Classical Carousel

Part V

The outbreak of the plague definitely appears to be slowing down, yet people are hesitant to accept it after living so long under its shadow.  Yet gradually people show hope and there are more escapes than ever as people are terrified of succumbing to the pestilence just as an end is in sight.  M. Othon does catch the plague and dies as does Tarrou, yet Tarrou struggles and fights until the disease takes him in the end.  Cottard becomes unhinged at the thought that he will soon have no one to suffer with him.  He begins a gun fight in town and soon his taken into custody by the police.  And finally Dr. Rieux is revealed as the narrator of the story.  After the plague it is suspected that the people will forget about it and continue to live their lives as before, therefore Rieux wished to write a chronicle of the pestilence in honour of its victims so they will not be forgotten.  The chilling end is not really an end; the plague, we're told, can live dormant for years, just sleeping and waiting for a new emergence.

St. Roch praying to the Virgin for and end to the Plague (1780) Jacques-Louis David source Wikiart

Thoughts:  This part seemed a little rushed but with the cases of the plague decreasing, perhaps it was a natural wind-up of the outbreak and the story.  Again Camus explores the psychological effect of the town returning to "normal" after a crisis and his psychology is rather heavy-handed, sacrificing story for pet philosophy.  The characters are still rather drab and lifeless, which could have been intentional.  He makes sure he kills the one spark of love throughout the story:  Rambert who had been wild to escape to be reunited with the love of his life, at the end meets her but it's a rather low and uninspiring reunion; the plague has changed him and snuffed out the flame of his love.

"You like to have some cup of tea?  ----- July bent at the doorway and began that day for them as his kind has always done for their kind."

In South Africa, the black South Africans have risen up against the whites, and the country is in chaos.  July, the servant of Bamford and Maureen Smales, secrets them out of the city and transport them to his village, in order to save their lives and the lives of their three children.  Nadine Gordimer's novel was written before the end of apartheid in South Africa and is a fictional account of the beginnings of a civil war where the black South Africans have thrown the country into chaos as they attempt to abolish the apartheid system.

Honestly, I decided to read this book because it was on my Guardian's 1000 best novel list.  In spite of having a few South African friends, I have only very cursory knowledge of South Africa or apartheid.  I was hoping to acquire a basic understanding of the country and its struggles in reading this book, but unfortunately no larger pictures of life or the people were revealed.  The narrative was somewhat choppy and disjointed, requiring effort to follow Gordimer's train of thought, but also to follow in detail the action in the story.

Obviously there is no question about racial inequality with regard to the issues in South Africa, but I thought this book portrayed it in an unexpected way.  July had been a servant in the Smales house previous to the uprising and, while he had been treated well, he had been treated as such.  However, once he rescues the family, the roles invert and July gradually assumes more control of the situation, as the Smales are dependent on him for their livelihood and survival.  At climax of the novel,  July takes command of their yellow bakkie without their permission, and you sense that now they are completely in his power.  Yet with July's increase in authority, there was really no exhibition of compassion or understanding.  One would think he would be able to see parallels in their situations and treat the Smales with an equality that had been lacking in their original treatment of him.  I'm really not sure what Gordimer was trying to communicate by this portrayal ........ that human nature is universal and unchangeable and that exploitation from one group can infect the victims if the tables are turned?  Are we so devoid of any sort of empathy and so self-centered, that no one can care about the freedom and identity of another person, no matter what the circumstances?  Sigh.  For me, Gordimer was not very clear with her intent, but perhaps that was the point.  In any case, the novel ends with Maureen Smales desperately running towards an unidentified helicopter that could carry South African police or revolutionaries.  Was she running to safety and freedom, or a different type of captivity, or even death?  Or perhaps she was simply wildly and mistakenly trying to run towards the life she once knew.

I honestly I can't say that I enjoyed this read.  It was interesting in the way it is interesting to examine a dead insect, but nothing in it really spoke to my sympathies.   There was nothing beautiful in the writing that communicated the beauty of the country or the peoples, and no goodness shone through in the hearts of any of the characters.  I do realize that the dire situation in the country at this time may not have encouraged such writing, but people need hope in those times, and perhaps art that exemplifies that type of hope is never more necessary.

Part III & Part IV

As the deaths from the plague mount, the town runs out of coffins and room in the cemetary.  Eventually the victims are disposed of in much the same way as the rats early in the story.  Yuck!  Reality appears to set in on the collective group and the citizens of Oran feel united in their plight.  Cottard continues to make money amid the suffering, Rambert decides to stay in Oran, in spite of being given a new plague serum M. Othon's young son dies in agony, Father Panaloux delivers a fiery sermon and then succumbs to a sickness which does not resemble the plague, Tarrou confesses his history and we find he is in rebellion against societal systems which are "plagues" themselves, and Grand is found wandering the streets ill and somewhat disoriented.  He is expected to die but he recovers and soon 4 other patients follow suit.  Has the plague finally run its course?

Thoughts:  In these two parts Camus deals in depth with the psychological effects of the plague, but not only this particular plague.  Tarrou recounts how horrified he was at his father's behaviour in his vocation as a lawyer; how he advocated for the death of defendents without any compassion or thought. Tarrou directly left this kind of life, joining societies that would fight against it, only to find that the very people who condemned these actions, would commit them themselves, if they thought the ends justified the means.  Disgusted by people in general and referring to their actions as a type of a "plague", Tarrou has placed himself in voluntary exile, removing himself and trying to live by "sympathy." 

Alienation appears to be a central theme.  Rieux must alienate himself from his feelings to continue to work, Cottard feels more in tune with group suffering but in reality he is still alienated, of course as mentioned above, Tarrou is alienated, the citizens of Oran are alienated from the rest of the world as they are in quarantine, and each person, to an extent, is alienated from another in fear of catching the plague. 

