A Saga and a Story

Before this month I had only really read two Nobel Prize winning authors: Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Rudyard Kipling. As of two days ago I can now count four. Still, not a very great number for one who professes an interest in literature. (Hey, they only started giving prizes in 1901 after all). Actually, it's worse than that. I didn't read any of the four because they received the Nobel Prize; I could care less. Besides being Nobelists, Both Selma Lagerlof and Sigrid Undset are Northern European authors. Again, I could probably count on two hands the books I've read from that part of the world. There are, however, more similarities than these between Lagerlof's Gosta Berling's Saga and The Bridal Wreath, first part of the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy by Sigrid Undset.

First similarity: they both have the the protagonist's name in the title. Ok, ok, I won't go into that much detail. The major characters themselves, however, are similar in ways and the theme of both stories is love. There is also in both the underlying attempt to understand the meaning of sin and not just its immediate consequences. Kristin Lavransdatter comes to the conclusion that, “much have I done already that I deemed once I dared not do because 'twas sin. But I saw not till now what sin brings with it—that we must tread others underfoot” (214). Turning to Selma Lagerlof, I never was sure if she sincerely meant what she had to say on this topic and others in her 1891 Gosta Berling's Saga.

Which brings me to one of those risky judgments on literature. Which of these two was best? I would say Kristin Laveransdatter although I have not read parts two and three and don't plan to surf over to Amazon immediately to order them. Yet if I found them at a thrift store I would buy them, which I can't say the same for of other books by the author of Gosta Berling (Yes, I already did pass up another Selma Lagerlof at a thrift store). The Swedish Lagerlof has an irritating style of musing on characters and events. This monologue with exclamation points makes up most of the book but it just sounded like filler to me. Plus, as I mentioned before, I could not always tell if she really believed what she was writing. The Norwegian Sigrid Undset, on the other hand, has (at least in translation) a good prose enriched with simple but detailed descriptions and smooth dialogue. Along with this superior style, Undset's presentation is both more realistic and, I think, more insightful.

Undset, Sigrid. Trans. Archer, Charles. Kristin Laveransdatter I: The Bridal Wreath. Alfred Knopf 1923. Vintage books 1987.

My Four Christmas Reads

I've finished up my annual Christmas reading. No, not A Christmas Carol, believe it or not I haven't even read that once. There are a few short Christmas pieces, though, that I like well enough to read every year.

Not surprisingly, C.S.Lewis makes it to this list. I find Lewis's “Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter From Herodotus” to be hilarious. It's a parody that makes fun of the “Niatirbians” (Niatirb spelled backwards is Britain). The imaginary historian gravely describes what “in their barbarian speech is called the Exmas Rush.” The descriptions of sending cards and buying gifts are exquisite fun.

Second on my list is also an essay by Lewis: “What Christmas Means To Me.” He must have had a bone to pick with the “commercial racket” that has become Christmas because he takes no pains to soften his condemnation of it.

Next is the Second Shepherds' Play. It's a little more obscure than C.S.Lewis but only slightly less funny than Lewis's ridiculous Niatirbians. The shepherds are those that the angels appeared to at the birth of Christ; however, this only happens at the very end of the play. Most of the action centres around the thieving Mak and three shepherds who are sure he stole one of their lambs in the night. Adding to the humor, I think, are all the references the shepherds make to saints that haven't lived yet. Maybe no one else would think it funny that a Jewish shepherd in 1 B.C. would refer to English locales and exclaim: “by the Rood these nights are long!” Showing that not much has changed over the years, the 15th century playwright has one shepherd mutter in the dark:

But my mood is ill-sent;
As I walk on this bent,
I may lightly repent,
If I stub my toe.

Lastly is the passage on the birth of Christ in Luke 2. This is what Christmas is all about; let's not forget it.

Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a SAVIOUR, which is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10,11).
He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5).

Merry CHRISTmas!

Logic and Learning

I took my logic final yesterday. It does not follow,however, that I am finally logical. So glad was I to be done with the class that I began to clear my desk of all things relating to logic. (I leave you to interpret the ambiguity and decide if I mean relating to the class or logic itself).

Apart from my main textbook I have a small Mars Hill exercise book that I thumbed through at the beginning of my class and subsequently ignored the rest of the semester. I picked it up again after my final and gave it one parting glance. Skimming the list of fallacies, my eye caught one that was not in my other textbook; however, I recognized it anyway. The term “Bulverism” was coined by C.S.Lewis and that explains why I recognized it and also why it is not an official term for a fallacy in other textbooks. Bulverism does have its corresponding term in my text as the “ad hominem circumstantial.” That is, the second arguer attacks the person of the first arguer by claiming something about the circumstances of the first arguer that makes him or her argue that way. For instance, “he claims the book is exciting and that everybody should read it but he only says that because he is paid by the publisher.”

Since any excuse will serve that allows me to read C.S.Lewis, I no sooner saw the term Bulverism than I pulled down God in the Dock and reread the essay: “'Bulverism:' or, the Foundation of 20th Century Thought.” Just like the ad hominem circumstantial, Bulverism ignores the actual truth or falsehood of an argument and instead tries (and often succeeds) in discrediting the arguer. “In other words,” Lewis explains, “you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly” (273). Lewis records the origin of Bulverism,

a vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it.... Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father—who had been maintaining that the two sides of a triangle were together greater than the third—'Oh you say that because you are a man.' 'At that moment,' E. Bulver assures us, 'there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall' (273).

Why—the day after my final when, at last, there is no need to think about logic—do I write about this subject that, frankly, I didn't like very much while I was taking a class on it? After writing the paragraphs above I asked myself that question and came to the realization that this fallacy became interesting to me because it is connected to something else I am interested in, namely, C.S.Lewis. We learn things best if we are not forced to learn them; when something or someone we love makes us want to find out more. I think George MacDonald had it right when he said: “we must learn things as they come to us and when we want to. Otherwise there will be little remembering. You can never make yourself like a thing” (65). And now, whether you liked it or not, you've read the history of Bulverism and George MacDonald's philosophy of education. The question is, will you remember it or, like me before yesterday, think it is the most boring thing in the world.

Lewis, C. S. God in the Dock: Essays On Theology and Ethics. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1993.
MacDonald, George. The Tutor's First Love. originally David Elginbrod. 1863. Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 1989.

The Hunt For the Souls of Men

In the winter of 1887, Wilfred Meynell, editor of the Catholic Magazine Merry England, received a mysterious parcel containing an essay and some poems written on dirty scraps of paper. In the cover letter, pardon was asked, “for the soiled state of the manuscript,” claiming it was not through slovenliness, but the unavoidable circumstances under which they were written. Meynell published one of these poems, hoping by this means to gain further correspondence. His bait worked and one day an unkempt, ragged man, suffering from an opium hangover, entered his office, introducing himself as Francis Thompson.

Born in 1859 to Catholic parents, Thompson was sent to Ushaw College to study for the priest-hood. But at 18 he returned home with a letter from the headmaster which said: “It is quite time that he should begin to prepare for some other career.” So accordingly, for the next six years he lazily studied to become a doctor like his father. But he failed the medical exam three times. About this time he took up opium which was not only available for medical use, but was, as a liquid called laudanum, cheaper and just as available as beer. After his threefold failure he took to the streets of London; a bum, poor and homeless.

It was during these years on the streets writing poetry that Wilfred Meynell found him. Meynell and his wife Alice (also an accomplished poet) took Thompson under their wing, placing him in a drug clinic and then a monastery to recover. For some years he seemed cured of his opium addiction and during this time he wrote nearly all of his poetry and a number of literary essays. But in 1898, Thompson relapsed into his opium addiction from which in part he died in 1907 at the age of 48, due to a mixture of tuberculosis and laudanum poisoning.

From out of this shaky life, in 1893, Thompson wrote "The Hound of Heaven," a poem that is considered his masterpiece. Coventry Patmore called it, “one of the very few ‘great’ odes of which the language can boast.” After gaining fame in England, Thompson’s popularity quickly spread to America and beyond, due in part to critics like G. K. Chesterton who called him “a great poet.” His patron Wilfred Meynell hoped to promote Thompson as "the Poet of Catholic orthodoxy" and even claimed: “One greater than Milton is among us.”

