Warning: I will reveal significant plot elements and the ending.
One of my favorite short stories is "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson (1916-1965). It is a deceptively simple and straightforward tale. This small village holds an annual lottery, and the reader wonders just what the point is as the procedure is spelled out in some detail. However, when the winner is announced, the reader begins to understand that something just isn't right here; all is not what it seems. The winner, Tessie Hutchinson, objects loudly that the procedure wasn't fair, that her husband Bill was rushed and didn't have the chance to pick the slip he wanted. It should be done over again. Her complaints are ignored, and, instead of getting money or a valuable prize, she is stoned to death by the townspeople, and her own children take part. Now, all is clear. This is a horror story. The shock ending provides the point.
The town is obviously filled with monsters in the guise of typical rural Americans in a small village who engage in this horrific ritual every year. The title is clearly ironic for the winner of the lottery does not get a prize but a death sentence, just the reverse of what one would expect from winning a lottery.
Or, so it seems at first glance.
If one looks a bit closer, though, one realizes that the title is most apt. She did win a prize: an opportunity to die for her people, an opportunity for a meaningful death, something not granted to everyone. Among the ancient Romans, we read in one of Horace's Odes that Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. In English that translates roughly as "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." In the Bible, we read "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man shall lay down his life for his friends" (John 15: 13). Tessie actually died so that her friends may live. Is this not the same justification we use for sending young people off to war? We even have a memorial to The Unknown Soldier.
I was going to post this commentary about a week or so ago, but after glancing at the calendar, I decided to wait for today, June 27th. Why? Well, the story opens as follows:
"The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day: the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green."
The lottery takes place on June 27th. Why did Jackson decide to begin the story on June 27th. I don't think it was a random choice, for June 27th in the ancient Roman calendar is Initium Aestatis. It is the Roman festival of the beginning of summer. We ourselves noted the first day of summer several days ago at the Summer Solstice--the longest day of the year. The Vernal Equinox (the first day of Spring) and the Summer Solstice are or were important days for ancient agricultural civilizations. On those days, many held rituals or religious ceremonies designed to please the gods of agriculture or nature in order to ensure a good harvest.
The size of the harvest was extremely important for these peoples. A good harvest provided sufficient food to survive the long dead seasons of late Autumn and Winter that follow. A poor harvest--many of the old and the weak and the sickly probably would not survive. The first colonists in New England suffered many deaths that first winter because of inadequate food.
Many of those rituals included sacrifices to the gods; frequently they were human sacrifices, for in what other way could a group show its devotion to its gods than by sacrificing one of its own. Those who were sacrificed were giving up their lives for their people.
Jackson provides other clues to the tie between Tessie's fate and rituals designed to ensure a good harvest.
One of the characters remarks that "over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery."
"Old Man Warner snorted. 'Pack of crazy fools,' he said. 'Listening to the young folk, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery . . ."
And later, Mrs Adams remarks: "Some places have already quit lotteries."
Old Man Warner provides valuable information here. First, this village isn't an aberration for there's at least one other village that holds a lottery. Mrs. Adams tells us that some have quit already, and in the first paragraph of the story, the narrator tells us that there were some towns that had so many people that the lottery lasted for two days.
Secondly he also provides a link to the harvest with his recollection of the old saying about the June lottery and the ripening corn in his reaction to the comment about giving up the lottery. He also grumps on and suggests that without the lottery they'd all "be eating stewed chickweed and acorns," thus again suggesting a link between the lottery and the harvest. Without the lottery, they would be reduced to living off chickweed and acorns. Since chickweed and acorns aren't harvested crops but are gathered wherever found, this would hint at a way of life prior to the agricultural stage--hunting and gathering for example. His reference to living in caves also indicates a pre-agricultural society.
Some of the names that Jackson gives her characters are suggestive. For example, the M. C., or perhaps he would have been the high priest in earlier days, is named Summers, a very apt name for one conducting a festival held on the first day of summer. Summer's assistant is Mr. Graves, another appropriate name if one considers the outcome of the lottery. The only name given extra notice, and it happens in the second paragraph is "Delacroix." I think that's French for "of the cross," another significant reference when one thinks about sacrifices for the good of the people.
In the drawing, the first man is Adams (Adam?) and it ends with Zanini--from A to Z. In the Bible, the prophets had a very specific role and that was to warn the Israelites of the dangers of straying from the rules laid out for them by the Lord. In "The Lottery," we have Old Man Warner forewarning the people of the dangers of dropping the lottery.
For me, the true horror of the story is that the people go through this ritual every year and no longer know why. Tessie's death has no meaning, no significance for them any more. It has been lost along with most of the ritual, for the narrator tells us that "at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the had had been allowed lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute . . ."
I think that Jackson has told a story about the slow death of an ancient ritual that had meaning when it first began--the survival of the people. Over the generations, most of it has been lost, all except the sacrifice of one for the many. The story, after several readings, now seems to me to be a much richer and even darker story than it first appeared to be.
I have one more thought about the story, but I'm still kicking it around and haven't come to any definite conclusion yet. Jackson published her story in 1948, just a few years after the Nuremberg Trials held in 1945-6. In the trials, the German defendants who had taken part in the horrors of those concentration camps insisted they were not responsible, that they were just following orders. Is Jackson's story a commentary on what happened in the concentration camps in Germany?
Any thoughts here?
Overall Rating: a story that has stayed with me for years and gets deeper each time I read it.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Paul Laurence Dunbar: June 27, 1872--Feb 9, 1906
This is the poem that gave Maya Angelou the title for her poem and the first part of her autobiography--I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It was written by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Sympathy
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from this heart's deep core,
But a plea that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar -
The last stanza reminds me of something I read in Frederick Douglass' autobiography, but I'm unable to find it at present for the exact quote. Douglass writes that those who defend slavery often state that slaves really are happier being slaves and that one proof of this is that they are always singing. To the contrary, Douglass writes that the songs they sang were really prayers for freedom and release and were "not a carol of joy or glee."
In this poem, I think Dunbar speaks for all who feel trapped or enslaved.
Sympathy
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from this heart's deep core,
But a plea that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar -
The last stanza reminds me of something I read in Frederick Douglass' autobiography, but I'm unable to find it at present for the exact quote. Douglass writes that those who defend slavery often state that slaves really are happier being slaves and that one proof of this is that they are always singing. To the contrary, Douglass writes that the songs they sang were really prayers for freedom and release and were "not a carol of joy or glee."
In this poem, I think Dunbar speaks for all who feel trapped or enslaved.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Combination Plate 15
Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and the endings.
Anthony Boucher: The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, a mystery novel
Avatar: an SF Film
Brian M. Stableford: The Paradise Game, an SF novel
Martha Grimes: The Black Cat, a mystery novel
==================================
Anthony Boucher
The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, a mystery novel
Type: accidental detectives (I guess)
Setting: Hollywood in the late 1930s
I first encountered Anthony Boucher as an SF writer. He had written a novel, I think, and numerous short stories, and hundreds? of columns as a critic and commentator, as well as being one of the founding editors of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well editor of several anthologies of SF.
So, when I ran across this novel, I had to get it. First, I was curious about Boucher as a mystery writer, and second, I'm a fan of Sherlock Holmes from way back. I recognized the name, The Baker Street Irregulars (BSI), in the title as having appeared in several of the Holmes stories. The BSI are a group of street urchins who occasionally worked for Holmes. Since they were children and ignored by adults, they could go anywhere and not be noticed. Holmes used them for information-gathering and for keeping track of some individuals when Holmes wanted to keep of. The Baker Street Irregulars is also a real group, comprised of admirers of Holmes, one of whose members was Anthony Boucher.
Consequently, I did a little digging myself. and I was surprised, therefore, when I discovered that he was even more well known in the mystery genre as a writer, editor, and critic. The annual Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention is named in his honor as are the wards given out at that convention for the best mystery writing during the previous year--the Anthony Awards.
In the novel, Holmes does not appear, except indirectly as the star of a new film. Metropolis Pictures has decided to make a film of "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." In a letter to the film company, the BSI can only applaud this decision to bring their hero to the screen once again, but, on the other hand, they are incensed that the "responsible task of transferring this adventure to the screen has been entrusted to the typewriter of Stephen Worth." Worth writes mysteries, but of the "hard-boiled" kind and also "has many times expressed in public print his contempt for the exploits of Holmes and his desire 'to show up that cocky bastard for what he is.'"
The studio invites the BSI to come to Hollywood and act as expert consultants for the film Five do take advantage of the offer (none of whom, of course, are real members of the BSI). They have barely arrived and settled in when Stephen Worth is murdered. They, naturally, are among the chief suspects and decide that their only course is to solve the case themselves. This is when the fun begins.
As each of the five go out on their investigation, they encounters strange people and events, each with an unique adventure of their own. However, the adventures are not that unique, for Boucher has taken five of the Holmes cases and skillfully adapted them to the mean streets of Hollywood and surrounding environment during the 40s. False clues and leads only add to the fun and confusion, before the mystery is solved to everybody's satisfaction.
While this novel is straight fiction, Boucher hasn't forgotten the other half of his life--the SF half. While there are no SF elements in the story, the SF reader familiar with Boucher's stories will recognize some of the characters.
One is Maureen O'Breen, the company's chief publicist. Her younger brother is Fergus O'Breen, a private investigator who appears in a number of Boucher's SF stories. He specilizes in cases that have an SF flavor--time travel, ESP, werewolves, magic. Sometimes his clients come to him, and in other cases, Lt. Jackson, a member of the LAPD, brings him in as a consultant whenever there appears to be something unusual or bizarre about the case. In fact, she says she would recommend bringing him in but says that he's out of town on a case right now.
The other is Lt. Jackson himself, who gets involved with Worth, and finds himself lumped with the other suspects, or so the suspects think. In his postion, Jackson obviously can't take part in the official police investigation, so he joins up with the BSI and Maureen O'Breen in their unofficial investigation.
Did I solve the mystery early on? No. I spotted some clues, but I got so involved in picking out the references to Sherlock Holmes, that I just went along for the ride.
Overall Rating: good solid mystery, enlivened with all sorts of stuff from the Holmes stories, including various incidents, cases, and codes. It's an enjoyable, lighthearted read.
====================================
Avatar (2009)
I guess that the latest SF film to be highly publicized and talked about is the recent Avatar. What few negative comments I've seen or read were mostly in the political vein. But since I'm not one to bow down or even bow my head in the presence of companies or corporations, the "message" of the film didn't bother me. Frankly, the message wasn't a shocker for I was already aware that companies or corporations, as well as individuals, groups, and governments, do stray from the paths of righteousness now and then and therefore can legitimately be cast as villains.
I didn't see it at the theatre but on a DVD at home. Even on the small screen, though, it is a very good film, as far as the special effects are concerned. I haven't seen any of its competitors, but I thought that it probably earned the three Oscars that it picked up--for art direction, cinematography, and visual effects. At least, I haven't heard anybody suggest another film that was more deserving. However, I didn't find anything that could be considered innovative as far as ideas or concepts in the film, though, and I guess the judges felt the same way.
Jake Sully is a paraplegic (a marine injured in battle) who is sent to an alien planet to become part of a contact team working for a large corporation. Since the planet is inhospitable to humans, avatars (androids) have been developed. In this case the avatars are copies of the indigenous people, of the planet, the Na'vi. The minds of humans can be placed in the avatars and can control them. In this way, Sully's injuries are bypassed. He and the others in the contact team are supposed to study the Na'vi and convince them to allow the corporation to exploit the planet's resources.
Jake and the others realize that the corporation has no intention of recognizing the rights of the Na'vi. If the Na'vi don't get out of the corporation's way, then they will be exterminated. The contact team then sides with the Na'vi, and open warfare is the result. The corporation has a trained and heavily armed military force, complete with tanks, while the Na'vi are armed with spears and bows and arrows. The Na'vi are on the verge of defeat when the planet itself decides to play a role, and the corporation's military forces are ultimately defeated.
The acting was acceptable, except for Sigourney Weaver who was excellent as Dr. Grace Augustine.
Overall Rating: an enjoyable film.
====================================
Brian M. Stableford: The Paradise Game, (1974)
A week or so ago, I was rummaging through my TBR bookcase when I came across this novel. I hadn't read anything by Stableford in at least a decade or two, so I decided to rectify that omission. It somehow seemed a bit familiar as I got deeper into the novel.
Grainger is the pilot of a starship, The Hooded Swan. It has set down on an alien planet, Pharos. Grainger's boss, Titus Charlot, has come here to act as an observer and, if necessary, a mediator between two contending groups. One is the Caradoc Corporation, which intends to exploit the planet and turn it into a paradise for humans. A second group is here to make sure that the rights of the indigenous inhabitants are protected. At the end of his stay, Charlot will make a report which will include his recommendations for the future of the planet and its inhabitants.
Grainger and Charlot soon realize that the Caradoc Corporation isn't in the least concerned about the indigenous population and hadn't even bothered to report their existence. The natives were just going to have to get out of Caradoc's way or Caradoc was going to solve the problem in its own way. It had a large battleship in orbit around the planet with a few thousand troops in full battle gear and heavily armed.
Caradoc's military forces are brought down, but before they have a chance to go into action, two people die and numerous others, including many of the troops, become ill, some with minor ailments while others are bedridden. In a sense, the planet is defending itself.
