Isaiah

I can't escape the feeling that something here is inaccessible to me, and I worry that I am being somehow blocked from understanding it. "The vision of all this has become a sealed document. If it is given to those with the command, 'Read this,' they say, 'We cannot, for it is sealed'" (30:11). Nonetheless, I share what I glean from the margins of this seemingly inscrutable book with you, dear reader.

I like to think that Isaiah is either two different people, or else suffering from multiple personality disorder. He seems to have two diametrically opposed viewpoints on every topic. For instance, there is the subject of prophecy, central to the gravitas of the book. At one point, Isaiah seems to agree with Boethius that God's power of prophecy stems from his perception of time as simultaneous, instead of linear. It is thus that he is able to reveal the future to his prophet, as though withdrawing a curtain. "He will destroy on his mountain / the shroud that is cast over all peoples, / the sheet that is spread over all nations" Isaiah describes (though not necessarily regarding prophecy) (25:7). And by the same token, he is able to draw the curtain over the eyes of those who needn't see the whole of time: "He has closed your eyes, you prophets, / and covered your heads, you seers" (29:10).

Elsewhere, however, Isaiah presents an entirely different model of prophecy. At times, there is a distinct linearity to Isaiah's experience. When JEHOVAH declares, "I am God, and there is no one like me, / declaring from the end the beginning," it is because "[His] purpose shall stand, / and [he] will fulfill [his] intention" (46:10). In other words, the divine gift of prophecy comes from the inescapability of the divine will; "I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass," God declares, "I have planned and I will do it" (46:11). Both models are functional and give birth to different lines of philosophical reasoning.

This level of contradiction is not upsetting to me. I find the formation of a synthesis between the two models engaging and a worthy pursuit. And Isaiah even seems to acknowledge the paradox when he writes, "In its time, I will accomplish it quickly," highlighting both the agency of God and the influence of fate (60:22). What is more unnerving is the contradictory pictures in Isaiah of the personality of God. With the same breath, the God of Isaiah declares, " . . . there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom," and, "Through the wrath of JEHOVAH of hosts the land was burned / and the people became like fuel for the fire" (10: 7,19). Isaiah spends entire chapters explaining this seeming capriciousness of God, and comes up with several ideas:

Firstly, Isaiah seems to think that God alternatingly destroys Israel and rescues her for the sake of his name. "for my own sake, for my own sake, I do it," he exclaims. "For why should my name be profaned?" (48:11). Such a narcissistic god hardly seems worthy of worship.

Alternately, Isaiah paints a portrait of God that is capricious and whimsical in his treatment of his people. After he has used Babylon to ravish Israel, he turns around and ravishes Babylon through Cyrus, releasing Israel. And that is not even to speak of his constant reversals on the subject of "My people," which I don't feel up to delineating. Such an inconsistent god seems equally unworthy.

The approach that resonates with me is described in Isaiah 30:20. "Though the lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore." "See, I have refined you, but not like silver;" he consoles the reader, "I have tested you in the furnace of adversity" (48:10). The people of God experience alternating capture and release, not due to God's indecisiveness, but for their own purification. That which is difficult is also necessary for growth.

Which is a comfort to me, having recently been through the fire of adversity. "Look to the rock from which you were hewn, / and to the quarry from which you were dug," JEHOVAH reminds me (51:1). Perhaps he will manage to make a man out of me yet.

Gene Stratton Porter: Freckles

I can see without binoculars why my Mother and her Mother before her considered this book a personal favorite. Porter's charmingly spiritual model of the world is instantly compelling, and almost convinces one of the fundamental goodness of people. Almost. In addition to my natural resistance of such an optimistic paradigm, I found Porter's characterization lacking that edge which would have made her characters believable and sympathetic. As it is, though bald caricatures of human goodness, the population of Freckles is generally enjoyable company as long as one does not take them for more than allegorical archetypes.

