Ramón Gómez de la Serna: Las Proximas Greguerías hasta 500

Como siempre,  resalto frases inciertos.

301. El acto más bello de la playa es ver cómo se quita las medias de arena la mujer bonita.

The loveliest act of the beach is seeing how the woman removes her sandy stockings.

 

302. Disparaba su encendedor como quien se suicida elegantamente.

He flicks his lighter as one committing an elegant suicide.

 

303.  Los mejillones son las almejas de luto.

Mussels are clams in mourning.

 

304.  La lira está hecha con los cuernos del poeta.

The lyre is made from the horns of a poet.

 

305.  El cerebro es un paquete de ideas arrugadas que llevamos en las cabeza.

The brain is a package of wrinkled ideas that we carry in our head.

 

306.  El cielo estrellado de la noche había sacado brillo a las sortijas frotándolas contra su frac azul.

The starry night sky has polished its rings by rubbing them against its blue coat.

 

307.  Esponjas: Calaveras de las olas.

Sponges: the skulls of ocean waves.

 

308.  El gallo canta en una lengua muy anterior al sánscrito, la primitiva lengua en que le enseñaron a cantar.

The rooster sings in a language much older than Sanskrit, the ancient language in which he learned to sing.

 

309. El toro muerto en la arena de la plaza parece una bicicleta caída.  

The dead bull on the sand of the arena looks like a fallen bicycle.

 

310. Los cangrejos son manos de pianistas torpes tocando barcarolas.

Crabs are clumsy hands of pianists playing barcaroles.

 

311: El ascensor llama en todas las puertas por las que pasa, pero solo una le hace caso.

The elevator knocks on all the doors it passes, but only one answers.

 

312:  El ultimo orgullo de la gallina desplumada es parecer un cisne, por como se alarga el cuello con la muerte.

The ultimate arrogance of the plucked rooster is to seem a swan, considering how it stretches out its neck in death.

 

313: La coliflor es un cerebro vegetal que nos comemos.

The cauliflower is a vegetable brain that we eat.

 

314:  Da pena ver a ese pobre libro apretado entre formidables topes. ¡Qué pesado debe ser para que dos elefantes hagan ese terrible esfuerzo para sostenerlo!

It’s sad to see a single book wedged between two heavy bookends.  What weight could it have such that two elephants would make such a huge effort in holding it up!

 

315:  La media luna mete la noche entre paréntesis.

The half moon places the night in parenthesis.

 

316:  El que tartamudea habla con máquina de escribir.

He who stutters talks using a typewriter.

 

317: Las mujeres son doblemente Judas cuando se son traidoras entre ellas, porque dan un beso en cada mejilla a la víctima.

Women are double Judases when they betray each other, because they give their victims a kiss on both cheeks.

 

318.  Cuando en la Guerra oímos hablar de divisiones, se nos presentan los soldados en forma de esa operación aritmética, y el cociente final depende de cómo fueron divididas las divisiones.  ¡Atroz cuando no dan sino 0000!

When in war we hear talk of divisions, it presents us with soldiers in the form of that mathematical operation, and the final quotient depends on how they are divided.  Terrible when they don’t give the zeroes!

 

319.  El panegírico parece alimenticio, pero no es.  

The eulogy seems to be a balm, but it isn’t.

 

320.  Noticia de Pensilvania: un caballo de carreras se casó con una señorita.

News from Pennsylvania: A racehorse got married to a lady.

 

321. El mono siempre está cejijunto.

The monkey is always scowling.

 

322.  Hay también otros fenómenos que se podrían llamar correspondientes, y entre está el que sucede con el pantalón cuando el hombre gordo se ata un zapato.  

There are certain phenomena that we can call inevitable, and among them is what happens to the pants when a fat man ties his shoe.

 

323.  El aparato distribuidor de gasoline parece que despacha en los caminos aguardiente para la embriaguez de la velocidad.

The gasoline pumps on the streets seem to sell liquor that gets one drunk on speed.

 

324.  El mono tiene cara de criado del hombre.

The monkey has the face of a man’s servant.

 

325. La turista es una mujer que sabe sentarse en una butaca del hall del hotel y quedarse mirando el reloj tres o cuatro horas.

The tourist is a woman who knows hoe to sit in hotel lobby armchairs and stay watching the clock for three or four hours.

 

326. En los escaparates de la mueblerías hay tes a los que se han olvidado de asistir todos los invitados, y hasta la misma dueña de casa.

The the furniture shop windows there are Ts for those who have forgotten to assist all the guests, and even the very lady of the house.

 

327. La ansiosa se da el rouge como si fuese una barra de chocolate.

The nervous woman applies rouge as if it was a bar of chocolate.

 

328. Dante o el arbusto de laurel.

Dante or the laurel bush.

 

329. La lune de verano reparte gazpacho.

The summer moon serves gazpacho.

 

330. La niveve dota de papel de escribir a todo el paisaje.

The snow grants writing paper to the entire landscape.

 

331. El murciélago pretende tijeretear la luna.

The bat pretends to snip at the moon.

 

332. Constantamente aparecen en las cajas de cerillas, cerillas gemelas y hasta tríos de ellas, unidas por la misma cabeza . . . Es un pequeña estafa que se comete con nosotros, haciéndonos gastar dos cerillas o tres, cuando con una hubiera sido suficiente, además de que así se vengan las cerillas y, solidarizadas, nos llegan a quemar las yemas do los todos.

There are always twins and triplets of matches in the box, joined at the head . . . It’s a minor swindle committed against us, forcing us to use up two or three matches when one would have been enough, and besides selling matches this way, in solidarity, forcing us to burn all their heads.

 

333. Los cocodrilos so baúles del tiempo de los Faraones.

Alligators are trunks from the time of the pharaohs.

 

334. En los sueños aparecen amigos de nuestros amigos que no son nuestros amigos.

There appear to us in dreams friends of friends, who are not our own.

 

335. Temblor de cristales: escalofrío de la casa.

A house shivers by shaking its windows.

 

336. Nuestra sombra es la caja de violin de nuestra figura.

Our shadow is the violin case of our figure.

 

337. En la Edad Media había dentistas de almenas.

In the middle ages, the battlements had dentists.

 

338. El sapo se sabe tan feo que solo sale de noche.

The toad thinks it’s so ugly that it only goes out at night.

 

339. En la campana hablan el sielo y el abismo.

Bells are the conversation between the sky and the abyss.

 

340.  El tiempo no corre más gracias a las tortugas.

Time does not run faster thanks to the turtles.

 

341. Le mordió una gárgola y murió en al acto.

A gargoyle bit him, and he died on the spot.

 

342. El día en que el arco iris se ponga de luto sera el día del Juicio Final.

The day when the rainbow dons mourning will be the day of the Final Judgement.

 

343. El árbol tiene venas y circulación, pero no tiene corazón, ¡por eso vive tanto!

The tree has veins and circulation, but no heart.  That’s why it lives so long!

 

344. Al cine hay que ir bien peinado, sobre todo por detrás.

One must go to the cinema with a good hairstyle, better than everyone behind.

 

345. Cine de todos los tiempos: un hombre que quiere montar una vaca, y la vaca que no quiere ser caballo de ninguna manera.

Theater for all times: a man who wants to ride a cow, and the cow who doesn’t wish to be a horse by any means.

 

346. El que recomienda a su especialista al amigo que «tiene lo mismo», aspira a que le sustituya y le releve en su enfermedad.

He who recommends his specialist to a friend who “has the same problem” hopes that he would go instead of him, and cure his ills.

 

347. Desde que el hombre viaje en subterráneo teme menos a la muerte, como si hubiese familiarizado con los gusanos.

After one has travelled underground, he fears death less, as if he has become familiar with the worms.

 

348. –No tengo más que dos combinaciones. –No debías tener niguna.

“I don’t have but two nighties”

“You don’t need to have even one.”

 

349. Los leones de bronce son tanto leones como cañones.

Lions of bronze are as much cannons as lions.

350. La isla tropical es una luna que se baña.

The tropical island is the moon bathing itself.

 

351. El costillar colgado es uno de los elementos más decorativos de la carnicería; es como un cuadro de museo que se ha escapade del museo y que se van a comer, kilo a kilo, los críticos del arte.

The hanging rib cage is one of the most decorative things hanging in the butcher’s window, it is as if a painting had escaped the museum, and was being devoured, kilo by kilo, by the art critics.

 

352. La major ingenuidad del novel círculo literario es el nombramiento de tesorero.

The greatest naivete of the new literary magazine is the appointment of a treasurer.

 

353. Cuando se dice «asteriscos» parece hablarse de dimunitos pedazos de estrella.

When one says “asterisks”, it seems as if one is speaking of tiny pieces of star.

 

354. El teléfono es el despertador de los despiertos.

The telephone is an alarm clock for those already awake.

 

355.  El té es una especie de tabaco para pasarlo por agua.

Tea is a species of tobacco to be passed through water.

 

356. El corazón no puede ser sordo, porque los teléfonos de las arterias le comunican lo que va sucediendo en la vida.

The heart cannot be deaf, for the telephones of the arteries communicate what has happened in life.

 

357. A los pintores les preocupa mucho el poner la pinta blanca que hace que los ojos miren con amistad o con enemistad.

Painters are preoccupied with placing the white paint which makes the eyes look with friendship or enmity.

 

358. En el fondo de la guitarra debía haber cigarros, monedas y otras sorpresas.

In the bottom of the guitar there must be cigars, coins and other surprises.

