Paul Lawrence Dunbar--"We Wear the Mask"

The following information is from the Wikipedia entry about Paul Lawrence Dunbar:

Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life, one poem in the collection _Ode to Ethiopia_. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Paul Laurence Dunbar on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio to parents who had escaped from slavery; his father was a veteran of the American Civil War, having served in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and the 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry Regiment. His parents instilled in him a love of learning and history. He was a student at an all-white high school, Dayton Central High School, and he participated actively as a student. During high school, he was both the editor of the school newspaper and class president, as well as the president of the school literary society. Dunbar had also started the first African-American newsletter in Dayton.

He wrote his first poem at age 6 and gave his first public recital at age 9. Dunbar's first published work came in a newspaper put out by his high school friends Wilbur and Orville Wright, who owned a printing plant. The Wright Brothers later invested in the Dayton Tattler, a newspaper aimed at the black community, edited and published by Dunbar.

This is one of the most powerful poems I have ever read. It has stayed with me for several decades now.


We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be otherwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar -



http://www.dunbarsite.org/

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XI

This quatrain is probably the most often quoted, and also, the most often misquoted, quatrain in The Rubaiyat. FitzGerald, again, made some changes, but these apparently were for aesthetic reasons and not for thematic or philosophical issues.

This is the third quatrain of what I consider to be a unit of three quatrains that are closely tied together. In Quatrain IX, Khayyam tells us we should leave the philosophical musings that inevitably arise when one considers the now desolate glories of the past and, in Quatrain X, follow him to the borderland between the desert and the cultivated areas. Then in Quatrain XI, he tells us that there we will escape from the cares of everyday life in order to lose ourselves in the simple pleasures of life--wine and bread and verse and song.

First Edition: Quatrain XI

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.



Second Edition: Quatrain XII

Here with a little Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!



Fifth Edition: Quatrain XII

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!


As you can see, the First and the Second Editions are very similar. In the first line of the first version, we are given "a Loaf of Bread," which becomes "a little Bread" in the second version. I prefer "a Loaf" because it seems stronger, more definite, and fits in with the others--"a Flask," a Book," and "Thou." "Little" seems out of place with a Flask and a Book, whereas a Loaf is a single definite item, as are the others.

The second change--from "And Wilderness were Paradise enow" to "Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"-- is one I like. The "and" makes it part of the stanza, something that flows naturally, while "Oh, Wilderness" changes it to a comment on the previous three lines. Old Khayyam looks back and exclaims that the Book, the Flask, and the bread creates "Paradise enow."

I'm still not clear as to the effect of the change from "is Paradise" in the first version to "were Paradise" in the second. Perhaps "were" fits in better with the idea that he's looking back and commenting on it since "were" is in the past tense.

The Fifth Edition version contains some interesting changes:

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow.

FitzGerald rearranges the order of the first two lines and moves the Book to the first line and the Loaf to the second line. He also changes "a little Bread" back to "a Loaf of Bread" as it was in the first version. I think restoring the Loaf is a wise decision. And, "beneath" in the first and second versions now becomes "underneath," a minor change, probably for aesthetic reasons.

In addition, it is now a book of "Verses" (the plural form), rather than a book of "Verse" (either singular or plural) as it was in the first and second editions. Perhaps 'FitzGerald made the change because "Verse" sounds a bit choppy or abrupt in comparison to "Verses" which seems to lead more fluidly to the next word.

In the second line, the "Flask" now becomes a "Jug" which seems to substitute a short abrupt word for the longer sounding "Flask." Perhaps FitzGerald felt he needed a shorter sound here. One other possibility is that a flask suggests a small container suitable for carrying around on one's person, whereas a jug would be a much larger container with enough for several people, a size more logical for a picnic with bread, verse, and song.

FitzGerald keeps the third and fourth lines as they were in the second version.

My preference? I would choose either the first or the fifth versions, mainly because that "little" in the second version seems so wrong. Apparently FitzGerald did also since he changed it back to "Loaf." If forced to choose between the first and fifth, then I would go with the fifth. I like "a Jug of Wine" better than "a Flask of Wine." A jug sounds more informal than a flask, or so it seems to me, which would be more in harmony with a picnic on the edge of the Wilderness.

And your preference would be...?

Jerzy Kosinski's _Being There_, novel and film

I had seen Being There many years ago and was intrigued by it. Recently I found a copy of the novel by Jerzy Kosinski, so I thought it would be interesting to see the film again and compare it with the novel. I decided to watch the film first and then read the novel, for I have found that reading the story first tends to prejudice me against the film version. So, that's the way it happened, and I found the experience very interesting and a bit confusing also.

First, I should point out that the good folks at the International Movie Database site (imdb.com) assert that Jerzy Kosinski not only wrote the novel but that he is also the film's screenwriter. To the usual questions that always arise whenever a book is adapted for film, are added several others. Why did the novelist make these changes in his story? Were they just the usual changes that are made when transferring the story from print to film? Were some of these changes really ones he wished he had made in the novel in the first place? Were they ideas that he had initially rejected when writing the novel or perhaps ideas that came after he had published the novel? Only Kosinski, obviously, can tell us, and I've never read any comments by him about either the novel or the film.

Spoiler Warning: from this point on, I shall be discussing important plot elements and also revealing the endings of both the novel and the film.

The basic plot structure of the novel is retained in the film. Chance (played by Peter Sellers) is an orphan and is taken into a rich man's house. He becomes the gardener. Chance's benefactor dies, and he must leave the house that he hasn't left for some 40 years or more. He has met less than five people up to this point: his benefactor, two maids, and the gardener before him who stayed around only long enough to tell Chance what his duties were. After The Old Man died, Chance then met two more people from the law firm that his benefactor employed. They were the ones who told him he had to leave.

He leaves and is injured, painfully though not seriously, by a limousine owned by the wealthy and powerful Ben Rand. His wife (Shirley MacLaine) was in the vehicle and invited him to stay at their place until his injury, a bad bruise, is healed. Her husband is dying, and they have an extensive medical setup in the house. The doctor is also living there at this time.

Chance, now known as Chauncey Gardiner (she misunderstood his answer to her question regarding his name--Chance, the gardener), moves in and charms both Rands. He meets the US President and impresses him also. Since the President quoted him, Chance then became news and appears on a TV late night show and becomes an instant celebrity. He has two sexual encounters, one homosexual and one heterosexual with Mrs. Rand. His reaction to both is curiosity only, and both realize that he is uninterested in sex.

The power brokers behind the present President then decide that he is a liability and that if they wish to control the White House they must dump him and select someone else. They finally decide on Chauncey as their candidate for President.

That's the bare bones of the story, the novel and the film. What does Chance/Chauncey have that so impresses people? It is his seemingly childlike simplicity and, conversely, his presumed ability to discuss complex issues in a very basic way. He appears to be one who simply and naively says what he thinks at all times. When asked about the dire economic situation (sounds much like today), he responds with an analogy from gardening, the only thing he knows, besides TV. He compares the recession? depression? with the seasons. It is now autumn and time for many plants to die or at least go into a resting state. However, spring will come, and the garden will bloom once again. Some plants will need help while others will survive on their own. This is true also of the present economic situation.

