Thomas Hardy: Architectural Masks

I have The Wordsworth Poetry Library edition of Thomas Hardy's poetry, The Works of Thomas Hardy, which contains all of his poetry.  Every so often I take it down and browse through it, seeing what pops what.  I'm invariably surprised by the wide variety of his poetry, some somewhat dour, some cheerful, but all thoughtful.  This is one I just came across, one I don't remember having read before.


Architectural Masks
                
                     I
There is a house with ivied walls,
And mullioned windows worn and old,
And the long dwellers in those halls
Have souls that know but sordid calls,
          And daily dote on gold.

                    II
In blazing brick and plated show
Not far away a "villa" gleams,
And here a family few may know,
With book and pencil, viol and bow,
           Lead inner lives of dreams.

                   III
The philosophic passers say,
"See that old mansion mossed and fair,
Poetic souls therein are they:
And O that gaudy box!  Away,
            You vulgar people there."
.

Hardy was trained as an architect and worked for about five years for an architectural firm.  I wonder if any of his experiences as an architect are reflected above. 

Gracian--talking about oneself

No. 117

"Never talk about yourself.  For you either praise, which is vanity, or you reproach, which is poor spirit, in both instances evincing a guilty heart in the speaker, which gives pain to the listener:  if it is to be avoid in private life, it is to be shunned even more in public office, where you speak to the crowd, and where you at once pass as a fool if you but give the semblance of it.  A similar weakness of mind lies in speech about those present, because of the danger of foundering on either of two rocks, that of overappreciation or that of depreciation." 

Baltasar Gracian
from The Art of Worldly Wisdom
trans. Martin Fischer

Seems somehow rather appropriate right now, or so I believe.

G. K. Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday

I haven't read much by G. K. Chesterton, save for a number of his Father Brown mysteries.  Therefore, I was expecting an espionage tale with a rather traditional flavor.  The cover of the copy I read had a blurb by Kingsley Amis:  "The most thrilling book I have ever read."   Well, that wasn't exactly what I got when I began reading.

It's a farce, a satire, with a distinct flavor of  Monty Python.  I am also reminded of Joseph Conrad's satiric The Secret Agent, in which the anarchists are depicted as a fairly harmless and silly bunch of parlor terrorists, all except for the Professor, of course   What is curious is that Conrad's The Secret Agent was published in 1907, a year earlier than the publishing date of 1908 for Chesterton's novel.

A satire, even perhaps a farce, for how else could one characterize Chesterton's spy novel in which the head of the British Secret Police conducts his interviews in a darkened room so those who work for him don't know who he is?  In contrast, the evil anarchists are out in the open, holding their meetings out on a balcony where anyone can see and hear them.  Moreover,  the head of the anarchists,  Sunday ( the seven members of the Council identify themselves as days of the week) wears a white suit, and everybody knows who he is.   A Central Anarchist Council?   Organized anarchists? 

Gabriel Syme is recruited for the British Secret Police.  He is the perfect foil for what follows because he is serious about his new occupation and concerned about the harm the anarchists might do.  He's also very naive, foolishly naive, and a perfect picture of the stereotyped noble Englishman.   His task is to infiltrate the anarchists, discover their plans, and report his findings without revealing his true identity.  However, he carries his identification as a member of the secret police with him, just in case he has to identify himself.

In order to be admitted into an anarchist meeting, he has to promise to the anarchist he meets that he won't reveal anything he learns at the meeting to the police.  He manages to get himself elected to the Council and is known as  Thursday.  However, after the meeting he finds himself in a quandary.  He has infiltrated the Central Anarchist Council and is now aware of a plot to kill the Czar and the French President who will be meeting in a few days. But, since he has promised he won't reveal what he knows to the police, he decides that he can't warn the authorities for that would be going back on his word, and to a true Englishman,  his  word is a sacred bond. Consequently, he decides he must stop the assassination on his own.

What follows is farcical.  Those whom he believes are enemies turn out to be friends, while those he believed to support him, turn out to be enemies, for awhile anyway.  After a while, he doubts himself, as to which side he's on.

He and several fellow officers go to France in order to prevent the assassination.  It turns into a pursuit of  Sunday, the head of the anarchists,  for reasons I won't divulge here.  It would only spoil the fun. It is at this point that I wonder if Chesterton is an ancestor in some way of  Monty Python.  After a bewildering series of chases and escapes in which numerous factions change sides several times, everybody eventually returns to England for the ending, if one chooses to call it that.

The pursuit through France and England included boats, horses, buggies, automobiles, an elephant, and an hot air balloon.  Since the Wright Brothers made their first flight in 1903, travel by aircraft wasn't feasible yet, otherwise I'm sure Chesterton would have included that in the mix (mess?) also.

Highly recommended if you are looking for something to read that shouldn't be taken too seriously (or at least I think so).  On  the other hand, a second reading may cause me to change my mind about that. 

Read and enjoy.

Wallace Stevens: "The Reader"

I may have mentioned this before, but I will say it again:  Wallace Stevens is an acquired taste, at least that's how I see him.  I can't say he's one of my favorite poets, but every so often I have to browse through my copy of a collection of  his poems,  The Pa/m at the End of the Mind.  So far most of his poems puzzle me to the extent I'm not even sure that I'm getting the overt sense of them, much less anything deeper.  But, once in awhile I encounter one of his quirky ones that strikes a chord somewhere.  Here's the most recent example, and it's an autumn poem also:


The Reader

All night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as if in a book
Of somber pages.

