Kay Ryan: Elephant Rocks

My opinion of our current Poet Laureate went through the quickest evolution I have ever experienced. It was contempt at first sight. The first few poems I read--not necessarily the first in the book, but a preliminary flip-through--were bland and unremarkable. They weren't bad, just sub-laureate.

Beth swore they were good, so I persevered. How long does it take to read a book of poetry, after all? As I progressed on, the poems developed a sort of charm for me. My opinion went from "She's trying to be Dickinson" to "She's reminiscent of Dickinson". Indeed, although the topics are. . . odder than Dickinson would choose, the tone and rhythms are right on the money. As with the Belle of Amherst, the poems feel like interior monologues, as though they are being wondered aloud. The rhymes are always surprising, occurring where one doesn't expect them. Sometimes a word hit the end of a line, and I would go back looking for the word it rhymed with--only to find that there wasn't one. Words such as "Delightful" and "Whimsical" started coming to my mind.

As I read on, it got old. The slant rhyming especially ceased to feel whimsical, and began to feel lazy. It reminded me of The Sugar Hill Gang or some other seminal R&B group, so taken with their innovation that the fact a word almost rhymed was enough, and they would slow down and emphasize it. Lame. I thought my irritation was a factor of my mood, so put it down for a few days. Nope. Still lame.

Which is not to say that her ideas are not cute, and even profound on occasion, just that they get old. I can even picture taking a few of them and teaching them in a lesson on line breaks or fancy rhyming. A whole book though? Bleah. And a laurel? Please.

Kurt Vonnegut: Player Piano and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

I am sad that I gave my copy of Player Piano away to Belinda before writing this, because there is a passage in it that I would love to quote verbatim. It was to the effect that the protagonist was transfixed by the mechanism of a machine, one he compared to the action of a maypole. Over, then under, and again. I love this, because it gives me the opportunity to do my favorite literary criticism trick: to show how a single passage is a microcosm of the entire book.

In Player Piano, the characters twist over and under each other in a manner that exactly resembles that of a maypole. In fact, he even opens one chapter with . . . dammit, I can't do this without the book in front of me. I'm going to facebook Belinda and ask her for some page numbers . . . never mind. The whole thing is available online, although it would be easier to see the dogeared page. The quote is:

"Out of the corner of his eye, a crazy, spinning movement caught his fancy, and he turned in delight to watch a cluster of miniature maypoles braid bright cloth insulation about a snake of black cable. A thousand little dancers whirled about one another at incredible speeds, pirouetting, dodging one another, unerringly building their snug snare about the cable" (18).

Her Vonnegut gives--perhaps inadvertently--a perfect metaphor for the structure of this and his other books. The characters are little ribbons, wrapped around each other, some never actually meeting, as a pleasing shawl for the information, "the cable", as it were. As the characters are introduced, it is in a way that fits the metaphor nicely: in their first appearances, The Shah of Bratpuhr is "encrusted with gold brocade. . . On the other side of the limousine's rear seat sat Doctor Ewing J. Halyard [a name that even means 'rope'] . . . He wore a flowing sandy mustache, a colored shirt, a boutonniere, and a waistcoat contrasting with his dark suit" (24). Both descriptions are perfectly in keeping with the "bright cloth insulation". Of course between them is the cable, the interpreter, who is appropriately unadorned. The metaphor continues as far as the end of chapter 3, where Paul "twisted free [of the other characters] and hurried out to his car" (35). After this point, Vonnegut wisely lets the idea speak for itself. Aside from a few mentions later in the book, the reader is left to see for her or himself the tangled web that is woven, and perhaps even to become one of the ribbons in the mess.

This structure is seen in later books, and evolves into the eponymous metaphor of Cat's Cradle, but it is not Vonnegut's structure alone which is seen in seminal form in Player Piano. The themes of an absent father to whom one can not measure up, and the question of human purpose--especially in modern idleness--are also seen throughout his oeuvre. One example is, of course, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. As good as Player Piano was, it was at heart unimaginative. In Rosewater, Vonnegut has found his legs and treats the same things, but in the singular way I have come to expect of him. I feel like Rosewater, Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions (and possibly others which I have not read) should be compiled in to one large, Tralfamadorian novel. Vonnegut, Kilgore Trout and--in this novel--Garvey Ulm together have written the perfect treatise on life, meaning, and love. Insofar as it is truly Tralfamadorian, it is not possible to analyze it here, but it is possible to pick out a few nice quotes:

"He had eyes that were standard equipment for rich American fairies--junk jewelry eyes, synthetic star sapphires with winking Christmas-tree lights behind them" (176).

"All persons, living and dead,

Are purely coincidental,

And should not be construed" (epigraph)

"It's dead, it's dead. And that part of that man's life where he had to be a certain crazy way, that's done!" (237).

BTD:44

John IV

18:4 This is not the deepest thought, but isn't it odd to let a sentence end in a preposition in The Bible?

18:5 This is interesting. In John's account, Judas' kiss does not occur. Surely John was there to see, and is a rather more reliable source than Mark or Luke, at least. . .

18:10 How did John know the slave's name? Did he become a believer later? Or did John do some research?

18:13 Always interesting to wonder how the office of High Priest, originally a lifetime appointment, became a n annual office.

18:17 I wonder a bout the inclusion of this moment. Was John taking a dig at Peter? How reliable a narrator is he, considering that he himself is a character--assuming his authorship, of course, which is contested.

18:23 Furthermore, Annas is not even high priest at this point, is he? So why address him thusly?

18:26 Again, Malchus has an unusually prominent role in this gospel. What was John's connection to him?

18:39 In my opinion, Pilate behaved reasonably throughout this. Not only his politic approach to the problem (giving them a way out with their pride intact), but his philosophy. To a dogmatic person, the best answer is always, "What is truth?"

19:8 As well he should be, after the way he allowed him to be treated.

19:11 Waitaminnit. These two statements are clear enough separately, but together open up to an interesting interpretation. In the first part, the one above who granted Pilate power is clearly God, but in the second part the one who gives the power is held at fault by Jesus. Is he blaming God? Or is it a trick of proximity?

19:13 A real dilemma. Clearly to Pilate, Jesus is something divine. At the same time, the Jews have a point. In the right context, his claim is a threat to the Emperor and that divinity.

19:16 What else could he do at this point?

19:22 Other than take a cheap dig, that is.

19:24 This is not the first time that John seems to be playing Matthew's game of reverse prophecy. One wonders where JEsus got such a garment.

19:28 By the same token, Jesus seems to be playing the game here as well. The parenthetical could be taken to mean that Jesus was acting consciously in behalf of prophecy.

19:35 This might be a response to my reaction. John sees that his account might seem revisionist, and he offers himself up to questioning. This is rather a forceful, if not soundproof, argument for his authorship.

20:2 Who is they? Who would benefit from taking him? The Romans? The Sanhedrin? His own disciples?

20:14 This opens one of the most fascinating theological disputes in the Bible. Why did she not recognize him? Was he obscured, did her grief blind her, or was he resurrected in some unrecognizable form?

20:16 Perhaps her back was to him, and that is why she had to turn around to greet him.

20:17 Why not hold on to him? Is he incorporeal?

20:24 How convenient that the one who looked most like him was not there when he appeared. A clever trick?

21:4 This interesting question rears its head again. Perhaps the confusion about his identity is here attributable to his distance on the shore.

21:19 John here reveals a touching affection for Simon Peter, perhaps a wistful reflection of events that had happened long before their writing, and of a man now dead. Fitting, then, that he end with a reflection on his own death.

Virginia Woolf: Flush

There is not much to say about this book, for reasons of length as well as content. It was neither innovative or profound. It is unlike any other of her books--or any book, really. It is a rare intersection of scholarship and affection. The love Woolf bears for her topic is evident in every page, and in the fact that she bothered to write the book at all. I can relate to this, for certain. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was my first favorite among writers. Although I have grown apart from her in many ways, reading Flush brought back much of my old warmth, and that was well worth my time.

Gustave Flaubert: A Sentimental Education

I read this more out of obligation and stubbornness than anything else. I read half of Madame Bovary in College, and was not impressed, so I grumbled a bit when my muse, Philip Ward over at http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtward.html sent me in Flaubert's direction again. Perhaps my taste has matured since undergrad, though, because I was cured of my ambivalence by the second chapter.