What also is evident is that each person who hears him interprets Chance's statements. Chance is really a mirror in which all see their own faces and all hear what they want to hear. At a party, the Russian ambassador asks Chance if he knows the fables of Krylov. Being agreeable, Chance smiles. The ambassador says something in Russian and Chance laughs. The ambassador immediately assumes that Chance understands Russian and was laughing at what he said.

While the basic plot structure is the same, there are a number of curious changes that are incorporated in the film. I won't discuss those changes that I think are inevitable when going from print to film. A number of the changes, though, are curious.

One of the most important changes is in the depiction of Chance. In the film, he comes across as being almost retarded, socially retarded if not mentally anyway. He speaks as a young child with very simple sentences. "I am glad to meet you...Yes, I am hungry also." He seems to be all surface, and his behavior is always calm and somewhat flat. He also seems to be a reactive sort of person in that he seldom initiates a conversation and usually waits for the other person to begin. He then takes his cues from that person.

However, that's not quite the way he appears in the novel. For example, in the film, gardening and watching TV are the two most important activities in Chance's life. Nothing in the film, however, suggests that watching TV is any more significant for him than it is for any other TV addict. But, Chance has a very clear and distinct idea about his relationship with the TV set:

"By changing the channel he could change himself. he could go through phases, as garden plants went through phases, but he could change as rapidly as he wished by twisting the deal backward and forward. In some cases he could spread out into the screen without stopping, just as on TV people spread out into the screen. By turning the dial, Chance could bring others inside his eyelids. Thus he came to believe that is was he, Chance, and no one else who made himself be."

Chance in the novel is a somewhat more complex person than he is in the film. At several points in the novel, Chance finds himself in a novel situation. Not knowing what to do or say, he decides to act as he has seen others act on TV in similar situations. He is not acting naturally or spontaneously, as it appears on film or to the other characters, but he is putting on a facade that he thinks is appropriate for the situation. For example, during the first morning that Chance finds himself in the Rand mansion, he is still in bed when Mrs Rand (Eve in the film and EE), comes in and begins talking.

"Thinking that he ought to show a keen interest in what EE was saying, Chance resorted to repeating to her parts of her own sentences, a practice he had observed on TV. In this fashion he encourages her to continue and elaborate."

And again, when Chance meets the President--

"Remembering that during his TV press conferences, the President always looked straight at the viewers, Chance stared directly into the President's eyes."

However, TV's limitations are also Chance's limitations. At one point, when EE attempts to seduce him, Chance doesn't know what to do. He had watched many scenes on TV in which males and females kissed and hugged and even started to remove some articles of clothing, but then the scene changed or a commercial came on, so he never knew what came next.

It seems clear to me that throughout the novel, Chance is not just the simple soul he appears to be on the surface, but someone more complex; however just what that is, I don't know. The picture of Chance in the film is different for only near the end of the film does Chance act in a way that suggests something more than the wise sage that others take him to be.

In the film, the doctor (Richard Dyshart) plays a minor role, but a much greater one than he does in the novel. I think he appears several times in the novel, but only to act as a doctor. In the film, though, he is the only one who slowly begins to wonder about Chance, and he begins to do some investigating on his own. He at the end of the film is the only person who knows that Chauncey Gardiner is really Chance, the gardener. What is strange is Chance's comment to the doctor near the end of the film when Benjamin Rand dies. Shortly after Rand's death, Chance says to the Doctor, "You will be leaving now." It is uncertain whether this is a question or a statement. The doctor seems puzzled by it also.

The other curious incident is the ending of the film. Benjamin Rand is alive in the novel, although he has just had a serious relapse, whereas he dies in the film. Rand's associates in both the novel and the film decide to drop their support for the President (whom they feel won't win his reelection bid) and back Chance instead. As far as I can tell, Chance does not know of their decision.

At the ending of the novel, Chance is at a party, and he steps outside on a balcony: "A breeze fell upon the foliage and nestled under the cover of its moist leaves. Not a thought lifted itself from Chance's brain. Peace filled his chest."

In the film, Chance is at the cemetery where he is attending the funeral ceremonies for Ben Rand. At the end, he walks away from the gathered mourners, goes down a hill, and begins to walk across a pond. He appears to be walking on water. He stops in the center of the pond, looks around, and then sticks his umbrella into the water where it sinks in, thus suggesting that the water is at least several feet deep. Who is it that can walk on water? Again, this ending occurs in the film only.

However, even this is strangely ambiguous. Chance leans over and inserts the umbrella about two or three feet from where he is standing, so it is quite possible that he could be standing on a submerged dam or walkway. I wonder why it was chosen to do it this way, for Chance could have inserted the umbrella right by his own feet which would have unequivocally removed this doubt. Perhaps that was the what was wanted--a doubt. But, why?

Overall Impression: a strange novel and film. There are puzzling elements in both. I will read the book and watch the film again. Maybe time will help resolve some of the uncertainties.

The Summer Solstice

Today is the Summer Solstice



Shortest summer night. . .

In early morning, lamps still

Burning on the bay

- Shiki -

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain X

According to A Book of Days for the Literary Year, "Poet and translator Edward FitzGerald (the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam) dies at 74 in Merton, Norfolk" on this day in 1883.

Quatrain LXXV

And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
Where I made one--turn down an empty Glass!
Tamam Shud


I thought it appropriate to quote the last stanza of the First Edition on this day.


Now for Quatrain X

First Edition: Quatrain X

With me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is known,
And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne.



Second Edition: Quatrain XI

With me along the Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot--
And Peace to Mahmud on his Golden Throne?


Fifth Edition: Quatrain XI

With me along the strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot--
And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne!


This quatrain is closely tied to the previous one in which Old Khayyam openly in the First Edition and implicitly in the Second and Fifth invited us to come along with him. That quatrain spelled out what was to be left behind, but not where Khayyam was going. That is the role of this quatrain. We are to go with him to that spot where the desert ends and the cultivated areas begin. Just what we are to do there is left for the next quatrain.

FitzGerald again made some changes that doesn't affect the meaning so much as it modifies the tone to some extent.


The first line: one change
"Some" in the first version becomes "the" in the second and also in the last. The change eliminates the vagueness of the first and makes it appear now as Khayyam had some particular spot along the boundary between desert and cultivated area in mind, perhaps one that he has visited in the past.


The second line: no change from the first to the last edition.


The third line: one change

the first version--"Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is known"
the second and last versions--"Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot--"

I think the first implies that while some do recognize the distinctions between Slave and Sultan, it is for the most part unimportant. Class distinctions, for Slave and Sultan would constitute the bottom and the top of the social structure, don't exist here. The line in the second and fifth versions make a stronger statement--that the distinctions no longer exist or disappear once we have arrived here.


The fourth line: several interesting changes here.

First version And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne.
Second version And Peace to Mahmud on his Golden Throne?
Third version And Peace to Mahmud on his Golden Throne!

The first change is that "pity" is replaced by Peace" in the second and last version. We are no longer to pity Mahmud but to wish him peace. I think "pity" implies some sort of superiority on the part of the one doing the pitying, for we pity those who are somehow less than we are. It is a view from above looking down on someone. This is quite different than wishing someone "Peace" which can be seen as a more positive attitude toward the other. To wish someone "Peace" is to wish that person well.

The second change is the removal of the title of Sultan from the first version and replacing it with "Golden" as a modifier of "Throne," which would most likely indicate that this Mahmud is the Sultan, for who else would dare have a "Golden Throne."

