Final thoughts on Sweet Thursday and first and last

Aw nuts. I started out liking this and actually I didn't dislike it but once it degenerated into a story to find Doc a woman and the woman that was picked for him since her introduction in chapter 4 was too young, coarse and dumb for him, the story began to sag. I couldn't quite buy the raffle party that was a surprise would-be wedding either, not even in the fantastical universe of Cannery Row.

Doc and Fauna would have been a match worthy of each other. She's older than him. I'm not certain by how much. Steinbeck preferred a 21 year old hooker instead.

What I liked: Old Jingleballicks, the candy bar stealing Seer, Fauna and her astrological charts that she uses as an excuse to give people advice, all of the characters from Cannery Row. Hazel fretting that he would be President of the United States. The concept of Doc having the top, middle and bottom voices. All the literary allusions ("Whom the Gods destroy, they first make nuts" is a chapter heading. Mack unexpectely spouting Shakespeare.)

I also liked the satire of the Bear Flag cook Joe Elegant and his novel (with the great, pretentious title "The Pi of Oedipus") which Steinbeck uses to get in a dig at one his critics, Anthony West. Joe is shown in one seen writing a letter that starts out "My dear Anthony West, it was sweet of you..." West wrote a particularly negative review of East of Eden for the New Yorker which prompted Steinbeck to wonder to a friend in a letter why West feared the book so much (the footnotes also cattily and correctly point out that Steinbeck had the last laugh.)

Poor Steinbeck wanted so much to give Doc a happy ending though and I certainly can't begrudge him that. It was also the last novel he wrote about California so it was full of bittersweet farewells. I reminded me of the ending of Grease a bit (so corny I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it's one of my favorite movie endings of all time. We go together like Rama Lama Lama, eh whatever. RIP Jeff Conaway.) Old Jingleballicks turned Doc into a foundation so his work could be financed by him finally instead of Jingle stealing Doc's lab equipment and mooching booze. The boys rigged a raffle to buy him an expensive microscope-and also to get him the deed to their house which it turned out Lee Chong had secretly deeded to them when he sold the grocery. And, sigh, Doc and the not that interesting but could have been worse Suzy drive off into the sunset together.

I'm curious about the movie but I'm not sure I want to subject myself to it, seeing as how the Steinbeck estate famously didn't like it (and from what I know of it, it's more Thursday than Row.) At least they fired Raquel Welch from the part of Suzy before filming began.

First line:

When the war came to Monterey and to Cannery Row everybody fought it more or less, in one way or another. When hostilities ceased everyone had his wounds.

Last line:

Mack said, "Vice is a monster so frightful of mien, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." He put his arm around Hazel's shoulder. "I think you'd of made a hell of a president," he said.

I love that Mack gets the last word.

Werner Herzog, Cormac McCarthy and Lawrence Krauss walk into a bar

I listened to an episode of Science Friday from April that featured a gloriously surreal round table of these three discussing science and art. I admired but didn't particularly like The Road but Cormac McCarthy's genial intelligence and modesty charmed the pants off me.

My favorite moment: Werner Herzog reading from All the Pretty Horses in his grave, teutonic accent (all I could think of was this. "Madeline...vass introduced in her undervehr as a nod to French sensibilities." I die.) Herzog love Cormac's work by the way which isn't so surprising. After he finished, McCarthy gaily asked if Herzog would do a reading from Krauss's book (about Richard Feynman) too.

Second favorite moment: Werner Herzog referencing his famous scene in Fitzcarraldo where he pulls a 300+ ton boat across the jungle and up a steep hill in defiance of every safety recommendation. Herzog says disdainfully that he proved to some pseudo-science types that it could be done when they were claiming alien astronauts did it. I have no idea what he is referring to. When the real rubber baron Fitzcarraldo did this? Then again, how many stories are there about big ass ships being dragged across the Peruvian jungle? (according to Wikipedia, this is a true story but the real vessel weighed closer to 30 tons and was brought over in pieces.) I have no idea what Werner was talking about but the hell with it. He's the world's coolest German-- although Udo Kier is a close second.

This great quote by Feyman, courtesy of Lawrence Krauss: "Science is imagination in a straight jacket."

Finally, how audibly tickled Ira Flatow was by the proceedings.

Herzog has a new film called "The Cave of Forgotten Dreams" about the oldest known cave paintings in the world in Chauvet, France. It was filmed in 3D and Werner (gravely, teutonically) suggested it be seen in 3D. Because the caves are likely to be forbidden to future human access (because we carry a damaging mold in our breath), this maybe your best and only chance to see them. McCarthy pointed out there must be a school for cave painters and only the successful students were allowed to paint as there are no botched or aborted cave paintings. The trailer does look fantastic.

The Black Diamond mystery resolved

As I wrote earlier this month, I went to Free Comic Book Day (FLOVED) and picked up a copy of the Black Diamond Detective Agency by Eddie Campbell, an comics artist who collaborated with Alan Moore.

Here's where the story gets weird--I cannot find any mention of this comic on the FCBD website or Glen Weldon's preview article for NPR. Yet, it clearly is stamped with the FCBD logo.

I kept wondering about it, as I'm wont to do with excessively trivial things. So finally I looked it up.Mystery solved. This was from 2007's give away. Maybe it's rare? Maybe I've stumbled onto the golden ticket like those stories about people finding a Van Gogh or a Stradivarius at a yard sale. Maybe I'm sitting on Oprah money.

Or, not.

Looks like he did create a full-blown graphic novel out of it though.

