A Touch of Keats or Your Sonnet o’ the Day

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

by John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;–then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

From “The Englishman and the Butterfly”

The sleepy mathematician has already left, off to pursue whatever Cartesian trick of the mind remains to elude him from his final grade. Hearne moves to his briefcase, grim lecture notes in hand, and watches more students run down the ropes of the sinking ship. His back now to the quickly diminishing room, Rochelle returned to her things and impending exit, Hearne strains to keep from sobbing. His shoulders tighten, his stomach clenches. His eyes burn with disappointment, with loss, his head separate from his growingly distant body. Water is suddenly everything. It pervades his whole being, a massive body of water at once supporting and entombing him. He hears concern from his students via their rising voices, but no one approaches. The common consensus seems to be that it is more wise to leave than to remain and, possibly, have to attend. Let the old fool alone. All fools, in the end, are left alone. Hearne’s eyes are fairly blinded by tears at this point, his heart by racking sobs. The palimpsest of the blackboard – on which he can just barely make out the remnants of a professor’s name and telephone extension, in addition, appropriately enough, to the alphabetic numerology of a complex-seeming series of equations – is swimming in its own density, or lack thereof, and Hearne for a moment imagines a world created solely for beauty, a vast empire of love, a Garden of Eden on Earth populated by Adams and Eves of all colors, all races, all sexes. More nonsense, but it persists as the thought that, at least, attempts to counter this killing influx of misery eating away at him. In time, this fleeting paradise fades, the waters recede, and the familiar, stale scent of chalk and fray of brown carpet begin to find him, a man now without a body, barely a mind, only the persistence of memory, of one memory, one of Julia standing in front of his window with arms outstretched, a gesture of loving silence, of understanding, of the truest confirmation of his being.

Daily Mantra

“Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand.”

– Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

My Writers’ Day

Since this, the 23rd of April, is the birthday not only of William Shakespeare but also of Vladimir Nabokov!

Go buy a novel, go write a novel! Celebrate language and art!! Long live the imagination…

On the Shelf: Iris Murdoch’s “The Bell”

Iris Murdoch is one of those authors who have existed on the periphery of my reading world; one of those authors I, unaware of where exactly in their oeuvre one should rightly start, pledge to ‘get to’ at some point.

So, I’ve picked up and put down many of her titles, in various bookshops across the country, feeling alternately noncommittal or outright uninterested. I may even have breezed through the first few pages of her famous The Sea, The Sea on a random Sunday afternoon. Certainly, though, I’ve never reached the end of anything of hers. I could never quite make the commitment.

The other day, however, in the always surprising and rewarding Half-Price Books, I stumbled (not literally) upon a $1 copy of The Bell and quickly, unthinkingly, popped it into my bag. I intended to, at very least, place it upon my shelf with the intention of ‘getting to’ it someday. I had at last stepped up to the proverbial plate, and, luckily for me, I began reading the novel a few nights later.

I was not disappointed. The novel concerns the mundane and, indeed, the odd goings-on at an English religious lay community in the late Fifties. It contains a most true and sensitive understanding of how a sinful mind works, while at the same time investigates the nature of faith, love and lust, and religious/ethical commitment. The novel has a wonderfully unpredictable plot, as well as characters one finds oneself truly believing in, even rooting for.

Above all, The Bell is a novel of ideas, I think: of how they torture, tantalize, and ultimately bind us, or set us free, as we try to live in accordance with them, day after day. The novel, ultimately, is a sort of philosophical entertainment, but not in a ham-fisted way that reflects a writerly inability to render the nuances of life. The philosophy walks hand in glove with the entertainment, and the entertainment only serves to remind us of the profound spiritual underpinnings of each of our earthly moments.

“Mind” by Richard Wilbur

Mind in its purest play is like some bat
That beats about in caverns all alone,
Contriving by a kind of senseless wit
Not to conclude against a wall of stone.

It has no need to falter or explore;
Darkly it knows what obstacles are there,
And so may weave and flitter, dip and soar
In perfect courses through the blackest air.

And has this simile a like perfection?
The mind is like a bat. Precisely. Save
That in the very happiest intellection
A graceful error may correct the cave.

