Who owns your books?

Is anyone else appalled byAmazon’s electronic retrieval and removal of customers’ Kindle ebook purchases? I own yellowed, paperback copies of the texts in questions: Animal Farm, 1984, and Atlas Shrugged. Talk about irony. I didn’t have to sign an agreement statement when I made my purchases. With electronic texts, apparently the retail company views its texts as a “service.” (Read about how Apple checks IPhone applications. )

The bookselling giant had its reasons. Well enough. But those of us who have indeed read Orwell and Rand smell a e-rat or at least yet another potential means for invasion of liberty, monitoring of reading material being a telling starting point with totalitarian regimes.

Here’s the article  from Slate, where you can also find a link to info.  on the book by Harvard law professor, Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It.

Canto III for the classroom

Dante’s Canto III of Inferno, which I will be teaching in the fall, poses unique challenges like most pre-modern literature beyond language and style.

I wondered what to bring to 21st-century students from this medieval epic poem which depicts a quite literal hell and its inhabitants. (I doubt that most students will believe in a literal hell since they did not, from an earlier poem’s discussion — Rich’s “Living in Sin” – believe in sin in a biblical sense.)

Canto III cantains the entry capstone’s ABANDON EVERY HOPE, YE THAT ENTER.  Early on Virgil shows Dante the “woeful people who have lost the use of the intellect or reason.” What does that mean?  Their further description:

. . . he led me in to the things that are hidden there. There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling always through that air forever dark, as sand eddies in a whirlwind (vv. 16-30).

These are the denizens who are driven in tumultuous fervor of expression (note the language/speech/sound diction) but who lack any purpose and attain no goal. Ever. They lost their ability to think, reason, and then communicate sound reason. And they suffer their desultory fate.

And I looked and saw a whirling banner which ran so fast that it seemed as if it could never make a stand, and behind it came so long a train of people that I should never have believed death had undone so many (vv. 55-57).

Plus all this activity is done with speed as people frantically run after a banner (purpose) that never is established.  Modern students will surely relate to a driven but unfulfilled world described so frequently in works with which they are familiar. (See Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” post.)

They should recognize the pitiable, relentless activity of those who have lost the use of their minds, the greatest use of which is the knowledge of truth. That, of course, is why the students are furthering their education.

Jekyll and Hyde and a Christmas sermon

Victorian Bohemian Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the best-selling novella The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as an indictment of societal hypocrisy. Its success earned his son financial independence. He wrote both drafts in 1886 in six days at 10,000 words a day.

Critics and lay readers differ as to its meaning, but most agree that the “double” is a major theme: a staid, reputable gentleman-physican wants very badly to be ‘bad.” But how can he accomplish this? In Victorian England a good reputation is one’s most valuable treasure.  He won’t risk it without assurance of impunity.  Being a doctor, he turns to what he knows best: drugs. There is his method of escape from morality and his disguise.

Readers also expand the story and ponder whether Steenson is making the statement that within all men such a dualism exists. Or, they wonder, do separate personalities reside within the same man — the flesh and spirit debate. Many critics claim that the Jekyll is good, that he struggles and loses the battle of illicit desire. But Hyde (pun) doesn’t even resemble Jekyll: he’s deformed, ugly, bestial. He delights in pure evil as depicted with the trampling of the  small child, synbol of Victorian purity. Jekyll isn’t struggling, he’s indulging making sure that he doesn’t get caught, clever man that he is.

Whichever the case, Stevenson’s view of life is intriguing. And antithetical to typical 19th-century views. This excerpt from Stevenson’s “A Christmas Sermon” (1888) expresses a summary of his view of life and death. He suffered from “the ‘English disease,” tuberculosis, and this surely affected his views.

To look back upon the past year, and see how little we have striven and to what small purpose, and how often we have been cowardly and hung back, or temerarious and rushed unwisely in; and how every day and all day long we have transgressed the law of kindness; – it may seem a paradox, but in the bitterness of these discoveries, a certain consolation resides. Life is not designed to minister to a man’t vanity. He goes upon his long business most of the time with a hanging head, and all the time like a blind child.

Full of rewards and pleasures as it is-so that to see the day break or the moon rise, or to meet a friend, or to hear the dinner-call when he is hungry, fills him with surprising joys – this world is yet for him no abiding city. Friendships fall through, health fails, weariness assails him; year after year, he must thumb the hardly varying record of his own weakness and folly.

It is a friendly process of detachment. When the time comes that he should go, there need be few illusions left about himself.  Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much: – surely that may be his epitaph, of which he need not be ashamed. Nor will he complain at the summons which calls a defeated soldier from the field: defeated, ay, if were Paul or Marcus Aurelius! – but if there is still one inch of fight in his old spirit, undishonored. The faith which sustained him in his life-long blindness and life-long disappointment will scarce even be required in this last formality of laying down his arms. Give him a march with his old bones; there, out of the glorious sun-colored earth, out of the day and the dust and the ecstasy – there goes another Faithful Failure!

