J. R. R. Tolkien: THE SILMARILLION--"Ainulindale"

J. R. R. Tolkien
"Ainulindale"
Part One of The Silmarillion


"Ainulindale" is the first part, appropriately enough, of The Silmarillion, which is a collection of stories set in Middle Earth prior to the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I say appropriately enough since an alternate title for "Ainulindale" could easily be The Book of Genesis.  In Genesis, the Lord says, "Let there be Light."   Iluvator, in "Ainulindale," essentially says let there be music.

I find it difficult to read "Ainulindale"  (A) without thinking of Genesis (G) , because of  the similarities and the differences between them.  There is but one God in both creation myths,  and both depict God as the First and Only being who is responsible for all of creation.

And in both are spiritual or non-material beings: angels in G and the Ainur in A.  However, I can find no specific mention of the creation of the angels in G, although one might assume they were created sometime during the six days of creation.  The first mention I can find of an angel occurs when a Cherubim was stationed at the gate of  Eden to prevent Adam and Eve from returning to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life and becoming immortal after they had been expelled for eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In contrast, in the first line of  "The Ainulindale" Tolkien specifically states that Iluvatar created the Ainur. 

Iluvatar, unlike the Creator in Genesis, does not work alone in the act of creation.  He proposes a "Great Music" to the Ainur.

"Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Iluvatar to a great music: and a sound arose of endless interchange melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the place of  the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void."

Such is the act of Creation in "Ainulinidale."


In spite of Tolkien's great, in-depth knowledge of Northern European myths, he elected to base his Creation myth on those of the Mediterranean area, and his treatment of the existence of evil in the universe comes from the same tradition.  Melkor, like his counterparts in the Judeo-Christian-Moslem traditions, is actually a creation of God or Allah, and is one who turned against his creator as a result of pride.

Satan or Lucifer is not actually named as the tempter of Eve in the Garden, but later Christian theologians have decided that must be who the serpent was.  Like Satan, Melkor was considered to be the brightest of  Iluvatar's creations, and, just as in Christian teachings, Melkor could not created something that would live on its own.  Melkor could only debase that what was already alive.

Evil has always been a problem for those religious traditions that posit a Supreme Good who creates all things.  How does evil appear in the world created by one who is All Goodness, and why?  One of the first thinkers who confronted the idea of evil in the world is Zoroaster, in the 7th BC.   There may have been earlier conceptualizations of this problem, but the writings of Zoroastrianism are the earliest we have.  From the Wikipedia entry on Zoroastrianism, we find the following:

"Zoroaster simplified the pantheon of early Iranian gods into two opposing forces: Ahura Mazda (Illuminating Wisdom) and Angra Mainyu  (Destructive Spirit) in the 7th century BCD.  Zoroaster's idea led to a formal religion bearing his name by about the 6th century BCE and have influenced other later religions including Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and Islam."

Zoroaster appears to have been the first to have proposed the Final Judgement Day in which the forces of Good and Evil would meet in a final battle to determine who shall control the universe and these forces would include not only all those living but also those who had died before.  According to Zoroaster,  which side would win was in doubt.

The religious traditions that were influenced by Zoroaster all made several significant changes.  In Zoroastrianism, the Destructive Spirit was an independent entity and equal in strength to Ahura Mazda and that evil might ultimately win out.  In later religious traditions, the evil side is actually a creation of the Good and is one who has through pride isolated itself from the Supreme Good.  In addition, in the later traditions the Evil force is weaker than the Good and is doomed to ultimate failure.

Melkor is clearly within this tradition as he cannot create anything on his own.  He can only debase and deform what is already existing.  He can create destructive storms but only because the elements are already there.  Orcs are not created by Melkor, or his follower Sauron, but are the result of experiments on captive elves.

Many of the Ainur became enamored of Iluvatar's universe and elected to assume physical shapes and reside there, in order to protect it from Melkor's destructive meddling.   These were called Valar, and each of the Valar assumed responsibility for a particular aspect of this new world.  A more specific listing appears in the next part of The Silmarillion, "The Valaquenta."  A great struggle ensues between the Valar and Melkor and his followers for control of Arda (Earth) and while Arda did not correspond to the ideas of the Valar, it slowly took shape.

In the  next part, "Valaquenta," we learn much about Iluvatar's first creations: the Valar, the Maiar, and Melkor and his followers.  Two names appear that will play an important role in The Lord of the Rings--Sauron, who was Melkor's chief follower,  and Olorin, one of the Maiar, who is sometimes called Mithrandir, but who is probably better known as Gandalf.

Contentment?

I think Lao Tzu said something like this: "Those who are content with what they have will always have enough."  The corollary then would be that those who are not content with what they have will never have enough. Following are two who say that their needs are minimal and neither extravagant nor excessive.  They will be content with a few wants.



Solitude

Happy the man, whose wish and care  
A few paternal aces bound,
Centent to breathe his native air
           In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
            In winter, fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind;
          Quiet by day.

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed, sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
            With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
             Tell where I lie.

-- Alexander Pope -- 


He wishes for solitude and the simple life:  a small farm perhaps with dairy cows, no doubt, that he will milk.  His fields will supply his bread, and, of course, he will do what is necessary to grow the wheat, harvest it, grind it for flour, and then bake it for bread while he is tending his herd of cows.  And, in addition to this he will personally watch over his flock of sheep, while doing all the rest, sheer them, prepare the wool, and then make up his "attire."

I think his solitude and simple life will require some assistance. 




               Contentment
    "Man wants but little here below"
 
Little I ask;  my wants are few;
    I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brownstone will do,)
             That I may call my own;--
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.


Plain food is quite enough for me;
     Three courses are as good as ten;--
If Nature can subsist on three,
           Thank Heaven for three. Amen!
I always thought cold victual nice;--
My choice would be vanilla ice.


I care not much for gold or land;--
   Give me a mortgage here and there,--
Some good bank-stock,--some note of hand,
            Or trifling railroad share;--
I only ask that Fortune send
A little more than I shall spend.


Honors are silly toys, I know,
     And titles are but empty names;--
I could, perhaps, be Plenipo,--
          But only near St. James;--
I'm very sure I should not care
To fill our Gubernator's chair.


Jewels are baubles; 'tis a sin
    To care for such unfruitful things;--
One good-sized diamond in a pin, --
           Some, not so large, in rings,--
A ruby, and a  pearl, or so,
Will do for me;--I laugh at show.


My dame should dress in cheap attire;
   (Good, heavy silks are never dear;)--
I own perhaps I might desire
              Some shawls of cashmere,--
Some marrowy crapes of China silk,
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.


I would not have the horse I drive
    So fast that folks must stop and stare;
An easy gait--two, forty-five--
             Suits me, I do not care;--
Perhaps, for just a single spurt,
Some seconds less would do no hurt.


Of pictures, I should like to own
     Titians and Raphaels three or four,--
I love so much that style and tone,--
            One Turner, and no more,--
(A landscape,--foregound golden dirt,
The sunshine painted with a squirt.)


Of books but few,--some fifty score
    For daily use, and bound for wear;
The rest upon an upper floor;--
            Some little luxury there
Of red morocco's gilded gleam,
And vellum rich as country cream.


Busts, cameos, gems, --such things as these,
    Which others often show for pride,
I value for their power to please,
            And selfish churls deride;--
One Stradivarius, I confess,
Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess.


Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn,
     Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;--
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
            But all must be of buhl?
Give grasping pomp its double share,--
I ask but one recumbent chair.


Thus humble let me live and die,
    Nor long for Midas' golden touch,
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
            I shall not miss them much,--
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes --


Which, if any, of the two do you think will be content with what he has?

Eric Hoffer: dissipation

#9

"DISSIPATION is a form of self-sacrifice.  The reckless wasting of one's vigor is a blind striving to 'liquidate' an unwanted self.  And as one would expect, the passage from this to other forms of self-sacrifice is not uncommon.  Passionate sinning has not infrequently been an apprenticeship to sainthood.  Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner."

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


In other words, dissipation is an indirect form of suicide.  This seems reasonable to me.  Or perhaps  it's a way of punishing oneself for some sin or transgression.

Does this seem reasonable to you?


That great sinners sometimes become saints has been noted before.   One of the most famous examples is St. Augustine who, after spending many years in dissipation, converted and became one of the most respected leaders of the early Christian Church.

This is the point made by C. S. Lewis in his great satirical work, The Screwtape Letters, specifically in the section titled  "Screwtape Proposes a Toast."  Screwtape is responding to complaints by other devils that the souls served up at the banquets recently have been bland and tasteless, flabby and insipid.  He agrees, but he then points out that while the quality of souls has decreased, the quantity has considerably increased.  There is no risk of famine today because of the great number of souls that just sort of end up in hell without even choosing to do evil.   The reason for the diminished quality of souls is clear:


"The great (and toothsome) sinners are made out of the very same material as those horrible phenomena the great Saints."

This, I believe, is the same point Hoffer is making at the end of his statement.  Strong or passionate feelings are the same, but what makes the difference in them is the focus of those feelings.  There are ways of measuring the intensity of one's feelings, but there's no way of identifying the focus of those passions, short of asking the individual.  Emotions are much the same in all, but what makes the difference is the focus of those strong passions.

John Bradshaw: Cat Sense

John Bradshaw
Cat Sense
Basic Books, NY

This is one of the best books I've read on cats.  Bradshaw is the Foundation Director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of  Bristol.  He is also the author of an earlier best selling work, Dog Sense, in which he does for dogs what he does here for cats.

He provides what little is known about the cat's early history, its likely ancestors, and its incorporation into human society, such as it is.  Little really is known about the cat's early involvement with humans since it never really was taken over as was the dog.  The cat's first encounter with humans was probably when humans noticed that cats provided a defense against rodent raiders of their storage facilities for grain.  Since agriculture was developed relatively recently, the cat's involvement with humans began much later than the dog's involvement.

However, this initial contact required nothing from humans except to allow the cats access to the surrounding area and, no doubt, the facilities themselves.  Nobody had to train the cat to hunt rodents, whereas dogs require training by humans to accomplish their numerous tasks which therefore brought about considerable interaction between the dog and humans.  In fact, Bradshaw argues that cats are not yet fully domesticated to the same extent as dogs, cows, sheep, etc.

Bradshaw also provides information about the physiology and the psychology of the cat, which he says is incomplete at present because while dogs have been studied for many decades, it's only recently that researchers have decided to take a closer look at the cat.

He has an interesting chapter on the way cats perceive the world.  While they have the same senses--vision, hearing, smell, etc.--these are not identical to human senses.  For example, cats' hearing has a higher range than human hearing, such that cats can hear bats' echo ranging cries which humans cannot detect.  This may explain why my cat at night sometimes acts as though she hears something which I am unable to detect.  As most people, I suspect, already know, the cat's vision is superior to humans at night, but human vision is superior during the day.  Humans who have a cat's color vision capabilities would be considered as suffering from red-green color blindness.

Other chapters focus on the social relationships of cats, both with humans and other cats.  While cats are perceived as loners as far as other cats are concerned, this is not strictly accurate.  Recent studies have shown that cats can gather together in groupings which are often comprised of mothers with daughters and grandchildren, and some males.  Males, though, tend to be the loners. 

Cats do not normally accept humans, but instead they must have contact with humans during the first two or three months of life.  Cats who are never handled by humans within the first three months generally never form any sort of relationship with humans, even if captured later and attempts are made to gentle it.  Kittens on the other hand are very tolerant of other critters, which is why we see photos of kittens snuggling up to a variety of feathered and furred beings, including featherless and furless bipeds.

There are also chapters on the cat's personality as well as its relationship to wildlife.  Bradshaw ends with a chapter in which he discusses what he sees will be necessary changes in cat behavior if it is to  
continue as the most popular pet today. 

Highly recommended for those who want to learn more about the cat.
 

Han Shan (Cold Mountain) and some like-minded poets

#17

Hundred-foot trees produced by Heaven
get sawed into giant planks
unfortunate building timber
gets left in a hidden valley
its heart stays strong despite the years
its bark falls off day after day
if some astute person took it away
it still could prop up a stable

-- Han-Shan (9th century?) --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
trans and edited by Red Pine



"Kwang-tsze was walking on a mountain, when he saw a great tree with huge branches and luxuriant foliage. A wood-cutter was resting by its side, but he would not touch it, and, when asked the reason, said, that it was of no use for anything, Kwang-tsze then said to his disciples, 'This tree, because its wood is good for nothing, will succeed in living out its natural term of years.'"
-- ChangTzu --



Han Shan refers to the "unfortunate" building timber left behind. It should have been chopped down and turned into something useful for humans.  Why?  Is a tree's only value that of being useful to humans?  Doesn't the tree have value in being a tree?

ChangTzu is a legendary Taoist sage, second probably only to LaoTzu in his importance in the Taoist ethical system.  He seems to think differently about the tree.  Since it was fortunately not useful to humanity,  it is able to live "out its natural term of years."

Is that what's important about the plants and animals that precariously share this planet with us?  If they are not useful, then they have no value in themselves. It seems to me that in this immense universe, there may be other life forms, but chances are that life forms found on this planet are unique and unlikely to be found anywhere else, just as life forms found on other planets will also be unique and one-of-a-kind.  Moreover, it seems unlikely that we will find any life forms in our own solar system; again, if some are found, they will not be similar to those of earth.  Again, that points out the significance of life in all its variety found here on earth: it is important in itself and this is far more meaningful than merely being useful to us.  If humans are of value in themselves, then I would argue so are those life forms we share this planet with.

This, however, is a side issue from the original theme of this post, which is a lament, in a sense, for those beauties that blossom unseen or dwelt in untrodden ways, or at least so I thought it was.  Now.  .  .I don't know.



The Wild Honey Suckle

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:
    No roving foot shall crush thee here,
    No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature's self in white arrayed,
She thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by:
    Thus quietly thy summer goes,
    Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with these charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died--nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
    Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power
    Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
     The space between, is but an hour,
     The frail duration of a flower.

-- Philip Freneau  (1752-1832) --
from The Norton Anthology of American Literature


I think that Freneau in the first three stanzas stays with the flower, but read that last stanza again--

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
     The space between, is but an hour,
     The frail duration of a flower.


--especially the last four lines.  From the Rubaiyat, 1st edition, Quatrain XLVII--

    "Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be--Nothing--Thou shalt not be less."




The following is a stanza from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."  It also talks about beauties that blush unseen and "waste its sweetness on the desert air." These unfortunate flowers "waste" their sweetness because there's no human around to appreciate it.  From what I understand, flowers did not develop their odors to benefit humans but to attract pollinator which would help to insure the next generation of these flowers.  It's attractiveness to humans is secondary and, frankly, unimportant to the flower.  It has its own agenda, which doesn't include humans.



Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

-- Thomas Gray (1716-1771) --
from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard



We move now to a human who lives in an isolated area.  She too is ignored by all except for the poet.  And she, too, must die, unknown by all, and missed only by the poet, an unfortunate circumstance.  I wonder if the poet ever thought to ask Lucy how she viewed her situation. 

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
     Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
     And very few to love;

A violet by a mossy stone,
    Half hidden from the eye,
-- Fair as a star, when only one
    Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
    When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
    The difference to me!

-- William Wordsworth  (1770-1858) --   


I began this simply by reading a poem by Han Shan, a ninth century Chinese poet,  and then remembering poems with similar themes by two English poets and a US poet from the 18th and 19th centuries, over a thousand years later.  But then, something else struck me, and I think I've wandered off from my original thought.  I think I shall come back to this point again. 

Langston Hughes: two poems

Empty House

It was in the empty house
That I came to dwell
And in the empty house
I found an empty hell.

Why is it that an empty house
Untouched by human strife
Can hold more woe
Than the wide world holds,
More pain than a cutting knife?


Is he really talking about an empty house?  What is "an empty hell"?   How could it be empty if it was filled with woe and pain?



Minstrel Man

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter 
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter,
You do not hear
My inner cry?
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing,
You do not know
I die?

 -- Langston Hughes --
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes


I think "Minstrel Man"  could have been included in a previous post of mine, Congruence (Jan. 29, 2014).   On the other hand, it also shares the idea of hidden grief with another powerful poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, "We wear the mask."  This is the last stanza (the complete poem is posted on June 27, 2009).


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

Loren Eiseley: In the Tales to Come

In The Tales To Come

"I have met the echo people, coyotes,
once in my youth, deep in a badland canyon, coming
upon them unaware.  They vanished
before I could speak.  Esahcawata, Old-man-coyote's people
quick of foot, hunted by all, surviving
traps and poison bait, surviving
where the great wolves have vanished, admirable
tricksters in an endless war.  I would have spoken
peace, but my kind know it not.  They did well
not to trust me--the trap-shy scurriers at midnight.
Their songs are few now.  They live by the thoughts
of Esahcawata and no other thinking is
                                             possible for them.
Their songs echo the wind.  They are echo people
                                                                      but all
under the sky  are echoers and the millennia listen
                                                        and are silent.
It will be so with us.  I have remembered
all my life how fast they scampered.  We the laughers
do not understand fear because of our numbers
                                                and when we vanish
no one will tell stories about our cleverness, the night wind
will not long echo laughter for Old-man, the trickster
married the whirlwind and myth will have us
as part of the singular spinning of a dust-devil
on a dry prairie.  They are the echoers, we
a jumble  of leaves and dust
quickly gone by.  Lovers of form we will be formless
in the tales to come."

-- Loren Eiseley --
from Another Kind of Autumn


 Eiseley's poem, I think, can be seen as prophetic--a prophecy of the differing fates of the coyote and humanity.  The coyote will be remembered because it is part of the natural world.  In spite of all we can do, the coyote is flourishing, in spite of  "traps and poison bait" or hunters with guns, be they on foot or on horseback or in a helicopter.  According to the Nationale Geographic article,  "These members of the dog family once lived primarily in open prairies and deserts, but now roam the continent's forests and mountains. They have even colonized cities like Los Angeles, and are now found over most of North America. Coyote populations are likely at an all-time high."

Humanity can claim credit for this for it is likely that wiping out large predators, such as the wolf and large cats, allowed the coyote to move into the vacancy thus created.

The poet surmises that in the future the coyote's call will be echoed long after the coyote has disappeared (I suspect that the coyote will outlive humanity if it can avoid being completely exterminated by civilized humans).  On the other hand, humanity is busily working on cutting its link with the natural world (destroying the natural world might be more accurate) and eventually will live in a digital, virtual world, electronic bits of 0s and 1s.   Humanity is like a dust devil which appears suddenly, rushes about with great energy, causing disruption where it goes, and then just as suddenly disappears, leaving no sign of its passing.

"They are the echoers, we
a jumble  of leaves and dust
quickly gone by.  Lovers of form we will be formless
in the tales to come."

Some great books I read in 2013

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I lost considerable information regarding books I had read.  This will therefore be a partial list of some interesting books I had read during 2013 and some I might read again.




Nevada Barr: Track of the Cat
This is actually the second book I had read by Nevada Barr.  The first was The Rope, the prequel that was published in 2013, which I read for a f-2-f mystery group.  It wasn't bad, just highly improbable I thought,  but other members assured me that many of her other works were much better.  So, I grabbed this one which had been the first in the series.  I found it to be a much more enjoyable read and consequently I will go on to read others in the series.  I also found that being familiar with the park the book is set in just adds to the fun.


Harry Beston: The Outermost House
This is from my post last year about this book: "Beston had had a cabin built on Cape Cod, not far from the Atlantic shore of the peninsula.  In September of 1924 he went to the cabin, planning on spending only a few weeks there.   Instead he found himself reluctant to leave.  His two-week stay eventually lasted a full year, in which he took copious notes about the seasonal changes occurring there to the beach, the weather, and the birds, plants, and animals that were his neighbors.  The Outermost House is the result of that unplanned year on Cape Cod."   This was my second reading of The Outermost House, and I doubt very much that it will be the last.



Giles Blunt:  Until the Night
Until the Night is the sixth in the Canadian police procedurals in his series featuring Detective John Cardinal.  It's hard to find Blunt now in the US, so I have to check his website and hit the internet to buy his books.  Blunt is one of those few whose books I always buy, if I can't get them in the library.  He does include some issues that involve Cardinal away from his job, but he doesn't let them intrude into the main flow of the work, which is a police procedural.  His plots tend to be complex.  Occasionally we are told the identity of the killer(s) early on, and the focus is then on Cardinal and his fellow officers' attempt to solve the crime and the killers who are trying to remain hidden.  If we don't know who the killer is, then the plots are complex, and I don't remember guessing correctly until later on near the end. 


Joseph Conrad:  The Secret Agent  
Contrary to many of Conrad's earlier works, The Secret Agent is set in London England.  A foreign government, which appears to be Russia, attempts to influence the English government to rescind its policy of being a safe haven for those suspected of terrorist acts against other governments. One of the foreign government's tactics is the use of an agent provocateur to encourage the terrorists to become active in England and thereby eliminate England's tolerance of them.  Verloc is one of those employed by the foreign governments, but they are unaware that he is a double agent, for he is spying on the local anarchist group for the London Police.  It all goes wrong when he is persuaded to blow up the Greenwich Observatory.  (The novel is based on a true incident.)


Joseph Conrad: Mirror of the Sea
One of two autobiographical memoirs by Conrad that relates to his years as a seaman, officer, and captain.  He talks of various ports, captains, storms, and perils of the sea.  In Conrad's own words, "I have attempt here. . . to lay bare with the unreserve of a last hour's confession the terms of my relation with the sea, which beginning mysteriously, like any great passion the inscrutable Gods send to mortals, went on unreasoning and invincible, surviving the test of disillusion, defying the disenchantment that lurks in every day of a strenuous life;  went on full of love's delight and lover's anguish, facing them in open-eyed exultation without bitterness and without repining, from the first hour to the last."  He writes for us landlubbers, with little technical terminology.  It's an eye-opener from a seaman's point of view.