 

359. Al oír que dice el bruto: «yo solo me he hecho a mí mismo», pensamos en lo mal escultor que ha sido.

Hearing the brute say, “I am a self-made man,” we think of the bad sculptor he has been.

 

360. Aquel auto era tan perfecto, que tenía una cámara fotográfica en el radiator para fotografar sus atropellos.

That car is so perfect, it has a camera in the radiator to photograph its accidents.

 

361. En el algodón retoña la barba blanca de la experiencia de la tierra.

In cotton, the white beard of the earth’s experience grows.

 

362. Siempre se ganan las guerras por el alma nueva que se emplea en ellas . . . El primer ejército que tuvo tambores tuvo una victoria.

Wars are always won by the new soul that is used in them . . . The first army that had drums had a victory.

 

363. Los peces pasan en fila de turistas.

Fish pass by in a line of tourists.

 

364. El sultán tiene un turbante contra el dolor de cabeza.

The sultan has a turban for his headache.

 

365. En la Guía de teléfonos está el nombre del Mecenas posible.  ¡Pero cualquiera lo encuentra!

The name of Maecenas might be in the phone book.  But anyone can find it!

 

366. Cuando hemos sentenciado a muerte a la mosca parece que se da cuenta y desaparece.

When we sentence a fly to death, it seems to realize it and disappear.

367. Al mirar al cielo de la noche piense el pobre: «¡Cuántas estrellas y qué poco dinero!»

The poor man thinks, as he looks to the night sky, “How many stars and how little money!”

 

368. La luna es un espejo en que no nos alcanzamos a ver por cortos de vista.

The moon is a mirror in which we can’t glimpse ourselves because we are too short-sighted.

 

369. ¿Ha pensado alguien en una película en esperanto?  ¡Sería esperantosa!

Has anyone thought of a film in Esperanto? It would be very highly anticipated!

 

370. ¡Con qué rapidez logran hacerse las maletas del film!

How quickly they are able to do the film cases!

 

371. En los grandes transatlánticos superdotados y superproducidos sale whisky por el grifo del baño.

In the well-equipped ocean liners, whisky comes out of the bathroom faucets.

 

372. La mosca del fuego es la que provoca el incendio.

It is the firefly (firework? Fire beetle? Sparks?) that cause the fire.

 

373. La máquina de coser es el aparato cinematográfico de las sábanas blancas.

The sewing machine is the cinematographic apparatus of the white sheets.

 

374. Las camisetas encogen como si nos volviesen a la infancia.

T-shirts shrink as if to return us to infancy.

 

375. Los anuncios que se encienden letra a letra nos convierten en niños que deletrean.

Those advertisements that light up letter by letter turn us into children spelling out the words.

 

376. Los tahoneros son los payasos de la madrugada.

Bakers are the clowns of dawn.

 

377. El mundo estará definitivamente viejo cuando las hormigas negras se vuelvan hormigas blancas.

378. The world will be truly old when the black ants become white ants.

 

379. Hay ventiladores que se sienten obispos y no hacen más que dar benediciones a su aldredor.

There are fans which seems like bishops, and do no more than pass blessings around.

 

380. La muchacha que lleva la pelota del niño en la red parece que pasea un pequeño montgolfier.

The girl who carries a boy’s ball in a net seems to be showing off a little hot air balloon.

 

381. La larga cola de la novia es la vereda que conduce hasta ella al novio desorientado.

The girlfriend’s long pnytail is the path that conducts the lost boyfriend back to her.

 

382. Las únicas hojas que no mueren en los árboles de invierno son los pájaros.

The only leaves that don’t die on the trees of winter are the birds.

 

383. ¡Qué tragedia! Envejecían sus manos y no envejecían sus sortijas.

What a shame! The hands age, but the rings do not.

 

384. Las nubes de la tarde acuden al ocaso para empapar su sangre y caer como algodones usados en el cubo del otro hemisferio.

The afternoon clouds go toward the sunset to soak up its blood and fall like used cotton in the wastebin of another hemisphere.

 

385. La tormenta comienza con un gran portazo conyugal, como si la diosa se hubiese marchado violentamente, dejando al dios encolerizado.

The storm begins with a huge marital slam, as if the goddess had left the angry god in a huff.

 

386. El león tiene altavoz propio.

The lion has his own loudspeaker.

 

387. Hay unas nubes largas y finas que son como costillas del cielo.

There are clouds as long and fine as if they were the ribs of the sky.

 

388. La oreja humana interroga siempre, porque, si bien se observa, tiene forma y dibujo de interrogación.

The human ear is always asking because, if you look closely, it has the shape and pattern of a question.

 

389. Cuando se desfonda un bolsillo comienza la peritonitis del traje.

When the bottoms of the pockets fall out, the peritonitis of the suit begins.

 

390. «Admón. de Loterías” es un nombre bíblico más que una abreviatura.

Admin. of the Lottery is more of a biblical name than an abbreviation.

 

391. El pianista se calienta los pies en los pedales.

The pianist warms his feet on the pedals.

392. Los osos blancos tienen el hocico negro para que así no se pierdan y se les distinga en medio de la nieve.

Polar bears have black snouts so that they don’t get lost and can be seen against the snow.

 

393. La i es el dedo meñique del alfabeto.

The I is the pinky finger of the alphabet.

 

394. Los negros tienen voz de túnel.

Black people have the voice of a tunnel.

 

395. ¡Qué fácil es que el adulto pase a ser adúltero!

How easy it is for an adult to become an adulterer!

 

396. Hay suspiros que comunican la vida con la muerte.

There are sighs that connect life and death.

 

397. En el piano de cola la música levanta su ala negra y nocturna de ángel caído queriendo ascender al cielo de nuevo.

In the grand piano, music lifts her black wing and the nocturne of a fallen angel wanting to return to heaven.

 

398. El ser más importante de contraespionaje es el descifrador de papeles secantes.

The most important person in counterespionage is the decipherer of drying papers.

 

399. Lo que más le encanta al turista es afeitarse en distintos lugares del mundo con sus viejos bártulos de afeitar.

The tourist likes best to shave himself in new places with his same old razor.

 

400. La mujer que después de la riña cierra su puerta por dentro no temaís que se suicide.  Se está probando un sombrero.

The woman who, after a row, closes her door from the inside is not afraid to be murdered. She is trying on a hat.

 

401. El azúcar de cuadradillo sirve para que sepa el niño cuándo es día de visita.

Sugar cubes serve to tell the child when it is visiting day.

 

402. El alba en el tren es grave como una operación.

Dawn in a train is as serious as an operation.

 

403. La sopa es el baño del apetito.

The soup is a bath for the appetite.

 

404. Las momias fueron fajadas como recién nacidas de la muerte.

Mummies were swaddled as if they were recently born from death.

 

405. La guillotina fue la maquina de afeitar que inventó la Revolución francesa.

The guillotine was a shaving razor that the French Revolution invented.

 

406. Cuando funciona el aspirador eléctrico del vecino de arriba nos absorbe todas las ideas que teníamos.

When the upstairs neighbor’s fan is running, it absorbs us in all the thoughts we have had.

 

407. La escalera en medio de la habitación es la letra capitular de la casa.

A staircase in the middle of a room is the capital letter of the house.

 

408. La radiografla nos descubre el corsé interior.

The x-ray shows us our interior corset.

 

409. Era tan flaco aquel lenguado, que parecía la cuenta anticipada en bandeja de plata.

That flounder was so thin, it looked like the check arriving on a tray.

 

410. Nunca es tarde si la sopa es buena.

Nothing is late if the soup is good.

 

411. «Las broches de sus medias la sostenían como las pinzas sostenien los periódicos galantes en el pentagrama de los quioscos», o bien se puede decir: «Los broches del corsé sostenían las revistas ilustradas de sus medias.»

“The clasps of her stockings hold them up like newspapers on a rod at the newsstand,” or better yet, “The clasps of her corset hold up the picture magazines of her stockings.”

 

 

412. Eva fue la esposa de Adán,y, además, su cuñada y su suegra.

Eve was the wife of Adam, besides being his sister-in-law and mother-in-law.

 

413. Los pensamientos amarillos tienen celos de los pensamientos morados.

The yellow pansies are envious of the violets.

 

414. Todavía no saben que no oímos mientras nos lavamos, que somos una especie do sordos mientras dura el chapuceo.

They still don’t understand that we can’t hear while bathing, as though deaf while the bath lasts.

 

415. El pantopón es el tapón de los dolores.

Morphine is a plug for pain.

 

416. La idiosincrasia es una enfremedad sin especialista.

Idiosyncrasy is an illness for which there is no specialist.

 

417. La última nota rasgada del tango es su rúbrica.

The last, pear-shaped note of the tango is its signature.

 

418. Al rinoceronte le han salido colmillos por donde no debían haberle salido.

The rhino’s eyeteeth come out where they should not have.

 

419. La pesadilla del pianista consiste en soñar con un piano de teclado kilométrico.

The pianist’s nightmares are of playing a piano with a kilometric keyboard.

 

420. Mujer que pierde los dedales, mujer impropia para formar un hogar.

A woman who loses thimbles is not fit for making a home.

 

421. Al ver la cabeza de San Juan en la bandeja pensamos que al ir a afeitarle le degollaron.

Looking at the head of Saint John on a tray, we think of them slitting our throats when we go for a shave.

 

422. Ya sabemos que la chuleta tiene hueso; pero, sin embargo, siempre nos irritará el hueso de la chuleta.

We already know that the chops have bones, but we nonetheless are irritated by them.