Flaubert does nothing particularly eye-catching or unique in this novel, other than his overflowing sentence structure--often the clauses build up on each other like banks of snow, and hang precipitously over the next paragraph. It would be easy, in view of this seeming conventionality, to view the book as unoriginal. I easily forget that his scrupulous focus on the concrete, in addition to making the title a bit ironic, is itself an innovation. A Sentimental Education was written in a decidedly sentimental literary world, and Flaubert's abhorrence of sentimentality is, in fact, rather brave.

It is not for its literary significance that I recommend this book, however. I was thunderstruck by Flaubert's keen insight into the human mind, and especially into human pettiness. To take one sterling example, after he relents to his mistress,"Frederic didn't enjoy hearing her take for granted an action which he considered noble" (418). What a marvelous observation on Flaubert's part. He precisely identifies a thought of the sort that lives in all minds, but rarely makes it onto the page. In short, Flaubert paints a chillingly unsatisfying picture of "society's almost unlimited capacity for indifference", beginning from within the mind of one young man (261).

Farah Ahmedi: The Other Side of the Sky

This is in the "Do I want to teach this book?" category, and the answer is yes, in three out of four categories.

It would be easiest to start with the only way in which this is not a good book to teach my students: the length. They have taken seven weeks (more or less) to read a book that is half the length. The payoff of teaching this book would simply not be worth the instructional time it would eat up. A teacher at a school where the students would read so much as a page a night on their own might come to a different conclusion.

One way this book is eminently suitable is its readability. SMOG (http://www.harrymclaughlin.com/SMOG.htm) calculates the level at 11th grade, which is too high for my students technically, but the thorough and helpful footnotes figure nowhere in that calculation, and I only typed half a page into the calculator, so it may well be skewed. My assessment is more like 9th.

Both of the above criteria are a bit sterile, but the book is anything but. It is delightfully idiomatic, thoughtfully written, and filled with emotion and imagery. The students will especially appreciate the author/narrator's nearness to their own age, and my Latino students will relate well to the immigration and ELL themes in the book.

As a teacher, what I am most interested in is the books pedagogical possibilities. There is so much that can be done with this highly topical book--relating it to the war in Afghanistan, 9/11, family conflict, culture shock, any numerous other themes, both in language arts and social studies. If I were staying at my current job, I would co-teach it with my Social Studies compatriot across the hall in a heartbeat.

Liveblogging the Bible: John III

15:2 This is rather a different verse than I remember. I had been trained to think of this pruning as the removal of wicked people, but here it feels more like the refinement of one's self. I, for one, have definitely had some parts pruned away.

15:5 Of course, this verse contradicts what I just wrote.

15:13 Of course, Jesus' laid down his life for more than just his friends, according to traditional theology.

15:15 this is a nice moment that had escaped me before. He relents a little from the harsher rhetoric earlier in the chapter, and reaches out to the apostles on something deeper than a doctrinal level.

15:27 According to John's first chapter, though, they were nowhere near with him in "the beginning".

16:5 This is something of an enigmatic verse. I can think of no other time that Jesus fished for a statement from the disciples like this. Was it important that they know where he was going? Is it other than the obvious answer?

16:7 Metaphysically speaking, why is this? What balance must be struck between Jesus and The Advocate? Why does he have to request for it to be sent, and why must that request be in person? Is The Advocate more powerful or useful at this point than he is? So many questions come from this verse, and no way at all to answer them it seems.

16:8-11 and these verses are even worse! Let us take just 9, and see if we can piece together the mechanics of it. For them to be proven wrong about sin is to prove them wrong about their belief in him. What then is the belief in him that must be reversed, as it relates to sin? I can think of nothing but their belief that he has no power to forgive sin, but it does not seem correct to call this a belief about sin; it is rather a belief about him. Although this is a tenuous answer, it at least makes some sort of sense. I can think of no way to stretch the next two proofs, about righteousness and judgement, into something lucid.

16:13 an interesting metaphysical rule, if it is to be taken as such: the Spirit has no agency, it is merely a medium, inconsistent with much mainstream Christian teaching, but thoroughly consistent with both Witness teaching and Science of Mind.

16:14-15 Here is a possible answer to the quandary of verse 7, namely, "What is the connection between Jesus' departure and the arrival of The Advocate?" Jesus twice declares here that "He", whoever that is, will take something from Jesus and give it to the disciples. If we infer from 13 that the spirit is more a force than a person, then it could be wondered if Jesus' presence on Earth was simply using up too much spirit, and he had to depart to make it accessible for them. This is the wildest--and most recreational--of conjectures, but it at least does not contradict anything said here so far.

16:24 The only possible conclusion from this interchange is that Jesus will only be shedding his mortal body, and will appear to them in some other form. Is it possible then that The Advocate is Jesus himself, in another form?

16:33 This conversation ends up rather more inspirational than it began.

17:5 Only a few things are possible to think about John at this point: he either is making some of this shit up to aggrandize the memory of Jesus, or he is the only one of the four gospel writers who understands what's going on.

17:6 This feels like the climax of the book, rather than Jesus' death. That death is just resolution of this speech.

17:25 Wow. This is an aria moment, to be sure. In this past few chapters, Jesus concern has been chiefly with his disciples knowing where he comes from, which is to say from the Father. It is most surprising that this is his focus, because one would assume that they accepted that all along. Did he mean something more than we understand here, or were the Apostles up to this point still skeptical of his divine source, if not outright divinity? And he seems so relieved once assured of their belief. Was there really doubt?

3 Quickies

Alcyone: "At the Feet of the Master"

This item, more of a booklet than a book, I received as a gift from the Denver Theosophical Society. I was intrigued by an advertisement on their website to the effect of "Always wanted special insight and awareness, but never figured out how to do it? Here we are!" Which I interpreted as "Come get special mental powers!" This is something I have wanted, of course, for a long time.

The answers offered in the group, and in this booklet, were not satisfying, but merely repeated what I already knew from reading The Buddha's work: "Have no desire for psychic powers; they will come when the master knows it is best for you to have them" (17). Rats. I already knew, of course, that there is no trick to enlightenment, and that it is a lot of hard work. How many times do I need to be told this?

Tom Stoppard: "The Dissolution of Dominic Boot" and "'M' is for Moon Among Other Things"

Yes, I really did read two Stoppard plays in one night, but volume two of his collected works is a collection of his radio dramas, not stage plays, and they are correspondingly shorter. I'm not sure if my confusion over the first would be cured by hearing it as it was performed, or just by a better understanding of the British Monetary system. Either way, I didn't get it. The second was more comprehendible, but the ten minutes or so was not long enough for the full Stoppardness of it to shine. It was amusing, but not really thought-provoking.

Ovid: Metamorphoses

One of my favorite things--and a sure fire mark of mind-blowing literature--is when the form of a book mirrors the function. by this measure, Metamorphoses should be the best book ever written. Within the scope of one book, Ovid flows seamlessly from one scene, one metamorphosis to another, stories taking place within stories within stories, and stories--sometimes roughly--altered to queue up the next in the series. The result is an endlessly flowing expression of Ovid's central idea, that all life is change and that nothing stays itself for long. This theme reaches a touching and convincing climax in the voice of Pythagoras :

Everything changes; nothing dies; the soul

Roams to and fro, now here, now there, and takes

what frame it will (XV.166-169)

Sadly, to my ears the book was no more inspiring than a summary of Bullfinch's Mythology. Even though Ovid is reputed to be the most witty, most agile of all the Latin writers ( though not necessarily the best), none of that came through in this translation. This is not the first bad experience I've had with the Oxford World Classics editions (see previous post on Beaumarchais). Even could I overlook the typos--and I cannot--I feel the thick and forced meter of the translation imply that the thickness of the language comes from the translation as well. It is suggested that I read the Ted Hughes version. I would have earlier balked, as I suspect that Hughes' ego would lead him to take liberties. Now that I have read a prosaic version, I welcome what will no doubt be a soggy one.

Interesting note on appellation: I was thoroughly surprised to meet Lucifer in book XI. I felt a thesis rising in my blood as thought about the connections that could be made to Hebrew Mythology, though as I thought about it, I wondered if the translator had inserted something unseemly. Research reveals that the name Lucifer does not appear in the Hebrew text of the Bible, and especially not as a reference to Satan. His first appearance in that capacity is in the Latin Vulgate, four centuries after Ovid. To sum up, Lucifer was the evening star in 400 years before he was Satan.

BTD: 34. Falling behind rather embarrassingly.