In Favor of Charlie

Yes, Charlie Rose talks too much on his show, which is rather more like a series of dialogues than interviews. It is true that, during this talk, he frequently interrupts his guests, men and women to whom it would be better to listen than thoughtlessly interrupt. He often seems more concerned with voicing his own understanding of the subject at hand than he does eliciting the opinions of those experts he’s welcomed. (Rose could do with a few tips from Bob Costas on what it truly means to be the host of a talk show. Costas’s “Later” on NBC was one of the most underrated talk shows on television.). It is also true that, because of these professional defects, I have avoided “Charlie Rose”, as well as Charlie Rose, for the better part of my adult life, comfortable in the fierce grip of a profound annoyance with him and his televisual bad habits.

And yet, I have grown to like Charlie Rose and his show, if only because he offers the most impressively wide variety of guests, is genuinely focused on heartening discussion instead of vulgar promotion, and is therefore actively realizing what is always possible in television and seldom achieved: namely, an indispensable intellectualism. His hope that his conversation is “informed, spirited, and soulful” may occasionally be more a wish than a reality, but much more often than not the end result of his conversations — with anyone from Warren Buffet to Peter O’Toole, from Buzz Aldrin to Hank Aaron — leaves the intelligent viewer (yearning for signs of intelligent life on the tube) finding him or herself genuinely interested in a topic that, before, may have just been one more topic on the periphery.

Charlie Rose’s program gives, instead of takes. Most programs on TV take from you: your time, your edge, your smarts and sophistication, in an effort to pull you down to an all-too common denominator of mass entertainment. Blood, breasts, and bad language ad nauseum. Even many ‘talk shows’ are nothing more than sound bites, full of obnoxious Hollywood prattle and praise, lacking the substance and desire to accomplish any kind of heighntening of consciousness. Rose and his guests tend to take the viewer down a path full of intellectual insights and the best brand of banter, a path of twists and turns and sometime dead-ends, but always headed in a direction that aims to aim somewhere. In other words, there is a point, there is a purpose intended that has nothing to do with endorsement.

A quiet studio, an oak table with glasses of water, a black-curtained background. Rose and his guest(s) seated across from one another. No one else. (According to the website, robotic cameras are used during taping to allow for privacy and an intimacy between the interlocutors.) No fanfare, no special effects, just talk. Good talk. Necessary talk. What else do we really need?

Apologies… (hic)

… to those of you keeping pace with the posts here. The LBH and I were up in Michigan’s Wine Country for four days of tasting, shopping, reading, relaxing, and generally enjoying ourselves in the company of some very friendly natives. Our best to you and yours as we head into the welcome arms of Spring!

The Revolution Will Be Televised…

Television having turned out not to be one of the more morally laudable creations of the 20th century, it’s a rare moment indeed when a TV program, particularly a series, stands out among the general dreck with something to say (and an eloquent voice with which to say it) about how we live. HBO’s “John Adams” featuring the brilliant Paul Giamatti as Adams and Laura Linney as the indefatigable Abigail (along with the talents of such acting notables as Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Dillane, and David Morse) is truly a must-see event. It succeeds where others have failed in putting human faces on the photographs in our American history books, and shows us how mad, how tenuous, late 18th century America really was. Let us no longer think of a bunch of brave men all united to a shared vision trading quotable quotes in a bucolic Independence Hall, the portrait artists waiting just outside to line up their subjects for posterity. After viewing the first three episodes (out of seven), as well as reading the David McCullough biography from which this project takes its lead, one understands that it was a miracle that anything was accomplished at all before the Revolution, let alone the building of history’s first government “of the people, by the people, for the people…”

The collection of delegates, from the mountains of New Hampshire to the plains of Georgia, who spearheaded, sometimes unwillingly, the tortuous drive toward independence were a gifted, but rather motley convocation of rebels and politicians. John Adams, as perhaps the most gifted, played a much more central role in these early days than is commonly known, and this mini-series offers a series of tableaux in which Adams’ gifts and accomplishments come remarkably to the fore. Not the least of which was his persistence in defending the rights of man, as well as what would come to be known as the United States of America, and his tenaciousness in the teeth of storms (figurative and literal): whether battling his own colleagues in Philadelphia, the British in the waters of the Atlantic, the French in the halls of diplomacy, the Dutch in the halls of finance, or his own substantial inner demons.