 

423. Los guantes adquieren manías y posturas propias, y en la soledad hacen gestos do los que han visto hacer a sus dueños.

Gloves acquire their own manners and poses, and in their soiltude make gestures such as they have seen their owners make.

 

424. Prefiero las máquinas de escribir usadas porque ya tienen experiencia y ortografia.

I prefer used typewriters because they already have experience and know how to spell.

 

425.  En los pianos de cola es donde duerme acostada el arpa.

The harp sleeps laying down in the grand pianos.

 

426. El tenedor es el peine de los tallarines.

The fork is a comb for noodles.

 

427. Nadie como el padre sabe extender la manteca en el pan de los hijos.

Nobody knows like a father how to spread the butter on his children’s bread.

 

428. Comer en una Embajada es comer protocolo con salsa tártara.

To eat in an embassy is to eat protocol with tartar sauce.

 

429. Las criadas se exceden en el esmero de encerar los pisos para ver si así resbalan y se matan sus señores.

The servants overwax the floor to see how the masters slip and kill themselves.

 

430. El mosquitero es el hada de los sueños.

The mosquito net is the fairy of the dreams.

 

431. Uno de los espectáculos más bonitos de la Naturaleza es ver cómo la luna se traga un murciélago.

One of the most lovely sights of the natural world is the moon calling forth a bat.

 

432. El huevo frito es una ola en miniatura; una ola con yema.

The fried egg is a miniature ocean wave--one with a yolk.

 

433. El papel celofán lo inventó la serpiente, que lo emplea en sus camisas desde su presentación en el Paraíso.

Cellophane was invented by the serpent to use in its shirts since its introduction in Eden.

 

434. En la Via Láctea se agolpa el polvo fulgurante que levantaron en su camino las carrozas sidereales de los grandes mitos.

The Milky Way is crammed with the shining dust raised by the parade floats of the grand myths as they pass.

 

435. El espejo de afeitar es fríamente maligno, porque no está deseando más que ver si nos cortamos.

The shaving mirror is chillingly evil, because it doesn’t wish for anything but to see if we cut ourselves.

 

436. Las tijeras quisieran formar un ejército de tijeras.

The scissors would like to form an army.

 

437. Los eucaliptos siempre tienen la camiseta desgarrada.

438. The eucalyptus always wears a tattered shirt.

 

439. Lo peor que hace el arte, lo que es un ejemplo de antiarte, es pintar paisajes en el parche del tambor del jazz.

The worst thing that art does, which is an example of anti-art, is to paint landscapes on the head  of a jazz drum.

 

440. El orgullo del sapo es atroz, porque dedica su concierto a las estrellas.

The toad’s pride is terrible, for it dedicates its concert to the stars.

 

441. La muleta del toreo es el telón del teatro guiñol de la muerte.

The cape of the bullfighter is the curtain of the Grand Guignol.

 

442. El péndulo del reloj acuna las horas.

The clock’s pendulum rocks the hours in their cradle.

 

443. Lo más suntuoso de los grandes hoteles es que nos ponen cinco toallas cada cinco minutos.

The biggest extravagance of the great hotels is giving us five towels every five minutes.

 

444. La pantalla cinematográfica está orlada de negro porque es una esquela de defunción de lo que va sucediendo en ella.

 

445. Los faisanes debían llevar la cola a los pavos reales.

Pheasants have to carry the trains of peacocks.

 

446. Los chalecos tienen cuatro bolsillos para hacernos concebir vanas esperanzas.

Waistcoats have four pockets to make us know false hope.

 

447. Un tumulto es un bulto que les sale a las multitudes.

An uproar is a bulge that protrudes from crowds.

 

448. Las sillas de las antesalas y de los recibimientos siempre están «esperando contestación».

The chairs of anterooms and waiting rooms are always “awaiting reply”.

 

449. A los que llevan un pedazo de papel de goma pegado en la cara debían echarlos al correo.

Those who have a bit of stickey paper stuck to ther faces should put themselves in the mail.

 

450. El automóvil empolvado parece haber salido de las bodegas de la velocidad.

The dust-covered car seems to have come from the cellars of speed.

 

451. Después de comer alcachofas, el agua tiene un sabor azul.

After eating artichokes, water tastes blue.

 

452. Termos: bala pacífica para los desayunos.

Thermos: a peaceful bullet for breakfast.

 

453. Los sordos ven doble.

The deaf travel in pairs.

 

454. En el Polo Norte está el gorro de dormir de la Tierra.

The North Pole has the Earth’s sleeping cap.

 

455. Las llaves de los hoteles condecoradas con una medalla son como primeros premios en el concurso de abrir puertas.

The keys of award-winning hotels are like first prizes in a door-opening competition.

 

456. Nos asomamos a los cochecitos de los niños con la maligna intentción de ver o unos gemelos o unos trillizos.

We peek at baby carriages with the malintent of seeing some twins or triplets.

 

457. El joyero piensa mientras duerme: «¡Bah! La perla del alba es tan grande, que no tiene valor comerciál.»

The jeweler thinks as he sleeps, “Bah! The pearl of the dawn is to large to have any commercial value.”

 

458. En los hilos de telégrafo quedan, cuano llueve, unas lágrimas que ponen tristes los telegramas.

When it rains, tears wait on the telegraph lines to add sadness to the messages.

 

459. Al sentarnos al borde de la cama, somos predsidiarios reflexionando en su condena.

When we sit on the edge of the bed, we are convicts reflecting on our sentence.

 

460. Sólo hay un olor que puede competir con el olor a tormenta: el olor a madera de lápiz.

There is only one smell that can comete with that of a storm: that of pencil wood.

 

461. El disco es la ondulación permanente de la música.

The record is the permanent rippling of the music.

 

462. Sube la bandera al mástil como si fuese el acróbata más ágil del mundo.

The flag rises on the pole as if it were the most agile acrobat in the world.

 

463. Las estrellas trabajan con red.  Por eso no se cae ninguna sobre nuestra cabeza.

Stars work with a net.  That is why none ever fall on our heads.

 

464. La vide es decirse ¡adiós! en un espejo.

Life is telling yourself “goodbye!” in a mirror.

 

465. En el fondo do los pozos suenan los discos de la luna.

The records of the moon play in the depths of wells.

 

466. Hay el farol espía.  Se lee un papel bajo su luz y en seguida va con el cuento a la Policía.

There is a spy lantern.  It reads a paper under its light, and then takes the account to the Police.

 

467. La lenteja con bicho es el más minúsculo reloj de cuco.

Lentils with bugs in them are the tiniest cuckoo clocks.

 

468. El banjo nació de un raqueta y una mandolina.

The banjo was born from a raquet and a mandolin.

 

469. Amo las estrellas de mar porque aún no se han hecho latas de sardinas de estrellas de mar.

I love starfish because they still haven’t been put into tins.

 

470. Los aviones, al caer, tienen el gesto consolador de estrellarse con los brazos en +.

Planes, when they fall, have the consoling gesture of crashing with their arms in a +.

 

471. Una máquina de escribir silenciosa es una máquina en zapatillas.

A silent typewriter is a machine wearing slippers.

 

472. La estatua ecuestre no es buena si el caballo no le da una coz al que lee el discurso.

Equestrian statues are no good if the horse doesn’t give a kick to those reading the inscription.

 

473. El que bebe en taza, hay un momento en que sufre eclipse de taza.

He who drinks from a cup momentarily undergoes an eclipse.

 

474. El caer una bandeja en el suelo nos sobresalta, como si hubiese sonado el gong de la mala suerte.

The flag falling to the floor startles us as if it were the gong of bad luck. 

 

475. --¿Por qué cuando vamos a pedir los gemelos de teatro al compañero de palco es cuando él se los lleva a los ojos? 

--Porque ha visto la misma mujer.

-- “Why is it whenever I ask my box companion for the opera glasses, he’s always using them?”

-- “Because he has seen the same woman.”

 

476. Domingo: perro corriendo detrás de una piedra lanzada.

Sunday: a dog chasing after a thrown rock.

 

477. Las estrellas telegrafían temblores.

The stars telegraph tremors.

 

478. Hay cajas de fósforos idiotas y otras que no lo son tanto.

There are idiot matchboxes, and others not so much.

 

479. Primero nació Eva de una costilla de Adán, pero en seguida devolvió en sus hijos muchas mas costillas que la que la habían adelantado.

At first Eve was born from one of Adam’s ribs, but later she returned in their children far more ribs than she was advanced.

 

480. El español es un alma en pena.

Spanish is a soul in pain.

 

481. La lectura mejor para los viajes en el subterráneo son Las memorias de ultratumba.

The best reading before trips underground is Memoirs from Beyond the Grave.

 

482. Las lágrimas que se vierten en las despedidas de barco son más saladas que las otras.

The tears that are spilled in a nautical farewell are saltier than others.

 

483. Al poner papel carbón, entre papel y papel, se prepara la carta y su falsificación.

In putting carbon paper between two sheets, one prepares both the letter and its forgery.

 

484. Era tan pulcro aquel verdugo, que desinfectaba las guillotina antes de cortar la cabeza a la victima.

The executioner was so tidy, he disinfected the guillotine after each decapitation.

 

485. La Historia está escrita en un papel deleznable que se comen las ratas.

History is written in a crumbly paper that the mice eat.

 

486. La luna de Benarés aparece en nuestros cielos de noches muy azules, y se nota que es la de Benarés porque lleva turbante.

The moon of Benares appears in our sky on the bluest of nights, and shows that it is from Benares by wearing a turban.