Two for the Show

Kurt Vonnegut: Cat's Cradle

Halfway through this book, I was ready to officially convert to Bokononism. All of the central tenets make a certain perverse sense, including and especially the paradoxical exhortation that Bokononism itself is foma (lies). Aside from being great fun to consider, it actually explains something that has intruiged me for years: why do certain people keep appearing in my life in wildly different contexts? Bokonon's answer: they are part of my Karass, meant to accomplish something jointly with me during our lives. Kelly Palmblad, even though we barely know each other, is clearly a member of my Karass, and probably Kim Templin as well.

By the end of the book, however, I feel that Vonnegut had emasculated my support for Bokononism. Others of his masterpieces, Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions, to name a few, are hopelessly convoluted, but are framed as non-fiction in that they could conceivably have taken place in our own universe. This is not necessarily what makes them great, but it is what makes them wonderful; the reader walks away saying to him or herself, "I can picture this happening." Cat's Cradle, as it ends with the ersatz end of the world, does not evoke that response. As much as I wanted to be a Bokononist, by the end of the book it was impossible. Bokononism didn't exist in this universe.

This is neither a mistake or an accident on Vonnegut's part, of course. Even the epigraph should have preapred me for such a thing: "Nothing in this book is true." It evens serves to add a level to the allegorical religion: just like all other religions, it is fictional and ultimately disappointing. If the book had inspired a generation of nerds running around declaring themselves Bokononists, as I no doubt would have, they no doubt would have missed the point. I may do it anyway, just out of rebellion . . .

Francisco Jimenez: Breaking Through

I read this to see if it was suitable for my students, rather than for pleasure. I decided it would be a good choice for the classroom for a few reasons:

The Latino backdrop of the book would be familiar to them

The coming of age story matches their current path

The conflict with the Dad and friction with traditional values might be especially relevant

It's written at an appropriate and accessible level

I therefore proceeded to teach it to them, and found that they didn't agree with me at all. they especially hated the ending. In their minds, going to college was a dumb ending for the story, one they couldn't wrap their brains around. It didn't make sense to them at all that the protagonist would end up that way. They loved it, up until the last chapter. I see their point, not from a social perspective, but from a literary one. The end did feel a bit sudden and arbitrary somehow, even though it was clearly set up from very early in the book. Still, their reaction surprised me.

John II

8:1 I had never before thought of this as an example of Jesus "Having nowhere to lay his head," but it seems pretty clear from this reading. The question then arises, why did nobody offer to take him in? Did they assume he was okay? Did they feel intimidated? Did they ask, and he refused?

8:3 To ask his opinion on a judicial matter, and not to take her directly to the Sanhedrin, would seem to undercut the Pharisees here.

8:8 was this offhanded? Or did he write something else that is not recorded. This is the only example that I can think of of Jesus writing anything. Of course, his attitude here appears affected, but I can imagine the Buddha really remaining aloof from the situation. Traditionally, this is thought to have been Mary Magdalene, but I have never noticed any proof for that claim.

8:12 Later, or in other accounts, he compares his disciples to the light of the world. Which is it?

8:13 This is a purely legalistic argument, but Jesus turns it into a philosophical one. It was inadmissible for a Jew to testify in his or her own behalf in the Sanhedrin, like a sort of reverse fifth amendment. Jesus does not always recognize their laws however, and answers a higher call.

8:18 But just for kicks, he blows apart their legal argument as well.

8:22 Yes, in a way he is.

8:25 This is a bit rude on his part. He just got done castigating the Pharisees for not knowing where he came from. Then seemingly honest hearted seekers ask the very question, and he rejects, not only their question, but themselves.

8:39 Perhaps this explains a bit. They are not honest-hearted at all. In which case his, "why do I even talk to you," becomes meaningless, for he goes ont o exlain in depth--completely out of character with the Jesus of vss 1-11. This makes a bit of sense, for 1-11 are not universally regarded as canonical. For my part, I rather prefer them to the rest of the chapter.

Jesus speaks very differently in this chapter to the Pharisees in private than in public. His speech to them--seemingly not directed at the am ha'arets (people of the Earth in Hebrew) at all--has a different tone, of course, for he is chastising them. But his tactics are also different, more didactic, more religious, less parabolic--if that word can be used in that way, and I hope it can :)

9:1 Thanks to Robert for helping me remember the word "peripatetic" to describe this verse.

9:3 This seems to be just as unsatisfactory an answer as either of the other two--perhaps more so. As tragic as it would be to be stricken with blindness as a punishment, it is downright cruel for it to be done arbitrarily.

9:6-10 Is the clay a remedy or a metaphor? I would love to know how either one works.

9:15 perhaps it was a taunt, for if he had not made the mud, it would not have counted as work, and no controversy would have been stirred.

9:24, 30 I think this man would make an interesting character study. Two nice little zingers, and then he disappears from the canon forever. Time for some Midrashim!

9:35 This "Son of Man" business is becoming rather a delicate point. Firstly, it is capitalized, indicating some untranslated significance in the Jewish. secondly, the words have the power to convert here, as though Jesus had identified himself as the Messiah. Are the two phrases comparable, at least in gravitas?

9:38 And what might this involve?

9:41 Here's another delicate item. The two statements require some logical acrobatics to reconcile. The extension one would expect from "If you were blind, you would not have sin" is 'you see sin, so you must be blind." Instead we get "now that you say 'We see,' your sin remains." The somersault is obvious upon scrutiny: in the first statement, Jesus refers to the perceived sin--his own. In the second, he refers to the sin of perception--theirs (a nice little antimetabole on my part, if I do say so :). The claim--and even as I'm writing it down, I'm reconsidering, so don't judge too harshly--then turns their condemnation of him into condemnation of themselves. Nicely, and subtly, done!

10:6 They must be obtuse indeed not to understand this one, especially considering the context of the preceding conversation.

10:7 This is unexpected. I expected him, quite naturally I think, to be the shepherd, not the gate.

10:11 Oh, now he's the Shepherd. Is this free associating, or post facto revision?

10:16 I feel like the latter is more likely, as though vss. 7-10 were part of another conversation entirely, added here for convenience.

10:17 The Witness interpretation of this is, of course, that there are two tiers of Jesus' followers. i do not think it implies any such thing--more like a Jew/Gentile distinction.

10:19 Which would explain why the Jews were so upset at an otherwise innocuous statement.

10:24 And he has said it by now, just not to them. For when I read "The Jews", especially in John, I think "The Pharisees".

10:28 Here's a little non-sequitur for you. He seems to spill the beans a bit here, perhaps even going too far. Are they really one? What does he mean? Is he just antagonizing them?

10:36 Ah, but that's not what you said!

10:38 Why not just say it this way to begin with? Thanks to that earlier verse, now we have to deal with millennia of nonsense from the council of Nicaea.

10:40 Rather a poetic place to end the chapter.

11:1-6 So, Jesus is more concerned with his own glory than his friends? Since when?

11:16 One of the rare glimpses into the character of one of the Apostles. Thomas is a small, but well defined character in this narrative.

11:20 A contrast between the two that matches up with the other account of their different approaches to Jesus. Both of them are clearly mad at Jesus, but they express it in different ways. Martha comes out looking better in this account, and she may be the only one at this point who really believes in Jesus power to raise the dead.

11:32 Or was she simply to grief-stricken? She says the same thing that her sister does.

11:51 I don't think this counts as a prophecy when he himself arranges for it to come true . . .

This whole chapter irks me. It just seems so arbitrary for him to have consciously allowed his friend to die just to have another chance to perform a miracle. Were there no other dead people available? Was it somehow important that the victim of his sacrifice be a friend? Does it have something to do with his declaration in vs. 42 that even his words were choreographed? Was the faith of the disciples faltering as things got very dangerous for them in Jerusalem, and he felt the need to perform a miiiiiighty theatrical lesson to shore them up? The whole thing feels muddy.

12:1 It feels from this verse that the thing was not written all at once, or together. Why remind us of something that happened less than a page ago?

12:3-5 I had neglected to remember that this event was after the resurrection of LAzarus. This makes Judas even more of a douche; of course she would do this. He raised her brother from the frickin' dead!

12:7 This is cryptic. Obviously, she was not keeping it at all. On a side note, this sort of oil was purchased mainly for investment. To use it like this seems a bit like purchasing a rare stamp, and then mailing something with it, negating its value.

12:10-11 I see a major flaw with this plan. To kill someone who won't stay dead seems like a losing enterprise.

12:23 What does this have to do with the Greeks?

