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Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Michael Bérubé has a long post today about His Dark Materials and a few other things (thanks for pointing it out, Levi) -- it is a bit dense but as near as I can tell, he means to defend The Amber Spyglass against critics who think it is the weakest book in the series because it is too preachy, and simultaneously to point out a weakness in the series -- that it is written on too grand a scale -- and to talk about some other fantasy series, like LOTR and C.S. Lewis' science fiction books, in this context. I'm grateful to Dr. Bérubé for what he says about the world of the dead scene in The Amber Spyglass -- I had been having some cognitive dissonance over the last few weeks from failing to acknowledge the lameness of the Lyra's-hair bomb plot device. I had gotten up on a horse about the great beauty of the descent into the world of the dead, but was having trouble riding it. That said I don't think the idea that the harpies want to hear true stories of the world of the living is as bad as Bérubé does; I kind of like it, and I didn't attach a huge amount of importance to its role in the plot as I was reading. I'm tentatively working on a response to people who complain about the preachiness of His Dark Materials, and which I think would also work as a response to Bérubé's complaint about Tolkien's stilted language -- making the argument against the church seems to be a huge part of Pullman's goal in writing these books. I did not (generally) find that the pedantry detracted from the story; but he is not only telling a story. Saying that the pedantry detracts from the story is like, well, like saying that Tolkien's archæic usages detract from his story -- I think Tolkien is at least as interested in creating a world where these usages will work, as he is in telling a story about a hobbit's quest. But this needs a fair amount of work before it will actually be an argument of any sort.
 Some great discussion in the comments thread over there as well -- particularly from Kathleen, Alan Jacobs, Rich Puchalsky. I'm reluctant to enter into it myself because I like the books so much -- the tone of the comment thread seems to be focusing on the faults of the books, if I join the discussion mooning about how great the trilogy is, I am just going to look silly and thoughtless -- and yet I find my response to the criticisms is mostly just along the lines of "yeah that's true, but still it is a wonderful read..."
posted evening of April 8th, 2009: Respond
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
Bolaño's poem "El Mono Exterior", "The Monkey Outside", starts out by asking, "Do you remember the Triumph of Alexander the Great, by Gustave Moreau?" -- I did not -- never seen it, I'm pretty sure, and did not recognize the painter's name. Here is an image of it: The poem is difficult to make much sense of, either by itself or in the context of the painting, but it's an attractive jumble of images. He seems to be addressing somebody who is blasé about the purported power of this painting (I can't see it; but then I am just looking at a little jpg of it), who "walked like a tireless ape among the gods,/ For you knew -- or maybe not -- that the Triumph was unfurling/ its weapons inside Plato's cavern: images,/ shadows without substance, sovereignty of emptiness." I'm not sure if he's reproaching the person he's talking to -- and indeed he might be talking to himself.
 Update: This poetry course from Aula de Poesia de Barcelona (PDF format, Spanish language) has some questions for writing about "El Mono Exterior", on page 5. Also featured: Borges, José Jorge Letria, Juan López de Ael, Claudia Groesman. (Why is the school's name not spelled "Aula de PoesÃa"? Is this a Catalán thing?)
Late Update: Bolaño also references Moreau in the first section of 2666.
posted evening of April 7th, 2009: Respond
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Saramago posts today about how he came by his writing style. Interesting in the context of Edmond's calling it "Baroque":
This, what people call my style, arises from a great admiration for the language which was spoken in Portugal in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Let us look at the sermons of Father António Vieira and we'll see that in everything he wrote, there is a language filled with flavor and rhythm, as if this were not exterior to the language but rather something intrinsic.We do not know how people spoke in this epoch, but we know how they wrote. Language back then was an uninterrupted flow. Admitting that we could compare it to a river, we feel that it's like a great mass of water that slips along with weight, with splendor, with rhythm, including when at times, its course is interrupted by cataracts. Some days of vacation have arrived, a fine time for wading deep into these waters, into this language written by Father Vieira. I'm not advising anyone to do anything, just saying that I'm going to go swimming in the greatest prose and, for this reason, will be gone for a few days. Would anyone like to come along?
posted evening of April 7th, 2009: 1 response
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 William Wordsworth is just turning 239 years old today -- he is 200 years and a few months older than I. (In the picture at left he is 28, ten years my junior.)