The real sparkle of the book lies, not in the people, but in the plot. Porter's simple charm and ingenuous honesty deliver precisley the right tone for a story that came to me at exactly the right time. Freckles is, like me, an amputee, and, like me, does not allow his handicap to get in the way of his hard work, but is insecure enough to let it get in the way of his heart's desire. Feeling condemned to life as a demi monde, he must be forcefully convinced that life holds more for him than the bare necessities, let alone a tender and devoted lover. The moment at which he finally allows himself to be convinced of his worthiness deserves direct quotation, and I expect it to inspire tears on the second reading, as it did on the first:

"Now, here was another class [of people], that had all they needed of the world's best and were engaged in doing things that counted. They had things worth while to be proud of; and they had met him as a son and brother. With them he could, for the only time in his life, forget the lost hand that every day tortured him with a new pang" (161).

Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

It took me three years to get around to finishing this beast, and I'm glad to be able to cross it off of my list. I had read it many years ago in modern English, but my natural fastidiousness would not let me consider it done until I had read it in Middle English. And who would have known it would be such an undertaking? Anyway, I really don't have much to say about it, largely, I'm sure, because many of the niceties were stopped by immigration at the language border. In addition to that barrier is the fact that my personal taste does not seem to lie in Chaucer's line. Some of the tales were enjoyable enough--I was impressed by The Knight's Tale and The Franklin's Tale, and The Prioress' Tale actually brought me to tears--but the vast majority were either too stuffy or too crude to merit my endorsement. The fabliaux, especially, seemed beneath a poet of Chaucer's reputation. It should come as no surprise, however. Chaucer evidently "borrowed" much of his material from Boccaccio, for whose work I didn't care either.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott and Other Poems

I love structure. Love it. Free verse is alright, but if I am to bother reading something that somebody else wrote, I want it to be better than I could write myself. Any guttersnipe can write passable free verse (and no doubt some would argue with me, but this is my blog, ha ha). Anyway, the best poets in my mind are those who use form as well as content to deliver their message.

Hence, my interest in Tennyson. Although his work is a little more visual than auditory, I still like that he bothers to think about meter and rhyme in his work. For this reason I read In Memoriam, and was so pleased that I subsequently picked up this item. Though this particular anthology was grouped according to period, not according to merit, and thereby included a few really forgettable stinkers, there were enough thought-provoking, insightful selections to keep me happy and make me want more.

It is not simply his style that draws me to Tennyson, however. That was just the initial draw. I find it curious to look inside the mind of one whom I trust to be completely honest and precise, but who has experienced things I have not. I can follow Tennyson up to a certain point, when he talks about isolation, longing and regret. It is when he touches on what may be his special topic, friendship, that I grow most unfamiliar and correspondingly most interested. Tennyson seems to have tapped into a source of deep and priceless emotion which I have not, and I am intensely curious to experience it.

You see, I don't have lifelong friends to whom I am closer than a brother. I suppose Sherri and Chad are the closest things, but even they have been around a comparatively short time. What Tennyson describes are friendships so deep and unifying that they cannot be severed. Not only mind and heart are vibrating in unison, but spirit as well. I crave such an intimate bond of love, for I know that I can hold up my end. I simply have yet to meet someone who can bear up under the experience for an extended period of time.

But enough about me, back to Tennyson. The keystone of the collection is, of course, The Lady of Shalott, which I found to be a compelling allegory of human experience. Tennyson borders on the philosophical here, leaning to the Cartesian side a little, as he describes a lady who strives to capture life, but can only manage to do so twice removed: once by reflection and once by representation. When she finally experiences the fact of existence, stepping out of her isolation, the experience is so treacherously beautiful that she dies. Tennyson manages to capture a ponderously difficult idea and pin it to the page with aplomb and sympathy that I'm not sure I could manage. Also worth note is, of course, The Lotos-Eaters, which nicely complements The Lady of Shalott's sense of weariness, but presents the other side of the experience. My personal favorite, however, is The Palace of Art. Although a bit awkward in places and lacking the artistic merit of the aforementioned two, it reminds me of my own tendency to cerebral isolation and admonishes me to allow others into my well-decorated interiors. It is with this in mind that I have finally given out the address of this Blog to a few select friends so that I, too, may ". . .hear the dully sound / Of human footsteps fall" around my inner sanctum (275-6).