The scientific staff discover some very strange things about this planet. First of all, none of the native plants and animals seem to die. Secondly, there are no young; everything is a mature specimen, from the plants to the sentient natives of Pharos. Plants get their nourishment from the sun and soil, while the animals feed off the sap of the trees. Nothing eats anything or anybody else. However, while digging to build foundations for Caradoc's planned city, several fossils were found, with teeth and claws. This planet wasn't always this way. Something intervened in the normal evolutionary process to create the present situation.
The two humans who died were involved the death of another. Those who couldn't control their anger or hostility got sick. Those who were able to remain calm and stable didn't get sick. The fittest, on this planet anyway, meant those who were without anger or hostility or were at least able to control it successfully.
The medical researchers find a way to cure the humans (all were infected). Since their illness was contagious, it is clear that humans could not come here without putting the galactic human civilization at risk. What would civilization be like if people couldn't kill one another without dying themselves shortly afterwards or even get angry or hostile? The planet was proscribed. The corporation was defeated by the planet itself. However, there were plenty of planets in the universe and the Caradoc Corporation moved on.
It seemed clear, from comments made throughout the novel, that Grainger, Charlot, and the Caradoc Corporation had previous conflicts. I had no problem following the events of this novel though. It wasn't until I glanced at the back cover that I discovered the following inscription:
"Star-Pilot Grainger: 4"--which suggests that this is the fourth book in the series.
Overall Rating: a decent read. I'm not going to rush out and look for others in the series, but if I do come across one or more in a used bookstore, I might grab it, if it isn't too expensive.
==================================
Martha Grimes
The Black Cat
Mystery novel--police procedural
Setting: London--contemporary
I've read most, if not all, of Martha Grimes' "Richard Jury of Scotland Yard" novels, so I have a fair idea of what to expect from the series, which now extends to 20+ works. They feature a tightly plotted mystery, some red herrings, a fair number of eccentric ensemble characters, mundane or realistic events, and a variety of villains. However, the times they are " achanging," to quote somebody or other.
In Old Wine Shades, one of her most recent novels, Grimes introduces something new, or new at least for her series-a telepathic cat and dog, who, ironically, belong to the villain, Harry Johnson. While they are unable to communicate with Jury, they do manage to help thwart Harry's plans. Unfortunately for Jury, Harry is one devious character, so he manages to escape the law at the end.
Dust, the novel that followed Old Wine Shades introduced two new elements to the adventures of Richard Jury. One was the recurring villain: Harry Johnson from the previously mentioned novel. Jury has decided that he will bring Harry to justice, so he continues to go to Harry's favorite wine pub and stay in touch, hoping Harry will make a mistake. Harry, of course, knows exactly what Jury is up to and is confident that he can avoid any trap Jury may set up.
The other new element in Dust is lust, at least it's new for Jury. A friend of Jury has calls him to say that he's found a body. It isn't in Jury's jurisdiction, but a friend is a friend. The police are called and take control. However, once Jury and the female police officer in charge of the investigation meet, control goes out the window. Whenever they are alone, with a few minutes free, off come the clothes, and what results can at best be called very enthusiastic and highly energetic sex. Grimes spares us the clinical details but does tell us that the two "meetings" that took place in Jury's apartment were hard on the furniture--several of which were turned into kindling. Jury's neighbors are also curious about the source of the loud noises emanating from Jury's apartment.
The Black Cat, the novel that immediately follows Dust, and also is the most recent of her Jury works, continues the trends noted above. Harry is still around, and Jury is still trying to trap him This time, Harry, again not directly involved in the investigation, decides to meddle a bit in order to embarrass Jury once again. The animal population has now increased to three cats and two dogs, of which two cats and one dog are telepathic. The dog and one of the cats were first introduced in Old Wine Shades, so they appear to be recurring characters. I wonder what will happen if Jury eventually does trap Harry. Will they move in with Jury? For now, though, they seem to be replacing the eccentric characters that Jury spent time with in the earlier novels.
Overall Comments: Grimes seems to be moving her Jury series out of the strict police procedural category and into the cozy cat crime-solving category, or at least a blend of the two. I wonder how far she's going to go with this.
Recommendation: if you are looking for a police procedural story with some whimsy involved, try her earlier novels. If you are looking for a series that seems to be in the midst of a change, read one of the novels I've mentioned above.
Anthony Boucher: The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, a mystery novel
Avatar: an SF Film
Brian M. Stableford: The Paradise Game, an SF novel
Martha Grimes: The Black Cat, a mystery novel
==================================
Anthony Boucher
The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, a mystery novel
Type: accidental detectives (I guess)
Setting: Hollywood in the late 1930s
I first encountered Anthony Boucher as an SF writer. He had written a novel, I think, and numerous short stories, and hundreds? of columns as a critic and commentator, as well as being one of the founding editors of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well editor of several anthologies of SF.
So, when I ran across this novel, I had to get it. First, I was curious about Boucher as a mystery writer, and second, I'm a fan of Sherlock Holmes from way back. I recognized the name, The Baker Street Irregulars (BSI), in the title as having appeared in several of the Holmes stories. The BSI are a group of street urchins who occasionally worked for Holmes. Since they were children and ignored by adults, they could go anywhere and not be noticed. Holmes used them for information-gathering and for keeping track of some individuals when Holmes wanted to keep of. The Baker Street Irregulars is also a real group, comprised of admirers of Holmes, one of whose members was Anthony Boucher.
Consequently, I did a little digging myself. and I was surprised, therefore, when I discovered that he was even more well known in the mystery genre as a writer, editor, and critic. The annual Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention is named in his honor as are the wards given out at that convention for the best mystery writing during the previous year--the Anthony Awards.
In the novel, Holmes does not appear, except indirectly as the star of a new film. Metropolis Pictures has decided to make a film of "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." In a letter to the film company, the BSI can only applaud this decision to bring their hero to the screen once again, but, on the other hand, they are incensed that the "responsible task of transferring this adventure to the screen has been entrusted to the typewriter of Stephen Worth." Worth writes mysteries, but of the "hard-boiled" kind and also "has many times expressed in public print his contempt for the exploits of Holmes and his desire 'to show up that cocky bastard for what he is.'"
The studio invites the BSI to come to Hollywood and act as expert consultants for the film Five do take advantage of the offer (none of whom, of course, are real members of the BSI). They have barely arrived and settled in when Stephen Worth is murdered. They, naturally, are among the chief suspects and decide that their only course is to solve the case themselves. This is when the fun begins.
As each of the five go out on their investigation, they encounters strange people and events, each with an unique adventure of their own. However, the adventures are not that unique, for Boucher has taken five of the Holmes cases and skillfully adapted them to the mean streets of Hollywood and surrounding environment during the 40s. False clues and leads only add to the fun and confusion, before the mystery is solved to everybody's satisfaction.
While this novel is straight fiction, Boucher hasn't forgotten the other half of his life--the SF half. While there are no SF elements in the story, the SF reader familiar with Boucher's stories will recognize some of the characters.
One is Maureen O'Breen, the company's chief publicist. Her younger brother is Fergus O'Breen, a private investigator who appears in a number of Boucher's SF stories. He specilizes in cases that have an SF flavor--time travel, ESP, werewolves, magic. Sometimes his clients come to him, and in other cases, Lt. Jackson, a member of the LAPD, brings him in as a consultant whenever there appears to be something unusual or bizarre about the case. In fact, she says she would recommend bringing him in but says that he's out of town on a case right now.
The other is Lt. Jackson himself, who gets involved with Worth, and finds himself lumped with the other suspects, or so the suspects think. In his postion, Jackson obviously can't take part in the official police investigation, so he joins up with the BSI and Maureen O'Breen in their unofficial investigation.
Did I solve the mystery early on? No. I spotted some clues, but I got so involved in picking out the references to Sherlock Holmes, that I just went along for the ride.
Overall Rating: good solid mystery, enlivened with all sorts of stuff from the Holmes stories, including various incidents, cases, and codes. It's an enjoyable, lighthearted read.
====================================
Avatar (2009)
I guess that the latest SF film to be highly publicized and talked about is the recent Avatar. What few negative comments I've seen or read were mostly in the political vein. But since I'm not one to bow down or even bow my head in the presence of companies or corporations, the "message" of the film didn't bother me. Frankly, the message wasn't a shocker for I was already aware that companies or corporations, as well as individuals, groups, and governments, do stray from the paths of righteousness now and then and therefore can legitimately be cast as villains.
I didn't see it at the theatre but on a DVD at home. Even on the small screen, though, it is a very good film, as far as the special effects are concerned. I haven't seen any of its competitors, but I thought that it probably earned the three Oscars that it picked up--for art direction, cinematography, and visual effects. At least, I haven't heard anybody suggest another film that was more deserving. However, I didn't find anything that could be considered innovative as far as ideas or concepts in the film, though, and I guess the judges felt the same way.
Jake Sully is a paraplegic (a marine injured in battle) who is sent to an alien planet to become part of a contact team working for a large corporation. Since the planet is inhospitable to humans, avatars (androids) have been developed. In this case the avatars are copies of the indigenous people, of the planet, the Na'vi. The minds of humans can be placed in the avatars and can control them. In this way, Sully's injuries are bypassed. He and the others in the contact team are supposed to study the Na'vi and convince them to allow the corporation to exploit the planet's resources.
Jake and the others realize that the corporation has no intention of recognizing the rights of the Na'vi. If the Na'vi don't get out of the corporation's way, then they will be exterminated. The contact team then sides with the Na'vi, and open warfare is the result. The corporation has a trained and heavily armed military force, complete with tanks, while the Na'vi are armed with spears and bows and arrows. The Na'vi are on the verge of defeat when the planet itself decides to play a role, and the corporation's military forces are ultimately defeated.
The acting was acceptable, except for Sigourney Weaver who was excellent as Dr. Grace Augustine.
Overall Rating: an enjoyable film.
====================================
Brian M. Stableford: The Paradise Game, (1974)
A week or so ago, I was rummaging through my TBR bookcase when I came across this novel. I hadn't read anything by Stableford in at least a decade or two, so I decided to rectify that omission. It somehow seemed a bit familiar as I got deeper into the novel.
Grainger is the pilot of a starship, The Hooded Swan. It has set down on an alien planet, Pharos. Grainger's boss, Titus Charlot, has come here to act as an observer and, if necessary, a mediator between two contending groups. One is the Caradoc Corporation, which intends to exploit the planet and turn it into a paradise for humans. A second group is here to make sure that the rights of the indigenous inhabitants are protected. At the end of his stay, Charlot will make a report which will include his recommendations for the future of the planet and its inhabitants.
Grainger and Charlot soon realize that the Caradoc Corporation isn't in the least concerned about the indigenous population and hadn't even bothered to report their existence. The natives were just going to have to get out of Caradoc's way or Caradoc was going to solve the problem in its own way. It had a large battleship in orbit around the planet with a few thousand troops in full battle gear and heavily armed.
Caradoc's military forces are brought down, but before they have a chance to go into action, two people die and numerous others, including many of the troops, become ill, some with minor ailments while others are bedridden. In a sense, the planet is defending itself.
The scientific staff discover some very strange things about this planet. First of all, none of the native plants and animals seem to die. Secondly, there are no young; everything is a mature specimen, from the plants to the sentient natives of Pharos. Plants get their nourishment from the sun and soil, while the animals feed off the sap of the trees. Nothing eats anything or anybody else. However, while digging to build foundations for Caradoc's planned city, several fossils were found, with teeth and claws. This planet wasn't always this way. Something intervened in the normal evolutionary process to create the present situation.
The two humans who died were involved the death of another. Those who couldn't control their anger or hostility got sick. Those who were able to remain calm and stable didn't get sick. The fittest, on this planet anyway, meant those who were without anger or hostility or were at least able to control it successfully.
The medical researchers find a way to cure the humans (all were infected). Since their illness was contagious, it is clear that humans could not come here without putting the galactic human civilization at risk. What would civilization be like if people couldn't kill one another without dying themselves shortly afterwards or even get angry or hostile? The planet was proscribed. The corporation was defeated by the planet itself. However, there were plenty of planets in the universe and the Caradoc Corporation moved on.
It seemed clear, from comments made throughout the novel, that Grainger, Charlot, and the Caradoc Corporation had previous conflicts. I had no problem following the events of this novel though. It wasn't until I glanced at the back cover that I discovered the following inscription:
"Star-Pilot Grainger: 4"--which suggests that this is the fourth book in the series.
Overall Rating: a decent read. I'm not going to rush out and look for others in the series, but if I do come across one or more in a used bookstore, I might grab it, if it isn't too expensive.
==================================
Martha Grimes
The Black Cat
Mystery novel--police procedural
Setting: London--contemporary
I've read most, if not all, of Martha Grimes' "Richard Jury of Scotland Yard" novels, so I have a fair idea of what to expect from the series, which now extends to 20+ works. They feature a tightly plotted mystery, some red herrings, a fair number of eccentric ensemble characters, mundane or realistic events, and a variety of villains. However, the times they are " achanging," to quote somebody or other.
In Old Wine Shades, one of her most recent novels, Grimes introduces something new, or new at least for her series-a telepathic cat and dog, who, ironically, belong to the villain, Harry Johnson. While they are unable to communicate with Jury, they do manage to help thwart Harry's plans. Unfortunately for Jury, Harry is one devious character, so he manages to escape the law at the end.