The third change removes that inexplicable question mark at the end of the last line in the second version and replaces it with an exclamation point, which makes, to me anyway, much more sense.


This quatrain is closely related to the previous one as it answers the question of where we are to accompany Old Khayyam. It seems to be a simpler place, right on the border between civilization and the wilderness, where there are few, if any, of the distinctions that are important to the more complicated ways of civilization.

The next question then would be about what we are to do when we arrive at this border land. I guess we'll have to wait for the next quatrain to answer that one.

Basho's eight nameless little hills

Translations frequently pose problems for some readers of works that aren't written in the language of those involved, whether it be a literature class or a discussion group. In order to get the issue out in the open and demonstrate the possibilities, I made up a handout that consisted simply of a number of translations of a haiku by Basho. The point being that if a short poem of seventeen syllables could produce this variety, then a novel or short story could be expected to produce many more "versions."

So, I thought I would provide a number of the translations all based on one haiku by Basho.

Enjoy:

1.
It is spring,
Even nameless hills,
Are decorated
With thin films of morning mist.


2.
Yes, spring has come;
This morning a nameless hill
Is shrouded in mist.


3.
Because spring has come,
This small gray
Nameless mountain
Is honored by mist

4.
This unimportant
small gray mountain is lifted
aloft in a mist.

5.
Spring-- through
morning mist,
what mountain's there?

6.
Spring morning marvel...
Lovely nameless little hill
On a sea of mist


7.
Because of early spring, this nameless hill
Is knee-deep in the gauze of morning still.

8.
Spring!
a nameless hill
in the haze.




Quite a variety generated by only seventeen syllables. All generally have similar elements: a small hill, nameless or not important enough for a name, spring, morning mist or haze.

What differs is the focus of the poem: some on spring or the mist or the hill. Which one is "right"? I don't know, not being able to read Japanese and frankly I think those who could read Japanese probably couldn't agree either.

Which one is your favorite?

For some reason I seem to prefer the even numbered versions, especially 2 and 6.


1. Matsuo Basho: The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Penguin Classics; trans. Nobuyuki Yuasa

2. R. H. Blythe, Haiku: Volume 2, Spring
Hokuseido

3. Haiku Harvest, Peter Piper Press
trans. Peter Beilenson and Harry Behn

4. More Cricket Songs
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
trans. Harry Behn

5. Basho: On Love and Barley
Penguin Classics, trans. Lucien Stryk

6. A Little Treasury of Haiku
Avenel Books, trans. Peter Beilenson

7.Harold Stewart, A Net of Fireflies
Charles F. Tuttle Company

8. Unable to find the source. If anyone
recognizes the text, please let me know.

Philip K. Dick: A SCANNER DARKLY--novel and film

The SF/F book discussion group scheduled Philip K. Dick's (PKD) A Scanner Darkly as one of its selections. I had just learned of the film version, which came out in 2006, so I decided this was a good opportunity to do something I enjoy--reading the book and watching the film.

The novel itself posed problems for some members of the discussion group, for it, in some respects, is not a typical PKD work, although several of his basic themes were present. The novel was published in 1978 and set some years in the future (the film avoids "dating" by stating that it takes place seven years from now, whenever now is). However, the time is really the late 60s and early 70s, in the post Haight-Asbury years, when "the summer of love (1967)" turned nasty as organized crime moved into supplying drugs and government undercover agents were at everybody's elbow, or so the popular myth went.

The very loose plot detailed the efforts of Fred, an Orange County Sheriff's Dept undercover agent, to move his way up the drug chain. He had started out making occasional buys and then increased the size and scope of his purchases. He planned to gradually increase his purchases to the point that Donna Hawthorne, his supplier, could no longer provide him with what he wanted and would consequently introduce him to her supplier. At this point, he would no longer be a user but would move up to being a supplier himself. Eventually he hoped that this would allow him to meet and get evidence against the upper echelon of the drug supply chain, a necessity if one wanted to break up that chain of supply.

The plot, however, is quickly forgotten, as Fred, the undercover narc, gets new orders. A new player has entered the scene--Bob Arctor. He seems to be new in the area, and there's something not quite right about him--there's more to him than just someone trying to break in, and this makes the police curious. Fred is now ordered to concentrate on Bob Arctor. There's a new drug on the scene--Death--it's highly addictive and fatal to addicts in a short time, and so far, no one has been able to get any clue as to its distribution chain. Arctor may be part of that distribution chain, and Fred is supposed to find out. The ironic twist here, and also somewhat satiric on PKD's part, is that Bob Arctor is Fred's undercover identity. He, therefore, has been ordered to spy on himself. A government agent now is spying on his own cover identity.

This is less ludicrous than it sounds--but not much less I admit. The reason this is possible is the presence of what is really the only SF element in the story--the shadow suit. It's a jump suit with a head covering that broadcasts confusing images to others around the wearer. Others can't tell who is inside the suit, but what is known is that it is a member of some law enforcement agency, since they are the only ones who possess this technology, so far. The shadow suit is worn only when the agent is acting as a police officer, inside the police headquarters or perhaps when giving a lecture to some civic group, as Fred is doing when we first meet him. The result is that none of the lower-ranking members of that law enforcement agency know who the undercover agents are, not even the agent's immediate supervisor.

One of the strangest scenes that occurs is when Fred meets with Hank, his supervisor, and both are wearing shadow suits. Neither of them knows what the other looks like, or even their gender. The reason is that everybody knows the police agencies are riddled with corrupt cops, one of whose duties is to learn the identity of the undercover agents. At one point, Hank tells Fred that somewhere up the chain of command somebody knows their identity, but he doesn't know who it is.

This is why Fred can be ordered to spy on Bob Arctor, his alter ego. Hank doesn't know Fred's undercover identity. Arctor's activities are suspicious, but not for the reason Hank thinks. Arctor doesn't seem right because he's an undercover agent.

At this point, the plot disappears. One reason is that Fred/Bob is becoming addicted to Death, and it's slowly "eating his head." He finds it increasingly difficult to handle his two identities. When Fred is on the scene, the reader can see that Fred is finding it difficult to remember that he is also Bob, and he more and more often thinks about Bob as a separate person as the drug effects become stronger. At one point, Fred thinks, "Bob wouldn't be selling Death; he's a nice guy."

The plot seemingly goes nowhere at this point because this really isn't a plot-driven story. It's PKD's homage to the late 60s and the people he know back then. Dick really isn't in the story, although elements in the story come from his own life. Dick was married and had two daughters. His wife divorced him and took the girls, leaving him the house. Bob Arctor had been married, with two daughters, but his wife divorced him and left him the house. Eventually some friends and relatives moved in with Dick and over a period of time, his house became a crash pad for anyone seeking shelter. Many of these were heavy drug users, including, to some extent, Dick himself. The same happened to Arctor.

What we really get is a sense of the way of life for those in the drug culture. There was only one concern, getting drugs. Planning for the future consisted of getting a sufficient stash of drugs to tide one over during the lean times--loosing one's supplier for one reason or another. The story becomes a series of vignettes loosely connected by the characters and their major concerns: the search for drugs and their paranoia regarding the police. Long philosophical discussions that lead nowhere intersperse sporadic bursts of activity involving the search for drugs.