The verse form is irregular and somewhat confusing even after an initial reading. There are rhyming couplets and quatrains spaced throughout that give it just enough regularity to throw off the novice reader (like myself). Even ignoring all rules of order and blindly rushing after the pageant of florid words, however, is often excitement enough. For as nearly everyone who has read it has remarked, the pace is frenzied, running and rushing headlong, as if the Hound of Heaven were indeed close behind.

Thompson was called a mystic poet, that is, he used allegorical and symbolic figures to represent God and other spiritual things. In "The Hound of Heaven," which is autobiographical, the allegorical image is that of Thompson being pursued by a hound, the Hound of Heaven. From which he flees,

Down the nights and down the days...

Down the arches of the years...
Down the labyrinthine ways

of his own mind. But no matter where he goes or what he does, he cannot escape,

From those strong Feet that followed,
Followed after. But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace.

Soon, the reason he flees is made clear; he does not wish to give up his dreams or his sins. "Lest having him, I must have not besides."

He then says that during the pursuit he leaves even the fellowship and abode of men. Hoping that by living under the open sky and eating in the “wind walled palace” (i.e. outside) he might partake of Nature’s delicate fellowship.

But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart...
And past those noised feet
A voice comes yet more fleet--
'Lo! Naught contents thee, who content’st not me.'

At last the Hound draws near and asks him why he delays. What is so precious on earth? Doth he not know that,

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing!

"The Hound of Heaven" is very forceful in presenting humanity fleeing from God even though the gloom is after all only, “Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly.” The poem reaches a raw, emotional pitch rarely attained in written words. As G. K. Chesterton said: “It was an event of History, as much as an event of literature, when personal religion returned suddenly with something of the power of Dante or the 'Dies Irae,' after a century in which such religion had seemed to grow weak and provincial, and more and more impersonal religions appeared to posses the future.”

Many people from all walks of the Christian life, not just Catholics, have appreciated "The Hound of Heaven" because of its overarching theme: the love of God. That no matter where we are or what we’ve done God is always pursuing, not in wrath, but in love. Perhaps Chesterton expresses best what this poem means: “The awakening of the Domini Canes, the Dogs of God, meant that the hunt was up once more; the hunt for the souls of men…. and…the hunt will continue until the world turns to bay.”

Gorgias (No, Not Georgia)

My first tentative reconnoiter into the field of Greek literature after reading Who Killed Homer, was with the playwright Aeschylus. While all went well, I did not learn much, and subsequently, have nothing to report. But though my first foray was unfruitful, the adventure I am currently in the middle of has already yielded a wealth of interesting things. I am, as it were, still on the front lines, in that I have not yet finished exploring Plato's Gorgias. I only have a partial picture of Socrates' dialogue (did the spelling change to dialog recently and I missed it? Spell check isn't happy with me and I'm not happy with it.) with Gorgias and Callicles on the purpose of oratory.

Even though I started with the intent to learn what Plato thought about public speaking because I am enrolled in a public speaking class, my interest has been taken captive by the discussion of good and evil that he creates. Basically, Plato, speaking through Socrates, claims that the evil man who inflicts harm is more miserable than the good man who unjustly receives it. Also, the wrongdoer who escapes harm is more miserable than the wrongdoer brought to justice.

Even if, like Callicles, we disagree with what Plato says about a disciplined and upright life being a happier state to live in than unrestrained immorality, where does the differentiation between good and evil come from? In other words, why does Plato (a pre-christian) even recognize the existence of good and evil, right and wrong? And further, see the two alternatives as the most important choice a person can make?

O.k. I want to read a few more pages of this dialogue (or dialog) before bed.

Reflecting on the "Emerging Church"

There seems to be quite a stir going on over what it means to be an "Emerging Church" inside the Emerging Church. I've always been a bit confused over what the term means, but now Dan Kimball, author of The Emerging Church, posts on his blog that he too is, "finding that the term has become so broad now and so confusing." But maybe none of us should be surprised that a word like "emerging" that denotes movement and change is doing just that: changing.

The "emerging conversation" is starting to sound like an argument as some groups all of a sudden try to distance themselves from "emerging" or scramble for some other label like "missional" or "emergent." One blogger noted that there is now a polarizing movement with leaders like Kimball on the right focusing on evangelism and others on the left embracing a more liberal theology. I've been out of the loop for a while so maybe this has been building for some time. If I get the chance I would like to understand the Emerging Church a little more and maybe post my findings. We'll see. Until then you might want to check out Dan Kimball's post, which he promises is the first of a series.

Informational speech on C.S.Lewis

Below is a speech I will be giving in my public speaking class next Thursday. Let me know what you think about it. I am open to suggestion for improving it. Just remember it is 6-10 min. long so not all the interesting stuff I wanted to put in would fit. Also, the headings I have put in are required in that order. Enjoy


Attention Getter:

200 million. That’s the number of C.S.lewis books sold over the last 70 years, according to publishing numbers. Less than 100 authors have sold over 100 million books; Steven King, Charles Dickens, and the author of Harry Potter are in this list, but who is C.S.Lewis and why are his books so popular?

Credentials and relevancy:

I’ve been a C.S.Lewis fan for years, ever since reading his Chronicles of Narnia fantasy series as a kid. Since then, I’ve read nearly all of his 34 books and numerous biographies. Part of the answer to why he is so popular is that he is fun and easy to read. But what you will learn today is that Lewis wrote a great variety of books that have appealed to a great variety of people. You’ve probably heard of, or even read, the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis’s wildly popular children’s fantasies, but if you think you’re too old for that, Lewis wrote some other bestsellers that might be right down your ally.

Purpose statement and preview of the main points:

Today you’ll hear what some of those books are as we look at 3 aspects of C.S.Lewis’s life: C.S.Lewis the Scholar, C.S.Lewis the Christian, and C.S.Lewis the novelist.

1st. main point:

First, Let’s look at what sort of scholar C.S.Lewis was. As a boy growing up in Ireland at the beginning of the 20st. century, Lewis liked nothing better than reading books in the family’s attic. This love of reading led him to become a student at Oxford University, where he studied literature and philosophy. Immediately after graduating, Lewis began teaching and writing on these subjects. Eventually he became the chair of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge University. He was such an expert in this field that he was asked to write the official Oxford History of 16th. Century Literature.

2nd. main point:

Besides his career as a brilliant literary scholar, Lewis had another interest: Religion. I mentioned that you would hear about C.S.Lewis the Christian but C.S.Lewis wasn’t always a Christian. As a teenager and college student he was an outspoken atheist. This began to change, however, when he met a fellow professor whom I think most of you have probable heard of: J.R.R.Tolkien. Just like Lewis, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books have sold 300 million copies, enough for everyone in the United States to have one.

One evening in 1931 the two friends got to talking about one of there favorite subjects: religion. Lewis the atheist arguing against it, Tolkien, a Christian, explaining why he believed. According to George Sayers, a friend and later biographer, they walked into the Oxford college rose garden and kept talking, and talking, and talking…until 3 in the morning! The end of the story is that Lewis became a Christian. Any Lord of the Rings fan will be interested to know that Lewis’s funny and profound bestseller, The Screwtape Letters, was dedicated to Tolkien. This book is the imaginary correspondence between a high-ranking devil and his young apprentice tempter Screwtape. It’s funny but has some keen observations about humanity as well. You don’t have to be a Christian to enjoy it. In fact, very few of Lewis’s quote “Christian” books were written for Christians Since he was once an atheist, Lewis wrote many books to those people asking the same questions about God and the meaning of life that he once asked. Mere Christianity, a [citation needed] million bestseller is one of these books that answer some tough questions about Christianity. The Problem of Pain asks why—if there is a God—he would allow suffering in the world.