12:42 This feels a bit like the Mormon's submitting for fear of losing their Temple Recommend

12:44-46 This fits nicely with my Christology, which I would not call Christian. To me, Jesus was simply transparent to the light of God. We are as humans mostly opaque to that light, and at best we can reflect it. In Jesus case, the light passes through him unimpaired. That is why he could say these things here.

12:47 This verse pulls apart many of the ideas of mainstream Christianity. I like it. Jesus judges no one. Special note to The Witnesses: this includes any perceived appearances in the Revelation to John, who wrote these words also.

This verse is a nice return to the reflective, calm and loving Jesus that was absent in Ch. 11

13:3 I like this verse for some reason. It's very matter of fact and almost Zen: a trait John doesn't exhibit very often. " . . . he had come from God and was going to God."

13:7 How did Peter not get it, even as Jesus was explaining? Is there something deepere here than "Be least to be first"?

13:10 I smell a double meaning. "Not all of you" here means both "Not all of your body" and "Not all of you present".

13:18 "I know whom I have chosen" here seems to indicate that Jesus had at least some agency in Judas' betrayal, giving a bit of leverage to Flannery O'Connor.

13:24 A nice bit of characterization here. John comes across as not only Peter's sidekick, but closely in tune with what the other is thinking.

13:26 Another indication of Jesus' agency in this choice. The bread may have been just a symbol, or it may have had some sort of effect on Judas; it seems as if the bread was a catalyst for Satan's entry.

14:6 This doesn't exactly answer the question, but it certainly does give people something to put on bumper stickers for the next 2,000 years.

14:10-11 This may very well be true, but put this way it feels self-aggrandizing. It does not seem that someone who is the very image of the father would feel the need to make such a big deal out of it.

14:15 Capitalizing Advocate begs the question "who?" It has been taken for granted that it is the Holy Spirit, but I am not convinced.

14:22 We have heard from three so-called lesser apostles in this chapter, but all of them are MacGuffins, only serving to pose the questions so that Jesus can answer them.

14:25 Oh. Never mind.

This chapter feels muddled, as though John doesn't quite succeed in making his point. Jesus says the same thing four times: I am going to the Father; keep my commandments. It still feels like some bigger truth fails to be imparted here.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

Not mind-blowing, but good and, no doubt, important to have read. It feels so much more sophisticated than other books that were being written at that time. Take Dickens, for instance, since I also just finished The Pickwick Papers, and it is still fresh in my mind. Compared to the effort Dostoevsky puts into characterization, even the most sophisticated of Dickens' characters seem cheap and flat. By the end of Crime and Punishment, we know more about Raskolnikov than his own mother, whereas the workings of Pickwick's or Sam's mind by the end of their adventures are still a bit of a mystery.

The question remains whether this is a virtue or not. Is Dickens primitive compared to Dostoevsky? Or elegant? Our relative unfamiliarity with Dickens' characters does not make them less memorable or less literary. I think it is a matter of what each was trying to do. Dickens was trying to sell books; Dostoevsky to uncover the mysteries of the human mind. I think it safe to say that each succeeded, though neither perhaps to his ultimate satisfaction.

Mario Vargas Llosa: The Time of the Hero

I'm not sure if it is Llosa's subtlety as a writer, or my carelessness as a reader, but I labored through almost the entire book under a misconception. So gently does he blur the lines between the characters of the book, that it wasn't until the epilogue that I realized I had been fooled--or been foolish. I will need to revisit the book to answer this question for sure. Maybe he was perfectly clear that the first person narrated sections were about the Jaguar all along. He was clear enough that the third person-omniscient sections were about the Poet. I think it more likely that I was suckered in by some early references, and at the end, my mind was blown almost as violently as it was at the end of The Life of Pi. Underneath all that authorial magic, Llosa crafts a engaging narrative with likeable, memorable characters, and wraps it up satisfyingly, but not too satisfyingly. what more can one ask for in a novel?

BTD:30

Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais: The Marriage of Figaro and The Guilty Mother

Very little caught my attention about the former of these two plays, largely because I have been in the opera version--one of my favorites. There are playwrights--Stoppard, Shakespeare--that must be read to be fully appreciated, and there are those--Beaumarchais, Moliere--that must be seen. The Marriage of Figaro was cute enough, but I couldn't help but wish I were watching instead of reading it. With the exception of the truly touching scene between Figaro and Suzanna in IV.1, everything in Beaumarchais' version is improved upon by Mozart--although the librettist Lorenzo DaPonte does not seem to have improved upon it at all.

The Guilty Mother is a different story. It is more or less agreed that the opera version by Milhaud is wildly inferior both to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Rossini's Barber of Seville (the first of Beaumarchais' trilogy). I didn't expect it, therefore, to be my favorite of the three plays. I'm sure I would not have enjoyed it so much if I had not first read the other two; so much history and characterization is necessary to truly understand The Guilty Mother. Figaro's wit and resourcefulness in the first two plays make for good comic theatre, but little more than that. In The Guilty Mother, Figaro's skills fail him, and he finds himself at the mercy of a wilier, younger foe. An audience familiar with Figaro as a character is naturally on the edge of their seats, anticipating how Figaro will trick his way out of this one, and becomes increasingly anxious as Figaro is outwitted at every turn. This tension is heightened by the affection that familiar readers/viewers no doubt have for Almaviva and Rosine by the time of the third play. Beaumarchais elevates The Guilty Mother above the other two when it is not Figaro's wiles that saves the day, but the fierce love that The Count and Countess still have for each other--and maybe a touch of Divine intervention. All Figaro needs to do by the end is tidy up and do damage control. Thus the Guilty Mother is elevated beyond a comic play to a deeply genuine and human experience, and a rare example of believable love on stage.

Charles Dickens: The Pickwick Papers

The critic G.K. Chesterton wrote of Dickens, "If he never again descended to the level of Sketches by Boz, it is doubtful if to the level of Pickwick he ever again rose." There are those who say that this is Dickens' finest work. The format, they argue, plays to Dickens' strengths: characterization, epigram, and setting a quirky scene. There is little if any plot here, and that seems perfectly suited to Dickens' style. Pickwickians also seem to have an affection for the eponymous character akin to that of Sherlockian fanatics.

On the first count, I think I can safely agree with Pickwick's supporters. When Dickens introduces plot into the mix, it often takes the form of some convoluted and unnecessary mystery, but there never seems to be any sense of development. Things happen, yes, but they don't seem to belong to each other. Of course, Dickens' real gift is his inventiveness. His characters are indelible and the situations in which they find themselves are just barely on this side of slapstick, thus preserving some weight while entertaining.

On the second count, I think I must dissent with Pickwickian wisdom. I find little about Mr. Pickwick that is memorable, let alone charming and sincere. His sense of civility is both thin and misguided. He does not think before he acts--for good or for ill--and many of the hardships accounted in the book are the result of this fault in him and his followers. Pickwick, and especially his worthless friends, all suffer in comparison to Sam Weller. This latter character has all the characteristics that Pickwick should: wisdom, wit, judiciousness, charisma and passion. It is difficult to see what he finds so admirable in his master--or, indeed, what anybody finds there.

Adin Steinsaltz: The Essential Talmud

This book was unsatisfying in a few ways. For one, it was not what I expected--I bought it on the expectation that it was actual selections from the actual Talmud. Instead, it is something of an explication and a history of the book, with very little actual quotation, and no appreciable excerpts. In discharging this task, it does a serviceable job, although it could have done without, for example, an excruciatingly technical description of the layout of a Talmud page, which could not possibly be of interest to any layperson.

But there is another, more literal way in which it was unsatisfying. It does not satisfy the requirement in anticipation of which I purchased it. I'm far enough into Ward's Lifetime of Reading to be invested in continuing it (somewhere into year four), but I take exception to his suggestion that one read the entire Talmud. At first, I took the prescription to heart, but I could not, for some reason, find it at any bookstore. I searched Amazon and found the reason: it is not a book at all, but books, an encyclopedia of some 12 volumes. The suggestion that anybody other than a Jewish scholar should read the entire thing is a bit excessive. I thought I had reached a compromise by ordering The Essential Talmud, but as there is no real Talmud therein, I feel like I have not discharged the requirement that I have lain upon myself. All of which is rather tedious to have read, and good on you for getting this far. I shall herewith reward you with an interesting thought I had while reading it.

In reading the Hebrew Scriptures some last year, I felt a new perspective on what the Jews meant by sacrifice. Growing up, I had, whether by instruction or invention, come the the belief that sacrificing an animal meant giving it up, losing possession of it, either in fire or otherwise. rereading those verses as an adult, it seemed to me that the Jews did no such thing. They seemed to be allowed to eat the animal after sacrificing it.