I had watched another film recently, one also dealing with undercover agents. In this film, though, the setting is not the drug scene but the Cold War. It was John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. One very striking parallel between the two was the old adage--I can protect myself from my enemies, but only God can save me from my friends. Both PKD's Fred/Bob and Le Carre's Alec Leamas are brought down by their friends. They are destroyed by the agencies that employ them, for Fred and Alec are deluded into thinking they know what's going on, but the reality is that they are being used to further the ends of the two agencies. Both are ultimately expendable.


What I have said of the novel is also true of the film version of A Scanner Darkly. The film is very true to the novel, and I doubt if any but the most exacting purist would argue with this. Some minor changes have been made, some incidents have been dropped, and the sequence of events has been modified to some extent. But, except for one inexplicable modification involving one of the characters, I would say the film is faithful to the novel, and the animation process, which distorts just enough to make it "unreal," captures the tone of the book and the characters quite nicely. The characters, including the police and the drug culture, live in a world of their own, which is quite removed from the general mundane world, where most get up in the morning, struggle through the day, with traffic and impossible supervisors and co-workers as major concerns, and then return home to get ready for the next day. Rotoscoping makes the world of the film just a bit off from what we would call realistic, familiar but somewhat distorted.

The film is animated by a process known as rotoscoping. The result is that the characters still resemble the actors to a considerable extent, but they clearly are animated. The cast, before I forget, includes Keanu Reeves as Fred/Bob Arctor, Winona Ryder as Donna Hawthorne, Robert Downey, Jr. as Barris, and Woody Harrelson as Luckman.

Another PKD theme found in the novel and the film is that of identity, or rather, loss thereof, for Dick's main characters don't really know their real identities. This confusion is frequently tied in with some sort of government activity. Classic examples of this that have been turned into films are Total Recall, Blade Runner, and this film, A Scanner Darkly.

In Total Recall, a film "inspired" by a PKD short story "We can remember it for you wholesale," Douglas Quaid/Hauser tries to get false memories about a vacation trip implanted but discovers that a whole set of false memories have already been installed, to a degree that only a government agency would have the equipment to do this. He is not whom he thinks he is. In Blade Runner, a film loosely based on PKD's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the question of Rick Deckhard's true identity--human or android-- is left unanswered at the end, although I have participated in "discussions" in which both interpretations have been strongly defended. If Deckhard is an android, then he also has had false memories implanted by a law enforcement agency so he will act as a bounty hunter who must track down and kill runaway androids. And in A Scanner Darkly, Fred finds it increasingly harder to perceive Bob Arctor as himself and as Bob Arctor, may not even remember much of the time that he is also Fred.


Overall rating: Read the book and see the film. Neither will fit most people's expectations, which makes them a valuable reading and viewing experience.


Link to Wikipedia article on the rotoscope technique.

http://tinyurl.com/lo2qh

John LeCarre's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, the novel

Back in April, I posted some commentary on the film version of Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. At the end, I wondered if I would have given the film the maximum rating of Five Stars if I had read the book first. I've come to the conclusion that if I'm to rate a film fairly, as a film that is, I should probably see it before I read the novel. If I read the book first, in most cases I'm unhappy with the film, which I agree, is unfair to the film.

I have now finished Le Carre's novel, and while I don't know what I would have done if I had read it first, I will say that the Five Star rating for the movie still holds. Changes were made, as is necessary in many cases when going from the printed page to film, and in others, I had to wonder why; but overall I would rate the film as being very close to the book in all the important areas: plot, tone, characterizations.

The film's plot followed the novel quite closely with only a few changes and none that caught my attention sufficiently to make it very noticeable. The tone was the same: tense, bleak, and dark. Burton captured Le Carre's Alec Leamas perfectly: cynical, weary, resigned. Graham Greene's architect, Querry, in his A Burnt-Out Case would have found Leamas very compatible.

The only quibble I had, and it's one that I mentioned in the commentary on the film, was that of the characterization of George Smiley. Smiley's role, while minor in the book, was diminished somewhat, which really wasn't that much of a problem. What stood out most was the disparity between the way Smiley was played in the film and Le Carre's depiction of him in this book and also in the five "Smiley" novels, three of which were also transferred to film, with Alec Guinness in the role.

Both conveyed Le Carre's theme which parallels the following rather cynical cliche: "I can protect myself from my enemies, but only God can save me from my friends."

Overall rating: read the book and see the film. Both are great and well worth the time spent.

Robert Frost and Thomas Hardy: Design or Hap?

Thomas Hardy was born June 2, 1840, so I began thinking about him and his novels and poetry. One poem that emerged in my reverie was a favorite of mine, "Hap," in which he expresses his reactions to two possible universes, one that might be ruled by "Hap" or chance and one that might be ruled by a plan. This, then, brought up another favorite of mine, Robert Frost's "Design," in which he also brings up the same idea. What I find fascinating is that Hardy is dismayed by a universe in which chance rules while Frost is appalled by design.

HAP by Thomas Hardy

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
The thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"
Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.


But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain, And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan...
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.


Hardy begins by saying that he could bear his sufferings if they were caused by a vengeful god, similar, I suppose, to those frequently preached about on TV or in various pulpits. He could endure and even die more easily, strengthened by his anger over his unjust pains and miseries, especially if all was caused by something more powerful than he.

However, Hardy concludes otherwise--"But not so"--that there is no vengeful god behind it all, for what happens is the result of "Crass Casuality" and "dicing Time," that it all happens by chance. There is no grand design or a plan behind it all, for "These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown/Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain."



Design
by Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.


Frost begins with a common ordinary little incident, one that anyone might come across in a garden or a park, or along a roadside or pathway- a spider with its latest meal. As usual, Frost's poem is rooted in the physical natural world, and it is this that has caused many to misread him as simply a poet of nature, and a regional one at that. What many have missed are the terrifying aspects of this seemingly benign nature that he brings out so calmly and matter-of-factly that they go unnoticed.

In this sonnet to death, Frost first sets the scene--a white spider, a white flower, and a white moth, whose wings are outstretched in death like the wings of a kite, a harmless children's toy. Frost focuses on the color white, which also happens to be suggested by his own name, the whiteness of frost. All three are white: the spider, the moth, and, surprisingly, the flower, which is known as a "heal-all" and which is normally blue. Moreover, one does not usually think of spiders as being white, the color of purity or innocence or joy, except for China and Japan where white is the color of mourning. And, Melville's Moby Dick, a terrifying and enigmatic engine of destruction, is also white.

The narrator asks whether this is by chance or by design:
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

I don't think the narrator answers the question, but he does conclude that, if this was by design, he would be appalled to think that even such minor and inconsequential incidents are part of a plan. This has a Biblical air about it if one considers that Christ tells his Apostles in Matthew 10 that if a sparrow falls to the ground the Father is there and even the hairs on one's head are numbered. If the plan includes even the very small events, then there's little room for freedom of choice. That, I suspect, is what Frost may find so appalling.
It seems, therefore, that while Hardy would prefer a universe ruled by design, he must unhappily conclude that we live in a universe of chance events. Frost, on the other hand, seems to have left the question unanswered, as he does in many of his poems, but he does say at the end that he would be appalled if design were so complete that it would govern in things "so small."

I wonder if it was by design or hap: Thomas Hardy was 88 years old when he died, and Robert Frost was 89. Both lived many years, and both were productive until the end.

And you--do you live in a universe of chance or one by design?