3rd. main point:

So far we have looked at 2 aspects of Lewis’s life and a sampling of some of the books that derived from it. But C.S.Lewis the scholar and Christian have only sold about, oh, 75 million copies, so where do the rest come from? They come from C.S.Lewis the Novelist.

You already know Lewis loved to read, but what kind of stories were his favorite? According to [citation needed], he loved fair tales and fantasies. It didn’t matter if they were written for children; he still loved them. In his own essay entitled: “Sometimes Fairy Stories Say Best What’s To Be Said,” Lewis said that

I fell in love with the [fairy tale] form itself: its brevity, its severe restraints on description, its flexible traditionalism, its inflexible hostility to all analysis, digression, reflections and ‘gas.’ I was now enamored of it. Its very limitations of vocabulary became an attraction; as the hardness of the stone pleases the sculpture or the difficulty of the sonnet delights the sonneteer.

He goes on: “[As an author myself] I wrote fairy tales because the fairy tale seemed the ideal form for the stuff I had to say” (On Stories, 47). And so we have the Chronicles of Narnia today. Not children’s stories only but stories with a simplicity and clearness of writing that even children can understand. The reason why Narnia is so popular for many adults still, may hinge on what Lewis once said, quote, “It certainly is my opinion that a book worth reading only as a child is not worth reading even then” (On Stories, 48).

Science Fiction is not all that different from fantasy. During the1940s and 50s when Lewis was at the peak of his writing career, Science Fiction was just becoming popular. Lewis contributed to the rise of Sci-fi with a space trilogy. In the first book, Ransom is abducted by an evil scientist who plans to take him to Mars as a gift/sacrifice/offering to the Martians. On landing he escapes but is soon recaptured by the strange natives. They don’t sacrifice him on a bloody alter like he thought, instead he must help them send the evil scientist back to earth. That’s a simplification but I don’t want to give everything away before you’ve read it for yourself.

Review of the preview:

The third and final book in this trilogy, That Hideous Strength, is one of my favorite books. Maybe that’s because it reveals all aspects of C.S.Lewis that we just looked at. C.S.Lewis the Novelist is at his height writing about a scientific conspiracy to control all of England. C.S.Lewis the Christian has his hero wrestle with choosing to resist evil or join it for the sake of power and wealth. His heroine also discovers that helping others is better than always thinking of oneself. Finally, C.S.Lewis the Medieval Scholar supplies the background for the reappearance of the legendary wizard Merlin after a 1000-year sleep.

It’s hard not to like an author who has a little something for everyone. Whether you’re a history buff wanting to empress your history or lit teacher on a test, or you’re looking for the easy to understand answers to the hard questions of life, or you just want to curl up with a good story, try C.S.Lewis. 200 million other people have liked him; you might too.

Who Killed Homer?

"Until the fog of classicism has lifted, the greater classics are invisible.”--C.S.Lewis (28).

Occasionally (translate, once in a great while) I will read a book with a more substantive content than my usual fair of “fluff in fiction.” When this does happen I am often surprised both by the inscrutable, unfathomable content and by how much I enjoy it. The latest instance of this is Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath’s inquiry into Who Killed Homer. To be honest, I didn’t actually read it (that would be impressive!); I listened to it, so it may have gone in one ear and out the other.

If you haven’t heard of Victor Davis Hanson yet--you have now. A good way to meet him is through his blog, Works and Days, that right now is devoted to national politics. That he could be one of the best political commentators as well as one of the best Greek historians and educators is strong testimony to his intellect.

Who Killed Homer seeks to do three primary things: (1.) discover why the Iliad and Odyssey and other Greek and Latin classics are so little studied, (2.) Shame classics professors into actually teaching their students instead of seeking tenure and grants to spend on “esoteric” research projects, and (3.) Warn that Western culture will be lost if we forget “the Greek way of thinking.”

A number of factors have contributed to “the demise of classical education” (that happens to be part of the subtitle). A proliferation of degrees in fields such as “gender studies,” psychology, and so on, have sapped students and resources from classics departments. Students are too lazy to devote their time to learning Latin and Greek when easier courses are available (I don’t blame them, I’m unilingual too). These and other factors, Hanson and Heath argue, have made it so that today most colleges do not even have a classics department and those that do…. Well, this calls for a new paragraph on the second point listed above.

Classics professors often do not teach their students the foundations of Greek language, literature, and history. In their place classes that make the student feel good, or that do not require the teacher to prepare, or, just as bad, classes on esoteric topics are substituted. Hanson and Heath seem to take great relish in lampooning the titles of “esoteric” (seemingly one of Hanson’s favorite words) papers and theses written by less than admired colleagues. “Feminism in Greek Culture” takes precedence over actually teaching about Greek culture and “Homosexuality and Gender Issues in Such and Such an Author” trumps teaching what that author actually wrote. Hanson and Heath feel so strongly about poor teaching quality that they advocate abolishing the tenure system, cutting grants for research projects, and increasing teaching loads across the country.

So far I have been summarizing some pretty specialized topics in Who Killed Homer, those not interested in the decline of education standards over the past few decades and who have no power to change it anyway, may ask the not unimportant question: “what’s in it for me?” Hanson and Heath point out that Western culture is directly descended from the Greeks and Romans. All our most important institutions and ideals—Western culture itself—are from that ancient world. Individual freedom, constitutional government, free speech, you name it, were all patronized and defended by the Greeks. Hanson and Heath claim that never has a country been so influenced by the Greeks and yet (increasingly) so ignorant of them. They warn that if “the Greek way of thinking” is lost, Western culture, as we know it, will disappear. So there’s your answer, if you live in America or any country that still claims to be part of the ideological “West.”

The concluding half of Who Killed Homer’s subtitle is: The Recovery of Greek Wisdom. Hanson and Heath argue that “the Greek way of thinking” must be encouraged through teaching people the basics of Classical history and thought. More than just a few musty old professors and irritatingly brilliant students need to know about the principles of Greek culture to be able to recover its wisdom. Every citizen of the Polis should “think like a Greek.”

For a sample chapter modified into an essay by the authors click here.

C.S.Lewis, English Literature in the 16th Century, Oxford Univ. Press, 1954.

The Man Born To Be King

“You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born.” –John 18:37

Dorothy L. Sayers has an impressive variety of books under her name. Detective stories, translations of medieval writings, essays and commentaries on literature, and last, but not least, plays. I have had the opportunity to get a brief sampling of each of these with the exception of her dramas. That is, until I recently read her series of plays under the title: The Man Born To Be King. These plays chronicle the life of Christ with sometimes free, but never irreverent or improbable, additions of suppositional history and dialogue.

Call it coincidence if you will, but I just happened to start reading in Matthew the week I began this book and, due to slow reading and many distractions, was still reading it all the way through Mark, Luke, and John. This turned out to be a good thing because, like most things that get stale and boring after much familiarity, the story of Jesus as contained in the four gospels was starting to get old. Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems that sometimes we start reading and immediately disconnect our brain (or, equally fatal, our heart) and merely process empty words. At the end of a chapter we vaguely remember a string of platitudes and parables heard a hundred times before but don’t really care to recall them to mind or ponder who they were spoken to and why. The narrative of Jesus life hardly stirs our interest or emotions anymore. Even that piercing and heartrending cry uttered from the cross of suffering: “my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” can eventually be read with indifferent and sleepy eyes. The Man Born To Be King, however, lets us experience the life of Christ anew. Like Ben Hur and other historical novels that introduce the sights, sound, and “feel” of a scene, so Sayers adds little details that make the bare facts more lifelike.