This explication of the Talmud reinforces that conclusion. The idea of sacrifice has a different meaning in this context than one is accustomed to. The jews butchered the animal as usual, and simply gave a small portion of it as their sacrifice. They didn't give up the animal, they sacred-fied it, they made it sacred. By the same token, we often think of making sacrifices, either for religious reasons, as at Lent, or otherwise, as in a diet. Such a usage of "sacrifice" is not Biblically sound. If we sacrifice something, we make it sacred.

What a refreshing approach to living. Instead of living in scarcity, wherein we have to give something up, we can enjoy it as long as we do it in a sacred, holy fashion. In order to sacrifice something, I don't give it up, I just do it in a holy way. And every time I sacrifice a pizza, I do it on the altar of my own body, and I make it sacred.

Which, I suppose is an example of the Talmudic method of inquiry. Instead of accepting my "suffering is holy" upbringing, I could have been enjoying holy pizza all these years. As they say, ve-dilma ipkha? Is the opposite just as true?

Liveblogging the Bible:John

I was tempted to give up the Liveblog for this book. It takes soooo long to complete even one account doing it this way. I really should complete The New Testament this year to keep on schedule with Ward's Lifetime of Reading (http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtward.html), not to mention the facts that it is enjoyable, important to my development as a person, and something that, had I done it ten years ago, would have saved me a world of hurt.

But there is also the fact that I am becoming a bit obligatory in my reading. There is already the danger for an English major/teacher to read to finish books, rather than to enjoy them. I feel no little pride at being able to say, "I've finished Plutarch", whether or not I got much out of it. If a book is irritating or pointless, where is the virtue in finishing it?

These musings aside, I conclude that the brain damage of liveblogging the Bible is outweighed by the benefit, and so here goes:

1:1 What a way to start out. I had forgotten that the book starts with this tidbit. As a Jehovah's Witness, I was well-armed for people to use this verse as a support of the Trinity doctrine. I knew, through no scholarship of my own, that the original Greek here for "The word was with God" and "The word was God" use two different forms of the word translated as "God". In the first case τὸν θεόν is used to indicate capitalized God, and in the second, θεὸς lower-case god, a state of deity, godlike, but not the big J himself. This distinction is a bit academic, and stems from the fact the there is no indefinite article in Greek. Therefore, the former could read "The God" and the latter simply "god". Yeesh. All of this was drilled into the heads of young Witnesses in the event that the object of conversion raised John 1:1 as an objection. But . . .

It obscures the verse. The Word is a fascinating appellation for Christ, and many believe that this gives him identity as far back as Genesis, as the word that God spoke in the act of creation. John touches upon depths here that the other Gospeleers never thought of. Was Christ a perfect reflection of God, though man? Or was he something superhuman, even God himself (this latter proposition I will always find ludicrous). I prefer to, in my baked-from-scratch theology, that he was, almost literally, a word. Christ was an expression of God, an idea made so by the speaking. Wanna know a secret? So are we all. Do you see how much effort can go into liveblogging one verse? Moving on . . .

1:5 a very serviceable metaphor indeed. The nature of light is that the teeniest bit can overcome all darkness. I was moved by the expression of Byron Katie this weekend, when she said, "Love is deadly. It will annihilate (perhaps not the exact word) everything that is unlike itself." That was a good workshop, BTW.

1:6 So what is the difference between being "sent from God" and being the Word of God? How is John less of an expression than Christ? Once removed, I guess. And was John literally ordered by the person of God, or simply inspired by the Divine?

1:7 another name for Christ: the light--not capitalized, interestingly

1:13 beautiful! By this process, we are all the Word of God. I had forgotten how metaphysical John is.

1:14 Even as all words do. The word that I speak creates my reality, and thereby becomes flesh.

1:17,18 How does John invoke Moses in one breath, and say that no man has seen God with the next?

1:25 Where did the idea of baptism even enter into the Jewish consciousness? It is not anywhere in the Old Testament.

1:30 It is this that John refers to in 1:15, indicating that the latter was written later. This indicates that an editing process went into the writing of this gospel, and helps to explain its wonderful fluidity so far.

1:32 I can think of no reason to take this metaphor more literally than the light or The Word. One always sees images of the Holy Spirit as a literal dove, which I think is silly. Anybody with a scrap of poetry in his or her soul can recognize a metaphor upon seeing it.

1:33 This seems to answer the question posed for 1:6.

1:35 I must have missed something. John never is said to have baptized Jesus in this account. Jesus just sort of walks by.

1:40 Who was the other? Possibly John himself who, as I recall, avoids referring to himself.

1:42 I never realized in my early Biblical education that the word "Peter" means "rock". This would have been highly inconvenient to Witness Theology, and it was somehow never mentioned.

1:47 I love this characterization. I think of myself as Nathanael sometimes. Never ask me if a dress makes you look fat. A pity we never learn much more about him.

1:50 How is this not Jesus' first miracle? It happens long before the water into wine stunt.

2:1 I wonder why he doesn't give her name?

2:4 Yeesh! What a jerk. Was she pressuring him somehow? Did she know something that we don't at this point in the narrative?

2:5 Evidently she did know something, and evidently John was either present or has a reputable source, for this is a rather specific detail.

2:9 There is a hole in the narrative here: we missed the part where the water turns into wine. I wonder if it's a quirk of translation or Jewish storytelling conventions for this information to be treated so offhandedly. In a modern story, this would be a noticeable flaw.

2:10 This seems to be a peroration, rather than a compliment, as if to say, "Idiot! Where have you been hiding this? This is gooood shit!"

2:15 Wow! It's only chapter 2. Luke took forever to reveal Jesus' dark side.

2:19 And cutting to the chase with regard to his death as well.

In general, the Jesus of this account does not seem as interested in preserving the mystery as he did in the other three.

3:2 Who is "we"? The Pharisees as a group? How intriguing--as in, the subject of an intrigue.

3:3-6 Although the metaphysical interpretation of this idea is pretty clear, it is unsatisfying somehow--as though it doesn't quite get to the meat of the matter.

3:7 This is more like it. The one who acts with Spirit is as the wind: his actions do not belong to him. He does not live; he is being lived.

3:10 This feels disingenuous, and a cheap shot.

3:12 A very Confucian sentiment. First, know this moment. If you can do that--and none can--worry about the future.

3:13 Which gives this verse a new meaning.

3:16 One cannot help but wonder if Jesus said these things, or if they were added to give verisimilitude.

3:17 Judge not, lest you suffer, for judgement is the source of all suffering.

3:18 Condemned in the sense of already in hell--for not to believe is to be in hell.

3:19 I thought you didn't come to condemn the world. This section is not as Zen as the preceding ones.

3:27 This is more to my liking, and in line with my Theology. What is, is. To argue with it is silly. I can just hear Byron Katie saying of John's disciples, "They are simply believing their thoughts. Is it true?"

3:29 In this metaphor, I suppose that the Spirit is the bride.

John's effort to frame Jesus as The Son of God seems to get in the way of Jesus' teachings, which are rather enlightening.

4:2 An interesting detail. Jesus did not baptize anybody. Why not?

4:6Also revealing that Jesus gets tired. Why include this detail, if the whole point of your book is to paint Jesus as divine?

4:7 It's hard to reconcile this with his later calling a Samaritan woman a dog. IS it because he's too thirsty to worry about that?

4:26 John's testimony is in direct conflict with the other three here. Matthew Luke and especially Mark all show that Jesus avoided identifying himself as the Messiah. In John's version, he does it right off the bat.

4:32 Based on this verse, an argument could be made that the water at the well incident was not incidental at all. If he had no need of refreshment, then he contrived the whole thing to make a point.

4:35 And this is the point: he wants people to know about him. He wants the harvest of followers, or to spread the truth, depending on your perspective.

4:45 This seems to contradict the statement that "A prophet has no honor in the prophet's own town".

5:14 This is an interesting admonition. Does Jesus mean to indicate that the man's suffering was a result of some misdeed of his own?

5:17 This is a perfect answer to the Sabbath argument. God doesn't take the Sabbath off. Why should we?

5:22-23 Okay, so if i were the Jews, this is the point in this speech where I would be calling "heresy!" Claiming to be God's son is one thing, and a perfectly innocuous thing at that. But claiming the ability to give life--before having actually done it--reeks of sacrilege, and post facto editing on the author's part.