 

487. Lo que le da más horror a la luna es el bostezo de cocodrilo.

The moon is most terrified of the crococile’s yawn.

 

488. Echaba el terrón con un gesto tan importante, que parecía echar una perla en el té.

He threw the clod with a grand gesture, as though throwing a pearl into the tea.

 

489. Adagio es u consejo triste.

An adagio is sad advice.

 

490. El pavo real barre el jardín con plumas de oro.

The peacock sweeps the garden with plumes of gold.

 

491. El que tiene la sed desesperada del whiskey aprende a servirselo sin que se note.

He who has a desperate thirst for whiskey learns to serve himself without noticing.

 

492. Los globos de los niños van por la calle muertos de miedo.

The children’s balloons go along the street scared to death.

 

493. Aquella mañana los pájaros cantaban al revés.

That morning, the birds were singing in reverse.

 

494. ¡Qué gesto como de acordarse de alguien, de no se sabe quién, pone el que saborea una copa de licor!

What a gesture one makes while enjoying a cup of liquor--that of remembering someone, but not knowing whom!

 

495. Me gusta ver las grandes orquestas de vioines, porque la oblicuidad movida de los muchos arcos simula una especie de lluvia musical.

I like to watch grand violin orchestras, because the oblique movement of many bows at the same time is a type of musical rain.

 

496. Era tan fresco aquel tipo, que cobrada un seguro de maternidad.

That type is so cool that are covered by maternity insurance.

 

497. Cuando entrecomillamos algo, tenemos escritura de árabes.

When we add quotation marks to something, we know how to write in Arabic.

 

498. Se asfixian unos gabanes a otros en las perchas llenas.  Yo tengo un gabán que me asfixió una vez, y no he podido volver a usarlo nunca.

Some scarves strangle each other in their full hangers.  I had a scarf that strangled me once, and I was never able to use it again.

 

499. El gesto que hacen los elegantes al sacarse el pañuelo del faldón del frac es un gesto ignominioso e indecent.

The gesture made by dandies as they take a kerchief out of their tailcoat is ignominious and indecent.

 

500. Da vergüenza abandonar el guante inutilizado del plátano, que en una mesa bien servida hubieran debido enviar al tinte antes de servirlo.

It is embarassaing to abandon the useless glove of the banana, such that in a well-appointed table they should have sent it to be dyed before serving it.

 

501. Esas bombillas que se encienden y se apagan parecen castañuelas de luz.

These bulbs that flicker on and off seem to be castanets of light.

 

502. Todo el drama de algunos films es que la doncella se olvidó de cerrar las persianas y se vio todo desde la calle o desde el jardín.

The entire drama of some films is that the maiden forgot to close the blinds was seen by all from the street or the garden.

 

503. Los que van mucho al cine acaban teniendo un párpado nictitante.

Those who go o the cinema a lot end up having nictating membranes for eyelids.

 

504. El alabastro es tan carnal, que podría gastar camisa.

The alabaster is so fleshly that it could wear a shirt.

 

505. El murciélago está hecho con alambre y con piel de ratón.

The bat is made from wire and the skin of a rat.

 

506. Cuando con la pluma se hace un enredijo de líneas sale una masa encefálica.

When one makes a squiggle of lines with a pen, brain matter appears.

 

The Panchatantra

 As with any fabliau, this volume errs on the side of entertainment at the expense of practicality. this is to be expected from the framing conceit: a wise man promises to teach the recalcitrant young princes virtue, so naturally he does it in the most entertaining way possible.  As such, there is as large a share of contradiction as there is in the body of aphorisms as a whole.  A stitch in time saves nine, but don't count your chickens before  they're hatched.  Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, but beware of Greeks bearing gifts.  Etc.  

In the Panchatantra, this fault is almost glaring.  Should you make use of your enemy, or distrust them?  Be clever and sneaky, or honest and forthright?  There are stories to support both sides of every argument, and no conclusion seems reachable.  Entertaining, but hardly instructive.

Until, that is, the fifth and final tantra.  Under the heading "Action Without Due Consideration", we find a series of stories almost satirizing the exact phenomenon observed above.  In several variations, learned men come to ruin because they overrely on the shastras to solve their problems.  What a lesson!  The narrator:

Promised to teach the dull-witted princes everything they needed.

Proceeded to offer four books of colorful but contradictory lessons.

Tie it up with how colorful but contradictory lessons are dangerous, and how real wisdom is to just be good and use common sense. 

Misson accomplished!  This too is foma!  All hail Bokonon!

In other words, this book was fun and engaging on its own, easily as good as Aesop or La Fontaine--but it ended up being even better because it knew to wink at itself, and address the central questions on a much deeper level than could be done with a simple fable. 

Sandra Anne Taylor: The Akashic Records Made Easy

 Here is an example of a title that is both true and false in equally upsetting measure.  The book itself is too easy to be useful, and what it advertises as easy is in fact ineffable and impossible.  It fails to reach any depth, and correspondingly is ineffective.  I am left with the question, as I ever am, is what I experience when I follow the instructions in this sort of book merely the product of my own imagination, or does it come from without?  My own dreams are consistently vivid and fantastic.  It is clearly well within the ability of my own mind to invent things that have the trappings of reality, and are alien enough to seem to come from without.  Surely the relatively less vivid and fantastic things I perceive in meditation could be of the same source. 

Alternatively, have I had it backward all along?  Are the things I see in dreams the real thing, and those I see in meditation the pale reflection?  At any rate, this book was zero help in either clarifying or deepening my experience.

Godfre Ray King: Unvelied Mysteries, and Darby & Joan: Our Unseen Guest

 It's been a while since I saw fit to write about two books in the same post, but I find that the questions with which I am left after reading each of these overlap almost perfectly. In fact, they are really the same questions that led me to pick them up in the first place, and so I suppose I shall spoil my conclusions by saying up front that both books left me almost exactly where I started.  I am faced with the same dilemmae over which I have been puzzling since long before picking them up:

1. Are those, including these authors, who claim to have touched the unseen in earnest, or are they playing with us for amusement or gain?  As an extreme example of the former, one might look to Teresa of Avila.  Whatever it is she saw and experienced, there can be little doubt that she was in earnest and thoroughly believed her own writings.  In the former set, we might look to Joseph Smith or Uri Geller, manifest charlatans whose corrupting and greedy influence cannot be excused in this life, and in any other lives that may exist.  The answer is therefore, "There are some of each."

2. For those that are in earnest (and let us assume for the sake of discourse that the authors in question are, though such is by no means certain), does what they experienced accurately relate to some external reality, or is it merely an internal construction? On this point, Darby and Joan make some effort and, in fact, seem to be asking themselves the same question throughout their experience.  They go to great lengths to prove, to themselves at least, that there is no way that their supposed contact with the afterlife is the product of some internal delusion, or even of some such lesser phenomenon as telepathy or group consciousness.  If we take them at their word, then they have indeed touched on and even proved the existence of other planes of existence.

3.  Is what such earnest accounts reveal about the unseen accurate and reliable? Again, Darby and Joan take the role of skeptics, and introduce the idea of "coloring" to caution the reader about taking such phenomenal accounts literally.  They assert that they did indeed touch the unseen, but that there is also the constant danger of the perceiver shaping and warping the experience so that it can be understood and fit in a certain framework.  I take from this the caution that an overdeveloped ego, such as Godfre Ray King exhibits, could easily urn an authentic experience into a useless muddle.  The best way to remove the ego is that taken by William James: to ignore individual accounts, and to bother only with the overlap of multiple accounts, thereby presumably isolating only that which is universal.

4. If there is an unseen out there, and humans have been able in some cases to perceive it, is it possible then for me to do the same?  And it is on this point that I find myself frustrated.  It is basically the same question I have been asking myself for decades.  How do I go to the next level?  This life bores and frustrates me.  What else is there, and how do I learn more about it?  The further I go along this path, the more I encounter those who say how easy it is, and how natural, and feel left out, blocked, and broken because I cannot perceive what earnest, sane, and perceptive people in books and in my personal acquaintance do.  It is always there, tickling my temple, but ever with plenty of room for doubt and disbelief.  Am I pursuing an end as dead as if it were a religion? Is this merely wishful thinking, cognitive dissonance, and self-delusion?  Or worse yet, is it real and simply closed to me?

Gene Stratton Porter: A Girl of the Limberlost

 There remains, in my grandmother's house, in a room that was my mother's fifty years ago, a bookshelf filled with yellowed volumes, perhaps fifty of them, each a hundred years old.  Rows and rows of books by an author dear to my gramma, then to my mom, and now to me.  

It is curious that it has taken me so long to read a book by this author.  As dear as my gramma was, and as fiercely as I cling to anything that was hers, one might think I would have done it decades ago.  Part of me assumed it would be treacly fluff, along the lines of Pollyanna or Anne of Green Gables, neither of which spoke to me; her taste was definitely along such lines.  Another part of me simply didn't want to think about that part of her, the Romantic romantic, a hothouse flower whose ways of escaping her reality were often unhealthy and destructive.  

And so it was not until I spent some time in her abandoned house, with nothing else to distract me, that I actually picked up one of those old books and allowed myself to be encased in it.  The treacle was there, yes.  There is an unshakeable faith in the goodness of humanity that colors Porter's world.  There is also darkness: death, child abuse, betrayal, event the hint of rape.  Unlike many other books of this genre and era, Porter does not flinch from the darkness in humanity.  The light is merely stronger.  I may never know exactly what drove my gramma to do the things she did, what her inner world was like, but surely her affinity for this writer is a clue.