Knowing the end of a story can also make us less attentive readers. Sayers combats this by developing Judas’s character so that we don’t know if he will really betray Jesus for some time. He starts off as a good guy like all the other disciples but is slowly gnawed by mistrust of Jesus’ pure motives in the corrupt political landscape of Judea that Sayers envisions. Pilate’s role is also realistically done I thought. Why all the vacillating between having Jesus flogged and evading condemning him on the technicality that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction? Or between allowing Jesus to be crucified but immediately washing his hands of the whole affair? Sayers presents it as a sort of political chess game that Pilate was forced to play with the High Priest. Although Pilate was able to put the Jews in check with the admission that, “we have not king but Caesar,” he was checkmated by his own move when the Jews countered by charging: “if you let this man go you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”

To sum things up, The Man Born to be King retells the gospel story with a little suppositional history and plot development that make the real history more interesting for those that both have or have not heard it before. Originally, the goal of these plays on the life of Christ were to introduce people to Jesus apart from “religion” and the language of the King James Bible. The mid 20th century British language and employment of the hardly popular drama form will probably turn most people today off just like the King James Language often still does, but we can hope it was useful to B.B.C. radio audiences in the 1940’s. And, even now, for a few like me to once again follow in the dusty footsteps of the Carpenter from Nazareth who is the Man born to be King.

The Greeks Seek After Wisdom; Americans Seek After...What?

Although I was generally unfavorable impressed with the novel Lucky Jim, something did catch my attention because it addresses education and choosing a profession, two things that I (and hopefully some other college students) have given passing thought to. Kingsley Amis, a British novelist and acquaintance of C.S.Lewis, has his protagonist, Dixon, receive a question from a colleague about why he got a job teaching medieval history. Dixon candidly answers:

the reason I'm a medievalist, as you call it, is that the medieval papers were a soft option in the Leicester course so I specialized in them. Then when I applied for the job here I naturally made a big point of that because it looked better to seem interested in something specific. It's why I got the job instead of that clever boy from Oxford... Haven't you noticed how we all specialize in what we hate most? (35).

I wonder how many students today major in psychology or cultural studies and so on, for the same reason. Of course, for them the chance of getting a job in such a field is slim, even if they wanted one. If it is not for the disinterested love of learning and it is not for a job in the particular major they choose, what is it people go to college for? The Greeks sought after knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone or to make themselves better, more virtuous citizens. In later times, more pragmatic people have wanted knowledge of certain skills and information to better them in their career. Many in the halls of learning today do not seem to fall into either class, in fact, they just seem to have fallen into class out of the sky. I wonder how many people with regard to learning say in unison with Dixon: "you don't think I take all that stuff seriously, do you?" (34).

Confession: To be honest, I don't really know why I'm in class either. Isn't it easy to condemn in others the very faults we ourselves have?

Amis, Kingsley. Lucky Jim. The Viking Press, 28th. printing 1973

If Your Day's Too Bright, Read the Paper

I was reading letters to the editor in the local paper (something I do about once a week to remind myself how depressing things are "out there") and came across one in Tuesday's Record Searchlight that astonished me. No, it was not that the fellow was defending homosexuality, but that he rejected the idea of any objective or knowable truth. He stated that "my truth is my truth, and your truth is your truth." I would like to know if this statement is universally true or is it just his opinion? If it is always true for everyone then we just stumbled upon the living corpse of an absolute truth that he believed was dead. If, after all, it is just "your truth" then I see no reason to believe it and will continue to believe "my truth," that, indeed, there are universal certainties in the physical and moral order. If this were a letter to the editor I would conclude with:
Yours truly,
Brian

13th. Century Literature: Part II

I was going to begin with a grand paean in praise of The Nibelungenlied, extolling it as the great epic of German legendary history. But that sort of thing is boring to most people including myself. In fact, the very name of The Nibelungenlied, if it sparks any recognition at all, is not likely to kindle a flame of interest. Stories with Homeric battles, lengthy and improbable speeches, all written in (or translated into) archaic language, are not likely to rivet the attention of most people. So instead I’ll briefly describe some of the characters.

Though my knowledge of ancient and medieval literature is limited, it seems to me that Sigfried, Kriemhild and others are delineated with a clearness and realism lacking in most old texts. A notable exception is Hagen, but of him later. First, who is Sigfried? Before this story opens in the mythical past of Germanic Europe he was reputed to have won a fabulous treasure by killing a dragon. Those who have read The Hobbit or the end of Beowulf will have a good grasp on this dragon/treasure principle in literature. Unlike Beowulf, who is slain, Sigfried survives and rubs the blood of the dragon all over his skin. Except for a small spot on his back. If you reach one arm over your shoulder and twist the other behind your back you will notice that (besides being uncomfortable and looking stupid) it is extremely difficult to make your hands touch somewhere between your shoulder blades. This is Sigfried’s Achilles Heel; the one spot not made invulnerable by virtue of the dragon’s blood. It is though this, and the cunning of Hagen, that Sigfried is treacherously murdered.

From the beginning his death is hinted at. It is really the focus of the whole story. It seems odd that the hero of a story should die halfway through the book, but if Sigfried had not died early on in the story there would be no Nibelungenlied; his death sets into motion a host of other evils: lies, greed, revenge, and lastly, war. Sigfried's death is a tragedy but it is not the last, nor even, I think, the greatest, tragedy in this story.

Who is most grieved over the death of Sigfried? Who but his wife, the lovely Kriemhild. And good reason she has to be grieved; not only over Sigfried, but also over the way her kinsmen and Hagen treat her after his death. How right it is to sympathize with Kriemhild yet how wrong to support her later actions. To understand this claim will require explaining the further events of the story. Kriemhild eventually remarries a distant king; however, rather than causing her to forget Sigfried, this only elevates her into a position powerful enough to avenge his death. It takes awhile, but finally she lures Hagen and her kinsmen to her new husband’s realm with pretended overtures of friendliness. Her intention is to start a conflict on some pretext and slaughter them. Her kinsmen and Hagen seem almost equally inclined to belligerence and demonstrate it by their disrespect and arrogance. It is, therefore, almost irrelevant who struck the first blow.

The men of Hagen and Günther (Kriemhild’s brother) easily get the upper hand in the first bout. They barricade themselves into the main hall and fight off every assault launched against them. All day they fight till Kriemhild, with the logic (and cruelty) of a woman, orders the hall burnt down. Somehow a few of them survive the flames and fight on the next day amid the charred rubble. At this point the fighting reaches Hollywood quality but it tops Hollywood (as most books do) by searching out what drives good and bad men to war. Rudiger and Dietrich, unwilling warriors, are perhaps the most human and the most heroic, and therefore the best, characters in the story apart from Sigfried himself. How and why they fight is both tragic and glorious, but mostly tragic. Even Dietrich’s victory over Hagen is no cause for joy.

So who is the hero in this tale? All through the book I was looking for a hero (after Sigfried died anyway). While there are many noble and heroic characters scattered throughout, the main conflict centers between Kriemhild and Hagen. Hagen, as the murderer of Sigfried, was obviously out, but the bloodthirsty revenge of Kriemhild went beyond simply a desire for justice as well. In the end I did not know what to think. I tinkered with the idea that this was a postmodern book (written, of course, around 1200 A.D) with no good guy/bad guy distinctions. Yet while no one was right, it does not follow postmodern epistemology that no one was wrong. Both were wrong. There may be different degrees of wrongness, but the central fact remains: both Hagen and Kriemhild were wrong. The consequence of their actions was the slaughter and decimation of entire Kingdoms.

13th. Century Literature: Part I

Among the small backlog of unreviewed books on my desk, The Mabinogion is probably most obscure. This collection of ancient Welsh tales and Arthurian legends was written down around the 13th century but is, like Beowulf and many other early European manuscripts, derived from a much older source, probably oral. The authors or compilers (most likely many) are likewise veiled in obscurity. Mabinogi are the traditional stories of the ancient Celtic people that all bards and most people would have known; something like what the legends of Johnny Appleseed and George Washington chopping down the cherry tree are to Americans.

The nearest definition I can give of these stories as a whole would be fantasy. About half of them in some way mention Arthur or are versions of the better-known Arthurian canon. Having just read Chretien De Troyes a few months ago helped in navigating the maze of outlandish adventurers. Unfortunately, names in my edition are translated with what is evidently a near approximation to their Gaelic originals so even a comparatively easy to recognize name like Guinever is spelled Gwenhwyvar. Among the many long lists of names are ones like: “Adaon the son of Taliesin, Llary the son of Kasnar Wledig, Fflewddur Fflam, and Greidant Galldovydd, Gilbert the son of Kadgyffro, Menw the son of Teirgwaedd,” and so on, and on, and on.