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature and Selected Essays

I almost didn't finish this book. In retrospect, to have given up after the first essay would have been a mistake and a tragedy. Never have I related so personally to an author's perspective, style, and taste as I now do to Emerson's. Often his thoughts and conclusions are identical to my own, although we arrived at them without each other's input. And on at least one occasion, I was startled to find that the passage I was reading reflected my own questions and corresponding answers from earlier that very day. What is most spooky to me, however, is not that the content of Emerson's essays reflects my own ideas. It is a source of fondness that his style, usage, and sentence strucure are similar to my own. I even noticed that he uses italics the way I do. It is a providence that I did not trust my first impression.

That impression comes from the fact that "Nature," the cornerstone essay of the collection and possibly his most heavily anthologized, turns out to be one of his worst. I thought so little of it after reading that I put the book down never to be finished. Out of fairness, however, I gave it a second chance and was impressed by what I read in the essay, "The American Scholar." I then decided to finish and became rapturously delighted with most of the remaining essays, including "Man the Reformer" and "Circles," to identify a few of my favorites. I notice that I most enjoy those essays that began life oratically, as opposed to those that were intended primarily for publication. It is no surprise to me that Emerson found success as an itenerant speaker; his thoughts progress in each case from sensibly engaged to passionately emphatic with a crescendo that seems well suited to public delivery.

And then there is the substance of his essays, the content. Suffice it to say that they served as a mordant to my own burgeoning theology, setting the dye indelibly in my person. It is pointless here to iterate each point on which I agree with him; they are so numerous as to be nearly unanimous. In the interest of objectivity, however, allow me just to offer the criticism that he could stand to be a little less poetic. I can't discount the impression I get that, although he frowns on courtesy of all sorts, he is trying to impress the reader with his floridity. It is this fault which nearly cost him my readership, as "Nature" is the most saturated offender. In fact, although I found nothing to disagree with in thst essay, I also found nothing to agree with. It was so nauseatingly sentimental as to be nearly devoid of content. Yes, Ralph, the sunsets are beautiful. We get that, but move on already! Sheesh.

Gao Xingjian: Soul Mountain

This book treads a very thin line between brilliant metaliterature and slovenly experimental trash. It ends up coming out slightly on the former side, but it was a close contest all the way through. I enjoyed it greatly, but I am a literary masochist. I love books that hold up to and demand deep scrutiny. And, while I enjoyed it, I can't think of a single person to whom I would recommend it.

Anyone wishing to read this book would be well served to read chapter 52 before diving in. It is not until this point that Gao's gimmick becomes clear, namely that, although parts of the book are narrated in the second person, "you" is really an extension of "I," the author. It is chiefly this literary conceit which gives the novel its weight. With this understanding, the book transforms from an asymmetric jumble of vignettes into a treatise on the nature of the self. It is especially beautiful that the idea holds up to multiple perspectives. At times Gao seems to be saying that memory is so fickle as to make all but the most poignant moments in our lives seem as though they are happening to someone else. At other times, he seems to be pursuing the Buddhist idea that the self is to blame for all suffering. And elsewhere Gao clearly intends to foster the idea that each man is every man, a la Emerson. All of these ideas work simultaneously, and this is not even to touch on the inticacies of his play with gender.

The problem is that Gao's central idea is not strong enough to carry a book of this magnitude. At 506 dense pages, the book cannot help but seem to belabor the point a bit. The blurry scraps of stories which make up the bulk of the book run together, are unmemorable and do little more than provide an arena for Gao to shuffle pronouns in. He could have gone so much further than simply to play around with point of view. I, for one, would have liked to see him develop the theme of being trapped in the mountains by so-called "Demon Walls," or the meaning of the eponymous Lingshan.

What finally tips the scale in Gao's favor is his wonderful patterns of imagery, which are, at times, the only thing holding the book together. It is a delightful confluence that Gao is also a visual artist specializing in black and white ink drawings. This book was truly written in black and white. Everywhere the reader turns there are patterns of black shingles, black scales, black feathers, and, especially, black footprints. It is not simply that many things in the book are black; black is quilted into the book. There are rhythmic sequences of black shapes all over it. It is only this thematic consistency, in fact, which can convince me that Gao didn't accidentally send his publisher a shuffled manuscript.