"A Noiseless Patient Spider" by Walt Whitman, My nomination for The Official Internet Poem

Since Walt Whitman was born on this day in 1819, I thought it only appropriate to suggest that his poem, "A Noiseless Patient Spider," be named the Official Internet Poem. I think that if you read it, you will see why it is the poem for the inhabitants of cyberspace. Can there be another poem that expresses what so many of us do on the Internet?



A Noiseless Patient Spider

A NOISELESS patient spider,

I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

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.

- Walt Whitman -


Comments, anyone?

Any other nominations?

Kurosawa's _Yojimbo_ and Dashiell Hammett's _The Red Harvest_

This commentary is the result of not following one of the most elementary rules for discussing books or films or art or any of a variety of subjects. That rule is that one should always go to the primary source whenever possible--the primary source being the item under discussion. I didn't, and so here's another commentary.

Some time ago, I briefly discussed some of the sources for Akira Kurosawa's films. One of the films was Yojimbo, the story of a lone samurai who comes to a small town, which is slowly being destroyed as two gangs struggle to determine which one will control the town. He decides to help the townspeople and adopts the strategy of "let's you and him fight." He will work to provoke the two gangs into open warfare. Then, the "winner" would be so weakened by the struggle that it too can then be destroyed.

I had come across several comments indicating that the source for this film was Dashiell Hammett's The Red Harvest, a novel about a detective who comes into a town in which two rival gangs of bootleggers were fighting for control of the distribution of alcohol. This was during Prohibition. The detective then employs the strategy mentioned above to solve the problem.

Without having read Hammett's novel, I accepted this interpretation. Recently, while poking through my stack of unread books, I discovered that I had a volume which contained Hammett's five novels, including Red Harvest (RH). So, I immediately dusted it off and read it, curious to see what similarities I can find between it and Yojimbo (Y). My conclusion? Well, judge for yourself. What do you think?

I could find only two similarities between the two works: the main character is a stranger who has just arrived in the town that is the battleground for criminal elements struggling for control, and he decides his best strategy would be to provoke the combatants into open warfare--"let's you and him fight"--in other words.

These two similarities, frankly, are not very convincing because I don't see them as being so unique that Kurosawa could only have gotten them from RH. Kurosawa was known to have to be a fan of US westerns and even borrowed elements from them--in one of his films, he had the enemy army suddenly appear on the top of a long ridge, first one, then several others, then by tens and twenties, all posed against the skyline--how many westerns include that same shot?--Clearly this is something he borrowed from the western. I won't bother to guess the number of westerns that begin with a lone rider coming into town from the wilderness.

Moreover, the strategy of provoking one's enemies into fighting among themselves is not unique to Hammett either. It goes back, I suspect, thousands of years. In fact, Tolkien employs it in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The two stories are, aside from the two points just mentioned, completely different. Sanjuro, Kurosawa's samurai, is a ronin, an unattached samurai who is looking for a job. Hammett's unnamed operative is employed by the Continental Detective Agency. He has been sent here by the Agency to work with its client, the editor of a local newspaper who is engaged in publishing a series of articles on corruption in the city. However, the editor is shot to death before they have a chance to meet. The operative then contacts the editor's father who employs him to clean up the town and identify his son's killer(s) as well.

To me anyway, this is considerably different than Kurosawa's story, in which a lone samurai wanders accidentally into town and discovers the gang warfare going on and decides to do something about it. Moreover, Kurosawa's plot is comparatively straightforward: we get almost no back story about the history of the conflict, or at least none that I can remember. It's a given that the two gangs are simply struggling to eliminate each other.

Hammett, on the other hand, provides an ironic history to the conflict. The editor's father had controlled the town, the mayor, the council, a few representatives, and the governor. The IWW, the International Workers of the World, had attempted to unionize one of his companies. The father brought in a bunch of goons and told them to do whatever was necessary to break the strike. The strike was broken, but the goons refused to leave town. There were no local organized crime groups/gangs in town, and the police department was handicapped by a corrupt police chief and a number of corrupt police officers--this is gang heaven, in other words. The father wasn't strong enough to remove the gangs by himself, so he hired the Continental Op to clean up the town after his son was killed.

The editor's son had been out of town for a number of years and had just returned to take control of his father's newspaper. He hadn't been in town long enough to discover his father's role in the town's problems.

Instead of two gangs, the Op discovered there were actually three criminal gangs, while the police chief and part of the dept. made a fourth group. He then goes to work to disturb the already uneasy and shaky truce that existed among them. After the Continental Op initiates his campaign, the four groups coalesce into two groups. The winning coalition, no doubt, would then split and try to eliminate each other.

I can find no similarities between the two, other than the main character being a stranger in town and working with the various gangs in order to provoke open warfare between them. The main character's plan in RH doesn't go awry, as it does in Yojimbo, with the result that Sanjuro is captured and badly beaten by one of the gangs. The Continental Op maintains his freedom throughout the novel. Moreover, the Continental Op is able to contact his Agency and several operatives are sent to assist him, so that he is no longer working alone at the end. Sanjuro, aside from one of the townspeople who helps him after he escapes from his captors, essentially works alone.

Could RH be a significant source for Yojimbo? It seems clear to me that this is not a situation in which Kurosawa adapted Hammett's novel for film. The differences are too many and too significant. One might think about a possible influence on the film, if one limits the significant elements to the two discussed above. But, the two elements are not unique to Hammett, and the basic plot element--the stranger who comes into town and decides to help the decent folk fight the criminal element--is actually found in numerous westerns. Could Shane or any of numerous westerns also be considered a significant source?

Without other supporting information, comments by Kurosawa himself, for example, I can't say now that Red Harvest is a significant source for Yojimbo.

Any thoughts?


Overall Rating: read the story and watch the film. Both are excellent, regardless of any linkage, or lack thereof.

Dostoyevsky and Poe: Perversity

One of Dostoyevsky's most unusual works is Notes From The Underground. It was the selection for a book discussion group on Yahoo--19th Century Literature-- if I'm not mistaken. It was while I was reading it, for the third or fourth time actually, that I began to see some similarities between Dostoyevsky's short novel and Poe's short story, "The Imp of the Perverse." "The Imp of the Perverse" is another of Poe's first person confessions--the individual attempts to explain why he committed his act from a jail cell, with a gallows outside awaiting him.

One of the similarities is format: both begin with lectures on one or more topics which are of considerable length in comparison to the work and then follow this with an incident that exemplifies the topic(s) discussed in the first part. Poe's lecture is solely on the nature of perverseness in human behavior while Dostoyevsky's contains several themes, one of which is perverseness.


The following is a quote from Poe's "The Imp of the Perverse." He is speaking of perverseness when he says, "Through its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we should not." In plain English, he states that we sometimes do things simply because we know that we shouldn't.

In Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground, we find a similar theme. One of Dostoyevsky's first examples is that at times he is sick but doesn't go to the doctor out of spite. Who is he injuring--himself. He knows he should go because he is "only injuring [himself]...My liver is bad, well--- let it get worse." He is knowingly acting against his own best interests. Later he speaks of a "friend" of his:

"When he prepares for any undertaking this gentleman immediately explains to you, elegantly and clearly, exactly how he must act in accordance with the laws of reason and truth. What is more, he will talk to you with excitement and passion of the true normal interests of man; with irony he will upbraid the shortsighted fools who do not understand their own interests, nor the true significance of virtue; and within a quarter of of an hour, without any sudden outside provocation, but simply through something inside him which is stronger than all his interests, he will go off on quite a different tack--that is, act in direct opposition to what he has just been saying about himself, in opposition to the laws of reason, in opposition to his own advantage, in fact in opposition to everything..."