Later today I will meet my second cousin once removed, a seventeen year old girl who is going through many of the same things Elnora did in this book.  I cannot say that this book helped me to face the darkness; I have long come to my own way of doing that.  But perhaps it helped my dear, sweet gramma, long gone from this world, to see something bright in it, and perhaps it can help others yet.

Arthur Schopenhauer: On Human Nature, The Art of Controversy, Counsels and Maxims

Where did Schopenhauer go wrong?  How did a man capable of unearthing such marvelous insights as 

"When you come into contact with a man, no matter whom, do not attempt an objective appreciation of him according to his worth and dignity.  Do not consider his bad will, or his narrow understanding and perverse ideas; as the former may easily lead you to hate and the latter to despise him; but fix your attention only upon his sufferings, his needs, his anxieties, his pains.  Then you will always feel your kinship with him; and instead of hatred or contepmt, you will experience the sommiseration that alone is the peace to which the gospel calls us" (On human Nature, 7)

Find the nerve and the obliviousness to utter with the same pen:

"Hence it will be found that the fundamental fault of the female character is that it has no sense of justice.  This is mainly due to the fact, already mentioned, that women are defective in the powers of reasoning and deliberation" (Studies in Pessimism, 65)?

My working framework was to assume that Schopenhauer was the proverbial frog in a well, which is to say that he saw rather clearly the things that were in his own experience as a cis, straight, educated, comfortable, white man; and that when presented with anything that was at all removed from that world, he was utterly unable to conceive of it.  This reading served me well, and it wasn't until the last essay in this collection, "Genius and Virtue", that I recognized it as a symptom of a larger failure on his part.

The dichotomy that Schopenhauer sets up in this essay, namely that of the Intellect and the Will, is a theme that runs throughout these hundreds of pages.  It sometimes takes another guise--individuation and universality, Mind and Soul, Virtue and Genius--it is this central conflict that occupies the great majority of his deliberation. It is to be recognized in more modern works as the Subject and the Object, and though Sartre and de Beauvois would probably shoot him on sight, they are not immune to his influence.

Only in "Genius and Virtue" does it become clear the depth of Schopenhauer's error: he has misidentified the two, and accordingly chosen the wrong one.  For him, Genius, intellect, and Mind are the truly subjective states, those with true agency and clarity.  Will, soul and Virtue, on the other hand, and whimsical forces of nature, mere objects, that must be endured, if not disregarded entirely. How Sartre must have laughed.  

Is there anything more truly an object than the Mind?  For Schopenhauer, the Mind perceives and regards the soul as an object, but how thoroughly opposite is the reality.  I think.  I am.  Thinking does not me.  The I precedes the mind in every conceivable way, and it is only the Will that can be thought of as a true subject.  How terrifying such a thought would have been for Schopenhauer, and how utterly incapable of facing it he was.  All he had was his intellect.  It is no wonder that his Will, the finger of attention, pointed to it as the very end of existence. It's the oldest trick in the ego's book: look over there!  Schopenhauer saw his intellect as a penetrating beam of light that revealed the nature of all existence.  In reality, it was a mirror that revealed nothing but itself.

Seneca: Letters

Kant's critique of Utilitarianism, to the effect that if everyone practiced it everyone would be miserable, seems to apply equally well to Stoicism as it is commonly perceived.  Self-abnegation, unremitting seriousness, and general tsking at life hardly seems like a way of life worth the effort, however virtuous it may be.  Virtue is its own reward, of course, but too often it is also its own punishment.  Such a Calvinist belief in the virtue of suffering ends up responsible for far more human suffering than it prevents.

Militant Stoics look rather askance at Seneca, accusing him of lip service to Virtue without actual practice of it.  How hard is it to resign oneself to life when life is affluent and sociable, after all? Isn't Stoicism serious business?  Isn't life itself serious, dreary, and grim?  What business does one have owning a vineyard in the midst of all this, after all?

Whether he intended to or not, however, it is exactly through this "lip service" that Seneca revealed the purest form of Stoicism.  A true Stoic knows and embraces that money, vineyards, love, and friendship are of only illusory worth.  Seneca takes that assertion a step further, and says that not only are they ultimately worthless, but they are laughable.  They are not important, and therefore why should one go to any lengths to avoid them?  If one sees such things for what they truly are, they become not pitfalls to be avoided, but illusions to be enjoyed or not, as the occasion demands.  If my vineyard is of no consequence, why should I go to the effort of ridding myself of it?  If love and sex and friendship are vain and illusory, why go to the trouble of avoiding them?  Is not the whole picture of existence, namely that "whether a hundred or a thousand flagons go through your bladder, all you are is a strainer," rather more hilarious than grim (LXXVII)?  In which case, why not face it with a smirk and a quip than a frown and an empty stomach?

There's nothing better or worse about good bread than bad.  If presented with the latter, one has the choice of relishing in the suffering, or taking the more realistic (and practical) decision to "wait, then, and not eat until I either start getting good bread or cease to be fussy about bad bread" (CXXIII).

Simone de Beauvoir: The Ethics of Ambiguity

If de Beauvoir's goal in writing this was to demonstrate that it is possible to live with purpose and virtue in a world torn by the dichotomy of subject and object, of individual and collective, then surely she succeeded.  If it was her goal to clarify what the criteria of such a life are, what ethical standards could find application in such a world, the her success is less clear.

This is not surprising.  She herself asserts that "Ethics does not furnish recipes any more than do science and art" (134).  A set of rules and principles that could lead one to an ethical life would need to be infinitely complex, to account for the endless variety of situations and humans that exist.  To delineate the what of ethics is an endless and impossible task.  The why, however, turns out to be far more attainable, and it is this that she aims to bring to the surface.  

What one does cannot be said to be ethical or unethical.  Why one does it, however, is much more vulnerable to judgement.  The product is neutral, but the process is not.  The closest de Beauvoir comes to putting this clearly is when she says, ". . . what distinguishes the tyrant from the man of good will is that the first rests in the certainty of his aims, whereas the second keeps asking himself, 'Am I really working for the liberation of men?'" (133)

I'm tempted to propose that this book be given the subtitle "The ambiguity of ethics".  It is not so much about how to be ethical in an ambiguous, paradoxical world.  It is rather about how to address the ambiguity--and subjectivity--of what such an ethics needs to be.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera

The appeal of Marquez has always, for me, been his characters.  Every character in his books not only has a fully realized inner life, but also a magical reality that could serve as the subject of its own novel.  In Cholera, for example, not only are the three central characters vibrant and heightened to the point where their humanity is recognizable, but not taken for granted; even those with barely a sentence of mention, down to the pets, are so real in their magicality that one's skepticism is never triggered.  We know people in our real lives who similarly skirt the margins of what seems possible, and it is no surprise at all to find them in a novel.

What makes this world magically real, as opposed to simply real, is not the nature of its denizens, but rather the quantity of them.  It is no surprise to meet characters who bend credibility; it is a surprise that each and every one of them do.  This trait could be seen as a forebear of modern day heightened realities such as one sees in 30 Rock, Kimmy Schmidt, or Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  We are used to knowing such magical/heightened people; we simply aren't used to being surrounded by them.

I especially enjoy these worlds, the magical and heightened realities of literature, because their distorted reflection of experienced reality is the other side of my personal looking glass.  Reading and being immersed in the world of Cholera gives me an idea what it must be like for an outsider to experience the world of my friends and me.  Each and every one of us is vaguely magical, of the sort that it is not uncommon to meet on occasion, but overwhelming to meet all at once.  

P'u Sung-Ling: Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

 As entertaining and informative as this book was, with especially effective editing and translation by H.A. Giles, I don't know that I have much insight to offer into it.  The natural approach is to hold it alongside folk tales from other cultures, especially those compiled by Italo Calvino, and see what the overlay reveals.

Doing so, it immediately becomes clear just how universal the human approach to the supernatural is.  Among the themes and plots that recur with startling frequency in both volumes:

The young man of poor means but natural talent and good intention, who is treated unjustly but ultimately receives his due with a little help from the other world.

The girl who is treated badly by a mother figure to whom she has no blood ties, but endures out of an abundance of filial piety, and ultimately receives her due with a little help from the other world.

The lover who is not what they seem, but is all the more devoted and loving for it (although one interesting divergence is how often these figures were male in Calvino's stories, and how often female in P'u's).

In fact, dressed in different clothes, any story from the one set would be right at home in the other.  The virtues rewarded are the same: fidelity, industry, honesty, patience; as are the vices: greed, bad faith, impiety. I'm sure a better and more comprehensive comparison than I am equipped to perform exists, and draws conclusions from its findings.  As for me, I am in the mood to take a significantly less temporal approach, and go out into the woods to find a fox spirit or fairy of my own to ask.

American Grafitti

 What I experienced watching this movie can best be described as nostalgia for nostalgia.  As I sang along with the soundtrack, smirked at the cultural references and period-specific design choices, it was as though I was returning to my youth.  Except it wasn't my youth.  It was my father's youth.  It was his youth that formed the basis of my own youth, as though  he were reliving it vicariously through me, attempting a redo at whatever he felt went wrong.

And of course that's not too far off from what George Lucas was trying to do with the film.  Even though the film has the tone of a period piece, a scarce decade separates the setting from the filming.  Lucas does not seem to have been trying to recapture 1962; he was trying to remember it.  Lucas was reliving that period through me as the viewer, much as my father did throughout my youth. 