Wordsworth is a poet whom I'm always thinking I ought to be more familiar with than I am. I know a couple of his poems but I don't really have any clear sense of his persona as an author -- know him better by way of his influence on some of my favorite writers and thinkers. (And come to think of it, here I am thinking more of "the English romantics" than of Wordsworth individually.) And O, ye Fountains,
Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. -- from "Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood"
posted morning of April 7th, 2009: Respond
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Monday, April 6th, 2009
In this chapter there are two passages that strike me as very cinematic -- I can see them playing out animated on the screen. (Granted Tolkien was writing before the advent of anime, so he probably did not have that style in mind; but I think it is suited very well to his words.)
She lifted up her hand and from the ring she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. This is just great. I can see her holding the ring up, it shining down on her, her transformation into something fearful -- it could be lifted right out of Howl's Moving Castle. Then there was a pause, and many swift scenes followed that Frodo in some way knew to be parts of a great history in which he had become involved. The mist cleared and he saw a sight which he had never seen before but knew at once: the sea. Darkness fell. The sea rose and raged in a great storm. Then he saw against the Sun, sinking blood-red into a wrack of clouds, the black outline of a tall ship with torn sails riding up out of the West. Then a wide river flowing through a populous city. Then a white fortress with seven towers. And then again a ship with black sails, but now it was morning again, and water rippled with the light, and a banner bearing the emblem of a white tree shown in the sun. A smoke as of a fire and a battle arose, and again the sun went down in a burning red that faded into a grey mist; and into the mist a grey ship passed away, twinkling with lights. It vanished, and Frodo sighed and prepared to draw away. I'm not as crazy about this. I think it could work really well on screen; but in the text something seems wrong with it. Those images are flashing by quickly, my gut reaction is that Frodo cannot be processing them as quickly as the narrator is telling us, and it makes it seem like a cheat. In the movie you would see all those images but you would not be able to narrate them in real-time like this -- you would have to assemble the narrative after the images had passed -- which is what I think Frodo would need to do, and by serving it up to us like this the narrator is taking us away from the story. Not sure this makes any sense, I'm trying to convey my impression here. Magic and prophesy are another element that LOTR has in common with Narnia and His Dark Materials -- maybe I did not mention this last time because it seemed obvious, magic and prophesy are sort of defining features of the fantasy genre -- but I think it would be worth a post at some point examining how magic and prophesy in the story, and the characters' response to them, affect my reading experience. I don't read very much fantasy, so I am noticing this part of the reading as something unusual.
posted evening of April 6th, 2009: 3 responses
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Sunday, April 5th, 2009
In tonight's reading (Bilbo and company are captured by, escape from, and are recaptured by the goblins who live under the Misty Mountains), Sylvia happened on the question of how tall are Hobbits -- I know Tolkien lays out somewhere in this book their approximate dimensions, but I've forgotten what they are now -- my rule of thumb has been thinking that dwarves  are about Sylvia's height, hobbits about a foot shorter. Sylvia hazarded some guesses and I told her what I thought. Toward the end of the reading, as we were hearing about how Bilbo was better off making his way through the goblins' cave than someone like you or I would be, because hobbits are used to tunneling, when Sylvia asserted that hobbits should look like rabbits. --"But I think they are shaped more like people, just shorter." --"But it's ugly if they look like people. I think they look like rabbits." Hm, well, interesting... and shows that she hasn't got exposed to the cartoon image of Bilbo that is fixed in my head. So we finished the reading, and as I was saying goodnight I asked her what about dwarves, do they look like people or like rabbits? -- And got in response a long, elaborate description of a cartoon dwarf à la Snow White. I'm finding this kind of funny -- a word gets fixed in our heads with the cartoon we watch describing it.