From the Iron Age to a clock that eats time

Some various stuff I learned from podcasts this week--

On the BBC's "In Our Time", Melvyn and guests discussed the beginning of the Iron Age in Europe and what it meant. It's difficult to pin these types of dates down (this is especially true for the Bronze Age) as they aren't homogenous even within Europe. It began between ~1200 and 1000 BC in Europe (around a century earlier in the Near East.) It followed a period called the Bronze Age Collapse, which was caused by the collapse of some Near Eastern kingdoms like the Hittites and the disruption of Egyptian rule in places like Syria. The importance of trade routes from the making of bronze was that a big source of tin was Afghanistan although it also came from sources closer to home, like the Czech Republic. The trade routes were already in place from such other precious goods as jade. Jadeite hand axes have been found all the way to Scotland. Here is a longer story about why the switch from bronze to iron made sense. Other than the problem of tin supply, bronze is hard to work with. And here is an article on why dates are hard to pin down and sometimes the Iron Age is broken into First and Second.

Guardian Science Weekly had a story about a new clock on display at the British Museum called the Chronophage, or Time-Eater as you can tell from the etymology. It was created by a British engineer and inventor named John Taylor who had previously designed heat elements in electric tea kettles (apparently ~75% of such kettles in England contain his handiwork.)  He was inspired by the work of 18th century British clockmaker John Harrison who was bedeviled by how to make a clock without gears that needed oiling. The oils available at the time were limited and costly and/or inappropriate. Goose grease, for instance, freezes rock solid when it gets cold.

Taylor's clock was inspired by the escapement (the source of the ticking sound) in an old clock of Harrison's. Taylor meant it both as an homage to Harrison and to remind people that their time is ticking away. Here is a video of the sister clock at Corpus Library, Cambridge. Here is what just the escapement looks like:

You can clearly hear it plugging away in the video although the grasshopper on this one (this is the Science Museum version) looks a little less scary. And also looks more like a fly.

Finally, I listened to an episode of To the Best of Our Knowledge called "Nature Stories" and the whole episode was good. A scientist called David Rothenberg recorded himself playing the clarinet in a duet with some humpback whales who responded to the music. They can respond to new sounds much more agilely than birds. I also didn't know that only male whales sing, although it's no longer clear that it's for mating purposes as was first thought.

Next was an artist called Jennifer Angus who collects insects to use in her artwork, large scale mural-like installations. Some people are disgusted, some are disgusted and intrigued and at least one said it was wrong of her to cause the insects to die for her art. She says she sees them as ambassadors for their species. One thing the audio program couldn't do was show me what her art looked like so here's a link to the Google image search and an example:

Nature writer Anne Fadiman talked about how she and her brother enjoyed collecting and killing butterflies as children. She said it didn't dawn on her immediately she was killing them (or rather, the implications of killing them) but she said they were horrified when it dawned on them. She said it must be what hunters feel like, to own a piece of nature.

Finally, Christopher Benfrey, an English professor, wrote a book about how New England went hummingbird crazy in the 19th century. This includes writers from Emily Dickinson to Mark Twain. There was also a painter named Martin Johnson Heade (pronounced "heed") who painted them. They said his paintings were really color saturated, almost impressionistic. I was curious:

 Wow! You can see this in person at the National Gallery in Washington.

He says that Emily Dickinson often mentioned hummingbirds in her letters and how reading was akin to their actions except the reader "sips words." The interviewer asked if that wasn't appropriate since her poetry had a hummingbird-like quality.

The Pale Wallace

I keep contemplating reading David Foster Wallace. What keeps me from doing it is both the size of Infinite Jest and the way hipster asshats name check him. What if, for example, he were another Don DeLillo? (<--mad overrated hipster douchetard.)

I read the EW review of his posthumous novel The Pale King by Rob Brunner who really liked it. After reading this excerpt, I'm kind of intrigued as I too work a sometimes dreary job in a deadly dull industry:

"Enduring tedium over real time in a confined space is what real courage is....Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui-these are the true hero's enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real."

Thanks, DFW, for giving me a reason to think I'm awesome because my job is lame. 

Great lines from Sweet Thursday

Which I suspect I'll have to break into pieces.

Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there's time, the bastard Time. The end of life is now not so terribly far away-you can see it the way you see the finish line when you come into the stretch, and your mind says, "Have I worked enough? Have I eaten enough? Have I loved enough?" All of these, of course, are the foundation of man's greatest curse, and perhaps his greatest glory. "What has my life meant so far, and what can it mean in the time left to me?" And now we're coming to the wicked, poisoned dart: "What have I contributed in the Great Ledger? What am I worth?" And this isn't vanity or ambition. Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try. It piles up ahead of them. Man owes something to man. If he ignores the debt it poisons him, and if he tries to make payments the debt only increases, and the quality of his gift is the measure of the man. 

So, yes, Doc is discontented. He decides to write a paper on octopi but he has writer's block. He goes down to the beach to return to his old specimen gathering routine and there runs into the Seer. He is at first gruff with him in a most unDoc-like manner but is soon intrigued by this large man who lives in the woods and wears a straw hat with two holes in the brim which clues Doc in that the hat used to belong to a horse. He describes him thus:

There was an iron simplicity in the seer. He was like a monolith against waves of angry nonsense.

Here is a purely Steinbeckian snippet of their conversation:

"I don't know why they don't put you in jail. It's a crime to be happy without equipment."

"Oh, they do," said the seer "and they put me under observation every once in a while."