It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shrivelled forms
Crouched in the moonlight.

No lamp was burning as I read,
A voice was mumbling, "Everything
Falls back to coldness,

Even the musky muscadines,
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden."

The somber pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven.

-- Wallace Stevens --



                                   "Everything
Falls back to coldness,

Even the musky muscadines,
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden."

 Stevens doesn't seem to be celebrating a rich harvest here, as many autumn poems do.   This is a more somber poem.  He might be contemplating autumn as the prelude to winter and death.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The House of the Dead

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was arrested in 1849 for  being a member of the Petrashevky Circle and sentenced to death.  Granted a last second reprieve (he was about to be executed when the order arrived at the place of execution) he was sentenced to serve time at the prison camp in Omsk, Siberia.  He was released in 1854 and was fortunate to be given permission to return to St. Petersburg.  Without this permission, he would have spent the rest of his life in a town in Siberia, the fate of his "narrator" in the novel.

Perhaps to distance himself as far as possible from the story, Dostoyevsky has adopted the convention of an "editor" who is given a manuscript written by Goryanchikov, a former inmate of a convict prison in Siberia.  This manuscript, of course, is a first person narrative, which gives  the reader the sense of immediacy and the feel of actually being present in the prison.  The only other prison story that I have read so far that made me feel I was there was Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.  I recommend reading them together for an fascinating comparison of the Siberian prison camp under the tzars and  under the commissars.  Frankly I prefer the tzars' prison, for as beastly as life was then, it was still far more humane than under the commissars.

The narrator,  Goryanchikov,  was not a political prisoner as was Dostoyevsky, but like Dostoyevsky he was a nobleman.  He was in prison for killing his wife out of jealousy.   We never learn much about the details for Goryanchikov seems to want to put his former life behind him and seldom thinks about it.  His narrative is about his life in prison, including his reactions to this new and horrifying way of living and the people he meets there.  While there is some parts that focus on the prison staff--guards, administrators, doctors-- most of the narrative concentrates on his fellow prisoners.

Goryanchikov discovered shortly after arriving that he was hated by the majority of the convicts for he was a nobleman.  It wasn't personal; it was class hatred that set him apart.  And, it lasted, he reports, for his entire stay in prison, although it did ease off somewhat near the end of his sentence.  Some of the convicts even wished him well as he finished his sentence and was released.

The structure of the work is mostly chronological and follows a very logical plan.  The first days are treated in considerable detail, with the first weeks, then months, and the first year are dealt with in some detail, while the following years are given in less detail.  Significant events are covered in the latter parts of the narrative, such as his stay in the hospital.  The narrator also spends more time reflecting on issues brought up by his  experiences in prison:  the ideal prison administrator, the different types of guards, the psychological effects of whippings and beatings, the various personalities of his fellow convicts.

This is psychologically well-grounded as we all are far more observant when we are put into a new situation, and details are far more noticeable for their novelty.  As we become familiar with the situation, the novelty dissipates, which now gives us the freedom to step back and gain a larger perspective about our environment.  Moreover, prison life tends to be monotonous with most variety being provided by the convicts themselves and their interactions with each other.  After awhile this furnishes the only novelty in prison as prisoners leave, are transferred, or die and new ones arrive. Occasionally, a new administrator appears or a new guard or staff member arrives, which results in some minor changes, but for the most part, it will be the convicts themselves who provide whatever variety there is.

I found it a fascinating account of a horrifying situation and can only marvel at the adaptability of humans who can survive here.

Highly recommended--and as I mentioned above, this should be read along with Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's  One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain LXV

This is the seventh in a series of linked quatrains that take place in a potter's shop in which the pots attempt to discuss the nature of the Potter/Creator and their relationship to Him.  This one, though,  is a bit different from the others that have preceded it.


First Edition:  Quatrain LXV

Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh,
"My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
     But, fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-by!"


 Second Edition:  Quatrain XCVI

"Well," said another, "Whoso will, let try,
My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
    But fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-by!"


Fifth Edition:  Quatrain LXXXIX

"Well," murmur'd one, "Let whoso make or buy,
My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
    But fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-by!"


The second, third, and fourth lines of the three editions are identical, except for a comma in the first version that was dropped in the second edition and does not reappear in the fifth edition.  "But" in the first edition is an interjection and the removal of the comma changes it into a conjunction, a change in usage that doesn't seriously affect the sense of the line.

The major changes occur in the first line when "another" is replaced by "one."   The "another" joins the speaker with the others for it is "another" in a series of speakers.  In the fifth edition, "one" separates it from the others to the extent that it is one that speaks and not necessarily one in a series.  In fact, while it is one in a series of speakers, it separates itself  from the others by what it says. While the others attempt to analyze their relationship to the Potter and their likely fates, this one is more concerned with the present.  It is dry and it needs wine, "the old familiar Juice," to help it recover.