"O, Romeo, Romeo!  Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name

Of, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I'll no longer be a Capulet."

Of course, we all know the story.   In Medieval Verona, the Capulets and Montagues are feuding, their hatred spilling over into battles in the streets; revenge and killings abound.  Yet Romeo, the Montague, meets Juliet, a Capulet, and all thoughts of his former love, Rosaline, fly from his head as his heart is captured by her beauty.  Will Romeo and Juliet's love survive the heated rivalry and secret machinations of the houses of Montague and Capulet?

Well, no, of course not!

While Romeo and Juliet is certainly a story of young love, it is also a cautionary tale against letting one's heart (and other body parts) rule one's head with unhealthy intensity.  Friar Lawrence cautiions Romeo during his effusive praise of Juliet after only one glance of her:

"These violent delights have violent ends 

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, 

Which, as they kiss, consume.  The sweetest honey 

Is loathsome in his own deliciousness

And in the taste confounds the appetite.

Therefore love moderately.  Long love doth so.

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."

Later, when Romeo's friend, Mercutio is slain by the Capulet, Tybalt, cousin to Juliet, love is forgotten in the passions of revenge and Tybalt's life is forfeit under the steel of Romeo's sword.  A sentence of exile is pronounced as the lovers' hopes spiral into a well of despair.  A message gone astray, culminates in the deaths of these two lovers, echoing a tragic pathos that the reader can sense building throughout the play.  Right from the beginning, when you view their impulsive, forbidden love, blossoming amongst the fields of vendettas, discord and enmity, you know that it cannot last.  It's like an explosion of fireworks that streak across the sky in a pattern of colours and textures and beauty.  But eventually these grand passions burn themselves out and in place of the awe-inspiring spectacle, darkness remains. 

Yet while there is tragedy in the fateful story, Shakespeare also shines rays of hope.  With the deaths of the two heirs of both the Montagues and Capulets, all animosity melts away as the families share the pain of a double grief.  So instead of Romeo and Juliet's deaths being merely tragic, the lovers' demise turn out to be a kind of sacrifice, two deaths that culminate in the saving fate of the two families.  Is Shakespeare alluding to the belief that peace in society is more important than a passionate love of two individuals?  Who knows, but it's a thought that resonated with me long after I turned the last page .......

I read this play for my edX Shakespeare: On Page and Performance course, play 1 of 6.

Productions Watched:

         Romeo & Juliet - Shakespeare Stratford Collection    (★★★★☆)

Audiobooks:

         Archangel Audiobook - Romeo & Juliet (★★★★★)                            

© Cleo and Classical Carousel, Years 2014 - 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this written material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Cleo and Classical Carousel with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Photos are in the public domain.

I'm reading The Plague by Albert Camus as part of a read-along with Bookstooge.

Part II

Camus examines the experiences of different people when faced with disease and death.  Some ignore the obvious, some, who are in the throes of love affairs are nearly oblivious to the plague's effects, some seek pleasures without limits, some profit from the disaster, and some attempt to escape the quarantine. 

The plague becomes pneumonic and can now be transmitted by air.  Not good.  A sermon is given by Father Paneloux stating that the plague has been sent from God to punish the citizens for their sins and, oddly, Grand is writing a book and agonizing over the perfection of the first sentence.  Rambert, the journalist, is desperate to escape and enlists Cottard for help, as Cottard is now benefiting from the plague through smuggling.  We find that Cottard had committed a crime earlier in life and that is what lead to his suicide attempt. With his escape delayed, Rambert finally agrees to join the sanitation committee who keep the town clean, in perhaps a futile effort to stay the pestilence.

Thoughts:  I can see how Camus lets us examine the effects of the plague through an examination of certain characters of the town and their reactions to it.  Rieux is the calm in the storm of the disaster and is a sort of anchor for the story.  Cottard is rather fascinating.  He has at some past time committed a crime for which he, early in the novel, attempts to escape the ramifications of it through suicide.  He is on the outside of the community with this secret and his internal conflict pushes him to an extreme action.  Yet with the advent of the plague, it is as if the community has been brought to his level with their suffering and Cottard, I'm afraid to say, appears to almost feed off this suffering and carves a rather satisfying life for himself within the hurricane of despair around him.  And what's with Grand and his story?  His battle to write the perfect sentence is obviously going to be a failure.  What was Camus doing here?  Was he trying to show that perfection is never to be found, but we should struggle for it in any case?  Hmmm ......

"In my Book of Memory, in the early part where there is little to be read, there comes a chapter with the rubric: Incipit vita nova.  It is my intention to copy into this little book the words I find written under that heading ---- if not all of them, at least the essence of their meaning."

Beatrice was eight years old and Dante, nine, the first time they set eyes on each other. Instantly, he felt an abiding connection with her, even though it was nine years after that before he finally saw her again, and she greeted him, her words entwining through his heart.  Lovely Beatrice, who became Dante's love, his obsession and his Muse.   Never a conversation was had between them, only greetings, yet his life was filled with her presence, her goodness and grace, her being so angelic that she filled his heart until he wondered if it could contain her.  All thoughts revolved around his beautiful Beatrice; she was his life and through her, his poetry gained a new vitality.

Vita Nuova, or new life, chronicles Dante's first sight of Beatrice, his occasional casual meetings with her, his attempt to deflect his interest in her by pretending his poetry was for another woman, her disgust at his perceived behaviour, the death of her father, Dante's own illness and then, tragically, the death of the woman who had become the centre of his world ..... his lovely Beatrice ......

The book's structure is unique in itself, as it is organized into chapters (probably by later translators/scribes), but nearly every chapter follows an easily recognizable pattern:  first he gives an account of his life circumstances and events, almost like a journal; second he shares a poem where he again relates those circumstances, usually in the form of a sonnet or canzone; and third, an analysis of the poetry, describing his intent and the divisions of thought in each poem.