'I forgot," said Doc. "You are crazy, aren't you?"

......

The seer said, "I saw a mermaid last night....She swam to the edge and then churned her tail, like a salmon leaping a rapid. And then she lay on the kelp bed and made dancing figures with her white arms and hands. She didn't go away until the rising tide covered the kelp bed."

"Was she a dream? Did you imagine her?"

"I don't know. But if I did I'm proud that I could imagine anything so beautiful. What is it you want?"

"I've tried to think," said Doc. "I want to take everything I've seen and thought and learned and reduce them and relate them and refine them until I have something of meaning, something of use. And I can't seem to do it."

"Maybe you aren't ready. And maybe you need help."

"What kind of help?"

"There are some things a man can't do alone. I wouldn't think of trying anything so big without-" He stopped. The heavy waves beat the hard beach, and the yellow light of the setting sun illuminated a cloud to the eastward, a clot of gold.

"Without what?" Doc asked. 

"Without love," said the seer. "I have to go see the sunset now. I've come to the point where I don't think it can go down without me. That makes me seem needed." He stood up and brushed the pine needles from his threadbare overalls. 

"I'll come to see you again,"said Doc.

"I might be gone," the seer replied. "I've got a restlessness in me. I'll probably be gone." 

Doc watched him trudge over the bridge of the dune and saw the wind flip up the brim of his straw hat and the yellow sun light up his face and glisten in his beard.
 

Sweet Steinbeck

I returned to the well of my FAVORITE AUTHOR OF ALL TIME (hyperbole warranted), John Steinbeck, this week to read his lesser known sequel to Cannery Row (favorite book of all time) called Sweet Thursday. And maybe now that I'm reading it, I will quit mistakenly calling it "Sweet Tuesday" like Bryan accused me of doing the other day. We have strange arguments where I work.

The back story of the book is so tragic that even reading the happy parts almost make me cry. Steinbeck's best friend was a marine biologist named Ed Ricketts who in his way was a very influential guy in the field of Pacific marine taxonomy and conservation. There are a number of marine species named after him and even a few named after Steinbeck, who joined Doc in a collecting trip to the Sea of Cortez. The character of Doc in Cannery Row was based on Ricketts (he also inspired Jim Casey in The Grapes of Wrath and Slim in Of Mice and Men among others.) Cannery Row is essentially a roman a clef about Doc and life in Monterey. It was written in 1945. It also brought Ricketts a flood of tourists and unwanted fame.

In 1948, Ricketts died a horrible tragic death when he was hit by a train at a railroad crossing that, ironically, was dangerous because of a cannery warehouse that was built there which partially blocked the view(Ricketts had been a vocal opponent of the overfishing that caused the Monterey canning industry to collapse soon after the War.) By all accounts, Steinbeck was never the same.

Here's a link to an NPR story about Ricketts.

Anyways, Sweet Thursday was written in 1954 and Steinbeck said it would be his last book with a Ricketts character in it. He said it was life as he imagined it would have gone for Ricketts had he lived. Doc is certainly not exactly like Ricketts, who was married a few times as opposed to Doc's eternal romantic bachelorhood, nursed a stepdaughter through a fatal illness and was prone to a few suicidal depressions whereas Doc's melancholy and disconnection are only hinted at.

This is also the only Steinbeck book with chapter titles. As Mack says in the prologue:

"Suppose there's chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. That's all right, as far as it goes, but I'd like to have a couple of words at the top so it tells me what the chapter's going to be about. Sometimes maybe I want to go back, and chapter five don't mean nothing to me. If there was a just a couple of words I'd know that was the chapter I wanted to go back to."

And here's an early exchange between Mac and Doc, who has returned to Monterey after finally being discharged from the army a few years after the War ended. It's really heartbreaking when you know the backstory:

"Everything's changed, Doc, everything."
Doc looked around his moldy laboratory, and he shivered. "Maybe I'm changed too," he said.
"Hell, Doc, you can't change. Why, what could we depend on! Doc, if you change a lot of people are going to cash in their chips. Why, we was all just waiting around for you to get back so we could go on being normal."
...
"I'll try," said Doc, "but I have no confidence in it. I'm afraid I've changed."

Some have speculated, probably with reason, the Doc in this book is really in some ways more Steinbeck than Ricketts.

I've avoided reading this book for a while, partly because I've heard it doesn't measure up to its predecessor. But also, maybe like Steinbeck I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Ed Ricketts.

I get asked sometimes to explain why I love John Steinbeck so much. I love his deceptively simple writing and his belief in social justice. I love him for writing The Grapes of Wrath when he took such a beating for it-funny he's so celebrated as a tourist attraction now in California where they once burned his books. But most of all, he loved me first. He so obviously loves humanity that how can I not return that affection?

Picasso and Marie Therese

So according to the Leonard Lopate Show there is a new Picasso exhibit in NYC. It's kind of unusual because it's at a gallery rather than a museum. Picasso's family assisted in the curation.The theme of the show is Picasso's one-time muse, Marie Therese. He approached her on a Paris street when she was 17 and asked if he could paint her. She didn't know who he was.

Picasso isn't one of my favorite painters. I'm not super jazzed about cubism for the most part. I like his blue period much better. I was curious about Marie Therese though. Here is probably one of his most famous paintings of her:

The image on the left is Marie Therese. Here is some more info about her. These images have never been assembled and shown this way. There are also some rare photographs of her. I like this painting here, softer than his usual stuff. It reminds me a bit of Tamara Lempicka.