This, of course, fits in perfectly with a previous theme brought out by the Poet/Narrator, that of the uselessness of the attempts to answer the universal questions:  How did I get here?  Where did I come from and where am I going?  What is the nature of the Universe?  Is there a Creator and what is the relationship between us?  Previously the Poet/Narrator had listened to saints and sages and wise men but had learned nothing and thereby decided that enjoyment of life was the only sensible course of action. 

In this linked series, various pots had attempted to answer the same questions with the same result: ignorance for they don't know the answers.  Now, one pot has decided that the only course was filling oneself up with wine, "the old familiar Juice."  The Poet/Narrator has used the pots to recreate once again his theme that we don't know and therefore should make the best of it.

This quatrain can also be seen somewhat differently if one favors a religious interpretation.  This pot may be speaking of a loss of faith and is praying to the Creator for that "old familiar Juice" which could be seen as God's grace to restore its faith.   However, that "by-and-by" at the end of the line suggests there's no real hurry.  This reminds me of the famous line from The Confessions of St. Augustine: "God, give me chastity and continence - but not just now."  
             

Robert Grudin: space-time perception

II.21

"We cannot project space-time into psychological experience without profound changes in perception and comprehension.  By fiat of four-dimensionality, "what" becomes "what/when,"  "who" becomes "who/when,"  "you" and "I" and everything undergo similar transformations.  A challenging idea, implying that identities and relationships are always in motion; that attempts to codify them in static, absolute terms are at very best relative and approximate.  To some observers this might suggest absolute relativism, loss of identity, chaos.  But this extreme hypothesis seems to be true neither in science nor in human affairs.  Things may change;  but they change at characteristic rates and in characteristic ways, recognizable and natural.  We search for character, value, truth, not so much like pilgrims seeking a marble shrine, as like listeners perceiving, in different musical instruments at different times, recurring themes and rhythms.  Thus a kind of stability-- perhaps the only real stability--exists in space-time, and our ability to recognize this mobile truth bears the same proportion to normal common sense as physics bears to solid geometry."  

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


An interesting concept.  When I think of a person or object, I shouldn't see this person or object as static and concrete, but I should perceive them as being in motion and liable to change.  My perception of them would then include the notion of change, of some sort of flux.  How would this change my relationship to them?   What would be the effect on me of actually seeing them this way?

Immersion: Wendell Berry and Loren Eiseley

"I have been walking in the woods, and have lain down on the ground to rest.  It is the middle of October, and around me, all through the woods, the leaves are quietly sifting down.  The newly fallen leaves make a dry, comfortable bed, and I lie easy, coming to rest within myself as I seem to do nowadays only when I am in the woods. 

And now a leaf, spiraling down in wild flight, lands on my shirt at about the third button below the collar.  At first I am bemused and mystified by the coincidence--that the leaf should have been so hung, weighted and shaped, so ready to fall, so nudged loose and slanted by the breeze, as to fall where I, by the same delicacy of circumstance, happened to be lying.  The event, among all its ramifying causes and considerations, and finally its mysteries, begins to take on the magnitude of history.  Portent begins to dwell in it.

And suddenly I apprehend in it the dark proposal of the ground.  Under the fallen leaf my breastbone burns with imminent decay.  Other leaves fall.  My body begins its long shudder into humus.  I feel my subtstance escape me, carried into the mold  by beetles and worms.  Days, winds, seasons pass over me as I sink under the leaves.  For a time only sight is left me, a passive awareness of the sky overhead, birds crossing, the mazed interreaching of the treetops, the leaves falling--and then that , too, sinks away.  It is acceptable to me, and I am at peace.

When I move to go, it is as though I rise up out of the world." 

--  Wendell Berry --
from Autumn: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
edited by Gary Schmidt and Susan M. Felch
Skylight Paths Publishing
 


Loren Eiseley has been walking for many hours and has come to the Platte River in Nebraska, which stretches from the Rockies to the Missouri and then to the Gulf of Mexico. He is hot and dry and dusty. The River is cold yet inviting and only a few inches deep in most places, but still there are dangerous holes and quicksands. He is alone and he can't swim and he is afraid of water as the result of a childhood incident. Yet, the sight of the River stirs him "with a new idea. I was going to float."

"I thought of all this, standing quietly in the water, feeling the sand shifting away under my toes. Then I lay back in the floating position that left my face to the sky, and shoved off. The sky wheeled over me. For an instant, as I bobbed into the main channel, I had the sensation of sliding down the vast tilted face of the continent. It was then that I felt the cold needles of the alpine springs at my fingertips, and the warmth of the Gulf pulling me southward. Moving with me, leaving its taste upon my mouth and spouting under me in dancing springs of sand, was the immense body of the continent itself, flowing like the river was flowing, grain by grain, mountain by mountain, down to the sea. I was streaming over ancient sea beds thrust aloft where giant reptiles had once sported; I was wearing down the face of time and trundling cloud-wreathed ranges into oblivion. I touched my margins with the delicacy of a crayfish's antennae, and felt great fishes glide about their work.
 