History has painted Adams in less than glowing colors: he was too plump, too common, too vain, and he was continually bested by aristocrats until he stumbled into the White House after Washington. The Adams that McCullough and the filmmakers give us is a very different man. It is true Adams was plump, he was a Yankee farmer, he could be vain on occasion, he was in fact bested by aristocrats. Yet he was also a tremendously educated man, a Harvard graduate, a student of Greek and Roman history, a talented lawyer, speaker, and writer, a fiercely hard worker and perpetually driven individual who elected to live apart from his family, his deepest love, for years at a time (in a time without telephones or email), and all for the sake of a wobbling, disunited United States. With little money or support from Congress and even less chance of actual success, he worked for three years in a Europe that treated him like a grubby farmer. He was actively plotted against by such outstanding figures as Benjamin Franklin and James Madison. But he also had the love of one of the greatest women of the colonies, his wife Abigail, and their story, a story full of mutual understanding, triumph over adversity, and genuine friendship, is a joy and an inspiration to watch unfold.

What a long strange trip…

Here is how the theatre itself sums it up:

“Horton Foote’s tender, heartfelt study focuses on Carrie Watts, who dreams of returning to her childhood home in the small town of Bountiful, Texas, which she left three decades ago. She sets out to fulfill her dream, with results that are both heartbreaking and brilliantly life-affirming. Actor/director Harris Yulin recreates his off-Broadway triumph, featuring a luminous performance by Obie Award-winner Lois Smith.”

The LBH and I went, last weekend, to see The Goodman Theatre’s current production of The Trip to Bountiful. It was beautiful, weird, stirring, boring, and full of quirks and questions. In other words, rather like life, which I suppose is what dramatic art should liken itself to. The subject matter, as noted above, is not necessarily my cup of theatrical tea: I’m more for a couple of hours in the dark in the company of Stoppard, Pinter, McDonagh, etc. The darker, grittier, more literate type of play.

So, to sit through two hours, without intermission, of the trials and tribulations of a Texan septuagenarian — on the porch, on the bus — face to face with the slice of Americana that is a play by Horton Foote, wasn’t an experience I would rush out to have again.

And yet, there was a tenderness and depth to this play, and particularly in the outstanding performance of Lois Smith, that was important and life-affirming. Smith’s Carrie Watts is full of tics, physical and mental. She is uncomfortable and at the same time transcendent. She is alive in the past as well as the present, but not altogether here. To watch Smith carry out this somewhat schizophrenic lead role with such aplomb was, I thought in my seat, to witness American theatrical acting at its finest. Smith is to Carrie what McKellen is to Lear. Defining and original.

Note: The show is being carried over another week, to the 13th.

What’s this passion for?

“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?” - Virginia Woolf

The Obama Dilemma

And now, once more, we enter upon that political time of the year here in America that is marked by anything but good will, in which our presidential candidates prepare chunkier and still chunkier heaps of mud to sling at their opponents, and the populace, caught between entertainment and outrage, stare at the headlines, strain to the sound bites, in the hopes of determining whose mud is actually made from truth. Don’t get me wrong: Ancient Greece, our democracy’s historical home, engaged in all sorts of slander, behind-the-scenes trickery, and ballot manipulation (enough to make one reminiscent of the Gore-ing of the Bushes in Florida). Everything old, indeed, is new again. Yet, as the primary races narrow and tighten, the fact is that politics, like it or not, is a frumious beast that must be turned upon one’s adversary if it’s not to jump to one’s own throat. And here in America, that beast has been bred, fed, and groomed to epic proportions.

In the midst of this snarling, the Obama campaign is trying, mostly succeeding, to wage a campaign based on issues, reasoned debate, and the power of positive change. And, of course, now that the Clinton camp is rolling up their sleeves and reaching into the dirt with ever more fervor, the vital question for Obama is: How can we win this nomination and remain true to our principles? The negative campaigning that the Clintons have been rolling out in recent months (see the “red phone” commercial for a truly repugnant political advertisement) will only increase in vigor as Pennsylvania and the all-important superdelegates beckon, and Obama will have to decide how much the idea of smearing will be cognizant with his political and, dare I say it, moral message?

Tricky business. Obama has in many ways balanced his campaign on this message and to leap off the tightrope and plunge into the mud may be seen in some circles as unbridled hypocrisy. Then again, when the ship is in danger of sinking, is there room for niceties? Only necessities, some would say. Still, as recently as yesterday, Obama told reporters, accurately enough, that he would not be “drawn into a knife fight.” So how should he resolve this dilemma? Should he rely on the inherent humaneness of the American people or their misguided but ingrained trust of the media? Should he put aside (not cast aside) his ethics in order to pursue a greater ethical power position or should he retain the banner of ethics as something more important, finally, than winning the Democratic nomination?