Other versions: Though often criticized for being too “Freudian,” the Spencer Tracey (Victor fleming, director) version features early special effects as Jekyll morphs on screen. Julia Roberts plays Jekyll’s (John Malkovich) housekeeper who knows what she shouldn’t in Mary Reilly. The Broadway musical featured David Hasselhoff — of Baywatch.

Has “Atlas Shrugged?”

Atlas

In Ayn Rand’s last and most defining work, Atlas Shrugged, the world’s most gifted, innovative thinkers and inventors, the great minds of the nations, literally go on strike. In a socialist, government dominated, stifling society, these men and women of brains, brawn, and business acumen prefer going underground to benefitting those who lack all of the above. Many people, no doubt, identify with these Randian heroes as they struggle to pursue and produce excellence among those who lack the ability to apprehend or appreciate their talent. They go on strike, too, abandoning such people leaving them to their own inferior devices.

Though Rand was what one writer calls a “liberatrian atheist,” her ideas, her philosophy resonate with me on a fundamental level. There is truth here. It has mostly to do with freedom and man’s Godlike ability to imagine and create and achieve glory. It shows the nasty, fallen side, too – selfishness, cowardice, and jealousy.

Rand articulates her Objectivism in mellifluous prose making all 1,168 pages entertaining reading, that and also the longest novel in a European-based language. Her characters are exquisitely drawn and the good guys, hopefully not inimitable in reality.

Not everyone is or was thrilled with the novel. The National Review has posted a somewhat negative review by Whittaker Chambers from the 1957 archives, the year of the novel’s publication. Definitely worth reading.

Not intending to provide a traditional review (they abound,) I’ll change the novel’s ubiquitous query, “Who is John Galt?” to “Has Atlas Shrugged? ” Have those whose ideas, integrity, and independent self reliance create and inspire excellence abdicated their place leaving the rest to survive on their meager wits?

No? Then where are they? In our classrooms? In our courtrooms? In our capital city?

Finally I recommend William F. Buckley’s novel Getting it Right and the d’Anconia speech on money excerpt(Capitalism Magazine.) Also read the John Galt 90-page radio broadcast, a novella in itself, and Rand’s manifesto.

While it took me nearly a year to finish this novel, I’ll never regret or forget the experience. Today I rummaged used book stores for a copy of The Fountainhead.

Our friend, Francis Coppola

He’s our friend, not because he knows us but because he loves good writing, especially short fiction. Today in serendipitous fashion, seeking a spot to submit my short shory I came across this site. Simple, artsy, and professional-looking, it would do just fine.

The two editors (there are just the two of them) suggested giving the magazine a read either online or buying a copy. I went through the table of contents for one issue and clicked on the Spring 2008 issue and began reading a story. Wow. He’s good. I’m in over my head. Another one! I can’t stop.

Proceding down the page for another read, I read an introduction to Love. Amazing. From there I perused the authors’ names, bylined by their story’s links. No way. Here are Ethan Coen (O, Brother Where Art Thou?), Wes Anderson, Margaret Atwood,  Tim Roth, and Woody Allen!

And the publisher? Francis Ford Coppola. No less.

This is big. I read Coppola’s mission statement. Inspiring. Various essays and reprints from well-known writers (Vonnegut, Dick) are there, too, along with impressive cover design. But it’s not another anthology of college text collections. Plenty of unknowns are published here, too.

Writers can enter the contest, submit a story, or join the virtual studio where “thousands” of writers critique each other. Or just read. The publication is Zoetrope: All Story.

I love stories, having been introduced to fairy tales and myth as a child. In the fourth grade I read A Midsummer Night’s Dream from an old yellowed copy, some relative’s school Signet Edition.  In third grade my teacher read us Bible stories, and I fell in love with Moses and David. (I never liked ghost stories, however; still don’t.)

After getting a master’s in English, I knew I was forever tied to the story, whatever its form. Talk to me, Do it well. Tell me a story. Use your imagination and we’ll be friends forever. You, me, Francis.

The Parable of the Gnat

When the young gnat was born, also the day of his death since gnats have a life span of one day, he asked his father and mother what he should do. They were about to die and so had little time for instructing him, but they did manage to say, just before the end, “See how we hover and spin just above this burberry bush?”

The young gnat, who was already much older, had indeed seen how all the gnats he knew of were whirling and whirling in a furious swarm just above the purple bush behind the small, yellow house.

“Ah, he said. “So that is it then.”

The young gnat got into the bottom ring of the whirling swarm of gnats and began to spin. Faster and faster, more and more frantically he flew and as he did, he rose higher and higher.

This he did until the sun slid below the top of the cherry tree across the street, and then he fell, pulled to the ground, and landed in the red clay pot that in the summer held white petunias.

Seems logical to me

The caption epigraph beside my site photo is from Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” an often cited, frequently anthologized 17th century poem. In the style of the day, the verse features rhymed couplets and a logical argument.

Marvell was a Cambridge-educated, Puritan supporter (recall the English Civil War – (Cromwell, Charles I) who assisted John Milton and later served as an M.P. until his death. His fairly large inheritance allowed him the leisure to travel the continent and to write. During his lifetime he was more acclaimed for political satire than his love poetry.