I drifted by stranded timber cut by beaver in mountain fastnesses; I slid over shallows that had buried the broken axles of prairie schooners and the mired bones of mammoth. I was streaming alive through the hot and working ferment of the sun, or oozing secretively through shady thickets. I was water and the unspeakable alchemies that gestate and take shape in water, the slimy jellies that under the enormous magnification of the sun writhe and whip upward as great barbeled fish mouths, or sink indistinctly back into the murk out of which they arose. Turtle and fish and the pinpoint chirpings of individual frogs are all watery projections, concentrations--as man himself is a concentration--of that indescribable and liquid brew which is compounded in varying proportions of salt and sun and time. It has appearances, but at its heart lies water, and as I was finally edged gently against a sand bar and dropped like any log, I tottered as I arose. I knew once more the body's revolt against emergence into the harsh and unsupporting air, its reluctance to break contact with that mother element which still, at this late point in time, shelters and brings into being nine tenths of everything alive."

-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Immense Journey



While the circumstances are different, and the ideas and the tones are different, the experiences, I think, are the same--the loss of self into the world about.  Berry's is about the ultimate end of all of us--death--and he concludes that "It is acceptable to me, and I am at peace."  Eiseley's theme is about the unity of all--water, life, the continent.  He recapitulates in a way the emergence of life out of non-life.  

I've had only three experiences that could be considered somewhat similar, although the overall tone was one of an overwhelming sense of peace and unity.  The first time was while I was driving along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  I had been there for several hours and had made several stops at various viewpoints along the road.  I had a tape in the player and it was playing one of Beethoven's symphonies when I was filled with a sense of peace and belonging?  The feeling is indescribable.  The second occurred years later, when I was returning from another trip to the Grand Canyon and I was driving south from Prescott, Arizona when it happened again, and this time I was listening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.  There seems to be a pattern here:  the Grand Canyon, driving, and Beethoven.

The third and last time was, again, years later when I was driving through the upper part of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.  The road wound among the peaks with a deep valley to one side and around each corner was another spectacular vista.  This time I was playing a tape of Beethoven's 6th Symphony.  

Patterns?



I'm hoping for a fourth, but .  .  .  

And you?

Eric Hoffer: some thoughts on play

28

"Man is a luxury-loving animal.  Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society  becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles."


I don't I've ever met a society or a group of people who are too rational, but I know I've met those who are too serious, who believe that the only worthwhile activity is making money, and who assign value on the basis of whether it is profitable.  If they can't make a profit on it, it has no value.  They may play golf but only because one can make profitable contacts out on the greens.



29
 
"To be aware how fruitful the playful mood can be is to be immune to the propaganda of the alienated, which extols resentment as a fuel of achievement."



30

"It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much.  Both in the marketplace and on the battlefield men who set their hearts on toys have often displayed unequaled initiative and drive.  And one must be ignorant of the creative process to look for a close correspondence between motive and achievement in the world of thought and imagination."

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


Hoffer is not alone when he speaks of the importance of fun and play.  For a similar point of view, go to two posts on  Lin Yutang, one dated October 10, 2011 and another on June 6, 2011.


 Is fiction play?

Loren Eiseley: "Wind Child"

WIND CHILD


They have just found where Monarch butterflies go
                                                                  in autumn
those red-gold drifters edged in black
that blow like leaves but never         
                              quite coming to rest,
always fluttering  
                              a little out of reach,
                                         disapearing
over the next house, or just making it
                                     above the hedge
flickering evasively through the last sunlight,
                                       the attrition tremendous,
                                       thousands die,
blown to sea, lost to children, lost to enemies but
                                            beating, beating on,
speed fourteen miles an hour on a three-thousand mile
                                                                             course to Mexico.
                
                          Where is the compass?
                              We don't know.
                          How did the habit start?
                               We don't know.
                         Why do the insects gather
                                 in great clumps on trees
                                 in the Sierra Madre?
                              We don't know.
They are individualists.  They fly alone.  Who wouldn't
                                                                     in autumn
like to rock and waver southward like an everblowing leaf
             over and through forests and hedges,
                       float in the glades             
                          sip the last nectar?
What a way to go, you make it, or you don't, or the winds
                         snatch you away.
Fly Monarchs and then, if your wings are not too old and frayed,
start the long road back in the spring.  Nature is
                                                 prodigal in numbers
prodigal of her milkweed children (did they learn to travel
                                                        from milkweed down?)
But I was overlooked, am really not human,
              would be first a tiger-striped caterpillar
              and then a Monarch, elusive, flickering, solitary
blowing on storms and beating, always beating
                        to go somewhere else, to another flower.
               Over the fence then.  Out of humanity.
                           I am a wind child.   

-- Loren Eiseley --
from Another Kind of Autumn


This, to me, is the most evocative part of the poem.  I can close my eyes and see them, remember them doing exactly this.  I don't know if they were Monarchs, but I do remember butterflies fluttering over rooftops and then barely clearing a low hedge, pausing briefly at a blossom or a brightly colored shirt on a clothesline, and then moving on, always moving on.   It is hard to believe that they are hardy enough to make a journey of thousands of miles and then some able to come back several seasons later. .

those red-gold drifters edged in black
that blow like leaves but never         
                              quite coming to rest,
always fluttering  
                              a little out of reach,
                                         disapearing
over the next house, or just making it
                                     above the hedge
flickering evasively through the last sunlight,



Shakespeare has Hamlet at one point say "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."--even such an ordinary, commonplace creature as a butterfly is a marvel, once we look closely at it.

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain LXIV

This is the sixth in a  series of linked quatrains, all playing with the theme of the Potter/Creator, in which the pots reassure themselves that the unpleasant tales they've heard about the Potter can't possibly be true.