5:24 I'm not clear in exactly what sense does the believer "not come under judgement"? This is a rather strong statement. I could choose to interpret it as "To the believer, one thing is as good as another, for the believer, desiring nothing, judges nothing", but that seems to go against John's intent . . .

5:30 Although such an interpretation is not altogether incompatible with this verse.

5:31 I wish that people had the sense to apply this verse to the Bible. If the Bible testifies about itself, the testimony must not be true either.

Wow. This book has a bunch of mysteries wrapped up in it. One one hand, John is less enjoyable, because it paints Jesus in what I consider an unapproachable light, and eliminates much of what is endearing about him. On the other hand, it is far richer in theology--perhaps incomprehensibly so--and so merits attention of a different kind.

6:4 John's audience is clearly not Jewish. they would need no explanation fo what the Passover is.

6:13 it strikes me that this miracle is rather singular among the world's religions. What a gentle and striking demonstration of power.

6:18-20 The same could be said of this example. All of Jesus miracles seem to be remarkable for their gentleness and their focus on creative, rather than destructive ability--unlike Moses, Elisha, etc.

6:26 And he was correspondingly more popular--though perhaps not in the way he wished to be

6:30 Perhaps it is just my current mood, but I feel a little irritated in Jesus' behalf here. First they come to him just for the food, then they demand a further sign. And this is just how people would act today as well. Basically selfish and stupid.

6:41 Oh, and fickle.

6:54,55 Well, he was not allowed to turn them away, but he could certainly give them more than they bargained for.

6:64 This seems to assume that Judas did not believe. What if his story is all the more tragic because he believed the most?

6:70 possibly a bit of editorializing on John's part. After all, it is said that John was the closest to Jesus' heart.

7:5 The matter of belief again becomes troublesome here. What if his brothers said this, not because they did not believe, but because their belief was so strong. I think the resentment that comes through in these last few chapters is John's, not Jesus'.

7:13 Waitaminnit. Isn't it the Jews who are being spoken of here? Are they then afraid of themselves? Or is "The Jews" code for the Jewish political system?

7:15 In which case it would be the system that was astonished here, not the people.

7:21 is the "one work" the miracle of the loaves and fishes? He has performed more than one miracle by this point in the narrative.

7:22 is the parenthetical correction here from Jesus, or from John? It does not seem like the sort of thing Jesus would add in the middle of a sermon.

7:23 This must be the "one work" then: the healing of the man at Beth-Zatha.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles

I can certainly see why this is the most read/adapted of Doyle's four novels.  The twists and revelations are exactly of the sort that make for good theater/television, and the spectre of the demon hound is custom made to capture the imagination.  It's a pity that it wasn't better written.

In other, less famous of the Holmes novels, Doyle errs in the other direction.  The narrative is sound, the characterization solid and the plot tidy.  It is only the relative lack of imagination in A Study in Scarlet , for example, that makes them less memorable.  To draw attention to one parallel in particular, Doyle's lengthy interluding narrative regarding the history of the Mormon enclave fits nicely into place, and is even a refreshing break from the narration of Watson.  Doyle attempts the same thing in The Hound, but the interludes feel forced, even convoluted.  The chapters that consist of diary entries are utterly unbelievable as such--they do not have the feel of diary entries, but retain the style of the rest of the novel--and the same is true for the chapters made up of letters to Holmes.  Another dissatisfactory element is the ending chapter.  Holmes' recounting feels forced, didactic even.  

But even barring these flaws, I continue to discount Doyle's work.  Imaginative, yes, but literate?  Hardly.  I have read nearly 3,000 annotated pages of his in the past two years, and am entertained, but not impressed.

BTD:25.  Right on schedule.

Greguerias--continued

For an explanation of what the hell this is, please see earlier post. It was getting too long, and I'm not even ten percent done . . .

The summer is full of anonymous hissing.

The sleepwalker seems to be taking the measure of something with the perenthesis of his extended hands . . . perhaps of his own shroud.

The "A" is the camp store of the alphabet.

"Bread" is such a short word so that we can ask for it urgently.

He was so courteous that he sometimes saluted the trees.

Two in a car: a love affair. Three: adultery. Four: kidnapping. Five: crime. Six: a shootout with the police.

In the end, a bottle of champagne is an anti-aircraft gun.

Only about 2,200 to go . . .

The architecture of snow is always in the Gothic style.

Every comma of their royal decrees is hung with their ermine pelts.

The Nile is a most reckless and beautiful horse.

One doesn't have to give himself a baby carriage for the first child.

How stiff the beard of the hedgehog sticks out!

If the miniatures were edible, they would be delicious.

The cricket keeps the pulse of the night.

Plantains get old in one day only.

The hypochondriac seems to me like a disparate mixture of a crocodile and a hippopotamus (a play on the spelling of the three words in Spanish).

The moon sits on the night like a lapel pin (some liberties).

On the old palms, the mane of age comes out.

With bad tobacco, fleas of fire jump out of your pipe.

Thunder is a drum without noise.

The only purpose of the train's whistle is to scatter melancholy over the countryside.

The bicyclist is a vampire of velocity.

The bad thing about a helicopter is that it always seems like a toy.

Lakes are puddles left by the Flood.

Artistic definition: the cockroach is a metaphorical beauty mark on the night.

The hail throws its rice, celebrating the marriage of Summer.

The waves sculpt skulls of giants out of the rocks.

The marble Venuses in museums show bruises from pinching.

If the mirror were to pull aside her mercury curtain, we would see our X-ray.

The sofa faints to hear the news.

The ice melts because it cries cold.

The watch is a time bomb--a bomb of more or less time.

A kiss is a nothing in parenthesis.

Like psychoanalysts, we discover that he has made this suit with so many buttons because he wants to be a piano (WTF?).

On the beach, our shoes turn into hourglasses.

Water is happiest in the paddles of a water wheel.

We want to be stone, but we are jello.

The biggest grievance of marble statues is that they always have cold feet.

Don Juan asked for love like somebody else would ask for a job.

There are fences that children think are made of giant pencils.

Dreams are repositories of stray objects.

Combs are the musical staves of dead ideas.

There is a snowstorm of feathers in the henhouse.

Arabic architecture is a magnification of the keyhole.

The bat flies away out of the Devil's magic box.

Flamenco was born from the reeds.

The Moon is the night's laundress.

Chrysanthemums are flowers from the bottom of the ocean that prefer to live on land.

The sun is the universal medicine: It gives us life, and the microbes.

The moon is the crystal eye of the heavens.

Roulette is the child's game that gives tragedy to men.

The elephant that announce the circus is made of all the members of the company.

The cicada is the alarm bell of the nap.

The soul flees the body like an undershirt on wash day.

The horns of the bull seek the bullfighter to the beginning of the world.

When the telephone sleeps, it gives the ears the message, "Nobody home".

That which speaks of the universe does so as if it were speaking of a grand marketplace.

The mare with a young pony is the temptation of the photographers.

He who uses his moustache like a toothbrush is a prophylactic.

The poet looked at the sky so much that a cloud came out of his eye (I'm not confident of this one. This is the second time I've had trouble with the reflexive verb salirse).

Logic is the pulverizer of reason.

The good writer knows nothing if he knows writing.

An inheritance is a gift for him who tips well (suspect).

There is no such thing as a virgin forest. Those forests we call "virgin" are filled with satyrs . . .

The worst atavism we have is death.

Civilization needs to invent messenger seagulls.

There are melons that seem to be cheeses, but are melons nonetheless.

There are those that sleep in such a way that we expect, when we remove the handkersheif from their face, to see a rhinoceros horn.

He who is in Venice is mistaken into thinking he is in Venice. He who dreams he is in Venice is the one who is in Venice.

It was so crazy, what he was asking the tailor : to make him a waistcoat, when he knew he was making it with long sleeves.

The day the moon buys a car, the night will be much shorter.

When a star falls, it seems like a point had run down the middle of the sky.

He ate so much rice that he learned Chinese.

The woman who poses suggestively while smoking cheats the man with the cigarette, and cheats the cigarette with the man.

Gloria: name for a woman with a temper.

When a flower loses its first petal, it is already lost entirely!

The iris doesn't amount to an orchid, simply because it doesn't know how to comb itself.

The squid is the dry cleaner for the fish's mourning garments.

The band one puts on a pigeon's leg has to be a watch, so that it can deliver its messages punctually.

The smoke rose to the sky when it was supposed to descend to hell.

The castaway comes out converted into a beggar to whom they gave a gift that came big (I'm sure I butchered this one).