Dust, the novel that followed Old Wine Shades introduced two new elements to the adventures of Richard Jury. One was the recurring villain: Harry Johnson from the previously mentioned novel. Jury has decided that he will bring Harry to justice, so he continues to go to Harry's favorite wine pub and stay in touch, hoping Harry will make a mistake. Harry, of course, knows exactly what Jury is up to and is confident that he can avoid any trap Jury may set up.
The other new element in Dust is lust, at least it's new for Jury. A friend of Jury has calls him to say that he's found a body. It isn't in Jury's jurisdiction, but a friend is a friend. The police are called and take control. However, once Jury and the female police officer in charge of the investigation meet, control goes out the window. Whenever they are alone, with a few minutes free, off come the clothes, and what results can at best be called very enthusiastic and highly energetic sex. Grimes spares us the clinical details but does tell us that the two "meetings" that took place in Jury's apartment were hard on the furniture--several of which were turned into kindling. Jury's neighbors are also curious about the source of the loud noises emanating from Jury's apartment.
The Black Cat, the novel that immediately follows Dust, and also is the most recent of her Jury works, continues the trends noted above. Harry is still around, and Jury is still trying to trap him This time, Harry, again not directly involved in the investigation, decides to meddle a bit in order to embarrass Jury once again. The animal population has now increased to three cats and two dogs, of which two cats and one dog are telepathic. The dog and one of the cats were first introduced in Old Wine Shades, so they appear to be recurring characters. I wonder what will happen if Jury eventually does trap Harry. Will they move in with Jury? For now, though, they seem to be replacing the eccentric characters that Jury spent time with in the earlier novels.
Overall Comments: Grimes seems to be moving her Jury series out of the strict police procedural category and into the cozy cat crime-solving category, or at least a blend of the two. I wonder how far she's going to go with this.
Recommendation: if you are looking for a police procedural story with some whimsy involved, try her earlier novels. If you are looking for a series that seems to be in the midst of a change, read one of the novels I've mentioned above.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Something to think about
The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant (Egyptian), c. 1800 B. C.: "Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do." (May be the earliest version ever written.) http://tinyurl.com/399m99n
Mahabharata, c. 800 B. C.: "Deal with others as thou wouldst thyself be dealt with. Do nothing to thy neighbor which thou wouldst not have him to thee hereafter."
Dadistan-I dinik, Zend-Avesta. c. 700 B. C.: "That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self."
Undana Varga. c. 500 B. C.: "Hurt not others with that which pains yourself."
Confucius, 5th century B. C.: "Tuan-mu Tzv said, 'What I do not wish others to do unto me I also wish not to do unto others.' Do not do unto others what you would not they should do unto you."
Mo Tzu, 470-391 B. C.: "If people regarded other people's families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself."
Plato, c. 4th century B. C.: "May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me."
Panchatantra, c. 200 B. C.: "Ponder well the maxim: Never do to other persons what would pain thyself."
Hillel Ha-Babli, c. 30 B. C.: "Whatsoever thou wouldst that men should not do to thee, do not do
that to them. This is the whole law. The rest is only explanation."
Epictetus, c. A. D. 100: "What thou avoidest suffering thyself seek not to impose on others."
St. Luke, c. A. D. 75: "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."
St. Matthew, A. D. 75: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."
Mohammed, 7th century A. D.: "Say not, if people are good to us, we will do good to them, and if people oppress us we will oppress them: but resolve that if people do good to you, you will do good to them, and if they oppress you, oppress them not again."
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
John Cowper Powys: Three Fantasies
John Cowper Powys
Three Fantasies
I came across John Cowper Powys' Three Fantasies in a used bookstore. I had heard about him in grad school but had never read anything by him. The name was familiar, that's all. So, I pulled the book from the shelf and on the title page I saw "Stories by the Grandfather of magical realism."
Magical Realism? Grandfather?
There was an "Afterword" by Glen Cavaliero. It began--
"The preceding stories were written towards the end of John Cowper Powys' long life (1872-1963). They are the last in a series of nine short fantasies that could well be described as the juvenilia of his old age. Nothing even in his own fiction quite prepares us for their bizarre character. But it does Powys an injustice to dismiss the stories as the playthings of a literary senescence: he welcomed second childhood, delighting in his rapport with the very young, and in these final tales he wrote simply to please himself, liberated from the world of 'adult' journalism, reviewers and literary critics . . ."
That's tempting, especially when I noticed that the price was only $2.00. How could I turn down a book by the grandfather of magical realism? And, Cavaliero called the stories "bizarre." I have to agree. The first story was enough to convince me that I should go looking for the other six of his "nine short fantasies." To be precise, the first page is what really convinced me.
"Topsy-Turvy" is the first story in the book. It begins--
The Gray Armchair gazed across the little room at the Brown Armchair. They were in opposite corners; the grey one in the south corner and the brown one in the north corner of the room.
'Whirlwind and Whirlpool have left us quiet today,' said Mr Gray Armchair.
'I don't think it'll last long,' replied Mrs Brown Armchair. ' I seem to feel a certain motion of air coming in through the sides of the wind.'
'I hope,' said Mr Grey Armchair, 'that they won't carry Topsy away again. I don't at all like seeing her whirled down our little square and carried over the wall into the green field. And it must be awful for Turvy. I saw him make a queer jerk when it happened last time just as he was going to shut the door.'
Yes, the two armchairs are talking. And Topsy just happens to be a "picture of a Little Girls' Party" while Turvy is a "door-handle." Other characters who appear in the first part of the story are a hostile Rocking-Chair, the Book-Case, several books, the Carpet, the Bottom-Step, and two dolls who engage in a discussion as to why Big-Doll or Man-Doll refuses to ravish Little-Doll or Girl-Doll. He fears that the children, "their tiny dolls would become a great responsibility . . . [while] Little-Doll gave vent to several deep sighs."
The Rocking Chair plots with the Whirlpool and the Whirlwind to kidnap Topsy when Topsy and Turvy go out walking. They, however, escape to Another Dimension, which is a cloud-land where the clouds are sturdy enough to walk on. It seems to be Powys' conception of the Elysian Fields for there they meet a wide variety of historical figures, all of whom are engaged in discussing various topics. Dido and Aeneas discuss the relationship of humans to inanimate objects. Later they meet Dick Turpin, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, and various others. They return home at the same time that Girl-Doll gets her wish--she is going to have a baby.
"Abertackle" is the second story. It begin relatively realistically but around one-third of the way into the tale, it also gets bizarre.
The Abertackle folk were, it must be confessed, a queer lot. But then it must be remembered that Abertackle was itself a queer place; and queer places tend to breed queer people.
. . .
Visitors to the Go Peninsula [where Abertackle is located], whether tourists or business men, will always tell you that they like the people there very much and find them hospitable and friendly, but what they never tell you for some mysterious reason is why they leave the place so quickly and rarely ever return to it.
The first part of the tale consists of meeting various inhabitants who engage in small town gossip about each other and each other's foibles. Their names could easily belong in a Dicken's novel: Mr and Mrs Po, Mr Thrapplewait, Mr Willmop, Squire Neverbang and his friend Ooly-Fooly, and Titty Tinkle, to name a few. We then learn that the Po's son Gor has run off to London, and it is in London that life gets a bit strange.
Gor in his wanderings about London meets David Cox, the famous painter, who "was being carried through the air by a space-horse." He invites them to join him aboard the space-horse and they "went off round the world." What they don't know is that the horse is possessed by the Devil himself (the horns on the horse's head weren't noticed by either Cox or Gor). Sporadically throughout the novel the Devil would engage in various theological soliloquies, once about the death of God and whether he could resurrect God by himself. Others soon join Cox and Gor, and they eventually decide to explore the universe.
After various adventures, they decide to rule the universe and set up the members of their little party as King of the New State of Mankind ( Gor) while others become various functionaries.
The third tale is "Cataclysm." It opens--
In the little town of Riddle in the county of Squat in the west of Bumbledom there was a young man called Yok. He had just reached his seventeenth birthday . . . and told his sister, sitting across from him "I have now decided that I'll do it . . . I have decided,' he said quietly, 'to destroy the whole human race."
He has found a bag of dust that will instantly kill anyone who breathes it and Yok is now off to London to carry out his plan. While there, he hears about a group of vivisectionists who have discovered life on Venus and who plan to go there to capture subjects for their experiments. He borrows an airplane from his uncle and chases after them. He catches up with them on their journey to Venus and manages to destroy them with his dust. He also has picked up a few companions and they decide to travel about the universe. They have various bizarre adventures, as one might expect.
I've gone on long enough, I think, and I hope that I've given some idea of the strange and bizarre tales in the book. I may go looking for his more mundane fiction as well. From what I've read, Wolf Solent is considered to be his best work.
Overall Rating: As promised, they are bizarre tales, and I think they would make excellent animated films.
Three Fantasies
I came across John Cowper Powys' Three Fantasies in a used bookstore. I had heard about him in grad school but had never read anything by him. The name was familiar, that's all. So, I pulled the book from the shelf and on the title page I saw "Stories by the Grandfather of magical realism."
Magical Realism? Grandfather?
There was an "Afterword" by Glen Cavaliero. It began--
"The preceding stories were written towards the end of John Cowper Powys' long life (1872-1963). They are the last in a series of nine short fantasies that could well be described as the juvenilia of his old age. Nothing even in his own fiction quite prepares us for their bizarre character. But it does Powys an injustice to dismiss the stories as the playthings of a literary senescence: he welcomed second childhood, delighting in his rapport with the very young, and in these final tales he wrote simply to please himself, liberated from the world of 'adult' journalism, reviewers and literary critics . . ."
That's tempting, especially when I noticed that the price was only $2.00. How could I turn down a book by the grandfather of magical realism? And, Cavaliero called the stories "bizarre." I have to agree. The first story was enough to convince me that I should go looking for the other six of his "nine short fantasies." To be precise, the first page is what really convinced me.
"Topsy-Turvy" is the first story in the book. It begins--
The Gray Armchair gazed across the little room at the Brown Armchair. They were in opposite corners; the grey one in the south corner and the brown one in the north corner of the room.
'Whirlwind and Whirlpool have left us quiet today,' said Mr Gray Armchair.
'I don't think it'll last long,' replied Mrs Brown Armchair. ' I seem to feel a certain motion of air coming in through the sides of the wind.'
'I hope,' said Mr Grey Armchair, 'that they won't carry Topsy away again. I don't at all like seeing her whirled down our little square and carried over the wall into the green field. And it must be awful for Turvy. I saw him make a queer jerk when it happened last time just as he was going to shut the door.'
Yes, the two armchairs are talking. And Topsy just happens to be a "picture of a Little Girls' Party" while Turvy is a "door-handle." Other characters who appear in the first part of the story are a hostile Rocking-Chair, the Book-Case, several books, the Carpet, the Bottom-Step, and two dolls who engage in a discussion as to why Big-Doll or Man-Doll refuses to ravish Little-Doll or Girl-Doll. He fears that the children, "their tiny dolls would become a great responsibility . . . [while] Little-Doll gave vent to several deep sighs."
The Rocking Chair plots with the Whirlpool and the Whirlwind to kidnap Topsy when Topsy and Turvy go out walking. They, however, escape to Another Dimension, which is a cloud-land where the clouds are sturdy enough to walk on. It seems to be Powys' conception of the Elysian Fields for there they meet a wide variety of historical figures, all of whom are engaged in discussing various topics. Dido and Aeneas discuss the relationship of humans to inanimate objects. Later they meet Dick Turpin, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, and various others. They return home at the same time that Girl-Doll gets her wish--she is going to have a baby.
"Abertackle" is the second story. It begin relatively realistically but around one-third of the way into the tale, it also gets bizarre.
The Abertackle folk were, it must be confessed, a queer lot. But then it must be remembered that Abertackle was itself a queer place; and queer places tend to breed queer people.
. . .
Visitors to the Go Peninsula [where Abertackle is located], whether tourists or business men, will always tell you that they like the people there very much and find them hospitable and friendly, but what they never tell you for some mysterious reason is why they leave the place so quickly and rarely ever return to it.
The first part of the tale consists of meeting various inhabitants who engage in small town gossip about each other and each other's foibles. Their names could easily belong in a Dicken's novel: Mr and Mrs Po, Mr Thrapplewait, Mr Willmop, Squire Neverbang and his friend Ooly-Fooly, and Titty Tinkle, to name a few. We then learn that the Po's son Gor has run off to London, and it is in London that life gets a bit strange.
Gor in his wanderings about London meets David Cox, the famous painter, who "was being carried through the air by a space-horse." He invites them to join him aboard the space-horse and they "went off round the world." What they don't know is that the horse is possessed by the Devil himself (the horns on the horse's head weren't noticed by either Cox or Gor). Sporadically throughout the novel the Devil would engage in various theological soliloquies, once about the death of God and whether he could resurrect God by himself. Others soon join Cox and Gor, and they eventually decide to explore the universe.
After various adventures, they decide to rule the universe and set up the members of their little party as King of the New State of Mankind ( Gor) while others become various functionaries.
The third tale is "Cataclysm." It opens--
In the little town of Riddle in the county of Squat in the west of Bumbledom there was a young man called Yok. He had just reached his seventeenth birthday . . . and told his sister, sitting across from him "I have now decided that I'll do it . . . I have decided,' he said quietly, 'to destroy the whole human race."