First Edition: Quatrain LXIV

Said one--"Folks of a surly Tapster tell,
And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell;
     They talk of some strict Testing of us--Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well."


Second Edition:   Quatrain XCV

Said one--"Folks of a surly Master tell,
And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell;
     They talk of some sharp Trial of us--Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well."

 
Fifth Edition: Quatrain LXXXVIII

"Why," said another, "Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
    The luckless Pots he marr'd in making--Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well."


It seems clear that they are speaking of the Creator as seen by Christians, Jews, and Moslems.  The references to hell and testing clearly suggest the teachings of those religions.  Our life here on Earth is a test, and those who fail the test are destined for eternal punishment.  All three quatrains agree on this point, and all three dismiss this possibility with the identical last line:  "He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well."

However, there are some interesting, if not intriguing, differences among the three quatrains.  The Potter/Creator is called "a surly Tapster" in the first edition, which carries the hint of one who dispenses alcohol--a Tapster. This fits in well with the numerous references to wine in previous quatrains.   In the second version, the "surly Tapster" becomes a "surly Master,"  a distinctly different person here.  A Master is one who controls others while a Tapster simply provides drinks upon demand.  There's much more of a sense of control in the second edition. In the fifth edition, it is neither a Tapster nor a Master, but a more generic "one who threatens."

One more difference is that in the first and second editions, the Potter's face is daubed with "the Smoke of Hell,"  which suggests a strong physical connection to Hell.  One cannot be covered with smoke unless one comes in contact with it.  However, in the fifth edition, that connection disappears for the Potter now becomes one who will toss the "marr'd pots" into hell.

What is also significant is that the pot does not claim to be speaking from personal experience, but telling us of what others say.  This echoes earlier quatrains in which the Poet/Narrator tells us that many speak of what is to come after death, but none have ever come back to speak from their own experience.  And, the Poet/Narrator dismisses what they have to say in a number of quatrains wherein he tells us repeatedly that we know not where we came from and we know not our destination, if there is one.

In the first edition, the pot speaks of "Testing," a process designed to determine what qualities we posses, or lack, perhaps.  This "Testing" becomes "a sharp Trial" in the second version, which, in addition to a sense of testing, carries legal or judicial implications.  A "Trial" is reserved for those who are charged with some crime.  Just as all in the first edition will face a test, all in the second seemingly will be on trial for some misdeed.

The fifth edition, though, recalls an earlier quatrain, specifically LXIII of the first edition, XCIII of the second, and LXXXVI  of the fifth, in which a "pot of a more ungainly make" suggests that its flaws are the result of the potter's shaking hand and not the fault of the pot.   If the pot is not perfect, then who is at fault?  Could the Potter be responsible for the pot's flaws and if so, is it fair that the pot, therefore,  be punished?   In one sense, the pot is a victim of a less than perfect Potter.  Moreover, in the fifth edition, the sense of  a test or a trial conducted by "a surly Tapster" or "Master" disappears completely and is replaced by "one who threatens he will toss to Hell/ The luckless Pots he marr'd in making."  These are not pots who have failed a test, but "luckless Pots he marr'd in making."

In the fourth line of the quatrain, the pot reassures the others in all three versions by dismissing those threats of hell by insisting "He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well."  This is not the angry, vengeful Creator of the Old Testament, but a more congenial Creator, "a Good Fellow"  and therefore, " 'twill all be well."

Of course, this more reassuring and comforting view of the Potter/Creator has no more substance or supporting evidence than do the claims that are being dismissed.   The "surly Tapster" and the "Good Fellow"  are simply speculations about the unknown, with a tinge of wishful thinking attached to the latter view. 

Wendell Berry: a path and a road

Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky)  is an American man of letters, academic, a cultural and an economic critic, and farmer.  He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays.  He is also an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of  The National Humanities Medal, and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012.  (This information comes from the Wikipedia entry on Wendell Berry)

"The difference between a path and a road is not only the obvious one.  A path is little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place.  It is a sort of ritual of familiarity.  As a form, it is a form of contact with a known landscape.  It is not destructive.  It is the perfect adaptation,  through experience and familiarity, of movement to place; it obeys the natural contours; such obstacles as it meets it goes around.  A road, on the other hand, even the most primitive road, embodies a resistance against the landscape.  Its reason is not simply the necessity for movement, but haste.  Its wish is to avoid contact with the landscape; it seeks so far as possible go go over the country, rather than through it; its aspiration, as we see clearly in the example of our modern freeways, is to be a bridge;  its tendency is to translate place into space in order to traverse it with the least effort.  It is destructive, seeking to removal or destroy all obstacles in its way.  The primitive road advanced by the destruction of the forest; modern roads advance by the destruction of topography."
--  Wendell Berry --
from "A Native Hill"
The quotation is included in Autumn: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
Edited by Gary Schmidt and Susan Felch


I wonder if my life has been a path or a road.  If it's been a path in places, it's probably more the result of laziness than of reasoned choice.

I would like to meet someone sometime who has knowingly chosen a path and not a road.