Which makes it nearly comical that Ron Howard went on from this sincere, if edited, version of the past to an altogether more disingenuous one in Happy Days--which one might also call nostalgia for nostalgia.  The people who watched that show were not entirely those who lived through its setting.  Many of them were, like me, those who had only heard the legends and claimed them as part of our own identity.

Raymond Buckland: Complete Book of Witchcraft

 When I say that this book confirmed me in my belief that Wicca is a bona fide religion, I do not mean that as a compliment.  This book served its purpose of giving me some insight into the gears and knobs that make it work for some people, but throughout I found the very same pedantry and dilution that makes other religions so unpalatable to me personally.  

To be fair, this was exactly Buckland's stated purpose in writing this book.  He is an advocate for mainstream acceptance of Wicca, and goes out of his way to draw attention to the harmlessness and relative banality of the practice.  In doing so, however, he reveals that Wicca is well on its way to falling into the trap that has befallen every religion before it, that which William James so insightfully identifies as the transition away from authentic religious experience into systematized bureaucracy.

Mercifully, there is one trap into which it has not yet fallen, although based on Buckland's descriptions and warnings, it is not far off.  The most deadly trap of religion, the litmus test by which I gauge whether a given thinker, community, or doctrine is worth considering, is to think that one is right.  The divine is not a puzzle that has been solved, and to think otherwise is delusion and laziness.  At the point of Buckland's writing, at least, Wicca was still able to claim "and it harm none, do what thou wilt."

Kate Grenville: The Secret River

 At a certain level, the question of literature ceases to be one of quality.  Once a book has survived hundreds of years of scrutiny with its reputation intact, made it onto "greatest books" lists, or, as in this case, been shortlisted for the Man Booker, it's a pretty safe bet that it will be good.  It will be well-written, even engaging and enjoyable.  

At that point, I don't ask myself whether the book will be good.  I ask myself, "Do I want to hear what this person has to say?  Do I want to hear this story?"  In this case, the answer should have been "No."  

It was a good book!  Beautiful, engaging, riveting at points, with a nice--if predictable--flow.  If you want to hear a white colonizer talk about how hard it is to be a white colonizer, then this is by all means the book for you.  If you, on the other hand, don't feel inclined to hear about how unfortunate it is that all those indigenous people had to be slaughtered, perhaps this one is best avoided.

This might even serve as a framework for answering the increasingly relevant question of how to separate the artist from their work in other areas.  Is R. Kelly's music good?  Is Louis C.K.'s comedy good?  Are Woody Allen's movie's good?  Of course they are.  Well, some of them.  It's not a question of whether the work in question is good.  It's a question of whether I want to give that person my time, attention, and space in my brain.

Al-Ma'idah

 The further I get into this project, the less interested I am in parsing the Islamic surface of the text, and the more interested I am in untangling the Sufi depths.  The former so far has come across as a generic, though not unenjoyable, religious text.  The latter, however, specifically the mysteries of HU, Rabb, and ب , always seize my fascination when they arise.

1: The parallel between the restrictions of Ihram and those of Lent are irresistible.  It is natural to find the links between all these Abrahamic religions, but one wonders if the link goes back even further to Zoroaster.

2-5: Even more parallels between the three "peoples of the book", with the addition of an injunction against resentment against people of hostile faiths one notable point of departure.

6: So-called "dry ablution" is another interesting feature, and I don't know of anything similar in other religions.

7: It never hurts to recall the overarching theme of Islam: submission.  

8: Already reemphasizing the point in v2 (and in An-Nisa) against resentment and the cloudy thinking of antagonism.

9-10: These verses seem to play against each other, and it takes a bit of theology to reconcile them.  On the one hand, those who practice their own religion faithfully are forgiven, whatever it may be.  In the same breath, those who disbelieve the specific signs of this book are bound for Hell.  As is usual in such cases, only Hulusi's Sufi perspective can make sense of it:  it is not the disbelief in this particular Rasul that destines them for hell; it is a denial of reality, and specifically the reality of indivisibility.

11: A very straightforward verse that Hulusi confounds with his explication.  He posits that the Name Wakil is being referenced in the penultimate phrase, but there neither seems to be justification for this vowel shift, nor explanation of such a Name in his extensive preface on names.

12-13: Several potential inroads into this section: who are the "we" that appointed the tribes of Israel? What is the "share of the realities" that they have forgotten (Sahih version assumes it is the share that related to The Prophet)? What effect does this hardening of hearts have?  Is a member of such a "hardened" group forever locked out by blood?

14: To believe that the intersectional disputes between Christians are preordained by Allah brings a similar series of difficult questions.  The Allah of the Quran seems scarcely less petty than that of the Bible.

15-16: There is an emphasis on نو in Hulusi's rendition that seems unjustified.  Light is light, and does not seem to need explication.  The hint is of some sufi metaphysical meaning, but what could be deeper than the literal in this case?

17: A deft blow to the ridiculous Christian notion of Christ's divinity.  

18: Will the Quran keep to this, though, and refrain from claiming privileged status, or fall prey to ego as the Jews and Christians before did?

19: It is certainly tempting to think that a Divine messenger is thus destined to appear at intervals.  We are certainly due for a new one.

20-26: A surprisingly straightforward section, almost exactly as it is described in the Pentateuch.  Who, I wonder, are the two from among them who are said to have spoken up, though.

27-31: The alternate version of this story is fascinating. The addition of the crow is especially flavorful. Surely Abel threatening Cain with hellfire is anachronistic, however.

32-34: This would be a keystone verse in any text--were it not for the loopholes that modern day Muslims take to be the law itself.

35-37: Evidently the idea of eternal damnation was thoroughly trenchant by this time.  One wonders whether it became so in Islam as a result of Greek (and ultimately Egyptian) influence, or from further East.  In Christianity, at least, the corruption seems to begin with Tertullian in the 3rd century, and be thoroughly entrenched by the time of Augustine in the 5th.

38-39: Allah is all-forgiving--unless his followers get to the offenders first as in 34.

40: An interesting parallel with the LunHeng of Wang Chong, which I am reading concurrently.  Don't bother questioning your fate.  Heaven is capricious and petty, and does what it will.

41: At least the fifth time this troubling phenomenon has been highlighted.  Who are those whose hearts Allah does not wish to purify?  What are the criteria?  When is it determined?  The same problems exist with similar verses in the Bible, but the latter text does not emphasize it nearly so often.  

42-43: One wonders why indeed Jews or Christians would come seeking Islamic justice.  

44: The logic does not follow here, and I feel like I am missing a subtlety of the Arabic equivalent for "so".  The second clause simply does not follow from the first.

45-47: It makes a bit more sense now.  The effect seems to be, "Look: Jews and Christians have these same directions, and then twisted them.  If you just go by what Allah has revealed, no matter which version, you'll be fine.  But if you are worried about man's version of the same . . . well good luck with that."

48-49: And therefore, "If you stick to what Allah has revealed, it will become clear that which is common in all three."

50: ". . . you got a better idea, wiseguy?"

51-56: No doubt it would be tempting to side with the temporarily upper-handed, especially if the beliefs are fundamentally the same.  Very clever of The Prophet to nip that in the bud here.

57-60: And it is tempting to mock rituals which we find unfamiliar or extreme.  I sure received my share of it growing up.  If one is committed to the course, though, this is the only response.

61-63: Which is to say, "The proof is in the pudding," or, "By their works you will know them."

64: I can't be certain from context, but the Jews in this verse seem to be saying that their wealth is proof of their blessing.  Oh, what a pernicious doctrine, and how widespread among Christians today.

65: The reward here is an interesting one: the Gardens of Bliss are by no means a literal paradise, but easily seen as a state of enlightenment.  Hulusi, naturally, takes advantage of this interpretation.

66: But there is danger here of readers falling into the same trap as in 64.  If one follows the given Word, whether Torah, Gospel, or Quran, blessings will come.  If, therefore, one is not so blessed, surely they are sinners.

67: This one is an enigma.  Why should the Prophet need protection from the people?  Of what should he be afraid?   

68-69: I sure do like this ecumenical sentiment,and I sure do see little of it in modern Islam.

70-71: This tracks very well with the stories in the Torah.

72-73: And a valid critique of Christianity.  It is astonishing the nonsense that modern Christians allw themselves to believe, and evidently it was no different in the 6th century.

74: A well-placed reminder that this is not malice, but ridicule.

75: A new critique of the doctrine of Christ's divinity: "Then why did he eat, dummies?"

76: Nothing to see here on the surface, but a hint from Hulusi at a deeper meaning of هُوَ

77: This book is beginning to sound like it's intended for other "people of the book" as much as it is for the people of Islam.

78: David is an interesting choice here.  Of all the Hebrew prophets, he would not have not been in my top ten choices for an example of condemnation.  I wonder what the Prophet is referring to here.

79-80: Lets of disagreement between the three translations here.  I prefer Hulusi's version, especially in that it makes the eternal punishment one of ego, rather than of hellfire.

81-84: This is manifestly no longer true.  Perhaps in the 7th century there were men among the Christians who matched this description: sincere, humble, and ascetic.  I cannot think of an example in the last century, however.

85-86: This afterlife, while vague, certainly is appealing.

87-88: Almost exactly the sentiment of Peter in Acts 10.

89: I like that the breaking of an oath is not a sin against the recipient of the oath, but against reality itself, and the penalty corresponds.

90-92: Well I'm guilty of all of these on a weekly if not daily basis.  I do not sense that it causes the animosity that is predicted here.  I can see the point, though.  Maybe if I did them with others instead of alone in my hovel the result would be as described.