He has found a bag of dust that will instantly kill anyone who breathes it and Yok is now off to London to carry out his plan. While there, he hears about a group of vivisectionists who have discovered life on Venus and who plan to go there to capture subjects for their experiments. He borrows an airplane from his uncle and chases after them. He catches up with them on their journey to Venus and manages to destroy them with his dust. He also has picked up a few companions and they decide to travel about the universe. They have various bizarre adventures, as one might expect.
I've gone on long enough, I think, and I hope that I've given some idea of the strange and bizarre tales in the book. I may go looking for his more mundane fiction as well. From what I've read, Wolf Solent is considered to be his best work.
Overall Rating: As promised, they are bizarre tales, and I think they would make excellent animated films.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Edward FitzGerald: March 31, 1809--June 14, 1883
On this day, I thought it only appropriate to post the last two quatrains from the First Edition of his interpretation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
Quatrain LXXIV
Ah, Moon of my Delight, who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me--in vain!
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
When I made one--tun down an empty Glass!
Quatrain LXXIV
Ah, Moon of my Delight, who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me--in vain!
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
When I made one--tun down an empty Glass!
Friday, June 11, 2010
The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XXVII
Quatrain XXVII is the first in what I see as four linked quatrains--Quatrain XXVII through Quatrain XXX. This quatrain provides the setting for the next quatrain which then leads to punning and word swapping in the third and fourth quatrains in this linked series.
First Edition: Quatrain XXVII
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.
Second Edition: Quatrain XXX
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door as in I went.
Fifth Edition: Quatrain XXVII
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went.
Only the slightest changes take place through the various editions. "Argument," which was capitalized in the first edition, now has a lower case "a" in the second and fifth editions. "Door" also lost its capital letter in the second and fifth editions. And, in the last line, the "as" of the first and second editions becomes "where" in the fifth version.
FitzGerald has changed the upper case first letter of nouns to lower case several times already, so this is nothing new. I can't think of any case so far in which he does the opposite--substitutes an upper case letter for the original lower case. The change from "as in" to "where in" seems, to me anyway, to rest on the expectation that "where in I went" appears more likely to occur than "as in I went." What is your thinking on this?
Khayyam presents himself as a student going from teacher to teacher, from reason (the Doctor) to holiness (the Saint), but all he ever heard were disputes "About it and about." Just what these arguments concerned is never really spelled out--just the vague "it" and eventually not even "it," but mostly motion around this vague "it." Khayyam here seems to be saying that not only were the answers of no help, but even the questions were unprofitable.
What did he learn from all this? That he "came out by the same door" that he had entered suggests it wasn't much: he was back where he started. This point has been made already in earlier quatrains--the inability of "Saints" and "Sages" and "the Wise" to provide answers for his questions. Neither reason nor sanctity seems give him what he is searching for--the answers to "life's persistent questions."
First Edition: Quatrain XXVII
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.
Second Edition: Quatrain XXX
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door as in I went.
Fifth Edition: Quatrain XXVII
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went.
Only the slightest changes take place through the various editions. "Argument," which was capitalized in the first edition, now has a lower case "a" in the second and fifth editions. "Door" also lost its capital letter in the second and fifth editions. And, in the last line, the "as" of the first and second editions becomes "where" in the fifth version.
FitzGerald has changed the upper case first letter of nouns to lower case several times already, so this is nothing new. I can't think of any case so far in which he does the opposite--substitutes an upper case letter for the original lower case. The change from "as in" to "where in" seems, to me anyway, to rest on the expectation that "where in I went" appears more likely to occur than "as in I went." What is your thinking on this?
Khayyam presents himself as a student going from teacher to teacher, from reason (the Doctor) to holiness (the Saint), but all he ever heard were disputes "About it and about." Just what these arguments concerned is never really spelled out--just the vague "it" and eventually not even "it," but mostly motion around this vague "it." Khayyam here seems to be saying that not only were the answers of no help, but even the questions were unprofitable.
What did he learn from all this? That he "came out by the same door" that he had entered suggests it wasn't much: he was back where he started. This point has been made already in earlier quatrains--the inability of "Saints" and "Sages" and "the Wise" to provide answers for his questions. Neither reason nor sanctity seems give him what he is searching for--the answers to "life's persistent questions."
Monday, June 7, 2010
Something to think about
Shelley's irony is fascinating here and to capture it, one must read this poem twice. First, put yourself in Ozymandias' place and read the quotation on the pedestal from his point of view. Then, go back and read it as that traveller had seen it in midst of that desolation that surrounded that ''shattered visage."
Ozymandias of Egypt
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley --
Ozymandias of Egypt
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley --
Friday, June 4, 2010
Fata Morgana: a film by Werner Herzog
Fata Morgana is my nominee for the strangest film I've viewed this year. It came out in 1971, but I just recently noticed it and decided to give it a viewing. Werner Herzog is the director, and this is one of his earliest films: the third to be exact. In the commentary included on the DVD, Herzog said that this film contains many of the themes that he explored in greater detail in his later films. I watched the film twice; the second time with the commentary by Herzog. If you do watch the film, I highly recommend watching the commentary version at some point. It helps.
The title, Fata Morgana, is an Italian term that refers to an unusual and very complex type of mirage. It refers to Morgan le Fay, from the Arthurian cycle, and suggests the belief that the mirage is produced by witchcraft. Several mirages are presented throughout the film, some of which I didn't realize were mirages until it was pointed out during the viewing with the commentary turned on.
The film has no plot, at least not in the accepted sense of the term. In addition, Herzog states that this is not a documentary. I agree with him--at least, again, not a documentary in the usual sense. Herzog also insists that "there is a coherence there which is inexplicable but somehow there." Ultimately, I consider it unclassifiable. For the most part it is a series of short scenes and images shot in the northern Sahara Desert. The dialogue is almost non-existent, consisting of short voice-overs: readings from the Popol Vuh, which is the Mayan creation myth, and music ranging from classical ecclesiastical works to songs by Leonard Cohen.
Herzog says that initially it was to be an SF film. Aliens land on a planet and film what they see. This was to be a photojournal of their visit. However, he quickly dropped the idea and decided that he would just present the film images without the story.
The film has three parts: "Creation," "Paradise," and "The Golden Age." One commentary I read stated that on the surface, the titles appear ironic in contrast to the film images, but are not ironic at a deeper level. Unfortunately I am unable so far to get to that deeper level.
The film opens with an airport scene: we see a number of planes landing, each one getting more and more blurred and distorted as the day warms up.
Part I: Creation
As we hear a woman's voice reading the Mayan creation myth in German (English subtitles) we see images of the desert with buildings off in the distance, sand dunes, an oasis with palm trees, and huge storage tanks. Other scenes include a wrecked plane, an oil field perhaps burning off natural gas, and a flat landscape with sand and brush. One might almost call it a collage of images.
People occasionally appear in brief glimpses, but with no discernible purpose. Herzog commented that he couldn't communicate with them, so they were free to do what they wanted. Some just glanced at the camera and walked on. Others stood there and stared back. One man gestured with his hands, first pointing in one direction, then another, and then shrugged his shoulder and walked off.
I was startled when lush vegetation and once a beautiful waterfall appeared. These were not from the Sahara but scenes shot later in the Canary Islands. Again, the commentary was helpful here. However, there seemed to be no attempt to draw any conclusion from the juxtaposition of the barren scenery and the waterfall. It was up to the viewers, I guess, to make of it what they would or could.
Part II: Paradise
Again, a series of images that contrast with the usual concept of a Paradise. There are people again engaged in inexplicable, to me anyway, activity. A man and a woman approach the camera, both taking very short steps. He wears a coat that has many medals and begins speaking. There is no translation, and Herzog commented that they had no idea of what he was saying. During this segment Leonard Cohen sings two songs, one of which is "Suzanne." One scene is of a German researcher who is holding a monitor lizard that obviously fascinates him. He wears what appears to be swim or diving goggles. At one point a man appears holding a very worn and creased letter that is falling apart. He says, in German, that he is going back to rejoin his people in Germany. He got the letter over 25 years ago. Other images are of a Moslem cemetery, a military camp, and the site of a French test of a nuclear weapon.
Part III: The Golden Age
The most striking image in this section consists of a man and a woman on a small stage: she plays the piano and he sings and plays the drums and cymbals. He is singing in Spanish, but the sound quality is so bad I couldn't tell what language it is. The music and the movement of the two are so repetitive that I wonder if it is just one short clip of ten or fifteen seconds that has been repeatedly copied and spliced together. But, in spite of the repetition and monotonous tone, it is strangely compelling. Even now, almost a week after I watched the film, I can still recall that scene.
At one point, a voice intones that there "the landscape was as God commanded it to be." The scene was of a military camp. Another scene is of a huge unfinished factory building, only the structural girders have been installed. It is surrounded by desert; there is nothing, absolutely nothing to be seen for miles. Who built it? Why was it built there, in the middle of nowhere? Who was supposed to work there? Nobody knew anything about it.
Fata Morgana reminds me of a type of psychological test called a projective test: the Rorschach and the Thematic Apperception Test, for example. They consist of ambiguous images which the individual is supposed to interpret and say something about. What the person says about the images is supposed to reveal some aspects of that individual's personality.
Overall Rating: It's one that I put back in the queue for another viewing, perhaps next year. I'll leave it sit and percolate in my subconscious for awhile.
The title, Fata Morgana, is an Italian term that refers to an unusual and very complex type of mirage. It refers to Morgan le Fay, from the Arthurian cycle, and suggests the belief that the mirage is produced by witchcraft. Several mirages are presented throughout the film, some of which I didn't realize were mirages until it was pointed out during the viewing with the commentary turned on.
The film has no plot, at least not in the accepted sense of the term. In addition, Herzog states that this is not a documentary. I agree with him--at least, again, not a documentary in the usual sense. Herzog also insists that "there is a coherence there which is inexplicable but somehow there." Ultimately, I consider it unclassifiable. For the most part it is a series of short scenes and images shot in the northern Sahara Desert. The dialogue is almost non-existent, consisting of short voice-overs: readings from the Popol Vuh, which is the Mayan creation myth, and music ranging from classical ecclesiastical works to songs by Leonard Cohen.
Herzog says that initially it was to be an SF film. Aliens land on a planet and film what they see. This was to be a photojournal of their visit. However, he quickly dropped the idea and decided that he would just present the film images without the story.
The film has three parts: "Creation," "Paradise," and "The Golden Age." One commentary I read stated that on the surface, the titles appear ironic in contrast to the film images, but are not ironic at a deeper level. Unfortunately I am unable so far to get to that deeper level.
The film opens with an airport scene: we see a number of planes landing, each one getting more and more blurred and distorted as the day warms up.
Part I: Creation
As we hear a woman's voice reading the Mayan creation myth in German (English subtitles) we see images of the desert with buildings off in the distance, sand dunes, an oasis with palm trees, and huge storage tanks. Other scenes include a wrecked plane, an oil field perhaps burning off natural gas, and a flat landscape with sand and brush. One might almost call it a collage of images.
People occasionally appear in brief glimpses, but with no discernible purpose. Herzog commented that he couldn't communicate with them, so they were free to do what they wanted. Some just glanced at the camera and walked on. Others stood there and stared back. One man gestured with his hands, first pointing in one direction, then another, and then shrugged his shoulder and walked off.
I was startled when lush vegetation and once a beautiful waterfall appeared. These were not from the Sahara but scenes shot later in the Canary Islands. Again, the commentary was helpful here. However, there seemed to be no attempt to draw any conclusion from the juxtaposition of the barren scenery and the waterfall. It was up to the viewers, I guess, to make of it what they would or could.
Part II: Paradise
Again, a series of images that contrast with the usual concept of a Paradise. There are people again engaged in inexplicable, to me anyway, activity. A man and a woman approach the camera, both taking very short steps. He wears a coat that has many medals and begins speaking. There is no translation, and Herzog commented that they had no idea of what he was saying. During this segment Leonard Cohen sings two songs, one of which is "Suzanne." One scene is of a German researcher who is holding a monitor lizard that obviously fascinates him. He wears what appears to be swim or diving goggles. At one point a man appears holding a very worn and creased letter that is falling apart. He says, in German, that he is going back to rejoin his people in Germany. He got the letter over 25 years ago. Other images are of a Moslem cemetery, a military camp, and the site of a French test of a nuclear weapon.
Part III: The Golden Age
The most striking image in this section consists of a man and a woman on a small stage: she plays the piano and he sings and plays the drums and cymbals. He is singing in Spanish, but the sound quality is so bad I couldn't tell what language it is. The music and the movement of the two are so repetitive that I wonder if it is just one short clip of ten or fifteen seconds that has been repeatedly copied and spliced together. But, in spite of the repetition and monotonous tone, it is strangely compelling. Even now, almost a week after I watched the film, I can still recall that scene.
At one point, a voice intones that there "the landscape was as God commanded it to be." The scene was of a military camp. Another scene is of a huge unfinished factory building, only the structural girders have been installed. It is surrounded by desert; there is nothing, absolutely nothing to be seen for miles. Who built it? Why was it built there, in the middle of nowhere? Who was supposed to work there? Nobody knew anything about it.
Fata Morgana reminds me of a type of psychological test called a projective test: the Rorschach and the Thematic Apperception Test, for example. They consist of ambiguous images which the individual is supposed to interpret and say something about. What the person says about the images is supposed to reveal some aspects of that individual's personality.