Fyodor Dostoyevsky:  The Demons or The Devils (aka The Possessed)
This novel is Dostoyevsky's satire of  various political ideologies and specifically of Turgenev's earlier novel Fathers and Sons.  Turgenev is satirized by Dostoyevsky in the character of the writer Karmazinov, who attempts to win the favor of  the Russian Western/European-leaning social critics.  The novel, published in 1872, is almost prophetic as it depicts the revolutionaries as favoring the use of terror to cow the population and the creation of three person cells to protect themselves from government infiltrators.  The contrast of conflicting ideologies of social democracy and radical totalitarianism is depicted in the differences between Stepan Verkhovensky, the idealistic social democratic reformer, and his son Pyotr Verkhovensky, the nihilist terrorist (the descendents of the social reformers), and therefore Dostoyevsky's version of Fathers and Sons.   



Karin Fossum: The Caller
A disturbed boy plays mischevious and sometimes malicious tricks on his neighbors.  For example, he sneaks into a neighbor's house and spills blood on a sleeping infant.  The parents, of course, are panic-stricken until they learn it was a hoax.  Now, they are angry.  The boy commits a number of these acts as a self-appointed messenger attempting to disturb their complacency. However,  some of his victims are determined not to let it pass, once his identity is known.  This is where Inspector Sejer gets involved.  Again, a great novel from a author whose works I get without even thinking about it. It's automatic.


Hermann Hesse:  Magister Ludi
Hesse, who, in his previous novels, argued for the superiority of the  spirit, the mind, the intellect, creates a small province in which certain inhabitants are able to live the life of the mind, the intellect, without concern for the necessity of earning a living.  They are supported by a government subsidy and the only requirement is that they provide teachers for the rest of the country.  But, here in what should have been the Eden that characters in his previous novels had searched for, Hesse turns his back on his previous beliefs and argues that the life of the intellect must be meshed with the material world, the world of striving and getting, of achieving and earning, and of greed and power. 


Drew Magary:   The Postmortal
The following is from my post last year about The Postmortal:   "Drew Magary's  The Postmortal is probably the best SF novel that explores the theme of an extended life span that I've read in decades, if not ever.  It attempts to realistically depict the effects of the development of an anti-aging medical treatment on society.   A researcher accidentally discovers a gene that controls aging and eventually comes up with a treatment that shuts down the gene.  Those given the cure (as it is popularly known) immediately stop aging and remain at whatever physical state they were in when given the treatment.  It is not immortality.  They can still die from accidents, disease, etc., but they will remain physically the same for an unknown length of time.  I read it twice last year and will read it again.


Walter M. Miller, Jr.:    A Canticle for Leibowitz
This is another reread and one of my favorite post-holocaust novels. It is really three novellas, which focus on a religious order of monks who initially were followers of Leibowitz, a scientist.  Leibowitz gave his followers the task of preserving whatever scientific knowledge they could find. Like the monks of the Middle Ages, they spent their lives copying out whatever written materials they could find. The three novellas take place several hundred years apart, going from a subsistence level of existence in the first part, to a society that is now rich enough to permit some of its members to do something other than bring in food in the second section, to a society that has developed science once again to the point that they now have nuclear weapons.



Leo Tolstoy:   Anna Karenina
A very complex telling of an adulterous relationshipA: the initial stages, the emergence of the relationship into the open, and the gradual disintegration resulting from the characters of the two people,  and the effect on them of the responses of the people about them.  This is my third reading, and it well repays the time spent.

Kenko: inevitable change

No. 26
"When I recall the months and years I spent as the intimate of someone whose affections have now faded like cherry blossoms scattering even before a wind blew, I still remember every word of hers that once so moved me; and when I realize that she, as happens in such cases, is steadily slipping away from my world, I feel a sadness greater even than that of a separation from the dead.  That is why, I am sure, a man once grieved that white thread should be dyed in different colors, and why another lamented that roads inevitably fork.  Among the hundred verses presented to the Retired Emperor Horikawa one runs:

mukashi mishi                                           The fence round her house,
imo ga kakine wa                                      The woman I loved long ago,
arenikeri                                                     Is ravaged and fallen;
tsubana majiri no                                       Only violets remain
sumire no mi shite                                     Mingled with the spring weeds.


What a lovely picture--the poem must describe something that really occurred."

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


When I first began reading this essay, I thought it was a traditional essay about a loved one who no longer loved him.  That is there, of course, but as I read further, it seemed as though something else was going on.  He mentioned several examples that didn't seem to fit:  his grief that is stronger than if she had died, the white thread that is dyed, and the road that must "inevitably fork." And the poem, just how strong are the references to his lost love?

The underlying theme, I think, is that of the inevitability of change.  The following quotation is a note provided by Keene to the references to the silk thread and the road:


"The passage comes from the Huai-an Tzu:  'Yang-tzu saw a forked road and grieved that ti would branch south and north.  Mo-Tzu saw raw silk and wept at the thought the some would be dyed yellow and some black.  Kao Yu said, "They were sad because what originally had been the same would now be different."'" 

Those which at one time were similar now change and become different. Nothing is permanent; all must change and become other than they were.  He feels a greater sadness now than if the separation happened because of death.  This seems strange unless this drifting apart was just one example of a greater issue--that all things change and that which had been similar now becomes dissimilar.   The poem contained in the essay speaks more, I think, of the change of the house and grounds than of his lost love.

In a past essay, Kenko had said that everything in the past was better.  This again, I see, as a lament against the fundamental law of this world--all things change--which is the main point here, I think.

Congruence

  Ah, the sad expression in the eyes
                     of that caged bird--
                            envying the butterfly!
                --  Basho   (1644-1694  -- 


    
                              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 his heart's deep core,
    But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings ­
    I know why the caged bird sings!
                      -- Paul Lawrence Dunbar  (1872-1906)






From 17th century Japan and in late 19th and early 20th century US,  we find two poems, different in form, but very similar in spirit.  And, one must also keep in mind that the first part of  Maya Angelou's autobiography is titled I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  In addition, I found the following quotation while reading Frederick Douglass' autobiography, which tells of his life as a slave and after he gained his freedom.  I have often wondered whether it was the inspiration for Lawrence Dunbar's poem "Sympathy."

“Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.”
― Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass   (1815-1895)

Remember this the next time someone insists that slaves are happy because they sing so much!  

 

Some great DVDs viewed in 2013

This will be a short list, mostly because I bought a new computer and lost most of my files during the changeover.  They are in no particular order, simply because I don't want to expend the effort necessary to rank them, and especially since I know quite well that, on another day, I might rank them differently!


The Man from Earth:  I thought enough of this film to buy my own copy.  It's the fascinating tale of a man who tells his friends and coworkers that he's thousands of years old and their response to that revelation.  It's one of the best SF films I've viewed in many years.   For more information, check out the post I did on it last year.


Doktor Fautus:  based on the novel by Thomas Mann about a composer who makes a pact with the devil.  I haven't read the novel in some time, so I can't comment on the fidelity of the dramatization.  I will say though that it was an enjoyable film, even if much of it seemed strange to me, which might be caused by my failing memory, maybe.  .  .

1984: finally after many years Netflix found a copy to send me.  It's the version with John Hurt as Winston Smith and Richard Burton as O'Brien.  It was quite good as far as it went, but there was no way that any film could present the image upon which the tyranny of Oceania rested--"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.