Poems of the Day

Two I liked. Both about man's dread of nature.

The first is by Connecticut poet (and NEA/Guggenheim Grant recipient) Russell Edson, who specializes in the kind of surreal dark humor you see here:

The Difficulty with a Tree by Russell Edson

 

A woman was fighting a tree. The tree had come to rage at the woman’s attack, breaking free from its earth it waddled at her with its great root feet.
         Goddamn these sentiencies, roared the tree with birds shrieking in its branches.
         Look out, you’ll fall on me, you bastard, screamed the woman as she hit at the tree.
         The tree whisked and whisked with its leafy branches.
         The woman kicked and bit screaming, kill me kill me or I’ll kill you!

         Her husband seeing the commotion came running crying, what tree has lost patience?
         The ax the ax, damnfool, the ax, she screamed.
         Oh no, roared the tree dragging its long roots rhythmically limping like a sea lion towards her husband.
         But oughtn’t we to talk about this? cried her husband.
         But oughtn’t we to talk about this, mimicked his wife.
         But what is this all about? he cried.
         When you see me killing something you should reason that it will want to kill me back, she screamed.

         But before her husband could decide what next action to perform the tree had killed both the wife and her husband.
         Before the woman died she screamed, now do you see?
         He said, what...? And then he died.

 

Should I be rooting for the tree? This is all J.R.R. Tolkien's doing.

 

The second one is by Jane Hirschfield, who is also an essayist and translator of Japanese poetry. It says she was a graduate of Princeton's first class to include women in 1973. (wait-1973? Apparently, yes. They first admitted women in 1969. Jive Ivy League motherfuckers.) Anyways, no humor here but there is a still a dread of nature.

 

Tree by Jane Hirshfield

 

It is foolish

to let a young redwood   

grow next to a house.

Even in this   

one lifetime,

you will have to choose.

That great calm being,

this clutter of soup pots and books—

Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.   

Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

First and last for A Nail Through the Heart

First:

Moon and river. House and trees.

Last:

At the end of the path of light, the man and the woman bend toward each other until their foreheads touch. Their eyes are closed.

Great line from A Nail in the Heart

So, I've been reading this mystery by an American PR exec about Thailand, A Nail in the Heart based on a recommendation from Fantastic Fiction. I've been a little obssessed about Thailand since Bangkok 8. Alas, maybe I'd like this book better if I hadn't read Burdett's book first. The characters are a little wooden, although I do like Poke's cop friend Arthit. I like how the main character isn't too annoyingly righteous: he leaves a child porn-producing Australian's murderer unpunished and sells a woman who was a torturer for the Khmer Rouge to her victims. I didn't dislike Poke's girlfriend, former bar girl Rose who is trying to go legit with a maid business, and his would-be adopted daughter and former street orphan Miaow but I didn't feel like I really knew them so I just found them vaguely pleasant. I did like the tidbit about how Rose tore a tiny hole in her cigarette pack to worm her smokes out. It's a habit she learned in the bars so other people wouldn't hit her up for cigarettes. It's the small details that tip the balance.

Most of the writing is competent, if not that memorable. I did like this sequence near the end, a conversation between the American-born Poke and Arthit:

"You know what a cynic is?"

"Yes, Arthit. A cynic is a disappointed romantic."

"A cynic is somone who's been on the train too long."

"The train," Rafferty says, and waits for it.

"I've always wondered why people travel by train," Arthit says. "Trains invariably pass through the shabbiest, most wretched parts of cities. To someone who lived his entire life on a train, the world would seem to be long stretches of emptiness occasionally interrupted by patches of ugliness. Once in a while, you need to get off the train and see what the world's really like."

....

"All right, Arthit. You don't have to hammer it into my skull."

"Oh, I don't know." he slaps Rafferty's empty bottle against his palm. "Westerners seem to have difficulty with metaphors. I've often wondered whether it has something to do with the frontal lobe. your heads are shaped so oddly."

"Tell it to Isaac Newton."

There are two separate child porn plots in the story which was a lot of human nastiness to digest. But, it's a reality of Southeast Asia. I had a lot of trouble swallowing the denouement between Poke and the second kid he takes in, Superman, who was a friend of Miaow's when they were both street kids. Superman starts to trust him and then runs away because he finds explicit pictures of himself on a cd in Poke's laptop. Let me back up here:  In the course of looking for the missing Australian pervert, Poke finds a tower of CD's full of pictures he has taken of children. Bad pictures. And Superman is in the collection. Poke takes them home and puts them in his safe. He is in contact with an adoption agent who thinks he has found a school that will take Superman in but the agent wants some of the pictures to show them as..I dunno, evidence he has been abused? Why would anyone legitimately NEED to see those? And, even if I possessed such pictures and bought all of the above, I certainly wouldn't email them to someone. How would you ever explain that if the law came knocking? Especially in Southeast Asia where the judicial system can be questionable, let's say, and the prisons are the worst places on earth. And, really, gross.

Then again, Hallinan has lived in Thailand for years so he knows more than I do. But I do not buy this plot point which causes Superman (who comes home and goes to play Tetris and finds the CD still in the drive and rightly freaks out) to trash Poke's house and run off. Now he is convinced he must save his friend Miaow from him. Set up for the next book I suppose.

What I did like was the Buddhist ceremony to release Madame Wing's spirit at the end of the book, easily my favorite scene. It makes me curious to read two Western authors now speak in Thai Buddhist terms about hungry ghosts, aura and karmas. Do they get seduced or convinced by that world philosophy by living there or does it just make for good literary tropes?