93: In two of the translations, this is a perfectly natural  extension of the preceding exhortations.  For Hulusi, naturally, there is a deeper progression: from devotion to understanding to enlightenment to protection.

94-96: An interesting and seemingly disjunct prohibition.  Why is hunting specifically prohibited during Ihram and not other activities?

97: The connection between these sacred practices and a reminder of Allah's omniscience is not intuitive.

98-99: Unless it is to be revealed through the punishment for violations.

100-102: A reasonable enough edict.  Don't keep asking why; you may not like the answer, not because Allah doesn't care to be questioned, but because you may not like the answers and they aren't useful to you anyway.

103-104: No doubt a necessary injunction at the time, but mostly a historical footnote today.

105: This verse resonates on several levels.  You are not your results. Worry about your dang self, and it will turn out alright, and you will be given understanding to boot.

106-108: A very practical regulation, with parallels in the Torah and the Gospel.  The emphasis on material goods and wealth is what sets the Quran apart from the others.

109: Another lovely connection to 105.  We are not called to task for the results of our actions, but for the actions themselves--even the prophets.

110-120: The longest coherent narrative I have yet encountered in the Quran, and wonderful in proportion to its fluidity.  Not only is the idea of Christ being called to account on the Judgement Day a marvelous concept, but his answer as well.  The inclusion of the account of Christ bringing a bird to life from clay here also gives weight to so-called apocryphal accounts like the Gospel of Thomas.  

Perhaps most wonderful, though, is the eponymous "table", the مائِدَةً that is revealed to the believers.  With no mention of a literal feast, it can only be taken as the glorious feast of revelation that is available to those who sincerely search for it.  I hope to be among them.

이상화기념사업회: 상화, 대구를 넘어 세계로

 2년전 빠지던 이상화의 시를 요새 방치되어있지만 다시 보게 되었다.  이상화의 시를 물론 역사 맥락 업시 볼 수 없는 시다.  과동대지진, ㄱ당 사건,  등과 같은 것을 더 깊이 알게 되서 그 시절의 시도 더 잘 이해하는 것 같다.  더군아 이 책은 지리학 맥락도 제공해서 옆으로 놓았던 번역 활동에 영감이 생겼다.  특히 지리학 개념 없이 이해할 수 없는 "대구행진곡"을 20째 번역으로 손을 댔다:

The Daegu March

 

Biseul Mountain to the front, Palgong Mountain to the rear

The waters of Geumhho River flowing through the center

So many spent tears and long sighs piling up,

Night after night and day after day, thus do you cry?

 

At the site of Dalgu Hill, more than half collapsed,

Or Dosu Park, overgrown with forest shadows,

Even though throngs of people come and go

Like an old tree on the Bangcheon levee, how many are there?

 

Wide Daegu Province, no matter how good you are,

As we whose laughter and dreams have been stolen,

Our bodies without even threads,

Wandering to the front or the back, our hearts are heavy.

 

As beautiful as a star, it is surely here

Swollen with kind and cute liquor

On this one breathless night, sleep not

Drink till the moon sets and the sun rises.

 

David Sedaris: Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

Before this book, I found it a little difficult to put a finger on the exact source of Sedaris' charm.  Unforgiving sarcasm is always appealing, as long as one is not the target, and there is a certain twist in his figurative language that always surprises and unnerves.  These alone could not explain his unrivaled success, however, or his appeal to me in particular.  Plenty of writers have a similar talent with words, after all, without catching the mind quite like Sedaris does.

What must be relegated to a je ne sais quois in his other collections, however, finds another voice in this one.  In addition to the usual poignant and vibrant retellings of simple episodes in his life, where he teases out meaning and humor from the tiniest of details, as usual, there are two additional items.  Firstly, included here are a few dramatic monologues, ostensibly for forensic performance, that take great pains to be as far from Sedaris' own character as possible.  The wide variety in ages, genders, and beliefs scarcely bothers to conceal the common thread: these are the worst possible people you could imagine existing.  Each of the monologues begins innocently enough, but ramps up quickly to such heights of misanthropy that caricature is not a strong enough word. Giving free rein to his imagination, and freed from the bounds of the personal essay, Sedaris reveals what he has been after all along--not just in the book, but in all the previous ones.

The characters in the monologues are comically horrid, but we are only allowed to realize the depths of their sociopathy because these are monologues, and we have access to their deepest, most sinister thoughts.  Furthermore, each of them is oblivious to their portrayal, and convinced that they are the hero of whatever episode they are recounting.  If we were encountering them on the street, or, say, in a story where they were only bit players, they might seem almost human.  In fact, with such third-person armor, each of them could easily have found a home in one of Sedaris' other stories.  

This is the world that Sedaris has created, one where everyone is horrible--but managing for the most part to conceal it from each other and from the reader.  The author's father, notably, receives the closest attention in the essay sections, and very nearly reaches the depravity of the monologue characters.  If he were given his own monologue, all doubt of his detestability would be removed.  

It is also noteworthy that the author himself comes across as less varnished in this volume.  Perhaps at this age, Sedaris has simply grown comfortable with his depravity, and is less interested in assuming a persona.  In a way, the book is itself a monologue of sociopathy, nestled within with are smaller monologues that highlight his point: we are all terrible, you and me included. 

Shakespeare: Poems

In linguistics, there is a useful tool called "minimal pairs".  To really understand what a letter, a sound, a word means, one must find two elements that differ by only that one variable.  To extricate the fundamental difference between T and D, for example, one needs a set of words like "cat" and "cad".  To understand the difference between "watch" and "see", one needs a sentence such as "I ___ the television" and observe how the different words change the meaning in that slot, or even better "____ your back in case someone is following you", where one word is possible, and the other not.

In the thriving industry of Shakespearean analysis, I feel that this tool is underused.  No few number of people devote their lives to parsing the sonnets, and trying to discern what his intention was in writing them.  Such inquiry can never bear any fruit;  it can result at most in speculation, in the absence of a minimal pair with which to compare those works.  The question, "What was Shakepeare's relation to the Earl of Southampton?", which is never far from the sonnets, cannot be answered by them definitively.  As in a court of law, intent is notoriously difficult to establish.

Shakespeare's other poems, however, are another matter.  We are not left to the texts themselves to understand them. We have minimal pairs.  We can look at the other accounts from which Shakespeare borrowed these stories, and see what he changed.  It is those points, the elements that are added to or deleted from the source material, that can unlock something that the texts in and of themselves can never answer.  In "The Rape of Lucrece", for example, the vast sections devoted to the thoughts of the rapist Tarquin stand out in contrast to any other account of the story--and especially to Ovid's account, likely Shakespeare's point of reference.  Nearly half of the poem seems dedicated to the inner conflict within this otherwise universally reviled figure.  Shakespeare gives Tarquin and Lucrece equal weight, turning a story of one noble woman into a dichotomy between a helpless beauty, and the savage whose irresistible passion destroyed them both. 

This overlay is especially fruitful in the case of "Venus and Adonis", insofar as Shakespeare's changes are even more drastic.  In the original account, Adonis and Aphrodite (Shakespeare's substitution of the Roman Venus is also revealing) were actual lovers for a long time before his death, and he even chose to stay with her for a third of the year.  Shakespeare flips this entirely on its head.  Not only does Adonis resist the lusty goddess at first, but he dies almost immediately after relenting.  The original myth of love and grief is transformed into a cautionary tale against the dangers of passion.  The roles are reversed, the man in this case a helpless beauty and the woman possessed by lust.  Even the names reveal the focus: savage Rome and beautiful Greece, lust and beauty--the parallel with Lucrece and Tarquin is clear.  

Which brings us to "The Phoenix and the Turtle".  Here we have not only minimal pairs, but a wealth of data.  Shakespeare is explicitly reacting to Robert Chester's "Love's Martyr", and the comparisons between the two would be sufficient for any linguist.  In addition, however, we have six other texts, among them the greatest writers of the time, each reacting to the same poem.  Not only can we infer from what aspects of the text Shakespeare focused on--or especially those he altered--but also from how his reaction differed from those of his peers.  Wouldn't it be lovely if someone would give me a patronage to read and parse them all.  Perhaps someday. 

One liberty taken by Shakespeare, however, is vivid even without the time to overlay the seven texts and scrutinize them in detail.  In Chester's poem, the eponymous birds voluntarily sacrifice themselves to create something even better from the ashes.  Shakespeare is having none of that.  "Leaving no posterity," the birds' death is unequivocal tragedy (59).  Nothing good comes from the meeting of power and beauty.  Not for Lucrece, not for Adonis, and not for the Turtle.  All are destroyed in the process, and  what remains is only to lament.

Alain de Botton: On Love

 I am skeptical by nature, and have grown especially skeptical, through experience, of anyone who seems to think quite a bit of themself.  If one thinks enough of themself to establish a global organization dedicated to spreading their own "wisdom" . . . well, I formed an opinion of this author well before reading any of his books.

And I was not altogether wrong in my assessment, it seems.  The omphaloskeptic pondering on the subject of love that filled this book was so laughable that one wonders if it was intended as a parody of philosophy.  The author, speaking ostensibly as the main character, agonizes over the topic, and especially over the specific question, "How could she suddenly just not love me?"  His obliviousness is tragicomic.  "How could she have ever loved you in the first place," I instead wondered.  "I have never met you and I can't stand you."  