Dostoyevsky here, like Poe, argues that humans will act at times in direct conflict with what they know to be their best interests.

Dostoyevsky postulates an advance in science which might provide accurate prediction of human behavior while Poe points out a combination of phrenology and metaphysics that attempts do the same. Both then attack the possibility of a completely accurate science of predicting human behavior.

Dostoyevsky says, "science itself will teach man that he never really had any caprice or will of his own, and that he himself is something of the nature of a piano key or the stop of an organ, and that there are , besides, things called the laws of nature; so that everything he does is not done by his willing it, but is done of itself, by the laws of nature. consequently we have only to discover these laws of nature, and man will not longer have to answer for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him. All human actions will then, of course, be tabulated according to these laws, mathematically, like tables of logarithms..."

And then, when complete rational harmony and prosperity is established, someone will stand up and say that we should "'kick over the whole show here and scatter rationalism to the winds' ... [and] he would be sure to find followers--such is the nature of man. And all that for the most foolish reason, which, one would think, was hardly worth mentioning; that is, that man everywhere and at all times, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he chose and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated."

Poe's narrator attacks this tendency to develop laws of behavior by pointing out several examples of when he and others went against their own best interests, both by acting and by delaying to act until it was too late.

Poe's story was published in 1845 while Dostoyevsky's came out in 1864. I don't know if Dostoyevsky had ever read Poe, so I can't say he was influenced by Poe.

What I also find intriguing about them is that both authors wrote "double" stories, in which the main character discovers there is someone else who looks just like him, who even has the same name, but who acts in a way that is completely the opposite. In addition, for some inexplicable reason, no one else notices the resemblance. This forces the reader to consider the possibility that the "double" is not a real person but an hallucination.

Dostoyevsky's story is titled "The Double," while Poe's double story is "William Wilson." I wonder if there is some relationship between these two themes--perverseness within the individual on the one hand and the doppelganger on the other.

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain IX

1st Edition: Quatrain IX

But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or Hatim Tai cry Supper--heed them not.



2nd Edition: Quatrain X

Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru?
Let Rustum cry "To Battle!" as he likes,
Or Hatim Tai "To Supper"--heed not you.



5th Edition: Quatrain X

Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru?
Let Zal and Rustum bluster as they will,
Or Hatim call to Supper--heed not you.


FitzGerald changed not only the wording, but also the tone and the underlying sense of this quatrain. In the first edition, he poses an invitation--

"But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot"

We should go with old Khayyam and forget the past that he referred to in the previous quatrain. It is gone, and we shouldn't concern ourselves with the transitory glories of the past. The present should be our concern.


The second and fifth editions also tell us to forget the past, but the invitation to join Khayyam is gone.

"Well, let it take them! What have we to do"

Instead, there's disdain or dismissal here--let the past do what it wishes with the glories of the past--"let it take them," for it is of no concern to us. And, the reference to Rustum also changes: the first version's tone is the heroic stance of hand-to-hand combat, which changes to a war cry in the 2nd edition and finally declines to "bluster" in the fifth edition, which is quite derogatory when one considers the tone of the first version.

What's also interesting about the first version is that Khayyam issues an invitation to go with him, but he does not say where. Up to this point, the quatrains have been relatively independent, even though there is some carryover of theme and reference from one to another. This quatrain, to me anyway, doesn't seem to stand alone; something is missing--an invitation to go where?

My thinking is that, particularly in the first edition, Quatrains IX, X, and XI really are one unit and should be read together. Q IX poses an invitation to go somewhere with old Khayyam, Q X tells us Khayyam's destination, and Q XI explains what we will do when we arrive there.

In the second and fifth editions, the link between X and XI is not nearly as strong as is the link between Qs IX and X in the first edition. However, the link between the second and third quatrains in this group are equally strong in all three versions.

My preference is once again for the first edition as it seems to flow much more smoothly from the first to the fourth line of the quatrain. Khayyam invites us to go with him and forget the past in the first--a sense of "do this" and "not do this"-- while the later two versions suggest irritation and dismissal only--"Well, let it take them..." In addition, the first version leaves me unsatisfied with an unanswered question about where Khayyam wishes to go. This pulls me to the next quatrain, hoping the question will be answered. The second and fifth versions suggest a dead end--forget one's concern with the past without hinting at something better to replace it.

It's too bad we can't find out why FitzGerald made these changes; it would be interesting to read about the changes in his thinking that produced the revisions.

Comments?

Gene Wolfe: May 7, 1931---

Gene Wolfe, fortunately for us, is still writing. I consider him one of the best writers working today--sometimes in SF, sometimes in Fantasy, and frequently in that blurry zone that overlaps SF, Fantasy, and everyday reality.

Following is the introductory paragraph to what many, and that includes me also, consider his best work and one of the best SF series ever written. It should be considered in any discussion that includes Asimov's "Foundation'' series and Greg Benford's "Galactic Center' series. The quote is from The Shadow of the Torturer, the first volume in "The Book of the New Sun."

"Chapter 1
Resurrection and Death"

"It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future. The locked and rusted gate that stood before us, with wisps of river fog threading its spikes like the mountain paths, remains in my mind now as the symbol of my exile. That is why I have begun this account of it with the aftermath of our swim, in which I, the torturer's apprentice Severian, had so nearly drowned."

So begins a series with one of the most unusual heroes in SF, and one who works in one of the most unpleasant occupations one can think of. Severian is a member of "the Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence." In other words, he belongs to a quasi-religious order whose members are the government's torturers and executioners.

The story takes place on an Earth that is so far in the future that the Sun is beginning to age. The planet is old and tired, a dying earth. Strange beasts and sentient beings that are obviously alien have been on the planet for so long that they are considered native to the planet.

Severian has committed a serious infraction of the Order's rules, so he is sent off to fulfill the position of a traveling torturer and executioner in far distant lands; he is in exile. It is a bizarre landscape that he travels in his wanderings that eventually will lead him back to the Citadel of the Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence. Unaware of his future, he does not know that part of his quest will be to find a way to restore the sun's power--"The Book of the New Sun."

One suggestion I have for those who are interested would be to read Jessie Weston's short work on the Fisher King in the search for the Holy Grail in the Arthurian romances. The title of her work is From Ritual to Romance, and while it no longer is considered of interest to scholars, it makes fascinating reading for the rest of us as it provides us with insight into Wolfe's hero as he searches for his own Holy Grail.

The official listing of titles in "The Book of the New Sun" includes the following:

The Shadow of the Torturer
The Claw of the Conciliator
The Sword of the Lictor
The Citadel of the Autarch


There is a fifth novel, The Urth of the New Sun, which takes place after the events of "The Book of the New Sun." A sixth book, The Castle of the Otter, contains essays by Wolfe, a vocabulary for the series, and other bits of information and background to the series. For those curious about the title, Wolfe explains that Locus, the SF newspaper, reported that the title of the 4th volume was The Castle of the Otter, an obvious misreading or mishearing? of the true title, The Citadel of the Autarch. Wolfe says that he liked the title so much that he decided to give the name to this work.