Overall Rating: It's one that I put back in the queue for another viewing, perhaps next year. I'll leave it sit and percolate in my subconscious for awhile.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Thomas Hardy: June 2, 1840--Jan. 11, 1928
In his prose and poetry, Thomas Hardy often celebrated the heroism of the individual's struggle to survive in an uncaring universe, but he seldom, if ever, glorifies the great human institutions--government, the church, war. In truth, he saw them as another enemy to fight against.
This poem is typical, I think.
Departure
(Southhampton Docks, October 1899)
While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine--
All smalling slowly to the gray sea-line--
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,
Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,
Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men
To seeming words that ask and ask again:
"How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels
Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,
That are as puppets in a playing hand?--
When shall the saner softer polities
Whereof we dream, have sway in each proud land
and patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand
Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?"
I think that dream hasn't gotten any closer since Hardy wrote this poem. Frankly, I doubt that I will see it in my lifetime.
This poem is typical, I think.
Departure
(Southhampton Docks, October 1899)
While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine--
All smalling slowly to the gray sea-line--
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,
Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,
Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men
To seeming words that ask and ask again:
"How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels
Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,
That are as puppets in a playing hand?--
When shall the saner softer polities
Whereof we dream, have sway in each proud land
and patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand
Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?"
I think that dream hasn't gotten any closer since Hardy wrote this poem. Frankly, I doubt that I will see it in my lifetime.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Walt Whitman: May 31, 1819--March 26, 1892
From "Song Of Myself," Stanza 32:
This stanza incorporates the range of responses that I have toward Whitman's poetry: some parts I agree with, some I don't, and some I don't understand.
His brief description of the stallion at the end of this stanza is one of the finest I can remember reading. I see the stallion before me as I read--"Eyes full of sparkling wickedness . . ."
32
I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
No one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.
I wonder where they get those tokens,
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?
Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,
Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them,
Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,
Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.
A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.
His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.
I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion,
Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them?
Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.
Any thoughts?
This stanza incorporates the range of responses that I have toward Whitman's poetry: some parts I agree with, some I don't, and some I don't understand.
His brief description of the stallion at the end of this stanza is one of the finest I can remember reading. I see the stallion before me as I read--"Eyes full of sparkling wickedness . . ."
32
I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
No one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.
I wonder where they get those tokens,
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?
Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,
Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them,
Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,
Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.
A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.
His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.
I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion,
Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them?
Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.
Any thoughts?
Friday, May 28, 2010
Something to think about
Going To The Dogs
My granddad, viewing earth's worn cogs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
His granddad in his house of logs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
His granddad in the Flemish bogs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
His granddad in his old skin togs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
There's one thing that I have to state--
The dogs have had a good long wait.
-- Anon --
Any thoughts?
My granddad, viewing earth's worn cogs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
His granddad in his house of logs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
His granddad in the Flemish bogs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
His granddad in his old skin togs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
There's one thing that I have to state--
The dogs have had a good long wait.
-- Anon --
Any thoughts?
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Simon J. Ortiz: May 27. 1941--
"Simon J. Ortiz (born on May 27, 1941 in Albuquerque, New Mexico is a Native American writer of the Acoma Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what has been called the Native American Renasssance. He is one of the most respected and widely read Native American poets.
Ortiz, a full-blooded Acoma Pueblo, is a member of the Eagle or "Dyaamih" Clan. He was raised in the Acoma village of McCartys (or "Deetzeyaamah"), and spoke only Keresan at home. His father, both a railroad worker and a woodcarver, was an elder in the clan who was charged with keeping the religious knowledge and customs of the pueblo." (above quotation from the Wikipedia entry on Ortiz)
I thought I would post two of his poems today: the first is about Ortiz with his father and the second is Ortiz with his own son.
My Father's Son
Wanting to say things,
I miss my father tonight.
His voice, the slight catch,
the depth, from his thin chest,
the tremble of emotion
in something he has just said
to his Son, his song:
We planted corn one Spring at Aacqu--
we planted several times
but this one particular time
I remember the soft damp sand
in my hand.
My father had stopped at one point
to show me an overturned furrow,
the plowshare had unearthed
the burrow nest of a mouse
in the soft moist sand.
Very gently, he scooped tiny pink animals
into the palm of his hand
and told me to touch them.
We took them to the edge
of the field and put them in the shade
of a sand moist clod.
I remember the very softness
of cool and warm sand and tiny alive
mice and my father saying things.
Speaking
I take him outside
under the trees,
have him stand on the ground.
We listen to the crickets,
cicadas, millions years old sound.
Ants come by us.
I tell them,
"This is he, my son.
This boy is looking at you.
I am speaking for him."
The crickets, cicadas,
the ants, the millions of years
are watching us,
hearing us.
My son murmurs infant words,
speaking, small laughter
bubbles from him.
Tree leaves tremble.
They listen to this boy
speaking for me.
I wonder what Ortiz's father was saying and what Ortiz's son was saying for him.
Ortiz, a full-blooded Acoma Pueblo, is a member of the Eagle or "Dyaamih" Clan. He was raised in the Acoma village of McCartys (or "Deetzeyaamah"), and spoke only Keresan at home. His father, both a railroad worker and a woodcarver, was an elder in the clan who was charged with keeping the religious knowledge and customs of the pueblo." (above quotation from the Wikipedia entry on Ortiz)
I thought I would post two of his poems today: the first is about Ortiz with his father and the second is Ortiz with his own son.
My Father's Son
Wanting to say things,
I miss my father tonight.
His voice, the slight catch,
the depth, from his thin chest,
the tremble of emotion
in something he has just said
to his Son, his song:
We planted corn one Spring at Aacqu--
we planted several times
but this one particular time
I remember the soft damp sand
in my hand.
My father had stopped at one point
to show me an overturned furrow,
the plowshare had unearthed
the burrow nest of a mouse
in the soft moist sand.
Very gently, he scooped tiny pink animals
into the palm of his hand
and told me to touch them.
We took them to the edge
of the field and put them in the shade
of a sand moist clod.
I remember the very softness
of cool and warm sand and tiny alive
mice and my father saying things.
Speaking
I take him outside
under the trees,
have him stand on the ground.
We listen to the crickets,
cicadas, millions years old sound.
Ants come by us.
I tell them,
"This is he, my son.
This boy is looking at you.
I am speaking for him."
The crickets, cicadas,
the ants, the millions of years
are watching us,
hearing us.
My son murmurs infant words,
speaking, small laughter
bubbles from him.
Tree leaves tremble.
They listen to this boy
speaking for me.
I wonder what Ortiz's father was saying and what Ortiz's son was saying for him.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Something to think about
We are all citizens of one world, we are all of one blood. To hate a man because he was born in another country, because he speaks a different language, or because he takes a different view on this subject or that, is a great folly. Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human . . . Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity.
-- Johann Amos Comenius (1592-1670)--
Any thoughts?
-- Johann Amos Comenius (1592-1670)--
Any thoughts?
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Combination Plate 14
I will be bringing up significant plot elements and episodes as well as revealing some of the endings.
George Eliot, "The Lifted Veil," a short story
Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish, a novel, mystery
Iron Man, a film, superhero genre
Cherie Priest, Boneshaker, an SF novel
George Eliot
"The Lifted Veil"
a short story
I've read a number of Eliot's novels, but few of her short stories, so I can't judge "The Lifted Veil" in comparison to others by her. But, this short story certainly is quite different from the novels I've read. It might almost be classified as SF if it had been written a century or so later. As it was published in 1859, it might certainly be the first or one of the first stories to incorporate certain elements that are frequently found in SF or fantasy.
The plot is rather typical. The narrator is Latimer, the weakly second son of a wealthy landowner. His older brother Alfred, on the contrary, is tall, strong, and athletic. He is, naturally, his father's favorite and the heir presumptive to the family fortune and estate. Moreover, Alfred is engaged to Bertha, the neighborhood charmer, with whom Latimer also is hopelessly in love.
Latimer is sent to Geneva to finish his education, and while he is there, he has several visions of events that occur shortly afterwards. He has become a clairvoyant, or able to see in the future. One of his visions is of Bertha. She is speaking to him, and it is clear that it is years in the future for she appears to be much older. What she tells him makes it obvious that they have been married for years now, and that she has always hated him.
At this time, he also begins to be able to gain impressions of what others are thinking at that time. What he learns about many others depresses him, for he now sees others as full of hypocrisy, selfishness, and deceit. But, there is one person he can not read--Bertha. For some inexplicable reason, she remains a blank wall.
Shortly before the wedding, Alfred is thrown from his horse and is killed instantly. Latimer and his father slowly become attached to one another. Perhaps the father is encouraged in this when he sees that Bertha seemingly is now attached to Latimer, after a suitable mourning period, of course. As his vision had foretold, Latimer and Bertha marry. The effect of his visions and his telepathic powers turns Latimer almost into a recluse.
Why does Latimer marry Bertha when he knows how it will eventually turn out? He hopes that she really does love him at first, and it is only over time that her dislike develops. In addition, she is the one person he can not read; therefore, there is a silence not found with others when she is in the room.
Eliot also includes a brief incident involving phrenology, which she was apparently interested in at one time. Near the end of the story, is a truly bizarre scene depicting the effects of a blood transfusion on a dead woman which could have come straight from Edgar Allan Poe. As Poe died some ten years before this story was published, it is doubtful that Eliot influenced Poe.
Overall Rating: a fascinating story that includes the earliest mention of telepathy and precognition as common ongoing events and not just as one-time-only episode in a highly dramatic scene. I've only read the story once, and my suspicion is that I'm missing a lot. "The Lifted Veil" is definitely worth a second reading.
===============================================
Craig Johnson
The Cold Dish, a mystery novel, first in a series
Setting: Absaroka County, Wyoming
Time: contemporary
The Detective: Sheriff Walt Longmire
Mystery type: Police Procedural
Perhaps this might better be called a sheriff procedural since Walt Longmire is not the typical hard-bitten, cynical, streetwise cop so popular today. He's within a year of retirement and only wants a quiet period before he hangs up his badge and gun for good. Naturally, he's not going to get his wish.
Longmire might be called an accidental sheriff. He ended up in the Marines during the Vietnam conflict, and the needs of the service put him in the military police. After his discharge, he returned home and, having lost interest in his pre-Vietnam plans, put in for the deputy opening in the sheriff's office. Longmire and the sheriff got along, and he became the favored son when the sheriff retired. He has been winning elections since then. Now it was his turn to pass on.
Normally I feel that domestic dramas involving the law enforcement officers in mysteries should be kept to a minimum, for I can always find other works that focus on those issues if I'm in the mood for that type of work. A mystery should focus on the mystery. In this novel, domestic issues play a significant role. Walt's wife had died a short time ago, and he is still mourning her. It has reached the point when friends and relatives were shaking their heads and suggesting that "he get out a bit more." He does, and while the relationship turns tragic, he has "gotten out a bit more."
Longmire, as I said earlier, is just hoping for a quiet end to his term. So, when he gets a call about a body found outside of town, he doesn't bother to check it out himself, but sends Vic, his chief deputy, out there. It is probably a sheep. She calls back; it isn't a sheep. It's a two-legged critter that's spread out on the ground.
He goes, reluctantly, and when he sees who it is, he knows this is going to be messy. The victim is Cody Pritchard, and he has a record. Several years ago, he and three others raped a young Cheyenne girl who was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and was slightly retarded. Longmire had arrested the four, and they were tried, convicted, and given suspended sentences. None of them went to prison for the rape.
Was this a revenge killing by one or more of her Cheyenne relatives or friends, or was this the result of something else Pritchard was involved in? Then, a second one of the four was found dead. That answered the question. It looked as though someone, a bit more than two years later, had started taking revenge.
The novel moves on from that point, rather as one would expect. It's not very complex, but Johnson tells the story well. Longmire is a rather casual, easy-going fellow, much as one would expect from a sheriff who's been in the job for almost 25 years. He knows the people, and they know him.
Johnson has also created an interesting supporting cast for Longmire, and I hope they return in subsequent novels. First is Ruby, the lovable? office tyrant, who takes no nonsense from anyone, especially from Longmire. She ran the sheriff's office before he got there and probably will run it for his successor.
His chief deputy is Vic (Victoria) Morretti, from South Philly where her father, uncles, and brothers were cops. Her husband, however, was a field engineer for a mining company and had gotten transferred out here. She reluctantly left and applied for a position with Longmire when a deputy position came open. She's the streetwise, cynical, tough cop in the story.
Longmire's closest friend, and major problem in this case, is Henry Standing Bear. Henry had also been in Vietnam, working behind enemy lines with a special forces unit. He had been trained to kill quietly and efficiently, and he just happened to be the uncle of Melissa, the young Cheyenne girl who was the rape victim. Longmire didn't believe he was the killer, but he had to admit that Henry sat on top of the suspects list.
Overall rating: very good first novel. I like the relaxed atmosphere and the setting, far from the mean streets of the usual urban setting, or even a quiet, tame, and civilized suburban area with a murder every week. I found the second in the series, Death Without Company, and I'm looking forward to settling down some evening with this one.
===============================================
Iron Man, a film
based on a superhero comic adventure
I'm no expert in the area of superheroes, at least not in the past 60 years or so. I used to read comics back then, but moved on to print tales. However, it does seem to me that there are two broad categories of superheroes. One consists of those that possess powers or abilities not given to us normal humans, Superman or Spiderman or any of the more recent heroes, the X-Men. These generally run the range from a crippled newsboy to an alien from another planet to a scientist who got in the way of an experiment. That which changes them could be the gods themselves, an alien environment, a new chemical, or radiation exposure.