The poetry is in the courtly love tradition, a form borrowed from French poets which emphasized chivalry, bravery and nobility.  It is important to keep this in mind while reading this story, as the intensity of Dante's emotions, the near idolization of Beatrice, the groans and sighs, the personification of Love and the professions of near despair can be somewhat hard to relate to in our unromantic day and age.

I found myself vacillating between two different emotions.  One one hand I wanted to say, "oh, you poor love-sick man", and on the other, "what a fool!"  Why would you have your entire life be built around the gaze and approval of one person?  Why would you wrap your whole soul around a being who was as transient as the wind?  As for Beatrice, would it be tragically romantic to be loved this much by someone, or would it be just downright annoying?  But then Dante's poetry began to speak through my cynical view, as his love and devotion to her was so apparent.  His descriptions and poetry to her rang with a tender regard, high terms of respect and an abiding love.  The vibrancy of his conflicting emotions, which were often buffeted by circumstances, won my heart.

Time and Again

Time and again the thought comes to my mind

Of the dark condition Love imparts to me;

Then the pity of it strikes me, and I ask:

"Could ever anyone have felt the same?"

For Love's attack is so precipitous

That life itself all but abandons me:

Nothing survives except one lonely spirit,

Allowed to live because it speaks of you.

With hope of help to come I gather courage,

And deathly languid, drained of all defenses,

I come to you expecting to be healed;

And if I raise my eyes to look at you,

Within my heart a tremor starts to spread,

Driving out life, stopping my pulses' beat.

I was also struck my another aspect of the book, something perhaps Dante never meant to emphasis.  So many people go through life feeling small and insignificant, wondering how their everyday actions could possibly matter.  Well, they do matter and Dante illustrates quite marvellously how.  Just Beatrice's looks affect him for days afterwards.  He recounts how her gaze not only brings out his imperfections but challenges him to be a better person.  And it's not just his character that her actions work on; Dante emphasizes that her manner and virtue have an illuminating affect on the ladies who are in her company, and instead of being envious, they appreciate her qualities and feel joyful to be around her.  What a testimony to the importance of our every day actions.

After the death of his love, Beatrice, Dante made a promise to himself, and by writing the Vita Nuova, to the world.  He was going to write about Beatrice, not like he had been writing, following the pattern of a courtly love, but that he would write of her as no other woman had ever been written of before.  And twelve years later, the Divina Commedia, or the Divine Comedy was born, immortalizing Beatrice, not only in verse, but in the thrones of Heaven.  The Vita Nuova was certainly a new beginning ...... a new life ........

translated by Mark Musa

© Cleo and Classical Carousel, Years 2014 - 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this written material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Cleo and Classical Carousel with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Photos are in the public domain.

Okay, only one more challenge ....... really ..........!  Jay at Bibliophilica is having his yearly Deal Me In challenge and it looks like such fun, I couldn't resist.  I've been watching Dale @ Mirror With Clouds participate all last year, and Marianne gave me an idea with a twist for it that should work wonderfully!

The rules are:

What is the goal of the project?

To read 52 short stories in 2015 (that’s only one per week)

What do I need?

1) Access to at least fifty-two short stories (don’t own any short story collections or anthologies? See links to online resources below)
2) A deck of cards
3) An average of perhaps just thirty minutes of reading time each week

Where do I post* about my stories?

(*You don’t have to post about every single story, of course, but if you have something to say about the story you read any given week, your fellow participants would love to hear it.)

1) On your own blog or website if you have one (I will link to your post at the bottom of my weekly post. I currently plan to do my weekly post on Sundays)

2) if you don’t have a blog or website you may comment on my weekly post, sharing thoughts on your own story – or start one at WordPress or blogspot – it’s easy and free to create a basic blog.

How do I pick which stories to read?

(The 52 stories themselves are totally up to you.) Before you get start reading, come up with a roster of fifty-two stories (you can use any source) and assign each one to a playing card in a standard deck of cards. It can be fun to use different suits for different types of stories, but that is optional. Each “week,” (if you’re like me, you may occasionally fall a story or two behind) you draw a card at random from your deck and that is the story you will read. There are links to last year’s participants’ rosters here if you want to see some examples.

What if I don’t have time to read a story every single week?

Try one of the challenge variations noted below, the Fortnight (or “payday” if you prefer) version is one story every two weeks or the “Full Moon Fever” version with just thirteen stories read or selected on seeing each full moon…

How do I sign up?

Leave a comment below with your URL and I will link you. My first wrap-up post of the year (I post weekly, usually Sunday night or Monday morning) will include links to any new Deal Me In posts and a list of the participants with links to their roster of stories.

What is the purpose?

To have FUN and to be exposed to new authors and stories and maybe get in the habit of reading a short story a week. Isn’t that enough? :-)

Now I've decided to follow Marianne's lead and adjust the challenge to work for my reading plans for the year.  Part of my plan for 2015 was to try to read more children's classics, essays and poems for the year, so instead of reading all short stories, I'm going to split it into four categories:  Short Stories, Essays, Poems and Children's Classics.  

I'm really looking forward to this challenge.  In the next day or so, I'll post my list of titles corresponding to the playing card deck.  I'm not promising I'll be able to read all 52 of them, but I'll certainly do my best!

List of Deal Me In Challenge Book Titles

"Well, Piotr, not insight yet?" was the question asked on May the 20th, 1859, by a gentleman of a little over forty, in a dusty coat and checked trousers, who came out without his hat on to the low steps of the posting station at S-----."

What sort of relationship do you have with your father?  Is it one of respect, deference, and honour, or do you think his ways too traditional, his thought process too archaic, and to keep a tentative understanding between you, do you have to employ a somewhat forced amiability, while underneath feeling an impatient scorn?