This is only a brief glance at one of Gene Wolfe's tales. He has at least four more series and a number of novels, as well as numerous short story collections. For a more extensive look at Gene Wolfe and his work, I have provided a link to a fan site devoted to him and his works.

http://tinyurl.com/cz3tq7


Overall Comment: one of the most innovative and interesting writers publishing today.

Greg Benford: Great Sky River, Galactic Center 3

Great Sky River is the third book in Benford's Galactic Center series. The first two novels, see earlier posts on In The Ocean Of Night and Across The Sea Of Suns, took place in the years between 1999 and 2064. Nigel Walmsley played a leading role in both works, and events on Earth were highly significant, although in the second work, it had to share the focus with events on the exploratory asteroid ship.

This work is set on the planet Snowglade, location unknown except that it appears to be in orbit around a star and a black hole. Just when this takes place is not clear either, except for a brief mention that the original settlers of the planet traveled some 70, 000 years to reach this planet, and that was long ago. Earth is not even mentioned in this work, so all we know is that a nuclear war had taken place and we can only guess at what has happened since then. Were the original settlers refugees from a destroyed Earth? Or, perhaps from colonies that had been settled by humans? Moreover, several large structures are in orbit about the planet--they are called Chandeliers. Were they of human or of mech origin. Tradition says human, but if so, when were they constructed--by the original settlers? by a later group?

The humans who had initially settled this planet were technologically developed far beyond the humans of the first two books, but their descendants had lost most of it, and what little they retained was a mystery.

After having co-existed with the mechs, each ignoring the other for the most part, the humans were almost eliminated by a surprise attack by the mechs. Humans, up to a decade or so, lived in various citadels, and Killeen Bishop, the main character in this work, is now on the run with perhaps 250 other survivors of the devastating sneak attack on their citadel. Their situation is so desperate that they have shut down their sex drive and reproductive cycle because on the run, a pregnant woman is a liability and her survival chances are minimal, if not non-existent. The problem is that in each encounter with various mechs, the humans manage to destroy the mech, but usually at the cost of one or two of their own. Killeen's group, the Bishops, are slowly dwindling. They don't even know if any humans in other citadels had survived the mech attack.
It is clear that the humans are slowly losing the battle with the mech civilization.

They have come close to becoming cyborgs, as they rely on electronically enhanced senses and mechanically enhanced physical abilities. The electronic senses allow them to detect the mechs at a distance, but it also allows the mechs to use electronic measures to attack them.

Generally, most mechs were of low intelligence and were primarily workers with limited skills. They ignored humans unless humans got in their way and treated them at that point as they would any natural obstacle--go around them. More intelligent mechs, called Marauders by the humans, also ignored the humans unless its became aware of them At that point, it would attempt to destroy them.

But, recently, something new has appeared, or something that had been only the subject of rumor and considered myth by most--the Mantis. The Mantis was supposed to be designed to be a hunter, and its prey?--humans. The humans could now occasionally detect a mech of some sort following them, something that hadn't happened before. There were several encounters with it in which the humans thought they had destroyed it, but shortly afterwards, something showed up again, on their trail. Killeen began to wonder about this for it seemed as though it was herding them somewhere, as the humans would move away from it rather than risk an attack.

His suspicions increased as the Bishops encountered another group for the first time since they had been on the run. And, at the moment of the encounter, when both groups in their joy at meeting another group of surviving humans relaxed their vigilance, the mech attacked again. Eventually it was destroyed, or so they thought, but the humans lost more than 38 irreplaceable lives. And, in the distance, they could see worker mechs picking up the various parts of the mantis and carrying it off, perhaps to be reassembled again, and once again on their trail.

But, Benford has not simply created a tale of warfare between the good humans and the bad mechs. Both humans and mechs are far more complex and complicated in their actions and even their loyalties. When mechs wear out or suffer a serious malfunction, they are ordered back to a mech center to be dissembled and its parts stockpiled for other mechs. Some however rebel and turn renegade (Rennies). They exist by preying on other mechs and also by stealing parts and equipment from mech centers. Some even make deals with humans. And, the Mantis, as Killeen learns, a highly intelligent mech, is not just a hunter of humans, but an artist, or at least an artist as mechs understand the term.

Along with the humans and the mechs, Benford introduces a third entity, an entity that can use the magnetic storms that enclose the planet to communicate. It apparently lives partially in and partially outside the event horizon of the black hole. I wonder what Stephen Hawking would make of this. It seems to want to help the humans and informs them of a space ship that was buried in the vicinity. How it knew of this is unknown.

And Nigel Walmsley of the first two volumes? We left him and his fellow human crew members of the asteroid ship in control, maybe, of a mech ship. He doesn't appear in this volume, but during their wanderings, Killeen and his group came across an ancient human structure, one which the Mantis knew something about. It said that the humans had called it the Taj Mahal, and that the leader of the humans who had built the structure had put his initials on the structure: NW. If this is a replica of the Taj Mahal, or something that serves the same purpose as the Taj Mahal, then whose wife is buried here? Nigel outlived Alexandria, his first wife. Has he also outlived Nikka, his second?

Overall Rating: an excellent novel with fast-paced action and a host of ideas sufficient for three or four novels. It would be fascinating just to read a story about the Mantis.

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold: the film

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is based on the novel of the same name written by John Le Carre'. I haven't read the novel yet, but after seeing the film, I have dusted it off and moved it higher on my TBR queue (To Be Read). I have discovered Le Carre' in the past few years and have read a number of his works, especially those known as "the Smiley novels." I have also seen the three film adaptations of the ''Smiley" novels, all of which I thought were more than acceptable versions.

I thought that The Spy Who Came In From The Cold was an excellent film. Although, as I mentioned earlier, I haven't read the novel, I found the flavor, the mood, or the atmosphere of the film to be that of the Le Carre' works that I have read--low-key, quiet, tense, and somewhat dark. If one is looking for heroic deeds of derring-do, for super-villains, for hi-tech gadgetry, for catastrophic threats to a country, continent, or even the cosmos, one must go someplace else. That isn't found here. Le Carre's characters are human, with human strengths and weaknesses. They even sometimes wonder if they are doing the right thing, right in the sense of moral or ethical rightness.

His espionage tales are set, for the most part, during the Cold War and focus on the conflict between the Eastern Communist Democracies and the Western Capitalist Democracies. Both sides considered themselves to be democracies, which demonstrates just how fuzzy any term can be.

Cyril Cusack, who gives a perfect performance as Control, the head of the British Intelligence agency, warns Alec Leamas and the viewer that the methods of the intelligence agencies of both the East and West are now so similar that there really is no difference between them. It is only at the end that Leamas and the viewer realize just how deceptive is that benign, precise, and grandfatherly aura that he casts. Control is a ruthless man who believes the end justifies the means.

Richard Burton is superb as Alec Leamas, the head of the Berlin section for British Intelligence. He has just seen a friend killed as he attempts to cross over to the American sector at Checkpoint Charlie, yet another victim of the East German SpyMaster, Mundt. Leamas is called back to London where he finds that he is going out in the cold again, (jargon for going undercover), this time as a disgruntled agent who is reduced to desk work, broke, alcoholic, and vulnerable to being turned by the East.

His task is to feed spurious information and perform certain actions which will make it appear that the East German Mundt is actually a double agent, working for the British, not quite an assignment that will save England, the West, or the Planet from a catastrophe, but one that's probably closer to real life.