W.S. Merwin-speaking of poetry

W.S. Merwin is the current Poet Laureate of these United States. Here is an interview he did with the great Bill Moyers in 2009.

He did an interview for the Poetry Off the Shelf podcast (by the National Poetry Foundation) about how to make our culture value poetry more. He gave Latin America as an example of a culture that doesn't view poetry as alienating (definitely he should add the Middle East to that list and Russia I would guess.) His first book of poetry was praised by no less than W.H. Auden.

In the course of the interview, he read his poem "Vixen" which is gorgeous. As with some of the best nature poems, the poem is more about how nature changes the observer. Then it turns into a profoundly melancholic rumination on how to remember and honor this moment as the natural world shrinks.

Anyways, here is a link to Merwin reading it which is great to experience while reading the poem. And here is the poem:
 

Vixen

By W. S. Merwin b. 1927

Comet of stillness princess of what is over

       high note held without trembling without voice without sound

aura of complete darkness keeper of the kept secrets

       of the destroyed stories the escaped dreams the sentences

never caught in words warden of where the river went

       touch of its surface sibyl of the extinguished

window onto the hidden place and the other time

       at the foot of the wall by the road patient without waiting

in the full moonlight of autumn at the hour when I was born

       you no longer go out like a flame at the sight of me

you are still warmer than the moonlight gleaming on you

       even now you are unharmed even now perfect

as you have always been now when your light paws are running

       on the breathless night on the bridge with one end I remember you

when I have heard you the soles of my feet have made answer

       when I have seen you I have waked and slipped from the calendars

from the creeds of difference and the contradictions

       that were my life and all the crumbling fabrications

as long as it lasted until something that we were

       had ended when you are no longer anything

let me catch sight of you again going over the wall

       and before the garden is extinct and the woods are figures

guttering on a screen let my words find their own

      places in the silence after the animals

Poem of the Day-Amy Uyematsu

From the National Poetry Foundation, as usual.

Amy Uyematsu was a math teacher prior to her retirement. She based this poem on photos of rural Japan.

Why I like it: once again, the visuals suck me in. Especially the image of the sleeping flower. The lotus has special significance in buddhism (and in hinduism.) And I can hear the sound the crispy daikon makes when it's eaten.

Inside

By Amy Uyematsu b. 1947 

                      based on photographs from Rural Japan:
                      Radiance of the Ordinary

/ afloat

two boats with no riders

still moving on water

the hulls barely touching

each with a single oar

safely propped

so it won’t fall

/ lotus leaves

close into themselves

at night

on their wide folded backs

water beads

inside, their sleeping

flowers

/ inside

do the carp

just below the water’s stillness

see the pines

/ fall daikon

just pulled from the soil

these pungent roots

hang from bamboo poles

their white tubed bodies

bend as if slightly aroused

each ripe radish will

be drenched

in salt

then eaten raw

all winter

/ lone pine

ancient tree

with so many tongues

how long this throated stem

this stillness before rain

Epistemophilia: why translation matters

For book club this month, we picked a translation of a French novel, The Gods Will Have Blood which, in addition to being one frakking awesome title, was a great book. The correct translation to read of this is by Frederick Davies for Penguin. Fortunately, there aren't a cornucopia of translations available to get confused by but avoid the previous one called "The Gods are Athirst" (a more literal translation of the French title, "Les Dieux Ont Soif.")

The quality of translation is of course essential to the experience and it's not uncommon for someone to look at an old translation and decide it was inadequate, regardless of how successful it was when it was published. I was listening to PRI's World Books podcast and they interviewed Ross Benjamin who has written a new translation of Job by Joseph Roth (1894-1939.) There is a story about it here.The novel is about the lives of Jews in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century. Roth himself was from Galicia (now part of the Ukraine), only a few miles from the Russian border.

The story takes an interesting turn due to the back story of the original translation by Dorothy Thompson which was a sold very well when it was published here back in 1931. Dorothy Thompson herself was an interesting lady. She was a journalist who was thrown out of Nazi Germany in 1934 for filing unflattering stories about Hitler. She was also the wife of Sinclair Lewis. She was considered very influential in her day.

As far as the need for re-translation goes, Benjamin said there is a discrepancy in the translation community over whether the poetry of the original text can be recreated in another language. He feels it should but other translators take a more practical approach. He also disagreed with some choices Thompson made in her word choices. Interestingly, she refers to the ghetto at one point as "the streets of the Jews" which implies it was a larger area than it really was. Benjamin said the correct translation should be "the street of the Jews" which changes the meaning considerably.

Epistemophilia: the world's biggest Jesus

PRI's Geo Quiz did a story about the world's largest Jesus statue. No, it's not in Brazil. Or Bolivia. It's in Poland. Specifically, in Swiebodzin near the German border. As Poland is a poor country, the cost has been somewhat controversial. As has the height. I guess the South Americans are a little miffed. Apparently without the crown, the Bolivian Jesus is still bigger though.

The Guardian did a story about the statue and what was interesting is that despite Poland still being overwhelmingly Catholic, some locals find the statue something of an embarrassing eyesore. Particularly the younger generation who are growing more agnostic like in the rest of Europe.

Poland needs the money so I hope it does bring tourists there. However, I'd shudder to have tacky giant Jesus casting a shadow over my backyard.