The second type are those whose powers are not organic or physiological but technological. Although there are exceptions, this type of superhero is frequently a technical wizard, who is wealthy and is able to afford to hire engineers and technicians who research and develop the various gadgets. Bruce Wayne/Batman is my prime example of this type of superhero.
Tony Stark fits into the second category. He is an extremely wealthy and brilliant weapons inventor, whose lifestyle is reminiscent of Hugh Hefner. At least it was until he unwisely took a trip to do a weapon demonstration for NATO troops in Afghanistan where he is captured by insurgents. There he discovers that weapons produced by his company are getting into the wrong hands and are being used to kill American troops. He escapes and informs all that his company is getting out of the weapons business.
While a captive, he fooled the insurgents into thinking he was building his latest weapon for them, but instead he developed an armored suit that had various built-in weapons, computer guided and operated naturally. The suit reminded me of the combat suit created by Robert A. Heinlein in his novel, Starship Troopers. I haven't seen the film version, but I have read the novel, and Stark's suit certainly resembles Heinlein's creation.
Stark decides to develop the suit for the forces of good and decency which will make them superior to anything the enemy can throw against them. It means the end of war. However, as his chief foe points out in the last climatic struggle, Stark wanted to create something that would ensure peace and instead created the most deadly personal weapon yet known.
The only real surprise in the film was Stark's public announcement at the end of the film when he revealed himself to be Iron Man. Usually the character tries very hard to keep his identity as the superhero a secret--Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman . . .
Overall Rating: I'd give it three stars on a five star scale. The special effects, animation, etc. were competently handled, although the struggle at the end between the two suits looked a bit catoonish to me. Will I see the sequel, Iron Man 2, which has recently appeared in the theatres. Maybe--If I'm browsing the DVDs and I don't have anything at home to view, I may take it out.
=============================================
Cherie Priest
Boneshaker, an SF novel
Seattle
Time: 19th century
The reader must not be too insistent upon historical accuracy in this novel. Priest herself admits that she's taken considerable liberties with US history, including a Civil War that has lasted for over 20 years and an Alaskan gold rush that begins several decades early. It's probably best to think of this as an alternate history novel and read on.
Shortly after the start of the Civil War, gold is discovered in Alaska. Russia, which had been thinking of unloading the frozen wasteland, now has second thoughts. Gold? Russia then offers a large bonus for anyone who can build a machine that can break through the frozen ground and get at the gold. Leviticus Blue invents such a device and decides to try it out in Seattle before bringing it north.
Something goes wrong and it destroys downtown Seattle. What is worse, its digging has uncovered and released a toxic gas which kills immediately if exposed to a sufficient quantity. If it doesn't kill immediately, it turns the victims into zombies, hungry for human flesh. Naturally, those bitten by a zombie soon becomes a zombie also.
The stricken part of Seattle is quickly walled off to prevent the gas, which is heavier than air, and the zombies from escaping. Leviticus Blue is presumed dead. His wife, pregnant at that time, escapes to the outskirts of Seattle, changes her name, and attempts to lead a normal and quiet life. Her son Zeke, however, is determined to clear his father's name and heads for the walled part of Seattle. Briar Wilkes (Wilkes is the name she adopted) goes after him.
I almost gave up on the novel for the pacing in the first half was extremely slow. Moreover, I thought her editors should have done a better job in tackling the wordiness of the first part. Since it was a book group selection, I decided to skim through the novel so at least I could participate in the discussion. However, about half way through, I found that I had stopped skimming and was actually reading it.
As usual, the group reactions varied from those who thought there was no pacing problem at all, to those who liked the first part but weren't that happy with the second part, to me who had problems with the first part but found the second half much more readable.
What most bothered me about the work was the revelation of an important bit of information at the end. This was known by Briar, who was the major POV character, and though the reader was in her head numerous times, she did not reveal her secret until the end. I thought this was cheating on the author's part. While this was important, it wasn't significant enough to ruin the story for me. It was just a letdown at the end.
The story ended somewhat ambiguously as it was never very clear whether Briar and her son Zeke would remain behind the walls or would go back to where they were living or even leave the Seattle area completely, as had been hinted at earlier in the novel. The fate of several of the characters was unknown at the end. This leads me to suspect a sequel should be expected some time in the future.
Overall Rating: a decent read. Will I read the sequel if one appears? Possibly.
George Eliot, "The Lifted Veil," a short story
Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish, a novel, mystery
Iron Man, a film, superhero genre
Cherie Priest, Boneshaker, an SF novel
George Eliot
"The Lifted Veil"
a short story
I've read a number of Eliot's novels, but few of her short stories, so I can't judge "The Lifted Veil" in comparison to others by her. But, this short story certainly is quite different from the novels I've read. It might almost be classified as SF if it had been written a century or so later. As it was published in 1859, it might certainly be the first or one of the first stories to incorporate certain elements that are frequently found in SF or fantasy.
The plot is rather typical. The narrator is Latimer, the weakly second son of a wealthy landowner. His older brother Alfred, on the contrary, is tall, strong, and athletic. He is, naturally, his father's favorite and the heir presumptive to the family fortune and estate. Moreover, Alfred is engaged to Bertha, the neighborhood charmer, with whom Latimer also is hopelessly in love.
Latimer is sent to Geneva to finish his education, and while he is there, he has several visions of events that occur shortly afterwards. He has become a clairvoyant, or able to see in the future. One of his visions is of Bertha. She is speaking to him, and it is clear that it is years in the future for she appears to be much older. What she tells him makes it obvious that they have been married for years now, and that she has always hated him.
At this time, he also begins to be able to gain impressions of what others are thinking at that time. What he learns about many others depresses him, for he now sees others as full of hypocrisy, selfishness, and deceit. But, there is one person he can not read--Bertha. For some inexplicable reason, she remains a blank wall.
Shortly before the wedding, Alfred is thrown from his horse and is killed instantly. Latimer and his father slowly become attached to one another. Perhaps the father is encouraged in this when he sees that Bertha seemingly is now attached to Latimer, after a suitable mourning period, of course. As his vision had foretold, Latimer and Bertha marry. The effect of his visions and his telepathic powers turns Latimer almost into a recluse.
Why does Latimer marry Bertha when he knows how it will eventually turn out? He hopes that she really does love him at first, and it is only over time that her dislike develops. In addition, she is the one person he can not read; therefore, there is a silence not found with others when she is in the room.
Eliot also includes a brief incident involving phrenology, which she was apparently interested in at one time. Near the end of the story, is a truly bizarre scene depicting the effects of a blood transfusion on a dead woman which could have come straight from Edgar Allan Poe. As Poe died some ten years before this story was published, it is doubtful that Eliot influenced Poe.
Overall Rating: a fascinating story that includes the earliest mention of telepathy and precognition as common ongoing events and not just as one-time-only episode in a highly dramatic scene. I've only read the story once, and my suspicion is that I'm missing a lot. "The Lifted Veil" is definitely worth a second reading.
===============================================
Craig Johnson
The Cold Dish, a mystery novel, first in a series
Setting: Absaroka County, Wyoming
Time: contemporary
The Detective: Sheriff Walt Longmire
Mystery type: Police Procedural
Perhaps this might better be called a sheriff procedural since Walt Longmire is not the typical hard-bitten, cynical, streetwise cop so popular today. He's within a year of retirement and only wants a quiet period before he hangs up his badge and gun for good. Naturally, he's not going to get his wish.
Longmire might be called an accidental sheriff. He ended up in the Marines during the Vietnam conflict, and the needs of the service put him in the military police. After his discharge, he returned home and, having lost interest in his pre-Vietnam plans, put in for the deputy opening in the sheriff's office. Longmire and the sheriff got along, and he became the favored son when the sheriff retired. He has been winning elections since then. Now it was his turn to pass on.
Normally I feel that domestic dramas involving the law enforcement officers in mysteries should be kept to a minimum, for I can always find other works that focus on those issues if I'm in the mood for that type of work. A mystery should focus on the mystery. In this novel, domestic issues play a significant role. Walt's wife had died a short time ago, and he is still mourning her. It has reached the point when friends and relatives were shaking their heads and suggesting that "he get out a bit more." He does, and while the relationship turns tragic, he has "gotten out a bit more."
Longmire, as I said earlier, is just hoping for a quiet end to his term. So, when he gets a call about a body found outside of town, he doesn't bother to check it out himself, but sends Vic, his chief deputy, out there. It is probably a sheep. She calls back; it isn't a sheep. It's a two-legged critter that's spread out on the ground.
He goes, reluctantly, and when he sees who it is, he knows this is going to be messy. The victim is Cody Pritchard, and he has a record. Several years ago, he and three others raped a young Cheyenne girl who was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and was slightly retarded. Longmire had arrested the four, and they were tried, convicted, and given suspended sentences. None of them went to prison for the rape.
Was this a revenge killing by one or more of her Cheyenne relatives or friends, or was this the result of something else Pritchard was involved in? Then, a second one of the four was found dead. That answered the question. It looked as though someone, a bit more than two years later, had started taking revenge.
The novel moves on from that point, rather as one would expect. It's not very complex, but Johnson tells the story well. Longmire is a rather casual, easy-going fellow, much as one would expect from a sheriff who's been in the job for almost 25 years. He knows the people, and they know him.
Johnson has also created an interesting supporting cast for Longmire, and I hope they return in subsequent novels. First is Ruby, the lovable? office tyrant, who takes no nonsense from anyone, especially from Longmire. She ran the sheriff's office before he got there and probably will run it for his successor.
His chief deputy is Vic (Victoria) Morretti, from South Philly where her father, uncles, and brothers were cops. Her husband, however, was a field engineer for a mining company and had gotten transferred out here. She reluctantly left and applied for a position with Longmire when a deputy position came open. She's the streetwise, cynical, tough cop in the story.
Longmire's closest friend, and major problem in this case, is Henry Standing Bear. Henry had also been in Vietnam, working behind enemy lines with a special forces unit. He had been trained to kill quietly and efficiently, and he just happened to be the uncle of Melissa, the young Cheyenne girl who was the rape victim. Longmire didn't believe he was the killer, but he had to admit that Henry sat on top of the suspects list.
Overall rating: very good first novel. I like the relaxed atmosphere and the setting, far from the mean streets of the usual urban setting, or even a quiet, tame, and civilized suburban area with a murder every week. I found the second in the series, Death Without Company, and I'm looking forward to settling down some evening with this one.
===============================================
Iron Man, a film
based on a superhero comic adventure
I'm no expert in the area of superheroes, at least not in the past 60 years or so. I used to read comics back then, but moved on to print tales. However, it does seem to me that there are two broad categories of superheroes. One consists of those that possess powers or abilities not given to us normal humans, Superman or Spiderman or any of the more recent heroes, the X-Men. These generally run the range from a crippled newsboy to an alien from another planet to a scientist who got in the way of an experiment. That which changes them could be the gods themselves, an alien environment, a new chemical, or radiation exposure.
The second type are those whose powers are not organic or physiological but technological. Although there are exceptions, this type of superhero is frequently a technical wizard, who is wealthy and is able to afford to hire engineers and technicians who research and develop the various gadgets. Bruce Wayne/Batman is my prime example of this type of superhero.
Tony Stark fits into the second category. He is an extremely wealthy and brilliant weapons inventor, whose lifestyle is reminiscent of Hugh Hefner. At least it was until he unwisely took a trip to do a weapon demonstration for NATO troops in Afghanistan where he is captured by insurgents. There he discovers that weapons produced by his company are getting into the wrong hands and are being used to kill American troops. He escapes and informs all that his company is getting out of the weapons business.
While a captive, he fooled the insurgents into thinking he was building his latest weapon for them, but instead he developed an armored suit that had various built-in weapons, computer guided and operated naturally. The suit reminded me of the combat suit created by Robert A. Heinlein in his novel, Starship Troopers. I haven't seen the film version, but I have read the novel, and Stark's suit certainly resembles Heinlein's creation.
Stark decides to develop the suit for the forces of good and decency which will make them superior to anything the enemy can throw against them. It means the end of war. However, as his chief foe points out in the last climatic struggle, Stark wanted to create something that would ensure peace and instead created the most deadly personal weapon yet known.
The only real surprise in the film was Stark's public announcement at the end of the film when he revealed himself to be Iron Man. Usually the character tries very hard to keep his identity as the superhero a secret--Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman . . .
Overall Rating: I'd give it three stars on a five star scale. The special effects, animation, etc. were competently handled, although the struggle at the end between the two suits looked a bit catoonish to me. Will I see the sequel, Iron Man 2, which has recently appeared in the theatres. Maybe--If I'm browsing the DVDs and I don't have anything at home to view, I may take it out.
=============================================
Cherie Priest
Boneshaker, an SF novel
Seattle
Time: 19th century
The reader must not be too insistent upon historical accuracy in this novel. Priest herself admits that she's taken considerable liberties with US history, including a Civil War that has lasted for over 20 years and an Alaskan gold rush that begins several decades early. It's probably best to think of this as an alternate history novel and read on.