In Fathers and Sons, Turgenev examines the ideas of the new and old, progress and stagnation, and generational differences.  Yet while Turgenev portrays these conflicts within families and people, the themes echos the struggles that were occurring in Russia itself, between the common liberals and a nihilism movement that was growing and expanding at an alarming rate. Immediately the reader is tossed into the battle and while you expect to be buffeted to-and-fro between the two forces, one is surprised to find a more gently tossing, a disturbing reminder of how subtly, yet how pervasively this new philosophy could spread into the ideas and actions of the people.

Arkady Nikolaitch returns home from university with his good friend, Bazarov, a self-confessed nihilist, who issues a dripping contempt for most people around him.  Arkady maintains a good relationship with his father Nikolai Petrovitch and his uncle Pavel Petrovitch, yet through Bazarov's influence he begins to question what he values about their antiquated thought and primitive ways.

With Bazarov's nihilistic charm and new trendy ideas, his challenging of the status quo makes him a hero of the younger generation, while the older regard him either as dangerous, or rather like an unusual specimen that they can't quite figure out.  Yet, in spite of renouncing life and its perceived useless order, we find that Bazarov is unable to escape it.  While visiting the house of a widowed woman, Anna Sergyevna Odintsov, he becomes enamoured of her, his emotion overriding his philosophy and eroding some of its immutable strength.

Turgenev does a masterful job of having nature interplay with the characters, their ideas and emotional struggles.  For example, Bazarov is blind to the beauty around him  He merely uses nature, as he engages in his hobby of dissecting frogs,  pulling Nature itself apart to examine its inner workings.  He can only appreciate the slaughtered bits, but is unable to interact with the whole, Nature as life and beauty.

I don't believe that Bazarov's nihilism was a true nihilism.  He obviously wanted to reject the status quo and, in fact, had a quarrel with it, which is apparent in his simmering anger when he speaks about it.  He doesn't just want to contradict it, he longs to disparage it.  His philosophy is a quasi-nihilism that supports his self-importance and that he uses more as a crutch. He is passionate about it but appears to use it merely as a play for power.  He has developed a philosophy, which is truly an anti-philosophy that prevents him from interacting with life itself.

While with Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky you often feel buffeted by the high emotion or deep philosophy, Turgenev's approach is more gentle, lulling his ideas into the reader's head with his pastoral description, and lyric pace.  Yet for being gentle, it is no less powerful.  Turgenev has conducted a true masterpiece!

Translated by Constance Garnett

"In these days the most useful thing we can do is to repudiate – and so we repudiate …"

© Cleo and Classical Carousel, Years 2014 - 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Cleo and Classical Carousel with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

I'm reading The Plague by Albert Camus as part of a read-along with Bookstooge and so far am quite enjoying it!

Part I

Suddenly in the port town of Oran in Algeria, rats begin to die.  Dr. Rieux happens upon the first rat, and from there, their numbers grow.  As the population of dead rats increases from a trickle to a flood, people start to sicken with fevers and swollen glands in the neck, armpits and groin.  The narrator introduces us to a man called Jean Tarrou, who is vacationing in Oran and claims that his notebooks will give an unusual window into the burgeoning epidemic. With the corpses beginning to pile up, it becomes more difficult to pretend the disease is anything other than the plague or a type of plague.  Dr. Rieux suggests that the information be released to the public, but Dr. Richard still attempts to minimize the crisis, and only signs with sparse information appear in town.  More deaths and the state of emergency can no longer be ignored.  The town is put into quarantine.

Thoughts:  The narrator was so careful to set himself up as credible.  He's quick to declare that everything he relates will be able to be corroborated.   Tarrou is also described as a person who will give a unique perspective to the plague because he focuses on particulars instead of generalizations ...... he's a peculiar fellow and I wonder if his peculiarities will have some specific bearing on the story.  Cottard's attempted suicide and his change of personality from introverted liberal to a friendly conservative is also puzzling.  I quite like Dr. Rieux so far; sensible and intelligent, with little time to suffer fools, he is so far very clear-sighted.

The manner in which Camus links and compares the response to war and plague gives the reader a very believable portrait.

"...... There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always the plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.  In fact, like all our fellow-citizens, Rieux was caught off his guard, and we should understand his hesitations in the light of this fact; and similarly understand how he was torn between conflicting fears and confidence.  When a war breaks out people say, 'It's too stupid; it can't last long.'  But though a war may we be 'too stupid', that doesn't prevent its lasting.  Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves."

So not only do we have a tragedy brewing, we have a little mystery mixed in with a dollop of varying personalities.  An interesting recipe to be sure!

Bookstooge's Update #1

"The last drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the Pedestrian stuffed his map into his pocket, settled his pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders, and stepped out from the shelter of a large chestnut tree into the middle of the road."

During a hike in the English hills, Elwin Ransom stumbles across a boyhood acquaintance, Devine, and his friend Weston, a scientist.  Secretly these two men drug Ransom and take him in a spaceship to the planet, Malacandra, known in earth language as Mars.  When he revives, Ransom overhears that he is to be offered as a human sacrifice for an alien race called the Sorns, and he plans his escape.  Finding himself alone on this strange planet, he eventually encounters creatures called the Hrossa.  Initially very simple and traditional in their ways, Ransom begins to realize that they have an intelligence that may surpass earthly intelligence.  Quickly he learns their language and begins to value their ways, yet all too soon he is sent on a mission to the Oyarsa, the ruling being of Malacandra.  His adventures not only throw him once again into conflict with Devine and Weston, where blind scientific ardour and unconscionable greed clash with humanity's better nature, but Ransom is finally able to discover why Earth is considered the "silent planet".