Update: This is kind of funny -- the eagle that carries Bilbo from the ærie to the Carrock, also says he thinks the hobbit looks like a rabbit. "Don't pinch!" said his eagle, "You need not be frightened like a rabbit, even if you rather look like one. It is a fair morning with little wind. What is finer than flying?"
posted evening of April 5th, 2009: 3 responses
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So the first thing I am reading by Roberto Bolaño is the new book of poetry, The Romantic Dogs. The poems are delight, sparsely elegant, the author's voice clear and engaging. I find that I have not yet constructed an authorial persona to associate with this voice, so a lot of my reaction to the readings so far has been seeing who this voice reminds me of -- for instance there are some lines in the title poem that sound very distinctly like Robyn Hitchcock; "El Gusano" is reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg's poetry (as I said before); the structure of "La Francesa" (especially its ending) is most similar to Ferlinghetti. I expect I'll find plenty of other referents as I continue to read, eventually they should gel into a new author for me to carry in my head... Here is a passage that's puzzling me a little. See what you think. The poem "Resurección" begins and ends as follows: La poesÃa entra en el sueño
como un buzo en un lago.
...
La poesÃa entra en el sueño
como un buzo muerto
en el ojo de Dios. Healy translates this as:Poetry slips into dreams
like a diver in a lake.
...
Poetry slips into dreams
like a diver who's dead
in the eyes of God.
But this seems to me to miss the parallelism. "Dead in the eyes of God" is a lexical unit -- it is making the phrase "en el ojo de Dios" into a modifier for "muerto" -- but what I was thinking as I read the Spanish was, the "eye of God" was what the dead diver was entering into -- it was playing the same role that the "lake" was playing in the first sentence -- so I would have translated it more like Poetry slips into the dream
like a dead man diving
into the eye of God. (Also I would have said "into a lake" in the second line.) Is this a misreading?
posted afternoon of April 5th, 2009: 2 responses
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Saturday, April 4th, 2009
 My dad sends some lovely pictures of their latest trip to the Sierra foothills, including this great shot of a water strider.
posted evening of April 4th, 2009: Respond
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Warning: do not look in this post for a train of thought. Sorry! I've been trying to come up with one for a couple of days but it's not happening yet. So this is just a placeholder, a couple of things I've noticed recently that want tying together. Rosa (with whom I've been corresponding in English and in Spanish, thanks to Conversation Exchange for getting us together) sent me the lyrics to Ana Belén's "España, Camisa Blanca", a beautiful song that has really captured my imagination in the last few days.
I do not understand the metaphor yet -- Rosa explains that the song is about the end of Franco's regime in the late 70's, and that a white shirt is a symbol of hope. Looking around I see (from an article on El problema de España which I have not yet read) that the song's title comes from a poem by Blas de Otero Muñoz -- however I have not been able to find any of his poetry online, don't know the context. In the same article I notice a painting of Goya's, "The 3rd of May, 1808":
-- notice the white shirt which is the most striking detail of this painting. (The soldiers who are about to shoot the man in the white shirt are Napoleon's troops, suppressing civil unrest in Madrid during the occupation.) And now Dave is telling me that this painting features in Buñuel's movie Le fantôme de liberté -- onto my Netflix queue it goes... Hoping I will be able to suss out a thread connecting these items...
posted evening of April 4th, 2009: 1 response
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Friday, April third, 2009
Saramago writes today about the 1907 strike and massacre in Iquique, Chile, in which the Chilean army (under pressure from the government and from foreign mine-owners) murdered more than three thousand people, striking saltpetre miners and their families who had congregated at the school of Santa MarÃa to demand an 18¢ per day wage paid in currency rather than scrip. The event was memorialized in the 1970's when Luis Advis wrote his "Cantata de Santa MarÃa de Iquique" -- here it is performed by Quilapayun. Lyrics are transcribed here.
 (a year and a half later) This massacre is quite an important reference point in Hernán Rivera Letelier's work.
posted evening of April third, 2009: Respond
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