Fall Equinox: Autumnal Haiku

A bright autumn moon .  .  .
In the shadow of each grass
      An insect chirping
    -- Buson --


                                The calling bell
                    Travels the curling mist-ways .  .  .
                                Autumn morning
                                    -- Basho --


                                               Supper in autumn .  .  .
                                     The light through an open door
                                                 From a setting sun
                                                            -- Chora --

                                                   
                                Jagged candle-flame .  .  .
                            The very shape of autumn sifts             
                                  Through the shutters 
                                         --  Raizan --


Nights are getting cold .  .  .
   Not a single insect now
        Attacks the candle
                  -- Shiki --

                                
                                Swallows flying south .  .  .
                           My house too of sticks and paper
                                   Only a stopping place
                                             -- Kyorai --

                                                
                                                           All the world is cold   .  .  .
                                                        My fishing-line is trembling
                                                              in the autumn wind
                                                                       --  Buson --



                             White autumn moon .  .  .
                           Black-branch shadow-patterns
                                      Printed on the mats
                                                 -- Kikaku --


     First white snow of fall
Just enough to bend the leaves
      Of faded daffodils
                    -- Basho --


All haiku come from
A Little Treasury of Haiku
Edited and translated by Peter Beilenson

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain LXIII

This is the fifth in a series of linked quatrains which focus on the rationalizations of the pots about the character and possible behavior of the unknown Potter.  However this quatrain is a bit different as it actually seems to question the skill of the Potter.



First Edition: Quatrain LXIII

None answer'd this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
       "They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"



Second Edition: Quatrain XCIII

None answer'd this; but after silence spake
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
       "They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"



Fifth Edition:  Quatrain LXXXVI

After a momentary silence spake
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make;
   "They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"



The first line of the first and second editions are the same, except for the substitution of the lower case "s" in the second edition.  The fifth edition does show a change in wording though.  The first line is now "After a momentary silence spake"  instead of "None answer'd this; but after silence spake."  In the first two stanzas, it is clear that none of the pots had an answer to the pot in Quatrain LXII who insisted that even "a peevish Boy" wouldn't destroy a cup in a rage. That none answered him is ambiguous for it could be that they all agreed or that none wished to disillusion him. The issue is avoided in the fifth edition, for there is just acknowledgement that there was "a momentary silence" before the next one spoke up and no suggestion that there might be an answer..  

The second line shows only one significant change:  "A Vessel" in the first edition becomes "Some Vessel" in the second and fifth editions.  The "A Vessel" strikes me a being more specific:  it was "a vessel" of ungainly make, which seems fairly definite to me,  whereas "Some Vessel" seems somewhat vague, almost arbitrary..

The third and fourth lines are the same for all three editions, with changes only in punctuation as the third line shifts from a semi-colon to a colon in the fifth edition.  The semi-colon suggests separate but related ideas, whereas the colon indicates that what follows the colon in some way is an explanation or elucidation of the statement that preceded the colon.  The shaky hand of the Potter is responsible for his less than upright stance.  This might be seen as symbolic of a less than upright moral stance also.

The point here is that the Potter shares responsibility if its creations are less than perfect, and if the Potter does share some responsibility, then the pots should not bear the brunt of punishment for flaws which aren't' their fault, or at least not wholly their fault..
.    . 

The 500th

According to the blog counter, this is my five hundredth post.  When I first began some four years ago, I had no goal or target to shoot at.  I just started posting and assumed that I would eventually lose interest or burn out or get interrupted by fate or some chance event.  I even wondered whether I would be able to come up with enough material to make more than a few posts.   I still may burn out or lose interest some day, and fate may still interrupt me, but I definitely won't run out of material.   One day years from now I may even reach 1000, maybe.

This does give me an opportunity to do something I've been thinking about for some time--compare the list of my favorite posts and the posts, according to the Blogger Stats, that have received the most visits.  I've often wondered how much overlap there really is.



The Ten Most Visited Posts (according to Blogger Stats)

N. Scott Momaday      The Way to Rainy Mountain
May 23, 2010             2422 visits

Shirley Jackson           "The Lottery"
June 27, 2010             1286 visits

Brian Aldiss               "Super-Toys Last All Summer"
March 25, 2011         679 visits

Robert Frost              "Storm Fear"
Feb. 3, 2011              521 visits

Alfred Bester             "Fondly Fahrenheit"
August 14, 2008        442 visits

Thomas Mann           The Transposed Heads
Nov. 3, 2011             428 visits

Robert Frost             a terrifying poet?
Sept 16, 2008          182 visits

Friedrich Durrenmatt    The Pledge, novel and film
Jan. 16, 2009              165 visits

Theodore Sturgeon      Three By Theodore Sturgeon
Jan 16, 2010                151 visits

Tales of Times Past     Japanese medieval stories
March 6, 2011           148 visits


It's a rather mixed collection.   I don't see much of a pattern here, except for some slight predominance of SF and fantasy, but that may be due to a predominance of posts about SF and fantasy.  I haven't really ever taken a genre census. 



The following is a list of some of my favorite posts.  I'm not certain exactly why they are.  Maybe some day I will be enlightened.  They are in no particular order.


The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam  --a series of posts, one for each quatrain in the first edition which has 75 quatrains.  I'm now up to Quatrain LXII, so I have thirteen to go to finish the work.