Malacandra is presented as a rather simple society, with the Hross being like shepherds and poets, and the Sorns the intellectuals, imparting wisdom to the community.  Yet, in spite of the obvious higher intellect of the inhabitants, Devine and Weston perceive them as being primitive and unintelligent because they do not have the scientific advances of Earth.  Weston, in particular, grasps onto his pre-conceptions like a drowning man, refusing to believe that such primitive appearance could ever understand or grapple with his vision of a new type of man.  His ingrained perceptions, that have been formed by science, make him blind to the beauty and intricacies of Malacandrian culture, and even worse, his grandiose plans for the needs of man, allows him to view the Malacandrians as sub-human and therefore, expendable.

Lewis wrote Out of the Silent Planet as a deliberate critique of Evolutionism, in particular in response to two written works, one by Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men, and an essay by J.B. Haldane, published in a volume titled Possible Worlds.  Both saw men evolving into a divinity that could jump from planet to planet, a being stripped down to pure intelligence.  Lewis felt that each, while on one hand portrayed man as a fascinating and beautiful creature, nevertheless showed man's littleness.  To him these views held a potential danger, opening the door to options of experiments on humans and animals. (Interestingly, Lewis was a firm anti-vivisectionist and he would never set traps for the mice who inhabited his rooms at Oxford.)  He stated that the trilogy was less a tribute to earlier science fiction than a kind of exorcism of some of its ideas.  At its heart, the trilogy is anti-Wellsian and to its conception, Lewis credited a one-of-a-kind novel, David Lindsay's Voyage to Arcturus.  To his friend, Ruth Pitter, he wrote:  "From Lindsay I learned what other planets in fiction are really good for: for spiritual adventures.  Only they can satisfy the craving which sends our imaginations off the earth.  Or putting it in another way, in him I first saw the terrific results produced by the union of two kinds of fiction hitherto kept apart: the Novalis, G. MacDonald, James Stephens sort and the H.G. Wells, Jules Verne sort.  My debt to him is very great."  Lewis was trying something new!

A wonderful start to The Space Trilogy.  When I first read the trilogy, this book was my favourite, probably because it was the least complex.  Even so, Lewis weaves in views of how medievals saw the universe and angels, as well as sprinkling elements of classicism throughout.  The next book is Perelandra. Hang on to your seats because "you ain't seen nothing yet"!

"The weakest of my people does not fear death.  It is the Bent One, the lord of your world, who wastes your lives and befouls them with flying from what you know will overtake you in the end.  If you were subjects of Maledil you would have peace"

© Cleo and Classical Carousel, Years 2014 - 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Cleo and Classical Carousel with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

"Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession."

Good, dependable Doctor Thorne, our esteemed doctor of Greshambury, lives with his young niece named, Mary.  Yet there is a secret around Mary's birth that few people know; she is the illegitimate daughter of Doctor Thorne's older brother and the sister of Roger Scatcherd, a former poor stonemason and prison inmate, who has amassed a fortune that makes him the rich owner of a large estate.  The ruling family, the Greshams, accept Mary's company and she is friends with some of the daughters, but when it is learned that Frank, the only son, is in love with her, she becomes persona non grata and is ostracized from their company.  A lively plot begins as Frank is determined to marry Mary, Roger Scatcherd is determined to drink himself to death, an inheritance is unclear, and society struggles to maintain its traditional structure.

As much as I enjoyed this book, there were a few disappointments, as well. Because this novel was serialized, I found the pacing somewhat inconsistent, which took away a little bit of the enjoyment. After building up slowly with the characters and their situations, Trollope suddenly had nearly a year pass by, a declaration, and then another year was gone, all in the space of a few dozen pages. My second disappointment dealt with the plot itself. One aspect that I enjoy about Jane Austen's writing, for example, is her ability to take a traditional situation and explore possibilities just outside of that tradition. Trollope lulls the reader into expecting the same, yet at the end of the tale, tradition wins out: Scatcherd is shown as an example of what can happen to those who try to rise above their station, Mary becomes an heiress, she marries Frank, and everyone is happy only because convention is followed.  Well, I say, "bah!" to convention!  While I realize departing drastically from societal norms wouldn't be believable, one would think that Trollope could have challenged convention in a plausible way that would have made the story more intriguing. But ultimately money remains the commodity that is worshiped, everyone is happily kept in their social positions, with the same perceptions and the same prejudices, and with nothing unusual or radical to stir them out of their complacency.  Bah!

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Oh, Montaigne!  What a character!  I'm reading a series of recommended essays, and my plan is to split them into three posts.  So far my introduction to Montaigne has been pleasurable, but taxing to the brain.  His language and progression of ideas, examples and testimonies are not for the faint of heart.  In hindsight, it was wise to take him in measured doses.

On Sadness:  I felt that Montaigne was saying that the deepest sorrows often could not be expressed with outward emotions.  But then he ended by saying that he is little bothered by such violent passions;  I then wonder what gives him the authority to speak on sorrow if he knows nothing of it.  Hmmmm ........

Our Fortune Must Not Be Judged Until After Death:  Well, this was not an uplifting little essay.  Montaigne believes, drawing from the tale of Croseus and Solon in the stories of Herodotus, that a man cannot be judged as fortunate until his death, because various calamities and suffering can plague him until the end.  Your final day tells all.  Nice.  Fortunately he appears to have amended his views on this subject later in life.

To Think As A Philosopher Is To Learn To Die: Yikes!  Another death essay.  Montaigne emphasizes the need to learn to lose the fear of death.  Death is inescapable and it is a piteous error to try to avoid it by any means, as the hour is determined for everyone.  He tosses in Socrates rather wise and pithy remark:  to the man who said "The thirty tyrants have sentence you to death," Socrates replied, "And Nature to them."