Final thoughts on The Gods Will Have Blood, + first and last

I really wasn't sure I'd like this book and while I adore the taste of its publisher, Penguin Books, I have trouble reading their books, or rather, summoning the interest in reading them. Cheap paper and tiny, not particularly attractive fonts. My friend Thom remarked the paper quality was like an old Harlequin novel (which is true because I was quite the connoisseur of trash romances back around the age of 13.) I forgot all about the aesthetics once I started reading, which maybe is Penguin's devious master plan.

Of course, I floved the book which managed somehow to be both philosophically and emotionally engaging. Brotteaux's character, this sweet old man who makes marionettes for a living, just broke my heart. That scene of him carrying his dolls in the rain because the vendor wouldn't buy them (the authorities claimed they were caricatures of Robespierre) was so sad.

You couldn't help feeling sorry for that silly, frivolous woman Rochemaure who both got Gamelin his job and whose indiscretion got Brotteaux arrested. And her incriminating letter being handed over by Elodie's ex-boyfriend Henry who also was involved the the overthrow of the Jacobins. What was the message here? There were villains on both sides and some just got lucky? 

I'm a little confused by the Orestes references and I feel like I'm missing something obvious. I get that Evariste is committing symbolic patricide but Orestes murdered his mother (and Clytemnestra got a bum rap. I'd be pissed too if my husband sacrificed my daughter for favorable winds.) And why the comparisons between Elodie and Electra? He even calls her "sister" at one point. Maybe re-reading Euripides would clear this up. Also, Brotteaux makes me want to read Lucretius.

It's interesting to contrast the deaths of Brotteaux and Gamelin, who died in such similar circumstances riding in the tumbril to the guillotine. But while Brotteaux's is so moving, with Gamelin you feel relieved, at best. You can't even feel sorry for the poor schmuck because he rides to his death still thinking he was a great man and regretting he didn't kill more traitors. By 6 months later, Elodie is shacked up with his best friend Desmahis (this poor girl really needs to have better taste in men.)

The message of the perils of dogmatism are still as relevant as ever, unfortunately. 

First line:

Very early one morning, Evariste Gamelin-artist, pupil of David, member of the Section du Pont-Neuf, formerly Section Henry IV-was to be seen approaching the ancient church of the Barnabites, which had served for three years, since the 21st May, 1790, as the meeting place for the general assembly of the section.

Last line:

The last burnt-out logs were glowing in the fireplace. Elodie let her happy, tired head fall back again upon her pillow.

More great lines from The Gods Will Have Blood

Brotteaux again on religion:

He had noticed that religions are fiercest and most cruel in the vigour of their youth and that they grow milder as they grow older. He was anxious, therefore, to see Catholicism preserved, since though it had devoured many victims in its youth, it was now, burdened by the weight of years and an enfeebled appetite, content with roasting four or five heretics every hundred years. 

Gamelin's poor sister Julie returns to France with her husband and he gets arrested. She goes to her mother and asks if Gamelin will help and in the process makes this observation about why Gamelin is an unsuccessful artist:

"To be a good artist, a man must know how to feel tenderness. And he's incapable of that....There's his soul. You can see it in his paintings, cold and empty. Look at his Orestes there with those dull eyes and cruel mouth. That's Evariste to the life."


This being the Orestes painting, most specifically the head, that Gamelin is so proud of. 


Brotteaux is of course arrested along with Father Longuemare and Athenais the prostitute who yells "Vive le roi" at the guards when they are taking the men away rather than escaping, thus insuring she will be arrested with them. This while Brotteaux's neighbors do nothing and turn away. Here is Brotteaux's final exchange with Longuemare on the way to the guillotine which is the powerful and wrenching moment of the book:

"Father, I have let you see my weakness. I love life and I cannot leave it without regret."

"Monsieur," replied the monk very gently, "be mindful, then, of the fact that you who are a braver man than I, are more troubled by death than I. What does that mean, if not that I see the light which you do not yet see?"

"It could also mean," said Brotteaux, "that I regret leaving it because I have enjoyed it more than you, who have made it resemble death."

.........

"Monsieur," Father Longuemare said to the philosophical epicurean, "I ask you for one favour: this God in whom you do not yet believe, pray to Him for me.  It is possible that you may be nearer to him than I am myself: a moment and we shall know. Only one second, and you may have become one of the Lord's most dearly beloved children. Monsieur, pray for me."

.....

Beside him [Brotteaux], Athenais, proud to die thus like the Queen of France, gazed haughtily at the crowd, and the old aristocrat, contemplating with a connoisseur's eyes the young woman's white breasts, was filled with regret for the light of day.

Old Brotteaux, a gentleman and philosopher to the last, goes to the guillotine with his beloved copy of Lucretius in his pocket. Damn, this book was good.

Timeline for The Gods Will Have Blood

Here is a timeline of the French Revolution to aide in enjoyment of Anatole France's The Gods Will Have Blood. Mainly taken from Wikipedia.