My high expectations were tolerably met in the first story or “branch” of The Mabinogion that recounts the tale of Pwyll, prince of Dyved who exchanges kingdoms for one year with another king he meets while hunting. As I continued reading, though, my interest waned. Long lists of funny names (spanning multiple pages Old Testament style), events that lacked any verisimilitude, and flat undeveloped characters that all appeared the same, must have been what did it for me. I am, however, being unfair to a book from the Middle Ages. Of course it is not going to compare to a novel by Dickens or Austen. But it did little good to tell myself this while drifting into a doze.

Notting Hill and Other Mountains I Have Climbed

The main reason I reread G.K.Chesterton’s Napoleon of Notting Hill was because I needed a lightweight paperback to take backpacking. Weighing in at a mere 3.75 ounces (110g), it was the perfect choice for a week in the wilderness. Looking at my shelves, I realized hefty tomes cover most of them. The few that are not an inordinate burden I have already read so my choices were severely limited.

But Chesterton is an excellent author to read or reread so I was not sorry as I stuffed him into my pack next to a jumble of spare socks, sunscreen, and sierra cup. As Auberon Quin (aptly named after the King of the Fairies) walked up Pump Street, I walked up an unnamed logging road. When Auberon was standing on his head in the middle of the road, I was lying on my back in the middle of the camp. When Auberon pored over a map of the suburbs of London, I pored over a map of the Russian Wilderness. When Adam Wayne entered the shop of the grocer, I opened the sack of the gourp. When the men of Notting Hill were attacked, the mosquitoes and nighttime chill attacked. When Wayne climbed onto a wall and looked down on his foe, I climbed onto a rock and looked down on the bear (yeah, the bear, we have pictures to prove it. They must like me because I rode my mountain bike around a blind curve last Saturday and surprised another one 25 feet down the trail).

This post is really about bears. Chesterton, I am sorry to say is only a pretext. Out of a sense of duty, however, I’ll say this much: The Napoleon of Notting Hill is primarily political. Patriotism and individual sovereignty is lost in the future world that Chesterton envisions: a world prophetically similar to that of the U.N and European Union. James Barker explains the mentality of that future age in one paragraph:

we are, in a sense, the purest democracy. We have become a despotism. Have you not noticed how continually in history democracy becomes despotism? People call it the decay of democracy. It is simply its fulfillment (25).

Chesterton, G.K. The Napoleon of Notting Hill. Penguin Books. Penguin Modern Classics, Great Britain, 1982.

Tribute to Alexander Solzhenitsyn

One of my favorite Russian authors, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, died Sunday. While I have only read 5 of his books, I've been meaning to read more for some time. Like all Russian authors I have encountered, Solzhenitsyn wrote at great length about serious subjects. His novels do not always end happily and his autobiography The Oak and the Calf records a series of trials encountered in his life. Yet his writing sought to advocate justice and the "eternal oughtness" of moral choices.

An Experiment in Blogging

Reading Lewis’s Experiment in Criticism has made me realize that I have not, hitherto, given much thought to the purpose of this blog. It is, quite simply, for fun. That is, I like reading and occasionally writing about authors that have been largely forgotten by a television entertained culture. I can only pretend to be an authority, however, and cannot even deceive myself when it comes to evaluating anything critically. To plagiarize the words of C.S.Lewis (from one of his theological books and not, of course, referring to literature): “I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself.”

My aim has never been to exhaustively analyze a book but only to discriminatingly comment on whatever I particularly like or (more seldom) dislike, or for that matter, anything that remotely interests me. In An Experiment in Criticism Lewis perceptively remarks that an obligation to review a book may hinder the reviewer’s ability to soak it in and enjoy it for its own sake. I don’t want this to happen to me. Since I started this blog there have already been books I have had nothing worth saying about even after racking my mind. Rather than stress over something to say I see now it would be better to forget writing about, and simply enjoy reading that book. Granted, this determination could translate into fewer posts in the future but hopefully of a better quality. (The current dearth of posts is due to the somewhat extraordinary occurrence of a weekend camp out, a six-day backpack trip, and another weekend out of town).

I am not recommending a book just because I post about it. Some of the books I have written about have very little in their favor and numerous flaws both artistically and morally. I am “concerned far more with describing books than with judging them” (Experiment 122). Chretien De Troyes, whom I reviewed a few months ago, is a case in point. Maybe the original French verse is better but my prose translation is awful: Repetitious, descriptive to the point of boredom, totally unlifelike, and no reason or motive for many of the actions taken. Morally it was just as bad, as anyone acquainted with the adulterous tale of Lancelot knows. Yet it was interesting in its odd little way and I enjoyed parts of it. Would I recommend it? No way. (And besides, who in their right mind would take such a recommendation!)

One reason I write is because I have not yet found another blog entirely devoted to mining for the same literary and philosophical ore that I am in search of. There are scholarly blogs and “summer reading” reviews and religious blogs and history blogs but non which occasionally touch on the deeper issues raised by famous literature without sounding like they are written by a Ph.D. (i.e.: boring and incomprehensible). I would much rather hear someone else’s thoughts on the kinds of books I like but as C.S.Lewis is reputed to have said to Tolkien: “Tollers, there is too little of what we really like in stories [or blogs]. I am afraid we shall have to write some ourselves” (On Stories xvii).

And hearing other thoughts raises another point: feel free to comment. There is nothing like dialogue to stimulate thinking. Agree, disagree, tell me what you think about a book, ask a question, or whatever. Just try to keep it on topic and keep it decent.

Lewis, C.S. An Experiment in Criticism. Cambridge U.K. Cambridge University Press, eleventh Canto edition. 2006
Lewis, C.S. On Stories and Other Essays on Literature. Harcourt, inc. 1982

An Experiment in Criticism

The title may not sound very interesting, but C. S. Lewis’s Experiment in Criticism is more engaging than the title suggests. The experiment is to alter the traditional practice of pronouncing a book “good” or “bad” and instead examine if the reader is a “good” or “bad” reader. Basically Lewis contends that nearly all books have some value, it is the two ways different people respond to books that is most telling. He labels people in two categories: the literary and the unliterary.

By unliterary Lewis does not mean those who do not read books at all, although he says:

the most unliterary reader of all sticks to ‘the news.’ He reads daily with unwearied relish, how, in some place he has never seen, under circumstances which never quite become clear, someone he doesn’t know has married, rescued, robbed, rapped, or murdered someone else he doesn’t know (28).

Lewis clarifies by saying that only reading newspapers and so on “makes no essential difference between him and the class next above—those who read the lowest kinds of fiction” (29). He gives five points that identify the unliterary. They, among other things, are “unconscious of style,” “Demand swift moving narrative,” prefer description and dialogue cut to a minimum, and

they read exclusively by eye. The most horrible cacophonies and the most perfect specimens of rhythm and vocalic melody are to them exactly equal. It is by this that we discover some highly educated people to be unliterary (29).

For me, this last characteristic raises an almost unthought of element in good reading and writing. To the slight wounding of my pride I realize I am not as cognizant as I imagined.

But Lewis is quick to preface his work by saying that knowledge alone is not enough to make someone literary. For some professors and reviewers “reading often becomes mere work” (7). Appreciation is killed. The literary, however, “will read the same work 10, 20, or 30 times during the course of their life” (2). They are always looking for a quiet corner to read in. Afterward “what they have read is constantly and prominently present to [their] mind” (3).

Lewis was writing against a very elitist literary establishment that had “debunked” many, if not most, of the great classics of the previous centuries. It seems that his purpose was to save books from being condemned at the ever changing whim of the elites by saying something like: look, here are literary or “good” readers (not part of the establishment) who still think that (for instance) Elizabethan poetry or science-fiction is good. Are we to ignore them and believe it all bad without even listening to the reasons why they think it has merit?