Of The Powers of Imagination:  I'm somewhat perplexed as to where to begin with this one.  This essay is supposed to (I believe) explore the relationship of imagination to the mind and body, but Montaigne rather vividly gets into a discussion of the "male member" and "passing wind".  I was laughing so hard I was crying at the end of the "passing wind" section.  I don't think hilarity was intended by the author.  ;-)  Apparently though, people in Montaigne's time wouldn't have blinked an eye at these references, showing that they were much more mature and less sensitive than modern people. And since I was very surprised by his frankness given the era, it also demonstrates that our preconceived ideas can be less than accurate.

On Educating Children:  I have an interest in education, so this essay was perhaps the most interesting for me, if not the most amusing (see above).  Montaigne felt that an instructor of good moral character and sound understanding was much more valuable than one with founts of knowledge.  He emphasized the value of knowledge for its own sake, and was repelled by the thought that learning should be used to earn profit. The ancient Greeks would understand his dismay; only slaves were schooled to work, not free men.  Montaigne proceeds to say that he does not wish for an educational system that makes children parrot back what they have learned but rather that they are taught to make ideas their own.  He then expands his argument to suggest tossing out the classical education model in place of simply teaching children to philosophize.  He seems to forget that the classical model contains the building blocks that give the student the tools to be able to discuss topics philosophically, not to mention that young minds have to mature to be able to understand the abstract concepts which are required in philosophy.  He supports, as well, exercise and entertainment, but suggests training peculiarities and eccentricities out of people, as they are "a foe to intercourse and companionship of others". Well, okay .......  I do understand Montaigne's main point though.  He is advocating for the teaching of a virtuous character over that of intellectual learning.  In fact, this should be the goal of every teacher, however I believe that there should be a balance between the two, whereas Montaigne seems to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

On the Affection of Fathers for Their Children:  In this case, Montaigne means male children but he does share some good advice. A man should not marry too early and responsible thought should be given to the purpose of having children, realizing that they will owe you much more than they can ever pay back.  Instead of forcing the son to be dependent on him when he comes of age, the father should share his wealth and guide him in the use of it, teaching the son to run the estate.  Now Montaigne claims if this is not done, the sons have no other recourse than to become thieves, a habit that will be nearly impossible to break.  I'm not sure I follow his rationale in this case, and cannot agree with it as an excuse, but hey, it's Montaigne, right?  It just doesn't feel normal if he doesn't hit you with some sort of idiosyncratic reasoning.

In spite of some peculiarities, Montaigne has a charm that cannot be denied.  Perhaps Madame de Sévigné characterizes best what his readers experience:  "I have found entertainment in a volume of Montaigne that I did not think I had brought with me.  Ah, the charming man!  What good company he is!  He is an old friend of mine, but by dint of being old, he is new to me. ........ Mon Dieu!  how full this book is of good sense!"

Introduction - The Essays of Montaigne

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"The one who saw the abyss I will make the land know;

of him who knew all, let me tell the whole story

 ………… in the same way …….

[as] the lord of wisdom, he who knew everything, Gilgamesh,

who saw things secret, opened the place hidden,

and carried back word of the time before the Flood ---

he travelled the road, exhausted, in pain,

and cut his works into a stone tablet."

Gilgamesh, king of Uruk.  Two-thirds god and one-third man, he built the walls of Uruk, the palace Eanna, and is powerful and commanding.  There is no king like him anywhere.  Yet in spite of having many of the qualities that could make him an honoured king, Gilgamesh oppresses his people and they cry out for relief.  The gods create a wild man, Enkidu is his name. They fight and become fast friends, relieving the people of Gilgamesh's despotism. Many adventures they have together, and many discoveries they make. Together they behead Humbaba who lives in the cedar forest and they also manage to kill The Bull of Heaven.  Yet one of them must pay for this transgression and Enkidu falls ill, dying even as he laments.  A heart-torn Gilgamesh, determined to find Utnapishtim and find the secret of everlasting life, travels through a number of trials to his journey's end.  "Surely, Gilgamesh," Utnapishtim tells him, "you can stay awake for just a week, if you are expecting to have eternal life."  But Gilgamesh fails the test.  In spite of his near godly status, our hero cannot escape the mortality common to all men.

"My friend Enkidu, whom I loved so dear, who with me went through every danger, the goom of mortals overtook him. 

Six days I wept for him and seven nights: I did not surrender his body for burial until a maggot dropped from his nostril.  Then I was afraid that I, too, would die.  I grew fearful of death, so I wandered the wild. 

…. How can I keep silent?  How can I stay quiet?  My friend, whom I loved, has turned to clay.  My friend Enkidu, whom I loved, has turned to clay.  Shall I not be like him and also lie down, never to rise again, through all eternity?"

 

 

Gilgamesh from the Chaldean account of Genesis source Wikipedia

 

I found many paradoxes in this poem: Gilgamesh is a strong leader, yet he also abuses his power; Gilgamesh is two-thirds god, yet he is also doomed to die; Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight in order to bring peace to Uruk; women are portrayed as vehicles for pleasure, yet are also shown as being wise and having foresight; Enkidu is initially a wild-man, yet he is the one who "tames" Gilgamesh; and in spite of often not sleeping throughout most of the poem, Gilgamesh sleeps at the end, which prevents him from attaining immortality.

 

Yet in spite of the contradictions, the poet is clear that strength over reason is valueless. Gilgamesh learns that it is trust and integrity in the end that bring acclaim: valuing a friend's life over his own, discovering the wisdom of accepting death as a part of life, and that being a true leader is about good character and responsibility to his subjects, rather than exercising tyranny, oppression and conquest over them.