12 Angry Men:  starring Henry Fonda as Juror 8, the lone man who, at the beginning of the jury's deliberations, insists that they take time to discuss the case inasmuch as a guilty verdict would result in the death penalty. It's an exploration of the effects of prejudice on our  perception of others and the judgements that result. What was equally fascinating was the discovery that there were two foreign versions of this film, both very close to the US version.  The Russian version's title is 12, and while it follows closely the US version, there are some differences.  The Hindi language version is titled Ek Ruka Hua Faisla, and it is very close to the US version.  For more information, see the post I made of the three last year.


A Dance to the Music of Time: based on the novels by Anthony Powell.  The film is a condensation of Anthony Powell's series of novels published under the same title as the film: A Dance to the Music of Time.  The novels are published in four parts:  First Movement, Second Movement, Third Movement, and Fourth Movement, and each of the four parts consists of three novels each.  A symphony typically has four movements, so that suggests a lengthy and complex treatment of  various themes.  The film begins with a disparate group of people who meet while they are in school.  The narrative follows one man from that point and down the years through the post WWII era.  We see how he grows and develops and the way those people he had met during his academic years drop away and then reappear during this period.  I found the film absorbing enough to go out and get the books.


Europa Report:  an SF adventure/exploration film.  It's somewhat reminiscent of  2001 in that the ship is headed towards Jupiter, or to be more precise, Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.  It's a skillful blending of NASA film clips and fiction.  They have obviously studied NASA technology and methodology to create a very believable film of the way a journey to Europa just might take place.  It's one of the better SF films I viewed last year.


Appalachian Journey: One night over a decade ago I was driving home from work and was listening to PBS radio KUAT-FM.  It happened to be the broadcast from Lincoln Center, a chamber music event.  It featured, among others, Edgar Meyer, Yo-Yo Ma, Mark O'Connor with special guests James Taylor and Alison Krauss.  I was instantly captivated by the liveliness of the music--country, bluegrass, jazz, blues, and barnyard melodies.  During an interview,  Edgar Meyer stated that the program tonight was duplicated on a CD they had produced: Appalachian Journey.  I immediately went out and purchased the CD.  I then went out and searched for other CDs featuring Edgar Meyer, and I think I now have at least 5.  A short time ago, I discovered that the concert at Lincoln Center had been filmed, so I immediately added it to my queue.  Now I can listen to the CD and see them in my memory on stage.  If you're not familiar with Edgar Meyer and his unique musical universe, you should check it out.


Steel Helmet:  one of the few war pictures that I enjoyed watching.  It is very different from the usual patriotic war films that came my way.  It tells of Sgt Zack, a loner whose outfit had been wiped out by the North Koreans, and his encounter with several stragglers, a Korean boy, and an American unit searching for a Buddhist temple to be used as a forward observation post.  The film came out in 1951, during the Korean War, and those expecting the typical John Wayne patriotic war film must have been shocked by what they saw.  One reviewer called it an anti-American and pro-communist propaganda film.   By today's standards, it probably isn't that shocking, but back then it had to be disturbing to many.

If I were told that I had to buy at least one war film, this would probably be the one.


THX 1138:  This was one of George Lucas' early efforts.  It's based on the film he produced and directed during his studies at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.  It's a fascinating picture of a future USA where being unhappy and feeling any emotion but happiness is against the law.  It also has one of the riskiest sequences I've ever seen in any film--a long period of time wherein the characters are set against an all-white background, where even the simple furniture is white.  The characters' faces and hands provide a startling contrast.  Of course, Lucas has to include a car chase scene, something he couldn't do without, even back then when he was producing films that had interesting plots and characters and weren't just excuses for action, action, action.

It is one of the eight DVDs that I have in my personal collection.


Twelve O'clock High:  one of the few war pictures I have watched several times, probably mostly due to the fine performance by Gregory Peck, one of my favorite actors.  As an HQ staff officer, he finds it necessary to remove a friend from command of a bomber unit based in England during WWII for he feels the commander has gotten too close to his men and can't make the hard decisions necessary.  Peck's character then takes command and isolates himself from the unit, thereby triggering resentment from the men who had gotten used to the previous commander's more paternal style.        


Zorba the Greek:  I had heard much about this film many years ago and eventually watched it.  I found the music so infectious that I bought the soundtrack for the film.  I also so enjoyed the story that I bought the novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis.  I was hooked and over the years have purchased as many of his works as possible.  I think my collection of his works exceeds ten books. Zorba is a free spirit, and his behavior and attitude might disturb many.  The Englishman he mentors is at the exact other end of the spectrum--uptight and constrained--and this provides the conflict in the film.   At the end, the Englishman returns to England, but he isn't the same person who came out here.

This is one of the few DVDs that I may add to my collection someday.

Robert Grudin: the perfect comeback--hours later

III.5

"The French use the term 'esprit de l'escalier'  ('wit of the stairway') to describe the brilliant comments that occur to us just after we have left the party or meeting where they would have been appropriate.  The killing response to an unprovoked insult, the quietus for an aggressive bore, the naughty paradox that would have made you shine, are as useless now as tickets to last night's show.  So much is wit the child of time.  Still, it is not just our own slowness that makes us think of things too late.  Something in the social experience itself, some fear of self-expression or some awareness of wit's proximity to the utterly absurd, deadens our minds and stops our tongues.  Besides, the witty remark, whether it denudes hypocrisy or subverts language, is always a miniature revolution, a gesture of reform.    The witticism makes its creator, at least momentarily, an enemy of established society; and thus wit is as much a child of courage and as it is of time."

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

The first part, the delayed witticism, is a too common experience for all of us, including me.  Sometimes the brilliant, killing response comes when I'm walking out the door or driving home or even, occasionally, waking up in the middle of the night (the three o'clock comeback).  It is frustrating, but unfortunately a very mundane experience, one that I really don't spend much time thinking about.

Where I part from Grudin is the second part where he states that the delayed comeback is much more than just slowness of thought, that it's "a miniature revolution" or "a gesture of reform."  I think that's pushing it a bit far.    Does the occasional witticism really make one "at least momentarily, an enemy of established society"?

I don't' know about others, but the few times I've been on time with a comment I never considered or thought out what I was going to say--it just popped out, and I was as surprised as anyone else.  The idea that saying that made me "an enemy of established society" never occurred to me, either before, during, or after the incident.

Why does this happen to me?  I'm not the fastest thinker around; it takes me time to think about the situation, the book, or the film, and it's only after some time has passed that I am able to grasp the relevant ideas or themes or nuances in question.  Generally, I'm just a slow thinker, and if an "unprovoked insult" is the issue, then shock comes into play.

Shock, be it physical or mental, paralyzes one momentarily, both physically and mentally.  There's always that moment of paralysis before one takes action.  If it's a physical threat, then the responses are usually limited to flight or fight.  If it's a mental threat, then the possible responses are multiplied: say something or leave or stay there and bear it, and to say something appropriate is the most complex of possible responses.  

I think Grudin is over-intellectualizing here.