·         1774: Louis XVI’s coronation
·         1789: Robespierre is elected to the Estates-General at the age of 30 and moves to Versailles.
·         July 14, 1789: Bastille Day
·         August 26, 1789: National Constituent Assembly publishes Declaration of the Rights of Man (proposed by Lafayette)
·         October 5-6, 1789: Women’s March/October Revolution. The Royal Family is forced out of Versailles by an angry mob. They move to the Tuileries, escorted by Lafayette.
·         July 12, 1790: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy makes all clergy employees of the state. By November, all clergy must swear an oath of loyalty to this. The Pope does not like it.
·         July 17, 1791: Champ de Mars Massacre. A crowd gathers to protest the National Assembly’s decision to create a constitutional monarchy. Between 12 and 50 people are killed by royalist troops under command of Lafayette.
·         August 27, 1791: Declaration of Pillnitz. The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and Frederick William II of Prussia call on European powers to intervene if Louis XVI’s life is endangered.
·         September 13-14, 1791: Louis XVI formally accepts constitution
·         September 30, 1791: Dissolution of National Constituent Assembly
·         October 1, 1791: Legislative Assembly meets for the first time with many young and inexperienced members.
·         March, 1792: Guillotine adopted as means of execution
·         April 20, 1792: France declares war on Austria.
·         April 25, 1792: First use of guillotine.
·         April 28, 1792: France invades Belgium (Austrian Netherlands)
·         July 30, 1792: Austria and Prussia begin invasion of France.
·         August 10, 1792: Paris Commune uprising. Royal family arrested. End of the Bourbon monarchy in France until the 1814 restoration.
·         August 19, 1792: Lafayette flees France, surrenders to Austria
·         August 22, 1792: royalist riots in Brittany, La Vendée and Dauphiné.
·         September, 1792: half of the Paris prison population is massacred. Many are clergy. Marie Antoinette’s close friend the Princess de Lamballe is torn apart by an angry mob.
·         September 22, 1792: first day of the Revolutionary Calendar (Napoleon will officially abolish in 1806)
·         1793: The first Bourbon king, Henry IV’s, tomb is ransacked and his corpse is decapitated (it was reinterred with his body this year.)
·         January 21, 1793: execution of Louis XVI
·         March 11, 1793: establishment of Revolutionary Tribunal, the court that try political offenders during the Reign of Terror.
·         April 6, 1793: Committee of Public Safety established. This will be France’s de facto government during the Reign of Terror
·         June 10, 1793: Jacobins gain control of the Committee of Public Safety
·         July 13, 1793: Marat assassinated
·         July 17, 1793: Charlotte Corday executed
·         July 27, 1793: Robespierre, a Jacobin, is elected to Committee of Public Safety
·         September 5, 1793: Reign of Terror begins
·         October 16, 1793: Marie Antoinette executed
·         October 21, 1793: a law is passed that allows execution of priests and their supporters on sight
·         October 31, 1793: 21 former Girondist leaders executed
·         March 24, 1794: Jacques Hebert, the editor of the radical left newspaper La Pere Duchesne, is executed for criticizing Robespierre for being too moderate
·         April  5, 1794: Georges Danton executed
·         May 7, 1794: Robespierre launches his new religion, The Cult of the Supreme Being
·         May 8, 1794: Antoine Lavoisier executed
·         July 27-28, 1794: The Thermidorian Reaction. Robespierre is arrested and guillotined without trial, along with other members of the Committee of Public Safety. Ironically, the end of the committee makes the public more safe. The Reign of Terror officially ends.
·         1799: Napoleon becomes First Consul of France
·         May 18, 1804: Napoleon crowned Emperor of France
·         April 6, 1814: Bourbon Restoration of Louis XVIII (Louis XVI’s younger brother)
·         March 20, 1815: Beginning of Napoleon’s 100 Days; Louis XVIII flees France
·         June, 1815: following defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon surrenders and is exiled from France for the second time to St. Helena where he will die in 1821. Louis XVIII returns to the throne.

WTF Blogger?

So, it looks like my last two posts were erased somehow by last night's Blogger maintenance. How disenchanting. Things that are free should work without glitches. One of them at least I have saved, which is unusual. That one I can repost at least no problemo.

What I've looked up thus far for The Gods Will Have Blood

Gamelin mentions to his girlfriend Elodie that her slicing bread reminds him of a German novel where Werther admires a girl named Charlotte doing the same action. Elodie asks if they get married and Gamelin, ever charmless, says no, he died a violent death.

The novel he is referring to is The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe published in 1774 which is basically about a love triangle that Werther decides to resolve by shooting himself in the head. Unfortunately he fucks it up and doesn't die for 12 more hours.

I knew who Danton was, a moderate figure in the French Revolution who ran afoul of Robespierre in the end, but not when he was killed. April, 1794 which was tragically only a few months before Robespierre himself met the same end.

The book keeps referring to ci-devant aristocrats. This was a derogatory term used during the Revolution for aristocrats who had not mended their ways. Prior to the Revolution, it was also derogatory but meant an aristocrat who was broke, like someone out of a Fitzgerald novel.

I was curious what became of the Tuileries, briefly the home of the Royal Family after they fled Versailles and later turned into a government center during the Revolution. Then it was Napoleon's palace. It was burned down in 1871 during the Paris Commune uprising. Parts of the Louvre were also burned. They were restored but in the end the French government decided the palace was a symbol of the old monarchical ways and it was torn down in 1882. The Tuileries Gardens are what remain.

Here is what it used to look like:

Brotteaux mentions that he also works as an amanuensis. This basically means someone who works as a secretary or more accurately, one who takes dictation. You can see the Latin word "manu" within it.

After all the descriptions of the sans culotte uniform with the striped trousers, I wanted some kind of visual because I keep picturing clown pants. Voila:

Which still looks a little Big Top-ish to me.

There are so many debates on religion in the book and the most sympathetic character is the atheist and former aristocrat Brotteaux (although Father Longuemare is a modest, likable counterpoint), I was curious if Anatole France was himself an atheist.  Yep. He once wrote a satirical novel called Penguin Island about what happens when a blind missionary baptizes a flock of penguins, mistaking them for humans. And the ultimate proof he's in the club: Hitch included him in his Portable Atheist.