Kim Stanley Robinson:  four or five posts about his "Three Californias" series:   The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast, and Pacific Edge. Each of the three novels depicts a different future for Orange County, California--a post holocaust future, a continuation of the cold war and the dominance of the military-industrial complex in the US, and an ecological/environmental oriented future, respectively.

Blade Runner--five versions of the film.

Shirley Jackson--"The Lottery"

Gregory Benford--The "Galactic Center" series:  six posts, each of which is about the six novels in the series, which is one of the greatest SF series (if not the greatest) ever written,  in my view anyway.  It begins in the late 1990s on Earth and ends somewhen about 35,000 (yes, thirty-five thousand) years in the future around the black hole at the center of our galaxy..

N. Scott Momaday:  The Way to Rainy Mountain,  part history of the Kiowa people, part legends of the Kiowa people, and part personal history of Momaday. 

The Rashomon posts, several posts about the film by Akira Kurosawa and the stories of Ryunosuke Akutagawa that formed the basis of the film.

The Maltese Falcon:  a post discussing the three versions of Dashiell Hammett's novel, The Maltese Falcon.

William Hope Hodgson:  The Night Land, a post about one of my favorite fantasy novels.

King Kong:  a post comparing the three versions of the film.

Ikiru: a post discussing one of my favorite films, directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Robert Frost  a terrifying poet?--a slightly different view of the poet

Robert Frost: "For Once, Then Something"


Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost:  "Hap" and "Design"

and others.


Not much overlap is there?

I've enjoyed the ride so far, so I guess I'll stay with it for a while longer.

And thanks, to you and the others who have visited me here and had something to say about what you read here.  Hearing from you is important and I think most every blogger would agree with me.

Nietzsche: Some relevant thoughts (or perhaps not)

Nietzsche says:


"And to say it once more. Public opinions--private lazinesses."


"Enemies of truth.  Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."


"The value of insipid opponents.  At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."


"Not suitable as a party member.   Whoever thinks much is not suitable as a party member:  he soon thinks himself right through the party."


"The party man.  The true party man learns no longer--he only experiences and judges; while Solon who was never a party man but pursued his goals alongside and above the parties, or against them, is characteristically the father of the plain maxim in which the health and inexhaustibility of Athens is contained: 'I grow old and always continue to learn.'"

 -- Nietzsche --
from The Portable Nietzsche
Walter Kaufmann,  Editor and translator



.What sayest thou?   Relevant or not?

Emily Dickinson: The End of Summer

#1536

There comes a warning like a spy
A shorter breath of Day
A stealing that is not a stealth
And Summers are away --


But a spy is not supposed to be noticed!  The change from Summer to Autumn, at first I guess, isn't that noticeable--just a shortening of the Day and a slight loss of  ?   Perhaps the warning is the shorter breath and the stealing?  The Summer is dying. 



#1540

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away --
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy --
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternon --
Th Dusk drew earlier in --
The Morning foreign shone --
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that wold be gone --
And thus, witout a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful 

Again, the sense that Summer doesn't just abruptly leave, but quietly steals away.
"Our Summer made her light escape"   Just small changes maybe, but into the Beautiful?
This is ambiguous.


#1572

We wear our sober Dresses when we die,
But Summer, frilled as for a Holiday
Adjourns her sigh --

The contrast between us and Summer during our last days.  Perhaps this explains the last line of the previous poem "Into the Beautiful."

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




And as always, I can't help but think of similar haiku, suggesting that poets (and therefore humans) from around the globe aren't that different.

                  A single cricket
Chirps, chirps, chirps, and is still .  .  . my
           Candle sinks and dies
                                 -- Anon --

Nothing remarkable here--just a cricket going silent and a candle fading away


          So enviable .  .  .
Maple-leaves most glorious
    Contemplating death
                        -- Shiki --


     Should it have such worth,
What would I not give
    For the scenery of autumn?
                   -- Soin --


The last two haiku, seem related to the second and third poems by Dickinson..

Stanley G. Weinbaum: The New Adam

Stanley G. Weinbaum was born on April 4, 1902 and died on December 14, 1935, when he was only 33.  He's one of those writers, composers, or artists about whom any conversation always turns to wondering what he would have accomplished if he had lived another decade or two or three.  He published his first SF short story in July 1934 and died about 18 months later.  That short story was "A Martian Odyssey," which, in 1970, was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the top three short stories of all time.  Only Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" got more votes, and Weinbaum's story beat out Daniel Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon" for the second spot.  I have read a collection of his short works, The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum, but this is the first novel I have read by him.  I think I will search out his other two novels.

Edmond Hall is The New Adam.    Aside from his extraordinarily high intelligence, he has two unique features.  The first is an extra joint in his fingers and toes.  This, of course, posed some problems for him while growing up.  The second wasn't noticeable, and he only told a very few people about it.  He had a double mind, each of which could be working on a separate track.  And, when he wished, he could bring them together to have a conversation, each developing a different solution to a problem.  He thought everybody was like this, until in school one day, a teacher told him to pay attention to class because nobody could do two things at once.  By this time, he had learned that it was best not to argue with adults.

