!

Second Editioin: Quatrain LX

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas-- the Grape!

Fifth Edition: Quatrain LVIII

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas-- the Grape!

I can see only one difference among the three editions--the substitution of "shining" in the second edition for "stealing" in the first edition. The fifth edition is identical to the second edition. "Stealing through the Dusk" suggests a surreptitious movement, involving something illicit or perhaps immoral. And that's not an angel but "an Angel Shape", which could be an Angel from God or perhaps one of the fallen angels, a tempter in other words. This would fit nicely with "stealing through the Dusk." Alcohol, in any of its forms, definitely could be a temptation, especially to Moslems who were forbidden to drink alcohol, if I'm not mistaken.

The change, however, from "stealing" to "shining" is perplexing. It transforms the suggestion of something in the first edition that is best kept hidden to the complete opposite in the later editions--to something "shining" in the Dusk, and something the shines in the Dusk is even more obvious or noticeable than something shining in daylight. This leads us back to the second and third quatrains which mention a Tavern and dry customers clamoring for the door to open.

Perhaps a later quatrain might clarify the confusion here, or perhaps the confusion is a local confusion only--in me.

Paul Lawrence Dunbar: June 27, 1872--Feb. 07, 1906

2011-06-27T00:59:00.004-07:00

A simple poem, almost childish, until the last stanza.

The Poet and His Song

A song is but a little thing,
And yet what joy it is to sing!
In hours of toil it give me zest,
And when at eve I long for rest;
When cows come home along the bars,
And in the fold I hear the bell,
As Night, the shepherd, herds his stars,
I sing my song, and all is well.

There are no ears to hear my lays,
No lips to lift a word of praise;
But still, with faith unfaltering,
I live and laugh and love and sing.
What matters yon unheeding throng?
They cannot feel my spirit's spell,
Since life is sweet and love is long,
I sing my song, and all is well.

My days are never days of ease;
I till my ground and prune my trees.
When ripened gold is all the plain
I put my sickle to the grain.
I labor hard, and toil and sweat,
While others dream within the dell;
But even while my brow is wet,
I sing my song, and all is well.

Sometimes the sun, unkindly hot,
My garden makes a desert spot;
Sometimes a blight upon the tree
Takes all my fruit away from me;
And then with throes of bitter pain
Rebellious passions rise and swell;
But--life is more than fruit or grain,
And so I sing, and all is well.

The poet/narrator is a hard-working farmer, and his songs help him through the day and through the hard times. But, the last two lines

"But--life is more than fruit or grain,
And so I sing, and all is well."

suggest something more profound than simple escapism.

George Orwell: Rules on writing well

2011-06-23T04:44:00.006-07:00

Here are George Orwell's six basic rules for writing. They are taken from his essay, "Politics and the English Language." If you haven't read the essay, then I strongly urge you to do so. Politicians are still abusing the English language, and I doubt they will ever stop.

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

How well do these rules work? Well, below is an example of Orwell's own prose, taken from a short work titled "Shooting an Elephant," which I also strongly urge you to read. How well does he follow his own rules? Do you think this is an effective piece of writing?

(When a young man, George Orwell joined the colonial police and was stationed in Burma, which was part of the British Empire at that time. One day, a working elephant ran amok, and Orwell as the local police officer was called on for help. He felt forced by his audience to take some definite action, since he was part of the ruling establishment, and had to show them that he was in control of any situation and ready to take necessary action. One couldn't lose face in a situation like this. So, he decided that he had to kill the elephant.)

"When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick--one never does when a shot goes home--but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time--it might have been five seconds, I dare say--he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse, but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head dropping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward lake a huge rock toppling, his truck reaching skywards like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay."

Each time I read this paragraph I can see and feel what Orwell saw and felt. Joseph Conrad in the introduction to one of his novels said that above all what the writer must do is make the reader "see." Orwell succeeds here, at least for me, for I can "see."

Something to chuckle about

2011-06-22T16:09:00.005-07:00

The following comes from The Sayings of Confucius:

The Master said: "The young should be dutiful at home, modest abroad, heedful and true, full of goodwill for the many, close friends with love; and should they have strength to spare, let them spend it upon the arts."

Yes, just like their parents.