Friedrich Nietzsche: on disarmament

#284

"The means to real peace.   No government admits any more that it keeps an army to satisfy occasionally the desire for conquest.   Rather the army is supposed to serve for defense, and one invokes the morality that approves of self-defense.  But this implies one's own morality and the neighbor's immorality;  for the neighbor must be thought of as eager to attack and conquer if our state must think of means of self-defense.  Moreover, the reasons we give for requiring an army imply that our neighbor, who denies the desire for conquest just as much as does our own state, and, who, for his part, also keeps an army only for reasons of self-defense, is a hypocrite and a cunning criminal who would like nothing better than to overpower a harmless and awkward victim without any fight.  Thus all states are now ranged against each other: they presuppose their neighbor's bad disposition and their own good disposition.  This presupposition, however,  is inhumane, as bad as war and worse.  At bottom, indeed, it is itself the challenge and the cause of wars, because, as I have said, it attributes immorality to the neighbor and thus provokes a hostile disposition and act.  We must abjure the doctrine of the army as a means of self-defense just as completely as the desire for conquests.

And perhaps the great day will come when a people, distinguished by wars and victories and by the highest development of a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifices for these things, will exclaim of its own free will, 'We break the sword,' and will smash its entire military establishment down to its lowest foundations.  Rendering oneself unarmed when one had been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling--that it is the means to real peace, which must always rest upon a peace of mind; whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in all countries, is the absence of peace of mind.  One trusts neither oneself nor one's neighbor and, half from hatred, half from fear, does not lay down arms.  Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared--this must someday become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth too.

Our liberal representatives, as it is well known, lack the time for reflecting on the nature of man:  else they would know that they work in vain when they work for a 'gradual decrease of the military burden.'   Rather, when this kind of need has become greatest will the kind of god be nearest who alone can help here.  The tree of war-glory can only be destroyed all at once, by a stroke of lightning:  but lightning, as indeed you know, comes from a cloud--and from up high."

--Friedrich Nietzsche --
from The Portable Nietzsche
p. 71


A bit naive, isn't he?   Could this really work?  For example, could the US really unilaterally disarm today?  The last paragraph is somewhat confusing.  Is Nietzsche saying that only god could bring this about?  Is he suggesting that while disarmament is best, humans are incapable of achieving this? 

Many years ago I read an SF story in which a character stated that if WWIII is a nuclear war, then WWIV will be fought with clubs and stones.  Perhaps that cloud Nietzsche writes of is a mushroom cloud.

Emily Dickinson

This is another of Emily Dickinson 's many poems on death.  It focuses on death as a being restful, a safe shore--a common theme in her poetry.


                    4
On this wondrous sea
Sailing silently,
Ho! Pilot, ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar --
Where the storm is o'er?

In the peaceful west
Many the sails at rest --
The anchors fast --
Thither I pilot thee --
Land Ho!  Eternity!
Ashore at last!

-- Emily Dickinson --
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Edited by Thomas H. Johnson
Poem 4, pages 6-7


Death here is seen as a safe harbor, welcomed after the storm of life--one of the most common themes found in her poetry.  I found the reference to the "peaceful west" also intriguing.  Perhaps it has to do with the image of the setting sun, signalling the end of the day, which is also a common image used by many poets--our life span seen as a day.  For example, one finds this in Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXIII; in fact both the setting sun and the west are present.

"In me thou see'st  the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest."


Although the poet is not speaking directly of death, death is lurking in the background for this time is that time just before death, the twilight of one's life.  And, we see similar elements here: a time of rest and a reference to the west. 

While I am clearly in the autumn of my days, I am not looking forward to a rest, just yet. 

   

Joseph Wood Krutch: a prophecy?

"An obviously unfriendly reporter revealed not long ago that President Eisenhower had ordered removed from the White House lawn the squirrels which were interfering with his putting green, and even so trivial an incident is a straw in the wind.   To hold golf courses obviously more important than squirrels indicates a tiny but significant decision.  It points toward a coming world where there will be more golf courses and fewer wild plants as well as wild animals--hence to a world less interesting and less rich for those who would rather hunt a flower or watch the scamperings of a squirrel than chivy a rubber ball over a close-cropped grass plot.

The late David Fairchild who was responsible for the introduction of so many useful and beautiful plants into the United States, tells the story of an army officer assigned to an office building in Miami during the First World War.

'I haven't got anyting but human beings around me in that building where I spend my days.  Aside from the floor and the ceiling, the doors and windows and desk and some chairs there isn't anything but people.

The other evening when I was feeling particularly fed up with the monotony of the place, I went into the laboratory and as I was washing my hands a cockroach ran up the wall. "Thank God for a cockroach!" I said to myself.  "I'm glad there something alive besides human beings in this building."'

It may well be with such small consolations that the nature-lover of the not too distant future will be compelled to content himself.  Cockroaches will not easily be exterminated."

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


I'm not sure why Krutch referred to the reporter as "obviously unfriendly."   I wouldn't be surprised to discover to learn that most Americans would agree with President Eisenhower's decision.  After all, to put squirrels above golf courses, to consider that other creatures' survival needs might be as important as, if not more important than, human pleasures is ridiculous, isn't it?

Just how significant  is the organic world (of which we are apart, which so many conveniently forget or ignore) in our new electronic, digital world?  

Thomas Hardy: The Darkling Thrush

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
…..When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
…..The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
…..Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
…..Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
…..The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
…..The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
…..Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
…..Seemed fervorless as I.
At once a voice arose among
…..The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
…..Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small
…..In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
…..Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
…..Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
…..Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
…..His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
…..And I was unaware.

-- Thomas Hardy --
December 31, 1900

 I know I've posted this poem before, but it so fits my mood today that I just had to post it again.  

Drew Magary: The Postmortal

Drew Magary
The Postmortal
 

Drew Magary's  The Postmortal is probably the best SF novel that explores the theme of an extended life span that I've read in decades, if not ever.  It attempts to realistically depict the effects of the development of an anti-aging medical treatment on society.

A researcher accidentally discovers a gene that controls aging and eventually comes up with a treatment that shuts down the gene.  Those given the cure (as it is popularly known) immediately stop aging and remain at whatever physical state they were in when given the treatment.  It is not immortality.  They can still die from accidents, disease, etc., but they will remain physically the same for an unknown length of time.

The opening paragraph from the novel's introduction:

"A Note about the Text: From the Department of Containment United North American Territories

"In March 2090, a worker for the Department of Containment named Anton Vyrin was conducting a routine sweep of an abandoned collectivist  compound in rural Virginia when he stumbled upon an eighth-generation  wireless-enabled projected screening device (WEPS.8) that was still functional after charging.  Stored inside the device's hard drive was a digital library containing sixty years' worth of text files written by a man who went by the screen name John  Farrell."

.     .     .

"In its entirety,the collection contains thousands of entries and several hundred thousand words, but for the sake of brevity and general readability, they have been edited and abridged into what we believe constitutes an essential narrative, and incontrovertible evidence that the cure for aging must never again be legalized."



The four time periods of the novel:


1  Prohibition:  June 2019
The news about the cure had appeared three years ago.  The US government, along with other governments, put a temporary ban on its use, saying it wished to study the effects of a drug that would have such an almost unthinkable effect on society.  While it is officially banned, it is available for those are willing to search for it and willing to pay for it.

John Farrell, a lawyer. locates a doctor who will administer the treatment.  At the same time, violent protests break out by both the pro-cure groups and the pro-death groups.  Many doctors who administer the cure are killed.


2  Spread:  June 2029
Societal changes appear.  The number of marriages has dropped.  In the past, "until death do us part" usually meant maybe 40 or 50 years or less, whereas now it could mean centuries.  Divorce is still possible, but people don't marry expecting to divorce.