Weinbaum's novel is a unique treatment of the subject.  It reads more like a 19th century biography than the typical SF novel of the theme. This is not the usual tale of a superman forced to go into hiding while defeating or at least eluding his enemies with his superpowers or his ability to create high-tech weapons and various other almost magical devices. Instead, we are given the story of an individual who is the classic outsider, one who doesn't fit in society. Therefore there is no crowd of enraged or frightened standard humans out for his blood.  The government is unaware of his true nature, and as long as he doesn't break any laws, it will ignore him as it will any law-abiding citizen.

Edmond Hall is the first person to appear in the further evolutionary development of homo sapiens.   He is seen as a bright boy and a genius when he matures into an adult.  But., nobody suspects that Hall is the next evolutionary step in the development of homo sapiens. 

For a story to work, there must be conflict, and conflict there is.  Only it's the typical conflicts faced by every child during the process of growing up: making friends, getting along with fellow students at school, or placating one's parents or relatives while striving for independence.  Nothing stands out that would identify Edmond Hall as being other than a very bright boy.  But, inside his head, there are two minds working.

Once Hall is an adult, he has to decide on a career.  First he tries science and invents some gadgetry that brings in enough money so that he does not have to work.  He is now free to experiment:  science, political power, the arts.  But, he can find nothing that satisfies him.

His intellectual superiority wasn't a problem while he was maturing, for he could communicate with  highly intelligent adults.  But, as he matured the number of adults who who were at his intellectual  level dwindled until he found himself alone. He searches for others like him but finds no evidence to suggest there are others who could be equals.  He is like a standard human marooned on an island with only dogs for companionship..

Finally he discovers love.  There is just one problem: Vanny is a normal human being.  He is attracted to her physically, but she cannot come close to him on an intellectual level.  It is then that he discovers there are a few others like him, a woman and two men.  With Sarah, he finds the opposite problem: he feels nothing for her,  but at last he has found his intellectual equals.

The conclusion, in keeping with the rest of the novel, is not the standard ending found in most works that focus on homo superior, but it is appropriate and satisfying, if unexpected.

If you are looking for a unique treatment of this theme, I recommend  The New Adam.

Tron and Tron: Legacy, a return visit

It's been over a year (see post on April 26, 2011)  since I last watched Tron and Tron: Legacy, and I was curious about whether my initial reactions to the two films had changed since then.  So, last night I engaged in a Tron film festival.  It's only two films, so it's not much of a festival, but so far, Disney hasn't come up with a Tron 3, yet.

To be brief, my initial reactions still held true, even stronger now after a second viewing.  The plots are still weak, although Tron: Legacy had an opportunity to explore an Eastern tradition in cyberspace, but never went anywhere with it, aside from putting Jeff Bridges in a meditation gown and showing him in a meditative pose now and then.  That is frustrating  for that could have been a fascinating idea to explore.

Put simply:  Tron had the look and feel of a truly alien world.  It was a convincing depiction of cyberspace, a digital universe with bright, sharp colors and strong demarcations of creatures and structures and motion impossible in our world. Cyberspace could be like this.

Tron: Legacy was not an alien universe, but our own universe distorted to some extent by computer graphics.  It no longer was an unknown world, but just one variation of ours--no longer digital but now a  modification of our analogue universe.  And, according to an interview with the director, Joseph Kosinsky,  this was done deliberately.  In his view, the digital world had evolved to become more "realistic," more like our own world. The special effects were fantastic, but all they did was to turn the digital world into ours.

What a waste of time, money, and effort!  I watched the film to see something new, not a variation of a world that I already knew, and a variation that concluded with scenes from the 1934 Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, directed by Leni Riefenstahl. I guess this is supposed to be another example of how realistic the Tron world has become.

If this trend continues, the third Tron, if there is one, will be set in an universe so realistic that it will be indistinguishable from ours.  I'll skip that one. 

Barbara Hurd: from "Refugium," Pt. 2

"Those who are fond of retreats--writers, ecstatics, parents with young children--often comment on the silence such time away allows.  Silence becomes something present, almost palpable.  The task shifts from keeping the world at a safe decibel distance to letting more of the world in.  Thomas Aquinas said that beauty arrests motion.  He meant, I think, that in the presence of something gorgeous or sublime, we stop our nervous natterings, our foot twitchings and restless tongues.  Whatever that fretful hunger is, it seems momentarily filled in the presence of beauty.  To Aquinas's wisdom I'd add that silence arrests flight, that in its refuge' the need to flee the chaos of noise diminishes.  We let the world creep closer, we drop to our knees, as if to let the heart, like a small animal, get its legs on the ground."

-- Barbara Hurd --
from "Refugium"
Summer: A Spiritual Autobiography of the Season

Silence is rapidly becoming eligible of being listed as an endangered species today.  Everything seems to ring or ding or whistle at us.  It's impossible to get away from the siren calls of mobile phones, and I don't even have one.  It's getting harder and harder to walk through a parking lot without having some vehicle warning us to back off, or else.  Restaurants now seem to be designed to magnify noise, forcing patrons to shout at someone sitting across the table, just a few feet away.

But what's truly frightening is that I know people who don't like to leave the city because it's too quiet out there.  Isaac Asimov wrote a novel, Caves of Steel, in which people now lived in huge cities that were covered over.  They never saw the sky,  All lighting was artificial.  As a consequence the population was agoraphobic, afraid to enter a large open space.  Are we becoming afraid of silence today?  Are we becoming afraid of being alone with only our own thoughts and nothing to distract us?