 

 

About the translation:  The Sîn-Leqi Unninni Gilgamesh story, found in the library of Ashurbanipal, is the most recent Akkadian version (circa 1200 BC), and is considered the "standard" version.  The editors used it as their fragment of choice and because it contained a number of books that had only a few recoverable words, they had to resort to notes and the Old Babylonian version, in order for the reader to get the gist of the story.  For my first read, in hindsight, I may have chosen a more fluid version, but this version was certainly adequate and scholarly enough that you got the full context of the poem.

 

Translated from the Sîn-Leqi Unninni version by John Gardiner and John Maier

 

 

 

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"The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset."

Why, oh why, does Chesterton confuse me so?  At first this book appeared to start as a mystery.  Two poets meet in Saffron Park, one, Lucian Gregory, a creative anarchist, the other, Gabriel Syme, a conservative poet and undercover police detective.  By his wit and resources, Syme infiltrates the anarchist's group called the Central Anarchist Council, getting himself named one of its seven members, christened "Thursday".  Yet can he stop the assassination attempt the group is planning and expose this dastardly anarchical organization?

The book is much more than a mystery, which readily becomes apparent as the reader makes his way through the entertaining yet confusing prose. There was an initial discussion about anarchy and art, yet I soon realized that the two poets were comparing anarchy and law.  As I read my way through, various questions arose.  Why were the council members named after the days of the week?  Does this point towards some sort of creation story?  Why do all the members who appear evil are not as they seem? What are they really fighting against?  Why is the subtitle "A Nightmare"?  And what was the point of Syme's promise to Gregory? It is mentioned numerous times so it should have some importance.

Yet the big question that hangs over the characters and the reader alike is: Who is the leader of the group, Sunday?  The Professor, named Friday, reveals:

"I confess that I should feel a bit afraid of asking Sunday who he really is." 

"Why," asked the Secretary, "for fear of bombs?" 

"No," said the Professor, "for fear that he might tell me."

In one review, the reviewer claimed that Sunday represents Nature.  Well, perhaps.  He is both benign and frightening, as this description shows:

"You would not know [his name] ……  That is his greatness.  Caesar and Napoleon put all their genius into being heard of, and they were heard of.  He puts all his genius into not being heard of, and his is not heard of.  But you cannot be for five minutes in the room with him without feeling that Caesar and Napoleon would have been children in his hands."

Sunday's words about himself are even more chilling:

"Since the beginning of the world all men have hunted me like a wolf ---- kings and sages, and poets and law-givers, all the churches, and all the philosophers.  But I have never been caught yet, and the skies will fall in the time I turn to bay.  I have given them a good run for their money ……….  There's one thing I'll tell you though about who I am.  I am the man in the dark room, who made you all policemen."

After its publication in 1908, The Man Who Was Thursday came under a storm of critical approval.  Frighteningly complex, it has been  hailed as "amazingly clever",  "shamelessly beautiful prose", "a remarkable acrobatic performance" and "a scurrying, door-slamming farce that ends like a chapter in the Apocalypse."  One reader declared himself "dazed" at the end of it, which perfectly described my puzzled demeanor as I closed the last page.

As you see, reading the book brought about more questions than answers, so instead I will leave you with a taste of what others have said about this novel:

"Roughly speaking, it's about anarchists …… And roughly speaking, it's a mystery story.  It can be guaranteed that you will never, never guess the solution until you get to the end ---- it is even feared that you may not guess it then.  You may never guess what The Man Who Was Thursday is about.  But definitely, if you don't, you'll ask. " 

                                                                     ~  Orson Welles  ~

"…… mystery and allegory take their turn in the scene.  Life, huge, shapeless, cruel and loving, killing and saving, full of antitheses, appearing to each one under a different aspect, measuring each man according to the strength of his soul, turns its strange face upon us.  Life, whose soul is law, nature, whose expression is law, confront the frantic lawlessness of struggling man ---- and behold, those very struggles prove to be based on law again.  And when at the last you sit on the thrones with the Council of Days, you see the mad, miraculous world dance by, moving to a harmony none the less invincible because only half heard."
                                                ~  Hildegarde Hawthorne  ~

I highly recommend this book to ……….. well, to anyone!  Read it as a mystery, read it as a commentary, read it as philosophy,  read it as a fantasy, read it as theology ---- it has something for everyone. Perhaps it should be described as a mystery without end, a true symphony of brilliance by Chesterton, in which nothing is ever how it seems!

If you've read The Man Who Was Thursday, what do you think the story was about?

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"I was born in the winter of 1898 at Belfast, the son of a solicitor and of a clergyman's daughter."

And so begins the autobiography of one of the most prolific writer's of his time, C.S. Lewis.  While Lewis gives an engaging description of his life as a boy, first in Ireland, and then later in England, his main goal is to give the reader little windows into the experience that he called "Joy", which one can equate with the German word, "Sehensucht" translated into English as an "intense longing".  During his childhood, Lewis experienced brief yet keen feelings of this profound yearning.  If one tried to manufacture this emotion or hold onto it, it would simply remain illusive or slip away; it came of its own volition, which indicated to Lewis that this desire pointed to something beyond himself.

Lewis' first glimpse of "Joy" was when his brother Warnie showed him a garden that he had built of moss and twigs on top of a biscuit tin. Lewis said, "As long as I live my imagination of Paradise will retain something of my brother's toy garden." Other experiences of joy appeared as he grew and Lewis felt that because our own natural world could not supply what our souls longed for, there must be something supernatural that could fulfill this Sehensucht.  Eventually Joy brought him face-to-face with God.

What was especially refreshing about this biography was that Lewis didn't treat his conversion as coming out of the darkness into the light, so much as presenting it as a recovery of the delights of childhood that he felt were pointing him in the direction of Christ.  In many ways, this is an Augustinian-type experience, yet while Augustine was definitely searching for a meaning to life, the "meaning" seemed to be pursuing Lewis, and he describes his conversion in startling terms, "You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.  That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me.  In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."  But he then goes on to say, "I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing: the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms …….  The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation."