Some heads look like a column fell on them.

Luke IV

19:1-10 This lacks the ring of something that really happened. It feels embellished, or allegorical.

19:12 If Jesus is the Nobleman in this parable, has he really gone to get kingly power?

19:21, 22 Again, the parallel does not quite fit. How is Jesus a harsh master taking what he did not deposit etc.?

19:26 What an odd metaphysical bent What do the minas represent here? Knowledge? Power? Spirit? In any case, how is it that those who have nothing have theirs taken away? a riddle?

19:44 It sounds like they are recognizing it. and is he claiming to be God here?

20:4 Whence comes this hesitation, even at the end of the tale? From a necessity that the deed be done on a certain day? some incomplete aspect fo the ministry? Genuine fear?

20:8 Or is he just toying with the buggers?

20:9-16 This parable fits the narrativemuch more nicely than the one in Ch. 19.

I like Jesus best as he is in this chapter: a teacher, not a prophet. He teaches, not by answering questions, but by exposing principles at the root of the questions. He reminds me of Socrates or Confucius, who, when asked what happens after death, answered (roughly), "Idiot. You can't even get this life right. Why worry about the next one?" Likewise, Jesus answers the question that isn't asked, which is usually more important than the one that is.

21:6 Is it possible that he was speaking generally, and not prophesying? More, "This will not last forever" than "This will be destroyed!"?

21:14 A nice verse that had never caught my attention before. "Do not prepare what you will say in advance" is good general advice.

I have a bit of a problem with this chapter. On one hand, it appears to be a pretty accurate prophesy. Things did occur mostly as said here. On the other hand, people (coughthewitnessescough) take it too far and apply it on a greater scale than the JEwish system of things. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of prophesy anyway. A pretty compelling case can be made that this is the real thing. What does that mean metaphysically? Does it argue for a Boethian, simulatneous model of time?

22:3 As concerned with facts as Luke is usually, he seems to let a bit of supposition slip in here.

22:17 This is an interesting detail: There are two cups in Luke's account of this meal. One before the bread and one after. Does each have a significance?

22:21 I can just see everybody jerking their hands off the table at this point . . .

22:24 A natural extension of the "Who is the villain" topic

22:38 The point at which Judas wasuncovered and left is missing. Was it before or after the kingdom was conferred in verse 29?

22:62 From whom did Luke learn this account? Peter himself seems the most likely source, in which case we have to wonder about the objectivity of the account.

The Jesus of this, and indeed of the last three chapters, more closely resembles the peaceable, gentle Jesus of the first ten chapters than the angry, fiery Jesus of 11ish-19ish. I like this one better.

23:2 a lie, to be sure.

23:9 As it should be. Herod has no part to play in the unfolding of this drama, and Jesus rightly denies the murderer of his cousin the dignity of a response.

23:24 Pilate is often painted as a villain in this scenario, but so far it seems that he acted rather more nobly than he is given credit for. The common claim of Jewish apologists is that the Romans were Jesus' murderers. It certainly does not seem so from this account.

23:36 and these soldiers could easily be officers of the Sanhedrin, not of the Roman government.

23:47 never mind.

24:1 This verse is one with which My Dad has had some issue, and I credit it with the beginning of his mistrust in The Witnesses. According to his math, Jesus was not dead for 3 1/2 days if what Luke says is true. That certainly blows apart a whole mess of prophecy!

24:7 "On the third day", not after. So, less than three days in the tomb!

24:18 Interesting that we never hear ore about this Cleopas. I wonder what his connection to the early church was, that Luke felt it necessary to name him?

24:34 Rather an unsupportable conclusion . . . Peopple see what they want to see, after all.

24:36 This account is a little more credible.

In brief, I liked the beginning and end of this account. The Jesus described in those sections is a marvelous example as a teacher and as a human. The Jesus of the middle part, though, what a character! I'm not sure I like him . . .

Henry Miller: Tropic of Cancer

Of the five people who showed up to book club this month, I was the only one who liked this book--let alone raved about it. I went through about four interpretations of it before settling on one, and even though my fellow clubbers didn't enjoy the selection, their perspectives--especially Belinda's--helped set my opinion that this is one of the two best books I have read this year.

This presents me with a problem. Nothing is simpler than to rail against a book I don't care for, or to make a connection between a tepid book and something interesting from my own mind. What is difficult is to read a book that has so many interesting aspects that it is difficult to piece them all together in something cogent. Even more difficult, Miller's book is fragmented to begin with. Let my try and touch on a few of the more interesting aspects, but I know I will be unsatisfied with the result.

Miller would have wanted me to be unsatisfied anyway. The book is designed to unsettle, not only with topic (drinking and sex) and language (cunt after cunt after fucked-out cunt of a whore), but also with marvelously disturbing imagery (the remains of a ham sandwich floating in a bidet is my favorite). The book inveighs against the tendency to put things in flowerpots, to compartmentalize, to write stories--books and internal narratives--that limit the wonder of experience. The point of existence, as I see it through Miller's eyes, is to experience those grand moments of epiphany that make the rest of the agonizing tedium worth it. "I had moments of ecstasy and I sang with burning sparks," the narrator explains (251). The book itself is Miller's attempt--and he never has illusions about it being more than an attempt--to capture that experience, to write "pages that explode, pages that wound and sear, that wring groans and tears and curses" (248). Whatever else can be said, this he did do. And I choose to believe that he revealed, at points, the single unwavering band of light that Vonnegut assures us is at the center of each one of us.

Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar

One mark of great literature is the ability to portray an experience so convincingly that it does more than recreate the moment in the reader's mind; it forces the reader to live what is written in his or her own life. Such was my experience with this book.

Understand, though, that I have an affinity for Plath already. So closely does The Bell Jar follow my own path that I can mark the exact page at which it diverges: 170. The words at certain points might have come out of my own mouth--only probably not as beautifully. Some examples:

"The thought that I might kill myself formed as clearly in my mind as a tree or a flower" (97).

"I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like a water glass that is too unsteady and too full" (101).

And there is more, not single lines but entire chapters. The fig tree filled with dreams between which she cannot choose--and which wither on the branch--and the calm with which she overdoses on sleeping pills. Most people think of suicide springing from despair, but Plath describes it as only one who has been there knows: springing not from despair, but from numbness.

So closely did The Bell Jar serve as a mirror, it was in fact dangerous to read. After putting it down, I found myself back there. My own mind and body has assimilated Plath's writing and made it reality. I felt the same invisible hand that worked Esther/Sylvia like a marionette grab hold of my strings again, and it was rather scary to feel him grasping for me. I wonder what would have happened if my path continued along Esther's after page 170, if somebody had checked me in somewhere. Would I have ended up like her? Or like her creator?

BTD: 22ish

George Bernard Shaw: Androcles and the Lion and Saint Joan

A long time ago, in another life, Shaw was my favorite author. I felt an affinity with his wit and especially his evident scorn for everything and everyone around him. I read as many of his texts as I could find--provided they were in the matching Penguin edition with which I started. My anal retentive library tastes were evident even then. When I was young.

But now I am old--shut up--and hadn't read anything by Shaw for five years at least. Blessed with much backstage time during the run of Princess Ida (a smashing success, if you're interested), I decided to revisit my old friend and exercise some of my age-ripened reading skills. Like many things from that period of my life--marriage, for one--I found that I no longer have a taste for it. At least, not in the same way.

There is still plenty to recommend Shaw. Certain of his characters are just as indelible as Shakespeare's, if slightly more interchangeable. I'm thinking of The Captain in Androcles and Robert in Saint Joan, who might well be the same character, though I didn't mind because that character is so cool. The Captain's line "Are your Christian fairy stories any truer than our stories about Jupiter and Diana, in which, I may tell you, I believe no more than the Emperor does, or any educated man in Rome," and her response "A man cannot die for a story and a dream . . . If it were anything small enough to know, it would be too small to die for." express perfectly and touchingly Shaw's view of religious experience, and that scene is the one truly cosmic moment in either play. "There lives more faith in honest doubt," as Tennyson said, "believe me, than in half the creeds."

Sadly, Shaw does not touch this height as often as I had thought. The plays are too often didactic and as such lack layers of meaning, a criterion by which I judge all literature. I don't grieve my old regard for him, but I have been semi-consciously searching for Shaw's replacement ever since.

Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra: Primitive Song

I had such high hopes for this book. I casually researched Bowra on teh internets [sic], and found him to be quite a wit--the Oscar Wilde of anthropology. "Buggers can't be choosers", he once quipped, and "I expect to pass through this world but once and therefore if there is anybody I want to kick in the crotch I had better kick them in the crotch now, for I do not expect to pass this way again." Surely such a wit would bring a fresh and axiomatic flair to his seemingly dry thesis: that the very earliest, paleolithic forms of human song could be extrapolated from those of certain primitive peoples. The age of a society, he rightly posits, has nothing to do with its similarity to paleolithic society, and modern Selk'nam and Yamana tribes likely bear a closer resemblance to our primitive forbears than ancient Greece or Rome.

I regretfully report that Bowra does not live up to my expectations, however, and I consider this the first time that Philip Ward's recommendation has led me wrong. Even such tedious texts as Tacitus' or Saint Teresa's at least had some literary value, and inspired some worthwhile thought. Not only is Primitive Song empty of Bowra's celebrated wit, it is without scholarly merit, and even approaches certain analytical fallacies for which scholars are infamous.

Borges famously satirized the propensity of scholars to project onto a text and overattribute to it in his short story "Pierre Menard: Author of Don Quixote". There Borges describes a modern writer who reproduces Don Quixote word for word, and picks his text apart. Menard does not translate Cervantes' work; he writes it anew without ever having read it--a Borgesian situation to be sure. In the fashion of a smirking academic, Borges proceeds to show how the two identical texts are completely different, hilariously overreading between the lines and close reading the work to death.

I don't necessarily find anything wrong with this sort of textual scrutiny; scholars do it all the time. We isolate a single anapest in Shakespeare and write at length on how brilliantly the choice of scansion illustrates the overrarching themes of the oeuvre. I remember being guilty of it myself in an essay about Dickinson's poem "Much Madness is Divinest Sense". "By capitalizing the word 'Eye', Dickinson invokes the word 'I'." I wrote. "Suddenly, the 'discerning Eye' does not belong to some unidentified person, but to the author herself, and even to the reader." Barf.

But even this is not as nauseating as the conclusions drawn by Bowra from the most primitive of texts. Here is just one example: from the single-line poem "The Old One--to me--weather from the West", he
extrapolates

"It is a bald statement of fact, but it is nonetheless infused with emotion, with anxiety and implied complaint. Each word does its utmost by hinting beyond what it actually says, and nothing could be more compressed. But it is certainly a work of art, an exhibition of words set to action through passion by restraint. It catches what matters most in the blah blah blah etc."

Double barf. I am a big fan of close reading, but this goes too far, and throughout the entire book. Not only are such conclusions meaningless, they are disreputable. Bowra goes so far that his authority is undermined and the reader discounts the entire book. The only thing that makes reading it less than a complete waste of time is that I invariably find more to write about texts that I don't like than those I do. Et voila!

Ramon de la Serna: Greguerías

For an updated version of this project

This may well be a lifetime project, but I have decided to translate the entire work into English. There doesn't seem to be an existing translation of the entire work in print, although collections of selected greguerías are out there. I also hope it will improve my Spanish. There are thousands of them, so check back to this post regularly as I slog my way through them, bit by colloquial bit. Since this is not to be seen as a scholarly translation, I have taken liberties to make them sound more natural in English. I am under the impression that translators do this regularly anyway . . . for those of you who don't know, the Greguerías is a collection of traditional saying from the Spanish populace.

The inside of a piano is a loom, and weaves tasseled veils.

Garlic practically drops onto amateurs chefs.

How strange life is! Always, the brush is left, but the glue is gone.

To prepare a bath carefully is like brewing good tea.

The violin bow sews, like needle and thread, notes and souls, souls and notes.

The spine is the cane we swallow at birth.

When a woman orders fruit salad for two, she perfects the original sin.

"Ditto" is a good pseudonym for plagiarism.

He who splits sausage is a false purse (this one clearly contains some figure of speech that escapes my translation skills).

The laboratory rabbits murmur, "They wouldn't dare to do this if we were bears!"

The poet feeds himself on cookies from the moon.

Sometimes we wonder how terrible people survived The Great Flood with Noah and his family--but we have to realize that they stowed away.

That unique, passionate fruit, the pomegranate, holds life ajar so we can see it.

The machine gun was born from the hunter's crazy desire to have a belt between the trigger and the barrel.

The unit of power for airplane engines shouldn't be horsepower, but hippogriffpower.

The artichoke is the food of carpenters, cabinetmakers and woodcarvers.

The hussars go around dressed as X-rays of themselves.

The train seems like the firecracker of the landscape.

I never know if the rooster's comb is a king's crown, or a peasant's cap.

When we call a shotgun wedding a "nuptial feast", it feels like the festival of the last dance.

The moon of the skyscrapers is not the same as the moon of the horizon (one of my favorites so far).

The usher's flashlight leaves a stain of light on the suit.

Eve was born from Adam's rib, but she later returned it with interest in the form of children (I've probably taken the most liberties with this one).

Photographs plant us in the most unnatural poses, while pretending that they are the most natural.

The pari of eggs we eat seem like twins, but they're not even third cousins.

Mushrooms and toadstools come from the world of gnomes.

Every Saturday, Dante went to the theater to trim his laurels.

Plumes of grain tickle the wind.

A chicken is the only cook who knows how to make, out of a little corn with no eggs, an egg with no corn.

A man who cups his hand to his ear to hear seems to hunt for the fly of what is said.

Wednesday: a long day by any account--even by number of letters (again, a few liberties taken).

Whoever spills the last beer might as well have taken the butler in his arms (even my students couldn't help translate this one. I expect this is a terrible translation).

"Penguin" is a word attacked by flies (WTF? I bet they're talking about the umlaut over the word, not a common punctuation in Spanish).

Only the poet can take the full measure of the moon (liberties).

The moon is a little mirror in which the nearby playful and impertinent sun reflects as he peeps over the balcony.

Women are so silly: pantyhose can't be wrinkled, but gloves can.

Ice sleeps in a glass of whisky like a crystal bell on a goat.

The spade is the ultimate friend of man: at first in the sandbox, at last in the grave.

Dogs show us their tongue as if we had taken them to the doctor.

The horsefly sings dirges for the flowers.

A monologue means a mono (monkey) talking to himself (this hinges on a play on words, and loses something in the translation).

Haikus are poetic telegrams.

"T" is the hammer of the alphabet.

You know the chicken is grilled perfectly when it is the color of a violin.

Sparks are the sneezes of Satan.

Hosting a party is like playing a musical instrument (liberties taken).

The most important thing in life is not to die.

There aremore germs on a banknote than dollars in a bank.

The have to use both your nostrils to perceive distant gardens.

There are no magicians anymore. Nowadays, everybody has crystal shoes!

Falcons are the hunting dogs of the sky.

Academics have to have the right to use their sleeping caps during lessons.

El Cid made a knot in his beard to conciliate those about to die.

The electric iron seems to serve coffee to the shirts.

The wind rides the weather vane like a bicycle (liberties).

The crocodile is a suitcase that travels on credit.

An orator is a wind instrument that one plays solo.

Dogs anxiously search for a dream they had in a past life.

The moon needs cats, but she cannot make what nobody gives her back.

Frogs are always right in the heat of a swimming contest.

English Saturday is a graft of Sunday and Friday.

A demon is nothing more than the smartest of monkeys.

The camel is always moth-eaten.

The moon is the bank of ruined metaphors.

The sculpture museum is where fathers listen to their kids saying, "Papa! It hasn't even stuck a leaf out at me!" (translation doubtful).

The crocodile is a shoe with the nails pulled out.

A caterpillar of toothpaste.

"Bring me a bottle of carbonated water."
"Ah yes, the water that cramps and tastes like a sleeping foot."

The moon is the eye of an ox on the boat of the night.

All the jewelers blushed. They had seen a communist!

All cameras want to be accordions, and vice versa.

The moon and the sand made frenzied love.

The green lobster gets its red choler up when boiled.

We can't really enjoy the song of the nightingale, because we always doubt if it is really a nightingale.

The man carrying a double bass seems like an ant carrying a splinter that is too big for him.

The accordion juices musical lemons.

The Dictionary wants to say "Millionaire" in words.

The sea is always wanting to make corkscrews, but never quite succeeds.

The banana is a fruit dressed up in red skin.

Nostalgia: neuralgia of the memories.

The edges of the fog are rags.

The real turkey is a jubilant myth.

The swallow shrinks its shoulders in mid-flight

Camoens and Cervantes are like two friends in an asylum: one missing an eye, the other missing a hand.