The poem’s structure sets up the logical argument that the speaker attempts:

• stanza #1 begins with a desired state “Had we . . .”
• stanza #2 negates stanza 1 “But . . .” (we don’t)
• stanza #3 is the speaker’s logical conclusion “Now therefore . . .”

The subject? The seduction of the “coy” mistress or girlfriend.  First, using shameless exaggerration, he insists that if only they had time, he would spend centuries admiring her many lovely features. And smart man that he is he adds that the most important of these is, OF COURSE, her heart. Sweet. Good Job.

“But” he begins as the tone shifts to a more somber one. Sparing nothing he helps the lady to see that while she wastes time refusing his advances, she’s not getting any younger or any more beautiful. That if not he, the “worms” will violate her sooner or later. And then if she can deal with that, he declares the grave a “fine and private place” but not a fun one if you’re interested in romance. Eternity is a “desert” vast and lonely.

“Now therefore” they must, he pleads closing in, enjoy each other while they can. He paints a fairly graphic  picture (for 17th century Puritan England) of their potential lovemaking — wild (like “birds of prey) and rough. The tone is urgent. 

The final couplet is my epigraph:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

So even though we can’t stop the progress or ravages of time, we can ironically speed it up. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Finally, on the surface the subject may be seduction, but that, I believe, is just a vehicle for his real theme, one typical for the period: carpe diem,  in love and beyond.

Perfectly sensible.

For a feminist reading (how would a feminist read this?) check out this essay.

Identify yesterday’s quotation

It was my title for the little homage to men yesterday:”the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” is part of William Wordsworth’s definition of poetry from the Lyrical Ballads, the Preface, wherein the poet writes what became the Romantic manifesto for poetry.

Recall that Romantics glorified feelings and objected to unemotional, dry, intellectual writing. Spirit trumphed mind and skill. Of course, other characteristics applied, but most can be contrasted with the features of Neoclassical poetry of the preceding 18th century.

Here are a few examples:

]Neoclassical            Romantic
urbanity                      rural life, nature
intellect                      feelings
logic                           mysticism
adult                           child
control                       spontaneity
now                            past
familiarity                  foreign, exotic

The Preface is must reading for lovers of literature and should be interesting for just about anyone.  This link is from Bartleby’s ed. of the Harvard Classics.

Interview with a vampire reader

Chastened for criticizing a novel I had not read, I set out to read said novel, Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, and thus be able to discuss it from an informed point of view. ((See my post s on must reads and/or what constitutes a literary classic along with the comments.)

I’ll start with a positive. Rice is a good raconteur. Her narrative style is the right blend of dialogue, narration, and description. The disturbed, repellent characters are depicted in great detail and carefully drawn. Places, too, are vividly portrayed.

I’m forcing myself to finish the book. The subject matter is lurid and objectionable, dark and macabre. But this isn’t just a ghost story. Its insidious side is evinced in that the vampires are attractive, naturally, and the act of sucking blood is depicted as highly sensual — the ultimate experience.  That’s disgusting and for me offensive. Descriptive tales of how a person is tracked down and drained of his life blood, often with great pleasure in a spirit of fun, is reprehensible and appeals, as does such prurient literature to the basest nature. 

I’ve read 200 pages and I can’t find anything to take away from the book, nothing here enriches, elevates, informs, or pleases. It’s like falling deeper and deeper into a dark bottomless hole. What is Rice’s purpose?

I’m waiting to read any criticism until after I’ve finished, sometime Monday maybe. I’ve been told that there is heavy-duty philosophy here and perhaps I’ll find it in those remaining 150 pages.

“1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die”

Or else what? Objectionable use of the word “must” it seems. Of course the editor, Peter Boxall, wants to raise our literary antennae because he knows we haven’t read these books, not most of them, and so with the implied inferiority of cretins like us, the challenge to our education, we read his list. We are weighed and found wanting. Score one.

A vampire book, Mr. Boxall?

According to William Grimes in the Books section of the NYT, (RSS to right)  Boxall wants to critique “canonicity.” Academics subscribe to a long-standing list of must reads of their own: what an educated person should have read to be considered well-read, having encountered significant ideas well expressed that are life and possibly world changing. The classics.  They are under scrutiny if not attack. Interview With a Vampire is on par with Nineteen Eighty Four these days.

And the point can be made:  So if I haven’t read Macbeth, I don’t understand overweaning pride and ambition? Minus Huck Finn I won’t ever comprehend racial injustice or the painful initiation into adulthood and self reliance? 

No one “must read” anything. And I suspect that good common sense, humanity, pathos and social conscience may be bred without any reading, especially fiction, which comprises most of the 1001.

Having said that, I’m a Canon-ite. I believe in the value of certain agreed -upon fictions in providing illumination, clarity, appreciation, and joy regarding the human condition, all areas.

What I object to is the cocktail party game of one-up everybody with what we’ve read. Using classic literature for snobbery and denigration is ironically unfortunate. Somebody missed the lesson in all those pages.