Lewis is not against objectively valuing literature; in fact, his whole goal is to find a solid foundation by which to judge books.

For the accepted valuation of literary works varies with every change of fashion, but the distinction between attentive and inattentive, obedient and willful, disinterested and egotistic, modes of reading is permanent (106).

In a nutshell, to find a good book, first find a good reader and watch to see which books he or she reads over and over again, all the while relishing each sentence and word. According to Lewis: “Whatever has been found good by those who really and truly read probably is good” (112).

It is good to keep in mind that books alone are useless. Any value they have exists only if someone reads them. Lewis asserts that,

whatever the value of literature may be, it is actual only when and where good readers read. Books on a shelf are only potential literature. Literary taste is only a potentiality when we are not reading (104).

Lewis, C.S. An Experiment in Criticism. Cambridge U.K. Cambridge University Press, eleventh Canto edition. 2006

A Narrative Poem

The wonderful thing about knowing very little about literature is that one can, every now and then, have a totally new reading experience. This happened to me last week as I made the very drastic change from Dostoevsky to an early 19^th century novel in verse. I have not in the past taken to poetry very much so it was with hesitation that I opened Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake; however, curiosity about other works by the author of Ivanhoe overcame my hesitation. Surprisingly, not only was it readable (unlike most poetry) it was enjoyable.

The story is set among the lochs of the Scottish highlands. A lost hunter is entertained at Loch Katrine by Ellen, daughter of the exiled James of Douglas. This stranger, who calls himself James Fitz-James, pursues his way after being refreshed but is so impressed with his hostess that a short time later he returns and proposes to Ellen. She refuses because she is having trouble enough with two other suitors: Roderick Dhu, the haughty chief of Clan-Alpine and Malcolm Graeme. These two become estranged as Roderick forces Clan-Alpine toward war against the lowland King James.

The disappointed Fitz-James, thought to be a spy of King James, is waylaid on his return from Ellen and fights Roderick Dhu in single combat. The fight goes well for Fitz-James who wounds Roderick and takes him prisoner. They proceed to Stirling Castle where King James is about to hold a festival. At the games of strength and skill held that day is Ellen’s father, the Douglas, come to surrender himself to King James and so somehow (I am a bit unclear how exactly) avert war for Clan-Alpine. Now suddenly, with both rebel leaders in captivity, King James can quell the rebellion of Clan-Alpine.

Hearing of her father’s capture and having the king’s signet ring in gift from the noble Fitz-James, Ellen goes to ask leniency for her father, Roderick Dhu, and Malcolm, (also a captive). Upon arriving at Stirling, Fitz-James leads her to the audience chamber of the King. Here:

On many a splendid garb she gazed,
Then turned bewildered and amazed,
For all stood bare; and in the room
Fitz-James alone wore cap and plume.
To him each lady’s look was lent,
On him each courier’s eye was bent;
Midst furs and silks and jewels sheen,
He stood, in simple Lincoln green,
The center of the glittering ring… (Canto VI. 731-39).

Yes, fair; the wandering poor Fitz-James
The fealty of Scotland claims.
To him thy woes, thy wishes bring;
He will redeem his signet ring.
Ask nought for Douglas; yester even
His prince and he have much forgiven (Canto VI. 753-58).

To Ellen’s plea for Roderick Dhu comes the news that he died from his battle wounds. Lastly, for Malcolm Graeme the King declares that justice must have its course:

Fetters and warder for the Graeme!
His chain of gold the king unstrung,
The links o’er Malcolm’s neck he flung,
Then gently drew the glittering band,
And laid the clasp on Ellen’s hand (Canto VI. 837-41).

The Lady of the Lake was a record-breaking bestseller in 1810. In the 8 months after its first publication it sold 25,000 copies, no small number by the standards of two hundred years ago (Pearson 89). According to a Walter Scott biography I perused in search of information (it unfortunately only had two pages on The Lady of the Lake), when one of Scott’s daughters was asked if she liked the poem she replied: “Oh, I have not read it! Papa says there’s nothing so bad for young people as reading bad poetry” (Pearson 88). If bad means not filled with obscure allusions to classical antiquity, not employing a succession of unknown and archaic words in every line, or not having a rhyme scheme so complicated the mind could not possibly remember its arrangement, then The Lady of the Lake is bad poetry. But these for me are the very things that make it readable. It may not be overly profound, but it is a good tale and who could ask for better than that? I replace it on my shelf knowing it won’t collect too much dust before it is taken down again.

Pearson, Hesketh. Walter Scott: His Life and Personality. The Quality Book Club, London.

Dostoevsky Again

My last post made me think of a much better book written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov is one of my favorite novels and definitely the best I have read from Russia. Dostoevsky’s penetrating insight into the fallen human soul and his ability to translate these insights onto paper with intensity is extraordinary. Many laud authors for their “subtle” portrayal of character; Dostoevsky, on the other hand, with honest directness unlayers his actors piece by piece, in an intensely suspenseful story of love and hate.

The story could easily have been broken into two or three separate full-length books. The whole history of Father Zossima, for instance, which spans his entire life yet is only a framework to contain his voluminous wisdom and sayings could be a separate study altogether. But before you turn away from such a long-winded and boring sounding book as The Brother Karamazov (a classic in the sense of “a book nobody reads anymore”) let me press that it is very good.

Yet even the word good must be qualified; this is no Sunday school story, no David kills Goliath and becomes king narrative. This is King David murdering Uriah to cover up his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, this is David faking insanity and hiding from Saul in caves. And so it is with the brothers Karamazov: Dmitri (Mitya), Ivan and Alyonsha. Each must confront the moral choices before them and sometimes stand and sometimes fall.

It would be impossible to condense the story. Some stories can be outlined in a page or a few minutes and that brief description might be as good or better than reading the full tale. C.S.Lewis calls such stories myths. He describes the other kind, those like The Brothers Karamozov, as being uniquely an author’s own: incapable, without loss, of being retold. If I sketch the outline of a morally degenerate father hated by his children, eventually murdered by one of them, contributing to the insanity of another, and imprisonment for a third, you will be rightly amazed that I esteem it so highly. Yet such is the case.

The plot is not what draws me to it, but rather Dostoevsky’s moving portrayal of character. Alyosha immediately draws the heart with his quiet shyness, aglow as it is with faith and hope. His brother Ivan is just the opposite: distrustful, pessimistic, at home in the world (as Alyosha is not) but without any real hope. Dmitri is a shifting cross between the two, at one moment able to reach mystic heights of benevolence, at another sinking to bitter, disgruntled agnosticism. His monologue (again, a standard feature in Dostoevsky’s writing) to Alyosha before his trial is an excellent example of this interior conflict. At one moment Dmitri pours out his climatic “hymn:”

Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths of a lofty soul a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! And then we men underground will sing from the bowls of the earth a glorious hymn to God, with whom is joy. Hail to God and his joy! (626).

Immediately after this speech he reverts to his original gloom:

It’s God that’s worrying me…What if He doesn’t exist? What if Rakitin’s right—that it’s an idea made up by men? Then if He doesn’t exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God? (626).

This is the Dmitri described by the prosecutor as, “two extremes at the same moment.”

Among the minor characters, those that don’t contribute to the main action, Zossima is significant. The author spends an incredible amount of time on this saint who adds little to the plot. I was reminded of the Bishop of Digne in Les Miserables. Even though they take little part in the drama, they both strongly influence those around them who do. My favorite, however, is the schoolboy Kolya. He is immature in his maturity, putting all childish things behind him except the fear of seeming childish. His character is fascinatingly depicted. He has a desperate desire for acceptance and admiration that is only too realistic. One way he tries to gain this is by talking about those ever-recurrent subjects: politics and religion.