I did find myself in the pages of this book, however--just not in the way that was likely intended.  I saw myself in the character of Chloe, who found herself in a relationship that was fine, but eventually grew tired of it, having never really reached the point of "love".  I saw myself in the main character as well, devoted supplicant whose worship goes cruelly unreturned. But mostly, I saw myself in the author: the overwrought analytic who can't see what is painfully obvious. 

Nathanael: The Art of Seeing and The Essentials of Magick

 Reading these two books is a manifestation of my growing interest in Something More.  My spiritual journey has been long and convoluted, beginning with my formative years in a bronze age Hebrew war god cult.  After walking through the one-way door out of my parents' religion, the first natural question was "Is there anything out there?  Gods, ghosts, aliens, whatever?  Or is this all there is?"  My answer to myself was "I'm not sure, but if there isn't, then whats the point of living?  So let's assume there is and try to find it."

So it began, a series of questions, years spent finding answers that were at best provisional, a flowchart of yesses and noes that eventually led to the current question: "How can I meaningfully interact with the something that is bigger than me?"  

I wouldn't say these books answered the question.  The sort of things that the author is trying to describe are pretty clearly unteachable through a book.  Nonetheless, I have taken a few things from him and added them to the spiritual casserole that is my belief system.  None of the things in this book are likely to be key ingredients, but seasoning is just as important as meat and veg.

John LeCarre: A Delicate Truth

There is an entire section of my bookshelf filled with orphaned books, volumes that somebody just dropped in my lap when they were moving or clearing out.  Loath to let anything remain unread, I accept them and pick at them when I have time.  Usually they are of the breezy beach read variety, and I was fully expecting this to match that description, well written and entertaining, but not particularly significant.  For 90% of the book, I was confirmed in my assessment.

As I drew near the end, however, I began to get nervous.  How on earth would the author extract his hero and the obligatory love interest from the mess into which he had written them?  There were only 30 pages left in which to do it.  Then 20.  Then the book was finished, the characters were explicitly not saved, and I found myself staring into the void, when I had not intended to.  If I had wanted to be reminded that we are fundamentally alone in a brutal world, there are plenty of other books on my shelf to serve that purpose.  Schopenhauer is always happy to oblige on that point.  

And yet there I was, ambushed by what I thought would just be a light diversion.  It is never far from my mind that "Si che non basta l'esser uomo dabbene e virtuoso," as per Cellini.  "It is not enough in this world to be a man of talent and virtue."  Before facing this truth, I usually raise my shields, but I ran into it completely defenseless here.  As LeCarre's characters found out, being good at your job and doing the right thing, more often than not, bring ruin and little else.

An-Nisa II

 95: A brief dip into the Arabic gives a little insight into the familiar words Jihad and Mujahideen here.  The root of each seems to be "strive" rather than "fight", 

96: And those who so strive, risking life and property, are rewarded with "ranks", which is a fascinating overlap with Dante's struggle over the hierarchy of virtue.

97-99: Another seemingly ignored verse.  "But we were oppressed!" is not among the accepted excuses.  Why live where you are oppressed?  Is the world not vast enough for you?

100-103: No doubt a necessary allowance at the time.  What about today, now that the believers have themselves become the oppressors, as it ever is with religion?

104: The cycle returns, like the line inscribed by a point on a rotating wheel, to a position of power.

105-106: This seemingly disconnected point may well simply be the signal of a shift in rhetoric.  Very often at this point, there is the sense that an answer is being offered to an unasked question, one that is so obvious as to not need included.

107-111: And this is the point into which we are being led, by only the most tenuous of connections to the previous topic.

112: An excellent point, one that I can't think of a parallel for in other religious texts.

113: Hulusi's (and by extension the Sufi) obsession with orthomancy, arises again here, though هُ remains ignored by the now 3 other versions I am referencing.  It seems to have some linguistic veracity, however.  The diving Name is indeed given as اللَّهُ in places, and elsewhere (as here) as اللَّهِ.  It remains to be seen whether this is a simple morphemic variation, or, as Hulusi seems convinced, the source of a deep metaphysical truth.

114: A little unclarity here.  "They" seems to mean the enemy of v. 104, who are then said to be deceitful (105), self-destructive (107), conspiratorial (108), slanderous (112), and heretical (113).  There is nothing in this string of verses to suggest a shift in pronoun referent that I can see.  And here we are in 114 promising them a reward for their acts of charity.  

115: And more confusion.  "We will abandon him" seems to directly contradict the "and lead him to hell" that follows it.

116: Hulusi takes a liberty that the other three translators do not.  The text is clearly a proscription against assigning partners to Allah, but Hulusi extrapolates that into duality in general.  It's a nice point, but not in the text.

117:This is a fascinating prospect.  Allah is the alpha male.  Satan is the correspondingly naughty female.  the first mention of the supposed topic of this book in some pages.

118-120: Even more fascinating! Who is this Iblis, and what is his connection with the Satan of the previous verse?  Most importantly, why does Hulusi insert him here when there is no mention in the original text, and these verses are clearly referring to the same being as 117.

121-122: Of course we can't go a full page without a few of these verses.  

123: The subject of this sentence evidently leaves a lot of room for wiggling.  "Sunnatullah" in Hulusi, "Divine grace" in Khattab, "Paradise" in Saheeh.  Perhaps the unattributed translation I'm referencing has the right idea to simply leave it as "it".

124: A little more of the eponymous topic, and pretty unequivocal at that.

125: More linguistic wiggling here.  حَنِيفٗاۗ is rendered "upright" and "inclining toward truth", but in the other two is left untranslatable as "Hanif".  No dictionary I tried seems to be up to the task either.

126: Our obligatory interlaud  (a word I just coined and of which I am incredibly proud) for this page.

127: I sense that we are about to get to the point . . . and I also know that I am always wrong when I sense that.

128: Oh.  I was wrong about being wrong.  And this is a delightfully concise summary of the matter.

129: A nice bit of advice to the polyamorous among us.

130: We have stayed on topic for a record of 4 verses!

131: Aaaaaaaand it's gone.  

132: I don't recall this Name before, and it stands out from the others: وَكيلًا rendered as agent, trustee, or dispoer of affairs.  This is somehow more comforting to imagine than the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-righteous names.

133: Wouldn't it be a kick if mankind was not, in fact, the first try.

134: more familiar Divine Names here, no doubt gearing up for a warning or admonishment.

135: I love this verse, and there's no ambiguity among the translations either.

136: Unlike this verse, in which Hulusi finds room to reinsert his emphasis on the mystical nature of the letter ب.  There does indeed seem to be some room for interpretation here, and the Book mentioned in other places, ٱلۡكِتَٰبَ, is clearly different than the book mentioned here, كُتُبِهِۦ.  I may be predisposed to think that ب bears some mystical power, though.

137-139: Fairly straightforward, and mirrors can be found in other religious texts.

140: Hulusi may go too far here, extracting a reference to "mirror neurons" from this verse.  It damages his credibility, in fact, and gives him the air of an uninformed youtube video.

141-146: Continuing the admonition starting in 137, this may be this longest passage that remains on one topic so far.  One wonders exactly what situation arose to cause such emphasis.

147: I am growing unimpressed with the structure of this book.  Isolated verses such as this seem utterly meaningless.

148-149: Even verses such as these, with a clear and relevant message, lose some of their power due to the "Oh, BTW" algorithm.  It is irresistible to take verses out of context when there is no context.

150-152: These verses present a bit of a dilemma for they who would take them literally.  All Rasul must be believed, including Moses, Abraham, and Jesus, without distinction or exception.  This certainly undermines the idea of the Prohpet's hegemony.  Hulusi's approach finds the happy middle ground here.  There is no such thing as duality, after all.  One must see all aspects of the Divine to truly approach it and, one might suppose, even those Rasul who come after.

153-155: A hilarious and valid reading of the Hebrews' actions at Sinai, muddies only slightly by more pronoun fuzziness.  All four versions render this "We", but it seems that it could easily be "I", and the translators are likely erring on the side of reverence.

156-158: I was prepared for this respect of Jesus, but did not expect to find Mary similarly exalted in this book.  She is given rather more weight here and in Al-Imran than one would think.

159-161: It is interesting to think that the Mosaic Law was rather a punitive Law than a prescriptive one.

162: One is tempted to judge Hulusi harshly for inserting another paean to the letter بِ here, but he may just be on to something.  It does seem to pop up here and there, especially attached to the Divine Name, without being acknowledged in the other translations.

163-165: Rather a lengthy list of Rasuls.  One would scarcely think to give Aaron or Ishmael the same weight as Jesus or Abraham.  As for my part, I rather like the idea of adding Baháʼu'lláh and others to the list after the fact.  It is even more tempting to think who in more modern times we might add to the list.  

166: The divine name gets an extra بِ here again, but Hulusi forgoes mention of it in favor of his other obession, the equally compelling concept of HU.

167-169: A breather after all that metaphysical mystery, and a brief return to generic religious flavor text.

170: After which we get the third fascinating Sufi obsession: the Rabb.  If by the end of this project I have some working concept of بِ, HU, and Rabb, I will count this as time well spent. 

171: I would wager money that this verse alone has given rise to volumes of analysis and commentary. There's so much to unpack here.  The doctrinal points are clear enough, but the role of Mary in all of this, along with Hulusi's decision to insert HU again, slowed me down considerably.  This latter, unlike the other two Sufi mysteries, seems to have little linguistic root.

172-174: Winding down a bit.  Will there be a twist ending?

176: The only surprise is a sudden return to the topic.  There are those who say the the Quran is remarkably progressive in its treatment of women, and there are points to be made in that regard.  this summary makes it clear though:  women are important! Just not as important as men.