Before I wrap up this review and somewhat off topic, Lewis made a curious reference to automobiles in this biography, which I found very insightful and profound.

"I number it among my blessings that my father had no car, while yet most of my friends had, and sometimes took me for a drive. This meant that all these distant objects could be visited just enough to clothe them with memories and not impossible desires, while yet they remained ordinarily as inaccessible as the Moon.  The deadly power of rushing about wherever I pleased had not been given me.  I measured distances by the standard of man, man walking on his two feet, not by the standard of the internal combustion engine.  I had not been allowed to deflower the very idea of distance; in return I possessed 'infinite riches' in what would have been to motorists 'a little room'.  The truest and most horrible claim made for modern transport is that it 'annihilates space.'  It does.  It annihilates one of the most glorious gifts we have been given.  It is a vile inflation which lowers the value of distance, so that a modern boy travels a hundred miles with less sense of liberation and pilgrimage and adventure than his grandfather got from traveling ten.  Of course if a man hates space and wants it to be annihilated, that is another matter.  Why not creep into his coffin at once?  There is little enough space there."

A very biting commentary, but for me it rang with truth and made me wonder how much "Joy" has been robbed by modern conveniences.  Hmmm …….

In any case, this was a wonderful, uplifting biography that I fortunately get to read again for my WEM Project at some point in the future!

© Cleo and Classical Carousel, Years 2014 - 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Cleo and Classical Carousel with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

Author:  Munro Leaf

Illustrator:  Robert Lawson

Era:  1936

Published:  1936 (The Viking Press, N.Y.)

Award:  none found

Age Range:  0 - 11 years old

Review:  ★★★★★

A most popular children's book about a young bull who does not wish to go to participate in the bullfights in Madrid, but only wishes to smell the flowers in his field. One day, a sting from a bumblebee causes Ferdinand to bolt and, being mistaken for the fiercest bull of the herd, he is captured and taken to the fights against his will. Yet Ferdinand remains true to his nature and eventually returns to his beloved home.

Background:  Leaf claimed that he decided to write The Story of Ferdinand to give his friend, Robert Lawson, a vehicle to showcase his illustrations.  Yet the book was released nine months before the commencement of the civil war in Spain, and it was taken as treatise on the promotion of pacifism.  The Spanish leader, Francisco Franco, and his supporters condemned it as propaganda, as did Adolf Hilter, banning the book in Nazi Germany.  In contrast, the political left embraced the book; in Poland it was the only non-communist book allowed by Joseph Stalin and, in India, Ghandhi claimed it as his favourite book.

Setting:  Spain, the land of the matadores and toreadores.  Ferdinand sits in a country field yet soon he is taken to the city.  Contrast the two:

Country = pastoral fields, bees, flowers, peace, silence, time to play & romp,  time to think ……

City (Madrid) = captivity, loud shouting, crowds, busyness, attacks, violence, etc.

Characters:

Ferdinand:  a young bull who does not behave like the other bulls; he wants to sit in a field and smell the flowers

The other young bulls:  they romp and play and want to be chosen for the bullfights in Madrid

Ferdinand's mother:  is understanding and nurturing, and supports his unusual nature

The Five Men:  arrive from Madrid and wish to find the fiercest bull to participate in the bullfights in their city

The bumblebee:  an innocent insect who is following his nature when Ferdinand sits on him.  He is at fault for Ferdinand's future troubles

The Banderilleros:  They cannot understand Ferdinand's passivity

The Picadores:  They attempt to make Ferdinand angry, but fail

The Matador:  Ferdinand reduces him to tears when he is unable to make him fight

Ferdinand is the protagonist and the matador the main antagonist.  A comparison of the two results in:

Ferdinand:  wants peace, quiet and to remain undisturbed.  He does not care about what people think of him.  He is easygoing and is able to remain true to his nature.  The end result is that Ferdinand is victorious.

The Matador:  wants the bull to fight so he can gain victory over his opponent, and therefore win the adulation of the crowd.  He relies on the bull to assist him in becoming famous.  He is incensed when life does not meet his expectations.  The end result is that the matador is defeated.

Plot:

    What does the central character want?

•     Ferdinand wants to sit in his field and to smell the flowers.  He wants peace and quiet.

    What keeps him from getting what he wants?

• First of all, the bumblebee that stings him, makes him appear like he is a great fighter.  Then the five men from Madrid mistake Ferdinand's frenzied attempt to escape the pain of the sting and decide that he is the fiercest bull, the one they have been searching for.  They take him to Madrid.

    How does Ferdinand finally get what he wants?

• In Madrid, Ferdinand stays true to his nature, in spite of the many forces pushing him to fight.  He refuses to fight and eventually is returned to his meadow.

   Conflicts:  man vs. nature (Ferdinand vs. the bumblebee), man vs. man

                    (Ferdinand vs. the five men and the picadores and matador),

                    and man vs. society (Ferdinand vs. the society that wants

                    him to fight)

Themes:

•     Pacifism
•     Self-Contentment
•     Individuality
•     Staying true to your nature
•     Challenging the status quo
•     Steadfastness & determination
•     Peace over violence (War)

Despite being embroiled in controversy, this book has remained a beloved favourite and has been translated into 60 different languages.

Hemingway wrote a somewhat odd rebuttal to The Story of Ferdinand, called The Faithful Bull.

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

Resources & Ideas:

    The Story of Ferdinand Lapbook

    Teaching The Story of Ferdinand from Five-in-a-Row (blog)

Bibliography:

    The Story of Ferdinand - Wikipedia

    The Well-Trained Mind Questions

(Read in Latin --- with a good dictionary!)