‘Oh, I’ve nothing against God. Of course, God is only a hypothesis, but…I admit that he is needed…for the order of the universe and all that…and that if there were no God he would have to be invented,’ added Kolya, beginning to blush. He suddenly fancied that Alyosha might think he was trying to show off his knowledge and to prove he was “grown up.” ‘I haven’t the slightest desire to show off my knowledge to him,’ Kolya thought indignantly. And all of a sudden he felt horribly annoyed (584).

I must halt my rambling discourse or risk running on forever. Here is a quote that sums up the book:

‘And did you understand it?’ Alyosha asked.

‘Oh, yes, everything…that is…why do you suppose I shouldn’t understand it? There is a lot of nastiness in it, of course…. Of course I can understand that it is a philosophical novel and written to advocate an idea….’ Kolya was getting mixed up by now.

And so am I.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor The Brothers Karamazov. Trans. Constance Garnett. London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1945.

Unhappy Weakness For Russian Literature

He would sit like a post for six hours at a stretch, perspiring and straining his utmost to keep awake and smile. On reaching home he would groan…over their benefactor’s unhappy weakness for Russian literature (370-71).

Usually in our world things come to nothing, but this will end in something; it’s bound to, it’s bound to! (219).

The subject…who could make it out? It was a sort of description of certain impressions and reminiscences. But of what? And about what? Though the leading intellectuals of the province did their utmost during the first half of the reading, they could make nothing of it, and they listened to the second part simply out of politeness (486).

Maybe you can see where this is leading…. C.S.Lewis remarked that the plots of some stories in abstract “would be completely worthless—not only worthless as a representation of the book in question, but worthless in itself; dull beyond bearing; unreadable” (Lewis 41). Very likely someone will add that some stories themselves are dull beyond bearing. Though I want to agree, something makes me hesitantly demur in the case of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Possessed. Although the 700 hundred pages seem to go (in the words of one song) “on and on, forever,” there are occasional passages of gripping intensity.

But the merit of Dostoevsky's book would be small indeed if plot and narrative were the only criteria to judge it by. No, if it has merit it lies in other areas, particularly in its prophetic analysis of Communism and Nihilism. I am no philosopher so probably much of Dostoevsky’s exploration of the rising ideological trends in Russia at the end of the 19^th century passed well above my head. Yet even admitting this there were some passages so plain they could not be missed.

Communism is scoffed at today and terms like McCarthyism applied to the occasional warning against it, yet Communism was (and still is) a huge disaster for humanity. Being already a fan of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and through him knowing the inhuman practical reality of that ideology, I was fascinated to discover Dostoevsky, almost 50 years before the revolution in Russia, wrote a novel with the aim of exposing Communism in its infancy.

In the person of Pyotr Stepanovitch all the revolting aspects of nihilistic Communism are embodied. In a frantic, feverish speech (why do all Dostoevsky characters make long feverish speeches?) Pyotr Stepanovitch outlines his goals:

Everyone belongs to all and all to everyone. All are slaves and equal in their slavery…to begin with, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of education and science is only possible for great intellects and they are not wanted. The great intellects have always seized the power and been despots. Great intellects cannot help being despots and they’ve always done more harm than good. They will be banished or put to death. Cicero will have his tongue cut out, Copernicus will have his eyes put out, Shakespeare will be stoned—that’s Shigalovism. Slaves are bound to be equal. There has never been either freedom or equality without despotism, but in the herd there is bound to be equality, and that’s Shigalovism! Ha ha ha! Do you think it strange? (424-25).

With a shockingly modern parallel in American society’s moral uncertainty and upheaval, one of Pyotr Stepanovitch’s co-conspirators confesses at the end of the book that,

it was with the idea of systematically destroying society and all principles; with the idea of nonplussing everyone…and then, when society was tottering, sick and out of joint, cynical and skeptical, though filled with an intense eagerness for self-preservation and for some guiding idea, suddenly to seize it in their hands, raising the standard of revolt (680).

With profound insight Dostoevsky has the social engineer Shigalov declare:

I am perplexed by my own data and my conclusion is a direct contradiction of the original idea with which I started. Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism (409).

Dostoevsky, Feodor. The Possessed. The Modern Library Inc. Random House, 1963.

Lewis, C.S. An Experiment In Criticism. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge. Canto ed. 2006.

Prince Caspian

Trying to keep in mind that this is book blog, I will limit myself to just a few desultory comments on Prince Caspian the movie to begin with, while otherwise attempting to keep Lewis’s incomparable original at the center of attention.

• Susan is pretty cool with her Legolesqe archery showdown in the woods but Lucy is cooler facing the entire Telmarine army on the bridge with her little dagger.

• I can hardly wait till Reepicheep takes the stage in Dawn Treader.

• Was the Bulgy Bear sucking his thumb during the dual or not?

I felt that the movie tried too had to be serious; to “talk like a grown up.” There is nothing wrong, in general, with trying to make a plot more plausible by, say, developing themes of Hamlet like revenge on an evil uncle, or a tense exploration of pride and its consequences in Peter, but these elements are simply not in Lewis’s original. And it was a conscious choice, not the deficiency of a shallow author writing for children because he could not delineate character or make a solid plot. In Lewis’s essay entitled: “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said,” he describes the creation of the Chronicles of Narnia and why they were written as Fairy Tales (not “children’s stories” by the way):

“As these images sorted themselves out (i.e. became a story) they seemed to demand no love interest and no close psychology. But the Form which excludes these things is the Fairy Tale. And the moment I thought of that I fell in love with the form itself: its brevity, its severe restraints on description, its flexible traditionalism, its inflexible hostility to all analysis, digression, reflections and “gas.” I was now enamoured of it. Its very limitations of vocabulary became an attraction; as the hardness of the stone pleases the sculptor, or the difficulty of the sonnet delights the sonneteer” (On Stories 46-47).

Fairy Tales then, by their nature, avoid much of the dullness and description of the novel form and can focus on, in Lewis’s words, “the stuff I had to say” (On Stories 47).

One of these focal points in Prince Caspian is the importance of obedience. I was gratified to see this theme carried over into the movie, although it takes Peter much longer to learn his lesson (Potentially reinforcing the point by showing the consequences of trying to take charge, or, on the other hand, sullying a noble character from the book).

For me, the central image in the book is of Lucy wandering through the half-waking woods to find Aslan. This is one of my favorite passages in all literature and the movie (or any movie, I fear) could not do justice to the beauty of Lewis’s portrayal. When Lucy finally does reach Aslan, the image is vivid to the imagination and powerful by showing Aslan’s fatherly, playful, commanding love.

“The lion looked straight into her eyes.”

“‘Oh, Aslan,’” said Lucy. “‘You don’t mean it was? How could I—I couldn’t have left the others and come up to you alone, how could I? Don’t look at me like that…oh well, I suppose I could. Yes, and it would not have been alone, I know, not if I was with you”(Caspian 137).

On an Allegorical level this scene is about more than just obedience. Two that immediately struck me (well, they didn’t actually try to assault me) were the nature of God (in Aslan) and evangelism (“Go wake the others and tell them to follow”). Undoubtedly there are more just as there are more throughout the book.

I have to record one exchange in the movie that I don’t recall in the book. It too can be taken as an allegory by those (we’re all in need of it from time to time) who are overly caught up in plans, programs, and pride. When the voice of faith interrupts our grand plans and we frustrated say: “haven’t you been listening, Lucy?” She answers back: “No, you haven’t been listening! Have you forgotten who it was that really defeated the White Witch?” The answer is, of course, Aslan. It is as if Lucy had repeated: “not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, sayeth the Lord.”

Lewis, C.S. On Stories: and Other Essay On Literature. Harcourt, Inc. 1982.

Lewis, C.S. Prince Caspian. Collier books, New York, twenty first printing, 1978.

The Konkans

You might ask why I picked a book with a 2008 publication date to read when there are so many from 100 or even 500 years ago to choose from. The answer is I didn’t pick it: my English teacher assigned it.

The Konkans opens with the first person narrator describing his American mother and Indian father in their new home together. As the story progresses, frequent flashbacks reveal how his mother went to India in the Peace Corps and met his father and their subsequent move to America. These elements of the story parallel the author, Tony D’Sousa’s own life and heritage in many ways.