Farrell tells Sonia, who is pregnant and wants him to marry her that "I could commit to you if we knew our lives were definite.  But they aren't.  I have no earthly idea what's coming next, and I can't promise you that from now until the end of time I'll always be by your side.  Because I don't know.  And you can't promise that either because you don't know."

Farrell, still working for the same legal firm, has helped to set up a new type of marriage, a "cycle marriage."  It lasts for forty years with heavy penalties applied in case of divorce.   At the end of the forty years, the marriage dissolves, as agreed upon by both parties at the beginning.  They may apply for a new 40 year cycle, but this is rare.   Ceremonies and parties are now the standard when an individual takes the cure.  The in-place for this is the Fountain of Youth in Las Vegas. 

Opposition groups to the cure have developed a wide variety of tactics, ranging from use of the courts to those who throw lye into the eyes of those who have taken the cure, condemning them perhaps to centuries of being blind.  These extremists are known as trolls.

Some who have taken the cure now regret it.  Farrell's father is one who wishes he hadn't because he misses his wife and is convinced that he will see her in heaven, once he dies.  Now, he doesn't know when that reunion will be; it could be centuries.


3  Saturation: 2059
Forty years have passed since the introduction of the cure.  The effects of the cure are now widespread and becoming clear to all--just too many people around.   One problem that I hadn't considered was human fertility.  Prior to the cure, humans were fertile for roughly 40 years, plus or minus a few years depending on the individual.  Now, humans are able to have children for as long as they live, which may be centuries, excluding such causes as accident or disease.  It's becoming a very  crowded and hostile world.

Farrell is job-hunting.  He retired from his position at the law firm and partied for a decade or two, and now he's broke.  The job turns out to be an end specialist.  In the film Soylent Green, the character played by Edward G. Robinson, decides to end it all.  He goes to a government facility and assisted by the staff arranges for his death, surrounded by pictures and music of his choice.  In The Postmortal, the government has subcontracted this function to various independent firms (always doing their part to support small businesses).  On an assignment, Farrell and his partner visit the individual, make sure all the formalities and paperwork are in order, and then provide that person with an end to the cure.  Farrell insists he is only a clerk and is there to handle the legalities and paperwork:  his partner is the terminator.




Correction: 2079
Society is, essentially, at war with itself.  Farrell is still an end specialist, but he frequently works alone.  One of his tasks is to do a sweep.  He is given a territory, and his task is cover the area and find those who are suffering from sheep flu, which is invariably fatal.  He has two vials of medicine. One is free, the one that kills painlessly and quickly.  Those who have access to $5000 can buy the cure for sheep flu.  Most do not, otherwise they would have gotten it already.  Farrell no longer insists on being just a clerk: he has become a full-fledged end specialist.  Then he gets an assignment to kill a woman whose only crime is that she's old.



Interspersed among the narrative of Farrell's life, Magary has also provided news headlines and articles that provide a fascinating picture of the effect of the cure on society, its laws, its mores, and reactions of various people in the US, as well as some information about the rest of the world.

--The Vatican threatens cure seekers with excommunication.

--"I'm always gonna get my period."

--Cigarette sales are now at an all-time low.

--Sales of adult incontinence undergarments (you know them as Depends) have fallen 46 percent since 2016.

--Suicide bombings in the Middle East  are down nearly 70 percent over the past decade while nonsuicide bombings are up 220 percent.

--In an interview, Russian president Boris Solovyev vigorously denied numerous reports of police executing any Russian citizen over the cure age of fifty.

--Mia Burkhart is 44 years old with a cure age of 29.  She's divorced, and her two sons have gone off on their own.  She decides she wants another child to raise on her own and contacts the local sperm bank.  All goes well.  Emilia is a beautiful child, and Mia is supremely happy.

After the child is about 18 months old, neighbors, friends, and relatives begin to notice something strange:  Emily is not growing.  Concerned, they investigate to find that Emily has been given the cure at age ten months.  She will be a ten month infant for as long as she lives, which may be centuries.

--Two large cities in China have been hit by nuclear explosions.   The official government story is sabotage.  However, rumors persist that China has nuked two of its own cities as art of a radical population control program.

The above is only a small part of the novel.  There's so much more.

Overall Rating:  Read it.  It's the most underrated SF novel, or perhaps just novel, of the decade. 

Edward Thomas: The Unknown Bird

I must admit I know little about Edward Thomas, except that he was a friend of Robert Frost, which definitely is a plus for him.  I was only exposed to him in the past few years because of Stephen Pentz whose blog is First Known When Lost.    His blog focuses on poetry and art that corresponds to or illuminates the poem(s) that he presents.  You can easily find his blog by checking the right side of this blog and moving down to the section that contains blogs I follow.   I would very highly recommend a visit to First Known When Lost, which happens to be the title of a poem by Edward Thomas.

I guess my way of going through a book of poetry is a bit unusual.  I can't start at page one and slowly work my way through the poems one-by-one.  Instead,  I skim through the poems, looking for one that jumps out at me.  I stop there and read it several times.  I then let it simmer in my unconscious for awhile and then go back to it.  Sometimes I can figure out why this one or that one moves me, but frequently I can't: it just grabs me.  This is the first one that jumped out at me.



The Unknown Bird

Three lovely notes he whistled, too softly to be heard
If others sang; but others never sang
In the great beech-wood all that May and June.
No one saw him: I alone could hear him
Though many listened.  Was it but four years
Ago?  or five?  He never came again.

Oftenest when I heard him I was alone,
Nor could I ever make another hear.
La-la-la! he called, seeming far-off --
As if a cock crowed past the edge of the world,
As if the bird or I were in a dream.
Yet that he traveled through the trees and sometimes
Neared me, was plain, though somehow distant still
He sounded.  All the proof is -- I told men
What I had heard.

                            I never knew a voice,
Man, beast, or bird, better than this.  I told
The naturalists; but neither had they heard
Anything like the notes that did so haunt me,
I had them clear by heart, and have them still.
Four years, or five, have made no difference.  Then
As now that La-la-la! was bodiless sweet:
Sad more than joyful it was, if I must say
That it was one or the other, but if sad
'Twas sad only with joy too, too far off
For me to taste it.   But I cannot tell
If truly anything but fair
The days were when he sang, as now they seem.
This surely I know, that I who listened then,
Happy sometimes, sometimes suffering
A heavy body and a heavy heart,
Now straightaway, if I think of it, become
Light as that bird wandering beyond my shore.

-- Edward Thomas --
The Annotated Collected Poems


"As if a cock crowed past the edge of the world,"
and
"Light as that bird wandering beyond my shore."


Does this suggest some sort of mystical experience? No one else could hear the bird sing, nor could any naturalist identify it.



"bodiless sweet"

There, but not there?   Insubstantial?


Perhaps it is best to forget the analysis and to simply experience and enjoy the poem.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: The Last Quatrain

I've stalled around a bit in posting on this quatrain: it's the last one for all editions.  I started this project on September 26, 2008 and never realized that it would last for over five years.  In fact, I'm also surprised that I did finish it for I tend to lose interest when nearing the end and find reasons for not completing a project.

The second and third editions are longer, at least twenty-five quatrains longer, than the first edition.  I did not post on quatrains that first appeared in the second edition, but only those that appeared in the first edition.  I haven't decided yet what I will do with those ignored quatrains.  Perhaps some time in the future, I may post on those also.

But, here we are--the last quatrain.