Most, naturally, feel the gloves have to finally come off, that in this ugly ring one cannot do without sucker punches in order to stay in the fight. Myself, I cheer on Obama and his team as they bravely resist temptation. Maybe they will in time have to kneel down a bit in the muck, but the fact that Obama is still telling his people not to engage in individual Clinton people name calling is more than cheering, it’s genuinely inspiring.

And it’s just possible that we in this country don’t deserve a politician of this caliber. The eight mendacious and inept years of the W. presidency were more than enough to convince me that, much like most adolescents I meet in the course of my profession, we in the good ole U.S. of A. don’t really know what’s good for us. We may very well be a country of adolescents, in fact, instead of one of adults: easily outraged, not in possession of the facts, too eager to condemn while stuffing our own pockets and sneering at superiors. It is time to do better for ourselves, and has been for quite a while. So, if Obama doesn’t receive the nomination, it may be less a shame and a missed opportunity than one more indication that we are slowly but surely traveling down the road of Empire, that we like the fat cats and the bread and circuses, the name-calling, the flexing of imperialistic muscle, and the angry partisan rhetoric. The Romans did. And look how well they turned out…

Is that so?

Is that so?

Hakuin was praised by his neighbours as one living a pure life. A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child. This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parents went to the master. “Is that so?” was all he would say.

After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbours and everything else he needed. A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth - the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”

(from Wikipedia’s entry on Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku) 

The Great Books Series: Pride and Prejudice

Time/Place: 1813 / United Kingdom

Author: Jane Austen

Wikipedia link

Edition: James Kinsley, ed., Pride and Prejudice, Oxford World Classics, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Thoughts: With great trepidation did I step into a Boston University classroom and the world of Jane Austen. I knew full well that hers was a rarefied world, one populated by shallow women with marriage-driven minds. My bias led me to believe this world was all artifice as opposed to artfulness, with a top-heavy insistence on ’societal mores’ and the ‘comedy of manners.’ However, after a graduate course with one of the top Austen scholars, Julia Prewitt Brown, my mind was radically changed, and to this day, though I rarely read Austen for pleasure, I treasure her as a sensibility of great delicacy, an intellect of penetrating insight.

The novel is, at its heart’s core, a moral story of the Bennet family, members of the landed gentry in late 18th century England, and their struggle against, appropriately enough, pride and prejudice, among other evils. A cast of rogues and demi-saints come upon the stage, there is much letter writing (whole texts of which are written, epistolarily, into the text), much gossip and dancing (often at the same time), finely detailed character sketches, a carriage-load of irony and wit, and an overall feeling that, though this time and place is no longer, their people never left us, live with us still, in fact… only in more modern dress and with less talent for the English language.

The Great Books Series: Heart of Darkness

Time/Place: 1899 (serial in “Blackwood’s Magazine”) and 1902 (book publication) / United Kingdom

Author: Joseph Conrad

Wikipedia link

Edition: Cedric Watts, ed., Heart of Darkness and Other Tales, Oxford World Classics, 2003.

Thoughts: Having had to place the writings of “The Old Testament” aside in order to jump the centuries and re-read four novels for my AP English Lit. and Comp. course, I find myself revived by something of a breath of fresh air… if Conrad’s tale of madness, cannibalism, imperialism, and the horror lying at the heart of human existence can be called “fresh air.” Whereas the land of Genesis tends toward the arid and dry, Conrad’s impenetrable jungle depths, though dark as darkness can be, at least welcomes. The desert only ends up resisting you; the African waters of the Belgian Congo enfold you, albeit to drown.

What strikes me every time I re-read this novella is how my pre-reading resistance to it ends up being countered by how eager I become, once I digest the first few pages, to keep reading to the finish. Conrad weaves much dexterous sleight-of-hand into the texture of his tale of an English sailor who travels down the Congo in search of ivory and the elusive Mr. Kurtz: framed narratives, unreliable narrators, a negative sense of the pathetic fallacy (nature as personified evil instead of sympathetic partner), a highly wrought, figurative language as clotted as the syntax — all of which tends to create a textual jungle equally as dense and forbidding as his African setting. This may seem like a bad thing, but it’s the very essence of Conrad’s brilliance. By moving us though a landscape of destruction and futility, by forcing us to confront the unawakened fear and horror that squat at the center of our moral being, Conrad snake-charms us into an understanding of our complete and utter lack of understanding. Marlow’s dizzying journey echoes our own dizzying life’s journey, the randomness and conceivable emptiness of which we were perhaps unaware before.