Shortly after the start of the Civil War, gold is discovered in Alaska. Russia, which had been thinking of unloading the frozen wasteland, now has second thoughts. Gold? Russia then offers a large bonus for anyone who can build a machine that can break through the frozen ground and get at the gold. Leviticus Blue invents such a device and decides to try it out in Seattle before bringing it north.
Something goes wrong and it destroys downtown Seattle. What is worse, its digging has uncovered and released a toxic gas which kills immediately if exposed to a sufficient quantity. If it doesn't kill immediately, it turns the victims into zombies, hungry for human flesh. Naturally, those bitten by a zombie soon becomes a zombie also.
The stricken part of Seattle is quickly walled off to prevent the gas, which is heavier than air, and the zombies from escaping. Leviticus Blue is presumed dead. His wife, pregnant at that time, escapes to the outskirts of Seattle, changes her name, and attempts to lead a normal and quiet life. Her son Zeke, however, is determined to clear his father's name and heads for the walled part of Seattle. Briar Wilkes (Wilkes is the name she adopted) goes after him.
I almost gave up on the novel for the pacing in the first half was extremely slow. Moreover, I thought her editors should have done a better job in tackling the wordiness of the first part. Since it was a book group selection, I decided to skim through the novel so at least I could participate in the discussion. However, about half way through, I found that I had stopped skimming and was actually reading it.
As usual, the group reactions varied from those who thought there was no pacing problem at all, to those who liked the first part but weren't that happy with the second part, to me who had problems with the first part but found the second half much more readable.
What most bothered me about the work was the revelation of an important bit of information at the end. This was known by Briar, who was the major POV character, and though the reader was in her head numerous times, she did not reveal her secret until the end. I thought this was cheating on the author's part. While this was important, it wasn't significant enough to ruin the story for me. It was just a letdown at the end.
The story ended somewhat ambiguously as it was never very clear whether Briar and her son Zeke would remain behind the walls or would go back to where they were living or even leave the Seattle area completely, as had been hinted at earlier in the novel. The fate of several of the characters was unknown at the end. This leads me to suspect a sequel should be expected some time in the future.
Overall Rating: a decent read. Will I read the sequel if one appears? Possibly.
Something to think about
Something to think about:
If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the part of my brain now atrophied would thus have kept active through use.
The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
-- Charles Darwin --
If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the part of my brain now atrophied would thus have kept active through use.
The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
-- Charles Darwin --
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Emily Dickinson: Dec. 10, 1830--May 15, 1886
It is a tradition among haiku poets to write a death-song, one that offers their last reflection on life here just before they die. Emily Dickson, while she didn't write a death-song, as far as I know, did write several hundred poems about death during her lifetime. I thought it only appropriate to provide one on this day.
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 —
-- Emily Dickinson --
Death here is personified as a kindly gentleman who clearly is not depicted as a fearsome monster, one to be feared. Her attitude is quite the opposite of Dylan Thomas' as it appears in his "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
While I haven't read all of her poems about death, none of those that I have read come close to expressing anything similar to Thomas' rage. Death in her poems is just another part of life or a a necessary change.
Comments, anyone?
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 —
-- Emily Dickinson --
Death here is personified as a kindly gentleman who clearly is not depicted as a fearsome monster, one to be feared. Her attitude is quite the opposite of Dylan Thomas' as it appears in his "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
While I haven't read all of her poems about death, none of those that I have read come close to expressing anything similar to Thomas' rage. Death in her poems is just another part of life or a a necessary change.
Comments, anyone?
Friday, May 14, 2010
The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XXVI
As usual, I'm using the first edition as the base for the discussion.
First Edition: Quatrain XXVI
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies:
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
Second Edition: Quatrain XXVIII
Another Voice, when I am sleeping, cries,
"The Flower should open with the Morning skies."
And a retreating Whisper, as I wake--
"The flower that once has blown for ever dies."
Fifth Edition: LXIII
Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain--This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
The different editions, I think, vary more than any other I've seen so far. Only the last line --"The Flower that once has blown for ever dies"-- is the same for all three editions.
In the first edition, old Khayyam tells us what he thinks. We should ignore "the Wise" and remember that the only certain truth is that there is only one short life. Beyond that, all we get are lies, or, at best, speculations or theories passed off as absolute truth. I wonder what the reaction of the hundreds? or thousands? of commentators on the numerous holy books in various religions would have to say here.
The opening line echoes Quatrain IX when he says "But come with old Khayyam and leave the Lot." Here, he asks us to leave the past and strike out with him to enjoy the present, another hint that life is short and we should enjoy it while we are here.
The second edition is considerably different, not only in the words used but also in the attribution of the ideas that are expressed. In the first edition, it is old Khayyam who tells us, but now the narrator is not the one who utters the ideas but is the passive receiver instead. Because FitzGerald rearranged the sequence as well as introduced new quatrains in the later editions, the references to previous quatrains vary from edition to edition. In the first edition, "the Wise" refers back to the "Saints and Sages" and "the foolish Prophets" of Quatrain XXV, whereas that "Another Voice" in the second edition links us back to the Muezzin in Quatrain XXVII who tells us that our "Reward is neither Here nor There." The point is the same, though: there is only one short life.
The fifth edition, to me anyway, seems somewhat closer to the first edition than does the second. While Khayyam's name has been dropped, the ideas expressed are the narrator's and not some other Voice's. The reference to "threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise" in the first line of the fifth edition mutes the attack on "Saints and Sages" and focuses instead on what is being said, rather than on who says it. Perhaps Khayyam or FitzGerald himself was criticized for dismissing the wise words of "Saints and Sages." It's just a guess, for I have no information regarding this, except for a vague reference once that Khayyam was almost considered heretical.
Moreover, the second line in the fifth edition is very similar to the second line of the first edition with a significant substitution of "this life" in the fifth edition for "that life" in the first version. The "this" suggests perhaps another life which may or may not be equally short. The third and fourth lines are almost identical in the first and fifth editions. Again, the overall theme is that we know for certain only that we have one short life.
My preference? I would go with the first edition and then the fifth, with the second edition coming in a distant third. Since FitzGerald's final version almost restores the first version, it seems that he also was dissatisfied with the second.
ERROR CORRECTION
I missed the actual revision of the First Edition's Quatrain XXVI in the Second Edition. It is not Quatrain XXVIII but Quatrain LXVI, and it is identical to Quatrain LXIII in the Fifth Edition. Whatever I had to say about the quatrain in the Fifth Edition applies also to the quatrain in the Second Edition. (I hope I haven't confused everybody here-- if so, please leave a question.)
Comments, anyone?
First Edition: Quatrain XXVI
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies:
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
Second Edition: Quatrain XXVIII
Another Voice, when I am sleeping, cries,
"The Flower should open with the Morning skies."
And a retreating Whisper, as I wake--
"The flower that once has blown for ever dies."
Fifth Edition: LXIII
Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain--This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
The different editions, I think, vary more than any other I've seen so far. Only the last line --"The Flower that once has blown for ever dies"-- is the same for all three editions.
In the first edition, old Khayyam tells us what he thinks. We should ignore "the Wise" and remember that the only certain truth is that there is only one short life. Beyond that, all we get are lies, or, at best, speculations or theories passed off as absolute truth. I wonder what the reaction of the hundreds? or thousands? of commentators on the numerous holy books in various religions would have to say here.
The opening line echoes Quatrain IX when he says "But come with old Khayyam and leave the Lot." Here, he asks us to leave the past and strike out with him to enjoy the present, another hint that life is short and we should enjoy it while we are here.
The second edition is considerably different, not only in the words used but also in the attribution of the ideas that are expressed. In the first edition, it is old Khayyam who tells us, but now the narrator is not the one who utters the ideas but is the passive receiver instead. Because FitzGerald rearranged the sequence as well as introduced new quatrains in the later editions, the references to previous quatrains vary from edition to edition. In the first edition, "the Wise" refers back to the "Saints and Sages" and "the foolish Prophets" of Quatrain XXV, whereas that "Another Voice" in the second edition links us back to the Muezzin in Quatrain XXVII who tells us that our "Reward is neither Here nor There." The point is the same, though: there is only one short life.
The fifth edition, to me anyway, seems somewhat closer to the first edition than does the second. While Khayyam's name has been dropped, the ideas expressed are the narrator's and not some other Voice's. The reference to "threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise" in the first line of the fifth edition mutes the attack on "Saints and Sages" and focuses instead on what is being said, rather than on who says it. Perhaps Khayyam or FitzGerald himself was criticized for dismissing the wise words of "Saints and Sages." It's just a guess, for I have no information regarding this, except for a vague reference once that Khayyam was almost considered heretical.
Moreover, the second line in the fifth edition is very similar to the second line of the first edition with a significant substitution of "this life" in the fifth edition for "that life" in the first version. The "this" suggests perhaps another life which may or may not be equally short. The third and fourth lines are almost identical in the first and fifth editions. Again, the overall theme is that we know for certain only that we have one short life.
My preference? I would go with the first edition and then the fifth, with the second edition coming in a distant third. Since FitzGerald's final version almost restores the first version, it seems that he also was dissatisfied with the second.
ERROR CORRECTION
I missed the actual revision of the First Edition's Quatrain XXVI in the Second Edition. It is not Quatrain XXVIII but Quatrain LXVI, and it is identical to Quatrain LXIII in the Fifth Edition. Whatever I had to say about the quatrain in the Fifth Edition applies also to the quatrain in the Second Edition. (I hope I haven't confused everybody here-- if so, please leave a question.)
Comments, anyone?
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Something to think about
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery--even if mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
-- Albert Einstein --
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Gregory Benford: Sailing Bright Eternity, Galactic Center Book 6
Warning: I will discuss important plot elements and the resolution of the conflict between the Naturals and the Mechs.
Greg Benford's Sailing Bright Eternity is the sixth and final book in his mind-bending "Galactic Center" series, which began during the late 1990s in our solar system out on the rim of the galaxy and ended over 35,000 years later on the edge of a massive black hole, the Eater, at the center of the galaxy. I consider this series to be one of the greatest multi-volume SF works ever written.
Greg Benford is a physicist and astronomer, and he makes superb use of his knowledge as he takes what he knows and expands on it and does not allow it to set limits on his imagination. He has also created one of the most engaging characters in SF--Nigel Walmsley, the Brit who joined NASA in the 1990s and somehow managed to be around some 35,000 years later, thus being present at the beginning of humanity's role in the conflict with the mechs and also in at the resolution.
The story picks up where it ended in the previous book, Furious Gulf, with Toby, who has become separated from his father and the rest of the Bishop family. He has encountered a crusty old man who occupies what appears to be some sort of galactic library and who claims to be from the mythical planet Earth. He is of the Brit family, he jokingly tells Toby. It is Nigel Walmsley, whom we haven't heard of since the second novel, who then, as any old timer who hasn't had anybody to talk to for awhile, proceeds to fill Toby in on his part in the war against the mechs, a period which covers roughly 35, 000 years. Fortunately, for Toby, and for the reader also, Walmsley spent most of the time in deep sleep, so it's really not that long. In addition, Benford has kindly provided a Timeline for the Galactic series at the end of the novel.
As Walmsley finishes his tale, the mechs, once again, appear and attack. Walmsley and Toby are separated and we follow Toby as he flees the mechs and searches the Wedge for his family and friends. The Wedge is an habitat created long ago as a refuge for Naturals fleeing the mechs; it has various "pockets," with varying environments. Naturals are those life forms in the galaxy who evolved in the Darwinian mode whereas the mechs were initially created by a Natural species as a weapon of war (Fred Saberhagen has a similar entity in his "Berserker" series.)
What Toby doesn't realize is that the mechs don't want him dead, just yet. They are looking for his grandfather, Abraham (a great name for the founder of a family/tribe) . The mechs have recently learned, as have some of the humans, that there is a secret weapon that could destroy the mechs if it ever could be constructed. The instructions for the weapon are encoded in human DNA, that part called "junk" DNA that doesn't seem to play any role in human development. To get the information, DNA from three closely related humans is required. In this case, the mechs have decided on getting the instructions from Abraham, Killeen, and Todd. Therefore, the mechs keep prodding Todd on in hopes that he will meet up with his grandfather, whom everybody mistakenly had thought had died long ago.
At one point during his wanderings, Toby fashions a raft, deciding that that it would be easier to float down a large river than to try to make his way by foot along the bank. He eventually comes to a town built on the the river that seems quite strange. The prosperity of the town depends on the river and the mighty boats that move up and down that river carrying passengers and cargo. The inhabitants seem to have created a way of living possibly based on some historical setting.
Toby eventually gets a job on one of these boats, the Natchez, because of his recent experience coming down the river. At one point, Toby begins to have some thoughts about the river that seemed somewhat familiar to me.
"Under Mr. Preston he [Toby] was coming to see that the face of the wedded water and metal was a wondrous book, one in a dead language to him before but now speaking cherished secrets. Every fresh point they rounded told a new tale. Not one page was empty. A passenger might be charmed by a churning dimple on its skin, but to a true riverman that was an italicized shout, announcing a wreak or reef of wrenching space-time Vortex about to break through from the undercrust of timestone.
Passengers went oooh and aahhh at the pretty pictures the silver river painted for them without reading a single word of the dark text it truly was."
What's interesting is to compare this with a passage from Mark Twain's From Old Times on the Mississippi:
"It turned out to be true. The face of the water in time became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was devoid of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you could want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. . . The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on it surface . . . but to the pilot that was an italicized passage; indeed it was more than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals with a strong of shouting exclamation-point at the end of it, for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that every floated. . . In truth the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter."