D’Sousa talked of this autobiographical element at his reading and book signing at Shasta College. While the book is fiction and should be considered as such, things like his Peace Corps mother, Konkan father, two uncles emigrating to America, and the pig incident are all true to the history of his family (although the squad cars and helicopter at the supermarket to investigate the squealing from the trunk must be artistic license, or what D’Sousa called family legend). How far this personal history could be compared to the incidents in the book is hard to tell and, really, irrelevant to the artistry of the book.

The repetition of certain stories and frequent flashbacks lend an interesting structure to the book. When a story is repeated with a slightly different spin or when motives are revealed, it changes the way the story is received. One is often left seeing supposed heroes to be not so magnanimous as originally presented. What if other stories not retold are equally distorted, or at least, could be told differently.

Probably you are wondering what or who the Konkans are. They are native Indians who were converted to Catholicism in the 1500s by Francis Xavier. This early acquaintance with western culture left the Konkan people open and friendly to further western influence, particularly the British during their rule of India.

An interesting view on cultural transitions is presented in the book. Never is it explicitly said that leaving one culture for another is damaging but one is struck by the consuming desire of Lawrence to fit into American life. This desire puts stress on his wife and family, while the inevitable letdowns and failures to fit in lead to alcohol and pent up anger. Everything Indian “reminded him in an uncomfortable way of where he was from and who he in fact was” (6).

Sam, too, it appears, is conflicted within himself over whether he is an Indian or an American. He blames his struggles on his sister-in-law Denise, asking, “Why have you done these things, Denise? Why did you go to India? Why did you bring us here? It is you. Everything that has happened has always been because of you” (205). If she had not married his brother and brought them all to America, he seems to be saying, he would have lived and died a set, predictable existence in India.

This inner turmoil reaches a climax when he must choose to marry an Indian girl his father has picked for him or continue dating American girls. He chooses the former and is “‘unhappy since I stepped off the plane’” (204). Yet the question is: if he had chosen an American girl would his state of mind be any different or would he still be torn by regret over his choice. The conflict is not so much over two girls, as over two cultures. I probably would not have noticed this aspect of D’Sousa’s story if I were not simultaneously doing a comparison paper on two stories that deal with this theme of cultural identity.

The most disappointing part of the book is the illicit affair between the narrator’s mother and his Uncle Sam. Although Sam starts out as the most fun-loving and likable character in the book, he ends as the most depressed and depressing. He wastes his life on pleasure and folly until he cannot even enjoy sin anymore. Yet this does not stop him up to the last page. Denise, too, is a listless sinner. Though she realizes “what she’d done with my uncle was a nasty thing” (113), she never does anything about it.

There is an inevitable monotony in their shared lives by the end of the story. No repentance, no epiphany one way or the other, not even any passion. When thought about this way the book could actually have some value in proving that “there is nothing so monotonous as evil.” No one reading through to the end of the book could want a life that drags on as Sam and Denise’s does. D’Sousa’s one flaw then is not finishing Ravi Zacharias’s statement about the monotony of evil by showing how “beautiful [is the] good.”

The Konkans, Tony D'Sousa (Harcourt, first ed. 2008).

Hawthorne As History

The pre-Civil War period in America was rife with new theories and movements. Transcendentalism, feminism, and socialism were some of the ideas being developed and tested. As my history teacher briefly described these “isms” and their principle advocates, she mentioned Nathaniel Hawthorne and his connection to Brook Farm. His involvement in this socialist experiment was the seed for his novel called The Blithedale Romance. As I thought back to this book I realized that all of the movements my teacher mentioned are touched on directly or indirectly in Hawthorne’s book. The relation between history and literature was magnified as I considered that probably I was the only one in that class who had read a writer from that period dealing directly with the issues our teacher was discussing.

With an eye to this historical aspect of Hawthorne, I dug up an old (well, o.k. a year or two old) review I wrote on The Blithedale Romance. While it is embarrassingly unpublishable in its entirety, I present the undeleted portion of an often wandering, sometimes incoherent sketch (But really, my readers should be used to a generous dose of bibble-babble by now).

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Was Hawthorne's seeming praise of communes real? He seemed to like them at least in theory, yet while praising them he did reveal their flaws (at least some of them). The members and visitors envisioned an agrarian community in which the arts would flourish, instead they found themselves too tired at the end of the day to do ought but eat and sleep. A situation I can sympathize with. Also, some members were just not cut out for certain tasks. For instance, Zenobia cannot cook. The individual is made an individual for a purpose.

Zenobia is the most absorbing character, a passionate, strong-willed, feminist. In many ways we want to say with Miles Coverdale (the poetic and sensitive bachelor from whose observant viewpoint the story is told) that here indeed is a woman. Yet in reality she is unfulfilled, isolated, and angry. The real tragedy is not that she dies but why and how she dies. Suicide is a selfish, prideful way to die. Rather than do what good she could do with her talents, she quite literally buried them in the ground.

Hollingsworth is impressively sketched and blamed for a bit too much if a purely realistic novel was the aim. I’m not sure it was. It is said that Dickens’s characters are sketched larger than life with certain traits exaggerated. Whether this is true or not of Dickens’s characters it is certainly true of Zenobia and Hollingsworth. He does repent in the end and Coverdale’s mockingly Caustic question on his dreamed reform of criminals is answered in a touching scene:

'Not one,' said Hollingsworth, with his eyes still fixed on the ground.
'Ever since we parted, I have been busy with a single murderer!'
Then the tears gushed into my eyes, and I forgave him.

Despite its seeming gloom, The Blithedale Romance is a brighter book than the other Hawthorne novels I have read. Though the presentation of socialism and feminism in a 19^th Century book may raise some eyebrows it was better than most books of a less controversial class. I have not brought myself to spoil this feeling by reading the introduction, written, I am informed on the cover, by a “distinguished” professor and recipient of the “Florence Howe Award for Feminist Literary Criticism.” I am old enough (not!) and wise enough (kidding again!) by this time (it took long enough) to not read everything that is written, or at the very least not to believe it

A good quote: “It is because the spirit is inestimable, that the lifeless body is so little valued.”

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For an equally short but more informative sketch of The Blithedale Romance try Wikipedia.

Too Much Work For Words

Blogging is slow right now because life is fast right now. Lots of work and lots of homework. when I was not doing these two things I was training for a mountain bike race at that time between dinner and dusk when bloggers creep to their computers and sit huddled over the keys trying to unlock the secrets of words.

I sometimes feel I have not been doing much reading either but this, I know, is not the case. I have been reading, just not the books I want to read. Poetry, 20th. century short stories, and now, drama, are the fare I am being force fed in English 1B. I thought about posting my poetry paper, but it's boring and dry; then I hoped to post my short fiction comparison and contrast paper, but reasoned nobody wants to read about feminist literature. Yes, you read that right: feminist literature. The fan of dead white guys is now reading the likes of Alice Walker. But never fear, dead white guys still rock!

In a few weeks college will be out for summer and then I can get back to pursuing my education.

No Intelligence Allowed

In case you are one of those who believe there is no intelligence allowed in a movie theater, you might be pleasantly surprised when you go see Expelled: No intelligence Allowed. And go you should. this documentary affirms the American ideal of freedom of speech and idea, while seriously challenging the faulty theory of evolution. Not only does it show that Darwinism is not scientifically superior to Intelligent Design, but it confronts the ideological agenda of atheist evolutionists. Watching the faces of Ben Stein and Richard Dawkins as Dawkins stumbled through an incoherent speech on the origin of life was priceless.

As if this was not enough for one documentary, Stein introduces the evolutionary underpinnings of Hitler's eugenic genocide of Jews and other supposedly unfit and undesirable members of society. It is plain that evolution devalues human life.

The debate over the origin of life is not over as most narrow minded evolutionists think, but unless people see documentaries like this one, the Darwin Delusion will continue to live into decrepit old age.