Unrelated to research, I was reading this the other night and Music Choice played Tracy Chapman's "Talkin Bout a Revolution" which went from vaguely inspirational to specifically creepy hella quick. You better free your mind instead, Tracy.

Great lines from The Gods Will Have Blood

A post I'll expand upon as needed and inclined.

The Gods Will Have Blood being a novel by Anatole France about the French Revolution. Not written from the aristocratic perspective, but from that of ordinary citizens. The main character, Evariste Gamelin, is an artist and student of David who can't sell any of his paintings. He is a fervent believer in the Revolution. He has occasional moments of kindness (like when he waits in line for hours for bread and then gives half of it to a young soldier's wife with a baby then tells his mother he ate half the loaf so she'll take the rest for herself) but most of the time, he's a dogmatic, humorless jackhole.

Here are Citizen Brotteaux's thoughts on fortune tellers, shared over a lunch made by Gamelin's mother to whom he has given the precious gift of a capon (poor Brotteaux, I wish I hadn't read the spoiler-ridden preface):

"Those who make a trade out of foretelling rarely grow rich. Their attempts to deceive are too easily found out and arouse detestation. And yet it would be necessary to detest them much, much more if they foretold the future correctly. For a man's life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness."

A little about Brotteaux. He is a former aristocrat and neighbor of Gamelin. Although his fortunes have changed significantly as a result of the Revolution, he is still a lovely, gentle man who now makes a living as best he can selling crafts. Here, from his introduction, he talks to Gamelin about some puppets he has made:

"You see here," he said, taking up again his burden, "some puppets I'm going to sell to a toy merchant in the Rue de la Loi. I've a whole village of people in there. They are my creatures. From me they have received a perishable body, free from joy and sorrow. I've not given them the power of thought since I'm a benevolent God."

Here's the thing: Evariste is such a sourpuss and prude that I can't understand why Elodie is after him, no matter how good he looks. Even given she's got limited options and (as France politely hints) she likes to swap her ponies out. I know the book will grow increasingly non-funny as it goes along but here is a great moment where Evariste goes book shopping:

At the Citizeness Tenot's stall, he leafed through various historical, political and philosophical works: The Chains of Slavery; An Essay on Despotism; The Crimes of Queens. "Splendid!" he thought. "These are true Republican books." And he asked the woman if she sold many of them.

"People only buy songs and romances."

She took a duodecimo volume from her drawer. 

"Here's something good," she said.

Evariste read the title: The Undressed Nun. 

Free Comic Book Day, 2011

I've been overly blog chatty today however I didn't want to miss the chance to point out that this past Saturday, as everyone surely knows, was Free Comic Book Day. In other words, one of the best days of the year. It was started a mere 10 years ago by a comics store owner in Concord, CA and is now an international phenomenon (caps lock implied here.) Well, most of my co-workers hadn't heard of it and didn't seem that excited when I told them-more for me, jive turkeys-but this article says it has spread to 40 countries so not too shabby.

The local paper's article mentions that Nicolas Brendon (Xander himself from Buffy) was at a local store which I hadn't realized. However, I see they also had a petting zoo and bounce house and the thought of all the screaming children in attendance is already making my uterus implode. I'm not sure what went on at the other local stores (including The Laughing Ogre, which is where I typically shop when the mood strikes) but the article mentions that one store only allowed 2 comics per attendee so I am glad that this year I ventured to Yellow Springs where Dark Star was permitting 5 per attendee (and with my friend in tow who doesn't read comics, that meant ten.) I then went to Super Fly and picked up two more after some guy there insisted that I had to read Atomic Robo.

I don't know if this really requires saying but I'm old so I don't really follow comics like I did when I was, say, 14. I just get the urge every now and then and kind of dip in and out. Trying to keep track of all the release dates and spin-off isues-feh, who has the time or inclination. But when I get in the mood I like the visual overload they provide. Plus, I'm a sucker for the hero's journey. It's our most ancient form of literature after all. I'm therefore, by my reckoning, honoring and continuing a literary tradition that goes back to Gilgamesh.

So out of the random stuff I picked up, a few notes:

• A free Green Hornet. Thanks DC!
• But from Marvel I got Spider Man and Captain America and Thor in an Avengers tie-in. I never got into the Captain that much (what good is he without Tenille? Hah, I crack my simple ass up) but I love Thor. Maybe it's the hammer. Alas, the art is just so-so.
• Speaking of Thor, Matt Fraction is rebooting that series which makes sense given the movie goings on so I picked up the first issue which has a Silver Surfer tie-in. I know, freaking cool right?
• I haven't read Richie Rich since I was 10 maybe. He's gotten a make-over which I don't care for and is some kind of techno crime-fighter now. Clearly I'm not the target audience but the old Harvey Comics version was far superior (this one is published by Ape.)
• The best art was in the Black Diamond Detective Agency offering from Eddie Campbell, Alan Moore's old collaborator, and The Darkness II.
• They still make Mickey Mouse comics, courtesy of Fantagraphics. Hooray! But not Donald or Scrooge McDuck. This is all a conspiracy that Christopher Nolan is at the heart of, I'm sure of it. George Lucas has admitted that his restaging of Carl Barks' images was an homage.
• Why the fuck did I grab something called Super Dinosaur and miss out on Ice and The Tick?