Again the mechs attack, and again Toby is forced to flee. After various adventures he does meet up with Killeen and Abraham. The Mantis, a mech who has long been the major foe of the Bishops, appears and is able to get the all-important DNA samples. The mechs now can decipher the DNA and study the weapon to determine just how dangerous it really is.
Yet, something is still missing, for there are gaps in the coding. Upon the threat of torture, Abraham reveals the code, which had been handed down through numerous generations in the Bishop family. He sings the code, which is actually a song, "a passage from the most hallowed of the musics the Bishops carried in their sensorium store. They had played it on the long marches together, knew its lines by heart. . . The highest of arts, the Mose Art."
The Mantis says, "I see the connection. The unused sites in the Bishop DNA--that is the key. The notes of this piece, arrayed in harmonics, yield the solution. I relay this to the Exalteds now."
Now the long search has ended: the Exalteds (higher-order mechs) had the information and could now begin to develop a defense against this weapon, whatever it was.
However, as smart as the mechs are, they can't come close to the deviousness of the Natural species. The humans are, in realty, bait. They never were expected to build this "weapon" and use it against the mechs. This is all part of the ruse designed to fool the mechs. The coding in the DNA and the aria is not a set of instructions for a super-weapon or even a revelation of some serious weakness in the mechs--it itself is the weapon. It is a virus, much like a computer virus, that attacks and ultimately destroys the memory and logic sections of the mechs. As a further example of the Natural's deviousness, the virus includes a directive that impels any mech infested with the virus to transmit the virus to any mech within reach.
The long war is over.
Now comes the hard part--persuading the few surviving mechs to join with the Naturals, for the universe will come to an end in a few billion years. The mechs must be convinced that they and the Naturals have a common goal here--to find out how to prevent this from happening or at least learn how to survive, until the next universe forms. Cooperation between them would seem to be absolutely necessary at this point.
I have already mentioned Benford's incorporation of some material from Mark Twain into his narrative. This isn't the only example for he skillfully and seamlessly interweaves some of the most common SF themes and plot devices into a coherent narrative structure frequently without the reader realizing what Benford has accomplished.
In the first novel, Benford confronts us with a situation that has already been found in numerous novels and films: a large asteroid is headed for earth and Walmsley is one of the two astronauts selected to destroy it. Yet, even in this situation that has almost become a cliche, Benford adds a twist that makes it a new and highly significant event. In the second novel, Across the Sea of Stars, the mechs' first attack on Earth reminds me of similar tactics used by the aliens in John Wyndham's Out of the Deeps (aka The Kraken Wakes).
Other situations and events in the Galactic Center series bring to mind Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and also his landmark short story, "The Sentinel." And, along with the incoming asteroid, Benford somehow manages to insert Bigfoot (aka Yeti) into the narrative as well as a religious cult that has gained sufficient political power to prohibit certain types of research and prevent the publication of research results that conflict with their religious beliefs (must be fiction, couldn't happen here in the USA).
The overarching plot structure of Benford's Galactic Center series is reminiscent of EE (Doc) Smith's Lensmen novels, which, like Benford's, consists of six works. In both works, the humans, although in the forefront of the fighting, are really weapons wielded by a superior race--Smith's Arisians and Benford's Higher-ups. And, the enemy forces also are controlled by superior beings--Smith's Eddorians and Benford's Exalteds. The identity of the leaders of the opposing forces aren't known to the humans at the beginning of the conflict. It's only as the conflict gains in intensity do hints and clues emerge which tell the humans that there are others involved in the struggle. Again, it's only in the final volume of both works that the ultimate leaders of both sides come out of hiding and reveal themselves. This is especially true of the first publication of Smith's series for he later revised the first volume to give the readers complete knowledge and novels' characters some knowledge of the Arisians and Eddorians and their struggle for control of the universe.
As I said earlier, I consider this to be one of the greatest SF series ever written, and I hope that I've been able to provide some convincing reasons why I believe this. Perhaps some time, someone reading this might be inspired to at least take a look at the first novel in the series.
The first novel in the Galactic Center series is In the Ocean of Night, in which we are introduced to Nigel Walmsley, who spends almost as much time and energy fighting NASA bureaucrats as he does the mechs. It is, therefore, fitting that these should be the last words of Sailing Bright Eternity, the final volume of this magnificent series:
"All was now quite modern and different around there and most of the ancient names on the graves mean nothing to anybody. There are Cards aplenty and Bishops and even a few Dodgers.
Nearby, old markers relate the names in a language now dispersed or dead. Killeen Bishop. Nearby, slightly less worn, Toby Bishop. These graves are unusually large, suggesting to archeologists that these were from the Hunker Down Era.
Always slightly distanced, alone and apart, Nigel Walmsley is buried on a separate knoll, in full view of the ocean of night."
Greg Benford's Sailing Bright Eternity is the sixth and final book in his mind-bending "Galactic Center" series, which began during the late 1990s in our solar system out on the rim of the galaxy and ended over 35,000 years later on the edge of a massive black hole, the Eater, at the center of the galaxy. I consider this series to be one of the greatest multi-volume SF works ever written.
Greg Benford is a physicist and astronomer, and he makes superb use of his knowledge as he takes what he knows and expands on it and does not allow it to set limits on his imagination. He has also created one of the most engaging characters in SF--Nigel Walmsley, the Brit who joined NASA in the 1990s and somehow managed to be around some 35,000 years later, thus being present at the beginning of humanity's role in the conflict with the mechs and also in at the resolution.
The story picks up where it ended in the previous book, Furious Gulf, with Toby, who has become separated from his father and the rest of the Bishop family. He has encountered a crusty old man who occupies what appears to be some sort of galactic library and who claims to be from the mythical planet Earth. He is of the Brit family, he jokingly tells Toby. It is Nigel Walmsley, whom we haven't heard of since the second novel, who then, as any old timer who hasn't had anybody to talk to for awhile, proceeds to fill Toby in on his part in the war against the mechs, a period which covers roughly 35, 000 years. Fortunately, for Toby, and for the reader also, Walmsley spent most of the time in deep sleep, so it's really not that long. In addition, Benford has kindly provided a Timeline for the Galactic series at the end of the novel.
As Walmsley finishes his tale, the mechs, once again, appear and attack. Walmsley and Toby are separated and we follow Toby as he flees the mechs and searches the Wedge for his family and friends. The Wedge is an habitat created long ago as a refuge for Naturals fleeing the mechs; it has various "pockets," with varying environments. Naturals are those life forms in the galaxy who evolved in the Darwinian mode whereas the mechs were initially created by a Natural species as a weapon of war (Fred Saberhagen has a similar entity in his "Berserker" series.)
What Toby doesn't realize is that the mechs don't want him dead, just yet. They are looking for his grandfather, Abraham (a great name for the founder of a family/tribe) . The mechs have recently learned, as have some of the humans, that there is a secret weapon that could destroy the mechs if it ever could be constructed. The instructions for the weapon are encoded in human DNA, that part called "junk" DNA that doesn't seem to play any role in human development. To get the information, DNA from three closely related humans is required. In this case, the mechs have decided on getting the instructions from Abraham, Killeen, and Todd. Therefore, the mechs keep prodding Todd on in hopes that he will meet up with his grandfather, whom everybody mistakenly had thought had died long ago.
At one point during his wanderings, Toby fashions a raft, deciding that that it would be easier to float down a large river than to try to make his way by foot along the bank. He eventually comes to a town built on the the river that seems quite strange. The prosperity of the town depends on the river and the mighty boats that move up and down that river carrying passengers and cargo. The inhabitants seem to have created a way of living possibly based on some historical setting.
Toby eventually gets a job on one of these boats, the Natchez, because of his recent experience coming down the river. At one point, Toby begins to have some thoughts about the river that seemed somewhat familiar to me.
"Under Mr. Preston he [Toby] was coming to see that the face of the wedded water and metal was a wondrous book, one in a dead language to him before but now speaking cherished secrets. Every fresh point they rounded told a new tale. Not one page was empty. A passenger might be charmed by a churning dimple on its skin, but to a true riverman that was an italicized shout, announcing a wreak or reef of wrenching space-time Vortex about to break through from the undercrust of timestone.
Passengers went oooh and aahhh at the pretty pictures the silver river painted for them without reading a single word of the dark text it truly was."
What's interesting is to compare this with a passage from Mark Twain's From Old Times on the Mississippi:
"It turned out to be true. The face of the water in time became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was devoid of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you could want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. . . The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on it surface . . . but to the pilot that was an italicized passage; indeed it was more than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals with a strong of shouting exclamation-point at the end of it, for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that every floated. . . In truth the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter."
Again the mechs attack, and again Toby is forced to flee. After various adventures he does meet up with Killeen and Abraham. The Mantis, a mech who has long been the major foe of the Bishops, appears and is able to get the all-important DNA samples. The mechs now can decipher the DNA and study the weapon to determine just how dangerous it really is.
Yet, something is still missing, for there are gaps in the coding. Upon the threat of torture, Abraham reveals the code, which had been handed down through numerous generations in the Bishop family. He sings the code, which is actually a song, "a passage from the most hallowed of the musics the Bishops carried in their sensorium store. They had played it on the long marches together, knew its lines by heart. . . The highest of arts, the Mose Art."
The Mantis says, "I see the connection. The unused sites in the Bishop DNA--that is the key. The notes of this piece, arrayed in harmonics, yield the solution. I relay this to the Exalteds now."
Now the long search has ended: the Exalteds (higher-order mechs) had the information and could now begin to develop a defense against this weapon, whatever it was.
However, as smart as the mechs are, they can't come close to the deviousness of the Natural species. The humans are, in realty, bait. They never were expected to build this "weapon" and use it against the mechs. This is all part of the ruse designed to fool the mechs. The coding in the DNA and the aria is not a set of instructions for a super-weapon or even a revelation of some serious weakness in the mechs--it itself is the weapon. It is a virus, much like a computer virus, that attacks and ultimately destroys the memory and logic sections of the mechs. As a further example of the Natural's deviousness, the virus includes a directive that impels any mech infested with the virus to transmit the virus to any mech within reach.
The long war is over.
Now comes the hard part--persuading the few surviving mechs to join with the Naturals, for the universe will come to an end in a few billion years. The mechs must be convinced that they and the Naturals have a common goal here--to find out how to prevent this from happening or at least learn how to survive, until the next universe forms. Cooperation between them would seem to be absolutely necessary at this point.
I have already mentioned Benford's incorporation of some material from Mark Twain into his narrative. This isn't the only example for he skillfully and seamlessly interweaves some of the most common SF themes and plot devices into a coherent narrative structure frequently without the reader realizing what Benford has accomplished.
In the first novel, Benford confronts us with a situation that has already been found in numerous novels and films: a large asteroid is headed for earth and Walmsley is one of the two astronauts selected to destroy it. Yet, even in this situation that has almost become a cliche, Benford adds a twist that makes it a new and highly significant event. In the second novel, Across the Sea of Stars, the mechs' first attack on Earth reminds me of similar tactics used by the aliens in John Wyndham's Out of the Deeps (aka The Kraken Wakes).
Other situations and events in the Galactic Center series bring to mind Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and also his landmark short story, "The Sentinel." And, along with the incoming asteroid, Benford somehow manages to insert Bigfoot (aka Yeti) into the narrative as well as a religious cult that has gained sufficient political power to prohibit certain types of research and prevent the publication of research results that conflict with their religious beliefs (must be fiction, couldn't happen here in the USA).
The overarching plot structure of Benford's Galactic Center series is reminiscent of EE (Doc) Smith's Lensmen novels, which, like Benford's, consists of six works. In both works, the humans, although in the forefront of the fighting, are really weapons wielded by a superior race--Smith's Arisians and Benford's Higher-ups. And, the enemy forces also are controlled by superior beings--Smith's Eddorians and Benford's Exalteds. The identity of the leaders of the opposing forces aren't known to the humans at the beginning of the conflict. It's only as the conflict gains in intensity do hints and clues emerge which tell the humans that there are others involved in the struggle. Again, it's only in the final volume of both works that the ultimate leaders of both sides come out of hiding and reveal themselves. This is especially true of the first publication of Smith's series for he later revised the first volume to give the readers complete knowledge and novels' characters some knowledge of the Arisians and Eddorians and their struggle for control of the universe.
As I said earlier, I consider this to be one of the greatest SF series ever written, and I hope that I've been able to provide some convincing reasons why I believe this. Perhaps some time, someone reading this might be inspired to at least take a look at the first novel in the series.
The first novel in the Galactic Center series is In the Ocean of Night, in which we are introduced to Nigel Walmsley, who spends almost as much time and energy fighting NASA bureaucrats as he does the mechs. It is, therefore, fitting that these should be the last words of Sailing Bright Eternity, the final volume of this magnificent series:
"All was now quite modern and different around there and most of the ancient names on the graves mean nothing to anybody. There are Cards aplenty and Bishops and even a few Dodgers.
Nearby, old markers relate the names in a language now dispersed or dead. Killeen Bishop. Nearby, slightly less worn, Toby Bishop. These graves are unusually large, suggesting to archeologists that these were from the Hunker Down Era.
Always slightly distanced, alone and apart, Nigel Walmsley is buried on a separate knoll, in full view of the ocean of night."
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