At least, that's what Leamas thinks his assignment is. Control, however, has a different goal, one that Leamas can't know. Leamas is being used in a way that he isn't aware of, but as Control said earlier, the tactics of the two sides are now almost identical--people aren't people, but pawns to be moved about and sacrificed, if necessary, to stay in the game. One doesn't win in this sort of game; at best one can only gain a temporary advantage. It's life: one may survive an accident or illness and therefore able to play a little bit longer, but eventually one loses.

Other notable members of the cast, all of whom were excellent in their roles, are Claire Bloom and Oskar Werner. The only problem is Rupert Davies as George Smiley. Alex Guinness plays Smiley in the three Smiley films that I had watched some time ago, and I can't see anybody else in that role. Guinness strikes me as being so much closer to Le Carre's Smiley that I found Davies irritating. But, to be fair, that's not Davies's fault.

Overall Rating: Got to go with the max--5/5 stars.

PS. I'm now going to read the novel. I wonder if my rating is influenced by seeing the film first. Would I still have given the film 5 stars if I had read the novel first?

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain VIII

First Edition: Quatrain VIII

And look--a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke--and a thousand scatter'd into Clay:
And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.


Second Edition: Quatrain IX

Morning a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.



Fifth Edition: Quatrain IX

Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.


One obvious difference among the versions is the numbering. FitzGerald inserted another quatrain in the second edition and left it there for the subsequent editions. Since I'm using the First Edition as the foundation for my comments, I won't discuss the inserted quatrain, if at all, until after I finished the First Edition.

In the third and fourth lines, there is only one minor change: "Month" is capitalized in the First edition, but in lower case for the rest of the editions. The significance of this escapes me, except that it now seems to place more importance on "Summer" than on "month." The focus is on the season rather than the month.



The most significant changes in wording occurs in the first two lines:

First:
And look--a thousand Blossom with the Day
Woke--and a thousand scatter'd into Clay:

Second:
Morning a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?

Fifth:
Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?


The Fifth version seems a refinement of the Second as 'Morning" becomes "Each Morn." I prefer the Fifth over the Second for "Each Morn" seems to flow more smoothly than "Morning" which seems somewhat blunt to me. All three, though, do express the point that while thousands may bloom this morning, just as many die. Life is fleeting and a new generation quickly replaces the old.

The last line of the Second and subsequent editions reminds me of a poem by Francois Villon. I have cut out the second and third stanzas as they are similar to the first one in which he asks about ladies of the past.

THE BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES

by: François Villon (1431-1489)

ELL me now in what hidden way is

Lady Flora the lovely Roman?

Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,

Neither of them the fairer woman?

Where is Echo, beheld of no man,

Only heard on river and mere,--

She whose beauty was more than human? . . .

But where are the snows of yester-year?




. . .




Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,

Where they are gone, nor yet this year,

Save with this much for an overword,--

But where are the snows of yester-year?

"The Ballad of Dead Ladies" was translated into English by D.G. Rossetti (1828-1882).


The following link will lead you to the complete poem.

http://tinyurl.com/cjbbsz




From the Wikipedia entry:
Jamshed, Jamshid, or Jam is a mythological figure of Greater Iranian culture and tradition.
In tradition and folklore, Jamshid is described as having been the fourth and greatest king of the epigraphically unattested Pishdadian dynasty ( before Kayanian dynasty)

Kaikobad: I couldn't locate anything specific about him? her? Most references were to a composer who lived during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. If anyone has a specific reference about Kaikobad, I would appreciate seeing it.

P. D. James: The Private Patient

P. D. James' most recent novel is The Private Patient. It is as enjoyable as her previous mysteries featuring Adam Dalgliesh of the Metropolitan Police, Commander of the Special Squad which handles crimes of a sensitive nature--generally politically sensitive.

Dalgliesh gets a call at a particularly inappropriate moment--at the first meeting with his prospective father-in-law to announce that he wishes to marry his daughter. This isn't a surprise for fans of P. D. James, for all of Dalgliesh's romances have been interrupted the same way--his job comes first. It is no different now. This time, Dalgliesh is informed that No. 10 has has requested that his squad investigate a murder.

The private patient of the title is the victim in James' fourteenth Dalgliesh mystery. Rhoda Gradwyn, an investigative journalist, has finally decided to undergo plastic surgery to remove a scar on her cheek that she got in childhood. When the surgeon asked her why she had waited so long to have it removed, she enigmatically responded, "Because I no longer have need of it."
Unfortunately she never gets the chance to see the effects of the surgery for she is murdered just hours after the operation.

The format follows James' usual pattern--a careful introduction to the victim, suspects, and, at this point, the unknown murderer. By the time Dalgliesh is called in, the reader knows much about the people involved. James pulls no tricks; she always plays fair with the reader. The reader rides along with Dalgliesh and his team as they work their way through the mass of information, frequently contradictory, about the victim and suspects. There are no last minute surprises: the murderer who suddenly appears in the last chapters or a detective who finally reveals crucial information in the last chapter that he or she has known from an early chapter or a sudden and inexplicable burst of insight that leaves the reader wondering where that came from.

To keep readers aware of the progress of the investigation, James has Dalgliesh conduct an evening review with his team of the events of the day and the state of the investigation. This helps to cut back the amount of time needed at the end to sum up the evidence against the individual arrested and charged with the crime. In this way, the readers slowly begin to form their own ideas about the identity of the murderer, as the list of suspects begins to shorten.

I find a subplot in this work that has little to do with the crime under investigation. It has to do with Commander Dalgliesh himself, and his future. His team seems to feel that the Squad is not going to last much longer. There are rumors that the Squad will be broken up, that Dalgliesh will be promoted and transferred upstairs, that Dalgliesh will retire. Moreover, Detective Inspector Kate Miskin, perhaps the one who has been on the Squad the longest, has just gotten a promotion and feels that this may be the last investigation with the Squad for her. A transfer seems inevitable with the promotion.

In addition, while still the focus of the work, Dalgliesh is seen less often in this work than in the previous novels. We spend more time with the Squad than in the past. The reader also gets more background about several members of the Squad.

Another interesting point is Dalgliesh's engagement. As I mentioned earlier, he has been close to remarrying several times in the past, but the woman always left when she discovered his job came first. This relationship is different. In fact, there's a touch of James's favorite author, Jane Austen, here. Dalgliesh's fiance's name is Emma, the heroine of Austen's Emma. Mr Knightly, Emma's husband-to-be, has also to deal with an eccentric father-in-law. In fact, at the wedding ceremony at the end of the novel, we find this bit of conversation among several of Emma's friends:



"Clara said, 'Jane Austen would seem appropriate. Do you remember Mrs. Elton's comments in the last chapter of Emma? Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business!'

'But, remember how the novel ends. But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.'

Clara said, "Perfect happiness is asking for a lot. But they will be happy. And at least, unlike poor Mr. Knightley, Adam won't have to live with his father-in-law.'"



Austen's novels always end with the marriage or coming marriage of the heroine. Is this marriage the end of James' portrayals of the adventures of Commander Adam Dalgliesh? Or perhaps, is there one more coming, in which he will move into an administrative position or perhaps even retire, perhaps not to Sussex and take up beekeeping, but to some quiet out-of-the-way place along the coast and write poetry?