Summer Solstice

2011-06-21T08:01:00.009-07:00

It's that time again--the Summer Solstice, the First Day of Summer, and the Longest Day of the Year. I thought the following quotation from Joseph Wood Krutch would be appropriate to begin the day. It is from The Voice of the Desert, and the voice speaks from Tucson, Arizona.

"On the brightest and warmest days my desert is most itself because sunshine and warmth are the very essence of its character. The air is lambent with light; the caressing warmth enfolds everything in its ardent embrace. Even when outlanders complain that the sun is too dazzling and too hot, we desert lovers are prone to reply, 'At worst that is only too much of a good thing.'"

. . . . . .

"It so happens that I am writing this not long after the twenty-first of June and I took especial note of that astronomically significant date. This year summer began at precisely ten hours and no minutes, Mountain Standard Time. That means that the sun rose higher and stayed longer in the sky than on any other day of the year. In the north there is often a considerable lag in the seasons as the earth warms up, but here, where it is never very cold, the longest day and the hottest are likely to coincide pretty closely. So it was this year. On June 21 the sun rose almost to the zenith so that at noon he cast almost no shadow. And he was showing what he is capable of.

Even in this dry air 109 Fahrenheit in the shade is pretty warm. Under the open sky the sun's rays strike with an almost physical force, pouring down from a blue dome unmarked by the faintest suspicion of even a fleck of cloud. The year has been unusually dry even for the desert. During the four months just past no rain--not even a light shower--has fallen. The surface of the ground is as dry as powder. And yet, when I look out of the window the dominant color of the landscape is incredibly green."

Well, today is June 21st, the summer solstice. It hasn't rained for 72 days now, and it looks as though we have a good chance of reaching 80 days if the weekly forecast is accurate. The high for today is predicted to be 102, Wednesday 110, and Thursday 109.

That's Joseph Wood Krutch's thinking about summer. Following are some different reflections.

moonflower,
with a short night's sleep:
daytime

summer in the world:
floating on the lake
over waves

Both haiku are by Basho
Basho's Haiku
trans David Landis Barnhill

SUMMER SOLSTICE

Come, bring the children. Let them
feel for a moment the rhythm
of the hoe. Let them experience
the wonder of green shoots emerging
from earth, earth given us
in guardianship from the Creation.

Body, mind, and spirit full to bursting
with ripe, sweet berries, the first
tender green beans, and corn. We give
thanks, and thanks again. The twin
concepts of Reason and Peace are
seen in each kernel of an ear of corn.

Perhaps we repair our lodges
as do the beavers living close by.
Our children swim like river otters
and as their laughter reaches us,
we join them for a while
in these hottest of summer days.

- Peter Blue Cloud (Aronialwenrate)
Mohawk , b. 1935
from When the Seasons

SUMMER SCHEMES

When friendly summer calls again,
Calls again
Her little fifers to these hills,
We'll go--we two--to that arched fane
Of leafage where they prime their bills
Before they start to flood the plain
With quavers, minims, shakes, and trills.
"--We'll go," I sing; but who shall say
What may not chance before that day!

And we shall see the waters spring,
Waters spring
From chinks the scrubby copses crown;
And we shall trace their oncreeping
To where the cascade tumbles down
And sends the bobbing growths aswing,
And ferns not quite but almost drown.
"--We shall," I say; bug who may sing
Of what another moon will bring!

-- Thomas Hardy --

No. 122

A something in a summer's Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.

A something in a summer's noon--
A depth -- an Azure --a perfume --
Transcending ecstasy.

And still within a summer's night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see --

Then veil my too inspecting face
Lest such a subtle -- shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me --

The wizard fingers never rest --
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes its narrow bed --

Still rears the East her amber Flag --
Guides still the Sun along the Crag
His Caravan of Red --

So looking on -- the night -- the morn
Conclude the wonder gay --
And I meet, coming thro' the dews
Another summer's Day!

-- Emily Dickinson--
from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

SUMMERING

I would arise and in a dream go on--
Not very far, not very far--and then
Lie down amid the sunny grass again,
And fall asleep till night-time or next dawn.

In sleepy self-sufficiency I'd turn;
I 'd seek new comfort and be hard to please--
Far in a meadow by an isle of trees,
All summer long amid the grass and fern.

Forests would have to be all round about,
And the mead silent, and the grass deep,
Else I might not gain such a tireless sleep!
I could not slumber if the wains were out!

-- Robert Frost --

Summer has many faces. Robert Frost's summer is closest to mine. Which one is yours?