First Edition: Quatrain LXXV 

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

                        TAMAM SHUD



Second Edition:  Quatrain CX

And when Yourself with silver Foot shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
     And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass!

                        TAMAM




Fifth Edition:  Quatrain CI

And when like her, oh, Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
     And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass!

                        TAMAM




Fitzgerald made only minor changes over the five editions, and most of them occurred in the first line.  In the first edition we see  "Thyself" which becomes the less poetic  "Yourself" in the second edition.  Also, "shining foot" is changed to "silver Foot" in the second edition.  "Silver" is much more specific in that it denotes a white foot more clearly than does "shining."


In the fifth edition, we find the most drastic change to the first line.  The references to her personal appearance disappear and she is named Saki.  In addition, we find a reference--"like her"-- to the previous quatrain where the Moon is depicted as shining down on those in the garden.  The tie to the previous quatrain is much stronger in this edition than in the earlier versions in which the quatrain began with "And," which also ties this quatrain to previous one.  In other words, he substitutes a direct reference for a conjunction.

The second, third, and fourth lines of the various editions are identical except for a change that occurs in the second edition, when "thy" becomes "your" to match a similar change in the first line.

The sense of the quatrain seems quite clear--remember me with an empty glass, which refers back to earlier quatrains concerning the scene in the pottery shop in which a pot suggests that filling it with wine might restore it.  However, there seems to be no possibility of that happening here, for death is the final emptying of the glass.

12 Angry Men: three versions of this film

12 Angry Men, US Film  (1957)

This film appeared in the theaters in 1957 and, while a critical success, did not attract an audience and disappeared from the theaters.  Since then, however, it has steadily grown in critical estimation and audience appeal.

The plot is simple:  a young boy has been tried for killing his abusive father.  He claims he did not kill him.   The film opens with the judge's instructions to the jury, which then retires to the jury room.  The film then never leaves the jury room.  Once there, several of the jurors (this is 1957 so the jurors are all white males) are convinced it's an open-and-shut case and call for an immediate vote without having any discussion.  Several of the jurors are in a hurry:  one has tickets for a baseball game that night and another has to catch a flight for an important business meeting.  The vote comes out 11 for guilty and 1 not guilty.  The lone dissenting vote is cast by Henry Fonda's character, Juror 8.  When pressed for his reasons for voting "not guilty," he says he doesn't know whether the boy is innocent or guilty, but he does feel that, since a guilty verdict mandates execution, there should some discussion about the case.

"Beyond reasonable doubt"  is the troublesome criterion facing the jury.  A guilty verdict can only be rendered if the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, and this is the point that Juror 8 focuses on.  Is the evidence strong enough to move a person to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt.  If not, then they must render a verdict of not guilty.

The deliberation concentrates on the evidence.  Is it strong enough to convict him of murder, thus resulting in his execution?  Juror 8 and the other jurors spend considerable time discussing, attacking, defending, interpreting the evidence.  Occasionally a juror will say something that involves a personal issue as a way of making a point, but this is rare.  The issue is the evidence: is it strong enough to justify his execution?

Juror 8, the Henry Fonda character, is clearly the central character.  He is the leader of the gradually increasing group that argues for a "not guilty" verdict.  Juror 8 is a familiar character--strong, plain-spoken, confident, calm, measured, determined in behavior-- in other words, Henry Fonda as he has been seen in many roles.

It soon becomes clear that the evidence is only part of what moves many of the jurors to insist on a "guilty" verdict.  The other part, which emerges much more strongly as the evidence becomes more and more questionable, is prejudice; however, the target is never really specified.  It is always "them."  Typical references are "You know what they are like..."  I thought that was an interesting tactic as it allows the viewers to plug in whatever group is on the receiving end in their personal experience and doesn't limit the references to prejudice or bigotry aimed at any special group.  The optimistic viewpoint of the film seems to be that as the jurors become aware of their prejudices, they are more able to see clearly that the evidence is not strong enough to convict the boy. 

In spite of Perry Mason and countless other legal thrillers, finding the "real" murderer does not play a role here.  One of the jurors belligerently demands to know who killed the father if the boy didn't.  Juror 8 (Fonda) responds that the issue for them is determining the son's guilt and only that, nothing else. 


Overall Rating:  a superb film, the issues raised back in 1957 are still with us, but not brought out as clearly now as it was then.  The attitudes are still here, just more subtly put forward.

--highly recommended.



12,  Russian version  (2007)
While the basic idea of the film had not been changed, the Russian version contains much more about the back story of the way the boy and the Russian soldier met and how the soldier adopted the him.  Some of this was confusing, and I wonder if scenes had been left out.  In this version, the boy is a Chechen orphan who was adopted by a Russian soldier and brought to Moscow.  Contrary to the US film, there was no suggestion here that the father had been abusive. 

While watching the film, I felt that I was missing something.  Russians are good at burying unacceptable (to the government, regardless of the type it is) ideas and issues in their poetry, stories, and films that are critical of the official line of thinking in order to get them by the official censors.   I suspect that a Russian would have gotten much more out of the film then I did.


Juror 8, as in the US film, is the only one who voted "not guilty" in the first ballot taken shortly after retiring to the jury room.  However, he did not appear to play a strong role in what followed.  In fact, he was silent much of the time.  It was much more of a communal effort with various individuals taking control throughout the deliberations.  Again, I may have missed something here--something that suggested he was playing a central role but that in my ignorance of the Russian culture I missed the cues.

Another significant difference was the roles played by individual experience on the one hand and on the other hand  the focus on the evidence during the deliberations.  Jurors told stories about their experiences and past that did not appear in the US version and sometimes it was hard for me to see the relevance although they appeared to be significant to the other jurors.  There was discussion of the evidence, but it seemed to  play a lesser role here than it did in the US version.

Another difference between this film and the US version comes up briefly when Juror 8 is asked who else might be the murderer if the boy isn't.  Juror 8 responds that determining the boy's guilt is the issue, not the identity of the real killer.  However, one of the other jurors offers a theory as to whom the killer might be, but when asked where he got this information, he just smiles and refuses to answer.  This comment has an interesting effect at the end of the film, something which does not happen in the US version.

The issue of prejudice and bigotry was also raised in this film but again the treatment differed from the US version in that two groups were brought forward in the Russian film as the targets--Jews and Chechens.  Since the defendant was a Chechen, the relevance is obvious.  What escaped me though was that the first expression of prejudice was directed at the Jews.  Again, perhaps I'm missing something here.


Ek Ruka Hua Faisla, Hindi language version (1986)
In spite of the wretched subtitles, it seems clear that this version is very close to the US version.  Some minor changes have been made, but it is a very close remake.  I would guess that the US script had been translated into Hindi.   Then the subtitles had been created from the Hindi language script as I could frequently recognize dialogue from the US version. The sequence of events was also the same or at least as far as I could tell.

Juror 8, as in the US version, played the central role in the deliberations.  Again, while there were some personal issues and stories brought out, the focus for the most part was on the evidence as in the US film.  The problem of prejudice also appeared as a significant issue, but its treatment was almost identical to its handling in the US film.   No particular group, aside from vague references to the lower social classes--the poor and the destitute--was named. 

The question of who the real killer might be comes up also, but again it is handled the same way as in the US version.  The jury's concern is the guilt of the boy, not determining the identity of someone else who might be the killer.

I would recommend viewing all three versions; however, if you don't have that much time, then I would suggest seeing at least the US and the Russian versions, since the Hindi version is very close to the US film.